Dark-Adjusted Eye

Solo Progression

2011-12-31T08:43:00.000-08:00

And this makes sixteen posts, next year I'm not going to make the resolution of trying to write more posts than the last because I just might go through several months of being fed up of MMOs, end up having to post several on the last day of the year again, and also I've been playing many more ~~solo~~ single-player games lately, especially Skyrim.

I want to pick up from the last post and continue banging out a few more thoughts about 'solo progression'. I think anyone rolling their eyes at the phrase, is missing the point at what it entails, it is not 'raid gear for casuals', and the whole notion of working harder (i.e. a time consuming grind) for the same reward that gets commonly suggested is wide of the mark too. It comes down to why it is fine that no matter what difficulty a player chooses in a single-player game, they get the same reward, and why that is derided as 'unworkable' in MMOs.

That why Skyrim is refreshing to me, I'm approaching it as a journey involving choice and that I'm fine with not having an optimal character. I'm avoiding the wiki altogether, which is necessary because looking up some things that I thought would be fairly benign leads to spoilers, ok so what was that tough mob I just fought, oh it was a dragonpriest, and look there are more of them, all neatly listed in a table with locations, had to quickly look away, or checking out the enchanting page to see how it works and scrolling down to find a guide to fully optimising my character. I made that mistake in Oblivion because as soon as I think about optimizing my character, a lot of the fun goes out of the game, but it's the routine approach for an MMO.

There is still progression in Skyrim, but it is tied to player choice about how they build their character, but also some mobs are just tougher. I'm now swatting wolves like flies but I'm still running away from trolls unless I've back-up because at the moment my character is all melee without magic, but I wouldn't change it because I've already planned a second character to be a magic user. Playing a game in my own way is a welcome change to themepark MMOs where there is usually a single progression track, a one-size fits all mentality.

[Rift] Ember Isles and Solo Progression

2011-12-31T07:28:00.000-08:00

Ember Isles is now my favourite zone in Rift, it's a tropical island, dense jungle, obscured ruins, and some carefully designed vistas like the view from Ember Watch to the volcano in the middle of the island. It doesn't seem any bigger than the other zones, but it's more open and more intricate at the same time, being bound in by mountains the whole thing makes zones in MMOs all the more oppressive.

Ember Isles is not just a new zone or daily quest hub, it is a 'hard difficulty' zone designed for level 50 players. Going there like I was in quest gear was a little on the painful side, to put it in perspective I had about 4.5 k health, mobs had three times that amount and I could only take on one at a time, and quests where I didn't have to kill mobs were a welcome relief. Near a defended sourcewell is fairly safe, those invasion mobs seem to have lower health than the normal static mobs and I could always drag some of the normal mobs near a gun turret for some extra firepower. Being a rogue helped too.

The increased challenge was nice, I was chuffed to take out a stage 3 of a minor rift, but it's definitely a case of bring a friend, because it did get tiresome having to burn through those huge health bars. Even if a player was in the best of gear, is a raid tier 2 kitted player worth two not so well geared players, or are they? I'm asking because I've no idea about how steep that power curve is in Rift, but Trion has acknowledged this as a problem and has plans to lessen the gap somewhat by bringing the lower tier gear closer to the upper tier, like that will work out well when it is not tackling the root of the problem.

Rift has another problem with crafting rifts and well geared players taking all the participation, when stages end in a matter of seconds before less adept players have even cast their AoEs. The solution being mooted by Trion is to have rift mobs scale to gear levels, which was met with cries of 'how am I supposed to solo major rifts now?' and most telling of all 'what's the point of getting better gear if I can't streamroll through the rest of the game?' (and make it less fun for other players?).

It's a bit of a conundrum, having to raid to be able to solo an outdoor zone. I'm not averse to raiding, I like the idea of rift raids and 10-man slivers, it's gear progression that kills the fun rather quickly for me, though I had to quash the thought that if I worked a bit to get better gear I could enjoy the content on Ember Isles more, and that's exactly the point the game becomes a chore. There is planar gear that is about tier 1 raid gear, but the amount of Incribed Sourceshards needed is a ridiculous grind, looked at it and thought it was a nice idea that the gear could be upgraded up to three times but then worked out how long it would take to acquire all those shards for even a single fully upgraded piece and had second thoughts.

It's sort of depressing that most subscription MMOs seem to only thrive on gear progression, and there are very few alternatives. However, as soon as Trion extends the 'all new improved and expanded' Instant Adventure system to Ember Isles I may be tempted to subscribe for a month again.

[Rift] Brief Return

2011-12-31T06:14:00.000-08:00

Trion was hacked recently and gave everyone three free days, even previous subscribers, which was an opportunity I gladly took because I wanted to see what Ember Isle had brought to the game. But first I'm going to describe two features that while not totally innovative, may lead to something really interesting if Trion are smart about it.

'Sourcewells'

These are for all extents and purposes an upgrade to the wardstones found in the other zones, and they are found outside of quest hubs. They consist of a central objective surrounding by several gun and healing turrets, each of these objects can be repaired and upgraded four times, with NPC defenders spawn at the last upgrade. Invasions start to attack and there are repeatable quests to defeat 20 invasions. Pretty straightforward, but something I didn't know is that the more objects upgraded the more invasions that spawn, so in effect players can create scalable events on demand.

To upgrade the objects players need to spend 4 planar charges, which are easily obtained by standing in planar anomalies. These are abundant crystals found adjacent to the sourcewells that can be broken and begin to pulse, each pulse restoring a planar charge. A nice feature about these is that multiple players, no matter if they are grouped or different factions can take advantage of these pulses. This easy source of planar charges was something I looked for originally to make planar powers more useable, and it definitely works, even going to other zones I'm more likely to use the abilities because a full supply of charges is just a teleport away.

During zone events, four sourcewells out of thirteen are selected and must be defended, which with the upgrades is much easier than with other wardstones, it's rewarding too and people seem more willing to do it, which is great change. One of my concerns is that there is still 'tagging' but with not having experienced it enough, there does seem to be a looser measure of participation for the repeatable quests at least if not planar rewards.

Sourcewells, a precursor to some more dynamic events where all participation is rewarded, with players working together, grouped or not?

'Instant Adventures'

These are just quests, and Rift has never had the most exciting of quests to be perfectly honest, but these give the feeling of when there is a large group romping through solo content i.e. mobs explode and everyone is running around like headless chickens, so in a word, chaos. It is fun though and if I was levelling a new character 45+ (when these become available in Shimmersands and Starkmoor) these would be what I would choose over normal questing. I know that without trying them there is a lot of misconceptions going around about how they work, they are not like skirmishes in Lotro at all. A player brings up the IA menu, which consists of a choice of the two zones and a join button, the player is teleported to the zone and placed in a raid group, and a given a simple objective highlighted on the map. Once an objective is completed, the next quest pops up and either the group runs there or gets a teleport button if the new quest is a distance away.

At the moment the IA system doesn't mix well with rifts and invasions, I was in a group holding a wardstone during an event, and somehow a group doing IA got combined and it got a bit crazy with objectives popping up and a daily quest to finish 7 IA quests, that I'd picked up earlier was being completed for me even without taking part. When the zone event ended I could just teleport to where the IA was happening and finish my daily quest. I think this is where this system can go from being good to being exceptional if rifts, events, maybe some open world PvP was incorporated, or some occasional puzzles that slow down the group to communicate a bit more.

To sum it up, this feature is what WoW should be copying rather than skirmishes from Lotro. I have a soft spot for Rift because it does seem to have some good ideas like these, but they seem reluctant in taking enough departures from the status quo and differentiate themselves from the competition.

[Lotro] Lucky Bags

2011-12-20T13:07:00.000-08:00

With the recent release of Update 5, Turbine introduced Steel-bound lockboxes to the game, and it was changed for ever more! These are rare loot drops that require a key to open, this key is also a rare loot drop, but conveniently enough it can be bought for 100 TP in the store. Unsurprisingly, this has generated a lot of uproar on the official forums. On the face of it, it doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but typically this new features comes with a few 'bugs' (which if not intentional are highly suspect).

One 'bug' involves the inability to drag the lockbox out of your inventory to destroy it, with bag space being a premium in the game and with my completely unfounded belief that lockboxes may drop more often than keys, that has annoyed people and the 'official' work around is to try and sell it to someone more foolish, or email it to alts and allow it to be deleted. The other 'bug' is that supposedly some of the items contained within are poorer than intended, like one player shouldn't have only received one pink dye. It is incredibly frustrating for someone invested in the game to see a highly controversial feature added with these 'quirks' and not get fixed ASAP.

One of the main issues players are protesting is this notion that they are introducing 'gambling' to the game, which I don't necessarily agree with. Loot chests are always a random chance, but the inclusion of tokens or rewards that are divided equally, not to mention the positive feeling of defeating encounters overcomes the negatives of the RNG. I doubt the RNG will ever go completely from MMOs, getting tokens turns into a grind fast but having some extra random item drop in addition is enough to sweeten the deal (see the upsurge in raid skirmishes). But the problem about lockboxes is not the random chance, it's the minimum value that a player receives for spending 100 TP, and if there is one then it's being kept firmly under wraps. It's the difference between how 'lucky bags' and a scam are perceived.

Lucky bags available nowadays are likely more expensive than 100 TP in monetary value, but they usually contain several items, and if a child is not enthused by the toy there is always the sweets and chocolates. If Turbine had decided a minimum value, say each lockbox contained some currency (gold, medallions, seals etc.), some consumable items (store exclusive potions, buff items, scrolls) and a cosmetic item (cloaks, clothes, dyes, that exclusive mount, and the highly desired creep skins that have gotten the PvMP crowd up in arms), one item from each category in each box is where I'd put a minimum value. Asking players to spend 100 TP for a chance of getting junk is not acceptable and people have every right to express their disdain, whereas at least if they decided a minimum value and were open about it and also revealed the chances of obtaining the other rare 'advertised' items, this feature would be more accepted. There is unlikely ever going to be good data available in the community because apparently no-one is opening these lockboxes except for some curious people who got stung once and thought never again.

In the end I don't object outright to these items in the game, I'll happily ignore them while playing but it's the poor conception and implementation that is really dragging my enthusiasm for the game down.

[GW2] The Mesmer Unveiled

2011-12-16T11:26:00.000-08:00

So no surprises at all, and Arenanet even got in a jab at the minstrel concept.

When I was speculating before on the key concept of the class, I was working under the premise of having a class based on punishment but without hexes. I'm ambivalent on the way they solved the 'no hexes' stance, they did in fact end up with 'hexes' but they work differently to what came before, though I'm consoled by the fact that these 'pseudo-hexes' seem to work in a better manner. There was one skill revealed that fitted my desired notion of the class, a barrier that if an enemy crosses they are crippled and if an ally moves through they gain swiftness, I'm still holding out that there are more skills with dual purposes like that, but what Arenanet has come up in addition to that beats the expectations I had.

But first those 'pseudo-hexes', one is a new condition called 'confusion' that deals damage whenever an enemy uses a skill. The fact it is a condition rather than a hex is better for two reasons, most classes have a heal that removes conditions or an utility skill that removes them from allies, so condition removal is going to be quite abundant and eliminates having to dedicate a slot to hex removal. The second reason is that the condition is stackable, so one application might be tolerable, but 3 or 4 can really start to hurt, it's no longer all or nothing:

"As of right now, it can actually stack. This means that it does a small amount of damage with one application, but with many applications, it will definitely make someone think twice about attacking!"

The second solution is that they have created phantasms, which appear like a physical manifestation of a hex, so there is a phantasm called 'Backfire' that appears and does damage to the target whenever they use a skill. I like the concept of these entities that look like the caster but have a one-track mind, they seem to have one skill and only target the enemy they were cast on, and linger until they are destroyed or the target dies. The advantage of this mechanic over hexes is that they can be attacked and dispelled by anyone if they choose. I'm in two minds about their appearance, they are purple/pink, translucent shades of the caster, and don't look like clones (which are an exact duplicate of the caster) so their is no possibility of mistaking one for the other, but an appearance that is more unique with a distinct silhouette like a beautiful dream that shatters to reveal an ugly nightmare. The aesthetic of the mesmer is fine, but injecting a little bit of ugly through the phantasms to offset the butterflies and rainbows evident in other skills would be a welcome balance.

"Question: "Have you ever thought about using unique models for phantasms? Seems they aren't meant to be deceptive like clones, so you could make them look pretty vicious if you wanted to."

Answer: "yeah we started out that way, but it ended up being more confusing as it a lot of noisier to combat and made us have to find very different profiles for each creature, when we changed them to being "Duelist, and Mages" we could easily give them weapons and skills that would make what they are doing more clear when it was creatures we where a lot more limited on what each thing could do.""

The other mechanics introduced are solid, the precasting mantras, the pairs of clone skills that work in an inverse fashion, the potential requirement that mesmer players learn to act like they have poor AI routines, fun and games with portals and the shatter mechanic. Of all the classes I'd say the mesmer has the most distinct design, and I can say I'm starting to like it more and more, the 'shattering glass' effect won me over instantly.

In addition to the mesmer information quoted, a reddit AMA by the Arenanet team was a great source of other information, including previously unknown skills, reworks, discarded designs and design goals. and of course the closed beta reveal.

[Rift] Fast Travel

2011-09-28T04:09:00.000-07:00

I mentioned in my initial impressions of the game that fast travel should be a necessity, but I'd like to push that idea a little further.

One question that comes to mind, do sub games really need to give players the constant run around? Themepark games like WoW and Rift seem to be following the trend of streamlining the quest experience into the monotony of going from hub to hub with very little backtracking, having such linear questing requires a straightforward flow in traversing the zone so as not to annoy the player. Could fast travel be a feature to break up the linearity and allow quests to at least expand across a zone if not the world? And that's just questing, Rift's invasions are zone-wide and thus fast travel would be a boon.

The only counter-argument that seems to ever get thrown-up is that it diminishes the feeling of the world, which I always find ridiculous when it's the linear structure of questing and the static nature of the zones that are the biggest culprits. Players could always imagine that whenever they fast travel, it's like whenever a journey is described by a single sentence in a narrative, and nothing eventful occurred, the end.

The simplest solution for Rift, is clicking on the round symbols that are already on the map and instantly travelling to that hub. The cost should be a planar charge. On a sidenote, I had the same three planar charges from the time I landed in Freemarch until I was level 42, only recently did I buy the wardstone upgrade power and the other power that boosts your character against planar creatures, and found them useful enough to start spending planar charges on. If planar charges could be spent on fast travel as well, then these powers might be neglected. Storing up to 5 planar charges might be the solution, the planar charge consumable that can be bought for 500 planarite is a little on the expensive side for low levels. Some other restrictions to fast travel could be to prevent it if the ward stone is destroyed, on the other hand maybe allow free travel when the wardstone is contested. In relation to GW2 should they allow their fast travel for karma only, thus tying fast travel to their events system, rather than the easier to acquire gold?

That's the basic idea, to be a big idea, there should be an additional feature to go along with the fast travel system, a flare that creates a fast travel point that could be used by anyone on the user's faction. The flare would create a focus point, the first person to use it would get charged 1 planar charge and the person using the flare would be charged 1 planar charge as well, the port would then remain for a few minutes and could be used by anyone else for the cost of a planar charge. It could be limited to only being used in proximity to a rift, foothold or an invasion boss, on the other hand if you were using it for a group quest then the players are down a planar charge, and would have to find a rift to replenish the charges some other time.

I really like that it could lend some sociability to a system, even if it's just to signal that you are going to work on a rift, and nearby players see the ping even if they don't choose to fast travel, they could either travel by foot or just be content in the knowledge that other players are nearby working on the content.

[GW2] Little Wonders

2011-09-19T13:53:00.000-07:00

So asura week has come and gone, it's always surprises me the amount of coverage these race weeks get, with other games not being so lucky as to get a single acknowledgment about their races. Then again a lot of depth is provided by various persons at Arenanet each race week, it's an example of providing a bit for everyone, while the lore and design articles may pass the bulk of the potential audience the videos are seen by many more. I'm greatly invested in the game at this stage, so every piece was interesting.

Am I going to be rolling one as main? It's still hard to say because at this stage each one of the five races are appealing, I don't think I can decide until I get my hands on character creation. As far as the 'little guys' in MMOs goes, the asura are much more intriguing than most. First thing is the origin of their architecture, basing it on EOTN, I'd have guessed there was south american influence but apparently it's in fact Hindu, which also suggests that they share their name with deities found in Hinduism. Their architecture certainly is impressive, especially seeing Rata Sum from a distance as below, but it has some tough competition already in the game. The notion that they wrought these impressive structures from the earth as monuments to their ambition is bewildering.

Their motivations for doing what they do, is the most intriguing thing for me, and why haven't a race of megalomaniacs destroyed themselves or the planet by this time. This is something that should become clearer interacting with this race in game, and the lore should be interesting and comprehensive if not initially then certainly when Quora Sum is released. The lore does seem to be quite expansive already, someone on the forums spotted that the asura protagonist in friday's story had a quote in the skritt article released previously.

It's impossible to describe asura as cute, the over-sized eyes and if they open their mouth not only do you have those pointy teeth but the snark, snark, snark and more snark spilling out ("Shut your talk-hole, bookah. Every time you open it, you drip stupid all over my floor.", although resorting to a racial slur such as bookah maybe displays some insecurity). Yet the animations were designed to be on the cartoonish side, and my favourite description of them:

"When I look at an asura—particularly one with the larger weapons—I see a character setting events in motion that are larger than himself, or unleashing forces almost beyond his control. If he were less arrogant, maybe he’d hesitate or hold back, but that just doesn’t seem like the asuran way."

The animation is comical and appealing, but it's an overused trope that the smart ones must be bungling boffins, unless of course they are the bad guys where superior intelligence just adds to their frightfulness and is another reason to crush them into oblivion. The Inquest, the evil fraction of the asura actually make a lot of sense with their organisation and preservation of knowledge, but of course they are depraved in their actions and hold up a mirror to the ethical actions of the other asura. Where that goodness derives from is a little unclear, by all accounts they should have tried to take over the world by now.

Arenanet pigeonholed themselves somewhat by sticking with these two restrictions: each profession can be all races, and that there is no difference between races in terms of game mechanics i.e. none move faster than others. Of course this is a pretty common situation in MMOs, but where are the games that there is a noticeable differences between races and not meaningless things like +5 skinning or +20 resistance to nature damage. The charr really should be the fastest moving when they go down on all fours, the norn should hit the hardest and the asura should have the smallest hitbox. An asura should look at tools and gadgets used by engineers and dismiss them as primitive before whipping out their dicrystalline etherizers.It does seem a bit of a cop out to say that some professions are rare for some races and that the players are exceptional individuals, I'll try for some semblance of realism in my choice at least.

[Lotro] Exceeding Expectations

2011-09-14T13:20:00.000-07:00

I had in mind recently a topic along the lines 'why is there expansions anymore?', with an expectation that the forthcoming expansion would be priced about 1500-2500 TP in the store, oh how wrong I was on that prediction.

However, I'm still of the mind that expansions don't work with the free-to-play model. For a start the 'expansion' is now used as an excuse to charge subscribers for content, when the big selling point of being a subscriber is that all content is available for free* (yes there is fine print to the contrary, it's a clause that makes the constant ads on the loading screens something of a joke). By all accounts the RoI 'expansion' amounts to no more content than the mirkwood questpack, two questpacks would have covered it, one for dunland, then another for the Isen fords and Isengard, 700-1000 TP each. I would have prefered this method of delivering the content, if not only for the possibility of getting more timely updates (Dunland in July, Isengard with the delayed instances in November), but also it splits the amount of cash required needed in two portions. I was under the impression that smaller content packages are what is attractive to 'pay-as-you-go' premium players, it certainly appeals to me, buy one now then months later when I get an interest to play again buy the other. In addition, it's a worrying trend that content that was supposed to be in a free update before the 'expansion' and also content delivered later than the release date of the 'expansion' are also termed expansion content, and hence subscribers can be charged for two-thirds of the years content this year.

It certainly is contradictory now that the 'second-class' premiums have the chance to get the best deal by buying the 'expansion' for cash, while players planning to buy the game with saved up TP are having the squeeze put on them because of lifetimers I'm presuming. Codemasters didn't help matters much for offering such a cheap lifetime deal just months before F2P launched, it wouldn't surprise if most players that migrated from Europe were lifetimers, me I couldn't afford the €75 or was that the cost in pounds. It can't be a simple matter for Turbine to come out and say they made a mistake in giving lifetimers points every month, they'd already provided ample bonuses when F2P launched and all content free* in perpetuity. If a lot of the players invested in the game are lifetimers, it doesn't make sense to piss them off while providing more appealing offerings to the more fickle premium crowd, but where are new incomes going to come from then.

I think I'm at the stage where I'm constantly shaking my head at the attempts to see how far gameplay can be divided up and a pricetag placed on it and that players still find acceptable. I pay for content, but the very existence of convenience items is particularly off-putting when there is no onus on developers to streamline and improve the base experience. It's just getting pettier and pettier scrabbling over scraps, with the ethos of 'if we make good content then players will pay us for it' lost to the wind and now it's 'if you pay us we'll make the game enjoyable enough and then you can buy the content to play to your heart's content'. At least Turbine isn't as bad as Funcom, who expect subscribers to pay for non-expansion content or aren't they? With the latest stunt I'm just not sure anymore. It's probably the strongest reason to hope GW2 becomes the top contender when it is released.

[Rift] Take Two

2011-09-06T08:10:00.000-07:00

I was in Rift beta. That's about all I can say on the matter, I got to level 8 on a defiant character, but my old computer was suffering under the strain so my experiences of the game were curtailed. With the recent half-birthday celebrations giving a week of free playtime and having acquired a reasonable powered computer I gave the game a more thorough trial. Initial impressions were positive enough that I bought the game for a tenner and subbed for a month.

I started off on a trial server, which I found to be a big mistake, it was the MMO equivalent of wandering around a ghost ship. I got to about level 14 before heading to Meridian, only to find it strangely devoid of life, NPCs don't count. I couldn't find any larger bags or any item at all on the auction house. Some vague recollection of having casted a glance over Rift news brought to mind that the trial servers are defunct and players can't transfer to them. Despite the undeniable logic that trial players should be on trial servers. The situation was very easy to resolve, just transfer my character to another server, which turned out to be such a quick and straightforward process, I ended up on a bustling RP server in minutes. As far as I could tell, only one high population server was unavailable but all the others were available. All sub games should have this functionality for free, no ifs or buts or please wait.

It's been about one week of my sub, and so far I'm still enjoying it. Questing is only tolerable, I can't take any more of this style of MMO gameplay, finding drops or quest items out in the world is alright but working through a zone quest hub by quest hub is not. The story is interesting enough, there is some quests that are marked with gold backgrounds which I root out and skip the rest, some places I take an interest in the story, other hubs I just skip. On the other hand I love collecting artifacts, attempting to find the cairn and the zone puzzle without cheating. I like the landscapes presented so far, not bland at all despite what I've heard, exploring them and attempting the achievements (especially the ones to find certain places, or jump off heights) is more to my liking than questing.

Rifts are still fun to me, the rest of the population might be ambivalent on occasion, but if I start working on one, then more than likely someone else will pitch in, major rifts are usually avoided. Invasions on the other hand are a different matter, in Silverwood they fire off all the time, and there is usually a few groups working together on them. I've taken part in a few in Stonefield, while there is plenty people who pitch in, there is a higher failure rate so the source stones are harder to acquire, in comparison I managed to kit out a guardian alt in the rare planar gear in Silverwood. There seems to be some new water rifts involving dwarves that are harder than normal rifts, unless I'm mistaken and they are not tied at all to the latest raid, hopefully Trion continues to add new rifts to fill out this aspect. I'd also love invasions to persist for longer when they fail, or for the boss to not despawn after a time, or to spill from one zone to another.

One of the things that annoys me is the lack of instant travel, recall abilities on an hour cooldown just don't cut it anymore. With GW2 out next year with instant travel to multiple places all over a zone and with no cooldown, Trion would be really remiss to not address it. For instance, last night I was working on an invasion in Stonefield, I was in a group of three and we closed three rifts and took down several invasion units. All of the wardstones save one were destroyed, and this last one was at the opposite end of the zone from us, there was never the chance to rally there for a last stand despite flicking the map and seeing about ten invasion forces on their way. Then when we pulled through the boss spawned down at that end too, it was probably designed that way. Even riding straight there, I got there with the boss almost down, merged with the raid, managed a few hits but never received an achievement for my efforts. It was certainly disgruntling, I suppose I must be content with the experience.

The soul system is a case of love/hate, even in beta I was of the opinion that they should really have cut down the talent trees. Is it really engaging to most players to decide the value of + 5% crit chance or +15% dexterity, when you are just starting off and don't have much dexterity it might seem obvious but when does it change, maybe the additional crit is always effective, oh you know what who cares. Or trying to determine the cumulative value of a bunch of talents is better or worse than another. I've always been of the opinion that talents should only be qualitative effects, I've seen the future and it's Diablo 3 and GW2. The ideal for me, is a limited set of abilities and then to add runes or traits that alter these abilities in a distinct manner, even giving an ability a new name. In addition, it would have been more interesting if while you pick three souls, only one could be active at a time, but you can swap freely at any time and adapt to changing combat.

On the plus side the roles feature is great, I've only just bought the first two and already have all three filled and would love if the last two were more affordable. Being able to switch up the style of play between different activities or situations or just for the sake of a change keeps things really interesting.

Will I be subscribing for another month, I'll just keep that under consideration for another three weeks, I'm hoping to see what expert rifts, crafting rifts, the hopefully soon to be released chronicles are about and the escalation of the current world event first to make my decision.

[GW2] The Mesmer

2011-08-31T02:56:00.000-07:00

Well seeing as everyone knows it is coming, I thought I'd jot down a few ideas about the form I think the profession is returning in.

It can be hard to define a profession that was previously built around 'punishment', but have it fit in a game where each profession has more versatility in the roles they can perform, oh and hexes are no more. Mesmers, more than any other class were annoying in the wide array of hexes they had, they might even have used some obscure, useless ones just to mess with my head because I could never remember what most of them did. So the basic mechanic of most mesmer skills is no more, what could they have in their place?

I'm going with the mechanic of 'if the enemy is doing X, then Y condition is applied and/or takes damage', and twinned with the more supportive mechanic 'if your ally is doing X, then Y buff is applied and/or gains health'. I like the symmetry, and it definitely makes for a much more complicated class, but fits with the goal of having the player actively looking at their surroundings and what the enemy and other players are doing than focusing on the UI. There could be some controversy with 'if the enemy is casting a spell, then they are dazed', which is in effect an interrupt, they said they were going to play down interrupts or rather the mechanic of an 'interrupt' is no more, but instead you need to daze, stun, knockback/down/up, so it is a distinct possibility.

What appearance would I give this profession, because I think more than 'mesmer' could fit that mechanic. Arenanet has talked about creating a wide range of archetypes in the game, so there is something pleasing to everyone. There is at least two commonly occurring classes in MMOs that prove quite popular, a martial-artist/monk and a bard/minstrel. It would be odd to see a monk return with limited ally healing, but I'll leave that right there. I'm more drawn to the bard archetype, for the reason that in GW1 most mesmers tend towards the theatrical! Although, bard is likely not the right word more a travelling performer, a player or a trouper. I doubt they would go the musical instrument route which I find a bit silly in most games, but rely on the power of voice, either beguiling enemies or empowering allies. I like the concept of paragon chants and the various names indicating what effect they will have, arias, choruses, ballads and lyrics.

The profession mechanic I'm leaning towards is 'Echo/Refrain', i.e. the player can choose to extend any of their skills for a longer duration. Did I mention I'm a big fan of paragons and looking forward to a potential revamp, so I may be a little biased. Illusions, seem to come up a lot as a suggestion but I don't think it is very likely seeing as it could prove very hard to create a workable mechanic around it. Conjure phantasm/nightmare are something that I'd rather see on a necromancer, like the shadow fiends they already have, and hopefully they'll get other more ghost like minions too. Illusionary weapons if implemented is going to be too like elementalists conjures, who can call a flaming greatsword down from the sky, which would be a hard act to follow.

I can understand why they are delaying the reveal of the mesmer class, the primary mechanics may still be up in the air, after they pigeonholed themselves by deciding against the use of hexes. Whether they are called curses, debuffs, etc in other MMOs, they are so widespread in their use that it's hard to imagine a class that probably should be using them but doesn't, well I gave it my best shot.

[GW] One Dervish Army

2011-07-30T10:21:00.001-07:00

With the EotN bonus rep weekend in full swing I was up that way when I thought I'd give the norn fighting tournament a go. It was mostly to unlock Xandra, but I was making proper attempts to finish it too, it's always been quite challenging to me without resorting to some gimmicky builds or to fill the bar with PVE skills and even then it is sometimes hit or miss to take down Magni. As I was on my dervish I was just trying out a few things when I hit on the build below, which really highlights the strength of the new buffed dervish i.e. fitting so much ability into a single bar.

From left to right: condition removal, blind spamming, hex removal + heal, knockdown + weakness, enchant removal, damage + heal, IAS and anti-knockdown. I was tempted by Armour of Santity but Shield of Force is good to quickly block Magni just after he uses Purge Signet, giving time to blind him again. Even as broad as it is, it could still only complete about 2/3 of the opponents successfully every time, and Magni was about 50/50, though in more skilled hands it would probably be a better ratio, someone who'd have thought to move away as he cleaned off the conditions. Funnily enough Melonni uses the same avatar, and it was really hard to take her down, watching out for mystic regen, to remove it before it undid my efforts. One opponent really stood out, Kisai with blinding surge, which I'd call a hard counter to any melee, even with conviction blindness could not be removed fast enough, at least she only appears in the first round.

Dwayna Vs Dwayna

Tried it on my necro later using the build below, it is a bit hit and miss but it tore through any melee and made Magni himself trivial. Still the dervish build was probably better balanced, and didn't need no PvE skills. At the end the question I'm pondering is that the biggest criticisms that people thrown at the dervish revamp is that there are bars that do far too much for a single character, and I'd agree but whats a good way to temper this newfound resourcefulness without nerfing the class back to where it was with only 1 or 2 workable builds. How do you even balance a profession like that?

Easy Mode

Before energy was quite tight upfront, but now there is hardly any energy problems, so some kind of reversal of the mysticism change, maybe flash enchants could be excluded or the full energy is expended but the longer the player holds on to the flash enchant the more energy they get refunded when that enchant is removed. It would encourage the player to put them up before they plan to use them and hold onto them a while before tearing them down. The armour issue where having just 1 enchant will give the dervish an additional 10 (blessed) + 12 (mysticism) armour, maybe the mysticism buff could give say 1...2..3 armour per enchant, instead of removing it in PvP completely, but not expecting it to make a comeback.

Another criticism that tempered my enthusiasm for the class is that it's a bit mindless to play, sure the spamming and tearing down of enchants is a bit frenetic but it's fun where before it was clunky. Even as a less hardcore player these still concern me, and how it all work out in the end. A dervish was my first character, but I've played more of the game as a warrior, but looking to make a change. I was playing both a ranger and paragon recently, I enjoyed the ranger and the paragon too though the latter is in a similar position to pre-update dervish, but the dervish is appealing now, so that's where I'll be focused with one eye on a paragon update and the other on more dervish nerfs to determine the profession I'll be spending time with in the future. Even though my playstyle is casual, playing a class that might be conceived as easy mode or overpowered or even the reverse in high-end areas is enough to dampen my affections for a class, even to the point that I'd be anxious going into casual PvP because of the stick I'd get. Nevermind I can try to put all that aside and enjoy the class for what it is at the height of it's power, in a game where I find it hard to settle on one class.

A Crowning Achievement
(I've never known any other class to
combine slippers and a dress)

[Lotro] The Thorough

2011-07-29T10:34:00.000-07:00

A while ago a deed popped up for my warden upon logging on, and I was left scratching my head what it was connected with, shrugging my shoulders I logged off again, it was one of those quick checking in moments to see if everything was exactly how I left it. It was only this week that I figured out what place the deed was connected with, the name hadn't rung a bell. I was playing through volume 3 book 2 on my burglar and journeying to the Eregion to be sent after a kidnapped dwarf gem-cutter. And the same deed popped up upon finding this place (no I didn’t quite catch the name again) with a 'frightened hero' out front, then it struck me that when I was here on my warden I didn't have the Eregion questpack, so I had missed out on a notable deed tied to the epic story because I didn't have access to Eregion.

Why was it so notable, well getting a fair warning from my less brave counterpart, this place is the best kind of place to explore. It consists of two floors that are connected via multiple doors, with some tricksy parts where some doors can lead to single rooms up above or down below and disconnected from the rest of that floor, rooms with multiple doors, that sort of thing. It's not too hard to figure out, what is hard is making sure you find all 23 places for the deed i.e. being 'thorough'. The simple strategy I used was to pick one floor and work my way around trying every door, then swap to the other floor and connect the dots and try to spot areas where a door hadn't been used, still the last 2 or 3 took a bit of retracing my footsteps to fully complete the deed.

That side-quest with its nifty title for a reward kept my attention for a lot longer than the actual quest, it perfectly suits my personality to explore every nook and cranny for something interesting but on balance the deed is catering more for an achiever than a true explorer who might find delight in spotting some attractive area but often there is little additional content or treasure for taking the time to explore everything that looks interesting, sometimes you might encounter a 'rare' mob because you are going off the beaten track where they are less likely to be killed.

I must admit if I wasn't playing my burglar I probably wouldn't have been so enthused for the actually deed, which is why I leaning towards making him my main for the expansion. My captain has been parked at the dwarven town in Forochel for weeks waiting patiently to enter the mines but I've been there before and know it to be crawling with dourhands, the combination of no stealth, slow killing, confusing passageways and multitudes of mobs is so unappealing I think he may be there for a few more weeks.

The exploration deeds in the game aren't particularly engaging, sometimes like in the Trollshaws where ruins are spread around canyons it can get tricky to work out how to get where you want to go. Secret deeds like climbing the two towers in Mirkwood or the fishing hole in Enedwaith (which I've still not found) are a little more interesting, but not quite up there with eating a piece of old cheese I found in the barrows. The seven swords deed in Angmar was good because there wasn't a quest for guidance, but finding some guys sitting on their own in random places about the landscape wasn't really fun, and then the rewards, a title that wasn't 'of the seven swords' and a 6-man instance that there isn't the slight possibility of getting a group for seeing as it was in East Angmar.The solution is in the game already, walking through the epic book instance you see ghostly scences but they don't give much info, unlike say the flashbacks featuring Gandalf beneath Dol Guldor, but what if they had a bit more drama to them to piece together into a narrative and give clues to where a secret cache might be hidden or how to find some concealed passageways. Something that could be missed if you are not paying enough attention and that need a bit of thought. There does seem to be some light on the horizon with plenty of accounts for GW2 of players going off the beaten track and finding all kinds of events, objects to interact with and not being led there by the nose. Likewise, The Secret World is looking like it will incorporate plenty of puzzling, the need to pay attention to surroundings and spotting clues, with some of the story being played out before the players eyes if they are actively observing. I tempted to give Rift another go, because I never got very far in beta and they seem at least to have things hidden off the beaten track.

Lotro: Legendary Trash

2011-04-27T09:06:00.000-07:00

Having just dashed through a few levels towards 60 during the bonus XP weekend, I ended up with bags full to bursting, and one type of item in particular stuck out: legendary items. Over 30 of the damn things I have to flog. There is a few problems with that, I'm premium and only have limited AH slots (5 to begin), but did make a purchase of 5 additional ones to see could I move some of this excess stock faster. When I levelled my warden through Moria a year ago, LIs seemed to sell a lot better, but now it's hard to even get 80s for them. Sure there was a surge in prices with update 2, while LIs above 60 still sell for reasonable amounts, before 60 I couldn't give them away quickly enough. My captain alt is running out of vault space with the damn things. I don’t think I'd have it in me to deconstruct them for a measly 1 relic, if it was 4 or 5 tier 1s, I wouldn’t be complaining at all about it.

I wrote previously on the inventory minigame in Lotro and some improvements have been made, plenty of stuff stacks higher (including hope tokens in the next update, finally!), racial armour recipes have become multi-output. Legendary trash remains the biggest annoyance. I would replace all LI drops, dwarf-tools and khuzdul tablets with a single item, say legendary shards/fragments (stack to a 100 of course), and then all the player has to do is bring the right amount to the forge-master and get a level appropriate LI. Crafters could still make LIs but the recipes would have cheaper shard requirements, as they are adding their skills and materials to the pot.

One other point of contention needs to be rectified, just the whole notion that to make the perfect LI, dozens of other need destroying. No really, vendor 20 SMs for dwarf-tools, get lvl 55 LIs, kill one or two lvl 65 mobs, deconstruct, repeat dozens of times and see how many extraordinary relics you end up with, 1 if you are lucky. Sure there is probably better ways to get relics (tier 4 fused relics, as long as you deconstruct and get 2). Then think of the new addition of levelling a LI to 30 then destroying it for a legacy scroll. It's a wonder that any LI remain in Moria at all, by this stage players have stripped it halls clean of anything valuable like a plague of locusts that they typically mimic.

I'll just wait patiently for the LI update that works like the skirmish soldier setup, i.e. you pick the item type, then it's appearance, damage type, damage bonus, legacies, relics, hit construct and out pops a perfect weapon, no need to be levelled (no ranks/tiers). I would have it so the player only needs to acquire the legacy/damage/bonus scroll once, click on the scroll to permanently learn it (not needing to fill storage with a bunch of scrolls). Bye bye scrolls of empowerment. Not holding out hope because the biggest concern the devs seem to have lately is how to occupy players’ time more than any other. I recently thought about putting together a javelin that had mainly minor legacies, thought a moment longer, then shrugged and went to do something more fun.

Lotro: Orchalwe's Mission, the best quest-giver ever!

2011-04-11T03:49:00.000-07:00

Having spent the last week playing through the new content in Evendim, thought I'd jot down a few impressions. Firstly since I was playing the content on my level 38 captain who had done a lot of the quests before the update and then went back and did the new stuff it might be a bit of a fractured experience than someone with a blank slate and I avoided doing chores for hobbits.

I started at the new quest hub at the colossus, which had the highlight of a quest arc that allowed the player to access the top of the colossus for probably one of the best vantage points in the game. Most of the quests were formulaic but there was a greater use of mini-instances, including a single named mob which has an obvious advantage of avoiding players queuing for the kill.

Moving on to Tinnudir, the player is introduced to Orchalwe, the main protagonist so to speak for the rangers’ storyline. He sends the player first to the 'twilight estates', then Ost Forod, across to the Eavespires, the Way of Kings and finally he joins the player for a trek through Annuminas.

The 'twilight estates' were unused points of interest before, now they form part of a quest chain that gives a bit of insight about each one. The mechanic that leads the player around through each one is a book that automatically bestows and completes the quests as the player works through them. Also there is optional quests to find along the way, which can all be turned in at the end of the journey and don't have follow-ups. It's a nice mechanic and hope to see it more often, it is a nice feeling to be given an item and go out on a quest rather than running out and back with errands.

Ost Forod has a new storyline about a pact between the people of that town and the rangers. Except the story is not that well written. Plenty of sour notes, such as being sent out to kill brigands who used to be described as people down on their luck resorting to plundering tombs. The quest describes the task as chasing them off to protect the 'good' people’s livelihood, except in reality it is kill 10 of them. The main story is no better, it first has the player make good on the rangers promise to supply the townsfolk, and then the second half has the player help the townsfolk fulfil their responsibilities of securing the northern areas. And the player is left to think no wonder the relationship broke down if neither side can be arsed to honour their side of the bargain. In the end this arc reaches a climax on the island of Rantost with the Thief-takers Bane instance, which is now soloable.

There is a short detour to the Eavespires, which I mostly skipped, and the tomb robbers’ story is continued at the Way of Kings, having escaped the carnage the player and rangers inflicted at Rantost they row south and land at the most bountiful tombs in the land and make pacts with the Angmarims. There is a design trend that is evident in at all the quest hubs so far, that of the quest wrapper i.e. one NPC gives an overarching quest that involves the completion of several other quests. It's a nice way of organising quest content for players but it's a little boring to have quests at every hub being doled out that way. On the plus side there is some nice tidbits of lore here and the mini-instances are well used again.

On to what is probably the highlight of the new content for me at least, Orchalwe's Mission. Instead of a whole bunch of NPCs clamouring for attention, there is one quest giver of interest (we'll leave aside those other two old quests that don't lead to much and still have their outdated rewards), who gives the player the ability to call Orchalwe. Orchalwe is a essentially a mobile quest-giver than travels with the player, doling out quests at specific locations and is also a dab hand at killing mobs too, in essence he is the best quest-giver ever.

Besides two quests he gives the player when first summoned, one of which leads the player to six targets spread around Annuminas, there are also 13 optional quests that are triggered in certain areas most of which coincide with the main quest but a few are out of the way. It is a real nice way to encourage the player to explore, I found all the entrances to the 3 instances which I wouldn't have known otherwise especially now with 'instance join' and completed two exploration deeds too.

There is a few negatives, Turbine didn't pay enough attention to the difficulty, most players should be able to take on 3 signatures mobs with Orchalwe and his imba heals, with maybe a few close calls and cooldown use, but there is a few sticking points with patrolling mobs, 4 or more signatures and fast respawns that are impossible. The best solution at present for what is supposed to be soloable quest arc, is let Orchalwe and/or your pet aggro the mobs, run to the quest item, activate it and run away again. Having died a few times trying to get past one point in particular with a named signature, it was particularly galling to find the waypoint is outside the city and ensures a long run back to the action. And finding all 13 optional quests is just crying out for a hidden deed or something, a real missed opportunity.Hope there is more quest-givers like Orchalwe in the future, it does make for a refreshing change, than suffering the useless lumps at say for example Ost Forod.

CoH: Hanging up the tights?

2011-01-31T12:03:00.000-08:00

Can't believe it's been a month already, so much for MMO-playing goals. Had a busy month and didn't get to play CoH as much as I set out in the beginning, so much for getting a few characters to level 20. In the end got three characters to level 10-12, and that was only taking advantage of a big play session yesterday with double XP. Did get a little deeper understanding than my first impressions, but only just and kinda undecided if I'll be making a return trip,

One of the biggest problems I had initially was character builds, but since then it's only gotten better. I made a dominator with Earth/Fire powersets, going on recommendations on the archetype forum and had a lot of fun with that, the combination of control primary and damage secondary was a nice playstyle and those two powersets were fun. The brute I'd made without much imput was actually fun as well, though it's hard to go wrong with a high hp berserker. The defender I'd made first was actually starting to be fun when I got him a few more powers, though was having really bad endurance issues. I was just thinking of improving that by boosting stamina and reducing endurance costs of the toggle skills, by making some crafted level 15 enhancements and slotting at least two endurance reduction per toggle power. Didn't get time to test that out, but the fact that enhancements can improve a build like so is a nice feature.

Other than that, I really like the new 'Going Rogue' content and the choice between factions. Though a few of the storylines were a little hard to follow especially returning midway through an arc and trying to remember who Paulo was and why you had to 'kidnap' his father. I did read all the text and dialogue, but still ended up stumped in places, things just not making sense and some occurances were just unexpected, 'but didn't he just say...'. Most of the time it was fine, guess other games don't bother with complex scenarios and like to spell things out, so spoiled in a way. Anyways it was enough to keep me engaged even if it was just trying hard to remember who everyone and the organisations were, and if they were good or bad, or undercover or other.

A few things I didn't realise at first was how you can go undercover and do the opposing factions missions, seems it is as easy as just finding the contacts and accepting their missions, which is easier to do when you've played both sides and been shown where the contacts are located. The other thing that is really nice is that the storyline missions scale to your level when you accept them, I'm not sure how extensive this is but it is giving more options, without danger of outleveling content and being able to experience it all on one character.

So am I going back, not at the moment I think, even though I left plenty undone and mid-action, might give Champions Online a spin first, but done something completely different. On the whole I enjoyed the month playing at superheroes, even though I'm not subscribing for another month I'll be returning some other time to finish the 'Going Rogue' areas. Just in case I took pictures of my heroes, the Earth/Fire dominator is below, which I think is a really cool appropiately themed costume, though maybe a little unoriginal.

CoH: First Impressions

2011-01-10T03:41:00.000-08:00

Having recently picked up a complete edition of City of Heroes: Going Rogue in a Steam sale, spent the last week getting to grips with it. It has not being an easy game to begin, but that's probably why I've stuck with it.

First off, character creation is vast and overwhelming and spent a good portion of playtime at the creation screens. A lot more time was spent outside of game on the forums trying to get a feel for what archetypes would be a good fit for me, and how to build them without ending up with a gimp character. The freedom is welcome but with very little in-game guidance it felt a bit daunting. I suppose the counter argument would be just going with the flow and experiencing the game with one character to make better informed choices with a subsequent character. Surprisingly I think Cryptic has the best solution for this when Champions Online goes free to play, to give non-subscribers a pre-set character that would be decent (I hope) for a particularly role and allow subscribers the full gamut of character creation. It's effectively a step by step tutorial on how to build a character for new players just trying out the game, then when they have the experience to fully understand the value of a more free-form character creation then they can subscribe.

For now my solution is to roll a selection of characters to level 20 and see how I feel about them then, it also fits in with my goal of experiencing the hero/villain/praetorian areas. Have picked a brute, defender, dominator and blaster, might add in scrapper and corrupter later if I have time or subscribe for another month, we'll see. But worryingly I already built a defender that was surprisingly squishy, will have to get a few more defensive powers on him to offset that, then again maybe a corrupter who has an inverse role (more damage than buffing) to defender might be a better fit.

I think the biggest difficulty initially was with questing, quest givers? Started in the villain area, worked through first contact (quest-giver), he introduced me to the next contact, when I was done with him I was at a bit of a loss. Maybe I missed something but it took a while to find the area to go next, found another slightly higher area first via the flying transports but what I needed to have done was to get on a boat to the next island. Then when I got there it was a while before I figured out the connection between the broker and the newspaper, I should pay more attention. The hero area I got dropped in after the tutorial had even less pointers, I had to work out the symbol for a contact to know where to go. On the other hand the newer praetorian area is much improved.

Despite these initial hiccups, I think I'm warming to this style of questing, where some contacts need to be found or you need to complete achievements before they will talk to you, oh and the mobile phone to call contacts and hand in quests is a nice idea.

The thing I've most liked about what I've played so far is the new area and the choices that must be made, either to favour the Resistance of the Loyalist faction, it is very nicely done and is definitely tempting to see both sides of the story. Already there has been a very tough decision, whether to take part in a summary execution or to stop it, took a moment of thought to go through with it and remain on the Loyalist side. And seeing as GW2 comes from the same stable I'm expecting similar moral choices, hopefully as good as this one, and better than the hospital versus orphanage choice that seems a bit simple in comparison.

Buying Virtues and Stat Tomes in Lotro

2010-12-01T04:02:00.000-08:00

This whole issue has been annoying me for a while, so I'm going to have a rant about it but in a fair and considered way I hope. I don't mind paying for content, but the virtue system is more a barrier to play than meaningful character progression, and here's the kicker a free/premium without benefits is effectively paying twice for such a useless system. First they pay to open the trait slots and then they have to buy the content to earn those traits, double-dipping into the players pocket so to speak. All well and good from a business perspective, but it does take away choice from players if they want to for example tank at high level and the trait Innocence is essential, and most other melee characters would do well to have this one too. To get full ranks of Innocence then a player must do 75 quests in the Shire and buy the Trollshaws and Misty Mountains questpacks to ever have a chance of reaching rank 10. Acceptable for one character but for alts it becomes a chore, I'm starting to see this game as more and more alt-unfriendly for example every alt requires to be kindred with iron garrison guards and complete vol2 books 1-6 too, still no easy feats nowadays.

Despite these misgivings especially now the Store is in effect, I still like the idea of virtues just not the way they are implemented currently. When Turbine released skirmishes and allowed deeds to be completed during them, that was a step in the right direction, the player is doing relevant, rewarding and challenging content and choosing to so over going out in the landscape to kill grey difficulty mobs. I'm a fan of skirmishes and as a premium player own all of them but not all the quest packs, so you can tell which I favour. With content split up now, the design should change to provide multiple ways to earn the same virtues.

I'm all for simplifying the virtues too so that each one just affects a single stat or resistance, so Innocence would be melee defence, Empathy would be armour rating, Loyalty would be vitality etc. At present a tank would take all 3 melee defence virtues and 2 of the armour ratings and maybe some variability depending on encounters. To simplify virtues to affect just one stat, only 2 slots are filled by tanking virtues and then the rest are up to the player to choose depending on the mobs or boss the player is going to be facing, whether wound, poison, tactical, ranged, shadow...

Looking at these now simplified virtues there is 5 that affect the primary stats: Discipline, Determination, Loyalty, Idealism and Wisdom. Each of these increase the particular stat for 30 points, but including the now defunct lesser bonuses on other virtues, it's 50 points more or less for rank 10. That's the same as the adding all 5 stat tomes of one type to your character. But the distinction here is crucial, I see the stat tomes as a no-brainer, you buy them and add them to your character forever more, whereas if the proposed virtue system was implemented there is greater restrictions, it's unlikely that all of them will be slotted and maybe only one or two to shore up weaknesses or as a stopgap until primary stats are maxed. If being able to make those decisions when maximising your character is at the heart of many MMORPGs gear progression, then the stat tomes are nothing more than a money-grab without adding anything to play around with.

Settling in

2010-11-25T08:37:00.000-08:00

Ok so the Lonelands quest pack is going to be free with next update, which I found out just after I bought it for 50 points. I won't rail against the bad timing, because for most people paying 50 points now is better than waiting about a fortnight. Although, I don't see the point of giving it away for free, except to assume it is a calculated gambit to get more people invested in their characters and the game, levelling to 20 is too quick and trivial, conversely having to pay (getting in the habit) 50 points sooner is more honest I feel. I absolve Codemasters of any blame, they were only playing catch-up on this price-point which US players had available for much longer, and I'd assume they don't have a 'pricing' department involved in the monitoring of prices and player uptake of items in the store.

In other news Codemasters just gave (all?) former subscribers a free month of VIP because they couldn't find another solution to errors in allotting the appropriate benefits. This probably explains the 2 days extra after launch I'd gotten previously, well if it was intentional, and then when I finally was bumped down to premium I got all the right bonuses, unlike others who just went straight to premium (free) without any benefits. Putting on my cynics hat, this may point to the next update being 2 maybe 3 weeks away, because the benefit of swift travel will be included and to solve the problems once and for all, they need to give this free time til then.

Ah well, always nice to get something free, just goes to show that the settling in period can have ups and downs, now to just avoid the trap of rolling some more alts.

No, no, no... stop with the free points already.

2010-11-21T09:07:00.000-08:00

It has happened not once but twice more, but hopefully that's the last of it because it's inflicting a sense of guilt, no guilt is not the right word it's annoyance if all these extra points are taken back. At this stage, I reckon I'll just have to try not to think 'what I'd really like is another skirmish... oh look another 500 points, damn'.

I did actually buy something from the store with my own points, the Evendim questpack for 149 points, even though my alts will only get a few levels out of it, but the 3 scalable instances should be worth it. Except that amount of points is coincidentally very close to those I got by rolling a dwarf on every server and doing the store introduction quest 14 times. Oh well I plan to buy the Lonelands questpack for 50 TP this week, which I can honestly say hand on heart I earned through deeds since the changeover, but is it really worth it? Don't have plans to level up any new characters but I'm hoping the GA instances will be scalable soon and actually permanently owning more of the game is certainly enticing. Still haven't spent any cash that I feel I should really be spending.

Giving away plenty of stuff and guilting players into paying some money in lieu of the time they've spent in game is a great strategy, it works on me anyways, just not in Lotro F2P yet. I've justified plenty of purchases in the past by that train of thought, and about to do the same with cosmetic changes for characters in Guild Wars in a figurative sense of dusting them off and starting to play them again, but funnily enough can't use that same line to justify buying the wedding costumes or any of the other costumes for that matter.

Lotro: F2P and me

2010-11-08T12:12:00.000-08:00

Yeah finally was the first thing to say but now having spent a few days as a VIP then premium, still trying to make up my mind on the change. For a start in a case of perfect prescience my sub ended the day F2P went live, except it didn't. For two days I was wondering why I was still a VIP, until finally the weekly maintenance bumped me back down while others who had been erroneously labelled Free went in the other direction.

And there is still the mystery of why I ended up with 2000 points. I know now that I was entitled to 1000 points because I'd managed to get in 2 birthdays (was it really that long; well only been subscribed for 3 months over that period so wouldn't exactly call myself a veteran), 500 pts maybe from being almost VIP when the change happened and after that I'm at a loss. What did I do with these points that I may or may not be entitled, spend them as quickly as possible before they could be taken back. Bought the Siege of Mirkwood expansion, regret it slightly now that there is the possibility that I was entitled to at least some of those points.

Was SoM a good impulse purchase? Well my warden just hit 60 and just headed there for the first time this weekend. I get fed up with questing especially after the drudgery the dwarfs subjected me to for the last month or so, and I see the extra 6 skirmishes as more desirable than the 'quest pack', and well the epic story is going free, and not a big fan of instances myself, so it should be good value for money just taking the skirmishes. On the other hand my list of things I need now that I'm premium would have been covered easily by those 2000 pts: an extra 5 slots in AH, Thievery and Mischief, Ford of Bruinen skirmishes and that's about it, could play happily without anything else right now. Although, I'd probably not be so happy if I'd not been a previous subscriber, but yeah getting free travel back soon.

And finally, I may have found a solution for altitis, having settled on 3 characters now, I deleted all lowbies less than level 20, and with the thought of rolling a new character and to buy them bags, traits, removal of gold cap, content etc being deterrent enough.

Back to Lotro - not enough vuvuzelas!

2010-09-10T11:08:00.000-07:00

So Turbine released a kinda cool ad for F2P, but it was missing something very important, they could have included a coda referencing a certain trailer, which could have gone something like this:

Gandalf stands looking pleased with himself having floored the crowd with the shockwave created by his staff (surely that's lore-breaking, right?), only for an annoying droning sound to start up in the stunned silence he'd just created. He scans the crowd and glowers at the offending article, jabbing his finger at it and causing the instrument to crumple and abruptly stop with a last shrill squeak. *cue titles and the playing of a rather jaunty tune.

That was enough to keep me amused oh for about 5 secs while the bad news of a delay to F2P in Europe was sinking in, (there’s probably a joke about the existing community and unwashed masses there too) which was kinda short-lived when Codemasters did the unthinkable and reactivated 'welcome back week'. Sure they are people still thirsting after the drought of content since earlier this year, but for returning/trial players this is a real boon, it's even freer than F2P changes incoming. It's a generous move and impels them to get it sorted or lose out on all the revenue. Oh and complaints in the US keep piling in.

Got in a good bit of playing this weekend. Had in mind that I should level my captain up fast to get him a mount so I don't have to pay for one, and while I'm at it unlock as many deeds as possible. This lasted two levels before it got boring and deciding it wasn't worth it, and yeah I'll probably more than likely need to buy porting abilities to Rivendell as well so yeah yeah on the list those go. Tried to fathom this conundrum out, there's time I'm happy to spend in game, until it becomes a grind or maybe I tell myself to suck it up until it's over and done with, but then to put a value on how much time I'm willing to sacrifice to grind, on the one hand it's certainly not a few cents and on the other side wanting to remove travel time for a few euros. I've tied myself in knots, but the upshot is that the choice is good but isn't there something a bit evil of spending money to get rid of grind. That's the genius of the system I suppose.

Once I decided that I'd be willing to buy the damn horse and instant travel, went and did something a little more fun. Took my warden past the front entrance hall in Moria and had a blast. This complex 3D maze is so appealing to me at least, like to figure out all the passageways and see every nook and cranny. Had already made brief excursions into it using the Moria keg, that’s how I got in this time funnily enough, ended up in chamber of the crossroads and rode back to the start, well the first time I jumped down the well and had to go back to my house and hope to get sent to the same place twice. It was nice to ride through an unknown map and then work back through it corridor by corridor, and putting the various sights together. Arrived at the palace of náin, and had a feeling I'd been here before, oh right up there in the colonnades (another drunken excursion then). Enjoyed the questing up until I'd almost completed Dolven-view before getting sent back to kill more insects for the epic book, though it was a good time to call it quits. Anyways here's a picture of one section near the start, there's 2 levels visible below, to get to the bottom room just a short trek to the left, to get to the middle section with the ledges a long trek to the right, through a goblin camp, a confusing dark cavern with cave-claws to arrive there, this is my idea of a spatial puzzle and yes I did have to figure it out.

GW2 - Ok I'm Satisfied

2010-08-20T11:07:00.000-07:00

My reactions to the details emerging from gamescom and the playable demo of GW2 have mostly consisted of oohs and aahs, a few hmmms and an oh! The game looks great and can't wait to actually play it.

Before the convention, an article (in german) emerged that had a few interesting tidbits about levels. Confirmation that a player's level would be boosted as well as lowered depending on the zone they are in. With higher level player lowered to above optimum and low level player boosted to below optimum. It's a nice way to do it, it does diminish worries about keeping levels in the game, it now just a number to keep track of what a player has done and not an arbitrary measure to lock a player out of content. Some consternation about this was expected, but the only negative I can think of is spoilers and that is completely in the control of the player themselves. Besides it was already in GW1 when characters less than level 20 went to EotN.

Something else mentioned that could be really fun for a dedicated group is that if players follow the same story then one player can make a choice that will count for the entire group. The RP potential in that is huge, whether players take it by turn, randomly or vote on the choices, it should create a group story rather than a personal story.

Then a leaked video caused a whole load of concern, an asura asking for harpy glands appearing as one of the events. There were two issues: the player is clearly seen talking to the asura and agreeing to collect them, also it's a traditional collecting quest something that a lot of people were not expecting. However the player does not have to talk to the asura to take part in the event, he can just start killing harpies and collecting. Talking to the asura seems to do two things create an obvious notification about the event and say how many players are already taking part. There are also "scouts" that will direct people to where events are happening by highlighting areas on the world map. The thing is, both are entirely optional and a player can choose to ignore them, and hopefully there is a way to turn off all such notifications for people like me who'd like some sense of discovery.

The second issue about the dullness of the task, what can I say except hope there aren't too many of them. I don't think there is too much wrong with collecting stuff, but would probably skip this one. On the other hand there are loads to make this kind of tasks interesting. The love potion may be required to start another event, and I'm hoping this forms the basis for increasingly complex chains, use an item, gain an item, swap it for another item and so on (loved those trading sequences in Zelda games). There's the possibility that the asura needs to be escorted to that point, that he needs protection from the harpies while he sets up, or while he prepares the potion. Anyways probably a lot of people will skip it especially when all the other events that I've seen so far in videos have looked a lot more fun. For example they've mentioned the broodmother event a few times, seeing it in action (about 2.30 in video) was a lot more entertaining than reading about it.

If the only upshot of that event is a vendor, that will sell the potions for more harpy bits, or for money, that is certainly a little on the staid side, but what if there was the option for brute personalities to threaten the asura for the potion? So a brute character can skip the collecting part and come back later to strong-arm the asura? Yeah don't even want to contemplate the outrage such a design would create, but it's an interesting dynamic.

In the community two of the big concerns with the demo shown: were the existence of potions and that the elite skills had such a long recharge time. For now potions don't really bother me, it's either that or create an 11th skill slot dedicated to energy management. But the long recharge times (12 mins) of some elites is probably the only bum note of all the info I've seen so far.

Anyways, I've my name already picked for my charr necromancer, problem is what to do while I wait for the actual game...

Guild Wars 2 - It's still a grind!

2010-07-30T08:26:00.000-07:00

No matter how short or fun it claims to be, as long as XP is given for killing mobs and a certain amount is required to advance each level, it's going to be a predictable grind to some extent. If players are in the situation of 'needing' to get a few (reputation) levels, the choice between staying in the one place to kill say 100 mobs or finding 5 events to complete (or just as bad, killing mobs while waiting for an event to begin), I think a surprising amount would opt for the former, especially on an alt. It's failing to change the mentality of killing mobs for advancement rather than compelling players to search for activity.

Levels and levelling is such a tired mechanic at this stage, that I was expecting something more innovative from Arenanet. While they have not discussed mob power or levels, there's a lot already in place or in the original that could have been developed leaving levels at the door. Look at the type of content a player could choose between on logging in for the evening, a choice of doing achievements, collecting skills and traits, participating in events or venturing into dungeons and killing bosses. They could reward attribute points for those activities and task the player with acquiring a certain number in whatever manner they want. Not such a big departure from levels, but even with this there is player choice and adaptability in choosing where to spend points first and a higher level character has a broader spread of attributes rather than vastly increased attributes.

What's most important is that they need to move away from incentivizing boring repetitive tasks, i.e. killing a mob and receiving a set amount of XP. Looking again at the activities I think should be rewarded:

1) Doing the daily achievements - random, dependable but hopefully skippable.

2) Collecting skills and traits - reward skill, knowledge and research about your profession.

3) Killing open-world and dungeon bosses, rewarding co-operation and providing challenge.

4) The Karma from events could also be used to buy attribute points, offered alongside the more material rewards. Tying character progression to events might frustrate some people, but it's not as dependable as some activities, and the rewards for a challenging or rare event could be significant to reward exploration.

The only thing keeping levels in play is being able to simply communicate the difficulty of mobs to players, which I think is an opportunity ripe for innovating.

Panic in Lion's Arch

2010-07-11T13:50:00.000-07:00

This weekend went from cussing A'net for putting in such as a difficult final quest to end the 'War in Kryta', to enthusing about the finale when I eventually got it done. On Friday, lag made it unplayable, Saturday tried to pug with another person, no good. Tried on my own with several builds and hero set-ups, even tried 'tanking' and bonding which is not really something I know how to do well on my warrior. In the end settled for a Barrage/SY! bar, because the mission is all about AOE, the alternative is build a wall of minions and spirits. There is certainly an epic feel to the encounter, standing on a hill behind barricades, firing upon hordes of enemies. In the end the toughness made the reward all the sweeter.

Special mention goes to 'Panic', this is the mesmer spell that got buffed the last big update, and it is amazing for this mission. The fun of turning the White Mantle and mursaat into a bunch of panicky idiots is immense, only moments after them walking into Lion's Arch confident of victory. Created a mesmer recently and fully intend to make it the elite when I get up to level cap. It could be considered overpowered but it only works best when mobs bunch up together. '!!' '!!'

I wonder about it though, this is the kind of skill that hints a lot towards the sequel. Going on the roles they released last week, this skill is control, but with great potential to prevent a lot of damage taken by allies. Initial thoughts about those roles were that they were replacing one trinity with another but have reconsidered since then; preventing damage taken by allies and preventing foes dealing damage are two sides of the same coin, thus control and support tend to blend together, with damage falling by the side as something you just need enough or of a certain type. The system as outlined is all about giving all classes the tools to be able to work together and coordinate their efforts for greater effect. I don't see anything to be worried about in this, it is a good thing. The argument could be made that the classes would become indistinct, but so what, if they have a distinct style and feel. Artificial differences between classes is an out-dated notion, as an adventurer needs be a adaptable if they are to make it anywhere in the world.

Building a build, part 2

2010-06-23T11:16:00.000-07:00

Which attribute? Not curses anyway, though it seems to have the most desired builds for competitive PvP, the important word being competitive. Lingering curses to reduce healing or corrupt enchantments for massive degen. Have tried corrupt enchantments in FA and it is fun enough, could dip into death magic for well of the profane, a single skill well worth the point investment. Having written that last sentence hesitating about crossing curses off the list now, it's a good build to take down Gunther, yeah I'm Luxon. What I settled for is more multi-purpose so I'll keep going for now...

Death magic seems much more fun, but I'm kinda anti-minion, something heroes are good at and I can't be arsed. I know they are not perfect, but they keep enchants on minions better, spirit spamming is the same, good for heroes and tedious for players, suspect both are going to be reconfigured in GW2. That leaves 3 builds: toxic chill, contagion bombers and tainted flesh. Tainted flesh is interesting, but would be a little hard to control in the chaotic CMs, good degen pressure though. Ok so I'm going to discount contagion bombing, even without trying it, but it is limited to JQ.

Played about with toxic chill for a while, a skill bar with an icy-poison theme; there's good synergy between toxic chill and vile miasma, but vile miasma has a long recharge time for only -4 degen. But the notion of skills that interact like that: first a hex (or enchantment) needs to be on the target, then toxic chill poisons the target, and finally vile miasma adding the degen because of the previously applied condition. It's initially engaging, but when you think about it is still 1, 2, 3 in order.

This is likely to make a return in GW2, we've already been told about warrior chains and the levels of adrenaline making additions to skills, but I expect to see the traits adding conditionals to skills as well. I think I prefer this new way, the basic skills need to be interesting and diverse and then conditionals can be added to tweak a build one or another, instead of having to examine, locate and swap skills in and out.

So that leaves blood and soul reaping, which are what I ended up with, but first I need to choose an elite to set the tone of the skill bar.

Building a build, part 1

2010-06-21T12:33:00.000-07:00

As a new comer to Guild Wars, and having just been wowed by the details of the sequel, thought I'd give my perspective on the so called 'build wars', just 5 years on the late side. Was having a problem of putting together a PvP build for my necromancer in Guild Wars. The builds on PvXwiki didn't appeal to any great extent. Did PvE first as blood, but quickly changed to curses, didn't particularly like it though and curses is hard in execution. So I embarked on a week long quest of examining skills and builds to find something that works for me.

On my warrior who I have just got to JQ/FA in the Factions campaign, the decision was easier, flipping between axe and hammer and getting practised with the standard builds. Each of those builds is singular in purpose, pressure through knock-down, deep wound debuff and damage, and though variation in the builds is limited that gets rid of build anxiety and to just go out and play the game.

So to begin, I needed to find the purpose for my necro build, then choose the skills and the elite. Did I also mention that I need to have a good theme for the build and don't particularly like half-and-half builds, don't mind adding in a skill or two from a secondary profession but still would like to feel necro. The decision to remove secondary builds in GW2 is a great idea for the RP and PVE side of the game, it makes the classes seem whole and hopefully the balance will be there that each class ends up roughly equal.

The purpose is the easy part, necros are support. And since I'm only ever going to be in Random Arena or Competitive Missions, it needs a good dose of self-reliance. So far so good, next the attributes and skills...

Instant travel and events in GW2

2010-06-08T02:46:00.000-07:00

One of the best features in GW was the instant travel. Having just finished Volume 1 in Lotro, I wish a lot of other MMOs took this feature and ran with it. Since GW2 is more open world, I'm fearing this system is going to get curtailed. They have explained that roads between outposts should be relatively clear except for times of blockade type events; this doesn't confirm or deny instant travel, though it would affect the initial travel to discover an outpost. On the other hand, with the introduction of events, there’s the possibility of expansion to the instant travel system.

Map travel between outposts could be plotted out, like the way it happens in WOW at flightmasters, except the travel would be at most 30 secs duration. As progress is made along the route, any events that occur in the surrounding area pop up on the map as icons that could be clicked on by the player to interrupt travel and instantly travel near to the event in progress. This would be a nice system to combine both instant travel and event notification.

Another option is to allow players who are taking part in an event to broadcast the event to friends or people in their guild, and then giving them the option to instant travel to that person. The location could be close to the broadcaster but out of aggro range. To take that concept further why not allow a player the option to broadcast an event to other players in the surrounding area, it would be a nice way to allow sociability and getting people together to experience events.

Lastly what I think is the most likely, is NPCs in outpost allow for instant travel. A farmer's son is in an outpost waving arms about, shouting about an attack on the farm, the player talks to him to instantly travel near to the farm. There could be heralds in cities that have the same function, but indicating major battles that are occurring, maybe a town-crier in smaller posts. I just want to see a load of NPCs vying for attention, the so described 'hundreds of lions running all over every street of the city'. These are only the small touches, the nuts-and-bolts of events are the hard part but have the best confidence in Arenanet to pull it off.

Done, done and done!

2010-06-07T03:54:00.000-07:00

Finished off the last 3 books in volume 1 this weekend, it was a mammoth undertaking, a little bit tortuous in places but such a relief to finally get it done. Yay, got a few nice titles and a horse. Don't think I'd ever do it again though. Once is more than enough for me. My feeling is that the later books are going to be paid content, book 1-8 may be free not 9-15 seeing as they are almost a separate storyline. Anyways only have one more weekend before unsubscribing for the summer and until Lotro goes free to play (need to spread gold across alts, empty some bags and abandon my house).

Having doubts about if I'm going to return to the game. I chose to level a warden, for the instant travel that was so very helpful for the epic books. To my mind the class is iconic, the spear/javelin, shield, ranger. It probably comes from levelling a tank, sure survivability is great, but combat is extremely slow. Have levelled a captain and burglar to 20/30, burglar seems to be alright and is suppose to get better at higher (crit) levels, captain is equally slow with so few abilities to actively use. Have a good idea of the classes and at this stage none are overly appealing. That's a bit of a hurdle, there's no class that's appealing enough to level up in place of the warden, but was considering champion for a faster killing experience.

If Turbine is going to strip out a lot of quests, slow combat is not going to entice many people, couldn't fathom the agony that would be grinding levels in Lotro. DDO had the whole active hack and slash thing that's different enough to tempt people. I would guess they would need to lower skirmishes (and/or PvM) to level 20, that way if the questing is unappealing, then there is something else to potentially interest new players. I could see myself returning if that happened, a champion tearing through skirmishes would be nice to do on occasion. To my mind, the success of this change to free to play depends on expanding skirmishes significantly. Adding a 'dungeon finder' like tool to form groups, and doing some freep v creep skirmishes, that's where I see the success lying. Same old questing just does not cut it anymore, though it was the lore and story that kept me doing the epic quests, the standard fetch and kill quests are going to turn off a lot of people.

A lot of current subscribers fear the influx of WOW kiddies but why would they when cataclysm will be released about the same time. Then again can't understand trolling along the lines, of logging in to say how boring the game is and how much better questing is in WOW, there's only one response to that.

Was a little unnerved at first about the things that I'd be losing (bags, rested xp, trait slots), but now it's more curiosity about how things will change and they must do so because the game needs an USP that's different enough from the competition. Lore and community are sufficient for the current subscribers, but what about the masses? DDO had that in the form of adventure packs (something innately appealing about that concept) and the combat. Where's Lotro's killer hook?

Routines and commitments

2010-05-31T14:26:00.000-07:00

Finally made it to goblin-town, only a fortnight later. It was a nice place to explore and the music is the best I've heard in game. What brought the exploration to a close was the usual: mobstacles, full bags, annoying to-and-fro-ing with quests and the repetition in scenery (this staircase looks awfully familiar, and no it wasn't a case of going about in circles). Didn't get to see Gollum's cave, that was probably the overall goal, but getting fed up and running through tunnels with twenty goblins in tow meant I'd lost the patience. Time to get out and finish the rest of the book, and see the inside of Delossad. That instance was an interesting way to tell the story, touching objects to see ghosts of the past acting (Nameleth could do with some acting lessons, her depiction of possession wasn't all that) out stories and everything coming to together. It was kinda ruined though by the need to have mobs (cave-claws, worms) spawn after every vignette, it seems turbine thinks the player can't go 10 minutes without fighting.

Have a routine where Monday to Friday is maintenance mode (do a daily quest or two, auction house, etc). Then full play sessions on weekends. For the most part can stick to it, except sometimes early on in the week, it that whole 'need to do it right now, can't wait til next weekend' feeling, but surprisingly that passes pretty quick. The strange thing is, come the weekend I'm looking for other (non-MMO) things to do than that task that seemed so urgent where I left off last weekend. Sitting outside in the sunshine reading is the anti-thesis of getting angry over something idiotic. Nah, it more like I'm bored with Lotro and need another MMO fix, except nothing's appealing besides Guild Wars 2. Arenanet is really on to something with their event system being able to intersect and divert from the personal story, longing to lose the blinkers and the unexpected breaking the routine of knowing exactly what I'm going to be doing before logging on.

Wouldn't mind playing Age of Conan for a bit, bring my lowbie bear shaman through the early Khitai zone. But more and more it seems a month of play at a single game is too long these days, only reason I spent 3 months at Lotro was because of a special offer during the last welcome back weekend and thought I'd get to level 60 and into Lothlorien, only managed level 50 and have enough. Think a monthly sub doesn't suit me anymore, but still got DDO and the original Guild Wars (liking the War in Kryta content) to dabble in every now and again. The list of things I'm disillusioned with in current MMORPGs is growing: levelling, gear-grind, mobstacles, time-sinks, subscriptions. At least there is Guild Wars 2 to look forward too.

Time-Wasting Elves

2010-05-17T12:29:00.000-07:00

Have been trying recently to confine mmo playing to weekends, because no matter how I attempt to limit the effects it has on getting a good night sleep I still get caught out and it's a major distraction from writing. So this weekend was interesting in that I ended up playing Portal as well as my current MMO of choice, Lotro. Spent several hours at Portal on Saturday, yeah several, probably slower than most, but did take a few breaks to puzzle out a few of the solutions. All in all it was one of the most satisfying experiences in gaming for a long time, funny, engaging and oh satisfying to finish it.

Contrast that with playing some Lotro last night, was working through Book 11 and it was incredibly infuriating! The book starts quite dramatically but the middle section had so many time drains and annoying tasks. It was probably a little about me not being in the mood to get so worked up about it, have to admit getting a little impatient with the game. Here's what annoyed me about those chapters:

Candelleth sends you to scout two locations where the ring Narchuil might be found, fair enough task. It's what the elves at those locations ask of you that's annoying. The first one sends you in to Delossad to investigate, that's not the annoying part, he also sends you to kill 8 Angmarims, the same mobs you just killed in the previous step, on the plus side he's not too fussy about which ones unlike Candelleth who wanted 6 of one type and 3 of the other. To be honest, it was just a 'huh' from me at that point. The other elf you get sent to, asks you to kill trolls and find the entrance to their cave, done! No wait you must now go back through the trolls (both stuns and knockbacks, fun times when climbing up ledges, yeah it did happen) and bog lurkers (btw what are these things anyway) to the cave and search it and kill their leaders, why didn't you say that the first time. Mounted up and just raced to the cave, 10 mobs chasing after me at all times, wading through mobs is getting really tiresome in this game (the stark contrast with Portal was not lost on me).

Okay, back to Candelleth, it wasn't in either place, oh I'm sorry, hmm where could it be. To the crumbled cottage and find a diary. This is probably what annoyed me the most, it assumes the players are stupid that they can't spend time to read the diary, figure out who L and N are and follow the directions in the diary. At this point I'm trying to imagine the thought process that the writer had, we need to have players march back up the hill to get exposition from Candelleth, so let’s use initials and also call Delossad by another name Sithad to confuse the players, can't have them taking the initiative, it must be Candelleth who figures it out after all. It doesn't make a whole load of sense. In my head I was imagining shouting up to Candelleth that I was going to investigate Delossad again. But no Candelleth has to tell you Sithad sounds like Delossad, was just about ready to kick her in the gorge and fling the diary after her. (Confession time: wasn't so quick to figure out the clues about the location of the keys, it was a nice little puzzle).

The next elf you get sent is probably the icing on the cake, she agrees to mend the key but first you must do a job for her (now where have I heard that before). Wanted to grab her and shake her violently and shout do you not realise the importance of mending those keys (where's the hobbit tinkers when you need them, fine by me if they use a scrap of iron from an old kettle, rather than needing mithril and a special hammer) Okay right about time to log off, and leave goblin-town until next weekend, have loads of quests to do there anyways and hopefully be a little more patient with the elves next time, they can't be blamed for living such long lives and their concept of time being so much more languid than humans (at least I’ve not been sent to Elrond in this book yet). Damn time-wasting elves!

Lotro and the inventory mini-game

2010-05-11T13:00:00.000-07:00

Maybe it's unfair to pick out Lotro for inventory management, but it's the game I'm playing at the moment. Every session of play is either ended or started or interrupted by the need to vendor or port to my house or a trip back to town for banking and the auction house, but usually it's all of them to empty out the bags of every kind of junk:

1) Recipes: probably making the most demand on space, with metalsmith and tailoring patterns being particularly annoying. Yeah I complain when they also make the most money per slot in the inventory. But the whole mechanic of dropped recipes needs to go. Two solutions: make the normal dropped recipes a reward for unlocking mastery in a profession (there's no reward at all associated with it except unlocking more grind, and it would line up nicely with levelling), and all single use dropped recipes should be obtained from the crafting guilds and non-crit versions requring the small rep item or none, and the crit version requiring medium rep item.

A more radical solution for metalsmith/tailoring to cut down on the amount of scrolling in the recipe book and add some individuality is to restrict racial designs to that race, i.e. an elf makes elf clothes.

2) Potion/Salves: being able to use salves on yourself and others is a nice idea, but having the standard type as well, means I usually end up with a dozen different types only to vendor them. Keep only salves, simple as that! Conditions on a whole in Lotro are chaotic, unlike something like Guild Wars (previous game, sorry).

3) Reputation items: sooner or later they are going to have to introduce a special tab for those.

4) Yellow items: in a game where crafted items are more powerful, they are just vendor trash, maybe not at early levels but in the 40s they just don't seem to sell at all, and have gotten fed up with listing them.

5) Vendor trash: why the hell do they only stack to 10! But the whole concept of picking up bits of monsters and junk to make money in an rpg really needs to go. In a game with a decent crafting system why not create an economy where all money is obtained from gathering and crafting rather than picking up broken wings and insect legs. It's funny but when you think of how much money you make on your first visit to the barrow downs and I know I'm not the first to notice that, picking up bits of undead and rats and maggots and baraghest. Ughh!

That's enough for now, there's probably more to add to that list, but need to go organise some space on my alts.

Bringing the Social Back?

2009-07-21T12:19:00.000-07:00

Had originally intended for this blog to be called 'Anti-Social Gaming', it was supposed to have been ironic, how I had come from 2 years of playing WoW and had so little to show for it. It was really having a major effect on my life and how much I felt it was a diversion from all the negativities and doubts that have filled my life for several years now. One of the straws that broke the proverbial camels back was sitting for several hours in a Naxx raid with a PuG from mostly the same guild and people were barely tolerating each other and all for filling out gaps in their gear. So this blog was intended as an outlet for examining how anti-social it had all become for me, (hence the new moniker of 'Dark-Adjusted Eye'), but also as a form of therapy yeah I admit I've social anxiety not just shyness, having fallen into a trap it was time to step back and look at things from a new perspective. And just recently several people involved with MMOs have been looking at the same issue, starting here, continuing here and here. Massively picked up on the theme too.

It's an important discussion, but one that's steeped in nostalgia too for past games, 'Everquest' is mentioned a lot but seeing as my MMO experience starts with WoW can't comment on it much, suffice to say it was probably more to do with the community than the design of the game, it being more akin to a small town of like minded individuals willing to share the experience than the gated-communities of modern MMOs where even within guilds can feel very unwelcoming.

But why aren't MMOs like social clubs where people with a common interest can meet and play together, it's a lot to do with the anonymity of the interactions. Many commenters have already talked about creating Facebook like profiles for the MMO players, even to link an MMO profile to any other social networking sites would be great. Would amend that with something I'd think even more important, an itinerary, where you could schedule in what you plan to do each day, saying what areas you plan to quest in and what times, maybe even listing some of the important quests you want to do, then an advance LFG tool matching players. That's really what it boils down to, bringing strangers together in a helpful way to accomplish goals. Adding players identified in this manner to a temporary contacts list.

Like Keen's assertion that MMOs can't be more social without looking to past games, and take it a step further and create a world based on our distant past such as getting rid of currency and only having a barter system, something completely divorced from modern life and these notions of always making gold and the ridiculousness of 'vendor trash', it's a fantasy genre after all so why is there a need for a constant wage with everything done in the game world, it only breeds greed and selfishness.

Think the most radical idea along those lines is to remove regional chat or any form of chat where you can not see the player, but still allowing people to IM/tweet people on their friends/temporary contacts list, so bye-bye general chat, bye barrens chat and good riddance to trade with it's inanities like 'Dirge' and 'Anal[...some random ability linked...] spam. I'm thinking about how this would make players feel about the zones and areas they find themselves at any particular time, and would hope they notice the other people around them more, it would become necessary to achieve a rewarding playtime to fill out the itinerary, and actually make use of the suggested contacts without a LFG channel, a twitter like interface would be great too for updating it as you went about it. I'm really drawn to the idea of being out in the wilderness and meeting a friendly face, even if it is just to wave and then continue along my path, but what if you needed to ask directions, because you couldn't spam chat and hope for an informative reply? For one thing it would encourage more interactions at quest hubs, if something wasn't clear you could ask the other players hanging around so you're certain of the task before setting out, of course only if you're not of mind to check online for the solution.

This is quite hard to surmise, but the best social experiences for me is ending up somewhere you never expected to end up and all because of someone you'd met, here's an example from Keen about a memorable journey in Everquest. Your playtime can be planned with an itinerary but player's still need to be willing to take chances along the way .

Edge's 'Time Extend'

2009-07-13T14:37:00.000-07:00

Back when I used to read Edge magazine religiously, this was my favourite feature 'Time Extend'. Here's the link to two of those articles that they've condensed for online but still very good reads, think these might have been the first and second game featured in that series, and two of my most remembered games 'Majora's Mask' and 'Eternal Darkness', don't think those particular issues are still around due to my flat been flooded twice in the last year and them occupying a low shelf (you'd have thought I learned my lesson after the first time). Miss reading Edge every month, playing WoW constantly lessened my desire for other games, resubscribing to Edge is a good start in getting interested again because they can write so evocatively about games, as displayed above.

Where to Next?

2009-07-13T13:08:00.000-07:00

Just coming to my month's stint in LOTRO and trying to decide where to go next. For the most part have enjoyed it, we'll not mention the Ered Luin incident again, had the opportunity to try the Bree-land questing before and after the recent patch, and the improvement was immense, much more engaging. Surprisingly despite the alt explosion (totally necessary to find my main, should have done this with WoW when I first started would've saved so much annoyance) I was able to settle on one class that I liked and it wasn't the one I started first (Warden).

So yeah I do enjoy playing support/buff classes but they must have good consistency in character, hence the Shaman ranting previously. The Captain class is a nice conceit but without someone to buddy up with it wasn't as 'fun' as it could be, pointing out tactics only for myself did look a bit silly. Was missing the totems a bit, but planting a banner was a nice alternative not so much having a faithful 'pet' to follow me around. Don't think I'll go for another month in LOTRO, but would wait til the revamp occured in Lone-Lands or North Downs or that I got a much better computer, (also the reason I can't try WAR out for a month, did the trial a while back before the big 'live expansion').

Was eager to try AOC but they're stopped offering the trial to new players while they have that welcoming back of previous players, damn them just as I wanted to give it a try. And WoW is out of the question til patch 3.2 lands, me thinks a break is in order...?

Redefining MMOs: Story and Lore (focusing on SW:TOR)

2009-07-09T10:46:00.000-07:00

Having recently just completed KOTOR, one thing about Bioware's stated features for their new MMO is that they want to include companions in the game. Sure the companions in KOTOR told engaging story and often times held a mirror up to the motives of the player character but that was to be expected from playing most of Bioware's previous solo RPGs. But what's bothering me is this seems a crutch for actually trying something new and socially orientated...(in reply to the Massively article)

Would love to see them develop a system of approval/disproval, and trust/distrust. Say two player's party up and enter a scenario, like the one aboard the Sith ship described at E3. One player taking the lead and initiating dialogue, is the other player just going to sit by listening, or can they have the ability to interject into the dialogue or even break off the dialogue for some action? Could there be some way to show your approval or disproval for this injection or interuption, and as a result your trust in the offending player drops. And if trust drops so low, it bans the offender from entering into further dialogue, having agressive abilities neutered or left outside the area where important dialogue occurs. It does seem unfeasible but how else are two or more players going to be able to shape the dialogue and events in SW:TOR or any such future story-orientated game? This trust/distrust system could also affect each player's powers or combined abilities in a meaningful way, say distrust hampers them from reaching their full potential.

From what has been seen in the comic and that scenario mentioned, a pair of players might be the most important group in the game, and that might be a necessary decision that Bioware decides because as soon as you add in more players it's going to become a muddle. Someone else in the Massively post said they foresee the rise of small group over raids, and I'd definitely agree with that, especially in story and lore orientated games as Bioware promises.

Why Do MMORPG Successes Feel So Hollow

2009-07-06T12:05:00.000-07:00

I do a quest and get a reward, supposedly that's what keeps me occupied for hundreds of somewhat menial tasks levelling up in an MMORPG. It's a pity that thousands, even millions have done or will do the same quest and received the same reward as me, no unique hero am I it seems. There's something going on there that anybody rational or intelligent should be able to fathom, so what is it about an MMORPG's system of continual rewards that has conditioned me to do this long drawn out grind, starting with WOW and falling into the same patterns with LOTRO...

And don’t think it stops at levelling either, endgame in WOW is one continual grind, running heroics, raids for gear to be able to move on to the next tier is the exact same. It does have one difference though, skill is supposed to improve with each conquest but why the need for repetition. In a single player game, one time is enough then maybe another time for the fun. Once the challenge has been overcome, why then must raiders enter 'farming' mode, same encounters, same core personnel, and god help anything interrupts that efficient process of repetition. Tried it, hated it and don’t want any further part of it, so not going to dwell anymore on this aspect.

Ok so what does this reward fuelled grind achieve, not a whole lot on the face of it. It does nothing to define in game character, other than demonstrating subservience to the whims and vagaries of strangers, who happen to be the laziest, most demanding people ever created. For the most part it doesn’t increase skill, time and alternatives will overcome most obstacles in the way to the level cap. Funny that for the most part grouping isn’t rewarded at all, exact same rewards for doing a quest solo or grouped, creativity isn’t rewarded either. Maybe it's as simple as that, the rewards make the grind more palatable, and that's a trap many fall into, me included.

Changing tack for a moment by looking at the notion of successes. Success is something that unknown to many people is being continually justified by our thought stream even if we are paying attention or not. Paying attention to it, can have a very powerful effect, even to lift someone out of chronic depression, and I should know. By paying attention I mean observing successes and questioning what it was that led to them, whether it was our own skills and abilities, luck, being in the right place at the right time. Does questing and rewards in WOW and others suppress that it in some way? (staring unblinkingly at the screen perhaps)That's the question I'd really like to know the answer. But it must be bad to ignore our skills in life (like reasoning, socialising...) for interacting with game systems of mindless and inconsequential advancement.

Do MMORPGs reward successes that aren’t worth rewarding and don't contribute to personal happiness and enjoyment? (hah, posing the right question is hard)

WoW Shaman Class Q&A

2009-06-24T13:14:00.000-07:00

Yeah the changes are good, sensible ones but one thing is really annoying me and it's to do with the overall design of the class. Ghostcrawler states that Shamans are the offensive hybrid counterpart to the defensive hybrid, the Paladin. Here's the thing though, Paladins are almost perfectly realised as a defensive class, with their ability to tank, wear heaviest armour, the saving 'hands' on their allies, "Divine Shield" on themselves, being able to redirect some of the damage taken by a single target or the whole raid to themselves, it's a very nice repertoire indeed. Then you've got Shamans in the supposed offensive role and they are sorely lacking in that respect, one key component of offence is mobility something Shaman players have been complaining that's lacking for ages.

For instance, in that same post GC mentions how static he thinks casting Shamans are like 'turrets' - "You sit and spin and shoot (or heal)". Sounds a lot like a defensive role being adopted to me. It really is galling because of how I imagined the Shaman to be a great warrior that buffs his allies in the heat of battle (having an interesting experience in Lotro trying out the Captain class, ahem). So then it's a question of mobility as one possible solution to this dilemma, but creating a caster/healer that can go toe to toe in close range would be very intriguing but barring a total wipe of what is currently in game it's a very unlikely prospect, though "Maelstrom Weapon" could be a potential catalyst for change.

"Heroic Leap" a dropped Wrath beta ability for Warriors (Fury?) has Shaman written all over it. "Thunder" could be redesigned as a quick way to move for Elemental Shamans, like a lightning bolt they get into the middle of a group of mobs, drop "Fire Nova" and "Chain Lightning" to their hearts contents. A warrior priest archetype would be very welcome for restoration, a revival of Shaman fortunes would be much prefered than a new hero class. Umm, yeah, guess that's strike two for not returning to WoW for now at least.

Game-Breaking

2009-06-24T12:46:00.000-07:00

Been playing some Lotro the last week and for the most part been enjoying it, the grandiosity of the landscapes is breath-taking in places, even things like the sweep of a river away into the distance is sublime (reminds me of a river close to where I grew up that had what appeared to be a grotto from a distance but close up not so great, took a good bit of climbing over ditches to get there). Yeah I like exploring, but wish I'd a better computer to do really do justice to the landscapes, also looking out from a lofty vantage point without the game grinding to a halt would be nice.

Unfortunately something occurred that really has put a dampener on things, due to a recent revamp of the Ered Luin starting area some of the NPCs and objectives have been moved about a bit, except the quest text hasn’t been updated at least on EU servers. So to say it was confusing is a bit of an understatement, surprisingly the newly introduced quest helper is showing where the objective is correctly and also the lorebook on the website has the right text too. It's almost comical in some of the situations I found myself in, one NPC saying to fend off an attack from mountain lions when none were anywhere to be seen, yeah that should be the next NPC I talk too, thanks for the heads-up; go to ruins taken over by goblins, no I mean the vale with wolves prowling about. And I was really looking for an epic adventure to get stuck into and reading a coherent story would have been a key role in that, but now dreading what other clunkers I'm going to run into along the way.

Making MMORPG Combat Better

2009-06-18T13:06:00.000-07:00

Tobold has this post on his blog about making MMORPG combat better. It's a good summation, but missing one element, which could prove both tactical and interactive: coordination between players. Beginning in a simple manner, taking the D&D example of blunt weapons being good against undead as origin (that's new to me, never having played the game, but sure every game I seem to play has at least some influence from it), and letting some classes abilities interact with other abilities from other classes in a positive or negative fashion. Sure there is buffs in many MMORPGs that benefit more than the casting player but it's definitely worth considering how it could be taken further.

Here's an example: a highly armoured mob that cant be damaged by melee whose damage depend on applying bleeds/poisons, in order for them to be able to damage the mob the armour must be shattered/sundered by a 2-handed blunt weapon wielding tank. The tank is aided by a caster casting frost spells to make the armour more brittle and freezing the mob for higher chances of the armour being smashed, the bindings snapping etc. Once the armours gone melee have 2-3 secs to apply whatever bleeds/poisons they have, however the caster puts a 'hypothermia' debuff on the mob which prevents them being damaged with bleeds/poisons and this debuff is more likely to be applied when the mob is exposed for those 2-3 secs. It's the Zelda guide to boss design, the boss can't be ordinarily damaged only when a sweet spot is exposed and you can go hell for leather with your sword.

Another example is for stunning/knocking over a mob, (having just started LOTRO it'll be influencing this one, and the way burglars have the most ways to set off fellowship manoeuvres), say if you have 3 players able to charge they must time it to hit the mob one after the other and put the mob off balance and leaves them vulnerable to being tripped up and stumbling on some marbles some carelessly left lying around the dungeon (still cant get over that a Burglar's heal is called "Mischievous Glee" :). You could imagine other abilities that could throw a mob off-balance (I like the phrase 'the tipping point') to be tripped up, the smack about the head with a shield ability, the hurl abuse from the far side of the room ability and so on.

Chain Heal Channeled

2009-06-13T06:05:00.000-07:00

Just a little exercise in how I'd make Shaman healing fun, something that was promised for all healers but not yet delivered. Of course it's totally subjective, making healing more fun as Blizzard has said is difficult to design for 11 million+ players. Key consideration I believe is get to a point where all abilities interconnect and set each other up to be more effective, such as the way Riptide/Chain Heal currently haste the next 2 LHW/HW "Tidal Waves", another consideration is to create something iconic (a word that should always be attached to a buffing class such as Shaman). This is also a proposed remedy to the discussion about chain-heal not matching up to the other aoe heals.

1) Earthliving procs refresh Riptide, this could easily be achieved by changing Glyph of Earthliving, it would allow Riptide to stay on players that are been healed frequently for longer durations, the burst of life at the target's feet is a nice visual clue for this.

2) When I first read the description for the talent "Ancestral Awakening", was really excited because this is the sort of iconic thing that a shaman healer needs, calling forth spirits to help heal allies and perfectly tying into the shaman's ability to commune with the spirit world. To say I was disappointed at it's actual implementation is an understatement, what the hell was that shadow that just popped up! What I had envisioned was non-targetable ghosts walking about for a short period of time, and had the clerics that wandered around the black temple in mind (draenai shaman healer here, but orcs could have the maghari ancestors that roam nagrand, tauren the taunka spirits in borean tundra, not sure about trolls though). They would last 9s like "Divine Aegis", and heal anyone that needed it, rather than be useless when nobody actually needs a heal, DA has the edge there.

3) Chain Heal is channeled, and working a lot like Penance. First pulse is instant then a jump occurs every sec afterwards for 2 secs. Glyph can give one extra jump for same mana, but it then isnt such a top choice for every raid boss, but good to save mana for times spamming Chain Heal. Chain Heal becomes a lot more flexible, for example healing one player instantly or healing two players in 1 second.

4) Decrease the reduction in healing after each jump of Chain Heal say 10-20%, and first heal about PoH or slightly less, danger here is that the first two pulses are going to be very strong for 1 second spent channeling.

5) Healing Stream Totem has a low chance to proc Earthliving on raid members, say 10% or even the standard 20% depending on balance.

6) Riptide get's an additional function in addition to increasing the first heal by 25%; each time Chain Heal jumps to a target with Riptide, the jump time is decreased by 50%, 0.5 second instead of 1 second, this represents the strong current of Riptide pulling on the Chain Heal.

7) Chain Heal can now hit the same target more than once, it can also jump to and from an ancestor who happens to be wandering around and part of the heal stored and added to the heal the ancestor currently has to put to use.

So putting all this together leads to a much more flexible kind of Shaman healing. Shaman healing a single target can proc ancestors to help heal that target with both Chain Heal for Tidal Wave procs to haste subsequent LHW/HW for the continued ancestor procs . Healing a group of melee with chain heal, by keeping riptide on each of them for some fast chain heals, and Earthliving procs from either HST or other heals helps to do that. Chain Heal can then works on 2 targets, hitting first, jumping to second, and then if the first target is still lowest the 2nd jump hits them for another heal.

Anyways, because Shaman healing is nothing like this at present, and it was my main for one expansion, it's getting shelved as well as quitting WoW for the time being. More on Blizzard's design brief for the Shaman class soon.

Persistence Leading to Dynamic Worlds

2009-06-10T14:42:00.000-07:00

Raph Koster has two articles on the origin and meaning of persistence in MMOs, and are both a very good read. Below, my contribution to the discussion quoted for posterity:

"Still confused about this use of the word persistence; coming here with the dictionary meaning and trying to understand a seeming contradictory concept. But will give it my best shot with an example: building a house in a mmo world, that’s persistent in the sense that it should stay there with it’s content intact (like the use of persistence mentioned in the article regarding saving data like stats, items etc), determined by the rules set by the developer that nobody could break and enter. But that’s not realistic, especially in a pvp game, to not be able to ransack a house or even to have ‘bandit’ mobs programmed to loot a house that is unattended and in the wilderness. On the one hand the developer is creating a more dynamic situation, but with the other imposing some strictures on players i.e. who would be foolish enough to build a house in the middle of nowhere, away from civilisation, so you see it is wrong to say that developers programming more dynamic play lose control over the activities of players, they do it in more considered ways. Going back to persistent again, the so called legacy of a player who chooses to build a house in the wilderness in a war-torn land is a set of ruins and passing players saying noob under their breath."

In a nutshell, persistence is needed for dynamic worlds, where players have an impact on the playing environment, over what has been previously set by the developer. That's where potential confusion arises over that term, especially by people with no game development knowledge like me, and thinking to myself whenever I hear it publicised, persistence, but isnt that a bad thing if the game world is static, unchanging. It's a piece of jargon, but one to pay attention to what any particular developer means by it, especially cause it's going to have a huge impact in how it's implemented in the worlds of the future MMOs.