10 Equals 40, Delay 20

[Dungeons & Dragons Online] Can an MMORPG live with just 20 levels, or 20 “moments of advancement”? Ken Troop at Turbine does not think so, and thus 10 will equal 40 and 20 will equal 80.

In other words, each level will be split up into ranks, of which there is four. Level one, rank one. Level one, rank two. And so on and so forth. The levels will still work the same as D&D rules, the rank will give you one enhancement from a pool (CoH anyone?). Well, the rank will give you “action points” which you can use to buy an “enhancement” which is something like a “feat”. I think.

And special bonus, at release DDO will only go up to level 10 instead of 20. So that means it goes to 40, right? Hmm. So 40 is the new 10 and 80 is the new 20 but 10 is still the old 10 and 20 is still the old 20 except 20 does not exist, at least not yet. Does any of this make sense?

Honestly, perhaps it is just me, but I just don’t get Ken Troop.

50 GOTO 10

This just in, former Turbinite, Jason Booth, comments on something that sounds kind of critical about decisions strikingly similar to this one without actually naming any names.

– Ethic

Going Planetside

[Planetside] Yep that’s right. I’m going to reactivate Planetside. I’ve been jonesing for it and with my limited free game time that is not being used by testing MMO’s being so … um, limited, I wanted something I could jump into and out of easily.

Planetside fits the bill at the moment. Anyone out there with a good squad that I can join and subsequently get us all wiped out, let me know.

I was just looking and I see they have a few expansions. I’ll have to read up and see how much they added. Looks like it is only another $9.95 to buy so not a huge deal. Perhaps someone can fill me in on the details and if they are important to have or not.

Nevermind.

– Ethic

Dark Iron

[World of Warcraft] I was going to join the great webcomic PvP battle server over the last few days, but every time I tried to connect to the server they chose (Dark Iron), I had to sit in 20-25 minute queues and didn’t bother to wait. Too many people were doing the same thing I guess.

While they (the webcomics) seem to think the server’s population will drop after summer is over, I don’t think so. August has been a traditional low activity time so I only expect populations to pick up towards winter. Oh well, it sounded like it might have been fun to be a part of something bigger, but this one got too big.

For what it is worth, the webcomics guilds participating in this is Ctrl+Alt+Del, Penny-Arcade and PvP.

I really think it was a great idea, but they turned a brand new PvP server into one of the most overpopulated servers in a few short weeks. I probably would have had some fun.

– Ethic

Yes, I have gone off the deep end.

If you are a practioner of the nerdly arts (I just recent received the rank of Grand Poobah Nerd from my local lodge) then you will appreciate this: Ninja Radio.

The intermingling of anime, J-pop and video game themes is so beautifully cobbled together into a play list that I believe I experienced an autoerotic nerdgasm.

Initial D 4th Stage theme FTW!

ringthree

3.5 million subscribers can’t be wrong… can they?

[World of Warcraft] I pose a question to our readers. A simple question that I will use as the basis of my next post.

What is different about WoW that has caused it to get so many subscribers?

A plain question, but one that has many answers. 3.5 million subscribers is more than any MMO ever. What about WoW has caused this explosion? Is it sustainable? Was the MMO market truely such an untapped resource? Are we the new Korea (including the millions of players dying in front of their computers after 60 hour marthon sessions)?

Thanks ahead of time for you input, and I can’t wait to tell you how wrong you all are! ^^

ringthree

Cut scenes, cut scenes, cut scenes!

[Final Fantasy XI, World of Warcraft] This is my mantra. Yes, I am going on to bash World of Warcraft again. Well maybe not bash, but point out why it is not all what it is cracked up to be. Last night, I completed Rank Mission 5-2 in Final Fantasy XI. Rank Mission 5-2 was the last mission of the original release of Final Fantasy, and is the beginning of the first expansion. After completing the battle at the end of Rank Mission 5-2 I was treated to near a half hour of amazing cut scenes. I can’t really describe just how epic they make the game feel, and just how involved they make the player feel within the online world.

Sadly, WoW has none of this. There is nothing beside the scratching of a quill to make you feel involved in the world, to make you feel that you are not just a part of the world but also have some impact on the world. Now I have heard that Blizzard is working on cutscenes to be introduced in the expansion, but I dont understand why they are not in the original version. Another example of a rushed product that shouldn’t have been on the market for another 6 months to a year.

FFXI should have set the standard for MMO’s by using cutscenes. Truthfully, I do not know if another game used cutscenes before FFXI but the level of detail and writing involved in the cutscenes in FFXI are just amazing. They are so vivid and deep as to make you feel like you are actually playing a game in the Final Fantasy series rather than just a break off MMO that stole the name. Why other games, especially a game like WoW that was developed to eliminate the weak points and emulate the strong points of other MMO’s, didn’t pick up on this is beyond me. Maybe the cutscenes are too far into the FFXI for other developers to grasp the importance of them, maybe they were deemed unnecessary for a game built around the ADHD generation, but in the end WoW is less of a game for it.

So to Blizzard: get working on some cutscenes. From what I understand, Blizzard used them in most of the Warcraft games before this one. Why stop now? Why stop with your biggest creation yet?

ringthree

Why I dont play WoW… with any regularity.

[World of Warcraft] Well I have been busy. You know how it is, playing day in, day out. Well, just recently there was an 18 hour downtime for physical server maintence to the Final Fantasy XI servers. These happen about 3 times a year and since I knew it was coming I was planning to play WoW for a little while. I should have just read my new Harry Potter book…

In the time that I was playing, I would say about 3 hours, the game crashed out to the desktop two times, and the freaking server went down! Just my server… How often does crap like this happen? I mean the game crashes to the desktop with some regularity, so the software appears to be a little unstable. But how can just one server crash? Not all the servers but just one! If this is something that happens as often as I hear how do people play this game?

Maybe it was a bad day, but with Blizzard’s track record on “stability,” I dont think that is likely. Blizzard needs to stop giving empty promises of what is coming and get some people working on the “stability” thing. Every time they add something new the game becomes less stable. I mean have you ever stopped to read the patch notes for most items? Its not new things they are adding, its all fixes. Why release a game that has so many problems?

I understand that a company as big as Blizzard can have people working on content AND stability. This is not what I am talking about. I am talking about the stability of the new content. Any time new content is released the next three patches are fixes for the new content. If they had just kept the content for those three weeks and fixed it on the test servers then I would be a happy lad.

No more empty promises. Test your crap before you release it! Know what the issues are before you dump them on the players base. Everything with Blizzard is “rush it to the public, it doesn’t matter if it works, the hype machine solves all ills!”

Oh and my guess is that you are not going to see an expansion anytime soon OR you are going to get an expansion but you wont want it… neither of these are good options.

ringthree

DDO Delayed

[Dungeons & Dragons Online] It appears the the official release date for DDO is being pushed back to 2006, so no Christmas release for the eagerly anticipated Turbine-created MMORPG.

Players eager to get their hands on Atari’s upcoming Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach will have to wait a little bit longer, as the game’s release has slipped from November back into the first quarter of 2006.

Read the rest here.

I’m happy to hear they aren’t going to rush it out, but was looking forward to it. I’m torn. When you think about it though, if all xp is gained from quests only, that is a lot of content that is needed to be put in the game. You can’t just go hunt creatures for xp.

– Ethic

Old Friends

One of my life-long friends is moving across the country soon. This last weekend we had a going-away party for him. Quite a few people there I had not seen in a long time, like since high school.

It turned out to be a blast because several of these are the ones that first introduced me to RPGs. We talked about gaming all night, even dipping into MMORPGs for a bit. It was strange for me to be able to talk openly with other people about MMORPGs because most people I mention them to stare at me with that “what the hell is he talking about?” blank face. They just don’t get it.

Mostly they are playing Neverwinter Nights on a private server and they invited me to join them. I’m sure I will at some point. They also talked a lot about City of Heroes. This is not suprising to me as a few of them got together and ran a comic book shop for several years right after high school graduation. World of Warcraft? Guild Wars? Everquest 2? They’ve heard of them, but have no interest in playing any of them. Dungeons & Dragons Online? Their eyes glossed over and they started drooling. Major excitement and interest in hearing more.

Really, I was just shocked to sit at a party of regular folks and discuss video games all night. Crazy.

– Ethic