LoL’ing the weekend away

Posted on September 13, 2010 by SynCaine

Another weekend in the books, and another bucket or ten filled with delicious League of Legends rage. My newest source? Trying to time Tryndamere’s ult ‘just right’ and having the screen go gray right as I hit ‘R’. Bonus points for when you do ult up, dish out some good damage, and the perfect escape plan makes you look foolish when Trynd decides that rather than spin OVER the cliff/trees/whatever, he is just going to spin INTO them and stay on that side. So win. He is a blast to play though, because assuming you survive the early game reasonable well, he is just a complete monster late game. Seeing squishy champions melt in 3-4 crit hits (yay 75%+ crit rate) always brightens my day.

I’m now less than half a level from 30 and ranked games, which is rather exciting. The rest of the regulars I normally play with are still a ways away however, so ranked premade 5v5s won’t be here for a bit. Still, solo/duo ranked matches should be fun, if for no other reason than to see just how drafting really works and what affect it has on the game.

What’s also really keeping the LoL momentum going is that a lot of Inq members are also heavily into the game, and have been for a while now, which means that on any given night we have 4-10 people in vent gaming. This makes it easy to jump in and join up rather than have to play alone and deal with four random strangers who may or may not decide it’s a good idea to play aura Garen or fire cape Eve. Along with the ‘core’ members, we have had a few new or returning faces around as of late, which is always nice to see.

In MMO news, looks like the long-delayed Darkfall expansion is finally on its final days of testing/prep now that the unexpected server issues have been handled. I know I’m not alone in waiting for that to be the catalyst to return to Agon, so hurry up and release it already AV.

Chuck-o-the-day: Someone once put Chuck Norris on hold. That’s where the term ‘choke hold’ comes from.

Posted in Darkfall Online, Inquisition Clan, League of Legends | 4 Comments

I have a great pre-order offer for you!

Posted on September 10, 2010 by SynCaine

Tell me if you’ve heard this before:

Subscription MMO hypes pre-orders with exclusive content, early access, special bonuses, rainbow sherbet, etc. Beta is still under NDA and although all of the hype and writing still talks about 100s of features, beta itself only has about 10% of all of that working, with the rest ‘coming soon’.

MMO launches, devs promise to deliver the 90% of the game that is missing ‘shortly’, and everyone realizes they pre-ordered or just bought a pile of crap.

A month or two later, the MMO in question goes F2P, with everyone who already bought the game (and god help you, a lifetime sub) getting some ‘exclusive’ bonuses for being loyal sucke… err fans. Said bonuses may or may not be wanted, may or may not be available to everyone else for half/full/double the cost, and the game itself may or may not still be a total trainwreck of fail.

The latest winner of this great MMO scam practice is Need for Speed World (and am I reading this right, you can actually BUY speed enhancers to ‘aid’ you in winning? Why not just sell wins directly?), but NFSW is certainly not the first MMO to pull this off, and certainly won’t be the last.

And lets be honest here, if you can pull off the switch from sub to F2P that quickly, that seamlessly, does anyone really believe you intended to go with the sub model to begin with? Of course not, but how else can you cash in on any of the fans who bought into the hype and supported you day one than to pretend you intend to go with a subscription model (that includes an upfront box cost), collect the suckers cash, and then switch into your real model and pray no one notices your trash game is trash because it’s in the F2P bin.

Now excuse me, I have a feature list to put together, some screen shots to doctor up, and a pre-order page to launch.

Chuck-o-the-day: A solar eclipse is the suns attempt to hide from Chuck Norris.

Posted in DDO, EQ2, FreeRealms, Lord of the Rings Online, MMO design, Rant, Warhammer Online | 10 Comments

$5,000 Darkfall contest winners

Posted on September 10, 2010 by SynCaine

At long last, the $5,000 “I love Darkfall” contest winners have been announced.

Not a huge surprise that the concrete dragon statue won, anyone who saw the video when it was first posted knew it would be next to impossible to top that, but the other entry is also impressive in terms of creativity and going the extra step. Congrats to Albatross Catalysm for the first place win, and to Khor Syon for a great entry as well.

I wonder how expensive it is to ship a 900+ kilo status to Greece…

Posted in Darkfall Online | 1 Comment

The WoW-like growth of League of Legends

Posted on September 9, 2010 by SynCaine

League of Legends has experienced some rather phenomenal growth in recent months. Growth that in many ways mimics the early days of World of Warcraft, where an initial niche group of players (DoTA for LoL, pre-WoW MMO player base for WoW) jumped in on day one, and then through positive buzz more and more people were drawn in.

And like WoW, much of that success is due to simply launching a rather outstanding product. LoL takes what made DoTA great and polishes it, giving it a more professional look and feel while also tailoring everything around that core game. Sure the client is stable, easy to use, and gets you into a game without much fuss or struggle, but none of that would matter if the core game, the part that is almost 100% DoTA, was not a fun way to spend an hour or so per game.

But what separates Riot, the makers of LoL, from many other dev teams (including the team behind WoW today) is that rather than simply settling for the success that comes with shipping a good game, they embrace that success and aim higher. Between aggressively expanding their dev team, sticking to a ridiculous patching pace (one significant update every two weeks if not more), going above and beyond in terms of community interaction on the forums and at events, and (at least so far) not abusing their success and trying to ‘cash cow’ on the game, they are on track to continue the ‘good vibes’ around the game and to keep the snowball of momentum rolling.

The game also shows that if your product is solid enough, you can overcome initial problems that would otherwise cripple a similar product. For instance it’s almost a given that on patch day, the LoL server is going to have issues, ranging from slight lag to being offline for hours at a time. And until recently, due to that exceptional growth, even on non-patch days the servers were having issues and going down at random, much to the angst of the players (sound familiar early WoW players?). Then you have to factor in that in a competitive game like LoL, you will ALWAYS have people calling a certain champion OP, UP, or broken. You will always have a rapidly shifting metagame that itself shifts the balance of power without a single line of code changing, and you will constantly have to react quickly to players trying to game the system and advance by questionable means. So far, Riot has done a great job dealing with all of this, between clearly communicating champion changes, limiting exploits and cheating, and making significant progress in server and client stability.

Finally the business model itself is an important factor as well. With the upfront cost being zero, and the ultimate cost to compete at the highest level also being zero, the ‘Free to Play’ distinction truly does apply here. Riot balances convenience items (XP/IP boosts, buying champions with RP points) with pure fluff (skins) well, and the game itself does a handy job of ‘marketing’ those items. Even if you don’t follow what skins have been released and such, seeing someone in-game using one might trigger that interest. Likewise, the release of a new champion might motivate some players to create a custom rune page for that champion, and if they don’t have the IP to do so, they might be tempted to speed things up with an IP boost. Want to catch up to your level 30 friends quicker? Grab an XP boost, etc.

What makes the model not just acceptable but enjoyable is that along with new skins being patched in, all players also get new champions and balance tweaks, along with more major upgrades like a UI revamp or the upcoming graphics overhaul, so rather than fearing updates like many MMO players do in the F2P market, LoL players always have something to get excited about, be it something they intend to pay for or just enjoy for free. This keeps Riot as the ‘good guys’, and that goes a long way in terms of positive buzz and overall player satisfaction. It’s hard to root for a game when you fear or distrust the people behind it.

As I’ve said before, if you are looking to trying something different or get back to a DoTA-like game, you really should give LoL a shot. Whether you casually play a few games a week or attempt to climb the ranked ladders, it’s entertaining stuff that continues to get better and better. Sign up (referral program ftw) and feel free to friend me (SynCaine in-game), I’m on most nights now.

Chuck-o-the-day: Chuck Norris is the only person Kanye West won’t interrupt.

Posted in League of Legends, RMT, World of Warcraft | 29 Comments

Freedom or Profit

Posted on September 8, 2010 by SynCaine

Trusting your players is a risky move in an MMO.

Accepting risky moves is often counterproductive to turning a profit, which is why the ‘safe’ choice when designing an MMO is to remove that potential risk and limit or eliminate any trust you might require from your players. At the same time, trusting your players and giving them more options or ‘freedom’ is an almost inherent quality to a virtual world. I think you can see where this is going.

Let’s look at a game like Ultima Online, EVE, or Darkfall. Lets pretend you believe those games are amazing in terms of presenting the player with a perfect virtual world; sounds good right? And not only is the design perfect, but whenever a new player logs in they could very well interact with a helpful player right away and be instantly pulled into what makes a virtual world so great, player-driven content.

Or they might be ganked and griefed.

And it’s that second option that terrifies most dev teams, because no matter how well they design their virtual world, no matter how perfect the coding, the art, the sound; by giving your players that freedom you accept the fact that even though many will put it to good use and IMPROVE your game, others will inevitable abuse it or add an element many find offensive.

That’s why in many ways, virtual worlds will indeed always remain a niche product, while the broader MMO concept has the potential to attract millions of ‘casuals’. The casual simply is not interested enough in the game to demand the more ‘advanced’ features that a virtual world brings by providing player freedom. A game without those freedoms is limited to dev-driven content only, but the casual player will never push far enough to get past that, or to reach its limits and demand more.

The ‘ideal’ player for an MMO is one who just logs in whenever content is provided, and if they consume content at a steady, sustainable pace, you never have to worry about losing them to some outside factor like ganking or how limited your ‘virtual world’ really is. The casual player does not view it as a world, does not demand it to function like a world, and overall simply does not ask as much from the game as someone who is more into what an MMORPG is at its core.

In direct contrast, a fan of virtual worlds will demand more and more freedoms in order to create or experience what they believe is the best aspect of the genre; player-driven content. They view the devs role as one to provide more tools rather than defined content, because with the proper tools such players will always create the content that suits them best.

Or they will abuse those tools and destroy the world.

The history of the genre has examples of both, from highlight-reel stuff like the stories from EVE to the “Play to Crush” debacle that was Shadowbane. It’s a very risky move to ultimately trust internet strangers with the health and ultimate survival of your livelihood, yet when done right the rewards are certainly there, and for me, that is far more interesting to watch then the next iteration of Simon Says for 30 minute mute groups.

Chuck-o-the-day: Chuck Norris was the first black president.

Posted in Darkfall Online, EVE Online, MMO design, Ultima Online | 7 Comments

Two years of WAR = …

Posted on September 7, 2010 by SynCaine

1) Has any game in MMO history redesigned more core systems then WAR? Amazing to think what could have been added these last two years if Mythic could stop ‘fixing’ things every patch.

2) Adding a third, PLAYABLE faction would actually fix much of what troubles WAR. Good thing Mythic is strongly against actually doing that.

“It takes a lot of effort to bury an IP as great as Warhammer, and we’ll be damned if THQ beats us to it!” – Mythic

Posted in MMO design, Patch Notes, Rant, RvR, Warhammer Online | 10 Comments

Tropico 3 Review

Posted on September 7, 2010 by SynCaine

As previously mentioned I picked up Tropico 3 for $6 thanks to the current Direct2Drive sale, and I’m very glad I did. The game is a very lighthearted and comical take on the SimCity genre, and made for a great second game to League of Legends over the long weekend.

I’ll get the ‘required’ review stuff out of the way first: the graphics are very nice, especially maxed out, but the engine does put your hardware to the test. Even my beefy Alienware computer had trouble keeping things at 30FPS+ at 1900×1200 maxed. Not that you need a super high framerate to enjoy the game, given its slower pace, but if you have borderline hardware you might have to scale things down. The sound is also very enjoyable, with a fitting soundtrack and some funny (if not repetitive) radio banter. The expected sounds of the city fit well and bring you into the game rather than distract you from it. So far I have no run into any bugs, errors, or crashes.

With that stuff out of the way, here are some reasons I’m really enjoying Tropico beyond the fact that it’s just a solid, well executed game. For starters, it’s a somewhat ‘casual’ game, in that you don’t have to understand every last working bit to be successful and make your way through a scenario. So long as you understand some basics (and the game does a good job of teaching those), you can get a functional economy going and learn from there. The game is very good at giving you feedback about what you might be doing wrong, or what your island needs, and so far I’ve not seen any one thing that is do-or-die in terms of importance. I think part of the reason I’m enjoying this aspect as much is because I know Civilization V will be almost the complete opposite, and while I love mastering the details of a game, it’s also nice to just be able to sit back and play rather than dominate.

The campaign, which is a series of different island challenges, has so far been interesting. Each island has its own setup or problem, and with a wide variety of events that go off as you play, you can’t just copy/paste the same strategy for every city. Also unlike SimCity itself, you can’t manipulate the terrain much in Tropico, which means you have to fit your city into the island you are given rather than bulldoze everything so it all fits. This was a really smart design decision as it really brings out the strategy of setting up each island, and making sure you place things with some consideration for the future.

The final item I want to bring up is the humor, because Tropico has it in spades and it not only keeps you entertained as you play, but factors into the gameplay as well. Since the game is set between the 1950s and 1980s, the US and USSR are the two super powers vying to control your island, and keeping them both happy is critical. Both are portrayed in stereotypical fashion, with the US being all about money and capitalism while the USSR is all ‘for the people’ and communist. Between the different radio sound bites that play as you go and the different events that you or the game triggers (getting paid to be the site of a nuke test by the US for example), you never get too pulled in to building the perfect city block, something I always felt SimCity breaks down to and ultimately gets boring because of.

I believe the sale only lasts until tomorrow, so if you are even a remote fan of the city building genre, or want a fun casual game to fill up some time, Tropico is a steal right now. At $6, it’s impossible not to recommend it.

Chuck-o-the-day: When Google can’t find something, they Norris it.

Posted in Random | 1 Comment

Choosing not to have fun

Posted on September 3, 2010 by SynCaine

The world has officially gone mad, as on a Friday, typically the day for a good blog war, I’m just linking to Tobold to comment on a post (and also because his post above, about blog roll drama, is hilarious). Anyway, the post in question here is about player freedom, or whether a game’s rules should prevent a player from optimizing the fun out of the game.

The discussion started when Tobold co-author Nils (it’s still Friday!) said that the WoW dungeon finder is not a good addition, as it makes it too easy to sit in one city and chain-queue instances all day long (which sounds exactly like WAR in the early days). Tobold is in favor of player choice, so while the dungeon finder is available, he argues that he still has the option to do solo content, see other areas, and generally advance his character (the ‘point’ of an MMO, especially WoW) without being ‘forced’ to chain-queue.

And while I believe Tobold when he says he will exercise the other options available to him to have fun, I also know that most MMO players won’t. They WILL chain-queue whatever is the optimal path, grind themselves into the ground, and then complain that the game is boring and needs to be ‘fixed’ (or they will just silently cancel and walk away). I believe part of a game developers job is to guide the player along to maximize the fun, and the somewhat recent trend of “reward for everything” has made this more and more difficult. Simply designing an interesting encounter is no longer enough, because unless that encounter drops the uber shiny, at most people will see it once and go back to grinding “watch paint dry mob” because he has a chance to drop something to increase your stats by .01%.

Now whether the root cause of this issue is over-incentivizing (WoW) or providing a too-easy-to-follow optimal path (WAR) depends on the game, but the problem still comes down to a design mistake. A well designed game will provide proper incentives to try different activities, or to play for the pure fun of an activity rather than some ulterior motive (gear).

MMOs are an additional design challenge because they need to keep you playing for months at a time due to the business model, so it would simply be impossible to have months and months of content that is all new, all pure fun. A successful MMO will include ‘grind’, that’s a given, its how that grind is balanced and incorporated with everything else that is key. If you are grinding just to reach yet another grind, only to ultimately have the devs hit the reset switch and start you back at square one, that’s going to eventually catch up to you. If the grind is the ‘downtime’ between high point, or if the grind is the ‘buildup’ to something memorable, many players will either look past it or not even notice they are ‘grinding’.

Some players won’t see the benefits and refuse to play along, and that’s a risk you take. Recent years have shown that many players prefer a constant, consistent, slow feed of rewards for chain-queue-style activities, but for me that’s a large change from what the MMO genre is (or was?) all about. Without the lows or downtime, you can’t have the very memorable highs that a good MMO can provide, and to truly get to those high points, you need the players to feel like they determined that path and outcome. It’s just unfortunate that too many elect not to go on that journey, and would rather queue up for the ‘sure thing’, even if it’s watching grass grow.

Chuck-o-the-day: Every time Chuck Norris hears the name “Virgin Mary”, he chuckles to himself.

Posted in MMO design, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | 12 Comments

Six years = 6 bucks sale

Posted on September 2, 2010 by SynCaine

Direct2Drive is having another sale, this time offering various games for $6 to celebrate the site’s sixth anniversary. Now when the cost of entry is $6, it’s kind of hard to argue ‘value’ here. I mean I’ve spend more than that on a single League of Legends skin, so the real question is “would I actually play this?”

I’ve always had a strange fascination with Titan Quest, if for no other reason than it being a really great Diablo-like game that for one reason or another, I just never picked up (played and enjoyed the demo a while back though). The thing holding me back now is the fact that it’s 2010, and while Titan Quest looked good when it was released, it won’t blow anyone away today. Then there is the consideration of how well the gameplay has aged. What was fun back in the D2 days might not be nearly as fun today. Or maybe it will be. Choices…

The other title of interest for me is Tropico 3. I’ve always enjoyed Sim City-style games, and I’ve never played a Tropico title, so for $6 this seems like a good time to give it a shot. It’s not a really old game, so graphically it should still be more than fine, and from what I’ve read the gameplay is very solid. The nice thing about such games is that they are easy to jump in and out of during a gaming lull, and if a few hours get filled for $6, well mission accomplished.

The other big thing holding me back is my hard drive. At 160gb, it fills up fast, and nothing is more annoying than playing “download and install” monthly to make room, especially for games that require a decent amount of patching (any MMO). I’ll be damned if I don’t get a stupid big hard drive in my next comp (although those fast SSD drives sure do look nice… damnit!), but for now, I’ve got to make due.

Anyway, if you are looking for some gaming on a discount, this is a great opportunity to pick up some titles, and it seems every Wednesday D2D will be adding (or changing?) what is available.

Chuck-o-the-day: Chuck Norris turned God into an atheist.

Posted in Mass Media, Random | 13 Comments

League of Legends update

Posted on September 1, 2010 by SynCaine

League of Legends continues to dominate my gaming time, and my account is now midway through level 25 while Aria is at 15. Her current two favorite champions are Garren and Blitzcrank, while I tend to favor Amumu, Katarina, Poppy, and Master Yi (for 3v3 matches only).

There is just nothing quite as satisfying as having Aria pull someone into tower range with Blitz, pop them up, and as they come down I stun-tackle them against a wall with Poppy, delivering a Devastating Blow to finish them off. Short of using Flash to escape, its death for any champion early on, and that combo has lead to many a first-bloods or ‘surprise’ kills. The other nice thing about the combo is that Blitz continues to be a great initiator throughout the game, and with a few items Poppy becomes a single-target wrecking machine with good survivability.

I just recently picked up Master Yi, and while his performance is just average at best in a 5v5 game, he can be a real monster in 3v3. He is a total snowball character and just gets silly with the right item build and a solid start. Critting for 1000+ every other swing, swinging multiple times per second, and lifestealing 50% of the damage you deal is just great, and watching enemy champions melt in seconds never gets old. On the other hand if things don’t go well, he brings next to nothing to a team, and the fact that he is so fragile can make for some frustrating moments, especially since I generally play ‘tougher’ champions like Amumu and Poppy.

Most nights we are playing arranged team games with 4-5 people from Inquisition, and once everyone caps out at level 30, the ranked game madness will begin. I’m really looking forward to the draft selection mode used in ranked play, as it’s just another twist on an already fairly complex game to spice things up. Until then, there are still plenty of champions to learn and team strategies to master.

Civilization 5 is just weeks away, but given how steady and entertaining League of Legends has been for everyone since we started playing, I’m guessing even Civ 5 will only put a dent into how often we log on and play. With Riot (the devs) updating the game weekly with balance patches and new champions/skins, the game is rapidly expanding and improving, and so it’s no surprise that the total amount of people playing continues to increase weekly.

Chuck-o-the-day: Chuck Norris invented ice skates after he realized not everyone is born with blades attached to their feet.

Posted in Civilization Series, League of Legends, PvP | 8 Comments