My BF2 morning!

Update: 7 October, 2009 - Removed post. It was only a picture of a winning score from a round of Battlefield 2.

Required reading... "Betas should be about testing"

Darniaq has a great blog post up about how beta testing needs to be about testing and how the industry has strayed. From the article;

"However, this can't be the only part of the beta testing. There needs to be a good back end reporting system too. Forums do not cut it. They may work for a few hundred testers, of which maybe 75% of them would read the forums and 50% actually post. However, when the game starts stress testing the servers, the players will generate much more noise than actual signal on the forums. Most of this noise will be rehashing long standing bugs or incomplete features, requiring even other testers to skim posts so much they may miss something relevant."

Update: 10 Nov, 2006 - Edited post and applied labels.

Now I'm an eBay gold seller...

Update: 5 Nov, 2006 - Removed post, but this will be kept as a placeholder for historical value.

This post contained a picture of a conversation where someone in World of Warcraft accused me of being an eBay Gold Seller.

MO4 discussion links and other updates

Update: 9 May, 2009 - Removed post. This will be kept as a placeholder for historical value.

Originally, this post contained links to various reactions to my MO4 article.

MO4 - Overcomplicated Beta sign ups

Two days and two MOs? You're damn straight.

So what brings us to the topic of beta sign ups? Vanguard's recent announcement of their beta 1! Does everyone see me jumping for joy? My past thoughts on Vanguard:SoH.

Lets start out by pointing out what they did correct with this beta phase. First off they are offering it to community members and not a general sign up for everyone with a net connection. That is the correct way to reward your community. Hopefully they don't just pick Joe Schmoes that signed up just to apply for beta, but I doubt it. Well... that ends the good.

The bad? Where to begin. I guess with what "grinds my gears" the worst. Over complicating the process and giving false hope. Here is a perfect example.

"How will you go about selecting participants?

Once you have submitted your application, your name will be added to a list of potential participants. Each week, we will add the needed number of people from that list. Sometimes, they will be chosen based on our specific needs for testing (for example, we might need more testers that play during a particular time of day) and sometimes, names will be chosen pretty much at random."

So now every new beta application is going to be over stating what hours they play or the person submitting it will try to *guess* the *magic combination* of inputs to produce the highest % chance of getting into beta. Congratulations Sigil; you just flooded your beta application pool with a bunch of false information.

But why even have such a process in the first place? If they honestly think they are going to get any sort of actual *testing* (I use the term loosely) from an over-hyped MMORPG community… they obviously failed basic MMORPG sociology. I could link hundreds of beta leaks and broken NDA contracts, but what would be the point?

What you need to know is the fact that betas are infiltrated by those that want sneak peaks at the game. Definitely not by those that truly wish to test the product. Internal testers and paid testers have proved for years to be able to produce very finished products in the single player market. Apply this to the MMORPG market please! I understand some smaller companies would be unable to fund such testing, but this is Sigil and last time I checked they weren’t short on funds.

Sigil is using this beta as a promotion which is a sad fact. Not only that, but they are overcomplicating the process stealing valuable resources from the game itself. How much work is it to review countless beta applications? I have no solid numbers, but there is no way they can convince me that it doesn’t take away from the game development.

The idea of NDAs is also hard for me to understand. World of Warcraft had no problem without one. Blizzard proved exactly what betas are for… a free pass to view the game. This created a knowledgeable community inside and outside of beta. WoW beta only suffered from too much interest, but Blizzard did a remarkable job of eventually getting 500,000 testers online.

Skip the bullshit Sigil and get to stress testing. Nail down game play, get the game launch ready, and hit the stress test hard. Sigil will be balancing this game as any other MMORPG… over time! If you get the game into a state where it is playable, has a sense of balance, and technically stable… you have a beta. Take all the time it takes to review beta applications and put into reviewing and organizing bug reports.

This isn't about me getting into beta at all, because honestly I have no interest in Vanguard. This is about developers wasting time, resources, and energy on overly complicated beta processes. Make it about the damn game already.

Responses to MO3

MO3

World of Warcraft board warriors unite! Enjoy! Here are some highlights...

"If its on the internet, it must be true.
Its really that no one gives a $!@% about your blog, nor do they want to read it.
You want to make a post about something, post here.
BTW, make a name for yourself in PvP before you comment on how good it is or how much it sucks.
5 minutes in AB doesnt make you a professor on the subject." - Bigbear

"Well, everyone in upper pvp ranks keeps up with each other, that how they knew Razor would get high, they keep pushing till boodah gets it, then mags and tanaki, they take time off so they don't pass each other up, dunno.

Not entering av had a positive outcome on that lol, oh well, there are so many things wrong, I don't care anymore." - Enmity

Time misconception between hardcore and casual gamers...

Lifted from a World of Warcraft .com PvP Forum thread (bad link, removed).

"The problem is there is a misconception here. hardcore and casual player have 0 to do with time invested.

Lets say bob the hardcore decides to get to the top rank. He plays 12 hours a day doing nothing but pvp for 2 months and gets it. Time invested= approximately 720 hours.

Joe the casual decides he wants to go for the top rank, he unfortunately can only play 4 hours a day. He does this for a year. Time invested aprroximately= 2190 hours.

Now the problem is obviously hardcore players invest LESS time to get to the top ranks. Its not that casual players dont play enough, its that there is no option for someone who plays 4-6 hours a day every day (which isnt even that casualy) to have a chance in their entire lifetime to make the top rank because of the way the system works- aka the ladder system.

I am not even going to go into how retarded the ladder system is because it is based solely on hks/honor which means dps classes are the top contenders. Classes arent balanced against each other 1v1 for pvp but somehow they are considered balanced against each other to be competeing in the same ladder." - Spiraldancer

Blizzard never fails to tease!

So, rampant speculation about World of Warcraft's upcoming expansion is all over the net, but then a Blizzard poster has to go and drop this little tidbit on us.

"We're going to be showcasing the starting area of a race. We won't be revealing all our secrets. ;)"- Caydiem

On a side note... anyone notice how fast any thread a Blizzard employee posts in gets to 10+ pages?

My videos @ Google video!

World of Warcraft Videos

I gank...
-Made this video in my mid 40's. Also marks the first time I met my friend Omegalegend (Tauren Warrior).

Die Another Day
-Made the day before I recorded most of the "I gank..." video. This was good practice in how to edit videos via Windows Movie Maker.

A day in the life of Tanglefoot
-Recorded this video out of boredom after an early morning run through EPL.

Counter Strike Source Videos

Two of the Greatest Things Ever
-My pride and joy :) Enjoy!

Battlefield 2 Video

Lets Go
-Just practice with the BF2 recorder.

Update: 5 Nov, 2006 - Applied labels and updated post.

MO3 - The Arathi Basin Cycle of Azgalor

Here is how the cycle works.

1. Alliance/Horde uber guilds form uber 15 man raid with nothing but their highest PvP ranks.

2. Said group owns Arathi Basin 2000 resources to 0 within 5 to 10 minutes.

3. Group leaves and within five minutes they have another Arathi Basin match.

How is this possible?

It is very simple actually. Most players leave a battleground the second they see these hardcore groups enter and then re-queue themselves for a new one. Well this fuels the cycle because now everyone in line is being thrown into the battleground that everyone else is quitting. So quickly the entire line, regardless of how long they were waiting gets into a one sided Arathi Basin slaughter. The cycle repeats and there is so many new people in line that once the uber group is done with the slaughter they simply re-queue and are instantly back where they started.

On top of this since people are cycling through the battleground the uber group can easily get a new battleground because there is no one with an extended waiting period in line… so the uber group is escorted to the front of the line.

Increase the number of uber groups employing the tactic and you have a cycle that moves so fast that a pick up vs. pick up is impossible. Add to this the fact that most uber groups will NOT FIGHT EACH OTHER and the problem is multiplied. Two uber groups rarely, if ever, will fight each other. The time involved is not worth the reward. They don’t care about skill… they care about winning as fast as possible because in the end that gives them more honor for PvP rank.

How to avoid it.

Get lucky enough to get into a battleground that is out of the cycle… one that is pick up group vs. pick up group. These matches last longer and since the lines refresh so fast due to the cycling in and out of the slaughters another pick up vs. pick up match is almost guaranteed after your match is done. However, get stuck on the other side of the cycle and it will be a miracle you get into a non-slaughter match.

Same principle applies as the uber groups also. Your pick up group leaves after a battle and everyone elses queue time is short because of the cycling you jump in right in front of line instead of the people that have been waiting forever for a fair match, but keep getting cycled.

How to fix it.

Simple. One set of battlegrounds for “Arranged Groups” and one set of battlegrounds for “Random”. Like I’ve said before its like letting pro football teams play high school teams to claim the Lombardi Trophy. It isn’t even remotely a measure of anyone’s skill.

In conclusion…

I will be told to “cry more newb”, “go whine on your blog”, and various other comments from the uber crowed. These are the people that get WoW served to them on a silver platter. These are the ones who are whining about 1.8 changes to give casual gamers more chances at loot. These are the ones who day in and day out do nothing but ruin the game for those that have other obligations in their life.

Blizzard doesn’t owe casual gamers anything. Blizzard doesn’t owe hardcore gamers anything. They owe the players of World of Warcraft a fair and balanced experience. Developing their systems in such a way where it heavily favors one play style over another is obscene.

MO1 - Blizzard and Battlegrounds
MO2 - Stun