When not simply whining, many forum posters are engaged in a subtle but effective political tactic: hurting themselves in a way that hurts others more. If I can make it 5% harder for me to win and 10% harder for you to win, I make it easier on myself while making it sound like I am arguing against my own interest. I get to take the moral high ground, screw you over, and win: a trifecta!
You frequently see this in real life business and politics. Understanding how the game is like the economy can shed light on both.
Continue reading ‘Hurt Yourself to Hurt Others’
[EVE Online] You may remember my post, bragging if you will, about the alliance I belong to producing the first Titan-class ship to the game (at least officially announced). Well now we can also claim to have had the first Titan (named Steve by the way) destroyed. Yeah, that kind of sucks.
The pilot, also the CEO of the alliance, was not at the controls when it happened. How that situation came about, there are many rumors. Only one person knows for sure and he said his computer crashed and could not get back online. No matter what happened, the Band of Brothers alliance found it and destroyed it. Well over 100 billion ISK gone. To make matters worse, the CEO was so upset by the whole event that he decided to step down from the alliance and maybe even the game. Can’t say that I blame him. The Titan cost more than most people in EVE will ever make in their whole time playing.
Continue reading ‘The End Of Steve’
Because n3rfed teaches us things I have not seen elsewhere, I pass along
THE LINK
without comment.
: Zubon
These are interesting to consider. Rock beats scissors beats paper beats rock, but two rocks beat two papers beat two scissors beat two rocks. That can take a moment to get your head around.
Is this a common or desirable PvP structure? PvP is frequently balanced as some form of rock-paper-scissors, and we often discuss whether it is balanced for group or solo play, but I have never heard discussion of interaction between the two. I have certainly seen it in PvE. A City of Heroes Scrapper solos much better than a Defender, but two Defenders can take out Archvillains handily.
Let’s phrase that differently: two support characters support each other but are very weak alone, while two strong solo builds do not gain much from playing alongside one another. Okay, we knew that one already. And then there’s my friend Adam, who makes dominating solo characters that excel in groups. Bastard.
: Zubon
I guess you could say it was a balance issue, but it depends on your viewpoint. To me, it was basic math gone wrong.
As announced on the WoW forums here, players are getting their honor downgraded by 30%. Apparently the massive surge of people with HWL/GM PvP gear got a bit of attention. I know there’s a good amount players in my guild with 4 or so pieces already, and one completely done, I believe.
I may be jaded, but I can’t help but think of the many times this has happened with insert_random_mmorpg_here. A bit more testing, or a bit quicker action would have prevented the fun the forums will have with this.
On the good side, maybe this means the queue to get in will be reduced? Muhahaha.
Way back when I was but a lad, there was this movie with fairly tacky special effects (for the time even) but a decent story called The Neverending Story. I reallywasn’t a fan of the movie, but what I remember most about the movie was the amulet the main character had, an ouroboros. For those not up on ancient greek, it’s a snake eating it’s own tail. I always thought it was a cool image. It’s also a fairly popular image/metaphor in your average ancient fable. Not sure why…perhaps the local Fable Outlet didn’t stock many plot elements.
Where was I? Oh ya, WoW eating it’s own tail… Full circle. Good grief have you tried to log on recently?
Continue reading ‘Ouroboros, WoW style’
Raids are dropping in World of Warcraft, right? I started to post about the economics of the expansion pack, but then I realized that I don’t actually know anything about it. The bits I do know are level 70, Blood Elves and Dranei, and Horde Paladins/Alliance Shamans. From this, I divine that raids should have become far less common over the past month and will continue to fall over the next month.
Am I completely wrong about that? I could easily be, since if I reversed one assumption, I would expect the number of raids to be skyrocketing.
Continue reading ‘Supply, Demand, Expectations, and Raiding’
