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[GW] The Humans Deserve To Lose

or “NPCs I’m glad are dead for GW2”

On a scale of 1 to suicidal, Prince Rurik is one of the worst escort NPCs in the universe. He’s actually not a bad fighter, but he feels free to dive into large groups of enemies, and if he sees you fighting one group while you try to be his bodyguards, he will take a sharp turn to find more. You must protect him in quite a few missions, and his suicide will lead to mission failure despite the way he dies a completely pointless death a mission or two later. Sara Oakheart from LotRO was a great competitor for “worst escort NPC ever,” as she charged quickly ahead and then cowered, also appearing quite often, but her death meant that you failed an optional side quest, not that the main story arc of the game came to a pause.

I think Nolani Academy is my favorite Rurik moment. He lives in a fort so well planned that a charr scout starts inside and you find the back door by following it out. The idea is to clear the front so that Rurik can come out and proceed safely. If you over-leveled normal mode and are going back, there is a convenient “just let them all come” lever to open the front gate. The problem is that, if Rurik sees you approaching, he will open the front gate to greet you, no matter that there are more than a dozen Charr between you and the gate. That is still the “just let them all come” lever, and Rurik will of course try to solo a dozen enemies that are all higher level than him. The image the game wants you to have is the sneaky skirmisher or assassin, taking out the charr in their encampments, but you are really hiding from the idiot prince.

Many guildmates can be drawn into helping others complete Prophecies just for the chance to kill Prince Rurik when he comes back. I don’t know if GW2 has escort NPCs; I hope not. I don’t know if Undead Rurik will be a dungeon or raid boss in GW2; I hope so. I also don’t know if the charr deserve Ascalon, but the humans certainly deserved to lose it.

: Zubon

Levels of Concern

This applies to gaming as well. It is occasionally helpful to remember that most people just don’t care all that much. In increasing order of “you really don’t represent the average player,” we have people who read the forums, [people who post regularly on the forums, people who read the blogs,] and people who write gaming blogs. (I’m not sure of the ordering of those middle two.) You are odd in Western society if you spend 10+ hours a week pretending to kill pigs as an imaginary elf or orc. You are odd within that minority if you spend additional hours reading commentary on imaginary pig slaughter.

You and your friends are weirder than you think, even after taking into account the fact that you and your friends are weirder than you think.

: Zubon

Salem

Now in its 10th year, the most hardcore PvP MMO out there is A Tale in the Desert. How many other MMOs do you know with permadeath? I remember a couple from the First Telling, where the wife was using poison to get around the problem that Egyptian marriage really was ’til death do you part. Good times. It is now in its 6th iteration; the developer is actually willing to end the world and start over periodically. (I have not checked in with Teppy lately, but its hardcore PvP status was maintained through a mix of encouraging cooperation for the community to advance and then actively shaking the ant farm and providing incentives to act against the community.)

Setting aside the social experimentation, another MMO seems to be interested in following the path that ATitD has blazed rather than making Yet Another Fantasy Theme Park: Salem. The little info I have (scroll about half-way down) sounds like ATitD meets Darkfall in colonial New England. Heartless introduced me to it, and as I said there, I have immediate concerns about a F2P game where the Goonswarm could conceivably visit for a weekend and completely despoil an area, a cross-game version of Burn Jita. You need a way to welcome new people but let existing players protect the game from them. (As much as we want players to be able to make meaningful decisions, we do not want players to drive themselves away through bad decisions that undermine the game.)

At this point, I need an RSS or something to subscribe for Salem info. I stopped actively paying attention to game development years ago. All MMOs should be assumed to be vaporware until you can log in, and maybe then you should wait for them to be live a few months before getting emotionally committed. I assume I should check back in a few years or something? I avoided paying much attention to GW2 before the past couple of months, and my friends & family had already pretty much told me I was buying it.

: Zubon

On the Same Team

There were two feelings I really liked when trying the GW2 beta. The first is the playground between the sandbox and the theme park. The second, and I have not felt this for a long time in an MMO or even most team-based games, is that the players were all on the same team.

If the design is working as intended,* everyone on the same server is on the same team. If someone is fighting, you should help him. There is no kill-stealing. If someone is on the ground, you should rez him. You’ll get experience points and achievement progress, and then there’s someone else around to help you with the event.

Continue reading On the Same Team

[GW2] Fast Banking and Faster Markets

Two of the best features of Guild Wars 2 seems to be also one of the least discussed following the beta weekend event. They are the bank and the trading post. MMO veterans will be right at home, but there are small little ArenaNet-style twists added to each. I had a blast fiddling around with both of them, and when the game launches players are going to be much appreciative of the small things that add up really quickly for the two features.

The Bank

The bank starts out like one would expect. In the cities there is a bank structure where a handful of Banker NPCs stand around waiting for players to make deposits or withdrawals. The main features are most similar to the original Guild Wars style as the bank is an account vault accessible by all characters on the same account.  There is also a tab for common crafting items so that precious unrestricted bank space is left free of crafting materials. Good start so far…
Continue reading [GW2] Fast Banking and Faster Markets

[GW2] What We Have Here Is… Communication

One thing that absolutely amazes me is how much the ArenaNet devs are communicating on the quagmire that is the Guild Wars 2 beta forums. For those with beta access here are the forums as account credentials are required to view the forums. Much of it was just reinforcing constructive feedback, but many times a developer went out of their way to discuss the issues. A sampling of some of the responses are below: Continue reading [GW2] What We Have Here Is… Communication

[Eve] First Blood

The atmosphere inside the wormhole is thick with tension and a restlessness is creeping into the collective consciousness of our comrades.   The CEO has seen this before, and knows full well that the only thing more dangerous than a hostile Fleet in your home, is a pack of Space Cowboys with nothing to shoot at for a string of days…

SynCaine broadcasts a fleet, and orders blare out over coms, “We need a scan fleet out, find us a Hole.”

Continue reading [Eve] First Blood

[GW2] Malaise in Melee

I was helping a friend learn Guild Wars 2 last night when he hit level 11. That’s when players start getting trait points for leveling up. For leveling purposes I told him to go with the power trait line or the precision trait line because both would let him kill enemies faster. I explained that for the next 30 levels he would have to branch out to other trait lines though because until level 40 each trait line could only take 1o points. It appeared the obvious thing to do was fill the damage role first.

I went to sleep thinking about the “wasted” trait lines. Were the more defensive trait lines simply going to be ignored in PvE? Would their traits be strong enough to pull players away from glass-jaw nuking? Between all the beta weekends I had participated in, I just couldn’t picture making any of the more defensive trait lines a primary focus.

I woke up, and read a bunch of really good feedback from some bloggers I like (especially Biobreak, Inventory Full, and especially Spinksville with all of the links). Coupled with a few non-Guild Wars 2 forums I frequent, and it seemed there was some ill feeling about melee viability for Guild Wars 2 PvE. Continue reading [GW2] Malaise in Melee