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The Road to Mordor: Power to the levelers

Justin Olivetti — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 17:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Lord of the Rings Online, Free-to-play, The Road to Mordor, Guides

With Rise of Isengard creeping up on us, I've seen an increasing number of people begin to freak out about it, not because they're upset it's coming but because they're not prepared to partake in the expansion on day one. Now, this might not be important to you, but I assure you it's quite important to many -- lots of people like to be in on the excitement from the very beginning, and it's a special kind of torture to contemplate having to sit there and listen to your friends oohing and ahhing over the new zones and content while you're still poking your way through Moria.

So because of this, some players really, really want to get a character up to level 65, prepared to do a dive roll right into Dunland when September 27th hits. It's understandable. Even I, a normally laid-back type of guy, am pushing hard to finish up Enedwaith with my Lore-master so that I'll have one character good to go on I-Day (that's Isengard Day).

But what about those who don't have a level 65 in their pockets? Is it too late to get your act in gear and get up there before it's too late? Of course it isn't. I'm pretty convinced that you could even roll a fresh toon today and get him or her up to the endgame by I-Day, depending on how much time you can dedicate to it.

Today we're going to look at a few leveling tips I've picked up over the years to aid those of you who want to kick in the afterburners of the leveling process so that you can make sure you're where you want to be. It's not even that hard!

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The Road to Mordor: Power to the levelers originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 12 Aug 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hyperspace Beacon: Post-launch

Larry Everett — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, New titles, Opinion, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Hyperspace Beacon

Readers of this column have a lot of questions for me, and I do my best to answer all of them. However, the most frequent question I get is "what class are you playing?" followed by "which guild are you going to join?" Thankfully, I work from an office at home, and my time can be very dedicated to playing Star Wars: The Old Republic. Many of the websites and podcasts fall off after a game is launched because, hey, the producers of these bits of entertainment have a game to play now. Fortunately for you, I really want to give my readers something to look forward to once TOR actually launches. Unlike others who lack either the time or dedication to their fans, I am going to be stepping up my game after launch -- literally.

I have teased my post-launch plans a few times before, but I figured I should put it all down in writing. This way I have something to reference when the time comes, and I'm sure the readers here will hold me to my word. Most of all, Star Wars: The Old Republic will be an extraordinary experience for anyone who follows me. Hop past the break for the full details.

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Hyperspace Beacon: Post-launch originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 09 Aug 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lost Pages of Taborea: Elaborating on XP gain and leveling alts

Jeremy Stratton — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 19:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Game mechanics, Free-to-play, Runes of Magic, Lost Pages of Taborea

This week I want to elaborate on experience gain, the honor party, and other ways of leveling alts. I received some great feedback from last week's article that suggests to me an interest in a much wider discussion of power-leveling. But before I get to that, let's clear up XP gain in Runes of Magic.

Most MMOs that I know of -- including RoM -- dish out XP based on the character's level and the level of the mob being slain. If your character is the same level as the mob, the game will give you an adequate amount of XP as a reward. If the mob is higher, you'll get even more experience, but you'll get less XP as you out-level a mob. If you've played any MMO, you're probably aware of this. In RoM, you'll stop collecting XP from mobs 10 levels lower than you. Naturally, fighting mobs slightly higher than you can be more efficient. You can continue to fight increasingly higher-level mobs, but at some point, there's just no way you'll be able to survive, which is why you may want to get a higher-level player to take you just about anywhere in RoM to power-level you. When a high-level player starts towing you around, though, the XP you gain will be based directly on the amount of XP that player would get from any mob he kills. Read on to see more about this and alternative ways of power-leveling.

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Lost Pages of Taborea: Elaborating on XP gain and leveling alts originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 11 Apr 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lost Pages of Taborea: Power-leveling alts in an honor party

Jeremy Stratton — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 13:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Free-to-play, Runes of Magic, Lost Pages of Taborea, Guides

Over the course of two years, Runes of Magic has had many patches. It has also had many changes and additions that never made it into the patch notes. They're usually nothing major -- maybe a minor graphical tweak or some other incidental improvements. Then there are items, quests, and features that seem to change, but I can never be sure based on my imperfect memory alone. Something seems to be new or different, but because it never made a lasting impression, I can't be sure whether I'm remembering it correctly. That's how I felt about the honor party.

The newbie tutor system seemed to quietly crawl under a rug, but over time it has proven to be operational. Even though the NPC in Varanas does a fair job of informing you what the honor party is and does, I'll give you a quick run-down of how it operates. One of the advantages of knowing about and using the honor party is having a very quick way of leveling alts through the first 20 levels. I wouldn't recommend it for first-time players, but let's take a look at using the honor party to give your alt a huge jump in levels on day one.

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Lost Pages of Taborea: Power-leveling alts in an honor party originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 04 Apr 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Matt "Positron" Miller prepares his radioactive banhammer against mission architect abusers

Seraphina Brennan — Tue, 05 May 2009 19:00:00 EST

Filed under: Super-hero, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Business models, Culture, Exploits, Forums, Game mechanics, News items, PvE

Mission architect -- an amazing system that allows a very creative player-base to finally take the reigns of creation and make amazing in-game arcs that feature personalized stories, personalized characters, farming, well made.... wait, what?

Yes, you heard that right, people have already began to leverage City of Heroes's architect system into nothing more than powerleveling tool, and the community doesn't find that to be too enjoyable. Luckily, Matt "Positron" Miller, the lead designer, has already stepped up with a post to the community on the City of Heroes message board about how they plan on dealing with these problems.

The team wishes to remove the rewards some characters may have gained through powerleveling, all the way up to removing access to characters that were solely leveled up via mission architect exploits. Past working on a player by player bases, some badges will be changed while others may be removed entirely due to the exploiting groups surrounding them. Lastly, but certainly not least, the team will be proactively banning missions that are created to exploit the system.

For Matt's full plan, check out his post over on the City of Heroes message board.

Matt "Positron" Miller prepares his radioactive banhammer against mission architect abusers originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 05 May 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SOE hires crime fighting gnomes to fend off credit card worms

Brooke Pilley — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:00:00 EST

Filed under: EverQuest, EverQuest II, Pirates of the Burning Sea, PlanetSide, Interviews, The Agency, Star Wars Galaxies, Vanguard, Free Realms, Legends of Norrath, DC Universe Online

Online credit card fraud is big business and even MMORPGs aren't safe from it's far reach. We recently had a chance to sit down with Executive Director of Global Customer Service, Brad Wilcox, and discuss how SOE is dealing with gold selling and power-leveling services for their games. They are taking this war so seriously that they have put all transactional business under keen gnomish scrutiny.

Can you tell us how this fraud prevention task force came to be?

Brad Wilcox: Since the inception of EQ1, we always had components of a fraud prevention team. These were game masters and individuals tasked with looking at the game economy and making sure that people weren't exploiting. Since September 2007, we started to see a big increase in fraudulent activity in regards to stolen credit cards. That is when it was decided to put a few more resources specifically related to the fraud that was happening with accounts and subs being created with these stolen credit cards. That's when we formed what we call the NUGIT team, which stands for Norrathian Underground Gnome Investigation Team. As you can tell by the name, our employees enjoy having as much fun on the back end as we do on the front end of these games

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SOE hires crime fighting gnomes to fend off credit card worms originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MMOGology: WoW on easy mode

Marc Nottke — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Leveling, Opinion, MMOGology

My buddy Rob and I play World of Warcraft frequently, but between the two of us he's got the most /played time. He's got a few 70s on a PvP server and a few 70s on the PvE server where we're spending most of our time. He's also an alt-a-holic and has tons of mid-level characters. He's played every class in the game; most of them thoroughly. After spending so much time leveling so many characters he recently resolved not to level another character until the release of Wrath of the Lich King.

His resolution didn't last long. When Blizzard announced their Recruit-a-Friend program a tiny seed was planted in the back of his mind. A seed that slowly germinated, wrapping its diminutive roots around his cerebral cortex until every thought in his head screamed, "MUST HAVE TRIPLE XP." And so, after a very small amount of convincing, I joined him to level up yet another alt. Our new goal was to level a couple of spacegoat shammies.

After about 12 hours of /played time we were level 26. I know that's not a record by any means, but for us it felt pretty amazing. In fact, it almost felt like we were cheating. In a way it was like paying for a power leveling service where you do all the work. Sure the XP flew by, but Rob had paid for the game and the expansion all over again, as well as paying for a second account. Still, watching a level 14 paladin run by us and knowing we were out pacing him so drastically, it made me wonder if the Recruit-a-Friend program had somehow cheapened the accomplishment of hitting 60. Remember when hitting 60 felt like it meant something?

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MMOGology: WoW on easy mode originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 29 Sep 2008 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Power leveling becoming more prominent in Vietnam

James Egan — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: MMO industry, Leveling, News items

When you hear the words "power leveling," which country do you usually think of? The term almost always conjures images of digital content factories in China, where teams of workers grind around the clock for the legions of gamers out there who are willing to pay to get ahead.

Power leveling and gold farming are by no means limited to China though. Other countries in Asia are seeing a marked increase in these activities as internet access becomes more ubiquitous, and of course as broadband speeds increase. PlayNoEvil points out an article from Vietnam News, which reports "game addicts with talent can now indulge in their favourite pastime and be paid up to VND 2.7 million (US$ 160) a month for doing it." PlayNoEvil notes that the salary of a power-leveler is greater than that of a teacher, who only earns between US$ 60 and US$ 100 per month.

Via PlayNoEvil

Power leveling becoming more prominent in Vietnam originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 06 Jul 2008 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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One gamer's descent into powerleveling

Michael Zenke — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:30:00 EST

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Business models, Culture

At the end of last year, the Australian version of gaming blog Kotaku put up a series on the lengths to which one gamer went to experience World of Warcraft. He had already made the decision to quit the game, and decided to give it one last go via a power-leveled character. The series details the research put into the decision, and chronicles his experiences as he watches his new avatar ascend the ranks from the sidelines.

What's especially interesting is his final conclusion about the whole experience. When all is said and done, the anonymous author walks away from his powerleveled character barely having made it through his mid-60s. There might be a life lesson in the whole thing, and the series is well worth considering if you've ever considered such a service.

One gamer's descent into powerleveling originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Opinion: pay more money to experience less game

James Egan — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 15:00:00 EST

Filed under: Business models, Economy, Game mechanics, MMO industry, Opinion

Think about this a moment: people are actually paying money to experience less of their games. Every day. Probably all day. These are often games that they've already purchased and, in effect, pay someone else to play for them. The existence of RMT and power-leveling services isn't exactly breaking news, but it makes these aspects of MMOs no less bizarre a notion. The thriving business built upon such tenets of how online games should operate is a matter of some concern to Jesse Henning, a writer at GameCyte.

Despite the can of worms it can be,"from a business standpoint, subsidizing RMT is a fantastic move," Henning writes. If players will buy items and currency outside of the system anyway, what company wouldn't prefer that cash to enter their own pockets? "From a design standpoint, however, RMT is a treacherous path to walk," Henning cautions, and goes on to look at the pitfalls of game design that incorporates RMT. Conversely, the writer then discusses the level-disparity design problem in World of Warcraft and how it actually encourages players to buy gold and use power-leveling services. Henning also looks at how the ancillary services operating within and around a world pull in more revenue than the world operation itself, citing Raph Koster on the issue as well. Have a look at the piece at GameCyte, which discusses how RMT affects console gaming as well as MMOs, and just how inescapable it really is.

Opinion: pay more money to experience less game originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 08 Jun 2008 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Player vs. Everything: Frustrated by levels

Cameron Sorden — Sat, 24 May 2008 13:00:00 EST

Filed under: Game mechanics, Leveling, Opinion, Player vs. Everything

I was reading through my usual round-up of blogs and news items this morning when I found an interesting post by Van Hemlock on the topic of levels in MMORPGs. More specifically, it was about how levels in games keep players from playing with each other. He discusses how ever since he started gaming in 1999, being a different level than the people he wants to play with has kept him from playing with them. Whether you're too high for the content to be challenging or too low to be effective, playing with your friends at different levels just never seems to work very well.

Van Hemlock makes an excellent point, and it's a problem in almost every single MMOG out there with two notable exceptions: EverQuest 2 and City of Heroes/Villains. Both of these games recognize the problem and attempt to circumvent it, but they do it in very different ways. In City of Heroes, you can move either up or down in level so that you can see high level content at low levels or go back and do low level content as a high level player and still advance. In EverQuest 2, it's strictly one-way. You can bring yourself down to your friend's level and adventure with them for alternate advancement experience. Is this really as big of a problem as people make it out to be, and if it is, why don't more games have systems like these?

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Player vs. Everything: Frustrated by levels originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 24 May 2008 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Virtual items trader receives Red Herring award

James Egan — Thu, 22 May 2008 20:00:00 EST

Filed under: Business models, Economy, Events, real-world, MMO industry, News items

Red Herring has named Live Gamer, a virtual items trading company, as one of the top 100 privately held companies in North America in 2008. The annual Red Herring 100 North America Awards are given to companies identified as the most promising tech startups.

Love it or hate it, RMT is not going away. The virtual trading economy, which includes avatars, items and in-game currencies, is estimated to be a market worth more than USD 1.8 billion. Much of this trading takes place on the black market, exposing buyers and sellers alike to potential fraud. Live Gamer aims to remove the sketchiness from virtual item trades, enabling secure player-to-player trading while taking business away from some of the banes of the MMO world: virtual item thieves.

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Virtual items trader receives Red Herring award originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 22 May 2008 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hardcore gamer builds Chinese empire

James Egan — Sun, 18 May 2008 13:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Business models, News items, Zhengtu Online

In the months leading up to the Summer Olympics in Beijing, with world events being what they are, it's not often that foreigners residing in the mainland turn to China Daily's English pages for the news. This little gem is an exception, however. When you picture the man who's fast becoming a leading light in China's expanding online gaming industry, who do you see?

Maybe you picture a slick twenty-something entrepreneur from Hong Kong, decked out in a $5000 suit and shuffling between calls on a few wafer-thin cell phones. Or do you envision a middle-aged bureaucrat turned businessman from Beijing, using his network of connections and riding the tide of interest in online games? Stereotypes aside, no matter how you picture Shi Yuzhu, that aforementioned 'leading light,' you're probably wrong. The 46-year-old CEO of Giant Interactive (NYSE: GA) is more outwardly eccentric than most would guess. Shi, who prefers tracksuits over 3-piece-suits, is reportedly the first CEO ever to ring the NYSE bell in anything but formal attire... much less athletic wear.

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Hardcore gamer builds Chinese empire originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 18 May 2008 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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An end to easy XP as the Family get whacked

Adrian Bott — Sat, 17 May 2008 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Betas, Super-hero, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Patches, Leveling, PvE

They had it coming.

City of Heroes Issue 12: Midnight Hour, now in Open Beta, comes with a nerf or two as well as all the good stuff. Over on the Test server, some changes have been made to high-level Family mobs. The changes are now on their second iteration. In the first round, high-level Family minions were altered in status, increasing their relative power without increasing the XP rewards, so that more work had to be done for the same overall result.

In response to a request for clarification ('lol devs pwnt the family mish?') the Dev Castle responded 'Indeed.'

In the latest round, minions are back to being minions again, but the XP reward has been nerfed down. The reason given, which will surprise nobody at all, is 'their reward scale has been lowered to be commensurate with the risk involved in the encounter'.

So why target the Family?

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An end to easy XP as the Family get whacked originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 17 May 2008 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Public service announcement from WoW Europe discourages gold buying

William Dobson — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 21:00:00 EST

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Economy, Exploits, Leveling, Making money

Timmy is sick and tired of lagging behind his friends and guild-mates, all because of his inferior flying mount. He decides to purchase some gold with real money and buy his epic mount. Timmy thinks to himself, "It doesn't really hurt anyone, does it?" The answer to that question is, "Yes Timmy, it does". The European World of Warcraft site has listed a gold-selling FAQ that aims to educate players like Timmy on some of the consequences of purchasing products and services from a gold-selling company.

The site lists the obvious stuff, like spammers and bots, which both annoy people and take up Blizzard resources that could be put to better use, but the article also brings up some things that aren't always mentioned. Much of the gold that these companies trade in comes from hacked accounts, and many accounts are hacked after the owner enlists the aid of a power-leveling service. When the companies have access to the account, the unfortunate victim may also find their personal details being used for identity theft and credit card fraud. The bottom line is, without people using these services, the companies could not continue to operate. We here at Massively are also vehemently opposed to gold-selling, and agree wholeheartedly with Blizzard's message. Just say no, Timmy.

Public service announcement from WoW Europe discourages gold buying originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 22 Feb 2008 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Daily Grind: What's the rush?

Matt Warner — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 08:30:00 EST

Filed under: Opinion, The Daily Grind

Somebody always does it. Shortly after any expansion launches you can expect someone to plow through all those levels and reach the maximum cap in less than a few days. This recently happened again in Rise of Kunark, 36 hours after the EverQuest 2 expansion hit desktops, Monk Taucher from the guild Second Dawn leveled from 70-80 netting a 100 dollar prize and their claim to short-lived leveling fame.

I can understand the achievement aspect of wanting to level as fast as possible, reach the end and be done with it, but even so in an expansion hardcore players who raid won't be able to raid until their guild catches up. Doesn't this defeat the whole purpose of relishing content instead of whining about how there is nothing to do on the forums? Or the all-to-common argument amongst the core hardcores that their guild is slow because they slack and can't play 12 hours a day? I know we all enjoy different things about a MMOG, but leveling up and waiting for your guild to catch-up isn't very enjoyable -- I've been there myself.

At least it took more than a few people to achieve this goal when World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade launched. Gullerbone, a mage leveled from 60 to 70 in a matter of 28 hours with the help of some friends using area effect spells to grind out the levels faster. I'm a firm believer that everyone should enjoy the game how they see fit as long as they aren't breaking the rules (dupes, gold-farming, etc.) but I still think leveling this fast is a bit over the top. I think at some point we all power-level and wish we would reach a certain level already. That's understandable, but as soon as an expansion launches? If you could, would you skip to the end after an expansion launched or do you prefer to take it in small chunks and get there when you get there?

The Daily Grind: What's the rush? originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 26 Nov 2007 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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