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MMO Meme of 2010

Barely two months in and I have found a winner.  From the great podcast/site A Casual Stroll to Mordor in their latest podcast with Lord of the Rings Online Skirmish devs, getting hit by environmental effects or geometrical boss effects in MMOs that devs love to use shall now be called:

Standing in the Poop.

The saying is even better because Merric, Goldenstar, and I are parents of small children so it hits home.  Plus it’s not expletive.  I can’t wait to yell in voice chat for some minstrel staring only at health bars to get out of the poop!  The podcast is well worth listening to, and hopefully I will have time to comment on the super juicy bits contained in it later on.

–Ravious
If I weren’t real, could I sing this jolly Christmas song?

EDIT: Since I seem to be living under a rock (or in a too polite LOTRO guild), I will make this my meme for 2010, and use it every chance in-game I can get. I mean afterall, LOTRO needs to be more like WoW, right?

Break Time

That MMO break has been working out so well, it merits an extension. This is a good time for it anyway; the only interesting MMO release announced for this year is Cataclysm (I already beat WoW, done), and last year’s only sign of promise was Fallen Earth. This is a point in the industry when Raph is reduced to copying Farmville, and while that is probably a good financial decision, it is a bad sign.

To help make the break clean, I have uninstalled a bunch of “just in case” MMOs, deleted bookmarks, decimated my RSS feeds, and will be mostly absent from here unless I have something to say about any other games I might be playing. I had considered queuing up some previously written posts and ending with this on an Ozymandious note, “I did it [a week] ago,” but this is already pompous enough.

Don’t worry about me. No matter how many times you clear that boss, the villagers will still need me to deal with him if I come back.

: Zubon

Happy State of Grind

Last weekend I dug away at a repeatable quest for Guild Wars Wintersday Redux, which ends this weekend with a finale for those having hat problems during Wintersday 2009.  The quest is a fun one called Snowball Dominance, where the denizens of the Eye of the North go outside for a massive snowball fight.  Players can bring one other person along.  The quest can be a bit challenging for casual players that stroll in to the chaos, but with a few “exploits,” like waiting for the scrum to finish by standing outside of agro range on the left side then mopping up the remaining mobs, it becomes manageable.

Of course for farmers there is a different tactic.  Take a necromancer Hero, and run it into the middle of the enemy group before they turn red.  Pop Holiday Blues (AoE well degen), Snow Fort (temporary invincibility), and Snowcone (heal) to ball up the mobs.  The mobs waste their good skills on the sacrifice, and players and the AI allies can easily take out the clumped up enemies.  The rewards are very good for something that can be run in under 2 minutes. Continue reading Happy State of Grind

Increased Max Players

What I think of as my “home server” in Team Fortress 2 runs just one map (2fort) with increased teams (16 per side) and a long running time (up to 3 hours). I found this very helpful for learning the game, as I did not need to simultaneously learn a couple dozen maps (including stages), nine classes, alternate weapons, etc. One map, enough people for my beginning incompetence not to doom us, and time enough to settle in and explore without frantic NOW rounds.

I moved to that server after starting to learn on a 2fort server with instant respawn. Instant respawn is nice for a beginner who dies a lot but utterly unsuitable for a real game on many maps, especially 2fort. If it takes longer to reload than to respawn and get back to the fight, the game is an extended stalemate. Maybe one side will eventually get a lucky grab or a really good spawn-camp going.

I am coming to see increased team size as a similar problem. Rounds still end, because many shy from playing defense even as the intel is running out the door, but large teams mean that there is always more defense available. Killing one per second is barely keeping up with the respawn. Furthermore, that defense is always there, even while mounting a big attack. You can have 3 Engineers, 3 Snipers, a Demoman with stickies, and a Pyro spy-checking at all times, and half your team is still available to assault your similarly staffed enemy. If your assault is going well, the (entire) other team respawns behind you, while any replacement attackers are 10-20 seconds away across prime Sniper territory.

Hence the 3-hour running time. Unbalanced teams can sometimes end it early with a string of wins, but it is not uncommon to see time reach 00:00:00 with one win and a cap or two into a second round.

: Zubon

I have been enjoying an Arena server on the side. “No respawn” solves many problems.

Persistence Addict

Hello, my name is Ravious, and I am a persistence addict.  I try and play other games.  The one’s sitting solely on my hard drive.  The ones with no boundaries.  They are great games that I ignore.  But, to me, they are meaningless trifles when I can etch my accomplishments into a monolithic server farm one dead rat at a time.

The latest to fall was King’s Bounty: Armored Princess.  It was a truly excellent game for the hour or so I played. It was also pretty much free.  I know that I will enjoy it more if I play it more, but its pleasure is passing.  Any lonely accomplishment I will gain will be between, myself, and my Steam wall.  The game already lets me cheat by giving me a dragon anyway. Continue reading Persistence Addict

Marching to War Should Look This Awesome

viking jarl squad Anyone have screenshots that measure up to real life? I know we are just primates who react with “ooh, ah” sounds to fire and shiny objects, but damned if the Vikings don’t still have us all beat for awesome. (Carl De Souza with the winning images.)

While some commenters there are down on the second Up Helly Aa picture, as LotRO players know, yes, you drink tea before heading to war. Before a big fight you drink tea, eat an entire rack of lamb (or cram bread), and show off your shiny tokens. Those are the best buffs in the game. Even the ancient Vikings knew that.

: Zubon

Hat tip: Agitator

Bet or Change Your Mind

One thing I’ve picked up from everyone’s favorite stable of bloggers at the George Mason economics department is that you should be willing to bet on your beliefs. If you really believe in what you are saying, it is taking easy money; if not, shut up. I think this would be useful in our world of interminable online arguments. It improves the accuracy and precision of your beliefs, and it forces others to face up to theirs.

The heart of it is nailing down just what it is that you (or others) believe. Many of your ideas exist as fuzzy generalities that have no application to the world because they are insufficiently well defined for there to be any counter-evidence. If mutually exclusive options are both consistent with what “you know,” you don’t really know anything. Continue reading Bet or Change Your Mind

Ode on a Server

Today’s Wikipedia article of the day is “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” and Keats is a relevant figure for MMOs. He was a candle that burned brightly and quickly. His odes constituted a new form of poem, although those not immersed in poesy are unlikely to see them as much different from other forms. His works are known more for an effusion of passion and imagery than technical perfection; some say his best works are marred by unbecoming lines, and others debate whether controversial lines “work.”

If you’re not getting the connection, your link on that last one is “bug or feature?” “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is an old favorite that exhibits this well. There are several points when you might pause and ask whether a line really works, either in its content or its form. To my mind, some of them work just because of that — “More happy love! more happy, happy love!” succeeds only to the extent that you accept a narrator effusively overcome by the moment. On content, do we really want to celebrate eternally unfulfilled desire? If Epicurus had a hell, that would be it, but there is a Romantic ideal in teetering on the verge of satisfaction. There many ways to take (or not) the last two lines.

As an MMO player, if you have not read “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” you really ought. Someone pick a tune, and it could be our national anthem. That eternally unfulfilled desire? That’s what you are paying for. Those frozen lovers are your treadmill, always on the verge of ecstacy, never quite reaching it, where joy is found in the endless almost-attaining. The world is static, unchanging, with events clearly happening but never actually resolving. There is an eternal spring, and the silent pipes play on.

: Zubon

For anyone who does not believe in poetry-based “controversy,” (1) this was bleeding-edge stuff in 1819, and (2) like you have never seen a forum explode about whether changing Rogue positional damage by 2% will completely ruin the game.

LOTRO Volume 3 – First Motes

The first official tidbits on the upcoming Volume 3 for Lord of the Rings Online was released yesterday.  Volume 3 is named Allies of the King, with Book I: Oath of the Rangers, and it hints at the martial mobilization of zones we know and love.  There are going to be some crafting updates.  Complete solo-ization of Volume 1, and some updates to a few current skirmishes we have, making them raidable.

The best part is a new skirmish, which will be part of Vol. 3, Bk. 1 called the Depths of Nurz Ghashu, which takes place in the Rift that many loved during pre-Mines of Moria times.  Unfortunately I picked up Lord of the Rings Online only a few months before Mines of Moria was launched, and I never made it to the Rift.  (Though I did make it to Helegrod – the 24-man raid - amazingly enough.)

It does not seem like we will be getting a new zone, like Dunland, this time around.  The start of Volume 3 uses a lot of old content, which is not a bad thing.  Recycling old content just requires a balance between the old and new.  Developers will want to polish the great memories, discard the yucky ones, and then add a touch of new.  A new drop would suffice, or new mechanics as the case is for the new skirmish in an old dungeon instance.

The best part is that Turbine can escape the timeless existence of their old content.  We already see this in a snowy Bree ransacked by villainous curs in the two Bree skirmishes, but this is a future story.  I want to see my effects have consequences.  Let’s pretend I did kill Thaurlach the Balrog in the Rift.  The best I could hope for was some quest text thanking me and suggesting that the threat is now lessened and the Rift is in disarray.  Now, Turbine has a chance to show me what happened after that brave group of 12 assaulted the Rift. (Also maybe give another way to give Eldgang rep. Hint. Hint.)

–Ravious
we have to go back, kate

Virtual Worlds and Action Movies

MMOs are supposed to be virtual worlds. But just because it’s virtual, doesn’t mean it’s a simulation. In the real world, we have ugly people. Sure, we try to make ourselves look better via nice clothing, diet, or by using make-up and photoshop, but none of that is necessary in an MMO. You can make yourself look however you want, and everyone wants to look good.

For all the multitude of options you have in the Star Trek Online character creator, you can’t make a big fat “Scotty” character. Few MMOs actually let you be ugly or unattractive. People want their MMO to have a simulated economy, or simulate the process of building a star-ship, or simulate the weather. But MMOs are not simulations, they’re more like action movies.

In an action movie, everyone is beautiful. Something interesting is always on the verge of happening. There are no bathrooms or tax-collectors. The entire world in an action movie exists for the sole purpose of being an interesting setting for the main characters. The boring, ugly, and annoying aspects of life are minimized or ignored. The real question is, do players actually want a virtual world or do they really want the action movie they’ve been getting?