The newbie blogger initiative is coming to a close, Syp has a list of all the new blogs and advice posts up over at Biobreak. This month has been a heck of a lot of fun for me not only due to meeting so many new bloggers, but also because I stumbled across some established bloggers I really like that I somehow managed to miss all this time. My blog roll changed more in the past month than in the previous two years. I think we all owe Syp a dept of gratitude for organizing an event that has been injected some new life into our corner of the blogoverse. Good on you Syp!
I never did get around to my advice post, mainly because I was out of town most of the month. However, it was also hard to say what I would have added in terms of general advice given all the great posts that other bloggers put out. Some of my favorites were Anjin's general advice on how to get pageviews (Sente has another good general advice post, along with Blue Kae), Tesh's poignant piece on blogging as a social activity, Rowan's duo on the mechanical aspects of setting up blogger (I actually tweaked my settings after reading both of those), and the part of MMOgamerchick's post where she explains why she usually answers all of her comments (I couldn't agree more).
During the course of the month, I spent some time thinking about what, if anything., I consider to be the golden rule of blogging. I think it would be something along the lines of "Write about your passion." Write what you'd like to read, what you want to say, and what you feel needs to be said. Blogging is a labor of love more than anything. Very few of us are ever going to reach the popularity of Tobold, and even the Tobold's by and large aren't making any money blogging. The only reason in the world to blog is because you have something that you want to express, and thoughts and experiences you want to preserve.
For me this blog is one part diary, one part personal soapbox. Of course like all bloggers I want to be read, or else these posts would be unpublished Word documents on a random desktop. But I'd say creating something you are happy with and that expresses your voice is probably the single most important goal to have as a blogger. Whether your blog attracts a small audience or a huge audience, if years from now you can look back on certain posts and think "I made that, I'm happy with it and I'm glad it's out there on the web" I'd say you have succeeded.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Saturday, May 19, 2012
The Love In is on a Haitus
You may have noticed that my previous, somewhat dry, post has been the only thing to read around here for a good while now. I'm currently traveling and have access to neither MMOs nor much opportunity to post. Expect posting to resume near the end of the month. In the meantime, may your adventures be thrilling and your looting be fruitful :-)
This brief update brought to you by insomnia.
This brief update brought to you by insomnia.
Friday, May 11, 2012
On the use of in game mail as a post-it-note
Wednesday night I logged into Star Wars the Old Republic after an absence of a nearly a week. Looking at my quest log, it looked like I needed to head to Nar Shadda and start in there. I noticed I had a couple of mails, and I vaguely remembered mailing a note to myself the week before. I decided to check it before I headed out, this is how my message from me to me read:
Title: Memento
First, head to fleet and spend all ur balmorra commendations. You have an OJ weapon that should make what u have look stupid if u max it out. Then head to nar shadda for more leveling quests.
You will need to level ur biochem into the 100s b4 level 25 (but I suspect u'll remember that).
It actually turned out to be a big help, I had completely forgotten I was sitting on a huge ass pile of Balmorra commendations. Thirty minutes later, I headed to Nar Shadda with vastly upgraded gear.
Now, I find myself wondering...why the hell didn't I think to do this sooner? The two biggest hurdles I always face when returning to a MMO I haven't played for a while are (1) I have no idea what I was working on, and (2) I can't remember my basic attack combos on whatever characters I used to play. Yet in nearly all of these games, you can send yourself mail and it will sit there waiting for you until you open it.
For example, I now really wish the last time I quit WoW I had sent myself something like this note on my Warlock:
Memento:
(1) Normal weak foe: 1,3,4
(2) Strong foe: 1, 2, shadow nookie (bar 2), 4
(3) panic buttons: wall of shadow (right bar, lower part), shadow selfhealgasm (just above wall of shadow)
(4) Crowd control: shadow giggles (bar two, far right)
Whenever Mist of Pandaria launches (I expect play it for a month or two and quit when I hit the new level cap, like every WoW expansion) I will undoubtedly fire up my Warlock and get smacked in the face by a wall of hotbars linked to abilities that I barely remember. If only it had occurred to me to mail myself cliff notes before I quit playing last year, the transition back could be so much smoother.
Further, I tend to dabble in a lot of FtP MMOs. When I go back after a long absence, I generally haven't got the foggiest clue where to start. In some cases it's so bad that it's easier for me to just abandon my old mid-level characters and start over fresh. The last time I played Allod's Online that's exactly what happened. I had a level 22 Summoner, and found her so confusing that I ditched her and started over on a Paladin. If only I had sent myself a few notes before I quite the first time, I might have actually been able to see some of the higher level areas the month or so I was playing.
I now actually feel a bit dumb that it never occurred to me to use in game mail as a post-it-note. Am I the only one that hasn't been doing this?
Title: Memento
First, head to fleet and spend all ur balmorra commendations. You have an OJ weapon that should make what u have look stupid if u max it out. Then head to nar shadda for more leveling quests.
You will need to level ur biochem into the 100s b4 level 25 (but I suspect u'll remember that).
It actually turned out to be a big help, I had completely forgotten I was sitting on a huge ass pile of Balmorra commendations. Thirty minutes later, I headed to Nar Shadda with vastly upgraded gear.
Now, I find myself wondering...why the hell didn't I think to do this sooner? The two biggest hurdles I always face when returning to a MMO I haven't played for a while are (1) I have no idea what I was working on, and (2) I can't remember my basic attack combos on whatever characters I used to play. Yet in nearly all of these games, you can send yourself mail and it will sit there waiting for you until you open it.
For example, I now really wish the last time I quit WoW I had sent myself something like this note on my Warlock:
Memento:
(1) Normal weak foe: 1,3,4
(2) Strong foe: 1, 2, shadow nookie (bar 2), 4
(3) panic buttons: wall of shadow (right bar, lower part), shadow selfhealgasm (just above wall of shadow)
(4) Crowd control: shadow giggles (bar two, far right)
Whenever Mist of Pandaria launches (I expect play it for a month or two and quit when I hit the new level cap, like every WoW expansion) I will undoubtedly fire up my Warlock and get smacked in the face by a wall of hotbars linked to abilities that I barely remember. If only it had occurred to me to mail myself cliff notes before I quit playing last year, the transition back could be so much smoother.
Further, I tend to dabble in a lot of FtP MMOs. When I go back after a long absence, I generally haven't got the foggiest clue where to start. In some cases it's so bad that it's easier for me to just abandon my old mid-level characters and start over fresh. The last time I played Allod's Online that's exactly what happened. I had a level 22 Summoner, and found her so confusing that I ditched her and started over on a Paladin. If only I had sent myself a few notes before I quite the first time, I might have actually been able to see some of the higher level areas the month or so I was playing.
I now actually feel a bit dumb that it never occurred to me to use in game mail as a post-it-note. Am I the only one that hasn't been doing this?
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
The New Skyrim MMO: Skyrim or not, sign me up
The announcement of the Elder Scrolls MMO, that's apparently been in development for a few years now, was met with a lot less enthusiasm than Bethesda might have wished. Fans of the offline games were pissed Bethesda has been "wasting" dev resources on an MMO. MMO enthusiasts greeted the announcement of what in many ways seems to be a Skyrim skinned WoW-alike with a distinct "meh." I can kind of relate to both camps.
One of my all time favorite games was The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind. Though offline, I found it enthralling enough to play for six solid months. There aren't many MMOs I have stuck with for so long, and even fewer offline RPGs. I love MMOs, and I love The Elder Scrolls franchise, but I just don't see them mixing all that well at first glance. All of the things I love about ToS games are things that you just can't do in a MMO. I can't permanently kill NPCs in a MMO, much less depopulate entire towns because the gatekeeper gives me lip, as it will bork quests for other players. I can't create spells or magic items that are stupidly overpowered since they would throw off balance. Even if everyone could make the same OP spells, the entire playerbase would end up having to use the two or three OP combos to be competitive. Hell, I can't even become a werewolf or vampire as the mechanics of it would be too hard to balance with all the other options (there's that "nothing can be stupidly OP" in a multiplayer game thing again).
As Bernardparsnip pointed out, the MMO we've been reading about doesn't really sound like an Elder Scrolls Game at all. Further, considered as a new WoW-alike, do we really need another WoW/ LoTRO/ EQ II/ AO/ ROM/ Rift/ AoC/ SWTOR (ect.)? The consensus from the MMO blogosphere seems to be "no, not at all really."
Despite all this, I maintain that this not-really-at all-Elder-Scrolls Elder Scrolls MMO is going to rock. Why? Three faction realm-vs-realm combat. The first MMO to hold my attention for more than a month was Dark Age of Camelot. It had the best core PvP concept I've ever encountered in a MMO. It was definitely asymmetrical warfare, where the side that showed up with the most guys to a fight had a big advantage. However, instead of the sides being split into two (ala LoTRO's PvP zone, that one planet in SWTOR, pretty much all of Warhammer Online and numerous other games where asymmetrical combat really doesn't work well) the game was split into three factions so that that the little guys could gang up on the big guy if balance got out of hand. The leveling game was also separated off from the PvP game, so if you just wanted to do some grinding and level you didn't have to worry about getting ganked constantly. DAoC combined the best of a hardcore PvP game a and a devoted PvE game in many ways.
There was only one real problem with it: the solo PvE game was boring as hell. There were few quests, and even fewer worth doing (to be fair I'm talking the the early 2000s, it was a game of it's era). You mainly leveled by grinding mobs, and many classes sucked at grinding solo. Better quest chains and a series of leveling battle grounds were patched in later, but the fact remains that leveling to 50 to get to all that awesome end-game three way PvP remains a bit painful to this day.* So much so that in recent years you get a free level every so often for every one you earn normally (no really).
This is where the new Skyrim MMO comes in. The end game is three way RvR combat ala DAoC, done by some of the same guys that helmed DAoC. According to even the the haters, stuck onto the side of it will be a WoW style extremely smooth PvE leveling game. It might not be an Elder Scrolls game, but damn that basic design description has me juiced. Like WoW, only the endgame doesn't make me want to vomit? Sign me up!
All that said, even if DAoC 2.0 with a Skyrim theme doesn't appeal to you, I think Crafty has the right of it: we don't know enough yet to judge most of the game one way or another. Let's wait and see before we start balling up our undergarments.
*Disclaimer: it's been at least three years since I went back to DAoC, the PvE leveling game could be all kinds of awesome by now for all I know.
One of my all time favorite games was The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind. Though offline, I found it enthralling enough to play for six solid months. There aren't many MMOs I have stuck with for so long, and even fewer offline RPGs. I love MMOs, and I love The Elder Scrolls franchise, but I just don't see them mixing all that well at first glance. All of the things I love about ToS games are things that you just can't do in a MMO. I can't permanently kill NPCs in a MMO, much less depopulate entire towns because the gatekeeper gives me lip, as it will bork quests for other players. I can't create spells or magic items that are stupidly overpowered since they would throw off balance. Even if everyone could make the same OP spells, the entire playerbase would end up having to use the two or three OP combos to be competitive. Hell, I can't even become a werewolf or vampire as the mechanics of it would be too hard to balance with all the other options (there's that "nothing can be stupidly OP" in a multiplayer game thing again).
As Bernardparsnip pointed out, the MMO we've been reading about doesn't really sound like an Elder Scrolls Game at all. Further, considered as a new WoW-alike, do we really need another WoW/ LoTRO/ EQ II/ AO/ ROM/ Rift/ AoC/ SWTOR (ect.)? The consensus from the MMO blogosphere seems to be "no, not at all really."
Despite all this, I maintain that this not-really-at all-Elder-Scrolls Elder Scrolls MMO is going to rock. Why? Three faction realm-vs-realm combat. The first MMO to hold my attention for more than a month was Dark Age of Camelot. It had the best core PvP concept I've ever encountered in a MMO. It was definitely asymmetrical warfare, where the side that showed up with the most guys to a fight had a big advantage. However, instead of the sides being split into two (ala LoTRO's PvP zone, that one planet in SWTOR, pretty much all of Warhammer Online and numerous other games where asymmetrical combat really doesn't work well) the game was split into three factions so that that the little guys could gang up on the big guy if balance got out of hand. The leveling game was also separated off from the PvP game, so if you just wanted to do some grinding and level you didn't have to worry about getting ganked constantly. DAoC combined the best of a hardcore PvP game a and a devoted PvE game in many ways.
There was only one real problem with it: the solo PvE game was boring as hell. There were few quests, and even fewer worth doing (to be fair I'm talking the the early 2000s, it was a game of it's era). You mainly leveled by grinding mobs, and many classes sucked at grinding solo. Better quest chains and a series of leveling battle grounds were patched in later, but the fact remains that leveling to 50 to get to all that awesome end-game three way PvP remains a bit painful to this day.* So much so that in recent years you get a free level every so often for every one you earn normally (no really).
This is where the new Skyrim MMO comes in. The end game is three way RvR combat ala DAoC, done by some of the same guys that helmed DAoC. According to even the the haters, stuck onto the side of it will be a WoW style extremely smooth PvE leveling game. It might not be an Elder Scrolls game, but damn that basic design description has me juiced. Like WoW, only the endgame doesn't make me want to vomit? Sign me up!
All that said, even if DAoC 2.0 with a Skyrim theme doesn't appeal to you, I think Crafty has the right of it: we don't know enough yet to judge most of the game one way or another. Let's wait and see before we start balling up our undergarments.
*Disclaimer: it's been at least three years since I went back to DAoC, the PvE leveling game could be all kinds of awesome by now for all I know.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Newbie Blogger Initiative
Syp over at Biobreak has organized the Newbie Blogger Initiative. The goal is to get as many new voices to join the grand conversation of the MMO blogosphere as possible this month, and Syp has organized a cadre of bloggers to back the initiative. Start a general MMO blog, start a blog about your current MMO of choice, or heck start a blog about your favorite MMO mini game. If it's MMOish you qualify.
As a participant you will get a good hunk of readers from the start, and advice from established bloggers if you want it. That "readers from the start" thing is pretty hard to do on your own (take my word for it ). If you are interested, head over to the forum that Syp set up to announce your blog to the world. Alternately, post a link to your new blog in the comments below and I will give you a shout out here.
Over the next few weeks the dozens of established bloggers participating will post advice for new bloggers, and links to the new blogs going up. Do you have a perspective on the MMO industry that you think isn't getting heard? Do you want an audience for your riveting tales of the travels of a gnomish necromancer? Do you wish your screenshots of the awesome rare pets you get in Wizard 101 could be viewed by dozens of strangers? Now is the best chance you'll have to get that going :-)
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
LoTRO: Free Stuff
Just a few weeks after I put up a post whining that Lord of the Rings Online was erring on the side of greed with their new lockbox system, Turbine has released a ton of new content that is free to subscribers and lifers (well sort of free to subscribers) and anniversary content is is well and truly free to everyone. Anyone that has been playing four years gets some cosmetic items. The tunic I wasn't too crazy about, but the dress and the cloak I like quite.
Even better, if you have been playing since launch you get a free horse. In all there are five rewards you can earn, one for each year the game has been live. Even players that have only been playing a year get reusable fireworks which I enjoyed setting off in the middle of Thorin's Hall.
However far and away the best "free" content has been the Great River. Lifers get it well and truly free. I know that my lifetime sub payed for itself long before LoTRO went FtP, everything else it gets me now is gravy. Current subscribers get it as a bonus with their sub fee, it's arguable whether you should call that free content for them or not. Free players can go to the zone, but they don't get any new quests apart from bounty board missions unless they choose to pay extra.
I'm have found the quests in the new area to be a lot of fun. The storyline that goes with them is intriguing, and forshadows some events from the Twin Towers really well. Color me crazy, but I like all the fetch quests that have you learning how events have been unfolding in the village before you arrived. I've been obsessing too hard on SWTOR to make a ton of progress, but I have played the new area enough to hit 75 in the last few weeks. The content I've seen has all been very well done. I look forward to finishing out the area at some point. If nothing else, several of the quests grant nice armor upgrades to anyone that isn't a raider.
Here is a Runekeeper I almost never play showing of her anniversary dress.
Even better, if you have been playing since launch you get a free horse. In all there are five rewards you can earn, one for each year the game has been live. Even players that have only been playing a year get reusable fireworks which I enjoyed setting off in the middle of Thorin's Hall.
The five year horse. I quite like the look of it, and due to the new "horses are skills" system since LoTRO went FtP you can collect horses without jacking up your inventory.
However far and away the best "free" content has been the Great River. Lifers get it well and truly free. I know that my lifetime sub payed for itself long before LoTRO went FtP, everything else it gets me now is gravy. Current subscribers get it as a bonus with their sub fee, it's arguable whether you should call that free content for them or not. Free players can go to the zone, but they don't get any new quests apart from bounty board missions unless they choose to pay extra.
This is the map of the new zone. In size it's pretty close to Mirkwood, with perhaps more varied terrain.
I'm have found the quests in the new area to be a lot of fun. The storyline that goes with them is intriguing, and forshadows some events from the Twin Towers really well. Color me crazy, but I like all the fetch quests that have you learning how events have been unfolding in the village before you arrived. I've been obsessing too hard on SWTOR to make a ton of progress, but I have played the new area enough to hit 75 in the last few weeks. The content I've seen has all been very well done. I look forward to finishing out the area at some point. If nothing else, several of the quests grant nice armor upgrades to anyone that isn't a raider.
The first hall of the Rohirrim I've encountered, complete with a minion of Wormtongue who I'm hoping I'll get to slay soon.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
DAW April 2012: Bioware
Once again Scarybooster is having his annual developer appreciation week (I was reminded by Blue Kae just like last year). This being the MMO "Love In" I can hardly pass it up :-)
After some serious thought, this year my shout out goes to Bioware. Star Wars the Old Republic is the best new MMO, to my personal tastes, since Lord of the Rings Online launched ages ago. Since launch, SWTOR has given me an enormous amount of entertainment. I love the environments, the storylines, and the costume designs. Bioware created a world filled with interesting narratives that is a joy to explore.
I also feel that SWTOR is an important evolutionary advance over the DIKU style MMOs that came before it. For whatever reason Bioware doesn't seem to be getting much credit for that. The fully dialogued branching story-lines are an obvious advance over the narrative presentation of previous MMOs; even the worst curmudgeons generally seem to get that. The fact that roughly 30% of your solo quests are unique to your class is also a huge improvement over most quest based MMOs. Beyond that, there are additional changes to the WoW/ EQ formula that the game seems to get no credit for. I don't want this to be a novel, so I'm going to focus on two examples:
Combat against groups: Combat in SWTOR is balanced around groups of mobs rather than single mobs, and the mobs you encounter vary greatly in their difficulty. A combat with three normal mobs, one or two normals and a silver, or a single gold (all very common encounter combos) require very different approaches. This adds a sense of variety to solo PvE questing that is nearly absent from most MMOs. You absolutely cannot use the same strategy to pull a gold (an elite) that you use to whack down a group of minions.
It's not like WoW or EQ II where there are the occasional weak mobs that are tied at the hip in very specific areas, and other areas (likely most) where you mainly get weak solo mobs on the majority of pulls. In every single solo quest area of SWTOR you will encounter an admixture of strong and weak mobs grouped together in different combinations, and you need to be ready to deal with any of them. Getting to the point where you can easily deal with any group of mobs you'll likely encounter makes you feel like an utter badass. My SWTOR characters feel more powerful than some of my characters in Super Hero MMOs like City of Heroes or Champions Online.
Companions: yes indeedy there are a number of MMOs where you can adventure with NPCs that are nearly as powerful as you. Guild Wars, Everquest, Lord of the Rings Online, and Dungeons and Dragons Online off the top of my head. However, in no other MMO (that I am aware of) do these NPCs feel like real individuals you can interact with. In SWTOR your companions have distinct personalities that you either dig or irritate you. They are fully characterized. If you level your affection with a given companion far enough, they will also open up unique side-quests. There is no system like this that I know of in other MMOs, where who you choose to hang out with really alters the course of your game.
These are just two examples, I didn't even get into the crafting system or the new legacy system. While everyone and their granny seems to be cursing Bioware for not being innovative enough in their latest offering (e.g., "It's WoW with a Star Wars skin!!!"), Bioware actually offered us a new MMO with a number of important evolutionary steps over previous DIKU MMOs.
My belief is that a silent majority of MMO players rarely group. Bioware has enhanced soloing to a level that previous MMO designers haven't even contemplated. On top of that, all the standard group fare you'd expect in a full featured MMO (battlegrounds, raids, group quests, ect.) are still there. You may not care for the innovations Bioware brought to the table, but Bioware has indeed innovated in SWTOR.
Honorable mention: I think I bring them up every year, but yeah Turbine again. I recently got an entire new adventuring area in LoTRO 100% free due to being a lifer. The expansion coming to Dungeons and Dragons Online over the summer also looks fantastic. Other MMOs may come and go, but LoTRO and DDO are the ones I always come back to.
After some serious thought, this year my shout out goes to Bioware. Star Wars the Old Republic is the best new MMO, to my personal tastes, since Lord of the Rings Online launched ages ago. Since launch, SWTOR has given me an enormous amount of entertainment. I love the environments, the storylines, and the costume designs. Bioware created a world filled with interesting narratives that is a joy to explore.
I also feel that SWTOR is an important evolutionary advance over the DIKU style MMOs that came before it. For whatever reason Bioware doesn't seem to be getting much credit for that. The fully dialogued branching story-lines are an obvious advance over the narrative presentation of previous MMOs; even the worst curmudgeons generally seem to get that. The fact that roughly 30% of your solo quests are unique to your class is also a huge improvement over most quest based MMOs. Beyond that, there are additional changes to the WoW/ EQ formula that the game seems to get no credit for. I don't want this to be a novel, so I'm going to focus on two examples:
Combat against groups: Combat in SWTOR is balanced around groups of mobs rather than single mobs, and the mobs you encounter vary greatly in their difficulty. A combat with three normal mobs, one or two normals and a silver, or a single gold (all very common encounter combos) require very different approaches. This adds a sense of variety to solo PvE questing that is nearly absent from most MMOs. You absolutely cannot use the same strategy to pull a gold (an elite) that you use to whack down a group of minions.
It's not like WoW or EQ II where there are the occasional weak mobs that are tied at the hip in very specific areas, and other areas (likely most) where you mainly get weak solo mobs on the majority of pulls. In every single solo quest area of SWTOR you will encounter an admixture of strong and weak mobs grouped together in different combinations, and you need to be ready to deal with any of them. Getting to the point where you can easily deal with any group of mobs you'll likely encounter makes you feel like an utter badass. My SWTOR characters feel more powerful than some of my characters in Super Hero MMOs like City of Heroes or Champions Online.
Companions: yes indeedy there are a number of MMOs where you can adventure with NPCs that are nearly as powerful as you. Guild Wars, Everquest, Lord of the Rings Online, and Dungeons and Dragons Online off the top of my head. However, in no other MMO (that I am aware of) do these NPCs feel like real individuals you can interact with. In SWTOR your companions have distinct personalities that you either dig or irritate you. They are fully characterized. If you level your affection with a given companion far enough, they will also open up unique side-quests. There is no system like this that I know of in other MMOs, where who you choose to hang out with really alters the course of your game.
These are just two examples, I didn't even get into the crafting system or the new legacy system. While everyone and their granny seems to be cursing Bioware for not being innovative enough in their latest offering (e.g., "It's WoW with a Star Wars skin!!!"), Bioware actually offered us a new MMO with a number of important evolutionary steps over previous DIKU MMOs.
My belief is that a silent majority of MMO players rarely group. Bioware has enhanced soloing to a level that previous MMO designers haven't even contemplated. On top of that, all the standard group fare you'd expect in a full featured MMO (battlegrounds, raids, group quests, ect.) are still there. You may not care for the innovations Bioware brought to the table, but Bioware has indeed innovated in SWTOR.
Honorable mention: I think I bring them up every year, but yeah Turbine again. I recently got an entire new adventuring area in LoTRO 100% free due to being a lifer. The expansion coming to Dungeons and Dragons Online over the summer also looks fantastic. Other MMOs may come and go, but LoTRO and DDO are the ones I always come back to.
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