Favorite 7 deadly sins of MMOs

With Aion, Fallen Earth coming out and WoW taking water and bloggers trying to figure out wich to play or justifying their choices there’s a lot of talk about what makes a good MMO and what people would like to see improve in MMOs. I want to talk about the things I enjoy in a MMO but are considered bad, unfriendly or evil. In no particular order I present to you 7 mmo sins I do or enjoy that won’t make the world a better place.

-Killing grinds. I love those long grinds where you just kill stuff without really thinking about it. They’re often decried as the worst thing to have in a MMO but I do enjoy the zen moment they procure.

-Faking real life. I will often outright lie and invent real life issue to drop a bad group or simply skip a raid I don’t feel like doing. Tip to know if I’m faking, check to see if I’m still online 10 minutes later.

 -I’m a pvp coward. Fair fights are for rest. Me, I like playing dirty and back stabbing. The goal is to win and I’ll play nice as long as it gets me ahead. But if I can gank you and get away with it your dead pal. Of course if you have the Ultimate pvp weapon of bad-assness I’ll just leave you alone. Like I said, coward.

-I love drive-by ganking: You know how you have from time to time to travel trough the low-level zones and you encounter low-level players you can one shot? I love it. Everytime I try to get the drop on them and one shot them. I just love imagining the guy doing his quests only to see his character drop dead for no apparent reason.

-I’m a vengeful  pvper. If you kill me I’ll do my best to get back at you. I even keep a list of people who ganked me one too often. However the coward rule still applies.

-Ninja the opposing faction: I don’t do it in my own faction, but if I see someone from the opposing faction questing or going after a node I’ll do my best to get it before them. Only way to get at them on pve server.

-Pretend to know the fights. I get fights real fast most of the time. Even if I’m the first one to say people who don’t know the fight should speak up I don’t. I know the truth that once you get that noob tag on your head your done for. In guild tough I moderate myself.

There you go. Won’t help the mmo genre but at least I know what I enjoy. I’m curious to see your lists too!

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Will Aion and me make peace?

A quick update on my recent computer adventures.

First of all for those wondering it seems the “Aion destroy graphic cards” problem is mostly associated with the first generation of directX 10 compatible cards, some of wich are notorious for having problems. So yeah Aion didn’t help but probably so did my card.

Second, I do not plan on stopping blogging, thanks for your concerns but this monkey has  a lot more to say.

Finaly, I would like very much to come back to Aion once I get my new card. However, it will wait until Ncsoft fixes the crysystem.dll bug. This is my condition if they want my money.

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Aion destroyed my computer

Well, it’s my graphic card in fact. You see, yesterday I was playing Aion and suddenly my screen pixellated, screen went black and poof, computer shuted down. To say I was concerned is putting it mildly. So I rebooted in hope it was just a once in a lifetime thing but no, right at startup my screen was showing all sorts of weird colors and lines and I know this to be a sure sign of a dead or damaged graphic card.

If it had happened out of the blue like that I would have screamed, said ugly words and cried inside at the fact my graphic card just died. But I was calm, scary calm. Why? because I half expected this to  happen. While researching the CrySystem.dll bug I came across a few posts with people reporting that Aion had destroyed their graphic cards. Just type “Aion destroyed graphic card” or “aion crashed graphic” and you will have a few results right up there. The other hint  was a real life friend of mine  had to replace his graphic card after it died while he was playing Aion too. The funny part is that both his computer and mine are near identical as we bought them at the same time. I believe in coincidences but not like this and not with multiple people. I searched for my particular graphic card and aion and found a few people whose card died too while playing Aion. Right now it looks like Aion + Nvidia gtx8800 + vista = dead card.

But before blaming it all on Aion, Nvidia recently released new drivers (october 3rd) wich includes  SLI support for Aion. So it’s either Aion fault or Nvidia. My understanding of it all is that every time the Crysystem.dll bug was happening it  was making my graphic card work like crazy wich damaged it in the end. Seriously, if you are getting the Crysystem.dll error consider stopping Aion until they fix it, you could be damaging your card.

So here I am, currently computer less (posting from the job) looking at close to 10 days without it. Since my computer is still on warranty I have to bring it to the shop for my card to be replaced and real life prevents me from going earlier than saturday and I expect a week before getting a new one.

As far as Aion is concerned this will probably means the end of my adventures in that game. It’s tearing me up because I really loved the game and the more I played the more I enjoyed it. I’ve also met a more than awesome guild and I really don’t want to leave them. On the other side, a game wich managed to destroy my graphic card is a big no-way for me, no matter how much I love it.

So what’s next?

Fallen Earth : Syp over at Biobreak really seems to love the game. However the graphics and theme doesn’t appeal much to me. I mean I need my raid bosses and my instances and Fallen Earth just doesn’t seems to be that kind of game.

WoW: Like someone said before me “I learned long ago that Azeroth is never out of the question”. I don’t feel like reactivating my WoW account to be honest. The whole achievement system (LFG pst achievement mantra), the time guilds require you to put in was getting to me. I don’t want to spend 3/4 nights a week stuck in a raid. Or might it have been my old guild who killed the fun for me? I mean I would need to find an awesome no pressure casual guild who understands I can’t always be on. Something like the guild Pike(aspect of the hare)  found.

Another game?: That’s the problem. I have more of less tried most recent MMOs and didn’t stay in any of them. So my options are becoming rather limited.

Anyway, I have two weeks to think about this, hopefully I’ll come up with a solution.

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Aion adventures update

A quick update first on my Aion adventures. Right now I’m level 22 and just started the Eltnen zone. I have to admit I’m rather leveling slowly this time around and it’s not just the game. Right now I have a ton of project requiring my attention wich means I can only devote 1 to 2 hours each day to Aion, if I can spare time at all. Still I try to keep the 1 level a week goal my guild has set and so far I have 2 levels done since saturday so it’s not all bad.

 Also, I am spending a lot of time exploring the different elements of the game instead of simply rushing to get levels. Back in day I was the guy who achieved max level before anyone else but not this time. Maybe I will pick up speed later.. who knows? Still, I’ll try to make 25 before saturday to try out some Abyss with the guild.

CrySystem.dll part 2

 Someone challenged the fact that I was mentally sane and that my knowledge of computers amounted to a retarded snail (in way more colorful terms wich I will spare you). Besides the fact that it’s my job to find out bugs, that I have not yet been fired and that a lot of other tech people on numerous forums have found the same thing I guess you’re just going to have to trust me or make your own opinion.

 Much more interesting was someone asking for what NCsoft could do.

 If we are lucky, NCSoft got on hand some people who knows how the engine works and can open the dll and work on it. If we are unlucky then NCsoft bought the engine and just slapped it in the game without real understanding of its workings. Let us pray we are lucky my friends. Also note that its possible that the crash is not the crysystem.dll fault but rather that NCsoft used it wrong. Like making a round end go into a triangle. Time will tell.

Now time for me to stop slacking and make a few levels!

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Understanding the CrySystem.dll crash

So yesterday, instead of playing Aion and leveling to level 22 so I could be of use to my Legion at some point I spent the afternoon messing around with the infamous CrySystem.dll crash. It had happened to me before a few times but not frequently so I paid no great attention to it. That was until yesterday. As soon as I would step foot in Eltnen Fortress I was bound for a crash, even with the Shift+F12 function activated. So after a while, I’ve decided to activate my software dev super powers and tackle this issue as if it was a my day job. You see, besides being a developer. So yesterday, I put my skills to work to uncover what is going with the Crysystem bug. Warning, this may get technical.

Quick overview, the Crysystem bug is a memory  adress bug caused by the failure of the Crysystem.dll to access multi-threading processor when operating on systems using more than 32bit (ex: vista x64). It is a bug in the Crysis engine that needs to be resolved by NCsoft.

Followed everything? Good. But just to make sure let’s talk about the details (and also make it simpler for you non-computer people). PS: I know this is a gross generalisation of what is going on but its simpler to understand this way.

Graphic processing

First of all to understand our problem I have to explain how graphics are processed by a computer. There’s three component concerned when processing graphics. Your PC who gives memory to the game graphic engine and graphic card (RAM) so they can process what needs processing. A graphic card who does the heavy computing for the game engine and finally the game graphic engine who sends data to the graphic card and display the results from the graphic card. So for example the “display Mojo Dancing” function would work like this:
1.Game engine sends data to the graphic card asking for what Mojo dancing looks like.
2. Graphic card process the data and send it back
3.Game engine displays Mojo dance based on what the graphic card told it should happen.

During this whole time both the game engine and graphic card ask the computer for memory from the computer (RAM).

Memory usage

The second concept I want to explain is how a computer gives RAM to the different programs running. It’s rather simple in fact. Each program ask the computer for a set amount of memory it thinks it needs. For example Aion could say “I need 1gig RAM to work”. Your computer then check if it has the memory to loan and if so it gives it to Aion. When your computer runs out of memory to give it will delay operations. To continue our example if Aion needs 200 mo more and the computer can’t give them it will delay the 200mo until they become available or until it can swap some other process out. This is what creates “lag” in most games. Your computer is overtaxed and programs have to wait while your computer tries to scrounge the memory to make them work.

The Crysis engine and 64 bits systems

The Crysis engine which Aion uses has been in the works since 2005, just before Vista and 64bits systems started coming out. At the time it was built upon a 32bit system, namely windows XP wich was the standard. Back then Microsoft promised that the transition would be smooth and there would be perfect compatibility between vista and Xp. Of course the reality was that it was mostly compatible but with a few differences.

One of these differences is how memory is allocated in a 64bit systems vs a 32bit system. Without going more technical let’s just say that once your past the 2gig of RAM usage (the 32bit limit), problems start to appears since the memory doesn’t work the same.

Putting it all together

So what’s going on with  Aion? Every time Aion requires more than 2gig of RAM it crashes. Why? Because of miscommunication. Let’s say the Crysis engine is using close to 2gig of RAM. It ask your computer for more and your computer says there’s no problem because you still have another 2gig of RAM free. So your computer sends back the adresses of the memory the Crysis engine can use. The problem is that the Crysis engine doesn’t know how to use those adresses past 2gig so it tries to compute until he finaly crashes.

Solving the problem

At the moment there’s no real solution to speak of since the problem resides in the graphic engine of Aion. However the more you minimize the memory usage of Aion the less often you will crash. It sucks but that’s the way it is until NCsoft patches this problem.

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