Background

Phoenix Rising is a JavaScript/HTML5-based puzzle game that I wrote for the second iteration of the Game Prototype Challenge, a week-long game jam. Organized by former colleague Jason Kaplan, the purpose of the challenge was to motivate game developers. And motivate me it did; I saw it as a good opportunity to try my hand at game development.

Idea

This was my first ever attempt at writing a game, so I wanted to keep things simple. Basically, this meant that I couldn’t do anything that required complex mechanics. I was also working that week and had a couple of events to attend so time was definitely an issue.

I chose to write the game in JavaScript, making use of the canvas element introduced in the HTML5 specifications. There are a couple of reasons for this. One: I’m already quite experienced when it comes to web development so I wanted to take full advantage of that knowledge. Two: I haven’t actually worked with canvas before even though I’ve seen all sorts of cool demos that others have written. This was a good way for me to get my feet wet on both fronts.

It took me a few hours to come up with a workable concept once the themes for the challenge (immortality and thin ice) were announced (I was actually up ’till 4 AM thinking while reading up on basic game development). One of the first things that came to mind was the notion of cracking tiles that would deteriorate into holes once you’ve stepped on it a couple of times; a set of such tiles would essentially be a puzzle that has to be navigated carefully. This was one of the mini-obstacles in Golden Sun, a RPG that I hold in the highest regards. In the end, it turns out that I would do something similar – a set of ice tiles that melt into a trail of impassible water. I wasn’t entirely sure how to fit immortality in at first (early ideas included obtaining an elixir of life, spiritual ascendancy, etc.), but then it hit me. Why not do something featuring one of my favourite creatures of all time, the phoenix? Everything came into place once I wrapped my head around that thought, including the melting ice (a phoenix is made of fire after all), the collection of twigs to build a nest, the mini-story…

Development

Although I fleshed out the game concept fairly early in the week, I didn’t actually start coding seriously until Thursday. In hindsight I should have started sooner, but there was a lot of material for me to read up first (as stated, I haven’t done game development before). JavaScript is pretty quirky as a language too which didn’t help much (I typically use jQuery syntax for the things that I need in the average web development project).

I started with a simple game loop using setInterval() that is first called when the DOM is ready. For this particular project, a continuous game loop was probably overkill; something based on player input would have been far more efficient. I wanted the flexibility though, in case I felt like implementing AI for enemies and whatnot. It turns out this was a rather bad decision as I overestimated the performance of JavaScript in certain browsers; FF 3.6 was quite laggy although FF 4 and Chrome 8 ran the game alright.

All of the level data is stored in separate XML files which are parsed into game objects as needed. This allowed me the flexibility of adding new levels on-the-fly as well as giving an easy way for others to create their own custom maps (in the future?). The jQuery framework makes the parsing process painless, only requiring an AJAX request and a callback function. I’m actually pretty sure it’s standard practice to store this data separately, although it was more out of intuition for me.

It turns out that drawing on the HTML5 canvas is rather simple, though you are more-or-less limited to primitive objects. I made extensive use of drawImage() since most of what I had was stored externally. The visual part of the game consists of a bunch of images hastily drawn using my trusty Wacom Bamboo tablet. It was actually slightly challenging drawing things that would tile correctly (mainly the wall) and writing code to display the right image wasn’t a walk in the park either. I probably messed up here; there was likely a much better way of doing things (i.e. not having separate cases for everything).

Everything else is rather straightforward; I used a 2-dimensional array to store the current game state and had various checks in place for “special” events. Arkayle’s abilities were actually a last minute add-on that I felt added a lot more depth to the game (I knew something similar had to be added eventually – there is only so much you can do with a puzzle where you couldn’t normally retrace your steps). Unfortunately since I was crunched for time, I couldn’t really do too much level design. The result is a three-level game where only the last level is slightly challenging.

Lessons Learned

There were a few major issues that I ran into. I found that drawing on the canvas is pretty damn slow especially when the dimensions are large (e.g. 1000px x 500px). Especially for a game like this, it was probably a much better idea to redraw when something actually happened (e.g. player input), rather than at a constant interval. An alternative would have been to not use canvas: DOM manipulation is another path that I could have taken.

A second major issue that I found was when I was trying to import my “art” assets into the game. There is an issue with drawImage() which tries to render an image onto the canvas even if it hasn’t been loaded yet. I’m not sure if this is a bug or by design (if it is by design, I’d like to know why). One of the ways to resolve this issue was to use drawImage() on image load:

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var img = new Image();
img.onLoad = function() {
    canvasContext.drawImage(img, xStartingCoordinates, yStartingCoordinates);
}
img.src = "path/to/image.png";

Unfortunately, this caused a whole bunch of flickering due to my game loop (at least in Firefox 3.6) so I opted to preload all of my images instead.

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$(document).ready(function() {
    var images = ["image1.png", "image2.png", ...];
    var img = [];
    for (var i = 0; i < images.length; i++) {
        img[i] = new Image();
        img[i].src = images[i];
    }
});

Turns out that this works quite well. The smart way of dealing with so many images (20 at my last count) would have been to use sprite maps to minimize the number of HTTP requests, but I didn’t want to deal with the hassle at the time (as mentioned, crunch period!).

There were a few more kinks along the way (e.g. dealing with JavaScript’s prototypical – rather than classical – inheritance), but they were pretty minor. My code base is pretty messy, though that was to be expected writing something I didn’t know how to write, using tools that I didn’t know how to use. In hindsight, I should have introduced a lot more separation between the engine and game logic. I also should have found a way to reuse code more effectively (see the Entity object). As for the game itself, I should have added in a few more abilities for Arkayle to use, as well as more levels (right now it doesn’t seem much like a game). Ah well…

All in all, I had a great time working on this prototype. I felt like I learned a lot from the process and I hope to apply that in future projects.

I picked up Torchlight, among others, over the last week during Steam’s Thanksgiving sale. Being that I’ve already heard good things about the game from others, it was pretty much a no-brainer. Disappointment was not an emotion I had that day.

As I so subtly hinted in the opening paragraph, Torchlight very much feels like Diablo gameplay-wise. The similarities are such that I’d advise anyone who has played Diablo to start Torchlight at the hard or very hard setting if they want a good challenge; a lot of basic premises like elemental resistances and such are still in effect. Of course, it feels a little unfair to base my opinions of one game on another but…

Anyway, let’s start with the graphics. I definitely enjoyed the art style; it gave the game a more cartoony, light-hearted feel to it. Your mileage may vary, of course, but I find a lot of dungeon crawlers to be rather dark and dreary. It’s rather nice to see a change every once in a while.

I can’t really comment on much of the audio; I’d say it’s on par for the game’s theme. Nothing really stuck out and impressed me, but of course the game would be much worse off without it. It’s just like good web design: audio plays an invisible but vitally important role. For the most part though, I just couldn’t pay attention to most of the stuff I was listening to since I was too busy running around like a madman trying not to get killed. In that aspect, I suppose it did its job well, giving clear signals on when to dodge projectiles and such.

Personally I thought the story was rather weak and shallow, merely present to provide a small backdrop to the world. I barely know anything about the characters in Torchlight such as Syl and Aldric, though I guess the journals did provide some information on the latter. Hell, I don’t really know much about Ordrak either, beyond the fact that he’s a corrupt being I have to take down. Ah well, I didn’t go in expecting much anyway.

Gameplay-wise, Torchlight is quite solid. I wish there was a little more information on how skill damage is calculated (things like ricochet which is based on “weapon DPS”) but that’s not a really big deal (unless you’re a min-maxer, of course). There weren’t really any skill trees or synergies – just abilities you can put points into once you reach a certain level. This removed a lot of complexity in choosing how to build a character (though at the same time reducing the game’s depth). I prefer it this way though, since it lets you experiment without investing too heavily in one particular style. The pet that always tags along with you is quite a nice little innovation to the genre since it does away with the whole go-back-to-town-to-sell-everything-since-you-have-no-more-room-in-your-pack problem; the ability-granting fish was rather cool too, though quite odd and out-of-place.

One major issue I found with the game was the huge ramp in difficulty between floor 29 and 30. The Dark Zealots on floors 30-34 are quite insane as they can literally kill you in one hit, giving you next to no notice. It was quite frustrating dealing with them; indeed, I just suicided my way to the final boss because I was fed up part way through. At least in the rest of the game the difficulty ramped up at a reasonable pace; sure, there were always things that could 2/3-hit you, but you could avoid them by playing carefully. The final boss was rather tedious as well, though I was quite underleveled at that point (my character was only at 25 compared to the boss and his minions all at 30). Basically I just suicided a couple dozen times spamming traps everywhere to take him down. Good thing I wasn’t playing on hardcore mode, eh?

All that said though, I believe modability is definitely Torchlight’s greatest strength. Any part of the game that causes irritation can be changed to better suit the player. For example, I thought having to constantly identify items was a massive waste of time so I hunted down something to change it. Mods can even add huge amounts of extra content to the game, from things like quests to completely new classes. There are quite a few resources for mods as well. In addition to a few select sites, TorchLeech, an unofficial tool that manages modifications to Torchlight, helps in organizing and finding most of what you need.

Anyway, in summary: definitely try this game out if you’re into action-based RPGs (hell, even if you’re only tangentially acquainted with the genre). I think there’s a free demo floating about somewhere too.

Power-ups

• Plasma vs. side missiles – Though the plasmas will take down bosses much quicker than the rockets, it is hard to use them elsewhere in the scenario. In general, the latter is much more user-friendly; the former is for those who have great skill in aiming while maneuvering through enemy fire.
• Drones – These little guys are amazing; they help take down opposing units and also sacrifice themselves should you take a hit, acting as an extra life. Two of these should be gotten as soon as possible (wait for the power-ups to morph if need be).
• Bombs – Bombs are literally the PANIC! button in this minigame and there is no shortage of them after having finished upgrading the ship’s weaponry and obtaining the drones. They should be used whenever you’re in a “crap, I’m screwed”-spot (typically during the Zerg and Terran bosses).

Levels

• The Protoss level is pretty straightforward; there aren’t too many things worth mentioning about it. One interesting thing to note is that you can “farm” the interceptors that the boss throws out for points; this can actually get you past the 500k point barrier without having to fight Terra-Tron for a 3rd time.
• For the Zerg, it is best not to move around a lot as you take down the scourges. By staying motionless, the enemy “firing” pattern is much less chaotic. Of course, moving as little as possible is a general rule in most shooters so… As for the boss here, the main thing to watch out for is the tentacles; the stockpile of bombs will come in useful here though they aren’t completely necessary.
• Terra-Tron is by far the biggest threat in the third level, with lasers, bullets, and even a homing saw at its disposal. The laser can be avoided by being at the opposite side of the screen from where Terra-Tron starts firing; the saw isn’t too hard to dodge, at least on its own. The hail of bullets on the other hand is quite annoying given the clunky, imprecise controls. Again, the bomb stockpile will serve quite nicely here.

Controls

One interesting thing to note is that spamming the spacebar continuously is much more effective than keeping it held down. This gets rather tiring and distracting so, me being me, I wrote a quick AutoHotkey script to automate this process.

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Activated := 0
 
Loop {
	If (Activated) {
		Send {Space}
		Sleep, 50
	}
}
 
$Space::
	Activated := !Activated

Press the spacebar once and the ship will fire continuously at maximum speed without any further direction. It makes it much easier to focus on dodging fire and using bombs when necessary.

Anyway, Happy Hallowe’en!

Anyway, my friend and I got to play around with the system earlier today (quite randomly, actually, since we were just strolling downtown getting food and stuff). We got to play Kinect Adventures which included activities such as navigating a raft with our bodies, dodging items on an obstacle track, and plugging up leaks caused by some very vicious fish. I believe the second game we tried was Kinect Joy Ride which was basically a racing game with a variety of game modes. I was actually quite surprised at how well the sensor picked up body movements, though I did have some problems controlling my car in Joy Ride (though that was likely due to my inexperience with the controls). Both games had relatively slick UIs too given the new method of control; I can’t think of many ways to improve upon them off the top of my head.

Perhaps the technology is still too immature or the style of games will only fit in with a niche group of people; nevertheless, it’ll be interesting to see how Microsoft, Sony (with its PlayStation Move), and Nintendo (with its Wii – or presumably, the Wii’s successor) battle it out for a piece of console gaming’s future.

It looks like the principle behind the entire event has largely stayed the same. There is one major difference though: summoning will be capped at 110% of normal XP throughout the weekend. This is due to the nature of the skill; as I mentioned previously, most of the work occurs during charm gathering rather than pouch making. The addition of dungeoneering is a slight change; the XP calculations will work as normal although extra tokens won’t be given out as rewards.

As expected, many raw materials have already been bought out and are rising in price rapidly while big-ticket items are heading in the opposite direction. I’m actually pretty curious to know how many people were already planning / holding out for this event ever since the last one ended. It’s unlikely that people would be willing to train skills like summoning and herblore heavily if there was a chance that this weekend would come. In other words, there was a very real possibility that the first bonus XP weekend altered player training habits for good. I mean, who wants to get shafted by an arbitrary external force?

Anyway, I’m still on a hiatus from the game so it’s unlikely that I’ll even bother participating. If I did, my day would probably consist of a whole lot of dungeoneering ’cause, you know, at least that particular skill is somewhat interesting to level.

As is usual for a Blizzard game, SC2 mostly lives up to its hype. The graphics are phenomenal without being overbearing; I can still play the game relatively well on medium settings using a laptop that I got three years ago. The audio is pretty decent as well. All of the sounds are appropriate, given the situation; it’s easy enough to tell what’s going on if you listen intently. Much of the music seems like it was remixed from SC1 too, giving an old nostalgic feel to the game.

What I really liked was the changes to the user interface. The new control groups really help a low-APM player like me. Things like automatically (and intelligently) choosing which building to build a unit from, having unlimited units in one group, casting only one copy of a special ability at a time, and such means that I can focus less on mass-spamming my mouse and keyboard and focus more on overall strategies. Of course, there are things missing that I’d like to see. For example, wouldn’t it be nice if units created from a building were automatically assigned to a chosen control group when they come out? This could be implemented by, say, Ctrl + Right Click on a control group when the buildings are highlighted. Right now this is half-done if you rally the buildings’ troops to a unit; they’ll basically follow that unit if it isn’t dead.

The storyline itself was okay. I didn’t expect much from a RTS game so all of the character development and stuff were pretty much gravy. That said, much of the plot is relatively predictable and cliché; despite giving you a lot of choice in choosing which missions to do first, there isn’t much overall impact in the end. At least there weren’t any inconsistencies that I could see though (e.g. one mission done before another, but some dialogue refers to the latter in the former). I suppose not too many people care about singleplayer SC2 anyway so it’s a moot point…

I haven’t played any league games yet and don’t really intend to; I’m not particularly big on competitive gaming in general. SC2 isn’t exactly balanced for anything above 1 vs 1 anyway (hell, it’s not even balanced for that despite aiming to become the de facto standard for progaming). I’ll stick with trolling the AI and playing custom maps, thanks.

Anyway, there are a few things that I dislike about the game. The lack of chat on the new Battle.net is kind of a step back from the previous iteration; not everyone likes to interact with others on the official community forums. That said, the old Battle.net was pretty blah, so meh… Regionalization of the community is a massive pain in the ass too; is Blizzard seriously telling me that I can’t play with friends in other regions without buying another copy of the game? The world is coming closer together with all of our new communication technology and they pull that kind of crap in the name of providing a better experience for their users. I haven’t seen a justification for such an action that couldn’t be met with a “softer” version of segregation (for example, league matchmaking can be done by region but custom games can allow anyone from anywhere to join; this allows for lower ping in “important” matches and increased versatility when players want it). Sure, it’d be harder to implement but it shouldn’t be impossible for a company with Blizzard’s resources. Oh yeah, a lack of LAN support is lame too (I can deal with regionalization if we had that option). I can definitely see why Blizzard doesn’t want to implement it though, seeing as SC2 is supposed to be focusing on competitive gaming. A look at the company’s actions with KeSPA and you can see that they really want to control a good part of the scene.

That said, SC2 is still a solid game in my eyes (and I’m missing out on the supposed best part of the game – online league play). Time to finish up the campaign achievements, I guess. My fingers are still numb from doing “All In” on brutal versus all of that flying Zerg…

For most MMORPGs (and even a few single-player RPGs), we typically take the role of a rather nondescript hero. In many cases, said hero generally has next to no real backstory; conversations with NPCs are dull, predictable, and pretty much one-sided (when was the last time we said more than a sentence to / grunted at a NPC? ). Wouldn’t it be nice to give a tongue-lashing to characters you hate? How about flirting with those that you love?

Throughout 'Golden Sun: The Lost Age', this is pretty much the only time Felix talks. The rest of the time he just nods 'yes' or 'no' and may occasionally give a '...'. But hey, at least he has a compelling backstory!

Personality in GW2 isn’t set in stone either, apparently. Maybe a life-long jerk will suddenly have an epiphany and decide to change his ways, or a tragic incident will turn a paragon of light into a cynic. This sounds great, so long as it actually takes a bit of effort to reform (a personality isn’t a personality if it can change on the spot). It would even be better if NPC interactions have permanent effects on relationships, though that typically falls out of the realm of MMORPGs. (Imagine a persistent world where certain characters will avoid you outright, where decisions are not clear-cut and could leave you agonizing for a good period of time.)

Anyway, that’s my current stream of thoughts on the subject. Now to get back to burying my head in books…

From the thread (the words of CEO Mike Morhaime):

We will still move forward with new forum features such as the ability to rate posts up or down, post highlighting based on rating, improved search functionality, and more. However, when we launch the new StarCraft II forums that include these new features, you will be posting by your StarCraft II Battle.net character name + character code, not your real name. The upgraded World of Warcraft forums with these new features will launch close to the release of Cataclysm, and also will not require your real name.

Kudos to Blizzard for re-evaluating their stance. Usually it’s pretty hard to get a general sense of things from mere forum posts and blogs because of, again, the vocal minority phenomenon.

Now, obviously they do not want to completely back away from the idea. Further on in the post, Mike continues saying that the company would like to implement “powerful communications functionality” inside their games. This supports my stance that there is a much bigger, underlying motive to their actions. I wouldn’t be surprised if, like Facebook’s Beacon (resurrected as its Open Graph), Real ID will come back in a more sinister, hidden form.

Recent advancements in areas such as social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) has gradually chipped away at the notion of anonymity over the web. People are taking to the idea of revealing more of themselves to others using such tools. This is by no means a bad thing; the internet has shifted towards being a more interactive, real-time medium. The way we disseminate news and other information has changed drastically.

Blizzard’s reason for rolling out the system was to foster a better community, one that was devoid of spammers and trolls. They’re likely the only gaming company that has the clout to do so, with millions of subscribers on their flagship game. Of course, being that World of Warcraft is subscription-based, they already have the information needed for Real ID (i.e. first/last name). That’s scary. (Of course, one wonders how many kids have their parent’s name on record instead. )

Will it stop trolling on the forums? Perhaps. It will also turn off a lot of people who are genuinely interested in distancing their online personality from their offline one. One of the reasons why content creation on the internet is so popular is that people do not necessarily have to attribute the content to themselves. This allows for more truthful communication; words do not necessarily have to be sugar-coated to please a certain group of members. If I recall correctly, 4chan was based on this principle, having unfiltered and often heated discussions between people. Would people be willing to talk about sensitive issues such as gay marriage, wars, etc. if their real-life reputation was on the line? My guess is that for most, no.

One major reason that I dislike the idea of Real ID is that gamers do not require that kind of intimacy. Hell, even in my extremely close-knit gaming circle, pretty much everyone calls me by one of my nicknames. In some cases we actually want to distance ourselves from our true identity; what’s the point of playing RPGs if we’re not actually role-playing the characters? Besides, games are sometimes used as a way to escape into a virtual world.

Anyway, let’s be honest. Blizzard really wants to use such a system so that it can align itself with social media. If it can tap into Facebook’s social graph where people reveal all sorts of things about themselves, it can tailor new features to such demographics. Again, this is not necessarily a bad thing (read: better products) but it does suggest other ulterior motives. I personally don’t need a web where my own information can be easily used against me (and I’m saying this while being currently enrolled in a marketing class! ).

Here’s a few more articles/blogs/sites/whatever of interest:

• WoW Official Forums – Upcoming Changes: Possibly one of the biggest threads in the history of threads.
• Stylish Corpse – Fail of the Century: Ysharros rants about the issues in letting online strangers know your identity. She’s clearly not very happy.
• Christopher “moot” Poole’s TED Talk: The creator of 4chan talks about why anonymity is so important in regards to the internet.
• Kotaku – Is It That Bad Using Your Real Name On The Internet?: Luke Plunkett takes an opposing view and talks about the benefits of Real ID. He makes some good points, although as bloggers we already have a diminished sense of privacy.

On another note, the StarCraft 2 beta is back out again. I’m just going to wait for the game to be released, but it’s still interesting to watch my friends pounce on it and rip it apart once again. Must…feed…SC…addiction, yes?

The effects of this announcement were profound and widespread. In a matter of days, many popular items used in skill training (such as planks, herbs and summoning secondaries) became unbuyable on the Grand Exchange. Merchanting clans – and indeed, pretty much everybody – promptly jumped on the bandwagon, causing prices to spike in a dramatic fashion. This imbalance in the supply and demand of raw materials trickled down; soon, “essential” items such as potions were also bought out, crippling the ability of players to participate in PvP and other activities.

In a bid to hoard more supplies, however, many players began to sell off expensive items such as godswords and Bandos armour. This triggered a crash of sorts in the high-end market, causing many players to speculate on what the future has in store. What was notable, however, was the influx of discontinued items in the Grand Exchange; prior to the event announcement, traders often had to use “junk” in order to obtain them. There are two sides to this: although collectors were easily able to get something they want at a steep discount, said items became more heavily concentrated in the hands of wealthy players.

This state of affairs wouldn’t last for long, of course. About a week later, the market for training supplies began to cool down; it won’t be until the beginning of the actual event that things start to pick up again. Prices for high-end items took on a reversed course as people began to recognize that they were vastly undervalued.

Meanwhile, the RuneScape forums were raging with activity. Many players thought it was an awesome event and began preparing for it, even going so far as to use calculus to determine how much XP might be expected for a particular activity. Questions were thrown around left, right and center about what particular training methods were covered under the event. Others, however, had a negativistic view and stated that bonus XP devalued skills (in particular, summoning).

On the first day of the actual event, people quickly determined that the XP rate counter was decreasing faster than it should have been. Mod Nexus confirmed this in a forum thread, saying it was because of a rounding error in the math calculations. This meant that the curve leveled off at 110% normal experience approximately 3 hours faster than expected, throwing off many of the more meticulous plans for the day.

Despite this miscalculation, players were undeterred in their training. Areas such as Castle Wars and the Ourania Runecrafting Altar were flooded with skillers. At multiple points throughout the weekend, RuneScape peaked at over 180k people online. Such enthusiasm turned what is ordinarily dull training into a group activity, building relationships between players; it was sort of like a global skilling clan going to areas normally devoid of people. In the end, many ‘Scapers received a hefty experience boost in the skill(s) of their choice.

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So that’s pretty much what happened. Here’s a few of my thoughts on the event.

There’s no doubt that it was one of the most controversial announcements of the year. Although bonus XP events were commonplace in many other MMORPGs, this marks the first time such a thing has happened in RuneScape. Much of the debate centered around the “devaluing” of achievements prior to the weekend. In particular, summoning took the brunt of the criticism due to the design of the skill itself; most of the time spent is on charm gathering rather than pouch making, so it was possible to save months of playtime (rather than the ~5 or so hours with most other skills). Herblore took second place due to the vast amounts of money that could be saved in the process of gaining upwards of ~4 million XP over the weekend.

What’s the big deal? Well, RuneScape is largely a time-based game (more so than most); there are few things that players can’t do if they put in sufficient effort. As a result, the main thing distinguishing players is the number of hours spent in-game (way overgeneralizing here). To put it into perspective: think of time as some sort of currency and a government deciding to introduce more of it into the economy – causing hyperinflation to occur.

It’s essentially an egotistical argument; the idea boils down to “I worked for my skills the hard way, so everyone else should too”. In a game like RuneScape, where higher levels give substantially larger advantages, it becomes easy for players to point fingers at the bonus XP event and say that it nullifies their competitive advantage over others. For example, let’s use the pack yak as an example: it requires level 96 summoning and provides a massive advantage in the form of extra inventory space (and long-range banking). Those who have gotten the yak prior to the event were able to cash in on their efforts, staying at boss fights and whatnot longer than their lower-leveled counterparts. However, there may be those who have, say, level 85-90 summoning who didn’t have enough resources to reach level 96, but had enough to achieve half of that. The bonus weekend helps to put the pack yak in their line of sight, making it possible for more people to compete with others who have already done so.

Now, I’m a relatively casual player. Although I’ve been “around” longer than probably 95% of the population today, I haven’t done many noteworthy things. For example, I’ve never hit maxed level in any skill thus far, and have no plans on doing so. My reason? I dislike grinding and am happy with ~90% of the benefits in a third of the time. Basically, my opportunity cost for gaining the last little bit of extra advantages are too high. And yeah, being a mathie I have a habit of calculating efficiency rates for various activities in the game. So what draws me into RuneScape? Questing is probably the primary reason. It’s also one of the few games that I’m capable of multitasking well with when I’m knocking heads together in Guild Wars or programming “the next big thing”. For someone like me who pretty much tries everything to avoid straight-up grind, anything that increases efficiency per time spent is likely to be more good than bad (just as a sidenote, I went for summoning, construction and hunter last weekend).

There’s a couple of arguments in favour of the event that I haven’t really seen yet. First of all, it was sort of a money-sink. In the case of summoning, many players had to buy shards from the shop, removing gold from the game. It’s no big secret that inflation has been running rampant over the last couple years so every little bit helps. For other materials, it helped to decentralize wealth as people with a lot of money bought things from those who supply them (merchants notwithstanding). Secondly, an increased number of higher-leveled players can actually help the game. Think of it this way: if more people are able to make an attempt at the God Wars Dungeon or the Corporeal Beast, then prices of the more expensive items may drop into affordable range.

It’s been my experience that forums aren’t a very good way to judge feedback to an in-game event. The responses tend to be skewed towards the dissenting side and for good reason – happy players tend to be the ones actually playing the content. I suspect given the amount of activity last weekend that it was a huge success, so I wouldn’t be surprised if another similar announcement comes up in the future.

I appreciate a gaming company who’s willing to try out controversial things so I have a few suggestions for Jagex. It’d be nice to give less notice should a repeat occur, as the Grand Exchange was essentially destabilized for a month. Using a limited subset of activities might be interesting too, as that would herd players to various areas (this, of course, only works if the activity isn’t based around zero-sum like mining).

Anyway, this post has gotten a bit out of hand so I’ll wrap things up for now.