Ebonfire..

How did it happen?

I was never a big fan of Everquest when it was at the top of industry, and I can remember people telling me that I’m just not the type that could get hooked on gaming because of that.  Despite the many hours I spent playing Diablo 2 on US East, and constant griping from my roommate’s girlfriend, that also seemed rather innocent because Ebaying game items was common at that time.  It was almost a second job, but on the other hand I had heard stories about families being destroy because of online gaming, and I placed limits on myself with online habits.  My business, my friends, and my life in general were enough to of a safety valve to prohibit any such behavior. 

I moved back to Illinois the year after 9/11 with the intent on going back to school.  Business just wasn’t doing well, and my neither were the relationships with my friends I entered into business with.  Going back home wasn’t the end of the world, and it didn’t take me long to get on my feet.  I spent the summer soul searching, and at the end of the summer I had a terrible roofing accident.  

Sitting around waiting for bones to heal gave me time to plan out my life, get scholarship and GI bill paperwork in order, and get enrolled for freshman classes.  I was pretty convinced that Nursing was the thing that would make me happy, and I breezed through my classes.  Maybe I should have loaded on the max amount of courses to keep me busy, maybe I should have gotten involved with student organizations, but the truth was that being the oldest in most of my classes made me feel a little alienated, and it surely didn’t improve my social life.

A few days after my 28^th birthday I bought myself Star Wars Galaxies, and it was strange because I remember being uneasy installing it.  I liked the idea of a sci-fi multiplayer game, and I didn’t have a problem paying a monthly fee, but I was somewhat afraid that I wouldn’t have enough time for it.  The game was a few months old, had very mixed reviews, and was still adding features that they promised at launch.  In the end I thought that I needed a social life that I could pick up and put down at will, and this was going to meet all of the requirements.  In my mind it was a step up from sitting on a bar stool for hours every night like the friends I had chose to do.  I have to say that it was thrilling at first, and unlike any kind of online world that I had heard of at the time.

This confession may come as shock to some, a wake up call to others, and despite the ridicule that I may receive; I almost feel it’s my duty to tell it.

Today I kind of hit rock bottom and I finally woke up to the fact that my addiction to MMOs has completely destroyed my life. I’ve hurt people close to me, made promises that I never indented on carrying out, and constantly lied to myself about where I’m at in life. I’ve wanted to walk away before, but there was always a dark fog that I was afraid to cross through. Quit gaming.. Ok then what?

I did a lot of thinking as I uninstalled 120GB of games on my hard drive, and my thoughts always come back to the fact that I just can’t touch games again because they are my crack. I literally wasted the last year of my life, and a half a year before that in worlds offering instant gratification. I got sucked into the Skinner Box, used it to its full potential, and then moved on to the next.

I’m 31 years old, and I’m scared to death of what is going to happen next. I don’t know how to get back into life, and the biggest problem is that I don’t have a shred life left waiting there for me. I like to say that I don’t fit the old stereotype of “overweight geek living in his parent’s basement”, but those are the ends for anyone who stops seeking rewards in real life, and solely lives for his next big thrill in a virtual world.

I think Taury and I are done with Vanguard.

We hit the level cap about two weeks ago, and everything now is simply an uncalled for time sink.  I’m happy that I played through the content to level 50, but there isn’t enough game past level 40 to hold many people’s interests.

Late in beta, about a week before pre launch to be exact, they started placing level buffing NPCs starting at 25 if I remember correctly.  Three days before the lauch of the game is too late in beta to start testing content past level 35.  Hell they didn’t even start to patch in more content past level 30 until about a month after launch.   Then they give double xp weekends, and everyone is bored all the sudden.. eh.  Oh well, back to CoV.

Ah what a few days off, and a weekend of double xp can do for your overall attitude towards a game!

I guess I never noticed it during the last few days of beta when they handed out level 30 & 35 characters, but wow the game plays a whole lot better as you start to get around level 30. This weekend really re-energized us, and I must say that Vanguard is well worth the time spent in the beginning. Once you can take the missives in Southwatch, the game starts to shift into cruse control, and it’s really down hill from there.

I love the game play balance, the rock paper scissors or pve, and the overall challenge is good for me.  There is always a lot going on when playing a Blood Mage, but its highly rewarding once you learn how to play your class.  If a Shadow Priest played anything like this in “that other game”, I’d surely have stayed, but “that other game” just couldn’t get the concept correct.

To my friend still playing “that”.. I’ll address you shortly muhaha.

Here are the interesting things going on…

SWG… Content, Content, Content,

It makes me wonder why it took them so long to realize that they needed to put a lot more content in this game. There is only so far that PVP can take you, and when all the attention to the game has been devoted to the PVP sphere for almost a year.. well good keeping a broad customer base interest.

After the player summit, the COE of Sony Online Gaming (Smed as his SWG forum handle goes) stated that he was surprised that players rated content as their number one need. Duh, if you read the forums more often, and listen to the player base then you’d understand that most of the people left are quitting out of boredom.

Well it appears that this is the direction the game will take in the future is…. ding ding ding, more content! Grats SOE, you get an A on this decision.

Producers Letter

Chapter 6 Publish Plan

- Story Teller function to expand player events and roleplaying
- Revamped Rebel Theme Park
- Azure Cabal Quest Series
- Beast Master Expertise System: yes folks, creature handling is coming back in a new form!

City of Heroes & Villains… Holy Snikes, an Economy?

The game has been around for over 3 years now, so the move to create an economy in a game that has never centered around loot, crafting, or a player based economy is sure to have a lot of people looking on to see what is going to happen.

Issue 9 “Breakthrough”

This is about enough to bring me back for awhile when this goes live. My level 50 mastermind was fun to play before, but the lack of an endgame kind of killed it for me. Having access to new IO, Hamidon raids, and craftable loot… wow I honestly can’t wait.

For various reasons, I’m losing faith in Vanguard until it comes out of its post launch betaware phase. The reviews on Vanguard have varied, and most point out that the game has a lot of potential, but what I’m playing is a mess right now. I think once they stop balancing classes to such extremes that they don’t play anything like they did a week before, and adventuring stabilizes to where you know what to expect as far as the strengths and weaknesses of your class… then it will be worth investing time in playing.

The game was touted about being “a hardcore gamers’ game”, but its seems that their definition of hardcore centers around forced grouping, and other burdensome timesinks. The successes in game come at a cost, and it just doesn’t feel fun to me. The game just feels like its missing something, and I can’t put my finger on what it is. I’m not the only one to feel this way because I’m looking at both guilds I’m involved with, and the players who who have lost interest in the game are in the majority by far.

I’m here looking around for alternatives.. and I’m going to post what I see going on that I find interesting in the gaming industry.

Soul Orbs…

We were traveling north on Thestra towards the Coastal Graveyard when we came across an innocent NPC offering a quest. My instinct was to keep going, but Taury decided to pick it up. I ran on and was looking around when I spotted a level 20 / 3 dot NPC up on the hill, so I asked about the quest as she was catching up, and she shared it with me.

Hey, kill a few 3 dots, get some xp, and move on. This sounded like good times, and the first part of the quest was just that. We found a Druid in the area shortly after we started killing ghosts, and we grouped him after he asked for help. The ghosts went down very quickly with three people, and soon we were heading back to Captain Drake to turn in.. only to find a follow up quest called Soul Orbs.

We had been playing for awhile, so we decided to take a break and tackle it when we came back. A little more then an hour later we were fresh, and ready to head to the destroyed infirmary. With most group quests, you have to wonder if you are going to end up fighting 4 dots in order to complete the quest, and I had never attempted this one, so I was pleased to group a Disciple looking to complete the quest also.

The setup was pretty simple… there are four destroyed towers which have place holder NPCs that spawn at the bottom, and a courtyard in the middle that spawns Lost Infirmary Patients that you have to clear in order to get to the placeholders. After you kill place holder (Lost Medic, Nurse, or Assistant), you have about a 10 minute wait before the next spawn, and if you get luck you’ll find a level 22 Lost Rejuvenator waiting for you.

The player we grouped with claimed this was his third attempt at completing this quest, and that there was a painfully long period of time between seeing the Lost Rejuvenators. Taury was eyeing the quest reward, so I hoped that our luck might be better then his.

After about an hour she gets her first ord, but there was nothing on the NPC for me. We got really lucky with the next round; she got her second orb, and I finally got one myself. Then this follow with a very long period of not seeing a single Rejuvenator, we had both leveled off the trash mobs because of double xp weekend, and the Disciple decided to call it a night out of frustration.

Time is ticking, it was getting late, and we finally see another Rejuvenator. Shortly after we down him; a group of 5 players show up, and ask what we are working on. Taury tells them that we have been here for a little over 4 hours, and she has 3 orbs to show for it. Having completed kindergarten mathematics, I know that we are one too many to join their group, and the whole time Taury is in a panic about them stealing our spot after investing so much time into the quest.

A giant relief.. “KK we’ll leave you be”, and they run off towards the road, or it appeared so. We continue keeping the place clear, but they had not left. The same group of them had been outside the walls, and we’d see them from time to time. I went outside the entrance, and pathed to the side to see dead NPCs. I headed around back noticing there was nothing alive outside when something aggros me, but nothing spawns along the walls on the outside, so it hits me that these NPCs aggro through walls…. great.

We had been there for more then five hours, and she had 3/5th of the quest finished. I knew this wasn’t going to happen, and we decided to call it a night. Really I can’t be mad at the other group because they have just as much right to attempt to complete the quest as we did. This is Sigil’s idea of how the quest dynamics should work, and it is flawed from beginning to end, but then again this is Vanguard; Saga of Spawncamp.

I don’t think anyone will argue that many of the MMOs which followed in the footsteps of EQ took many of its concepts, made improvements, and ran with them. Games were designed around ideas like decreased downtime between combat, more viable soloing, and instances to decrease spawn camping. Along comes Vanguard with the same minds behind EQ, and many people feel like we are back to square one.

I’ve been duoing with a lot of success, and its not hard to pick up more group members when the task calls for it. I have no problem that the game was designed to be more group centric then other fantasy titles that Vanguard is often compared to, and even in soloing.. downtime is very manageable on both my caster characters. What drives me freaking *edit* *edit* *edit* nuts beyond belief is how spawn campy this game is appearing to be.

Most of the time its just a minor inconvenience; someone in the area is on the same quest, and hits the quest NPC before you. Oh well, a few minutes and he’s back up again waiting for more punishment. There are other times you have to go out and interact with an item on the ground, so you pull the two mobs guarding it, and some jagbag runs right past and takes the item. The item often changes locations, it adds a few minutes, but rarely more then that to finally accomplish the task. Then there are the longer spawn NPCs that most often require a group, and when you get there you find 2 other groups waiting to pounce, so you either prepare for a long camping session, or move on and find something else to do.

The next generation of MMO didn’t do anything to remove tedium of having to camp spawns verses 10 other people who don’t want anything to do with a group. The main problem is that many of the longer spawn timer quest NPCs also double as loot NPCs, and this makes the game overly frustrating when people don’t want to play on the same team, or they are only in the area to whore loot.

The biggest problem I have is when you make time with others to complete these quests, and they turn from a simple 30 minute task, into a 3 hour wait full of fighting off trash mobs. It really takes the wind out of your sails to accomplish so little in such a long span of time, but at least I know what to expect from World of..err.. Vanguard: Saga of Spawncamp.

I’ve been talking it over with a few others who left Varking, and I just wanted to add a few notes because I want to close that chapter… errr for the most part.

I love pvp, and I have always enjoyed team style pvp in MMOs, but something about this in Vanguard just felt wrong from the start. It was pretty clear later in beta that the player base could not agree on a ruleset, and the developers seem to fold into the idea of creating these server more from player demand then from their desire to push them to begin with.

Now Vanguard is a very fun and challenging PVE game, but it clearly wasn’t designed around concepts that would lead to balanced pvp. To start, you die and respawn at a shrine.. now much of the pvp that I experienced went on around shrines, by enemy players that were much higher then my level, and just after I had respawned out of a pve death with little to no gear on me. I also didn’t like that fact that opposing factions can gain faction with your city (which is fine on a pve server), walk right in, and camp the bank for an easy score. There really is no point to pvp though, other then scoring some gold off an unsuspecting at the wrong moment in time for them.

Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow.. Healing classes are way out of wack in overall survivability, they are currently the bane of bad pvp balance, and I just can’t think of a way for them to fix it. The 50% damage reduction seemed to help a great deal because nobody enjoys being two-shotted by a same level player, but that just amplified the problem of healers being able to healing through all damage for an extended period of time. This was probably the part that I found least fun about pvp; healers having too much domination in pvp given they deal damage much better then healers in other games.

So I’m playing a game who’s motto is “Set Yourself Free”, but this wasn’t the feeling we got by being boxed into the corner of one continent. With all the talk about adding pvp maps, or battlegrounds.. having all the restrictions on a pvp server just didn’t seem worth it in the end when you will be able to get your pvp elsewhere.

**End note**

We rerolled to Woefeather, and the community is night & day more mature, and helpful then the community we left on Varking. The egoes people carry around in association with pvp have always been intense in my experience, but honestly I thought that the WoW “Learn2play kiddies” had migrated to Vanguard, when in the end it was only to Varking. Thank god, you guys can have it, please stay there and enjoy!

I’ve just about given up on the Team PvP Server concept, and here is why..

What do you get when you throw together a faction system at the last minute to meet launch demand for a team PVP server? You get a big mess for one side, and easy mode for the other by comparison.

Imagine playing World of Warcraft on a PVP server where all the intercontinental travel ports are in Alliance cities. Now it many not be as bad as it sounds because the guard are quite pointless once you cross a friendly threshold with them, but you still have to path around, or through countless enemy PCs to just to port to the same continent your friends are playing on.

To sum things up…

• Port cities are all controlled by Order races
• Same faction guards are pointless
• Enemy players do not show up as red name tags until someone attacks.. yup you can’t tell the difference between same and enemy PCs until you target the person to see if they come up an offensive or defensive target.
• Order supports more races, and offers more options for questing.
• Shadow are hard pressed to travel to Qalia to continue questing after level 14.
• You loot 15% of an enemy player’s gold regardless of how much you are carrying.. this leaves little to say about “risk verses reward” in pvp.

In my honest opinion.. they should have stayed with the continent vs. continent concept that was thrown around a bunch of times in beta. This system as it stands, imo is junk.