The purpose of a guild charter

The new Star Wars MMO is about to go live (Early access starts tomorrow, full access a week later).  To say my friends and I are excited would be substantial understatement.  We have a guild ready to go live at launch.  Its a small guild, only 5 individuals or so.  I expect we will be recruiting, since we expect to need 8 for a raid.


During the last year and change, I attempted to assemble a raiding guild in World of Warcraft.  While I had played in several guild before, I had become extremely frustrated with the horridly inconsistent "leadership" that I found in other guilds.  Unfortunately, my efforts were also inconsistent, I never felt the guild was really ready to recruit outsiders.


In reality, I think this was part of the problem: I was unwilling to let strangers into the guild until I felt like I could control and separate them from the guild members I knew personally. One of the reasons I felt I didn't have the appropriate control was the lack of a complete guild charter. 


In the real world, a charter lays out an organization's rules and purpose.  Due to the variation of purposes of organizations IRL compared to in a MMO, it is more important for IRL organizations to have a unity of vision to be productive.  Also, IRL, the charter is important so organizational rules are explicit for legal reasons, and provides explicit expectations of individual responsibilities and a framework within which punitive measures may be taken against organization members that fail to fulfill their responsibilities. 


Having a clear purpose for a player-created organization is important to provide focus for the guild.  However, since there is substantially less variation in purposes of organizations in an MMO.  Therefore, the the greater value of a charter for an in-game organization should follow the latter of the two purposes described above: making explicit the responsibilities and expectations of the organizational members, and the charter should strive to accomplish these goals.  With an appropriate charter in place, one that does a fair and equitable job of dividing the responsibility of running the guild, members will be informed about what is expected of them.  Furthermore, punitive measures taken by the leaders of the guild against members in violation of the charter will appear to be legitimate and measured instead of arbitrary.


As we move forward, and we refine our charter, I hope to post more about its contents and changes that are made to it.  For now, I need to get to sleep and hopefully be productive tomorrow.


/endofline

Flashpoint, in review

Well, its ended up being a busy week, but I'm finally able to post again.  As promised in my last post, I would talk about the Esseles flashpoint in TOR that me and some friends played through the last night of the server load beta.

Our group consisted of a Sage 10 (myself), a Gunslinger 19+, a Jedi Sentinel 10, and a Trooper 9-10.  I healed, the sentinel tanked.  Obviously, the difficulty of the encounters had to have been massively skewed by the high level dps from the over leveled gunslinger.

I am very, very impressed.  Overall, the tone of the flashpoint felt like it was something straight out of one of the movies (along the lines of the escape from the Death Star, or the attack on Jabba's sail barge).  There were lots of opportunities for wise cracks or serious lines from our characters, and plenty of action between social interaction scenes.  It felt that both sides of the encounter, the combat and social encounters) were important parts of the instance.

Starting the instance was a bit of a chore: it seemed that there was some glitch in the conversation to start the instance told us some members (and not which ones) were ineligible to participate in the encounter. 

I liked the flow of the instance: 

• an intro
• some combat
• a social encounter to establish the premise
• more combat
• a story path decision
• more combat
• a boss fight (Ironfist, or whatever his name is looks more intimidating WITH a beard)
• a slight change of location
• 2 big boss fights
• optional boss
• and a fInal light-side/dark-side choice to wrap things up

The combat felt pretty typical for what I would ahve expected out of an MMO "Dungeon".  Small groups of enemies with somewhat complementary abilities.  Usually it was one strong or elite enemy surrounded by a group of regular units.  I'm not sure what the other players were doing, or how aggro was being held, but as healer, my job was fairly straight-forward.  At level 10 I had exactly ONE heal: Benevolence.  I would typically start by running into combat, and downing a few of the minor enemies, while watching the parties health bars.  If anyone got to low, I would spam them up to 80-90% health.  A few times, their health bars got lower than I was comfortable with, but I don't think anyone died during an encounter. Having meditation/reload really helps to keep the pace fast between fights, and giving EVERYONE a revive prevents slowing the group down for a long corpse run.

I believe the entire flashpoint took about an hour, and I'd guess we spent about 2-3 minutes in combat to every 1 minute we spent in a social encounter, which is a good change up. I REALLY like a flashpoint/dungeon/instance of this length, it feels like you've accomplished something when you've completed it.  I really hated the "Speed run" 15 minute wrath dungeons, and I hope they don't bleed over into TOR.

THe lewt the bosses dropped seemed pretty standard "blue"/"rare" quality gear, better than random drops, close to what was produced by big group quests.  I really hope there are some more clever names for the armor in the final release, though.  Every boss drop was named "Esseles Counselor Gloves" or "Esseles Smuggler Jacket".  

Long story short, it's more than enough to keep me hopeful, as long as a they fix the few bugs at the start of the instance, and they actually give appropriate names to the gear drops.

That's all for now.  I expect my next post soon, either discussing the value of a guild charter (currently writing one for the new guild) or about some microtransaction/post-launch premium ideas I think TOR should implement.

/endofline

On Star Wars: Galaxies

With the impending release of The Old Republic, I've found myself thinking more and more about the SOE's previous (and, truly, failed) attempt at a Star Wars MMORPG: Star Wars Galaxies.  One reason this is on my mind is that I've been explaining the old system (especially the "one character per server" rule) to a variety of individuals; mostly players who were too young to have played the game.  Another reason is because of a recent a article about the loss of ingenuity and stagnation of MMORPGs, which mentioned SWG as one of the most ambitious launches to date.  This may indeed be true. SWG was indeed an ambitious game, and it expected a lot from its players.  Maybe too much.

Let me take an aside to make quick statement:  It is not my goal here to explain and dissect why SWG failed.  There were a LOT number of reasons and a LOT of places things went wrong.  I only intend to address line of thought here: The conflict between the game economy and story progression.

On the surface, these two concepts don't appear to be related.  

Story progression should occur when the character pursues in game quests and activities that progress a narrative that the player, at least nominally, feels they are playing a part in.  Typically, this consisted of hunting down troopers of the opposing faction, and bouncing around the worlds.  These missions almost always involved combat.  The story that was included in the game was incredibly sparse by these standards.

Game economy, in SWG, was nearly completely run by the players.  There were some NPC vendors, typically for the players to vendor trash to and make some credits.  Almost nothing of value was sold by NPC vendors.  Characters improved their crafting and learned to craft better items by crafting to gain crafting experience.  Characters could also become merchants in the same fashion.  Ground vehicles and even starships were crafted in this way as well.  Training was also intended to be done by players; to reach the master level of each class, you had to spend apprentice experience earned by teaching skills to lower level players of your class.  

In today's games, players can craft and gather materials while they progress the story via questing.  They may need to take time away from questing to return to a social hub to use a crafting station (an anvil, loom, or some other shit), but the pursuit of improving your crafting skills at worst minimally interfered with questing, and at best equipped with improved gear and improved your combat ability.  And really, your ability to pursue your crafting was independent of your combat abilities.  


However, In the SWG skill system, you had to choose to allocate your skill points (of which you had a limited pool of a fixed size), into abilities in different classes, meaning you could "spec" into being a merchant, or into improved combat abilities.  But not both at the same time.  This flexible skill system not only tied together a players combat abilities (used to pursue quest objectives) and their crafting abilities (used to power the economy), but made them mutually exclusive.


In retrospect, this reminds me of some problems that came into old pencil and paper systems, where the designers attempted to balance classes with weaker combat abilities by improving their non-combat abilities.  While this might seem balanced "on paper", it makes for fucking dull game play.  


So in the "ambitious and innovative" SWG system, to power the economy, some players were forced in to dull game play.  And while some individuals may enjoy a "free market, craft-and-sell" game, it never would have been enough to support a server.  


Ultimately, this was one of a number of failings of SWG that led to its ultimate demise.  There were problems at launch, and while some of the solutions to these problems were appropriate, other were very far from the mark.  I stopped playing some time between Jump to Lightspeed and Rage of the Wookies (yes, "Rage of the Wookies" was the actual name of the expansion), so I can't comment on everything that happened.


All this was a set of realizations that fell into place as some of the bits were floating around upstairs in random access.  Now its been compiled, and can be flushed from cache.


In other news, this evening we finally got a group together to for an SWTOR flashpoint.  I hope to have the impressions from that up soon.  The server load beta is done for this weekend.  Hopefully it'll go open beta soon, but really, 15.Dec big date we're looking forward to.  Good ol' early access.  

I think that's it for now.  I'll catch you all again soon.

/endofline

The little things

Instead of working on Landscape Genetics today, I kept playing SWTOR's beta.


My parents would be so proud.


Anyway, I've now leveled the following characters to the following levels:


Trooper 11
Conselor 10
Bounty Hunter 7


I loved the Trooper storyline.  Its got a great twist at the end of it that I can only assume sets up the REST OF THE GAME for the class.  Its great, and I won't ruin it for anyone who wants to play.


The play on the Bounty Hunter was a blast.  Literally.  One of your initial abilities is the classic Fett "wrist rocket".  When you hit a standard enemy, it can blow them over, knock them down, and stun them momentarily.  If you KILL someone with it, their limp body/chassis/bits fly 3 to 5 meters.


IT. IS. GLORIOUS.  The play style is endlessly entertaining.  The story line there is solid, too.  It also has some good twists you'd expect from the typical scum and villiany that inhabits Nal Hutta.


The Counselor play style is good, by comparison I suppose its a little bland compared to the others, but that not saying much, considering how flashy Troopers and Bounty Hunters are.  The big push back ability is fun, but with limited use without a lot of big damage ranged abilities to take advantage of it.  The end of the Tython story line was very satisfying, and the twist that came afterward I actually expected sooner.  


There are a few other points I want to touch on here tonight.


The Legacy system


I actually stumbled on this, and it sounds like its old news.  Your "Legacy" will basically be your character's last name or family/clan/house/whatever identifier.  From what I read, it will be unique, self-chosen, and game wide (Across any and all servers).  The name you choose can be listed as a last name, below your name, as "the xyz legacy", or hidden.  So apparently you CAN choose a last name in the game, and my previous post was wrong.  You have to finish the first story tier.  I'm looking forward to this.  This SHOULD allow an anonymous method for cross server, User-to-user communication, a proxy for what the "RealID system" provided us in WoW.  


The Social hub


This was very well designed.  The social hub for the Republic (and, I assume, Sith) is a large space station.  To speak in terms of WoW, This will be the Stormwind/Ironforge for the Republic.  Initially speaking, its VERY well designed.  The social "hub" is literally just that.  The entire station is laid out as a large wheel, with most of the utility areas (Crew skills, class training, auction house, transit) along the rim, connected in the center by a cantina: literally, a "social hub".  The layout should make it very convenient and accessible.  


Sharding servers


Apparently, all the zones are instanced, or "sharded".  Even within the servers.  This was used by STO to allow all users to play on the same super-server.  I was NOT expecting this.  The good news is this means that zones can be kept to reasonable populations by adding more instances to the zone ad hoc to support the population.  The bad news is this sharding can separate players and friends.  You can still communicate between shards with general chat and whispers, but actually joining your friends' instance requires an entire reload of the zone.  Personally, I have found these loads to be fairly lengthy.  In the long term, I worry that random grouping may be discouraged across shards due to the time involved in the load for the new players.  Time will tell how this plays out.


Group quests and world bosses


I simultaneously loved and loathed the group quests in WoW.  They were a pain in the ass during leveling, but I was surprisingly disappointed to see them go in Cataclysm.  In SWTOR, they called "Heroic" quests, and they seem to provide bonus gear, but haven't yet been required to move the story forward. 


I'm also pleased to see that world bosses have been added.  They're scattered around, and I've found some as early as level 6.  Get a group together, and these can be fun.




Well, I think that's it for now.  I believe we'll be running a flash point tomorrow, we'll see how things go.


-Tris

Advanced classes

Well, Now I'm a bit concerned.  I just hit level 10 and selected my advanced class on my trooper (I went Commando. Giggity).  Anyway, when I was selected, the game dialog made it fairly clear that that your choice is permanent.  Their exact words were "You cannot change your mind, your training is with you until you retire"

What.  The.  Fuck.

One of THE most successful features in MMOs was WoW's addition of a dual specialization.  For anyone not familiar with this, Blizzard added a feature during Wrath where you could pay in game cash for an alternate set of talents.  You could move between the two sets out of combat, and doing so exhausted any "rechargeable" resources your class had (focus, energy, mana, w/w).  Furthermore, you could ALWAYS pay to respec your talents in a class.  It was in the almost from day 1.

If I am reading this correctly, then not only are they not seem to anticipate allowing dual spec'ing for characters, but even if they did, you CANNOT respec into the OTHER advanced class of your class.

I REALLY hope I am mistaken reading this, because otherwise this is a MASSIVE failing on BioWare's part.  They will need to add some way to spec into a different advanced class to allow the same flexibility that WoW currently provides to accommodate instancing and raiding.  It was a wildly successful addition to WoW, and there is no reason it should be so restrictive in TOR.

EDIT: While I can't currently find it, it appears the ability to respec should be available in your skill tree screen, indicating you won't need to visit a trainer to change your spec.  A nice convenience compared to WoW.

Overall Initial impressions so far

I've been playing for about an hour and a half.  I've made it level 5 (I think) and then the game client stopped responding and I had to restart.  

While I'm waiting to get back in, I'll address a complaint that I think people will be screaming about the Old Republic: "It just a WoW clone with Star Wars".  

Well, it is and it isn't.

It's no more a WoW clone than WoW is/was a EQ clone.

The term clone, to me, would indicate that any differences were purely cosmetic.  I wouldn't call WoW "revolutionary", but WoW was a generational improvement over EQ, and TOR is shaping up to be a generational improvement over WoW.  

This game is almost EXACTLY what I would have expected if WoW and KotOR got piss drunk one night, and had a love child.  It looks just like both parents.

This isn't to say that there aren't a LOT of similarities between WoW and TOR.  TOR has certainly implemented a LOT of the improvements that WoW pioneered over the last few years (easy quest logs, quest markers, etc).  It also has some of the problems that I feel WoW developed during cataclysm, namely the way the zone (only played Ord Mantel so far) feels like its "On Rails".  It feels like there isn't much in the way of deciding where to go, your just directed from your quest hub, to the "wilderness" where your quests are, then go back and forth between them, each one at a time.  But these are still the early levels, and hopefully, things will become a bit less... linear as the game progresses. 

Here's hoping

-Tris

Alright, level 3.  First impressions:

This is an awesome game.

Seriously, amazing.  Its classic MMO stuff, but the amount of time and effort that have gone into the quests is impressive.  The voice acting is TOP NOTCH.  

Quest locations are clearly marked, and the interactions are entertaining.

And the aliens don't speak basic.  Nice touch.

The quests take interesting turns.  I just got to the village where I was assigned to meet my contact, to find him KIA.  lets see where this goes...

Alright, I'm going to try to more or less "stream of consciousness" my thoughts on the game as I play without getting too fan-boy on the whole thing.

But seriously I'm freaking GIDDY was the load screen comes up.  This is gonna ROCK!!!

It's small, but I like the animated load icon.

Estimated 5 min wait to get into the Sword of Ajunta Pall server, could be worse.  But it keeps going up...  maybe i shouldn't have watched the full intro (It's just the return to Korriban trailer released about 4 months ago)

Also, the sever selection screen only lists EAST COAST servers, I wonder if thats just what they're load testing, I can't imagine they wouldn't have West coast servers at launch.

Wow, estimated wait times just jumped to over 10 hrs on the two listed servers.

Oh dear, I needed to hit "select" to get into a queue... well, that's some wasted time.

Alright, we're in, but on the whitedash run server, or something, instead of Ajunta Pall I was looking for.

Apparently you can't create a last name.  NOT COOL BIOWARE.

Starting by making a Zabrak Trooper.  I turned up my resolution to desktop native, but seem to be getting some slow down. When I get into the game, I'm going to try to reduce res back down to 1024 X 768.

Ah, the narrative scroll.  Chaos grips the Galactic Republic... THIS is what Star Wars should feel like.  The title on this was "Prologue", it'd be nice to see one of these every chapter.

Hmmm, even on reduced settings I'm not getting great performance here...

It KILLS me how EVERYONE else in my squad has armor.  I get a f***ing jumpsuit...

Gonna tackle the opening areas and post again.

-Tris

Looking forward to this weekend, and back at other MMOs

After months of waiting, we are finally getting a chance to get into the upcoming MMORPG: Star Wars: The Old Republic.  This weekend is my first beta for TOR.  I will likely be creating a republic trooper, a class I have little interest in playing in the full game.  Given the games proscribed emphasis on story telling as a core "pillar" of game play, I want to be surprised when I create my Jedi Knight.  Together with a group of friends, we should have an operation guild from day one.  I suspect that TOR will be replacing WoW as a primary MMO for me, my friends, and a LOT of other people.  [Yeah, I get this isn't news]


I am very excited.


I've been spending time in two other games.  Partly to kill time, partly because their mechanics have come to interest me.  The first is Star Trek Online.  At launch, I purchased a lifetime membership.  Many people said this deal was for suckers, but I feel I got my money's worth, its broken down $10/month to this point.  In January, the game is going free to play, and to encourage micro-transactions to continue revenue flow, they're adding two new, and linked, systems:  Dilithium and Duty Officers.  Dilithium will replace all of the emblems currently in the game.  Dilithium can be earned by performing daily quests, sending your DOffs on missions, and can also be purchased for C-credits from other players via the dilithium exchange.


The duty officers generate dilithium, specific DOff XP, Skill XP, Bridge officer XP, and occasionally other rewards.  And since the DOff's perform missions while you're offline, it allows you to level while offline.  While the underlying purpose of the DOff system is to generate microtransaction revenue (The fastest way to expand your roster of DOffs is to purchase "Booster Packs" from the C-store), it adds a great level of immersion.  Sending these minor officers on these missions and having them come back with materials, and sometimes even wounded, makes your ship feel more alive.  I'll admit, I'm one of those weird gamers that enjoys a certainly level of micromanagement, especially when it improves immersion.   


Taking the game F2P is a great idea, and it will broaden access to the game to any fans of the Star Trek IP.  Increasing the player base will be extremely beneficial to the game.  I really hope it leads to STO becoming a preferred, high quality F2P MMO as an option to other pay MMOs.  The way the dilithium system works allows people to substitute game time with money, but not vice versa, since players can't exchange the C creds in for actual $US.


The second game getting my attention is the Facebook game Heroes of Neverwinter.  I strongly suspect this game is the product of the what was supposed to be the Virtual Tabletop system we were promised with 4th ed, that was later canceled.  Its a good, albeit simple, interpretation of the 4th ed D&D we're all so familiar with now.  There's a lot of room to grow (additional classes, races, level cap, mechanics etc).  But the real gem in this game is the "asynchronous multiplayer" concept.  Adventures assume that you have four party members, only one of which is your own PC.  To round out your group, you may "borrow" characters from your FB friends, and they are under your control during the adventure.  Your friends characters have their gear and skills chosen by their owners, but the action during the adventures where you "borrow" them is up to you.  Its a neat inclusive system that allows for quite a bit of flexibility and allows players to use the time they have when they have it, instead of having to organize "raid night".


That's it for tonight.  I hope to have TOR updates in the next few days, and hopefully a post on my thoughts about WoW, its future, and my future relations with it.

-Tris