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The Persistence of Reputation

Online communities often times face the compounded problems of prejudice, anonymity, audience, and perceived slight.  I like to think that our haven of MMO communities is a protective sea fortress in the sea of pejorative online calamity.  We are anonymous to a degree.  I might be a quasi-intelligent lesser primate for all you know.  I drop hints, here and there, about my life, but as far as you know I am building an artificial persona to lead you astray, dear reader.  Still, my posts and name have persistence.  You know me.

The same is true in our gaming genre built on communal interaction.  We might be “IRL” anonymous, but we really aren’t in an MMO.  We are just known by different names. Continue reading The Persistence of Reputation

Our Favorite Bugs: Skirmish Edition

One skirmish never launched [update: launched the day I posted this] and one was shut down due to unforeseen problems. I have not seen an explicit statement, but it sounds like the Survival skirmish shut down because you could stealth and just stand there while enemies accumulated, unable to find you. I miss all the fun exploits.

But no, the best bug so far is that the healing soldiers do not heal. This is not to say that they just stand there, which does happen at times, but rather that their healing abilities are not actually healing. Instead, they deal negative damage to you. What is the difference? First, your damage mitigation applies to negative damage, so Guardians in heavy armor might get only half the healing. Second, healing buffs do not apply to negative damage, so you get no benefit from traiting your soldier for better healing, your equipment that increases incoming healing, or even the healing soldier’s healing buff.

While this is not an official “known issue,” because why would you put something like that on the list where your players can find out about it, it has been acknowledged and may be fixed someday.

: Zubon

Pro tip: If you want to farm skirmish marks and don’t need the xp, and who does with all the quests available, lower the skirmish level. You may lose 10% of the marks, but you finish in half the time.

Unimpressive Trailers: The Final Frontier.

These are the chronicles of MMO developer Cryptic. Their continuing mission: To seek out new players. To create new trailers that will generate excitement for their game. To boldly take a popular license and make a profitable game.

Judging by the trailer they released earlier today, their mission will be a failure. Clocking in at just over a minute, the trailer actually seemed to decrease interest in the game despite having a prominent spot on the front page of gamespot. The voice-over was uninspired. The game-play footage was too devoid of music to give it a cinematic feel, yet also devoid of the user-interface that makes game-play footage seem genuine.

By contrast, when SW:TOR wants to show off it’s gameplay, they actually played it; user interface and all. When SW:TOR wanted to give a cinematic trailer, they did that too. Both of these efforts had me reaching for my wallet and saying to myself, “God, I hope there’s a lifetime subscription!”

Star Trek Online’s trailers have me reaching for my mouse while saying, “Meh”.

Follow-up to Yesterday

  • “Gay” as an insult, and the common slur variations, is not acceptable behavior in polite society. If you need an explanation why, the line for the remedial course in being a member of humanity starts over there. One questions the degree to which the internet is polite society, because “gay” as an insult, and more often the slur variations, are very common online. Somehow, boys and many men have yet to realize that talking about gay men a lot is the wrong way to project an identity of heterosexual masculinity. Of course, if you tell them they are compensating for their own insecurities, they try harder, which is no good.
  • As usual, I go to Language Log on linguistic issues. First, we have the use-mention distinction, which is that referring to someone else’s use of a term does not imply that we are using it ourselves, only mentioning that use. This will include fictional characters, where we reconstruct the problem. If you were offended by this comic or this sketch, you missed the point. Poe’s Law may ring ever true, but we bring attention to folly to mock it, not to endorse it.
  • Second on the linguistic front, we have taboo avoidance. Some things we avoid even mentioning except obliquely. So yesterday I avoided both f-words that are so commonly paired. I recommend that last link as the inspiration for the phrasing “homosexual in a derogatory sense”: I think the implied insult looks vapid and absurd when made explicit.
  • The picture of the internet toughguy is incomplete without the homophobia.
  • We the majority do not get to dictate to the minority what they are allowed to be offended by. When physical gay-bashing stops, we can talk about being too sensitive to verbal gay-bashing. Complementarily, we are not limited by whoever in the room claims to be most offended, and subjects of discourse are not off-limits because someone says so. You can be a jerk in either direction. Don’t.
  • Still my favorite forum mod quote, from the D&D boards: “[[Do not use the word ‘gay’ as a derogatory term. (There is no conceivable way that getting someone pregnant is ‘gay’ in the literal, non-insulting sense.)]]”

: Zubon

Internet Toughguy

Regarding recent so-called “player-versus-player” activity:

While you may have technically gotten a “kill” from me, I would like to point out that I was lagging at the time, and possibly AFK and/or typing a message to someone. I should further note that, even under these imbalanced conditions, you felt it necessary to bring several of your “friends” with you, as you could not do this on your own. I believe that your availing yourself of this further exploit demonstrates the fundamental weakness of your character and that of all the players on your team.

I might go on to note that you are, in fact, lame, and most likely homosexual in a derogatory sense. This is demonstrated by your number of kills, which indicates either that you are a new player below my consideration or someone who spends far too much time playing and only accumulates such a body count through wasting endless hours in an unskillful manner. In either case, your lack of ability is clearly demonstrated in this instance. I feel it incumbent upon me to point out the superiority of my genitals to yours, and upon further investigation, I have some observations to make upon your mother’s.

I find it entirely inappropriate for you to be carrying on in this manner about what is, to one of my wisdom and experience, a minor affair that should surely have been dismissed by now. Your inability to admit your error in this circumstance further demonstrates your personal failings, and by association those of the other members of your team. Not, I should hasten to add, that the other players on my team are any better, as I constantly need to carry them through my Herculean efforts. At any rate, I have not heard either of your previous comments, as I already have you on ignore, because you clearly have nothing further of value to add to this discussion of your personal shortcomings. Surely, you would be too cowardly to say such things if you were within my grasp, instead of hidden safely behind your monitor. We shall add this posturing to your list of deficiencies.

In summary, if I may re-iterate, your mother. Yours in fellowship,

: Zubon

Blue Bar Bye-Bye

or: “How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Brown Bar”

I have this felt need to level exclusively while under rested xp. Otherwise, it feels like I am throwing away free experience points that I could get for doing exactly the same activities.

The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢ lets you spend destiny points (earned by leveling, PvMP, and some quests) to refill a bit of your blue (rested xp) bar. I did that fairly frequently in my original push towards 50, as I was playing often enough to keep that bar around its minimum. Leveling in Mines of Moriaâ„¢, that was not an issue, because the blue bar capped while I took several months off, and it is difficult to burn through the whole thing without playing 24/7 (or 28/6).

Logging into Siege of Mirkwoodâ„¢, I did not start with much blue bar. Perhaps I should have stayed logged off for a week before launch. As I emptied it in the first night, I reflexively opened the destiny points window and gave it a couple of shots. Then I realized: this makes no gorram sense. It is not as though I am in a big hurry to reach level 65. Even if I were, paying for a little more blue bar perhaps shaves hours off my leveling time, maybe a night or two of normal play. I have an entire year to gain 5 levels, and I expect to play far more hours at level 65 than getting there. And getting there early just means being slightly stronger when I start on the content I will be repeating for months if I really am that excited about playing.

If I really am that obsessed with playing under rested xp, I have alts. I have a Minstrel nearing the old level cap, and I have a baby Burglar who devastates skirmishes with his archer soldier. The new content will not be less new to me if I see it a week later, and they might have some bugs worked out if I see it a month later.

Viva le leveling whenever I get around to it!

: Zubon

The Ultimate Sandbox MMO

What if I told you there’s a MMO that had the following features:

  • Open-world player housing with the best decoration system of any MMO ever made.
  • A crafting system more powerful and advanced than any MMO out there
  • Player run stores and casinos
  • Player run economy
  • The ability to stream music from internet radio stations directly into the game to play at your player-run dance clubs
  • Mature areas where kiddies are not allowed to hang out.
  • A game where over 40% of the player base is female. (as opposed to 19% in WOW)
  • No Level Grinding.
  • No Loot Camping
  • Free to download and play
  • No Monthly fee unless you purchase land

    • What would you say?
    Continue reading The Ultimate Sandbox MMO

    Muscle March

    I don’t know that I can top Woot’s description: “All I want for Christmas is some frantic digital homoeroticism.” You know, the MMO blogosphere was burning up all week with discussion of solo versus group and instances versus shared worlds and all kinds of things. Here we have a small group game that is certainly not set in ersatz Tolkien-land. If playing Rock Band feels a bit awkward for you, why not Muscle March at your next (office?) party?

    : Zubon