The Fifteen Minute Quest

Fifteen minutes is the optimal amount of time for an MMO quest or activity. This is one of the guidelines to Cryptic's Neverwinter Foundry, and while I initially scoffed at such a low number I am now seeing just how right they are especially when comparing it to other online games. Casual gamers play in small chunks of time, and in that chunk they have to be able to do something they feel is rewarding, or at least get one step closer to some goal.

The main problem stems from the fact that there is no individual "save" feature in MMOs, and really - I don't know how you'd implement one to begin with. A solo game you can usually start and stop at your leisure, just like table top games - and more importantly you can continue where you left off when you decide to resume (though that would be tricky with more complicated setups like Arkham Horror or a Warhammer 40k skirmish unless you left the table as is).

In comparison, it really "burns" when you undertake something that takes so long then come up empty: Failing at the last boss of a long dungeon run, or losing connection in GW2's SAB Tribulation mode, or being defeated by Tequatl (I imagine. Haven't bothered waiting to fight him). Each of those have to be restarted from scratch if you want to try again and for someone time poor, that would be extra annoying - especially if there were alternative shorter activities they could have done instead.

Quitting Time! Guess we'll just have to restart this from scratch tomorrow.

I imagine that's the main problem with my first "spacious" quest. It starts in a tavern, you can talk to everyone (though you don't have to), there's a little bit of puzzle solving and a fair bit of exploration before any combat even begins. People look at the average time of one hour and simply skip it for a faster run through something (or a few "somethings") else. Well, I've learned my lesson. My second foundry quest is coming together nicely and is going to be more "condensed" than I originally planned and hopefully will only run to the 15-20 minute mark. The story will still be there, but there'll be less fluff. Should be interesting to see how well it does in comparison.

If you play Neverwinter Online and want to try my first foundry quest (despite the length) it is:

One Step to Darkness [NW-DNJC9SK7A] 

You'll probably need to use the short-code (NW-DNJC9SK7A) without the brackets in a few of the tabs before you can find it. I always appreciate more play throughs and feedback!

Box 2: A Less Super Adventure

Part of my Explorer of Tyria journal - you can find the rest here!

The first time the Super Adventure Box came out I had a total blast doing it. Now that it has returned with World 2, I'm finding it less fun than before - probably for the same reasons echoing throughout the forum. It's good to see that the creator fixed up some places that were causing major headaches after a few days though, and the infinity continue coin is a good gold sink which I happily sunk gems into. Definitely "pay to win" or at least, "pay to win faster" (which I think embodies regular "pay to win" anyway).

After the somewhat irritating level of the Frog King's swamp, players venture forth into the way more irritating rapids (knockback land - toned down), pain cliffs (insta dart death land) and storm top mountains (annoying ice slidey grind land). I went through on infantile mode first with the happy clouds to observe what horrors awaited me, followed my normal mode which was only slightly more troublesome but WAY too long in some bits that seemed designed purely to irritate the player, like having a mini-boss atop a slidey ice hill.  You have to run up and evade his boulders and then whack him. Getting hit knocks you back down the long slope. On paper that's fine. But said mini-boss has so much HP that you'll probably do just that, over and over for 10 minutes. Difficult? No. Annoying? Yes. Fun? What do you think?

At least one of the long maps has a shortcut somewhere, but the irony is you have to clear half that level first to get an item before you can use said shortcut. If you think that's bad, there's a part where you need to purchase an item with 400 baubles to proceed through the level. There's no warning before reaching it, and I didn't find 400 baubles in the zone prior to reaching that point so you'd have to either be lucky or informed before attempting it, otherwise you'll hit a brick wall (frozen, actually) that will curb your fun level like an anvil dropped into the sea.

Lastly comes Tribulation Mode, which exists purely to create rage within the player. One wrong step and you die. Everything is out to kill you. The rocks, the flowers, the floor... everything. Fun in Tribulation Mode is finding the right path instead of grindy mechanics, and it's super cool. Despite my strange liking for this mode though, the very nature of latency is what is stopping me from enjoying it fully. I don't mind dying if I run into traps, but when I jump to the correct spots I expect to survive - and I do... 50% of the time. This is what annoys me most, and probably what will prevent me from completing tribulation. It sure would have stopped me from completing IWBTG. Here's an example of someone else experiencing this pain.

Story wise there's some evil, 4th wall breaking, AI in the box modelled after Moto (ala Tron, the new one) that wants to affect things on the outside. Not much more yet about this, but it's good that it is just more than a simple asuran VR game. My only issue with it is it could mean that the box is permanently destroyed after world 4 where as I'd rather that it became a permanent fixture in Rata Sum after world 4. *shrug* Would be a shame to throw out all this work right? Oh yeah, and Scarlet is still invading in the background randomly but she's mostly insignificant for this arc.

In SAB, you grant the genie's wishes!

My very last concern is in the future of SAB. Could worlds 3 and 4 begin to introduce forced group content, which in my opinion is the worst design in the universe (like the aetherblade dungeon)? And if so, can the infinity continue coin negate it? This is the creator's response to someone who was having problems attempting things solo:

"This is as designed. Dungeons are designed for up to 5 people. If you choose to solo a dungeon you should expect this sort of thing. At least that’s how I look at it. Maybe because SAB doesn’t look like a dungeon there are different expectations? We did clearly communicate when you enter a world that 5 are recommended."

GW2 Dungeons sure. Five player 8-bit games? Unlikely.

Vying for my Attention

Interesting matchup this week between two of my "active" MMOs with Neverwinter Online's Summer Festival versus the return of the Super Adventure Box in Guildwars 2. Both are temporary events which will be gone in a few weeks and both will require some doing before I am "finished" with them. Going purely by the rewards, NWO wins out. Sure, SAB may have cool new skins that I also want but NWO is offering a mount and a companion which in the grand scheme of things is a more worthwhile reward. It's always functionality over fashion for me. Also the Summer Festival tasks are pretty trivial but this makes them severely grindy, especially when it comes to pseudo pvp in the race to harvest flowers. The festival has attracted many trolls to it, and most of them are of the player variety.

Conversely SAB will probably be more fun (/frustrating) to play, but is less rewarding. I am especially looking forward to the "Tribulation Mode" which the designer already stated weeks in advance is for a small minority of players. Specifically those who liked IWBTG (which I won). Can't help but wonder what the current villain is going to be doing while all the heroes go and play a video game though?

A deceptively cute cover for a fiendishly tough game.

So what's a guy to do then? Play the field, obviously! Having an alternate to switch to after burning out in the other should work well in theory. I'll let you know how it goes in practice! Elsewhere, Disney has decided to close their kid MMO "Toontown". Nothing like a server wipe/shutdown experience for the youngins. They wished upon a star, but were a few millions years late. That star is dead. Just like their dreams.

Where to Next?

My brothers and I recently finished Diablo 3 (finally) and of all the enemies it was Belial, the half-way mark boss, that caused us the most trouble. Everything else pretty much got curb-stomped, the titular main baddie included. So what's next outside of Guildwars 2 where all the heroes will ignore Scarlet's threat to Tyria to return to the wacky world of the Super Adventure Box (I know I will) and the slow progress of Neverwinter Online's Fury of the Feywild (it decided to let me log in again)?

I'm not that bad, honest!

Well, there are rumors that World of Warcraft may be going F2P - if that's true then the guild would probably check out Azeroth if given the chance. Funny reading angry subscription players posting on their forums "Well, if it goes F2P I'll stop giving them money!" Yeah. That's the point. Whether WoW actually makes the switch is another matter. Also was somewhat interested in trying Granado Espada out upon stumbling on some of its awesome music again but caught myself thinking do I really need another MMO (which I'd probably play solo) right now? Instead I am just hunting down all the tracks to listen to.

What else am I looking forward to then? The Thief reboot for sure (which looks a lot like Dishonored), and to a lesser extent the next game in the Witcher series. I didn't actually play the first two but I watched my brother go through them and it was cool. Lastly I was introduced to some D&D cosplaying silliness which I found to be rather entertaining and funny: The Gamers: Dorkness Rising. Worth a look especially if you are or were a pen and paper RPG player. :)

Deal Breaker: Melted Alliance

Part of my Explorer of Tyria journal - you can find the rest here!

And so with a large and quite badly planned explosion that resulted in multiple casualties of dredge, flame legion, and all of their captives, ArenaNet's "Flame & Frost" chapter of the Living Story drew to a close, leaving us with some ugly gauntlets, a few questions, and a pretty resounding "meh". The finale was a large underground weapons facility which sounds fun, except you can only go in with 5 people since it is a dungeon instance and comes complete with the trapings of numerous overpowered baddies and random traps. Also, all the trouble the molten crew took with getting captives was simply so they could mine stuff and eventually have ridiculous weapons tested on them. The silly bad guys didn't know what happens when you squish or burn someone apparently. Still it was ok, and was not as annoying as getting into and through Arah to shoot a lame (literally) dragon. My favourite bad guy was also in there - the dredge weapons tester miniboss. Why? Because he is funny, doesn't kill outright and when he showed up personally dies in one hit. In fact I think he is the only "standard" mob in the whole place with everything else being veterans or better. Kinda sad that of all the things, HE was the main highlight for me after all those months.

Though the bosses were entertaining too, in a dodge or die kinda way.

As everyone suspected there's a puppeteer pulling their strings (a female one at that), still in the shadows. We'll probably run into her later in the next story arc in Southsun Cove. Would be cool if it was Riel though. With the Super Adventure Box now closed and undergoing "upgrades" it seems I have little reason to hang around here again. Maybe I shouldn't be so negative on ANet's quest building team and try find out just how hard it is to make one on my own. Apparently that's one of the features of this other MMO called Neverwinter...

Flame, Frost and Donkey Kong

Part of my Explorer of Tyria journal - you can find the rest here!

ArenaNet has been pushing out its Living Story the past few months with all the pace of a sun-bathing glacier. Basically the proud Norn and warlike Charr are getting their butts kicked by a Dredge and Flame Legion alliance (aka "the Molten Alliance") so badly that they are mostly withdrawing not just to their capitals, but all the way to the karka infested isle of Southsun Cove. Well, supposedly. Sure, the molten dudes are popping out from magic portals and APCs here and there but there are still lots of towns out there that haven't noticed this supposed on-coming force; Butcher's Block is still in endless party mode and that place up in Wayfarer Foothills where they cook wurm eggs and have dozens of snoozing patrons hasn't changed one bit. Maybe they're just too drunk to notice anything wrong? Seems the only people actually affected come from previously unknown areas and I suspect part of the reason they are so pathetically weak is due to their unnatural clumsiness.

Or maybe they were also just drunk?

With their meager possessions (being refugees) lots of them still manage to "misplace" them along the various routes they took to run away while defacating themselves like the cowards they are. One of the tasks given to the COMMANDER OF THE FIRE-TRUCKING PACT is to go poke the mounds of dirt and feces left behind by these losers to retrieve them. Yep. For some reason this is one of the "highlight" activities of this story arc. Shovelling shit. Thanks ANet. As for the molten alliance themselves there are hints laying about in another scavenger type quest that indicate it's not Primordus driving these two armies together but something else. Popular theory is it is the Consortium, the competitors of the Black Lion Trading group. Their previous actions included happy things like letting the karka invade the mainland and opening the irritating and unstable fractal dungeon which now requires eternal vigilance lest it destroy reality. Far as I'm concerned all these pirate scum should die. May as well wipe out the barbaric Charr and soulless Sylvari while I'm at it too.

What's that? The Asura? No I love those little goblins, especially since part of the April release was the Super Adventure Box! Personally I feel this is ANet's best content since the Mad King (I did miss Wintersday so maybe that one was good too) which is ironic given all of its 8-bit Mario-ness. There's definitely a certain charm in the nostalgia, and for someone who absolutely dislikes the dungeons in this game I find the Super Adventure box to be awesome. No idea why, but it's a strong enough reason for me to get back into GW2 for a bit. Hopefully it sticks around and doesn't vanish at the end of April like ANet has said, because if it did - they really would be April fools.

Belated Happy Easter too! :)