Quote of the Day – Lord British and a Fondness for Zynga

“Not just Zynga’s, but lots of social games use monetization strategies that, as a hardcore gamer, I find offensive, frankly,” Garriott admits. “I really don’t like games that constantly pester me to pay. I find it radically interferes with my suspension of disbelief. So, I’m devoted in the Ultimate RPG game to finding novel monetization strategies that don’t offend me like some of these do. Yet, it’s still really important to learn those lessons, and there’s no better place to learn them then by having Zynga as a partner.”

Richard Garriott de Cayeux, on his partnership with Zynga

I suppose we will see who ends up corrupting/influencing who in this partnership.

How are things with Mark Pincus?

Lord British and his company, Portalarium, teaming up with the foundering “Ville” magnate made the news a while back.  I hope he learns the right lessons for his Ultimate RPG.

I guess he must be pretty happy now that EA and Blizzard “let” Zynga have the casual market… such that it is.

Trash Collection Issues in Runic Descent

Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap, crap, crap…

-When your healer is saying this, time for a health potion

Just another Saturday night in Meridian.

There is always at least one out there…

After a couple more weeks off, we were able to assemble and take another poke at Runic Descent.

Last time around was something of a reconnaissance in force, with four of us venturing into the instance just to try it out.  Predictably, death was a common occurrence during that run.

This time around, with a full crew, things were bound to be better, right?  Or would irony show its hand?

• Gizalia level 39 mage
• Zahihawass level 39 cleric
• Earlthecat level 39 warrior
• Jollyreaper level 39 mage
• Hillmar level 43 cleric (mentored to 38)

In a bit of a goof, I stopped doing anything with Hillmar for fear of getting too far ahead in levels, only to figure out that there is something of an awkward zone when it comes to mentoring.  The minimum number of levels you can mentor down is five, so if I had just played him a little more rather than holding off, I would have been able to hit the same level as the rest of the group.  Instead I was in at the lowest recommended level for the instance.

Did that make a difference?  See the quote at the top.

I did consider swapping in Solyndro, my mage, who was level 45 by that point.  I bought him another role and went with the provided healing spec.  But that was all too new to try live in the game on an instance night.  So we formed up to get on our way with the usual suspects.

By the healer… oh, I get to know her

More after the cut.