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The Daily Grind: What kind of death penalty do you want in EQ Next?
SOE hasn't mentioned much about about what it has in mind for the death penalty mechanic in EverQuest Next. You might recall that the original EverQuest was famous for its unforgiving death penalty, which included corpse runs and XP loss. EverQuest II, on the other hand, did what most newer MMOs do and reduced the death penalty to an inconvenience, and in some cases, a preferred form of fast travel! So what'll it be for EQN? Inquiring minds want to know. A lot of inquiring minds, if an article and the resulting discussion on fan site EQ Nexus are any indication. What say you, Massively readers? What kind of death penalty do you want in EQN? [Thanks Maclypse!] Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Soapbox: On your deathbed, you will not regret gaming
In last week's edition of The Soapbox, Mike Foster reminded us that the grim specter of death comes to us all and asserted that when your time comes, "you will not wish you had spent more time gaming." Mike took the stance that gaming provides temporary joys that can't replace real-life experiences and that it's our inherent responsibility as human beings with finite lifespans to seek out those experiences. He argued that "gaming is a hobby and not a replacement for a life well-lived" and that it's not our gaming achievements but our real life ones that we'll proudly tell our grandchildren. I think we can all agree that it's important to have offline hobbies and interests that help you keep active, but I take exception to the notion that we might regret time spent gaming on our deathbeds. Published data on the top five regrets of the dying actually seems to directly refute this idea, and my life experiences have shown the exact opposite of some of the points Mike makes. MMOs have given me some experiences that I'll probably treasure for a lifetime, and gaming as a hobby has provided me with much more than just temporary joys and escapism; it's helped me discover talents I didn't know I possessed, given me the push I needed to get a good education, led me to employment, and put me in contact with lifelong friends. On my deathbed, I'll probably wish I'd spent more time gaming rather than less. In this opinion piece, I look at evidence that suggests we won't regret gaming on our deathbeds and make the case that gaming can be just as worthwhile as offline pursuits.
The Soapbox: You will not wish you had spent more time gaming
Spoiler alert: You are going to die. It's inescapable. Maybe you fall off a cliff. Maybe you grow old and fade peacefully into the nether. Maybe hawk-wolves pick the lock on your front door and attack while you're frying eggs and trying to remember what you had planned for the day. Maybe you sneeze on the subway and your head literally explodes, ruining the morning commute of dozens of office drones. Whatever the cause and time, death is the inevitable conclusion to the story of your life. It can be neat, it can be messy, it can be expected, it can be a surprise, but it always comes. And no matter who you are, I'm willing to bet one thing about that cacophonous moment in which the world slows and you stare death in the face: You will not wish you had spent more time raiding.
Nerd Kingdom details TUG's death mechanics
Nerd Kingdom has outlined its preliminary goals for death and death penalties in its TUG sandbox MMO. The devs are aiming at something that's prickly enough to discourage players from using it as ad-hoc transportation between spawn points and yet forgiving enough to avoid frustration. In a nutshell, your avatar's soul will vacate his body upon death, and it will do so in the form of a wisp. Wisps will gradually regain enough energy to reenter the avatar and awaken it, and doing so necessitates progressing through four distinct phases. Reviving your avatar in its optimal state is thus dependent on timing, and the importance of reviving in a weak state vs. a fully recovered state will vary depending on your chosen game mode. Nerd Kingdom is enabling corpse-looting in TUG's survival mode, but the devs are also intent on designing plenty of camping deterrents into the system. You can read all about these, as well as the rest of the death mechanics on the TUG Kickstarter project page.
The Soapbox: Your MMO is going to die, and that's OK
There is no question about it: Bringing games online has fundamentally changed the way we play and interact with one another. Thanks to the web, we can share games with our friends from thousands of miles away. We can hang out with people who live in other countries and learn about human beings who exist in completely different realities. Playing MMOs is an incredible, unique experience that gives players an honest chance at turning their favorite personal hobby into a full-on social engagement. For any of these experiences to be possible, a game must be connected to the web. Without a server humming away in someone's basement or the cold, dark corridors of an MMO developer's hushed office, the games we talk about here on Massively simply wouldn't exist. The side effect of this online requirement is that every online game, no matter how popular it may be at the moment, has a finite lifespan. Eventually, your favorite game is going to die. This is a good thing. Here's why.
EVE Evolved: Ten years of EVE Online
Tomorrow marks a huge milestone in MMO history as sci-fi sandbox EVE Online officially turns ten years old. Released by a tiny icelandic development studio whose only previous release was a board game featuring Reykjavik's favourite cross-dressing mayor, EVE has slowly grown over the past decade to become one of the industry's biggest and most stable subscription titles. Following 2011's monoclegate scandal that led to around 8% of players quitting and CCP Games shedding 20% of its employees, this year saw EVE Online climb to new heights as it regained the playerbase's confidence and smashed the 500,000 subscriber barrier. As a special side-note, the EVE Evolved column also turned five years old last week; it has now officially been running for over half of EVE's lifetime. The past year has been remarkably successful for CCP, with both of the year's EVE expansions being extremely well received and console MMOFPS DUST 514 finally starting to take shape. The Inferno and Retribution expansions fixed a staggering number of small issues that were broken in the game while also making big changes to bounty-hunting, piracy, and PvP across the board. We also saw huge emergent events like the Battle of Asakai, a $6,000 ship kill, and the five trillion ISK faction warfare exploit this year. With DUST 514 officially launching in just over a week on May 14th and players fired up about the upcoming Odyssey expansion, the future's looking bright for EVE Online as it heads into its second decade. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look back at some of year's top EVE stories, stories that touched real life, and what the future holds for EVE's second decade.
Our favorite ways to die in World of Warcraft
It's safe to say that we've been around the block in World of Warcraft. We've been witness to epic events, scenic vistas, and many, many untimely deaths. Mostly our own. But of those many deaths, some were more memorable than others. Some we've stored away in the recesses of our memory to be revisited and laughed over at a later date. So just what are our favorite WoW deaths? We consulted the WoW Insider team as well as some of our extended network of friends and compiled the best answers into this list. You might want to look before you leap WoW can be so beautiful that sometimes we forget it's a game. A game that can kill you. And so sometimes we find ourselves exploring, wandering, or accidentally autorunning to our doom. Oops. Many -- most, in fact -- of our so-called "favorite" deaths seem to involve untimely falls. Sarah Pine: My favorite way of having died was when I first made it to Hellfire Peninsula at 60, running around on my mount exploring (flying was at 70 at that time!), I leaped over a little hill only to find that there was no more land on the other side, because that was the edge of the continent. You fall for a while off of Hellfire before you actually die, I found out. Anne Stickney: Once I decided to see if Outland had invisible walls around the edges. Um, for the record, it does NOT. Brian Wood: I still have fond memories of a multitude of deaths from failing the shortcut jump to get to the Molten Core entrance in vanilla. Had lots and lots of opportunity to practice during ghost runs. Michael Sacco: I liked going to the top of the Temple of Storms and leaping off. @DoctorOddfellow: Well, #1 has to be tree-diving from Teldrassil, right? @hestiahdruid: Shadow Step, Heroic Leap, or the Druid version behind a boss to fall to your doom. @screwlewse: Falling into the lava where Magmaw stands.
Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen trailer is full of burning lizards and death
Capcom's new video for Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen shows off some new enemies, one of which is literally death. Like, Death death, with a capital "D." Death shows up randomly and (surprise!) tries to kill you and your Pawns, and while killing it is possible, it reportedly takes several encounters.
Google's Inactive Account Manager secures your digital existence after you kick the bucket
If you're worried about what will happen to your mounds of digital data when you pass away, Google has just announced a feature for keeping said libraries secure. The outfit's Inactive Account Manager allows users to set time out periods of three, six, nine or 12 months for inactivity before deleting all of the stored files or having them handed over to a family member or "trusted contact." Those still left roaming the Earth can be granted access to Blogger, Drive, Gmail, Google+ and more without an application process, or they can simply be notified of the situation. Before any predetermined action is taken, the system will beam out a text and an email -- so if you're still around, you can halt matters from progressing further. Set up that digital will via the source links below and or by accessing the Google Account settings page.
The Daily Grind: Has a death penalty ever made you quit a game?
Kids these days have no idea. Back in the day, death wasn't a slap on the wrist. I remember one night in Final Fantasy XI I had been pushing to level on my White Mage all week. I stayed up far later than I should have, eked out the last bit of experience I needed to level, waved goodbye to the party I had kept awake far too long to earn that last level... and then I got something trained onto me and died. Causing me to lose that level. I didn't quit the game. But I strongly considered it. Death penalties in more recent games are usually far more lenient, but there are still games that treat death as a real throat-punch to the player. Has a death penalty ever made you quit a game, either because you got killed at one point and just lost too much, or because you just didn't want to deal with that sort of irritation any longer? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Heavy Rain composer Normand Corbeil passes away, aged 56
Normand Corbeil, the celebrated screen and video game composer, has died at age 56. Corbeil, twice nominated for Emmy awards for his work on Hitler: The Rise of Evil and Human Trafficking, composed the award-winning music of Quantic Dream's Heavy Rain. He also co-composed Indigo Prophecy, and was working on the studio's next project, Beyond: Two Souls. After being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in August 2012, Corbeil passed away on January 25.One of the key components of Heavy Rain, a game Joystiq doled out five stars to, was its powerful, often deeply melancholic music. As our reviewer put it, Corbeil's "superb" accompanying score drew you into the experience because it fit the situation so well.Our thoughts go out to his family, friends and colleagues. Gaming has lost a great composer, but Corbeil's work lives on, and we hope you take the time today to enjoy it.
Darksiders 2 statue brings Death and Despair into your living space
State of the Art Toys is preparing to let loose Death and his steed Despair on the collectibles world. A $249.99 statue of both Darksiders 2 characters is available for pre-order right now, with the first shipments expected to go out in mid-February.High intensity LEDs are built into Despair, lighting up his mane, hooves and tail. Death rides atop Despair with his scythes in hand, ready to reap the souls of all your other collectibles should they get out of line. What? That movie Toy Story was a documentary, you guys – your toys are alive and move when you're not looking.%Gallery-173141%
'GamesMaster' Sir Patrick Moore has died
Revered British astronomer, writer, and broadcaster Sir Patrick Moore has died, aged 89. As the BBC reports, Moore passed away peacefully yesterday at his home in England.Moore was one of Great Britain's most recognizable personalities. He had a glittering career as a writer and broadcaster of astronomy, most famously presenting BBC mainstay The Sky at Night for over half a century. Yet he wasn't afraid to present himself unseriously, as British gamers who grew up in the 1990s will undoubtedly remember.As the face, or more specifically the cyborg head of GamesMaster, Moore was an integral part of one of the few successful video game shows TV can boast. Although his stint on GamesMaster was likely only a minor sideline in his incredible life, this tribute video by Big Daddy D shows just how memorable it was.
Ditching the Death Penalty
About ten days ago, Blizzard Community Manager Taepsilum posted in the EU forums on a thread about removing the death penalty. While this may sound like a political hot potato that WoW Insider would do best to avoid, Taepsilum was actually responding to a post calling for the removal of resurrection sickness from the game. The original poster asserted that it was outdated, no longer necessary, and flatly inconvenient. That it detracted from the game's experience. Taepsilum's post was as follows. Taepsilum The death of a character should be something important, the death penalty is there to make sure players don't disregard it, in my opinion it's actually already too easy and too fast to resurrect. It's because of the penalty and the lost time when doing a corpse run, that players will be more cautious about their character. If you decide to resurrect at the spirit healer, it's because either your character died in a very weird place (and you should be more careful), or you just don't want to corpse run. I think we should all be glad that there's no experience loss as death penalty, that would probably be a bit too harsh, but I do think we need something to keep death from being meaningless. We're always open to good and new ideas of what that might be; as long as it's not "removal of the death penalty", feel free to chip in ;) source
The Daily Grind: What dumb death do your characters repeatedly suffer?
MMOs offer players many, many dumb ways to die. Personally, I tend to die by grossly misjudging the safe falling distance. I've learned more about how games handle falling deaths than would seem entirely healthy. Guild Wars 2 just kicks you to a waypoint for your idiocy, while Star Wars: The Old Republic is kind enough to let you treat it like any other death. Albeit a particularly dumb one. But falling is hardly the only way to kill yourself and feel like an idiot. You can jump into something harmful and not remember to move. You can pull when the tank, healer, or both are away from the keyboard. You can even go AFK yourself in an area filled with things due to respawn in the near future. And while some dumb deaths are accidents, today we want to know what dumb way you keep dying in your games of choice. Even if yours is also falling. Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Massively Exclusive: Hailan Rising's devs on PvP, death, and player loot tables
Hailan Rising is more than halfway through its Kickstarter campaign with quite a long trek still to go for funding, but we took a good look at the game's description and really liked what we saw. It's a game that is labeling itself as "DAoC meets CoD" and being developed by some important industry vets. But as with any Kickstarter project, there are always questions. We see what's being promised with the game, but we want to know more. So we gathered together a few of our biggest concerns for the Reloaded Productions team to see what this thing is all about. As Kickstarter projects are still a dime a dozen these days, we want to know what sets the team's game apart from the rest. Follow along after the cut for our interview with Adam Smith and Jess Mulligan from Reloaded Productions.
Breakfast Topic: Do you view death as a failure?
Have you become so comfortable in WoW that dying during the course of normal play makes you die again -- from embarrassment? Progression raiding aside, death as a personal failure certainly seems to be the prevailing attitude in some quarters. When you're so familiar with every nook and cranny of the content, the general mechanics, and your character's abilities that you can recover from just about any momentary lapse of attention or care, death does begin to smell a little fail-tastic. Or does it? My fondest memories in any MMO almost always revolve around moments of temporary insanity -- times when we bit off way more than we could chew and somebody (or everybody) died spectacularly as a result. Heck, there's even a guild based on the premise! Still, you won't get very far exploring the range of what your character can do if you never push the envelope. Some players relish the challenge of seeing how far they get soloing a raid instance; others quail from the inevitable string of deaths. An overly cautious approach can push activities like PvP completely off the table for players who are afraid that death equals failure in their eyes and the rest of the players around them. Does death during the normal course of questing, grouping, or running a raid you're fairly familiar with represent a personal failure to you? Do you feel embarrassment when you die in front of other players? Do you prefer that the game be balanced so that you rarely if ever die? Maybe you believe a little death and danger add spice to in-game life. If you wish WoW's overall challenge rating were a little less forgiving, do you think you'd feel comfortable with dying more frequently, or do you think the bar and community attitudes on death and skill are already firmly entrenched?
The Daily Grind: What's been your best recent death?
So the other day I was doing my typical Guild Wars 2 exploration thing when I saw that I was close to a point of interest that I needed. It was down a frozen river, so I started jogging in an Asuran fashion. I was a little distracted, however, and ended up running right off a frozen waterfall to do a fatal faceplant some fifty feet below. You can see the result above. The funny thing is that I landed next to another dead player, whose corpse let out a guffaw when she saw me arrive in the same fashion. Sometimes death loves company, y'know? In the spirit of my many, many boneheaded deaths, I'd love to hear about one of your best demises as of late. Was it funny? Embarrassing? Epic? Futile? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
UK gaming pioneer Mike Singleton dies at 61
Mike Singleton, a prominent and prolific game developer based in the UK, died on October 10 of natural causes at the age of 61, following a year-long battle with jaw cancer. Singleton was responsible for a few games that serve as the foundation of home entertainment, including Space Ace for the Commodore VIC-20, War in Middle Earth for the ZX Spectrum, Midwinter and Midwinter 2 for Atari ST, Amiga and PC, and more recently GRID for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.A friend and previous employee of Singleton's has a heartfelt dedication to his work and life here, along with a list of all the games Singleton created or had a hand in. The friend writes, "Next time you pop in a disk, raise a glass and say 'Cheers Singo!'"Cheers.
The Soapbox: No game lives forever
The lifespan of a video game is a funny thing. There are some games that have a definite end, yet you'd wish they'd last forever. These games measure life in replayability, run-through length, or multiplayer matches, but they lack permanence and persistence. Still, you can usually dust them off years from now and still have fun with them. MMOs are a different breed, aren't they? They promise the inverse of the solo game, with a world that goes on, content that keeps flooding in, and the illusion that it will last forever. Yet when the switch is turned off, there's no going back. You can't pick it up 10 years from now and give it another go. It's why the news that an MMO is closing up shop comes as such a devastating blow to many of us. As MMOs attempt to emulate the persistence of life, so too do they illustrate the finality of death.
