Discovery

Among the many great posts over at Killed in a Smiling Accident is a recent gem by Melmoth about the sense of wonder and awe these games can bring out of the players.

This is, I think, what MMOs so often overlook in their quest to be popular and appeal to the masses, they focus so much on the balance, the mechanics, the format and the structure of the game that they forget to add in that quintessential essence of adventure. This is what Blizzard did so well in World of Warcraft, they created so many vistas around the world, so many places and creatures that cause all but the most jaded of players to stop and gawp and marvel at the spectacle of it, to feel proud and content to have discovered and witnessed such a thing, and most importantly to have their desire to experience more fanned until it literally burns within them.

Whether it’s the first time seeing the library in Dire Maul (WoW), stumbling on Tom Bombadil’s house in the Old Forest (LotRO) or staring out over the tundra in Troll Country (WAR), feeling that sense of discovery and wonder is the driving force behind many of my adventures in these games.

I frequently find my own sense of adventure in direct conflict with the min/maxer attitude or the paint-by-numbers style of play.  Min/maxing is all well and good, but ultimately, I choose not to care.  More to the point, I like games where I can choose not to care with impunity.  Games like LotRO, where good gear is useful but not essential to progress fit the bill nicely as does most of WoW and WAR.

As for paint-by-numbers play, where every dungeon crawl gets reduced to the minimum number of twists and turns and the fewest fights and locales possible to get the maximum rewards, it is handy at times to play that way.  I still find myself wanting to go back to those dungeons not to kill the boss at the end but to take the left turn we keep avoiding or to see what’s in the room we didn’t enter the last time.  As part of my events officer position, I have set up runs of instances (called Exploration Runs) where we do exactly that.  We basically just wander around and gawp at things.

It’s a brilliant post and sums up quite well what it means to be an explorer and adventurer in MMOs.

 

New Home

Welcome to the new home of the Battered Shield!  Blogger served me well, but there’s some features here that I really like so I finally decided to make the move.

The theme is transitional (but Halloween-ish) and I still have a few things to straighten out.

 

Gaming Update

A couple things to report on the gaming front this week:

I’m still enjoying my time in LotRO but have pretty much maxed out my interest in the game until the Mines of Moria expansion this Fall. I still log in daily to run groups or go on raids or just to say hello but I’ve also been poking around some other titles both old and new.

I returned to City of Heroes for a little bit. It’s still the same game I remember with the added problem of now all my friends have moved on. Atlas Park, once the social hub of the whole game with anywhere between twenty-five and fifty players at a time chatting, dancing, etc is a graveyard. It was me and three other players last time I was there (and I’m pretty sure two of the others were afk). I’m still goofing off a bit with some villains (CoH and CoV merged into one game recently) but once the shininess wears off there I’ll be closing it down again.

And for the record, I am completely and totally NOT going to try WAR … except for the fact that I totally AM. Yes, thanks to Saylah’s stories and Bildo’s screenies, I felt compelled to try the whole thing out. I am currently playing a rank 11 Ironbreaker and a rank 12 Squig Herder. Thanks to collision detection and a new taunt skill which acts like an interrupt and debuff, PvP tanking is actually a possibility. I may no longer have the reflexes to do the uber, split-second dps casts but I should be able to get in people’s way which I’m pretty good at anyway.

I won’t go so far as to create a review of the whole game as that has been done better elsewhere. Overall, I am enjoying the scenarios and public quests. I find that the PvE is mediocre but I so enjoy exploring the different zones that at the moment, I don’t mind much. I’ve been to the major city for Order all of once and enjoyed the trip (except for the level twenty-something skeleton that kicked my lowbie ass near the docks).

 

Being New to MMOs

Sanya over at Eating Bees found an interesting piece written by someone new to this whole MMO thing we do.

It’s a neat (and funny) look into the mind of someone who likes games but hadn’t really gotten into MMOs. Some of the topics include PvE vs PvP and RMT.

 

Officer Observations

I am an officer in the kinship in the Lord of the Rings Online. Unlike some kinships where being an officer is little more than a network of friends that need fifteen other people to drag along on raids, my kinship takes officers and their responsibilities seriously. I have also been an officer in two guilds in the World of Warcraft and a Supergroup in City of Heroes.

Along the way, I’ve picked up a few things which may be helpful to some folks who are contemplating creating their own social organization in the games they play. These are all based on my personal experience so mileage may vary.

1) See conflicts brewing ahead of time and end them before they start.
It is MUCH easier to see someone rolling need when they should roll greed as a lowbie than to correct the behavior when you’re raiding end game instances. The fallout is also likely to be a metric crap-ton less in a lowbie instance as well. Believe me when I tell you – you will remember when that paladin rolled need on the lousy shoulders of hooray-I-have-shoulder-armor when half of the guild is screaming in Vent about the same paladin rolling on the epic shoulders of overpoweredness. “Why didn’t I say something then?”

2) Lose the asshats.
No amount of skill, gear, rare keys to instances or personality can make up for being an asshat to guild mates. If a member appears self-centered and likely to create more drama in the future, try to intervene. If they don’t listen or seem to care, it may be time to show them the door. If someone seems the type to constantly badger others to do what they want while investing little time in helping other people, they’ll probably do little besides drive everyone else crazy no matter how skilled they may be or what other stuff they bring to the table. I’m all for trying to max out one’s assets, but keeping douche bags in the guild will make life miserable for you later on when: a) you have to explain to someone for the thousandth time why you’re actually keeping the schmuck around or b) you watch the people you actually have fun with leaving because they won’t stay in the same guild with idiot-boy.

3) Be sensitive to your fellow gamers.
You are all gamers playing a game. No one likes being put on the spot or called out in front of their peers. If something could reflect badly on someone, take it to tells or a private channel. Putting it in kinchat will 1) make the person with the issue feel bad and 2) lead everyone that’s listening in believe there’s drama lurking beneath the surface and 3) make everyone think you’re an insensitive clod for airing dirty laundry in public.

4) Recruit the kind of people you will like playing with.
This means getting to know them as players. It takes time to get this kind of relationship with a potential recruit but the payoff is worth it. You’ll know that everyone wearing your guild tag belongs there and people will look at your guild tag and know exactly what kind of people you are. In other words: unless you want the worst aspects of PUGs, Barrens chat and general asshattery to have to sort through on a daily basis; do not spam guild invites at anyone ever. (On a related note, unless you want the worst aspects of PUGs, Barrens chat and general asshattery to have to play beside on a daily basis; do not accept spammed guild invites from anyone ever.)

Recruitment is the key to building a successful guild. It’s the doorway that lets all the members in. If it’s wide open with no constraints, you’ll be letting in everyone. If it’s too narrow, you’ll be gaming alone. List out the things that you want in your members and then look for evidence of those things in your applicants. Having a recruit status (not a full member) and an observation period is a good idea too. Have them show you what kind of member they’ll become.

An observation period is their chance to see if they like you as well. If someone decides your kinship / guild is not for them, don’t take it as an insult. Not all guilds appeal to everyone. Be nice and try to steer them towards a guild that will make them happy based on their feedback. If you’re pleasant to deal with they’ll remember you when a friend of theirs is looking for a guild that matches the description of yours. Word of mouth is a powerful tool for steering people your way.

5) Be ready to be the bad guy.
You may have to lock or pull posts off your site, tell people to stop with certain inappropriate topics in kinchat or on vent, or put an end to something that would make the kinship look bad. The offenders will hate you for it. You will probably hate you for it. Your primary goal is the stability of the guild and the ability of the guild to do whatever it’s goal is (PvP, Raiding, etc). Don’t be afraid to pull someone aside and talk to them about what they are doing that’s causing issues. Also, focus on the behavior and not the person. Avoid things like “you’re a sexist asshole”; try “please do not post that kind of content to our forums” instead. (But keep in mind, they may well be a sexist asshole and need more help than you’re willing to give – in which case be prepared for #2 above.)

6) Rely on the other officers.
You can’t do it all in a large kinship. There’s too many people, too much stuff going on and you’ll also be trying to play the game at the same time. What I have found to work well is a division of labor amongst the officers. We currently have officers for Events (me), Raiding, Ambassador (kinship-to-kinship relations), Crafting and PvP in addition to our Recruiting officer and the Kinship Leader. We each do our own thing but also coordinate to solve common issues. An Event which led to a PvE raid would involve myself and the Raiding officer. I just have to focus on the event part, he’ll focus on the raiding part and that way we can get back to playing sooner.

7) Know when to lead and when to get out of the way.
You don’t have to be up front leading all the time. This isn’t the military. If a member shows initiative, let them run with their idea. Heck, make them an officer if their ideas are good or they show promise. I view officership in part as being an enabler: I move obstacles so members can do what they want. For example, we didn’t have a means of collecting class quest items. Our crafting officers set it up so now class quest items are part of the kinship bank (items are stored on alts – there isn’t a kinship bank system in LotRO like there is in WoW). People enjoy light RP events, so I organize them a couple of times a month. Our raid leader organizes raids and works with our allies if we’re short on people. Officers pull things together, get people in touch with others and work to get the most out of limited resources.

It’s not a glamor job. If you want fame and fortune, become a moviestar or invent something useful. If you like helping other people have fun, then you’re a good officer candidate.

And sometimes, the best thing an officer can do is get out of the way of their guildmates and let them shine in their own endeavors.

Be prepared to fail spectacularly, but learn from your failures.
A long time ago, I saw the movie Hidalgo. I’m a sucker for westerns and I like race movies generally so I really enjoyed it. Hidalgo gave me the idea for creating a horse race across Breeland. Riders would navigate across the map to a waypoint where an officer would be waiting to give them their next set of coordinates. After several waypoints they’d head to the finish line in Bree. There was no right or wrong way to get from one point to the next: riders would be encouraged to take the fastest route they could find. For players able to ride a horse, mobs wouldn’t be an issue – it would all be up to the player and their ability to navigate.

After a lot of prep work we were ready. Each officer in my kin had a waypoint assignment. We had the logistics worked out such that mapping somewhere wouldn’t be practical. I posted the event to our kinship forums and to the server forums. We were set! This would rock!

And no one came. Not. One. Person. The only person that came close to the starting area was a lore master who was lost. *facepalm*

At first I was ticked off, but I got over it and went on to create other, more successful events. The Breeland rally failed due to some other events going on at the time (an in-game festival), a lack of prizes and the scope of the event. Live and learn.

Just because one of your ideas tanks doesn’t mean you’re a dumbass. In fact, I’d say that if you don’t have a complete failure once in a while, you’re not trying hard enough. If you are conscientious about being an officer, you’ll likely be disappointed that you’re let people down. It’s not the end of the world – make your mistakes. I think most of your guild mates will see that you’re trying and cut you some slack.

While I can’t claim to be the be-all-end-all of knowledge about being an officer in a guild, the points above have worked well for myself and the guilds that seemed to have the least drama and most fun people.

 

Book 14, Summer Festival and other stuff

I’ve been really busy at work lately so I haven’t had a lot of time to make up stuff to post.

Book 14:
Without giving too much away, I completed the Book Fourteen Epic quest – it does get better and more interesting as things progress than my original experience. The final battle instance has some neat features in it such as taking the camera control from the player so the NPCs take over some drama in front of you. Overall I thought the Book 14 quest line could have used some tweaking. There is an instance in the first part of it which I thought was too difficult for an Epic Book quest. The Epic Books are something I’d like to see within reach of all players not just those used to raiding like the kinship I’m in. I thought the cut scene in the last battle was too long but the story line advancement was pretty cool.

One of the things I really enjoyed seeing in the Book quest and in the game in general is the use of session play to step into characters and to experience the story from their point of view. One example of session play that’s been in the game a while is the chicken session play where you can assume the role of a chicken and do some quests related to chickens (getting worms, talking to other animals, etc). The chicken play thing was a neat distraction but I always suspected there would be more to session play. I mean, technically, you could play a Nazgul flying around looking for the One Ring or Aragorn fighting in Helm’s Deep. By involving the gamer in the story, they can identify better with the characters and the storyline. Since the game is bound by its IP, player characters cannot, for example, actually take the Ring to the mountain for Frodo or beat up the Balrog of Morgoth or be Gandalf. Through session-play, however, you could be Gandalf or a Balrog or a Ring Wraith or whatever the devs can dream up. The session play section of Book 14 didn’t have the player appearing as Gandalf, but you got to fight as an elven ranger-type guy and be a bad guy cleaning house for the arrival of the Book quest’s chief baddie Amarthiel.

Summer Festival:
The Summer Festival has come and gone. It was the first festival which there have now been two of since the launch of LotRO! Just like the last Summer Festival, there were quests you can do to get various goodies, recipes and such, for each race: The Elves in Dulliond, the Hobbits by the Party Tree in Hobbiton, the Men at the Breeland Festival Grounds above Bree and the Dwarves in Thorin’s Hall. In addition to the old stuff, Turbine added a bunch of new stuff too. One big one is the fishing competition. After an initial quest, I was able to fish in the lake on a timed quest. The fish I caught could be used for tokens or special items from the vendor. Most of the items were housing related. In particular, I got a banner, an herb garden and hobbit and elvish wallpapers for my house. I got the elvish doormat too. It’s kind of neat to be able to put some new stuff in your house from time to time.

There were some new dances introduced as well. They actually had a patch today which fixed them – they were broken during the festival so they appeared the same as the old dances.

WAR:
I’m not in any sort of beta nor am I getting the game at this time. Just reading up on it from some fellow blogger’s sites and keeping an eye on things as they progress. From my view, not having played it, it seems like a neat game but a lot like others I’ve played. The public quests and siege play concepts certainly seem innovative, however. Hardcore Casual, The Ramblings of Jobildo and Tobold’s blog (to name but a few) are following the release so you may want to check them out (see links at the right-hand-side of his page).

And that’s what’s going on.

Happy gaming!

 

Stand by your game

Tipa over at West Karana has an excellent post about fans in MMOs helping their games out. (And for the record, most of her posts are awesome – I recommend checking her blog out if you get the chance.) She makes a lot of sense. If you really, really like the ideas behind the Age of Conan (or LotRO or whatever game it is that you like) then don’t just bail on it except at dire need. Try to help them out. Fill out those bug reports. Inform the devs, politely and in clear English (or whatever language they speak), about the issues.

On the subject of error reports, there are a number of things you can do to make sure they’re taken seriously. As a software developer, these are the things I take into consideration when prioritizing bug reports / complaints and it may help you help your favorite MMO improve. Granted these are the things that I look for. If the game company has a format they want you to follow besides this one then use theirs.

1) Take a step back. Is it really game breaking that the maroon shield of blocking is actually burgundy? Does the thing you noticed really matter in the grand scheme of making a better game? The devs have finite amounts of time to deal with many issues. Don’t sweat the small stuff. When your game has reached a level of refinement to the point where there’s only small stuff left, then start in on the little things.

2) Setting. Where were you when the event happened and what were you doing? In a town? In a field? Using a mailbox? If it was a mailbox, which one was it? (Orgrimmar in WoW, for example, has at least two mailboxes; Bree in LotRO has four – one by each gate and two in the AH.) If you were out in the middle of nowhere, try to get the location coordinates of where you were. At the very least, provide the time when it happened to you. Most games log everything that goes on and when so you’ll be helping the devs narrow down on the events as they happened.

3) What was the expected outcome of what you were trying to do? Errors are deviations from expected behaviors so what you were trying to do matters a great deal. I expected to open the mailbox and read my mail. I expected to ride across the open field. I thought I would hit the mob for x amount of damage.

4) What actually happened? Do NOT say “it just didn’t work” or “can you look at it” without providing more information. Once I was told there was a problem with a database and “could I just look at it.” I asked for more information and was told again to “just look at it.” So that’s what I did. I confirmed that it was still a database. Given the lack of information in the original request, that was all I could really do without spending months of digging. If the problem really was an error, perhaps someone more articulate than the original requester would notice and I’d be able to fix the bug (if that’s actually what it was). Give the developers ALL the information about the error that occurred. Was there an error message? If so write down the text as best you can. If something happened, describe it in as much detail as you can. “I got an error that reads ‘object not found’.” I expected to keep riding but was suddenly dismounted. I thought I would hit the mob for x damage but instead regened the mob’s health.

5) Reread before you send. Did you speak in plain, clear, descriptive language? Did you put in all the information you have? Edit as needed.

6) Say thank you! Be sure to thank the developers. They don’t get paid nearly enough and they also have lots of stress and crap to deal with on a daily basis. Don’t add to it by being an ass.

Game developers have a mission to provide us consumers with an enjoyable gaming experience. Through our support, not only by voice but by our actions, have it within our ability to help them make our particular favorite games better. In other words: if your game of choice is messed up and you did nothing to try to make it better then you’re part of the reason it’s broken. If you did your best to help out and it’s still messed up, then there may be bigger issues going on which may be out of your control.

 

LotRO Update

I’m still enjoying my time in Middle-earth. I’ve been making the rounds of Arda with my level fifty Hobbit Burglar. Most weeks will include a trip to Forochel the newest zone in the North; a raid, either Helegrod or the Rift; some exploration of old zones; and delving into one of the rep dungeons for fun (Goblin Town, the Great Barrows or Sarnur). Being a total Hobbit fan, I still love sneaking around on my burglar, stealing from orcs and then beating them up before I slip off into the shadows again.

Raiding in LotRO has remained low-key and enjoyable. My kinship only recently took down the Balrog in the Rift (not to be confused with The Balrog that Gandalf fought in Moria). Many of the kinship members have armor sets from the Rift and even lightweight raider me has a couple of pieces. The end bosses of both Helegrod and the Rift are tough but it’s neat that the rest of it is farmable. (The first two bosses are the key for the Rift – get them down and the rest is relatively simple right up to the guy before the Balrog.).

The dungeons of Goblin Town, Sarnur and the Great Barrows are a lot of fun to sneak around in as a Burglar. The map “fog of war” refreshes on a regular basis so it really does make it interesting to try to get around in them – you actually need to get a sense of where you want to go and how to get there. I’m glad to say that I can usually get to Gollum’s Cave without much fuss and that’s pretty far back into Goblin Town. All three zones feature mobs of different skills and toughness making it so most players can solo as well as group up for some of the harder content.

My interest in Forochel as a whole is waning though I’m enjoying the dwarf mines in the West of the zone. It’s like a smaller, more densely packed version of Goblin Town making it a challenge for my to get around in undetected. Plus-to-stealth items help a lot as well as the occasional HiPS (Hide in Plain Sight – vanish for Burglars).

I haven’t done much in the way of PvP at all. I’m not really much of a carebear, it’s just that MMO PvP is rather clunky (in both WoW and LotRO) so I dabbled in it a bit and haven’t really felt compelled to revisit it. At some point, I suppose I may hop back in. The real strength or interest of PvP in WoW and LotRO is group verses group. Get a Freep raid verses a Creep raid and it’s pandemonium. Problem is those kinds of raids don’t happen that often and it’s usually a large group on one side hunting down individuals of the other. There’s a lot of waiting around and “what do we do now that the one guy we were hunting is dead” stuff and I rapidly lose interest. It’s Middle-earth and I’d like some epic battles!

And last but not least, I finally maxed my fishing skill to twohundred which got me the Lord of Streams title and the ability to go after the fifty pound salmon. I haven’t caught it yet, but I’m working on it. There’s one in the kinship hall and it’s HUGE! I’m not sure what I’d do with it if I caught it, probably give it away. I don’t need my smial collapsing under the weight!

While there’s still enough content at fifty to keep me going, many people in my kinship are working on their second or third level fifty. I decided to try some of the other races / classes and see if I had much interest in them from when I tried them in open beta. Right now the contenders are my Man Lore Master, Hobbit Minstrel or my Man Captain. There are lots of neat abilities on Lore Masters. He’s squishy as all get out, but his tanking bear and stuns can keep most mobs off him and several of his abilities hit really hard. My minstrel is a lot of fun also, if not a little strange concept-wise. He goes into combat and most of what he does is play a lute. I realize the bard character is a staple in Dungeons and Dragons adventures, it’s just a little odd to see it in practice. The Captain is an interesting class, but he’s only level nine at the moment so it’s hard to tell what I’ll end up thinking of him.

Overall, LotRO has still kept my interest. It’s easy enough to stay current with friends as the leveling set-up is fairly fluid at this point (I haven’t seen the thirties in a while though, so I’ll have to see what that’s like). At the level cap, there’s enough content available to keep going also: either solo, group or in raids.

 

Update

Changed the link for Bildo to the Ramblings of Jobildo – also linking to his shiny new site!

 

Random blathering

Saylah over at Mystic Worlds had a great post about Why We Solo in MMOs. The post is a great read and the comments are also interesting. There are quite a few people that for one reason or other have to solo in MMOs and game designers ignore them at their peril. A large part of WoW’s popularity is its soloability. Many of LotRO’s struggles have to do with the difficulty of solo quests (both in finding them and in some cases doing them). LotRO has improved throughout the book updates (time will tell as I am now leveling a human lore master).

As I mentioned in my comments on her blog, preparing a game for solo content is necessary due to the leveling mechanics of most games. The whole server, when it first opens, starts at level one. Then, over the course of weeks and months, the level of the general population rises. What you end up with is a large number of people at the level cap and everybody else left behind. For those people behind the curve the game will need to provide some accommodations for solo play as groups will be few even if one were inclined to group; based on the feedback in Saylah’s article, the accommodations should be generous and many.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A post by VanHemlock on his blog about the old AC terminal mission sliders (note: the link is not working at this time – go to the main page and look for the article “The Terminal of Empowerment” if the problems persist) provides some interesting counter-points. Terminals in AC apparently (I have not played the game) allowed for users to essentially create their own soloable instance depending on what they wanted / liked to do. In City of Heroes, a game I have played, NC Soft had some similar ideas where you could talk to a contact to attune your mission settings and then race around getting missions from other NPCs at the settings you chose. The result was some of the most monotonous game play I’ve seen. The maps were all based off of other, similar maps and it’s really no fun stepping into officer building model number four for the hundreth time and knowing that the big bad guy you need to take out is up three floors in the third office on the left beside the potted plant.

While I’m all for solo content in MMOs (I do spend a lot of time soloing) that content needs to be viable and feel like part of the world at large. It needs to be new and exciting in its presentation and carry the same possibilities of randomness that walking through an in-game city provide. Immersion in a video game, especially an MMO, requires the same kind of randomness real life provides (the same kind though not necessarily the same degree – watching a group of players suddenly racing down the street on horseback is random; having them run you over and kill you is also random but I don’t think players want to risk death penalties just for walking around in a city). The CoH instances, which were the death of the game to me, were too static. When you present people a puzzle they’ve heard a thousand times, it’s not really a puzzle anymore but just a question to which we already know the answer.

Dynamic content still has a ways to go in MMOs but the article is an interesting look at the way one game tried to pull it off.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I created my first viable alt since my burglar. I have tried to get into the Hunter class (too much like every other ranger / hunter) the Guardian class (great defenses but hits like a tween-age hobbit girl) and the Champion (dps, more dps, wtf dps, rez plz). So in tinkering around I tried a class I had dismissed at first: the Lore Master. It took a fair amount of patience to get to level ten. I used my pet raven and hit my two or three spells per fight and thought it all rather dull. As I got to ten though, I picked up my mez (works on all but the undead and it’s cool down is less than the duration so I can chain-stun mobs). I also got some goodies to improve my pet damage or defense and some nasty debuffing spells. The Lore Master is very fragile, but the bear pet is a great damage mitigator.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bildo has some info on his blog about the upcoming Age of Conan. Looks like there will be an open beta coming May first.