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How Alts Happen

I made a Minstrel a week ago so I could pick up a couple more trade skills. He holds stuff, he eventually crafts, great! I got him in the kinship today, so that I could use the kin storage chests to transfer items. I went on a trade skills supply run across a few zones, then went back to kin storage to transfer it.

After logging on the other characters for their toys, I brought on the baby Minstrel. He had done nothing outside the tutorial area except pick up the quests when you first enter the real world. Grab all his stuff from the kin box, and head to Thorin’s Hall. I can hit the vault there and maybe crunch some of these trade skill supplies into points. Oh, cave claw along the way, lets zap him to get a click on the deed log. *bing* Oh, I have a quest that needs some of those. Hmm, and I need this cave to the north. I can hit that before swinging by Thorin’s Gate. Fight goblins on the way up, collect the items in the cave, fight goblins on the way down. *bing* First deed complete, basic goblin-slayer in Ered Luin (new title). And I hit level 7 along the way.

Hmm, those cave claws and the items I picked up are half of two quests. I can redeem them at Thorin’s Hall, so let’s get the other halves before heading in. Zip across, collect a few items, whack a few enemies along the way. Quest done, done, done, trade skill quest done with the items I transferred at the kin chest. Let’s do my own trade skill stuff, which gives me a new weapon, oh and that other quest done. Just a couple more quests before I’m done in the area, so I might as well clean up and move on. Quest done, level 8.

Run along to the next town, drop off quest done, done, done. One is a click-and-come-back, and it passes me by another quest (done), so let’s clear that river and … small detour, talk to that guy after clearing the river (done), head back. Hit a few birds and cats along the way to get another quest half-done. And back to that second town, another quest done, level 9. And somewhere in there I completed another deed, the first for completing quests in Ered Luin.

Luckily, I am out of blue bar (rested xp), so I can go to bed now. But tomorrow, if I want, I can finish the quests that take me from here back through the starter area and back, then the first group quest and on to the middle-sized city in the middle of the zone… And I’m 3/4 of the way through the first bar of a trade skill, so I just need a bit more bronze to finish that out… And so it goes.

: Zubon

Self-Set Standards II

If you proudly tout yourself as “Best PC Game Ever,” that is a lot to live up to. Even if the game is really really good, it will rate “below expectations.” If your “revolutionary MMO” is Everquest +/-5%, we will mock you; if your “WoW-killer” gets 100,000 subscribers, your marketing has turned a viable, sustainable, successful game into a disappointing failure.

Rick Astley’s Greatest Hits describes “Rick’s true legacy: as one of Britain’s best and most underrated blue-eyed soul singers.” Fair.

: Zubon

There are a few good songs on the album beyond the classic. The video really does add something.

Sexist DPS

Ever have one of those stories you meant to blog about, but you put it off for a few days, then assumed that everyone knew and there was nothing new to say a week later? Part of the fun of Age of Conan is that, with its patch cycle since release, everything is forever new.

With a hat tip to, oh, everyone, female characters do less damage in Age of Conan. Not on every possible attack, but at least on that revolutionary melee combat that will change everything, female characters do less damage. They have longer animations with no corresponding improvement in damage. There is no evidence that this was intended, although you can easily find comments about how women should do less damage in a Hyborean setting (and if you think so, try a Gorean setting). No one properly tested the differing animations. [fixed that for you – ed.]

And it will not be fixed for months. This is understandable: check and possibly change every animation in the game, get it right this time, and see if there are related balance issues. These are good things to check before selling the game, but they are biting that bullet. In the meantime, this is very convenient for bloggers. You get stories when the bug is noted, when players test it, when Funcom confirms it, when Funcom announces the delay to fix, when the fix eventually arrives, post-fix testing, each of several patches to fix the fix, and every patch in the meantime when you can snark, “Funcom is looking at female characters’ animations again. But they’re still just staring at the boobies! lol!” So I’m getting my shot in now, between waves.

: Zubon

Also Annoyingly Linear

The problem with annoyingly linear is not that it is linear, but that it is annoyingly so. Done well: Portal, a puzzle game where the whole point is to get from Point A to Point B. Done not too badly: the last level of Portal, where the tile set changes but there is still just the one path and someone has conveniently painted signs as if this too were a planned part of the enrichment center activity.

Done fairly badly: City of Heroes office buildings, where each set of elevators only goes between two floors. To get to his office on the top floor, the boss must walk about a mile and take five or ten staircases (on the strange multi-story floors). The shapes of the floors have no connection to each other, despite the normal outside appearance. Darn non-Euclidean architects. This one is bad in terms of logic and suspension of disbelief, not gameplay; as a gameplay element, the buildings are fairly straightforward tubes of monster to smash. The gameplay problem is when things are less linear, and you must find the last three enemies standing behind a rock around a corner on a small incline on a spur off the third path on the second level, who did not notice when you fired some grenades and a sonic wail at their boss twenty feet away.

Done badly: Garth Agarwen in Middle Earth’s Lone Lands. Garth Agarwen is an outdoor instance, your group’s own chunk of the red swamp. There are a few loops and dead-ends, and a fork separating the two big bosses, but mostly it is a path that winds around itself. It faces the same strange architecture whereby you go through every room to get to the back. It is as if you took all the hallways out of your home and put a door on either side of each room. And sometimes the door is a trapdoor leading to your basement, then up to the catwalk you built near the ceiling to get to the trapdoor up into the bathroom, through the door in the back of the shower into the laundry room, slide the oven aside to get into kitchen, take the door to the kids’ room, out the window into a fenced portion of the backyard, climb the ladder to the top of the shed, then walk across the board into your bedroom window to get your cell phone, which already went to voice mail, dangit. Was that oven-slide a one-way passage? I need to use the bathroom. It might be faster to jump out the other bedroom window and walk around to the front door, assuming the dogs haven’t respawned.

Again, this is not necessarily bad gameplay, although it is annoying to see a teammate just above your jumping height when you know it will take a hundred yards of running to reach him. Could you just throw me a rope? Or when you shoot an enemy and must wait a minute while he navigates all those corners on the way to you. Or when you try to think about the enemy actually living there. Okay, it’s annoying.

: Zubon

Open Mic Night

Can you please turn on “push to talk,” at least until you get over that cough? Or until you sell those cockatiels?

I confess: I discriminate against pre-pubescent males. Something about the voice of the twelve-year-old boy coming from the Orc Reaver grates. It is bad when they are whiny or needy, but perhaps worse when they are the group leaders who are trying to instruct incompetent adults. The modern age is full of examples of small children explaining technical matters to their elders, but I do not need it in my headset for an hour. I know he’s twelve, but just listen to him when he says that we are moving out.

Turn on your voice chat in PvP. Yes, I mean you. I don’t care if you don’t have a mic; listen. Stop blowing into the mic.

: Zubon

Hikikomori

the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare defines hikikomori as individuals who refuse to leave their parents’ house, and isolate themselves away from society in their homes for a period exceeding six months.

It’s an interesting entry, worth reading if you haven’t. But what I love is the list of related links:

  • Solitude
  • Hermit
  • Loneliness
  • Loner
  • MMORPG
  • Quarter life crisis
  • Reclusiveness

: Zubon

PvMP at the Minimum Level

Don’t do that. Do not even step into the Moors unless you are level 45 or higher. 50 and well-equipped is strong. 50 is normal. 47-49 is training: at least 90% effective, as far as the red team is concerned. 44-46 is bait: weak targets, easy kills, not significant threats. 40-43 is insulting: red players will go out of their way to kill you.

Seriously, creeps eat freeps below level 45. Even a new creep does not have bad odds with a five-level advantage. The voice chat channel notices every 40-43 in the zone. We target you first because you do not belong there. “There’s that Hunter again. Welcome to the Moors!”

More amusingly, you frequently see lower-level freeps soloing in the Moors, trying to complete the assorted PvE quests. Idiots. If the creeps catch you trying to ride to Hoarhallow, they will call in friends just for the fun of encircling you, then they will wait for you to rez and try to come back. Most freeps stop after the second or third death, but easy infamy is always accepted. If you are hunting wolves, you may notice a Blackarrow setting you on fire. If you hide in Hoarhallow or Elf Camp, the creeps can survive the NPCs for long enough to catch you.

It is always worth the time and effort to prey on the weak.

: Zubon

Wizard101 Mini-review

What do you get when you mix ToonTown Online, Pokemon, Harry Potter, and a Trading Card Game? Wizard101.

I’ve been playing around in the beta for a few days now and I thought I’d share my first impressions.

Note: This game is targeted mainly at the pre-teen age group, but I strongly suspect there will be plenty of adults playing.

Character creation has two paths. You may answer questions about yourself and have a school of magic suggested, or you can skip that and just choose a school. There are seven schools of magic (technically six and one more that is a little of each school). The schools are: Fire, Ice, Myth, Storm, Life, Death, and Balance. The school you choose is where you will focus your “training” but you can still pick up skills from other schools. You build a deck with various cards (or “spells”) you earn during training or as rewards.

Continue reading Wizard101 Mini-review

Please Balance Based on That

Last time, I suggested that The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢ PvMP should not balance based on the idea that the creeps will eventually (and then forever) be high rank, since it will take most people years and years to hit rank 9. I failed to note that freeps gets their comparable abilities, and more of them, in weeks rather than years.

But you notice that the high-rank stuff is not all that much better than the low-rank stuff. +2% chance to crit is nice, but it is far from epic. An ability you can use every five minutes or only below 10% health can be interestingly powerful, but it is not a major part of your arsenal.

So we look at the freep PvMP armor and equipment. Don’t get me wrong, this stuff is pretty nice. Not all of it is as nice as level 45 quest rewards, which is kind of an issue, but it is not all trash. Many “ideal” equipment builds include a few pieces. But you again need to be rank 9 or higher to use all of it. Even when freeps get 1000 reknown per hour, level 60 equipment will be available before 100 freeps in the entire game hit rank 9. Rank 9 requires a longer grind than getting all of WoW’s raid dungeons on farm status. Affording the items requires a separate grind in the dungeon that is available only when your team is winning in PvMP (same for getting the high-rank creep stuff). That is a lot of effort for a piece that you might stick on a cosmetic armor slot.

: Zubon