/AFK

Just a quick note to mention that I'm on a mini vacation this week so I wont get time to sit down and write a post until next weekend at earliest. I know updates have been sporadic at best over the last few weeks but life has been busy, combined with playing Rift it's not given me much chance to blog, although I do recommend following me on Twitter ( @slashbrb ) as I do have more time for a 140 character tirade!

/BRB in a week!

My first two weeks in Rift

Whitefall is full.

Well apart from that which has already had more than enough time being talked about how is my gaming in Rift going? Overall I'm still enjoying it, yes it's only two weeks but I'm finding enough to do, especially the achievements and collections which keep me occupied far more than it probably should do (much to the detriment of my level). I'll give it it's due though, I've found only a handful of bugs which I've reported and it does play very smooth.

I've done a fair chunk of warfronts (hard to stop when your faction is on a winning roll) as well as a whole one dungeon (I'm potentially one of the most introverted MMO players in the history of ever) which I tanked with no problems. Deepstrike Mines was quite fun as well, a nice level of time needed without it taking forever. Think it was maybe 30 minutes or so even though we were on the high end of the level requirements for it. It was completely pugged and everyone was very polite. Grimnir did a good post about it just now http://grimnir.mmofansites.com/posts/1949-mining-for-alien-gem-boss-things which pretty much sums up the same thing, only without wipes or anyone dying (we just nuked the unliving shit out of everything as I aoe tanked)

Which brings me onto something else. I've noticed that the community does seem very pleasant, helping out and offering advice when folks ask. Admittedly some people always give the sarcastic response or the rant in chat but certainly it seems less frequent than expected. Thumbs up!

The events which happen in zones were fun as well but they do get a bit repetitive after a while and I've only been to two zones, it's basically the same thing, kill xx invasions, close yy rifts and zerg a boss forgetting about tactics. On top of that it's very easy to get high contribution simply by spamming one button over and over. I've seen clerics just spam a 1.5 second heal on me over and over again despite taking no damage for the simple fact that if you don't do anything then contribution drops, fastest way is to simply spam one key... Disappointing I have to admit but I suppose everyone can do the same.

Looking at the quests there was a time in my mid 20's (level wise) where most quests were basically "kill xx mobs" which was a disappointment as there was some brilliant quests which kept me reading the text, I'm not sure if this is Defiant mainly but there does seem to be a high proportion of kill quests, maybe the fact that you get decent xp for killing mobs makes it not seem as bad and the xp noticeably moves makes it less troublesome for most but I'd like to see more variety.

Overall though the game is still holding my attention well and I'm fairly enjoying it, if I had more time to mess around in game I'd be trying out more specs though. I'm not rushing ahead (I can't.. I'm still 87th in the queue at 9pm after already being here 30 minutes) so I fully expect that by the time I'm even starting to look at level 50 content more stuff will be out.

Rifts dynamic events... Not so dynamic?

I recently rolled a new character on a shard that doesn't involve multi hour queues to actually get some play time in. I have to admit, having quests and mobs to myself is quite appealing and there's not been a single bit of bad mouthing on the region chat and people have been very nice and helpful. It's also weird being the first to complete a soul quest 4 days after the server went live but never the less I'm actually getting through the levels quicker than I was on a busier server.

All of last night while I was on I didn't see a single event happen which I figured was fair as there wasn't many on the server however about 30 minutes before the servers went down for the release of live an event started. Now what I noticed to start with compared to my previous server was that only one or two invasions got taken down before the first wardstone was destroyed. I actually took a second look as I went solo against a minor rift and noticed that the victory conditions were exactly the same for part one on a server with very low population as they were on a server that's reached capacity.

I thought that the actual events were dynamic in that they adjusted themselves to the number and level of players but apparently it doesn't seem to be that way. I did a quick /who freemarch and this was the result (keep in mind that as far as I know there's no /anon)....

Really not enough players on to combat an invasion and we didn't, the server took down two or three invasions and a rift before the event failed. Now while I'm not overly bothered it does give me subtle hints that the events aren't as dynamic as believed. Whether they're also on a timer for spawning rather than pure population in areas I'm not sure but there certainly wasn't enough folk in the zone to successfully run the event since it's the same one that 10x the number of folks have to do on a busy server. It's interesting to see though just how events will occur when the population starts maturing on the server to the stage that there's little to no new players running through the early zones.

Rifts biggest flaw right now

And while it may not be a game breaker it's certainly impacting the level of enjoyment of the game...

Server Queues

I had this discussion on twitter a couple of days back but I fail to understand why Trion aren't cloning the busiest servers thus giving the players and guilds who are now established a choice of server (Whitefull) to play on without a huge upheaval process. For example right now the guild I'm in (and have been in since early days of Warhammer) is sitting multiple high 40's that will ding 50 today and many folks now 20 and above. That is a lot of time and effort especially for people like myself that aren't very grindy players (I have played three days and got to 22 due to my habit of running off and doing rifts, events and just exploring). I've seen Freemarch countless times already from beta and I am not sure I can face seeing it all over again, trying to collect artifacts and complete achievements.

Now I know getting to 22 isn't the hardest but I'm also tied in with the guild who are loathe to move now we have a high level core that will be jumping into the experts very shortly and as each day passes the chance of the guild rerolling lessens.

I don't understand why Trion don't just clone say Whitefall and let the players make the choice. The newest server that opened remained on low population all day for EN PVP for the reason that people don't want to reroll. I know people that are now onto the third server. Opening empty servers doesn't solve the queue problem if guilds/players have established themselves. Giving players a choice of server with the same characters and guilds on would do more to lessen the queues than anything else.

Minecraft dreams...

Minecraft is a wonderful little game, appealing to my sense of exploration and creation. I have spent hours just digging out tunnels and wandering the landscape however as each patch passes with it the game seems to step away with what I hope it would become. This is no slight on the developers but simply my own wishes for the game. So without further ado I'd like to mention the 'stuff' I'd love to see in Minecraft. A lot of this is based on Dwarf Fortress which was a part of the inspiration for the game and while I don't want to see a 3d block based DF, in my own personal wish list I'd love to see more aspects of it come together. Really though, a lot of this would have to be a completely separate game mode, a 'Fortress' mode I guess :)

1) Reward the explorer

So far in Minecraft there's very little reason to go exploring other than "because you can" and while I love exploring "because I can" I can't help but feel a little bit more enticement to go outside your spawn point would be nice. Pumpkins are a nice touch but lets add more things that spawn above ground to find, whether it's rare plants, exposed minerals, wood etc, I'm sure there's more that could be found. It doesn't even have to be useful.. Just something to find and collect.

2) Reset your spawn point

So if you do find somewhere awesome and would love to setup base there you pretty much can't due to the spawn point being static. Let us craft something requiring a lot of materials or rare stuff to actually let us rebind a spawn to a new location (must be above ground and must have no blocks above it)

3) Able to MAKE a living world

Dwarf Fortress was a small inspiration to the game but part of DF was that it became a living and breathing world, you'd need to grow crops, dig ore, defend the fortress and make it so it would become a central place to live for other Dwarves... I'd love to be able to trade ore I found to passing merchants and build up something which would come alive after you establish it as a potential colony... Maybe there's even other fortresses out there to work with.

4) The goblin horde

Or any underground horde really.. Ratmen, Orcs, spider people... Imagine creating your fortress and then you end up digging into a cavern to unleash a swarm of dangerous mobs. Maybe an army will show up and try to assault the front of your mine/fortress structure etc, destroying blocks until they're defeated, even better if it works with NPC allies :)

5) Stone Carving

You're still limited to blocks really, I'd love to be able to make proper carvings in the stone to decorate my mines and forts. Whether Dwarven runes or Orcish glyphs, I'd like to be able to tell a story in the walls.

6) More mobs

Lets be honest, it's pretty limited.. I think it'd be great having more mobs in the game (such as the above mentioned) and things such as giants, Merfolk, polar bears etc. I know there's mods to allow more mobs but to actually have a proper collection in game would be great. You could even turn off set mobs in the world generator if you don't want to put up with certain types.

7) Trading posts

So if you have an excess amount of ore or gems, why not be able to trade it for other materials? Even 100 wool could be traded for one block of gold ore for example. This potentially would work more in conjunction with the living world aspect, once you establish a colony you can get trade posts setup.

8) More ore types

I actually remember this from my good old Ultima Online days.. Mining and finding shadow, agapite, verite and valorite ore.. All different rarities with different properties. Would love to be more ore, whether fantastical or not which has more benefit than just colour and durability

9) History to the world

You're meant to be on an unexplored world (I think). Who is to say it's completely unspoiled? Maybe we could find ruins, ancient mines (leading to dragons!), abandoned structures or graves. I know we have dungeons but lets increase the variety of 'man made' objects in the world that can be found. 

10) More world themes

The biomes are great but I'd love to generate a pure desert, volcanic, ashland, swamp or other terrain types just to spice things up a bit.

As you can tell it's all pretty 'RP' type stuff but that's just how my mind works really. I'm sure a lot of this is available as mods but you'd need to combine them to get a Fortress mode. I'm hopeless at the redstone stuff, I just don't understand it, so it's wasted on me sadly and while it's incredibly cool I just can't get my head around it. So that's my wishlist.. Maybe one day we'll see Fortcraft.. or Minefort.. In the meantime I'm keeping my eyes on a little game called Survivors of Ragnarok (more about this another day).

Skyrim Screenshots

Bethesda put some screenshots that first appeared in print online. You can see them here

http://www.flickr.com/photos/47857688@N08/sets/72157626024834946/show/

I have to admit it looks gorgeous. I'm a huge fan of Nordic themes in games (yeah I was Midgard in DAoC) so the look of the game is making me feel all fuzzy and warm inside.. Potentially that's the berserker rage building mind you. The final shot of a Nord warrior type in full outfit looking up looks amazing. And in fact.. Yup, it's my new background now! Oblivion was one of those games I never finished due to getting distracted by everything else I could do so I missed out a lot on the story which is a shame. However it's one of my top games still and I love sandbox games which also have a story for you to follow. I am going to finish Oblivion before Skyrim and in fact with two weeks left until Rift is released I really have no excuse not to spend some time on it now.

Right now though it's my number one awaited game for 2011 and something that will make me lose more than a few hours. I just need to retain some focus and actually play the story rather than letting my explorer side kick in and run off to the first mountain I can find to climb up it.

If I'd been a producer of Warhammer Online I would have....

.... probably been a fairly bad one.

But it doesn't stop me making up random stuff that I wish I'd seen in my time in WAR. I fully understand that there is different priorities in MMO development than just adding new stuff or clicking fingers and suddenly all the bugs being fixed so it's not overly realistic.

1) Daily RvR Quests: Dump the scenario quests, the capture bo/keep quests etc. Instead replace them with a daily "Do a scenario", "Capture a BO", "Capture a keep" and a "Kill 50 players in ORvR or Scenarios". Reward would be some gold, XP and renown. This gives players who may not be able to put as much time in a quick way to get a little bit of renown without having to burn hours in a zerg. Can be repeated daily so gives folks a reason to log in even for 20 minutes each day.

2) Career and Mirror Patches: Every three months a patch would be primarily dedicated to a class and its mirror (BO/SM, WE/WH, WP/DoK etc). Solicit feedback from the forums and blogs over class concerns, not just core testers and be honest in communicating with the class, there was so many nerfs that were not given a reason for (still waiting for the reason for removal of the BOrc anti detaunt). Say this is why things are being removed, or why things aren't being changed, understand concerns and put together a list.. first 3 weeks or so can be getting feedback, a few weeks of dev work then a month of focus testing.. I'm sure those players who are interested in the career would put the effort in to help. Players would also know that they would get fixed, changes and attention.. I waited two and a half years for BOrc changes, all I got was no communication and nerfs about the class.

3) Survey System: Back in closed beta there were surveys that popped up regarding the game. Why not bring them back upon log in or in a window that you can opt in for surveys. Get instant feedback which can be controlled easier, can return information about class/gear/level etc much quicker and more reliable than sifting through forum posts. Not everyone reads forums, but every player plays the game...

4) A serious look at Land of the Dead: So much potential, just abandoned now due to game stopping bugs and other changes in the game. It's almost inconceivable that a fairly straight forward 8 boss dungeon can still be completely broken at various points 18 months after it was released. It doesn't look good and has left a bitter taste in a lot of players mouths, there should have been proper rewards for fighting in there, not measly scarabs or shit talismans, heck there could have even been an influence system built in but nope... It got launched, a few fixes and tweaks then dumped and forgotten about, left to rot under a swarm of bugs.

5) Expanding influence system: It wouldn't have taken much (I assume) but expanding the influence system and properly itemising a lot of the loot to generate new content would have been a fairly straight forward way to in effect give RvR content... In PvE raid games you simply repeat killing monsters to gain better loot, so why not keep finding ways to give more loot for killing? It didn't even need to be equipment, how about cosmetic items, mounts, titles etc? Lots of potential there rather than three bars of influence and the gear is pretty useless now anyway.

6) Lairs and Bastion Stair/Gunbad instances: Without a doubt it was much more fun doing warbands in an instance rather than a few people, make them scale depending on number of people in the instance. Not to mention Lairs were incredibly cool but completely neglected and the loot makes them not worth anything more than a potential unlock and certainly not worth the effort in trying to find things to activate them (only for it to bug out and not work anyway)

I could potentially go on for a while but I won't as I'm getting into the realms of a wish list rather than honest thoughts... It's things I'd like to see, all 6 would make me consider subbing back, but I also know that MMO development doesn't work this way.... Oh well.