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August 30, 2008

LotRO - Two Slots!

Even though I'm not playing, Avo posted (in a previous comment) this post of his wherein he learns some stuff that's coming up in LotRO, based on his visit to PAX: Carpe Jugulum • View topic - TWO SLOTS! 

Sounds like a fun time!


Posted by Dave at 10:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: LotRO , Resources & Rules

August 29, 2008

CoX - Margie reads the boards

Commentary / items related:

1. How about a Zookeeper Mastermind ... including Rikti Monkey pets!

2. Some hardcore RPers are upset over the "Day Job" I13 feature. "How dare you force my character to be an X when I sign off at Y That's completely out of character!" Um ... okay, so ignore it. Or sign off at a "I'm on Patrol" place.

3. People are speculating about the home-grown Mission stuff for I13, too. How will the Mission Builder be accessed? More importantly, how will the missions themselves be accessed. (My guess for the latter -- all those near-useless kiosks out there. At least on the Hero side.)


Posted by Dave at 1:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

CoX - New! Exciting!

Finally did some solo work with Al McGordo last night -- Fire/Rad Controller. Got on a sewer mish, which I think is the fastest way to advance beginning toons if it works right -- and this one did. Not quite sure how, as there was no strong leader, but I think it was just that the group didn't "decay" very quickly. We lost one ("gtg") early on, but kept seven more for an unreasonably long time, and delved deeper than I've been in quite some time. 

The Fire/Rad combo is already turning out to be fun. Rad's debuffs are a hoot, I get a nice area heal, and the Fire gives me a solid Hold (and, now, Hot Feet!). In the end, dinged up Al four levels, to 8. Now on to Kings Row and a temp travel power!


Posted by Dave at 9:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay

August 27, 2008

LotRO - Into the West ...

Uninstalled LotRO this evening. It's a beautifully crafted world, an expansion of Tolkien's writings that deserves accolades. I just didn't find it a gripping enough game to stick with it (esp. compared to City of Heroes).

I will continue to peer over Doyce & Kate's shoulder to see what wonders they discover, but the road, for the moment, doesn't go on and on. Except to Rhode Island ...


Posted by Dave at 6:04 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: LotRO

August 26, 2008

CoX - I13 News

Via Greppo, it's the I13 sneak peak! Hightlights:

Mission Architect: design your own missions and story arcs. Very spiffy (and, I suspect, a lot harder to make something interesting than it will seem). On the other hand, on a low level, this now means an unlimited pool of new (user-rated) content.

Day Jobs: While you're offline, depending on where you park, you go to your "day job" -- e.g., if you park in City Hall, you work as a City Official, which earns you extra influence; if you log out in a University, you're working as a Scholar, which earns you salvage. Keep doing it, and Day Job Badges and Titles result in a higher "salary," etc. 

This is CoX's version of other games which give you "stuff" even while you're not on with your toon, which is kind of nice.

Power Sets: Shields! Pain Domination! The former is open to both sides; the latter is only for Villains (the opposite of Empathy).

More Cimerora Missions. That reminds me -- we need to run some.

Merit Rewards: Okay, this sounds interesting:

A new game system that allows players to earn tokens by completing Trials, Task Forces, Strike Forces, Raids, etc. The most challenging and time consuming tasks grant the most reward tokens, which can be redeemed throughout Hero and Villain zones for recipes, enhancements, salvage, costume pieces, badges, inspirations and other game items.

 

Hmmm. And how is that going to differ from Influence? And if there is a distinct difference, is that fair to folks who solo/duo and never run in Trials/TFs/SFs/,etc?

Etc.: New IO sets, Costume sets, Patron Power respec, Zone Refinements, and more.

Nothing earth-shattering, but a nice release. The boards have it that it may not go live until after the Winter Event kicks in, but they are trying to make it still happen in 2008.


Posted by Dave at 8:42 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

CoX - Making ... and losing ... money

Okay, I confess, I'm spending a goodly time hanging at Wentworths and doing crafting and all that. I'm not as fanatical about it as some, and sometimes it's an "I have some free time but don't want to sign off, so let's just do something" activity, but I'm still at least mildly hooked. Honestly speaking, it's the money/influence. Even though everyone swears up and down you don't need XOs and IOs to make an effective character, I still feel like I'm missing out on something when I don't actually sell that Deific Weapon for 4 million at auction. And as long as I'm doing that ... well, heck, I got this recipe dropped on me and I have almost all the ingredients ... and ...

Yeah.

The problem is, of course, I'm an altaholic, which means I have plenty of characters to do this with. Even just looking at my main duos with Margie, we have several that we cycle between.

It is a little-known fact that auction stuff gets flushed after, oh, something like 30 days of inactivity.

You see where I'm going.

Yes, with various hiatuses in playing, there have been times when I've returned to a character -- "45 day ago" -- only to discover that all that money I had invested in bidding on stuff has essentially vanished. Basically, if a transaction was accomplished (as they almost always are over time), then that "bought" or "sold" has vanished after the expiry date, taking with it the item or the influence.

*sigh*

Now we know why I'm not a Day Trader in Real Life.


Posted by Dave at 8:09 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay

Phasing

Doyce points to a cool article on "phasing" content in MMOs. The idea is to strike a balance between a static world and a heavily instanced one.

Brack gives the example of a quest where a player needs to rescue villagers from a Scourge-infested town. Players who complete the quest will see the villagers they've rescued back at the quest hub whereas players who haven't done the quest will not. WoW Insider's Alex Ziebart experienced the same after doing a series of quests involving the Wind Serpent Goddess, who appeared for him in town after completing her quests. She was there only for him and wasn't visible to other players (who presumably haven't done the quest series). It's a new way to bring a new experience to players without having to load anything (such as in instances).

 

It's an interesting idea to fight an age-old problem in MMOs -- how do players know that they are having an impact? Taking CoX as an example, no matter what I do as a hero (or villain), the only thing that really changes is myself. Yes, I get passers-by discussing my virtues/vices, and, yes, the contacts may mention something based on the last mission I fought. But, really, the world around me and the NPCs I interact with don't really change one whit no matter what I do.

The previous alternative to this was to deal with instances. This could be small-scale -- in CoX, something that happens at the end of a mission -- or it could be large-scale -- the wholesale change in the world in LotRO when you complete initial half-dozen levels (the best example of which is the one for humans/hobbits, where the town is now recovering from the fires and bloodshed of the brigand raid).

Phasing, instead, "simply" tailors what characters see and hear based on stuff they've done. A simple example in CoX (were this implemented there) would be if, after the Ernesto Hess TF, the big central "mountain" on Striga was a broken-topped smoking ruin ... for you. For someone who hadn't done the TF, it would still look intact.

That points out the key problem with phasing, which is that two players, side by side, might experience very different things.  If I'm teaming with some folks who haven't done the Hess TF, and make reference to that cool smoking ruin, they'd think I was nuts. It would (further) strain the suspension of belief for doing the TF a second time (either while at level, or mentored down).

I can imagine it being used in more subtle ways, though, that would be less jarring. Perhaps a "Thank You, Captain Ultra" banner over a building (that each person might see with their own name). Maybe if you've gotten certain hunt badges, the text that those hunted groups use in dialog with you changes. Or perhaps a mission that changes how you (graphically) see certain bad guys (or good guys) -- as more or less menacing -- in future encounters.

Anything that helps tailor the MMO experience more to the individual, while still maintaining that "mass" community, is a good thing.

 

 


Posted by Dave at 7:28 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

August 25, 2008

CoX - Poking at bad guys

More Kitsune/Ex-Terra action over the weekend, up around 34, which means Bricks into Founders, zone-wise. We're picking and choosing our story arcs and generally having a good time. 

As a pair, we're sort of like a Regen Scrapper ... everything golden until it goes into the toilet fast. Ninety-nine percent of the mobs we engage we simply carve through like butter (we're running on Unyielding at the moment). But there was some death involved over the weekend. Aside from the one case of "gosh, I guess ambushes will come after me if I stand in the train station while on bio break just after I've taken a hunt mish," the rest were all about drawing too much aggro, too quickly. For all my smacky-smack controlling with Illusion, it's also easy to draw a lot of unwanted attention with the Rad secondary. And a lot of my powers have a long cast time, so it's easy to watch the health bar drop-drop-drop-gone while waiting to get power X fired so that I can throw a heal.

Biggest regular problem was in the Bricks (Talos) Safeguard mish on the side mission to stop the jail break. Eleventy zillion Tsoo bosses. We both took some temporary dirt naps with those.

Still, fun times.

Margie's been doing soloing with Old Star, who's a Fire/Rad Controller, and evidently quite soloable. I rolled a clone of Al McGordo as the same (instead of a Rad/Rad Defender), but didn't get any play time.


Posted by Dave at 11:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Character Design , Gameplay

August 18, 2008

What makes for a successful RP SG?

A few days ago, one of my three faithful readers sent me a note.

I've been following your City of Heroes blog for some time, and wanted to pick your brains on the RP SG that I've been invited to run on Virtue. The SG in question was once a fairly strong SG with lots of players and a rich RP environment, but attrition in leadership coupled with poor recruiting (and other dramas) has lead to its considerable decline in the last six months. The current status is that the SG is basically dead, but has a ton of prestige and a long history. My goal is to reverse its fortunes in relative short order.

 

The person (who will remain nameless, since it was sent off-list) then proceeded with the brains-picking.

Now, I'm not sure I'm best qualified on the subject. Yes, I've done tabletop RP games, and PBeMSs, and, yes, I've both played in and run an RP Supergroup in part of an RP Coalition.

On the other hand, the Consortium of Justice was very intentionally an "RP Lite" group (this should be fun, not work), and, of course, the RP Coalition which I was a leader in managed to blow itself up quite nicely over a series of Unfortunate Dramatic Events. So my quals here are a bit sketchy.

That said, I'm a manager in real life, so I'm either qualified to talk about group management, or else am an expert at sounding like I am. So here's what was asked and what I wrote, just for the record, and to stir up some conversation. I've edited it slightly to untangle some of the email thread.

(Ironically, Doyce was just posting about "guild drama," whence the amusing graphic below. And I suspect a lot of what I write here applies not just to CoX, but to LotRO, WoW, etc.)

Have you ever run an RP SG? Have you ever been in one? What were the qualities that made it successful?

Though I enjoyed doing RP stuff in CoX, I was (and am) too much of an alt-fiend to get tooooo much into the full-time RP character. My goal was to always speak in character, drop some interesting hints about my character in conversation (and follow up with same when someone chose to pull on the threads), and to have a good time. We were one of the "Light RP" groups in the Coalition.

But in the RP groups and the aspects of the Coalition that worked well, hmmmm ...

  1. Strong leadership.
  2. Group events/activities (to allow for RPing). A feeling of *community*
  3. A willingness to have *fun*. It can't be all drama llamas, as much as some folks will try to make it so.
  4. Utter ruthlessness at booting folks who tear down the fabric of the community. Being nice and hoping they'll be nice too usually meant that problems got worse, not better. If it were to be done, 'twere best done quickly. And be open about what happened and why, and note that it's not open for argument.
  5. Utter openness and honesty from the leadership. As much as desires for confidentiality and privacy may seem important, nothing can get a group divided against itself than the sense that the Leaders Are Keeping Secrets. Especially if they're kvetching about the players behind their backs.
  6. A leadership that sets an example (leads) by being around a lot, and offering to play with other SG members when they get on, esp. new ones. Nothing kills an SG faster than it becoming a clique of leaders who simply invite folks in to build a nice base. A part of that is usually having (at least for the leaders) some lower-level alts to be able to shift to.
  7. [Added] People come and people go. Don't get desperate about forcing the former and avoiding at all costs the latter. It will lead to bad decisions. If it's a good group, people will join, and stay, If you are too eager to bring folks in, or too eager to appease them from leaving, you're making compromises that will come back to haunt you.

In short, I think a strong RP SG operates about the same as a strong SG in general, except that some extra care needs to be taken to foster that fragile suspension of disbelief that makes the RP stuff work.

Hmmmm, what else? Themes are good. Some of the better RP SGs had a strong theme or story behind them, and one that drove their "events."

I'd add in [I did not in the original of this] an in-person, in-character interview for RP groups. If the person can't RP an SG interview, they won't do a good job later on. And it gives the leadership a chance to see if the RP concept will actually work with the SG.

CoX is an interesting game in that it still has a relatively strong user base, based on the fact that it's a superhero MMO where none existed previously. Do you think that SG declines are occurring in general, or do you think that there is room for another RP SG in the world?

Hard to say. Certainly overall CoX population is down. Virtue is a good server for this simply because it has a large population. I've been invited to some SGs, but the populations have never been such that there were ever many people around. And my own interest has, honestly, faded enough that I don't feel the need or have the time to be dedicated enough to be a good, contributing SG member. Alas.

That said, I think there's always a place for a good RP SG in any world worth playing in. :-)

I've run many organizations before in many games, so the "business" side is familiar to me. The challenge in this one is to run a heavy RP organization and to revive a dormant brand, as it were.
It might be interesting to advance the "story" around the revival of the "brand" for the characters, new and old. In other words, how is it in Paragon City that the Ultra Corps is suddenly being revitalized, or why is Captain Metallo and his cohorts trying to revive the Ultra Corps to its glory days? In other words, it's not just a change in management, it's an adventure! (And if there are some multiple layers to the tale -- the one for public consumption, and one that only the "leaders" know but about which hints might be dropped to the troops, or newly initiated leaders are let into the know about ("... Statesman is really a Rikti spy, and we've re-formed in order to tackle the Freedom Phalanx when they finally turn on humanity?!")
I've been in heavy RP organizations before, so I understand the atmosphere, but this will be the first time I'll be administering it.

It's different -- and it makes it harder in some ways to maintain RP for yourself (you always have to be sort of monitoring things on a meta level). Best advice is:

1. Find others to share the burden with. Burn-out is the biggest threat.
2. Behave as you'd want a leader in your previous groups to behave.

 Thoughts? Anything else I should have mentioned?


Posted by Dave at 10:27 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Consortium of Justice , Gameplay

CoX - Ping

Well, I was away for three weeks on business and holiday. And then playing catch-up on stuff at home. And then ...

Well, I didn't fire up CoH until this weekend. Margie's been doing some solo stuff while I was otherwise engaged, but she was happy to have me hop on and join up with me. Wait, that wasn't quite the way I wanted to phrase that ...

Anyway, we pulled up Kitsune-chan and Ex-Terra. I was surprised we'd gotten them up to 32, which I sort of see as a magic level for characters (perhaps because Velvet, my first successful character, plateaued at). We're deep into Croatoa stuff right now, which means lots of nice magic salvage, and now that Kitsune has Fred the Phantasm, she has a nice array of pets, Illusion powers, and Rad debuffs to play with. Usually we start off with her turning the biggest bad guy. Then Ex-Terra hops in, and I either drop Scary Sam (Spectral Terror) or drop my Rad debuffs on the Turned guy, or both. I'm usually in close enough at that point for Fred to get involved, and for my own choking Rad cloud to be playing a role, and between spamming Blinds and keeping the heavies turned, and (as a last resort) calling in the Boy (Phantom Army), we rarely run into too much of a problem -- unless one or the other of us takes a wave of damage too quickly.

Fun. Probably boring to read about, but fun. This pair could easily be our next 50.

Hit 42 months Vet Reward, by the bye, so we both now have a Team Teleport power, which just makes life a little bit easier.


Posted by Dave at 10:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay