Smedley leaves Amazon Game Studios

 John Smedley is leaving Amazon Game Studios.  John has a long history in the MMORPG community and people either hate him or love him.  My own feelings are mixed; he was there for a lot my favorites but was also there driving some of them into the ground before failing on some promising prospects.  He also failed to bring anything new to market in recent years; even when he had opportunity with projects like Everquest Next.

 Many felt that John would be the savior of MMORPGs when he joined Amazon Game Studios (AGS) and it was revealed that he was leading the team building a future sci-fi massively multiplayer game (not clear how RPG it was going to be).  Now with John leaving AGS what does that mean for the MMO community?

 

 As noted in the article I linked the game Smedley was working on was reaffirmed to still be in development.  Also based on other games AGS is getting involved in, such as Blue Protocol, it seems AGS is all-in on MMO games.

 The Bloomberg article that broke the Smedley news is a little more doom and gloom.

"Another veteran executive is leaving Amazon.com Inc.’s video game division, which has struggled to produce big hits since it launched a decade ago."

 It is hard to argue the big hits point, but that is ignoring that AGS have been on an upswing.  New World was a successful launch and continues to go up and down as it pushes content out the door.  AGS brought Lost Ark to the west, which has been a smashing success, and they are also involved with Blue Protocol which is getting buzz.

 Maybe Smedley wasn't the savior of the MMO community and it is actually AGS?  Was Smedley not getting the job done?  I'd argue he has a lot of dead prospects on the most recent road behind him (killed Star Wars Galaxies, failed with Everquest Next, multiple other SOE/Daybreak failures, failed kickstarter project) so not impossible he was failing with anew project.

 Or maybe Smedley is done with big corporate?  While SOE and Daybreak were not Amazon big they were still corporate.  I take Smedley's attempt at a crowd funded game (Hero's Song) to be indicative he wants the smaller scale and more intimate game development that an indie kickstarter offers.  It wouldn't surprise me if the only reason he moved on from Hero's Song is because AGS came in with a big paycheck and a sales pitch that they were here to save MMOs and they needed the legend himself to do it (if it were me that would probably be enough of a reason).

 Will be curious to see his next move.  My history in MMOs is as much Smedley's at this point.

New World Combat Balance Dev Blog

 New World posted a short Dev Blog on an upcoming Combat Balance Update.

 

  

 I wanted to share a few thoughts on each area they mention.

 In order they mention balance changes to

• Fire Staff - The running community joke is whenever there is a balance issue with any weapon the only correct response is to nerf Fire Staff again.  I can't imagine they'd nerf Fire Staff as its been nerfed multiple times (but I'd argue FS is still very strong in the right hands)
• Bow - The BowPR meme for OPR (Outpost Rush) is real.  Bow has been very strong for a while and stronger the more skill the player has.  My biggest issue with bow is that it combines mobility and top tier ranged damage.  I'd like to see mobility cut down with bow or damage reduced on range to balance out the mobility.
• Musket - Musket.  What can we say about musket?  The main balance change is nerfing the heck out of its seemingly unlimited range.  It needs to be effective at a short range and about worthless at a distance.  For PvE the musket needs some way to match melee left click spam to dish out damage.
• Hatchet - The only thing that is a problem with hatchet is Defy Death so I assume that is what we'll see a change to.
• Greatsword - The community is begging for a change to Greatsword.  It is the weapon of choice everywhere PvE or PvP.  Hard to pinpoint exactly what needs to change.  In my experience greatsword just feels right and I wish more weapons felt as good as it does.  Will be interested in what is changing here.
• Equip loads (light/medium/heavy) - This may be the biggest part of this balance update and is wide open as far as what may change.  I've talked on this blog before about changes I'd like to see such as restricting the Shirking perks to specific loads the way Shirking Energy is light only.  Ultimately light is simply too strong; damage/healing increase and best dodge roll.  Something has to change with it or Medium and Heavy need serious upgrades to be comparable.

 No matter the changes I expect backlash because gear will be impacted.  It may be a key weapon ability changing and thus making that perfect weapon with it's weapon perk worthless now.  Or it may be what I suggested around Shirking perks.  Could you imagine if Shirking Fortification (as an example) got restricted to just heavy equip load?  That sort of change would ruin a massive amount of gear (shirking fortification is a desired perk for most PvP armor).

 I hope AGS has the courage to be aggressive with changes even if they do cause unrest or impact player's gear.  Gear is getting easier to craft and get desired results and a good crafting economy relies on consumption so players having to swap to new gear will drive consumption.

 Now we just have to get the update on PTR and let folks pick it apart!  What are you hoping for in the changes?

Hitting the nostalgia hard! Coe's Quest!

 Watching my own Minecraft video from 11 (11!) years ago had me waxing nostalgic for those glorious early years of Minecraft.  A hallmark of those years, at least for me, was Coe's Quest on YouTube.  Anytime my oldest son starts talking to me about Minecraft (a daily occurrence) I hum the closing theme song to Coe's Quest... "talkin' about Minecraft.  Talkin' about Minecraftttttt".  Episode 001 is embedded below and some thoughts are shared below.

 Chills watching this!

Videos from my past: Minecraft Mondays 001

 With 2023 I am looking to do more with video content.  This has had me reminiscing about my past video endeavors.  There are some videos lost to time from when I published to Google Video (before they bought YouTube).  I am hoping to find those on old hard drives and resurrecting what I can.  With that said there are some videos on my YouTube channel so I figured a trip down nostalgia road would be neat.  Below is my first Minecraft Monday video and I share some thoughts after.

 The first thing that jumped back at me was the silence of the video.  No music or sound?  As best I can remember this was during a time of YouTube uncertainty around using music and getting your videos kicked off the site and I just wasn't ready at the time to share my voice with the world.

 As far as the content of the video it warmed my heart to see our old Minecraft server and my mountain base (still my all time favorite build).  This was a server we played on from our work PCs before workplaces got so hardcore about locking users away from the Internet.  I remember how difficult these minecart stations were to make and relying on glitches like minecart launchers where two carts get stuck together and glitch to move the cart forward (this was before powered rails)

 It is also crazy to me that this was 11 freaking years ago!  Even more amazing is the staying power of the game that is Minecraft.  This game is still one of my all time favorites.

 If memory serves me this video was captured using Fraps and edited using whatever came with Windows at the time.

Sunday 1/8/2023 Post

 Well at least I get my weekends back.  Such a fraud of a team last week.

2023 Blogging Stuff

 I wanted to avoid doing the cliche "what are my 2023 goals" or "2023 predictions" posts, but wanted to share some of my blogging plans.  I want to adjust the rate at which I blog and have a slightly different look to the content.

 In 2022 I got the bug to get back into blogging.  I set a goal to post once a day, every day.  I pretty much did it including weekends and holidays.  Most posts were made the day of but I had a few queued up to schedule on days I knew I'd be busy.

 For 2023 I want to adjust my goal for posting: 5 posts a week (basically give myself the weekend off).  Yes this will include posts from simple "hey look at the Packers score" to more in depth gaming discussion.

 There are a couple posts I look fondly at from 2022.  The best representation of these "fond" posts is http://www.heartlessgamer.com/2022/10/some-screenshots-from-brimstone-sands.html where I shared screenshots from my adventures in New World.  I realized after stumbling back accross that post that I don't share that type of content often.  

 For 2023 I want to get more into sharing the memories of my gaming sessions instead of just dropping opinions or sharing something I found.  More screenshots are really the key here.  Not sure if y'all will find it interesting but this blog has always been sort of for me so I'll enjoy it and maybe one of you out there will as well.

 And lastly for 2023 I want to get into some video content.  No guarantees on this but I enjoy editing video for work and for other personal use.  I did videos back before YouTube was a thing (sadly did not save all my Google Videos content... need to scan the old hard drives at some point), but haven't done anything since.

 

Why are my posts with no content the most visited?

 Just an inside-blogging question that boggles me.  Since returning to blogging daily I've noticed that the posts I put the most effort into get the least traffic and those that I put no effort in get the most.

 For example; yesterday's post just to have a post has already seen twice the traffic than any of my recent posts with actual content.  Going back further my "Cold. No Power." post with nothing in it is the highest trafficed post from December.

 Why?  I don't know but I needed a post for today and I had nothing else on hand so here it is.  What do you think?

Post a day!

 This counts right?  Sorry, first day back to work after a long holiday break and I am pooped.

Sunday 1/1/2023 Post

Just getting around to posting this (a couple days late).

Beat the Lions this weekend and we're in the play offs!

Narrator: They did not beat the Lions.

New Year New Keyboard

 Ordered a Wooting 60HE a while ago and it finally got shipped to me.  So far love the keyboard; especially setting the lekkar switches actuation point (you can customize how far you need to press the key to activate it).  More thoughts to come as I get some gaming time with it.