Inequalities

In spite of what some folks might like to think, the one is not the same as the other.

  Comparisons are something that’s just a part of human nature.  But it’s not always a wise thing to do.

  It’s something I’ve noticed as I’ve bounced around MMOs-particularly where you find similar genres.  When Bioware opened up forums for their development of Star Wars: The Old Republic, there was no shortage of people requesting features that sounded eerily like features already found in the still-existing Star Wars Galaxies.  Star Trek Online suffers occasionally from people wishing that it was more like the single-player Bridge Commander.  And there are people who look at Champions Online and compare it unfavorably to City of Heroes.

  This sort of thing happens when a game is closing down.  SWG veterans (of both eras of SWG) try to deal with the fact that space combat isn’t remotely like the Jump to Lightspeed expansion, which was more like the computer games X-Wing, but more like arcade shooters like Zaxxon.  (Now that’s showing my age…)  City of Heroes veterans are migrating to what they feel is the second-best superhero game.  People are inclined to gravitate to the games they feel are most similar to the games they are leaving.  But here’s the thing:  these people are going in with the feeling that they’re settling for second best-they’ve been playing the game they liked better, after all.  But it’s going away.

  This general attitude doesn’t endear the migrants to the game populations they’re joining.  They’ve been playing what they feel is the better game, after all.  Having a bunch of folks coming in from a game that obviously wasn’t good enough to still be around telling them that the other game was better…well, that’s not likely to bring warm fuzzies.  You can see this to an extent with other games at different points in their lifespan too-how game X was better before developer Y nerfed everything.  And that causes conflict, too.

  People migrating to a new game need to realize and understand that what they had is gone.  The new game isn’t going to be that old game.  TOR isn’t going to be SWG with a new paint job.  CO isn’t going to be CoH with a different art style.  Appreciate the target games for what they are, not for what they aren’t.  TOR doesn’t have housing; don’t spend all your time complaining about that.  Appreciate the involved stories that make up the quests.  CO doesn’t have Mission Architect; but you can enjoy the Nemesis system.  The games are different-but this is only as good or as bad as you let it be.

  People in those games that are seeing a flood of migrants need to understand, too, that they come bearing fresh and raw wounds.  Speaking ill of the dead is tacky.  Don’t put your effort in saying how the old game stunk on ice-the migrants won’t appreciate it any more than you would appreciate them coming in and saying how bad your game sucks.  Help them see and appreciate the game you see-the game you fell in love with.  It might not work-but that’s the way it goes with anyone new to a game.

  This sort of thing seems pretty obvious, but I see the conflicts in forums and I see them in the games.  It’s really pretty simple in the end, though:  the people leaving a dead game are looking for something at least similar to their old one-not just in game mechanics but in community.  The people in the new games are (or should be) looking forward to a new influx of players who can help improve the overall health of the game.  There’s a middle ground here, where both sides can appreciate what the other can bring to the table.  It’s a better place to be than on the extremes where one side shouts, “My game was better!” while the other shouts back, “No, mine is!”

Are Cartel Coins Nickels and Dimes?

Let’s go SHOPPING!

  Recently, Bioware released the information on the test server for Star Wars: The Old Republic for the costs on their Cartel Market.  The good folks on the Darth Hater website have put up those prices very helpfully.

  Go on.  Take a look.  I’ll wait.

  First, a disclaimer.  These prices are not necessarily fixed-but past history with these things show that they probably are.

  Okay.  Now for my opinion on things.  The first thing to understand is that subscribers get a stipend of 500 coins a month.  Let me rephrase:  the screens show “a minimum of 500 coins”.  How you get more than the minimum for a stipend is unclear-at least so far.  Also still unclear is the actual value of those points.  Most posts I have read from folks who are not exactly what I’d call “insiders” seem to think that this will be the industry standard of 5 dollars.  But until we see a price chart for how much you can buy stacks of coins for, there’s really no well of telling.

  It’s not a big surprise to me that one or two of the items on the shop are the ever-so-thrilling grab bag lotteries.  Folks familiar with this blog probably know my opinion on those by now-why rehash it?  Their pricing seems overpriced, too.  I’m going to have no problem resisting any urges here.  Particularly given that there’s plenty of other stuff worth looking at.  There are pets, which for some players are a pleasing addition; an “adaptive” speeder, which improves as you train speeder skills.  This is actually something that I can see selling decently; but I’m not sure if it’s a character or account unlock.  If it’s the former…well, I couldn’t see going with a 720 CC price.

  There’s a bunch of equipment, with varying price tags.  I have a feeling they’re all character unlocks, too.  A good chunk of it looks like it’s adaptive, which means it’s likely orange gear:  stuff you can stick mods into.  So at least that’s a good thing.  There are a group of armor sets, too-but I don’t have much info on those.  I’ll let the blogs known for TOR fashions fill in those blanks!

  Now, it’s the unlocks that really get the attention-and not necessarily in a good way.  Some of them I have no issues with.  (Actually, since I’m still subbing, and I get them all anyway, I don’t have issues with any of ’em, but I know free players will, so I’m going to look at this objectively from their POV.)  Inventory size is a common limit in freemium games; so are auction slots.  A content area called Section X seems to be locked behind coins; I had to do a bit of research to confirm that subscribers had it unlocked automatically, because the description certainly didn’t seem to indicate that.  (It’s a known issue.)  The ability to use some of the high-end gear is an unlockable too.  But then we start getting to some real iffy stuff.  The ability to display titles?  Borderline; that’s a cosmetic thing.  Guild Bank access?  That’s harder to justify.  Unlocking quickbars?  Okay, now that’s significant-that’s actual gameplay experience.  I can assure you that you really need those quickbars (although I only display four; either they’ve added two with this conversion, or I’ve missed their existence entirely.  Time for research!).  Unlocks for hiding the head slot (so you don’t have to look at the helmets all the time), unifying color on the outfits, displaying legacy name?  It just seems dodgy to me.

  Then there’s the consumables-which include passes that allow Boss rewards from Flashpoints, access to PvP Warzones, Operations, space missions?  I don’t know.  Some of that just feels wrong.  I can see the point behind some of them, but it still feels wrong.

  Finally, there’s the hookup to the Legacy perks.  Yes, it seems you can unlock at least some of the Legacy perks through the market, instead of spending in-game currency and/or getting Legacy levels.  I imagine that they follow the path that the Perks do; if the perk was an unlock for account, then I believe market purchase will do the same.  If the perk is character only, it would be for character only.  I’m not 100 percent sure of this, though; since I don’t have the test server installed on my system, I can’t really verify this.

  Regardless of one’s feelings as to whether or not the Cartel’s Market is a reasonable one or a source of gouging, its presence on the test server does serve as an indicator that the Freemium Republic is close at hand.

The Cartel Prepares to Arrive in the New-Old Republic

One can only presume that this is not the guy who will be selling the Cartel Coins.

  Recently, Bioware put out some more news concerning its upcoming Freemium conversion (which, as far as I can tell, still has no firm date) for Star Wars: The Old Republic.

  First, of significance to past and present subscribers, a utility has been put into place which calculates the amount of Cartel Coins-their real-money conversion currency-an account will get based on time subscribed before and after the announcement, the edition purchased, and such.  The catch is that you have to be subscribed when the Freemium hits.  So folks who are not subscribed at that point who may have been subscribers in the past should not be expecting to log in and see free cash lying around for them.  (I’m willing to lay odds that we’ll see a lot of screaming on the forums at day one on this very subject.  Never bet against the masses’ ability to throw a fit.)

  The other bit of news is of greater import:  it outlays exactly (well, semi-exactly) what a free player can expect without paying a subscription fee.  For the most part, none of this is new:  they can get full access to class storylines and planetary stories.  They have limits on the “character choices”; no word if this means races, classes, or both, but since there aren’t heaps of classes in the game, I gotta believe it’s going to be mostly race/class combinations.  Raid content is locked unless a pass is paid for; warzones and flashpoints are limited in how many you can do per week without purchase (I’m uncertain if that means just for rewards or doing them at all; I’m not familiar enough with Warzones to determine if that’s an omission).  Most of the limits seem like they can be eliminated for one-time purchases with Cartel Coins.  High end gear is restricted without a pass (not sure if that’s per item or a blanket pass).  The one that caught my attention on the TOR forums concerned death:  but it doesn’t seem as horrible as it sounded, since respawns at the medical droid aren’t affected-only the ability to “rez in the field”, and even those limits can be expanded with purchase.  Any purchase at all unlocks the ability to Sprint at level 1, login priority, secure trading and more chat options-as long as the character is level 6 first.

  In other words, it doesn’t seem to be to be gouging more than I’ve seen off of the other freemium conversions.  Of course, I haven’t seen the pricing yet, nor have I seen how they’ll be advancing content.  If they start throwing in lotteries like Star Wars Galaxies did and Star Trek Online (and recently announced in sister game Champions Online), I’m likely to revise my opinions downward.  This will undoubtedly irritate the people who have been screaming about the game who were looking forward to doing everything for free; honestly, that was never going to happen.  Subscribers are likely to be wary, just as they always are when a conversion hits.  They’re the ones about to experience a major change, after all.  Whether or not the change is a good one or not is something I’ll be watching as we start rolling into 2013.  I would not be surprised if the conversion is scheduled to hit on the one year anniversary of the game-that would technically be only days after the end of Autumn, so only a little late.  On the other hand, I’m sure Bioware would prefer to celebrate the anniversary with more people in game, so who knows?

  It’s still a work in progress.

Building Character: Champions Online

  As City of Heroes continues to wander off into the sunset waiting for it at the end of November, there is no shortage of players looking elsewhere for the superheroic fix.  And for many, that location is Champions Online.  While I would love to see a miracle happen and somehow, City of Heroes saved-although it is really not likely to be under the NCSoft regime-but I’ve seen this road before, and it only leads to emulators.  And as my presence in the SWGEMU can demonstrate-as in, the lack of it-I can’t really bring myself to start over again years after I’ve put the original behind me.  So it’s not a big shock that I’ve started developing characters for Champions Online.

  Still, they’re likely to be abandoned if the miracle does happen; there are reasons why I stayed with CoH for years, after all.  For this reason, I’ve only got two that I’ve been working backgrounds for, although a third is being worked on.  The two with backgrounds are Archetype Characters, which means they level, and for the most part their powers are predefined as per the Archetype; I can choose certain things, like advantages to attach to those powers, or how to improve my statistic scores, and my travel powers-but the main thrust is that the character advances in a design made by Cryptic.  I did this because I can anticipate a time when I stop paying for a sub, and when that happen, I will lose access to “Freeform” characters, who can pick any bloody power they want-no matter how crazy-within far fewer limits.  If worse comes to worse, I want to continue to have access to a couple main characters.

The downside of wearing a hood in a meditative pose is you can’t see the face. Of course, given the art style, that’s not necessarily bad.

  So:  first on the docket is Runelord.  For assorted reasons in City of Heroes, I never really made what I’d call a master of magic in Paragon City-so I’ve chosen to rectify that one off the bat for CO.  As I’ve mentioned, he’s an AT character:  the Grimoire.  The nice thing about that AT is that the powers look like they’re rune-ish.  One of the tricks, though, is that it’s a “Hybrid” role, which is a fancy way of saying “I’m not great at healing, or at damage at range or at close, but I can do all of that reasonably well”.  Compared to the specialists, he’s no great shakes, but he has no specialized weaknesses.  Of course, he also has no specialized strengths; there are times where he folds like a cheap house of cards in the face of attacks.  The backgrounder for the character is pretty straightforward:  he’s a rune magician whose master was killed, and he’s combining his desire to find the killer with a desire to do something good with his power.  I’m sure I’ll have more for the character at some point, but that’s a decent starting point.

For some reason, I couldn’t help but think “anime” when I finished the design.

  Next we have Ultrawarrior.  Ultrawarrior is one of those characters whose background kind of snuck up on me after the design.  The AT for the character is the Unleashed; I’ve mentioned this AT before.  However, I had no intent of creating a “Jedi” or “Sith” sort of character here; what interested me was the dual weapons with some added frills, so it wasn’t just a straight “hack hack hack” sort of character.  When I was done, I had a guy using alien axes in each hand and reminded me a bit of the very, very old Japanese TV series called “Ultraman“.  With that in mind, I had the idea that the guy was a survivor from an earthquake in Japan-but he’d also been a bit of a soldier of fortune.  I took it a step further when I decided to make the combat armor basically his life support-I was channelling a bit of Steve Austin of “The Six Million Dollar Man” fame in rebuilding him.  The Unleashed plays pretty well-not much to speak of in terms of defense, but he chops his way through opposition before they get a chance to really put a hurting on him.  Obviously, his role is “melee damage”, and it’s one that he does well in.  The down side is that he has some trouble with attacks from multiple directions; especially if they’re ranged attacks.  He can close in fast, or use a special power to yank the target toward him into arm’s reach, but at the moment, single-target is his strong point.  He can take out an arc in front of him, but that’s harder to do regularly than it sounds.

I reckon all those guns ain’t just for show.

  Finally, a character leftover from the time I’d actually bought CO, and one of the few I’ve actually kept from that period:  Gunfighter.  Gunfighter’s a freeform guy, which means I can pick and choose his powers from any particular framework.  I haven’t really gone hog wild on it yet, but as he gets to his later levels, I figure it’ll happen.  The simple concept was cowboy/black hat/modern day/lots and lots of guns.  So, he’s got a lot of guns as his powers.  Dual pistols, assault rifles, submachine guns, sniper rifles.  The rifle I’m particularly pleased with-an alien Gadroon sniper rifle that was looted back in the day; it’s apparently not obtainable anymore, which means it may well be a permanent part of the character’s arsenal.  The rifle is a “power replace” item, which means that instead of being the standard sniper rifle with actual bullets, it is an exotic one with its own appearance and its own power-an energy pulse.  This is, shockingly enough, a ranged damage role, and it’s one he performs terrifyingly well.  The submachine gun tends to allow him to mow down opposition in a cone in front of him, the assault rifle gives him solid damage at range, the pistols the same at closer range, and the sniper for picking off minions/henchmen in a single shot-or really hurt mid-range villains.  Like Ultrawarrior, though, his defenses are iffy; he can spring away from close range attack, but that’s actually more impressive on paper than in practice.  His best defense is an obliterating offense.

  I think it’s worth mentioning that it wouldn’t be an MMO I play without a version of the balding guy who headlines this blog, and CO is no exception.  He’s remarkably similar to the Old Ranger of CoH, in fact.  However, he’s there simply because that’s what I do, and I don’t really plan to spend a lot of time leveling him up.  Or come up with a backstory or anything like that.

  Honest.

  (Who am I kidding?  It may not happen today or tomorrow, but sooner or later I’m gonna look at that character slot there and think, “why the heck don’t I play this guy anyway?”)