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A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Pay the man
Back on the first column I ever wrote about City of Heroes, many moons ago, someone made a comment that's stuck in my head. It wasn't negative, just something that stuck in my mind. They mentioned how the game had been portrayed in a somewhat poor light on the site as a whole, and used as an example that it had been used as the title image for this article about microtransactions and other payment goodies. Go ahead and take a look at the author of that piece, and you might understand why the comment stuck in my mind. I don't think that City of Heroes does a bad job with their microtransactions. I actually love their setup and like to point to it alongside Dungeons & Dragons Online as a prime example of how to do an item shop correctly. And I'm fairly sure I'm not the only person who feels that way, although there's doubtlessly the other side of the story that thinks they do an awful job. So strap yourselves in, because today we're going to be diving headfirst into the cash shop and my enthusiastic praise for same.
The Daily Grind: How important are options?
Saying that a game is linear is almost a dirty word in the field of games, at least when it comes to RPGs and their close genre relatives. The advent of games that allow you to decide whether to trek through the Desert of Certain Doom or the Forest of Inevitable Demise has spoiled us a bit -- we expect to have a choice. MMOs are hardly exempt, and in some ways even worse off, with players who want to choose which quests they do, which abilities they learn, and what their character likes in a pie. Of course, by the same token, it's better to have one path that's fleshed-out and interesting than a half-dozen with hardly any expansion to them, whether it's a path to the level cap or just a chain of learning abilities. So the question is, how important is the power of choice? When leveling, would you prefer variety of zones without as much quality to each area, or a full dint of quality in far fewer different places? Do you want your characters to learn anything even if there's not much to learn, or do you prefer a single path that has been expertly balanced?
More options for party communication
Our buddy Rufus from the WoW LJ brings word of a sneaky change in the recent patch: raid warnings (those warnings that pop up in the middle of your screen, created by typing "/rw" while leading a raid) no longer work in parties. Apparently you have to be in a raid to actually toss off a warning. Of course, that could have happened before this patch, but at any rate, it's in the game now. No more /rw in party chat. Not only is it a bummer because some people used to use it constantly to keep party members in line, but this also means that there's one less means of communication between all of these random parties forming out there on the realms. Sure, in a perfect world, everyone would know the fights and chat would be enough to make sure everyone was on the same page (or depending of your vision of a perfect world, everyone actually uses the in-game voice chat -- a quick survey of our staff here presumes that it works in cross-realm PuGs, but given that I've never actually seen it used on the live realms by anyone, who knows?), but we're hardly running instances in a perfect world. Sometimes chat is not the best way to get a complicated boss fight organized and ready.
How often should we do repeatable content?
Blessing of Kings asks an excellent question: how often should we be running repeatable content? Certainly Blizzard has considered this issue before -- they've gone with daily quests in the first expansion, and recently they've been rethinking just how often we'll be rerunning dungeons, too. But both of those time periods are fairly arbitrary to us: is it possible that we should start running things twice a week (once during and once on the weekend), or maybe do weekly quests instead of daily?BoK says: possibly. Rohan suggests a weekly quest that rewarded 70g instead of the daily 10g reward we usually get (not including the XP bonus which kicks it up to 13g). Players who don't have time to run every day, but do have the weekly availability (like me -- I play mostly on the weekends), would be able to still pick up the reward. I'll go one step further, in fact: what if we had an option? What if we could choose to run a quest daily (and get a bigger reward overall), or run it once per week, using up all of our daily chances for that week, and getting a smaller total reward? That seems to be the best way -- those who could log in every day would get a larger reward, while those who couldn't could still get more than just the single daily.Rohan also says that Heroic and BG quests should remain daily, and on that we agree: those quests are perfect for creating variety every day, and getting people to run those instances. In fact, those would be fun to see expanded -- maybe Blizzard could create weekly series of daily quests that followed a small storyline across dungeons or BGs. Blizzard has done a pretty good job balancing out repeatable content periods, but it's always nicer to have more options.
The Daily Grind: What are your top 5 MMO must-haves?
As more and more MMOs release, our options grow. That said, most MMOs utilize the same basic features, styles, and mechanics. Almost all of them feature combat, RPG progression, questing, avatars, classes, etc. These are the things we usually judge when choosing which MMO to play. We will say to ourselves, "Hmmm, I won't play that because it doesn't have this or that feature." or "Oooh, I'm definitely playing that because the game has these specific qualities!"What are your top 5 MMO must-haves? Do you only play fantasy-themed MMOs? Does a thriving player-driven economy make your list of requirements?My personal list includes:1. Polish and a general lack of bugsI know -- I chose the wrong genre if this is my top must-have! Unfortunately, I get really annoyed paying an initial box price and then a monthly fee to support incompetence...2. Meaningful PvP"Meaningful" is a loaded descriptor and includes things like progression through PvP (gear and XP), ranking, consequence, and obviously a story- or design-driven purpose/reason for it all.3. Class variety or variety within my classWarhammer Online has 24 classes which are a little bit different from each other. That's cool. World of Warcraft has 10 classes but allows you to specialize through numerous talent combos. That's cool too! 4. Casual-friendliness"With great age comes great responsibility." I had plenty of time to game/grind when I was in high school and college but now I'm pushing 30 with a family, job(s), and a house. I don't mind working for something, but please don't insult me with tedious design that makes things difficult for no good reason.5. Interesting and diverse PvEI'm a PvP-junkie first and foremost, but I still realize that variety is the spice of life. I enjoy PvE a lot more when it isn't mindless, repetitive, lazy, and generally grindy. For instance, I enjoyed WoW 1-70 but the raiding endgame and daily quests weren't my idea of fun.
Crusaders' Coliseum difficulty is a test for Blizzard
I've suspected this on the podcast, and I'm sure many people have figured this before, but Crygil makes it absolutely clear: the four difficulty levels set up on the Crusaders' Coliseum is just a test for Blizzard. This isn't at all the standard, it's just something different they're trying with this format of dungeon, and they'll be watching to see how players respond. As Crygil says, it definitely doesn't mean that they'll be going back and revamping the old dungeons to reflect the new layout (where 10 and 25-man raids each have their own Heroic modes), and the corollary is that it doesn't necessarily mean that Icecrown will be like this, either. They're giving this a shot, and if there are issues with it, they'll go back to the old way or consider something else.Will it work? My guess is that it will. Besides the fact that players will always run the heck out of the game's latest raid (and Blizzard can definitely use that as justification that it's a popular way to do things), I think any move that gives players more options will be received well. Some guilds will try to run all four modes all the time, and will get sick of the instance way before any new content shows up, but I think most folks will just choose one or two difficulties to run every week (say, 25-man Heroic with their guild, and 10-man Heroic with a PuG), and get their gear from there. Whether we'll see this again in Icecrown, however, I'm not sure -- this seems like a setup for a lower-tier instance that everyone gets to run, not an expansion-ending, top-of-the-line raid. Blizzard may go back to the normal 10 and 25-man setup for Icecrown, and then bring this scheme back for instances in the next expansion, whatever that may be.Patch 3.2 will bring about a new 5, 10, and 25 man instance to WoW, and usher in a new 40-man battleground called the Isle of Conquest. WoW.com will have you covered every step of the way, from extensive PTR coverage through the official live release. Check out WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2 for all the latest!
"Because I don't play" isn't an option on Blizzard's quit page
Jason Burns points out, pretty insightfully, on his blog that of all the various options Blizzard lists for quitting the game, simply not having the time to play it isn't one of them. Whenever you decide to cancel your subscription, you get a little survey to fill out, with two lists of options to explain why you're leaving the game. In the past, we've found some pretty silly options in there (and actually, it looks like they've changed quite a bit since we posted about the Will of the Forsaken nerf on the list), but Jason says that as many varied and different reasons as there are for leaving, Blizzard didn't include his: he likes the game, he just doesn't have the time to play it and justify the subscription. Which is what he eventually typed in. Like so many things with Blizzard, it would be fascinating to see the stats behind the information they're getting here -- do they see a little bump in quitters every time new patch notes come out? Is customer support really the biggest issue people have, or is harassment a major reason for people leaving as well? Just boredom with the game seems like it would be a huge reason to me, but there's not really a clear option for that either. Unfortunately, we'll probably never know the real stats behind this -- Blizzard isn't going to be revealing why people are leaving their game anytime soon. But it does seem strange that some of the biggest reasons you'd expect aren't on their list of possibles at all.
Theming the login page
Toussaint is exactly right -- this took me back. Way back to the original login screen and music, when level 60 was the max and everyone was running UBRS and the Plaguelands instances, and "heroic" was just something us players were. Even the Burning Crusade login screen, right, brings back some memories, of wandering around Hellfire Peninsula and raiding in Netherstorm. The roar of the frost wyrm we have now is nice and all, but sometimes we long for earlier days.Which brought me to the question: what about a theme-switching system? There's no real reason the login screen has to be set to the current expansion -- while it's nice to have a new look to that interface every time we reinstall the program, there's nothing the new one really does that the old one couldn't. You'd think they'd be easy to change around, and if Blizzard just gave us a drop-down switcher in the options, we could choose whichever one we wanted.Let's not forget, however, that their code is weird -- you wouldn't think that they'd hard-wire the new Battle.net login code to the newest login screen, but maybe they did something silly like that, which would probably mean we'll never see the "classic" login screen again. But still, if there's a way to do it, it would be nice to see that old portal and hear that rousing anthem yet again.
The limits of Video Mode Ultra
I think I've found the limits of Video Mode Ultra -- when we first hard in the 3.1 patch notes that Blizzard was adding in a superspecial video mode for high-end computers to use, I was excited. I just recently "updated" my PC (read: "it broke and I had to spend a lot of time and money to fix it"), and it's been running like butter, so I was interested in putting it to the test. The day after the patch dropped, I flipped the switch to Ultra, and had no problems -- until this past Saturday. While wandering around Dalaran, I noticed my framerate had dropped quite a bit. I lowered a couple of the environmental settings just a bit and I was fine again, but apparently even with a 2.5 GHz quad core CPU, 4gb of RAM, and a GeForce 9600GT, Video Mode Ultra is still just a little too hardcore for me.What's interesting is that I ran Wintergrasp a few times before having those slowdowns in Dalaran, and never had a problem. But then again, Blizzard did say that they had spent a lot of time making sure Wintergrasp was streamlined enough to run huge battles with minimal slowdown, so maybe Dalaran didn't get that same makeover. And I should say as well that I had no issues anywhere else in the world -- even my Naxx run the other evening looked perfect with Ultra flipped on.Having a "future" graphics mode on PC games is nothing new -- for most games, the highest graphics setting is usually "experimental," so there's a little leeway in terms of release time (the game looks good with current hardware, but even better with next year's gear). And Video Mode Ultra is just that -- Blizzard trying to send a shot across the bow at those who are already saying the graphics look a little dated.
Option announces uCAN remote data access for iCON USB modems
Fresh from Barcelona, the wireless modem gurus at Option have announced their new uCAN software platform. To be implemented across the entire iCON modem lineup, the software allows users to run applications (such as Open Office) from their USB modem and interact directly with documents situated on their workstation at home. You can also have those apps you might need to use in a pinch -- such as Skype -- preconfigured with all your data. If that weren't enough, the device sports something called "Zero Footprint" technology, which is designed to ensure that "no trace of activity is left on the host computer, running either Windows XP, Windows Vista or Mac OS, when the device is disconnected." You can even launch a browser from the thing, keeping all those passwords and cookies safely off of whichever machine you happen to be borrowing. The first uCAN devices are expected to appear sometime before July of this year. More pics after the break.
Jobs, other Apple execs settle shareholder backdating lawsuits for $14M
It looks like the Apple options backdating mess is finally drawing to a complete close, as the last of the shareholder derivative suits against Steve Jobs and other Apple execs will reportedly settle for $14M pending the court's final approval on October 31. Apple has also agreed to reform parts of its options plan, but in the end all of this has basically come out to nothing -- particularly since shareholders in a derivative suit sue on behalf of the company, meaning the $14M is being paid by Steve and the other execs' insurance companies back to Apple, which doesn't really need it. Oh well, at least we briefly got FSJ out of it, right?[Via AppleInsider]
New options button in beta
In the LK beta build that just went live tonight, build number 8905, there's a new Options button on the login screen, just above Cinematics, Credits, and Terms of Use. What lies behind its blue mystery? [Edit: apparently it was there in the last build too. I never noticed.] Unsurprisingly enough, it contains some options that you might want to change before entering the game. Specifically, it has options for video resolution, video effect quality, and sound. For the most part, these are the same options currently available in-game. "Enable Reverb," "Headphone Mode," and "Death Knight Voices" have been added to the sound pane. "Disable Resize" has been added under "Windowed Mode" in the resolution pane; I'm not sure why you'd want to do that, though, unless you kept accidentally resizing the window (which I've never had an issue with, and I often play windowed). The big innovation here (and yes, I realize innovations in option dialogs may not strike you as particularly interesting) is a master slider for video quality. Now you don't have to fiddle separately with terrain distance and ground clutter density if you don't want to; just drag the slider somewhere on the scale from "Low" to "High," whatever's prettiest without being too devastating to your framerates on your particular system. Of course, there's a "Custom" setting, so if you want to tweak all the little sliders, you are still free to do so. A nice change, and it will especially benefit people who don't necessarily know what all the options mean. %Gallery-31297%
Broadcom cofounder Henry Samueli reaches plea agreement, admits he lied to SEC
Broadcom's former management team is still in a heap of trouble over falsified financial statements, but it looks like co-founder Henry Samueli has managed to reach a plea deal with the Feds that'll keep him out of jail -- he's admitted that he misstated Broadcom's finances and knowingly backdated stock options issued to executives, and he'll be fined some $12M plus an additional $250K, as well as serve five years' probation. The court hasn't yet approved the deal, but compared to the "warehouse of meth" antics of Henry T. Nicholas III, Broadcom's other co-founder, a little accounting chicanery seems positively straightlaced, you know?
Sounding off on ingame sound
If you checked out the unofficial changes in patch 2.4, you'll have noticed (or just heard on the realms) that quite a few sounds got changed. Some are louder (as in that annoying PW: Shield sound), some are quieter, and some are just plain missing (it's a known bug that Tigers and Sabers don't roar anymore). But this brings up an interesting debate: many players are saying that they never would have noticed -- they rarely ever play with sound on anyway.Playing with music off is one thing (and yes, many people prefer to listen to their own music while playing), but playing with the sound completely off seems like it would be tough -- there are a lot of audio cues going on in the game, and with sound off, you might not notice that a party member accidentally pulled another mob offscreen, or that someone behind you is casting a certain spell, or any number of other things that have specific audio to them. That doesn't need to be the only thing you listen to (I usually have to turn down the game sound during raids, just so I can hear what's going on in Vent), but surely listening to game sound makes you a better player.Do you keep the sound muted all the time, and if so, why? And do you have any trouble playing if you do? Of course, it does help you avoid that annoying PW:S sound, but as someone who keeps the game sound up (though not the music), it seems like there are specific cues meant to be heard while playing the game. Don't you miss those with the sound off?
THQ CEO Brian Farrell exercises stock options, sells shares
We don't claim to be stock market experts (we don't know how anyone can keep up with all those bulls and bears and acronyms) but we're pretty sure that when a company's head honcho exercises options for over 73 thousand shares in his own company, then promptly sells off close to 53 thousand of those shares (netting a cool $10 million profit in the process), that's usually kind of a bad moon rising for said organization. When the honcho in question is Brian Farrell, CEO of the economically tumultuous game designer and publisher THQ, our rarely used financial spider-sense can't help but tingle. Sure, our conjecture could be entirely off base -- Farrell might just want to fill his swimming pool with singles -- but considering the company's recent chain of headline-making damage control maneuvers, we can't help but wonder if THQ is more SOL than anyone could have guessed.
UI changes in 2.4
Sure, there's a new zone, including a 5-man dungeon, a raid, and a truckload of loot in patch 2.4. But what about the important stuff? It turns out we're in for a few UI changes as well. Every time Blizzard improves their interface it builds my admiration for them more, because the truth is they don't have to -- we have some fantastic Add-On developers in the community. However, incorporating must-have changes into the default UI is good for all players, and I'm glad they do it.
Due for more Polymorph options
Here's a good idea from the forums: more sheep choices! Polymorph was one of the most beloved spells in the Warcraft RTS games, and so players were thrilled to see it come to World of Warcraft, and even more thrilled when two other variations on the spell were learned: instead of sheeping, players can either polymorph pig or turtle with two learned spells from quests or drops in the game.But since the introduction of Zul'Gurub, we haven't seen any other options for mages in game. And there are plenty to choose from by now-- Polymorph: Ravager, Polymorph: Clefthoof, or Polymorph: Elekk would all work great. Polymorph: Willy would even be lots of fun. Oh, and yes, as players in the thread say, since we're headed to Northrend, Polymorph: Penguin would not be out of order in the next expansion.Blizzard has done a pretty good job of taking mounts, both flying and ground-based, towards a little horizontal progress-- giving more options on one level instead of setting up a few options over multiple levels. But hopefully Polymorph will get a little love, too-- even though mages are the only ones who benefit directly, my guild has always had fun making sure our mages have all the Polymorph options possible.
Menu-tacular! Advance Wars screens expose nuts and bolts
Nintendo has fired a volley of fifty Advance Wars: Days of Ruin screens in our direction, a fortnight before the game launches on January 21st. This fresh batch focuses on the title's wealth of options, and it's fair to say that the game is looking as menu-heavy as ever.As well as the title screen, we also get to see quite a bit of the Map Center, some shots of the various Wi-Fi functions (including a reminder that the game will support full voice chat online), and even, uh, what the game's icon will look like as you boot up your DS to play; comprehensive, much?Fortunately, there's also lots of nice fighty-fighty screens, such as the one to the right, so get clicking, future COs!%Gallery-8563%[Via press release]
Options for gamers in Final Fantasy IV
We recently discussed some of the other new elements in Final Fantasy IV, but the math mini-games and the event theater aren't the only things we have to look forward to (besides an awesome game). This time around, options are being throw in; for example, if you don't like the voice acting? Turn it off! There's a setting in the configuration screen. And for those gamers who hate rewatching a cut-scene ten times (I doubt I'm alone in this), they're skippable if you so desire. Anyway, you can always rewatch them at your leisure in the event theater!%Gallery-3278%
CoX: New web-based display options
Supporting the theory that the world should know more about the CoX universe, you'll soon be able to configure the game client to display or hide certain information on the web. It is a bit convoluted, however, so please be sure to note the information contained in the official forums.In the Miscellaneous section under the General tab (Menu > General), you will have the option of hiding your Statistics, Powers, Badges, and Friends list from inclusion on the public web page. If you choose to show them, leave each option disabled; however, if you wish to hide them, enable the option. If you're a private person, simply enable the Statistics option, and all other options will automatically be hidden. One other thing: unlike graphic settings, these options are configured on a per-character basis, so if you want everything hidden, you'll need to properly configure each character you have on each server. The only caveat to this is if your character has not been logged in for at least 90 days: at that cut-off point, all options are hidden.Although a final go-live date for this feature has not been announced, it's planned for a relatively short lead time. There will be more information available in the official forum as the release date approaches; and, as always, if you have any issues, concerns, or comments, NCsoft wants to hear from you in the discussion thread.
