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Everyone Wins?

Asynchronous PvP creates the unusual possibility of having something called “PvP” that never brings you into direct conflict with another player, where everyone playing wins, and the computer takes the losses on behalf of the players. Reward-seeking players will often create nigh-asynchronous PvP situations.

Given the chance to pick the fight, most people pick fights they know they will win. Given three potential targets to attack, with equal rewards for each, most players will pick the weakest target. Or the weakest (for them) — if you play Scissors, you will choose to attack Paper while you are online, then your offline team will be attacked by Rock.

It can be frustrating to have offline losses you cannot do anything about, particularly if those are scored for competitive rewards, but if PvP must come out to 50% wins on average, everyone seems happier when the computer takes almost all of the 50% losses.

Most of my links there cite examples from Marvel Puzzle Quest, where indeed you almost always win any fight you choose to participate in and lose most of the offline fights. Reference also Guild Wars 2, where karma trains are 90+% PvE content under the name WvW, where everyone gets more reward from trading captures on undefended towers. Look back to the less extreme case of early LotRO PvMP, where most people won most of the time because each team flocked to the battlefield where it was winning.

I can’t say it is much/any worse than the regular PvE grind, apart from the design time half-wasted on PvP content that will not be used for PvP. Maybe I should be pleased for the species that self-interest makes cooperation a favored path even with an explicitly defined competitor. But it seems hollow.

: Zubon

[RR] PDF Roleplaying

It seems like only a few years ago when Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition (D&D 3e) came out. I remember how almost everybody in our gaming group had the Player’s Handbook. A few of us had the Gamemaster’s Guide, and there was one or two Monster Manuals lying around. Now things are incredibly different.

Tabletop roleplaying has gone digital. Our gamemasters (GM’s), including myself, often have a laptop propped up for reference. Players learn the rules with free quickstart versions of the game. Most of us have printouts of abilities and spells, which stem from portions of pdf’s and other digital files. This is the tabletop of this century. Continue reading [RR] PDF Roleplaying

Smooth Launch

None of us here seem to be leaping into Elder Scrolls Online, but the one thing I’m not seeing on my RSS of MMO bloggers? The usual Day One issues with logins, authentication, servers, unrecognized keys, queues, and whatever your online game of choice suffered through in its first weeks.

As far as MMO launches go, yesterday might have been the smoothest I’ve ever experienced. Everything worked, there was no queue, I didn’t have to jump through any hoops, and I was able to play the game as if it had been live for 6 months. Being able to patch-up the beta client was huge too. Hats off to Bethesda, they nailed day one.
— SynCaine

We have seen many games from companies with more MMO experience fail that Day One readiness check, so let’s give proper accolades for doing it right. The server team: if they’re doing their job right, you barely notice they’re there.

: Zubon

Social Media Linkbait

You are familiar with sites that regurgitate content with provocative headlines as linkbait. You see them on your Facebook wall or as the “related content” gnawing at the edges of web pages. They are fond of lists, gifs, splitting small amounts of content across multiple pages, and generally working their content-to-ad ratio as much as possible.

They are now getting over the headlines of “You won’t BELIEVE what…” and “this one WEIRD thing” that will change your life/pant size/gender. Which is sad, because folks were working on a browser extension to get rid of them. This month, you instead get five dozen headlines advertising a list of similarly AMAZING regurgitated content where some random number is cited as totally worth clicking the link to see their ads. “12 postcards from CHILDREN that will INSPIRE you to be a better person! #6 is a must-see.” “31 Sandwiches that will CHANGE how you see CILANTRO. #17 will REARRANGE your SOCK drawer!”

Comments are open for your bets on the next viral headline template.

: Zubon

Exciting Gaming Weekend Ahead

Steam has the Batman franchises (Arkham and Lego) 75% off, so I now have Arkham Origins. Is it worth springing for the Season Pass or any DLC? I have the Millennium skins from a Humble Bundle.

New Humble sale, so I have a few new indie games to try. I already have and enjoyed Defenders Quest.

Plants vs. Zombies 2 released its future world for the Android, so I have more things to try there. So far: fun! We shall see whether the new content addresses the issues I have been complaining about or pushes further towards monetization. PvZ1’s Zen Garden is back with an altered implementation. It still produces coins, and it now produces one-level plant buffs. The game immediately dumped about 80 plant sprouts on me to encourage me to buy the new gem currency that unlocks more plant slots. I support “here is a lot of free stuff you can use over time or right now if you pay us” as solid F2P design. (Or maybe that was a bug.)

And the new GW2 WvW event is going, so I must try that out. Although, as I type this, I don’t really know why: WvW content has not changed, and I guess we’ll see whether the match-up algorithm for this event is better or worse than Season One or the usual week-to-week system. [Update: nope, us vs. FA and SBI. GG, see you next week.]

: Zubon

[RR] Scarlet Heroes

I apologize. This week has been a ruddy mess. I wanted to talk about print-on-demand publishing and digital books, but just couldn’t get it together. I kept going off on tangents. Combined with work, barometric headaches, and prepping to start my own campaign… well excuses.

Since I can’t share my grand thoughts, just yet, I will point you to a result of all the good things in tabletop roleplaying games this century: Scarlet Heroes.

Scarlet Heroes started as a Kickstarter where backers immediately received the draft for feedback and the necessary gratification. It then moved to digital / print-on-demand publishing, which is a smart move for any RPG book. And, it rounds out the how-to-do-it-this-century style with a free quickstart.

What is it? It’s a roleplaying game meant to be played with a single player, with or without a GM. It’s an overlay to old school Dungeons and Dragons so you can run that single player through old school modules meant for whole groups. It’s a way to create Dungeons and Dragons style adventures of legend for that single player. Plus it has a nifty setting. Can’t go wrong at least checking out the quickstart.

–Ravious

[GW2] The Wardrobe

In pre-launch days, the one system I disliked the most in Guild Wars 2-to-be was the transmutation system. Coming from Lord of the Rings Online, with its excellent wardrobe system, the design of the Guild Wars 2 transmutation stones felt like a step backwards in usability and a step forwards in the cash shop arena.

This system, I felt, directly went against the idea of Guild Wars 2 rewards. I felt I the cost of using cool skins, for say a week, was too high. At the base level, I had to overwrite a skin or make a new item. It cost inventory slots, or it cost gold. This is ignoring the transmutation stone to begin with.

Thankfully ArenaNet is finally creating a full wardrobe system. Continue reading [GW2] The Wardrobe