Kill Ten Rats

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The Tyranny Of Levels

WoW has reinforced for me, in ways I had nearly forgotten, the way that levels swamp all considerations of skill or even sanity. This is especially striking coming off a long binge of Team Fortress 2, where a good headshot kills anything.

Level-related modifiers stack to make it pointless to play outside a narrow range. It would be enough to have the numbers get larger with every level, as they do, so good luck using that 50 damage attack against the 200,000hp enemy. Most games add a modifier based on level differences: it is not just that you get higher stats and better accuracy as you level, but also that you have a bonus to hit lower-level targets, with a corresponding penalty against bigger targets. You also face reduced damage against them, above and beyond their improved defenses, while they get those benefits against you, the lower-level target.

Let’s linger there a moment. Long long ago, City of Heroes had its “purple patch,” which imposed level modifiers. Your 50 damage attack against the 200,000hp enemy would only do 20 damage, and that was before applying the enemy’s defenses. Even if you could take down higher level enemies, it was not worth it for the time involved. (And, just in case you found a time-efficient way to do it, much higher level enemies yielded less or no experience.) WoW feels similar. Asheron’s Call assigns levels to enemies but intends them as rough guides to how powerful they are, with modifiers to experience gains but not relative effectiveness.

This makes fighting an even-con elite easier than a higher-level normal foe. Sure, it may have three times as many hit points, but I do not have an arbitrary accuracy penalty, so I can hit the thing. I can kill a caster six levels higher than me, but it takes a few minutes, and I could get the same reward from killing two lower-level foes in half the time.

: Zubon

I am open to the notion that WoW looks this way due to the way weapon skills work, rather than some additional penalty. A level-based hard cap on weapon skills creates the same effect.

Of PvP Servers and Games

PvP gives you ways to punish undesirable behavior. Nothing suggests to someone that he may have violated community norms quite the way decaptiation does. Really open PvP lets you take that option to those nominally on your own side, like the guy who parked a mammoth on an event NPC or that other guy who is constantly spamming in town.

PvP also gives griefers far more opportunities for undesirable behavior. How much time are you willing to take away from your plans to police those who are just in it for the lulz? And MMOs reward nothing if not time: how are your levels and gear relative to this guy who obviously has far too much time on his hands?

In practice, PvP policing will take place only where griefing and ganking would be inconvenient for the top tier of characters. Level-capped enemies rampaging through the mid-level zones? Meh, they’ll get bored and leave before I can be bothered to get there. They’re killing the auctioneers? Oh, it’s on!

Seriously, who has time to stand around the newbie areas just in case someone decides to pick on them? That’s what we have NPCs for! If only we did not fight far away from the NPC guards…

: Zubon

Quick Hits from the 40s

Rather than hit you with another wall of text (not that one), I have a few quick notes, with some thoughts I’ll be spinning across the week.

Not much going on in The Hinterlands, is there? It’s a quick couple of stories and out. I missed Badlands, Swamp of Sorrows, and the Searing Gorge entirely. I spent the levels in Feralas and Tanaris. I suppose that gives me some repeatability if I take those zones through the Blasted Lands for this level range.

I thought the giant turtles of Dustwallow Marsh were awesome, but now I see that I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I hit the 40s, I put away childish things. For now we see the turtles of the Tanaris Desert, and they are yellow and pale blue, and they are even cooler. Who doesn’t love big, grumpy creatures in cuddly springtime colors? Also on the color beat, I cannot say that I care for painting a vulture red and calling it a roc.

As a Paladin, you hit level 50 and get Holy Wrath, an undead-/demon-only area effect nuke and stun. And then they send you to the Plaguelands, where there are level-appropriate undead in convenient clusters all over the place. They are even spread just right so that you can pick how many you want on this fight.

I have had pretty much no positive grouping experiences. This will be a post of the day later this week, but the only good groups I have had are my refer-a-friend (do everything together) and sharing kills for “kill ten rats” quests. The rare groups that arise have been various mixes of horrible and inconsiderate.

I was invited to join a PvP server. Almost all the PvP I have seen has been level skulls ganking people. I have three PvP deaths that are not from level skulls, all of which were higher-level characters, only one of which was vaguely comparable (only three levels higher, alone), and that was the fight I accidentally initiated. On a different note, I tried dueling my refer-a-friend on my Druid, and I have no idea how I could conceivably overcome the advantage of heirloom gear. I have no twink gear on any of my characters, and I don’t see how I could hope to win a fight other than springing upon a lower-level character. Even once I hit the level cap, the competition has been there for a year of farming.

Summarizing most of those points, the A game is core, the E game is still amusing as I wander around seeing new things at a good clip, the K game is just annoying, and the S game is mostly people that make me glad the classic WoW zones are largely empty.

: Zubon

City of Too Many Heroes

Superheros are exciting and cool because they are special, relatively rare, and interesting in a meaningful way. An MMO where everyone can be a superhero completely destroys each of those points: superheros become plentiful, mundane, and end up performing repetitive tasks.

Andrew has an entirely valid point. This is, however, a sub-genre of superhero stories. You do not see them often, and far less often well thought through, but you do see Astro City and others that take the notion of having a city of superheroes. I wish I could remember more, but my reading of comic book deconstructions is way behind. There have been comics about the equivalent of superhero internal affairs and the clean-up crews that deal with all these heroes. Other comics occasionally toy with the idea, like Silver Age stories where there are entire cities of Supermen or JLA Rock of Ages.

I will cite this last for how it is hard to do well, because while Rock of Ages was a great story arc, the DC universe then politely ignored the social implications of literal angels appearing on Earth or temporarily granting the entire planet superpowers. Or even what happened in those hours of ubiquitous demipowers.

: Zubon

Further Frontiers in Quality of Life

Why it’s City of Heroes, of course, Issue 16.

Super-sidekicking: “Each player in the group’s level is set to the level of the owner of the active team task. If no team task is selected, everyone in the group’s level will be set to the level of the team leader.” You earn xp while exemplared, so everyone can always team with everyone.

They used to let you change your game difficulty with a simple 1 to 5 slider. That is now two sliders and two toggles. Max difficulty lets you solo against level [your level +4] enemies spawned for a group of eight. Minimum difficulty lets you solo against level [your level -1] enemies, with bosses changed to lieutenants and archvillains changed to elite bosses.

Want to change your look? Change your powers’ colors or animations, individually or collectively, including new weapons for the weapon-wielders and animations for the “I hit things” powers. Preview all those animations and enjoy the newly tabbed costume creator. If that is not enough variety, you can set these separately for each of your costumes. Are we still limited to 5 costumes per character and 36 characters per server? I might eventually run out of things to decorate. Oh, and every class got at least one new power set, although only one is completely new, the rest being proliferated from other classes.

Masterminds got Thermal Radiation at the same time that they got power customization. Want to bet on how many ninjas covered in black fire are currently rampaging across the Rogue Isles? I do not see any new missions or task forces, but the graphics overhaul probably took two-thirds of forever. There are developer diaries.

Fallen Earth: Need Transportation

After getting my feet warn out on the first day, I decided to look into getting a better mode of transportation.

The first mode was easy. I had a preorder key for an ATV. Typed it in and a key appears in my inventory. Use the key and an ATV appears before me. Click on that and away I go. Level 2, right out of the tutorial and I have a mount. Excellent. I checked the cost of gas and… ouch. I found the garage/stable just outside of town and parked it for later. Special note: mounts have extra storage!

I decided I better get a horse since feed looks cheaper than gas by a long shot. I found the horse seller in town and decided to save up to buy an untrained horse since it was affordable. Time to go scavenging for scrap metals, woods and other items to sell. I also needed to gather some leather to make a bridle to train my horse when I buy it.

Continue reading Fallen Earth: Need Transportation

On Politeness

It is very important that you speak well, especially online, where text is your voice. Whenever possible, you should type in full sentences with correct spelling, capitalization, and punctuation. Be polite, being sure to spell out “please.” Avoid profanity. Be seen to express courtesy and give others the benefit of the doubt. Avoid not just “drama,” but dramatics of any sort that might distress others or give them the impression that you are an immoderate person.

That way, when you call someone a stupid douchebag, it will mean something.

: Zubon

Did Turbine Plan Mirkwood?

I was completely sold on the idea of Rohan being Lotro’s next expansion. The main evidence of this proposed expansion was the registration of the URL “RidersofRohan.com”. Registered way back by Tokien Enterprises on April of 2006 and set to re-direct any visits to lotro.com. It was as good as a confirmation of the next expansion.

Two years later, in the summer of 2008, Tolkien Enterprises registered the following URLs: “siegeofGondor.com”, “treasonofIsengard.com”, “corsairsofUmbar.com” and “firesofMordor.com”.

Continue reading Did Turbine Plan Mirkwood?

Quality of Life

Little things make a big difference in your enjoyment. You would not list “cup holders” on your make-or-break features for a car, but you will notice fairly often if they are missing or sub-optimal. If they are really good, you might never notice.

In World of Warcraft, when you mouse-over a monster, the box mentions if you have a quest to kill it. This is very nice if you forget what you are doing with two dozen quests active or are not sure whether you need Prowlers, Young Prowlers, Mature Prowlers, or some or any combination of the three. In World of Warcraft, you carry quest items in your bags. This is not very nice with two dozen quests active or if you need different parts from Prowlers, Young Prowlers, and Mature Prowlers.

In World of Warcraft, you can talk to NPCs from horseback. Mounts are treated as skills, not inventory items. (The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢ will be getting both of these in Siege of Mirkwoodâ„¢.) You are not dismounted by puddles or nipping wolves.

World of Warcraft has a currency tab. I have read that there are too many currencies with all the various points, badges, and whatnot you can get. Now imagine that problem when the currencies are treated as barter (inventory) options. Would you like to see the variety of tokens in my vaults for The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢?

World of Warcraft treats inventory space as yet another kind of achievement. You buy bags, and bags can be of various sizes. You buy vault slots, then you need to buy the bags for them. Non-tiny bags cost more than you can afford on your own. Unless someone sends you some nice late-game bags, you will spend most of the leveling game with most your inventory full of quest items and basic supplies. The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢ starts everyone with 75 inventory slots, but the only way to increase your space is to buy more vault slots (bag included in the price) or housing. World of Warcraft has no housing. World of Warcraft also has no default button for “open all bags” that I have stumbled upon.

Putting NPCs on platforms, podiums, and stages makes them much easier to click in crowds.

: Zubon