Monthly Archives: March 2013

GW2 Appreciation Day. Or: The seven months Recap

It’s been seven months to this day since Guild Wars 2 launched somewhat rocky in August 2012, and ever since players have argued just how much genre evolution has in fact taken place with this title. How much has GW2 truly pushed MMO design forward? Over half a year later there is more meat to such analysis.

I will never forget the heated discussions preceding this launch or some of the emotions flying high in the blogosphere. Hardly ever do unreleased games invoke such passionate argument between nay- and yay-fronts. Arenanet’s bold statements and promises for GW2 managed to provoke even the most level-headed genre veterans. So, you are talking of better days?- Well, you better prove it! Any developer can wax lyrical over their unreleased product of course. Yet, here and there this recent twitter observation rang true: “Pessimism is the natural state of the MMO gamer.” We like to complain a lot – but oh, beware of promising us improvement! If it sounds too good to be true that’s probably because it isn’t.

Or was it? Scary is taking the opportunity today to muse on the state of GW2 and what he is thankful for to ANet. Personally, I concur that there is much that GW2 has done for me and that I believe will shape MMOs to come. Seven months later, it is still part of my weekly MMO diet. There are also things however that did not turn out as well as I had hoped. So, while this is by all means an appreciation topic, I will cover all bases in a short recap.

Getting the bad out of the way

I think it’s safe to say that WvW did not deliver on my personal Alterac Valley dreams. Others have already analyzed in great detail all that went wrong in ANet’s three-faction PvP conflict model, preventing it from becoming a source of constant, passionate strife and server pride. As much as I wanted to engage in WvW, even after joining a PvP guild and seeing my server hit #1 on the EU ladder, my flame for this part of the game was sadly never kindled.

I have recently commented on why I feel let down by the subtle change from GW2’s open world no-grind (or at least missing item-centricity) premise, to what has become an endless grind for gear, tokens and daily achievements. ANet feeling pressured to re-introduce these features in lieu of non-existent endgame is probably my biggest GW2 qualm right now, closely followed by their lack of preparing an ingame grouping tool or at least global channel. While player initiatives such as gw2lfg are laudable, I am still at utter disbelief over this.

Other than that, the biggest surprise would be the miss-happen (under-)usage of the item store and inane approach to cosmetic gear (town clothes /eyeroll). If there’s a thing I expected this MMO to do well, it would’ve been cosmetics. But browsing the shop seven months later, one could think ANet do not actually want our money, much to their loss.

Leaving a mark on the MMO map

In spite of few serious short-comings, I consider GW2 a smashing success – and over 2 million box sales are not what I’m referring to. There is no doubt in my mind that GW2 did achieve some of the most important innovations and changes that it originally set out to do. This will and already has had impact on games yet to come.

So, in the spirit of appreciation day, here’s what I thank ANet for:

For proving once and for all, despite all doubt and suspicion, that MMOs can feature classic combat without role restrictions and holy trinity. I always believed in this particular feature and wasn’t let down.
For introducing a score of varied outdoor events and revolutionizing the fetch&delivery grind of mainstream MMOs.
For featuring an active MMO combat with exciting weapon combinations that feel different for every class.
For breaking up level progression and keeping to a flat leveling curve.
For de-cluttering the MMO UI and keeping a small health bar.
For a high level of gear customization in terms of armor dyes.
For curvy Norn ladies with proper booty and some of the most consistent, achieved race design in Charr, Asura and Sylvari.
For massive outdoor dragon encounters (even if they could be more difficult)
And last but far from least: the most stunning, beautiful, inspiring and shamelessly magical MMO world and aesthetic up to date – on land as much as under water. If that wasn’t enough, you also got Jeremy Soule to seal the deal and irrevocably hook you to the wonder that is Tyria.

I’ve seen some discussions of late on why graphics don’t matter and how we should return to pixels because that made for better games; I couldn’t disagree more. Graphics are not what makes or breaks an MMO – but give me a great game with GW2’s graphics and vividness on top and I remain your faithful customer forever more. Accomplished design and sound effects are the delicious sugar on every MMO cake.

Which of the above accomplishments do I suspect to have the greatest impact? No doubt we’ll see increased grouping freedom in future MMOs. Roles will likely return in both Wildstar and Elder Scrolls Online, but never again to the extent and inflexibility of past trinity-based AAA-titles.
More active combat is already here; we can see it in Tera and all bigger releases of 2013 feature it in one shape or form. I wouldn’t credit GW2 for this trend too much but its arrival has marked a new era of less formulaic MMO combat. That said, one can still improve on the zerg.

By far the biggest influence of GW2 lies in ANet’s revamped questing and dynamic event model (and yeah, I still call’em dynamic). Probably the most dramatic shift for me personally, GW2 has set a standard that future, western MMOs simply cannot afford to overlook. I can forgive fedex questing in LOTRO – never again though will I settle for a new MMO setting me on an uninspired kill-ten-rats routine. Thank you Arenanet for showing us what can be done!

I’m sure much more could be said for other aspects of GW2, such as crafting or the much debated personal storyline. I leave it to others to judge such matters as I lack the required focus and expertise. I realize too, this didn’t turn out to be such a short recap after all. I trust my readers will forgive me. The short version is that GW2 is the best thing coming my way since World of Warcraft and while being far from perfect, it hasn’t let me down on my biggest hopes and wishes. And for that I raise my hat to Arenanet.

With that, I am off to continue the Living Story. Enjoy your time in Tyria!

A Future of better player housing – from LOTRO to Wildstar

It’s probably a fair claim that player housing is one of the most wanted features in MMOs and yet also one of the trickiest to design and often misshapen ones. While the potential of letting users create and shape their own virtual space inside a game is endless, promising not just for more social interaction but longterm player attachment, developers of past titles have often missed to include that one imperative ingredient to all housing: significance. (Interchangeable with meaning, relevance or impact.)

While it’s all good fun and giggles to decorate one’s own space and collect shinies, the attraction of housing is short-lived for the average player. Instanced housing is especially bad for this but even if an MMO offers outdoor housing or neighbourhoods such as LOTRO, there are only so many times one will invite friends over to marvel at interior design or enjoy tea at the expensive, golden party table. To make player housing an effective part of the game and community, there need to be more mechanics in place to create meaning and significance. There need to be reasons enough why people would want to spend time in/around their own house, why they would want to invite each other or explore homes. You want me to care about housing longterm? Tell me why!

Different ways to create meaningful player housing in MMOs

As romantic as the idea of an ingame “home” is, my guess is most MMO players aren’t looking to simply simulate a homebase. For one thing, we already have a home (duh). Secondly, players are already likely to pick individual homes for themselves – as in their favorite city or spot on the world map. One can build attachment to any place in an MMO. What really draws us in though are those places where we meet up, interact and do business. Places that have specific social functions, which is why cities have always been the heartbeat in games. They’re where stuff happens and where we want to hang out. I do not want to go sit quietly and alone at my instanced home’s doorstep in an MMO, even if it took me five days and as many corpseruns to get that doormat.

Ever since Turbine announced their player housing revamp for this year, I’ve been pondering on all the ways to bestow more meaning on LOTRO’s current housing model and better player housing in general. LOTRO is an interesting hybrid in the sense that while the system is instanced, neighbourhoods still hold a ton of social potential. It’s quite awesome how every single home has its own unique address which you can look up at the homestead gate. Alas, Turbine too failed at digging deeper with their housing system. For what its worth, here’s my round-up of suggestions on how to spice things up in the future and make player housing a more lively and exciting part of the game:

1) Cosmetics & Personalization:
Indoor and outdoor (yard) design should be a given. Design slots should be completely flexible within a building grid, similar to Minecraft. Do not force players to only put up “one painting per wall” or having to plant “small items in small slots, big items in big slots”. It’s limiting and makes decor feel generic.

Rather than offering x types of homes, let players build individual homes based on resources and property boundaries. Introduce painting, weaving, carpentering and farming professions. Make room and level expansions possible.

Feature nifty items such as a personal mailbox, message board, personal indoor tune, bookshelves (Skyrim), complete collectible themes/styles, quest/raid/guild trophies, pet barns and stables. LOTRO features an amazing score of collectible mounts, yet players cannot have any of them on display?

2) Social tools & opportunities
Instanced or not, every player home should have its unique address that can be looked up by others in a public “address book”. As an ever-curious and nosy explorer, I do not only enjoy traveling into the blue but looking up destinations an seeking out specific places. How about some yellow pages where home owners can add notes on what services or special features they offer?

Making a personal mailbox a requisite in order to receive any ingame mail comes to mind as a next step. Similarly extreme would be the measure of removing the auction house and instead letting players set up shops and vendor NPCs on their property, as was done in UO (and long is the list of players who worship it). Player shops create traffic and interaction, greatly increase the significance of professions and generate income for the owner. While we’re at it – remove banks too and make player houses the only place for safe storage!

Homes should be hubs for trade, gathering and crafting in general. Spending time on building and tending to the environment could each go with specific rewards and buffs. There are some great new ideas in Wildstar’s recent housing dev talk. Furthermore, player houses in the same area should be able to form mini-towns and unlock more features such as townhalls with special quests, market places with unique wares and the option to build custom event stages. Mini-towns could set up donation boxes in order to receive public funding for bigger buildings. Pecuniary administration is of course handled by the town-members elected major.

…Naturally, not all of these ideas are novel and some are obviously already live in LOTRO; however imagining all of them come together and taking it further, one can only muse how deep the rabbit hole of player housing may reach. There’s an untapped goldmine there if a developer is willing to take some bold steps and abandon a few popular and convenient features that MMO players take for granted nowadays – being able to do and access anything from anywhere among them. It is impossible to restore meaning without limiting certain services in the game in favor of players frequenting their own and each others homes. Too long have city-dwelling NPCs taken over our virtual interactions. Just imagine: riding down your home street in LOTRO to do business at the market square, passing smoking chimneys (representing occupation) and busy neighbours laboring in their front yard. A micro-cosmos of its own. Where do I sign up?

A word on scale

While the recently published Wildstar update is very exciting, there is one thing that irritated me in the video documentary. What I’m talking about is scale which sadly seems to be off in Wildstar’s housing structures and related items, just the way scale is completely off in Guild Wars 2 – something I have lamented since day one. As great as monumental gates and streets made for giants seem at first, and Divinity’s Reach certainly is impressive, an off-balance environment scale in MMOs creates detachment. It feels unnatural and unauthentic in greater quantity. I do not want to sit in chairs that are three times too big for me or open doors that dwarf elephants. It’s hard to immerse myself while going through a Goldilocks experience. It’s not what I personally associate with a cosy home and it doesn’t create the atmosphere I feel when entering my small hut in LOTRO which is exactly the size it should be in relation to who’s supposed to inhabit it. Therefore, dear devs please take note: bigger isn’t always better!

That aside, I look forward to see Wildstar’s flying islands go live. They’ve yet to prove that having homes up in the sky is a good idea, but Carbine are making the biggest buzz about their housing right now and it’s nice to see developers taking this aspect so seriously. I am also super antsy for LOTRO’s update and hope to see a great many changes! To my fellow Middle-Earth travelers: what housing improvements would you like to see most? And what are people’s top must-haves for future player housing? May Wildstar herald much more goodness yet to come!

Goodbye from Raging Monkeys! Hello from MMO Gypsy!

Dear readers, subscribers and blogger friends,

After almost three years I bid farewell to my old blogger blog, known as Raging Monkeys (sometimes with apostrophe, sometimes not) and am very happy to welcome you to my brand new wordpress site: MMO Gypsy!
When google announced the death of google reader that was the final push for me to turn my back on blogger whose continued existence is now doubtful at best. I’ve always toyed with the idea of moving to wordpress but platform switches being such stressful undertakings, I resisted. So, I guess this is where I give thanks to google for ever treating blogger as their bastard child.

That said, moving blogs cross-platform was as rocky as expected; much reading, eyebrow raising and hair tearing has gone before this very first post on wordpress. Coming from blogger with all its installed conveniences and simple stylesheet, learning how to navigate WP’s plugins structure, editing themes and setting up a self-hosted domain are a challenge. That last part was easiest thanks to some friendly support, but I am still working my way through finish issues concerning permalinks switches, feed redirection, google’s SEO et cetera. Oh boy.

A new name and theme

I am very happy that the move to WP also marks the beginning of finally hosting my own blog (as blog content ownership is shady at best at blogger) and loosing the baggage of Raging Monkeys. It is always weird to be the only person blogging from a ‘plural blog name’, frequently being referred to as ‘they/them’. Somewhere along the lines I gave using an apostrophe a shot which only created more confusion on people’s blogrolls, either linking to Raging Monkeys or Monkey’s. Yeah, that worked well. I haven’t felt attachment to my old blog’s title for a long time now and after having had friends ask me what was apish or angry about my blog, I had to agree that it neither really fit my personality nor writing style. It was fun for a few months before blogger hindsight struck me. Alas, Raging Monkeys was my home for a long time and I’ll always treasure it for all the enjoyment blogging in the MMO sphere and interacting with my commenters has brought me.

I’ve chosen MMO Gypsy as my new alias. I feel it’s a fitting description of my many travels through online worlds that started over a decade ago. I know I will be attached to this wonderful genre for much longer. There is also a more personal identification with the literal gypsy as I partly share origins with some of that wandering folk. This is something I only recently discovered, so I take it as a good omen towards the new name choice.

About the old feed and blogroll issues

Due to both permalink reasons and google punishing duplicate content, the old blog is not accessible anymore but redirects to the new domain. However, as you can see I managed to fully import all my past articles and all your old comments to MMO Gypsy! This was the most important part for me and luckily it all went smoothly. I am glad that from now on there will be more and better options for commenting.

As I intend to keep my old feedburner feed, no changes have gone into the site’s feed; if you subscribed to my old blog before, you should now automatically get the new updates from MMO Gypsy. I have installed a feed-redirection in WP on behalf of new joiners (unfortunately WP automatically generates its own feed and won’t let you delete/replace it) and sincerely hope that’s working reliably to direct them to my old feed to avoid multiple feeds. Please let me know if this appears not to be the case!

To those of you who have Raging Monkeys on their blogroll: I’m afraid this will have to be updated manually by yourself as the old blogger link will not update any longer or reliably (and certainly not update the blog title). Thanks!

With that, I hope to have sorted the most important aspects of the move. As you can see the new blog is not entirely finished yet and I have few qualms to sort out on the sidebar and plugins to find to replace blogger’s inbuilt functionality for mobile view or statistics. Many thanks for letting me know if you detect an error or loading issues anywhere!

A look ahead and thank you

So much novelty did of course beg for a brand new look, too. I’ve been a white, minimalist theme blogger forever and while I loved Raging Monkeys final look (and have kept its overall layout and font styles), I’ve been wanting to go more ‘gamey’ and cheerful for a while. I hope all you non-feed readers like the new look – after much fixing I am quite happy with it now!

All that said, from here on MMO Gypsy is resuming all business and tomfoolery as usual. While names may have changed, I remain yours truly Syl, host of this not-so-serious but always sincere MMO and RPG blog – looking forward to many adventures to come, interesting discussions and great laughs with the community.

I do also want to take this opportunity to thank all my faithful readers and commenters, those who have stuck with Raging Monkeys for so long and those who have only discovered it more recently. You’re what’s making blogging this fantastic and worthwhile experience to me and all the merry chats, insightful debates and exchanges we’ve had over the years are what I will always cherish and welcome, also on this new blog. I look forward to seeing you back here! A very warm welcome to MMO Gypsy!

– Syl 🙂 (who still needs to figure out how to align images in WP)

[TESO] Holy Trinity and Healing Mechanics Revealed

So yesterday the folks at Zenimax dropped the ball on some long-awaited and much speculated combat details over at the TESO development Q&A. In the wake of titles like Guild Wars 2, many players have had the same big question on their mind: will there be a holy trinity in TESO? – Will there be a tank and healer?

Both questions were addressed in the Q&A although to varying degrees of my satisfaction. Let’s start with what has been revealed on the holy trinity so far:

Q: “How important will the ‘holy trinity’ be in PvE endgame/raids?
Will dedicated tanks and healers be required, or will lighter armored
characters be able to utilize the dodge system well enough to serve as
competent tanks? Will healers need to focus entirely on healing, or will
a more offensive spellcaster be able to sustain his group via spot
heals?” – By Lynx

Q: “A: “Yesterday in the lunchtime dungeon test, our group of four (all at level 12) included: – 1 Templar with light armor and healing staff, abilities focusing on healing – 1 Templar with light armor and dual wield, Templar abilities focusing on healing – 1 Dragonknight with light armor and destruction staff – 1 Sorcerer with heavy armor and dual wield This was with no real consultation with each other while making characters, other than ensuring there was at least one healer. For the sake of the dungeon we really could have used a true tank (the closest we had was the sorcerer wearing heavy armor and using unstable familiar to get the monster’s attention, with no real “keep myself alive” abilities), but as a group we were (eventually) able to take down the Fungal Grotto bosses. More to the point, with four players making independent choices in abilities and gear, three of the four made builds that defied the standard templates – and yet felt perfectly viable in actual play. The players were each able to build a character to their own taste with class abilities as a supplement, rather than the rigid defining aspect to the character, and have effective characters. So in summation, we’re pretty happy watching the progression system allow people to play the way they want in the groups they want to play in.”– By Lynx

I am getting the impression that the tests on group settings and mechanics are either not very advanced yet or that the developer is beating around the bushes in his reply. The very concrete question, namely how significant the holy trinity is for endgame/raids and how exclusive the role focus of certain classes will (have to) be, doesn’t get a straight answer. So, Zenimax’s testing team basically used two healers in a group of four. They made sure they had “at least one healer”. They also “could’ve used a real tank” in the Grotto but, errr….this wasn’t really a planned run and it’s wonderful if players can make “independent choices in abilities and gear”. Are we still addressing role setup questions for raiding here?

The reply ends on a similar note that tries to emphasize player freedom, mostly for spec and gear, but does in fact never truly answer the original question. At best it gets clear that there won’t be rigid cookie cutters for any class. I can’t shed the feeling that TESO will in fact feature a more classic holy trinity but that Zenimax are too careful and reluctant to call it that at this point. After all it could potentially alienate a big part of their potential audience. Anyone else get the same feeling?

TESO’s Healing Mechanics

Another more revealing part of the Q&A are the details on how healing is going to work in TESO. While I’m not a fan of dedicated healing in MMOs myself, I’ve explained in the past that one big part of my very vocal holy trinity dislike stems from the fact that healing in WoW was this over-the-top-exclusive stare-at-healthbars-job. MMOs like Age of Conan have offered some more refreshing solutions in that department: healing in AoC was overall weaker, more diverse and AoE/cone-based. Such an approach to healing mechanics can dramatically change the overall playstyle of healing classes. And it appears that TESO is going to follow a similar path –

Q: “I have a question about your targeting system for combat, from
what I’ve heard there will be a soft targeting system. My question is:
How does this system work in raids/large PvP groups for healers? Will
healers have a hard time finding players, and keeping track of their
group’s health? – By Jacob Avila

A: “Soft-lock targeting doesn’t really affect healing because you don’t have to find your target to heal them. You don’t target allies. Most of our heals are area-of-effects (AoEs) or cone effects. To be effective, you might want to stay in the middle of your allies for AoEs or face them for cone effects. Healers will need to be aware of their environment of course, and pay attention to the battle.“

The most important part of the reply is no doubt “you don’t target allies”. That means no cycling target frames and certainly no clicking healthbars. The healer’s focus lies on the whole encounter and environment, just like it does for everyone else in the party. Healing will be about correct placement and timing of area and cone effects which can be a great challenge. It’s a take on healing that has also gained some speed in WoW since Cataclysm and that many players out there should enjoy, sworn healers included.

I do welcome this approach to healing in TESO. That said, I do believe there will be dedicated healing and healer and tank roles in this game – certainly a lot more dedicated than in GW2. Zenimax do their best to emphasize playstyle freedom but nothing they’ve stated so far is a big break-away from the classic fantasy MMORPG formula. I wonder how die-hard fans of the Elder Scrolls franchise feel about some of the current combat revelations.

The quintessential indispensable guide to successful blogging (and cheeseballs)

In case you’re wondering what’s up with my publishing speed of late, I am finally off work! Yes, that evil work from hell and I couldn’t be happier about it. I am back open road, my old friend! Just this Monday I got an SMS from my successor and she is telling me that she intends to resign this week (after a mere two weeks in a company I stayed at for 8 months) and that the other new gal (who replaced everyone else of my team who have also resigned with me) already resigned last Friday. Ahahaha! If only I could shed a tear for my former bosses but sometimes karma hits the right people.

Anyway, I noticed that I have been entirely too unserious with my blogging of late, so today I intend to fix this by giving quintessential blogging advice after receiving an email from Sam, a silent longterm reader who approached me about how to best establish a successful blogging venture. Now, back in the days I would’ve felt horribly unqualified to answer such a question and just have redirected him over to Larisa, who always offered the best of counsel mixed with some genuine, motherly peptalk. Truth be told, I still feel rather awkward to share my “wisdom” on something I still consider trivial at its core (not the art of great writing mind) but then again, I have been a steady blogger for 2.5 years now with 300ish posts published – so why the hell not?

Of course, the internet is full of serious blogging advice by very experienced individuals. These days you can hardly get a word out before being confronted with “becoming a great blogger” and all the fatal “do’s and donts” of publishing – and rightly so! After all, this is the new journalism and we need to imitate that crowd. So, I can definitely see why some people are intimidated to start their own blog, no matter how long they’ve toyed with the idea. For those, let me guide you on your road to guaranteed successfullness.

The lofty art of SRS blogging

Dear Sam and everyone else it concerns,
I hate saying it but while blogging ain’t rocket science, you gotta know your stuff these days. You wanna stand out among one billion gazillion bloggers out there, don’t ya? Well, you better follow this guide meticulously. It really isn’t so hard (or scary) if you follow few easy steps!

Rule #1: Be overbearingly present!
If you intend to start your own blog, you better know that it’s not enough to write good articles regularly. Make sure to also get accounts on facebook, myspace, google plus, twitter, tumblr and youtube right away – the more, the better. NETWORKING NETWORKING NETWORKING! If you wanna up your traffic, your presence gotta be inescapable!

Rule #2: Nomen est omen!
Naming your blog is serious business. Further down the line to fame and success, you might hate yourself for not having given this proper thought and then it’s too late! Think hard on something fresh and catchy that represents you and sticks with people, or don’t open a blog at all. Ever.
Good example: a geeky/techie wordplay on your name and chosen subject.
Bad example: completely unrelated monkey business.

Rule #3: Limit your subject and be real!
The worst you can do to establish a big readership fast and harvest hits, is to write about too wide a field of topics. You want to be known for something, right? Even if you are a really interesting person with many different interests, try to focus and deliver one thing only. Also, avoid niche topics and meta analysis. Nobody wants to read a meta commentary blog on MMORPG design, for example. Trust me.

Rule #4: Guides guides guides!
The best you can do to keep’em hits rollin’ is writing guides. Might sound dry and boring to you, but nothing gets you street cred and longterm visits like a nice and detailed guide with pictures. Great writing and insightful debates are cool and all but….guides dude, guides!

Rule #5: Use catchy post titles!
You probably know how the google search engine works, so you want to make sure when people are looking for something they always end up on your blog! Intention means nothing but every hit counts! Try and make your post titles as search engine catchy as you possibly can. Add meta tags and work broad terminology into the mix! If you manage to weave “cheeseballs” coherently into any given post title, you basically got it down. Ninja!

Rule #6: Sound smarter than you are!
Make any given topic sound like an academic treatise. The art of spicing up the mundane lies in correct placement of a few superfluous but trendy or intellectual sounding catchwords the average reader probably won’t understand. Popular words include: “dichotomy, paradigm (shift), per se, oeuvre, juxtaposition” etc. Jep, any of those will do. Or better even, use them all!

Rule #7: Don’t swear!
You may never ever swear or sink to vulgarity in an article. Even if it’s really witty and in context, or alternatively just damn funny and honest, you do not want to alienate anyone by using bad words on your blog. Only unprofessional and shady people swear. In general, avoid being too extreme with your opinions; you don’t want to polarize – to polarize is to lose half of a potential audience. People only like strong opinions as long as they are theirs.

I will stop here because seven is a beautiful number. Also, these are really the most valuable points I can possibly pass on to rookie bloggers – points I live by myself every day. I hope I’ve managed to show that there’s nothing to worry about whatsoever as long as you heed a few simple, widely approved rules. If not, I’m afraid to say your blog’s gonna crash and burn and sink into oblivion.

Also, for Sam – please check my other answer in your inbox!
Best wishes,

Syl
(who is entirely guilty of using ‘per se’ when others aren’t looking. The Big Yin would not approve.)

Off the Chest: Midlevel and Endgame Grinds no thanks, I rather have a Castle!

otc

My time is currently divided between different games, namely LOTRO, GW2 and Minecraft, which warrants this mixed topic today. While my MC enthusiasm went through a big time revival this past weekend, my LOTRO journey is somewhat stagnant as I fight (and struggle) my way through the early 40ies with the Loremaster – an interesting class I am still enjoying a great deal. As for Guild Wars 2…well, let’s say that relationship has somewhat cooled down of late.

Of midlevel grinds and music in LOTRO

I currently find myself stuck in the dilemma of preferring a musical performance in Bree over returning to my quest hub in the Misty Mountains. While progress was smooth on the Loremaster for the first 30 levels or so, things started getting sluggish in Trollshaws which is a beautiful map with wonderful music, but also features highly annoying ravines to navigate and badly paced quests. To add salt to the wound, you don’t get any swift travel to Rivendell before level 40 which pretty much cured me of caring about any of House Elrond’s or Bilbo’s riddle quests. There’s only so many times I can bear riding through the Bruinen and up those hills.

I’ve been told by LOTRO veterans that it’s the mid-levels that really get to you, so I guess that’s what’s happening at the moment. I really want to experience the Moria that Spinks is talking about though and reach the improved gameplay of Rohan which is supposedly a much better compromise between oldschool fedex grind and what we call adventuring in 2013. Still, the next 10 levels will be a drag and require numerous visits to the Prancing Pony (I have established quite a nice track list by now!) in an attempt to restore my sanity.

What needs to be pointed out again at this point: the music feature in LOTRO is the best thing ever! As the Ancient Gaming Noob justly asks, why do not all MMORPGs copy this already? Hellou? There are three great LOTRO features I expect all future games to have at release: player instruments, immersive sound effects and player housing!

My home, my castle

Coming down with the GW2 blues

I’ve mentioned being cranky about the pace at which ArenaNet are fixing some long overdue technicalities. While there is finally armor preview for the market place (and such a revolution it is), you still cannot search your own armor class there – and before you ask, NO you still can’t take screenshots in first person view! I get asked about this a lot when tweeting screenshots; what I do is make my character lie down and pick camera angles accordingly.

However, the small details aren’t really my biggest concern, annoying as they may be. Well-elaborated on by Bhagpuss, there’s a gradual change happening in GW2 that has announced itself some time ago and that’s slowly redirecting the game towards the textbook, endgame gear-grind we know by heart. For someone who was inspired by an open world, non-grind premise, someone who isn’t into farming dungeons, the crafting grind or alting, for someone like me basically, it gets increasingly difficult to find a purpose in Tyria. There is only so much exploration you can do and as I continuously fail to join lasting guilds, running dungeons or fractals with strangers isn’t something I choose to spend time on (as I would not be running them for gear primarily).

What this really shows us is that more open world games also need sandbox elements and tools in the long term – which are sadly missing completely. If ANet added only a few features that LOTRO has for example, that would make a world of difference to me personally. Alas, all I can do at this point is wait for the Living Story to continue, hoping it will evolve into the significant content Wooden Potatoes is referring to. Maybe I should consider guesting?

A Castle in Minecraft

Over a year ago, I burned myself out on Minecraft spending enormous amounts of time on learning everything there was to learn and building a huge fantasy castle up in the sky. Mostly, building that huge castle, really. And how could you not create your dream place in a game that offers that much freedom?

A ton of time and care for details went into that little project; ever since, I wanted to make a documentary of the finished thing but never got around to it. Well, now that all public voice-angst is off the table after Monday’s post, I finally put the full castle tour on youtube and here it is, including a big GEEK ALERT –

I love how much you can do with texture packs in Minecraft. As can probably be told from the video, I am a sucker for interior design; decorating and making places cosy has always been a bit of a thing for me. Back in school as a teen I wrote a paper on why I wanted to become an interior designer. I even went to interview an interior architect for it. Of course I didn’t become a designer after all but it’s still something I revel in when given the opportunity in real life or virtual. I also noticed from many other MC fanvids on youtube that the focus often lies more on the exterior – building whole towns and planning complex, large scale structures which are often somewhat empty inside. I’m exactly the other way around.

I’m happy to finally have this place immortalized for myself and those who helped me build it (mostly chopping away at the big mountain it once was). And maybe someone out there can get some creative ideas out of it after all. Minecraft really is a goldmine when it comes to tapping a player base’s creativity and the wish to spread and share ideas. If only more MMO designers adopted some of its virtues.

P.S. If you got all WoW and other game references in this video, you are just as geeky as I am!

Back to Minecraft (and my first video documentary!)

After the longest break since my first, very intense Minecraft spree over a year ago, it was decided last week, somewhat collectively out of the blue, that a revisit to Mojang’s prodigy was due. Truth be told, my absence from the game has had much to do with the unrestrained pace of my first encounter; I was completely and utterly hooked to MC for some weeks, spending nights in front of the PC exploring its depths (and creating my big ass castle dream). As a result, I burned out too quickly on what was still a limited game at the time, struggling with pre-release issues. Thus the last block of cobble stone set in my castle wall marked the ending of that first chapter.

But oh, have the times moved forward in Minecraft! With the arrival of the (approved) Spoutcraft client, Bukkit server mods, myriads of fan-written plugins and customization features, right down to some amazing and downloadable adventure maps, Minecraft has burst into what can only be described as (even more) baffling heights of community effort and player creativity. All the while, Mojang have kept improving and adding to the game, offering even more possibilities and freedoms to shape your unlimited, virtual space.

With great freedom comes great variety. While there are no default player classes in Minecraft, the game certainly brings out all sorts of playstyles and character types in its audience – from nutty engineers, to brave explorers, peaceful settlers and diligent carpenters. There are even MMO servers now with all the textbook MMO/RPG features you can think of, for both PVE and PVP, in a sword&sorcery, steampunk or zombie apocalypse themed world (where poisonous rain keeps falling…which you could’ve known if you actually read the tutorial).

I’ve visited a few public MMO servers and was duly impressed; after being run through a detailed starter/tutorial area, I was amazed to see item shops, teleport hubs, vendor and questgiver NPCs, PvP mini-games and more. Maybe a small detail but no less enjoyable for a soundtrack nut like myself: any designated area in Minecraft can now be attributed its own background music, hallelujah!

Public MMO servers

This is where it gets particularly interesting (and scary) because a “Minecraft MMO” can potentially offer the kind of tools and impact the current MMO market can still only dream of (known sandboxes included). It’s also where we see best how gameplay, fun and freedom trump everything else, top graphics first and foremost. The biggest woes of public MC servers right now are stability and bandwidth related, which is where big business MMO ventures will always have the upper hand.

Still, if a visit to Minecraft was highly recommended before, by now it is an absolute must! If you have any time to spare between your MMOs, RPGs and other games (and you know you do), have a look at MC! You will never install any game faster than this one.

My first omg-video documentary

Starting off on a fresh, customized server with friends, I quickly realized how behind I was on MC’s current flora and fauna, which inspired a small project called “the underwater greenhouse”. I am also still working on a much bigger scale hedge maze challenge but that’s for another time.

At completion, it struck me how I always wanted to give video commentaries with fraps another go (back when I was playing WoW my old PC was hopeless) which is how my first ever Minecraft (and for that matter first ever videogame documentary) came to be. In hindsight, I should probably have rehearsed this more…but I am a lazy person and easy to satisfy.

And yes, I am fully aware that everyone can hear my voice now. Oh noes!

Creating this video was actually so simple and fun that I am definitely doing more in the future. Maybe next time I’ll also manage to make less silly noises with my lips.

Quick Fraps how-to

Without exaggeration, making a video commentary like the one above is as easy as blogging. I was surprised how simple a tool fraps really is, with minimal setting up involved. My smartphone is more complicated than fraps! Together with a youtube account and two more, free tools, you are fully equipped to create your own gaming videologs which are lots of fun to do. And here’s how:

– Get a full version of fraps to be able to record more than 30secs videos
– Capture your ingame video (I use custom 15fps setting and record voice via headset)
– Watch this guide on using Xvid and Vdub for file compression
– Upload your compressed video to your youtube channel

Works like a charm! And you can add extras like a title pane or annotations with youtube later. I love learning new things by myself, so it’s not unlikely I’ll look into Sony Vegas or similar video enhancement software soon. So I guess that’s one more way how Minecraft can boost your creativity!