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The Summoner's Guidebook: Wealth and power in League of Legends
Although it's nothing unusual to see commenters complain about something I wrote in the Summoner's Guidebook, last week I noticed a trend. A lot of people explained things like "Karthus is good with a Tear," which led me to believe that there were some bad assumptions that were held by some of you. Sometimes we take certain things we know for granted. It's why people say League of Legends is an easy game when it's actually very difficult and complex. In the same way, I mostly assumed that people understood the basic idea of using wealth to get you ahead in the game. However, it seems like for the most part people do not. Everyone understands the idea that getting gold gets you items and items make you stronger. However, it doesn't seem to be widely understood that because you can turn wealth into power, you want to turn it into as much power as you can right now and leverage it to put you ahead. Power now is always better than power later.
End of Nations' Executive Producer discusses F2P model, buying power
With each game that announces a free-to-play business model, the same concerns immediately arise in the minds of the game's fans. Will the game allow players to pay for convenience, or will it allow them to pay to win? David Luehmann, Executive Producer of upcoming MMORTS End of Nations, addressed that very concern in a recent interview. What did he have to say? He was quick to put players' anxiety to rest, claiming that the game "will not be selling pay-to-win items that give one player a significant gameplay advantage over another" and adding that most cash-shop items will also be purchasable using in-game currency. But why go the free-to-play route to begin with? According to Luehmann, the team realized that in a game such as End of Nations, which is focused on large-scale multiplayer warfare, the game's fun factor will be directly tied to the number of players battling it out at any given time. As such, the team wants to "minimize the barrier to entry and maximize the fun." Of course, the game also features an optional subscription option. Luehmann is quick to note, however, that just like the item shop, subscriptions will not provide players with a gameplay advantage. It will instead yield "significant value and convenience extras." The full interview also includes a few details on the game itself, so if you're interested in Petroglyph's upcoming MMORTS, head on over to Gamefront for the full interview.
Rise and Shiny recap: Drakensang Online
This week I was excited to spend some more time exploring Drakensang Online, the latest version in the long-running RPG series. I'd barely touched anything from the previous games, so I was blissfully unaware of what to expect from this one. I knew that Bigpoint was involved, so I had a feeling that the cash shop would be controversial but very convenient. I had also viewed screenshots and watched videos from before, so I was ready to see just how it would run on a basic laptop with three gigs of ram. The experience turned out more or less as expected, but it did throw me a few curveballs. Click past the cut and let's talk all about it.
The Anvil of Crom Extra: Silirrion on Unchained, buying power, and more
It's been a huge couple of weeks for Funcom and the Age of Conan community. Unchained brought a new freemium business model, thousands of new (and old) players, and new dungeon content to Hyboria. One week later, PvP fans were treated to the opening of the new Blood and Glory servers, with hardcore rule sets that included increased PvP XP, corpse looting, and a return to the game's unforgiving free-for-all roots. AoC game director Craig "Silirrion" Morrison recently took the time to answer a few of our burning questions about Unchained and the game's immediate future. Head past the cut to see what Silirrion has to say about earning Funcom points in game, veteran point allotments, paying to skip the grind, and some spiffy new community-focused server tech.
New Gamasutra feature looks to define fairness in MMOs
Buying power! Class Balance! Easy mode! We'd be willing to bet that those pharses invoke some pretty strong feelings in many of you. When it comes to MMORPGs -- especially those of the free-to-play variety -- fairness is often a huge concern. Whether it's in the form of class balance, content tuning, or buying to win, equality is a delicate subject. Mr. Simon Ludgate over at Gamasutra realizes this, and has put together an incredibly in-depth feature discussing the philosophy of fairness in MMORPGs. The feature is packed with star-power, with commentary from En Masse's Brian Knox, Trion Worlds' Scott Hartsman, Richard Garriott, and more. For the full, in-depth, and interesting feature, head on over to Gamasutra.
