Author: Zubon

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Evendim and Hengstacer

Last night was a good night in The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢. We have a Casualties of War static group on Tuesday nights, which is pretty much my only MMO time for the past month. When you’re not really excited about playing, it can be hard to log on at all, even to see the guys. I’m glad I played last night.

In 100 minutes, we ran about a dozen quests in eastern Evendim. If you know the area, we hit the desert, all the wanted posters, and the assorted relics, robbers, bears, wargs, etc. around the named tomb robbers, along with the first three steps of the “riddle” chain. Almost all of this is trivially easy in a group of four. We over-pulled, were reckless, and generally stomped a bunch of even-level enemies with a few signature foes mixed in. It was kind of like playing City of Heroes, although a non-CoH “massive over-pull” is five to eight enemies.

Note: not a single bugged-out enemy the entire time, including a rampage through Rantost and along the beach. Fixed!

We all leveled, with all but one of us now level 35 or higher, time for mounts. Mounts are 4.2 gold each (Casualties, if anyone else needs mount cash, we have not emptied my level 60 of her gold yet. Post on our boards), so cue the whining about the quests to get the riding skill.

I originally had the full narration of how long it takes to run these quests, which I timed at 35 minutes of story-free, challenge-free, alt-tabbed horse riding. If even a description of the quests is TL;DR, you can imagine how much fun running them on a fourth character is. Bree-land is next on the zone revamp list, so I hope this ridiculous waste is removed. I can see how the timed obstacle course at the end if challenging, with the traps that make you fail if you trust the path, but has anyone, anyone enjoyed riding across three zones to build up anticipation of getting your own horse? The failure is only reinforced by the fact that the horse farm does not have a stable. If there is one place in the world that should absolutely have a stable, it is the one where you can see several stables full of horses.

: Zubon

Trailers

Good: The Old Republic.
Bad: Book 8.

I think I have scorned every piece of marketing for The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢ that I have seen, dating back at least to citing the number of characters created. That teaser trailer has approximately five seconds of video of new content, showing one boss doing one animation. I mean, if that one animation makes you want to put down your $15, I guess it worked, but I would hold out for at least five animations and maybe a tile set.

On the other hand, I have liked every piece of marketing that Bioware has done for Star Wars: The Old Republic. Syp keeps linking their stuff, like this Republic Trooper video. It is just graphics and concept, and I am the least visual person you know, but I found that really compelling. Everything that Bioware is releasing is high quality, and they are releasing it at a stately pace that does not imply a cry for attention or too early of hype. (And that trailer is showing some serious conservation of The Force.)

I also like the early media strategy from 38 Studios. What do you know about code name Copernicus? Almost nothing. That’s great! If a game is more than a year from release, I don’t even need to know its name. Call me when you have something to show me.

: Zubon

Passive-Aggressive Help

Thanks to Jong for the link: Let me Google that for you. This is a more polite and useful version of Just F’ing Google It, which spells out F’ing if your workplace or parents are very sensitive about that kind of thing.

Lifehacker provides my title, along with some relevant commentary about being a jerk when answering questions this way. It also provides the critically useful Let me Rickroll that for you. As commenters there point out, good keyword and searching skills really are skills, which is why librarians will rock you. But it takes less time to Google something than to type the question.

: Zubon

Redefining Value

I have changed my mind completely. For most people, MMOs are horrible entertainment value for their cost. This is by design: the mechanics stretch the content across the maximum time possible, rather than deliver the fun in the most efficient and effective way. The money cost is cents per hour, but the time cost per entertainment unit is far larger than in other forms of entertainment.

Continue reading Redefining Value

Flash Variations on a Theme: Launches

Consider as a case study three variations on what are essentially the same game:

In each, you launch your little person into the sky, get rewards that you can use to buy upgrades for your flight, and repeat until you hit the cap. “Better” means getting more upgrades faster.

Continue reading Flash Variations on a Theme: Launches

Real Life Lacks Chat Channels

The chat system is a major flaw in the design of the universe. Generally, all communication is proximity-based. There are technological workarounds that let you speak to someone remotely, and you can modulate your volume, but the lack of normal user-defined chat channels is a major problem.

Take parties or bars, for example. I do not like being in a room with twenty-plus people, all of whom are shouting to be heard by the people immediately around them. Why can’t we set this to a series of chat rooms so that people are not talking over each other? Even if the IRL server has a limit on how many channels it supports, could we at least get a few per zone? That would keep the noise down, and it would have the added benefit of not forcing people to be next to each other if they want to communicate. Bob could stay in the conversation while he goes to get a drink, and you could send a tell to someone across the room without using a shout.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the new system of cell phone-based tells. It is a great improvement over the old system. I just think we could do so much more if we got past this spatially defined paradigm that our chat system seems stuck in.

: Zubon

Also, my wife thinks I’m no fun at parties. Curse my sensitive hearing!

The Players Are Not Monolithic

People post claiming to speak for “the players,” or developers talk about what “the players” want, but there is no single coherent bloc of “the players” (see also “the people” in voting blocs). There may be a majority, or a vocal minority, but “the players” are a diverse group with conflicting interests, even if you have a highly self-selecting group of players organized around a single niche.

floon
The Lord of the Rings Online Team
Re: Minstrel Icons

Originally Posted by Sirus05
/rant on

Can we please, please, please stop changing the minstrel icons? I absolutely hate logging in to a new patch, and find the icons are all changed around again. I can appreciate that the icons look pretty, and that this latest change of icons on the test realm is in response to the last time they changed the icons, but it’s getting really confusing having to relearn what the icons mean every single patch.

/rant off

So what part of the icon thread the last time confused you? That you guys had valid criticisms of the icons, and that we changed them based on the very passionate response of the minstrels?

Can we please, please, please remember what you guys asked for just a month or so ago?

Why does this particular example bother me? First, the quoted poster preempted the developer’s response by saying he understood exactly what the developer went on to say. Second, the response is an incoherent, “Some players, possibly including you but who knows, complained about change x, which we are changing again, so why are you complaining about changing x again?” Third, a complaint about procedure (changing something every update) is a separate matter from the content (is this one a good change?). Fourth, as a developer, you do not get to mock your players for providing feedback, particularly when it is legitimate for the previous three reasons. If you are supposed to be one of the professionals here, you must act like a grown-up, and you do not get to abuse your paying customers just because you cannot please everyone.

: Zubon

Or maybe I’m just annoyed at the people who keep changing our forms at work, so I need to get a new one every time I go through the process. Yes, I get that the new form is easier to use. It has gotten a little better each of the five times you have changed it in the past two years. Unfortunately, dealing with a new form every time takes me longer than the hassles in the old ones.

City of Heroes vs. Farming

After adding more than 100 Architect badges in Issue 14, Paragon Studios has decided that 80% of them were bad ideas. There is good and bad in that.

Good: “So, going forward—beginning with the Mission Architect badges—we’ve decided to move away from ‘count’ badges that might encourage farming and/or aberrant game play. Instead, we’d like to encourage players to try all of our content by offering badges for completing 1 time accomplishments and achievements.” Existing “kill 100 rats” badges will remain, although I guess we’ll see if they tone down the count requirements in the future.

Bad: “We really didn’t want the Mission Architect to be an environment that encourages farming for XP, Rewards or Badges…” Not bad as such, but again, they seem not to have thought that through. Seriously, you did not see how it might encourage those? Let’s take the last part: you did not want Architect missions farmed for badges? There is a badge for defeating 5,000 custom enemies in Architect missions and 50,000 enemies in test mode. Let me say that one again: 50,000 enemies, in the “no xp” test mode, and they did not want to encourage farming. There is one for earning 25,000 tickets and another for going 1,000 over your ticket cap, one for 10,000 in test mode, then another for 1,000 inspirations. Or more simply: 100 player-made arcs, 100 heroic arcs, 100 villainous arcs, 100 Developer’s Choice arcs, 250 Hall of Fame arcs, and 100 arcs in test mode. No farming intended, just hundreds of story arcs?

When your new release is more than half a year in the making, because remember it was originally intended for Issue 13, you need to at some point resolve diverging views like “reduce farming,” “require 50,000 kills,” and “give players easy ways to make lots of experience.”

: Zubon