EVE: Perspective

Posted on August 23, 2012 by SynCaine

My bro just wrecked his old car. It was worth less than this internet spaceship. – bt

Talking about this loss. The statement made me smile and reminded me that not everything in MMO land is F2P garbage or content aimed at child-level intellect.

Posted in EVE Online, PvP | 8 Comments

GW2: Server = Jade Quarry

Posted on August 21, 2012 by SynCaine

Inquisition will be playing on Jade Quarry, so if you have been following this blog and are considering playing with us, make that your home server.

A lot of factors went into the decision, but overall we feel that server will have the highest concentration of skilled PvP players to consistently dominate in WvW, and WvW is the primary focus for Inq.

I think almost everyone is in agreement that come launch, no matter the server selected, things are going to be less-than-smooth. I’m hoping they won’t be 2004 WoW bad, but you never know, and trying to dodge high-pop servers seemed like a poor short-term decision in what we expect to be a long-term investment of time/effort.

Posted in Guild Wars, Inquisition Clan | 8 Comments

EVE: Wormhole space, and how it can be used

Posted on August 20, 2012 by SynCaine

Having now experience wormhole (WH) space from a C1 to a C6, I’d like to talk a bit about the design behind them, and how players have adapted. Out of all MMO content, I think WH space in EVE is perhaps the most unique, most dynamic (real dynamic, not ‘dynamic’ dynamic), most sandbox thing out. It of course works in large part because of EVE itself, but even among EVE content WH space is really different.

For non-EVE players, here is a very basic rundown. Each wormhole is its own ‘zone’ that randomly connects to other ‘zones’, be it other wormholes or known space (high-sec, low-sec, 0.0 space). The zones difficulty scales from a C1 (easiest) to C6 (hardest), but not in all aspects. Finally, C1-C3 space is ‘shallow’, meaning the static connections (generally) go to known space, while C4-C-6 space can only have statics to other WH space. Random openings can also occur, so occasionally a C6 will have a direct route into high-sec. Confused yet? Hopefully talking about each class will clarify things a little.

C1: These WHs contain the easiest sleeper (NPCs), and also yield the lowest profits from fighting them. They are numerous, and only a battlecruiser or below can enter them. The low sleeper profits make C1s generally ‘pointless’ in that regard. But here is where players got creative, and the true nature of WH spaces comes out.

Not all things scale in WH space like sleepers. Planets, for instance, are all the same, and they are all set to the highest levels available (deep 0.0 space). This means that for planetary interaction, a C1 is just as good as a C6 in terms of output. That can be very profitable. Furthermore, since you can anchor a POS (or a dozen) in any WH, a C1 is just as good as a C6 for doing POS reactions or production, and since attacking a C1 POS is a major pain due to the ship and mass limits, your POS is (generally) far safer than even in Empire space.

Additionally, grav (mining) and ladar (gas) sites are not as strictly bound to WH class as sleeper sites. This means you can often mine the highest quality ore, and collect valuable gas, just as well in a C1 as you can in a C6. While WH space does present some challenges in terms of getting your goods to market or using them, the fact that they are available is pretty huge.

C2: While the sleepers are a bit tougher here, they are still fairly easy to solo for just about anyone with a decent battlecruiser, and the loot is still not amazing (though far better than lvl 4 missions). What makes C2 space special is that you generally (always?) have both a kspace static and a wspace static. This means that you can easily get supply into your WH, and also roll (force close) your wspace static to connect to others. Why would you want to do that? For PvP of course. Being able to connect to another WH, get a few cloaky PvP ships inside, and jump on unsuspecting players (perhaps farming valuable sleepers) can be very profitable and fun.

C3: The highest class of ‘shallow’ wormholes, C3 sleeper sites can be very decent ISK for small groups, or even a solo pilot with a solid ship. The type of static can vary, and something like a low-sec static means you won’t be getting a lot of visitors if you are good about closing unwanted random entrances. Having living in this type of WH for a while, I can easily say they make a great home for a smallish Corp looking to get into WH space.

C4: This is the WH class I have the least experience in, but what I’ve heard makes them sound like the redheaded stepchild of the bunch. The ISK jump from a C3 to a C4 is not major due to being unable to escalate the sites (bring a capital ship in and have more sleepers spawn), the logistics are harder since you are now in ‘deep’ WH space, and you still have all of the challenges in terms of invaders and such.

C5: At this class you can make some very serious (billions) of ISK due to capital escalations. The sites require plenty of logi (healer) support, and ships will die very quickly if people are not paying attention, but once you get some capital ships and know what you are doing, you will profit very quickly. Also due to the increased size of the entrances/exits, you can PvP roam in bigger fleets and invade others easier.

C6: The highest WH class with the highest ISK reward. Somewhat surprisingly a C6 is not a huge jump in ISK or difficulty compared to a C5, but it is higher. One big thing about C6s is that there are not a lot of them, meaning that if you have a static C6, you can roll the static and find the WH you are looking for ‘easily’ (in EVE terms. You still only have about a 2% chance per roll, and rolling can take 10 minutes or (much) longer). How you use this depends on what you plan to do, but it’s an important factor, especially when you consider the resources and skill level of Corps/Alliances at the C6 level.

And the above only really scratches the surface and talks about the ‘normal’ things people do with wormholes. I’m sure there are dozens of unique uses for WH space, with creative Corps and Alliances doing some very interesting things. But due to the nature of WH space itself, finding out what, let alone how, can be very difficult, if not impossible.

As veterans are always quick to point out, wormhole space is truly the last great frontier.

Posted in EVE Online, MMO design, PvP | 18 Comments

GW2: Server selection metagame

Posted on August 16, 2012 by SynCaine

The amount of meta-gaming going on right now around GW2 server selection is pretty interesting. More on this post go-live, but if WvW is at all a concern to you, choose wisely (or read this blog).

Posted in Guild Wars, Inquisition Clan, PvP | 11 Comments

I’m starting a GW2 meme today #hashtag

Posted on August 15, 2012 by SynCaine

21 / (1.1m / 2) = 26,190.

21 is the number of US servers for GW2 as of today.

1.1m is the rumored/reported/whatever number of pre-orders for GW2 right now (or something).

2 because EU will have its own servers.

26,190 people per server, assuming everyone splits evenly (0.0 chance of course).

26,190 people all trying to log into one server is going to go… poorly. Anet is not CCP and GW2 has ground which is like, totally different from space, yo. And yes, on day one everyone is going to attempt to hit the server. (If not way more considering that 1.1m number is far from final)

More servers is the easy answer, except that in addition to likely having to close said servers later, Anet has made it pretty clear that transferring is tricky due to how permanent a server choice is, and how it might impact WvW standing.

What would Jesus do?

Posted in Guild Wars, Rant | 35 Comments

How much would you pay for your niche?

Posted on August 15, 2012 by SynCaine

Shadowrun succeeded in its Kickstarter initiative. Congrats to them.

6000+ backers is a solid amount. $500k+ raised is like… one mission in Tortanic. Good stuff.

Can I ask who the 27 people are that gave more than $1,000? Those have to be dev team family members right? The amount of people who gave $100+ is even crazier. Again, good for Shadowrun, but what does this say about the industry? I mean does this signify that if someone developed a super-niche MMO (and it was a good game for that niche), they could charge something like $30-50 A MONTH for it and people would pay?

If someone made a Mount and Blade MMO that somehow worked like the campaign works but all online, I’d pay $50 a month for that. Hell, I ‘pay’ $50+ a month for EVE when you factor in all my accounts. If someone wants to relaunch UO and update it but stay true you’d have my $50 as well.

Just an interesting thought when GW2, which charges nothing after the box, is right around the corner and seems to have its fair share of fanatics.

Posted in MMO design, Random | 10 Comments

GW2: Retention fails

Posted on August 14, 2012 by SynCaine

My retention post about GW2 had some interesting if not unsurprising responses. Perhaps the MOST surprising (but not really) part was how varied the ‘why’ explanations were.

The easiest justification was that GW2 will have fluff to ‘grind’, and since fluff-grinding worked in GW1 (not an MMO, according to Anet), fluff-grinding will work in GW2 (an MMO, according to Anet). And I kind of agree. I’m sure that for a good number of people, chasing a weapon skin or some cute pet will totally work for them for X amount of time. Hell, for a smaller subset of that group, collecting EVERYTHING will keep them busy EVE-style long-term. And so long as new fluff to grind is introduced, this can continue. Granted, we are basically talking about raiding-style gaming but with the epics replaced by puppies, but hey.

Another justification was the one that some MMO fans always fall into: Anet will add more stuff ‘soon’. If I have to explain why this one falls flat on its face, you must be new here.

Then there is the ‘the gameplay is fun!’ thing. Let’s pretend GW2 combat is not WoW combat with a dodge feature. Let’s pretend it’s something really new and great and totally not WoW with dodge. Even in this fantasy world, how long do you think gameplay itself will keep you playing? Better yet, think back to the last non-MMO game you played with amazing gameplay and ask yourself how long you played that. If the answer is not 6+ months straight, gameplay is not the answer to retention (which is not to say it’s not important overall, but we are talking retention here).

An offshoot of the above is “But people play LoL long-term based on gameplay”, which is true. But there is a reason LoL is a MOBA title and GW2 is an MMO. Two very different things. Even GW2’s sorta-MOBA-like WvW is really not. MOBAs work based on gameplay because they are balanced, start fresh, and contain almost countless possibilities in terms of how a match plays out. Banging on a keep door is how WvW is going to play out, with the major variable being whether you are playing the FOTM class/build and owning or playing the gimp-of-the-month and watching your screen go 50 shades of gray on you (how topical of me).

What GW2 does have going for it (based on beta anyway) is solid design and gameplay, which is partly why so many are so excited for it. GW2, by almost all accounts, looks like it will be a fun game to play. And if ‘fun game to play’ is all you are aiming for, then retention is irrelevant. Except that if you are making an MMO (which Anet has stated GW2 is), retention is… kind of the point. Tortanic would have been a great little sRPG if it had not been pitched as an MMO, and everyone knows it.

So I still thing retention is something to keep an eye on as related to GW2. The lack of a sub fee might make tracking it a bit more difficult, but if only a few servers ‘matter’ in WvW 6+ months after release, we will have our answer.

Posted in Combat Systems, Guild Wars, MMO design | 55 Comments

Time to act like a true five year old!

Posted on August 13, 2012 by SynCaine

I’ve been blogging here for half a decade. Yikes.

And having just finished re-reading my 2011 write-up post, things today are not all that different from last year (which mostly sucks). DF2.0 is still not out or even close (no beta), Dominion is dead, GW2 is about to release, EVE is EVE, and the rest of the genre is still more or less in the toilet. At least Tortanic has been more entertaining than I expected blog-wise, good stuff there. I really, really hope the 2013 edition of this post is not me repeating the above.

To the numbers!

Blog Stats as of 8/13/2012

Total views: 1,420,684

Busiest day: 11,852 — Thursday, September 6, 2007

Posts: 1,474

Comments: 21,858

Blog Stats as of 8/12/2011

Total views: 1,035,401

Busiest day: 11,852 — Thursday, September 6, 2007

Posts: 1,166

Comments: 16,129

Blog Stats 2010

Total views: 692,972

Busiest day: 11,852 — Thursday, September 6, 2007

Posts: 843

Comments: 11,790

Blog Stats 2009

Total views: 335,842

Busiest day: 11,852 — Thursday, September 6, 2007

Posts: 523

Comments: 5,393

Blog Stats 2008

Total views: 104,123

Busiest day: 11,852 – Thursday, September 6, 2007

Posts: 253

Comments: 1,658

I think at this point I need to pay off a major website to link to some post to knock off that Sep 6th, 2007 post. It’s getting kinda silly. Comments increased nicely, thanks to everyone who took the time. I made a total of 308 posts, which while not a record seems like a huge amount to me right now, especially in a year when the general MMO trend was “Game X is coming ‘soon’” and soon never happened.

Top Posts for all days ending 2012-08-13

Rift Review (EG Style) – 54,525

The love and hate game, WoW style. – 18,228

The real Rift review – 18,100

EQ2, trial of the neverending download. – 12,542

Kingdom Conquest tips – 12,367

Level 4 missions in EVE, and my silly Rohk battleship. – 11,373

iPhone MMO, Field Runners, and a slow Friday. – 10,792

Aion end-game, way ahead of WoW and WAR. – 9,442

DarkFall Review: One Year Later – 7,863

Blizzard’s new focus for WoW, just as soon as Mythic finishes it. – 7,709

Top Posts for all days ending 2011-08-12

Rift Review (EG Style) 53,619

The love and hate game, WoW style. 17,966

The real Rift review 12,737

EQ2, trial of the neverending download. 11,812

iPhone MMO, Field Runners, and a slow Friday. 10,749

Level 4 missions in EVE, and my silly Rohk battleship. 9,641

Aion end-game, way ahead of WoW and WAR. 8,809

Blizzard’s new focus for WoW, just as soon as Mythic finishes it. 7,572

DarkFall Review: One Year Later 6,581

Warhammer’s major problem, the players. 6,191

The top spots remain unchanged, and with only some minor bump-ups in numbers. The big gainer was the real Rift review, which at least is a ‘real’ post. The top ten here is seriously looking like “slow blog day, better type something random/dumb/pointless” all-star list. The gift that is Google everyone. Also something should be said about that Kingdom Conquest post and how iPhone gaming is a big deal and really important now and blablabla.

WordPress, as they seem to always do, changed how they display stats and have made it no longer possible to copy/paste Referrers over, so this section is going to look a little different.

They also group things like search engines now. Thanks… Out of the 60k+ referrers from the Search Engine category, 55k was from Google. To state the obvious, Google is the only search engine in town that matters. Bing is a pathetic 1628, and it’s second.

Jestertrek takes the next spot with 11,612, followed by Google Reader (6491), WordPress.com (3806), Nilsmmoblog (1923), evenews24 (1820), TAGN (1817), Reddit (1744), Keen and Graev (1545), and finally Werit (1237) .

I question WordPress here, not only because the overall numbers look fishy, but because Kill Ten Rats is not even in the top 20. Sad, as I always liked seeing who brings people here, and found how that whole aspect of blogging works interesting.

Search Terms for all days ending 2012-08-13

rift review 50,531

hardcore casual 12,655

syncaine 9,453

darkfall review 6,005

rift reviews 5,495

elo hell 3,242

field runners 3,149

kingdom conquest 2,948

dragon age review 2,778

darkfall reviews 1,707

umadbro 1,707

Search Terms for all days ending 2011-08-12

rift review – 47,448

hardcore casual – 10,242

syncaine – 5,560

darkfall review – 5,503

rift reviews – 5,279

field runners – 3,149

elo hell – 2,791

dragon age review – 2,764

kingdom conquest – 1,865

darkfall reviews – 1,604

perpetuum review – 1,386

First the obvious, how funny is it that “darkfall reviews” and “umadbro” are tied for 10th at exactly 1707? Other than that, again just more of the same. The list is largely unchanged, and the numbers overall have gone up just a bit. The lesson here is that once your site is associated with a particular search term, it’s a gift that keeps on giving.

So what to expect for year 5? I’m guessing GW2 will (continue) to cause waves, and hopefully we are not writing “what went wrong” posts in three months. Because if GW2 does indeed fail to truly entertain on an MMO scale (6+ months at the absolute minimum), 2013 is going to be a lot more of the same (EVE).

Speaking of EVE, I’ll be interested to see where INQ-E goes. We are in a bit of a summer lull right now, and still trying to figure out exactly what we want out of HAHA and deep WH space. I expect that once summer is over, alliance-wide activity will ramp back up, and with it INQ-E’s role. The winter expansion will likely play a pretty key role here as well.

Aria and I still play LoL almost daily. Playing the game is easy when your wife fiends for it, and it’s hard to say “no honey, I don’t want to play that computer game with you” with a straight face. That said, I will be forcing her to play GW2 with the rest of INQ, and have (jokingly but not really but yea) threatened to have her LoL account temp-banned to make that happen. The things we do for our loved ones, right?

Long-shots: DF2.0 comes out. Pathfinder comes out and is not a technical mess like 90% of all indy MMOs. Some random MMO comes out of left field and surprises us. Tortanic is a massive hit as a F2P title (haha just kidding, 0.0 chance of that happening).

5 years. I feel so old…

(Sorry for some of the formatting and lack of links. WordPress + Word + Copy/paste does not always yield great results)

Posted in Blogroll, Site update | 15 Comments

Fantasy Football time!

Posted on August 13, 2012 by SynCaine

Its Fantasy Football time again.

If you would like to play in the league I’ve been running for the last few years, just drop me an email (syncaine at yahoo) and I’ll send you an invite. It’s not a super-serious league, but if you do sign up please play out the season regardless of how badly I’m destroying you.

Coaches from last year have been sent a reminder/invite. If you have any issues, also drop me a note.

Posted in Site update | Comments Off on Fantasy Football time!

GW2: Retention issue?

Posted on August 10, 2012 by SynCaine

There has been some expressed concern over GW2’s long-term appeal. I think the concern is somewhat valid. With no item chase, no long-term leveling progression, and no real ‘point’ beyond moving your server up in the standings (which will only appeal to a sub-section of the PvP community, so not exactly a mainstream thing), why exactly are people going to be logging in a few months after release?

In more than one way GW2’s WvW resembles DAoC’s RvR. DAoC did not have a retention problem, so why would GW2?

While DAoC PvP was fun, I don’t believe that alone is what kept people playing/paying. Realm pride mattered and was a factor, but I believe it was more of a result than a cause. Boiled down, what REALLY kept people playing/paying was progression. Realm ranks were slow to come and nearly impossible to max out, and getting BiS gear was also a long-term grind (pre-ToA, but talking about DAoC should always be done in pre-ToA mode), but those two things meant you always had a way to improve your character, even if very slowly and by a tiny margin.

That personal progression combined with group-based gameplay made DAoC work. Review MMO history with that formula in mind, and the results should not surprise you. GW2 lacks (intentionally) the progression aspect, and I’ve always believed that progression is what ultimately makes MMOs work. I don’t think it’s an accident that the game with the best long-term character progression (EVE) is the most successful MMO from a retention/growth perspective.

Just like SW:TOR going F2P won’t matter, I don’t think GW2 lacking a sub fee really matters either. Yes, it will make stepping away and returning easier, but at the end of the day you still need a reason to actually return, and right now I’m not seeing one.

Posted in Guild Wars, MMO design | 30 Comments