Three truths have become false this week:
1) I hold a very principled stance firmly against the Micro Transaction based MMO business model. It is the root of all MMO evil et. cetera…
2) I have played DDO, and it sucks. It was crappy in Beta and it never improved. Poor implementation of some decent concepts, coupled with extensive poor choices for the balance of the design, resulted in an overall dry and uninspired game with little good to write about and quite a bit bad. DDO is doomed to fail, and will never recover. Period. De Facto and all that…
3) I have become so disillusioned with MMOs in general, and the diku model in particular, that I am doomed to watch reruns of Two and a Half Men and Mash for the rest of my life. Until I die. Old and bored…
Continue reading ‘Three Truths…’
I am addicted to Dungeons and Dragons Online. There, I said it. Even with Siege of Mirkwood just having launched, I want to play more quick hits of Dungeons and Dragons Online. Last night I chose to spend the 20 minutes I had to murder a tribe of kobolds rather than log in to Lord of the Rings Online for a skirmish or so. For me, that’s the beauty of Dungeons and Dragons Online: quick flavorful bites of MMO play.
Continue reading ‘Dungeon Love’
I unsubscribed to Dungeon and Dragons Online today. I really only subscribed to get the 1000 points, which was all I needed to buy the 32 point build. Now I have a dual-wielding khopesh paladin, and all is well. They will still get my money in non-monthly ways. The breakup was easy. Logged in to the master account. Do you want to unsubscribe? Are you sure? Done. If you want to help us with an exit survey, that’d be swell. I almost had to search to find that last sentence it was so inconspicuous. The relationship we had wasn’t working, but the breakup was clean enough to tell me we could still go have a beer once in awhile.
The so-called number 1 MMO was a different story. She started crying, showing me cute and “memorable” pictures of stuff we might have shared. I had to scroll through her sob story of how she might change for me, and then she begged for help. All I could say while wishing my friend would call now telling me my Aunt died was “it’s not you, it’s me.” By the time I got away I was embarrassed for her. Would I have to go through this every time I wanted to hang out with her?
Like Dan Savage, I seek to employ the campsite rule outside of… well, campsites. I want to constructively tell the devs why I am leaving because it can only benefit everybody. But, when I am being paintballed with marketing cowdung my constructive thoughts go right out the window. On the other hand, when it is clear the company respects my time and money, I will actively seek out the feedback link.
–Ravious
put a leash on her, turkish
I’ve talked before about how subscriptions can be seen as a form of investing. There are plenty of people that keep parking-lot subscriptions to games like World of Warcraft, where the monthly rent is paid but the car is never moved. I’ve been playing a lot of Dungeons and Dragons Online lately, and while I am not ready to give my full impressions (favorable as they may be), I did want to discuss an interesting point to their business model. Continue reading ‘Shareholder Subscription’
When I play games I often rank them by tempo rather than genre. Hypertempo games, like Team Fortress 2 or Left 4 Dead, require a lot of energy and give a lot of excitement in return. Slower games such as Civilization 4 or a tower defense give me a slow, entertaining beat. MMOs have their own rhythm as well, and last night I filled a much needed missing tempo in my MMO library.
Lord of the Rings Online in itself has multiple tempos, at which I can play. There is the calm steady beat of solo questing, the more demanding march of group instances, and even crafting affects the whole symphony with a coda of rest. Still, Lord of the Rings Online is missing many tempos that are crucial to my well-rounded gameplay. The combat is sometimes too rhythmic, even in group instances. The game can feel like an If/Then line dance, where agro, healing, placement, and killing are all just part of any veteran’s action equation. I felt this lack deep in my soul last night after playing for countless hours over the weekend.
I still wanted to play an MMO, but I needed a more aggressive rhythm. One filled with staccato notes and out of control riffs rather than a steady Bolero. I found Dungeons and Dragons Online. Continue reading ‘The Turbine Two-Step’
Dungeons and Dragons Online™: Eberron Unlimited™ is now available to play, for free (in the US).
Go give it a try here.
- Ethic
This is relevant to my interests. I liked Dungeons and Dragons Online enough, but like so many other MMOs, it was just not worth the subscription to me. Now Turbine is offering a new business model that seems to borrow a lot from Wizards101, which is a fantastic thing. My favorite business model is by far the “buy content packs” that Guild Wars, Wizards101, and lifetime Lord of the Rings Online players have. It seems that Turbine will offer “convenience items” as well, but they are quick to premptively reply that the best items come from playing. I am not as happy about “convenience items,” but I see it as a necessary evil when converting a subscription-based game in to a “buy content packs” type of game. Can’t stop progress.
–Ravious
j’ai creusé la terre, j’ai découpé la lune
My copies are still in the mail, but I had a chance to read someone else’s. Once I have time to read in-depth, I will have reviews at the book site, but I wanted to post some metagame thoughts. That is, while I have not played 4th Edition, there are many things to be said about the direction the rules have taken and how 4th Edition will work as a product line.
Continue reading ‘PnP Ponderings: D&D 4th Edition Launches’
Are you ready for this weekend’s D&D 4th Edition release? I have high expectations. Which is to say that I have high standards, with hopes that they will be met. (High standards, hah, look at what we play online.)
My favorite promo is the gnome’s movement to the Monster Manual. He and Francis are adorable. He is very polite to share the stage with that horned upstart. You can see the change in the vision of the gnome. While 3rd Edition and WoW both took Dragonlance’s tinker gnomes and ran with them, 4th is returning to the 2nd Edition forest gnomes and running past them into fey.
Penny Arcade and PvP Online have a podcast series going to introduce you (and them). You get the fun mix of the Wizards of the Coast professional, long-term player, long-ago player, and complete newb. The first podcast focuses on introducing rules and picking names. If you flip to 3:09-3:19, you can hear the prospects of “Jim Darkmagic” and “Chet Awesomelaser.” The module introduction is a bit more narrative than I am used to from DMs. They resisted the urge to say, “I double-click on the NPC to get the quest.”
: Zubon
