Category: Warhammer Online

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MMO Restaurants

I see this, and I cannot help but think of Anthony Bourdain’s view on restaurant changes.

By now, unsurprisingly, our restaurant was rapidly failing.  I began to see for the first time, what I would later recognize as Failing Restaurant Syndrome, an affliction that causes owners to flail about looking for a quick fix, a fast masterstroke that will “turn things around,” cure all their ills, reverse the already irreversible trend toward insolvency.  We tried New Orleans Brunch – complete with Dixiland band.  We tried a prix fixe menu, a Sunday night buffet; we advertised, we hired a publicist.  Each successive brainstorm was more counterproductive than the one before.  All of this floundering about and concept-tinkering only further demoralized an already demoralized staff.

I sincerely hope free-to-play Tier 1 in Warhammer Online brings an influx of new blood and success to Mythic.  My gut reaction, though, was not hopeful.

–Ravious
let’s call him Bigfoot

Another Dip Test

Sometimes people make pretty quick judgments.  A dip test.  That’s why the starting areas, quests, music, etc. of an MMO have to be polished to near-blinding.  What about a dip test for the game in the middle?  Many times gamers lie awake at night – not “tired” –  thinking about games.  There is some amount of activation energy required to roll out of bed, log on, and play in a way where it was meaningful to roll out of bed in the first place.  A midnight dip test.

I was also not “tired” the other night, and I wanted some quick MMO play to calm my furied mind.  Wizard 101 was the easy choice.  I could log on, warp close to a play area of choice and run there in under a minute, and log off within a 15 minute time span.  I opted, actually, to play the mini-games to refill my potions and see how high a level I could get.  Games like Wizard 101, Puzzle Pirates, and Guild Wars rule at this quick guilt-free amount of play where activities that occur are meaningful. Continue reading Another Dip Test

Player Respawn Timers

Most death penalties come down to lost time, in its various incarnations of lost experience points, item repairs, corpse runs, and debuffs. As death penalties become increasingly light, one type almost invariably remains: you wasted the time you spent failing, and now you need to run back to continue. (If you die in a group, you may just sit out a while until rezzed, hoping your group does not wipe at -1 member, or a shorter time with -2 members during the rez.)

This time-to-return can be very important. If it is very short, and the death penalty is otherwise small, you zerg things: just keep dying and coming back until you get through it. It is a measure of how far we have gotten past meatspace that we can now intuitively see solutions that include “die and come back” as part of viable plans. To take the first few examples that come to mind: our LotRO static group wiped on an overpull with adds last week, but ran back to clear it easily since we had taken out 75% of the enemies on the first try; LotRO three-man instances are short enough for people to die and come back while someone keeps the boss from resetting, and some turtle-raiding strategies involve planned deaths to reset the stacking DoTs; fights against CoX archvillains and giant monsters often involve multiple resurrections and hospital runs/teleports, and the Hamidon raid usually involves planned near-wipes.

This is usually not a good thing for the game. Continue reading Player Respawn Timers

Chipotle MMO

For those blessed to have one nearby, Chipotle is a “Mexican” fast-food eatery.  The menu is sublime.  Customers choose a base (taco, burrito, salad, etc.), a protein (steak, carnitas, chicken, etc.), a salsa, and a few more condiments.  Compared to many Mexican-food eateries, including Taco Bell, the choices are simple, but the comparatively few things that Chipotle offers beats most of said eateries hands down.  In-N-Out Burger and Chik-Fil-A are two more food chains that follow this principle of few offerings that can’t be beat.  This is not a new concept by any means.  America is one of the anomalies in the world that has the restaurants that serve just about everything one could want from pizza to steak to tacos to salmon.  If I had a choice I’d rather go to a hawker court and buy from three separate stalls, and receiving a food item of mastery from each cook who has dedicated his or her career on that one item.

This post brought to you by my tinfoil wrapped carnitas burrito.

I thought about how so many MMOs seem to want to be an Applebee’s.  Combat is central, but not always refined.  There is crafting.  Player housing.  Pets.  Solo PvE.  Raiding.  Quests.  Missions.  Stories.  NPC’s.  Titles.  Traits.  And, all manners of PvP.  They are all over the place trying to dip their hands in to a bit of everything in order to keep your interest (read: subscription).  What if we had MMOs that would rather be like Chipotle?

Continue reading Chipotle MMO

Openings, Good and Bad

Your MMO must convince me that it is worth playing in less time than it takes me to download the next one. If your tutorial/introduction does not include heavy doses of awesome, soon, you will not be getting my credit card information. If you cannot bother to make the game look good in the one bit that you know every single player will see, I must assume that the rest of the game is worse.

Warhammer does this very well. Tutorial? More or less none; proceed straight to the war. You start on a battlefield. I started as a Greenskin, which is probably why I bought the game. Take a few steps forward from the log-in spot, and you can see dwarves attacking. The Dwarf area is much the same, with squigs and goblins running around the cave next door and giant cannons pointed at the enemy. NPCs are blasting each other in case you did not get the idea. The elf pairing has the gentlest, and therefore worst, introduction. Your starting spot feels safe, and your first enemies are tiny fairies. Even there, you have attacking forces 10 seconds away, and the good guys get to shoot down harpies with a ballista. Win.

The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢ does this pretty well. The opening is pretty tame, but it immediately tosses in the things you want from Lord of the Rings. If you are a hobbit, you immediately see a Black Rider. Dwarves start next to Gandalf in a scene referenced in The Hobbit, and they proceed to a troll fight. Elves get a troll too, and humans and elves both start with the world burning down around them. It is not a great, action-packed intro, but it gives you the setting while you get your bearings.

City of Heroes is a mixed bag. Outbreak is very weak, notably the “run in a straight line” bits. Breakout is better, with a more interesting map and a mass NPC slugfest. The real awesomeness of City of Heroes, however, is the costume designer. Even before you put your character in the world, you pick from a mess of powers, see the cool toys that lie in wait, and then probably spend a ridiculous amount of time playing with paper dolls. That kind of thing makes the slow start of actual gameplay tolerable.

Many other games do it badly. I don’t even bother to mention most that I try. They were not worth the time to download, even if I downloaded while I slept. That thread has a bit of hate for Age of Conan, but they had the presence of mind to make the 1-20 game one of the most celebrated bits of content around.

: Zubon

Anyone want to comment on WoW’s opening? I tried a few way back in beta. The Undead was the most impressive. Dwarves were kind of meh.

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

We Don’t Get Fooled Again

After perusing a few Book 7 threads on the Lord of the Rings Online forums, I hit an interesting node.  It seemed that people were thankful of the fact that Turbine added content to their subscription game.  Now, I am a thankful customer whenever I get my product or service without a hitch, but these posts were more in line with getting a free bottle of wine at a restaurant.  I was really confused that these people believe that this content update was not part of the subscription fee they had been paying all along.  As more and more games (and game playing) becomes a service, rather than a product, consumers should be aware of the service they are paying for and the norms with similar services.

Continue reading We Don’t Get Fooled Again

Unlockables versus Items

How many mounts do you have or have you had? My Hobbit seems to be collecting ponies, and she does not get rid of them when a new one comes along. She has a Bree pony (low-level, slower), a blonde sorrel (first real mount), a chestnut (faction mount that survives more hits), a gray pony (white horse reward for finishing Volume One), and however many seasonal event ponies she has (plus tokens for more). These will soon be replaced with a Nimble Goat, which can be used in Moria.

I could sell a pony every time I get a better one, but they are ponies. My wife might never forgive me, and maybe today I want to ride a different pretty pony. What I would prefer, rather than having an inventory item for every possible mount, is to have a single mount item or power. When I get a new mount, I get a new option for that single mount. Give me a drop-down menu on my character to set my mount choice. (I am aware that I just asked for a pony menu on my paper doll. You cannot have my man card.) If the mount color is not considered PvP-relevant, I should be able to set the appearance to any mount I have unlocked — separate functionality improvements from appearance options, and leave me all my appearance options.

That is a general principle. As with most appearance issues, City of Heroes does it right. You start with a variety of options for what your sword looks like, and when you get a new option, you get a new sword appearance option on your list rather than a new sword to carry around. You unlock costume pieces through badges, task forces, microtransactions, and veteran rewards.

If you have item sets for each class, make that a deed, accomplishment, badge or whatever you call it. Once you finish the set, you permanently unlock that set appearance. You already have a cosmetic equipment tab, don’t you? Have another option on it: pick a completed item set from this drop-down menu.

Or better yet, everyone start using a system like the City of Heroes costume designer. I am looking forward to what Champions delivers. I still need to see The Chronicles of Spellborn’s version, once my addiction to The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢ Volume Two: Mines of Moriaâ„¢ fades.

: Zubon

Tome of Knowledge item to adapt

One thing I really like in the Tome of Knowledge is tracking which set pieces you have found. If you are going to have a dozen sets of armor for each class, in assorted tiers, track them. Three reasons, the last of which is where I am going with all this:

  1. Checklist. As a developer, this gives your player a menu of “what do you want to do next?” As a player, this reminds you of what you have in the vault. This is less necessary in the sort of game that has clear tiers where you work on one tier at a time.
  2. Achievement. If you need to pitch that old armor to make room for the new, it would be nice to have some sort of trophy, like an achievement tick saying that you had it. Do this for each piece, not just for the full set.
  3. Cosmetics. Combine it with an appearance system so that you can display any old set (possible restrict this to full sets, rather than single pieces). Completing a full set effectively gives you a new costume. Maybe I want to show off, or maybe I really liked the look we had three or four tiers ago.

: Zubon

Seven Favorites: Warhammer Online

Syp has suggested that we all write our seven favorite things about Warhammer Online. I think this is a great idea, because there is not enough positive thinking in the blogoshere. I think we should go beyond it: start with Warhammer Online, but post your seven favorite things about many games, every game you have ever played if you so wish, all the way back to Pong. I may stick with MMOs, but let’s run with this. My Warhammer experience goes only through tier 3, and went on haitus before the live events.

  1. Favorite Zone: Troll Country. For PvE, it was hard to beat a road lined with public quests, and few monsters in any game are more satisfying than trolls.
  2. Favorite Race: Dwarf. I had planned to go Greenskin, but I ended up switching sides due to population issues and annoyance with funetik dikshun. The Dwarf careers, I found, really suited me. My highest level character was an Engineer, followed by my Runepriest. I like turret pets, and I like the pure healer. I was not fond of the undignified mount.
  3. Favorite Career: Shaman. My MMO roles are DPS and support. Give me a healer who gets DPS buffs from healing and healing buffs from DPS? Excellent. I understand that Shamans and Archmages are still waiting on some rebalancing, but they were stellar in the lower tiers in the first month. Healing is big in tier one, and I played a lot of careers to level 12. Fear the green death ray.
  4. Favorite WAR Feature: Career mechanics. Every career has a toy that defines its theme: grudges, rituals, chants, stances, pets. For my Engineer, that turret was perhaps less defining than her gun and grenades, especially in PvP, but I like the idea. I still need to try The Chronicles of Spellborn, which does something similar for its classes. Second places goes to open groups, which is a good innovation, above and beyond the public quests that complement them.
  5. Favorite Skill: Acid Bomb. It is the Engineer’s instant-cast AE DoT, and I took the tactics to give me more range and AE. It was how I hit 100,000 damage per scenario in tier three. Grenadier was not the best path for single-target burst damage, but it softened up the entire other team so my teammates could kill them. Empty that enemy healer, keep him frantic with everyone in the yellow. This skill also played well in my favorite scenarios, which had piles of people hitting each other: AE skills like piles.
  6. Favorite Scenario: Gates of Ekrund. Nordenwatch was the more popular tier one scenario, but the Gates of Ekrund was basically the same thing on a smaller map that got everyone right into the fighting. It had multiple levels and back doors. I was also fond of Mourkain Temple for being the same plus the dude with the thing and Tor Anroc for being the same in a lava pit. I played scenarios to fight, dammit.
  7. Favorite Live Event: As an observer, that Halloween event looked pretty nice. Nice visual bits, and a good way to funnel people into the same ORvR area.

: Zubon