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Perfect Fit Or New Shiny?

eve[EVE Online] I’m still quite suprised at how well EVE is working for me as a casual player. You start the game with a few skills, but you’ll need new skills soon enough. Normally you would get new skills by grinding on mobs or questing for XP until you levelled. But in EVE, you don’t get new skills by killing mobs or doing quests. You get new skills by purchasing them and then training them. I don’t even see how you could gimp yourself. Don’t like a skill? Don’t buy it. If you already have it, it’s not hurting you in any way.

Skills have various levels, 1 through #. To train each level takes time and the time varies based on different aspects like your attributes and other skills. Lets just say a typical skill takes 30 minutes to train to level 1, 4 hours for level 2, 1 day for level 3, etc. Each level means that you are better at the skill. A combat skill level may mean more accuracy, damage, rate of fire, things like that. Some ships may require you to have level 3 in a navigation skill (for example) so you must train that skill to 3 before you can use the ship. Refining skill levels means you get a better return on your ore refining. I could go on and on but there are way too many skills. Important to note, you can only train one skill at a time.

So why does this work well for a casual player? Simple; the skills train in real time no matter where you are or what you are doing. Log in, start training a skill, and then log off. It will keep training.

This allows me to feel like I am progressing whether I am playing or not. Sometimes I just log in to start training a new skill because I don’t have time to play. In fact, since it saves your training progress, sometimes I stop training a longer skill when I am playing in order to train a shorter one that will finish while I’m still online. Then before I log off I restart training the longer skill and it begins right where it left off.

Granted, to buy skills you need money – sometimes a lot of it depending on the skill. Getting money requires you do something in game. Mine, kill pirates, run missions. All generates income. Therefore, you cannot just play the game by training skills and logging off (unless someone gives you a lot of money). Also, getting the skill to fly a battleship does not mean you really know how to fly a battleship properly. To do that you need to play the game and use the ship.

I really like it because when friends of mine play a lot more than I do, they do not really get any further ahead of me as far as skills are concerned. They may make more money and know more about the game, but heck they can just share that with me hehe.

This game is not for everyone. I’m sure many will get bored with it and that is fine. It is not a fast paced game. It is more of a thinking game. It is what you make of it. When I log in, I decide what I feel like doing. Get in my destroyer and go mine while defending myself from the occasional pirate? Get in my frigate and go pirate hunting to collect bounties and loot? Get in my industrial ship and do some trade routes? The options are only as limited as you make them.

Last night I took my frigate out and scoured asteroid fields for pirates. If I found any, I would launch a few missles at them to take out their shields and as they got closer I would open up with my railguns. After taking them out, I could loot their cargo holds for equipment. In fact, I have a cargo hold scanner so I can see what they are carrying before I even attack.

I haven’t even got into all the other options. There are all sorts of electronic warfare available, things that shut down your ship, or keep you from targeting the enemy. You could train up cloaking devices and stealth your way across the galaxy. You could join up with a corporation and manaufacture ships or equipment. You could claim a spot in 0.0 space and defend it from all others. You could even hunt down other players with bounties on their head.

Only time will tell if this game really is what I’ve been seeking or if it is just another new shiny, blinding me from seeing the truth. But I know this; I talk to many people in game and a lot of them have been playing it like I do and still are playing (and enjoying) it after 2 years.

– Ethic

Tour Beautiful Striga Isle!

[City of Heroes] To my mind, the reason to play City of Heroes right now is to play through the 20s. Issue 3 brought some of the best content in the game, and you should go play it right now. Not everyone likes it, but Striga Isle has higher design standards then pretty much any zone in the game. Statesman, our fearless leader in CoH, has said that Striga is the design standard for other zones. This makes me hopeful for a new place expected in Issue 5, as well as potential retrofitting of zones to be more user-friendly. Care for a brief guided tour?

Your first contact in the 20s will send you to Striga to meet the first contact there. You can ignore her, or you can follow the line of four contacts in Striga. These combine to 25-or-so missions of various types. You have the standard “Arrest all villains in base,” “Defeat 15 Council in The Bog,” “Defeat base commander and his men”; the most innovative involves attacking a Council vampyre creation plant, in which you must fight vampyres as they come out of the transformation capsules. Striga introduces a new tile set, the boat, and has a few vertical shafts in missions (think Castlevania, the original, when you drop down that long shaft into the underworld). One mission uses two different tile sets, which I have not seen anywhere else.

There are four different temporary powers, all useful. One gives resistance to all (including psionic, and it is a toggle), another lets you summon a Council War Wolf boss as a pet (5 charges, they do *nice* damage to Archvillains). You also get your zombie-hunting shotgun, so you can pretend to be Ash. “Defender with boomstick? Check.”

Striga includes two task forces. One gets you most of the way through your Silver Bullet and Slayer badges, so you can get the Atlas Medallion accolade (passive +5 endurance). The other is the best task force in the game, and you need to go do it right now. The 26-30 TF has several unique maps, including the spectacular last mission. You get previews of this last one in the missions leading up to it, which have windows facing into the last chamber. Yeah, you see that thing? That’s the final showdown. :)

All that, three exploration badges and one history, plus a trainer in-zone. So what about the zone itself? Striga is designed rather nicely, with a main island and several smaller ones around it. The contacts lead you logically from the docks, through the defenses and the monster-infested jungle, and into the Council’s secret volcano lair. Zombies, werewolves, and vampyres abound in the jungle and graveyard. There are zombies hiding beneath the waters, ready to swarm up around you. There are fights between the various factions who want control of the island. There are dogfights between Sky Raider Sky Skiffs and Council Hoverbots. There are robots on patrol. There is a new enemy group in the form of missile turrets.

I am probably leaving out some things, which is for the best. I have already outlined most of the sights to see, so come see the rest. Stand on top of a volcano that stretches from the ground almost to the flight ceiling. Check out the sprawling Council compound and watch them fight off invaders. Join the attack and protect Paragon City from the Council’s new schemes. Find your favorite little touches in an excellent use of space.

One hint: the road runs straight through, from the entrance to the Council base. If you cannot find the Wolf’s Throat, just follow the road into the tunnel. The tunnel is the Throat.

: Zubon

The Final Countdown

[World of Warcraft] Well, I’ve been level 59 for about a month now. I hit it right before finals week and my camping trip so my efforts to hit level 60 have been somewhat slowed. While I still enjoy playing the game, it does seem as if a lot of people are quitting. My realm is often empty and the people on my social list aren’t logging on as much as they used to. Even my real life friends have been largely taking a break from the game.

Maybe it’s just the people I play with or just my realm, but from what I’ve been reading on the MMO blogs it appears as if WoW may be dying a bit. As a guy that has owned a PS2 for the past 3 or 4 years and has yet to beat a game, I consider myself a pretty casual gamer. I don’t know what I’ll do when I hit level 60, but what most people seem to do is either concentrate on PvP or start raiding to get the the high end gear. I’m not sure those goals appeal to someone that enjoys a more casual experience. Several of my friends who are fairly casual gamers have quit the game already. With the exception of a few people I know who are very hardcore players, everyone else that played with any regularity is either taking a break or playing with alts.

The overall problem seems to be that there isn’t much to do for those gamers in the middle. Much like you’re stuck pretty much being a Republican or Democrat in the United States, in WoW you’re either a guy that has fun taking a month to get to level 10 or you’re someone that plays 5 hours a night every night. Those of us who play with some regularity, but lack the ability or desire to devote that much time to the game are usually not asked to join large guilds. Without a guild it is near impossible to do raids that require 30-40 people (and if you do you know you’re going to get ninja looted). The attitude a lot of people have (Blizzard included) is that things are the way they are as to encourage people to socialize and work together. I can see their side, but since I am personally clearly not able to do this; perhaps the game is not for me. My plans for now are to hit 60 and see how things are once they release Battleground (tomorrow maybe? hope hope). If things don’t improve, the end of my account may be near. Until an expansion comes out of course.

DC

Identity Crisis

When I was 10 years old I remember getting excited because a friend of the family loaned me a game named Guild of Thieves, and then Hollywood Hijinx. Both of these titles were text adventures, meaning there were more or less no graphics. Some of them had a few bitmap images to go along with the text, but no movement as we are all used to today.

Back then, your imagination was responsible for creating not only your environments but your character as well. Nothing relied on the cost of your GPU or how much memory you had. As long as your computer could display text, you could play the game as well as anyone else.

These days bring many changes. Now a game without bleeding edge eye candy is considered below par and dies on the discount table. MMOs are reviewed and rated based on their cosmetic level holding as much importance as the design of the game itself. Those who still partake in pen-n-paper RPGs are considered nerds and losers. Times do change indeed.

All current games share one common element. The perspective of the player exists, and is therefore relevant to the design. Whether the player is assuming the role of God or a highly trained dark elf shaman there exists a self awareness which must be illustrated. Black & White represents this character with a hand cursor which changes depending on the player’s choices in the game. Many MMOs represent this with a three-dimensional avatar, while others like EVE online put the focus on the player’s ship (with a still image of the pilot as a backup).

My interest is how much the character representation affects the player. I am referring primarily to the depth of customization designed into the game. Let’s look at a few case studies.

  • EVE Online – Player character is represented by a still image with the selection of four lighting types. All other customization is based on the character ship in-game.
  • Everquest II – Player is able to customize character with a medium range of physical features and hair styles. Hair color and skin tones restricted to race. All other customization depends on in-game armor restricted to level.
  • Lineage II – Player is able to minimally customize character hair style/color and predefined faces restricted to race and class. All other customization depends on in-game armor restricted equipment class restrictions. Armor appearance changes per race.
  • World of Warcraft – Minimal character creation. All other customization in-game based on armor restricted to level. Due to the unique graphic engine, detail of avatar is low.
  • The Matrix Online – Very minimal character creation. Lack of creation ability counter-balanced with wide range of player created and dropped clothing and weapons.
  • Star Wars Galaxies – Most likely the highest amount of character customization to date. Full physical modifications including weight, height, bust size (females), tattoos and player created clothing/armor based on hundreds of base templates. Also, in-game appearance changes possible by player ran Image Designer profession.

I believe that the importance of character customization is directly related to the player’s style of play; what they enjoy. Some old school RPG players do not require much customization in order to enjoy a game because they have adapted to making use of imagination in order to succeed at role-playing their character. Others put a lot more weight on a character’s appearance to present themselves to others in game.

All of this falls back upon the foundation principle that RPGs are about playing the role of a different creature. Whether the player requires a completely unique avatar or simply their mind, they are representing themselves as someone different. This goes along with males who prefer to play female characters and vice-versa.

Many of the guides which we would normally follow in a discussion like this are clouded by the fact that as MMO production gets closer and closer to the main stream market, game populations become less focused on hard core role-playing and therefore more so on popularity ladders which, as time has proven, always put a high importance on cosmetic elements. :)

I am a person who while enjoying serious role-playing, also requires a good amount of avatar customization and presentation ability.

What about you?

-Spot

An EVEning With Pirates

integrale destroyer[EVE Online] I have a new ship now, a destroyer I call “The Integrale” (picture shown). One of the advantages of this ship, besides the improved cargo space, is the fact that I can run multiple mining lasers and multiple weapons. This can come in handy for defending yourself from pirates while mining. I needed it last night.

I decided to travel to a less secure system, because you can often find more valuable ores to mine. However, the lower security also means an increased chance of aggression. I went to visit the system that Zxyrox was in as he was going to mine with me. It was a 0.7 system.

I looked for some descriptions of the different security ratings so I could explain them somewhat here. I found lots of information on EVE-I and I summarized it below:

  • 1.0 – 0.8 Security: Safe around stations and gates, no NPC pirates. Players could possibly destroy your ship and pod you before the police get there, but it should be rather rare.
  • 0.7 – 0.5 Security: Safe around stations. Most asteroid fields and gates will have NPC pirates around them. The lower the security, the tougher and more numerous they will be. You should be safe from players, but if someone is determined they can destroy you before a police arrive.
  • 0.4 – 0.1 Security: Little or no police presence, numerous NPC pirates around asteroid fields and gates. Other players can attack you with no police intervention. The sentry guns around gates and bases will fire on anyone starting an aggressive act (within range).
  • 0.0 Security: The worst NPC pirates and players are in these systems. It’s free-for-all when it comes to combat. Fire first with no intervention, no sentries, no police. Don’t enter unless you have experience.

So you can see I was still in a pretty safe system, but I had a good chance of getting attacked by pirates while mining. And by good chance, I mean that they did. Several times.

After insuring my ship to guarantee I’ll get a good chunk of the cost back should it be destroyed, and cloning myself to make sure I don’t lose any skills should I be killed, we warped out to the asteroid field. On the way, I created a “safe spot” by marking my place in space during the warp. This bookmark is a random spot created for escape should I need to. Odds would be good that it is empty of pirates and the chance of someone finding me right away are slim. All I would need to do is to warp to the bookmark and I’m safe.

Zxyrox and I started to mine, him in his mining barge and me in the destroyer. It was not long before some NPC pirates warped in. I stopped my mining temporarily and locked onto the closest pirate. I set my ship to orbit about the pirate at the optimal range for my railguns. When I got within range, I opened fire. I made short work of all three pirates this way and looted the ruins of their ships for goodies. Back to the mining.

As my cargo hold approached full, Zxyrox told me to jettison the ore. I did that and it created a canister which I named as mine so it would hopeful discourage someone from stealing my ore. This is where I learned of the first immersion breaking aspect of this game so far. The canister I jettisoned from my ship had a capacity much greater than my ship. How does that work? Anyway, what I would do is keep the mining going and transfer ore from my ship into the container as it got full. Zxyrox was doing the same.

We were attacked by NPC pirates a few more times during the mining operation, but my destroyer was making easy work getting rid of them. In fact, I didn’t take any damage at all. Once Zxyrox’s container was full, he warped back to the station to get a ship with a large cargo hold to haul our ore back for processing. While he was gone, some additional NPC pirates came in but again I dispatched of them quickly.

It took a couple of trips to get all the ore back to the station, but after processing it all and splitting up the profits, I had a cool million ISK in my wallet.

I found out I am really enjoying the slower pace of the game. It may not be good for someone that wants to interact with the game all the time. Truth is, I watched TV while I was playing. Mining is simply “press a key” for each mining laser and wait for your cargo hold to fill up. Of course adding in NPC pirates and player pirates to the picture means you need to be alert. But still, in general the pace is slower than your typical MMO and I am thankful for that. It’s just right for my playstyle at this time in my life. That’s not to say it is always slow. I imagine combat with other players could be quite fast-paced and overwhelming.

I’m subscribing when the free trial is over. Any questions about the game, feel free to ask and I’ll try to get them answered. Oh, one other thing. In EVE, they call pirates “rats” so I guess my site name still applies, heh.

– Ethic

Is anyone out there…?

[Lineage 2] I am completely enjoying my time in Lineage2, with the exception of one thing. It is impossible to find anyone. There is absolutely no method for locating another player. In fact, there are not even topic centered chat channels. The only communication one has is spatial, private whisper, and clan.

To put this into perspective, I have about 50 hours of game play in L2 right now. I have grouped twice, and once was with my roommate. Never have I been in a group with over three players (including myself). The only way to possibly meet new people is to yell at them while they are running past you and hope they notice, and then have the kindness to actually respond.

The players who do respond are never interested in grouping. L2 is primarily intended as a PvP environment; however the lack of social interaction leaves you with a big hole.

A person I happen to have on my friends list because of a long wait for the ferry to arrive one day, recently told me that he was very lonely in L2. I cannot agree more.

In EQ2 the game would just completely bore me quite often. Then I would get in a full group of good people and would be reminded as to why I enjoyed the game so much. I could easily waste an entire Sunday playing EQ2 with a good group.

My next assumption from the perspective of a designer is that this is designed to push you toward a clan. Makes sense, and is most likely working. The only problem there is that even with the highest level clans there is a member cap of 40 players. That means if you live in the U.S. and play pretty late at night most of the time (like me), your clan is never on, therefore putting you back at the beginning.

I am not as annoyed over this lack of interaction as I am interested in its purpose. Many things exist beyond our understanding, which is why the world is such a colorful place. :)

-Spot

I’m sorry…. who?

Hello, my name is Spot and I am the newest addition to the writers here at KTR. I also have a personal blog which I upkeep at www.sp0t.com. As opposed to rewriting my about page, I will just copy it here as a sort of introduction:

Games continue to inspire me as the ultimate art medium. It is the only channel through which a designer may capture the visual, auditory and interactive senses; wielding them into an all encompassing envelope of emotion and stimulation. This ability alone; the power to construct a presentation on such a level, is beautiful to me.

I have therefore studied the game development industry for close to five years now; soaking in anything I can get my hands on. Watching the MMO revolution begin its unyielding climb toward the premiere emotional stimulant is an incredible experience.

I believe that what we label as games, will soon (and have already begun) to become much more. The possibilities of educational and entire varieties of non-entertainment driven opportunities exist and become more obvious each day.

My employment of three years with deviantART.com has provided me with the unique experience of watching (and assisting to guide) a truly massive community of over a million people, which allows me a somewhat uncommon perspective on massively multiplayer environments.

I currently live in Los Angeles, California with two roommates, one of which has played quite a few MMO’s, the other which often I find absorbed in a game of Counter-Strike or Rise of Nations. I frequent many MMO’s so as to gain a wider perspective on different design methods. Over the past six months, I have held accounts in EQ2 / SWG / WoW / Matrix / Ryzom / EVE / EAB / AO / L2 Etc.

I am also a die hard fan of the Splinter Cell franchise.

That’s about it for me. I will be writing more about design theory as it applies to my MMO experiences, and I look forward to discussing these things with you all.

Thanks.

-Spot

My weekend of Eve

[EVE Online] I can’t think of anything really breathtakingly interesting about what I did this weekend but on a side note, once I figure out how to configure screenshots with the paint tool (yeah I’m that out of it) I’ll post up some screenshots.

Well I helped out Ethic with some of the functions of EVE and I hope he continues to play as I find the game very interesting myself and I hope he does the same. As an update, I helped him out with mining and got him a new ship to use and I believe around the area of doubling his money tonight, and so far it’s all good.

I’ve lost 3 ships already to this darned war and I hope these idiots cut it out soon. I and everyone else don’t know what we did to them but I’m sure they are just corp killers. Well we have alot of people from other corps that delcared war on them in our honor, apparantly our CEO is a well liked guy.

Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great guy but some of the people he has helping us aren’t the least bit appreciative of the help some of the not-so-uber members have done. I myself was told I wasn’t going to be worth anything in a fight because my current combat ship is a cruiser. (I’m sorry I can’t afford a 120mill battleship guys) so mr. mercinary got the short end of the stick when I told him I’m no longer helping his efforts and he can consider himself – 1 pilot…of course one of the members of about the same experience of me in the corp decides to take mr. mercinary’s side and try to rationalize his harshness “he just doesnt want you to lose anymore ships”.

Well, you can imagine how many people took my side in corp-channel the operation wasnt even mr.mercinary’s business in the first place and my wingman wasnt too happy about him pissing me off, well more on that later.. I have to go mine :)

-Zxyrox

Ethic’s In Space

ethic[EVE Online] After logging into EVE for the first time and creating my character, I was sent through a tutorial. There are no player avatars in the game, unless you consider a ship your player avatar, which I guess is actually the truth of it. Your person only exists as a character portrait. My character shown here, is named “Ethic KTR”.

This doesn’t bother me, as the ship is kind of like the ultimate loot. Well, except you don’t really loot it. Um, well you can sort of loot other ships.

When you start the game, you get a free ship and 1,000 ISK (the native form of currency). My ship was called an Ibis, but I renamed it to be called “The Alcyone”. That is something cool off the bat, you can name your ship. The second image is of my ship.

alcyoneThe tutorial was good, and it got me started. I really did need help and thanks to Zxyrox I was able to get most of my questions answered. I ran a few delivery missions and did some mining and managed to get my ISK up to around 65,000 at the moment. I’m on the verge of buying my first new ship.

Here is a typical mission for you: While docked in a station, an agent asked me to deliver some cargo to another station. I open up my cargo hold and also the station items window. I drag the cargo from the items window into my cargo hold. Then I click on undock.

I then find myself outside the station. I open up my map and do a search for the destination. When it finds it, I mark it as my destination point. I then click on autopilot and it takes me all the way to my end destination system (even through the jump gates) with no interaction needed. I could have done it by going from jump gate to jump gate on my own, but this is much easier. It did not take too long, but I will admit that at this point it is pretty much a waiting game. You do not need to interact with the game too much so far.

Autopilot takes me to the system I needed, but I still need to find the end station. There are icons on the screen and you can just hover over them, or there is a window that shows what is nearby. Finding the end station, I click on “warp to within 15 km” and away I go. When I get to the station, I request docking privileges by right clicking on the station and choosing dock.

Once docked, I can click on my agent and tell them the delivery is complete and I collect my fee. I could then return to my original station and get another assignment, or I can talk to a local agent (if available).

miningI also spent some time mining for “feldspar” which comes from an asteroid. I would find a nearby asteroid field and lock onto an asteroid with the mineral I am searching for, and then click on my mining laser. Then I wait until my cargo hold is full and warp back to the station for processing and sale. The third image is of me during a mining expedition.

So that sums up my first weekend in EVE. I find the game to be very peaceful. I also find it to be very complicated and I like that. It means I have a lot of things to learn. I also find the immersion level to be very high, because everything makes sense. Private chats, email, storage space, everything fits the setting. And the scenery, at least so far, is nothing short of breathless. And only one server, means I can play alongside, and chat with anyone that is playing.

– Ethic

So what brings YOU here?

[City of Heroes] Life must be odd in Paragon City, you know? Superheroes everywhere, and a lot of them are pretty freaky. I mean, to say nothing of the guys walking around on fire or covered in floating skulls, you have half-transparent floating squid creatures that can turn into some tank-like crustacean. Over here, the author wonders, “Just stop and think for a moment about how odd it would be if the world’s most powerful superbeing just stopped into a malt shop in full costume to share a milkshake with a girl.”

When you get on the monorail, you need to ask the guy next to you to please stop dripping his alien ichor on your groceries. “Pardon, my wife is expecting, could you not use your cloud of choking nuclear radiation just here?” Oh, and the equivalent of GNC, Image Inc., also has a big display case of firearms and special ammunition to go with your high-fiber cereals.

Despite all of this, after rescuing someone, s/he will frequently tell you, “I’ve never met a hero before!”

Zubon