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investigation of the impact of victory

2008-12-29T00:32:00.000-08:00

Previously, we began our investigation of the impact of victory (and defeat) in gaming. When a player is victorious in battle, the positive benefits are practical and expected: greater wealth, experience, and reputation. This realism, however, does not extend to the faction that actually bestowed the quest. Any gains that the quest giver receives are transitory, if they occur at all.
But what happens when a player is killed? Obviously, the first issue is what to do with the body. This simple dilemma has led to widespread debate and a variety of solutions. In early games like AC, you were propelled back to a "Lifestone" with a 5% "vitae" skill penalty while a handful of your best items were left behind on the corpse. In PvP situations, that corpse was lootable by your killer. This dynamic led to the interesting phenomena of players carrying a large number of very expensive but very light and worthless items in their packs so those would drop instead of their prized armor and weapons. But even these "drop items" couldn't always prevent the random loss of particular valuables. Furthermore, though the drop items aren't intrinsically valuable, they do cost money and time to gather. Few players care to leave them needlessly behind. This led to the inevitable corpse recovery mission which, while often prone to occur at the most inopportune moments, nevertheless provided me with some of the most enjoyable challenges of the game. But alas, I do recall the loss of several suits of armor, such as one decomposed in the acid pits of the Halls of Metos.
Recognizing the problems with corpse recovery, especially in heavily guarded and more heavily lagged areas, later games like WoW streamlined their death systems. Instead of items dropping with your corpse, your "soul" (and curiously all of its equipment) separate from the body to reappear at the nearest graveyard. From there, the choice is either to be resurrected at the cost of severe item degradation or to trek back as a disembodied spirit to site of your ultimate demise and return to life at about half health. Though this is often an onerous run, you don't lose all the work you put in fighting to get to where you died (assuming you aren't swarmed as soon as you resuscitate).
More recently, LOTRO evolved this method still further by launching you (in the same old style) to their newest iteration of the lifestone, a stone circle. The only penalty suffered is a heavy dose of dread (temporary reduction in health) and the need to fight back to where you were (assuming you want to continue whatever adventure you were on). All in all, I can't help but wonder if the concept of dying has been nerfed so far as to make it rather absurd. While it is easy to carry on from such a fatal disaster (and I'm a big proponent of not having my game time consumed by tedium), the repercussions are so fleeting as to make the occurrence laughable.
Regardless of the specific death penalties, games for the most part do adhere to the concept that it is the reverse of player victory. Instead of new equipment being gained, the old gear is either lost or degraded. The battleground is lost (remember Clausewitz's second definition of triumph), either temporarily in the case of WoW or permanently in systems like AC and LOTRO. The only aspect not mimicked is the loss of experience which most gamers (myself included) would consider too severe. Of these examples, AC probably came the closest to employing experience "loss" successfully with their vitae penalties that could only be worked off through experience gain.

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balancing realism and practicality

2008-12-29T00:31:00.000-08:00

So balancing realism and practicality, the question is if any effect can be given to monsters at all? Concerning victory, AC is the only game where I've ever seen any attempt made. That is, a victorious monster occasionally gains levels. I recall witnessing some players passing idle hours leveling up rabbits. But on a more serious note, the concept is sound: if players level through killing monsters, shouldn't monsters level through killing players? In the long run, the effect proves fleeting. A leveled monster that is killed respawns at its original level. Similarly, a leveled monster in a region without players eventually reinitializes back to normal. The ultimate effect borders on irrelevant in a game sense, but at least it imparts the concept that monsters are more than just xp fodder.
At this individual level, this is about as much as can be expected from monster victory. Any effect would need to be local and temporary in the current mildly dynamic MMO worlds for the reasons listed above. Leveling players don't stick around in low level areas to see the fruits of their victory or defeat anyway. But what about factions? There are factions for players, including supposedly competing groups between PvP elements (such as the Alliance and Horde in WoW), yet there are no "pure" monster factions. Not that we'd expect a monster to kill a player and then go see another monster to turn in a quest, of course. But if factions truly represent the power struggles of higher level entities for which all of us players are little pieces of the bigger picture, then shouldn't there be monster factions? If that was the case, then a faction might actually mean something beyond vendor rebates. Quest success and failure, player death and monster death could have an effect on the ebbs and growth of factional power.
Monster defeat is ruled by much the same premises as victory. They die, are looted, and respawn for some other player (or the same camping player) to kill and loot again. Like monster victory, there isn't much that can be done to give monster defeat any lasting impact.
I have seen a few specific instances that push beyond the norm, however. One example is a WoW quest that occurs in the Darkshore region. Various denizens of evil have been corrupting the local furbolgs and a quest is issued to cure the critters. When the cure is poured into their drinking water, all the formerly menacing furbolgs in the area become non-combatant NPCs for a time. The mastermind behind the plot appears and is handily slaughtered by the player. In other words, player victory (and monster defeat) has a real and tangible effect on the monster faction. Of course the situation is like that of the Zenn example from Article 1. The cured furbolgs soon thereafter revert to their corrupted state like nothing ever happened.
Obviously, systems on this model can't be too widespread. Otherwise the game would become so bloated by monster-turned-friendly situations that gamers would have to wait in line to do any quests at all. Yet this example does show that real effects are possible. Another simpler, though more transitory, method of instituting monster defeat would be the stronger use of morale rules. I won't go into this in detail as I've already discussed it quite heavily in previous articles (see May 26, 2008 "On Gaming: Morale"). To put it simply, a monster who sees a compatriot defeated nearby would reasonably suffer from temporarily diminished morale.
Because of the staged progression of MMOs where players complete quests in a certain region and move on, there is minimal need to render any long term local effects on defeated or victorious monsters. Yet there is room for temporary changes, either through morale or through a shift like in the furbolg example above. The facet where monster impact has the greatest potential growth is in the implementation of more widespread faction rules. When gamers play an MMO, it should quickly be clear that they can't be the "one hero" who saves the world like in a single-player game. Instead, they join a society of gamers whose total contribution can affect the MMO world. But when their most hunted targets, the PvE monsters, don't have any factional representation there are few ways to gage such player impact.

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The most notable new addition

2008-10-28T18:52:00.000-07:00

couple of weeks ago, Blizzard unleash wow powerleveling ed “Echoes of Doom,” its last major content patch for World of Warcraft before the Wrath of the Lich King expansion releases on November 13th. The emphasis here is on “major.” There’s a lot of new stuff in “Echoes” and it’s taken about two weeks to sort through it all, particularly with the unbearable lag that almost always accompanies a new update.

I am here, however, to hit some of the high wow gold making points of the new content for you non-WoWers, you once-WoWers, and maybe some of you soon-to-be WoWers. (Disclaimer buy warcraft gold : While it’d be great, albeit sad, if I had an uber-70 of every class, this will have to be written from my experience, which is predominantly of the mage and warrior varieties.) Unfortunately, I’m forced to start with the following: no, you can’t make a Death Knight yet. And no, you wow + powerleveling can’t get to Northrend yet. Read your patch notes people! Sheesh.

The most notable new addition for the gameplay itself is new talents and abilities geared towards players ultimately achieving level cheap wow power leveling 80. Instead of each talent tree peaking at a level 50 talent, they now peak at a level 60 talent. There are a lot of fun new toys to be had with these new trees, my personal fav wow powerleveling orite being my Arms warrior’s Bladestorm (pictured), an ability that lets you spin aro make gold wow und like mad and smash your weapon into any baddies nearby. While new abilities are great, keep in mind that these are intended to ultimately be balanced at level 80, so there might be some issues wow powerleveling for the next few weeks or so while we’re stuck at 70.

being abnormally addictive

2008-10-28T18:51:00.000-07:00

Blizzar wow gold making d make wow gold Entertainment Tuesday announced that total World of Warcraft subscribers has su wow power leveling rpassed 11 million, equal to the populatio warcraft gold n of the entire state of Ohio, according to 2007 census estimates. The news comes as anticipation build buy warcraft gold s for the release of the game’s second expansion pack, Wrath of the Lich King, which launches on November 13.

“Since debuting in North America in 2004, World of Warcraft has become the most popular MMORPG in the world,” Blizzard announced in a statement today. “In addition to being the bestselling PC game of 2007, The Burning Crusade expansion holds the record for fastest-selling PC game of all time, with nearly 2.4 million copies sold in its first 24 hours of a buy cheap wow gold vailability.”

World of Warcra wow gold to buy ft is unique (compared to most games) in that gamers must pay a monthly subscription fee of $13-15 per month to play, in addition to buying the game for $30. The MMO has also drawn criticism from disgruntled spo wow power leveling uses and researchers for being abnormally addictive.

the second annual Little Kids

2008-09-28T01:46:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, the second annual Little Kids Rock buy warhammer gold workshop was held at Thomas Marsh Middle School warhammer gold , giving teachers a crash course on how to instruct children in music. The curriculum focused on improvisation, composition and performance, said David Wish, founder and executive director of Little Kids Rock, who visited the workshop.

The workshop was attended by 60 teachers, who will carry the curriculum back to about 50 schools, said Jane Didear cheapest warhammer gold , partnership coordinator for buy warhammer eu gold the Dallas school district. Any full-time teacher with music experience can apply to take part in the program, according to the Little Kids Rock Web site.

Mr. Wish said the program also will be delivering 600 guitars and 300 keyboards to the district to lend to students. "We really believe that the children and educators in Dallas need and deserve this support," he said. The program is designed to transform children's lives through music. "Music education, or education in general, does no one any good if it doesn't stick," warhammer gold Mr. Wish said.

about Secular music

2008-08-15T20:21:00.001-07:00

Secular music is non-sacred music that developed Age of conan gold in the Middle Ages. Swaying authority from the church that focused more on Common Law influenced all aspects of Medieval life, including music. Secular music in the Middle Ages included love songs, political satire, dances, and dramatic works. Drums, harps, recorders, and bagpipes cheapest aoc gold were the instruments used in secular music because they were easy for the traveling musicians to tote around. Instruments were taught through oral tradition and provided great dancing music and accompanied Age of conan goldthe stanzas well. Words are a large part of secular music so that common people can sing songs together for entertainment. Music styles were changed by secularization. The motet for example, moved out of the church and into the courts of nobility which then caused the motet to be forbidden in the church. sell age of conan gold The largest collection of secular music comes from poems about celebration and chivalry of the troubadours from the south of France. These poems contain clever rhyme-schemes, varied use of refrain-lines or words, and different metric patterns. Composers such as Josquin Des Prez did compositions for sacred and secular music. He composed 86 highly successful secular works in addition to the 119 sacred pieces. sell age of conan gold Secular music also was aided by the formation of literature during the reign of Charlemagne that included a collection of secular and semi-secular songs. secular songs are from the renaissance period.Age of conan gold

something i know about Classical music

2008-08-15T20:20:00.000-07:00

Classical music is a broad term that usually refers to music produced in, or rooted in the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, AOC Gold encompassing a broad period from roughly the 9th century to present times. The central norms of this tradition became codified between 1550 and 1900, which is known as the common practice period.
European classical music ffxi gil ffxi gil is largely distinguished from many other non-European and popular musical forms by its system of staff notation, in use since about the 16th century. Western staff notation is used by composers to prescribe to eve isk the performer the pitch, speed, meter, individual rhythms and exact execution of a piece of music. This leaves less room for practices, such as improvisation and ad libitum ornamentation, that are frequently heard in non-European art music (compare Indian classical music and Japanese traditional music), and popular music.
The public taste for and appreciation of formal music of this type waned in the late 1900s in the United States and United Kingdom in particular. Ever Quest Gold Certainly this period has seen classical music falling well behind the immense commercial success of popular music, in the opinion of some, although the number of CDs sold is not indicative of the popularity of classical music.
The term "classical music" anarchy online credits did not appear until the early 19th century, in an attempt to "canonize" the period from Johann Sebastian Bach to Beethoven as a golden age. The earliest reference to "classical music" recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary is from about 1836

UK pop star: Atomic Kitten

2008-08-15T20:19:00.001-07:00

Following the UK pop scene can be a fulltime job. Take Atomic Kitten for example. wow gold They start off as fluffy kiddie pop and barely survive as second class stars until one pussycat Kerry Katona gets impregnated by a member of Westlife leaves the band (and eventually becomes a Sugababe). Jenny Frost from another UK girl brand (oops band) Precious joins Atomic Kitten and their rerecorded single "Whole Again" became Atomic Kitten's first big hit allowing them to mature to a more adult-oriented pop sound.
What does all this gossip have to do with their US debut album Cheap WOW Gold? Probably not much except as a starting point to mention how Atomic Kitten's pure pop fills the gap for us 20/30 somethings who want to lose ourselves in a pretty pop song. The 80s influence is there - not only with covers of "Eternal Flame" and "Tide is High" but with songs written by Kylie, Nick Kerhsaw, and Susanna Hoffs (of the Bangles) makes you wonder if Cathy Dennis was too busy? wow gold
For this their US debut - they combined the seven hit singles from their first two or three (depending on how you count rereleases) UK albums to make an essential album for lovers of female vocal pop.
It's hard choosing a personal favorie Age of conan gold - I guess "Love Doesn't have to Wait" is my favorite, sounding like the best song Deana Carter will never record. If they didn't have such a negative reputation, I would compare the Kittens to Wilson Phillips, but I guess for the readers of this column a better allusion would be a more polished version of early Bananarama.
The only misstep is "Love Won't Wait" AOC Gold which sounds a bit too much like generic disco, a fate that "Right Now" avoids by hitting you with hooks that pound your head for days. "Be With You" grows with you slowly over a few listens and their cover of "Tide is High" owes alot both to Blondie and Madonna for its gratuitous use of guitars from "Don't Tell Me".
Chalk up Atomic Kitten as another of wow gold guilty pleasure from the UK -- after a few listens you will be hooked -- it's the kind of kitty cat that even us boys will like..