tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-291726752024-03-12T20:31:18.265-07:00The Many Relms of RelmsteinRelmsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358853054116842043noreply@blogger.comBlogger352125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29172675.post-60349472513999092992011-06-16T05:00:00.000-07:002011-06-16T05:00:02.777-07:00Subscription based games getting greedy with additional fees/services<div>MMOs have enjoyed a great advantage over other types PC games during the last decade. As piracy became easier and sales numbers started to fall, game developers started to put less emphasis on the PC market. A lot of game studios decided to pay licensing fees to the major consoles and the aisle at Best Buy for PC games shrunk. However, if you look at that last aisle of PC games you'll notice that a good portion of the remaining ones belong to either the FPS or MMO genre. Both genres depend on rich multi-player environments to supplement the main game play and this keeps players engaged. Traditionally, MMOs was the only genre that charged monthly for this feature, but first person shooters are starting to change as they chase a "service" model.</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://kotaku.com/5808484/activision-on-call-of-duty-elite-even-haters-can-play-for-free">Activision has been in the gaming news</a> a lot because of their plan to add a subscription service onto the Call of Duty franchise. They don't have the complete list of neat features you get compared to the normal version yet, but they seem to be following in Blizzard's footsteps. Namely, a lot of mobile applications that give you access to stats and parts of the game while offline. Call of Duty may not have an auction house, but I'm sure Activision can find something similarly vital that would benefit from mobile access. I'm not exactly a fan of this model, but it does seem to be in vogue with content companies lately. Hulu even uses it to sell their Hulu Plus subscription service.</div><div><br /></div><div>So why are game companies so in love with switching everything over to a service model? Cause it's much more profitable. I'll give you an example. Most cable providers offer phone service which they try to sneak into cable television packages. In general it costs about 30$ a month to use. However, anyone with some Internet know-how could use an alternative voip product like Google Voice, Skype, or hell even Magic Jack and pay considerably less. However, cable companies are the gate keepers in this scenario and this gives them a lot of power to push/advertise their service. It's like how EverQuest used to bug you to buy stuff whenever you logged into the game. It's the core reason why some people want Net Neutrality. It certainly doesn't take a genius to calculate how much an overpriced service sold to a captive audience can make, just look at the cost of traditional text messages.</div><div><br /></div><div>The one reason I was always been a fan of the plain old subscription model for MMOs was that I felt it was easier to keep track of costs. I know how nickle and dimeing works since I grew up when most malls still had arcades. You've never seen money disappear so fast. This has kind of influenced me away from Free2Play games, but I'm starting to change my mind. Subscription MMO's are getting to be almost as bad as Free2Play games with World of Warcraft leading the pack. Services to move/rename/faction change your characters? Planned services to allow cross server grouping with friends? Most of these services just allow you to get around artificial barriers put in place by the game developers in the first place. No different from item shops in Free2Play games which sell teleports or double experience potions. Worse even since they already have you on the hook for the base subscription fee. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's enough to make me really look forward to a MMO like Guild Wars 2 which will just has the flat cost of the box. How old fashion!!! I always thought the subscription model wouldn't influence game design like item shops do in Free2Play games. However, it's starting to look like that's becoming less true. Maybe in time for the next WoW expansion they can have an gold membership elite plus service that gives your priority access to the instance queues. It sounds cynical and far fetched, but it wouldn't surprise me. Anyways, I'm going to try out Spiral Knights on Steam and hopefully learn to appreciate something that doesn't try to hide the nickle and dimeing.</div><div><br /></div>Relmsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358853054116842043noreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29172675.post-10296820165294357562011-06-13T16:25:00.000-07:002011-06-13T16:37:56.959-07:00Crafting Companions for Success<div>I've written several posts in the past about my love for crafting systems. One of the main reasons I tried out Lego Universe was that I was hoping to finally see user generated content play a major part in a MMO. Alas, I was disappointed that the "<a href="http://www.joystiq.com/2009/03/24/overheard-gdc09-ttp-time-to-penis/">time to penis</a>" caused the removal/suspension of this core feature. It seems like a lot of gaming companies have decided to just give up on trying to integrated user generated content with any core game mechanics. Sure you see a lot of support for user interface add-ons, but these are downloaded through third party sites. This is probably the main reason they are allowed since it protects game companies from potential lawsuits and bad PR incidents.</div><div><br /></div><div>Still, its obvious that crafting systems in most games need improvement. The gather resources and click "combine" model has been relatively unchanged since the early days of the genre. It's boring, time consuming and prevents us from getting to the action (killing bad guys). Luckily, I have seen a couple new games trying to address these issues. In fact, both Diablo 3 and The Old Republic seem to trying to combine crafting with a type of NPC training mini game. Think of it as the pokemon method of crafting where you have to train your NPC so he becomes stronger and can make you better stuff. <a href="http://us.blizzard.com/diablo3/world/systems/crafting.xml">Diablo 3 even increases the shop size of your crafting companion</a> as you level him up on a diet of gold and salvaged loot.</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.swtor.com/info/systems/crew-skills">The Old Republic is going even further</a> by allowing your crafting companion to fight with you during the early part of the game. Since his fighting prowness doesn't scale much as you level you probably won't group with him in the later levels. Insead you get to assign him missions, which he automatically completes over time. It looks to be similar to the time based training in EVE Online. You assign one of your NPC's a gathering mission and the next time you log in he presents you with the materials. I'm believe this type of crafting system should help counteract a lot of the gold sellers who depend on resource gathering bots. On the other hand the video describing the system hints that it takes a decent amount of time to make items.</div><div><br /></div><div>This might not be too much of a problem if the times aren't too long. After all you can be out running instances while your NPC is slaving away putting together your new light sabre. I guess it would only be annoying in cases where you got a rare item and wanted to turn it into a bad ass piece of equipment right away. Then again patience is a virtue and it's not like you have to personally hit combine 10,000 times to make it. If anyone ever crafting in EverQuest or Ultimate Online you know what I'm talking about. Anyways this idea of a crafting companion looks pretty fleshed in the Old Republic and halfway decent in Diablo 3. I hope this is the start of designers putting a little more effort into MMO crafting systems.</div>Relmsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358853054116842043noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29172675.post-82130940485115433682011-06-10T23:29:00.000-07:002011-06-10T23:45:42.765-07:002011 Status Update<div>I haven't posted in quite awhile as most of my free time has been destroyed by a combination of work and a decreasing ability to stay up past midnight. Once again, it came down to either writing about <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">MMOs</span> or getting to play them. I have been able to play a few new games since the last time I wrote including: Lego Universe, Cataclysm, and even some Rift. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to experience much of the raid content in these games, so my perspective is mostly from a single group.</div><div><br /></div><div>Lego Universe was a lot of fun and I got to try it out in beta right before they went live. Net Devil had some really great ideas for the game, but the time to penis was a big issue for them. Part of the appeal of the game was supposed to be about being able to show off your giant Lego structures. Well that feature was pretty much disabled from the time I started playing. Some people were talking in the forums about giant phallic towers complete with fountains on top that lead to the ban on visiting other people's architecture. Other then that the game was like a simplified version of Legend of <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Zelda</span> with some mini games thrown in. Fun for a couple of weeks but, not enough content for a full <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">MMO</span>.</div><div><br /></div><div>After that experience I jumped back in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">DIKU</span> land and started on a bit of a tank lark. Both Rift and Cataclysm have <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">LFG</span> tools and I enjoyed the instant queues for dungeons by wearing the heavy plate. One side effect of this was I found out what happens when you're the only tank online. A nice casual guild can get very authoritative and all of a sudden you start thinking twice about logging in and finding yourself being bugged to raid for five hours. This wouldn't have been so bad if I had the gear for it, but our guild had switch exclusively to ten men raids and gearing up multiple off-tanks had not been a priority.</div><div><br /></div><div>Instead, me and a couple friends had been mastering heroic dungeons and we had a lot of fun for a couple of months. We did seem to burn out quicker on Cataclysm then Wrath of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Lich</span> King though. Leveling was just too linear with the limited number of zones and most of of us already had a lot of max level characters. The old world revamp of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Azeroth</span> was very nice, but you hit the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Outlands</span> like a brick wall now. Eventually, a couple of us decided to try out Rift while some other friends decided to take a break from online games.</div><div><br /></div><div>I love the class system in Rift. In my opinion it's the closest to perfection out of any fantasy <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">MMO</span>. The problem was that after a couple of months it became clear Rift was too much like the other fantasy games. The rift closings was nice change of pace, but we had accidentally leveled on a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">PvP</span> server and didn't realize the implications until later. In the later levels you are expected to supplement questing with rift farming and things can get a bit slow if your faction is constantly outnumbered. Rift did have great expert dungeons which had more bosses then the normal versions. Unfortunately, just like Cataclysm this quickly got old for some of my friends. </div><div><br /></div><div>Rift is probably the second best <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">MMO</span> I've ever played, but its too much like World of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Warcraft</span>. It would have been great if my friends and I had come to Rift from some other game. But starting Rift right after Cataclysm made the burn out happen much quicker. I think fantasy <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">MMO's</span> are going to be on hold for awhile and we're waiting for something different. At least one buddy of mine has become a rabid Old Republic fanboy and that seems to be the next target. There's also some talk of playing <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Diablo</span> 3 as a group. A number of us still use Battle.Net to play Star Craft 2 mods so I wouldn't be surprised if we did that. At the moment though I'm <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">MMO</span>-less and enjoying the freedom to research and write about what's on the horizon.</div>Relmsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358853054116842043noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29172675.post-86271677453005301442010-04-26T14:54:00.000-07:002010-04-26T15:04:52.797-07:00The Future of Guilds and RaidingIt was announced recently that Blizzard would be reworking the raid lockout system in Cataclysm so that players would be limited to a single version of each raid instance. This means that 10-man and 25-man player raids would share the same lockout timer and heroic encounters would remain on a per-boss basis. Both versions would have the same loot tables though the 25-man version would reward more items and badges. Blizzard is hoping this will provide an incentive for guilds to run the larger raids when possible. Blizzard has also promised that the difficulty level between the 10-man and 25-man versions will be very similar though I personally think this will be a lot harder to implement then they realize. Overall, the changes aren't bad, but do reveal a strategy to slow down the time it takes for a guild to progress through a raid tier.<br /><br />I know with <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Icecrown</span> Citadel that Blizzard was a bit dismayed about how quickly the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Lich</span> King was killed in the 10-man version. This mostly occurred when guilds ran both the 10-man and 25-man versions each week and were quickly able to gear out a core team of players. Not every guild followed this pattern though. A lot of small guilds simply ran the 10-man version while allowing members to individually try to PUG the 25-man version. Larger guilds like the one I'm in would run the 25-man version for our mains and then use the 10-man version to gear up alts and new recruits. Unfortunately, this created situations where I sometimes ran through <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Icecrown</span> Citadel three times each week. I'm already a little burned out on the instance and I know other players are in the same situation.<br /><br />That's why I don't necessarily dislike having the different versions of a raid instance share a lockout timer. There is definitely an unnecessary push to do both versions of a instance when it allows your guild to progress faster. Still the jaded gamer in me says this is just Blizzard trying to make sure that raid content can be stretched out for longer periods of time. World of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Warcraft</span> is still no where near to having an expansion each year and the 5-6 month lull periods between new content kills any potential growth. Blizzard also is going to have to be very careful with combining the raid lockouts and I can already see some issues.<br /><br /><strong>1. Difficulty Balance</strong><br />Unique raid encounters are a lot more fun then classic tank and spank fights, but the mechanics of each fight can greatly change in difficulty based on the number of players participating. Simply lowering the damage done by an ability isn't going to cut it when trying to balance 10-man and 25-man versions. Some encounters in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Icecrown</span> Citadel like those in the Blood Wing use abilities which depend on players spacing out evenly at certain intervals. This is very easy in the 10-man version and a pain in the ass on the 25-man version. If Blizzard really is serious about equal balance between raid versions then they are going to have to cut back on this type of fight mechanic.<br /><br /><strong>2. Reward Balance</strong><br />It's no secret that players will min/max the hell out of a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">MMO</span> given a chance. The 25-man versions must offer a noticeable difference in rewards to guarantee that larger guilds don't die out. Having the 25-man version drop one more badge and item isn't going to cut it when the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">ilevel</span> is the same on both loot tables. Organizing 25 players and getting them to show up each week is a huge headache for guild leaders. Plus most high level raid encounters already have too many encounters where one player can screw up (or disconnect) and can kill everyone in the raid. If the new raid encounters are filled with similar instant death mechanics then it's going to make the 10-man versions much more attractive. I'm not sure if just increasing the number of rewards is enough of an incentive.<br /><br />That being said they're a number of benefits to merging the raid lockouts.<br /><br /><strong>1. Decrease Burnout Rate</strong><br />I don't think anyone really wants to be doing the same raid instance multiple times each week. Maybe at first when the instance is new, but the law of diminishing returns quickly kicks in and it stops being fun. The decision to split each raid tier across several instances should also help out.<br /><br /><strong>2. Decrease the number of days guilds need to raid</strong><br />Most hardcore guilds should be able to cut the number of days they raid in half. While some players might dislike the notion it should encourage guilds to do other end game activities besides raiding. Don't forget there will be a new guild leveling system and it might be beneficial to organize a night when you work on gaining the next guild level.<br /><br /><strong>3. Encourage guilds to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">PvP</span></strong><br />Rated battlegrounds are going to be major change for World of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Warcraft</span>, but I think their success is dependent on a large number of guilds participating. Right now guilds tend to stick with either <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">PvE</span> or <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">PvP</span> content and there really isn't a lot of crossover. I'm hoping the new guild leveling system combined with the reworked raid lockouts causes more guilds to be involved in both parts of the game.Relmsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358853054116842043noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29172675.post-26297587065122816262010-03-31T16:49:00.000-07:002010-03-31T17:02:47.971-07:00Cure for the Common QuestQuesting has long been a venerable tradition in MMORPGs and was inherited from it's Dungeons and Dragons ancestor. Originally, quests were rare and used to award players for completing tasks or dungeon crawls. However, this changed after a couple of years and quests started to be used more as a leveling mechanic to direct players to new areas. This was a much better use of quests and it made earning levels more fun. However, developers for a number of different MMORPGs started to approach quest creation in a machine gun like fashion. All of sudden a large number of games in the genre had quests that were very similar to one another and usually involved killing/gathering x number of y mobs/items.<br /><br />This created a situation where players started burning out on questing and "lack of originality" became a common complaint about the MMO genre as a whole. Afterall, the entire point of using quests as a leveling mechanic was to break up the boring process of just killing mobs for experience. Thankfully, within the last couple of years we've seen serious attempts to spice up questing and some new ideas have started to show up. These ideas generally fall into three basic categories which seek to improve different aspects of questing.<br /><br /><strong>1) Area Wide Quests - making quests more social</strong><br />One of the problems with quests is that to make them truly epic and interesting the difficulty level has to be increased to give players a challenge. Without challenge there is no sense of accomplishment and questing remains bland. Unfortunately, since most MMORPGs use a class system it can often be more of a challenge to build a working quest group then actually doing the quest. Area Wide quests attempt to address this problem by automatically building raid groups when the quest starts. It's more like an automated mini event then a quest, but they are very entertaining when done right. I've seen them implemented in both Warhammer and Champions Online, but they do tend to run into problems when zones have a lack of a players.<br /><br /><strong>2) Storytelling - making quests more interesting</strong><br />A lot of players really enjoy the role playing elements found in MMORPGs and like quests to be more then simple objectives hidden inside a wall of text. Developers have learned to incorporate things like voice dialogue, cut-scenes, and environment changes into quests to make them more exciting. The best examples of this that I've seen so far was the starting island of Tortage in Age of Conan and the Wrathgate event in World of Warcraft. Bioware seems to believe heavily in this method and is building a large and detailed story into their Star Wars:The Old Republic game. While I enjoy the story elements found inside MMOs they tend to loose their entertainment value when leveling multiple characters through the same content. Then again I hear Bioware will be doing unique quest paths for each class in the game. Age of Conan did this throughout Tortage, but didn't have enough money/time to continue after the starting zone.<br /><br /><strong>3) Unique Gameplay - making quests more fun</strong><br />The best method for improving questing in my opinion is to move as far away from the kill ten rats template as possible. World of Warcraft gets a lot of blame for turning questing into a repetitive grindfest, but they improved their act greatly in the last expansion. Wrath of the Lich King is filled with unique quests that often use specialized vehicles and items. Some of my favorites include riding a storm giant around to kill an army of undead and having to navigate a minefield to rescue a goblin. It may take extra development hours to put the effort into the quest, but it gains a repeatable entertainment value. Of course not every game has the budget to do this.<br /><br /><br />The best method for eliminating boring quests would be for every MMO studio to try to implement improvements in every category. Unfortunately, this would probably increase the development hours and be insanely expensive. What we'll probably see over the next few years is games specializing in one area and only those studios bloated on success or venture capital trying to improve across the board. It's almost a catch-22 situation, but it doesn't mean small studios are out of the running. Even a game like World of Warcraft has it's weak spots and a new game can always focus on improving in an area where Blizzard is a bit weak. I have a feeling that The Old Republic will explode onto the scene next year and show that good storytelling doesn't just involve pop culture references and jokes.Relmsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358853054116842043noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29172675.post-48805803305043552622010-03-29T12:49:00.000-07:002010-03-29T13:00:39.319-07:00Will WoW crafting ever be improved?Massive multiplayer online games have only been around for a relatively short time period and yet it's become apparent to most developers that to succeed in the genre you need to continually update your game's content. Players get attached to the characters they create and don't really want the game to end. This allows developers to use classic RPG elements like hitpoints and experience levels to extend character advancement to almost infinity. The only tricky part comes from making sure that new content is available to a majority of your players and not locked behind a single end-game activity like raiding.<br /><br />While constant content updates are a important part of retaining subscribers, it's almost equally important to improve how the players interact with that content. The LFG tool and the introduction of random daily quests in World of Warcraft are designed to increase the social aspect of the game. This has long been a weak point in the game, since the rate of experience gain has been so poor in groups. Now almost everyone uses the LFG tool when leveling up characters and more people are willing to try healing/tanking because of the improved queue times. Combined with some of the recent PvP changes and it shows that Blizzard is willing to completely revamp various aspects of their game until they get it right.<br /><br />What puzzles me is that Blizzard has never done a serious revamp of crafting in World of Warcraft. I can't help but get the feeling that they see professions more as a money sink than as a legitimate part of the game. This was very obvious towards the end of Vanilla WoW where most players recognized crafting was useless and only maxed enchanting or alchemy for stat increases. There was a small market for crafting epic bind-on-equip items, but those required high level raid encounters to get the materials. It wasn't until the Burning Crusade expansion when Blizzard started giving each profession their own enchants/item enhancements that they were able to breath life back into crafting.<br /><br />However, I'm not sure if you can really call this crafting since professions are still mostly leveled up based on what kind of stat bonuses they give rather than what items they can make. There is almost no demand for gear made from crafting since: a) it's insanely expensive with low level mats being overpriced and b) sucks compared to dropped gear. Also the lack of customization when crafting an item is a major drawback. I've tried out a majority of the different MMOs on the market and World of Warcraft crafting continues by far to have the least customization and usefulness. Even classic Everquest allowed players to at least dye their armor different colors. I'm not sure why Blizzard doesn't even have this option available. It's not like they are afraid of poor color coordination as the Burning Crusade showed us.<br /><br />While World of Warcraft continues to keep my attention because of their high quality PvE content I keep my eyes open for games which look like they might beat Blizzard at their weak spots. This is why I tried out Warhammer and Age of Conan since at the time I was very disappointed with the PvP options in World of Warcraft. While I don't put as much importance into crafting as combat, I don't believe it should be ignored to the level it has been in World of Warcraft. I know allowing players to create customized items and houses is a scary prospect to some developers. The <a href="http://www.joystiq.com/2009/03/24/overheard-gdc09-ttp-time-to-penis/">time to penis</a> is practically a universal law on the Internet nowadays.<br /><br />Still, this shouldn't hold them back on improving a part of the game which is severely lacking. Look at a game like <a href="http://universe.lego.com/en-us/default.aspx">Lego Universe</a> which will be built almost entirely around the concept of crafting. There's an opportunity there to build a very strong community around player created content. I know Blizzard realizes how important player created content has become in online games. The map editor for Warcraft III not only tied the community together, but also created an entire sub-genre of strategy games called tower defense. It's just a shame that almost no tools for creating items has been put into their most popular game. Afterall, I'm sure everyone is starting to get tired of looking like everyone else.Relmsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358853054116842043noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29172675.post-20581165401773907942010-03-16T08:37:00.000-07:002010-03-16T08:39:55.828-07:00Wintergrasp Woes - the raid drop exploitLake Wintergrasp seems to embody every video game feature that looked good on paper, but never quite lived up to it's potential on implementation. It's not that it's Blizzard fault since they have been trying to address the problems with the zone since day one. If they had just ignored the problems then I could justify nerdrage and blaming them for a horrible gaming experience. Instead, I have to give them kudos for the large number of mostly beneficial changes they've made to the zone over the last year. This includes reworking the daily quests, introducing Tenacity, adding a queue system, and making it slightly easier to defend the fortress.<br /><br />Of course none of these have any effect in most games since the number of people inside a normal Wintergrasp quickly stressed out the servers and cause horrible amounts of lag. Thus most prime-time Wintergrasp games involve the attackers simply steamrolling through fortress walls as the defenders get to attack every 10 seconds. It doesn't matter if you have five stacks of Tenacity if you can never hit anyone because of the massive amounts of lag. Previous attempts at world PvP areas were never popular because the rewards were uninspired and there really wasn't any reason to do it. However, with the Vault of Archavon providing a chance at the newest tier pieces the Wintergrasp battles are always popular.<br /><br />This popularity does make Lake Wintergrasp a target for exploits since there are multiple benefits to winning a game. Fortunately, it didn't seem like the open world zone concept was as vulnerable to this issue as battlegrounds and arenas. In fact, this weekend I ran across the first major exploit I've ever seen in Lake Wintergrasp. Players on one faction were joining the Wintergrasp queue with their alts in small raid groups. This allowed them to maintain raid leadership when the game started and they could kick people from the raid groups as soon as they zoned into an active Wintergrasp. As a result my faction had to manually form raid groups using general chat and the time it took to access siege engines was greatly increased for us.<br /><br />The people doing this were using multiple alts and I know a majority of them were reported. Still it doesn't look like any action has been taken against them yet. I'm not sure how hard the code change would be required to fix the issue. Lately, Blizzard has been focusing on the next expansion and I've noticed they've stopped tinkering with Lake Wintergrasp. Which is unfortunate, since the queue system for Wintergrasp really needs to be changed to prevent joining as a raid or else have the raid kick feature disabled. Either way I don't think this exploit will become too popular since it's highly visible to players and sure to be reported quickly. I just hope the Cataclysm PvP zones are better set up to deal with players have characters of both factions on the same server.Relmsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358853054116842043noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29172675.post-15981212010795786042010-01-25T14:17:00.000-08:002010-01-25T14:25:58.807-08:00Blizzard's New MMO and the FPS rumour<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibpdt-CSjSJC-Tp2dciUP_TmuNYbBKb5g-550b9KBEjcmqkpabCgfI1WvmMGWG9Tkt8ek19i6RHbozFkG0fnp6QeoASHbXNTRI7Iyuhyphenhyphencihr2Mx1MvSRRL0ygCj2iUhip_UQf7/s1600-h/blizzard_logo.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5430806921226327250" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 120px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibpdt-CSjSJC-Tp2dciUP_TmuNYbBKb5g-550b9KBEjcmqkpabCgfI1WvmMGWG9Tkt8ek19i6RHbozFkG0fnp6QeoASHbXNTRI7Iyuhyphenhyphencihr2Mx1MvSRRL0ygCj2iUhip_UQf7/s200/blizzard_logo.jpg" border="0" /></a> I've heard a large amount of rumors concerning Blizzard's new MMO over the last couple years and very few facts. What little information we do have is based on vague developer interviews and logical assumptions. It's frustrating not to have any details, but I can understand why Blizzard is holding onto secrecy for as long as it can. The premature advertising blitz of several recent games has been blamed for creating an environment of hyperbole which raises player expectations too high. These games tend to have an impressive amount of initial box sales, but disappointing subscription numbers. Another reason Blizzard might be keeping quiet is that there are a large number of World of Warcraft clones in existence. You could be pretty sure that Blizzard's new MMO will have a similar wave of poorly implemented imitators.<br /><div> </div><div>Not that World of Warcraft started off as a unique snowflake of a game. In fact the only new thing that Blizzard brought to the MMO marked with World of Warcraft was a sense of polish. However, it was such a difference from the poorly implemented and buggy competition that World of Warcraft turned into the monster we have now. With Blizzard's new MMO we can probably expect the same trick just with a different "type" of MMO. That's why <a href="http://http//www.massively.com/2010/01/08/rumor-blizzards-next-mmo-to-be-an-mmofps/">reports that Blizzard's new MMO will be a hybrid first person shooter</a> sound credulous to me. There's been three or four games that tried mixing elements of FPS games with the persistency of a MMO. None have experienced anything resembling success though and there seems to be a problem getting the right mix of features from each genre. It would take a company like Blizzard with a mantra of "as long as it takes" to pull it off I think.</div><br /><div>Also the rumour of a FPS MMO does seem to match what little information we have on Blizzard's next game. </div><br /><div>1) It has a more sci-fi then fantasy setting<br />2) It's not based on an existing Blizzard license<br />3) It will be a very different game from World of Warcraft</div><br /><div>Then again there are probably a dozen other rumors that also fit the sparse "facts" we have. There's a high chance that <a href="http://www.nofrag.com/2010/jan/08/33345/">NoFrag</a> simply chose a rumour at random and ran a news snippet claiming an inside source had confirmed it for them. I'm sure they got a nice boost in traffic from the story. I expect we might find out the truth at this year's Blizzcon and other bloggers have the same thought on the matter. One thing that I haven't seen pointed out though is that the expanded leaderboard and matchmaking functionality of the new .BattleNet would integrate well with a FPS MMO. Just an observation though.</div>Relmsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358853054116842043noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29172675.post-32123436353124413852010-01-20T09:02:00.000-08:002010-01-20T09:11:12.684-08:00Abusing the LFG Tool<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiELEyvRTzTA1D7lZtRLfbB0dYAEkaQVfc0J37u_w8ZAfrVs0el3JOMHMtuoQp48u4TucDBf959n5Raxtz-832q-EHaj92QBgh3cL8wEovaYlZwRkz1ZMz_yZDXVhI3Giv4b4ac/s1600-h/abuse.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5428870190414876594" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 117px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 187px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiELEyvRTzTA1D7lZtRLfbB0dYAEkaQVfc0J37u_w8ZAfrVs0el3JOMHMtuoQp48u4TucDBf959n5Raxtz-832q-EHaj92QBgh3cL8wEovaYlZwRkz1ZMz_yZDXVhI3Giv4b4ac/s200/abuse.JPG" border="0" /></a> I love the new LFG tool in World of Warcraft. It's been a godsend and helped erased the memory of Blizzard's past failures to make grouping easier. The reworking of the daily dungeon quests plays a big role in it's popularity, but I like to think it adds a lot of functionality to the game besides just being an emblem farming tool. I'm sure we'll see the majority of players make use of it when leveling up new worgen/goblin characters in the next expansion. The only problem I have with the LFG tool is that the unbalanced queue times for DPS classes are causing some issues. I understand that Healing and Tanking are the less popular roles in the MMO trinity and I don't really have a problem with them finding groups faster.<br /><div><div> </div><div>The problem is that I'm starting to see a trend of Healers and Tanks treating pick up groups as disposable commodities. The instant queue times seem to encourage some players to automatically drop group at the first sign that the heroic won't be complete in 20 minutes. Usually, everyone in a random pick up group has a high enough gear score that a normal heroic is joke. However, every now and then you get someone new to their class and they might slow things down a few minutes. I was running Azjol-Nerub and a hunter's pet accidently pulled Hadronox before the giant spider could web the entrances. No biggie, easy dungeon and it was the first problem in the run. However, the healer chose to berate the hunter for being an idiot and then left after the hunter claimed it was just an accident. Damn back to another 15 minute queue.</div><br /><div>It's even worse when you get one of the newer dungeons since players can still be farming a specific item off the first or second boss. It no longer surprises me when the tank or healer sudden abandons group in the middle of the Pit of Saron or the Halls of Reflection. It only happens about 10% of time but, it's one of the most annoying things in the game. Also most players don't know you get put in the top of the queue when finding a replacement. Thus most of the DPS will leave right away after someone drops from the group. I once had a friend tanking in Halls of Reflection and he accidentally disconnected after the first boss. Everone abandoned ship so fast I didn't even have time to type in "he just DC, will brb". Players are just starting to grow use to this behavior.</div><div><br />I'm not that worried about this trend right now when most people are overly geared for heroics. However, it might start becoming a major issue in the expansion when player's can't just breeze through dungeons. I play a paladin and a shaman which thankfully means I have access to instant queue times. However, warlocks, rogues, mages, and hunters can only DPS and are really hurt by a dungeon group being broken up early. I'm not sure what Blizzard can do to fix the issue, but it's becoming obvious that these classes will gear up at a much slower rate. The only real way to avoid the problem is to queue up for dungeons with a friend who plays a tank or healer. </div></div>Relmsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358853054116842043noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29172675.post-36822477677550464012009-12-11T21:21:00.000-08:002009-12-11T21:27:38.476-08:00Icecrown Citadel part 1One of the reasons I haven't been writing as much was that I joined a decent raiding guild that runs some of the top end content in World of Warcraft. Thus I was lucky enough this week to be able to jump right into Icecrown Citadel when the patch went live. So far it's been a welcome change from the Trial of the Crusader which had become ridiculously boring. The scenery of the large arena quickly became stale after the first couple of weeks of the Argent Tournament. I'm very glad that Icecrown includes a large environment for the raid to move through even if it means clearing trash once again. In addition, Blizzard has better scaled the encounter difficulty so that the first boss in the instance is not one of the hardest. The Beasts of Northend encounter had been a major chokepoint in the Trial of the Crusader.<br /><br />I'm tempted to write a long post since its been awhile but I just want to highlight my basic experience with the raid instance and what gave my guild trouble. There are very good strategies all over the internet if you want the details.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Trash:</strong><br />There are some fairly large trash pulls in the begining of Ice Crown though luckily they are vulnerable to crowd control. Thus you can make the pulls a bit easier if you have classes that can stun/root undead mobs. I think this was the first time I've seen a priest use shackle undead since Karazhan. They're a few specific trash mobs that can be dangerous and you'll want to watch out for them.<br /><br /><em>Skeletal Casters:</em><br />Use a spell which causes a line of frost spikes to travel along the ground in a straight line.<br /><br /><em>Giant Skeletons:<br /></em>They are entombed in the walls and will come to life when someone gets within range. Huge amount of hitpoints and you don't want them adding in the middle of a pull.<br /><br /><em>Nerubians before Lady Deathwhisper:</em><br />They cast a debuff on someone that will cause that person to keep the Nerubian alive and mostly kill the target if they don't run out of the raid. We just kept everyone stacked on the target and had the debuffed person run out. Just watch out if your tank gets the debuff since the off-tank will need to taunt.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Lord Marrowgar</strong> (1st Boss)<br />Very easy fight and we only wiped a couple of times since we didn't really go over the strategy ahead of time. He's basically a skeletal abomination who has a lot of bone themed abilities and looks cool as hell. His main attack hits multiple targets depending on threat level so it's required to have more then one tank on him. His other common ability is a ground based attack that travels in a straight line. This forces everyone in the raid to constantly adjust their position. Our melee dps quickly figured out he has a pretty large hitbox and it's easy to avoid the attack if you stand back a bit.<br /><br />The most important part of the fight though is to free players that have been impaled on bone spikes. The bone spikes root a single target and deal 10% damage each second, but can easily be targeted and killed. Other then that you just have to watch out for when Lord Marrowgar falls to pieces and forms a whirlwind of flying bones. In "Whirlwind of Death" mode he randomly picks a target and then chases them around while continuing his ground based line attack. This is the part where everyone gets to run around like a chicken with their head cut off until he reforms. It's a very fun fight and Blizzard really did a good job with this encounter.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Lady Deathwhisper</strong> (2nd Boss)<br />This was the chokepoint for my guild on the 25 man version. She looks like a female version of Kel'Thuzad and starts off with a mana sheild that you have to destroy to get her into the 2nd phase. Throughout the 1st phase she summons cultists from three sides of the room at timed intervals. Some of these cultists are immune to physical damage while others are immune to magic damage. This wouldn't be so bad except that she randomly empowers the adds which turns them into undead and increases their hitpoints and damage. To make matters worse the adds can also mutate which snares them, but makes them hit insanely hard. At this point range classes have to kite the mutated add since they can't be tanked. To further complicate the fight the cultists can randomly cast a suicide spell which explodes them for massive AOE damage.<br /><br />Luckily, the main boss herself is kind of a wimp and during the 1st phase will only cast random mind controls and a large area death and decay. During the 2nd phase after her mana has been depleted she will summon suicide ghosts which will target a single person and explode for AOE damage when they get within melee range. The only dangerous spell she herself has is a frostbolt spell that hits really, really, really hard and needs to be interrupted. She has a ten minute enrage timer and you will probably win if you can get her into phase 2 within 7 minutes.<br /><br />As much as Lord Marrowgar was a fun fight this fight sucked. The problem is that dps and crowd control need to be tightly coordinated across three seperate groups which are all doing different things. If too much dps is taken up by killing the cultists the mana shield doesn't go down before the enrage timer. The more common problem for my guild was that adds would slowly overwhelm us as we would lose dps to mutated cultists and suicide explosions. Eventually, we figured out all the little tricks and our dps stayed alive. I would not want to do this fight with a pick-up-group since it requires every dps class to have good situational awareness and not just rely on gear.<br /><br />The last two fights were much more fun and I'll write about them next.Relmsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358853054116842043noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29172675.post-26911319167559275522009-09-24T10:56:00.000-07:002009-09-24T10:59:21.761-07:00NCSoft's worry over server consolidations hamstrings AionI had been looking forward to Aion for awhile now since I heard a lot of good reviews from people who participated in the beta tests. The combat looked similar to World of Warcraft with a couple of additions like "combo chains" to make things a bit more interesting. Also the mobs and artwork looked unique and different from the standard fantasy fare I've gotten used to seeing. Playing through one of the starting zones I saw a couple monsters that resembled nothing like I've seen in a MMO before. There was this one mob that looked like it was produced by a kangaroo and a giant guinea pig getting it on. Aion may only bring a few new features to the MMO world, but the art assets alone make it worthwhile to try out. They have a race of hamster men for god's sake.<br /><br />That's why it’s such a shame that I'm having a difficult time logging into the Aion servers. After finally getting everything patched I was surprised to see such a small number of servers available. Only about twelve servers were online and they were evenly split between west and east coast. That wouldn't be so bad except all the servers in my region had queue times over an hour. I realize that new MMOs are never issue free, but putting an hour wait in front of someone who just bought a game is a bad idea. The specter of Tabula Rasa may be influencing NCSoft in this matter since that game suffered from severe server consolidation quite early on in its lifetime.<br /><br />Tabula Rasa seems to have left a lasting bad taste in NCSoft's mouth even though it wasn't that bad of a game. I had fun playing my chain-gun wielding space marine even though parts of the game were poorly designed for an MMO. This became particularly obvious at the end game and a lot of people left after reaching max level. Judging by the amount of servers Tabula Rasa went from around 80k players during its first month to about 15-25k players soon after. Still there was a large niche of players who really like the mix of FPS and RPG elements and probably could have supported the game financially. Unfortunately, NCSoft is not a fan of niche games and there was also the matter of legal disputes with the game's creator.<br /><br />The experience with Tabula Rasa seems to be making NCSoft overly cautious about adding servers to Aion during its first week of release. Kotaku has an interview up with some of the Aion managers who remark that this strategy is for the long term health of the game. Everyone remembers how bad the server populations crashed with Warhammer and Age of Conan last year and NCSoft would like to avoid the same fate with Aion. Their logic seems to be that news of server consolidations creates a very bad image and causes players to avoid a game. Thus, NCSoft would rather deal with pissed off customers who want to play then players avoiding Aion because of server consolidations.<br /><br />I admit throwing numerous new servers into a game is usually a bad idea and can cause server consolidations further down the line. However, using this as an excuse to justify multi-hour queues is just a bad idea. Even hinting that you might be worried about server consolidations implies a lack of trust in your MMO to keep people entertained at the end game. Both Warhammer and Age of Conan had problems with their end games though for different reasons. One was poorly thought out and the other suffered from horrible bugs. Aion however has been out in Korea for quite awhile and shouldn't suffer from any of these problems. The code should be well tested and the end game should be fully developed.<br /><br />The fact that NCSoft is moving so slowly with server rollouts makes me realize they just don't understand the reasons for the massive server consolidations that plague several MMOs last year. Worse is that they might be under the mistaken impression that it's just World of Warcraft's dominance in the West that causes this initial surge of interest in new MMOs. While WoW's long standing kickassery in the subscriber department has played a role in the matter, it doesn't dictate that every MMO will lose massive numbers after the first month. Thinking that this trend is unavoidable and being stingy with initial servers is just going to backfire and cause customer resentment. I'm crossing my fingers that this nonsense ends soon. I'm starting to get tired of logging onto west coast servers when I get home just because every east coast server has an hour long queue.Relmsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358853054116842043noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29172675.post-11348372594235614002009-09-21T12:35:00.000-07:002009-09-24T11:00:23.392-07:00The Cataclysm Revamp part2 - Path of the TitansOne of the most surprising features announced for the Cataclysm expansion was that it was only going to extend the end game by five levels. This goes against the trend set by the previous two expansions, but seems reasonable since Cataclysm is going to be focused on reworking the 1-60 content. However, trying to sell an expansion that didn't add any levels to the end game might have been hard to market. Blizzard obviously wants players to feel like they are getting their money's worth when they buy the new expansion. Thus the decision was probably made to add at least some new levels to the end game. This shorter leveling stretch though is going to make Cataclysm feel a bit different from previous expansions.<br /><br />We'll be getting five new leveling zones in Cataclysm even though the level cap was only raised to 85. This gives us a much higher zone ratio then Northend, which only had eight leveling zones (not counting Crystalsong or Wintergrasp). Hopefully, this means that there are multiple questing paths to reach max level just like in Wrath of the Lich King. On a negative note this could also mean that Blizzard artificially stretched out the levels in Cataclysm by increasing the experience requirements. This doesn't really fit their style though and I don't think Blizzard would copy a design decision which has proven to be a bad idea in other MMOs.<br /><br />Instead, I think a portion of the questing in Cataclysm will be devoted to the new Path of the Titans system. This system expands on the basic idea behind inscriptions and offers players another way to advance their characters besides gear and levels. Players basically align themselves with one particular Titan and then will be able to earn additional glyph slots and abilities to place in them. The system bears a remarkable resemblance to picking a deity for your character and I'm sure that's how the idea got started. Unfortunately, Blizzard was a little tight lipped on how you characters actually progress through this new system.<br /><br />I suspect we can look forward to some sort of reputation or token system for progressing along the Path of the Titans. I'm leaning towards a token system since Blizzard made heavy use of tokens for the Argent Tournament. I wouldn't be surprised to see Tol Barad serve as the daily quest hub for this purpose. If my memory serves me correctly then the devs have already announced that Tol Barad would be a quest hub similar to the Isle of Quel'Danas. However, they didn't say if the daily quests would grant gold, pvp tokens, or be involved with Path of the Titans advancement. It's quite possible that Tol Barad will just be for PvP quests and Uldum is the hub for Path of the Titans stuff.Relmsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358853054116842043noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29172675.post-83134477609868118402009-09-15T09:43:00.000-07:002009-09-24T11:02:26.421-07:00The Cataclysm Revamp part1 - Unbalanced CombatBlizzard shocked and delighted its fan base when they announced that their next expansion would be a revamp of the old world content. The lands of Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms sit mostly empty nowadays with only a few low level characters moving through them. Such a large amount of underutilized space is a waste of resources and makes the game less accessible to new players. People new to the game often have to depend on "recruit a friend" bonuses to get caught up with the rest of us. The game really isn't that fun if your only contact with other players is when they gank you.<br /><br />This could even become a major issue when Cataclysm is released. The re-worked zones are sure to attract explorers from every level and not just newly made goblins/worgen. On the PvP servers you should expect a lot of interference from higher level players as you are trying out the new quests. This expansion will probably revitalize open world PvP in some areas of Azeroth, though it's sure to be a nuisance to anyone making a new character. This sort of makes me suspect that Blizzard might have something up its sleeve to deal with the problem.<br /><br />One of the numerous minor changes to the game announced at Blizzcon was the reworking of how players upgrade their spells and abilities. Instead of constantly visiting your class trainer to get more powerful versions, your spells and abilities automatically upgrade themselves as you level. This suggests that Blizzard might also have the functionality to decrease the power of spells and abilities based on level. This is pure conjecture, but we could see a downgrading of damage when players fight characters that are grossly below their level. This would also have to take into account basic melee damage, but it's not entirely impossible.<br /><br />The idea would be to make it so players leveling new characters couldn't easily be one shotted by maxed level players. In the previous two expansions not that many people were playing new characters so this was never a major issue. However, after the Cataclysm the number of players leveling once again should be through the roof. That's going to be a pretty tempting target for players who are going to be 20 to 60 levels higher. Some classes will be able to use AOE abilities and massacre entire low level quest hubs in a few seconds. There was no motivation to do this when these quest hubs were mostly empty (no bragging rights), but that changes in the expansion.<br /><br />Even if Blizzard doesn't have some way of dealing with unbalanced combat we'll probably at least see some changes to limit ganking. At the very least I expect low level quest hubs to have their guards upgraded to level 85. There also might be some attempts to encourage players to protect low level quest hubs with their maxed level characters. Unfortunately, the problem is that the level difference is so great that most gankers will be able to wipe out a bunch of low level characters quickly and escape any consequences. That's why I really hope Blizzard is aware of the issue. Otherwise I might just be leveling my goblin and worgen in dungeons only.Relmsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358853054116842043noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29172675.post-54103873169536017482009-09-08T00:04:00.000-07:002009-09-08T00:05:31.666-07:00Most Annoying Mobs in MMOsI've been playing World of Warcraft more often since the last patch and I must say I'm enjoying the revamped badge system. It's worthwhile once again to do the heroic daily quest and I'm finding myself back in dungeons I hadn't seen in awhile. It's a shame that some dungeons just aren't popular and would probably never see any use if not for the heroic daily quest. Mostly it's just a matter of annoying boss fights like in the Halls of Stone or the Occulus. But I've noticed a couple I dislike because they have certain mob types I find annoying. Everyone has that certain monster or class they hate fighting. I known I've accumulated a list of them over the years though its probably different from person to person.<br /><br /><br /><strong>5) Spiders</strong><br />Spiders are probably one of the most common mob types after good old fashion rats and bats. Players can expect to see them at almost every level in a game since most game developers simply justify stronger spiders as being larger. Their overuse isn't the primary reason I find them annoying though. Instead it's because developers have taken the web spinning ability of the common spider and translated it into root and snare effects in most games. Throw a couple bosses who can encase you in web cocoons and the annoyance factor goes through the roof. Plus there's just something creepy about a human being caught in a web, probably goes back to that old sci-fi movie: help me, <span style="font-size:85%;">help me</span>, <span style="font-size:78%;">help me</span>.<br /><br /><strong>4) Giants</strong><br />I list giants not because of their ability to "grind your bones to make their bread" but because of the way large objects are rendered in online worlds. Giants should stick out like a sore thumb because of their size. However, every MMO giant seemed to have attended Ninja School with Bang (obscure NES reference) and learned how to become invisible to players until 10m away. To make matters worse giants are never static spawns and instead seem to enjoy taking power walks across entire zones. Sometimes the developers feel sorry for us and toss us a bone like a sound effect when a giant is nearby. However, more often then nought a player trying to eat/drink will fall victim to these deadly and mysteriously silent predators.<br /><br /><strong>3) Vampires</strong><br />The problem with vampires is that they're just too damn popular for their own good. Try to make a list of every ability that is attributed to vampires in popular fiction. I gave up after seven. This large talent pool basically gives the developers free reign to create super mobs. Luckily, most games save vampires for boss fights and thus players don't have to fight through armies of mind controlling, flying, invisible, wizard, re-generators, who command undead and shapeshift. When you do see a vampire boss though you can expect the most powerful abilities to be present though. Usually this involves at least one kind of life or mana drain just for the fun of it.<br /><br /><strong>2) Goblins</strong><br />Goblins always seem to be described as cunning and cowardly in fiction. The cowardly part is certainly true since goblins have been some of the best "runner mobs" in almost every MMO I've played. They also tend to congregate in large groups and tame/hire/make really big pets. Run into a goblin whose not afraid of you and chances are he's got a large ogre or some kind of mechanical monstrosity in the next room. Oh and the cunning part usually translates into goblins being able to choose from several magic using classes. That way they can root or snare you before they run away to find their 3,000 friends.<br /><br /><strong>1) Humans</strong><br />Humans are practically their own hybrid class in most MMOs. Developers tend to treat them as a blank slate and allow them to be any class or learn any skill. Humans are never particularly tough, but they have this annoying ability to work well in groups. Clearing a dungeon filled with humans is never simple and often involves finding "that damn healer" before your party runs out of mana. Human mobs basically use the same tactics as players and it's only our taunt abilities that allow us to win against them. Plus the only mob type that can give goblins a run for their money in the cowardly department are humans. Keeping an eye out for runners is always a requirement when fighting them.<br /><br />These are just my own personal dislikes and I'm sure everyone has that one type of mob they hate to fight in game. Feel free to put it in the comments since I'm interested to see if I left out any obvious contenders in the "most annoying mob" contest.Relmsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358853054116842043noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29172675.post-11581675572445910512009-09-03T10:40:00.000-07:002009-09-07T22:12:35.250-07:00Micro Review of Micro-transactionsBringing up micro-transactions in a blog post is a lot like trying to talk about global warming. Everyone has a different opinion on the matter and their own preferred way of addressing the issue. A lot players hate the idea of micro-transactions and like to pretend that it's not a viable business model. On the other hand you have people who fervently think it’s the wave of the future and ignore its lack of success in the western world. To further complicate matters there are several different ways of implementing micro-transactions in a MMO. Some games use them in conjunction with a subscription fee while others are entirely dependent on the sales of fluff items. For the most part games that micro-transactions based are often designed to cost hardcore players more than casual ones. You know the same audience that mostly blogs and posts the most about MMOS.<br /><br /><b>Types of Micro-transactions (DIKU based)</b><br /><br /><b>Buying </b><br />The basic micro-transaction plan which a lot of free2play games use. Players straight out buy items for their characters by paying a small fee. Most games make use of a virtual currency for these types of transactions so players are forced to buy (coins, doubloons, and tokens) in bundles. Games that use this model have to be very careful that they don't ruin the illusion of competition. As a result most items in this model are fluff items that just change the appearance of characters or the rate at which they gain experience/money. Unfortunately, a majority of players don't care about these types items and simply play the game for free. At the moment there seems to be two solutions to this problem. Either make the game play very grindy so players are greatly encourage to buy items or add a small subscription fee to stabilize revenue.<br /><br /><b>Renting </b><br />This micro-transaction model personally frustrates me, but several new games that use it have enjoyed moderate success in the market. In this model players don't actually buy items, but instead pay a small fee to rent them for a period of time. These items usually give the player special abilities and don't directly increase the stats/gear of their characters. The most common abilities include faster mounts, limited teleportation, increased storage space, and increased experience rates. Most subscription based games have these types of features built into their game design, while the micro-transaction model allows players to pick and choose them ala cart. Problems do occur though when a player tries to rent all the features they are used to having in a subscription based game and realize the micro-transaction one actually costs them more per month.<br /><br /><strong>Ebaying </strong><br />MMO's that follow the Ebay style of micro-transactions don't worry about maintaining a balance between items that can be bought with time or those that can be bought right away with cash. Items sold in their stores are often equal or more powerful then the best in the game. Free Realms is probably the poster child of this model and was designed to combine the mini-game aspect of websites like Neo-pets with "lite" MMO styled adventuring. This model only seems to work if the customer base doesn't care or is too young to understand that money greatly affects the game play. I suspect this model will always be limited to MMO's targeting children or poorly made Free2Play games that don't worry about balance issues.<br /><br />My descriptions of the different types of micro-transactions probably reveal that I'm not a fan. However, I'm not going to deny they provide huge advantages to certain types of MMOs. In general, Free2Play MMOs work well with micro-transactions since it allows them to quickly build up a large community and achieve a critical mass of players. However, a lot of times the revenue brought in by micro-transactions aren't enough to support a high quality game. That's why games that use micro-transactions often rely on grindy gameplay to force the use of an item store or small subscription fees. The only micro-transaction model that seems to be able to stand on its own two feet is the one that rents out items. However, this model greatly mirrors the subscription model except that it allows players to pick and choose the features they want to pay for each month.<br /><br />My preference in payment models is most likely a symptom of my laziness. I don't want to deal with keeping experience potions on my character or tracking when my individual item rentals are going to expire. That's why I'm probably going to stick with subscription based games in the future. However, if I was forced to choose some form of micro-transaction system I would prefer a tiered model where game time and items were bundled into differently priced packages. That way I could have the option of buying a smaller package when I knew I wouldn't have much time to play and I wouldn't have to keep track of everything.Relmsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358853054116842043noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29172675.post-79349736608883502492009-08-30T22:07:00.000-07:002009-08-30T22:29:27.044-07:00WoW's Cross Server InstancesAt <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Blizzcon</span> this year there was a definite sense of anger from the players towards the instance situation in World of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Warcraft</span>. At several panels people randomly shouted "Cannot create additional instances" during lulls in the discussion. When someone finally manage to bring up the topic during a Q&A session, the developers acted surprised. Their response was that the issue was already resolved and being implemented on the servers as they speak. Most people thought this meant Blizzard was finally selling off some of their money hats and buying more processing power.<br /><br />However, it looks like Blizzard is approaching the problem from a different route and focusing on creating a giant server pool for the instances. This should allow individual servers to avoid the "cannot create additional instance" problem that occurs during peak hours. The theory goes that different servers are in different time zones and thus not every realm will put a large strain on the instance server pool at the same time. I'm not sure if this will fix the issue completely, since emblems of conquest have revitalized dungeon running. At the very least it should help during the weekdays when the prime time is for concurrent users is small (7-11pm). Plus, the change does allow Blizzard to introduce a new cross server <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">LFG</span> tool.<br /><br /><strong>Cross Server <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">LFG</span> system</strong><br />1. Groups have to be formed using the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">LFG</span> tool.<br />2. The instance portal on each server then links to the same zone.<br />3. As a side bonus the system will reward people who use the tool to form <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">PUGs</span>.<br />4. Rewards are based on successfully completing a dungeon with a PUG.<br />5. Should allow players to experience low level dungeons again (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">worgen</span>/goblins)<br />6. They expect it to be ready for the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Icecrown</span> patch (probably ~Feb 2010)<br /><br />Blizzard was vague on what kind of rewards would be given out for successfully completing a dungeon using the new <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">LFG</span> system. I don't expect anything major or else you would have players trying to game the system. Most likely by having <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">premade</span> groups form up using the tool. Instead I think it will probably be something along the lines of an extra emblem or perhaps some honor. The system is a great idea and complements the new expansion well. New <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">worgen</span> and goblin players should be able to get groups and explore some of the interesting low level dungeons like Wailing Caverns and Black Fathom Depths.<br /><br />The only problem at the moment is the actual process of moving each realm into the giant server pool is kind of complex. It seems Blizzard has had to cap the number of instances for realms which haven't been moved yet as servers are being juggled around. Thus for some realms the "cannot create additional instance" problem has gotten worse during the last couple of weeks. Apparently, moving all the realms at the same time wasn't an option so they've been doing it piecemeal. If you're interested there's even a list of which <a href="http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=19109959718&sid=1">realms have already been optimized</a>. Unfortunately, my realm still isn't on the list so most of my weekend was filled with daily quests and not dungeons. By the rate Blizzard is working on the issue though it looks like September 2009 should mark the end of the dreaded instance shortage.Relmsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358853054116842043noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29172675.post-45049686754427600992009-08-26T16:06:00.000-07:002009-08-26T16:15:33.744-07:00Cataclysm’s Rated Battlegrounds<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQjCwdW2LIpcVT3XYqvfssm42IEvYLX0zV9B-kS3KWkCZU8uVVakw0KuUF9b93qYegH9pX_Cc4q9Nkikaj-V3-eZowVvYpxNlNEqiBMSKhH1IqQ2tuxoNn6nd1MmSQyw-qKy0A/s1600-h/wow+cataclysm.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374414466037519170" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 202px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 140px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQjCwdW2LIpcVT3XYqvfssm42IEvYLX0zV9B-kS3KWkCZU8uVVakw0KuUF9b93qYegH9pX_Cc4q9Nkikaj-V3-eZowVvYpxNlNEqiBMSKhH1IqQ2tuxoNn6nd1MmSQyw-qKy0A/s200/wow+cataclysm.bmp" border="0" /></a> One of the more interesting system revamps announced for Cataclysm was the introduction of rated battlegrounds. This should be a welcome change since its promises to balance out the PvP systems in World of Warcraft. At the moment the arena system dominates the PvP landscape and often gives an advantage to players in Wintergrasp and Battlegrounds. This is mostly because the arena system is the only way for melee classes to achieve decent PvP weapons. After the Burning Crusade the developers made a decision to tightly control epic weapons since so many people stopped raiding. This is why arena weapons during the Wrath of the Lich King have never been made available for honor.<br /><br />It wasn’t necessarily a bad idea to reign in the free epic weapons, but it’s gone too far in the opposite spectrum. Arenas may be almost exploit free and have better matchmaking system nowadays, but its still a poor decision to make it the main gateway for PvP gear. The very nature of combat in World of Warcraft makes small squad based fights very dependent on gear and luck. Battlegrounds and to a lesser degree Wintergrasp depend a bit more on coordination and strategy. In arenas things are simple and you just have to kill your enemies, while in battlegrounds you are more concerned with objectives and defeating them. Both are viable forms for PvP so it does seem a bit weird to reward one over the other.<br /><br /><strong>Main Problems with Arenas being the main PvP Gear Gateway</strong><br />1) WoW combat is still rock-paper-scissors to a certain degree<br /> -certain team combinations will always have an advantage over others because of class<br />2) Arenas are more heavily influenced by class nerfs and buffs then battlegrounds<br />3) Arenas tend to emphasize reflexes and gear over the strategy aspect of PvP<br />4) Allows highly ranked to arena players to faceroll their way through battlegrounds<br /><br /><strong>How the Rated Battleground Systems Works</strong><br /><br /><strong>Players:</strong><br />-Each player has a personal battleground rating<br />-Winning matches increases the rating while losing has no effect<br />-The same matchmaking system used in arenas will decide rating changes<br /><br /><strong>Battlegrounds:</strong><br />-Each week one battleground will be playable for rated matches<br />-Rated battlegrounds required a full pre-made raid to queue<br />-No special battleground team has to be made<br />-Blizzard said to expect three new battlegrounds<br /><br /><strong>Rewards:</strong><br />-Battleground Ratings will allow access to arena weapons/armor<br />-Rated Battlegrounds will reward arena points after each victory<br />-Arenas will also be changed so they give arena points after each victory<br />-Your previous week’s rating limits how many points you can earn that week<br />-The old Battleground titles will once again be available as rewards<br />-Top Performers in Arenas and Battlegrounds will also get epic mounts<br /><br />As you can see there are some pretty big changes to both the battleground system and arena system in the upcoming expansion. It looks like Blizzard is serious about making both systems viable ways of gaining PvP gear. Also since rated battlegrounds require pre-made teams you can expect players to police the system and kick out any bots or slackers after a single match. Most likely the only reason Blizzard has been so hesitant to reward battleground play in the past has been because of the honor farming problem.Relmsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358853054116842043noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29172675.post-9281868217265841052009-08-24T20:27:00.000-07:002009-08-25T06:04:45.279-07:00Blizzcon 2009 Dance ContestWell once again none of my pictures of the costume contest came out too well, but my little video camera was able to film the viewscreen for the world of warcraft dance contest. The winners seemed a little random this year. Though the first place winner definitely showed some impressive footwork.<br /><br /><br /><strong>1st Place Winner - Dwarven Female Dance<br /></strong><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/xzvDuU8O8v0&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/xzvDuU8O8v0&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><br /><strong>2nd Place Winner - Human Female Dance<br /></strong><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/D_Pci24NNEs&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/D_Pci24NNEs&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><br /><strong>3rd Place Winner</strong> - <strong>Dwarven Male Dance</strong><br /><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/7Hh7zq5dxHw&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/7Hh7zq5dxHw&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><br />Some other contestants who I thought were good and got passed over.<br /><br /><br /><strong>The Blood Elf Ninja Dance</strong><br /><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/xS5L7w65TLI&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/xS5L7w65TLI&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><br /><strong>The Inflatable Tauren Dance</strong><br /><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/STKRCPRz5xc&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/STKRCPRz5xc&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><br /><strong>Bloodelf Female Dance</strong><br /><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/-61B7RFuh_o&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-61B7RFuh_o&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Relmsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358853054116842043noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29172675.post-50354118956816355782009-08-24T15:43:00.000-07:002009-08-24T19:46:57.805-07:00Blizzcon 2009 Takeaways<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-oG3_eTihBD9ZZufjlkVWy_s-2pIp2tAbfjzfBGwAFOJBd8AOY441m3PMAT120n0BswDJJAwQuy7tFD9AcfoudTIaJJcCE63uh4a0C1-8uk7IB6qn_5hB53S6CUYT1tcWZ_S0/s1600-h/blizzcon.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373666970334273010" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 162px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-oG3_eTihBD9ZZufjlkVWy_s-2pIp2tAbfjzfBGwAFOJBd8AOY441m3PMAT120n0BswDJJAwQuy7tFD9AcfoudTIaJJcCE63uh4a0C1-8uk7IB6qn_5hB53S6CUYT1tcWZ_S0/s200/blizzcon.jpg" border="0" /></a> I was lucky this year since I had a friend who managed to charm tickets from the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Blizzcon</span> website. There were three of us refreshing the website constantly, but somehow he managed to get in as number 20 in the queue while I was number 8,000. Blizzard has to come up with a better system for selling <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Blizzcon</span> tickets one day. Even one of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">VPs</span> admitted that in the future they might just have to move the convention out of Anaheim and get a bigger venue. This year there were about 26,000 people attending and things were <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">definitely</span> more crowded even with the added hall.<br /><br />Still being stuffed into a convention hall with 26,000 nerds was a small payment for getting a lot of first hand experience with the next generation of Blizzard games. Just like last year they had demos for <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Starcraft</span> 2, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Diablo</span> 3 and World of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Warcraft</span>. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Starcraft</span> 2 had the Terran <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">singleplayer</span> campaign up and running though I spent all my time trying to kill my friends in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">multiplayer</span>. The <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Diablo</span> 3 demo had the new monk class and allowed the exploration of a desert zone with multiple cave-like dungeons. It always had the longest line, but was <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">proably</span> the most enjoyable demo. The World of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Warcraft</span> demo had the goblin and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">worgen</span> starting areas, but overcrowding made it hard to complete any of the quest objectives.<br /><br />Instead of spending all my time in the Cataclysm demo, I focused my attention more on the World of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Warcraft</span> panels. There were some pretty big announcements and not all of them related to the new expansion. I’ll try to order everything in a time frame in case you want to browse<br /><br /><strong>Revamped <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Onyxia</span> Encounter (Nov 2009)</strong><br />10-25 man raid with upgraded gear (showed a 2-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">hander</span> with 700-1000<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">dmg</span>)<br />T2 helms from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Ony</span> keep the same look<br /><br /><strong>3.3 <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">Icecrown</span> Citadel Patch (around late 2009, early 2010)</strong><br />Will include three 5-man dungeons (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">wrathgate</span> type elements)<br />Cross-server <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">LFG</span> tool for dungeons<br />Guide system that will reward people who forms groups in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">LFG</span> and complete dungeons<br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">Icecrown</span> Citadel (12 bosses including <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">Sindragosa</span> and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">Arthas</span>)<br />-awesome fight involving a horde/alliance airship battle<br /><br /><strong>Cataclysm Expansion (probably 2010)</strong><br />-All the leaked features like goblin and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">worgen</span> (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">worgen</span> have cool hats)<br />-Hunters and Warlocks get major revamps (no <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">mana</span>, soul shards changed)<br />-All of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">Kalimdor</span> and E. Kingdoms revamped and made flyable<br />-Heroic <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">Deadmines</span> and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">Shadowfang</span> Keep<br />-Rated Battlegrounds which give arena points (requires <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">pre</span>-made team)<br />-New advancement system called Path of the Titans<br />-Elimination of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">Spellpower</span>, Mp5, Defense, Armor Penetration (stats simplified)<br />-Guild Leveling System and Talent Tree (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34">raidwide</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_35">Rez</span>, Summon, Etc)<br /><br /><strong>7 New Zones (2 newbie 1-15 zones)</strong><br /><br /><strong>4 New Raids (all apparently done at release, so say <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_36">devs</span>)</strong><br />The <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_37">Firelands</span> (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_38">Ragnaros</span> no longer "too soon"), <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_39">Skywall</span>, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_40">Blackwing</span> Descent, Grim <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_41">Batol</span><br /><br /><strong>10 New Dungeon Instances</strong><br />Grim <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_42">Batol</span>, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_43">Uldum</span> (2), <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_44">Deepholme</span>, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_45">Skywall</span>, Abyssal Maw (2), <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_46">Blackrock</span> Caverns, Heroic <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_47">Deadmines</span>, Heroic <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_48">Shadowfang</span> Keep<br /><br />I’ll have some pictures and videos of the contests to put up as soon as I have everything organized. I'm very glad that Blizzard is going with a revamp of the old world instead of just focusing on end game content. However, the sparse amount of video and details make me think that this expansion is still pretty far away. Most likely its more then a year away. Luckily, Blizzard seemed pretty sure about SC2 being ready for a 1st quarter release since only the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_49">BattleNet</span> revamp is holding it back.Relmsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358853054116842043noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29172675.post-7400345984837928682009-06-30T17:10:00.000-07:002009-06-30T17:32:28.801-07:00Building a Better Battleground System<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1R1aZL72WuPZ94t1H8azV7NzP6krItYvvuwp3wwM6MY9-59xiw9NkJAFP5rYz4eOD-83XaPQOveKcq43NrgkGHRZtU9CJmziykboZKoz2XBqKje7xI-rE_Sk4R3NMhXim4Pyn/s1600-h/batlleground.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5353282936488494674" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1R1aZL72WuPZ94t1H8azV7NzP6krItYvvuwp3wwM6MY9-59xiw9NkJAFP5rYz4eOD-83XaPQOveKcq43NrgkGHRZtU9CJmziykboZKoz2XBqKje7xI-rE_Sk4R3NMhXim4Pyn/s200/batlleground.jpg" border="0" /></a> The battlegrounds are going through a lot of fine tuning in the upcoming patch. It's not surprising since the developers have admitted that PvP in World of Warcraft is a little too focused on arenas right now. I seems like Blizzard might slowly be moving towards another revamp of the honor system in the future. However, before they upset the balance of power between arena and honor points they probably want to look at sprucing up the individual battlegrounds. At the moment a couple of battlegrounds are vulnerable to stalemates and honor farming expeditions and players can often find themselves trapped. Warsong Gulch is the poster child of the never ending death-match and a twenty minute time limit is a welcome addition.<br /><br />The resource gathering battlegrounds are not quite as broken as Warsong Gulch, but Blizzard still has a couple of good modifications in the works. Both Arathi Baisin and Eye of the Storm are having their victory conditions changed so that only 1600 resources are required to win a game. Also it looks like Blizzard is finally rewarding players who defend flags by giving flags an aura which increase honor gains by 50%. Another corresponding change is that flags now only take eight seconds to capture instead of ten. This should encourage teams to have players on guard duty or else be very vulnerable to ninjas.<br /><br />Strands of the Ancients is also getting a slight update, which I think is good idea. The Wrath of the Lich King battleground has surprisingly become a favorite for alliance players and their faction does seem to win it more often. I attribute this to the alliance always starting on offense first which seems to give them a slight mental edge when they manage to take the relic chamber. A sizable percentage of players don't like putting any effort into a game which at best can only become a tie. Thus, the horde suffers from more AFKs mid-game then the alliance. Randomizing the starting position should fix the issue though I'm sure it will make earning honor harder for alliance characters.<br /><br />Beyond the small tweaks to battlegrounds in Patch 3.2, we can probably expect some major changes further down the line. I have a feeling that we'll be looking at something that allows epic weapons and armor to be earned without a high arena rating within the year. That's not to say that Blizzard will just hand out gear upgrades to anyone with a working battleground bot. Instead, I think we might be looking at some sort of battleground rating system. In the past Blizzard experimented with a match making system for battlegrounds that used the ilevel of a player's gear. It was quickly taken out though, since it caused the queue times to dramatically increase.<br /><br />However, the current matchmaking system for the arenas is very efficient and I think it could be adapted to the battlegrounds. This might just be the perfect solution to the bots and afk players which have consistently plagued battlegrounds. The current system simply rewards players for being in a battleground and the reporting system really only works in the longer Alterac Valley. If a personal battleground rating was used on some higher level PvP gear it could solve a lot of balance problems in PvP. Currently, the smaller arena brackets suffer from better geared "Ringers" who run friends through late at night. This often results in players who attempt to bring their arena rating up fairly getting pounded. Battlegrounds are much more resilient to this type of manipulation since the games are opposing factions only.Relmsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358853054116842043noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29172675.post-82284547164409916662009-06-29T00:10:00.000-07:002009-06-29T05:56:07.708-07:00Pimp My Gear<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy1-QYETREZeHYq7ZfkbqsvTnCSRys6ACPwTbCbKvQeY-LsFB97B-jvMbcTMaL1TjnqzCtez6Vy3Jbb2muoMd7nmoKiSVmBzz-8OdiCabfaI8Zo2zefHpsAitAhEharHvD88xD/s1600-h/pimp-my-ride-0054.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5352601222699134690" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 112px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy1-QYETREZeHYq7ZfkbqsvTnCSRys6ACPwTbCbKvQeY-LsFB97B-jvMbcTMaL1TjnqzCtez6Vy3Jbb2muoMd7nmoKiSVmBzz-8OdiCabfaI8Zo2zefHpsAitAhEharHvD88xD/s200/pimp-my-ride-0054.JPG" border="0" /></a> I was a little mad when Champions Online and Jumpgate Evolution were delayed, but before I could even fume about it I actually got an invite into the Champions beta. I'm not going to go into any details, but I'm glad to see that Cryptic is keeping true to their history of awesome creation tools. I was always impressed by the character creation process in City of Heroes even if I found the actual gameplay quite boring. In fact a lot of my friends also thought that creating a costumed crime fighter was more fun than playing the game. In college I would often come back from class to find that my roommates had filled all my character slots with cyborg pirates. It's a shame that no other MMO developer has allowed players the same level of customization.<br /><br />I guess the major reason is because most MMOs work off the diku model, which means that character progression is all about equipment upgrades. If equipment visuals were set at the beginning of the game then most players would probably start off with the most awesome looking weapons and armor they could imagine. Half the reason players like climbing the gear progression ladder is because the higher level stuff tends to look better. Thus, just putting a costume generator from City of Heroes/Champions into a WoW clone is probably a bad idea. Still this doesn't mean that a such a system couldn't be adapted for an equipment based game.<br /><br />I think one good idea would be to meld the City of Heroes character creation system into crafting. It would require some fine tuning, but such a system would probably create a strong game economy as some players made their own gear. Developers could even use item rarity to limit the "awesomeness" of weapons and armor. A plain looking pattern or design could require crafting materials from low level mobs while the more spectacular ones could require items from dungeon bosses. While not everyone would want to design their own gear, I think a lot of players would appreciate more variation in equipment. This is especially true at the end game of MMOs like World of Warcraft where tier sets tend to make everyone look the same.<br /><br />It's a very boring system and I don't know any valid reasons why everyone should look the same. I've heard the argument that it's good for PvP so that you can visually recognize weaker and stronger targets. That may have been true in the past, but the user interfaces for these types of games have improved over the years. Most now allow opponents to see hitpoints and mana, which are pretty good indicators of a player's equipment status. I don't think there is any good reason for not opening up a complex crafting system which allows players to customize the visual look of items they make. I realize that a lot of developers are afraid of "the time to penis", but City of Heroes has managed to avoid the issue.<br /><br />I really hope the MMOs that come out over the next couple years start adopting the same level of customization seen in City of Heroes. I'm getting awfully tired of everyone looking the same when I raid or PvP. It's especially painful when the graphic artists are rushed and you get some of the ugly armor sets seen in Wrath of the Lich King.Relmsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358853054116842043noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29172675.post-37856161157960269552009-06-26T13:51:00.000-07:002009-06-26T14:16:18.620-07:00Please Play Our Game Less - Go Outside or Something<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOAE3JLtlSNPTPOdxjzoEegnuQW4FM9r0RvCfgoDEs4jiEOs_pc9SPDMZ9I8Jw_EXAbRtIcokgPMee1Ugrfo-6FK_FEn145WBfaDiO0qiYqCCV85QN3OAYRD6DrUQSO8v1WKbO/s1600-h/kids_playing.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351747848920841058" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 154px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOAE3JLtlSNPTPOdxjzoEegnuQW4FM9r0RvCfgoDEs4jiEOs_pc9SPDMZ9I8Jw_EXAbRtIcokgPMee1Ugrfo-6FK_FEn145WBfaDiO0qiYqCCV85QN3OAYRD6DrUQSO8v1WKbO/s200/kids_playing.jpg" border="0" /></a> Most players are aware that the next patch for World of Warcraft will be changing Wintergrasp into a somewhat bastardized mix of open world pvp and battelground instances. I almost used the term "hybrid" to describe this change, but I think that implies beneficial traits being mixed together. Nothing can be further from the truth in this situation since the changes are designed to make Lake Wintergrasp less popular with players. This trend was noted by a lot of different bloggers earlier in the year when Blizzard switched the Wintergrasp quests from a daily format to a weekly one. There's a definite sense of irony in trying to make parts of your game less popular so you can avoid latency issues.<br /><br />It's not like changing the quests to a weekly format had any real effect in making Lake Wintergrasp less popular either. Both factions still desire loot from the Vault of Archavon and tokens for winning games are still useful for freshly minted level 80 players. That's probably why Blizzard has decided to take the limiting factor of battleground queues and mix it with the reset timer of world PvP objectives. Thus the servers only have to deal with about a hundred players being squeezed into a small area once every three hours. Of course I'm pretty sure more then a hundred people want to participate in Lake Wintergrasp, but hey it's their fault for playing such a popular game in the first place.<br /><br />I might be overdoing the sarcasm here, but Blizzard seems to have this new attitude of ignoring any problems brought on by limited server resources. They may have broken all sorts of sales records with Wrath of the Lich King, but they sure aren't in a hurry to use that money on additional processing power for servers. I can't entirely blame them for not rushing to upgrade since the number of concurrent users has been dropping over the last few months. No reason to rush and spend money in a tough economy when the demand might not be there in the future. Hell, I can even run instances during the weekdays now without constantly running into the dreaded "Server cannot create additional instances" message.<br /><br />However, Blizzard is walking a fine line by avoiding architecture upgrades by implementing bad game design. The next patch may reduce the lag problems in Lake Wintergrasp, but it's sure to cause a lot of resentment when people keep missing the queue. Also I wonder about the proposed changes to emblems in the heroic dungeons. I think it's a great idea to let dungeon players catch up with raiders. However, it's sure to have large numbers of players flocking back to heroic dungeons just as the new raid zone goes live. On the weekend it can still take me 10-15 minutes to create an instance for my group and I'm expecting the problem to only get worse after the patch. Hopefully, Blizzard has some sort of solution and it doesn't involve re-working the daily dungeon quests into a weekly format. Otherwise I fear World of Warcraft might be starting to implode from the weight of its own success.Relmsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358853054116842043noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29172675.post-6269543206890946212009-05-27T19:41:00.000-07:002009-05-27T19:50:43.353-07:00Death and Passing on your Virtual Assets<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMCDYhwuuXS7ZFMw8whUWF0RAIRiRC2J1JH3A5ZruaNjBvCY2UOFzFaotMp_D_emXK5vyEZ27PqtD7F7NKtogf8zNLMM3YE4v_RcRulsmujG7azWon5OCSw051q1wtjvLDblgj/s1600-h/jbox_tombstone.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5340701776465304466" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 142px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMCDYhwuuXS7ZFMw8whUWF0RAIRiRC2J1JH3A5ZruaNjBvCY2UOFzFaotMp_D_emXK5vyEZ27PqtD7F7NKtogf8zNLMM3YE4v_RcRulsmujG7azWon5OCSw051q1wtjvLDblgj/s200/jbox_tombstone.jpg" border="0" /></a> I don't really have that much experienced with real money transfers except in the form of spam advertisements. I know there's a pretty big market out there for selling gold to players and that this drives the theft and hacking of accounts. It's not all illegal though since I know some players routinely sell off their characters and virtual savings whenever they get tired of a game. While almost every game out there has a EULA that supposedly prevents players from cashing out, it's usually ignored. Theoretically, anyone whose played an online game for a couple months and earned some virtual cash could probably get a couple hundred dollars for their account. Some dedicated individuals who've raided or traded their way into a virtual fortune might be able to squeeze a couple thousand dollars from an auction site.<br /><br />It's no wonder then that online services that protect virtual assets are also starting to mention game accounts. Usually, services like <a href="http://www.assetlock.net/">Asset Lock </a>or <a href="http://www.legacylocker.com/">Legacy Locker </a>are for people that have a lot of money tied up in online sites like ebay or paypal. If you suddenly die then it can be quite hard for your immediate family to get access to any of your accounts. You could just write your account information down on a piece of paper and put it in a safety deposit box, but most of these services are cheaper. It's almost like a digital will without the lawyers. It's still not the most useful thing in the world and it seems kind of gimmicky at the moment. However, I'll admit that over the last ten years I've gone from maybe one or two online accounts to around twenty. Some of these accounts are just things like email, but a surprising number of them do have monetary value.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/05/18/death.online/index.html">Like this CNN article says</a>, we are spending more of our lives online and people are actually starting worry about this kind of stuff. This seems like an obvious sign that society is starting to associate more value to virtual property as they spend more time online. It's not actually that unbelievable. After all, the value of real world currencies have nothing to do with the ink and paper they are printed on. Virtual items tied up in accounts are the same way. They're worth what people will pay for them and in some instances that can be a lot. And since established institutions like banks are mostly absent in this market we are seeing companies pop up in their stead. It may be a little early for these companies to make a lot of money now, but in ten years who knows? I'm just thinking how much fun it will be ten years from now to track down this post and comment on how my bank finally started a similar service.Relmsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358853054116842043noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29172675.post-55135794099192535562009-05-26T15:56:00.000-07:002009-05-26T16:13:41.598-07:00Blizzard Authenticator: Coming to a Credit Card near you<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjFqVV5yqWVXA_gskCz1yfCOB_NpgY_S09Gw1U1p-3c2L3RfUzySuFvTAi1ebLkm_gjVB4cjbPvLAJwXckG39dQmb_ezhZFhOKzITLyh12k9G32RxWXkwFGQK8P-skxj5oTBhG/s1600-h/_45766128_emuecard2.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5340274032399924738" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjFqVV5yqWVXA_gskCz1yfCOB_NpgY_S09Gw1U1p-3c2L3RfUzySuFvTAi1ebLkm_gjVB4cjbPvLAJwXckG39dQmb_ezhZFhOKzITLyh12k9G32RxWXkwFGQK8P-skxj5oTBhG/s200/_45766128_emuecard2.jpg" border="0" /></a> User accounts for virtual worlds are the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">preferred</span> target of high tech <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">thieves</span> nowadays. Not only is it relatively easy to liquidate stolen digital property, but there's almost no risk of prosecution. Virtual property isn't really understood by most courts of laws around the world and a majority of legal systems would find it hard to define stealing such items as theft. However, just because it's difficult to establish real world value for virtual property doesn't mean it's worthless. In recent years, digital criminals have devoted more effort into setting up <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">phishing</span> scams and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">trojan</span> installers for game accounts then credit cards. This shows that there is obvious real world value to these accounts.<br /><br />As World of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Warcraft</span> has grown into the largest subscription based <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">MMO</span> its become the main target of scams and computer viruses seeking out account information. It's safe to say that as the criminal activity targeting the game increased so has the load on it's customer service system. Since each case requires a fair amount of time to investigate and fix, the costs associated with customer service have risen. Also since Blizzard has several high level competitors they can't simply ignore requests to restore hacked accounts. It's because of this situation that Blizzard eventually introduced the authenticator. This relatively simple device can be registered with a player account and then provides a different password <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">every time</span> the player wants to log in.<br /><br />I'll admit that it's a small increase in effort to log in with an authenticator, but players who have been <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">repeatably</span> hacked feel like it's worth the trouble. The device seems to be working quite well in preventing compromised computers from gaining control of World of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Warcraft</span> accounts. In fact it seems to be working so well that <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8046492.stm">Visa is exploring a similar system for it's credit cards</a>. Currently being tested is the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Emue</span> card which has a screen on the back which generates an <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">additional</span> pin number for every transaction. This doesn't help much if the card is physically stolen, but more then half of all credit card fraud is committed online nowadays. Thus just like the Blizzard Authenticator, the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Emue</span> card protects it's account holders with a layer of protection that can't be broken online.<br /><br />The relative similarity between the two systems makes me wonder if Visa and Blizzard are using the same security company. Since game accounts and credit card information are two of the top targets for online crime I guess it makes sense that they use the same security measures. Of course just like the Blizzard Authenticator, the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Emue</span> card will probably only be adopted by people who've had their information stolen before. Still since Visa is planning on making the system backwards compatible that means stores will be able to handle both types of cards. If the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Emue</span> card becomes widely available for free then I expect anyone who shops online will adopt it pretty quickly. And the fact that the Blizzard Authenticator system has been working so well makes me believe this is a pretty secure technology and not a simple gimmick.Relmsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358853054116842043noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29172675.post-20422376010137141592009-05-12T09:54:00.000-07:002009-05-12T09:57:53.779-07:00Can Blizzard survive being the most bankable game studio?Blizzard Entertainment was recently announced as the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8043654.stm">most successful game studio this year</a> as calculated by Develop magazine. I'm not really sure what qualifies them to rank game studios, but their <a href="http://www.develop100.com/">website</a> says their <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">calculations</span> are based on sales data, critical success, and industry standing. Still it seems suspicious since the Develop 100 had Blizzard Entertainment <a href="http://kotaku.com/5249292/blizzard-trumps-nintendo-in-develop-100">ranked 46 spots lower last year</a>. I know Wrath of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Lich</span> King moved a lot of boxes, but World of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Warcraft</span> has been dominating the PC sales charts hand and hand with the Sims for the last four years. So why are trade publications only now starting to notice?<br /><br />Well its no secret that Blizzard doesn't make bad games. The management for the company seems slightly different from other game studios and allows for long delays in production to fine tune a game. That's not to say they would allow a project to become vaporware or a 100 million dollar disaster like <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Tabula</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Rasa</span>. Just look at <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Starcraft</span> Ghost which Blizzard had no problems axing when it became apparent the quality wasn't there. Blizzard's dedication to quality isn't something that recently appeared and earned it a spot on the list. No the real reason is most likely that it's becoming more widely known just how much money World of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Warcraft</span> is earning from subscription fees alone.<br /><br />I've long suspected that Blizzard has been making close to a 100 million dollars a month on subscriptions and it's recently been confirmed in several earnings report. Additionally, a subscription service whose only real cost is server maintenance and customer support has to have a great profit to revenue ratio. It's been theorized that a AAA <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">MMO</span> takes about 50 million dollars to develop and that number has been thrown around a couple of times for <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Warhammer</span> Online. That means even if only half of the subscription revenue is profit then Blizzard still recoups its <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">initial</span> investment on World of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Warcraft</span> every month of the year.<br /><br />Those kinds of investment returns just stand out like a sore thumb and it's probably why Blizzard was swallowed up by <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Activision</span>. I just hope Blizzard can survive the future as the most bankable game studio while still producing high quality products. Last year there were some rumblings about the decision to split <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Starcraft</span> 2 into three <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">separate</span> games. Some people thought it seemed a little too much like a naked money grab, something a mega studio like EA or <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Activision</span> would do. While the giants of the game industry are very good about squeezing every last cent from a franchise they also make a lot of lackluster crap in the process.<br /><br />With a good percentage of the profits earned by <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Activision</span> this last quarter coming from World of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Warcraft</span> you have to wonder if Blizzard will be pushed to maintain this pace. It's fine if they are able to keep their revenue up by making the same high quality games we've come to expect from them. If all three <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">Starcraft</span> 2 games introduce a fair amount of quality content then I'm not one to complain. I think most gamers have come around to the idea simply because it gets the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">multi-player</span> version into our hands faster. However, the next "innovative" idea might not have the same silver lining. It's makes me wonder if Blizzard can juggle quality, quantity and profits equally in the future or if short-term profits will start to become the priority.Relmsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358853054116842043noreply@blogger.com2