A guide to crafting in Eve-Online

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This is the result of a thread I opened on F13 a while ago to ask the details about the crafting in Eve-Online, the guide is not written by me but here I archive the article slightly reorganizing it. The original posts are still in the original thread. Thanks to Yoru to have written it.

The crafting system in Eve is rather complex and not really accessible if you don’t read and learn about it somewhere. It’s one of those parts of the game with a lot of depth and complexity but that you have to discover all by yourself and without any help from the game. It’s completely missing from the tutorial and I don’t think you can build a character that can “craft” right out of the box. So it’s one of the advanced parts that you usually discover only when you have already invested a good amount of time in the game.

Basically everything you can use in the game is craftable. Ships, ammunition, modules. You can buy these right off the market already ready for the use or produce them yourself. In general the crafting is an highly specialized activity that also depends on other parts of the game, so it’s actually not really possible to build all you need directly without depending on anyone else. That’s one myth that doesn’t work in Eve and to be a good crafter you must be already deeply involved in the game on other levels, or have a player corporation supporting you.

There’s two big parts to crafting: manufacturing and research. For basic tech 1 stuff, these involve two components: minerals and blueprints.

BLUEPRINTS

Blueprints are recipes; they let you combine a given quantity of minerals and produce something. There’s two types of blueprints: blueprint originals (“BPOs“) and blueprint copies (“BPCs“).

The difference between the two isn’t about the final product (that is always the same) but about the process to create/craft it. BPOs can be “researched” to optimize the crafting process (time and resources consumed) and can be used an unlimited number of times. While the BPCs have a limited number of runs and cannot be used in research.

Blueprints have four basic stats:

* Number of runs – This dictates how many times you can use the blueprint. (only for BPCs, the BPOs are infinite)
* Base Production Time – How long manufacturing will take for one use of the blueprint.
* Mineral Efficiency (“ME”) – This dictates how much material will be wasted. Higher mineral efficiency means less waste, but the effect of higher mineral efficiency increases at a logarithmic rate (that is, as the level of mineral efficiency increases, each additional level eliminates less and less waste).
* Production Efficiency (“PE”) – This dictates how long manufacturing one run of the blueprint will take. Like mineral efficiency, the benefit has a logarithmic dropoff.

(Math: Both efficiencies are basically used to calculate waste by taking the base waste and multiplying by 1/(1+x), where x is the ME or PE rating. 1/(1+x) isn’t the exact formula, but it’s a close approximation.)

As already explained, only a BPO can be researched. So the last two stats are fixed in a BPC, while they can improve through research in a BPO. A brand new BPO is supposed to always start with both ME and PE at zero.

BPOs also have three additional stats:

* ME Research Time – How long the BPO will be sitting in a lab when researching 1 point of ME.
* PE Research Time – Same thing as above, but for PE.
* Copy time – Same as above, but how long it will take to create a BPC with 1 run from this BPO.

How to acquire BPs in the game:
– Tech 1 Blueprint Originals can be acquired either as a reward for running agent missions, purchased off the standardmarket from NPCs or (rarely) purchased off the escrow market from PCs.
– Blueprint Copies are acquired either as a reward for running agent missions or via trade with other players (either directly or via the escrow market). They can be created by players; a BPO is put into a ‘copying’ research slot and produces a BPC after a given amount of time. BPCs inherit the basic stats of their BPO parents if they’re manufactured; otherwise, the stats are determined by the mission system.

– Tech 2 BPO Lottery (note from Dave Rickey): You have to work up your standing with the companies that have R&D agents, and with the individual agents, and have high enough Sience skills yourself. Once you have, you can tell the R&D agents to start researching. They accumulate Research Points, which are basically tickets for a lottery. When you win the lottery for a BPO, you don’t have to take it, you can choose to hold your points and keep trying. Even a marginal T2 BPO is worth more than a billion, the really good ones (like those just coming out for Interdictors and Recon ships) are worth upwards of 20 billion isk. But it takes a lot of time and money to get into the running, you have to work up your Science skills, some of which are very expensive, as well as run all the missions to get your standing up with the agents and their NPC corporations.

But it takes a lot of time and money to get into the running, you have to work up your Science skills, some of which are very expensive, as well as run all the missions to get your standing up with the agents and their NPC corporations.

MINERALS

Raw materials that come from reprocessing items at the stations or mined ore. ‘Nuff said.

RESEARCH

Research is a time and money sink that slowly improves MP or PE values of the blueprint being researched. Only a BPO can be researched since a BPC has fixed values for MP and PE.

Research is meant to help you improve your BPO before using it in production, since a ‘raw’ BPO off the market is generally quite slow and wasteful. Research is performed at stations (NPC-owned stations, PC outpost stations; I believe the POS research arrays are currently bugged). Any given research-capable station will have a fixed number of slots, usually 20. You can search for research-capable stations by clicking on the ‘science & industry’ button on your UI, going to the last tab (‘Installations’), and setting the filters to search for whatever you’re looking for.

When you have a BPO you want to research, you first look for a station with open slots for the research type you want to perform. For manufacturing, PE research and Blueprint Copying, you should be fine – in empire, I rarely see a shortage of these. Mineral Efficiency research slots are almost always clogged up in the main regions, so you may have to travel around to find an open slot.

Once you’ve found a station with an open slot, you physically take your blueprint to that station and drop it in your hangar (or your corp’s hangar). Next, you install your blueprint, either by rightclicking on the blueprint and choosing the type of research you want, or by navigating through the science & industry UI. You’ll be asked where you want the blueprint to be taken from and placed into, as well as asked for a number of runs through the research facility. Punch in your info and hit OK, you’ll be presented with a price quote. Generally, only ME research is particularly expensive. Hit OK and your BPO will get sucked into the system. Your science & industry UI’s ‘jobs’ tab will now show your job as ‘In Progress’ for a while.

As an aside, when doing research, it’s usually worth it to specify multiple batches at a time. This allows you to keep your slot for multiple runs and avoid having to run around looking for a slot each time you want to research the BPO. For low-end stuff, like ammo and frigates, a ME of 10 is probably enough. Generally, as the item’s expense increases, the more valuable higher ME will be.

Wait a while. Your research will probably take hours, days or even weeks. Go do other stuff. Once your job is done, it’ll be shown as ‘completed’. You then have to go back to the station where the completed job is and hit ‘deliver’ in the science & industry UI. The blueprint, now improved as you’ve specified, will pop out into your (or your corp’s) hangar, ready to be researched again or used in production.

In order to do research, you will need the skill Laboratory Operation, at least at level 1. This will require the skill Science at level 3. There are skills that can be used to speed up the research process (Metallurgy for ME; for larger blueprints, having a good Metallurgy is recommended), but they’re optional, especially for low-end BPOs.

Research generally has no material requirements and tends to not cost too much; the exception is ME research. (Research is priced by the hour. Most research costs a few hundred isk per hour, whereas ME research can cost upwards of 2,000 isk per hour.)

MANUFACTURING

Okay, so you’ve got your nice, researched-up BPO, or your shiny freshly-acquired BPC and now you want to make stuff.

Manufacturing is just like research in that you take your blueprint to a station with the proper facilities; in fact, it uses the same UI, as you’ve probably noticed by now. Instead of Laboratory Operation, you need the Industry skill to run manufacturing jobs.

The main difference is that, for manufacturing, you also need minerals. Rightclicking on your blueprint and opening the ‘show info’ window will reveal that there’s a second tab on the blueprint’s info, containing the materials required to run the blueprint once.

Two numbers will be displayed, an ‘ideal’ number and ‘your cost’. Your cost is primarily determined by your skills, in particular the ‘production efficiency’ skill (this is different from the stats of a BP), which requires an Industry skill of level 3. It’s a very good idea to get your own PE up at 3 or 4 before you start manufacturing anything more expensive than ammo, as you’ll save a lot of expensive materials. If you want to focus on industry, PE 5 is almost mandatory in the long run; start worrying about PE 5 around the time you want to manufacture stuff larger than cruisers.

Anyway, once you’ve found a free manufacturing slot (shouldn’t be hard), take ‘your cost’ in minerals and the blueprint to that station, and dump them either in your hangar or your corp’s hangar. Set up a manufacturing job in the same way you set up a research job. Select the installation, set your input/output hangars and choose a number of runs.

You’ll be given a quote for the material and ISK cost for the job you’ve submitted; annoyingly, they only give you an itemized list broken out by materials-used-for-production and materials-used-for-waste, with no aggregate total. Hit OK and the minerals and blueprint will disappear from your hangar. Note that the material costs listed on a blueprint are usually a little bit of an overestimate, so don’t panic when you have stuff left in your hangar.

Manufacturing takes much less time than research, usually on the order of minutes or hours. Once it’s done, hit the deliver button on the science & industry UI. Your finished items will be deposited in the appropriate hangar. If you were using a BPO or didn’t use all of a BPC’s runs, it will reappear in the hangar it was taken from.

Congratulations, you’re now a basic crafter in Eve. There’s a lot more skills you can add on beyond the four I’ve mentioned; most of them let you run multiple jobs, let you run jobs remotely, or speed jobs up. They’re beyond the scope of a noobler’s guide to crafting, though. Browse the market and read the skill descriptions, they’re mostly self-explanatory.

Mythic feeds me more patch notes

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I just finished to comment the latest patch notes from DAoC that a new one arrived on the test server. And no, I won’t follow Sanya’s “suggestion” (Read, Test, THEN Post) :)

I pretty much confirm the comments on the previous notes, the patch looks solid and well thought. I could go nitpicking but overall they are doing a good work.

The most relevant changes are about the classes, as expected, with another MUCH NEEDED change to the UI so that the effects on the armor and weapons could be actually usable. This last change is one I ranted about for a long time and some of the work already began with the previous patch, even if the system wasn’t finalized.

Before the change in order to use an effect/power on your equipment (think to the usable trinkets in WoW for an example) you had to exit combat, target an enemy, open the inventory, right click on the item with the effect, type “/use” to finally fire the effect and reenter combat to resume your normal attacks. While it was possible to cut some of this “micromanagement” by adding an “/use” macro to a quickbar you can still clearly understand how absolutely broken, unusable and frustrating was this system. I never tolerated it because this is one kind of design that should have NEVER made to a live game.

With the new change they streamlined the whole process and even tweaked a few other elements of the UI. The effects/powers on item can now be used simply by pressing the correspinding icon, as it should have been from the start. I’m not sure about the combat/out of combat thing because I never actually used these powers (I always refused to waste my time on ToA artifacts). Other minor, but appreciated, changes are about the addition of an “info” button to the items mini-window that would open directly the complete ‘delve’ window with the detailed informations. I still think that using three different windows (tooltips, mini-window and ‘delve’ window) to have complete informations on a item or skill or spell is a bit too much and the UI could use a more consistent and radical rework. But at least, even if not perfect, these changes make sense and are serviceable. It’s always better to clearly show buttons than requiring the player to know the keyboard shortcuts. In this case the ‘delve’ window could be opened only by pressing a key.

Beside the UI and minor bugfixes there are the class changes as I said. Here I’m cautious to make comment because I don’t know the classes well enough and I don’t have the competence to comment about the balance.

In the case of the assassin classes (Nightshade, Infiltrator, Shadowblade) the changes are exactly as largely anticipated by the community. They mostly affect their performance Vs caster classes since the most relevant and shared change is the possibility to “destroy” with a stealthed attack the bladeturn defensive spell (and “brittle guard”, a ToA skill) that some casters use. Beside this, the damage of these stealth attacks has been raised “slightly” and the damage of the Shadowblade when using these skills with a 2H weapon increased “significantly”. The “Remedy” skill of the Nightshades was also nerfed but this is tied to more upcoming changes so it’s actually pointless to comment it while it’s still unfinished.

So pretty much what everyone was already expecting, without many surprises or new interesting possibilities.

There were other “minor” tweaks here and there. Some changes to some Master Level skills that I have no clue about and a “nerf” to the Warlocks by making it chain spells on a longer timer (three seconds instead of two). There was also a change for the Bainshees, instroducing fall-off damage the further you move away from its cone spells, which makes sense.

The rest is about the three hybrid classes. Even here it’s easy to group the changes. Friars and Wardens got two new instant spells with a duration of 30 seconds and recasting time of 30 seconds, also. Yeah, it’s odd but it may make sense. Why add an instant spell that, with those recasting and duration timers, can basically remain always on? My guess is to add a degree of “twitch” since using and keeping these spells alive will involve directly the player instead of remaining a passive effect to cast only in preparation of a battle. The second reason was coming from a misunderstanding of the mechanic that could actually make a fun idea that I’ll explain below.

These instants give the caster a 15% of possibility, when hitting a target in melee, to heal for a really low value his allies within a radius. There are two versions of this skill, one working within a 1000 unit range (only on the group) and the other within 250 (for every player within the range), but with a bonus on the healing varying from 40% to 20%, depending on the level of the spell.

I always welcome defensive skills because DAoC TRULY needs to slow down the combat and make it more satisfying. So every buff of the defensive skills is always appreciated. In this case I’m kind of sceptical because it happens rarely that Friars have many points on the rejuvenation line and the odds of this spell having an actual relevant impact are very, very low. I’m not even sure if I would bother to use it if I was a Friar.

My suggestion is to give some depth to the system, also following the misunderstanding I had while reading the patch notes. So the idea is about making the change in the way I wrongly assumed it worked. There are two different possibilities:
1- Make the two spells stack together, raise both recasting times to 60 seconds and boost up the healing effect.
2- Do not make the two spells stack, raise both recasting times to 60, and “double” each spell, making each copy stack together but not one with the other (the PBAOE and group heal).

The idea is to give really a “twitch” choice to the caster. Instead of just cycling the spells to keep them alive, the caster has now a tactical choice: use one after the other to have the effect “always on”, or both together to have them stacking, but expiring after 30 seconds without the possibility to “restart” them (due to the 60 seconds recast timer).

In the first case both would have a recasting time of 60 seconds and a duration of 30, so you would need to trigger one and the other only as the first expired to have an “always on” effect. With the alternate possibility (the choice) to use them all at once to have them stack but for a shorter period of time. The second possibility I suggested is a little more complicated but does just the same, it only doubles the spells so that the player could still have the choice to use exclusively one version or the other (PBAOE instead of group heal).

My guess is that in Mythic’s implementation and purposes the skills don’t stack and the player will only have to choose between one or the other. My idea (the first) could be simple enough to implement and offer some more “active gameplay” (the choice to stack the skills together OR use one after the other). So possibly more fun.

All these comments were about the shared changes between Friars and Wardens. Beside these the Friar had its heal over time spell boosted up (both in healing done and double duration) and a self-buff heal proc added.

The Thanes had the casting times progressively lowered and the ranges progressively increased on some offensive spells (bolt, AOE and instant DD) and three spells added. The first is an energy debuff, the second is another energy debuff but castable on its weapon and the third an odd high level energy DD that seems to disarm the caster for 10 seconds (it basically throws its hammer on the target, but working like a ranged spell). Plus some tweaks to the RR5 skill, removing the casting time and making it another instant while nerfing its damage after the first target (it’s a lightning bolt that jumps from a target to another).

This should be everything. As I said at the beginning the changes look good enough even if they don’t really add much to the game. Lots of retooling with the same stuff, lots of mixing, but not much when it comes to add some consistent new systems, so I’m not sure if these changes will actually bring some more *fun* to the game. I think the changes to the heavy classes in the previous patch were more creative and offered more direct gameplay, while what we got for this patch is more in line with the old balance tweaks, offering less occasions to actually enrich the combat system.

Beside this I actually found some time to log in Pendragon to test the newbie stuff I commented in the other entry. I have so-so feeling about it.

As I logged in the game with a new character I was basically dumped into an house from the roof, in Cotswold. Not exactly my idea of “polish”. The house is small and you have an NPC right beside you. You would expect it to give you some newbie informations but the NPC is just passive and it does absolutely nothing. The house is empty beside that NPC. The lightmaps work this time but they aren’t really well done. There’s a fireplace and if you turn off your torch the fire seem just sitting there, in the middle of an absolute darkness and without casting some light itself. So the lighting with the torch on is good, while the lighting with the torch off is broken.

As I exited that house I saw the new layout of the village, which is good. All the buildings now are put at the perimeter of a circle, so it’s better organized, with a new, pretty bindstone in the center. I still wish I had some more indications because again, as a brand new character, there was nothing leading me along the way. I was just dumped in one of the houses with no clue about where to go. Which is very bad for a newbie experience. The trainer for my class (and starting quests) was actually inside one of the buildings. Here the lightmap with the torch on is broken again (the floor is too dark).

I looked around for a while, since I was looking for the Darkness Falls new mini-dungeons. The entrance is actually just by the village but not so easy to find. It’s right behind a building so you have to bump against it to notice and there aren’t any new NPCs leading you there. Plus it looks more like a pile of rocks than an entrance to a dungeon and its entrance is not even facing the village. I don’t think that a new player would find it easily.

All these minor things could use some more work. The player dumped by an NPC who can give some directions, the lightmaps fixed in those few cases and the RvR cave moved in a more visible place, with its entrance facing the village and with some dedicated art so that it actually looks more like a portal than just a clump of rocks.

The dungeon itself is really beautiful since it uses the Darkness Falls art that was redone for the last expansion, even if I think you can see the new art only if you have the expansion. I think the idea is wonderful overall. You won’t hear anymore the players complaining about having to kill rats. In fact the environment is rather intimidating for a new player, even too much.

In this case the lightmaps are really, really well done, both with the torch on and off, but I still have a few critiques to make on different aspects:

– The first is that the dungeon is way too big. Mythic always exaggerates when planning the new zones and here they repeated the mistake once again. It’s not huge, but I would remove at least some of the rooms to make it more streamlined.

– Another change I would suggest is to make the mobs drop some loot instead of just gems to resell to vendors. In the first levels of every game the loot is really important for a new player because it provides incentives to continue to play and explore the game, instead of just focusing on the repetition of the combat (since you basically have no skills to use). So I would work to add more interesting loot tables to ALL the mobs in the dungeon (not just the leet stuff noone will ever kill in a newbie zone) and let the players equip themselves without the need to buy junk from vendors.

– The third suggestion is to add a bind point inside the dungeon so that the players don’t have to zone in/out when they die. This may be a minor point since the entrance is so near to the village but I think it would add to the fun, in particular when these newbie zones are so terribly deserted. You definitely cannot plan them as expecting hundreds of players within.

I also noticed that there’s a deep purple named mob inside. All good, but I would tone it down so that it’s actually doable with not more than four players. It just won’t happen that the dungeon will regularly see more than an handful of players. And I would consider already rare the fact that you aren’t alone. So, for god’s sake, plan the content and the spaces accordingly to the players that use them and not on an arbitrary preconception so distant from the reality. It could have been also interesting to reuse the same art but “recompiled” and rescaled to not just use the same sets of DF. Like a poket version of DF not only in the number of rooms, but even in their scale. Making these dungeons more unique instead of simply reused art (which also kills the variation and the expectations of the players since you play in DF at level 1 in the same way you’ll play in DF at level 49. Guess why DAoC’s PvE is boring?).

It’s still a very good idea since the game would show its best profile right out of the box. With the possibility to get involved in RvR from the first level in the case you happen to find another player lost in there.

So, overall, these newbie changes are very good ideas that could still use a more careful and polished implementation. It’s mostly about tuning and reorganizing what is available more than creating new stuff. Mythic is doing a decent work, but they could improve when it comes to the actualization of these ideas. Too often these things are thrown in without much thought.

Uff. I write endlessly again without saying anything. I also collected a few screenshots that I’ll add here. The new layout in Cotswold and that newbie dungeon. I still love DAoC’s artists, I wish Mythic would use their talent better :)




 

 

 


 

 

 


 

 

 


 

 

 


 

 

 


 

 

 


 

 

 


 

 

 


 

 

 


 

 

 


 

 

 

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OMG, Smed has a blog

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I was reading this on Lum’s blog, I read the line and then continued to read, then I blinked and read it again: now even Smed has a blog.

After all he loves to send e-mails to Cosmik and publicize Aggro Me on the community pages of EQ2.

Let’s face it…farming does happen.

And where are the design responsibilities of this?

RMT is an useful diagnosis for the integrity of game design. Lum wrote the rest.

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DAoC moving through a slow but industrious phase

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Mythic is working behind the scenes, away from the spotlights. Pretty much everyone stopped discussing their games, all the attention is now about WoW, the occasional NCSoft exploits and the periodic SOE screwups.

All this seem to have had a positive effect on the game. Some of the original team doesn’t work anymore on DAoC but is shaping up Warhammer. This is also the reason why the “state of the game” letters aren’t anymore written by Mark Jacobs or Matt Firor but shapeshifted into “Producer’s letters” written by Jeff Hickman, who was promoted to that role months ago. They also seem more frequent and straight to the point compared to the old letters that came every six months and were filled with lots of PR fluff and hype.

The last patch in December was a very good one from my point of view and I think was well received by the community (even if I have been out of touch recently, so I may be wrong). The current feeling I have about the development is that things seem way more “paceful” behind the scenes and there’s a more constructive teamwork. Maybe DAoC has lost some of the ambition and push to surprise now that most of the hardcore work is focused on Warhammer but I believe that the new team has done a very good work at prioritizing the issues and steer the game toward a positive, progressive direction.

There isn’t anything that could draw the attention of new customers or amazing features in the work, but all they are doing seems rather solid and well planned. They are working consistently to address some of the most annyoing quirks and problems, making the whole game progressively better. Smaller steps, but with a more constructive attitude, like the tale of the ant and the grasshopper :)

The new patch (1.82) seems to follow this new direction. Build on top of the previous steps and slowly move to address some of the weak points of the game. Right now we have only the notes from the first fragment of this patch since the complete version won’t be pushed on the live servers till the end of February and more notes will be added as they will be finalized. From Sanya’s words:

That patch is scheduled to go live in late February. The patch after that is penciled in for late March or early April. We go to E3 in May, so we can’t usually patch that month. The next patch is penciled in for June.

Why so much interest about the schedule of the next patches? Because the “Class Enhancements” are one of the current main features and the one that gets more interest from the players. Mythic is focusing the work on a few classes for each patch, adding new skills and tweaking the gameplay more radically than what they used to do till now. So the players are mostly interested when “their class” of choice is going to be involved and, since DAoC has so many different classes, the plan will take a while to complete and the great majority of the players will have to wait their turn (and hope the changes are worth this wait).

The previous patch focused on the “heavy tank” classes (Armsman, Warrior and Hero), while this new one scheduled for late February will toy with three hybrids (Friar, Thane and Warden) and three assassins (Infiltrator, Shadowblade and Nightshade). This will bring the total number of class reworked to 9 on a total of 44 classes in the game.

In theory these changes shouldn’t be balanced fixes required to enjoy the game, but more a new round of development to make these classes feel more solid and fun. So the game works and should be already in a good shape to not make the wait too painful. People will never be happy when it comes to the classes and the balance in a PvP game but at least Mythic is working to improve what they think can be improved.

The rest of the patch (the part already revealed) addresses a few other smaller aspects that have actually a pretty large impact. The first is the possibility to finally open guilds and alliances to the players on different servers, which was a much needed fix when you consider that all the servers are now clustered together and that these limits were just annoying barriers for a community that has already its own difficulties due to the ascendancy of WoW.

Another much welcome change is about the mechanics of reactionary styles that I also ranted about somewhere in the previous months (I thought it was on that huge thread on F13 but it seems I’m wrong). I’m so glad that my evade styles should be finally usable. Before the change the speed of my weapon was slower then the time available for a reactionary style to trigger, so these styles simply didn’t exist for me. With the new change the player has three seconds to “react” and the style will register as correct right away, without depending on the speed of the weapon or other odd, unclear factors:

The style does not have to go off during the three second window. The only thing that must happen during the three seconds is you pressing the button.

Fact is that (if it works as expected) this will fix MUCH MORE than what is apparent, because the previous mechanics were really clunky and broken, making most of the styles just not work already in PvE, even less in the chaos of a RvR battle. So this small change is probably going to have a much bigger impact on the mechanics than what most players will expect and it will be interesting to see how things will change.

This is probably the first time that I see Mythic addressing effectively a problem at its core instead of just slapping a bandaid on it, breaking so many other things as a consequence. Instead this new mechanic is more solid, coherent and streamlined and it will fix other quirks in the use of styles. They did a really good work here, making the implementation correspond with good design and finally fixing a fundamental mechanic. I’ll try to find some time to test this to make sure that my expectations are met.

Then we have more bugfixes, some new animations added (another good point. DAoC needs more personality and variations for its generic and reused animations) and a graphic restyle of the Spiritmaster’s pets. All small steps that go in a positive direction, so I don’t have much to criticize.

Plus some tweaks to the newbie experience some of which I didn’t really understand. I’ll note that I really appreciate that Mythic is still trying to polish the game to make it more accessible and I will always support these changes even if most of the players will rant and ask the priority to be put on other parts of the game. But this is also something that Mythic has always done better than everyone else and that I believe is one of their best quality: keep imporving the game on all levels. In the specifics Cotswold (the Albion newbie starting town) and Mularn (Midgard’s one) are getting reorganized as it already happened for Hibernia. And two low level RvR dungeons (up to level 9) are being added to Darkness Falls to introduce new players to PvP.

This last change is the one that I didn’t quite understand because Darkness Falls is usually considered an high level dungeon and you don’t happen to “find” it if you don’t have already a decent knowledge of the game and its mechanics. There’s also the problem that the game has already low level RvR battlegrounds, but they are usually deserted and basically useless in the game. So I suppose that Mythic decided to streamline this part by making it more directly accessible. Probably opening entrances to these two RvR dungeons right by the newbie towns, as opposed to have to travel on the map to reach the border keep where you can port to the battlegrounds. These are all suppositions because the idea didn’t make sense when I first read it.

If my guess is right the idea is a nice one. New players will be able to have a taste of RvR right out of the box and without having to hunt specifically for this possibility, only to find that the battlegrounds are completely deserted. In this case the RvR dungeons will always be useful for some PvE in the case there aren’t other players around.

So the patch is shaping up rather well. The changes seem small but they are going to fix some major problems in the game and will probably have a much stronger impact than how it may appear at a glance. This is also the first part, the patch is supposed to grow and I hope there will be more interesting points beside the already announced work on the classes.

On the Herald a new “Producer’s Letter” appeared, confirming what I already wrote and commented here and what Sanya already anticipated in the Grab Bags.

Nothing in particular to rant about :) They are doing a good work overall.

(and I really have no clue why this took so much space to say nothing at all)

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Doom, doom, doom, doom. (and tinfoil hats)

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It’s been since September that I don’t spread some rumors.

Just yesterday I was writing some comments about WoW’s art on Q23 forums:

I still have the suspect that some of their best artists and animators migrated to some other companies because both the models and the animation of the characters during beta were way more polished and well planned than the updated versions.

But then, it’s just a suspect with no foundation. We’ll see what will happen with the expansion but from the few screenshots I’ve seen I wasn’t really impressed.

And, for a coincidence, this is what I read on FoH’s forums today:

Gamblor:
The exodus cost them most of their artists and the entire animation team. How the hell management allowed a situation to occur that pushed the man responsible for about 50% of the entire game’s animation and most of the other artists to leave for NCSoft is beyond me.

It’s going to be a while for the new art team, if it is even fully assembled, to get their sea legs. Keep in mind that most of Ahn Qiraj’s artwork was done by the previous team. Karazhan too. The expansion will most likely be the first place we see Art Team 2.0’s work as a complete zone.

And more:

Gamblor:
It’s harder to bribe a graphic artist than a programmer. Artsy types don’t typically thrive under a Machiavellian corporate culture. And if you’re good enough to get hired by Blizzard, there are plenty of companies you can get hired by that don’t force you to come into contact with dickheads like GFrazier.

The movie industry has a pretty good lock on most of the 3d artists who are just in it for the money.

Keep in mind this is a company that put their artists on the same work schedule as the programmers in the post launch crunch time, even though the art for BWL and AQ was done before the game launched. In order to be “fair”. If your entire division got their shit done, why the hell would you have to stick around 12 hours a day just because the programmers can’t fix offset teleport hacking (and have yet to fix that, I might add. GG removing chests and quests instead.).

When a Database goes down a normal company doesn’t force the secretaries to stay at their desks until the DBA gets his shit together. Overtime for salaried employees is a pretty good morale killer.

The first things Art Team 2.0 did that the public got to see was the T2 armor (except Bloodfang and Bullwinkle, those were Team 1.0) and look at how much the general populace bitched, and Blizzard’s whiny hurt response when given feedback on it. I’d say the art is still a sore spot in the company given their snotty responses to customer feedback on the matter.

It makes sense if you think how long the expansion is taking to release and how little they’ve shown about it. And how absolutely pretty are the new AQ armor sets (yes, I’m being sarcastic). And what happened to the weather effects?

I wish I had saved a post on the official forums where Tseric went berserk defending Blizzard after the claim that most of they key people left the building.

Fact is that I actually believe these rumors, they’ve been always consistent and even supported by official press releases announcing spawned companies. What’s left of the former Blizzard, then? Artists gone, animators gone and the two lead designers arriving when WoW was already in late development (one arrived in the middle of the final beta).

Yes, WoW is still terribly successful and, imho, it absolutely deserves this success. It is motivated. But it is also the result of solid ideas that were already there LONG ago as the foundation of the game. All I’ve seen recently (the whole PvP system and faction grind come to mind) sucked. PvP and endgame PvE. Exactly what the new team had to figure out, compared to what was already there long ago.

There are two comments from Tobold that I found rather funny:

Blizzard posted a new page outlining all the options you have once you reached level 60. Besides farming faction or raiding, they *do* recommend leveling an alt.

I am looking forward to the Burning Crusade expansion, which basically adds another 10 levels to the fun part of WoW, and pushes the unfun part further back.

So levelling an alt and pushing the unfun further back is all that Blizzard is able to offer? Seems so.

Blizzard is sitting on a success that seems to belong to someone else. They may have the rights to exploit commercially the quality work done by someone else, but they lost the control on that quality now and they are going to pay after they cashed.

The true impact of these changes will only surface entirely in the longer term. When it will be hard to remember about the causes, because we have a so short memory and believe that the name of a company is more important than the people working in it. How so terribly naive.

Dave Rickey is Lost In Space

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Ahaha, I just enjoy too much reading his posts about Eve-Online. It’s the best PR for CCP, they should consider hiring him.

MahrinSkel:
The Goons are way up north, subletting a piece of Syndicate from The Five and pissing off the pirate corps in the area. FIX and [5] are technically hostile, but we have little contact. SA is the result of the Stain Civil War, and that’s probably the root of the current conflict, Catch was ceded to FIX by SE during the civil war and SA wants it back now that it’s over. It put us in a position across their best route from Stain to Empire (although we only had sovereignty over western Catch and not the HED-GP “pipe”, we spent a lot of time camping and patrolling in there), and they probably didn’t like us camping on their oxygen supply.

He is sooo into it ;)

Guild Wars – Strengths and weaknesses

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Just archiving a post I wrote on Q23 with some comments about the limits and strengths of Guild Wars. The main trait is that both strengths and weaknesses have the same origin, so they are the result of compromises that it’s now impossible to undo.

It’s also an indirect answer to some comments on F13.

—

Mark Crump:
Let me rephrase. The art execution is amazing. It’s the style after the world goes to hell I didn’t like. I’m not big on this post-apocalyptic theme.

GW has the actual “advantage” (not really an advantage in some cases) to be “themeless”. This is why they can basically slap in every kind of crazy setting they want.

Even the name of the game (Guild Wars) is intended to put the focus on the system more than the “world”.

It was designed from the very beginning as a “portable” system. So you could not like the setting, but they have all the possibilities to release different expansions to explore much different possibilities.

Which is exactly what they will do. It’s one of the strengths of this game.

That’s also what I wrote when I first “reviewed” the game.

This is a game with a *huge* potential and from what I read about the expansion they are determined to really explore what they can do (some of the ideas are impressive and I hope the execution will be good).

Sadly, there are a few limits about how the game was developed at its roots that basically cut its legs:

– The complete lack of persistence (some already suggested the possibility to open “town portals”, or the possibility to resume the mission if you crash or disconnect, as I did in the previous post)
– Bad controls (bad feeling of movement/animations. characters enrooted on the terrain as in SWG and sliding as on ice. Jerky movements and rubberbanding)
– The labyrinthine structure of all areas (you aren’t really free to move, but you are bound to a course, often in a frustrating way. Most of the world represented graphically is just scenery that you cannot access or relate to)

These only seem superficial concerns but they affect directly the perception of the game. The game feels artificial, clunky and limiting more because of these controls and the basic engineering of the game than the lack of persistence. You pass most of the time bumping against impassable barriers (and rubberbanding wildly) while trying to figure out how to reach a place (or figure out if it’s actually reachable).

WoW feels SO MUCH BETTER, because you can actually explore the world. Which means that you have the control about where you can go. The world is physically there and consistent. Not just graphically. GW feels so much more “on rails” compared to WoW. Bound to an adventure-style scheme where the exploration (as: the player free to define his own patterns of movement and interaction) is severely limited. So the graphical awe of the game is somewhat confined as just a backdrop that could have been so much more consistent and relevant. Making coincide their best resource (the artistic sheer power, the stunning environments and truly visionary look) with their biggest limit (the *use* of those environments, a lack of true, satisfactory exploration). If a “space” is a spatial perception, in GW this spatial perception is always deluded, negated or betrayed.

The point is that they know about these limits. They know that they depend on the basic structure of the game, so they are here to stay. It’s not about “bad” design but about choices that were made at the very beginning on the project and that represent its foundation. Exclusive compromises that needed to be taken obligatorily in a way or another. So the point is about trying to focus on what they actually CAN do, on their resources and advantages. And it seems they are determined to go down that path because the expansion is looking amazing (and I don’t mean just the graphic).

Even if the game leaves that “yes, but” taste. Like if there’s something feeling wrong even if you cannot really put your finger on it.

Guild Wars: Factions – Ohh, shiny

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I logged back in Guild Wars after a LONG time and… wow. Just wow.

The new character selection screen is spiffy, the oriental music in the background charming and I toyed for a while with the character creation to see the two new classes. Ohh, sooooo pretty.

I think I’m going to enjoying playing “dressing up” more than the actual game.

The new “girls” are very, very pretty. We even have the ninja with no boobs. And the mystical ritualist with the mask covering the eyes and belly tattoo ;) I’m truly fascinated.

“Guild Wars: Factions” is the new expansion for the game that will be released only later this year (around June). Despite the press releases we don’t know yet the precise features that will be added.

We know for sure that it will introduce two new character classes: the no-boobs assassins and the “I can’t see shit”, mystical ritualists. But to figure out what’s beyond the other features I had to dig the informations some more. The press release only says: “new regions, professions, skills, missions, and monsters, along with expanded options for both Cooperative and Player-versus-Player (PvP) play, and enhanced features for guilds”. But it doesn’t explain in what these actually consist. A new continent named “Battle Isles” is going to be added, probably both for the new PvE campaign and new PvP stuff.

Between the new features there seem to be a new “PvP” training mode where you’ll have to beat a series of simulated PvP encounters (against AI, so not really PvP) to unblock progressively new challenges. This is really a smart idea because it could improve the accessibility of the game and add some progression that was lacking in the original game.

All high-level PvP has been moved to the Battle Isles, which can be reached using the ship off the coast of Lion’s Arch. On the Battle Isles, you’ll find a new explorable area with Training Arenas, NPCs who can help you test all aspects of your character’s build, updates to existing PvP Arenas, and all-new Zaishen Challenges, where you and your friends can practice against teams of computer AI opponents. All of this content is now organized into a natural progression, so that players can experience the basics of PvP before moving on to advanced challenges.

New computer AI challenges:

* Training Arenas: a series of four maps designed to teach the basics of PvP and Arena Combat. Beat all four maps to unlock the Zaishen Challenge on your account.

* Zaishen Challenge: an Arena where you can play the computer AI team of your choice on the map of your choice. Beat five different computer AI teams to unlock the Zaishen Elite Challenge.

* Zaishen Elite Challenge: the ultimate AI challenge. See how far you can get in a series of random Arena matches against increasingly difficult AI teams.

All this should be available for free right now. Both for current players (just log in) and those who never played the game (go get the preview key). Only till Monday, though. So or you try it now or you’ll have to wait the actual release (even if I’m sure there will be more previews as the launch approaches).

Between the new spiffy things they added while I wasn’t playing there’s a new “observer mode” easily accessible through the menu that lets you watch the biggest PvP encounters in the game. Like a TV where you can follow the activity of the catass guilds. These matches are available only 15 minutes after they start (to prevent cheating) and will remain available for another 15 minutes after they are over, which is sad because it could have been useful to archive some of the battles to study later with some more attention.

Anyway, this observer mode is really interesting. The hugest 8vs8 battles in the bigger arenas are truly crazy. There is a SERIOUS OVERLOAD of shiny effects that would made you insane if you were actually trying to understand what was going on. But it’s a beauty for the eyes. Really, really shiny and charming. The graphic, animations and teamwork during the battles are all great. It’s enjoyable. You have time to appreciate the details. That female ranger animation while shooting with the bow is incredible.

Oh, and for some reason the melee henchmen are now fat.

Two funny quotes from F13:
“Is there a “How to make hawt CG chicks” manual all companies NC Soft publishes have to read? The female art of all of NC Soft’s games is fucking awesome.”

“A goodly porttion of GW’s art staff is female, and women know how to make women look hawt better than guys do. This is also, likely, why the guys are all such rockstar prettyboys.”

Lots of better infos here. MMODIG also gives some coverage.

Btw, the WINNER idea they had about the expansion is this one:

Each new chapter will be a stand-alone game, including Factions.

This means that new players can pick up the game box without worrying about getting the original version as well. Most of us “observers” of the industry were sceptical about GW business model because you would expect that each expansion would sell progressively less. So not so viable in the long term without the subscription fees. But releasing each of these expansions as a standalone game is an interesting decision that could work really well.

And dragons. And a presumed “territorial conquest”:

There’s plenty of new content being added to the game with Factions that Guild Wars fans will undoubtedly want to get a hold of. Some of these are simply concepts while others are more “tangible.” Players will now be able to form alliances between guilds. These allies will be able to visit each others’ guild halls and can gain control of cities and towns on the new continent Cantha by taking part in new alliance missions. These new mission types pit multiple teams up against each other to control resource points. Victors earn faction points which will help determine control of towns and outposts.

Along those lines, Guild Wars now introduces factions. Players and guilds can align with one of two warring factions. At that point, alliances can gain and control territory by taking part in faction battles which are large-scale strategic PvP experiences. The outcome of these large scale battles will also help determine the progress of the war between the rival factions.

Other new game types include challenge missions which are cooperative and have scoring objectives. The game will track and display personal bests and high scores for display in-game. Lastly, elite missions will be available for the most powerful folks in the game. These are the most challenging cooperative areas in Guild Wars yet.

– New battlefields will include fighting on rooftops of a densely packed city, huge temples built on the back of giant tortoises, tunnels carved in the jade sea, and in the elaborate hollows of a petrified forest.

– 55 maps to try and gain control of

– 300 new skills total, 90 of which are new elite skills
– 100 new creatures
– New faces and hairstyles
– New armor, pets, weapons and items

Fuck. I didn’t expect GW to still have something to say. And it seems to have A LOT. I want.

If I got it right the game world will be divided in three parts:
– The old PvE campaign
– The “Battle Isles” that will group all the current and new PvP arenas and training zones
– “Cantha”, the asian-style new area that should contain both the brand new PvE campaign and the “conquest PvP”

The PvP arenas also seem grouped together instead of remaining as separate instances. This means that you should now join a general instance and then the maps will be be cycled instead of repeating the same over and over. It seems a very good idea since it will consolidate the PvP content, making it more varied and bringing the players together.

“Read more” to see a few more screenshots I’ve taken of the two new classes and areas, some other showing the shinies battles and some leftovers in my /screens directory from the previous year.