Snaffy's Space | MMO Fansites

Okay, so Tauren are far from slim...

I just wanted to let you all know that my second post is up over on my new WoW blog. Snaffy is almost level 23!

And stabs you in the back!

Muahaha. Eeeeebil.

I just wanted to stop by and let you know (if you still have me on your feed reader!) that there's a new project I'll be working on over the next few months. A World of Warcraft project...

I know! For shame (or shizzle, no wait that's not right)!

Given that I have a few spare hours per week these days I thought I'd tour through levels 1-60 on a new Tauren Druid before the old world changes forever. A few RL friends of mine wanted to dip back into WoW once Cataclysm came out, so I'm basically checking in a bit early. Of course, this blogging adventure is also a devious ploy to help me build Google rank for the leveling guide review part of my site too.

My Aion guide review site did really well, and I'm hoping to duplicate its success once Cataclysm launches.

Anyway, if you're interested in checking out what I'm up to, I'll be posting over there. Hope to see ya! :)

Oh, I'm on Emerald Dream (RPPVP) with Keen's crew.

Dear readers,

Given that I haven't touched an MMO in nearly six months and have no plans to in the future, I might as well write this blog's final post. It's come time for me to finally sign off. Life hasn't thown me any nasty curveballs or anything; I just don't find MMOs fun anymore and there's no reason to maintain a blog about them.

Thanks to everyone who followed me from The Greenskin to Massively and to here. Thanks for listening to ChaosCast and The MMO Fo' Sho' podcasts. Thanks for following along as I documented my MMO journey these past couple years.

I won't rule out a return to game/MMO blogging some day (the world is full of surprises), but right now it seems highly unlikely. My hobbies have shifted and I don't think they'll shift back.

All the best as you keep doing what you do -- whatever that is.

Cheers,

~Snafzg

So here's a random post about some random MMO thoughts I had in my head. I'm not actively subscribed to an MMO, nor am I playing any betas, trials, or F2P titles either. It's a bit strange that I still have MMOs on the brain but I guess you never really lose something that has been such a big part of your life. With that said, here we go.

Traditions, tourists, and tigers. I'm speaking of traditional MMO development, WoW tourists, and Asian Tigers specifically. The basic concepts I have floating around my head are that MMO traditions are changing, WoW tourists have an interesting effect on the industry, and Asian developers/investors might just be ahead of the curve. In my mind, these all come together in a weird sort of way.

Traditions

For many years, the MMO business model was exclusively subscription-based. The past couple years have shown the emergence of real-money-trading as a viable model. Subscription MMOs have proven to be the most lucrative money-maker for studios, but the catch is that you really need to maintain a subscription-base that is properly proportioned to your maintenance costs, new development costs, original development costs, and a few dozen other things.

Traditionally, most players have given slack to developers who release not-so-ready subcription-based products. Unfortunately for developers, this is changing due to a wide selection of competing subscription, F2P, or otherwise MMOs. Back in 2001 there were few quality MMOs with roughly 2.5M shared subscriptions between them. By 2008, there were roughly 16M active subs. The market is growing and so are expectations.

Many other traditions are breaking, but the ones I mentioned are sufficient to back up the rest of what I have to say.

WoW Tourists

What can be said about these unique and interesting creatures? They play WoW. They are legion. They are willing to give new MMOs a shot but almost always come home to roost. This has had a big effect on the Western MMO industry, which even now hasn't been able to mitigate against.

Tourists help build the hype for new MMOs and also add fuel to the wildfire of negativity that follows shortly after release. They boost closed beta signups. They bring open beta servers to their knees. Investors and developers alike see the WoW population base as a potential goldmine, which is falsely verified by their afforementioned engagement in the pre-release hype and beta processes. The developers try and fail to mimic the WoW success model, which dilutes the genre. But that's okay because many investors are scared to put "stock" in much else anyway.

WoW tourists aren't evil. Investors aren't evil. Developers aren't evil. They just mix together like oil, water... and rocks. Syncaine has an interesting thought on how they might finally blend.

Development Tigers

Making MMOs is risky business. They cost a lot of money, take a long time to build (even when they don't work as indended), and when released, are competing with more newer and established titles than ever before. Have the Asians figured it out?

Please correct me if I'm wrong as this is second-hand knowledge I'm about to pass along. Let's me explain it as it was explained to me.

In the West, subscription-based MMOs are developed basically as I have described above. In the East, however, many studios are taking a different path.

Instead of cramming as much content as possible into the release-ready version of the project, they scale way back. Instead of investing tens of millions into development and marketing, they scale way back. As a result, instead of taking 3-4 years to release an MMO, they crank them out much faster.

I believe the old saying goes, "Fast, cheap, good: pick two?"

It's an interesting concept. Even with Western MMOs, people complain about devouring content too quickly. They still whine about the quality. In fact, they even bitch about the development speed. If most people are going to complain, you might as well go with the fastest, cheapest option, right?

If a new title doesn't gain traction in the Asian market they simply nuke it. Oh well, at least it didn't cost much or waste too much of anyone's life developing it. If it does, however, they will invest more time and money into it. You can't make something cheaper or faster to develop after the fact. You can raise the quality though.

My assumption is that this would also allow them to try out wild and crazy design concepts without much repercussions for failure. I'm sure a lot of them totally bomb, but talk about a potential breeding ground for true innovation.

It should be mentioned that most of these titles are F2P with an RMT element. As a player, you may be bombarded with a shitstorm of... well, shit, but at least you can try it all for free. On the other hand, it would suck to really latch on to a title only to have the project dumped.

So how does this all fit together

I wondered to myself if we'd ever see that kind of development here in the West. MMOs developed the Asian way would be nearly tourism-proof. It might be riskier for the investor but the smaller budgets would be attractive. Developers could stretch their creative muscles and have more freedom to truly innovate. Players would have a greater variety of titles to choose from as well.

There are some negatives as well but it's definitely interesting to think about. For one, the MMO wall at your local game store will start to resemble the Wii wall with a huge amount of truly horrendous wastes of time and money.

Keen has a cool post up describing his fond memories of Dark Age of Camelot. I have great memories of DAOC as it was my first true foray into the genre and also my first love/hate experience. I was too busy MUDDING to even consider Ultima Online when it came out and Everquest didn't have enough of a PvP focus to keep my attention for long. DAOC hit me at the right time; just as I was getting a bit fed up with my MUD and had upgraded my computer to a 64MB Voodoo card. Oh, the power of that bad boy...

But this post isn't about dissecting my DAOC experience. I want to hit on something else. I want to discuss a point that Keen brought up anecdotally in detail. He says he can't pinpoint exactly what brought the element of "Realm Pride" to DAOC. I think I can.

Timing

DAOC released when MMOs were still young and really marketed itself as a "Realm vs. Realm" game instead of a "Player vs. Player" game. Mythic set themselves up with a broader PvP system from the outset. It wasn't one on one or guild vs. guild. It was your homeland vs. your enemies' homelands. People hadn't seem this kind of system before 2001 and it was regarded as a more meaningful PvP system because the entire game was built around it.

Three Realms

Midgard; harsh, frozen north and based on Norse mythology. Albion; rugged but varied terrain and based on Arthurian legend. Hibernia; lush, magical greenery and based on Celtic folklore. Each realm was made up of distinct races, classes (loose class mirrors), strengths, and weaknesses. Each realm attracted a certain kind of player. A player that would become attached to his history and lifestyle. A player that would fight to protect their morales and values as they conflicted with the opposing realms'. Inter-realm alliances could form out of necessity and end in backstabbing deceit. The only ones you could really trust were your realmmates.

Realm rewards vs. Individual rewards (RvR)

The big picture rewards in DAOC came in the form of realm rewards. Keeps weren't taken for gold loot bags; they were taken to unlock Darkness Falls and weaken the enemy's relic defenses. Renown ranks granted special abilities that would aid in team-based RvR rather than individual stat buffs to boost your individual effectiveness. Relics gave realm-wide effectiveness buffs.

Group incentives

There were strong incentives to group in DAOC's PvE and RvR games. In terms of PvE, there were group XP bonuses. Due to timing, the WoW model of quest-to-level wasn't fully developed in DAOC so many players were forced to group to efficiently progress their characters (until buffbots came around). There were plenty of mob spawn camps and dungeons that would always reward the group vs. the individual. The brotherhood and sisterhood formed in PvE carried over into RvR.

In terms of RvR, a solo player really couldn't accomplish much unless they were a stealther or speed class or luckily stumbled across other solo players. This happened but not often. Whether you were in a zerg, battlegroup, or 8-man guild/gank squad, it was always beneficial to have smart and sophisticated realmmates by your side. Battles would be won against your hated enemies and it filled you with pride. Death on the battlefield strenghtened your resolve for revenge.

Siege complexity

Keep siege was complex in DAOC. There were milegates, bridges, bridge towers, moats, keep towers, destructible keep walls, ladders for stealthers, main doors to batter down, side doors to guard, and a variety of weapony including catapults, rams, and ballistae. To successfully take or defend a keep meant you were using either superior numbers or better tactics. Communication and coordination were key and a realm employing both of these things ran like a well-oiled machine. Such efforts really filled you with a sense of realm or at least guild pride.

No scenarios at end game

Endgame RvR was persistent in DAOC and there were no distractions in the form of scenarios or battlegrounds. If you were 50 and wanted to RvR, you needed to do it in the frontier or Darkness Falls. This made RvR real and semi-permanent instead of gamey and ultra-temporary. It fostered realm pride because action or inaction led to wins and losses that were felt by your entire realm.

Scenarios, or as they called them, battlegrounds were present throughout the <50 game in DAOC and they were a training ground for what was to come at the end game as much as they were about quick injections of fun and adrenaline. The same communication, collaboration, and coordination was necessary to take the center keep and push the enemy back to its portal keep. These BGs didn't offer much diversity in terms of gameplay experience, but their repetitive nature helped form RvRers of the future.

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Dark Age of Camelot was far from a perfect MMO but it did get one element right that seems absent in modern MMOs: realm pride. And while realm pride wasn't the be-all-end-all of the game, it sure led to a sense of meaning and purpose when you logged in for one hour or six. It's unfortunate that Warhammer Online failed to capture realm pride on the scale that was found in DAOC but looking at the above list of ingredients, it seems pretty obvious why that was the case.

Can you point to many of those afforementioned ingredients in WAR? I can't.

Warcraft sells
Aion smells
Conan sucked an egg
Warhammer's trying desperately
To not be a flaming bag (of...)

DDO went free
Fallen Earth makes us "SQUEE!"
Champions had a rocky start
With retcons all the way (Hey!)

LOTRO's going strong
So is EVE's Dominion
Darkfall wants to gank your face
And UO got an expansion!? (wtf)

Warcraft sells
Aion smells
Conan sucked an egg
Warhammer's trying desperately
To not be a flaming bag (of...)

Betas are
just marketing
But we play them anyway
At least they're free
For you and me
So why not, what the hey?

After spending my entire life with nothing bigger than an old 27" JVC CRT I finally took the plunge and bought a new home theatre. For the past few years I've been watching from the sidelines as each and every one of my friends and/or family members upgraded their systems to the 40-58" range of displays and I'll admit that it made me a bit jealous. Given the steal of a deal we got at Future Shop yesterday (employee pricing on everything), it would have been foolish to pass this up.

Samsung PN50B650 50" Plasma 1080p Series 6 Display

This TV is the sweet spot for us in terms of price, size and performance. A 58" would have been wholly unnecessary for the viewing distance and while 46" would have been good enough, why not squeeze out those extra few inches for basically the same price? We went plasma over LCD because the image was just more appealing to our eyes. I found the 120Hz and 240Hz Samsung equivalent LCDs were too bright, too clear/focused (it made things look fake if that makes sense?), and not saturated with enough colour for our tastes. I'm sure many people out there think the LCDs look nicer, which is cool. We just prefer plasma. And given that the price on this model just dropped by 40% in the past couple months, it was an amazing deal.

Denon AVR-790 7.1 Channel 1080p HDMI Receiver

To be honest, I'm not very knowledgeable about audio receivers. I kind of trusted what the sales associate told me in terms of price versus performance and read some decent reviews online in making my decision. It has 4 HDMI inputs and 1 HDMI output, which is more than enough. I can also add on a $100 attachment dock for my iPod/iPhone down the road. Apparently it pumps out pretty good sound according to the sales guy and Internet reviewers.

Harman Kardon HKTS15 5.1 Speaker Package

While I didn't get a chance to demo the Denon receiver, I did listen to these speakers though an equivalent Harman Kardon receiver. Let me just say, they were absolutely amazing. Plenty of rich bass, singing highs, and excellent mids and this was in a noisy store environement. I can only imagine how much better they'll sound in my basement rec-room without any other noise pollution. The guy through in a set of front speaker stands for next to nothing, so they'll look amazing too. I was able to convince my wife to get these speakers as an upgrade by letting her hear just how good John Mayer sounded acoustically on a live concert demo Blu-ray.

Sony Playstation3 Slim 120GB

Because the Denon receiver doesn't have any built-in Blu-ray or upconverting DVD we needed something for media playback. Why bother with a $250 Blu-ray player when you can get a full media/gaming station in the PS3 for only $50 more? Even though I'm not heavily into console gaming, I'm pretty sure Rock Band 2 and other fun co-op games will be a hit with the family and friends. It doesn't hurt that one of my friends has a vast library of PS3 titles for me to mooch from! I love how easily I can transfer media like videos, photos, and music onto my external HD and easily play them through my PS3. Rock on!

Sanus 52" 3-Shelf TV Stand

You can't beat getting 50% off a sleek and sexy TV stand with room for all your new components. I wouldn't say there's anything too special about this stand other than it looks nice and has pleny of room for everything. I do like the back metal panel, which should hide some of the cable mess. I wanted a stand instead of a wall mount for my TV because I'm putting everything in a space with a lower ceiling due to a bulkhead. Given the glossy black frame and glass shelves, I'm sure it will be a dust collector, but what can you do? Clean!

All the cables, speaker wire, and surge protection

I'd have a hard time paying the premium price for any Monster brand products, but when you're getting HDMI cables and a surge protector for 20% of their sticker prices, why not right? Honestly... how can they justify $80 for a 3.2' HDMI cable? $20? That's more like it! I also got a 100' spool of 16 gauge Rocketfish oxygen free speaker wire for dirt cheap, which is more than enough to run my rear satellites and remaining speakers/sub.

I just spent the last couple weeks renovating our downstairs family room. I did major work patching and painting and only have a drop-ceiling left to install and a few minor finishing touches to put on the room. I'm still waiting for the furnace guy to come in and install our new unit and run a couple more vents and a cold air return in our basement, which has been holding things up a little bit. Still, we should be settled in down there for Christmas, which is all I can hope for.

I have some vacation coming up around then and it will be nice to plunk myself down and complete veg-out with friends and family as a reward for all the hard work everyone did this year. I'll post some pics once everything is set up!

Syp and I will finally sit down to record another podcast this week, so feel free to toss over some conversation ideas or ask questions you'd like us to answer. We have a general agenda so far, but we'd love your input!

I unsubbed from Aion on Sunday night. When the prospect of staring at a wall in deep thought is more appealing than logging in to grind another dozen bubbles or so in boring PvE, it's time to hang up your subscription and move on for a while.

Many parts of Aion appeal to me but the PvE is just soul-crushing. I'd put the quality somewhere between DAOC, EQ1, and WoW 1.0 (pre-TBC/WotLK). That may sound great to some people, but it doesn't tickle my pickle. Perhaps the thing I miss most in Aion is the ability to progress through PvP -- or even just to break up the mundane PvE-grind with a bit of stress-relieving PvP. It took WAR a while to get the balance right in this area, but I think they've finally nailed it a year later.

Rifts are a cool concept but I've never managed to find one even though I know the exact locations. My timing is just horrible. Also, at level 23, I'm not in the Abyss yet. And I can't even stomach the 1.5 levels of PvE XP to get there. Call me a fan of RvR over PvPvE I guess. I want to be able to whack on my opponents from day one, not grind 25 horrendous levels before the opportunity presents itself.

Check out Werit's post on the pros and cons of Aion. I pretty much agree with him.

Does that mean I'll be heading back to WAR? Uh, no. Been there, done that. Nothing I've been reading lately gives me any desire to head back there either. Perma-city sieges? No thanks. Maybe they'll sort out their endgame one of these days and I'll give it another college try.

So where does that leave me? I want to get into a newer 2009 adult MMO, so that leaves Darkfall, Runes of Magic, Champions Online, and Fallen Earth. Darkfall seems to have promise but I've done fantasy to death. Since I've dones fantasy themepark even more to death, that takes RoM out of the running too. I tried Champions Online in beta. Since I didn't enjoy (read: hated) the PvE and there isn't enough emphasis on PvP, that option is out as well.

I guess that leaves me with Fallen Earth. I can't say I'm the hugest fan of post-apoc titles, but I haven't played many of them either. The scenery will be a breath of fresh air. I hear FE walks a fine line between WoW themepark and EVE sandbox, which sounds cool too. I also like that it's only been out just over a month now, so I don't feel like I'm that far behind everyone else.

In terms of drawbacks, I hear it isn't very polished. That might be a hard pill to swallow since I'm a polish freak, but given the lack of alternatives out there for me right now, I might have to chug it down with a glass of cool water. There's also the fact that I know very little about the game; I skimmed about 40% of the official website. Then again, that could be a good thing. I really have no expectations.

So yeah, I'll be picking up FE tonight from Direct2Drive. I hear the special horse bonus item is really cool and versatile. Is there any way for me to interface it with Steam? I'd buy it from Steam but you don't get any bonus items aside from client integration. Boo. I want the best of both worlds!

Beyond FE, I'm looking at Global Agenda and Guilde Wars 2. GA will probably require a team of active friends and scheduled playsessions. I'd like to give it a shot, but I don't see it working out in the long run. The game looks pretty deadly though. GW2 seems amazing from what I've seen, but that isn't much. Also, I have no idea when that's coming out. Hopefully, 2010.

Anyway, that's where I'm at as of today!

No. Not really.

To be honest, I almost forgot this blog existed. Then I got a funny little comment this morning that jogged my memory:

Hey man. . . are you done posting? Haven't seen you here or on Massively in a long time. What about a long weepy goodbye? Aren't we even entitled to that? I mean that's what happens when people close up shop. Of course they say it's not supposed to be a heart-wrenching goodbye, but we all know they want sympathy.

So, uh. . . should I remove you from my favorites and google reader, or what?

I'm not technically done posting on this blog. I'm just on a really long vacation where I check in from time to time. I post for Massively on average 30 times per month. That's about a post a day. Given my primary job, Massively, family, friends, dog, working on my house, and spending a few short hours gaming, it doesn't leave me with much more time to write on this blog.

In terms of bloggable content, things have been a bit light. I usually get to say as much as I want to say over at Massively, which is great. Unless I have a long ranty opinion piece that doesn't mesh well with corporate over there, there's really not much for me to write much over here. Actually, I don't know if it would be the best idea for me to verbally thrash an MMO on this blog now that I work for Massively because my online personas are inextricably tied. How am I supposed to resemble anything close to an impartial journalist on Massively if I'm tearing a game a new a-hole on my personal blog?

In terms of sympathy and gut-wrenching goodbyes, don't get your hopes up, haha. This past year has been amazing in terms of online ventures. My gig at Massively and my side project, AionLevelingGuide, have been awesome these past 365 days. I've been able to express myself creatively and earn a modest profit, so if that means I spend a bit less time on my personal blog, I'm A-Okay. The fact that I'm not blogging here is actually cause for happiness, not sadness.

I won't be deleting this site any time soon but I don't have any firm plans to keep up with active posting either. I'm in a comfortable place right now and even though I have a number of obligations, I don't want to add one more to the pile. This blog is all about expression but I'm pretty much tapped out atm. In the future though, who knows?

Hopefully, this has been a decent explanation. I will try to make a better effort though.

Wow, things have been pretty quiet around here lately haven't they?

What is a personal blog? To me it's a nice soapbox where I can say things I want to say and people can comment on them. Lately, I just haven't had the time. Well, I've had the time, but I've been prioritizing that time a bit differently. There are four main things that are keeping me from posting:

Massively.com -- This is where I get most of my creative juices flowing. I usually post here first if I have a brainwave on something.
AionLevelingGuide.com -- This new project has been taking up a lot of my time as well. I'm scouring the web for free guides and personally reviewing pay-for guides to share with the interwebs. Protip -- there's money in affiliate marketing.
Actually playing Aion -- For the past six months I've basically been homeless as an MMO player, which meant I had lots of free time. Since Aion launched I've been spending a lot of my hobby time in-game (Snafzg the Asmodian assassin of Havok on Lumiel if you care).
Twitter -- Ugh, yeah I got kind of sucked in. While far from an addiction, I do find it quite handy to post micro-snippets of thoughts I have to share. Usually, these aren't worthy of a full blog post.

So there you have it. I went from playing WAR and blogging about it on theGreenskin.com to getting a job with Massively, starting up a new income-generating side project, playing a new MMO, and finding quick release in Twitter. That's pretty much why this blog has been languishing. Heck, Syp has been trying to get me involved in a podcast for weeks now and I'm just not able to work it in with all that + RL responsibilities.

I'm always going to keep this blog alive but things might remain a bit quiet around here for some time.

Sorry for the lack of posts around here. Summer = less time on the computer = less time for gaming = all my good ideas going to Massively! :P

Case in point, I have been taking a trip back into the world of Warhammer Online and I'm writing a weekly journal about my impressions called "Snafzg returns to WAR!" I'm up to part three now and it will be a five part series. Next week I plan to cover my continued adventures back in T4 Phoenix Throne as well as my impressions of the Wild Hunt live event. The final week will be more of a final impressions piece. What has changed for the better? What has stayed the same? What has gotten worse? Basically, what's the state of the game based on my opinion.

To be honest, I've been having a fairly decent time so far. I'm still in search of a good guild, which I think is a key factor in the enjoyment of MMOs, especially for a game like WAR. You can only do so much on your own and in PuGs. You don't really get the full experience without a guild and I'm not sure how many of the goals I'll be able to check off from my list without one.

Interesting stuff anyway.

I don't live in no stinkin' basement! But I do record in one!

Syp and I finally had a chance to sit down and record after a number of failed attempts and this podcast is the result. We talk a little bit about what we've been up to since the last podcast and then jump into a World of Warcraft retrospective piece (for some dark and unknown purpose). We both played WoW for a long time leading up to WAR and felt like we had a lot to say about the game and that it might be fun to mix things up a little bit. What was our pre-launch anticipation? What were our initial impressions? Expansions? Burnout? Impact on the genre? What ifs? We discuss all these things and more.

We then wrap up the episode by answering a number of your questions. What sort of splash do we think Champions Online will make? Flip-flopping on Twitter? MMO community truisms? Getting older as a gamer? Our favorite colours? We answer all these questions and more!

Hope you enjoy!

In case you were living under a rock, new rumours about WoW's next expansion were leaked. Cataclysm will (or won't depending on the validity of these rumours) feature a number of updates that actually have me a bit shocked. In fact, I'm downright flabbergasted! I can't believe the amount of horizontal expansion stuff in these notes. New races. Class combos. A full "old world" overhaul.

That last point is actually what has me the most excited. I never understood why longstanding MMOs simply let their old content wither and waste away into rundant obscurity. In DAOC, for example, each expansion added a new area to explore (Shrouded Isles, Atlantis, Catacombs, etc.), which made all their old content (zones, dungeons, etc.) completely obsolete. I hated this! (Note: They may have addressed this in expansions after I quit playing.)

I always enjoyed the leveling game of WoW but disliked the options available once you hit the level cap. Route A: Raiding treadmill. Route B: Arena grind. Route C: Battleground grind. Route D: A mix of crafting and daily quests. In order to get anything accomplished at level cap, you really needed to kick your gaming schedule into high gear. Unfortunately, I don't think these routes will change with Cataclysm.

Any reader of this blog knows I'm a PvPer at heart. The setup for PvP on WoW's PvP servers was amazing -- the best in any game imho. Unfortunately, there was zero reward for participating in it. The contested zone concept may have been great but you kind of felt like a jerk for killing people because aside from the thrill of it, there was no incentive. PvP is not a viable mode of progression in WoW. I really wish it was...

Here are the top 5 PvP upgrades I think Blizzard should make to their PvP servers. These would get me to insta-resub. Seriously...

5. Contested zone level caps

Personally, I don't mind being ganked in general. I do mind being ganked by some loser who is 20 levels higher than me though. Level capping the zones or adding massive disincentives for PKilling 10+ levels below you would solve this. For example, you kill someone 10+ levels below you and you get a curse reducing your stats by 75% for 10 minutes or something.

4. PvP rank system

Blizzard is famous for their Battle.net ladders and rankings. Why not have a fluffy ranking system for PvP in WoW? PvP ranks could grant special titles, vanity items, or temporary items that actually grant a bit of extra power. Have it work based on your kill to death ratio. For example, you kill someone and get honour but if you die you lose honour.

3. Zone control incentives

The Burning Crusade introduced capturable objectives that would grant bonuses to your realm. I would like to see these built upon. Rewards could be additional XP buffs, unlocking of special dungeons, certain villages granting access to new quests/merchants, etc.

2. Gear/tokens from player kills

Monsters drop random loot, so why can't players? Why not create a token/badge system similar to Warhammer or similar to the systems WoW already uses in their PvE dungeons? It wouldn't be very hard and it would allow people to progress their gear purely through PvP if they wanted to. Options!

1. XP from player kills

XP is the primary progression metre in a game like WoW. Monster kills grant it. Quests grant it. Heck, apparently even battleground objective capture grants it. Why not take it one step further and let players grant it? Afraid of people gaming the system? Include XP reductions for killing the same player too many times in a row.

I really don't think Blizzard is exploiting their PvP servers to their fullest potential here. Mechanically, WoW is an amazing game. Adding a bit more "hardcore" flavour to their PvP servers or perhaps creating new "Hardcore PvP" servers would really widen their appeal to include the PvP audience. I really think that WoW would be the ULTIMATE PvP choice for MMO gamers by adding the above suggestions.

Would it really hurt to try? They're making a bajillion dollars and I can't imagine it would be more than a few months development to implement all the above tweaks. Until they do, I just can't bring myself to resubbing. If they did, I think their market share would only grow.

1) I am on Twitter (@Snafzg)! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa(conformist)aaaaaaaaaay!
2) I'm on a Massively month-long mission in WAR! Yaaaaaaaaaaa(this-should-be-interesting)aaaaaaaay!

We had a lot of fun and interesting questions asked during our last podcast and we thought it would be cool to do that again.

Do you have anything you'd like Syp or I to comment on or answer? Post your questions in the comment section below (spam protection is the number "3") and we'll address them when we record episode four this coming Monday!

I'm off to either a) catch a lot of fish if the weather is nice or b) play a lot of "go fish" if the weather is crappy this weekend. Wish me luck!

Q: How do you know it's a Warhammer Online patch day?
A: Your devtracker RSS feed is reporting several hundred new posts/complaints

Actually, that wasn't very funny at all... /sigh

It sounds completely obvious, right? That's because it is! The problem is that a big part of WAR's casual design goes against the grain of organization.

WAR really is designed so that you can log in for a short 15-30 minute session and actually participate in RvR. That doesn't sound bad, right? The problem is, when you have a bunch of casual people logging in, joining a warband, and then logging out shortly afterward, it's pretty difficult to get things done in an organized fashion.

I'm not saying it's impossible, because I've seen people take charge in pickup warbands and actually manage to accomplish something a few times in my WAR career, but it is (or at least, was) rare.

Werit brings up an interesting point about WAR that some people have been talking about since beta. A balanced playing field is good. Unfortunately, that leads to stalemate in WAR because of the two-realm system. I don't think a city has ever been taken on Phoenix Throne and the game has been out for nearly a year. Isn't that strange? How many North American servers have had a city taken? One? Two? Three?

By no means are the server populations perfectly balanced either. I'm sure so few cities have been taken also comes down to the fact that defending cities is easy-mode compared to attacking in a big way.

Another big issue is the length of the overall campaigns taking way too long for the majority of WAR's casual audience. How many people can really put in 6-10 hours to capture all the zones via the domination system and then sack a city for two more hours? This leads to apathy. Most casual people will log in, check in on the scope of the battle before them. Unless there's only one or two fortresses to take, players let campaign apathy overtake them.

I believe this is another major design oversight in WAR. You target much of your game toward folks who are after short bursts of entertainment and then make your bread and butter the equivalent of Mount Everest.

There are a few ways this issue could be solved, but it would require some work.

My favorite option would be to get rid of the entire zone locking mechanic and allow people to siege whatever they want whenever they want, including cities. Give some sort of realm bonus to the side who owns the Keeps and BOs. Add some sort of balancing equation so that BOs and Keeps leading up to the city will either strenghten it or weaken it so that there's additional motivation to control those. Basically, don't force people into your mould -- let them go freestyle and work it out themselves.

This episode was recorded on Sunday, July 5th but I was unable to edit it until a couple nights ago due to an extremely busy week. Oops!

Here's an episode breakdown:

Introductions
The Big Three
- Mark Jacobs / Mythic and BioWare Group
- DDOEU
- Cataclysm
Reader Questions
- What would it take to get you back to WAR?
- SW TOR Online: Good or bad with Bioware/Mythic merger?
- Mass Effect 2: Any interest?
- DLC You most want?
- Aion, kind sir, Aion?
- What will happen in the coming months…will Aion kill WoW, will WoW sluff off Aion like everything else that has challenged it, or will they live in peaceful harmony!
- I’d like to hear your thoughts on the impossibility of MMO class balance. What is “balance” to the both of you? How do you think developers should be handling the mountains of posts saying “nerf plz” and “I’m overpowered/underpowered” and especially “this patch has broken my class I’m going to go cry in a corner and unsub while still reading the forum?"
- The Day the Earth Stood Still (aka Blizzard’s ‘Cataclysm’ Trademark grant). What do this mean for gamers!? What is brewing in that storm of cold?
- Religion and Politics?

Keen touched on this and I'm going to take his advice even if he doesn't end up doing it himself! :P

I am going to sit out for the remainder of Aion beta.

Why? The answer is quite simple really: burnout.

I do not want to burn myself out on Aion because most of what I've seen so far has almost zero replayability on the PvE end. Any longtime reader of this site knows that I'm not a huge fan of PvE to begin with. I will tolerate it and even submit to it just break up my PvP, but I generally don't enjoy it.

And anyone who has seen Aion's PvE knows that it isn't groundbreaking stuff. It's not hard for me to answer this question: "Why would I spend many hours grinding a character to rank 25 just so I can test the Abyss and then have that character wiped?" I don't see the point.

The game is polished as hell and Aion beta is more of a promotional / proof-reading exercise at this point. Any comments I make on gameplay will fall upon deaf ears since the game is being developed in Korea. I'm genuinely interested to see how they plan on westernizing Aion. My guess is that they'll translate everything to English and cut the XP requirements by 25%. That's about it, I'll reckon.

I already know what class I'm going with. I'm going to play an Assassin. Why? Because every time I roll a non-stealther I get pissed off that I didn't roll a stealther. I tend to PvP solo most of the time due to my casual but erratic play schedule, so stealth is a great defensive tool to prevent getting rolled by premades or zergs. I do realize I will need to group at some point in my Aion career and I think Assassins will be good DPSers in PvE raids as well.

And it's not just burnout I'm trying to stave off. It's summer as well and there's really no good excuse to vid out when the season is so fleeting where I live. I've also got tons of RL stuff going on as well from work to home renos to baseball to Massively to quite a few other things. I'm actually a bit concerned that I won't have the time or desire to play Aion when it does come out.

We can get into a habit of playing video games. We can also get into a habit of not playing them if we fill the time with other worthwhile and fulfilling exercises. Not that I have anything someone spending any or all their free time on games because its just as valid a hobby as any other, but in the summer, I just find it harder to justify. And right now, I'm too busy to notice that I haven't really touched my gaming computer since April or May. Crazy.

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