Massively OP Podcast: Episode 11

Re: NWO lootbox spam in chat.

I’ve seen this mechanic before in Entropia Universe. This is something that has been taken from the gambling industry. Every wonder why slot machines have lots of light and sound when someone wins? Its so that when you are in a room full of them even though you may not be winning, you can clearly hear and see that others are winning around you (even though it may not be much). This gives you the sensation that everybody is winning nearly all the time so you tend to stay longer, waiting for your luck to turn around.

Same principle is being applied here, it gives the illusion that the chances of getting something from a lockbox are much higher than they actually are. They only report the wins and not the multitude of boxes that don’t yield big prizes. There’s plenty of good papers out there if you are really interested in researching them.

If you see this mechanic in an MMO… run! Its a good sign that your MMO is being run like an online casino, and in fact EU was investigated by the Swedish Gambling Authority but the investigation was dropped due to insufficient resources.

I’m not against a cash shop, as long as it provides some actual benefit. Lock box keys are akin to lottery tickets – there’s a fairly high chance that you will get nothing useful in return for your RL cash.

treemonster  Yes, picture this…heading out into the wilderness, places some dare not to go. Finding old tunnel systems that are irl 6 yrs old made by other players, finding the ruining, if  they have not decay, left behind. You mine to the top of the mountain and build a castle up there, molding the terrain as you see fit. After some time you get the itch to travel and you leave that place on a new adventure. Months later someone comes alone and finds where your castle once stood, as it has slowly decays away and they build their own life upon that mountain.

Sound great doesn’t it?

We call it……

Wurm Online.

There are no quests, as you create your own adventure. Dungeons are man made and if you can actually find them in the vast landscape, there are unique monster which need a large group to kill. None of this is given to you, there are not rails to ride, this is not a themepark.

Enikuo Thanks, and how can anyone not like Norm Macdonald?

Grifter Hah! No.

To be filed under : “Not that there is anything wrong with it”

I have to ask Bree, as someone who has actually visited your personal blog/website, when guest host Scientist John said that he was referred to Massively by a co-worker, was he referring to a certain scientist significant other ;)

treemonster  I have been thinking about a similar mechanic in my imaginary MMO … Justin get out of my Head !!! LOL

Is it just me or did the guest sound a lot like Norm Macdonald? (You were great btw, John. I hope you don’t dislike Norm.)
In regards to putting games in maintenance mode, don’t forget that Arenanet created a financial incentive for themselves to do that. You can still work on your Hall of Monuments in the original Guild Wars game and get special items for GW2, which is pretty cool. Not every developer can do that, because they’re not necessarily continuing with the IP, but it was a neat way to preserve the past and make it relevant to the present.
I read through the GW2 trait thing again and I still don’t understand it. I’m happy to have stats separated from traits at least. Playing a mesmer most of the time, I can understand why they might want to re-jigger everything. I often ignore grand master traits in favor or “lesser,” but more useful to me master traits. There are also some traits that were broken for so long that I just stopped checking on them, especially those around illusions.

Justin was so spot-on with his answer to the “design your own MMO” question. That’s the kind of MMO I keep hoping for. You’re dropped in a beautiful world (definitely not minecraft) where you can explore on foot wherever you want, explore, meet NPCs and solve investing puzzles, meet other player characters, find dungeons and battle monsters–but massive todo list of quests to check off. Is there a game out there like this? I have a smidge of hope for World’s Adrift (at least it looks pretty).

I love Justin’s idea of a non-linear MMO where exploration is the focus of the game. If only there was an MMO out there that was based on an IP that was all about exploring the final frontier.

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