Update 22 (For Real This Time)

When reading the notes for Test Update 22, I didn't notice anything particularly exciting, either positive or negative. So I was quite surprised to head over to the feedback thread and find a full fledged uproar in progress over something I'd blithely skimmed past.

The offending sentence:

- If you die within 2 minutes of unequipping an item, the item will still take damage to its condition.

You would think it was Armageddon if you read the thread. Now, I'll probably annoy a lot of people by saying this, but if there's one thing that bothers me more than people in raids complaining about repair costs, it's people in a forum thread complaining because they can't use an exploit to avoid repair costs.

Let me break it down for you. Originally there were three penalties for death:

1. Time: You had to retrieve your shard.

2. Progress: You had xp debt.

3. Money: You had to pay repair costs.

SOE already removed aspect number 1. So you're left with 2 and 3. And if you're at max level you're left with just number 3.

But obviously even one mild penalty is too much for people. They had to use the unequip macro to avoid it. That move is pure cheese. It's just lame. Suck it up and pay the repair costs, they're really not going to break the bank.

So now this exploit is removed and people are up in arms. Sorry, no sympathy here. If you want to raid, you should be prepared to die and to pay some penalty for doing so. Otherwise there's no challenge and no point.

Well, I will make a few caveats. If you know you're going to die before you enter combat (say that time you talk to Vox or if you're doing a weird type of pull) go ahead and get naked. I think that's valid. So I wouldn't mind if the timer was reduced to one minute instead of two.

Also, on the PvP server the economy is a bit rougher so I have much more compassion for those who complain about repair costs there.

I do think there should be a maximum of one item damaged per slot. Thus, if you swap out a ring for another ring for the resists, only one of the rings should be damaged if you die.

For the rest, I'm sorry your exploit is gone. Actually I'm not. Tough luck. Risk and reward is what makes games fun.

To quickly sum up the rest:

Guild recruiting changes are not a bad idea. There's nothing wrong with guilds being able to offer more information to potential recruits and allowing those potential recruits the ability to be better "consumers." Hopefully it can cut down on guild recruitment spam in chat channels but I doubt it.

I'm guessing changing the Orcs to Rujarkians is a graphics thing for improved performance.

I always like to see dungeon improvements but I have to quibble with the Obelisk one. That place is a farmer's heaven already - it doesn't need more.

I like the ability to change your character's style. Some of us have been playing for over a year already. And just like in real life, it's natural to want to change up your look a little.

The news of a new instanced raid zone is great. I don't know all the raid content in KoS. I only really know a portion of the Lab. But it seems, from what I hear, that this was sorely needed. And how can you argue with more content?

Well, that's it for the update but I did want to "review" SOE's April Fool's attempt. Last year Blizzard took a shot at SOE with its franky hilarious Pandaren Express parody of /pizza. SOE came back with a somewhat weak self-parody in response. Not that funny, but it was quickly written and they took the high road by linking to Blizzard.

This year we have this. Nothing there was laugh-out-loud hilarious but it was funny (especially the submissions). I also give points for the following:

1. Effort: If you read the rules there are a ton of jokes hidden there. Great job by whoever wrote that section.

2. Self-Parody: I like that they made fun of their own Quest for Antonia.

3. Music: I missed this at first because I had the volume off. But Sela mentioned the music in this thread so I checked it out. And the music did make it funnier.

So, all in all, a nice job. If you read some of the other April Fools stuff in the gaming world, this is a notch above most of them.