For many MMO fans, a large part of the hobby comes from communication outside of the actual game. Fansites and their forums are one of the best places to get the latest news, interact with devs, and discuss the game down to its base mechanics. Inde is the site administrator of Guild Wars Guru, which has one of the most active Guild Wars forums. She, along with a cadre of other moderators, keeps the site and community in good condition. Inde agreed to let me ask her a few questions on running an MMO fansite with an active community.
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.
.Orion on Emergent Gameplay
While many are still splashing the ripples from the Twixt or Myers or whoever’s attempt to explain sociological emergence in a one-sided, four-colored narrative, Orion – one of the developers for Lord of the Rings Online – put up an excellent post discussing emergent gameplay on his blog. He discusses how all exploits start with emergent gameplay and uses the Mines of Moria instance, the Grand Stair as an example. It’s well worth a read.
–Ravious
first principles, clarice. simplicity
EDIT: Linked to Orion’s post as originally intended, not my comment.
Mirror World Myers
It would have been a better read if he decided to roleplay the Pied Piper in Everquest 1 to rid the region of invaders by training the mobs of that zone. I do like how Myers tried to distance himself from Twixt’s actions by writing as if Twixt was the one acting. Hopefully Myer’s peers that reviewed his paper are not themselves new to online gaming. Hat tip: Broken Toys.
–Ravious
we have no future because our present is too volatile
MMO Twittering
I have given my thoughts on Twitter, and my fervor is beginning to erode. I even camped out a name. No, I didn’t get Ravious. Some impostor has squatted on my namesake. I did get my “real” name though, which depends on who you ask: my mom or Magneto. Recently, an add-on for World of Warcraft was made that allows people to tweet in-game. This (and the fact that nearby taco trucks tweet location) brings me from doubtful to enlightened in my view of the micro-blogging application.
I like signing on and checking my guild page to see where people are adventuring. That small amount of information can be helpful, but rarely has it helped me group up with guildmates. Most of the time I have grouped up in guild chat where pertinent information can be exchanged. Sure, it helps to know that they are in the Lonelands, but they might just be passing through.
A simple tweet could change that if it is used as some active status report. I always feel guilty when a guildmate expends will and energy to let his band of brothers and sisters know that he will be farming trolls for the next hour. Would any of us like to join him? Now, instead of guilt-tripping some hobbit healer to be turned into troll foot-jelly, the guild member can just update his playstyle on Twitter. It’s brilliant! Sign on and scroll through meaningful information immediately. Hey, you say, Bobthefarmer is working on Yak rep, I will join him. It becomes your choice rather than a reaction to a plea for help.
Stupid Turbine’s add-on policy.
–Ravious
wanderers wandering all round the town
No More MMO Heroes
Yesterday, the gods of Team Fortress 2 felt the need to bestow upon me a glorious moment for my birthday. The payload was in a trench, and just then someone threw a jarate at the bomb cart. This lowly pyro did jump into the fray pushing the cart thereupon critting down two heavies, a medic, an enemy pyro, and some other hapless being before succumbing to enemy fire. The moment was epic. I just had to share. Allow me this one small indulgence.
I, as well as Zubon, have been playing a lot of Team Fortress 2. I really enjoy the chaotic style of play that public servers are ripe with. One can usually find me amidst the Lotus servers. Now back to regularly scheduled Kill Ten Rats thoughts:
On the W101 Update
I played a large amount Wizard 101, which was recently updated with the Grizzleheim update. Not only is there a new region, which branches the usual leveling path, but there are a whole slew of core mechanics that were just added.
The first, and in my opinion biggest, core improvement is the Bazaar. The Bazaar acts as a trader depot where the NPC will buy just about every item (some have the “No Auction” tag) for gold, and if it has an item in stock it will sell it back. Guild Wars uses this type of NPC-controlled market for materials, for an example of another MMO that uses this mechanic. It is a great system, and much needed in a game where items could not be traded in any way between players on separate accounts.
There are two issues. The issue that I am still on the fence with is in regards to the economic model used to determine buy price and sell price. The system is built so that the NPC gets a huge turnaround profit so as to get rid of gold stockpiles, but that is not the thing that concerns me. The Bazaar window has a numerical counter that shows how many of a particular item are in stock. This counter caps at 100, and I am not sure what that means. Will price be more severely affected as things are sold when the Bazaar already has 100 of them in stock? Or, is it merely a faux consumer gauge? The counter ending at 100 items in stock seems awfully low in a game where there are over 1,000,000 registered users.
More W101 On Tap
I am still happily playing the ultra-casual Wizard 101 MMO as my mainstay. I wanted to follow-up from my earlier thoughts. Currently my level 20 Storm wizard is right in the middle of the Kroktopia setting. I think I have spent about $20 on crowns, using them just to buy the content zones. The difficulty in gameplay increased somewhat as now I am fighting two creatures per battle. I do actually have to time some pulls so that I can fight one mob for a few turns before the other comes to join it. The battles are still quite fun, but mostly soloing, I do have to be more careful of my tactics.
All the benefits of my earlier post are still shining strongly, but by far the best is the “public quest”-like nature of the entire game. I have become extremely accepting of hopping in to others’ battles and them hopping in to mine. It’s such a nice change from “it’s mine, I tagged it”-style gameplay. Granted there are some downsides like the possibility of a player joining, adding mobs, and then running away. However, I have not experienced any form of griefing yet. I do hope that future “AAA” MMOs have a similar shared experience with questing and mob killing… all the time. The sense of a shared goal, even when soloing, is empowering. No longer am I looking at other players with a Gollum-like sneer hoping they don’t ask me to help with their quest I have finished ages ago.
Another thing that really surprises me is my newfound love for barbie-dolling my home. My wife thinks this is absolutely hilarious. But, I am a boss farming maniac just to get an eyeball in a jar or a cyclops statue. Right now I have been saving like Scrooge in order to get the big Kroktopia home. I haven’t played the test server, and I am unsure as to whether the new Bazaar will allow market trade of home items. If anyone knows, I would like your thoughts on the Bazaar.
I did have one big problem. I did not understand how to use treasure cards or discards. I do now, and my A-game has skyrocketed. Before that there were plenty of matches where my hand was horribly skewed to cards I did not need, and unbeknownst to me, I could have discarded the whole lot. I think KingsIsle should consider putting in a short quest to teach these two pretty critical mechanics. Maybe I just completely missed the teacher popup tell me what to do. I have seen from the forums that players were having trouble figuring out how to trash some treasure cards they didn’t want.
Anyway, I think I have figured out most the mechanics (except initiative), and I am fairly certain that this is going to remain my main MMO through the hot summer nights.
–Ravious
there, your body matches your brain
Guild Wars Book Titles
Time for a lore lesson. Guild Wars 2 occurs 250 years beyond the happenings in Guild Wars 1. In between this time, a lot will undoubtedly happen in Tyria (and beyond). I would guess that we will learn a lot of the changes in-game. ArenaNet likes to leave a lot of crumbs so lore-happy fans can piece together things like civilizations, cultures, metaphysics, history, etc. They are also releasing three novels via a deal with Pocket Books that will give vignettes of the changes that occurred across a quarter millennium. Continue reading Guild Wars Book Titles
IP Onslaught
I am not sure what I think about this. 38 Studios has a dream team of creative minds. R. A. Salvatore and Todd McFarlane alone could create an Arcadia beyond most mere mortal’s dreams. Add in all their concept artists, game designers, and even coders (they have imaginations too!), and of course a great world is going to be created.
That being said, I feel like a bipolarized consumer of intellectual property (“IP”) when it comes to MMOs and offspring media. Continue reading IP Onslaught
Like WoW
Describing Aion as “WoW with wings” caused one commenter to conduct a whole review and ranking system comparing, in his opinion, which MMO was most similar to Aion. As was to be expected, it was differentiated from World of Warcraft at every possible instance. Comparing an new MMO to World of Warcraft is a pretty common occurrence throughout the MMO blogosphere and game forums. It is damn near the MMO locus. Yet, there is much to differentiate even Runes of Magic ffrom World of Warcraft. So what does WoW-like mean? Continue reading Like WoW