Syp finds the same problem with Star Trek Online, I said the same thing about LotRO skirmishes, and many of us have said the same about Borderlands and Torchlight: it is great at first, but there is not all that much improvement or variation over time. (I do credit the two single-player games for having interesting boss fights mixed into the repetition, where MMOs tend to rely on even more repetition, even in tank-and-spank bosses.) I appreciate being able to get 95% of the benefit in 5% of the time. Portal did that brilliantly and then ended.

: Zubon

Non-MMO inspiration banished to the first comment.

You can imagine how I react to level design problems in racing games given my day job. “This cartoon roadway has completely inadequate signage and lining.”

There are additional problems in terms of party games. First, the above, although hopefully the randomness is enough to avoid having new people get stomped by whoever owns the game in question. Second, make sure to bring your save files with the game, because bringing just the game to Bob’s house means nothing is unlocked. I have not seen how portable everything is with the Wiimotes. Third, there is still a learning curve, such as Mario Kart’s maps with falls that can essentially knock you out of the race. You will cycle through courses if you are playing it as a party game, so by the time that you get an idea of the proper path on one map, you are done playing that one, and you are not getting back to it unless you and your friends play at epic length.

Which you might, since you are gamers, but I have accepted that the Wii was not made for us. Obviously that is a great financial decision, because the Wii has been a haberdashery for money hats, but it is disappointing for the core audience left behind. Almost everything utilizing the Wiimote is far more gimmicky than innovative, and it does not seem sensitive enough to do anything really interesting; insert Yahtzee here mocking “wave spasmodically as gameplay.” It is a great system for casual players and for party games, but has it brought us anything much better than the original Wii Sports? It seems like the Gamecube had the best versions of all the Nintendo games.

: Zubon

Here are some of the details of the Looking For Group Expo:

June 25 – 27, 2010
Minneapolis, Minnesota

LFGX is a three-day exhibition for massively multiplayer online games, virtual worlds, tabletop, RPG card games and comics. LFGX is a personalized fan event for the MMO gamer dealing with any related to the games you love to play. LFGX is a community of gamers coming together to preview upcoming games and expansions, connect with people from your guilds and clans, participate in developer panels and community discussions, compete in tournaments and have a bad ass time doing it.

LFGX isn’t your typical fan event. This is where true community comes out, where people can connect in the real world like they do in the virtual one. Contests, games, live-questing, LAN parties, giveaways, concerts, developer panels and hot chicks walking around in elf costumes, WHAT’S NOT TO LOVE?! Community is easily one of the most important aspects of any successful MMO and LFGX brings home that point by providing a community-fostered event put on by people who love MMOs, for people who love MMOs.

- Ethic

The first time I saw ArenaNet do this was when Regina responded to a thread on audio, of all things.  It seems that many sounds in Guild Wars 2 will be created procedurally.  For instance each footstep is made of only three sounds, but when ran through a procedural generator it will sound like different footsteps each time. This system will apply to armor clinks and other things (hopefully combat hits as well). 

Another post, where Martin rode in to save the thread on expansion-like races and classes, came from the Lead Designer of Guild Wars 2, Eric Flannum.  The post mostly dealt with the amount of decisions required to make when evaluating whether or not to add a new race of profession.  The Guild Wars 2 information that was embedded was that race will control the look, feel, and story of the character (with a small impact on combat), while the profession impacts the character’s mechanical performance to a much higher degree.

We get a little Hall of Monuments information where Regina related to us via the devs that “declaring your ancestor” will mean linking a single Guild Wars 1 game account to the Guild Wars 2 game account.  The Guild Wars 2 characters can then access an instanced version of the Hall of Monuments to claim the rewards. This can be done by every Guild Wars 2 character on the Guild Wars 2 account as many times as the player wants.  The rewards cannot be traded or sold.

Finally, there is a small tidbit on the open parts of the world.  With the event system having no traditional (!) quests, a lot of players were wondering whether combat would only occur in the open world via events.  In other words, did you have to track down hotspots in order to kill things?  The answer, as it turns out, is no.  Eric Flannum wrote that they deliberately made traditional mob hunting areas to go farm some gold, XP, and secret other things.

Also, one of the ArenaNet community managers is clearly the wrongdoer to poor defenseless creatures.  The evil man taunts us too by relating that for ArenaNet, Fridays may or may not be the best days.

–Ravious
all I see now is blonde, brunette, redhead

: Zubon

Where World of Warcraft was able to drastically increase it’s numbers after launch, these new MMOs have been unable to duplicate the success. Droves of people tried Conan and were turned off by the lack of content. Many people tried Aion only to be turned away by it’s massive grind. I like to think that if any of these games had been of higher quality, everyone who tried it would be impressed enough to tell their friends about it. In a word, these games failed to “wow” people, no pun intended.

And lets remind ourselves, Cryptic may not be honest. Having “one million accounts” could refer to forum accounts, or include the multitude of people who pre-ordered the game from target for 99 cents and are currently playing a preorder’s free-download with no intention of ever spending any more money. Sounds a bit like Free Realms doesn’t it?

Even if Cryptic’s claims about initial success are accurate, there’s no doubt in my mind that the game was not ready to launch. Lack of content is Cyrptics “kryptonite”. Considering Cryptic says they tossed all the previous developer’s work in the trash and started development from scratch just two years ago, it’s impressive they have as good an MMO as they do. But still, the game doesn’t feel complete. This lack of quality will drive away any non-Star-Trek fan who sets up an account with Star Trek Online.

So can Star trek Online hold it’s numbers post launch? No, probably not.

The most interesting statistic was that 40% of players doing the 3-man skirmishes were using only 2/3 of their fellowship slots.  This gave the devs the oompf they needed to get their turbines in gear.  The way they made the extremely fine point between solo and 3-man was to use the 3-man mobs and apply a reverse Tier debuff to the 3-man mobs.  So 2-man skirmishes are basically a 3-man minus a Tier of difficulty to the mobstats.  Then the 2-man skirmish will use the solo mechanics instead of the 3-man mechanics such as how counterattacks or waves will work.

I want to posit that this will have good, unintended consequences because it further lowers the activation energy to group.  Players can nearly always find one person.  So there is a group for skirmishes right there.  Add another person, and you have a three-man.  This sequence of grouping is simply going to be smoother than the need to find two other people at the outset.  If I had to bet, I would say that 3-man skirmish play will increase and solo skirmish will actually decrease due to the advent of the 2-man skirmish.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled rants on Legendary Items where it is apparent that Turbine never listens to us.

–Ravious
down by the schoolyard

–Ravious

Skirmishes are nicely done in that as the group goes from solo to 3-man to 6-man to 12-man the story intensifies.  Sure there will be more and harder mobs, but the boss fights become more epic.  For instance, in everybody’s favorite Thievery and Mischief the boss in solo mode will be one half-orc mob.  Add 5 more fellows, and the boss gains two friends, which requires a strategy.  It feels like Bree was under a harsher rule from the three bosses requiring a 6-man + soldiers to kill than one mere half-orc.

Now in the multiple, repeatable challenge skirmishes this is not a big deal, but in the epic story, the Chapter can only be completed once.  Sure, I can go back and rewrite history by redoing the repeatable skirmish that I did in that Chapter, but the feeling is lost.  If I choose to efficiently and easily run through the Chapter using a solo skirmish, the Chapter will feel less epic.  Turbine has created, whether they meant to or not, a situation where greater risk creates a greater story.

I didn’t feel this way until I fought the Olog-hai troll gatekeeper in a Dol Guldur instance.  I remembered fighting the gatekeeper to Angmar, and how epic that felt with my 5 other fellows.  Fighting this Dol Guldur gatekeeper with just me and my soldier felt a tad overshadowed by comparison.  But, it was my fault.  If I went in to the skirmish with 5 or 11 other people, the story would’ve felt worthy of song and glory.

Now, it is not all my fault.  Playing with other people is more fun, but there was the perception that it was indisputably more efficient to solo skirmishes.  So the immediate culture surrounding skirmishes was to go at it alone rather than to create a culture of pick up group heaven.  In the Volume 3, Book 1 update grouping in skirmishes will net even more rewards so I hope that this causes a tipping point.

Anyway, I have seen the light.  I want my epic books to remain epic.  I don’t want to ever just “get through them” like I did for Book 9.  I want to maximize my story.  With, Volume 3, Book 1 there will be a skirmish involved in the epic quest line and normal quest rewards also will affect to a much more minor degree the risk versus story rewards.  In the latest dev diary, it was illustrated that one reward will help to rocket the player through the epic line, while the other reward will be more meaningful long term yet require more work through the story.  I really like having this greater choice for greater risk and greater story, and I am glad I can move forward knowing how I want to play.

–Ravious
We are lions!

Standing in the Poop.

The saying is even better because Merric, Goldenstar, and I are parents of small children so it hits home.  Plus it’s not expletive.  I can’t wait to yell in voice chat for some minstrel staring only at health bars to get out of the poop!  The podcast is well worth listening to, and hopefully I will have time to comment on the super juicy bits contained in it later on.

–Ravious
If I weren’t real, could I sing this jolly Christmas song?

EDIT: Since I seem to be living under a rock (or in a too polite LOTRO guild), I will make this my meme for 2010, and use it every chance in-game I can get. I mean afterall, LOTRO needs to be more like WoW, right?