Author: Ravious

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Guild Wars 2 Trailer – Take Two (Races)

And now on a lighter, less philosophical note, ArenaNet has just released a second trailer for Guild Wars 2 on the Races of Tyria!  Such a beautiful thing (HD link).  What a great treat right before the weekend.  I really like the mechani-Spartan Charr, but all the races seem very cool.  In other games, there are definitely ones that feel less cool.  Cold, if you will.  This game might make me a racial altoholic, in the best sense.

–Ravious
most adaptable to change

EDIT: Oh, and Felicia Day voices Zojja the Asuran. That’s pretty cool. I like their voice actors.

Get Your Party Off Of My MMO

It seems that a recent Bioware interview for Star Wars: The Old Republic has caused quite a stir of echoes about allowing people to play the MMO solo.  It’s not too hard to stereotype the two camps.  On one hand we have Keen, a single male in college, and Tobold, who is sure to let readers know that he has plenty of liesurely time as he and his lady don’t have kids.  On the other hand we have the hardcore father-blogger-student-worker Syp, whose time is precious.  I fall in Syp’s crowd because my game time is very precious, and I agree with his assessment the most. Continue reading Get Your Party Off Of My MMO

Dungeon Love

I am addicted to Dungeons and Dragons Online.  There, I said it.  Even with Siege of Mirkwood just having launched, I want to play more quick hits of Dungeons and Dragons Online.  Last night I chose to spend the 20 minutes I had to murder a tribe of kobolds rather than log in to Lord of the Rings Online for a skirmish or so.  For me, that’s the beauty of Dungeons and Dragons Online: quick flavorful bites of MMO play.

Continue reading Dungeon Love

The Breakups

I unsubscribed to Dungeon and Dragons Online today.  I really only subscribed to get the 1000 points, which was all I needed to buy the 32 point build.  Now I have a dual-wielding khopesh paladin, and all is well.  They will still get my money in non-monthly ways.  The breakup was easy.  Logged in to the master account.  Do you want to unsubscribe?  Are you sure?  Done.  If you want to help us with an exit survey, that’d be swell. I almost had to search to find that last sentence it was so inconspicuous. The relationship we had wasn’t working, but the breakup was clean enough to tell me we could still go have a beer once in awhile.

The so-called number 1 MMO was a different story. She started crying, showing me cute and “memorable” pictures of stuff we might have shared.  I had to scroll through her sob story of how she might change for me, and then she begged for help.  All I could say while wishing my friend would call now telling me my Aunt died was “it’s not you, it’s me.”  By the time I got away I was embarrassed for her.  Would I have to go through this every time I wanted to hang out with her?

Like Dan Savage, I seek to employ the campsite rule outside of… well, campsites.  I want to constructively tell the devs why I am leaving because it can only benefit everybody.  But, when I am being paintballed with marketing cowdung my constructive thoughts go right out the window.  On the other hand, when it is clear the company respects my time and money, I will actively seek out the feedback link.

–Ravious
put a leash on her, turkish

Jeff Strain and Undead Labs

In a flurry of press activity, a new MMO studio was unveiled today by ex-Blizzard, ex-ArenaNet MMO-guru Jeff Strain.  Undead Labs is set to be a very focused developer.  Focused on what, you say?  Zombies.  Consoles.  MMO.  Jeff believes he can help lead an MMO studio with a very tight game-making culture.  This won’t be a “behemoth” company churning out franchise MMOs.  This is going to be a company that carves an MMO from those three simple words for those three simple words.  (Well not for zombies; though, after a 6-hour raid… nevermind.)  There are a bunch of good interviews linked from the Undead Labs’ news page, but the best is found on the site covering rude questions that interviewers might ask.  For instance, Jeff Strain departs from his old view on MMO subscriptions:

Q: Will the game carry a subscription model like WoW, or will it be more like Guild Wars?

A: The game will almost certainly be subscription based. I’ve always said that a game should be designed around its business model, and Guild Wars is certainly designed to be a free-to-play online game. In fact, there are hundreds of free-to-play online games on the market today, but some publishers are increasingly relying on micro-transactions, in-game advertising, “premium” accounts, or, at worst, lead-gen scams to generate more profit. I don’t like this nickel-and-dime approach, because it leads to design decisions that are based on something other than what’s most fun for the players. We want to focus on making an MMOZ that is, first and foremost, fun to play. Not a Skinner Box. Not a teaser for more stuff you can buy from us. Not an advertisement for stuff you can buy from someone else. Our singular design focus will be to create a game that is fun to play, and every month we’ll either earn you respect and your money, or we won’t.

–Ravious
i don’t hate vests

Shareholder Subscription

I’ve talked before about how subscriptions can be seen as a form of investing.  There are plenty of people that keep parking-lot subscriptions to games like World of Warcraft, where the monthly rent is paid but the car is never moved.  I’ve been playing a lot of Dungeons and Dragons Online lately, and while I am not ready to give my full impressions (favorable as they may be), I did want to discuss an interesting point to their business model.  Continue reading Shareholder Subscription

Breaking From the Collective Tempo

Borderlands has two speeds of play, much like its ancestor Diablo II:  paced and rushed.  When I play alone, I am going at my own speed.  It might be a slow safe sniper battle or a quick chest run in one of the Havens, but if a pseudo-scientist looked at some waves or something, I feel that there would be an alignment.  A pacing tempo, if you will.  When I play with others, even close friends, not only does the tempo markedly increase but the speed of play is not always in alignment with the me.  Frenetic is a good word for this in its most emotional definition.

I don’t like that feeling.  I love playing with other people online, but I don’t feel at one with my gaming experience when that feeling happens. Continue reading Breaking From the Collective Tempo