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Variable Support

My City of Heroes “main” was a Blaster, but Defender was the only archetype for which I had multiple level-capped characters, three in this case. Were I to go back, I would be all about Controllers, of which I left at least three in the mid-levels.

For me, this was all about diversity of play. Blasters and Scrappers are damage dealers, Tankers are tanks. While each archetype has several power sets, all but one of them are usually more or less the same thing: damage with some minor effect attached. The differences between Ice Blasts and Fire Blasts and Dark Blasts were small unless you specialized in those side effects rather than in damage. I did that on my Defenders, making their attacks even more support, but you rarely want your primary damage class to be ersatz-support.

The support sets, however, differ quite a bit. You could have damage prevention through Force Fields or healing through Empathy. Darkness focuses on reducing enemies’ effectiveness, while Radiation mixes buff and debuff effects. Kinetics is a ridiculous stack of buffs and debuffs. The control sets use a common template of holds and other control, but each varies and also comes with a few trick and support abilities; Controllers got a control set and a support set, so you could see some real diversity in what they brought to the table.

The only interesting thing about trying more than one version of the non-support classes is the one odd power set per archetype. Spines is the Scrapper melee with AE and range. Ice is the defense-based tanker armor with two taunt auras and a bunch of debuffs. Some Electricity Blasters went melee, relying on endurance drain to keep the enemies from doing much. And in powerset proliferation, which opens up more combos, and a second tank or DPS might be interesting.

: Zubon

Guild Wars 2 News (8/9)

Lots of Guild Wars 2 news has been dropping as the energy for the game ramps up to the first public hands-on demo of Guild Wars 2 at gamescom next week.  Thanks as always to the community at Guild Wars 2 Guru for keeping super up to date on any Guild Wars 2 rustling in the internet.

First up is a small note.  The guys at Penny Arcade and Scott Kurtz of PvP Online were invited by ArenaNet to play Guild Wars 2.  Later on the UStream channel for PvPTV, Scott talked briefly about his play experience. One interesting point he made was how there was usually a watermelon collecting event at a farm, but when he got to the farm it was instead overrun by rabbits.  There were no instructions as to what to do with the rabbits, but with a moment’s search he found a cage to put the rabbits in.  It should be noted that he completely ignored the ongoing “large” event where some big monster was attacking and NPCs were running to defend.  In other words, he played how he wanted to with all the ongoing events.

Continue reading Guild Wars 2 News (8/9)

Account-Level Rewards

I am interested in seeing more factors tied to the account rather than the character and in the form of unlocks rather than items.

Most MMO elements are tied to the character. Your level, skills, reputation, achievements: all of these are character-specific. You may be able to trade money and equipment between characters. Some games are progressive enough to let you share a few items like a friends list, chat channel, guild affiliation, or key bindings across characters.

Some of my interest comes from being an altoholic. If I have a dozen characters, a bonus that applies to all of them is more interesting than a single-character upgrade. It is secondarily of use to the hardcore with multiple level-capped characters, less so to players who devote themselves to a single character. It makes it a lower-investment decision to try new character options, and it retains the illusion of progress and permanency rather than making each character feel like something entirely new. Continue reading Account-Level Rewards

Elements Breakthrough

The critical threshold, for me at least, was getting around 30,000 electrum. Once my Elements deck was about half upgraded, it started doing reasonably well against False Gods, which lets you start winning upgraded cards regularly, which lets you finish upgrading your deck and work on other options.

This is a good thread to show you what works well against the T3 Elders. To get to False Gods, I started with an unupgraded rainbow transitioning to an upgraded rainbow, with changes as appropriate for playstyle.

: Zubon

That New MMO Smell

Hello, gamers, listen to your MMO, now back to Guild Wars 2, now back to your MMO, now back to Guild Wars 2.  Sadly, your MMO isn’t Guild Wars 2, but if it stopped using stock Pokemon sounds and switched to something that would blow Hollywood away, it could sound like Guild Wars 2.

Listen around, back here, where are you? You’re in the marketplace with the MMO your MMO could sound like.  What’s in your ear, back at me.  They have it, it’s a farmer with a fresh harvest of that thing you love.  Listen again, the produce is now a crazy fisherman.  Anything sounds possible when your MMO sounds like Guild Wars 2 and not 8-bit audio.

Do you want an MMO that can sound like an actual living city with drunk patrons at the Busted Flagon talking about the illegal deal that went down in the alley by the bar while crickets chirped?  Of course you do!  Swan Dive – into the best aural experience of your life.  So gamers should your MMO sound like Guild Wars 2?  You tell me!

–Ravious
on a pale horse

Snappy One-Liners

One of my main concerns while watching many of the videos the Guild Wars 2 folks have been sharing are the little one-liners the characters shout when they attack. You know, things like “Take that!”. I knew right away I would get sick of hearing that sort of thing all the time. Thankfully, they agree with me. Read this quote from their latest news, Talking Heads: VO and Dialogue in GW2:

We’re also aware that there can be too much of a good thing, which is why we’ve developed a sound throttling system so you won’t hear the same combat chatter repeated over and over again during fights. Those concerned about the game being diluted with “snappy one-liners” can breathe a sigh of relief. You won’t hear quips every five seconds, and most of them aren’t smarmy in nature. That annoys us just as much as it does you.

Make sure you listen to the samples while you are there.

– Ethic

Learned Helplessness

I don’t like games where randomness dominates. Some can be fun, if we take them completely unseriously, but the less your actions ultimately matter, the less interesting the whole thing is. As the non-controlled element becomes larger, the virtue of winning goes to zero and the frustration of losing goes to infinity (or also zero, as you stop caring). “A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.”

Continue reading Learned Helplessness

Quote of the Day

I now have in my possession a pocket-sized computer which, when I speak a question to it (“Who is the author of Kraken?” “Who was the fourteenth president of the Unites States?” “What is the name of John Scalzi’s cat?”) provides me an answer in just a few seconds. If I take a picture of something, the same pocket computer will analyze the photo and tell me what I’m looking at. Oh, and it makes phone calls, too. Among other things.

None of that is the cool part. The cool part is, when I speak a question to my pocket computer and it gives me a bad answer, I get annoyed. Because here in the future, when I talk to my pocket computer, I expect it to get the answer right the first time.
– John Scalzi

: Zubon

Turnaround Time

How is it that Runic Games is publishing Torchlight 2 early next year while other games languish in development Hell for years before coming out late, buggy, and poorly balanced? My compliments to whoever is in charge of production and logistics.

I understand that Torchlight is not the most ambitious project ever. It is narrowly defined and does one thing really well. It out-Diabloes Diablo. It is also a single-player game, which simplifies quite a bit. I also respect the discipline it takes to make a narrowly focused game, rather than trying to be all things to all people. We have seen that. We have seen that fail.

Torchlight 1 seems like a teaser for the real thing. Single-player, limited range of options: it is a demo expanded to something they could use as a fund-raiser. Torchlight 2 is adding multi-player and other things people thought were missing. By the time Diablo 3 comes out, are you really going to be interested in it except as “more of the same” of Torchlight? And they’re making an MMO. It is like seeing someone re-create Blizzard, if they had it to do all over again with less baggage, more experience, and no Activision.

: Zubon