Archives for coh category
Filed under: Culture, Game mechanics, Opinion, Academic, Virtual worlds
One of the major problems of a game in which you can do anything is that… well, there’s not necessarily much of a reason to do anything. That’s a Terrible Idea recently had an interesting piece on the difficulty of generating goals and objectives in MMOs, especially in contrast with single-player games where your goals are equally pre-generated. The difference, as the article notes, is that single-player games have individual characters with a large impact on the game world. There’s no issue of making quests compatible with a wide variety of characters of different races and classes, until the individual motivations and goals can no longer fit into the equation. You don’t have anything but the end of content to shoot for.
So what’s the answer? The original post notes that it’s not really possible to reconcile anything but achievement-oriented goals within MMOs due to the fact that the character will still inhabit a static world no matter what you do. Certainly, there are attempts to create larger-scale impacts for individual characters, but so long as every character goes through the same content or has the same opportunities, there’s less of a sense of distinct accomplishment. Player-generated content in games such as City of Heroes offers an opportunity for a different path for each character, but there’s still not much of a difference in the actual process. Procedural generation is also bandied about as a solution to the issue, though it lacks any truly successful implementation at this point. Is there even a solution, or is this simply part of the weakness of the genre?
The trouble with goals in MMOs originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 29 Nov 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted on November 29th, 2009 at 8:00pm by Eliot Lefebvre
Filed Under: academic, city-of-heroes, city-of-villains, coh, cov, cox, culture, game-mechanics, opinion, player-generated-content, thats-a-terrible-idea, virtual-worlds
Filed under: Culture, Game mechanics, Grouping, Opinion, Academic
Back in the day, there were two ways to play most MMOs — you could form a group with other players, or you could stay inside the cities and wait. Those days are long gone, of course, and it’s a rare game that doesn’t allow a player to do quite a bit without the support framework of a group. But there’s a point to be made about what’s been lost in the process, and We Fly Spitfires has an interesting take on how we now have to be pushed and prodded into grouping. There was a time when people were expected to group to complete tasks, but players are increasingly opposed to the idea as more and more becomes possible to solo and we grow less and less patient for finding a group.
Unsurprisingly, Game by Night brings up the obvious counterpoint: that evolving game design has relegated forced grouping to the past. There are more MMO players now than there were back then, and the majority of them started on games such as World of Warcraft or City of Heroes where grouping was only occasionally necessary, and even then only for specific tasks. By removing the requirement, player expectations become different, and there’s no longer a sense from most of the playerbase that soloing should be possible for a majority of tasks. It’s a debate that’s been had over and over through the years, but as the solo play model becomes more and more expansive, it no doubt will be revisted time and again — and attitudes toward it will shift as the playerbase does.
Grouping versus soloing as the genre evolves originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted on November 18th, 2009 at 7:00pm by Eliot Lefebvre
Filed Under: WoW, academic, city-of-heroes, city-of-villains, coh, cov, cox, culture, game-design, game-mechanics, group-play, grouping, mmo-history, opinion, solo-play, world-of-warcraft
Subject: The Yellow Mask
Real Name: Manin McCabe
Other Aliases: None
Place of Birth: Atlas Park
Marital Status: Single
Height: 5? 11″
Weight: 187 lbs
Known Powers: The Yellow Mask uses a sonic resonator to various effect. By humming through his resonator at a specific frequency, he can reduce the effects of gravity upon himself and achieve super speed. The Yellow Mask has also mastered the techniques to use his resonator to break down the defenses of an enemy with his sonics as well as create a protective force field for his allies. As far as offensive capabilities, The Yellow Mask carries a rifle which I believe to be a prototype of the rifle carried by Van Roy.
Case Log: The Yellow Mask is one of the soldiers for the 7th Egg Dynasty. The missions he is sent to achieve are more of general chaos in nature. He tends to do things to stir up trouble between the various villain groups in the Rogue Isles. The Yellow Mask is a disturbed young man.
Upon further research I discovered that he is indeed the son of the Crimson Scarf. Crimson Scarf was the hero that patrolled Galaxy City for years and vowed to clean up the Hollows one day. The hero community has never solved the mystery of his disappearance in 2006. This case is still open within Longbow.
Once I spoke to The Yellow Mask he was friendly enough to tell me many pieces of information. This is how I found out about his father. The Yellow Mask also told me his real name, which is Manin McCabe. Using his name, I was able to find out the history of this deviant. Manin is currently 20 years old and has a high school education. He was working a series of part time jobs before his father disappeared. When the Crimson Mask disappeared, his mother began dating a strange man. This individually wore yellow suits and hats all of the time and had a curious pet chimpanzee. This chimpanzee would get into all sorts of trouble which many found adorable. Manin took advantage of the chimp and manipulated it into stealing the his prototype assault rifle as well as the sonic resonator. The Yellow Mask was not born yet though.
Manin used these items in the brutal murder of his mother’s boyfriend. He stole the man’s yellow clothes and hats and was reborn as Manin The Yellow Mask. Manin kept the chimpanzee but had no idea what to do with it when he fled to thr Rogue Isles. The Good Egg found them lurking around Mercy Island and brought them into the 7th Egg Dynasty. Manin was convinced by the Good Egg, to let Muerto Diablo and Van Roy experiment on the chimp.
In reviewing Manin’s history I found that he has been troubled since he was a child and inflicted pain on small animals and classmates alike. It is my belief that he was acting out against the good his father was perfoming in the world. When the time comes I should have little trouble subduing this threat.
Posted on November 14th, 2009 at 11:40am by [email protected] (The Games Are Evil Family)
Filed Under: PC Gaming, city-of-heroes, city-of-villains, coh, features, pc
Do you sometimes wish that when everybody is kung fu fighting they didn’t all look so alike? NCsoft seems to feel the same way, because they’ve now made available the City of Heroes Super Booster IV: Martial Arts for ten bucks. Yes, now when you’re fighting foes with malicious martial intent you’ll look “spiffy” and whatever other adjective you feel like tossing into the equation. The booster comes with more than costume pieces, however. It also contains ninja-theme costume change animations and a ninja running power. There’s also two new emotes for roleplayers, who tend to be the biggest emote fans.
This makes the fourth booster pack since the original (or microtransaction bundle, if you like) for City of Heroes and you can bet there will be plenty more as long as these continue to sell. Our guess for the next addition? Mutants would be a safe bet; mutants or zombies.
Filed under: Super-hero, City of Heroes, News items
Get your Kung Fu on in City of Heroes originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted on November 12th, 2009 at 6:00pm by Kyle Horner
Filed Under: booster-pack, booster-packs, city-of-heroes, coh, cox, kung-fu, martial-arts, micro, microtransaction, microtransactions, ncsoft, paragon-studios
No one was expecting the current 900-pound-gorilla of the MMO market to throw its hat in the ring regarding microtransactions, but the fact that it’s in the mix has forced a large number of people to take a look at the philosophies and patterns of the business model. Killed in a Smiling Accident recently put down some thoughts regarding the differences, explaining that World of Warcraft’s model is, in their opinion, inferior to the one found in the equally-significant microtransaction model of Dungeons and Dragons Online. The former has a store consisting of fluff items with no equivalent in the game, while the latter largely puts forth offerings that can be obtained in the normal game if you want to take the time.
Of course, there’s the obvious counter brought up in the comments: that it’s better to have microtransactions selling something you can’t otherwise get in the game. Simply take a look at Champions Online and the controversy over retcon pricing to see how the two can be better left untethered. Getting something unique is a nice bonus for a game you enjoy — for example, look at the bonus costume packs that City of Heroes sells. However, with items on sale that can be obtained from gameplay, the game can feel a bit more disjointed. There’s a case to be made for both sides, and with the free-to-play model gaining speed, it should be interesting to note where the majority of MMO players draw the line.
Filed under: Business models, Culture, Game mechanics, MMO industry, Opinion
Microtransactions and the splits in philosophy originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted on November 9th, 2009 at 11:00am by Eliot Lefebvre
Filed Under: WoW, blizzard, business-models, champions-online, city-of-heroes, city-of-villains, co, coh, cov, cox, cryptic, culture, ddo, dungeons-and-dragons-online, free-to-play, game-mechanics, killed-in-a-smiling-accident, microtransactions, mmo-industry, ncsoft, turbine, world-of-warcraft
