IÕve heard you rant at times that "Beyond the Beyond" and "Golden Sun" are "pretty much the same game." Wrong. They are *nothing* alike. BtB, while it has quite a few puzzles in its dungeons, doesn't place as high an emphasis on them as the Golden Suns, for one. Second, BtB's battle system is completely devoid of any fun, what with that horrendously unpredictable Active Playing System, which just involves random button mashing that rarely ever works, and customization, at that, since no equivalent of the Djinni system exists. What exactly made you believe that "Beyond the Beyond" and "Golden Sun" were alike?

-Jeremy, the Duke of Otterland

In your last Q&A section you briefly mentioned the economic "problem" inherent with online RPGs, and by that I assume you mean MMORPGs. I agree with you in the description of what happens and how to change it. With inflation, the purchasing power of your currency goes down, so you now need more to buy the same amount of something, right? The current methods of earning this currency were summed up fairly well by your statement "be it cash dropped by monsters, rewards from quests, or goods craftable from infinitely replenishable resources".

My point is this: during periods of inflation in MMORPGs, you will have to kill more monsters, complete more quests, and spend more time crafting to achieve the same level of gameplay that you were familiar with before. From a gamer's perspective, inflation is a design flaw. However, I'm guessing most developers concerned with revenue would enjoy people playing their game longer. Part of what makes these games so successful is this addiction-fueling gameplay. Maybe one day these companies will find better ways to keep customers playing their games besides leveling treadmills and economic sinkholes. We can only hope.

ansipurge

Googi,

Believe it or not, I came to the same realization about MMORPG economies a while ago, I think when I wandered into a message board where everyone was complaining about IGE and gilselling in Final Fantasy XI causing huge inflation. Yeah, any game with an inflow of capital from "nowhere" (anytime the server gives you cash from a mission, or killing something or whatever) it increases the net cash in-game. Unlike real life, there's no need to spend money simply to survive. A character can apparently go months without food or drink and they don't pay rent. Therefore, all money goes to the acquisition of a fairly narrow selection of goods. As far as I can tell, there are only 3 ways to keep this from turning into runnaway inflation, which is a very bad thing for the non-powergamers who suddenly find the next set of armor they need will take them a month of farming to afford. First, spread the money around by continually introducing new players to the game. This is why the in-game economies look stable for the first 6 months- 1 year after release. Although there is still money flowing in, it's split between an increasing number of players, so no inflation. Option 2 is to somehow siphon cash away from the players to NPCs at a higher rate, which few games do if the economy is supposed to be player-based. The last option is to dramatically increase the rate of rare drops, spiking supply and sending price way down. That's a temporary fix, because once everyone has sword X, they'll go looking for spear X+1, and so on until you reach a point where inflation is, in fact, an issue again or the entire idea of camping is trivialized as the rarest stuff drops once every ten minutes. Hmmm... since this is a Q&A column, I should probably top this off with a question, so here goes: Should MMORPGs allow players to control the economy, or should there be some kind of ingame controls that keeps price and supply at an "acceptable" level, at the cost of player involvement, sort of like a fantasy version of Alan Greenspan? What about games like City of Heros with NO economy whatsoever?

Eakin3

Hey Goog, just wanted to help you out a bit with your Castlevania series info.

Ground Zero is the original Castlevania Trilogy on the NES: Castlevania, Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest, and Castlevania 3: Dracula's Curse. Then on the SNES, there was Super Castlevania 4. While all this was going on, there was a trio of games put out for the original B&W Game Boy, the Castlevania Adventure, Castlevania 2: Belmont's Revenge, and Castlevania Legends. Here is where things start getting a bit fuzzy, but here goes. Castlevania made its first (and to my knowledge, only) appearance on a Sega system when we got Castlevania: Bloodlines, and then we saw a second SNES game called Castlevania: Dracula X, which I myself only heard about less than a year ago. By the time the series moved to the Sony Playstation, it became clear they gave up trying to number them, as we got Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and then Castlevania Chronicles. The Game Boy Advance saw the releases of Circle of the Moon, Harmony of Dissonance, and Aria of Sorrow, and finally we got the last Castlevania game to date on the PS2, which was Lament of Innocence. I think that's about it, and I'm not counting any PC or other versions of the games, since odds are nobody has ever played them (or would admit to it if they did), but there it is.

Now for a question: as we can see from this example, they stopped numbering the Castlevania games after 4, even though the bulk of the series was released after that. This has happened in many other series as well (Contra, Zelda, Super Mario Bros/World/Land, Metroid). I want your opinion on this, is it a desire by the companies to make the series seem less dated (for example, when you go out and buy Castlevania: Lament of Innocence, you're really buying Castlevania 15), or do they just feel the numbering is no longer necessary as long as it has a catchy subtitle? If that's the case, how come we get, for example, Final Fantasy 10 instead of Final Fantasy: The Curse Of Sin, or any other example using RPGs, which seem to have mostly stuck with the numbering system?

Robust Stu

Hi google

I myself am deciding if I should buy Valyrkrie Profile or wait till I can buy a PS2. I am short of money please help me decide. Around my area Valyrkrie Profile is from 70 to 100 just to let you know. I myself have played most of the good PS1 games and am waiting to expand my horrizens to a PS2.

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