What is this?

This blog is mainly a collection of posts and notes on MMORPG design, game design and a few other things. Most posts were written by me and represent my views on the subject. Most of them were taken from the official Shroud of the Avatar forum.

Nobody cares about gold selling in WoW Classic.

 I watched a video on gold selling in the upcoming WoW Classic, and why it is a bad thing:

The video is total shit and here is why:
1. Gold sellers don't create gold out of thin air. They go out into the world and farm it, which in turn a) gives the opposing faction something to kill b) fills the world with people running around, which feels good.
2. Gold sellers still pay monthly subscriptions.

Yes, it is certain that people specifically farming gold night and day for the purpose of selling it to players MIGHT inflate the economy. But I don't really think it will happen. There are numerous gold sinks in the game, such as respec and repair costs. The game's economy will be fine. And even if it's not, who cares? Stuff on the AH might get cheaper, so what? Isn't that a good thing? It's a semi-carebear grindy MMO anyways, it's not like it's some Eve Online or something, where the economy is really important..

The two biggest reasons for the shitty state of UO free shards

Hey there. So I've said this before, but I want to say it again.
Here are the two reasons why I, as a die-hard UO fan, haven't played for over 6 years:

1. Too many servers.
As a result, the small UO community is spread thinly across all the servers, which results in small server populations. And server population is important if you want to have a living world.

2. Lack of new content
By "new content" I mean the following:
GMs do not create interesting and elaborate events and quests.
Any GM event I've seen so far has been along the lines of "hey it's halloween so we've dyed some monsters pink and given them increased stats, go kill them and earn some neon-colored robes".

None of the shards I've been to have a real story going on  - with quests, struggle, conquests, interesting storylines, etc. It's extremely sad.

Let's face it - default UO without a storyline is quite a boring experience. Combat is basic and PvE is not exciting. While the expansions added new scenery and new stuff to do the biggest issue was that they trammelized ALL servers. They didn't make separate PvP servers without Tram and PvE servers with Tram. They just trammelized everything - a prety horrible and incompetent decision by all standards.
(And yes, I know about Siege Perilous).

Shit, at this point it's more interesting to play WoW on some free vanilla server even with it's total lack of reasons to pvp no looting and virtually no way to lose your items (which makes for a stale economy once enough ppl hit max lvl).

So yeah.
It saddens me that I feel I really don't want to go back to UO. There's nothing there for me. I'm having way more fun in vanilla WoW even tho it drives me crazy that I can't loot fallen enemies (and that nobody can loot me) or steal from them as a rogue.

I feel like an incel who can't get laid no matter what. It's maddening. I can't get my proper MMORPG fix no matter what.

EvE is a somewhat nice alternative but I dislike the fact that it's mainly fleet-pvp oriented (it's not really possible to go out there by yourself and wreck. Well, you could, but it would take you some time to find someone willing to fight you, since in this game people can escape the location even before you emerge out of warp, lol. And it doesn't help that some can just call their buddies from across the system - they arrive in the matter of seconds and you get 1v10'd). Otherwise EvE is a pretty good game for people who are looking for a virtual world they can live in, but overall not really my cup of tea.

Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup disappoints yet again

 This post has been in the archive here in my blog for god knows how long. TL;DR: I was away from DC:SS for a few years, I come back and see that the game has been carebear-ized beyond belief.

>.<

>no danger by flying
>rN simplification
>Hidden "stealth factors" for species and forms are gone.
>Vampire blood level effects have been simplified and reworked.
>The 'sustain abilities' effect has been removed.
>Issuing orders to allies no longer makes noise.
>Drawing from decks and using Nemelex abilities now uses invocations, not evocations.
>Jiyva's jelly paralyse ability has been removed.
>Many divine abilities have had their hunger costs removed or increased.
>Most gods that like killing are less particular about what you kill.


 

Removed:
All decks and their cards, except for those gifted by Nemelex Xobeh.
Dragon and troll hides.
Sword of the Doom Knight, Amulet of Cekugob, and "Brilliance".
Amulets of dismissal.
Rings of sustain abilities.
Stones of tremors.
The evasion weapon ego.
The Akashic Record.
Artefact blowguns.

Why WoW never had a full-loot server?

I've always found it wierd that WoW never had a server with full loot enabled.
With its large audience I am sure this server would be full of players.
World of Warcraft has almost everything a MMO needs - excellent setting, epic design, great music. There's even some immersion there if you can find it. I have nothing but great memories of WoW.

So why did not they create a full loot server? At least one? Sure they could do it.

I guess it's just that big companies do not really care about minorities. Hardcore PvP players are a minority. Why even acknowledge their existence, if there's a ton of softcore players out there that are waiting to be spoonfed another shitty expansion?

Duh.

Babysitting whales

Taken from this thread:

When I read your title I was reminded of a dev+ post someone let me look at with their account... one of the high level backer dev+ people were throwing a hissy fit because they couldn't used deeds from other accounts during land rush and a dev called them on the phone and explain and calm them down I guess. if you got access you can prob still go read it if it's still there. Developer Digest Dev+ Section.....DRAFT: Player Owned Town & Lot Selection Sequence Update page 17 and 18.....Yah, high level backers don't get special treatments pffft. A dev actually had to call a whale and hug it out with them, sad. It's all about keeping the whales the little people don't matter. You think they'd given a $45 backer that was upset the same phone call? Newp

So...what's up with SotA?

 Yeah, what's up? Haven't heard anything about it for a while. Not like it's popular outside of their little sect of SJW bodypositive fanboys.

Stumbled upon a thread on reddit. It is 10 months old, yet captures the situation in detail - for those of you who want a quick tl;dr on why SotA is shit. Enjoy the read. Meanwhile I'll try to find more detailed reviews.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MMORPG/comments/3z17iu/discussion_what_are_you_opinions_about_shroud_of/


Here are some more quotes from around the /r/shroudoftheavatar subreddit.

The community is loving but also crazy. They champion things that benefit them but are really bad for a sandbox game.
The game was a mess ever since they tried to cater to PvE, PvP, offline, Singleplayer and MMO players/aspects all at the same time. Just a colossus conflict of interest that is impossible to balance.

Well said. I was one of the early backers who poured almost a thousand dollars into plots for me and my wife. I was drawn in by the Ultima legacy and dreams that were never realistic, and I just drank the kool-aid.
And then, when there was a game available to play, I was deliriously excited and logged in and got going. But I kept wondering when it would become fun. It was lifeless, pointless, klunky, with incessant zoning and the longest load times I'd ever experienced. I kept rationalizing that "it's alpha", "it's beta". The card combat system was unbelievably stupid, taking something that already annoys everyone, RNG, and making combat dependent upon it. What a collosally dumb move. When I spoke up in the forums, I was shouted down by the true believers and whales who were ecstatic about their expensive player towns and their RP events. Dancing on tables and singing songs was ... interesting, but in the end there was no fun to be found.
I was a lucky one. I saw the trainwreck coming early and sold off both our accounts and lots and actually got my money back. This, of course, is possible because the game actually tolerates Real Money Trading.
What a disaster, what a waste. At least I got out undamaged.

Gaming for me is a social thing more than a hobby. Especially the excitement of being in early and helping to build something.. The same as Star Citizen, or Crowfall.
I have invited friends to those games and they have joined.. with Sota they recoiled in horror - And nothing I have described is because the game is "unfinished"... Pay to win cash shop trash, for example, is not a temporary development issue - it is a sign that things are very very wrong with the payment model. Is that likely to change?

they can't even figure out what they want their targeting system to be, much less make a fun and balanced pve/pvp experience. Was supposed to be in beta 2+ years ago, but is still in pre-alpha (with a persistent world.) There is just so much wrong.
I re-installed when i caught wind of the patch notes saying they added a bunch of skills and did a bunch of work on balancing combat. Come to find out the skills they added were mostly meaningless passive or stat buffs, and terrible heals in spell trees that made no sense, along side one lackluster riposte ability.
Subsequently I uninstalled. I'll give it one more go after "final" release, just to know for sure, but as a long time fan of Ultima Online and the cut-throat, cold world, I don't think this game will ever quench the thirst for "UO 2."
SoTA is a disappointment.