Category Archives: Games

Now What?

Posted on by

So now that SWTOR is out of the picture what do I do with my gaming time?

I finished Mass Effect 1 Saturday.  It was quicker than all my previous attempts because I completely ignored the Mako.  That stupid ship was more of a pain than anything else and it provided nothing to the game.  Well, there were 2 optional quests I did (one for Wrex, another for a specialization).  The game’s mechanics ages well but the graphics do not.  Especially after comparing to Mass Effect 2.  The inventory also doesn’t work for me.  I like that I could mod items but not that I had 150 items to mod with.  Maybe have the various mod types but have them upgrade as I find better versions?

Mass Effect 2 sort of fixes the equipment issue but gives you a total of 15 guns (3-4 per category) and no real upgrades.  You also have less powers, per player.  It really feels limited and more of a corridor shooter than an RPG – one of the main reasons it does not have any map.  The story is less unified but each individual chapter is better than its predecessor.  The interface is slightly improved but there was never anything really outstanding on the first.  The game is more about the illusion of choice for 90% of the game as the final outcome is based 99% on the extra quests you take, not their results.  Wonder how ME3 will fix that.

MMO space, I have nearly 2 months left on my Rift account so I logged in quickly to see what had changed in the past 6 months.  New zones, enemies, equipment, changes to souls and an alternate advancement path (not too powerful but a good choice).  So I logged on to my 50, reset my talents and did the following in the first 30 minutes of play:

  • reset builds on my 5 talent builds
  • tested each build on a target dummy (normal, boss and healing)
  • searched for an exact item on the auction house
  • completed some achievements
  • joined a dynamic event with 20 other people
  • joined a targetted PvP match in the zone of my choosing
  • finally entered the LFG queue (which took about an hour to clear).

Not a single one of these things can be done in TOR.

So If I Wasn't Clear

Posted on by

I un-subbed from SWTOR today.  They allow for a rather large section to say why you quit, so I pretty much put this blog post in there.  I then checked the main forums and half the general channel is about people quitting, not really a good sign.  So much potential, so much wasted.  I really hope they can do something in the next 4 months before Guild Wars 2 (for PvP), Tera (different PvE) and The Secret World (open world) come out.  Heck, I’m sure people will drop for Diablo 3 when it comes out.

I’ll check back in a few months, maybe there will still be a game then.

I still have 50 days left in Rift.  Going to try that out again, there’s some decent new stuff in there.

Star Wars

Posted on by

So we’re a couple days shy of the 2 month mark and here’s my opinion.

TOR launched 2 months early, at the very least.  The first month had so many crashes, exploit and bugs that they patched once or twice a week to address it.  We’re at the 2 month mark, and there’s a patch every week still.  When Rift launched, it was nearly bug free and they worked on major things, like a group finder and guild stuff, plus content.  SW came out to compete with WoW and Rift, two fully functioning MMOs, with a wiffle bat.

What does TOR do right?  The single player aspect.  Leveling from 1-49 is a pretty cool journey.  It can get repetitive at times, but so do most games.  I enjoyed it tremendously the first time through.  The settings made sense, travel was long to give a sense of scope and you had well spread out enemies.  It’s a single player game with minimal replay (since there are no side-quests) and that’s worth your money.

What it does wrong is everything else.  I leveled another character to 50 and skipped all the dialogue since 99% of it was the same as the first time through.  My 3rd char is 30 now and I’m bored to tears of the questing, flying, zoning garbage that breaks up the MMO aspect.  You feel like you’re alone for ever.

So let’s do a feature comparison.  If you were in an MMO, you left that one to come try this one right?  So you left stuff to try new stuff.

PvP

This is a strong point for WoW, though Rift has some decent elements to it. There is a PvP stat that completely unbalances PvP in all 3 games though it’s being addressed in Rift.  TOR has massive exploits and a RNG system where once a week, you have a 25% chance of getting PvP gear.  Massive exploits too, you can max your PvP level fairly easily by Googling.

PvE

WoW has this down pat.  Rift has some balance issues for raids but the open world content is great.  Rift battles are amazing and you can do pretty much what you want, when you want.  I like it.  ToR has flashpoints that have a 25% chance of rewarding you at the end – and their loot tables are fixed.  Each takes 90mins to 2 hours to complete, many are bugged.  It’s better to run raids, as each boss has a 75% chance of dropping something you can use.  You need gloves?  There’s only one way to get gloves.  Rift and WoW both have LFG tools.  TOR is 2 months old and you can still wait an hour or more spamming LFG.

Money

This is a bit tougher to measure.  WoW has many methods to make cash, AH, dailies, raids whatever.  It let’s you buy flavor items (pets, mounts) and power (enchants, gems).  You need it certainly but not a whole lot.  Rift is close to WoW in this regard, though overall there’s less to buy.  TOR’s only expenditure right now is re-specing your talents (100-400K per shot).  The AH doesn’t work, dailies give 13K per (4 you can do alone), crafting is useless and your best bet is running a level 30 dungeon for money.  My 2 50s are millionaires, many times over with nothing to do.

Meta game

This is the part where you look at the systems.  WoW and Rift both have balanced stats.  You know what’s good, it’s somewhat simple to move things around to get stronger.  TOR opted for a modding strategy, where you move slots of gear within gear.  Sadly, these slots were designed by a drunk monkey where the 2 stats that are most prominent are the least wanted by any class (accuracy and haste).  The core issue here is that 2 of the 4 main classes are resource dependent and that resource regenerates at different rates. Both need to be above 60% at all times, making for somewhat static playstyles.  Making them attack faster, depletes their resources faster.  That makes them change their rotation to regenerate power instead of playing the game.  So what’s happening in game is that everyone is buying 3 particular items, breaking them down and using them to power the rest of their gear.  Every DPS and Healer (80% of the population) is doing this.  That’s bad planning.

Crafting has no use past level 49.  Do a single daily and the rewards outstrip any thing you can possibly craft.  Ship combat is an on-rails shooter.  I can play those for free.

Conclusion

The game from 1-49 is great and if you’re looking to try that out, then it’s worth the free month.  It looks and feels Star Wars (as long as you’re not a Sniper/Gunslinger).  Playing through once is fun.

If you want to play with other people, find another game.  If you want an MMO with PvP, wait a few months for them to fix the exploits and PvP stat.  If you want PvE in your MMO, wait until they put in a LFG tool and fix their item drops.  If you want to craft, find another game.  If you want to socialize/collect, find another game.  If you like alts, find another game.

TOR is not an MMO.  It’s a single player game that lets you talk to other people.

 

EDIT: I wanted to add a link to a population measuring tool.  TORStatus does a decent job, considering.  A 5% drop over last week.  Let’s say they have 1.5 million paying players (they said 1.7 were playing, most paying).  5% is 75,000 players or about 1.2 million dollars a month.

Gaming better than Art?

Posted on by

I read an interesting article that proposed that Video Games were superior to Art in that they require a social aspect to conquer/appreciate while being consumed.  The gist is that movies and books are isolated experiences, where you could just as easily do they in a black box and get the same value where a video game usually requires thoughtful approach, group strategy and provides a longer term return on investment.

While I agree with the statement I think that both have diverging interests.  I read a LOT and I talk about it a lot.  It’s also socially acceptable to read and often a measure of intelligence (though reading Cosmo would be the opposite I think).  Regardless, books and art are about interpretation and self-reflection.  You can share ideas with the author and other readers, help frame your own ideas and questions and usually by the end of a good book, your perception of your reality has changed.  Maybe you appreciate music more, maybe you think government is inherently evil.  Whatever it is, you change.  Art is meant to change people and that change typically permeates the rest of your life.  Art is also different for different people.  For example, read Orwell’s 1984 and then see how that changes your impression of the outside world.

Games are primarily meant to provide puzzles and then appropriate rewards for solving them in the way the programmers intended.  A bug in a game is when you try a different way to solve something than was intended.  You don’t share a new idea about how terrorists are very good at blowing up buildings or how that giant horse is blocking your path.  You are presented with a problem, a visible goal and the tools to get there.  At the end of the game, you’re better at those puzzles, you’re not necessarily able to map those skills to the outside world.  Though games provide a social outlet, it also removes the non-verbal social aspects and the subtleties that make for great interactions.  People who excel at World of Warcraft gain organizational skills and twitch skills but translating that into real-world equivalents is quite difficult.

If I were to compare Video Games, I would do so versus mental sports such as Chess or Go and a little bit towards physical sports for the adrenal rush you get.  The goal is to repeat an activity until you excel at that activity and some tangential benefit comes from it.

I read/watch movies to enrich myself and explore other ideas.  I play games to perfect minute analytic skills and keep mentally sharp.  With separate goals, it becomes easier to enjoy both while not competing between them.

Mass Effect

Posted on by

I really liked the original Mass Effect.  I played through 3 times.  It was, in my opinion, the best game BioWare has ever made.  Sure the elevators were slow and the Mako was stupid but the rest was extremely well polished.  Mass Effect 2 simplified a lot of the RPG elements (inventory, weapons, abilities) and focused more on the story.  It ended in both triumph (group combat) and stupidity (human/reaper hybrid) so I ranked it a bit below the first one.

Now the 3rd Mass Effect game is on its way (March 4th) and after the crap-fest that was Dragon Age 2, BW has decided to try a different model on their game.  There are 3 game options.  One is RPG heavy with challenging combat, one is story heavy with little to no RPG elements and the last is combat, where the dialogue choices are all taken and combat is really hard.  I am curious as to what the majority will play.  For me it’s the RPG side.  I felt way more connected to Sheppard in the first game than in the 2nd, even though the scope was larger in the second.

Anyhow, I decided to replay both games to get a save ready for the 3rd.  My original plays were on the 360 (which I’ve pretty much retired) and finding the original for the PS3 is next to impossible.  So I got it on Steam.  Now, the 3rd is only available on Origin (EA’s online store) so I’ll have to transfer some stuff but the game plays pretty well and the loading times are really short.  It’s nice to see a PC interface too as the console version was buggy for me, unless you wanted to play it as a shooter.

So the goal over the next few weeks is to complete both games, then use those saves for the 3rd.  Should be fun!

SWTOR Sales

Posted on by

DarthHater was part of the quarter sales call for EA (shareholders can call in I guess).  They say that 2 million copies sold, 40% through their online service.  That seems reasonable.  In today’s age of PCs, people don’t go to stores to buy software as much. Steam is awesome.  Origin… has work to do.

The really interesting part is that they have 1.7 subscribers (either trial period or currently paying) and 1 million concurrently.  They go on to say that most (emphasis theirs) are paying.  That’s as low as 51%.  If after a month SW lost only 15% of their subs, that’s impressive.  After playing the game I would say that the number is wrong as the servers have way less people than when the game launched and the first two weeks.  I was running some PvP last night with 50s and I saw the same groups, over and over again.

Oh ya, the average session was 4 hours at a time.  I know I put in close to that time for the first 2 weeks but now the sessions are an hour or two before bed.  4 hours doesn’t say how much per week though, explaining why there are still plenty of players below 50.  Heck, I would say the majority are under 50.  Just goes to show how hardcore some of the other players are to keep that 4 hour playtime as an average.

I don’t want to be more negative but the real challenge is keeping those players past the 3 months mark.  Rift took a beating from it I’m sure (they have a 20 level F2P option now) and I honestly believe Rift is a better game.

Rift Free for 20 Levels

Posted on by

Here’s the story.

Basically you get all the classes, characters, starting zones, capital cities and teen zones for free.  Considering you can’t unlock the last classes until level 13, this isn’t a huge amount to show.  Still, it takes about 4 hours to get to 20 and the starting zones are pretty sweet.

If you haven’t played Rift, this is a great chance to try it.  In my opinion, it’s the best MMO on the market right now.

WoW Going Free to Play?

Posted on by

First, let’s look at the games on the market that are subscription based:

  1. World of Warcraft (7 years)
  2. EvE (5 years)
  3. Rift (1 year)
  4. Star Wars Old Republic (1 month)

Let’s look at the games that swapped to Free to Play, from subscription, in recent years.

  1. Dungeons and Dragons
  2. Lord of the Rings
  3. Everquest
  4. Everquest 2
  5. Star Trek Online
  6. Age of Conan
  7. DC Online
  8. Champions Online
  9. Fallen Earth

I think it’s fair to say that the subscription model is simply dated and saturated.  There are only so many people willing to pay a fixed fee for MMOs when there’s viable competition with no fixed fee.  This in turn makes you wonder if/when WoW will swap to F2P as well.  The pokemon expansion sure does sound like it would work well for F2P or at least microtransactions.  There are plenty of F2P games that offer the exact same experience with no monthly cost.

I think the major difference between the first 4 games is perceived value for the price.  WoW updates at a snail’s pace, 3 content patches per expansion, every 18-24 months.  EvE is even slower but the content is player driven and if you play the game “right” you can play for free.  Rift has had 7 content patches and it’s not even a year old yet.  SW had it’s first patch after a month.  If I was to compare them all, it sure would make you wonder why I would sub to WoW instead of the other three – at least in terms of value.

So my guess is that before WoW’s next expansion there will be a new business model.  That will include more microtransactions, which will push another 25% of the player base to other games.  WoW will go F2P within 2 years.

Diablo 3 Gold Making

Posted on by

You know those gold guides for WoW where there really wasn’t anything new in them?  Just sound market sense?  Well, the same guy who did big with WoW is doing it for Diablo 3.

In WoW (and Rift too actually) I used spreadsheets to figure out costs and profits.  I found out the base cost of making all my glyphs and if I could make 20 gold per, I would make it.  It took a while to get some good numbers to base and get all the skills ready but I tried it for a month and made over 200K gold back in Lich King.  Consider that a player, starting from scratch, to acquire all skills and all mounts and some gear would probably need about 5K total (due to cash taken while leveling) you can see how this was a fair amount.

Anyhow, D3 is going to have an auction house but for real money (as well as fake money).  Blizz will take a cut, so there will be always more money going in than coming out.  Sort of like eBay.  The main difference is that none of the items you buy are real.  So you get into a legal issue where Blizzard will have to either make you sign a waiver saying none of the items are yours, even if you bought them OR they will have to insure items in game.  Which do you think they’ll do?

The point remains that people will spend real money to buy things, just like they did in Diablo 2 and most MMOs.  This time, Blizz will ensure they get a cut and essentially set a ceiling for gold farmers.  The bottom will still be gold farmers though.  That’s not going away – especially with the quality of bots today.

Ironically the person selling the guides was banned from D3 beta for selling the guides.  He can’t make money off the game during beta.  An interesting proposition.

Imperial Agent

Posted on by

So I started yet another alt since it’s still practically impossible to get any group going at 50.  I already have a 50 Sith Inquisitor (mage or healer) and a Bounty Hunter (mid-range tank).  I decided to try an Imperial Agent – you know, the suits running the starships?  They have two advanced classes, Sniper (long range DPS) and Operative (mid range DPS or Heals).

First, the play style.  You have a limited energy bar, it regens automatically but at different rates if you have less than 60%.  More = faster.  Bounty Hunter is the same.  This makes it so spamming skills does not work. Which, technically, would make you a horrible emergency healer compared to an Inquisitor.  Anyways, you start off with ranged attacks and 1 melee attack.  Your biggest move requires you to be crouched.  Cool I’m thinking.  I hit 10, take Operative and all of a sudden, I no longer have any worthwhile ranged moves.  I’ve turned into a Rogue, having to be behind the target.  Since most combat is against 3 players, sure does make it hard to live through it!  By far the hardest character to play and survive with.

Story next.  The class quest is probably the best so far.  You actually feel involved as a spy and it makes sense.  Either they patched some stuff out or I wasn’t high enough level but I missed a good half-dozen quests on my way to 16.  I have played a  solid dozen characters to 25 (though most inquisitors during the beta) so it’s weird not having those around.  I’m about 2 levels under where I should be and that’s concerning.  My Bounty Hunter wasn’t 50 when she finished her last quest and I was resting in cantinas for extra experience every log out.

Companion now.  The first one – and the first one for each class is the one you should use forever – is a ranged tank.  A piss-poor ranged tank.  Wears light armor and has no extra shielding, so if I end up against anything tougher than 3 normals, she’s dead.  With other classes, taking an elite was hard but 90% doable.  Now I die about 50% of the time because the tank simply cannot tank.  Plus the character looks cool but has a horribad story.

Cool tidbit, SWTOR emailed me when my character hit 10.  I didn’t get that for the other classes so maybe this one needs explaining to players?  I do know that the only people playing IA are in PvP and that you’d be lucky to find one sniper in 100 players.  A pure class (especially DPS) is dead in 2012.  WoW’s dual classes killed them (Pandas have 3 classes) and Rift’s ability to have 2-3 roles and 5 builds at any given time has changed the landscape of MMOs.

Anyways, it’s an interesting class where the story is better than the playstyle.  A lot better.  Which is pretty much the polar opposite of the Bounty Hunter.  Wonder which one people will want to play at 50 when the story is over?