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  1. Ukerric

    2 years later... the almost sad state of MMOs in the new era

    One of the things you could work with is the dual Path-Skill system underlying the Legend of Randidly Ghosthound litrpg webnovel. It's an hybrid classless/class system. You discover basic skills by doing stuff, like Cooking by cooking recipes, Running by... running, etc. You gain skill points...
  2. Ukerric

    MTG: Arena

    MTGO has been around since 2002.
  3. Ukerric

    World of Warcraft: Classic

    I think everyone agrees that the nostalgia pretty much ends with Cataclysm. The problems of LK was mostly the 4 times raiding (you raided 10 normal, 10 hard, 25 normal, 25 hard). But, given the sheer amount of raid, that makes it a very good point to let the server "slowly die".
  4. Ukerric

    MTG: Arena

    They probably should prepare for the dynamics of the "post-standard" environment for Arena that comes this fall. But I don't think the game as the freemium model it has supports more than one set per quarter, or two sets in parallel. Three months to collect a "reasonable" amount of a set works...
  5. Ukerric

    World of Warcraft: Classic

    Wasn't the original beta capped to 30 for some time (and Scarlet Monastery the only "high level" dungeon)? So they're not just emulating the retail game, they're emulating beta as well.
  6. Ukerric

    What did you just read?

    As an aside, Aleron Kong has a pretty bad reputation among litrpg fans for some shenanigans (including mod abuse on reddit). His current scheme seems to be trying to copyright the term "litrpg", which is why he tries to establish his reputation of "The Father of American LitRPG". That said, he...
  7. Ukerric

    The Sci-Fi Book Thread

    Still classical sci-fi. This time, it's David Weber's (yes, that Weber) The Gordian Protocol Wonder of wonders: A SOLO David Weber! M. Weber is better known for his large series. Here, he's doing a collaboration on a stand-alone novel. It's a novel that is a bit too rich. It hints of a major...
  8. Ukerric

    World of Warcraft: Classic

    Everyone who wants to play BFA can play BFA. Everyone who wants to check Classic... must wait until the gods of chance enable your beta access.
  9. Ukerric

    World of Warcraft: Current Year

    Won't happen. The big difference is that everyone knows about it and wants to play with it. So, rather than fix the problems "when it's discovered", they'll simply get it fixed beforehand.
  10. Ukerric

    World of Warcraft: Classic

    If enough people play it, they might do BC and LK later: https://www.wowhead.com/news=291725/burning-crusade-and-wrath-legacy-servers-possibly-in-wows-future
  11. Ukerric

    MTG: Arena

    Finally got in and started unlocking the starting decks. They are going to replace those when M20 releases this july, right? What happens to the people who have just got their decks and don't grind massively when the old starter decks become illegal in october? Oh, and I finally discovered what...
  12. Ukerric

    The Sci-Fi Book Thread

    More pure sci-fi. Finished Neal Asher's The Warship. This second book in the Rise of the Jain trilogy starts where the previous one ended, and adds more background and lore to the Polity Universe and one of its most infamous Elder Races, the Jain. We've only seen the Jain so far thru the lenses...
  13. Ukerric

    World of Warcraft: Current Year

    I've said repeatedly, at this point Normal+Heroic has zero purpose. At best - at the very best - there should be only 3 difficulties. LFR to see the sight (and get your weekly kill quest, when there was any), "normal" for normal raiders, Mythic for hardcore. My guild when I was still playing...
  14. Ukerric

    Ashes of Creation

    Last post on the dev blog is May 9th (showing everything about their hyppogryph models...)
  15. Ukerric

    What did you just read?

    Just in case you didn't know (I also didn't until recently): that's the same person (Mira Grant is a pen name for different type of books).
  16. Ukerric

    The Sci-Fi Book Thread

    Time to resurrect this thread. Just finished The Accidental War by Walter Jon Williams. He's one of the veterans of the genre... of all kind of genres (he does milfi, he does "real SF", he does fantasy. Everything and well). After a couple novellas that are not entirely necessary (but still...
  17. Ukerric

    Pan'Theon: Rise' of th'e Fal'Len - #1 Thread in MMO

    You can pick The World of Warcraft Diary by John Staats for reference on the development process of a real game (bonus points for their first cinematic, where the "director" couldn't figure out who was piloting which character on screen since nameplates were turned off, so they were firing off...
  18. Ukerric

    What did you just read?

    I haven't read a book in French for at least 15 years or so. I'm highly anglophile (despite being French) and the only thing I read in French are internet news/newspapers.
  19. Ukerric

    What did you just read?

    Public transportation for the win. Gives me a minimum of 1h45 every day to read. Novels are usually quick reads; serious books take a few weeks or a month at least. I also tend to have 4 or 5 books "currently reading" at the same time. My goodreads challenge for this year is 130 books, and I'm...
  20. Ukerric

    World of Warcraft: Current Year

    You all have phones, right? https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/05/blizzcon-2019-tickets-revolve-around-invasive-poorly-reviewed-smartphone-app/
  21. Ukerric

    Captain Marvel (2019)

    "The first female Captain Marvel", it says. And that's technically true. Carol "Captain Marvel" Danvers is last version, not early version.
  22. Ukerric

    2 years later... the almost sad state of MMOs in the new era

    And they have about six months to have a mostly showable demo for Blizzcon where they'll announce it. Producing episodic content is hard unless you have specifically organized your production pipeline around it. Asheron's Call did it, but they had a world designed for it. By now, retrofitting...
  23. Ukerric

    2 years later... the almost sad state of MMOs in the new era

    WoW succeeded (commercially) by applying a single player RPG over the MMO part. It still had to fill the parts beyond the RPG (when you've finished leveling and exhausted your quests), which it did more or less adequately. The big problem is that it applied a game paradigm to a different game...
  24. Ukerric

    What did you just read?

    I'm skipping the non-fiction, since it has less of a broad interest than SFF. Currently reading Arrian - The Campaigns of Alexander the Great and finishing When Baghdad ruled the Muslim World. Next is finally reading Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now!
  25. Ukerric

    2 years later... the almost sad state of MMOs in the new era

    And that's why I'm mostly against quests as a main mechanic for leveling/gearing. Fact is, it costs a lot to make interesting quests, so the quests become disguised mob grinding. Except you have a very specific amount to grind, not one more, not one less (ok, slightly variable when it's "bring...
  26. Ukerric

    2 years later... the almost sad state of MMOs in the new era

    That one's not the problem. The problem is that the quest has become the required path to advance. 1) The quests reward you a disproportionate amount of XP at every step 2) The game is balanced so that you have a minimum amount of gear at each level, and the main source of gear is quest...
  27. Ukerric

    2 years later... the almost sad state of MMOs in the new era

    Ahhh, the original eRepublik. Good times.
  28. Ukerric

    The Astronomy Thread

    Good launch, and absolutely awesome infrared view of the landing. When you think they couldn't innovate in the "show", they drop that new one.
  29. Ukerric

    MTG: Arena

    If I remember right from streams, there's a card that basically rewrites your creature into a 1/1 with no abilities. Then you kill it and it's gone.
  30. Ukerric

    What did you just read?

    I thought I could rate my various Dungeon Core series. There's a lot of them, meaning a lot of bleh/copycat/not too good ones, and a few good ones. (if you wonder what's Dungeon Core stories, it's stories where the main character is a Dungeon Keeper in the style of the old Bullfrog Game) -...
  31. Ukerric

    What did you just read?

    That was before I visited more of the litrpg genre. Then, you start to appreciate more some of the gems you have. Be very, very wary of russian stuff. Biggest litrpg saga so far I liked is Viridian Gate Online, by James Hunter. Setup is simple: asteroid coming and is going to wipe the entire...
  32. Ukerric

    The Astronomy Thread

    Looks like it's scrubbed.
  33. Ukerric

    2 years later... the almost sad state of MMOs in the new era

    This is why I said at one time that the real next generation of PVE-based MMO will have to figure out tech for procedural generation of content. And if you want stories, this is the hardest part. Outdoor worlds are probably done. Generating an interesting outdoor world is not that hard. The...
  34. Ukerric

    Avengers: Endgame (2019)

    Half of the ship's refugees had managed to escape. After that, Thanos flunkies killed the rest.
  35. Ukerric

    2 years later... the almost sad state of MMOs in the new era

    Ring events break one of the basic game design lessons, which is that your players should be empowered to guide/control their experience. Timed events are impossible to control. Thus, players hate them. Same thing for raids. People like a lot more encounters in which you control when the boss...
  36. Ukerric

    Marvel Universe stuff

    Everyone expects Secret Wars. That's the easiest way you get to make an ensemble cast at the end of a movie arc. They just need not to be greedy and take their time setting things up.
  37. Ukerric

    2 years later... the almost sad state of MMOs in the new era

    Those worked because they were not instanced. They offered choices, which might or might not be available because of other players already present. That's why BRD didn't work out in WoW: you had a dungeon designed for multiple groups, but you were the only one that could be there. While you'd...
  38. Ukerric

    Avengers: Endgame (2019)

    What does that says? Because it's one of those sites where, unless you enable 36+ valid scripts, you can't pass the "oh, we're using cookies" page.
  39. Ukerric

    Sonic the Hedgehog (2019)

    My guess? They saw how Detective Pikachu was coming out and said "how hard can it be, right?"