There is a "WoW News & Information Blog" (no link provided on purpose) which copies texts from this and other blogs and World of Warcraft news sites in a way that makes it look as if me and the other authors were contributing to that site. But in fact the texts are simply stolen, copied and pasted from publicly accessible sites, and server as the respectable front for a gold-selling operation.
So for the record, I am not a contributor to that site, or any other site selling gold. While I am not a rabid opponent of RMT (real money trade, exchanging virtual currency for real one), and I'm "claiming the 5th" (making use of my right to not self-incriminate me) on whether I ever bought WoW gold, I have never supported any WoW gold-selling operations. I have even declined the obvious opportunity to make a bit of cash with Google Adsense on my site, because most of these ads on WoW sites end up advertising gold sellers. I can't prevent these people from copying my writing, and I can't be online 24 hours a day to delete their comment spam on my blog. But I want you to know that I do not support them, and am in no way receiving any money from them.
Friday, March 16, 2007
Does Blizzard frustrate you?
A reader was suggesting an interesting subject for discussion, the different ways in which we as players are sometimes frustrated by Blizzard as a company. He writes: "At this moment, I am very frustrated with Blizzard. Last night I tried to renew my subscription via credit card, but something was bugged about the account management page, so... now my card is blocked for 3 days! And no, my credit card is fine, I pay with it online all the time ;) I had planned a quiet weekend, nothing much to do, just playing some WoW, but that isn't possible anymore now. What's your biggest frustration?"
I think he hit the nail on the head in that it is often "inability to play" that frustrates us most. Be it account problems, server downtime, connectivity problems, all that sort of stuff where we really would like to play but can't. My biggest frustration in the last couple of weeks was playing during some server instability where people got frequently disconnected. You pull a boss and then either you get disconnected, or the priest healing you does, and it all ends in repeated wipes and an unplayable game.
So, how did Blizzard frustrate you recently?
I think he hit the nail on the head in that it is often "inability to play" that frustrates us most. Be it account problems, server downtime, connectivity problems, all that sort of stuff where we really would like to play but can't. My biggest frustration in the last couple of weeks was playing during some server instability where people got frequently disconnected. You pull a boss and then either you get disconnected, or the priest healing you does, and it all ends in repeated wipes and an unplayable game.
So, how did Blizzard frustrate you recently?
Trading card game elements in MMORPGs
I was discussing yesterday that I wasn't expecting much innovation in the upcoming MMORPGs of 2007, especially not from a game where the parent company is EA, more famous for their 137 versions of Madden NFL than for groundbreaking innovation. But that doesn't mean that I don't think innovation in MMORPG wouldn't be possible, or that I wouldn't want it. I *am* critical towards the current trend to make MMORPGs more action-based, because the effect of lag on that would be horrible. But what I think could be a big innovation in MMORPGs is the use of elements from trading card games.
If I had 50 million dollar spare to invest in a MMORPG, which is unlikely, because rounded to the nearest million I have 0 million dollars, I would make it trading card game based. I've described some ideas in the past, on this blog, and in an April's fool joke on Grimwell.com. The basic idea is to replace the hotkey button with a hand full of cards, with each card representing a possible action in combat. Whenever you use a skill, that is play a card, you draw a random new card from your deck. For the player the interesting thing is building good decks, where the card fit together in a way that you're likely to have a good hand and maybe even some nice combos. For the gaming company the interest is in the possibility to sell people booster packs of random cards. Magic the Gathering and the Pokemon trading card game have shown that this is potentially very, very lucrative.
The Chronicles of Spellborn is advertising their skill system as being similar to trading card game elements. But I had a closer look at it, and in reality there are no random elements involved. TCoS just has a revolving hotkey bar, with 6 rows of 5 skills. You can use only the 5 skills visible to you right now, and then the skill bar rotates and you get the next 5 skills to choose from. But you determine exactly the order, you don't get a random row or random skills in it, you get the sequence you've built. Now that is already some innovation, and might be fun enough. I've signed up for the beta, and if that won't work will try to get into the open beta. From the videos the game looks good and fun enough, but of course I'll need to play it to say whether it is really fun.
So the only good computer game with trading card game elements I've played this year was Metal Gear Acid on the PSP. That works very well, but of course as a single-player and offline game there is no way to for the game company to make money on selling boosters. A trading card game MMORPG in which you could earn cards in the game, but if you don't have the time for that buy them in booster packs in an online store, wouldn't even need a monthly fee if well balanced. The monthly fee business model is a barrier of entry into this genre, and the Guildwars expansion based business model is only profitable enough for the best selling games. It is not only MMORPG combat that needs some innovation, but also the business model.
If I had 50 million dollar spare to invest in a MMORPG, which is unlikely, because rounded to the nearest million I have 0 million dollars, I would make it trading card game based. I've described some ideas in the past, on this blog, and in an April's fool joke on Grimwell.com. The basic idea is to replace the hotkey button with a hand full of cards, with each card representing a possible action in combat. Whenever you use a skill, that is play a card, you draw a random new card from your deck. For the player the interesting thing is building good decks, where the card fit together in a way that you're likely to have a good hand and maybe even some nice combos. For the gaming company the interest is in the possibility to sell people booster packs of random cards. Magic the Gathering and the Pokemon trading card game have shown that this is potentially very, very lucrative.
The Chronicles of Spellborn is advertising their skill system as being similar to trading card game elements. But I had a closer look at it, and in reality there are no random elements involved. TCoS just has a revolving hotkey bar, with 6 rows of 5 skills. You can use only the 5 skills visible to you right now, and then the skill bar rotates and you get the next 5 skills to choose from. But you determine exactly the order, you don't get a random row or random skills in it, you get the sequence you've built. Now that is already some innovation, and might be fun enough. I've signed up for the beta, and if that won't work will try to get into the open beta. From the videos the game looks good and fun enough, but of course I'll need to play it to say whether it is really fun.
So the only good computer game with trading card game elements I've played this year was Metal Gear Acid on the PSP. That works very well, but of course as a single-player and offline game there is no way to for the game company to make money on selling boosters. A trading card game MMORPG in which you could earn cards in the game, but if you don't have the time for that buy them in booster packs in an online store, wouldn't even need a monthly fee if well balanced. The monthly fee business model is a barrier of entry into this genre, and the Guildwars expansion based business model is only profitable enough for the best selling games. It is not only MMORPG combat that needs some innovation, but also the business model.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Massive Magazine closes down
Remember me complaining about Massive Magazine taking stuff from this blog without linking to me? Well, I got an apology from the author, it won't happen again. Sure it won't, because The Escapist just reported that Massive Magazine is closing down. The downside being that I paid $10.99 for an online subscription of which I only ever got 2 issues. And as I just read them online, not downloaded them or anything, I can't even re-read those two.
It is not that games magazines aren't profitable, apparently the games division from the parent company The Globe had revenues growing by 50%. And no, it wasn't my complaint either that shut them down. Instead it was a lawsuit from MySpace that led to the demise of Massive Magazine, quote: "The Globe was recently found liable in a California court for hundreds of thousands of spam messages sent to MySpace users." That's what you get if your business practices aren't squeaky clean. You might be able to get away with messing with Tobold, but you don't mess with Rupert Murdoch!
It is not that games magazines aren't profitable, apparently the games division from the parent company The Globe had revenues growing by 50%. And no, it wasn't my complaint either that shut them down. Instead it was a lawsuit from MySpace that led to the demise of Massive Magazine, quote: "The Globe was recently found liable in a California court for hundreds of thousands of spam messages sent to MySpace users." That's what you get if your business practices aren't squeaky clean. You might be able to get away with messing with Tobold, but you don't mess with Rupert Murdoch!
Unrealistic expectations
Two things happened in the last couple of days: One, I got several mails and comments saying that I should get more interested in Warhammer Online or Age of Conan or Chronicles of Spellborn. And two, I've seen more commentaries about Lord of the Rings Online being "unoriginal" and "not true enough to the Tolkien lore". Abalieno laughed at me for calling LotRO the "next big thing", because he thinks the game needs to be closer to the books.
The thing is, that most major MMORPG are following a typical hype trajectory. As long as you can't play them, as long as there are only a few alpha testers, and lots of features listed on some website, the MMORPG in question is the greatest ever. As soon as the beta phase has grown large enough for many people to actually try the game, people realize two things: Much of the gameplay of the new game is very similar to the gameplay of any other MMORPG, and the hyped "new" features in fact aren't much better than what we had before. In the end it all boils down to how well these well-known characteristics are executed, and whether the few new things and the new world are fun to explore.
I'm especially laughing whenever I read how LotRO is too similar to WoW. Because two-and-a-half years ago the same sort of people were complaining how WoW was the same as Everquest. The basic gameplay of MMORPG, where you kill mobs to gain loot and xp to level up, where you have a tank taunting mobs, a healer patching up the tank, and some others dealing the damage, hasn't changed in ages. And tell you what, that will still remain the same for quite a while, and Warhammer Online will be called an unoriginal copy as soon as people get to play it. You can rename the brilliant EQ-parody Progressquest to Progresscraft, or Progress of the Rings, or Progress : Age of Reckoning, and the joke will still apply.
So here are some answers I'd like to give to comments about upcoming games:
1) "LotRO is a WoW clone": Doh! That's why I want to play it, man! You can rephrase that critique in marketing-speak to "LotRO is a fine example of the state of the art in MMORPG development, exhibiting all the good features that have evolved over the years, and have been proven so popular in World of Warcraft", and it would remain just as true. It just depends on how you look at it. I don't *want* a game that is radically different from WoW, and neither do the majority of the other players out there. Hey, I would have bought "WoW: The Middle-Earth expansion", so why shouldn't I buy LotRO?
2) "LotRO isn't true to the Tolkien lore": No kidding! You mean a game in which 3,000+ would-be heroes per server interact with each other can't exactly reproduce the atmosphere and experience of reading a book by yourself? Who'da thunk that! If you had imagined that you'd get to be the ring-bearer and you'd never get to see other people exhibiting Tolkien-untypical behavior like /ooc chat or "farming mobs", maybe you're in the wrong genre of games. People are people, and a lot of the behavior you'll see in LotRO from them will make Boromir look like a rather upstanding guy in comparison, and Samweis look heroic.
3) "Don't play WoW/LotRO, play WAR instead": I'm not discounting the possibility of Warhammer Online : Age of Reckoning turning out to be a great game, in fact I rather hope it will be. But the most optimistic estimate of its release date is Q4 2007. And there is a significant chance that either it will be released at that date but widely be considered as unfinished and not ready for release (call it the "SOE model"), or that the release date will slip into 2008 (the "Blizzard model"). Even if it miraculously turned up in perfect shape for the christmas sales, that is *still* 8 months of waiting time. I need a game to play *now* (WoW) or an alternative very soon (LotRO). I'm still calling LotRO the "next big thing", not because I think it will "kill WoW", or because I'm sure it will be better than WAR. But because I think it will sell several hundred thousand copies, significantly outselling any previous Turbine game and the other recent arrival on the market, Vanguard. And it will do that because it is "good", without necessarily being "better", and because the timing for a WoW-alternative is right. Warhammer Online is probably the "next next big thing", but people aren't going to hold their breath until then. Other upcoming games, like Chronicles of Spellborn or Age of Conan have some interesting features, but probably not the same mass-market appeal. They can be successful in their respective niche, just like Vanguard claims to be successful with over 100,000 subscribers. But they will operate on a completely different tier of the market.
In short, don't get carried away by your expectations, don't believe the hype, and take the upcoming games for what they are: attempts by trial and error to improve an existing genre of games, without destroying the proven popularity and profitability.
The thing is, that most major MMORPG are following a typical hype trajectory. As long as you can't play them, as long as there are only a few alpha testers, and lots of features listed on some website, the MMORPG in question is the greatest ever. As soon as the beta phase has grown large enough for many people to actually try the game, people realize two things: Much of the gameplay of the new game is very similar to the gameplay of any other MMORPG, and the hyped "new" features in fact aren't much better than what we had before. In the end it all boils down to how well these well-known characteristics are executed, and whether the few new things and the new world are fun to explore.
I'm especially laughing whenever I read how LotRO is too similar to WoW. Because two-and-a-half years ago the same sort of people were complaining how WoW was the same as Everquest. The basic gameplay of MMORPG, where you kill mobs to gain loot and xp to level up, where you have a tank taunting mobs, a healer patching up the tank, and some others dealing the damage, hasn't changed in ages. And tell you what, that will still remain the same for quite a while, and Warhammer Online will be called an unoriginal copy as soon as people get to play it. You can rename the brilliant EQ-parody Progressquest to Progresscraft, or Progress of the Rings, or Progress : Age of Reckoning, and the joke will still apply.
So here are some answers I'd like to give to comments about upcoming games:
1) "LotRO is a WoW clone": Doh! That's why I want to play it, man! You can rephrase that critique in marketing-speak to "LotRO is a fine example of the state of the art in MMORPG development, exhibiting all the good features that have evolved over the years, and have been proven so popular in World of Warcraft", and it would remain just as true. It just depends on how you look at it. I don't *want* a game that is radically different from WoW, and neither do the majority of the other players out there. Hey, I would have bought "WoW: The Middle-Earth expansion", so why shouldn't I buy LotRO?
2) "LotRO isn't true to the Tolkien lore": No kidding! You mean a game in which 3,000+ would-be heroes per server interact with each other can't exactly reproduce the atmosphere and experience of reading a book by yourself? Who'da thunk that! If you had imagined that you'd get to be the ring-bearer and you'd never get to see other people exhibiting Tolkien-untypical behavior like /ooc chat or "farming mobs", maybe you're in the wrong genre of games. People are people, and a lot of the behavior you'll see in LotRO from them will make Boromir look like a rather upstanding guy in comparison, and Samweis look heroic.
3) "Don't play WoW/LotRO, play WAR instead": I'm not discounting the possibility of Warhammer Online : Age of Reckoning turning out to be a great game, in fact I rather hope it will be. But the most optimistic estimate of its release date is Q4 2007. And there is a significant chance that either it will be released at that date but widely be considered as unfinished and not ready for release (call it the "SOE model"), or that the release date will slip into 2008 (the "Blizzard model"). Even if it miraculously turned up in perfect shape for the christmas sales, that is *still* 8 months of waiting time. I need a game to play *now* (WoW) or an alternative very soon (LotRO). I'm still calling LotRO the "next big thing", not because I think it will "kill WoW", or because I'm sure it will be better than WAR. But because I think it will sell several hundred thousand copies, significantly outselling any previous Turbine game and the other recent arrival on the market, Vanguard. And it will do that because it is "good", without necessarily being "better", and because the timing for a WoW-alternative is right. Warhammer Online is probably the "next next big thing", but people aren't going to hold their breath until then. Other upcoming games, like Chronicles of Spellborn or Age of Conan have some interesting features, but probably not the same mass-market appeal. They can be successful in their respective niche, just like Vanguard claims to be successful with over 100,000 subscribers. But they will operate on a completely different tier of the market.
In short, don't get carried away by your expectations, don't believe the hype, and take the upcoming games for what they are: attempts by trial and error to improve an existing genre of games, without destroying the proven popularity and profitability.
Zul'Gurub post-BC
I had the most fun evening in World of Warcraft since a while, joining a guild raid to Zul'Gurub. We were about 15 people, levels from 61 to 70, but with most players being 70, and we totally kicked ass in that place. Which wasn't really surprising, but it *is* fun.
When we look at our characters and see the numbers, how much health, mana, armor, etc. we have, and how many points of damage our attacks and spells do, or how much we heal, we are aware that we have become much stronger through the Burning Crusade expansion. The problem is that we often don't feel it. Killing a level 70 mob at level 70 isn't much easier than killing a level 60 mob at level 60. And if your guild moved from "farming" Molten Core and BWL to wiping in Karazhan, you can't help the feeling that you actually got weaker.
Visiting Zul'Gurub really let me feel how much stronger my character had become, and that was just the level 65 warrior. I survived two exploding bats, because I have so much more health now. Tanking boss mobs with a level 70 priest healing me was very easy. At the panther boss, where previously we often got swamped with panthers, our single mage just sneezed at them and they all dropped dead. There were a couple of boss special abilities that still hurt, and where we still needed to use the right tactics, like the tiger boss resurrecting his mates, or having to poison yourself for Hakkar. But mostly we were just reducing our strategy to blasting everything to smithens, and it worked. Not something you'd want to do every day, but nice and relaxing for one evening. Oh, and I dinged 66 in ZG, which was funny, because people don't usually level up in raid dungeons.
Of course we couldn't use much of the loot that dropped. There was some interest in the 18-slot bag the panther boss dropped, but the Will of Arlokk staff he also dropped just got sharded. Man, my priest ran around with that staff for many months and was so proud to have gotten it. One level 61 warrior still could use the 2H-sword that Hakkar dropped, but I had gotten a polearm from Hellfire ramparts that was already better. So we just got a lot of disenchanted shards, and lots of bijous and coins.
I had first thought that I'd need the Zul'Gurub reputation to finally get the mageblood potion recipe for my warrior. But as it happens I got lucky the same day, and found a "cheap" (400 gold buyout) recipe for major mageblood potion in the auction house. Previously I had seen the same recipe for 600 gold bid, 1000 gold buyout, and had only bid on it, only to have it bought out shortly afterwards. No more need for Zul'Gurub reputation for me now.
Next stop is Molten Core, where I will go with my level 70 priest. My warrior was so rarely in MC that I wouldn't have a point for comparison. And I want to see the effect of Mass Dispel on Lucifron, and other dispel-heavy encounters there. I think these occasional visits to "old" level 60 raid dungeons go a long way to raise the spirits in a guild, especially when not everybody is happy with how Karazhan raids are going. Imagine that, Molten Core as a kind of picnic, a party among friends to have some fun together, instead of seriously being at the top of the raiding circuit.
When we look at our characters and see the numbers, how much health, mana, armor, etc. we have, and how many points of damage our attacks and spells do, or how much we heal, we are aware that we have become much stronger through the Burning Crusade expansion. The problem is that we often don't feel it. Killing a level 70 mob at level 70 isn't much easier than killing a level 60 mob at level 60. And if your guild moved from "farming" Molten Core and BWL to wiping in Karazhan, you can't help the feeling that you actually got weaker.
Visiting Zul'Gurub really let me feel how much stronger my character had become, and that was just the level 65 warrior. I survived two exploding bats, because I have so much more health now. Tanking boss mobs with a level 70 priest healing me was very easy. At the panther boss, where previously we often got swamped with panthers, our single mage just sneezed at them and they all dropped dead. There were a couple of boss special abilities that still hurt, and where we still needed to use the right tactics, like the tiger boss resurrecting his mates, or having to poison yourself for Hakkar. But mostly we were just reducing our strategy to blasting everything to smithens, and it worked. Not something you'd want to do every day, but nice and relaxing for one evening. Oh, and I dinged 66 in ZG, which was funny, because people don't usually level up in raid dungeons.
Of course we couldn't use much of the loot that dropped. There was some interest in the 18-slot bag the panther boss dropped, but the Will of Arlokk staff he also dropped just got sharded. Man, my priest ran around with that staff for many months and was so proud to have gotten it. One level 61 warrior still could use the 2H-sword that Hakkar dropped, but I had gotten a polearm from Hellfire ramparts that was already better. So we just got a lot of disenchanted shards, and lots of bijous and coins.
I had first thought that I'd need the Zul'Gurub reputation to finally get the mageblood potion recipe for my warrior. But as it happens I got lucky the same day, and found a "cheap" (400 gold buyout) recipe for major mageblood potion in the auction house. Previously I had seen the same recipe for 600 gold bid, 1000 gold buyout, and had only bid on it, only to have it bought out shortly afterwards. No more need for Zul'Gurub reputation for me now.
Next stop is Molten Core, where I will go with my level 70 priest. My warrior was so rarely in MC that I wouldn't have a point for comparison. And I want to see the effect of Mass Dispel on Lucifron, and other dispel-heavy encounters there. I think these occasional visits to "old" level 60 raid dungeons go a long way to raise the spirits in a guild, especially when not everybody is happy with how Karazhan raids are going. Imagine that, Molten Core as a kind of picnic, a party among friends to have some fun together, instead of seriously being at the top of the raiding circuit.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Jewelcrafting as a cash cow
Getting my jewelcrafting up to 375 was hard and expensive. Buying random world drop recipes to be able to cut rare gems was even more expensive. But now that I got at least one recipe for every type of gem, jewelcrafting turns out to be a veritable cash cow. It involves some volatility of the random results, but on average the profits are great.
As example this week I bought 12 stacks of adamantite ore for 25 gold each, for a total of 300 gold. 12 stacks of ore means 48 uses of the prospecting skill, each destroying 5 ores, a quarter of a stack. But each prospecting gives one adamantite powder (worth between 50 silver and 1 gold), and on average 1 common gem, which after cutting I can easily sell for 4 gold. And on average every 6th prospecting gives a rare gem, which when cut sells easily for 50 gold. So out of my 300 gold investment I got 48 adamantite powder (ca. 30 gold), 50 common gems (200 gold), and 8 rare gems (400 gold), more than doubling my investment with very little work involved.
The only trick involved is to be patient, because prices often fluctuate wildly. If adamantite ore in the AH sells for much more than 25 gold, I don't buy. Although often I can get around that by buying on the Alliance AH instead, where the price evolution is independant from the Horde AH prices, and then transferring the ores via the neutral AH and my wife's account. Same holds true for selling, sometimes somebody floods the market with underpriced gems, and I just wait that out. By experimentation I found that 4 gold for common gems is a price where I usually sell the large majority of what I put on the AH, thus suffering no losses in AH fees. In cut rare gems my 50 gold price tag is rarely undercut, but again I'm going for low prices high volume, instead of pushing prices to the max and risking losing the advance AH fee.
Of course I did have setbacks, for example when one day I only got half of the rare gems that I would have expected. But even then I just came out even, without making a loss, with the common gems selling at least for enough to recover my investment. I was thinking of expanding my business, buying more rare random world drop recipes and thus being able to offer more different types of cut rare gems. But I bought my recipes over a long period whenever I could get them for between 150 gold and 250 gold. Meanwhile the prices for these recipes have gone up, and I rarely see any on offer below 400 to 500 gold. And there is always the chance that prices for ore will go up permanently and prices for gems down, destroying my profit margin. But for the moment I'm making good money with this tradeskill, which is unusual in WoW.
As example this week I bought 12 stacks of adamantite ore for 25 gold each, for a total of 300 gold. 12 stacks of ore means 48 uses of the prospecting skill, each destroying 5 ores, a quarter of a stack. But each prospecting gives one adamantite powder (worth between 50 silver and 1 gold), and on average 1 common gem, which after cutting I can easily sell for 4 gold. And on average every 6th prospecting gives a rare gem, which when cut sells easily for 50 gold. So out of my 300 gold investment I got 48 adamantite powder (ca. 30 gold), 50 common gems (200 gold), and 8 rare gems (400 gold), more than doubling my investment with very little work involved.
The only trick involved is to be patient, because prices often fluctuate wildly. If adamantite ore in the AH sells for much more than 25 gold, I don't buy. Although often I can get around that by buying on the Alliance AH instead, where the price evolution is independant from the Horde AH prices, and then transferring the ores via the neutral AH and my wife's account. Same holds true for selling, sometimes somebody floods the market with underpriced gems, and I just wait that out. By experimentation I found that 4 gold for common gems is a price where I usually sell the large majority of what I put on the AH, thus suffering no losses in AH fees. In cut rare gems my 50 gold price tag is rarely undercut, but again I'm going for low prices high volume, instead of pushing prices to the max and risking losing the advance AH fee.
Of course I did have setbacks, for example when one day I only got half of the rare gems that I would have expected. But even then I just came out even, without making a loss, with the common gems selling at least for enough to recover my investment. I was thinking of expanding my business, buying more rare random world drop recipes and thus being able to offer more different types of cut rare gems. But I bought my recipes over a long period whenever I could get them for between 150 gold and 250 gold. Meanwhile the prices for these recipes have gone up, and I rarely see any on offer below 400 to 500 gold. And there is always the chance that prices for ore will go up permanently and prices for gems down, destroying my profit margin. But for the moment I'm making good money with this tradeskill, which is unusual in WoW.
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