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Orcs Must Die!

On sale for $5.35 with all DLC? Had to. I played through the base game this weekend, with several things still available to me after beating it (DLC maps, 5-skull every level, Nightmare difficulty, achievements). That took on the order of 10 hours, repeating some levels to try for better scores. It’s a worthwhile bit of game, solid tower defense with a bit of action. This is more strategy/tower and less action than Dungeon Defenders. It is also a single-player game without levels or grinding, so it has a limited lifespan but higher play value within that lifespan. Continue reading Orcs Must Die!

[SWTOR] Mob Action

Like I said earlier, there are two core differences to the presentation of Star Wars The Old Republic (SWTOR) from other vanilla MMOs. Fighting static NPCs is one of those differences. (The other is replacing quest text with interactable cut scenes, but I will save that for a later post.) Fighting feels less formulaic than many other vanilla MMOs, and it definitely feels higher in action even if it is still the equivalent of two spreadsheets in mortal combat. The reason is that instead of single mobs, SWTOR has encounters.

Encounters are a group of enemy NPCs (i.e., “mobs”) that are all alerted to the player’s presence if one of them is attached or alerted to the player’s ill intentions, like walking by. They all aggro, but even with a 4-on-1 fight, the heroic player wins the day. Continue reading [SWTOR] Mob Action

Gold Tank Incentives

Since I frequently post about economics and flaws in our perceptions, I cite favorably Tobold’s post applying both of those to World of Tanks. His consideration of the incentives reverses the assumptions behind some complaints about who plays the RMT tanks, how they play, and how well.

: Zubon

My benefit-cost analysis professor used to say that you could not refute general economic principles with “yeah but my cousin knows this one guy who…” See the comments for “yeah but this one guy I met on the internet…”

“Fun” and “No Reason”

Did you go online yesterday for no particular reason, just for fun or to pass the time?
– Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project

I object to the question on the grounds that is has a very large excluded middle. I went online yesterday for the very particular reason of “just for fun.” How do you interpret the results of a question that lets people decide whether they are playing World of Warcraft “just for fun” or seriously? If I go online to check my RSS feeds, and half of those are lolcat sites, I went online for a reason, dammit, while you’re just messing around with your lolcats. Darned lolcat casuals. Continue reading “Fun” and “No Reason”

Arkham City (PC)

It’s a great game, taking Arkham Asylum and adding some sandbox space. It is more of everything I liked about the first game with some improvements. It is not unmitigatedly perfect, as every positive has a small “but,” but the buts are small. You can lose yourself in Arkham City, as I did to the tune of 30 hours over the holiday weekend. It’s a good sign for a game when you just keep going until you beat it.

And since we usually discuss online multiplayer games here, I’ll hide the rest below the break. Continue reading Arkham City (PC)

[GW2] Interview with ArenaNet’s Eric Flannum

“Iteration” is a word emphasized by ArenaNet. It seems something greater than mere polish, and I asked ArenaNet if they could entertain a few questions about their design and development practice. What does it really mean to iterate? Guild Wars 2 Lead Designer Eric Flannum graciously took some time to talk about the term and what it means to the studio and Guild Wars 2.

Q: ArenaNet touts “iteration” a lot in interviews and official blog posts. Is it not the industry norm to iterate during MMO development? Are other games’ leads more bullheaded and less willing to deviate from the plan? What makes ArenaNet’s iteration of Guild Wars 2 special? Continue reading [GW2] Interview with ArenaNet’s Eric Flannum

Star Wars: The Ol’ Impressions

Thankfully my server or time played  was perfect. I never had a queue, but that seemed to be a rarity. Anyway, I felt like I got a solid play session or two in. I would say getting I got enough time to make a solidly informed consumer decision.

First, it’s rock solid. A lot of love and polish has gone in to making the game really smooth in pretty much every factor. Sure, there are a few minor bugs here and there, but if there was a vision to how the game would be, it was pretty much implemented to the fullest.

Second, the vision is of course something branching off of a vanilla MMO, which World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Rift et al. hold domain. There are some twists, which I am still digesting for future posts here, but my gut feeling is they don’t change much. It’s like the difference between presenting a nicely cooked steak on a plate and one that has been sliced for the guest to show a nicely cooked interior. It’s a steak either way. The two things that hit me were interactionable cut scenes replacing quest text and groups of mobs as being a single encounter. I’d be really interested to see how different those two things feel after 20-30 levels of gameplay.

Finally, I would love to play, but I don’t feel like shelling out $50 plus a subscription to play something essentially super-shiny vanilla. With holiday gifts needing spending, I might pick it up next year. I think I would enjoy the journey of going through each class’ story. So much of it feels though like “play together, alone.” I am a little worried at what might become of the end game too. I know once I got a whiff of Rift’s near-release end game I quit the game. For now, I think I will just look forward to stories and spoilers.

–Ravious

Unintended Behavior (of developers)

Thanks, it feels really good to read this article and you’re exactly on the ball. I don’t think people on this forum realize how hard we at Trendy work to make this game for you guys. Many of us have never personally been paid and have been living off of our own savings (of which are almost nothing, since we’re so young) to make this game. We often put in over 70-80 hours a week and more. Yes we make mistakes (that much is clear), but we are not setting out to nor are we setting out to take anyone’s money.

And I can’t comment about our financial issue, but I’d implore everyone to remember… Steam, Epic, D3, Reverb, Contractors, Investors, et. all get cuts from the game and its DLC. We’re putting in all this extra work and putting out all this extra content and patches because we want to and we want to have a product you enjoy playing. Dungeon Defenders was never intended to be a game that people played as much as you all have played it (especially not as much as an MMO) and we’re working really hard to get you more content and more gameplay out of the content you have.
– Pmasher, Trendy Entertainment

What I’m wondering is how the game came to be one that encouraged and supported playing that much. (I’m not sure much “that much” is, but you can imagine it’s pretty high for forum-dwellers, presumably 100-200 hours already for people playing it at an MMO rate.) It seems easier just not to support the development direction they took, with many patches and ongoing development. You need some ongoing development if you want to sell DLC, but I never heard anyone complain about Orcs Must Die! for not being an MMO. (Although I have not heard more than 2 or 3 sentences about Orcs Must Die!, so either it is not getting much buzz or I’m just reading the wrong things. Active development does fuel ongoing discussion.) I think of Runic Games, which seems to have taken suggestions and plugged them into Torchlight 2 rather than extending Torchlight 1. Once development stops, you can love or hate the game for what it is, rather than what you still might wish it to become.

I can see several reasons why development is continuing post-release, but the patches are increasingly supporting long-term, heavily dedicated play. You could take it in a different direction, one where you say, “You beat the game. Congratulations!” and move on, maybe visiting every couple of months to check out DLC. (Add a player notification option there, some way to call people back.) Instead, the direction seems to be one that is putting increasing demands on Trendy without generating a lot more revenue. Maybe future DLC will add some revenue, say release another four-pack of maps every two months for $5-$10 with an “ongoing story,” although the story is not “going” much to start.

Runic also took the path of encouraging modding, rather than running an official server. That reduces control but limits the unending commitment to maintaining a service after you have sold the game. I have no idea how much effort TrendyNet involves, but there are still enough hardcore Diablo II players to support gold- and item-selling sites for that today. If the fanbase is unpleasable now, imagine if the official server goes away.

: Zubon

Endurance Mode

I made a run at that Dungeon Defenders endgame. I have run Survival before, but here we go, real attempt to see how far I can go. It was physically painful. I was on the same map for hours. I’m told that a better geared player could get through wave 25 in less than 7 hours; I must have been in the 5 or 6 range when I ended at Wave 19. I was fatigued and starting to have problems seeing things, although you don’t need to see too well to when you’re on the same map for hours. I went with a small map, Alchemical Laboratory, and I don’t know if a larger one would feel more varied or just have more running around/waiting. I did get that decent ranged DPS weapon (48k DPS before P Shot, may upgrade armor to boost that) I wanted and a bunch of improved armor, so I can try more things now.

The latest patch that improved the loot ramp (better stuff earlier) came some hours after I tried my Survival run, so it might even be worthwhile to try a bit again. With vastly improved damage, it could go much more quickly. But there is definitely a problem with incentivizing players to play on the same map for hours. It’s not even setting up a camp and farming; this is the actual game, being played as intended and designed with progression. I will definitely need to be in the right mood for that kind of thing, and I’ll need voice chat or something to distract me.

: Zubon