Unhelpful

Do we, as gamers, let the minority with the most at stake - the “vested interests” in political terms - determine the evolution of the games we play? Given the less than stellar performance of this model in the US political system, I certainly hope not.

Let’s toss the analogy aside and dig in. The issue here is fair reward for fair risk in Asheron’s Call. In order to accomplish this, you also need to institute a program of reducing the rewards for reduced risk.

I’ll indent while making some notes about UO for those of you who want to skip back to the AC commentary in a few paragraphs.

In a game like UO that has more viable non-combat career choices, it gets a little more difficult - OSI certainly jerked around fishing during the “feast or famine” patches oh so long ago. I remember doing a statistical analysis on fishing based on the numbers OSI put out in its internal patch document (which was very similar to Turbine’s Build Notes, but was SUPER SECRET and only supposed to go to interest and support volunteers and employees - it generally got to Dr. Twister within a day). This analysis clearly showed a MASSIVELY high amount of loot generation for a Master Fisherman. I sent it to the Dev Team, and gave it to other interested parties, but if anyone at OSI was paying attention, they were keeping it a better secret than the internal patch document ever was.

The response to the fishing patch aftermath was the infamous fishing nerf. ‘Feast or famine’ is a very appropriate metaphor when talking about fundamental changes in stock fish availability, perhaps less so when the goal was large pillows, paintings, and globes. Suddenly, a Master fisherman was all but worthless, ad it had been for most of UO’s existence. A Grandmaster Fisherman could still get items, but to call it ‘toned down’ would be an understatement of criminal proportions. I again did the analysis according to OSI’s own numbers. My experiences matched the statistics nearly perfectly. I tested for hours, and compared my results with others’. Be they novice, journeyman, or grandmaster, their numbers reflected my revised analysis numbers nearly perfectly. When I was audacious enough to tell a GM that my analysis did, in fact, hold true, I was assured that this wasn’t the case, that I was doing something wrong, that I couldn’t possibly disagree with official doctrine (which dictated that fishing was merely ‘toned down a few percent’) and be right, that quite frankly, I was causing trouble in #uo-council and being an ass by even suggesting it.

So, despite agreeing that the original numbers were too high and that some sort of moderation was needed, statistical analysis and testing the numbers in-game wasn’t of interest. Apparently, neither was the fact that the overkill of the original fishing boost was obvious to anyone who tested it on Test Center… You know Test Center, that server they used to use for testing before it became a play shard for the elite.

As with many things, the changes were on Test Center for weeks, and any notes from players about the success of said patch were ignored before publishing to the regular servers, whereupon which the regular servers’ players echoed the exact same sentiments the Test Center folks had. This was, of course, a big shock to OSI: If you don’t fix something, it stays broke.

That’s a model of how not to do things. Turbine’s been good about testing code before it gets published. In fact, during the last patch, test code was accidentally published, but it was pretty well-tested at the time, so its inclusion was anything BUT a show-stopper. In fact, even though they removed it again after they realized what had happened, the could have left it in, quite frankly.

The code in question lowered XP gained by low-level characters slowly whittling away high-level creatures from the safety of a ledge or perch or wall. Cheap kills are still possible, but some are just not rewarded as well.

Of course, people complained.

As players, we need to ask ourselves whether or not we want a game by committee or whether we trust Turbine to make changes that are good for the long-term viability of the game. Trust doesn’t come easy in this genre; it’s difficult to earn, and easy to lose. Turbine’s made mistakes, as do all online game companies. The key here is that they admit to them, and they resolve them quickly. Most importantly, they don’t blame the players for the mistakes of programming. In other words, I trust Turbine, - they’ve earned it. If it comes to the vocal bitching minority and Turbine disagreeing about the future of Asheron’s Call, Turbine’s got a great record. The vocal minority are going to have to do better than bitch about free XP being unfairly stolen from them before I can take them seriously. If you want to be taken seriously, make constructive suggestions that amount to something other than “don’t affect my favorite twink of the month!” Let the Dev Team do its job, it’s good at it.

This month’s “The Spin from Turbine” speaks volumes:

The intention was to prevent people from slaying things that are way too strong for them by wearing them down over time with no risk. Also, this did not stop those players from doing this, it just made it so that they didn’t gain XP faster than those players who do play at a risk, with all the hardship and struggle that entails.

Honestly, if you’re 10th level and you’re camped out at WaiJhou or Fort Tethana or elsewhere in the Direlands, you forfeit any right to complain about what happens there. Your first clue should be that you’re 10th level, and that drudge ravener that sent you careening back to the lifestone was over 57th level. What’s more, at 10th level, when you inevitably start begging for a ride back to the eastlands (despite there being a convenient Sho Roadside Portal near WaiJhou, and a Hilltop portal at Tethana), you’re going to annoy the hell out of everyone who is actually sufficiently prepared to be there.

We rationalized that by reducing the XP granted to people using exploits in the game, we were, in a sense, rewarding those who play heroically. Should the guy cowering behind a door and attacking a monster that is levels beyond his abilities get the same reward as the valiant hero who bravely charges in? Legends tell us of great warriors and magicians who stood toe-to-toe with monsters to do battle . . . Little is written about cowards who slew the dragons without any personal risk.

The risk-free game is an example of the bravery of being out of range. It’s not the game that Turbine designed, so don’t be surprised when they fix it. Again, let the Dev Team do its job, it’s good at it.

Of course, some people don’t want risk. Just ask anyone with a 30th level or higher character that’s died less than 60 times.

Elsewhere, in the “Build Notes” from earlier this month…

Everquest players, pay close attention:

We had a problem with certain generous chests that gave players an incentive to wait in long lines to get their booty, usually at little or no risk. All you had to do was wait your turn. This is not very heroic, and unfair to those players who want to get a nice chest of loot but have better things to do than wait in a line for hours. It also created lots of complaints about players who did not follow the “etiquette” of how to wait their turn. Therefore, we made some changes. The good news is that these chests will regenerate their treasure much faster than before, so if you are waiting your turn, you will have to wait much less time. The bad news is that the chests are locked, so just waiting there won’t do any good. The good news is that the keys to these chests are now part of monster loot throughout the world. So go out and fight powerful monsters anywhere you like, and if you are lucky, you may end up with a key that will unlock any one of these wonderful chests. You can then make it your quest to fight your way to such a chest and, without having to wait in a line, open it up and enjoy your booty. Though players who did not mind the wait are sure to be disappointed, we know that far more players will be pleased by this change, as it rewards true adventurers with mini-quests that yield great rewards.

The subtext in that paragraph is critical in understanding the key difference in how Trubine treats Asheron’s Call versus the way Verant treats Everquest, and a wonderful illustration of an earlier point I made about programmers taking responsibility for mistakes, be they code bugs or unforseen design problems.

“Line etiquette” is a symptom of a broken game design. Turbine recognizes this, and repeatedly chooses to fix the problem instead of trying to fix the player by enforcing absurd behaviors like queueing up for loot. In Everquest, you get increasingly intricate looting rules enforced by the tattle-tale system instead of the game engine. The new Everquest player is thrust into a situation where there are complex (and artificial) rules of behavior that have very little basis in common sense. Not knowing them is dangerous, as many of them are bannable offenses. Turbine’s come up with a solution that’s apparently novel in this genre: fix the game instead.

Let’s get that experimental code in-game again, and to the nay-sayers, let the Dev Team do its job, it’s good at it.

We zap and maim/With the bravery of being out of range [dead link]