10 Days of WAR: Day 8 (Live Events)

Merry Christmas!  For my eighth day of WAR I'm going to talk about Live Events.

Live events in Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning can be summed up by the following:

1. A quest in the RvR lakes
2. Incentives to kill other players
3. A "limited time only" scenario
4. More quests

This somewhat satisfies my gripe that the RvR lakes in WAR are empty of content, but the limited nature of Live Events still doesn't promote players to spread out.

The current live event is Kegs End.  There are pub crawls, beer drinking, ogre killing, and general mischief to be had.  Unfortunately, there isn't much guidance to the player outside a list of tasks in the Tome of Knowledge.  The world does not feel like it is alive with the spirit of the Kegs End holiday.  If there wasn't floating icons and Kegs End names above the Live Event NPCs, players would probably never know the difference.

Participating in the Live Event is easy enough, players do what they normally do: queue up for scenarios and zerg the RvR lakes for kills.  The more interesting aspect, to me, was the pub crawls, where players scour their capital city in search of different types of beer!

The capital cities of WAR, Altdorf and The Inevitable City, are still awe-inspiring to me.  The artwork and amount of stuff to discover is stunning.  However, there is little incentive to doing so outside of Tome unlocks and exploration experience.  The pub crawls are a perfect way to send players to destinations they may have otherwise missed.  There may even be a surprise around a corner or two!

Live Events, another OK, but not great part of WAR.  Come back for day nine, working title: The Hangover.

10 Days of WAR: Day Seven (PvE)

For my seventh day of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning I did some PvE.

One of my first posts about WAR on this blog was about the importance of PvE:

WAR, without PvE, is just a mess waiting to happen.

I took a lot of flack for suggesting that WAR needed PvE.  WAR was going to be the ultimate RvR game, pitting throngs of players against each other in epic battles.  PvE was only a momentary distraction!  How wrong those people were.  It is suicide to attempt to push out a triple-A game that focuses solely on PvP-oriented conflict.  The player base is NOT there to support a game of WAR's budget size with only PvP.  Plus, with only PvP minded players, the battlefield becomes very stale, very quickly.

Ranting aside, WAR does have a good amount of cooperative PvE (I'm not talking about solo content today).  The end game features dungeons and loot progression.  The early game features a few dungeons and plenty of public quests.  Both ends of the spectrum benefit from an open grouping system that allows players to find groups on the fly in their current area.

With my time limited, I was not able to get into any dungeon groups on my rank 40 Ironbreaker.  I logged into my level 8 White Lion and journeyed to Nordland and Norsca to enjoy some public quests.

Public quests is WAR's best feature!

I can't emphasize enough what a great feature public quests are, both for community building and sheer fun.  Unfortunately, the number of PQs in WAR far outpaces its player population, limiting the success of the system.  In a more popular game, with more players per zone, a public quest system is absolutely golden. 

WAR, at launch, did have the player populations to support most public quests.  One problem that hurt the PQs though, was the fact players were using instanced scenarios to grind out their levels.  Since scenarios could be joined from anywhere within the world, players often went *poof* in the middle of a PQ.  This problem still exists today, and is very evident in tier 1.

However, PQs have been readjusted accross the zones.  Instead of most of them requiring full groups and perfect setups, several out of the way PQs are geared for small 2-3 person groups.  A quick look at the open groups screen in Nordland lead my directly to a 3 man group (slayer, archmage, white lion).  An hour later we had burned through several PQs and joined up with a larger group farming PQs in Norsca (the next zone up).

I lost track of time quickly.  Many of these PQs I had never seen and I have leveled a dozen alts through these zones.  Mythic made the right changes to PQ difficulty and with the new endless trial, the player density in tier 1 fully supports the system.  What this means in the middle tiers is unknown as I really only have characters of level <12 and level=40.  My suspicion is the player density hits rock bottom in tier 2 and 3, making PQs sort of pointless.  Tier 4 picks up, but most PQs are unrewarding for a rank 40 character, so most PQs go unused except by those leveling.

Also, as my first rant against WAR during these 10 days, there are no PQs in the RvR lakes.  This is an absolute tragedy at this point and my biggest misunderstanding of WAR prior to launch.  

Next: day eight, keep it straight!

TIP: How to move Steam games to another drive in Windows 7/Vista/XP

With the Steam holiday sale blitzing everyone's wallets, there are plenty of people trying to find hard drive space to store all of their new games (seriously, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. for only $1.99, Mirror's Edge for $4.99).

One of the quirks with Steam is that it only allows users to install games to the same drive that Steam resides on.  For many, that is their main C: drive, which often fills up quickly.  I will detail the process used to move 3rd party games to another drive.  This will be for Windows 7 and Vista (Windows XP users click here).


NOTE: Click here for details on moving Valve's games (Team Fortress 2, Half Life 2, etc.).
NOTE: Both drives must be formatted with the NTFS file system.
NOTE: This moves the actual game files, not saved files that may be in different folders.

Steps

Step 1:

Create a folder named Steam2 on your additional storage drive (remember, the drive must be formatted NTFS).  Putting the folder in the root of the drive will make it easier to run the commands later.  Example:  D:\Steam2

Step 2:

Locate your Steam install folder.

Examples:
Windows 7/Vista 64-bit - C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\
Windows 7/Vista 32-bit - C:\Program Files\Steam\

Step 3:

Next, locate \steamapps\common\ in your Steam install folder.  This is where 3rd party game installs are neatly kept in their own folders.

Step 4:

Select the game folders you wish to move and then select CUT.

Step 5:

Go to the Steam2 folder created in step 1 and click PASTE.  This will move the folders and files for each game over to your spare storage and remove them from the original drive.  The next step will link these moved folders back to their old locations so that Steam can find and use them.

Step 6:

Open a command prompt.

With the prompt open, use the mklink /J command for each game that you moved.  The mklink command creates a link to the moved folder.  The syntax is as follows:

mklink /J link target

mklink = the 'make link' command
/J = the junction prefix, which creates the link between folders
link =  the file path to the folder that needs to be linked to
target = the file path to the folder that has the data in it


Example using BioShock on Windows 7 64-bit:

mklink /J "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\bioshock" "F:\Steam2\bioshock"

*It is important to note the quotations used around the file paths, as the command line does not like spaces or special characters

When this completes correctly, you should see:

Junction created for C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\bioshock <<===>> F:\Steam2\bioshock


Any questions?  Comment below or send an email to heartlessgamer _at_ gmail _dot_ com.

10 Days of WAR: Day Six (Crafting)

I was inspired by the furious pace of Santa's elves to meet the Christmas demand and for my sixth day of WAR I crafted.  The crafting in Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning has always intrigued me.  The concepts are solid, but the execution was lacking at launch. The basic premise is that most monsters and player kills would result in crafting components.  Crafted items are mostly consumable items.  There wasn't traditional blacksmithing or weapon making: there was apothecary for potions, talisman making, and cultivation (which is a gathering skill, but I consider it a craft).

Often times crafting far outpaced a character's progression in WAR due to the mismatch of ingredient levels to a player's level.  The result was often piles and piles of crafted items that were unusable for several levels.  This was not only frustrating, but also impossible to avoid unless a player ignored crafting until they were max level.  To highlight this issue, I created this screenshot a long time ago:

As can be seen, level 30-32 ingredients resulted in level 38 potions for a character that was level 30.

Since that time, there have been general improvements to WAR crafting.  While I do not have the time to list everything, let alone test everything, I will give my general thoughts after an hour of dabbling.

The first noticeable change is the addition a separate inventory bag for crafting supplies.  No longer does a player need two alts with entire banks dedicated to holding crafting supplies.  Everything can now be maintained under one character.  Organization wise, there is no more searching through a backpack full of quest rewards, currency items, and random junk to find single crafting components!  No longer does a player need a half dozen crafting UI addons to survive!

The second improvement actually occurred while I was still playing originally.  The gathering professions were re-balanced.  Butchering and scavenging were changed to focus on a specific craft: butchering for apothecary, scavenging for talisman making.  Previously, scavenging was by far the best gathering skill for both.

Then there is cultivation hanging out to the side.  Its considered a gathering skill, but it requires components to be combined to gather an item produced.  To me, that is crafting.   As a big-time gardener in real life, I've always loved cultivation in WAR.  It was changed to produce more apothecary related ingredients, which was a very welcome change after the butchering/scavenging reworks.  However, I didn't care enough to buy seeds and didn't touch my cultivator.

I have every crafting skill up to 200. The only gathering skill I am lacking on my characters is butchering. This adds up to a self sufficient account.

Apothecary Impressions

The basics of Apothecary felt the same. However, the most common ingredients were changed with the scavenging/butchering changes. With scavenging changed to result in talisman making ingredients, I was forced to use the auction house. Without knowing the names of the items I needed, I headed to the web for a WAR crafting wiki. Minor gripe here, the WAR auction house search is horrible (anyone have any addons for this?).

An addition to Apothecary is hybrid potions that boost two stats at once.  From my research, these were the best to make for individual use.  As always, healing potions appear to be the most sought after potions by other players and where apothecaries can make some money.

Another welcome change, which I did not realize at first, is that potion effects persist through death.  Originally, potion effects were canceled by death, which is a dumb idea in a game that actively promotes dieing, a lot!  Great change in my book.

Talisman Making Impressions

Talisman making also features some tweaks that make it more enjoyable. End-product talismans are more predictable and I don't believe they have timers associated with them any longer (anyone confirm?). Also, they FINALLY have level restrictions on talismans, preventing low level twinks from using talismans meant for rank 40s. This diminishes the consumable market for talismans some, but its not detrimental as my next point will demonstrate.

There is a glaring problem: the raw materials for talisman making are STILL worth far more than the talismans. Why? Because rare components can lead to extraordinary results. Unfortunately, the majority of the time a low end component will produce the same result as an ultra-rare component. This makes scavenging, where the rare components come from, a more profitable venture than the crafting. So, talisman making is best done for a player's own characters and not as a for-profit trade.

Come back for day seven!

PS.  It took me six days to notice returning players get a quest for a neat 7 day buff:

Unlimited Free Trials are the New MMO Hotness (Age of Conan, Champions Online, Warhammer Online, and more!)

Apparently I missed the memo.  Free trials with unlimited playtime, but level and gameplay restrictions, are popping up everywhere.

Age of Conan - LINK
Details:  Unlimited playtime. Players can play up to level 20, but only if registered for the trial before Jan 1st, 2010.  Trading and player chat limited.

Champions Online - LINK  
Details: Unlimited playtime. New players can create an account and play the beginning zone of Champions Online for as long as they want.

Warhammer Online - LINK
Details: Unlimited playtime. Players are restricted to the Tier 1 Empire vs Chaos zones, but can access all scenarios.  Trading and player chat limited.

Alganon - LINK
Details: Unlimited playtime. No leveling or zone restrictions, but trial characters are deleted after 30 days and must be re-rolled.  Limited skill progression and limited chat options.

10 Days of WAR: Day Five, Metaplace shutdown

For Day Five of my return to WAR, I took a break.  However, to fill space, I want to talk about the Metaplace shutdown that was announced yesterday:

Today we have unfortunate news to share with the Metaplace community. We will be closing down our service on January 1, 2010 at 11:59pm Pacific. The official announcement is here and copied below, and you can read a FAQ guide here. We will be having a goodbye celebration party on January 1st at 12:00noon Pacific Time.

I'm conflicted on what to think. On one hand I don't see how the product could ever generate revenue, but on the other hand I could see it had potential. In the end, the first was proven correct and the latter will be left to our imaginations.

Avatar movement was clunky and it felt like my character was always floating. Most interaction seemed to boil down to launching another website or some form of web content (videos, music, etc).  Nothing in Metaplace ever felt like a game.

However, I don't feel it was supposed to and that is not what Raph Koster set out to do. Unfortunately, Koster is known for his involvement in MMOGs, so that was what many of us expected.  Games could be built using the Metaplace tools, but it was not its sole or even advertised purpose.  However, what its true purpose was, I could not tell you.  I messed around with Metaplace only long enough to know it wasn't any good for hosting an online game.

The meta places were tiny and then they tried to offer more world space for larger worlds, but that extra space cost money, unless a builder wanted to use just the small world spaces offered for free.  Then there was an additional cost to have more than ten people in your world at once and the pass to allow more than ten people at a time only lasted a single day. Then there was Metaplace coins that could be used for many things.  Builders could even charge to access their world.  IT WAS CONFUSING!

Metaplace was so confusing that I gave up on it.  I didn't know what I could or couldn't do and I had no idea where I was getting all my coins from that were letting me buy things.  I couldn't find any meta places that felt polished or professionally done.  It all felt like crappy Neverwinter Nights user modules that I downloaded from IGN back in the 00's.

I'm not trying to be mean about Metaplace.  I'm sticking to my long held belief that 99% of user generated content is garbage.  Metaplace was trying to get people to PAY to both make and use that 99%, which to me was a failure from the start.

However, I saw a glimmer of possibility within the system.  If it could have been expanded to allow for large, seemless worlds, it could have been amazing.  If the community had built better tools, novice builders could of climbed out of the 99%.  Lastly, if the business model had just made sense, people may have known what they could spend their money on.

Sorry Raph.  Sorry Cuppy.  I respect what was being attempted, but as a gamer and web enthusiast it didn't hold my interest.

10 Days of WAR: Day Four

Day four of my return to Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning was spent in Tier 1 scenarios.  As I stated on Day Three, tier 1 is my favorite part of WAR.  Also, I commented that the limitless trial was one of the best things going for WAR. Unfortunately, after last night, my mind has been slightly changed.

I've never had a problem with instanced content and it fits well in WAR.  Instanced scenarios offer quick and easy action and offer varied challenges. However, I was not having much fun playing last night.

My problems with scenarios in WAR are two fold: teams are rarely balanced and some scenarios aren't worth playing.  Unfortunately, both of these are worsened by the limitless trial.  This came as an unwelcome shock to my plans to play the limitless trial in the future.

The first side effect of the limitless trial is evident in the tier 1 scenario of Nordenwatch.  It is the only scenario that limitless trial  players are allowed to join which means there is almost always a Nordenwatch match active.  Update: All tier 1 scenarios are available to trial players, but my point still stands.  For the casual player looking for a quick skirmish, Nordenwatch will probably be it.  Patience and luck are needed to get into a match for any of the other tier 1 scenarios.

This highlights my first issue with scenarios.  It's almost pointless to queue up for the other tier 1 scenarios as they are unlikely to open compared to the trial stuffed Nordenwatch.  This problem follows in later tiers as the majority of scenarios that are not rewarding enough are NEVER played compared to the few over-popular scenarios that are ALWAYS played.  This can be fixed, easily, by simply standardizing the reward gained across all scenarios.  Players can then choose the scenarios that are fun to play, not just the ones that will give the quick and easy rewards.

Secondly, since trial players are limited to 10, there is an abundance of level 10 twinks.  A normal player quickly levels out of tier 1 because they gain experience rapidly from completing content.  At most, a normal low level twink will only be around for a few dominant scenario or open RvR performances.   This limits the effect of traditional twinks.

However, level 10 trial players are the opposite.  They are hard capped allowing them to stick around without fear of leveling out of the tier. Essentially, the WAR trial has its own end game.  This is great for the trial players, but I can see why veterans and paying players are upset by this.

That brings me to my second beef with scenarios: team balance.  I hate loading up a scenario only to find my side camped into their spawn point because the system put a team full of level 10s against a team with a highest level member of 5.  This non-balance is true in ALL tiers.  Mythic does NOT have a match-making system ala World of Warcraft arenas or similiar ELO rating systems.  Its frustrating when a dominant team is allowed to steam roll the fast spawning scenarios, exasperated by the fact its impossible to get the other scenarios to open due to lack of players.

The limitless trial is still the best thing WAR has going on, but I can see how it alienates paying players.  WAR has a lot of scenarios and Mythic needs to do something to make sure all of them reward equally.  Scenarios are fun when the sides are balanced, but it happens too rarely to make the system shine.