Who would you rather: Zynga or Blizzard?

Posted on November 10, 2011 by SynCaine

In this corner, we have scam-factory Zynga. No longer allowed to scam its customers (much), they have moved on to bullying their employees. Be sure to friend them!

In the other corner, we have the titanic titan (see what I did there?) that is Blizzard, who as I write this just lost another million subs and had people “walk away”. And while Bobby has (yet) to aggressively threaten his employees Zynga-style, he did reward the makers of his cash-cow, CoD, by robbing them of their bonuses and kicking them out.

The really sad part of all of this is that both companies make such great MMOs, and I just don’t know what I’ll do if I can’t continue to play such wonderfully creative, entertaining products that push the genre forward every month.

Posted in Mass Media, Random, Rant, World of Warcraft | 15 Comments

EVE: But why can’t I get my epics NOW?!

Posted on November 9, 2011 by SynCaine

Love this little line from the latest devblog:

The ability to like posts and share content with your friends in the cloud while syncing your photostream with your mobile devices. Naw, just kidding.

I feel like going on a turtle ride to the panda zoo or something.

Posted in EVE Online, Rant, Rift, World of Warcraft | 2 Comments

EVE: 30 Days or PLEX?

Posted on November 9, 2011 by SynCaine

The EVE buddy program offers either a PLEX or 30 days added to your account as a reward for getting someone to sign up. My initial though was to go with the 30 days, but the idea of splitting the value of a PLEX (400m ISK or so) with whoever signed up was brought up. While certainly more ‘fair’, I don’t think handing a new player 200m ISK is actually a good thing, but I’m curious to see how others view this.

When you first start out in EVE, a million ISK seems like a huge amount, and anything beyond that is hard to grasp. T1 Frigates sell for 200k or less, Frigate modes can cost 10k, and your initial income from missions or mining is in the thousands of ISK rather than millions. As you progress, things scale up. Level 2 missions bring in more ISK, mining in a better ship is more profitable, and your wallet goes from hundreds of thousands to millions. Fast forward a little more, and at level 3 missions, you are seeing tens of millions of ISK, and likely working your way towards a 100m ISK battleship or a major mining ship.

Handing someone 200m ISK skips all of the above. How attractive do level  1 missions look, with their 20k ISK reward (someone correct me on the amount, it’s been a while since I’ve run a lvl 1 mission), when you have 200m in the bank? If you lose a Frigate, how much do you care about that 250k or so loss? If you are focused on marketing, are you going to start small and make 100k ISK plays with 200m sitting in your wallet?

Additionally, while getting a ton of ISK will increase your progress in some areas (you can buy named fits for your Frig or Cruiser, and finish missions a little faster), it won’t allow you to instantly jump to level 4 missions, even though you can afford the Battleship. It also won’t give you the skill points needed to fly the ship, or the game knowledge to fly it correctly. And while lvl 4 missions are far more profitable than lvl 1s, whether they are more fun is debatable (many veteran players prefer to fly nothing bigger than a Cruiser, for instance).

Same goes for industry. That 200m will allow you to jump right into the deep end of the econ game, but with limited skills and knowledge, you are far more likely to get frustrated or make very costly mistakes than get right into the ‘good stuff’. Truth is, playing the market at the 100k level and playing it at the 100m level is not all that different, and what differences do exist, not all of them make the 100m level better. Producing high-end ships is not more fun than producing simple T1 frigate fits and selling them in small amounts. The scale is different, and what you can do with the ISK you make is different, but the actual ‘gameplay’ is more or less the same. If anything, the lower-end stuff requires a lot less Excel (not in space) work upfront to determine profit margins and all that fun stuff, and you are more likely to compete with other newer players rather than multi-year industry vets.

The reason I personally selected 30 days added to my account rather than PLEX is pretty similar actually. I think being handed 400m ISK would sour my motivation for a lot of the stuff I’m doing right now, and while that money would accelerate a few of my goals (getting a Golem or a Freighter), I’d rather ‘work’ for that ISK myself. It will make the day I finally do buy one of those ships that much sweeter, and make me appreciate their high cost that much more.

I could easily afford to buy a few PLEX today and get what I want right now, but I’d rather not spend money to cut content or the fun out of playing a game. I’m weird like that.

Posted in EVE Online | 14 Comments

EVE: Let’s be buddies

Posted on November 8, 2011 by SynCaine

Prompted by a comment, I have 19 (across two accounts) available Buddy invites for EVE, which gives you a 21 day extended trial (if you sign up for the game I get 30 days credited to my account). If you would be interested in the trail please comment here, and use a valid email account (I’ll see the email account and send you the invite, no need to post your actual email in the text of the comment itself).

The Corporation I’m in, DiS, is also looking for a few more pilots, new or old, to grow our numbers and enable us to do some of the bigger content (lvl 5 missions, incursions, large-scale mining Ops, low/null-sec PvP trips). The first bit of advice all new pilots are given is to join a Corp, and we at DiS are more than happy to assist new players in learning the ropes. My two pilots are SynCaine and Zealot Syn, feel free to contact either of them when you get in-game.

Posted in EVE Online, Site update | 17 Comments

I greatly underestimated the awesome of Farmville

Posted on November 7, 2011 by SynCaine

The new game I tried this weekend is called PlanteteryFarm InteractionVille.

“Syn, is it like FarmVille but Sci-Fi? I love clicking cows while tweeting that I’m clicking cows and updating my facebook status that I’m tweeting about clicking cows! Want to be my friend?!”

Short answer: Yes (about Farmville, no about being your ‘friend’/’follower’/’circle’/’stalker’).

Long answer: Yes, if the version of FarmVille you are playing happens to take place inside the largest virtual world, and along with running your farm, you also have the option to PvP, PvE, or approach the market from a dozen different angles. Oh and assuming you sell your cows/soup/whatever to hundreds of different markets all with similar but ultimately different market factors. And that you are PvP’ing (Econ PvP is still PvP kids) against people who truly care and are invested, rather than octo-moms. But yea, it’s Farmville, yo.

Honest snark aside, PI in EVE, after two days with it, is not as bad as I had heard (although I heard that on forums, so my bad). Yes, the initial “wtf am I doing” is like anything else in EVE, and requires you to spend about an hour or so reading online, but it’s not nearly as complex or ‘hard’ as it initially appears. Especially if you don’t solo-hero it. I asked my Corp, got someone to answer some basic questions, and had my first colony up and running shortly thereafter.

The biggest plus to PI is that the cost to play around with it is low (below 10m ISK, and very doable at 1m ISK), so even if your first colony has to be totally scrapped, it’s not as crushing financially or time-wise as taking a ship into a mission and getting creamed, or ‘learning’ about low-sec. Perhaps most surprisingly (for EVE) is that you can see results as soon as 15 minutes in, and the initial skill training requirements, as well as the ‘maxed out’ cap, are very low.

I mentioned Farmville in jest to start, but in a lot of ways PI plays the part very well. If you don’t want to micromanage it often, and just want another low maintenance stream of ISK, PI can be that. If you want to focus more on it and can check in often, it can do that, with corresponding results. And if you want to market maven the process, and really carve out a space for yourself and (hopefully) make a ton of ISK, you can do that as well. Best of all, if you want to move up or down on the investment scale, it appears that PI is flexible-enough to allow for that also. A few tweaks and that high-input setup changes to a once-a-week ISK farm.

It also fits into the multi-tasking style I have going for my Industrial pilot. I can be out in a belt, mining in my high-capacity Hulk (Mining is so boring!), managing my planets (Trollolol you are playing Farmville), creating/updating production orders (one-click crafting sucks!), and checking/updating market buy/sell orders (Excel online yo!) all at the same time. I even have drones to kill the belt rats for me (PvE!), and a decent tank should trouble arrive (PvP!). Oh and I’m usually being a social carebear just chatting about nothing in Corp chat as well (which more often than not consists of a lot of funny link-spam, which we all view with the in-game browser).

Posted in crafting, EVE Online, MMO design | 8 Comments

Gamer evolution, 30 minutes a day

Posted on November 4, 2011 by SynCaine

Time requirements and complexity in gaming are clearly not the same thing, but they are linked. The more complex your game, the more time required to learn it. But a game can be both ‘simple’ and incredibly hard (Meatboy), or incredibly simple yet require a lot of time (WoW). There are games that are both complex and require a lot of time (EVE), and games that are simple and quick (Farmville).

And all four games can, to some extent, be played both casually and hardcore.

But the number of people casually playing Meatboy is probably pretty low, while the number of people who are hardcore Farmville players is likely not all that high. Within the game itself, EVE has its share of hardcore (0.0) players, while also containing a large number of ‘casuals’ (Empire). The same can be said for WoW.

Game updates can, and often do, alter this formula. 40-man raiding in WoW was superstar driven, while today its weakest-link based. When you change the formula, it’s only natural that the identity of your playerbase changes as well.

If we look at a best-seller like CoD:MW, we can see that while the game does tack on a single-player mode, the game’s and the player’s primary focus is clearly the multiplayer PvP. When CoD competes with Battlefield, they do so in the multiplayer realm, and the differences are pretty hardcore details from a non-FPS players perspective. In short, the blockbuster FPS crowd ‘gets it’ when it comes to the details, and catering to the hardcore is how you win marketshare.

In sharp contrast, the different versions of Farmville compete on little more than appearance/theme. The Barbie Farmville appeals to more people than the robot Farmville, just like the Mafia version has more players than the cowboys version. The quality of the product, the details, the game balance, these things are mostly non-factors.

As I wrote yesterday, the ‘intro’ games are just that, a temporary bridge bringing the minority that has not caught on to gaming yet into the fold. Once they get comfortable, their demands will mimic those of the FPS crowd more so than the Farmville crowd; where details matter, rather than making decisions based only on superficial aspects like theme.

And whether they have 30 minutes or 30 hours, they will be educated enough to identify ‘good’ games, rather than catchy themes, and those are the titles that will continue to rise to the top. For gamers, it’s a very encouraging sign that cash-in movie tie-in games are no longer the go-to for sales, and well-designed titles like LoL, CoD, Minecraft, and SC2 are popular. The more educated the gaming public gets, the more they will demand, and only those who meet those demands will profit.

Posted in Combat Systems, Console Gaming, EVE Online, League of Legends, MMO design, PvP, Random, World of Warcraft | 2 Comments

Casual players are a dying breed

Posted on November 3, 2011 by SynCaine

Whenever the topic of casual games comes up, I always question who exactly these ‘casual gamers’ are, and I think the term itself is a little misleading. I think ‘casual player’ is more accurate. Gamer to me, be they casual or not, indicates someone who is interesting in gaming itself, rather than someone who just plays something like Angry Birds because they heard about it like they would have heard about a new TV show or movie.

A gamer (casually) plays games, while a player will occasionally (casually) play a game. (I believe a subset exists that will play one game very hardcore (the super cow clickers), much like someone can be casual about movies but know every last details about the SW films, or not really love music but be crazy about one artist)

I would consider my father a casual gamer. He has been playing games for as long as I have (we played Shining in the Darkness together, drawing dungeon maps on graph paper, good times), yet does not have the time/interest to jump into something like EVE (though you should dad). He has played WoW longer than most of you reading this though, and he would never consider anything from Zynga worthwhile. I have no doubt that there are a LOT of gamers just like him out there (more on that in a bit).

A game like Angry Birds, and to a lesser extend Zynga games, are not aimed at gamers, but gamers will play them under the right circumstance (on the move, little time, etc). Angry Birds is popular not just because it allows casual players to pick it up, but also because the design is solid-enough to get positive word-of-mouth from gamers. Zynga games, on the other hand, are popular because they do a good job of spamming (and previously, scamming) casual players, much like certain TV shows do a solid job of ‘spamming’ you with advertising. Gamers know that Zynga games are garbage, but the casual players that the games are aimed at don’t hear that negative word-of-mouth buzz (think movie tie-in games selling despite being awful 99% of the time), nor do they ‘get’ gaming enough to quickly identify the shallow and horrid ‘gameplay’, and fall for the marketing ‘hooks’ that really drive the games.

What often gets lost in all of this is how the overall population breaks down, and just how many gamers are out there, their resources, and what exactly they are looking for. The whole “casual = more” thing might not be as true as so many just seem to accept, at least not to the level of ‘casual’ that is suggested.

Back in the late 80s, early 90s, kids played consoles, most people did not own a computer, the Internet was not up, and gaming was far more niche than TV/movies/music.  If you played games back then, you were most definitely a hardcore gamer, and the games reflected this. Mario, the  ‘for everyone’ game was incredibly hardcore by today’s standards, and most games were much harder than Mario.

But gaming has exploded in popularity, in large part thanks to Sony and the PS1, and has continued to gain market share in the entertainment world. At some point, gaming became as accepted as going to the movies or watching TV (would you rather admit you play games, or watch Jersey Shore/Kardashians to your co-workers?).

And not only is gaming extremely popular now, it’s not just popular with kids. The ESA tells us the average age of a gamer is 37 (and age 41 for people buying games), and that the average gamer has been playing for 12 years. 12 years ago was 1999, where Silent Hill, Soul Calibur, Quake 3 Arena, FF VIII, EQ1, Counterstrike, and Unreal Tournament dominated. Raise your hand if you transitioned from Soul Calibur to Farmville? And how many of those EQ1 players do you think consider WoW too hardcore?

‘Hardcore’ games like Halo and CoD:MW dwarf Zynga games (and everyone else) in profit. Far more people are online with an Xbox playing ‘hardcore’ games than people who are logging in to click a cow. Is anyone really surprised that the most popular game on Xfire is a ‘hardcore’ PvP game (League of Legends)? And short of a zombie apocalypse, people are not going to regress and go back to playing simple games in the future.

Point is, gamers today ‘get’ gaming and demand more from their gaming than the bare minimum. This is only going to increase as time goes on. More and more people are going to grow up with gaming being as much (if not more) a part of their lives as TV or movies. The kids growing up on Club Penguin today are not going to transition from that game to Farmville. As they grow up, they are not only going to seek more mature titles in terms of theme, but also in terms of gameplay.

Once the millions of “MMO noobs” learned WoW, they no longer found the basics of an MMO “too complex”. To capture that crowd going forward is not going to take a more casual WoW, but rather a better WoW, one that builds on the core that worked and expands it. WoW’s worst enemy is WoW, because as it gets dumber, its playerbase gets smarter, and the pool of ‘dumb’ gamers to replace those moving on is shrinking.

To me the whole ‘social gaming’ fad is the minority of the population who are NOT gamers catching up. Facebook games are just a very thin primer for those who were not gaming in 1999, and as the trending is showing, as soon as that crowd takes just a few steps forward, they are going to be looking for something with a little more gameplay than a cow clicker. Most will not continue the journey all the way to something like EVE, but they will certainly be closer to it then what we call casual games today.

Posted in Console Gaming, Mass Media, Random, Rant | 13 Comments

Repair-bot, ready for duty!

Posted on November 2, 2011 by SynCaine

Last night I opted to pick up parts for my Drake in EVE (hey it only took about two hours…) rather than join my buddies for some Dungeon Defenders, which I think says more about Dungeon Defenders than EVE. Actually I know it does. Zubon over at KTR talks about the recent ‘balance’ changes to DD, and to reiterate my comment from over there, the notes just highlight how utterly broken DD is.

What DD should be is a four-player co-op tower defense game where proper usage of all four classes and solid strategy wins.

What DD really plays like: squire sets up towers, everyone else repairs them for 90 minutes.

It’s a really fun game…

Honestly the only difference between the Insane (fitting huh)Halloween map in DD and flying to a dozen stations in EVE is that after I play EVE, I don’t have a kaleidoscope-driven headache. Oh and that once the task is complete, I have something fun to look forward to rather than MORE kaleidoscope-driven headaches.

I only mention this because DD should be a fun game. It’s not hard to see how either. Maybe make all the classes useful? Maybe share XP for monster kills? Maybe make more than one strategy viable? No 90 minute+ maps? Maps that require more thinking than running/repairing?

I don’t know, I’m just a blogger with yet another goal in EVE (epic story arc, hence the Drake for lvl 3 missions to build up rep with the Corp that gives it).

Posted in Console Gaming, EVE Online | 5 Comments

EVE: On-demand complexity

Posted on November 1, 2011 by SynCaine

From the outside looking in, EVE appears to be a terribly complex game, and in many ways it is. Something as simple as firing a turret at another ship has a lot of math behind it, and an almost countless set of variable that can affect said shot. That said, you certainly don’t need to understand all of the complexity to get by, and more importantly, the game allows you to expand your knowledge as you go, without a massive initial investment (well, perhaps massive when compared to other MMOs, but fairly limited when considering EVE itself).

My post about buying a BPO and entering the market somewhat touched on this (that venture is going well btw, thanks for asking), and today I want to further drive the point home, talking about my mission Rokh and my current thought process.

As of right now, my Rokh can solo most (all?) level 4 missions, and if simply completing a mission is the goal, it achieves that and I’m ‘done’. But this being EVE, simply completing one goal means progressing to the next, and in this case that means completing missions faster and further reducing the risk of something going wrong and the ship going boom. Long-term I play to switch over to a Caldari Navy Raven (200m ISK or so, plus fits), and ultimately to a Golem (800m+ ISK, plus fits), but short-term I’m trying to improve my Rokh’s fittings (currently seeing how T2 425s compare to T2 350s rails).

What’s really interesting is that, unlike so many other MMOs, there is not one ‘best in slot’ style fitting that I can just Google. Various individuals propose different fits, and the general reception to such fits is that they are solid, and that the results should be good. Which is ‘best’ comes down to play style, which mission we are talking about, pilot skills, and what kind of risk/reward ratio you are working with. This also means that I’m now playing around with a few different fits, and trying to see what works best for me, not just for solo missions, but also for when I have 2-4 other pilots with me.

Once I have mastered level 4 missions in a Caldari Battleship, I’ll expand into incursions and such. But that complexity will be tackled when I’m ready, and right now I’ve got enough on my plate.

Posted in Combat Systems, EVE Online, MMO design | 11 Comments

EVE: World domination, one BPO at a time

Posted on October 31, 2011 by SynCaine

Over the weekend I picked up an Antimatter L blueprint original (BPO) that has 30 material efficiency and 20 production efficiency for 10 million ISK. The plan is to not only make my own ammo for my Rohk, but to also sell the ammo at various mission hubs around my area, hopefully leading to some steady income for my Industry/Mining pilot.

Long-time reads here know that EVE pretty much has my ideal crafting system. I love that the actual act of crafting is nothing more than a few clicks, rather than some poor version of Tetris or whatever mini-game people are always hoping for. If I wanted mini-games, I’d fire up the Wii. No, the crafting in EVE is all about a long series of interesting decisions, backed by a little research, and topped off with some time/effort put in. And of course it’s PvP, which keeps it interesting.

The contract for the BPO was 17 jumps away, and while flying to get it I was monitoring ammo prices in the various regions. The price per unit ranged from 70 ISK to 115 ISK, and the volume also greatly varied, showing me that there is indeed room to jump in and make ISK if done correctly.

The first thing I did was calculate base production cost, using local mineral prices and also the averages pulled into EVEMon, factoring material waste and adding in station taxes/costs. I also had to consider station taxes for listing the ammo for sale. This was literally done on paper at my desk, using the iPhone calculator for assistance. Excel Offline, yo! Once all of this was complete, I knew that if I sold the ammo above 100 ISK a shot, I’d be in the green, but to really make the whole thing worthwhile the price had to stay around 110 ISK.

I wanted to start with ammo for a few reasons. First the minerals to produce it are basic, reducing the likelihood of price fluctuation. I’m also able to mine what I need myself, which is a nice side-bonus if I have the time (One thing I like to do is take the Hulk out to a belt, and while mining set-up market listings for mission-drop stuff). As mentioned, its ammo I use myself, so that was a factor as well. Finally, it’s fairly quick to produce, easy to move around, and an item that gets consumed frequently, meaning volume is relatively high.

I certainly don’t expect to make instant billions off the BPO, but it should be a nice steady income stream going forward, and a relatively safe way to get into the production/marketing aspect of the game. Once I get some experience with the basics, I’ll likely expand into higher risk, higher reward ventures.

Posted in crafting, EVE Online | 16 Comments