The Prime Directive

Every geek or nerd on the planet understands what the term "The Prime Directive" means, but for those just learning the true zen of geek-dom, here are a few quotes from Wikipedia...

In the fictional universe of Star Trek, the Prime Directive, Starfeet's General Order #1, is the most prominent guiding principle of the United Federation of Planets. The Prime Directive dictates that there can be no interference with the internal affairs of other civilizations, consistent with the historical real world concept of Westphalian Sovereignty.

...it had been indicated to include purposeful efforts to improve or change in any way the natural course of such a society, even if that change is well-intentioned and kept completely secret.

Granted, if your a honest to goodness, no holds bar geek or nerd, you understand exactly that this means not to interfere with the normal progression of a society. Societies that are slow to develop, should be able to grow, advance and prosper in their own natural manner without interference from technological advanced societies. Even if, the lesser society, already has figured out what the advanced society has to offer in the form of superior technology and proposes an exchange of goods and/or services for such items, the Prime Directive is very clear, "NO!, means, NO! and your not getting your grubby hands on our cool, awesome crap no matter how many dilithium crystals, fruit baskets or virgins you promise us. We don't want another "Return of the Archons" or another society full of Nazis on our hands, do we?"

Enter the age of RMT (real Money Transaction) also referred to at times as Micro Transactions. (You honestly didn't know where I was going with this did you? lol)

Basically, you exchange real moolah , greenbacks, dead presidents, legal tender or cold hard cash for virtual items inside your favorite MMORPG. Previously, this action had been discourage by game companies and players a like. A basic example of RMT is Gold farming. Farmers give the player an in-game virtual item such as gold, and in exchange the player gives the farmer $20.00 of their hard earned dinero, which was earned outside the game. Players have railed against this particular action for years. Why? Because as stated above, it does interference with the internal affairs of a virtual world. It purposefully causes improvements or changes things in a way that alters the natural course the game society.

Bob, the night elf rogue, who spent months gathering up items and materials to be sold at the local virtual auction house, who worked hard to make the 5,000 gold necessary to purchase the ever exclusive elite riding skil inorder to progress forward on his quest to getting an awesome dragon mount, is going to be pissed when he discovers that some bored rich kid decided to purchase the gold in 5 minutes for a few hundred dollars. I mean, maybe Bob the night elf rogue won't be pissed, but Oakstout the prot warrior will be.

Here is the real, deal rub, game companies already understand how RMT or in this specific case, gold farming, causes a sever imbalance in the game as a whole. How do they know this? Because they spend real money to craft software and services to help stop gold farming and ban people who do it for life. They do this because they don't like gold farming, ergo, they don't like RMT. Now I am generalizing, but still, to op out of one aspect of RMT and yet approve another is not right.

All MMO's have a End-User License Agreement or EULA expressly stating what all players or End users are and are not allowed to do inside the game's virtual world. Breaking a EULA in most all circumstances will get you banned from every playing the game. Here is a section of the World of Warcraft EULA...

exploit the Game or any of its parts, including without limitation the Game Client, for any commercial purpose, including without limitation (a) use at a cyber cafe, computer gaming center or any other location-based site without the express written consent of Blizzard; (b) for gathering in-game currency, items or resources for sale outside the Game; or (c) performing in-game services in exchange for payment outside the Game, e.g., power-leveling;

Clearly, Blizzard does not approve of RMT or the exchange of in-game items for sale outside the game. Who knows how long this will last, but for now, Blizzard is not planning on breaking "The Prime Directive" at least in my eyes.

So, my question is how can a company like SoE, who does their part to ban gold farmers, can do a 180 and decide to integrate RMT into EQ2? Granted they are only offering potions to increase XP, some house items. and few cosmetic only armor. True they aren't letting you buy phasers, photon torpedos or tricorders, but how does letting someone purchase the ability to double their XP fair to people who don't have oodles of disposable cash? If the argument is, that people who have cash, but don't have the time to level up a character normally, then, why not just let them buy a level 80 character? Why go through the hassle to earn things naturally as you play the game? Why not just whipping out a credit card? If you can't put in the necessary time to reap the rewards in an MMO fairly, like everyone else, then you should be playing solitaire or mine sweeper instead and stop causing game lag by logging in.

SoE went so far as to specifically alter their EULA, when they added the Station Cash and purchases, to reflect an entirely new policy. Previously, SoE had a a EULA, similar to the one posted above, that restricted players from actually OWNING anything inside their virtual world. Seems a lot like SoE took a page from Kirk's Kobiashi Maru manual.

MMO's by nature are time consuming. You don't jump in for 5 minutes and level up to 30. You have to spend the necessary time playing the game inorder to learn your character properly. It's true, that MMO companies don't want players floundering in the lower levels, especially when all the older players have moved on to end game.

So, to remedy this dilemma, some well established MMO's, specifically WoW and EQ2, have altered the way XP in certain areas is handled, by doubling the amount of XP for completed quests and monster kills, so you don't have to spend as much time down below, especially when another expansion is being released.

However, this adjustment benefits all players, not just those with disposable income. The concept of SoE being able to offer XP bonus potions for cash is just pure greed and since it changes the natural course of a player's leveling, it violates the Prime Directive, plain and simple. Even if they don't offer skill enhanced weapons, armor, trinkets or communicators, well not yet anyway, this little ripple in the fabric of game play will most certainly cause an inbalance to the natural play of others, who can't afford to purchase such items.

I enjoy playing MMORPG's. They are challenging and fun, but all that would change if RMT got added to the game I was playing, especially after I had spent many months working my character to the pinnacle of his or her potential only to lose out on great gear because my credit card was over the limit.


Live long and Prosper, unless it ends up costing you cash.

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Editors note: I have added and changed a few things, therefore this is officially my second draft. Sorry to all!

The Old Year

Well, 2008 had its ups and downs. I started off the year jonezing to try Tabula Rasa, but as luck would have it, I missed the sale at Amazon.com by a week. At least the year started off on a good note.

January

I purchased my first next gen console with some left over xmas money. The Xbox 360 has been tons of fun this year. System worked like a champ for a couple of months, then I started having problems with the disc player. Course, I only had the problem with DvD movies, not games, so it must be a flaw in the laser, but I over came that obstacle in December, but I'm getting ahead of myself.


February

Took my first plane flight in over 30 yrs. Definitely not one of my favorite things to do, but I over came my fear so I could visit the Big Apple. It also wasn't the last time I would be on a plane in 2008. Let me say, if you ever get to see New York city, go, don't wait to be asked again. Sure, Times Square is a bit scary if your not use to crowds, but man, it's still very exciting. I get to go again in Feb of 2009, so I'll take more pictures.

World of Warcraft still was my MMO of choice. I managed to level up my mage to 70 and started working on getting my epic flyer and into a decent, end game progressing guild, which apparently was an issue that lasted for several months.


March, April, May

I started to get the itch to try something else. With the persuasion of my friend Scott, over at Pumping Irony, I decided to give LOTRO another shot, but in the three months I played, I never really got as much enjoyment out of it as I did with WoW. I'm not a social butterfly when it comes to joining a new MMO, which meant I ended up soloing a good bit in LOTRO, which wasn't as easy or as much fun as in WoW. LOTRO also had some graphical glitches in its texture rendering that just drove me completely nuts. Not to mention it would crash every now and then for some unknown reason.

April would be a very bad month for me. I lost a wonderful friend and colleague, Larry Payne. I've not mentioned it on my blog, because I hate thinking and talking about sad things and this is a gaming blog, which is no place for it.

Larry, a person I am proud to name as a great friend and a soul that made the earth a better place to live in, was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma in January of 2008. At first he didn't tell anyone about it, hiding the pain and holding out hope that it wasn't anything serious. Eventually, he revealed the truth with the hope that treatment would be able to stave off the disease a bit longer, but by then, the diagnosis wasn't good. He had already reached stage 3 of the disease by the time the doctors had figured out what it really was, and as his body had already started to deteriorated the ability to treat him for the disease started to fade. He lost his fight in April. He will be missed by many.

Also in April, I apparently f#cked up my shoulder. I didn't figure out the seriousness of it till my arm just stopped working one day while I was reach for something up on a high shelf. I saw a quack, sorry, Heath Professional, who suggested physical therapy, which I did for 3 months, only to find out the pain wasn't going away. Eventually, I would get an MRI, be told that surgery was next on the list. By then, I'd lost my faith in my current quack, I mean doctor, and decided to seek out another healer, who, worked with the training team for the Atlanta Olympics. I'm happy to say, he did a fantastic job and I'm recovering well.

The month of May saw the release of a much awaited Indiana Jones installment that resulted in the raping of a good character and franchise. I'm just glad I didn't have to pay to see it otherwise I would have had to kill someone. Sometimes, its good that movie characters don't get a revival treatment. Let dead dogs lie. lol

May also so the release of a much hyped game, Age of Conan. I was once again, seduced into playing it by a friend, who, forgot to mention he was only planning try it for the first 30 days then disappear, sorry DS, I had to call you out on that my friend. lol That little bit of info might have prevented me from getting the game and a new game controller so I could combo like a pro, but alas, I can only blame myself for anything I get myself into. Besides, I also sucked a few friends into getting the game, sorry Steelrat, so I'm just as guilty, since I also left after 3o days. The game was fun, but plagued with bugs to the point that I would have enjoyed a root canal more. Being able to run around naked does not make a great MMO, nor does creating over hyped and yet difficult to accomplish attack combos. The game had no depth to it, and so I retreated back to my stand by, WoW.


June, July, August

Due to my problems with Wordpress, I moved my sight over to blogspot. Not my first choice, but I didnt' want to pay for my own address and I'm not a web designer or programmer so it's easier for me to find a sight that has all the tools in place for me to post my badly grammered blog. lol

In June, I purchased a Wacom drawing tablet, with the intention of doing my own web comic. If I ever did, I'd have call it procrastination master, because I get involved in things like that, but quickly let it fall to the way side. I also gave Spore's creature creator demo a test drive. Lots of potential, but when the game finally got released, it wasn't as fulfilling as the creature creator, sad to say. Blizzard also announced Diablo 3 to the public, finally. No release date was announced, just sometime in the future. The publicly released game play looked fantastic, so I'm hoping to get a crack at it in 2009.

July is the month where I extended my next gen console acquisitions and captured the much evasive Wii. Picked up a few games for the wife and myself, like Super Mario Galaxy and Dr Mario. That kept us entertained for a while, but eventually, like all things, it just started to collect dust. I also expanded my gaming by purchasing a Nintendo DS lite. Something for those out of town jobs. Course, I don't play it as much as I should, but I do tend to give it a work out from time to time.

July and August brought with it the WAR and all it's hype. I would spend several blogs railing against the hype only to be seduced by it. Sadly, due to it's lack of PvE I saw myself logging in less and less. But on the good side, it helped me discover a great bunch of people and bloggers. Because of WAR, Casualties of WAR or CoW was formed. This worked great and even migrated over to WoW, when WAR started to lose its luster with some and WoW started to force its dominance back onto the MMO world with the release of Wrath of the Lich king.

The old 26" monitor in my man cave finally died, or at least appeared to die. I was able to talk my lovely wife into letting me purchase a 32" Samsung HD LCD monitor. I don't have HD programming yet, other than thru the Radio Shack antenni I have hooked up to it. I just had to watch the Panther's play in HD and it looks awesome.


The Rest of the Year

I ended up working a lot and prepared a bit for my December surgery. Picked up a few Xbox games, Fable 2, Gears of War and Fallout 3, which are fantastic and tended to take me away from the burn out of MMO's. All three are excellent games that I would recommend to anyone. Fable 2 does have some control issues, but nothing that should prevent anyone from having tons of fun.

November saw me returning to WoW with the creation of the CoW guild on Rexxar. I turned my back on my two level 70's on Darkspear due to my lack of interest in End game, and started over with a dwarf warrior. So far, it's been a blast.

The guild is very social and is interested in helping others rather than advancing to end game, which is a change. Everyone in my old guild on Darkspear was leveling like mad and I just couldn't get into that frame of mind anymore. The chase for the purple wasn't my end all goal anymore, I wanted a slower approach to WoW. I needed to experience the game in a different light so I could regain my interest in it again. My little dwarven warrior is 33 and I'm almost to exalted with Darnassus, which will net me the ability to purchase a cat mount. I can't wait for my dwarf to be riding around on a night elf mount. I think next I will tackle getting a elephant mount or a mechanical chicken like the gnomes ride around on.

I've also decided to give EQ2 another try. Picked up the new expansion, but have yet to give the game any of my holiday time, but I hope to remedy that once the year gets going.e

My last big purchase of the year was a PS3. Having gotten the chance to play Little Big Planet over at a friend's house, I just had to have it. Besides, it doesn't hurt to have a blu ray player for that nice 32" monitor. lol I managed to also pick up Assassin's Creed and Hot Shots: Out of Bounds for the PS3. So far, Hot Shot's is a very fun game, except that you'll spend 2 hours down loading all the online updates.

Also managed to get Gears of War 2 and Left 4 Dead for the Xbox 360. Have yet to try either, but they got high marks from other bloggers and online mag reviews.

That's about it for a year in review.

I hope to continue my fun in WoW till the next WoW killer comes along. If it doesn't, I've still got three next gen consoles to keep me busy. lol

The Expansion

I just wanted to log on really quick and give my readers some insights from WOTLK and it's wonderful release. In two words....

EPIC FAIL

I was planning by this time to have at least taken a look at some of the new content, maybe create a Death Knight, but the server ques after installing last night were just horrific. Not to mention all the extra patching needed once it was installed, I'm not even sure my current Mods will be working when I finally do get to log in, which happens every time something is patched in WoW. Why even have a community of modders when you spend all your free development time figuring out ways to break their carefully crafted mods that just about all the players rely on. Just because you change some code, it shouldn't cripple the community by breaking everything. Should it?

So, this morning, I woke up at 8am and decided to give it another try, but alas, my server, Darkspear, which is the only one I have characters on that are over 55, which is the requirement to create a Death Knight, is down for rolling restarts. I can't even log into another server to look at the new content because all my 70's are on the server thats down. Again, Epic Fail.

So, I'm hoping that when the server comes back up, the que won't be 55 minutes like it was last night at 9pm EST, when I tried to log in after installing and patching. Look, I understand that people have returned to the game and that there are issues with an expansion's launch, but Blizzard this ain't your first rodeo. Didn't you learn ways to fix this sort of thing with the last expansion launch? Servers crashed, ques were awful and they just didn't seem to have things ready. This time, same thing. Why can't we learn from our failures?

Look at SoE and the number of expansion they have successfully launched for EQ and EQ2. They have gotten it right. Everytime they launch a new expansion, I hear how smooth it goes and how everyone is happy about it. I just don't understand how the learning curve can be so high on a second expansion?

Maybe I'm over stating the problem, but I've got the itch and they don't seem to be able to help me scratch it. Blizzard needs to do better when launching new product. They just seem to be unable to keep the boat a float when they add on more bloat. lol Sorry couldn't resist.

Well, I'm hoping to get a chance to view some of the new content and maybe create a Death Knight this weekend. Wish me luck.

The Slide Show

I am still enjoying WAR, but, as with all great things there is always an issue with some of the bad things.

Question for game developers?

So, you build a game which is going to have tons of players interacting with one another on a regular bases because your content is player driven. Now, add to this chaos all the spell effects and other animation that might take place, starting to get a mental picture of all this?

What happens? Major game lag.

So, if you know this is going to happen, because by happen stance this sort of thing has happened in EQ2 and WoW, which if your any kind of game developer working on an MMO, you have to have at least tried those games once, why don't you prepare for it?

It being the ridiculous amount of stuttering that a character goes through when moving from one over populated area to another?

I mean, if you know that you're game will have open RvR zones where say, teams of up to 40 vs 40 will be battling over the same small keep, why can't you make the graphical lag better so that systems which meet or exceed the games hardware requirements aren't getting a small slide show of the action? I left LOTRO because of the way the trees moved every time they got rendered as you approached them in the game and it actually drove me freakin crazy, now I have to deal with a stutter every time I play WAR?

Be prepared I say. It works for game developers and boy scouts. If it has happened before in other MMO games, like gold farming and video lag due to many players being in one area at the same time, why can't you have a plan ready to implement when the time arises? I mean, we crashed a zone when we started gathering our CoW forces to take a keep, how silly is that?

And you thought this was going to be a nausating recap of all the fun I've had in WAR? BAH!

Download video drivers they say. Adjust your in game video settings they preach. We'll I've done that and I have to say, it ain't me. So, I have done a few things that might make a difference. I've adjusted my in game Vram or Video Ram to a larger number and this seems to have helped, my video card has 512mb of memory so that should be ok for now. I have also purchased some 2 more gigs of memory from Newegg. Apparently, memory is really cheap these days and it should be arriving sometime next week, if the Gods premit. I've not had the best luck with Newegg in the past with shipping dates.

Well, that about it. I will give an update as soon as I can on any possible improvements. The issue isn't on my end, game developers must have known this was going to be an issue. It's like not knowing it will snow in Canada in the winter, that bears have claws or that baseball is really boring.

They just didn't seem prepared.

Someone please advance the slide.

CLICK