Category: General

I have somehow gotten this far without blogging about the Alchian-Allen Theorem, but it is an economic principle you should understand in this international games market. It also applies to cartoons and dating, so stick with me through the econ.

Let’s start with those cartoons. You should expect anime in the English-language market to be of higher average quality (or at least broader appeal) than the anime in Japan. Why? It is not worth the cost to translate and localize crap shows. Fan-subbed series should be of lower average quality because companies will have already brought over the more lucrative (higher quality and/or more popular) titles. (Notable exceptions: bootleg fan-subs torrented while something is still mid-season; shows that are “too Japanese” to survive localization but are great if you know the culture.)

More generally in entertainment, you should expect the titles imported to be some of the best ones that country/language/culture has to offer. At least, you should expect them to have broad appeal, which is often but not always a sign of high quality. (Can I stop doing that disclaimer? Assume “better” means “better bottom line,” which is often associated with quality but sometimes with appealing to the lowest common denominator, which is not always bad either.) Lineage and Aion are probably the Korean MMOs with the most appeal in the Western market, ditto the Final Fantasies from Japan. Weird licensing issues pop up, but if the money is good enough, you can expect those highly profitable games to come over. Second tier, maybe. The equivalent of our crap games? Not worth shipping. You may have noticed other titles coming over using lower fixed costs, notably less effort at localization (contribute your favorite lousy, completely unprofessional translation) and less advertising, and you may have noticed that many of them are really poor. (The same applies in the reverse direction. WoW has many Chinese subscribers; has Age of Conan been localized for China?) As fixed costs drop, you should expect more options but lower quality or more narrow appeal. Recettear had a great localization, but a limited number of people will get excited about a fantasy adventure game where you run the item shop.

Oh, I promised you sex. This applies to human interactions as well. If you have a long-distance relationship, you will probably expect it to advance by leaps and bounds when you meet in-person, because you did not fly 5000 kilometers just to watch TV together. Similarly, if you go to something like E3, PAX, BlizzCon, etc., you are going to expect a really good experience when you drop hundreds of dollars to attend; if you go to something more local, your expectations will not be as dialed up, and you are not as invested. Let’s re-phrase that: if you live in Anaheim, you might go to BlizzCon if you think it looks pretty good, but if you live in Boston, you are only going to BlizzCon if you think it will be really awesome; same convention, different thresholds and expectations. These kinds of raised expectations can go well or lead to really huge disappointments as all the dreams (and money) you had invested in this person or convention crash on the shoals of reality.

: Zubon

Not hatin’, just sayin’.

A friend of mine is finishing law school and preparing for the bar. He has an ethics exam to take, and since he is a WoW player, I am worried. There are presumably ethical rules against charging more than one client for the same work (although it is normal billing to do work for multiple clients in the same hour and round the charge for each up to a full hour). MMOs teach us that you should always get paid twice. If you are killing a monster, it should be for a quest or in a dungeon on the way towards a boss that drops something you need, ideally one that counts towards an achievement and drops components you need for crafting. It is even better when you can find multiple quests for the same enemies, multiple achievements that need them, etc. This poor law student has years of Skinner box training to undo.

: Zubon

I promised to have some comments about Batman: Arkham Asylum, but I find that Zero Punctuation covers everything I would want to say. Great fun, I should try more stealth-based games since I also enjoyed the alien in Alien vs. Predator.

I never especially got the hang of the combat. This stems from a tendency that applies to other games and metaphorically to real life: I do not tank. I will always always always choose evading over blocking. I use ranged attacks, I kite, I play high Dexterity characters, I CC, I do not take an axe to the face if I can at all help it. This is probably just misplaced meatspace instincts, but my immediate reaction to a troll is to dodge the club rather than parrying it with my hobbit’s dagger.

In some games, this provides a real benefit. Attacks will have secondary effects, so evading attacks also evades debuffs. Other games let blocks or parries also stop the debuff component, whether or not that makes any sense. Some games have shields/armor reduce damage rather than deflect attacks, which means you get the debuff. And did I mention the 100-stone troll with a similarly huge axe planting it in your skull? That could ruin your whole day.

In many games, the proper move is “block and counter.” My plan is closer to “dive and shoot from behind cover.”

: Zubon

You know it’s going to be a bad PvP match when you see all the opposing players have the same guild tag over their head. Many guilds, mine included, enjoy group PvP, yet very few games support it natively. Group PvP is fun in that you have now taken the game to a completely different strategic level, on top of whatever landscape/npc/event challenges the developers have built into the zone/event/area. I’ve been in one or two truly epic guild vs guild battles.

I know as a pick-up PvP player, getting repeatedly beat into the ground is not fun. I don’t mean because I need to “learn2pvp carebear”, but because the other team is well versed in each other’s strategies, abilities, and works well as a team while I am trying to figure out if my teammates can find the attack button. At least, I would hope that the other team is not enjoying it. Bullying usually stops being fun around third grade.

In the event you are one of the 6 people who do not know someone with 25 VIP beta codes to one of the most open closed betas I’ve ever seen, Trion just announced that the last beta event starting Feb 15th will be open to all.

Consider it a great way to try it before it comes out. If you like it enough, you still have time to pre-order.

Considering caring about yesterday’s football game, Ilya Somin compares it to caring about fictional characters in books or films:

…vicarious identification with fictional characters is fun. Occasionally, it even has some educational value. The same, of course, goes for vicarious identification with sports teams. It’s fun to root for your team and hate its rivals, even if your initial reasons for identifying with Team A rather than Team B are essentially arbitrary (usually that you grew up in City A rather than City B).
…
Not everyone enjoys vicarious identification, of course. And among those who do, some prefer to satisfy their craving by means other than rooting for sports teams. But vicarious identification is a common and deeply rooted emotion — one that probably has biological roots. And it’s not really that surprising that it leads some people to root for sports teams in much the same way as it leads others to identify with fictional characters.

It is not a terribly long post, if you want to see how your views of Thrall and Elizabeth Bennet are essentially comparable — and if you write WoW/Pride and Prejudice crossover fan fiction, bonus! It links to preceding posts of the “who cares which team wins?” sort. I grew up in metro Detroit, so while my Facebook feed had some few comments on the game itself, it really lit up when the Chrysler/Eminem commercial came on. Hometown pride is much the same thing.

: Zubon

I realize not everyone watches the Superbowl, but seems like an unnatural amount of online games also have something going on this weekend. That I know about from the emails I’ve gotten in the last 24 hours:

Rift Beta
Rift’s load testing event
LoTRO’s Anniversary coins dropping
STO’s Anniversary event
CoX’s Issue 19 + 7th Anniversary event
DDO’s Event Preview
Plus a few beta events for a few MMORPGs still under NDAs.

I miss any? Pass the chips.

Post release of the new guardian profession there have been so many really cool tidbits floating through various interviews and discussions. Some help players understand the guardian a bit more, and some even help players understand the game as a whole. There was one huge bomb that I think many people overlooked. We’ll start there.

In an aggressive interview with Jon Peters, one of the Guild Wars 2 game designers, OnlineWelten asked about the use of guardian skills targeting allies. Peters said that there are no ally targeted skills in Guild Wars 2. No ally targeted skills. That bears repeating. That may be the “flash of genius” that changes the MMO industry. They are making systems so people play together more seamlessly and simultaneously taking away the mortar that has held together all other groups in prior conventional MMOs. There should be no reasonable doubt that the holy trinity is dead in Guild Wars 2. Another big effect is that almost all of the attention by players will be on the battlefield instead of party UI.

Continue reading [GW2] Guardian Sanctuary