Paths, simply put, are a sub-class to the character. The class, such as Warrior or Spellslinger, defines internal playstyle. A Warrior uses greatswords and is very melee based. A Spellslinger uses pistols and warps around the battlefield. Paths define external playstyle by offering specific content to a player with a defined Path. In another sense, WildStar is codifying achievements in to splats. Bartlett Explorers can now enter a niche to ensure that they’ll be doing explorer-type things.

For an example of Path content a Soldier can initiate a Holdout – Conquer event to defend a patch of land against waves of hostile enemies. Anybody can join in the slaughter, regardless of Path, and I recall the event scaling being part of things too.  But, it is the Soldier that will get Path XP to advance along that sub-class. Scientists are the lore-hunters. Explorers are the map-seekers, and Settlers are the community building wildcards.

Why is Path a risky undertaking? It is a permanent character creation choice. That means that characters will be unable to experience some portion of the content alone. In many MMOs, this has been the case based on racial or class selection anyway. Elves get some elf quests. Priests get some priest quests. Often times these exclusive bits of content are tied straight in to advancement. So, on one hand content exclusivity based on permanent selections have been around. On the other hand, they weren’t main features to the MMO. Choose an elf to get awesome elf content is not a tagline of any MMO I am aware of (at least the ones with banners I would click).

Most of the content in WildStar is not Path content, but the amount of Path content is significant enough that going through the game as a Soldier Warrior should have a different feel than going through the game as a Scientist Warrior. I recall head-honcho Gaffney talking about how this was a strong theme throughout the game. However, I feel that if the permanent Path selection was done to inflate alt-ability, I would guess most people would re-roll class and Path anyway.

The wildcard of the bunch has got to be the Settler because unlike the other three Paths, the Settler seems to be creating the content. Soldier, Explorer, and Scientist all seem to be about finding the content. So, while I am not wholly convinced that Path content between those three needs to be exclusive based on permanent choices, I do feel differently about Settler. How will various Settlers interact? What if X is already built? If every player could initiate Settler content anyway (regardless of Path choice) then it doesn’t make much sense to even have it. It wouldn’t be special.

And perhaps that’s it. The Path content is going to be special. I should seek this out because it is mine. Warrior Soldier #543,177 is not going to be able to do my Scientist content (at least without a Scientist present). I know I felt this way when doing some crafting quests in Lord of the Rings Online and class quests in World of Warcraft. I had the feeling that “these were for me”. As much as some fans say they want no exclusive content that their character can’t play, I believe the feeling of having special, exclusive content is not considered until they actually play the game.

The other great benefit of the Path system is that it focuses content designers and players in smaller areas. These smaller areas can become more developed than say some content designer wanting to include a random jumping puzzle to get the quest item. Some players want more jumping puzzles, and the Path system ensures more of that type of content.

I think it is a risk for Carbine Studios, but I think could pay off. The biggest pitfall is going to be Path balance. If everybody can be satisfied with their special content, I think the system could be great. If the grass is too green o’er there… well the permanent choice might not be such a good idea. Hopefully the Path system is nice and polished by the time WildStar launches.

–Ravious

[WS] A Risky Path is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

: Zubon

Previously

Crazy, RPer, or Troll? is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

My fondest memory is still in the early day when my old international guild beat the Hall of Monuments. This was the first and only time I ever went there and won. It was amazing enough that we beat it given the tough competition and our middling synergy, but I received a Celestial Sigil. The other thing I really remember was the War in Kryta. It might have been a dead cat bounce in community activity, but it was a lot of fun. The community was really alive with that content.

In some ways its hard to believe that Guild Wars is being eternally paused. What is the life of an MMO? It’s hard to say within the hopeful view of World of Warcraft and EVE Online reigning. Lord of the Rings Online seems to feel more and more like the elves of the Third Age looking to the West, but it is still alive and kicking out content. Are we almost through a significant portion of the life of Guild Wars 2? Bits of news like Guild Wars 1 seem to bring out a time for reflection.

I’d love to hear some more stories people remember about their time in Guild Wars.

–Ravious

[GW] Goodnight, Sweet Prince is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

• You can reroll your champion every few games, so it is not fully random. This is especially a good thing for people who bought packs like the one when League of Legends launched. Have seven champions you’ve never played because they were not really your style? Rerolls minimize that punishment.
• But then you get the chance to try new things. Ryze? More fun than I remembered from the time or two I played him, although see below for why his spells aren’t the best for ARAM.
• The most important thing about ARAM is that team fights start NOW, often before minions spawn. When the whole game is team fights, the values of various abilities and champions change.
• AE is obviously far more valuable.
• Skill shots are also far more valuable. You do not need much skill to toss a skillshot into a crowd and hope for the best. Even given that, skill shots are even more valuable than you think because the enemies are boxed in one lane. You don’t need to spray and pray to appreciate having a shooting alley.
• Juking is less valuable, with far fewer options, although the people who can pull it off are impressive.
• Support wins games, above and beyond what you are used to. Healers are fabulous with no healing fountain. Soraka and Sona are great support combined with offensive powerhouses in ARAM.
• Alistar is similarly amazing, enough to merit his own bullet point. Tank with AE heal and CC, plus the R of “soak all the damage”? I have only seen a team with Alistar lose once.
• Team composition is very important. Four melees? You’re probably dead already. Opposing team is the MMO contingent of tank, healer, and three DPS? Yep, that’s bad. Because team composition is mostly random, the game can be randomly unwinnable before you even start. This is an intrinsic hazard of randomness, but still generally unfun.
• It is still hard to find 10 people who can stay connected and play a video game for 10-20 minutes. While I have had a good streak today, I have had days where half my games were 4 vs. 5. This is not a satisfying way to win or to lose, and if there is any punishment for quitting once you see the previous bullet point, it is not visible to the people who must suffer through it.
• Remember, the most important thing in the game is to make sure everyone knows it is not your fault that your team lost. Everyone else was bad, you had lag, the opposing champs are OP, and team comp sucked gg lol noobs

: Zubon

ARAM is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Just because you do not like something does not mean it is not working.

: Zubon

The F2P In-Game Economy is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Because we have so many creative people that work here in the studio, and each idea is different, not every feature has the exact same development cycle. In general we follow the cycle I’m about to outline. Sometimes we make exceptions for creativity, scope, and feature timeline; however, we do find this process works well for us in most cases.

Rough outline of Neverwinter development process:

1. Idea!
2. Outline
3. Kickoff with leads and implementers
4. Implementation
5. Revision of the plan
6. Implementation
7. Testing, iteration, testing, iteration…
8. Final sign off!

Any feature first starts as an idea, here at Cryptic this is usually brought on by some clever person playing in one of our playtests and thinking “this could be more fun if…” or from brainstorming ideas to fix a known issue. Once the idea is born a developer, or sometimes a producer, will outline the new feature, zone, race, or other addition to the game. The outline is then reviewed and updated by relevant department leads and people who will be directly implementing the feature. When a consensus is reached implementation begins!

Sometimes, especially with big features, not everything we envisioned is possible, worth the time investment, or as fun as we thought it would be. If this happens we will revise our original plan and continue implementing. Usually these kinds of changes are small, such as specific quest drops not matching the lore of the adventure zone; rarely they are really big, like changing what technologies we use to create the tens of thousands of equipable items we have in Neverwinter. In the event that we end up cutting a feature instead of implementing, it usually happens here. We have a lot of eyes on features at any given time, because of the early input we get it’s rare that a feature would be cut beyond this point.

Once implementation is nearly complete, we begin testing the feature in playtest meetings in the room we call “The War Room.” This is particularly true with adventure zones, dungeons, PvP zones, and player classes. The war room is where most of us first see a feature come to life and, if you’ll pardon the cliché, where the magic happens. It’s where the mood is measurable, first impressions are made, and bugs are shouted out (usually by more than one person at a time) for the nearest producer to put on a punchlist. Eventually we get to some number of playtests where everyone is happy with the outcome and we give the final development sign off. From there it moves to QA testing where they test it for exploits, typos, and other things the developers missed. Once it passes QA, the feature is done!

The great thing about working at Cryptic Studios is that everyone is an integral part of the development cycle. We frequently have all team playtests and sometimes all company playtests. Everyone is encouraged to send feedback and contribute to all aspects of the game. Because of this, Neverwinter is the culmination of the love, determination, and passion of everyone in the studio. We forward to Neverwinter going live and hearing what you think!

Thank you, Ms. Haven
: Zubon

[NW] Development at Cryptic is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Objectively, the rules are simple: Hold the one crab. All sorts of things get in this way. First off other random players with their 4 Crab Toss skills will try and knock it out of the crab carrier’s hands. These skills are further supplemented by items strewn about the battlefield such as a plank of wood to bash people good, or a conch which fears everybody, or a fishing pole to swipe the crab from afar. If that weren’t enough karka hatchlings are constantly gunning for the crab carrier with their usual debuff explosion, and a few veteran karkas feel that this little piece of beach is the perfect place to imprint some player faces in to the sand.

What do you do when you are holding the crab? Run. Dodge. Dash (hold the skill down). And try and pick up any items you can along the way. Everybody will be gunning for you. Get a decent score and you get a green item and a karka shell or some other stuff. Winning is not necessary.

Subjectively, this is madness. There is skill involved. Being able to outmaneuver the crab carrier AND the herd of players usually results in a higher score. Being able to utilize each item properly usually results in a higher score. However it is just as likely someone will start swinging away with their plank in the middle of the mob or a veteran karka will decide that “yeah, now is actually a good time to squish” right after you depleted your dodge bar.

I am also noticing a lot of lag in the game, and sometimes it just doesn’t make sense when things fire off. My client or the server is unsure if I am squished, knocked down, or dashing around. It is chaos within the game, between my computer and the servers, and in my head and on my keyboard.

I think few players would care beyond a game or two but for the achievements. Want all bars filled for Secret of Southsun? Then you will be playing Crab Toss a lot. Crab-Carrying Competitor and Crabgrabber are going to be the time-ensured achievements. Play long enough and any player will be able to accomplish them. Crab Toss Champion, well good luck. And you’ll need it. Winning feels about luck as much as skill.

Crabtacular! is the one that has people in a tizzy. Basically you have to be holding the crab while everybody else has been smooshed by a veteran karka. This means that the one guy AFK in the corner pretending to be scoping you away from the herd can ruin it all. I like how someone put it as ‘an achievement not based on you winning, but everybody else losing.’

All of these are not required for getting the meta-achievements for the shiny, tentacly back item. It’s just that for a completionist, it can be a little frustrating.

I am having fun with it, but then I also accidentally got Crabtacular! somehow. I guess theoretically with all the chaos and players coming in and quitting there is some non-normalized chance of getting the achievement. I don’t expect much from the minigame, and I much prefer to run about Southsun hunting instigators. However, I don’t mind this gaming aside, but then I expect chaos.

I feel with Crab Toss in mind, I like that ArenaNet keeps trying new things. A chaotic, solo Keg Brawl was kind of fun, kind of frustrating. It’s going away soon if it is a blight upon your Guild Wars 2. Sometimes I sit upon an ancient karka’s carcass and remember days of yore as good/bad as they were. So I guess I am going to make a few more memories as good/bad as they will be with Crab Toss. See you underneath a rolling karka soon!

–Ravious

[GW2] The Crab Grab Hustle is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Guild Wars 2 continues to use achievements to replace quests. For Secret of Southsun players are tasked to explore the updated areas, talk to a few key individuals, and find a bunch of samples around the island. I find it to be a poor guide especially given the dozens of achievements in the Secret of Southsun achievement category. The mail sent to all players tells them to get to Southsun to talk to the Inspector, but the real guide to the content is the achievements. I feel that if ArenaNet is going to continue to focus on achievements as the quest-like director for new content serious iteration needs to be done to make it a better means of communication.

Anyway, savvy players seemed to burn through the quest-like content pretty quickly. I would not suggest focusing on the achievements to such a narrowed degree. Might as well enjoy the passion fruit flowers on the way.

There are a few reasons to stick around in Southsun for the whole duration of the event. The biggest is that while on Southsun, players can represent the Consortium or Settlers. Represent the Consortium and players get a near-permanent buff to gold drops, which seems like a 300-400% increase. I was getting 3-4 silver per creature, when they would drop coin. The Settler’s buff in a 200% increase to Magic Find, which was really nice. I was noticing that I was receiving a lot more greens than usual, even a few rares now and then. This buff is removed if the player leaves Southsun to go to another zone. I have a hard time believing there are better open world farming spots with those buffs available.

The other reason is that the events are hot and heavy. Settlers and the Consortium are having a go at one another in the tropic heat. The frenzied animals are constantly attacking the outposts/resort areas. I was having a lot of fun because the mobs are challenging, and the reward feels proportionate to the increased challenge. The active population also feels really good (haven’t gotten out of overflow actually).

One area I have to point out is the scaling. Secret of Southsun has some of the best scaled events I have seen in Guild Wars 2 yet. For the players active in the event I’ve seen it scale numbers and mob ranks really well. I am really impressed with these, and I hope that a new bar to the quality of event scaling has been set at ArenaNet. It feels spot on for what a level 80 difficulty should be. This might feel even more so since I’ve been consistently failing events in Orr lately.

There’s a bit more to talk about, which I’ll save for some more focused posts on Crab Toss, specific events, and use of Southsun geography, but this feels like a nice update for what I would hope to expect from coming Living Story updates, especially if they are coming like this every 2-4 weeks. It makes good use of player focus, new content, and lots of activity. There are a few neat carrots to the achievements too for new back items with exclusive skins and account bound-ability. It’s definitely an update worth checking out.

–Ravious

[GW2] Secret of Southsun Impressions is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Flame & Frost revolved around the Molten Alliances assaults in two zones. In the norn starting zone, Wayfarer Foothills, the Molten Alliance took roughly the northeast corner quadrant, and in the second charr zone, Diessa Plateau they took a large chunk of the west-central side. This is where the action was. This was where the yellow sunbursts were yelling at me to go. It became such a focus to players, yet it really wasn’t a focus to the world.

In the cutscenes both norn and charr leaders mention that while the Molten Alliance is noteworthy, it is not the only fish to fry. Wayfarer Foothills still had the Sons of Svanir to deal with in addition to the primitives, and the charr still had ghosts, rebels, ogres, and dredge-free Flame Legion. In a sense the devastating Molten Alliance had to fight for attention from the capital cities. The Pact’s Orders also had plenty of fight in other parts of the world (like the remaining Elder Dragons).

Cutaway to said capital cities, and the focus of the players was again on the starbursts leading players to refugee camps all lazing about because of the Molten Alliance. There was still the usual hustle and bustle of the capital cities, but the new hotness was on the ‘fugees. The same can be said about Lion’s Arch situation, but with the twist in that the Consortium did take interest in the refugees a tad more than anybody else.

The Vigil eventually responds with a contingent of soldiers, but they are still going too slow for our heroes, Rox and Braham. We help them because only we know the direness of the situation. Except, is it really that dire? Sons of Svanir are still rampaging the norn settled countryside, and all sorts of denizens are still killing the charr’s cows.

I feel that in one sense ArenaNet was trying to wedge in the Living Story without upsetting the zone’s balance. While the Molten Alliance was the bad-guy du jour, there were still plenty of enemies around Tyria. However, the player’s ultra-focus was on the Molten Alliance. It seemed like that was an enemy on the level of an Elder Dragon! It really was just a double-scoop of the usual that had gotten a bit more momentum than the stagnating meta.

So when the Molten Alliance was actually unforged, the celebrations in game were about right on. It would be the equivalent of Molensk being permanently removed from southwest Wayfarer or the Silex Castrum being forever cleansed in western Diessa. Yet, after 4 months of Flame & Frost updates it seemed like it should have been more magniflorious. Talking with the refugees at the affected capital cities and heading back to the Flame & Frost instance areas – North Nolan Hatchery and Cragstead – nets quite a bit more aftereffects of the Molten Alliance’s defeat. Some vocal players though were practically asking to be forcefed a final cutscene. I wonder what the cinematics department is up to because they would’ve been a nice ending.

I think it is a good idea that we aren’t simply getting the Elder-Dragon-of-the-week style Living Story. ArenaNet’s first big story shot for Guild Wars 2 was aimed at a cool idea (mashup) as a temporary encounter that might change a few zones in Tyria. It just felt like it was really hard to get a sense of the scope of this cool idea. Focus makes it seem like it should’ve been bigger, and in hindsight it might not have been.

The Secret of Southsun Shore is only planned to be the headliner for about a month. The scope of it already feels “contained”. It’s dealing with a tourist/refugee colony. It’s a mystery instead of taking on a region-conquering alliance, and the crux of it seems to be helping one Lionguard instead of two entire races. I hope there are more permanent changes to Southsun, but then it also has much more room for it. Anything permanent in the other zones would have to consider hearts, events, meta-events, NPC chatter, etc. Sweeping aside the local wildlife won’t result in much lore destruction.

 –Ravious

[GW2] Scope of Flame & Frost is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Poor movement can harm a game. Take Guild Wars for example. It doesn’t matter how great it was in some parts when gamers couldn’t get past the fact that they couldn’t jump. I admit every time I play Guild Wars it feels like there is a ceiling pressing down. I also do not care for how movement feels in The Secret World, especially when they add don’t-stand-in-the-evil-circle-of-forthcoming-evil effects that I have to dodge out of. In both of these MMOs I can look past it, but some gamers can’t.

This is even more important for WildStar where the combat system is largely based on area control and area-of-effect placement. Without fluid movement, the whole system would suck. In my short time playing WildStar, I was pretty impressed with movement. Okay, actually the thought was dismissed in lieu of all the other mechanics I had to explore. I climbed some tree tower jumping puzzle, and it all felt right. In retrospect thought, I was impressed.

The video mentions the double-jump. I cannot even begin to describe how principal this movement action is going to be in WildStar. There are parts where it will be critical, but it is so fun to double jump in WildStar there is almost no reason not to make every jump a double jump. Double-jump a sheep on the way to fight something else. Double-jump all the AFK’ers in the cities. Double-jump to my lou as you are running to the next piece of content. It gets pretty addictive.

I will say that the one area I remember not really feeling was the “dash”, which is a dodge. While words are not that great for this, it felt like there was organic movement as I moved a long (w + mouse steering), but whenever I dashed, it felt like my character snapped to a grid and then moved laterally along that grid. Then there was a snap out of that grid back to the organic movement. It’s a small thing, and perhaps with iterations and betas, things have changed since then.

It should be expected that movement is great in an MMO, but often times it’s just “good” or “okay”. I’ve already mentioned that WildStar feels a tad more game-y with regard to combat and movement, which raises the bar for the quality of the movement. I think WildStar at least excels in this area, which is pretty critical to even getting a good start on the other points of review.

–Ravious

[WS] Dat Double Jump is a post from: Kill Ten Rats