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Mabinogi is gearing up for its next big generation release, and pretty much everyone in-game is chomping at the bit. Unfortunately, while a lot of people thought this patch was coming in just 2 days, on Feb 5, it seems that it may just be the release date of another teaser. This comes as a disappointment to many, myself included. You can only build up suspense and excitement so much before people start wondering if anything will ever happen at all.
I think that Nexon's decision to release another teaser rather than the real deal is ultimately going to demoralize their playerbase rather than heighten the excitement, building more irritation than anything. And that's not the kind of tension you should be going for.
I'm personally hoping that G4 will see the release of something a bit more "worth it" for bard characters. At present, the skills Composing and Music Theory have been capped at rank 9 (rank 1 being highest, and F through A being below). This meant a person could get their Instrument Playing skill to rank 7 fairly easily, since you could create scores that would give you skill experience for playing.
At rank 7 playing, however, in order to advance you must resort to playing 'default' music, stock music created by the game designers. When playing default music, the song you play is completely random, so you cannot choose to only play one song, or even songs of a specific difficulty. Despite this, I managed to spam my way to rank 6 of Instrument Playing.
The reason someone would put so much into these skills is that once you have Composing and Music Theory to rank 9, you can create score scrolls that have magical effects. Some regenerate HP, mana, or stamina. Some give boosts to a single stat, such as Strength or Luck. Some of them have other effects, such as charming animals or giving direct combat bonuses. The better you are at Instrument Playing, the better effects you can do, and they affect all party members within a rather large area. Sounds nifty, right?
Problem One:
The type of score scroll you get is determined by random, and it seems that some types are more likely to be generated than others. Furthermore, whether or not your score gets a magic effect (which is determined at creation of the scroll) is also completely random.
Problem Two:
You need to be at least Rank 5 in Instrument Playing before you can use any magical music aside from stat boosts or regen. So I'd have to spam my way with default music through yet another rank. Not so big of an issue, since those types of scores are harder to come by anyway.
Problem Three:
There's only a handful of scores that are actually useful below Playing rank of 5. Strength boosters are good if the party is heavy with melee fighters. Dexterity is good if you have a lot of ranged fighters. Intelligence might be good if you were in a party full of spellslingers (not common at all, even individually) but is otherwise only useful for a quick boost when trying to enchant something. As far as Will and Luck go, the questionable bonus received from a boost to these is hardly worth mentioning.
The regen scrolls, at first glance, seem much more worthwhile. Instead of being a single temporary bonus (that seems to end an amount of time after the song ends roughly equivalent to the length of the song), they would regen the specified amount at regular intervals throughout the playing. Unfortunately, only the mana and stamina regen scores seem to be at all useful, and even then only minutely. The majority of the players are simply too impatient to wait for a slow regeneration effect. Potions already exist that will restore HP, mana, and stamina, and these are both quicker and more plentiful than score scrolls anyway, not to mention bards who can play them. Regen scores are much harder (it seems) to produce than stat-boosters, as well.
Problem Four:
Another reason that the magic music is so relatively useless takes some explanation. The numeric potential of the stat-boosting and regen scores is determined by your Playing Instrument rank, and you need to be at least rank 9 to get any effect at all. No matter what rank you are, however, the value you get is determined within a set range which always starts at zero. If it's zero, then you get a message saying the music seems to have no effect.
Rank 9 playing grants 0-1 for stat boosts and 0-2 for regen, according to information available. When I was rank 9 playing, more often than not my score would work, and I'd get a value of 1 regardless of what type I played, and I figured that was fair enough.
Rank 8 playing grants 0-2 for stat boosts and 0-3 for regen, again according to available info. Once I got to rank 8, the biggest difference I saw immediately was that my score scrolls had zero effect more often than they had before. I very rarely got a value of 2 from a stat boost, and even more rarely a value of 3 for regen.
Rank 7 playing, in theory, grants 0-6 for stat boosts and 0-4 for regen. By this point, I was getting zero effect from my magical scores more often than I got any effect at all, and the majority of the time I was still getting 1's and 2's. Occasionally I got 4 from a regen. I still have never seen anything above 4 from a stat boost, and usually only got 3 at best. Most of the time, if the party needed hp or stamina regeneration and didn't want to use potions, the Rest skill would regen them faster than my music could, anyway.
Rank 6 playing is supposed to give 0-10 for stat boosts and 0-5 for regen. I've only been rank 6 a short while, but so far it seems my success ratio (success being any value above 0, failure being 0) is about 50%, which is an improvement on rank 7 (but still not as good as I remember rank 9). I'm seeing more 3's and 4's from both stat boosts and regen, though not reliably. As I said before, I've never seen anything above 4, which is a shame because a bonus of 10 to a stat like Strength or Dexterity could be a major boon.
So Problem Four is actually two-fold: 4a) The range of the bonus, regardless of playing rank, always starts at 0. 4b) The value you get doesn't seem to be based on anything you can effect. It's not entirely random, or else you'd see more high numbers than now. I suppose you could call it semi-random, erring on the low side with higher numbers being exponentially less likely.
With weapon damage, you have an attribute called Balance, modified by the weapon type and by your Dexterity, which determines where in the damage range of the weapon you're likely to have your hits fall. On average, a damage range of 10-20 with a Balance of 50% will generally mean 15 damage each hit.
With spellcasting, there is Magic Balance, modified by Intelligence, which determines where in the damage range of the spell you are likely to hit.
There does not seem to be any apparent equivalent "Music Balance". If there is, I'm completely at a loss as to what effects or modifies it.
As far as the regen scores go (at least so far), HP is pretty much worthless, both inside and outside of combat. Inside of combat, the Healing spell and hp potions are much faster and more reliable. With a roughly equal chance of getting any effect and no effect at all, chances are your music won't do any healing the first try, and if it does, it's too slow to save anyone's life.
Stamina regen scores are marginally more useful. It can be easy to run out of stamina (which is used up by using skills) in a long fight, and sometimes you don't have the time to quaff a potion, or maybe you didn't realize you were low. Having a constant regen of stamina, regardless of the amount, could actually save someone in combat. Outside of combat, it's pretty much useless. The Rest skill regens faster.
Mana regen is, arguably, the most potentially useful effect below rank 5 Playing. Since mana regen is naturally very slow (faster at night, but still fairly slow), it can be nice to have another method of regenerating it. Again, however, potions are plentiful, especially if you have the Herbalism and Potion Making skills. And like with the HP regen, you're not going to get enough benefit out of it during battle that it's likely to make a difference. Outside battle, it's more useful.
So: HP regen? No use. Stam regen? Potentially useful during combat, but otherwise not. Mana regen? Potentially useful outside of combat, but otherwise not.
Problem Five (What, you thought I was done?):
The musician is rendered immobile while playing. Now, the area of effect is pretty big. I can stand in one corner of a normal dungeon room and reach party members almost in the opposite corner. But stat-boost effects will end early if the song ends early. So if the party wipes out the room and starts heading on to the next one, the bard either gets left behind to finish the song (if it produced an effect worthwhile enough to continue) or to cancel it and catch up so that he can play it again (possibly getting a worse result) in the next room.
Further, because the bard is immobile, and because monster spawns in a room are random in their location, it's quite possible one will aggro on the bard and hit him, ending the song prematurely, before the party can assist. This means a wasted attempt, and the bard has an instrument in hand instead of a weapon to defend himself with, if he's still alive.
So, half the time (or less) you make a scroll, it's magic.
Half the time (or less) it's magic, it's something useful.
Half the time (or less) it's something useful, you can get it to work.
If you get it to work, half the time (or less) it's actually worthwhile.
1/2 of 1/2 of 1/2 of 1/2 = 1/16
So... I guess 1/16th of the time (or less) it's worth playing a bard?
I swear, I'm going to de-rank Music Theory.
Overall I think the biggest problems are the abundance of potions and the impatience of the majority of players, followed by the unreliability of the effects. These are the main factors that make playing a bard so frustrating and, quite frankly, useless.
Funny... I guess I expected bards to be more powerful in a game called Mabinogi.
When I first moved into my present home, I was dismayed at the internet access visibly available. I went from dial-up (which cost me more to "connect" than anything else, surprisingly) to a satellite connection through Dish Network.
Dish Network promised me download speeds of 1 MB/second - disappointing for someone with experience on a cable connection, but a veritable Promised Land compared to dial-up speeds. They also promised me, as a new customer, a discount of $10/month for the first 10 months of service if I mailed in a certificate that I had to print from their website.
When the technician came to set up the dish and run the cable, and had me sign their contract, he told me that I needed to keep the service for at least 12 months to avoid any early disconnect fees or breach-of-contract stuff. Sounds easy enough, considering I wasn't expecting any better options to arise within the next year.
The problem with getting satellite internet (well, one of them) is that not only will it disconnect at the slightest hint of a cloud in your area, but also when the uplink location has clouds. For Dish Network, that location is near Albany, NY. Whenever we couldn't get a connection, and we had good weather, we cursed in Albany's direction. Looking back, I'm not sure how many times that was the problem, or whether Dish Network just used it as a convenient scapegoat.
I never got download speeds of 1 MB/second. Ever. Most of the time, I was lucky to get about 6/10ths of that, according to online speed tests. And of course, when actually downloading something, it always seemed to download at 1/10th of that speed. If you mention this to someone at the company, they tell you that's because their MB and the MB you're downloading are two different numbers. How convenient for them that most people can't tell the difference, and are already suckered into a contract before they realize their expectations are about to have the rug pulled from under them.
I actually complained enough that they sent out a two-man technician team (at my expense - a $50-60 charge) to come out and evaluate my connection. They came in, fiddled with the dish, used some special Dish Network system to check the connection and see if the signal strength was within some certain guideline (it sounded like they were playing a game - trying to hit some ambiguous green dot). They told me that the previous tech who had set things up did it wrong, hadn't grounded the satellite properly, etc. The connection speed did improve, although it still didn't hit the 1MB/sec mark according to various speed tests. And the improvement, of course, was only temporary, dropping to its "regular" speeds the following day or week.
I also never got my $10/month refund. I sent in their paperwork, all carefully filled out, only to have it sent back to me with a statement saying I didn't qualify. Confused, I called their customer support and explained my situation. I went over the promotion with her, and she confirmed that I should qualify, but that they were having some trouble with that particular processing station that I had sent the paperwork to, and I should send it to this other address that she gave me. So I did. And it gets sent back to me, again, saying I don't qualify. I call yet again, trying to figure out what was going on, and they tell me that the promotion only applies to a certain type of internet connection that's not available in my area, and that I don't qualify.
After about 14 months of using this service, I finally managed to physically go into a cable internet provider's office that's nearby (I couldn't call them, for some reason, since the phone numbers they have listed on their billboards wouldn't allow a non-local number to call, and I only use a cellphone). I ask if they can get me cable service. They come out and check, and lo and behold, they can indeed get me service, a whopping 6 MB/second at almost half the price I'm paying for satellite. Wonderful, I say, and sign up.
The cable provider sends out their technician (a very nice man, by the way, with an appreciation for my wife's herb garden that did not go unnoticed), and within a couple hours we're connected to speeds I could only have dreamed of the day before. So I call Dish Network to cancel my subscription to their service, and they tell me I'll have to pay a fee for early disconnect. I question this, and I'm told I had an 18 month contract, not 12. After a few choice words, I mention to them the shoddy quality of the service, the fact that I haven't had any satisfaction from their company, and that they've never honored any promise given to me, and eventually I'm told that the disconnect fees would be pro-rated since I'd gone 14 of those 18 months, and that I would receive a credit for 2 months of service since they had on file that I was dissatisfied with the speed (which was only on file because that's around the time they sent out the service techs - finally).
I was told, then, that the credits would take care of what I owed them. I very specifically asked, before I hung up the phone, whether I owed them any more money, and I was told "No." So I figured it was handled.
A couple weeks later, a charge appears on my credit card (which I had never used to pay them with) from Dish Network for about $100. I call them, and am told, again, that this is the fee for the early disconnect. I demanded the highest-ranking person I could get hold of, and spent at least a solid hour on the phone berating the company and demanding that they uphold at least one of their statements.
I had to go outside for the majority of the call, so I wouldn't upset the baby with my... let's say "impassioned" rantings. At the end, I was begging, pleading for some sort of tangible evidence that the company was sorry for the hell it put me through. The manager or whoever I was speaking with could say all he wanted, but I'd been lied to too many times, and I wanted tangible proof of their apology. I wanted the company to take responsibility for its actions. If they wanted to insist upon holding me to my obligations and promises, I wanted them to hold to theirs.
In the end, the guy on the line offered me a $5 refund. By that point, I was exhausted emotionally and really didn't even know what I was fighting for. It was a pitiful excuse for a payoff to get me to go away, and I knew it, but what else could I do. I said fine.
Guess what. I never got that $5, either.
Stay away from Dish Network.
September 19th 2008 06:25
Mabinogi: A Shining Example of Storytelling
News Flash: I play Mabinogi, which some of you may already be familiar with. I recently had the opportunity to continue the storyline quests available to those who purchase one or more of the available game services, and completed both the Generation One storyline and the Generation Two. I'm currently working on G3.
Something my wife and I have both commented on, now, is the extraordinary writing of the storyline. Most Free-to-Play MMOs have the shiny graphics meant to draw you in, and they throw in some basic quests to learn the game with, along with, perhaps, some advanced ones, but that's it. Like many webcomics, they rely upon the pretty renderings to keep their fanbase. This is true for several pay-to-plays, as well, but we'll ignore that for the time being.
Mabinogi has the pretty sights and sounds. From a purely visual aspect, they have much more as well. The detail put into the very beautifully immersive environments is, while perhaps overlooked by many, very much appreciated by those like my wife and myself. Details like putting benches on a second-story terrace, when that terrace is mostly concealed, either by hanging sheets or privacy screens. Details like wildflowers as part of the terrain, not just the background, in outdoor "dungeons". Details like coffin-shaped treasure chests in crypt dungeons, ornate chandeliers above the line of sight of most characters, shadows of clouds being cast on the ground... I could go on.
But what sets this game apart from the others that I've played is the story. I don't want to give too much away, because I'd love for all of you to go through the same perception shifts and realizations that I did. The writing, even down to the clues that only make sense after you've learned "what happens next", the supposedly random text-bubble quotes spoken by various NPCs, or even just their descriptions when you talk to them... Everything contributes to this immersive experience. That, along with a masterful weaving of concepts both familiar and unfamiliar, and the granting of something more meaningful for the completion of these epic quests than just some gold or experience points. The game provides an actual experience, one that isn't measured by points or levels, to those who give up their hard-earned money to support it, and that's something I very much appreciate.
Again, I have gained more satisfaction and intellectual pleasure playing this game than almost any other game I've paid to play, whether it was set up as a free-to-play game or not. Neverwinter Nights didn't have this depth or immersiveness, it always seemed far too contrived. City of Heroes, while immersive, lacked a solid storyline and often felt forced as well. Flyff was just utter inanity in pretty packaging.
And while it may lessen the magnitude of your accomplishments in the game to see others who have also saved the world, doubtless in the same fashion, by finishing you become part of that group, part of the elite who have taken on forces and endured hardships that the non-paying crowd cannot fully comprehend.
I have my disappointments with the game, but overall, I'm happy with it. Heck, considering who we learned about the game from, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. I'm looking forward to the G3 storyline, which includes different options based on your decisions. Again, something I've never seen in other free MMOs, and rarely seen in paid games.
Some people I know, who I've tried to introduce to the game, have been unable to play it due to system requirements, but those who are able to play, I highly recommend you give the game a chance. If you like the free version, I would recommend paying for one or more of the available services, and taking advantage of not only what the service offers, but also the mainstream storyline quests that become available. Hopefully you'll enjoy them as much as we have.
Warning: Minor spoilers ahead. You've been warned.
I realize the belatedness of this posting in relation to the release of the movie itself. My wife and I weren't able to see it for a while, until a friend of ours very kindly offered to babysit for us, and afterwards I didn't feel capable of making any sort of coherent comments. I'm very glad we made the decision not to bring our 7 month old (he loved the latest Indiana Jones), not because the movie would have affected him, but because feeling and seeing our reactions would have
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Several years ago my best friend invited me into a group of table-top gamers that played every Tuesday evening. They were playing 3rd edition D& D at the time (which I had boycotted for quite a while, but relented in the interests of playing anything at all). They had been meeting at a gaming shop, but moved their location to the home of one of the players. Yes, we did play in his basement, but 1) he owned the house, is married, and is 10-20 years my senior, and 2) the basement was huge, well lit, and decked out with all the gaming necessities, including generic reference material and snacks.
For the first few sessions, it seemed people were taking turns being DM. I'd come in on the last session run by their usual one, since he was moving out of the area. After that, the host ran a couple, then passed it over to one of the other players to run a campaign. It's a workable system, allowing everyone a chance to be a player and partake of the pleasure in gaining loot and experience. About five sessions in, though, we discovered the major flaw in the plan
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A lot of MMO games these days have at least one server which is touted as the RP server. Sometimes, it's listed as such by the game itself, but more often than not it is an unofficial, sometimes unwritten designation. These unofficial RP servers, then, are what I tend to seek out, hoping for in-character interaction in the (sometimes) richly detailed, existing game environment. I don't go into a fantasy realm to hear about real-world sports, politics, religion, which current big-name movie star is hot, etc. I kinda figured the whole idea was to escape reality.
The difficulty is, unless roleplay is actually enforced, or at the very least highly encouraged, it becomes very difficult to find as an outsider. Part of that is because non-roleplayers aren't discouraged from using those servers, so it fills up with the same powergamers, botters, farmers, number crunchers, and min-maxers the other servers have, in addition to being populated by those who actually are trying to RP. These are the same powergamers, etc., who are likely to look at you oddly, at the least, or even go out of their way to give you grief, at worst, if you start roleplaying. So all the RP'ers end up being fairly quiet about their roleplay, which makes it even more difficult to find
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Too bad the in-game graphics weren't this shiny
I think it's rather sad that my old computer could run this game just fine, but I had to buy a new CPU to play a free MMO game
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Ok, I admit it. I'm very resistant to change. There's still a good-sized part of me that rails against paying for online games, even though I've now succumbed to the depths of paying for "free-to-play" games (Ok, yes, you can play them for free, but to really enjoy them costs an average of $15/month). That part of me is rather close to or symbiotic with another part that says, "Sure, the graphics are shiny, but you'll never have the same fun or RP that you did playing that free text-based game."
Yeah, the MUD I played in was pretty good. I had a lot of good times there, made some friends, some enemies, etc. I look back fondly on the time I spent there, and occasionally drop in to check out what's been going on
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So, I've been doing the whole job-hunt thing recently, sending out my resume to various and sundry employers in the hopes of bettering my situation. A lot of them I've sent via email, so I'm checking my inbox for new messages and notice an ad for a site proclaiming great income potentials for game testing, and how I, too, could become a success story.
It was a scam, of course. I'm no novice, and did my homework before committing the forty-odd dollars it asks for. But in the process, I came across a site that listed the employment opportunities pages for Nintendo, Blizzard, and EA games. So, curious, I went to look and see what was available. After all, practically everyone wants a job doing what they love, and gamers are no exception
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As games of all sorts have advanced, they've also gotten more complicated. There's more to remember, more to do, different tactics or combinations to learn. Some recent video games I've seen have tried to revert to a simpler layout, or to make things more intuitive for the player, but that only makes things more complicated for the programmers, not to mention the fact that what's intuitive for one person may be completely foreign to someone else. And, of course, what's intuitive anymore? Now that we've all become so used to the non-intuitiveness of previous video games, have they replaced our instinctual coordination?
As they've advanced, there's also been a bigger push for video games that allow you to play with other people. But we've gone beyond adding a second controller, or taking turns to see who can get the better score. We have to all play at the same time, and be able to cooperate with (or attack) each other. But we don't always have access to a circle of friends that can come over and play with the console, now that we've bought the eight controller adapter and six extra controllers, not to mention the money to invest in all that hardware to begin with. So we've acquiesced to the fate of the friendless or isolated, and play online with strangers we've never met in the hopes they won't make us feel too inferior
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Comment by Dragonwriter
on Don't trust this company