This is why we can’t have nice things.

While reading through my RSS feeds this evening a title caught my eye from Massively:

Star Trek Online dev unconcerned with losing global playability for the sake of lock boxes

Uh, what? That sounded incredibly out of character for any of the developers from the STO team, so of course I clicked through to read the whole thing, and then I covered my face with my hand and sighed.

Basically, Jeremy Randall (Borticus) was chatting with some players on the Jupiter Force fleet forums (of which he’s a member as well, or was before he joined Cryptic, I assume he still is) about the lock boxes and what might happen if some countries decided they’re illegal. Jeremy’s opinion was that STO would become unplayable in those countries rather than lose the boxes, because the revenue from them is apparently that good.

It was immediately apparent to me that this is just Jeremy’s opinion being expressed in a discussion among friends. It’s not news. Were this in a press release or on the official forums, then it would be news. Had someone at Massively wanted to use this as fodder for an editorial that would’ve been valid. But it wasn’t posted in an editorial, it was posted as a news item, and that is crap in my opinion. Plus, the wording of the title and the flippant tone of the article (as well as the appended update) make the whole thing feel like link bait to me (and I really considered removing the link above at this point).

What really irritates me is now either the Jupiter Force forums will go closed for fleet members only, or Jeremy will no longer be able to take off his developer hat when chatting with friends. Both of those outcomes suck. The Star Trek Online team is among the most communicative of any MMO live team that I’ve seen, and I really hate to see events that make that seem like bad policy.

Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should, or that you have to.

Glad I’m not playing Diablo 3.

Diablo 3 launched today to the excitement of many. I mentioned over the weekend that I wasn’t interested in it but was expecting to feel left out. Well, I’d forgotten about the always online DRM that Blizzard was building into the game. Despite the fact that you can play Diablo 3 completely single-player, you can’t actually play it offline. In effect Blizzard launched a single-player MMO today (an SPO?) and had the usually MMO launch issues, namely overwhelmed servers.

So instead of there being a deafening silence on Twitter as everyone was engrossed in playing, or having to read tons of messages about how amazing the game is, instead I was reading complaints about lag, server timeouts, and error numbers. It really reminded me of the original launch of WoW more than seven years ago, and made me wonder why Blizzard wasn’t able to prepare better. After all, surely if any game developer has the experience and resources to handle a massive launch it should be Blizzard. Right?

Personally, even were I interested in the game, I still wouldn’t be playing it as I really dislike the trend DRM is taking at the moment. At least Valve has built Steam to allow for offline play, surely Blizzard could manage something similar if they cared to. Or maybe it’s Activision that doesn’t care?

Either way, I hope that things calm down soon for those of you who want to play, so you can get in and get some quality time in-game.

Odd man out.

It seems like there’s regularly a game of the week/month that everyone is excited about and playing. My friends lists in Raptr, Steam, and Xbox will all show people playing the same title.

Usually when this happens, even if it’s a game I’ve not had any previous interest in, I’ll start to get interested or curious and often end up getting it. This sometimes turns out well, Skyrim, and sometimes turns out poorly, Deus Ex: Human Revolution (because I’ll bring it up any chance I get, I guess). Most recently, seeing how much fun a few MMO focused friends who were are in varying stages of MMO burnout were having playing Tera, got me to buy the game and give it a shot despite my apathy-bordering-on-dislike for the art style.

The Secret World is another game that I’ve had zero interest in, both because of the setting and the fact that I’ve never Funcom launch a game well. This weekend was apparently the first beta test after the NDA dropped because I started seeing a lot of Twitter messages and blog posts about it. Oddly though, it’s had zero impact on my interest level, so I think I’m safe (except I probably just Murphied myself).

The other up and coming game is Diablo 3. I barely played the original game and never bothered with the sequel. For whatever reason I was just never hooked on it, in the mid 9o’s I was much more interested in the Age of Empires series. Happily, despite nearly everyone who plays games that I know planning to play this, I’ve still had zero interest.

I do feel a little bit left out, but really it’s a blessing. I’m neck deep in games I already own or pay subscriptions for that I should be playing instead.

So anyone else skipping either of these titles?

Elder Scrolls Online

It the announcement that’s been the talk of the Internet over the last week. A lot of people are surprised, which surprises me. The Elder Scrolls (TES) is an RPG, so it’s not surprising to me that Bethesda and ZeniMax Media Group are interested in moving the franchise into the MMO space. There are subscription fees calling after all.

Of course ZeniMax Online has it’s work cutout for it. Skyrim, Oblivion, and Morrowind are massive open world RPGs with large modding communities and point-n-click combat. None of which works well in an MMO, or at least hasn’t yet. Plus, ZeniMax Online has apparently been working on TES Online since 2007. This means that they’ve probably not been able to incorporate the things that Skyrim did so well into their designs. Even more important, a lot of the recent innovations in story telling (SWTOR) or combat (GW2/Tera) or dynamic events (Rift) are likely not part of the design.

Still, it’s hard to tell much for certain yet since there’s very little official information out there. The few things I’ve watched or read mention pretty standard combat (which is disappointing) but three faction PvP which is excellent and makes me think of Dark Age of Camelot.

At this point I’m just curious. It’s way too soon to be worried or excited about TESO, but it looks like May and June are going to be full of news and videos about the game, so we should see soon if The Elder Scrolls Online is worth adding to my list of games to watch.

Guild Wars 2 & 1 and Tera Online

Guild Wars 2 & 1

Like just about every MMO player (or so it seemed) I played Guild Wars 2 during the recent beta weekend. Despite never playing Guild Wars 1 for longer than a week, I’ve still been interested in how the sequel would turn out. ArenaNet still has problems to fix, they’ve resolved most of the issues I had with the original game. All of the invisible walls are gone making the world more inviting to explore. The towns are no longer glorified game lobbies.

My only complaints about GW2’s beta weekend were the lag and the art/animation style. The lag was something I expected and was totally reasonable given the volume of players that ArenaNet was supporting. The graphics and animations weren’t something they really needed to address, it’s just that the Asian influenced art style has always something I’ve tolerated rather than enjoyed.

All in all, I enjoyed GW2 as much as I’d hoped I would. The only surprise to come out of the weekend has been a renewed interested in trying GW1 again. This must be the fifth or sixth time I’ve tried to let the game hook me, so I don’t give it good odds of succeeding this time, but I would like to have some emotional connect to the old world as I think it’ll give me more appreciation for the changes when I start playing GW2.

Tera

Even more surprising to me than an impulse to give GW1 another shot, is the fact that I bought Tera Online and have been enjoying it. Tera’s not something that’s been on my radar at all. The Eastern art style and animations (especially the running animations) are really not my thing. Because of my GW2 weekend, renewed interest in GW1, and several friends really enjoying the game, I ended up buying the digital download from En Masse and rolling an Archer on the PvE-RP server.

The combat is definitely the strongest feature of the game for me. There’s no tab targeting, so position, timing, and aim are important to winning fights. There’s no auto attacks, instead a primary basic attack is bound to the left mouse button. There’s also the ability to set up skill chains, so instead of manually having a rotation where you go through ability hotkeys, you can link multiple skills together and then start a chain with a hotkey but then press space bar to fire off  chained skills. Initially this sounded pretty bland to me, but in practice it’s quite fun.

Unfortunately the combat is really the only fun thing for me about the game. The art is definitely beautiful, especially the environments, but the characters and animations are something I play in spite of not because of. The lore and quests in the game are also very standard. Too be honest, I haven’t given them much of a chance which is pretty out of character for me. I’ve even been skipping the cinematics that play during major points in the main story line. I think it’s because Tera doesn’t feel like a game I’ll be playing past the free month (or maybe the first subbed month) so I’m just sprinting through the game taking whatever fun I can from the combat systems.

Tera is basically MMO candy. I feel a little guilty playing it, and I don’t expect much longevity from it, but I’ll enjoy it while it’s fun and move on once it’s not.

NBI: Advice is a strong word.

In three years of bogging I’ve broken most of the suggestions you’ll see other bloggers advise. I don’t have a consistent posting schedule. I don’t do any marketing or link trading. Most of my posts don’t use screenshots or pictures.

This site started because I had a few rants about DRM to get off my chest, and because after years of reading other blogs and commenting I decided I wanted my own soapbox on the Internet. Sometimes I think the blog continues in spite of me rather than because of me.

So rather than advice, I thought I’d highlight how I’ve managed to make it three years as a hobbyist blogger.

Why?

Figure out what your goals are. Are you hoping to make money? Become famous (fame being a relative thing)? Join the blogging community? This wasn’t something I thought about initially, though lucked into a good niche. I’ve made some good friends through the blog and gotten some loyal readers/commenters that don’t mind my erratic posting schedule.

Speaking of consistency and schedules, if you’re trying to build a reader base you need to post as often as possible, but don’t post just because you feel like you have to. If you’re like me you already have a full time job and don’t need another. Hobbies are fun because you don’t have to do them.

Where?

There are lots of options for where to bogging. I use a self-hosted WordPress blog because I enjoy the technical aspects and I like having complete control of what version of the software I’m running as well as what plugins are installed.

I didn’t start out that way though, and it’s not the quickest way to get started. My advice is to pick one (or try both) of the major platforms (WordPress and Blogger) and get started. You should start as soon as you can and not get sidetracked in registering a domain name or picking a theme. Those are excellent ways to procrastinate (which is something I’m eminently qualified to give advice about) but jumping straight into the writing is the best thing you can do. You can always move your content to a different platform or new name a later.

Marketing vs. Networking

To me: marketing is business oriented and networking is community oriented.

If you’re looking to make a business out of your blog, I wish you good luck, but I have no suggestions for you. I’ve never had the slightest interest in that.

If you’re trying to connect with other bloggers and attract readers then my suggestion is to be yourself and be personal. Different styles attract different crowds, so it does you no good to build a readership by being aggressively opinionated if that’s not really you. It’s a great way to build readership but they’ll be gone quickly the moment your style changes.

Besides taking advantage of NBI, commenting on other blogs is the best way to get noticed by other bloggers and readers. If you just spam a bunch of blogs with links to your site then expect your comments to get moderated away quickly. What you need to do is find blogs you enjoy, which necessarily mean agree with, and read them regularly and leave good comments. A quick, “I agree,” is not going to entice anyone to click your name and read you. Networking this way isn’t easy but it does work.

Social networks are another good way to connect and promote yourself, but again you can’t just make an account and start blasting out links. I’ve been on Twitter nearly as long as I’ve been blogging. I originally joined to chat and occasionally I’ll link an article. Being genuine and willing to have conversations with others will let you get much more out of the service than just posting nothing but links.

Have fun.

Try not to focus too much on stats (no matter how tempting or easy that can be). Don’t limit what you write about to what you think people want to read. Don’t post just because it’s been a week since your last one.

Blogs are great ways to meet like minded people. They are also great for recording thoughts and experiences that you can refer back to. Writing is an excellent way to think through an issue or opinion, especially if it sparks a discussion with your readers.

New Blogger Initiative!

From the crazed mind of Syp from Bio Break comes the New Blogger Initiative (NBI).

For the month of May, the goal is to encourage anyone that has been thinking of starting a blog to go ahead and do it. Throughout the month there’ll be articles posted here and on the other participating blogs to help get you started (see Syp’s announcement for a list). You can also head over to the forums and ask questions there.

I have a few ideas for helpful posts this month, but if you have questions leave them below.

Three things.

First, I know a few of you were expecting to see an update on my newest hobby, specifically the Enterprise-B that I recently finished. Unfortunately my plans for the week changed radically on Monday, so that will have to wait until next week.

Second, Scarybooster is having Bloggerpalooza this week. He emailed a bunch of bloggers, including myself, a few questions and he’s posting the results all this week, so go check them out.

Third, there’s a trailer out from Bethesda for a (new to me) game called Dishonored that looks amazing. It is of course mostly, if not all, cinematic but the premise and setting both look really interesting to me.

DAW: Geko and Heretic

In my Developer Appreciation Week posts, I’ve gone from thanking developers in general to a specific team, and today I wanted to thank two specific developers from Cryptic who work on Star Trek Online.

First, I want to give a heartfelt thanks to Al Rivera, aka Captain Geko. Last year was a pretty rough year for STO and I was pretty down on the game in January. Then Podcast UGC had an epic two and a half hour interview with Geko which gave me some much needed hope for the future of the game. It also marked a renewal of the transparency and community engagement that have been trademarks of Cryptic over the last two years which had both faded during the last third of 2011 while the F2P conversion was taking place.

Which brings me to my second thank you. Geoff Tuffli, aka Heretic, is in my opinion the gold standard for dev-player communication. He’s been the driving force behind the excellent Duty Officer system, and he’s done an absolutely incredible job in engaging with the player-base both through the forums and via in-game channels.

While I have a lot of respect for the entire team, given what they’ve gone through in the last year with the Atari to Perfect World transfer and then the F2P launch, I think Geko and Heretic deserve special recognition. Thanks so much for all your hard work guys.

This is the third year for Developer Appreciation Week, started by Scary from ScaryWorlds.com head on over an check out his posts.