Account security and gaming: I don't wanna be hacked!

Last week, someone commented on my How to fix WoW article, asking about account security.  Ironically enough, this comment was from a spam bot, but this is a great topic that's definitely relevant to what has happened over the past couple of years.  There are some really easy ways to reduce your risk and minimize the damage in the event your accounts are compromised.  Here's a few tips on what to do.

Preview: MechWarrior Online Closed Beta Impressions

Some of you may have noticed that I've been away for a while and haven't spent much time writing about games.  Part of that was due to the Non-Disclosure Agreement I signed when I started trying a few games.  I've been in the closed beta for MechWarrior Online now for a little bit, and I've been holding back on gushing about it.  That is, until now.  The NDA has been lifted, so there's a lot to discuss on this little gem.  So, without further ado, let's get started!

Scrooge Alert! 10% off Mists of Pandaria!

Buy.com has a 10% off deal for the newly released World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria.  It's $36, down from the MSRP of $40.  Those of you that were thinking about getting it, this might be the tipping point.

How to fix World of Warcraft

In the years since Blizzard released the MMO juggernaut World of Warcraft, the community has seen its share of ups and downs.  In the past year, WoW has shed roughly one million subscribers to various competing MMOs.  Now, with Mists of Pandaria on the horizon, Blizz is banking on more people coming back.  But what if they didn't need an expansion to accomplish this?  What if there were simple things that they could do to bring in more users and subscribers?  Here's my laundry list of ways Blizz can "fix" their aging titan.

The Great Update Revolution: Is it really helping?

One of the modern trappings of video games is updates after a game has been released.  A lot of people cry foul when it comes to this sort of thing, and with good reason.  Online networks can only provide so much in terms of fixing stuff that's broken.  However, there's other underlying issues at play here.  Patches and updates are increasingly used to fix game-breaking bugs, and this is hurting the gaming industry in general.

MMO tropes that need to go part 2

Continuing the story from last week, here's part two of this article.  If you missed the last one, you can read it here.

That's not what I meant by player versus player...

Player versus Player, or PvP, has always been a staple of the MMO genre.  Just about every MMO has their own take on it, and some do it better than others.  Silk Road, for example, relied heavily on PvP for endgame content.  The faction war between merchants, hunters, and thieves made for a highly entertaining experience at the higher levels.  Of course, this wasn't always the case.  There were several occasions where a level 60 or 70 thief would go to the level 14 area (tiger mountain) and spawn tons of attacking mobs that would kill nearby players.  This usually meant a loss of experience, a significant hit to the equipment's durability, and quite a bit of gold in repairs.  For a higher level character, a loss of experience can mean having to grind an additional month or more to level up.

If PvP is going to work, you cannot have a penalty for dying due to PvP, especially in the open world.  Having an arena or specified PvP zone is helpful, especially if the No Death Penalty applies there.  Penalizing someone for being killed by someone 40 levels their senior is just not good planning at all.  Ideally, PvP needs its own arena.  If that's not feasible, enable someone to "flag" themselves as open to PvP, but keep it to players within the same level.  I remember hearing a story about a level 1 fighter in Final Fantasy XI, who was challenged by a level 60+ character to a duel.  People started stopping to watch, just to see if the underdog could do it.  Some white mages started healing the fighter, and black mages stunned/debuffed the higher level character to keep him from attacking.  By the end of the fight, the spry little dude had quite the following.  So I'm told, he actually won the duel, too.

PvP does not necessarily have to be one on one, either.  Before it was shuttered, All Points Bulletin, or APB, had an interesting take on PvP.  The duel system, or whatever they called it, would, on occasion, pair three or more level 20 characters against one level 40 character, where the weaker team would have to use smarts, teamwork, and a little luck to bring down the higher level character.  Game Informer pointed out that this system was actually surprisingly balanced, and the match would be a fair fight.  Go figure.  It would be interesting to see more MMOs approach PvP in this way, and give the underdogs an entertaining fight.

One of the main endgame features for many MMOs is the raid system.  Usually, this involves gathering a group of twenty or so friends to beat the snot out of a huge "boss" monster.  At the end of the fight, the boss will drop a rare item that can only be obtained through that raid.  This can add a sense of community to a game, especially if the raid requires a large number of people.  On the other hand, it also can be the only place where players can obtain some of the best items in game.

One pitfall that MMOs should avoid in this field is the trope of making the high value drops too rare.  If the players need this gear but can't get it in a timely manner, they will get discouraged and give up on playing.  In addition to the grind issues that Silk Road Online had, getting the "good" equipment, known as Seal of Star, was an exercise in futility.  Seriously, it seemed like the game would drop you one every 16 levels or so, if you're very, very lucky.  A mid-30s set of armor would cost 1 Million gold per piece or more, and Seal of Star weapons at the same level would go for 5 to 10 Million gold.  Seal of Moon/Seal of Sun armors and weapons would go for two or even three times their Seal of Star counterparts.  This wouldn't be an issue if it weren't so blasted difficult to earn gold in the game.  You can see why gold farming is so pervasive in Silk Road.  This video captures my sentiments.

 

To be fair, I'm not encouraging game developers to give away the best items in the game willy-nilly.  The current World of Warcraft patch falls to this trope a little too much.  Come to think of it, "Nerf Now!" tackled this very topic when the most recent patch went live. Eventually, those "super rare items" that everybody wants will be so commonplace that nobody cares about them anymore.  Between all the PvP and Raid gear available to the people who work for it, everybody and their mother can have a set of epic equipment.  Purple means nothing anymore.

Thankfully, there's an MMO out there that has elevated this balance to an art form.  Phantasy Star Online kept a fantastic balance of rarity and availability.  The boss fights were challenging, but the rewards were worth it.  They also weren't as ubiquitous as World of Warcraft's current shenanigans.  Sega may have shut down its Dreamcast servers back in 2003, but fans have operated private servers ever since, a testament to the staying power of Phantasy Star Online.  Even the Gamecube and Xbox versions have numerous private servers available for fans of this classic.

The MMO genre has opened up a new layer of social activity to the average gamer.  We've covered a lot of ground over the years, but there's still a lot of work to be done.  Developers should learn from the mistakes of their predecessors, or else we will never see progress.  This concludes part two of my rant.  Do you think there's another trope that should go? Sound off in the comments below!

MMO tropes that need to go Part 1

When in doubt...

I've played many massively multiplayer online (MMO) games in my lifetime.  Some of them were free to play, others required subscriptions.  While I routinely say no game is without its flaws, there are some "tropes" that have developed in the genre that are legitimately hurting it.  Here's a look at what game developers did right, and what others didn't do so well.

Since there's a wealth of information to cover, I'm going to turn this into a two part series.  Part two will go live next week, so stay tuned!

EA's forum ban policy: How much is too much?

EA, what happened to you?

There's an article over on GamePolitics that talks about EA's Origin service and how people banned from the forums are subsequently unable to play the games they paid for.  After reading the comments and linked articles, there's a few sticky topics that I want to pick apart.