Author: Zubon

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In Praise of PUGs

Most of my pick-up groups have been rather good. I have clearer memories of the horrid ones, but my non-guild groups almost never fail to accomplish their objectives, and few have really serious problems along the way. The problem is that the good groups blend together: teams succeed similarly, but each fails in its own unique way.

Continue reading In Praise of PUGs

Annoyance

I’m running Volume One, Book Ten on my Minstrel. You know when is a really lousy time to add small group content? Immediately after a forced solo instance. You know where is a really lousy place to add small group content? On three different points around Lake Evendim, for which there is no faster means of travel than swimming across a freaking lake.

Bringing your players together through shared adversity annoyance?

: Zubon

New Frontiers in Spam

If you do not know the term “augmented reality,” read Vernor Vinge’s Rainbows End, or for a simpler version, watch the opening to Stranger Than Fiction. If you watched the last link, imagine that on a grander scale: GPS directions projected on your windshield with the arrows in exactly the right places, binoculars that pop up information on whatever you see while bird-watching, or contact lenses that use your wireless to be the perfect monitor.

So, how are your spam filters working? Messages getting through your ad blockers? TV networks that have pop-up ads wandering through your shows because they think you’ll skip the commercials? A good company will have signs that add the equivalent of “click here for our menu and hours” as your go by. Bad companies will be like those TV ads that double the volume, or those ads you need to X out of to see the page, or flash ads that shout, “Hey!” Been rickrolled lately, or sent to something less appealing? I can think of a half-dozen way around these problems, but many of them involve potentially blocking yourself from things you want to see.

Having an IRL ignore list could be helpful, or seeing who people on your friends list have rated as an idiot. We may lose a bit of shared reality as people edit out parts of the world they don’t want to see or think about. I can already see parents putting filters on their kids’ wearable computers, so now they really can keep little Tommy from ever seeing X; we can only hope that kids continue to be better at getting around filters than their parents are at making them. Fast Company has some thoughts on the matter, but frankly, it is an introduction for the flatscans out there, and you probably have much more interesting thoughts on ways to use and abuse having computer overlays in your daily life.

: Zubon

Hat tip: Daily Illuminator

Blockage

For those of you just joining us, The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢ is the game of unnecessarily long travel times. Epic quests frequently involve spending an hour riding horses. As I type this, I am in windowed mode, riding from Rivendell to Echad Dúnann to complete Volume Two, Book One, which you may remember this from Tweety’s write-up. For those of you who did not click the link, you open the gate to Moria (yay!), get attacked by The Watcher (ooh!), open a trove of legendary items that you will use to fight him back (yay!), and then are sent a zone away and told to level up your weapon ten times before coming back (wut?). Each one-way ride adds 12 minutes onto the quest, which I am spending not looking at the game.

Having horse access is a valuable thing. Later, after I complete 40-ish quests in Eregion, I can take the instant travel horse there, but poor zone ordering means that comes after I really need it.

You can also get your own mount. I hit 35 on a third character today, so I sent him to do the mount quests. You must complete quests to unlock the ability to ride a horse, despite having ridden stable horses for thirty levels. First, walk to the horse farm to start the quest chain. There are no horse routes to the horse farm, because … they don’t have stables there? They give you a horse; take it to the nearest city and run back. They give you a horse; take it to a city at the far end of the next zone and run back. They give you a horse; take it to an outpost across another zone and run back. They give you a horse; ride an obstacle course within the allotted time. You are then allowed to buy a horse.

Because putting the carrot on a string is fun, but the real fun comes from repeatedly tugging it away just as he is about to reach it.

: Zubon

Great Quotes on PR

From Killed in a Smiling Accident:

Am I at fault for setting my expectations against the output of their hype machine? I used to think that maybe I was; I’m under no illusion that the promotion of these games is almost entirely undiluted finger-waggling horseshitery, as an MMO developer tries to build a critical mass of community around its forthcoming product. I should take it all with a pinch of salt, but lately I’ve come to realise that the amount of money these companies spend on marketing could be spent on improving their game such that it’s not an embarrassing bug ridden piece of half-realised promises and pie-in-the-sky design ideals. I find that it’s much better, for me, if I take the marketing of these companies at face value, and if they don’t live up to the tenet of what they’ve spent hundreds of thousands of $monetaryunit preaching to the masses, then it’s a fairly safe bet that there won’t be any substance to the game in the long run either.

Because you are judged against your hype.

: Zubon

I haven’t tried Spellborn yet.

On Bannings

A profit-seeking company, with shareholders who demand returns and employees who have mouths to feed, does not want your money. They advertised for players, they take all comers, and your conduct is so egregious that they have decided that it is not worth the suffering to take your money. They accept the Something Awful guild, but not you.

Wow. That might give you a bit of pride, if your black black heart can feel anything.

: Zubon

Forced Solo Content

Mines of Moriaâ„¢ has a surprisingly large amount of forced solo content. By that, I do not mean that you can solo it, or that it is too bothersome to find a group. The content is in an instance that you cannot enter in a fellowship. There are the six daily IXP instances, several chapters of the epic books, and steps in quest chains. Book Seven added six crafting instances, which are again forced solo. The three-man instances are forced small group content.

This is an odd way to train your players. I understand worries about people taking the easiest path, which is bringing too many people, but we already have hundreds of quests that people prefer to solo, with little evidence that they will bring six people to kill those eighteen orcs even faster. Do you want to train your players to spend multiple hours per day alone in instances? For non-hardcore players, that is their entire play session. It leads to the unfortunate effects seen with the opening of Book Seven: the outer areas of Lothlorien completely empty of orcs, as people solo them for the faction quests rather than grouping to share and speed things. You know that people around you are on the same quests, but we have been trained not to bother finding a group if it is possible to solo.

So far in Volume Two, there are three chapters that demand fellowships: 2.4.7, 2.5.5, and 2.6.8. I do not even want to count how many solo instances there are; I would guess at least fifteen. You can experience almost everything in Moria solo except the six radiance instances, and you need to visit those only if you plan to join the twelve-man raid. We do not need to force people to be alone even more.

: Zubon