This is obviously some sort of conspiracy on SUDA 51′s part to ensure I die with a full-body portrait of Travis Touchdown holding out the beam katana with the “A” button indicator the way he does at the start of each level tattooed on my left arm from my shoulder extending down to just above my elbow; BUT IT’S A NO GO, GOICHI-SAN — MY BODY CHANGES SHAPE HOURLY. HOURLY! I’D HAVE DONE IT ALREADY IF IT WEREN’T FOR THIS SAD FACT OF MY EXISTENCE. I REALISE THIS MAKES ME A BAD PERSON, BUT I LOVE TRAVIS TOO MUCH TO SEE HIM WITH A DISTENDED MIDSECTION AND A BEAM KATANA PROPORTIONED LIKE A GODDAMN BIG WHEEL.
Archive for October, 2008
Today’s philosociological lesson comes courtesy of Spore:
Carnivores rule.
I’m inclined to agree, but that doesn’t stop me from trying the herbivore path.
Today my supervisor at work, who I used to play Age of Conan with before he canceled his account, asked me what in my opinion Funcom has to do to keep Age of Conan from losing more players at this point. This is a short list of three items aimed at making things more enjoyable for remaining players in the short term. These are all currently in development or are relatively easy fixes:
1) Finish adding the PvP system. The first PvP system update patch added PvP XP, but not the fugitive system which would penalize players for PKing significantly lower level players. Adding the second part of the system will give the PvP crowd a more complete picture of how the game will play for them. Funcom is currently intending this for the next update.
2) Fix OOC and make it global. Since launch, the OOC chat channel has had issues where players may not be receiving all messages sent to the channel. There is a fix planned for the next update, but in the patch notes Funcom has stated that OOC will extend only to the current zone the player is in. One of the most pressing problems with the low server populations is the difficulty in finding others to complete group content with. Quite a few players remaining are very willing to help one another, and fixing OOC and making it global would facilitate this.
3) Reduce the help call radius on mobs in certain densely packed areas. I have always felt that in some places this was set too wide anyhow, but with other players and groups cleaning off the spawns this was not as much of an issue. Reducing the social reach of mobs in certain trouble spots would help prevent remaining players who are soloing content from getting discouraged.
Sometimes I think I should give up on my ambition to work for an MMO developer; but as single-player games are increasingly designed like and operated as if they were MMOs, that might be professional suicide.
I will weep bitter tears if LocoRoco 2 ships with minimap functionality.
Years ago, I learned my lessons about arguing with people on the Internet. The great and wise philosopher Anonymous probably drew the best analogy when he said “never wrestle with a pig. Both of you get dirty, but only the pig likes it;” but I’ll be damned if I don’t sometimes think I might need the exercise.
Something about me that used to be tremendously important has been steadily falling by the wayside as the days go by; and just as I was becoming aware of this, it came roaring back into my life. That has been my week, and it is only just now half over.
Yesterday I finally received a PM on the Age of Conan forums from someone complimenting my signature, which contains probably the most truthful sentiment I could come up with regarding my desire to finally learn how to tank for groups and raids after years of playing mostly support/utility/DPS classes:
“I’m going to learn how to tank, even if it kills the people behind me.”
It is nice to see some kindness on a place that was so full of hate and vitriol a few weeks ago. Now if I could just stop clicking on my necromancer at the character selection screen, I might actually get started on figuring out how to take the pain in order save other people’s hides.
