December 29, 2008
New Year: New Posts
I plan on restarting this blog on January 1. I got side tracked by my connection issues (which are still happening, blarg). See you then!
December 14, 2008
Corruption, In Eve Online, That's Unlikely!
Two posts in a row, also unlikely!
Eve Online just can't seem to catch a break. It seems every few months another big scandal breaks. It is interesting because the actions of one or a few people can literally affect the entire game population. This is due to the entire universe running on one "server" (actually a giant cluster) or shard in a UO term. So if for example, and this is a complete impossibility, lets say someone was to amass minerals trillions and trillions of isk (the Eve currency) for free. This would be bad.
Oh wait, it did happen. Not only did it happen but it has been going on for 4 years. Not only was it going on for 4 years but it was reported multiple times but apparently those reports were closed without being investigated. Opps!
Some are claiming this is the largest exploitative operation in the history of any MMO. It is probably the most successful, but definitely not the largest seeing how UO developers removed 15 trillion duped gold a couple years ago. UO gold is worth more than Eve isk. Today I see Eve isk selling for 550 million per $35. That would only buy you about 35 million UO gold. And UO gold was worth at least double when the trillions was removed.
Let me give people who don't play Eve Online a better idea of the impact. Lets say every automobile manufacturer had to raise their prices by several thousand dollars per car because the price of raw materials to make steel skyrocketed. Now apply that to every other item that needs the same materials. The people who mine these minerals suddenly found out that instead of a lot left, there was nothing. The rug was pulled out from under them. That is the breadth of this exploit. A huge majority of the minerals on the market were from this exploit because it is so difficult to make them through normal game play. I would not be surprised if the Eve developers had to make changes to make these minerals easier to make because the entire game economy currently depends on it.
Isn't it rather ironic? Here we are in the midst of wall street scandals and a recession. Suddenly the same type of thing breaks out in a MMO. The market of space ship parts is going to get a lot more expensive, in the short term at least.
For this reason, it can be a good idea to split a MMO into several isolated servers. If something like this happens on one then it will only affect a small portion of your player base. UO used to be immune to this type of thing until they implemented character transfers. And what a headache those have been, being a major source of duping since their introduction. World of Warcraft also has character transfers but Blizzard restricts the amount of gold that can be moved. It is almost not even worth the cost. UO lets you transfer over 875 items each time which can translate into 875 million gold checks. Blizzard restricted you to 10,000 gold and I think they just raised the limit to 20,000. Plus you can only transfer a character once per month while UO let you do it without restriction until rather recently.
Putting aside everything said so far, there is even more to talk about. As I mentioned the person who initially discovered this bug actually reported it. That report was closed with a thanks, but nothing was ever done. For whatever reason, this player went on for the next 4 years to benefit from this. Other people have come forward claiming they also reported it over the years but nothing was ever done. In the past, Eve has suffered from some rather corrupt employees. It is possible that they were also trying to benefit from this new found exploit. It took the report getting to the right person this time for something to be done.
The results of this exploit are still coming out. The Eve team has yet to really explain the scope and impact. Going by the number of outraged players on their own official game forum, it is not something they will be able to keep under wraps as I bet they wish to.
Eve Online just can't seem to catch a break. It seems every few months another big scandal breaks. It is interesting because the actions of one or a few people can literally affect the entire game population. This is due to the entire universe running on one "server" (actually a giant cluster) or shard in a UO term. So if for example, and this is a complete impossibility, lets say someone was to amass minerals trillions and trillions of isk (the Eve currency) for free. This would be bad.
Oh wait, it did happen. Not only did it happen but it has been going on for 4 years. Not only was it going on for 4 years but it was reported multiple times but apparently those reports were closed without being investigated. Opps!
Some are claiming this is the largest exploitative operation in the history of any MMO. It is probably the most successful, but definitely not the largest seeing how UO developers removed 15 trillion duped gold a couple years ago. UO gold is worth more than Eve isk. Today I see Eve isk selling for 550 million per $35. That would only buy you about 35 million UO gold. And UO gold was worth at least double when the trillions was removed.
Let me give people who don't play Eve Online a better idea of the impact. Lets say every automobile manufacturer had to raise their prices by several thousand dollars per car because the price of raw materials to make steel skyrocketed. Now apply that to every other item that needs the same materials. The people who mine these minerals suddenly found out that instead of a lot left, there was nothing. The rug was pulled out from under them. That is the breadth of this exploit. A huge majority of the minerals on the market were from this exploit because it is so difficult to make them through normal game play. I would not be surprised if the Eve developers had to make changes to make these minerals easier to make because the entire game economy currently depends on it.
Isn't it rather ironic? Here we are in the midst of wall street scandals and a recession. Suddenly the same type of thing breaks out in a MMO. The market of space ship parts is going to get a lot more expensive, in the short term at least.
For this reason, it can be a good idea to split a MMO into several isolated servers. If something like this happens on one then it will only affect a small portion of your player base. UO used to be immune to this type of thing until they implemented character transfers. And what a headache those have been, being a major source of duping since their introduction. World of Warcraft also has character transfers but Blizzard restricts the amount of gold that can be moved. It is almost not even worth the cost. UO lets you transfer over 875 items each time which can translate into 875 million gold checks. Blizzard restricted you to 10,000 gold and I think they just raised the limit to 20,000. Plus you can only transfer a character once per month while UO let you do it without restriction until rather recently.
Putting aside everything said so far, there is even more to talk about. As I mentioned the person who initially discovered this bug actually reported it. That report was closed with a thanks, but nothing was ever done. For whatever reason, this player went on for the next 4 years to benefit from this. Other people have come forward claiming they also reported it over the years but nothing was ever done. In the past, Eve has suffered from some rather corrupt employees. It is possible that they were also trying to benefit from this new found exploit. It took the report getting to the right person this time for something to be done.
The results of this exploit are still coming out. The Eve team has yet to really explain the scope and impact. Going by the number of outraged players on their own official game forum, it is not something they will be able to keep under wraps as I bet they wish to.
December 13, 2008
Fleshing Out a Concept
I am going to make a post today, damn it.
Even though I no longer play Warhammer Online, I still check out the IGN Warhammer discussion forum. Specifically, I like to see if Mark Jacobs has anything interesting to say. He is after all the one who is in charge of Ultima Online and is not the typical MMO guy in that he posts a lot. But that seems to have died down a bit now that Warhammer isn't the hit people were hoping for. He has stopped posting on the F13 forum from what I can see and has slowed down greatly on IGN. Before I stray too far, I think part of the reason he wants his own Warhammer Forum is so he can have much greater control.
Anyway, on IGN I saw this topic linked to on the Warhammer Alliance forum. From what I gather, most people on IGN think down about Warhammer Alliance, so this is a bit of a surprise and peaks my interest. Inside is a suggestion about how Mythic could fix the Open Realm vs Realm situation. While brief, it outlines perfectly one method that could be used. More importantly it makes perfect sense. So much so that there has been 472 replies and over 15,000 views in just 10 days. The response is overwhelmingly positive.
The design talks about how Mythic is on the wrong track. At every step, the rewards go to the individual person instead of progressing to encompass more people. The first level is killing another player. You get rewarded specifically for that instead of the current design which allows you to gain points through other means. If you can only gain credit for killing players to progress, then there is no way around it. This makes a lot of sense.
Then it moves on to Keeps. Once again Mythic only rewards ~5 players with elite loot no matter how many people took part. The author suggests changing it around completely. Make it so a guild can only level up by owning a Keep. At the moment a guild can level up through many other means and it is automatic. If you can only level by Keep ownership then players are going to want to defend those. Guilds will feel pride and be respected for their high level and accomplishments.
The next stage up is controlling entire areas. There is really no reward for this at the moment. Instead, owning certain areas could reward the controllers. You could have access to special dungeons or quests. The faction that controls them reaps the rewards. It would encourage players to struggle for the zones rather than plow through them for hopes of attacking the other capital city. A much more natural and balanced process.
Finally there is the capital city, which once again focuses on individual rewards as Keeps do. As he put it, "Sieging a Capitol. Just like Zone Control, this should not reward the individual, it should reward your Realm. Having best loot from City Sieges == epic fail."
Sometimes you can't just pick out one thing and try to fix it when the entire concept is flawed. It is quite apparent that major changes need to be made to the oRvR system in Warhammer to make it more engaging and rewarding for players. Mythic has intertwined too many non-PVP aspects into the equation and players are not embarcing it. World of Warcraft started making the same mistake when they added a bunch of boss objectives for Battlegrounds. Players began focusing on the PvM instead of the PvP.
The Faction system in UO had it right when the entire faction was rewarded with war horses and town guards. Unfortunately this became rather insignificant over time, especially after the Age of Shadows expansion. While the recent changes have helped give Factions new life, there needs to be greater incentives for players to want to capture and defend cities.
There is going to be a post tomorrow too.
Even though I no longer play Warhammer Online, I still check out the IGN Warhammer discussion forum. Specifically, I like to see if Mark Jacobs has anything interesting to say. He is after all the one who is in charge of Ultima Online and is not the typical MMO guy in that he posts a lot. But that seems to have died down a bit now that Warhammer isn't the hit people were hoping for. He has stopped posting on the F13 forum from what I can see and has slowed down greatly on IGN. Before I stray too far, I think part of the reason he wants his own Warhammer Forum is so he can have much greater control.
Anyway, on IGN I saw this topic linked to on the Warhammer Alliance forum. From what I gather, most people on IGN think down about Warhammer Alliance, so this is a bit of a surprise and peaks my interest. Inside is a suggestion about how Mythic could fix the Open Realm vs Realm situation. While brief, it outlines perfectly one method that could be used. More importantly it makes perfect sense. So much so that there has been 472 replies and over 15,000 views in just 10 days. The response is overwhelmingly positive.
The design talks about how Mythic is on the wrong track. At every step, the rewards go to the individual person instead of progressing to encompass more people. The first level is killing another player. You get rewarded specifically for that instead of the current design which allows you to gain points through other means. If you can only gain credit for killing players to progress, then there is no way around it. This makes a lot of sense.
Then it moves on to Keeps. Once again Mythic only rewards ~5 players with elite loot no matter how many people took part. The author suggests changing it around completely. Make it so a guild can only level up by owning a Keep. At the moment a guild can level up through many other means and it is automatic. If you can only level by Keep ownership then players are going to want to defend those. Guilds will feel pride and be respected for their high level and accomplishments.
The next stage up is controlling entire areas. There is really no reward for this at the moment. Instead, owning certain areas could reward the controllers. You could have access to special dungeons or quests. The faction that controls them reaps the rewards. It would encourage players to struggle for the zones rather than plow through them for hopes of attacking the other capital city. A much more natural and balanced process.
Finally there is the capital city, which once again focuses on individual rewards as Keeps do. As he put it, "Sieging a Capitol. Just like Zone Control, this should not reward the individual, it should reward your Realm. Having best loot from City Sieges == epic fail."
Sometimes you can't just pick out one thing and try to fix it when the entire concept is flawed. It is quite apparent that major changes need to be made to the oRvR system in Warhammer to make it more engaging and rewarding for players. Mythic has intertwined too many non-PVP aspects into the equation and players are not embarcing it. World of Warcraft started making the same mistake when they added a bunch of boss objectives for Battlegrounds. Players began focusing on the PvM instead of the PvP.
The Faction system in UO had it right when the entire faction was rewarded with war horses and town guards. Unfortunately this became rather insignificant over time, especially after the Age of Shadows expansion. While the recent changes have helped give Factions new life, there needs to be greater incentives for players to want to capture and defend cities.
There is going to be a post tomorrow too.
December 6, 2008
Return of the Postings
Internet is still up and down. I called 2 days ago and they said it was an outage in the area and they are working on fixing it. We'll see.
Today I watched a 55 minute speed run for Super Metriod. I never had a chance to play that game. Watching someone else makes me feel like I missed out. Playing games when they first come out is when you can have the maximum fun. Unfortunately picking up a 14 year old game like this one, while it might be interesting, won't have the same excitement as say Fallout 3. It is just so dated.
Anyway, one thing I was impressed with this run was all the hidden items. In the Metriod series there is a number of power ups that you have to collect to progress in the game. But there are even more, such as extra missiles, that are not required. Almost always the ones you don't need are hidden and you have to find them. Some are easy to stumble upon while others can be absurdly difficult. To the point where you would have to read a guide to find.
Ultima Online certainly has its share of secret areas. Early on there was hidden valley that could be accessed by a false mountain door (which is actually broken and you see the entrance clearly now). There was the underground mage laboratories and tower in the Hedge Maze (which was completely removed due to Kingdom Reborn client limitations). Hmm, maybe I should mention something still in the game. The door into the inner Khaldun chamber works on most shards. On the one I play Atlantic, it was stuck open for the longest time so you could just walk inside.
Actually it seems a lot of UO's secret stuff has just become broken or obsolete. The Terathan Keep levers don't work anymore. The Despise lever area doesn't appear to do anything. The door into the Doom mage shop was sealed accidentally at one point. A gate was added so you could just walk into the star room instead of clicking the brazier.
When you have a good train of thought it is terrible for something to interrupt it, such as my persistent connection issues. I had lots of good ideas for this post but they seemed to have whittled away. Something much better tomorrow I hope.
Today I watched a 55 minute speed run for Super Metriod. I never had a chance to play that game. Watching someone else makes me feel like I missed out. Playing games when they first come out is when you can have the maximum fun. Unfortunately picking up a 14 year old game like this one, while it might be interesting, won't have the same excitement as say Fallout 3. It is just so dated.
Anyway, one thing I was impressed with this run was all the hidden items. In the Metriod series there is a number of power ups that you have to collect to progress in the game. But there are even more, such as extra missiles, that are not required. Almost always the ones you don't need are hidden and you have to find them. Some are easy to stumble upon while others can be absurdly difficult. To the point where you would have to read a guide to find.
Ultima Online certainly has its share of secret areas. Early on there was hidden valley that could be accessed by a false mountain door (which is actually broken and you see the entrance clearly now). There was the underground mage laboratories and tower in the Hedge Maze (which was completely removed due to Kingdom Reborn client limitations). Hmm, maybe I should mention something still in the game. The door into the inner Khaldun chamber works on most shards. On the one I play Atlantic, it was stuck open for the longest time so you could just walk inside.
Actually it seems a lot of UO's secret stuff has just become broken or obsolete. The Terathan Keep levers don't work anymore. The Despise lever area doesn't appear to do anything. The door into the Doom mage shop was sealed accidentally at one point. A gate was added so you could just walk into the star room instead of clicking the brazier.
When you have a good train of thought it is terrible for something to interrupt it, such as my persistent connection issues. I had lots of good ideas for this post but they seemed to have whittled away. Something much better tomorrow I hope.
December 4, 2008
November 30, 2008
It was a good run
Farewell dear friends......................
No, actually I have been having absolutely horrid packet loss for the past few days. I thought this had been resolved a week ago. Things were going fine but it seems to have returned for the time being. I am going to have to call up my internet service provider on Monday.
Unfortunately trying to get long posts up on Blogger is impossible when under this condition. I will try and resume again tomorrow.
No, actually I have been having absolutely horrid packet loss for the past few days. I thought this had been resolved a week ago. Things were going fine but it seems to have returned for the time being. I am going to have to call up my internet service provider on Monday.
Unfortunately trying to get long posts up on Blogger is impossible when under this condition. I will try and resume again tomorrow.
November 28, 2008
Two Different Methods of Item Balance
This post did not make it up on time! I'm sorry but after all the Thanksgiving excitement I just did not feel like sitting down and writing something. I felt more like sleeping.
Since the dawn of time players and developers have fought an epic battle over item balance. Developers would create items. Players would gather those items, combine them, abuse them. Developers would have to come down with the mighty nerf bat and swing it in many directions, breaking up these unbalancing combinations. The players would then come back and rebuild what had been ruined.
Actually for Ultima Online, this has only been an issue since the Age of Shadows expansion. Before that there were very few properties and items were designed to be expendable. That all changed though with dozens of new properties and equipment lasting forever. There is next to no information available as to the design and thought process when it came to making these new systems. So we can only go by experiance.
When Age of Shadows launched there were no cumulative caps on item properties. None. So you could stack as many as you could find. If I had to guess, I would say that the developers planned on balancing properties at the creation stage. They would only carefully evaluate what items could be introduced into the world. But even before new stuff was being added, the system fell apart.
One completely unbalancing property was Lower Mana Cost. At launch, it was possible for players to accrue up to 68% Lower Mana Cost. So an eight circle spell Earthquake which normally cost 50 mana, now cost 16. You could easily cast Earthquake, an extremely devastating damage spell, a dozen or more times in a row compared to just 2 before the expansion. If this was left alone, today it is most likely possible to reach 100% Lower Mana Cost. Meaning it would take no mana to cast any spell or use special moves!
Within about 6-8 months, more and more players were loading up on the new properties. It became abundantly clear that the system was out of control. Mages were now casting spells in the blink of an eye with 4 Faster Casting (which every 1 added reduced spell timers by 0.25 seconds). But there were so many bugs introduced with the Age of Shadows expansion, that is all they could handle. Unless something allowed a player to one hit kill another, it just was not on the table. It wasn't until over a year later that the developers sat down and tried to rein it all in.
Finally the hammer fell. Lower Mana Cost capped at 40%. Faster Casting capped at 2. Many other properties were capped as well. The fundamentals behind balancing the system flipped from a per item approach to a global approach. Now developers can add any item into the game they wish without having to compare it to everything else out there. This took an enormous pressure off the team in general and freed them up their creative ability. If they wanted to add a special helm with 20% Lower Mana Cost, it was possible. Some advantageous players would not be able to take the new helm and combine it with their other equipment to reach a new level of lowering mana consumption. They will always be limited to the 40% cumulative cap.
But this opened up an entirely new problem which have never been addressed. Well one developer tried, but the concept (decreasing returns) was just unpopular and hard to understand. With a set of hard caps, players now build suits in which they can maximize as many properties as possible. So instead of having insanely high Lower Mana Cost, they have the highest amounts of Lower Mana Cost, Lower Reagent Cost, Faster Casting, Mana Regeneration, Defense Chance Increase, resistances, and anything else they desire. I actually have a potential solution to this problem and was going to reveal it as part of a series of topics on the Stratics U Hall, but never got around to it. I will post it here some time soon.
Since the dawn of time players and developers have fought an epic battle over item balance. Developers would create items. Players would gather those items, combine them, abuse them. Developers would have to come down with the mighty nerf bat and swing it in many directions, breaking up these unbalancing combinations. The players would then come back and rebuild what had been ruined.
Actually for Ultima Online, this has only been an issue since the Age of Shadows expansion. Before that there were very few properties and items were designed to be expendable. That all changed though with dozens of new properties and equipment lasting forever. There is next to no information available as to the design and thought process when it came to making these new systems. So we can only go by experiance.
When Age of Shadows launched there were no cumulative caps on item properties. None. So you could stack as many as you could find. If I had to guess, I would say that the developers planned on balancing properties at the creation stage. They would only carefully evaluate what items could be introduced into the world. But even before new stuff was being added, the system fell apart.
One completely unbalancing property was Lower Mana Cost. At launch, it was possible for players to accrue up to 68% Lower Mana Cost. So an eight circle spell Earthquake which normally cost 50 mana, now cost 16. You could easily cast Earthquake, an extremely devastating damage spell, a dozen or more times in a row compared to just 2 before the expansion. If this was left alone, today it is most likely possible to reach 100% Lower Mana Cost. Meaning it would take no mana to cast any spell or use special moves!
Within about 6-8 months, more and more players were loading up on the new properties. It became abundantly clear that the system was out of control. Mages were now casting spells in the blink of an eye with 4 Faster Casting (which every 1 added reduced spell timers by 0.25 seconds). But there were so many bugs introduced with the Age of Shadows expansion, that is all they could handle. Unless something allowed a player to one hit kill another, it just was not on the table. It wasn't until over a year later that the developers sat down and tried to rein it all in.
Finally the hammer fell. Lower Mana Cost capped at 40%. Faster Casting capped at 2. Many other properties were capped as well. The fundamentals behind balancing the system flipped from a per item approach to a global approach. Now developers can add any item into the game they wish without having to compare it to everything else out there. This took an enormous pressure off the team in general and freed them up their creative ability. If they wanted to add a special helm with 20% Lower Mana Cost, it was possible. Some advantageous players would not be able to take the new helm and combine it with their other equipment to reach a new level of lowering mana consumption. They will always be limited to the 40% cumulative cap.
But this opened up an entirely new problem which have never been addressed. Well one developer tried, but the concept (decreasing returns) was just unpopular and hard to understand. With a set of hard caps, players now build suits in which they can maximize as many properties as possible. So instead of having insanely high Lower Mana Cost, they have the highest amounts of Lower Mana Cost, Lower Reagent Cost, Faster Casting, Mana Regeneration, Defense Chance Increase, resistances, and anything else they desire. I actually have a potential solution to this problem and was going to reveal it as part of a series of topics on the Stratics U Hall, but never got around to it. I will post it here some time soon.
November 27, 2008
All the trimmings
Yesterday's post was not as good as it should have been, I apologize. As I sit here with the smell of baking pumpkin pie dancing around me I find it very difficult to concentrate on writing this blog post. Lets hope this one turns out better.
It is a funny thing in Ultima Online history about holidays. At first every holiday was celebrated. Christmas, Thanksgiving, Valentines, St Patrick's Day. Yes, there was actually an observance of St Patrick's Day where they gave out green mugs. It was a Mature rated game back then. I doubt they could get away with observing a holiday that is mostly about drinking and being drunk today.
For the first few years, there was always holiday related stuff to be found. But then it virtually stopped. I believe the whispering Valentine day roses were the last holiday observed. They still kept up with the Christmas..........I mean holiday gifts. But for some reason every other one was tossed out the window. Only in the past year or maybe 2 years have they begun doing more holidays. They even did an IOU card for April Fools. For Thanksgiving this year all champions are appearing as turkeys. Maybe we will be treated with something more on the actual day tomorrow (or today rather since this is getting posted at midnight). Who knows.
Other MMOs such as World of Warcraft tend to celebrate their own made up holidays instead of official ones. It is pretty much up to the game designers how they want to handle it. Warhammer Online had a week long witching event to coincide with Halloween, so I guess that would be considered an official holiday instead of a made up one. Either way is fine. If you decide to make up one it wouldn't be very easy to get into a winter themed one in the middle of summer. So as much as you would like to create your own, you are still bound by the real world.
In my opinion, a game that decided to observe holidays shows a more dedicated and loving team than one that does not. Holidays are something that are experienced around the world no matter where you live. A MMO world would be a rather dull place without them.
It is a funny thing in Ultima Online history about holidays. At first every holiday was celebrated. Christmas, Thanksgiving, Valentines, St Patrick's Day. Yes, there was actually an observance of St Patrick's Day where they gave out green mugs. It was a Mature rated game back then. I doubt they could get away with observing a holiday that is mostly about drinking and being drunk today.
For the first few years, there was always holiday related stuff to be found. But then it virtually stopped. I believe the whispering Valentine day roses were the last holiday observed. They still kept up with the Christmas..........I mean holiday gifts. But for some reason every other one was tossed out the window. Only in the past year or maybe 2 years have they begun doing more holidays. They even did an IOU card for April Fools. For Thanksgiving this year all champions are appearing as turkeys. Maybe we will be treated with something more on the actual day tomorrow (or today rather since this is getting posted at midnight). Who knows.
Other MMOs such as World of Warcraft tend to celebrate their own made up holidays instead of official ones. It is pretty much up to the game designers how they want to handle it. Warhammer Online had a week long witching event to coincide with Halloween, so I guess that would be considered an official holiday instead of a made up one. Either way is fine. If you decide to make up one it wouldn't be very easy to get into a winter themed one in the middle of summer. So as much as you would like to create your own, you are still bound by the real world.
In my opinion, a game that decided to observe holidays shows a more dedicated and loving team than one that does not. Holidays are something that are experienced around the world no matter where you live. A MMO world would be a rather dull place without them.
November 26, 2008
RIP: Roger Wilco - How we barely knew thee
I was so busy today I almost forgot to write a blog post!
The way MMO gamers communicate today and expect from games is a world apart from a decade ago. When I started playing UO there was no guild chat or voice chat. All communication as done by overhead chat. If you became good friends with someone you would exchange ICQ numbers and be able to converse over a distance. Thus, unless you were standing next to someone in the game you could not communicate. Even more, there was no such thing as private conversation unless you went into a house.
When UO Renaissance launched there was a new revolutionary tool, the party system. You could party up to 9 other people and chat over any distance. This is most akin to the current today's modern chat box, but not quite. The message appeared for a short time and if you missed it then you had to read your journal. Unfortunately the journal is cluttered with all the other game text. And once it scrolled out of your journal (which only holds about 100 lines) it is gone.
Despite limitations, the party system made it possible to have truly private conversations for the first time. It was possible to stealth around and eavesdrop on other unsuspecting players, even in their own home! When the Age of Shadows launched in early 2003 that became impossible because homes could now be set completely private. Around this time gamers started to take charge of their own communication abilities with 3rd party voice chat programs.
Things would never be the same. Now you could easily coordinate any activity. You were no longer restricted by what the game offered. Speaking also freed up your hands. Could you imagine not being able to talk on the phone and do whatever (driving for example) at the same time? Now you could at least double your game playing efficiency.
In the Samurai Empire expansion UO finally added the long request guild chat feature, allowing communication to everyone you know at all times. In my opinion, this was the death blow for how communication used to be. No longer did you have to party someone you know or make sure you were both in voice chat. Just press \ and speak in private guild chat. Often you will encounter people in game asking why you never talk. Well I am, it is just through voice or guild chat.
While this is obviously progress, it ends up taking away from world immersion. But there is really nothing developers can do. Players will communicate however they wish to.
One caveat, UO did implement an IRC like chat room system before the Renaissance expansion. However usage was next to nil and continues to be so to this day. In fact the button for it was removed from the Paperdoll, although you can still access the menu via a macro.
PS - The title refers to a brief stint in late 2000 when some UO players tried to start communicating via voice chat. It was not popular and died out for some reason. Perhaps due to most still being on dial up connections. Voice chat didn't become big until several years later.
The way MMO gamers communicate today and expect from games is a world apart from a decade ago. When I started playing UO there was no guild chat or voice chat. All communication as done by overhead chat. If you became good friends with someone you would exchange ICQ numbers and be able to converse over a distance. Thus, unless you were standing next to someone in the game you could not communicate. Even more, there was no such thing as private conversation unless you went into a house.
When UO Renaissance launched there was a new revolutionary tool, the party system. You could party up to 9 other people and chat over any distance. This is most akin to the current today's modern chat box, but not quite. The message appeared for a short time and if you missed it then you had to read your journal. Unfortunately the journal is cluttered with all the other game text. And once it scrolled out of your journal (which only holds about 100 lines) it is gone.
Despite limitations, the party system made it possible to have truly private conversations for the first time. It was possible to stealth around and eavesdrop on other unsuspecting players, even in their own home! When the Age of Shadows launched in early 2003 that became impossible because homes could now be set completely private. Around this time gamers started to take charge of their own communication abilities with 3rd party voice chat programs.
Things would never be the same. Now you could easily coordinate any activity. You were no longer restricted by what the game offered. Speaking also freed up your hands. Could you imagine not being able to talk on the phone and do whatever (driving for example) at the same time? Now you could at least double your game playing efficiency.
In the Samurai Empire expansion UO finally added the long request guild chat feature, allowing communication to everyone you know at all times. In my opinion, this was the death blow for how communication used to be. No longer did you have to party someone you know or make sure you were both in voice chat. Just press \ and speak in private guild chat. Often you will encounter people in game asking why you never talk. Well I am, it is just through voice or guild chat.
While this is obviously progress, it ends up taking away from world immersion. But there is really nothing developers can do. Players will communicate however they wish to.
One caveat, UO did implement an IRC like chat room system before the Renaissance expansion. However usage was next to nil and continues to be so to this day. In fact the button for it was removed from the Paperdoll, although you can still access the menu via a macro.
PS - The title refers to a brief stint in late 2000 when some UO players tried to start communicating via voice chat. It was not popular and died out for some reason. Perhaps due to most still being on dial up connections. Voice chat didn't become big until several years later.
November 25, 2008
The Spirit of Discovery
When was the last time you "discovered" something in a MMO? You are just going about your normal business when all of a sudden you find a new creature, item or area which you never heard of. With patch notes, developer comments, wikis, forums, fansites and everything else, there isn't much room left for secrets. For the upcoming UO publish 57, which I talked about a bit a couple days ago, some people are requesting the new loot drops be published by the UO team.
My line of thinking is if it doesn't need to be listed, don't. Let players discover this stuff on their own. It isn't as if this is a change to a skill or ability. These are decorations and artifacts which already exist in the game, just available in a new way. Some people will find it fun to explore these champions while the rest will find out within a short time what they carry.
A long time ago, some UO developer secretly slipped two new items into the game. After some time had passed no one reported finding them. I have no idea how long they were in, but it was long enough that a hint was provided that they existed. Players went out and found that Efreets carried daemon bone armor pieces. The other required a second hint (search some place cold), but was found to be the Glacial Staff on Ice Serpents.
If players were already inclined to search for secrets then these items would have likely been found without dropping hints. Or maybe some players knew about them and didn't tell anyone. That would encourage more to go out and explore. But I think UO, and many other MMOs, have reached a point where nothing gets added without a note. So players just read the detailed guide on whatever they want to hunt and go do that.
Playing backseat developer for a moment, if I was working on UO or any MMO, I would make it a point that at least one secret gets put in every publish. It could be something small like a new decoration drop or something bigger like a cave with a special monster spawn. If no one finds it after a few months, then maybe a hint would be dropped. The goal would be that players would be encouraged to find this stuff on their own without hints. It is something small that will enhance the gaming experiance without a lot of effort.
Adding new content in this manner will also keep areas in the game fresh and interesting. A lot of MMOs suffer from the area treadmill of expansions, new ones replacing older ones. While the thrill of discovey will only be open to the first few who find it, just knowing that you might be the one who makes the next one can ehance the experiance.
My line of thinking is if it doesn't need to be listed, don't. Let players discover this stuff on their own. It isn't as if this is a change to a skill or ability. These are decorations and artifacts which already exist in the game, just available in a new way. Some people will find it fun to explore these champions while the rest will find out within a short time what they carry.
A long time ago, some UO developer secretly slipped two new items into the game. After some time had passed no one reported finding them. I have no idea how long they were in, but it was long enough that a hint was provided that they existed. Players went out and found that Efreets carried daemon bone armor pieces. The other required a second hint (search some place cold), but was found to be the Glacial Staff on Ice Serpents.
If players were already inclined to search for secrets then these items would have likely been found without dropping hints. Or maybe some players knew about them and didn't tell anyone. That would encourage more to go out and explore. But I think UO, and many other MMOs, have reached a point where nothing gets added without a note. So players just read the detailed guide on whatever they want to hunt and go do that.
Playing backseat developer for a moment, if I was working on UO or any MMO, I would make it a point that at least one secret gets put in every publish. It could be something small like a new decoration drop or something bigger like a cave with a special monster spawn. If no one finds it after a few months, then maybe a hint would be dropped. The goal would be that players would be encouraged to find this stuff on their own without hints. It is something small that will enhance the gaming experiance without a lot of effort.
Adding new content in this manner will also keep areas in the game fresh and interesting. A lot of MMOs suffer from the area treadmill of expansions, new ones replacing older ones. While the thrill of discovey will only be open to the first few who find it, just knowing that you might be the one who makes the next one can ehance the experiance.
November 24, 2008
A House is Not Held Up by Paint and Trim
These blog posts are turning out to be rather long. I am having to spend 10 minutes writing instead of the 5 I had anticipated.
When you build a house, naturally the first thing you do is pick out the paint colors and what type of moulding is going to line the walls. That is the foundation of a good house. Isn't it?
Of course not. But when it comes to games these days, players think that graphics are what sells. Pretty avatars and dazzling special effects can help draw someone in, but they won't stay if the floors are sagging and squeaky because the plywood under sheathing was not fastened correctly.
I am mixing too many metaphors in here. Let me just stick to gaming. Ever since Everquest came on the scene, there have been heated debates over whether UO should upgrade graphics to be more "modern". People advocating a more modern style usually point to the game released that week (Everquest, World of Warcraft, Crysis, etc). Can you imagine how great it would look to stack 10,000 explosion kegs and let them blow up with the Crysis game engine? Of course only 5 people in the world would be able to run it on their computer, but still it would look pretty!
The graphics for a game is the outermost part of the structure. Like paint on a wall, it displays the story and creatures and objects. It is not necessary for function (as proven by early games which had no graphics) but it helps define the experience. If you stripped out all the graphics from World of Warcraft and Everquest II, what would you be left with? Move north. Move north. Attack orc. Loot gold.
If a developer expects to make up shortfalls in their game with eye candy, 9 times out of 10 it isn't going to work. You might trick some people into buying the game but experiance will quickly spread through word of mouth. The movie industry does something similar when they know a film is going to bomb. They don't have advanced showings and just cross their fingers that they make back what they paid to produce the movie on the opening weekend. After that no one goes to see it because word spread how terrible it is.
Where is all this going? Let me try and spell it out. If you have a good game, it does not matter what it looks like. You just need to make it as solid and fun as possible. If you can afford nice graphics, then do it. But don't bite off more than you can chew and end up with inconsistent, cheesy and just plain bad looking art. UO has tried this twice now with Third Dawn and recently with Kingdom Reborn. The quality just wasn't there due to a rushed product and obvious budget constraints.
When I see people talking about how great Ultima Online used to be, they don't mention the art. They talk about additions or nerfs or expansions. If someone has seen a comment that stated "oh I would play UO but the graphics are just so bad!" please link me to it. Plus the people who chase after games for their art are just going to leave when the next game with jaw dropping visuals arrives later in the month. Chasing after these people for your game is futile.
When you build a house, naturally the first thing you do is pick out the paint colors and what type of moulding is going to line the walls. That is the foundation of a good house. Isn't it?
Of course not. But when it comes to games these days, players think that graphics are what sells. Pretty avatars and dazzling special effects can help draw someone in, but they won't stay if the floors are sagging and squeaky because the plywood under sheathing was not fastened correctly.
I am mixing too many metaphors in here. Let me just stick to gaming. Ever since Everquest came on the scene, there have been heated debates over whether UO should upgrade graphics to be more "modern". People advocating a more modern style usually point to the game released that week (Everquest, World of Warcraft, Crysis, etc). Can you imagine how great it would look to stack 10,000 explosion kegs and let them blow up with the Crysis game engine? Of course only 5 people in the world would be able to run it on their computer, but still it would look pretty!
The graphics for a game is the outermost part of the structure. Like paint on a wall, it displays the story and creatures and objects. It is not necessary for function (as proven by early games which had no graphics) but it helps define the experience. If you stripped out all the graphics from World of Warcraft and Everquest II, what would you be left with? Move north. Move north. Attack orc. Loot gold.
If a developer expects to make up shortfalls in their game with eye candy, 9 times out of 10 it isn't going to work. You might trick some people into buying the game but experiance will quickly spread through word of mouth. The movie industry does something similar when they know a film is going to bomb. They don't have advanced showings and just cross their fingers that they make back what they paid to produce the movie on the opening weekend. After that no one goes to see it because word spread how terrible it is.
Where is all this going? Let me try and spell it out. If you have a good game, it does not matter what it looks like. You just need to make it as solid and fun as possible. If you can afford nice graphics, then do it. But don't bite off more than you can chew and end up with inconsistent, cheesy and just plain bad looking art. UO has tried this twice now with Third Dawn and recently with Kingdom Reborn. The quality just wasn't there due to a rushed product and obvious budget constraints.
When I see people talking about how great Ultima Online used to be, they don't mention the art. They talk about additions or nerfs or expansions. If someone has seen a comment that stated "oh I would play UO but the graphics are just so bad!" please link me to it. Plus the people who chase after games for their art are just going to leave when the next game with jaw dropping visuals arrives later in the month. Chasing after these people for your game is futile.
November 23, 2008
Borehammer - Age of Scenarios
The original layout was quite boring. I am quite partial to this design. It is the same as the one I created for the UORares website. Over time I will make more adjustments as I think of them.
I was going to write about this yesterday but then the whole closing of Tabula Rasa thing came up. Might as well write about what is most relevant that day! For the second time ever (the first being Eve Online), I went out to see what all this new generation MMO hoopla is about. I should mention I tried World of Warcraft for 14 days several years ago, but never intended to pick up the game.
The game: Warhammer Online
The lure: Massive PVP encounters
The result: I lasted 3 weeks
"Experience the glory of Realm vs. Realm! Declare your allegiance and join hundreds of thousands of mighty heroes on the battlefields of Warhammer Online" or so the website claims. War is not everywhere. When I played it was mostly in Battlegrounds...........errr........I mean Scenarios. They are the exact same thing from the way everyone talks (I've never seen the inside of a World of Warcraft Battleground). Two teams fight over objectives and try to reach the highest score. The problem is it is the same thing again and again and again and again. Even if your team wins all the time, it can be really boring. Only 1 out of 10 matches I would estimate were really fun for me. Most of the time one side overwhelmingly crushed the other.
There were a lot of issues with the Scenario system. The biggest being that it relied on random chance for both sides to be equal. Unlike World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online restricts Scenarios to be from the same server only. That is a major flaw in my opinion. Players are always complaining how they want to do more than just the single one people farm experiance in. If they just made it cross-server, then this problem would be eliminated. The sides could be more balanced too because the pool of players queueing would be huge. Sometimes you can begin and know that loss is inevitible because your team has no healers or tanks.
When I stopped playing, I never saw a Scenario go off with more than 15 people. But there was room for up to 36 people. I would have loved to see one with 30 on each side. That could have been exciting. The kind of fun boasted about on all the advertisements. But most of the time you only have 8-10 people. Less when they start leaving because your side is not doing well.
The worst part about all this is Scenarios are required if you want to level fast for the end game. But it can either go really well or not be an option depending on the Order/Destruction balance on your server. There are quest and monsters to kill, but it just doesn't go as fast unless you get with a group of people and run the risk of getting banned for killing mobs too fast.
All in all, I think Scenarios are one of the biggest issues in Warhammer Online at the moment but the developers don't want to nerf them. Instead they are frantically trying to make open Realm vs Realm (which I will cover in another post later on) more appealing. But it has completely back-fired on them. Now "mortal enemies" are gaming the system and just handing the keeps you capture back and forth to farm the rewards. It is just a huge mess.
Too bad there couldn't have been more matches like the one above ending with 1 point difference. One kill deciding the entire fight! Instead the spread averaged 200 points or more.
I was going to write about this yesterday but then the whole closing of Tabula Rasa thing came up. Might as well write about what is most relevant that day! For the second time ever (the first being Eve Online), I went out to see what all this new generation MMO hoopla is about. I should mention I tried World of Warcraft for 14 days several years ago, but never intended to pick up the game.
The game: Warhammer Online
The lure: Massive PVP encounters
The result: I lasted 3 weeks
"Experience the glory of Realm vs. Realm! Declare your allegiance and join hundreds of thousands of mighty heroes on the battlefields of Warhammer Online" or so the website claims. War is not everywhere. When I played it was mostly in Battlegrounds...........errr........I mean Scenarios. They are the exact same thing from the way everyone talks (I've never seen the inside of a World of Warcraft Battleground). Two teams fight over objectives and try to reach the highest score. The problem is it is the same thing again and again and again and again. Even if your team wins all the time, it can be really boring. Only 1 out of 10 matches I would estimate were really fun for me. Most of the time one side overwhelmingly crushed the other.
There were a lot of issues with the Scenario system. The biggest being that it relied on random chance for both sides to be equal. Unlike World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online restricts Scenarios to be from the same server only. That is a major flaw in my opinion. Players are always complaining how they want to do more than just the single one people farm experiance in. If they just made it cross-server, then this problem would be eliminated. The sides could be more balanced too because the pool of players queueing would be huge. Sometimes you can begin and know that loss is inevitible because your team has no healers or tanks.
When I stopped playing, I never saw a Scenario go off with more than 15 people. But there was room for up to 36 people. I would have loved to see one with 30 on each side. That could have been exciting. The kind of fun boasted about on all the advertisements. But most of the time you only have 8-10 people. Less when they start leaving because your side is not doing well.
The worst part about all this is Scenarios are required if you want to level fast for the end game. But it can either go really well or not be an option depending on the Order/Destruction balance on your server. There are quest and monsters to kill, but it just doesn't go as fast unless you get with a group of people and run the risk of getting banned for killing mobs too fast.
All in all, I think Scenarios are one of the biggest issues in Warhammer Online at the moment but the developers don't want to nerf them. Instead they are frantically trying to make open Realm vs Realm (which I will cover in another post later on) more appealing. But it has completely back-fired on them. Now "mortal enemies" are gaming the system and just handing the keeps you capture back and forth to farm the rewards. It is just a huge mess.
Too bad there couldn't have been more matches like the one above ending with 1 point difference. One kill deciding the entire fight! Instead the spread averaged 200 points or more.
November 22, 2008
Tabula Setsa
For those who haven't noticed, this blog is updating every day at 12AM Eastern. There is this nice feature where I can set the time the posts go live.
We all saw it coming. Tabula Rasa lost its creator, Richard Garriott, just a few short days ago. He said it was because of a new found enlightenment on his recent journey into space. Conspiracy theorists probably conclude it is from solar radiation and he is now being controlled by aliens. Myself? I think he is just tired of making games. He has been doing it all his life. While he enjoyed a lot of success up to Ultima franchise including Ultima Online, things have not kept pace. While City of Heroes could be considered a success, it wasn't a hit. Now his latest creation, some kind of space universe, has met its demise.
I have never tried the game myself. Actually I picked up a copy for $1 at Gamestop a couple weeks ago when they were on clearance. That is certainly a bad sign in itself when your game is no longer going to be sold at the largest game retailer in the country. I suppose I will give it a go in a couple weeks, see what it is all about. Learn more about why it wasn't well received.
But I can form a few theories by just reading the box. First of all it prominently displays Richard's name at the top of both sides. "A science fiction epic from Richard Garriott". I bet more than a few casual gamers have said "who is this guy?" The box doesn't say anything about it, just that he made this game. If you are going to display someone's name prominently on your product, it might be a good idea to have a sentence or two explaining who the heck he is. Perhaps something like, "Richard Garriott, the father of the modern MMO, of which millions of players now enjoy in a variety of worlds." Then someone may say "hey, this guy was the one who invented World of Warcraft? I should check this game out!" Not exactly true, but a sub is a sub.
The top headline on the back of the box, below an even bigger headline exclaiming who made this game, states "Explore massive alien worlds, immerse yourself in deep storylines, and face the consequence of the choices that you make." How many people are going to care about deep story lines? I am not joking here. Hardcore players rarely do. Casual players might have a passing interest. This is just not a selling point of games today. Deep story is not going to pull people in. It will help keep the people already playing. If you are going to advertise this on your box, at least tell me what the story involves. I don't even see the name of any alien race on this box. People read books for a deep story. People play games to have fun. Several games have actually had such convoluted stories recently, that it might turn some people off.
Next headline down, "Take Role-Playing to the Battlefield!" Are you kidding? Whoever designed this box is not very good at marketing. I just grabbed the box for Bioshock (real journalistic research here), lets see what is says. "Bioshock is a shooter unlike any you've ever played, loaded with weapons and tactics never seen." Unlike anything I've ever played? Hmm, that sounds interesting. It goes on to say how you can modify your DNA to fight and stuff. It actually tells you what the game is about. There is absolutely no mention on the Tabula Rasa box about this "deep story" that is supposed to draw me in. I was going to compare it to the Warhammer Online box, but that has nothing but a picture on the DVD package. I can't locate the sleeve that it came in at the moment.
You can't judge a book by its cover, but it certainly helps. The last thing I am going to nitpick, because there isn't much else to do since I haven't played the game yet, is this absolutely ridiculous blank space. There is a section that lists 3 features (consensual PVP, crafting & economy [whatever that means, what MMO doesn't have those?], and voice chat). The list itself is fine. The space underneath where you could fit 2-3 more points is not. It is just devoid of information or aesthetics. Is this an omen as to what the game itself will be like? I'll do another post once I actually try out the game.
We all saw it coming. Tabula Rasa lost its creator, Richard Garriott, just a few short days ago. He said it was because of a new found enlightenment on his recent journey into space. Conspiracy theorists probably conclude it is from solar radiation and he is now being controlled by aliens. Myself? I think he is just tired of making games. He has been doing it all his life. While he enjoyed a lot of success up to Ultima franchise including Ultima Online, things have not kept pace. While City of Heroes could be considered a success, it wasn't a hit. Now his latest creation, some kind of space universe, has met its demise.
I have never tried the game myself. Actually I picked up a copy for $1 at Gamestop a couple weeks ago when they were on clearance. That is certainly a bad sign in itself when your game is no longer going to be sold at the largest game retailer in the country. I suppose I will give it a go in a couple weeks, see what it is all about. Learn more about why it wasn't well received.
But I can form a few theories by just reading the box. First of all it prominently displays Richard's name at the top of both sides. "A science fiction epic from Richard Garriott". I bet more than a few casual gamers have said "who is this guy?" The box doesn't say anything about it, just that he made this game. If you are going to display someone's name prominently on your product, it might be a good idea to have a sentence or two explaining who the heck he is. Perhaps something like, "Richard Garriott, the father of the modern MMO, of which millions of players now enjoy in a variety of worlds." Then someone may say "hey, this guy was the one who invented World of Warcraft? I should check this game out!" Not exactly true, but a sub is a sub.
The top headline on the back of the box, below an even bigger headline exclaiming who made this game, states "Explore massive alien worlds, immerse yourself in deep storylines, and face the consequence of the choices that you make." How many people are going to care about deep story lines? I am not joking here. Hardcore players rarely do. Casual players might have a passing interest. This is just not a selling point of games today. Deep story is not going to pull people in. It will help keep the people already playing. If you are going to advertise this on your box, at least tell me what the story involves. I don't even see the name of any alien race on this box. People read books for a deep story. People play games to have fun. Several games have actually had such convoluted stories recently, that it might turn some people off.
Next headline down, "Take Role-Playing to the Battlefield!" Are you kidding? Whoever designed this box is not very good at marketing. I just grabbed the box for Bioshock (real journalistic research here), lets see what is says. "Bioshock is a shooter unlike any you've ever played, loaded with weapons and tactics never seen." Unlike anything I've ever played? Hmm, that sounds interesting. It goes on to say how you can modify your DNA to fight and stuff. It actually tells you what the game is about. There is absolutely no mention on the Tabula Rasa box about this "deep story" that is supposed to draw me in. I was going to compare it to the Warhammer Online box, but that has nothing but a picture on the DVD package. I can't locate the sleeve that it came in at the moment.
You can't judge a book by its cover, but it certainly helps. The last thing I am going to nitpick, because there isn't much else to do since I haven't played the game yet, is this absolutely ridiculous blank space. There is a section that lists 3 features (consensual PVP, crafting & economy [whatever that means, what MMO doesn't have those?], and voice chat). The list itself is fine. The space underneath where you could fit 2-3 more points is not. It is just devoid of information or aesthetics. Is this an omen as to what the game itself will be like? I'll do another post once I actually try out the game.
November 21, 2008
Making a Reward Rewarding
I am wondering whether or not I will be able to come up with a topic each day. This is actually pretty fun to do. I hope I will be able to keep up with it.
A rather big set of change is coming to Ultima Online. Bigger than perhaps anything else in the past 3 years. For those who don't follow UO, there has not been an expansion since August 2005. So this is no exaggeration. (I am purposefully ignoring Kingdom Reborn)
Publish 57 brings three new things to the game. There is the Scroll of Transcendence which will accelerate skill gain. There are decorative rewards being added to all champion spawns. Then there are the powerful new replica artifacts being added to champions as well. I am going to focus on the new item drop rates more than anything else.
When you add something permanent to a MMO, it needs to last. If you add a boss, there should be a reason that players need/want to defeat it over and over. At the moment there is no reason at all to do the champion spawns in Ilshenar facet because they drop no loot at all. This is not a joke. In fact none of the champion spawns added with Samurai Empire or Mondain's Legacy had special loot either. I can't imagine why this happened. Why would you go through the trouble of adding a boss and forgo a reason for players to defeat it?
Felucca facet champions are different because they drop highly desired Power and Stat Scrolls, unavailable anywhere else in the game. This draw is so great that all group PVP in UO has shifted to revolved around them. Massive guilds have been formed to fight rival guilds over this bountiful resource. The best scrolls, boosting you to 120 skill, used to only drop 10% of the time. After 5 years, that was changed to a 20% drop. Each champion could give out up to 12 power scrolls. The Harrower can give up to 16 stat scrolls.
Okay, that should be enough explaining. What I am getting at is these special rewards were added in summer of 2002 and are still sought after to this day. This is due to their very low drop rate, difficulty in obtaining them and being a one-use item. Our guild still spends virtually every night acquiring them unless there is something else interesting to do.
Instead of a 10% or 20% drop rate, the new rewards are designed to drop 90% of the time. Not only is the drop rate so insanely high, but some of the best rewards are shared among all the champions. There are 24 champion spawns located throughout Britannia. Unless the developers plan to swap out the decorations and replica artifacts every 6 months, this has no hope of lasting. We saw it with the Minor Artifacts, once insanely popular but now players throw them on the ground. Heck, we even see with the recent Halloween event. After the first 2 weeks, participation in the graveyards went way down. Once you own a piece of equipment in today's UO, you own it for life.
Unless the reward is a desired consumable, then you can't have a high drop rate. It only leads to disaster once every player has what they want for life and the market has so many that they are sold for less gold than it takes to gather in 15 minutes of hunting. The drop rate of 90% should probably be cut by 90%. A low drop rate also means when you finally get that item you want, it is that much more meaningful.
My take away strategy is you can always raise a drop rate which is found to be too low, but you can not easily reverse one too high as the items will be too numerous by the time you realize it.
A rather big set of change is coming to Ultima Online. Bigger than perhaps anything else in the past 3 years. For those who don't follow UO, there has not been an expansion since August 2005. So this is no exaggeration. (I am purposefully ignoring Kingdom Reborn)
Publish 57 brings three new things to the game. There is the Scroll of Transcendence which will accelerate skill gain. There are decorative rewards being added to all champion spawns. Then there are the powerful new replica artifacts being added to champions as well. I am going to focus on the new item drop rates more than anything else.
When you add something permanent to a MMO, it needs to last. If you add a boss, there should be a reason that players need/want to defeat it over and over. At the moment there is no reason at all to do the champion spawns in Ilshenar facet because they drop no loot at all. This is not a joke. In fact none of the champion spawns added with Samurai Empire or Mondain's Legacy had special loot either. I can't imagine why this happened. Why would you go through the trouble of adding a boss and forgo a reason for players to defeat it?
Felucca facet champions are different because they drop highly desired Power and Stat Scrolls, unavailable anywhere else in the game. This draw is so great that all group PVP in UO has shifted to revolved around them. Massive guilds have been formed to fight rival guilds over this bountiful resource. The best scrolls, boosting you to 120 skill, used to only drop 10% of the time. After 5 years, that was changed to a 20% drop. Each champion could give out up to 12 power scrolls. The Harrower can give up to 16 stat scrolls.
Okay, that should be enough explaining. What I am getting at is these special rewards were added in summer of 2002 and are still sought after to this day. This is due to their very low drop rate, difficulty in obtaining them and being a one-use item. Our guild still spends virtually every night acquiring them unless there is something else interesting to do.
Instead of a 10% or 20% drop rate, the new rewards are designed to drop 90% of the time. Not only is the drop rate so insanely high, but some of the best rewards are shared among all the champions. There are 24 champion spawns located throughout Britannia. Unless the developers plan to swap out the decorations and replica artifacts every 6 months, this has no hope of lasting. We saw it with the Minor Artifacts, once insanely popular but now players throw them on the ground. Heck, we even see with the recent Halloween event. After the first 2 weeks, participation in the graveyards went way down. Once you own a piece of equipment in today's UO, you own it for life.
Unless the reward is a desired consumable, then you can't have a high drop rate. It only leads to disaster once every player has what they want for life and the market has so many that they are sold for less gold than it takes to gather in 15 minutes of hunting. The drop rate of 90% should probably be cut by 90%. A low drop rate also means when you finally get that item you want, it is that much more meaningful.
My take away strategy is you can always raise a drop rate which is found to be too low, but you can not easily reverse one too high as the items will be too numerous by the time you realize it.
November 20, 2008
MMO Video Files - An Untapped Feature
As some of you may already know, I have taken quite the interest in making Ultima Online related videos this year. Most recently I am proud of the production showing a fight of the fabled Meraktus the Tormented, a spawn which had little information published about it. There are now 50 videos in total.
Something that I've had in my mind for a very long time is the creation of a program which let you record and play videos directly from the UO client. This tool does in fact exist. Unfortunately it is part of a suite of cheating software, otherwise I think it would be pretty popular.
What am I talking about exactly? Well in a normal video you have tons of image data. If you have any sizable collection of pictures or movies on your computer, you know that is what takes up the bulk of your hard drive space. In a video, each frame (of which there can be up to 32 frames per second) records the data on thousands of pixels to make up the image. For a completely uncompressed 800x600 video running at 24 frames per second, that is 11,520,000 pixels which need to be accounted for, or roughly 32MBs of data. For one second of video!
Of course that is not the entire story. Algorithms known as codecs are used to compress that data into a more reasonable size. A good quality video is going to still need about 10-20MB per minute after all is said and done.
But what if you didn't store the video as image data. What if it was stored like this....
[00:00:01] [sound] [greater heal]
[00:00:01] [mobile] [dragon turn west]
[00:00:01] [mobile] [dragon walk west]
[00:00:02] [mobile] [dragon fire breath player]
Text data takes up an insignificant amount of space in comparision. In fact this is how your game client knows what is going on. The game server sends data which is measured in the kilobytes per second instead of megabytes. If the client saved all this data to a file and then had the ability to play it back, you have a video player!
This technology has most recently been prominently featured in Halo 3. In that game the server actually saves all the data and lets players who wish to download the video file. But that is now how it would work for a MMO, the client would do the saving.
I think the first MMO which does this is going to have a major hit on their hands. This is a completely unused technology. I cringe at what would happen if Blizzard implemented it for World of Warcraft. Of course I would love to see it for UO.
Going even one step beyond, though this would be a massive undertaking. It would be so utterly amazing if a website could be designed around playing these tiny UO files. As is, you would need a copy of the Ultima Online client installed on your computer in order to play them because that is where all the image data is stored. But UO's style of art would is actually very good for use in Flash movies. It should be possible to make a website in which you could upload the UO movie file. The site would then run a program which would compile a flash movie, pulling all the relevent UO graphics, animations and sounds. Then you could watch it like any Youtube video.
Of course the file size would not be insignificant. But it would not be anywhere near as large as a normal video file. Instead of having to record every frame, it records the graphic one time and moves it around. One mobile which might take up 2-3MB of video data would only take 100KB in a flash movie. The rest of the client functions could be mimic down to the smallest detail. I wrote a special algorithm several years ago to copy UO's talk-over-heard text exactly. From the 2-tone coloring of spell text to how many characters fit on one line to the unique font style. It was actually very interesting to do.
Anyway, this was just something I've been thinking about for a long time. Perhaps one day it will happen.
Something that I've had in my mind for a very long time is the creation of a program which let you record and play videos directly from the UO client. This tool does in fact exist. Unfortunately it is part of a suite of cheating software, otherwise I think it would be pretty popular.
What am I talking about exactly? Well in a normal video you have tons of image data. If you have any sizable collection of pictures or movies on your computer, you know that is what takes up the bulk of your hard drive space. In a video, each frame (of which there can be up to 32 frames per second) records the data on thousands of pixels to make up the image. For a completely uncompressed 800x600 video running at 24 frames per second, that is 11,520,000 pixels which need to be accounted for, or roughly 32MBs of data. For one second of video!
Of course that is not the entire story. Algorithms known as codecs are used to compress that data into a more reasonable size. A good quality video is going to still need about 10-20MB per minute after all is said and done.
But what if you didn't store the video as image data. What if it was stored like this....
[00:00:01] [sound] [greater heal]
[00:00:01] [mobile] [dragon turn west]
[00:00:01] [mobile] [dragon walk west]
[00:00:02] [mobile] [dragon fire breath player]
Text data takes up an insignificant amount of space in comparision. In fact this is how your game client knows what is going on. The game server sends data which is measured in the kilobytes per second instead of megabytes. If the client saved all this data to a file and then had the ability to play it back, you have a video player!
This technology has most recently been prominently featured in Halo 3. In that game the server actually saves all the data and lets players who wish to download the video file. But that is now how it would work for a MMO, the client would do the saving.
I think the first MMO which does this is going to have a major hit on their hands. This is a completely unused technology. I cringe at what would happen if Blizzard implemented it for World of Warcraft. Of course I would love to see it for UO.
Going even one step beyond, though this would be a massive undertaking. It would be so utterly amazing if a website could be designed around playing these tiny UO files. As is, you would need a copy of the Ultima Online client installed on your computer in order to play them because that is where all the image data is stored. But UO's style of art would is actually very good for use in Flash movies. It should be possible to make a website in which you could upload the UO movie file. The site would then run a program which would compile a flash movie, pulling all the relevent UO graphics, animations and sounds. Then you could watch it like any Youtube video.
Of course the file size would not be insignificant. But it would not be anywhere near as large as a normal video file. Instead of having to record every frame, it records the graphic one time and moves it around. One mobile which might take up 2-3MB of video data would only take 100KB in a flash movie. The rest of the client functions could be mimic down to the smallest detail. I wrote a special algorithm several years ago to copy UO's talk-over-heard text exactly. From the 2-tone coloring of spell text to how many characters fit on one line to the unique font style. It was actually very interesting to do.
Anyway, this was just something I've been thinking about for a long time. Perhaps one day it will happen.
November 19, 2008
Make sure you complain to the right person
Two quick blog related notes:
1) I am going to try my best only to post once per day. If I didn't set this limit then I would probably end up spending way too much time on this.
2) I have disabled commenting for the time being because I just don't want to have to deal with moderating them. I'd rather just spend my 5 minutes writing the post and that be it. If you really want to send me a comment then there is always private message via Stratics or UOForums. Some day in the future I will enable it.
Ok, on to a topic. This past week Ultima Online players have been experiencing heavy latency and packet loss. This is the worst seen in several years at least. It affects a wide variety of players all over the country.
One thing people should know is that this isn't just a UO issue. There have been major internet slow downs, an unusual amount, this week. This does not explain all the lag, but it is one source. For me I have been facing a triple threat. There is the general lag, then the EA lag (now identified as coming from the ISP near EA's servers) and 10% packet loss within my own home network.
Anyway, there was a reveal of some interesting changes coming to the next UO publish. Immediatly people started replying quite rudely that this developer should be focusing on the lag and forget about what she is working on. Stratics moderators have since removed most of these replies.
This person's job title is "UO Associate Game Designer". I don't see anything about network administrator in there. People often take out their anger and frustration at the wrong people. I'm sure she feels sorry about what is going on, but there is literally nothing that she could personally do about it. The world continues to turn whether or not the internet is down.
I guess this post didn't really go anywhere. I thought it would. Next time I will be sure to post something more insightful then this.
1) I am going to try my best only to post once per day. If I didn't set this limit then I would probably end up spending way too much time on this.
2) I have disabled commenting for the time being because I just don't want to have to deal with moderating them. I'd rather just spend my 5 minutes writing the post and that be it. If you really want to send me a comment then there is always private message via Stratics or UOForums. Some day in the future I will enable it.
Ok, on to a topic. This past week Ultima Online players have been experiencing heavy latency and packet loss. This is the worst seen in several years at least. It affects a wide variety of players all over the country.
One thing people should know is that this isn't just a UO issue. There have been major internet slow downs, an unusual amount, this week. This does not explain all the lag, but it is one source. For me I have been facing a triple threat. There is the general lag, then the EA lag (now identified as coming from the ISP near EA's servers) and 10% packet loss within my own home network.
Anyway, there was a reveal of some interesting changes coming to the next UO publish. Immediatly people started replying quite rudely that this developer should be focusing on the lag and forget about what she is working on. Stratics moderators have since removed most of these replies.
This person's job title is "UO Associate Game Designer". I don't see anything about network administrator in there. People often take out their anger and frustration at the wrong people. I'm sure she feels sorry about what is going on, but there is literally nothing that she could personally do about it. The world continues to turn whether or not the internet is down.
I guess this post didn't really go anywhere. I thought it would. Next time I will be sure to post something more insightful then this.
November 18, 2008
An Event is an Event
As is frequently the case, there is quite a few players requesting that the UO halloween events be extended. The event itself began October 29 and is scheduled to end on November 17. That is 20 full days for every player to participate, just shy of 3 weeks.
If you didn't have a chance to get out and take part in 3 weeks then it is just tough cookies in my opinion. You can't please every single person. To let every player take part this would have to be changed from an event to a content addition, something permanent. You would have Skeletal Liches terrorizing graveyards forever. That wouldn't be very desirable.
People who ask for event extensions are at least as numerous as the ones who plan on the event ending as assigned. Some people will organize their play scheduals around an event if they know it is limited. An extension would mean that their hardship and hard work was for not.
Unless there is some drastic situation, such as the game servers go down or the event content did not happen as planned, then there can of course be changes made to the schedual. But to give an extension just because it is requested is not good. One glaring issue is that Halloween was almost 3 weeks ago. It doesn't look good to be ringing in the new year with trick or treating.
Instead of clinging to the current event, players should focus on what the future holds and what exciting new event they can take part in.
If you didn't have a chance to get out and take part in 3 weeks then it is just tough cookies in my opinion. You can't please every single person. To let every player take part this would have to be changed from an event to a content addition, something permanent. You would have Skeletal Liches terrorizing graveyards forever. That wouldn't be very desirable.
People who ask for event extensions are at least as numerous as the ones who plan on the event ending as assigned. Some people will organize their play scheduals around an event if they know it is limited. An extension would mean that their hardship and hard work was for not.
Unless there is some drastic situation, such as the game servers go down or the event content did not happen as planned, then there can of course be changes made to the schedual. But to give an extension just because it is requested is not good. One glaring issue is that Halloween was almost 3 weeks ago. It doesn't look good to be ringing in the new year with trick or treating.
Instead of clinging to the current event, players should focus on what the future holds and what exciting new event they can take part in.
November 17, 2008
A blog you say?
Finally a place to post pictures of my dog or rant about how terrible my job is!
Actually, no. I am not going to do that. There are already literally millions of blogs that do that. Why would anyone want to read about your day to day activities anyway. Unless you are some movie star, then they have entire TV shows and newspapers dedicated to that. They don't even have to write their own stuff. If you have to do it yourself, chances are no one is going to care.
This is going to be a blog about thoughts and ideas I have. It is mostly going to be based on the MMO Ultima Online, video gaming in general and possibly other things. The intended audience is for anyone interested in reading about this stuff.
Why am I starting a blog? Because I don't feel there is an appropriate forum anywhere for this stuff. On Stratics U Hall there is a multitude of issues, one of which being any good topic I start gets locked because the moderators don't feel like doing their job. I have tried to post in the past on our own guild forum, but the general community there is not kind to it. First of all most hate my guts because I am the administrator. Second, due to hating my guts, anything I post is going to quickly be put down faster than a raccoon with rabies.
Thus, this was created. A place where I can just dump my thoughts, a thought dump if you will. It is nice that I came up with that name so quickly. Otherwise it would have been left blank like my profile.
The next post is going to be about world events and players complaining that they should be extended indefinitely.
Actually, no. I am not going to do that. There are already literally millions of blogs that do that. Why would anyone want to read about your day to day activities anyway. Unless you are some movie star, then they have entire TV shows and newspapers dedicated to that. They don't even have to write their own stuff. If you have to do it yourself, chances are no one is going to care.
This is going to be a blog about thoughts and ideas I have. It is mostly going to be based on the MMO Ultima Online, video gaming in general and possibly other things. The intended audience is for anyone interested in reading about this stuff.
Why am I starting a blog? Because I don't feel there is an appropriate forum anywhere for this stuff. On Stratics U Hall there is a multitude of issues, one of which being any good topic I start gets locked because the moderators don't feel like doing their job. I have tried to post in the past on our own guild forum, but the general community there is not kind to it. First of all most hate my guts because I am the administrator. Second, due to hating my guts, anything I post is going to quickly be put down faster than a raccoon with rabies.
Thus, this was created. A place where I can just dump my thoughts, a thought dump if you will. It is nice that I came up with that name so quickly. Otherwise it would have been left blank like my profile.
The next post is going to be about world events and players complaining that they should be extended indefinitely.
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