Cryptic’s Star Trek

First, let’s do the easy bit. To apply for the Star Trek Online closed beta please visit this link. If you get in, remember who sent you and beat up a dev to get me in. Closed beta started October 22nd and Star Trek Online is slated for a first quarter 2010 release. Amazon pre-order link is somewhere below.

So. Star Trek. I was raised on Star Trek. Oh there were other shows, there was Doctor Who ingrained so deeply in my mind that I sleepwalked (slept walked?) to the source of the theme music once. There was Space 1999, Blake’s 7, UFO, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. British 70s sci-fi, American sci-fi it didn’t matter. I was born and raised a geek. I love newer stuff. Stargate, Farscape, Odyssey 5, Battlestar Galactica and Babylon 5 all are huge to me. Star Trek though… despite the rubbish first three seasons per show, despite the ending of Enterprise or even worse, the Warp 10 episode (disowned from Canon) and despite what people may say about the latest movie, I love Star Trek. Shannon too is a life long Trekkie and we’ve both said to one another that love it or loathe it, we’re honour bound to at least trial Star Trek when it gets to Open Beta/Release (Though Cryptic, I can totally be bought by two closed beta keys if you want me to be nicer). With my geek cred established needlessly let’s get onto the real reason for this post.

KHHHHHHAAAAAAANNNNNNYYYYPPPPTTTIIIIIICCCC. (Why does the spell checker have no problem with that but dislikes “cred”?)

Let’s start with a previous blog entry, The Cryptic Model. I suggested that if “polish” is the watchword of Blizzard, then “custom” is that of Cryptic. Look at what they’ve done to date. I think people have died due to the amount of time they spent in the character creator (Joke, seriously). So far Cryptic has offered up two perks for Star Trek and like any good little nit picking fan boy I have an issue with both. First we have the perk given to the Lifetime subscribers of Champions Online, the mirror universe uniform. That makes no sense. Allow me to explain/Shut up and listen. The Terran Empire as seen in the first Mirror Universe episode, the one that established that evil twins have goatees and thus goateed people are evil, collapsed shortly after Kirk got his Kirk on. By the time of DS9 Earth and such had gone from almighty warmongering empire to a slave race to the Bajorans, Cardassians and Klingons. By the time of STO (some 20/30 years after Nemesis) the idea of wearing a Kirk era alternate universe evil empires outfit? Yeah I’m going to go and put a big fan boy NO on that. The second perk is even more unforgivable. Pre Order From Amazon and get a Borg Bridge officer. If I have to explain why that is wrong you never really got the Borg did you? This isn’t a Seven of Nine type issue where it’s a recently saved human (and generally getting de-borged is reserved for main cast) who happens to have some implants and such. No they are saying here have a Borg. I could come up with methods to justify that, like the individual “Hugh” Borg Lore was hanging out with or the Borg from Unity. In any event, despite any justification, you’d imagine they’d be a rarity as opposed to every Tom, Dick and Harry Kim who pre-orders.

Moving onwards we have further complaints. We’ll swing the bat at Cryptic first and then back to the game. Star Trek Online is being based on the Champions engine. Sure this means that development time has been cut, they already have the engine and tools and whatnot. Star Trek thus will be out in the first part of 2010. February if Amazon is to be believed. That seems rushed to me, terribly so. Further to my complaints, I foresee the C-Store making an appearance in Star Trek. I’ll have to wait and see to complain properly about that one.

At this point in the entry I was geared up for further bile and ranting. However I think I will leave it here for now and save that for another day. Suffice to say, the ship list does not please the Ardy. Instead I will end with one or two positives.

While I don’t necessarily agree with the view of the Klingons being presented, I admit that it is a good move to have an iconic pvp based race. Klingons love to fight and it can even be another Klingon. Also the progression and some of the ships interest me. Still, with the game only going into beta, a lot can change. Let’s hope the needs of the many are satisfied by what Cryptic is attempting.

Champions Online Free Weekend

With the rising of the Blood Moon, Champions is offering a Blood Moon Weekend to give people two days to try out the game and the Halloween Event.

Terry was right in the comments recently, I have been more full of hatedom than usual. You know, I gripe because I am interested. I never was one of the CoH players or pen and paper RPG players who on hearing of Champions squeed my pants off. Personally I didn’t get it and to a degree I still don’t.

However I have told a few people (though I may have neglected to blog it, so here you are) that I always thought I could have fun in Champions. I loved the look of the Force set. I thought tunnelling was cute. I’m going to try make the Robo-Buddy. All these things hold true despite complaints about the store, complaints about the game at large or anything else.

I’m going to be patching up (provided it isn’t an insanely huge patch) and creating a few characters. As Syp pointed a while back, saving the costume you make is a good move as it saves everything and makes for easy loading at a later date. I don’t think I ever will pick up Champions full time because there’s just other things out there that I want to play and the people I enjoy playing with aren’t jumping ship entirely just yet. Even so, if you’re free this weekend feel free to poke me on my Twitter or in Champions. @Ardua or http://twitter.com/Ardua

That all said, I stand by my fan boyish Trekkie based nerdrage. Cryptic gets a blasting for Star Trek Online later on. Nitpicks incoming!

C(ash cow)-Store

Sorry for the delay folks. Blame The SCP Foundation for my absence lately. I just can’t get enough of it.

Anyway as I am sure almost everyone knows, the Champions Online C-Store is now live. In it you can get such things as a complete Character Retcon (1000pts), Four additional Character slots (1200pts), Additional costume slots (400pts per two slots), Character Rename (280pts) then various emblems, outfits, vanity pets and so on.

Now those Cryptic points are roughly similar to Turbine Points. We’ll come back to that. The current exchange rate (as though to imply it can be changed later) Cryptic Points stands as shown here. It is at this point that I must point out quite clearly to one and all that City Of Heroes also has micro transactions.

City of Heroes lets you buy

• Character slots for a server up to a maximum of 36 slots on one server (1, 2 or 5 at iirc $5, $10 and $20)
• Server Transfers
• Respecs
• Character Rename
• Super Boosters

The Super Boosters are $10 each and you have such varied ones as the Good Vs Evil item pack (from the GvE edition of the game), Wedding Pack, Mac Item Pack, Cyborg Booster, Magic Booster and Super Science booster. Of all of them, only the Wedding pack is entirely cosmetic, with new outfits and emotes. The last three bring outfit pieces, emotes and powers. Good Vs Evil and Mac Pack have costumes and a new power.

Basically $10 buys you a fair bit of kit in CoH. Shannon wants me to get the Magic pack when I can because she adores one of the coats in it and I have to admit, the Fortune power is very handy to have but by no means game breaking. I personally have been eyeing up the Mac Pack, not for the mission teleporter power but the Valkyrie armour which looks gorgeous. Despite there being costume sets to buy and emotes only available to those who have shelled out cash the booster packs are perfectly acceptable to me for two reasons. Firstly (and I wish I had the time to ferret out a link to source the assertion) the Wedding pack sales directly accelerated work on the issue that followed it thanks to the cash injection. Hey, they give us fun stuff that we may want but don’t need and if it gives them a leg up? What’s not to love? Secondly, there are new pieces added to the game constantly. There are more temp powers than I’ve ever had knocking around the game. I may not be able to juggle electricity or drink a super serum for a costume change, but I eventually got my own costume change emotes.

$10 in CO doesn’t buy you anything. You have to purchase in increments. So the nearest band is $12.50 which gets you 1000 points and that’s just enough for a full RetCon in Champions. $12.50 to rebuild your character. City of Heroes also has Respecs for sale. Respecs in City of Heroes let you repick every power from your primary and secondary from the first level, entirely changing the pools you may have had and also are a handy way to sell off or remove enhancements and slotting that you may want elsewhere. You cannot, unlike the RetCon, change your primary and secondary. However as I write this I have 51 months worth of Veteran badges and Issue 16 recently launched. I personally tend not to respec and five years on from launch massive sudden nerfs to powers in CoH are rare. As a result I have Four veteran respecs (9 months, 21, 33 and 45 months), one new issue “freespec” and on most of my characters I have my three possible reward respecs from the trial. The trial takes about two hours and at the end, wahey respec and badge. If for some reason I managed to burn through those 8, I still do not have to shell out cash, there are Respec recipes on the in game market (though they cost a pretty penny).

Slots are also an issue. Four more character slots in Champions (to bring you to a total of 12) costs $18.75 (1500 pts) if you buy the two smaller instalments or $25 (2000pts) if you want to buy a few more things. Five slots in City of Heroes is $20 and you get a new character slot for every 12 months you’ve played the game, on top of the 12 you already had from City of Heroes (originally it launched with 8 but 12 became the standard after CoV) and the two they gave out if you were around for the launch of slots. You can on a single server in City of Heroes have 36 slots. Sure Champions is brand new and sure it doesn’t have servers, relying instead on the instances system but … it’s not like Cryptic didn’t know that hero games breed altwhores. It’s not like they didn’t give out Freespecs in CoH or didn’t have an easy and enjoyable respec system. Sure I suppose the ability to have a full retcon, rebuilding your character from the ground up and having entirely different powers, shouldn’t be cheap or easy. There’s a difference though between “not cheap and easy” and “screw the customer for cash”.

As people will continue to compare the two games (me especially) keep in mind that Cryptic did make them both. Champions should have been City of Heroes Mk 2.Awesome. They had the time and experience with CoH to show them what did and did not work, what does and does not piss off the fan base and finally how to have fans hand over cash with a grin. I’ve never heard anyone bemoan “having” to buy a super booster. Heck if you decide to play City of Heroes, buy the Architect edition, you get a free super booster with it. Right now Champions is punishing its players and the pricing is insulting in some cases and idiotic in others. Really though, it’s just retail. You’ll almost always have points left over and they’ll tease you with more bits and pieces. You’ll always need to buy just a few more to fit everything if you don’t shell out more than you need initially.

Though for the close we’ll go back to the Turbine Points like I promised. I played some DDO with Sareini over the weekend and I earned my first Turbine points which when I have enough I can use instead of cash to buy anything in the DDO store. Now obviously I know it’ll be a grind if I want anything in particular. The cash option is just the faster, easier but ultimately costly option. If I want it NAO I pay money. Champions to my recollection is supposed to have the same system. However Sareini tells me that there are to her knowledge at the moment no missions in the game that reward C-Points because well… it’s broken. Also Cryptics Daeke had this to say.

I agree with Syp in that CO really shouldn’t be charging for costumes and such when they haven’t yet surpassed their only competitor. If nothing else, charging money for Halloween outfits before Halloween? Whose bright idea was that?

Two notes I'm adding after the fact. First I will put in ParagonWiki links for people soon. Second, while I want clarification on the extra costume slot item in the C-store, it is the one thing Shannon would kill for in CoH

STO Placeholder

This is a post I've joked about a few times to friends.

I'm going on record as disliking Star Trek Online, the direction Cryptic are taking, the information released and pretty much most of everything I hear about it.

Placeheld so I can refer to it later and either laugh at myself for my misguided nature (yeah right) or more likely point and prove I was on the hatewagon first :P

Cryptic? You just go and bugger off.

WTS: 1 Ardy Soul

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’ve never played a Blizzard or Bioware game. I’ve watched my brother play countless hours of Mass Effect, KOTOR and KOTOR II. He plays WoW. In fact most people I know online either have played WoW, are playing WoW or will at some point.

As far as my gaming calendar goes, there’s City of Heroes next weekend to such a degree I’ll probably be sick of it next monday. There’s Left 4 Dead and if I get the money, a pre-order of Left 4 Dead 2. I’d love to dabble in Aion and have every intention of getting Shannon to test Champions Online just for my own grim amusement.

However Christmas is coming and with it, holidays. I’ll have time to indulge various bits and David (the brother) does keep offering me World of Warcraft. So question to everyone.

Is the never ending draw of Warcraft based in how it is as an MMO or due to fond memories of Warcraft I-III being translated to the big screen as it were? I understand some of the lore but none of the draw. Am I too changed by the games I have played to enjoy WoW or will it be me selling my soul?

So, Ardy play? Y/N.

Possibly The Worst Idea

My wee mention of Left 4 Dead put me to thinking about things. Of course the thoughts aren’t terribly original but hey Echoes here.

Kyle Horner of Massively put digital pen to paper in March and offered up the idea of a Zombie Apocalypse MMO. Earlier still he mused on a Survival Horror game.

While collecting links for this post, I remembered where Syp talked about permadeath. Permadeath as he points out is a polarising thing. You either hate it or embrace it and rarely fall on either side. Unsurprising really given that a quick look at game wikis proves character death is cheap. In Champions, you take a hit to your effectiveness. In City of Heroes, technological wonders rebuild you on a molecular level as you fall, avoiding all the issues of death (probably also explaining why you can “arrest” with a broadsword to the neck). Aion, you’re immortal. Warhammer, you’re too busy to die. Warcraft, death is helpful if you want to get all the quests. There are so many ways of sidestepping the Reaper explained away by the fluff of the game, usually in the tutorial to boot, that is causes fights when applied to NPCs. Ask people about if Heroes kill or not in the Champions Online or City of Heroes role-playing forums and be ready for a firestorm.

Permadeath is based on a very basic premise though, one that exists in many games and I think could be applied well in MMOs (or it’s a horrible idea as the title of this suggests), specifically the idea that supplies are limited. There is only one of you. There are only so many resurrections available. There is no healer or mediport or other Applied Phlebotinum around to get you on your feet.

So if in fact supplies are limited, shouldn’t that apply across the game world? The Left 4 Dead example, and the idea of the post, is this. You have X amount of ammo, Y amount of friends and Z options. You need to get from A to B and there may not be a handy drop of medical supplies or pills or ammo or anything along the way. You could face hordes of mooks or a handful of specialised problems. Part of the tension comes in the fight, another part comes in the debate. Do I use my pills now or do I wait? Can I afford to unload my weapon like a madman into that mob or should I get my (unlimited) pistol? Will I survive just a little longer, saving that precious med pack for when we really need it?

In a post apocalyptic world or survival game world, supplies should be limited. Give people the ability to patch up friends into walking wounded, give people a weapon they can always use but isn’t exactly going to rock anyone's socks. Give them the tension that comes of the choices, to use what little they have now or try to hold on a little longer.

Like in Kyle's example, the best supplies and remaining scant resources are in the danger zone. You’re not. Maybe such a game would have permadeath, maybe not. Either way there would only be so many people with so much stuff and you’d have to work out how to survive on that. Logistics and tactics become paramount.

Bonus ideas

Two MMO settings where supplies are precious and choices hard. First, Sci-fi setting where humanity (or for extra points humanity are the invaders and you play something else) is on the run from an invading force. Until such time as the story allows it, it would be a game of rearguard actions and ever increasing pressure put on the survivors and their stockpiles. Escape, abandon other guilds to die, try to fight the good fight. Whatever you do, you’ve a game where people need to work together to win, otherwise they die piecemeal.

Second setting, easy one this, Post Epitaph One-Dollhouse verse. The world is clearly in tatters and people have all sorts of dangers rallied against them. Make the escape from a large city a very very long tutorial where you either learn what you need to work with people in refuge or you suffer a fate worse than death. Extra points if the game doesn’t include permadeath in a traditional way and instead offers you the chance to override a Doll. Do you take that option and take someone's body? Or do you do the honourable thing and go out shooting?

 

Either way the idea of limiting supplies could be awful, the one wonderful part of it is it has brought me that much closer to lunchtime. Really really awful. I remember reading about old school Everquest and guilds camping dungeons that they wanted to run. Do you think the world is ready for the ultimate co-op game? Not just an MMO but one where you really do have to shape up yourself as well as work well with others. Then again given the boards of many online games, do you really want to rely on those people for your continued survival? Would you play a game where every med pack is precious and if you don’t join the guys guarding the pharmacy, you may never see another?

I suppose in the end, supplies are limited. People will be patient with current game designs for only so long, many already have lost their patience. I guess my final question is this, would you play in a world where, in the big picture, your side has already lost? All you can do is survive and hope to turn the tide someday.

In The Name Of The Healer..

And the Tank and the Holy DPS did you see how I pwned that mob?!?

That’s right, the holy trinity. The three body system that has the person soaking the damage and keeping aggro, the person keeping everyone up and running and the person who dishes out the hurt. I’m told the Holy Trinity is boring and old fashioned and in need of a shake up. Personally, I’ve not had much experience with it. Even in games that have it, I’ve a tendency to go off and do whatever amused me rather than what I am good at or “meant” for.

The Trinity is being discussed on the Epic Slant Forums but this post is inspired by Luigrein over at Rainbow MMO. He was talking about City of Heroes and how just because your class is a tank, that doesn’t mean levelling one means you know them all. (By the way, I didn’t see your global for ages mate, I’ll tend to that tonight)

I am in total agreement with that. Last night I just got my tenth level 50 character in City of Heroes, this time my Warshade Kashlar. So as of writing this I have a max level on 6 of the 7 Hero ATs and 3 of the 7 Villain ATs. That doesn’t mean I have played everything, even in the ATs that I have supposedly finished. My friend Sephorus for the longest time had a Fire/Fire tank that he insisted was a scrapper with the wrong AT icon. Dinging 50, I was on an Imperious Task Force. We had no dedicated healer and precious little in the way of pure dps. What we did have was a lot of people who played well and had enough utility to carry the day (also lots of control). I have heard of all Kheldian taskforces, all Blaster taskforces, all Defender (broken and wrong:P) taskforces and so on and so forth. The Trinity can be undone through one word. Utility.

I think the hard part is though not everyone wants it gone. Personally I think I might enjoy some time making the healiest healer I can, or tankiest tanker. I might like my niche and I want to be able to indulge that desire wherever I play. Designers though are the ones who you have to convince and I know how.

Get the developers of all the games you love and have a massive Left 4 Dead vs marathon. Zoey is no better than Francis. Louis no less accurate than Bill. Each player is on an even footing and can pick the weapons that suit their style best, can heal with a medkit or patch up briefly with pills. They all can lay down walls of fire or lob a distracting pipe bomb. How the person plays with the tools offered is up to them. There is no dedicated healer, though someone can play that way. There is no dedicated tanker beyond “Hey you’ve slightly more health, you annoy the Witch”. There is no best weapon. You use what you have in a manner that suits yourself. Could that be applied to MMOs en masse? I haven’t a clue, though I will watch the one that recently caught my eye that might.

Levels and classes are a wonderful introduction to online games and teach you how to play in the virtual worlds that so many people love. Sooner or later though, the fun comes from having nothing but a shotgun and a prayer.

Double XP Weekend Returns

From the City of Heroes Facebook Page

We're celebrating the recent launch of Issue 16: Power Spectrum in style by offering all our players a Double XP weekend! But that's not all, all inactive accounts in good standing will also be given access to City of Heroes and City of Villains® during the Double XP weekend! Here are the dates and times:

• Starts: Thursday, October 8, 2009 at 8:59 a.m. Pacific Time (11:59 a.m. Eastern Time)
• Ends: Sunday, October 11, 2009 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time (2:59 a.m. Eastern Time)

It’s a longer period this time around (Hey that’s 5pm GMT so just as I finish work. Win). I’ll be on a whole hell of a lot on various levels. So anyone out there fancy coming along, inactive accounts will be back on and I will be running teams all over the place on Virtue. My global is as ever, @Ardua.

My plans revolve (at the moment) around a range of characters blue side and two on the red side. Levels 48, 27 and 22 blue. Levels 27 and 21 red. Guest appearances by the Robo-Buddy Mk IV may also be on the cards. That however (for those of you who haven’t been in Paragon in a while) doesn’t mean you can’t come and play on anything you want. Super sidekicking means everyone will always be the level of the team and always get xp, even if they themselves are a higher level. Rushing to 50 or sampling the proliferated sets way down at level 1, you’re more than welcome to play with us.

This is also a good time to mention a friend and I are resurrecting a role-play supergroup of ours and more information will come on that, but if you have any magic themed characters you plan on keeping around, feel free to join us. Other than that, send a tell, have some fun and enjoy the xp bonus.

In The Grim Darkness Of The Far Future…

…There is only Awesome.

First we’ll deal with the shameless Games Workshop plug and then get on topic. Ultramarines: The Movie 

Love them or loathe them, the smurfs are getting a movie. Here’s hoping that they go for the body horror Tyranids rather than the “not getting rated in any country ever” full flavour of Chaos. (Though as a Necron fan, I wouldn’t say no to implacable robotic horde.)

In another war torn future which also features Smurfs, we have Planetside. Auraxis has long been the site of a never ending three way battle between the forces of the Vanu Sovereignty, the New Conglomerate (Smurfs) and the Terran Republic (Commies).

A few weeks ago Planetside announced that the servers were being merged into one single server, and as pointed out in a Massively article, while that normally would be a bad thing; it meant there were more targets for everyone to shoot.

Fast forward to quite recently and I got a mail from Planetside Universe regarding rumours of Planetside 2. Since then PS-U has reported more tidbits, up to and including the fact that SOE has registered the domain www.planetside2.com. I cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to this. Planetside, though I didn’t play for long or terribly often when I did, has always remained a memorable and wonderful game experience for me. There really was a way for everyone to fill their desired niche, granted with the one requirement of “shoot the other guy some”.

I know shooters aren’t for everyone but they do seem to be making a comeback where MMO’s are concerned. Plus even based on what Planetside is not counting what it could be, it is a perpetual three way war for dominance with stealth, sniping, tank battles, BFRs (Battle Frame Robotics but we both know what you thought it meant), support, command, logistics, planning and a whole lot of DAKKA. It has what people have asked for in other games (WAR) with the three factions. It has roles for everyone to play and to be honest, I’ve always thought the Command Ranks vs the Battle Ranks was a wonderful way to breed leaders and make sure the people running your group were good at it.

Until the Warhammer 40k MMO takes shape or Global Agenda jumps onto the scene (and perhaps even then) if I need Moar Dakka, Auraxis is going to be the source.

Scarybooster Asks Me Stuff

Hop on over to Scary Booster (you should have been going anyway!) and see my barely coherent ramble in response to his fantastic article section that’ll release every Monday about the bloggers you know and may follow on Twitter.

How I became Ardua

Champions Snark, for the lulz

Just a little funny snarking at Champions Online coupled with a plug for Massively. All in good fun.

Ardy:  http://www.massively.com/2009/09/21/champions-onlines-bill-roper-talks-retcons-powers-and-more/
Sareini:  Hmm... nothing about pre-30 content issues, nothing about teaming, nothing about aggro management and nothing about possibly raising the level cap. Or anything on end-game content. Why are people going mad for this game again?And I ask this as someone playing it too 
 Ardy:  Cause its pretty
(If you like that sort of thing)
Basically... it's the Paris Hilton of MMOs
 Sareini:  Feh. THey don't even have as many options as CoX in character creation.
...it's going to die in a B-movie horror? Excellent!

To each their own of course. I could have great fun in Champions (why can I hear that sketch about having ones balls in the Paris Hilton in my head?) but at the moment I’m put off by a whole whack of stuff. More to come on that.

What’s in a Name?

Earlier this week I finally cleared up a recurring problem. A search on Google for my name as an exact phrase returns 11,100 results. (I am pleased at the roundness of that number)

Gmail has a feature whereby if your email is Comment.Now@gmail.com and someone sends a message to CommentNow@gmail.com it still gets to you. Your name is more or less your own.

Sadly either through penmanship or a slip of the finger another guys emails were coming to me. The difference between us? One initial. Suffice to say I received things I likely shouldn’t have from businesses. No harm done, I rang Atlanta and myself and himself got it sorted. Hey how often do you get to dial a number and say “<Name>? My name is <exact same name>”?

However I found the whole situation mildly annoying for a while, I cast around trying to find the right guy to fix the issue. What’s this to do with anything MMO? Well Champions, here’s where you come in.

Sure the @Global name that you started in CoH is handy, it really is. I remember being confused by my brother telling me in WoW he has no global chat channels whereas I’ve recently had to cut some. In the serverless blender that is CO, your @name is the unique part of your identity. No longer is your character name how people will identify you. Sure this helps cut down on some things. Ignore an idiot and you ignore every possible alt of him. At the same time, especially when you ignore the @ name (I am told it can be turned off in the chat box) you are no longer unique. Yes there are 11,100 returns for my name on Google, but there’s only one me and the only similar named chap I’ve met lives some thousands of miles away.

Your powers can be retconned every which way, at a cost. Your outfit can be changed up, down and sideways. The last part of a permanent identity is now immersion breaking. You could have a zone full of Bob The Builders thanks to the @ name making them all different, but do you really want to run into that guy with your name every time you turn a corner? Even if it’s initials in the difference.

The Unadulterated MMO

Do you use any third party software for your games? How about Wikis and databases? Do you have any UI mods or quality of life adjustments that didn’t come in the box?

Should you have to?

Two comments around the blogosphere got me to thinking recently. Also the fact that the spell checker is at home with blogosphere but not “mods” amuses me. Anyway, Tobold is asking where you would like your database. He gives examples of how many and varied sites there are for WoW that document the game outside of it versus Luminary that contained a database with all he could want for that game. Syncaine installed X-fire and Ventrilo before DarkFall.

Now I’m not saying things like that are bad, far from it. I occasionally hop on Teamspeak to chat to friends I’ve made in CoH. Saves loading Skype or any other voice chat program. It’s nice to chat to them. When I played Warhammer, I would frequent the Vent server for the Sentinels. It’s an enjoyable thing and really, it makes connecting to people easier. Context can be lost in text which is easier to convey by voice. How many of you have dealt with drama in the game because of a misinterpreted sentence? I use ParagonWiki to look at future powers for some of my characters and on occasion to re-read old fluff that I may have forgotten or otherwise enjoy going over again.

UI Mods I have no experience with whatsoever. Anything I ever did in Warhammer I did on the strength of the default interface. No fiddly bits of software to make my mail easier or to square away the warband for optimal healing or suchlike. Maybe I could have been a better gamer for having used them, but I like to think any good impressions I made stand because of what I did myself, rather than relying on what may or may not be written for a game.

That all said, when was the last time you played your favourite game, unadulterated? No mods, no third party programs floating in the background, no wikis or databases with the optimal numbers for grinding that loot you think you want and no additional soundtrack. Is it a dying practice? Yes sooner or later people will pop on their own music (I don’t, I’m strange), hop on TS to discuss privately the idiot they’ve picked up on the team or install a mod that gives them that slight edge.

I suppose my question is this, should game interfaces and the atmosphere of the game leave room for modding? Should the game present itself to you in such a way that anything you change is merely cosmetic and to your own preferences, like key binds and window positions, as opposed to absolutely needing a certain tool to get by?

Should we play an unadulterated game or are they improved through mutability?

For added irony, I wrote and posted this via Windows Live Writer rather than Blogger.com

Dungeons and Dragons…well Lizardmen

I have just played about 30 minutes of DDO:EU. No this isn’t one of those now seemingly popular “I spent four microseconds on the game and it sucks” posts.

I finished the starter dungeon and I have a kick ass mace that is on fire!

Now it may be due to the fact I’ve never played any form of DnD that I find this amazing. It’s a starter zone newbie reward weapon, I know intellectually it’s rubbish. I know that there are better weapons for my brand spanking new Dwarf Ranger (Ardua Dalinsson on Khyber), as well as better armor than the rags he’s wearing.

What is important to take from this, for me at least as I play so few fantasy mmos, is the fact that after 30 minutes, it doesn’t matter how much cooler the gear gets, I was thrilled with my first set.

Character creation in DDO was very quick and straight forward and had all the details up front that I could want. What had to be purchased, what rough style each class was, the specialities inherent in the class itself. I prettied myself up and found myself the survivor of a shipwreck. The quick and entertaining little scripted tutorial taught me plenty, made me interested and gave me cool toys. I’ll certainly play the game again, hey it is free after all. If I never did though, I’ll always remember fondly that game that gave me a mace ON FIRE as my newbie weapon.

What more could I ask for?

Viewers are Geniuses

Sometimes Viewers are geniuses, other times it just goes right over their head.

Sometimes one person changes the scope of a virtual world, other times they just get pwned.

A while back Tobold talked about the Illusion of Impact and had this to say for himself.

EVE Online is a game of high intrigue, politics, and treachery. Guilds get toppled by assassins setting up a clever trap. The universe's most powerful alliances break up when a highly placed member turns traitor. Players pull of clever scams and bank heists, and get away with stealing virtual currency they can legally sell for thousands of dollars.

Does this sound like a representative description of EVE Online to you? Obviously it is not. While everything I listed there is documented and true, this is not how EVE Online plays for the average player. Only a handful of players is engaged in high politics or intergalactic bank scams. The average EVE player logs on, does a couple of missions, gets into a couple of space fights, mines a little, transports some goods, and logs off again.

Now broadly speaking he’s correct. Only a handful of players organised the Guiding Hand Social Club and pulled off a very classy execution. Only a few, a ballsy few, are responsible for some of the best reading you’ll get about any game. They’ve put the time in though and they deserve those headlines. EVE could give me the tools I need to make a name for myself, get an article in various websites and have me remembered for a long time for a heist or a kill or a blunder. The reason I never played EVE was I knew I wouldn’t give it the time it deserved so I could live out those amazing stories.

In Earth & Beyond, I spent a lot of time on the EBPortal forums and knew a few of the people whose names were put down in mission text because of their devotion and contribution to the game.

Enter into this, The Secret World. The Secret World is going to have puzzles. It’s going to be filled with myths and legends from the world over. It’s going to have the jostling for position inside each group and between the three groups. Your cabal could remain nameless or it could end up immortalised for its deeds. I’m not the only one to be drawn in.

From a mechanical standpoint the game will be very interesting to see. No levelling, stat items separate from clothing (wear what you like to be seen in, not what is +5), social integration with Twitter and Facebook (they’ve made a start on that to be sure) and some seriously gorgeous graphics.

From a personal standpoint, I’ve finally matured and I am ready to give to The Secret World what I never gave to EVE. I want to get my foot in the door, to be there when it launches and to live through the wild days as everyone discovers what there is in this new place. I think I am ready to give my hobby the time and attention it deserves to get back out of it so much more.

For some, the game won’t do it for you. I hope then that it becomes for you what the Continuum RPG has for me. TvTropes said it best, "The best time-travel game you'll ever read, but never actually play.". I don’t know if I am smart enough to crack the codes, I don’t know if I am committed enough to cause the impact others think is an illusion. I only know I’m a Templar, I’m ready and I’m going to try.

Do Games Need More Holidays?

It’s that time of year. I want to say a quick word about tragedies and people.

Ten years ago in Dun Laoghaire, County Dublin, Ireland, there was a tragedy. It hit the family very hard and each year the community comes together to remember it.

Eight years ago, tomorrow, in New York, there was a much larger tragedy. One that is steeped in all sorts of emotions and agendas. It too is still remembered.

Now these two events are completely unrelated. What is universal is that people will come to mourn the events and the lives lost. On one end of the scale we’ve an event so local that if anyone across the entire player base of City of Heroes had heard of it, other than me, I’d be surprised. On the other, there’s an event which brings out all sorts of emotions in all sorts of people and can be called politically charged. (Oh by the way, any comments that make light of it or show any disrespect to the departed will be deleted and the commenter will be shamed to the best of my ability)

I remembered recently an event that took place in Earth & Beyond. There was a particular zone in the Beta Hydri System. Glenn I think it was, or perhaps Grissom. It had several nav buoys you could fly to representing milestones in space travel. When the Columbia Disaster occurred players congregated in this zone to hold a memorial. Afterwards the Devs retconned in a new buoy for the disaster, if memory serves that is. Thus there was a memorial for a tragedy that anyone can relate to.

A lot of MMOs already celebrate Christmas/Generic Winter Holiday, Valentines, Halloween and their own birthday. Should there be a date in an MMOs social calendar for remembering those who we have lost? Is that better handled by the player base than the developers? Or is it too much of an intrusion of the real world that games offer an escape from?

Would you mourn with gamers, connected only by the virtual space you share or is it something best left to people to do in private?

I always carry a flashlight

Dark days are coming but I like to think myself prepared.

Though if there’s one thing Harry Dresden has taught me, it’s this. If you must be the first to bring light into the darkness, do it off to the side so the big nasties don’t immediately do nasty things to you.

A few days ago Funcom released a new trailer for the Secret World and an initiation test. The test is genius.

When you’re building up hype for a game you need people excited and interested. The Initiation test manages to do that while also going a step further. The music sets the tone for the game, the glimpses of the art concepts give you an idea of the world and leave you wanting more. The results paint a rough picture of the three factions in the game and finally, a quick entry of your email puts you in for a chance to win beta access. In another stroke of genius, you can post the results to your Facebook. Within minutes of my doing so, friends who have no interest in online gaming were taking the test and posting results. Free word of mouth advertising, a method of drumming up interest and the beta application all in one clever package. I am impressed.

I had noticed The Secret World on Massively before but had not gotten interested before because it was too secret. Sure I could have made the effort, but ARGs can demand a lot of time and I didn’t at the time want to spend it. Now though I’m excited, I’m interested and I’m still waiting for the 'biggest thing yet' to come to light.

Take the test and tell me, whose side are you on?

(Also just a note, the counter on the website is counting down to December 23rd 2012)

Ardys Targets

• Ysharros (Dragon)
• Arbitrary (Dragon)
• Spinks (Illuminati)
• Zurich. All of Zurich. (Ask Twitter)
• Selected warm bodies on Facebook.

Allies

• Overly Positive (Templar)
• Regis (Templar ... possibly) Might just shoot him anyway.
• Sara (Templar)
• Syp (Templar) I got a touch overzealous

Software, Games and Ardy

This is only a rather small post as I test out the Windows Live Writer program. Apparently it’ll blog on blogspot for me, so why not?

It’ll also mean people will stop wondering why I fill notepad text files in my downtime.

Anyway my MMO plans for the next while.

Currently Playing

• City of Heroes
• Dungeons & Dragons Online

Aim to play soon

• Global Agenda
• Star Trek Online (Despite massive reservations)

Waiting Patiently For

• Warhammer 40k Online
• Dust 514
• The Secret World (I’ll admit, this is a new one for me)

Xp Curves Ahead

I've been talking to my friend Sareini today a bit about CO, CoH and xp curves. We're both old enough hats in City of Heroes to remember (even if the term confused me) the Purple Patch. It was a patch similar to the launch day shenanigans of Champions Online.
Quotes bulk out posts, so I'm going to be cheesy.

Sareini: This was way, way back in the early days of CoH. People were apparently finding it incredibly easy to solo groups of purple-conning mobs, so they put out a patch which raised mob difficulty. Across the board. Which made it damn near impossible to solo unless you were a few types of meleer.

Oh, and they put the patch out on a Friday and then left for the weekend.

Every game tweaks their critters now and then. Archvillains have been tweaked more times than I can remember. Powers have been changed and when they brought in Sonic and the whole concept of resistances, that changed alot of things too.

However I remember this so called Purple Patch. Suddenly minions, all but the lowest of the low, were an issue. Jack Emmert went on record (and I really must find and cite it) saying that One Hero should be equal to about Three Minions. No more wading through the faceless mooks of the opposition, those mooks had teeth. How do you feel like a hero though when a bunch of Skulls kick your ass? It's one thing to be done in by the machinations of an insanely powered insane threat, it's another to get your ass handed to you by lowly gang initiates.

Since then City of Heroes has had various modifications to how powerful you are. The Global Defense Nerf made it more unlikely that you'd be hit yes, but it also reduced defenses by 40%. Enhancement Diversification had some people screaming. It reduced how many enhancements you could effectively slot in a power by introducing diminishing returns. Changes were made to AoE powers limiting how many people you could hit with a single blast and changes made to taunt, ensuring that one tanker could no longer herd an entire map.
There were also improvements made, Invention Sets would be prime amongst them.

All of these changes are separate to the Curve Smoothing they did to make xp flow faster in certain level ranges, if memory serves the 30-35 range was particularly bad once upon a time.

These things happen though. Games are modified, some bits are clearly too easy, others far too hard. Sometimes it's to curtail farming, other times it's to make things more balanced and fair across the classes (which logically shouldnt be balanced in comparison anyway).

Quick shot at CO, yes I couldn't resist. Generally when there's a big shake up, City of Heroes grants all characters a free respec. You don't even have to go anywhere, just type /respec and voila, you can respec. Why didn't CO, made by the same people who have lived through the same problems, give the same ability?

Back on topic, I want to put a question to anyone reading this. How long should it take a normal person, playing no more than three hours a night, to reach the level cap?
I understand that there are different sorts of players, some want to get there as fast as possible, others prefer an extended smell the roses type of play.

It seems that most games eventually run into the problem of power and entertainment. If you are all powerful, how do they keep you entertained and thus p(l)aying? If you are held back by an unforgiving curve from getting more powerful for too long, you won't be entertained. If you level to the cap in seconds, they must have scads for you to do or risk you having little to no interest in sticking around.

It seems we've lost our patience as gamers. People don't want to have to work and make an achievement out of that next ding, they want power and they want it now. Champions Online has delivered this, Travel power from level 5, ripping up scenery to smash foes with, impressive attacks and a go-go-go pace that rushes you into battle. They just started to run out of things to keep you doing and forgot their own previously learned lessons.

Personally, I don't mind taking my time on occasion. Enjoy the journey, smell the roses, see the sights. Only then friends want you to play with them and they're soooo far ahead, but hey, you know that one great spot in that zone where the xp per minute is fantastic. Curve schmurve, people want a faster lane. Or do they?

Sareini: See, it's all about your audience. And personally, I wish they wouldn't keep making the xp easier in certain level ranges. I mean, I enjoy doing the content, and RPing (even if it's just in my head) the storylines, and now with one good team or TF I'm outlevelling huge chunks of the game. Yes, I can exemp or Flashback, but it's the principal of the thing. I shouldn't have to say, "Hmm, should I solo and get to do this content first time through, or play with my friends and miss it all?"...yeah, I'm probably not representative of players in general though :P

Sareini: The way I see is... *gets on soapbox* they need to concentrate less on all these TFs that you can only do from 45+ and the like, and put in more mid-game content. Will we ever see the Faultline trial, for instance? Or whatever they're building in Steel near Boomtown? Or new storyarcs or mini-TFs involving Boomtown or shock horror Dark Astoria?

Life in the City

If you've ever played City of Heroes, you've likely been around Paragon a bit. Even so there are entire zones you may have missed on your characters journey from 1-50. Maybe because they're older and you didn't want to. Maybe because the contacts you selected from Radio missions just didn't send you there or maybe you just stuck to the Radio missions.

In the Rogue Isles, the City of Villains, things are quite a bit smaller. Mercy leads to Port Oakes, Port Oakes to Cap and so on and so forth. Every time you're in a level band that opens a pvp zone, you get a mission to at least talk to the zone liasion. The Isles are a small and interlinked place. That isn't to say there's not things to see. My friends and I have a Widow team whose entire raison d'être is to work their way through each and every contact they can, turning off xp to make sure that we see it the first time through rather than using the Oroboros flashback system to relive it.

The Rogue Isles came after Paragon City and are a good example of what to do. Each island is meant for a different level range and there's always travel involved when you get sent back to an area later in your career. That retracing almost always is done properly.

Paragon City however is suffering due to its metropolitan sprawl. There are so many far flung corners of the city, people just don't see them all unless they make an effort to do so.
Partially this is due to some content being newer and better done than other bits. Partially it's because some places are just easier to deal with.

Take Faultline. Old Faultline was a horrible place full of zombies and Clockwork and Circle of Thorns. It had pitfalls a plenty and if you were a superspeeder, watch your feet. Before missions got a boost and you could as easily street sweep to 50 as mission, an old friend and I used to sweep Faultline, rarely was there competition. Why? Because Faultline was crap. It was desolate, it had no missions attached to it, no contacts. The nearest Hospital in Skyway was on the other end of that zone.
Issue 8 revamped Faultline and brought life to the area. Contacts were introduced with a level range of 15-20 and 20-25. There were more badges, including the out of the way Easter egg room, and there was more to see. Travel was made easier and Faultline was made the place to go for the mid levels. Pocket D even got an exit in Faultline to help with traffic.

New Faultline gives you it all, it has well written and interlinked arcs. Four contacts, four-ish missions each. Three or four of the characters you meet during the run come back later on in the game. There are Archvillains earlier than ever, Yin-O enhancements and all sorts of interesting things to get up to.

New Faultline has spoiled me.

Instead of working my way through all it has to offer on my blaster, I have gone to Striga instead. Introduced in Issue 3 if memory serves, Striga is the stronghold of the Council. It also has a string of four contacts, leading up to an unlocked task force contact. Striga however is tougher. It's better than the earliest zones (Boomtown) but it is by no means a quick run through.

Striga for all its worth, for all the fun toys you get (Holy Shotgun!) and for the two taskforces it contains gets passed up in favour of other faster flashier places.

This is how places we live are. Either it's small and you know everyone and every corner or it is built up and the slightest change to one area can draw people from miles away, leaving other places to stagnate.

This is all building up to something though. World of Warcraft : Cataclysm is going back and rocking the old world of Azeroth. That patch of grass you used to kill ten bunnies in? Steaming lake of lava now. I don't know myself, not being a player, but I can imagine revamping all the geography is also going to need a pass through on the quests. Will they be brought up to whatever the current population considers standard? I couldn't say.

In City of Heroes, the places you've likely never been are going to become more accessible first and then more irrelevant. Issue 16 brings supersidekicking and removes most zone entry restrictions. Never been to Striga because you were too low a level when it was interesting? From I16 on, you can go there as a level one and if you're supersidekicked, not worry about mentor range and getting turned into paste the moment you lag behind the group.

Going Rogue however promises to bring new zones to an already overburdened city. With the coming dimensional travel, I think it's time to say goodbye to some of the Hazard areas that never got the Faultline treatment and may never. It's time to close those giant zone gates and block out parts of the City, for the good of the City.

Personally I would love to hear that with the newest expansion, there will be work done on all the other zones. Updating and bringing new life and new contacts to all the corners of Paragon. If not though, I think we should pay our respects to the likes of Dark Astoria and Boomtown. Wave goodbye to the deepest regions of the Shadow Shard and Creys Folly. Supersidekicking promises to make the city more open than before, but it can't guide people to places of little interest or old tired content. It'll make the world smaller for a while as everyone can suddenly play on the same level, but the world is going to get larger once again, with the ability to play in Praetoria and switch sides.

Look upon the maps of that world of Superheroes. What would you change in the City of Tomorrow?