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Re-Envisioning Book Instances

One bit of Siege of Mirkwoodâ„¢ that I have not seen discussed anywhere is how Volume II, Book 9 uses skirmishes where other books in the epic chain use instances. That they are using the new book to show off the new toy is obvious; that it has skirmishes has been discussed. No, the bit that struck me is that it does not have the group instances that all the other books have. There are solo instances to tell story bits, but it uses skirmishes instead of the old system for instanced group content.

Why does this matter? A recurring problem is how to deal with the older content for new people as the mass of the playerbase has moved past it. Most games go back a few years later and nerf content so that it solo-able, or add different grouping options, or otherwise experiment. The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢ has weakened some content; before that it added rewards for repeating the 6-person instances so that veterans would have an incentive to help new players; and the latest talk has been of adding a “solo mode,” a mega-buff so that one player could solo what was built as a group instance.

Skirmishes get past that by building in scalability. Playing in off-hours or three years down the line? No problem: the attack on the castle has a solo difficulty built in. Small guild, or want to make it a guild event? Set it for 3, 6, or 12, or make it a higher tier. Never got into skirmishes, so your soldier is weak? You can turn down the level on many.

What impresses me is that the content has been built now so that it will be playable years from now. There will not be a need to fix it three years from now, and the grognards will have no fuel for, “Kids these days all need easy mode, while in my day we ground out ten thousand rats and liked it!” Maybe it is easier to add a super buff, but if I were the one retrofitting old instances to be solo-able, I would strongly consider turning some into skirmishes that you unlock during the epic books. This would also vastly increase the use of the content. Most people play the epic book instances once and then never look back, while people are repeating skirmishes everyday. (Making the boss fights interesting for different group sizes would be a design challenge.)

: Zubon

Token Economy

A typical looting session of the Watcher for my kin will look like this:
“OK we have a Platinum Coin of Spirit.”
“Is that shoulders or helm?”
“One sec… googling it”
“I think it can be bartered for either one can’t it?”
“No that’s the American servers. We have to wait until Mirkwood comes out in the UK for it to barter for either.”
“Spirit sounds more like it’s in your head than your shoulders. I think spirit is shoulders”
“Back. I just checked google and it’s helm.”
“So, if I need shoulders I could use my DKP on it now, and then get the shoulders for it later right?”
“Uhhhh…. need to check google. BRB”

Sometimes when it comes to exchanging tokens for things in games, its just a headache.

Continue reading Token Economy

Gender Differences at Terra Nova

Dmitri Williams at Terra Nova links to their latest paper exploring the EQ2 data. The highlights are not terribly surprising. One notable is that men play more on average, but the hardcore women are more hardcore. This will not surprise anyone with a female guild leader.

Dmitri’s highlights note the higher percentage of females reporting bisexuality, although not the higher percentage of men reporting homosexuality; the total not-straight percentages are about the same. That is consistent with the demographics I recall, although he notes the female reporting rate as higher than the general population. I wonder the extent to which these are factors of reporting or of the underlying population. In every online community I know, women discussing bisexuality receive quite a bit of positive attention; men, not so much. There could also be an age factor there.

: Zubon

Instance Quests

Unheralded, Turbine solved a technical issue very neatly. (I may need some sort of conditional tense there, because some things break under pressure, but let’s assume it keeps working.) When you enter an instance, one or more quests pop up on the quest tracker, without your having talked to an NPC. Nothing fancy there, but let me explain the problems solved.

First, this is how you see hard mode in dungeons. Continue reading Instance Quests

Feature is a Word, Like Love

25968When I started reading about the new grouping feature in World of Warcraft, I was blown away.  Here, I thought that Turbine had triumphed in the slaying of “activation energy” to play the vanilla MMO with skirmishes, and Blizzard possibly one-ups them.  It’s a tough call to actually announce a winner. While the goal of both skirmishes and the random grouping feature in World of Warcraft is to decrease the time spent not playing.  They attack it in very separate ways.  Skirmishes are content.  Random grouping is a feature.

Continue reading Feature is a Word, Like Love

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