Author: Zubon

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Промоакции для игроков не только в шутерах — воспользуйся промокодом Vavada от наших партнеров и получи бонусы, которые подарят азарт и атмосферу, сравнимую с игровыми победами.

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First-Best, Second-Best

Have you ever noticed that Plan A and Plan B look nothing alike? If my wife cannot have cannelloni with spicy chicken soup, her second choice will be a chicken-kabob pita with fries, and #3 is sweet and sour chicken with garlic bread. The only common link here is chicken.

All the points between A and B may be worse than either A or B. You cannot make a Prius from an Escalade by gradual degrees, nor can you stop halfway through making peanut butter cookies and switch to chocolate cake. Well, you can, but it pretty much means throwing everything away and starting over. You cannot build EVE Online out of Auto Assault.

Yesterday’s discussion was about a patch to Everquest 2. If we could have an ideal crafting system, it would probably look something like this crossed with this. That’s Plan A. If you can build that as your system from the start or have the luxury of re-doing your entire crafting system (and figuring out what to do with current crafters), fabulous. Please tell me how I can work for you or play your game.

Plan B involves going to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time. Given existing problems, doing something silly that moves you further away from Plan A can improve things. If nothing else, it is something you can do right now while working on that complete overhaul in the long run. We can see the duct tape, but it will hold until we can get a replacement.

Is it silly that bikinis cover plate mail? Yes. Do you have a better solution for customizing appearances that does not involve an entirely new system of itemization?

: Zubon

Decorative Armor

Cameron of Random Battle tells us that EQ2 will allow you to wear purely decorative armor, replacing the graphics (but not stats) of the armor you would normally wear. Go for the best stats, but cover it with your favorite look.

Awesome. I am also looking forward to Chronicles of Spellborn’s plan to decouple appearance from stats in equipment. Of course, I am spoiled by City of Heroes, where you can pick your look at any time (but half the powers hide it anyway).

If you are committed to the standard loot-centric model, this is a nice way to work around having everyone look the same. I wonder if it applies to weapons; I have this image of someone using a very fast weapon but showing a huge slow one, so it does the giant hammer swing at lightning dagger speed.

: Zubon

Duel the Dew

As you may have noticed, Ctrl+Alt+Del and Penny Arcade are both mocking the Game Fuel commercial today. Apparently that advertising works, in the sense of getting people to talk about it, since here we are… oh, and those comics that are way more popular than we are.

Previous mockery via GU Comics and how many others have hit an easy target? Is the soda any good? I am tempted by a few positive comments, but the marketing turns me off.

: Zubon

Launch Recovery

Reading some words about Vanguard, I wondered how many of us form an impression of a game/company at launch and rarely look back. Is there any conceivable chain of events that would lead to my paying for Horizons? I am surprised that I gave Asheron’s Call 2 a shot.

The games can be entirely different a couple of years later, with few or none of the original developers or producers still on the project. They may have fixed all the old bugs and put in great new content, but I just see World War II Online… wait, let’s try a longer one with lots of swearing: World War II Online. A failed game launch is like a failed shuttle launch: all I see is a fiery explosion, and I don’t want to be the next passenger after you have duct-taped it together.

: Zubon

I hear WWII Online is doing better these days.

Google Ten Rats

Ethic recently gave me access to Google Analytics for the site, so like anyone with a new toy, I have been checking it compulsively. I have explanations for some of the things that confuse me. I presume we have a great many The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢ fans out there, since those are the posts getting a lot of hits and comments, as well as four of the top ten search terms used to reach the site.

I must ask our readers one thing though: “cybercat atitd” is our #2 search term. We had five hits from it yesterday. Is there something I really don’t know here? Maybe someone has been using it as a Googlewhack, and here I go ruining it by using the words in a new post. Using it as a fake referrer link? Please, someone fess up and explain this one to me.

: Zubon

Hindsight Bias

“A recent survey of 6,407 players of ‘Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games’ (MMORPGs) such as World of Warcraft and Everquest found that 63% of hours in-game are spent in groups.” Well duh, thank you for discovering that playing online is a social activity. With all the raiding and forced grouping, and standing around waiting for the group to get its act together, it is surprising that the number was that low. Remember, one hour in a group of five means five hours grouped, so you need five solo players to balance that out, and a duo is still a group.

Wait, no, sorry, I wrote that backwards. “A recent survey of 6,407 players of ‘Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games’ (MMORPGs) such as World of Warcraft and Everquest found that 63% of hours in-game are spent alone.” Thank you captain obvious, of course we spend a lot of time soloing. All the new MMOs are more solo friendly, especially at the lower levels, and World of Warcraft is the biggest of them all. Sure, we hardcore people spend a lot of time raiding, but the teeming hordes of casual players will never see level 70 and will not be part of a raiding guild. With all the time we spend traveling, crafting, farming, or standing at the auction house, it is a wonder the number was that low.

Wait, sorry, my bad again, I made the whole thing up. What I read was a study of speed dating results, which was reported as “men like attractive women.” You were probably wondering about those loud cries of “Duh!” last week. A great deal of research is received this way because all possible results, even mutually exclusive ones, are taken as intuitively obvious. “A new study shows that absence makes the heart grow fonder”: duh! “A new study shows that out of sight really is out of mind”: duh!

Wait one last time, one of a set of mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive options must be true. People play more in groups, solo more, or the division is exactly even. Was the answer obvious after reading the first paragraph? The second? Now? If I told you that the 63% number was accurate and came from a working paper that is circulating via e-mail, could you tell me which version is correct?

: Zubon