Month: August 2009

Achievements

Posted on by Nimgimli

I’m a bit behind schedule, but there’s been some talk about Achievements lately and I wanted to toss in my 2 coppers.

So for all intents and purposes, Achievements got their start on the Xbox. Lots of games had 1-off kinds of things like in-game medals to collect, but Microsoft hit on something huge when they launched their cross-game points-based Achievements. Gamerscore became data point #1 for bragging rights.

Now, I’ve had a Gamertag for 6 years and my Gamerscore is 3,510, so that tells you something about how interested in Xbox Achievements I have been. (Plus I’ve gone long periods nursing a seething hatred for the Xbox 360 due to reliability issues, though I’ve gotten past that now.)

In terms of MMOs, Achievement-esque systems are big these days. LOTRO has the Deed system, Warhammer has the ToK, WoW has Achievements, Champions Online has Perks… all variations on a theme.

But a lot of these systems are rubbish. Why? Because the rewards are rubbish. Kill 5,000 mottled southern orcs and get a title. Big whoop. Finish this Xbox game on Insane Difficulty and get 100 gamerscore. Yawn!

LOTRO’s Deed system is meaningful in that it helps you sculpt your characters (you get Traits that you can slot by doing Deeds). Champions’ Perks seem to have some real impact on your character as well (I’m being vague due to 1 part NDA and 1 part ignorance here). WoW, as far as I know, only gives you titles. And I think Warhammer gave you badges that no one could see? Someone will correct me if I’m wrong here. I know I got badges from somewhere!

But anyway I digress, because there’s a new game in town. Microsoft recently released the Avatar Marketplace, where you can spend money on clothing and accessories for your Xbox Avatar. But more interestingly, the system supports *unlocking* clothing and accessories via earning in-game Achievements.

Sony is doing the same thing. For a long while their Trophies were just a score card, but now they’re adding virtual items for your Playstation Home apartment and avatar. (Granted we still need a good reason to log into Home to see this stuff. Playing Buzz is a tiny step in the right direction.)

I’m excited about these new systems. Points and Titles grew passe long ago, at least for me, but stupid little virtual geegaws from my stupid little avatar? That gets me excited. And no, sadly enough, I’m *not* being sarcastic, though I am laughing at myself as I admit this. Warhammer’s badges, had they been more visible, would’ve had me running all over the place trying to earn them, but they were so subtle that I couldn’t even notice them on my own character, let along on other peoples’.

I guess it all boils down to individuality. Earning these bits and bobs gives me the raw materials I need to make a more unique avatar. It’s all fluff, of course, whether on the 360, PS3 or in an MMO. But I’m a huge fan of fluff. I’ll happily do a quest to get some decorative item for my in-game house, y’know?

No real point to this lunchtime ramble beyond: More, please! I hope more MMO developers pick up this idea and run with it, adding achievement-related ‘appearance items’ or housing items to let us customize our characters and build a visible record of our journey. EQ2’s house items often come from quests, not achievements (though I suppose its a thin line between one and the other when you come right down to it), but it’s still cool that you can go into someone’s house, look at the various trophy items on their wall, and know where they’ve had to go in order to earn those items (assuming you’re steeped in the lore, that is).

On both the Xbox and the PS3, these new systems are just starting to ramp up. I hope they wind up being wildly popular. It’s always a good thing when devs add another way to enjoy the games we’re laying out $60 for.

What a difference a voice makes

Posted on by Nimgimli

Thanks to Aaron’s recommendation I went out and picked up a copy of Mercenaries 2: World in Flames for the Xbox 360 the other day. It’s early days, but so far I’m really enjoying it. And yet I almost stuck it back on the shelf shortly after booting it up.

Why? Because I picked the wrong character.

Mercs 2 lets you choose 1 of 3 mercenaries to play as. There’s the crazed biker dude from the box (enhanced health regeneration), the grizzled vet (enhanced ammo capacity) and the money-hungry female-agent type (enhanced speed). I figured better health was the obvious choice, so I started playing the crazy dude, Mattias.

And his commentary immediately started grating on me. He’s a nutter, so I’m not saying it wasn’t appropriate for the character, but wow, did I ever get sick of it quickly. He’d name his guns and coo to them that it was time to kill a lot of people… stuff like that. And his voice was similar enough to the voice of the bad guys that sometimes I wasn’t sure who was saying what. It never really felt like the character was talking; it was just a disembodied voice spouting looney things.

Rather than quit the game, I restarted as Jennifer Mui, the ‘all business’ mercenary who is in it for the bucks. She is wonderfully voiced by Jennifer Hale, who has done voice work for Star Wars: The Clone Wars and tons of other games, movies and TV shows (look forward to her in Brutal Legend this fall). Mattias is voiced by Peter Stormare who has done plenty of acting but not a lot of voice work.

The difference, to me at least, was night and day. I connected with Jennifer Mui as a ‘real’ character in the game. Ms. Hale’s voice fits both the character and the lines, which tend towards being a lot more subtle than Mattias’s kill kill kill stuff. My feminist readers might take some exception to some of her quips that complain about ruining outfits and so forth, but when she blasts open a crate and finds a cache of weapons and ammo and mutters “It’s never shoes” I can’t help but chuckle, knowing as many female shoe enthusiasts as I do. When Jennifer (the character & the actress) speaks, you know its her talking. I can’t explain it but somehow it really seems like it’s her, and not the ‘disembodied voice’ feeling that Stormare/Mattias produced.

Now clearly, gameplay come first; I’m not saying good voice work & dialog can turn a bad game into a gem. But I was really surprised at how much my attitude towards Mercenaries 2 changed when I choose a different character, and it wasn’t because of the character’s abilities… it was because of her personality.

Flip-Flop on Champions Online

Posted on by Nimgimli

Having stayed up much too late playing CO last night, I’ve flip-flopped back to being excited about the game. Obviously the NDA is in place so I can’t say too much about it, but one of the things I do like (that has been talked about in previews) is that as you gain levels you can pick powers from any of the power-pools, which means your Champion can be really unique both in looks and skills. It just seems like the kind of game that will really cater to alt-aholics like myself.

So I’m thinking of pre-ordering. Trying to decide where from. It’s a complicated decision. Gamestop and Best Buy both give Early Access & $5 worth of points to spend on micro-transactions. Walmart gives $10 worth of points but no Early Access. Amazon gives $5 worth of points. Direct Drive and Steam give you the convenience of not having to deal with shipping.

Gamestop, Best Buy & Amazon give access to Open Beta starting on the 17th, Walmart and the digital distributions do not (though in my case, I have a File Planet Key that should cover that).

All but Walmart give different virtual items, but the descriptions are so vague that it’s hard to weight them against each other. Is an Insectoid Airfoil better than a Grond Vanity Pet? Who knows? Walmart skips the virtual items for a map and an iron-on t-shirt decal.

One thing I haven’t yet found out is, how long is this Early Access period? Is it 2 days? A week? Open Beta starts on the 17th and launch is Sept 1 (15 days later). I have to think Open Beta is at least going to span the following weekend, taking it to the 24th, so the max Early Access can be is a week. Realistically if it’s 4 days then we get the game a weekend earlier, which is mostly what matters to me.

Details on all these perks here.

But I ask you.. could they make it any more complicated?

And let’s look at that Lifetime Subscription again. I’m actually tempted, now that I’ve had a chance to see the game in action and see that it isn’t a total disaster. Why? Eight additional character slots. It seems like there are no discrete servers in CO, and so the 6? 7? 8? character slots are all you’re going to get, and as I said, this seems like a really alt-friendly game…just creating different looks and skill sets to mess about with. (Though if they’re smart, they’ll offer additional character slots as on of their RMT items.)

I think this is going to be a really “blogable” MMO, too. So much to discuss in terms of character builds and such. Looking forward to the NDA dropping!

Champions Online Preview Weekend

Posted on by Nimgimli

Thanks to Massively giving away 1000 keys, I weaseled my way into the Champions Online Preview Weekend.

Sadly (well, in gaming terms) we have company this weekend so I’m not going to get a huge amount of time to play, and of course the NDA is in effect so I can’t say much anyway.

But I lamented on Twitter the other day that I was sick of posting negative rants here (like someone is holding a gun to my head, right?) so at least I will use this opportunity to say something positive.

So far, I haven’t found the skeletons I’d assumed were hiding in Cryptic’s closet, and suddenly I’m pretty excited about the game again.

Beckett Massive Online Gamer doesn’t want my money

Posted on by Nimgimli

So Angela and I have a subscription to Beckett Massive Online Gamer. Now before I don my Cape of Self-Righteous Ranting +2, I have to be totally upfront. We mostly subscribe because Stargrace writes for them, and secondarily for the free item codes they publish for various games (though rarely do we ever remember to actually use any of these codes).

The magazine definitely has problems. Timeliness being one of them (the May-June 2009 issue had a preview article of an upcoming game called Free Realms), typos being another, and the writing is pretty uneven. But y’know, I let that all pass and subscribed in spite of these issues because it felt like a real ‘fan’ kind of magazine. It felt like it was a magazine for people like me and my friends.

I was apparently wrong. Today, in the same May-June 2009 issue, I read this: “if you want to play solo, there are a lot of console games out there” in an article by Rebecca Bundy.

I do want to play solo, Ms. Bundy, so I guess I’ll go play a console game and stop subscribing to Beckett MOG, since clearly the editors are not interested in people like me reading their magazine. Just to be totally clear, I’m pointing my finger at the editors, not Ms. Bundy, who is entitled to her ignorant and bigoted opinion that everyone who plays MMOs should play them the same way she does [Update: I clarified this in the comments but will do so again. I’m not calling Ms. Bundy ignorant and bigoted in a general sense, but am saying within the microcosm of MMOs, her opinion that people who solo should go play something else IS ignorant and bigoted.]. But since the editor let that snarky remark stand, they must believe the same thing.

I’m so god-damned tired of being sniped at because I don’t feel the need to chain myself to 5 strangers when playing these games. Since when did being independent become a character flaw? It’s bad enough hearing it from bloggers; I don’t need to pay to read the same BS.

The folly of Cryptic

Posted on by Nimgimli

So let’s talk about all the weirdness going on with Champions Online.

Let me preface by saying that until a few weeks ago, I was pretty sure I’d be playing Champions Online on launch day. But then Cryptic started making really strange decisions.

First, they tied early-start to a specific retailer (Gamestop). Now, anyone who is a fan of video and computer games should NOT be purchasing games from Gamestop. That outfit is a fat, bloated leech sucking the lifeblood out of the game developer community. I don’t shop there if I can possibly help it (basically I’ll spend gift cards there if I get them). So that means no early access for me.

Not a huge deal, but a bit strange. I get that PC developers don’t have the same issues with Gamestop as console developers do. But where I live, the brick and mortar Gamestops don’t even stock PC games anymore.

Then there’s the Lifetime Membership issue. Cryptic’s Bill Roper used to have a little company called Flagship Studios, and they made a game called Hellgate: London, and they offered a lifetime membership to it. Roper was from Blizzard. I’d met the man, I knew how passionate he was about games (at least at one time). Even though Hellgate was kind of broken at launch, I forked over $140 for a lifetime membership, partially to show how much I believed in Roper. I just knew he’d pull the game together and I wanted to do what I could to help Flagship get that game fixed and awesome.

Of course, that didn’t happen. I would’ve been much, much better off had I bought $140 worth of scratch-off lottery tickets. Or $140 worth of horse manure. Or something.

But now here’s Roper’s next project and next Lifetime Membership offer. But this isn’t Roper’s company and it’s a much bigger team and anyway, everyone produces a dud at some point. So I actually consider this new offer. I also bought a Lifetime Membership to LOTRO and I’ve never regretted the decision in the slightest. Quite the contrary. So I’m thinking about my budget and if I can figure out a way to carve out $200 and be able to play CO indefinitely.

Assuming I like the game, of course. But wait…what? I have to buy the Lifetime Subscription BEFORE the game launches? Hey, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I can sell you, Cryptic. How about we trade? What a lack of confidence in their product this deadline broadcasts. This says to me “We don’t think you’ll want to buy this Lifetime Subscription once you’ve seen the game, so we’ll try to bribe you to purchase it pre-release with perks like access to the beta of a totally different game.” Huh? How in the world does that make any sense? “Buy a lifetime sub to this game and we’ll give you early access to another game in a few months.” So presumably you expect I’ll be SO BORED of Champions Online by this winter that I’ll be desperate to play another half-built game?

Less than a month from release, the NDA is still firmly in place. But Beta Keys went out today to pre-orderers and to Fileplanet Subscribers. I’m in the latter camp. I kept an eye on my email all day, assuming the alloted Fileplanet Keys would get snapped up quickly. And I scored one. Yay! Can’t wait to get home and download the client. But wait….what? I can’t actually PLAY the beta until the 17th of August? Then why make this big fuss about sending out the keys today? Downloading the client took all of 30 minutes from Fileplanet, so I don’t buy the ‘pre-load’ bullshit. Release the keys a couple days ahead of beta opening? Sure. But 12 days?
Once again I read a lack of confidence in this decision: “We want to wait as long as possible to let more people into the beta because we want to delay players realizing how bad our game is for as long as possible.” Or more generously, “We don’t want to give players time to hit high levels in beta and find out there’s no content up there.”

I don’t know who is running the marketing and/or sales divisions at Cryptic, but it almost feels like someone is deliberately sabotaging the hype of this game. Every new bit of information I read makes me less inclined to want to play it. It seems really evident that Cryptic has something to hide from us, the potential customers. Folks in the beta remain under an NDA gag-order, so they can’t tell us what’s going on, and the gates are barred from the rest of us getting in.

What’s really going on inside Champions Online?

Gambling on game design

Posted on by Nimgimli

Been quiet around here, but as you can see from Tipa’s widget over on the right, I’ve been playing the heck out of LOTRO. LOTRO seems like a pretty divisive MMORPG – people hate it or they love it – and frankly I haven’t been in the mood to debate the merits of a game I’m enjoying. I’ve just been playing, and having fun, and enjoying the experience without deconstructing it. It’s been a nice, relaxing change of pace.

Then I decided I wanted a Summer Festival Horse, and I ran into a system so infuriating that it almost made me walk away from LOTRO for a while (one of the joys of being a LOTRO Lifer is that walking away is easy since you know it’ll be there when you feel like coming back, with zero hassles).

Y’see, there used to be races that let you win a Summer Festival Horse, but I guess those generated a lot of ill will. People would think they’d come in first but the game would say they were in second, due to latency/lag or whatever. I’ve seen this in just about every MMO I play..if you play next to someone, your character on their screen is always behind where it is on your screen.

But I digress. For this Festival they removed those races and instead put in a couple of 3rd party races. There’s a hobbit’s pie-eating contest/race, and a dwarf’s drinking race. You place a bet on which contestant will win. If you bet right, you get 12 Summer Festival Tokens.

But in order to bet, you need Race Tokens. You can get 2 of those via a zero-effort quest (just talk to an NPC) but that quest is on a 2-hour cooldown.

The actual races run about every 12-13 minutes, I’d say. 10 minutes after a race ends, a new one begins, and races are 2-3 minutes.

With me so far? Get 2 tokens. Go to the race location. Wait up to 10 minutes for a race to start. Bet on a contestant. Win or lose. Wait 10 more minutes for another race to start. Bet. Win/lose. Then wait ~1:45 for the Race Token quest to cool down.

Duplicate this: there’s one race outside Thorin’s Hall, the other on The Hill at Bag End. So you can travel back and forth to maximize your time.

It takes 56 tokens to get a Festival Horse. So you have to win your bet on 5 races. There is zero strategy to the races – at least that’s what they say: that it’s all random.

It took me 22 races to win the number of tokens I needed. My win/loss ration was 4-18, but at one point I was 0-9 & had determined that the game was rigged against me! To say I was frustrated would be quite an understatement. I left LOTRO running all day, actually setting a timer so I’d know when to come back and get Race Tokens again.

Now, LOTRO defenders will tell you there are other ways to get Festival tokens: You can fish for them. But my character has a lousy fishing skill, and you can only improve your fishing skill 10 points a day. There are 4 fishing quests. 3 of them are 20 minutes long, and 1 is 10 minutes long. During these periods you can catch special “Festival Fish” which you can turn in for tokens (4 fish/token, although there are rare fish worth 2 tokens each). This would be a fine alternative except that these quests have a 14-16 hour cool down, so effectively you can do them once/day. I did do them all, which is why I had 56 tokens after winning 4 races.

LOTRO defenders will also tell you the new races are fun social events, and that may have been true with the Festival began. But when I was doing them during the day, I was the only one doing them, so it was boring as hell waiting for the races to begin.

I would urge Turbine to make some changes to these races. Some suggestions: let the players influence the race in some way. Maybe cheering for your contestant could help them go faster or something? Give the user some kind of feeling of control. Second, give tokens for more than 1st place. How about 1st place: 10 tokens. 2nd place: 4 tokens. 3rd place: 1 token. Lastly, let us save up ‘losing tickets’ and cash them in for a consolation prize of a few tokens.

Basically do something so that a player on a bad streak at least feels like he is making some kind of progress. Lose 9 of these races in a row and let me tell you, it’ll drive you to a very unhappy place. I felt like Sally Brown after Linus convinced her to wait for The Great Pumpkin instead of going trick-or-treating.

Anyway, to sum up my rant: sending players through such a huge time sync and taking all control away from the outcome of the event just makes the player feel bad about your game. I know this is a ‘stop-gap’ while you try to get the real races working, but it needs to be tweaked before the next festival!

In the end, through sheer stubbornness, I got my Festival Horse (shortly after midnight. I’d started working towards it before morning coffee). Yay! I actually just bought my regular horse the night before (which is why I started going for the Festival horse so late). And then today (with more tokens from fishing and some left-overs) I added a Summer Cloak!

Screenshots or it didn’t happen:

festival_horse1

festival_horse2

Aside from this occurrence, I’ve been having a hell of a good time in LOTRO this time back. Saving up for my horse was a good short-term challenge. Normally I think you’d have the $$ to buy a horse by the time you hit level 35 (when you get the ability to ride) but I’d been paying 50 silver/week in rent for long stretches when I wasn’t playing (and therefor not generating any income) so I was way behind the curve on savings.

I’ve also been *gasp* grouping with people. PUGs. And so far, no bad experiences. Since tuning into the global LFF channel my appreciation for the game has changed. For the most part, the folks that hang out on that channel are happy to answer questions and have interesting discussions on how to play and or ‘build’ various classes.

I started a 2nd character and have been experiencing the new “New Player Experience” with him. There’s a lot less running back and forth, which I know people hated. But at the same time, now it all feels much more like a WoW-style “theme park” experience. You’re carefully shunted from one NPC to the next, spoon fed quests and passed along. I guess that’s what people want, but I was surprised to find that I rather missed roaming around Breeland.