With the slated release date of September 18th, Warhammer Online is fast approaching.  While the hype for this game has certainly matched the level that you would expect from a so-called “WoW Killer,” many folks are still questioning whether WAR will finally be the game that takes down Blizzard’s dominance in the MMO marketplace.

The bigger issue at hand, however, is not if the game succeeds – but rather, what if it fails?  WAR represents the last game “in the queue” for quite some time that could possibly stand a chance at competing with WoW.  If WAR follows in the footsteps of Age of Conan, it stands a chance to quickly fizzle as the critics tear any small problems to bits.  Indeed, if some of the comments coming out of the NDA release from closed beta hold true, it looks like WAR might actually provide some fairly large targets for the critics to hit.

Here’s hoping that Mythic has done their research and realzies what Warhammer Online can do for the MMO industry… and the consequences of an epic failure come launch time.

We’ve all been pwned by some company’s naming policies before.  Whether it was when you were trying to name your halfling “Bilbobaggins” or your guild “Sony Makes Sucking Look Easy,” there are times where you get a big fat “nice try, lol” from the automated name bouncer.

Rarely, though, does this occur in the realm of IRL.  This gentleman tried to sign up for Verizon DSL and was informed that his last name, “Libshitz,” violated Verizon’s naming policy (look closely to find out why).  The best part, however, was their proposed workaround – spelling his last name incorrectly on purpose to get around the automated filter (sound familiar?).  After three escalation attempts, it looks like Verizon finally admitted that smacking this guy with the banhammer might have not been the best approach from a PR standpoint, and has “made an exception” for him.

In both the real and virtual worlds, naming policies often create a lot of unintended problems.  Let’s hope that companies will begin realizing this soon and add some more “human” quality control into process.

vchaticon_resized

Fear the rock

So here’s a lulzy little bug: after dishing out some voice chat loving in LU47, it appears that Sony has made a slight error in the way that npc’s are handled by the new voice chat UI.

Players are reporting that in some instances, normal NPC’s and even harvesting nodes are appearing with voice chat bubbles over their heads, as though they were using voice chat to speak to the player.

Now, we all know that Sony shelled out big bucks to implement voiceovers for most quest NPC’s in the game, but I’m guessing that those schools of fish over there are not on the payroll.

Apparently this bug has already been fixed on test, but until a hotfix rolls around, enjoy the serious trippiness in game as the animal dens attempt to talk to you.

The EQJunkies have been in quite a few guilds with very complicated DKP systems – Dragon Kill Points, for the uninitiated.  Basically, DKP allows people to be rewarded for attending raids by giving them a currency of sorts to spend on items that drop.

There are many commonly-accepted DKP systems in existence, and most guilds tweak these systems into something unique.  From what I’ve seen in the past, there are common problems that often arise despite what DKP system is being used:

1. Since points are usually awarded frequently (such as once per hour or once per raid), and because items usually have a set DKP cost, inflation occurs when guild members bank their DKP.
2. New guild members often have to play “catch up” for a long time before they can even hope of competing for items against long-standing members.
3. Alts and secondaries create drama when people’s alts are frequently winning items over other people’s mains.
4. Guild members become confused as the DKP system becomes more complex.

In direct response to these problems, I give you:
The Ubar-ly Simple Dragon Kill Points System (usDKP)

1. DKP is earned whenever a DKP rolecall is taken. This occurs approximately once per hour when raiding.  You must be in-zone and present when the rolecall is taken to earn DKP. For guild-first kills for progression bosses, an additional DKP rolecall may be taken as a bonus at the end of the fight.

2. When an item drops that you want to loot, you may choose to bid for it with your DKP total. Once all of the bids are in, the character with the higest current DKP wins the item, and that character’s DKP is reset to 0.

Notes:
a. If there is a tie between DKP totals, the winner will be decided via /random.
b. You must be logged in and raiding with the character that you are bidding for.
c. A character cannot bid for another character – this includes winning and then defaulting the item to another player’s character, or bidding with your main’s DKP total and then defaulting the item to your secondary.

3. Secondaries and alts earn DKP at the same rate as mains via DKP rolecalls. If a player chooses, they may transfer the entirety of their alt or secondary’s DKP total to their main when raids are not in progress.

I’ll be following this post up with a more detailed description of what my methodologies were in creating usDKP.  But for now, feel free to post any comments.

So, the EQ2 devs today came out with a real gem.  Apparently the petition system is down in game while the backend gets a little overhaul.

Notwithstanding all the jokes that could be made on whether the petition system actually does anything when it is working, it makes you wonder what happens if you were to try to use the petition system without knowing that it was down.  When you realized it was broken, what would you do… /petition it?  We’ve got a mind-blowing paradox here, folks.  The next thing you know, Sony is going to give dividing by zero a shot.

As I write this blog post from my iPod Touch, I have to wonder when MMOs will begin to use mobile devices as a way to interact with the virtual world.

Blizzard has already gone on record saying that they would like to develop a way to track your auctions mobilly, as well as developing a way to communicate with your guild when not logged into the game. Imagine how sweet a mobile version of Vent or TeamSpeak would be… the possibilities are there, some crafty developer just needs to take the first step.