Anyone Honestly Surprised?

Imagine that, big-time exploiters ousted in EVE Online.

CCP Games has uncovered an exploit in Eve Online that survived in the game for 4 years and may have had a massive impact on the game and game economy. The exploit allowed player owned stations (POS) to generate massive amounts of resources without much work (basically, the game would automatically fill the station's storage silos overnight).

It just goes to show that no amount of economists or player councils can stop the scum of the MMO universe. I was kind of amazed that EVE escaped the massive player-banking scam not too long ago and I suspect the same will happen here. EVE players are just too blinded to realize CCP is the MMO equivalent of the Illinois government.

Not A Good Time For Failing MMOs

Tabula Rasa is going the way of the dodo. Age of Conan may be following as well: Age of Conan Servers To Merge, Funcom Sees Layoffs.

Two ominous signs have come recently for Age of Conan fans; developer Funcom went through a round of layoffs, and they announced plans to merge some of the game's servers in order to maintain a "healthy" population. Despite this, Funcom has maintained that development will continue for both the PC version and the upcoming Xbox 360 version of the game, confident that Age of Conan won't follow Tabula Rasa into oblivion. A writer at Vox ex Machina doesn't share that view, pointing to several of the game's flaws as reasons why it didn't maintain the popularity it enjoyed at launch.

Tough economic times call for tough measures, but a little voice in the back of my head keeps telling me these games probably wouldn't survive even in the best of economic times. I wonder which game will be next...

Left 4 Dead: Boomer Tips and Tricks

I have started playing Left 4 Dead, Valve's new slaughter-the-zombie-hordes co-op shooter. It is a terrifyingly fun game to blow a few minutes on, whether playing against or alongside other players. The more I play, the more I feel like I am not using the Infected (zombies) classes very well, so I went in search of some tips.

I found a very detailed thread on the Boomer class over on the official Steam forums. I have saved a copy below:

Sorry About the AFK

Sorry everyone about the silence lately here on this blog. I'm guessing most of my Constant Readers know the reasons why I am so quiet lately. Have no fear though, I have a big post coming up and I think the Internets will absolutely love it.

Off the Mark

Mark Jacobs outlined upcoming changes to Warhammer Online's open RvR game play. However, Mark simply missed the mark in regards to the true root of the problems plaguing WAR.

The first thing Mark needed to address in his outline was the performance issue. None of the features listed will mean a damn thing if the zones don't stop crashing and players can actually COMPLETE the end game objectives. Every single resource Mythic has needs to be focused on resolving this issue. I posted this thought on the VN WAR message boards, but the thread was locked. However, the last reply before the lock intrigued me.

So basically you want, the combat and career team, the web development team, the quest team, the gui team, and all the other various teams that work on WAR to sit around and look over the client/server/dba engineer teams shoulder while they work on performance?

Yes, every single development team needs to review their respective systems and determine what can be done to improve the performance of WAR. Without resolving this single issue, WAR will not survive long enough to see the other changes into fruition.

The second thing Mark needed to address was the fact that victory is impossible to achieve when enemy warcamps are placed within spitting distance of each other. Victory is important in a game designed around sieging an enemy city. Victory can not be had when the enemies are back on the battlefield seconds after being defeated. Stating that they are actively going to make it easier to get to the fight shows a fundamental flaw and a leaning towards an instant gratification strategy.

It's a double whammy. Mythic wants to encourage more people to get into open RvR and make it easier for them to get there, but they don't want to admit that their game's technical performance is not up to par. Yes, Mythic is probably working hard on resolving the performance glitches, but they need to shut up and admit the problem exists and dedicate every single resource to slaying the beast. Beating around the bush just pisses players off and we're leaving in droves because of it.

Mythic, WAR is UNPLAYABLE in it's current state. New features can not fix bad performance.

With that said, I'm glad they at least are planning new features and should they actually fix the performance problem, WAR will be a much better game. I just don't see the performance issue getting fixed any time soon.

Guild o' the Week!

I hear these guys are really cool.

Did something big happen today?

I can't help but feel I've missed something big happening today. Oh well, couldn't of been that important.

History

Congrats to Obama. He won a fair fight.

Obama won because he wasn't the standard politician. All I ask is that governs fairly and honestly towards his campaign promises, or he will become just another politician. That is the last thing America needs.

Book Thoughts: Elantris

Title: Elantris
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Tor Fantasy (May 30, 2006)
Quick-Hit Thought: A one volume epic fantasy worth reading.

I have to admit the only reason I picked up Elantris was due to the announcement that Brandon Sanderson would be writing the twelfth, and final, book in the Wheel of Time series. Along with favorable reviews, and the fact that the story begins and ends in a single book, really sold it to me as a book worth reading to get a measure of Sanderson’s abilities.

The main point to understand about Elantris is that it is an epic fantasy tale wrapped up in under a thousand pages. It covers the gambit as far as epic fantasy goes. There is the hero, the villain, the princess, a story, and most of all, the fantastical world.

Elantris, located in the nation of Arelon, is more than the title of the book, it is the name of a magical city that ten years prior stopped being magical. Outside of Elantris is the smaller, non-magical city of Kae, newly revitalized in the wake of the downfall of Elantris and now the center of Arelon’s monarchy.

Elantris serves as a prison, housing those unfortunate enough to be afflicted by the magic that once made the city and the Elantrians great. The book begins as Raoden, the prince of Arelon, becomes afflicted with this magic and is cast into the crumbling city of Elantris. The story excels from that point forwad. Every chapter spent in Elantris is well worth the reader’s time.

Outside of Elantris, two other points of view are followed: Raoden’s widowed-before-the-wedding wife, Sarene, and Hrathen, priest sent to convert the non-believers of Arelon. While Raoden struggles within Elantris, Sarene and Hrathen battle politically in the city of Kae.

I thoroughly enjoyed the chapters involving Raoden and the overall story line of the book. However, the chapters involving Sarene and Hrathen take a while to become enjoyable. Sarene is just too much of a stereotypical feminist, while Hrathen is the obvious conflicted bad guy. I did enjoy Hrathen overall, but the most interesting aspect of Hrathen was his back-story which I would not have minded more of.

Fortunately, towards the end of the book, the three characters become entwined together in the chapters and the pace picks up significantly. The plot spins down quickly and an expected, but well-executed, ending unfolds.

Overall, the book serves its purpose as a one-book epic fantasy tale. More back story on Hrathen would have been nice and the pacing could have been smoother. It was refreshing to read a book without having to worry about the next book in the series. Elantris tells a great story that begins and ends within a thousand pages. Quite a feat in an otherwise bloated fantasy genre, especially for an author tagged with the responsibility to conclude one of the most bloated epic fantasy series out there.

Witching Night

Happy Witching Night! Hope everyone had fun. Unfortunately, I didn't get to participate in any of the RvR Public Quests, but I did win a roll on a mask drop!