There is an issue with this morning’s Star Trek Online patch. Certain PvP maps are causing players to lose all their skill and bridge officer points, and become level -39. Needless to say, this is not a good thing to have happen to you, and the afflicted are finding themselves unable to get any missions.
Maps that are confirmed to be causing this include Cracked Planetoids, and Shanty Town, but my advice would be to avoid all PvP until it is fixed. With a number of developers at PAX, it might take a little while to be resolved. It is unclear at this point as to whether there will be a server-wide rollback, or a fix targeted at affected players.
How bugs like this slip past the test server and the QA department is one of the great mysteries of the universe.
Update: Here are the patch notes for the morning update which brought in this issue:
General
Fixed an issue where the Tribble Of Borg was unable to be claimed again from the C-Store if it had been discarded
Fixed the /stuck command in space so it no longer sends players back to the map’s respawn point inappropriately
Characters created before the release of Season One will now be able to be deleted properly
Commodities transactions will now appropriately complete for the value displayed in the UI
Missions and Locations
Fixed a condition in the mission that sometimes kept the Borg Tactical Cube from spawning by the gate in the first space map of Special Task Force: Infected
Lowered the required amount of satellite debris necessary to advance the mission for some Klingon Star Cluster missions
PvP: Klingon vs Klingon Space area control map now has the correct text
Fixed an issue where defense turrets were not present in certain PvP maps
Powers
The Tribble of Borg buff power will now properly reapply instead of stack when used before the buff expires
Items
Fixed an issue that prevented Bridge Officers from equiping weapons that have the “[Borg]†enhancement
Costumes and Customization
Admiral rank pips now appear on all uniform options
Admiral rank pips now appear properly textured on all uniform options
Fixed an issue that caused an error message to appear inappropriately when attempting to create a Fleet Uniform
UI and Controls
Fixed a bug that prevented players from continuing to respec once they’d pressed the “Accept” button unless they pressed the “Reset” button
Clarified the /Stuck UI which would previously lead users into an an infinite UI loop with the /killme command
Stacked Item counts will now display appropriately in the exchange
Fixed typos in the description of the Tribble of Borg item
It is not a new phenomenon. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Someone trained as an ecologist, such as myself, is prone to look at things through the lens of environmental adaptation, and competition. When you’re a sociologist who specialises in religion, everything starts looking like religion.
I was reading a New Scientist interview with a chap called William Sims Bainbridge, who has written a book called The Warcraft Civilization.
In the past, you’ve done a lot of work with religion. What does religion in WoW tell us about religion in the real world?
The horrendous question that always troubles me is, what if religion is factually false but necessary for human well-being? What does science do then? Could there be some other stage of development in which we express ourselves through a kind of protean self in numerous realities with different levels of faith or suspension of disbelief appropriate to each of them?
That, on a much smaller scale, is what is happening with the fictional religions in WoW. The overwhelming majority of the people that play WoW don’t take its religions seriously.
And we actually have good reason to believe that people who play computer games are, on average, much less religious than the average person in society. I tend to think that fantasy literature in general inspires people to believe that the traditional religions are fantasies too.
Maybe we will move to a time when we no longer make a distinction between belief and the suspension of disbelief. The difference between faith and fantasy might not have been very distinct in ancient times, and it’s possible that we will move towards a time when instead of religion, people’s hopes can be expressed in something that’s acknowledged to be a fantasy but also, on some level, sort of real. WoW might exemplify that kind of post-religious future.
People do not take the religions in WoW seriously because they know they are not real. The majority of people that play WoW ignore most aspects of the lore and backstory, not just religion. It is no more a guide for what is happening to religions in the real world, than it is a guide for the state of our dwindling dragon population.
MMOs are certainly a fantastic laboratory for scientists. Through them you can examine many aspects of game theory, economics, and ethics. But from what I read above, the writer is trying to squeeze his own favourite subject into something that I don’t think has much to do with it, perhaps in an attempt to make his subject matter appeal to a wider audience.
I’ve not read the book itself yet. I suspect it is quite fascinating, and no doubt covers far more than just religion, but the interview suggested to me that he may have vested online gaming with a great deal more philosophical weight than it deserves. He needs to use his gamer eyes, not just his philosopher ones.
This is an old post from a couple of years ago, but I thought it might provide some small entertainment to newer readers.
There have been a number of incidents recently, in Argentina, involving a being known as a “Duende”. This has been badly translated for English media as “The Creepy Gnome”. In a number of appearances, including two caught on film, he has created hysteria wherever he goes. While he has yet to cause any physical injury, merely the sight of him is enough to force the taking of a SAN check, and not everyone has rolled well, with several people being hospitalised from fright.
Here it is in full menacing action.
It should be clear to any player of Warhammer Online that this is not a gnome at all.
Firstly, those young people were filled with terror, and gnomes, whilst being completely awesome in every way, are not known for their causing of terror, and they like it that way.
Secondly, no real gnome would be seen in a hat like that. It’s not a stereotype they want to reinforce.
No, I’m afraid it was clearly a Night Goblin, as I shall demonstrate in this painstakingly crafted side by side comparison:
Those young people should consider themselves lucky it was an unarmed night goblin with the urge to dance that came upon them, and not a witch elf, or a chaos chosen. Nevertheless, even a single night goblin can be dangerous to the untrained, so they were wise to flee.
Last year, the reports from interviews with Jack “Jackalope” Emmert were that the Xbox version of Champions Online was “ready to go”, just waiting for some Microsoft red tape to get sorted out.
Jackalope, on the Champions Online forum yesterday:
100% of our focus is on making the current PC product the best it can be. There are no current plans for a console version of Champions.
1. Stop designing MMO to be released on both PCs and consoles. You end up removing half the depth, the game fails, and then it never ends up coming out on a console in the end anyway. See: Champions Online, Age of Conan.
I agree with that guy. Seriously, stop doing that. Unless you’re Square Enix, in which case you can probably get away with it, in spite of the grotesque UI you’ll inflict on your PC users, because we Final Fantasy fans will pretty much take what we’re given.
You’re probably not Square Enix. Planning for your game to work on a console with a gamepad, and on a television, is just going to lead to game design compromises that mean that PC gamers do not get the experience they deserve.
Funcom’s latest MMO outing, The Secret World, dropped its embargo today. Interviews and previews are popping up all over the shop. I’ve not had the chance to rummage fully through them all yet.
However, heavily influenced by Lovecraft, there is one thing that we can be sure it will possess in abundance.
Tentacles!!!
I always hoped that someone would build an MMO based on the Call of Cthulhu tabletop RPG. The great thing about it is that you would only really need a rich and interesting character creation system, and the tutorial zone. Nobody would ever survive that tutorial zone, drastically cutting down on the need to provide any actual content.
That would be a good project for Cryptic, come to think of it.
The Secret World does not sound as if it will be quite as brutal as my vision of Call of Cthulhu, though it has taken an axe to many of the traditional MMO structures. With no classes or levels, and a slightly weird sounding power slotting system that reminds me of picking cards for your deck in Wizard 101, it sounds genuinely fresh, and I’m looking forward to getting my grubby pseudopods upon it, and investigating further.
I don’t know if this is a new advert. I’ve certainly never seen it before today, but if it did not have a big “World of LordCraft” logo, anyone would assume it was an Evony ad, complete with the “Come Play, My Lord” line that has been roundly mocked across the internet. Heck, it probably was an Evony ad, but they just switched the logos.
LordCraft - Come Play, My Lord
What’s a “Formal Operation”? What does that even mean? Why would we need to be told the operation was formal? Will I need to wear a tie to play? Are a group of mysterious tuxedo-clad gentlemen going to turn up at my house and steal my kidneys? (The joke would be on UMGE, as my wretched kidneys would not be worth the plane ticket.)
They’re not even trying any more. Sure, they’ve created a shell company called GSprite that nobody has ever heard of, and another one called Thunderstorm Entertainment, that as far as I can tell is just there to take the piss out of Blizzard Entertainment, but feebly trying to cover their tracks would have worked better if they hadn’t made almost every other aspect of their design identical. They were already a parody of themselves, but now they’re a parody of that parody.
The picture of that lady in the advert is almost certainly stolen from somewhere. I’ll give an UNPRECEDENTED Epic shoutout to anyone who manages to figure out the original source.
And again, please don’t let these scoundrels get their hands on your credit card details, or use the same login details as you do for World of Warcraft.
Update: Jason correctly identified the model. It’s a lass called Joanna Krupa, and a bit of a rummage through Google imagesearch finds that the picture is from a Maxim magazine photoshoot. That link may not be safe for work, but if you’re reading my blog at work, you’re either already sure the boss isn’t watching, or work in the gaming industry and can claim it as research!
I find it comforting to know that nothing changes with the way that UMGE finds pictures for it’s advertising.
There is much to say about World of LordCraft, the latest addition to the world of browser games. Little of it is good. It is essentially an Evony reskin, though with the addition of a Might and Magic type battle system, and the hero-equipping features of Kingory. It also has the kleptomaniacal tendencies of Evony, having plundered World of Warcraft for every ounce of lore they can manage. Races, placenames, and history have all been pulled directly from World of Warcraft. Just as an example, this is character creation:
World of Lordcraft Character Creation Screen.
Sadly, Tauren appear to be a race you have to unlock somehow, so I go with a boring old Alliance human. You’re then offered the chance to start in such interesting sounding locations as the Barrens, Stranglethorn Vale, or the Swamp of Sorrows.
The Lordcraft forum has this little disclaimer stickied:
Players have been discussing about the source of World of Lordcraft recently. We consider that a statement should be made here to clarify the issue.
World of Lordcraft should be regarded as a fan game of WoW. All the creators and staff members of this game love WoW and we thank Blizzard for such a brilliant work. WoL is not a replica of WOW. WoW is a MMORPG while World of Lordcraft is only a browser game of building, strategy and simulation. They are totally not the same kind. All the artworks in World of Lordcraft are the original creations of our art team. However, some elements were similar to WoW and some other games. Likewise, WoW also borrowed some elements from Tolkien’s novel. We hope that WoL can provide an interesting alternative for those players lacking time for WoW raids and arenas. Or you may also insert a few clicks between raids or wipes in WoW.
We’d appreciate your support if you like World of Lordcraft and wish you have fun in the game.
Well, that all sounds quite reasonable (To me. Not to Blizzard’s legal department), if it really was just a fan-based game, with no intent to make profit. However, it appears to be a rather professional operation, and is funded in exactly the same way as Evony, through buying ingame currency.
Also, there’s the small snag of this passage being in the LordCraft terms and conditions:
All rights and title in and to the Service (including without limitation any user accounts, titles, computer code, themes, objects, characters, character names, stories, dialogue, catch phrases, locations, concepts, artwork, animations, sounds, musical compositions, audio-visual effects, methods of operation, moral rights, any related documentation, “applets” incorporated into the Game Client, transcripts of the chat rooms, character profile information, recordings of games played using the Game Client, and the Game Client and server software) are owned by Thunderstorm Entertainment Inc. or its licensors. The Game and the Service are protected by United States and international laws, and may contain certain licensed materials in which Thunderstorm Entertainment Inc.’s licensors may enforce their rights in the event of any violation of this Agreement.
I don’t think Blizzard’s lawyers are going to like that terribly much. Who are Thunderstorm Entertainment anyway? The only Thunderstorm Entertainment I can find on Google is an Los Angeles based small film company specialising in recording weddings.
Wait a moment. Thunderstorms and Blizzards are both weather events. It was then I realised that the terms and conditions for World of Lordcraft were extremely extensive. Far too extensive for a simple browser game.
Yes. World of Lordcraft is so impossibly unoriginal that they have stolen WoW’s Terms and just done a search/replace for every mention of Blizzard to change it to Thunderstorm.
That’s pretty special.
I haven’t yet plucked up the courage to give LordCraft a playthrough. I’ll let you know if I do. Just watching this trailer drained enough of my will to live that I think I’ll put off actually playing it to another day.
The narrator sounds like he has been drugged and locked in the bathroom. Either that, or he is doing a particularly poor Sean Connery impersonation.
“Never Surrender You Freedom!” I want to build an UNPRECEDENTED Epic Castle! Why is it UNPRECEDENTED, you ask? Castles have been known to appear in both the real world, and in games, but perhaps they just weren’t as epic as LordCraft’s castles. Or maybe they build them out of all the cease and desist documents they receive in the mail.
The person who made this trailer clearly has a decent amount of talent in animation. A tragic waste. The same might perhaps be said for World of LordCraft as a whole. It is not a terribly hard thing to create your own Tolkienesque fantasy world. I could probably knock three of them up between breakfast and lunch. An ounce of creativity (or failing that, a random fantasy name generator) would have let them avoid the incoming legal storm.
Update: I charge World of LordCraft with being another of the heads of the Evony hydra. As evidence I present the welcome screens to both games. You can click the images to enlarge them to read the text.
The World of Lordcraft Welcome Screen
The Evony Welcome Screen
Apparently they’re both “The World’s Best Web Game”. Which is lying? My money would be on both of them.
So many aspects of the design are identical that I’m fairly confident that David Guo’s UMGE, the company behind Evony, is also behind World of LordCraft.
This is not the first MMO that the Evony gang have committed grave crimes against, as Maltheas reported.
The same advice I gave that you do not give Evony your credit card details applies equally to World of LordCraft. It is just not worth the risk, as they obviously have a problem distinguishing between things that belong to them, and things that do not. Even more importantly, if you must play, absolutely do not use the same password you use for WoW, unless you want to end up assisting UMGE’s goldselling division.
Update: I’ve posted some more about LordCraft’s obvious ties to Evony, and the source of the buxom lass for one of their recent adverts.
Update of June 2010: A little housekeeping, as this post seems to be getting a lot of attention at the moment. The video seems to have stopped working. They’ve actually got a new version of it on their website with a less incoherent narrator now, and fixing the typo. Happily, I found the original trailer has made it to YouTube :)
They had also changed the address of the Lordcraft Terms and conditions. Changed the web address, but not the fact that it’s a direct copy of WoW’s terms. The link has been updated.
