I haven't played GW2 since I spent an hour trying to kill Frizz with a PUG during Sky Pirates. I had been really quite enjoying the Living Story until then.
The main reason I liked the Living Story was because I could take it all at a decent pace that was compatible with the amount of play time that I get. Then the two week schedule comes in and suddenly if I can't log-on for the first week I'm out in the cold with the PUGs because everyone else has done it already. Oh, and there is no group finder.
As the Living Story was the main reason I was logging in, as soon as I got behind I gave up. Admittedly I haven't finished my personal story but that's because, well, who the fuck is Zhaitan? You never see him in the actual game because he's Schrödinger's cat, right? He's defeated/not defeated at the same time. The only time he definitively one or other is when you're in a Personal Story instance. It's stupid.
Also, the thing I liked most about GW2 was that it wasn't a gear treadmill. When you have subs you can use a gear treadmill to keep people subscribing. Anet's solution to player retention is an Achievement treadmill with a tacked on story and gem store merchandising. It's genius.
Sadly, I don't care about achievements, weapon skins, cosmetic gear or minis. But then, I thought I was playing an RPG? Aren't they supposed to be about story and character development?
Sunday, 18 August 2013
Sunday, 16 June 2013
Achievement "reward" gear
OK, this is just a quick rant.
So far we have a few pieces of unique gear as rewards for achievements. Most recently we have had the flower, the tentacles and the horny helmet. We also had the molten gloves at the end of the Flame & Frost story.
It's these last two that I have my beef with. This is what they look like on a cloth class:
Yup, that looks ridiculous. I expect it looks ridiculous on any classs that doesn't wear heavy armour. I mean, why the fuck, when you have to choose the armour class of the reward, do they all have to look the same?
Final Fantasy 11 has a great number of flaws but when they gave you a choice of light/medium/heavy it really was a choice. This, for example, is the heavy armour reward from a Moogle Kupo D'Etat:
And then this is the light armour reward:
Do you see what Square Enix did there, Arenanet? That's right, they actually thought about it!
I seriously wonder how many staff they have in the Art Dept somtimes.
So far we have a few pieces of unique gear as rewards for achievements. Most recently we have had the flower, the tentacles and the horny helmet. We also had the molten gloves at the end of the Flame & Frost story.
It's these last two that I have my beef with. This is what they look like on a cloth class:
Yup, that looks ridiculous. I expect it looks ridiculous on any classs that doesn't wear heavy armour. I mean, why the fuck, when you have to choose the armour class of the reward, do they all have to look the same?
Final Fantasy 11 has a great number of flaws but when they gave you a choice of light/medium/heavy it really was a choice. This, for example, is the heavy armour reward from a Moogle Kupo D'Etat:
 |
| Heavy Armour |
 |
| Light Armour |
Do you see what Square Enix did there, Arenanet? That's right, they actually thought about it!
I seriously wonder how many staff they have in the Art Dept somtimes.
Wednesday, 5 June 2013
Flametank is not so hot
When I first started Engineer I quickly settled on a Pistol/Pistol
turret set-up. That saw me all the way through Queensdale and Kessex
Hills and looking back I really enjoyed it. But I felt something was lacking; fights were long and slow and I felt under-powered so around the time I moved to Gendarran Fields I began dabbling with a Flamethrower build.
I had seen and heard numerous people raving about how the Flametank carves though mobs in PvE but when I switched to the build I immediately felt weaker and much more vulnerable. I'd always felt quite safe with my turret build and could even take down the odd champion solo. With the flamethrower even one or two mobs became a struggle. Maybe I was doing it wrong? I decided to give it some more time.
By the time I got to the far end of Gendarran Fields and, having done the first few hearts in Harathi, I knew I needed a change. Fighting Veterans became a 50/50 proposition, I just wasn't putting out enough damage and was losing the battle of attrition. I lost skill challenges for Pete's sake! I tried upgrading my armour and trinkets but that did almost nothing. I wanted to persist with the build because I had heard such good things about it but it was putting me off playing the character. That's bad.
Part of the problem is that, because Guild Wars 2 is still a relatively new game, when people talk about builds they almost exclusive refer to level 80 implicitly. Also, unless stated otherwise, it's usually safe to assume that anyone posting about a build is using it in PvP! As a result, when people rave about a build, it can be hard to tell what level they are playing it at and whether it will work well at lower levels.
I think maybe the flamethrower build is highly dependent on getting to 60+ and access to HGH or Juggernaut. In fact, looking at the build I linked, all the flamethrower specific traits are only available once you unlock the Master tier at level 40 and things really begins to take shape at 50. Maybe I just jumped the (pun intended) gun?
With this in mind I decided it was time to hit up my personal story for some easy exp to power through from 38 to 40. This let me unlock the aforementioned Master traits and access some new gear but with this new found determination came a desire to try a new build. Something that wasn't turrents, grenades or a flamethrower.
I really wanted to try those pistols again.
 |
| My trusty turret build |
By the time I got to the far end of Gendarran Fields and, having done the first few hearts in Harathi, I knew I needed a change. Fighting Veterans became a 50/50 proposition, I just wasn't putting out enough damage and was losing the battle of attrition. I lost skill challenges for Pete's sake! I tried upgrading my armour and trinkets but that did almost nothing. I wanted to persist with the build because I had heard such good things about it but it was putting me off playing the character. That's bad.
Part of the problem is that, because Guild Wars 2 is still a relatively new game, when people talk about builds they almost exclusive refer to level 80 implicitly. Also, unless stated otherwise, it's usually safe to assume that anyone posting about a build is using it in PvP! As a result, when people rave about a build, it can be hard to tell what level they are playing it at and whether it will work well at lower levels.
 |
| "Fire burns!" |
With this in mind I decided it was time to hit up my personal story for some easy exp to power through from 38 to 40. This let me unlock the aforementioned Master traits and access some new gear but with this new found determination came a desire to try a new build. Something that wasn't turrents, grenades or a flamethrower.
I really wanted to try those pistols again.
Sunday, 2 June 2013
MMO business models
The MMO market is becoming extremely competitive and I seriously wonder if the subscription model can survive much longer.
Blizzard have recently reported that WoW subs are expected to fall further and that their unanounced MMO, codename Titan, is undergoing a major redesign. Funcom, which enjoyed "sleeper" success with The Secret World last year before a major internal reshuffle and switch from a sub to B2P model, has released it's Q1 report stating it actually made more money. Go Funcom! Likewise EA reported that the F2P switch for Star Wars: The Old Republic doubled their revenue. Wow.
Blizzard have blamed declining audiences in the East and the rise of free browser games for their "woes" (still world's biggest MMO by miles and raking the cash in!) but the total rethink of Titan suggests, at least to me, serious concerns. Maybe they are redesigning to better support a B/F2P model? Let's face it, games that plan for that from the start are surely going to have more success than those that switch and are then often branded "failures" by the community.
By their nature sub-based games have to keep you interested by providing new content, usually in the form of an ongoing story, and new gear (treadmill). This inevitably creates a barrier to entry for new players who feel behind when they start playing and face a mountain to catch up. Gear treadmills can also backfire in a big way. Final Fantasy 11 just released a new expansion which included some weapons which rendered every weapon earned in the last 11 odd years obsolete. Apparently they are quite easy to get too. Why did they do that?
Actually, that's a good question. Was it to entice new players? Maybe but then Final Fantasy 14 is about to be released, wouldn't you want people to play that instead? What about if it's the other way around - what if SE just drew a line in the Final Fantasy sand and said "Hey, you're all back to square one. Level peggings. Do you want to start over? Maybe you'd be more interested in this new game!"
In a sub-based model in-game success has to be linked to time invested. You can't level the field to cater for both casual and hardcore players. You can't put a cap on what a hardcore player can achieve by failing to provide new content. You must release at a speed that keeps them satisfied.
B/F2P games don't need to do that. In the case of Guild Wars 2 all you need is a bit of a story on which to base your next lot of cash shop "merchandise". A neat trick that Arenanet played was to give "hardcore" players a dungeon that rewarded you with gear that made that dungeon easier but conferred no gameplay benefits outside. That's genius. They created a gear treadmill in a microcosm.
For me, the acid tests for a sub model are the (re-)release of Final Fantasy 14 and which model NCSoft has planned for Wildstar.
I played Final Fantasy 11 for many years and my average monthly bill was in the region of £11. I started playing in the August before the release of the Wings of the Goddess expansion on November 22, 2007. The expansion added two new jobs (classes), new battlefield content, zones and a mission arc. That mission arc was finally concluded in November 2010. Yes, that's 3 years. That's £396 of subs plus the price of the boxed expansion product. For the company that's great money but for the consumer that's terrible value. In fact, it's a bit of a rip-off. Can FF14 really survive using that model in the current climate? Should it have been re-incarnated as F2P or B2P?
Moving on to Wildstar, the $64k question: F2P, B2P or sub? Personally, I think a F2P release for a AAA MMO is crazy talk. Sure, switch to F2P when "boxed" sales stagnate, and your first "boxed" expansion is ready to ship, but otherwise why pass up at least £40-£100m in revenue? Guild Wars 2 has shown that B2P works and that a key aspect of that is replayability. Different story based on race, different play experience based on class and a really decent effort to put PvE and PvP (including WvW) on an even footing. Wildstar is mirroing this variety very closely: there is early emphasis on both PvE and PvP and the race/class/path combinations mean replayability. Carbine and Arenanet might be separate studios but it looks like NCSoft knows a good formula when it sees one.
Blizzard have recently reported that WoW subs are expected to fall further and that their unanounced MMO, codename Titan, is undergoing a major redesign. Funcom, which enjoyed "sleeper" success with The Secret World last year before a major internal reshuffle and switch from a sub to B2P model, has released it's Q1 report stating it actually made more money. Go Funcom! Likewise EA reported that the F2P switch for Star Wars: The Old Republic doubled their revenue. Wow.
Blizzard have blamed declining audiences in the East and the rise of free browser games for their "woes" (still world's biggest MMO by miles and raking the cash in!) but the total rethink of Titan suggests, at least to me, serious concerns. Maybe they are redesigning to better support a B/F2P model? Let's face it, games that plan for that from the start are surely going to have more success than those that switch and are then often branded "failures" by the community.
By their nature sub-based games have to keep you interested by providing new content, usually in the form of an ongoing story, and new gear (treadmill). This inevitably creates a barrier to entry for new players who feel behind when they start playing and face a mountain to catch up. Gear treadmills can also backfire in a big way. Final Fantasy 11 just released a new expansion which included some weapons which rendered every weapon earned in the last 11 odd years obsolete. Apparently they are quite easy to get too. Why did they do that?
Actually, that's a good question. Was it to entice new players? Maybe but then Final Fantasy 14 is about to be released, wouldn't you want people to play that instead? What about if it's the other way around - what if SE just drew a line in the Final Fantasy sand and said "Hey, you're all back to square one. Level peggings. Do you want to start over? Maybe you'd be more interested in this new game!"
In a sub-based model in-game success has to be linked to time invested. You can't level the field to cater for both casual and hardcore players. You can't put a cap on what a hardcore player can achieve by failing to provide new content. You must release at a speed that keeps them satisfied.
B/F2P games don't need to do that. In the case of Guild Wars 2 all you need is a bit of a story on which to base your next lot of cash shop "merchandise". A neat trick that Arenanet played was to give "hardcore" players a dungeon that rewarded you with gear that made that dungeon easier but conferred no gameplay benefits outside. That's genius. They created a gear treadmill in a microcosm.
For me, the acid tests for a sub model are the (re-)release of Final Fantasy 14 and which model NCSoft has planned for Wildstar.
I played Final Fantasy 11 for many years and my average monthly bill was in the region of £11. I started playing in the August before the release of the Wings of the Goddess expansion on November 22, 2007. The expansion added two new jobs (classes), new battlefield content, zones and a mission arc. That mission arc was finally concluded in November 2010. Yes, that's 3 years. That's £396 of subs plus the price of the boxed expansion product. For the company that's great money but for the consumer that's terrible value. In fact, it's a bit of a rip-off. Can FF14 really survive using that model in the current climate? Should it have been re-incarnated as F2P or B2P?
Moving on to Wildstar, the $64k question: F2P, B2P or sub? Personally, I think a F2P release for a AAA MMO is crazy talk. Sure, switch to F2P when "boxed" sales stagnate, and your first "boxed" expansion is ready to ship, but otherwise why pass up at least £40-£100m in revenue? Guild Wars 2 has shown that B2P works and that a key aspect of that is replayability. Different story based on race, different play experience based on class and a really decent effort to put PvE and PvP (including WvW) on an even footing. Wildstar is mirroing this variety very closely: there is early emphasis on both PvE and PvP and the race/class/path combinations mean replayability. Carbine and Arenanet might be separate studios but it looks like NCSoft knows a good formula when it sees one.
Friday, 31 May 2013
Alternatives
Aside from my norn Necro I have the following alts:
Johanna Sparrow - a female human Engineer
Senor Teatime - a male asuran Thief (Mr. Teatime was taken)
Maal Darkmane - a male charr Guardian
Ffaewyn - a female sylvari Mesmer
Teatime and Maal fufill the awesome role of "doing daily achievements in Ascalon or Magumma". I also do kill variety and underwater killer with Teatime as there is a river in Metrica with level 4 barracudas. Literally shooting fish in a barrel.
Ffaewyn is an experiment to see if I can get to 80 doing nothing but crafting. I don't think you can technically but we'll see.
This leaves the lovely Johanna is my only "proper" alt at this time. I have played her on and off with the intention of doing all the Kryta and most Ascalon zones. Why those? Well, world completion for the sake of it doesn't appeal to me, so I want to play the zones I didn't complete on Tore as a levelling experience on another character. I pretty much got Tore from 1-80 without leaving the Shiverpeaks, hence the name of the blog.
So far I have got her to Harathi Hinterlands but it's really starting to drag. I don't know what it is about Kryta but away from the areas were the humans are fighting the centaurs there seems to be very little going on. You don't see many other players around either. Hopefully some future Living Story will send a few more people back that way.
Recently I have been thinking that the monotony may be due in part to my build so last weekend I started thinking about a change...
Johanna Sparrow - a female human Engineer
Senor Teatime - a male asuran Thief (Mr. Teatime was taken)
Maal Darkmane - a male charr Guardian
Ffaewyn - a female sylvari Mesmer
Teatime and Maal fufill the awesome role of "doing daily achievements in Ascalon or Magumma". I also do kill variety and underwater killer with Teatime as there is a river in Metrica with level 4 barracudas. Literally shooting fish in a barrel.
Ffaewyn is an experiment to see if I can get to 80 doing nothing but crafting. I don't think you can technically but we'll see.
This leaves the lovely Johanna is my only "proper" alt at this time. I have played her on and off with the intention of doing all the Kryta and most Ascalon zones. Why those? Well, world completion for the sake of it doesn't appeal to me, so I want to play the zones I didn't complete on Tore as a levelling experience on another character. I pretty much got Tore from 1-80 without leaving the Shiverpeaks, hence the name of the blog.
So far I have got her to Harathi Hinterlands but it's really starting to drag. I don't know what it is about Kryta but away from the areas were the humans are fighting the centaurs there seems to be very little going on. You don't see many other players around either. Hopefully some future Living Story will send a few more people back that way.
Recently I have been thinking that the monotony may be due in part to my build so last weekend I started thinking about a change...
Wednesday, 29 May 2013
Blog gob
I don't publicise this blog at all. It mainly exists to fulfil the occasional need to share success or vent my spleen. Having been a moderator of several forums I know there is nothing worse than people trying to use a community platform as a personal soapbox. Fortunately most forums (or bulletin boards as they were once known) have matured to the point that they won't hesitate to suggest that a user might be better off using their own personal space to start a flame war. Back in the day, you had to be a bit more delicate about that sort of thing. People talked about freedom of speech and rights. It was better to be safe than sued.
Anyway, I've never really been happy with the look of this blog and in the same way it's hard to be comfortable in a space, be it a room or just a desk, that you haven't tailored to your needs, posting here felt a bit slap dash. I'm pleased to say that after a succession of very minor changes the recent addition of a new background image has really complete the look.
In the past I was going for a sort of norn Necromancer look. I had some nice moody screenshots of the Shiverpeaks that I thought looked quite good and I was using a lot of green for text links. Cos green is for Necromancers, right?
Well, fuck that. I have always been a fan of the Guild Wars 2 "concept" art and so I have grabbed the wallpaper that Anet released for the Flame & Frost: The Gathering Storm patch. It's a gorgeous image of the beautiful, snowy Shiverpeaks. I think it's the perfect addition to the blog.
Now, speaking of Necromancers and green...
Anyway, I've never really been happy with the look of this blog and in the same way it's hard to be comfortable in a space, be it a room or just a desk, that you haven't tailored to your needs, posting here felt a bit slap dash. I'm pleased to say that after a succession of very minor changes the recent addition of a new background image has really complete the look.
In the past I was going for a sort of norn Necromancer look. I had some nice moody screenshots of the Shiverpeaks that I thought looked quite good and I was using a lot of green for text links. Cos green is for Necromancers, right?
Well, fuck that. I have always been a fan of the Guild Wars 2 "concept" art and so I have grabbed the wallpaper that Anet released for the Flame & Frost: The Gathering Storm patch. It's a gorgeous image of the beautiful, snowy Shiverpeaks. I think it's the perfect addition to the blog.
Now, speaking of Necromancers and green...
What a Canach
Yesterday was patch day and the next phase of the Southsun Cove Living Story in GW2.
So far the Southsun Cove revisit has not been blowing my robes up. It's alright. I feel like there was a bit of a lack of continuity between F&F and the new story but maybe that is because I missed the Lost Shores event. I mean, I wasn't even sure who "The Consortium" are and then this Canach bloke shows up.
Because I received the mail about the Canach instance on a different character I went digging on the wiki to find out where the instance entrance was and discovered that this Sylvari dude was actually a recurring character. I guess that's another problem with having an event that only lasts a weekend. If you miss it, you don't just miss the action, you get a gap in your lore too.
Having finally found the instance (swapped to other toon, check mail and back again) it's fair to say that I was a mite dissappointed that the "solo instance" was a short run past some easily avoidable enviro hazards, only to be confronted with a wimpy mob that can only be defeated with some convoluted, RNG-based method.
Or so it seemed. I seriously struggled with him to begin with. Somehow he just kept managing to knock me back into his mines, which then one-shoted me. I mentioned my frustration in Guild chat and I discovered that most people had beaten him because you can stick conditions on him. Hmmm.
So, I swapped into my old condition-mancer gear and went back. Well, I dunno what I did wrong but I couldn't stick conditions on him so I once again set about the mine method.
It actually went pretty well; I used the Flesh Golem to tank him and had him down to about half health and then I noticed he had been crippled by the Flesh Golem. I immediately began attacking him and was please to see the bleeds pile up. I then stacked him with everything I could and gloated at his pathetic attempts to catch me as I kited him around.
The reward I recieved was pretty nice. I actually managed to do the Lightfoot Lair (or w/e) achievement too so I only need one more achievement to unlock the Karka back reward.
So, I ate an omlette that I had been carrying around.
And that was that.
So, after my fairly glowing review of the F&F content I'm very meh about this. I still have a bit more to do and maybe that will redeem it a little but maybe I just don't like Southsun. I don't like Veteran mobs that are harder to kill than most dungeon bosses. I don't like the (comparatively) ridiculously difficult Guild Rush there either... but I guess that's for another blog.
So far the Southsun Cove revisit has not been blowing my robes up. It's alright. I feel like there was a bit of a lack of continuity between F&F and the new story but maybe that is because I missed the Lost Shores event. I mean, I wasn't even sure who "The Consortium" are and then this Canach bloke shows up.
Because I received the mail about the Canach instance on a different character I went digging on the wiki to find out where the instance entrance was and discovered that this Sylvari dude was actually a recurring character. I guess that's another problem with having an event that only lasts a weekend. If you miss it, you don't just miss the action, you get a gap in your lore too.
Having finally found the instance (swapped to other toon, check mail and back again) it's fair to say that I was a mite dissappointed that the "solo instance" was a short run past some easily avoidable enviro hazards, only to be confronted with a wimpy mob that can only be defeated with some convoluted, RNG-based method.
Or so it seemed. I seriously struggled with him to begin with. Somehow he just kept managing to knock me back into his mines, which then one-shoted me. I mentioned my frustration in Guild chat and I discovered that most people had beaten him because you can stick conditions on him. Hmmm.
So, I swapped into my old condition-mancer gear and went back. Well, I dunno what I did wrong but I couldn't stick conditions on him so I once again set about the mine method.
It actually went pretty well; I used the Flesh Golem to tank him and had him down to about half health and then I noticed he had been crippled by the Flesh Golem. I immediately began attacking him and was please to see the bleeds pile up. I then stacked him with everything I could and gloated at his pathetic attempts to catch me as I kited him around.
The reward I recieved was pretty nice. I actually managed to do the Lightfoot Lair (or w/e) achievement too so I only need one more achievement to unlock the Karka back reward.
So, I ate an omlette that I had been carrying around.
And that was that.
So, after my fairly glowing review of the F&F content I'm very meh about this. I still have a bit more to do and maybe that will redeem it a little but maybe I just don't like Southsun. I don't like Veteran mobs that are harder to kill than most dungeon bosses. I don't like the (comparatively) ridiculously difficult Guild Rush there either... but I guess that's for another blog.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)