What Happened This Week: 4/17-4/23 Edition

Every week I have a whole list of topics I want to talk about, that don’t fully fit in with the scope of the website. So I came to the decision, why not stick them in a weekly editorial? I’m also using this section to bolster some of the titles that don’t get talked about much here on MMO Fallout.

1. The Final Fantasy XIV Easter Event

I just completed the Easter event for Final Fantasy XIV, or Hatching-Tide as Square calls it. The event description is even more confusing than the announcement, especially given how simple the event itself was. A “scantily clad” woman (game’s description, not mine) is handing out colorful eggs in the three major cities. Every nonspecific number of hours (eight, I believe), you can get a new egg from her. Obtain four eggs, and you can turn them into the gentleman standing by her, in return for an egg hat, which looks rather ornate.

The events up to this point in FFXIV have been rather…passive, is the word I’m looking for. For the Christmas event, players rang bells in cities to obtain random materials that they would use to craft items with (Santa clothing, and food). Unlike a lot of other MMOs, they’re essentially just something to do every eight hours or so that takes up a few minutes at most.

2. People Need To Be Less Defensive

I got into a discussion on Rift with a player who was under the impression that contested territory zones could be captured by enemy forces. After being informed that contested was merely a label for zones that were PvP-mandatory (on PvP servers, you are automatically flagged in these zones), he responded with “well in most MMOs, the term means that the territory can be taken.” His only example was Warhammer Online and Age of Conan. I explained that Warhammer Online was a game strictly based toward territory control, and irregardless I was pretty sure that the game did not use the term “contested territory” for zones that were open for capture. World of Warcraft popularized the term, and since then it has been used almost exclusively to describe pvp-mandatory zones.

After a few minutes, I got a reply, something related to me having the need to “always be right,” and having no issue with making “blunt, personal attacks” against someone for “simply asking a question,” to which I have to say: LIGHTEN UP! Explaining to someone why their statement is wrong is not making a personal attack, and I apologize if I hadn’t properly laden the explanation with “I’m sorry, but…”

And yes, I understand why people are defensive. You can’t ask a question on any MMO without getting barraged with “lol noob,” and other idiotic comments. That being said, people need to better understand the difference between someone who is informing them, and someone who is just responding to be a dick.

3. Can We Drop The Premonition That Rift Is Dynamic?

I took a lot of metaphorical bricks to the face for comparing Rift to a certain other MMO (actually I called it Warhammer 2.0, which I noted would make it World of Warcraft 3.0), but this is what irks me about the game. The Rift system is fun, it offers an alternative to grinding quests, but it is not dynamic. Rifts open in the same spots, they spawn invasions that go to pre-determined locations to set down footholds, and those footholds spawn invaders to attack the exact same locations in the exact same manner. Hell, they even walk down the exact same paths.

Rifts in Rift are essentially a version of Warhammer Online’s public quest system, that are invisible while the timer ticks down, and preventable (by destroying the invasion before it can set down a foothold). In fact, the system itself is really just taking a quest and removing the need to talk to a quest giver.

In one World of Warcraft quest line, you must kill a set amount of two types of Centaur. Turn the quest in for experience and rewards, and you get another quest to kill two different types of Centaur. Turn that in for experience and rewards, and you receive a quest to kill the lead Centaur. In Rift, you start phase 1, killing specific enemies that spawn. Finish the phase for experience and rewards, and you start phase 2: Kill other specific creatures. Finish that phase for experience and rewards, and start phase 3: Kill the boss.

Rift is a fun game. It is polished, it has a wealth of content, and Trion has been patching the game almost daily to ensure content comes out as quickly as possible, as well as tweaking content to appease the player base. Just don’t tell me that the rifts are dynamic.

4. Should Sarcasm Be Ban-Worthy?

I’ve mentioned before on here that I have GM’ed in MMOs (as I still do), and one of the biggest problems we face in handing out infractions is sarcasm, and if this article instills one piece of wisdom on you, let it be this: When using sarcasm in text, always remember your sarcasm tags (/sarcasm). When I read chat logs from players who are reported for, say, attempted account theft, there is no difference between “give me your password and I’ll give you free stuff,” and “give me your password and I’ll give you free stuff.”

So to answer my own question: yes, actually, sarcasm can very well get you banned, depending on how many times you do it. Most people get the idea after their first warning, but you’d be surprised at how many continue to the point where they are permanently removed, and then contact support to complain that they were “only being sarcastic,” and how we “can’t take a joke.” We can take a joke, you just need to work on your timing and presentation to make it funny.

5. If Nobody Plays, Why Is There So Much Lag?

Ask Derek Smart how many people play Alganon, and he’ll say over 100,000 active accounts. Me, on the other hand, I’ve physically come across one other person playing in the past couple months. This begs a very important question for those of us who do play: Why does the server lag and make me feel like I’m on my old DSL connection?

For the fact that any given area is exponentially more populated by mobs than players, Alganon still faces lag-related issues including mobs walking behind you, rubber banding, and unresponsive attacks. It’s never gone as far as dropping my connection, but I have more than a few moments where all activity simply stops for a few seconds.

I find it fairly hard to believe that the population is “growing,” as viewing how the servers react to the current load, a growth in the community would likely result in the servers committing stress-induced hari kari.

That’s all for this week. If you have any specific topics you’d like me to talk about in next week’s column, feel free to leave a comment.