Just call me Aladdin

Posted on February 16, 2010 by SynCaine

You may remember a while ago we (Inq) had a little adventure trying to find a spot to use (place) a villa deed. As one of my personal goals in DarkFall is to own a house and run a vendor, I’ve been on the lookout for some time now trying to get a home of my own.

A few days ago someone in Trade chat was selling both a cottage and a house deed for a reasonable price (160k for both), and I figured if I was going to go looking to place some property, having two options is better than one, so I bought the deeds and set out searching villages. After a few days of noting houses with taxes due (once taxes reach a certain level, the owner loses the house if he does not pay up) but not finding any open spots, I was getting a little frustrated. Each time a place would get close to the tax breaking point, the taxes would be paid.

After about four days of serious searching, I started offering both deeds for sale, not wanting to sit on such a large investment without any real gain, and getting a little sick of traveling half of Agon only to come away with nothing. The house deed sold quickly (for 110k), and right after the sale someone in Trade chat was selling a placed house on Rubaiyat for 250k. At this time I had around 120k in my bank just in gold, so I contacted the seller and asked if he was willing to do a gold+items trade, to which he was open to. I was able to sell him most of my regents (about 20k in total at an average price of 3.5g per) plus 145k gold (I had to borrowed 25k from our clan vault).

With the price agreed upon we both headed to a neutral NPC city to do the trade through a middle man. The way a middle man works here is first the seller gives control of his house to the third party, then I give the seller the gold+regs, and finally the middle man turns over control of the house to me once both parties have confirmed the trade is all set. We used Cattboy SiN as the middle man (trusted guy) and everything went smoothly (despite the fact that, technically, we were in warring clans and could attack each other even in the NPC city), although DarkFall being DarkFall I half-expected shenanigans at one point or another and was on-edge for the hour or so it took to get this all done (negotiation, traveling, waiting).

That night I recalled to my new home for the first time to take a look around. Ruby is a desert/Egyptian themed island, and this village is located on the south-west corner, right next to the city of Ul’Sulak currently owned by Macabre. The local mobs are all different from those found in mainland Agon or Yssam, as is the overall feel of the place. Being a desert, visibility is high and resources (herbs, iron, wood) are scarce, and sandstorm are common. The village that my house is a part of is a larger village with 6-8 homes, and some very nice mob spawns nearby, including Children of Khamset that skin for a rare drop used in making Cobra Staffs (high-end caster weapon).

I meet (fought) the locals living out of Ul’Sulak the first night, coming up to their city gates only to find eight of them hopping over the walls to give me a hug. Judging by the length of time it took them to take me down, I gathered that they are not the most fearsome opponents, which is a nice change of pace from our constant encounters with SF/BkS and other high-end groups.

The next night a few Inq members wanted to see the Ruby nightlife (PvP), and so we recalled to my house, (I can invite one guest, who can then recall, and then kick that person and invite another. Not an instant process, but much faster than riding down) all geared up and looking for trouble. The fun/challenging part of PvP’ing in a new area is you don’t know the popular mob spawns, the high traffic areas, or which residence can/will bring out 20 to face your three.

Shortly after riding out of the village, we heard the familiar sounds of casting and fighting among some ruins on a tall plateau, and after we dismounted we crept up to get a better look. What we found was one player farming some mobs, and being new to the scene we wanted to make a good first impression and say hello. After a bit of a fight (the guy was no cupcake) and a short chase, we had him down bleeding in the sand. Yet just as we finished killing him, we began to take magic fire from above, and noticed three other players charging at us. We fought those three for a good length of time, with several mounts dying and more than one close call on our side, but thanks to some good team work and focus fire, eventually all three enemies were reduced to tombstones ready for looting. The loot was decent enough, and we were certainly enjoying our first 30 minutes or so on Ruby.

Some more scouting followed, all uneventful in terms of PvP, until we got to a hamlet to bank our spoils. A bit lighter, we set out for a player city just to take a look, and much to our surprise the city was a bit destroyed and looked to be abandoned. Somewhat disappointed, we rode east until we spotted a solo riding coming straight towards us. Although we intended to set a quick ambush, we did not have the time and instead had to pursue on mounts, jumping off to bow/magic the rider down. As his mount was just about to fall over, a good ten or so riders crested a sand dune and came straight at us. A quick check of guild tags showed us that these were the residence of that ‘empty’ city, so they must have been out on a clan PvE or PvP run. Now as much as we like a good fight, a 3v10 did not seem like very favorable odds, and so we quickly mounted up and tried to flee. Two of us managed to get away, but the third member of our group has a bit too close and got his mount shot out from under him. Much to our surprise, he lasted a good amount of time against the horde, and even managed to down a few mounts before being killed. Perhaps that 3v10 might have been closer than we thought…

Even with one death, it was a good first run on Ruby, and has everyone looking forward to future encounters. Sadly the house itself is not in a great location to place a vendor, so that part is on hold for now. Perhaps at a later point I might trade this house for something more vendor-friendly, but for now the house is a welcome addition to our PvP and PvE options.

(DarkFall-related post disclaimer/reminder. If you click the image link near the top-right of this page and buy a DarkFall account, I get paid 20% of the client cost. If you believe this taints my views and reporting on DarkFall, your opinion is wrong.)

Posted in Darkfall Online, Housing, Inquisition Clan, PvP | 9 Comments

DF hopes, Blood Scrolls, Yourmom, and home ownership

Posted on February 14, 2010 by SynCaine

This post over at Don’t Feat the Mutant really reminds me of this post I made a while back, especially when you read the comments over at DFtM. It’s not a bad thing at all, but its funny how we too often hype ourselves to certain ideas without seeing something from all angles. I can only think that one bad PK’ing would ruin the whole experience for many of those commenting, even if they really enjoyed the rest of the game. I’d love to be wrong, but having seen it happen too many times in my years with MMOs, I doubt it.

And speaking of that good stuff in DarkFall, Aventurine has put out what they call “The Blood Scrolls”, a living journal of sorts for the dynamic lore system that is just beginning now. I don’t know what value someone who is not currently playing might get out of them, but as a current player its very nice to have one location to recount what has happened. And because we all want to be e-famous, the little added carrot of having your name included in those Blood Scrolls is a nice touch by AV and should lead to increased participation/competition in future events.

I should have linked to this map site for DarkFall sooner, because it truly is a great page, one that I am more than happy to contribute to. With a guest account your bandwidth is very limited, but you can still get an idea for what the map offers and just how accurate it really is. To get an account you can either contribute information, or send a bit of cash via Paypal. Since I’m now filthy rich off this blog, I had no issue sharing the wealth with another great DarkFall resource.

Finally, in a little Tuesday preview, I’m now the owner of a house on south-west Rubaiyat. How the deal went down, the first PvP trip out of it, and everything else related to home-ownership coming up in the next post.

(DarkFall-related post disclaimer/reminder. If you click the image link near the top-right of this page and buy a DarkFall account, I get paid 20% of the client cost. If you believe this taints my views and reporting on DarkFall, your opinion is wrong.)

Posted in crafting, Darkfall Online, Housing, MMO design, PvP, Site update | 8 Comments

Friday Blog War: Full Scale Assault

Posted on February 12, 2010 by SynCaine

Bathrooms suck.

EVE sucks.

Monkeys suck.

Kids suck. No wait your cool. No you do suck.

Groups of rats suck.

Puzzles suck.

Potshots (what?) suck.

Game devs suck.

Ideas suck.

Your cool.

Canada sucks.

Emos suck.

Love you.

WAR sucks.

EQ2 sucks.

Dead to me.

(If I missed you it means you really do suck and I hate you, yes you, personally. DIAF) (Name the reference and win a Syn achievement, valued at +4 Internet win points)

Thought for the day: Whenever I create a post begging for comments to feed my ego, I get a ton of comments, especially if I provide what I want the comments to be in the context of a very short post. To further feed my fragile ego I’ll then filter out anyone who disagrees, or create new rules in the event that someone works around my crazy rules and still manages to not fully agree me with.

Follow-up thought for the day: Blog drama is WoW, theory is DF. Funny how that works out in this case, eh?

Final thought for the day: I win bitch. The Internet is mine!

Happy long weekend everyone, may it be as entertaining as these last few days. Baring my sensitive and fragile e-rep being ad hominem (hominemenemene) attacked again, we should be back to our regularly scheduled programming come next week.

Posted in Rant, Site update | 17 Comments

Tobold’s name won’t be in this title, but Syp’s is!

Posted on February 11, 2010 by SynCaine

While comically a few are taking recent event a little too seriously, at least some see the entertainment in it all. I wish Syp and Tipa well in their Friday Blog War, and will be accepting their royalty payments shortly. If you too would like to get into the ‘serious business’ of blog wars, please send a check or money order to the address below, and include a convenient time for a personal consultation on how best to get a rise out of someone. The Internet: because deep down you really do care.

Moving on (temporarily at least), in news only my ‘tiny little niche’ cares about (I did say temporarily), Paragus Rants has another quality piece up about DarkFall, this time talking a bit about his progress over the last 10 weeks and also getting some feedback from some power-players about the new siege system. Head on over and take a look, and if you have an MMORPG account, be sure to give the man a bump.

I’m a bit torn on the whole “how fast should you progress” issue in DarkFall, especially in regards to stat gain (I think skill gain is perfectly paced atm). On the one hand you have the whole “time until you can compete” issue, and on the other you have “I’m maxed out, now what?” lurking (something that most will deny is an issue until it hits them, and they slowly begin to log in less and less).

DarkFall also muddies the water here because of how much player-skill factors into the outcome of a fight. Certainly having 250hp vs 350hp is a noticeable difference, but if you are getting hit five times for every one hit you land, even with 350hp you are going to lose. The same does not really apply in a tab-target system, where short of facing the wrong way, your hits are going to land if the math behind your character adds up. Definitely an interesting topic though, one I might go into a bit more using my own character as a baseline in the future.

Finally, an update on my momentous return to carebear land: Aria and I will be skipping Guild Wars and instead trying out Allods Online once the open beta is out. Part of the reason is because I know as soon as I buy two copies of GW, Steam will have the whole collection on sale for $5 the next day. The other reason is if I’m going to return to frolic in fairyland, I might as well do it for free, in something totally new, and with a clear ‘you might be gay if…’ race like the furbies (or whatever they are called).

Being serious for a moment though, Allods does look good for a themepark MMO, and should provide some casual entertainment for the two of us. Now I just have to figure out what an “open beta” is for a F2P MMO that has already launched in a different territory…

Posted in Allods Online, beta, Combat Systems, Darkfall Online, Guild Wars, Inquisition Clan, MMO design, PvP, Rant, Site update | 12 Comments

Yet another post with Tobold in the title

Posted on February 11, 2010 by SynCaine

Try to follow along here, because this gets a little tricky. Tobold says he does not read my blog anymore, yet in that same paragraph he says:

“So every time I make some blog post about some PvP game, like “I don’t like legal RMT in EVE”, syncaine goes and makes a blog post with my name in the title, full of personal attacks and lies about me and my blog”.

I find that funny, not only because I just don’t see that with my last post, but also because it would be real damn hard to know a post is full of personal attacks and lies if you did not actually read it. (I was not aware you could EG blog posts, but there you go!) And as I’ve tried to explain to Tobold a few times now, when you constantly delete my comments (even though they follow your ridiculous ‘blog rules for commenting’) on your blog, and I want to respond to something you write, I’m left with no choice but to make a post about it here, and I don’t have to follow your blog rules on my own blog. Now I could be cute and leave the link off my post to your blog, but I’ll help feed your ego and give you some traffic while at the same time not insulting my ever-growing legion of readers. That I have a writing style you seem particularly sensitive to is, well, not really MY issue now is it?

Now for the record I did call Tobold an asshole at one point, although without actually using his name, when he called out a small company for donating money to charity. The original post has since been edited by Tobold, but follow the comments (at least the ones on my site, since he also filtered the ones on his) and you get the idea if you don’t remember the actual event. The first comment in that post on my site is rather fitting though, haha. But yea, I still stand behind that post, and I still consider it an asshole move to take a shot at a company trying to do some good (especially given the fact that they are struggling for money now, unlike another company who kept half the profits on their charity-driven promotion).

And while I did try to bury the hatchet with Tobold before (guess he also did not read that post, not enough “slander” in it perhaps?), I’m over that now thanks to his recent actions (I’d love to post the email he sent me, but that would be going over the top). Like I told him directly, either make your blog private so I can’t read it, or come to terms with the fact that when you make a post I disagree with, and I feel like it, I’m going to make a response post here. Whether or not I call you an asshole while refuting your points or ‘facts’ is likely going to come down to phases of the moon, the color of my shirt, and whether or not I need the traffic to buy another Ferrari, since you know, I’m now ‘financing’ myself off this blog.

Posted in Rant, Site update | 26 Comments

How awfully ‘keen’ of you Tobold

Posted on February 10, 2010 by SynCaine

Whenever Tobold talks about EVE, it’s always entertaining, but sadly it’s the “Keen” kind of entertaining, if you know what I mean. And just a day after making a “WoW is too easy and not fun now” post (wish someone had said that earlier to avoid the problem…), today is a fun trip into the EVE economy, with a WoW comparison at the end (those always work out well).

The major problem about Tobold writing about EVE is the same one I get accused of when writing about WoW; not playing the game. Yet unlike Tobold, I’ve actually played WoW save the last ten levels, and the concept of 99.9% of the content being more faceroll easy now is not THAT hard for me to grasp (plus I read TAGN, which is basically like playing WoW anyway) . Tobold played EVE in beta, so you know, just a FEW things have changed since 2003 (even if Tobold is using the Blizzard-pace scale of MMO updates, and not CCPs).

Here is his last paragraph:

The funny thing is that EVE has a lot of hardcore fans, which will undoubtedly swarm all over this post in the comment thread to defend EVE. That is exactly the same people who tend to complain about games where you can buy your way to power, but somehow in their mind it is different if EVE does that. Imagine Blizzard would offer gold for dollars, and automatic leveling of unplayed WoW characters as long as you pay a monthly fee for that, there would be a huge outcry. I wouldn’t like that in World of Warcraft, and I don’t like that in EVE Online. EVE being a PvP game doesn’t change that, just the opposite: You being able to boost your power with money is even worse if you directly compete with other players in PvP.

Now troll bait aside, can anyone tell Tobold why WoW PvP and EVE PvP are different, or why paying Blizzard to reach max level (you can already do that ‘buddy’) is a non-issue? If you said “stuff blows up”, you are indeed smarter than a Tobold (TV show reference, not a personal attack). Anyone who has played EVE has come across or knows of some fool who bought a ship/character he has no clue how to use (the ‘dreaded’ and ‘unbalanced’ RMT part) only to have it blown to bits the second he enters low-sec (or even high-sec if the target is rich/stupid enough).  Actually I’m sure even WoW players have come across some decked-out character who can’t set up a hotbar, because RMT happens in WoW all the time, only in WoW it’s far less controlled and more likely to cost you a CC number or bank account.

That’s what separates games like EVE from WoW though; in WoW I can buy a top-tier raiding character, faceroll every instance save the final raid, and learn (risk-free) the 1-2-4-1 combo I need to win in PvP in short order. Even if I’m ‘special’, the additional week it will take me to master WoW PvP still does not mean I risk a thing, and no matter how poorly you play (intentionally or not), you NEVER lose that bought power, at least not until Blizzard resets it for you for the low price of $45 (coming ‘soon’). Plus if I’m Richy Rich fresh off the short bus, I’m very likely queued up and ready to join you in that instance. “Whats taunt?” says the all-epics warrior. (That joke would be funnier if taunt was still required to clear an instance, but just go with it)

Tobold, you need to play EVE. For someone who talks about economics as much as you do to not have at least tried the best econ MMO in the genre is almost a crime. We know you won’t be flying out to low-sec and setting up a gate camp, but Empire space will keep you entertained between now and your paid gear reset, and you can finally put all of that good economic knowledge to work in a game with a real market and real competition. And in the rare event that you do lose a pixel or two (you won’t, but you know, fear the PvP boogie-man), all that economic mastery should mean you can easily get back on your feet. I can even, just for you, set up an affiliate link for you to use, because I’m a nice guy like that.

Posted in beta, crafting, EVE Online, MMO design, Rant, World of Warcraft | 67 Comments

DarkFall video contest winners!

Posted on February 9, 2010 by SynCaine

The DarkFall video contest is over, and the winners have been announced here. Congratulations to everyone who walked away with a prize, great stuff. I had a feeling the “Men at Work” video would win, as it’s not only an entertaining video start to finish, but is also a very creative use of in-game DarkFall lighting and animation. Aventurine needs to do a “best blog entry” contest, if only because my computer room could really use one of those posters signed by the whole team. Just sayin’…

(DarkFall-related post disclaimer/reminder. If you click the image link near the top-right of this page and buy a DarkFall account, I get paid 20% of the client cost. If you believe this taints my views and reporting on DarkFall, your opinion is wrong.)

Posted in Darkfall Online, Random | 2 Comments

Warhammer still confused, DF>GW, and Ed.

Posted on February 8, 2010 by SynCaine

While it’s been some time since I’ve played the game, I still keep an eye on Warhammer Online to see what is being done with it, yet the more I look, the less hopeful I continue to be. Take this for example. Not only is this not ADDING anything to the game, but Mythic can’t even come up with a way to REMOVE things in a way that makes sense to the players. When your player base reacting to some patch notes sends you back to the drawing boards about something as relatively simple as scenarios (how long have those been around in MMOs now, and how critical are they in the overall end-game mess that is WAR?), how much faith can anyone have that you stand a chance in fixing the more major issues?

The Guild Wars fiancé trial run did not happen this weekend due to the usual suspect; DarkFall. The plan was to play at some point on Saturday, but well, PvP happened and the day was over before I knew it. I’m sure the clan member (Sorry Grim) I lead into a flamethrower cannon-induced gibbing wished I had logged off, but what can you do.

Finally, thanks to pingback technology, this post from “Don’t Fear the Mutant” came to my attention (btw: there is no such thing as a cheap shot at EG, and even more so when talking about ForumWarrior Ed). I’ve said it before and I’ll repeat it here; game reviews are easy. Just state up-front how long you played or how far you got (in the case of something linear like Dragon Age) before writing the review. That’s it, that’s all you need.

If you only played an hour, but still feel the need to put ‘review’ in your title, go for it. Just let everyone know up front that your review is based on an hour, and the reader can determine how much weight to put behind what you wrote. The same applies the other way as well; when I do a year-after review of DarkFall, obviously what I notice now about the game is going to be quite different than what some totally new player sees. But again, I leave it up to the reader to determine what he/she gets out of the review.

Don’t load up on factual mistakes (and then try to defend said mistake in any way), baseline up front how much you played, and fire away.

Posted in beta, Darkfall Online, Guild Wars, Inquisition Clan, MMO design, Patch Notes, PvP | 25 Comments

Oh themepark, how I missed you so!

Posted on February 5, 2010 by SynCaine

It looks like Saturday will be the first night Aria (the fiancé) and I try to get back into some MMO gaming together, with the Guild Wars trial up first. Hopefully she likes it, my very brief time with it was positive enough, for a themepark.

Which brings me to today’s topic: how in gods name do you people (yes, YOU people) stand tab-target MMO combat? I’ve been playing DarkFall for close to a year now, so it’s been some time, but my god is tab-target combat slow, boring, and about as interesting as watching paint dry. I know I’m level one, I know I have limited hotbar abilities (hey I’m back to being able to click those, whooo…), and I know starter mobs are meant to be easy, but ugh, really, THIS is what I was playing with before DarkFall?

Going back to candyland has made me realize just how different everything is in DarkFall at the most basic level, right down to killing the easiest mob with nothing but melee swings. Because even when you are doing just that in DF, you are still constantly moving, constantly aware of all the terrain around you, constantly trying to kill the thing quickly for more reasons then just to be able to jump to the next one, and constantly aware that anyone who runs near you is a potential threat. In short, some level of tension is always present, and SOMETHING is always around that makes even the shortest afk something to consider.

In candyland you run up and start auto-attacking (with 0% chance to miss based on player skill), you can safely ignore everyone and everything else around you, and even if you get disconnected or die IRL during said combat, you will still beat that mob unless you are fighting a raid boss. It’s no wonder so many need ‘epic’ rewards for plowing through such gameplay for hundreds of hours. And I was wrong, you DO deserver being called a hero (by the NPCs) for that, dear WoW player.

So yes, the trip back to candyland is going to take some adjustment, but as long as it does not dull my already limited DarkFall combat skills, I should be fine. I’ll just have to find a way to go into a half-como before loading up whatever we decide to play. Now excuse me, I think my guy just finished auto-attacking some ‘scary’ beast, time to collect my vendor trash and click on another to progress my ‘epic’ quest to save the world.

(No, I’m not in any way bitter that Aria refuses to play DarkFall, nope, not at all…)

Posted in Combat Systems, Darkfall Online, Guild Wars, MMO design, Rant, World of Warcraft | 33 Comments

Is Vanguard a good choice?

Posted on February 4, 2010 by SynCaine

My fiance would like to get back into the MMO gaming scene with me, and I’m wondering if Vanguard would be a good choice for a duo to tackle? Games we have already played include WoW, LotRO, EQ2, WAR, DDO (making my fiance more qualified than all of EGs staff when it comes to MMOs), so all of those are out, and she is too carebear for DarkFall.

The game more or less has to be a fantasy themepark, so games like Fallen Earth are out as well. Ideally the setup would allow us to play about an hour or two a few nights a week and make some progress. Does Vanguard fit that bill as something to play for a few months? Hardware requirements are a non-issue as we don’t play on toasters. Things like endgame and min/maxing are not a factor here as well; we likely won’t get that far.

And if not Vanguard, any other suggestions?

Posted in Darkfall Online, DDO, EQ2, Fallen Earth, Lord of the Rings Online, Site update, Vanguard, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | 64 Comments