Author: Ravious

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[GW2] Jump in dee Line

Most players want to rock that monthly on time. With the New Year came January’s Monthly Achievements in Guild Wars 2. The evergreen monthly WvW player kills achievement remains evergreen, and the fractal completion has continued from last month. Monthly event participation has returned from the early days too. The new monthly achievement is Intrepid Explorer – find the locations of Tyria’s jumping puzzles.

Monthly achievements, in my mind, are one of the developer’s ways of herding players towards the better parts of Guild Wars 2. WvW kills has remained because WvW is a really good, active part of the MMO. The Fractals of the Mists dungeon is the best instanced group content in my mind. The monthly achievements have also heavily highlighted the holiday events where high concurrency is desired. Now the jumping puzzles, one of the heralded jewels of Guild Wars 2, get their turn in the monthly sun. Continue reading [GW2] Jump in dee Line

Yearly Contemplations and Prognostications

2012 was a good gaming year for me. There were some nice surprises. I am looking forward to what 2013 has to bring. Here’s what I thunk and think as we cross the yearly threshold.

Play to Finish MMO Paradigm

With all credit to this term going to SynCaine, this simple concept has been in my rock tumbler since it opened my eyes. It is also very pertinent because arguably my favorite MMO relies on the concept. A “play-to-finish” MMO is one where players get to some end of their choosing, such as a storyline, max level, or something clearly designed as an end point. Then the bulk of the experience has been played. Players that do stick around do so in a fashion similar to single-player gamers doing game achievement unlocks. This is an oversimplification, but this is where I want most MMOs to head. Continue reading Yearly Contemplations and Prognostications

[GW2] Stages of RNG

I can’t believe ArenaNet made an untradeable set of miniatures in the Wintersday Mystery Boxes. It must be a mistake. There will be ways to get those account-bound miniatures another way. They wouldn’t have decided to restrict this collectible to straight up personal randomness.

I got burned so badly during The Lost Shores where I stupidly gave them $10 for a failed attempt at exotic miniatures. I used to be collecting all of the miniatures back when people didn’t understand the pyramid scheme that is miniature collecting. When those three ultra-rare karka miniatures hit, I just threw my hands up.

Okay, here’s another $10, ArenaNet. Let’s pick up a sack of Wintersday Mystery Boxes and hope they aren’t loaded with default coal (tonics). All I want is the Mini Festive Golem. I know I am going to take one across the face by the RNG, just like I did for Halloween and The Lost Shores. Maybe I will just get something worthwhile this time. I don’t even want the chase item. Just give me something cool, ArenaNet?

Foo. I got three Mini Snoman miniatures. They got forged into Foostivoo; stupid little quaggan staring at his feet is how I feel. People want this dumb miniature too, and I can’t do anything about that. I also can’t gamble anymore because Lionguard Lyns is down without comment. I guess I’ll just play some Wintersday content with this dumb beluga-thing following me around.

Even with this disappointing gamble, Wintersday is pretty fun, you know. I still get a kick out of the jumping puzzle even though I can one-shot it daily. The story of Tixx is also pretty good. Are the skritt being turned in to toys in the Infiniararium? There’s some Tyrian pest control there. I’m starting to like Foostivoo too. My little girls get a kick out of seeing the “blue frog with the silly hat” following me around. I crafted them an early Christmas present of an Endless Princess Doll Tonic, that I can’t wait to give them. I think ArenaNet definitely earned my $10. Excuse me, I have to go snipe some people in a snowball fight.

–Ravious

[GW2] Wintersday Flurries

In the downtime surrounding the stress of the passing of a loved one (who lived an awesome, long life), I did get to play a bit of Guild Wars 2 Wintersday event. Unfortunately in picking up the pieces and tearing up drafts of some of my more frustrating thoughts, all I have left are brief windswept flurries. Feel free to add your own too! Apologies; I meant to add that Bhagpuss and Jeromai already have very thorough posts up about Wintersday!

  • As a holiday event, Wintersday is amazing. I am just blown away with the magnitude of the event. It feels like there is something for everybody.
  • Snowball Mayhem is now my favorite Guild Wars PvP aside ever. It blows away Dragon Arena and Costume Brawl of old, which used to be my favorites. It sucks that the achievements tied to Snowball Mayhem are not fun, especially Gift Stopper. It’s a small dent in an otherwise beautiful game mode.
  • I am exhausted and puzzled at what the team behind the gem store are thinking. We go from souvenir miniatures (Halloween) to exotic tradable miniatures (The Lost Shore) to rare, untradable miniatures (Wintersday). Untradable RNG leaves a really bad taste in my mouth.
  • This puzzlement is compounded by taking down Lionguard Lyns and padding the RNG chests with so much crap! Who wants tonics? Seriously.
  • I love Bell Choir and the Wintersday themes. I hope that ArenaNet puts them up for people to download again like they did for Halloween. Some great holiday songs.
  • The difficulty of the jumping puzzle and the Tixx events are just spot on. The jumping puzzle is a tad hard, but definitely not impossible. The Tixx events are great for a 5-man solo/group instance. Could this lead in to something like Rift’s Instant Adventures?
  • I need to go check out WvW breakout events now. Cya!

–Ravious

 

I Buy Bad* Games

Julian wrote yesterday about The Secret World’s switch to a buy-to-play model with episodic content not being the only issue for The Secret World. At the outset, I have not played The Secret World, and it was for one reason. I did not try it out because it had a subscription fee. I had followed The Secret World prior to the announcement, and I felt that it would have been a great game to follow an episodic buy-to-play model. Yet FunCom decided that a forced episodic model relying on subscriptions to advance the content would be the better way to go.

Now, the reason I did not buy The Secret World is gone. Will I buy it now? It is likely, but I must say that the momentum of launch is also gone. Syp and Bhagpuss seem to enjoy it, and their MMO playstyles are very similar to my own. I think it will go on my Steam Wishlist to be considered next time I want to buy a game. Continue reading I Buy Bad* Games

[GW2] Wintersday Wuv

The Winterday patch for Guild Wars 2  is coming this weekend, and Habib Loew, one of the WvW iconics on the Guild Wars 2 forums, stopped by for a quick peek at what to expect in the snow-covered, mist-shrouded battlegrounds. He hinted at larger developments for a huge game update in February, but these smaller changes are much needed.

The first two revolve around client stuff. ArenaNet can push at least 6 builds a day if they wanted to, and this can severely cripple WvW offensives. Now players get a notification that a build is on its way, which will help somewhat. The other thing is that killing the client will no longer save your sorry butt from dying. It takes a long time kill people with my necromancer, and any time I 1v1 my target usually knows a few seconds in advance that death is inevitable. Poof! I get nothing. Well instead of a server-side countdown akin to some other MMOs, the client-killing player automatically dies and gives the opponents experience and loot. Poof is now autolose. Continue reading [GW2] Wintersday Wuv

[LOTRO] The Horse’s Path

Mounted combat is the centerfold for the Riders of Rohan expansion in Lord of the Rings Online (“LOTRO”). It changed things, subjectively for better or worse. Some people think that LOTRO became bad for them. I feel that as I am nearing level 80 I have a pretty good handle on mounted combat. I can see through the curtain, so to speak, and I haven’t decided whether I like what I see. The horse’s path doesn’t seem to go very far. Continue reading [LOTRO] The Horse’s Path

[GW2] Interview with Izzy on Data and Design

In the middle of development between Guild Wars 2 The Lost Shore and Wintersday, ArenaNet’s Isaiah “Izzy” Cartwright took some time to answer a few questions I had about using data for design. (Be sure to also check out the recently publicized video of a GDC talk by Cameron Dunn also discussing data and design for Guild Wars 2 on a more technical aspect.) Read on for Izzy’s thoughts on designing content around the economy, player activity, and other surprises in the data. Continue reading [GW2] Interview with Izzy on Data and Design

Small Thoughts, Small Complaints, Small Post

I am very surprised at the degree I continue to log in to Guild Wars 2. In a constant period unspoiled by content updates, expansions, etc., I usually flit around 2-3 MMOs. I don’t nibble as much as Syp, but I do enjoy small plates. Guild Wars 2 has continued to be my main MMO, and I am having a blast with alternate characters, which is something I rarely do in most MMOs. I will have to discuss my WvW-only character in a future post.

I am slightly frustrated having a necromancer main with the gear options. It seems there are a bunch of cool scepters and staves, but the artists seemed to have forgotten to colorize some for the necromancer. Are there any green-plague glow effects? Seems like fire and ice elementalists get a lot of love. I’ve decided that I love Memory of the Sky for my staff because of the dichotomy of light and dark with necromancer’s staff skills. I would kill for a green-tinted Wayward Wand as a scepter, but my choices now seem limited to ice, skulls, and eyeballs.

In Lord of the Rings Online I am finally hitting Rohan proper with the Norcrofts zone. Overall the Rohan expansion is really good for a quest-based MMO. The flow is exceptionally good. The stories are also nice with some decent gems scattered around. There is also some conventional silliness like a fell-beast cool with watching me burn down it’s roost or me having to constantly interrupt a funeral to advance a quest line. Still I am enjoying the expansion. I’ll have to discuss mounted combat, revisited, in a later post too.

I would play it a lot more if the client was not an inefficient woolly mammoth of a program. With my computer running Guild Wars 2 on max settings, I can be in the game in less than a minute. Lord of the Rings Online is at least a couple minutes. It is a shame too because the quests are so conducive to small bites of playing. I also hate that the client won’t run windowed unless it changes Windows 7 to basic view. I’m sure optimizing load times and compatibility with Windows 7 graphic mode is near the bottom of their engineer’s to-do list.

Guild Wars 2 Wintersday event is coming on December 14, and the Lord of the Rings Online Riders of Rohan 3-mans (Goblintown, Mirkwood, and Misty Mountains) have less than a month to be released. That is about where I am heading.

–Ravious

[GW2] Boundless Dailies

Most MMOs have some form of “dailies”. Dailies are activities that have a time-limited activity cap. The most common type is a daily quest, which is only available to complete once per day. Dailies are used as a time gate towards progress, or they are used to let casual players maximize rewards for their time. Guild Wars 2 uses a daily PvE achievement based around four tasks to maximize experience points and karma. The main difference from most other MMOs is that the four tasks can be accomplished nearly anywhere.

For a look at a more conventional MMO, let’s take Lord of the Rings Online’s Hytbold content. Hytbold is a personally-phased town in Rohan that has been ravaged by war. It is up to players to reconstruct the village by doing dailies. Each day there are 16 quests split between 4 zones from the new Riders of Rohan expansion. I am not there yet, but knowledgeable guildies told me it would take 40+ days of 16-quest dailies to complete Hytbold. It’s easy to see the direction behind Hytbold. Dailies are centered around content where most players will be. Dailies correspond to a unique reward. And dailies will keep people coming back for quite a long time. While Hytbold is unique in many aspects, its use of dailies is the norm in most MMOs.

Guild Wars 2 turned dailies on its head, for better and worse. Continue reading [GW2] Boundless Dailies