Account Based Currencies

Yesterday I spent more money than I ever have before in my life on a single purchase. I am not counting automobiles… since those end up drug out over the course of years… and same goes with my house. We purchased a new leather sectional and it will be delivered on Thursday. This is pretty much the culmination of our whole “trying to make the house awesome” thing. The awesome thing is that thanks to having a really cool saleswoman, she called us when we could get free delivery and a 5% discount.

Declutteration

So pretty much today is going to involve cleaning out my closet in my office. It has 15 years worth of accumulated debris, and most of it needs to either be trashed or donated. Essentially this is important because I need to clear my office of all the consoles I packed up while clearing out the loft. Most of the crap in my closet is left over tech junk that I have either cycled out of, or not used in long enough that it no longer matters. Going to start making piles of, this is something I should donate to charity and this is something I should just pitch.

My ultimate hope is to clear the closet enough to be able to pack my consoles neatly in there, and maybe get the cable installer scheduled for Thursday as well. That way I can batch up all the annoying waiting around the house for an installer on the same day. Ultimately this would be the last step keeping me from switching to cable internet. Of all the improvements, this is the big one for me. We have been on 4 meg DSL for years… and bumping up to 50 meg cable is going to be massive for me and my sanity.

Eyecandy

Apparently there is an Elder Scrolls Online poster contest going on. A friend of mine linked me this and I thought it was so amazing that I had to share. Also I am looking for nifty things to share since I am still very much unable to share what I am doing over this weekend. You can hop over to Elder Scrolls Online page to check out the contest information… but the prizes seem pretty great.

First prize wins…

One Medium Wacom Intuos5 Tablet.
One The Elder Scrolls Online poster signed by the development team.
One canvas print of the Alliance Battle Concept Art.
Winning poster will be printed and signed by the Game Director, Art Director, and Concept team and mailed to the winner.
Poster will be prominently displayed at ZeniMax Online Studios and in ZeniMax Customer Support offices.
Poster will be featured in the ZeniMax booth at a future convention.
One The Elder Scrolls Online limited stein.
One The Elder Scrolls Online t-shirt.

This is from the Tumblr and appears to be one of the entries. I think it is going to be extremely hard to beat, but I highly suggest anyone with the skill to give it a shot!

Keeping with the Elder Scrolls eyecandy theme… I found this nifty rendering of a Septim coin. Yesterday I was playing with the Rift Mobile app, and after getting hundreds of planarite that are completely useless to my main for the thousandth time… it got me to thinking how frustrating it is that currency in general is not account bound. So I threw out this tweet “I am of the opinion, that regardless of game… all tokens and currencies should be accrued at an account level, not character level”. It had several favorites, and a retweet… but it got me to thinking about how much better MMOs would feel if this were the case.

It feels like in general the long range endgame for all MMOs is to convince its players to roll more characters, and get more deeply involved in the experience. The problem that you run into is when you are working on your alts, but end up being needed by your friends and guild on one of your mains instead. I can remember how frustrating it was for me playing World of Warcraft, watching tokens sit unused on Belghast when I would love to have them on my other characters.

The game experience would be so much better overall if you knew regardless of what character you were playing, you were working towards whatever goals you have. I know personally, I would mind tanking that same instance for the 300th time a lot less if I knew that the shiny baubles I was acquiring were capable of going towards the character I was really wanting to gear. The problem with alting when you play a core role, is that it will always be in need.

I know that my opinion doesn’t really matter much, but it feels like a much more solid design… a longer range thought process. Right now the challenge with MMOs seems to be trying to get players to keep playing your game for the long haul. Doing anything to keep your players invested in more than just their first character seems like it is the best possible way to accomplish this.

This is one of the things I miss most from the era of non-binding gear. I could run a dungeon in Everquest, healing it on my cleric that was extremely needed… but be getting gear for my ranger or shadowknight. This made the experience more exciting, and less of a hassle. I realize we will never see an era of non-disposable gear… that is something long gone that will never likely come back. However if I could at least accrue tokens and currencies… I could benefit my alts when doing a favor to friends.

Its Cleaning Time!

Yeah I am not really exclamation excited… but it needs to get done. Time for me to get off here and head upstairs to work on my office. I hope you all have a great weekend, and that you do something far more exciting than mine is going to shape up to be.