Medieval economics

I just remembered a podcast that I heard some time ago. It's titled "Hear: Bloody, Miserable Medieval Economics" from NPR's Planet Money. It describes the harsh reality of medieval economics and includes some concepts that we may have seen in MMOs or movies (such as guilds, knights, craftspeople, professions and kings). It was a world where knights were evil, guilds were oppressive, and the black plague helped usher in the industrial revolution. It's a good listen and it definitely changed my perspective on certain things.

FFXIV alpha: not pleased

Due to the NDA I can't say much, but I'll say that it was incredibly disappointing to see very basic issues (in Alpha and with low population no less!) when the game is slated to be released in a month. It is making me suspicious of Hiromichi Tanaka's competence. I found out that he is the producer of the FFXIV game so I looked up his resume and began speculating. Most of his experience seems to be in game design, so I'm sure he's a brilliant/solid game designer. But does he have experience leading large-scale software projects? Developing massively-multiplayer games? Working on games like Chrono Cross or Seiken Densetsu does not qualify someone to develop MMOGs, since they are on a different order of complexity. So, the only real MMOG experience he has is from FFXI. Has he learned enough from FFXI?

Not having comprehensive technical expertise is not a dealbreaker for a leader, as long as he is humble and wise enough to identify what is important, recognize his shortcomings, then hire and manage the right talent to fill in the gaps. But then I wondered: what if Tanaka-san doesn't get it? Is there someone else overseeing the production of the game that has the influence to change his mind? Someone who could keep Tanaka honest or redirect the heading of the game? Since Tanaka produced FFXI and was brought back for FFXIV, I am thinking not. He's probably the best guy that Square Enix has for the job, and has even more influence in FFXIV than he did in FFXI.

But, what about his subordinates? Surely someone lower in rank can raise concerns or influence some change. I recalled Tanaka-san's resume. If his resume is any indication of how it is in the game industry, there is probably a lot of inbreeding and incest. Tanaka started out as a programmer for games, and went on to being a designer for game after game. He has little professional experience outside of the game industry, and now he's on top of the totem pole. So, if someone like Tanaka-san cannot recognize problems in the development, and everyone in the organization is similar to him, it's very likely that no one will be able to steer the ship away from any impending doom or toward better methods/technology. This would be particularly so because of the Japanese work culture.

The other concern is that Tanaka has tons of experience designing games. While this is good news for the PVE content and gameplay in FFXIV, it could be bad if he allows himself to get too distracted or consumed by the game design components that he is so fond of. This is a common pitfall for managers that have come up from the trenches --- they tend to see things from the point of view that they are most familiar with. He is a producer after all, and at some point he needs to detach himself, assume a more global stance, delegate, and give fair attention to the other important parts of the game.

I hope that I'm wrong about the FFXIV production, despite FFXIV (and FFXI under Tanaka's leadership also) having succumbed to sloppy scheduling, undefined-deadline releases, basic/fundamental issues in Alpha, and Beta testing only less than a month before release! If a real company producing Operating Systems, CAD tools, microprocessors or even online tax software were run like these game companies, they would most certainly not be successful. Somehow gaming companies are held to a different standard, or have more room for error. Please prove me wrong, Tanaka-san!

WAR: Zealot OPVP compilation now on youtube!

Some time ago, I made a Zealot PVP movie using all the footage I have collected. I finally got around to splitting it into youtube-sized chunks and fixing it so that youtube didn't eat my audio. So here it is, the last days of my Zealot before his death.

Part 1 : Early exploration (solo)

• BW + BW + SM
• WP → Engi
• SM
• BW
• Engi

Part 2 : Getting comfy (solo/duo)

• WH duel
• (Zealot + Sorc) WH + Engi
• (Zealot + Sorc) Engi + WH + SM
• (Zealot + Sorc) WP + Engi + WH
• evading SM + WL
• stalking the zerg
• WH + IB
• IB

Part 3 : Learning to pick fights (solo)

• Engi
• BW
• scouting, stalking the zerg, hunting stragglers

Part 4 : Waterfall battle (solo)

• IB + WL + AM + IB + rezzes

Part 5 : Double trouble (solo/duo)

• (Zealot + Sorc) Engi + WH
• (Zealot + Sorc) KoTBS + Engi
• Slayer + AM
• ninja stealth hiding in tree
• (Zealot + Sorc) SW + KotBS + Engi + AM + WH + SM + SW + WH
• SM

Part 6 : Baiting for fights before zone lock, getting a little more than we asked for & sweet victory (duo)

• fishing WL + WL + KotBS
• fishing WL + WL (2nd attempt)
• (Zealot + Sorc) BW → BW → BW + WH → SM + SW → BW + WL + WH + RP + Slayer

Part 7 : We just want to PVP, not PVE (duo/trio)

• (Zealot + Chosen) WP + AM + SW + BW → KotBS + RP
• (Zealot + Chosen + Sorc) SW + RP + SM + WP + KotBS

Part 8 : Against the odds (solo)

• BW + IB + WP → + WL + WP + WH
• WH → BW + WL + WP → WH
• AM + BW

Part 9 : Gear, spec & outtakes

Challenge to WAR designers: can you incentivize ORVR such that it encourages fights like the ones I found in these videos?

WAR: Zealot changes on the horizon?

May 2010 Producer's Letter: In patch 1.3.6, we want to make further improvements upon the Zealot and Runepriest careers. We wanted to give options to the healers that train a mastery path for a delivery method rather than a playstyle. When thinking of changes, we kept coming back to one thing: “HARBINGER OF DOOM” (BIG FOR EFFECT). I can already tell the Zealots are cringing and thinking, “What is that crazy person doing to my Harbinger?” The meat of the change is that Harbinger of Doom becomes an active toggle. You start in “healing mode” by default and by activating the toggle you switch to “damage mode”. This will allow Zealots to pick a Mastery path for the type of abilities that they want, without being forced to then pick again between damage and healing. While the actual effect of the toggle is still being discussed, we are leaning towards flipping magic to healing and vice versa to achieve this goal. Some of you are probably saying, “What about Runepriests? I didn’t hear him say anything about Runepriest!” The plan is to mirror this ability on the Runepriest career as well."

Did someone just say Zealot changes?

No way! That's the first time anything significant has been mentioned for the Zealot since the release of the game. Is the Harbinger of DOOM finally going to live up to its name? Will the Zealot finally play like the official class description? Will the Zealot finally be more than a gimpy wannabe Shaman? Can the Zealot excel at something other than being a boring healbot? Will the Zealot class finally be interesting? Gee golly giggity gosh darn wow!

But then again, considering Mythic's track record, I'm not holding my breath. I wish they'd ask all the unsubscribed RR 70+ Zealots why we stopped playing our class (or the game for that matter).

Fantasy Earth Zero: broken targeting kills game

As I mentioned in my last Fantasy Earth Zero (FEZ) post, it has a sloppy FPS-esque point-and-shoot system. Having such a targeting system makes the game sensitive to a variety of issues. Most important of all: lag. In FEZ, I constantly feel like I'm shooting at ghosts of the past. I shoot at my targets, expecting them to be where they appear to be, but in reality that's only where they USED to be. I often see my attack animations pass right through my targets' bodies. I can probably snipe a rabbit in Global Agenda (with its bullet travel delay) or even in America's Army (with its pseudo-realistic breathing cycles and rifle/bullet physics) more easily than trying to hit a group of people with a ranged AOE in FEZ.

Trying to hit targets in FEZ is like trying to play wack-a-mole with a soggy and crooked stick. Observe how the server blatantly ignores my attacks even though my game client clearly shows them hitting my targets (I'm firing an AOE snare "web"):



For completeness, I'll post the videos I made for how to get into PVP. First video shows the elements involved in a PVP battle:



Second video shows that getting into a battle is as easy has opening the map and selecting a territory to fight for:



And finally, my girlfriend shows me the huge boobs the game gave her toon:



I will no longer be playing FEZ. I cannot tolerate the broken "FPS-wannabe" targeting/lag issue when there's the fast-paced, action-packed, super-slick and polished Global Agenda as an alternative. It's simply unacceptable for a 4-year old game. What's ironic to me is that FEZ's differentiating aim-and-shoot system is the keystone of its failure.

Fantasy Earth Zero: initial impressions

A couple of days ago, I was browsing around for an MMORPG that emphasizes skill over grinding and gear, when I noticed a peculiar banner at the bottom of my screen:

Hmmmm... that font and those colors look oddly familiar. Is this a Final Fantasy knock-off? I did a quick search and found its wikipedia entry. It seems that it was indeed a Square Enix game. But, oddly, the official website is http://fez.gamepotusa.com. What's the deal with "Gamepot"? Wikipedia explains, "Several months after the release, Square Enix canceled the game because of severe lack of demand. The publishing rights to the game were later bought by Gamepot, where the game has enjoyed much greater success as they dropped the subscription based element present when under Square Enix's PlayOnline service, and became a "Free to Play" game." The game just arrived on US shores on January 2010. Free-to-Play you say? I'll give anything free a shot.

"Fantasy Earth Zero is a 3rd-person action-MMORPG. There is a large emphasis on PvP on a massive scale.
Sweet! I like PVP.

"One of the features of FEZ, that makes it different from most other fantasy-setting MMOs on the Free-to-Play market, is that attacks must be aimed manually and there is no auto-attack. Players manually aim at their opponent and then click the left mouse button to attack."
Hmmm... interesting. Aim to shoot? Sounds like an FPS or Global Agenda.

At this point, I had enough motivation to check the game out, so I downloaded it and explored the initial gameplay a little



I rolled a Sorcerer. The first set of mobs are melee mobs. They have an overhead strike that they telegraph with a slight pause, so it's easy to dodge them with sidesteps or simply moving away. The second set of mobs have a ranged attack that looks like a vertical cleave that travels along the ground. The cleave travels slow and is given away by wind-up animations, so it is easy to dodge too. At this time, I have a small AOE attack, and multiple single-target ranged attacks. Another thing to note about the video is that in the first set of mobs, I use the targetting system where my cursor is free to move, and in the second set of mobs, my cursor is locked to the middle of the screen (like in an FPS).

First thing that comes to mind is that it plays a whole lot better than Age of Conan (AOC). AOC had the whole sidestep thing and directional attacks too, but the following are what the differences are. In AOC, the sidesteps are useless because you cannot evade attacks with them. Here, the attacks are either telegraphed by an initial animation root, or they travel slowly to the target. So it becomes a game of timing, attacking, faking attacks and counterattacking. Furthermore, In AOC, each directional attack was a unique ability, taking up many hotkeys or hotbar slots just to be able to swing a weapon overhead, over the left shoulder, over the right shoulder, etc. This is exacerbated by the design of AOC's gameplay that gives each person many abilities. In FEZ, each class only has a small number of abilities (you select them with the mousewheel or keys 1-6), and you use the cursor to point and attack. This frees up keyboard real estate for "sidestep" keys, keeps things simple, and doesn't distract the player from the action.

As described, you do have to aim to shoot. But the game doesn't require you to be accurate. It's more like sloppy targeting. The hitboxes are pretty big, so you can hit the targets even if they're not directly under the cursor. Although, I don't know if this will change as you advance in the game.

One thing I haven't experienced yet is the PVP:
"Armies of up to 50 players, each from their own Kingdom, can go head to head in a type of war known as "Kingdom vs. Kingdom." The KvK battles are balanced so that, on the battlefield, one side will have 50 players max and the opposing side will have 50 players. KvK battles are all held on the same server."

"Kingdom battles also have many elements that are similar to a RTS game. Players "mine" crystals by crouching next to a giant crystal. After a certain number of crystals are mined, players must trade crystals with each other to get the appropriate amount of crystals they need to build a structure or summon a unit of war. Units of war are essentially "Summons" like in Final Fantasy games, but the Wraith and the Giant require structures to be built before they can be summoned. When a player character summons a unit, they assume the form of the summon and directly control its action. Buildings can be built on the battlefield and each has its own purpose. Obelisks are used to capture enemy territory. Gates of Hades are used to summon Wraiths. War Workshops are used to summon Giants. Arrow Towers fire arrows at the opposing side."

It looks like PVP involves waging war with neighboring territories and then coordinating buildings and summoned units, in addition to personal combat. I haven't figured out how this part of the game works, so I have no comments here.

As a summary: the graphics are kinda kooky, but that's Final Fantasy style for you. That's fine by me since I don't really care about the style of the visuals of a game, as long as they look polished. What I really care about is the gameplay. The music is Final Fantasy-esque too. The combat feels pretty slick, and I can see what kind of experience they're going for. I really want to PVP, so this game's next "success or failure barrier" to me is how easy it is to get into the PVP.

Age of Conan free trial review: as fun as reading a dictionary but way more annoying

Some of my guildies brought up Age of Conan (AOC) as a game to try to keep us busy temporarily. I looked it up, and was curious about its complex combat system and its M for Mature rating. Fatalities! Blood and gore! I really wanted a game that rewarded me with some blood as I hacked and slashed. I'm not a kid anymore and I feel entitled to play a game that has more than the flashing lights and rainbows that all the MMORPGs have for animations these days. Besides, AOC's expansion was getting released so it seemed like a good time to try it (already out for some time, bug fixes, new content, etc).

I decided against buying a copy of the game and downloaded the free trial instead. I FRAPSed my adventures through level 7 and annotated them with my comments:



I am glad I did not pay any money for that garbage. There was not a strain of fun content to lead me along from lvl 1. The game's combat plays horribly and the interfaces are clunky. I simply could not get past level 7. I was confused that the game could be so shitty, so I went to my guild forums to ask for the opinions of some people who played it more:

I'm having trouble getting started... I'm level 6 now and I've been using the same 2 abilities for hours. PVE is making me cry and nothing seems to happen when I queue for that scenario thing on the top left. I keep looking at my XP bar every half an hour and it barely seems to move. When does this game get fun?

Also, the positional/directional melee combat thing seemed like a neat idea at first at first but now it just seems clunky and a waste of 3 hotbar slots. Especially with the double tap evasion bullshit. You have to start evading 3 seconds before your enemy actually does anything for it to work, which makes me feel as nimble as a hippo. Sometimes I double tap and nothing happens! Then there's the stupid shields. That feels so clunky too.

I received some helpful replies, but none reignited any desire to play. They confirmed what I thought, and that it was the game and not just me. I'm pasting some of their comments here for objectivity:

The double taps aren't really to evade individual attacks. They are more to quickly change position if you are getting surrounded. I used them all the time on my guardian to keep enemies in front of my shield, but you are right they are not very effective at dodging attacks. They do give you short buffs though after you do them. If I remember correctly going left or right gives you a small evasion buff, going backwards gives a defensive buff, and going forwards gives a damage buff.

I always found the directional attacks to be fun. At least up until high levels where the chains were 4 and 5 moves long, but I hear they have fixed that.

The shield system is just plain dumb, it was simply a failure. Most people just ignored it. The only time I could see it be useful is in PvE when a boss mob telegraphs some nasty attack. My suggestion is don't worry about it.

and:

To me it was cool at first, then I found out why Q and E weren't strafe by default and it was because apparently they were also 2 more wasted hotkeys. I must admit I never got high enough for it to matter but uh, well i was like WTF am I going to do I already have like 700 keybindings I'm used to and work fine in any other mmo.

That and wtf was with a Hard Coded auto run button??? no matter what I did I had to turn mouse 4 and 5 into god damn random keystrokes so I could use them again.did they change any of that stuff?

As for Tortage (the starting city) it took me like... 10 hours to get out of there? I was going rather inefficiently for awhile but I was still kind of pissed it took me 10 hours especially since I had Skrigg basically hand guiding me for a large portion of it.

This is another one of those promising games that reeks of mismanagement to me. I can see some ideas that have glimpses of brilliance, but the implementation/execution is a 5-star failure.