ESO: Day one was a great day

Posted on March 31, 2014 by SynCaine

The Elder Scrolls Online 5 day headstart began yesterday, with the servers actually going up an hour ahead of the scheduled start time (I’m sure someone out there raged about that as being ‘unfair’, because some people suck like that). As far as MMO launches go, yesterday might have been the smoothest I’ve ever experienced. Everything worked, there was no queue, I didn’t have to jump through any hoops, and I was able to play the game as if it had been live for 6 months. Being able to patch-up the beta client was huge too. Hats off to Bethesda, they nailed day one.

I’ve noted before that during beta, I was skipping all quest text/voice, and basically rushing through much of the game to see more stuff at higher levels. I’m taking the exact opposite approach to live; I’m intentionally playing really slow, wandering around often, doing one quest at a time to get the full story/point, and checking every little corner and box ‘just in case’. It’s sadly surprising how hard I have to fight down my ‘gamer urges’ to min/max stuff, but I’m committed.

So far the game has been far more enjoyable than in beta because of the above approach. ‘Simple’ quest steps suddenly have meaning, and the entire starter island for the Aldmeri Dominion now makes sense to me from a ‘why’ perspective. I can only talk about that one zone, but now knowing the full story behind it and every quest, I can say it was masterfully done, easily on par with the better quests of Skyrim. If this level of quality and storytelling continues throughout the game, I’m really going to enjoy myself.

Gameplay wise I went with an Imperial Nightblade, wearing a mix of the three armor types and duel-wielding whatever weapons I come across. For skills I’m spreading points across the three skill lines of the Nightblade, while also spending a few points in the duel-wield line and a point or two into some crafting stuff (I love the passive gathering). Basically a jack-of-all-trades so far, and I can always respec to min/max him out later if I get serious about PvP or ‘endgame’.

Final note: One of the early criticisms of the game was that the starter zone was small and limited on exploration. While I know that things open up beyond it, taking my time with the zone I can say there are a fair number of optional areas and hidden things to find, be they sky shards, treasure chests, or just little details like a chair with a bow and arrows on top of a ruined tower that requires a jump or two to access. I loved that kind of stuff in Skyrim, and it’s nice to also find it in ESO.

 

Posted in The Elder Scrolls Online | 8 Comments

ESO: Game is live, Inquisition has been created

Posted on March 30, 2014 by SynCaine

Quick note, ESO is now live (headstart period), and our guild has been created. Inquisition for the Aldmeri Dominion faction. I’m Syncaine in-game. Feel free to reach out.

Posted in The Elder Scrolls Online | 6 Comments

DF:UW – This is why we play

Posted on March 28, 2014 by SynCaine

Our alliance is currently in a war with another major alliance, and the result has been great PvP for a number of days now. Last night we had another battle, and it might have been the best one of the war so far.

Here is the video from one of my alliance mates. You can spot me at various points; I’m the attractive blonde elf skirmisher. I’m also the guy who calls out dying near the tower and gets rezzed. I seem to always die in these videos, probably because I generally die in most battles. At least here I got rezzed and didn’t go down again, so was able to experience the entire thing.

As you can see from the video, a large ship had sailed up to one of your cities to do some asset damage. Our alliance as a whole reacted quickly and we soon had just under 20 people ready to defend. The video starts as the boat is already hammering the city walls with its cannons, and they also sent a ground force ashore.

We battled around the gate for a bit, softening them up, and finally making a push out. Along the beach the fight went back and forth for a bit (hence going down), but eventually we broke them and they retreated back to their boat.

The video misses some of the chasing, which involved us using a few boats along with swimmers to keep eyes on the larger ship, until eventually we were able to get some people on board and stop it. Video picks up with the fighting on and around the boat (love the part where the dread warrior climbs to the crows nest, and then knocks our guy off into the water.) Video ends when the cameraman dies, but we continued the fight and eventually won; killing almost everyone in the water and capturing the larger boat along with multiple smaller ships.

What’s great about the video is it shows almost all aspects of DF combat. A ship with a large crew sailing up, a city being attacked and defended, PvP in and around a gate, a battle along a beach that is a mix of ground and water combat, a chase into the ocean by both players and ships, and finally a decisive battle on board a larger ship. This is the stuff that makes Darkfall unique, and oh so much fun.

Posted in Combat Systems, Darkfall Online, PvP | 5 Comments

DF:UW – This is how you should play in the sandbox

Posted on March 27, 2014 by SynCaine

The shitstorm that is the Bonus Room controversy continues to rage, and as of now CCP hasn’t made a move. How all of that plays out will be very interesting to watch, but I want to put that aside for right now and talk about a different post from Jester.

The main thing I want to focus is the second-to-last quote, where Destiny talks about the sandbox and the players insisting that everyone play a certain way. Jester and Destiny are talking about EVE here, but I want to apply that to Darkfall.

My likely very biased opinion is that Darkfall is in a make-or-break period right now. AV has made a few solid changes (dura loss from PvP being the main one so far), and their plans for improving the conquest and territory control aspect of the game, if executed correctly, I believe will turn the game around, going from a “PvP for the sake of PvP” oversized arena to, you know, more of a sandbox with sustainable content and reasons for players to do things.

At the same time, there is a minority subset of current, but mostly former players that want AV to focus mostly on changing the combat back towards DF1; allowing for hyper-carries and for the elite to better handle larger groups of lesser players. They are convinced that the total appeal of DF is limited to what it is now, and that rather than attempting to expand that appeal, AV should instead just work on getting the ‘core’ base that loved DF1 back. They seem to ignore that said core wasn’t large enough for AV to keep DF1 going, and instead replaced it with DF:UW, but yea.

My overall take on this has been pretty simple; the only thing the elite actually need in a game like Darkfall is a population (targets), and one of the main things that drove people away from DF1 was said elites going superman on a group of casuals, over and over. League of Legends wouldn’t have the millions of players it has if Riot allowed the top 1% to regularity play ranked games against those far below them. There is a reason LoL exploded while DoTA itself never did; Riot fixed a lot of the core flaws of the game, chief among them the very idea of a hyper-carry (one player deciding the fate of 9 others in a game).

Most gamers are ok losing sometimes, but most won’t put up with getting smashed over and over. LoL controls the smashing, DF1 didn’t. DF:UW does to about the extent it really can. Numbers can help overcome skill, but at the same time an elite group can still run into double their numbers (or more) and win. That balance is in a good spot IMO, but AV has a bad tendency to listen to the Forumfall minority and shoot themselves in the foot.

As I said earlier, I think the game is coming up to a critical turning point moment, but I also have this fear (based on history) that AV will take one major step forward, and a giant leap back.

Posted in Combat Systems, Darkfall Online, EVE Online, MMO design | 17 Comments

Too much tolerance

Posted on March 25, 2014 by SynCaine

Jester has two great posts up today, although about two very different subjects.

The first, and the one I’ll be brief about, is about an example of someone scamming a player in EVE. Typical EVE stuff right? Not exactly, due to the extent of the scam and the intention behind it (extreme grief rather than gain). Now I’ve said here before I don’t feel a lot of pity for such victims. Anyone who hands over all of their stuff for the promise of having it double is looking for a shortcut and hasn’t learned the ‘no free lunch’ lesson in life.

But victim aside, I also don’t understand why companies don’t instantly ban any player in their game who cons people to such lengths. The average market scam? All fine and good; you are separating a fool from his money in a game. But this wasn’t about that, and such players add nothing to your game. EVE isn’t a democracy; CCP can (and should) play god and act. As Jester points out, there is a difference from positive exposure from something like the Guiding Hand Social Club scam, and the negative exposure from something like this. From a business perspective, such a player is costing you more than he is worth, make the correct business decision and remove them.

Moving beyond just this example, it’s never made sense to me why companies are often so reluctant to ban a player. Again, MMOs aren’t a democracy or a court of law, where someone must be proven guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt. Ban first, answer questions later. Anyone caught incorrectly can always be credited for the mistake, but unless you have terrible tools to look into such things, most of the time you should be banning someone who did something ban-worthy. Again, the devs are gods in these worlds; they should have access and records of everything and come to the correct conclusion.

A single bad apple costs you countless accounts, and it’s nonsense that companies spend so much time and effort trying to bring in new players, and seemingly so little in removing those who drive those hard-fought accounts away.

Posted in EVE Online, Mass Media, Rant | 65 Comments

F’n WordPress…

Posted on March 25, 2014 by SynCaine

Need a little help here.

Prior to a few days ago, I would always write out my blogs in Word, then use the “copy from Word” button to paste in the text, add some links, and hit publish.

Recently that button was removed, and now I only have a “Paste as Text” button. However using this button results in my posts having a different format from previous posts, mainly the lack of a space between paragraphs. Manually hitting return at the end of a paragraph on WordPress itself does not fix this problem.

Anyone have a fix or reasonable workaround?

Edit: Seems when I manually type the post out in the WordPress window, the format is fine. Awesome…

Posted in Mass Media, Rant | 6 Comments

My 15

Posted on March 24, 2014 by SynCaine

Via TAGN, my top 15 influential games.

1: Ultima Online

This is an MMO blog, and UO was the first major MMO as we know them today. It’s also had the Ultima IP, which was huge for me. And as time goes on, and the genre tries to figure itself out, we realize (or are proven ‘right’, depending on your starting point) UO got a lot of things correct compared to future titles. It wasn’t just the first MMO, it was a very well-designed sandbox MMO that had a brilliant virtual world. We need more UOs, but making them has proven to be very difficult.

2: Ultima V

Way back when I played games on a Commodore 64, and Ultima V was my favorite game by a mile. MMOs are a big deal to me today because prior to 1997 and UO, I was (and still am) huge into RPGs, and for me Ultima V remains not only the first, but one of the best games in that genre. Non-linear, party based, great lore, great stories, epic scope, ;living world’, difficult; Ultima V got a lot right IMO.

3: Myth 1 and Myth 2

Cheating a bit going with both of these, but allow me to explain. Myth 1 was an RTS game far ahead of its time (something Bungie has a habit of doing), and I played it relentlessly. Sadly at the time the computer I had couldn’t really run it, so at a certain point online I couldn’t win games playing at 5-10 FPS (no joke). Myth 2 improved most aspects from the first game, and I had a better machine when it came out. I ended up holding the world #1 spot in the game until the first rank reset, which totally should be on my resume if gaming was as cool as sports. Either way being able to say you were the undisputed best at something out of 50k+ people is fun. Me > you.

4: EVE

UO was the first and laid the groundwork, but EVE is that groundwork perfected, and is the shining example that an MMO doesn’t die ‘eventually’ if it’s built correctly. The list of things EVE does better than anyone else in the genre is almost endless, but for me personally it drove home the fact that if you set a goal and execute, EVE is your oyster. I wanted to start a corp, I wanted it to grow into something, and I wanted to take us out of high-sec and do ‘something’. All accomplished, and it was a very rewarding experience.

5: Shining in the Darkness

I got this game along with my Sega Genesis, and it was my first introduction to console gaming and that style of RPG games. I still have a notebook of the maps my father and I drew as we played it, and whenever I watch a Youtube video of the game the music takes me back. The game being the first entry in the pretty great Shining series is significant IMO, even if the games don’t share a central story or world.

6: Final Fantasy 7

I loved FF7, racking up a saved game of over 100hrs (this was back when 100hrs with a title was something. Now we call that a 3-monther MMO). The graphics were amazing, the story was solid, the videos looked straight out of the future; the game itself is a masterpiece. It holds a special place for me because this title alone is responsible for turning the RPG genre from a niche to a mainstream thing. Suddenly we had tons of options rather than a handful of titles per year, all thanks to FF7.

7: Final Fantasy Tactic

When it comes to turn-based strategy titles, FFT is still my top-rated title. It’s not without flaws, but the strength of this title so far outweigh the flaws that it’s silly. Incredible depth, a serious challenge, a twisting storyline even despite the hit/miss translation, FFT had it all. It’s re-release on the iPhone recently reconfirmed for me how great it is, it’s held up wonderfully.

8: Heroes of Might and Magic 3

Considered the best entry in the series, HoMM3 is a title my friend and I pour a silly amount of time into. A solid single-player experience with amazing multiplayer depth, whether it was co-op vs the AI or going 1v1, featuring great balance amongst the factions and maps. The series has been trying to recreate the HoMM3 experience since, and while HoMM6 was solid, it still wasn’t it.

9: Civilization V

I’ve played every entry in the Civ series since the first, but it wasn’t until Civ V that I become obsessed with mastering the game. A great combination of deep turn based gameplay, historical accuracy, and refined game systems place Civ V high on my list.

10: Streets of Rage

The beat-em-up genre is mostly (completely?) dead now, but back in the day it was huge, and Streets of Rage was my jam. A really fun game whether you played solo or with a buddy, and one of the first games I played to master every boss encounter long past the time when I had initially beat it. The birth of my min-maxing, you might say.

11: World of Warcraft

After UO and EVE, WoW is the most significant MMO for me personally. A lot of this has to do with making friendships with people I still talk to today, raiding buddies who I spent hundreds if not thousands of hours with, carrying god knows how many derps through MC, BWL, AQ40, and beyond. Outside of raiding WoW in the early days had a lot going for it, whether it was leading the masses to victory in AV or raiding alliance towns with the guild and others.

12: Marathon

Another example of a Bungie title being way ahead of its time. As a FPS Marathon was excellent, and many of its mechanics went on to become genre standards. If the title wasn’t Mac-only, I wonder if it would have given Doom a run for its money. IMO it was the better game.

13: League of Legends

I played a lot of DoTA for Warcraft 3, so went into LoL knowing what to expect. But seeing how Riot handled the game, especially in the early years, and reading their forum posts about design hammered home that LoL is DoTA without all its flaws. Furthermore, a lot of the basic concept they explained still apply today, and not just to LoL but to gaming overall. I’m still actively playing the game after all these years, my wife is still addicted to it as well, and it’s the biggest game in the world overall. On top of all that, LoL is the best example of how well the F2P model can work outside of the MMO genre.

14: Syndicate

I played this game only when I was over a friend’s house, but we both loved it. Great atmosphere, great sandboxish design, solid graphics for the time, and the first game I played where you could do interesting stuff like convert a dozen civilians to become a small army, get them into cars, and have them run over other people by accident all until the cars exploded. The AI was good for the time, but because it gave you options, it created a lot of “oh wow that was cool” unscripted moment.

15: Skyrim

I played Morrowind a bit, played a lot of Oblivion, but it wasn’t until Skyrim that I was really looking forward to an ES game, and Skyrim delivered on all fronts. This is the model I want followed when it comes to future single-player sandbox RPGs. I’ve played almost all of its content now, and just the depth and consistence of it all is amazing.

Posted in Bungie Studios, Console Gaming, EVE Online, League of Legends, Random, Ultima Online, World of Warcraft | 14 Comments

DF:UW – Sinspire Cathedral

Posted on March 21, 2014 by SynCaine

Last night our alliance took a trip into the newest dungeon added to DF:UW, Sinspire Cathedral. I’d never been, but had heard good things, so I jumped at the chance to join in. In total we had a full group of 10 players, a mix of warriors, skirms, and primalists, all in top-end gear.

When you first zone in you are placed just outside the Cathedral, and need to cross a bridge to get inside. The Cathedral looks massive, providing a very epic ‘first glance’. As you cross the bridge you really get a sense of how large this place is, and just how many levels it has.

You start fighting mobs in the entry hallway, and you need to clear some easier mobs to spawn a tougher mini-boss. Once that mini-boss is down, doors open on either side allowing you to progress further. We didn’t have much trouble here, working well as a group and with most of us using clubs/hammers (best damage type against undead).

Once those doors open you really start to get a feel for how large Sinspire is, and also its complexity. There are multiple paths to take, most leading you around the outside of the main building, but there are also ramps leading to the three side towers. Most of these areas contain mobs of various difficulty, making it more difficult to really stop for people to catch up. The map also isn’t much help since Sinspire is more vertical than horizontal in layout.

We made our way around (one of our members knew the way) to the next mini-boss, who again opened another door, this time to the back tower. Climbing the long spiral staircase of that tower, and crossing the bridge back over to the main building, we found ourselves just one floor from the top. Here we found the first real boss. It took use a bit to figure out his mechanics, but once we had them down the fight wasn’t overly hard for our group. His loot was pretty great.

Killing that boss opens up the door to the dungeon exit, as well as the climb to the final boss. What’s particularity nasty about Sinspire is that if you can’t defeat that boss, you can’t exit the dungeon without dying and releasing, meaning you leave everything you have on you inside the dungeon. More than one member of our group had experienced that, and some were pretty antsy about going back in only to donate a gear bag.

We killed our way to the final boss, who is inside a large circular room behind a one-way portal. Much like the dungeon itself, the only way out of his room is to kill him or release.

Before the boss rises from his throne, you must first clear a few trash mobs in his room. They are not overly difficult, but do take some time. As you are doing that, the final boss gets up and starts attacking you.

He has a few interesting abilities. First he hits like a truck, so anyone he is focused on must parry up, even warriors in dread armor. He occasionally drops a large totem that has an AoE damage pulse. Not too difficult to bow down, but something to watch out for and switch over to when necessary. His other main ability is a PBAoE that he charges for a short time. If you don’t get out of range, it will likely down you instantly. That ability killed many of us multiple times. Finally, he will walk to the center of the room and channel a pull towards him. The damage the pull does isn’t massive, but anyone caught in it will heal him. We messed this up the first time, with multiple people not moving full out of the area, which resulted in him healing about 40% of his HP (he has a ton, so 40% is very significant).

Because of that heal, we had to fight off respawns during the fight, which combined with an AoE blast that killed a few of us, put downing him into question. However we were able to recover, re-adjust our strategy a bit on the fly, and ultimately kill him. A very cool, and very satisfying fight.

The loot from Sinspire is fantastic. Each boss dropped a lot of gold and resources, and the final boss also drops a key to his chest, resulting in even more top-quality loot.

If the mechanics of the final boss were placed into WoW or a similar themepark, it would be an average encounter due to tab-targeting, lack of friendly fire, and ‘easy’ mechanics like ‘click-to-heal’ abilities. Those things don’t exist in DF, so even bringing down a simple totem with some ranged DPS is a bit more difficult due to your more-limited view, the fact that you can’t hit tab to find the totem, and also because you actually have to aim your arrows as you move and adjust to whatever else is going on. It’s by far the best PvE content AV has produced for Darkfall, and hopefully with some upcoming ‘motivation changes’, more players will get to experience it.

And of course, the PvP would also be pretty unique in that place given the layout and the mobs.

Posted in Darkfall Online | 11 Comments

Reviews vs Facts

Posted on March 19, 2014 by SynCaine

A while ago I had a conversation with someone about reviews. My basic point was that they don’t matter all that much, and that we sometimes think they do because the media that produces and relies on reviews tries to convince us that they do.

I think Metacritic is good for a quick glance, but a score of 82 vs 91 doesn’t tell me much, especially for a niche or ‘acquired taste’ title. If a random gamer reviews Darkfall after 10 hours, I’d expect that review to be fairly negative. Unless of course our random gamer happens to be someone who has been looking for a different take on the MMO genre and is really into exactly what DF does well (combat, competition, etc). Then the review is a ‘hidden gem’ type of deal.

On Steam I’ll often look at the forum of a specific game before I buy it (on sale, usually), but I’m not looking for opinion about details so much as I’m looking for “This game is terrible and lies about having X Y, Z” with 3-4 replies confirming the message. Or “This game is a totally buggy mess”, especially when looking at early access titles. I view those not as someone sharing an opinion, but rather confirming facts.

Most reviews are not about confirming facts, but rather the written opinion of the reviewer. Is the reviewer a gamer in my vein, or is he someone who thought WotLK was a great expansion? Because if it’s the latter, what he hates I might find perfect.

Side note: I think ESO is going to be a review nightmare. On the surface and in the first 8-9 levels, it’s a strange and honestly fairly poor mix of not quite Skyrim, but not quite anything worthwhile as an MMO. But then it really opens up, brings a lot of new stuff to the genre, and does a lot of sneaky-great stuff.

The contrast between ESO and WildStar is of particular note. Many expected WildStar to be the next-step MMO, and have been disappointed, while those same people expected ESO to be a clone title and instead found (assuming they got deep enough) something surprisingly better.

Posted in Darkfall Online, Mass Media, Random, The Elder Scrolls Online, WildStar | 20 Comments

ESO, DF:UW – Sometimes we go looking for something we already have

Posted on March 17, 2014 by SynCaine

This past weekend ESO had another beta weekend, but I wasn’t able to play much as I had issues with the account my highest-level character is on. I did create an Imperial on my purchased account, but beyond that and testing mob collision quickly, I didn’t really play the game.

I did play a lot of Darkfall, as that game has sunk its hooks back into me. Momentum is a powerful force in the MMO genre, and who you play with is, IMO, a bigger ‘content driver’ than the actual content itself.

Quick example: On Saturday a few of us went out on a boat to attempt to kill the Ice Dragon. We failed; his regen offset our dps and we didn’t have enough people, enough arrows, and enough repair shards. One member of the alliance was driven to killing him, so much so that he pulled together the enormous amount of mats to craft the biggest ship currently in the game (a Ship of the Line), had it crafted, and put together a large crew to attempt the dragon again.

This time we were successful, and even though some uniquely Darkfall stuff happened (climbing to the extremely tall crows nests of the ship was the key to success, as at that height you are able to target the dragon with arrows much easier), the fight was overly long and the loot was terrible, so until its buffed we won’t be going again.

So overall not amazing content in terms of effort/reward, but something that entertained 16 people mostly because of those 16 people. If that doesn’t sum up WoW 40 man raiding, you didn’t raid enough. Is there such content in ESO? We’ll find out shortly.

Another comparison; DF:UW isn’t known for its PvE. ESO has a lot of PvE content and that is a major selling point. One of the early complaints about ESO is that the PvE is faceroll easy. Another is the combat lacks a real feeling of impact, and Bethesda has made multiple changes to that area to help fix the problem. I don’t think anyone has ever said PvE in DF lacks impact, nor has anyone called it faceroll easy by MMO standards.

Quick example: Near one of the hamlets our clan owns is a mob spawn with some easier mobs and one terror-level mob. Lately I’ve been making the quick trip out to the spawn to kill the terror. It takes me 2-3 minutes to kill him using full plate (3rd best warrior armor) and a leenspar greatsword (second best weapon). My character is maxed when it comes to spending prowess for a warrior and the related stats. I haven’t died to him yet, but each time I have to kite him a bit, recover hp/stamina, and use my life-leach attack as often as possible.

Beating that mob is harder than anything I’ve done in ESO, and that’s 100% ignoring the fact that at any point someone could come along and jump me at the spawn; something that can’t happen in ESO. In ESO I’d also never consider what gear to bring to kill him, I’m always wearing the best stuff I have. In DF I could wear higher-tier armor/weapons, or lower tier if I felt in greater danger and accepted that killing him would take longer. Also in ESO I’d kill him once and be done Perhaps not major decisions overall, but still decisions to be made vs no decision at all.

Another example: Rynnik and I set out to farm some Black Knights. We both had not completed the feat for them, we both could use the loot they drop overall, and Black Knights specifically drop the item needed to make the gauntlet for the new village requisitioning system. Three birds, one stone.

We recalled to his house as a starting point as it was close to the spawn, and we both set ourselves to Deadeye skirmishers since we were going to kite and bow them down. Rynnik also brought a party strongbox deployable so we could store the loot inside rather than carry it on us.

Things were going well for the first wave. We killed and looted all the knights, stored our loot in the strongbox, and waited for the respawn. About a third of the way into the second wave, a warrior and mage attacked us at the spawn. Initially they fought both of us, but shortly both focused on Rynnik and he ran them away from the spawn. I recovered and Rynnik circled back after losing them. Stupidly we started farming again, and quickly got jumped by those two again. I went down, Rynnik escaped.

I regeared quickly and made my way back to the area, as we hoped they had not found our strongbox and we could at least recover all of our farming loot. As we crept back into the area, we noticed the mage was standing on the nearby hill, and as we continued, we noticed the warrior was just returning. They found our strongbox, and the warrior had gone to get battlespikes to blow it open. As they were focused on opening the strongbox, we gained the high ground and prepared to attack.

I opened with a large AoE that puts a DOT and also slows anyone caught in it, while Rynnik went for more direct damage. The warrior reacted quickly and moved away, but the mage was loot-drunk and had his head inside our now-open strongbox. Taking advantage of this, we put a half-dozen arrows in his back and down he went. We fought the warrior for a bit, but the 2v1, double-skirm vs warrior setup was highly in our favor, and he too went down. He had banked my previous gear set, but in return we got his, the mage’s, and also all the loot from our strongbox. A nice ending to our little PvE adventure.

 

Posted in beta, Combat Systems, Darkfall Online, MMO design, PvP, The Elder Scrolls Online | 8 Comments