Category: Gaming

I’m a gamer. I game.

The Music of My Youth

Gaming

Okay, so this is going in the Gaming category, but only because it didn’t really fit into Random Thoughts, and it does actually have something to do with games. I’m not normally one to post about crap I see on the internet, but this I just had to put up.

Nintendo Choir.

Its only not safe for work if your PC is loud, but even then most people under 40 should laugh when they hear this. Its a choir singing songs from popular Nintendo (and other) games… Mario, Zelda, Mortal Combat. And they do a pretty good job of it too…

Enjoy!

Circle Strafing

Gaming

You know, its just one of those skills that I have but I almost never use. In some ways, and in some games, its really a boon. First person shooters… being able to zip around someone and pop off a couple of shotgun blasts is cool. But its a very short thing… zip, zip, pop, pop, done.

I’ve been messing around doing some dueling in World of Warcraft. I’m a priest, and fighting other priests or mages is fun, we shoot each other, resists and luck have alot to do with it, and spell choice and all that. When I fight warriors or rogues, its just stupid… if they fight me straight up, then its like the priest and mage fights, sometimes I win, sometimes I lose, its alot of luck and the game engine, player skill is part of it too, but its not ‘exploitative’. However, most of the melees who duel don’t play it straight up, they don’t bother to rely on their gear, their resists or hit points… they completely rely on exploiting ‘line of sight’. As a caster, I can’t cast 90% of my spells on anything that isn’t in front of me, so the melee circle strafes around, always staying behind. I can try to spin, but since he can switch directions in an instant, its still almost impossible to keep him in front. Its just… stupid. Why bother to ‘duel’ me if you are going to render me 90% useless? Its like saying you’ll get in the ring with Mike Tyson, but only if they chop off both of his arms, one leg, and gag him first.

I don’t get it… and I probably never will.

Player vs Player

Gaming

I did my first PvP in World of Warcraft tonight, and I must say that in the space of thirty minutes I was both impressed and very underwhelmed. It started off fine… I had just logged in to do some bank management in Ironforge when I saw the call that Southshore was under attack. I figured, why not go try some PvP? So I hopped a griffin and was on my way.

When I arrived, Southshore was indeed under attack. About three groups of Horde, most level 60, were fighting with about two groups of Alliance. Now, I’m only level 45, but as a priest, I can do my best to stay out of the fight and heal people, so I asked for a group, got one, and started doing my job. We finally began killing some of the Horde (the guards helped a little), and had a moment where the town was safe. As a war party, we headed for the Tauren Mill, the source of the Horde in the area.

On the way, we clashed with some of their reinforcements, and their dead got their resurrections and came back our way instead of continuing at Southshore. We fought at the tower, the Horde with three groups still, but Alliance had swelled up to almost four groups. We won the skirmish and continued on to the Mill.

At the Mill we had one good fight, then some of the Horde left… four groups of Alliance were now pounding on one group of Horde… then no Horde players at all. It was here that PvP started to suck. Alliance just has so many people that we outnumbered them, and they gave up. We sat and killed guards for a while hoping more would show… they never did.

I did get a taste of what good PvP can be. Hopefully there will be more battlefields in my future…

Approaching Perfection

Gaming

I play alot of Freecell at work. Basically, my job is interesting and hard when there is work to do, but there are days when there is no work to do. I take my time when playing Freecell. I try to think out my moves eight or ten moves out, making sure I’m not getting myself blocked up. As such, I have ridiculous winning streaks like forty or fifty wins before I take a loss. The game keeps track of your wins and losses, and tracks the percentage wins. Mathematically, it round up at the half. So when I had 72.5% wins, it displayed 73%.

So I got to thinking… given that I can’t clear my scores (actually, I could probably hack the registry and ‘fix’ it), how many wins will I need in order to achieve 99.5% … or visually, 100%.

This exercise quickly illustrates the ideas of diminishing returns, and approaching infinity. Each win carries less weight on the percentage than the last. So, when I was trying to claw myself over the 70% mark, a handful of wins could put me over the top, while one loss would drop me back a bit. As of Monday afternoon, I have 972 wins and 359 losses. Its just more than 73% true, which makes it a 73% rounded. If I never lose again, I have to win 70,469 more times in order to get 99.5% so that the screen will show me a 100% win ratio. If I manage a similar play rate to the last six months, I should be able to get that in… twenty-nine years.

Perfection is a work in progress.

The World of Warcraft

Gaming

It’s not often that a game really grabs me. I’d played computer games for a number of years, even hauling my PC around to other people’s houses to hook up to a co-ax ipx network to kill each other on an alien planet surrounded by monsters in DOOM. But the first game that really hooked me, that really sucked me in, was Team Fortress. It was a mod for the Quake game that expanded on the idea of deathmatch and capture the flag. Rather than give every person the same weapons, every player got a subset of them, and different health, armor and run speeds. It was capture the flag, but with real team play, because you needed the other players and classes to offset your weaknesses. I played it for 5 years.

I’d just set TF aside… the Quake version was rife with cheats and hacks, and the new version for Half-Life just wasn’t the same… and along came EverQuest. What initially drew me in was its similarity to Team Fortress. No single class was a god among mortals, they all had their strengths and weaknesses, they all had their place. People needed each other, and a great many friends came of it. I played it for 5 years.

Last year I finally closed the door on EverQuest. It had just become more of a chore than a joy. Like most people, I wish I’d quit about 6 months before I did, but then if not for those last 6 months, I wouldn’t have felt like quitting. Heh. So from EQ I went to City of Heroes. I still play. Frankly, I think I’ll always play. Never hardcore, but nothing really compares to being in your heroic spandex and wading in to a room of ten or more villains and emerging victorious by the skin of your teeth. There is a reason I read comic books for so long, and wish that I could still afford to collect. Superheroes fill a void of heroic impulse, stupidity and bravery all wrapped in one, that just can’t be filled anywhere else.

Blizzard created a world many years ago. Off and on, their Warcraft series has always held a place in my ‘frustrated distractions’ category… the games I would play when I was having an off day in my main game. The World of Warcraft, their MMO based in the same world is just… fascinating. The level of detail, the richness of color… its like a fantasy novel come to digital life. The one thing it lacks is that, for the most part, you don’t need other people… you can play solo from beginning to end. Sure you might miss some quests or dungeons, but one should never expect to explore 100% of a game world in an MMO. Heck, 5 years of EQ and I think there are still some places I never went to. But one of the things that it manages to capture so much better than EverQuest ever could, is the simple idea that while I don’t need other people, the things that can be accomplished in small groups, the way the classes compliment each other in so many varied ways… I don’t need other people, but I want other people. So here’s to the next 5 years of gaming.

Goals

Gaming

Sometimes one of the best things to do in online games in to set goals for yourself. And I don’t mean strictly the ones the designers lay out for you. Levels, items, zones, quests… they’re all decent goals, but often times they wind up being diminished by the fact that so many other people have done them.

So, with that in mind, in every game I play I always find little things to task myself with. The most recent one is in City of Heroes. I’m not playing CoH as much as I used to… heck, I’m not playing any game as much as I used to, but my time is currently divided between World of Warcraft and City of Heroes… WoW when Jodi is around, and CoH when its just me. Anyway, in CoH I’m playing Ishiro Takagi, a scrapper, martial arts and regeneration. Given enemies his own level, he’s fairly unbeatable. It takes guys 2 or 3 levels higher or groups of 6 or more to put him in the dirt. Ishiro is level 26, and currently prowling the streets and rooftops of Striga Isle, Talos Island, Dark Astoria and Independance Port… I go into Terra Volta every now and then, and when I’m sent to the hospital I remember why I don’t go in there alone, heh.

In Independance Port there is a bridge. Its long and covered in bad guys. I start at the north end and begin wading through. I haven’t made it yet… either I run into a boss who cleans my clock, or an afore mentioned group of 6 or more who I just can’t thin out before they get the upper hands. As I level it will get easier, and that’s sorta the point. My goal isn’t levelling, its something else, which if I keep doing it will lead to levelling, but in and of itself is far more satisfying than watching the experience bar fill up… instead I watch my progress across the bridge.

I’m halfway there.

Soon.

Story of Heroes

Gaming

City of Heroes is about to do something that, unless I’m mistaken, is nearly unheard of in the world of MMOs. They are going to advance the story.

No, not just some expansion that tacks on a dozen new zones and makes an additional story you can explore, but actually taking the existing story and moving it forward. The only other game I know of that has done this is Asheron’s Call… and it makes sense once you know that some of the top guys at Cryptic were once the top guys at Turbine, makers of Asheron’s Call.

If you have been playing the game, or buy it right now and play, one of the villain groups you will fight are the 5th Column. These are a hold over from WWII, rooted in the Nazi Party but since separated into their own goals and headed by a man from another dimension, an alternate Earth when Germany won WWII. In a month or so (or less, I hope), you won’t be able to do this. In fact, if you join the test server now, you’ll find that the 5th Column are gone, and a new group, The Council, have risen up to take their place, destroying and devouring them from within. In a few months time, except for the odd plaque and the memories of older heroes, the 5th Column will vanish from the game.

One of the problems with other games on the market, is that they are, for all their lore and diversity, static. In EverQuest, if you buy an account right now and start from scratch, I can point you to quests and monster spawns that have remained unchanged for more than five years. The story in EverQuest has expanded, they’ve added new continents and worlds, alternate planes. They’ve added new lore and stories, new arcs of history and adventure, but they have remained reluctant to remove the old ones… The Paladins of Marr and the Freeport Militia are at the same tense standoff for control that they have had for five years. Wait, that’s five “real” years, but since 72 real minutes = a Norrath day, then you have 20 Norrath days per real day, which means that its been over 100 Norrath years. Beyond simple storytelling, EQ would have benefitted from adjusting its game in other ways… as time went on they developed more and more high level content, because thats where the bulk of people were, but they also took away none of the low level content, so the decreasing number of players turned into empty underpopulated zones and loss of social activity. In its beginning, people met in EQ because they were in the same places… now, until you get up to the later 50’s in level, there just simply aren’t enough people to fill the world to make for meaningful interaction between players.

This whole thing with City of Heroes gives me hope. I’ll be keeping my eye on the future of World of Warcraft to see if they follow suit, and even though I have no interest in playing EQ2, I’ll keep an eye on them to see if they have learned from their past. I’d love to see more worlds, more stories, instead of giant online gaming habitats.

How to Truly Listen

Gaming

If you know City of Heroes, and you frequent the message boards, you might be familiar with the battle cry, “Repeal the Purple Patch!” and you might even know what they are referring to…

First off, what is the Purple Patch?

When City of Heroes first opened, it was possible for a player to fight and defeat a foe that was 8 to 10 levels higher than he was. These battles were usually fierce and hard fought, but with the way experience was given turned out to be well worth the effort. See, exp in CoH is done on a scale.. a mob is worth X exp, and then a bonus or subtraction is made based on other factors. The major factor is your level. If you are the same level as the mob, you get X. If you are higher level, you get less than X, and the scale works quickly down so that once you are 4 or 5 levels over it (and the mob is easy to defeat) you get nothing. On the other end, there is no limit… if the mob is 10 levels higher than you and you do 100% of the damage to defeat it, you wind up getting something crazy like 4 or 5 times the exp, so a mob worth 50 exp becomes worth 200-250 exp to a lower level. The issue is, the game is largely balanced around you fighting mobs your level. So, at level 10, you might get 20 exp for defeating a level 10 mob, which is 2% of your exp for level. 50 level 10 mobs, and you level. If, however, you can fight a mob and get 200 exp, then you only need to defeat 5 of them. Problem is, they didn’t expect people to be able to defeat a mob 10 levels above them, and didn’t expect people to level quite so quickly.

As a result, the Purple Patch came into play. What they did was once a mob goes purple (4 levels above you), your chance to hit begins to decline very steeply… VERY steeply. So steep that once a mob is 8 levels above you, realistically you have 0 chance to win the fight because you will be simply unable to do more damage than he will be able to regenerate due to missing. (Originally, it was harsher than this even, the decline started sooner and a mob 5 levels above you was impossible, but they eased up, so the original patch is not important anymore, only the existing situation).

The effect this had on players, was that now that they were relegated to fighting mobs 4 levels above and lower, the exp rewards were not as ludacris as they had been. Leading to the inevitable “they nerfed all the fun out of the game” cries because people couldn’t earn mad exp while fighting impossible odds. To a degree, the players ARE correct. However, as often is the case, they are single minded.

This can be tied in with my MMORPG Project (link over on the right)… See, the players are focused on “repeal the purple patch”, but what they don’t realize is that the purple patch isn’t the issue… its that the mobs they “should” be fighting (according to the developers) are too easy and not rewarding enough. Would they still be asking for the repeal if the fights with orange (level +2) and red (level +3) mobs were more harrowing and yielded a better reward?

I don’t think they would. And this is where the developers should focus. They were right with the purple patch… players should be fighting things 8 and 10 levels above them… but players should regularly seek challenge, even level to red con, and they should find it fun and rewarding.

The devs are on the right track… now its just a wait and see to see if they follow through.

The Future of the Game

Gaming

I’ve probably ranted about this before… but of course that won’t stop me from doing it again.

What’s wrong with EverQuest?

Honestly, if you enjoy the game as it is, nothing. Sony has laid out a path of developement for their virtual world that they are progressing down, and if you enjoy the places it goes then EverQuest is a happy fun place. If you don’t though, EverQuest is, as the popular phrase among other ranters goes, dying.

The Real World, you know, the one we live in, is huge. It has a vastness that most people never bother to try to comprehend. But if you are one of those people who try, you’ve looked at this planet and seen what the 6 billion or so people on it have done. Cities, towns, farms, roads… there are really very few places that are truely barren of human life. Places in the Arctic and Antarctic come to mind, as do a number of deserts and other places. Now consider that 70% of the planet is water and has, realistically, no population of humans.

In the world of EverQuest, much of the game is like the oceans. If you run from Qeynos to Freeport, which is 6 to 8 zones, you’ll likely run into maybe a dozen people. These are zones that at one time housed a hundred or more. 10 to 20 people per zone, and on many servers with the East Commanlands Bazaar, 100 people without breaking a sweat. The game is empty.. at least until you get to level 65 and start raiding, then you have 500 people vying for the same 3 to 4 zones and encounters.

EverQuest has become a land of raiding and high end gaming. There is little place for the truely casual player anymore, the slow and steady explorer, the quiet dreamer. If you try to play the game that way now, starting at level 1, you’ll quit in 3 months, guaranteed. Its just… lifeless. Now, if you powerlevel, and race to 65, you may play for much much longer. This is where the “game” exists. However, step away from the dozen zones built for the “high end” game, and you’ll find it just as empty.

Sony has nurtured a game that has expanded with its players, but it hasn’t grown. Arathur in Qeynos still says the same things he said 5 years ago. The same quests are still there, some are even still broken. Sony had lived under the impression that the game is better off going to new lands than to dare alter the existing game. Its true, players get angry when content they either remember fondly or have yet to experience disappears, but these angry players don’t quit. Verant understood this. While they did give up the Kunark expansion that nearly doubled the size of the world, they also gave us “Bloody Kithicor” as the once benign Kithicor Forest turned into a place of vile evil once the sun has settled beneath the hills, changing a zone for levels 1-10 into a place filled with wandering level 30-40 undead. Ask any player who played during that time, and they’ll recall it. Ask any player who started in the year or so after and they’ll have heard of it. Only 2 or more years later is it possible for a player to play the game and not hear of “Bloody Kithicor”. Verant developed player lore: stories that lasted long beyond their occurance. Sony hasn’t done that.

In the history of game expansions, EverQuest was always expanding. From Kunark, to Velious, to Luclin, to the Planes of Power, to Broken Skull Rock, to the Lost Dungeons of Norrath, to the Gates of Discord, and looking forward toward the Omens of War, only one expansion didn’t add new lands. The Lost Dungeons of Norrath added camps to existing zones, and dungeons off those and more existing lands. You didn’t need a port, or to ride a boat. It was the old world brought to life again.

Right now, there are zones in EverQuest sitting empty that are a part of storylines gathering dust. All they would need to do is resurrect those stories, revamp a zone or two, add a zone or two, add a dozen instanced dungeons, and the players would come back to the old worlds. The travel paths of old would be alive again with the footfalls of adventurers. Mayong Mistmoore could return to power and take his seat in Castle Mistmoore evoking the resurgance of evil in the Faydark. The frogloks of old Sebilis could begin to rebuild their armies in earnest, gathering strength from the growing darkness in their halls. The gnolls of splitpaw might stumble on to an enormous power, strengthening them and spilling out into the Karanas.

Everything that Sony needs to revitalize the world of Norrath is within their grasp… but the catch is, you can’t revamp a zone for only the players who pay. If Mayong returns to power in his castle, you can’t have the new Mistmoore available only to those who buy the new box down at Besy Buy or who order it online for digital download. Free content seems to be a bad word at Sony. But free content could save them.

EverQuest has peaked. At this point, the only thing they can do is retain customers. New customers (true new customers, not someone’s second or third account) will be few and far between. Players entering Norrath now are presented with an enormous empty world. The social aspect is gone at the lower levels. So eiher you suffer in a world of silence, or you have a friend who helps you catch up to the “real game”. And many new players, and players new to gaming, don’t want that… they want to experience the game, not have it handed to them. The only way EverQuest will ever gain customers again… free content. A revamping of the world so that it isn’t so empty and lifeless below level 65.

City of Heroes, World of Warcraft… there is blood in the water, and they smell it. These games are making large worlds that are vast beyond their borders, designing games to be enjoyable and populated at all levels. In City of Heroes, for example, even when you are level 43, from time to time doing missions you’ll be forced to travel back to Atlas Park, the lowest level zone in the game, for a door mission, or to talk to a contact, keeping you connected to the rest of the world.

EverQuest needs to change, or it will, as they say, “die”.

Intrepid Reporter, Calvin Meeks…

Gaming

I started a little project for myself. For one, to get into City of Heroes a bit more. Two, to get to know the community a bit. And three, to do some writing.

Its called the Front Page.

I created a character named Calvin Meeks, who is not a hero at all, but one of those reporters who always gets mixed up in trouble.

So far so good. I’ve met a few folks, and even had a couple of offers for doing stories (tagging along for exp and such, while taking notes and photos).

I’m really enjoying it.