2020 Miscellaneous Links: Untitled Moose Game

[AndrewRogue]

This post in particular intrigued me.

"It's the game. One hundred percent the game. Just compare each experience in vanilla wow to modern wow. Getting to level 20 in vanilla. An achievement, it took you a while and you accomplished something. Getting to level 20 in modern? A chore that takes 30 minutes. Finding a green item in vanilla? Oh wow man, a magic weapon! Modern? Oh, loot trash, my quest reward from 2 levels ago is better than this. And if it's not, I'll be able to replace it in 5minutes. Dungeons? Vanilla, it was actually difficult. Tedious, yes, but still difficult and you were rewarded for it. Your reward for dungeons in modern? You get exp for almost no effort. and You barely even talk to your group. That's the issue. Rewards. The leveling in vanilla was it's own reward. You were proud of getting your first mount, You were proud of your first shoulder armor, you were proud that you put in 3 hours of your time to finish this dungeon and you got this kick ass armor. There is none of that in wow now. I mean, just look at raiding. I can complete the end game content, what is supposed to be what wow is all about now, in 2 hours. I just have to wait for LFR to release it in a bit."

Like. I actually do get it. It makes sense. And that horrifies me at a level. Raw time investment should never be the core source of achievemnt.

[Captain K]

Pretty much everything they're saying in that thread has happened in Perfect World also.  Used to be getting a legendary mold drop was so amazing, now you'd be laughed at for wearing legendary gear.  The leveling process is super-streamlined so that you can get to 100+ and get to the "real" content of the game.  Dailies are basically cut in half because you can autocomplete one after finishing another.

So it's become a stand around and socialize game.

[NotMiki]

Like. I actually do get it. It makes sense. And that horrifies me at a level. Raw time investment should never be the core source of achievemnt.

I agree with your reaction to this guy but I think vanilla WoW benefited from the slower pace as well.  My fondest memories of WoW are all about exploring, bumbling around, occasionally stumbling into an area over my level, getting to know the geography around major cities, finally exploring that area I would always fly over, etc.  I'm not here to defend level progression in the game - it was too slow.  But there is such a thing as progression that is too fast, and I kinda suspect modern WoW is afflicted by it.

I read a great retrospective on Dark Souls on I think Kotaku of all places that talked about difficulty as a method of communication.  I think the same can be said for gating away content or enforcing a slow progression.  To me, it is fine that a game creates a sense of accomplishment by preventing you from doing something until you meet some prerequisites, then allowing it to be done, perhaps with some fanfare.  What really determines whether you have wasted time is if you look back and say "this was a waste of time."  WoW wastes your time, but it's not because it gates stuff off.  It's because - even if you stop and smell the roses - you have to grind to get there.  Play Super Metroid.  Is the time you spend up until you get Screw Attack a waste of time?  Of course not.  Play MK.  Is the time you spend without being able to switch in party members a waste of time?  Sure is.

[Hunter Sopko]

MapleStory was the opposite. It's not what they ADDED to it that made it more convenient, it's what they took away. They just cut the exp curve by like 1/2 to 3/4. Which on its own is great! But to go along with it they added massive, rapidly-increasing power creep, which kept screwing up the in-game economy because when people can hit Level 200 in like 2 months and solo Horntail, most of the ways people made Meso outside of Merch Shops were gone. Only people who spent a lot of money could consistently keep up with the power curve because the best scrolls were Gacha-only, whereas when I stopped playing I spent maybe 15 bucks every 3 months to re-up my pet for drops and motions, and a shop and because I was dedicated to boss-running with my guild, had pretty balls-out equipment for my level and for the time- and could keep it that way.

[Grefter]

That's the thing though Jim, it is a massive false equivalence.

WoW progression isn't any faster than it used to be, just the vector for "progression" is different.  Level isn't the majority of progression any more, it is all in loot and side benefits.  It still takes a long fucking time to get there.  Some of it is more gated by real time rather than grind though.  It rewards playing for months at a time, not for playing 400 hours a month (for months at a time).

The really fucking stupid part is that the game hasn't been that way since fucking Vanilla, BC had end game be the majority of the content too.  Time from 60-70 was literally worthless.  So this mystical wonderful period of the game that this bullshit was like 2 and a half years, 7 years ago.

Heaven forbid subscription based games realise they only need to occupy your time enough to justify resubbing each month and not that they need to be literally the only thing you do with your entire fucking life.

[NotMiki]

That's the thing though Jim, it is a massive false equivalence.

WoW progression isn't any faster than it used to be, just the vector for "progression" is different.

Yeah, I get that.  I was originally going to post something to that effect but it didn't really match my own experience playing WoW - where the journey really was the destination.  Fast new WoW leveling makes the game particularly unappealing to me, because what I like the most out of MMOs is seeing how the world has been cobbled together.  Jumping from dungeon to dungeon with specific objectives ain't my cup of tea.

[Grefter]

Yeah that's pretty fair.  WoW style is commonly called "Theme Park MMO" for exactly that thing that you describe, bits and pieces of everything everywhere, spend the day, travel around!

That is wayyyyyy more informed opinion and choice in a game than "IT DOESN'T HAVE LEVEL TREADMILL IT SUXXXXX"

That said, did you ever check out Guild Wars 2?  If you want to get trapped again it hits that itch pretty good.

[AndrewRogue]

Oh right. Don't normally do this, but: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/level99games/battlecon-online-the-fighting-card-game-now-online

For fans of Yomi, BattleCon is the OTHER major fighting game as a card game game. I've only played a little bit, but honestly, I think I like it better? Balance is obviously worse, but the addition of spacing/movement as well as a much more variable cast of characters with some seriously bizzarre abilities makes for good spectacle. Already funded, so mostly just throwing out for interest. Hoping it works well!

[Captain K]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbDSvRMc9rQ

Be right back, gotta go preorder Street Fighter V.

[Veryslightlymad]

I can't tell if you're excited because I know you like Grapple characters in fighting games, or if it's all that ass slap.

[Grefter]

That costume must look really weird on a hanger but even fucking weirder when you are putting it on.

[NotMiki]

That said, did you ever check out Guild Wars 2?  If you want to get trapped again it hits that itch pretty good.

I've got plenty of single-player games in my queue to hit that sweet spot, and they never try to guilt me into a committed relationship.

[Captain K]

I can't tell if you're excited because I know you like Grapple characters in fighting games, or if it's all that ass slap.

Why not both?

[Veryslightlymad]

The honest answer. Therefor the best answer.

I feel like a Frankensteiner is out of character. Like, designed for a smaller frame


EDIT
Additionally, I kind of wish the few good Arika characters would show up somewhere.

Sure, dude is basically Balrog cosplaying as Jeigan but listen to this fucking track
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcSaFw2D09g

Anything to get that shit in a game again.

[AndrewRogue]

I know a very narrow band of people care, but whatever.

The greatest pentakill in LoL ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbile-gFS0A&feature=youtu.be

Seriously. I've seen "kill steals" in the past, but I have never seen an entire penta stolen.

[Lady Door]

Amazon Underground.

This is an interesting step toward eliminating the scourge that is F2P.

As someone working on the publishing side of mobile game development, I feel ambivalent. I would very, very much like for the F2P model to die in a fire. Unfortunately, it currently makes us a hell of a lot of money. That's why we keep making them.

Because Amazon is paying per minute used, this is changing the scope of what games are developed for. Future games might be put together with this model in mind, but the current games are not. We all want to make games where the person wants to keep coming back and playing more, but the average usage of a user is way less than the average revenue per user. Considering they're paying something like $0.002 per minute per user, it takes a lot of users and a lot of play time to get closed to revenue from IAP.

That in mind, developing a game with an eye toward length of session versus value of IAP to speed up the game, is very, very risky unless this model proves ridiculously successful. The Amazon marketplace for apps is SO very much smaller than that of Android or iOS, too, meaning we can't bank on volume so much as length of session. That means that we are still going to have to make games with the F2P IAP and ad-supported models just to make money. Nothing will have changed.

In short: making games optimized for play session length and amount of dollars spent per user is hard, and the first is a financial risk, so I don't see F2P budging.

[Grefter]

Hmmmm, I am not sure what the long term strategy is. Like right now it is just like other Amazon thing where it is a way to get you into their ecosystem, but long term?

From a consumer end does it feel like they are edging towards the same thing as Prime/Netflix are doing for TV?  Make a push into games (and apps in general it seems?) as a service?  Certainly is a better way to do it than PlayStation Plus does for the consumer (Plus makes its benefits snowball over time IF you actively claim your "free" games each month and then holds them hostage....).

But yeah pay per minute to the license holder is no where near as good a deal as Television and movies get.  That is more the pointy end of the stick that Musicians get from Pandora et al.  It is just beer money.

[Grefter]

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2015/08/27/charity-drive-for-con-or-bust-an-audio-version-of-john-scalzi-is-not-a-very-popular-author-and-i-myself-am-quite-popular-read-by-me/

This shit... i don't even know what meta level we are working on any more.

[Grefter]

http://theisb.tumblr.com/post/127119545452/why-magical-girls-are-never-attacked-during-a

Literally Snow.txt.

[Captain K]

Magical girls are never attacked while transforming because their clothes blow off and the villains all get nosebleeds.  Regardless of their gender/sexual orientation.  Duh.

[The Duck]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/31/science/oliver-sacks-dies-at-82-neurologist-and-author-explored-the-brains-quirks.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimesscience&smtyp=cur

I don't know if this will register for anyone else, but Oliver Sacks died of his eye cancer. He was a really great writer and reading his books early on is what got me into psychology and neuroscience, so this hits home pretty hard for me. He made his subjects human and individual, and even though his writing wasn't necessarily data driven, he was able to convey big ideas in a thoughtful, accessible way. Towards the end of his life, he wrote a lot on his diagnosis and about having a new perspective in life, and it's a perspective that I greatly admire. I am genuinely saddened by his passing.

[Sierra]

I read The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat as a school thing way back in the day (totally random option, do not even recall what relevance it was supposed to have had for the class). Pretty neat stuff. It's amazing how wide a range of things can go wrong with the human brain.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

http://theisb.tumblr.com/post/127119545452/why-magical-girls-are-never-attacked-during-a

Literally Snow.txt.

Friday, I'm in love.

[The Duck]

Yeah, I think that reading The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat was the first time I really got an appreciation for the huge amounts of diversity and variation there is in brains and behavior and that really set a spark off on me. I'm not really alone. I've talked to a lot of people, especially in clinical psychology, who say they got their start by reading Sacks's clinical accounts. It's always sad to me when we lose someone so eloquent and who could communicate so well. It just seems like more of a loss for whatever reason.

[Fenrir]

I'll check this book out!