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A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Facefirst into Praetoria
It's finally here, and I have to admit, it's a little weird to realize it. After I spent the better part of half a year focusing on Going Rogue, the expansion has been released and is totally playable. To have the game sitting in front of me (metaphorically) after it's become such a huge part of my professional life is almost too daunting. I almost didn't even want to fire up the launcher to... OK, yeah, that part isn't fooling anyone. Getting to play around a bit while it was in beta to see how it would play was nice, but I couldn't get myself into City of Heroes fast enough to start leveling a Loyalist and going to town on the new side of town. At the end of the day, I'm just a player like everyone reading this column, and the game I got to play on Monday evening made me very happy indeed. There's a lot to see and do, and I've tried to recap some of the disconnected thoughts in this week's column. And as a bonus, there's a sad announcement at the end! It's like a bonus, anyway.
The Mog Log: Experiment Rhio
A long time ago -- like, when I started this column -- I had an idea. Or more accurately, I had a tiny nub of an idea that seemed as if it would be very relevant later. I was still smarting over the VanaFest announcements and the whole idea that nothing would be done to help the lower levels... and an idea came to me. If I was so certain that there was no population to play these areas, why didn't I try soloing them to see how things worked out? Of course, at the time, I mostly wanted to point and enjoy the sour grapes of being proven right. But as xkcd so eloquently put it, you don't use science to prove yourself right, you use it to become right. (Alt text is your friend.) And so I logged in and put a hard theory to the test: what could a Final Fantasy XI character do without anything more involved than a subjob? No advanced jobs, no airship passes, no special access. Was leveling possible? Difficult? Easy? This was -- and is -- the Rhio experiment.
Fantasy Earth Zero hosting double experience week
If you're a fan of Fantasy Earth Zero, then odds are good that you've also become a fan of the game on Facebook. (You can't escape from that site any more, really.) But if you do enjoy the game's hybrid of real-time strategy elements and fantasy battles without having become a fan of the game on social networking... you owe the Facebook fans a big "thank you." As a celebration for having reached 5,000 fans, the game is running a week of doubled experience. Running from August 10th to the 17th, the effects are obvious -- every character will receive doubled experience, presumably from every source. While the game doesn't require high levels to be competitive in PvP, it does offer up more options. In addition, players who logged on between July 1st and August 9th will receive a few special in-game items as an additional thanks for playing. Another celebration is planned for 6,000 fans, so Fantasy Earth Zero players are encouraged to become a fan if you're not already.
Party like a rock star in Final Fantasy XIV
There are players out there who might be dreading parties in Final Fantasy XIV. Well, not precisely; they might well be dreading that the mechanics will be similar to the parties from Final Fantasy XI, where some classes could seemingly wait for ages without a trace of a group. Mercifully, the fine bilingual team at FFXIVCore has continued its apparent tradition of translating information to coincide with the new beta testing, with the newest translation being a guide to getting a working group in the game. Guildleves are the game's core leveling mechanics, but new ones can only be accepted every so often, and they can be hard to complete on higher settings alone. By grouping up, players gain access to more guildleves from other players and more support in tackling the game's bigger challenges. The full translation has information on everything from the interface to form a party to the game's battle regiments, the equivalent of Final Fantasy XI's skillchains. (We're guessing they meant regimens, but that's the challenge of translation.) Final Fantasy XIV fans are advised to take a look at the article to start gearing up for the game's release in two months.
Wings Over Atreia: Living la vida Asmo
Now, it is oft heard that "Asmos don't get no lovin'!" Perusing threads, or even listening to faction-hoppers in game, you hear many complaints that Asmodians have it just that much harder than their fair-winged counterparts -- that Asmodae is harder to level in than Elysea, the Elyos have better mobs, easier quests, better loot, more press time, and so on. Basically, that the Elyos race is the "favorite child." In the interest of representing both factions in Aion, I gave readers the chance to choose my class as I ventured into Asmodae as a black-winged beauty (sorry folks, I just can't bring myself to create a male character). And the votes are in! Your choice for my new persona is --drum roll -- priest! While I was excited to delve into the class, a part of me wondered if there was an ulterior motive to this choice... a cry for more healers among the Asmodians, perhaps? Regardless of the reasoning behind it, yours truly slipped out of Elysea and into Asmodae. While it will take me a while (since I am not a power-grinder), I am going to take you along with me as we journey through life on the dark side, comparing the leveling on each side of the planet. In this installment, we are looking at Asmodian life from creation to ascension. Follow across the cut to join me in my very first clawed footsteps, as well as a hint to maximize your experience at beginning levels.
Survey: 73% of iPhone users are fine with AT&T's service
If you're the kind of person who loves quoting that ".5%" number given by Jobs at the press conference a few weeks ago as proof that AT&T's reception problems are overblown, you'll love this. A new survey released by Yankee Group says that 73% of iPhone users polled are actually "very satisfied" with their cell phone service. In fact, only 69% of smartphone users in general say they're happy with their provider, so not only is AT&T's service satisfactory according to this survey, but it's actually better than other services. Why is AT&T so hated when their service is actually good? Yankee Group explains: it's not that the service is great, it's more that the phone is awesome. Customers really love their iPhones, and so even when the reception isn't very good, the overall experience scores high. AT&T says it's just a perception problem: "There's a gap between what people hear about us and what their experience is with us. We think that gap is beginning to close," according to a spokesman. I'll say this: I carried my iPhone all over San Diego at Comic-Con last week, and the reception I got was just plain terrible. My net connection barely worked, calls were dropped, and I couldn't check email even when I needed to. But I'll admit that the AT&T problems exist in a strange place -- not only does the iPhone's otherwise shining example of user experience helping to outweigh AT&T's problems, but customers' high expectations for the iPhone probably have something to do with all of the complaining as well.
Guest Post: Vetting puggers -- beyond GearScore and achievements
This article has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com. How can you tell a good raider from a bad raider? GearScore? NO. Often times, people will rely on a numerical gear score, but this is not a good way to judge player quality. Very good players will have low gear scores when starting out, and very bad players who have been persistent or been carried can have very high scores. GearScore is not an indicator of goodness or badness; it's purely an indication of how much time and luck the person has had on that character. Achievements? NO. Some group leaders request, "Link achievement, please," but this is not a good method, either. All this indicates is that the person was in the raid when the boss died. You don't know if they were No. 1 DPS or died three seconds into the fight, the same as they do during every fight they've ever been in. So before you can determine how tell a good player from a bad player, you should understand what makes a "good player."
Exclusive Aion lead producer interview
Aion fans have been on a roller coaster ride of late, what with the recent announcement of the launch date for the highly anticipated 1.9 patch, as well as teasers regarding 2.0 potentially coming to America in the Fall. Tempering the good news was the announcement of pending server mergers, which are rarely regarded as a good thing in the player community. In light of all the goings on, we were able to sit down with NCsoft's Chris Hager, Lead Producer for the western version of Aion, for some frank questions about the game, the company behind it, and the future. Fly past the cut for the full interview.
An interview with veteran supergroups in City of Heroes
Today is rather the day of City of Heroes, and with good cause -- six years old, with many changes and exciting new parts in the wings. And the game is still open to new players of all sorts, with plenty to enrapture players who've never once set foot in Paragon City. But there's also a special place for players and groupings that have been around for nearly all of the game's lifespan -- something that's quite an accomplishment for more than half a decade. We were lucky enough to have a chance to speak with two veteran supergroups as part of the anniversary celebration: ICONS and Fusion Force. To help compare and contrast responses, we asked both groups the same set of questions, and what follows is their responses. Some of them are close to one another (for instance, everyone seems to want to go into space), but others are very different, even with similar amounts of experience. Whether you're a City of Heroes veteran yourself or just curious about the game's history, jump on past the cut for our chat with some of the game's longer-running player groups.
TUAW's Daily App: Above
Our tipsters have been raving about Above, which is sort of a cross between Doodle Jump and Canabalt. It appeared in the App Store a little while ago. Odds are, after that description, you probably went looking for it already. Just in case you're still here, though, I'll tell you that it does offer up a few new tricks. Just like Canabalt, it's still a one-button-to-jump affair, but in Above, you actually hold down a finger to "charge" a jump, which adds a little more strategy to it. As in Doodle Jump, you're trying to constantly climb up a series of platforms using "powerfuls" (a feature of the game) and avoiding obstacles, but Above's unique art style and much more forgiving structure make for a different experience. It's a very stylistic experience, from the great backgrounds and graphics to the trippy music. I'm not sure that it really offers anything new to this "climbing platformer" phenomena that seems to be taking over the App Store, but it is polished to a shine. Achievements and multiple stages add some replayability and make the game more than worth the US$1.99 purchase price. If you want a Doodle Jump that's a little less casual and fleeting, here it is. If you're addicted to the one-button gameplay of Canabalt, Above offers more. Our tipsters are right: Above is certainly worth a purchase.
The Daily Grind: What's your longest MMO relationship?
If online games like Team Fortress 2 are just flirtations, MMOs are full-on relationships. You might look with vague interest at EVE Online even as you briefly date Star Trek Online. Perhaps you broke up with Final Fantasy XI to get together with Aion. Or maybe you and EverQuest are celebrating another anniversary and wondering why people feel the need to overextend a relationship metaphor. Joking aside, MMOs require a larger time investment than any single-player romp. While claims of playing since a game's beta are almost a self-parody, there's a lot to be said for dedication to a single game, and it breeds far more resources for a player to make use of. On the flip side, of course, you can only spend time in so many different worlds, and having a breadth of different experiences is more to the tastes of some players. So what MMO have you been playing the longest? Is it a game where your subscription has never lapsed, or one you've frequently left and come back to? Are you happy to keep playing it, or is it that crazy one that you keep almost breaking up with but never quite go the distance?
iPad launch: Boston's Boylston Street store
The crystal-clear facade of Boston's Boylston Street Apple Store* beckoned and a slew of customers heeded the call this morning to greet the iPad. By the time I arrived at 8am, a line had formed down the street and around the corner -- a few hundred people at least. A second line for pre-order customers formed later in the morning, and by 9am was just as long as the first line. The store's interior was hidden by a black curtain that ran the length of the building. The mood was jovial, with everyone discussing their plans for the new device. Apple Store employees were moving up and down the line, making chit-chat and offering candy, water and coffee. The weather was fine (unlike the rainy iPhone launch), if not a little cold. %Gallery-89691%
iPad launch: Buying at the Walt Whitman Mall in Huntington Station, NY
I got to the Apple Store at Walt Whitman Mall at about 8:30 AM and the mall doors were open. There were already about 150 people waiting for their iPad, and the Apple Store folks had two lines set up: one for advance reservations and one for walk-ins. As a pre-order customer, I gave my name to a blue-shirted Apple person and was told to wait on the reservation line. For each 10 people with a reservation they would let in one person without, so perhaps they had something of a handle on inventory. There was coffee and water to be had while waiting and a quick look inside the store showed so many Apple workers that I couldn't imagine how any customers would fit. At ten minutes to opening, a huge crowd of blue shirts ran up and down the mall screaming at the top of their lungs to pump up the crowd, but we didn't need pumping up. Everyone was really psyched already. I talked to a few people while waiting to get in, and I met someone named Theo who had a real reason for buying an iPad: He's a DJ and wanted to use it to kick off videos while performing. Most everyone else had vague answers about why they were there, ranging from, "it just seems really cool," to "I don't know what I'm going to do with it, but I need one."
First Look: CourseNotes for iPad
CourseNotesApp developer Jon Klein was kind enough to send over this video of his upcoming iPad app. Aimed at students, this app not only simplifies iPad note taking, but helps keep those notes organized by time and subject. I showed this video around to a student-heavy group and the video received an overwhelming thumbs up. "I think the most exciting thing about the iPad is that it's like the iPhone but it's bring it into new areas, where the iPhone wasn't practical," Klein told me over the phone. "Education is a perfect example of that. The iPhone OS will be a great platform for taking notes but the iPhone form wasn't there." With the iPad-based CourseNotesApp, now it can be.
The Tattered Notebook: Sentinel's Fate aftermath and advice
Hrm. After a brief vacation, darlings, I am back at the reigns of my column. Neriak was lovely this time of year -- I encourage you all to stop by for a visit if you have the time. But who has the time these days, right? All of your are off exploring Odus as if you haven't seen the place in 500 years. I hear that some adventurers are already tackling some of the most dangerous dungeons on that continent already! My, my, my, how you all tackle your challenges so quickly. Many of you have had some very interesting things to say about Odus, and I've been silently watching and taking some notes. I've got them all right here, tucked away in my notebook. I've even amassed some answers for a few of your more common problems, just in time for the digital download release today. But, all of you can never say that Seccia Ravenloft was a secretive elf. I'm more than happy to share my findings so come closely, gather around the campfire, and listen here.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation wants to be on the iPad
ABC is making moves to bring their content to the iPad, but before you get all excited about seeing the Lost conclusion on Apple's tablet, let us point out that we're talking about the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, not the guys who write Jimmy Kimmel's checks. The down-under version has told Adobe that they want to build content for the iPad as soon as possible, and while Flash is tied up in a lot of back-and-forth lately, ABC confirms that they're excited to bring some kind of content to the iPad, even though they're not sure exactly what content yet. Why? They're convinced the iPad is a whole new outlet for content consumption. They aim to use the iPad to "bring about a very different relationship with our readers than other platforms," and their head of strategic development says the iPad could create a whole new category of mobile content. While the iPhone is made for more quick hits of content delivery, the rep says that "with [the iPad] you can imagine people sitting back on the sofa and enjoying something longer." After seeing the form factor in action at Macworld last week, we can, too. It'll be very interesting to see the types of content that come from a device like the iPad, and it's great to see big content companies jumping at the chance to create it. [Via iPad Insider]
Blueside's 'Project T' MMO also in development for Xbox 360
We'd heard before that Korean developer Blueside (of Ninety-Nine Nights and Kingdom Under Fire) was working on a sekrit massively multiplayer game called Project T for the PC, but now we've learned that it's also planning to release the game on the Xbox 360. A Korean job listing for the company says that the MMORPG is in development for both platforms, and asks for game programming skills of all kinds, including experience working on commercial MMOs. The game is supposed to be an "action RPG," so it actually sounds like a pretty good fit to try for the more action-friendly console world. The job listing specifies a contract time of one year (though that seems pretty boilerplate in these situations), and the MMO was last scheduled for a release sometime in 2011. The company's also working on some MMO-style gameplay for its upcoming Kingdom Under Fire II.
Apple shifts focus from sales to quality in China
There was quite a bit of discussion from Apple yesterday about their sales in China (you can see that in our liveblog from yesterday afternoon), and AppleInsider points out that Apple is changing priorities over there, from straight up sales to brand quality. Tim Cook said yesterday that Apple has activated more than 200,000 iPhones since the release in China last year, and only in relation to the iPhone can anyone think that number could have been better. Apple is behind the pack in China -- there are a significant number of competitors over there, and unlike the market in the West, multifunctional smartphones have been popular for a long time already. But Apple recognizes the potential overseas, and Cook says the company does "...realize we must do well in these markets to continue to grow." What changes can they make? Price for one -- Apple says that as a premium brand, they're going to have to tweak a little bit to fit into the lower-income middle class in China while still competing on user experience. Apple didn't say that they weren't happy with what's happening in China, but compared to other countries in Asia (Japan came out of last quarter with a 400% year-over-year growth), Apple has a little more work to do there.
Apple scores high on customer experience index, iTunes not so much
According to AppleInsider, Apple has scored higher than other PC companies on Forrester's new customer experience survey, but their main software app didn't fare quite as well. Apple came in at number 35 on the list, which places them way above PC competitors like HP, Compaq and Dell, though iTunes only scored place number 46, putting them way behind online media competitors Barnes and Noble (which sat at number one) and Amazon.com (#4). The survey was driven by asking customers how well their needs were met by the companies on the list, how easy it was to conduct business with them, and how enjoyable the different interactions were. Note that this survey only rates customer interaction -- in terms of actual sales, iTunes is still through the roof. And Apple is still leading the way in customer satisfaction as well. But in terms of actual customer experience, iTunes especially, for something that is quickly becoming Apple's core method of interacting with customers, could probably use a little work.
Apple 'experts' coming to a store near you
Along with the "Geniuses" and "Creatives" currently available at the Apple Store, there's a new type of employee that'll be wandering the store floors. Apple "Experts" are set to debut in about two weeks at retail locations around the country. The men and women selected as Experts will move up into what seems like a more elite sales position, with their jobs being not only to educate the incoming public about everything Macs can do for them, but to "create the next generation of Apple fans" -- in other words, sell as many computers as they can. 2010 should be an interesting year for Apple retail -- not only do they have that prototype store planned in Palo Alto, but they're working on growing some of their locations as well and trying to build up more "flagship" stores like New York's Fifth Avenue store and Chicago's Michigan Avenue location. Sounds good to us; visiting the Apple Store is always interesting, and if they're planning to mix it up even more, we look forward to the surprises. [via AppleInsider]
