Month: September 2008

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Промоакции для игроков не только в шутерах — воспользуйся промокодом Vavada от наших партнеров и получи бонусы, которые подарят азарт и атмосферу, сравнимую с игровыми победами.

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The Operational Wisdom of Head Starts

Wow, that first day hit to your new MMO’s servers is going to suck, isn’t it? It will be the busiest time your game has ever had, and it will be the first time you see all its problems. Thousands of people will be hitting your account creation, billing, download, patching, and log-in systems at the same time, and thousands are already prepped to go complain about how slow/crowded/whatever these things are.

Enter head starts. People will pay you a bit more for your game in advance, or they will pre-order, or both. Open the server a couple days early and let them give it a dry run. If the account creation system has problems, oh well, you already know these are paying customers. You’ll get it fixed by the time the masses arrive. When those masses arrive, a first lump of players has already moved past the very beginning content, spreading server load and reducing crowding in the newbie areas. These are probably the hardcore players anyway, so get them in a little early to start setting up guilds and the player-based in-game infrastructure your game expects. You have spread out account creation, downloads, patching, log-in, and early content, and you got people to pay you more/sooner for the honor of helping you. Good call!

: Zubon

Further, More Positive First Thoughts

Twelve hours later, I have had more time to ponder my first night of WAR. Since I am neurologically hard-wired to be cheerful, the technical irritations have faded while the more enjoyable parts have been reinforced. My brain chemistry rules! Let’s add some happier things.

I should note again that those were “first impressions,” not “a review.” The first levels are your wolf-slaying levels, where an early quest is “find a mailbox” (not literally, in this case). The first six levels of any MMO are probably pretty similar.

But they are not entirely similar. WAR takes a different approach, getting players involved in the war and with each other very early. Continue reading Further, More Positive First Thoughts

WAR First Impressions

A fair implementation of DikuMUD with graphics, stable with relatively few bugs for a MMO in beta. That may be damning with faint praise, but as the man said, “I’ve already played Warhammer.”

I don’t know how much any of us are going to be able to say meaningfully from the open beta. You cap at level 20, and if you reviewed Age of Conan up to level 20, it was the game of the year. While level 20 is half-way to the cap here, half your leveling time is usually the last 10 levels, and holy crap they needed to add a cap of “half the levels” for a 10-day open beta? Is there some way to get open beta access without paying or having had closed beta access? It seems like a strange name. Anyway, these are thoughts from level 6 (class and RvR).

Continue reading WAR First Impressions

While You Download

How about some flash games while you wait, sorted by your download ETA?

2% and stalled, dear gods, I want to play:
Bubble Tanks
Bubble Tanks 2
Desktop Tower Defense 1.5
The Endless Zombie Rampage

I liked that tower defense game, but do you have an easier version?
Bloons Tower Defense
Bloons Tower Defense 2
Gemcraft

I have a lot of time to kill, but I don’t want to commit to anything:
Amorphous+
Dolphin Olympics 2
Free Rider 2

Less commitment, more thinking:
3D Logic
Portal: The Flash Version

Half-ish way there:
5 Differences
6 Differences
Hedgehog Launch
The Last Canopy

Almost there, need soothing music to calm my nerves:
Boomshine
Music Catch

2% to go, I am already insane:
Elephant Rave
LightSprites
Tangerine Panic
You Have to Burn the Rope

I love Pokémon:
Brute Wars

I love Rick Astley:
Kongai Launch

: Zubon

Is There Any Way to Find a Human from EA Mythic?

Update: problem just about circumvented, thanks Cyndre. I’m still getting “There was an error processing your request,” but at least it is not rejecting the code as invalid. [and, accepted, patching] If you make getting tech support difficult enough, players will find someone else to deal with the problem: a successful business model.

I seem to have a bad open beta access code. The other code on the card, for the head start and in-game items, works, but that does me no good right now. The Warhammer site apparently has no useful contact information, forums, etc., unless it is carefully hidden so that people with problems just find a forum to pester. There is a contact link: it asks you what in-game problems you are having with Dark Age of Camelot.

I know they’re busy and all, but “I paid for a code that doesn’t work, what can I do?” is not on the FAQ list. Right now, my Warhammer first impressions are that the game has an insurmountable log-in bug with no support or help button. I am open to the notion that there is some other problem in the process that I am up against, but given the lack of documentation or explanation, I am stuck.

: Zubon

There is a feedback form where you can send a question. It has a 10,000 word “Terms and Conditions” you must accept to ask a question. Once I’m done reading all that, I might be able to use the form. I guess use the “Customer Service Questions” link?

So how much staff do you have on-site for a Sunday launch?

Another Warhammer

Ardua reminds us about Warhammer 40K. Coming sometime to MMO, yes? In particular, he reminds us of the TV Tropes page for the game. Even if you know nothing about 40K, a category I share outside one RTS, this will give you a sense of the setting that went from “Warhammer in space” to “darker Warhammer in space” to “the World of Darkness is a bunch of fairies that fart rainbows” to “Cthulhu is a fairy who farts rainbows” and then one step beyond for the latest edition. You can still see the six WAR factions (one of which was eaten by bugs).

: Zubon

If You Don’t Know What You’re Doing, At Least Do What You’re Told

Do you know how you can tell a game is still getting new blood? Mid-level group quests full of people that have never done them before. Early level might indicate free trial folks, and many people have not done everything at fifty, but The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢ epic books are something I expect every veteran to have done at least once.

Do you know why you level faster solo? Your time is worth nothing to your teammates. They are quite happy to make you wait for them, to go in some random direction rather than following a lead, and to ignore instructions from people who have done the quest before. If someone is two steps later than you on a quest, he has probably just done those steps, so you should listen to him if he says to run a town over then come back. No, you won’t just wait there for him, run to the next town to talk to whoever or else you will be stuck a step behind on the quest chain.

Do you even know how to read the quest instructions? It says to talk to someone in the next town over. You cannot catch up with us if you will not follow the quest instructions or the repeat of them from your teammates.

If you have a partner or a group on which you can rely, you can level faster teamed than solo. A nice thing about being in a guild is that even if half of them are idiots, you know who the idiots are.

: Zubon

Actual Imbalance

What happens when that silly post is true? Keen and Graev and their commenters tell me that the classes I was considering really are some of the weakest in the game. Unless your developers are philosopher kings who have overcome the Hayekian knowledge problem and defied the dark lords of the Matrix, someone will be on the bottom of the pile, and this problem will probably be worst at launch.

First impressions matter. What if playing a Squig Herder that weekend was my first experience with the game? I would post about how lousy everything was, with RvR being a bloodbath in which all the Dwarf classes are stronger than their Greenskin counterparts, horrible imbalance with only one decent Destruction class on that entire battlefront, just keep cutting classes until you get some decent ones Mythic, rant rant rant. Hey, I segue that into rant rant rant about the state of Conan four months into it and how nothing is ever fixed or done right ran rant rant. Good times.

Continue reading Actual Imbalance

RMT Threat

If this doesn’t worry you, you didn’t understand it. If you really own your in-game property, all MMOs are illegal under US law.

At IMGDC, few people seemed to take very seriously Richard Bartle’s questions about legal and governmental issues facing MMOs. I would like to explain why, in a few easy steps, RMT could lead the US government to shut down all MMORPGs.

You only need one premise: in-game currency has meatspace value. You can establish this by looking at goldsellers as de facto currency exchanges, or by establishing some players’ bill of rights that grants property claims. There is no such claim with legal standing in the United States, to the best of my knowledge, but many have wished it to be so. That would immediately kill the golden goose.

Because: every goblin is now a slot machine. Any enemy you defeat has a chance of dropping coin and items that can be converted into coin, and coin has meatspace value. World of Warcraft is a casino with fancy decorations. The US bans financial transfers for online gambling, thus the US bans any bank, credit card company, etc. from transfering funds to or from Blizzard. Or any other MMO.

When a regulation applies to “online gaming,” it usually means poker. It could very easily mean you.

: Zubon

Grimwell is worried about creative control of games. I am worried about the US government arresting non-citizens for activities done in other countries.