Voice chat is a standard because of broken encounters and raids. The real problem is baroque encounters where you aren't allowed to just go in and play your character and have a chance at winning.
Instead, there are too many different things that must be paid attention to. The only reasonable route is to assign one member of the group to monitor a specific aspect and call out alarms. This usually corresponds to a complicated choreography where everybody must break off what they were doing and go stand *over there*.
I would play on an Issue 4 City of Heroes server. My opinion remains that the golden age of the game was before the Global Defense Nerf and Enhancement Diversification.
If you bought this as an Amazon.com download, and haven't been able to get it to install, this is what I did to make it work. The problem is that Origin does not see Amazon's download files.
Your Amazon.com download file should have an installer autorun file in it, and a zip file called Mass Effect 3. Unzip that file, makes no difference where.
Run the Amazon installer. Origin will install and update itself. It will not, however, recognize the Amazon download files. Enter your key number and get the game registered at Origin. Origin will then see you as a game owner. It will not recognize your Amazon download, though, and will start the rigmarole of re-downloading the entire game through Origin. Let it run long enough to set up the directory structure it needs.
Let it start, then shut down Origin. Go to where you unzipped the Amazon zip file. In the directory there should be a folder called "BIOgame".
In your Program Files or Program Files (x86) folder, there should be a folder /Origin Games. Here, there should be a folder /Mass Effect 3, and in there, another folder /BIOgame. Copy the BIOgame folder from the unzipped Amazon directory and overwrite the /BIOgame folder in /Origin Games.
Then restart Origin. It should now recognize your Origin download as 99% complete, download the few remaining files from the Origin service, and be ready to move forward with the install process.
My chief issue with the game so far has not been bugs - run into a couple - but with general PvE difficulty, which is fine for most classes most of the time, but has a tendency to spike unexpectedly.
My intended main was a Jedi Knight, who is pretty much confined to the cantina at level 28, while my Trooper shot past the character and is my first 50. The Jedi does not get a healing companion until the PvE levelling game is 2/3 over, and this makes an immense difference in playability. The Jedi needs a team to finish her chapter and planet ending quests; the Trooper never did.
My smuggler will probably be the next character to level, but the Jedi Knight is going to sit there until the levelling experience for the class is strongly improved. I am still interested in the game - only begun to mess with Imperial side. It looks a whole lot better than Age of Conan did at the same age. But they do need to smooth out the PvE difficulty curve quite a bit.
It always struck me that the City of Heroes developers never knew what they had created. They made a game that is the least trinity-bound of any MMO I've played. Most content can be handled by a group of any characters, and content scales to group and level. The only fly in the ointment is that you have to level to get powers that will help your team.
So ad hoc groups based on rapid completion of easy content became the glue that held the community together. The object was to level and claim your powers. For much of the game's history, the drumbeat of the dev team has been hostility to "power levelling" and "farming". The eternal worry was that players were levelling too fast or earning rewards too quickly.
Adding difficult, multi-group, choreographed raid content, and other team content that requires more careful attention to team composition, has been their latest response. That always was the sort of thing I'd got back to CoH to get away from in other games.
There are children in Age of Conan, but they look like skinny dwarfs. Most games do what it does, I think, make child models based on adult models already in game. They never come out quite right, and don't seem to be the product of great effort.
I started to have mixed feelings about killing Skulls in City of Heroes. Especially after all the "Kill Skuls" business started up.
No matter how you try to build them up as credible enemies, Skulls are low level mobs and not all that threatening. Their little skull masks are more endearing than menacing. Some even have girlfriends. They're just kids. And the whole world really is out to get them.
"Intellectual property" scams are one of the main engines of political corruption and rent-seeking behavior in the contemporary world. Remember the ridiculous lawsuit that Marvel brought against City of Heroes? SOPA/PIPA would have enabled Marvel to obtain an order taking down the game and making the servers unreachable.
All of these issues break the normal political process in an obvious way. A small minority benefits greatly from them, and is therefore highly motivated to purchase influence. The rest of us are left paying tolls to these trolls, but have a much smaller individual stake in stopping them; we are therefore relatively unorganized and unmotivated. Hopefully, this is starting to change now.
The Soapbox: Voice chat is the worst thing ever
Mar 21st 2012 7:56AM (Massively)Instead, there are too many different things that must be paid attention to. The only reasonable route is to assign one member of the group to monitor a specific aspect and call out alarms. This usually corresponds to a complicated choreography where everybody must break off what they were doing and go stand *over there*.
The Daily Grind: What game would you play if it had an alternate gameplay server?
Mar 9th 2012 7:48AM (Massively)Your Mass Effect 3 PC pre-order lets you pre-load the game now
Mar 4th 2012 4:52PM (Joystiq)Your Amazon.com download file should have an installer autorun file in it, and a zip file called Mass Effect 3. Unzip that file, makes no difference where.
Run the Amazon installer. Origin will install and update itself. It will not, however, recognize the Amazon download files. Enter your key number and get the game registered at Origin. Origin will then see you as a game owner. It will not recognize your Amazon download, though, and will start the rigmarole of re-downloading the entire game through Origin. Let it run long enough to set up the directory structure it needs.
Let it start, then shut down Origin. Go to where you unzipped the Amazon zip file. In the directory there should be a folder called "BIOgame".
In your Program Files or Program Files (x86) folder, there should be a folder /Origin Games. Here, there should be a folder /Mass Effect 3, and in there, another folder /BIOgame. Copy the BIOgame folder from the unzipped Amazon directory and overwrite the /BIOgame folder in /Origin Games.
Then restart Origin. It should now recognize your Origin download as 99% complete, download the few remaining files from the Origin service, and be ready to move forward with the install process.
Hope this helps someone.
Star Wars: The Old Republic announces economic adjustments
Mar 2nd 2012 9:17AM (Massively)Hyperspace Beacon: Call the exterminator
Feb 22nd 2012 9:45AM (Massively)My intended main was a Jedi Knight, who is pretty much confined to the cantina at level 28, while my Trooper shot past the character and is my first 50. The Jedi does not get a healing companion until the PvE levelling game is 2/3 over, and this makes an immense difference in playability. The Jedi needs a team to finish her chapter and planet ending quests; the Trooper never did.
My smuggler will probably be the next character to level, but the Jedi Knight is going to sit there until the levelling experience for the class is strongly improved. I am still interested in the game - only begun to mess with Imperial side. It looks a whole lot better than Age of Conan did at the same age. But they do need to smooth out the PvE difficulty curve quite a bit.
Editorial examines MMO mentoring, community dynamics
Feb 15th 2012 6:09PM (Massively)It always struck me that the City of Heroes developers never knew what they had created. They made a game that is the least trinity-bound of any MMO I've played. Most content can be handled by a group of any characters, and content scales to group and level. The only fly in the ointment is that you have to level to get powers that will help your team.
So ad hoc groups based on rapid completion of easy content became the glue that held the community together. The object was to level and claim your powers. For much of the game's history, the drumbeat of the dev team has been hostility to "power levelling" and "farming". The eternal worry was that players were levelling too fast or earning rewards too quickly.
Adding difficult, multi-group, choreographed raid content, and other team content that requires more careful attention to team composition, has been their latest response. That always was the sort of thing I'd got back to CoH to get away from in other games.
Full SWTOR-themed hip hop album released
Feb 10th 2012 3:24PM (Massively)The Daily Grind: Do children have a place in MMOs?
Feb 9th 2012 12:27AM (Massively)Then there's this: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/File:Baby_New_Year.png
There are children in Age of Conan, but they look like skinny dwarfs. Most games do what it does, I think, make child models based on adult models already in game. They never come out quite right, and don't seem to be the product of great effort.
The Daily Grind: What mob type is too cute to kill?
Feb 4th 2012 2:56PM (Massively)No matter how you try to build them up as credible enemies, Skulls are low level mobs and not all that threatening. Their little skull masks are more endearing than menacing. Some even have girlfriends. They're just kids. And the whole world really is out to get them.
The Daily Grind: How political should game companies be?
Jan 19th 2012 9:35AM (Massively)All of these issues break the normal political process in an obvious way. A small minority benefits greatly from them, and is therefore highly motivated to purchase influence. The rest of us are left paying tolls to these trolls, but have a much smaller individual stake in stopping them; we are therefore relatively unorganized and unmotivated. Hopefully, this is starting to change now.