Monthly Archives: August 2016

August in Review

The Site

I guess the site news this month was participation in the annual Blaugust event. This year is was a more chill Blaugust.

For the Relaxed Edition of Blaugust, you got to choose what sort of posting goal you were going to pursue. You didn’t HAVE to do a post a day. So, feeling a bit worn, I chose the “weekday posts” plan, which is what I usually do anyway.

And the, of course, I posted every day of the month anyway, this being post number 36 for August. Go OCD Wilhelm. I actually have leftover posts I didn’t finish.

I did manage to post them all to the Blaugust forum on Anook as some sort of proof that I was in the event. Anook seems kind of dead this year however. Gamer social network sites, still not a viable business plan yet.

Anyway, I should go nudge Belghast, the founder and administrator the Blaugust event, and see if I can bump up my commitment on the list to “every day,” since that was what I ended up doing.

I will likely do a further post-event summary next month, but Psychochild already has his up if you need something like that right now. Be sure to leave a comment!

One Year Ago

It was Blaugust and a lot of people played along.

I told the strange tale of my first automotive test drive.

Project: Gorgon had Kickstarter success at last, then there were stretch goals, the grand total, and mapping out a plan going forward.

Blizzard, on the other hand, was facing bad news as WoW subscriptions dropped to 5.6 million, the lowest since December 2005. In order to drown that our, Blizz had a big WoW announcement planned later in the week. There was much anticipation. I speculated on what it might be, but it turned out to be the WoW Legion expansion announcement, sans cinematic. Of course, once they announced it, everybody wanted to know when we would get it.

In EVE Online, it was all about Fozzie Sov. People were complaining. We had to take sov from allies in order to transfer it, at which point MOA temporarily scooped up a couple systems. Crazy days! The Galatea expansion addressed some of our issues.

Then the Imperium went to Providence to test out the new sovereignty mechanics… and to purge the Jamylites with the blessings of Maximilian Singularity VI. The resulting conflict is all under the Provi War tag here.

Meanwhile, CCP was doubling down on VR, adding EVE Gunjack to their lineup.

Turbine was warming up for the great LOTRO server upgrade and merge effort.

Daybreak was also planning server consolidations, these for EverQuest II. They were also working on a server for misfit players, which seemed like a dubious idea. And on the Stormhold server, the first expansion unlock vote came up. The players said “no” to the unlock. And in EverQuest, on the Ragefire and Lockjaw servers, the inevitable enforced raid rotation schedule was implemented, with an eye to keeping out casuals it seemed.

In Minecraft, I was discovering fire and putting our world up on a hosting service to share it with friends. Xydd joined up and began working a lot on the nether, while Skronk began his own building project, as I tinkered with dungeons. We had a setback with our hosting service. It was a good thing I was keeping backups.

And I wrote a little something about the passing of Robert Conquest.

Five Years Ago

Blizzard announced some crazy idea that you would have to be logged on to Battle.net at all times to play Diablo III. Glad that never came up again. Oh, wait…

SOE finally got a comprehensive server status page, and Scars of Velious opened up on Fippy Darkpaw. I was wondering if they had “made good” with customers after the great hacking in April/May of the year.

I hit 70 million skill points in EVE Online and prepared to check out after the summer or rage.

I was back playing LOTRO for a bit. I made it into Moria, then went looking for hoes. I also wrote a post summing up my relationship with LOTRO up to that point. It’s complicated.

Wargaming.net announced World of Battleships. They have since changed the name to World of Warships, because we cannot have enough games we can shorted to WoW yet. This got me musing on battleships and related games.

Meanwhile, World or Warplanes (another WoW) got a web site with cool pictures and stuff.

David Reid was telling people that Rift had ONE MILLION CUSTOMERS. How one actually defines a customer was left as an exercise to the student.

I was still playing some Need for Speed World. I was enjoying destructible terrain, though the weekend the police broke lead to some different destruction.

I mentioned some of the little things I liked in MMOs.

I was wondering about World of Warcraft Magazine issue 5. It seemed to be very late.

And Namaste put out a Very Short History of MMOs video. Wasn’t there a follow up video?

Ten Years Ago

This is the last time I have to do this before I can simply re-run five year old “Five Years Ago” segments, which is good, because bugger all seems to have happened a decade back this August, judging from what I was able to scrape up from Wikipedia year and month entries.

AOL, which apparently is still a thing even today (I strongly suspect my mother-in-law still gives them money every month), bought the GameDaily site which, in a case of foreshadowing, was eventually disappeared into the Joystiq brand.

The original Saints Row launched… on the frickin’ XBox 360. Eventually its popularity brought sequels to the PC Master Race.

I started playing EVE Online on August 29, 2006. That must have been my last “pre-blog” MMO start. It was certainly another stepping stone on the way to the blog, as I felt I have to tell somebody about the horrible new player experience. Some things never change.

I was also mucking about somewhat aimlessly in World of Warcraft, stuck in the bag-stuffing morass that was Stranglethorn Vale of old, trying to get past the level 40 slump on a few characters, and wondering if it might be time to run back to EverQuest II. If only I had a regular group to do something like run dungeon content in Azeroth!

Features Sites of the Month

For this month’s featured MMO Blog I want to bring your attention to:

Hardcore Casual

Ah SynCaine, the raider who burned out on WoW and who has been damning it ever since. Somebody who can flame bait like no other, the only person on who regularly comments on my blog whom my mother thought was “mean.” In many ways the anti-me in posting, always blazing in the purity of his point where I tend to hedge. He’s been a pain in the ass for almost the lifetime of this blog, but without him, what would our little corner of the internet be? Also, he is in GSF now, so Imperium solidarity.

Then of the “other” site of the month, I want to point you at is:

VirginWorlds

The site isn’t what it once was, and I’ve long since been stricken from the list of blogs covered. But it is still a place of great MMO blogging significance to me, the cornerstone of a group of bloggers who crossed paths in posts and comments and cross-links over the last decade. And, as I mentioned earlier in the week, the VirginWorlds podcast archives, which was at its peak from 2006 into 2008, is a treasure. I still go back and listen to some of the old shows now and again, as Brent often captured what people were thinking and saying about various games so well.

Most Viewed Posts in August

Search Terms of the Month

middle earth gamea for 2017
[Maybe LOTRO will still be around…]

85 beastlord where to molo
[Get your mojo on when you molo!]

eve online drop outs
[EVE University issue?]

i free won warlods of draenor
[I bet you did]

will clone wars adventures come back
[No, it will never come back]

Spam Comments of the Month

Don’t make your site look like a Christmas tree. It’s a complete turn off.
[Unless, of course, it is Christmas]

Don’t forget to keep records of your cost for your ISP (Internet Service Provider) , email campaigns, online marketing cost, PPC (pay per click cost) and BC Ecommerce.
[um, right-o!]

diy clock kit
[Yeah, we know how home made clocks work out]

EVE Online

We completed the move to Delve and began taking over the region, one constellation at a time, raising the ADMs as we went. We are about two thirds done with that. At some point the casino barons paid Progodlegend one trillion ISK to bring TEST down to Delve to fight us. Comedy has since ensued, including trapping a TEST/NCDot Machariel fleet in a dead end constellation and camping them there, forcing them to either die running the gauntlet or self destruct. (31 kills so far.) One guy even ejected from his Machariel to avoid giving us the kill mail, allowing Jay Amazingness to jump into the ship and fly it off. Good times.

Minecraft

It has been a slow month for me in Minecraft. I’ve been on a bit to tinker, but I do not have a big project currently to which to devote myself. I was working on a bit of a rail line upgrade and beautification task. But that is a long, long project with all the rail I have laid. Of course, I’ve also had other games to play this month as well, so I haven’t really sat down and thought about Minecraft much either.

Pokemon GO

Since I actually own an iPhone now, I started playing Pokemon GO. Current end of month stats:

Level: 11
Pokedex status: 39 caught, 40 seen
Pokemon I want more of: Eevee naturally
Surprisingly rare catch: Geodude – Those are usually pretty common in the the Pokemon RPGs

World of Warcraft

Lots of WoW play time this month. After wandering about a bit aimlessly after the 7.0 class apocalypse and garrison nerfs, the Legion pre-launch events hit and I was down with that and leveling characters up and trying to formulate some plan. And then the expansion hit yesterday. We’re finally there.

Coming Up

There is a whole new WoW expansion, what do you think I will be spending my time with?

EVE Online will probably be pretty quiet next month, with just the Delve conquest to finish up and maybe a Reavers deployment to recover the Jacket Dispersement Station in ED-L9T.

Just kidding, the lid is coming off in the EVE Online community with the announcement of a complete change up to boosting and a free to play plan coming in with the needs-a-name-now November expansion. Crazy Viking game devs in action again. I will likely have something to say on that front, though I am waiting for the dust to settle a bit.

Also, as noted at the top, there will be some sort of summary and linking out to everybody post about Blaugust. And, given that this is my 120th month in review post, those capable of simple math might expect some sort of anniversary post to well up at some point in September.

I am not sure I will have time for much beyond that. What else will need to be covered in September?

CCP Has a Plan for EVE Online Free to Play

Welcome Back Poors!

-Tweety Bird, EVE Online F2P forum thread

I was going to push this off to see how it plays out for a bit, but then I realized tomorrow was a new month and I like to mark events during the month they happen, so here it goes.

My initial reaction

CCP announced today, via a dev blog, that November’s release, which is clearly going to need some sort of epic name that we can curse at some future date, will include a free to play option for the residents of New Eden.

Dev Blog here

The basic upshot is that, come the release, there will be two flavors of capsuleers, those with Alpha clones, who are non-subscribers, and Omega clones, who are subscribers.

Nothing will change for Omega clones. We won’t even get the usual “please subscribe!” in-game cash shop currency bribe. Instead, focus will be all on the Alpha clones.

Alpha clones will be severely restricted. There will be a 5 million skill point cap on them and they will only be allowed to train from a specific set of allowed skills, which will be based on the race of the character in question. So an Alpha clone Amarr will get lasers, a Caldari will get missiles, and a Minmatar will get a roll of tech I duct tape and the usual kick in the ass.

They also won’t be able to extract skill points. Glad somebody thought of that hole immediately. Also, no cynos, no cloaking.

This seems to be following the early SOE F2P, which aimed to make free play so limited that anybody who really wanted to play would subscribe just to be done with the rat’s nest of “velvet rope” restrictions.

The thing is, EVE Online is different that a lot of other MMORPGs who have gone the free to play route. And EVE Online is very much a game where having multiple accounts is a force multiplier. And the real question of the hour isn’t so much how many new players this will attract to New Eden, but how the current player base will exploit this new method that will effectively allow them to have as many crappy, low skill alts as they want.

The first, and most obvious hole, which even CCP brought up in the dev blog, is suicide ganking. This will allow players to go nuts on that front. But even if CCP decides it needs to close that loophole, what else will players do with all those crappy, low skill alts? Will a couple players being able to put eyes in every system in a region change the game?

I suspect that a lot of this, like simultaneous Alpha clone logins, will be locked down fairly quickly. But still, having an alt hanging out in any system where you need eyes on only a login away will have some impact.

On the plus side, if/when your subscription runs out, your characters will become Alpha clones, only able to used the set range of skills, but you will still be able to log into the game a and chat with people. More people in local is always better, right? And when you try to do something you used to be able to do, the game will remind you that you need to subscribe.

Can’t touch that!

Anyway, this is a fresh item, CCP is still bouncing it around, and there are still a couple months to go before November. We shall see where this heads. I am sure I will return to the topic again, once things have settled down.

Others jumping right into the fray:

Bonus Assignment: Compare and contrast CCP’s play for EVE Online with Blizzard’s unlimited trial program for World of Warcraft. Be sure to discuss what makes something free to play versus just being a trial account.

On the Edge of the Broken Isles

The boxes arrived last night, from which my daughter and I immediately extracted the code which would unlock the expansion on our respective accounts. The included DVD was purely decorative. And then it was straight into the game for a bit.

Unfortunately, my wife and I had other plans for the evening. It was “Back to School” night at my daughter’s high school, so we spent most of the evening meeting teachers and hearing about their classroom plans.

Still, I managed to find a bit of time to play.

I didn’t have time to sit and think about what to do, so I did the natural thing and jumped into the game with my paladin, Vikund, who is my second oldest character and has generally been my “do all the things” vehicle. I logged him in, accepted what I hoped was the last quest delivered by Khadgar’s Upgraded Servant for a while, and made my way to Dalaran where I got to watch Khadgar himself engage the spindizzy spell and move the whole place to the Broken Isles.

There was a bit of an introduction around the place.

Hey, they finally fixed the portals room! Been broken for ages.

But eventually the reception line led to the table where you got to choose your weapon. Of course, as a retribution pally, there is really only one choice.

Yeah, like this is even a choice

However, this wasn’t like some cheap hotel high school reunion where you pick the airline quality chicken entree and then they just bring it to you. You have to go get it! So a mild adventure ensued, at the end of which I possessed Ashbringer.

Best cinematic cue ever

At that point, because I possessed the magic dingus, I had to go back to the order hall. There I was presented to the bored crowd in the basement theater under Light’s Hope Chapel, out in the Eastern Plaguelands, which still looks like a bad neighborhood. But I bet the rent on the place is cheap.

Hi everybody, my name is Vikund

After that I was elected Queen of the May, Man of the Year, and head of the order, something I am sure was unique to my character alone and based solely on my semi-competent performance in obtaining what is surely the one and only Asherbringer. I accepted all of this with due solemnity.

You can tell by the way I use my walk…

After that they seemed to want me to do something, like these were not merely honorary or administrative offices I had been awarded. They wanted me to go out and fight the Legion.

So I wandered back down the corridor, past the card room and the basketball court, leaving the solo phase I had been in up to that point, and thus joining a stream of other players, many of whom had a very similar weapon across their back. Mere replicas I bet, created in envy of me and the one true Ashbringer.

Down the hallway, past the cloak room, I found my destination. It was a map. I had to choose where I would land in the Broken Isles to begin my one-man heroic assault on the Legion.

Where to go?

But I didn’t really have enough time for that. We had to leave for “Back to School” night. So I left Vikund there in the order hall, probably getting all Cameron’s dad about Ashbringer and sitting there polishing it with a diaper.

The actual first zone choice will have to wait until tonight.

They’re Here… The Legion Arrives

I got home and at about the point when I started wondering when I might get my delivery, an Amazon truck pulled up and handed me a package.

Retail Boxes! Old School!

Now to see what this Legion thing is all about.

Today We Are Legion

The day has finally arrived. After months of waiting it is here, later than it probably should have been, but sooner that it likely could have been. The sixth World of Warcraft expansion, Legion, went live at midnight Pacific time today.

The time has come to head to the Broken Isles

I didn’t stay up to play, mostly because I do not have a copy of the expansion yet. Amazon says I should have my copy… actually, two copies, one for me and one for my daughter… some time this afternoon.

Which doesn’t mean I didn’t spend last night playing. I went out and got one last character to level 100, an Alliance warrior. He had to run the Westfall invasion a few times to get there, but made it through.

One more recruit for the Broken Isles

I did hedge a bit to get him there. I upgraded a couple of the plate heirloom pieces and my daughter reminded me about that 20% exp boost potion available from the garrison vendor. Good thing I ran him through the Draenor intro and he had some garrison resources handy.

20% more on top of it all

I actually enjoyed the last few weeks of invasion events. As I said over on a comment on Bhagpuss’s blog, it did get a lot of people out and playing and probably helped people come to grips with the class changes.

Stacked up to land at Sentinel Hill

The gear drops were a bonus and the whole thing gave people some random boss training. And, of course, the levels were good. I know Blizz was trying to poo-poo this as a way to level up all your alts, but people seemed to want that and eventually Blizz tuned it about right, so that active players could level up pretty handily, which made it a popular success. It proved once again that Edward Castronova quote that irks Bhagpuss;

Being an elf doesn’t make you turn off the rational economic calculator part of your brain.

Essentially, levels were on deep discount and a lot of people rushed in to get some. If I recall correctly, I picked up 100 levels across the four characters I played the most.

Along with some random alts I played, I used the invasions to push a new warrior from level 12 to 60, a druid from 94 to 100, and another warrior, the final one from last night, from 74 to 100. I was tempted to try for another level 100… I had already moved a mage from 35 to 55… but I wasn’t quite up to it. I liked the invasions as an event, but I could only run so many before I had to go off and do something else.

At the end of all of that, I am left with the final big character question; which one should hit the Broken Isles first? I have eight immediate choices:

The lineup against the Legion

Vikund – Human Paladin (retribution)
Alioto – Night Elf Druid (feral)
Tokarev – Draenei Death Knight (spec TBD)
Tistann – Dwarf Hunter (beast)
Trianis – Night Elf Rogue (outlaw)
Makarov – Human Warrior (arms)
Hurmoo – Tauren Druid (feral)
Haakron – Tauren Warrior (fury)

That is seven level 100s, plus a level 60 warrior who is likely to be my level 100 boost. Plus, I will also be able to roll up a Demon Hunter as well, once I get the expansion, giving me nine options to choose from. In thinking about that I haven’t even bothered to consider where I might head first in the Broken Isles.

Hrmmm… shaped kinda like Outland when you look at it…

Actually, I haven’t thought about the actual content at all. I have tried to follow my usual plan of averting my gaze when it comes to new content, absorbing just enough to get me there but not so much that any surprises are spoiled.

Anyway, all that awaits me tonight when the new adventure begins.

Ten Years of Internet Spaceships

Ten years ago today I signed up for EVE Online, made a character… Wilhelm Arcturus… yes, EVE Who says August 30, but 03:58 UTC was still August 29 here in California… and undocked for the first time in New Eden.

Wilhelm Avatars Through the Years

Or tried to undock. The freakin’ tutorial back in 2006 had me sitting in the station, in my pod, but kept telling me to open up the hangar.

Still, I somehow managed to get in a ship, undock, kill the elusive pirates, and advance into the serious business that is internet spaceships. When I started the game was going strong, passing 100,000 capsuleers according to the old timeline graphic (and this dev blog). Also, the game broke the 30K PCU mark! The current expansion was the forgettable Bloodlines which, so far as I could tell, only really added a few character creation options.

Bloodlines – March 2006

Okay, tech II modules came into being as well with Bloodlines, along with a few other details.

But Revelations was on its way soon.

Revelations – November 2006

And with Revelations would come salvaging, invention, rigs, many bugs, and motherfucking warp to goddam zero, something that changed everybody’s lives. Seriously, that was the end of the “uphill, both ways, in the snow” era for travel by gates. (Sugar Kyle has a post up about that era and its events.)

It was a strange and wonderful time. MMORPGs were a thing, World of Warcraft caused a lot of “if we build it, they will come” moments as its subscription base continued to climb, causing even Richard “Lord British” Garriott to say at GDC that you would be foolish not to be making such games. (As opposed to when he said that about Facebook games.) Blogs and podcasts about MMOs were all the rage and a flourishing community of people seemed to coalesce around VirginWorlds to discuss and debate the relative merits of various entries in the field. This blog was still two weeks from going live and I was still debating possible names. A pity I went with the one that seemed the most amusing at the time.

EVE Online was in the thick of those discussions because back then, as now, there wasn’t really anything else quite like it. And one item that kept coming up was the fact that you couldn’t get out of your ship.

We had long discussions back in the day about whether or not simply being unable to interact face to face would limit the appeal of the game. Space is huge and very lonely and, even where ships congregate, a passing ship is just a cold machine that doesn’t even have a dance emote. That was a hot topic and CCP was on the case even back then. Of course, after seeing what more than five years of work gave us in the Incarna expansion, a lot of people (myself included) changed our minds on whether or not it was worth the effort.

No, a far bigger problem with EVE Online to my mind, the one that persists through to today, is the fact that in order to play the game effectively a capsuleer must avail themselves of the many external utilities that players have created to support the game. If you want another variation on “EVE is Dying!” take a look at how things are going in that arena. Battle Clinic has gone away, EVE Mon support seems to be tottering, EVE Fitting Tool was last updated back in May, Pyfa is likewise behind, and over on Reddit, /r/eve has sucked all the joy out of any discussion of the game by becoming the primary focus for several key groups and where a mass of howling morons are more interested in adding their voice to the comments than considering whether or not their comments adds any value. It is Sturgeon’s Law run amok. It makes me miss the Kugutsumen forums badly.

And in a world where if Wollari decides he’s taking down DOTLAN EVE Maps we’re all doomed, what has CCP been up to? Back in 2006 I was pissing and moaning about the in-game map, which was pretty but useless for actually getting information you needed in any expedient way. CCP has worked on that map for years and made it somewhat useful. At least I can see where my fleet members are. And after that, they rolled out a new map, which is even prettier but, in terms of usefulness, brought us back to 2006 or earlier. I think even CCP realizes they fucked up there and I won’t be surprised to see a release note about how the new map has been removed from the game at some future date. Wasted opportunities while the game remains as dependent as ever on the charity of players.

But my purpose wasn’t to rant about CCP’s stewardship of the game, though it is hard not to slip into that now and again, hindsight giving one such clear vision. It was to meander a bit through what was going on a decade back in and around New Eden.

There was the great Intergalactic Bank scam, a ponzi scheme wherein somebody set up a bank, took deposits, promised to pay interest, paid some out of the ongoing deposits, and then folded up shop and ran off with more than 700 billion ISK. Brent had a good summary on the VirginWorlds podcast (episode 27, with a follow up in episode 29), where he brought up one of the key post scam issues: How do you get back at somebody who doesn’t have a space empire, just a pile of ISK? And this was before ISK casinos allowed a few people push their agendas through payouts while remaining immune to any response. CCP was more interested at the time, as they are now, in any illicit RMT transactions involving that stolen ISK. They were even hinting about a plan they had to make ISK selling obsolete, though it would be another 3 years before PLEX would land in the game.

It has also been almost ten years since CCP partnered with Vivox to bring voice coms directly into the EVE Online client, thus removing our need to use external voice software like TeamSpeak or Mumble. Hah, hah, hah! Seriously though, does anybody use the built-in voice? Or does turning on sound still cause a big performance hit to the game? I haven’t had sound on for years. This was another topic covered by Brent on the VirginWorlds podcast (episode 29). That podcast is a gold mine for anybody who wants to get a glimpse of the MMO scene a decade back.

My own history in New Eden has had its ups and downs. I ended up cancelling my account after my first three months in game, then came back to it a few months later. I created a second account 11 months after my first, when I started the great trek to master mining. Two years in I created another blog just to post pictures of the game.

During that second period I ran missions, did manufacturing, invention, played the market, did some hauling, dipped a toe into factional warfare, learned to scan well enough to get in and out of wormholes (which I have since forgotten how to do), and generally stuck in high sec for about four years, after which I took a break. I came back for Incarna and unsubscribed almost immediately upon seeing what was being offered, then came back again for Crucible, when CCP promised to actually start working on the broken stuff in the game. About then Gaff offered me a chance to run off to sov null sec, and I have been there for almost five years now and have seen many of the most publicized moments from that time.

I have 1,080 posts up on the blog that focus on EVE Online in some way or another that cover topics from the big fight at B-R5RB to simply moving my ships from one location to another.

According to Zkillboard, up to this point I have been on 2,038 kill mails, a large portion of which are structures. One of the things I did upon arriving in null sec was train up to fly logi, which I offer up as an excuse for my low total. Also, I remain bad at EVE.

Still, there are some memorable kills on the list. While my trophy page on Zkillboard shows I have never been on a kill mail in wormhole space, that I have never managed a solo kill (so close that one time), and that I have never killed any mining ships, I am on ten titan kill mails. Those are always fun. Oddly, I am also on ten super carrier kill mails. One would think those would be easier to get.

And after all this time, EVE Online remains a strange game.

It remains a pain to get into. It seems to dare you to like it. You really have to make up your own story in order to stick with the game. I think that one of the reasons null sec remains popular with outside observers… though not I would guess not as popular as we might think… is that it represents a long running space soap opera, a story of conflict and powers rising and falling. It is an accessible story in a game that generally refuses to give you a story. I know that being within the framework of that story has helped keep me interested in the game for the last five years.

Wilhelm – current avatar

Still, sometimes I undock just to look around in space and get a sense of its vastness and beauty, something I have done since I started in New Eden.

Cormorant Docking – Circa 2007

That isn’t enough to keep most people playing long term, but it is a hook that can get you on your way.

So here I am, ten years in and still playing regularly and planning to continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

Me, being my avatar – EVE Vegas 2015

A pile of other MMOs have come and gone in the time EVE Online has been hanging about and being different. Not bad for a game that has been dying for almost as long as it has been live.

Honest Gamer Trailers – No Man’s Sky

I hadn’t been paying too much attention to No Man’s Sky. However, a bunch of people seemed to be excited about it before it launched… and upset about it when it was delayed… and have jumped onto the bandwagon such that it is. And while some people are happy, I have also heard a lot of griping about the title

And if that isn’t enough for you, in this past week’s Zero Punctuation Yahtzee takes on the game and comes up with a very similar list of flaws. I mean sure, Yahtzee is hard on every game, it is part of his shtick (Honest Game Trailers as well), but he is also good about bringing up bits he does like about a game, and he didn’t get very far on that front. Plus, both videos seem to echo a some thing I had already heard. Comparisons with Spore and it promise versus what it delivered keep cropping up, which along with the who refund thing, has put a damper on the title for me.

Which is sort of a shame because it seems like a title I might be interested in. I’ll put it on my Steam wish list and see if more has been added to the game by the time the next Steam sale shows up.

Addendum: MMO Fallout has a story about the refunds thing and a rant about honesty and promises in the game industry.

Quote of the Day – The End of Legends

Within the Daybreak family, LoN seemed to be that uncle that, while still part of the family, no one ever talked about. He was always just hanging around creepily, standing in the corner sipping on a bottle of who-knows-what out of a brown paper bag.

Dellmon, Guest Post at EQ2 Wire

Legends of Norrath went dark last week and, despite a previous post about its imminent demise, I totally missed the date. I suppose next year, when I do the month in review post, being off by ten days won’t matter much. And frankly, to me the game itself didn’t matter much. It was a convoluted game in a genre I don’t care for in any case.

Dellmon puts the game’s “players” into three categories in the post linked at the top, and I clearly fell into the third of the three. I tried the game for a bit early on, then just collected the free card packs that being a Station Access subscriber got me, opening them up in hope of finding a loot card or two.

I will admit that I did get a few nice housing items out of those packs. But it wasn’t enough for me to bend my mind to the task of opening up those card packs on a regular basis. I think I had 80 or so sitting around unopened as the game went away.

There was a momentary glimmer of hope for the game when Smed, seeing Blizzard make a quick success out of its card game, Hearthstone, figured SOE (soon to be Daybreak) could do something like that too with Legends of Norrath.

Of course, nothing came of that. The studio had just announced the closure of four titles in what looks like, in hindsight, pre-acquisistion house cleaning.

And so it is gone, like so many online titles before it. I still think the high point of the game for me was when Brent from VirginWorlds was used for a card in one of the expansions.

Brent on his card

That is likely to be the only card I will remember.

Subscription Deals and Free Level Boosts and Bad Timing

Oh EverQuest II, you are forever off in your timing.

Daybreak is doing a big push this week to get players invested in the game.

The latest game update introduces a Fabled version of the Fallen Dynasty adventure pack from mid-2006. There are some special, limited time public quests running. Several zones have been added to the level agnostic list. And the content of 2014’s Altar of Malice expansion has been been made available to all players, subscribed or not, leaving only last year’s Terrors of Thalumbra as content you must purchase. (I am not sure what happened to the Hunter S. Thompson inspired Rum Diary adventure pack that came out a while back, when they weren’t going to do expansions any more.)

More would be the Altar of Malice expansion I guess…

In addition to that, the insta-level program has been bumped up a notch, so when you buy a Heroic Character upgrade, it now boosts your character up to level 95. To celebrate this, they are giving players a free Heroic Character upgrade, which you must collect before noon Pacific Time on Tuesday, September 6th. (Details at the link.)

Heroic dude is heroic… and sort of looks like Thor from the movie

And, just to top all that off like a sweet, glistening, unnaturally red maraschino cherry on top of a too large ice cream sundae, Daybreak is also offering a special deal on All Access subscriptions.

Good through August 29

$71.99 for a 12 month subscription is a decent deal. That works out to, as the Daybreak copy reads, less than $6.00 a month, though only if you live in a world that allows transactions at 1/12th of a penny. Still, minor quibble aside, that is less than half price over the month-by-month $15 rate, and $4.00 a month less that the usual discount for subscribing for 12 months at a stretch.

All of which would be awesome news… if it had come in August of 2015 when I was disaffected by World of Warcraft and garrisons in Draenor and there wasn’t even a war going on in New Eden and all that.

But now? Daybreak is laying this offer down with just a few days left until the WoW Legion expansion hits? I mean, I love you guys down in San Diego, but I’ve already sent a card to Gul’dan letting him know to expect us in the Broken Isles come August 30th.

You can’t always find hearts in fel green on cards

It does seem to be the fate of EverQuest II to forever be in the shadow of World of Warcraft. They launched less than a month apart, leading to five years of “What if…” articles and posts wondering how Norrath would have fared had it not launched straight into the teeth of the Azerothian juggernaut.

So, while I don’t have a lot of WoW specific activities penciled in on my calendar for the weekend… my Tauren warrior is already level 58, so my goal to get him to 60 is nearly done… from Tuesday forward I look to be pretty well booked in Azeroth and the Broken Isles.

And by the time I want a little break from that content, Pokemon Sun & Moon will be out and I will be able to flop on the couch with my 3DS and play that as a break from Azeroth.

So Daybreak… maybe you could run this offer by me again in maybe 9-12 months?

The Battle at SH1-6P and Null Sec Ongoing

I wasn’t sure I was going to do a post about the fight at SH1-6P, seeing as I wasn’t there for it and I try to keep the blog to things I’ve seen and done. That is the major premise of the whole effort here at TAGN.

On the flip side, over time one of the minor but valuable sub-notes in the disharmonious chord that is this blog has been the noting of events and milestones, such as game launches (and closures), expansion releases, and major events of note… like battles in EVE Online where titans get blown up.

A picture CCP used, maybe even from the battle…

So, there was a battle at SH1-6P, a system where CO2 had a POS with a capital ship assembly array, which PL and NCDot had previously put into a reinforced state. When the reinforcement timer ended, the battle erupted between CO2 and its allies battled PL/NCDot and their allies. Capitals, and then super capitals were dropped into the time dilated maelstrom around the POS.

Included in the battle were a large number of third parties (battle report), including a fleet from GSF that flew across New Eden for a chance to kick CO2 in the nuts.

CO2 escalated the battle to a super cap conflict and came out the worse for the effort, with it and its allied losing around 1.2 trillion ISK, including six CO2 titans down, while inflicting less than 200 billion in damage on its foes. That is a one trillion ISK damage deficit.

There are battle reports up at the usual competing sources.

TMC
EN24

I think TMC wins out on details and insight.

In addition, The Asher Hour podcast episode 23 followed up the battle with a show featuring Asher talking with Ron Mexxico, Killah Bee, and Doomchinchilla to get sense of how things went from the PL side of the battle.

The event itself now takes second place on the list of battles that involved titans being blown up. The list, so far as I recall it:

B-R5RB, January 2014 – 75 titans destroyed
SH1-6P, August 2016 – 6 titans destroyed
Okagaiken, July 2016 – 4 titans destroyed
Asakai, January 2014 – 3 titans destroyed

As things settle down the usual post-fight posturing is taking place. You can catch that in the comment threads of both articles linked above.

And then a blog post, styled as An Open Letter to CCP, by the pilot Capri Sun Kraftfoods (yes, that is his in-game name) started its own waves as it took CCP to task for generally going down a path away from such large scale fights with Fozzie sov. This led to a threadnought on Reddit with over a thousand comments, a surprising amount of which were not complete shit, along with a post over at Crossing Zebras trying to sum things up.

Unfortunately, none of what came up was really new. I couldn’t begin to count how many times people who have actually had to go out and take or defend sovereignty have called out the entosis mechanic as a bad idea. The fact that citadels didn’t go with entosis seems to indicate that even CCP isn’t sold on the idea. Better to just shoot things, give kill mails, produce explosions, and have some sort of damage cap to extend events if you want to keep things from being blapped too quickly.

Likewise, jump fatigue has been moaned about for ages. We’re coming up on Phoebe’s second anniversary and some people are still angry about it.

ADMs seem to be the only widely approved of mechanic from Fozzie Sov, as they reward groups that live in their space. Of course, “living” in null sec means mining and ratting, which the PvP purists tend to despise, but at least it gives them some targets I suppose.

Being, as I noted recently, something of a fatalist when it comes to game mechanics, I take what I am given and try to work with them. And I do not see any indication that CCP is going to change any of the current sovereignty mechanics. Despite complaints about CCP being focused on null sec, Fozzie Sov seems to be clearly in the rear view mirror when it comes to development. Maybe we’ll get another pass in a few years.

But the whole thing, Fozzie Sov, citadels, big fights, and how CCP responds to things does seem worth note. One certainly couldn’t look at the bigger picture and come away thinking CCP is unified in their vision for New Eden.

The duality of man. The Jungian thing.

On the one hand there is Fozzie Sov which, among its stated goals, sought to disperse fights across a constellation. This seems like an attempt to reduce the size of sovereignty battles. There have been some big battles over Fozzie Sov objectives.

The war that started LONG before Easter...

Excuse me, that is the “Casino War” TYVM

But in my experience, sovereignty, when it is contested, tends to turn into a long slog with both sides chasing each other around in a constellation-wide game of competitive whack-a-mole. Less big fights when you disperse targets. Working as designed.

However, this contrasts with how readily CCP jumps on any big event to drive press coverage. CCP loves big battles and grand events, from Burn Jita to B-R5RB to anything else that gets a huge number of players in close proximity and destroys a lot of ships. CCP threw together (another) screen shot contest immediately after SH1-6P. (The first Keepstar citadel getting blown up drew little water from the company though.)

And well they might jump on such events, as they do get wider press coverage and represent some of the “exciting” bits of the game in a world where coverage of the game can often stray into how boring the game can seem to those on the outside. Of course, the press coverage of the exciting bits also brings in new players, though with the state of the new player experience, that often seems like a wasted opportunity. Even letting people have a go at New Eden for free on Steam generates a spike in new character creation, but no noticeable effect on PCU.

Basically, another day in New Eden, where the highs can be incredibly high, while the everyday operations can wear you down if you don’t see a payoff somewhere down the road.

The Ancient Gaming Noob

Veni, Vidi, Scripsi