What?

[Final Fantasy XI]

Introducing the Fellowship Quest

The Fellowship Quest will be added in the next version update. After completing the quest, you will receive an item that will allow you to call an NPC to come to your aid!

Adventure together, defeat fearsome monsters together, and gain experience together! That’s right–your NPC friend can also gain experience and level up alongside you! After you’ve fought a few battles together, your ally might show up wearing new gear the next time you call for it! This new feature will open up the excitement of Vana’diel like never before!

The next version update coming in mid-July is full of new adventures and features designed to maximize your enjoyment in Vana’diel. Keep your eyes peeled for more information!

FINAL FANTASY XI Development Team (7/11/2005)

Wow, I dont know what to make of all these changes…

Are they trying to make the game like Guild Wars? Hired NPC’s? I find this troubling as it could radically unbalance the party system…

Plundered from the FINAL FANTASY XI Development Team webpage.

ringthree

Auditory Entanglements

I had the pleasure of attending the first Video Games Live event last night at the famous Hollywood Bowl.

While I have been a huge gaming enthusiast for most of my life, and especially in the last five years, I was doubtful of this event’s turnout. While taking into consideration the majority public opinion that games are simply that, just games; it seemed quite probable that those interested enough to spend hard earned cash on a ticket fit into a small room.

I was beyond mistaken. The Hollywood Bowl seats sixteen thousand. Very few of these seats were empty. Hearing a crowd of fifteen thousand people of all ages cheer and scream when Yuji Naka (creator of Sonic the Hedgehog) walked onto the stage was one of the most surreal and amazing experiences that I have enjoyed in quite some time.

Games covered included Mario™, Zelda®, Halo®, Metal Gear Solid®, Myst®, Final Fantasy®, Castlevania®, Medal of Honor™, Sonic™, Tron©, Tomb Raider®, Advent Rising, Headhunter, Beyond Good & Evil™, Splinter Cell®, Ghost Recon™, Rainbow Six®, Pong®, Donkey Kong® as well as EverQuest® II and World of Warcraft®.

There were two girls of about the age of 13 sitting in front of me. When the World of Warcraft segment started they almost fell off their chairs screaming. I was astonished at the diversity of people present. During the intermission a raffle was held based on ticket number. The second presentation started with a competition between a forty five year old woman and a thirteen year old boy. Suffice it to say the thirteen year old won.

The event wrapped up with an introduction of the Mario music by designer Shigeru Miyamoto to much fanfare. The producers then announced time for one more presentation and asking for any requests were answered by a huge cheering for Halo.

After the conclusion of the segments, the stage was filled one by one with the designers and composers present for the event, which looked to be a good forty or fifty.

Overall the event was extremely entertaining, and most likely was for even non-gamers. The music was beautiful and at times heart pumping. I suggest you check out the tour dates to see if it will be visiting your area.

-Spot
www.sp0t.com

So release the update already…

[Final Fantasy XI] So more update information, this time it deals with tweaks to experience in level capped areas and the experience you get from lower conning mobs. I am not even going to go into this stuff until the update is released…

Changes to Experience Acquisition

The next version update will bring the following changes:

-Chain Bonuses in Level-Restricted Areas
Currently, when fighting in level-restricted Chains of Promathia areas, EXP chain bonuses are determined by a player’s actual level. However, after the version update, bonuses will be determined by the player’s level within the area. This means adventurers will soon be able to earn extra EXP by defeating multiple enemies that are “even match” or higher, just as if the player was fighting in a regular area.

-Slight Adjustments in Experience Acquisition
The player will soon be able to earn experience from monsters of a slightly wider level range than previously possible. As a result, experience points earned by defeating “decent challenge” and “easy prey” monsters will slightly increase.

Check the FINAL FANTASY XI main page for more information as it is released!

FINAL FANTASY XI Development Team (7/7/2005)

Rogued from the FINAL FANTASY XI Development Team webpage.

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Ch Ch Ch Ch Changes

Patch Day! It seems nothing brings more excitement and fear to the MMO gamer than patch day. I’d also be willing to bet nothing causes more people to quit than patch day.

In a perfect world, patch day is the day when the bug that has been driving you crazy finally gets fixed. It is when new content is added. It is when the “too powerful” get nerfed. It is when the “too weak” gets buffed. It is when you get that new game feeling again if only for a moment. All in a perfect world.

The reality of it is that patch day breaks things. It breaks the UI. It makes more lag. The class/item you have come to love does not work as well as it used to. It makes you revise previous successful strategies. It makes previously worthless items priceless and previously priceless items worthless. It adds content you finish in 3 hours. This is not to mention the headache of getting the patch downloaded in the first place.

In general, people don’t like change. You create a game and rules for play. The players learn the rules and play according to them (not talking about cheaters here). On patch day, the rules often get changed. This upsets players who had been playing by the rules. They get tired of the game having the rules changed each patch day and they quit.

Patch day often will have small changes that would originally appear to be minor. Changes like the voice of a character or the revision of a custom logo background. People get used to things and when you change even the little stuff it becomes a big deal to them. They liked the old logo background. The old voice was fine, why did you change it?

A new player would not even notice these items. In fact, they will get used to the way it is currently and would likely get upset if you changed it back.

I’ll cite a recent example from EVE Online. They just had a patch come out. In this patch, the power of missles was changed in various ways. Now you need to buy some skills to make them work as well as before, and they deal damage in a different way. Big missles are not as deadly to small ships.

Now, I already read the patch notes and recognized the missle changes so I just avoided missles for the most part. It is how I prefer to deal with change. After the patch came out, I started training missle skills and I do not notice any issues with them. People that had jumped all over missles because they were so powerful are currently upset. Even though the patch notes were available and a test server was in place for people to see how it would impact them.

Another thing they changed was the voice of the ship computer. I rarely played with sound up so I do not recall much of the old voice. I like the new voice, even though she sounds a bit apethetic about everything. I half expect her to say, “Oh bother, I suppose I will request yet another permission to dock for you.” But still, the player complaints abound.

To be expected, people will quit. It happens at every patch when you change something people like. The truth is, almost everything in the game is liked by someone for some reason. No matter what you change, you will piss someone off.

I’m glad I’m not a dev.

– Ethic

Potentially Excessive Use of /emote

[completely off-topic] A friend of mine is trying to take a British kinda-holiday national. That would be today, so-declared International Kissing Day. Those of you lacking appropriate partners can use in-game emotes, although check your game’s harassment policy first depending on your use.

We now return you to your scheduled blogging and gaming. Thank you.

: Zubon

Blizz Con Announced

[World of Warcraft] I know this is old news, but I was talking about it with my friends over the Fourth of July weekend and we were somewhat confused about the whole deal. They haven’t really announced what will be going on so I’m not sure how much interesting stuff will be there. Sony had their Fan Faire in Las Vegas which was a sort of Sony Online mini-convention. It didn’t sound like the best time ever, but hey, it’s hard not to have fun in Las Vegas. Blizz Con will be somewhere in Orange County, CA. As long as they keep the prices resonable, I might check it out, being an OC resident and all. The Anaheim Convention Center seems the most likely venue, although they might go for somewhere closer to Irvine.

Anyways, I was trying to get some others to commit to go with me, but the general response was “what are they going to do?” No one seems to understand what the thing will be about. Will it be mostly WoW and maybe about the expansion? Or are they going to throw something WC3, StarCraft, and Diablo players can get excited about? We’ll see, but I found on friend who will be there just to see if they have any models dressed as night elves.

DC

FFXI PvP News.

[Final Fantasy XI] In a move to placate, well, I have no idea who they are placating with this one, Square Enix is further revamping Ballista for Final Fantasy XI. This along with the rest of the news so far seems to indicate that there is alot coming in the next update. I am going to reserve comment on the update until all of the information is released (not because I am wholistic or anything, just basically because I am lazy).

Here is the info:

Upcoming Changes to Ballista Rules

In mid-July, Ballista will undergo a series of rule alterations and additions.

-If one side of an official match is low on members, entry into that force will be possible even if a match is already underway. In this case, experience may still be gained if certain conditions are met, just as if the player had entered the match from the start.

-In the past, special rules have been adapted for Ballista matches. These include a special rule that adjusts the location of the two camps when the number of participants in a match is less than 40, and reduces the number of Rooks to two when there is a significant difference in the number of players on each side. Another rule allows each player to receive experience points for participating in an official match. Following the version update, these two methods of play will lose their status as special rules and become the norm for Ballista matches.

-The current system of “Open Entry” for official matches, in which all adventurers are allowed to join the force with the smallest number of participants, will be done away with and replaced by a system called “Temporary Entry,” in which players may join a force regardless of allegiance. However, the player’s entry will be temporary, and similar to Diorama Abdhaljs-Ghelsba’s “Auto-Balance” feature, the players may be redistributed for balance when the match begins.

-In Ru’Lude Gardens, the player will be able to view Diorama Abdhaljs-Ghelsba’s reservation status.

-The player will no longer be able to adjust Petra selection settings in Diorama Abdhaljs-Ghelsba, but when in possession of the new key item “Ballista Band,” the player will be given the option of what to do with the first Petra quarried in Diorama Abdhaljs-Ghelsba and official Ballista matches. *The Ballista Band may not be used during Ballista Royale.

The FINAL FANTASY XI main page is frequently updated with news regarding mid-July’s version update. Please check often for more exciting information!

FINAL FANTASY XI Development Team (7/4/2005)

Illgottenly gained from the FINAL FANTASY XI Development Team webpage.

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Patch Patch Patch!

[EVE Online] Today the EVE Tranquility Server was down for patching. This Patch will include the Outposts (dockable POS YAY!!) , Dreadnoughts, Frieghters, and A Missile “Nerf”, as well as a PvP timer that prevents you from logging out to save your ship if you are in trouble.

More information check out the dev blog.

-Zxyrox

Don’t know what to make of this…

[Final Fantasy XI] I don’t know what Square Enix’s plan is with doing this, but this appears to be an attempt to balance both Ninja and Ranger in the next update. The Ninja will now lose hate as they lose their blink shadows, and Ranger will now have its ranged attacks damage and accuracy vary with distance, also damage will be reduced when using ranged attacks against mobs of much higher level. The Ranger change makes sense, as they are very overpowered to begin with, and this brings ranged attacks in line with the way that melee damage is dealt. With Ninja, I am wondering if they are trying to reduce the use of Ninja as a tank. When Ninja was introduced as a class they were supposed to be a damage dealing class, but players started using their blink shadows to make the Ninja a tanking class. I am wondering how much the lose of hate will affect Ninja as a tanking class, if this is an attempt to kill them as a tanking class or to make paladin or even warrior or samurai as a viable tanking class.

We will see when the update is available.

Here is the information:

Changes to Utsusemi and Ranged Attacks

The next version update will make battle more strategic for players who use Utsusemi or ranged attacks.

*Changes to the ninjutsu “Utsusemi”
In the next update, the player’s enmity will decrease when a shadow image created by Utsusemi is absorbed by an attack.

*Changes to Ranged Attacks
Soon, the distance of the monster from the player will determine the damage and accuracy of ranged attacks. This determination will vary from weapon to weapon, as will the ideal distance for maximum damage. In addition, the higher the monster’s level is with regard to the player, the less damage will be dealt with a ranged attack. This system is similar to that of melee attacks, but the difference in damage will not be as great.

A score of new material and exciting new improvements awaits in the next version update in mid-July, so keep checking this site for details as the time approaches!

Appropriated from the FINAL FANTASY XI Development Team webpage.

Edit: Additional Thoughts:
After thinking about this for a little while I have come up with this:

Ninja – SE is attempting to make Ninja in line with Paladins when it comes to hate. Every time a character is hit buy a mob it loses a definite amount of hate, but before when a mob hit one of a ninja’s shadows the Ninja did not lose hate. This would advantage Ninjas over Paladins in maintaining hate just because of game programing. The effect will be that Ninjas will be required to use all of their ninjitsu to maintain hate on the mob. This will advantage good Ninja’s over those that just get Utsusemi and dont use any of the other Ninja spells. I am for anything that advantages good players over those that don’t take their job seriously.

Ranger – Based on the assumption that optimal ranged distance will be outside of melee distance, I believe that we will now see two kinds of rangers.

1) Damage Rangers. These will be rangers that will switch their sub to /WAR and will stay outside of melee range and will just fire off endless numbers of arrows doing alot of damage.

2) TP Rangers. These will be rangers that will keep /NIN are their sub and will stay in melee range and time attacks and arrow shots, then move out to optimal range and fire off their WS.

I think it is great for all players while still giving Rangers lot of options.

ringthree

Supporting Those Who Support You

[Planetside] The PS devs have done something wonderful for players like me that often find themselves in a supporting role. I spent many an evening doing ANT runs or repairing damaged vehicles and turrets. While getting a warm sense of being a part of the victory, there has not been any real rewards given for such activity. Rewards are normally handed out to players for “kills”. No longer. Enter the era of support XP.

Perhaps the short supply of healer-types in most MMOs can be solved with a solution like this.

I’ve included the post made in the PS forums for posterity, below:

In the struggle to dominate and control Auraxis, there are countless jobs and roles to perform. Many of these involve the support of your fellow soldiers and these actions have, up until now, been largely thankless. The tireless support personnel who repair damaged wall turret systems, provide support positioning Advanced Mobile Stations, or operating Galaxy and Lodestar vehicles have done so out of the desire for the greater good for their Empire.

With PlanetSide version 3.7 we will introduce rewards for such activities. These rewards will still be tied to when opposing forces are overcome, rather than handing them out at the time when the support activities are performed. Support activity will be recorded and, when the supported unit overcomes an enemy in the future, they will pass back a share of experience and possibly a merit worthy kill (depending on the factors of the kill). The unit scoring the kills will continue to pass back this bonus experience and merit kills for a period of time starting with their first kill after being supported. The length of time is determined by how much support they received. If the supported unit dies and respawns (is not revived) then they will no longer pass back support exp and support merit kills.

One exception to this delayed start of when support experience and kills are passed back and recorded is after a hot drop. The timer starts immediately after bailing from a Galaxy.

Each person that you support will track that activity in what you could consider a “support bucket”. The more you support them (for instance, the more times you repair their armor that was damaged by enemy fire) the more you fill in this bucket. How much this bucket is filled in will determine the size of the % of exp from kills that is passed back to you and for how long exp will kick back. The timer is dormant, waiting after the support is rendered (repairing someone’s armor, for example) until the supported soldier scores their first kill. This allows you to support someone and much later, when they start scoring some kills (and haven’t died in the mean time) they will still reward you for that support. Or, for example, if you repair base turrets and the fight eventually comes back to that base. When someone gets in that turret you repaired a while ago and scores a kill, they will kick off the dormant timer and now kills they score with that turret will give the person who repaired it a slice of the kill exp and possibly kill records toward Merit Commendations. Of course, if you were the repairer of said turrets and you logged off or left the zone, you would no longer receive support exp or merit kills.

There are 6 different categories of activities that can lead to your acquisition of Support EXP and assist kills counting toward support Merit Commendations:

1. Healing another soldier.
2. Reviving another soldier.
3. Repairing another soldier or vehicle either with a BANK, NanoDispenser or Lodestar.
4. Hacking a terminal or locker, or providing an AMS or Lodestar terminal for others to obtain equipment or ammunition.
5. Having soldiers bail from your Galaxy.
6. Providing an AMS for soldiers to spawn from.

The % share of BEP that comes back from through this system is completely outside any other exp distribution (squad exp split, etc.). The timer is currently a minimum of 5 minutes and a maximum of 10 minutes where kills by that soldier will have an extra % share of EXP go back to the person(s) who supported them.

To illustrate different scenarios, a few examples of each are listed below:

* Healing or Repairing: You heal a friendly soldier just outside the door to a hotly contested tower. You heal him for 25 damage and he now has a record on him that will start to feed you exp and assist kills toward merits. However, as the fight rages, the soldier you healed doesn’t die, but he does take more damage from plasma fired by the enemy out the door. You die trying to get in the door. Just because you died doesn’t affect the support you had done on the other soldier. That will only be erased if he dies and is not revived.

So, you respawn at the nearby AMS and come back. You see the soldier you had healed before and heal up the damage he took from the plasma, further filling in the “support bucket” and building a greater percentage of exp you would get from his kills (if and when he scores some). You then join the rush in through the door and your Empire captures the tower. The soldier you helped landed some hits, but never got a kill, so your “support bucket” on him has not triggered and is still dormant, waiting for him to score a kill.

Now, you head down toward the base and the soldier you helped gets a kill of an enemy on the wall. The EXP share from that kill is reported and saved up. If you had supported him more, you would have obtained a bigger % of exp share. The enemy that the solder you supported was a unique kill so it will count back as an “assist kill” to you, the person who supported him, and toward support Merit Commendations.

* Hacking: You are an infiltrator, sneaking through a lightly contested enemy base. You make your way to one of the nearby equipment terminals, hack it and switch out your armor to a MAX suit and head to the spawn tubes to tear some enemy forces up! Behind you another friendly has hot dropped on the roof, and comes down into the base and sees in passing that the equipment terminal is available. He swaps out of his Agile armor for his Rexo heavy grunt load out. By using a terminal that you hacked, you are now flagged as having supported him. When he scores his next kill (without dying) he will start off the time period where he will give back exp and assist kills back to you.

* AMS or Lodestar: You position a Lodestar where friendly vehicles are rearming their vehicles. Just like #2 above, just the fact that they use the equipment portion of the Lodestar functionality will flag them as you, the Lodestar owner, as having supported them. This is the same for the AMS, if someone uses your AMS to equip themselves. The Lodestar will also flag vehicles as having been repaired by you, much like scenario #1 above.

* AMS spawning: The AMS also will tag soldiers spawning at it as having been supported by the soldier who owns the AMS. So, when those soldiers go on to score enemy kills, they will pass back a share of exp and possibly assist kills to count toward support Merit Commendations. Even if the AMS is destroyed, friendly solders who had spawned at it would continue to give back these rewards until either their timer runs out, they die and respawn, you log out or you leave the zone.

* Reviving: Reviving fallen friendly solders will not only flag the person who revives them as having assisted them, but it will also keep their death from canceling all support related shares they are currently tracking from being cleared.

We will give you more information on this as the development continues.

~The PlanetSide Development Team~

I’m curious, does any other MMO out there reward support players in some way? If so, please share because I have not seen anything like this before.

– Ethic