iPhone for Gaming

I see a lot of people commenting how the iPhone is held back from having great games because it is touch screen only. Why doesn't a company make an add-on which will give you a D-pad and a couple buttons. If they manage the cost of $10 or maybe even $20, then developers could just say you need this addon to play the game. Problem solved.

Equipment Models

My thoughts on Tabula Rasa will have to wait as I wish to write about something else at the moment: equipment.

In any massively multiplayer online game that I know of, there is equipment. While it is just one part of the overall game, so many other parts depend on or influence it. From loot drops to crafting to trade to player progression, etc. Lets look at different ways equipment is implemented.

In World of Warcraft (from what I read on wowwiki), equipment does not break. Even when its durability reaches 0 it just goes into a state where it provides not benefits. Your items stay with you always when you die. The only time you upgrade is when you find something better.

In Eve Online your equipment is your ship and modules. It never wears out with use. You can freely swap out anything you want. If you die you drop it all. The ship is destroyed along with half your modules. The other half drop to your corpse. You are constantly acquiring new ships and modules to replenish.

In Ultima Online's past your equipment wore out with use. You could get equipment repaired but the maximum effectiveness dropped a little. Eventually you must replace everything. If you died then you lost it (unless you managed to loot it back). You had to constantly be acquiring new equipment to keep your current level.

In Ultima Online today there are significant changes. Your equipment still wears out but you can cheaply boost it's life span indefinitely. Equipment also lasts much, much longer between repairs. Item insurance (fixed at 600 gold per item) means you get to keep all your items for relatively little cost. Thus the only thing you go after is better equipment or powder to keep up your current set.

World of Warcraft's equipment model depends on new pieces to be constantly introduced to the game in order to keep things interesting. New items are usually very difficult to obtain at first. Later on the difficulty is toned down and in turn the equipment becomes more common. Eventually giving way to new and better stuff. One example of this is the tiered armor sets introduced each season. They are even numbered so you know which are the latest and greatest. Currently up to number 8.


World of Warcraft's model is to consistantly introduced new equipment and obsolete older pieces.

Eve Online's equipment model depends of players dying and needing new items. New equipment is introduced into the game, but it usually serves a specific purpose and does not replace currently usefulness. While there are new "tiers" (referred to as Tech II, and recently Tech III) , they are much more expensive than base items. And as mentioned earlier, when you die you lose it all. Thus, no equipment is made obsolete because cheap models and ships are useful in their own situations.

Eve Online's model is to periodically introduce new equipment which expands into completely new areas or add slightly more powerful modules which are more signficatly more costly than originals.

Ultima Online's equipment model was tied most closely with real life. As was what Richard Garriott intended which his design. Players acquired items, used them, wore them out or lost them and got new equipment. The level of your equipment depended on how much you were willing to work/pay for. Game expansions added brand new equipment which was different from what was already available. Never replacing it.

Ultima Online's original model was to add new types of equipment, but no enhancements on the originals.

Now on to today's model. From the Age of Shadows expansion onward, equipment was modified to be fully repairable akin to the World of Warcraft model. This however was stated to be a bug in the code which unfortunately was not fixed for a long time. The introduction of Item Insurance made it so player's no longer had to worry about item loss on death. Now the constant progression of always going after the latest and greatest equipment began. Many items are now considered trash, and as such are never looted from creature corpses. Most player crafted equipment also past the point where it was no longer used by anyone. Expansions since (Samurai Empire and Mondain's Legacy) added new equipment once again. But a lot went unused by players due to it being below current equipment types in usefulness. For example some new weapons such as the Compsite Bow and Bokuto have replaced the normal Bow and Halberd.

Ultima Online's current model is to add either better equipment which replaces current items or equipment which is ignored for various reasons.

The current UO model is very broken.

What is so Difficult About Making a Good Post?

I participated in the final hours of the Tabula Rasa universe and am currently working on getting a video uploaded of it. Unfortunately I didn't realize I had it set to my usual UO setting of 800x600 recording area instead of full screen. So you get a really good shot of the chat window (which as you can imagine is going crazy the whole time) and about 1/3 of the game area. It is too bad that it turned out this way because I collected a lot of great footage including a run through of the Earth level with all the monsters just standing there because the server was lagged out. Well if I had to pick a small area of the screen to get the chat window would have been it.

There (might) be a post on my thoughts about this tomorrow.

Also when I went to uninstall the game it was quite a hassle. First there wasn't any uninstall utility in the root folder. So I went to Add/Removed programs and tried to locate it there. It wasn't under "T" for Tabula Rasa. It wasn't under "N" for NCSoft's Tabulas Rasa. It wasn't under PlayNC (which is the launching utility for NCSoft games). Can you guess where it was? Yes, it was under "Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa". Arn't we all glad UO isn't named "Richard Garriott's Ultima Online".

What is so Difficult About Making a Good Game?

What is the thing game programmers always say. That they want to make fun and successful games. Something like that. You know, when they apply for their job or write down their life goals. But then they get hired and are told what to do. They do it even though they know it won't be fun or successful. But they have to, because their manager/director/king told them to.

It is just so amazing to me how many games have the potential to be good but are run into the ground. Say for instance Warhammer Online. The game is billed around never ending war. Big PVP battles and never ending fights. That sort of stuff. It sounds like loads of fun!

The director who made the game probably hopped in a couple scenarios and had fun. It is fun.................the first couple times. Which is all he played. And it could continue to be fun..................if there are people queuing up to take part. But is quickly degrade into a grind for experience which they don't see. And the director doesn't realize that people are not having fun because they see good numbers of participants. But if you go to any forum or solicit player feedback, he would hear how unfun his game is.

Warhammer Online has 2 aspects of PVP, Scenarios and Realm vs Realm. Scenarios are downright boring after a while. They rely on too many variables (class types, people queuing up, server population balance, group cohesion) and thus can be considered not fun. When I played some rounds we could not even leave the starting area. We were trapped like new players in a guard zone. Except we had much less freedom. So Scenarios are not a reliable source of PVP.

Then there is RvR combat. You run around taking battlefield objectives and keeps. If no one shows up to defend you just kill monsters. No PVP at all. That can happen a lot. If you do see some defense, it is just a huge choke hold fight. You are trying to break down a door to get inside. Then another door. Then run up some stairs. There is never a big open battle or chance for large engagement. The sides are usually very lopsided.

What is my point here? The point is there is no solid PVP experience in Warhammer Online. They launched with this and have not done anything to correct it. Instead of trying to move the game in a new direction they tweak it. But it never becomes more fun, just more standardized. The people who quit are not going to return because suddenly the Keep Lord does not bug out and kill himself. Or you can no longer use a certain buff on door hit points.

Warhammer, as do every game, needs to have some consistent fun that keeps you wanting to play.

The Toilet Clashes with the Drapes

Two in a row. Could it be?

What should have been a rather simple and innocent decoration contest has turned into a new source of player complaints and controversy. One winner is now requesting that the UO developers pick another design instead of his own. I don't see how it can get much worse than that.

The main point of contention that I can see is some of the winning designs go a bit further than adding some new shrubs and window dressings. We haven't seen every winner yet (mainly because for some inexplicable reason the winning designs were not posted with the results) but two include a moongate. The winner who is requesting his design be pulled had the moongate along with a stable, archery range, arcane circle, forge, and tailoring amenities. About the only thing missing was an ankh for tithing chilvary.

This contest was obviously a response to how the community team for Asian shards decorate their banks every so often. I have gone and seen those designs and they were nothing like this. They did not repurpose the bank into a replica of Luna. They added some tables, chairs, flowers and maybe a little dock. If it is Christmas they put up some trees and snow. That sort of thing.

The fault here I would place on the person who designed the contest rules. It should have been more strict as to what you can do. After some time a note was added telling participants that multi-story banks would not be allowed. I would really like to see some of those designs. There was probably one that added at least 2, perhaps even 3 new floors. It would have been taller than Lord British's Castle.

There should have been a bullet point that stated you could only add decorations. No additional functions such as moongates or teleporters or forges. There should have even been one encouraging people to keep it light and not stick an item over every tile of the banking area. Perhaps even be a rule where they had the freedom to make alterations on the submitted design.

We'll have to sit back and see where this goes. I would expect a statement about the entire contest situation no later than Tuesday, otherwise the bickering is only going to get worse as more designs are released by the winners.

Taking the Game out of the Game

Getting back into a posting flow is turning out to be quite difficult for me. You may or may not have noticed this.

Yesterday it was announced on the Stratics U Hall that the rewards at Event Moderator events were being modified. Many avid MMO players would call this a nerf. They would be 100% right.

In the past few weeks there have been complaints on Stratics about the rewards being given out. I didn't say a lot. I am actually thinking about going back and counting how many there were. It has been posted that one of the EM staff said that Stratics complaints were the main reasoning behind the reward distribution change. Since the announcement there have been at least 200 replies commenting on it. It would be interesting to see how many are for and against this change.

The change itself is as follows. No longer are Event Moderators allowed to give a limited amount of an item they choose. Now they have to give the same item out to everyone. The "winners" of the event get a slightly better item with their name and date attached. Isn't that just grand?

Of course it isn't. Let me relate to you all a past event I had the pleasure of participating in. We had to find these Orge Lords who stole some grapes. They were scattered throughout the land. After defeating them we looted the grapes, of which I can say there were certainly not enough for everyone to have. You had the chance to turn in those grapes and get a bottle of Delucia wine. That was the event. If that event ran today either the grapes would not be lootable or the Event Moderator would have to offer them to everyone. But then why would we go retrieve them if there were plenty left over? It kills the entire story of the event.

These changes in the name of fairness are the same as how there is a push in education/sports to make everyone feel the same. No keeping score are that football game! Everyone gets a gold star on their report, even if the paper only has their name on it! No one is going to have their feelings hurt or might be encouraged to try harder next time.

When those Orge Lords invade Trinsic, no need to slay them. Just come back at the end and get your free shiny items with your name on them.

Disbanded Brothers

I know I said I was going to start posting again on the new year. I guess this is just another shining example of how web blogs can be so sporadically updated.

In recent days there has been a lot of talk in the "MMO World" about how a certain alliance of guilds in Eve Online, consisting of thousands of people, was disbanded by a turncoat. I used to play a bit of Eve Online (did I already mention this? I am too lazy to check), so I know a thing or two about the game. There are huge areas of the game you can actually fight to control. That is why you need mega-alliances, to defend your space.

When the alliance was disbanded, control of that space was instantly lost. This might not be a big deal as long as you are not currently taking part in a huge war in which the enemy has been ruthlessly destroying you. Opps, it was. So now there is a huge rush into the enemies former strong hold, burning down down and stealing their assets.

While what happened was completely within the confines of the game and not exploiting a bug, I still think there is something not right here. Eve Online is and always has had an extremely high level of player espionage taking place. The game is even setup to encourage it. But to design the game in such a way that someone can pull something like this off is rather soul crushing to the people who spent years and years building it. There obviously should have been some mechanics in place which do not allow someone to instantly kick guilds out of an alliance and take it all to themselves unless you are the head person in charge (which this person was not).

There is so much interesting stuff lately to muse about.