Tag: Weekend

A Week of Tweets on 2010-10-10

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Heading into the Weekend

Random Thoughts

It’s been a long week.

Have you ever had a problem that you can’t see?  You can see the effects of it, but not the direct cause.  Slowly sifting through the symptoms, ruling out possibilities.  A whole week of that and what I have to show for it is a problem still unsolved, but at least I know a few dozen things it isn’t.  Perhaps next week will shed new night.

This is also the last weekend before Script Frenzy.  I really enjoyed participating last year even if I didn’t finish.  I’m more ready this year than last.  For one, I’m not just starting a new job.  I’ve also already done my taxes AND gotten my refunds.  In just about every way possible, I’m in a better place this year.

I don’t know if you are paying attention, I know I often don’t.  But over on the right side of the page, down a bit, there are a couple of progress bars.  One of them recently moved.  Sure, the number is a complete and total guess, but I’ve actually moved forward, crossed some items off the “To Do” list and adjusted it accordingly.  Feels good.

Also have the first real meeting for the Dragon*Con staff where I’ll get to sit around with the MMO Track folks and try to figure out how to get BioWare to show up and talk about The Old Republic… among other things, I’m sure.

Overall, as March heads to April, and as Winter passes to Spring, everything is looking pretty good.  Let’s get the weekend started…

The Failure of the Free Weekend

Gaming

If you have ever played an MMO, you know what I’m talking about when I say “Free Weekend”.  If not, here’s the run down.  You subscribe to an MMO, you play a while, then you cancel.  Every now and then (about once a quarter) the company will blast an email out to all the inactive accounts and tell them about a “Free Weekend” – a Friday afternoon to Monday morning period – where their account will be reactivated for free!  You can just log in and play like you used to!  This email will also probably include a list of the latest features/changes of the game, and often will coincide with some sort of event for the non-canceled players, like double experience or the beginning of a week/month long holiday event.

One of the things I said in a post last week was about Free Weekends being on your schedule not mine.  This is true, and is the biggest flaw, in my opinion, to the Free Weekend promotion.

There are, in my experience, three kinds of people who cancel a game subscription for an MMO:

  1. Switched to another game. This player may have been playing your game and enjoying it, but something new came along and off they went.
  2. Bored with your game. Not the same as the person above, this individual isn’t going anywhere in particular, they just ran out of things to do in your game and are taking a break.  They usually only cancel after not logging in a couple of months, but eventually they do.
  3. Not enough time to play. This is me.  I’ve got other activities and things like console games and I just don’t have enough time to make paying for the game worth it, or my time is so erratic and there are enough gaps where I’m “wasting money” that I give up the occasional romp in order to keep the money.

The first two types are often best lured back in by patches and expansions that either add more content or fix issues that lead them to quit.  In fact, the guys at WoW can probably give you hard numbers on how many reactivations they get before/after patches and expansions.  Even so, the Free Weekend can work on them as well.  These players still have the time to play, so the weekend offer is there to convince them to give the game they left behind another try, and maybe sign back up for that subscription.

For me, however, I left because my playtime is erratic and scattered.  Nine times out of ten, I get a Free Weekend offer for a game I used to play and then find I don’t have time to take advantage of it.  Monday comes and I say, “Oh man, I missed another Free Weekend!”  For the third player type, rather than just unlocking their account for a set weekend, companies should consider giving out a Free Weekend Key that the player can redeem any time.  Of course, the key needs to be locked in to the specific account to prevent creating a secondary market for selling keys, but this way I could unlock my account for the free couple of days when it works best for me.  No more smacking my head about another missed Free Weekend.  Instead, when I find myself with nothing to do on a random Saturday, I can open the email and select a Free Weekend Key and go play because I have the time to play.

This doesn’t entirely solve the problem, since I would still be unlikely to resubscribe unless my schedule changes, but it would allow me to occasionally dip my toe back in the game and keep it fresh in my mind for when my schedule does change or my budget frees up some extra cash.  But as it stands now, once I cancel and because I miss every Free Weekend, I’m more likely to buy a new game when the time comes than return to an old one I haven’t touched in ages.

And sometimes they do it right.

Random Thoughts

The Weekend before Halloween, Verant make a change on the servers for what they called “Adventure Weekend”. They sped up the spawn times for the large contested monsters in the game. The dragons, Venril Sathir and others. Lots of guilds got to do alot of the high end game.

“But what about the little guys?” you ask.

Well, they also patched the server on Halloween morning to introduce a bunch of scripted events. In several zones werewolves and undead roamed where they previously hadn’t. And these monsters dropped very nice equipment. A few pieces were even good by the high end gamers’ standards, but most were aimed at people around levels 10 to 40. Each of these zones had a story, and completing the story ended the event… but… it would start over again in 2 hours to give more people a chance to participate.

This is exactly what Verant needs to do more often. Not always dropping loot and other things, but to have a zone be unpredictable. The spawns more random. Get the players involved. Like having 2 quests in a zone, if the good guys win evil is vanquished, if the bad guys win good is sent heading for the hills. These events, when followed and not farmed, were engaging, interesting, and fun.

Now, on to my next comment…

Those were scripted events. Today however, I ran into what is usually referred to as “a_GM_event00”. Usually these events are nothing but people getting killed and crappy loot.

However…
(in character)
I head to Karnor’s Castle for some hunting. We build a group and get ready. Kill a few things and I run in deep to pull something out to play. As I round the staircase in the Left Courtyard toward the Well, I see “Sentry of Sathir”. “Cool”, I think to myself. I’ll pull him out and have some fun. Then a dwarf flies by. His name is “Knight of Brell” and he says only one word: “RUN!”

I round the corner and I see him.. Venril Sathir. Immediately I take the dwarf’s advice and run. At the front of the Castle now I see them all coming: Venril Sathir, Knight of Sathir, Sentry of Sathir, and Drolvarg Captain. They charge us and we brace for it.

Things did not go well. We were beaten out of the zone. We collected ourselves and then once more into the breach. We stand longer this time, and a few of us fall in combat. Our clerics revive us and we rejoin the fray.

The word has gone out, and the army gathers. The Drolvarg Captain falls. I begin shouting orders and the adventurers begin to listen. The Sentry of Sathir falls. Collected more fully know we charge. The Knight of Sathir falls.

And we fail. Venril Sathir lays the Knight of Brell to rest.

Now enraged we charge at last Venril Sathir himself. I call out to rally the forces assembled. We battle. Each of us tired, weary, but we continue. And finally, Venril Sathir falls.

We collect the spoils of our fight: Cleric Greeves, Magician Staff, Wizard Staff. I allot the loot to those who helped.

From deep within the bowels of Karnor’s Castle, a voice echoes, “I will return!” Venril Sathir is far from done with Norrath.
(end in character)

See.. now THAT was fun. I wish more people could see the game like this. And I hope that Verant does things like this more often.