Two for two, yet another “How to” with F2P

Posted on May 30, 2011 by SynCaine

This time with League of Legends being the second biggest online game in the west.

Now granted, WoW might be down to like 1m accounts at this point, but assuming the bleed is not happening quite so fast, LoL likely has a whole lot of players. And considering Riot is attempting to hire half of CA right now, I’d say some of them (myself included) are spending some cash on fluff. Since you know, you can’t buy power here.

Who could have predicted, a PvP twitch game where you can’t buy power is #2 (for now). Shocking…

Posted in League of Legends, Mass Media, RMT | 13 Comments

Quick note about Raptr’s new site

Posted on May 27, 2011 by SynCaine

I was part of a super secret beta project for Raptr’s new gaming site. That beta is now over, the site is live, and the NDA is down.

I’ll post more about all of this once I spend more time with the site myself, but basically, I hope the site can be what I always hoped VirginWorlds would become; a one-stop website to see all the news/posts that might interest me. We’ll see if the Raptr site achieves this, but if they do, I think it would be a huge boost to the somewhat “in crowd” nature of the MMO blog-o-sphere.

Posted in beta, Site update | 6 Comments

CCP does something better than the rest of the genre, again

Posted on May 27, 2011 by SynCaine

This time showing everyone how to do a cash shop right.

As someone who can relate, it’s tough always being right.

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

LoL Tribunal – Who are these ‘people’?

Posted on May 26, 2011 by SynCaine

Aria and I have done more than two dozen Tribunal reviews now, and not a single one was even borderline. Every. Single. One. was a clear demonstration that natural selection has failed us and that human stupidity knows no bounds.

The worst part of it all is that, presumable, the people we are reviewing are NOT the people who get insta-banned by Riot themselves. I’m actually having a tough time imagining what one would have to do to get that kind of attention. Clearly calling everyone on both teams bleep bleep bleeps in all caps, over and over, across ten games (and probably more, but the Tribunal only shows you ten) is not enough. Nor is going 0-19 while calling out the position of your teammates, over and over and over again. Or… well you get the point.

The funny thing is, 9/10 of my games these days are actually decent. Sure, I still get bads (hi Aria, get juked on), but bads balance out other bads and you can still have a decent game. At my ELO I can’t remember the last time I had someone who was truly out to ruin a game, or felt the need to exercise his capslock key in All chat. So clearly SOMETHING is working, as just a few months ago this was not the case.

But man, I log into the Tribunal and just witness horror show after horror show.

Posted in League of Legends | 10 Comments

Fun with lists

Posted on May 26, 2011 by SynCaine

What do the games listed below all have in common?

  • Age of Conan
  • All Points Bulletin
  • Dungeons & Dragons Online
  • Lord of the Rings Online
  • Global Agenda
  • Ragnarok Online
  • Champions Online
  • Everquest 2 Extended

If you answered “failed to meet expectations”, you are correct! (For the LotRO fans, go look at their ads in 2007, telling me to pre-order so I can join the “millions” of players. Oops.)

Another list, same question.

  • World of Warcraft
  • EVE Online
  • Rift
  • City of Heroes
  • DarkFall

If you answered “met or exceeded expectations” you are again correct!

Swing and a miss MMOadCrunch (nice layout…). Story stays the same, if you have a solid product, you go P2P. If your game is average at best, F2P all the way! If you are about to shut the servers off, hey, generate some buzz and go F2P for the quick cash grab. If you hate gamers, F2P is an excellent way to screw them (Hi Allods).

Worst part of it all is, short of a F2P model like LoL’s, the ones getting screwed most by F2P are those who play more, yet it’s those very people cheering the “opportunity” to pay more for less. Good job people.

Posted in Age of Conan, Allods Online, Darkfall Online, DDO, EQ2, EVE Online, Lord of the Rings Online, Mass Media, Rant, Rift, RMT, World of Warcraft | 36 Comments

I’m going to post about server transfers, again

Posted on May 24, 2011 by SynCaine

If nothing else, Trion wins the “talk about us” battle.

I still don’t see how this is, in any way, something to be proud of or celebrated. Its server transfers for a themepark people. Tell me if this sounds familiar: massive hype, release, “ooh we never expected this many people”, add more servers, one month later the tourists leave, two months later people slowly drift away by X factor (X = how good/bad your themepark is), you have low pop servers. Gee that’s NEVER HAPPENED since 2004, has it?

I wonder if, pre-release, you maybe possibly should consider given the inevitable people stuck on a low pop server a way to escape the suck? You think?! Now if you are run by someone who hates gamers, you charge people for the ‘privilege’ to escape the suck, and then charge them again for a half-way solution. Bonus points if you time the release with a competitor eating into your consumer base and making you look foolish. Double bonus if you also just announced that your game is slowly (finally) dying and hey, you might as well over-milk the remaining suckers in a pretty damn blatant money-grab (which is amazingly even more blatant than selling a sparkle pony, so hey, at least you topped that?).

“But SynCaine, the announcement is a lie; it’s not from all servers to all servers!”

No shit. Why would anyone with half a brain allow MMO customers (aka, dummies) the ability to continue piling into a full server, create longer queues, and then have those same dummies pile into the forums QQing about server queues and how it’s a slap in the face that, as paying customers, they can’t play? Holy crap Trion won’t let you screw yourself, grab a pitchfork! And sure, maybe they will be evil and massively limit the transfer options and then quickly announce that the service now costs $25 or a monthly premium fee, but I doubt Trion hates gamers. We’ll see.

And Ravious has the right idea, but beating McDonalds in customer service is like (insert insensitive Special Olympics joke here). I’ll praise you when you start releasing yearly expansions, for free, that not only push the limits of technology but also constantly push the genre forward. My praise will be “congrats, you’re on CCP’s level”. Now do it for 7+ years and then get back to me.

Going all “Jesus MMO again!” because of this is not just foolish, but makes MMO gamers look like poor beggars with less than zero expectations, willing to take table scraps and treat them like gold. Set the bar a little higher here people, have some self-respect.

At the end of the day, Trion is just doing the inevitable; applying a bandage to the core problem of having smallish servers separating people in what should be a massive, multiplayer game. It’s not like, oh I don’t know, the problem could be mitigated by a staggered release (DF), or a better server system (GW), or just, you know, changing your design enough to make this all a non-issue overall.

Naw, those would be unreasonable expectations.

All hail our benevolent overlords for gifting us with a way off the totally unexpected underpopulated servers just 3+ months after release! For free!*

Posted in MMO design, Patch Notes, Rant, Rift, RMT, World of Warcraft | 10 Comments

Busy week IRL = Quick thoughts

Posted on May 23, 2011 by SynCaine

Yes, the Warband Saga post was a lie. But I can explain! Basically I’m on day 173 in my game, which means I’m beyond the intro phase and well into the mid-game. The post I started to write was first way too long, then way too high level, and ultimately not very good. My bad for playing way more than I intended, I blame PoP. So I’m scrapping this version, and have a plan for something else. No timetable on that since anytime I set one, I blow it.

Free transfers coming to Rift. Oooh. Ahhh. How truly benevolent of Trion! /sarcasm

Listen, if you are cheering because Trion has decided not to punch you in the face (charged transfers), you need to reevaluate your expectations. You pay that $15 for a reason, and it’s not (unless we are talking SOE) just to keep the servers online. Free transfers are, to me, about as special as a monthly content patch. It (should be) expected.

I bought Cities XL on a Steam sale. After about 10 minutes I was left wondering what I ever saw in SimCity to begin with. Kinda confused as to why it did not grab me in any way, as at one point I loved SimCity. Or maybe just the thought of it… it’s been a long time since I actually played a city building sim.

Posted in Mount and Blade: Warband, Patch Notes, Random, Rift, RMT | 11 Comments

M&B:W issue

Posted on May 22, 2011 by SynCaine

I know I said I’d post a Saga update, but um, I kinda forgot how good M&B is. Too busy playing. Sorry?

(Long post up later today, for real this time (maybe))

PS: PoP is a stupid good mod. Just amazing.

Posted in Mount and Blade: Warband | 1 Comment

LoL lols, PoP big bads

Posted on May 20, 2011 by SynCaine

This CAD comic about League of Legends is not only funny, but pretty accurate.

I’m not sure expecting the community to ever be all flowers and hugs is reasonable though, it’s a PvP game after all, and some level of competitive spirit (read: rage) is par for the course. It would actually be odd to have five people remain perfectly calm and positive when they are getting stomped 5-30. Like hey, you are getting worked, it’s probably someone’s fault, feel free to let it out. I don’t want to hear “we can win this guys!”. No, we can’t, and you suggesting we keep on keeping on is just feeding the rage (and is it just me, or is the overly positive guy usually the one responsible for the disaster in the first place?). Yes, 25-30 or even 15-30 is not doomsday over, but 5-30 is something that needed to end five minutes ago.

Moving on.

A M&B:W saga post is coming later tonight, but I just wanted to point out one pretty damn cool feature here, because I think it really adds a ton to the game and is a good example of adding some fantasy without going all-out and totally changing the setting. In PoP special ‘mega stacks’ can spawn, which feature a named target along with a huge host of similar-themed enemies. This army then goes around causing havoc, be it to trade caravans, peasants, or NPC lords trying to go about their business.

One interesting occurrence that I witnessed was a kingdom warparty of multiple lords being sidetracked by a special spawn, as they all had to run away from it (the special spawn, being huge, moves pretty slow). My guess is that the spawns slowly get whittle down after fighting enough battles, and once you get a pretty strong force, you can attempt to kill them. Rumor has it they have special item drops, but I’m not even close to that level of power yet.

What I love about this feature is that it adds a very classic RPG feature (a boss or big bad) to M&B without it feeling cheesy or totally out of place. The lore behind PoP explains why these events occur, and it makes sense. It’s not “hey we have this medieval setting without magic, but look, random dragon event here, yay!” Maybe to others the difference is not as important, but to me it’s huge and adds a great twist to the M&B formula.

Posted in League of Legends, Mount and Blade: Warband, PvP | 7 Comments

Rift: Post-1.2 expert difficulty

Posted on May 19, 2011 by SynCaine

Random thought based off an instance run in Rift last night: the easier the content, the worse you play, the worse you feel, spiral downward of doom.

T2 dungeons in Rift are now pretty damn easy, and in a somewhat stupid way. If a trash pull was difficult before (say, the bugs in AP), it’s now silly easy. If a pull was fine before, it’s more or less unchanged. To me that seems horribly off. Same goes for bosses; if a boss was tough pre-1.2, odds are good that they are now silly easy. If a boss was decent before, odds are good that they are at about that level post-1.2.

My issue is that since I know T2 dungeons are facerolls now, I play like it. I mash my one main macro instead of min/maxing my skills, I react just a little slower to stuff because generally I can, and I just expect stuff to roll over after a few minutes because, well, usually it does.

The result is that not only is each run pretty boring, we wipe just as often. Only now we wipe because people are slacking or being lazy instead of playing at 99% when 100 is required. If you want to call that accessible, fine, but I call it sleep-inducing. It’s really, really not fun to still succeed when you know you were just playing at 50%. It’s like someone telling you that you did a great job one something when you know you half-assed it. You actually wish they had told you it sucks, or just said nothing.

I kinda wish Rift would turn around and say “Hey, you want epics?! Super Expert mode bitch, get to wiping!”

That would not be very accessible though, and we just can’t have that.

Posted in MMO design, Patch Notes, Rant, Rift | 10 Comments