Month: February 2010

Fresh Paint on Old Content

One thing I love for developers to do in MMOs is utilize pre-existing content.  Sure, I love new content with new lore and new mobs as much as the next guy, but I also have a soft spot for nostalgia.  When big daddy Blizzard refurbishes pre-existing content and uses it as a selling point for their next expansion it must be the de rigueur.  I couldn’t be happier.

There is a big difference between say Turbine’s revamping of a low level zone (which was great) and pulling the older content to the current level of play.  Smoothing out some of the egregious bumps is a necessary thing in MMOs, which depend on new blood.  Yet, it doesn’t really help the old players.  It is nice to see a revised area when passing through with an alt, but it is more meaningful to me if the revision affects my main character.

Continue reading Fresh Paint on Old Content

The Explorer’s Conundrum

A big reason I fear I will never play Mass Effect 2, or similar games, is that the story is personalized.  I don’t like leaving paths unexplored.  What if I killed the Texas-talking lizard?  What if I ignored their water supply?  I hate those “what ifs.”  It leaves me the feeling that I did not get the best story as if I skipped a few chapters and then tore out a few pages.  The last thing I want to do with my precious time is replay the entire game just to read a few different chapters.

As a quick aside, this is largely why I don’t alt.  My main has a rich history and story that would take any alt months and months of dedicated play (and player wrangling) to match.  Playing an alt, in my opinion, is even worse than replaying a game like Mass Effect 2 because most often the alt experience will be a shadow of the main read.  I’ll leave that thought now for another time. Continue reading The Explorer’s Conundrum

Thousand-Year Achievements

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

A Letter from Pharaoh

Citizens of Egypt,

Just a short newsletter about a new “social experiment” that we’re about to try. But first, I need to talk to you about “Dunbar’s Number.”
Anthropologist Robin Dunbar hypothesized that there are certain stable sizes that groups of humans tend to naturally form. Depending on the type of group (extended families, cultural lineage groups, tribes), the numbers cluster around 50, 150, and 2500 (upper limit.)
We’re toward the end of our fourth Tale in the Desert (preparations are underway for ATITD V!), but I’ve noticed a pattern in each Tale: Our peak subscriber count has ranged from 1750 to 2500, always about 30 days in, and regardless of the peak, we settle down to a population of around 1100 subscribers (slightly lower this Tale, slightly higher in Tale 2) where we remain for most of the Tale.
Could there be a “Dunbar’s Number” for A Tale in the Desert? If there is – if the game design itself leads to a population of around 1100 subscribers, then growing “the” ATITD community may be the wrong approach – we should try to create a second ATITD community! And if this experiment succeeds, a third and more.
So to test that theory, we’re going to start a second ATITD IV shard, beginning on February 20. I’ll have more details about “Shard Bastet” next week, but if you’ve always wanted to get in on the beginning of a Tale, this is a great opportunity to do just that.
I’d be most interested to hear thoughts on this from those that have been away from ATITD for a while.

On the Nile,
Teppy

Splitting LIs

Lord of the Rings Online legendary item system has always rubbed me the wrong way.  In most other MMOs, with work and people, I can plan out my character to the pixel.  Then it becomes a budgeting process where I evaluate the estimated time per milestone accomplishment whereupon I reorder said milestones to constantly feed me some measure of accomplishment.  Afterall, I am hardcore. 

Give me a break, I am not that hardcore.  I play for fun and as a hobby.  If I went cold turkey on MMOs, I would be sad that I was not having fun with my hobby, but I don’t play MMOs to fill some netherling void in my life.  Still, I do like some constant drip of achievement that does not seem to cohesively exist in the legendary item system. Continue reading Splitting LIs

For shame

Nothing about CoX’s latest news? For shame, I say.

Issue 17 is coming. Do check the link. The skinny: Graphical update coming. Yes, the ‘Ultra Mode’ which was to be a part of the “Going Rogue” expansion this July will be included for free in Issue 17, along with Epic Archetypes available at level 20, and the usual host of classic CoX delicatessen. Namely, badges.

There’s talk of pre-orders starting in early March as well, but I haven’t read anything official myself.

Oh and yes, I’m still alive.

Omniscient Morality License

Four years ago today, American Vice President Dick Cheney demonstrated that friendly fire is turned on in meatspace. No word yet on how Vice President Biden plans to celebrate the anniversary.

Whether to include friendly fire is a powerful factor in games. MMOs tend to exclude it because of the great potential for griefing, while many FPS games keep it. Planetside is the intersection of those two, and I still clearly recall a night when one guy went on a team-killing spree. It took a long time for that TK penalty to build up enough for his allies to be able to fight back without suffering penalties themselves. Take the current WoW AE damage fests in random dungeons and imagine if Blizzard turned on friendly fire for just an hour without telling anyone; would you ever run with a Paladin tank again? Continue reading Omniscient Morality License

Allods Online Announces Open Beta

Just a brief note, this one is worth checking out in my opinion.

Tell your friends, tell your family, tell your neighbors, tell your dog, Allods Online is going Open Beta! The Allods Online team is pleased to announce that the Open Beta will officially go live on February 16th, 2010! All players will be able to access the game (no beta key needed) and all current content through level 40 will be available for play!

Please note that all CBT characters will be deleted prior to Open Beta. Characters created in Open Beta will NOT be deleted.

– Ethic

Skirmish Density

I have been going through stages of my feelings for Lord of the Rings Online’s skirmish system.  First, I thought it could completely redefine my MMO game time.  After playing them and playing them, I experienced a burnout that I thought would not come from the fun little bites of play.  Finally, I think I have found a good middle ground.  Zubon is right, in part.  Onion Headline Syndrome can definitely be experienced by attributing skirmishes to what they are not.  They are not the game.  Continue reading Skirmish Density

LOTRO Defragger

Unscientifically, Lord of the Rings Online takes the longest to load on my system of any MMO.  It seems I am not alone.  One big problem is the fragmentation of the internal file system.  Turbine just released a beta internal defragger for Lord of the Rings Online.  Read all the warnings and problems to be safe, but apart from using SSD or a large USB drive to load the MMO, this should help speed things up.

–Ravious