2014 Wrap-up: Resolutions, Expenditures, and Questions

2014 was a year when I moved to a new country, largely (though informally) dropped off from MMO blogging, and spent the majority of my time in a single game for the first time in years. (Perhaps 2008?)  I spent very little of that time in traditional MMO's and sat out the major MMO launch events of the year (which don't seem to have gone that well).  What did I plan to do, what did I actually do, and what did it cost? 

Marvel Heroes: $220

I started the year committed to a $130 pre-purchase of the thirteen hero Advance Pack and then added on $50 in cash store currency and a $40 team-up Advance Pack purchase.  I started the year still working on my first level 60 and something like 8 characters unlocked.  I ended it with 2175/2580 total levels, access to pretty much the entire current roster (all but one unlocked, solely because I haven't had time to play the latest two releases) and 32 out of 43 playable characters at level 60.  I might have been able to push through to cap everyone, but I saw no need to rush, especially with a few characters still waiting for their 52 reworks in the coming months. 

Having spent about as much time on this game as a traditional MMO, the amount I spent is mostly reasonable and the game treated me reasonably well.  The resources I did NOT spend unlocking all those heroes and team-ups sufficed to unlock the entire backlog of playable heroes from launch, and at least the next four new releases besides.  That said, with the current pricing strategy I did not have to think long before declining to "renew" the Advance Pack for 2015.  The discount sounds great on paper but it isn't large enough compared to all the frequent sales that don't require a year up-front commitment to bundles that include stuff you don't want. 

So, it'll be interesting to see where next year goes.  I think I will spend more than $0 and less than $220.  Probably some cash store currency, perhaps a bundle for the Avengers movie, it will depend on what's on offer and how the year is going.

Heroes of the Storm (technically alpha): $43
I was around for the alpha reset and bought up bundles containing a total of 14 heroes, 2 mounts, and a skin at a far greater discount than what Blizzard has offered since.  After trying the remaining characters during free weeks, I unlocked an additional 5 characters with gold.  Collectively, that's over half the roster (with gold remaining to unlock 2-4 more heroes depending on price point), and I have access to characters covering every combination of franchise/role currently implemented in game.  The goal was to get started with a budget around a retail game, and it looks like I'm good to go. 

World of Warcraft: $7.50 (discounted time card)
I used a pre-paid time card to tie up loose ends in Pandaria, including the pre-expansion event and somehow barely grabbing a LFR Garrosh kill before the pre-expansion talent revamp.  I liked Pandaria better when cherry-picking the fun parts at the end instead of trying to grind them them all on a deadline to try and jump the next hurdle.   

I've got some time penciled in for Draenor in a month or two.

Neverwinter: No Cash Spent
I own a level 60 character never paid Cryptic a cent.  Of course, the way this title works, actually gearing out that character would likely churn through a non-trivial amount of money.  Meanwhile, I spent significantly more time leveling and farming currency in the out-of-game portal than in-game, which in principle means that my Astral Diamonds helped encouraged someone to spend real money on Zen to sell me. 

SWTOR: No Cash Spent
I used a double exp weekend to finish up my Sith Warrior's class story.  The expansion presale campaign was a bit wasted on me, as I wasn't willing to clear out that particular month on my calendar to take advantage of it.  At this point I'm likely to leave SWTOR on the back burner for a few more months anyway, and perhaps they'll reduce or eliminate the expansion fee (as they did last round).

Dishonorable Mention: Hex ($20 Kickstarter contribution last year)
I'm not going to list out every game I've previously played and/or spent money on that didn't get my time and money in 2014.  Hex, however, earns special recognition in this category because the defining feature that convinced me to pledge to their Kickstarter in June 2013 remains unimplemented. The game's plans for PVE content were a huge focus of both the Kickstarter campaign and the accompanying website, but have seen repeated delays, most recently a somewhat-obvious late-year statement that PVE would not be added in 2014.

In the interim, they may or may not get wiped out by a lawsuit from Wizards of the Coast (that they may or may not deserve - I've seen completely convinced people on both sides, and doubt that the real legal meat is available to the public at the moment) that certainly wasn't listed as a budget contingency in their Kickstarter. 

I can't say who the dishonor actually falls on (perhaps myself for having decided to offer up $20 and considered paying more), but it's a typical tale for crowd-funded video game projects, and I wish all of you who backed various MMO-hopefuls better luck. 

PS3:
My relatively modest mop-up project on this front was mixed.  I did complete Uncharted 3, and I also tried Infamous 2 before concluding that I didn't like it and writing the thing off.  I also procured a copy of Batman: Arkham Origins that I'd like to finish someday, but decided not to let that stop me from getting a PS4 for Christmas.

2014 Releases:
I've actually spent a few hours, and zero dollars in the open beta/soft-launch for Infinite Crisis.

That aside, TESO and Wildstar both reached the end of 2014 with subscription business models intact.  Based on the incorrect assumption that the game would launch on consoles in 2014, I had assumed that TESO in particular was unlikely to make it.  Whether either makes it to their respective first anniversaries without replacing their business model is a separate question.  In a possibly related story, Massively reports you can no longer purchase a 6-month subscription to TESO; it would make a ton of sense for the game to rip the band-aid off BEFORE the unspecified console launch. 

I'd also asked if we would see any F2P-relaunched titles get the axe in 2014, and SOE of all people came through by killing several titles, including Vanguard.  I guess that means so long to my former low level Goblin creature, gone off to wherever the inhabitants of Telon have ended up. 

And that's 2014, on to another year. 

Playing on Their Schedule

Syp has posted his latest action plan for fitting four separate MMO's into a week.  I don't have anything so specific - no one is expecting multiple weekly columns about different MMO's from me - but I am starting to arrive at a decision tree of sorts for my MMO time.  For better or worse, non-subscription titles combined with daily/weekly/monthly quest rewards often leave a clear-cut choice for my limited gaming time. 

My decision tree (in rough order starting from 30 seconds total in front of a computer all day, down the list as time permits):

1. Log into Marvel Heroes to collect the daily login bonus (+1 daycount towards exclusive pets, team-ups, and other goodies). May immediately log out depending on which of the below is available. 
2. Log into Neverwinter once daily for 2-3 minutes to invoke (+1 token towards an epic quality healer companion at the end of a year) and send my profession minions off to farm cash store currency for me.  If possible, check the web portal roughly twelve hours later to refresh completed missions. I've bought an account-wide cash store mount this way, time will tell if all this farming eventually pays off in actually playing the game itself.
3. Time-critical content (will be gone or massively harder forever, may need daily attention).  Last week, that meant several loose ends in Pandaria that I feared would be prohibitive after the patch; in particular, I pushed to finish all of the of the Siege of Ogrimmar LFR wings once so I could say I'd done them, as I feared this could be a huge mess after the patch due to nerfs to "smart" healing abilities.  
4. Time-sensitive content (typically not unique/not gone forever, but significantly more valuable to play this game at this time).  Last week, this meant the Heroes of the Storm Alpha, which was offering double experience.  I could also see Heroes of the Storm occupying some time every 2-3 days due to how its daily quest rewards and weekly rotation work. Some of Marvel Heroes' weekly events qualify because I like either the event or the rewards.  A monthly visit to the Darkmoon Faire if I have a WoW subscription active falls into this category. 
5. Other content.  Marvel Heroes has typically fit in here, but this accounts for less of my time as I finish leveling more and more of the game's playable characters.  Expansions - WoW? Rift? would fit here.  I.e. anything else that would ordinarily fit under the category of playing the games normally.
6. Oh right, I have a blog that I used to post on, don't I?  Funny how you don't get this far down the list when you have a toddler.  See also, not getting around to new MMO launches.

Most of these trends have been around for a while now, and there are definitely days where I feel like some daily incentive is pushing too hard in the direction of having to play a certain type of content a certain way.  Then again, I suppose there are days when having a good idea of the most valuable use of my time can help dodge decision paralysis from having too many options.  It is what it is. 

Canada Day Resolutions for 2014

Despite not being Canadian, Canada Day Resolutions used to be a thing here on PVD, since I often found myself reviewing my progress on my New Year's resolutions on a day that coincided with the Canadian national holiday.  Last year I didn't cover Canada day due to being on summer vacation, and this year I was in the middle of an international move and didn't feel postured to write New Year's resolutions in January, but no need to let these details stand in the way of tradition.

Pursue 2580 Total Hero Levels In Marvel Heroes

Through a combination of purchases, promotions, and in-game awards, I'm rapidly closing on unlocking every hero in the game. Thirteen sit at max level and another five have hit at least level 50 for their second tier synergies.   Without specifically trying, this puts me over halfway to the game's current total level cap (2100 for the 35 current heroes at 60), and just shy of halfway when you include the eight announced characters (six remaining Advance Pack characters, Nova, and X-23 for a total of 2580). 

I'm hesitant to commit to this kind of goal for fear that I will get tired of it, and perhaps that's a fair concern, but clearly chain-leveling characters in Marvel Heroes has managed to hold my interest.  Meanwhile, later characters are definitely getting easier due to steadily increasing amounts of bonuses as the game keeps adding new systems.  We'll see how far I can get.

My current roster: I can immediately purchase four of the seven greyed out portraits, as I currently have 1400 splinters.  I will need 1000 more for the other three, plus 600 for Nova and X-23.

Neverwinter - To 60 But Actually Playing?
Level 30 in Neverwinter was enough of a headstart to get working on the several out-of-game minigames, similar to Star Trek Online's duty officer system.  These are good fun, and it seems highly likely that I will hit the game's level cap through experience gained from these mini-games alone.   A better, and unanswered, question is whether I will ever get back to playing the actual game, or just stick to the minigames as I did in STO.  Not sure if that's good or bad feedback for Cryptic, but there you have it. 

Clear out the PS3 line-up
I passed on the PS4 last year, in part because of looming move and in part because there wasn't much on the release calendar for the holidays that I couldn't just get for my existing PS3 instead.  A year later, the math is flipped - many of the older PS3 games I had yet to beat are now available in re-mastered editions on the PS4, so it's only a few last hold-outs between me and retiring my PS3, possibly for the shiny white bundle with Destiny.  The titles in question are the last few chapters of Uncharted 3 along with all of Infamous 2 (both of which I already own) and Batman: Arkham Origins (which I technically could purchase on the PC if push came to shove).

I have a new set of multi-platform gaming headphones, so I'm feeling good about my odds.

Other MMO's?
And then things are open ended. 

• I own some prepaid time for SWTOR that I won't use until the next mini-expansion that has adventuring content (apologies to those who are eagerly awaiting the housing mini-expansion).  
• Honestly, I'm more likely to jump on the Blizzard MOBA than the next WoW expansion, but I'll keep my eyes out for steep Black Friday discounts.  
• I won't look at either TESO or Wildstar until they offer a free trial, and honestly neither is likely to make the cut with me as a subscription title. 
• EQ2, Rift, TSW and the Turbine games also seem to be out by default.  EQ2 has the best shot at a come-back, but since they went digital only their expansions are no longer available at a discount, and I'd need to buy an expansion to continue playing my character.  
• FFXIV is a possible contender.  I left that game with generally favorable impressions, but also feeling that I was starting to need more structured group content to advance.  This would be a deal-killer with my schedule these days.  Maybe in a patch or two, as I hear they are going to have ninjas. 

Could actually be a year where I do almost nothing in traditional MMO's?  We'll see.

Happy Canada Day, and/or best mid-year wishes as appropriate!  

Auction Errors and Cash Currency

If you've used player auction houses in an MMO, chances are you have experienced significant pricing errors from both sides of the equation - as the player who screwed up and listed an item for a fraction of its value, and as the person fortunate enough to grab a major windfall as a result.  As interactions between cash shops and tradeable currency/items increase, the stakes feel somewhat higher.  

I snagged an item I've been camping on Neverwinter's auction house that typically sells for around $30 worth of Astral Diamonds for a mere $1 worth of AD.  This was almost certainly a pricing error on the part of the seller - opening the lock boxes that the item drops from requires a key that costs $1.50 worth of AD so it's pretty unlikely that anyone would sell any of the good prizes for less than the cost of a single key.    

I haven't equipped the thing yet.  I've done nothing wrong here, and I probably wouldn't think twice about it if it were just in-game gold - as I said, everyone makes these mistakes, you live and you learn.  The thing that bugs me is that this currency is so close to effectively real money.  It's possible that $20 worth of diamonds really matters to the person who made the error, because they don't have much money to spend on games.  Back in the subscription days, everyone could be assumed to have the $15/month price of admission on hand, and capitalizing on someone's mistake for gold was not going to take away something that they paid money for. 


Should the mechanics of auction houses be different when there's sort-of money at stake?  Or is it best to let people learn from their hard knocks? 

Neverwinter: When are Stats Cosmetic?

My Neverwinter character has advanced steadily through level 31, halfway to the game's level cap.  If you're looking for a decent single player experience with little (though probably not zero) money down, the game seems to fit the bill.  If you play MMO's because you are seeking to fill every gear slot on your character with a reasonable quality item, you're in for an expensive and frustrating haul.  The question I can't quite answer yet is to what extent your stats matter.

The Gameplay

According to the game's map, I've seen fewer than half of the zones, though some of these areas may be dungeons and/or level 60 endgame areas.  The game plays roughly like other recent MMO's, with click-to-attack, a requirement to play in mouse-look mode (which is clunky when it comes to actually using anything on the UI), and lots of dodge-rolling in response to red danger zones on the ground. 

One innovation on this point is that you are not actually required to get OUT of the red area - as long as you perform a dodge roll, the game will treat you as having dodged that attack, so you can get back to killing and don't need to worry about failing to travel far enough for whatever reason.  (I guess this is technically consistent with Dungeons and Dragons rules, where making a saving throw against something does not necessarily physically move the character out of the way?)  I don't generally play rogue type characters, but with all the rolling around that you have to do regardless and less penalty than normal for being caught in melee range, an agile character just feels right in this particular game.

Mechanics aside, it's a reasonably high production value game with about the requisite quests, some voice acting and cut-scenes, and basic MMO features.  I haven't had trouble soloing on the rogue with a healing NPC companion - more on this in a minute - and thus far I haven't hit major roadblocks.  Things could go downhill but overall it seems like the game is not out to stop me from getting to the level cap.

Filling the gearslots
I happened to have some Astral Diamonds I didn't have to pay for courtesy of some promotional codes, but if I had not I probably would not have spent money on the game to this point.  I don't know where the cutoff is, but I expect that trying to get all the way to level cap without paying would be less pleasant.  Even at this early level, pretty much everything can be upgraded to somehow boost your stats. The cost (generally in real money) of gear, item quality, etc, could be a major issue for someone approaching the game with an MMO min-max mindset.  A few examples:

• Almost all equipment has slots for enhancements.  Refining enhancements (done by feeding them other unwanted enhancements and then using a consumable item that is not readily available without diamonds) is costly, and it's not clear that it's worthwhile; I'm finding rank 3-4 enhancements in loot now, so spending diamonds to upgrade my rank 1's would not have been a good plan.
• Players can equip one artifact for stats and a special effect (like trinkets in other games), and two additional artifacts at max level for stats only.  Costly upgrades are required to increase these in quality from green to blue and blue to purple.  (There is also a purely cosmetic and even more costly upgrade to level 100 that does not appear to grant any additional stats, only change the tooltip to legendary orange status.)  
• Each character can have one active NPC companion and 2-4 additional companions (the slots unlock with levels 30 and 60) for passive stat bonuses.  In addition to costs to obtain the companions, these guys also have quality tiers that affect both the companion's rank cap and their passive bonuses. 

My top priority with my Diamonds was to obtain a healer NPC.  Neverwinter characters don't have significant passive healing or food to heal up between combat, so either your character or your active companion just about has to be some kind of Cleric if you intend to solo.   You receive a white quality Cleric for free at level 16, but this character is capped at rank 15 out of 30 due to its low quality; by most accounts, soloing at high levels will be unpleasant. 

I don't know if you absolutely need to go all the way to Purple quality and rank 30 (though each companion has a third special ability that requires this rank), but paradoxically the cost of upgrading that companion was actually significantly higher (300K for white to green, 500K for green to blue, and 750K for blue to purple) than just buying a purple healer from a past promotion (about 600K) and not having to worry about the problem.  This solution costs around $12 depending on the current exchange rate, and I'd consider it a near must have. 

If I was paying out of pocket, I'm not sure what, if anything, I would buy.  Since I didn't pay for my diamonds, I did spend a chunk on an upgraded mount, which moves twice as fast and can take significant more hits, in exchange for looking like a steampunk scorpion-mech.  I spent my remaining diamonds on additional companions who offer passive bonuses I wanted to slot on my character for adventuring, while also providing a party of four companions to play the Sword Coast Adventures minigame on the web portal. 

There are fees for storage, though I haven't had issues here.  There are fees for respecing, but I either didn't screw up my build that badly or else haven't done anything hard enough for it to matter.  The real place where the cost will be problematic would be if the game gets to the point where it's hard to scrape together enough DPS with non-upgraded gear.  Of course, I don't care about PVP or even dungeons, so it's easier for me to shrug this side of the game off.  If you play MMO's to acquire gear, this system - bearing in mind that acquiring the currency naturally is not especially convenient to create demand for currency resales, could be a deal-breaker.

A side effect to grabbing the cheapest purple quality healer and mount I could find is having a giant scorpion mech for a mount and a Lamia with a sword-harp for a companion.  This tasteful stuff doesn't exactly fit the lore as far as I was aware, but at least it's not costing me anything out of pocket.

Currency Re-selling in Neverwinter

A double exp weekend finally got me to try out Neverwinter a year into its run - I played a few hours in beta, had no particular problem with the game, and just didn't get back to it until now.  I was a bit surprised to find that the business model appears to emphasize currency resale on a scale I would have associated more with an underwhelming Neal Stephenson book.  By making the game's primary currency extremely inconvenient to farm, Cryptic has somehow carved out a niche where it puts non-payers to work farming currency to sell to people in exchange for cash store currency (which they pay Cryptic for in real money).  

The Economies of Neverwinter
Neverwinter's primary currency is tied into the game's business model in a way that isn't possible for games that had to retrofit a payment model revamp post launch.  If you were to take WoW non-subscription today, you'd have years of player experience that gold is the currency for all player and many non-player transactions, and you'd have a massive inventory of gold already in the economy to deal with.  Instead, Neverwinter started with a clean slate.  Some context on the various economies:

• There is gold in the game, looted from mobs and used to pay NPC's for some things (primarily common consumables), but notably is NOT the currency for the auction house.  
• There is a cash store, with a currency called Zen (common name for all Perfect World games, though the actual funds cannot be transferred).  This contains all the usual stuff - bags, mounts, outfits, etc.  There are some places where the game mentions that you can buy stuff with Zen, but it's nowhere near as common as many other titles.   
• There are the obligatory tokens used to barter for gear.  These at least go into a currency tab as far as I can tell. 
• The game includes the ubiquitous obnoxious item gambling lock boxes, which you have to manually destroy out of your inventory because they are the only item in the game that is automatically picked up upon walk-over (like gold).  Like many other titles where these have a bad name, there is zero transparency about drop rates and a server wide spam message claiming that someone has won the top prizes, though I see many less of these than I do in other games. 
• The game does NOT include an optional subscription, charges for content, etc. 

All of which brings us to Astral Diamonds. 

Using and Trading Diamonds
Diamonds are the currency for the auction house, and the majority things that you would expect to pay for in an MMO, including consumable components of crafting, tier upgrades for gear/mounts/companions, along with some free-to-play additions like instantly refreshing cooldowns in most mini-game systems. 

The primary source of diamonds are a variety of daily quests or other objectives.  The currency is routinely looted in quantities of a few hundred or maybe a thousand, is routinely spent in the hundreds of thousands or even millions on the auction house, and can't really be farmed short of planning your entire life around logging in every hour to take advantage of every last event and cooldown that offers diamonds as a reward (which still has a hard cap of 24,000 diamonds per day).  The only quick way to obtain more diamonds is to pay other players. 

In addition to the auction house, where players can trade items (including many cash store items, as long as they aren't account-wide), there is a separate currency exchange used to swap between the Zen - which you can purchase from Perfect World at any time - and Astral Diamonds, which are farmed by players.  The exchange rate floats based on supply and demand.  The upshot is:

• Completely free players (and I suppose anyone willing and able to play the AH for profit) can eventually acquire enough Zen to buy any item they desire from the cash shop
• Because people who are actually paying are such a minority, the supply of diamonds for sale is constantly increasing and thus the amount of diamonds a player can expect to get if they are willing to buy and resell some Zen are perpetually increasing
• $20 worth of diamonds almost always gets you more stuff and more interesting stuff than the $20 worth of Zen; also, the NPC prices aren't subject to inflation

It's an odd setup, but apparently players are more willing to tolerate this approach than having Cryptic cut out the middle man and sell the diamonds outright.  There's a niche for the clever, a way to monetize players who are never paying a cent of their own money, and a way for the player who does not want to be bothered to solve the problem with their wallet.  Clearly it's working for Cryptic well enough for the game to stay up and running.  Whether this approach can fly in the long run with inflation is another matter. 

Dueling Dungeons And Dragons MMO's

I spent a brief chunk of time this weekend - probably around an hour or so - in the Neverwinter beta courtesy of a key contest over at Epic Slant Press.  I have mixed feelings about the increasingly common weekend-only paid open beta for new MMO's - they feel contrived to concentrate word of mouth (i.e. collect lots of social media posts - I suppose including this one - during/after the weekend, rather than scattered as players trickle in and out) while the short duration limits player access to the higher level game.  Never the less, there was a post I was meaning to write about the competing Dungeons and Dragons Online expansion plans at Turbine, so I decided it was worth at least a brief look. 

In general, I was pleasantly surprised.  Some people do not like the graphic and/or animation style, and perhaps I'm just not that picky, but I was fine with the visuals.  Like Bhagpuss, I am not especially fond of being forced into mouse-look mode with the requirement that I push the alt key to toggle the mode in which I can actually use the mouse to click on all of the UI elements that are visually placed on the screen.  Combat was action clicky with visual cues to dodge - increasingly common in newer MMO's these days - but seemed smooth enough.  I was underwhelmed with the RPG trope of the player character washing up from a shipwreck - incidentally, also the current tutorial sequence in DDO - but I suppose we all start somewhere? 

Contrasting Neverwinter and DDO
Cryptic's Neverwinter will in fact be the second action-based non-subscription MMO set in the Forgotten Realms, thanks in large part to changes that Turbine has been making to their older Dungeons and Dragons Online game.  Last year's DDO expansion created a lore excuse to move the game from the more obscure Eberron setting to the more popular Forgotten Realms - Turbine confirms that the original setting will not get new content, save for revamping/updating old content periodically in between patches where new stuff is available.  This year's expansion will offer the option to start a pre-made character at a high enough level to skip all the old stuff. 

Personally, I've spent way more time reading pen and paper Dungeons and Dragons rulebooks than actually playing Dungeons and Dragons, and I've probably spent more time with forums, character planners, wiki's and podcasts than actually playing DDO.  From my perspective, DDO's wide-open character class system - which allows an unusual degree of flexibility to make permanent choices that are either really good or really bad for your character - is a key selling point.  Even I had a lot of trouble getting started in DDO due to the magnitude of the choices you face in character generation, but I'm not sure the solution is to go running to cram in pre-made classes with talent trees just because the new competition is doing so. 

Speaking of which, Neverwinter offers one of five "classes" with skill progression that feels very much like Diablo III's, with several pools of skills, from which you get to equip and use a small subset.   It's probably the right call for a game that seems more focused on action and short sessions, but there definitely appears to be less meat to chew on in the character department. 

(On the other side of the coin, Neverwinter also presented me with many poorly documented choices during character creation.  It was unclear to what extent my choice of deity, home city, background, etc were cosmetic versus impactful.  Meanwhile, the limited information that is presented in game - e.g. the game's statement that my Cleric should focus on the Wisdom stat per DND rules - may be inaccurate in practice if some forum-goers are to be believed.  Perhaps this issue is inevitable if you're trying to include familiar stuff for the pen and paper crowd?  Also - with only two character slots and five classes - more possibly on the way - you can expect to delete and repeat if you want to try them all before settling on a main.) 

Buy to Play versus Free to Play
One final area that I will be watching closely post launch is the business models.  Turbine chose to call DDO's relaunch "free to play" in an era where such a re-launch was a pretty new thing.  In today's parlance, though, DDO would more accurately be called a "buy to play" game in which - for the most part - players will need to pay for access to small DLC-like adventure packs and individual character options, but will face no recurring fees for their use.  (An optional legacy subscription model also allows rental access to much of this stuff.)  Under this model, I've spent a comparatively large amount per hour of time played, but there's no beating the flexibility this offers the player in how to consume the content that you've paid for. 

By contrast, Neverwinter appears to be designed from the ground up without a subscription (unless there are plans for one that I'm unaware of?).  The prices in the beta store looked rather high, but it's hard to have much context when the numbers stand to change in testing, and without understanding which of the purchases are necessary (or available in-game).  One could imagine a model where this ends up costing longtime players more than they would have paid under a subscription system, while those who dabble could potentially pay little - or a lot if there are a certain number of things you need to unlock before getting underway in the game.  

I deliberately did not invest much time in my temporary beta character.  As a game that does not carry a box purchase price, there is no need for me to make a decision now on whether I will spend money.  If nothing else, Neverwinter has that going for it - a low barrier to entry on a game that seems reasonably focused on getting players into the action quickly (other than all of those choices during character generation).  Time will tell which way this DND duel plays out. 

STO's Buggy Anniversary

I haven't played much Star Trek Online since capping out one character on each faction last year.  I enjoyed the duty officer minigame far more than the space and ground combat that made up the traditional portions of STO, but I mostly ran out of stuff to do with my duty officers.  Thus, the annual anniversary event, with free starships for each faction as a rewards, was an opportunity for Cryptic to get me back into the game.  Unfortunately, they blew their chance to make a good impression through several bugs.

The Case of the Missing Bridge Officer Skills

Empty bridge officer skill slots - not a good plan, as you kind of need these.  (This was actually due to a second issue, see the end of this post.)

First up, I signed in to discover that none of my bridge officer skills were available in the space combat window.  I spent 10 minutes trying to mess with settings to figure out what I was doing wrong - time that proved unnecessary because the anniversary mission does not feature any combat in your regular starship, but that's beside the point - and eventually fired up Google. 

Apparently, this was an intentional bugfix of some sort made in a patch back in November but that incidentally requires that the player unassign all of their bridge officers from their slots once and then reassign them.  The comment from Cryptic when players complained on the forums was that they had mentioned this fix in the patch notes.  That would have been a somewhat unsatisfactory way to communicate if I had been actively playing at the time, but it was especially underwhelming several months later, when I could not find those patch notes if I wanted to read all of them. 

If you are going to break people's characters, however temporarily, you really need to provide some sort of pop-up notification that includes how to fix the problem.

The Mission That Would Not Complete

Having successfully reassigned the bridge officer skills that I turned out not to need, I headed off to complete the new anniversary mission.  A free ship is a reasonably big deal in a game where new ships are generally reserved for the cash shop.  In fact, the second anniversary festivities were what convinced me to try the game in the first place shortly after its free to play relaunch, and I was happy that I took part when I finally got to take my Odyssey class cruiser out for a spin at level cap. 

The new mission was a spinoff from a highly popular episode of TNG and featured a guest appearance by one of the show's original cast to voice their in-game character.  Most players had a good experience.  My experience was good... until I got to the end of the mission and did not receive credit for completing it.  I tried again, and was sent back to the mid-point of the mission to repeat a bunch of puzzles and story scenes... and not get credit again.  I tried and failed a third time. 

After this, it was back to Google for a second time in the evening.  It took a bit of digging to find the right search terms, but I eventually found half a dozen threads on the STO forums started by other players who got stuck in exactly the same place on the 3rd anniversary mission.  I saw no official confirmation from Cryptic that there was a bug or any plan to fix it, but a commonly re-posted workaround was to assign your NPC companions to tackle tasks that are NOT the tasks they say they are good at.  This is non-sensical, but it worked for me.  At least I knew the mission like the back of my hand at that point and was able to complete the Klingon version in under 20 minutes. 

As a little added thank-you bonus, the mission separates you from your normal bridge crew and therefore I ended the evening as I began it, with my bridge crew slots once again emptied for reasons beyond my control. 

Quality Assurance FTL?
Bugs happen, and sometimes Google is your friend - in my case, apparently the failing was to assume that I had done something wrong - twice in one evening - rather than immediately jumping to the conclusion that the game was broken and Google could tell me how to fix it.  I also get that you can't sell bugfixes for an additional fee in the cash store, and that is going to be the focus of a free to play game.

Even so, for an anniversary event like this one that is designed to bring back returning and/or curious players, a little quality assurance really might have made a difference.  If things had been fun, I might have settled in to work on some of the numerous missions that I never completed in my first trips to the game's cap.  As it was, I used up the extra time they could have spent trying to sell me on returning to the game trying to find workarounds for significant bugs.  I don't know whether that's more my loss or Cryptic's, but it's unfortunate. 

January Round-up and February Outlook

With the first month of the year mostly out of the way, what have I been up to?  I previously tracked this sort of thing on Twitter, but it was somewhat cumbersome to review my notes that way, so I figured I'd try a post format instead.

The two biggest shares of my gaming time in January went to the two great financial disappointments of 2012 - SWTOR and TSW.  In TOR I've been leveling my Agent Operative alt with the benefit of numerous unlocks but without the benefits of the subscription - my initial impression is that the penalties to exp as a non-subscriber are steep and potentially problematic, but I'd really like to get to the upper-mid levels before I draw too much of a conclusion on that front.  In TSW, I've cleared out Kingsmouth and Savage Coast and moved on to the Blue Mountains, where I'm finding my build perhaps too effective - I'm almost looking forward to being forced to change to deal with other types of foes down the road. 

I also put some time into pet battles in WoW, which I considered oddly a prerequisite for entering the new expansion because I did not want to go to Pandaria and constantly walk past pets that I could not yet tame.  Actually journeying forth into the new content was something I set aside for when I could clear out some time to dedicate to the task, and that time is tentatively coming up next month.  Blizzard is not confirming or denying whether there are new five-mans in the future patch 5.3, which makes it sound like many of the current endgame activities could cease to be meaningful if I wait too much longer. 

Other things on my calendar for next month include Star Trek Online, which will launch a new featured episode that awards a special anniversary starship reward, and possible Dungeons and Dragons Online.  I've been ducking into DDO from time to time for an evening when I want a change of pace, and the next game update is scheduled to overhaul/improve loot in some of the mid-level content that is next on my list of things to do.  As always, this potentially leaves everything else I could be working on - including my games of choice from this month - sitting on the sidelines, but such is the era we live in.

What are you all looking forward to specifically in the month of February? 

New Year's Resolutions for 2013

My annual New Year's Resolution post is usually lengthy but not that insightful - half of the items are short term goals that get done soon afterwards and the other half are more pie-in-the sky things that don't happen at all.  My year for 2012 can be summarized with two lines of facts:

• Prior to October: Level capped characters in seven different MMO's simultaneously, posting on the blog every 2-3 days (11-18 posts/month)
• Post-October: Level capped characters remain in only three MMO's due to expansions I have yet to catch up to, posting to the blog once or twice per week, +1 infant

I'm happy with this turn of events, but it does put realistic constraints on what I can aspire to in-game during the coming year.  A few resolutions, which are more qualitative than specific:

Work on what I have

2012 wasn't all bad when it came to trying new things.  I started and capped characters in STO and SWTOR, along with some very brief (often one-evening) visits to Aion, Tera, EQ1, and TSW.  That said, it was a tough year to carve out time for anything new, and that does not figure to change in 2013.

I currently have what I need (access and game time as appropriate) for content I have yet to use in WoW, LOTRO, DCUO, TSW, DDO, STO, and SWTOR.  I don't expect any of these titles to fold in 2013, but it really makes more sense to focus on my backlog at this point.  I'm fine with my budget where it currently sits, but it's pointless to collect more stuff that I don't have time to play - the best sale price is still a waste if I don't use the content.  

Learn when NOT to beat the business model

While my time is scarce, I do get enjoyment out of snagging a good bargain.  Sometimes, when the payoff is high enough, it can make sense to grind in-game to "beat the business model".  

For instance, according to SWTOR Spy's Cartel calculator, I have unlocked more than 10,000 Cartel Coins' worth of stuff by purchasing the relevant unlocks on the GTN for in-game credits.  This would have cost me $80 in the cash shop, while species and inventory unlocks I picked up for alts during my last month of subscription time could potentially have cost another $40.  I did spend a fair amount of extra time in game sending my companions on slicing missions and farming daily quests (which also awarded several high end pieces of gear for my main) to pay for all of these unlocks, but this was definitely a major payoff for my time.  

Even so, cash shops are a reality of the market today, and I should really make better use of them.  If an unlock is purely cosmetic, it makes sense to do without or set it aside as a reward for earning the credits in game.  When it comes to exp potions and other things that affect the rate of advancement, it's worth asking whether the game is worth playing if it's worth paying to play it less.  However, when an unlock actually impacts quality of life - e.g. not being able to harvest materials I encounter in the world because one of my crewskill slots is locked - it really makes more sense to pay a couple dollars and move on.  

Focus on my perspective

This blog will celebrate its 1000th post early next year and its fifth birthday in the spring.  While limited time has been the most immediate cause for my current drop in posts, the results are somewhat positive. 

I don't view reporting the news as one of this blog's strengths.  I will post immediate reactions sometimes, especially if I have an opinion I'm not seeing from other folks, but often the "breaking news" of the MMO world does not even come with enough detail to support in-depth analysis.  Because I know that most of my posts will not be timely, I'm free to spend most of my limited time working on more of the big picture, such as trends that tie recent developments into past experiences.  

I intentionally don't have a set format or schedule for the blog, because this is a hobby and I prefer flexibility to write what I want.  That the schedule happens to support the kind of posts that I like to write is a happy coincidence.

Thanks to all of my readers, best wishes, and a happy new year!  

2012 MMO Expenditures

I've been keeping detailed logs of my MMO spending for roughly two years now, and I elected to publish them for the first time last year.  My experience probably isn't typical, as I spent a total of $275 on eight different MMO's in 2012, where most people probably stick to a smaller number of games.  That said, two broad observations:

• Game time for specific two subscription titles - WoW and SWTOR (well, it was) - represents about half of my total ($125, counting the first $15 of the SWTOR box cost as payment for the first 30 days).  This number is higher than it could have been due to the annual pass.  Even so, my spending on these two games EACH nearly doubles the next highest item on my ledger.  
• Setting aside those two subscription payments (WoW's was technically discounted), I did not pay full price for anything that I purchased this year - I'd estimate that I paid about half of the asking price overall.  Some of these savings come from retailers looking to dump stock, but many of them were provided directly from the publishers.  It's not accurate to look at all of this as lost revenue for the studios - some of the lower priority titles would not have made the cut at full price.  Even so, sales are a reality of the business, and are going to be a factor for anyone looking to base their business model primarily on one-time buy-to-play transactions.  As the number of games I play increases, it is easier and easier to wait for the sale before pulling the trigger, especially if there is any reason to be concerned about quality/polish.  

And now for the full ledger.  My accounting practice is to bill purchases of content and cash store currency in the year they were paid for, but to bill game time in the year in which it is actually used.  Titles are listed in chronological order.

World of Warcraft: $80 (+$60?) (+$35 to 2013)
I wrote an annual pass post-mortem when the year of game time I purchased through that promotion lapsed.  The short form is that I don't regret the approximately $80 for ten months of game time that I used in 2012, but the $60 Diablo III purchase (which I'm not counting against my MMO budget because it isn't an MMO) that I made in order to get that deal was a bit of a fail.

One big difference between this and past expansion cycles was the early availability of holiday discounts on the brand new expansion.  Through holiday sales and promos, I was able to snag the Pandaria box and a 6o day time card with which to play it for $35. (I have yet to use these things, so I'm counting them for next year.)

Rift: $10.72
As a brief recap, I had paid for the box at launch last year, ended the included month at level 36 or so, and leveled the rest of the way to the game's cap using Trion's frequent free retrial weekends.  Just when I was thinking of coming back for a month, I ran into a firesale on game time cards - 90 days for less than a single month.  Perhaps they were afraid they'd be stuck with unsold inventory if the game went free to play?  In principle, I still have some time left, though I'd have to purchase the expansion - even if I did want to re-roll, I'd probably want access to the new souls.

Star Trek Online: $11.40
I went foraging for an old retail box of this game to snag one month's subscription time.  This is useful because you get to keep any additional storage granted by being a subscriber at each rank (10 levels) tier.  I also spent $5 on the smallest quantity of Cryptic points so I could purchase an early increase to my duty officer cap.

SWTOR: $70
I waited until patch 1.2, which was widely viewed as the patch that was going to finish all of the odds and ends that didn't get done in time for release.  As a reward for my patience, I got the account key direct from EA for $40 instead of the list price of $60.  (I also somehow qualified for the "loyalty" bonus minipet that was granted to current subscribers for sticking with the game during the early months, despite having shown up that week.)  I subbed up for an additional month to get my first character to the level cap, and subbed up again just prior to the free to play relaunch in order to take advantage of some of the grandfathered perks former subscribers get.

EQ2 AND DCUO: $20
I don't remember exactly why I chose to throw $20 at a station cash sale sometime around April/May.  Through a series of sales so aggressive that they forced all content and game time out of SOE's in-game stores for good, I ended up turning that $20 into the $40 Age of Discovery expansion and 6 months of subscription time in EQ2 (I forget the exact discount you get for six month subs, probably $75ish).

(I also snagged the three DCUO DLC packs I did not already own at the time of the "we are taking DLC out of the cash store because our marketing people have broken the payment model" final sale in August, but I think that was from the Station Cash leftover from last year.)

Setting aside the absurdity of how long it took SOE to notice this was going on, I'll be the first to admit that the status quo could not continue.  EQ2 may also have finally tweaked its payment model to the point where paying on a non-subscription basis is worthwhile.  That said, some of EQ2's recent expansions have been so thin that there really wasn't much more than a month's worth of entertainment that a solo player could carve out of them.  It's hard to justify $50-60 for an expansion box plus either subscription time or unlocks if I'm going to get so little time out of them compared to all the other titles on this list - no wonder Smedley wants to get out of the content creation business.

LOTRO: $43
I paid $8 for a small Turbine Point bundle to snag the barter wallet upgrade.  It is irritating that Turbine is so heavily focused on charging for fixes to longstanding design issues (in this case, their addiction to non-stacking character-bound token rewards), and I probably could have earned the Turbine points in game, but I decided solving this problem was worth the $8.

Then Turbine decided that the first expansion to player inventory since 2007 would be exclusive to the $70 Rohan expansion bundle for several months.  Fortunately, Turbine can be counted on to discount expansions aggressively, so I just waited a few weeks and got the bags and whistles edition for 50% off, i.e. less than what people paid for the regular edition at launch.  This bundle also included a fair number of Turbine points, which I will no doubt need to spend on unlocking basic UI improvements over the next year.

DDO: $25
Speaking of Turbine expansion discounts, I also snagged the DDO expansion for 50% off through a Steam sale.  Apparently I was lacking in patience, as Turbine slashed the price further down to 75% off for Black Friday.  I hadn't spent any real world money on this game since mid-2010 (albeit only playing the game sporadically during that window), I suppose a few extra bucks isn't the end of the world.

One could argue whether I actually needed this expansion in the first place, as I do not have any high level characters.  The one thing that I have gotten a fair amount of use out of is one of the bonus throw-ins: a greater tome of learning.  I generally don't favor paying for experience boosts, but this particular bonus actually changes the way that you play the game by adding a hefty bonus to each quest the first time you complete it (reset if you true reincarnate).  This effectively removes the requirement to repeat midlevel content for exp.  I'm happy to repeat DDO's content eventually, but I'd rather not do it immediately, and now I don't have to.

The Secret World: $15
I was poised to skip every single MMO that launched in 2012 until a last minute switch in payment model, followed by an Amazon sale offering the newly buy-to-play title for $15, made TSW too intriguing to pass up.  I had initially passed on this title as much due to my crowded schedule and a few rough edges during my very brief visit to the beta as to anything on the game's merits (such as its subscription model).

The game-changer with the buy-to-play switch is not the amount of money, but rather the amount of time I would need to invest immediately to determine whether the product is worth future subscription payments.  I've spent a few hours with the game so far and it does show some promise, especially as a secondary title.  I can't see how my one-time payment suddenly props up the game's finances, but I suppose it couldn't hurt?

Grand Total: $275 (not counting DIII)
Subtotal for Content/Currency Purchases: $123 (includes $25 of the $40 SWTOR box price)
Subtotal for Game Time: $152

What I've Been Working On: LOTRO, STO

As part of our Labor Day holiday weekend, we went down to the Smithsonian yesterday to check out the Art of Video Games exhibit.  It's a fun walk down memory lane - amusing to see stuff I owned copies of 20 years ago behind glass at a museum.  If the trip to Washington in the next few weeks is not in the cards for you, take a look at the tour schedule to see if it will be anywhere near you. 

Anyway, the trip into town put me behind on the schedule for covering all of my MMO's within a week, so today we cover two games.

LOTRO
The six week delay for the Rohan expansion to avoid the crush of Guild Wars 2 and Pandaria's release dates is a minor reprieve for me.  I did hit the current level cap and complete the epic story, but there is a large amount of reasonably high quality quest content that I have yet to see.  I'm torn on this, because I hate to skip good content, but I'm not sure if I will get to all of it even with the extension.  Moreover, there are deeds for traits and Turbine Points at stake.  If I left the Dunland area and Great River areas now, they will be the first where I have failed to finish the local quest deeds.

Realistically, I'm expecting to run out of time here.  Perhaps I'll just hold onto the in-progress quests and then go back to one-shot through them at level 85.  On the plus side, at least they're producing content that I want to complete.

STO
I'm technically at the level cap in this game despite having done almost none of the leveling content, thanks to a focus on the duty officer system.  The developer responsible for implementing this mechanic has since left the studio.  In his absence, very little new content is being added to the system for its own sake - for the most part, new duty officers entering the game are added through lottery items in the cash shop, and are being used to introduce more abilities that affect the regular portions of the game (which I almost never play). 

Cryptic has always stated that part of the point of the system was to add a minigame that was consistent with microtransactions in the post-subscription era.  That said, I'm definitely feeling like I've mostly "beaten" this aspect of the game.  Meanwhile, as combat abilities continue to be added, I can see the officers rewarded through the duty officer system becoming increasingly less optional for people who wanted no part in it.  As they say, all good things come to an end, I suppose. 

Musings At The Six-Fold Cap

In my post about re-acquiring the level cap in LOTRO, I failed to mention a minor milestone; I now have eight current max-level characters in six separate MMO's.  These are:

WoW: Greenwiz (85 Gnome Mage) and Greenraven (85 Tauren Warrior)
LOTRO: Allarond (75 Human Champion)
Rift: Telhamat (50 High Elf Cleric)
DCUO: Green Armadillo (Level 30 Sorcery Hero)
Star Trek Online: Green Armadillo (50 Federation Engineering) and Narilya (50 KDF Tactical)
SWTOR: Aldabaran (50 Cyborg Trooper)

Allarond just graduated from a shorter list of characters who had previously been max level prior to some previous cap increase.  The folks remaining on that list are:
EQ2: Lyriana (90 Fae Dirge - current cap is 92, increased in April 2012)
WoW: Greenhammer (70 Human Paladin, capped during TBC) and Cheerydeth (80 Gnome Death Knight, wiped at the end of the Wrath beta in 2008, but I count her for posterity's sake)

What I did mention was that I expect this achievement to be temporary.  LOTRO and WoW both have expansions out in September, Rift has an expansion slated for "fall", SWTOR plans to increase its cap in a patch "this year", and EQ2 (assuming I get back to the cap in the first place) will almost certainly have another expansion this year (though it is unknown whether the cap will rise again).  I'm half tempted to focus on EQ2 solely because it may be my last chance to claim seven different MMO's with capped characters for a while to come. 

I don't know that there's anything bad about my current plight - indeed, it's probably for the best that games are adding new content.  If anything, there may be upsides to having the cap increase more frequently but by smaller numbers of levels (2-5); some games have struggled to generate enough leveling content for larger increases, and many have suffered to come up with any significant changes in the way characters play at higher levels.  That said, yet another reason why I'm struggling to find time to try new games (though I'm certainly tempted).

A few random superlatives:

• Most time spent in groups while leveling: Rift, courtesy of public groups, and later an instance finder - I even healed
• Least time spent in group while leveling: SWTOR and STO - as far as I can recall, none of my capped characters in either game has ever joined a group for any reason (my low level sith warrior alt once took a blind invite from someone who needed a second warm body to collect a datacron).  
• Most time in endgame groups: hands down WoW  - worth noting that EQ2 is the only other MMO where I've spent significant amounts of time in endgame group content
• Most time in PVP: Other than a few weeks playing a LOTRO Warg back in 2007, WoW is probably the only entrant here.  
• Favorite Crafting: EQ2, best crafting-related content
• Favorite minigame/system not already named above: STO Duty Officers
• Favorite Story: LOTRO, they have an unfair advantage in the license, but they have executed well given the opportunity
• Least Memorable Lore: Rift.  Unfair I suppose since the competition is Azeroth, Norrath, and a bunch of licensed IP's, but nothing about Telara sticks out in my mind
• Best Races: I'm still inclined to tip the hat to EQ2 here with its selection of scaly and furry races, but I have to admit that WoW is doing about as well these days with the non-Tolkien races.  LOTRO has an excuse, but what does everyone else have to say for themselves?
• Lowest Mob Life Expectancy: WoW - even con mobs for your typical kill ten quest are lucky to survive for ten seconds each.  It's probably not a coincidence that WoW is the only game where I have a pure ranged character for a main - I'm willing to kite on special occasions, but I find it tedious if that's what I'm doing every mob.

In an unrelated story, MMOGC has a post up today along similar lines.

Voting with Non-Fantasy Feet?

I would not characterize myself as explicitly "burned-out" or tired of the fantasy MMO.  That said, I belatedly noticed an interesting fact in what I've been up to of late.  Since DC Universe Online went Free to Play in November, I have capped characters in three non-fantasy settings - DCUO, Star Trek Online, and SWTOR.  

In fairness, I've also spent some quality time in fantasy settings as well - I cleared the patch content of Cataclysm, I picked up half of the levels I was missing in LOTRO, and I finally capped out my Rift character.  I'm also not planning to jump on The Secret World, which is the newest non-fantasy launch.  That said, perhaps there is a trend here that I wasn't paying attention to? 

Canada Day Resolutions For 2012

Another half year has gone by, and Canada's national holiday remains well positioned for a mid-year look at my New Year's Resolutions.  Let's see how things have gone.

WoW (Pre-Pandaria)

• Complete quests of Cataclysm: I'm still not finished with Hyjal, Twilight Highlands, or Firelands on my main - I tend to work on dailies first, and there are enough dailies that I haven't gotten around to these.
• Finish out armor set from 4.3 heroics
• Use the raid finder to kill Deathwing
• Cap out TBC-era dungeon reputations: Most of these rep's stalled out at Revered when the content was new.  Two expansions later, these heroics are quick and easy rep farming.

These have gone remarkable as predicted.  As of now, I have completed the quests of Hyjal and Twilight Highlands, I have beaten the raid finder, and five-man dungeons hold no more loot for me.  I have not yet completed the Firelands storyline, primarily because it's gated by daily quests.  I also have a way to go with both Therazane and Wildhammer factions.  Overall, if the sun sets on the Cataclysm era, I won't have many regrets in terms of goals.

Pandaria, on the other hand, seems poised to arrive no earlier than late August and possibly as late as October, with Blizzard's announcement that the expansion cinematic will be unveiled on August 16th.  Not exactly what I was hoping to hear, though I suppose I should have known better to hope that Blizzard could manage an expansion in a "mere" 20 months. Meanwhile, I suppose I might as well go on the record now and predict that the 5.0 PTR will hit within a few days of the 28 August Guild Wars 2 launch, since that's how Blizzard always does it. 


LOTRO

• Reach the new level cap on my main (currently 67 of 75)
• Don't feel obliged to "save" content for future level cap increases

LOTRO is an odd duck out this year.  I'm currently at level 70, halfway though the new levels for the Isengard expansion even though I'm only just barely into its content.  I would really like to finish the remaining content before the next expansion so that I'm not once again forced to choose between skipping high quality content and outleveling the new stuff.   Unfortunately, LOTRO never quite seems to make it to the top of my plate.  I plan to work on this one sometime over the summer.


Rift

• Finally reach the level cap
• Investigate the endgame

I did reach the level cap, but I continue to find the game's solo content (and especially the dailies) underwhelming.  The lore has failed to make any impression on me, and solo combat feels like it drags out - probably intentional so that the second and further players in a leveling group actually have something to do.  As an aside, I'd rate this game as probably the best out there if you're spending most of your time in a group (small or raid) of folks you know, but unfortunately that's not me.

I'd say that the monthly fee is what is holding me back, but I've actually got a time card in my back pocket and I haven't even been tempted to use it.  Perhaps with the new expansion?

EQ2

• Enjoy world events on my main without having to subscribe
• Try to complete current dungeon content
• Betray to the evil side to see content, collect houses, perhaps try the Troubadour

This entire heading was somewhat blindsided by the surprise decision to raise the level cap in April's game update.  As far as I can tell, this is the new content that wasn't ready in time to be included in the "optional" expansion last fall - it feels quite a bit like it was balanced for players who have access to "optional" mercenaries.  Fortunately, I was able to abuse the triple station cash + SC store sale loophole to pick up the expansion and six months worth of game time (a loophole they have finally closed, albeit with typical poor communication) for $20.  Sometime between now and November I'd like to reach the new cap and also betray over to the evil side to test drive troubadour (probably betraying back to good and Dirge before the gold time runs out). 


DCUO

• Gear my main up for DLC content
• Work on one or more alts to see the other storylines

After hitting the level cap, this game has largely fallen off my plate.  The focus of the game is grinding group content for gear, and, unlike most MMO's, SOE has thus far stuck with strict tiering requirements.  New DLC content continues to strictly require gear from the old instances - even the solo content in the DLC I paid for can't be accessed without grinding gear in PUGs that frankly don't want players like myself in their groups.  Oh well, at least I can spend my SC in SOE's other offerings.  

SWTOR

• Play one or more storylines

So far, so good, Trooper story complete, Sith Warrior in progress. I will almost certainly do the Agent story next, since that's a well-regarded plot that covers an additional class buff archetype, allows the Chiss race, and would also let me try a class that can heal.  I could hypothetically chart a course through all eight class stories, but I'm not inclined to go quickly, with new legacy options potentially opening up over time.

Star Trek Online

• "By the time the dust settles, there will probably be at least a dozen major MMO's I haven't played that originally launched as subscription games - I could literally try a different one every month for 2012."

I'm nowhere near a dozen, but I have one in Star Trek Online. Ironically, the main reason why I tried it when I did was because of an anniversary promo for an Odyssey-class cruiser that I eventually cashed in and christened the U.S. Faydwer.  I'm definitely spending much less time in game now, but there were enough unique things about this game that I'm glad I took the time to try it out.

Other MMO's
DDO is perennially in this category, because I'm still sitting just shy of level 8 on my highest level character.  Everyone gets a free respec as part of the new expansion, but there are also a fair number of things that got blown up - changes to hit and spell mechanics, with more changes to the entire enhancement system yet to come.  DDO is very unforgiving when it comes to respecs - for the most part they are cash store only - so I'm inclined to wait and see what happens with the enhancement revamp before I mess with any characters, new or old.

I've also spent about an evening each in Aion, EQ1, and the Secret World Beta.  I haven't really played Runes of Magic, in which I have a mid-level character and which now offers a new race with new classes.  I will probably try Mechwarrior Online when it goes live for the free-to-play masses. Vanguard is going free to play, though I didn't exactly stick with it when I paid for access last year. 

Beyond all of that, I hesitate to predict what other MMO's I may or may not try over the year.  I have a fair number of clients for free to play games that I have yet to try installed on my computer.  I'm not chomping at the bit to be first in line for either Secret World or Guild Wars 2.  The bottom line continues to be that any new game is really going to have to fight for more than a one night trial on my current schedule.

PS3
So far, I've finished off Assassin's Creed II, Arkham City (though I enjoyed this enough to try it again on the higher "new game plus" difficulty, which allows use of all the bat-gadgets from the beginning), and a chunk of the Tomb Raider trilogy.  The push for Uncharted 3... did not end so well.  Other games on my playlist include Infamous 2, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, followed by Revelations (and eventually followed by ACIII), and perhaps FFXIII-2.

PC Building
I did indeed build my first desktop gaming PC this winter.   Overall, it's been a pretty big success so far.  I am still running with an old graphics card salvaged from my old desktop, primarily because it doesn't seem to have any problems with any of the games I'm playing.  I'm in wait-and-see mode on the nVidia GTX 660/660Ti, which will supposedly blow the current mid-range cards out of the water - or at least drive their prices down dramatically, such that I could snag an upper-mid-range card.  I'd be in more of a hurry on this front except that I just am not finding that I need the increased performance on any games that I play. 

The Blog
I published 84 posts in the first half of the year, which continues a bit of a downward trend.  I haven't hit 15 posts in a month since February.  Part of that trend may be that I stuck with both STO and SWTOR beyond the points in either game where I have significant new things to say about them on a near-daily basis.  Part of it is longer posts like this one.  And part is life - a trend that I don't expect to change (in fact, quite the contrary).

In any case, thank you for reading, happy Canada Day to our neighbors in the True North, Strong and Free, and here's to the rest of the year!

Victory over the Doff System

Over the weekend, my Star Trek Online main hit rank four in the final remaining duty officer commendation.  As such, he has completed all of the assignment chains and all of the ranks currently implemented in game. I can continue to gain commendation exp up to 150,000/100,000 in each category - this will supposedly grant a headstart against any future ranks that are added.  I am also free to continue to improve my crew via recruitment, and to earn various currencies.  Overall, though, there is very little within the system itself that is of use to my main.

(My Klingon alt is also making steady progress - she has rank 4 Marauding for all the teleports, and is slowly completing chains despite roster limits - I have not paid to increase her roster size, and do not intend to.) 

DOFF missions award dilithium ore, which is required for certain types of crafting and purchases and can be exchanged for Cryptic cash store points through a player exchange.  As of now, my earnings have added up to around 1400 CP (plus 800 CP that I actually purchased).  A portion of that balance went to unlocking the energy credit limit for my account (400 CP) and to increasing my main's duty roster to 200 (580 CP), leaving me with around 1200 CP in spending currency - $15 worth.  This is more than half of the cost of the high level premium ships in the cash shop, though my income rate is dropping due to a steadily increasing exchange rate and diminished time in game. 

That said, the scorecard I'm actually tracking right now is my energy credits.  Now that I no longer need more officers for my crew, I'm selling stuff on the exchange for hundreds of thousands of energy credits daily.  I don't really need energy credits for their own sake - I don't actually play any of the conventional game and therefore have little need for gear - but it would amuse me to pick up one of those unethical lottery box ships that people are wasting over $100 in real money on in exchange for in-game currency. 

Of course, if I did this, I would be indirectly financing Cryptic/Perfect World's gambling activities.  The person who paid money for keys to open lottery boxes only to put the ship on the exchange did so because the roughly 80 million energy credits were worth the real money to them.  The players who buy my surplus duty officers are in turn providing me with the credits to convince that other player to buy lottery box keys.  On one level, this is a good thing because it is a way for my presence in the game to contribute income even when I personally am not paying - good for the game economy.  However, it also means that it's effectively impossible for anyone to boycott the lottery system unless they give up the entire in-game economy. 

Not sure how I feel about this, and I guess I have a good while to find out - I am less than halfway to the energy credit balance I would need, and I don't even want the Ferengi ship that's currently on offer.  It's definitely an interesting quirk to the system though - no wonder so many players feel so powerless to stop them. 

The Pros and Cons of Scheduled Content

Last week's episode of STOked discussed a controversy in the Star Trek Online surrounding scheduled content.  The game has recently added some much desired additional group content, but this content has only been available at specific times through the game's event calendar.

I understand where the complaints are coming from.  It is fully understandable for players to want to play the game on their own schedule, with their own groups.  Especially in a situation where almost all of the group content that the team is developing is going into the "time-gated" calendar, players who aren't playing on the official calendar's hours are out of luck. 

The community seems quick to point the finger at Perfect World and the game's new free-to-play model.  This may be true, but it is at best an indirect effect.  Nothing in these minievents that I am aware of requires purchases in the cash shop.  Rather, the time schedule may be a legitimate attempt to help players enjoy the game - where perhaps eventually someday they might spend money. 

If you let players pick and choose their own groups, the folks with guilds will do the content they want to do, and everyone else will be stuck waiting because there is no one piece of content that everyone can agree to run.  Where most MMO's focus the random group pool by offering rewards for agreeing to run random content in the interest of forming groups faster, the scheduled content approach focuses the pool by saying that the one event is what's available at this time. 

In some ways, the approach is a stick (no access to content if it's not the right time) rather than a carrot (reward for agreeing to run a random dungeon).  However, when you look at the effects of the random system, every piece of content in games that use it now has to be designed to be easily beaten by a PUG of potentially dubious composition.  Setting aside a specific subset of content and saying that this is the stuff that any five warm bodies can clear for rewards may have less overall effect on the state of the game. 

In that case, though, the solution is as simple as it is elusive - make more content so that this one mechanic is not getting all of the limited new stuff that is being added to the game. 

Star Trek Online At 3 Months

Since my Klingon alt hit level 50 in STO through the duty officer system, I have been spending much less effort on flying my intrepid crew of officers around the galaxy.  By design, this is not a system anyone will ever be "done" with, but I'm getting pretty darned close. 


Progress
I have finished all of the assignment chains (including all of the officers for critical colonal chain completion) and am sitting at rank 3 or 4 in most commendations (except exploration, which recently saw several mission rewards doubled because it is harder than any of the others and not especially rewarding).  I've got 33 very rare duty officers and counting.  I'm already at the stage where I only very rarely have to send a green quality officer out on an assignment, and I am steadily converting these officers into blue quality.  Even my alt is now hitting rank 3 and collecting blue officers. 

Technically, I suppose I haven't won until I max out all the commendations (which actually go to 150K/100K, presumably as a headstart against a future rank 5) and get to run with basically an all-purple crew, but I'm rapidly getting to close enough. 

Teaming Up
On paper, there's no reason why you ever need to interact with another player to beat the duty officer system.  You can buy and sell items that are used in missions, or even officers, on the exchange, but you can also get most of what you need solo given enough time.  However, it has been fascinating to see how the system is slowly accumulating a community following - and how the developers are supporting it.

All of the sector blocks in the game get new missions every four hours.  The best missions - depending on your current goals and crew, might be anywhere on the map, and I used to spend 45-60 minutes flying around to see what I could pick up.  Apparently, I could have been leaning on a pair of custom channels - DOFFJOBS and DOFFCALLS - along with the crowdsourced tracking sheet.  At all hours of day or night, players are manually distributing this information - albeit imperfectly since you can only see missions that you quality for (due to prerequisites and cooldowns). 

The new system of NPC's on your ship who offer missions has even added a social aspect.  Now it is possible for a player who has an especially rare/desirable mission on one of their bridge NPC's to invite other players to their ship.  The very last chain I completed was the 10-part Jem'Hadar mission, in which I was stuck on the very rare 9th part for a number of weeks.  The day after I joined DOFFJOBS, someone broadcast that they had this assignment available on their ship and I was able to finally clear it out.

The Business
With my one month of subscription time safely lapsed, I can confirm that I do retain all of the bridge officer and bank/inventory slots I unlocked while leveling as a subscriber.  I did NOT, however, retain the currency cap unlock - my balance remained where it was (above the 10-million energy credit cap for non-subscribers) but I was not allowed to earn any more credits.  Due to the lack of any indication that this was occurring, I lost probably the better part of 2 million credits before discovering that I needed to purchase this unlock.

That aside, there is very little else that I see myself buying with Cryptic points.  I'm happy with my current duty roster limits, and I have no interest in participating in the "lock box" gambling that seems to be getting the lion's share of the developers' attention - this system is now even getting exclusive duty officers and assignments, but it doesn't really bother me that there are officers out there that I will never obtain. 

I'm certainly not complaining about the value I got out of the money I've spent on this game - $11.40 for an old retail box along with the points I used to unlock the currency cap and the +100 duty roster for my main.  It will be interesting, though, to see where the game goes from here.  During the three months I've been playing, the price of cryptic points has gone from just above 200 dilithium to around 300 dilithium - suggesting that the number of players earning in-game currency but not interested in paying real money into the system is growing rapidly in the post-free-to-play era.  If the only places where Cryptic is actually seeing return on their time investment is $50 ship packs and gambling boxes, this game could become a place players don't want to do business with in a hurry. 

Bypassing The Betas

There is a lot of beta going around these days, and I couldn't be less excited.  To name a few:

• I've had access to the Pandaria beta for several weeks now.  Downloaded the client, copied over characters, have yet to log in.
  
• The Diablo III open beta is this weekend.  In fairness, I suppose I would be more interested in this if I hadn't already made my purchasing decision on this game when I picked up the annual pass.  I've known for a while now exactly when my "invite" is arriving - the launch date of May 15th. 
  
• Tera has a complicated rollout schedule.  The game is in open beta this weekend, with a pre-order promo allowing players to retain one character per server into the headstart (which will open it up to the full eight character slots per server) and launch.  I don't see it written down anywhere whether open beta players who subsequently pre-order get to keep their character, but I assume this is likely.  So, at least this pre-head-start thing will potentially not be wiped.  Even so, I'm not in any hurry.  My decision to wait on SWTOR paid off with a more polished game, a lower price tag, and a clear choice of which server to pick after the dust settled on the launch.
  
• Further out on the horizon are more betas for games like Secret World and Guild Wars 2 (both of which are already distributing keys through various means), and more titles upcoming.

Don't get me wrong, I tip my cap to anyone who is still excited enough about some forthcoming MMO to spend their time dealing with bugs and crashes on a server that is going to be blanked before launch.  Personally, though, these things are making less and less sense for me as I juggle a large number of games that are already live, and as free trials become a required feature for even subscription games. 

PAX East 2012: (Limited) News From The Show

I've survived my trip to and from PAX East.  I'll write more about all the cool people I met and stuff I got to do when I've had a chance to sleep the trip off.  In the mean time, just the facts on the limited news I was able to gather from the show.

SWTOR Legacy
I asked Bioware's Damion Schubert (lead system designer for SWTOR) about what happens to players who have invested a lot of work in a Legacy on one server and then want to play with friends on another.  He responded that implementing server transfers is a top priority for the team, and that these transfers will be "legacy friendly" when they arrive.

Not an entirely satisfying answer - nor especially complete without knowledge of whether they intend to charge for this service.  At best, you will have to manually copy your characters from server to server to update your legacies.  At worst, you will have to pay for this privilege.  That said, I suppose some way to rescue your legacy from a bad server choice is better than none. 

Turbine News
Most of my structured activities over the weekend were Turbine-affiliated, and they did indeed treat their fans very well.  On the downside, there was relatively little news, but some of it was at least news to me.

On the DDO side of the house, a dev confirmed for my sadly level 7-self that the forthcoming expansion (and its future quest packs) will primarily support level 20+ characters.  It's not as if the current distribution of content between high and low level content is especially unfavorable, but it is a bit disappointing to hear that what I see is what I get for the near-term future.  Interestingly, I mentioned the topic of true resurrection, and the dev (didn't catch his name) claimed that there may be additional benefits (grandfathered in for existing completionists) to carrying characters' TR lives into the epic levels.

I didn't hear any new in-game news about LOTRO, but they did show an exclusive teaser at their party of what appears to be some sort of live-action film intended to set the scene for Riders of Rohan.  At first I thought we were just looking at a motion capture session of some sort, but the room got pretty excited as we realized that this was looking more like a film.

Finally, I was talking with DDO's Executive Producer Fernando Paiz about some of the economies of scale Turbine has because they built their own engine, that they use on both DDO and LOTRO.  Paiz said that indeed the live games currently use something like version 3.6 of the Turbine engine, while version 4 was in development for an unannounced future MMO.  While I suppose this is no real secret, it's good to hear that they're still working on whatever it is they're working on.

The Rest of the MMO's.
I intentionally did very little standing in lines.  As a result, I think the only game I actually played at the show was the Secret World, because they had a fair number of machines in their booth and a relative lack of structure in how to get time on one of them.  Unfortunately, this demo may have been easier to access in part because it did not do much to showcase what makes this much hyped but little described title different from the rest of the genre.

The demo had players in what is otherwise indistinguishable from your standard modern zombie-infested town.  I did occasionally see players with story cutscenes on their screens, and perhaps these sequences explained who the characters/factions are, why they're all fighting zombies, etc.  Picking up wherever the last player left the keyboard, all I got was a very standard MMO combat sequence - my character had a hammer, which built "hammer points" that were then used to unleash flashier attacks on the hapless zombies.  Whatever depth or character flexibility this game has for more involved players simply wasn't apparent in the show floor demo.  (Massively's reviewer had some similar comments, as did people I talked to.) 

In fact, speaking more generally, I have to say that I was underwhelmed by the forthcoming MMO's on the floor.  I watched some people play the TERA demo, which takes the standard MMO and adds combos and collision detection.  I watched people play the two Perfect World MMO's on display - this was a small booth with prizes, so the lines were long - and both seemed like action-y MMO's.  None of the above really jumped out at me.

Ironically, the biggest lines of the MMO-like games on the floor were at League of Legends.  I'm not sure if the game was that much popular, its prizes were that much better, or if it just took longer to get to the front of the line, but they definitely gave the impression of being the in-demand MMO of the show.