IGN has a decent post (wow) about how gamers are turned off by trash talkers.  This gist is that 1/3 of all people stop playing games because of other people.

This is the #1 reason I don’t enjoy competitive FPS games and abhor most PvP in MMOs.  There are players of all calibers and I can accept that.  Some people cannot and the stuff that comes out of their mouths is insane. I guess they have such low self esteem that they need to put other people down to feel better about themselves.  I can’t see any other reason for it.  Helping a player improve rewards both you and them.  Degrading them makes them worse (they quit) and doesn’t provide you with any in-game benefit.

I also think that the gaming medium has a huge impact.  Starcraft is a perfect example of where players are competitive yet respectful.  You’ll see a “GG” every game.  Swap to a Call of Duty game though and you’d be lucky to find a single person say that in a week.

I wonder when the game companies will instill an ignore system where the matches no longer include people who are on each other’s lists.  The main issue here is that most ignore lists are too small.  I know in WoW mine was at the cap after the first month.  If I were to ignore 5 or more people in an FPS, it wouldn’t take long for me to hit the 1000 mark.  Maybe devs could put a temporary ban on people who hit certain milestones?  Let’s say 500 people report you, no matter the cause, that’s one heck of a red flag and you get a temp ban.  Hit the 5000 mark and you’re just done.  Then again, CoD has 4 million players, piles of bungholes and rakes in cash.  It’s hard to say that they would up their subscriber base if they magically banned 10% or more of their existing base.

So game companies have a problem.  They have 2 revenue streams and one of them doesn’t work very well on consoles and the other doesn’t work well on PC.  First, is the box sale in the store.  This is great for consoles as it doesn’t take up much shelf space but a month or two after launch, good luck finding the copy if the game isn’t a blockbuster.  They have a relatively small window in which to sell their game and make a profit (after the reseller takes a 15% cut).  The second option is the online store, which is great for PC players.  You can find a game whenever you want, sales are easy to access and there are infinite copies.  Resellers make a cut as well but since every game is a new game, it works well for the developers.

The issue is in resales.  You won’t find too many resales of PC games (maybe a lot of pirating though honestly, Steam is much easier than pirating) but you will find hundreds of resales of console games.  A resale goes 100% to the reseller.  Let’s take Assassin’s Creed as an example.  The game is good but the multiplayer sucks so people play it and sell it back to the reseller to finance their next purchase.  Player 2 buys the used copy 2 months after release for 1/4 the price and the developer doesn’t see a penny.  These are 2 distinct sales yet only one counts.

Compare that to movies with multiple revenue streams.  The cinema, rentals, tv distribution, netflix and hard copy purchases are all available before the used market.  Pirating is a larger issue for them then used movie resales and good luck trying to find a new movie for more than 25$.  Games start at 60$.

So, game companies sell an overpriced (judged by the consumer) piece of software that drops in value the instant it’s purchased and can be acquired in 2-3 months for half or less of the initial cost.  Developers then said, “hey, let’s make money long term”.  DLC came out where you could by expansion packs (like on the PC) for a nominal fee and extend the life of the game.  League of Legends is wholely based on this with DLC packs for skins.  Cool.

Next they said “maybe we can make new game purchases better”.  They added codes to new boxes that enabled multiplayer or gave free DLC.  If you had a used game you could buy them from the developers for a small cost.  Nothing too big and I understand it though the cost of this type of DLC/code is up for debate.  In many cases it’s next to impossible to get a new version of a game in the first place and others, it’s a much better deal to buy the game at 15$ and pay the 10$ fee to get the new game items.  Heck, sometimes it’s not worth it at all.

Finally we get the nexus of the two – the collector’s edition.  There was a time when this meant you had maps, books, music and a bunch of non-game stuff. That was awesome.  EA started pushing a change with in-game bonuses (pets, equipment, quests) in their games and simply saying “free day 1 DLC for new games”.  Day 1 DLC means it is part of the game and they split it off.  If you are not getting the DLC, then you are not getting the game.  I can’t remember the game off the top of my head but they had this in a MMO FPS game a few years ago and people went crazy over the imbalance.

Now we have Mass Effect 3 where the day 1 DLC includes a Prothean as a playable character (as well as guns and skins).  Protheans are the central people in the Mass Effect universe and if you don’t have the collector’s edition you can buy this DLC for 10$.  The collector’s edition costs 20$ more and comes with: 70 page digital art, lithograph, pet, skins and this DLC package.  In past games, just buying a new game normally would get you normal content (which this DLC is).  Now they are breaking up games to sell them to you in chunks to be sure to make as much money as possible.

So what does this all mean?  To me it means I now have to vote with my cash.  I really want to play Mass Effect 3, I mean really want to.  I won’t though.  I’ll wait a while, see if I can get the game from another reseller than Origin and get it all on sale.  The whole Origin debate is for another time but there is no way in hell I am putting an avowed root kit software on my computer.

If devs want to make money on each game sale, then day 1 unlocks is the way to go.  Day 1 DLCs are not.  Eventually, games will be streamed to consoles/pcs and require an account link to play – just like MMOs.  A few more years though.

After reading another Q&A session from BW, it just seems like they are putting the entire kitchen sink in their next major patch.  4 pages of crafting changes?  Doesn’t that just scream “we really mucked it up the first go”?  From what they say, 1.2 will have zero content and be entirely bug/feature fixes.  And there’s still no release date.  Not even for the LFG tool, which is so badly needed.

Oh, their PvP framerate answer is great.

You should see evidence of this work as soon as Patch 1.1.5, when we will be introducing a new ‘very low’ setting to shader quality, which should drastically increase the number of mid-to-low machines the game can run well on, especially in Warzones and Operations.

People with amazing rigs (me included) have exceptional framerate issues and massive memory leaks in PvP.  The Hero engine they are using is meant for single player games and the primary reason that all content is limited to 16 players at a time (compared to 40 vs 40 in WoW for example).  It’s unfortunate that in 2012, the toolset of a multi-million dollar MMO is not much better than that used on mobile phones.

Regardless of all this, if 1.2 releases a LFG tool, fixes crafting (near re-write actually), addresses the performance issues, fixes the still outstanding PvE bugs and reduces the difficulty of hardmode flashpoints it has a chance to get back a lot of people who have already quit.  Here’s hoping!

I realize the game isn’t out yet, heck, it doesn’t have a release date either.  Still, there are certain items being tested that should transition near seamlessly into the live client.  The game mechanics aren’t terribly interesting to me but the meta mechanics do and particularly the Auction House.

Recently, Blizz said:

• Listing fee is being removed.
• Transaction fee is being increased to 1.25 Beta Bucks.
• Minimum listing price is being raised to 1.50 Beta Bucks.
• You will be limited to 10 active auctions per auction house.

This means you’re taxed about 80% if you sell at the minimum.  To me, a micro transaction is in the 1-2$ range and when the seller only makes 25c on that sale at at most, 10 sales, that’s 2.50$ potential.  Now I realize there are going to be extremely stupid people who will post at that level – I made about 20K in WoW from people posting at below vendor value – but the point remains that Blizzard is clearly taking a massive cut from players.  A transaction fee should not MORE than the value of a micro-transaction.

I understand they want to set a firm bottom on their auction house and reduce risk by limiting farmer’s ability to post but at the same time, 3rd party players will easily circumvent this tool.  It’s like Blizz hired a high school economics student to build their strategy or perhaps Bobby has some finger in here.

The more I read about D3, the more I scratch my head at what they are trying to do.  I remember when Blizzard was about making quality games and now it seems that the focus is less on that aspect and more on testing revenue generating models.    Then other times, something like the LFR tool comes out and you say “that makes sense”.  It’s really all over the map.

All online games have the same problem – at certain times there are more people who are trying to play than the servers can handle.  For the past 20 years, this has meant queues to wait or simple denial of service.  This is also directly linked to the artificial surge in servers at launch, then empty servers 2 months down the road.  People are just driving by.

Star Trek online used a dynamic environment for loading the game client but not for the login server.  Which is kind of weird actually.  There were dozens of game instances but you had to wait to have access to them.

TERA is going to try something a bit different. Queues will remain but you’ll get an experience boost based on the amount of time you waited.  This is a tricky balancing act but a neat idea.

Guild Wars 2 is trying something completely different.  If your server is overloaded you’ll be given the choice of loading an overflow server to play on.  Same thing as a normal server, just people from around the world on it.  Once your server is up, you get prompted to swap over.  This allows developers to set up extra servers at launch and take them out when the initial surge dies.  Smart move.

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.