Arceus Obtained November 15, 2009
Posted by Wilhelm2451 in DS, Nintendo, Pokemon, entertainment.Tags: Arceus, Pokemon Diamond, Pokemon Pearl, Pokemon Platinum
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My daughter and I finally dusted off our Nintendo DSes and made our way down to Toys R Us to download Arceus on the last day of the event.
Arceus
We were alone downloading at the store. I imagine that those with Pokemon on their mind grabbed theirs last weekend.
The process was simple as usual. We have been to enough download events that there were no mysteries involved.
My daughter, on getting her first close look at Arceus declared it a complete rip-off of Dialga.
Dialga
I don’t quite see the resemblance myself, but I am probably distracted by that pet fence that Arceus appears to gotten stuck half way down his body.
A Theory of Fishing November 13, 2009
Posted by Wilhelm2451 in EverQuest, EverQuest II, Humor, Lord of the Rings Online, MMO Design, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft, entertainment.Tags: Fishing
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A post in which I draw two points and declare there to be a line.
Before I start, I just want to point out the humor tag on this post. Some people will miss that and not read the post in the spirit in which it was written. It is Friday. Relax and just chuckle at my folly.
I have a theory about fishing and fantasy MMORPGs.
Fishing Yet Again
I believe that there is a correlation between how well a fantasy MMORPG does relative to its contemporary competitors and how deep and interesting the fishing mechanism that is available at launch.
So, the better the fishing is at launch, the better the game will do relative to other games that launch in a similar window of time.
My data set so far:
EverQuest: Launched March 1999
Fishing: A relatively straightforward but deep fishing mechanism. You needed a fishing pole which had to be equipped. You needed bait, which got used up as you fished. You could fish in just about any water you could find. And you caught a wide variety of things, from fish that could be used for cooking, to rusty weapons that could be sharpened, to junk for the vendor. So in many ways very much like real fishing; pick your spot, grab your pole, make sure you have bait, and fish away.
Market position: Rapidly became the king of the hill, declining only when the next generation of competitors came along.
EverQuest II: Launched November 2004
Fishing: Barely a fishing mechanism at all. No fishing pole or bait required. Fishing was reduced to harvesting “fish nodes” which at launch would yield at most a single fish per try before the fisherman had to move on to the next node, so you were constantly on the run. And then all you ever caught was fish, never the stereotypical old boot or rusty dagger.
Market position: A strong start that rapidly faded with the game never achieving anything close to the popularity of its predecessor.
Lord of the Rings Online: Launched April 2007
Fishing: None at launch, added later (too late by my theory)
Market position: Mid-pack, never a contender for market leadership.
Warhammer Online: Launched September 2008
Fishing: None
Market position: Mid-pack after losing more than half of their early subscriber base
The Wild Card
Now, the whole in my data set is World of Warcraft, but only because I did not play on day one so I cannot speak personally to the state of fishing back then. But from what I have seen since I started playing five months after launch is that WoW has a very EverQuest-like fishing paradigm. You need a pole. There is no bait, but you can attach a lure. You can fish wherever you want.
And furthermore, WoW has continued to improve fishing as time went along. There are fishing tournaments, fishing achievements, fishing quests, some truly special fishing poles, and even some pets that you can obtain only by fishing. You can fish up an amazing amount of things. Plus there was that fishing chair that was in the card game.
Don't mind me, I'm just fishing
What Am I Saying?
Now at this point you may wonder if I am somehow suggesting that fishing is the most important feature of an MMORPG.
I am not.
I am moving more towards a “canary in a coal mine” view of fishing. If a company has had the resources to deliver a reasonably polished game and has had the time to include fishing as something more than an afterthought, that the game might have the makings of a winner.
More Data Needed
Of course, to test a theory one of the things you can do is see if it would have predicted the same outcome for similar events outside of the current data set. In this case, other MMORPGs that have launched. I have taken two sample cases of good and bad fishing and drawn a line and then forced a couple of null set results onto that line and called it a theory.
So what other games have had fishing at launch, how good was that fishing mechanic, and how have the games done?
For example, while I wasn’t there, I am going to guess that Ultima Online had fishing of some sort. I mean, if you could be a shepherd, how could they miss fisherman. And while I tend to see UO as more the culmination of the long running Ultima series of games rather than a game on the D&D-Diku-EQ-WoW trajectory of MMORPGs (which isn’t a bad thing), it was the market leader in its time, it exceeded the expectations of the developer, and it lives on today.
What about Aion, Runes of Magic, or the upcoming Alganon? Alganon certainly took a cue from WoW on interface, did they also borrow fishing?
Something on the hook
Other Questions
Should this theory include PvP oriented games or not? I put WAR on the list because Mythic invested in a PvE game.
Is it limited to fantasy? Did Star Wars Galaxies have fishing? Could this have been an early indicator for the fates of Auto Assault and Tabula Rasa?
Is there another game mechanic besides fishing that fits the theory better? I cannot bring myself to generalize this to a good resource harvesting mechanism because fishing generally represents such tangential feature to the game that I think it is special.
Or is this all just the view of somebody who has maxed out the fishing skill in every MMO he has played?
Five Years of EverQuest II November 13, 2009
Posted by Wilhelm2451 in EverQuest II, entertainment.Tags: Anniversary
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Five years ago I rolled my first character, Nomu Stonemantle, a dwarf priest, in the post-cataclsym world of Norrath that is the setting for EverQuest II.
It was my primary game for a good 18 months and I have gone back to visit on a number of occasions.
While I have not played for almost a year at this point, I am sure I will be back at some point.
Norrath, both pre and post-cataclysm are virtual places, but places with real memories for me.
Ragefire Chasm Redux November 12, 2009
Posted by Wilhelm2451 in Instance Group, World of Warcraft, entertainment.Tags: Ragefire Chasm
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We finally reached the point where there were no more holiday events to go after and no more fresh instances to run for the group. It looked like we might spend a Saturday evening playing our new characters, the ones we rolled up on Lightninghoof, one of the RP-PvP servers.
But what should we do?
With five of us, running around the Barrens seems like a bit of a waste. We had all progressed into the teens with characters though, so Ragefire Chasm seemed like a good plan. It is a nice, low level instance. Yes, we did it before, though not exactly as it was intended.
So an objective was set. Now which characters should we play? Each of us had at least two or three characters in the right level range.
We shuffled through the deck of possibilities and ended up with the following roster:
14 Troll Rogue – Azucar (Bungholio)
15 Tauren Druid – Hurmoo (Vikund)
16 Tauren Druid – Azawak (Skronk)
17 Orc Shaman – Earlthebat (Earlthecat)
19 Blood Elf Paladin – Enaldie (Ula)
This gave all of us somewhat different roles than we had in the old group.
Azawak became the tank, leaving the healing role behind. Azucar and Enaldie left behind ranged DPS for… melee DPS. Earlthebat got to stand back and take the ranged DPS route. And Hurmoo was no longer in close doing melee DPS, but got to stand back and heal.
Fortunately, to support the learning curve for our new roles, we were, on average, a bit over level for the instance.
The first order of business was to get all the quests for the instance lined up. A few were easy and could be shared, but there was one quest line that starts at Thrall that we had to all run through. And run is the operative word, since it meant running back and forth around Orgrimmar for a bit.
Finally though we had all the quests and were ready to go. We had all the quests. We had a laundry list of things to kill. We were at the instance door.
Somehow I, as Hurmoo, was nominated to be the group leader. Usually that is a mistake on the order of going up against a Sicilian when death is on the line, but things did not go too badly. I need to go off and find some macros for putting up raid icons, but otherwise the floaty crownie thing on my portrait was not the mark of death.
Considering how new we were to our roles, the run went smoothly. None of us died despite some teething problems.
Azucar got some on-the-job training about stealth and sap, which was required because he was our only crowd control option. Being the lowest level in the group meant that his stealth was not as effective as it might otherwise have, but that just reinforced the lessons.
We do have to get used to having somebody stealthed and leading the way in the group. At least one group member kept following our stealthed rogue as he was trying to sap, triggering the expected proximity pull. Again, we made it through despite the that.
Having a druid bear tank worked well enough. At this level he also put out the most damage, thanks largely to the retribution aura Enaldie had up.
Ragefire Chasm itself is somewhat odd in its design philosophy. There is a whole side path of mobs that leads to nowhere and the main boss, Taragaman the Hungerer, is the second of four bosses you kill, so the achievement comes up when you’ve still got work left to do.
He was not an epic fight for us. We cleared some of the surrounding groups and then went after him. Soon we stood over his corpse.
Taragaman Defeated
That left us the clean up of the two passages behind Taragaman’s area, which we worked our way through slowly as we tried to fit into the new dynamic of our group.
In the end we stood looking out over the dungeon having made it to the far end.
Mission Accomplished!
And then we had to walk all the way back to where we came in because there is no back door to Ragefire Chasm.
The ironic twist of the night was the loot. Formerly we were a group that wore only plate or cloth and we seemed to get a huge amount of leather or mail armor drops.
Now we were a group that wore only leather and mail. So what dropped all night? Cloth.
So cloth much dropped that I later trained Hurmoo as an enchanter so that we could at least disenchant items we cannot use if we get a repeat performance.
Ragefire Chasm is nice, and served as a good place for us to start working on our grouping skills. In fact, we were wondering why there wasn’t an Alliance instance at the same level before you got to the Deadmines.
Of course, Ragefire Chasm is something of a single use dungeon, so investing in an Alliance version might not be worthwhile, though who knows what Cataclysm will bring.
Once we were through the dungeon and had turned in all the quests, our group had all leveled at least once and three of us leveled twice. So our group looked like this at the end:
16 Rogue – Azucar
17 Druid – Hurmoo
18 Druid – Azawak
18 Shaman – Earlthebat
20 Paladin – Enaldie
At those levels, there is little point to heading back into Ragefire Chasm.
But now where to go next? Do we face the PvP aspect of the server and try to get to the Deadmines? Or should we try the long and winding road that is Wailing Caverns?
Torchlight – Picking the Wrong Vendor November 11, 2009
Posted by Wilhelm2451 in Other PC Games, entertainment.Tags: Direct2Drive, Torchlight
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The weekend has come and gone and Runic released their patch as promised.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t just a patch, it was a full re-build of the installer. You need to uninstall the original version and install this new version.
This was all done for the right reasons, so I do not know if I can fault them for making this choice. But it has left me waiting for the update.
The problem is, they say, that each of the digital vendors needs to add in their own DRM scheme. As of this morning, some of the vendors have done that, and some have not.
Of course, I bought my copy via Direct2Drive, so I do not have access yet to the update yet and there is no word on when that may happen.
Lesson learned? Try and buy directly from the company if possible I suppose.
Now, on the bright side, I am not suffering from any of the major, game-play stopping issues, so it isn’t critical for me to get this update. I just have some mild, irrational anxiety knowing that I will have to reinstall.
Until then, I’m waiting for Direct2Drive.
Faults of the New Shaman November 11, 2009
Posted by Wilhelm2451 in World of Warcraft, entertainment.Tags: Shaman, Stealth, Travel Form
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Our move over to the horde side of the Lightninghoof PvP-RP server has been progressing slowly.
We’re trying new classes and getting used to new home towns.
One of the classes I have been playing with is the shaman. It is a fun class so far and I have a lot to learn about it, mana management being high on the list.
But I have a problem with the class.
At level 16 I got the ghost wolf form, which is a travel form that gives a speed boost akin to the druid’s cheetah form. That part is great.
The problem is that the ghost wolf is… well… a ghost. Unfortunately, for somebody who has spent a bit of time playing a rogue and a lot of time playing a druid in cat form, being a ghost has the same visual effect as being stealthed.
Ghost Wolf
And while I know at some higher intellectual level that being a ghost is not the same as being stealthed, something in my brain keeps making that assumption.
I’ll be running across the Barrens and see something to harvest on the far side of a few aggro mobs, so I’ll just weave between them like they can’t see me.
Only they can see me.
At that point it is usually a good thing I am in travel form because I have to run away for a bit while I remind myself that I am not stealthed.
That lasts for about five minutes and then I do something similar.
It is really annoying. But it is like breaking any habit, it is going to take time.
24 Slots is a Portable Hole? November 10, 2009
Posted by Wilhelm2451 in Blizzard, World of Warcraft, entertainment.Tags: Portable Hole
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WoW.com has a post up today that says Haris Pilton, vendor of the “Gigantique” bag in Shattrath, will be getting an even bigger bag when WoW patch 3.3 comes out.
The new bag, called the Portable Hole, will have 24 slots and will cost 3,000 gold. It will no doubt be a boon for OCD packrats everywhere in Azeroth.
Picture stolen from Wow.com
But to call 24 slots a “Portable Hole” seems a bit of an over-statement in my book.
After all, I’ve see what a Portable Hole can hold.
Blizzard, call me back when your Portable Hole can carry all of that or change the name.
Or do you think we’re never going to see a bigger container in game?
Scamville Juxtaposition November 9, 2009
Posted by Wilhelm2451 in A Random Post, entertainment.Tags: Facebook, Fake Steve Jobs, New York Times, Virtual Goods, Zynga
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There is a nice piece up this morning over at The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs where Fake Steve (Dan Lyons) points out (with his usual flair) that while TechCrunch was going after Zynga’s scam ad driven virtual goods business all last week, over at the New York Times they were working on a piece that ran on Saturday about how virtual goods were now bringing in money, which included Zynga as an example of how this market was maturing.
Did the New York Times mention any of the practices that TechCrunch brought to light?
No.
But which will influence people more?
Which article scares you more?
Arceus at Toys R Us November 8, 2009
Posted by Wilhelm2451 in Pokemon, entertainment.Tags: Arceus, Arceus and the Jewel of Life, Pokemon Diamond, Pokemon HeartGold, Pokemon Pearl, Pokemon Platinum, Pokemon SoulSilver
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The Arceus download event is finally upon us. You can bring your copy of Pokemon Diamond, Pearl, or Platinum to download Arceus at Toys R Us stores in the US and Puerto Rico from November 7th through the 15th.
Toys R Us does not seem to be pushing this event as much as they have done previous such events. The event does appear in their weekly ad, but the mention is buried several pages into it.
This event is, of course, part of a coordinated push by Nintendo to keep interesting in Pokemon at a simmer while we await a new installment in the series, the promised Pokemon HeartGold and Soul Silver. As such, this download event coincides with the release of a new Pokemon movie “Arceus and the Jewel of Life” and the addition of Arceus related booster packs to the Pokemon Platinum version of the trading card game.
The Three Faces of Arceus
More information is available over at Pokemon.com.
And We Were Upset About a $10 Horse… November 6, 2009
Posted by Wilhelm2451 in Blizzard, World of Warcraft, entertainment.Tags: Companion Pets, Pandas, RMT
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Where is Darren when we need him?
Surely this will bring him back for another post!
Yes, Blizzard has turned that corner at last and is now selling in-game items for real life money. No more buying trading cards… well, actually, you’ll probably still have to do that if you want every possible item… the cash store is open, show us the money!
For Sale - $10 Each
For myself, I am going to again restate my indifference to buying items in game. It is a PvE game, so my fun is generally detached from your fun regardless of how many trinkets you buy. You want the $10 pet? Knock yourself out.
Will I buy these pets? I am going to say no. $10 seems like a lot of cash for either of these guys, the panda’s contribution to charity fig leaf not withstanding. Get back to me when there is a special mount for sale.
However, this evening my daughter will get to log into WoW and she is going to see that Panda on the splash screen and she is going to want it.
At that point I will have to start on another futile discussion about money and how it is not infinitely generated from the plastic cards in my wallet. Then she will want to spend her own money on it (her saved up birthday, holiday, and tooth fairy money adds up to the low three figures, so she has declared herself “rich”) and I will feel compelled to nip that in the bud.
My big hope is that she’ll just zip through the splash screen the way she zips through quest text and miss it completely.
But at some point she is going to see it or see a panda in game and the question will come up. Pandas have that effect on a sub-set of females in my experience.
In fact, you should have seen Ula’s reaction when I mentioned a panda on guild chat last night. Sorry about that Skronk.
