Jonathan Steinhauer's MMO Column

In the second part of a two part look at The Close Combat Archer (click here for part one), columnist Jonathan Steinhauer looks at the design of this tricky class in MMOs.

In the medieval era, a man who was struck by an arrow in the chest was either dead or severely injured, whereas in gaming, a man who is hit by ten arrows might very well shrug them off and win the day.

What does all this mean for archers? Simply this. The potency of archery is to inflict damage at range before the target can get into melee. But when health is super-inflated to offer the survivability necessary in MMOs it also makes the task of an archer killing its opponent at range almost impossible.

Read more after the jump.

In this edition of Steinhauer's Opinion, Jonathan tells us about the idea of "The Close Combat Archer". This is part one of a new sub-block of articles from him on this subject.

When we play an MMO, much like when we read a book or watch a movie, we expect a certain suspension of disbelief. Goblins and dragons cease to be mythical, and we don't scoff at the idea of a wizard calling firebolts from the heavens. We rarely even wonder how so many forests can support such large populations of bears, wolves, and other carnivorous creatures nor why such animals don't avoid humans but rather charge in with teeth bared. Nor do we question why an enemy village is devoid of any common folk like farmers, craftsmen, or children. And, of course, we never doubt the practicality of the close combat archer.

Read it all after the click.

Jonathan Steinhauer looks more deeply into the phenomenon of level based games in "Breaking the Level Barrier, Part 2". This follows his piece two weeks ago where he first examined this topic.

That's not to say that step learning doesn't exist. But it is generally found in activities were you either can or can't do a thing. For example, in the quest to fly, the Wright Brothers didn't gradually fly. The first time occurred in a single instant and once that was achieved, they could repeat the feat (although I would argue that the gaining of knowledge that enabled flight was still slope-learning). Some growth in life tends to be a blend, such as studying mathematics. The gaining of knowledge and skill in math occurs on a learning curve, but there are "steps" along the way, such as basic addition and subtraction, Trigonometry, and Calculus.

Read more after the leap.

Jonathan Steinhauer's bi-weekly Monday column looks at the "level barrier" in its latest edition. Within, he examines the very concept of levels that most MMOs embrace and what's wrong with them.

Looking more into levels within games, we find that their use a broad statement of experience demands a certain rigidness of focus. Only a few rare exceptions (such as Neverwinter Nights where an adventurer can have more than one character class) allow for greater flexibility of experience. But if you were to twist character levels and actually measure real life experience, would it be absurd to find a man that is a Level 25 computer programmer, a Level 30 husband, a Level 10 bowler, and a Level 42 chef? Not at all.

Read more after the leap.

In his latest column, Jonathan Steinhauer continues his look at what he calls "The Killing Experience". He began two weeks ago in part one and today looks at more recent examples of this trend. It's all about RPGs and how they use killing as the primary form of advancement, or experience.

A second, much more recent, example is with Bethesda's Elder Scrolls series, particularly Oblivion. In this game which follows the standard RPG model, there is no experience gain from killing. In fact, there is no experience at all. Instead, character growth is built on an array of skills specific to a particular class. As those skills are used over an over again, proficiency grows. Once there are ten threshold increases in the class skills, a new level is gained. At that point health, stamina, magicka, and prime stats also improve.

Read more after the click.

No rest for the holidays, Jonathan Steinhauer keeps his MMO design column on schedule with part one of "Killing Experience". In this, he looks at the primary form of advancement in every major MMO: combat.

Why is it that the dominant method of character growth in almost every game in existence is through the killing of monsters and villains? Whether you are looking at the oldest of pen-and-paper games, your mainstream single-player RPG, or the newest MMO, character growth always seems to boil down to "I killed that goblin warlord so I get 100xp." On the other hand, if the same goblin was hacked and beaten to an inch of its life and then left alone to recover (which usually averages less than thirty seconds), the same player would get zero experience from the battle.

Read more after the click.

In part two of his series on Gold Farming (read part one here), Jonathan Steinhauer looks further at the RMT industry and ways to realistically combat the problem.

A full barter economy won't stop gold farmers, but it will make their job more difficult, especially if the commodities can be kept diversified (something AC failed to do). Then it becomes not a matter of simply harvesting cash, but of netting resources, completing quests, and so on. Looking at this from the flip angle makes sense, too. A dishonest player who wants to get a lot of capital can't simply go to an RMT and buy loads of universally useful cash, they have to purchase resources which may or may not be useful to them and may even become obsolete. It makes sense as a genre too. Most MMOs are founded on the fantasy model with the Middle-Ages as the base point of inspiration. Only in the latter years of the medieval era was money used at all. Prior to that it was all barter, be it chicken's eggs for cow's milk or lordly protection for feudal service. A barter economy doesn't hurt game play or the trade market; instead, it makes both more interesting.

Read more after the leap.

Jonathan Steinhauer's back with his Monday column, this week he looks at the controversy that is gold farming in the first part of a multi-part series. Gold farming is a practice where companies send employees into a game to literally farm gold. They then sell that gold to players online. Steinhauer wants to know what to do about the issue.

The purpose of this article is neither to discuss the moralities of gold farming, nor to debate whether RMT is, in fact, beneficial to ingame economies. Concerning the latter, I'm not an economist and am hardly qualified to render an informed opinion. As to the former, there is no issue. Gold Farming and RMT are in violation of the End User Legal Agreements (EULA) of just about every MMO in existence and, therefore, are illegal. Enough said.

So lets move on to a topic that is debatable: what to do about it.

Read more after the leap.

Jonathan Steinhauer's bi-weekly editorial series resumes with the third part in a three part look at player vs. player combat in MMOGs. This week, his article looks at the idea of a system he thinks can work.

For the whole series, first check out part one and part two.

The reputation system needs to be built on four parts: account treatment, its basic structure, player reaction, and NPC reaction. The first part is the simplest. Basically, reputation must be account based, not player character based. This will ensure that a heavy PKer can't hide by jumping to another more "innocent" character. Nor will he be able to use an "innocent" character to gain access to resources not available to his characters with diminished reputations. Some people argue that there should be only one character on an account and, while this would successful solve the same problem, there are many gamers (myself included) who enjoy playing more than one class, race, etc.

Read more after the leap.

Jonathan Steinhauer's bi-weekly opinion column resumes with the second half of his look at player vs. player (PvP) combat. He began the look last week with a look at the history of this hot button field. In part two, he looks forward at systems and what he thinks of them.

Some mention was made of WoW and Warhammer Online, but neither of these games truly merge the two. In WoW, the standard splitting of PK and NPK by server and/or zones defeats the whole point. And to quote Warhammer Online's website: "Every aspect of the game, including PvE missions, is geared towards the greater war in some important way." I addressed this last time when I said, "Much like the United States in World War II, all aspects of economy and existence are focused on the war effort. Crafting, trade, and exploration become important only insofar as they further 'The Cause.'" A game world like this will offer little fulfillment for non-PK players who enjoy exploration, questing, and crafting for their own merits.

Read the article after the jump.

Johnathan Steinhauer's bi-weekly look at the MMO scene takes him to the concept of "Player vs. Player" (PvP) combat. This is a hot issue with stalwart defenders on both sides. Johnathan draws on his MMO experience and asks for your feedback.

It was in Darktide that I first began my online game experience. I was drawn to the server because I wanted a realistic game. It didn't make much sense to be able to battle monsters, but not other humans. Nor was there any recourse on PvE servers against moochers, griefers, or their ilk. I've never been much of a PKer myself, preferring cooperative play, but I did enjoy the camaraderie of defending a town from a raid as well as the general realism it allowed.

The problem I had was getting cut down in a shop or on the street simply on the whim of some punk. The story at the beginning of this column is not an exaggeration, it happened to me. I can only take solace in the fact that I did a bit of vigilantism. I hunted the guy down and sent him back to the Lifestone, recovering the gear he'd stolen from me in the process.

Read more after the jump.

In the second half of a two part editorial, WarCry columnist Jonathan Steinhauer looks further at "Threshold Restrictions on Equipment in MMOs". You can catch up on part one here. The rest is after the jump. Remember, you can read Steinhauer every other Monday in this space.

So how do we fix it? Unfortunately there is no golden solution to this pervasive problem. This is because the need for the threshold limitation goes to the very heart of the game mechanics themselves: to the basic concepts of how damage is dealt in combat.

Read more to do so!

Today we debut a new bi-weekly Monday column from MMO writer Jonathan Steinhauer. He'll jump in every other week to offer his opinions on some element of MMOs. In his debut article he begins a two part series on threshold restrictions on equipment in MMOs called "Look, But Don't Touch".

But stepping back from the annoyance, we all know why it's done. Those pesky restrictions based on level or skill ranking, or some other similar factor exist for one reason: to prevent overpowering low level characters with high level equipment. After all, it would be rather embarrassing to have some Level 1 newbie with his Magic Greatsword of Doom take down the Witchking of Anger himself.

Read more after the click, then let us know your thoughts in the comment thread.

The archetypal concept of the tank assumes that PvE opponents have the mental capacity of cattle. Instead of a monster intelligently attacking what would make his enemy most vulnerable (the Healer) or what is the greatest actual threat (the DPS), it attacks the one opponent that isthe smallest real threat and the hardest to kill: the Rodeo Clown... er Tank