That’s all. Incredible CG.
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.Oz’s Trail of Trials, Part 2 – Set Phasers to Spam
You know, it’s harder to come up with a witty title that has not been used elsewhere than you’d think. That said, I now present part two of my trial account adventure, where I journey into one of the new kids on the block, Star Trek Online. And as my title alludes to, the goldpammers have gotten there first. I’m going to try not to ride the game too hard, as after all it is new, and that would be like picking on the new kid at school on the playground. That said, it is a well-known name, and of course has lots of baggage with it. I really think the developers did a good job trying to blend in 40+ years of history into a game without it being absolutely required to move around. I am, however, a bit of a Star Trek geek, and playing this game really brought it out. I’m almost ashamed at how many references I was easily able to get.
Continue reading Oz’s Trail of Trials, Part 2 – Set Phasers to Spam
Leashed to Marleybone
This weekend saw a lot of Wizard 101 play. Obligatorily, the joy I get from opening a load of presents every time I log on is pretty compulsory. Anyway, I have been zapping away at the O’Leary rats (and cats?) mucking about on the rooftops of Marleybone. Right now, I’ve been getting through the Hyde Park zone. I made it to the last boss of the zone, but he kicked my butt pretty hard. The rest of the zone has kept me lightly on my toes. At level 30, however, I think I might be a tad overleveled. I am not sure.
Unlike the sidewalk safe Wizard City and Krokotopia, Marleybone’s safe areas are not as clearly marked. In Hyde Park the whole zone happens across the rooftops, and the corners of the roofs are pretty safe. However, when moving from rooftop to rooftop I had to be more careful watching mobs. As a veteran MMO player, I am not finding this exercise very hard or tiring. There are plenty of MMOs where I’ve had to visualize agro bubbles in order to quickly move past a throng of mobs. I didn’t find Hyde Park much different. Perhaps as I move in to the next Marleybone zones, they will continue to switch up mob pathing and available safe areas.
I plan on continuing on with the Marleybone story. Grizzleheim remains calling to me in the background. I’ve completed the first content chunk of Grizzleheim (Sv. Pass), and I think I have the Vigrid Roughland zone next. Any tips on a good time to make a waylay to Vigrid Roughland are appreciated.
–Ravious
lookin for the place called Lee Ho Fooks
Notes from Google Analytics
I was curious about how the 100+ comment post affected our readership numbers. Yep, double the number of readers on Friday and over 1,000 unique views. I was surprised, however, that it is not winning on the month. Ravious’s latest Guild Wars 2 post is about 50% higher, despite only having 4 comments; his posts that are actually news consistently get a lot of hits. The winner, though, apart from the front page itself? “A Fable,” a year and a half old, but still periodically rocketing up our stats whenever it has a big day on StumbleUpon. “Game Developers and Porn Stars” also keeps getting hits, largely on the strength of search keywords. Sorry if you were one of the hundreds looking for “game porn,” “game porno,” “porn game,” “games porn,” or “porn games.”
This is also the first time I have not seen Ethic’s Asheron’s Call 2 closing ceremonies in the top 10. People may finally be emotionally moving on from AC2. I never did make that Lugian Tactician.
: Zubon
rand(Kindness)
It’s the end of random week. It was a good one with a guest post on managing community expectations, thoughts on MMO biological conditioning, random raid poop and balls, and I even got to sneak in an article on food. I actually had trouble for the closing post. Should I do a puzzling haiku? How about writing in an errant random matter? I could’ve started an all out attack against other blogs to find my nemesis. It’s Friday after all. All blogger sins are forgiven on this day. I had considered a post on random acts of kindness yesterday afternoon, but Suzina’s latest post cemented the decision. It is nice, after all, to have some synergy on our blogomerate.
I bought WOW gold
I have a confession that I’m a little embarrassed about. Yes, you guessed it, I’ve been playing WOW. I haven’t been spreading that around too much, because of the stigma associated with it. I imagine the next time someone yells at me to “Go back to WOW”, it might actually sting a little. But that’s not what this blog entry is about. Really, this is about someone reacting to me purchasing gold.
LOTRO 3.1 – Constructive Thoughts
I got my snark out of the way. Before I continue, let’s rewind a little bit to the Volume 3, Book 1 Prologue. The Oath of the Rangers starts off with a journey to Rivendell, where I eventually met with Lord Elrond to discuss a letter sent by Lady Galadriel regarding Aragorn’s need for the Rangers. I knew going into this epic quest line that it was going to be a lighter Book entailing traveling about all the old zones. To expand on the content, I was sure that I would be waylaid by tasks as I talked to each Ranger. My hopes were not very high for a meaningful story or new lore, at least, until I got to the new Skirmish set in the Rift.
In the Prologue, Turbine blew me away. They created a kind of montage where Elrond walked with me around his library discussing the whereabouts of the eight Rangers I was to rally. Every few steps Elrond would discuss the whereabouts, demeanor, or skills of the Ranger, and the Ranger would pop into view as if my character was visualising the man we were discussing. I could picture the essence of each zone as Elrond talked. Lothrandir would be just out of the cold wind watching the icy landscape below while northern lights gave color to the snow, and Calenglad would be looking out at the great lake Evendim on a starry night as far off chantings of the broken Angmarim floated from the ruins across the water. The team/person that thought up this scene should be congratulated for far surpassing what could have been a simple laundry list of Rangers to collect.
rand(Developer Droppings)
(I asked Dan Gray if he would want to touch on the subject of random developer updates. He was kind enough to oblige, and here is his great contribution to random week. –Ravious)
In the age of 140 character communication it’s becoming standard practice for developers to tease their audience with sporadic tidbits of information, be that through Twitter, forums, or other mediums. It’s guerrilla warfare tactics in the fight against stagnation, but just how effective are these seemingly random ‘micro-updates’? A sincere effort to maintain a more responsive and fluid relationship, or just the easiest solution to a tricky problem?
To me, any effective communication strategy revolves around the ability to manage expectations. Everything you say or do is weighed against past events, and evidence that you are reneging on a precedent or accepted belief will always upset someone. Recognizing how these expectations are built is crucial, because they have just as much impact on the reaction to a message as the message its self.
Any form of communication will earn you an overwhelmingly positive response in the beginning, simply because it is unexpected. Whether it’s the first developer blog, the first post on a fansite, or the first tweet, the community’s reaction will always be encouraging. It’s comforting to imagine that the strategy will continue producing that positive vibe month after month, but of course it’s never that easy. Keep anything up for too long and you build an expectation around it; the stimulating effect fades as it becomes routine, leaving only disappointment when it’s absent. Thus a guaranteed positive turns into a potential negative, and much of your hard work is undone.
So what is the value of these micro-updates? Their complete lack of schedule and random content makes them an ideal candidate to keep expectations shifting from day to day. Provided you can keep the content varied, interesting, and significant it will keep the audience on their toes, always looking forward – never becoming entirely numb to that buzz.
This form of communication is possibly also more suitable for the younger generations of gamers, famed for their short attention spans. Where a developer blog or Q&A transcript might arouse a bit more interest from your core audience, a brutally paired down message will impact a broader audience with much greater speed – provided there’s an existing positive expectation that ensures peoples immediate attention.
So be wary of letting your micro-updates become a drip feed of banalities, just because they tend not to carry much individual weight. With every update you build an expectation that directly influences the impact of that medium, and how effective it is at keeping your community content and forward looking.
This post was brought to you by Dan Gray, author of BiffTheUnderstudy.com
Oz’s Trail of Trials – Pre-Part 2
A question and a few notes from a closet Trekkie to any others who may be playing this game –
* If this is set 30 years after Nemesis, and 22 years after Romulus was destroyed, how is Spock narrating it when he was sent to a parallel universe shortly thereafter?
* While the ground fight battles are fun but repetitive, the space battles are the most amazing eye candy I’ve seen since LoTRO’s Lorien. The graphic geek team who worked on this deserves medals.
* The goldspam in this game is worse than Ironforge, Orgrimmar and Bree combined. It was literally impossible for me to ask a single question without it being instantly whisked out of the chat buffer.
* Props to the Trek geeks who worked hard to ensure this game follows established stories/lore. LoTRO is the only other game to do so, in my experience. SWG tried, and ended up…well…NGE is all I need to say.
Network Effect
The network effect is one of those critically important, foundational concepts needed to discuss the success or failure of multiplayer games intelligently, one that gets more “what?” reactions than it should. I’m hoping people know it but perhaps not by that name; knowing it by name lets you tap a century of research and discussion rather than re-inventing the wheel.
The idea is that adding someone to a network creates value for everyone else. If you have no friends on Facebook, it is just a platform for solo Farmville. Every additional user creates additional potential value for every other user. In many of our online games and social network, the primary value we are seeking is that connection with other users. It is not just that users create content; users are the content.