I stumbled across a link to some WOW publish notes. It appears that Blizzard is now pushing out fixes virtually every day. And it isn't just one or two critical things needing fixing, it can be a dozen of fixes. They must feel very confident about their publishing process to be able to do it every day. Well with a game that has 12 million people playing, I guess you need to ramp up publishing to that speed.
On the subject of Blizzard, it appears they are over the "we have how many subscribers?" shock and are getting down to business. They were making so much profit per year but were not working on anything. Now they have Starcraft II, Diablo III and a secret MMO project all in the works. Plus with all that money coming in they have an unlimited amount of time to polish their games. These titles will probably be the most refined in the history of video games. Starcraft II likely would have been released up to a year or more ago from a publisher such as EA who likes to rush things out the door (Warhammer Online). As long as World of Warcraft keeps going, in four or five years Blizzard could be a one studio game producing powerhouse. Their no longer restricted in terms of time and money with a gravy train such as WOW under their belt. But who knows how long that will last.
Plus what is up with taking 18 months for an expansion? They should be able to knock that down to a yearly release. As time goes on players are going to get more and more bored. With no news on an expansion yet it doesn't sound like they'll have one ready. Who knows, maybe it will be a big surprise.
May 27, 2009
May 25, 2009
I need to post something
I am so bad at this. I need to try and post more often.
So what should I post about? I guess I should comment about Darkfall. The game is in an obvious downward spiral. The shop to purchase the game has finally been opened for several days, perhaps permanently. I don't play the game so I have no idea what the population situation is, but with the developers sticking with a one server implementation, it appears they have exhausted their backlog of players iching to play. That certainly does not bode well if the amount of people quitting is as estimated.
Darkfall promised a lot and has utterly failed in almost every field a MMO can possible fail in. Poor user interface, bad lag and disconnections, a multiple of hacks, unending amounts of exploits, substandard graphics, no community management, a website with the latest announcements about beta, no marketing, unfun PvM, sparse PvP, unbalanced mechanics favoring huge numbers and alliances, etc. It just goes on and on.
Darkfall is in such bad shape that quite possibly it could end up shutting down by the end of the year. Aside from some current die-hard players, no one has any faith in the future of the game. People who cite potential are only fooling themselves. Everything has potential. UO has potential. Shadowbane had potential. Potential is only worth something if it can be utilized, which Aventurine has demonstrated an inability to access. They can't even update the main website for the game after 3 months of release. Darkfall is likely to go down as the worse MMO in history unless by some miracle the game can be salvaged.
So what should I post about? I guess I should comment about Darkfall. The game is in an obvious downward spiral. The shop to purchase the game has finally been opened for several days, perhaps permanently. I don't play the game so I have no idea what the population situation is, but with the developers sticking with a one server implementation, it appears they have exhausted their backlog of players iching to play. That certainly does not bode well if the amount of people quitting is as estimated.
Darkfall promised a lot and has utterly failed in almost every field a MMO can possible fail in. Poor user interface, bad lag and disconnections, a multiple of hacks, unending amounts of exploits, substandard graphics, no community management, a website with the latest announcements about beta, no marketing, unfun PvM, sparse PvP, unbalanced mechanics favoring huge numbers and alliances, etc. It just goes on and on.
Darkfall is in such bad shape that quite possibly it could end up shutting down by the end of the year. Aside from some current die-hard players, no one has any faith in the future of the game. People who cite potential are only fooling themselves. Everything has potential. UO has potential. Shadowbane had potential. Potential is only worth something if it can be utilized, which Aventurine has demonstrated an inability to access. They can't even update the main website for the game after 3 months of release. Darkfall is likely to go down as the worse MMO in history unless by some miracle the game can be salvaged.
May 5, 2009
Suspended from Darkfall's Forum
I've been meaning to write something about Darkfall for a while. Well today a review came out that gave the game a 2 out of 10. That is pretty bad. Anyway, I post on the Darkfall forum asking if this is the first review of Darkfall and get suspended for it. Here is what I recieved:
That was almost immediately after I posted it. Aventurine appears to be in full damage control mode. Their developer Tasos wrote a rebuttal almost as long as the review itself. He claims that the reviewer spent almost no time in the game. No play session lasted more then a few minutes. Eurogamer replied saying the reviewer spent around 9 hours. I'm sure more details will come out soon.
Someone replied to my post saying there is one on MMORPG.com. But there isn't, the closest is an opinion piece. No review with a score. After almost a full page of responses later, no one has replied to that person and stated this. The vast majority of replies are just remarks dispariging the reviewer and investigative posts of his MySpace or other reviews. I think this event shows the current Darkfall community in its true light. And that light isn't very bright at all.
Dear JC the Builder,
You have received an infraction at Darkfall Forums.
Reason: THREE - You may not excessively communicate the same idea, phrase, or create spam within the community; you may not create any thread or post for the sole purpose of causing unrest in the community; you may not cause any sort of disturbance within a thread with the intent of ruining it; and you may not make one line posts such as IBTL, IBTB, BUMP, etc. Moderators are at their full discretion to enforce the spirit of this rule.
-------
Please refrain from trolling, thank you.
-------
This infraction is worth 10 point(s) and may result in restricted access until it expires. Serious infractions will never expire.
Original Post:
http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?p=3345212All the best,Quote:
Can someone link to another review of Darkfall? I am having trouble finding any. Does this mean the first official review of Darkfall by a gaming website gave it a 2 out of 10? That is not good.
Darkfall Forums
That was almost immediately after I posted it. Aventurine appears to be in full damage control mode. Their developer Tasos wrote a rebuttal almost as long as the review itself. He claims that the reviewer spent almost no time in the game. No play session lasted more then a few minutes. Eurogamer replied saying the reviewer spent around 9 hours. I'm sure more details will come out soon.
Someone replied to my post saying there is one on MMORPG.com. But there isn't, the closest is an opinion piece. No review with a score. After almost a full page of responses later, no one has replied to that person and stated this. The vast majority of replies are just remarks dispariging the reviewer and investigative posts of his MySpace or other reviews. I think this event shows the current Darkfall community in its true light. And that light isn't very bright at all.
April 23, 2009
More on a New UO Client
Continuing on with what I posted yesterday, I know there would be a couple issues trying to graft a 3d engine on the current UO world. A real one, not the one we saw with 3rd Dawn. Perhaps more than just a few problems too........
But I don't see anything that would outright prohibit it. The world might need a bit of changing so it isn't full of flat forests with trees laid out in unusually symmetric patterns. Perhaps the 1st person would only be available inside dungeons and buildings. I see this type of upgrade as the easier of two paths to restart the game. The other being a huge effort to bring 1997 isometric graphics to 2009, not 2001 which Kingdom Reborn tried to do. Even then, if that was the only upgrade performed the developers would need to combine it will a huge amount of game play enhancements in the all realms: PvM, PvP, sailing, housing, crafting, etc. Every single system would need a new and involved feature.
For UO to reverse its decline, you need something compelling to draw the attention of every MMO player out there. There needs to be something enticing them to at least give UO another 14 day trial. It all needs to go in simultaneously so when you login you see lots of other people playing with you.
The Stygian Abyss has the potential to do this. That is quite a big if there though, considering we have little idea of what is going on. At the moment it sounds like an average UO expansion. New dungeon(s), a couple new skills, a new system to revive crafting, etc. That is not going to cut it by a long shot. It might help maintain the status quo, but it is unlikely to turn subscriptions around.
As far as expansions go, the last two sucked. The most recent Mondain's Legacy was billed as a return to the game's "roots". Virtually everything about it failed. Recipes are nothing more than an one time annoyance, crafting quests in Heartwood are all "make x and have a 0.01% chance of getting a good drop", and the whole elf thing was just a marketing ploy to begin with. It didn't really "expand" the game at all. The same thing with Samurai Empire. New lands and two new skills which had a pitiful amount of abilities. It is no wonder players have lost interest in UO over the past 6 years. The game has gotten absolutely stagnate in terms of content additions.
If you go look back at the patch notes from 1999, 2000, and 2001 it appears they are doing stuff every single month. Not only that, but there was already so much stuff to do that you didn't hang off of every publish. It just added to your list or fixed stuff. In the past 2 years the majority of publishes have been to either fix/launch the Kingdom Reborn client or event related. The problem with events is they are short term.
I think I got a little off track in this post. I'll just end it here and try again another time.
But I don't see anything that would outright prohibit it. The world might need a bit of changing so it isn't full of flat forests with trees laid out in unusually symmetric patterns. Perhaps the 1st person would only be available inside dungeons and buildings. I see this type of upgrade as the easier of two paths to restart the game. The other being a huge effort to bring 1997 isometric graphics to 2009, not 2001 which Kingdom Reborn tried to do. Even then, if that was the only upgrade performed the developers would need to combine it will a huge amount of game play enhancements in the all realms: PvM, PvP, sailing, housing, crafting, etc. Every single system would need a new and involved feature.
For UO to reverse its decline, you need something compelling to draw the attention of every MMO player out there. There needs to be something enticing them to at least give UO another 14 day trial. It all needs to go in simultaneously so when you login you see lots of other people playing with you.
The Stygian Abyss has the potential to do this. That is quite a big if there though, considering we have little idea of what is going on. At the moment it sounds like an average UO expansion. New dungeon(s), a couple new skills, a new system to revive crafting, etc. That is not going to cut it by a long shot. It might help maintain the status quo, but it is unlikely to turn subscriptions around.
As far as expansions go, the last two sucked. The most recent Mondain's Legacy was billed as a return to the game's "roots". Virtually everything about it failed. Recipes are nothing more than an one time annoyance, crafting quests in Heartwood are all "make x and have a 0.01% chance of getting a good drop", and the whole elf thing was just a marketing ploy to begin with. It didn't really "expand" the game at all. The same thing with Samurai Empire. New lands and two new skills which had a pitiful amount of abilities. It is no wonder players have lost interest in UO over the past 6 years. The game has gotten absolutely stagnate in terms of content additions.
If you go look back at the patch notes from 1999, 2000, and 2001 it appears they are doing stuff every single month. Not only that, but there was already so much stuff to do that you didn't hang off of every publish. It just added to your list or fixed stuff. In the past 2 years the majority of publishes have been to either fix/launch the Kingdom Reborn client or event related. The problem with events is they are short term.
I think I got a little off track in this post. I'll just end it here and try again another time.
April 21, 2009
UO Client Trailers
Here is a trailer for a new UO client I have thought up. If I had the patience, time and knowledge on how to do this, I think it would look really great. But I have none of those so you will just have to pull out your imagination and work with me.
So there is an ancient looking book which opens up to the first page. It shows a screenshot of a player sitting in a small house. There is a chair and a table. Maybe an empty bookcase. There is also a date, 1997, at the heading of the page. The page then turns to 1998. A few decorative items are added to the house. Perhaps some furniture introduced with The Second Age expansion. Do you see the theme?
As this is going on there is a narrator explaining what is going on. He is saying something like "For over a decade, Ultima Online has been growing and expanding....." I've not put a lot of thought into what the narrator says. So just know that it is there. Use your imagination and put words in his mouth. He won't mind.
So the pages keep turning. 1999, 2000. Maybe the leaves on the trees outside die showing that the changover to Trammel. As the years go on, two or three items are added to the house showing the growth of the game. When you arrive in 2008 it is filled with stuff. Then the announcer says something like "a lot has changed, but none more so than what is to come". The page turns once more to 2009.
You are greeted with a much larger image. It looks pretty much the same though. But something is different. The graphics are sharper and more clear. The page notes that the resolution is in 1280x720. The screen then zooms in on various parts to showcase the new high definition graphics. It looks exactly the same as the 2D client except much better. It is on par with what you see in Blizzard's Starcraft II and Diablo III screenshots. There is a fireplace going showcasing the new lightning effects.
The screen zooms back out to standard view. Now players would probably be very happy with this. It looks like an isometric game released in 2009. But then the narrator brings out the big twist! He rotates the camera angle. "For the first time you can now see all angles of the game world". You get to see the back of a house for the first time. There is full rotation, 360 degrees. This is it, the big new improvement for the client. The new hook to draw people in. You can zoom and rotate the camera. It looks spectacular. Everything UO players have been waiting for 10 years.
The screen begins to fade. But the narrator tells it to stop. He's not done yet. You have to see the best part. The screen snaps back to standard view. It starts to zoom in you think. But it is not the same this time. It goes over the shoulder of the avatar. Could it be? Yes it is! First person view. You are now staring at the desk, where you were writing. You look up at a painting on the wall. It is so big. It then switches to 3rd person over the shoulder view and whips around. You see a closeup of the avatar's face. It has an actual expression. Then the door opens behind into a bright light. The narrator says something like, "take your first step into the new world". End trailer.
First things first, I think up until the rotatable camera part could be applied to the upcoming Stygian Abyss client. A trailer similar to that would be absolutely killer as long as the client is solid.
As for the rest, you are probably wondering how that can all be done. It has been stated that camera rotation would be impossible for UO. It is as the client is being designed. For some reason the developers wanted to stick with sprites. Unfortunately that means you are limited to one field of view. I believe that switching to polygon models would have been possible. There may have been a tiny reduction in art quality, but what you would gain (camera rotation and 1st/3rd person perspectives) would make up for it. Plus all the graphics are being redone in high definition polygon models. So the walls of the house, the desk, the chair, the avatar, etc are all polygons. I would really like to see some comparisons of UO creatures done in polygons to see how much of a difference there would be.
The reason Kingdom Reborn was shunned was because it changed the look of the game. In my dreamt-up client you will be virtually unable to notice a difference in "classic" mode. You have the exact same perspective and all the art is the same, except in higher quality. You can take advantage of 1st person or rotating the camera if you wish. Or you could turn off those features and play UO the same way you did back in 1997.
If Mythic is serious about having UO have a place in the MMO marketplace they need to one of two things. Either bring the client up to Diablo III and Starcraft II art quality or add a 1st/3rd person perspective. Kingdom Reborn was a failure from the very start because it was no where near close to that.
One more trailer idea I had was for the new 1st person perspective. It opens with you traveling through an iconic UO dungeon such as the entrance of Deciet or maybe adventuring into the Wrong Troll room. The narrator is talking to you saying things like "Doesn't this place seem familiar? Have you been here before?" Chances are that person has if they played an MMO other than World of Warcraft. The trailer just ends with a shot of the UO symbol. Something like that would drive interest in UO to something unseen in a decade.
So there is an ancient looking book which opens up to the first page. It shows a screenshot of a player sitting in a small house. There is a chair and a table. Maybe an empty bookcase. There is also a date, 1997, at the heading of the page. The page then turns to 1998. A few decorative items are added to the house. Perhaps some furniture introduced with The Second Age expansion. Do you see the theme?
As this is going on there is a narrator explaining what is going on. He is saying something like "For over a decade, Ultima Online has been growing and expanding....." I've not put a lot of thought into what the narrator says. So just know that it is there. Use your imagination and put words in his mouth. He won't mind.
So the pages keep turning. 1999, 2000. Maybe the leaves on the trees outside die showing that the changover to Trammel. As the years go on, two or three items are added to the house showing the growth of the game. When you arrive in 2008 it is filled with stuff. Then the announcer says something like "a lot has changed, but none more so than what is to come". The page turns once more to 2009.
You are greeted with a much larger image. It looks pretty much the same though. But something is different. The graphics are sharper and more clear. The page notes that the resolution is in 1280x720. The screen then zooms in on various parts to showcase the new high definition graphics. It looks exactly the same as the 2D client except much better. It is on par with what you see in Blizzard's Starcraft II and Diablo III screenshots. There is a fireplace going showcasing the new lightning effects.
The screen zooms back out to standard view. Now players would probably be very happy with this. It looks like an isometric game released in 2009. But then the narrator brings out the big twist! He rotates the camera angle. "For the first time you can now see all angles of the game world". You get to see the back of a house for the first time. There is full rotation, 360 degrees. This is it, the big new improvement for the client. The new hook to draw people in. You can zoom and rotate the camera. It looks spectacular. Everything UO players have been waiting for 10 years.
The screen begins to fade. But the narrator tells it to stop. He's not done yet. You have to see the best part. The screen snaps back to standard view. It starts to zoom in you think. But it is not the same this time. It goes over the shoulder of the avatar. Could it be? Yes it is! First person view. You are now staring at the desk, where you were writing. You look up at a painting on the wall. It is so big. It then switches to 3rd person over the shoulder view and whips around. You see a closeup of the avatar's face. It has an actual expression. Then the door opens behind into a bright light. The narrator says something like, "take your first step into the new world". End trailer.
First things first, I think up until the rotatable camera part could be applied to the upcoming Stygian Abyss client. A trailer similar to that would be absolutely killer as long as the client is solid.
As for the rest, you are probably wondering how that can all be done. It has been stated that camera rotation would be impossible for UO. It is as the client is being designed. For some reason the developers wanted to stick with sprites. Unfortunately that means you are limited to one field of view. I believe that switching to polygon models would have been possible. There may have been a tiny reduction in art quality, but what you would gain (camera rotation and 1st/3rd person perspectives) would make up for it. Plus all the graphics are being redone in high definition polygon models. So the walls of the house, the desk, the chair, the avatar, etc are all polygons. I would really like to see some comparisons of UO creatures done in polygons to see how much of a difference there would be.
The reason Kingdom Reborn was shunned was because it changed the look of the game. In my dreamt-up client you will be virtually unable to notice a difference in "classic" mode. You have the exact same perspective and all the art is the same, except in higher quality. You can take advantage of 1st person or rotating the camera if you wish. Or you could turn off those features and play UO the same way you did back in 1997.
If Mythic is serious about having UO have a place in the MMO marketplace they need to one of two things. Either bring the client up to Diablo III and Starcraft II art quality or add a 1st/3rd person perspective. Kingdom Reborn was a failure from the very start because it was no where near close to that.
One more trailer idea I had was for the new 1st person perspective. It opens with you traveling through an iconic UO dungeon such as the entrance of Deciet or maybe adventuring into the Wrong Troll room. The narrator is talking to you saying things like "Doesn't this place seem familiar? Have you been here before?" Chances are that person has if they played an MMO other than World of Warcraft. The trailer just ends with a shot of the UO symbol. Something like that would drive interest in UO to something unseen in a decade.
Youtube Revenue Solutions
I read about how Google was losing a ton of money on Youtube. Just a few ideas I had on how they could try and stop that.
Implement Buffering - When you click to load a Youtube video, it currently loads the whole thing. If you visit a page that has it set to auto-play and you won't want to watch, you click pause. But the entire video still loads. That is a ton of bandwidth wasted. Sometimes you also begin to watch a movie and decide it isn't worth watching the entire way through. Youtube should implement buffering such as Hulu and some of the Asian video providers do. It only loads a certain amount and then stops. The bandwidth and subsequent cost savings could be huge. The developers could even add a feature to the menu bar where you can load the entire video if you wish, but buffering is on by default.
Video Subscriptions - This may not be a huge money maker, but I'm sure there are at least a few people out there who would like to sell their videos to people. Youtube could have a program where they manage all that for you. All you handle is making the videos and driving the subscribers. Youtube handles the rest from payments to video access.
HD Embedding - Do you run a website and want to host videos on it? Well Youtube could stream HD content right to your website without a watermark. You just pay either per view or for bandwidth. Currently HD embedding is possible on external websites, but is not an official supported feature.
Advertising Over Time - At the moment the advertisements that appear beside videos stay there no longer how long you are watching. On a non-video website you are always switching pages and thus viewing an array of ads. Youtube could swap out banner ads every minute or so to increase the amount shown.
I had two or three more ideas but unfortunately appear to have forgotten them when I thinking about it last week. My own fault I suppose for taking so long to write this post.
Implement Buffering - When you click to load a Youtube video, it currently loads the whole thing. If you visit a page that has it set to auto-play and you won't want to watch, you click pause. But the entire video still loads. That is a ton of bandwidth wasted. Sometimes you also begin to watch a movie and decide it isn't worth watching the entire way through. Youtube should implement buffering such as Hulu and some of the Asian video providers do. It only loads a certain amount and then stops. The bandwidth and subsequent cost savings could be huge. The developers could even add a feature to the menu bar where you can load the entire video if you wish, but buffering is on by default.
Video Subscriptions - This may not be a huge money maker, but I'm sure there are at least a few people out there who would like to sell their videos to people. Youtube could have a program where they manage all that for you. All you handle is making the videos and driving the subscribers. Youtube handles the rest from payments to video access.
HD Embedding - Do you run a website and want to host videos on it? Well Youtube could stream HD content right to your website without a watermark. You just pay either per view or for bandwidth. Currently HD embedding is possible on external websites, but is not an official supported feature.
Advertising Over Time - At the moment the advertisements that appear beside videos stay there no longer how long you are watching. On a non-video website you are always switching pages and thus viewing an array of ads. Youtube could swap out banner ads every minute or so to increase the amount shown.
I had two or three more ideas but unfortunately appear to have forgotten them when I thinking about it last week. My own fault I suppose for taking so long to write this post.
April 12, 2009
Raising the Lower Reagent Cost
So I'm doing a Lord Oaks champion spawn last night with our guild. It gets to second second stage. I start summoning Earth Elementals to deal with the wisps. There isn't much going on so I start thinking about the act of summoning an Earth Elemental and how it is funny to create something out of nothing (because I have 100% Lower Reagent Cost, it takes not reagents to cast any Magery spells). I jump to thinking that it might be an idea to change Lower Reagent Cost to be less effective on higher level Magery spells.
You see, ever since LRC (the abbreviation for Lower Reagent Cost) was introduced 6 years ago with the Age of Shadows expansions, it has been a disease on the game. When the people who designed item properties did so, they expected that it would be impossible for players to get 100% of anything. They even let you get as higher Lower Mana Cost as you want. If a cap was never introduced, we could be casting spells using no mana today!
So getting 100% LRC was probably thought to be virtually impossible. And if you did manage it you would be sacrificing other properties in the process. But here we are today where neither has proven true. Virtually every magic caster runs around with 100% LRC and every other important property.
Over time a few developers have expressed opinions that LRC needs to be dealt with. Reagent use was supposed to be a key balancing factor in casting magic spells. It prevented players from fighting indefinitely and more importantly acted as a gold sink due to only being able to acquire reagents from NPC vendors. But, of course, players have gotten so used to running around with no worries that any time it is brought up there is a huge backlash.
Well back to my idea. What if higher level spells required reagents? For example you need 2 reagents to cast an 8th circle Magery spell. None of the 8th circle spells are vital. You can still use your full array of healing and attacking abilities even if you run out of reagents. You just can't resurrect other players, summon elementals or cast Earthquake. All of which are very powerful spells and should require physical items to pull off. This system can also be applied to 7th circle, requiring 2 reagents or 1 reagent. Then 6th circle would be 1 reagent. For example. If you try to cast Resurrection under this system it would randomly select 2 reagents you must have and use.
I haven't seen this type of solution proposed for balancing LRC before. It could also be expanded to high skill Necromancy spells. I think this proposal could be sold to the general player base if it was thoroughly explained how the removal of reagents has negatively impacted the game.
You see, ever since LRC (the abbreviation for Lower Reagent Cost) was introduced 6 years ago with the Age of Shadows expansions, it has been a disease on the game. When the people who designed item properties did so, they expected that it would be impossible for players to get 100% of anything. They even let you get as higher Lower Mana Cost as you want. If a cap was never introduced, we could be casting spells using no mana today!
So getting 100% LRC was probably thought to be virtually impossible. And if you did manage it you would be sacrificing other properties in the process. But here we are today where neither has proven true. Virtually every magic caster runs around with 100% LRC and every other important property.
Over time a few developers have expressed opinions that LRC needs to be dealt with. Reagent use was supposed to be a key balancing factor in casting magic spells. It prevented players from fighting indefinitely and more importantly acted as a gold sink due to only being able to acquire reagents from NPC vendors. But, of course, players have gotten so used to running around with no worries that any time it is brought up there is a huge backlash.
Well back to my idea. What if higher level spells required reagents? For example you need 2 reagents to cast an 8th circle Magery spell. None of the 8th circle spells are vital. You can still use your full array of healing and attacking abilities even if you run out of reagents. You just can't resurrect other players, summon elementals or cast Earthquake. All of which are very powerful spells and should require physical items to pull off. This system can also be applied to 7th circle, requiring 2 reagents or 1 reagent. Then 6th circle would be 1 reagent. For example. If you try to cast Resurrection under this system it would randomly select 2 reagents you must have and use.
I haven't seen this type of solution proposed for balancing LRC before. It could also be expanded to high skill Necromancy spells. I think this proposal could be sold to the general player base if it was thoroughly explained how the removal of reagents has negatively impacted the game.
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