Switching campaigns

Posted on May 10, 2010 by SynCaine

Over the weekend a decent amount of Guild Wars was played, both by Aria and I in the Prophesies settings and solo when I created a Dervish in the NightFall campaign.

Our duo finally left the starter area, and overall we come out less than impressed. The quests featured far too much walking while offering no real storylines, and the old problem of too many collectibles for the amount of bag space you are given was very present. To make matters worst, knowing where to turn something in required either previous research or random wandering, and the final reward never seemed worth the effort. Bonus points for having collectible items not marked as collectibles, making them look like vendor junk until you stumble upon some collector and find out those gray spider legs you just sold can in fact be turned in for a minor item upgrade. Something like this might work once we are a bit more established in an MMO, but in a starter area? Meh, no thanks.

My time with the Dervish was far more positive, with not only generally more interesting PvE content, but a more streamlined approach in showing off the game. It’s not exactly night and day between the two settings, but it’s very noticeable. I also tried out an Assassin, but that running animation… dear god.

I think the plan going forward is to have Aria switch over to the NightFall campaign (rolling a Paragon perhaps?), and seeing how that goes. We are both certainly still far too early into GW to make any real judgment on it, and with no monthly fee, picking it up and playing only once a week is very possible.

Posted in Guild Wars, Site update, Uncategorized | 8 Comments

EVE’s very own Ed Zitron encounter

Posted on May 7, 2010 by SynCaine

Ah all day work training, how I love you. At least it’s Friday.

And as the week ends, I can’t help but reflect on the EVE-related activities of this week. For one, the game came out ahead if for no other reason than the number of people who have had their interest piqued enough to try it, mostly thanks to all of the real EVE players commenting on either the errors or misconceptions presented. Thanks to this week it’s also very clear just what kind of community follows EVE, and how far they are willing to go to not only offer help and assistance in-game, but out of game as well. That community is one of the main reasons EVE is the only MMO still growing 5+ years after its release, and it’s a ‘resource’ any MMO dev would die to have on their side.

The week also shows once again just how far some people are willing to go to discredit a game in order to further their own personal agenda. The cult of Ed Zitron is indeed alive and well when it comes to reporting on MMOs it seems. On the plus side I think a lot of eyes were opened, and what some have seen for a while now was on display front and center for everyone else to see. This combined with the fact that rather than having its reputation tarnished, EVE and its community came out looking even better, it’s been a very enjoyable week.

Hell, I might even re-activate my old pilot and have a go at it again myself, get back in touch will all those griefers and bullies I played with before.

Posted in EVE Online, Mass Media, Site update, Uncategorized | 19 Comments

Why raiders hate to see the word ‘accessible’

Posted on May 5, 2010 by SynCaine

First I’d like to thank Ravious over at KTR for being an ass and posting a great review of The Guild Leaders Handbook. I’m also reading that book at the moment and more or less agree with what he has written, so writing my review of it is going to be very Alganon-like. Clear case of discrimination here as well, as the only reason Ravious read the book faster than me is due to my ESL disability, which he clearly exploited to further the KTR agenda and steal views and profits away from me. Damn blogger bullies picking on the weak!

But today’s main topic is actually inspired by said book, as while reading I noticed the familiar mention of why some people raid and why they get upset when those raids are made more ‘accessible’ to others. The author, and many before him, state that raiders raid in part so they can get items/power above anyone else, and this exclusivity is what drives them. As soon as the exclusivity is gone, they get upset.

I believe that’s not exactly true. While raiders certainly enjoy the spoils of raiding, and any serious guild is always striving to be at the top of a progression chart, most of them really don’t care what Joey Casual is up to, or what gear he is currently wearing. While raiding is a very social activity, that social interaction is limited to your guild, and perhaps the guilds you compete with. Everyone else is just ‘there’, and you could really care less what they are doing.

No, the reason a current raider hates to see raiding being made more ‘accessible’ is because to them, it means it’s going to be made trivial, and trivial raiding is boring. Solutions such as hard modes don’t work either, because too often hard mode is just a rehash of normal with a twist or two, and that’s a far cry from what the raiders were getting before. Same goes for a guild adding its own rules (no pots, only blue gear, turning XP off, whatever); if you are playing in a themepark and have to go that far to enjoy a ride, that’s not a well-designed themepark.

The motivation to raid is a complex formula rather than just one factor. It’s not about the epic gear, or about seeing a new boss, or about progressing a storyline, or the rush that comes with a world/server/guild first kill. It’s all of those things and more. So when you take away pieces of that formula, you weaken a raider’s motivation to progress. Without that motivation, all but the most dedicated guilds will fold or see activity decrease. And that motivation is key, because ask any raider, and they will tell you the highlight for them is always taking down that really tough boss the guild worked X weeks to get just right. Also notice that its on those type of encounters that players become very familiar with all of the bosses mechanics, and it’s only in those situations that those mechanics ‘matter’. Observe any raiding guild and you will see that pushover bosses, while nice loot piñatas, are always the most disappointing content.  Notice that even if a boss has interesting mechanics, if they can be overcome by brute force and just smashed down, no one is entertained or amazed by said mechanics. Raiding, at its core, is about overcoming those seemingly impossible odds with others, and everyone sharing in that glory. When the odds are not only in your favor, but so far in your favor that failure seems almost impossible, you lose the really heart and soul of raiding.

I really believe that the core issue with WoW raids being made more ‘accessible’ over the years is not the challenge level itself, because certainly even 2004 WoW was easier than say EQ1 raiding, but that Blizzard continues to lower the bar year after year. If you started playing in 2004, but found 40 man raiding too difficult, BC and 25 man raiding might have made raiding accessible to you. Great for you, bad for those who found pre-BC raiding a proper challenge. Problem is, if you thought BC raiding was ‘just right’, WotLK making raiding even more ‘accessible’ means you are now in the same place those pre-BC raiders found themselves in a while back; playing through trivial content. Place your bets on what Cataclysm will do for those who find WotLK a challenge.

Posted in MMO design, Patch Notes, Random, Rant, Uncategorized, World of Warcraft | 20 Comments

WoW: Not only is it full of griefers, but everyone is a racist

Posted on May 4, 2010 by SynCaine

A lot of people are always telling me to try World of Warcraft for it’s amazing 1-80 leveling journey and great economic activity. Finally I’ve caved in and decided to give it a shot, and here is what I’ve found on my incredibly open-minded and 100% unbiased exploration of the game.

The first thing I did was buy a lvl 60 character, and I must say WoW does a terrible job explaining how to play at level 60 when you first start up. For example, I had one quest which asked me to go into an instance, and when I went inside I found the place impossible to finish. What kind of terrible game design is this? Why even give me the damn quest in the first place if I can’t possible complete it at the level that I received it at?

Since I could not make any progress with leveling due to the broken quest design, I went exploring. I went into a large city only to be killed instantly by some level 80 player. Now it’s very obvious that I had no chance versus this guy, but he grief killed me anyway. When I asked why, someone mentioned something about me being a different race. OMG, racist! How do the GMs allow such horrible griefing racists to continue ruining my gaming experience? (I know I know, this kinda breaks down here since it involved interacting with others, but just go with it)

Since PvE was impossible and obviously you can’t explore in WoW without getting to level 80 and bringing tons of people to protect you, the only option left was to try the economy game everyone was telling me about.

But instead I quit and wrote this post to share my experience with the world, hoping someone will pay attention to me and address these horrible, horrible issues that clearly all you WoW fanbois are just trying to keep out of the spotlight. I mean if news ever gets out about this, I’m sure everyone will instantly quit and WoW will go under. Plus I mean how good can the game be when the PvE is broken and every player is either a griefer, a racist, a chat spammer, or all of the above? What terrible game design! I’m going back to online Tic-Tac-Toe, where I dominate the economic game and do really, really well in PvE. (I have the epics to prove it!)

Posted in EVE Online, Rant, Uncategorized, World of Warcraft | 21 Comments

Getting going with Guild Wars

Posted on May 4, 2010 by SynCaine

As has been mentioned here a few times, Aria and I have recently started playing the Guild Wars Trilogy after purchasing the game on sale from Amazon. I’ve rolled a Necro/Monk, she is a Ranger/Elementalist, and we started in the original (Prophesy?) campaign.

So far things are going well, although the amount of running seems to be a bit high (I’m sure we are not doing the quests in the most optimal order). I like the setup of the quest log and how you get a pointer on the map directing you; this makes jumping into the game and casually playing for an hour or so very easy, and that’s exactly what we were looking for. We are still very much in the learning phase when it comes to stats, skills, and overall strategy, but so far nothing we have come across has been a serious hurdle (we both died on one quest to defend a town, but the NPC with us was able to finish of the mobs and we still won. Kinda funny to read quest text telling you “great job in the defense” when you died though).

Two questions for any GW veterans reading this: the first and obvious question is will our class setup ‘work’? We don’t plan to group with others, so we will be a duo most nights. I’m not looking to complete the highest-level content, but I would like to see most of the GW PvE content.

The second question is about the starting area: I believe we did 3-4 quests before reaching a quest that warns us that if we accept it, we will leave the area. We declined and started working on other quests, but I’m wondering how serious this decision is, given the amount (10+) of side quests we seem to be picking up. Is the option to leave the starting area available so soon to allow veterans to move on quickly, or am I over-thinking the whole warning? We are both level 4 right now, but the option to move on was available at level 2 I believe.

Posted in Guild Wars, Site update, Uncategorized | 26 Comments

“Yesterday was heavily laced with rage, to remember a single given moment is impossible.” – Boink 4/19

Posted on May 3, 2010 by SynCaine

On a lighter note for today, here is a little peek into life with my fiancé Aria.

Turns out she likes FPS games and is an old-school CS player, so when she found out that I’ve been playing Bad Company 2 with the Inquisition crew, she wanted to jump in. Since I had two copies of the game (long story), I installed the second on her gaming PC and away we went. The sad truth is she did better than me on her first night (though in my defense I’m terribad at FPS games), and went a whole two hours straight without a single complaint (she usually taps out after about an hour).

With the first night being such a success (BC2 is a quality FPS), she actually asked if we could play the next night, a few times, and I was the one finally giving in and turning off the TV to go play. Inq was playing some squad deathmatch, and since most of the guys are above-average, she was dying more than the night before (I was doing my usual 4/10 kills/death ratio). As the vent chatter went on and the deaths piled up, the gamer rage in her built up, until it finally erupted due to a sniper headshot taking her down (thanks Ara). A Guild Wars manual went flying (we are playing that as well, more on that tomorrow), the headset hit the desk, and out of the room stomped Aria in classic ragequit fashion.

She is a keeper.

Posted in Inquisition Clan, PvP, Random, Site update | 17 Comments

Ignorance in the sandbox

Posted on May 3, 2010 by SynCaine

WoW player and iconic carebear Tobold’s recent attempt to ‘get’ EVE (or as is clear to anyone reading between the lines, and pointed out countless times in comments, simple experience it on a surface level in order to bash it and the overall gaming style) has confirmed something I’ve suspected for a long time now; kid players really need to stay in their kid games and leave the adults to play in theirs.

Relax, there is more to it than just that bit-o-flamebait, and by kids I’m talking more mentality than actual age, as plenty of ‘kids’ can act as adults, and very clearly lots of adults still require parental supervision to have a good time.

Take this post for example, where Tobold is complaining about the ‘bullies’ of EVE shooting him down when he entered controlled 0.0 space, and how he thinks EVE would be much better with parental supervision making sure everyone plays nice and everything is fair. Examples attempting to compare EVE to soccer are included in the comments, but really this part is all you need to understand just how far off Tobold really is:

You enter null sec space, other players will shoot you down, not just your ship, but also your pod. For no reason other than that they can and for no crime other than you being there. There is no strategic challenge in this sort of PvP, it is simply ganking.

I’m sure anyone who actually gets EVE just threw up a bit in their mouth over just how incredibly wrong not only the ‘ganking’ part is, but also how wrong the part about “no strategic challenge” is, but let’s continue.

A major component of a sandbox experience is that the players, not the devs, determine many of the rules everyone plays by, and that the environment itself is more world-like rather than a simple collection of activities. Want to make your piece of 0.0 open to everyone? You can do that, just like you can make it instantly KoS. Want to live in 0.0, you can do that as well, but unfortunately that will require you actually talking to others in an MMO and working with them.

Tobold’s take on what happened to him is exactly how any solo-hero reacts to something that disrupts their own activity in an online game: Why me. Every so often I get a similar reaction when I kill a gatherer in DarkFall; the all too familiar “why?” message from the victim. My response is usually “Welcome to DarkFall”, but the fact that the player even asked tells me all I need to know about how long that players is going to be around. It’s the wrong mentality, and its one that unless you change and adapt, you won’t ever ‘get’ the game.

Let’s take the above-mentioned 0.0 trip and play it out through the eyes of someone who DOES get a sandbox. First, you don’t just randomly fly out to potentially hostile space unless you are looking for a fight or to see how quickly you are going to die. If you want to conduct some business in that space, you know to contact the local owners and work something out. This happens all the time, and most of those ‘bullies’ will be more than willing to deal with you. In DarkFall, traders come to player cities all the time, even if that very same player raided the city the day before, just like he will the day after. All those terrible ‘griefers and bullies’ that only play for the ‘lulz’ won’t touch the trader, even in a game with full loot and no hard-coded ‘parental rule’ to stop them.

Second, anyone who gets the sandbox will know how a cheap frigate looks when entering 0.0. They get that you look like a spy or a scout, they get that if they let you pass because you in your little frigate don’t stand a chance, they are not doing their job in keep the space safe. The player entering knows about the world beyond his own character, he knows which sections are KoS and which are kill reds only. Point being, both sides get it. The gate crew is not griefing you for lulz, just like the frigate pilot is not shocked or angry that he gets shot down, nor does he view his killers as ‘bullying’ him. But in order to get this, you have to put in a little more effort into the game than just logging in and playing in your own little solo-hero bubble. That works in kids games that keep you safe with plenty of parental supervision to guide you from one controlled activity to the next, keeping everyone away from you unless you specifically ask, but it does not work in a virtual world run by the players, and everyone actually playing gets that.

It’s because of this mentality that I’m glad most solo-heroes don’t last long in a sandbox. They bring nothing but whining and cries for mommy (Trammel), they will likely never contribute anything positive to the community or progression of the world, not to mention the fact that there are plenty of other environments for them to go play in already. And as both CCP and Aventurine have shown over the years, you don’t need millions of players to churn out content at or above the level of a mass-market game, so having a smaller but more in-touch community is more of a bonus than an issue. So long as the servers stay up and the devs get paid, everything is peachy in the terrible, cruel, and unfair land of sandbox MMOs.

Bit of friendly advice: next time don’t come looking for mommy to give you a guided tour of the sights and sounds of the world, you might end up getting ‘bullied’. But to all those ready to play a game where people do keep score, where skill and smarts do matter, and where being a part of the community means more than double-clicking an icon and typing in your password, welcome. Just please don’t ask “why” when I cut you down.

Posted in Darkfall Online, EVE Online, MMO design, PvP, Rant, Ultima Online, Uncategorized, World of Warcraft | 41 Comments

Preparing yourself for Civilization 5

Posted on May 1, 2010 by SynCaine

If you never played Civ 4, or you’re missing any of the expansions, Direct2Drive is having a ridiculous sale, which includes the Civ 4 Complete edition here. Might be the best $10 you spent all year if you enjoy strategy gaming.

Posted in Civilization Series | 7 Comments

Today’s reason to hate the French

Posted on April 29, 2010 by SynCaine

Well this is rather sad news.

While I don’t personally care much for the Halo franchise, Marathon and especially Myth were two franchises that were head and shoulders above the rest of gaming in their respective genres (FPS and RTS), and Bungie.net was right there with Battle.net in terms of online matchmaking services, so I’m a bit sad to see a great studio like Bungie get swallowed by the pump-and-dump company. I’m sure the bonuses (the ones you do get to keep) will help easy the transition though.

Posted in Bungie Studios, Mass Media, Rant, Uncategorized, World of Warcraft | 9 Comments

Perma-death to all Darkfriends!

Posted on April 29, 2010 by SynCaine

Since 1997 and Ultima Online the concept of perma-death in an MMO has always interested me. I think a large part of it has to do with a core appeal of MMOs themselves; the fact that everything ‘counts’ and you can’t save and reload at will like you can in most single-player games. Everything is always saved, everything is permanent and persistent, and what you do could have an impact on others. Those are very strong and unique characteristics of the MMO genre (or were, far too many games today minimize all of this to do their best job at creating online single player experiences), and so the ultimate permanence, perma-death, is never far from my mind.

Yesterday I talked a bit about fantasy IPs, in particular the Wheel of Time IP, and today I’d like to continue using that IP as a base to throw out “yet another perma-death idea”. My thinking goes like this: A strong PvE base is needed to make a successful mass-market MMO, so the WoT MMO would be PvE heavy while still being more of a world rather than a string of zones/tiers. All areas of the world would hold some interest to all players, new and old, and so where you adventure has more to do with what you are currently trying to accomplish rather than your current level. The main game for most players would be the familiar questing/items/rep game, just done up with all the lessons learn over the years. The goal is to attract a large audience, not to create a niche game here.

The only combat PvP would be against Darkfriends, and all Darkfriend characters play with perma-death. The system would basically work like a PvP flag, only it would be a permanent one-way switch. All characters would start out as ‘good’ characters, and only though a special series of quests would you be able to become a Darkfriend. Once you make the switch, options such as stealing from and attacking other players open up. The attacker would be able to earn some worthwhile evil-only reward, while the victim would suffer some penalties (but nothing like full loot or even losing a given item. Perhaps some gold or other penalty to ‘make it matter’, but not something to drive away PvE-focused players). Now the key to the whole setup would be the fact that Darkfriends don’t show up as ‘red’ to other players until they are identified. Unidentified Darkfriends could still enter towns, shop, train, etc. They would have the OPTION of stealing/murder, but otherwise they remain unchanged save for perma-death. For all you know, someone ‘blue’ in your party, or the guy next to you at the auction house, could be a Darkfriend.

The identification system would work much like the system in Oblivion, where if an NPC sees you committing a crime, you are reported and the guards notified. If the crime is minor (stealing), only the local guards are made aware, and you are only identified as a Darkfriend to everyone else in that area. If the crime is major (murder), a wide region is made aware. The more crimes you commit that are witnessed, the wider the knowledge that you are a Darkfriend gets, until ultimately you are so infamous that in all regions of the world you are known as a villain.

Good characters always have the option to attack a Darkfriend at will, and while a good character will be able to respawn with whatever penalty, remember that once a Darkfriend is killed, he is deleted. To take SOME of the edge off, and not making the death of a Darkfriend a major motivator to quit the game, an account-wide banking system (only accessible at say a few special locations in the entire world) would be in place, so that anything of major value could be stored away, and even should the Darkfriend die, the next character you roll could withdraw some nice gear or bonus items. After all, even good characters at times ‘come across’ evil but powerful artifacts, right?

The overall idea is to give everyone an OPTION to PvP, although it would be a difficult life with a major penalty always hanging over your head. History has shown that most won’t go for that option (EVE and the number of players in 0.0 space, Trammel), but it’s also my belief that having SOME threat of PvP creates a more interesting environment for everyone playing, and that some of the genres most creative, dedicated, and influential players are PvP-driven. By creating an environment where you combine the two in a somewhat ‘friendly’ manner, you would hopefully get the best of both worlds. A game where the devs are focused on updating the PvE aspects and keep everything going, while also having a small but influential population of PvP risk-takers to add some spice to the world is a game that, IMO of course, would really work. So who wants to give me a truckload of cash so I can make it happen? Anyone, anyone?

Posted in Combat Systems, EVE Online, MMO design, Perma-death, PvP, Random | 29 Comments