Power Leveling

I just had a thought. One of Blizzard's (and other game companies') biggest headaches through the years has been illegitimate power leveling and gold farming, along with the various hackings and stolen accounts/items that go with it. What have they done to prevent it? One thing has been to lower the relative price of many expensive aspects of the game (like mounts). While some players decry this as simplifying and dumbing down the game, it also disincentivizes the illegitimate purchase of gold through RMT. Other games simply simply introduce RMT directly into the game in various ways, like making mounts available in the cash shop.

What about the other aspect, power leveling? There have been various approaches taken so far; one of course, is to shorten the leveling game, despite increasing the number of levels. What might be another way to get players into the portion of the game many seem to want to be, quickly?

~~~

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Social Mobility, or, No Class

The MMO Gypsy has a post up about instant class switching—specifically in WoW, I think. I'm not sure from her tone whether Syl thinks it would be a good idea or not. She refers to an earlier post by Tesh regarding a move by the folks behind Allods to implement such a class switching scheme, though it seems extremely limited. [Late Breaking EDIT: Kleps has a counterpoint to Syl's post (and this one).]

When Blizzard first introduced dual specs, I didn't like the idea. I thought it was catering to PvPers who wanted to have their cake and eat the PvE Raid, too. But once it was implemented, I went ahead and got it for two of my characters, with varying degrees of success. All too often at the time, switching specs also meant different gear stats became important. For instance, spell crit was very important for my Disco Priest because of various crit procs. Switching to Holy meant spell haste was more important. But I didn't have the time or interest to develop another set of gear. I suspect hybrid classes like Druid and Paladins had it even worse.

Once I started playing Star Trek Online, the cry for dual specs came out once again, or at least multiple skill tree options. I advocated for the specialization of characters, though I was not averse to the relative ease of respec'ing. Part of my argument was a reference to Blizzard's approach to specialization.

But just because the Elephant and its predecessors forced specialization on players doesn't mean it was written in stone from on high. This blog is, if anything, a record of how my opinions have changed over the past few years. No need to cling to foolish consistencies. More recently, I railed against class/race restrictions in the upcoming Wildstar. SWTOR's class/race restrictions chafed a bit before that. I welcomed WoW's expansion of class/race combinations, and the fact that Blizzard came up with reasons for it within the lore.

Rift, while maintaining the four RPG archetypes(Callings), allows for instant switching of Souls and roles. With the upcoming expansion—maybe sooner—every Calling will have Souls to fill every role.

And finally we come to my current games. EverQuest II, a relic of the golden age of MMOs still has classes, but having just introduced paid-for 85s, what's to stop SOE from allowing complete class switcheroos, for a price? EverQuest Next promises to do away with designated Tanks, if not Healers. I have no idea what Zenimax has in mind for The Elder Scrolls Online.

The Secret World is a classless game. A character can develop the skills for any weapon in the game, and their abilities and role are tied to the weapon instead of the character. For all intents and purposes a player can "switch classes" at any time. Gear, in the form of talismans, is still specialized, and I carry multiple sets in order to be effective in the various roles. The standard way to unlock the skills and abilities is by applying XP earned through playing, but boosts are available in the cash shop. Is that any different than the proposal to level up a character as one class, then pay to switch?

I wrote a while back about character backstories and how class could play into that. Of course, it may not be essential, since my characters' backstories in TSW involve professions only peripherally related to their preferred weapons. At the same time, the RP community in TSW is as robust as any I've seen in a game; perhaps better than most.

The goal of every MMO developer is to maximize the number of people paying to play their game, regardless of their business model. Separating players from their friends for whatever reason is antithetical to that goal. If the group has too many of one class/role and not enough of another, why not make it reasonably easy to change the character imbalance without changing the player composition?

~~~

If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Tokenism

If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements.
~~~

Well, I've procrastinated enough this morning, and my extra hour for writing has frittered down to less than half. Unlike Belghast, I don't suffer from insomnia (normally a good thing), so I have trouble getting out of bed in the morning. I was up and dressed and when down to the dining area to get breakfast fairly early. Amusingly, I even saw a coworker who had clearly just tumbled out of bed to grab some coffee. Unfortunately, none of that has really brought me any closer to a topic.

Bad Luck Tokens

Belghast brought up a topic near to my gamer's heart this morning: the vagaries of RNG as a method for getting gear. He and a friend came up with the idea for "Bad Luck Tokens" that players might receive if they don't get any drops in a dungeon or raid. Accumulating several of these tokens would enable the player to buy gear from a special vendor, maybe not Best-in-Slot, but certainly noteworthy. I immediately thought of the various tiers of tokens folks get for heroics every day in WoW (or at least they did during WotLK).

Balkoth and I had a lively discussion a few months ago about this very topic, and ended up basically agreeing to disagree. You may guess what side of the argument I was on. While RNG has its place, the laws of probability will always leave a certain number of players out in the cold, so to speak. But too many people fail to realize it, because many more players eventually get the desired item—or something better that comes out in the next patch.

Anyway, gotta run. There are computer networks to put together today. I hope everyone has a good one.

What Raiding Was—and Isn't—for Me

I fear that I have come across as belittling end-game raiding in several recent posts. I don't. I know it requires a lot of individual skill and team coordination. But what end-game raiding is not, is something I enjoy doing.

I was involved in "casual" raiding guilds for at least a year, total, between TBC and WotLK. Those people provided a form of friendship as I went through some tough times in my life. WoW was my escape hatch, my pressure valve. I raided because that's what my online friends were doing. But we were all there for different reasons. Eventually, I had to take a break from raiding because business put me in time zones incompatible with our raid times, not to mention the interesting things to see and do in the places I visited.

When I first stepped out into Coldridge Valley in the summer of 2006, I was almost awestruck at the incredible world Blizzard created. The novelty and sense of adventure I experienced through Vanilla and two expansions was wonderful.

Raiding is not that for me. I eventually decided it was not how I wanted to spend my evenings. Repeating content over and over for weeks and months—regardless of how easy it became before we moved on to the next challenge—lost its appeal long before I came to the realization that my raid group didn't really need me. I was totally replaceable.

And that was OK, because I moved on to other things, other games. I haven't spent nearly as much time playing other games as I did playing World of Warcraft. Within a month or so after I quit raiding, I met my lovely bride, and things changed again.

I may be a bit of a gaming nomad now, but I am not alone in my wanderings.

Doom Raids and Dice Rolls, or Chasing the Loot Piñata

Today, I am responding to a continued discussion Balkoth and I were having in the commentary of my Guild Drama post from earlier this week. Since the conversation was dragging on, I decided to cheat and get another post out of the deal.

Some of this might not make sense if you haven't followed that thread, especially since some of the points Balkoth brings up are less about Guild Drama, per se, and more about Raid mechanics, and why I personally do not participate in raids in any game (all quote blocks from Balkoth unless otherwise noted):

I'm mainly curious in what's making you tick here since game design is something that interests me and I admit I find many of your desires perplexing. They make sense from an individual perspective but they would seem to be terrible game design — hence my questions to probe at the heart of the matter.

This is ME!

Before I take this any further, I want to point out that I feel Balkoth is operating from Whatever I Think Is Un-Fun Is Bad Game Design Syndrome. I have repeatedly stated what I enjoy about about MMORPGs and what I do not; even things that I used to enjoy that I do no longer—like raiding—and why. And I am far from unique in my opinion that certain aspects of raid design and gameplay are not enjoyable.

Keeping Up with the Proudmoores

Jeromai had brought up ArenaNet's personal reward system wherein each individual player gets a private reward for killing a boss. This works out generally well in Guild Wars, where "grouping" is often no more formal than standing next to someone and shooting at the same thing they are. We won't go into here how the lack of competition for resources and kills creates a friendlier player atmosphere in the game, in my opinion.

Needless to say, I agree with Jeromai's assessment. However, Balkoth begs to differ, because it "eliminates part of the raiding meta-game."

Except we're talking about a social group, right? Where you know what gear others have? And can see that some of their gear has changed? . . . You will remember what your guildmates have, though (especially if you notice that they recently obtained an item you want).

There is only a certain subset of player who care enough about the gear of others to bother to inspect them. Even in my closest Guild groups, I think I can count on my fingers and toes the total number of times I have inspected someone's gear with more than mild interest in a given piece of gear. In seven years of MMO gaming. And to know whether it's changed since the last time I looked? Not a chance.

No Wonder It's Called Playing Craps

Balkoth had asked whether I disliked the pace of gearing or the randomness to which I responded, "The Randomness."

So let's say the current averages you at 0.5 items per boss killed and you will, on average, get your ideal set in 50 boss kills. Would you prefer a system where each time you kill a boss you get 0.1 items and you're guaranteed to get your ideal set in 250 kills? You'd always make progress toward your goal...but you'd make it more slowly.

I'll ignore the fact that Balkoth changes the rate of progress between his two scenarios and go with the faulty reasoning of the "average." Most RPG designers use Random Number Generation to determine what drops out of a loot table on any given kill, in addition a host of other game events (fight damage, etc.) I saw an article a few months ago, I cannot for the life of me remember where, that discussed a problem with this system when dealing with a quest drop. The scenario follows as best I can remember.

Let's say the devs design a quest to collect a doodad off a specific type of mob. Since I can't remember, we'll call them "Zhevra Hooves." They build the loot table so there is a one in ten chance for the hoof to drop, and then place ten zhevras in the general vicinity of the quest. The assumption here is that by the end of the killing the ten zhevras, the player will have the hoof. The problem is that each kill resets the dice roll. The player's chances of getting the hoof are no better on the tenth zhevra than they were on the first. A certain percentage of players will get the hoof on their first kill and a certain percentage of players will not get a hoof within ten kills, therefore having to wait for the respawn. In fact, it's within the realm of possibility (though highly unlikely) that a player will never get that hoof. (Just for journalistic integrity: the actual drop rate for Zhevra hooves is about 31%, overall. The article proposed a way of increasing the drop rate based on the number of kills already done, but it hasn't been implemented in any game that I aware of.

Now back to endgame gearing. In the scenario Balkoth favors, he says the average of 0.5 items per boss killed leads to an average accumulation of an ideal set in 50 boss kills. By that I infer that there are 25 components in an ideal set; and that, at a minimum, a player would need 25 successful boss-kills to get the set. (This ignores the possibility that a single boss might drop more than one component of the set, but these numbers a complete ass-pull, anyway. I suspect that the true mean rate of gear progression is far lower than 50 boss kills, or even 50 complete raids.) Such a lucky person is likely being carried by a group of friends—who don't need any of the gear—doing this person a favor. Remember, it's not just about the loot dropping, but winning whatever system is in place to actually receive the loot over everyone else in the group. (Full disclosure, I have been carried in such a way, fairly recently.)

Since there is a discrete non-zero minimum and it's fairly close to the mean that Balkoth references, I'd guess that a majority of players might get their gear between 25 and 50 boss-kills, in that scenario. The reason I'd guess that is because there is no upper limit in that probability curve. It's entirely possible that some players would never complete the set in any number of boss-kills, certainly not within a reasonable number like 150. And the Game devs, with every new raid tier and every expansion, slide the goalposts further back, meaning this patch's ideal set will be next patch's vendor trash, at least for those hard-core souls on the bleeding edge of content. So for many players, maybe most., the slow, steady progress of tokens or currency is at least an alternative to "striking it rich" with dice rolls and loot piñatas.

And I'm not just talking abstractly. Poor drop rates on RNG loot is a significant source of angst for many players. How many players like me have decided the loot is just not worth the time and effort? The grind through the first four or five bosses to get to the next one, to bash our collective heads against it until it's down, to get it eventually "on farm" and move on to the next because we're finally all geared up enough is simply not interesting enough, in and of itself, and then the rate of extrinsic reward is pathetic as well. In the case of WoW, the gold sinks of repairs and such were so onerous they had to create dailies, just so people could make the gold they needed to be able to continue raiding. And don't get me started on the disparities between PvE and PvP gear, and gear progression.

Yes, people will argue that the RNG of loot drops is what makes killing a boss exciting, but after killing a boss for the 20th time and still not seeing that sword you want, I don't think it's really excitement that you're describing.
~Dan Sz, Altoholism, "The Problem with Boss Loot"

This video from the excellent folks at Penny Arcade discusses the Skinner Box of RNG, and the difference between compelling gameplay and engaging gameplay:

"L2P" - The Warcry of the Hard Core

I also said, "In end-game raiding, the only progress is gear-based (especially if you're a guide student, not going in "blind" to learn the fights)." To which Balkoth responded:

I think you're seriously underestimating the difficulty of execution. Even something like "Dodge the lightning orbs on Heroic Jin'rokh" — that's a lot harder to actually do than it is to read in a guide.

Balkoth, I think you're terribly underestimating my ability to gauge difficulty. The Gatekeeper DPS challenge in Rift (with no other reward than unlocking Nightmare modes [EDIT: and some XP]) is simple: don't stand in the fire, purge at the right time, and stay away from the add—all while while maintaining a steady rate of damage on Oscar himself. Anyone who's actually done it can tell you how difficult those instructions are to execute. I'd estimate it took me at least 8 hours of actual game-time—and countless attempts—to learn the "dance" and complete the challenge. And that was after I made sure I had an "ideal" set of gear, not to mention "spell" rotation. Even then, my preparation was probably sub-optimal.

But my point was that unless a group is on the bleeding edge or going in blind on purpose, there are plenty of guides out there on every boss fight in every MMO. Raid leaders (and members) are expected to study them to learn good strategies for beating each boss. Execution is a different story, and folks going in blind will have to the learn the fights "the hard way." In all honesty, I prefer this method, because there is an element of surprise and excitement to the dungeon. But hard-charging loot hounds would rather get it done as quickly and efficiently as possible. Make no mistake, I love experiencing new dungeon mechanics, and mastering them. But then I want to move on. I want the challenges to be skill-based, not gear-based.

Think about this the next time you see some player character in truly Epic Pixels strutting their stuff in Orgrimmar, Destiny's Reach, or Meridian: Despite what may be months or even years of raiding, learning strategies and tactics for epic battles against nigh invincible foes, everything they're wearing boils down to good luck on some random dice rolls.
~Me

As a concrete example of a game in which I have found my "desires" fulfilled, I greatly prefer The Secret World's system of gear progression. While there are loot tables and RNG, the crafting system is set up in such a way that gear no one needs can be broken down into materials that can be combined into things the players do need. The endgame dungeons have tokens that represent steady progress toward better gear, in addition to the random drops. And then the mysteries, narrative, and other features of TSW—while not necessarily unique to the game, as shown in the PA video above—are engaging enough to keep me interested, without the top-end gear chase.

Perplexing Playstyles

There is no One True Game ideally designed to appeal to everyone. If there were, I suspect we would all be playing it. But there isn't, hence the proliferation of different games, not just in the MMORPG genre, but all forms of "play."

I've said it before: "You may not be an "always-on" hardcore player, but you clearly find enjoyment in doing different things in game than I do. And that's OK." [EDIT: I felt my style of play was being criticized.] I find that all too often devs and players forget that the R in in RPG stands for Role and not Roll. But I'm not saying you have to stand around a tavern speaking pseudo-archaic English; something I almost never do, either. If you're into min-maxing and raid progression through lucky rolls on loot, that's great. Not everyone wants to play that way.  I hope that clears up my perplexing position on Gearing and Progression.

Are You Ready for This?

Yesterday, I woke up at 5:45 a.m. (about an hour before I normally do) and decided to get ready for work, then write an early morning blog post like Belghast, since I had the time. Because I didn't want to drag out my laptop (no permanent desk set-up at home for me) I decided to write it on a steno pad. I've done this a couple times before, and it actually works pretty well, especially for avoiding internet distractions. (Like the five minute fruitless "research" I just went through trying to find one article of many I read yesterday.) However, I never got around to typing what I'd written in the Blogger interface.

Having defeated the Gatekeeper's DPS Challenge, I now kind of wonder what's next for me and TSW. Unlike some other games, it seems like there's still plenty to do. I haven't finished the main Storyline missions on any character, and still have yet to even get the Ability Wheel half-complete on any character. There's lore to gather, regional missions to complete, etc., ad nauseum. And Nightmares. And the Issue #8 is expected to drop next week. Whew! So the Gatekeeper really isn't the end, or even really the signal of endgame.

Am I really ready for Nightmare mode? Magson offered helpful advice about getting into noobling Nightmares. But I think you know, Dear Reader, how I feel about PUGs. Luckily, Galactrix and the rest of Beyond the Veil have been chomping at the bit to group up and do some Nightmares. I am willing to run them, but the urge to complete another gear grind just isn't there.

Interestingly enough, Belghast posted this morning about a great PUG analogy he came across yesterday that reflected an experience he had last week in FFXIV. TL;DR: no le fue bien.

Polishing My Oscar

It is, as they say, finished. After doing some research and tweaking my build a bit, and making sure I had the absolute best talismans I could currently get, I went and faced Oscar again. This was only the third day I'd tried, the first two being Monday and Tuesday evenings. I needed to get some AP first, to purchase some Hammer abilities that had been suggested to me by CherryBomb, so I ran "Enter the Filth" and then worked on my story missions and Issue 7 stuff in Shadowy Forest before facing Oscar again.

I discovered that while my purge opportunities (needed for Phase 2) came from Hinder procs, Oscar is immune to Hinder; so I was screwed using that old build. You'll see what I did use below.

As you'll see even further below, Magson suggested I focus on shotgun abilities. However, there are some parts of Oscar's platform outside the shotgun range, so I used Elemental abilities for sustained damage no matter where I was positioned. The deck I used to beat Oscar:

Actives:

• Ignition (Strike) ~ This is the only builder I ended up using;  728 DPS at my current Combat Power.
• Raging Bullet (Strike) ~ 573-1348 damage, depending on range. I had to have my purple shotgun equipped for the Weapon Power, but this ended up being the only Shotgun active in my "victory deck."
• Lightning Manifestation (Stationary Chain "turret") ~ More for the purge of Lightning in Bottle (passive), though the added DPS was nice.
• Speed Freak (Buff) ~ For a boost in Phase 3, when the little red guy chased me around.
• Turn the Tables (Heal) ~ just in case. I think I used it once or twice, not absolutely sure it's necessary.
• Short Fuse (Buff) ~ 25% increase in DPS with Final Fuse, again for Phase 3.
• Thor's Hammer (Strike) ~ 1860-some-odd damage. I only used it when LM was on cooldown during Phase 1; too risky during the other phases.
• Vector-Space ~ I used it a bit, but the aux weapons aren't necessary to beat Oscar, and I have a mod (or something) that provides an occasional heal, which was useless, given the no-heals debuff Oscar threw on me. (Strangely, TtT is unaffected by this debuff.)

Passives:

• Lightning in a Bottle ~ Causes LM to purge buffs; important during Phase 2. This ended up being my guaranteed purge, but I had to time it so that it covered Oscar's three one-shot-you self buffs.
• Elemental Force ~ Guaranteed crit every 8 hits.
• Final Fuse ~ Increases percent damage increase of Short Fuse to 25% for 10 seconds, used during Phase 3.
• Big Bang~ Increases damage of Lightning Manifestation (and other things).
• Grounded ~ Purges cause damage. (Honestly not sure how this stacked with LM/LiaB.)
• Strike Force ~ Increases Penetration chance of Strikes by 7.5%.
• Wrecking Crew ~ Increases crit power of Strikes by 20%.
• Energy Transfer (in this case) ~ Reduces the damage of Vector while increasing the damage of Space.

In my post about fighting Oscar from a few days ago, I requested some advice from my readers, and got a couple responses, like the suggestion from CherryBomb through Twitter. Magson, however, did a thorough workup of a good build and posted it in the comments. . . about 45 minutes after I'd beaten Oscar with the build described above. I wanted to include it here with my gratitude for his research efforts. [My comments look like this.]

Actives:

• Striker - Builder. Same damage as Single Barrel, is a Strike so you don't need a 2nd builder in Ignition, and always takes advantage of Strike Force passive for the 7.5% penetration increase. [I had SB on my deck earlier this week. I don't have Striker, but I could have gotten it. I didn't even see it, but most of my abilities were Elemental anyway, due to the range issue mentioned above.]

• Out for a Kill - Consumer. Raging Bullet does max damage at melee range. OfaK does identical damage to that max but at all ranges. [Despite more consistent damage than Raging Bullet, OfaK is not a Strike, which is what I built many of my passives around. Besides, at my Combat Power, it was only about a 15% difference at max distance.]

• Flame Strike - Strike consumer with same cast time as the GCD and only 2 resources so it can be cast faster and more often than Thor's Hammer and thus have higher sustained dps. [FS would have been great, but I haven't worked on that arc of the wheel at all.]

• Magnetic Wipe - Purge [I was actually working on the points for MW when I decided to give Oscar another go and ended up beating him.]

• Turn the Tables - self heal  [I used that one!]

• Short Fuse - Excellent buff! [I used that one, too!]

• Breaching Shot - Excellent buff #2! [BS would have been good. I use it regularly.]

Passives

• Strike Force - increased pen chance for Strike attacks [I used that one!]

• Iron Maiden - increased pen chance for all attacks, after you pen an afflicted target [I don't have the ability.]

• Bloodsport - applies afflict on any non-glancing hit [Works with Iron Maiden. But glances remove the afflict. Might have worked, but I am honestly not sure how much I was glancing.]

• Incision - pens cause an additional afflict [I don't have the ability.]

• 3rd Degree - every 4th pen causes another afflict [I don't have the ability.]

• Sudden Return - pens do additional damage [I don't have the ability.]

• Gross Anatomy - when afflicts expire another hit is taken by the target. Whenever I've parsed this out with 3 afflicts in the build like this it does as much damage as a finisher - passively. It's awesome! [I don't have the ability.]

Downside to this build is that it needs 2 blade passives which you'd have to build toward, and you don't have a lot of Blood on your chronicle, so it's unlikely that you have 3rd Degree or Gross Anatomy either. So an alternate set of passives might be like this. The 4 substitutions are:

• Mind over Matter - afflicts on critical hit  [I have a low crit rating (7.9% chance) other than the guaranteed 8th hit from Elemental Force.]

• Brawler - +15% crit damage [Low crit rating]

• Elemental Force - every 8th hit is a crit. Make your rotation put this on Out for a Kill as much as possible. [I used that one! (Not OfaK)]

• Cool, Calm, and Collected - 8% boost to all damage for 10s after a crit. EF keeps this up 100% of the time. [Could've worked.]

Magson mentioned some other things from his research, like you should have at least 600 DPS (which I did). Everything else is about positioning (shifting almost constantly) and kiting the little red guy at the end. Magson mentioned practicing against the target dummies in the faction HQs, helpful for checking DPS and rotation. Personally, I despise DPS meters, and based on my research into offensive stats, I knew I was good on that front. My DPS only suffered on Monday and Tuesday when I stopped casting to reposition.

The most important thing is to understand the fight itself and a few key things about each phase. Then practice the dance. Once I became more comfortable with moving around—and developed a plan for avoiding the circles—casting wasn't a problem. But since challenging Oscar and learning the fight comes without cost other than time spent (in other words, no repair bill), I stand by my comment that the only way to "practice" for Oscar is to practice with Oscar.

Other than having a guaranteed purge handy, I have no advice for weapons. OH! Many casts include a self-hinder, like Assault Rifle "aimed" shots. Using these will guarantee that the little red guy in Phase 3 will get you. So make sure you have plenty of instant casts, or at least casts that allow you to run. I didn't use Thor's Hammer at all during Phase 3.

Optimizing My Time

This morning I have read two posts on Guild Wars 2, one from Syp on reaching the end of the character story, and the other from Kleps, comparing GW2 "hearts" with quests in WoW.

As I commented on Syp's post, Scooterz and I became bored with the storyline quest about the time we entered Orr, and after helping some Guildies from the Knights of Mercy with the endcap dragon battle instance, we basically stopped playing.

Scooterz has a very organized way of playing any game. In TSW, she has written down all the mission givers with their missions, checking them off as we complete them. In GW2, she tracked the hearts we had done in each zone so we could complete them before moving onto another one. Left to my own devices, I am generally more off-the-cuff in my playstyle. I tend to wander hither and thither, relying on UI elements in the game to track such accomplishments.

I loved doing the heart quests and dynamic events in GW2. But I started concentrating on the daily achievements in order to get the rewards. Allowing myself to get caught up in the loot grind (because that's what it was) instead of just helping out where I was "needed" may have ruined the game for me. Even now, reading about the constantly changing events—each with daily rituals to perform—is a huge turn-off.

I realize that this is entirely my own problem, and I am not necessarily criticizing ANet for their game design, other than how it feeds my obsessive need to "work" for said achievement rewards. I was much happier wandering around Tyria helping folks out before I realized there were "dailies."

This personal feeling, this desire to help out, bleeds into my characterization of my two main characters in TSW. Samantha and Karl are both inclined to help individuals in dire straits despite the big-picture admonitions of their superiors in their respective Secret Societies. Hinageshi, on the other hand, is all about slaying monsters of every stripe—an archetypal knight templar, despite being a Dragon.

Kleps defends GW2 hearts and dynamic events, with the quite reasonable explanation that they are about "keeping the world from collapsing, rather than raising it up." I agree with this assessment and am reminded by his post of why and how I enjoyed GW2 in the first place. As I said on Syp's post, I liked the non-epic early chapters of the personal story far more than the later, "world-changing" chapters. I think the relatively penny-ante picking of apples, culling of spiders, and routing of bandits are a much better design of activities and fit a fairly static world; much like our own, truth be told.

But that's just me. What do you think? Do you prefer the small "help out the farmer" quests, or the epic "slay the grand villain" quests?

The League of Extraordinary Knights

The Knights of Mercy did a bit of Elite dungeoneering last night, after a sort of hiatus where we killed oodles of Guardians in a mad rush for vanity items. Of, course two thirds of TSW is vanity items, so there is that.

First, the helicopter ride. I never seem to get fight pics anymore. It always starts with an innocent trip. Everyone's lost in their own thoughts, or tired . . . or slightly bored. For some reason, Thermic (Mr. GC) is never in my field of view. But look at those awesome outfits:

Laeyn Lafitte (MMOGC) and Dex-y Dieu-Le-Veut (Scooterz)

Chucho Arjan Singh (Tententacles), Sikh Red Agent Man
"No, Herr Eichenherz, I expect you to die."

"What? I can't even see her with this stupid eye patch on!"

Dancing in their seats.

One more gratuitous shot.

For some reason, the Elite Ur-Draug ("Cthulhu") kept hitting us harder and harder with every wipe. During the third encounter, we had him down to 5k health when disaster struck. And it only got worse from there. Right before the last fight (we finally downed him), MMOGC (the tank) left the instance and returned, which seemed to solve the issue for her. I still got caught in a cleave that hit me for almost 19k. That's about 15k overkill, considering my DPS-oriented glass-cannon build, and also about 7k more than any tank I've seen could survive. (Chucho was RIGHT, dammit!)

Buuuut, they clearly didn't need me, because they mowed him down while I was stuck in the penalty box. So here we are gloating over his carcass, while the Orochi'copter waits to pick us up. Either we're the most elegant group of Draug slayers in the game or a cadre of Bond villains:

The League of Extraordinary Knights

30 Days—Or, Who Is Valuable?

I hate when a game (or just the game company) forces me to play a certain way that is contrary to my normal gaming mode. When I reached endgame during Wrath of the Lich King, I ended up grinding dailies for reputation, rather than questing for new story content; and don't even get me started on the crapfest that is high-end raiding. Sometimes, as with this past week, it isn't so much my playstyle as the underlying motivation that changes.

So after the hubbub from the non-50s out there over the bestowal of 30 free days to SWTOR end-gamers, as the "most valuable players" in the game, Dr. Greg Zeschuk announced a revision of the "gift" to include people who had been playing a lot, but hadn't quite gotten to level 50 with any one character. All a player had to do was get their Legacy up to level 6. Since any activity with all characters in the Legacy gives Legacy XP,  this rewarded players with multiple alts. As of the time of the revision announcement, I was about 60% through Legacy 5, so last Sunday I played my highest level character (in theory, making the most progress per hour toward L-6), a mid-30s Sith Assassin on Taris. I hadn't been playing Tollkirsche much at all since achieving Legacy status in the first place. I am not fond of the game mechanics of the Assassin/Shadow advanced class. But on Sunday, I spent over eight hours leveling both Tollkisrche and my Legacy. I won't say it was unpleasant, the first part of the Inquisitor's Chapter 2 is interesting enough. and I am looking forward to having a new companion at the end of Taris. But I was playing to level, which is something I though I had gotten away from in SWTOR, what with BioWare's vaunted Fourth Pillar. As it turns out, I should perhaps have concentrated on helping Sctrz, because I ended up attaining L-7 this past Saturday, before the noon Sunday deadline.

Sctrz was not so lucky. On Saturday after some discussion, we started a character on Sctrz' account that I could play to help her level her Legacy, but that would not interfere with any of her existing characters for which she wants to know the story. Thus Serise was born, a tribute the drawings of @strawbeki of Forceheal. I didn't start to actually play Serise until last Sunday evening, a week before the deadline, and then only got her up to about level 10, barely making a dent in Sctrz' Legacy. Sctrz had schoolwork far more important than any video game, while I have had some time both at home and while away on business to play plenty of SWTOR. She ended up playing quite a bit over the course of the week, and I never really got back on Serise to level her any further.  Right now, Sctrz' Legacy is almost 4, I believe. She just isn't that valuable to EA/BioWare.

In the end, it's only 15 bucks, not that big a deal in the financial scheme of things. And it is nice that BioWare realized they had insulted a large chunk of their playerbase and tried to make amends. The problem, similar to En Masse's tone-deaf "MMO-FO" TERA campaign, is that EA Bioware seems to have forgotten who their long-term playerbase is or is going to be. Granted, this may be fan myopia on my part since I think of myself this way, but the long-term subscribers are going to be those that feel they are getting their money's worth out of the "leveling" game, not the PvP arenas or the end-game raids. Paraphrasing someone whose comments I've lost, it would be one thing if BioWare had said, "Hey level 50s, stick around for a bit, we've got some cool stuff for you to check out." Instead, by stating that those people milling about at "end-game"—and whom EA/BW were afraid on the brink of unsubbing—were BW's most valuable players, they implied that anyone else—including people who had been subscribing since before launch day, and were still leveling, however slowly—was "not as valuable." Even the adjusted requirements leave some out in the cold.

Those who didn't understand the outrage over the free month, versus the 7 free days for former players or the free weekend for anyone that just passed, didn't get that the offended players could tell these were obviously marketing ploys, phrased in a "please come back" sort of way. The free month could have been phrased that way, and I would have found it more palatable. I don't see the inconsistency in attitude from the slighted segment of the fanbase at all. Nor do I see the outrage at the outrage at all helpful. Those who were upset had a legitimate complaint, those that didn't have a dog in the fight had no business sitting in judgment of those that did. While I agree that people can be offended where no offense was intended, and sometimes that can seem silly, isn't that at the root of many harassment claims? The standard in those cases is not intent, but effect. EDIT: Sadly, many fans take things too far; I don't know if that happened here.

So going back to my original point in this post, in the end it is not the $15 saved or spent by my gameplay this week that peeves me. It is the fact that I shifted from enjoying the story of SWTOR to pursuing a certain level, just for some meta-game benefit. I felt I had to play, not that I wanted to play. It became a job of sorts rather than a source of relaxation, the way a hobby should be.

What Kind of MMO Player Am I?

I do entirely too much soapboxing on this blog and not enough storytelling. But like most people, I have an opinion; and this is my personal venue for expressing it. A lot is being said in the gaming Twitterverse and Blogosphere with regards to community. Scarybooster has made several posts lately about the quality of the community in various games. Something inspired MMOGC to post about honorable PvP. And Syp, just yesterday, made a post about dealing with Anti-hype. I should have read his advice before getting into a squabble myself on Twitter yesterday. Haters will keep hatin'. Fanbois will keep . . . uh . . . fanning?

The world has a label for those people play certain games: Gamers. Athletic-game players are usually not included in this term. The net nanny at my office blocks gaming news sites, but not ESPN and the like. Reminds me of the way Dex Jettster referred to the Kaminoan "Cloners" in hushed tones in "Attack of the Clones." Much like the terms "Muslim" or "Christian" actually encompass hugely diverse groups of people of differing opinions and philosophies, this broad term, "Gamer," encompasses many different styles of gameplay, from tabletop role-playing and war games, to video-game console first person shooters, RPGs, and massively multiplayer online games. Within MMOGs, you have gamers who prefer player vs. player combat, and others who are so-called end-game raiders. You have casual as opposed to hardcore, long-time veterans and newcomers. Also like the religious terms, the groups encompassed by the term "Gamer" are often at each other's throats over what is the one true way to play the game. Sometimes a player's choice not only of gameplay but their game choice, itself, is derided by other gamers. Frankly, I am sick of it.

I quoted Robert E. Howard in a post in early September:

"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing."

This is more true today in the Internet age than it ever has been in the history of the world. I read in either the book Collapse or Guns, Germs and Steel, both by Jared Diamond, that the people of New Guinea are both smarter than the average American and far more polite. This is because they are more likely to die in a homicide than any any American or European could dream of. Of course, we're not talking about dying in your sleep with a knife in your back. As Captain Malcolm Reynolds once told Doctor Simon Tam in the TV show Firefly:

Diamond said that strangers who meet in the New Guinean jungle complete a ritual wherein they recite their ancestry until they determine whether or not they are distantly related. If they are not related in some way, one or the other is probably not walking away from the scene. If forum users ran the risk of death by their comments--myself included--Internet dialogue would likely be far more civil in tone.

Why are we so quick to disparage someone's intellect or character because of their preference for one game over another? So I don't like Lord of the Rings online and you do. Do I have any right to call into question your mental acuity or parentage? So I prefer PvE leveling and questing to PvP or end-game raiding. And I somehow less of a gamer--less of a person--as a result?

Wolfshead, in a rant about the deficiencies of Rift on Syp's BioBreak, closed with the following:

"There is nothing ahead that has me excited about virtual worlds. I’m tired of the hype. The caliber of the “community” that is dominated by selfish spoiled kids, teens and adult slackers is at an all time low, the game design predictable and stale. The typical virtual world of today feels like a MacDonald’s playground. When I started playing MMOs 12 years ago I couldn’t wait to get home from work to log on. I haven’t had the feeling for years."

I thought for a second he was going to yell at all of us to get off his lawn. The number of people playing MMORPGs today has skyrocketed, thanks much to World of Warcraft, but also other games based on popular Intellectual Properties like Conan the Barbarian and Star Trek. I personally communicate with several people who never played an MMO before Star Trek Online launched. Star Wars: The Old Republic will be the same. These people have differing expectations and outlook than the relatively very few who played the first MMOs. Thousands of people who have never played an MMO will buy it and play and love the game. I plan to play; and though it won't be the wondrous experience I had when I first logged into WoW, I look forward to the fully voiced dialogue and various storylines I will experience.

Many have derided the emphasis on single-player questing in SWTOR and other MMOs. "What happened to the grouping we did in early WoW and other true MMOs?" they say. I have rarely been on the same level as players in guilds I have been part of until I reached max level. If someone has needed or asked for help in an area of the world I was playing in, I helped. I was sociable, but few of them turned out to be lifelong friends. I currently play Rift with my lovely bride; and we occasionally play WoW with a few friends I know in real life. We are doing our own thing and being peripherally sociable with the Rift guild. Why force me to group up if I don't want or need to? Because of the time that I started in WoW, mid-2006, there were not many players around to help me when I needed to complete group-oriented quests, and they sat in my questlog until I could finally complete them on my own, or I just dropped them. I've done end-game raids and enjoyed them. However, the endless repetition for meager reward got to me, and I ended up dropping out of that style of play. I prefer to learn the stories of the areas I am in. Raiding is all too often a matter of learning when to stand where to avoid damage while maximizing our own. Some call this skill, and I suppose it is, but not in the same sense as actually learning to fence, or play the piano, or build a house.

There was a Google+ discussion yesterday about the merits of gentle "grinding" in the new game Glitch, and how it can be therapeutic. Many players, who PvP or otherwise want an intense game to give them an adrenalin rush, cannot fathom this preference, even if it is occasional on the part of "casual" players. I understand it, even though I rarely feel the need to indulge in it. Again, I am in it for the story and for the visuals. I rarely watch television any more, because I prefer my virtual worlds and their interactivity, even if they are themeparks. Do I think some go too far "on-the-rails"? Yes, but that is a matter of degree, and my opinion differs from many others.

Tobold Stoutfoot has opinions I don't always agree with, but in two recent posts, I think he hit several nails right on the head. The long term veteran players are probably not the target audience for modern MMOs. I can be considered mid-term myself. I am just about done with World of Warcraft after 5+ years, but I still enjoy the basic gameplay style. I have long thought that the vast majority of people playing WoW and other MMOs are not reading or posting in the forums, nor are they reading or writing blogs about the games. As Tobold said, listening to the extrememly vocal minority in the forums broke WoW, perhaps irrevocably.

"Nobody ever listened to the needs of the silent majority, who actually liked leveling, and would have liked the expansions to lengthen their leveling fun, and make it more challenging."

I can remember the first time on my priest (Rowanblaze) that I defeated several wolves my own level in combat while soloing in the eastern Hinterlands. This and a thousand other awesome memories have I of WoW, both soloing and playing with others, even raiding and PvP. Despite what some people say, I find Rift to have similar challenges, even though I am almost always playing in a duo with my bride. I have learned to tank and enjoy it, though I am by no means an expert. I doubt I'll have much interest in the large Raids at endgame. But the recent addition of duo instances sounds fun and perfect for this spousal leveling team. I am hoping--and there good signs--that our playstyle will be accomodated in SWTOR, as well. Rift's unified storyline decreases its replayability. I enjoyed learning about the different races and factions in WoW with unique starting areas for every race. SWTOR's unique starting areas and branching storylines for each class promises a similar experience.

So to answer the question in my post title: I am a mostly solo--or small-group--PvE quester, who enjoys the support roles more than pure DPS. I am a carebear, not a cutthroat. I value a good story above heart-pumping gameplay. I play MMORPGs to relax, not to get excited. I am an altoholic. I like roleplay and can become attached to my characters. I want a challenge, not an impossibility. I like WoW, Rift, STO, and anticipate playing both SWTOR and Guild Wars 2. If you think I'm dumb for any or all of that, I honestly have no time for you.

Endgame?

Why, oh why, do certain gamers (and devs) think that “The game doesn’t even start until the end-game content”?

I had a friend and coworker say this to me back in 2007. He played Vanilla WoW through the Naxx runs. Twenty hours (plus) per week spent raiding he said, and this back in the days before tokens meant steady gear progression. You had to hope the piece you needed dropped AND that you had enough luck or DKP to actually get it instead of that stupid hunter. Much of that time in the raid was spent waiting around for someone to repair, eat, pee, something besides actually playing the game. But the fights were EPIC!! Doing the Heigen Dance with 40 peeps, someone was sure to die. But then he was finally brought down. After 40 (50?) attempts. Then on to the next boss.

Oh, and every week they got to start over again, killing Heigen and all his friends. Whheee! Isn't Endgame fun? This was WAY better than the varying interweaving stories and quests--some monumental, some mundane--where the devs had spent 98 percent of their time--leading up to this Legendary Epicness.  All you people who came afterward can never be as über 733T as those few who were level-capped at 60 for nearly three years. My friend quit the day The Burning Crusade was released, because he couldn't keep up with his own addictive tendencies. We've lost touch; I wonder if he ever came back.

How is doing the same content over and over (only a bit harder these next 100 times) better than seeing new stuff you’ve not experienced before, learning new abilities, and generally becoming more badass? And no, getting that über helmet or sword doesn’t make you or your toon more badass, especially in the not-so-old days when getting THE BEST gear was essentially a slot-machine style game of chance.

What happened to the RPG in MMORPG? You know, Dear Reader, that I am not an avid in-game role-player. But I do play for story. The fall of the Lich King was an epic event--that occurred 1000s of times behind the closed walls of an instanced dungeon that many players never saw in person because they didn't want to or couldn't take the time to do THE SAME FIGHTS OVER AND OVER, to get a little better than last time so they could move on to the next boss and start the process all over again. That is not story, that is tedium. We were (yes, I did raid, got to Professor Putricide) doing the fantasy equivalent of playing Madden 20XX. Repetitive, story-less, soulless.

Gordon, over at We Fly Spitfires, feels almost as strongly as I do about endgame item progression. Actually, I think he is a little more articulate about it. Also, a chunk of this post was a comment on someone else's blog on this topic on 28 December. But I can't remember whose. : / If it was yours let me know and I'll cross link.

STO: Anticipation vs. Execution

Last July, Tipa over at West Karana "ranted" about what she didn't want STO to become, a WoW-ish murder spree. I am curious how you feel about the game now that you've played it for a few months, Tipa?

P.S. Excellent insight buried in that post about the lame loot drop rate in endgame raids.

ICC 25

In all this excitement, I forgot to mention that I ran 25-man Ice Crown Citadel with my guildmates last night. Great run, we beat each of the first three boss encounters on the second attempt, and the fourth boss encounter on the third attempt. Pretty good for the first time as a guild.

I enjoyed the raid immensely, though I have yet to figure why I don't heal at the same rate as the other healers, according to "Recount." Between my rotation, talents, and gear, I am deficient in something. I understand that, when I use my Discipline spec, many of my talents are devoted to damage mitigation rather than healing. But when I shift to Holy, I am barely better off. <Sigh> Only once has anyone said anything and then only obliquely. But it still bothers me.