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?

Commentapalooza : The Tobolding

For my junk post to inspire comments, I take my lead from Ysharros and I expand upon the point made.

While pie is meh, I posit that this refers only to the American convention of fruit based pies. Cottage Pie and Shepards pie when made well are far superior to mere fruit pie.
Further and to reiterate, Mince Beef and Onion pie is awesome.

However, to grant Ysharros one small boon, my father swears by (oh how I wish it was at) apple pie with cheese on top.
I prefer cheese and peanut butter sandwiches.

For Tobold by the League for Greater Comment Volume. Never mind the quality — feel the width!

League Memebers
Ferrel who hates bloody peasants.
Ysharros wielder of the holy cheese
Syp whom the cheese did not agree with
Rivs who is piloting the breakaway Attention Whore Union
Frank who gives tips and points out he whom we must topple.

Issue 16

Issue 16 : Power Spectrum for City of Heroes is now in Open Beta.

Thanks to CoH_OCR and Niviene_CoH for the tweets.

Patch notes are linked in the title. I'll blog properly in the morning. But before I go, a reason why I shouldn't think too hard about game mechanics.

Supersidekicking is supposed to help deal with farming.

[23:46] Mr. Earl: "super-SK" sounds like "no PLz" :P
[23:47] Jonathan: tis somewhat :P
[23:47] Jonathan: Though logically, get 47s, supersk the folks to pl.
they're 46. Difficulty setting yourself some 50+ mobs
[23:48] Mr. Earl: ahh :-O
[23:48] Jonathan: aaaand turn off xp so the 47s dont level
[23:49] Jonathan: Heeeyy.... I just rediscovered how to farm CoH post
i16

The Cryptic Model

This morning I was talking to my good friend Seph (That's Sephorus or Hey, Bitch! to you). Given that we met in City of Heroes and have become good friends, we tend to talk about the game a fair bit. Of course no conversation about City of Heroes nowadays will stay away from Champions for long.

So I ask, are you happy with the Cryptic Model?

Seph: It's not a game I'd sign up for right this second. There's too many things that I feel need more polish for them to be acceptable. However, there's enough stuff either done well or with the potential to be polished up real damn nicely that, given a bit of time, I'd play it. It's certainly in the category of "when I'm done with City of Heroes". Not something I'd jump ship for, but not something I'm willing to pass up, either.

The emphasis in the above is mine.

Polish, that dastardly term trotted out every time someone compares something to WoW. Does it have the polish of WoW? Did they spend enough time on polish? It isn't as polished as it could be.
This isn't a dig at WoW, but rather at the term. A polished turd is just a shiny turd. A diamond in the rough is just as good as a flawless one, it simply hasn't gotten there yet but you can see the worth.

Anyway that's a divergence, if polish is synonymous with WoW and Blizzard, what then is the Cryptic Model?
I submit that it is more stuff than you could ever possibly use.

Take a look around at what people are saying about Champions, almost universally is the mention of the character creator and for good reason. Cryptic broke ground with the City of Heroes creator and this one has even more crammed into it. Moving
tails, limb sliders, stances, how you want to run, mood, backpacks and more. I know someone who spent literal hours in the creator, saving characters and doing it all again.
If you preorder, you get more options; if you microtransact, more options. If you get the 6 month or lifetime sub, even more options. So many options that they carry over into Star Trek Online where for reasons best known to themselves they're
offering Mirror Universe skins (do not get me started on that, I'm keeping that nerdrage for later).
Every Issue of City of Heroes had yet more options of things to do. Champions will likely have the same. Options upon options upon options. For some, this is nirvana.

However it seems to be the hat for Cryptic. People are complaining about how the game is set up, or performing or how its console dna is showing. Cryptic on the other hand is touting the colour customization (and boy did they learn that lesson well after telling City of Heroes it couldnt be done, which...soon it can be), modular powersets and the flexibility of the creator.

Is the game polished? I couldn't begin to guess. My graphics card is still in Silicon Heaven so everything I see is rough and ugly.

Are they even trying? I can't say for sure, I got lost in their submenus trying to find out.

Polish be damned, they want you to select your eyebrows.

It's The End Of The World As We Know It

...and I feel fine.

Yes this is somewhat related to World of Warcraft : Cataclysm

Coming with the latest WoW expansion is something that I've personally only seen once before. A change of the worlds landscape on a major scale. Previously I saw this with The Bending in Planetside when the plaent Auraxis shoved its bits across the cosmos (and completely removed the Oshur continent in favour of Battle Islands).

That said, and I'm sure its happened more than I've seen, in any healthy game, the world ends on a regular basis. Well... the world as you knew it anyway.

How many shifts does it take though until the world you started in and the world you have now are only vaugely related in your mind? Old hands will always complain about how easy it is to level now, newbies wont know about aspects of certain areas and miss scads of story. Is this a move forward though? In some cases yes. I imagine Cataclysm will cause a wave of alts through the old content as people go to see what has become of what they grew bored of/outleveled. In other cases, I don't know. Champions had me go through two versions of two early zones. While they served as good introductions they're also misleading. The impression I got of Canada bore no relation to what the zone actually is. That sudden spike of awe was invalidated by the world changing so quickly.

Syp has posted over on Bio Break about the difference between convenience and consistency. Making the game easier versus keeping what the game was. Whichever wins out for each game, sooner or later the world changes. Let's just hope in the games you love, it's always a change worth singing about.

Champions and Ardy

I knew I forgot something. I had a long string of blogging to be doing about Champions. I've stuff yet to come on the Microtransaction bits, MMO bits and so on.

This however is inspired by Werit, Keen and the players of the Shield of Paragon, Guardian Angels and other Coh supergroups.

I don't really like Champions.

That said, I never really did. There are some who greeted the news way back when of a Champions mmo and from their reaction it was though the Lord God himself came down and handed them a dream. Hark how the angels sing, go forth and pwn for justice.
I was unimpressed. Maybe it's a function of those gaps in my geekery that are responsible for me never having played a single Blizzard game (and boy was twitter shocked at that).

That first feeling has carried all the way through closed beta up until now.

First a quick comparison. This time last year I was chomping at the bit to get into Warhammers closed beta. I wanted that game. When I got the CO beta invite, I had forgotten I applied. Most midweek preview sessions ("Hi it's wednesday, log in, test") came when I was busy and the weekend ones rarely stood a chance if there was anything going on in Paragon City.

Champions has delivered a truely impressive Character Creator. But you know what? I'm not going to give them awards for that. Of course they delivered one. They made City of Heroes and its character creator. Delivering anything less than what they left behind in the hands of Paragon Studio would have been staggering idiocy. As much as some people will give it its due with the hours you can spend tweaking to your hearts delight, well... sometimes I just would like to play. It shouldnt take long to get from login to tutorial. When you're being given options to change the size of different parts of a single limb, you've gotten a tad silly in my book.

The variations on the characters get especially pointless when you consider the type of game Champions is. It's supposed to be action packed, quick quick quick, hit the button, build your energy, FINISH HIM! With the amount of sharding they're doing (Keen called it redundant instancing) and the pace of combat they want, I haven't yet seen how the game will have a social centre. Perhaps I'm wrong or more likely I didn't play enough. Champions though feels like a ritalin deprived game. They don't want you standing and spinning stories, they want you out beating the next guy with a tree you ripped out of the ground (which is admittedly cool). Who cares if your biceps ripple ever so slightly and your eyebrows are a certain way and your facial expression is sad. I'm going to notice your size, any bright colours, how you travel/hit and if you run funny. That's it though. The faster the game pushes me, the less time I have to take in what took you three hours and a muse to create when you'd have been just as effective if you hit the random button.

One note on the character creator. City of Heroes players, prepare to recognise many pieces. I don't just mean the art, I mean the names as well. I don't know if Cryptic retained rights to bits and pieces of CoH. For example the game engine (at least according to wiki so take that with a grain of salt) is a modified version of the CoH one.

Moving on, there are bits about Champions I enjoyed. The travel powers all have looked good and add a nice touch, however when you look at them close they're mostly variations on flight and jumping. Still they do look good.

I enjoyed the ability to select from where some powers originate, I liked how quick and easy it was to change power colours (whereas when CoH has it in Issue 16, I predict many trips to Icon). There are plenty of a-okay things about the game, but none of them grabbed me.

There are also plenty of things I hate. In case you hadn't guessed I hate the pacing. It's bad enough that with the instancing I may end up selecting zones to follow friends only to find that they've done a certain mission and ended up in yet another instance where I cannot follow (or at least if there is an easy way to follow, I didnt see it. Im talking about moving from Wartorn tutorial Millenium city to peaceful and from wintery blizzard Canada to regular old Canada, same place different versions).
The game is all go. For some that will work, they want the action and get it quickly. For others, I forsee early burn out.
I hate the cel shading animation, I always have. It's never done anything for me though I will grant it is very true to the comic book feel. I hate the chat system where everyone at all times is reminded of my username. And why is that? Well apparently there wont ever be any naming conflicts. You too can be Superman, because your usename will make it unique. Don't give me the monster of a creation suite you have and then make it so that I wont have my own name in the end.

In the end, I've come out of closed beta the same way I went in, unimpressed. City of Heroes has flaws, I'll happily point them out in a second, but despite that they're working on improving the game with each issue (Ardy hates the AE though). I'd sooner spend a day in Paragon City than Millenium City.

The most damning thing about Champions though? I was worried it would gut City of Heroes.
Every single player I know across several global channels has reacted the same way, "Thanks but no thanks".

Champions, you have one final crippling flaw to me and one shining virtue.
Firstly, you have Jack "Statesman" "Force Field isnt broken" Emmert. I don't trust that man any more and while he appears to be learning from some mistakes, I am not yet convinced.

The virtue though? Every thing you do makes Paragon Studios have to work harder to retain its numbers and suceed. Survival of the fittest. I don't think Champions could kill City of Heroes, but it certainly looks like it could forge its predecessor into something unstoppable.

Our world, our wars.

CCP, I love you. Honestly I do.

Why the love for the Icelandic crowd some ask? Well simply they're doing two wonderful things.

Firstly they are launching a console based online FPS game, Dust 514.
Secondly, it is based within the universe of EVE and will interact with the podders.

Pc Gamers and Console Gamers apparently don't get along. So say the games reviews, the fanboys on each side and more besides. I, personally, always thought it was quite odd for Final Fantasy XI to have been launched on consoles. After all it has enough on its plate with the Japan/everyone else divide without throwing in desktop Vs console.
Consoles to me seem more ... for unwinding. I can sit down with a console game and merrily destroy my enemies. It doesnt matter if it's fps, a fighting game, rts or a sim; I have enemies and they need destroying. There's a clear start, there's a middle and an end. You start your race, defend your home, make your first move and then the plot comes after.
Eventually you've won your freedom, won your race or made the best damn Sim torturing device known to man.

MMOs however seem to sit in the middle of the story. No one wants to see their MMO end. Certain plot threads perhaps, but they want the world to continue, to deliver on that persistence promise. At the same time MMOs don't have a clear start for players. The reason for playing took place in the story before anyone ever logged in. There is a world with all its history, you are not the origin of the tale.

How then can the two mindsets co-exsist?
Rather well if my wild unfounded mass guessing is correct.

CCP will be delivering Dust 514 to consoles. It will be familiar to such players. Have gun, will travel. If you've played Halo online, I think you'll probably be able to handle Dust 514.
It's set in the universe of New Eden though. That place where the wonderous stories come from. Where even Dev blogs are a delight (See Operation Unholy Rage).

New Eden has a shake up coming. The cloning tech that lets pod pilots fly without worrying about that silly little mortality issue will be adapted for ground forces. Soldiers that can go on living even after being blown into ludicrous gibs and learn from the experience. These soldiers, these warriors from the console world who are "trained" for this sort of fight will have an effect on New Eden. They will help the ships and fleets win entire worlds.

Personally I've always been unwilling to play EVE because of one simple fact, I don't think I would do it justice.
We read the stories of how slick conmen win one on thousands, of assassination plots and of capers that make millions. I love to read about that universe but never have felt that I would give it what it deserves to be a part of it. Now, now I can.

Dust 514 will tie two platforms and two genres together in such a seamless manner that I'm giddy about not only playing the game but what it means for that old PcVsConsole war.

They're not the enemy anymore, they're the men and women you need to win the next world and in turn you're the pilots whose fleets will bring them new worlds to conquer.

Casual twitch gamer or dedicated corporate magnate. We each have a part to play in that world

Axe Me Again Next Month

Vorri, Aardii, Orrekai. Do you miss me lads? Do you miss getting your Dwarf on and being piloted into mayhem and madness and war? Do you miss the hustle and bustle of Altdorf or the haggling and bragging that goes on in her taverns? Do you miss the sights and the fights and the foes and the pitfalls and the pqs and the keeps?

I know I do.

I know I hear good things about 1.3.1. I know that since the Bioware/Mythic merger people have apparently gained a measure of calm. A sense of peace and a sense of purpose. I hear that they are being more straight forward with us, the fans. I hear that improvements are being made where they are most called for, most needed, those places that I stopped just short of seeing.

Do you want me back? Raising staff and rifle and hammer and spanner in the name of Order? Do you want to ride with the Sentinels, proud in your Gyroharnesses? Do you want to slay your foes, slake your thist and bury your weapons in the worthy?

If I could move to Europe and keep you boys, you know I would.

Failing that, the stars are not yet aligned. Morreslieb and Mannslieb have yet to wax full once more for me.
Axe me again next month.