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Bill Roper talks about Champions Online successes and failures
Champions Online is still wet behind the ears, but we're moving through the game's third month of operation, time enough to take a slightly calmer look at how things went at launch and how the game has been shaping up. Jeux Online recently interviewed executive producer Bill Roper regarding the game's launch and its future, which might not contain as much information on the latter as the fans would like but still contains some interesting bits and pieces. Looking forward, the most interesting bits are the promise of an upcoming Lair in which each player's Nemesis makes an appearance, in a union of several high-level threats to face off against a team of heroes. (Shades of the Masters of Evil or the Legion of Doom.) He also discusses a bit about the upcoming winter event, which he states will not include a new powerset but will include a number of "presents", as well as a fight against a truly massive opponent. There's also discussion regarding mission instancing a la City of Heroes, PvP maps, and the ongoing task of balancing Champions Online. How the game will mature in practice is yet to be seen, but we're getting a clearer and clearer idea about the game's direction at the very least.
Be careful what you ask for
Amidst all the excitement surrounding the coming of Wrath and the beta testing revelations, I have a question. Does anybody care that Death Knights will be OP? I disagree with my fellow bloggers when they surmise that the upcoming Wrath world will not be overpopulated by Death Knights. On the contrary, I think you won't be able to sneeze without three Death Knights around you to say Gesundheit. And what's more I think they won't be a flash-in-the-pan like the Blood Elves and Draenei overpopulations were.I believe this because I hate tanking and have never liked playing melee classes (my main is an elemental shaman and my highest alt is a warlock) and yet I'm having HUGE fun in the beta realm playing a Death Knight. I've played the class PvE to level 65, trying all three specs multiple times. I no longer fear dueling. I solo group quests that are above my level. I can approach elites one level higher than myself, alone and with no fear. I just run into a group of mobs with little strategy and almost always survive. Although I think the clarity of the purpose for each spec is still a bit muddy, I see Death Knights mostly filling a tanking role. (Perhaps this was Blizzard's response to the tank shortage? Make a tank so fun to play that lots of people will play them?) And yet Death Knights have soloing capabilities like warlocks and hunters -- only they survive better. They are by far the best soloing class I've tried. For illustration purposes, I even made a goofy movie showing how badly you can play a Death Knight and still take some serious names without dying once.Blizzard has proved that it knows what it's doing over the last four years. However, the current class system even without Death Knights has always had complaints about balance. As even Blizzard itself has admitted, adding a new class is not easy. Perhaps I am wrong and the tweaks they are making to the existing classes for Wrath will make everyone feel like they are overpowered. As it is, though, playing my new Death Knight gives me such a feeling of power that I've never had in the game before that I can't imagine that there won't be a lot of other players like me when Wrath hits the shelves this fall. Will this be good for class balance? More importantly, will anybody care?
Verbing a noun: introducing new powers
When thinking about game powers, developers have to consider four primary questions: what do the players want, do those desires fit reasonably within the framework of the game, how can the powers be balanced for the game, and how can they be coded? For example, when NCsoft's City of Heroes introduced Flight, it was competing with Super Speed, Teleportation and Leaping. How could they build it out to where it was neither overpowered nor useless? Through a series of trial-and-error efforts -- and thankfully providing an additional 10% bump in hover speed in Issue 8 -- they loaded a power set into the game that gave heroes a new way of seeing the city without unbalancing other transportation powers currently in place.As to verbs that may be more common throughout MMOs, we've all had the opportunity to "run" -- either into battle or away from almost certain peril -- and I doubt there's many here who haven't wished for the ability to "turn invisible" in order to stealth through a difficult mission, but what about some of the more exotic verbs out there? Oh, sure, in most games the alts can backslap one another, gesture angrily, and dance, but these are powerless emotes: they don't actually impact the game play. Take your favorite MMO, though, and think about what game-impacting verb or verbs you'd like to see added. Perhaps it might help to take a look at the thought process currently pushing World of Warcraft's new Death Knight and ask yourself this: if you were a developer, what would you add to the build, and how would you balance it?[Via Elder Game]
Breakfast Topic: Why do you keep playing?
Some people call them "nerfs." Some people call them "balance." (And usually this is exactly proportional to how the change impacts your own class.) But however you want to phrase it, gameplay in World of Warcraft changes -- and it doesn't always change for to the benefit of your playstyle. So how do you keep yourself playing when you seem to have hit the bottom of the nerfing/balancing cycle? Reroll? Play alts? Explore areas you've ignored in the past? Tell us, why do you keep playing?
Oblivion's gender bias: the official word
If you haven't heard enough about the ladies of Oblivion recently, this tidbit is an interesting look at gender and gaming. While the female characters manage to score bonus points on the "lack of scantily clad armour" scale, it seems that there are some inherent gender-based stat advantages under certain circumstances.Gamers with Jobs have spoken to Bethesda about the perceived gender bias, and it seems that the differences are subtle, designed so that players have more choice when it comes to gameplay. While it may seem a little old-fashioned for male Redguards to have a higher strength, while females have a higher personality, the balance is all in the name of game diversity. For anyone wishing to experience the game free of any gender concerns, there's already a mod which equalises stats irrespective of gender.[Thanks, SickNic]
