Congress, SOPA, and LOL

As a fan of League of Legends, I feel a bit guilty for not playing for at least a month. I haven’t even read about the last two heroes.

However, what’s important is that other people are playing and some of these other people happen to be a Congressman taking a stand against SOPA right on LoL’s forum!

Although I am sure that a LOT more congress “persons” play ZYNGA games, I doubt they’d use come out openly and FarmVille as a forum. That is if FarmVille had a forum.

So I feel pretty good about the future of online games, especially, the multiplayer arenas.

2012
01/21
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Zynga Poker

Zynga has finally hit the big time, if you define big time as a perfectly timed IPO. For a company that was founded only in 2007 on by copying a poker site, they have come a long way.

Or have they?

When Mark Pincus started the company in 2007, he took a big gamble by betting on Facebook, as the future of online gaming. Facebook at that time was far from being the dominant player that it is today.

He started with Zinga Poker, a poorly-coded clone of popular poker sites. He didn’t find his hit until he launched Farmville, a clone of Farmtown.

You will not the word clone being used a lot. It is an internal Zynga doctrine, not a derogatory term. See video where it is clearly stated that no game is produced by Zynga unless it is a “clone” of a successful game by another company.

Cloning a successful game and throwing Zynga’s marketing muscle behind the “new” title is a valid technique. The suspect part comes when hundreds of thousands players complain of being misled into purchasing virtual goods in the new game, a.k.a. Scamville (Source: Techcrunch).

That’s not all. According to Grumpy Old Accounts, Zynga have been massaging their accounting practices more than once in the months they prepared for an IPO. When selling virtiual goods, Zynga have split their sales in two arbitrary categories: durable virtual goods and instantly consumed. Instantly consumed items (like an energy boost) are accounted for immediately as revenue. Durable items (such as a tractor in Farmville) are spread over a long period (e.g. 12 months).

By re-factoring this “long” period and the definition of “durable”, Zynga can easily adjust their revenues to present investors with a rosy picture of incredible future growth. They can also hide their profit margin from Facebook, who take a 30% cut currently.

So back to the poker table. Zynga’s poker strategy has been successful so far. Through bluffs and some really strong card dealt by fate (if you consider Russian oligarchs to be fate), they have managed to win their first tournament and a huge jackpot.

The question remains whether their $6 billion valuation is sustainable. After all, their first IPO filing stated a price in the $15-20 billion range, which is the combined valuations of Electronic Arts and Activision-Blizzard, the two biggest companies in gaming.

Zynga Poker IPO: Infographic (click to enlarge)

2012
01/11
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Exclusive access: Riftforge playtest

Riftforge is finally open for a limited public playtest.

You can start playing immediately by entering this secret passcode – SOFIA.

eu.riftforge.com

Playtest objectives

Riftforge playtest objectives are two and we expect your feedback on both:

  • Collect balancing data on the RPG classes
  • Improve the interface and overall interaction with the game

Playtest feature list

Your ultimate objective is to rise in rank. Winning against high-ranking players results in significant rank improvement and tons of gold.

Character Creation - creating your character gets you:

  • One commander slot – you choose your first archetype
  • Immediate access to three core and two special troopers
  • Full complement of weapons and armor for each trooper

PVP Battleground - once ready for battle, you can:

  • Play a ranked battle: wins and losses influence your rank
  • Join an existing custom game (training)
  • Create a custom game (training)

Equipment and troops - the gold from your wins allows you to:

  • Upgrade your gear with better weapons, armor, trinkets
  • Recruit veteran and elite troops
  • Improve your skills via training

Technical Details

  • Any modern browser (including Internet Explorer 9 via Flash plugin)
  • Any modern computer, including iPad (iPods & iPhones are too small)

2012
01/06
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Temple of Gameplay Evil

As a big fan of tactical RPGs, I often browse GOG for old games that have stood the test of time.

I have re-played Icewind Dale a few times through the years but I wanted something a bit different, yet D&D. So I reviewed the comments and found that at with the Christmas promotion, you can get The Temple of Elemental Evil for just $2.99.

I quickly realized that I have completely forgotten how unforgiving the D&D system is. My observations (rant) in bullet-format:

  • Missing – I am level 4 and I still miss a lot. I have missed continuously for four rounds of combat where all my 5 characters attacking a single enemy
  • Damage – your enemies miss a lot as well but when you get hit, you can be killed instantly (at low levels) with damage exceeding HP of the wizard well into levels 4+.
  • Prior knowledge – the game is designed around a lot of saving and loading. When I exited the first dungeon, I was half dead. I was greeted by 13 fresh new opponents!
  • No retreat – there is no way to retreat from a battle, so you have to know in advance what enemy you’ll be facing. There’s also no room for a lot of missing or high damage (see 1&2)

The game is extremely hardcore and I like that. At the same time, I feel that the D&D combat system creates a whole host of issues (above). The way to address the unpredictability of the results is to tweak the hit chance, the weapon damage and the hit points. It’s so basic, yet D&D continues to rely on arcane D20 concepts that produce extremely erratic results when samples are small.

These quirks force you to save and reload often (thank God for quicksave and load), which diminishes any sense of accomplishment. It also justifies you to abuse the AI any way you can find, from sleep to entanglement, to shooting through a door that’s too small to fit the ogre in the other room.

Apart from combat itself, the other major issue is the flexibility of the class system. As someone who haven’t played a D&D game in 10 years, I had to follow a step-by-step guide in order to generate a working “party”. It is extremely easy to gimp your characters with your stats in a way that is irreversible. The other reason to follow a guide is the added element of “surprise” when you realize you have leveled up pickpocket and there’s no one in this game worth pickpocketing!

In short, it front-loads 90% of class decisions. I know WotC have tried to address this by adding flexibility with all the multiclassing options. However, multi-classing quickly veers into gimping territory as there are only a few viable archetypes.

2012
01/04
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Monetizing like Zynga

Roger Dickey from “Money Talks” speaks about monetizing social games. He’s the creator of Mafia Wars and he also headed Fishville and advised the international product team while at Zynga.

At 3:00 minutes, he confirms that Zynga isn’t relying on innovation but waits for a competitor to get the right mix for a game and then they copy it (Fishville copied FishWorld). Instead of doing playtesting, Zynga would simply wait for a competitor to report a positive return and then they’d copy it and market it aggressively. At 5:30 he reiterates that Farmville and Farmtown had one difference – ability to queue plowing and collecting.

If there’s one slide that sums up the areas you can monetize your game, it’s this one (use it as a checklist).

  • Rarity – rare items or other unlocks
  • Fun – a fun minigame or quest
  • Exclusive features – premium account
  • Vanity – skins (buildings on Farmville)
  • Competition – faster progress
  • Social Value – help your friend
  • Convenience – reducing number of clicks
  • Chance – mystery gifts, random loot
  • Decoration – buildings, furniture
  • Identity – avatar
  • Stat progress – temp stat boosters (energy)
  • Story – unlock quest progression
  • Primacy – be the first, top lists
  • Obligation – come back to feed your pet

You can read more detailed notes here. This video really helps explain why tractors cost $25 in FarmVille.

2011
12/07
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Thanksgiving game sales

The discounted offers we got for Thanksgiving are sometimes indicative of where a certain game is headed.

I’ve ranted once about how expensive certain Facebook games are and how inexpensive online games have become. I used RIFT as example, because getting a real MMO for $5 was news back then. Well, for Thanksgiving, they brought the price down… to ZERO.

Not surprisingly, Zynga has sent me more CastleVille spam and not a single real offer. As far as I know, they are still charging $25 for a tractor.

Somewhere in the middle of the pack, LOTRO sent me an offer to get the Isengard expansion for 50% off. I haven’t played LOTRO almost since its launch, it was too much of a WoW clone for my taste.

2011
11/24
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One percent talent

Another Blizzcon post, this time dealing with WoW’s new talent system. Or rather, lack of talent system:

Today’s Blizzcon announced many exciting things, including the removal of one of vanilla WoW’s crown jewels, the talent tree system. Completely gone. You now pick a “spec” and then get to pick one talent every 15 levels. No more points, no more trees.

Personally, I’m appalled at the this new direction. I have two hunters – one is Lvl 70, the other a Lvl 29 twink. I picked their talents in a very meticulous way. The twink, of course, was min-maxed with a few tweaks that complemented my playstyle.

The Lvl 70 Hunter with whom I played both PvE and PvP, I specced in Marksmanship despite the fact that both the Beastmaster and Survival specs offered superior stats when it came to PvE and PvP respectively. I played on a roleplay server, so I think it was OK for me to be a dwarf marksman with a gun. I briefly had to switch to a bow (higher DPS) but I worked tirelessly to collect the needed ingriedients for a Gyro-Balanced Khorium Destroyer.

Talents were the ONLY way to customize your character and now this is gone. The equipment came and went but at least your SPEC stayed the same. Everyone who knew me, knew I was specced Marksmanship just as they knew I often kept my pet at my side in instances to serve as off-tank, if the need arises. Since I did most of the DPS, the pet could be kept on a leash for 10 or 20 seconds with no big decrease in DPS. (In vanilla WoW, the pathfinding for pets was so bad, that this was the wise thing to do.)

Blizzard’s background in RTS games has made them blind to the fact that RPGs are about CHOICE and not about balance. In Starcraft 2, I want balance but in WoW I want to be a dwarf marksman with a gun. Take away my gun and I’m done.

2011
10/30
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Pandaren Monk or Kung Fu Panda?

With the recent announcement of a new World of Warcraft expansion, Blizzard has confirmed my belief that their transformation from a cult game company to a mainstream one is complete.

Blizzard wants to be the Disney of video games now. Also, they also want to move their sinking (subscription numbers wise) flagship to shallow water somewhere in the Yellow Sea.

How did we come all the way from Ultima Online to Kung Fu Panda? When did the MMO players changed from nerds to… children?

Of course, Blizzard are the (only) one who know the exact demographics of the current WoW players. So their going in the way of cartoons is anything but accident. Will TITAN feature talking cars?

I blame Angry Birds. In selling $200 million worth of cartoony graphics, Rovio has proven there’s money to be made from bright colors and simplistic gameplay.

Does that mean that you cannot have an RPG for grownups now? Will online games become synonymous pre-pubescent adventures? Not, if I can help it! I’m taking the “no pandas” pledge on behalf of Riftforge.

2011
10/25
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Blizzard is mainstream

Looking at the coverage from Blizzcon 2011, I had a sudden realization: Blizzard cannot survive on cult games any more, they need blockbusters!

With the wild success of World of Warcraft, Blizzard has turned from a company specializing in cult games for hardcore gamers to a generic game company producing for the average Joe.

It’s just like a Porsche that’s been made into a sedan and fitted with a 1.6 liter engine. Average Joe is more than happy by the fact he’s driving a Porsche but to anyone who has driven a Porsche from 10 years back, this looks like an abomination.

It’s not like Blizzard has a choice in the matter now. Ever since they married Activision, it was all about mainstream success and blockbuster titles. They simply cannot go back.

Listen to a list of random updates from Blizzcon:

  • New WoW expansion called Mists of Pandaria!

    • – Is it possible to make WoW more cartoony and animaly than already is? Looking at the trailer, the answer is an emphatic YES.

  • Mists of Pandaria will allow pets to fight pets

    • – the only question is when POKEMON is going to sue them.

  • Diablo 3 will allow skill swapping only in town

    • – noobs have a problem switching between skills, so everyone will now spam just two skills the whole game?

  • Diablo 3 PVP will have endless re-spawning

    • – qq much?

  • Diablo 3 light radius removed

    • – is darkness too scary for new players?

  • Diablo 3 beta keys rewarded for Facebook likes

    • – also for email collection on a massive scale (over 1,400,000 likes compared to 400,000 a month ago)

  • Marketing gimmicks

    • – buy 12 months of WoW and get Diablo 3. Or buy Diablo 3 and get the next WoW expansion free. Welcome to our cross-promotions!

Does that mean we won’t enjoy the new 1.6 liter Porsche… I mean Diablo 3? Well, I certainly hope it is as good as a Porsche 911 (Diablo 2) but I doubt it will have the cult appeal of the classic. It is not so much about the game itself but about the people who will play it… teenagers who failed Angry Birds on their iPhone and are looking for something prettier and easier.

Reprinted from Diablo 3 news

2011
10/23
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Blizzard testing real-money transactions

Blizzard has caused quite a stir when they announced that players will be able to purchase Diablo 3 items of real money. Admittedly, they won’t be creating these items from thin air but they will take a cut from every transaction that occurs between players.

Now Blizzard is testing the water for introducing RMT to their flagship – World of Warcraft! They found an ingenious way to do it – by adding a pet that costs $10 that could then be posted to the auction house and sold for warcraft gold.

Several bloggers called Blizzard greedy for introducing real money to WoW. Blizzard have defended their decision with no excuses about it being actually about pets:

While our goal is to offer players alternative ways to add a Pet Store pet to their collection, we’re ok with it if some players choose to use the Guardian Cub as a safe and secure way to try to acquire a little extra in-game gold without turning to third-party gold-selling services.

However, please keep in mind that there’s never any guarantee that someone will purchase what you put up for sale in the auction house, or how much they’ll pay for it. Also, it’s important to note that we take a firm stance against buying gold from outside sources because in most cases, the gold these companies offer has been stolen from compromised accounts. (You can read more about our stance here.) While some players might be able to acquire some extra gold by putting the Guardian Cub in the auction house, that’s preferable to players contributing to the gold-selling “black market” and account theft.

Of course, a $10 pet has a limited appeal which will limit the price it’s going to fetch at the auction house. However, I’m willing to bet this is just a test case for Blizzard. If enough players buy it for real-money and then sell it at the AH, I bet they are going to introduce a LOT MORE items of the sort.

2011
10/15
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