Amber Night (rebooted)

Submitted by reader Avirnig.

Mutant Strain Virus Station Pass still a bad idea.

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Ding! Rats.

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It's about the economy, stupid.

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The AGC "MMO Rant Session" is traditionally, well, a rant session.  A place to loosen ties (if game devs wore ties) and make with the yacking about what's wrong with the MMO industry.  Yesterday's rant session sounds like it was a good one.

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Your cheatin' heart will pine some day
And crave the love you threw away.

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I went from Game to Game
I aged, I grew and lost my innocence
I soon became enraged by each
and every bad experience

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And how Sony continues to dismantle Everquest 2.

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I may have mentioned somewhere else on this blog that I am a flake.  If not, gentle reader, you have certainly inferred it by now.  It should therefore come as no surprise that less than a month after re-activating my EQ2 account, I am seriously considering de-activating it.  In fact, the decision is pretty much made, barring a last minute decision on Sony's part to un-fuck their latest proposed crafting changes.  Which they won't, because they don't think it's fucked.  But who are you going to believe, a flake or Sony?  Flake wins the square.

Sony is about to feed crafters a pile of frosted shit, all the while insisting “everybody loves frosting!”  In the next major crafting update (ETA unavailable), recipes are being changed such that I'll be required to gather at least 3-4 times more ingredients than before, for the same combine.  Furthermore, experience gained per combine is being decreased by a factor of 4.  This means that I'll be grinding about 12-16 times longer to level my crafter as I did before.  All for the “good for the game.”   Mmmmm, frosting.

I never thought this would be possible, but Sony has single-handedly made me look at DAoC's crafting system with fondness.  Yeah, it's that bad.  I won't even get into how badly they are about to nuke player crafted gear.  Okay, maybe I will just a little bit.  As an armchair game designer I believe that player crafted gear should be the best in the game.  With this patch, player created gear won't even be second best.  Um…what exactly is my motivation?

Now you might say “but they haven't finished testing yet.”  And I will
reply that every time I have seen player input saying this is a bad
idea, the developers justify their position instead of listening.  Furthermore, a lot of the complaining posters have been atypically polite and relatively flame-free.  There is some level-headed thinking going on, but it falls on deaf ears.  I
could be wrong, they could ditch the big changes, but I don't think so.

I should probably thank Sony.  With this patch plus a few more therapy sessions, I am well and truly on my way to finally breaking free.

On a related note, Penny Arcade had a great strip today regarding Sony's effort to give EQ2 away to anyone that will take it.  It's funny because it's true.  And it's sad (or funny if you're not me) because I was one of the saps who paid $50 for the box at launch.  Sony have only themselves to blame for a game that is basically dead and doesn't know it yet.  No other company has worked so hard, and in such a vacuum, to alienate their player base.  What a shame.