The PvP Longevity Fallacy

As I've been grinding scenarios for XP in WAR I've had a lot of time to think about PvP and MMOG's and what I like to do. I wanted to talk about this but I'm realizing that to explain my feelings I need to explain other things first.

The PvP Longevity Fallacy

If you look at Counterstrike, Starcraft, DoTA, Halo, you'll see that these really popular games have staying power because you can play against other people.

I've heard this point argued many times in defense of WAR but I heartily disagree.

If a person likes a single player game, they buy it and play it. If a decent number of people like a single player game, they buy it and play it too. If you sell enough copies to pay for development, then hey -- suddenly you have a franchise.

PvP games aren't quite that simple. A person buys it, then logs on to see who else is playing. If it's one of the 800 pound gorillas -- your Counterstrikes, your Halos, your TF2's -- they'll find plenty of conveniently (nearly) full servers running the particular flavor of game they like and then everybody's happy.

Now, if you're a mid-tier competitive game, you do still have people playing. But you might have trouble finding good games to play at your skill level, or with the levels you like, or rules you like, etc. You might take a day off and think, "Hey, I'll get some extra playtime in" just to discover that every server is dead during the day.

And then there's the dregs. You need a critical mass to play online and some games lose it quickly and entirely. The multiplayer game really can't be bought or sold strictly on the merits like its single player brethren -- the quality of the game depends on how other people view the merits.

That's why, when I get one of my FPS or RTS hankerings, I won't start looking for a game I'd like the most. I'll start looking for the game that everybody else plays, so I can get some good competitive multiplayer.

It's called inertia, and it's why some good PvP games last forever while others die sudden deaths.

Improving low tier open RvR and PQ's

Being in a guild with a bunch of bloggers is rather interesting, because you'll think of something during the day and think "hey, that's a good idea for a blog." Then you'll log on to vent that night and somebody in vent will say, "hey, you know what Mythic needs to do ...", and proceed to describe your exact idea.

So I'll admit that my ideas are unoriginal, because between thinking of them and writing them I've already seen some of them written down. So instead of a "proposal" for improving the lower tiers, consider it my "vote".

1. Hot Pairings for low tier RvR
   
   It's real simple -- in fact, it's a lot like WoW's battleground holidays and Mythic's plans for revolving capitol cities:
   
   
   Make one pairing a night give double XP, double renown.
   
   Players are going to be spread really thin in the lower tiers before too long, and it would be nice to bring them together for some open RvR. Personally, I spent about 20 minutes doing open RvR in tier 1 because there just wasn't anybody to fight or anything to do, which leads me to my second proposal ...
   
   
2. Hot PQ's
   
   Same idea, only applied to PQ's. Every hour the "hot PQ" changes, and gives increased XP, influence, and better rewards. This would make it a lot easier to round up a group for low-tier PQ's.
   

Thoughts on Blizzard's Dual-Spec Announcement

I’m disappointed in WoW’s announced spec-change system. I’m glad they added something, but I don’t think they went far enough.

Blizzard has a habit of trusting their players too much. Ninjas, griefers, and bad guild management thrive in WoW as a result.

Blizzard accordingly looked at the spec problem, and saw that healers and tanks were stuck with either a “primary” talent build for PvE, or a “dps” talent build for PvP and soloing.

I agree that this is a problem -- however, most players would identify, I think, a much more insidious problem – that they are forced to spec a certain way for raids and to get groups.

Allowing players to change spec out-of-combat does not really solve the latter problem. Players in high-end raiding guilds will now find that they’ll be required to have two raiding specs instead of one – and this will soon trickle down to most other raiding guilds as well.

And I’m sure that before long you’ll see group leaders demanding that members have two certain specs instead of just one. So this fix will provide relief for some players but it won’t provide relief for most.

I always felt the best solution to the spec problem would be giving players special talent trees that would become available only in certain situations. First you’d have your existing talent tree which would be used in any open-world situation. Then you’d have a PvE tree which would be used upon entry to any PvE instance. You’d also have a PvP tree which would be used upon entry to any PvP instance.

This would essentially eliminate “spec peer pressure”, as raid leaders and group leaders would only be given veto powers over one of your specs, allowing you your open world and PvP specs to do with as you wish.

Reactions to Reactions to Blizzard's Announcements

I unexpectedly got my cable and internet back today (Sunday I posted it would be 6-9 more days). I'm going to play for a few days without blogging ... second.

First I wanted to post about the Controversial Blizzard News.

There were two little bits of controversy from Blizzcon. First, Starcraft 2 is going to be broken into three games, each with their own full single-player campaign. Second, Diablo III may charge for DLC.

This is upsetting a lot of people.

Now, normally I would write this long thoughtful post about the pros and cons of Blizzard's moves, and eventually say that I thought Blizzard was making a good move. But I want to play Warhammer tonight for the first time in nine days, so I'll abbreviate :

So Blizzard is going to provide us with much more content than in the past? They are guaranteeing two expansions to Starcraft 2 instead of one? Oh, and instead of one Diablo game, and one expansion, they are going to give us continuing DLC?

When I read posts complaining about this news, in the words of Chili Palmer, "I couldn't believe my f***ing ears."

You really don't want more content from Blizzard? Really? Do you really want to wait seven more years after Starcraft 2 for the next Blizzard RTS? Do you want to wait for one Diablo III expansion, and then wait six more years for any drop of new Diablo content?

F*** that. If that's really how you feel then I find it hard to believe you were every really a fan of Diablo, Warcraft, or Starcraft, or even the genres in which they exist.

I do not want to wait four or six years for new games and new content from Blizzard and I'm happy -- Very Happy -- that Blizzard seems to be moving away from that.

The Awesomest Hiatus Ever

So, Monday morning I posted and said I was taking a hiatus from my blog to just play for a week and see how I felt about blogging.

Monday afternoon my internet went out. Comcast came on Wednesday and said it would be another 1-3 days. Then on Friday they said it would be 7-10 days before they make it back (what with the permits and line-marking necessary). It's the sort of thing that makes you want to switch to DSL/FIOS -- except that it looks like it was Verizon that cut the cable line -- ironically when they were installing fiber-optic lines for FIOS, which also isn't available right now.

So this will be the longest I've been without internet at home since I've really had internet at home. Eight years maybe? Anyway, I'm going insane. I'm at the library right now since my work blocks this blog (it falls into that famous work-unfriendly category : "Uncategorized").

When my internet comes back I'm going to keep blogging but not every day. I started blogging every day when I realized that's the only way to really get decent traffic.

Screw traffic : I want to play the bloody game. I'm just going to shoot for ten blogs a month. If only there were a way to only write ten blogs a month but still have a bunch of people read them...

Anyway, this will also give me time to write good things occasionally, instead of being stuck with topics that I can shovel out the door in a single night. Yeeha.

So if there are any CoW's reading, don't kick me from the guild, I'll be back in six-to-nine days.

Hiatus

I'm noticing that blogging does not leave me a lot of time to play. I think I only made it through one level this past week (18-19). And I haven't been exercising, which I need to start doing again this week, and that would mean I basically go to bed after blogging (before playing).

So I'm going to take a week off from blogging here (I'll still be doing the addon column) and then decide how to go forward.

See y'all in a week, unless you're on order CoW, in which case I should actually see you tonight.

Boat's Annotated 1.01 Patch Notes

For the complete patch notes, please look here.

For some bizarre reason I really enjoy talking about patch notes. I don't know why. Anyway, let's talk about (excerpts from the) patch notes!

• We have identified a couple of serious bugs that trivialize the content in the Lost Vale dungeon. We have disabled the dungeon entrance while we investigate these issues. Thank you for your understanding as we work to improve your in game experience!
  
  A smart move -- if you can't fix a bug right now, mitigate it.

• Player pets have learned to behave themselves. They should now listen to their masters and stay focused while in combat with monsters, rather than dancing erratically. In addition, they should follow obediently at their masters’ side rather than spinning around.
  
  Whenever I see pet-related patch notes, I just remember how it was like 12 or 16 months before Blizzard finally fixed the last of the Warlock pet problems. It was such a disaster.
  
  WAR pet players, I hope you fare better than I did, but if were you I would learn to be happy with mediocrity.
  
  
• The delay between sending multiple mails has been reduced from 20 seconds to 5 seconds.
  
  I'm guessing the 20 second delay was just a precautionary measure. Oh, and a gigantic pain in the ...
  

• A feature has been added to User Settings which allows players to auto loot corpses by default. Players can enable this feature by selecting the “always auto loot” option, under the game play section. Please note that holding shift while looting with the option enabled will cause you to loot normally. When the option is disabled, shift-loot will still auto loot all.
  
  Congratulations to the AutoLoot mod, which is as far as I know the first mod to be rendered unnecessary by Mythic.

• Improvements to the behavior of TAB-targeting. This should now more accurately target the nearest enemy in the player's field of view.
  
  This was awful before. I'm still thinking that it took a long, long time for WoW to finally get their tab system working, so I don't know that this will be the last we see of updates.
  
  
• The /ignore command will now work more consistently.
  
  "more consistently" haha
  
  
• The Pet window should no longer disappear when zoning or entering the game.
  
  (facepalm) I think what I like most about patch notes is seeing the sometimes outrageous bugs that made it into the game.
  
  
• In some cases, the chat window would reset to default position upon logout. This should no longer occur.
  
  Look out AutoLoot mod, StickyChatWindow is coming to join you!
  
  
• Resizing the chat window should no longer cause the chat window to reposition itself.
  
  This was followed by about ten more fixes to the chat windows. Why so many fixes to the chat windows? Well, it's kind of a simpler part of the UI (and the UI is already relatively simple), and on top of that it's probably written in lua, which makes it far easier to write and far easier to test.
  
  I'm going to write a post sometime about how developers choose bugs to fix, but this is (I'm assuming) a good example of how a non-critical problem can get fixed earlier if it doesn't chew up a lot of developer/tester time.
  
  
• New Cycle Enemy Target action added as a handier version of Target Next Enemy. This action is bound to Tab by default; existing characters will not have their keybindings changed, so if you would like to use this action instead of Target Next Enemy with your current character, you will need to change this keybind.
  
  I don't know what this means. I don't like when I don't know what things mean.
  
  

There was a lot of other stuff I skipped. There were a lot of good fixes in this "hotfix" patch, hopefully we'll be seeing a lot more fixes soon.

Just Say No to PQ Loot Passing

A couple weeks ago over at WHA I saw a thread begging Mythic to add a "pass" option to PQ loot. This just seems like an awful idea.

Mythic's PQ loot system is a massive improvement over, say, WoW's loot system. Why? What's the difference?

The difference is this : WoW awards loot, while WAR awards a player.

Awarding loot leads to all sorts of problem. Specifically, it leads to all sorts of "games". Not the kind of games you like to play -- stressful angry games where nobody really wins (much like FFXI). And I've seen every variation.

Basically, it goes something like this : you find a group for a dungeon. You have spent a lot of time finding this group so you are kind of locked in. And then it begins. The party leader says that nobody is allowed to roll on piece of loot X if it drops. Or one of the other members sends you a tell asking if they can have something if it drops. Or the party leader turns on master loot right before you engage the last boss. Or somebody in the party has a bizarre idea of how loot works and will be willing to tell the world you are a ninja if you don't comply with their demands. Or somebody rolls on gear they don't need for "their other spec" or for "an alt". And then there are the ninjas. Ninjas, ninjas, ninjas.

The drama comes from the choices. If you can roll on something, that means somebody will expect you not to roll. If you plan to roll on something, someone who doesn't need it will roll instead and ninja it away.

Of course, in WoW there has to be a choice to roll because specific pieces of armor drop. There's no point in forcing a tank to roll on cloth gear or forcing a cloth caster to roll on plate.

This is where WAR really gets it right. For nearly every kind of loot drop there is no choice by the player about loot. Any player that happens to win also gets something they can use. And since the player can't "choose" to pass loot, there is no drama.

And this is why WAR loot is marvelous.