I was listening to Michael Munger’s podcast on price-gouging last week, and it reminded me of the price of silver in Middle Earth. “The only way you get low prices is by letting people charge high prices.”
Silver is a bottleneck for jewelers. There are two types of metal nodes at each crafting tier, and silver is the less common one in tier 2. If you want to advance a jeweler, you make a lot of silver jewelry or polish a double-lot of gems. As a tier 2 resource, it is where the level 15-20 folks hang out, not the level-capped masses. Because it is a less common resource with relatively few people collecting it, price is high. It was selling for higher prices than ancient silver, the tier 5 (top-level) jeweler metal (which was just made more common).
Continue reading ‘Prices as Signals’
Star Wars: Galaxies turns 5 years old today. Happy Birthday!
June 17, 2003 – LucasArts and Sony Online Entertainment Inc. today announced Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided, the highly anticipated initial installment of the first Star Wars massively multiplayer online (MMO) game series, will release June 26, 2003. The Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided online fan community now exceeds more than 500,000 registered members.
“After three years of intense development, we’re thrilled by the imminent release of Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided,” says John Smedley, president, Sony Online Entertainment. “We’re honored that LucasArts felt only Sony Online had the right combination of technical know-how and game design skills to produce a game of this scope. The Star Wars Galaxies team has been working non-stop to deliver a product that lives up both to the stature of the Star Wars license and the expectations that LucasArts had set for us.”
- Ethic
Akela Talamasca at Massively posted today about why he enjoys soloing through his favorite MMOs. This is something that I find myself enjoying as well and I’d like to share a few more reasons why it can be fun.
Akela lists his reasons as such:
Feeling of being a hero, not a nameless part of a team.
Inability to trust other players.
Time management.
For my situation, the first two certainly apply. I enjoy being the star of the show and I detest when other players lower my enjoyment of a game. Time management isn’t a big concern for me, as I tend to be the one scheduling the guild events and trying to get everyone together.
Continue reading ‘Why I Play Multiplayer Games By Myself’
When I posted about barbarians at the gates last month, I did not expect the most famous one in English literature to appear in response. As it turns out, the upcoming Age of Conan has exactly what I was looking for, including PvE and PvP city-building and -defense that integrates crafting and has various sizes for big and small guilds. Ask, and the internet delivers.
My thanks to our commenters who pointed out my ignorance and cited other games doing something along these lines. Please consider this your report-out on games that have aspects of player-run, -built, or -defended cities. Add more to the comments if you think of any.
Continue reading ‘Guardians at the Gates 1′
Star Wars: Galaxies still sucks. Film at 11.
Really, all they have accomplished here is to chase away all the people willing to play that horrible excuse for a game. I gave it some decent play time, ignoring the bugs, and still could not really find any enjoyment. It is an improvement in my opinion, but not enough.
These changes may encourage some previous players to try it out for a month and many of the current players will stick around (just how much grief can you do to these people before they finally quit?) but I just don’t see any possibility of drawing in brand new players. It ain’t going to happen. The writing is on the wall my friends, the game is doomed.
- Ethic
[Star Wars: Galaxies] I wanted to experience the “radical” new changes in Star Wars: Galaxies first hand, so I decided to reactivate my account and reinstall the game. They have the New Game Enhancements (NGE) live on the Test Center so I figured I’d give it a try.
First up, reinstallation. My DVD burner started getting flaky recently so I could not install the game. I ran a laser lens cleaner for about an hour and it seemed to get a little better. Tried to install again, no dice. Spent an hour digging in my computer parts bins in the basement and finally I found a spare CD drive. Installed that and finally I got the game installed. Patch time, one more hour. Installed Test Center copy, one more hour.
Continue reading ‘SWG:NGE First Impressions’
[Star Wars: Galaxies] Check this out:
Greetings Star Wars Galaxies Players, Fans, and Other Denizens of the Galaxy:
My name is Julio Torres and I am the Producer on Star Wars Galaxies for LucasArts. We wanted you, the great members of the Galaxies community, to be the first to hear some exciting news about the current and future plans for Star Wars Galaxies!
Continue reading ‘SWG: Major Overhaul’
At $21.99 per month, this is a pretty damned good deal if you like a few of these games.
After Feb. 1, 2005, Star Wars Galaxies will join the already available line-up of titles offered under the Station Access subscription plan, which includes the original EverQuest, the recently released EverQuest II, PlanetSide, EverQuest Online Adventures for the PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system, EverQuest for the Macintosh and the three Station Pass games, Cosmic Rift, Infantry and Tanarus.