When I think of what Second Life reminds me of, I hark back to those old sci fi films of the late 70's/early 80's.

Like this oldie but a goodie.

Little Screen

On January 14,  Avatar Reality issued a statement that it was restructuring.  They will now concentrate on the mobile market (Ipads, Iphones etc).  In essence they will offer avatar talking heads to customers by using the one single element in Blue Mars that was a failure.

I'm not happy that AR has a hit a wall with Blue Mars.  When the world first appeared, I was disappointed that they did not choose to use technology that could run on an Apple (ironic to say the least).  But after a semi-upgrade in hardware, I was able to use Blue Mars and see pluses in it's favor.  Blue Mars is a VR place built on cutting edge technology.  It was beautiful to look at and explore.  All of it using a graphics engine that until recently, was only used in action games.

I have a few ideas of where the stumbling blocks occurred.  As others have stated before, the hardware needed to run the game was really out of most people's price point.  Right away, the AR team cut themselves off from the average George and Jane who were into Second Life and other VRs.  Blue Mars could only be comfortably run by hard core gamers who had the hardware.  As seen continuously in Second Life, hard core gamers HATE Second Life with the passion of a thousand burning suns.  Even an alternative to Second Life with gorgeous graphics wasn't going to change their tune.  Looking to profit with a small slice of a tiny subculture within another small subculture wasn't really a road to success.

The world was released too early, it never developed beyond a test pattern.  The browser itself never progressed to gold stage/release ready.  It began and ends it's life in beta.  This hasty release after an intriguing promotional campaign indicated to me the lack of a solid business plan.  It seemed as if AR was confident enough in the wow factor of their crytek graphics engine (which runs the game Crysis) that people would come en masse into their world.  They put the kabosh on a fully interactive building option for all Blue Mars players and only allowed it for professionals/professional grade graphic designer hobbyists.  So the people who did make the leap into Blue Mars were only allowed to passively walk around pre-made environments.  Even then they could not take screenshots of these places.  The browser had been released with just basic functions without an option for screenshots.

All of this was unfriendly to say the least.

But the one big failure was the world's avatars.  The avatars could not be modded with any degree of personal preference.  Eventually there was an ad hoc option to change the facial characteristics of avatars but nothing with fine control.  The avatars themselves were obviously the fantasy work of a core group of designers.  Designers who had specific preference foibles that got in the way of user enjoyment.  I read recently some of the team behind the BM avatars were a part of making that "Final Fantasy: Spirits Within" film. That answered a lot of my questions regarding these avatars.  Blue Mars avatars look like extras from the Final Fantasy film. Avatars that were plastic and a bit frightening.  So hyper-real that they jumped the shark into unreal.  At the end there were more designers who created skins and eyes to overlay over the default BM avatars.  But their work couldn't erase the problems inherent in the avatars.  Mainly that their shape couldn't be modded by their own users.  I tried valiantly to work through these problems with the help of professional purchases.  But no matter what I did, my avatar's face always seemed a bit cross-eyed.  I never could figure out why that occurred.  The fact that AR thinks these avatars will attract average people after they were such a bomb with VR users worries me.  It indicates to me that they still don't have any kind of plan going forward.  They are just grasping at idea wisps.



At about the time I wrote my little post about Blue Mars, Avatar Reality was in the process of marketing a "cloud computing" option for their world.  The graphics would all be rendered on their end then piped through to the user.  It was impressive but it left a lot of unanswered questions.  Mainly who would have to pay for all that computing power and bandwidth cost?  Blue Mars was essentially a free to play world.    There wasn't even a large enough economy inside the world to support this new option.  Talk about this breakthrough disappeared around the holidays and then the January restructuring was announced.

Right now, the world will be left as is.  AR will no longer charge city developers for their worlds.  The development team for the browser is gone.  If any work is done on the browser, it will be only for dire bug fixes.  However I'm not too confident that this will last too long.  If AR is successful with their phone plan, they will cut off the world as unneeded fat.  If AR is unsuccessful with their new plans, the BM world will end.  It doesn't look good.  But I'm still hoping that they can pull through.

Tom Bombadil's Theme - Lonely Mountain Band

A fanvid and fan cover of one of my favorite songs in LOTRO.  I have this playing in my game house.

Auction House: Money Never Sleeps

A consistent theme I see on various game forums is the issue of prices on goods listed on the Auction House.  Mainly, how expensive and inflated the game economy is at any given moment.  I'm not without some sympathy for this minor problem.

When setting up in any mmorpg, there is a getting settled, learning curve to get over.  One of those bigger learning curves is learning the game economy.  I always go through a period where it seems I never have enough game money.  Eventually, after going through growing pains, I take a look at the auction house.  Especially how it handles pricing on items related to my game profession.  Then my money problems are solved.

This doesn't take long to learn.  It just takes a bit of patience.  So that is why I'm baffled when other gamers cry poor church mouse and demand that price controls be instituted.  I'm no monetary genius.  I'm not sitting in front of my computer with a million Excel spreadsheets open on my monitor tracking the game economy.  Believe me, most games aren't EVE Online.  However even the time I spent in EO, I made enough money to purchase ship insurance and buy upgrades.

Game economies are simple to understand.  They are basic commerce in action.  Which is why economists love to study them.  All any gamer has to know in regards to any game AH is this simple, Ben Franklin idea:

Time is Money

Or as Karl Marx in Das Kapital states:

Commodity - Money - Commodity

What you see on any game AH is a collection of goods related to game professions.  Some of these goods have already been valorized and can be purchased as a useful item such as a weapon, armor or tool.  The game auction house is also chockful of luxury items such as game pets, housing decorations or cosmetic costumes.  All of these items will be priced accordingly to how hard it is to gather the items or how rare they are inside the game.  The more rare the more expensive in game money.

One of the topsy, turvy results in game economies is that frequently crafted items are considerably cheaper than the basic items used to make them.  I believe this is related to the leveling nature of these professions.  Most gamers are so intent on leveling these professions in order to access the rare, more expensive recipes that the basic recipes used for leveling are cheap.  Since the focus is on gaining experience in professions, the basic ingredients of any profession hold more value than the basic goods produced.  That is why you will see a gathered items such as wood, metal or leather costing more in a game's AH then an item made from those materials.

Once you understand this basic underpinning of any game AH, you will make money.  So just go out and gather those basic ingredients.  Most gamers will like large stacks of items.  Hence a stack of 20 or more logs of wood, or metal pieces will sell faster than just small odd numbers.

Now many of the complaints against the pricing of profession ingredients is that they are inflated.  The complainers state that these gathered items are available all over, so they shouldn't sell for much on the AH.  But they fail to understand is that they are paying a markup for the seller's time.  Anything listed on a game's AH required the potential seller to take time out of his/her game to gather said items.  Or they required the seller to run a difficult dungeon which also cost them time as well as game fees to fix armor etc.  Now the argument that these items are ubiquitous is true.  So that is all the more reason to go out and do some gathering.  But since these gamers do not want to spend the time to do so and search for convenience instead, I don't understand why they complain about paying for those services.

Another complaint is that AH sellers are taking advantage of other players by monopolistic, gouging policies.  This is just ridiculous.  The majority of people just do what I do, check the going price for items on the AH and price accordingly.  We aren't tracking the game economy with a stock market like add on.  Not to say there aren't gamers out there who aren't doing that.  They are, but their effect on the game economy is rather miniscule.  They may cause inflation of one item or another for a short time but not so much it hurts the game.  And if it turns into something truly abusive, the GMs look into it.  Believe me, the smarter players quick in exploiting arbitrage opportunities are gone in a flash.  The people caught in price bubbles are the fools who were pulled into the Arbitrageur's wake.

A game's AH is a pure, voluntary experience.  No one is forcing any player into using it.  For those who think the AH is a fool's paradise, they sell direct on the trade channel.  In essence running a black market.  But unless a player knows the prices on the AH, they won't know if they are getting good deals or over paying.  Instituting price controls on AH will do nothing to stop what is conceived as inflation.  People will move to where they can make money.  If it can't be for basic gathered items, it will be for something else.  You can't stop people from assigning value to game items.  Its the nature of the beast.

So how do you make enough money to make a decent living for your game toon in any game?

Sell stacks of copper, silver, gold or any other mining metal.  In all the games I've played, I've noticed that the mining based professions were always the most popular and consequently their basic ingredients all commanded a nice amount of game money.  I guarantee that if you sell the basic materials for mining, within a week or two, you will have enough game money to keep the wolf away from the door for your game character.

Simple, no?  Which is why I don't understand all these complaints from gamers who cry that they have no game money or can't afford anything on a game's AH.  I suspect most of them are really trying to experiment with whatever monetary philosophy they hold dear at the moment.  They complain so much about being at the mercy of AH sellers that they don't see the policies they want (such as convoluted Player market stalls or price controls) as being equally controlling.

Luckily most games keep the Auction House going with little interference from players personal economic opinions.

Kung Fu Pandaren

I don't get the Pandaren joke in WoW.  But I did get the pet created for a charity drive.

This video was featured on WoW insider.

Warhammer Woe

I'm not a PvP fan.  Let me be clear about this fact.  I don't PvP in any game except for Warhammer Online.  For whatever reason, WAR made player versus player gaming feasible for me.  I did try this form of play in Warcraft.  But that game's emphasis on it's arena system was a clear move to inhibit casual players.  Warhammer Online with it's fantastic warband system was perfect for hardcore and casual gamers alike.

And I do emphasize "Was".

Because with the latest patch update, the factor that made casual playing easier is gone.  Instead of finding more ways to open up the RvR system, the developers locked it down further.  They took away the influence aspect toward zone lockdowns.  I didn't mind when the PvE requirements or Scenario requirements were jettisoned.  However those changes made the game dependent on large groups to hold objectives and gain skirmish points.  Clearly, on unbalanced servers, this made it harder for the smaller faction to win anything.  The long awaited 1.4 patch was an effort to rebalance the problems.  But it has only accelerated the zerg factor.

Another problem that cropped up, previously only seen during city sieges, was closed, alliance guild only warbands.  Because the changes require a more pointed offense toward claiming keeps and keep sieges most players will now only undertake this with their guild and affiliated guilds.  The few times I've logged on since the patch change, I check the war update option, go to the highest populated area then check for open warbands.  There are none.  Believe me they are in existence and clearly trying to gain objectives, but they are private.  These warbands use private channels and rarely update stray groups and players as to what they are doing in game.  Many use the argument that you can gain more experience through ganking.  That can be true, but it really only works if you are on the underdog faction.  As a destruction player that is a rare occurrence on my server.

So now with less ways to gain renown experience (no rr points for objectives or keep sieges now), practically no way to join a warband (unless a casual one opens up), gaining those extra levels to 100 is a grind.  My Sorceress was at RR66 and I was looking forward to end cap.  But now with 34 slow levels ahead of me, I'm throwing in the towel.  I cry uncle.  Already I'm seeing an even more ridiculous imbalance between players who are closer to 100 end cap and new players to Tier 4.  There is just no way on this green earth a player below RR60 can make a dent in this game.  The old arguments of skill bridging that big of a gap in levels just doesn't work anymore.

Warhammer Online is now no longer casual friendly.  The new patch dearly needed a new tier to separate the post RR80 players from the lower levels.  But I don't think this will ever happen.  The game is on a skeleton crew development wise as it is.  And I don't see EA infusing more cash into this game.  Its a shame really.

Please keep your hands and feet safely in the vehicle at all times!

So, around the end of November I received a free week offer from Blizzard.  This was right around the time when the Azeroth was going to be torn asunder.  I took them up on that offer.

During that time, I decided to work on my Warlock (essentially the first character I rolled in WoW) and got her up to level 80.  The recent patches before the Cataclysm quickened the pace of leveling in Northrend.  My warlock was high level before I could blink.  During that time, I found I enjoyed playing again.  This time I was more relaxed because I swore I wouldn't start the gear grind again.  I changed my Warlock's spec from demonology to affliction.  The dungeons I ran her through were relaxing with fellow puggers who weren't hard core.  Most likely because they were working on Alts as well.

I caught the tail end of the elemental invasion which caused more annoyance than entertainment.  Everyone received what gear they needed from these raid like mini-games, so no one bothered to fight the invaders anymore.  That caused the cities to be needlessly closed for about 15 to 30 minutes every few hours.  At least they created portals so low levels could get out of the area without being smashed.  However the event was nowhere near as satisfying as the zombie invasion of Lich King.

Then the Cataclysm hit.  To get the feel of the full changes I rolled new characters on Horde and Alliance.  I created an Undead Hunter and a Night Elf Mage.  I must admit that the new quests in the once older sections were much better.  The leveling more smooth and the difficulty levels a little more even.  I remembered the Undead areas used to go from a difficulty rating of 3 to 10 all in one jump.  It was wild.  The Night Elf area was much worse.  But the new expansion fixed all of that craziness.  The quests are still the same, but the harder ones now give an NPC companion to help out.   Classes that used to have to grind for their pets (Warlock and Hunter) now get basic companions from the start.  Which makes the play much easier.  I quickly ran through the new gnome start area which was sickeningly adorable.  But I enjoyed it.

The most impressive change was the city of Orgrimmar.  Which is no longer a place of tent bazaars but metal clad stone buildings and huge zeppelin towers.  The new factor of Orgrimmar became a point of contention on the forums between Horde and Alliance players.  Alliance players stating that Horde players practically received a whole new city while Stormwind looked the same.

When the official release of Cataclysm occurred (I just ordered the basic internet download), I rolled both Goblin and Worgen characters.  That is where my enjoyment became a bit dampened.  Don't get me wrong, the new zones and toons were very nicely done.  I saw elements in the game play that were taken from other games such as WAR and LOTRO in terms of progression techniques and a bit of art work.  But nothing that would scream out plagiarism.

However, the goblin area in particular just seemed to be one big lampoon of the current popular culture.  Which I don't think will age too nicely.  The Worgen area received a more loving touch with very Lovecraftian themes.  What I didn't like about the new areas (and also the 80-85 areas) was the extensive use of cut scenes.  These new cut scenes don't cause me to feel excitement for the storyline.  They took me out of it.  They froze my character for a minute or two and took control of my game play.  It made me feel as if was inside a Disney World ride and I was just watching the game from the safety of my buggy.

So will I return like the prodigal gaming daughter to the Blizzard fold? No, I don't think so.  I paid for three months of the new expansion.  But I don't see anything for me in Warcraft at the moment.  But I'm an old, washed up WoW has been/never been.  The game is really for MMORPGs newbies.  And if this is the first game of it's type that a new player could pick up, then they could be nothing but impressed.  Azeroth is accessible and enjoyable.  The graphics are cute (although a lot of hardcore gamers complain of their simplicity).  The leveling is simple and non-stressful.  There are some jokes in the game that I think are more than a bit offensive but I think most would overlook them. It is a matter of taste after all.

So yes, I would still recommend WoW as a game for most would be players.  There is still nothing else like it in terms of brand and gaming accessibility.