Category Archives: Games

An Open Letter to Game Developers – Content, not Hair Styles

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Ground rules for this rant about computer (roleplaying) games,

  1. I know some players absolutely love being able to customise how their character looks to the nth degree
  2. I know that with the ability to customise appearance, and to change appearance based on the gear you’re wearing in the game, is rumoured to capture a larger audience
  3. I know that funding for Feature X does not necessarily impact on funding for Feature Y (so less of X does not mean more of Y, or more of Y does not mean X suffers).

Given those basic ground rules, here we go.

Dear games developers, mostly roleplaying games developers

To a reasonably large extent, I don’t care how my character looks, but I do care if all the locations are just the same rehashed map over and over again (I’m looking at you Dragon Age 2).

Mostly, I don’t really mind if I only have say, 2 hair styles and 1 nose to pick from at character creation.  But I do care if all the quests are similar and there’s no epic storyline to follow other than ‘buy your way out of debt’ (hey, DA2, looking at you again!)

Yes, I absolutely want to be able to invest in my character, because being invested makes the gaming experience that much better, and part of that is being able to change how my character looks.  But let’s be honest, I’m not going to make him look like me (fat, fourty, hairy) so a small sample of heroic male and heroic female appearances will do.  Also, armour is armour, I don’t mind if you use the same shape and just change the colour, really.

Instead of spending time and money developing the game engine so it can handle all that customisation and doing all the hard work necessary to pull it off – why not invest that time and energy into content.

Quests, dialog, locations.  That’s what I want from a game.

Not to decide if my character has a hook nose, or a ever so slightly smaller hook nose.

Thanks.

Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas – why I love them

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I read a review yesterday for the new DLC pack for Fallout: New Vegas called Honest Hearts.  To be fair, I didn’t read the whole review, I read a summary which basically suggested Honest Hearts wasn’t that great and that the quests were mostly fetch and collect stuff.  Compared to Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, that seemed out of place since the developers do a good job of disguising the quests so they don’t feel like ‘go here, fetch that’.

It got me thinking though.  What was it that I enjoyed most in the two Fallout games I’ve played (I never really played 1 and 2)?  After thinking about it, I believe the reviewer of Honest Hearts missed the point.  The quests aren’t what make Fallout 3 and New Vegas the games they are, it’s the side stories.

When I first played Fallout 3 on the PS3 I was blown away by the depth and richness of the world.  I came from an MMO background really, in terms of computer RPG’s, so I was expecting lots of little quests tied together, but the main one in Fallout 3 is actually quite simple.  Essentially it’s, ‘go to a small number of locations, find evidence of your father, piece together the story, and then make a decision at the end which finishes the game’.  But doing that took ages, because I was constantly dragged into the side quests.  The side quests are great, but even they aren’t what make the game essentially unforgettable, it’s the non-quest driven side stories.

Finding a vault, searching it, and finding journal entries, or computer logs, or snippets of information and putting together what happened in the war, or just after, or what happened in that vault to one or two people, or the entire population.  Finding a house in the middle of nowhere with some tiny piece of information about the owner, often sad, poignant, a reflection on what the Fallout world had become before the war, or the struggle that followed.  That was what made the game great.  Learning about the world, learning about the history.  Not having it given to you on a plate or purely in voice overs, but honest discovery.  If you just did the main quest, you’d miss it.  You had to go looking, had to go digging, open every box, check every terminal.  Find out of the way locations, en route to nowhere, and delve into their history.

Slowly, the sinister truth about the vaults became clear, and the heartache of a world destroyed came into focus.

I was initially disappointed with Fallout: New Vegas, it felt a little too civilised for me, I wanted more of the blasted world of Fallout 3.  Despite myself, I found it growing on me though, and eventually I bought into the story.  Sadly, constant crashes on the PS3 version meant I stuck to the main quest, did as little as necessary to complete the story and got through it more as a chore than a game.  But I recently re-bought it on the 360 (still in pocket after purchase, re-sale, and cheap re-purchase), and thanks to fewer crashes (3 in 80 hours, plus 2 almost-game-breaking bugs) I’m taking the time to go everywhere, search everything, do every quest, explore every vault.

The stories are still there.  The vault where people were basically driven insane so they could be researched, the vault in which people had to sacrifice one person every year to stay alive, the vault with too many people and an unlocked armoury.  In those locations you learn the back story by piecing it together, yourself, from journals and terminals.  You don’t need to, nothing in the main quests requires it.  You may need to go to the vault, but you can find what you need by just following the arrow – if you’re interested, if you want to find out, it’s there for you to find.

The writing is superb – I feel like I was there during the last moments of the lives of those vault dwellers, because the game authors take so much time to craft the words.

I picked up Honest Hearts and played through it in a weekend.  It’s a new location, rocky and hard to navigate, there aren’t many different enemies, and the story feels a tiny bit contrived.  But there’s an underlying story of loss, heartache, suffering and then optimism if you want to go looking for it.  Not only that, but there are little teasers of connection to the Mojave wasteland and vaults you’ve already been to.  While I was running around doing the collection quests, I was also searching every inch of caves for some sign of an old hunter who lived in the region and who documented his story on his computer terminals.  That story takes us from the war through his survival, and the slow regeneration of the land, including the first signs of new creatures that Fallout 3 players will know well.

It was fascinating, sad and heart wrenching, and as well written as anything else in the Fallout universe, but if you didn’t go looking for it, you might never find it.

None of this needs to be there.  The developers could just stick the same vault design in the ground, fill it with ghouls and leave it at that.  They don’t have to write these stories, they don’t have to populate the vaults or the buildings or the caves with history and sadness.  Quite a few gamers wouldn’t even notice, certainly not the people who brag about completing Fallout: New Vegas in 7 hours.  I’ve been playing it for 80 hours and I’ve only scratched the surface of the main quest.  I’m pleased they take the time to include this content, I’m grateful the development team get the time from their management and the people funding the game, it’s what makes them worth buying.

You can make me collect as many broken radios as you want, as long as when I get to the building they’re in, I can spend time learning about the world, the people who are or used to be in it, and hearing their stories.

(Oh, it would be nice if it didn’t crash too)

Confessions of a Raid Leader – Foul!

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Previous Confessions [Part 1] [Part 2]

Being an EverQuest raid leader is a position of responsibility. Sure, it’s not on the same scale as school teacher, police officer or children’s TV presenter, but it should not be taken lightly. As a raid leader your actions and language should be an example to those you lead. Raiders are of all ages and backgrounds, ethnically and religiously diverse and you should always take care to be courteous.

Choice of words therefore is critical. I would strongly advocate never swearing.

Unless absolutely necessary.

Such as in the following situations.

Readers of a nervous disposition or delicate nature should stop reading now (also, if you’re under 18 you should seek your parent or guardian’s permission before reading, or check with your local wizard).

Polite Instructions

[Sat Jul 30 23:38:48 2005] You tell your raid, 'I remind you ALL to read the fucking charter before raiding with us'
[Sat Oct 01 23:32:56 2005] You tell your raid, 'when people then leave afterwards it really fucks us over'
[Sat Sep 09 23:15:27 2006] You tell your raid, 'patience folks please - keep an eye out for trash - welcome to why people don't fucking farm ikkinz 3'
[Sat Feb 09 21:07:03 2008] You tell your raid, 'but whle they are clicking you can't click otherwise it fucks the order up'

Gentle Planning

[Sat Jun 25 23:37:59 2005] You tell your raid, 'we never know if we should do this tower first or last, it's always a fucking pain'
[Sat Nov 05 21:36:26 2005] You tell your raid, 'then we give it 5 seconds and then i'll call assist and you come over push him onto us and burn the fucker'
[Sat Jan 07 23:27:46 2006] You tell your raid, 'ok mob has a nasty AE, hits for 3-4k, single target rampages, and memblurs all the fucking time'
[Sat Mar 18 21:37:10 2006] You tell your raid, 'if we stay near where we zone in, it's 2, if we stray it's 4, if we stray badly it's 6, if we fuck up it's 6 + Sol Ro'
[Sat Feb 25 21:55:43 2006] You tell your raid, 'the trash is fucking annoying and snares, roots, etc.'
[Sat Apr 22 22:12:00 2006] You tell your raid, 'but let's not forget, he probably hits like a fucking truck'
[Sat May 20 21:13:23 2006] You tell your raid, 'it's fucking chaotic, we just need to try and survive'
[Sat May 27 20:42:15 2006] You tell your raid, 'this is a revenge match - i hate this little fucker'
[Thu Sep 07 20:16:48 2006] You tell your raid, 'so let's not fuck about with it once we're inside'
[Thu Sep 07 22:38:09 2006] You tell your raid, 'we kill the mob to 90% while he's beating the fuck out of us'
[Sun Sep 10 00:26:06 2006] You tell your raid, 'we will 1. kill him once with extreme fucking prejudice'
[Sun Sep 10 01:08:30 2006] You tell your raid, 'top game from everyone folks, we give Derg 5 seconds and then we rush the fucker'
[Sat Feb 03 23:04:28 2007] You tell your raid, 'they both have fucking horrible AE's'
[Sat May 21 20:38:49 2005] You tell your raid, 'and from 90% you go full burn and nuke the fucker into the ground without mercy'

Courteous Announcement of Adds

[Sat Sep 08 22:56:13 2007] You tell your raid, 'GHOSTS IN THE FUCKING RAID'
[Sat Jan 07 22:08:43 2006] You tell your raid, 'Adds in the clerics fucking kite them '
[Sat Aug 09 22:01:04 2008] You tell your raid, 'Kill that fucking orc PLEASE'

Calm Apology

[Sat Jul 30 23:43:30 2005] You tell your raid, 'ok we will need to re-clear and then redo this - sorry for the fuckup'

Relaxed Information Gathering

[Sat Aug 26 22:19:13 2006] You tell your raid, 'who's not in the fucking zone?'

Clear and Concise Orders

[Sat Sep 17 20:58:06 2005] You tell your raid, 'GET THE FUCK OFF THAT TREE'
[Sat Oct 15 22:19:00 2005] You tell your raid, 'get the fuck off this mob until i call assist NOW'
[Sat Jan 07 22:07:27 2006] You tell your raid, 'FUCKING NAIL HIM'
[Sat Dec 03 20:32:12 2005] You tell your raid, 'Ok, I won't ask again - you will all move back behind me NOW and you still NOT fight the mobs in that fucking doorway'
[Sun Feb 05 00:43:24 2006] You tell your raid, 'Get off that Guardian of Dresolik and fucking assist Cheichn'
[Sat Feb 25 21:16:32 2006] You tell your raid, 'we are not engaging get the fuck off him'
[Sun Mar 26 02:46:07 2006] You tell your raid, 'BURN THE FUCKER'
[Sat Jun 24 21:38:51 2006] You tell your raid, 'FUCKING INVIS'
[Sat Aug 26 23:28:15 2006] You tell your raid, 'MOVE BACK FROM THE FUCKING EDGE NOW'
[Sat Oct 28 20:47:59 2006] You tell your raid, 'those folk not in the corner, get in the fucking corner NOW'
[Sat Nov 25 20:47:57 2006] You tell your raid, 'BACK THE FUCK OFF'
[Sat May 21 22:51:11 2005] You tell your raid, 'get off thos emobs, get them out of that fucking corridor'
[Sat Feb 23 21:27:45 2008] You tell your raid, 'and don't fucking train us'
[Sat Nov 20 21:28:56 2004] You tell your raid, 'fucking surround it - not all on the same side as me'

Excitement

[Sat Feb 18 21:56:49 2006] You tell your raid, 'It's a fucking Egg Jihad'
[Sat Feb 26 23:23:39 2005] You tell your raid, 'fucking perfect'
[Sat Apr 16 23:40:08 2005] You tell your raid, 'YES YOU DRESS WEARING FUCK'
[Sat May 07 21:05:26 2005] You tell your raid, 'and our shield will be RIGHTEOUS FUCKING ANGER'
[Sat Jan 15 20:18:14 2005] You tell your raid, 'before we go anywhere - thanks for a fucking awesome turnout'

Gallant Admission of Defeat

[Sat Oct 01 23:31:55 2005] You tell your raid, 'ahh fuck it'
[Sat Sep 17 22:05:16 2005] You tell your raid, 'fuck'
[Sat Jul 15 23:03:41 2006] You tell your raid, 'ah fuck'
[Sat Jul 28 23:23:49 2007] You tell your raid, 'fuck it'

Historical Commentary

[Sat Jan 26 23:10:50 2008] You tell your raid, 'we killed Tunat and he was fucking ugly'

Other than those situations, you should try and avoid swearing.

Lord of the Rings Online Europe – going to Turbine

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So, for the last four years or so, Codemasters have run the Lord of the Rings Service in Europe, on behalf of Turbine, but Turbine are taking it back.

http://www.lotro.com/news/latestnews/1157

1. What’s happening?

Turbine is taking over full operations of The Lord of the Rings Online™ throughout Europe starting June 1, 2011. We’re merging the US and EU services into one mega-service we’re calling the LOTRO Global Service.

This includes the servers used to present the EU service being hosted in the US.  Lots of change, I hope the game I know and love survives.

Confessions of a Raid Leader – Death!

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You can read part one of this series, and the general background here.  But in summary, I played EverQuest, I ended up being a co-leader of a most excellent raid alliance, and these posts are about remembering some of the madness that entailed.

EverQuest was brutal about death, right from the outset.  You lost XP, you had to go and find your corpse to get your gear back, and that meant getting to it, without any existing gear.  Eventually you could get resurrected, and over time they added ways to summon your corpse to you, but they never got rid of the XP penalty.  In groups, you could expect to die a couple of times per night if you were doing tough content, in raids, depending on your role, you could expect to die 10 or more times.  Over the course of an evening, that’s a reasonable amount of lost XP even if you are getting 96% resurrections.  But that was the job, if you were a tank, puller, healer or crowd controller you were going to die more than anyone else.  Of course, everyone else was going to die as well ….

The tanks on our raids had their own channel, and death was a common topic.  Our tanks were fearless in the face of death and gave it the respect it deserved.

Confident

[Sat May 05 21:03:27 2007] You tell tnftank:7, 'i'll take dref too for ramp in case I die?'
[Sat Jun 02 23:20:38 2007] You tell tnftank:7, 'i usually go to shit when i die'
[Sat Jun 02 23:47:38 2007] You tell tnftank:7, 'but at least let me die first'
[Sat Jun 30 21:02:43 2007] You tell tnftank:7, 'no furious, expect me to die ;)'
[Sat Feb 10 21:51:02 2007] Zorblag tells tnftank:6, 'This last fight is mean.  Aaddx will likely die.'
[Sat Mar 17 22:43:06 2007] Zerblag tells tnftank:6, 'But expect to die.'
[Sat May 05 21:52:55 2007] Tinyface tells tnftank:7, 'hehe i cant wait to give mine a shot but ill probably die :)'
[Sat Sep 22 22:20:39 2007] Zerblag tells tnftank:7, 'About to die.'
[Sat Oct 06 20:03:08 2007] Nevarna tells tnftank:7, 'I'll die anyway so it's all good'
[Sat Jan 26 19:57:51 2008] Glutious tells tnftank:7, 'a good day to die '

Callous

[Sat Mar 22 21:57:11 2008] You tell tnftank:7, 'if tinyface dies, just laugh at him and then step on his corpse to take over tanking'
[Sat Apr 28 21:31:23 2007] You tell tnftank:7, 'If Cheichn is still afk he's about to die'

Encouraging

[Sat Oct 13 19:41:04 2007] Sidyenai tells tnftank:7, 'ok, nev, you go to mirror and look yourself into your eyes and say: i wil not die this raid, i will not die this raid .. 20 times .. :D'
[Sat Jul 19 20:31:51 2008] Zerblag tells tnftank:7, 'AE ramp on Nightshade.  Don't die to it or you get laughed at.'
[Sat Mar 15 21:22:17 2008] Tinyface tells tnftank:7, 'Dont fall off the walkway, you will pop to the middle and die a horrible death'
[Sat Aug 04 21:39:58 2007] Zerblag tells tnftank:7, 'It'll be faster just to die Aaddx.'

Overly Confident

[Sat May 19 21:08:49 2007] Tinyface tells tnftank:7, 'hehe i NEVER die :)'
[Sat Apr 07 23:30:50 2007] Drefaen tells tnftank:6, 'whee, day off, Aaddx nevr dies'

Draefen was Always Ready

[Sat Jan 20 21:32:22 2007] Drefaen tells tnftank:7, 'sure, I haven't died yet, I'm starting to get worried'
[Sat Jan 20 22:50:14 2007] Drefaen tells tnftank:7, 'I haven't died yet, feels odd'
[Sat Jan 27 23:18:06 2007] Drefaen tells tnftank:7, 'should I be in NW corner? or only when Brich dies? I mean if Brich dies'
[Sun Jan 28 00:17:58 2007] Drefaen tells tnftank:7, 'I suspect I'll die here, I've only fell over once so far'
[Sat Feb 03 20:16:09 2007] Drefaen tells tnftank:6, 'I recon I shouldn't get one, I always die 8)'

And of course as co-leader of the raids, it was up to me to remind our most excellent raid force of the critical strategy regarding the stuff we were killing. This mainly revolved around not dying.

Basic Survival

[Sat Sep 22 22:15:31 2007] You tell your raid, 'the important thing - just don't die'
[Sat Sep 29 21:27:48 2007] You tell your raid, 'DO NOT DIE NOW NOT THIS CLOSE'
[Sat Oct 13 20:58:40 2007] You tell your raid, 'then we kill stuff, and don't die'
[Sat Oct 13 20:59:22 2007] You tell your raid, 'ok south - don't die this time :p'
[Sat Aug 09 22:12:05 2008] You tell your raid, 'DO NOT DIE'
[Sat Aug 09 22:39:01 2008] You tell your raid, '1. don't die'
[Sat Aug 09 22:39:10 2008] You tell your raid, '2. friends don't let friends die either'
[Sat Feb 05 21:32:24 2005] You tell your raid, 'nice - don't die while we do loot'
[Sat May 07 23:14:51 2005] You tell your raid, 'we WILL NOT DIE HERE TODAY'

As you can see, I really liked this ‘not dying’ as a strategy …

[Sat Sep 22 21:24:46 2007] You tell your raid, 'so everyone tanks, no one dies'
[Sat Jan 06 20:35:03 2007] You tell your raid, 'oh and don't die'
[Sat Sep 08 19:29:38 2007] You tell your raid, 'ok same deal - only this time we don't die'
[Sat Sep 08 23:24:46 2007] You tell your raid, 'Do NOT die'
[Sat May 28 20:26:22 2005] You tell your raid, 'follow Aaddx we're charging the arena - don't die'
[Sat Jun 11 20:22:10 2005] You tell your raid, 'don't die :p'
[Sat Nov 26 23:09:25 2005] You tell your raid, 'stay focussed don't die'
[Sat Dec 03 20:53:53 2005] You tell your raid, 'don't die'
[Sun Jan 29 00:42:41 2006] You tell your raid, 'oh key thing - don't die'
[Sat Feb 11 22:35:48 2006] You tell your raid, 'NO ONE dies'

It worked for our raid team, so I stuck to it, who would have thought ‘not dying’ was the most powerful weapon a raid team could have?

[Sat Mar 04 22:21:51 2006] You tell your raid, 'don't die'
[Sat Mar 04 23:10:20 2006] You tell your raid, 'and don't die'
[Sat Apr 01 21:28:47 2006] You tell your raid, 'don't die, it's a long fight'
[Sat Oct 21 22:24:20 2006] You tell your raid, 'groups 1-3 will kill it and they won't die'
[Sat Dec 09 20:59:23 2006] You tell your raid, 'stay focussed, don't die, and we can do this'
[Sat Dec 16 23:23:37 2006] You tell your raid, 'don't die that's silly'
[Sat Feb 17 22:52:24 2007] You tell your raid, 'here we go, no one dies'
[Sat Mar 10 22:50:19 2007] You tell your raid, 'we must not die'
[Sat Mar 24 19:57:47 2007] You tell your raid, 'do not let my 3rd favourite SK die'
[Sat Apr 07 23:19:28 2007] You tell your raid, 'DO NOT DIE HERE I WILL BE UPSET'
[Sat Jun 16 20:17:40 2007] You tell your raid, 'oh AE Rampage - don't die'
[Sat Jul 21 20:58:07 2007] You tell your raid, 'All you have to do now is NOT DIE'
[Sat Jul 28 22:47:13 2007] You tell your raid, '20 mobs at a time - don't die'
[Sat Jan 05 20:17:45 2008] You tell your raid, 'off-tank, don't die'
[Sat Jan 05 21:52:17 2008] You tell your raid, 'pull him - don't die'
[Tue Dec 11 20:25:29 2007] You tell your raid, 'no one die, everyone win, easy victory'
[Sat Dec 15 21:20:11 2007] You tell your raid, 'Hold on then - refuse to die'

Positive Thinking

[Sat Mar 08 22:14:40 2008] You tell your raid, 'try not to die, but it's an UGLY raid'
[Sat Jul 02 21:40:50 2005] You tell your raid, 'we have *not* tried this before, so we will probably all die horribly'
[Sat Sep 08 18:46:19 2007] You tell your raid, 'Ok - Oly gets to die later - thanks Oly'
[Thu Sep 07 23:30:54 2006] You tell your raid, 'tank order is - all tanks form a queue and die for your country - followed by weaponshield rangers'
[Sat Apr 21 21:59:12 2007] You tell your raid, 'we have to trigger these two mobs, normally we make Aonia die, but today it's Moone's turn, I need to talk her through it so it'll take a moment longer than normal'
[Wed Aug 22 22:26:26 2007] You tell your raid, 'that's the voice of a man who expects to die again'
[Sat Dec 15 22:39:49 2007] You tell your raid, 'each week someone thinks that, and they die'

Travel Tips

[Sat Oct 29 23:28:14 2005] You tell your raid, 'we're going to kill a Dragon - don't die on the way'
[Sat Feb 25 20:23:25 2006] You tell your raid, 'please don't die in BoT it makes me sad - get invis'
[Sat Nov 04 21:47:22 2006] You tell your raid, 'and die, at Noit's feet, to provide him something to stand on'

Complex Strategy

[Sat Dec 08 22:54:51 2007] You tell your raid, 'we assist Nlaokx, we mezz the snake pops, and we refuse to die'
[Sat Jul 29 20:29:12 2006] You tell your raid, 'Fake Rallos - AE Rampage - fight at max range, do not die'
[Sat Jul 29 20:29:23 2006] You tell your raid, 'Real Rallos - AE Rampage, adds, shit, etc. do not die'
[Sat Dec 03 20:43:20 2005] You tell your raid, 'on the next named - no swarm pets, no hammer pets, no sword pets, and don't die'
[Sat Dec 03 20:49:54 2005] You tell your raid, 'Named inc with adds - do not break mezz - do not die'
[Sat Jan 14 22:15:38 2006] You tell your raid, 'ok we're going left - follow - tank 3 mezz rest - assist aaddx easy - don't die'
[Sat Feb 10 20:53:53 2007] You tell your raid, 'next mob is archetype again - we do it the same only this time, we don't die'
[Sat Feb 10 22:34:01 2007] You tell your raid, 'biggest train of undead wins - go get some - don't die, don't bring anything that might be ugly'
[Sat Mar 31 21:02:17 2007] You tell your raid, 'aggro on the snake will bounce like hell - just kill her and don't die'
[Sat Apr 14 22:54:14 2007] You tell your raid, 'there'll be a load of mobs outside the instance - just zone in - don't die :p'
[Sat Jun 16 20:15:21 2007] You tell your raid, 'i can't remember what his AE's are, what cures them, how bad they are, or anything else :) so let's pretend they don't exist, try not to die'
[Sun Sep 02 00:11:03 2007] You tell your raid, 'everyone will be in south except 7 and 8, you will burn south, you won't die'
[Sat Jun 28 20:52:29 2008] You tell your raid, 'your job is to aggro your mob and bring it into the cubby and then not die'
[Sat Jun 28 23:36:41 2008] You tell your raid, 'going to do this the same way, but not die as much'
[Sat Jul 05 22:38:17 2008] You tell your raid, 'stay on your feet - too close to die now'

Positive Encouragement

[Sat Jul 19 22:41:25 2008] You tell your raid, 'you're not allowed to die until you have no mana, no endurance and then no hitpoints'
[Sat Jul 19 20:24:12 2008] You tell your raid, 'if tanks get out of range for heals, just let them die, /tell [tankname] laugh you were out of range'
[Sat Feb 09 20:49:05 2008] You tell your raid, 'don't die, it'll be embarassing'
[Sun Oct 28 00:04:54 2007] You tell your raid, 'if you die it's your own fault :p'
[Sat Jul 29 21:23:29 2006] You tell your raid, 'if you die because you're not invis i'm gonna be really unhappy - 2 people last time'
[Sat Nov 27 23:26:24 2004] You tell your raid, '500pp to let him die'
[Sat Jul 30 23:22:28 2005] You tell your raid, 'anyone in plate who dies including clerics gets laughed at ok'
[Sat Aug 06 13:03:39 2005] You tell your raid, 'if you die, we laugh at you'
[Sun Feb 12 00:28:37 2006] You tell your raid, 'Hail the PP - if you died we laugh at you'
[Sat May 20 23:10:43 2006] You tell your raid, 'don't die to enrage or I'll kill you right after we rez you'
[Sat Feb 03 20:07:46 2007] You tell your raid, 'if you die, it will trigger a chain reaction of death and we will wipe'
[Sat Apr 14 20:59:02 2007] You tell your raid, 'every mob in here ENRAGES - based on our new policy - anyone who dies to ENRAGE buys me something nice in the bazaar for 10kpp+'
[Sat Jul 28 20:23:30 2007] You tell your raid, 'if you die to ENRAGE today, you get to clean my toilet with your toothbrush tomorrow'
[Sat Aug 04 20:23:53 2007] You tell your raid, 'ok follow please - anyone who dies does the dishes'
[Sat Aug 11 20:08:58 2007] You tell your raid, 'don't die in WoS, or we point and laugh'
[Sat Mar 08 21:56:00 2008] You tell your raid, 'if you can't cancel magic, don't bother, you're probably just gonna have to die ;)'
[Sat Mar 22 21:22:40 2008] You tell your raid, 'aug mobs inc soon, don't die to them, it's embarassing :p'
[Fri May 26 20:35:54 2006] You tell your raid, 'Jae died, we can laugh later'
[Sat Jan 07 23:42:20 2006] You tell your raid, 'which tank didn't die?'

Exasperated Encouragement

[Sat Mar 10 21:52:58 2007] You tell your raid, 'WHY DO YOU DIE TO ENRAGE?'

Confessions of a Raid Leader – Burned!

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Introduction

The guild I was a member of in EverQuest was a ‘family’ guild, as they were known.  It existed for social reasons and to allow us to enjoy the group/casual element of the game.  We were also friends with a few other guilds in a similar position.  The thing with EverQuest is that it sucked you in, and so a few of us, starting small, began raiding things with a small alliance of guilds.  Over time the raids grew, but we prided ourselves on casual raiding, we enforced as few rules as possible and we avoided big raid style loot management (DKP).

We ended up beating some of the toughest content in the game, and boy, did we have fun.  These posts are random memories I have about raiding in EverQuest, both with my own raid team and with other raid guilds and alliances.

Burn!

My first experience of large scale raiding in EverQuest was with the Blood & Guts guild.  They were in a raid team formed from two European guilds so they raided pretty much in my timezone.  I’d had almost no raid experience, joined them with my wizard, and went on a learning curve that looked more like a cliff.  As a wizard, my role was simple.

  • don’t die
  • don’t get anyone else killed
  • don’t break mezz
  • nuke the mobs until they’re dead

This should be pretty easy, and to be fair, it’s one of the easiest raid roles in EverQuest.  One of the most colourful raid leaders with Blood & Guts was Kasstou.  I was always amazed that one German guild and one French guild used English as the primary language in their raids, which certainly made it easier for me, but must have made it a nightmare for them.  Not only were they typing in a foreign language, but they were doing so in a high stress environment trying to convey critical information.

Anyway, Kasstou had a habit of shouting ‘burn’ into the raid channel.  Here’s a few examples,

[Sun Jul 11 23:17:37 2004] Kasstou tells the raid,  'BURN HIM'
[Sun Jul 11 23:56:41 2004] Kasstou tells the raid,  'BURN INNO DOWN'
[Sun Jul 18 20:17:30 2004] Kasstou tells the raid,  'ok disc burn'
[Sun Jul 18 21:11:01 2004] Kasstou tells the raid,  'BURN NOW'
[Sun Jul 18 23:23:43 2004] Kasstou tells the raid,  'BURN LIKE HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL'
[Sun Jul 25 20:56:40 2004] Kasstou tells the raid,  'DISC BURN KILL FASTTTTTT'

This used to frustrate me, because calling for burn suggested I hadn’t been trying to do as much DPS as I could have, the rest of the time.  I was a conscientious wizard, I was always trying to ride that line between aggro and DPS, I was always burning!  Once or twice I even complained about this to fellow group members.

When I started co-running my own raids, however, all that moaning went out of the window.  It became obvious very quickly that sometimes, you needed a single word to inspire greatness in your raid team, to elevate them to greater heights of damage.  At those times, BURN was the right choice, and so over time, I found myself using it more and more as we raided!

Reading back these log entries, even now, reminds me of the events, the mobs and the people involved in raiding in EverQuest, I miss you all, they were good times!

So, for your nostalgic pleasure, Grayhelm calls BURN!

Simple Burns

[Sat Jul 02 22:41:40 2005] You tell your raid, 'BURN NOW'
[Sat Jun 04 23:47:56 2005] You tell your raid, 'burninate'
[Sun Aug 14 00:03:55 2005] You tell your raid, 'burn dis nuke whatever'
[Thu Oct 20 21:08:39 2005] You tell your raid, 'BURN HIM ALL OUT'
[Wed Mar 22 20:39:59 2006] You tell your raid, 'WE CAN DO IT BURN BURN BURN'
[Wed Apr 05 20:28:33 2006] You tell your raid, 'DISC BURN NUKERISE'
[Thu Aug 24 22:13:13 2006] You tell your raid, 'BURN BURN BURN BURN'
[Sat Feb 02 22:51:35 2008] You tell your raid, 'more burn'
[Sat Jul 12 21:49:05 2008] You tell your raid, 'ok mini burn on Emperor Draygun, the Lich King'

Urgent Burns

[Sun Jan 28 00:27:06 2007] You tell your raid, 'BURN COME ON YOU CAN DO IT'
[Sun Mar 26 02:46:07 2006] You tell your raid, 'BURN THE FUCKER'
[Sat Sep 08 20:22:42 2007] You tell your raid, 'ALL GO BURN KILL SHOUT THROW THINGS DIE DIE KITE DOOM DEATH GO'
[Sun Dec 11 00:06:25 2005] You tell your raid, 'OH NO UNIVERSAL CHAT DOWN - BURN Velitorkin'
[Sun Mar 11 00:09:10 2007] You tell your raid, '30 seconds MORE BURN'
[Sat May 20 23:10:59 2006] You tell your raid, 'DISC BURN - throw laundry'
[Thu Aug 24 22:14:30 2006] You tell your raid, 'burn him - use harsh words'
[Sat Jan 13 20:44:10 2007] You tell your raid, 'Full burn - all discs go go go'
[Sat Jun 09 23:34:53 2007] You tell your raid, 'BURN with ANYTHING YOU HAVE'
[Sat Sep 01 21:51:08 2007] You tell your raid, 'BURN clerics light on mana'
[Sat May 10 23:23:03 2008] You tell your raid, 'Burn hard, Burn early, Burn often'

Anatomical Burns

[Sat Aug 27 22:05:21 2005] You tell your raid, 'burn his ass'

Directional Burns

[Sat Sep 29 21:28:34 2007] You tell your raid, 'BURN MY MOB'
[Sat Sep 29 21:29:04 2007] You tell your raid, 'burn east'
[Sat Sep 29 21:30:34 2007] You tell your raid, 'BURN WEST'
[Sat Nov 10 21:03:01 2007] You tell your raid, 'BURN SOUTH NOW'

Complex Burns

[Sat Aug 27 23:33:09 2005] You tell your raid, 'BURN TT - KITE ADDS'
[Sat Feb 10 22:02:59 2007] You tell your raid, 'GO GO BURN KITE KITE BURN KITE'
[Sat Mar 24 19:57:05 2007] You tell your raid, 'BURN DO NOT PUSH BURN BURN BURN'
[Sat Jun 02 23:49:19 2007] You tell your raid, 'Full swarm pets - burn burn burn etc.'

Exasperated Burns

[Sat Aug 20 22:24:37 2005] You tell your raid, 'BURN FFS ARGH - when you see that, go full DPS'
[Sun Sep 11 00:44:02 2005] You tell your raid, 'for gods sake BURN'
[Sun Jan 28 00:24:40 2007] You tell your raid, 'BURN Innoruuk ffs'
[Sat Jul 14 22:02:10 2007] You tell your raid, 'If you have Endurance left - WHY? BURN DISCS NOW'
[Sat Jul 21 22:15:06 2007] You tell your raid, 'If you have ENDURANCE LEFT - ask yourself WHY - BURN THIS MOB'
[Sat Oct 13 21:04:59 2007] You tell your raid, 'someone burn south ffs'
[Sat Dec 01 23:57:55 2007] You tell your raid, 'health going up? BURN'

Polite Burns

[Sat Mar 10 22:27:04 2007] You tell your raid, 'BURN Tqiv Araxt the Enraged please someone'
[Sat Sep 15 23:50:16 2007] You tell your raid, 'ok someone burn this thing to the ground please'

Inverted Burns

[Sat Oct 29 22:17:02 2005] You tell your raid, 'control your aggro this is not a burn competition'
[Sat Sep 29 21:21:50 2007] You tell your raid, 'slow burn'

Pre-emptive Burns

[Sat Aug 11 20:35:03 2007] You tell your raid, 'remember - full burn from the outset - dying with any mana or endurance is a waste'
[Sat May 21 20:38:49 2005] You tell your raid, 'and from 90% you go full burn and nuke the fucker into the ground without mercy'

Complacent Burns

[Mon Oct 29 20:38:21 2007] You tell your raid, 'Grats Burn - loot up'

Apocalyptic Burns

[Sat Nov 27 21:33:32 2004] You tell your raid, 'burn disc or it's all over'

Burns Which Could Be Misunderstood

[Sat Mar 15 20:31:09 2008] You tell your raid, 'burn the cat'

Wrong Burns

[Mon Apr 07 21:16:07 2008] You tell your raid, 'electrical burning smell here, if we go LD,send fire engines'
[Sat May 31 23:16:18 2008] You tell your raid, 'Burn SIDDHAYA'

And finally, When Burns Go Bad

[Sat Mar 15 22:02:19 2008] You tell your raid, 'there will be NO BURN call - we CONTROL this fight all the way through'
and then
[Sat Mar 15 23:27:53 2008] You tell your raid, 'FULL BURN Emperor Draygun, the Lich King DOTS and SWARM PETS GO'

Revamped Evendim

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The Lord of the Rings Online is going through a lot of change at the moment.  The move to Free-to-Play (including the addition of the store) has driven a lot of those changes, often to include opportunities for Turbine/Codemasters to make more revenue.  It has also in some ways, made the game ‘easier’.  I’m aware that over time all MMO’s get ‘easier’ for various definitions of what that might mean.  What used to take weeks now takes days, and what used to take days can now take hours.  The driver is usually the result of additional content and a desire to allow new players to catch up with their longer-playing friends.  One of the newest and biggest changes is a revamp of Evendim.

Evendim always felt a little odd to me.  There was a long ride from Oatbarton to Ost Forod or Tinnudir through a lot of countryside that never really got used.  Sure, you got sent back to Barandalf from Tinnudir to kill some stuff, but generally it was wasted space.  On top of that, you sort of moved between Ost Forod, Tinnudir, Rantost and the other islands and tried to find quests of the right colour.  A lot of that time was spent swimming (which was somewhat alleviated by the introduction of one boat route some time back, you can see what I think of all that swimming here, at the end of that post).

The revamp has done several things,

  • Added a new quest hub on the bridge with the giant statue on it.  This quest hub covers the gap between Oatbarton and Tinnudir .  It has quests in Barandalf (the area between Oatbarton and Tinnudir), some of which are old and many of which are completely new.
  • Implemented another new quest hub west of Oatbarton, in which you must help a bunch of Hobbits prepare for a festival.  Those quests alone provide a single levels worth of experience, and give you a real sense of the Hobbit mentality.
  • Smoothed the overall level progression, I’m not sure if they changed any mob or quest levels, but I was never stuck with a mix of blue, white and red quests.  While some of the quests were challenging, I never felt like they were out of my league or totally beneath me.
  • Expanded the quest hub at Men Erain, using the crypts and tombs along that road.  This is a really good addition and provides a much better transition from Tinnudir to Annuminas.  Some of the early quests in Annuminas have changed as well, but I didn’t stick around to try them out.
  • Added two more boat routes, from Tinnudir to Tyl Ruinen and Men Erain.  This removes virtually all of the swimming until you get to the Blue Lady quests.
  • ‘Soloised’ most of the quests.  With the exception of one or two notable quests, everything is now designated solo and can be done alone.  This includes the instance on Rantost to defend it against Tomb Robbers.  Obviously, this is both good and bad, depending on your play style.
  • Added new Gauredain camps and opened up the general area around the Gauredain so you don’t have to travel through the entire camp to collect one item at the top.  This is a really welcome addition, and along with the new camps there are a couple of extra quests in Evespires.
  • Replaced the quest rewards with barter tokens, which you can use to purchase full sets of class specific armour.  I really liked this, I’ve completed Evendim on 4 characters (pre-change), 2 characters (after they added the boat to the Evespires) and now 2 more characters after all the changes.  One of the most frustrating things about the place was the apparently random rewards.  Some classes came out of it much better than others.  With the new system, you can build up tokens and get a full set of suitable, sensible gear.  There’s a second set of armour to work towards as well, with a mix of tokens and quest rewards.
  • The reputation has been changed so that it builds with The Wardens of Annuminas all the way through, and if you stay and complete the quests you’ll be Kindred by the time you move on.  I like that, it makes more sense than having to hang around for days afterwards trying to get reputation drops.
  • Ost Forod has seen the fewest changes to the actual quests (there’s a couple of new ones), but the way in which you get the quests has been refined to make more sense.  This is true of all the quests in Evendim now.  The best quest in the entire game is still present in Ost Forod, and no, I won’t spoil it for you.
  • The overall story arc makes more sense now, with clear goals and a clear reason for the Wardens to be asking for your help.  Old quests have new descriptions or angles, and the new quests are designed to tie the story to the location.

Overall, the Evendim revamp is a huge success in my view.  It’s just a much more enjoyable place to quest, without the hours of endless and pointless travel to get from your quest giver to the quest location.  Turbine haven’t lost any of the charm of the area, have worked hard to utilise locations that were wasted before, and have back filled some lore and story that was sorely lacking.

Moria – Epic Quest line

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Turbine launched the Moria expansion to Lord of the Rings online in November 2008.  Last night, I finally finished the epic quest line (Volume 2), along with some friends.  We put in a lot of effort to finish that quest line, and even with a few extra levels from the Mirkwood expansion some of the group quests were challenging.

It feels good to finally get it complete.  We’re almost up-to-date with all the epic quests, despite the new stuff added with Enedwaith.  That’ll be an interesting situation if we finally catch up – it’ll be the first time since the game went live that any of us are ahead of the game in terms of all the epic content.

Enedwaith – aiding the Grey Company

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I don’t know if The Lord of the Rings Online is the best massively multi-player online roleplaying game (MMO / MMORPG) in the world, but it certainly has two very strong things going for it.  Firstly, the lore is rich and engaging and immediately familiar for many people while still having depth and being able to surprise, and secondly it has a lot of free content.  Not free because the game has gone ‘free to play’, but free because on a reasonably regular basis new chapters are added to the ongoing Epic quest, and those chapters often bring new areas in which to quest, without subscribers having to pay anything at all.  That model was started early in the game and continues even now.

Lothlorien was added for free post-Moria (it was initially intended to be in the Moria expansion I believe, but grew too large and was at risk of taking up too much resource).  And while Mirkwood was a paid for expansion, the game has just seen its latest free content – Enedwaith.  There’s a full developer diary article for Enedwaith which pretty much covers it, but I wanted to write my own little half review here, as well.

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