Rantings of a Bastard

Seems a massive bug had caused Perfect World to bring down the Neverwinter servers.

What is this massive bug? Well, it seems that you could put things up on the auction house for negative values, and through (I'm assuming) some sort of buffer overflow error, end up with truly spectacular amounts of Astral Diamonds (one of the in-game currencies).

You could then turn around and spend these Astral Diamonds on whatever you wanted to buy (that cost Astral Diamonds, as opposed to other in-game currencies, of which there are several). One of the things you could 'buy' was Zen.

For those who don't know, 'Zen' is a real-money currency you can buy. By real-money, I mean, normally, you have to spend real-life dollars to buy Zen (at a rate of 100 Zen for $1.00). But in Neverwinter, you can also trade Astral Diamonds for Zen, at a fluctuating rate. (I think it maxes out at 500 Astral Diamonds for 1 Zen, but I don't know for sure.) It's pretty much the same sort of thing Guild Wars 2 does with Gems<=>Gold, for those who have played that game.

Anyway, so by exploiting this bug, a player could have millions and millions of Astral Diamonds, when he would then either buy whatever the hell he wanted, or convert to Zen, and then use that Zen to buy things out of the In-game store. (Mounts, companions, trade goods, whatever.)

Thus, they (Perfect World) has brought the servers down to address this problem. And they're considering (maybe) a rollback. All because someone coded the auction house to accept negative numbers.

Yeah, yeah, I know, it's probably a little more complicated than that, but at it's base level, it should have been handled by "if(bid_amount < 0) then 'Fuck off, Charley.'"

Apparently, SWtoR goes free to play tomorrow.

So, Star Wars: the Old Republic, is going free to play, all classes, to level 50 sometime this fall.

The game launched in December of 2011, and less than a year later, it's going free to play. (Apparently, some content will still be subscriber or micropayment locked, but still...)

If the game has a failing (and it does, and currently more than one), it's that the missions that have cutscenes are too overdone. Look, I like the idea of mission cutscenes. It worked well in SWToR, and it mostly works well here. It's more immersive than {INSERT QUEST TEXT BOX HERE} for your World of Warcraft type of games.

However.

Considering that the first combat zone is a zombie-infested island which is pretty much stated/assumed to be in the New England area, could everyone (well, almost everyone) stop talking like a college professor? I don't mean accents. By and large, the actual voices are okay. It's the "Oh, hi there. I'm a local fisherman type, but damn if I don't go on about philosophy or whatever else here." I mean, sure, not everyone in the town is going to be a hick... but damn....

It was almost refreshing to run across the cussing, spitting redneck in the junkyard who didn't quote heavily from a Liberal Arts background. (He also named his junkyard dogs Tango and Cash. So, double-win.)

That being said, if that were the only problem the game has, it could be ignored.

The character creator is, to put it bluntly, in dire need of more options. There's no height/weight slider (yeah, I know, it's still in beta, but it releases in a week and a half.), a lot of the faces need work (although they've resolved what was being called 'monkey jaw syndrome', and the different options for eyes now look mostly normal), and they could really stand to add a lot more starting clothing options.

Now, compared to the relative lack of customization in WoW (all characters of the same race are equally buff, regardless of class), it's still a step up. Looking at it from the amazingly fluid customization of City of Heroes or Champions Online, it needs work. (Although it must be said, for at least Champions Online, getting your character to look the way you want is a task in and of itself... but there's tons of customization.)

Combat is actually fairly fluid. Regardless of what abilities you select (no classes, remember?), you're likely to have a good mix of single-target and AOE damage effects, even if you focus on healing or buffing. (I'm not going to say it's impossible to have no attacks, because I'm sure I'd be proven wrong.) There is no auto-attack though, but that's not as big a deal as it used to be in MMOs. I've actually died more to environmental effects than in combat, including a couple times on one mission where I couldn't figure out a way past the environmental effects and just rez-hopped to safety.

And that brings us to the last major problem, but I want to point out that this is something that really seems like an "it's beta, that's going to be addresssed" thing. Lack of documentation.

For example, I haven't seen anything listing how you're supposed to tell the relative strengths of mobs. If the mob's name is white, is that tougher or easier then red? Or orange? What do those three dots by the mobs name mean? (Well, that one I know. It means that it's part of a mob group.) How does crafting work? (Literally, unless you do this particular mission, which is somewhat easy to overlook, you don't have a clue about crafting. And even that mission doesn't explain everything.) Could I, personally, have overlooked things that would have explained this? Yes. However, at the end of the day, this is something that can easily be remedied by launch. (If it's not.... eh... that could be a problem.)

One last note: Yes, there is PvP in the game. It takes place in specific areas, and when you're in those areas, you're displayed with a costume denoting your faction, so you can't sneak around and pretend to be from another faction. (Given that your clothes offer no stats, it's not like it matters anyway.) The PvP zones are population capped, meaning that at most, only so many of each faction can be in there. There's apparently a 5 vs. 5 vs. 5 zone, a 10 vs. 10 vs. 10 zone, and one HUUUUUGE one that is capped at 100 vs. 100 vs. 100.

And yes, you can earn ability points and skill points in PvP. No idea if it's at the same rate as you earn them by doing missions in the rest of the game world, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was. Some of the very expensive powers practically scream for PvP usage (such as one that makes you briefly immune to crowd-control, and buffs your movement speed and damage.) I fully expect that within a reasonable amount of time after launch will be the first round of PvP nerfs. (What? It happens in practically every other MMO that has PvP.)

Okay, "The Secret World" (hereafter abbreviated as TSW) is the upcoming MMORPG from Funcom.

A couple up-front things.

1) This is NOT a game for kids. That NOT is in big gold letters signed by the Pope (riffing on Yahtzee here). Many cutscenes contain swearing, and not just a shit or a damn. The mighty F-bomb is dropped. A lot. Honestly, I'm surprised the more British NPCs haven't said "Cunts, the lot of them." or something similar.

2) No, really, this is NOT a game for kids. Besides the swearing, there's at least one obviously homosexual NPC, a "you don't get to see it" oral sex scene, and probably worse. And that's just in the faction starting zones and initial gameplay zone. So needless to say, there's almost certainly going to be complaints from parents who didn't bother paying attention to what little Skippy wanted to buy & play.

TSW is a modern-day MMO. By modern-day, I mean taking place roughly now-ish. Instead of magical barriers and wards, and wizards in towers, you have machine guns, and laser grids and snipers. Mind you, you also have the magical barriers and wards, but I still haven't seen any wizards in towers. But when your character can resolve combat with a number of shotgun blasts, or bursts of automatic fire, well, it plays a bit different than a fantasy MMO.

When you create your character, you have your choice of one of three factions: The Templars, the Illuminati, or the Dragons.

The Templars, despite the name, are NOT the Knights Templar. Yes, the Templar cross is used as the faction icon, and yes, they go out into the dark places of the world and fight evil, but that's about the limit of the similarities. They're based out of London, not France or Malta or wherever. They are not 100% Christian, and you're not required to be either. What they are (or what they come across as) are organized, militaristic, and focused on stopping evil. (And the other two factions if they get in the way.)

The Illuminati, despite the name, are NOT the Bavarian Illuminati. For one thing, they're based in New York City. They are about control and power, and why not have fun while doing it? The tagline for them is "Sex, Drugs and Rockefeller." Also, they're very Darwinian, in that if you can't or won't rise to the top, they will happily replace your ass with someone who will. (Although that appears to be more of a role-playing idea, rather then a "you have failed X missions in Y days. Re-roll a new character.) While they go out into the dark places of the world and fight 'evil', they do so more out of a "hey, that's my populace you're turning into zombies!" mindset rather than an "evil must be stopped" thing.

The Dragons, despite the name (hey, look, a pattern) are NOT dragons. They do not turn into scaly, reptilian beasts what fly around and breathe fire. They are, however, Asian-themed, very inscrutable, and believe in the mantra of 'creating chaos to bring about order'. Based out of Seoul, these are the guys and gals who, according to the other two groups, do all kinds of shit with no apparent rhyme or reason, and yet, they seem to be able to get what they need out of it more often then not. One of the early NPCs actually cites the butterfly 'chaos theory' in a cutscene, and that gives a decent early idea of what they're up to. Also note, the Dragon recruiting segment contains the aforementioned oral sex. They go out into the dark places of the world mostly because the Templars and the Illuminati are already out there and they love fucking with those two groups.

Note, you can play a mighty whitey as part of the Dragons, or you can look like a homeless bum and be part of the Illuminati. What you look like has absolutely zero bearing on what you can do. In other words, your character's outfit does FUCK ALL game-wise. Make 'em look how you want.

You might also note that I have mentioned sweet FA about what powers each faction gets. That's because there are no "faction defined" powers. There are also no levels. Or classes (well, sorta no classes.)

As you gain experience (by killing things and finishing missions), you earn AP (ability points) and SP (skill points). You spend the ability points in learning (duh) abilities. These can be anything from more powerful uses of assault rifles, to better sword techniques, to hurling around bolts of lightning and fire. But the only restrictions on what powers you know are (a) what you want to focus on (b) you have to buy the powers in order (to buy funky lighting power 4, you have to buy funky lightning powers 1, 2 and 3 first), and (c) you can only have active (hotbarred) 7 active powers and 7 passive powers at a time. (Although since the passive powers are passive they're not really on a hotbar.)

You can swap out powers whenever you're not in combat.

Skill points are spend on (duh again) skills. There are skills for each of the nine weapon types (blades, hammers, fists, pistols, shotguns, assault rifles, elemental magic, chaos magic and blood magic), which are further broken down into sub-skills for "offense" and "defense/utility", which are raised independently of one another. There are also skills for the three types of gear (occult talismans, major talismans, and minor talismans).

Improving a skill gives you a little bonus of some sort AND lets you equip better gear. If you can't equip a piece of gear, it will tell you why.

What abilities (active and passive) you equip will determine what you can do, and sort of what 'class' you are. Hammers, for example, lends itself to the tanking role more than anything else, while Elemental magic lends itself more to ranged DPS. You can mix and match abilities from different ability types to build hybrid characters and there does seem to be some interesting synergies showing up already. (Elemental/Shotgun is popular, for one.) Please note, that to use ANY abilities from a power type, you need to have a weapon of that type equipped. In other words, you need a shotgun in one of your two weapon equipment slots to use shotgun attacks. That should make sense, but you'd be surprised how many people overlooked that in the beta weekend.

More later... leaving the apartment now.

I look for certain things in MMOs. Oddly enough, playing with others is not that high on my list. This is because, due to the hours I keep (what with working third shift), even people who I know who play the same MMOs are rarely on when I am.

What I do look for are things like the story, and character customization.

Over in Lord of the Rings Online... well, customization is interesting. You can, within certain limits, be a fat dwarf (or more expected, a fat hobbit), or okay, you really can't be an elf with a beer-belly... and due to their wardrobe system, you can dress however the hell you want to, and not have it affect your combat stats. And despite the fact that anyone playing it should know how the story ends, it's a fun game. And it's free (well, free-ish. It's subscriber or micro-payments, but it's pretty damned easy to play a fair chunk of the game without paying a dime.)

Likewise, I keep returning to City of Heroes because the story entertains me. I'm playing a hero, with an array of super-powers. I'm beating up the bad guys (which include Nazi-ripoffs. And anyone who says punching Nazis isn't fun is dead inside. They also probably didn't cry when Littlefoot's mom died. You may want to check if they're a robot.) I'm able to do what my class (in this case archetype) is supposed to be able to do quite well. And the character customization in City of Heroes is immense. This is largely due to the fact that none of the costume pieces are actually gear. It's a costume. I can make my character look the way I want him to look without having to worry about whether this belt or that cape, or the other piece of chest armor has better stats.

This is also why I stopped playing World of Warcraft. In WoW, if you're a particular class, there are maybe two or three "optimal" builds. There are clearly superior sets of gear. If you're not using one of the optimal builds, or don't have the best gear, you can't perform your job as well. It's still possible to do so... it's just harder, and you're going to get outperformed by people who were lucky enough to win a roll, or who have friends or guildies on who can walk them through the tough parts.

Plus, WoW doesn't have anywhere near the customization. Are you playing a male human character? Congratulations, you all have the exact same body type (large and muscular... even the mages), and there's only a dozen or so faces, hairstyles, etc. Same with every race, really. It gets boring seeing a metric shitload of characters who look almost exactly the same because they have the same gear and the same limited options.

It's sort of the same with Star Wars: the Old Republic. Yes, there different body types, and a lot more variety in facial features, scars, tattoos, etc. And with gear that can be upgraded, you can, within limits, pick a look and keep it. (My smuggler rocked the same longcoat from level 20 to level 50.)

But I stopped playing SWtOR because, as in WoW, there are only a couple "optimal" builds for each class, and the story didn't engage me once I got to the end game. Don't get me wrong... they did an awesome job on the story as you level, to the point where I wish there had been an option to keep a major enemy alive, so I could seal him in carbonite. (Vengeance is best served with those who try me left as knick-knacks in my parlour. But I digress.)

But end-game? Go do this raid. And this other raid. And this other other raid. Repeat until you have the super-elite gear and whatever else. Or there's PvP, which since I'm not playing a Jedi/Sith, I seem to get my ass kicked on a regular basis. And it didn't help that several of the people who talked me into getting SWtOR got burned out even before I did.

So, of course, I have a little reluctance when some of these same people are talking up another MMO, called "The Secret World". Sure, it looks interesting. Lovecraftian monsters, conspiracy theories, the Hollow Earth. No classes, no levels, you can change your build out of combat as you need to. Plus, one of the three factions is heavily Asian themed, implying all kinds of martial arts ass-beating. Frankly, if you can make a character that looks like a little old man, it would get me more off of the fence.

I just have to wonder if my friends (who have more disposable income than I do) are going to buy the game, play it for a couple of months, and then move on.

SWTOR had the 1.2 patch go live yesterday. Naturally, something got completely fucked up, and the servers are down today, possibly until 6 p.m.

Completely reminiscent of the old Everquest patches that would basically fuck the servers for the next 24-36 hours.

So, in the upcoming (sometime in April. Maybe.) 1.2 patch for SWTOR, they're adding new gear. There are some pictures here. (First row, second and third columns.)

Some of that gear is pretty cool looking and some.... wtf?

Specifically, in that picture of the Republic classes, what in the name of fuck is that smuggler wearing on her head?

City of Heroes is going 'free to play'.

(Which means free as long as you don't mind this lesser level of support, and here's all these other things available for microtransaction cost. But that shit seems to be working for LoTRO, so.....)