Ethic

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The Battle Of The Patches

EQ2 and WoW have been out just about the same length of time. Which team has put out more patches? EQ2 by a long shot. 28 to 9 is the score I could find.

Everquest 2

World of Warcraft

Blizzard needs to change their frame of mind regarding content updates. They are moving too slow.

This is part of my fear, that the overwhelming popularity of WoW is very very bad for the game and possibly the genre. Everyone used to copy EQ, now they will start copying WoW. Granted, WoW is fun, but for how long?

Blizzard is sitting on a cash cow, what is left to motivate them?

Test Server Blues

Back when I was playing Anarchy Online, I mostly played on the test server. It was around the time that the new Fixer grid was being implemented. Many people poured onto the test servers to try to get a head start on figuring out how to do the quest that would grant you access to it.

The quest required that you locate and terminate three different mobs (among other steps). They would spawn in certain positions but they would not always be what was spawned there. So sometimes you needed to kill a few other mobs in order to have the proper mob spawn. Players had found the first and second locations but had no idea where the third one was.

Let me take a step back. Besides players, there were also employees (?) known as “Bug Hunters” that would be on the test server. They would take reports from players that found bugs as well as trying to track down problems on their own.

One of them made a mistake. Over the global chat channel, he typed out what looked to be a teleport command and some coordinates. Oops. I went into the normal grid and started popping out at different locations to see my coordinates. When I found a location that was close enough, I popped into my yalm and flew the rest of the way. There was the Bug Hunter and the NPC. He just gave away the third location. He saw me and struck up a conversation.

I imagine I was not the only one to see those coordinates, but I promised the Bug Hunter I would keep my mouth shut (and I did until today, hehe). Sadly, I did not see that guy around any more. Perhaps he was fired, perhaps he changed his character name.

As you can see, there are issues to consider when thinking about a having public test server. Should you put new quests on the test server? Should you have employees testing the quests on that server? This is just one example of what could go wrong.

I think these and many other issues are why most games do not have a public test server. In fact, even games with private test servers (Asheron’s Call 2 Vanguard Program for example) have problems with leaks getting out to the general public. It’s a sticky issue and I’m not sure that I have seen a good implementation of a test server yet.

Monday Ramblings

What’s new with me? I think everyone is back to full health around the house so that is a plus.

I’ve been able to get a little WoW playing in – got my Rogue to level 21 and now able to use poisons. Currently he is equipped with two gigantic swords (that just look stupid in my opinion) I found in Shadowfang Keep during my late night raids with Inhibit. Really, all I did was follow him around and observe but we had a good time chatting and goofing off. I went through levels 18 and 19 in that place. Honestly, I really like that instance. It just flows nicely and looks great all the way through. I really like when you get outside and look down off the wall and realize that you are really high up above the ground.

Played just a bit of EQ2 Trial of Isle. So far it seems all right, if not a little dark (lighting that is). Perhaps it was just night time. I started a Scout there, which seems to be like a Rogue. Getting stealth right off the bat was nice. The tracking feature was interesting. I selected what I wanted to track from a dropdown list (which I assume is a list of things only in the nearby area) and a magic path shows up that I can follow to whatever I am tracking. Not overly excited to play it any more but I’ll keep popping back in there now and then.

Asheron’s Call 2 has announced a ship date for the expansion pack (Legions) of May 5th. That is a little over a month later than expected. Turbine is really struggling to manage expectations these days. I tried to play some but when I log in I get hit immediately with the choppy movement. I don’t know what is the deal with that game, but it has been choppy for me since day one. It makes me rush back to WoW just for the fact I can run and not have to stop once and a while to wait for control back.

Played some of the MMORPG beta tests I am in as well. One of them (The Matrix Online) has an interesting combat system. I spent a large chunk of time in the fight tutorial just playing with it. I also tried Puzzle Pirates recently, not my cup of tea for sure. What else? Oh, I have not reactivated City of Heroes as I’m not sure I’m ready for that yet. That is all for now.

EQ2: Trial of the Isle

Everquest 2 is offering a free trial for Fileplanet subscribers. I am a pseudo subscriber (friends in high places, hehe) so I downloaded the free trial and I have the key in my inbox. I’ll check it out this weekend because that is what I do.

My biggest question is this comment: “No need to rush, you have up to a year to try a variety of character types and experiment with various play styles.”

So, um, I understand that I cannot ever leave the “newb” island, but I will be able to play on it for a year? What is up with that? Odd.

Honey, Where Is My Supersuit?

After watching “The Incredibles” for the third time recently (my kids can’t get enough of it) I am having some urges to reactivate my City of Heroes account. Well, it’s not a lot of money, perhaps I will give it another month just for the heck of it. I never was able to get a travel power (like flight) so I would like to try to get to that point at least. Heck, getting a Yalm in Anarchy Online did wonders for the enjoyment level of that game for me.

Now if only I knew someone currently playing CoH.

But then again, I *have* been waiting for Pirates! to come out and I hear that is a lot of fun too. Hmm.

WoW Instance Lag Fixed!

I have been having this awful problem with choppy frame rates in World of Warcraft instances. Not anywhere else, just instances.

After removing all of my interface add-ons, I noticed the choppiness was gone. Adding them back in one at a time narrowed it down to one called “Gatherer“. That one tracks potential herb and mining resource spots for me. I never really relied on it so I took it off for good. I have read the newer versions don’t have the problem, but I really don’t care at this point. I’m just happy I can go into an instance again and move freely. Woohoo!

OMGWTF! Stealth Nerf! FFS!

I came across this thread on the WoW forums today and thought it interesting how quickly people jump on a bandwagon with no facts to back it up.

It starts with:

Blizzard saw fit to completely remove the Doomguards purpose for higher end raiding – Cripple no longer works on bosses (which it did before).

And then the others join in:

All of that gets blown away by a nerf which isn’t even listed. Fantastic.

Why give classes abilities if you’re going to negate them in the content you really need them for?

yay, I LOVE it when Blizzard lies, (o w wont make anymore changes without telling you) and goes and nerfs ONCE more, the class thats been nerfed like 5 times since release, thats already broken to an extreme….

The thing that bugs me about this nerf, is just the sheer magnitude of it. A small decrease in imp health? Ok fine. Seduce breaking earlier in pvp? Sure to that as well, not a game breaking deal. The warlocks best debuff being nuked and obliterated without so much as a mention? On an entirely different tier of severity.

Why do I pay you? I am confused as to why you take my money. Is it to provide a game in which I enjoy, or a game in which aggrivates me to death upon hearing about the not so elusive stealth nerfs occuring with no prior notification.

Finally a dev responds:

I saw this thread and found it somewhat surprising. No one had made any changes to the Doomguard or to any of the Molten Core bosses on the live servers. So Daelo and I logged into Kilrogg and tested out the Doomguard on some of the Molten Core bosses and cripple stuck to them. We then came back to this thread and noticed that Protous (the original poster) was on Archimonde. In the name of being diligent, we logged on to Archimonde and conducted a new test. Once again, Cripple stuck on the bosses.

Could you please provide more information than, ï¿½Blizzard saw fit to completely remove the Doomguards purpose for higher end raiding – Cripple no longer works on bossesï¿½? Iï¿½m more than happy to make sure nothing got nerfed but youï¿½ve got to try to work with us a little bit. Which boss did you fight that was immune?

As a side note, the Doomguardï¿½s cripple is not intended to work on every boss in the game. While we find it an interesting mechanic for some encounters, we donï¿½t want Warlocks using this on every boss in the game. Some bosses WILL be immune to the spell. But nothing should have changed overnight. No ï¿½stealthï¿½ nerf was ever planned.

I just love it when someone has one thing happen in a game with random numbers deciding gameplay and they automatically assume it was a stealth nerf without doing any testing. And then other people jump right along with them. At least there were a few logical responses in there by people with functioning brain cells.

The dev response was a beautiful piece of communication and customer service. Bravo!

WoW Server Follies

While rare (in my experience), I have occasionally encountered some odd problems while playing World of Warcraft. Last night was one of those times.

A friend of mine asked if I wanted to run through Shadowfang Keep to try to get my Rogue one of the Meteor Shard daggers that drop at the end on occasion. I had nothing going on so I decided it would be fun. I was in the Crossroads and had a bit of travel time ahead of me. I needed to take a flight to Orgrimmar then run to the Zeppelin. The Zep would take me to the Undercity where I could catch a flight to the Sepulcher. From there I had to run on foot to the Shadowfang Keep (SFK) entrance.

While I was doing that, my friend decided to enter SFK and start clearing out the place. As I got closer, we made a group. This was a mistake. We may have avoided these problems if we had formed a group before he went in, but we have never had a problem adding someone into a group for an instance before so we thought nothing of it. Until… I ran through the entrance to SFK.

After zoning (it is an instance so you zone into your own unique version of the area) I was attacked full force and had to run back out. He asked me where I was and I told him I was outside because a bunch of mobs attacked me at the entrance. He said he would come back and clean up, assuming there had been a respawn. He got back and ran outside to meet me. We went back in and I got the wonderful “this is not your instance please leave or die kthxbye” message. Went back out.

Then we went through various stages of grouping, ungrouping, making a raid, abandoned the raid, etc. Nothing helped. He decided he would recall to Undercity and then run back and see if zoning helped. When he got back, he could not enter the instance at all. He would just stand there in the zone area and nothing would happen. I could still run into it (and get attacked).

We decided to relog. Nothing changed. We filed a request for help and then waited. While we waited we did a little roleplay. “Don’t enter the swirling portal, it’s evil!” “EEEEVvvviilll!” “Do not taunt happy fun portal!”Of course many people did enter the portal with no problems.

After a while (of no help from our request), my friend decided to charge into the portal one last time and he got in! So I followed and what do you know “leave or DIE!” pops on my screen again. This time we both leave, drop the group, reform the group and go back in. No warning. Huh. So we proceed to do the whole instance.

At the end, the dude that drops the dagger on occasion dropped a robe.

We have to go back now…

Cinco No Playo

It has been about 5 days since I last played any serious amount of World of Warcraft. Sick kids, sick wife and the stench of vomit buckets has pretty much kept me offline.

I don’t miss the game all that much. That is good. I used to go nuts when I had time away from the game. I am pretty comfortable without the game these days. Sure I miss it and I look forward to playing some more, but no more shakes when I can’t get my fix.

Another relevation for me is that I am actually coming to grips with my altoholism. I have started to enjoy the variety of playing multiple characters. Sometimes I feel like a Rogue, sometimes I don’t. With the rest bonus it only makes it even better.

And tradeskills? What is with those? I pretty much avoid them lately. It just seems mostly counter productive to my game play. I don’t find them fun so I don’t do them. When I need a break away from combat, I just log out. Fishing is the only one I halfway enjoy and even that is not part of my game sessions any more. It seems that a lot of people use them to make money, but since my brother gives me piles of gold, I guess I have no need for making my own.

In other news, I have started reading the series “A Song of Ice and Fire” by George R. R. Martin. The first book is called “A Game of Thrones”. Very good stuff. This is possibly another reason why I am not going through WoW shakes. A good book does wonders for your soul. And your brain.

More Beta – Ballerium

I was picked to participate in the Ballerium beta test. This game, according to the devs, is considered an MMORTS. They say that stands for: Massively-Multiplayer-Online-Realtime-Strategy-Game. Why didn’t they call it an MMORSG then?

Anyway, I’ll check it out as soon as possible. Since there is an NDA, I won’t be sharing much here until the time that it is lifted. I’m not a big RTS fan so I can’t say I’m overly excited about the release of this one, but I’m currently only being asked to test, not to have fun.