Should be the name of the new expansion when it hits. Why? Because EVE is a sleeper. It's the sleepiest of all sleepers. So sleepy that hardly anyone knows about it, and those that do end up discovering it will more than likely quit within a few days.
I'm an avid gamer, I'm also very computer savvy. EVE isn't that hard a game for me to grasp. Not everyone who enjoys games is a complete nerd, nor should they have to be. This is one of the things that is holding EVE back in my opinion. It is unintuitive. Even with the help of a spoken tutorial, the game can be difficult to learn. Yes, even with instructions, that tell you what to do, it can be hard to get that job done.
There are fetch quests, kill missions, money making professions, PvP, and so on. Just like any other MMO. The difference? EVE does these things less intuitively than anything I've played. The designer in me cries foul at the way some things have been implemented. But the user reaction to change is so harsh, and so unwelcome. Like the people who play the game don't want any more people to play, which is a sad thing. MMO's are generally about lots of people playing the game. Especially with the single server model, more players could mean great things for EVE.
But it won't happen.
When I spoke up in the in-game chat, saying that EVE wasn't intuitive, the response was "if it was more intuitive, it wouldn't be EVE." Another person said something (I don't remember what exactly) that would describe a job or school, something like "it requires you to work hard, and to learn it in order to get anything out of it." The gamers who partake in EVE, they don't seem to be gamers at all. The best words I can use to describe them now are employees, and students.
It's... Weird.
The majority of EVE players have what I would call the same mentality as the hardcore populous of WoW. That they take the game very seriously, and any changes to the game that would detract from their previous experiences. Things that would, in effect, make the experience for new users different to the previous experience of current users. These things are unwelcome. And like I've said, it's sad.
Given the sheer size of the in-game world, and the unique single server model. This game could more realistically portray the whole space-adventure thing. Having fifty- or a hundred-thousand people over thousands of systems. That instead of the twenty-five thousand people spread over some five thousand systems.
Well, my post about the first change that would help move things along is on their forums, and CCP is quite alright to use it if they wish. But chances are they won't.
From the company's point of view, it is not satisfactory to see customer after customer play your game for free (at your expense) for 14 or 21 days, and then disappear. Not only that, but they are losing out on word-of-mouth advertising. Are you going to recommend a game you don't like? Course not. I tried recommending EVE to one of my mates with whom I played WoW for 3 years, and he has quit before the end of the trial. My girlfriend, who I live and play games with has also not continued with EVE; again, before the end of the trial. In fact, my girlfriend's opinion is that the game is good, but a lot of it is just too hard, and not explained well enough.
If I didn't quit WoW, I wouldn't be playing EVE. If EVE doesn't change for the better, it will only lose more customers. Enough said.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Saturday, January 26, 2008
ZOMGH3
Yes, ZOMG Guitar Hero 3. I've started playing it again after not having really stopped playing it... But I've tried to go a bit further in the game now; more so than before.
You see I read a long time ago about star paths, and how better made ones utilise the star power better, thus ending up with a better score. Since I had played many of the songs so many times, and failed to beat a lot of my scores which I considered very up there I thought "why not," and so I tried some...
So I did the first song in the game. I played on hard because I didn't feel like the laziness of easy, even if it was just a test. So, the first song, Slow Ride (hard), and I beat my record. I beat it by a good amount of points, and with *only* one try. Blasphemy? I thought so. Maybe it was just that my skill had improved, and I wasn't making sloppy mistakes. Or maybe it was just because I hadn't played this particular song enough times to get what I thought for myself would be an uber score. So I tried some more.
So then a Talk Dirty To Me, Hit Me With Your Best Shot, and Story Of My Life later all my records were beat. Story Of My Life especially, because I know I've done that song dozens of times to beat my score, and then I beat it with ease. With ease. This made me think of why this was happening, why I was so easily beating my scores just by counting some numbers in my head. What was different here than elsewhere?
Strategy. Tactics. No other rhythm/music game I can recall utilises strategy. DDR, Donkey Konga, Ouendan, Taiko no Tatsujin, they all simply rely on the combo for better scores. If you can 100% a song then you can get the highest score possible, and each note gives a certain amount of points based on the timing with which you hit it. So 100%'ing a song, and hitting each note/beat with perfect accuracy results in the best score. The game rewards you for skill. The Guitar Hero series changes that.
For starters, the multiplier only goes up to 4. There is no variation in the points given by a note, it is either a hit or miss and nothing in between. Then there is star power, fancy energy that doubles your score gained for a small amount of time after being used. So in addition to playing the notes skillfully, you need to use this start power at the times when it will result in the highest point gain. This is what people spend a lot of their time doing (maybe not so much anymore, but in the 'earlier' days of GH3).
I guess I like the way it's done, but then I don't. I'd actually like to see something like the aforementioned combo points system, alongside the 4x/starpower. And why not? Let people compete in 2 fields. The strategist, and the pure guitarist. Like using the standard score system, and another separate system like a more fleshed out precision mode.
I think it'd be cool =D and HERE is my profile on GuitarHero.com if you wanna see. Later all.
You see I read a long time ago about star paths, and how better made ones utilise the star power better, thus ending up with a better score. Since I had played many of the songs so many times, and failed to beat a lot of my scores which I considered very up there I thought "why not," and so I tried some...
So I did the first song in the game. I played on hard because I didn't feel like the laziness of easy, even if it was just a test. So, the first song, Slow Ride (hard), and I beat my record. I beat it by a good amount of points, and with *only* one try. Blasphemy? I thought so. Maybe it was just that my skill had improved, and I wasn't making sloppy mistakes. Or maybe it was just because I hadn't played this particular song enough times to get what I thought for myself would be an uber score. So I tried some more.
So then a Talk Dirty To Me, Hit Me With Your Best Shot, and Story Of My Life later all my records were beat. Story Of My Life especially, because I know I've done that song dozens of times to beat my score, and then I beat it with ease. With ease. This made me think of why this was happening, why I was so easily beating my scores just by counting some numbers in my head. What was different here than elsewhere?
Strategy. Tactics. No other rhythm/music game I can recall utilises strategy. DDR, Donkey Konga, Ouendan, Taiko no Tatsujin, they all simply rely on the combo for better scores. If you can 100% a song then you can get the highest score possible, and each note gives a certain amount of points based on the timing with which you hit it. So 100%'ing a song, and hitting each note/beat with perfect accuracy results in the best score. The game rewards you for skill. The Guitar Hero series changes that.
For starters, the multiplier only goes up to 4. There is no variation in the points given by a note, it is either a hit or miss and nothing in between. Then there is star power, fancy energy that doubles your score gained for a small amount of time after being used. So in addition to playing the notes skillfully, you need to use this start power at the times when it will result in the highest point gain. This is what people spend a lot of their time doing (maybe not so much anymore, but in the 'earlier' days of GH3).
I guess I like the way it's done, but then I don't. I'd actually like to see something like the aforementioned combo points system, alongside the 4x/starpower. And why not? Let people compete in 2 fields. The strategist, and the pure guitarist. Like using the standard score system, and another separate system like a more fleshed out precision mode.
I think it'd be cool =D and HERE is my profile on GuitarHero.com if you wanna see. Later all.
It's EVEning time
Or maybe just EVE time. EVE Online that is. For those who haven't heard of it before, let me open your eyes.
EVE is a massively multiplayer online game. It's set in space. And it's incredibly freeform.
If I had to describe it using the shortest explanation ever, I would call it an extreme close up of an RTS. You have people who choose to be fighters, killing NPC 'pirates'. Others who want to mine for a living in asteroid belts throughout the universe. People who like to make things. People who like to kill other people. Even people who like to be the boss of people. So from an RTS point of view, you've got fighting units, resource collectors, unit construction, and so on... You even learn skills in a way that is akin to 'researching' things during the course of an RTS match. It's quite a well made game and despite its lower points, I like it.
I am the instigator of a thread for the changing of the skill system as it is. You can find that thread OVER HERE =D I won't go into much more detail, although I may print out the forum page for memories xD But I will just run over the idea of the change, because I intend to use this blog also as a platform to make my ideas for games known.
How the skill system works is that you allocate a skill to be learned, and it learns it. It does this all in real time, and the length of time is dependent on your attributes. This is really good, considering some skills take minutes, hours, days, even months. Having to slug it out manually would be terrible. The one problem with this system is that when a skill levels up - the learning stops. You need to manually get into the game and start on a new skill. Several months into the game you will have accrued millions of these skill points, and after a year or so, forgetting to start training a new skill is not such a big deal. But for the new player, every minute is precious.
I proposed a system where instead of learning skills, you would just accrue the skill points into a kind of 'bank'. You'd then spend them on the skills you wanted to learn. So instead of needing to take a course in time micromanagement, you can just play the game, and tend to your skills whenever you feel like it without having to worry.
If you've taken a look at the thread you'll see that I've refined that idea slightly, taking cues from other games that have taken things in a similar direction. You'll also see that I've gotten little to no positive responses for the idea. Everyone seems to feel as though it is a stupid idea, and fails to give any constructive or critical reasons. All they say is that it's my fault if I don't manage my time right. That it's my responsibility to manage it right. So to them I said.
It's a game. Not a job.
I draw the line when a game becomes work, although right now I have little choice if I want to play EVE. I thought it would be nice to have the 'grind' take a backseat to actual gameplay. I like to mine in peace, it's a relaxing money maker. If I'm there when a skill completes, great, I can start a new one. But then when I go to bed, I quickly start training a skill that will take a lot longer. Why? So that I don't lose time. I'm already at least 3-4 years behind everyone in the game, and that is in real-time. Something I can never catch up to.
Although one response brought up the problem of account selling (which is OK in EVE - unlike in WoW). But that must already be a problem for it to have mattered, which means that this change will do nothing to stop farmers (nothing will in my opinion). But what else is there? Another said that newbies get scared when you say you have 65million skill points. So they should be. That is years of time. It'll be a week or 2 before they crack 1 million (you start the game with about 800k worth of skills). So it is scary to think you'll be behind everyone else indefinitely.
Want to know what the funny thing is though?
Despite the amount of EVE advertising I've seen (I only started playing because I saw an ad for the free trial @ Penny Arcade one day), the amount of players online at any one time, or even the amount of subscribers does not even compare to WoW. The most I've seen online in EVE is 20-25k. And this game is on one server - not like the multiple realms of WoW. The only reason it wins awards is because WoW isn't in the science genre. That's all. What's even funnier? EVE is the better game in most regards. It's just that the beginning is so unintuitive and unfriendly to the new player that most of them won't go beyond the free 14 days.
Their latest expansion featured a complete graphics overhaul. All their next patch needs is some reworking of the interface to be more user friendly, perhaps a simple and advanced version of the interface (so they can go advanced once they've come to grips with most of the game). That and some user friendly changes to skills, and they're one step closer to greatness.
EVE is a massively multiplayer online game. It's set in space. And it's incredibly freeform.
If I had to describe it using the shortest explanation ever, I would call it an extreme close up of an RTS. You have people who choose to be fighters, killing NPC 'pirates'. Others who want to mine for a living in asteroid belts throughout the universe. People who like to make things. People who like to kill other people. Even people who like to be the boss of people. So from an RTS point of view, you've got fighting units, resource collectors, unit construction, and so on... You even learn skills in a way that is akin to 'researching' things during the course of an RTS match. It's quite a well made game and despite its lower points, I like it.
I am the instigator of a thread for the changing of the skill system as it is. You can find that thread OVER HERE =D I won't go into much more detail, although I may print out the forum page for memories xD But I will just run over the idea of the change, because I intend to use this blog also as a platform to make my ideas for games known.
How the skill system works is that you allocate a skill to be learned, and it learns it. It does this all in real time, and the length of time is dependent on your attributes. This is really good, considering some skills take minutes, hours, days, even months. Having to slug it out manually would be terrible. The one problem with this system is that when a skill levels up - the learning stops. You need to manually get into the game and start on a new skill. Several months into the game you will have accrued millions of these skill points, and after a year or so, forgetting to start training a new skill is not such a big deal. But for the new player, every minute is precious.
I proposed a system where instead of learning skills, you would just accrue the skill points into a kind of 'bank'. You'd then spend them on the skills you wanted to learn. So instead of needing to take a course in time micromanagement, you can just play the game, and tend to your skills whenever you feel like it without having to worry.
If you've taken a look at the thread you'll see that I've refined that idea slightly, taking cues from other games that have taken things in a similar direction. You'll also see that I've gotten little to no positive responses for the idea. Everyone seems to feel as though it is a stupid idea, and fails to give any constructive or critical reasons. All they say is that it's my fault if I don't manage my time right. That it's my responsibility to manage it right. So to them I said.
It's a game. Not a job.
I draw the line when a game becomes work, although right now I have little choice if I want to play EVE. I thought it would be nice to have the 'grind' take a backseat to actual gameplay. I like to mine in peace, it's a relaxing money maker. If I'm there when a skill completes, great, I can start a new one. But then when I go to bed, I quickly start training a skill that will take a lot longer. Why? So that I don't lose time. I'm already at least 3-4 years behind everyone in the game, and that is in real-time. Something I can never catch up to.
Although one response brought up the problem of account selling (which is OK in EVE - unlike in WoW). But that must already be a problem for it to have mattered, which means that this change will do nothing to stop farmers (nothing will in my opinion). But what else is there? Another said that newbies get scared when you say you have 65million skill points. So they should be. That is years of time. It'll be a week or 2 before they crack 1 million (you start the game with about 800k worth of skills). So it is scary to think you'll be behind everyone else indefinitely.
Want to know what the funny thing is though?
Despite the amount of EVE advertising I've seen (I only started playing because I saw an ad for the free trial @ Penny Arcade one day), the amount of players online at any one time, or even the amount of subscribers does not even compare to WoW. The most I've seen online in EVE is 20-25k. And this game is on one server - not like the multiple realms of WoW. The only reason it wins awards is because WoW isn't in the science genre. That's all. What's even funnier? EVE is the better game in most regards. It's just that the beginning is so unintuitive and unfriendly to the new player that most of them won't go beyond the free 14 days.
Their latest expansion featured a complete graphics overhaul. All their next patch needs is some reworking of the interface to be more user friendly, perhaps a simple and advanced version of the interface (so they can go advanced once they've come to grips with most of the game). That and some user friendly changes to skills, and they're one step closer to greatness.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
/Me is back
Kind of.
After a long absence from this, and other blogs, I'm going to try and get back into the whole swing of things. I know it's been especially long since I posted in this blog. Over a year in fact. More like 15 or so months. That, my friends, is a long time.
Looking at my post prior to this, about me saying how WoW does certain things wrong, but is still good. It isn't. Only at the beginning of last year did it kick things into gear. Making it easier to attain better gear, and so forth. Catering slightly more, ever so slightly more, to the casual crowd. Said crowd is made up of people like me, and like my friends. We are people who don't have all the time in the world to play the game, but we played it a lot.
Now we quit, at least for now. Shashi, Rob, and I got fed up with it. The people in the game bring so much real life emotion to the game that it sickens me. That an action in the game is, somehow, a reflection of you as an actual person. It is not. I left my guild, one that I had been co-founder of, and a long standing member. I left because I got bored, because I didn't like a person, because I just couldn't be bothered anymore. All of a sudden I was greedy, evil, and oh so hate-able. It's ridiculous. What's worse is that I felt that I should get back at the person who instigated all this hate against me - but I didn't. I was good. I figured that it was just a game, that he and everyone else were just people in the game. So what if they were mad at my avatar - that's not me. Although, with all my talk of in-game stuff not relating to the real life person, this guy talked to me over Vent like he was 'all that'. So I got tired of the game.
I have no super crazy allegiance to my friends, even to my girlfriend. But if the people I enjoy playing with stop playing. I just don't feel it anymore. As soon as the fun stops, WoW becomes a grind. With the few of us playing together with various other good friends we met online, it was great. But now that's gone. I think when the next patch hits WoW, or maybe the next expansion in a year's time, we might try it out again. But until then, Dealies, Rufias, Vtac, and Rufi, are having nap time.
I may also start transcribing my sort of reviews from my notebook (as in an actual book, and not a laptop) to here, and start trying to do this kind of thing regularly. I play more than enough games to see what's good or bad about them, so why not share my opinion with the interweb?
Anyways, seeing as this is my kind of return to this stuff sort of, I'll end it here, and hopefully I won't disappear for another 15 months xD
After a long absence from this, and other blogs, I'm going to try and get back into the whole swing of things. I know it's been especially long since I posted in this blog. Over a year in fact. More like 15 or so months. That, my friends, is a long time.
Looking at my post prior to this, about me saying how WoW does certain things wrong, but is still good. It isn't. Only at the beginning of last year did it kick things into gear. Making it easier to attain better gear, and so forth. Catering slightly more, ever so slightly more, to the casual crowd. Said crowd is made up of people like me, and like my friends. We are people who don't have all the time in the world to play the game, but we played it a lot.
Now we quit, at least for now. Shashi, Rob, and I got fed up with it. The people in the game bring so much real life emotion to the game that it sickens me. That an action in the game is, somehow, a reflection of you as an actual person. It is not. I left my guild, one that I had been co-founder of, and a long standing member. I left because I got bored, because I didn't like a person, because I just couldn't be bothered anymore. All of a sudden I was greedy, evil, and oh so hate-able. It's ridiculous. What's worse is that I felt that I should get back at the person who instigated all this hate against me - but I didn't. I was good. I figured that it was just a game, that he and everyone else were just people in the game. So what if they were mad at my avatar - that's not me. Although, with all my talk of in-game stuff not relating to the real life person, this guy talked to me over Vent like he was 'all that'. So I got tired of the game.
I have no super crazy allegiance to my friends, even to my girlfriend. But if the people I enjoy playing with stop playing. I just don't feel it anymore. As soon as the fun stops, WoW becomes a grind. With the few of us playing together with various other good friends we met online, it was great. But now that's gone. I think when the next patch hits WoW, or maybe the next expansion in a year's time, we might try it out again. But until then, Dealies, Rufias, Vtac, and Rufi, are having nap time.
I may also start transcribing my sort of reviews from my notebook (as in an actual book, and not a laptop) to here, and start trying to do this kind of thing regularly. I play more than enough games to see what's good or bad about them, so why not share my opinion with the interweb?
Anyways, seeing as this is my kind of return to this stuff sort of, I'll end it here, and hopefully I won't disappear for another 15 months xD
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