Monthly Archive for February, 2007

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Why Do I Do This?

Posted by Zubon on February 11, 2007 in General. 8 Comments

I have re-subscribed to EVE Online, but Empire space palled within a week and I am not ready for (or really interested in) the PvP areas. This may be my last month here ever. But I am religiously making sure that I do not waste skill points, carefully switching skills as appropriate. Why?

On a different front, I have a new little free browser-based game, Rule the Seas. I know that I will tire of this fairly quickly, as I have flirted with a dozen of them. Kingdom of Loathing is the only one I keep going back to. Don’t get me wrong, there are worse things in the world than being a pirate of the high seas in a shallow, text-based world that revolves around soliciting donations and one-click PvP. It will be amusing for a little while, which is about all I can ask. But why is it interesting to click through some levels in these things? I have already done the math to figure out the system, so it is just a matter of making a few clicks every 20 minutes if I want to play.

Do I just want a database somewhere out there to register, “click, Zubon is hereby a slightly cooler guy”?

: Zubon

Hunter Update

Posted by Ethic on February 10, 2007 in World of Warcraft. 7 Comments

wow[World of Warcraft] Since I last left you, our blood elf hunter duo has reached level 21. On the way there, we have had several really fun moments. It’s amazing how much more I am enjoying this game with my wife at my side.

When we were night elf hunters, my wife tamed a ghost saber as a pet when she was level 20. There are these little cat figurines in Darkshore and we kept picking them up. Eventually, a see-thru cat spawned and attacked us. We wondered if we could tame it so we spent another hour trying to get one to spawn. Eventually we did get one trained. Not long after, it dropped dead and we didn’t know what to do. She tried to rez him and it worked. Guess it is some kind of bug, but anyway I digress.

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CCP Comes Clean

Posted by Ethic on February 9, 2007 in EVE Online. 5 Comments

EVE[EVE Online] CCP t20 On Recent Allegations:

As you might have read and heard, there were recently some allegations posted regarding developer misconduct that basically come down to:

* Developers helping (an) alliance(s) gain information they otherwise would not have.
* Developers having an unfair advantage of game mechanics.
* Developers helping themselves acquire goods in-game by means of in-house tools, otherwise not available to regular players.

All allegations mentioned above are untrue, except one. Sadly enough, the allegation regarding unlawfully obtained blueprints are, in my case, true. I’m here, laying out the facts of what happened in June 2006 so this whole issue — which jeopardized my colleagues, my company and our community — can be put behind us, I hope for the better.

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Paying to Beta

Posted by Oz on February 8, 2007 in World of Warcraft. 15 Comments

wow[World of Warcraft] A thread I’ve been following elsewhere references a theme I’ve heard before: the release of unfinished content in an expansion has become acceptable. The poster states that there are several unfinished aspects in WoW’s expansion, The Burning Crusade, and declares that the solution to this problem is that the developers should have made it harder to level so that they had time to fix it, after release.

How has this become modus operandi?

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Should Devs Play Their Own Game?

Posted by Ethic on February 7, 2007 in EVE Online and General. 13 Comments

Recently, in EVE Online, allegations have arisen about the possibility that the most powerful alliance in the game had gained benefits due to having several CCP employees playing in their various corporations. The accusations revolved around things such as finding out about events ahead of time, getting valuable items handed over to the corporations, and gaining inside information that might help advance a war against another alliance.

CCP has investigated these claims and so far has only admitted to having employee characters in many alliances and since they have now been “outed”, they will be removed from the game (or maybe just revised to have a different name and corp history – my thoughts only, not something CCP said they would do).

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PVP is Grief Play

Posted by Ethic on February 7, 2007 in EVE Online. 23 Comments

EVE[EVE Online] My subscription has run out and I think I’m done playing EVE Online for good. War between large alliances has shown me some things about pure PVP games, things I don’t care for. Is PVP in it’s true form nothing short of grief play? At least in EVE, I say yes it is.

In EVE, it seems the best way to win a war is to try and ruin the fun of the game for your opponent. Smack them on the public forums, get spies into their alliance so you can post private forum threads on the public forums, steal their stuff, shut off their player-owned stations from within, and do everything you can to demoralize them. In short, make them want to quit playing the game. In a game that supports these play styles, expect nothing less.

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This probably applies to MMOs, too

Posted by Zubon on February 6, 2007 in General. 2 Comments

A judge has ruled that Dungeons and Dragons books are not necessary to the practice of religion. What exactly is it that WoW priests are priests of?

: Zubon

Back In EVE

Posted by Zubon on February 4, 2007 in EVE Online. 6 Comments

EVE[EVE Online] I re-subscribed to EVE Online for a month, and as is usually the case, the game has changed quite a bit since I was last here. This time, the boxes of candy from exploding ships have turned into “wrecks,” so I apparently need a salvaging skill to get what I previously got. Is that correct? [edit: no, just first day bad luck with wrecks] Any reason for this, or just a skill point sink? My warping seems to have changed, too. No more of that 10km-off warping?

I have been away for about six months. Any other big changes that will affect me in low-level play?

: Zubon

Update: Funny thing is, I did not realize that I was re-subscribing after a major patch. I expect that I will show up in their data mining as someone who returned in the buzz about Revelations, but I had not heard of it before updating.

Wave of Spam

Posted by Zubon on February 3, 2007 in General. 2 Comments

I spent a while this morning deleting a wave of comments offering links to sites that seemed just a bit off topic. If you want to tell us about your sales on roses, wonderful trip options, “pornucopia,” or indeed any of a variety of porn sites that apparently consider themselves MMO-related, please just e-mail us directly.

Thank you for your support.

: Zubon

Update: and then I realize, oh wait, hundreds of people a day already e-mail me these offers directly.

I Beat You Because I Love You

Posted by Zubon on February 1, 2007 in General. 6 Comments

I avoid mentioning some games because I am scared that people will try them. Can we just forget that Horizons exists, or that lawyer from Florida who shall not be named? If the game is irredeemable dreck, there is no point in discussing its problems.

At my book blog, I note that I give some of the longest, harshest reviews to books that get the next-to-best rating. When you really enjoy something, it is infuriating that there are just a few problems that keep joy from being perfected. Just fix these few things, and I can abandon all else to exult in your creation. The sheer excellence of the surrounding material is what makes the problems stand out so much.

Our complaints about games are usually signs that we like those games. Bugs, queues, and crashes are upsetting because they stand between us and the fun that we know to lie just beyond them. The details bug us because they distort what is otherwise a great design. The pettiness of the problem even makes it worse, since you can see how little it would take to fix it; you must be patient with big projects, but can someone take the five minutes to clear up this one annoying thing that is driving me insane?

: Zubon