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Moria as Waystation

We have a problem of expectations. Mines of Moriaâ„¢ has been a poor endgame. It is an excellent mid-/late-game area. The problem is just this year of waiting for Moria to no longer be the endgame.

Shadows of Angmarâ„¢ had a great endgame at level 50, with three small Annuminas instances, one small Angmar instance, two very large Angmar instances, one twelve-person raid (the most popular endgame target), and one full raid. There were large targets to fight in open areas, and the battlefield instances were strong late additions. It took some time to accumulate all that, but you had most of the options for most of the lifecycle.

Mines of Moriaâ„¢ has had a weak endgame. Six instances with (often annoying) hard mode available, mostly with “unintended behavior” such that folks got their radiance gear far more easily than one can now. A raid that was just one big fight for twelve people. Then a second raid was added: a smaller fight for twelve people. Now there is more activity beyond that, although I cannot comment on it because (1) I have mostly been on break and (2) it is radiance-gated, so it is unavailable for much of the playerbase.

As an endgame, not stellar. As a mid-game? Wow, that is a lot of options as you pass through. In retrospect, all that level 50 stuff was just something for us to do while the next tier of mid-game came along, as is this extra set of MoM dungeons. In retrospect, kind of a waste to have spent so much time developing content that was covering gaps in the development timeline, but you must do something to keep the subscription dollars rolling in.

: Zubon

The Return of Crafting

Late in the life of Mines of Moriaâ„¢, Turbine has decided to make crafting a viable part of the economy again for non-consumables. Crafters can now make equipment only a bit below the best looted gear. The best of the best (radiance gear, 1st Age Legendary Items) is still in the chests at the end of big fights, but crafting now offers respectable armor and 2nd Age LIs (roll the dice!). The best crafted jewelry is competitive with the best dropped jewelry, a big win for the jewelers who already had a steady consumable trade in hope tokens.

Most of the recipes for these are on one-week cooldown timers, so do not expect to see the economy flooded. Many are also reputation-gated, so crafter alts will not have access unless they are level 60 and running around Lothlorien.

Mithril flakes: more valuable. Legendary shards: actually useful! Patch 2.8.1 was small but did much to reinvigorate; the new IXP bounty quests are very popular, despite the travel time. By the time Rohan comes along, Moria might be up to par.

: Zubon

As Real As Real

From our friends at Terra Nova:

Our first paper on the economics of EQII is now out in the current issue of the journal New Media & Society. … We think the paper is notable because it is the first instance (as far as we know) of published, peer-reviewed, basic economic tests using actual large-scale data from a virtual world. No estimates, no samples, no bootstrapping–just all of the data, period. …

First, the virtual world we studied appears to behave in the way a real economy does. The people there are as rational (or irrational) as we are offline. As a result, there are price indexes, an inflation rate, etc. … A natural experiment occurred in which a new server came online, and its economic indicators quickly approached and matched those of the existing ones. This suggests the powerful role of code in shaping and directing human behaviors in the aggregate. …

In political economy, we would phrase this last point as “institutions matter.” If you had not heard, a research group was given pretty much what it says there: all of the data. I look forward to seeing what else they draw from it.

: Zubon

Refuge in Audacity

Don’t get petty with me. Trying to see what you can slip past the radar is just annoying. You’re trying to see how far you can go before you get smacked down? How about this: don’t slip past the radar, rampage past it in your Bagger 288 that’s painted with flaming, hot pink skulls, where the flames are painted on and then really set on fire.

Sociopathic serial killer works as police detective? That’s good television. Supposedly humorous situations based on mis-communication and unfair treatment of some poor sod? Cringe-worthy. Spock cuts open skulls to see how super-powers work? Stellar. Annoying people in an office? Dang it, I work in an office, I don’t need to see that on TV. If you’re doing that last one, it needs to go as far as Dilbert, where you co-workers really are trying to kill you, not hatching Machiavellian plots about whose turn it is to make coffee.

Wednesday, a common reaction was looking down on the notion of Crimecraft. Many of us happily play orcs that plan kill the villagers, steal the cattle, and burn down the houses. Demonology and genocide? We call those hobbies. Petty street crime? Dang it, that’s the guy who stole my CDs!

Entertainment needs enough distance to shed some recognizability, or else you start sympathizing with the poor sod. I had to pause Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle at least ten times to bear the suffering of the petty humiliations of Harold’s life. And then I watched a horror movie straight through, noting the poor camera work on the disemboweling.

: Zubon

Another Casual Player Definition

I’ve been following Lord of the Rings Online developer Orion’s blog pretty closely where every day he updates the masses as to his redesign of the Red Maid dungeon, Garth Agarwen.  It is really interesting, and reading some of his mundane tasks really gives a good showing as to why design is slow.

One of his latest posts remarks on how Garth Agarwen is going to be re-released in bite-size form aimed at casual players, which is a hard “niche” of players to define:

It’s difficult to define the casual player, so I’m just going to go with the tried and true generalizations that may or may not be true of any given part of the player base: Casual players are those that value play time at a premium rather than a given; their time is precious and spent in many areas and as a result is parcelled in ways that make sense for their lifestyle, play style and life commitments. Casual players would prefer to have a fun bite-sized experience that is entertaining and challenging, but fits within schedule demands that other persons may not necessarily be beholden too. Casual players are not looking for the easiest path to fun, they just want a path to fun.

I have never nodded so much in reading a paragraph written by a game developer.  Like I have noted before, casual vs. hardcore does not really denote the amount of time played anymore.  I think, in line with Turbine’s devs (and hopefully many others), that casual vs. hardcore is based on the unquantifiable amount of fun per time played.

“Casual” like so many terms is becoming a misnomer for a way to define gamers, but the concept is simple.  Does the game let the player actually play without significant hurdles to overcome?  MMOs are a niche market partly because they are one of the few video gaming genres that requires hardcore play in the majority of gameplay.  Console gamers and non-MMO PC gamers probably scratch their heads in wonder.  After all, the point of playing video games it to actually play, right?

–Ravious
the majesty of my tower of hats

Elite status

I was reading a post on the US LOTRO boards about a person who wanted legendary weapons to be much more rare. This poster also called for there to be deeds to do things like kill 10,000 orcs to achieve “signature” or “elite” status. Players who completed this deed would have rare and powerful characters.

Somehow, this person actually thinks that putting in a massive grind and tying it to a massive reward is a good idea.

Continue reading Elite status

Consumer Expectations

Bryan Caplan writes an argument about insurer reputation that starts with bad drivers and passes very close to our subject area:

[Many dissatisfied people] have unreasonably high expectations about the kind of treatment other people owe them. The clash between their inflated expectations and reality is the cause of their bitterness.

When people scoff at the power of reputation to constrain business behavior, they’re basically making the same mistake. If you think that paying the standard market rate entitles you to top-of-the-line quality, businesses will constantly disappoint you. I call this the Law of Inflated Expectations: The main cause of cynicism about business is consumer narcissism.

50 cents a day, and that’s without the discount plans. Maybe I can argue that the world owes me something for my $50 up front. Maybe I can see that premium game someday, charging $30+ a month and having high quality for a small population. Maybe I can keep whining.

On another note, if you require 1 hour of CSR time per month, that wipes out the profits from having you as a customer.

: Zubon

Dreams Undreamt

A Casualties member mentioned Crimecraft last night. Ah, a gang-based online thing. “I’ve never dreamed of being in a gang, so not really interested.” Then I thought back through some previous games. I never dreamed of being a dwarf that set people on fire by writing on a rock, of making charcoal and growing flax, of summoning headless ice monsters that rained frosty death upon my foes, of being a buffing psychic cyborg, of…

: Zubon