Someone on Twitter was asking me how Cryptic handles all the skills with a gamepad.
See the X, Y & B indicators on the first 3 skills? Those are the ‘unmodified’ bindings. If you hold down a modifier like one of the triggers, those little indicators move to show which hotkeys they now map to. So they jump around dynamically.
It works pretty well, and the game is a ton of fun to play with a gamepad.
Hope this helps someone.
In lieu of blogging, I’ve been having some fun writing up silly little ‘origin stories’ for my Champions Online characters. But since these are ‘Pages’ and not ‘Posts’ they aren’t going out on the RSS feed. I’ve linked to them in Twitter but figured if I did a WordPress ‘post’ then the RSS feed would pick them up. This is not a blog post! 🙂
Warning: I’m a blogger, not a fiction writer, and it shows. 🙂
The format of these pages is a little origin story, then some thoughts on what I’d doing with the character.
The best one is probably The Highwayman‘s page, since I ripped the fiction off from a famous poem. He was my first ‘live’ character and is the highest level so far (which isn’t very high…level 10). Mundane guns and mystical swords.
My next favorite I think is The Collective. Ever hear an author talk about how his or her characters “won’t behave” or take on a life of their own, seemingly out of control of what the author had planned? That’s what happened with The Collective for me. So now I have a glimpse into how these authors feel.
CanTANKerous was my attempt at filling a “trinity” roll, but CO doesn’t really have the tank/healer/dps trinity set up quite that clearly. You can make a character that fills one of those roles, but most characters are hybrids of some kind. Anyway, CanTANKerous had a long-ish origin story and is, I hope, an unlikely hero.
Last is Electric Blue Angel. Her story was an afterthought…I just wanted to make a character with flashy powers and birds wings, and I wanted to have at least one, and eventually a couple, of female characters in my stable.
You probably don’t want to read all of these, and you quite possibly won’t want to read any of them, but a few people who’ve read them have gotten a kick out of them so I figured I’d share; if you aren’t in Early Start and are chomping at the bit these might scratch that itch for you, at least a little.
Personally I’m having a blast with Champions Online so far, but in some ways it feels tailor made for me. Very alt friendly, huge character customization, both at creation and as you level (you can craft enhancements that unlock costume parts assuming you have the associated powers slotted). I’ve created 4 characters and they all feel and play differently, and I feel like I haven’t even scratched the surface of what is possible.
If you’re considering giving CO a try, disregard any opinions (good or bad) that are based on less than 5-7 hours of gameplay. The game that CO seems to be when you first launch it is very different from the game it actually is. I’m not saying you’ll like it — you might hate it. But it’d be a shame for you to miss out on a game you might enjoy because someone plays it for 2 hours and passes judgement as it being like all the other MMOs out there.
All my fishing gear is packed and it’s almost dawn. Time to head out to the fishing hole, but I couldn’t resist one last post to tie up a few loose ends.
First of all, the response to my last post has been personally overwhelming to me. So many supportive comments, and just knowing there are people who’ve been reading this blog. I know, that’s silly..I see the page stats and I know how many page views a post gets, but putting names on those numbers…that was pretty special. Thank you all for taking the time to comment and for all the kind words. I had no idea you were all out there. I feel truly honored that you’d take time out of your day to read this silly blog.
Second of all, I wanted to elaborate a bit on something I said. I was talking to someone whom I’ve locked horns with in the past today, and he said (and I paraphrase) “I hope I wasn’t one of the arrogant assholes that caused you to make this decision.” (He wasn’t, btw. Not in the least.) But I felt bad. I didn’t mean to call anyone an asshole. I said many bloggers are pompous, pig-headed and arrogant. I do still believe that, insofar as games are concerned. And I do very much include myself in that description. But not all bloggers, and most of us who are pompous, pig-headed & arrogant kind of phase in and out of this mind-state; we have our good days and our “Clearly I’m an expert in everything related to games” days. At least I know I have those days.
Third and last, I was (and this is probably obvious) really angry when I wrote that post last night. I’d had an all-day argument with another blogger (who was being EXTREMELY pp&a), and the frustration I was feeling at his — hell, I don’t know what he was doing; whether he was dense or just trying to spin me up (Angela looked at the comment thread and to her it just seemed like he was getting a kick out of frustrating me…it was her who finally talked me off the ledge — suffice to say that’s a blog I’ll never visit again) — whatever he was doing, it combined with my frustration at the Cryptic situation to just push me over the top. You might be surprised to learn that I actually dislike arguing. I know, I do it an awful lot for someone who dislikes it. I find the act of arguing to be personally destructive but justice is worth personal sacrifice to me. I’m pretty old school in that way. Anyway, I’m getting off-message and you don’t need any more convincing that I’m a bit off-kilter. The point I’m trying to get to is that I’d like to apologize for the acerbic tone of that last post. The tone was uncalled for even if the feelings in it were genuine.
Anyway, another wall of text. Thanks again for all the support. I’m pretty confident now that this is “So long for now” and not “Goodbye.” I need to find my inner Stargrace and learn to focus on the joy I’m taking away from the games I’m playing, and learn to focus my posts more on the positive aspects of games & gaming — it’s such a wonderful hobby and such an amazing time to be a gamer and there’s way too much negativity coming from the general press. I need to stop adding to the negativity, for my own sake. I also need, very, VERY badly, to stop taking things so seriously; they’re just games. (This rather obvious fact had to be pointed out to me by a few other bloggers today.)
I’ll be playing Champions Online, now that Cryptic re-opened their special deals (kudos to them for doing the right thing). And I’ll be hanging out on twitter at @pasmith — and I hope you’ll all still be around when Dragonchasers re-opens with a bright, shiny positive attitude… OK OK who am I kidding… with a moderately less snarky attitude!
I’m turning off comments on this post because I’ll never get out of here otherwise… it’s too easy to get caught up in talking to you fine people.
I’ll bring you all back some fresh trout.
I’m sick of being sequentially disappointed by MMO companies. From Funcom’s “Surprise, there’s no content past 20!” to Warhammer’s broken RvR and feeble PvE to Aion’s bizarre beta system and now to Cryptic’s “Did we say Sept 1? We mean until we decide to arbitrarily pull the plug.” to the issue going down between Atari and Turbine.
Not many of these companies really deserve our money these days. Not long ago I joined Syp in proclaiming with pride that I’m a Day 1 MMO player. I see now that by being that kind of player, I’m working to encourage these bad business practices. Half finished games, sketchy policies and a general contempt for the customer — these are the behaviors that get rewarded by our slavish devotion to getting in on the next big thing ASAP.
And I’m personally sick of most bloggers, too. There are a few really top notch blogs out there, but most of them (including this one!) are just soapboxes for whomever is writing them. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. I’m just sick of devoting my time to reading them. Or less venomously, I don’t feel like my life is enriched in any way by reading them, and that there are more productive ways I can put my time to use.
And many bloggers are pompous, pig-headed and arrogant. I’m sure they don’t see themselves that way. And I’m sure they DO see ME that way. Again, I’m not setting myself apart by saying I’m in any way better than the rest. Most of us are just tooting our own horns out here and I’m worst of the bunch in a lot of ways. Much too often I find that I feel ashamed of how steadfastly I’ve clung to a position I’ve taken, without being willing to be gracious enough to accept there’s another way of looking at things.
On the other hand, I’ve found that many bloggers seize on any concession as a point of weakness and just press harder. Whomever backs down in the slightest from their point of view loses.
Surf around and look at some blogs, and particularly the comments. What draws comments? Controversy. Arguing. Bickering. The Blog-scape has become like one giant gaming forum with everyone shouting as loud as they can and no one really listening to what anyone else is saying. Sure, we’ll read a post and riff on it to move forward our own agenda on the topic at hand, but there’s very, very little honest, open-minded dialog going on. No one ever convinces anyone else of anything. We have our opinions, our opinions are the only right ones, and anyone with a differing opinion is just someone to be shouted down, in the form of leaving more comments than the other guy can.
It’s pointless. It’s destructive. And I’m done with it.
I’m shutting down Dragonchasers, temporarily at least. Until I can come back refreshed and recharged. And I’m culling my RSS feed to a bare minimum. There are bloggers out there who I consider friends, and them I’ll keep reading, just because I want to keep in touch with them in some way. And there are bloggers out there who are just smart, talented writers, and I’ll read them from time to time just because reading them *does* enrich my life.
But beyond that, I’m going to try to reroute all the time I spend reading blogs and bickering in comments and worrying about what the next half-finished game to launch will be, into some more productive activity. Something I can feel good about at the end of the day. Even if that something is as simple as spending time talking to loved ones, or taking a walk under the stars.
So to the friends I’ve made, I say “Thank you for being such awesome people.” And to everyone else, so long for now. Try to be nicer to each other. Try to really listen to what the next guy is saying, and open yourself to the possibility that we all don’t see things the same way, and just maybe you can learn something from the person on the other side of your next debate.
So yeah, I’m not yet able to let this go.
Since last night my irritation with the whole situation continues to grow. However I feel myself become less irritated with Cryptic, and more and more irritated with the blogging and forum-using community.
Here is the situation:
I spent $5 for a pre-order box at Best Buy. I took the box home. I created a Champions Online account. In the process of doing this, the web site popped up a “Take advantage of our Special Offer” interim page. The offer said I had to buy before Sept 1st, as this was a limited time offer. I clicked “Not now, thanks” feeling I’d like to at least sample the game before I made that decision, and in addition I saw no reason to fork over $200 ahead of time.
The Best Buy pre-order came with Early Access. I figured if the launch went well, I’d take advantage of the special offer comfortably in advance of the Sept. 1 deadline.
Following creating the account, I was sent an email, again soliciting me to take advantage of the special offer. It referred to the offer as “Limited.” This was moments after seeing it referred to as a limited time offer.
I assumed, since there was no physical component to this offer, that Limited referred to the Limited time.
Then, Monday night they announced, on their website, that they only had a limited quantity available. By the next morning they were gone. Monday night I was playing in the Open Beta Ending event; I never even saw the announcement until they were sold-out. I pause now to point out that they have a directed means of communicating with players: the launcher. We see that every time we start the game. They chose not to use that avenue to convey the “limited number” nature of the special deal.
I have since read that Cryptic announced that there were limited quantities of these deals in their forums. Have you been to their forums? They’re disgusting. No more disgusting than any other game’s forums, but I avoid gaming forums as much as possible since they are all vile places.
The fact remains that when Cryptic ‘pushed’ their marketing offers to me, they didn’t mention limited quantities. Just limited time. My bad for not accepting things at face value and digging through their forums in case they’d posted info there that they hadn’t bothered to ‘push’ to me.
OK, so that’s that.
I have a beef with Cryptic. I’m not saying they’re evil. I’m not hoping they go bankrupt. I don’t want Champions to fail and I’m not saying they’ve broken any laws. I personally disagree with the way they’ve handled the issue, and I would very much like for them to reconsider the decision to artificially limit what is a virtual product.
The only ‘leverage’ I have to work with is this blog (and let’s face it, Dragonchasers isn’t a force in the industry — if I get 10,000 visits a month I’m doing great) and my wallet.
So I’m doing the only thing I can do to dispute the decision: opting not to buy the game. And really, this is between me and Cryptic, as far as I’m concerned.
So what I don’t get, and what is really, really starting to annoy me, is people on the sidelines chiming in to take pot shots at me and other people in the same boat as I am. For the most part, this is happening in those wretched, vile forums (which I continue to monitor in case they do opt to re-open the offers.. apparently the forums are Cryptic’s primary way to communicate with their users), but there are bloggers jumping on the bandwagon too. (I’m still trying to puzzle out what Tipa meant by her comment “Did the game become less fun because of the ending of their pre-launch offer?” Was it a legit question? I’m honestly not sure if it was, but I accepted it as one, and answered her as honestly as I could in the comment section of her blog.
So my question is, if you weren’t interested in these special deals, or if you were interested and took advantage of them and are all set, then what is your interest in the situation? Why do you feel the need to snidely comment on something that has nothing to do with you? Does it just feel good rubbing salt in the wounds of people who are already frustrated to begin with? What do you, the bloggers and forum posters telling us we should have known better, or just “QQ more, crybaby,” hope to accomplish by your blog & forum posts?
I’ll reiterate what I’m trying to accomplish. I’m trying to convey to Cryptic that I feel strongly about their decision and have $250 that I’m ready to hand over to them if they decide to change their minds. If they don’t, I’m sure there are other developers who’ll be happy to sell me product.
Comments CLOSED on this post. I’m too angry to have a rational discussion about this topic at this point. (And yes, I realize how foolish it is to close topic on a post that I asked a question in…my questions were for the most part rhetorical.)
Early on, I scoffed at the idea of Cryptic offering a couple of special subscription offers (a Discounted 6 month sub, and a Lifetime sub) before the game released. All their marketing material said these were limited time offers that ended on Sept. 1st.
I scoffed, but I kept playing preview weekends and “open” beta, and found myself enjoying the game and slowly being sucked in. Finally I decided that I’d snag one of the two special offers, but I wasn’t sure which one. I had until Sept. 1st to decide, so there was no rush.
Last night, Cryptic posted a notice on their website shifting their story and saying now that “Supplies were limited.” By this morning, they were sold out. I didn’t see their site last night as I was busy taking part in the end of beta event. Nothing about this was in the launcher.
How can you sell out of a virtual product?
When I found out I’d missed out on these special deals, I was pretty upset. Had I known the offer was a limited time one, I would’ve purchased early. And I know now that I would’ve actually sprung for the Lifetime Sub. First of all, it comes with 8 extra character slots, and this was clearly a game I would’ve gone alt-crazy in. Second, it feels like the kind of game I’d play casually… a little bit at a time, over a long period, so a Lifetime Sub made sense for me (and I’d just earned a $200 bonus from a freelance job, coincidentally).
Anyway, now that this sweet offer has been dangled in front of my nose, then retracted, I find that I’m no longer interested in giving Cryptic any of my money.
Unless they decide to re-institute the offer. The one legit concern I can understand is that the special offers included entrance into the Star Trek Online beta, and I can see where they’d have to put a limit on those.
So maybe, hopefully, they’ll re-open the offers, just with the STO beta entry removed. I’d be fine with that.
I won’t delete the client, in the hopes that Cryptic does the right thing by their customers.
As a confirmed soloer, I get subjected to a certain amount of bs from the grouping contingent. One of the most frequent quips these people fling at me is “If you’re going to solo, go play a single player game.”
Now no amount to logical explanation has been able to push these folks off-message. As far as their concerned, people who solo are a) stupid for paying a monthly fee if we’re not going to group, and b) ruining the games.
So instead of logic, I’m going to tell a quick little story before I put the weekend to bed and start another long work week.
I was exploring the western shore of Lake Evendim tonight. It’s a place I’ve never been before. I wasn’t hunting for anything more dangerous than the boat back to the eastern shore, which I’d been told existed somewhere. I was staying along the water’s edge, dodging anything mean looking up on the slopes above. Then I saw a large white boulder behind some bushes. An outcropping of platinum! As a jeweler, I need platinum, so without thinking I charged straight through the bush and tried right-clicking on the platinum to harvest it.
Only it wasn’t an outcropping of platinum at all, it was a huge bear. It hit me a few times as I parsed what was going on (the bush was still obstructing my view). By the time I got my wits about me and starting fighting back I was at 50% health, and the bear was yellow to me. I hadn’t eaten anything, had no consumable buffs up; as I said, I wasn’t looking to fight. I knew this was going to be mighty close.
Then a shaft of light came flying over my shoulder. Another attacker! I shuffled around the bear so I could see and… no, not another attacker! A dwarf named Grain, and he was hitting the bear with some kind of magic. Next thing I know, my morale was surging upwards, and the bear lay dead at my feet. I turned to Grain, bowed low. He bowed back, then opened a book, read from it…and vanished.
This kind of totally random and unexpected encounter is why I played MMOs even though I mostly solo (it should be noted, Grain was soloing too). A few moments later he sent me a tell, and we chatted a bit about our adventures in Evendim — it was his first time there too, as best I could tell.
Anyway, so that’s my answer to a) and why I’m happy to pay $15/month to play in a living, breathing, ever-changing world, instead of some static single-player RPG. As to us ruining the games…I can’t help you there. If you want to group a lot, make some friends and group with them. Best way to make friends? Stop trying to shove your world-view down other peoples’ throats.
Now I’m off to bed. Hope you all had a fun weekend of gaming!
After the Matrix Online crashed for the last time, some bloggers talked a bit about the death of an MMO, and what it means to the players.
What about worlds that don’t die, but undergo radical changes?
I haven’t lived through one of these, to be honest, so all I’m going to do is ask questions.
What do the die-hard fans of DDO think about their beloved game going free-to-play? There they are at their picnic enjoying themselves, and they look up to see a tidal wave of noobs about to crash down on them. Let’s face it, free-to-play games are going to pull in a younger demographic, which could impact the culture quite a bit.
Spellborn players are faced with this too, but Spellborn wasn’t nearly as established.
And now there’s this Cataclysm expansion for WoW. I haven’t studied the info coming out of Blizzcon (I don’t pay much attention to games until they’re near-future events), but I watched the trailer, and it made me feel a little sad. I spent so many hours romping around those “old” zones in WoW. To see them shattered and broken… it was a little like visiting your hometown and finding the park you used to hang out in after school was now a Wal-Mart.
Don’t go twisting my words. I actually think Blizzard is pulling off something pretty brilliant and pretty ballsy, shaking up their old content so drastically — look how many people are excited to go revisit those old lands in their new iterations.
I’m a little excited, too. Put it this way, I’ve never felt any desire to purchase or play Lich King, but I can see myself visiting the post-Cataclysm world. But I’m saying my excitement is tempered a bit by the knowledge that the places that hold so many fond memories will be gone forever (at least as I remember them).
Honestly, maybe Blizzard is doubly brilliant, because it just struck me that I might re-visit WoW *before* Cataclysm (like, a week before), just to take one last stroll through the old zones and think back on all the friends I made and all the adventures I had there. And I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking about doing that.
I guess the moral of the story is that we should enjoy what we have now, because it won’t be there forever. This applies to both the virtual and the real world.
Poor Maynard. Born horribly deformed. His left hand has only two fingers, his left foot, two thick toes. A fleshy fin sprouts from his upper back and below that, a writhing tail with a arrowhead tip. And what’s under that mask? You don’t want to know.
His mother arrived on the steps of a small country church in the throes of labor. Why she sought out a church rather than a hospital would never be known, as she died giving birth to Maynard. Who (or what) his father is remains a mystery that will probably never be uncovered. The priest at the church, seeing the baby’s disfigurements, hid him from the members of his congregation. He told them the baby had been stillborn and that he was buried with his mother.
The old priest raised Maynard in secret. He educated the boy and was kindly towards him, but Maynard’s total seclusion heavily influenced his upbringing. He lived in the basement of the church, never able to walk in the sun, or to play with other children.
When he was ten years old, the priest took a spill. His head caught the corner of a table. The impact cracked his skull and he started to bleed heavily. Maynard had no idea how to cope. He tried to staunch the flow of blood and in the process became covered in it. Finally in desperation he ran from the church, screaming for help. Help came, but when the villagers saw a blood-smeared creature hovering over their beloved parish priest, they jumped to conclusions. They attacked Maynard, thinking they need to drive him away from the priest. He fled to his basement, where he was cornered.
And that was the first time his powers manifested. With no understanding of what they were or how to control them, his force lashed out, and several villagers were killed before Maynard broke free and fled into the night.
Maynard’s remorse over the incident twisted him further, but he has pledged to use his powers to try to do good in the world. To try in some small way to make up for the lives he took. And so he became an unlikely Champion, with his withered shoulders and sinewy tail. Shunned even in the diverse world of the Champions, Maynard follows a solitary path, fleeing from the demons of his past.
* * *
Eh, it’s a work in progress.
Maynard is a “Sorcerer” template character. The builder says his primary stats are Intelligence and Presence. Hmm. Presence helps reduce threat level. Intelligence reduces the energy cost of powers. Turns out the Sorcerer framework has some healing powers in it.
What I’ve taken to doing, at level 5, is heading to The Powerhouse and stripping my Champions of all their powers, then building them back up (it sounds like you won’t be able to do this for much longer, though). When you pick (ugh, I hate that I can’t remember the terminology) a Trait (I think — 0ne of the customizations that heavily impacts your base stats). Anyway, when you pick them in the Powerhouse you get a much better idea of what each stat does than you get just from rolling over the stats on your character sheet.
Since I mostly solo, Presence does very little for me, so I rebuilt Maynard with high Intelligence and Endurance. Endurance impacts max power points. During the tutorial, Maynard couldn’t fully power up his main attack because he didn’t have enough energy to do so, even when is bar was full. Hopefully the extra Endurance will help with that.
For his third power I took one of the Sigil powers. I expected this to be a kind of ‘belt’ of rotating doo-dads that did damage to attackers, but instead it throws out sigils in a rather large circle around him. So it’s more of a skill for when you’re going to stand in one place and fight. It reminds me of Shaman Totems in WoW, or healing Runekeeper Runes in LOTRO.
I didn’t get too much farther than the 1st tutorial and then Powerhouse. I spent a long time making this deformed Champion… Oh! And just to reinforce his creepy weirdness, I gave him tunneling as his travel power.
I have to correct two errors tonight.
The first one is mine. I said you could unlearn all your skills and powers at any point. Apparently that is not correct; I just never got high enough to where I had more than you’re able to unlearn. So sadly, at some point you’re stuck with powers you’ve been using for a while (you unlearn in reverse of the order you learned them in…think of it like ‘unstacking’ your powers).
The second correction is something I’ve heard as a criticism of CO: small zone sizes. In the screenshot below, I’m maybe one third of the way across the zone, looking back at where I started. The structure you see is Project Greenskin, the 2nd Tutorial Zone. Note how small it looks. These are not small zones. I think there were 150 people in this zone when I entered it.
