Month: July 2009

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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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Divergence

At IMGDC 2.0, we met the folks from Stainglass Llama, a small studio making a game called Divergence. You may know my standing policy of not paying attention to anything more than 6 months from release, which has kept me from thinking about them. They are still working on it, and more than six months from release, but you might be interested.

If nothing else, this is something good to read for those of you hoping to live the dream of making your own MMO. We’ll show them all, right? Middleware is better these days, but it is still hard. If you look through their news history (the old site is more functional at present), you can see milestones like having a world they can walk around, actually being able to connect to that world, and getting basic chat. All those things that you consider basic and necessary? It takes a bit of work to get them going yourself. Filling in the content is even more work — even when it is not hard, there is a lot of it. For an easy extrapolation on that “develop content” problem, try making something in the City of Heroes Mission Architect. How long does it take to make one good story arc, including all the troubleshooting, text editing, making unique enemies, etc.? Okay, now multiply that by 1000 for the full game, and that is just the quests, and you had all the tech and art supplied for you.

They’re starting to fill all that in, so if you have ever wanted to get in on the ground floor as alpha starts up, here is a chance. They would love your attention and discussion. They would also love your money, if you have been hoping to fund an MMO. (On another front, our old buddy Nicodemus is wondering about funding a start-up via Twitter connections; I suppose it spoils that question for me to mention it here, but if you have the few hundred k for augmented reality development, I’m sure Robert Rice would love to talk to you.) I’m not sure at what point such the proper phrase goes from “dream” to “investment,” but then I am a professional skeptic and evaluator by profession, so don’t let me rain on your parade.

It’s Friday. Dream a little.

: Zubon

CRPG

In current gaming parlance, does “RPG” mean anything except “character advancement”? I see lots of games “incorporating RPG elements,” which means that you level up. If they’re really thinking outside the box, you skill up, or you unlock achievements for character advancement. You get more actual role-playing in Second Life or on LiveJournal, and neither of those have levels.

: Zubon

Beauty in Simplicity

I am glad that forthcoming MMOs are stepping back from the precipice of the uncanny valley– a revulsion to the near real.  Quite a few upcoming MMOs are hedging towards stylized graphics, ala Team Fortress 2 or dare I say World of Warcraft, which are also less taxing on system requirements than photo realistic styles.  The stylized feel for things also gives the MMO artists another opportunity in creating some artistic moments through simplicity.

Wizard 101, for example, is a very graphics light game.  It doesn’t have huge polygon counts or untold amounts of shaders, but it does have style.  It’s simple and clean, filled with teenage wizardry, and fairly evocative spells.  Even in the age of Aion and Crysis, Wizard 101 still has some moments that made me appreciate the artistic direction.  The spells are the obvious choice, but I want to focus on the level design.

In my play through Wizard City and Kroktopia most of the PvE zones have been a street or street-like tomb with buildings and props off to the side.  There is the occasional tree or sarcophagus, but the space is not really much for looking.  Most of it is actually rather mundane.  It really just sets the atmosphere.  However, in nearly each zone the level artists made sure to add a stop and stare moment.  In Wizard City it might be a portion of the zone torn asunder with pieces magically floating in the distance, or deep below in Kroktopian tombs it might be a cave with a quiet lightning storm below the skinny stalagmites the wizards stand on.  I do not think that these moments would be so evocative without the simplistic baseline the rest of the zone portrays.

Lord of the Rings Online, on the other hand, is debateably one of the most beautiful and atmospheric MMOs.  Yet, how many vistas and painstaking creations get lost in the clutter.  I was very excited to walk in to the Prancing Pony for the first time as a young lad.  I stepped through the door, saw Butterbur, and was thereafter sensually overwhelmed.   There were patron NPCs, “roleplayers,” countless tables, a fireplace, things on the wall, maybe even wooden or antler-built chandeliers.  I focused on the thing with the quest icon above its head.  Any stop and stare moment was completely lost in the business of the place.

The most picturesque moments on Lord of the Rings Online, for me, have been the interplay between the sky and the distant landscapes, or a night upon Amon Raith, or finding a quiet fishing hole.  The more active the environment whether through props or moving players or NPCs, the less stunning it becomes.

I have great respect for the artistic minds that create levels above and beyond mere game design.  The whole zone becomes a type of symphony having many active allegro and vivace moments that come from movement, combat, and realistic business, but I think it is equally important to have a holding coda as well.  The base tempo for each zone will definitely affect the spikes in either direction.

–Ravious
obliged to be industrious

EA WTF Follow-Up

Despite how I have seen it linked, “we’re sorry you were confused and took offense” is not an apology. Since the approach is apparently, “any publicity is good publicity,” I’m just not going to mention any EA games for the rest of the year unless this is somehow made right. We’ll see how 2010 goes.

The beauty of being petulant about this is that I don’t need to think of what would constitute atonement. The creative minds that thought of “sexually harass women for prizes” can devote their efforts to that.

: Zubon
#EAFail

Pay-By-Zone Pitfalls

This past weekend I have been going through the final hub of Kroktopia in Wizard 101.  Being a Storm Wizard, this is actually more of a challenge than the fire-based hub and ice-based hub.  I like it though.  The “epic” storyline in Wizard 101 is mostly linear, and I was hitting through Karanahn Barracks, which if I recall correctly, had one storyline quest in it and maybe five other quests.  It cost me $1.83 to play this zone if I buy 2500 crowns at a time (the cost drops to $1.22 if I buy $80 worth of crowns at a time).

The preceding three-zones (Well of Spirits, Ahnic Family Tomb, and Djeserit Family Tomb) cost me $1.83 for all three, and included three or four times the amount of quests as Karanahn Barracks.  I finished everything I could in the Barracks, to then have to buy another zone Karanahn Palace to continue the story for, again, $1.83.  Karanahn Palace is a dungeon instance, so right away it feels like there will be less than a quest zone because the dungeon instances in Wizard 101 are insulated with their own quest chains, etc.  So, I knew that once I completed the Palace, once, it would be time to move on.  Except for alts, it was likely I would never return to the Palace.  I also had to refill my crowns in order to buy Karanahn Palace, and instead I just signed off and played other games for the rest of the weekend.

Continue reading Pay-By-Zone Pitfalls

Now what?

Before Book 8 went live, I kept pushing my kin mates to take a stab at 16th hall or Dark Delving to see about getting me the 5th piece of radiance I so desperately needed to fight the watcher. I felt like I would miss out on exploring the new raid with the kin if I didn’t. I was worried they would do it until it was boring and I would be left behind.

Eventually, I did get that 5th piece of radiance armor on my Runekeeper, as well as two +15 pieces of radiance armor. But I haven’t seen the new raid yet. My kinship just doesn’t have enough radiance or confidence to attempt the new raid. We all still need the +20 radiance pieces from the watcher before attempting the new raid. Each week we to the watcher to spend three hours getting wiped.

The tactics we use are the same as those that have been posted and seen on youtube. The characters who go to the Watcher raid are all decked out with the rare drops from the instances and radiance armor. We all have the best food, potions, traits, tokens and scrolls. These are some of the most skilled players I’ve ever played with in any game. Yet every time we try it, some people die half-way through the fight and everything falls apart.

I wanted to get to the new content so badly, but I don’t think my kinship will ever see it. Now what?

A Six Sigma Response?

Sanya Weathers at Eating Bees wrote in her seminal piece on the five things that will tank your community ‘(4) if you are a community manager that is ignoring the eighteen whiners on the boards ignoring them will hurt the community when all eighteen of them are saying the same thing.  You are the one who is wrong, not them.’  But, what is ‘not ignoring?’

There are a few shades of response a community manager or a developer can write, and unfortunately the most common seems to be something along the lines of “your concerns are noted, and have been passed along or considered.”  In my opinion, as a player, this response is only marginally better than being ignored.  I don’t understand why the responder does not employ one of the most basic of management techniques: active listening.  Repeat the players’ concerns in a condensed, polite manner, and some of the most acidic of criticizers will melt.  “Hey, this dude is on our side.”  Shocker, I know.  Plus, many community managers have to digest and reiterate player concerns to the developers anyway; might as well double-dip on the work already done.

Orion, a developer for Lord of the Rings Online, did just this in his most recent blog post.  He reiterated in a condensed version the complaints about hard mode/radiance gear/radiance gating in a few short paragraphs.  My kinship went bananas.  One of the guild leaders wrote “if he told us after [the active listening response] that it was ‘working as intended,’ I would’ve still been happy because they understand our problem.”  Well of course.  They have understood our problem all along.  Certainly there are varying levels of detail in the response, and I would submit that the more detail in the response that mirrors the actual complaint the more soothed the savage beasts will be.  Active listening in a super-condensed manner might not give the full result.

–Ravious
till Max said “be still”

Guild Wars 2 Dust Bunnies

Apart from the usual forum bickering, there has been some pretty decent detective work regarding Guild Wars 2 the past week or so.  I would like to share.

First, 4thVariety disclosed that he or she keeps notes on trademark licensing and domain registration that ArenaNet has done.  4thVariety does this by comparing the attorney NCSoft uses for ArenaNet work and other work.  Some very interesting tidbits ensue.  On April 11, 2007, BlightedEmpires.com was registered by Peter J. Wilsey, who registered other ArenaNet websites.  Guild Wars 2 was announced only two weeks earlier.  On March 12, 2009, the domain name was refreshed.  Could this possibly be the subtitle for Guild Wars 2 – a game where dragons awoke and destroyed nations? (UPDATE: This trademark has gone abandoned.)

The second interesting thing was found from voice actors’ resumes.  It seems that many voice actors are including Guild Wars 2 as work they have done.  Voice acting requires content and story (especially for “two major characters”).  Content and story are one of the final legs of development.  Concordantly… the dawn might be breaking soon.  For a poor benchmark, Warhammer Online released a video podcast on adding voice acting in March, 2008.  Warhammer Online was released September, 2008.  On the other hand, The Old Republic has started voice acting for their fully voice acted epic, which may be as far off as November 2010, or farther.

Regardless, we are going to get news later this year, possibly at the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) on ArenaNet’s back doorstep, or likely after Aion’s launch dust settles.

–Ravious
irrevocably human