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.
.As I take a moment to step away from my yet-again broken snow blower only to find that the water heater is no longer working (I *really* needed a shower after shoveling the driveway), I wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. If you celebrate a different holiday, enjoy that as well.
In the meantime, check out the Zubon interview at WorldIV.
Safe travels everyone!
– Ethic
We have a new (fairly dull) method of getting through CoX’s upper levels quickly. Since the experience varies by level, I naturally sampled the data points, set up a spreadsheet, checked some online tables, and made a table showing experience in absolute and percentage terms with expected time to level. It seemed like the obvious thing to do.
Talking with my wife last night, I realized that today is the 10 year, 10 month, 10 day anniversary of when we started dating. Exactly a week ago was the 6 year, 6 month, 6 day anniversary of our marriage. (That gives us four anniversaries to celebrate this month.)
I will move out of quantitative work at some point. It does not seem like a great path up. Until then, I get to wonder if these thoughts are a cause or effect of my work.
: Zubon
My lovely wife did something that I have yet to do. Well, make that two things. She reached level 70 in World of Warcraft *and* she had a cake made to honor the achievement. Not bad for someone that isn’t your typical gamer. Me? I only finally reached level 40, bought my mount and then moved on to the Lord of the Rings Online. So send her some cheer, the cake was delicious (yes that is a picture of the actual cake). Congratulations!
Meanwhile in Lord of the Rings Online, I got a pony. Not so exciting after the cake and all that.
– Ethic
Where is this next level? Can you tell me what level you are on currently, and what exact features differentiate this next one, in a way that someone else is not already doing?
I am not going to link to the latest meaningless crap about taking MMOs/gaming “to the next level,” so please just stop it. Here, have a Gooogle link: over 1/2 million people taking it to the next level. There are not that many levels.
Here is how I am taking blogging to the next level: if I ever link something that has the phrase “taking * to the next level,” tell me in the comments. I will remove the link and start hating whoever wrote the meaningless cliché.
: Zubon
The results are in. For the second year in a row, we have won! Never mind the fact that we are almost completely alone in the category, we are the best! What a wonderful holiday treat, I’m taking the whole staff out for drinks. Thanks, Ryan!
– Ethic
Why “Fluffy Bunnies”? Because just one fluffy bunny would not be terrifying enough! Besides, it creates fun messages. Enemies cry in terror at the approach of Fluffy Bunnies, and you can imagine how that goes in PvP. Anya would be proud.
After four Contemplations worth of squishies, I finally get to a melee character … who is also squishy. What is wrong with me? I know that comics are full of people in spandex, but we could use a bit of body armor out here!
Continue reading Character Contemplations 5: Fluffy Bunnies (Martial Arts/Regeneration Stalker)
Eliezer Yudkowsky offers an argument for tolerating dissent:
Wait until substantially after it seems to you justified in ejecting a member from the group, before actually ejecting. If you get rid of the old outliers, the group position will shift, and someone else will become the oddball.
…
It’s the articulate trolls that you should be wary of ejecting, on this theory – they serve the hidden function of legitimizing less extreme disagreements. But you should not have so many articulate trolls that they begin arguing with each other, or begin to dominate conversations. If you have one person around who is the famous Guy Who Disagrees With Everything, anyone with a more reasonable, more moderate disagreement won’t look like the sole nail sticking out.
His analogy starts with cults or theories whose adherents become more fanatical after having been proven wrong. All the sane and moderate people left. I am considering how this applies to blogs, forums, and games.
No, no, it ain’t like that. You’d think that it’s just a matter of putting the ingredients together, mixing it up, heating a little and bada-bing, there you go – you have your seven-layer cake of MMO cream.
But you have no idea how difficult it can be until you sit down and start going through it, step by step. My personal respect for game designers has always been high, but yeah… a couple of months and 150+ pages later, it’s through the roof. It’s reached the stratosphere and checking for ozone concentration right about now. At this rate it’ll overtake Voyager by mid-January.
But back to cooking, and why it has nothing to do with it…
Sitting down to my morning coffee this weekend, I caught a rare glimpse of the highly classified secret MMO being developed by mad scientists in Massachusetts at Curt Schilling’s new studio, 38 Studios.
You can catch the interview with the Big Schill yourself here in its entirety. The exclusive first look at the new game title can be seen at 1:16 in the three minute video.  The images are very limited, but we catch a glimpse of a horse and rider, that are graphically appealing, and lead me to believe we are looking forward to a fantasy MMO.  Also, Schilling mentions they will be working with a development budget of ‘greater than sixty million dollars.’  I suggest you watch the entire interview, because it is actually quite good.
P.S. Schilling plays a Tauren in WoW.
~Cyndre
A “proud nail” is one that sticks out and snags things on an otherwise smooth surface. The D&D designers use the term to discuss game design elements that stick out and catch your game. D&D 3E’s grappling rules are one of the best examples. In City of Heroes, we have the Carnival of Shadows, perhaps the most ill-conceived faction in the game.
At first blush, hey, evil carnies, cool. The look is great, with harlequined ladies and men welded into their helmets. They are the big psychic group, with some of the more challenging bosses in the game. Interesting visuals and unique abilities: excellent. On the villain side, they have their own section of Saint Martial, and Vivacious Verandi is one of the most entertaining contacts in the game.
