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Flash Not-Really-MMOs

Over the past week, I have responded to quite a few requests, ads, etc. for F2P browser-based “MMOs,” CCGs, etc. They have been, to a one, poor. The winner, though, is Call of Gods, a game that applies the Evony/Civony/Travian economic model to what looks like a mostly PvE game. Combat plays out automatically with no player intervention. The developers recognized that this was really boring, so they added a button to skip it … which demands the RMT currency. Yes, it is a game that invites you to play and then offers to let you pay for the privilege of not doing so.

: Zubon

Grinding to the Real Game

In theory, I like League of Legends. In practice, you need ~200 hours of play to get to ranked games, then enough ranked wins to get out of Elo Hell, before you stop seeing so many people griefing, feeding, quitting, etc. As the wiki link suggests, any good player will get through random grief and rise about Elo Hell … over the course of another ~200 hours of play

I have seen less in LoL: Dominion, but I may have just had a good few days. I have also gone days almost every game a 4-on-5 for at least half of it. In Dominion, idiots and quitters are more prominently felt, because capping and defending 4-on-5 just does not work even if the 5 are pretty lousy. One game today featured a player tripling up on the bottom (you usually send 1 or 2), then running past the minions, suiciding into a tower and quitting; the game is decided 30 seconds into it, and now we just wait for the timer to officially forfeit.

It’s a general problem in F2P games: players with no investment have no loss if they’re just there to watch the world burn. Real grognards from games where you paid by the hour (with small communities and active admins) can likely regale us with how you behaved or else. I’m debating how impressed I am that folks will play a game for ~200 hours and then continue to grief/quit/whatever in low-Elo ranked games. I suppose you’ll get xp while being an idiot for those 200 hours, because you keep leveling up win or lose.

I have no idea how the community moderation tools are helping this. I dutifully click the report button after games where folks leave, smack talk, and such, but it’s not like we get a report back.

: Zubon

Like Guild Wars 2, For the Very First Time

I’ve played Guild Wars 2 on two separate occasions at PAX East and when I was invited to ArenaNet. I remember the first time I sat down and played the game, but so much of that feeling was muddled because as much as I wanted to play Guild Wars 2, I wanted to meet the makers of the game as much, if not moreso. I miss that feeling now of discovery, mystery, and imagination.

So, it was really nice to read comrade-in-arms, Lewis B’s first impressions post over at Tap Repeatedly. He gives a bunch of facts and feedbacks, but most importantly he writes with emotion. His excitement bleeds through the article. I feel that as more people see actual plays on YouTube and get to see the demo themselves, this excitement period will be lost. At least until launch. Then all bets are off.

–Ravious

A good Glitch

A few days ago, a fairly entertaining little F2P game launched, Glitch. This game has a dev team like one of those interesting dev teams that made me take a deeper look at Rift, so I of course had to check the game out. With a Flikr co-founder and the creator of the wildly fun Katamari on board, it was bound to be fun to look at, if nothing else, I thought.
Continue reading A good Glitch

Coin ‘n Carry

Long time reader and commentator, Muckbeast, who actually has a real name I suppose. Let’s call him “Michael Hartman.” Anyway, turns out he’s in charge of Frogdice, Inc., which has been around for nearly a score, and a Mid-West game developer on top of that! He asked if we could shed some light on their new social web game that “is NOT on Facebook.”

It’s called Coin ‘n Carry, and it seems pretty neat. There is a very thorough tutorial/overview on the game at YouTube, which tech-deficient parents might find useful if they don’t understand how to sign up for things. The basic premise is economy and mini-games. Working with the community is helpful, but Frogdice created the game with those implied Facebook games in mind. In other words, things that are wrong and annoying with Facebook games, like mega-spam, they developed away from.

The game is free-to-play, which is what Frogdice have been doing for their games since when I was a lad. Hartman says that:

“Unlike many other F2P companies, we target the long term with our customers. It is our philosophy that deep gameplay designed to entertain people for the long term will result in players eventually choosing to pay something towards the game. We feel that value proposition works best for all parties in the long run. As a result of this philosophy, a significant portion of our customers on Threshold RPG have been playing for over 10 years.”

Kind of refreshing, actually. And, they have years of evidence to prove it. Anyway, supporting developers on the ‘sphere is a good thing, in my humble opinion. Hence the plug. If you check it out, feedback here is most welcome.

–Ravious

[GW2] Asuran Intricacies

I was a little silent over Asura Week. Usually my goal during those weeks is to find some different angle to push and provoke thoughts along different lines. I just wasn’t finding it with the asura. I wasn’t finding anything of depth. I would easily say they are the most superficial player-race in Guild Wars 2. What you see is what you get. Continue reading [GW2] Asuran Intricacies

League of Legends: Dominion

Also known as League of Legends: Arathi Basin. It is live, a map with 5 capture points instead of three lanes. The overview has information about the new mode. I haven’t tried it myself, but the games should be shorter (~20 minutes).

Of course, quite a few League of Legends games are decided at the 20-minute point, because that is when a team can forfeit, but that’s another story.

Update, having tried it: Wow, that is a MUCH faster game. Team battles start within 90 seconds. I have been ahead 200 (of 500) and lost and behind 200 and won. The map is much smaller, the minions are fewer, and everything just feels very INTENSE NOW GO GO POWER! versus the stately pace of the League of Legends early game with its laning and harassing.

: Zubon

Binding Rituals

The next big thing is Star Wars the Old Republic (SWTOR), of course. For those that have now just regained internet after some hurricane, tornado, or gopher-pocalypse, the release date is right before Christmas. Chris at LevelCapped pretty much sums up my general feelings on the game. I do hope that the half-million and rising mob of pre-orderers have fun. I look forward to the many MMO blogs on the ‘sphere thoughts from actual play sessions. Story time is the best, don’t you think?

Anyway, the LevelCapped post got me thinking about all those MMO things that we constantly post about when the urge arises. What is an MMO? What is persistence? Which is better F2P or subscription? Etc. et al. Veni, vidi, vici. More importantly (to me and you) I thought about my own game buying in the past few months. The recent ones off the top of my head were Trackmania² Canyon (“Canyon”), Magic the Gathering’s new Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 (“DotP2012”), and Bastion. I’ve also been going full Explorer mode in Minecraft. I’m sorry to say that as of late most MMOs just haven’t caught my interest. I’ve been spoiled silly with my little time playing Guild Wars 2, I guess. Continue reading Binding Rituals

My Dog Ate It

Commenters have raised the issue of lagging out due to a pet’s having eaten the router. They went on to start the real question: how much will this affect performance, and how can we mitigate it?

Is your dog small or thin enough that a wireless signal can still get through? Will it matter if you have a long-haired cat? Are the essential pieces small enough that they could be sufficiently whole after the plastic case has been devoured? And how much battery life does that thing have?

: Zubon

related

Classics as Social Media Games

Oregon Trail is now on Facebook. It is kind of lousy. Take the old game and extend it so it cannot reasonably be completed in one day, to say nothing of one play session. Add in the social media mechanic of a limited number of turns/amount of energy, in this case several separate bars for that. Add in the social media mechanics of items requiring RMT or soliciting the help of several friends. Add in minimal spamminess. Serve tepid.

Civilization is now on Facebook. It is rather lousy. Take the names from the usual game and throw out pretty much everything. Keep the tech tree in a weird form. Keep the resource types. Replace most of the mechanics with a few mini-games. Remove the world map. What guilds are in most games, nations are here.

This is actually a good idea that makes sense. CivWorld makes superior use of social media gameplay mechanics, if only there were more of a game underneath. Isolated city-states can be competitive early on, but large and/or organized nations own the late-game; this makes sense, and you cannot “rush” it by wiping out other nations, so the game inexorably pushes towards social integration or failure. Instead of “come back in x hours to harvest,” the game accumulates harvests that you can cash in to make everything produce. There is a hard cap on how much real money you are allowed to spend per unit time. I cannot see much/any reason to spam your friends to do the equivalent of tending your crops. They are being a good corporate partner here, not trying to make up for the horrible game by adding addictive elements.

But the games are still horrible. Maybe there is some depth of whatever, were I to spend a few weeks playing HARDCORE, but they play like the original games fed through a food processor then dribbled over a featureless path that takes two weeks to walk.

: Zubon