Archive for the 'Warhammer Online' Category

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Reverse Collector’s Edition

Posted by Ravious on April 19, 2010 in Guild Wars, Warhammer Online and World of Warcraft. 17 Comments

Like any good subject, Blizzard’s latest online purchase for World of Warcraft, the Celestial Steed (i.e., the Sparklepony) created a lot of back and forth commentary around the blogosphere.  Thankfully, some clarity poked through the clouds.  Guild Wars also released another buyable costume set for the War in Kryta chapter of Guild Wars Beyond.  Parallel discussions of item-worth, self-worth, happiness, and greed occurred on all affected forums.

Yet, when a collector’s edition for an untried, over-hyped (read: untrue) MMO drops for $30 more than the commoner’s edition, there is barely a peep.  It seems that collector’s editions can contain nearly any in-game bonus, and unless it provides game breaking balance issues, the bonuses are merely seen as value added to the collector’s edition.

Continue reading ‘Reverse Collector’s Edition’

Character Gender

Posted by Zubon on March 30, 2010 in General and Warhammer Online. 38 Comments

In my experience, and I think the research agrees, male players are more likely to play female characters than vice versa. There is fun speculation about why that is.

The usual in-game reason is a perceived ease in getting assistance, attention, or gifts. A favorite sociological explanation is that our culture treats maleness as the norm, so women already know how all that works but men have this whole alien, Other realm to explore. My wife sticks with female characters because they have more pretty options, while many male options are intentionally and aggressively ugly. Many (heterosexual male) hardcore gamers have decided that, if they are going to be staring at someone’s backside for 40+ hours a week, it might as well be a shapely female backside. And then there’s this guy I know who is a mostly male-oriented bisexual and is married to a woman; his Second Life avatar is female so he can have virtual sex with men and relieve real life pressure.

Personally, I tend to have a balanced stable of characters. Continue reading ‘Character Gender’

Early, Middle, Late

Posted by Zubon on March 19, 2010 in A Tale in the Desert, Age of Conan, Asheron's Call, Champions Online, Chronicles of Spellborn, City of Heroes/Villains, Dark Age of Camelot, Darkfall Online, EVE Online, General, Lord of the Rings Online, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Warhammer Online, Wizard101 and World of Warcraft. 13 Comments

For a game that depends on a stream of income from subscribers or RMT shoppers, the first hour of play must be the top development priority. This is where you hook players. After that, the endgame is important because that is where your players will be spending time indefinitely and where your game’s chatter will come from in the long run. Next is the early game, when you build momentum. The mid-game has already fallen this far down the list, as you have certainly seen in a lot of MMOs, and frankly few care much how good the late-game is because they are already fully committed and racing for the end-game.

I stand by my repeated claim that optimizing the new player experience is of paramount importance. You must grab my attention within five minutes, and you must deliver a satisfying hour or two for my first play session. Without that, any free trial is worthless, and you may even lose some people who have thrown down $50 for a box. This is the part of the game that every single player will see on every single character, and if you cannot do a good job here, I have no hope for the rest of the game. Yes, it is hard to make things interesting while giving the player only a few buttons to play with. Suck it up, we all have hard parts in our jobs. That’s why they pay us. Continue reading ‘Early, Middle, Late’

rand(Loot Pinata)

Posted by Ravious on March 10, 2010 in General and Warhammer Online. 8 Comments

As soon as any MMO player hears the word random applied to the MMO genre, as it has been throughout random week, thoughts of the loot pinata spring to mind.  Every time a little dirt weasel falls to the ground a right click tears that sucker open to reveal: a melted candle, a shiny red apple, a handful of copper coins, and a 1 in 1000 chance at a small brown pouch.  Now anybody can gain a few levels and slaughter lower level mobs with impunity, but the loot pinata takes on a revered glow when there is one big pinata for 25 people at the end of a 3-hour raid.

Either way, opening up dead mobs like paper mache is an addictive part of vanilla MMO play.  One lucky kill or resource node can provide a player with the feeling of elation.  This “windfall” granted by the random number gods seemingly puts a spike in the efficiency of time versus reward.  Suddenly the lucky player is beating the system (and other players). There is a heavier term MMO lexicographers use to analogize the loot systems found in the big MMOs.  Instead of a colorful, lively pinata used at children’s parties across the world, these wordsmiths liken the system to a slot machine. Continue reading ‘rand(Loot Pinata)’

Thousand-Year Achievements

Posted by Ravious on February 15, 2010 in Guild Wars and Warhammer Online. 8 Comments

This last weekend during the Canthan New Year for Guild Wars I made it to multiple celestial summonings (where I got goody bags for our district feeding the beast things like half-digested boot consomme) and completed the festival quests on multiple characters (netting more goodies).  I tore apart countless fortunes in the hopes that one would contain the elusive – elusive to the tune of 0.3% chance – celestial tiger mini.  I would’ve been out of luck if not for a sultan of a man in my alliance who had some extra.

Still it was a productive weekend in terms of gaining wealth.  I received boxes and boxes of fireworks and some shiny new celestial summoning stones.  Between this festival and last week’s Wintersday redux, I advanced some titles by possibly up to 10%.  These titles are paramount achievements filled in the vein of the purest grind.  That is, unless one takes in to account festivals. Continue reading ‘Thousand-Year Achievements’

MMO Restaurants, Again

Posted by Ravious on November 10, 2009 in General and Warhammer Online. 4 Comments

I walk past Heidi’s Brooklyn Deli twice a day on my way to and from work.  I don’t work in New York.  The Deli opened with much fanfare about a year ago, and I remember going there on opening day with some co-workers.  The management and staff were excited with the turnout.  I could see some sparkle in the owner’s eyes as he tried to get his staff to churn out New York/Jewish deli style sandwiches.

Having actually had a Jewish-deli sandwich in Manhattan, I was not impressed.  The prices were not very good either, but the worst part was for the two-block radius around my workplace (my campus has 9000+ workers) there are six other sub shops.  Heidi’s brought absolutely nothing, except a shadow of a New York reuben, to the lunch scene.  I could get a cheaper lunch at the two equi-distant Subways or the Potbelly’s, a larger lunch at Jimmy John’s or Quizno’s, or a meatier lunch at that cheese steak place.  What we needed was a McDonald’s, or an Indian buffet, or a BBQ place; not another deli-meat sandwich shop.

So is it any wonder that they closed yesterday?  I walked past the shuttered windows this morning, and I felt some sadness.  I was there at the start, and all that is left is a show of failure.  I knew it was inevitable though, the stink of death had been there for weeks.  My only hope is, as always, the next risk-taker doesn’t just copy what is already permeating the successful local lunch culture.

–Ravious
on the other hand, you have different fingers

MMO Restaurants

Posted by Ravious on November 2, 2009 in General and Warhammer Online. 16 Comments

I see this, and I cannot help but think of Anthony Bourdain’s view on restaurant changes.

By now, unsurprisingly, our restaurant was rapidly failing.  I began to see for the first time, what I would later recognize as Failing Restaurant Syndrome, an affliction that causes owners to flail about looking for a quick fix, a fast masterstroke that will “turn things around,” cure all their ills, reverse the already irreversible trend toward insolvency.  We tried New Orleans Brunch – complete with Dixiland band.  We tried a prix fixe menu, a Sunday night buffet; we advertised, we hired a publicist.  Each successive brainstorm was more counterproductive than the one before.  All of this floundering about and concept-tinkering only further demoralized an already demoralized staff.

I sincerely hope free-to-play Tier 1 in Warhammer Online brings an influx of new blood and success to Mythic.  My gut reaction, though, was not hopeful.

–Ravious
let’s call him Bigfoot

Another Dip Test

Posted by Ravious on July 14, 2009 in General, Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer Online and Wizard101. 12 Comments

Sometimes people make pretty quick judgments.  A dip test.  That’s why the starting areas, quests, music, etc. of an MMO have to be polished to near-blinding.  What about a dip test for the game in the middle?  Many times gamers lie awake at night – not “tired” –  thinking about games.  There is some amount of activation energy required to roll out of bed, log on, and play in a way where it was meaningful to roll out of bed in the first place.  A midnight dip test.

I was also not “tired” the other night, and I wanted some quick MMO play to calm my furied mind.  Wizard 101 was the easy choice.  I could log on, warp close to a play area of choice and run there in under a minute, and log off within a 15 minute time span.  I opted, actually, to play the mini-games to refill my potions and see how high a level I could get.  Games like Wizard 101, Puzzle Pirates, and Guild Wars rule at this quick guilt-free amount of play where activities that occur are meaningful. Continue reading ‘Another Dip Test’

Player Respawn Timers

Posted by Zubon on June 24, 2009 in City of Heroes/Villains, General, Lord of the Rings Online and Warhammer Online. 3 Comments

Most death penalties come down to lost time, in its various incarnations of lost experience points, item repairs, corpse runs, and debuffs. As death penalties become increasingly light, one type almost invariably remains: you wasted the time you spent failing, and now you need to run back to continue. (If you die in a group, you may just sit out a while until rezzed, hoping your group does not wipe at -1 member, or a shorter time with -2 members during the rez.)

This time-to-return can be very important. If it is very short, and the death penalty is otherwise small, you zerg things: just keep dying and coming back until you get through it. It is a measure of how far we have gotten past meatspace that we can now intuitively see solutions that include “die and come back” as part of viable plans. To take the first few examples that come to mind: our LotRO static group wiped on an overpull with adds last week, but ran back to clear it easily since we had taken out 75% of the enemies on the first try; LotRO three-man instances are short enough for people to die and come back while someone keeps the boss from resetting, and some turtle-raiding strategies involve planned deaths to reset the stacking DoTs; fights against CoX archvillains and giant monsters often involve multiple resurrections and hospital runs/teleports, and the Hamidon raid usually involves planned near-wipes.

This is usually not a good thing for the game. Continue reading ‘Player Respawn Timers’

Chipotle MMO

Posted by Ravious on May 26, 2009 in General and Warhammer Online. 15 Comments

For those blessed to have one nearby, Chipotle is a “Mexican” fast-food eatery.  The menu is sublime.  Customers choose a base (taco, burrito, salad, etc.), a protein (steak, carnitas, chicken, etc.), a salsa, and a few more condiments.  Compared to many Mexican-food eateries, including Taco Bell, the choices are simple, but the comparatively few things that Chipotle offers beats most of said eateries hands down.  In-N-Out Burger and Chik-Fil-A are two more food chains that follow this principle of few offerings that can’t be beat.  This is not a new concept by any means.  America is one of the anomalies in the world that has the restaurants that serve just about everything one could want from pizza to steak to tacos to salmon.  If I had a choice I’d rather go to a hawker court and buy from three separate stalls, and receiving a food item of mastery from each cook who has dedicated his or her career on that one item.

This post brought to you by my tinfoil wrapped carnitas burrito.

I thought about how so many MMOs seem to want to be an Applebee’s.  Combat is central, but not always refined.  There is crafting.  Player housing.  Pets.  Solo PvE.  Raiding.  Quests.  Missions.  Stories.  NPC’s.  Titles.  Traits.  And, all manners of PvP.  They are all over the place trying to dip their hands in to a bit of everything in order to keep your interest (read: subscription).  What if we had MMOs that would rather be like Chipotle?

Continue reading ‘Chipotle MMO’