Over the weekend, I decided to create a new character in Wildstar. Not because I needed another crafter to complement my first character or act as a mule. No, because my first character, and Exile engineer, just didn't feel right. I'd hit level 15 and about to do the quests in Thayd when I realized I didn't want to be a tank and the Exile story was getting pretty stale. So I created a Dominion medic and began the game again from level 1. Last night I hit level 5 and the story, for now, is much better.
Rerolling a new character because I don't like my original class isn't something new for me. In EverQuest 2, I originally created a paladin before switching my main to a ranger. Guild Wars 2 saw me create a thief before rerolling as a ranger. Alright, I like ranged DPS. What can I say?
Rerolling isn't so bad when the original characters are below level 20. But in Star Wars: The Old Republic, I wound up rerolling after my smuggler reached level 37 because the story turned so bad. That, more than any bugs or lag, killed the game for me.
Of course, EVE Online doesn't have levels. In EVE, a character is defined by its skills, not its class. So if I want to do something else, like fly Gallente ships instead of Minmatar, I don't have to create a Gallente character; I just start learning the skills to fly Gallente ships. The same holds true for crafting. My industrial character can theoretically make anything once she learns the skills, although some things are better, and more easily, made with friends. No armorer or weaponsmith crafting classes in EVE. And I only have an industrial character because EVE allows me to train characters on multiple accounts at the same time, even when I'm not logged into the game on any of the accounts. But that's a discussion for another post.
The skill-based system does have some benefits over the level-based one found in most MMOs. For instance, because learning new skills on an existing character or new character is basically the same, players will create fewer characters. Fewer characters created not only means fewer characters for the game to track, but less names used. Anyone remember the uproar when Wildstar's name reservation system didn't work quite right? Names are important to many players and the fewer good names on characters who never play the game, the better.
But for me, the biggest benefit is that some of the core skills I learned, like Engineering, Navigation, and Mechanics, are good for anything I wish to do. Even Accounting comes in handy for players changing from a trading style of play to PvP. Paying less in taxes when selling items is always a good thing. So if I want to change the type of ship I fly, or even my style of play, I don't have to start from scratch, which I have to do in a level-based system.
Don't misunderstand, a skill-based system doesn't automatically mean a game is so good I'll play for 5 years like I have EVE. While I enjoyed my time in The Secret World, another skill-based game, I never reached Egypt. And the fact that I'm playing Wildstar shows that level-based systems won't deter me from playing a game if the game looks interesting. But I do wish that I had more skill-based games to look at and possibly play.
Showing posts with label eq2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label eq2. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Subtraction By Adding On?
One of the features of EVE Online that I like is the official absence of use of macros inside the game client. According to Section 6A3 of the EVE EULA:
In my first MMORPG, World of Warcraft, I used to run around Alterac Valley on my paladin using an add-on called Decursive.2 The add-on allowed me to remove negative affects from my team just by spamming buttons. I didn't need to target anyone. Just spam. I found the add-on useful because it allowed me to influence events before I could reach the scene of the action and participate in the fight directly.
Near the end of my time in WoW, though, I soured on the use of add-ons like Decursive. The incident that still sticks out in my mind is running into someone in Silithus who complemented me on how good I was. But that wasn't me, that was a bit of code that I found and imported into the game. At that point I felt like a fraud.
Just because I had the bad experience in WoW didn't put me off from writing macros. Everquest 2 has a macro system and I created some macros. The most complicated one involved switching between my combat gear and my crafting gear. But I never did download add-ons for EQ2. I'd like to say for philosophical reasons, but the biggest thing that turned me away at first was SOE's monthly deployment schedule. Did I really want to wait a day after every patch for an add-on dev to patch his add-on? During that time, a player gets exposed for relying on outside software. Why have that happen when I could just learn how to play the game the way the devs intended? I think three years of that mindset really prepared me for playing a game without macros/add-ons like EVE.
So now I'm playing a game, Wildstar, that allows add-ons. I Googled "Wildstar addons" and found a site called Curse. Apparently the site is a clearing house for add-ons for many games. On the front page for Wildstar I found this passage from a description for an add-on called Ayth_Quest:
But is that really the way the devs designed the game? Feels like cheating to me. But ... it's not. In fact, players will mark down games if the game developer does not allow player-created add-ons. At one point, I found the situation humorous when WoW players who never played with the Blizzard UI extolled the virtues of the Blizzard UI. In their minds, using a player-designed user interface meant that Blizzard did something right, not that Blizzard failed at UI design.
In Wildstar, I most likely will play with the macro system. I think having a macro to wave to someone fits in with playing an Exile. Unlike those stuck up Dominion types, we're friendly.3 But I really don't want to download any add-ons. Carbine is planning a monthly patch and I don't want to get locked out of playing because any of my add-ons need updating. I'd rather learn to play without relying on the add-ons. Waiting for a patch to download is bad enough, I don't want to wait any longer than that. I'm impatient that way.
NOTES:
1. Yes, I know about ISBoxer. I also believe that this is one of the reasons people don't like the use of ISBoxer. Who likes getting beat by software? Especially when that software technically violates the EULA.
2. This was back in Vanilla WoW, so I may mis-remember the name, but the functionality was the same.
3. Not to say that the Dominion can't use emote macros. People playing Chuas probably need at least 5.
"You may not use your own or any third-party software, macros or other stored rapid keystrokes or other patterns of play that facilitate acquisition of items, currency, objects, character attributes, rank or status at an accelerated rate when compared with ordinary Game play. You may not rewrite or modify the user interface or otherwise manipulate data in any way to acquire items, currency, objects, character attributes or beneficial actions not actually acquired or achieved in the Game."Okay, that's the official written policy. Over the years, some exceptions were made for industrial use, but in general, if someone is beating me 1 vs 1 in EVE, I know it's my own lack of skill and knowledge about how to play the game, not because the other person is running better macros.1 But that's not the case in most of the games I've played.
In my first MMORPG, World of Warcraft, I used to run around Alterac Valley on my paladin using an add-on called Decursive.2 The add-on allowed me to remove negative affects from my team just by spamming buttons. I didn't need to target anyone. Just spam. I found the add-on useful because it allowed me to influence events before I could reach the scene of the action and participate in the fight directly.
Near the end of my time in WoW, though, I soured on the use of add-ons like Decursive. The incident that still sticks out in my mind is running into someone in Silithus who complemented me on how good I was. But that wasn't me, that was a bit of code that I found and imported into the game. At that point I felt like a fraud.
Just because I had the bad experience in WoW didn't put me off from writing macros. Everquest 2 has a macro system and I created some macros. The most complicated one involved switching between my combat gear and my crafting gear. But I never did download add-ons for EQ2. I'd like to say for philosophical reasons, but the biggest thing that turned me away at first was SOE's monthly deployment schedule. Did I really want to wait a day after every patch for an add-on dev to patch his add-on? During that time, a player gets exposed for relying on outside software. Why have that happen when I could just learn how to play the game the way the devs intended? I think three years of that mindset really prepared me for playing a game without macros/add-ons like EVE.
So now I'm playing a game, Wildstar, that allows add-ons. I Googled "Wildstar addons" and found a site called Curse. Apparently the site is a clearing house for add-ons for many games. On the front page for Wildstar I found this passage from a description for an add-on called Ayth_Quest:
"The purpose of Ayth_Quest is to show you the closest objectives for your quests, quest givers, harvesting/farming nodes, and path objectives. The inclusion of path objectives and harvesting/farming nodes is rather new to Ayth_Quest so they may not work 100% as intended. I know my settler doesn't get any lines drawn at all for it's objectives, but Aytherine is constantly updating this addon and I'm sure it'll get all paths working soon. As you can see in the image below, Ayth_Quest shows you which objectives are the closest by overlaying dotted lines that point you right where you need to go with the distance also thrown in for good measure."Basically what the add-on does is give you the same functionality that is built into Neverwinter. That is, a path opens up to the mob a player needs to kill or a resource a player needs to gather. No looking around required. Some might even say the add-on dumbs the game down. Perfect for those looking to reach the Elder game (what Carbine called end game), but designed to make me unsub from the game quickly. For me, if the choice is raiding or quit, I usually quit.
But is that really the way the devs designed the game? Feels like cheating to me. But ... it's not. In fact, players will mark down games if the game developer does not allow player-created add-ons. At one point, I found the situation humorous when WoW players who never played with the Blizzard UI extolled the virtues of the Blizzard UI. In their minds, using a player-designed user interface meant that Blizzard did something right, not that Blizzard failed at UI design.
In Wildstar, I most likely will play with the macro system. I think having a macro to wave to someone fits in with playing an Exile. Unlike those stuck up Dominion types, we're friendly.3 But I really don't want to download any add-ons. Carbine is planning a monthly patch and I don't want to get locked out of playing because any of my add-ons need updating. I'd rather learn to play without relying on the add-ons. Waiting for a patch to download is bad enough, I don't want to wait any longer than that. I'm impatient that way.
NOTES:
1. Yes, I know about ISBoxer. I also believe that this is one of the reasons people don't like the use of ISBoxer. Who likes getting beat by software? Especially when that software technically violates the EULA.
2. This was back in Vanilla WoW, so I may mis-remember the name, but the functionality was the same.
3. Not to say that the Dominion can't use emote macros. People playing Chuas probably need at least 5.
Monday, September 16, 2013
Have I Been Doing It Wrong?
No, the title of this post does not refer to my faction grind with the Minmatar Republic. Over the weekend I managed to draw two security storyline missions and a mining storyline mission and my standings are now at 9.79. While getting a mission to gather 8,000 units of kernite was disappointing I'm happy overall with my progress. What I'm starting to wonder is if my selection of characters in MMORPGs has hindered my enjoyment of the genre.
The heretical thought that I could possibly make a mistake came up while I played Neverwinter over the weekend. In EVE I'm heavily concentrating on the grind so I head over to Neverwinter for some easier, more relaxing play. Neverwinter is a pretty good game. The combat is more action oriented with no tab targeting or click targeting but I'm able to bumble through the fights okay. The multitude of currencies in the game lead to some interesting possibilities that I haven't fully explored because Neverwinter was originally intended as a second game to play while waiting on EverQuest Next and Wildstar. And the crafting mechanic is much like Star Wars: The Old Republic's except it doesn't serve as big of a money sink. Did I mention Neverwinter has a website that you can do in-game transactions and manage your crafters from outside the client? Pretty cool stuff, although I do wonder about the security.
But the biggest difference was when I deleted my Trickster Rogue, a DPS class, for a healing spec Devoted Cleric. The Devoted Cleric just feels right. For those who don't play, the Devoted Cleric does ranged DPS and healing is done, at least up to level 23, using heals over time and placing debuffs on mobs that heal anyone who attacks them. In combination with my NPC tank companion I'm having a lot more fun than I did with the Trickster Rogue.
That got me to thinking about the way I play EVE when I decide to run a security mission, which I generally hate doing. I dual-box, with my combat main Rosewalker providing DPS against big targets in a battleship while my industry pilot Wandering Rose provides fleet bonuses/gang links and anti-frigate support. Over time I've started to prefer Wandering Rose over Rosewalker, even to the point of doing the faction grind with her.
I then thought back to all the games I spent any significant time in (sorry Warhammer). In World of Warcraft I played a paladin, which involved a lot of healing. I still remember one fight when I was grouped with a rogue in the Plaguelands that probably lasted 5 minutes because a houseful of mobs respawned on us in the middle of a fight. That was a satisfying fight and he was impressed. In EverQuest 2 I got off the support wagon when I was invited to a guild on my ranger and so that became my main in EQ2. I leveled the ranger up to 80 and just played DPS for over 3 years.
I've spent some time in other games since moving over to EVE Online as my main game 4 years ago, most notably Star Wars: The Old Republic. In SW:TOR I played a Smuggler up to level 37 and an Imperial Agent into the high teens before abandoning the game. Both of those are DPS classes. I'm beginning to wonder if I had played a healing class, even if the story wasn't as good, if I would have actually stuck with the game. Sure, SW:TOR has problems, but was the tipping point that I'm just not a damage dealer trying to play damage dealing classes?
Right now I'm having so much fun in Neverwinter that I'm considering joining a guild. I probably won't because in a couple of weeks I plan on starting my new character PvP experience in EVE and that will involve joining a corp. Joining two player guilds/corps at the same time is probably not a good idea and EVE takes priority. But I think on my EVE mains I should move Logistics V up in the skill queues just to feel more comfortable.
The heretical thought that I could possibly make a mistake came up while I played Neverwinter over the weekend. In EVE I'm heavily concentrating on the grind so I head over to Neverwinter for some easier, more relaxing play. Neverwinter is a pretty good game. The combat is more action oriented with no tab targeting or click targeting but I'm able to bumble through the fights okay. The multitude of currencies in the game lead to some interesting possibilities that I haven't fully explored because Neverwinter was originally intended as a second game to play while waiting on EverQuest Next and Wildstar. And the crafting mechanic is much like Star Wars: The Old Republic's except it doesn't serve as big of a money sink. Did I mention Neverwinter has a website that you can do in-game transactions and manage your crafters from outside the client? Pretty cool stuff, although I do wonder about the security.
But the biggest difference was when I deleted my Trickster Rogue, a DPS class, for a healing spec Devoted Cleric. The Devoted Cleric just feels right. For those who don't play, the Devoted Cleric does ranged DPS and healing is done, at least up to level 23, using heals over time and placing debuffs on mobs that heal anyone who attacks them. In combination with my NPC tank companion I'm having a lot more fun than I did with the Trickster Rogue.
That got me to thinking about the way I play EVE when I decide to run a security mission, which I generally hate doing. I dual-box, with my combat main Rosewalker providing DPS against big targets in a battleship while my industry pilot Wandering Rose provides fleet bonuses/gang links and anti-frigate support. Over time I've started to prefer Wandering Rose over Rosewalker, even to the point of doing the faction grind with her.
I then thought back to all the games I spent any significant time in (sorry Warhammer). In World of Warcraft I played a paladin, which involved a lot of healing. I still remember one fight when I was grouped with a rogue in the Plaguelands that probably lasted 5 minutes because a houseful of mobs respawned on us in the middle of a fight. That was a satisfying fight and he was impressed. In EverQuest 2 I got off the support wagon when I was invited to a guild on my ranger and so that became my main in EQ2. I leveled the ranger up to 80 and just played DPS for over 3 years.
I've spent some time in other games since moving over to EVE Online as my main game 4 years ago, most notably Star Wars: The Old Republic. In SW:TOR I played a Smuggler up to level 37 and an Imperial Agent into the high teens before abandoning the game. Both of those are DPS classes. I'm beginning to wonder if I had played a healing class, even if the story wasn't as good, if I would have actually stuck with the game. Sure, SW:TOR has problems, but was the tipping point that I'm just not a damage dealer trying to play damage dealing classes?
Right now I'm having so much fun in Neverwinter that I'm considering joining a guild. I probably won't because in a couple of weeks I plan on starting my new character PvP experience in EVE and that will involve joining a corp. Joining two player guilds/corps at the same time is probably not a good idea and EVE takes priority. But I think on my EVE mains I should move Logistics V up in the skill queues just to feel more comfortable.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Agnostic On Expansions
As CCP starts ramping up the publication of dev blogs in support of the launch of Eve Online's winter expansion Retribution, I came to the realization that I just don't care. Not about all the changes coming on 4 December, just expansions.
I've played MMORPGs for over seven years now and I can only remember one expansion I was excited to see: EverQuest 2's The Shadow Odyssey. I was looking forward to the tradeskill instances where groups of players worked together doing carebear-type crafting work in addition to a lot of cool crafting and harvesting items. I was even able to get my own unicorn as a mount. But long time readers of the blog will know that problems with the launch of The Shadow Odyssey combined with issues concerning the shard system caused the implosion of my guild and I left EQ2 and made Eve my main game.
I don't want to say that CCP shouldn't put out expansions. I like the different login screens every six months. But the changes never really affected me and the way I play. Retribution, with the changes to Crimewatch, will be different, but in a bad way. I think traveling around low-sec is about to get a lot more dangerous, which means carebears like me will stay in high-sec. The only reason I'm not going to go to high-sec at the expansion's launch is that I am not going to let CCP turn me back into a high-sec carebear without a fight. That's right, I am not in low-sec looking for PvP. I'm in low-sec engaged in some serious PvD (player vs. developer) action. The fact that CCP is enlisting the help of hundreds, if not thousands, of players in their effort to drive me back into high-sec just makes the war to remain a low-sec carebear tougher.
So perhaps my lack of excitement about Retribution is a good thing. I only tend to move when I get my hopes up. Now I need to continue preparing for the upcoming war.
I've played MMORPGs for over seven years now and I can only remember one expansion I was excited to see: EverQuest 2's The Shadow Odyssey. I was looking forward to the tradeskill instances where groups of players worked together doing carebear-type crafting work in addition to a lot of cool crafting and harvesting items. I was even able to get my own unicorn as a mount. But long time readers of the blog will know that problems with the launch of The Shadow Odyssey combined with issues concerning the shard system caused the implosion of my guild and I left EQ2 and made Eve my main game.
I don't want to say that CCP shouldn't put out expansions. I like the different login screens every six months. But the changes never really affected me and the way I play. Retribution, with the changes to Crimewatch, will be different, but in a bad way. I think traveling around low-sec is about to get a lot more dangerous, which means carebears like me will stay in high-sec. The only reason I'm not going to go to high-sec at the expansion's launch is that I am not going to let CCP turn me back into a high-sec carebear without a fight. That's right, I am not in low-sec looking for PvP. I'm in low-sec engaged in some serious PvD (player vs. developer) action. The fact that CCP is enlisting the help of hundreds, if not thousands, of players in their effort to drive me back into high-sec just makes the war to remain a low-sec carebear tougher.
So perhaps my lack of excitement about Retribution is a good thing. I only tend to move when I get my hopes up. Now I need to continue preparing for the upcoming war.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Toasters
I received a comment on the blog that, as insulting as the poster meant to be, contains a bit of truth.
I think everyone expects other games to be like the first game they play, and my first MMO was WoW. Quite frankly, WoW could run on a toaster, which in business terms meant the game had a wider potential audience than its competitors. When I quit playing WoW and moved on to EQ2 the same laptop that ran the Blizzard game fine was unplayable when I hit the teens in the SOE offering. The game was so bad that I was going to quit and started looking for another game. I saw this new game coming out, Vanguard, that looked really good but had high system requirements. So I did the research and bought a computer that met Vanguard's published recommended requirements. I then installed EQ2 on the machine and it was like playing a different game. The graphics were beautiful and the combat was smooth. I forgot about playing Vanguard and played EQ2 for another 3 years.
Eventually if an MMO runs long enough and successfully enough a graphics upgrade will occur. Graphics upgrades mean players upgrading their computers in order to keep playing. Eve Online experienced this last year with the release of the Incarna expansion. Players were very surprised when they could no longer run multiple clients because their computers were no longer good enough to do so. These complaints led to CCP finally giving in and allowing players to opt-out of loading Captain's Quarters. Even the traditionally toaster-friendly WoW upgraded its graphics engine with the release of Cataclysm in December 2010. Did anyone do a study to find out how many players quit WoW because of that?
A worse problem than upgrading a game's graphics engine (required to compete with newer games) is when the recommended system requirements prove inadequate to run a game smoothly. That was the complaint I read when surfing the official SWTOR forums during the few weeks I played. Players, especially ones who purchased new computers to run a game because of the hype, get really irritated if they spend a lot of money only to find out they did not spend enough. Fortunately for me, my computer met the recommended specs and reading the forums I found out the funny behavior was underoptimized code and not my computer. I really hope Bioware gets that fixed because I really would like to see a game set in the Star Wars universe.
So what is left for people who love their toasters or just can't afford to upgrade? Browser based games seem to be the choice, although as long as CCP doesn't up the requirements again I should be okay.
"People with crappy computers that can play wow on low settings think they can play star wars and when they cant they complain about it. Go buy a new pc and if you cant afford one maybe its because you been playing wow so damn much you forgot that you need a job to be able to afford such things."Since the commenter left this on a post where I discussed how I thought combat wasn't very smooth in SWTOR amongst a bunch of positive aspects of the game, I will say now I do not subscribe to the second sentence. But I can relate to the first because that was my experience when I moved from World of Warcraft to EverQuest 2.
I think everyone expects other games to be like the first game they play, and my first MMO was WoW. Quite frankly, WoW could run on a toaster, which in business terms meant the game had a wider potential audience than its competitors. When I quit playing WoW and moved on to EQ2 the same laptop that ran the Blizzard game fine was unplayable when I hit the teens in the SOE offering. The game was so bad that I was going to quit and started looking for another game. I saw this new game coming out, Vanguard, that looked really good but had high system requirements. So I did the research and bought a computer that met Vanguard's published recommended requirements. I then installed EQ2 on the machine and it was like playing a different game. The graphics were beautiful and the combat was smooth. I forgot about playing Vanguard and played EQ2 for another 3 years.
Eventually if an MMO runs long enough and successfully enough a graphics upgrade will occur. Graphics upgrades mean players upgrading their computers in order to keep playing. Eve Online experienced this last year with the release of the Incarna expansion. Players were very surprised when they could no longer run multiple clients because their computers were no longer good enough to do so. These complaints led to CCP finally giving in and allowing players to opt-out of loading Captain's Quarters. Even the traditionally toaster-friendly WoW upgraded its graphics engine with the release of Cataclysm in December 2010. Did anyone do a study to find out how many players quit WoW because of that?
A worse problem than upgrading a game's graphics engine (required to compete with newer games) is when the recommended system requirements prove inadequate to run a game smoothly. That was the complaint I read when surfing the official SWTOR forums during the few weeks I played. Players, especially ones who purchased new computers to run a game because of the hype, get really irritated if they spend a lot of money only to find out they did not spend enough. Fortunately for me, my computer met the recommended specs and reading the forums I found out the funny behavior was underoptimized code and not my computer. I really hope Bioware gets that fixed because I really would like to see a game set in the Star Wars universe.
So what is left for people who love their toasters or just can't afford to upgrade? Browser based games seem to be the choice, although as long as CCP doesn't up the requirements again I should be okay.
Monday, February 27, 2012
AAA No More?
"I want to be a SOE customer, not a PSS1 customer. They are simply not the kind of company I would ever sign up with..."No, this post is not about someone leaving the Eve Online alliance Against ALL Authorities, but a lot of players of Sony Online Entertainment games feel that is what they are fighting right now. The story goes back in December when the ProSiebenSat.1 Group and Sony made a deal providing content to the German media group.
"Munich, December 15, 2011. The ProSiebenSat.1 Group and Sony Pictures Television Sales Deutschland GmbH have entered into a far-reaching output deal for the video-on-demand portal maxdome. The agreement covers recent blockbusters, as well as many top movies and TV series. This deal will expand the offering of Germany's biggest online video shop to a total of 45,000 titles, thereby extending maxdome's market leadership position.Apparently SOE got caught up in the deal. In an interview with TV Europe, ProSiebenSat.1 CEO Thomas Ebeling talked about the group's diversification plans:
"Recent blockbusters like "Bad Teacher," "Die Schlümpfe" and "Der Zoowärter," as well as a large selection of movies from Sony Pictures such as "Did You Hear About the Morgans?" and "Zombieland," are now available on maxdome. Top TV series like "Hawthorne," "Drop Dead Diva" and "Breaking Bad," as well as classics like the children's series "Die Schlümpfe," are also available on maxdome. Effective immediately, moreover, subscribers can access movies at least two months before they are broadcast on free TV."
"We have developed a so-called Four Pillar Growth Strategy. In addition to the broadcasting business in Germany, we will expand our international broadcasting operations, we will diversify our business into digital and adjacent businesses, like online ventures, online commerce platforms, online gaming, online dating platforms, music and live entertainment, and we will expand our production business Red Arrow Entertainment internationally." [Emphasis mine]PSS1's online gaming company is Alaplaya, a company with apparently a shady history that has previously dealt exclusively with free-to-play games. I took a brief look at the site and I can see why Herr Ebeling would like to see the stable of SOE games, including the upcoming Planetside 2, added to Alaplaya's offerings.
 |
| From CheesePirate.com |
When the FAQ about the changes finally came out, players responded with a 172-page (as of Sunday night) thread. Besides a lack of trust in the new company, what really got players up in arms was the idea that Alaplaya would use IP blocking to keep people outside of Europe from playing on European shards. This caused some concerns. Since the Nagafen PvP server is in North America, does that mean no PvP for Europeans? What about French Canadians who liked to play on the Storms because that is the dedicated French language server? What happens to the Australians? Will they be confined to the UK servers and not allowed onto the U.S. ones? These are just a few of the questions I had. Feldon, the operator of EQ2 Wire, has a lot more.
Speaking of Feldon, he is in his own little war with the community team right now. He managed to get himself a forum ban for a post he made on the forums. His ban actually made the pages of Massively.com. Why? For Eve Online players, think of Feldon as a cross between Chribba and Wollari (of Dotlan Maps fame). He operates the EQ2U website which utilizes the EQ2 data apis a lot better than the official SOE EQ2 site. He also runs the highly touted EQ2 Wire which is a must read for EQ2 players. In fact, for the past two years his coverage of the SOE Fan Faire has far surpassed that of any other news site.
Then on top of the PSS1 controversy came the news that EQ2 Associate Producer Emily "Domino" Taylor was leaving SOE. Taylor's position was up in the air following the announcement of Holly "Windstalker" Longdale's promotion to EQ2 Producer. She left a farewell message that shows she is sticking around the game for enjoyment, if not for work.
"They don’t warn you when you get hired to work on an awesome MMO like EQ2 that leaving the job isn’t like quitting McDonald’s; it’s like ripping out your heart and stomping on it! But today is my last day on the EQ2 team and it’s been nothing but the best times, the best of co-workers, and the best of players, all of whom I’ll miss ridiculously much. ♥ On the lighter side, a certain guild on Antonia Bayle is about to be very surprised to discover I’ve been in their guild for the last 4 years. Maybe now they’ll understand why my play schedule has been so sporadic and irregular, especially around expansions.From a personal note Taylor is one of my favorite MMORPG devs due to her work on the tradeskill system in EQ2. She took something that was a mess and turned it into a true second path for leveling a character. She was a beloved dev and will be missed."
I spent 3 1/2 years playing EverQuest 2 and seeing the game descend into this state is really sad despite 2 years of separation. I have to ask when does a game stop being a AAA title. In fact, when does a studio like SOE stop being considered a major game studio? I know that it still has DC Universe Online and Planetside 2 coming up, but I just have problems considering SOE the home of top games.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Social Networking and More Forums
Last night I got home really late from work and didn't plan on doing anything except update my skill queues, drink a beer and go to sleep. I started doing a little surfing on the net and ran into a post on MMO Melting Pot about how to turn World of Warcraft into a social network. A blogger named Cynwise wrote a post speculating on how social media could be worked into an MMO like WoW. A thought provoking post, at least for those who have only played Blizzard games. However, other game companies have already implemented some of the things listed in Cynwise's post.
EverQuest 2 has had text chat between servers for years and SOE extended it between select SOE games (excluding Vanguard, of course) over 3 years ago if my memory serves me correctly. I thought SOE was attempting to tackle the problem of multiple shards when they experimented with putting all EQ2 Extended players on a single shard (Freeport) but they eventually got rid of the service. But the experience with Freeport may influence EQ Next.
Eve Online doesn't have to worry about multiple shards, but CCP launched a social networking platform, EVE Gate, last year that allows players out of the game to send mail to players in-game. EVE Gate also has a Facebook-wall type broadcast feature and a plug-in that allows voice chat without the client running. And with the probable launch of DUST 514 this summer/fall, CCP plans on tying the two games together both socially and mechanically.
Yesterday CCP Guard came out with a dev blog announcing the coming of corporation forums on the Eve forums on 8 February. That is not as innovative as you might think as my old guild in EQ2 used the SOE provided guild forums until we moved off of them to nicer digs, and that was about 4-5 years ago. The reasoning in CCP Guard's post goes along with the social networking theme:
EverQuest 2 has had text chat between servers for years and SOE extended it between select SOE games (excluding Vanguard, of course) over 3 years ago if my memory serves me correctly. I thought SOE was attempting to tackle the problem of multiple shards when they experimented with putting all EQ2 Extended players on a single shard (Freeport) but they eventually got rid of the service. But the experience with Freeport may influence EQ Next.
Eve Online doesn't have to worry about multiple shards, but CCP launched a social networking platform, EVE Gate, last year that allows players out of the game to send mail to players in-game. EVE Gate also has a Facebook-wall type broadcast feature and a plug-in that allows voice chat without the client running. And with the probable launch of DUST 514 this summer/fall, CCP plans on tying the two games together both socially and mechanically.
Yesterday CCP Guard came out with a dev blog announcing the coming of corporation forums on the Eve forums on 8 February. That is not as innovative as you might think as my old guild in EQ2 used the SOE provided guild forums until we moved off of them to nicer digs, and that was about 4-5 years ago. The reasoning in CCP Guard's post goes along with the social networking theme:
"There are two reasons basically. We are very interested in providing corporations, particularly new and smaller corporations, with a community enhancing tool which boosts communication and corp cohesion without all the hassle of starting their own external forum. We also have DUST approaching and this will provide corporations with a cross-game platform where both their EVE members and their DUST members can talk and discuss whose planet to curbstomp next."Of course, just because a company supplies social networking tools doesn't mean that players will use them. A very vocal segment of the Eve community derided the site as "Spacebook" and only logged into EVE Gate to turn all of their privacy settings on since the default setting was to leave all of your information wide open to the public. And once a corporation starts getting serious, I'm pretty sure that it will move off the forums onto their own site to "look more serious". Who knows. Maybe established corporations will use these new forums as a holding spot for new members until they prove they are not spies. One can never tell in Eve.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
What's In A (Legacy) Name?
On Saturday I finally finished Chapter 1 in Star Wars: The Old Republic and was able to select my legacy name. The legacy system sounds interesting as all your characters on a server are part of a family and have the same last name. As I typed in the name I thought of the long journey that brought me to typing those four keystrokes.
Back in 2006 I started playing my second MMORPG, EverQuest 2. The second character I created was a female wood-elf ranger/alchemist. Since she was an alchemist, I wanted to name her Rosemary after the medicinal herb, but the name was already taken so I settled on Rosemarie. Eventually she became my main and I spent three years sneaking around Norrath gathering materials to make potions.
In 2009, Rosemarie reached max level in EQ2 and I moved over to Eve Online. Having acquired the nickname Rose, I brought the name over with me to New Eden and created the Vherokior mystic Rosewalker. I didn't choose Rosewalker as a takeoff on Skywalker; I envisioned a mystic walking around with rose-colored glasses.
Eve being Eve, CCP enticed me with a Power of Two promotion into creating an industrial character on a second account, the Vherokior drifter Wandering Rose. Given the origin of the Vherokior as desert nomads, I thought the name "Wandering" fitting. And over time, Wandering Rose grew from a bit player to the CEO of my personal corporation who, when not supporting Rosewalker in an auto-cannon fitted command Hurricane, flies around in a stealthed blockade runner. So over time I didn't give up the love of sneaking around but my female avatar now didn't set up from range but instead wanted to get up close and personal with the enemy.
That brings the story to Christmas 2011 and the release of SW:TOR. Having a pilot in Eve who loves flying a blockade runner, creating a Smuggler was a natural choice. But would I go back to my roots and choose the ranged dps path of the Gunslinger or the more up-close and personal support style of the Scoundrel? I chose the Scoundrel.
And what name did I choose? My character's name is now Skitane Rosa. That is bad Bulgarian for Wandering Rose. I say bad because skitane is a noun, not an adjective. But when I selected the name I didn't know if "Rosa" would still be available since legacy names are unique. Besides, I like the sound of Skitane better than the other Bulgarian words for wandering.
So my character's name is Skitane Rosa. I know that when BioWare came up with the legacy system they were only concerned with their own game. But for me my legacy name reaches back through the years and across virtual worlds.
Back in 2006 I started playing my second MMORPG, EverQuest 2. The second character I created was a female wood-elf ranger/alchemist. Since she was an alchemist, I wanted to name her Rosemary after the medicinal herb, but the name was already taken so I settled on Rosemarie. Eventually she became my main and I spent three years sneaking around Norrath gathering materials to make potions.
In 2009, Rosemarie reached max level in EQ2 and I moved over to Eve Online. Having acquired the nickname Rose, I brought the name over with me to New Eden and created the Vherokior mystic Rosewalker. I didn't choose Rosewalker as a takeoff on Skywalker; I envisioned a mystic walking around with rose-colored glasses.
Eve being Eve, CCP enticed me with a Power of Two promotion into creating an industrial character on a second account, the Vherokior drifter Wandering Rose. Given the origin of the Vherokior as desert nomads, I thought the name "Wandering" fitting. And over time, Wandering Rose grew from a bit player to the CEO of my personal corporation who, when not supporting Rosewalker in an auto-cannon fitted command Hurricane, flies around in a stealthed blockade runner. So over time I didn't give up the love of sneaking around but my female avatar now didn't set up from range but instead wanted to get up close and personal with the enemy.
That brings the story to Christmas 2011 and the release of SW:TOR. Having a pilot in Eve who loves flying a blockade runner, creating a Smuggler was a natural choice. But would I go back to my roots and choose the ranged dps path of the Gunslinger or the more up-close and personal support style of the Scoundrel? I chose the Scoundrel.
And what name did I choose? My character's name is now Skitane Rosa. That is bad Bulgarian for Wandering Rose. I say bad because skitane is a noun, not an adjective. But when I selected the name I didn't know if "Rosa" would still be available since legacy names are unique. Besides, I like the sound of Skitane better than the other Bulgarian words for wandering.
So my character's name is Skitane Rosa. I know that when BioWare came up with the legacy system they were only concerned with their own game. But for me my legacy name reaches back through the years and across virtual worlds.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Arresting Development
MMORPG's differ from single-player computer games because they rely on keeping players involved in the games for months, even years. So how do game developers do that? Many games rely on raids to keep players interested. Warhammer Online came up with the Tome of Knowledge that Blizzard copied to create its achievement system for World of Warcraft to give players something else to do. Other games like Eve Online and Dark Age of Camelot rely on player vs player warfare as the focus of game play. But one thing I've noticed is that developers try to slow down the rate at which a character develops their characters' skills.
Eve Online's time-based skill training system is probably the most obvious example of limiting the advancement of a player's skills. Eve is a skill-based, not level-based, game and skills are learned in real time whether a player is logged into the game or not. Many people complain about the system because they cannot advance their skills through their game play. I actually like the system because I don't have to do certain useless things in order to become better. For example, the skill system keeps me from having to make a lot of useless items in order to become better at manufacturing. Another advantage is that I can work on my missile skills while running a cargo of blueprints through low-sec. But while the skill system does have benefits for players, the system also keeps players subscribed even when interest wanes because players can always justify the subscription price because they are still training wanted skills.
Most other MMORPGs are level-based, not skill-based. One law of MMO development is that players will always run through a game's content faster than the developers can create it. So the trick for developers is to make a game that is so interesting that players what to hit the level cap and raid while at the same time don't want to play for hours every day and quickly burn through the content. Blizzard's Rob Pardo came up with a solution.
What worked for games published in 2004 is still used today. Star Wars: The Old Republic uses a rest bonus xp system if a character logs out of the game in a cantina or a ship. But from my experience, the rate of the bonus seems to be about 1/2 what I received while playing in old Vanilla WoW or in EverQuest 2. That could be because BioWare is concerned with keeping players subscribed after their free month for buying the game is up. I'm currently playing the Smuggler class story and am finding that just playing the single player elements after the rest bonus expired had me on Tatooine a full level below the recommended level. That has led me to not only spend hours grinding mobs to catch up but to also not play as much over the last few days.
Yes, SWTOR is a multiplayer game and that means I should play with others more. But BioWare is really depending on players to play exactly through all the story they created. Anyone who tries to skip part of the story is going to encounter hurdles. That's fair, but then again I've played MMOs for over 6 years now. I wonder what all those players who are jumping into the genre for the first time because this is Star Wars think. I'll have to pay closer attention to the chat to find out.
Eve Online's time-based skill training system is probably the most obvious example of limiting the advancement of a player's skills. Eve is a skill-based, not level-based, game and skills are learned in real time whether a player is logged into the game or not. Many people complain about the system because they cannot advance their skills through their game play. I actually like the system because I don't have to do certain useless things in order to become better. For example, the skill system keeps me from having to make a lot of useless items in order to become better at manufacturing. Another advantage is that I can work on my missile skills while running a cargo of blueprints through low-sec. But while the skill system does have benefits for players, the system also keeps players subscribed even when interest wanes because players can always justify the subscription price because they are still training wanted skills.
Most other MMORPGs are level-based, not skill-based. One law of MMO development is that players will always run through a game's content faster than the developers can create it. So the trick for developers is to make a game that is so interesting that players what to hit the level cap and raid while at the same time don't want to play for hours every day and quickly burn through the content. Blizzard's Rob Pardo came up with a solution.
"In World of Warcraft what they did when they first designed the game was they had an experience system that would, over time, lower the amount of experience you got because [Blizzard] wanted to encourage people to play for like two hours at a time instead of twelve hours at a time. So the longer you played you’d get this experience degradation and then it would bottom out and at that point it would be a fixed rate of experience. And people just hated it.
"And so they went back and [Blizzard's Rob Pardo] was like allright, basically what we did was we made everything in the game take twice as much experience to achieve as before and then we flipped it. So actually what happens is you start getting 200% experience and eventually it goes back down to 100%. So that effectively now how they spin it is that if you log out for a while you get this 200% boost when you log back in! And then over time it goes away and you just get regular 100% experience. It’s EXACTLY the same as it was before, except NOW everyone is like 'Fuck yeah, Blizzard, this is exactly what I want!'"While the system doesn't keep a lot of players from hitting the level cap in WoW quickly I know from personal experience that when I saw by bonus xp about to end in both WoW and EverQuest 2 that I knew it was time to stop playing for the night.
What worked for games published in 2004 is still used today. Star Wars: The Old Republic uses a rest bonus xp system if a character logs out of the game in a cantina or a ship. But from my experience, the rate of the bonus seems to be about 1/2 what I received while playing in old Vanilla WoW or in EverQuest 2. That could be because BioWare is concerned with keeping players subscribed after their free month for buying the game is up. I'm currently playing the Smuggler class story and am finding that just playing the single player elements after the rest bonus expired had me on Tatooine a full level below the recommended level. That has led me to not only spend hours grinding mobs to catch up but to also not play as much over the last few days.
Yes, SWTOR is a multiplayer game and that means I should play with others more. But BioWare is really depending on players to play exactly through all the story they created. Anyone who tries to skip part of the story is going to encounter hurdles. That's fair, but then again I've played MMOs for over 6 years now. I wonder what all those players who are jumping into the genre for the first time because this is Star Wars think. I'll have to pay closer attention to the chat to find out.
Friday, January 6, 2012
20 Is The New 30
I remember listening to a podcast (I think it was Shut Up, We're Talking) and listening to a discussion about how MMOs seemed to bog down in design when a player reached level 30 or so. The idea was that game designers were focused on making the beginning of the game so good that it hooks players and end game content to retain players that an area in the middle levels dropped off in quality and felt like it was put in just as a bridge to the good stuff. Looking back, going through Stranglethorn Vale in Vanilla World of Warcraft felt very much like that. In EverQuest 2 I lost the desire to play my paladin when I hit level 31 in Zek but I managed to power through the pain with my ranger. Level 30 was not a good time.
This past year I've noticed that I am hitting that meh feeling in games around level 20 instead of level 30. Is that because I moved to the sandbox called Eve Online and have less tolerance? Given that PvE in Eve is pretty much of a grind I don't think so. I think the reason is that game developers have decided they only need to spend the first 20 levels hooking a player and have to devote more resources to producing end game content (i.e. raids) before launch. Without that end game content, the players who race through the game start complaining that they have nothing to do and then a negative word-of-mouth campaign begins.
I think the trend began with Age Of Conan and its infamous Tortage experience where the game changed completely at level 20 and leaving Tortage Island. I can't tell for sure because I played the other major MMO to come out at that time, Warhammer Online, and never made it past level 13.
For me, the two major MMO titles published in 2011 were RIFT and Star Wars: The Old Republic. I enjoyed RIFT up until about level 18 but the game just became a log for me around level 21 and so I left the game. Currently I'm playing SWTOR and I've hit a wall at level 23. Do I really want to go on?
The wall I've hit is partially my fault, I think. Having played Eve Online for 2 1/2 years I'm used to a universe I can just wander around in at will. The only limits are the skills I've learned and the amount of isk I've earned. SWTOR is a very theme park game and not following the way the developers wants you to play can lead to difficulties. Take for example space combat. My character is a smuggler. Why in the world would I put my ship at risk in combat, especially for a corrupt Republic? And believe me, the Republic is corrupt. The same goes for ground combat. I am only in it for the money and I have a stealth belt. Why do I want to leave a huge body count behind me when I don't have to. And to tell the truth, I haven't seen very many groups looking for healers. On the last two planets I've been on, the count inlocal chat hasn't excceded 60 and been more around 40 when I've been playing. Let's just say that I barely was level 23 when I arrived on Tatooine and the mobs in the quests I'm fighting are level 25. I might have to do something I've never done before. Grind mobs. Ugh!
I'm going to fight through the pain to get my legacy by finishing the class story on Alderaan. I'm just hoping that the experience gets better and that 30 is the new 40.
This past year I've noticed that I am hitting that meh feeling in games around level 20 instead of level 30. Is that because I moved to the sandbox called Eve Online and have less tolerance? Given that PvE in Eve is pretty much of a grind I don't think so. I think the reason is that game developers have decided they only need to spend the first 20 levels hooking a player and have to devote more resources to producing end game content (i.e. raids) before launch. Without that end game content, the players who race through the game start complaining that they have nothing to do and then a negative word-of-mouth campaign begins.
I think the trend began with Age Of Conan and its infamous Tortage experience where the game changed completely at level 20 and leaving Tortage Island. I can't tell for sure because I played the other major MMO to come out at that time, Warhammer Online, and never made it past level 13.
For me, the two major MMO titles published in 2011 were RIFT and Star Wars: The Old Republic. I enjoyed RIFT up until about level 18 but the game just became a log for me around level 21 and so I left the game. Currently I'm playing SWTOR and I've hit a wall at level 23. Do I really want to go on?
The wall I've hit is partially my fault, I think. Having played Eve Online for 2 1/2 years I'm used to a universe I can just wander around in at will. The only limits are the skills I've learned and the amount of isk I've earned. SWTOR is a very theme park game and not following the way the developers wants you to play can lead to difficulties. Take for example space combat. My character is a smuggler. Why in the world would I put my ship at risk in combat, especially for a corrupt Republic? And believe me, the Republic is corrupt. The same goes for ground combat. I am only in it for the money and I have a stealth belt. Why do I want to leave a huge body count behind me when I don't have to. And to tell the truth, I haven't seen very many groups looking for healers. On the last two planets I've been on, the count in
I'm going to fight through the pain to get my legacy by finishing the class story on Alderaan. I'm just hoping that the experience gets better and that 30 is the new 40.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Looking Ahead to 2012 And Back At 2011
Happy New Year! I usually prefer to look ahead to the new year but I made some predictions for 2011 and I should look at how well I did before moving on to looking at 2012. So here is a look back to see just how insightful I really was.
New Games: I made predictions about two games, Star Wars: The Old Republic and RIFT. I almost predicted that SW:TOR would launch in 2012 but chickened out and stated that SW:TOR would launch in December 2011. I got that prediction right. RIFT is a little different story. I got the Q1 launch date correct but not the number of subscribers. Even though Trion has never released numbers, the MMO page on Xfire on 1 January indicated that RIFT players spent half the time in-game as Eve Online players. Since I predicted a subscription base of 300-400 thousand for RIFT, I will consider that a missed prediction.
Existing Games: This category is why I should never make predictions. I only made predictions about three games: Eve Online, EverQuest 2 and Star Wars: Galaxies. First, Eve. Looking back one would never know that is the game I play the most. I wrote that Incarna would lead to a new peak concurrent user record over 67,000 users. Eve did set a PCU record of 63,170 but not during June or July. The disaster that was Incarna also helped to ensure that the number of subscribers fell below the 380-400 thousand I predicted at year end.
For EverQuest 2, my predictions didn't work too well either. Because SOE doesn't release numbers, I'm not sure if the players who proclaimed they were moving to RIFT came back. I did predict rumors of a second round of server merges but I think SOE just finished the first round of mergers less than two weeks ago. And of course, my prediction that the free-to-play service for EQ2 would remain separate from the subscription servers failed when EQ2 went F2P on 6 December.
Finally, my predictions about Star Wars: Galaxies. Sure, they all came true, but that is because LucasArts pulled the plug on the IP so no work was done.
Eve Multi-media: I have to say that Incarna really hurt the creative community surrounding Eve Online. Because Incarna basically was a Minmatar closet instead of actual walking in stations with the never released establishments that I thought would lead to a lot of machinima being produced. I did predict that there would be 10 Eve-related podcasts and I could claim that. Looking at the Eve Pod Pack page, I count nine podcasts I consider to be active, ten if I count Voices from the Void which seems to be in indefinite hiatus.
What's Ahead For 2012? I won't have any predictions for 2012 but I will tell some of the stories I expect will dominate the MMO news.
1. Star Wars: The Old Republic. The game is going to dominate the MMO coverage for at least the first half of 2012 and possibly all year. I think everyone is going to play. I've even broken down and started playing the game. The question hanging over the game and the genre is will the game maintain player interest throughout the year.
2. DUST 514. If SW:TOR is newsworthy because of the sheer amount of money spent on developing the game, then DUST 514 will be a major story because of the innovation (or folly) of the attempt to merge a PC MMORPG and a console first person shooter (MMOFPS?) into one virtual world. I keep hearing and reading gamers complain about a lack of imagination in games as all developers try to imitate World of Warcraft. One thing about the Viking spaceship developers in Iceland is that they are stretching the boundaries of game design.
3. New Game Announcements. I expect that this year gamers will find out more details about three eagerly awaited projects: Blizzard's Titan, SOE's EverQuest Next, and 38 Studios' Copernicus. None of these MMORPGs will debut in 2012 but the companies will tease us with enough news to make us believe these will be the games that will dominate 2013, although I believe 2014 is more realistic.
4. Real Life Politics. I expect that the real world will inject itself into our games in 2012. I'm not sure exactly how yet, but between a lot of governments needing money, the U.S. presidential election in November and whatever is really happening in China, gamers will have the real world chase them into their virtual world safe havens.
That's it for now. As I wrote above, I'm not good at the whole prediction business so expect to see a lot of things occur that I failed to see.
New Games: I made predictions about two games, Star Wars: The Old Republic and RIFT. I almost predicted that SW:TOR would launch in 2012 but chickened out and stated that SW:TOR would launch in December 2011. I got that prediction right. RIFT is a little different story. I got the Q1 launch date correct but not the number of subscribers. Even though Trion has never released numbers, the MMO page on Xfire on 1 January indicated that RIFT players spent half the time in-game as Eve Online players. Since I predicted a subscription base of 300-400 thousand for RIFT, I will consider that a missed prediction.
Existing Games: This category is why I should never make predictions. I only made predictions about three games: Eve Online, EverQuest 2 and Star Wars: Galaxies. First, Eve. Looking back one would never know that is the game I play the most. I wrote that Incarna would lead to a new peak concurrent user record over 67,000 users. Eve did set a PCU record of 63,170 but not during June or July. The disaster that was Incarna also helped to ensure that the number of subscribers fell below the 380-400 thousand I predicted at year end.
For EverQuest 2, my predictions didn't work too well either. Because SOE doesn't release numbers, I'm not sure if the players who proclaimed they were moving to RIFT came back. I did predict rumors of a second round of server merges but I think SOE just finished the first round of mergers less than two weeks ago. And of course, my prediction that the free-to-play service for EQ2 would remain separate from the subscription servers failed when EQ2 went F2P on 6 December.
Finally, my predictions about Star Wars: Galaxies. Sure, they all came true, but that is because LucasArts pulled the plug on the IP so no work was done.
Eve Multi-media: I have to say that Incarna really hurt the creative community surrounding Eve Online. Because Incarna basically was a Minmatar closet instead of actual walking in stations with the never released establishments that I thought would lead to a lot of machinima being produced. I did predict that there would be 10 Eve-related podcasts and I could claim that. Looking at the Eve Pod Pack page, I count nine podcasts I consider to be active, ten if I count Voices from the Void which seems to be in indefinite hiatus.
What's Ahead For 2012? I won't have any predictions for 2012 but I will tell some of the stories I expect will dominate the MMO news.
1. Star Wars: The Old Republic. The game is going to dominate the MMO coverage for at least the first half of 2012 and possibly all year. I think everyone is going to play. I've even broken down and started playing the game. The question hanging over the game and the genre is will the game maintain player interest throughout the year.
2. DUST 514. If SW:TOR is newsworthy because of the sheer amount of money spent on developing the game, then DUST 514 will be a major story because of the innovation (or folly) of the attempt to merge a PC MMORPG and a console first person shooter (MMOFPS?) into one virtual world. I keep hearing and reading gamers complain about a lack of imagination in games as all developers try to imitate World of Warcraft. One thing about the Viking spaceship developers in Iceland is that they are stretching the boundaries of game design.
3. New Game Announcements. I expect that this year gamers will find out more details about three eagerly awaited projects: Blizzard's Titan, SOE's EverQuest Next, and 38 Studios' Copernicus. None of these MMORPGs will debut in 2012 but the companies will tease us with enough news to make us believe these will be the games that will dominate 2013, although I believe 2014 is more realistic.
4. Real Life Politics. I expect that the real world will inject itself into our games in 2012. I'm not sure exactly how yet, but between a lot of governments needing money, the U.S. presidential election in November and whatever is really happening in China, gamers will have the real world chase them into their virtual world safe havens.
That's it for now. As I wrote above, I'm not good at the whole prediction business so expect to see a lot of things occur that I failed to see.
Friday, July 8, 2011
CCP Partners With Nexon and SOE's Community Address
I wrote on Monday that the story published by Eve News about Sony Online Entertainment buying a major interest in CCP Games would finally be put to rest on Thursday. I'm glad I'm able to report some good news.
First, CCP announced that the company it was going to partner with was Nexon, not SOE. Here are the details from the press release.
While some may not like CCP associating with a F2P company like Nexon, the fact that the Icelandic company is looking to open up new markets as a source of revenue bolsters The Mittani's analysis of the Noble Exchange.
SOE is touting Planetside 2 as a sandbox game, which places it in direct competition with CCP. In fact, one of the features of Planetside 2 will be a time-based skill system similar to Eve Online. The one fact I found weird is that SOE is introducing classes to the Planetside universe. I think classes works against one of the strengths of a skill point system: customization. I can do whatever I want in Eve depending on how I spend my skill points. A class system limits what a player can eventually do in the sandbox without rolling another character.
And since I did watch the entire hour-long presentation, I thought I'd mention the news about EverQuest 2, a game I played for over 3 years. I think that EQ2 is one of the games that players in Eve use as an example of how a cash shop would ruin a game. The new expansion, Age of Discovery, comes out in November 2011, returning to the November release schedule abandoned with the Sentinal's Fate expansion. While having no increase in the level cap, the expansion will introduce tradeskill apprentices and mercenaries as well as the ever popular Beastlord class from EverQuest. As a final item, players will be able to design their own dungeons.
It is always nice to bury a rumor like that pushed by Eve News. The fact that competition has emerged for DUST 514 makes writing a post like this a lot more satisfying. Honestly, if this post were just to pile on Eve News for engaging in journalistic malpractice, I would have spent too much time on this. But posting about real news gives me a happy feeling. And speaking of happy feelings, I'll leave you with the first trailer from Planetside 2 along with the DUST 514 trailer from E3 to look at and compare. Enjoy.
First, CCP announced that the company it was going to partner with was Nexon, not SOE. Here are the details from the press release.
CCP and Nexon Announce Strategic Partnership for EVE Online in Japan
REYKJAVIK, ICELAND and TOKYO, JAPAN – JULY 7, 2011– CCP and Nexon Co., Ltd. today announced an agreement to bring a fully localized game client and product services for CCP’s award winning science fiction virtual world experience, EVE Online, to Japan this fall.
Continuing with CCP’s international growth plans, the company has targeted one of the largest online games markets to expand the EVE property. “Japanese players have always been an essential part of the EVE Online community,” said CCP CEO, Hilmar Veigar Pétursson. “Having considered Nexon’s excellent reputation as Asia’s leading game developer and publisher, they were the obvious choice in who the best possible partner would be to help us make the game more accessible to our growing fan base in Japan.” With the release of EVE Online on PC later this year, and CCP’s upcoming persistent shooter, DUST 514 on PlayStation 3 the following year, Japanese players will have localized access to the complete EVE universe ecosystem.
Localized services for Japanese players will enable them to access the game in their native language through the Tranquility server, which currently plays host to over 350,000 subscribers from around the world in three languages: English, German and Russian.
“We are pleased to have this opportunity to be a part of CCP’s ongoing plans to provide premium services to their subscribers,” said Seung-Woo Choi, Nexon Co., Ltd. “Our shared commitment to quality and excellence is the ultimate cornerstone from which to build an even greater gaming experience for Japanese video game enthusiasts.”
While CCP will continue to develop and manage the game, EVE Online will be added to the ever-expanding portfolio of titles available through Nexon’s portal site, utilizing Nexon’s billing system and supported by the company’s expertise in the areas of regional marketing and promotion.
While some may not like CCP associating with a F2P company like Nexon, the fact that the Icelandic company is looking to open up new markets as a source of revenue bolsters The Mittani's analysis of the Noble Exchange.
"My impression is that CCP is primarily doing the microtransactions in EVE not as a revenue-creation metric at all. Many other MMOs are doing microtransactions in one way or another and I think that CCP is doing it not to make money but just to learn and acquire the capacity to do it such that they aren't left in the dust as the industry changes. As you all know, the industry is shifting in toward microtransaction or hybrid models, and that's just the way it is. I don't think CCP are about to start trying to take the player's money and have that be a primary source of revenue for EVE. "Speaking of companies that are trying to take the player's money as a significant revenue source, that brings us to last night's SOE Community Address given by SOE CEO John Smedley. The highlight was the introduction of Planetside 2. Planetside 2 promises to be direct competition for CCP's upcoming MMOFPS title DUST 514. The game engine for Planetside 2 that Eve News insinuated was Carbon is instead a new engine developed by SOE called Forge Light. Not only will Forge Light power Planetside 2 but the new EverQuest Next project as well.
SOE is touting Planetside 2 as a sandbox game, which places it in direct competition with CCP. In fact, one of the features of Planetside 2 will be a time-based skill system similar to Eve Online. The one fact I found weird is that SOE is introducing classes to the Planetside universe. I think classes works against one of the strengths of a skill point system: customization. I can do whatever I want in Eve depending on how I spend my skill points. A class system limits what a player can eventually do in the sandbox without rolling another character.
And since I did watch the entire hour-long presentation, I thought I'd mention the news about EverQuest 2, a game I played for over 3 years. I think that EQ2 is one of the games that players in Eve use as an example of how a cash shop would ruin a game. The new expansion, Age of Discovery, comes out in November 2011, returning to the November release schedule abandoned with the Sentinal's Fate expansion. While having no increase in the level cap, the expansion will introduce tradeskill apprentices and mercenaries as well as the ever popular Beastlord class from EverQuest. As a final item, players will be able to design their own dungeons.
It is always nice to bury a rumor like that pushed by Eve News. The fact that competition has emerged for DUST 514 makes writing a post like this a lot more satisfying. Honestly, if this post were just to pile on Eve News for engaging in journalistic malpractice, I would have spent too much time on this. But posting about real news gives me a happy feeling. And speaking of happy feelings, I'll leave you with the first trailer from Planetside 2 along with the DUST 514 trailer from E3 to look at and compare. Enjoy.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
SOE: About That Station Cash
With all SOE games and web sites down since 2 May and SOE giving out 30 days free play time plus one day for every day out the outage, SOE is in serious financial trouble, especially if the Bloomberg report about the PSN network target date of return of 31 May is true.
So what might help SOE's bottom line (and save some games) once all the security problems are solved? The much maligned Station Cash. That's right. With SOE potentially giving out 2 months of game play for free and gamers probably leery of buying new games from a company that suffered such a serious security breach, I see Station Cash as the primary revenue stream for SOE for a significant period of time. That is good for Free Realms and EQ2 Extended which already rely on Station Cash sales, but what about other games? EverQuest and EverQuest 2 already have the Station Cash shops in game so maybe they can ride out the economic storm if a large number of players don't come back.
As for Vanguard and Star Wars: Galaxies, games without a cash shop? This may be the end, particularly for SW:G. After this fiasco, can anyone doubt that players will flock to SWTOR? If the original release date (Q2 2011) for SWTOR had been met, I would say that SW:G is dead now.
I remember back when Station Cash was introduced players complaining that it would ruin EQ2. Wouldn't it be ironic if Station Cash actually helps keep EQ2 from closing its doors in the aftermath of the security breach?
So what might help SOE's bottom line (and save some games) once all the security problems are solved? The much maligned Station Cash. That's right. With SOE potentially giving out 2 months of game play for free and gamers probably leery of buying new games from a company that suffered such a serious security breach, I see Station Cash as the primary revenue stream for SOE for a significant period of time. That is good for Free Realms and EQ2 Extended which already rely on Station Cash sales, but what about other games? EverQuest and EverQuest 2 already have the Station Cash shops in game so maybe they can ride out the economic storm if a large number of players don't come back.
As for Vanguard and Star Wars: Galaxies, games without a cash shop? This may be the end, particularly for SW:G. After this fiasco, can anyone doubt that players will flock to SWTOR? If the original release date (Q2 2011) for SWTOR had been met, I would say that SW:G is dead now.
I remember back when Station Cash was introduced players complaining that it would ruin EQ2. Wouldn't it be ironic if Station Cash actually helps keep EQ2 from closing its doors in the aftermath of the security breach?
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
SOE Was Also Hacked
Everyone by now has probably heard of the hacking of Sony's PlayStation Network. Now, we find out what many feared is true: the SOE customer database was also hacked.
Some people talk about not trusting SOE becase of the Star Wars: Galaxies NGE so many years ago. I think this is a heck of a lot more serious. And on a personal note, even with the recent forum problems, I'm feeling a lot safer with CCP than I am with some of the other companies. I think I'm fortunate in that I gave up playing EverQuest 2 over 18 months ago and decided that SW:G was not for me. While SOE does have a credit card on file for me, it expired 6 months ago. Lucky me.
Update: EQ2 Wire is now conducting a poll asking when people believe EverQuest 2 will come back online.
SAN FRANCISCO [AFP] — Sony on Monday reported that cyber assaults on its online videogame network were broader than first thought, with intruders getting away with credit and debit card data.EQ2 Wire reports that EverQuest 2 is down and has a round-up of the news. The worst part is that SOE assured customers on April 22nd that the Playstation Network hack did not involve the SOE databases. But according to an article in The Wall Street Journal, Sony has been under cyber attack for 6 weeks and has now drawn the attention of Congress. At this point, Sony has stated it will answer written questions but will not send representatives to appear at congressional hearings on the matter.
Hackers breached Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) network as well as PlayStation Network and Qriocity streaming music service, according to the Japanese consumer electronics giant.
"We had previously believed that Sony Online Entertainment customer data had not been obtained in the cyber-attacks on the company," the company said in an online update.
"But, on May 1st we concluded that SOE account information may have been stolen and we are notifying you as soon as possible."
Engineers and security consultants investigating the PlayStation Network breach discovered evidence that information was stolen from 24.6 million SOE accounts and from an outdated database containing people's financial data.
About 12,700 credit or debit card numbers, along with expiration dates, belonging to people outside the United States may have been stolen along with 10,700 direct debit records of customers in Austria, Germany, Netherlands, and Spain, according to Sony.
"We will be notifying each of these customers promptly," the Japanese consumer electronics giant promised.
Some people talk about not trusting SOE becase of the Star Wars: Galaxies NGE so many years ago. I think this is a heck of a lot more serious. And on a personal note, even with the recent forum problems, I'm feeling a lot safer with CCP than I am with some of the other companies. I think I'm fortunate in that I gave up playing EverQuest 2 over 18 months ago and decided that SW:G was not for me. While SOE does have a credit card on file for me, it expired 6 months ago. Lucky me.
Update: EQ2 Wire is now conducting a poll asking when people believe EverQuest 2 will come back online.
Friday, April 8, 2011
World Bank Report: 20% of Virtual Game Currency Sold Is Hacked
I am currently reading a virtual economy report sponsored by the World Bank titled Knowledge Map of the Virtual Economy (hat tip: Terra Nova). I plan on writing more about the report, but given the angst about botting and RMT in Eve Online, I thought I'd publish this quote from the report now:
So folks, especially all of you who play Eve Online, there is a reason that people equate botting with RMT. Because that is where the industry gets about one-half of its currency it sells players. And the people who are buying in-game currency very well could be contributing to the misery of those whose accounts are hacked, since so much of it comes from hacked accounts.
Yes, by buying gold, plat, isk, gil or whatever from these 3rd party RMT sites you are giving people an incentive to go out and hack other players' accounts. If you don't think hacking can affect a game, just ask those who played RIFT at launch. And if you want to hear a horror story, listen to the beginning of The RIFT Podcast #34 in which Ari described how a guildie fought a hacker for an hour for control of his max level character.
I'll climb off my soapbox now. But one last note about the report. Among the experts who contributed was CCP's very own Dr. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson. While Eve isn't mentioned by name, I'm glad to see that the game I play is drawing interest from sites besides Eurogamer and Massively.
The popular term “gold farmer” refers to a game laborer who plays an online game in order to produce virtual currency that can be sold for real money. The first “gold farms”, offices where multiple farmers sit at rows of computers and earn wages by producing virtual currency, probably evolved from gaming cafés. Although gold farmers have captured the attention of the Western gaming public, today they represent only a small part of the production sector in the third-party gaming services industry.
The main competitor to gold farms comes from automated bot farms. Bot farms use arrays of computers that each run several instances of the game, each controlled by a program known as a bot. Perhaps only a tenth of the staff of a manual farm is needed to monitor the bots. Another source of competition are criminal hacker groups that break into players’ and gold farmers’ game accounts, steal the currency, and sell it for real money to wholesalers and retailers. One industry expert suggests that manual farms produce 30 percent of the virtual currency sold by retailers, bot farms produce 50 percent, and hacker groups “produce” 20 percent by stealing it from other players.
Lehdonvirta, Vili. & Ernkvist, Mirko, 2011. Converting the Virtual Economy into Development Potential: Knowledge Map of the Virtual Economy, Washington, DC; infoDev / World Bank. pp. 16-17I should add that this passage is describing third-party gaming services and not game companies themselves. Thus, CCP's PLEX sales and Sony Online Entertainment's Live Gamer Exchange servers for EverQuest 2, Free Realms and Vanguard do not count in the above description.
So folks, especially all of you who play Eve Online, there is a reason that people equate botting with RMT. Because that is where the industry gets about one-half of its currency it sells players. And the people who are buying in-game currency very well could be contributing to the misery of those whose accounts are hacked, since so much of it comes from hacked accounts.
Yes, by buying gold, plat, isk, gil or whatever from these 3rd party RMT sites you are giving people an incentive to go out and hack other players' accounts. If you don't think hacking can affect a game, just ask those who played RIFT at launch. And if you want to hear a horror story, listen to the beginning of The RIFT Podcast #34 in which Ari described how a guildie fought a hacker for an hour for control of his max level character.
I'll climb off my soapbox now. But one last note about the report. Among the experts who contributed was CCP's very own Dr. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson. While Eve isn't mentioned by name, I'm glad to see that the game I play is drawing interest from sites besides Eurogamer and Massively.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
A Crafter's Journey
I've traveled a long winding course in my MMORPG crafting career since I first put hammer to anvil in World of Warcraft's village of Goldshire back in 2005 to make a pair of boots. I guess I really love crafting, or perhaps was fortunate that I grew bored of WoW, because WoW's crafting system did not turn me off of crafting totally. I didn't really mind the system that let me gather a bunch of materials, then park my toon at the forge and click the create all button. After all, that was a great time to get up and get a soda and fix a sandwich. For me, the trick to making crafting interesting was figuring out how to gather the materials I needed to make the items.
WoW's crafting system did have two major drawbacks when I played the game back during the vanilla days of 2005-2006. The first is that a character's crafting level was tied to his/her adventure level. Ugh! The second was that to get to max level in your profession basically required raiding? Really? I never understood why a crafter could not just concentrate on his craft and had to adventure.
2006 came along and after 9 months of wandering Azeroth I was so sick of WoW that I swore off all MMOs. That lasted approximately one month when I heard about another game called EverQuest 2 that was allegedly much better. So I bought the game and found out EQ2 was better than WoW. One of the things that made EQ2 better was the crafting system. First off, I could have one character harvest all the types of crafting materials. Next, crafting ability was not tied to adventure level. Yay! So I could concentrate on adventuring with my ranger and crafting with my army of crafting alts. And I had crafting alts. By the time I left the game in 2009, I had reached the level cap of 80 in all 9 crafting professions.
The other thing that made EQ2's crafting system better than WoW's was the crafting mini-game in which a crafter basically plays whack-a-mole to create an item. Crafting actually involves skill and hand-eye coordination. Then hire a talented game developer like Emily "Domino" Taylor to evolve this system further by creating tradeskill writs, crafting instances and crafting quests and SOE had (and still has) a crafting system that arguably is the best in the industry. Domino is still my favorite game dev of all time.
But all was not right in Norrath for me. After 3 years of crafting, I started to suffer pain in my left hand from all the button pressing involved in crafting. Another problem was the cost of EQ2. In order to have 9 crafters on my account, I had to subscribe to the SOE Station Pass. When I began playing, the character limit per account was 6 (later changed to 7). But by ordering Station Pass, I got an extra 4 (later 5) character slots. Hence the crafting army. But Station Pass did not have any discount plans for ordering more than one month at a time. Boo!
Paying extra was okay when SOE games were the only ones I played, but in 2009 I became interested in another game, Eve Online. I had heard about the game, but I didn't really become interested until the fall of the Band of Brothers alliance and listening to Dianabolic and The Mittani battle it out on The Funky Bacon Show on Eve Radio. I finally took the plunge into New Eden in August of 2009 and liked what I saw. With my guild breaking up, combined with the next EQ2 expansion, Sentinel's Fate, coming out in February 2010 instead of November 2009, I made the move to New Eden full time in October 2009.
Eve Online was an eye-opener as a crafter. Eve has a reputation as tough, and if you want to really play in the big leagues in the best MMO economy, New Eden is the place to play. A person just can't jump into manufacturing. In order for making my own products to even make financial sense, I had to learn a lot of skills. In space, a character can't just wield a pick-axe. No, in the year YC113, you need specialized mining ships to obtain ore and the skills to fly them properly. A proper industrial carebear also needs skills to exploit planets of raw materials and the ability to process those materials into products to sell or use in further manufacturing processes. The budding industrialist also needs a network of research agents and the skills to invent things. And perhaps most importantly of all, the industrialist needs the start-up isk to make everything possible.
After 18 months of not making much more than ammunition and drones, I'm finally ready for the big time. That's right, tech 2 production. I've got colonies on 10 worlds in 5 systems in two constellations. I've got a network of research agents that reaches out across 4 regions. I have an industrial command ship that greatly expands my mining capability for the more common ores and a small flotilla capable of smashing level 4 missions in order to gain the more uncommon ones. I've got the skills to make blueprint copies and shortly will have the skills and basic tools to make tech 2 ships.
In short, I'm about to reach the pinnacle of my MMO crafting career and guide a force of literally thousands of non-capsuleers in creating some of the most complex and awesome items in the MMO world. And then CCP comes out with the character creator in Incursions as a prelude to Incarna. I had a great time making my characters, but as I picked out the clothing, I looked at the choices and said to myself ...
"I hate those boots. I wish I could make my own."
I now have the urge to actually get my hands dirty again in addition to directing a vast enterprise from a pod full of goo. So where can I make a pair of boots? RIFT.
Yes, RIFT harkens back to those days of old where I collected a bunch of materials, stood by a crafting station and then left to go make a sandwich. But the boots are much better looking and useful. Also, because RIFT just launched yesterday, not a lot of information exists on exactly how to do everything. So I'm trying to figure out the best combinations of professions for the three Guardian characters I plan on creating in order to streamline my supply chain. After all, sending things via the mail system costs money. And I'm not really sure what I can make or how valuable crafting really is at the higher levels.
I've had a blast as a crafter over these last 6 years. I think I'm just about where I really want to be. After all, doesn't everyone want to have an empire, even if it pales in comparison to many around you? And don't many successful people just putter around with some of the simpler things they did when first starting out? Right now, I fit that description.
WoW's crafting system did have two major drawbacks when I played the game back during the vanilla days of 2005-2006. The first is that a character's crafting level was tied to his/her adventure level. Ugh! The second was that to get to max level in your profession basically required raiding? Really? I never understood why a crafter could not just concentrate on his craft and had to adventure.
2006 came along and after 9 months of wandering Azeroth I was so sick of WoW that I swore off all MMOs. That lasted approximately one month when I heard about another game called EverQuest 2 that was allegedly much better. So I bought the game and found out EQ2 was better than WoW. One of the things that made EQ2 better was the crafting system. First off, I could have one character harvest all the types of crafting materials. Next, crafting ability was not tied to adventure level. Yay! So I could concentrate on adventuring with my ranger and crafting with my army of crafting alts. And I had crafting alts. By the time I left the game in 2009, I had reached the level cap of 80 in all 9 crafting professions.
The other thing that made EQ2's crafting system better than WoW's was the crafting mini-game in which a crafter basically plays whack-a-mole to create an item. Crafting actually involves skill and hand-eye coordination. Then hire a talented game developer like Emily "Domino" Taylor to evolve this system further by creating tradeskill writs, crafting instances and crafting quests and SOE had (and still has) a crafting system that arguably is the best in the industry. Domino is still my favorite game dev of all time.
But all was not right in Norrath for me. After 3 years of crafting, I started to suffer pain in my left hand from all the button pressing involved in crafting. Another problem was the cost of EQ2. In order to have 9 crafters on my account, I had to subscribe to the SOE Station Pass. When I began playing, the character limit per account was 6 (later changed to 7). But by ordering Station Pass, I got an extra 4 (later 5) character slots. Hence the crafting army. But Station Pass did not have any discount plans for ordering more than one month at a time. Boo!
Paying extra was okay when SOE games were the only ones I played, but in 2009 I became interested in another game, Eve Online. I had heard about the game, but I didn't really become interested until the fall of the Band of Brothers alliance and listening to Dianabolic and The Mittani battle it out on The Funky Bacon Show on Eve Radio. I finally took the plunge into New Eden in August of 2009 and liked what I saw. With my guild breaking up, combined with the next EQ2 expansion, Sentinel's Fate, coming out in February 2010 instead of November 2009, I made the move to New Eden full time in October 2009.
Eve Online was an eye-opener as a crafter. Eve has a reputation as tough, and if you want to really play in the big leagues in the best MMO economy, New Eden is the place to play. A person just can't jump into manufacturing. In order for making my own products to even make financial sense, I had to learn a lot of skills. In space, a character can't just wield a pick-axe. No, in the year YC113, you need specialized mining ships to obtain ore and the skills to fly them properly. A proper industrial carebear also needs skills to exploit planets of raw materials and the ability to process those materials into products to sell or use in further manufacturing processes. The budding industrialist also needs a network of research agents and the skills to invent things. And perhaps most importantly of all, the industrialist needs the start-up isk to make everything possible.
After 18 months of not making much more than ammunition and drones, I'm finally ready for the big time. That's right, tech 2 production. I've got colonies on 10 worlds in 5 systems in two constellations. I've got a network of research agents that reaches out across 4 regions. I have an industrial command ship that greatly expands my mining capability for the more common ores and a small flotilla capable of smashing level 4 missions in order to gain the more uncommon ones. I've got the skills to make blueprint copies and shortly will have the skills and basic tools to make tech 2 ships.
In short, I'm about to reach the pinnacle of my MMO crafting career and guide a force of literally thousands of non-capsuleers in creating some of the most complex and awesome items in the MMO world. And then CCP comes out with the character creator in Incursions as a prelude to Incarna. I had a great time making my characters, but as I picked out the clothing, I looked at the choices and said to myself ...
"I hate those boots. I wish I could make my own."
I now have the urge to actually get my hands dirty again in addition to directing a vast enterprise from a pod full of goo. So where can I make a pair of boots? RIFT.
Yes, RIFT harkens back to those days of old where I collected a bunch of materials, stood by a crafting station and then left to go make a sandwich. But the boots are much better looking and useful. Also, because RIFT just launched yesterday, not a lot of information exists on exactly how to do everything. So I'm trying to figure out the best combinations of professions for the three Guardian characters I plan on creating in order to streamline my supply chain. After all, sending things via the mail system costs money. And I'm not really sure what I can make or how valuable crafting really is at the higher levels.
I've had a blast as a crafter over these last 6 years. I think I'm just about where I really want to be. After all, doesn't everyone want to have an empire, even if it pales in comparison to many around you? And don't many successful people just putter around with some of the simpler things they did when first starting out? Right now, I fit that description.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
I'm Glad I Don't Play THAT Game Anymore
In Eve Online whenever an expansion comes out smart players always put a long training skill in the skills queue in case something goes wrong with the deployment. In EverQuest 2, that advice is "don't take the day off because you might not get to play the game." And judging from reading Feldon over at EQ2 Wire and a quick peak at the EQ2 forums, SOE had a lot of problems with the launch of the Destiny of Velious expansion yesterday. Freeport, the EQ2 Extended server, looks like it is still experiencing severe log in queuing problems. Another server, Everfrost, experienced login problems until late into the night San Diego time and the team may have given up and gone to bed. I really can't tell.
In the meantime, SOE continues to show Eve players that concerns about a cash shop are justified as one of the "12 days of Velious" promotions is a sale in the SOE cash shop. That's right, on Friday SOE will hold a sale on some of the new Velious-themed items in the Station Marketplace. (They still call it that, right?) And on Thursday SOE will offer free transfers for up to 5 characters to another server, but the offer is for one day only.
I want to conclude this post with something that Smokejumper, the Senior Producer for EQ2 posted while all the deployment debacle was occurring.
In the meantime, SOE continues to show Eve players that concerns about a cash shop are justified as one of the "12 days of Velious" promotions is a sale in the SOE cash shop. That's right, on Friday SOE will hold a sale on some of the new Velious-themed items in the Station Marketplace. (They still call it that, right?) And on Thursday SOE will offer free transfers for up to 5 characters to another server, but the offer is for one day only.
I want to conclude this post with something that Smokejumper, the Senior Producer for EQ2 posted while all the deployment debacle was occurring.
Well, I've only been with the team since last April, so you should really only blame me for things in that time window.Umm ... so yesterday's problems weren't entirely your fault? Working on the business end of things is okay, but you have to make sure people can play your game, Smokejumper, for any of that "business end" stuff to matter. Oh, and if the game is stronger, could you please post some figures? Maybe I'm just too used to the transparency of Eve Online, but until SOE opens up again about how its games are doing, based on what I read at EQ2 Wire and other places, I'm not buying it.
Attack away though! It doesn't really do anything useful, but if that's the only way you feel that change can be affected, then go for it. (Although I would suggest that the attack tactic might not be working for you particularly well since you still seem to be angry after 2 years of posting.)
You may perceive that we "like money more than we care about the game". It's probably unlikely that I'm going to convince you otherwise, but I'll try again because it can't hurt anything. Here goes:
The challenge of running an MMO is twofold. The first, obvious priority is to keep it relevant and entertaining for the players. But the second, just as important element (that's not *nearly* as sexy and which most Producers are scared to do anything about), is to also keep it economically strong so that it's a smart business decision to continue funding and developing the project.
Without pointing fingers, it's safe for me to say that the last couple of years of this game were lackluster from creativity and business points of view. This resulted in some players getting the feeling that the game was backsliding, it didn't inspire morale on the dev team, and SOE had to start considering whether or not EQII was getting old in the tooth.
I didn't (and don't) believe that EQII has to fade away. Ever. MMOs can go on perpetually if they're kept healthy. So the first thing we had to do was the stuff you all have chose to hate me for, which was to focus on the business aspects that everyone else had ignored previously and which was horribly overdue.
So most of the team focused on completing the DoV expansion that was already on the books when I came on board, and I kept a small strike team on improving the business side of things while that happened. That "business" work is largely complete now, although it will certain get tweaks here and there so that improvements are small and constant instead of being a big shock to the system with major changes like we've done in the last six months or so.
Velious is the changeover point for us. This expansion was the last of the legacy features already planned when I came aboard. From here, the team gets to make non-legacy decisions and be as creative as possible about making the game fun...and they get to do it on a strong foundation of smart business, as well.
I realize that it's usually more fun to post about how I'm hell-bent on destroying your game, but that's laughably untrue. This game is stronger since I took the helm, the team is better, and our potential for quality entertainment is now much greater also. EQII is a great game, and this team intends to make it much, much better in the next year.
No smoke here. This is straight-shooting.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
SOE vs Trion: The Battle Begins
Today marks the launch of Sony Online Entertainment's Destiny of Velious expansion for EverQuest 2. I've pretty much given up on the game, but the blogging shall continue as the SOE vs. Trion battle officially begins. Will RIFT pull enough of EQ2's core player base away that EQ2 truly begins to resemble Dungeons and Dragons Online? Or will Rift succeed and become a major AAA western MMO title?
Now, I don't know how much shifting of timelines has gone on with the two games. Well, on further review, on SOE's part. On January 4th, Trion announced that RIFT would launch on March 1st with a head start launch of February 24th for those who pre-order the game. That was followed on January 13th with EQ2's senior producer announcing a two-week delay in launching the expansion, from February 8 to today. And EQ2 will debut flying mounts in a special event held on ... wait for it ... March 1st! Coincidence? I think not.
Now, if I was still playing EQ2, after 5 years I would probably stick around to experience and maybe even get a flying mount. Instead, I will start playing RIFT in a couple of days. But with some GvG (game vs. game) action occurring, I'll be watching with a bucket to collect all the tears. The question I have though is not "will RIFT be the WoW killer?". My question is: will RIFT be the EQ2 killer?
Now, I don't know how much shifting of timelines has gone on with the two games. Well, on further review, on SOE's part. On January 4th, Trion announced that RIFT would launch on March 1st with a head start launch of February 24th for those who pre-order the game. That was followed on January 13th with EQ2's senior producer announcing a two-week delay in launching the expansion, from February 8 to today. And EQ2 will debut flying mounts in a special event held on ... wait for it ... March 1st! Coincidence? I think not.
Now, if I was still playing EQ2, after 5 years I would probably stick around to experience and maybe even get a flying mount. Instead, I will start playing RIFT in a couple of days. But with some GvG (game vs. game) action occurring, I'll be watching with a bucket to collect all the tears. The question I have though is not "will RIFT be the WoW killer?". My question is: will RIFT be the EQ2 killer?
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
RIFT Launches March 1st
If you read my blog and podcast roll, you probably already know that RIFT will launch on March 1st. Now, as Massively points out, Trion took a poke at World of Warcraft in a television commercial they plan to launch. While everyone is looking at the World of Warcraft angle, I'm looking at another game. That's right, RIFT Executive Producer Scott Hartsman is going to go head-to-head with the latest expansion of the game he used to head up, SOE's EverQuest 2. The last I heard, Destiny of Velious is scheduled for release on February 11th. With all the nifty pre-launch offers (including access to all future beta events), RIFT is looking at attracting EQ2 players disgruntled with several of SOE's decisions during the Sentinel's Fate expansion. And as a former EQ2 player, I think I'd rather play the new game headed up by the guy who did great things with my old game than play what EQ2 has become.
Friday, December 31, 2010
My Predictions for 2011
For the first time I will attempt to predict the future in the MMO world. And for not the first time, I will undoubtedly make a fool of myself on the blog. But since that has never stopped me in the past, on with the predictions.
New games:
Although a lot of new MMOs are scheduled for release, I'll only make predictions about 2 games that I hope to play in 2011, Star Wars: The Old Republic and RIFT. First, SWTOR. As much as I would like to go out on a limb and predict the game will not launch in 2011, I just don't want to look like that big a fool. Then again, I want to play this game, so picking an earlier date may just be wishful thinking. So I will predict a 2011 Q4 launch for the game. If I have to pick a month, I'll pick December.
I have greater hopes for RIFT. I predict that they will make their announced launch date of Q1 2011 and will do very well, ending the year with between 300-400 thousand subscribers.
Existing games:
Eve Online - I will predict that not only will I finally get to walk around in stations with Incarna, but that during the month Incarna is released the peak concurrent user mark will once again break and will hit over 67,000 concurrent accounts. According to Eve-Offline, the current mark is 60,453.
Other predictions for Eve Online is that the game will end the year with between 380-400 thousand active accounts and that the Sansha invasions introduced in Incursion will no longer be active.
EverQuest 2 - EQ2 will continue to lose players throughout the year, especially to RIFT. By the end of the year, talk will again begin about the need for another round of server mergers. In the meantime, EverQuest 2 Extended will do well, but the F2P service will still remain separate from the subscription service.
Star Wars: Galaxies - I'm going to go off on a limb and predict no server merges in 2011. I am also going to go out on a limb and predict SW:G will not go F2P in 2011. I think that SOE is saving its Star Wars love for Clone Wars Adventures.
Player multi-media:
One thing I really love is when games turn into true virtual worlds that spill over outside the computer screen. I think that 2011 will prove to be a banner year in this regard for my favorite game. In Eve, Incarna will give New Eden's film makers something new: avatars. No longer will player-made videos be restricted to ships and still photos of players. I predict a flood of new Eve videos will flood YouTube and that by the end of the year bloggers will be making up lists of best videos of 2011.
Also in Eve, I expect the podcast community to grow. Lately the number of podcasts has grown (I currently have 7 in my feed) and I will predict that by the end of 2011 I'll be able to not only list 10 Eve podcasts on the blog, but get some flak for leaving someone out. Hopefully that is not just wishful thinking.
That is all my predictions. I could make more if I actually got into the world more, but New Eden has been such a good place to be that I haven't really wandered around too much.
New games:
Although a lot of new MMOs are scheduled for release, I'll only make predictions about 2 games that I hope to play in 2011, Star Wars: The Old Republic and RIFT. First, SWTOR. As much as I would like to go out on a limb and predict the game will not launch in 2011, I just don't want to look like that big a fool. Then again, I want to play this game, so picking an earlier date may just be wishful thinking. So I will predict a 2011 Q4 launch for the game. If I have to pick a month, I'll pick December.
I have greater hopes for RIFT. I predict that they will make their announced launch date of Q1 2011 and will do very well, ending the year with between 300-400 thousand subscribers.
Existing games:
Eve Online - I will predict that not only will I finally get to walk around in stations with Incarna, but that during the month Incarna is released the peak concurrent user mark will once again break and will hit over 67,000 concurrent accounts. According to Eve-Offline, the current mark is 60,453.
Other predictions for Eve Online is that the game will end the year with between 380-400 thousand active accounts and that the Sansha invasions introduced in Incursion will no longer be active.
EverQuest 2 - EQ2 will continue to lose players throughout the year, especially to RIFT. By the end of the year, talk will again begin about the need for another round of server mergers. In the meantime, EverQuest 2 Extended will do well, but the F2P service will still remain separate from the subscription service.
Star Wars: Galaxies - I'm going to go off on a limb and predict no server merges in 2011. I am also going to go out on a limb and predict SW:G will not go F2P in 2011. I think that SOE is saving its Star Wars love for Clone Wars Adventures.
Player multi-media:
One thing I really love is when games turn into true virtual worlds that spill over outside the computer screen. I think that 2011 will prove to be a banner year in this regard for my favorite game. In Eve, Incarna will give New Eden's film makers something new: avatars. No longer will player-made videos be restricted to ships and still photos of players. I predict a flood of new Eve videos will flood YouTube and that by the end of the year bloggers will be making up lists of best videos of 2011.
Also in Eve, I expect the podcast community to grow. Lately the number of podcasts has grown (I currently have 7 in my feed) and I will predict that by the end of 2011 I'll be able to not only list 10 Eve podcasts on the blog, but get some flak for leaving someone out. Hopefully that is not just wishful thinking.
That is all my predictions. I could make more if I actually got into the world more, but New Eden has been such a good place to be that I haven't really wandered around too much.
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