Lucky Austria - Album 1

Lucky Austria, Take 2 - Album 1

Steamboy

Never thought I might actually want a handheld again...

ESO Crafting

This seems promising to me. However, I'm disconcerted on the lack of comment about whether upper tier gear will be craftable and, if so, what components will be used. The strong trend towards upper tier craftable items requiring raid components to make (looking at you SWTOR) has really put a nail in the lid of the coffin of many MMO's for me. I've always loved crafting, but the crafter as a second class citizen within game has always been deeply disturbing to me.

I think perhaps it's a problem of perception. It's true, many players don't bother with crafting, or if they do it's such a limited facet of their gameplay as to be statistically insignificant. But I think tying it to raiding/hardmore instances is pretty much the opposite of what should be happening. My kinship in lotro was originally crafting oriented (at launch when crafted items were worthwhile), and while it has since gotten away from the crafting focus, many members still craft items for one another. It's an essential social interaction, one that is often very useful in game as the playerbase, and our kinship, is composed of adults, many of us with time consuming jobs and families, and we don't have a lot of time to run an instance thirty times to collect whatever hides to make a cloak that we'll use for few months at best.

Perception. Is crafting perceived as for casuals? Or is it perceived as a boring element of the game that many players don't want to mess with? Or as a time sink with little reward? Are some combination therein, depending on the game you're talking about?

Personally, I would strongly argue that it should be a parallel means of gear progression that should be comparable to other avenues. Who deserves a top tier piece of gear more? The player who put in one hundred hours raiding? What about the player that put in equitable time gathering resources and crafting? Both players sunk ink significant amounts of time and effort into a game they enjoyed, a game they're paying to play. So why should one inherently have a lesser experience, one which from the outset the player knows will have significantly less reward?

Crafting as Expression

One of the most intriguing aspects of the video is the level of customization going into each item, including type, material, style, and traits with which to imbue each item. This is the singular element which all MMO crafting has lacked as of late. Though I never played Star Wars Galaxies, it's crafting legacy has certainly lived on in terms of dashed expectations with each successive themepark release. Crafting in every MMO on the market today (that I've played) is shallow and pointless at best, a resource sink/raiding side game/indulgence at worst. 

Developers have a keen sense of trying to make certain elements in their games memorable. Boss mechanics, progression raids, storyline, pvp (be it arena or persistent), heck, even character [aesthetic] customization is broadly expanding in many games. (Though none can touch lotro's cosmetic system, in my humble opinion.) But crafting has consistently been the red headed step child that no single developer has known quite what to do with.

Well, frankly, I think I have the ignored answer. The answer devs probably don't want to hear because it's probably not cost effective nor the popular opinion put forth by the more vocal playerbase. Crafting should be an expressive avenue of game play completely equal to Raiding, pvp, etc as an endgame goal. It should be based upon resource gathering, exploration, and yes, time. Not time spent waiting in a queue, or time wiping on a boss, but rather time finding and gathering those resources, time crafting them into components, and then time making them into items, improving those items, adding effects/enchantments onto those items, etc. 

SWTOR, by making crafting something passive that happened in the background, may have enabled many to craft, but they completely alienated a segment of the population - actual crafters. The people who want to make gear, who want to explore, and want to sit down in a crafting center, socialize with other crafters, trade resources in person, take commissions, etc, were completely robbed of that experience. Crafting in that game is a) irrelevant if you don't run instances/raids, as most crafted items of worth require such resources and b) completely impersonal and detached. Which is great if you hate crafting I guess. But some of us would like a crafting system made for crafters, not a crafting system made for fourteen year olds. 

Summary (End Rambling)

I'd honestly hate to get my hopes up that this crafting system will have depth and character. I'd hate to think I might be able to go into end game content with crafted gear without being mocked as a newb. I'd hate to think that maybe, just maybe this is a crafting system for crafters, intent on creating a rich and diverse in game economy and sub play experience, a social hub, and an avenue of progression. Because when I think that, I know I might just be disappointed. I know that I probably won't receive any of those things. 

But boy do I want to believe.

Withdrawals

...from blogger? No. From gaming. My desktop has been bricked for some time now (I suspect cooling issues) and I've been forced to rely on my laptop. Well, now the laptop is acting like it has a corrupted hard drive or some other hard drive issue. So, the desktop is in the shop (for two weeks now... I'm growing impatient) and the laptop is collecting dust, all the while I'm dreaming of the new Civ V expansion, which I might add Europe is going to have access to before I do. Europe.

The French will play the game before me.

But hey, it's cool. It's my only three week window of zero responsibility the entire year that I can devote to gaming.

I swear, I'm being taught a lesson for something.

Disney Closes Lucas Arts

Via Game Informer:

"After evaluating our position in the games market, we've decided to shift LucasArts from an internal development to a licensing model, minimizing the company's risk while achieving a broader portfolio of quality Star Wars games. As a result of this change, we've had layoffs across the organization. We are incredibly appreciative and proud of the talented teams who have been developing our new titles."

I know the studio hasn't produced much recently, but I was really hoping for new installments in the X-Wing series at some distant, far off point in the future.

The Roll of the Dice

...or the d20 at least.

A group of my closer MMO friends (specifically, that I have never met in real life) and I have recently started a Pathfinder group via Skype. The reasons for this are many, and maybe the subject of a future blog post regarding our jaded disenchantment with the state of the MMO industry at the moment.

Dystopian outlook aside, the experience has been fun. Only our GM has any clue what he's doing, the rest of us are green and fumbling along as we go. He's been kind and we've been introducing mechanics over time. I figure by the fourth or fifth session, we might actually understand most of what we're doing. At which point we'll add more mechanics no doubt.

I have to say, the most captivating aspect of the game came as a surprise to me: The dice roll.

If you know me, you know I'm kind of a control freak. "God Complex" may or may not be an appropriate term. So the fact that I enjoy letting fate decide my hand kind of caught me off guard. I'm still trying to reason out what it is. The uncertainty? Knowing I may have to completely redo my strategy on a whim because of a bad roll? I don't know but it's there.

I know at least of a part of my likes the extremely tangible aspect of the roll. Dice on wood. The sound. There's something very real about it. It's a nice contrast to the digital gaming world I'm used to.

Deja Vu

I'm convinced its the player reloading me from the last checkpoint. Here's to hoping I make good decisions this time around.

The Argonath

Because if you don't know, you've lost all nerd cred.

Pay to Win?

The Set Up

So I was thoroughly enjoying my summer yesterday, spending some time on my Klingon STO character in warzones, etc, and trying out some (stale) PvP arenas for the first time in a long time. Having recently capped my Klingon toon, I took advantage of the afternoon and picked up the B'rel Retrofit Bird-of-Prey with my *free* ship token (given to Gold Members of the game - subscribers or lifers) I received for capping a character.

Given that the only really viable build that takes advantage of its unique Enhanced Battle Cloak is that of torpedo boat, I decided to load her up with various strange builds, pop into Ker'rat (which you should try if you haven't) or an arena, and see what works best. 

The Shock!

Upon entering my first arena and engaging a cowardly federation dog, I was immediately accused of being lame, cheating, being unfair, pay-2-win slander, etc. This amazed me for a few reasons: 

1. I didn't buy this ship through the C-Store. In fact, I doubt many people have. When you cap a character as a gold member, you received a token which can be exchanged for this ship. I chose to do just that. So I didn't 'pay-to-win' any more than any other subscriber of any traditional MMO might 'pay-2-win.' I mean, it's like accusing a WoW player for paying-to-win because he has a piece of geared bestowed upon him through a quest for capping his character. It makes no sense.
2. I was the weakest link on the Klingon team. In fact, my DPS was lowest. By far. As in, I wasn't even close to being fourth in DPS. If anything, I hindered the team with my *experimental* build. But people insist on knee-jerk reactions.
3. The Feds, as usual, have terrible tactics. They spent more time complaining in the arena chat than actually trying to play well. Cloak is relatively easily rendered useless through several means. Science officers have a skill to see through it. Science Bridge Officers also have a skill to see through it. (Which, I might add, makes it available to any career path.) Numerous federation ships have the ability to see through it. Yet I didn't see any of these used in the entire match. Nor did they act as a group. Nor did they focus fire any targets. There's a reason it was a slaughter, and I wasn't it, I assure you. In fact, it could have been four to five and the results would have been the same.

The I.K.S. Sneaky Snake poised to strike!

The Broader Question


Aside from the ignorant accusing me of things of which I was not guilty, I think there is a more important underlying question here, one of the free-to-play model in general. If you're going that route, its accepted that there has to be a cash store to generate a profit, and to generate that profit you have to be willing to give the customer what they want. If the ships in the store offer no benefit for your money, who would buy them? The game would sink faster than Star Wars Galaxies.

So there has to be some benefit. And those ships do have a benefit, but its is game-breakingly unbalancing? I think not. A tool is only as good as the craftsman using it. I had the most advanced stealth in the game, yet I still haven't figured out an effective way to make use of it. If you pay for a ship with a seemingly powerful console, but don't have sound tactics, it'll just be wasting a console slot.

And I think the same could be said of any other game with a store. There may be a store. There may be good items in that store. But that doesn't mean the player will be paying to win. Should they get the benefit for their money? Sure. Does that mean they'll use it effectively? Heck no. And if the feddies I was toasting knew how to defend against a cloak, I was have popped like a balloon in my glass cannon. They just don't know where to shoot.

So I think the reaction to this whole concept is simply blown out of proportion. The game is still playable, is still enjoyable, and you don't have to spend a dime if you don't want to. But if you do, there are benefits for you, not the least of which is you know, the continuation of the game you feel so entitled to. Everybody wins.