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Mid-Session Game

EA CEO John Riccitiello said in a recent conference call that the upcoming BioWare MMO is a mid-session game, which are microtransaction based.  This caused quite a wave throughout the MMO news sphere, but EA came back to claim that their CEO is full of misunderstandings. 

I tried to do a Google search on “mid-session game,” and it truly seems to be a lexicographic frankenstein creation of EA used to tell their stockholders things.  Honestly, I find the term not catchy and kind of not descriptive of what they are trying to sell. From my understanding, a mid-session game is a microtransaction game that may also have a nominal buy-the-game fee or small subscription fee.

Mid-session evokes none of that.  I realize that EA might be trying to get away from the stigma attached to the filthy “microtransaction” word, but they can do better.  Mid-session seems to imply some sort of break in a gamer’s playing time.  “It’s mid-session.  Deposit 25 cents to continue playing.”  Even if Riccitiello is in the dark on his own company’s business models, I am excited with the possibility that another game might break away from the $15 flatline.  I honestly was not really interested in Star Wars: The Old Republic, but now I am.  The only thing I know about the game is Cloud-sword sized lightsabers, but I would pick it up on only that knowledge (and BioWare’s reputation) if it followed some rough equivalency of the Guild Wars business model.

Now “medium session game” makes sense, but that is just following the crowd.  Lord of the Rings Online and World of Warcraft are both becoming “medium session games” where gamers can knock off a few solo quests or do a complete dungeon run in an hour or so.  Warhammer Online let’s players jump in and out (as long as there is ongoing PvP action) in an even shorter time.  So, the amount of play required is not really determinative of whether the game is a subscription-based game or not.  Therefore, EA, with all your money, and lawyers, and English major marketing execs… create a new term.

I hope that whatever alternative business model they do, though, it is right for our (read: my) Western MMO payment schedule culture, and they are not stupid or greedy in adding microtransactions to a game.

–Ravious
And best of all kids, I am liquid.

FigurePrints

FigurePrintsOver the Thanksgiving holiday I found out my brother had his rogue made into a FigurePrint so I decided to post some photos of it for those that might be interested in seeing what one looks like when you get it.

The first one is to show scale against the gaming standard, Code Red.

Next we have a front shot, up close.

From the back.

Then of course we have left side and right side.

I had put my name on the waiting list and they contacted me so now I need to decide before the end of the year if I want to have one made of my wife’s hunter or not.

– Ethic

Scheduling Promotions

NCsoft surely has people better trained in marketing than I, but I feel obliged to suggest that they wait a week or three after releasing a new City of Heroes update before sending out the “welcome back weekend” invitations.

  1. Some number of players will re-subscribe on their own, and immediately after the patch is the most likely time for that. Take their money. Granted, many will do so on patch day, before the welcome back weekend announcement, but it is a bad idea to give someone enough free play time to complete all the content. I do not know how long it would take to try all of Issue 13’s new toys, but Issue 12 was one weekend of content unless you started a new character. Give people a chance to buy it before you give it away.
  2. You want a little time after the update to issue your first fix to it. These are not necessarily game-breaking issues, but they are things people will notice on their welcome back weekend, and you will not want to show them off. When I log in a character, receive one of the new badges, and the badge description is an error message, that does not tell me that great care was taken with the new patch. When I make a character to try the new power sets, I notice that “The ‘Copy Current Colors Across Body’ button does not function correctly unless a subcategory is selected.” The chat text color from previous issues is still there, to indicate how quickly these get addressed. The two best new bugs must be that trading items can delete them (!) and that players cannot move inside their bases (but only in the French and German versions).

I also feel obliged to note that the elemental shields look great.

: Zubon

Day Jobs

City of Heroes is having a welcome-back weekend to celebrate the release of Issue 13. Even if you are not now interested in playing, if you think you might be in the future, it is worthwhile to log on and shuffle your characters about. Having your characters logged off in many areas can earn you badges, and those badges come with bonuses and powers. Walk your characters to a hospital, train station, or such, and you are golden.

If you happened to have logged at one of those spots, you get retroactive credit for however long you have been logged off. All the characters on my main server were at one … except my main, who was five steps away. Oh well.

Bonus fun: head to Ms. Liberty and time how long it takes you to see Captain America! (Shields are a new power set.)

: Zubon

Never Is, But Always To Be

For those of us fond of allusions, “hope springs eternal” is always a winner. It sounds positive, but it is one of the darkest sentiments you will find. The full quote is:

Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be blest

In other words, (vain) hope is all you have; the blessing is never coming, always in the promised future. It gets better: this entire section of the Essay on Man is about how bleak the future is. The lamb frolics in the morning before going to the butcher in the afternoon, licking the hand that raises the knife. This is the kindness of a God who cares no more about the death of a hero or a sparrow, the bursting of a bubble or a world: at least you have fruitless hope and are too ignorant or stupid to see doom coming. This is, by the way, intended as an optimistic argument, because hey, you have that hope, and it will be worse if you ask for more.
Continue reading Never Is, But Always To Be

Ethic Gets Older

It’s birthday time again I see;
Another year’s gone by.
We’re older than we used to be;
The thought could make me cry.
For getting older is not such fun,
When there’s hurting in your back,
And it’s agony if you have to run,
And a pleasure to lie in the sack.
Yes getting older is quite a bore,
But to not get old is worse.
So “Happy Birthday!” let’s shout once more,
And to heck with our ride in the hearse!
– Karl Fuchs

Yes, a pathetic attempt to garner birthday wishes for myself. Sad isn’t it?

– Ethic