by John Hoskin on Oct 24, 2006
Welcome to your Tuesday Loading..., continuing a week of guest writers for the premier daily MMOG newsletter chock full of news, opinion, interviews, features, and the Vin Diesel / weird news bits.
Formerly a Shaolin monkette, Karen Hertzberg took on the nickname Shayalyn when she moved from Tibet to TenTonHammer headquarters. Her trademarked "boots to the head" are feared by staff and developers alike.
You may know Karen from such films as 'Hidden Tauren, Crouching Dwarf" and "Enter The Drow".
When Karen isn't writing for TenTonHammer she is exploding two-litre Pepsi bottles with packs of mentos.
A big black-belt round of applause for Karen "Shayalyn" Hertzberg, your guest host for Loading... today.
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We know how the non-gaming world perceives us gamers. Weâre the great unwashed. Weâre the lonely Cheeto munching, Mountain Dew swilling basement dwellers with no lives. The only relationships male gamers are able to sustain are online, where they hobnob with the likes of Galladryelle, the hot high elf wizard who quite possibly sports hairy knuckles in the real world. (Of course, as a female gamer Iâm not as afflicted with that stigma...but I digress.)
Of course, we gamers recognize this stereotype is categorically untrue. Thereâs not one of us who would eat Cheetos during a gaming session and risk getting all that fluorescent orange crap on our keyboards.
Probably the most pervasive myth among non-gamers is that gamers have no friends. Not true! Not true at all. In fact, we have dozens of virtual people on our in game friendsâ lists. (It counts, damnit!) And when youâre a gamer lucky enough to make some friends, you want to be able to hang out with them. Hell, itâs likely some of the best socializing youâre going to get all week, right? But some of our friends game more than others, which means that some of them level either faster or slower than we do. What to do.
Enter the topic it took me a few winding paragraphs to get around to--mentoring and fellowship programs. When it comes to making and keeping in game friends, these types of programs are priceless. I remember all of my tight-wearing companions leveling right past me back when I was playing City of Heroes. This would have left me wandering the streets alone, endlessly thwarting old lady muggings, while my friends partied in the higher level zones. But thanks to the sidekick program in CoH, I could run with my posse of super-peeps.
There are all kinds of mentoring programs in MMOGs. Some of them, like the sidekick feature in CoH, scale the player up to their group matesâ level. Others, like the mentor program in EverQuest II, scale higher level players down (including lowering the stats of their equipment), so that they can group with lower level companions. In order to encourage high level players to debase themselves and go slumming EQ2 gave mentors an experience bonus. Vanguard is taking a different tack and allowing players to form fellowships. When members form a fellowship, some of their experience is sacrificed to help the offline members stay within level range. (This means the slacker players actually gain experience while doing useless things like spending quality time with their families.)
Which method is best? They all have their perks and their drawbacks. The CoH method of scaling up is fun, but it keeps lower level players from having to earn their way to high level content, exposing them to too much of the game too soon. The Vanguard method is fine for the committed, but players will certainly balk at the idea of losing some of their experience while their friend is offline doing God knows what. (After all, you donât âdingâ a level when your kid gets a good report card, so whatâs with the âI have to help my kid with his homeworkâ excuse?) Of all the programs for keeping friends of various levels together, Iâd have to say I like what EQ2 has done the best. Itâs not perfect (after all, if you happen to be the high level player, you still have to go slumming to places you may have gone through numerous times before), but the added incentive of bonus experience for the mentor makes it worthwhile.
When it comes right down to it, thereâs no mentoring or fellowship program that doesnât require some sort of sacrifice on the part of one or more of the players involved. But hey, thatâs what friends are for. If youâre lucky enough to make the virtual kind, then you might be inclined to want to keep them and play the game with them. Thatâs what these features are all about.
So, whatâs your favorite method of in-game mentoring? Do you prefer your friends to scale up to your level, or would you rather scale down to them? Would you be willing to give up some of your experience to keep your best in game friends close to your level? Talk it up! Post a comment below or on our new vBulletin-powered forums.
Exclusive new TenTonHammer.com Content!Let us entertain you or at the very least waste some of your time at work.
10.24.2006 Exclusive Content
EverQuest 2 : Exclusive Interview with Ryan "Blackguard" SchwayderAs always, thanks for visiting TenTonHammer.com,
-- John "Boomjack" Hoskin and guest host Karen "Shayalyn" Hertzberg