In defiance, I played Dungeons and Dragons Online last night. The Docks and Marketplace seemed oddly calm given the storm of chaos that blew through alternate worlds earlier in the day. A little shing-shing to get the dust off of my dual khopeshes, and I was ready to roll. One nice thing about Dungeons and Dragons Online is it promotes a very arcade-like wholesale slaughter of mook mobs. This is where kobolds come in. There is nothing mookier than the little reptile-weasel humanoids. Their existence practically begs for a gibbing.
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.DDO and Super Rewards, Part 2
Via the Boss Man in Comment 1:
The latest: “We’re currently investigating the reports of privacy concerns with our new Offer Wall. That feedback has been escalated to our partners for deeper investigation. Until that investigation is complete we’ve taken the Super Rewards option out of the Offer Wall. We’ll let you know when we have more information!â€
Patience sent out a decent post on the DDO forum (thanks Ethic) regarding the shadiness of the whole thing. It sounds like they have some really strict guidelines, which just weren’t fully in effect at launch. (But, what is ever is fully in effect at an MMO launch, lololol… /sad) Anyway, it is good that Turbine quickly responded, and I hope against hope that the filters will be enough to make it a decent option. Forum posts are reporting that most offers require more real purchases, such as Netflix or buying shoes online.  Still, please be aware that the email linked to your Turbine account still seems to pass through the internet unencrypted.
DDO and Super Rewards
Yesterday Turbine dropped an unexpected announcement on the Dungeons and Dragons Online players. They have made a deal with the company Super Rewards to provide another way for players to receive the cash shop points for Dungeons and Dragons Online. It’s quite simple really. Head on over to the Offer Wall to find current promotions along with the amount of Turbine Points a player would gain from doing the task. It is great Turbine is finding another way to enjoy the game where points can be bought, earned in game, and now given via the Offer Wall. The positives mostly end there.
My Little Pony Tower Defense
The challenge game of the week at Kongregate is a tower defense game with a backstory about galactic conflict, war, billions dead, yaddah yah. At some point, you realize that the waves of purple stuff are the Smooze from My Little Pony: The Movie, which kind of gives the entire game a different feeling. I choose to believe the red dots are flutterponies.
: Zubon
We Rule – Quick Review
Against some rational part of my brain, I started playing the free game We Rule on the iPod this weekend. I doubt the game will make it through the month on my device, but for how my weekends generally run it is a great, MMO-like dalliance. Here is a really quick review for anybody interested. Note that I have not played Farmville, so there will not be any comparisons to that and other Facebook games.
Mission Maker
I resubscribed to Star Wars Galaxies to try the new content that has been added since I last played. I remember reading the press release about one of the features which had been added called “Chronicle Master”. Apparently, it was like the mission creator system they used to talk about having in 2003. The press release claimed that over three million quests were made the first month. Considering SWG’s last reported subscriber numbers, that’s a lot of quests! One individual even created over 6,000 quests that month.
So now that I’ve had a chance actually try this system, I can say that SOE didn’t make anything worth bragging about. The reason an individual would create thousands of quests in a month is because everyone who wants to make cool quests has to grind for hours before they’re allowed to make anything worth doing. Almost all of the quests I’ve made have been made using a mouse recording program while I was asleep. Anyone that made six thousand quests in four weeks probably did the same thing. Every single one of those quests is as engaging as you imagine.
Why is that developers put in massive grinds into these things? I know they want me to play longer, but the ability to find well written player content would keep me playing a lot longer than a massive grind.
Level Up at School
The Daily Illuminator notes a Multiplayer Game Design class where
… Students leveled up, with an “A” being Level 12 at the end of the semester.
From the syllabus:
Class time will be divided between fighting monsters (Quizzes, Exams etc.), completing quests (Presentations of Games, Research etc.) and crafting (Personal Game Premises, Game Analysis Papers, Video Game Concept Document etc.).Reportedly, class attendance and scores were up significantly. …
: Zubon
Short and sweet
Because 8-bit rules.
Guild Wars – War in Kryta
The haze has cleared leaving us with the upcoming content – War in Kryta. Yet, calling it upcoming is not really the best word because it has started coming now. It really started in-game with Mr. Thackeray’s attempt to sweep the ice queen Gwen off her feet. Players that have completed the Eye of the North or done specific Wintersday quests are able to collect items from across the lands to prepare a picnic where possibly Thackeray could propose. Players can get pretty good gifts in exchange for helping Thackeray out.
Last night there was an update that added the Trial of Zinn and the White Mantle Peacekeepers. The Trial of Zinn follows the aftermath of Zinn’s Task. Zinn, a rival golemancer to the main story’s Oola, accidentally sent out a few golem in Zinn’s Task to assassinate world leaders. Players are tasked with stopping these rogue golems. Now, in the Trial of Zinn, Zinn must stand before the Arcane [Asuran] Council for his crimes. The White Mantle Peacekeepers are bandits hired by the White Mantle to maintain peace. This posse comitatus (wink at Tipa) of course are antagonistic to players allying with the Shining Blade, which is about all of them.
It is pretty cool that instead of a big, honkin’ drop of content and goodies at the 5th Anniversary, which is what I believe most people were expecting, ArenaNet is choosing instead to ramp up. It seems that a lot of players are dusting off their accounts to come back to the free updates. The other weeknight, Fort Aspenwood, which is my go to for casual PvP, was absolutely hopping. I’ve also seen a lot of Tweets from people coming back. Guild Wars birthday is April 28th, and with the pace that has been set, I think we will see a few more truffle bites before the birthday cake comes.
–Ravious
deficient in the cognitive facilities requisite to fully comprehend the truth
Developer Recognition
Warhammer Online is doing something pretty cool with four lucky bloggers: Gaarawarr, Mykiel, Shadow-war, and Werit. They invited the four to visit Mythic Entertainment and sit down with the WAR Design team for interviews and discussion. There is a real heavy emphasis on interactivity via Twitter too. I love seeing stuff like this because not only is it a fan dream to meet developers but bloggers are fonts of communication… so everybody wins. The event got me thinking about developer recognition regarding bloggers.