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Understanding the Meta-Game

Numbers and arithmetic seem to be introduced as arcane games of memorization rather than the useful tools they are. Children are especially in need of math, often being intuitively confused when size and number conflict with value. A nickel is larger than a dime, so you want a nickel, yes? And four pennies would be way more than one little dime, right? Those of you who saw small children in recent gift exchanges understand the perceived value of large blocks of colorful plastic versus tiny devices.

Your barber wants to introduce you to the dumbest kid around. He sees the little boy going by, calls him in, and offers him a simple game. In one hand, the barber has a single, beat-up dollar bill. In the other, he has two shiny quarters. Which does the little boy want? He happily takes the two quarters and goes on his way. The barber laughs uproariously. “I must have done that two dozen times, and that little idiot never learns.”

Later you catch the boy coming out of a candy shop. You ask him why he takes fifty cents instead of a dollar. Surely it cannot be because two (quarters) is more than one (dollar)? “If I take the dollar, the game is over. I must have made twelve dollars off him, and that big idiot never learns.”

: Zubon

joke adapted from

CoX Steam Sale

City of Heroes Going Rogue Complete Collection: $10 on Steam right now. This is the base game and all its expansions, plus an item pack, and it includes a month of game time. This costs less than one month of game time. This is a good deal if you are thinking of trying (or re-visiting) City of Heroes anytime in the next year.

Also Plants vs. Zombies for $4.

: Zubon

Guild Wars Edge of Destiny Review

The second book in the Guild Wars fiction line was officially released yesterday. One can find Edge of Destiny by J. Robert King at most bookstores and e-bookstores. The book was better and worse than Ghosts of Ascalon, and I will get to that. For Guild Wars fans and future Guild Wars 2 players that want a deep background for some of the major NPCs in their Guild Wars 2 personal story, I’d say that this book is worth the read. I think that ultimately the Guild Wars 2 world will be deeper and richer because I read the book.

Okay, now I will try and be spoiler free-ish, but you have to be “spoiled” on one well known fact regarding Guild Wars 2. This book details the formation of the famous guild Destiny’s Edge. The spoiler is… the book also details their separation. Most Guild Wars 2 fans knew this because a large part of Guild Wars 2 will be getting the band back together to rock some dragon face. The “why” is much more interesting, and I will not be spoiling that.

Continue reading Guild Wars Edge of Destiny Review

Buying Skill Ranks

Are we past the point of repeatedly buying the same skill as you level, to get Fire Bolt II, Fire Bolt III, …, Fire Bolt CXVI? Just scale the skills with levels. I understand that having ten versions of each skill gives the illusion of “something new every level,” but you can give rewards that do not mess with your game’s scaling. You can even use a point investment mechanic to get most of the same effect without the annoyance of re-training and adjusting the hotbar.

City of Heroes does this. The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢ does this (except for passive skills). Warhammer Online does this. Dungeon and Dragons, the basis for all these CRPG mechanics, has been doing this for decades (fireball does 1d6 damage per caster level, capped at 10d6), although not so much in 4th Edition.

Really, we promise to pretend not to notice that our spells do 5% more damage while we are fighting goblins with 5% more hit points. MMO players are used to looking past that. Just stop pretending that Fire Bolt III was a good design decision, and especially do not start calling them Lesser Fire Bolt, Fire Bolt, Improved Fire Bolt, Greater Fire Bolt, Lesser Fire Blast, Fire Blast, …, Supreme Exalted Fire Conflagration… And double-especially do not do that while having all those fire bolts on an alphabetized skill screen with no indication of level order.

: Zubon

Looting

Are we past the point of clicking on bodies? Just put the loot in my inventory. Give me some sort of message, great, but most games do not benefit from the extra step of having me click on a body, bag, etc. Experience goes directly on to my character, cash sometimes goes directly onto my character; just put the loot in my inventory.

City of Heroes does this. Global Agenda does this. Team Fortress 2 does this. Rift does this with rift loot. LotRO skirmishes are half-way there with most rewards appearing in your barter wallet as a quest reward mechanic.

The downside is the question of limited inventory space. What do we do when inventory is full? When we click on bodies, the loot is just there, waiting for us to open some inventory slots. Do we just miss out on loot if we are full? My immediate notions would be:

  • Yes, so watch for the big red FULL alert and the continued red text on your screen.
  • Stop limiting inventory space. That might be a really bad idea in a game with lots of trash loot, which leads to the next step of stop with the trash loot. Alternately, have some sort of genericized system that takes less (server) storage space rather than having dozens of things to remember per item.
  • Have a loot overflow holding area. It would be a buffer that lasts for as long as you are logged on, kind of like buyback at the NPC merchants. As long as you stay online (plus time x, to deal with connection isseus?), your bag is infinitely large, but make sure you decide which items you are keeping/selling before logging off. If your connection is lousy, you will want to check that more often, but then you would have the same issue about corpses de-spawning with your loot still inside, and you would still be checking your inventory just as often with the question, “Which of these am I keeping or trashing?” Be sure to move the epic loot to permanent storage after the boss fight.

Any version would be purely a gameplay abstraction that makes no sense even after the best stories I concocted justifying it in-world, but we already accept inventory mechanics in which 100 metal ingots take up as much space as a ring, bears sometimes carry swords and multiple hides but have only a 50% chance to have one leg or tooth on each corpse, gold bars are worth less than gold coins, and gold coins take up no space. Of course, I usually use ranged attacks. I can already imagine sniping one target in a dangerous group and running, where now I would need to go in if I want the loot from that kill.

: Zubon

Play To Type or Against?

I tend to play ranged support and damage classes, with a fondness for pets and turrets. I will be dabbling in Rift’s beta this week.

I could play to type and try to combine souls into a mage with ranged damage, a pet, healing, and buffs. I would have a large amount of experience to which to compare this character and how it plays. I would not add the unfamiliarity of a different role to a different game, mechanics, etc.

I could play against type and make a tank. I would have something relatively new to look forward to. I would not start with the “been there, done that” burnout of a character I have played in various versions for ten years.

I may not get much use out of healing, buffing, tanking, or taunting abilities unless I also become more social than usual and dive into grouping with unknown people who will disappear soon.

Recommendations?

: Zubon

Thoughts and Speculations on the Support Class

This is a guest article from Captain Scrat.
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For a long time we have known that ArenaNet; the makers of the fine game we all love, Guild Wars, have decided it is time to break the stone engraved rules of the holy trinity: The Tank (a player that will be able to hold the pressure of attacks from the NPC), The DPS (a very strong player that will deal as much as possible of damage per second) and The Monk (a key part of the trinity that will be able to keep the tank and the others alive). ArenaNet wanted to come up with a new concept of battle for their upcoming game: Guild Wars 2. They have always tried to distinguish themselves and make something different that the traditional MMO’s do not have. In this case, it was the idea of breaking the holy trinity.

Continue reading Thoughts and Speculations on the Support Class

ISO Tales Recommendations

TV Tropes has recommended the Tales (of Phantasia, of Destiny, of Symphonia, of Vesperia…) JRPG series to me with the statement that the games start out with cliches and then brutally, horribly subvert them.

TV Tropes also tells me that the series has more than a dozen games on various systems, most of them without localization but several with fan translations in various states of completeness, and then region-specific issues of release, localization, and region-specific DRM… Maybe I should brush up on my Japanese. Does anyone have a recommendation for how someone new should try approaching the series (in English)? Do I want the history from having gone through the earliest games, does it make more sense to jump in at Tales of X, will I be unable to appreciate X without having played Tales of Y…?

Not that I have gotten through all the other games I already own…

: Zubon

Zubon likes ellipses today…

Great Design Details

For the LotRO Yule event, come quests lock each other out until you complete the other. In one case, this is a bit of logic: you cannot both donate to the beggars and shoo them away. In another, it is a great design choice: you cannot have both the eating contest and cleaning the tables from the eating contest. If you did, you would have quest objectives from both on the same tables, and actually winning the eating contest would be far more difficult as you tried to click the right thing. The design keeps you from accidentally making yourself fail quests.

: Zubon

Holidays, etc.

Just dropped by real quick to wish our readers, commenters and writers a super fun 110% happy time holidays. Hope you get a lot of presents, be safe from evil fireworks and the whole lot.

2011 can’t be anything other than better.