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Advances in Wearable Computers

I keep citing Rainbows End as a vision of the near-future, and here is a big step towards it: an implementation of wearable computers using currently available technology. A bit of miniaturization, work on those contact lens monitors instead of projecting it, and we’re there. The video is very worth watching. (Yes, it is a tech demo, so I assume it took many takes and some careful positioning of how things were projected, but those are technical details that can be worked on, given that she refers to “ten years from now” rather than “buy my product now.”)

: Zubon

Thanks to Steven Jackson Games for the link.

Most Technically Difficult Bug Ever

Players occasionally say absurd things like, “It would take five minutes to fix this little bug.” Which, if it were true, would probably have already been done. My new favorite example for either “wow, this must be way harder than it looks” or “wow, they really don’t care” is the color-change bug for City of Heroes global chat.

Global chat, by the way, is one of those great features that every game should have, along with global friends. CoH is packed with features every game should have, especially given that CoH has had most of those features for at least four years, if not since launch five years ago. Global chat lets you set a cross-server channel, so you can talk on any of your characters, on any server, across instances, time, space, whatever.

Way back eleven months ago, I listed this as one of my favorite new bugs introduced. They let players set chat channel colors, only instead of working, it randomized chat channel colors every time you zoned. Unless you are on a long mission, you zone constantly in City of Heroes: into your base, across the city, in and out of buildings, in and out of missions.

City of Heroes is once again inviting players back to see the new stuff, while this bug still exists. Every player who uses global channels, which is everyone in the slightest contact with the community, will see this bug moments after they log in, and it will recur and make itself known every time they zone. If they zone quickly with an active chat channel, the same channel will appear in a rainbow of colors as it picks a new one with each zoning.

This must be the meanest bug ever seen. I cannot imagine a company willingly leaving something that visible, even if that minor, in the game for a year.

: Zubon

Suzina the Flower Picker

So I’ve come out the other side of Moria with my level 58 Loremaster.  I want to hit 60 in Lorien, so I’ve been working on getting access to the inner city.

The quests have me do things like pick flowers, meditating, and singing to saplings.  When I last had to pick grapes in a vinyard 50 levels ago, I actually thought it was pretty cool.  Goblins had infested the vinyard in Ered Luin, and it was quite fun to fight my way in so that I could get some grapes.  Now, I’m asked to collect grapes from a vinyard a few feet away with no enemies in sight.  This quest is orange to me.  No danger at all.  Talk about a snooze fest!

Come’on Turbine.  Really?  Is that really all you could think of?

It’s sad because the epic quest line seems really cool.  The fellowship is all familiar with me and happy to see me.  I really feel like a legendary hero, and almost like one of the fellowship when Frodo exclaims, “Suzina!  Sam and I didn’t expect to see you again so soon!”

How much of a hero do you think I feel like when the elves tell me they need me to help make Frodo’s dinner.  I feel like a loser.  Even the npcs can’t be bothered to do something so boring as lighting the street lights, so they assign me to do it.

Why did they not just have 20 different elves say, “Let me tell you a story of one of the many battles in Lorien’s history” and then give me an instanced version of Lorien with something cooler and more interest going on?  They did it with the “They can not get out” instance in Moria, so they should have done it in Lorien.  It certainly would have made a lot more sense than picking daisys all day.

Burnout

Yesterday, my kinship leader in Lotro said, “I hate this game.  I hate this game and I don’t know why I log on.  But I do.”
It’s not that he just failed some instance or something.  He really hates Lotro.  He added up all the time he’s played on his current characters, and it adds to 8 months of online time.  That’s over 5000 hours.  Considering he’s played for two years, that adds up to an average of 56 hours per week, or 8 hours per day, every day.

Most people who are burned out will log on less.  Not him.  He logs on every day and plays for hours.  I suggested trying a new MMO.  “This is my first MMO, and it will be my last.” he said, “They take too much time.”  I don’t normally think of MMO’s as being difficult to quit, especially not after they stop being fun.  But if anyone makes me think twice about the addictive model for MMO’s, it’s my kin leader.

Yet I’m sure if he just quit the game for a while, maybe six months, the burnout would fade and he could come back to enjoy the game again.

Smarter, Not Harder (Guild Wars)

I have been very impressed with 3 of the 4 major updates that came out very recently.  Darren over at The Common Sense Gamer discusses the new wormhole system in EVE a little bit.  Zubon has been seen discussing City of Heroes/Villians new Mission Architect, and even created and shared a mission he made for it.  And last night ArenaNet just dropped their huge April Update for Guild Wars, which I will explain in this post, to kick off their 4th Anniversary celebration and 6,000,000 sale.  The linking idea between these three big updates is that the devs created a lot of sticky content – content that makes players want to keep playing – by developing smarter, not harder (not to denounce the amount of time they did work).  (World of Warcraft’s latest update seems neat, but for reasons already explained does not really impress me as much.)

The April Update for Guild Wars is the first of ArenaNet’s new plan for the Guild Wars Live Team to get out a large chunk every 3-4 months.  Their first one sets the bar fairly high.  I touched on a few things earlier, but for the best run down check out the patch notes.  What I do want to focus on is the way they created “new content.”

Continue reading Smarter, Not Harder (Guild Wars)

Rune-keeper at Level 30

I have had a bit more time with my Rune-keeper since my initial impressions. The class solos brilliantly, with great damage and few problems with being a cloth caster. It teams very well, burning through enemies on the easy stuff and healing during the hard stuff. I still feel the need to apologize for throwing around lightning and ice storms in Tolkien.

Continue reading Rune-keeper at Level 30

Lord of the Rings Online – 2 Years! (with updates)

Today is the 2 year anniversary of the launch of Lord of the Rings Online! Happy Birthday!

To celebrate, Turbine is offering an “extended week of free gameplay from April 24th – April 30th, 2009. In addition, there is a +25% bonus experience boost on mob kills for everyone playing on those days!”

Also: “anyone with an active subscription as of June 30 will receive a passive, in-game gift known as the “Writ of Passage” which will treat players to a permanent 20% discount at stable masters.”

Some interesting news about the future of the game has been coming out. I’ll share what I find below.

From Massively.com:

A major game mechanic being introduced later this year will be known as Skirmishes. This name may change, Steefel points out, but it’s their working title throughout production. They’re described as dynamic instances that are aware of the party’s size, and they respond accordingly, in relation to how big or small the party is. They are also repeatable, and will have multiple objectives that will give you enough incentive to do them multiple times with different sized groups. “It’s the natural evolution from the focus on small party dynamic instanced experiences, and it takes it to a whole new level,” Steefel says. Plus, we were teased with a bit of exciting information regarding customizable soldiers that you can train and bring into these skirmishes. Unfortunately, that’s all we got on that.

Later on in the year, players will get the opportunity to explore deeper into the southern Mirkwood area, focusing mainly on the city of Dol Guldur, previously known to the Elves as Amon Lanc. You may remember Dol Guldur as Sauron’s stronghold where he retreated after the One Ring was lost. It became a key fortress that allowed Sauron to regain his strength and rebuild his armies.

On top of all of this, we’re also told that the level cap will increase by year’s end, and a new Summer Festival will be coming with Book 8.

– Ethic

Openings, Good and Bad

Your MMO must convince me that it is worth playing in less time than it takes me to download the next one. If your tutorial/introduction does not include heavy doses of awesome, soon, you will not be getting my credit card information. If you cannot bother to make the game look good in the one bit that you know every single player will see, I must assume that the rest of the game is worse.

Warhammer does this very well. Tutorial? More or less none; proceed straight to the war. You start on a battlefield. I started as a Greenskin, which is probably why I bought the game. Take a few steps forward from the log-in spot, and you can see dwarves attacking. The Dwarf area is much the same, with squigs and goblins running around the cave next door and giant cannons pointed at the enemy. NPCs are blasting each other in case you did not get the idea. The elf pairing has the gentlest, and therefore worst, introduction. Your starting spot feels safe, and your first enemies are tiny fairies. Even there, you have attacking forces 10 seconds away, and the good guys get to shoot down harpies with a ballista. Win.

The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢ does this pretty well. The opening is pretty tame, but it immediately tosses in the things you want from Lord of the Rings. If you are a hobbit, you immediately see a Black Rider. Dwarves start next to Gandalf in a scene referenced in The Hobbit, and they proceed to a troll fight. Elves get a troll too, and humans and elves both start with the world burning down around them. It is not a great, action-packed intro, but it gives you the setting while you get your bearings.

City of Heroes is a mixed bag. Outbreak is very weak, notably the “run in a straight line” bits. Breakout is better, with a more interesting map and a mass NPC slugfest. The real awesomeness of City of Heroes, however, is the costume designer. Even before you put your character in the world, you pick from a mess of powers, see the cool toys that lie in wait, and then probably spend a ridiculous amount of time playing with paper dolls. That kind of thing makes the slow start of actual gameplay tolerable.

Many other games do it badly. I don’t even bother to mention most that I try. They were not worth the time to download, even if I downloaded while I slept. That thread has a bit of hate for Age of Conan, but they had the presence of mind to make the 1-20 game one of the most celebrated bits of content around.

: Zubon

Anyone want to comment on WoW’s opening? I tried a few way back in beta. The Undead was the most impressive. Dwarves were kind of meh.

Great Moments in Specialization

A favorite little moment in City of Heroes was when my friend Adam maxed out his Sniper Shot. This was back before Enhancement Diversification, back when Hamidon-Origin Enhancements gave +50%. One of them was +50% to range and +50% to damage. Slot six of those in a power: quadruple range and damage. Put them all in a snipe, which already has a lot of range and damage.

The range of the attack was beyond the game’s draw distance. He had to assist off a spotter to test how far it went. We were testing on grays, which was good because it was also well beyond the distance at which you would be rewarded for the kill.

: Zubon

This is, of course, less impressive than the Canadian sniper who holds the record for a kill at over 1.5 miles.