Now to find a nice template that I want to edit and go from there!

Sorry if this seems a bit disjointed. I started it a while back and finally sat down to finish it tonight. Not sure it’s entirely coherent or if I made my point clearly enough.

This one is an OC again and I reused the name of my main character from my FFVII:AC story “Memories.” I just happen to like the name and it worked. I have another GitS story in progress (different OC) as well as the “origin” story of the OC from this story as well. One down, six more in-progress stories to go. I need to buckle down if I want to finish all these. Here’s this one though, as posted over on Fanfiction.net.

Title: The First Step
Author: Rhyssa Fireheart
Pairing: None (implied Saito/OC)
Fandom: Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (set after 2nd Gig and before Solid State Society)
Rating: K
Disclaimer: Don’t own it, never will. Just like to play around with it in my mind.

===================================================

The wind tugged at her hair, teasing the short wisps at her neck. The whole world was shrouded in gauze, everything coming at her from a great distance.

She stood on the edge of the balcony, staring at the distant ground forty-six stories below her feet. Vehicles were nothing more than moving spots and people were barely more noticeable. The sounds of traffic were faint music to her straining ears.

Her hands clutched solid metal and smooth wood. The feel of them under her fingers was comforting, providing an anchor to reality. Metal and wood formed the whole of her existence and she wouldn’t - couldn’t - have it any other way.

Open sky gaped before her. It felt as if all the buildings in the city had stepped aside to open a pathway to infinity. Barely there wisps of white tried and failed to fill the sharp blue void. Eternity burned before her.

Her eyes tracked the flight of a solitary bird across the sky, the beating of its wings a counterpoint to her own heartbeat. The rushing of blood in her ears was deafening, making her sway slightly as errant breezes tugged at the jacket of her tactical suit. The harness built into the suit clutched painfully at her skin. It was too tight at the waist while the shoulder and leg straps felt like they were barely there. Once more the wind tugged at her, setting the dangling straps twisting and fluttering. It seemed as if the breezes were calling her to fly with them and nothing connected her to earth.

Tipping her head, she looked around at the other balconies around hers. The mundane details of others lives filled her thoughts. A small grill sitting on a picnic table. Pots filled with bright flowers. Beach towels and children’s swimsuits drying on a railing. Lawn chairs and tables and privacy screens. Normal items indicating normal lives being observed by someone far from normal.

A voice whispered her name in the back of her mind. She recognized it, loved it, cherished it, but didn’t answer in return. She could feel the texture of the balcony wall through the soles of her boots. The solid weight of the building loomed at her back giving the illusion of safety. The whisper came again, accompanied by the sound of a voice behind her.

Once more she looked down, down, down to the ground far below. A sense of urgency was growing in the air. Time slipped away through her clutching fingers. She turned to look at the balcony behind her, unable to easily grasp what she saw. It scared her. The individual parts meshed to form a whole that kept breaking apart.

A third time the whisper teased her thoughts and with a last look at the past behind her, she turned to the infinite future spread out before her eyes.

She took a deep breath, held it for a moment before letting it gust out.

She reached for the center of calm in a whirlwind of emotions.

Acknowledged the whisper with a caress.

And took the first step.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-

“Hey, Pazu. Bet you 300 yen that these guys think Borma’s just muscle, I’m the data specialist and either you or Azuma are the sniper.”

“No deal.”

“Oh come on. Afraid of a sure thing?”

“Morgan, I learned not to bet against Saito a long time ago. What makes you think I’ll bet against you?”

“Rampant curiosity? Besides, Borma and Azuma are already in.”

“Fine, 300 yen it is, but they think I’m the sniper and Azuma is the data specialist. You’re just here to look pretty.”

Morgan laughed out loud at Pazu’s capitulation, sure that she’d be at least 300 yen richer within the next few minutes. The elevator chimed and the doors opened on the forty-sixth floor, the four Section 9 members heading down the hall towards room 4638. The police had taken over the apartment to use as a vantage and the team was going to set up a second sniper point there. Saito had already reached his location and was watching his target. A team of two snipers had been brought into the country by a terrorist organization and notice had been sent that several members of the Parliament were to be targets on today’s date. Section 9 had located the first sniper easily, almost too easily. He’d been followed, but unfortunately, the best location to counter from was far enough away that Saito had to be the one to do it. That had left Morgan to figure out as quickly as possible where the second sniper would take his shot from.

The two guards outside their destination did nothing to stop them from entering. Once inside the apartment, Pazu led the way to the command center set up in the dining room. He found the agent in charge and quickly introduced the four of them without mentioning any roles. Morgan headed towards the sliding doors, removing the large case that had been slung crosswise over her back and setting it against a wall.

Stepping out onto the balcony, she took a scope from her pocket and began scanning the area trying to figure out where the second sniper could be hiding. A few minutes after she went outside, Azuma stuck his head through the open door to call her back inside. Pazu and Borma were still in the dining room getting an update on the situation when she and Azuma got there.

“Has there been any progress on finding out the identity of the other sniper yet?” she asked.

“Not yet,” The head agent answered. “We’ve had our people looking, of course, and our data specialists are still trying to pin down his identity. Would you like to join them searching the net?” He asked Morgan politely.

“Wouldn’t do any good if I did,” she said in response. “Ask Borma, he’s the data specialist here.” The agent stared in surprise.

“But if you aren’t the data specialist….” He trailed off uncertainly.

“What am I here for?” Pazu almost groaned at the note of positive glee in M rgan’s voice. He was already kissing his money good-bye and making mental notes to add her to his ‘don’t bet against’ list.

“I’m the sniper.”

The look of surprise on the agent’s face was completely worth it. Even better was the look on Pazu’s face, although it meant he wouldn’t be taking any more bets from her in the future. Once more she turned towards the balcony, content to allow Borma to search the net while she considered other possibilities.

The route the targeted official planned to travel lay spread out before her. Their current location faced northeast, the main roads crossing from northwest to southeast below. The first sniper was set up facing northwest down the travelcades route. Saito had already positioned himself to counter that threat, now she just had to do her part.

“Anything?” Saito’s voice came over their private cybercomm channel. They’d set it up back when they first met in person. The other members of Section 9 knew about the channel and only dropped in when necessary or when asked to join.

“Nothing yet. What’s your guy up to?”

“Looks like he’s just hanging around on the roof. Nothing suspicious at all, unless you consider thermo-optic camouflage and a rifle normal.” His voice was calm.

“Damn it, this is bugging me though! This spot should be excellent to spot the second sniper. It’s got a perfect view of the field of fire, so where the hell is he?” She couldn’t keep the frustration from her voice.

“You’ll find him, just relax.”

“I know that, it’s just….” Morgan broke off suddenly as the significance of her previous words finally registered.

“Morgan, what is it?”

“Hold on.” She stuck her head back into the apartment and called Pazu and Azuma over to help her. “I need you guys to hold me steady. I want to look at the other balconies quick.”

The two men stood side-by-side and she placed a foot on each of their thighs. Perched on the balcony wall, their hands clasping her wrists tightly, she stood up and leaned back over the edge, looking along the side of the building. The vast empty space below didn’t bother her at all; she was too busy concentrating on her search. After a moment, a disturbance on another balcony caught her attention and she strained to see.

“Azuma, hand me my scope. Hold on to my leg instead of my hand, I need to twist a bit to use it.” He carefully handed the tool to her and she felt his hands grasp her leg around the knee and ankle, helping her stay balanced as she brought the scope up to her eye. Without being told, Pazu shifted his grip as well, leaning forward slightly to hold onto the belt at her waist instead, freeing up both her hands. She hung suspended over the railing, dependent on the hands of her teammates to keep from falling.

“Found him. He’s at the far edge of the building on a balcony at this floor. He’s already set up and ready to fire. I can’t.…” Her voice faltered and drifted away. She didn’t even notice Azuma and Pazu pull her back to safety.

“Morgan, can you take the shot from the balcony or not?” Saito’s voice rang over the cybercomm channel. She just stood there dumbly, unable to think clearly. “Pazu, does she need to go over the edge to do it?”

“Yeah. Borma’s getting the cables for the harness. We’ll get her set up and take care of her. Don’t worry. Azuma, grab her rifle and get it ready.”

“Hurry up, the travelcade is coming into range now. We don’t have any more time.”

Morgan felt as if the world had stepped back, leaving her alone in a vacuum. She barely noticed Borma come onto the balcony with a set of straps. Pazu pushed her arms out of the way as he reached around her body snapping cables to the harness specially built into her tactical suit. He pulled and tugged on the straps, making sure they were connected properly while Borma looped them around his back and arms, prepared to anchor her. Once he was satisfied every strap was secure and her harness was tight, Pazu grabbed her around the waist and lifted Morgan until she stood on the edge of the balcony. His hands gripped her calf tightly; she’d find finger shaped bruises there after this was all over.

Azuma shoved her rifle into her hands, the scope attached and ready. He took his position next to Pazu and gripped her other calf. More bruises for later.

“Morgan, can you do this? You have to get ready now.” Saito said across their comm channel. “The cars are almost in range.”

The world stood still as his voice whispered in her mind, soft against the cotton smothering everything around her. Time stood still in the realization of what she needed to do. She couldn’t do it. The straps had broken last time. Someone had cut the straps. She couldn’t do it. She was going to fall again and this time she wouldn’t make it. She couldn’t do it.

“Morgan, you ready? We’ve got you here.” Pazu’s voice surprised her. It was tight with tension and a sort of anger. She looked around vaguely before turning to the men behind her. Borma didn’t say anything, but she could see the determination in his face; he’d hold her, wouldn’t let anything happen, she wouldn’t fall again. Pazu and Azuma looked equally determined. These weren’t the teammates from before. They would take care of her.

“Morgan!”

A deep breath, a sigh, and then she stepped off the balcony into nothing.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

The strongest set of straps was attached at her waist; it wouldn’t do to have her shoulders jerked out of position as she fell. Her left foot simply dipped over the edge of the wall, her toes gripping the side and the heel unsupported. Her other foot came down with a jarring impact further down the side of the wall, Azuma’s hands slipping for a moment before he reestablished his grip around her ankle instead. A glance sideways showed her Borma’s face, calm and unstrained despite her weight hanging over the edge of the balcony. She could see the straps wrapped tight around his arms, digging furrows into his sleeves. She stood on the wall of the building and calmly raised her rifle into position, taking aim within seconds.

“Ready.”

“Now!”

At his command, she took out the target further down the building from her, the other sniper never even realizing where the shot had come from. He couldn’t have expected a shot to come from along the building itself. The fading echo of another shot drifted through the air.

The scramble to get back onto the balcony was uncoordinated, ungainly and frankly scared her. But once she was safe and surrounded by her teammates, the truth of what she’d just done sunk in and she couldn’t stop the tears. Standing there, she felt first Pazu’s, then Borma and Azuma’s arms come around her, sheltering her from the view of the other officers clustered at the open door.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“Morgan?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine. They held me and I didn’t fall. The straps didn’t break. I’ll be fine.”

“Good.” In the one word reply, she could hear the relief in his voice. She finally disengaged herself from the other men, and grabbing their hands, thanked them one more time. She could see in their eyes that they wouldn’t have allowed anything to happen to her. She was safe with her teammates.

None of the Section 9 members explained what had just happened to the others in the apartment. They just gave directions where the second sniper could be found and waited as Morgan packed up her rifle, the straps coiled and placed into a side pocket of her case. Slinging the case across her back again, the four headed down the hall towards the elevators. The Prefecture Police could handle the rest, their job was done.

“Oh, hey Pazu?”

“Hmm?”

“Don’t forget you owe me 300 yen.”

==========================================

Note: I have another story about how Morgan first met Saito and how she ends up joining Section 9 rattling around in my head; I just haven’t had a chance to write it down yet. This little vignette oozed onto the keyboard first along with another GitS story that I’m still working on. For the record, I prefer to write about “secondary” or non-main characters and OCs; it works best for me.

Death penalties should be seen as a necessary part to both PvE and PvP, providing a sense of consequence to ingame actions. Granted, dying is not always the result of bad player decisions; mob respawn, runners bringing adds, overpulling, etc. can all lead to player deaths. Without any penalty, players would simply be able to suicide run their way through content. Having at least a minimal penalty helps teach the player to be a bit more careful in the future. Yet, games that have little or no penalty for dying are generally seen by a majority of players as more “fun” or “better” to play. Why is this?

More casual players (either PvP- or PvE-oriented) and those new to the genre generally view penalties of any sort purely as a negative and tend to prefer gaining rewards instead. They feel that giving out a reward such as realm points (DAoC) or titles (WoW) leads to a more positive PvP experience overall. No one is penalized so no one suffers any more hardship than returning to their body or hunting location. But even this scenario has a penalty that everyone seems to accept without question – the loss of time.

For both PvE and PvP, the ideal death penalty is one that makes sense within the mechanics of the game (obviously). If equipment is costly (in time, money or effort) to acquire, then losing all items on death is overly harsh. The player is truly being penalized and this has a direct effect on how the player plays the game. They tend to take fewer chances in order to minimize any risks. Yet losing all items on death isn’t much of a penalty if replacement involves nothing more complicated than heading to the nearest NPC vendor. This can promote a more reckless style of play where players frequently get in over their heads and it doesn’t matter in the long run. They’ll just buy new gear and go on their way. The middle ground would seem to be a temporary penalty that is allowed to accumulate over time before becoming significant such as equipment damage, experience loss, stats loss or a combination of these factors.

A death penalty should never be a deterrent to game play. For example, taking some degree of equipment damage doesn’t handicap the player, especially when the damage is only a small percentage of the equipment’s overall durability. The player has the option to delay repairs for a period of time before they are forced to repair in most cases. At the other extreme, losing all equipped items becomes a severe detriment to game play, especially when those items are difficult or time consuming to replace. What is a good balance point between having no consequences (no penalty) and having too harsh a consequence (losing all items) and how does this specifically affect PvP?

Penalties are more important in PvP than PvE because of the reasons for engaging in PvP in the first place - the desire to pit your skills against another person instead of just computer AI. It’s a way to “win” online and garner e-bragging rights. Yet if the losing player suffers no long or short term effects from battle, why bother to compete? Bragging rights can not provide the sole reward for the winner for long, because unless a player is completely incompetent, even the constant loser will eventually win and get to take part in the same (or similar) rewards the winner receives. This premise doesn’t take into account the pure griefer type of PvP player, those who are only in it for the amount of disruption they can bring to another players game time.

When speaking of penalties though, there seems to be the automatic correlation that a reward is also part of the equation, as well it should be. You can’t have a system based purely on punishment; just as having a system based only on rewarding players doesn’t make much sense either. Neither provides a balanced system to the player base.

Balancing the amount of penalty versus reward within the game can be difficult. Why does there even need to be a mix of the two in the first place though? While just providing rewards to the players for winning sounds like the best path to follow, this will eventually lead to the worst form of inconsequential PvP - the endless “zerg rush.” Most know what this is, an endless series of large scale back and forth battles that never seem to end and have no real purpose other than trying to kill someone else before you get killed. Little or any skill is involved in these battles because losing means nothing due to death having no effect at all and winning becomes equally meaningless. Sure you might get a nice title/rank out of it, and maybe be able to pick up some special skills or gear, but then retaining those items is dependant on maintaining said title/rank which means more endless back-and-forth battles, lather, rinse, repeat. Boring.

There needs to be a counter to a player’s ability to immediately return to battle after death. With no consequences, eventually no one really cares about the outcome of battle since there is no true end to the fight. Gaining the reward becomes just another meaningless treadmill of achievement to grind out, and the real reason for PvP - pitting your skills against that of another player - is lost.

As already stated, balancing the mix of reward versus penalty is difficult. Where does the game draw the line between providing players a consequence to their actions and a detriment to their game play? The penalty must be temporary, one that can be removed by the player (repair costs) or that lasts a certain period of time (such as a non-PvP timer). Both methods are appealing because they help to control other aspects of game play without causing serious interruptions. If equipment is given a set durability that is affected by death, then the player as the option to put off repairs for a period of time until either the equipment breaks entirely or no longer provides any protection.

An alternate form of repair is when player statistics are affected by death. When stats are affected, this also affects viability in combat until the player either works off the penalty by earning more experience (such as AC’s vitae system) or speaks to an NPC to be healed (as in DAoC). In both situations though, players are free to continue engaging in combat until they feel the penalty warrants correction. There will eventually be a point when the player has no choice but to repair their items/stats because they are no longer effective, but that decision is controlled by the player. This affects overall PvP by taking the player out of combat for a period of time, no matter how long or short it may be. It’s a counter to the “zerg rush” where players just come back time and time and time and time again, with no thought of strategy or planning.

The non-PvP timer is good because again, it takes the player out of combat for a certain period of time but this is not under the player’s control. This type is usually only used in PvP situations though, and is especially best in free-for-all (FFA) environments for preventing endless killings by much higher level characters or larger groups of players. It’s a getaway card for when you are being corpse-camped. When battles take place near resurrection locations (graveyards, lifestones, bindpoints, etc.) this also prevents players from resurrecting and immediately rejoining the battle. Again, a counter to the never-ending battle.

All penalties and no reward make for a boring PvP game though. So what type of reward is best? One that won’t become another part of the achievement treadmill, obviously, but is that type wrong to have? Not if it’s paired with another reward. Gaining something tangible from the defeated player gives the winner an immediate reward. Sometimes it can be as simple as knowing you caused them damage (equipment, stats, time), but even that isn’t enough after a while, because nothing tangible is gained in return. For example, in DAoC, players would drop money on death. This was not taken from the dying player’s bank; it came from the game itself. Winners were rewarded without penalizing the losers.

A system where players drop inventory items can have it’s drawbacks as well if the players have no control over what drops. In AC, there was a set amount of items which could be lost, based on a formula that was known and eventually well understood by everyone. The players could manipulate the system by carrying other items meant to drop in place of something they wished to keep. Dying in PvP meant that whoever killed a player was permitted to loot those items from the body - the reward. The penalty side was if the losing player did not make it back to his body in time to loot it first, they then had to replace those dropped items or risk losing what they were meant to cover.

In SB, players dropped everything in their inventory at death. This could prove to be a large penalty if a player had been out hunting for a long period of time, but again, it was a known and controllable consequence of dying in that game. Players could take the chance on dropping a large amount of items and gold on death or they could clear their inventories periodically and prevent loss. Similar to AC, the grave was lootable by others if the player did not return to it first.

In the examples given for both systems of reward or penalty, none exist solely on their own. They are all combinations of reward and penalty to different degrees. AC has vitae/stats loss and a non-PvP timer (penalties) along with dropped items/money (both reward and penalty). DAoC has realm points/titles and money (rewards) along with stats loss (penalty). SB has equipment damage and non-PvP timer (penalties) and dropped money/items (both reward and penalty). These rewards and penalties (except for the non-PvP timer and PvP specific titles) apply equally to PvE and PvP, meaning that the system doesn’t change going between the two areas. Players are almost considered mobs in terms of the loot reward system.

For WoW, there is nothing to balance between PvE and PvP. The rules change from killing a mob to killing a player. If you kill a mob, you (almost always) receive items and/or money. If you die to a mob, you receive equipment damage that builds up over time. The rules are known and accepted in play. In PvP, those rules are completely thrown out the window and any sense of consequence is lost. The system of reward and penalty is ignored and since there is nothing to achieve besides a title, nothing matters except trying to achieve said title. Again, boring.

In the most recent patch, WoW has attempted to prevent the endless back-and-forth fights that occur by implementing Battlegrounds (BGs), yet even these have drawbacks. Again, the primary justification for participation is reward. There is a lack of control on player actions after dying inside the BGs; you simply wait for 30 seconds for an automatic resurrection and run right back into the action. For example, in the smaller 10v10 BG where the goal is capture the flag, this means players are far less likely to use any strategy and are more likely to return to the mini-zerg as soon as possible. This method of play is enforced by the difficulty in forming an organized group ahead of time and joining the same BG without waiting multiple hours.

It seems clear that a balanced system of rewards and penalties is best for any game that provides PvP. There is nothing wrong with having consequences to dying in PvE, so why is it considered a bad thing for similar penalties to be in place for PvP? Despite the “more fun” view some have towards no-penalty PvP, in the long run, it ends up being even more empty and “un-fun” for the players.

Originally posted at Grimwell Online.

The use of mods and add-ons is very prevalent in online gaming today, whether or not the game designers permit it. These programs range from the simple (Teamspeak overlay add-on that allows you to see in game who is speaking) and usable by anyone to the complex (programs such as ACTools, which can be used for macroing) which can require more detailed coding knowledge. But even if the intent of such tools is benign, the actual effect can be far more profound and game-breaking in the long run. Before delving too deeply, I’d like to define the terms I’m going to be using. Please note, these are -my- definitions of these terms, and are meant to be the generally accepted uses of these terms.

• Mods - Any outside program designed to work within or in concert with a game. These can either be allowed by devs or used despite being forbidden.
• UIs/Overlays - Replacing game files to redesign or reconfigure the game’s user interface (UI). These can range from specialized artwork to more functional changes.
• Add-ons - Programs used to provide any function not originally intended by the game developers These can be stand-alone programs, part of other programs, or compilations.

Going by those definitions, UI/Overlays and Add-ons are also Mods, and the intent behind all these is the same - to change the game as provided by the developers in some way in order to suit the player. To make things easier on the terminology, I’ll just use “Mod” unless I’m speaking of one of these areas specifically.

As mentioned in the definition, mods can be permitted by the devs, but that permission is usually limited to certain areas. The most common type of mod allowed is probably the Overlay. Since these generally do nothing more than change the look of the game UI, they are relatively harmless. There is no actual interaction with game mechanics. Other forms of add-ons do affect how the game can be played though, and these are the first steps in breaking the games we play.

An application which was meant strictly to help players is Split Pea for AC1. This stand alone program was meant to make learning new spells less tedious. Due to the complexity of the AC1 spell system, learning higher level spells mostly involved several hours of time consuming trial-and-error substitution of reagents. Behind the scenes was an actual mathematical basis to the correct components but the average player wasn’t about to sit down and figure that out. One player did do the math work though, and he wrote a program to automate the tedium.

Sounds like a godsend, right? If you were an AC1 mage, this program was just that. Split Pea succeeded in making learning spells easier, but it also resulted in a explosion of the amount and type of spells that players were using at earlier character levels. Instead of hours upon hours of research, one only had to spend a bit of time plugging in already known spell components to the program and it gave back possible suggestions to use for other spells. Another side effect was the fact that the behind the scenes math was tied into the account and wasn’t specific to the character. Once all spells were learned on character A, then those same spell formulas worked for characters B, C and D as well. For a time, mages reigned supreme in AC1, unbalancing the game for non-mage players to the point were the developers reacted by adding weapons which ignored magic protections. Split Pea, for all its innocent intentions, turned out to have a profound impact on the game itself.

Over time, the use of an add-ons called Decal and its associated plug-ins became almost required to play, at least on the Darktide server. Again, the majority of the plug-ins such as Nerffus Buffus (NB, for automating the buffing process) were meant to be harmless. Prior to NB, players would only buff against the main attack of the mobs they were fighting because of the time limits on the buffs themselves. So when fighting tuskers (bludgeon damage), that protection would be the only one used, leaving the player open to the other five forms of damage in the game (acid, electricity, fire, piercing, slashing). But as with Split Pea, the ability to put up complete protections in approximately five-ten minutes (my own record was around 71 spells in just under five minutes) changed the dynamics of PvP once again.

In addition, guilds competed to see who could code their own macro and detection plug-ins first in order to gain a distinct advantage. Many of these plug-ins allowed players to see beyond the effective range of the in game radar and to select names for a list for easier targeting. All this while the developers seemed to take no notice at all. Unless a mod had a detrimental effect on the game performance itself, such as using the program Gear to over clock the game client, causing severe lag for everyone else in the vicinity and taking years for the devs to finally ban, then nothing appeared to be “out-of-bounds.”

In contrast to Turbine, other game companies haven’t been as laissez-faire towards mods for their games. Mythic Entertainment would ban players caught using mods in Dark Age of Camelot (DAoC) although it’s likely that not all offenders were caught. They never are. Asheron’s Call 2 originally had an area set up in the UI specifically for macros during the beta phase, but this was eventually abandoned for retail and not supported. That didn’t prevent enterprising players from setting up trade-, buff- and portal-bots though, and as in AC1, these types of mods were “overlooked” by the devs. In fact, when the Turbine devs eventually banned the use of unattended combat macros in AC1, the aforementioned bots were specifically exempted. These were perceived as being harmless, yet the ability of a level 10 character to easily have level 7 buffs (the highest available and lasting the longest) enabled players to level much more quickly than usual.

Shadowbane’s UI was one of the most flexible in any game, yet most mods were for graphical updates. Ubisoft/Wolfpack did not officially sanction these, but neither were they specifically banned. Despite the fact that leveling in SB was extremely quick and easy, many players set up AFK leveling macros to speed up the process even more. As in AC1, these macros involved the use of an outside program such as ACTools and were banned. The most common way of AFK macro leveling also involved the use of terrain exploits, with a high-level AOE caster standing in a location unreachable by the mobs and those being leveled standing safely out of the spawn zone. The SB GMs had an interesting way of dealing with macroers who were using terrain issues though. The most common method involved porting the macro-bot and all AFK levelers into reach of the mob spawn. This combined with the free-for-all PvP environment helped to keep the macro populations under control.

With World of Warcraft (WoW), Blizzard not only allows and encourages modding their game, but they police what is being created and ban anything they deem unacceptable, including macroing. Yet the sheer amount of mods available is incredible. In fact, many players are very loyal to a particular add-on or compilation of add-ons and prefer to use these over the default UI provided. In a few cases, Blizzard’s response to the popularity of certain add-ons has lead them to providing similar functionality to the game, such as additional tool bars and changes to the quest log.

As some mods become “required” by the playerbase, Blizzard has co-opted these functions into the default UI. This serves to undermine the use of the mod itself while providing the functionality the players obviously want. A recent example can be found in the 1.11.0 patch notes now on the test server:

User Interface

• Text that a raid leader sends to chat will now be displayed in a different color and will have the [Raid Leader] label.
• There is now a new raid warning chat channel available to raid leaders and assistants. Text that is sent to this channel will appear in the center of the screen for all players in the raid. The channel is called raid warning and text can be sent to it with “/rw”
• Raid leaders now have a Ready Check button on their raid interface. This can also be sent with /readycheck from the chat line. A ready check sends an “Are you ready?” Yes/No dialogue to all players in the raid. The raid leader will get feedback in 30 seconds on all the players who were not ready or who did not respond.
• Players now have a Raid Info button on their raid interface that functions the same way /raidinfo worked before. This function will display a pane showing all of the raid instances that a player is saved to, rather than displaying it to the chat window.

These changes are all straight from the most required raiding mod used - CT_RaidAssist. While the added functions duplicate some areas of the mod, there are still some areas where the mod is still clearly better and it’s use will still be required for quite a while yet.

However, the biggest problem with any mod is the effect it has on the players, raid mods, for example. What happens when they become so used to something not provided by the game itself that they are unable to play without it? In the case of the mod creator stopping development and support, players can sometimes find a replacement to use. But what about patch days? Ongoing content is one of the biggest draws to a game, but the AC1 and now the Blizzard mod communities both suffer from these periodic updates and this can affect the player base in very detrimental ways. Patch days are frequently chaotic for an assortment of reasons not related to mods, but add in mod issues and it can become an extreme hassle. The mod developers can’t update their programs until the game patch is live, and in some cases that can take a while, leaving the users out in the cold, forcing them to find alternates to use, resorting to the default UI or even not playing until the mods are updated.

Eventually the hassle of maintaining an up-to-date set of mods can become too much to deal with. For all that Blizzard has encouraged the development of outside mods for use within WoW, the fact that the most popular of these are broken every patch day is an annoyance, especially when the problems stem from simple name changes within the referenced files used and not related to a necessary coding change. Many of these mods are intended (as usual) to simplify a part of the game that can be tedious (such as mailing multiple pieces of mail at once and automatically filling in the subject line), but others provide more of an advantage to the player; an advantage they are unwilling to do without. The ability to arrange the toolbars anywhere on the screen is one of the most common mods, and is also one that seems to be affected the most in patches.

Other stand-alone programs such as voice communications (Teamspeak and Ventrilo) also prove to be advantageous to PvP gaming. While the use or voice comms is accepted, even expected, in FPS games, it is still debated within the realm of MMOs, just not as strongly as in previous times. The benefits are obvious to all players, not just PvPers. It is far quicker to push a button and say “Rogue sneaking up on the left side” or “Target X!!” than it is to type. Response times are lessened, coordination is improved and surprise attacks can be avoided or minimized. In fact, most guilds have their own voice servers (either self-hosted or rented) and use is strongly encouraged if not required. Solo or unguilded players are left out in the cold, missing out on information they could have gotten previously through text chat. Voice comms means typing out details is no longer common, and text chats become very quiet and slow, to the point where players tend to forget to even read chat. Mixed pick-up groups (PUGs) can suffer from this the most, because the guilded members are all chatting in voice while the non-guilded members are missing out on information if it’s not transferred to text for them to read. This can lead to confusion in mob pulls and helps to lessen some of the social communication that happens in PUGs as well.

But the use of these mods does much more than just fill some perceived lack within the games though. They affect how the player interacts with the game itself. This can be both good and bad. In a way, it personalizes the game for the player, with many showing off how their game screen is laid out in screenshots. But allowing mods also hampers the players ability to play the game as it was designed by the devs, and when the mods are removed, the players can be as well. With the release of the latest AC1 expansion Throne of Destiny, Decal was broken and unable to be used. Players dropped from the game in droves because they had become so dependant on the mod that they couldn’t play without it. It fosters a dependence on an outside factor that can be taken away at any time, and take away from the skill of the player, especially in PvP environments. When playing the game begins to require the use of these outside programs, no matter how beneficial they appear to be, it opens the door to which person has the best collection of mods instead of who is the better player.