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Champions Online: One Night

Go, play through the tutorial. It is worth seeing the character builder and basic implementation, although it may not be worth the download time.

You will first notice that the game is classless. Class roles come in later, but pick whatever you want at the start. That is positive, although it makes it look as though the entire game is just slightly different flavors of a few attacks. The front could use more “and you have this to look forward to.”

I have said enough about how the graphics are horrible. Just terrible. It is as though they maintained art quality by restraining their better artists rather than working on the worse ones. Just wait until you see the running animation that does not match movement speed.

The character builder has some improvements. Continue reading Champions Online: One Night

The Jacobs Test: Champions Online and Aion

Amidst first impressions and “reviews” let us not forget the simple, yet elegant point system disclosed by Mark Jacobs in deciding whether to buy Champions Online or Aion Online.  Champions Online dropped the NDA August 17 which was less than three full weeks away from the September 4th release date.  Mark Jacobs obviously thinks that Champions Online is “okay but not great.”  Aion Online, on the other hand, dropped the North American NDA over 14 weeks out from launch.  I believe I heard Mark Jacobs say Aion Online was “nirvana.”  Of course one must take in to consideration that Aion Online was unfairly released in Korea almost a year ago.  In retort, it seems that there really was no NDA throughout Korean Aion testing at all.  So take that, point system.  Got anything higher than nirvana?

–Ravious
oh well, whatever, nevermind

Champions Online: The Tragedy of First Impressions (A Lack of Review)

I have already said that my first impressions of Champions Online were negative. But that kept stacking, early problem on early problem, such that I made it through the tutorial once after four starts. For all I know, it is problematic turtles all the way down, or perfection lies just beyond the knee-high fence that stops yet another video game character.

When I first tried the closed beta, it was a mess. I started on a night when a mid-level zone was being tested, so I skipped past what would have been a couple dozen levels of learning what all these buttons do and how to build a character. Some of the powers did not work, there were graphics glitches, the handling was odd, the quick start guide was wrong about what some keys did, and I was unclear on the stuff to test for the evening. It is confusing when you do not know what is broken and what is yet to be implemented. I surely could have puzzled it all out with an hour or three on the forums… or I could log and do something else.

Meanwhile, the graphics were horrible. Continue reading Champions Online: The Tragedy of First Impressions (A Lack of Review)

Krokopatra Down

This past weekend I finally bought and pushed through the final two zones in Kroktopia.  It was actually quite difficult for my Storm wizard because the final quest hub in Kroktopia is full of Storm creatures (which are, as one would expect, resistant to Storm spells).  I thankfully had a spell that converted Storm damage in to Myth damage, which Storm creatures are weak against, but then of course the Storm creatures cast spells to protect themselves against Myth damage.

There were some pretty rough fights, with glass jaws going against glass jaws.  Being on the other end of a lightning shark bite was not very fun, especially when it took off 1/3 of my life.  I could have done a lot better with deck-building, but I eked by every boss fight.  The Krokopatra fight was filled with edge-of-my-seat goodness where I luckily got off my one pet skill to diffuse the incoming damage enough until I killed her minion.  Some other fights were over in five turns through clever use of buffing (first in, last out for buffs is very good knowledge to have).

I am having a really tough time deciding where to head next.  Grizzleheim is new and shiny, but a branch off of “the first chapter.”  Marleybone follows the storyline, but I hear it can be frustrating.  Where should a level 26 Storm wizard go?

–Ravious
all strange and terrible events are welcome

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