Moonshine Mansion – Page 77

What Buys Loyalty?

August 19, 2015 by Grace

Bonus post today because there’s news and I am an opinionated space zombie!

On Wednesday the “Cosmic Rewards” or loyalty program for WildStar’s F2P conversion was explained in detail. Overall I’m very excited. I’ve played a little on the PTR and seen some of the cosmetic rewards, and they are glorious. That house that they had a preview of in that announcement? Amazing!

How awesome does this new reward dye make me look?

Down below all the lists of cool shiny rewards, they explain the details of how exactly you earn these cosmic reward points. For the most part it seems pretty generous. It looks like you get might get points for purchasing NCoin, and for spending NCoin in the shop. That’s great! It also rewards folks who have purchased the game, paid account services, or a subscription in the past. That’s why my bags were so full of cool stuff when I copied my character to the PTR.

How else can you get these rewards? You earn 3000 points per month for having a subscription to “signature service.” You also earn 4000 points for purchasing a CREDD with real money. Hey that’s great! It may encourage people to spend the $20 to get in-game cash, and keep the CREDD market supplied. Now we get to the part where I start to have some issues with this system.

I’m pretty sure this guy is sick of seeing me.

Here’s where I tell you that I’ve been subbed continuously since launch. Via CREDD. I have a 3 month subscription plan on my account, and it has never been billed. Everybody wins from this setup. I get my subscription for “free”. The cool folks who bought CREDD with real money have gotten a large amount of platinum to spend in-game on whatever their hearts desire. Finally Carbine has gotten extra cash, about $75 so far. Since CREDD is more expensive than a month’s subscription, every time I pay with CREDD they’re getting an extra $5. Yes, someone other than me gave them that money. I’m not “directly contributing” to the bottom line. But if I and folks like me stopped buying CREDD in-game then there would be no market for it, and nobody would pay $20 real money to get a pittance of in-game currency. The system works in everyone’s favor because all the pieces are necessary and interdependent.

Now let’s look at the loyalty reward system. It gives 4000 points to someone who buys a CREDD with real money, 3000 to a credit card subscriber, and only 1000 points to someone like me who uses CREDD to pay for their subscription. Ouch that stings. I understand incentivizing multi-month subscriptions. I have no issues with those bonuses. Carbine wants people on a long-term recurring plan so that they have financial stability. But one month of subscription is worth the same credit whether you pay via one-use time card or recurring credit card. Just not CREDD.

One of the great things about the CREDD system was that, other than the loud noises it makes when you redeem it, nobody can tell whether you’re using it or real money to play the game. I was 100% equal to anyone else playing. Or I thought I was. Turns out I was being less “loyal” that whole time. While I was playing extra hours to earn plat so I could pay for my subscription. While I was blogging, podcasting, and singing the game’s praises on social media. While I was contributing to a system that earned Carbine more than a regular month’s subscription fee. That’s all worth less than someone who subbed for 4 months and then got bored and wandered away. Ouch.

Maybe I need to relax a bit, and like Syp just be happy to be getting a pile of free stuff when F2P happens. But I wonder if this might undermine the CREDD market in the long run. It suddenly seems a lot less appealing to me to spend tons of time earning plat to subscribe with CREDD. I could just buy game time cards when I’m playing a lot, and let my sub lapse (and still play for free!) when I’m not. The rewards for me are way better that way, and I get to spend the extra plat on cool stuff for myself. I wonder how many others might feel the same way? How many will it take to make the CREDD market unstable? I love this game and I dearly want it to succeed in the long term. I don’t even want this post come across as overly harsh because overall I think WildStar’s F2P system is incredibly generous and fair compared with other F2P MMOs. I want to keep playing this game until, hopefully many years from now, they shut down the servers and chase me out. I just wish I got the same credit for that as everyone else.

Stealing Good Ideas

August 19, 2015 by Grace

Blaugust 2015, Day 19

So I guess I’m super late to the “react to the WoW: Legion announcement” party. I’ve been trying to digest how I feel about it, and it is tricky. I don’t even play the game anymore (for now) after all. Why should I even have an opinion? Honestly after pouring years of my life into WoW, and having so many friends still there I have no illusions about how quick I will be to buy the expansion and try it out. Whether I will stick around much after leveling is the question.

This was pretty much peak WoW for me.

With this in mind I’ve been thinking about what features from the MMOs I am currently playing I’d like to see added to WoW, and vice versa.

What WoW should steal:

WildStar’s housing: People have wanted player housing in WoW for years. Garrisons did not do the trick. WildStar’s housing has the best customization and depth I’ve seen, and unlike Garrisons you never really feel trapped there or obligated to spend tons of time if you don’t want to. It is a great balance.
WildStar’s double jump: WoW partially stole this, but just for the new Demon Hunter class. I worry if they have jumping puzzles like in WoD either they will be super easy for Demon Hunters and there will be an outcry, or people will discover that their version of double jump is more cosmetic than useful and be disappointed. I hope it gets spread around to everyone.
Final Fantasy XIV’s content schedule: FFXIV never seems to give me much time to get bored or complacent, there’s always an event or something new being added every few weeks. WoW is infamous for long content droughts, if they could figure out FFXIV’s secret they should steal it.
FFXIV’s combat precision: Some folks dislike FFXIV’s combat because of the long GCD that slows everything down, which is fair. One thing their combat does amazingly well though is telegraph very clearly and precisely. If I’m standing 2mm outside of a telegraph I know for a fact I am safe. WoW’s telegraphs are not always well defined, and even when they looked clear I often still took damage when I thought I would not.
WildStar’s costume interface: It is still not perfect, but WildStar’s holo-wardrobe is lightyears ahead of WoW’s transmog. I know it is a ridiculous ask since WoW’s system is based on old code that never had these types of vanity options in mind. But who wouldn’t want to be able to clear out all that inventory space, have tons of dyes on multiple channels, and share your outfits across all your characters?
FFXIV’s commendation system: I don’t pretend that this one change would transform WoW’s toxic community into FFXIV’s somewhat more appealing one. It would be nice though to occasionally have a chance to reward people for being awesome instead of trying (and usually failing due to WoW’s inadequate vote kick system) to get rid of people who are awful. WoW would be way more enticing for me if I thought the devs were even slightly trying to turn the toxic atmosphere around.

To look from the other direction, there’s also a few things I think these games could steal from WoW:

WildStar should steal flexible raid sizes: Yes the population in WildStar should be growing again very soon when F2P happens, but it will probably never be as big as WoW or even FFXIV. Flexible raids will let more people experience their end game content, and let raiding guilds focus on killing raid bosses instead of the roster management boss. Alternately they could just steal the much smaller raid sizes of FFXIV.
FFXIV should steal the WoW token: Ok, so WoW stole this from WildStar (and EVE, etc.) first, but still- having a way to buy game time for game currency would encourage people who are on the fence to try the game knowing they wouldn’t always have to commit to a monthly sub.
FFXIV should steal WoW’s account management and store: There’s a ton of neat things in the FFXIV store but I will never get them. Even if I had the money to spend, the Mogstation is such a nightmare to deal with it just isn’t worth my time. Blizzard has a streamlined, well-oiled system. No matter what you think of their cash shop items, the fact is everything is accessible and just works.
WildStar should steal (and refine) WoW’s legendary item quest chains: Sure, this is probably going to be replaced in Legion by upgrading your artifact weapon, but the original idea was good, if poorly executed at times. Having a long quest chain that takes months to complete and gives you a best-in-slot item is a great way to encourage people to get into content. You just have to be careful that the tasks you set are accessible and reasonable (I’m looking at you, PvP requirements). Both WoW and WildStar could look to FFXIV’s relic weapon quests here I think.

What do you think? What ideas are so good that all MMOs should steal them?

Shiphand Buddy: Space Madness

August 18, 2015 by Grace

Blaugust 2015, Day 18

Welcome back for another episode of Shiphand Buddy! Today’s mission is a cautionary tale about breathing dangerous chemicals.

Space Madness is very colorful, and deadly.

What: Stave off Space Madness and cleanse the ship!

When: Available at level 30

Where: Farside

Gold Timers: Normal: None ; Vet: 35:00

Gracie’s Run Time: Normal: 7:25 ; Vet: 8:22

Shiphand Buddy Says:

Buy a drink from a talking spider? Seems legit!

Space Madness is broken up into a few sections. First up you will have to progress through the ship, collecting datapads and rescuing survivors. The mechanic here is that you have a sanity meter to keep track of. It starts at 100 and ticks down as you spend more time in the contaminated air. You can use the air canisters scattered around to counteract this effect but there’s a catch: the three creatures you need to find for your gold medal objectives can only be found at different stages of “madness.” From 80-60 (“You don’t feel quite like yourself”) you’ll be able to find the slank, 60-30 (“You feel quite delusional”) the rockmite, and below 30 (“You have gone quite mad. Ooooh, rainbows!”) the dawngrazer. Each transition brings about changes to the environment, and different enemies will appear. I tend to use the air canisters once or twice at the beginning to avoid fighting through excess monsters during the phase transitions. Be careful not to use the canisters too much, however, or you’ll be sitting around wasting time waiting for the critters to appear before you can move on to the next area.

Sorry Exact Change 3.1, I already filled up on drinks from the spider guy…

There’s one more datapad to find in this room, and then you can access the spacesuits. If you are feeling adventurous, you can also buy some lemonade from a friendly spider (along the wall on the left as you enter). Once you hit the access panel you’ll be knocked out for a few seconds. When you return you’ll face 3 waves of adds followed by the vending machine mini-boss. Keep an eye out for his “Self Service” ability and interrupt it if you can. It is a substantial self-heal that will make the fight drag on if allowed to succeed. Once you finally defeat him you can grab a spacesuit and move along.

Exploding livestock. Avoid at all costs.

The next area is often the part that ruins a gold run for folks. In this section you have to contend with hallucinating crew and livestock, all while avoiding exploding rowsdowers. It pays to be patient, there are some safe spots that the rowsdowers avoid if you watch them long enough to see their patterns. Pull enemies back to safe areas so you don’t have to worry about fighting and dodging explosions at the same time. Be aware that sometimes the crew members you try to help will turn hostile too, so clear some space before you talk to them. Finally, if you do trigger an explosion dodge out of it if you can. You absolutely can still get a gold medal if a rowsdower explodes as long as you do not get caught in the explosion. You just have to react quickly.

Facing off against the inferno boss

Once you make it to the final room you can turn on the air scrubbers and begin the last event. Waves of enemies will spawn and must be defeated until you are left with the final boss of the mission. The last boss is random, you can tell which one you are getting by the color of the distortion in the room as you are fighting the earlier waves. Electricity means you’ll be fighting the construct boss “Thunder Surger”, fire means you’ll get “Inferno Intensity”, and darkness leads to “Decrepit Atrocity”. They each have one annoying cc-type attack, either knockdown, blind, or disarm, respectively. Otherwise it doesn’t matter much which one you get. Kill it, activate the console at the back of the room, and pat yourself on the back for a job well done!

Differences between normal and vet: The huge difference between the normal and veteran versions is that on normal you don’t have to collect the 3 critters. This means you don’t have to descend completely into madness in the first section and can progress much faster. The other major difference is that there are no exploding rowsdowers to dodge, which makes that section very easy compared to vet.

Other Thoughts: I think the “madness” mechanic is interesting and spices up an otherwise pretty standard instance. I like the art style and the strange things that appear for you to fight. I do recognize that this mechanic can be problematic or unsettling for some folks. The good news is that if you don’t enjoy it there’s not a lot of reason to run this one unless it is the daily.

That’s all for today. Come back next time for Shiphand Buddy’s longest mission: Deep Space Exploration!

Contract Killing

August 17, 2015 by Grace

Blaugust 2015, Day 17

If this looks like anything other than an utter nightmare to you, you might enjoy PvP

I’m a pretty big fan of WildStar’s contract system. It took me a little while after they were introduced to really understand what they were and how best to engage with them, but now I’m hooked. The system has been a great way for me to fill in some gaps in my gear, make a ton of money, and even get some sweet pets and mounts. Up until this week, though, I’d been leaving out half of the system: PvP contracts.

These 2 status updates pretty well sum up my experience

All that changed a few days ago, with the combination of my curiosity and a mini guild premade getting thrown together. I had done a bit of PvP in the leveling bracket, with my medic and stalker especially. But I hadn’t touched PvP in months, and had barely ever done any on my spellslinger or at max level. I walked in with no PvP gear and no PvP spec and it turned out about as well as you’d expect that to – I got murdered a lot. It turns out that very lopsided matches are fairly common, since the best geared, most experienced PvPers tend to form premades.

The real reason I want to PvP

In the end I had a fun enough time to keep going back for a few contracts over the past few days. I build myself a PvP action set and earned enough prestige to buy some gear so I occasionally get a kill or two in before my untimely death. I even had my first winning match, a Halls of the Bloodsworn that we won against all hope with about 15 seconds left on the clock. I think this might become a permanent addition to my daily “stuff to do” rotation, at least until I finish getting those sweet sweet PvP costumes and pets!