The Five-Day-Long One-Day-Only Early Holidays Sale!
So I'm already a Steam junkie and habitually check their store for surprise deals every single day.
And this massively RED and WHITE banner catches my eye.
Even before the "Steam Updates" pops up with their friendly advertisement elucidating the deals of the day.
And omg, what deals they are.
I see that the currency exchange is currently 1.4, which is a far sight better than the 1.5-2.0 I normally use to calculate "good deal or not."
This makes:
Fallen Earth - $35 sgd
Champions Online - $28 sgd
Batman: Arkham Asylum - $35 sgd
If I didn't already have Osmos and Far Cry 2, those are fantastically good deals too - but I bought Osmos at 50% off, so no regret there, and I also got the earlier version sans DLC of Far Cry 2 at 50% off, so nothing terrible there either.
Ironically, I had just been giving thought to going to Tec-Drome to check out prices and pick up Batman: Arkham Asylum.
Well, Tec-Drome just got picked up and stomped in the face, because good relationships with the Uncle not withstanding, there's no way he's selling me Batman at $35, it'll be more like $45-50.
I am also now entertaining the slightly insane ideas of picking up Fallen Earth and Champions Online to play for the free month before abandoning them. This is hilarious though, I would be leaving a trail of lowbie characters across random games, intending to return one day to them, but not for a while.
---
Dragon Age: Origins is now very close to what I could probably get from Tec-Drome, $52ish. But I'm still hanging back on this because of DLC issues. It's kinda nuts to create 'unlockable' content in a singleplayer game. I would much rather wait a year or two for them to republish as a "everything included" type of experience.
Seriously, they have turned a singleplayer game into a MMO in-game store experience, just without the other players! According to a review I read, Penny Arcade hits it on the head, if you're playing an un-upgraded version of Dragon Age, an NPC will actually link you to the in-game store and say, hey, buy this premium content so that you can unlock the stuff I'm selling!
To quoth the character... "suspension of disbelief...pierced."
It may be a good way of combating piracy, of turning the consumer into a faithful two-year subscriber of your content, of sticking it to the brick and mortar stores who control pricing and filtering back more money directly into your coffers for more game production budget, but it makes it really hard to swallow for me.
I suspect I'd eventually pick it up, but the longer I hold back on it, the more time there is for the base game price to drop, and the DLC to fall to half-price and game of the year editions with extra DLC included to be released, etc.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
Complain and Ye Shall Receive
Just a day after whining about Fire Temple in my previous post, I got into some fun Sunday runs.
A guild group and me started the day off. Four of them, one of me, they were trying to look for more, but there were no other takers. So we went in with 5 people.
They were also even level with the mobs, lvl 31-33 (mobs are 33) and I was 34 - which was a novel experience to not be the lowest in the group. Regardless, things went swimmingly.
The templar was new to the whole instance, so his sorceror comrade was the one leading, spotting, putting marks on mobs, and cc'ing with a chat macro that made it uber-clear when he was casting sleep on a mob.
I think this was great. This freed up the templar to actually maintain aggro on more than one mob, and the sorceror was basically spotting him and cc'ing if his hp got too low, or if a third mob got aggro'ed, etc.
There was also some disscussion earlier about whether we should just 'kill everything' instead of running to Kromede. Some people wanted xp, y'see. Obviously, I added my two cents worth that it would be freaking great to see something else besides the bow-wielding madwoman.
Random Youtube Video of Kromede fight, also conveniently from the same server
Well, ultimately, we did a straight path to Kromede, BUT we did kill everything along the way. With one man out, the rest of us five got quite decent amounts of experience for 'trash' mobs.
It didn't take us that long either. What, an extra 30-60 seconds per group? At most we added on 15 mins to our run.
By doing so, we were able to stroll down the centre of the corridor in complete safety, instead of hugging the wall and praying or skimming through the narrow centre line of nonaggro between two nasty groups of 3 mobs each.
Seriously, why the hell not?
My opinion plunges further of the stupid templar who took so much pride in his elite sneaking skillz that he would just stand there and watch as a clumsy-footed member of his party accidentally aggro'ed something, and go 'wtf man, why'd you do that for' as the rest of the group either tried to help, fled in terror and/or got turned into little pasty red gibs.
Of course, I don't have much of an excuse for myself either, because I did fubar up one chance to tank that could have gone a lot better, but started on the wrong foot to begin with.
See, a templar blind-invited me to an FT run about 2 minutes after I logged in. I thought, what the hell. Five minutes into the instance, he turned tail and said, hey guys I forgot to pick my gf up from the airport, and ran out. He dumped the lead on me and said, the glad can tank.
Well, I wasn't too amused by this turn of affairs. My armor is NOT exceptionally up to date, so I'm a little squishier than I should be, I think. Then I made a sequence of two "mistakes." Mistakes in the sense of being unintentional and of poor judgement, rather in the sense of not living up to expectations and 'shoulds.'
I told the group I wasn't going to mark, because it's the truth, I didn't have any keys set up, but I don't mind tanking. And asked if anyone else wanted the leader, because only the leader gets to mark.
This apparently shook the spiritmaster's confidence and he went, forget it, I'm outta here.
Juuust as I had walked up to tank the first mob.
Not a great state of affairs. I also made the second critical mistake of assuming that 5 decently high-leveled people (minus the one templar) could finish off the mob fast enough (well, hey, I'd just been in a GREAT 5 people group that morning) so that a patrol who had just meandered down the corridor would be back just in time to get killed.
Instead, a flat-footed individual aggro'ed the neighboring mob beside the one I was tanking, making me have to tank both. (That's about the limit of what I can handle.)
The spiritmaster had probably scarpered off, leaving team morale plunging. And then the patrol came up and aggro'ed - which is pretty much a death sentence for me.
And frankly, I died so fast before that third mob could even wander up, that I figured the two healers had already abandoned ship and turned tail.
That was annoying. I decided to throw a hissy fit after respawning at recall, and just told the remaining guys, "forget it, cya," and quit the group.
I'm positive that didn't do wonders for gladiator reputation, but blah, I didn't ask to tank in the first place. Heck, I'd barely gotten orientated when I logged in.
I'm sure glads can tank, but it has to be a much tighter ship. Better gear, better mob levels, a bit more support from cc'er and healer and buffer, considerably more situational awareness and understanding of Aion mob aggro than I currently know, and so on.
Anyhow, to clean out the ugly aftertaste, I joined another FT run group an hour after that and this one went like clockwork.
We did it the 'skip this, skip that' method, but the templar was very competent and would generally clear enough to be safe, and because he also considerably outleveled the whole instance, he was 35 or 36, I think - he would pull one mob as the last mob was dying and just tank both.
He set a pretty fast pace through the instance, with minimal marking, and the rest of the team was thankfully decent enough to react appropriately.
In fact, they were so decent that we cleared Kromede in 25 minutes, and were stuck outside twiddling our thumbs for 5 minutes.
Some members expressed some bemusement, "wow, did they just add a timer to this?"
Thanks to some homework I did regarding figuring out wtf those other guys were doing to get out of the instance, I knew enough to say, "No, the timer has always been 30 minutes. We just cleared it so fast we have 5 minutes to spare before we can go in again."
I'll admit, that was kinda kewl, yes.
Possibly due to this rapid pace, and general team competency, when one member asked the group if they could help complete (miscellaneous fire temple quest), the templar was quite agreeable.
So at long last, I was able to finally experience a Fire Temple team that SIDETREKED off the main route.
Unfortunately, none of the desirable bosses (one of them holding the potential for a two-hander greatsword or polearm that would be my gladiator's uber dream weapon) were up.
Nonetheless, it was quite fun to blaze a circular trail of death round a group of mobs no one usually fights so that some members of the group could get their quest count racked up.
I also managed to spot a little chest after some mobs got cleared that held an item to my own (miscellaneous Fire Temple quest) and nabbed it for completion.
---
After repeated runs of Fire Temple and Kromede, I must say that I quite enjoy my backup melee dps role. Especially since in one part of the Kromede fight, she drops a ton of traps.
I see folks used to running the heck away from them. As an AoE meleer, all I need to do is start my AoE chain, and I sweep the buggers away every time, if not on the first stroke, then by the second.
This leaves a very clean floor, no nasty damage that could kill somebody. Street sweeping is fun! :P
With my luck, the rest of them probably think that the traps asploded and they were so smart for running out of range while the stupid gladiator remains in the middle.
Theoretically, I am also supposed to run away from Kromede's final and last AoE, Miserable Struggle, though I have to admit, I'm so blind I don't see it many times.
I haven't figured out yet if I can rearrange the UI to plunk the enemy spellcast bar somewhere right in the centre of my view yet. At the moment, it's a teensy little bar that zaps off rather quickly (perhaps my latency doesn't help) and by the time I pick my heavy self up to run off, I'm already hit by it.
Honestly, it doesn't really bother me. It takes off half my hp, so it is quite a bit of a stinker that can smash an assassin or a chanter or a clothie in range.
But I have a hp recovery skill that puts back 1/4 my hp bar instantly and a heal over time cooldown I just got at lvl 34 that puts back a good 1/2 my hp bar over time. Not withstanding any health potions I choose to quaff.
Most healers would snap a heal off instinctively anyway. Even if they don't, out of some huffy desire to not heal avoidable damage, I think I have a pretty good chance of surviving the hit anyway.
A guild group and me started the day off. Four of them, one of me, they were trying to look for more, but there were no other takers. So we went in with 5 people.
They were also even level with the mobs, lvl 31-33 (mobs are 33) and I was 34 - which was a novel experience to not be the lowest in the group. Regardless, things went swimmingly.
The templar was new to the whole instance, so his sorceror comrade was the one leading, spotting, putting marks on mobs, and cc'ing with a chat macro that made it uber-clear when he was casting sleep on a mob.
I think this was great. This freed up the templar to actually maintain aggro on more than one mob, and the sorceror was basically spotting him and cc'ing if his hp got too low, or if a third mob got aggro'ed, etc.
There was also some disscussion earlier about whether we should just 'kill everything' instead of running to Kromede. Some people wanted xp, y'see. Obviously, I added my two cents worth that it would be freaking great to see something else besides the bow-wielding madwoman.
Random Youtube Video of Kromede fight, also conveniently from the same server
Well, ultimately, we did a straight path to Kromede, BUT we did kill everything along the way. With one man out, the rest of us five got quite decent amounts of experience for 'trash' mobs.
It didn't take us that long either. What, an extra 30-60 seconds per group? At most we added on 15 mins to our run.
By doing so, we were able to stroll down the centre of the corridor in complete safety, instead of hugging the wall and praying or skimming through the narrow centre line of nonaggro between two nasty groups of 3 mobs each.
Seriously, why the hell not?
My opinion plunges further of the stupid templar who took so much pride in his elite sneaking skillz that he would just stand there and watch as a clumsy-footed member of his party accidentally aggro'ed something, and go 'wtf man, why'd you do that for' as the rest of the group either tried to help, fled in terror and/or got turned into little pasty red gibs.
Of course, I don't have much of an excuse for myself either, because I did fubar up one chance to tank that could have gone a lot better, but started on the wrong foot to begin with.
See, a templar blind-invited me to an FT run about 2 minutes after I logged in. I thought, what the hell. Five minutes into the instance, he turned tail and said, hey guys I forgot to pick my gf up from the airport, and ran out. He dumped the lead on me and said, the glad can tank.
Well, I wasn't too amused by this turn of affairs. My armor is NOT exceptionally up to date, so I'm a little squishier than I should be, I think. Then I made a sequence of two "mistakes." Mistakes in the sense of being unintentional and of poor judgement, rather in the sense of not living up to expectations and 'shoulds.'
I told the group I wasn't going to mark, because it's the truth, I didn't have any keys set up, but I don't mind tanking. And asked if anyone else wanted the leader, because only the leader gets to mark.
This apparently shook the spiritmaster's confidence and he went, forget it, I'm outta here.
Juuust as I had walked up to tank the first mob.
Not a great state of affairs. I also made the second critical mistake of assuming that 5 decently high-leveled people (minus the one templar) could finish off the mob fast enough (well, hey, I'd just been in a GREAT 5 people group that morning) so that a patrol who had just meandered down the corridor would be back just in time to get killed.
Instead, a flat-footed individual aggro'ed the neighboring mob beside the one I was tanking, making me have to tank both. (That's about the limit of what I can handle.)
The spiritmaster had probably scarpered off, leaving team morale plunging. And then the patrol came up and aggro'ed - which is pretty much a death sentence for me.
And frankly, I died so fast before that third mob could even wander up, that I figured the two healers had already abandoned ship and turned tail.
That was annoying. I decided to throw a hissy fit after respawning at recall, and just told the remaining guys, "forget it, cya," and quit the group.
I'm positive that didn't do wonders for gladiator reputation, but blah, I didn't ask to tank in the first place. Heck, I'd barely gotten orientated when I logged in.
I'm sure glads can tank, but it has to be a much tighter ship. Better gear, better mob levels, a bit more support from cc'er and healer and buffer, considerably more situational awareness and understanding of Aion mob aggro than I currently know, and so on.
Anyhow, to clean out the ugly aftertaste, I joined another FT run group an hour after that and this one went like clockwork.
We did it the 'skip this, skip that' method, but the templar was very competent and would generally clear enough to be safe, and because he also considerably outleveled the whole instance, he was 35 or 36, I think - he would pull one mob as the last mob was dying and just tank both.
He set a pretty fast pace through the instance, with minimal marking, and the rest of the team was thankfully decent enough to react appropriately.
In fact, they were so decent that we cleared Kromede in 25 minutes, and were stuck outside twiddling our thumbs for 5 minutes.
Some members expressed some bemusement, "wow, did they just add a timer to this?"
Thanks to some homework I did regarding figuring out wtf those other guys were doing to get out of the instance, I knew enough to say, "No, the timer has always been 30 minutes. We just cleared it so fast we have 5 minutes to spare before we can go in again."
I'll admit, that was kinda kewl, yes.
Possibly due to this rapid pace, and general team competency, when one member asked the group if they could help complete (miscellaneous fire temple quest), the templar was quite agreeable.
So at long last, I was able to finally experience a Fire Temple team that SIDETREKED off the main route.
Unfortunately, none of the desirable bosses (one of them holding the potential for a two-hander greatsword or polearm that would be my gladiator's uber dream weapon) were up.
Nonetheless, it was quite fun to blaze a circular trail of death round a group of mobs no one usually fights so that some members of the group could get their quest count racked up.
I also managed to spot a little chest after some mobs got cleared that held an item to my own (miscellaneous Fire Temple quest) and nabbed it for completion.
---
After repeated runs of Fire Temple and Kromede, I must say that I quite enjoy my backup melee dps role. Especially since in one part of the Kromede fight, she drops a ton of traps.
I see folks used to running the heck away from them. As an AoE meleer, all I need to do is start my AoE chain, and I sweep the buggers away every time, if not on the first stroke, then by the second.
This leaves a very clean floor, no nasty damage that could kill somebody. Street sweeping is fun! :P
With my luck, the rest of them probably think that the traps asploded and they were so smart for running out of range while the stupid gladiator remains in the middle.
Theoretically, I am also supposed to run away from Kromede's final and last AoE, Miserable Struggle, though I have to admit, I'm so blind I don't see it many times.
I haven't figured out yet if I can rearrange the UI to plunk the enemy spellcast bar somewhere right in the centre of my view yet. At the moment, it's a teensy little bar that zaps off rather quickly (perhaps my latency doesn't help) and by the time I pick my heavy self up to run off, I'm already hit by it.
Honestly, it doesn't really bother me. It takes off half my hp, so it is quite a bit of a stinker that can smash an assassin or a chanter or a clothie in range.
But I have a hp recovery skill that puts back 1/4 my hp bar instantly and a heal over time cooldown I just got at lvl 34 that puts back a good 1/2 my hp bar over time. Not withstanding any health potions I choose to quaff.
Most healers would snap a heal off instinctively anyway. Even if they don't, out of some huffy desire to not heal avoidable damage, I think I have a pretty good chance of surviving the hit anyway.
Pictures in an Exhibition
Globes and libraries in city hall...
A robot cowboy bar...
A dreamscape of a psychic (you teleport in from over her bed)...
Strange sculpture...
Yeah...another one.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
With a Hop and Skip to the End
Aion's Fire Temple instance drives me nuts. It doesn't help that most of the core guild group has RL issues of some sort, and are rarely around when I'm about. Instead, my latest invites to that area are via PUGs and/or a guild group whose members consist of staunch Achiever types who are out to get their 1% chance drop for a rare gold weapon off the big boss.
Perhaps it's an Oceanic/South East Asian thing as well, because we keep having to run super-optimized paths that skip past most of the 'trash' and woe betide you if you accidentally aggro a group or a patrol that you weren't supposed to aggro. Mutterings of 'noob' and 'if he aggros again, can we kick him?' over guildchat for a PUG guy who was unfortunate enough to do so.
Yea, well, some of us haven't run this instance 15-30 times each level for the past three levels either.
The templar tank and cleric who are most keen are level 37 and 35, whereas us shoddy interchangable DPS filler are only level 34 or so. Aion aggro radius shrinks as you get higher in comparison to the mobs, vice versa too - and I'm not sure if they realize that.
My heart pounds and I get super stressed out for fear of me accidentally aggroing something.
Why? I don't know. Maybe it's a carryover from RoD days. I need to be seen as competent? An ego thing?
Maybe because I sense the unforgiving WoW trained mindset of many of these random Aion players, who are quick to discard and label as trustworthy/valuable or otherwise.
Maybe it's just the reputation of the gladiator class that I'm trying to shake off. Bot class. Class for no-skill noobs. And so on. Doesn't make it any easier that we are so gear and consumable dependent - I'm not exactly rolling around in money for either of those, and I don't have a static group to keep me up either.
So anyway, I undergo major stress through this mini-instance trying not to aggro anything but the one mob we are supposed to be killing. On a class that gets a decent proportion (1/4?) of its DPS from AoEs.
A competent templar will help me out by moving the mob so that I can AoE safely, but I still have to watch out for mobs that are cc'ed too closely or neighboring groups that are positioned just a tidy bit too close. Oftentimes, because I simply can't judge safe AoE distance, I rather just not risk it, opting for a gimp little pause between my skills where only autoattack is hitting.
But skipping annoys me. Especially since a group of 6 can mow down these elites in a minute or less. But nooo, some templars prefer to run through and leave the rest to sink or swim as they please.
Then there's the 'straight to the final boss' skipping strategy that really irritates me. There are apparently 3-4 other caverns in here, with bosses that have a chance of spawning, and a chance of dropping gold weapons too. Not to mention, a boss that some of us need for a quest.
But nooo, the standard "FT" run is to make a beeline for the final boss Kromede, who is, naturally, guaranteed to be there (though potentially in two forms, one stronger, one weaker).
Kromede, however, has a VERY low drop rate currently. (Dungeon instance loot drops are being shifted up a little higher in the coming 1.5 patch, except we have no idea when that's coming, and I don't think these particular eager guys got the memo just yet either.)
But what the hell, that doesn't matter. Kill, rinse and repeat!
These fast FT boss runners have also evolved some sort of arcanely obtuse method of exiting the instance for the repeat portion.
I couldn't figure out exactly how the heck they were doing it, until I sat down to read a few forums. Apparently if you leave group and stay still for a minute, you get ported out automatically. Or something. Dunno, haven't tried it.
Makes me a just a teensy bit depressed. It would be fun with a good group that you could rely on, and where everyone trusts and forgives mistakes. Not to mention, where folks were inclined to wander off the beaten path a bit more and explore the fucking dungeon a little.
Past instances weren't so...automatic. They were always a little bit messy, a lot of tank-and-spank, and a bit of exploration as our groups went in for the first time. I quite like those sorts of slightly messy instances - except they can get a tide costly in death penalties.
But I don't know why, for some reason, FT has evolved this efficiency path where everyone blindly follows, and never goes anywhere else.
Perhaps it's an Oceanic/South East Asian thing as well, because we keep having to run super-optimized paths that skip past most of the 'trash' and woe betide you if you accidentally aggro a group or a patrol that you weren't supposed to aggro. Mutterings of 'noob' and 'if he aggros again, can we kick him?' over guildchat for a PUG guy who was unfortunate enough to do so.
Yea, well, some of us haven't run this instance 15-30 times each level for the past three levels either.
The templar tank and cleric who are most keen are level 37 and 35, whereas us shoddy interchangable DPS filler are only level 34 or so. Aion aggro radius shrinks as you get higher in comparison to the mobs, vice versa too - and I'm not sure if they realize that.
My heart pounds and I get super stressed out for fear of me accidentally aggroing something.
Why? I don't know. Maybe it's a carryover from RoD days. I need to be seen as competent? An ego thing?
Maybe because I sense the unforgiving WoW trained mindset of many of these random Aion players, who are quick to discard and label as trustworthy/valuable or otherwise.
Maybe it's just the reputation of the gladiator class that I'm trying to shake off. Bot class. Class for no-skill noobs. And so on. Doesn't make it any easier that we are so gear and consumable dependent - I'm not exactly rolling around in money for either of those, and I don't have a static group to keep me up either.
So anyway, I undergo major stress through this mini-instance trying not to aggro anything but the one mob we are supposed to be killing. On a class that gets a decent proportion (1/4?) of its DPS from AoEs.
A competent templar will help me out by moving the mob so that I can AoE safely, but I still have to watch out for mobs that are cc'ed too closely or neighboring groups that are positioned just a tidy bit too close. Oftentimes, because I simply can't judge safe AoE distance, I rather just not risk it, opting for a gimp little pause between my skills where only autoattack is hitting.
But skipping annoys me. Especially since a group of 6 can mow down these elites in a minute or less. But nooo, some templars prefer to run through and leave the rest to sink or swim as they please.
Then there's the 'straight to the final boss' skipping strategy that really irritates me. There are apparently 3-4 other caverns in here, with bosses that have a chance of spawning, and a chance of dropping gold weapons too. Not to mention, a boss that some of us need for a quest.
But nooo, the standard "FT" run is to make a beeline for the final boss Kromede, who is, naturally, guaranteed to be there (though potentially in two forms, one stronger, one weaker).
Kromede, however, has a VERY low drop rate currently. (Dungeon instance loot drops are being shifted up a little higher in the coming 1.5 patch, except we have no idea when that's coming, and I don't think these particular eager guys got the memo just yet either.)
But what the hell, that doesn't matter. Kill, rinse and repeat!
These fast FT boss runners have also evolved some sort of arcanely obtuse method of exiting the instance for the repeat portion.
I couldn't figure out exactly how the heck they were doing it, until I sat down to read a few forums. Apparently if you leave group and stay still for a minute, you get ported out automatically. Or something. Dunno, haven't tried it.
Makes me a just a teensy bit depressed. It would be fun with a good group that you could rely on, and where everyone trusts and forgives mistakes. Not to mention, where folks were inclined to wander off the beaten path a bit more and explore the fucking dungeon a little.
Past instances weren't so...automatic. They were always a little bit messy, a lot of tank-and-spank, and a bit of exploration as our groups went in for the first time. I quite like those sorts of slightly messy instances - except they can get a tide costly in death penalties.
But I don't know why, for some reason, FT has evolved this efficiency path where everyone blindly follows, and never goes anywhere else.
Friday, November 13, 2009
CO: Week 1
Jack Emmert has a vision.
Everyone has one. Usually, after regurgitating that vision in your first (embarrassing, conceited) work, you get over that vision. In Emmert's case, if his vision version one didn't work out the way he wanted it, he'd make vision version two.
This is his vision, version two. In this world, one player equals three minions, crowd control is worthless because you shouldn't fight statues, and you press buttons gameboy style (one to build energy, two for your big attack) until you hit on the combination to win. Oh, and his love for the classics show everywhere.
It's not a bad thing, if you take all of this into account and play from that framework (haha) of understanding. The world is beautiful, the designs, the Champions IP, the costume creator, the music, the travelling powers. The new engine capabilities enable new types of quests.
This could be a really nice sandbox game...if it gets its act together.
After 1 week of play, I can see some problems that need to be solved if the game is to survive.
First of all, the open skill system is great, but the powers are not balanced. As I pointed out, crowd control is useless. As well as most of the other defense powers (or so I read). It happened when I tried to pick another defensive power besides regeneration, which I had during the trial weekend. My survivability plunged. It wasn't that it wasn't working. I did notice it working. But it wasn't enough to keep me alive with the ease regeneration was. Superficially, I had a lot of choice in picking powers, but given that I had limited number of power slots that came once in a while in the levelling process, I effectively was coralled into a certain path because there was an obvious choice on what powers to pick. Why pick useless powers?
The second problem is the lack of teaming. People didn't team, and when they did, I wasn't sure they were different from bots in that they didn't make human responses to me at all. When I get bored of the content, there would be nothing to keep me around. (In CoH, I log on at least twice a week to play on the static teams.)
Stay tuned for the next report.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Discovering Intrinsic Motivation
So Zubon over at Kill Ten Rats proposes that Achievers try cheating in order to shortcut the process of getting their extrinsic reward which they crave to an extent that they're willing to put up with wading through shit, uphill, to get.
Apparently, he would like them to see if they still treasure the collection of pixels (now obtained via minimal effort) afterward, or whether it becomes 'worthless' to them.
I can't help but think he's confusing two issues together.
There are Achievers out there whose need for leet gear is predicated on ego, social standing, bragging rights and what not.
They are HAPPY to cheat (via RMT or Ebay or what have you) in order to get their level 50s, their yellow/purple/rainbow gear and so on, and I think very few regret their decisions to cheat in this fashion.
We may hope for the few to get their comeuppance (shown to be a clueless n00b at raids or actually playing the game, prance around for a while and then get looted butt naked by folks with more skill or better connections - latency or social) but if the majority really learnt such a lesson, we wouldn't have the plague of RMT goldspam today, would we?
In fact, some of them happily cheat to bypass an activity they don't like, in order to get to the good stuff, an activity they like.
In this case, the stuff they cheated to obtain is very much valuable and needed in the larger scheme of things for their grand goals and plan and ultimate emotional payout, and is FAR from 'worthless.'
---
Frankly, the realisation that gear or max level and other such extrinsic rewards is 'worthless' stems from those players who have finally had the revelation that they play games for intrinsic rewards unrelated to gear, max level and so on.
And I don't think the best means of coming to this revelation is by trying out cheating.
You risk ruining the intrinsic fun of the game completely for the sake of -maybe- figuring out that you didn't really need the extrinsic reward as much as you thought - that's if you can even delink the two concepts on your own.
---
So, of course, the next natural question that comes to mind, and deserves a musing blog post of its own instead of wall-of-texting a comment, is: What other means of coming to such a revelation are there, BESIDES cheating?
Introspection and discussion certainly come to mind.
How about playing a game that doesn't have a heavy loot focus?
How about not giving an arseload about loot/levels or whatever you care about for the space of a few hours, and figuring out if there's anything you enjoy in the process?
Or counting the number of times you look at your xp bar, or admire your gear, or brag to others about your gear in the space of a few hours, and so on?
Just paying more attention to what you're doing NOW, over what you hope to gain in the future, or attempting to prove/disprove something that happened in the past? (formula for living life too)
I guess they're all a lot less controversial (if more effective) means than suggesting cheating though.
If I think up something more agonizing, I'll be sure to share.
---
Hmm...
How about playing a game with xp loss/debt and purposely going out to get yourself killed every once in a while? (except that pushes up against an entirely separate issue of playing in an optimized, effective fashion)
Maybe if you went and got yourself killed by staking your avatar's life in a higher than normal challenge? aka killing elites and what not? Or exploring in an area just not meant for your level range?
Or how about playing a game where you can turn off all xp gain and doing that for a while to see what you get out of doing that.
Or conversely, playing with a full inventory and NOT checking a single corpse for loot.
Or doing a grouped instance run and passing on every single roll. (With guildies and/or with PUGs.)
Oh yeah, hot. I think that one's a winner, in terms of controversy.
Apparently, he would like them to see if they still treasure the collection of pixels (now obtained via minimal effort) afterward, or whether it becomes 'worthless' to them.
I can't help but think he's confusing two issues together.
There are Achievers out there whose need for leet gear is predicated on ego, social standing, bragging rights and what not.
They are HAPPY to cheat (via RMT or Ebay or what have you) in order to get their level 50s, their yellow/purple/rainbow gear and so on, and I think very few regret their decisions to cheat in this fashion.
We may hope for the few to get their comeuppance (shown to be a clueless n00b at raids or actually playing the game, prance around for a while and then get looted butt naked by folks with more skill or better connections - latency or social) but if the majority really learnt such a lesson, we wouldn't have the plague of RMT goldspam today, would we?
In fact, some of them happily cheat to bypass an activity they don't like, in order to get to the good stuff, an activity they like.
In this case, the stuff they cheated to obtain is very much valuable and needed in the larger scheme of things for their grand goals and plan and ultimate emotional payout, and is FAR from 'worthless.'
---
Frankly, the realisation that gear or max level and other such extrinsic rewards is 'worthless' stems from those players who have finally had the revelation that they play games for intrinsic rewards unrelated to gear, max level and so on.
And I don't think the best means of coming to this revelation is by trying out cheating.
You risk ruining the intrinsic fun of the game completely for the sake of -maybe- figuring out that you didn't really need the extrinsic reward as much as you thought - that's if you can even delink the two concepts on your own.
---
So, of course, the next natural question that comes to mind, and deserves a musing blog post of its own instead of wall-of-texting a comment, is: What other means of coming to such a revelation are there, BESIDES cheating?
Introspection and discussion certainly come to mind.
How about playing a game that doesn't have a heavy loot focus?
How about not giving an arseload about loot/levels or whatever you care about for the space of a few hours, and figuring out if there's anything you enjoy in the process?
Or counting the number of times you look at your xp bar, or admire your gear, or brag to others about your gear in the space of a few hours, and so on?
Just paying more attention to what you're doing NOW, over what you hope to gain in the future, or attempting to prove/disprove something that happened in the past? (formula for living life too)
I guess they're all a lot less controversial (if more effective) means than suggesting cheating though.
If I think up something more agonizing, I'll be sure to share.
---
Hmm...
How about playing a game with xp loss/debt and purposely going out to get yourself killed every once in a while? (except that pushes up against an entirely separate issue of playing in an optimized, effective fashion)
Maybe if you went and got yourself killed by staking your avatar's life in a higher than normal challenge? aka killing elites and what not? Or exploring in an area just not meant for your level range?
Or how about playing a game where you can turn off all xp gain and doing that for a while to see what you get out of doing that.
Or conversely, playing with a full inventory and NOT checking a single corpse for loot.
Or doing a grouped instance run and passing on every single roll. (With guildies and/or with PUGs.)
Oh yeah, hot. I think that one's a winner, in terms of controversy.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
The Lesser of Two Temptations
It's weird sometimes how deeply I brood about small online purchases that in the larger scheme of things are not a big deal costwise.
Let's face it, I am no longer a little school kid getting an allowance of $50-$200 a month with all expenditure tied down to a tiny sum. I work, and heck, these past two or three months have been full of stress and my life looks like this: 60% work or brood about it, 30% sleep, 10% free time.
I am fortunate in that I have free shelter and commuting costs are being paid for by my family, though I can toss in my share if required. It boils down to a decent amount of spending money if I wanted to, and not a whole heckload of time.
$5-$50 USD is not actually a big deal. I just like being thrifty and not spending more than my means, and going a little overboard about it.
But I have found myself tempted this month by two types of temptations:
One is full price Steam games. Yes, Torchlight is among them. Maybe I'm kicking myself for not preordering when it was $15USD. I know very well that someday Steam will lower it to $9.99, I'm just not sure I'm willing to wait that long - I keep thinking it will be fun to play a WoW-like graphical roguelike.
Speaking of which, I have spent a heckton more money on WoW, which I played for 1 month out of the 3 months I paid for. But I don't think I wasted my money, I had a good run out of it and wouldn't mind paying for another two months if I ever got the urge again.
I've bought $50sgd singleplayer games, of which I don't spend more than two weeks on, or ever complete. They just sit there, being alluring, and being available if I feel tempted to play it.
So logically speaking if I get two weeks gameplay out of Torchlight, I am totally in the black in terms of value for money.
Cue it being equivalent to the price of a dvd which I would watch for two hours.
But emotionally, I dunno, it's something about the valuation of it. It's not that it isn't worth $20usd. It's like buying a stock that you KNOW fluctuates from $20-$40, why the heck would you buy high when you could buy low if you wait a little?
Except of course you can use the heck out of the 'stock' and get entertainment value out of it. Sooner.
Well, there's Knights of the Old Republic, which I was thinking of getting for $10usd, which is as roundly cheap as roundly gets, except when Steam slashes the price. I just don't really emotionally thrill to Star Wars, so I don't know how long it will last - but I was quite curious as to the storytelling options, especially the evil bits after reading some old Penny Arcade strips referencing it.
If I pay for one, I may as well get the other though. :)
---
That's the legitimate temptation.
You know what is utterly horrible to me? That I am giving the whole RMT option in Aion a second glance.
I totally sense this RMT undercurrent in the game. The bots are rampant, and they can harvest certain resources way more efficiently than humans can. So they list in bulk for cutthroat prices - no single legitimate player can hope to compete. Why do this? One is to get money to sell back to players, and I suspect they use the auction house to launder money too, so that the trail becomes more smudged.
I admit, I buy from bots on the broker when I can afford it, and there is no other live human selling for equivalent prices. It is only economically sensible to. Goblin philosophy and all. If my raw materials are cheaper, I can afford to price my final good cheaper and still turn a profit.
I have been trying to find niches in the market where the RMT companies can't be bothered to operate. It's small profits at best, but profit all the same. And there was the time I suspected my weapons were either funding a whole bunch of bots or RMT buyers.
Heck, at some of the prices floating around, the stuff I am crafting is probably purchased by RMT buyers. Or a few hands twice removed as the money floats from hand to hand.
And I guess I don't have an issue with the above, because hey, if someone wants to spend the RL money to buy the cash, a fool and his 'cheap' money are soon parted as long as I find the right niche to sell them stuff.
Where I'm going to hell is for giving the gold selling spam a second look.
Seriously, they are selling 1,000,000 kinah for $5USD. Or $6USD for a high rate.
The average amount of kinah I have on me is usually 100-200k, going up to highs of 300-500k which I have reached TWICE in my avatar's life. Once by selling a ton of crafted weapons before other crafters figured out, and just again recently by selling off a lucky rare drop (sacrificing my use of it, in other words).
It's crazy. Crazy CHEAP, that is. If I weren't so morally against the whole idea, (and also a little scared that I would get caught - though it's highly unlikely, and freaked out about the unethical practices of stolen credit cards and passwords), it would be so easy to just drop some real life cash in exchange for oodles of virtual money.
And if it is easy and tempting for me - who tends to avoid any cheat codes in singleplayer games on a moral basis - what about a player who is less arsed about this sort of thing, and doesn't turn a hair at paying Blizzard for a server transfer (how much was it? $25usd these days?)
That's 5 million kinah to spend like a millionaire. There are TOTALLY people in this game who would do that.
And for a shocking (to myself) moment, I find myself considering the thought. Not seriously, but still, considering it all the same. If it was a legitimate route, I think I might do it in a heartbeat a la the Mr Accessories in KoL, because they smooth the way in a game that I want to play.
Of course, so would several gazillion other people, so inflation might destroy the economy regardless, and the then assumption that you MUST pay a certain amount of money to compete would probably turn me off past a certain point.
I guess it's this whole Asian influence at work in the MMO. Lineage wasn't any better, I hear. And for the absolute classic in RMT, you had to be there at this computer convention I attended one day (World Cyber Games, maybe) where they were auctioning off ('for charity' supposedly) Maple Story uber-weapons. And we aren't talking about measly two hundred sing dollar weapons here, they were throwing around THOUSANDS of dollars. The one I overheard (the announcer has his PA system cranked to the max, you can't help but overhear) went for SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS plus pocket change.
(speechless)
Mind you, for there to be an auction up to that price, there has to be TWO people in that hall that day who wanted it. Bad.
---
But yeah, ultimately, I still think there is a difference between legitimate and illegal RMT. If the company is selling it, that's all very well, you acknowledge the game is like that if you choose to enter the fray.
Illegal RMT is this scummy underworld, wherein you don't know what you're funding. Could be just some broke exploited guys in China trying to make a living, could be an entire gun/drug/prostitution/id theft/credit card ring with Russian mafia ties or what have you.
And the means by which they ply their trade are fucking annoying, what with the spam, and resource (node/mobs) hogging taking territorial space over the normal players.
Hence I will continue to use my brains and attempt to goblin my share of the RMT pie through legitimate if cutthroat in-game means, instead of joining the scrubs who put down $5 usd in 'easy money.'
There's always niches. It's just sometimes a lot of work.
While I have been typing this, my 440k kinah from the blue I sold off has funded three tries at a valuable crafted armor.
Each is cost price of 220k. I'm hoping to sell off the two greens at 350k, and one of them has proced into a blue. When I can afford the brokerage price, I hope to stick it up there for 1.5 mil.
If any RMT fool buys any of those three pieces of armor, I am set. For a while, anyway. I might even be able to spare an armor piece for myself. Har.
If no one buys it in 8 days, then I am screwed. :/ And I would have to go gathering and mob killing to earn a few measly 40-50k kinah to survive.
I'm lvl 34 very soon, with skills to purchase that will easily cost 500k. I hope the crafting pays off. :/
---
Long story short, I might just give in and get Torchlight soon. What the heck, right? :/
Let's face it, I am no longer a little school kid getting an allowance of $50-$200 a month with all expenditure tied down to a tiny sum. I work, and heck, these past two or three months have been full of stress and my life looks like this: 60% work or brood about it, 30% sleep, 10% free time.
I am fortunate in that I have free shelter and commuting costs are being paid for by my family, though I can toss in my share if required. It boils down to a decent amount of spending money if I wanted to, and not a whole heckload of time.
$5-$50 USD is not actually a big deal. I just like being thrifty and not spending more than my means, and going a little overboard about it.
But I have found myself tempted this month by two types of temptations:
One is full price Steam games. Yes, Torchlight is among them. Maybe I'm kicking myself for not preordering when it was $15USD. I know very well that someday Steam will lower it to $9.99, I'm just not sure I'm willing to wait that long - I keep thinking it will be fun to play a WoW-like graphical roguelike.
Speaking of which, I have spent a heckton more money on WoW, which I played for 1 month out of the 3 months I paid for. But I don't think I wasted my money, I had a good run out of it and wouldn't mind paying for another two months if I ever got the urge again.
I've bought $50sgd singleplayer games, of which I don't spend more than two weeks on, or ever complete. They just sit there, being alluring, and being available if I feel tempted to play it.
So logically speaking if I get two weeks gameplay out of Torchlight, I am totally in the black in terms of value for money.
Cue it being equivalent to the price of a dvd which I would watch for two hours.
But emotionally, I dunno, it's something about the valuation of it. It's not that it isn't worth $20usd. It's like buying a stock that you KNOW fluctuates from $20-$40, why the heck would you buy high when you could buy low if you wait a little?
Except of course you can use the heck out of the 'stock' and get entertainment value out of it. Sooner.
Well, there's Knights of the Old Republic, which I was thinking of getting for $10usd, which is as roundly cheap as roundly gets, except when Steam slashes the price. I just don't really emotionally thrill to Star Wars, so I don't know how long it will last - but I was quite curious as to the storytelling options, especially the evil bits after reading some old Penny Arcade strips referencing it.
If I pay for one, I may as well get the other though. :)
---
That's the legitimate temptation.
You know what is utterly horrible to me? That I am giving the whole RMT option in Aion a second glance.
I totally sense this RMT undercurrent in the game. The bots are rampant, and they can harvest certain resources way more efficiently than humans can. So they list in bulk for cutthroat prices - no single legitimate player can hope to compete. Why do this? One is to get money to sell back to players, and I suspect they use the auction house to launder money too, so that the trail becomes more smudged.
I admit, I buy from bots on the broker when I can afford it, and there is no other live human selling for equivalent prices. It is only economically sensible to. Goblin philosophy and all. If my raw materials are cheaper, I can afford to price my final good cheaper and still turn a profit.
I have been trying to find niches in the market where the RMT companies can't be bothered to operate. It's small profits at best, but profit all the same. And there was the time I suspected my weapons were either funding a whole bunch of bots or RMT buyers.
Heck, at some of the prices floating around, the stuff I am crafting is probably purchased by RMT buyers. Or a few hands twice removed as the money floats from hand to hand.
And I guess I don't have an issue with the above, because hey, if someone wants to spend the RL money to buy the cash, a fool and his 'cheap' money are soon parted as long as I find the right niche to sell them stuff.
Where I'm going to hell is for giving the gold selling spam a second look.
Seriously, they are selling 1,000,000 kinah for $5USD. Or $6USD for a high rate.
The average amount of kinah I have on me is usually 100-200k, going up to highs of 300-500k which I have reached TWICE in my avatar's life. Once by selling a ton of crafted weapons before other crafters figured out, and just again recently by selling off a lucky rare drop (sacrificing my use of it, in other words).
It's crazy. Crazy CHEAP, that is. If I weren't so morally against the whole idea, (and also a little scared that I would get caught - though it's highly unlikely, and freaked out about the unethical practices of stolen credit cards and passwords), it would be so easy to just drop some real life cash in exchange for oodles of virtual money.
And if it is easy and tempting for me - who tends to avoid any cheat codes in singleplayer games on a moral basis - what about a player who is less arsed about this sort of thing, and doesn't turn a hair at paying Blizzard for a server transfer (how much was it? $25usd these days?)
That's 5 million kinah to spend like a millionaire. There are TOTALLY people in this game who would do that.
And for a shocking (to myself) moment, I find myself considering the thought. Not seriously, but still, considering it all the same. If it was a legitimate route, I think I might do it in a heartbeat a la the Mr Accessories in KoL, because they smooth the way in a game that I want to play.
Of course, so would several gazillion other people, so inflation might destroy the economy regardless, and the then assumption that you MUST pay a certain amount of money to compete would probably turn me off past a certain point.
I guess it's this whole Asian influence at work in the MMO. Lineage wasn't any better, I hear. And for the absolute classic in RMT, you had to be there at this computer convention I attended one day (World Cyber Games, maybe) where they were auctioning off ('for charity' supposedly) Maple Story uber-weapons. And we aren't talking about measly two hundred sing dollar weapons here, they were throwing around THOUSANDS of dollars. The one I overheard (the announcer has his PA system cranked to the max, you can't help but overhear) went for SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS plus pocket change.
(speechless)
Mind you, for there to be an auction up to that price, there has to be TWO people in that hall that day who wanted it. Bad.
---
But yeah, ultimately, I still think there is a difference between legitimate and illegal RMT. If the company is selling it, that's all very well, you acknowledge the game is like that if you choose to enter the fray.
Illegal RMT is this scummy underworld, wherein you don't know what you're funding. Could be just some broke exploited guys in China trying to make a living, could be an entire gun/drug/prostitution/id theft/credit card ring with Russian mafia ties or what have you.
And the means by which they ply their trade are fucking annoying, what with the spam, and resource (node/mobs) hogging taking territorial space over the normal players.
Hence I will continue to use my brains and attempt to goblin my share of the RMT pie through legitimate if cutthroat in-game means, instead of joining the scrubs who put down $5 usd in 'easy money.'
There's always niches. It's just sometimes a lot of work.
While I have been typing this, my 440k kinah from the blue I sold off has funded three tries at a valuable crafted armor.
Each is cost price of 220k. I'm hoping to sell off the two greens at 350k, and one of them has proced into a blue. When I can afford the brokerage price, I hope to stick it up there for 1.5 mil.
If any RMT fool buys any of those three pieces of armor, I am set. For a while, anyway. I might even be able to spare an armor piece for myself. Har.
If no one buys it in 8 days, then I am screwed. :/ And I would have to go gathering and mob killing to earn a few measly 40-50k kinah to survive.
I'm lvl 34 very soon, with skills to purchase that will easily cost 500k. I hope the crafting pays off. :/
---
Long story short, I might just give in and get Torchlight soon. What the heck, right? :/
Monday, November 09, 2009
Thinking = Bad
A Noob's Look at EQ2 - so full of crap that only MMORPG.COM is capable of publishing it
Yep, you heard it here.
Innovative gameplay is a Con.
I'm trying to decide if this guy wrote a troll article, or if his article recapitulates the time he had to write a book review for his 4th grade English teacher.
Yep, you heard it here.
Innovative gameplay is a Con.
I'm trying to decide if this guy wrote a troll article, or if his article recapitulates the time he had to write a book review for his 4th grade English teacher.