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.
.It is pretty cool, especially the new Haunted Burrow. A Casual Stroll to Mordor has a full guide. And, thanks to F2P, you don’t even need to be a subscriber to see it. The main events are all in lowbie-safe areas.
They keep adding more to the festivals each year. I like that. I also like when MMOs keep adding more little festivals. The long-run goal is for something special to be going on all the time.
: Zubon
This post exists mostly so that I can link to it in the future as an anecdote on why random drops can be a problem. Continue reading 1 for 16
I have seen quite a few debates about random drops versus tokenization. Should bosses have a 2% chance to drop the Ubersword of Epicness or should they drop 2 badges (and a vendor in town exchanges the Ubersword for 100 badges)? There are merits in each direction, although I tend to favor tokenization because random drops tend to encourage endless grinding of a single dungeon/boss.
Let me, as I often do, mention a third-way solution used in City of Heroes (and a fourth). City of Heroes has used both, but the most sought after items (purple crafting recipes) are random drops from a shared loot table. CoX applies it even to trash mobs, but you could restrict it to bosses and let all of them have a chance to drop all the rare items. That would be an even larger lottery, but you would not have only one boss in the game that dropped the one item you want. Of course, players might replicate “grind one dungeon endlessly” by optimizing for the most time-efficient dungeon, but I am not in the mood to ponder people who want to spend their $15/month doing something they do not consider fun (if you like grinding the efficient dungeon, hey, double-win for you). OTOH, I can understand why you might prefer fewer rolls with higher chances to many rolls with a lower chance of that specific item.
Several games use a menu as a middle-ground between drops and tokens. When you win, you pick one item from a short list. WAR chests are a good example. Another implementation is to give a token that can be redeemed for one of several items, rather than tokens you accumulate as currency. CoX combines menus with randomness by including “a random pick from pool D” as an option on the prize menu. Another middle ground is to have a fixed drop that is variable by class, usually done as a barter item that some or all classes can trade in for their equivalent of the item.
My thought is that players want both fixed and random elements in their game rewards. They want to know that they are going to get something, and little nuggets of achievement are encouraging, but they also want some chance to hit it big. Slot machines make a lot of money, and developers can embrace that without making everything random.
: Zubon
The question arose last week: how do you design around/against people being idiots and jerks? “You can’t fix stupid.” There is no 100% solution, because some people really are that dumb and others will go to great lengths as griefers, but there are better and worse designs in terms of the behavior they reward. If the system rewards pro-social behavior, it promotes harmony. If the player must make sacrifices to help others, you will see destructively selfish if not predatory behavior. Economics in two words: “incentives matter.”
For example, consider Marks of Triumph in The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢. The epic quest chain is a big feature for LotRO, but it was punctuated with instances that demanded full groups. If most of the population had completed them all, how did newer players and alts get through the epics? You asked someone to repeat one. Repeating one was a way to help friends, but you got jack for it. Your friends had to give something up, and you would not meet new people unless someone was a very charitable stranger (or, lucky day, you find a few people who need it, a couple of whom have charitable friends). Game update: repeating one of those instances began to award (once per five days) a Mark of Triumph; accumulate several Marks to barter for various rewards. The rewards were rather nice for when they were released. Pro-social behavior increased.
Because of how Marks were awarded, you did not need someone new to repeat the quest. This has the further benefit of letting you repeat older content without completely sacrificing character advancement, and developers want players to pay for recycled content. The downside is that it is more efficient to get a level-capped group and cycle through all the Mark instances rather than actually helping near-cap players on their first run-through. On balance, however, Marks increased pro-social behavior more than they inhibited it.
I see more games trying to avoid having their earlier content become completely irrelevant while improving their endgame. You do this by having a version of the old content that scales to the new level cap; games without levels have this mostly baked right in anyway. Feel free to comment with your favorite game; World of Warcraft and The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢ are the ones I know best for having another version of older dungeons available at the level cap. Borderlands had its own version: after you beat the game the second time, everything levels to the cap, from the final zone to the first skags.
City of Heroes took a different approach, and it seems to have worked against them from many players’ perspectives. Everything scales, and you can always drop back profitably, so every instance remains relevant as you level. Everything is endgame content and leveling content. Perhaps because of that, City of Heroes has never built much that is endgame content in name. A favorable interpretation is that very little is held back and hidden behind a grind; a less favorable interpretation is that there is little new to do at the cap, which quickly becomes “there is nothing to do at the cap.” Those who took the latter interpretation generally unsubscribed. The illusion of scarcity is an important marketing principle.
: Zubon
A few quick notes before the weekend.
The biggest news on the MMO scene is, of course, that Lord of the Rings Online is now “free-to-play.” Â People of all station are arguing over whether it actually is free-to-play because – now make sure your sitting down if you are reading this on a mobile device – eventually Turbine will want players spend money if they want to continue playing through the content by at the minimum buying content packs. Â Shocking, I know. Â I, myself, thought Turbine was becoming a gamer charity organization.
My two-bit review of the pricing so far is: the cost of content and vanity items seems pretty fair, while the cost of luxury buff items, especially temporary ones, seems a bit high. Â I spent roughly $2-3 buying a skill that now lets my Captain warp to Rivendell once an hour. Â It would’ve cost me about a $1 to buy a one-time-use warp to Rivendell. Â Like any vast cash shop with everything from housing items to hour-long buffs, it has its ups and downs. Â If you intend on trying this game out, head to Landroval if you can, where all the cool kids are.
Another small thing is that Guild Wars 2 beta scams are becoming pretty prevalent. Â Some scam sites are even advertising in Google, and they look pretty professional with solid URLs and ArenaNet art assets. Â I have an eye half-cocked at ArenaNet for not having something more definitive on their site about a beta. Â They have an answer to the question of a beta in their FAQ, but with the huge amount of attention they garnered in the past few months, I think a beta placeholder page is now warranted. Â Anyway, nothing less than either an ArenaNet blog announcement or guildwars2.com site update is going to pass as official for a beta announcement. Â So beware, ye Guild Wars 2 fans.
–Ravious
I have a weird relationship with Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) that is unlike any other MMO I play. Â It’s definitely one of my favorites, and it is always part of my Steam catalog. Yet, after it becomes my main game for a few months. Â I have to go completely cold turkey on it for a few months. Â It stays there staring at my as Steam illustrates my array of games, but I have almost a revulsion thinking about firing it up. Â There is no logical reason for it. Â Seriously, I have written and deleted multiple sentences right here trying to put some sense to it.
However, I am back in it now that it has been re-born as a Free-to-Play (F2P) title. Â Not because it is now playable without a cover charge as I have a lifetime account, but because it feels fresh. Â It feels new, and in parts it feels like a different game. Â One that is more caring of my time. Â I like that. Â There is so much to learn, but I think that many LOTRO posts will be coming in the future. Â I saw a few blogger friends also in-game so hopefully they will speak on such things as well. (Oh look, during editing I see one has!)
Last night I was a little overwhelmed. Â Dozens of titles splashed across my screen. Â I was gaining Turbine Points (“TP,” the cash shop currency) at an irregularly weird rate, and I heard that my points I racked up the past few months might take a bit to show up. Â I checked out the slick new dungeon grouping system (please make a collapsible menu), and I did a quick Rift skirmish with a few friends. Â Last night’s play felt like walking into a restaurant and getting free samples of the coming meal before I am even seated. Â Then when I sit down to look at the menu it’s too hard to make one choice. Â I am excited about LOTRO, and I can’t wait to start digging deeper in to all the changes.
–Ravious
I am interested in seeing more factors tied to the account rather than the character and in the form of unlocks rather than items.
Most MMO elements are tied to the character. Your level, skills, reputation, achievements: all of these are character-specific. You may be able to trade money and equipment between characters. Some games are progressive enough to let you share a few items like a friends list, chat channel, guild affiliation, or key bindings across characters.
Some of my interest comes from being an altoholic. If I have a dozen characters, a bonus that applies to all of them is more interesting than a single-character upgrade. It is secondarily of use to the hardcore with multiple level-capped characters, less so to players who devote themselves to a single character. It makes it a lower-investment decision to try new character options, and it retains the illusion of progress and permanency rather than making each character feel like something entirely new. Continue reading Account-Level Rewards
Things have been a little slow since Dungeons and Dragons Online killed my computer. I kid, a little. I mean it was the game I was playing when my HP “gaming” laptop’s video card was reduced to short-circuited rubble. The game was not at fault because a simple Google search revealed that my laptop series had huge video card problems, and I was very lucky to have mine last so long. I attribute it to judicious use of a separate laptop fan. In the meantime I am waiting for a desktop; the first I’ve had in six years. Anyway…
The NDA for Lord of the Ring’s big update has dropped. I was not in beta (mostly by choice), so I am learning everything with the public. I was accidentally leaked the fact about adding Lua scripting to the UI, and I pray we have some sort of Scrolling Combat Text mod up on Book release. Thank you, devs, for listening. The API for the mods is very, very limited so don’t expect anything on the order of World of Warcraft or GearScore. Still, it is nice to give some more moddable access to a fanbase, which has infinite dev time by comparison.
There is so much to learn, like exceptional Captain updates, new bank usage, the freeish-to-play (F2P) system, the new zone Enedwaith, and so much more. I am so far behind in information that I will have to severely piece meal it over the week. Any Legendary Item changes? What’s available to purchase in the cash shop? And so on. Â
I clearly burnt out on Lord of the Rings Online early this year during a very stressful time in my life. Now, with a new computer and a new game update, I feel it is time to ride in to the Enedwaithian dawn…. drunk…. on a new keg-carrying Inn League horse… with permanent drunk effect.
–Ravious
in the middle of the street
In World of Warcraft, the shared world is where you complete the leveling game. It is organized by and dominated by quests. The goal of the leveling game is to earn experience points and to complete it as time-efficiently as possible. The end game is the real game, and it takes place in instances. The goal is to improve your gearscore. Completing achievements and collecting pets and mounts are shared mini-games between the two levels of play.
Or at least that is how I see the majority of hardcore players. If you disagree, the question is not whether it is true for you but whether you think I have mis-assessed the majority. You could also make the case that the real majority is casually making its way through the leveling game. Those people are less likely to be engaged in MMO blogs or the meta-game, so I don’t know if they are part of the conversation.
In City of Heroes and The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢, the leveling game is the game. There is a veneer of end game, but people who think that the game begins at the level cap are severely disappointed. There is some harder content at the cap, along with the chance to farm for best-in-slot gear, but the games are designed for the journey. If you power-level to get past the leveling game, you are just missing the game. The end game is pretty much more of the leveling game, without experience points. (Completing badges/deeds and collecting costumes/mounts are shared mini-games between the two levels of play.)
Going from the latter two to the former, I was constantly annoyed by “the game begins at 80.” Meanwhile, the population in the former is much larger and therefore is a constant source of complaints as visitors in the latter two. “I left WoW because I was bored, but this game sucks because it isn’t more like WoW. I need you to change it for me now, because I’m going back to WoW when the next expansion drops.”
: Zubon