I got over this annoyance all at once. Suddenly, it did not matter, so the story could live in the moment. Whatever continuity baggage it may have acquired, your favorite version of Blue Beetle or Supergirl, whatever — you have the story in front of you, and it stands or falls on its own. Every character is now an alternate character interpretation. Everything you like or hate will be reset in a few years anyway, so it does not matter which DC universe this is. The characters may be sixty years old, but they only “exist” in the present.

This is our gaming world. Games start and they end. There is a meta-game about which League of Legends champion is overpowered or how your favorite sports team will do in the next draft, but the game and the season in front of you are what matter. You have one hour to build from nothing to a satisfying conclusion.

And, behind the veil, this is our MMO gaming world. You will come and go, and nothing you do will have mattered except to the people who experienced it. We have the illusion of persistence, but you will quit playing, just like any other game; servers will shut down and everything will be erased, just like any other game. Within your lifetime, the computer environment that ran these games will need to be emulated, because no existing computer will run your MMO without more effort than goes into playing a game off a 5.25″ floppy on your laptop. Someone will have an EQ progression server set up, and others will view them like Civil War re-enactors.

Of course what you lose in this iteration is the ability to tell several categories of meaningful or significant stories. DC’s “Cry For Justice” series, for example, was driven by the death of a major character. The person leading the “Cry” had come just back from the dead, and pretty much everyone else in the room had as well, some of them in the last year. When the Flash ran himself out of existence fighting the original Crisis on Infinite Earths, that was a powerful moment; you cannot repeat it with a half-dozen other Flashes, and it retroactively cheapens it when you resurrect the sacrificed. GW Eye of the North has a story arc that ends with a death that would be much more compelling if the son giving the eulogy had not died five times in the mission leading up to that cinematic.

: Zubon

Shedding the Illusion is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

: Zubon

I’ll pick up the PC version at some point.

Lost in the Sandbox is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

The single-player version adds a little persistence: keep one occupation per game (and try to beat a higher score), so you become quite the renaissance person although your minor improvements go away.

Or maybe that’s just my having spent too much time with trade skills in-game. There is something satisfying about the stately simplicity of virtual farming, which I suppose explains part of the success of Zynga.

: Zubon

Useful Agricola resource: common mistakes. I am gratified to see that I was making only one, and minor at that.

The Illusion of Persistence is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

One reason I like MMOs, is I know that I am a guest from the outset. I don’t own anything in the game. It seems to make things clearer, yet the war over virtual items bound by a license as property is becoming ever more prominent. If virtual items were seen as “owned property” the liability of the MMO developer could be on the bankruptcy level. Niche MMO games could cease to exist overnight at the thought of owing someone thousands of dollars because of a server glitch.

Massively commented that in a criminal case the Dutch Supreme Court decided that Runescape virtual items were in fact “goods” which could be stolen. It is very important to note that Runescape was not a party in the criminal case (although they may have submitted an amicus curiae to the court). I am not happy with this ruling. I would have preferred that the Dutch Supreme Court hung their hat on the thieves affecting the use of the license. A license is property, and just like me stealing the seats in your car, if I can affect the enjoyment of your license there can be criminal and civil consequences.

The coming of Diablo 3 is also one of great interest on this front. Whereas with, for example, EVE Online, where one can use money to buy PLEX to sell for ISK to buy a ship, in Diablo 3 I could theoretically buy someone’s sword for straight up cash. It moves the Dutch thought of “time and energy to acquire” equals property and bring its right back to money to acquire equals property. At the very least the Dutch defendants could not have claimed Diablo 3 items had no tangible value. The cash-driven auction house already been dropped as a feature in the Korean release of Diablo 3, apparently.

It will be interesting to see if any game licensers, MMO or otherwise, change their EULA’s and business practices within the Netherlands based on this ruling. Once Diablo 3 launches it could really redraw the lines in the sand as well.

–Ravious

Virtual Property Lines in the Sand is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

: Zubon

[GW] Blood From a Stone is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

I love my time in Guild Wars, and I love that ArenaNet thought to honor the players in the sequel. I don’t believe we will be getting any “pay-2-win”-type rewards, but it will be neat stuff. Everybody must want an Orrian baby chicken, right? Yet, the chicken is part of the new hotness. The few items that strongly remind me of the original Guild Wars are the Fellblade, Fiery Dragon Sword, Black Moa, and Black Widow Spider, and a scattering of others are reminiscent of my time there. I know that the Wayward Wand and Ice Breaker are in the original game, but they just don’t hold that this-is-Guild-Wars tone.

The history I am going to miss the most are the holiday masks and costumes. They represent a piece of my gaming history and the Guild Wars history in a way that seems deeper than a weapon or pet. I daresay that in Guild Wars, the armor of my character was more meaningful than any weapon I wielded. The weapons and pets seemed so disposable by comparison.

The costumes especially resonate because they were artistic offerings from ArenaNet. The costumes were not meant to be as utilitarian as armor. They were pieces of art. A bit for the collectors. They felt like treasures. The ArenaNet artists took the time to distill all of the essence of some bit of Guild Wars history, and they painstakingly turned it into a costume. Rarely are dev teams allowed to create such artifacts after the dust has settled. It is pretty special when they do.

Sadly, as far as I know, my costumes are going to miss the Hall of Monuments ark. They probably won’t be in Guild Wars 2 as costumes, given the different modeling technologies. If they counted towards Hall of Monuments points, the fan rage would hold us well until launch. It feels like one of my favorite parts of Guild Wars will pass on when I start playing Guild Wars 2. All the Kodak Moments of my, my costumes, and the epic scenery won’t compare to the in-game model, and I am pretty sure I won’t have it in me to load up Guild Wars just to sadly pass the time holding my costumes.

I wish that perhaps my costumes could at least be exhibited in the museum-type instance for the Hall of Monuments. I go there to pick up another undead chicklet, and I see the amazing art I added to my old collection in the new game. Stories of Guild Wars would echo from the set pieces. It’d be good motivation to fill a bit more of my costume collection too. I am sure that eventually the new armor telling tale of vanquishing foes in the Guild Wars 2 dungeons, and new costumes available will push thoughts of old Guild Wars costumes back to the attic. I am just not ready to let go yet.

–Ravious

[GW2] Unicorn Costumes is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Our friends at Language Log define “nerdview” as “writing in technical terms from the perspective of the technician or engineer rather than from a standpoint that would seem useful to the customer or reader.” This is probably their best example, while our friends at Popehat present this gem that looks incomprehensible, becomes clearer through the comments, and then becomes fully comprehensible but completely useless after an informed commenter explains that the somewhat-reasonable explanation is not the true one (assuming he did not make that up).

In gaming, we might call this newbie-(un)friendliness. This has been a theme in the recent Guild Wars posts, both about the game and the community: the explanations of what to do assume that you know what you are doing. The developer or experienced player may have great difficulty dialing his knowledge back to the newbie, and then there are tiers of newbie because some people are completely new to the genre and some have experience with similar games, and then the experienced players need to unlearn what they have learned elsewhere.

Some games and communities do this intentionally. Developers usually would prefer more customers, but some like to keep their community small. Some players just don’t like to bother with newbies and want to keep casuals, trolls, etc. out. It is a form of initiation or hazing: if you are not willing to put up with X, we do not want you here. The original A Tale in the Desert was an accidental example (great community, strongly self-selecting), and I don’t know if Dwarf Fortress is intentionally that hard to get started on. Rogue-likes tend to like to have a painful introduction. Or, as was said about D&D as it left 2nd Edition, “THAC0 kept the riff-raff out.”

: Zubon

Nerdview is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

I started a Ranger in the Nightfall campaign. I picked up Monk as a secondary profession, but given how I’m playing, I think I’ll switch that to Mesmer at the first opportunity. (Monk/Elementalist alt?) I am up to three hero companions, one of which I don’t have much use for yet (the suicidal Dervish), but this works nicely, bringing along my own tank and healer. I have not yet grouped with anyone.

Most of what I am doing I would consider “grinding” in another game. Either Guild Wars does not have that feel (at low levels; I can see how maxing titles gets grindy) or the low levels always feel like something new and shiny. I take my small band into an explorable area, we clear a quest or two, I attack suspicious groups with a Sunspear bounty on them, and I warp back to see what collectibles I have in my inventory. I have been playing in roughly one-hour bursts, which feels like a good little rampage through a zone.

I don’t feel like I am to the “real game” yet, but this is a pleasant interlude. Annoyance with “the real game starts at 80″ hastened my departure from World of Warcraft, but here I am looking forward to horizontal progression. I do not see level 20 as jumping onto a new treadmill between gear resets. A short leveling curve with scattered goals feels like a nice mix of theme park and sandbox (right now), and it makes me concerned about the level 80 cap in Guild Wars 2. It should be easy to hit level 20 with a month of casual play, unless this leveling curve gets much steeper. I get to see the cap as “opening everything up,” kind of like City of Heroes without the altoholism.

I don’t have many Ranger skills, and I have not felt compelled to buy them all at the trainer. I have enough to fill a bar, plus more options than I need. That’s sufficient. I recall fondly the Van Hemlock series on “here’s my new skill combination this week,” so I am looking forward to seeing what I can do with my different abilities at some point. Until then, I am not using many. I have an idea of how this trap should work, but I don’t really know how it does, and most of the enemies are up with the tank anyway. I don’t have a use for these stances yet, and I am rarely excited about short-duration buffs.

The tutorial had the basics of play, which are pretty much what I am using. I presume that I’ll need some quality time with the wiki if I want to maximize my character or even understand much of what is going on.

I’m building up a small stock of insect legs, copper shillings, and such. I don’t presume that these will be useful at the level cap, but I am holding onto them until I do that wiki research. There are many collectors about.

My hero companions may need some advanced “don’t stand in the fire” training, along with “don’t repeatedly run back and forth in the jet of flame” training. I didn’t see that on the hero skill trainer.

I have a playful flamingo pet. As I understand it, flamingos fight just as well as wolves or warthogs. It likes to stand in my torso during cut-scenes, which is amusingly dadaist.

The main thing I like about the lack of subscription fee is that it gives me more trust in the developers. They have no incentive to drag out the leveling game and add grinds and treadmills. I presume there are some to come, added in response to player demands. I’m not worried about bad things that have been added to the game to get you to pay to remove them.

I enjoy the lack of mob respawn (until you zone). One of the reasons it does not feel like grinding is that I cannot farm a single spawn endlessly. I could actually wipe out all the monsters in a zone. Granted, it will reset when I zone rather than 60 seconds later, but you can have a (false) sense of progress.

Is there a button for putting names over NPC heads? In town, that would be helpful for finding out who is a merchant without mousing-over everyone. (Commenter says: hold Alt. It works!)

I can suspect how things might pall with repetition. The first few zones have a small set of enemy types, and I am using a small skill set. Then again, despite being around level 10 of 20, I have only explored a small percentage of the map and have most of the plot ahead of me. There must be much more to see and do, to say nothing of multiple expansions.

Is there much guild warring going on? I haven’t seen much evidence. Pre-release, I was expecting GW to be a heavily PvP-focused game, but I haven’t seen much about that over the years.

Have bow and flamingo will travel.

: Zubon

Coming Late to Early Guild Wars is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
— Carl Sagan

: Zubon

The Steam event also gives them a chance to exemplify my recurring theme of “don’t make achievements that reward people for seeking out the worst parts of your game.”

Hipster is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

: Zubon

Related. Closely related, thanks Winged Nazgul.

Voices In My Head is a post from: Kill Ten Rats