Bookworm's Evil Twin

So I was all crazy for a while regarding a word game called Bookworm's Adventures or similar, where you typed out words (as prompted by a bunch of letters provided) in order to defeat mythical monsters as a bookworm.

Well, I found a free evil twin, sponsored by Dictionary.com...

Clockwords: Prelude

It's an evil twin because it's lacking in paced narrative like Bookworm. Bookworm presents varied monsters, and every ten monsters or so, there is a big boss, after which you are rewarded with progress in the narrative.

Bookworm also demands shorter words.

Clockwords is a lot more ornery because you have to make some insanely long words in order to defeat the immense string of clockwork spiders. I'm at stage 11 and stalled. It doesn't help that it's mostly the same layout. Not much impetus to go on.

I think there is some strategy regarding letters in the boiler that I am missing. Can't generate enough damage oomph in my words.

QQ

So what was all that complaints about server queues again? (Warhammer, Aion, WoW.)

Didn't someone(s) sing the praises of a one-server Eve Online?

Guess the first thing my free trial of Eve Online did on log-in attempt.

"The cluster has reached its maximum number of players. You are #13 in queue."

Riiight. Sophistication. Progress. Bullshit.

The $20 Goat

So the $10 horse made a big ruckus around the intarweb, didn't it?

Well, I got an email from LOTRO today announcing proudly how great it was to get The Siege of Mirkwood (TM) FREE* (usual price $19.99) because I am a multi-month subscriber to the game.

All I have to do is maintain the subscription until Dec 31 2009 passes. (Presumably that's the time of their annual report and they don't want droves of people canceling with the reason "Aion kicks LOTRO's grindy progress bar ass with prettier hidden grind." or "Bored shitless after finally realizing that every mainstream MMO consists of grind.")

EXCEPT

If I pre-order the new Adventurer's Pack (for $19.99, what convenient pricing!), I get two bonus in-game items Free*!

1) A Dusky Nimblefoot Goat
2) A Harbinger Cloak with an 8% run speed boost, usable immediately

Oh, yes, what else does the Adventurer's Pack contain? 2 extra character slots and 20 shared storage spaces for all your characters.

Ok. So it's a great enough buy for extra character slot space and shared storage if you were an LOTRO alt fanatic.

Let's face it. I'm NOT an LOTRO alt fanatic. My great plans to make 4 alts that could craft everything evaporated in the face of all the evil progress bars. I'm just trying to get my poor Guardian through Mines of Moria here.

Except they fiendishly disabled any form of old mount in the Mines of Moria, forcing you back on foot, so that you had an extra goal to grind faction in order to attain a new Moria Goat, once you are a Friend with the Moria Miners (or something like that.)

As I said, I do poorly at any form of LOTRO progress bar grinding. So my poor Guardian is pretty much hoofing it in the dark depths of supposedly 3D Moria (which consists of lots of tall buildings and ruins which you cannot jump down without dying, so you get to run Guild Wars-like convoluted paths down endless stairwells.)

I'm not tempted by extra character slots, or shared storage space. Ain't got no alts to move 'em to.

But... a goat.

A goat I don't have to faction grind for.

But... it's an RMT goat. A $20 RMT goat.

Well, looks like we know the way Western MMO companies are moving. They've finally realized they can charge people more and still get away with it.

I'm sure sanity will prevail and I'm not going to get the Adventurer's Pack (of which some subscription plans get it AND Siege of Mirkwood for the same $19.99 price - some crazed economist figured that one out, I guess.).

After all, I was already considering dropping the LOTRO subscription, cheapness and all not withstanding. But I'll probably let it drag to take a look at the skirmish system from Siege of Mirkwood because I'm such a systems whore like that. (Essnetially paying $40 to experience a new game system for myself. Haha.)

After all, for $20, I could pick up a new game from Steam.

With regards to insanity, I've had all the insanity I can handle, because during a slight Aion downtime, I just registered for and downloaded an Eve Online 14-day trial. No shit.

No plans to buy Eve or play it as yet, not with Aion taking up maximum grind mindshare, but I thought, maybe it's time to at least LOOK at the game, play through its 3-hour tutorial which veterans say should NEVER be skipped by a newbie, period, and see exactly what 'spreadsheets in space' gameplay is like.

I did play 'spreadsheets in egypt' after all.

* Terms and Conditions Apply

Feels Like Friday

Frappin' bored. Actually lots of things to get done. Not clear on what. Can't be arsed.

There's this joke:

"I always give 100% at work...

10% Monday
20% Tuesday
30% Wednesday
35% Thursday
5% Friday"

Well, it feels like Friday today.

Delayed Penguin

It's easy to be obnoxious when you have 11 million under your hypnotic slavery.

http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=20094
http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2009/10/blizzard-sabotages-wow-account-security.html

Another reason to write off WoW tourism, I suppose.

Lessee, if I recall correctly, I spent less than a hundred bucks for a 2.5 month tour of WoW (of which I haven't seen Burning Crusade, but don't really mind) and two neat-looking if outdated guides that will go nicely on my MMO collector editions shelf.

I suppose that is not too much of a hardship. And my account will keep until after the furor is over, perhaps after Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 comes out which will force me to get a Battle.net account anyway and I can merge it then.

In all honesty, I think I have a Battle.net account or two already, from Warcraft 3 or Diablo or something. If they haven't canceled it due to extreme age.

But I can't be arsed to figure out this whole merger thing because none of my 3-4 email addys are exactly secure enough, and I'm not going to make a random password string email addy yet just for a WoW I'm not currently playing.

All I lose for not rushing with the masses is a virtual penguin.

I can live with that.

This all strikes me as a little ironic as Guild Wars started out with making one's usernames email addresses, insisting on the @ sign and all, and by the time I bought and registered my second GW account, they had completely disallowed that.

Now Blizzard is going in the opposite direction. Funny.

Dagger Mystery Solved

Found this post today on Aion Source - how to make money as a new weaponsmith.

No wonder a couple days ago, there was some noob posting 5-6 daggers at 60k when the median price for Noble Durable Steel weapons on our server has been 47-51k.

Followed by a ridiculous plunge in prices as about 3-4 more people entered the fray and undercut each other to the point of 37k daggers. (8-10 of which are now stuck sitting in the auction house, among them, one of my median priced daggers at 50k.)

I wonder how long it'll take them to figure out that there are other weapons besides daggers for the same materials cost, instead of blindly following a guide?

I suppose if the weapons war gets too insane, I should just let go of my materials stock and see if any of them will buy up my raw mats for x2 or x3 the price I bought them at. :)

Tech Support Ping Pong

Aion has a very cool feature.

It's called Live Status. You can check the state of any server, their contested state, and pull up any character from any server and stare at their level, stats, equipment, and even a 3D model viewer if you have java.

Warhammer Online tried to have this, but failed at the customized avatar level. It was just a standard paper doll that didn't look anything like your character.

Aion's default is the standard paper doll, but if you log in with your game account and password, and access the model viewer, you can take a picture of your badass self to replace the standard face. This can get pulled up and used in forum signatures and things like that.

Apparently.

Because I can't log in to find out.

Goodness knows why. The ironic thing is that the only computer capable of logging in is my work computer, which does not have Java installed for the 3D avatar viewer, and besides, they'd prolly fry my ass for looking at sexy paper dolls with virtual e-peen armor at work.

My home desktop computer, which has Java installed, gets rejected at the log in screen.

Thinking to bridge the gap long enough to capture just one pic of my character's face, I brought my laptop to work, only to find out that the wireless work connection (or something to do with my laptop) can't allow me to log in either.

So recap: personal computers somehow cannot log in. Work computer can, no java installed or administrator access.

Crud.

So I was down to Tech Support ping-pong. Having submitted a ton of bug reports for City of Heroes, and one or two one-offs for funky store purchases, etc, I have a keen idea of what to expect.

One thing I'd say for NCsoft Tech Support, their systems are in place for bearable response times. You can log into your support account to update as necessary, it automatically threads it into one giant thread, and then someone looks at it and replies back, and then you reply with an update, and then another someone does it, and so on.

So over the course of several days, I have bounced from Account Support to Tech Support, where we are now attempting to pinpoint the source of the problem with some diagnosis tools I now have to download and run.

*sighs*

This is the longest chain I've ever been in, but I'm not giving up until I get to the root of the problem (or Tech Support gives up for me) as this is a really cool function.

Coffee No-War

Work has recently installed a cold drink/snacks vending machine and a hot brewed coffee/tea (with seemingly a few gazillion flavors) vending machine in our staff room pantry.

I just bought my first can of Nescafe Iced Mocha from the cold one for $1.00.

It is going down smoothly enough to be a decent competitor to the 5 buck mochas from upscale coffee haunts, albeit with a faint thin tinny aftertaste that's either from the can or the lower quality bean or the non-fresh brewed aspect.

The soft drinks are $0.90, I think. The hot drinks machine is $0.60 a paper cup. Some day I need to try that. At the rate I'm going through this coffee, someday may arrive in one or two hours.

This distinctly undercuts the expo-style crap food but overblown prices Cafe we have downstairs or the MacDonald's crud they call McCoffee.

I forsee a dangerous impending caffeine addiction.

Playing the Virtual Markets

If there's one thing that has utterly captivated me about WoW, it's the auctioneer add-on.

Before the black hole of Aion sucked me into its addictive grip, figuring out how the add-on worked took me step by baby step towards the theory of amassing lots of profit by selling many many things fast at a small level of gain.

It helped that WoW is a mature market, with max levels looking on 50 gold as just another daily, so few players blink twice at dropping a few gold here and there to twink their next alt out.

This eventually led to a crazy disparity where I had amassed a grand total of 12 gold from questing and killing low level mobs, and 500+ gold in the same space of time (a month) from the auction houses - just by selling unwanted lowbie materials and stuff to fuel professions I wasn't going to level.

I didn't even bother to buy low and sell high, which is one of the well known profiteering ways - to act as a middleman.

Auctioneer helped to automate it all. It scans the auction house, has a average price in its database, adjusts it based on the current state of the market and prices at a 10% undercut to aid fast turnover, while still making a profit over vendoring.

Truth to tell, I was amazed. Gobsmacked. Stunned by its glory.

And I never even explored all its other more cunning, customizable options either which searches out other ways to make profit, eg. disenchanting cheap items and selling the mats for high prices, scanning for badly priced cheap items and repricing them accordingly, etc.

It begins to strike me that the more inconvenient or complicated something is, the fewer people attempt to do it, the more your chances increase of finding a profitable niche to work in.

Subconsciously, I was seeing this in a Tale in the Desert. It's bound to be there in WoW. And I am now dipping my toes into the economic waters of Aion based on what I've picked up re: WoW and ATITD.

And me being such a crummy numbers person and bad at economic theory and what not. :/

I'm taking quite a gamble here, because Aion's economy confuses me and it's still fairly new, so there are some big fluctuations every now and then.

But then, big fluctuations are where the profit is made, wot? :p

It's weird because I have an odd feeling that much of the economy is going to end up built on the backs of grinding bots who are killing two birds with one stone for the gold-sellers (aka grind for gold and PL at the same time.)

There are crafting items known as Fluxes (Armor Flux, Weapon Flux, Accessory Flux) that have a drop rate. A rather crummy one at that. You need these fluxes of a certain tier to make armor, weapons, accessories at that certain tier. And you need a lot of them.

Why? Because everyone only wants the 'proc' items. You see, when you craft, you make a white Durable Steel Sword, fer example. You have a chance of 'proc'ing to turn it into a green Noble Durable Steel Sword with much better stats.

As a result, there is a flood of practically worthless Durable Steel Swords nobody wants to buy, and desirable proc items that sell for quite a lot - the prices can get pretty eyebrow-raising and make you think that ultimately the only people affording these are the ones who buy gold (kinah is Aion's currency) off the gold sellers for RL cash.

(Boy, those gold sellers are profiteering. First they bot stuff 24/7, getting the Flux drops. They sell those Fluxes en masse to crafters, gaining kinah in the process. They then turn around and sell that kinah to players, who spend their kinah buying the proc items from crafters.)

There are a couple spots which do not fit so nicely into this economic theory, of course.

Abyss Points, I believe, get more important past level 25-30, and those are only gained by PvPing. You can buy pretty damn kewl gear for Abyss points, which would lessen the demand for crafted items, which get more exponentially expensive each tier. (Presumably, the ability to grind/find kinah increases, since even vendor items sell for 2 mil kinah at level 40-50.)

I am positive bots and gold sellers are pretty crap at PvP. Of course, there's bound to be people who want an edge who might buy kinah and bring the goldsellers into the equation, but at the moment, and if all keeps going right with Aion, there is the power of the zerg to contend with in PvP. It is the great equalizer. 1 cannot vs 10, or 50, no matter how buffed to high heaven his gear is. (More on this in a later post.)

The other part is that of self-sufficient crafters. Aion has an interesting way of 'encouraging' profession choice based on class, because at the end of the long grind, you get a title that adds a small bonus to your parry, block, or attack, or magic boost, etc. I doubt a sorceror is really all that interested in raising his Block rating, since he doesn't carry a shield anyway. So people tend to fragment into professions based on class, as well as choosing a profession that can craft their own armor as they go.

This has strange effects on the flux market, as when the hardcore folks hit a certain level tier, flux prices of that tier increase as they start buying it up for their gear attempts.

At the same time, prices of the lower tier decrease as they start clearing out their inventories and dumping stock, undercutting each other to get someone to buy up their 'junk.' (Meanwhile, the bots are still farming heaps of the lower tier fluxes and adjusting prices to match the plunging rate.)

It was almost by luck that I stumbled into an interesting niche on my server. The lowbie twink weapon or first gear 'improvement' purchase of the casual player.

A lvl 21 guildie (more of the casual group) was looking to offload some of his weapon fluxes, including Lesser Weapon Fluxes. He mailed 'em over to me free.

I wasn't actually going to bother with the iron/steel weapons anymore because I was already lvl 25 and looking towards titanium weapons for myself. (Except the titanium buggers cost a bomb, and I needed kinah to afford to raise my crafting.)

So what the heck, I had spare crafting mats for the iron tier, enough Lesser Weapon Fluxes from my guildie and me to make a Durable Steel Sword or two and hope for a proc - I needed to clear my inventory too of this iron tier.

I checked the Auction House (Trade Broker, in Aion) to see the materials prices, and was fairly pleased to see that there were a bunch lower than a reasonable price. I bought them up and managed to amass enough mats for 4 tries. (This decimated my already poor wallet to almost nothing, however.)

Some crafting time later, I had proc'ed 2 Noble swords and had 2 worthless pieces of junk. I checked the broker, to find about 15 of the worthless swords selling for 1.5x the vendor rate. Or rather, NOT-selling for 1.5x the vendor rate.

The vendor rate wasn't too horrible though, so I just sold them, wincing at the loss. (I later calculated it at about -7000 kinah each.)

I put up one Noble Sword on the broker, undercutting by 10% the other 3 swords there, but it was still easily 6-7x the vendor rate and about 30k kinah in profit. (Each sword cost about 13k-16k kinah to make, said my back of the envelope scribbling.)

I was planning to offer the other Noble Sword to my guildie as a gift, since he was in the right level range and he did send me those fluxes. Just as I was headed to the mailbox, the Noble Sword sold on the auction house.

WTF. This fast? I was going to be about 40k richer? I froze, with my hand suddenly pulling my last Noble Sword back out of the mailbox slot, figuratively speaking.

Oh, what the heck. Greed took over, and I figured, I'm gonna put this up to see if this one sells. This is now the sword I was planning on getting profit from. The guildie doesn't know about his potential 'loss.'

The 40k from the earlier sword sale, I then used to buy up crafting materials for another SIX tries at the sword. (I actually had to pull out maybe 10-20k more from my wallet, can't recall.)

I proc'ed three.

Gawking, I kept one for the guildie, and ran to put up my other two on the auction. The second sword had already sold, so again I was 40k richer.

Getting into the swing of things, I dug out a bit more money from my broker than broke wallet, and bought mats for EIGHT tries, proc'ing two (or three, I forget.) It took some juggling of kinah as I had to vendor the failed swords to afford crafting supplies for the next one, etc.

Ultimately, it stands at 3 items on auction for over 40k each, 1 item in my stock for later auctioning, and 1 item given away to the guildie at a 'loss' - that's hopefully 120k-160k back in my pocket, which considering I started with less than 60k, isn't too shabby.

I stopped there because I was scared of pushing my luck any further. And I'd bought up everything cheap up to the limit of my profit calculation - I'd noticed there were some entrepreneurs who were busily processing iron for profit. Iron Ore + a vendor item + crafting = 1 Steel Ingot. Presuambly, they bought cheap iron ore and the vendor item, crafted it all, and then sold the steel ingots for a small 50 kinah per ingot profit.

That's about 15k kinah for 300 steel ingots, aka enough for 10 tries of a sword. But it's steady guaranteed profit, as long as the ingots sell.

Aka as long as gambler crafters like me take their chances and buy them up, charging the cost into our final proc products.

As long as someone BUYs the final proc product at the end of it, we are all good.

Hence, I am dabbling at this level 20 tier because the proc price is high, but conceivably affordable even to a normal player, as long as he's willing to spend a bit more and grind a bit more for a nice weapon to help him out in his mob/player killing.

I think for weapons, there will be quite some demand as it directly affects how fast you take something down.

Armor is trickier, because a weapon is a one time purchase per character, but you have to fill up 6 armor slots or more. Someone who will be all right spending 50k for a sword, would not be so cool with spending 300k for an entire armor set - heck, I don't see how he can get that amount of money if he doesn't play the market in some way. Grinding 50k is conceivable. 300k at that level takes economic balls.

Such as a teammate who said he made 300k by buying up some questing materials and parking himself by a questor overnight to set up a private store. "Get your gather quest materials here!"

Damn, but people are lazy. I never knew that so many would do that.

I see all those stores all the time, but I just go out and gather it anyway because I figure if I don't increase my gather skill, I will forever have to keep paying these folks through the nose because the tiers just keep going up and up.

The other thing that I am scared of is another weaponsmith turning up in my niche and turning it into an undercutting price war. I don't have the capital for a protracted fight, and I am really not sure if the demand will last. Judging by my observations of the folks in my guild, the casuals are just cresting the level 20 range right about now, the middle folk like me are in the 25 range, the hardcore wave is 30-35.

This is the first launch wave and the biggest. Subsequent level 20s are going to be people that have started later and are playing catch up (works out for me if they have a highbie friend twinking them out) and the slower folk who may not make it to 20 until quite later on. Really not sure if the demand will be as hot then.

I guess things will stabilize further once people start spreading out through the level ranges, and the too-casuals lose their focus and quit the game and so on. We'll see.

lolrp

Today, in the midst of my late night crafting (as usual in MMO circles, this consists of having the requisite recipe materials, hitting a button and watching the progress bar for about two seconds before losing interest and surfing the net on the other monitor,) some B movie entertainment walked into the crafter's forge hall.



Ayep. An RP guild (legion) picked the forge hall of all places to conduct their "walk-in" interviews.

It was quite fun to watch, in all honesty. Talikrad seemed the most competent RPer of the lot, with Hanabi the legion master next, Sythra was passable, and this guy called Lokgar was *wince* material.

There's no such thing as /emote in Aion, alas, so they made do with a bunch of various /say conventions. *nods at someone* -holds up a spear- The works.

The content of the roleplay seemed quite hopelessly prosaic though. Hi, I've come to join your legion. Why? Cos you guys seem to have it together. All right, at some point in the future you will be called on to fight in the Abyss, are you fine with that? Yep. Cool, you're in, here have a shiny badge. Thank you, *pins shiny badge proudly on self* If you focus really hard with the power of Aether, you can be heard in the thoughts of all your legion mates. You'll excuse me, I must visit the auction house. No problems, I was going to forge myself a spear. Yes, me too, I need to work on some blades.

(Well duh.)

Seemed almost a waste of a beautifully designed city, which had a nice tavern and all. Ditto in Age of Conan, which had some fabulous tavern spaces which no one ever visited. (Except maybe in an attempt to hide from mad PvPers, who knows.)

Not to mention, Aion has fantastic lore and background for origin stories and other side rivalry/hate. But nope, none of that explored here. Strictly a mercenary "join my ((RP)) legion" affair.

What amused me was the studiously focused way in which the 3-4 of them shut out everything else going on around them.

Such as this dragon that flew into the forge hall and flapped around for a bit. (Actually a transformed player using a quest reward.)



Personally, I would at least comment on it. Like a 'whoa, what was that?' kind of thing.

But I dunno, maybe it is an MMO convention, to completely shut out the outside world. Maybe it's a defence mechanism so as not to attract RP griefers. Who knows.

P.S. In other news, I experienced my first 30-man Elyos zerg coming through a rift into our Morheim territory.

I was fortunate enough to have early warning by listening to chat channels, reporting a 30 man Elyos and their map location. Seeing that it was just a little ways up north from where I was, I was wondering if I should try scouting the rim, or just flee.

My enemy radar chat channel suddenly started scrolling. (This picks up enemy attacks even before they get into sight range. Set up via invaluable advice from a guide.)

Gulping, I leaned over the edge of the tall mountain I was on, to see a TIDAL WAVE of red diamonds sweeping up the slope.

Stumbling backwards in a hurry, my instinctive reaction was to hit "return" - the hearthing skill. My character started the "return" animation. The vanguard of the zerg crested the hilltop and charged straight at me.

They got one or two hits in, me praying to all the Asmodian gods there was, but the animation fortunately didn't cancel, and I ported out right under their noses.

Lol. Denied. By a split second. Was wheezing with adrenaline and relief back at my bind point.

By the time the Asmodian return zerg formed up, (which I joined), the Elyos were scattered to the winds. Apparently once the leaders died, the rest "returned" in a hurry.

Easily bored PUG being what it was, the zerg dissolved in a hurry. I pressed on, along with a small group who were leveling up, to explore the top of this big mountain hillside, and what do you know, there was a little red diamond hiding at the top. An Elyos assasin, boxed in by aggressive mobs, trying her best to stay out of sight of 4 Asmodians (actually me, plus 3 PvErs).

Having very little illusions about my winning a 1 vs 1 with my crap gear, I used the fact of numbers to freak out the assassin into taking flight down the mountainside, me pursuing.

She slammed into the mountainside once, but somehow managed to recover. She landed. I landed. I charged at her. She evaded. She sliced up a poor clothie or priest that got in her way, making me wonder exactly what level she was and if I could take her. We danced around evasively with each other for a couple seconds. I couldn't quite seem to knock her down, so I decided discretion was the better part of valour and backed off.

She got aggressive, seeing maybe a victory in sight. I led her right into another leveling duo who were only too happy to help. We chased her around for a bit, the assassin proving damnably slippery indeed, and I finally got a lucky cc in on her - holding her still long enough for the attacks from 3 players to slam into her and knock her down.

Yay.

I seem to be horribly good at this "bait" business. And suck terribly 1 vs 1. :)

Safety in Numbers

While I'm not at the half-way mark yet that heralds the start of entering the Abyss, the full-on pvp zone that is liable to be filled with roaming gank squads, I am quite enjoying Aion's design.

It recalls a more gradual old-school style of easing oneself into a game, peeling back and unveiling layers of complexity the higher up you go.

World of Warcraft in its early days had this, I believe, all the way from "never played a computer game before" up to "hardcore raider." Except the bait-and-switch when one hit endgame was a little too sudden, perhaps, only clear to those who had played SMAUG-likes before.

In contrast, we have games like City of Heroes (with no endgame to speak of, using the altholic, reroll if not remort, model), Age of Conan (who tried to copycat World of Warcraft in raids but failed miserably in design principles, and left open world PvP with no consequences whatsoever to fester on its own) and Warhammer Online (whose design principles came out so clearly one felt railroaded into a game-game from the start, rather than an immersive world.)

From lvls 1-20 in Aion, it is more or less PvE-only. There is the standard newbie zone that eases you through the 1-10 tutorial and finishes off with you getting your wings.

The next area opens up further in a circular ring, rather than one linear path, so that the world feeling is simulated a little more. On one side, you have a clear soloist path to lvl 20. On the other side, it has a few lvl 17-19 solo areas, plus some group areas that end off in the big bad bosses' area.

This design cunningly moves you into testing the grouping waters, while still having a choice for solo grinding of quests and monsters.

A few of the quests also make you criss-cross old areas. Some feel that frustrating, but I think it's good, too much forward movement turns into a linear steamrolling railroad after a while. Some quests cross you over into the main city, and into the next new areas for lvl 20 and up.

One area, Brusthonin, is PvE for 20-25. (In fact, on exploration, this is only the first bit of the zone. The next bit looks like lvl 40 with a PvE instance.)

This is the carebear's resort, if they're really frightened of any kind of PvP whatsoever.

This is also the home of myriad oddly-named bots that grind mobs 24/7, likely for the purposes of goldselling and PLing. I find them oddly annoying, because they have a tendency to killsteal, but they're not game-crippling as yet because there is a wide expanse of mobs that respawn quickly, the bots patrol limited areas.

I do hope NCsoft does something about them, because if they cross beyond a critical mass, they will shortly make the game quite unplayable for non-cyborg players.

On the bright side, the barren monotony of this area soon drives any thinking player into the other zone, Morheim, which is PvEvP. Or rather, full of PvE players from one side, and players from another side which may involve you in PvP.

Players cross over into the opposing side's territory using "rifts" that appear at random intervals. These intervals seem to be pretty long, because I haven't caught sight of a single rift as yet. It could also be that the bulk of the population has not caught up to the levels where the rifts are appearing, as this Morheim zone stretches from lvls 20-40.

Obviously, if a group of lvl 40s catch your lvl 20 ass out alone, you're going to be a smear in a hurry. In practice, this isn't happening yet, as there is a bell curve to a new game's population. (Also, I suspect the gank squads are out in the Abyss where the real profit is.)

As little PvP appetizers, though, this game has a cunningly designed "Spy" type quest, which teleports you once (on the Asmodian side) or twice (on the Elyos side) into the opposing zone.

This turns out quite hilarious as unsuspecting PvE questors are suddenly dumped solo on top of a high ridge (that the opposing side cannot get to) deep in the heart of enemy territory. Later, there are some quests that ask you to kill one or two mobs in this enemy zone, as an incentive towards 'rifting.'

If you were a true-blue PvE-only type of person, of course you could always hearth back to safety in a hurry. (What you'd do at lvl 25 though, I dunno, when the rest of the game focus shifts to more PvP.) Most players try their luck.

By class design, lowbie ranged DPS and priest-types more often than not can survive a 1 on 1 fairly well. If the rifter plays smart, he gets a few kills under his belt to boost his ego and bloodthirst.

For the rest, well, it is an introduction to what happens if you are surrounded by 3-8 people of the opposing faction. Hope you can deal.

The good news is that this cuts both ways. After you end up on the losing end once, you realize that there are equally clueless newbs on the other side that are winging their outnumbered way into your home turf. The once-hunted can turn hunter if so inclined.

By design, this makes you more likely to leap to your own comrades' aid the moment you see an evil red enemy diamond on your radar, and more likely to huddle together for safety.

Again, the level design is slick as hell. This area is a gradual linear curve down to higher level areas, with a few branching side paths. The further off the beaten track you venture, the less likely it is that a stealthy rifter will be seen, and/or have people coming to your aid. This funnels most people down the roads together, as can be seen below:



No sane solo rifter is going to try and meander his way into THAT mess of enemy red diamonds.

I haven't actually had a lvl 40 turn up and see if he can scatter groups of lvl 20s yet. I suspect that not all games are as exponentially easy godmode as WoW, and a couple of ten or less determined lvl 20s would most likely firebolt the lvl 40 into submission.

Our guild tried a group foray into the Elyos using the Spy quest. We were a little bit more set up, with a 'kisk' that allows for resurrection in their territory, and about 7-8 did paratroop-like flybys into the enemy zone.

This was, I like to think, mutually fun on both ends. We got a number of spike-damage kills, but oh my goodness, the enemy swarmed like ants the moment they got wind of a group of rifting Asmodians. By sheer dint of numbers, they wiped our party out. Begin strafing run number 2. Cut down a few more Elyos. Get wiped by the flood of onrushing people thirsting for PvP action. Repeat a couple more times until people got bored.

Win-win and lose-lose for both sides. A relatively harmless taster of mass PvP action to ease one's mindset towards the Abyss and the mixed PvP-PvE endgame (which I hear involves PvP Fortress takeovers in order to unlock PvE raid dungeons and so on.)

The cutest thing about the design, I feel, is how it encourages people to stick together in numbers, if not outright group.

Normally, if there are 2-3 others in your vincinity, that's a cue to flee the area and go look for somewhere else to grind in peace. Now there's no choice.

You can't switch channels (aka instances of the same area) any more in a PvP zone, you have to share mobs more or less (respawn rates are thankfully quite fast), and anyway, you'd appreciate all these other people around watching your back if a group of the enemy come winging their way in - so what the hell, learn to put up with them, right? They're on your side.



This picture, I think, says it all.

I was just sheltering under the lee of a cliff, resting to regain hp. I decided to "hide" there a bit because of LOS issues, in case an enemy ventured by.

This random friendly assassin whom I did not know, also with half his hp remaining from fighting mobs, circled me for a while... and then promptly decided to sit down right next to me.

Safety in numbers monkey brain at work.

P.S. This shortly worked out very well for me, because I recovered my hp before he did, stood up and ran further down the road, right into a red diamond that indicated an enemy player. A spiritmaster, strolling down the side path of one road, with his pet at his side.

I eep'ed, and turned back the way I came, figuring I could get another ally involved.

Spiritmaster gives chase. I do a running flight with a bow equipped to snipe him a little.

Spiritmaster sees stationary assassin, and sends his pet off to molest it. I turn around and whack him more with the bow, about to charge.

Spiritmaster roots me before I get to him. Damn! I wasn't sure if a 'cure physical altered states' potion would break the root, and anyway, I didn't have any on me (Careless!)

I chug a healing potion (thank goodness I have one) and continue to plink away with my bow, hoping the root will break and I can charge him with my polearm.

The bastard Spiritmaster uses LOS to break the bow plinking, while leaving a DoT on me, while still rooted.

Luckily for me, this battle was along aforementioned road, so a random friendly Sorceror stops by to fling something fiery or energy-like into the Spiritmaster, who may have suddenly realised he's taken on a bit more than he can chew.

The root finally breaks, and I hurtle into the Spiritmaster's face, switching to the polearm. He doesn't last long after that, and crumples into a satisfying ball of white wings, to resurrect back home.

The Sorceror and I meander down to the Assassin, who is now standing from his resting, motionless, at half hp. Welp, looks like the guy is AFK. Still, his body played an important part in distracting the Spiritmaster's pet, and what do you know, he survived, thanks to safety in numbers.