Month: January 2012

Replacing the Superficial Intelligence

Posted on by Gazimoff

I have an opinion on Non-Player Characters. It emerged in the days of the first escort quest I attempted, when the computer-controlled NPC I’d be chaperoning would sprint ahead to certain death at the hands of hungry skeletons. If they weren’t sprinting ahead they’d probably stopped to admire a particularly intricate pebble and forgotten all about me. Either way you’re probably looking at death or failure, or more usually both.

At that point my opinion of NPCs was cemented: dumb as a bag of bricks.

Since that day we’ve had Warlocks and Hunters in World of Warcraft trying to order around pets and minions. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Spin the artificial intelligence roulette wheel and find out if your trusty sidekick is going to help or just stand there like a lemon. And although things have improved over the years, the lemon is still on that scoring board.

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Getting Started with MMO Blogging

Posted on by Gazimoff

In the time since I started blogging about MMOs, I’ve learned a huge amount about writing, sharing and being part of a staggeringly huge community. In many respects though I’m still a noob, bumbling around and making mistakes. Things like the blog going offline due to setup or configuration errors because I’m too stubborn to use a free service, or losing my entire blogroll moving from one host to another.

I also look at the other bloggers and still feel amazed. How on earth does Tobold manage to come up with a new topic to write about every day? Where do Psynister and Cynwise find the time to put together their detailed, well researched guides? How does Spinks manage to read all the things and pull it all together into a well researched reflection of both the community and her own opinion? What inspired I Like Bubbles to convert the rant into an entertaining art form? How is The Daily Blink regularly and consistently funny?

When MMO Melting Pot mentioned that people felt intimidated by long-standing bloggers I was surprised to see my name listed there. I guess I still see myself as a newcomer to blogging compared to a lot of other people. It also reminds me how lucky I am to have created something that seems to work, even though I have no clue how I managed it. Part of me puts it down to trial and error, while another part reasons that it’s just fluke.

Even so, when I started out with MMO blogging I was given a bucketload of advice from a range of different people. There were many good lessons that I learned, but the four most important ones were these. I don’t know if they’re common sense (something I don’t have) or based on old proverbs, but they’ve worked for me. If you’re starting out as an MMO blogger or you’ve been doing it for a while but you’re struggling with it, I hope these are helpful.

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My Struggle with Sandboxes

Posted on by Gazimoff

I’ve been having a bit of a Minecraft kick lately, after finally getting enough time to enjoy the recent(ish) updates. The world generator now spawns features like abandoned mines, subterranean strongholds and populated villages as part of an Adventure Mode overlay.

The great thing about this Adventure mode is that it’s entirely optional. You can either spend time building the huge mine cart roller coaster you’ve always wanted, or you can build the portal, traverse the Nether and defeat the Ender Dragon. Or you can do both at the same time.

It’s also convinced me to check out the limited selection of sandbox MMOs currently available. After digging into EVE, Wurm Online (a previous Notch creation) and the Glitch beta, it becomes pretty obvious who these games are aimed at: builders. Go to this location, harvest these resources. Go to that location and build something with what you’ve gathered. Sometimes there’s a “kill ten rats”, but before you can do that you have to find a tree, cut it down, mine some iron, learn how to blacksmith, until finally… the rats have gone home for the weekend.

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LFD: No Simple Answers

Posted on by Gazimoff

Looking around the blogsphere today reminds me of battle re-enactment. I can see the same people pulling on the same uniform and dusting off the same weapons to have the same good-natured scrap over something. The sheep-skin drums are beating, the blue and red overcoats are being pulled on. The beer tent is filling up as the two sides filter in and catch up on old times. The battleground? Looking for Dungeon.

The argument is that Star Wars: The Old Republic needs a Looking for Flashpoint tool in order to help groups form for both levelling instances and endgame content. There are currently a large number of players unable to experience this content, either because their guild doesn’t have enough players at the same level or because they’re too busy enjoying the stupidly good questing content.

The choice seems to be between a Warcraft-style Looking for Dungeon tool, or not having one at all and just making do with shouting in the chat channels like some market trader. Neither is a great solution – one end leaves you frustrated with anonymous people you’ll never encounter again, while the other leaves you frustrated at the lack of response from other players as you sit doing nothing for hours on end. Either way you’re left frustrated.

The exception is if you have a guild that’s both large enough to support flashpoints (and populated with people who want to do that content) and which has people in broadly the same level bracket. If either is not the case then even with the best of intentions the guild is less of a guild and more of a social chat channel. But I digress.

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How SWTOR Will Make A Profit

Posted on by Gazimoff

There’s been a lot of talk recently about how Star Wars: The Old Republic was going to be BioWare’s most expensive mistake, ending up consigned in the footnotes of history as a video gaming failure. It’s easy to see where this comes from – at a $200 million price tag this is one of the most expensive games yet made. Yet it will, in time, make a profit.

When looking at console games the main driver is to make back the cost of the game in boxed sales. An XBox 360 game that shifts 2 million copies globally equates to roughly $120m in sales, of which the publisher is likely to see roughly $30m. If your game comes in at less than this budget or you sell more copies than the forecast then you’re into profit territory.

MMOs break this mold by placing some of the budget for the game against forecasted subscription, micro-transaction or “in-life” revenues. The Old Republic pushed this further than most, assigning a huge chunk of the project budget against these in-life revenues. It’s a bit of a gamble, which is why building up preorders is so important. But in this case, it should also pay off.

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Utterly Gobsmacked

Posted on by Gazimoff

This is how I feel at the moment. The last three weeks have left me in a bit of a daze, as I still can’t work out what’s going on. I’m still writing and still producing my fun (I refuse to call what I create ‘my work’ on principle), but there’s been a couple of things recently that have left me utterly dumbfounded.

First there was Justin Olivetti over at Bio break who awarded Mana Obscura “Best New Blog” in his MMO Community Awards. This was completely out of the blue – something I wasn’t expecting to see at all. For me to be listed next to so many great blogs was surprising and incredible and so many other things.

Yesterday was the second clanger – the MMO Melting Pot community awards were announced. These folks had continued the annual “Piggies” after Larísa from Pink Pigtail Inn retired from MMO blogging last year. I was doing some research for something I was originally planning on posting today when the news came up on Twitter.

I’d won the award for Most Solid Content Provider 2011. I still don’t believe it, so I’m going to quote Hugh from the Pot here:

I’m going to let you into a secret here – Gazimoff is one of the few people whose work I will not wait until the evening to read. If I see there’s a new post on Mana Obscura, I’m off reading that bad boy right away. His writing is consistently insightful, intelligent, thought-provoking and entertaining. So, if you’re waiting for me to fix an egregious guide typo or approve your comment, and Gazimoff’s updated that day (which, let’s face it, is more likely than not), I’m probably off reading his post when I should be working. He gets not only the blame for my procrastination but also our award for Most Solid Content Provider 2011

Winner of a Pink Pigtail Award

There are so many great bloggers whose content I really enjoy reading that were also nominated, and I was both amazed and surprised (again) to be listed among them. But to win? Inconceivable. After all, I’m just doing this blog for fun – it was never supposed to become something serious!

If I’m honest, these awards aren’t just for me. They’re also to the close friends that persuaded me to give MMO blogging a shot and who helped me out when I was getting started. They’re to the community over at Blog Azeroth that helped me get started, providing me with both technical and moral support. They’re to everyone who’s left me a comment saying thanks for a great article or responding with their own thoughts and opinions.

There’s also the people who I’ve bounced ideas off, who’ve given up lunches or afternoons just to talk about some game concept or other. There’s the people on Twitter and tons of other places whose random comments have given me an idea. There’s the video game journalists and bloggers who report the industry news and provide a steady stream of food for thought.

All I do is join the dots and write what I see. It’s all of you that put the dots there in the first place. For that, for the awards, for the recognition, for being there, for everything, thank you.

SWTOR: The Retention Rate Question

Posted on by Gazimoff

Earlier today I was listening to Talk of the Galaxy over on Galactic Public Radio, when they reminded me that the month of game time bundled with the full version of the game was about to expire and that subscriptions were just about to kick in. There was a little bit of debate about how many players would actually maintain their subscription after the end of the month, with the show hosts generally feeling that it’s a difficult thing to predict.

Trying to forecast renewal rates is pretty challenging at the best of times, mainly because there’s very few benchmarks on these figures for MMOs. The most common figure that’s announced is the total subscriber base, although sometimes we’ll hear about how those subscribers are distributed by market. We’re also not given churn rates, so we have no clue about the number of new subscribers coming in versus the ones that are leaving.

So what exactly is there to go on? Well, assuming that the best renewal rate BioWare can hope for is 100%, let’s have a look at what will help them keep that number high and what’s dragging it down like a lead weight.

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Access Denied?

Posted on by Gazimoff

During the SOPA and PIPA protests of January 18th 2012 this site was blacked out. All content was removed and replaced with the message below. Although the protest is now over (in the UK at least) and signs indicate that voices globally have been heard, your continued support is vital. Thankyou for your understanding.

Get used to the message above – you might be seeing a lot more of it in future. The U.S. Government is currently considering the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) – a move which could seriously damage the Internet as we know it should it become law.

  • It makes website owners liable for content posted by their users. Expect to see blogs close their comments and forums close their doors, just in case a user posts something that gets the site shut down.
  • It gives the U.S. Attorney General the power to seize websites that hold or link to infringing content. There’s no request for content removal and no court process or oversight. Places like YouTube, Reddit and Twitter could be pulled offline overnight.
  • It forces advertisers, payment processors and internet providers to block blacklisted sites, again without prior notification, court process or oversight. Sites could see themselves cut off from any revenue.

Gamers should be especially concerned by this proposed legislation – it’s got the potential to stop gaming blogs using screenshots, gameplay and howto videos being uploaded to Youtube and streaming tournaments through places like Twitch.tv. Many of the writers, voices and faces that are a part of the online gaming communities would be unable to operate in a post-SOPA world.

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SWTOR: So Now What?

Posted on by Gazimoff

Last weekend I finally managed to hit the level cap on my Sith Smuggler (edit: Sorcerer) in SWTOR and complete the class quest chain. Darth Gazimoff is now pottering around Illum and doing the occasional bit of space combat, but I’m realising it’s not enough to keep me interested for more than a few weeks. Once the quests run dry I’m left with the usual choices – alts or end game.

As Tobold puts it, there’s not really enough story in one class chain to last through more than a month of moderate play. I’ve decided to roll some alts, although rather than it being a new story it’ll just be the same one but told from a different perspective. The stories themselves are very good, but just like finishing a new book I’m left with a feeling of “now what?”.

The levelling experience has also highlighted a few things to me. I’ve only done a single dungeon – the Black Talon. I’ve not taken part in PvP and I’ve not done any operations. The guild that I’m in only has a small number of people at 50, so I’m currently kicking my heels a little. Space combat is still fun apart from the top-end missions that need every single ship upgrade.

For an MMO, it feels like I’m not getting into the multiplayer aspects of the game at all. The server – Trask Ulgo – has a pretty good population. So what gives?

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The Best Raids: Past, Present Or Future?

Posted on by Gazimoff

Last week a subject cropped up in one of the article discussions: is Warcraft raiding getting steadily better all the time, or has it reached a peak and is in decline. Answering this by itself can go either way – more people than ever are able to experience tier 13 due to the predicted arrival of LFR, but by contrast I’m observing more raidgroups than ever struggle with recruitment and retention.

Talk to your fellow raiders about the tiers that they’ve done and it’s likey that you’ll get some interesting answers depending on how long they’ve been playing. I did a similar straw poll on twitter recently. The top two raids were Ulduar and Karazhan by some margin, with Sunwell grabbing the third spot. Raids from Vanilla and Cataclysm barely got a mention.

I’ve asked the same question before and I constantly get the same answers. Ulduar, Karazhan and Sunwell. I’ve been trying to think why these instances are so well loved by so many raiders, and I can only think of a couple of reasons.

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