Author: Ravious

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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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Guild Wars 2 Trailer and Site!

This early morning (or lunchtime in Germany), ArenaNet finally opened the gates to their much anticipated sequel to the original Guild Wars.  The Guild Wars 2 website has gone live with the trailer available for download or streaming.

The trailer is done in a 2.5D paper-doll fashion (which is why the ship in the first few seconds looks off), and it tells the story of a dragon named Zhaitan raising the sunken nation of Orr.  It’s undead armies then waged war on the five main races of Tyria, which just happen to be the playable races.  The trailer then goes on to show some of the vistas in-game.  It is beautiful, and will likely even give Aion Online a run for the money in best-looking MMO once Guild Wars 2 launches.

I find it interesting that the trailer and website focus on Zhaitan, whose name was not known before today.  Eye of the North focused on the elder dragon Primordus, but the first conflict we are told about is with Zhaitan.  I wonder if Guild Wars 2 will be episodic in that each battle with another elder dragon will bring on a new expansion of content.  Too early to tell.

A few more quickies from the flood of information.  Aside from Asuran “magitech,” the weapon technology of the world seems to be at a rudimentary firearms stage.  There will be day and night cycles in the persistent zones.  There will be instancing, but the hub system of Guild Wars 1 is mostly going to be replaced, which is very interesting.  Hopefully they still keep the same level of map travel as in the original.  The event system is the main focus of getting people working together.

The opening bomb has dropped in great style, and we will be getting lore updates for the rest of the year.  Gameplay discussion will begin next year according to the Guild Wars 2 FAQ. 

–Ravious
twice as bright burns half as long

Favorite CG MMO Trailers

The trailer for Guild Wars 2 has all been but confirmed for release tomorrow (August 20) in Cologne at noon (6 AM EST).  In lieu of this momentous occasion, I wanted to share my five favorite CG MMO trailers.  Feel free to share your favorites and most disliked below.  In no particular order:

Tabula Rasa – Even though the game is no longer living, I really enjoyed the Tabula Rasa trailer.  It was well produced, and the tidbits of story was just enough to understand the background conflict.  The scenes showing the conquering of the world and the human refugees were great in giving a feeling of loss.  The point that Earth was gone was well made.

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade – The original World of Warcraft trailer was great, and Blizzard took it one step further with the Burning Crusade trailer.  It set up the main conflict for entering the Outlands, it presented the two new races, it had a bit of nostalgia, a bit of humor, and a big badass at the end.  I had long stopped playing World of Warcraft, but the trailer got me excited.  The following Frozen Throne trailer failed to do this for me.  It felt like the “one” scene was stretched thin.

Star Wars The Old Republic – This one was an easy choice.  Even parsing out the superb use of Star Wars lore, the set up and cinematography are top notch.  The combat choreography is well done with the focus where it should be in the huge lightsaber battle.  I do have one complaint.  Both major combatants should have died with the way that final blow was struck.  It gave the Sith a feeling of plot immunity, which further lead to a feeling of the bad guys are cooler.  I think that the good guys deserved a few more “cool” scenes.

Guild Wars Factions – The first Guild Wars trailer was about average, but when the second Guild Wars campaign was coming, ArenaNet outdid themselves with this trailer.  It had a very evocative Asian feel without falling into the horrible Asian tropes (see the Lineage 2 trailer for those), and I loved the use of beads to signify blood.  The Jade Wind was also great, but I wished it also showed the “freezing” of the Jade Sea.  It sucked that Guild Wars Nightfall did not have its own trailer after the outstanding Factions one.

Warhammer Online – This is likely my favorite MMO CG trailer, and possibly my favorite CG trailer.  It showcases a lot of the classes and their conflict with each other.  It gives the good guys some “cool” facetime, and the whole trailer keeps a steady pace.  There are also a lot of small details like the dwarf deciding he needs a drink during the battle or the demon’s necklace warping reality.  My one criticism is that the pacing is almost too steady.  It does not give the frenetic feeling of a battle.  It’s a minor nitpick, though, in a great trailer.

–Ravious
ze Zacred Siegfried Oas

The Jacobs Test: Champions Online and Aion

Amidst first impressions and “reviews” let us not forget the simple, yet elegant point system disclosed by Mark Jacobs in deciding whether to buy Champions Online or Aion Online.  Champions Online dropped the NDA August 17 which was less than three full weeks away from the September 4th release date.  Mark Jacobs obviously thinks that Champions Online is “okay but not great.”  Aion Online, on the other hand, dropped the North American NDA over 14 weeks out from launch.  I believe I heard Mark Jacobs say Aion Online was “nirvana.”  Of course one must take in to consideration that Aion Online was unfairly released in Korea almost a year ago.  In retort, it seems that there really was no NDA throughout Korean Aion testing at all.  So take that, point system.  Got anything higher than nirvana?

–Ravious
oh well, whatever, nevermind

Krokopatra Down

This past weekend I finally bought and pushed through the final two zones in Kroktopia.  It was actually quite difficult for my Storm wizard because the final quest hub in Kroktopia is full of Storm creatures (which are, as one would expect, resistant to Storm spells).  I thankfully had a spell that converted Storm damage in to Myth damage, which Storm creatures are weak against, but then of course the Storm creatures cast spells to protect themselves against Myth damage.

There were some pretty rough fights, with glass jaws going against glass jaws.  Being on the other end of a lightning shark bite was not very fun, especially when it took off 1/3 of my life.  I could have done a lot better with deck-building, but I eked by every boss fight.  The Krokopatra fight was filled with edge-of-my-seat goodness where I luckily got off my one pet skill to diffuse the incoming damage enough until I killed her minion.  Some other fights were over in five turns through clever use of buffing (first in, last out for buffs is very good knowledge to have).

I am having a really tough time deciding where to head next.  Grizzleheim is new and shiny, but a branch off of “the first chapter.”  Marleybone follows the storyline, but I hear it can be frustrating.  Where should a level 26 Storm wizard go?

–Ravious
all strange and terrible events are welcome

Another Casual Player Definition

I’ve been following Lord of the Rings Online developer Orion’s blog pretty closely where every day he updates the masses as to his redesign of the Red Maid dungeon, Garth Agarwen.  It is really interesting, and reading some of his mundane tasks really gives a good showing as to why design is slow.

One of his latest posts remarks on how Garth Agarwen is going to be re-released in bite-size form aimed at casual players, which is a hard “niche” of players to define:

It’s difficult to define the casual player, so I’m just going to go with the tried and true generalizations that may or may not be true of any given part of the player base: Casual players are those that value play time at a premium rather than a given; their time is precious and spent in many areas and as a result is parcelled in ways that make sense for their lifestyle, play style and life commitments. Casual players would prefer to have a fun bite-sized experience that is entertaining and challenging, but fits within schedule demands that other persons may not necessarily be beholden too. Casual players are not looking for the easiest path to fun, they just want a path to fun.

I have never nodded so much in reading a paragraph written by a game developer.  Like I have noted before, casual vs. hardcore does not really denote the amount of time played anymore.  I think, in line with Turbine’s devs (and hopefully many others), that casual vs. hardcore is based on the unquantifiable amount of fun per time played.

“Casual” like so many terms is becoming a misnomer for a way to define gamers, but the concept is simple.  Does the game let the player actually play without significant hurdles to overcome?  MMOs are a niche market partly because they are one of the few video gaming genres that requires hardcore play in the majority of gameplay.  Console gamers and non-MMO PC gamers probably scratch their heads in wonder.  After all, the point of playing video games it to actually play, right?

–Ravious
the majesty of my tower of hats

Stuck on the Train

It seems that most cool things happen on the internet, when I am disconnected from it.  Yesterday, three things rocked Guild Wars’ small corner of the internet, most of which happened while I was on the train home.

The first was the USK’s certification of a Guild Wars 2 (gamescom – Trailer).  ArenaNet will have a good presence at the convention (Jeff Grubb would be my personal target to stalk), but they will not have a booth.  The certification has since publicly been taken down.  Although I would love to see any Guild Wars 2 trailer sooner, PAX would be a much better convention to present it because ArenaNet will have a booth and very strong presence there.  I am excited about the possibility of a CG trailer because the Guild Wars Factions trailer is one of my all time favorite video game trailers.

Then Jeff Strain, one of ArenaNet’s co-founders, amicablyleft NCSoft as President of Product Development.  The public is not really sure as to the reasons of the departure only about a month before the NA/EU launch of Aion Online.  Strain is an MMO giant, and I hope one day to be able to chat with him.  Hopefully someday, somehow he will be back in our little niche market.  Regardless, Mike O’Brien, one of the other ArenaNet co-founders and current executive producer of Guild Wars 2, has the best thoughts, especially with regard to Guild Wars 2:

Jeff is a personal friend of mine. We worked together very closely from the time he joined Blizzard in 1996, through our founding of ArenaNet in 2000, until he left ArenaNet to join NCsoft West in 2008. I’m sad to see him leaving NCsoft now. We remain good friends and I wish him great success in his next endeavor.

It’s important to understand that ArenaNet is a separate and self-contained development studio. Jeff hasn’t been involved in the day-to-day development of Guild Wars 2since he left ArenaNet more than a year ago, and I don’t expect his departure to have a direct impact on our studio or on Guild Wars 2. I continue to lead ArenaNet, and I’m not going anywhere.

The final bit of news is the application process for the Guild Wars Test Krewe is now almost open.  The application went up and down most of last night because there were backend issues that prevented actual submission of the application.  It seems like it is currently down, but should be re-opened sometime in the west coast morning.  The application asks for beta experience, age of your favorite Guild Wars character, and a very open-ended “what would you bring to the Test Krewe.”  If you want to help Guild Wars Live Team development, with a possible jump to get into Guild Wars 2 testing, check it out.  I highly recommend reading this wisdom before submitting an application.

I finally logged off last night, and XKCD, as usual, knew exactly how I felt.

–Ravious
sleep tight in your cot

Defensive Patch Notes

For the minority of players that read the patch notes, there is an even smaller minority.  Let’s call them nicely the Caretakers.  The Caretakers are players that love the game to a degree that emphasizes the definition of a love/hate relationship.  They read the patch notes for your favorite MMO, and whereas more casual players just nod that things are getting better, the Caretakers see holes.

The bear skill is still overpowered.  Those fire wizards are still overpowered.  The combo-class is still weak and still not wanted in parties.  The Cap of Pulcritude (sic) is still (sic).  And, what are all these needless things that the developers wasted their time on.  Who gives a rodent turd about the stuff they actually did?  Except for that one thing, that was pretty good.  A light salve for the godhanded slap in the Caretakers’ faces.

The Caretakers then unite in their public council for all casual forumgoers to see, and they pontificate on how the developers clearly do not understand the problems in their own game.  Which makes me wonder… Should developers put some defensive, non-patch notes in their patch notes?  I don’t just mean the “we understand the issues with [a most reviled feature], and are looking in to it” (which rarely makes it into the patch notes anyway).  I mean something that a game designer would query another game designer on.

At the end of the day the Caretakers truly care about the game.  Sane community managers and developers know this.  Caretakers are also some of the most expert of people on the game.  They know the game better than many of the developers.  Sane community managers and developers also know this.  So could the Caretakers be used manipulatively as an unknowing think tank? Continue reading Defensive Patch Notes

Guild Wars Market Speculation

We have been told multiple times that Guild Wars 2 news is coming by the end of the year.  One of the biggest questions and possible news releases by the end of the year is on the use of the Hall of Monuments – an eternal filing cabinet for achievements.  The Hall of Monuments was created, in part, to give Guild Wars 1 players some recognition when entering the world of Guild Wars 2 a quarter of a millennium later.  Linsey Murdock, Live Team Leader, has been pushing for fixed decisions on the Hall of Monuments because once the reward scheme is released maximizing one’s Hall of Monuments for Guild Wars 2 is going to be an extreme focal point of Guild Wars 1 players.  It’d be nice for the caretakers of Guild Wars 1 to have the heads up as to where rabid AKES will be frothing.

Continue reading Guild Wars Market Speculation

Shallow Thoughts by Ravious

PC gaming is just starting to pick up again.  The Ravious Conglomerate moved from a being-foreclosed-on apartment condo to a nice, shiny townhome in order to give Daughter #2 her own room.  I love that Daughter #1 can now dance, skip, and sing all she wants without a crabby, lonely lady banging on her ceiling below us.  I hated yelling at Daughter #1 to not do what a young kid should always be allowed to do.  With the move and ensuing chaos, the past few weeks have been gaming light, but forsooth, I say, there was gaming nonetheless!  It was all just in bite-size form.

Guild Wars: Oh how I love your little Dibs of enjoyment.  The small amounts of farming and bartering at the weekly Traveler’s Market to get the precious gifts are nice quick hits, and I am forever in love with Fort Aspenwood.  It lets me jump in to some fun, casual PvP instantly.  Deathmatch gets old for me, but objective based PvP seems to always be fun (95% of my TF2 time is payload maps).  I put up the build I always play in Fort Aspenwood here. 

Wizard 101: I hit a stopping point because the evil overlord in charge of the Conglomerate’s accounting (read: wife) says I can’t spend any more money because of the move, security deposit, and feeding/clothing children costs.  I am right at the end of Kroktopia too!  Don’t overlords understand gameplay flow?  The lightning cave in Karanahn Barracks was seriously breathtaking.  I stood upon rocky platforms while a silent lightning storm occurred below; I logged there in quiet contemplation.  Great artistic direction for that one.  Fortunately, a bonus check is headed my way so Mass Effect and a bajillion Wizard 101 crowns will soon be mine.

Lord of the Rings Online: I don’t know how I managed to sneak this one in given the higher activation energy to play, but I did.  Two kinnies and I started on Volume 2, Book 8.  We entered the Hall of Mirrors with nary a walkthrough, and had a blast figuring the puzzles out (even with a 600 silver repair bill each).  Hall of Mirrors is a three-man dungeon with a dungeon-long puzzle of repairing reflecting mirrors to send light to Moria below.  It is fantastically designed and just challenging enough.  Hall of Mirrors and developer blogs get me very excited about where Lord of the Rings Online is headed.  Unfortunately a serious bug at the Defiler/Mistress encounter wiped us to the point where a full, tactical retreat was required.  We are armed with better knowledge (of the instance and bug workaround), and are all excited to return.  Once I have time.

–Ravious
Repent, Harlequin!