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Mines of Moria Expansion Announced

I’m really looking forward to this!

BIRMINGHAM, UK – March 14, 2008 – Turbine, Inc. and Codemasters Online today unveiled Volume II of The Lord of the Rings Online, the first retail expansion for the award-winning massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG). Announced in Birmingham, the childhood home of J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria will expand the online world of Middle-earth to let players explore the ancient underground cities of the dwarves, battle epic characters in the depths, face off with the Watcher, be a part of the fateful release of Durin’s Bane and more! The Lord of the Rings Online expects to open Volume II of its epic story in the fall of 2008 with an increased level cap, two new classes and the introduction of a unique item advancement system.

“The Mines of Moria is one of the most epic settings in all of fantasy fiction,” said Jim Crowley, president and CEO of Turbine, Inc. “No one delivers more quality content than Turbine and with our journey into Moria, we will raise the bar even higher. We are adding vast amounts of content, debuting massive new environments and unveiling numerous unique feature sets, like item advancement, which will create entirely new dimensions of compelling game play and social interaction which are unique to The Lord of the Rings Online experience.”

Read the rest at the official site.

Also, check out the Q&A over at Massively. Featured quote: “We’re completely rewriting and replacing the UI system…”

Massively also has concept art!

– Ethic

More Selling Fluff

I have long pondered the notion of self-funding staff via microcontent. For example, hire more graphics artists for City of Heroes costume designs and then sell their output for a few dollars as an account upgrade. If they sell enough, they stay on. If the model works really well, you can open it up to independent contractors who could make and sell costume pieces, and otherwise replicate a bit of what goes on in Second Life with user-generated content. With the host company taking a percentage. See Julian on fluff for other thoughts.

Yes, I know there are issues there. I liked the idea of putting together Dungeons and Dragons Online dungeons that way, but you would very quickly run into balance issues where dungeons were intentionally too easy or rewarding, because people would buy them for easy xp/loot. See power creep in all the existing D&D books. (After all, why buy the new book if it does not have a prestige class you want to use, and why use one that is weaker than existing ones?) (Yes, I know.)

City of Heroes has kind of pulled this off. Lead developer Positron comments:

Well, the Villain Epic ATs were originally planned for I13, but the brisk sales of the Wedding Pack enabled us to fast track these by getting them budgeted to be done earlier. Every time you see a new tux or wedding dress you can send a thanks to that player for getting everyone VEATs an issue early.

I may be misinterpreting, but it sounds like CoX bought itself more staff time via microcontent. That is the opposite order, but it works as a potential model. Most of my CoX friends bought the microcontent for the jump pack and the Pocket D teleporter.

: Zubon

Steal This Old Idea

Dark Age of Camelot had concentration-based buffs. If you want to limit the number of characters someone can buff, just code that. Recast timers are annoying; Bob wants to keep these five buffs live all the time, done.

Yes, it encourages dual-boxing. Yes, there are times when you do want things to be timer-based. But if Bob can keep this buff on five characters continuously, just let him do it, rather than having him re-buff every four minutes.

: Zubon

Incomplete Evil

I have been waiting to whine about when we will hear about City of Heroes Issue 12, largely because I expect info to be posted the day that I whine. My powder is just barely dry, so I am going for it. Last issue was on the test server for a month, so it is already two weeks behind where they want to be to keep a pace of one issue every four months.

Almost two years ago, I whined about Issue 7, also late. The gap between 6 and 7 ran from October 27 to June 6, about 7.5 months. At the time, I was bothered for the heroes: 6 and 7 were the villain issues, and Issue 8 was about 15 months after Issue 5. Heroes’ major addition over the course of a year was the PvP zones.

Now I’m concerned about the villains. Issue 8 was a hero issue, 9 was inventions, 10 was cooperative, and 11 was the flashback system. So in the last 21 months, the big content addition for villains was a chance to team with heroes and save the world. There were gameplay additions, like the new power sets and the invention system, but those were shared and mostly changed the way you went through existing content. As Statesman pointed out, most of the villain content is hero content with different flavor text, fighting villain groups. We are low on evil.

I have no idea what Issue 12 will bring, or when it will happen. There was a decent gameplay addition between issues, which is something, although again that is affecting (the rewards for) existing content. On our server, and on many others if the Black Market prices are to be believed, the villain side is mostly dead. My hero side SG is not far from it either, since the big addition since the Rikti re-invasion was to let us replay old content more easily.

: Zubon

(See all those City of Heroes updates on the wiki: Game Updates).

Update: Issue 12 teaser posted. Teaser, not on test. I remind you of Issue 7, which ran teasers for so long that they began showing off wall textures. Lighthouse has already implied that there will be more teasers, so be prepared to wait a bit. Still, look at the stuff in that teaser, woo!

Update 2: link 1 and link 2 stating:

We still have a bit before closed beta, and then several weeks of that till open beta. So, the info is getting strung out over that time. We pretty much have something for you every week.

So about a month from the first teaser to the test server, estimate another month from there. Roughly five months between issues, with 11.5 in-between. Barring major issues or good fortune.

My two cents for two years…

Wow, I missed my two year anniversary here at killtenrats on February 27th. Has it been that long already?

2007 was a bit of an iffy year for me, pretty chaotic with a few surprises (good and bad). 2008 looks “interesting” thus far. Hard to believe we are getting close to the end of the first quarter already…is that “new car smell” of the new year already beginning to wear off?

I expect I’ll be continuing to point my finger at the game industry and yell “noob!” frequently this year. There is just so much going on (or not going on, depending on your perspective). Yes, sometimes I state the obvious, but hey, that’s what I do. I don’t always make people happy with my commentary (even my gerbils have gotten death threats), but my response to that is “get your heads out of your asses and make better games so I don’t have anything to rant about”.

Continue reading My two cents for two years…

Losing the Illusion of Permanence

Our games are great for providing a false sense of accomplishment. I leveled! I got a badge! We defeated the dragon! It is an accomplishment in some sense, but it does not clean the kitty litter, pay off your mortgage, or provide clean drinking water in Africa. That is fine. It does not need to. We all have our recreation and entertainment, and you just as easily might have been watching a sporting event or cog dancing. I am ecumenical about that.

Part of that sense of accomplishment comes from attachment and achievement. You leveled up. Maybe you said you leveled your warrior, but it is still your warrior. You are connected, you have built something. Even if you are grinding your way along a treadmill, the little number says 56 instead of 54. Advancement! Progress!

Building sand castles is not progress. You get memories, maybe a photograph, and the tide comes in. You have sand again. It might be fun making sand castles, but that fun is more like baking a cake than raising a barn. We know the barn will be gone someday too, but it is less ephemeral.

Is this game The One? Will it last for years rather than months? We build up our characters. We spend hours getting that purple set. We have massive guild drama over loot allocation. And then we move on to the next game. The next The One might be several years away, or maybe you know this next game is just a bagatelle. The flames are barely on the horizon, and already it tastes like ashes.

: Zubon

Great Moments in Flash Gaming

I am playing some adequate shooter, and I have reached the last level. Like most, you hold down the left mouse button to fire. This being the last level, I am firing continuously for … longer than I can admit to myself. Wave 9 of 13 complete, huzzah, I have this nailed! Shift my hand a bit because I’m getting sore…

My new mouse has these really useful buttons on the side, which default to back and forward in a web browser. Microsoft designed this mouse very well, so they are right at your fingertips. You barely even need conscious thought to use them.

Crap.

: Zubon