Online Gaming Marketplace Shakeups

 I caught wind of recent news regarding TCGPlayer and BGG Geek Marketplace and wanted to share some thoughts.

First, eBay has announced their plans to buy TCGPlayer. This transaction makes sense as TCGPlayer has really become an eBay-a-like for trading card games.  This news would have been filed away in mind as a blip, but then I saw the amount that eBay spent: $295 Million.  Holy cheese balls!  

I had a short stint as a volunteer writer for TCGPlayer posting articles about the World of Warcraft TCG.  At the time it was very much a fan run site for fans of TCGs.  I did not get the vibe of "we are a future multi-million dollar corporation".  Feels like I missed an opportunity here had I stuck with the freelance writing for TCGPlayer.... giving me vibes of the time I missed out on contributing to WoWHead before it got gobbled up for a million dollars... which makes me lament my younger days and not having the chance to become a streamer (I was an early adopter of Google Video before Google had Youtube).  Apparently my destiny is to always be early to the party!

The next news item to cover is Board Game Geek's (BGG) sudden announcement they were shutting down Geek Market.  This came as a surprise as BGG was in progress testing an updated version of Geek Market so to go from beta testing a new version to shutting down the entire thing (including the original Geek Market) caught the BGG community by surprise.  Since that announcement and uproar from the community the folks at BGG have opted to establish a new classified-style market.  

I don't really have any commentary; just found the news interesting.

More can be read in these three posts at BGG (in chronological order)

1. Announcement: Classic & Beta GeekMarket Shutting Down | BoardGameGeek
2. GeekMarket changes update: Classifieds coming | BoardGameGeek
3. Launching New GeekMarket Next Week | BoardGameGeek
   

New World Server Woes

 Woe is me as I post back to back days about online multiplayer woes.  Today I want to zero in on the New World server woes.  Ultimately for the game it is a good problem to have.  Player numbers are on the rise and more and more folks want to get in and rejoin in the fun.  However, for some of us that stuck it out when there were a bunch of empty low population servers it is a bit frustrating to now be stuck in login queues night after night severely limiting playtime.

Some quick back story for anyone that hasn't followed New World's trajectory.  When the game launched last year it blew away expectations peaking at over 900,000+ concurrent users.  Amazon Game Studios (AGS) quickly expanded available servers and before we knew it each region had hundreds of named servers.  That peak concurrent user count dropped like a rock and as quick as the servers filled up they atrophied to the point where some had single digit concurrent players (which were likely bots abusing the empty server to gather materials without competition).  AGS responded and merged servers.  Towards the end of the merge cycle regions like NA East were down to just four servers.  Four very full servers.

Full servers are great for New World as there is no cross-server play and when I was playing on the Pluto server pre-merger I went weeks/months without being able to play certain content that required more players online.  Post-merger there are enough players that any group content is easily accessible because there are always players.  About the only negative game play effect of a full server is competition for gathering nodes but that has been much improved with more nodes available than ever before (personally I am also fine with the limited influx of gathered raw resources coming into the economy).

What full servers are not great for is logging in and playing as players get stuck in a queue for 30+ minutes (and don't get me started on crashing after a couple minutes of playing and having to go back to the queue).  With recent changes to the game and buzz around the upcoming October patch (bringing a new zone, expedition, weapon, and a bunch of other changes) the player populations are spiking back up.  New World has gone from a peak of 15,000 concurrent players to 40,000+ and the login queues came with them.

AGS did add a couple new servers and increased server population caps (2000 increased to 2200 for most servers and 2500 for some servers as a test).  This has helped but there are still 30+ minute queues for my server at peak times and I am NOT interested in paying for another server transfer to get to the new server that isn't at cap yet.

The current situation also has me worried about what October will bring when the big patch hits.  As noted we are already seeing increased interest just from the word-of-mouth about the patch and it is still a month away.  I am sure we will see a dip before the patch but then I fully expect a huge swing of players coming back for the patch.

Those players coming back are going to find their characters merged into the few servers so their return will clutter the login queues further.  Players, like myself, who waited out low population servers and have stuck with the game through the decline and now rise are being punished for that loyalty.  Ideally AGS would have set it up so that as players return and find their previous server merged they would be funneled to newly created servers vs creating problems for those of us that have been active through the thin side of the thick and thin.

I am not confident players are going to stick long term after the October update.  I anticipate seeing a higher regular player count for a while, but there will be a boom and bust for the October patch; especially with the major streamers that will bring 10,000+ players to peak times on some servers.  The bust said of that is going to be more frustrating if there is a boom in servers that then have to be merged back down.  I firmly believe there is fatigue related to merges which is why AGS waited so long to merge the low population servers (it took them months!).  Also AGS is clearly gun shy adding new servers now.

My end hope is that as AGS navigates New World through these peaks in interest that one of their top priorities is to figure out the quagmire that is the server model in today's gaming world where a single streamer brings a 10,000+ player army with them.  

New World is still one of the most fun MMOs I have played in years and is continuing to deliver on the promise.  These ups (and the downs before) won't scare me away but the frustration piles on past frustrations so over time is cumulative frustration.  At some point I will be done with it so hopefully AGS has a plan before then.

Call of the Wild: The Angler Multiplayer Woes

  The multiplayer system in Call of the Wild: The Angler does not work and is poorly designed.  It should be the top priority for the development team to fix and make fundamental changes to.

The multiplayer mode in CotW: The Angler allows up to twelve fishergamers to drive, boat, and fish together on a single map (known as a reserve in the game).  Unfortunately the "join friend's game" does not seem to work as I have yet, after dozens of times trying, been able to join a friend's game.  In fact most of the time the game doesn't even represent the online/offline status of friends correctly (usually saying they are offline when they are online playing).  The "join game" option on the friends list does throw an error at the user though and then connects to an online map anyways.

More irritating than "join friend" not working is the mind boggling decision that random match making
online multiplayer would be defaulted to ON with no option to have friends-only or private sessions.  To top it off the setting for turning mutliplayer off does not save properly so every time you launch the game you have to remember to go turn it OFF again.  Fortunately there is no chat or way to communicate with other players in the game so right now there is no risk of getting spammed or told something that would make my mother blush.

Defaulting to ON may seem harmless, but it can mess with the new player experience.  What I ran into in my first fishing trip is that I couldn't do the boat driving 101 or driving 101 because another player had spawned a boat or vehicle and it wouldn't allow me to spawn another from the same terminal.  Also since we were all playing right at the launch of the game I have no doubt some of my early frustrations not being able to catch fish in the beginner spots for the tutorial was directly because a dozen other players fished the area out (which is a real possibility with how the game works in populating fish in the world).

Anyways; it is 2022 and there is no reason to be defaulting players to multiplayer match making with random strangers unless that is what they explicitly want to do.  I do not understand why the system does not work exactly like Expansive World's other game theHunter Call of the Wild.  In theHunter you have to actively turn your map into a multiplayer session and then you can control if its public or friends only.  It is just baffling that the Angler went with random match making turned on and provides ZERO options for setting up a friends-only session.

Other improvements needed in multiplayer.  Voice or chat communication is a must have if there is going to be random match making and public servers.  Ideally we'd also get the "search for available games" browser available in theHunter so we can find games (especially important when new maps launch).  There also needs to be away to share your catches with others nearby or over chat.  How am I supposed to brag about that monster I just landed?   I guess I'll just lie about the catches like I do in real life.

At least it is neat to see other players fishing.

Sunday 9/11/22 Post

 Ya... ya.. a post a day.

Here is the post for Sunday 9/11/2022

The Witcher

 My history with The Witcher was the video games first (1,2,3 right in order), then the show on Netflix, and now finally the first book.  Here are some thoughts on the experience.

When I first watched the show version of The Witcher on Netflix the first season was difficult to follow as far as a storyline.  Still it was an amazing show with near perfect casting, great acting, and the gritty feel of the video games.  I can imagine no other actor than Henry Cavill as Geralt to which the author, Andrzej Sapkowski, agrees.

 

 

 

 

“I was more than happy with Henry Cavill’s appearance as The Witcher.” The novelist added, “He’s a real professional. Just as Viggo Mortensen gave his face to Aragorn [in The Lord of the Rings], so Henry gave his to Geralt — and it shall be forever so.”

 

 

 Having read the first book, The Last Wish, I realized how faithful the show's first season was.  Reading the book helped me better understand the narrative arc and what it was trying to convey.  Which then helps set up the story in season 2 and now I'm hooked even more into the world.  I am not sure I will read much more of the series, but man I can't wait for season 3 of the show and hopeful for many seasons beyond.

This has also brought me back to remember my times in the video games.  I will admit the story lines of the games is not fresh in my mind, but I feel like parts of the games fit together better.  It's actually surprising how the games, show, and books really fit together.  Again, Henry Cavill just nails it as Geralt and when I drop back into any of The Witcher games he is who I see in Geralt.  Visually as well the world has consistency across mediums.  Specifically the Nilfgaardians are spot on from book to game to show.  Amazing work by all the teams involved.

It's fun getting to see properties like this take off and have success in the main entertainment areas I have interest in.  I hope The Witcher sets a blue print for others to follow.