Author: Zubon

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I See You

My Uruk Blackarrow hit rank 5 last week and got his stealth detection ability. My own stealth is -4, but I can see through 14. Well-equipped Burglars using Hide in Plain Sight still escape me, but I can see through Camouflage and Hobbit Stealth even if I forget to turn on my buff.

I put it to use Monday night. It was awesome. My teammates do not share my line of sight, but the Burglar becomes much more visible once I set him on fire. They are so cute, creeping along in the stealth animation, not realizing that they are about to be shot in the face. The most satisfying was the one trying to sneak away after we wiped the rest of the freep raid. All night long on voice chat:

“Burglar creeping up on the right side.”
“Where?”
*twang*
and fifteen people dogpile on him.

: Zubon

Now if only I could actually kill Burglars without the fifteen friends. Just wait until I hit rank 7!

Big Beaks

I am the first one to mock games for re-coloring mobs so that you are fighting the same guys at level 40 as level 4, only blue versions with new hats. Indeed, The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢ was really disappointing when I got to Evendim, because the level 1 bandits get new jobs as level 35 tomb robbers, along with their friends the wolves and the bears. The developers seem aware that boars are the only missing piece.

Blade-Beak Ravager And then you go to Angmar and meet these guys. Yes, this is the cave claw model from level 2, and the fight is pretty much the same, but it becomes something special when they are brightly colored world-devourers whose forelegs are taller than you are.

: Zubon

Refuting Bioshock

Libertarians, unhappy with the world’s land-based governments, have begun the project of seasteading, building their own nations in international waters. They are prepared for pirates. There will be no ADAM.

The discussion thread at Marginal Revolution raises the interesting argument that liberty is the happy result when a bunch of authoritarian groups found a country together and cannot agree on which gets to be in charge (that or civil war). You can speculate on how that might apply to competing/successive game development teams.

The FAQ-writers are clearly our people:

What will people do onboard?
Our first response is “the same things anyone else does”, but perhaps we don’t get out much. As long as there’s an internet connection, it might take us quite awhile to notice that we were on a small, isolated platform.

Oh, and the guy in charge is Patri Friedman, who I knew in college, so I had to give him a shout-out.

: Zubon

James Q. Wilson Explains Thoughtful Blogging

James Q. Wilson has been guest-blogging at The Volokh Conspiracy. (If you don’t know who he is, his Bureaucracy is a political science classic, and you or your kids likely use[d] his textbook for AP US Government.) While there, he has more or less summarized the difference between academic rigor and the blogosphere (he is guest-blogging on crime and imprisonment, hence the specific):

Can I Be a Meaningful Blogger?
A lot of readers have suggested that I am not a helpful blogger because I refer people to other studies for data to support my arguments. These critics are probably right. Were I devoted to blogging full time, I would quote all the data and summarize all of the studies, thereby getting nothing else done. I had assumed when I started my blog messages that people would pause, think, and look up facts. A few have, but most seem to have opinions they like to express quickly. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it doesn’t advance knowledge. Let me join the opinion parade by offering a few of my own: This country imprisons too many people on drug charges with little observable effect. A better solution can be found in Hawaii, where a judge uses his powers to keep drug users in treatment programs (it’s called Project Hope; look it up). The costs of crime are hard to measure (so are the costs of confinement). The reader who does not want to drive five miles to find the book, Prison State, that discusses this in detail is wasting my time and his. It is not hard to study deterring crime, but I can’t imagine trying to teach someone in a blog how to do a regression analysis. I wish I could do that, but it would take time, and blog commenters seem not to have much time.

Now for a few more facts, but I warn you that to believe my assertions you will actually have to go out and read something. [snip]

This is not a shot at y’all, since you have seen the academic rigor that applies to my ramblings. I just enjoy the “you’re really not playing in the same league as me.” A respected designer posts some thoughtful comments on game balance, and the comments thread descends into a battle of whether WoW suxx0rs. A professor posts in his field of expertise, and “Tyrant King Porn Dragon” responds while goofing off at work. Posting your opinion is fun and all, but there is only so much point in talking with people who won’t do the Bayesian updating.

: Zubon

And yeah, he could stand to include more links.

Issue 12 Is CoX

Issue 12 does what City of Heroes/Villains does well, and it does a lot of it. When I complain that there is not much there, it means that there is not much there for me, right now. If you are in the mood for the City of Heroes playstyle, this is possibly the best issue ever.

As a reminder, that playstyle is rock ’em, sock ’em action. No one does it better. You start out strong, instead of fighting single rats. Grouping is encouraged but not required, and the content scales perfectly for any size of group. You beat things up constantly, a non-stop roller coaster ride of smashing your foes. If you have a big group, you can sign up for the bigger foes, and the task forces are adding more big guys for those times when you want to fight eight Elite Bosses at once. Inspirations (potions) drop constantly, so use them for free buffs and heals, and enhancements (equipment) are something you worry about for 15 minutes every five levels.

We talk about the leveling versus raiding games in WoW, but the leveling game is what City of Heroes is. You get twelve slots per server, so make lots of alts, and start over if things feel like a drag. You can group with anyone at any level (sidekicks and exemplars), and if you prefer the playstyle at level 10, 20, or whatever, you can flashback there for as long as you like.

Looked at this way, Issue 12 is perfect. You can buy 24 more slots on each server, with a few freebies: no more leaving your friends and home server. Powerset proliferation adds or expands 20 sets, and the villain epic archetypes give you a whole new story to pursue across the levels. I last counted 364 different powerset combinations; that is now 556. Hidden beneath fluff and flavor text, City of Heroes does just the one thing, but there are more ways to do it than you will find anywhere else.

: Zubon

Mostly True to Howard

If you start a new pen-and-paper campaign, it is important to get a sense of what sort of world you will be in. A good question for your new GM is what fictional world his most resembles. James Bond can walk into the villain’s lair with a tuxedo, small arms, and his wits; in a gritty realism campaign, that is suicide. Is this the sort of world that encourages the heroic charge or kills the first man to show his head above the trenches? High magic and epic adventures, or carefully ration your stock of potions?

My favorite example is the classic wall of fire. If you run through it, will you (a) shrug it off and crash into the cowardly wizard behind, setting him ablaze as you cleave him in two (in slow motion, with blood spray); (b) take a level-appropriate amount of damage, slightly softening you up before the big fight; (c) slip harmlessly through the gap in the jets of flame that you keenly identified; or (d) be instantly incinerated down to your skeleton, you idiot, why did you run into a giant wall of magic hellfire?

In the world of Conan the Barbarian, muscle beats magic. (This is by reputation; I have not read much of the original.) Spells are time-consuming, difficult and, easy to disrupt. If the wizard begins chanting as you enter his chamber, you will probably have time to dispatch his bodyguard, clear any obstacles, flex your mighty pectorals, and plant a large blade in his chest before he finishes his spell. Tying up your victims for sacrifice is popular when battlefield magic can get you killed.

Please see this Age of Conan spellweaving video. Explanation here. Yes, that person is spending more than two minutes straight spellweaving, with a few fun debuffs that leave him vulnerable the whole time. The special effects build in impressiveness as the magic reaches its crescendo. You can imagine the dark wizard summoning his forces of fang or flame about him, calling together eldritch power with a look that vacillates between triumph and terror as the hero catches his eye and rushes across the field of battle. The air becomes hazy and palpably vibrates. Our hero briefly contemplates throwing his axe before committing to the charge, weapon held high, ready to slash the wizard from throat to hip. Will the villain cry the last word of his spell, turning the blood in our champion’s veins to fire, or will he simply cry as he chokes on his own blood?

: Zubon

Mostly True to Tolkien

It was the recreation of the siege of Minas Tirith with gummi bears that pointed out to me that Tolkien named everything. Monsters and swords, of course, but why not a battering ram? The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢ plays this straight, with a constant string of named quest rewards. Fill your character with named rings, cloaks, bracelets, weapons, hats, gloves, and shoes. (Yes, every letter there is a link. I have plenty of alphabet to go.) I assume that most of the names are words from Tolkien’s made-up languages.

Make sure your item’s name has an international character or two. Your sword is weak if it lacks a diacritic.

At some point, you start to wonder about all this magic loot. Here we are in Middle Earth, with some five wizards on the planet, and we sell packs of magic weapons as vendor trash.

: Zubon

PnP Ponderings: D&D 4th Edition Launches

My copies are still in the mail, but I had a chance to read someone else’s. Once I have time to read in-depth, I will have reviews at the book site, but I wanted to post some metagame thoughts. That is, while I have not played 4th Edition, there are many things to be said about the direction the rules have taken and how 4th Edition will work as a product line.

Continue reading PnP Ponderings: D&D 4th Edition Launches

Billers, Players, and Developers

Arnold Kling discusses Nassim Nicholas Taleb, distinguishing between two types of jobs. Billers are wage workers: high floor, low ceiling, meaning that you get your wage with little chance of bankruptcy or riches. Players are gambling on commissions, big payouts, etc.: no floor or ceiling. A great accountant will earn little more than an average one, while an author might sell millions of books or die in penury. This latter economic state is often described as a tournament: the winners win big, and the difference in winnings between #1 and #2 will be far larger than the difference in quality of #1 and #2.

MMO development companies are players. We have big winners, games that go bankrupt or nearly so, and scattered moderate successes and hangers-on in between. Despite their differing subscriber numbers, WoW is not 10 times better than EQ2 (whatever that would mean). Most indie games will fail, and others will be bought by EA or something.

MMO developers are billers. If you work for Sony or NCSoft, you get a paycheck rather than a percent of the take. Just like you the player, your friends on the development team are not going to get rich and drive into the sunset with a Ferrari full of hookers and blow. Well, Nicodemus plans to, but he’s a special case. When you think about WoW being flush with money, you can remember that their community manager is still eating ramen.

And a few places (mostly indies) skirt the line because developers have stock, options, a share of the company, etc. If the game hits it big, folks who are vested will cash in. Or they will continue to work long hours for free Mountain Dew.

My perfect example is 38 Studios. Professional athletics is the usual example of a tournament game, where a great pitcher gets millions while someone 2% worse hopes to keep a spot on the Mud Hens. Now that money is invested in a game studio. If you work there for a wage with no profit sharing, that wage is what you get. Curt Schilling stands to lose millions, and you risk needing to find a new job. Or he might be the owner of the next WoW. We’ll see how that tournament works out.

: Zubon