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.
.Demonstrating a greater extreme of something I discussed last month, I tried a bit of Champions Online. Steam says, “13 of 713 Achievements Earned.” 713.
Oddly, within an MMO, that seems unexceptional. When you port it out to Steam, where most games are in the 2-digit range with monsters like Team Fortress 2 at 394, you wonder what Champions is doing to find 713 tasks and points of advancement worth special notice.
: Zubon
You pay for your game and expect it to have a certain amount of content. There are many ways to pad that with fake longevity, most of which amount to adding gameplay flaws to hide the “flaw” of being short. Character advancement is the currently popular version, because grinding takes time and your players are happily watching their numbers increase.
Dungeon Defenders has more real and fake longevity than Orcs Must Die! The longevity extension measures, however, are better in Orcs Must Die! These are both action/tower defense games released around the same time, so they provide a good basis for comparison. Continue reading Longevity
I will now get the highest score of any MMO pundit making predictions. Ready? “It will not go live in 2012.” Whatever we’re talking about, I’m predicting that it will slip into 2013, or later, or just never ship. The game, the expansion, whatever: not in 2012. I’m going to lose a few points, since something will ship in 2012, but I don’t see how anyone can beat my accuracy rate here.
: Zubon
For a subscription MMO, getting hooks into players is pretty much a top priority. Players that want to return are more likely to continue to subscribe than players nearing the meh-zone. People have been pretty pleased with the launch of SWTOR so far, except for the log-in queues. Unlike Rift, which may have been a shock to the ‘sphere as far as quality went, I really haven’t seen any ‘3 month death toll’- posts at launch. Â Still, the 3 month mark is one to give the MMO a hard eye.
In Rift, I was just hitting level 45 or so and getting in to the “end game.” I quit. Between my guild and the game, I still didn’t have enough hooks in my skin to keep me interested in paying. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a fault of Rift; I just think that ye ol’ gear shift from leveling to end game in Rift (modeled after other vanilla MMOs of yore) was not for me. So I was tangentially flung away from the game. I know I was not alone.
I still don’t think the core of SWTOR is different enough for me even if it is a solid MMO, but I still have to wonder what effect the story pillar will have on subscriptions. If I assume that in 3 months time that my situation would be similar to Rift, would I pay another month or two just to see the end of my story. Would I want to start another one?
Then there is the issue of BioWare’s post launch plans adding in new story content. If I were a betting man, I would say that the story pillar will definitely keep more subscribers around at the 3 month mark. Of course, there is also the feeling of finishing, which might make some players kick their feet up as credits rolls. I don’t think this will happen often. I didn’t see many instances of players doing that in Guild Wars or Lord of the Rings Online.
I know as the inevitable first wave of subscribers tampers down, the statistic I would love to see how much impact did the story pillar have on their monthly tithe. It’s something that could definitely change future MMO ideas.
–Ravious
I picked up Bastion at a nice discount recently and played through it last week (playing time; ~10 hours, 6-8 without repeating content and acing the proving grounds, 15-20 with completism, new content recently added). A surreal side effect is that I have the songs of M2M in my head as spoken word poetry in the narrator’s voice. It’s kind of like how you can go all week reading everything in Isaiah Mustafa‘s voice.
: Zubon
Related. Closely related, thanks Winged Nazgul.
Steam has encouraged people to use their wishlist function by occasionally giving away the top 10 items on folks’ wishlists. This is a good tactic. This year, they had the added wisdom to do so in early December. Stock those wishlists for holiday gift-giving, and oh, come and visit every day for your chance to win (and to see what you could get your friends at a great discount, nudge nudge). It’s a great marketing tactic.
And it works, because Ethic got me Guild Wars Trilogy. Thanks! I may have some comments on the game sometime. Because you know I would review Casablanca as if it had just come out.
: Zubon
One profession in Guild Wars 2 is the direct descendant of its ancestor in the original Guild Wars. The warrior now has significant ranged weapon mastery. The elementalist became one of the most versatile on-the-fly professions. The ranger got blended with Pokemon, and the necromancer decided to turn into a plague-bearing cockroach with friends that don’t decay as fast. Nope, it’s the freshly officialized mesmer.
Oh, you say, the mesmer lost hexes and interrupts. They make copies of themselves, for Kormir’s sake. It is the most different, you say! Yet, I would say the mesmer didn’t change. It was the battleground that changed. Continue reading [GW2] Mesmer Metagame
Another great night in Skyrim confirms my original opinion, that this is the best game I’ve ever played.
Here is just one highlight:
I was out exploring with my constant companion Lydia by my side when we came upon a horse standing there, saddle and everything. I started thinking to myself, free horse. I approached with caution when I heard the screech and roar from above, a dragon! It looks like the dragon wanted the horse more than I did and it proceeded to attack the horse. The owner of the horse, a hunter, came out of the woods to try to defend. We joined in the fight.
Over the next 20 minutes we fought all over the side of the large hill covered in ruins as well as in the forest. It was as close to an epic battle as I have had in a game. I was close to death several times and I lost track of Lydia at some point. I burned through all my arrows and had to find little hiding spots to heal up.
The end result: dead dragon, dead hunter, dead horse. Lydia survived.
That was amazing fun.
P.S. Mammoths are killers.
– Ethic
Orcs Must Die! reverses decades of video game tradition. You can build knee- and waist-high barricades that the hero can jump over perfectly fine. The orcs have not mastered jumping and must take the long way around.
: Zubon
Everybody knows about the fourth pillar that will exalt Star Wars The Old Republic (SWTOR) over all other vanilla MMO brethren: story. Except many MMOs have already had story available. They were told through many various mechanisms including good ol’ quest text, in-game actions, and even cut scenes. Plenty of MMOs even had branching effects caused by the player decisions. Most were silly in hindsight. (Did you really want to poach that innocent forest animal for the dwarf when you needed to befriend the hostile elves?)
BioWare’s games are about story, and their MMO, gosh darnit, was going to have story amplified to 11. Are these wings of words and wax enough to raise SWTOR above the crowd? Continue reading [SWTOR] Dialogues on Rat Tails