This blog is not what you expected.
No run-of-the-mill stream of online game reviews and associated advertising.
Why some games are better than others? What makes MMOs so addictive? How they make you pay all the time? What are those psychological and financial tricks behind the scene? The questions (and an assortment of other topics) are discussed in this blog by a female gamer and advertising specialist from Russia.
This blog is not what you expected. No run-of-the-mill stream of online game reviews and associated advertising. No tips on how to earn WoW gold. And no shots of "me & my uber-guild killing an uber-boss in an uber-dungeon", either. Why some games are better than others? What makes MMOs so addictive? How they make you pay all the time? What are those psychological and financial tricks behind the scene? The questions (and an assortment of other topics) are discussed in this blog by a female gamer and advertising specialist from Russia.
Earthrise is a post-apocalyptic Sci-Fi PVP MMORPG that has a sophisticated class-less skill system and is supposed to be run on a shard-less server, like Eve Online does. Currently Earthrise is undergoing closed beta stage and i had a post with Earthrise January 2011 beta video some time ago. Today came a news that a well-known game time codes and registration keys reseller – ShatteredCrystal.com hold Earthrise beta keys giveaway. To get the key you have to have an account, which is really not a problem. So, if you’re in for a key, be sure to grab it fast, because they say they have only a limited number of Earthrise beta keys available. If you need further instruction on how to claim/use your key or how to register at ShatteredCrystal, read the post behind the cut.
ShatteredCrystal registration process If you’re a first-time customer, they’ll want to make sure you are the person who provides the registration details and not using someone else’s identity. I must tell you, they use quite a lousy method that barely makes sure anything - besides annoying you for sure - but still: when you register they’ll want to give you a phone call. Make sure your phone line is capable of accepting overseas calls if you’re out of USA, and also that you’re available to pick up the phone right away, because they’ll call you in a short while after you had registered. The process is very simply, when i was undergoing it the person who called simply searched over the Internets and asked a few silly questions about geographical position of my city, which federal are leading to it, etc. It was very simple and even i, with my horrible Russian accent, was able to confirm my account.
Now, from the ShatteredCrystal.com: Earthrise Beta Key Redemption Instructions 1.Go to http://beta.play-earthrise.com 2.Register an account with the key provided 3. Download the torrent 4.Install and play the game.
This is another analytical article i’m writing. Lately i wrote a post “Know-How: Role-Playing In MMO Worlds - Why Some Games Have More Opportunities For A Role-Player Than Others?” and now i’m seeing from the blog statistics that a relatively large number of people read it every day, so this obviously was an interesting theme and I’d like to proceed further with it. If the previous post was about “what should a game have to be good for role-playing”, this post is showing an opposite point of view – “why would a game suffer without attracting role-players?”. You’d be surprised, but a game’s player base depends on its every part, and without role-players MMOs may get deserted or suffer a huge decline in player-base numbers. So, how does it works?
To begin the story, i have to tell you about Richard Bartle. If you haven’t heard of him, he is a British writer, professor and game researcher, a pioneer of the MMO game industry: Richard Bartle was the co-creator of the first MUD (Multi-User Dungeon) – a text-based multiplayer online game, which led to creation of a graphical multiplayer online games and, finally, contemporary MMOs that we play now. In 1996 he wrote an article studying player classification – he based it off MUDs, but the application of that classification is absolutely current.
According to Bartle, players are divided in four main categories: Achievers: people who tend to achieve as much as possible in a game’s world: collect best armor, finish all the quests, reach top ranks. Killers (also knows as Griefers): people who assert themselves at the expense of other players. Usually these people are busy bothering other players, but a level 80 character walking level 20s in a dungeon or giving away free potions is often of the same category. Socializers: people for whom communicating with other players is the best part of the game. Most role-players origin from this category. Explorers: people, who are busy discovering the topology, physics and mechanisms of the game world. Many of these people are role-players too.
These are not types of people, but types of gameplay styles – a person who was a killer could turn into an explorer or achiever in future.
Bartle found out that each of these types of players need another type in order to sustain their fun and engagement.
Why these types of play style are important?
Let me give you a simple example. A long time ago there were two French MUDs – Durandal and Montrouge that had approx. the same amount of players. Back then the Internets weren’t cheap and both these MUDs were based in a university’s camp, where the network was free. At some point Durandal was closed as having “no education or scientific worth”, so its players, of course, went into Montrouge – soon, it’s populace was 1,8 times bigger than before. Almost everyone went into Montrouge, save for people who was waiting for Durandal to open again. It never opened, but 2 months passed and Montrouge was back to the amount of players it had before Durandal was closed. Durandal natives didn’t like it, - thought Montrouge owners, – so be it. But in truth it wasn’t so: 5 more months passed – and Montrouge played base dropped down to 10% of its original size, and half a year after that Montrouge was closed too.
Why?
Look at the picture below. I know it’s a little hard to make out what is going on there, you just have to remember that arrows and their thickness are showing amounts of decrease (red) and increase (green) in player numbers. Arrows with head of the opposite color indicate that the change of player numbers in one category leads to changes in the category the arrow is pointing to.
So, the more killers there in a game – the less socializers are there at the same time: they get uncomfortable and quit. The more socializers there in a world – the more killers, because socializers are their favorite snack, so to say. The killers and achievers are competitors here, so they are regulating each other’s numbers naturally.
As you can notice, killers are the most dangerous part of the scheme – they “eat” socializers (and everyone else too), and the only group controlling their numbers are explorers.
As Bartle writes, this model has only 4 stable conditions:
1. All 4 groups are present: there are plenty of explorers and enough to control killers. This is an ideal condition and the one that most developers are aching to reach. 2. Only killers and achievers are present, competing with each other. It’s a state of a pure PVP MMO, where there’s nothing to do besides PVP action and grinding for best stuff, like Lineage 2 for example. Games of that type have minimum of social activity and its players tend to have harsh manners. 3. Only socializers are present. It happens in virtual worlds without any strict goals or PVP part – in old times it was MUSH time of games (a sub-type of MUD without PVP), but on contemporary market there are still games like that, i think Second Life can be an example. 4. No one there, the world is empty.
So what has happened to Montrouge? It was a world of type 1, and Durandal – of type 2. After they were merged together the stability was violated by too many killers, they “ate” socializers (who quit playing) and multiplied in numbers, and there weren’t enough explorer to control their amount. So the world began to crumble and eventually fell into a stable condition again – the 4th one – being empty.
This is a reason why a game can be unsuccessful – besides bugs, bad customer support and lack of content – when there aren’t enough socializers. Game developers know that a good role-player/socializer is quite able to entertain not only himself, but also other player – without any help from the developers. It’s also known that the most dangerous opponent for a player – that was, is and will be - is not some horrible monster that developers had unleashed upon a player, but another player. And so the developers are constantly working on keeping the player ecology balance from crumbling, to every group of player – socializers, explorers, achievers and even killers – in place. But what they are doing is a material for another post.
Divine Souls is a free-to-play Action-Fighting MMORPG developed by GamePrix and published by Outspark, that is said to “make your console jealous”, and that is really true, because Divine Souls is a console action made into an MMO and released on PC. Earlier i wrote Divine Souls Review: Open Beta First Impression post, in short: i had mixed feelings, because the game yet has some potential but is totally screwed by bugs. BTW, here’s a post with detailed description of an assortment of Divine Souls bugs, and I'll repeat myself again: “GrandPrix is pretty happy together with its own bugs. Maybe – just maybe! – after seeing a real decline in accounts activity they’ll start doing something and fix the game, but for now… just keep in mind: either you play it bugged, or don’t play at all”. Well, guess what? Divine Souls is taken down “to fix intermittent issues that were impacting the game experience”!
My best guess is that not only me has deleted this game, but enough people did that too. Outspark, who was sure we’ll eat every piece of shit they’ll release and then ask for more, was probably pretty surprised that the players didn’t proceed on with what they expected from us. And having a good example of SquareEnix and Final Fantasy XIV, probably they have got a thought that fooling with player base is not the best decision yet.
So, Outspark is sending out emails:
“Dear Divine Souls Beta Testers: Today we’re giving you 2100 Sparkcash Dollars with a 2x spending bonus, as thanks for helping us test Divine Souls. (See below.) After working closely with GamePrix, the developer, we’re making the tough call that the game does not yet play with the reliability you deserve. When we’re satisfied it’s fully ready for you, Divine Souls will return -- better, stronger, and face-slammier. Thanks again for putting the game through its paces, and showing GamePrix and us all the issues we need to work on before returning Divine Souls to the world.”
And on Divine Souls official website there is also a notice:
“Download is not available now We have taken down Divine Souls in order to fix intermittent issues that were impacting the game experience. We have been working night and day on fixes, and we believe that we're close to resolving the critical issues. We are continuing to work around the clock with the game developer to restore Divine Souls asap. “
Looks serious. I hope they’ll fix at least something, if not the shitty graphics – then at least the bugs. If they’ll really do that, Divine Souls gets second chance (and second try) from me.
We all know what RIFT is about, don’t think i have to repeat it all over again. And today’s Closed Beta 5 is going online (at least, for me it’s “today”, around 18:00 or so). And considering a lack of new posts last week i thought I'd share my screenshots from Beta 4, so here they are: the Defiant races and lots and lots of Gloamwood – the second area that was available for Guardians during the beta – plus new mount, new stuff and a character, turned into a werewolf… Be careful, it’s a HUGE pile of screens! Also, if you haven’t seen previous batches of RIFT Beta screenshots, here are Part 1 and Part 2. And if you’re curious, how to buy RIFT: Planes of Telara in a specific currency, here is how.
Defiant races. I did not played much as a Defiant, because i wanted to leave something new to discover for when I’ll start playing RIFT after the release.
Gloamwood in all it’s… gloom :) Rifts opening in Gloamwood make quite an impression, as well as monsters that inhabit it.
Gloamwood is full of werewolves, and you have to solve a terrible mystery of their origin… don’t want to spoil anything, but when you save the day, you get the firework.
As you can see on the first screenshot here, UI is fully customizable, like in Lord of the Rings Online. And next 3 screenshots are what i was able to see on a border to the next zone – it’s impossible to go past the “glass wall”, but it’s possible to see the land for some length.
During the beta new mounts were available for the players. The last screenshot shows game map as of Beta 4 stage. Also – at some point during your questing you’re turned into a werewolf yourself, and every NPC gets hostile!
DC Universe Online was released not a long ago – January 11, 2011 – and whoever of the gaming press were going to write a review on it… well, they did. And such reputable sites like Giant Bomb and Eurogamer give it only 2’s and 3’s. Giant Bomb blames it for monotonous and loose fights, and Eurogamer (behind blaming DC Universe Online for the same thing) also adds that the game at the same time still might be good if only patched and going free to play. Geeks of Doom compares the game with WoW and praises the character creation system, but gives the game only 3 out of 5 and complains that DC Universe Online needs more content and some error correction. This doesn’t looks all bright and shiny to me, but can’t say i’m really surprised, though, and i also highly doubt they’ll make it free to play anyway. By the way, while i’m on citing other reviews, check out 3_KILLA_BYTES DC Universe Online video review, it’s pretty cool (the video is behind the cut).
Earthrise is a sandbox pay to play Sci-Fi PVP MMORPG by Masthead Studios that is currently going to be released in February, 2011. “Sandbox” in Earthrise’s description means that the game has no shards (just one big server), and the game world can be highly influenced by the players - like in Eve Online. So, a new video from the game’s currently ongoing closed beta has been released by Masthead Studios.
The game looks really improved since the earlier videos we’ve been shown, but one thing seems to stay the same: the lagging issue. Check out another video of Earthrise approximately 1 year old:
Comparing to the old video the environment looks amazing, but, on the other hand, both videos present obvious lagging issues. Even in the new promo video it can be easily spotted, and that’s not a good sight: either they *still* don’t have a computer that is able to handle their own engine with enough FPS, or the servers are lagging like hell. As much as I'd like to get into the beta to see it with my own eyes, 2 years of sending them applications haven’t got me a key yet :(
Alicia Online (aka Project Alice) is a Korean fantasy horse racing game by NTreev– if you haven’t heard of it, check out the game’s video and the latest screenshots (i posted all of it some time ago). Now, for those who *had* head of Alicia Online here’s a little piece bit of information – no, it’s not about the current state of Alicia Online English release, sorry guys – but at least something new to entertain us while we’re waiting! According to @alicia_fan (official Alicia Online twitter feed) today NTreev had released Alicia Online screen saver!
Unfortunately, it doesn’t shows Alicia Online gameplay, instead it’s featuring South Korean teenage diva IU - who was also a model for the game’s motion-capture record earlier in November, 2010. The screensaver is quite nice, though, IU is writing in the air (something in Korean and the just some hearth shapes) and making fun faces with sugar and carrots, like if she’s feeding a horse behind the camera. Also, a small cute cartoon horse walks across the screen from time to time, and the screensaver shows the current time.
Currently i was writing mostly about free to play games, recent betas and a few pay to play projects that aren’t exactly new to the gaming market. This is another post about a game that is not a newborn project – Eve Online. It’s rather a “Nostalgia, you’ve got me…” post than an actual review because i can’t review a game i’m not playing for over a year now (and i’m not going back just to look at it for the sake of doing the review post), but i spend several years of my life in Eve Online since 2006. Eve changes, yes, more new expansions come out every now and then, but the core structure of the game do not change – it’s about freedom, socialization and war (for me – in that particular order). When i come back, i see the technical details like ships and skills being changed, but the core is always there, all the same. This MMO was always more than a game for the most people who played it (not excluding me) - it was a lifestyle more than a game, a parallel world where we lived another life – and i never saw another online game that would make me form a bond strong anywhere near to that one. I’ve made real life friends in Eve Online, one of whom even came over from another country for a visit. And this is my story of living an Eve Online life.
A short notice – screenshots in this post aren’t made by me. I wish my screens could survive it up to this day, but I’ve lost them somewhere between changing a few computers.
And now little back-story to begin with. When i first heard of Eve Online i had a lousy dial-up connection that would require me a month of real-life time (not continuously, of course, but on and off) to download 210MB of Descent: Free Space archive (yes, i really wanted to play that game). Anyway, i couldn’t download Eve Online or play it, but I’ve heard much about it, because my online friend enjoyed both playing and talking about it. So i ached to play the game i heard so much interesting stories about, and when i had a chance, it was a hit.
In 2005, i still couldn’t download Eve, but i moved to a city where i started my high education, and i found a guy over ICQ who gave me a CD with Eve Online Exodus: Cold War on it. Playing Eve on dial-up was only nearly possible, and no matter how much i wanted to play it i had to wait. On 26th of January, 2006 i made another account and started playing on a lousy ADSL that was only barely better than a dial-up. It was already Exodus: Red Moon Rising version then.
Eve Online was the first online game i ever played, and i already had a good opinion about it even before actually playing, so that may be a part of the reason why Eve hit me so hard. It was a really stunning experience. I loved everything – the looks, the ships, the space, the music. Every bit of a detail, even the most small, was described. There was such a huge background for everything, you couldn’t role-play into that game – you really was a pilot traversing endless oceans of space, meeting new opportunities and dangers. You could get into a system and see a merry chat in there, or be killed by pirates camping the star gates. When doing something, you had to travel about the map – and believe me, it was a huge! With low navigation skills and slow ship it took hours on auto-pilot to cross several regions from border to border.
Back then, when you jumped into a system, you was 15 kilometers away from it and either you had to fly to the gate (risking being killed if anyone hostile is getting in while you’re doing it) or do a trick with bookmarks. In Eve Online, you can bookmark space coordinate and jump your ship to it – so people formed routes of bookmarks, setting one 15km past the gates, so when you jumped on the bookmark you landed right to the star gate. For each gate you had to have as many bookmarks as many routes from other gates lead to that one, and it took a hell lot of a time to bookmark every rout, even if it was a short one. People soul their bookmarks for a huge profit, but i always made mine myself or copied from a friend. I remember, when i was in one corporation (analogue of a guild in Eve) that joined an alliance residing in region where none of us been, i was dispatched to bookmark the main routes so others would fly safely. I spend 3 days just flying around and placing bookmarks, and you know what? A week after that CCP made a patch that deleted all player bookmarks and made ships jump right to the gates – they wanted to reduce the server load by that.
I joined my first corporation short after starting to play. Almost every corp I’ve been in since then had formed a bond close to a family one – at least, for a short time – and there were people everywhere, doing everything. Apart from other players, i never was alone in Eve, because even if corporation’s chat was empty for some reason, there were other channels to talk in, or you could just fly into some solar system and chat in the local. Or do something with other people. Or trade with them. Or hunt them. Or be hunted, at the very least. When you come to the wrong corporation, wrong community of players, it could be fatal for your gameplay, but when the people were right you could form a bond as strong as i’ve never seen in any other online game. We spend days together, doing something for everyone’s sake, we talked in ICQ and Teamspeak about in-game stuff, we met each other in real life – at least those, who lived close enough.
In my city there were 3 other players and we would gather together to spend time. Once, one of those guys went to Moscow to meet others (because the biggest part of our corporation lived in Moscow) and they all got drunk together, hehe :) Another time a guy crossed border over from Ukraine to meet with us in my city, and i got up at 5:30 AM to meet him at the train station. I never had any activity like that in any other games – everywhere else people were just doing their stuff alone, the best thing was to talk in ICQ or some other chat to each other, but no one ever met anyone in real life. When i played in Lord of the Rings Online and joined a guild, other members hardly believed in my tale of someone coming from other country to meet his virtual team-mates.
I changed several corporations tagging along with friends, and then we moved into one corp where i was a second in command (Production Director) after our CEO and we went into an alliance – a huge band of corporations. Another alliance wanted our space, so we had to defend (we lost after all, but it didn’t took away the fun of it) our home. Hundreds of players were in cooperation – some hunted NPC is asteroid belts so others could mine them out, and others refined the ore, and more people were in hauling it back and forth, and others built ships out of it for our fleet to fight. We erected POSes (Player-Owned Structures) – small stations, where our fleets could hide in time of danger, and someone also needed to haul the fuel and the spare parts for the POSes.
I remember waking at 6 AM just because we had a hauling operation – several huge hauling ships were out on the road while most of our enemies slept. I remember exhausting races when i drove a hauler myself, it was jumping out of the system right when enemy ships jumped in – they seek to destroy me, but couldn’t catch me, and i mocked them to pretend i’m not in any danger right now. And then, when we lost we had a 3-days-long corridor to get our stuff back to the Empire space, and guys spent 3 sleepless nights hauling it. But, actually, i never liked PVP myself – was more of a backbone support, mining, refining and building stuff for others to fight with. However, when Capital Ships were out, i ached to have one and spent 5 months in training be able to ride one – everyone donated their money to buy me a Capital Carrier, so we can participate in full-scale Capital fights.
It was amazing, how many people were into it. You needed half a dozed people just to get a Capital to the right spot – it needed a beacon set by other player in order to jump somewhere, and usually the rout took more than two beacons. Then, every Capital ship there were many more lesser ships – damagers, interceptors, interdictors, support ships, etc., etc. Back then having 600 people in one system was fatal to Eve Online node servers, they would crash or lag to death, but nothing could stop us from what was called “the blob wars” – hundreds of ships from each side clashing together in a fierce, lagged fight. It was a hell lot of a fun.
Other activity that was available, as i mentioned, is mining. It was possible to do alone only in safe Empire space, if you wanted to mine in zero security space you had to have a bodyguard sitting in an asteroid belt, and to mine stuff while aggressive NPC would nag at him. You also had to watch carefully the local channel for anyone hostile coming in, and be sure to align the ship to a safe spot so it won’t spent precious time turning around when you had to run for your life. Usually we gathered several people to mine together, one to guard us and one to haul, and just spend our chatting about everything. There was a lot of chatting in Eve, we even called it “big fat 600MB-worth graphical paid chat” :)))
Another activity was trading. A person naturally fitted for trading could make a fortune on it, buying stuff here cheaper and selling it there for the higher price. It was quite like to the real-life market – you had to watch trends, price changes, and a whole hell full of different factors affecting the prices. I never was good at it, but a friend of mine made a lot of money off trading. Once he borrowed money from many of us and bought a ship full of precious mineral, worth almost a billion (it was a big sum back then). He set his ship on auto-pilot and went away to have a dinner. While he was eating, some pirates popped up and killed his precious ship – they were destroyed by Empire NPCs, but his ship was lost. He wrote a petition to CCP stating that there was a bug that prevented NPCs to kill the aggressors earlier and… CCP reimbursed all his belongings. He sold the mineral and returned the borrowed money, no one ever knew how close to losing them they were.
Another activity was to do the missions – Eve Online analogue for quests. There were solo and group missions, but often players invited each other to help with solo missions – every mission had a level, and together we were able to finish high level missions that were impossible to take on alone on the ships we had. I played with other people close to my development level, so we were about the same skills levels and could use the same ships (at least with those who was of Caldari nation, as my character). Many players were doing missions as a main source of income and made a fortune on it too, but it was too boring for me and i actually never made much money out of anything. But, as a girl – and girls were really rare in Eve back then, i only knew 4 or 5 of them – i was given birthday present like expensive ships and stuff like that ;)
Usually people seeing Eve Online skills system for the first time either hate it or love it. I loved it. Yes, it took a long time to develop a character, because each portion of training – for using weaponry, or ships, or industrial skills, or something else – took months to develop, and some skills alone took more than a month of real-life time, but… When you finally was there, able to do something new, it was a major accomplishment – not just a random loot you could buy off the auction anyway, but something in what you invested your time and money (no matter if you pay for the subscription in real-life money or in the in-game currency).
I spend more than 2 years in Eve, then had a time off, came back again for another 6 months, then got off, came back again and so on, so on… Why did i left it in the first place if the game was so cool? I left Eve Online because people i played with for over a year left the game, and i couldn’t find others as decent as the ones who left. Suddenly i found myself in a position, where our CEO (corporation’s leader) thought of himself as of something like a God-Emperor of Dune and that everyone else are working for him, not playing together. Some people were okay to play gold farmers, but i had to leave. I couldn’t resist and came back again, but got into a wrong company again. And again, after a year. Obviously, after CCP released Russian version of Eve Online the audience had changed dramatically - I suppose, next time I'll be there again, i won’t get near any Russians anymore. Why do i come back time after time?
I can’t resist Eve Online’s call, if so to say. It’s like a part of my life forgotten, like being a sailor for years and then forcing yourself to never see a sea again - and I’m such a impressionable person that i saw Eve Online in dreams for several years after i stopped playing it full-time :)) I come back again and again – because my life without Eve is not what it was before.
Good news, everyone!© Those of you who wanted to see RIFT beta event but had no luck as of yet – you have your chance now, because I’ve got several VIP RIFT Beta Keys to give away! If you want one, just leave your email in a comment and i will send you your key. The keys shall be valid for all remaining RIFT Beta events (i believe, there are 2 of them left). So don’t miss your luck, leave a comment now :) 
Earthrise is a post-apocalyptic Sci-Fi PVP MMORPG that has a sophisticated class-less skill system and is supposed to be run on a shard-less server, like Eve Online does. Currently Earthrise is undergoing closed beta stage and i had a post with 
This is another analytical article i’m writing. Lately i wrote a post “
So, the more killers there in a game – the less socializers are there at the same time: they get uncomfortable and quit. 
Divine Souls is a free-to-play Action-Fighting MMORPG developed by GamePrix and published by Outspark, that is said to “make your console jealous”, and that is really true, because Divine Souls is a console action made into an MMO and released on PC. Earlier i wrote 
We all know what RIFT is about, don’t think i have to repeat it all over again. And today’s Closed Beta 5 is going online (at least, for me it’s “today”, around 18:00 or so). And considering a lack of new posts last week i thought I'd share my screenshots from Beta 4, so here they are: the Defiant races and lots and lots of Gloamwood – the second area that was available for Guardians during the beta – plus new mount, new stuff and a character, turned into a werewolf… Be careful, it’s a HUGE pile of screens! Also, if you haven’t seen previous batches of RIFT Beta screenshots, here are 
DC Universe Online was released not a long ago – January 11, 2011 – and whoever of the gaming press were going to write a review on it… well, they did. And such reputable sites like 
Earthrise is a sandbox pay to play Sci-Fi PVP MMORPG by Masthead Studios that is currently going to be released in February, 2011. “Sandbox” in Earthrise’s description means that the game has no shards (just one big server), and the game world can be highly influenced by the players - like in Eve Online. So, a new video from the game’s currently ongoing closed beta has been released by Masthead Studios. 
