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Wings Over Atreia: F2P and vet rewards and bears, oh my!
OK, so maybe there aren't really any bears. Wait, I take that back -- there are maybe sorta bears... at least alluded to! Polar bears, to be exact. No really, work with me here: What Winter Festival, Atreian or otherwise, doesn't conjure up images of polar bears? We just won't get into the whole dancing bears thing. What we will get into this week in Wings Over Atreia, however, are musings about a few topics of interest that are swirling around lately, most notably Aion's upcoming conversion to free-to-play in Europe, the changes to the veteran reward system, and the aforementioned Winter Festival (sans dancing bears). Quick quiz now: Other than involving Aion, what else do these three subjects have in common? Give up? Time. While this column usually delves into single topics at a time, the fact that two of these are time-sensitive necessitates that they share face-time, else the news most relevant to Daevas would become obsolete. The third is less time-sensitive but more time-relevant.
"Guide dog" player and guild embrace sightless guildmate, steer team to victory
After seeing this guild's victories through the lens of their mutual friendship, you'll never look at the bonds and teamwork among guildmates within Azeroth the same again. Writes our tipster: My name is Nico and my character is Ignatious on Chamber of Aspects (EU). I'm co-GM/officer in a guild called Die Safe. We are a small (15 to 20 accounts) casual guild whose members like to raid on a couple of nights a week. I'd like to make clear that as a guild we are not hardcore or elitist, and we try to stay out of the realm spotlight as much as possible, so this isn't exactly familiar territory for me. In our guild, we have a member that raids with us who is completely blind. His name is Ben Shaw, and he currently plays an enhancement shaman called Hexu. Ben used to be a soldier in the British Army and, whilst serving in Iraq, was involved in an incident with a roadside bomb in Basra. As a result of the explosion, Ben suffered multiple shrapnel wounds and had to have both of his eyes surgically removed. Ben is a strong-willed individual and was not prepared to accept that he could no longer do all the things he previously enjoyed, even if that meant challenging peoples' preconceptions about blindness. Since the incident, he has embarked on numerous activities considered off limits to the visually impaired, some of which have been reported in the international press. Everyone does their fair share of relaying information to Ben, but none more so than Davidian, our resident death knight.
Apps for Veterans and Remembrance Day
While 11/11/11 is important to people for different reasons, today is Veterans Day in the U.S. and Remembrance Day (or Armistice Day) in Commonwealth countries. Veterans Day is a federal holiday for honoring military veterans while Remembrance Day remembers those who died in the line of duty. However, the resources out there on the App Store for Veterans Day are fairly thin, and it's sad. I would love to see an app such as the ones the Canadian government has done for Remembrance Day. We Remember (Free): We Remember is for our Canadian readers and helps to find a ceremony near you. You also can check out the Veterans Affairs Canada Facebook wall, watch videos from the Veterans Affairs Canada YouTube channel, share the app and download wallpapers. There is also a free Veterans Affairs Canada official app as well. USO On*Patrol Magazine HD (Free): This iPad app is the digital edition of the United Service Organization's On Patrol magazine, which is a quarterly publication which pays tribute to those who serve in the military and remembers the sacrifices they've made. They also provide resources to soldiers and veterans for programs geared toward them. There are a great numbers of riveting stories to read, and the magazine makes the digital transition. Veterans Photo Effects ($1.99): This allows people to create their own tribute to veterans using patriotic elements within the app. While originally geared toward Memorial Day, it's been retooled a bit for Veterans Day and is a good program to use with your children if you want to create a tribute page for a loved one and share it with friends. A good future update to this app would be the ability to bring in your own images to use.
Star Trek Online outlines the next several veteran rewards for players
There's still no definite date on the conversion to free-to-play for Star Trek Online, but the game is quickly approaching its 700th day of operation -- which is important. The game's veteran awards are provided for players in 100-day increments, meaning that the point is fast approaching when the players will be owed a new reward. So it makes sense that the latest Path to F2P blog discusses the next four veteran rewards and explains another upgrade to the reward for 600 days. The 600-day reward will change to a free token at level 51 (Vice Admiral) allowing players to pick a free ship, something that is currently the case but is being changed with the upcoming patch. This veteran reward means long-time players will still be eligible for a free ship, a benefit that should help assuage at least some of the issues seen with the payment model shift. The subsequent rewards range from new Android bridge officers to free respec tokens, all of which should make long-time players rather pleased.
U.S. Army urges vets to get outta their dreams and into the virtual world
You've heard of power walking, but "power dreaming?" That practice's usually the stuff of Buddhism, and now, could go a long way towards mending the psychic wounds of our nation's bravest. With about 52% of PTSD-affected veterans reported as having disturbing nightmares, the U.S. Army's working towards a virtual solution that'd marry the design of Second Life with laptop-displayed or 3D head-mounted, physio-emotional healing. The project, a form of biofeedback therapy which would create custom, stress-alleviating imagery for traumatized vets, is currently in the planning stage with Washington State's Naval Hospital serving as its experimental base. Over half a million in funding's already been put towards the effort which is expected to launch in full next year. And when it does, we're hoping the tech resembles a certain Strange Days SQUID recorder -- with happy thoughts, o'course.
Funcom's Craig Morrison on SWTOR and MMO industry advances
Funcom's Craig Morrison is one of the more outspoken MMO devs on the planet, and the Age of Conan game director has weighed in with a lengthy personal blog update that reflects on the state of the industry, the future, and the impending success of Star Wars The Old Republic. Morrison, who goes by the handle Silirrion on Funcom's various forums, touches on the freight train that is SWTOR as well as why MMO veterans have been getting the cold shoulder from development companies in recent years. Vets are "yearning for the next advance in technology at a time when the industry itself is still refining the experience offered by the first generation of games," he says. "The formula for an MMO is still pretty much the same, in terms of structure, as it was a decade ago, and that frustration at a perceived lack of progress is what fuels a deal of the complaints." Is there any hope for the future, though? Morrison seems to think so, but he's not holding his breath on a timeframe. "I also think that those advances the veterans yearn for will come, and the genre will become more dynamic and community focused again, but maybe not in the near future, and almost certainly not with the upcoming generation of games," he writes.
The Soapbox: The Uncle Owen paradox
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. This week, the venerable Star Wars Galaxies celebrates its eighth year of existence. I was there in the beginning -- before the beginning, in fact. I did what a lot of you early SWG players probably did: I had a guild and a guild city, multiple accounts, a booming business as a chef, and a character who could entertain and fight. Even then, we realized how different SWG was from its immediate predecessors like EverQuest and Dark Age of Camelot. We'd returned to the earlier age of Ultima Online, of persistent worlds (as the term was used back then). It was more a world than a game, and in it we could roleplay whatever we liked, to a point. Nowadays, we'd call it a sandbox. Old-school MMO gamers know well that the sandbox is under attack. Some will blame it on EverQuest, some on World of Warcraft, some on the free-to-play phenomenon. Among the Massively commenters, there's a large contingent of gamers who consider SWG's own NGE to be the beginning of the end of the classic sandbox. I can't say they're wrong when it comes to the philosophy governing new MMOs, but the sandbox isn't dead yet.
Star Trek Online reveals 500-day veteran rewards
It seems every game in the genre today has to hand out some kind of veteran reward as a thank-you for players who decide to stick around, and Cryptic's Star Trek Online is no different. So far up to the 400-day mark, STO players have been granted a variety of nifty items: titles, respecs, ship slots, costume pieces, skill point boosts, and at 400 days, even a new vanity ship. Now the 500-day rewards have been unveiled. Players who manage to play the Cryptic sci-fi MMO for that long will receive 250 emblems to spend as they please, an extra ship slot, two costume pieces, and the title "Relentless." If you want to join in on the discussion and argue about whether or not these are worthy rewards, head on over to the official STO forum thread. Otherwise, congratulations to everyone who has racked up 500 days of playtime in STO. Yes, I mean both of you.
Audio battlefield would prepare troops for combat or a typical Slayer concert
Ever wondered how well playing Call of Duty at maximum volume mimics a real combat experience? Researchers at the Missouri University of Science and Technology must have asked a similar question, because they've built a 64-speaker surround-sound audio battlefield designed to train new troops. The system reproduces screaming fighter jets, rumbling tanks, and persistent gunfire -- all the better to acclimate recruits to the overwhelming, disorienting cacophony of warfare. Veterans say even with the four large 20-hertz subwoofers, it's nowhere near the real thing: combat volume is 25 percent louder than the average rock concert, at levels that can cause permanent hearing loss. Still, the creators say every bit of training helps; having near-combat experience is certainly better than none at all. So tell that to your neighbors next time they bang on your wall. [Image via The Associated Press]
Call of Duty Endowment donating $1 to veterans for every Facebook 'Like' it gets
To coincide with Monday's observance of Memorial Day in the US, the Call of Duty Endowment -- a non-profit charity established by Activision Blizzard to assist veterans with finding employment once they leave the service -- is partnering with Hire Heroes USA to provide the "career transition" operation with funding through a novel approach. The Endowment will give $1 to HHUSA for every user who "likes" C.O.D.E.'s Facebook page through 11:59 p.m. PDT on Monday, May 31, or up to $50,000, whichever comes first. This funding is on top of the undisclosed amount C.O.D.E. has already granted Hire Heroes USA. So far, more than 8,400 users have "liked" the page since the unique fundraiser began yesterday. If you've got a Facebook account, what's not to "Like" about this idea? Plus, it'll totally reestablish your cred after "liking" that one Justin Bieber page.
Call of Duty Endowment announces game dev scholarship for vets
The last we heard about those Call of Duty Endowment dogooders was last year when the group came into existence, announcing intentions of assisting US military veterans with getting work when returning home. But just last week, CODE announced a partnership with two colleges to support scholarship programs in game development for veterans. Both Austin Community College in Austin, TX and Madison Area Technical College in Madison, WI will offer assistance to veterans "with the costs of software, transportation, and other educational needs" -- while the GI bill is intended to cover the cost of tuition -- to the tune of four $2,500 scholarships per academic year at each school ($1,250 for part-time students). The criteria for receiving aid at each school is slightly different, though not entirely dissimilar: both require a 2.5 cumulative GPA or higher in previous college work, to have been an honorably discharged veteran from the US Armed Forces and to demonstrate a financial necessity for the assistance. Applications are already open for the coming school year, the first of five years the program is scheduled to run (totaling $100,000 when all is said and done). Interested applicants are encouraged to apply for ACC here and MATC here. [Via GamePolitics]
The Daily Grind: Should newbie rewards match veteran rewards?
Star Trek Online fans got a little testy when it looked like new players would get the game for less with twice the free time. And you can't exactly blame them -- after all, it's hard enough being an early adopter for a new MMO, and you expect to suffer through a few bugs with the knowledge that you're in on the ground floor. MMOcrunch went so far as to call it a pre-order penalty, arguing that for every reward that new players get, veteran players should get something in exchange. It's a nice philosophy, and one that games like City of Heroes have adopted in earnest with a reward program for veterans, plus new bundle packs of the game for new players. On the other hand, World of Warcraft offers nothing much to veteran players while the cover price of the game keeps going down, and that hasn't particularly impacted its sales. What do you think? Should there be an even distribution of rewards for the newcomers and the old standbys? Or is it more important to entice new players, and the old players should enjoy the extra time they've spent in the game thus far?
Activision donates $100k from Call of Duty Endowment to aid wounded vets
Activision is continuing to help military veterans through its Call of Duty Endowment (C.O.D.E.), and, in a way, so are the patrons of its mega-popular war franchise. Today, C.O.D.E. announced that it will be giving $100,000 to the Wounded Warrior Project, for the purpose of establishing a fifth Transition Training Academy where injured veterans can receive training and pursue a career in information technology. Last November, the publisher pledged $1 million from sales of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 towards programs aiding military personnel in their return to civilian life, having made an initial donation of $125,000 to Paralyzed Veterans of America in the fall.
Virtual world toolbox Metaplace closing its doors
Another virtual world reaches the end of its existence, as Raph Koster announced early last week that Metaplace, the online world that was supposed to be the end-all, do-all of such things, is going to close for good on January 1, 2010. It's a common story with MMO startups these days: developer has "revolutionary" idea for user-generated content, gets a bunch of money and support to put it into place, users don't actually vibe with the idea they way they were expected to, and the dev is left having to explain why it didn't work out. Oh, and the people who were actually enjoying the world get stuck without a place to go. Koster says the company has created this Metaplace veterans forum for anyone who enjoyed the service and wants to stay in touch with their contacts there. We'd recommend you head over there to say hi (and talk about what's next), but given that the world is shutting down, odds are you probably weren't playing with it anyway. [Via Massively]
PlanetSide veteran remembers the Battle of Forseral
PlanetSide doesn't get much attention these days. It didn't get much attention when it was fresh on the market either. It has always seemed like a clunky, not-quite-right prototype for what a massively-multiplayer-first-person-shooter could be. But some folks remember their time spent there quite fondly, including Rock, Paper, Shotgun's Quintin Smith.A few days ago he wrote up an article about how veterans of the game fondly share war stories, and then provided his own epic tale. It's a great story that shows how players with good humor can turn a game-crushing bug into the gaming experience of a lifetime.The story resembles the Battle of Thermopylae; one nation is forced (by a bug) to the brink of annihilation. It's interesting because it's presumably the one time any faction in PlanetSide was faced with the possibility of complete and final loss of a war that's rigged to be impossible to lose (or win). We recently brought up the question of stakes in PvP, so this new RPS article is topical! Amusingly, the article is also not entirely dissimilar to our own PlanetSide experience.
Veteran EverQuest 2 players weigh in on Heroic Runnyeye
This past Tuesday, EverQuest 2 saw yet another major Game Update go live. GU 46 introduced the fantastic Void Storms live event, and offered max level players some brand-new content: a Heroic version of the Runnyeye dungeon. By now some of EQ2's enthusiastic adventurers have had a chance to plumb the depths of Runnyeye, and the response is varied.Raiding veteran Kendricke of the Clockwork Gamer site views the labyrinth, which is aimed squarely at getting newly-dinged 80th-level characters into dungeon-crawling, as a good experience. He argues that it's not that the new instance is easy - it's just that it requires a raider's mindset. Even a small group can clear the dungeon, but if they don't have the right frame of mind it's going to be a challenge. Meanwhile Stargrace at MMO Quests is a bit more dismissive. In her words, as long as you cure status effects as they're dropped onto players the dungeon is very easy. She was also underwhelmed by the loot that dropped. Both bloggers, though, enjoyed the encounter's scripted events. Everyone can agree: bringing lore-heavy combat to the masses has to be a good thing.
Segs-4-Vets hooks up veterans with Segways
Dean Kamen's done a lot of work over the years building technologies for the disabled, which lends a bit of irony to the fact that his most well-known consumer transport, the Segway, is seeing some increased use by veterans. A non-profit by the name of Disability Rights Advocates for Technology (DRAFT) has snapped up some 150 units over the past few years -- 30 of which just went out last week -- to help amputees get around quicker and further than with your run of the mill wheelchair. Results of the Segs-4-Vets program sound positive, but at $6k a pop the price continues to be prohibitive for wider rollout and donation, even at discount directly from Segway.[Thanks, Laura]
Player vs. Everything: Gaming with a disability
Stephanie Walker was a gamer who had never expected to have to deal with a disability. She was 23 at the onset of her condition, a college student who also worked a full-time job. She liked to spend the little free time she had unwinding online. Initially resistant to the idea of playing EverQuest, Stephanie quickly discovered that slaying virtual orcs and bandits while joking around in party chat was surprisingly fun. It was a great way to keep in touch with long-distance friends and burn some stress after a long day. She didn't have a lot of time to play, but she was good at it when she did. While working at her job one day, Stephanie noticed that her right hand and leg had fallen asleep. When she tried to get up to walk the sensation off, she realized that something was seriously wrong -- the entire right side of her body had just stopped working. Stephanie was rushed to the hospital, and the diagnosis was confirmed the following morning: she had multiple sclerosis, and she would have to deal with it for the rest of her life. Overnight, everything changed. She went from being someone who spent 20 hours per day away from home to someone who really never left. Moving around within her house required an enormous effort on her part. Even feeding herself had become a challenge. The little things, like not being able to get online and chat with her friends (something she really enjoyed) just made her situation that much more painful.
President Bush plays video games with injured soldiers
President Bush, during a recent visit to a rehabilitation center for injured veterans, found time to sit with the soldiers and play some video games. This begs the question - when you play some games with the president, do you have to let him win?While the idea of wounded soldiers playing war games as part of their recovery process might seem a little strange, the use of simulated battlefields to treat sufferers of wartime Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder has become more popular over the past few years.According to a White House spokeswoman, one game allowed our Head of State to "shoot the bad guys" in a virtually rendered Baghdad neighborhood. The veterans were reportedly confused when President Bush made his character run away from the battlefield to hide in his father's ranch house for a year.[Thanks, Steve]
City of Heroes fans to honor real world heroes
Never let it be said that gamers don't have heart. In honor of the upcoming Veteran's Day on November 12th, a spirited group of City of Heroes players on the Virtue server will be holding an in-game event to recognize the exceptional deeds of some real-life do-gooders; not only the men and women fighting overseas, but also the firefighters and police officers who keep us safe at home. There will be guest speakers (including a special keynote speaker that organizer Dwarfstar didn't want to reveal to us at this time), both in character and out, talking about what the day means to them, as well as an open forum for whomever is inclined to show up.For those not on the Virtue server or who are unable to make it, The Cape Radio will be providing coverage of the event, including inspirational music and some additional comments. Make sure to log-in at 8 PM EST on the 12th if you want to take part in the festivities.
