Coup de Grace

The pre-order grace periods are ending soon! If you pre-ordered the game, but have not yet entered your retail key, you can continue to play until the following dates. After your grace period ends, you will need to enter your retail key to continue to play.

North American Retailers:
Feb 6, 2010 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific.

Yes friends, that would be in about 3.5 hours from now.  Which means that I will lose days of game time…because my package is in the hands of the US Postal Service.  And you don’t want it in their hands.  Walmart shipped the game on Monday, and the USPS got it in Atlanta on Wednesday…and its still in Atlanta as of today, Saturday.  It still has to travel from Atlanta to Nashville.  The *earliest* I could receive my game would probably be Tuesday, and I’m not holding my breath.

I have no idea what to do.  I can’t yell at Walmart, because its not their fault, they did what they were supposed to.  I can’t yell at the Post Office, because they won’t be open and available again for 36 more hours.  Bleh.

Then again, this is a way to test Cryptic yes?  A chance for their Customer Service Staff to shine!

Oh, who am I kidding, I’m screwed…

Last Gasp for SWG, PotBS?

Is it just coincidence that Star Wars: Galaxies and Pirates of the Burning Sea are both offering up a full month of free time right now?  Or is something else lurking behind the emails sitting in my inbox offering me more free time than Sony is usually want to give for teaser sessions?

Is this SW:G final stand?

SWG is, overtly, rolling out some new PvP content that they want people on board for – but all the extra items and goodies they are offering with the free time highlight player housing – something more of an investment (and PvE nature) than PvP is.  In other words, they want the full spectrum of players on board.  Free play lasts until March 1st.

PotBS is highlighting their server merges (down to 2 from 5).  Trust me, I know from first hand experience how desperate the player base was for this.  My mid 20’s privateer regularly got invited to fleet battles with 40-50th level players, because they couldn’t fill their quota, and one more ship, even a small one, might be enough to tip the balance.  Interestingly, there is no word in the email of economy changes and updates, which are the core of whats wrong in Pirates.  Free play lasts until March 5th there.

On the one hand, this makes sense.  For those disappointed with Star Trek Online, and there are some, they need a fix.  Offering them a SWG, with its similiar high profile IP makes sense, as does offering up Pirates, a game that admitedly, offers game mechanics very similar to that offered on STO.  Covering this month gives them a chance to hook the disaffected, and perhaps those disaffected will stick around and bring in some of those that will not stay around past the free month of STO.

Beneath the surface though, lies the fiscal reality of Sony.  Sony is only just now getting back onto its feet after a year of losing money.   Giving a free month now means they can track how many people will stick around past the free time for the last month of their fiscal year, which ends March 31st.  If the free time doesn’t boost numbers by a certain amount – will that mean that they get chopped?

For me personally, I’m not sure a return to Pirates is in order.  The underlying frustration with the economy is not solved by more players – at least, not in the short term.  The only way to acquire ships abover level 25 or so is to join one of the pre-existing guilds, and even finding new ships below that is dicey.  Meaning that playing anything other than a pirate (with their ability to capture vessels) is frustrating.  With a larger player base things might turn over (it takes *alot* of players to build a ship, especially the high level ones), but not unless those players are sticking around long enough to build their economic empires.

Star Wars, on the other hand, is intriguing.  I really only stopped playing SWG because I wanted to participate in the launch of WAR, and I’d really like to give it another shot.  Crafting and economics were fun, space combat was good.  Population was – sparse and irritating.  But I’m sure the server mergers have helped.  I seem to remember somewhere though that since I didn’t transfer the characters, I’m going to have to start from scratch.  Only one way to find out…

I Died…

Yeah, its like the opposite of winning.  I’ve mentioned before my favorite free, browser-based game, The Reincarnation  (aka Archmage).  And how much regard I hold for the guild I am in there, The White Raven, the best run in any online game I’ve encountered.

Well in The Reincarnation (TR), the server resets every couple of months and people being the process of building their kingdoms again.  The  top ten at the end of each set is recorded at the time of the reset.  I play, aptly enough, on the guild server, which is set against the backdrop of guild wars and conflicts (as opposed to say, the solo server, with no guilds and a style encouraging a “you vs. the world” mentality). 

While guilds always provide a defensive protection against over-targeting from other players (attacking any one mage more than once in 24 hours is considered a faux pas), part of the fun is the offensive nature of guilds as well.  We regularly challenge other guilds to rise not just individually, but in the guild rankings as well.

The last two sets, our guild has issued severe beat downs.  Two sets ago we challenged a guild three spots higher than us in the rankings and soundly beat them.  Last set, we suffered through an internal coup that led to us joining a allience guild war that encompassed probably half the server.  We took down the betrayer and more than one of his sidekicks as icing on the cake.

So in some ways, we were due for a defeat.  A new guild arrived made up of some veteran players.  Rather than war with a guild higher than them in the rankings, the picked on one lower in the rankings – us.  Rather than issue a challenge though, they just started laying into us, and then war dec’d us.  All the more frustrating internally as we were trying to train a few new players that we had picked up to replaces the previous sets betrayal.   And by new players, I mean “had not played before.”  The game does give you an apprentice phase to get on your feet, but they timed their ambush to hit us right as those new players exited that phase.  They were the first to die, unfortunately.

Verdancy - for healer types and elf lovers.

Next a few of our veterans went.  I almost went down in the first two days.  I missed logging in for a day, and it happened to be the day it started.  I came in to chaos.  Fortunately, I was playing a Verdant (Green) Mage this set, good for its defensive abilities, so I managed to escape their offensive spells and sieges.  And then again a few days later.  And again.  The war has been going on three weeks now and I had ducked everything they threw at me.  Green mages are usually the first do get hit because we have access to spells that “heal” – dispel enemy enchantments and the like.

Finally, after recruiting some veteran independent players, they managed to lock me down with every offensive enchantment in the game, and drain me of all my mana.  But I got out with a little help from the Gods – a donation to one of them got me, of all things, a complete dispel.  But not before most of my land, troops, and money was gone.   I managed to get my fortresses back up (your “hit points” in the game) and even my mana to cast whatever dispels I would need…but I ran out of turns before I could build up any magic barriers.   Somewhere between 2am and 5am, they managed to relock every spell on me.  And hour later, I was seiged to death.

Its the first time I’ve ever died in the game – and I’ve played probably, 15-20 sets over the years, so that was disappointing.  But I take some comfort in knowing that it took some underhanded deeds by a more powerful guild to bring us down.  Not that we are completely gone yet.  We’re waiting to hear back from another guild, if they might be willing to aid us in the conflict.  And we still have 12 mages up and running, though we will lose another 3-4 in the next day if the other guild doesn’t step in. 

Intense times.  I think I may go back to playing a more offensive color though.  While I was good at dodging and helping our people stay alive, it was frustrating not being able to effectively take it to them on the other end of things.  If you want to give the game a try, let me know.  We could use more people, and hopefully, since their ambush of us has not been favorably received socially by the other guilds, you won’t die as quickly as this most recent batch of recruits did.  And yes, that is a challenge to you.

If you see this instead of your status screen, its all over...

Glitches FTW

 

 

 

 

What?  You can’t dual wield Disruptor Rifles?

I Won!

So I had just finished giving the kiddos a bath and were letting them have some extra playtime before bed (school is cancelled again here), when my phone buzzed with email (something I thought I would hate, but that has made my life incredibly easier).  I hit a few buttons, and  found that in my personal account was an email entitled ” Dell Taco STO Code.”  For a brief moment I wondered who knew I had wanted one, until the name on the email clicked.

See, in case you like STO and have been living under a rock this week, you know that The Ancient Gaming Noob was having a caption contest to give away some Del Taco shuttle codes.  I struggled with both the pictures.  And quite frankly I drew a blank on the second…I don’t even remember what I put down for it.  But I thought the first was good.

And  then, despair.  None of us were funny enough.  And said caption contest exited my brain from that point.  So I was super excited to see the email and know that I too would possess my very own Type-8 Shuttlecraft!

Yay verily, I agree that the captions weren’t laugh out loud funny, even mine, which was maybe worthy of a little chuckle, but not a full bellyache.  Still, I’ll take what I can get.  I don’t win a whole lot of contests myself, except back in the days of science fairs, and then I kinda cheated by finagling a way to have it put in the computer category, which back then only had about three people in it anyway (yeah, I got third).

So, Yay Me!

We Don’t See This Often Around These Parts…

From my front door...

 

From my back door...

Naming Your Ship 2

Sequal to the wildly popular Naming Your Ship.

For the Engineering Techies among you:

List of Mechanical Engineers

List of Aerospace Engineers

List of Engineers

For the Science Nerds among you:

List of Inventors

List of Capital Cities

List of Traditional Star Names

List of Hindu Star Names (Nakshatra)

For the Tactical Genuises among you:

List of Ancient Weapons

List of Medieval Weapons

List of Martial Arts Weapons

List of Military Aircraft

List of Military Commanders

List of Battles

Stunning

So I’m reading this, about the legendary fails in the MMO universe, and smugly noting to myself that Vanguard, as much as we complain about it, isn’t on there, when I click one of the side links regarding the failure of Star Wars Galaxies – a fail to pwn all fails, for those who are blind and clueless about what happened there.

And I see these following statement in the link:

Ms. LaBeff, for instance, said that she had canceled all three of her Galaxies accounts and had joined a new guild in World of Warcraft, another game, with her old Star Wars friends.

And I think, yeah there were some pretty hardcore SW:G people back in the day, like these EVE nuts with their three acounts. [Or not, see comments below]  But then I start the next paragraph, emphasis mine:

“Someone might wonder, well, it’s just a game, what’s the big deal?” said Robert Kruck, 54, an engineer for Motorola who lives in Schaumburg, Ill., who said he had canceled seven of his eight Galaxies accounts.

Holy Ever Lasting Gob Stopper.  Are you kidding me?  That’s $200 a month.  For a game…a GAME…A game.

But wait, there’s more:

“We just feel violated,” said Carolyn R. Hocke, 46, a marketing Web technician for Ministry Medical Group and St. Michael’s Hospital in Stevens Point, Wis. Ms. Hocke said she once had as many as 10 separate Galaxies accounts but has canceled all but one in the last two weeks.

Trust me Carolyn, I feel violated and dirty to boot.  Please tell me none of you are spending that much on an MMO?  Right?  I don’t know what else to say.  Honestly.  WOW.

But then having seen those numbers, I had to laugh at this:

Ms. MacIntyre said Galaxies had lost “significantly more” than the 3 to 5 percent of players who typically leave any online game every month. She said she expected the game to return to its previous subscriber levels in six months…

And we all know it didn’t.  And now we know why – not because the NGE was legendary fail, but because if you piss off the wrong three subscribers, you will lose twenty one accounts.  And trust me, no matter how awesome your advertising campaign is, you aren’t going to boost your numbers by 600% in six months.

If any of you out there has more than three accounts, please post a comment here so I can soundly brow beat you for your insanity.  kthxbye.

Great Posts V + Final STO Open Beta Thoughts

I’m trying to remember the last time a blog post made me laugh out loud.  Its been a long time, if ever.  So deserving of my version of the pat on the back, such as it is, goes to Potshot as he describes the continuing adventures of his crew on the USS Boursalt.   Maybe one day, I too will get to venture forth against the OrionPirates with its brave crew.

***

Meanwhile, over elsewhere, The Ancient Gaming Noob ponders lifetime subs.

I think I’ll be going the one year route myself I think.  The odds of me playing a game more than 16 months are slim (16 months is $240/$15).  EQOA, my first MMO is the only one I’ve ever lasted that long in (over two years).   WoW is a close second (13 mos), and EVE is third (prepaid to 12 mos).  So I know a game I really enjoy will last me a good year.  I know enough from Open Beta to know I’m going to be playing initially more than a month or two, which means I’m willing to take the bet that $10 a month for a year is not a bad deal.   Even if I only play 8 mos, I break even to be honest.

I will say that the enticements for the year and lifetime sub are laughable.  STO does not lend itself to alot of alts, and if the Beta is an indication, you will be getting 3 character slots.  Moving to 5 is…meh.  And the Borg character is a “whatever” moment.  You can easily build such a character without the lifetime sub – several of the characterstics it offers are duplicated elsewhere - same mechanics different fluff – but all anyone but you sees is the mechanics.

I’m still stunned at the hate poured out onto Cryptic.  I wish I had done a year or lifetime for Champions.  I like their design style and thought process.  Hey – don’t worry!  If STO is as bad as those who dislike Cryptic say it will be, I will be joining your ranks shortly…

The upside of the Open Beta was the game itself – its fun, it has some room for RP elements (more important to me than I indicate in my blog I think).   Its very stable as a client, and while it needs more polish, its pretty much ready to go…on the Federation side.

The downside – the Klingon side is a mess of non-existence (I went to five consecutive systems before I found one that worked last night), and the PvP system needs alot of work (though the play itself is fun).   Ground controls are still sluggish in response time.  Bridges are…as Potshot points out so eloquently…not what was hoped for.

In any case, I’m looking forward to Friday.

M-MO?

I get the impression there is a difference of opinion in the community about what constitutes “massive.”  Just how many unique users should be in any given server or universe.

2,000?

5,000?

10,000?

25,000?

50,000?

100,000?

To me the further up that number checklist you go, the more the game becomes anathema to me.   I’m looking for the subtle balance that gives enough people for a full looking and acting world, but without so many people that the auction house gets inflated to “billionaire’s club only” levels.    Enough people that  I can find a decent group, but not so many that I don’t feel like I have a place and a face in the world. 

With newer shard type structures that picture changes too.  I’m not sure if its better or worse in the long run, but it is something different to experiment with.  It allows for the higher numbers while keeping some of the strengths of the smaller numbers.  But I understand that some people don’t like that certain “rooms” of the shard will only accomodate a limited number of players.  I get why you’d want to squeeze 20 people into an area set up and balanced for 5, I honestly do.  We did that alot back in the old days of EQOA.

“Either you’re part of the problem or you’re part of the solution or you’re just part of the landscape.”

~ Sam (Robert DeNiro), Ronin 

 

I like to play with the numbers a little bit sometimes in my head.  When DnD 3rd edition came out, the Gamemasters Manual had a nice town generator in it.  It would even generate, in any given town, how many able bodied milia and how many heroes were a part of the town.  Their rule of thumb was that heroes constituted 1% of the general population.  And of that 1%, not all of them went adventuring, because the more powerful you are, the more ties you have, the larger a niche you have carved for yourself, the more attention it needs, the less time you have to go gallavanting in caves and dungeons and dragon’s lairs.

5,000 people on your server?  5 million in population.  That’s an interesting enough ratio isn’t it?  Generally in towns and things, we don’t even see enough buildings to hold a population as large as the number of players walking around.  And there certainly aren’t enough farms (or at least, farms not covered in angry mobs) to feed them.  Maybe the M- in MMO needs to be balanced a little more by ecology and lore and a little less by server architecture?  What would that look like?  Feel like?  Play like?

And interesting as it is, what about that second part?  The MMO paradigm is that the more powerful you are, the more free time you have to raid places.  For PnP RPG’s, the exact opposite is true.  At best, the top line heroes in some MMO’s might command a castle (Shadowbane, Age of Conan, Everquest II, Darkfall too I assume), but for the most part, all you are really commanding is a room or two in a house.  No servants.  Certainly no militant warriors to fight with you, or relationships with people in places hi and lo to call upon.  I can see where that might be difficult to seed and bring to life in an MMO, where people tend to “cap and trade” quite quickly, and then would spend their time amassing mostly useless sprites and squatting on land to prevent others from climbing the ranks (‘Course, hardcore PvP’ers may be drooling at that opportunity).

But the bottom line is this I think, at least for me, today, in this post:  finding a new iteration, a new adventure, in the world of MMO’s is not going to come from the business end.  Its not going to come from the technological end.  Its going to be an impetus from the lore, from the passion and drive and crazyed, obsessed interest in players doing something different.  And I can’t wait for it to get here.