Azh's Quick Tips: Heroic Mechanar

I've noticed a lot of increased traffic here recently from people doing searches for Heroic Mechanar. I assume they're looking for advice, and while my adventure reports have some useful info, they're not really much of a guide.

So here are a few, quick tips about some of the troublesome mobs:

Netherbinder - I always make these guys the #1 target. Things get ugly if they get a chance to summon their elementals. But with focused fire and a couple of timely stuns, you can easily take them out before they even get a chance to cast.

Tempest-Forge Patroller - They will call for help, so be sure to give yourself some space to fight them in, away from other mobs

Tempest-Forge Destroyer - Interrupt the charged fist! That's by far the most important thing. The cast time on it is extremely quick, so if you have the global cooldown going when they start charging, you will likely miss your chance to interrupt. Generally, I'll open up with a few sunders and debuffs, then I'll just use heroic strike and shield block (since they don't trigger the global cooldown), keeping a close eye out for the charged fist so I can shield bash it. After that, you can throw in a few other attacks before you need to start watching again. Try to keep some sort of snare on him so that if he does get charged, the tank can kite him around until it wears off. It's not really worth the effort to try and heal through his damage while it's charged.

Astromancer - Spell reflection does wonders against these guys. Pretty much all fire damage, so a fire resistance totem would be helpful. Mostly troublesome when they're in the larger groups.

Mechanar Tinkerer - Two general ways to handle these guys. Either have a warlock enslave one and use him to fight the others (very effective) or load up on arcane resistance. With a full suit of Enchanted Adamantine Plate plus a couple of miscellaneous arcane resistance items, I can tank the group of four with little trouble.

Mechanar Crusher - The main thing to worry about with these guys is the disorient effect they will hit your tank with often.

Gatewatcher Gyro-Kill - Keep him turned away from your healers. I *think* his Shadow Power buff can be interrupted. But either way, be prepared to receive some burst damage when he casts it.

Gatewatcher Iron-Hand - Just watch for the 'Raises hammer' message and back off. Any melee shouldn't get hit more than once by the hammer unless they really aren't paying attention. Once he stops, run back in. Pretty easy fight.

Capacitus - Only twist is the polarity effect. Everyone should give the other players in their party some space at the start. After he does the polarity charge, find someone with the same charge as you and stand near them; your damage will be doubled! When he starts to cast it again, move away from everyone else until you can see what type of charge everyone has. Most players seem to like to fight him on the stairs, but I don't see that as a necessary step. His melee radius is huge, so there is plenty of room for everyone.

Sepethrea - Haven't defeated her in heroic mode so I don't have much advice. I would say that fire resistance is required, and if you have equipment that gives you a run speed bonus, this would probably be a good place to put it on! She gets three fire elementals rather than the normal two, and they move at running speed, making it much more difficult to avoid them.

Pre-Pathaleon Event - Very tough. Mainly because you don't have time to designate targets before they're on you. Pulling them back into Sepethrea's room would probably be the best option. That way you have some space, and succeeding waves have to run farther to engage you. Most pickup groups I've been in like to run down the elevator between waves (the mobs wont follow), but that's a pretty cheesy tactic IMO.

Pathaleon - Pretty much the same, though he does seem to be quicker to use his mind control, and the arcane elementals do more damage. Those who are likely targets for mind control should probably use any really nasty abilities they have at the start. This fight is really about dishing out heavy damage as quickly as possible. Once he gets down to ~20% health, his pets vanish and he generally falls soon afterwards. However, unless you have a lot of ways to keep the elementals feared, I recommend killing the first wave of them. It's unlikely you'll get him down fast enough to avoid a second wave, and if you have 8 of them running around spamming arcane bolts at your healer, the fight won't go well.

Basically, aside from a couple of changes to the bosses, everything is pretty much the same as regular Mechanar, only more so. So the tactics aren't that different from a regular run.

For the quickest route, go to the left at the start. You can pull Iron-Hand from Capacitus' area and avoid all the mobs on the right side entirely. Warlocks are not required, but they are helpful. Any Warlock should have little trouble finding a group for Heroic Mechanar. Arcane resistance is useful for the Tinkerers, Capacitus and Pathaleon. Fire resistance is useful for Sepethrea. If you have a single healer, they need to focus their attention on the tank for the boss encounters. Other players should be ready and willing to back off and bandage when needed.

That's about it! This is one of the more popular heroic dungeons and I can understand why. It's compact and fairly straight forward. Pretty easy to acquire four badges (getting the fifth from Sepethrea is tough) and a chance at a Primal Nether, plus whatever other goodies might drop.

WoW Rant: Alterac Valley

And no, this post is not about imbalances in the map layout.

Ever since the advent of accumulated honor points (a concept that I fully support), Battlegrounds PvP in WoW has really gone downhill... especially in Alterac Valley.

Just yesterday I joined a match and heard someone say "Only seven AFK in the cave. That's pretty good!" Yes, that's right, having "only" 17% of your team sitting on their asses doing absolutely nothing is considered a good turnout! And even better, those 17% still get just as much bonus honor as the players who are out there actually trying to complete objectives and gather that honor. And I've seen as many as 20 of the 40 players choosing to simply absorb bonus honor rather than contribute in any way to their team!

There are a couple of very easy ways to ameliorate the problem (I don't think it can ever be stamped out completely).

1) Simply not give honor to any characters in or near the cave. This would force the AFKers to at least go outside, where they might actually be engaged in some of the action, whether they want to or not.

2) As an alternative or addition to #1, remove the guards from in and around the starting caves.

3) Dump the caves altogether and make everyone start in their respective fortresses.

But as it is now, Blizzard is simply encouraging and supporting this self-first attitude in what is supposed to be team-oriented PvP combat. And its not as if they aren't aware of the issue.

It will be interesting to see how Warhammer handles their instanced PvP. I hope that their more PvP-orient

Note: Interestingly enough, I actually wrote this up before I ever read any notes from Blizzcon. I think that the whole 'other players can flag you for being AFK' idea wont work at all. For one, enough players have to take time out of their battle to figure out who's AFK and then flag them. Secondly, the flagged person just has to enter combat. Whats to stop them from sitting outside one of the mob caves and killing one every few minutes, or even just attacking one of the wolves/rams deep in their own territory? Most of the AFKers aren't actually AFK, they're just actively choosing not to participate, occasionally dancing or throwing out a smart-ass comment over BG chat. It's easy enough for them to reach out to their keyboard and 'enter combat' for a few seconds before alt-tabbing back to their porn/book/other game while still accumulating bonus honor from the sweat and blood of others!

The caves will still be a safe haven for honor suction.

So I applaud Blizzard for recognizing the problem. But I boo them for taking nearly a year to implement any solution, and curse them for coming up with a half-assed fix that really won't solve the problem.

Azh's WoW Adventures: Four Orcs Battle the Blue Robots

So Thursday evening we had a guild trip to Mechanar. Normally this isn't anything special enough to write about, especially since I've been through the same dungeon on Heroic mode a few times recently. However, this trip was different in that we cleared the whole dungeon with only four of us!

We initially started out with just three of us, myself, Zrugpug and Krunk. We had little problem with the first few pulls, successfully defeating the big robots and the groups of three Blood Elves. We had just cleared up to one of the mini-bosses when Nubblud, our guild leader and warlock extraordinaire logged in. We quickly summoned him via the meeting stone and dove back in.

We had a few difficulties as I was the only one familiar with the instance. But everyone picked up on what to do pretty quickly and we didn't have a wipe until our first encounter with Capacitus. As we headed back, I told Zrugpug to only heal me, and I also let Krunk know that this boss has a huge melee radius, and he could stand farther away, making it a lot easier to see and avoid the bombs. Second attempt saw us victorious. We defeated the other mini-boss, collected our loot and headed up the elevator.

Sepethrea ended up being a pretty crazy encounter. It's incredibly easier than fighting her in heroic mode, as she only has two fire elementals and they move slower than a run, making escape from them an actual possibility. Nonetheless, everyone else's unfamiliarity with her led to them all dying. But Zrugpug saw that I was still alive and quickly used his ankh to jump back into the fray. Somehow we managed to end up on the opposite end of the area in front of her spot from the elementals. So avoiding them was not really a problem. But since there were only two of us, me in defensive stance and Zrug using most of his mana to heal me, the remainder of the fight lasted for quite a while. I actually used two healthstones thanks to the soulwell that Nubblud had summoned! After a drawn-out finish, she finally fell and we moved onto the pre-Pathaleon encounter.

I was very impressed with how well we handled this. We took on all six waves without using any cheesy elevator tactics! However, Pathaleon did take us down afterwards, but this was mainly due to three of the party not knowing what to expect from the encounter. After regrouping and giving a basic plan (I would fear the initial group of elementals, Nubblud would be in charge of them after that and everyone would beat on Pantheon), we made a second attempt and it worked like a charm.

Don't think we found anything useful loot-wise, but it was a nice sense of accomplishment to defeat the instance with only four of us, and to do it as an all-orc group as well!

Hoowah!

Azh's WoW Adventures: Heroic Slave Pens

Note: If you're looking for help with Heroic Slave Pens, check out my Quick Tips post.

Monday night saw our regularly scheduled guild trip head into the Heroic Slave Pens.

Our resto shaman decided to leave WoW for the game of Real Life, and our priest is out of the country for a month, so it looked like we would be without a level 70 healer for a while. But luckily, another shaman decided to play WoW again and he also respecced to Restoration to help out with instances.

So, the all-guild group consisted of myself (arms warrior), Zrugpug (newly respecced resto shaman), Snargok (ice mage), Drakgor (arms warrior) and Krunk (combat rogue). A melee heavy group. The kind of setup that Blizzard likes to punish with AoE attacks and auras. And to top it off, our sole healer was wearing several green cloth items since he had never worked on gathering healing gear before. But we were determined to give it a go, and I had every confidence that our victory was assured.

Our initial assault was swift, focused and deadly. Sap, sheep and two fears made the four crab pulls trivial. And the double Coilfang Defender clomps went like clockwork. As I pulled, the mage would grab one with frostbolt and lead him around while the rogue worked him over. The rest of us took care of the other Defender, and we generally ended up killing both at the same time. Maybe not the most efficient method, but it worked.

Mennu was a breeze. Fought him underneath the ramp. My group kept trying to kill the nova totems, resulting in a lot of extra damage (they seem to explode when you hit them, so just moving away is a much better solution). But hopefully they'll get the hang of it next time. He was nice enough to drop a totem and epic gem that our shaman could make use of.

Proceeding onward, we had our first death when the rogue went a little overboard on a Defender, drawing aggro and earning a quick trip to the ground.

Then came Rokmar. This oversized lobster is just a giant pain. He hits incredibly hard, and the bleed that ticks for 1000+ damage just makes things worse. After a couple of failed attempts, I directed the shaman to just heal me, and not worry about the others. This almost worked, except that he ran out of mana just as we were hitting the 20% mark (he has less than 8000 mana currently. Something we need to work on I guess), which led to my swift demise, and the rest of the party afterwards.

Deciding to move on, we cleared up to Quagmirran and freed the caged night elf for our buff. But the plant gave us fits of a different kind. Everything would go fine until he did his Acid Spray attack. As he started, he would switch targets to our other warrior. I would taunt him back, but as soon as the taunt wore off, he would aggro the DPS warrior again, resulting in too much damage spread out over the whole party. We tried several times with pretty much the same result.

After doing a little research, I found out that his acid attack also has a de-aggro component. So, I think what was happening was this: Drakgor (the other warrior), would be near the top of the aggro list, so as soon as Quag did his breath, my aggro drops and Quagmirran switches targets. I taunt him back, but meanwhile Drakgor has a full rage bar and is dishing out heavy damage while I'm trying to regain my previous aggro level. As soon as the taunt fades, Drakgor finds himself the target again and I have to wait several seconds to taunt again (here's somewhere that a protection spec would have a huge advantage). I think what we should have done was have Drakgor just stop fighting completely if he gets aggro during the spray attack. That way I can regain and hopefully keep the plant focused on me for the duration.

Though we had little to show for our efforts besides a single Badge of Justice and large repair bills, it was a good learning experience and practice for future runs. The regular mobs, which are often more trouble than the bosses in heroic mode, gave us very little trouble. Our healer was definitely a bit undergeared for the boss encounters, which we can hopefully remedy before our next attempt.

Single Class Games: A Creative Springboard for New Class-oriented Gameplay

I ran across a blog post the other day (which I cant seem to find now despite hours of searching), that discussed the concept of making a game with only one class! What an excellent idea! This has already been done to some degree, mostly centered around the rogue-type with games such as Thief.

Not only would it be interesting to delve into such a focused area to try and make it engaging, interesting, varied and fun, but I could see doing a small focused game along these lines as a prelude to producing a bigger game that combines the concepts gameplay from the smaller games and incorporates them into a whole.

Click the link below for some random thoughts about what could be done with this idea.

Rangers - Game would be mostly outdoors. Rugged wilderness with lots of nooks and crannies. Mostly small villages who would be somewhat distrustful of the wornout stranger walking into their town. Villages would just be for some light trading before the players would set back out into the wilderness. Gameplay would be centered round tracking, outdoor survival, learning the lay of the land, etc. Opportunities for combat, puzzle solving and exploration abound!

Soldier - This game would start you off as a guard in a town. You do patrols, break up bar fights, gamble and drink on your time off and eventually work your way up to joining the army where you are sent off to fight battles in which you find yourself just one of dozens or hundreds of combatants, and your main focus is to defeat the guy in front of you and keep an eye on whats happening in your general vicinity while trying to maintain your formation and respond to any new orders from the leaders. Maybe even moving from this closeup individual combat to commanding your own squads and armies!

Mage - Entire game based inside an impossibly huge tower that likely crosses and exists in several dimensions at once. The basic concept is that the player is a new apprentice who must learn to use magic, pass tests of their magical abilities, and explore the mysterious tower without getting caught trespassing into forbidden areas while also avoiding being eaten or imprisoned by various entities who live in the recesses of the mammoth structure. There would also be various factions within the school that the player can choose to join which would further alter their playing experience as they advance through the ranks. This would also be an excellent place to try out a complex spellcrafting system!

Priest - Player starts as a novice priest dedicated to a certain god. The goal is to increase their gods in-game presence through converting heathens, making appropriate sacrifices and establishing new temples.. As they gain favor, the player can gain new powers. They'll even have opportunities to change the deity they are aligned with... for a cost. Avatars for other deities would be also trying to promote their gods and as such would cross paths with other players, sometimes in battle, sometimes in uneasy alliance.

Just a few examples off the top of my head. In some ways, having such a narrow focus provides even greater opportunities for creativity than a more open game would.

Azh's WoW Adventures: Heroic Mechanar Redux

Note: If you're looking for help with Heroic Mechanar, check out my Quick Tips post.


Made two more runs through Heroic Mechanar the past two days.

First group consisted of myself, a protection warrior, warlock, druid and rogue. The druid dropped out early and was replaced with a priest. Learned some tricks for skipping past a number of pulls at the front, and also learned that Capacitus' polarity charges can be used to your party's advantage. If two players of the same polarity stand together, they get %100 damage bonus!! Knowing that makes the encounter much easier.

I also was witness to the ways in which a good warlock can tear up the demon groups. The guy we were with could almost solo them by taking control of a bomber, banishing another and then healing the bomber as he took care of the other demons.

We didn't even try Sepethrea. And for the waves of attackers after her, we would run down the elevator between most combats. Pretty cheesy tactic, IMO, but you have to be really coordinated to keep crowd control on the Blood Elves as they're rushing you, which is not easy with a pickup group. We muddled through and downed Pathaleon on the first try (I think. Maybe it was the second. Either way, we didn't spend too long on it). Came out of the adventure with 4 badges, but rolled a lowly 1 for the Primal Nether.

Similar setup today, but with completely different players. Had a shaman along as healer instead of the priest. Had a little trouble with a patroller add, and then failing to interrupt Gyro-Kill's Shadow Power buff. First attempt at the Mechano-Lord saw the shaman falling first. We then fought on for another 10-15 seconds while urging the shaman to ankh, but he instead waited until everyone was dead. Second attempt went more smoothly. Skipped the Nethermancer, only ran from two of the event waves, and then killed the Calculator after two attempts. It seems like you really need to kill that first wave of elementals. If you try to just fear them, you get screwed when the second wave appears. Eight arcane elementals auto-firing 1.2k damage arcane bolts is just too tough to deal with, especially when any that aren't feared are likely going after your lone healer! Only two of us rolled on the Nether and I won (just two more to go)!

But this group decided to make a single attempt on Sepethrea. We started off well. I didn't have any of the elementals after me, so I was able to unload on her at the beginning, but then it just got out of hand. I have to agree with those who say this encounter is overly difficult. It's enough of a pain to have to run away when the elementals are after you, but then they can daze you, the Nethremancer can disorient and freeze you, and with three of them running around, you often have to run through some of the flames anyway! Definitely not an encounter that supports melee, which seems to be the case for too many dungeons (auras, AoE blasts, AoE fears...)

Azh's WoW Adventures: Heroic Mechanar

Note: If you're looking for help with Heroic Mechanar, check out my Quick Tips post.


In trying to acquire enough Primal Nether to upgrade my blacksmithing axe(s), I've decided to seek out pickup groups for Heroic instances when we don't have enough guildmembers awake.

Yesterday, I joined one for Mechanar. This was my first trip into the heroic version of this instance, and I was a little apprehensive because I'm Arms-specced (though I've successfully played the role of tank for Heroic Slave Pens in the past) and would be fighting with a group of players that I didn't know. Luckily, the first group member turned out to be Draaco, a rogue that I used to see in the battlegrounds all the time back in the day. After a bit of waiting (the LFG tool can actually work sometimes, though it's often slow going), we filled out our group with a shaman and two mages.

I don't have any epic tanking gear, but it is mostly blue, with a couple of pieces of the 'Bold' plate armor. In my full defense kit, I have 483 defense and about 11k health. I also have a variety of resistance pieces that I swap out as needed, including a full set of Enchanted Adamantine armor, which proved to be especially useful for some encounters.

Things started off well. Having the option to sap as well as sheep two humanoid targets made the blood elves easy pickings. One the mages tended to draw aggro at bad times, but that usually just resulted in him getting killed in three hits. (Important Note for non-tanks: If you're getting pounded, run towards the tank! Running away and making me chase the both of you doesn't help anyone.) The rough parts came when we hit the demons. The big guys weren't so bad (except for those annoying ones that have the various confusion abilities), but the little guys who throw bombs faster than Lindsay Lohan chugs drinks were troublesome. I finally hit on a solution that worked well. I would put on my arcane resistance suit and just try to keep aggro on everyone while the rest of the party killed the little demons fast. This worked especially well when there were three of four of them to a group.

The first two mini-bosses were fairly easy, you just have to remember to move away from the guy with the hammer when he 'raises it threateningly'. The Mechano-Lord Capacitus also turned out to be an easy fight. His only extra trick for heroic mode was that he would occassionally 'charge' the party, some negative, some positive. Opposites need to stay away from each other. As tank, I pretty mucg ignored it except for trying to yell out which way I was charged, which resulted in aggro loss twice. So maybe I should have just stayed focus on the job at hand.

Sepethrea proved to be a tougher customer. She has three of those damned invincible fire elementals. Combined with her frostbrand slowing attack, I found myself having trouble avoiding the flames while keeping her occupied. Putting on some fire resistance helped, but after two wipes, we decided to skip her.

The gauntlet event in the hallway afterwards also got us a couple of times, mainly just due to uncoordination. If I had been with a guild group who knows which targets I like to take down first (mage types), it would have been smoother. But we pushed onwards.

Finally, Pathaleon the Calculator. This encounter proved to be our bane. His elementals that he summons hit for a lot more damage than he does, and we only had my one fear to use on them. We tried a few different tactics but were defeated every time. Finally, one of the mages got frustrated, said that we needed a protection warrior and left the group. Undaunted, we quickly found a replacement (enhancement shaman) and tried again. Our tactic this time was to kill the first wave of elementals, fear the second and try to burn him down as quickly as possible in-between. Our first attempt was again inadequate, as I mostly left the elementals to the rest of the group and focused on the boss. But then I realized that they were probably taking too much damage while dealing with the first wave, so I slapped on my arcane resistance suit and used my challenging shout to keep the first wave on me. This seemed to work well, and we emerged victorious! Even better, I rolled a 100 for the Primal Nether, bringing my total to three (four if I turn in my Badges of Justice). Halfway there!

Warhammer vs Warcraft: A Very Brief History

Given the upcoming MMO, Warhammer Online, there has been a lot of discussion over the past year or so about who's ripping off who. As hopefully everyone knows by now, Warhammer (first published in 1983) has been around long before anyone even heard of the Internet. But what many don't know is that before Warcraft, Blizzard had been in negotiations with games Workshop to make a Warhammer game. For whatever reasons, the deal fell through, Blizzard modified a few things and released Warcraft (which is why the games seem similar in many ways). I guess there was enough ambiguity for Blizzard to avoid a lawsuit.

Anyway, in short, Warhammer has been around for a long time, Blizzard was undeniably, heavily influenced by Warhammer when they created Warcraft, and now, Warhammer has a lot of work ahead to claim its rightful section of the MMO pie.

Breaking the Holy Trinity of Character Grouping

Tank, Healer, DPS. The three required classes of any class-based MMO. Which pretty much makes dungeon adventures very standard and boring after the first couple of times through. Wouldn't it be nice if you could take any class-combo you wanted into a dungeon. If there were ways to engage encounters that didn't rely on the tried and true, "You take damage, You heal, and You kill stuff" routine?

I think a lot of this is simply due to the lack of decent AI. The mobs can't think on their feet, so the standard is to simply make them do lots of damage, and give them lots of hit points so that the players have no options except to follow the rails on your amusement park ride.

But how could this be handled without providing numerous opportunities for players to find ways to cheat the system? With instanced dungeons, you could have some variables that changed the composition, layout and abilities of mobs and bosses based on the group makeup, but then you would have to lock the instance to that group, and not allow them to switch or add other players, which in turn presents a whole slew of problems on its own (not to mention the extra coding required).

In reality, I dont think anything can be done along these lines in a class-driven MMO without some major changes to how things are done. Hit points and damage would need to stop scaling exponentially with level. Players would need to be given lots of various utility abilities that would provide them opportunities to do more with less so to speak. Computer AI would need some serious buffs and the Monty Haul equipment hunt would need to be seriously scaled down so that it doesn't have such an effect on a character's power. In short, too many changes for a class-based system to incorporate. After all, one of the primary reasons for creating class-based systems is to compartmentalize players into easily quantifiable boxes that can then be stacked together and compared to the mobs for ease of power balancing.

When you design a game based around character classes, you're putting the train on the tracks, and your combat system will be pretty rote from there on. If you can come up with ways to make things less generic and more interesting while still maintaining the concept of character classes, then more power to you. But, in the meantime, I'm looking at the skill-based systems as the future of online worlds.

iTrackr Sucks

Plain and simple. I just spent a frustrating hour driving through crappy traffic and dealing with crappy drivers today because they said two stores in my area had the Nintendo Wii in stock. Neither did, and both said that they hadn't had any for many days.

A completely inaccurate and unreliable service. Not even worth the free signup.

Meaningless PvP: Recipe for a Losing Mentality

So I do a lot of PvP in WoW. It's something that has always interested me in gaming, and I rarely step foot into an MMO that doesn't have some sort of PvP.

However, in WoW, PvP is essentially meaningless. You're playing inside an isolated reality, for which there are anywhere from one to two dozen of the exact same scenario playing out at any given point, just with different players. When the match is over, everyone goes their own ways and nothing has changed. The only difference is that the losing team has accumulated slightly less points than the winning team. This has lead to what I dub a Losing Mentality amongst many of my fellow gamers who participate in the Battlegrounds.

I'm a competitor at heart. I enjoy pitting my skills and intelligence against other opponents, especially when we are evenly matched and/or they can throw new tactics and strategies at me, forcing me to think on my feet. And thus, in the battlegrounds, I often find myself yelling at my teammates (randomly assembled from other servers in my battlegroup, as my guild isn't active enough to form teams very often) about not guarding flags, or running around in a big blob of ten characters while the other five of us are getting slaughtered because we have no backup, or any other of the myriad just plain stupid things that players tend to do. And more and more lately, I've been getting flak from the other players telling me to 'relax' and 'its just a game' and other sundry comments, not all of which are so pleasant. After a recent bout of this, it suddenly occurred to me that many of my 'teammates' aren't playing to win, they're just playing to accumulate their points.

In other competitive games, losing is losing. You either go home or have a mark put on your permanent record. In WoW battlegrounds, if you lose, you still get points, and you just join in for the next match. So to many players, it doesn't matter if they never get near an objective or if they just sit around in the base and rack up bonus honor points while everyone else on their team is putting forth an effort.

Now I do have to say that I definitely appreciate the fact that honor points are cumulative these days. The old decaying honor grind was just exceedingly cumbersome. But the Losing Mentality makes many of the matches not fun for me. Is there a solution to this dilemma? Not when the battleground results are virtually meaningless in the larger scope. It will be interesting to see how the instanced PvP in Warhammer Online fares, since it's being designed to have an effect on the overall war effort. Will there still be players leeching off of those who are actually putting forth blood and sweat to try and win for their side? I certainly hope not!

Corruption, Insider Trading and Abuse of Power in MMOs: Ethics Thrown to the Winds

So I'm a little late on the whole CCP dev-scandal in Eve Online, but I saw a recent interview with Raph Warner where he mentions that this sort of thing has always gone on, specifically referencing GM Darwin from the old days of UO (I cant find a decent link but apparently he would create castles and sell them on Ebay).

And it got me thinking about developers playing their own games, and then a sudden repressed memmory came back to me from my times as QA on Ultima Online. I was brought in a few months before they released Age of Shadows and there were a couple of specific incidents that I thought were totally out of line.

The first one was relatively minor. As we opened up our beta servers with the new code a few days prior to release, I was walking around in invisible, GM mode, watching what the players were doing and looking for potential problems, when I found one of the real GMs, decked out in all artifacts (artifacts were being introduced with the expansion), killing as many players as he could near the Britain moongate! UO being a semi-balanced game PvP-wise, he ended up eventually dying to the swarms of players that went after him, even with his uber-gear. They, of course, quickly looted his body, and he was forced to use his GM powers to freeze them and search their packs for all the artifacts that he shouldnt have parading around to begin with. My astonishment at this breach of conduct was was slightly ameliorated when he had to repeatedly ask the players, 'OK. Who has my pants?'

As he was regathering the items, he noticed me standing there, still invisible, and soon after, physically came upstairs to explain that he was 'testing' the artifacts to make sure they weren't too powerful. Uh-huh. That's why you're in QA... oh wait... you're not QA! He wasn't looking to test anything. He just wanted to show off, make himself feel powerful and get some attention, which he did as there were several threads about his escapades on the boards soon afterwards. And the fact that he went out of his way to make excuses to me just proves that he knew he was behaving inappropriately.

A relatively minor incident, but nonetheless, he was abusing the powers he had been granted in a very open and public manner.

The second incident actually occured earlier, and was much more egregious. With the advent of the expansion, came new lands, on which housing could be built. Now anyone who is familiar with UO back in the day knows how precious and scarce open land was. So, of course, it was expected that there would be a land rush on opening day to place houses in convenient, valuable and interesting spots. A couple of weeks before this went live, it came to the attention of one of our QA people, that there were 'secret' areas that could only be accessed via hidden runestones. Somehow, the devs had neglected to inform QA about this little feature, claiming that it wasn't worth testing. We at QA, of course, disagreed. So we got the details, wrote up a test plan and tested it. Well, after release, it turned out that several of the devs and GMs went and placed houses in these secret spots as soon as they could, which I would equate to insider trading.

They made these secret spots that players wouldnt know of immediately, conveniently decided not to inform QA about their existence, and then, as soon as the code was live, they quickly placed houses for themselves in what would become coveted locations!

So should MMO devs play their own games? It's quite different than playing a non-persistent game, for characters and items have real-world value in most MMOs. And the persistence factor means that any abuses have a ripple effect across the entire server. But even if they arent using GM-enabled accounts to create valuable items out of thin air, their knowledge of the inner workings on the game and their access to the code itself can present problems. Is there a real solution beyond trying to educate those inside the company on ethics? It's definitely a promising sign when the devs enjoy playing their own game. But at what point does playing the game for fun and enjoyment cross the line into abuse of power?

I let the artifact incident with the GM slide, as I was still the new guy, he stopped as soon as he was caught and it was on the test server which was brought down and wiped a couple of days later anyway. The issue with the dev-team coding in secret areas that they would be able to 'discover' first just sort of evaporated as well. I know some complaints were sent up the chain of command from QA, but I don't know if any reprimands or talks ever came of it. I'm not even sure what would be done considering that the entire dev team was in on it.

In summary, I would hope that people would have enough personal ethics to not ever get involved in scandals such as these, but, obviously, there are a number who either just don't care, or are too dumb and self-centered to consider the implications of their actions. I'm not sure why I expect those involved in creating and running MMOs to be any different from the rest of the world. It is a business after all, and I've seen plenty of ethics breaches in other jobs I've been in whether they've been retail, manufacturing or technical. I guess that since I have such an affection for well-crafted computer games, I expect others with similar sentiments to be similar to myself. A bit of a naive attitude when I stop and think about it. But I can say, that if I were in charge, such abuses wouldn't be tolerated!


Side Note: Interestingly enough, when I was at Origin, out of the dozen or so QA we had, only 3 of them actually played UO outside of work.

Economy and Inflation in MMOs: Part II

I had originally tried to post this as a reponse to Tobold's article, 'The Link Between Level and Gold' but my response never appeared so I decided to just make it into my own blog entry.

I have written previously about economies in MMOs, and it's a subject that comes up frequently among players... mainly because any semblance of an economy is usually quickly destroyed by incredible amounts of inflation that the devs try to crudely bandage via various gold sinks.

I think the real root of the problem starts at the beginning of the game. The main issues are:

1) Gold and items dropping like candy from a pinata every time a player kills any mob. Even if the items are 'trash', they can almost always be sold to some perverted NPC who apparently enjoys collecting Glistening Ooze and Frayed Rat Tails. Or, even worse, every NPC will be more than happy to buy this junk and will have an unlimited number of funds with which to do so!

2) Permanent items.

The way to move towards this is twofold:

1) Stop putting spendable coins on 90% of the mobs. Why on earth are demons carrying around gold!? Do they stop in the pub after a hard days work of hanging out at the local demon portal? Very few mobs should drop coins. Instead there should be various armor and trade goods that can be turned into useful things by craters. Gold and money should not just appear out of thin air.

1a) NPCs shouldnt buy anything and everything players shove in their faces. NPC vendors should have things that they are interested in, and flatout refuse to buy anything else. Move the economy towards a barter system rather than relying so much on a never-ending supply of gold that falls from the sky and fills everyone's pockets.

2) Equipment should wear out or be lost in other ways, requiring replacement. As long as 90% of the items in the world never deteriorate, you will always have mudflation issues. Until we move beyond this weird item-permanence concept, any attempt at a real economy is futile.


Players should be poor for the most part. Maybe a few gold saved up to be spent at a bar one evening, but not these ridiculous hoards of 1000s of gold. The only ones with that much gold should be powerful merchants and kings.

RESULTS:

Trade routes develop. Perhaps there is an excess number of swords being produced in one town, so the local smiths and merchants have no interest in buying any. But another town down the road doesn't have a smithy, so they're more than willing to buy the swords. Some enterprising player could come along, set up a trade route and make some money while stimulating an actual economy.

Crafting becomes not only an important job, but it also promotes community and interaction as well.

You've taken the first steps towards creating a sustainable, closed economy that can be fun in of itself.

"But how is being poor fun", you say, "I eat Ramen every day and pawned my guitar to pay rent! I don't want to experience that in an MMO!"

Well, to put it simply, you don't have those same requirements in an MMO. You dont have to eat, you can sleep just as easily on top of a mountain as you can in the most luxurious bed, and noone is sending you bills for supplying you with water. There really are very few activities that require money, and that's where the mudflation begins.

As usual, these concepts can't exist in a vacuum. You would need a dev team that takes a long, hard look at the in-game economy at all stages of development. But given the fact that most of the popular MMOs suffer from some form of mudflation to varying degrees, I don't see that as a bad thing.

MMO Core Concept #3: Leaders and Champions

Kind of similar to the upcoming Gods and Heroes squad concept, but taken a step farther. Basically, this is meant to bring an epic feel to MMOs, particularly PvP, while still allowing players to be individually powerful, though there are now differing types of power beyond just the abilities of your character.

Basically, there would be two different lifepaths for players to take: They can follow the path of a Leader, gaining the ability to command several NPCs and access to skills that would facilitate that. Or they can follow the path of the Champion, which would be more akin to the standard character archetypes we see in MMOs today. Players would be allowed to switch back and forth between the paths with some limitations, but there would be significant differences between the skill sets, forcing the players who seek to have it all to spend time, effort and money acquiring the other skills and losing access to some of their previous skills, though the skills wouldn't vanish, they would just be dormant.

And it would be balanced in such a way that a Leader-type character who devotes their skills and studies towards the art of combat and hires combat-oriented NPCs could be just as effective (though in a different manner) as a Champion who has also devoted themselves to combat.

I would even extend this concept beyond just combat. It would encompass city-building as well. Champions may be great for keeping monsters and bandits at bay, but when it comes to actually building a running a functioning town, you would need leaders to command and control all the NPCs in the town.

Some of the basic skills would overlap. Everyone would be able to fight, cast magic, learn tracking, etc. But only Champions would have access to the Fireball of Mass Destruction or the Blade Dance of Doom, while only Leaders would be able to control squads of NPCs or run a store.

This method of dividing character progression into two distinct camps not only opens up interesting avenues of interaction, but also provides a variety of outlets for different types of players. Those who enjoy the sense of power that comes from personal gain would likely lead the lives of Champions, while those who enjoy crafting, socialization and other non-combat activities would lean towards the life of a leader, forming communities with like-minded individuals. Of course, there's no reason the different player-types couldn't have some crossover. Perhaps a Champion decides to ally themselves with a town, providing protection for outlying areas and functioning as a part-time sheriff. Or maybe a Leader could make a name for themselves by commanding a squad of elite soldiers that seeks out the most dangerous foes in unexplored areas.

Envision a city siege. Small organized squads of soldiers manning the siege engines, battering rams and walls, with others waiting in the wings for a breakthrough. Meanwhile larger than life heroes run about, attempting to turn the tide in either direction and engaging each other in awesome displays of power and abilities. Sounds great to me!

MMO Core Concept #2.5: The Rumor Mill

This is part of my Dynamic World series of ideas. The basic concept is that NPC 'fluff' dialogue will change and respond to events that happen in the world. This is done via the Rumor Mill. Rumors are created by the system when significant events occur, be they player actions, NPC actions or Gm triggered events. These rumors are seeded amongst appropriate, nearby NPCs and then have a chance to propagate throughout the land.

Some NPCs, of course, will be more likely to keep up with all the rumors (Innkeepers for example, or that beggar who does nothing but wander the streets all day) while others will ignore them completely.

Each NPC would have a limit to the number of rumors they would know at any time, and they would also have a prevalance towards cetain types of rumors (IE, merchants would be more interested in bandit activity and finds of new resources whereas farmers would be concerned with wolves attacking their animals or bugs ravaging their crops). Rumors would generally be spread along trade routes, be it via boat, pack mule or foot. And there would also be a chance that rumors don't spread to the next town for whatever reason.

It would also be neat to add a "Telephone Game" feature to the Rumor Mill, allowing for some rumors to change as they pass from mouth to mouth. The mechanics of this would be difficult and problematic to implement though.

Rumors themselves would be flagged for importance on a local, regional and world level. If Bob the Knight clears out a den of wolves near the town, that would be of interest locally, but probably not much beyond that. However, if Bob slew the great Fire Dragon who had been terrorizing the mountain villages for generations, that would be an event worthy of worldwide renown. Rumors would also have a persistence rating. Driving off the wolves would only be noteworthy for a short amount of time. But the victory over the dragon would be spoken of for many years to come!

Rumors would also have the added effect of making famous/infamous players known to NPCs, even if they've never set eyes on each other. If everyone knows that you were the one who slew the dragon, then you'll receive praise and adulation as you travel. On the flip side, if you're infamous for the butchering of small farming villages, then you might find yourself persona non grata in the entire region, forcing you to travel halfway around the world to find a city where they don't know your name and reputation.

This would also allow players some insight into local events while they are travelling. Talk to the innkeeper or other gabby NPCs to get info about whats going on.

NPCs would also have rumors about each other. Everyone in the village would know that the local blacksmith was horribly wounded recently and is unable to perform any blacksmithing duties. Smart players might see this as an opportunity to ply their own blacksmith skill to earn some extra cash, and possibly the appreciation of the local citizens, which in turn might foment a new rumor concerning the new blacksmith that recently arrived in town! Or there might be rumors about a local mage recently acquiring a Book of Demonic Summoning which in turn triggers dynamic quests from locals who want the book destroyed, or wish to acquire it for their own shady purposes!

This also ties in with another of my required, MMO Core Concepts, Every Action has Consequences. But rather than having some mystical, overarching reputation that is automatically and instantly known worldwide, NPCs would spread the words of your deeds in a semi-fluid manner, furthering the goal of a dynamic, changing world that responds to player actions in a meaningful manner.

LotR: First Impressions (minor)

Lord of the Rings is now live, but I hopped onto their open beta a couple of weeks ago. But, for uncertain reasons, the game didn't really catch my attention. There just didnt seem to be much that was different or unique.

I played a Dwarf Champion up to level 10, then spent a couple of hours as a Warg in Monster Play.


Gameplay is pretty standard. Get quests, press buttons, drop new abilities into hotbar slots, gain levels and gold. The quest icons would often be obscured by the NPCs name.

One cool feature that was definitely different and welcome, is the ability to gain titles and special abilities based on your activities. Kill a bunch of Goblins and get the title Goblin Slayer. Kill enough and maybe you'll get access to a trait that will help you kill them faster. Use a certain ability or spell often? Then you'll likely learn end up learning how to do it better! It's a nice way to combine a level system with a pseudo-skill system.

And of course, there's the much talked about, Monster Play. Monster Play started off interesting, but, once you actually start looking around, it's just a bunch more of the same type collection and kill quests. Though I do admit that I had a lot of fun the first time I snuck into the hobbit-town as a Warg and ambushed gardeners on the outskirts of town and collected their cute little hairy feet as tribute to the Dark Lord! Not long after I arrived, two orcs showed up and proceeded to pillage in a more direct fashion. It felt good to be bad! But otherwise, this mode also didn't keep my attention. I joined a raid one time, but it turned out to be against a bunch of NPCs, and the organization of it was exceedingly slow, so I left. In the few hours I spent as a monster, I didn't see a single 'good' player. Since it was still beta, I imagine that there simply weren't many characters capable of reaching the Monster Play zone, much less surviving for long. However, this does highlight a potentially troubling issue. If no human opponents show up, Monster Play will turn out to be incredibly boring. It's also unfortunate that Monster Play is restricted to a single zone. If LoTR gains enough followers, I wouldnt be surprised to see extra Monster Play zones opening up.

All of the standard features are there. Mail, Auction System, crafting, instancing, etc. It felt very polished and ready for release, unlike many other MMOs. But of those systems, I didn't really notice anything new or innovative that would draw me in.

One thing that I've come to the conclusion on recently, is that I really like the cartoonish graphics for my fantasy games a lot better than the pseudo-realistic ones. Everything seems a lot sharper and easier to look at in Warcraft as opposed to Vanguard and LotR. So while the LotR graphcis were beautiful to look at (and MUCH easier on my mchaine than Vanguard), it just didn't feel right. Of course, I didnt get a chance to see much of the world. Just the early dwarf zones and the monster play zone. I'm sure there are plenty of breathtaking, panoramic vistas to be found.

Anyway, not much hard info about the game, as I didn't really play as much as I had planned, thus the (minor) in the title. But, that sort of says something in of itself I guess.

Minor MMO Idea #3: Player Created Artifacts

When reading fantasy books, one aspect I always find fascinating is when they speak of great and powerful items that were created from the Tears of a Goddess by Amazing-Guy, the famous Mage-Smith, who laboured for four days and nights, harnessing the power of the enslaved Fire God BurnEmAll and quenched the blades in snow carried by ten virgin brides!

I've thought that it would be a really cool idea to have these sorts of things doable in an MMO by the players. But the HOW of it always stymied me. No matter how difficult you make the learning of the recipe, or how obscure and rare the ingredients are, the player-base will always grind it out to create as many copies of the same artifact as they can. Sulfuron's Hammer, in WoW is an excellent example. Sure, the first one was a big deal. But it didn't take long before you saw one, or even more, in every single battleground match! And thus does epic fantasy vanish into the nether.

Then, an idea hit me. Rather than hard-coding in the artifacts themselves, let's just code in a framework for how artifacts are created, and let the players fill in the gaps... in a limited manner of course...

This concept revolves around the idea of Inspirations. These would be given out very sparingly, and only to crafters who have reached the pinnacle of their profession, or near to it. I don't quite have the details of that part worked out, but perhaps a fixed number is given when the character becomes a Grand Master, or perhaps they accumulate slowly over time, or maybe they have a small chance of being acquired when a craftsman makes an especially wondrous creation.

Then, these Inspirations can be used on the corpse of a named or otherwise very special creature. Or maybe even on an ultra-rare resource. When used, the crafter is given a pseudo-random special item type (Blood of, Tears of, Essence of, etc) that is tied to the creature/object it was acquired from. This special item will be flagged with attributes based on the skills, special abilities and such of its parent object.

The crafting interface would then allow this special, artifact-resource to be added to any regular creation. So if they player wanted to make an Artifact-quality chair, they could. More likely they would use to it imbue armor and weapons, though I could also see extending its uses to larger constructions such as buildings and ships!

For example, suppose a player used an Inspiration on Gorgofen, the infamous Black Dragon whose spittle could eat through even the toughest armor. They receive a special ingredient, called Essence of Gorgofen. This essence would take some of the attributes from Gorgofen (dragon, acid-breath, etc). Then, when the player adds this special essence to something they are crafting, that item will be appropriately imbued with these traits (this is the framework), flagged as an artifact and the player would have a chance to name it.

This system allows players to create unique artifacts in a meaningful way. They get to choose how, when and why to use their Inspirations, and then they get to choose how, when and why to incorporate those inspirations into a fabulous, one-of-a-kind creation that will be written about in the history books!

Minor MMO Idea #2: Using Mounts in Combat

So I was thinking about mounted combat and a came up with a simple idea. Just add a few special mount abilities that the player would have access to while mounted.

Basically, the mount would function like a pseudo-pet. They wouldnt act autonomously, but instead, while the player was mounted, they would get access to special abilities/attacks. These could even be flavored based on the type of mount. For example, a wolf might get a powerful bite ability to attack melee opponents with and a leap ability that allows for an extra-long jump. A horse might get a rear-oriented kick and a charge ability.

Of course, it would have to be balanced in some way so that it wasn't always advantageous to fight while mounted, but it would be an interesting and simple way to allow mounted combat.

Minor MMO Idea #1: More Intricate Dyeing Options

And by dyeing I'm referring to the skill of adding color to an object. Some games have this option, but many games don't. The most common reason I've seen is that they don't want players to mess with their carefully crafted artwork. But this is obviosuly something that the players desire. Just look at the number of complaints on the WoW forums about the color choices for some of the raid armor!

Here's how to do it right, and better.

First off, as you're designing the textures, they need to be layered in a consistent manner. That way, when you implement the 'dye armor' feature, you can specify which layer gets dyed, and thus have more control over how the players affect your artwork. Secondly, allow multiple layers to be dyed independently. This would allow the players to do things such as give the armor a 'wash' (altering the color of the grooves), 'overbrush' (color the peaks) or 'stain' (alter the basic color of the armor). You could even go so far as to allow color layering (IE, the current color affects the results of your dye job) to give the players even more subtle nuances about how their armor looks.

Not only would this provide simple customization options with little overhead to the company, but I could also see an in-game economy springing up around the Dying profession as some players would have much more interest and skill in creating nice looking outfits.

One disclaimer. Don't give players access to a pure black dye option. It just looks like crap.

Ach! Zombies!

The tension was unbearable. It hung over the fire station like a thick London fog, blurring the senses until distinguishing reality from nightmare was near impossible. Of course, reality had become a nightmare, so there was little distinction to be had. Aazh paced nervously back and forth. His crewmates sat playing cards, sweating lightly in the stale, putrid air, pretending that nothing was out of the ordinary. But Aazh couldn't wait any longer for help that may or may not arrive. Claustrophobia was setting in.

His crewmates didn't understand. They held to hope like a drowning man clings to a scrap of driftwood. But there was no power, little food, and no radio contact. The living dead wandered the streets, tearing ravenously on any unfortunates who passed their way, and making occasional half-hearted attempts to break down the barricades. Aazh felt like he was going to explode. The time had come. Grabbing his trusty axe and a pair of wire-cutters, Aazh slipped out through a side door, carefully pushing it fully closed as he left. No reason to bring misery to those poor fools inside. They would find their own form of misery soon enough.

The streets were eerily deserted. A few dead bodies were scattered about, but no sign of life; or un-life for that matter. Sticking to the eaves and shadows, Aazh made his way down the street. Most of the buildings seemed to be heavily fortified, and if there were any survivors inside, they were likely crazy enough to attack him if he tried to make an opening in the barricades. Outside of the nearby rail station he saw one of them. The slack-jawed look. The red eyes. The awkward gait. And the cavernous mouth that seemed big enough to swallow him whole. Letting out a subdued growl, Aazh hefted his axe and swung viciously at this once-human monstrosity. But the overload of adrenaline pumping through his body and his frayed nerves got the better of him. His swings were wild, and off the mark. Trembling with fury, fatigue and suppressed fear, Aazh fled. The creature pursued, but it had trouble navigating the debris-clogged streets, and Aazh soon found himself alone again.

He continued his wanderings, skirting wide around any undead he saw, and finally stumbling into a junkyard. The rows of rusty automobiles were surprisingly comforting, but could easily hold danger as well. Aazh quickly looked through the small shack at the front of the lot, and found a Louisville slugger that had seen better days, but could still be used to good effect. Clutching it to his chest, he headed west. If he could just get to the edge of town...

The tension was simply unbearable.

=======================

So the above story was written to sum up my first day of playing Urban Dead, a neat little web-based zombie MMO. That's right, zombies! Basically, take Dawn of the Living Dead (or whichever movie it was where they were stuck in the mall) and make it into an MMO!

It's all text-based, and pretty simple to play, but since there are no NPCs (players take the role of both humans and zombies, and their characters can potentially change sides several times as they get infected and cured), the interactions with the other players are what really makes the game. The game is turn-based, with each character getting a certain number of action points that they can use per day. The survivors try to scrounge up weapons, medkits and other goods while barricading themselves against the zombie hordes, while the zombies... well... act like zombies; tearing down the barricades, eating brains and generally causing havoc!

A very interesting though simple concept. It's not an overly in-depth game (I don't see myself still playing it two years from now), but its setting and setup allow for the players' imaginations to take hold and run from there (and it really does feel like you're in a zombie movie at times). There have been sieges at malls involving hundreds of players on both sides, groups formed to achieve certain goals, radios tuned to broadcast important information about zombie activity and all sorts of other interesting interactions that seem to only arise from these sort of open-ended, sandbox-type games.

So I recommend checking it out. It's free and an amusing diversion that won't ever take up hours of your day.

Learn to Improvise (We Don't Need No Stinkin' Mages)

So this rant stems from the outcry that has come up over Blizzard's new Armory feature (which I think it just plain awesome by the way). Lots of people across the WoW community are bitching about 'lack of privacy', but once you look at the reasoning presented by these complainers, the main issue seems to be a sense of worry about how their character might be perceived by their guildmates. Especially concerning talent builds. What an extremely silly thing to get upset about. If your guild is so anal and unimaginative that they demand that you spend your talent points in a certain way, then you need to find a new guild (unless that sort of thing doesn't bother you).

Are these guildmates really so set in their rut that they cant figure out how to use an arms warrior or shadow priest effectively?! This brings back memories of the early days of Shadowclan in WoW. For those unfamiliar with Shadowclan, we are an orc-only guild (recently, we began to allow trolls with restrictive guidelines). In the early days of the game, as the guild began to hit the upper dungeons, there was much debate about allowing other races into our orc-only guild, with some claiming that we could never do many of the dungeons with an orc-only group. If I recall correctly, this first came up in regards to the Lycaeum in Blackrock Depths (the place with the massive dwarf armies that respawn every 30 seconds).

"You must have a mage," they cried, "Otherwise its impossible!"

Nope. We did it. Many times. Sometimes with warlock help, sometimes sneaky rogue attacks, and other times with just quick-moving, coordinated firepower! Then it was said that LBRS would be too hard. Done. Then UBRS. Done... one time with only 8 orcs. Five orc Dire Maul tribute run? Done. Stratholme? Done. Scholomance. Done? Epic Dreadsteed quest? Done. Epic Shaman hat quest? Done. We never had the numbers to try Molten Core, and the smaller raids weren't released until a large portion of our guild had already left WoW for other pursuits. I'm sure there are plenty of naysayers that will claim the raids would have been impossible with an orc-only group, but, we'll never really know for sure at this point.

This is one problem with class-based games. Players get stuck in this single-path mentality and refuse to escape it (or can't due to overly restrictive game mechanics that make their class choice a cookie cutter mold). This has also limited the skill-based games, because players aren't able to think outside the box and dont know what to do with themselves when presented with an open skill tree. The entry barrier that Eve suffers is a great example. It's obvious that many MMO players need some sort of guidance, especially those who are new to the genre, but locking players into a cookie-cutter mold (even if there are two dozen varieties of cookie shapes), just doesnt cut it for me in the MMO theater.

This rant may seem a little hypocritical, as Shadowclan requires that all players in the guild play an orc, but, in comparison to many WoW guilds, thats a very small requirement. We have no class requirements, no talent specifications that must be adhered to, no equipment expectations, etc, etc. So we're sort of the anti-anal-rentitive-raiding guild. We'll take four warriors and an enhancement-spec shaman into a dungeon and find a way to emerge victorious.

So what am I bitching about? I'm not complaining about the class system itself (thats a rant for another day). WoW actually does a decent job of using the talent trees to allow players to customize their characters so that they are all a little bit different. I'm bitching about the types of players who can't think for themselves or use some creativity to come up with a solution that doesnt require a friend to remold their character. Learning to work together and to play off each others strengths as well as shore up weaknesses is relatively easy to do and much more fun for everyone involved.

MMO Core Concept #2: Dynamic NPCs

This is one of those ideas that has been floating around in my head for some time. But this comment on the Broken Toys blog caught my attention because it put an interesting twist on the concept.

Dynamic NPCs are ones who interpret and react to player actions as well as those of other NPCs. There's really two parts to this. On one side, you have the various town-type NPCs; shopkeepers, quest-givers, blacksmith, etc etc. On the other, you have the mob-type NPCs; orcs, dragons, rats and all that sort of goodness. For brevity, this post will focus on the town-type NPCs and leave the mobs for another day.

I've always thought that it would be interesting if NPCs actually reacted to what was going on around them. If they could know what was happening in their local area (or on a larger area if they are the type of NPC that would care about such things) and alter their routines based on that knowledge.

There are several layers to this possibility. The first would simply be location. NPCs would migrate and set up home/shop based on their fears/desires and how the local enviroment plays into those feelings. A jeweler, for example, probably wouldnt make a very good living in a small, farming village. They would likely look for a larger city with a stable economy and plenty of wealthy potential customers. And this also ties in with the comment I linked to earlier.

TPRJones mentioned the possibility of NPCs responding to wars based from, around or in their towns. People tend to flee warzones, and the NPCs shouldnt be any different. Is the town under siege? Those NPCs who formerly farmed the now-ravaged countryside would now want to move someone safer. Or perhaps they even change, turning into beggars and thieves since they can't make an honest living anymore and

This could even be developed into a meta-game feature, where player-towns compete to make their city more advantageous for NPCs, thus drawing them away from other nearby towns.

Eventually, player-towns would come to represent the guilds controlling the town. Is the guild focused on a safe, posperous enviroment? Then the town will attract merchants, entertainers, nobles and the like. Or is the guild warlike, building defensive structures and constantly warring with their neighbors? Well then you might find more mercenaries and drifters looking to take advanatge of the wartime market. Or do the players even go so far as to kill every immigrant that shows up in their town? They'll soon find their village shunned by all NPCs. Or maybe they only kill the elves, resulting in a town populated by everyone except the elf-types.

I would even take this a step farther, and have the town's appearance change as well. Do the players in the town randomly kill NPCs and offer sacrafices to demon gods? Well then, the town will probably start looking more sinister and become more rundown, populated by crazed fanatics, the destitute and desperate, and perhaps even a few unholy minions lurking about in the shadows. Is your town full of do-gooders who uphold the virtues of justice, compassion and truth? Then the town becomes more shiny and airy, sparkling across the vista so that it can be seen by riders from miles away. The streets are immaculate, the poor and lame are well taken care of and every NPC greets you with a heartfelt salutation.

Another layer to this concept would be related to quests/jobs and shopkeeper supplies. Has a rancher been losing a lot of their livestock to wolves on the edge of town? Maybe they'll try to hire players to take care of the wolf population. And the local innkeeper will start charging more for food as the supply of meat dwindles. Then, once the wolves have been cleared out, the rancher no longer needs to hire players for that job, but maybe they have need of someone to deliver their overabundance of meat to the next town.

An important part to making this all work would be to give NPCs some longevity, so that they aren't killed on a daily basis by the more psychopathic players. But thats a different discussion.

Dynamic town-NPCs would not only make the world seem more alive and fluid, but it would force players to consider the long-term consequences of their actions. Shopkeepers for player towns wouldnt just be the drag and drop variety. Certainly there should be options for players to hire NPCs to populate their towns, but ultimately, player actions in-game will determine how successful your town will be.

The Horrors of Open PvP

PvP. One subject that is frequently discussed and argued about in the MMO world. It makes developers nervous, sends victms into fits, is associated with 'grief-play', and even gets an article about it in a print magazine.

But I'm here to discuss someplace even darker, where few companies dare tread... open PvP. Basically, this means that anyone can be attacked anywhere. No artifical limitations that magically prevent combat in certain areas. No PvP 'flags' to turn on and off. Once you enter the gameworld, you have the potential to be killed anywhere at anytime.

Many, if not a large majority, of the MMO playerbase cringes at the thought of an open PvP system. And rightfully so. Griefers have made their presence felt in all games that support any form of PvP, and even in games that don't. The life of a griefer knows no bounds. And therein lies the rub! Griefers aren't an outgrowth of the PvP systems. They're there all the time, lurking in the shadows, just waiting to steal your kill or resource, block a doorway, cover the ground with profane drawings, on any of a myriad of creative harassment they can come up with. But players mistakenly associate these pariahs of online gaming with PvP.

The problem isn't in the PvP concept itself. Rather the problem stems from that group of players who enjoy having power over others at any cost, and the PvP systems that dont prepare for this sort of playstyle (or focus on it exclusively, to the detriment of everyone else).

Open PvP doesn't have to be the death-knell for an MMO (I think Eve Online has proved that already). I've actually found that players tend to be a lot more polite and respectful in open PvP enviroments. In general terms at least. You'll have the jerks who always find their way into these open, online enviroments, no matter what the system. But when there are potential, immediate reprecussions for being a jerk, people tend to be on better behaviour.

It is also an excellent tool for promoting strong communities. Nothing brings people closer together better than a strong external threat.

I think there are a few key features that would be vitally important to supporting a fun, open PvP enviroment.

1) No 'con' system for players. If you don't instantly know how strong another player is, you're much less likely to attack them without reason.

2) No levels. At least not as they are currently implemented in MMOs. Levels inherently create huge imbalances between players and are a very arbitrary and non-intuitive system.

3) Territorial control.
a)Bind players to an area. If a player has to travel far to grief someone outside their guild or circle of friends, they're less likely to make the effort. Especially if they get sent back home after they are defeated.
b) Give players the ability to control order in their towns via guards, banishment, black marks etc.

4) Relatively quick power gain. And once you hit that diminishing returns curve, power gains come more from adding new tricks to your arsenal rather than making your old tricks uber.

5) Create opportunities for meaningful PvP. The more reasons players have for engaging in PvP over useful objectives, the less likely it is that they will be preying on the new and weak.


Certainly, it's not an feature you can just throw in. It takes a lot of careful forethought and balancing. But it also opens up a lot of vistas that are currently locked behind instance portals or shuffled off into an obscure region of the world.

One of the Many Perils of the Level-Based MMO

As I was browsing a few blogs this morning, I came across this post talking about what a ghost town Ironforge has become since the release of the Burning Crusade.

And really, it's not just the old world. Even Hellfire Penninsula has seen a major population drop. Gone are those exciting, chaotic first few days as everyone poured through the portal and unleashed their pent-up aggression on the unsuspecting demons and orcs of the land. There was an almost visible aura of energy and excitement in the zone. Now it's reduced to just a small, scattered population, and the initial flood of players has mostly outleveled the zone and spread out amongst the rest of the Outlands.

And as for Azeroth, the high-level zones are just eerily empty. I spent some time in the Eastern Plaguelands and Silithus recently, and I saw a total of one other character in each zone!

This, IMO, is one of the biggest flaws with a level-based game... the level-based segregation that comes with it. Especially when you organize your adventuring areas along level lines as well. This is a major community-breaking 'feature' that is only exacerbated by the expansion of the level cap.

I'm hoping that the next MMO I play isn't so divided and that I have a chance to hangout, adventure and have fun with new characters as well as old.

Burning Crusade Impressions Part II

It's been over a week now so I thought I should update my initial impressions of WoW's big expansion, The Burning Crusade.

First of, I discovered that the fel orc bombing run is repeatable just for fun!

Crafting is actually useful. Upon talking to the blacksmith in Thrallmar, I was immediately given several new recipes for items that some of my guildmates could use! You can actually make items for your level. In the old days of Azeroth, it was pretty much impossible to stay ahead of the curve for the various professions. I was always making items that were 5+ levels below me. Meanwhile in the Outlands, I have a recipe for several nice, level 65 weapons... and I'm only level 64.

I initially gave their big 'world PvP' feature a bad grade because the players were just running around trading towers rather than actually fighting over them (at least in Hellfire Penninsula). This still seems to be the norm for the most part, but if you can get a small group together and choose to defend or contest the alliance for control, there can be quite a bit of fun PvP. A few Shadowclan did just this over the weekend, and after a little over an hour, I had 80-something marks to spend and ~700 honor as well. You don't get experience or reputation, but it's a hell of a lot more fun! Not only did we control the Broken Hill tower for quite a bit, but we also exerted our dominance over the main Alliance road out of Honor Hold, annoying many Alliance players until we were finally overwhelmed. But still, this only happened because we decided to break the pattern that everyone else had settled into.

There is an odd sort of tension hanging over many of the hunting grounds, but for the most part, everyone levels peacefully together. Though sometimes, the tension can break out into battle at the flash of poorly-timed AoE, and then, just as quickly, return to a standoffish neutrality.

Quests are plentiful. I constantly have a full quest log and purposefully avoid some outposts so that I can stay focused in one area at a time. Unfortunately, the fun quick quests of Hellfire Penninsula seem to give way once you hit Zangamar. Then we're back to the same old random-drop collection quests and the chained, run-back-and-forth kill quests. But I do find the zone itself interesting, and the fact that I have four different towns to get jobs from should keep me busy for a while.

The graphics are just outstanding. Warcraft does such a great job of making everything colorful and larger than life. If you get a chance to stop for a moment and look around, do it. Coilfagn Reservoir looks very ominous when gazing at it from across the lake. And the streamer effects in the sky always make me stop and look twice.

I haven't done any Jewelcrafting, but I am interested in the whole socketing gems feature. Unfortunately, I've only acquired two items so far that have sockets (I had to sell one socketable helm because it looked so awful I would have been embarassed wearing it).

So I upgrade my initial grade to a A minus. I'm having fun so far, and am thoroughly enjoying my adventures and explanations of the new lands. I'm reminded of the first few months of WoW when it was originally released. Hellfire Penninsula was incredibly engaging those first few days. And I think a lot of that was due to the sheer number of players running around. There was an electricity in the air and it really felt like something big was happening. But already the veneer is beginning to wear a little thin. Everything is basically the same. Despite the sheer amount of combat involving Hellfire Citadel, the Hand of Kargath repeatedly spawns in the same spot to be repeatedly killed by the players. No excursions are ever sent out from the Citadel. Nothing really happens that lasts for more than a few moments. So I'm still holding onto my reservations about the end-game. I fear that once I hit 70, the game will return to what it was before the expansion release... little more than a repetitive honor and faction grind.

MMO Core Concept #1: Labor Points - Harvesting of a Different Color

What are labor points? Labor points are numbers that represent an individual character's ability to directly affect the game world. Players can use their labour points to contribute to the building of infrastructure, to assist in production and for destructive purposes as well. Each character starts with a certain number. Additional points are gained slowly over real-time, whether a character is logged in or not. The total number of points that can be accumulated is capped at some arbitrary number.

My overall concept for this system includes several other layers such as skills, hired NPCs, varied building sizes, trade routes and other good stuff that would interact with the Labor Points System in a meaningful way. But, in order to keep things simple and focused, I'll be foregoing discussion of those at this time to keep this essay as basic as I can.

Lets start with the first use for these points, building infrastructure. A player or guild decides to construct a harvesting building, a lumber camp for example. Using whatever method the game offers, they lay the unfinished camp down. Whether the building requires resources or not is irrelevant for this feature, so we'll assume that it doesn't, just to make things a little simpler. However, it does require labor to build. Players click on the unfinished building and choose how many of their available labour points they wish to contribute (I would also require a 'building' skill and have the skill level factor into how effective their labour points are for this task, but that idea is also unneccesary and adds another layer of complexity that I'll gloss over for now). Once the required number of labor points have been contributed, by any number of players, a timer starts. Once the timer is complete, the building is done and production can begin.

Now that the lumber mill is up and running players can choose to contribute their labor points to harvest raw materials, logs in this example. For each labor point, X number of logs are produced. Also, players can choose to contribute labor points to convert the logs into boards, which can then be taken to a carpentry shop and used in other buildings or projects. There would be a cap on the amount of logs that can be produced on a daily basis based on the number of trees in the general area (a lumber mill in the middle of an open plain would not be very productive).

On the opposite end of the spectrum, labor points are also used to destroy buildings. This may be players wanting to tear down their own buildings, or it may be a hostile act against an enemy. To prevent players from arriving at someone's town late at night and tearing everything down before the next morning, there would have to be some artificial limitations on how players use their labor points for destruction. Perhaps a heavy stamina penalty or a hard-coded limit on the amount of destruction a building can receive over time.

The reasoning behind using the labor points for two diametrically opposed actions should be relatively obvious. It's meant to force players to make a choice. They can either use their available labor to assist in building and growing their community, or they can use it for aggresion and destruction; or even some sort of combination of the two. But there will be decisions to make. And those choices have an effect on the world. If your guild is spending all of their labor on tearing down enemy fortifications, then production suffers and perhaps they won't have enough supplies or be able to replace broken items. If your town puts all of their labor into production and town growth, then perhaps a neighbour will start to encroach on your lands by building towers and other fortifications. If you don't take some effort away from production to tear down these intrusions, you might suddenly find that your borders have shrunk.

How will you deal with the issue of mule characters?
Thinking about this question, I would actually say that it's a non-issue. If players have characters whose sole purpose in life is to accumulate labor points, thats fine. The total amount that could be accumulated would be kept relatively small (perhaps a week's worth) and various mechanics could be put in to place to encourage players to skill-up these 'mule' characters so that they are more effective, at which point the line between played character and mule begins to blur. My initial thought would be to have character skills tie in to how effective their labor points are used. A character who is a Master Lumberjack would get more bang per labor point at a Lumber Mill than would a character who has little or no Lumberjacking skill.


In summary, this system is designed to allow players to harvest raw materials, but to also limit the amount of raw materials that can be produced in any given time. It shifts the focus of harvesting towards guilds and communities (since they will be more likely to have the available resources to build camps) while still allowing individual players to have an effect and be able to contribute directly in a meaningful way.

The Burning Crusade: Initial Impressions

Like millions of other people around the world, I went out and bought World of Warcraft's expansion, The Burning Crusade and Tuesday and eagerly installed it, anxiously awaiting my chance to explore the Outlands. After four hours on Tuesday night and three hours last night, here are my initial impressions.


Getting into the Outlands is easy enough. Just go the the Blasted Lands and run through the portal (though be sure to grab the quest from the guy in the middle of the camp on the Azeroth-side beforehand). Once through, you're on the steps of a most impressive looking portal and down below, a continuous fight wages against very large demons. The flight master is right there and will fly you to the appropriate city where lots of quests and profession trainers await. I was a little annoyed that the guards in Thrallmar don’t give out directions around the town. Luckily, the place isn't that big. The lag outside of Thrallmar was horrendous that first night, but, to my surprise, the servers stayed up and once you got away from the mass numbers of players, it pretty much disappeared. Grade: B+

The quests are plentiful and relatively easy. And aside from the standard kill, collect, deliver fare, there is one particularly fun quest which has you fly bombing runs on a wyvern, destroying a large encampment of Fel orcs. I would redo that quest just for fun if I could! Faction and experience accumulate quickly. Without really focusing on advancement and spending some time just exploring, I'm 2/3 of the way to level 61 and about 1/4 of the way to being honored with Thrallmar (the first Horde city in the Outlands). The rewards are nice, and if I didn't already have a bunch of PvP epics, I would definitely be using some of the rewards as upgrades. Gold is also plentiful. I've made at least 50 gold already, and that includes spending over 20 gold to upgrade my professions. Grade: A

But one area that Blizzard seems to have failed miserably in again is world PvP. At least as far as Hellfire Peninsula is concerned. On paper, their plan looks great! The Horde and Alliance towns are just a stone's throw from each other. Both sides have quests to kill the orcs separating the two factions and both also have quests to cross to the other side and destroy siege engines owned by the opposition. Meanwhile, just a short ride away, lie three towers, all in close proximity to each other, that players can take control of, similar to the towers in the Eastern Plaguelands. However, it just doesn’t work. The Horde and Alliance pretty much ignore each other as both sides run around destroying each others catapults and cannons. The tower fights rarely involve an actual fight. For the most part, everyone runs around in one big group, taking control of each tower one at a time as their supposed foes do the same... but at different towers. The times where I've tried to engage the enemy resulted in my quick death at the hands of 10 allies while the rest of the Horde rides off to the next tower. And this is on a PvP server!

I think the main problem extends from the fact that holding a tower is worth nothing. Capturing it checks off one requirement for a repeatable quest that nets you tokens. These tokens are then used to buy various goodies. So there's really little point to fighting over control of a tower. You only get a bonus if your side controls all three, which rarely happens for any extended amount of time. The bonus is minimal, and the manpower required to maintain control of all three towers (the towers are relatively large and control switches quickly) is staggering! Good concepts in theory, but not enough thought was put into what the players would want (which is items). Controlling the towers or killing the enemy doesn't give any items. But running around like a herd of lemmings, avoiding any combat that’s not overwhelmingly in your favor does. Grade: D-

I didn't get much chance to explore any other zones, though I did make the run through the Marsh to Shattrath City. It proved to be an easy trek (as long as you stay on the roads), though I found that the Scryer Inn wasn't given me any rested state bonus. It looks like they have similar tower PvP objectives in every zone, and vendors that hand out items for collecting the appropriate tokens. I hope that PvP in the other zones is more engaging than Hellfire Peninsula. I also have only been in Hellfire Ramparts briefly (just long enough to make one attempt at each of the last two bosses), but it seems to have a nice layout and from what I understand, is a relatively quick instance. I look forward to trying it again soon.

Overall, the expansion has brought a much-needed breath of fresh air to WoW. The excitement that I had two years ago has returned and I'm looking forward to mining new and exotic minerals, discovering new and exotic place and killing new and exotic creatures! The PvP aspects have been less than adequate, but, I really shouldn't have expected much given WoW's history. New items are plentiful and most seem to have a lot of stat bonuses. I haven't had a chance to socket any gems, but I am eagerly eying the various options I see on the vendors.

Only time will tell if The Burning Crusade really changes the game, or, if ultimately, it's just variations on the same themes and grows stale quickly. But in the meantime, I'll be enjoying the time that everything is new and not worrying about rushing through the content or levels.

First Impressions Overall Grade: B+

Vanguard Beta: Initial Thoughts

So I had the chance to check out the Vanguard: Saga of Heroes beta this weekend. I alloted myself 10 hours of /played time to get a feel for the game, and I wanted to check out the diplomacy and crafting features in particular.Here are my initial thoughts.

I began by choosing to play a Dark Elf Necromancer. Character customization options are very detailed. But, having 20 different sliders for facial features seems extraneous when you almost never see anyone's face closeup anyway. While it can be fun to completely customize a character down to the length of their eyebrows, this is not a selling point for me. In my mind, character customization should focus more on the larger look (City of Heroes did an excellent job on this part). And there are plenty of options for this as well such as altering height and body mass. But after some cursory poking around, I chose a name, made my character and jumped in-game.

First off, I immediately noticed that the graphics would be an issue. I dont have a top of the line system, but its more then enough for WoW with all the bells and whistles on. I turned the graphic settings down and still had a lot of video lag and stutter. Waving grass looks nice, but if it's slowing me down, I want to be able to turn it off. So I was a bit dissappointed with the video options. This alone would likely keep me from buying the game.

But, it was definitely playable, so I began my adventures with a quest to kill ten slaves. Adventuring seemed pretty standard. Quests were along the lines of kill, collect and deliver. Spells and attacks were also pretty standard fare. One interesting thing I did notice is that my pet (an abomination), had a button to let me manage it's 'grafts'. I never saw anything that explained what this is, but I assume that at some point I would be able to create specialized upgrades for him. Being able to customize your pets is always nice. I died a few times once I got to the tougher mobs, but I never had to do a corpse run (those dont start until level 7). I did hear from various players yelling across the zone that you can choose to pay money at an altar to have your corpse brought to you. Seems like a decent compromise to me.

I found the crafting interface and options interesting, but I couldnt figure out how to actually pursue a crafting profession that interested me. The Artifice trainer only offered me a total of 3 recipes at level 6 (and only listed a handful of others for higher levels), and of the various taskmasters, only one offered any tasks, and those were all about making wooden frames and oars other such stuff I had little interest in. I dont know what these things are used for or why I'm making them. Initial skill gains were quick, but, by the time I hit crafting level 5, it felt like a grind with nothing interesting to work on and no signs of it getting any more interesting in the near future. I also noticed on the crafting supply vendor that there were a number of tools that I couldnt use, but could find no explanation as to why I wasnt able to use them. I managed to get the necessary raw materials to make 2 out of 3 of my personal recipes, but, after one succesful attempt, I was proclaimed 'master' of that recipe and could no longer learn from it. I found this a little frustrating as I was a bit tired of making wooden frames and had purposefully gone out to gather materials that I could craft with. And also, there was no indication in my recipe list that these recipes had been 'mastered'. So I was left with the choice of continuing to make quartz gems that gave no skill gain and for which I had no use, or continuing to do a series of endlessly repeating tasks to gain skill. Not very encouraging.

The little random events that can happen during the crafting process are a nifty addition, but they also tend to get repetitive rather quickly. And crafting is not for those who are worried about carpal tunnel syndrome. Each item crafted took a good 30-40 clicks to make! Considering that the work orders with the best rewards ask for 5 of an item... thats a lot of mouse clicking for a few copper! It wouldn't be a big deal if each and every crafted item were important. But work order items simply vanish into the void and I didnt really get the feeling that personally crafted items will be that important either (but I could be wrong since I haven't been given the opportunity to really make much of anything). I love that they've gone beyond the simple-minded concept of 'collect ingredients, push create button' style of crafting. But overall, I think that the system doesnt go far enough to make crafting fun or interesting over the long-term. Perhaps if I was able to move on to a larger town more options would open up, but at crafting and adventuring level six, I have no breadcrumbs to lead me anywhere else, and doing more taskmaster work orders is much more of a grind that I'm willing to pursue at the moment.

Diplomacy is one of their more innovative features. It's basically a little mini-game within the game. Kind of like a Collectible Card Game in many ways. You collect various abilities (cards), build your strategy (deck) using 5 of those abilities and then match your strategy against your opponent, choosing when to play abiliites. Each ability you play has effects on your various point pools, which then allows you to play more useful cards. The first diplomacy encounters are pretty easy, but as you progress it does require some strategy and forethought. I found that I would often have to change my available abilities for each match, which required some tactical planning. But the interface was a bit awkward. I couldnt close my deck without opening my abilities book for some reason. Often, as I tried to drag an ability from my strategy deck I would end up dragging the whole deck instead, and dropping abiliites onto the deck usually required two attempts (this may be an additional issue with the lack of mouse sensitivity). The diplomacy quests felt very linear, and after the 3rd or 4th one, I simply stopped reading the text beyond finding out who I had to talk to next. I had hoped that I would have some choices in how I dealt with my diplomacy options that actually had an effect on the quest results. No such luck. So while it's fun and different, I still feel like I'm on an amusement park ride, just going with the flow and unable to make any signifigant choices.

Bugs were a problem. I had several weird interface issues that basically forced me to logout and back in to keep playing. And sometimes I would find my view forced to first person suddenly and I would have to struggle to get it back to 3rd person. But, the worst one came last night. I had finally managed to get the two harvesting skills I wanted (you have one primary and one secondary, but nowhere could I tell which was which so I accidentally replaced the wrong one twice before I figured out what was going on) and I went out to gather some plants and rocks. However, out of the blue, for no apparent reason, all of my harvesting gear suddenly turned red (meaning that I cant use it) and I could no longer do any harvesting! Logging out and quitting the game had no effect. I paged a GM who responded promptly. Unfortunately, he said he didnt know why it was happening and he also had no tools to try and attempt to fix the problem. So i guess this character will just be unable to harvest. :{

Mouselook was very kludgy. I couldnt turn the camera more than 90 degrees without lifting my mouse off the pad, even with mouse sensitivity turned all the way to max. I find this particularly frustrating, as the lack of peripheral vision in MMOs always bothers me, so I like to be able to quickly and easily look around me.

And finally, as Lifebane said, the timing of their release just seems an odd decision. Attempting to go head-to-head with the Burning Crusade is just a recipe for low sales. Especially given how much press BC has been getting (it was Yahoo's headline story on Sunday, and I also noticed that Best Buy had a huge ad for it in their advertisement in the paper). Vanguard has some interesting features, but seems to lack polish (especially on the various interfaces) and is not newbie-friendly at all. I consider myself a serious gamer and a veteran MMO player, but the explanation of the diplomacy and crafting interfaces was confusing and seemed to not proceed in a logical manner to me. I ended up just kind of muddling my way through it.

Final totals for this character: level 6 Necromancer, level 6 crafter, 26 skill in diplomacy and 30-something skill in harvesting.

I know it's been the trend for a long time to release MMOs well before they are ready for mass consumption, but one day, some company somewhere will learn from past mistakes others have made. Apparently Sigil is not that one.

At some point before the open beta ends, I will likely try to create an Orc Warrior/Smith (same as the character I play in WoW), skipping the diplomacy game completely, and see if my experience varies with my newfound knowledge of the basics of gameplay.

MMOs for the New Year

It's the beginning of a new year, I havent posted anything new here in a couple of weeks, and though I have lots of fragments floating around, nothing coherent is ready. So, to keep some fresh content flowing without devolving into commenting on my
personal life, I've decided to make a brief list of upcoming MMOs that I hope to see this year.


Darkfall - This one is at the top of my list because their goals and ideas pretty closely mirror a lot of the core concepts I'm interested in seeing in an MMO. Player-owned towns, open PvP, skill-based system,
playable orcs, no floating names, just to name a few. Unfortunately, this game has been in development for quite some time. Many people seem to think that this automatically makes it vaporware, but to me, it means they're taking times to do things right. When, if ever, this game is released is unknown, but I'm hoping that it at least starts up a serious beta test sometime this year.

Warhammer Online - This will be a definite WoW replacement for me (though hopefully I won't still be playing WoW by the time this game makes it to the shelves). WoW-type interface with a PvP focus. Sounds good to me! And Warhammer's history is so rich and interesting. I hope they can infuse the game with some of that backstory and character. But at the very least, I'm definitely looking forward to bashing in some stuntie heads, cutting off their beards and sacking their cities!

Pirates of the Burning Sea - Ship to ship combat. Full player crafting. Town ownership. All set amidst the turbluent seas. This game has the potential to be the Eve Online of the pirate era.

Age of Conan - I'm a little leary of the twitch-oriented combat. Lag already causes enough issues with the standard MMO combat model and I'm scared to see how it affects combat in Conan. I've only been following this peripherally, so I dont know a lot of details, but I do remember reading something about keep ownership and sieges along with some other interesting goodies (bar brawls!)

That's all that I can think of offhand without looking up a list of upcoming games. Which ones catch your attention and why?