Ok, so I’m behind the ball at the moment, even though I’ve been sitting on a few of these for a while – incubating -, due to being holed up with a design document. Time to get them out of the way so I can get back to writing and, er, get back behind the ball again.
Lifestyles of the
Rich and Felonious
Proving that it’s not only the furries and CopyBotters having fun in Second Life, Anshe Chung announced that the worth of her virtual holdings have exceeded US$1million. This figure excludes her real world assets, her virtual assets in other online communities, and the next exploit to deliver a swift kick to the groin of the Second Life economy.
We may be reading their lips for now, but stories such as this, propelled along by forces such as the growing Second Life media bandwagon, has got to look mighty tempting.
Meanwhile, the method for not keeping your million dollars was being demonstrated in Japan.
Wang Yue Si, 23, came to Japan on a student visa in April 2004. He started selling items such as weapons and currency for online games through an Internet auction site in April this year, without obtaining the appropriate residency status.
If only he’d draped himself in the national flag and yelled “Japan! Fuck yeh!!” when they came for him.
Double meanwhile, a player sued Shanda for the loss in value of his equipment while he was banned. And won.
As a result, the player sued Shanda in Hengyang County, requiring Shanda to unblock his account, and pay compensation of RMB 45,000 ($5,625) for the depreciation of his game equipment during the suspension period, the damage to his character's reputation in the game, and his travel expenses.
Hey, you. Yeah you, designer. Step away from the database for a second. You sure you want to be nerfing that pair of pantaloons?
But of course, Western developers have nothing to worry about when this is an indication of how their players deal with banned accounts.
Slashdot posted the WAR team’s answers to a bunch of questions sent their way. Wow, there was even a totally unexpected question about a Linux or Mac version!
Fundamentally, Warhammer Online is about real, meaningful conflict. When we say "war is everywhere," we mean it. From the earliest portions of the game straight on through to the high-end invasion campaigns, players will have the chance to take part in robust, meaningful PvP. The options that exist on the market at the moment really treat PvP like a dangerously "extreme" element of the MMO experience and go to great lengths to make it appeal only to a limited percentage of players. Part of this is out of necessity - poorly conceived PvP can be devastatingly off-putting to new players who set one foot out into the world and get murdered on the spot by griefers. So we see some games that restrict PvP to specialized servers or to high level characters in remote areas or that force players to queue up for an hour to go and play through "safe" content that exists outside of the persistent world entirely. It's no surprise that most MMO players eschew PvP for the traditionally more well-implemented PvE experience.
Eyegasm.
In reply to the Q&A, Damion questions how Mythic is going to handle the losing side coming back for Round 2 after their treasures have been raped and their women looted. In my honest opinion, the best way to go about it, and the way that is mentioned by Damion in reference to World War II Online, is seemingly employed.
Once the ruler is defeated, he has to then be brought back to the attacking race's city. Once this is done, that city then belongs to the attacking race, until a reset happens and the race gets their city back.
The question remains whether, after a reset, the defeated side gets only their city back, or if the additional buffer of the nearest PvP zone(s) is also supplied. Not giving a little leg up to a side that has lost half of its numbers after they have logged out in defeat (“Ah, we’ll just push back and get our ruler tomorrow. Let them tire themselves out.”/”Gotta go 2 work. Laterz”/”$&*%ing noobs! I’ve had it with this side!”) will just further disadvantage that side and lead to the period of lackluster PvP seen in DAOC that followed a successful relic capture. Even if the (generous) gift of a zone isn’t supplied, there’s gotta be some kind of incentive for the defeated to push back immediately after a thumping – a time limit on taking back the first zone in exchange for a bonus; topless dancing elves/goblins at a pub in the central PvP area; something.
Speaking of Damion, over at 1up they’ve posted an interview with 3 of his glorious leaders.
“We basically want to bring what BioWare's famous for to the online space, and one of the things BioWare's famous for is storytelling…”
So, from this exclusive interview we can determine that BioWare is making an MMO. And it’ll have a story. And…um…
Which, coincidently enough, leads me onto the flipside of the Information Hype coin. Completing the Zen of Design hat-trick for today, Damion linked to a post on the FOHrums that copied another post from the Vanguard beta forum which shows the developers continuing to struggle with the Vision vs the Vision That Was Perceived To Be Hyped.
We are not afraid to take out or revamp features that we feel are not working out, based on our own play experience as well as tester feedback.
It’s about time you guys stood up for yourselves.
…and Pieces
** Blizzard released the stat
tracking section to its World of WarCraft website, telling us such useful
information as the Defias Pillager, ranked #3 on the “Most Dangerous Creatures”
list, has killed 29,202 players (welcome to “aggro”, noobs), and the most
created item is the Soul Shard, with 2,797,184 copies being made whilst
accompanied by 2,797,184 sentences of “…fucking shard farming…”.
What the stats pages don’t tell you is that most of the Soul Shards are being made by the same low-level Warlock that keeps dying in the middle of a Defias camp.
** Homeworld fans universally prayed “omgomgpleasebehomeworldonlineplzplzplzplz” in reply to the news that Relic Entertainment is looking for a senior designer to join their MMO team. Warhammer fans can calm down, however. Games Workshop releasing MMOs of both Warhammer licenses in close proximity to one another? Unlikely.
Meanwhile, Nintendo fans reached spontaneous rapture. (It was not a pretty sight)
** Speaking about misspelt words, Napster founder Shawn Fanning has announced plans to launch Rupture, a “virtual social community for online gamers” nee “WoW Myspace”.
Gamers will also be able to instant message while playing, as well as track the progress of their guilds and organize playing time with their online buddies.
Thank <insert diety of choice here>! To think we’ve gone all this time without a way to talk to other people in game, or guild websites/forums!
** The9, looking to supplement its “99% of company earnings from WoW” with some extra pocket money from the just beta-launched Guild Wars, announced a deal between itself and Pepsi that sees a large Pepsi/Guild Wars cross-promotion campaign put into motion. That’s the same The9 that made a similar deal between WoW and Coca-Cola that featured movie actors, popstars, and Jesus returning from the dead. That’s the same The9 that experienced a 10% drop in earnings from WoW earlier this year (a game that is increasing in earnings in other regions), had questions raised about its service capabilities, and has yet to secure an agreement over distribution of the Burning Crusade after months of negotiations.
I can’t help but feel that the 4-year WoW contract comes in pretty handy about now.
** Mythic must be feeling pretty confident to be showing off something in alpha form that is being touted by themselves as key to the success of WAR. And as far as alphas go, the video isn’t offensive at all – it surpasses some release titles.
But then again, my opinion doesn’t really matter. It’s those people that are a part of the general MMO consumer populace that upon seeing incomplete animations and hearing “whiffing” sfx as placeholder in an alpha build say the following;
Frankly when i saw how the battle animations looked and the avatar models, It looked like a step backward in graphic engine or something. There was nothing live feeling about the characters look / almost Wowish in looks but alot more Duller.
My other feeling on warhammer is why didnt they just do a daoc 2. Realm vs Realm 3 way has been the funnest of all pvp anywhere i have played on mmorpgs. Warhammer is 2 sides and from the looks of that vid. repetitious dull swinging melee and what magic there was, reminded me of sounds and visuals of neverwinter nights 1.
These people shall be the first to die to my squig.
** Play Tabula Rasa or Richard Garriot will bust a cap in yo ass, fo' shizzle. Respect.
Beautifuly designed, positively creative impeccably executed phone thought. Hope we see it some day. Amazing.
Posted by: Moncler Outlet | October 14, 2011 at 10:04 PM