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
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