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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.

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See? Blizzard learns

Hey, like the Brontosaurus sometimes, but better late than never. WotLK info from Bliz, via WoW Insider :

  • All 5-man dungeons will have a Heroic mode
  • Heroic dungeons will have a separate loot table than non-Heroics
  • A new token system will be used, similar to the Badge of Justice one used now (*)
  • The 5-man instances are designed to not take more than an hour (*)
  • All raid dungeons will have both 10-man and 25-man versions (*)
  • The 10 and 25-man progressions will not depend on each other (*)
  • There will be no attunements or keys necessary for any raid (*)
  • The 25-man loot will be a tier higher than the 10-man loot
  • The 10 and 25-man versions of the same raid will be on different timers so that each can be attempted on the same day by the same people (*)

I know a couple hundred people that will be happy.

(*): A lot of people (myself included) have been asking for something like this – or very, very similar – for two years now. This is Bliz, opening the cage of raiding and letting it out to play with everybody. Designing for the 1% was, and is, just bull. Grats on this one go to Irvine.

P.S.: Tempted to explain why each of those points is a very good thing, but I trust our readers don’t really need any explanation. Plus, people always tell me I type and talk too much.

Issue 12 Quality of Life Improvements

Yes, the upcoming issue (now in open beta) includes a new zone and task force, villain epic archetypes, and power set proliferation. But have you seen the quality of life changes? The patch notes for just that section run 1,421 words, with more in the full notes. They include saving local settings (for importing to your next alt), saving notes and ratings for other players, more power trays and interface options, revamped chat and hide systems, linkable item and power names (like most new games have), more combat attribute window options, in-depth power information, a new contact user interface, and a list of smaller changes like map notification of zonewide events. I want to note this one, for lovers of real numbers:

In-Depth Power Information
Detailed Power Information is now available at Power Selection, Level up, Respec, and Enhancement placing screen as well as a new tab in the info window. This information shows the powers basic data along with every effect the power has.

  • There is a slider to see the effect of the power across all levels.
  • There is a class selector to see how the power would perform for each class.
  • There is a PvP toggle to see how powers will change in PvP.
  • Powers that spawn pets will show all powers the pets use and their effects.

: Zubon

PvMP

Playing The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢, I have really been enjoying the PvP content. This is unusual for me, as I am not a big PvPer. Maybe it will fade, but let me tell you about it.

There is one The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢ zone in which people play the monsters. Human-played orcs, uruks, wargs, and spiders (“creeps”) work with similar NPCs and huge trolls to control five keeps. Any player can hit a button to get a level 50 monster. The opposing forces are the normal PCs, the Free People (“freeps”) who unite to dethrone the tyrants of each keep and claim them for the light. This is Player vs. Monster Player (“PvMP”), The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢’s answer to PvP.

Continue reading PvMP

The Birds

The BirdsA WoW guildie of mine organized a pretty awesome druid flash mob earlier this week. The concept: Get a bunch of druids together, fly around Nagrand as a flock (in bird form) and find an unsuspecting Horde, swoop down to the ground, surround him, and stare at him until he cracks, a la Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds”.

WoW Insider has a pretty great writeup of the event, which included druid skywriting, mobs of cheetahs running down Horde on Quel’Danas, and other craziness. There must be other cool possibilities here. I think it would be fun to get a lot of hunters to hide inside of a building near a questing area, then when a horde approaches, use Eyes of the Beast to send out a ton of turtle pets to swarm him.

I’m a little surprised fun events like this don’t happen more often in virtual worlds, given how much easier it is to execute creative, crazy ideas. But I guess you still have the burden of actually organizing a lot of people to do something, which is a non-trivial task in the virtual world, too.

Scripts Are Misunderstood

Scott Hartsman‘s roundtable at IMGDC was about scripts, stemming from a blog fight that I had missed. I summarize the consensus as, “Scripts are often implemented poorly. If you are going to use them, take them seriously and design them well.”

Designers know that players will work creatively to get around restrictions. Players are bound by the limits of the code, not the intent of the vision. If a system can be broken, it will be. Programmers should know the same thing about designers. If you place artificial restrictions on the designers to keep them from mucking something up, they are still creative people who will find ways around them, sometimes breaking things more interestingly along the way.

If you want to see how this applies in your game, think of how one thing can break while a seemingly identical other thing still works just fine. There is a good chance that two developers used the same tools to create the same outcome in different ways. The latest patch changed something that one implementation depends upon, while the other is unaffected; for more fun, both could be broken in different ways. Good programming practices were not adhered to, and now the game is much harder to update. Now multiply that across several dozen people working over several years, most or all of whom now work on other products. Have fun maintaining the code!

To explain the title, “x is often implemented poorly” is a common issue. Jason Booth explained that about procedural content, which is neither a panacea nor the destroyer of worlds. Jeff Freeman explained that about forums, which can use valuable tools or useless noise. It may be a bad sign that some tools are misused more than others.

: Zubon

Gone Fishin’

In another attempt to keep me from reaching the level cap in any MMO, Turbine has done their part by introducing fishing to Lord of the Rings Online. I spent much of my recent game time on the shore of any lake or river I could find, doing battle with another form of monster, the fish of Middle-earth.

Some of my prize catches have already been stuck on the walls of my house. First trophy was the Giant Goldfish, yes that’s correct. Later on I caught a Magnificent Minnow. Hard work paid off with some bigger fish. Eventually I caught a Colourful Charr and then a 4-pound Salmon.

Not all was fish guts and glory. I also pulled in piles of weeds, more rusty daggers than I can count, and several of these tasty items. All and all, Turbine did a fine job of adding the first of many hobbies to the game. At this rate I’ll never get to level 50.

– Ethic

Romanes eunt domus

In our continuing series on online and ancient communication, our friends at Language Log have discovered that l33tspeak was responsible for the fall of Rome.

The villain was none other than txting, that widely-feared destroyer of civilizations. While IM and SMS had not yet been invented, the Romans used a medium that motivates textual concision even more strongly: marble.

I shudder at the use of “8” in words like “l8r,” but we had entire millenia where you did not write vowels.

: Zubon

Rage Against the Dying of the Light

It is Sunday, bedtime. I have the urge to stay up until four. Heck with this, we’ll get some fast food and play late into the night. We’re going to hang out, play some games, maybe watch a movie or something. Anyone up for Settlers?

Wait, no, I’m a grown up. I have work in the morning. Oh well; most of my friends live out of state, or too far in-state, and have work too. Being responsible sucks.

: Zubon

More Serious Thoughts on Chicken Play

I have made several brief comments about The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢’s session play, so I thought I would make a more coherent statement.

As gameplay, the chickens are disappointing. It is a set of “go talk to x” quests, with poor directions to x. Despite being just outside the hobbit starting area, this is not newbie content. You must know where things are and be able to find them with a blank map while playing a level one character. Taking a chicken through the higher level areas is presumably an interesting challenge, although having a babysitter makes it much easier. The greatest annoyance is uninteresting running. If your quest is “talk to animals in Bree,” your first step is a five-minute run across the Shire to Bree, an almost perfectly safe run with just enough twists to keep you from going AFK with autorun on. Bottom line: not fun once the novelty of “lol chicken” wears off.

As a story, it is without value as far as I have seen. Chickens are scared, you talk to other animals, they say they will not help. Every time. As a tech demo, I suppose it is okay. There must be some technical issues in moving from a PC to a connected one-shot puppet. It is a shame that everything is flushed between sessions, including your map. Building up a chicken could be amusing.

In many ways, chicken play is the logical extreme of The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢. If you read The Lord of the Rings and thought, “I wish I could be a secondary character doing sidequests while Frodo carries The One Ring,” The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢ is designed for you. Taking it one step further, what if you were a hobbit in The Shire, and you could level by delivering mail or gathering eggs? Taking it one step further, what if you were a chicken in The Shire, laying those eggs? Just $15/month, baby!

I have not tried a troll or ranger in session play. From what I hear in /ooc as a monster, the freeps use rangers as mobile artillery platforms at the center of groups, while the creeps avoid using the trolls for fear that the human players will give up and leave. Your server may vary.

: Zubon