Guild Jumping

Last night while I was typing up my post Tobold had posted about guild hopping. I am really glad he did I missed this topic last time around.

Gratuities links to follow

Journeys with Jaye

Massively

PotShot

Ok so here is the way I see it. It all depends on they way you look at your guild. Is your guild a tool or a group of friends? If it is a tool then you bet you are going to see lots of guild jumping. People are always going to want the right tool for the job. That is not to say that it is all on the players there are guilds that look at there members as tools also. If you are a high end raiding guild you most likely are not going to take people that are at the low end of the scale. You are going to want people that help your guild advance to the next level.

I on the other hand look at my guild as more of a group of friends. I have been playing MMO’s for about 5 years now. I know it has been around 5 years because I started in the SWG beta. Now in that time besides when me and 5 buddies decided to make are own guild I have been in 3 guilds. Three that’s it three. I have never changed guilds in a game. Each guild was always a group of friends. It was about more than just raiding. It was about people helping people out. There where always guild groups going on. I have never really had to really on my lfg tag to find a group. Now I have had to use the social window to pick up people to fill out a group. That was more as a recruiting tool than anything else.

I just have this to add if you are in a guild with a lot of people that come and go ask your self is your guild just a tool and are you just a tool for your guild.

My guild is a guild of friends I started on the Guk server with Revelry and Honor and will die on the Guk server with RnH.

3rd Time

Ok it has been a long time. I figure if I can not keep up with it this time around I will most likely give up on my own blog. I have my google reader all set up with my favorite blogs so no more trying to keep up with everyone. I love google. There is also this nice little option in google reader that lets you download all your blogs so you can read them when you are offline. So know more getting hundreds of blog post behind. For example I see that as I am typing this up Tobold just made another new post at 3am my time. 

This may sound a little silly but I even started another blog The Newb Experience.   I have decided to go exploring so to speak.  I really haven’t played a lot of MMO’s I can count them all on one hand.  While I am still going to be playing EQ2 as my main game I am also going to check out a new game every few months. Instead of trying to compare it to other games that are out I am really going to try and look at it from a newbie’s point of view. If nothing else it should be a great experience checking out new games and filling my shelf with boxes.

 

Grats Grats Grats

 

Congratulations I see it all the time in guild chat. Ding level 23 grats, ding AA point number 36 grats, Congratulations you just did the same rush order for the 20^th time in a row. I wounder has the congratulations just gone overboard. Now I am as excited as everyone else is to see some one ding a level or do a work order. The more people ding the closer we all get to doing the higher end raids. More work orders means more statues for the guild and the closer we get to being a level 80 guild.

But really do I need to say grats in guild chat every time. I understand a new player being very excited about seeing lots of fast levels. But I really don’t think Everquest II has a lot of new players coming to the game. I figure most low level toons are alts of people with high level toons on Guk or on another server. They have all been through the process before and are just playing something different.  So I have decided for myself to just give a blanket shout to everyone in the guild when I log to say Congratulations for all the hard work everyone did that day.

Top 5 Game Features

Someone sent in an Email to Troy at Equal Perspectives talking about their top game features. So I thought what the heck all list mine.

1.       The broker system from EQ2. I like the fact that the system incorporates your house. The bigger your house the more slots you have available to sell out of. You can shop all four brokers at the same time and search by tier, slot and state.

2.       Group harvesting from Vanguard. The more people you have on a resource the higher the yield.

3.       Skill system from CoH/CoV. The fact that you upgrade your skills the way you would like is a great thing. You really get you abilities to work the way you want them to.

4.       The encounter window from Vanguard. The fact that every mob is listed right there for you to see is awesome.

5.       Last but not least another Vanguard pick but I have to say it the LFG system. I have talked about it before so. Link  Now they have fixed the system and it does work now.

So that’s it in no special order just my top 5 features.

PvP

I was catching up on my blogs today and there is a great discussion going on about PvP and WAR.

Tobold’s

Hardcore Casual

I tend to fall more on the Tobold side of the line but both are great discussions.

Content and Groups

In my opinion the whole bases behind an MMO is to group. Really with out the group all you have is a really bad RPG. The level system is a necessary evil in any MMO but any thing that can be done to remove that as a barrier to grouping should be done. All MMO’s in development should have a mentoring system in place. EQ2 is by far at the forefront on this. The fact that you can go from level 80 to level 1 so that you can group with you friends is great.

I think this should go on step further. A lot of games have to go back and revisit there content and change it from group based to solo or small group.  Now with the current system I complete agree with this. WoW did it in there last patch and EQ2 has increased the mob experience level from six to 10 so you can get experience from guest and mobs that you didn’t use to. I propose a system where a player would earn points for mentoring and assisting other player’s complete objectives. So if you are mentored down and helping some one complete a heritage quest in EQ2 or an Epic quest in WoW you would be gaining assist points. You could then use those points for items in game.

Imagine in EQ2 a system like this. One of the rewards is a flying dragon mount that cost a million points. When some one shouted “Looking for help with Return of the Light Bringer” you would get tells from 30 people in a matter of seconds. People would be watching chat looking to help people even asking people if they needed help. The community would grow. Developers wouldn’t have to go back and spend resources redoing content. Content would never be outdated and new players would never feel alone in the world.

The rewards could be any number of things. Special mounts, clothing items even housing items. Maybe titles or a ranking system to show how helpful a player you are. The rewards would have to be useful to all levels so that even people in the midlevel range would find it beneficial to mentor.

Subscriptions, Playtime and RMT

Economics dictates that for a business to grow revenue must increase. With that in mind the current subscription plans will need to change.  Everyone can already hear the words RMT coming closer and closer. Some people fear RMT and see it as the death of MMO’s  and who really wants constantly be shelling out money every game session. So here is the way I see it.

We have been lucky over the years and haven’t seen the MMO price wars. That is all going to change.  $15 a month is really the max price point. Any higher than that and you would lose more subscribers then money you would make.  I know $15 is really my price limit for one game I would be hard pressed to pay more than that for access to just one game.  I currently have station access but that is more because of my Sunday Vanguard group than anything else.  With the current state of Vanguard I am not for sure how much longer that will last. SOE has been trying to push the access plan for several years now and people just really are not taking it. I think that has more to do with the SOE line up of game than just the business model.  Really for a AAA studio you would think they would have more hits on their hands. Now I know I would be more than willing to shell out 20 bucks or even 25 for a PlayNC all access account. But I do have a hard time paying $15 a month for even one of their games. Now who wouldn’t want to jump into some tights and be a super hero or villain for few hours a week? Couple that with the twitch game play of TR and add in DR for a little RPG fun I could easily find myself playing each game a little bit each week.  

The other option I see coming over the next year will be the pay to play model. Here instead of paying $15 a month for the game you would just buy so many hours at a time.  Think of it like pre-paid cell phones run out of time go get more.

RMT’s are a reality coming to an MMO near you. By the end of the year you will see an RMT system in every MMO out. No longer will your $15 a month give you everything.  You will not see anything game breaking in the RMT system it will just be add on things.  Need some extra bank slots? How about another character slot? Want a bigger house? It can all be yours only an RMT click away. So no you will not be able to buy the uber sowed.  RMT systems will be most widely used in smaller games. Companies that are more dependent on micro transactions then monthly fees. Look at Gaia Online and how much revenue they generate off of a simple $2.50 monthly collectable item.

How much would you pay for a monthly collectable in EQ2 or WoW?

Would you pay $5 for 50 hours of Tabula Rasa?

What Happened to Content?

What Happened to Content?

MMO’s have gotten really bad a telling a story. No longer is there any depth to the quest. You get these quick quests that are just about getting the experience then you move on to the next one. The faster you complete the quest the fast you get to the next level. There is no more story telling.

I have been playing Half-Life 2 the past few weeks now and the story line in the game just keeps pulling you into it. I played Knights of the Old Republic and it did the same thing. I feel lucky that I do have a content group in Vanguard that like me wants to see everything in the game and not just get to the next level. With Everquest 2 it is just log in bang out a few levels burn the rest xp then let it sit tell the next week. What happened to the lore in games? Look at all the games that have been coming out there is no compelling group story lines.

The problem the way I see it is simple. Let’s look at a heritage quest from EQ2 first. You have this quest that is just incredibly long and will most likely span several gaming sessions. Trying to get a pick up group to work on it sucks. Either you try and find people that are at the same place as you have to group with people that are behind you and help them get caught up with you. So out of a 4 hour gaming session you spend 30 minutes trying to get a group together to work on it. Then 2 hours getting everyone caught up to where you are at. Toss in 30 minutes worth of AFK breaks and you get to advance your line for an hour. Vanguard doesn’t have heritage quest but they do have store lines in areas that take almost as much work to complete them. CIS, Minds Crown, and Pantheon just to name a few.

The fix from the mind if Dar.

First keep the story in the same area. I think Vanguard does this part well. The in-depth story arcs don’t generally take you all over the world. CIS pretty much all happens around maybe 4 chunks. Pantheon of the Ancients all takes place in the same dungeon. I for one don’t like spending my time standing around trying to find a group and then have to wait for everyone to get to the same spot. With the story content all in the same area people in that area are generally working on that story line. Go to CIS pick up a CIS group go to Pantheon get a Pantheon group.

Next make the quest more flexible. Instead of having a straight line to get to the end break the quest down in to parts where you can do the parts in different orders. Why does it have to be go do this this this. Why not go do this list of stuff in no particular order and come back when you are done. You complete the first five tasks and then you get the next five. That way you don’t always have to get people caught up with where you are at but you can still advance quest lines.

I am going to cut this off here and come back to it later this week.

A New Year Week 1

I have decided to go to more of a weekly updated about my gaming experience for the week. I don’t really have the time to stay up to date on all the great blogs that are out there. When I am at my computer I tend to want to spend more time in the games I play and talking to my friends on voice. Unless something happens in the industry that I feel really strongly about I am just going to talk about the games I play.

I did get Call of Duty 4 for Christmas. Now the last FPS that I played was Fry Cry so it had been a while. I really enjoyed the game while I was playing it. I was a little disappointed that the single player campaign was so short. So right after I bet it I went out and got Half Life 2. Once I fired up Half Life 2 all the flaws of CoD4 came out.

First off it only took me maybe 10 hours to bet CoD4 now I started playing Half Life 2 on Sunday and after three days of very heavy game play I think I am a little over half way through it. Now every thing I have played over the past few years even MMO’s has a map and a pointer telling my where to go. So here I am right at the beginning of the game I get off the train and wait there is now map. Ok so where is my compass and pointer telling my where to go. Nope nothing you mean I have to really think here. I feel in love with the game after 30 minutes. Here is a game that is making my think not just run in a certain direction and kill every thing in my way. I enjoyed CoD4 while I was playing it but something tells me it will be collecting dust on the shelf now. About the only thing that drives me crazy in the game is the weapon switching the Valve uses. It does take a while to get use to the treed weapon system.

I did play a little Vanguard and EQ2 this weekend also.  Sunday’s content group in Vanguard was great. We finished up are CIS quest lines and got are Ageless One weapons. That’s three glow weapons for me now. We also started work on are Wardship faction also. We still have a lot of work to do there but we will get it done. My content group on Sunday’s is about the only grouping I do all week so I have really started to look forward to it. We are all on the same page with what we are doing and exploring the content in the game.

In EQ2 I didn’t do much. I did get a few levels and am up to 30 on my Illusionist. That is about all I can say about that.

I also listened to VirginWorlds Podcast #98. While I don’t agree with everything they had to say over all it was another good podcast by Brent. Until next time.

6 Days

It doesn’t really feel like 6 days has gone buy but it has. I looked at the date on my last post and was wow. Now that Christmas has past I should be able to get back into my reading and writing again. I got caught up on my blogs today.  Mostly about RMT (Real Money Trades) and  PvP (Player vs Player) in MMO’s.

 RMT doesn’t bother me at all. It has become a billion dollar a year business so there has to be a lot of people doing it. I have seen people complain about gold buyers then tell me about bugs and third party programs you can use. Everyone looks at it differently I have come to the conclusion that to each his own.  

PvP is really only fun for the people on top. I think everyone likes the idea of it but when you spend 5 hours doing corps runs and being camped it loses its fun factor. PvP belongs in FPS games where it is about skill not gear.  I mean really people talk about being rewarded for losing in PvP.