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Guild Wars 2 staff tackles the ascended gear controversy head-on
It's been a rough couple of weeks for Guild Wars 2, following the news that ArenaNet would be implementing a new tier of gear to the game. Studio Design Director Chris Whiteside and President Mike O'Brien took to Reddit today for an Ask Me Anything (AMA), accepting the brunt of the blame while denying that the team had gone against its stated design manifesto. Whiteside said that the addition of ascended gear was not meant to add a necessary grind to Guild Wars 2, but to fill in a necessary gap in gear that the team identified early on. "It's an exciting problem," he wrote, "but one that has been poorly communicated and handled. And for this I take responsibility and apologize." O'Brien chimed in to address the many comments levied about the design manifesto: "We're left with a balancing act. Some progression is OK, but pushing players onto a gear treadmill isn't OK and isn't what the game is about. I don't think [the ascended gear] invalidates the fundamental concept that GW2 can have gradual stat progression without being a gear treadmill game." The AMA didn't merely dwell on the ascended gear issue; Whiteside fielded questions about the game's approach to future events, a desire to reduce grind across the board, the potential fracturing of the community, and ArenaNet's definition of grind ("Repetitive game play that is not fun," is the official answer, in case you were wondering).
The Daily Grind: What's your days-to-max-level record?
As I mentioned earlier this week, DC Universe Online is taking up the majority of my MMORPG time lately. I've finally decided on a main character (for now, at least), and I'm closing in on max level despite the fact that I rolled him just over a week ago. I'm a notoriously slow leveler, and while I've been told that DCUO's grind kicks in after the cap, I'm still amazed at how quickly the one to 30 content goes by. I'm not running out of things to do, either, as there are whole quest arcs that I haven't even started yet, to say nothing of group dungeon content, PvP, and what passes for superhero tradeskilling. What about you, morning crew? Have you ever blown through a game's level range in record time? How long did it take? 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!
ArenaNet responds to Guild Wars 2 Ascended gear gripes
The Guild Wars 2 natives are restless with respect to Ascended gear and the perception of grind. On the heels of a massive forum thread that's generated nearly 140 pages and 7,000 replies, ArenaNet Studio Design Director Chris Whiteside attempted to talk a few fans off the ledge. "Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill," White wrote. "Our goal is to ensure we have a proper progression for players from exotic up to legendary without a massive jump in reward between the two." He went on to say that PvP will be unaffected, and that the new stuff will be "available in both PvE and WvW over time, and be made available through all sorts of content around the world including existing content." The full statement is available via the GW2 forums. [Thanks to Ring for the tip!]
The Daily Grind: Why is fluff considered fluff?
Yesterday's news of the World of Warcraft player who leveled to 90 without a single kill generated some interesting comments. A couple of them got us to thinking why MMO fluff is considered fluff, and why video gaming in general is so heavily focused on combat. Combat is probably the easiest answer when it comes to progression and monetization-based design, but shouldn't MMOs be something more than sticking the pointy end into the other man over and over again? So how about it, Massively readers? Why is fluff considered fluff? 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!
Some Assembly Required: Guild Wars 2 goes back to the future
Like a lot of you, I've been goofing around in Guild Wars 2 this past week. What does that have to do with Massively's sandbox column? Not much other than that I feel like ArenaNet's game has arrived at an interesting crossroads in the history of MMO development. In one direction, you have World of Warcraft 2.0 and the continuation of the themepark model. In another direction, you have a sandbox akin to Ultima Online or Star Wars Galaxies. A third fork leads to the so-called sandpark hybrid. ArcheAge may live at the end of this road, and even titles like The Secret World and Age of Wushu can be said to mix both sandbox and themepark mechanics when it suits them. ArenaNet avoids all three paths with Guild Wars 2, though, and instead makes a fourth that's 80 percent themepark and 20 percent... well, I don't know what to label it. It's almost like the devs wanted to make a virtual world, though.
Diablo III adding 100 levels via new Paragon system
How do 100 more levels of Diablo III grab you? Blizzard has just announced a new Paragon system for its fantasy dungeon-crawler, one that gives high-level players a reason to keep grinding. Once you reach level 60, additional experience will go toward your Paragon level. Each level boosts core stats, and a new dev diary says that "the time to reach the upper Paragon levels approximates the long-term time investment required to get a level 99 character in Diablo II." Blizzard's Jay Wilson also elaborates on how Paragon levels will impact D3's Magic Find system. The devs are capping Magic (and Gold) Find at 300%. The aim is to "slowly and gently move Magic Find off of items in the future," Wilson explains.
The Daily Grind: Do you really want MMO innovation?
Sony Online Entertainment's new SOEmote feature debuted in EverQuest II last week, and you could almost hear the yawns from the game's core community. While our own Karen Bryan was willing to give the feature an objective go, most of the EQII vets I know have been disinterested at best and downright hostile due to the "wasted development time" at worst. SOEmote's mixed reception was both predictable and irritating, as it often seems to me like MMO gamers cry for innovation out of one side of their mouths and decry it from the other side on those rare occasions when it happens. Granted, SOEmote isn't a combat- or endgame-focused innovation, but isn't that the point? Shouldn't MMO devs be spreading their creative wings and giving us new things to do that aren't the same old hotbar-spamming gear grind? So how about it, morning crew -- do you just want more progression, or do you really want MMO innovation (and if so, what kind)? 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 Summoner's Guidebook: Is League of Legends' grind too much for a competitive game?
League of Legends has had one of the most meteoric ascensions of any current e-sport. From the first tournaments of season one to tomorrow's MLG Summer Arena, LoL has made a bigger splash in the e-sports community than any title launched since StarCraft II. However, the long grind to get to summoner level 30 poses a difficult barrier of entry for players looking to someday join the pros. It isn't necessary to grind levels to unlock +3 infantry weapons in StarCraft, so gating runes and masteries behind a grind seems a bit ridiculous. I've thought that the forced grind was excessive since I started playing LoL. I'm not opposed to having a grind at all, but I've always thought it was silly that levels and runes can't be purchased with real money. Are levels and grinds bad for a competitive game like League of Legends, or does the grind actually improve the quality of player skill at the higher levels?
The Daily Grind: Are you a fan of repeatable quests?
I recently returned to Age of Conan, and I've been doing a lot of factional quests for tokens and gold in the game's Khitai expansion regions. Many of these quests are repeatable, meaning that once you've completed them and a cooldown timer has expired (usually 12 hours to a full day), you can do them again. This is great if I'm in the mood to grind, but it's also hard on my OCD that compels me to "finish" a questing zone before moving on to the next one. Repeatables are also a slick way for developers to artificially extend the shelf life of a particular zone without adding any new content. What say you, Massively readers. Are you a fan of repeatable quests? Why or why not? 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!
Breakfast Topic: What's the most difficult thing in the game to farm?
My warrior recently found herself farming a lot of Khorium in order to build her Turbo-Charged Flying Machine, and while flying a seemingly endless number of circuits in Nagrand in order to get the metal (which is a rare spawn on other Outland ore nodes), I started to wonder where this farm fell in relation to other grinds. Khorium sometimes cooperates by spawning regularly, but this time, it was its usual, awful self. I'm sure the Burning Crusade-era players can relate. And yet, somehow I still don't think that khorium is the worst thing in the game to farm. Off the top of my head, I can think of others that are or have been equally bad or worse: Non-combat pets A lot of farmable non-combat pets (e.g., the dragon whelps, the firefly, the Fox Kit) have a 1-in-1,000 drop rate and a limited number of mobs up at a given time. Combat pets Waiting for a particular pet to spawn somewhere and then finding and taming it before someone else does can be maddening if you're consistently unlucky. Fishing Accomplished Angler is justifiably famous for being stuffed with requirements full of RNG. Let's talk about the year it took me to get Mr. Pinchy's Magical Crawdad Box! On second thought, let's not. The Scepter of the Shifting Sands quest This disappeared in Cataclysm, and with it went all the work that went into farming up bug parts and Elementium Ingots, which is where I got stuck in the chain. (So close, and yet so far.) The Insane This almost goes without saying, although it's easier these days than it used to be. Your thoughts, readers? What's the toughest thing in the game to farm?
The Daily Grind: Do progression barriers annoy you?
It's been several years since I played Lord of the Rings Online on a daily basis. For the most part, I'm loving my latest Middle-earth rediscovery tour. After the initial honeymoon phase wore off, though, I did re-encounter some of the things that irritate me about the game (in particular, Turbine's fondness for artificially limiting progression). Now, I'm not a grinder at all, but on the rare occasions when I do want to put my nose to the proverbial stone and check some things off the list, there's nothing more frustrating than running up against the you-can't-advance-that-skill-any-further-today brick wall. This type of arbitrary limitation is somewhat common in LotRO, and whether we're talking about fishing or even the lengthy cool-downs on festival horse races, it rubs me the wrong way to have my gameplay directed in such a fashion. What about you, Massively readers? Do progression barriers annoy you, or do you shrug it off and do something else? 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!
Ten ways En Masse changed TERA for the west
TERA's launch day is upon us at last, and in between bouts of action combat we're scouring the web to gauge everyone's reaction to the game. One of the more interesting pieces we've run across thus far outlines all the changes made to the TERA client to accommodate western audiences. Gameranx.com has a list of 10 things En Masse did differently when it appropriated the Korean version of the game, including controller support, quest rewrites, reputation, and daily quests. The firm also made extensive changes to the game's leveling curve to avoid the dreaded "Korean grind-fest" syndrome that supposedly prevents Asian MMOs from finding success in the States. En Masse also borrowed EVE Online's anti-gold farming PLEX idea, renaming it Chronoscrolls for the world of Arborea. There's more too, but you'll have to click the source link below to read it.
The Soapbox: The grind is good
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. Like many of you, I have fond memories of several important video games that carried me through my childhood and teenage years. Some were deep, some were obscure, some were landmark moments in the genre, and some were Chrono Trigger. It's weird, then, with all that variety, that I have strong fondness for a game that had so little going on in the story or progression department as to be a step away from playing marbles or jacks in the street. It was a game that I'd sit down to night after night, not to go on any grand adventures or to raise my level 1 fighter up into the ranks of godhood but to just unwind. It was a game that required such a zen-like concentration that it pushed the thinking portion of my brain out and soothed me with its repetitive gameplay and simplistic motions. That game was, of course, Tetris, a game that was grind personified. It was minimalistic puzzle-solving repeated over and over again, and some days that's all I needed. When my mind was wiped, or when I just wanted to sit back in my chair instead of forward in it, I turned to these silly blocks. When I needed it and wanted it, the grind was better for me than the most complex and innovative video games of the time. The grind is good, especially when you have the option to do it or ignore it, and I feel that this has gotten such a bad reputation in MMOs that its positive aspects are overlooked. Time to remedy that!
The Daily Grind: Do you grind for fluff items?
Lord of the Rings Online's anniversary festival has another six days to go, which just might be enough time for me to grind out the tokens necessary to complete my map collection (and the spiffy Eriador Cartographile title that comes with it). I say "grind" here pretty loosely, as the horse-races, fireworks displays, and dwarven beer-brawling are highly enjoyable even though I've done them dozens of times each at this point. What about you, dear readers? What's your tolerance when it comes to grinding for fluff items? Do you do it, and what's the best (or worst) such grind you've ever experienced? 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!
GDC 2012: Publishing heavies weigh in on F2P conversions
Like it or not, free-to-play is rapidly coming to dominate every corner of the gaming industry. While that's good on the surface, it also blurs the line between business and design, and it creates a lot of tension for both consumers and developers who are increasingly faced with the challenges inherent in separating monetary decisions from gameplay decisions. One of the more interesting GDC 2012 round-tables featured Sony Online Entertainment executive producer Dave Georgeson, NCSoft publishing director Steve Levy, Perfect World VP John Young, GamersFirst monetization director Joe Willmon, and Digi-Capital Limited managing director Tim Merel, all of whom convened for a mind-meld on successfully migrating subscription games to F2P. As you would expect, the panel was heavy on business-speak, but it also featured plenty of insight into the pricing phenomenon that has become the rule rather than the exception.
Webzen giving away fully geared high-level characters
Have you ever played an MMORPG and thought, wow, this would be fantastic if I could ditch the pesky progression? If so, Webzen has a promotion for you. It's called Skip the Low, Jump to High, and it kicks off today and runs through March 14th. The company is giving away free high-level characters and items in ArchLord, Soul of the Ultimate Nation, and MU Online. ArchLord players will receive level-60 characters that are fully geared, while S.U.N. fans can look forward to level-90 toons with gear and level-up boxes. Last but not least, MU players will get level-220 characters and +9 weapons and armor. But wait, there's more! MU is offering double XP during the promotion period, and S.U.N. is bringing a new server online. [Source: Webzen press release]
The Daily Grind: What makes you stay with a bad game?
I freely admit that I've played games that I hate, but the incredible thing is that I've kept playing them, sometimes for several years. I remember actively hating EverQuest in its early days, but MMO alternatives were slim, and getting my friends off the evercrack and into something interesting like Asheron's Call was darn near impossible. The truth was that I was willing to do almost anything to hang out with my guild, including spend $10 a month to camp-check and corpse-run. So I wonder how many of you have played or are playing a game you dislike, and why? Do you do it out of a sense of loyalty to friends and guildies, like I did? Do you suffer from the completionist's compulsion to finish everything he starts? Do you just want to make sure you've gotten your money's worth? Do you hold out hope that the game (or your tastes) will suddenly change? Or is there some other reason? 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 OverAchiever: Help update our list of evil achievements
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, the abyss stares back. Almost two years ago, I wrote a series of articles for OverAchiever that turned out to be one of the most popular themes the column's ever visited: evil achievements. It turns out that a lot of folks care deeply about achievements that have been -- allow me to quote myself -- "milked from the angry teat of Satan himself." Now, it has to be said that all achievements are technically optional. No one is forcing you to do anything, why do you play this game anyway if you aren't having fun, yadda yadda ... all true. But I assume you're reading The OverAchiever because you really like achievements and you think they add something to the game. (Either that, or you're just reading because you're bored, but that's fine too.) Personally, I don't think players really mind difficult achievements or even achievements that they have to peck away at over an extended period of time. But there's a line between an achievement that is genuinely difficult on its own merits and one that makes you privately think the developers want you dead. So with that in mind, how would we reconstruct a list of evil achievements in 2012 during the Cataclysm era? You can find the original series here if you're interested in a trip down Memory Lane, although I'll give you a quick rundown on them past the cut: Evil Achievements: Spotlight on Justicar/Conqueror, The Immortal, and Accomplished Angler Evil Achievements: The 25 most evil achievements, #25-16 Evil Achievements: The 25 most evil achievements, #15-6 Evil Achievements: The 25 most evil achievements, #5-1
The Daily Grind: Would you buy an advanced character?
For many years, Ultima Online has offered an advanced character microtransaction. Well, the term "microtransaction" may be stretching it -- originally priced at $30 a pop, it's more like a macrotransaction. The advanced character token allows you to boost the skills and stats of a single character according to a preset template. It won't give you a capped Bard, Treasure Hunter, or Animal Tamer overnight, but it will get you a big chunk of the way there. And for skills that are notoriously hard to train .1 by .1 all the way to 100 or 120, advanced character tokens can be a huge boon to players who've been there and done that and just want to skip the early grind. UO's not alone in this; other games, such as Dark Age of Camelot, allow players to jump past some of the early game on their alts once they've capped a toon and proven they know the ropes of the game. Of course, those games aren't charging for the pleasure. So what do you think: Would you buy an advanced character from a game company? Or do you think you're cheating yourself and those around you by not grinding up the old-fashioned way? 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!
Some Assembly Required: A look at EQII's dungeon maker
So you're an armchair game designer, eh? Well, EverQuest II invites you to put your money where your mouth is -- at least as it relates to dungeon creation. While Sony Online Entertainment's venerable fantasy title is no stranger to player-generated content given its spectacular player- and guild-housing mechanics, this winter's Age of Discovery expansion upped the ante a little bit in the form of the new dungeon maker toolset. The system is a bit rough around the edges, but it's nonetheless a fantastic first iteration that adds a lot of fun and replay value to an MMO that was already chock-full of both.
