MMO BinA Geek's Look at Massively Multiplayer Online Games

I just came across the third Battle Report for StarCraft 2, a game that I will probably be spending an enormous amount of time with once it launches. Battle Reports are where we get to watch game developers play each other while two people commentate on the events, giving us insight into battle tactics, unit types and more.

Watching the video is a huge adrenaline high for me, and I am not even playing the game yet. I really enjoy real time strategy games, and even more so the idea that there will be multi-player in this game that I will be able to use.

It also reminds me that I’d love to see a World of StarCraft of some type. My cousin has started playing World of Warcraft again, and I am not interested only because the game is set in a fantasy setting which doesn’t really excite me enough to play the game for long periods of time. I think World of StarCraft could fix that issue, and get me sending Blizzard some money every month.

In World of Warcraft (WoW), I have found that when you’re looking for a group or even just a single someone to help you with an instance it can be very hard, but that problem could be just be with my favourite server/realm. This is one of those games issues that really bother me.

I’m a gnome Death Knight and I like to level and do instances, but the only problem is finding people of my level and skill to go with me and so sometimes I die when doing it. It could be that we don’t have a healer, but sometimes we get a Paladin that says he can heal but it ends up that he can’t. Also, I sometimes run into the problem where the instance is full. What’s with that? Seeing how there are over ten million players, there shouldn’t be an message saying “you can’t go with your party sorry if we wasted your time”. Also, if I have a quest and I need an instance to complete it, but it ends up being full, it can be like a slap in the face.

Another problem I see is how they spread the level for instances. For example, why is it that the instances start at level 10? Why can’t World of Warcraft have level 5 instances for the lower levels to give them something to do beyond quest grinding and waiting for the higher level instances. This would give them a faster way to level and to help find guilds and buddies to do higher instances later. I’m not blaming Blizzard for this, (I like Blizzard) but in the gaming world there are two kinds of players: hardcore and casual. MMO’s need to be able to satisfy both kinds.

Blizzard has tried to help players find people to do instances with using an “eye thing” that looks for players. I’ve tried that with little to no luck so far. Again it could be just my server/realm, but Blizzard needs to think about such concerns in the next few updates they release if they really want to keep players like myself happy with the game they’ve worked so hard on. Let me know what you think in the comments below.

There have been two updates to the Path of 2409 series that Star Trek Online is running. Years 2388 and 2389. Neither update does too much for the story, other than move forward some story lines they are working on. The basic premise is “the universe is a mess”. Klingons want to fight. Romulans want to heal their wounds and consolidate. Vulcans are looking a bit like bad guys. The Federation is trying to support the right races in their attempt to be friends with everyone.

The supplemental logs are a great bit of story as well. The latest one includes Jake, Captain Sisko’s son, who is still working hard at being a reporter. In it, he interviews Worf, who has mostly healed from his wounds in the Star Trek Countdown comic.

I meet with Ambassador Worf in his home on Qo’noS. He hasn’t spoken with any reporter since the events surrounding the Hobus explosion. The Ambassador is an old friend of my family, which is why I thought I might be able to speak with him. It appears that I was right.

Ambassador Worf is a warrior. He is clearly still recovering from the near fatal injuries he took while fighting the madman, Nero. Just as clearly, he refuses to allow those injuries to slow him down.

He is also furious with me.

When taking an established “universe” like Star Trek, it is very cool to see the game makers working so hard at feeding fans interests.

The Path to 2409: 2388
The Path to 2409: 2389

One of my favourite games, and the game that has been keeping me away from this site is Eve Online. Recently, Goonswarm,, KIA and the corporation I am in, have taken over Delve, Period Basis and Querious, and Kenny (the re-formed Band of Brothers) has finally given up its last bastion of space.

As a show of force near the end, the alliance fielded 27 Titans, the most expensive ship in the game, usually seen in groups no larger than three or four, around a single station.

This means that we win Eve, since it was originally assumed that BoB was the penultimate alliance, in one of the richest of pieces of space. Space now controlled by the Alliance I am in.

What will that mean for Eve Online in the future? Who knows. The biggest thing we are trying to do as an alliance is to not get too cocky, as we feel that was the reason BoB died off.

If you play Eve, and are a friend of mine, contact me, as we are looking for more fighting characters in our alliance.

This is taken directly from the Aion news site, so be sure to check it out for future updates and all of the other specific details.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009 —

The second Aion closed beta event kicks off this weekend Friday, June 19th (12:00 PM PT, 9:00 PM CEST, 8:00 PM BST) and ends Monday, June 22nd (12:00 PM PT, 9:00 PM CEST, 8:00 PM BST).

For this event, enthusiastic testers will focus on the beginning player experience for the Asmodians as well as testing server stability and live launch simulation. Take the time to read the story of your quests, pay close attention to the words of the NPCs sharing their knowledge with you, and explore the first ten levels in the shadowy world of Asmodae during this weekend’s exciting beta event.

If you’re a part of this weekend’s closed beta event, drop by the official beta forums beginning on June 18 to share your reports and experiences.

Participants in the closed beta events will also be excited to hear that the NDA has been lifted. Chat, blog, post, and tweet about your experiences in Aion!

Wondering about even more upcoming beta events? Check out the current closed beta schedule below and plan now for your fun-filled summer in Atreia.

Upcoming Closed Beta Events

Closed Beta Event #3 - July 2-July 6
Focus: Asmodian levels 1-20

Closed Beta Event #4 - July 17-July 20
Focus: Elyos and Asmodian levels 1-25

Closed Beta Event #5 - July 31-August 3
Focus: TBD

Closed Beta Event #6 - August 14-August 17
Focus: TBD

As always, stay tuned to the official web site and the Aion team Twitters (@aion_ayase, @aion_amboss, @aion_liv, and @aion_xaen) for more news and your chance to be a part of the closed beta.

I was lucky enough to snag one of the Aion beta codes, and while some bloggers have had mixed feelings about this game - I am really looking forward to it. The world is beautiful, character customization was great, and it felt like a combination of Lineage II and Guild Wars but without all of the things that I disliked so much (like lack of jumping). I am really looking forward to partaking in future beta events, and if I can ever find a copy over here in Canada I’ll certainly be playing once it goes live. We’ll just have to see!

New Chat Enhancements Announced
We are releasing new community enhancements very soon!

One of the enhancements is 18+ Chat*. 18+ Chat will allow players a more open communication environment with other 18+ players. Starting tonight, we are adding web-based account controls for 18+ chat. Please be aware that although the control will be added to your account, 18+ Chat will NOT be launched tonight.

This chat feature is in response to our community’s requests. To ensure the highest level of safety, we have chosen to launch this for our active Subscriber community only. Please note that this option is off by default, and you must actively select this option under Account Management.

Our terms for in-game communication with other players will remain the same. Violent and abusive behavior, as well as the exchange of personal information is still not acceptable.

Once we launch this feature, the following updates to chat will apply:

1. Menu Chat (default setting for under13)
1. players will continue to see only Menu Chat.
2. 13 to 18+ Text Chat (default setting for 13+)
1. players will continue to see only our Dictionary Text Chat.
2. players will NOT see the 18+ chat.
3. New 18+ Chat
1. will be filtered for profanity.

*Accounts must be 18+ and must be an active subscriber with a valid credit card on file.

You can read the full post on the Wizard 101 news! I for one, am REALLY looking forward to these changes. Not because I don’t value the safety of children, but for those of us who are adults, this will be a feature that certainly comes in handy. I can’t recall the number of times I have tried to meet up with a friend and have been unable to spell out a number properly or a location.

What do you think of the chat changes?

Thanks to EQ2 traders, I know to be on the look out starting the 20th of every month for the ‘moonlight grotto’ events that will be making their way through EQ2. These are small mini events that reward players with some neat house items and a lot of fun. To read more about the event, please be sure to check out the article here. I’m excited about all the house items (as always) and I’m looking forward to these neat events. The aa experience increase has been VERY nice, despite some people saying that they don’t notice the difference, I think it’s amazing.

Some of the things you can find:

Portals Into Magical Grottos
When the moon is just so, five magical mushroom rings will appear in Norrath. Each time they appear, which will be once a month around the 20th, they will stay for anywhere from 24 to 48 hours.

These mushroom rings will appear in five locations:

* Antonica - Archer’s Woods
* Darklight Woods - the mushroom area up near werewolves
* Nektulos Forest - near the spires to Barren Sky
* Enchanted Lands - near the spires to Bonemire
* Greater Faydark - in the Nursery

Other Important Notes

* Two of the instances require minor combat that should be easily soloable (down-arrow mobs).
* One instance offers a second quest, but you must be at least artisan level 2 in order to obtain it
* Each instance can only be completed once per month per character. Run as many alts through as you wish, but you won’t be able to keep looping the quests and collecting the glowies on the same character. (Since one instance contains two quests, this means you can earn 6 tokens per character per month)
* Each instance spawns one purple glowie, for a grotto-specific collection (5 total collections, 1 from each grotto). This glowie will not respawn, so one glowie available for grabbing per character per grotto. The glowies can be traded, so you can juggle amongst alts, go on broker binges, etc. Remember - if you don’t finish a collection this month, you have a chance to fill in the gaps next month, the month after, etc.
* Each grotto has a vendor with items unique to that specific grotto. Most of these items are furniture items that can be traded, but there are a few exceptions here and there.
* The furniture items each cost 1 Elemental Token apiece (the wearable circlets may cost 2 each)
* This is meant as something small and fun that can be easily completed without a huge time expenditure. While I know the furniture addicts will obsess about getting everything immediately, the event is going to be a regular monthly feature, so if you miss something, there’s always another chance down the road.

Be sure to check out EQ2traders for the rest of the details as well as images of the house items!

By now most people who follow ‘gaming news’ on the blogsphere would have heard about the Eurogamer fiasco (for lack of a better term right now) that happened due to an online game review receiving a low score and then Tasos’ reply to that and a whole lot of other replies following.

There has been a lot of feedback on various blogs about this matter as well, but the one that sticks out most in my mind is from Dusty Monk of ‘Of Course I’ll Play It!‘ - his comments on the matter echo my own almost exactly. I felt that the response to the review was handled poorly, and if you stand by your game and believe in it why would you even give such a strong reaction to one single review.

That’s not what I wanted to talk about though.

When I first heard about this incident I couldn’t help but chuckle. Let me explain - aside from writing class guides and dungeon guides for Beckett MOG, I also dabbled briefly with writing reviews for an online site. I was given an assignment (yes, the editor knew the games I currently played) to re-review Dungeons and Dragons Online. Actually, the specifics were that DDO had recently revamped their starter area, and that was the area I was to review. I mentioned at the time to the editor that I had never played DDO before, that my perspective would be that of someone who has never experienced any aspect of the game and I asked before I even accepted if that would be alright. I was told yes.

So I picked up a copy of the game, and played a few hours every evening. I don’t consider myself an expert in any one game but I have played a LOT of games over the last few years and I know what I like and what I don’t like. While I DO enjoy LotRO a huge amount (another Turbine game) I did NOT enjoy DDO. At all. I didn’t enjoy the character creation, the game play, instancing, the social (or lack there of) experience, nothing. I created multiple characters and ran them through the newly revamped starter area (even though I had no idea what the old one was like) and it was simply not enjoyable for me.

Of course a review is a persons personal opinion - and I even stated as much in the article, but when you simply are not grabbed by a game it is VERY hard not to let that show in your writing. I was told that articles were supposed to be ‘genuine’ and reflect the writers personal thoughts. I’ve never written any other way, and so I thought nothing of it. I gave the game an average rating of 6.5 I believe (maybe 6.2)  since the game site does use a rating system, and explained my reason for why I had rated it thus. I mentioned that I had never played before, and I mentioned that I could not comment on how the game used to be. Keeping in mind that these were things that I had cleared with the editor beforehand via email.

Not 10 minutes after the review was posted I received a frantic email from the editor because the forums had exploded with comments from DDO fans who were exceptionally upset at my review. He mentioned that it was partially his fault because he had posted the review as being a full review and not just a review of the introduction area which was what I wrote about (and was told to write about). I stand by my writing and I had re-read what I had written and did not feel that I had said anything I couldn’t justify. The first question I was asked (of course) was how long I played. At the time I had xfire shut down (it does happen rarely!) so I couldn’t just send over the numbers (and even that is not a perfect indication) but I still felt that I had played enough (2-3 hours an evening over the course of two weeks) to justify writing about the starter area.

This site is known for its less then glowing comments made by readers. I was expecting it. As a game reviewer you’re told to have a thick skin and you have to be able to handle a lot of nasty remarks made by people (like how I should be fired, and even killed). Those did not bother me because I knew they would come.

What DID bother me was that the editor requested that I rewrite the review (or write a second review), this time using an end game character supplied to me by turbine and an official in game tour / play session.

What? There was no way I would feel comfortable writing the article under any circumstances. I did not feel that I qualified to write it based on the fact that I had never played the game before and I had no idea what the experience used to be like. I felt that re-writing another review would mean I didn’t believe in what I said the first time - and I stood by my writing (and still do). I was upset that I was even asked to do the second assignment. After thinking about it for a day or two I said that I was sorry but that I was simply not qualified, and I felt pressured into writing a higher rating based on the response from the previous article. The issue was dropped from there and I did not write a second review.

At least Eurogamer has the mind to suggest a different writer gives their opinion in a second review instead of requesting that the original reviewer plays more and gives it a second shot hoping to some how change their opinion. Let me tell you, that won’t happen. There are just some games out there you simply don’t enjoy - and that is OK. You don’t HAVE to enjoy them. There’s a lot of pressure when it comes to reviewing games and readers need to remember that it is ONE persons opinion which may not be anything at all like yours.

I went back to writing articles the way I am most comfortable with. Guides and my personal experiences within the game, a positive outlook on things rather then a negative. Maybe that’s taking the easy way out but I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one who had a bad experience with a game review.

COT PLZ is a column that hypothesizes potential Caverns of Time content that Blizzard could explore in the future.

If you’re a lore nerd like myself, you most likely enjoy the Caverns of Time instances.  With the introduction of the COT,  Blizzard has opened up a large chunk of past and potentially future lore to be experienced.  I often sit around and extrapolate on what possible adventures Blizzard would send us on through the Caverns of Time system.  One such adventure comes directly from Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos.  During the Scourge (Undead) Campaign, Arthas and the Scourge direct an attack against the Magical City of Dalaran.  The Scourge is seeking the last spellbook of Medivh in order to use its magic to summon Archimonde to Azeroth.  As a defense, the wizards of Dalaran put up barriers that harm undead units.  Your mission is to destroy the barriers by killing the wizards that guard them and secure Medivh’s spellbook by slaying Grand Magus Antonidas.

Now the question, how would this apply to the Caverns of Time mechanic?  I would set it up in the same fashion as The Culling of Stratholme instance.  Give us the “cutscene” using in-gaming graphics again to set up the premise of the instance.  However the twist would be to borrow from the Oculus instance.  I would propose that you would be able to select a unit of the Scourge to be (as an illusion) but you would gain abilities relevant to that unit (like the dragons you ride in the Oculus).  That way any individual in your group could fill any role and it would allow you to assist Arthas’ campaign.  You could have armored skeletons for the “tank” role, necromancers for either a “healer or dps” role and a ghoul or possibly a geist (I’m aware they were not in the WC3 campaign) as a “melee dps” role.

The Caverns of Time is such a great mechanic that I can not help but dream of more adventures to explore and hopefully Blizzard can not help but dream either.

Shoutout to my friend Ken for letting me bounce these ideas off him constantly.

One way of making money for combat focused players in Eve Online is to grind through missions. I hate grinding through missions in any game, but Eve can be especially boring. Running through level four combat oriented missions with my cousin, me in a Caldari Navy Raven, and him in a passively shielded Drake, we rip through the missions at a fairly quick rate. We just wait to collect our bounties, loot and rewards, and move on to the next one.

The only reason I am doing this is to gain some in game currency, as I’ve become rather poor recently. One thing that I’ve noticed though is that there are very few people that enjoy grinding through missions. Even with a goal, it is tedious. They’ve tried to fix this by making more multi-mission quests, but I don’t care about stories, or epic arcs. I just want my money.

I haven’t been able to really get into the role-playing aspect or metagaming aspect of Eve Online. Has this ever happened to you? How did you find enjoyment in the game? Or did you just eventually quit?