.

Промоакции для игроков не только в шутерах — воспользуйся промокодом Vavada от наших партнеров и получи бонусы, которые подарят азарт и атмосферу, сравнимую с игровыми победами.

.

Separate Games in Games

If you’ve played SWG, you know space and ground are separate. There’s a divide there. When you earn space-xp, it doesn’t help you very much on the ground and vise-versa. In Lotro it’s the same story for creep play and freep play. Nothing you do with your elf feels like it has anything to do with your orc.

When I think about all the different kinds of xp to work on in games, such as crafting xp, entertainer xp, and faction/reputation points, I think there’s a similar feeling of separation. It’s like having a large number of games and mini-games smashed into one big game.

On the other hand you could have a world like EVE. In EVE there is no xp per se, just Isk (Money). Whatever you’re working on, you’re working on Isk. Could you imagine if all the fantasy MMOs and Sci-Fi MMOs out there only had the gathering of cash as the sole form of advancement?

Having a lot of different kinds of xp or different games to play in one MMO makes for a lot of variety. On the one hand, doing vastly different activities to advance different things makes for a lot of variety. Sometimes you can be working on two or three things at once (XP / Cash / Quest rewards) and it feels extremely satisfying. On the other hand, if you get really excited about something like PVP or Space-xp, it feels like that’s the only thing that’s in the game. Everything else is just a diversion with rewards that don’t influence your “real” game.

The Horrors of Free Chat

On the free DDO announcement post, a commenter asks, “what exactly does ‘limited chat’ even mean?” Another commenter responds, “Unlimited chat for free in an MMO = GOLDSPAMGOLDSPAMGOLDSPAMGOLDSPAM”

What worries me more is the chat itself, and this is not DDO-specific. I have been toying around with a FTP RMT (free to play, real money transaction) game, and the newbie chat… omg lol u girl? This must be what you WoW players call “Barrens chat” or some such. Every stereotype of online and juvenile idiocy: there it is.

Look, kid, it doesn’t matter if anyone else in the channel is a girl. If someone claims to be, he could be lying. If she really is, she is not going to e-mail pictures of her girl parts to random people in-game. Or maybe she will, but in that case, she probably has already them posted somewhere, so go Google them up.

Look, kid, we get that you like Runescape. Yes, great, best game ever, much better than this one. Shut up. There are lots of good evolutionary psychology reasons why humans shout about how great the tribe is, even when it is completely inappropriate. Convince your simian lower brain functions that this is one of those inappropriate time.

At least the constant guild recruiting spam blocks out most of the pain, and the Chuck Norris jokes cover a bit of the rest.

: Zubon

New DDO Business Model

This is relevant to my interests.  I liked Dungeons and Dragons Online enough, but like so many other MMOs, it was just not worth the subscription to me.  Now Turbine is offering a new business model that seems to borrow a lot from Wizards101, which is a fantastic thing.  My favorite business model is by far the “buy content packs” that Guild Wars, Wizards101, and lifetime Lord of the Rings Online players have.  It seems that Turbine will offer “convenience items” as well, but they are quick to premptively reply that the best items come from playing.  I am not as happy about “convenience items,” but I see it as a necessary evil when converting a subscription-based game in to a “buy content packs” type of game.  Can’t stop progress.

–Ravious
j’ai creusé la terre, j’ai découpé la lune

Guild Wars 2 Concept Art!

The floodgates are starting to leak, but only in the most unusual way.  It seems that Kekai Kotaki, the Guild Wars 2 Concept Art Lead, and Daniel Dociu, Art Director, were allowed to use some of the concept art he produced for Guild Wars 2 to advance ArenaNet’s and the artist’s standing in the art world. Not that said artists need said boost… like at all.  Regina Buenaobra was kind enough, in her teasing, to confirm that this one was indeed Guild Wars 2 concept art.  The two pictures (plus bonus) after the break: Continue reading Guild Wars 2 Concept Art!

Deceived

I’m sure everyone’s seen this by now but just in case you haven’t, here’s the trailer for SWTOR that was released at E3 last week.

No matter what happens next and however good – or bad – SWTOR turns out to be, this not-quite-4-minute gem of a teaser is worth savouring. To this aged, jaded and cynical old reptile, it is everything the lamentable prequels should have been but weren’t.

Aion Weekend Wrapup

This weekend (and thanks to a most awesome person) I was able to get into the first beta event for Aion.  The game has been live in Korea and China for some time, and it seems that very determined people in NA and EU can play on the Chinese servers with some language hacking mod.  Anyway, I was going to wait for the NA product, which NCSoft West has spent all this time re-customizing for this culture.  I had a lot of fun, and I am excited about the further forthcoming events.  It is definitely high on my list for remaining 2009 games.  Now a quick diptest review:

Continue reading Aion Weekend Wrapup

/back

Well, I’m back. Move went well. Nothing lost, nothing damaged (except for several of my muscles). Still tons of things that need to be done, but we’re slowly getting back into the rhythm of things in the new place.

Had a bit of a hiccup with the internet deal but, credit where it’s due, we got it solved thanks to some great customer service from AT&T. On a sunday. Almost at midnight. That CSR is getting a wonderful survey straight back to her manager, because she was that good. She was the difference between being connected and not.

Now that the move is slowly getting behind us, time for my new master plan to begin.

Group Size

Star Wars Galaxies started out with a 20 person group as the default. Early on, this could mean a group of 20 people running around on a planet ganking alien beasts that would take several minutes to solo. Sometimes, this meant gathering outside a place with tough-mobs like Fort-Tusken and killing everything that came out of there. There were even multiple 20-person groups there sometimes. This made you feel like a small part of an army. But you know what? You felt powerful because the group is powerful. You were a very small part of a very powerful force.

Five years later, Jedi’s had a boss unique to them and them alone. In order to obtain the best cloak in the game, each Jedi was forced to face two bosses solo. Anyone could stand and watch the Jedi fight these bosses, but no one could help. Unless a player read strategies ahead of time, they would fail both fights. Even when someone knew of strategies that worked for fighting these bosses, it was still a difficult set of fights. Complaints from players on the forums about the absurd difficulty of the fights only served to make the eventual victory more sweet. You felt powerful because you knew you had become skilled as a player.

Feeling skilled and feeling powerful. Can these two feelings exist in the same combat scenario? To me it seems they are at odds. The larger the group becomes, the greater the diffusion of responsibility a player feels. Too big a group, with a role shared by too many others in the group (like DPS in a raid) and I feel as though I don’t matter at all.

The Old Republic Classes

Ever since the announcement of Star Wars: The Old Republic, there has been a lot of speculation as to what classes would be included. So far the Republic Trooper and Sith-serving Bounty Hunter classes have been officially announced. Republic Smugglers, Jedi, and Sith have not received an official announcement, but are known to be part of the line up. That leaves three classes not accounted for.

Opposite the Smuggler, I would not be surprised to see a spy, criminal or scoundrel. This is because I see the Smuggler as being either a utility-class with special abilities other than DPS, tanking and healing, or else the smuggler could be a stealth-based DPS class. Something along the lines of a spy would make sense from a balance point of view.

But that still leaves two open slots: One who works for the Republic and one who works for the Sith. To round out the holy tanking/DPS/healing trinity, the final classes would have to be some kind of healer. But who’s to say that SWTOR is going to include a dedicated healing class? With the addition of NPC companions following you around, it could be the case that each character has their own personal healer that they have to level up and depend on. That would free up the two slots to allow SWTOR to have players play something more iconic than a role normally filled by droids in the movies.

If that’s the case, what iconic professions are left? Mandalorian? Officer? Droid? Senator? Moisture farmer? Lets be honest, there isn’t any obvious choice.

But then, perhaps my count is wrong. Perhaps I’m wrong to assume there will be only one force-sensitive Jedi class and one force-sensitive Sith class. People are expecting 3 sub-classes for Jedi and 3 sub-classes for Sith, but that hasn’t been confirmed. For all we know, there may be no sub-classes. We may see each side have a Jedi-healer and a Jedi-warrior

Maybe that’s why they have yet to officially announce the 2 most obvious class selection options… because it’s actually 4 classes.