MMOment of Zen

New Blog

2010-03-24T20:52:00.002-04:00

OK, I guess I can't give up on blogging completely. :)

I'm going to move to tumblr and give that a whirl. My new blog is www.mymomentofzen.com. See ya there!

Time to Move On

2010-03-07T17:12:00.006-05:00

I think I've grown tired of the MMO treadmill. I've cancelled EverQuest II. No, don't worry - no whiny, this is why I'm quitting post follows. It's a fun game, but ultimately, it's just a treadmill, and I've reached a point, where both of my characters had their mythicals, and a decent assortment of fabled, that while they certainly weren't uber in any normal sense of the term, it's as close to winning the game as I care to get.

Hopefully one of these days, we'll see MMORPGs shift from being treadmills to having event-driven gameplay (like Guild Wars 2 promises). Where logging on is driven more by a desire to keep up with the everchanging story and everchanging world, and less by a desire to increase arbitrary numbers. There are enough games like that already, and I think I've grown tired of them. And I'm starting to realize that what I want most in a game is to feel like I'm a part of a damn good story. Bioshock gave me that. Mass Effect gives me that. Dragon Age, Final Fantasy XIII, and Guild Wars give me that.

World of Warcraft and EverQuest II are fun games, but they don't have that. Sure, there's some good writing in some of the quest arcs, but ultimately, the stories do very little to disguise the fact they are thinly veiled plots to get you to run to five random places and click on five random things. That's not entirely bad; it's fun on occasion. And I'm not giving up on MMOs completely: I will play Star Trek Online casually for the time being. And I'll probably check out Final Fantasy XIV when that comes out.

But MMO play is going to move to the backburner; my gameplay time will likely be spent playing single player games. And I also intend to complete one of my dreams: actually publishing my own game, probably for the iPhone. I've started writing a few games as prototypes and just have to figure out what I want to follow through to completion with.

I'm not going to continue updating this site, since I have little to add to the MMO discussion, and I think I've said about all there is to say about MMOs as they are now. Maybe I'll start up again if something revolutionary comes out.

Thanks for reading and I hope you have continue to have a great time wherever your online adventures take you.

Casually Going Where Every Other Blogger Went

2010-02-22T10:13:00.003-05:00

Well, if Raptr is to be believed, and I see no reason why it shouldn't be, I've only been spending between 5 and 10 hours a week in MMOs lately, most of that in Star Trek Online. I popped into EverQuest II for a bit to check out the new quests for some of my lower level alts still in the Kingdom of Sky zones, and to see the battlegrounds. Unfortunately, Battlegrounds was delayed. And since my mains couldn't level without owning the expansion pack, I didn't feel like playing them, since every quest I completed would just feel like XP being thrown away.

I feel like Star Trek Online has been very compatible with my hectic schedule. I can pause the zone quickly on ground missions if I need to stop gaming briefly. And the death penalty isn't severe, so if my baby wakes up crying, I can do the right thing (drop everything to take care of her) without coming back to a mound of XP debt or a long run back to my corpse.

The missions in Star Trek Online are constructed kind of like in City of Heroes. Most of the maps are pretty small though, as you spend time going back and forth between space and ground. This is good: in City of Heroes, I often got bored because the long, winding maps were too large, which was most problematic on missions that required you to kill everything on the map. It wasn't much fun spending half the time on the mission just finding that one last guy hiding in some obscure corner. So Star Trek Online manages to avoid that problem by keeping each portion of the mission nice and compact and bite sized.

The Open Grouping system that Star Trek implements is nice because it allows me to play with other people, but without forcing me to waste valuable game time trying to find them. So far, that's been working well for me.

Not everything about Star Trek is perfect, of course. As many bloggers have noted already, it is very much based on combat. There isn't much to do besides run around and destroy everything. Unless you get one of the horrible missions where some random planet needs some random supply which you never have. I always delete those. There are worse things in MMO game design than killing ten Klingon rats.

Hopefully, over time, they'll add some new gameplay models. Some things I'd like to see in Star Trek Online:

- "Hacking" mini-games like you see in Mass Effect. These mini-games should be used wherever an episode has us hacking computers or bypass or fix various technologies. Instead of simply clicking on them, we should solve a puzzle. The RPG aspect isn't necessarily lost because we could earn skills (which increase the amount of time to solve the puzzle or let us fail more often.)

- Other forms of puzzle solving as a form of clue gathering for stories involving "archaeology" or "investigation." This would also be in the form of a mini-game.

For people who don't want to play mini-games, allow them to recruit NPCs BESIDES Bridge Crew members who provide various perks, such as occasionally auto-solving a mini-game within their career. This way we can collect archaeologists on our ship. They won't be running around on the ground shooting things, but we can have them beam down to solve something real quick if we need to (and maybe on occasion we would have to protect them from any nearby enemies while they worked!).

Or, allow them to recruit help from the player community. Stargate Worlds was going to have a feature where you could call in other PCs to do this type of work as well. Cryptic could borrow that idea as well, giving people who want to focus purely on non-combat scientific research a way to level up AND group up with other players.

- Borrow (but improve on) the Diplomacy card game concept used in Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. Allow us to collect new cards over time as we develop our abilities at negotiation. A mission should involve building a deck (some clues in the text would hint as to what strategy would likely work.)

- Have failure sometimes result in something other than simple respawning. In the real Star Trek, Captain Kirk didn't always get away. Sometimes, he got captured. This was usually an excuse to have him strapped to a torture device bare chested, but perhaps on some missions, if the group wipes, they should reappear in a prison cell.

- Have multiple routes to success. While running and gunning our way through a base, we might come across a large, locked door preventing entrance into an armed compound you need to investigate. Today, we would have to run around to 2 or 3 locations to flip certain switches to unlock it. Keep that, but add alternatives: maybe we could hack the door where it is, if we have someone with that skill set with us. Or maybe there is a way to have a crew member be captured (assuming we are playing with PCs) and THEY are taken inside the compound and are temporarily disarmed of all weapons/shields. Perhaps that character can use Diplomacy (or hand to hand combat) to escape (naturally, their items should be available somewhere and automatically re-equip when discovered) - and they can open the door from the inside easily.

- Steal City of Heroes' Architect system and apply it to the Holodeck.

- Don't forget that half the galaxy seems to be littered with godlike beings who toy with humanity and can disable our weapons with a thought. Do so IN A PVP setting, so Feds and Klingons have to compete against each other using the non-combat gameplay systems to achieve their objectives.

- Have missions where the enemies are too tough to defeat and we have to sneak by them, avoiding aggro, or simply running from them, while completing our objectives. Devices that reduce awareness or distract enemies (having alarms that can be triggered which affects how the guards' AI pathing is implemented) would aid in this form of gameplay.

Features like these would be nice to haves in any MMO, but they are especially needed in Star Trek Online, because it is severely lacking in non-combat options. And Star Trek was a show where characters were usually very diplomatic.

Stat Changes in EQ2

2010-02-08T13:17:00.004-05:00

With the coming expansion pack in EverQuest II, there will be changes to how statistics work. Sony is "streamlining" stats such that there will be ONE statistic that is the primary statistic you need for each archetype. Tanks will focus on STR, mages on INT, scouts on AGI, and priests on WIS.

While I am not in beta and won't know how well the changes work until the expansion pack comes out, I am a little wary. Part of the fun in an RPG is balancing trade-offs. Having to pick between items with a lot of STR to increase damage, or INT to increase the likelihood of critical hits, or WIS for better resists, well that's basically what makes itemization FUN.

What fun is there if everything has a very clear and obvious upgrade?

Going Where No Grind Has Gone Before

2010-01-14T10:25:00.010-05:00

I've been playing the Star Trek Online open beta. Well, trying to mostly. The lag is intense, and I frequently crash out or suffer hitching or "server not responding" errors. But that's the point of beta. Hopefully they're gathering some good information from my playtime. I suffered a few issues, such as zoning into an instance without my party (I was supposed to zone into an open instance with another group, but I ended up alone, facing 15 Orions on my own. The battle did not go well.)

And sometimes I end up beaming back to my shop, only to somehow end up BECOMING my ship. Because of some strange quantum entanglement due to diapose leakage in the arlithiation chambers of course. Here's me, zooming around outer space:

But I have been able to play it enough to say: I'm liking the game. It's exactly what I thought it would be. There are a lot of people who seem to hate it. It seems to me a lot of people don't like the instanced nature of the game. You know what, guys: get over it. Not every game can suck like Vanguard. I don't think an open world sandbox would really work with the Star Trek IP anyway.

The game really resembles Pirates of the Burning Sea in many ways. It is incredibly instanced, which some people criticized POTBS for as well. When you are flying around in sector space, you are in a different scale than in the battle zones, similar to how your boat was scaled differently when travelling between ports in Pirates of the Burning Sea.

Just like Pirates of the Burning Sea, ships fly around in two scales: sector space and system space. In sector space you fly much faster given the distances because you are technically going around at warp speed. You are also as bad as the planets on the map. In system space, you appear more closely to scale. It's fine, it's just an abstraction, and works better in this context than it did in Pirates of the Burning Sea where everyone turned into a speedboat half the size of a city upon leaving port until they got too close to a pirate.

Ship combat in Star Trek Online rocks. It's a lot of fun, especially with groups. Star Trek Online features an open grouping feature; while working on some of my episodes, when zoning into an instance, I would join an existing group to tackle the content. Not having to mess around with LFG is awesome.

Most missions (at least the ones I've tried so far) start out with some in space action and then transition for some ground based action. That's where this game is weakest.

Avatar combat is flaky. The animations are stiff, and when the enemies run up really close to you, the fights look funky. But, still, it's typical MMO combat: you tab over to your enemy, hit some hotbar buttons, and watch their shield and health bars go down.

One killer feature of the game is that everyone is a pet class: if you don't have a full group, the rest of your away party is made up of bridge personnel you can collect over time, or generic security officers (red shirts). This makes it really easy and accessible to solo, since you always have a full party.

But an MMO that you solo through entirely just isn't a true MMO is it? That's why it's great that Cryptic borrowed the Open Grouping concept that Mythic pioneered in Warhammer Online. When you start an episode you will automatically be grouped with other players who are working on the same quest. If there aren't anyone around, well you still have your pets or can LFG the old fashioned way. But Open Groups makes the game feel more organic. I'm playing on MY terms. I go to the system *I* want to go to. But I get to play with other people, if someone else is working on the same thing I am. All without having to sit around, twiddling my thumbs, spamming in a chat channel.

Is Star Trek Online innovative? No, not really. It's standard MMO gameplay, but it builds on the most recent innovations in MMO gameplay (open groups, public quests via Fleet Actions, etc.). Is it true to the IP? I think so. Granted, I haven't had the opportunity to use diplomacy yet (though I hear they have those missions), and the game is much more trigger happy than the series. That's probably to be expected, really, since all MMOs tend to be about groups of heroes valiantly banding together to commit genocide on the local wildlife. That's Lord of the Rings Online in a nutshell. At least in Star Trek Online, it's mostly humanoids we're slaughtering.

It would be nice if they had stolen Vanguard: Saga of Heroes diplomacy card game mechanics to provide additional non-combat avenues for playing. But the game is complete enough that I'm quite content with what it offers.

The zone chat is filled with people who aren't though. Mostly, I think, it boils down to these issues: too many instances and too much combat. Too many instances - yes, it's annoying to click on every door and watch a loading screen, but Star Trek wouldn't really work well as a open world sandbox. It's more about the episodes (e.g., the quest system) and quests just work better with instances and scripting.

As for too much combat, well, yes, Vangaurd's diplomacy system, Oblivions speechcraft system, or even Spore's dance-off contests would have been a nice addition, but you know what? As much as I'd love to dance that Klingon ambassador into accepting my terms, most video game players, especially with a group, simply enjoy combat more. So it's naturaly they would focus on that. I'm sure if we hound Cryptic long enough, they'll add some more gameplay systems as well.

But the game is quite complete already and a good foundation for much more to come. The open group instances system makes playing on my terms fun by taking out the more tedious aspects of MMO grouping while still encouraging socialization. Every MMO from now on should build in matchmaker or auto-grouping systems. Sure, it would be nice if I could explore strange new lands without having to blow everyone up, but it's REALLY FUN when we do. Ship combat, in particular, is a blast.

So, I say: Beam Me UP, Cryptic.

New Year, New MMOs

2010-01-10T22:56:00.003-05:00

Well, it's a new year, and time for new MMOs. Unfortunately, I haven't had too much time to play the ones I subscribe too already. :) And that will likely drive my decision making processes as I look for a new MMO lands to venture into. I'm not likely to quit EverQuest II any time soon -- it's been my home for over five years now -- but I do find myself in need of something that I can jump in and play solo when necessary, but still has a satisfying group-based game for when I do have more time to commit. And the solo game in EverQuest-like games (especially WoW) just is not that appealing. So I've been looking for a more accessible casual friendly (but still social) MMO to play on the side.

One game I'm looking forward to is Star Trek Online. The missions (story-driven quest arcs?) sound appealing, and I hear rumors of instant action like scenarios. Give me something like Warhammer's Public Quests and instant access PvP Scenarios and I will be a very happy man. Those features allowed my to play WITH OTHER PEOPLE but on my own terms and with very short time commitments required. It was beautiful. Too bad the rest of Warhammer wasn't. If Star Trek Online could just steal that feature, plus the awesome ship combat a la Pirates of the Burning Sea, I think I'll be happy with it.

I'm also looking forward to Final Fantasy XIV. Final Fantasy XI was one of my favorite games in terms of mechanics and itemization. The monsters were beautifully detailed and the game was a lot of fun - when I got to play it. Unfortunately, the time commitment it required was prohibitive, and I eventually had to quit as the responsibilities in my life ramped up. But if Final Fantasy XIV can create a game system that is as good PLUS be casual friendly, well, SOE watch out, I may have a new home.

The main feature in Final Fantasy XIV that attracts my attention is that the guildleves system they describe seems like it would scale up depending on my ability to socialize. If I have to quickly get in game and out on my own, I can solo - otherwise, I can group, and the game's equivalents of quests will accomodate. Unless I'm misinterpreting that.

So it looks like the next year might be a good year for casual MMO gaming. But we'll see. :)

Reasons Why EQ2 Is Better Than WoW (Or Any Other MMO on the Market Right Now)

2009-11-28T19:47:00.009-05:00

In honor of EverQuest II's fifth year anniversary, Professor Syp asks us to blog reasons why we feel EverQuest II is better than WoW. I made a post similar to this before, but I suppose there's no harm in doing it again. As the Sypster demands, I will refine my list down to five core features that I think define the EverQuest II experience; these are the features that World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, and other MMO games on the market simply can't match.

Five Reasons Why EverQuest II > World of Warcraft

1. Mentoring and Level Scaling -

The leveling system in MMORPGs is great for providing a sense of progress, but it has its drawbacks. Two of the most significant problems are:
- Levels separate players who otherwise would want to play together.
- Levels block you from a lot of the content in the game.

EverQuest II addresses both of these issues by making leveling more flexible than in other games.

In EverQuest II it doesn't matter what level two players are -- they CAN play together. Using the Mentoring system, high level players in EverQuest II can lower their level so they can play with newer players who might not have a character that is as developed. To play with real life friends can be a chore in World of Warcraft since as a higher level character, you will completely trivialize their quests, and you get no reward. With the Mentoring feature, the higher level character still DOES get a reward, in the form of bonus Alternate Advancement XP. If the higher level character isn't at the level cap, they also still gain a small amount of normal XP as well.

In addition, if you are looking for something to do, EverQuest II provides two ways to ensure that a lot of the content is accessible to you. Many dungeons scale to the level of the party. And if there is content that does not scale in level, you can always temporarily de-level yourself to take on that content as a less powerful form of yourself using the Chronomagic feature.

2. More Interactable World

EverQuest II has several quests that involve:
- walls you can climb
- walls you can destroy
- explosive barrels you can move around
- crates you can move and stack on top of one another to get past a barrier
- items in your inventory that you can place at physical locations in the world [such as a flag that, when placed, allows guild members to teleport to that location]
- items you need to placed at certain locations in a dungeon to trigger events

The majority of quests don't involve this level of interactivity, and I tend to take them for granted, but every time I try to play another MMO, such as World of Warcarft or Lord of the Rings Online, I notice that the quests just aren't quite as involved. The world seems more decorative. The extent of interaction with the world that I experienced in World of Warcraft was simply clicking on items at a certain location to trigger quest updates [EverQuest II, of course, has that too].

3. Crafting

EverQuest II has a much more interesting crafting system than almost any other fantasy MMORPG. Vanguard: Saga of Heroes might have a superior system [I didn't craft in that game, but from what I read, it was more involved.] In World of Warcraft, however, it is simply a matter of gathering ingredients, and clicking on a button to make your items. After that, tradeskilling resembles Progress Quest.

In EverQuest II, you have to use abilities in a mini-game, to build your items. It could be better [I would prefer more variety to the mini-games, like in Warhammer Online or Free Realms], but it is much better than World of Warcraft's take on crafting.

Another nice feature about crafting: it's a separate advancement track from adventuring. This used to be the case in World of Warcraft as well, at least in beta, but for some reason they changed that and put in skill caps based on your character's level. I think that was a poor decision. Some people just want to craft: EverQuest II gives them the ability to do so. It even offers quests and missions, even crafting "raids" that tradeskillers can go on even if their character stays perpetually at level 1 in adventurer levels.

4. Adjustable Leveling

EverQuest II has a feature called Alternate Advancement XP (AA XP). AA XP are the EverQuest II equivalent to Talent Points. They let you unlock abilities in various trees that increase the abilities of your character. However, in World of Warcraft and Age of Conan and most other games, these abilities are tied to your character's level.

In EverQuest II, you have a slider so you can determine how much of the XP you earn from combat goes to normal XP or AA XP. Also, you earn bonus AA XP from completing quests and the first time you kill named monsters or discover a new area. These means you can choose to race to the level cap (and be weak for that level), or take the slow, more casual route and make yourself the strongest possible character for any level.

In addition to this, you can also shut off XP gain from combat, tradeskilling, or completing quests completely. If you are a completist and want to finish all the quests in an area before outleveling it, you can do so. (You could also just use the Chronomagic feature to delevel yourself, but still, the choice is there.) If you want to lock a character at a certain level forever, you can do so.

5. Appearance Armor

In World of Warcraft, every character looks like a clown with ugly, mismatched armor. And huge spiked shoulder pads usually. Unless they have a complete set and then they might look a little decent, but they'll look like every other character of the same class at that same point in the raid progression.

In EverQuest II, you have a separate tab in your inventory you can use to put in items that override the appearance of the armor you are wearing. This means your hero can truly look like a hero and not a clown with spiked shoulder pads.

Many of the rewards in the game are purely cosmetic in nature - and it's still fun to try to collect them. A game need not be a neverending treadmill of increasing statistics to be fun, and EverQuest II proves that. (Though, of course, it still offers the treadmill of increasing statistics, for those that want that, as well.)

Conclusions

EverQuest II has something for everyone. Raid types can concentrate on getting the most powerful items. More casual players have content that rewards appearance armor so they can just doll up their characters so they LOOK cool. The amount of variety in the content is staggering. There is plenty to do for both crazy hardcore raiders as well as more casual players like myself.

It's not perfect: clearly, the designers of the game went to great lengths to give it more of everything: more quests, more classes, more races, more zones, more everything. And in some cases, this becomes more of an annoyance: in particular, I don't like how I have nine hotbars filled to the brim with abilities and baubles and what not that I always use. Luckily, the designers ARE aware of that: the next expansion pack doesn't introduce new abilities that go on your hotbar; instead, they add new abilities that are triggered as combos.

However, for the most part, the sheer amount - and more importantly, variety - of content that is available to you, regardless of the class and level of character you play, is what keeps me coming back to EverQuest II.

Direct Downloader's Fate

2009-11-13T23:47:00.002-05:00

I'm pretty excited about the new Sentinel's Fate expansion pack that's due in February of next year. Based on the trailer, it looks great. The artists in EQ2 are doing a great job in creating spell effects, armor, and monsters, that rival even some of the newer games on the market. The game's look has improved dramatically in the last few years; it's a far cry from the much maligned sea of gray and brown textures that the game had when it launched.

One thing that bothers me are the increasing number of extra items that you can only get by purchasing a game in a certain format. This isn't a criticism of EverQuest II in particular; Age of Conan and World of Warcarft all have bonuses or collector's editions or special in-game items you can only get through one channel or another.

However, once upon a time the difference were little figurines or fluff in-game items like a pet dragon that couldn't leave your home (and that was controversial enough at the time!) Nowadays we seem to be suffering from perkflation, as the extra perks that come with the retail pack has expanded to include things like the best mounts in the game and 7-day headstarts before anyone else can play.

Now, I do understand that offering retail perks is important to help get the game onto shelves, which helps attract new players. Apparently some people actually leave their homes to shop. But there's a line somewhere there that shouldn't be crossed, and I get the feeling, like so many other things in the recent past (particularly Legends of Norrath loot cards), we're getting precariously close to crossing it. If we haven't already. I don't know. It's only seven days and then the perk is useless, so it's not a huge deal. Except that if I don't buy it I may end up having to solo those seven days because the rest of the server are in the new zones. But still...

Where do you draw the line?

Finally Some Brawler Love

2009-10-21T20:30:00.003-04:00

A dev post on the main forums hints that EverQuest II brawlers will be getting some love in the expansion pack. FINALLY!

Brawlers are getting a lot of changes with the expansion so I would recommend a little patience until we can reveal the full scope of what is being done.

There are no details yet, but brawlers have had a hard time in recent expansion packs since we don't DPS as well as scouts or mages (nor should we) and we don't tank as well as (equally talented and geared) plate tanks. The only consolation is the fact that we solo very well. Which is nice, I guess, but if I just wanted to solo, I'd probably be playing Neverwinter Nights...

Hopefully, the devs will realize the brawlers have a little fighter icon next to them, and we will be able to tank with better survivability and manageability so parties will no longer feel the need to specify "LF ***PLATE*** TANK" when they need a tank.

Gotta Captcha Them All

2009-10-20T20:17:00.005-04:00

Aion is going to have a change in an upcoming update to help keep bots from monopolizing the game's resources. On paper, that sounds great, but they decided to implement it by putting a debuff on the player after gathering, which is removable by answering a captcha.

LOL.

While combating bots is a good thing, I think this is a very poor and laughable implementation. I'd prefer it if they did something that was in the context of the game. Age of Conan, for instance, sometimes spawned NPCs that would attack you when harvesting, like bandits or druids [angered that you were felling a sacred tree or whatever]. They posed little threat to a player that was paying attention, but a bot would be taken down eventually.

A better alternative would be to make harvesting/gathering involve a mini-game, like the ones in Free Realms.

Devs, if you really want to combat bots, just make the gameplay fun. Don't make crafting and harvesting a simple matter of clicking on a button and waiting. Make it something you have to play and react to.

Legends of Screwing You Over

2009-10-16T18:28:00.008-04:00

Sony has decided to change the "Standard Format" requirements for Legends of Norrath gameplay to invalidate the oldest sets of cards. This makes cards from the earliest decks illegal in tournaments, and in raids and Scenarios you must use a Standard Format compliant deck or else it will not give a reward.

I can understand some of the reasoning behind it. As they add new sets with new cards, the complexity of the game grows exponentially. I think it even makes sense in tournament play as it helps to create a more level playing field. Veteran players are more familiar with all the cards since the game first came out, but by limiting tournament play to the most recent sets, newer players only have to learn the most up to date cards to become competitive.

Where I have a problem with this is that they decided to make it so the Player vs Computer Scenarios in the game (which sometimes give rewards such as new Legends of Norrath cards or loot cards) no longer reward the player if they aren't using a Standard Format deck.

This means, among other things, that you can't get a reward for playing an Oathbound Scenario using cards FROM THAT SET.

I understand limiting some cards, especially from older sets, that are unbalanced, but invalidating entire sets at a time for casual play against the computer is simply ridiculous, especially when it invalidates cards that were perfectly valid against those scenarios when they were introduced!

As a casual player, I simply do not want to constantly have to rebuild every single deck every time a new deck comes out because I have tons of cards from a now obsolete set. I think, IF Sony simply HAS to make these kinds of restrictions, they should instead have three formats:

- an Open format which allows any cards for casual competitive play or unrewarded play against the computer
- a Tournament format which, like the current "Standard" format, eliminates the oldest sets
- and a "Scenario" format which allows any card from any set except the cards that are the most broken... there should be very few of these cards.

But even this approach would still has its disadvantages:

One of the main reasons to play a trading card game is to be able to trade cards, but now they are making it so old cards become worthless! This is backwards. In Magic: the Gathering, my oldest cards became MORE valuable when they went out of print. In Legends of Norrath, they are useless to trade. They are useless in tournaments. Hell, they are useless when I'm sitting at home, just playing by myself!

Imagine that: a collectible card game where there's no point in COLLECTING. Great job, Sony.

I can accept having to replace a few cards on occasion. But having to rebuild every single one of my decks that I've constructed that have cards from pretty much every set (and therefore will break every time a set comes out) is simply not my idea of fun. And not being able to gain rewards unless I rebuild all my sets takes away a powerful incentive to keep playing.

While I understand that Sony has some good reasons for wanting to make this change, this really comes off more as a cheap money grab. It comes off more as if they are just being lazy so they can simply reintroduce existing cards with new artwork in new sets instead of coming up with new ideas; and a way to force us to buy new cards just to keep playing the game.

The sad thing, I WAS going to buy new cards. Until I read about this. Now, I'm simply not going to bother.

You Are Not Worth $15 A Month

2009-10-12T20:57:00.002-04:00

Apparently Alganon, the WOW clone you probably never heard of will be distributed exclusively by Direct2Drive, which isn't surprising since this isn't a AAA game shop with a AAA title we're talking about. Yet for some reason they are thinking of charging $15 a month, the same as all the AAA titles out there.

Seriously guys, what are you smoking? If you charge $15 a month, you better offer something really amazing, because you are competing with Aion, WoW, Age of Conan, Lord of the Rings, and the EverQuest games.

You, Alganon, are in a different camp entirely. You look like a painfully clunky WoW clone and your major competitor is FREE. And it's pretty apparent from your forums that you aren't blessed with the same kind of financial backing.

I'm going to bet Alganon reinvents itself as a free to play game - like Spellborn did - within 6 months. Or goes under. Hopefully I'm wrong.

It Sounds Wrong

2009-10-03T11:37:00.004-04:00

The sound effects in Aion bother me. There's nothing necessarily wrong with them. They sound like the kind of effects you'd hear in any JRPG. And I'm a huge fan of the Final Fantasy series which has similarly video game-y sounds. But, for some reason I can't quite explain, it bothers me in an MMO.

The jarring sound the guards make when you alert them in Metal Gear Solid doesn't bother me. But the metallic beep-beep sound that occurs when you draw aggro in Aion irritates me to no end.

I guess I'd rather hear the bear growl or the monster shout or something a little more "realistic" in an MMO. I don't want a constant reminder that the virtual fantasyland I'm immersing myself in is just make believe. But that's exactly what the video game sounds do for me.

Travelers Might Get Me Traveling... to Another Game

2009-10-01T14:06:00.011-04:00

When Legends of Norrath was first introduced, we were told that the loot cards would only be "fluff" and would not impact the gameplay. The new Legends of Norrath card game loot pack promises exclusive "new quests in EverQuest® and EverQuest® II that open all new chambers and rewards of loot and XP". To me, that goes well beyond the definition of "fluff"...

In EverQuest II, I have not specifically bought cards for the loot cards (I have bought packs but I play Legends of Norrath on occasion. Most of my loot cards came from the free ones that come with the subscription.) I have never bought in game items for Station Cash.

I HAVE bought things (hirelings and unlocking the monk class) in Dungeons and Dragons Online. Willingly. It doesn't bother me there.

The main reason why I'm ok with the RMT in Dungeons and Dragons Online but not in EverQuest II -- it FEELS optional in Dungeons and Dragons Online. I'm not subscribing so I control exactly how much I want to spend.

On the other hand, in EverQuest II, the really valuable RMT is locked up in loot cards which you MAY OR MAY NOT get. You could spend hundreds of dollars and end up with nothing but trash. The Station Cash items I don't have much of a problem with, except I'm already paying for two subscriptions and some of the best looking items in game have to be paid for! Unlike Legends of Norrath cards, I have NO chance of getting them with my subscription alone. That's simply doing RMT wrong.

EverQuest II is obviously not going to get rid of RMT and microtransactions now. But it needs to do a Dungeons and Dragons Online makeover soon or I'm probably done with it.

- Subscription fees need to be optional, like in D&D.
- You need to be able to level to the cap without spending a dime, just like in Dungeon and Dragons Online.
- You need to be able to play much of the content in game (maybe reserving some instances like Nektropos Castle for subscribers or people who unlock the individual instance), just like in Dungeons and Dragons Online.
- Subcribers need to get a stipend of Station Cash just like we get free Legends of Norrath cards every month.
- Subscribers should be able to earn Station Cash in game by completing quests (just like Turbine Points are awarded in game)
- Do Legends of Norrath boosters still drop in game? It's been ages since I've seen one. Put them back or increase the drop rate for subscribers. (It can be an extra loot popup just for subscribers just like quest loot appears only for the people who need them.)

Subscribers should be able to get anything you can PAY for just by PLAYING for them.

Dungeons and Dragons Online does microtransactions right. They work (for me) because they FEEL optional. I don't FEEL like I HAVE to buy anything. So I am quite willing to. They've made a lot of money off of me when I had written the game off at launch. My friends and I are thinking of starting a guild in game (none of us subscribe so we have to pay for the right.) Hell, I think in this first month I already spent more than a one month subscription costs.

But EverQuest II seems like it is treading down a road where every month it feels like my subscription is worth less and less. Which makes me want to spend less and less money on the game. See how that works, Sony?

Can I Borrow Some Hours?

2009-09-22T23:54:00.007-04:00

Like Blue Kae, I'm playing too many games for the meager amount of time I have free. I don't generally even start playing until after 9, because my job is pretty demanding with the hours, plus I decided to do some consulting on the side. And then of course I have a wife and a baby that have demands (particularly the baby!) and a house to maintain. But somehow I still manage to squeeze in enough time to explore some of these online worlds that fascinate me.

So what have I been playing?

EverQuest II

Well, EverQuest II still. I have two accounts. I am going to start a third account for a month (since, with Refer-a-Friend, it doesn't really cost extra) so I will try my hand at triple-boxing. I'm sure that will make doing quests somewhat of a nuisance, but I don't really like quests anyway. Instead, I'll try plowing through some of the dungeons solo. I don't know what it is about multiboxing in EQ2 that I enjoy so much, but it's a lot of fun. I've always like playing multiple characters; the first CRPGs I played were games like Might and Magic and Bard's Tale where you created and controlled a full group at a time.

Dungeons and Dragons Online

I have some real life friends I meet up in Dungeons and Dragons Online. I'm still enjoying the game, but I had some awful PUG experiences. I think my last group was started by a ten year old. It fell apart miserably. This could be a drawback of having a free to play game: there is no barrier to entry for maturity. Not that an 18 year old with a credit card and a summer job is that mature, but at least they might be able to form a coherent English sentence. When you are doing elite difficulty quests, that ability comes in handy.

Aion

Lastly, I'm playing Aion. I paid for it, so I figure I may as well. So far I've only gotten to level 6, so no further than I did in beta. I haven't earned my wings. I think I should at least do that before making my final judgment. But, so far, I'm really not liking the game.

I know people say you can't judge an MMO after only a few hours of gameplay, but I think that's crap. I mean, granted, I can't judge the PVP, since I haven't tried it. And I can't judge the end game. But I can tell you that 99% of the gameplay is the same old quest based grind we get in World of Warcraft and EverQuest II. And it's mostly really simplistic quests like: kill X or run to someone and click on them.

EverQuest II is rife with those quests too, but it tends to shake them up a bit with other kinds of quests as well: discovery quests, quests that require using an item in your inventory in some fashion, quests where you have to avoid killing the mobs you are fighting, etc. So it shakes things up, and that's what keeps me interested.

The combat, so far, is dull, but then combat in EQ2 was dull under level 10 as well. Mostly I root or slow the mob and shoot them a couple times with ranged magic attacks. Rinse, repeat. I'll have to find a dungeon or a named and see how things differ in a group or against more elite mobs, but I haven't found those yet.

What Next?

Well, I guess I'll have to focus, and that's likely to be EverQuest II again. I just can't seem to find a game to replace it. I guess that's a good thing.

I'll probably keep D&D Online going on the side, but just when my real life friends are in game since the dungeons are a blast with the right company. I don't know how much longevity the game will have, for me, if my friends get bored of it and move on: the problem I have with it so far is that, even with henchmen, you really need to group, but my PUG experiences have been extremely poor so far.

I have a feeling I won't be continuing the Aion subscription after the free month expires. When I feel like I've toured the world enough to get a good feel for it, I'll move on and find something else to fill up those free hours. I'm not sure what that will be. Maybe something to give me a reprieve from all these fantasy games I play:

I'm somewhat curious about Fallen Earth because I like the idea of a sandbox based gameplay and I like the post-apocalyptic setting. However, I don't think what is obviously not a AAA title should be charging the same subscription fee as the leaders of the pack like World of Warcraft. It doesn't even look polished from the screenshots, and while I can tolerate that if the gameplay is solid, it should still be priced accordingly.

I'm also curious about Champions Online but mostly from a comparative standpoint, to see how it fares in gameplay compared to City of Heroes. I also like the idea behind the Nemesis system.

Or maybe I'll play more single player games or, heck, get back into some non-computer game related hobbies, like writing music again. Either way, I really need more hours in the day for everything I want to do.

This Only Happens Once

2009-09-20T17:36:00.005-04:00

Ah - the excitement of a new MMO, as throngs of new players log on for the first time, breathe in the fresh air of a new world, and shout in unison "OMFG LOL ROFLCOPTER GOGOGOGO WHERE MY BROS AT".

I know I said I think I wasted my money on Aion on my twitter account (@mymomentofzen). That opinion hasn't changed. But I did preorder it, so I may as well give it a somewhat more serious look. At least for the month I've already paid for.

So far, after getting to level 3 and having the server kick me off, all I've seen is this lovely "server is full, wait 4 hours" message.

It's Like Multiboxing On a Single Account

2009-09-18T08:55:00.004-04:00

Recently I've been playing Dungeons and Dragons Online. I tried the game when it first launched and enjoyed it, but it never seemed worth the $15 a month. So I played off and on for a month and quit. Never looked back.

Now it's free to play. And you know what? They actually made $12 off of me yesterday. And you know why I was so willing to plunk down money on DDO when I never paid for microtransactions in any other game (including Runes of Magic, Atlantica Online) or paid extra for a freemium tier (in games like Dungeon Runners)? Because I didn't feel like I had to. I was already having fun. Paying extra felt like it was something I just wanted to do. That's the trick. Turbine did microtransactions right.

One of the features I've really been enjoying are the hirelings. Part of the reason for this is - I simply enjoy playing with more than one character. It just feels more natural. I grew up on games like Bard's Tale and Wizardry and Might and Magic where you took an entire part through dungeons.

Nowadays games like World of Warcraft design most of the content so that its soloable. But here's the problem: since they can't tell in advance what skills any player will bring to the table, the quests and mobs are designed for the lowest common denominator. Which means they don't deal much damage to threaten a tank because that would cause them to destroy the cloth armor classes. Which means they can't have so much HP that they challenge a wizard because the tanks would still be fighting their very first mob when that wizard gets to the level cap. Which means the quests can't require you to do things like feign death or sneak or disarm a trap as a part of the quest without inexplicably requiring you to do so with a specific bauble.

So the quests and mobs became more of a chore. They aren't that exciting. You have your spell rotation and know exactly what you are going to do for almost every solo mob in the game.

With games that allow hirelings, there's no problem like that. Designers can expect that you will have an array of different skills and will likely have a rogue, a healer, and a tank in the group. They can have quests that expect one person to be in one place while another player has to do something elsewhere (pull a lever, keep two monsters separated, whatever.)

With hirelings, you tackle the same group content that everyone else does. Only you have NPCs to pad the party out for those times when you can't find a group (one of the reasons I quit DDO originally was the sometimes lengthy spells I'd be jumping up and down in a bar shouting LFG) or don't want to find a group (not necessarily because I'm antisocial - maybe I just know my baby will wake up within the hour and want to start on a dungeon but know I might have to go AFK for 30 minutes at any moment.)

So Dungeons and Dragons Online has been a lot more fun. Since I can always find a group - I can make my own when other players aren't doing what I need or want to do - there's no unwanted downtime. I just go and find the quest, summon some help, and go. And the game play is more interesting: playing NPCs allow you to bring more skills to the table since you are no longer confined to a very narrow role.

It hasn't been entirely without challenges. The NPCs do exactly what I tell them and a single misclick can cause them to rather happily run through the acid laden spike traps until they die. But that's part of the fun.

What about grouping? MMOs should encourage grouping right? I agree. Hirelings also improve grouping. I've convinced some real life friends to give Dungeons and Dragons Online a shot. Early on, we ran into a problem: I play a paladin in my real life D&D campaign and I decided to recreate that character in game as my main. My friend also made a paladin as well. I also have a cleric and a monk and a wizard but I didn't want to play them at the time. There was a specific quest I wanted to finish, on my paladin. My friend's other character (he only had two slots) was still on the starter island and couldn't group with me. We weren't going to get far without a healer, unless we played the easier difficulty levels. But no problem! We bought one in game and off we went.

Hirelings in Dungeons and Dragons Online could be better. The way theya re implemented, they are temporary. But in some games they are permanent and have their own inventory and skills. Guild Wars, for instance, allows you to have Heroes that you can improve in game. That's a great way to introduce lateral progression to a game. Instead of simply adding more and more levels, a game with Heroes can add more variety to the Heroes, and players will be addicted on two fronts: collecting all the Heroes, and leveling each of them up.

I wish more games would move away from the dichotomy between group content and solo content. The solo content is generally just no fun. But the more interesting, challenging, and scripted content, the dungeon crawls, have historically been relegated to groups only. To make games more accessible to the casual time-challenged players, instead of dumbing down the mobs and the quests, it's much better to let players round out the party and fill needed roles with NPCs.

I wish EverQuest II had hirelings. But if they did it well, they'd probably lose my second account. And there are a LOT of EverQuest II players who at least dual box. So I guess that won't happen. :)

Another NCSoft MMO Bites the Dust

2009-09-17T23:17:00.002-04:00

Dungeon Runners is shutting down. I can't say I'm surprised. I tried the game a few times and thought it was cute, but ultimately I decided the game wasn't for me. The game used a freemium model of play where you could optionally choose to pay for extras. Though those extras included better loot and stacking potions, and without them inventory management was annoying, so it kind, to me, like it was necessary.

I wasn't attracted to the humor or the cartoonish graphics. The game didn't take itself seriously at all, which might be part of the appeal to me, but not for me. They are putting a nuke in the main town set to blow up when the servers go down for good. Yeah, a nuke. And some of the weapons included pizza cutters and guitars.

So it's not a game that I'll miss. Though I have to wonder what's going on with NCSoft after several consistent failures in a row. Of course it makes no sense to run a game that doesn't make money, but it almost seems like they aren't even bothering to try. At least Sony tosses them into their Station Access collection where they can go on into MMO undeath. Sure, Sony shut down Matrix Online but they still have quite a few games like Planetside and Pirates of the Burning Sea that would have definitely seen death's door already if they were NCSoft titles.

The Secret World A Little Less Secret Now

2009-09-03T14:32:00.004-04:00

A few trickles of information have been unveiled about the Secret World. Gamespot has a reveal on the Factions that will be part of the game's backstory. And there is an Initiation Test on the main web site, http://www.darkdaysarecoming.com/, that lets you figure out which of the three in game Factions you are most suited for.

I guess I'll be a Dragon. Working from the shadows, patient, subtle, and strategic. That's so me.

The quality of the promotional material is impressive. Unfortunately, we still know little about what the actual game play will be like. But I'm patient. All will be revealed in due course...

Streaming EQ2 Client

2009-08-25T08:50:00.005-04:00

Autenil reports that he is working on reducing the size of the EQ2 client to 60MB and getting it to stream the rest of the content, like Guild Wars does. They are apparently leveraging some of the great work done by the Free Realms team.

I think this is a brilliant move to increase exposure. I had tried the refer-a-friend feature on a few people (none of them decided to subscribe unfortunately) and without exception the first thing out of their mouth was "how long is this going to take?!" referring to the extremely long download time. It's kind of hard to convince people to try a ten day trial for a game when the first two days are used up just downloading the game.

Also, you have to consider that people's attention is fleeting these days. There are dozens of MMOs on the market. There are thousands of other forms of entertainment. If you manage to capture someone's attention at the computer, getting them to download EQ2, the clock starts ticking. You do NOT have much time left. You have to grab them right away.

Although I have a much higher tolerance for the time it takes to download an MMO (and a willingness to try every MMO that has come on the market since I first got hooked on the genre with Final Fantasy XI), anecdotally, I know there are a few games that probably lost possible income from me simply because of download times.

Runes of Magic had previously announced that they were going to develop a streaming client. It's too bad they haven't, because I tried that game out, and liked it, but I stopped bothering to try to play. EverQuest II is my primary game, but it doesn't run on my old, cheap, crappy laptop. One of the reasons I was attracted to Runes of Magic was that it was a fun game and free with optional RMT -- which meant I could control how much money I invested in the game and didn't have to worry that I might end up too busy to justify a subscription fee. But everytime I played it it would take an hour to download the latest content. Which was usually about how long I had to play!

Another game I couldn't play due to download times was Warhammer Online. They came out with a Mac version, so I tried to get my brother to try it out, since he is a Mac (and I am a PC). So it took forever for him to download the first night which meant the two hours we had became thirty minutes. A couple nights later we find time to play together - but they released the new Lands of the Dead patch or whatever. I say "whatever" because it doesn't affect me, since I'm playing in the very first Chapter. But I was forced to download it and that was another play session lost. Then we didn't have that much time the rest of the week to play together and the free trial expired. A lot of the attraction for an MMO is to play with other people - especially ones you know - but it's hard to coordinate all that when massive downloads and patch times eat up what little time you have to play.

So I'm excited to see that the SOE team is on the ball here. MMO games are not getting any smaller, so streaming the content is necessary to attract and retain players.

Guild Wars 2 Preview

2009-08-21T09:13:00.008-04:00

There is a great Guild Wars 2 preview on Eurogamer. Guild Wars is one of the best online RPGs ever released. But what excites me the most is this:

"We actually don't have a traditional RPG/MMO quest system," Flannum continues. "Instead what we've got are Events."

Looks like the trend towards creating content with goals available to the public (as opposed to individuals running ticking off their own personal list of checkmarks to complete their 'quests'), like Warhammer Online Public Quests, is continuing. But these look better because they are supposed to end. As new Events get discovered the world changes. THAT is how you add immersion to a game, by allowing people to shape the game's history through their actions (or inaction).

This sounds a lot like what the Heroes of Telara developers have said they plan for their game:

Unite with your friends and plan play-sessions around scheduled events that change on a regular basis.

I wish we had more information to compare the two approaches.

But hopefully the deathknell is tolling for the traditional quest system and the static, unchanging worlds will be a thing of the past. The quest system caused the MMO industry to become very solo oriented; with the shift to more public goals, MMOs might become social again!

Final Fantasy XIV Videos

2009-08-20T12:55:00.004-04:00

We're seeing a lot more information about Final Fantasy XIV. These are a few of the videos available now.

The game looks absolutely stunning.

Video Games | Final Fantasy XIV Online | GC 09: Lalafell Gameplay (Cam) HD

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

This second video shows some combat.

Some people seem to be disappointed with the slow paced combat, but I have to respectfully disagree. Combat was pretty slow paced with really long timers in Final Fantasy XI, and it was a blast. It still kept you on your toes, even if I only had to push a button once every 15 seconds. Many of the standard trash mobs required you to react (crabs putting up stoneshell, goblins preparing a bomb toss) in ways that are absent from anything less than a boss encounter in many modern MMOs.

Also, the frenetic pace of most MMO's combat systems (WAR, AOC, EQ2, WOW) is almost bordering on video game-y. There is little time or need for strategy when you have 18 hotbars filled with abilities. Unless organizing your hotbar counts as a strategy.

In FFXI you had few abilities, with long timers. My paladin could heal himself once per thirty seconds, and taunt once per thirty seconds. Every fifteen seconds, I'd either cure myself or taunt (that's how you held hate). The rest of the time I WATCHED the mob, to see if I needed to stun him (for example, a properly timed stun could deflect a thrown bomb attack back on a goblin), or use Cover to protect someone else, or move because of a repop to avoid adds. Most abilities were on long (several-minute) timers or more so you had to make sure you used them at the right time.

By contrast, in EQ2, my tank has to taunt every five seconds, and on top of that, taunt alone won't let you hold aggro; you also have to constantly pound out combat arts to do high enough DPS to hold aggro. The only thing that keeps it from becoming a constant button mash is the fact you must also time the use of your combat arts between your auto attacks to maximize DPS. I spend most of my time watching my hotbars and not much watching the actual screen. I felt the same way about other games, like AOC and WOW.

So I am excited at the prospect of playing a game that gives me more time to think and less carpal tunnel.

Encouraging Unhealthy Playstyles

2009-08-08T03:33:00.005-04:00

I started to watch Second Skin on Hulu and found it depressing so far. It's a documentary which shows how online worlds such as MMOs have impacted the lives of various subjects. And it starts out with a bunch of people who apparently spend so much of their time they have no time for anything else. Even blogging, which is why I think I'll be ok posting negative things in public about the losers.

I intend to watch the rest of the movie later. Hopefully it shows a more balanced perspective than the almost scare-mongering it starts out with. And despite the snarky comment above, I'm sure the subjects have more redeeming traits than the movie portrays: there just isn't enough time to accurately portray the complexities of an individual, and it has to maintain its focus on the virtual worlds aspect of their lives.

But there does seem to be no shortage of people who are willing to simply live almost all their lives in game. It's sad, really. These games are fun, but it's like television: an empty diversion. I like it better because it's interactive and has a strategic element. There's not much strategy in watching Battlestar Galactica. We all have a need to be entertained. But it's not all I do.

I wouldn't normally place the blame on the game companies. They are providing a service and it's up to the consumer to use it responsibly. But then game companies come out and do things like leveling contests. These contests basically reward people who level up to a certain amount first. Since leveling is primarily based on time invested, that just encourages people to adopt unhealthy behavior: avoiding sleep, spending all their time in game, just to earn these "rewards."

I'm sure these same people would camp out for weeks to be first in line for Star Wars tickets if they could do so without missing a raid. But just as we would look down on someone for exploiting another's addiction problem were he an alcoholic or a drug user, should we discourage game companies from doing exploiting their more addicted fans?

Wouldn't a better contest be something like this: you have a month, and whoever earns a certain casually achievable level in the least amount of /played wins. Now the contest is who can get to X level smartest, not fastest. You have time to grab a pizza or take a shower or go to work (as long as you log off first :) ) because it won't impact your chance of winning. So you can still have the fun little marketing bonanza that comes with a contest without encouraging the kind of unhealthy playstyles that lead to becoming a subject in this film:

You Are What You Wear

2009-08-07T14:57:00.005-04:00

Square Enix just released some more information about the Final Fantasy XIV game system. One of the interesting aspects of it is what they call the "Armoury System." The idea behind it is your skills are determined by what you wear. Arm a sword and you can be a warrior, pick up a staff, and you can be a mage. And you can change at almost any time!

And this is a good thing, in my opinion. I like job systems much better than the traditional static class system where to experience different jobs you have to grow a stable of alts. One of the main reasons for this is: I hate doing the same quests over and over again for each alt I raise. I hate having to grab the same flags (for fast travel or access quests) over and over and over again.

It's also easier to change what you are doing based on role - if I join a group and the roles we need change, and I can satisfy that, it's nice to know I can instantly swap out for the needed role instead of logging in an alt and dragging them halfway across the world, hoping they have all the right flags and access quests done.

It also helps with the community: in Final Fantasy XI, I might go out and see a Samurai is looking for group. However, I then realize this is the same guy, a good player, who was healing me the other day. So I know he'll probably be a good player in his new role. In EverQuest II, I almost never know who I'm getting involved with unless it's a guild group, since everyone in game has at least a half dozen different names and appearances.

It looks like the job system is become much more prevalent. Heroes of Telara mentions the ability to change subclasses at any time. Free Realms implements a job system as well, letting you swap jobs almost anywhere. The Agency likewise will allow you to swap between roles based on what you wear. This mechanic seems like it may be a defining trait for so-called "third-generation" MMORPGs.

Wary of Champions Online

2009-08-06T09:17:00.003-04:00

Like many others in the blogosphere, I'm also wary of Champions Online at this point. I'm an advocate of alternate payment models, and I love the idea of a lifetime membership, but if you had faith in your game, wouldn't you offer it AFTER it's released as well? Not just an exclusive feature for people who haven't played it yet???

Lord of the Rings Online extended their lifetime membership offer for a while after it launched. After it went away, a year later, they brought it back again. I suppose Champions Online, if successful, might bring the offer back as well. But you think they'd let you play the free month from the box purchase first before deciding whether to do so THIS time around.

The fact that they aren't just smacks of desperation.

A Disappointing Year For Fantasy MMORPGs

2009-08-04T22:28:00.006-04:00

Well, I'm still playing EQ2. Yeah, I railed against quest-driven gameplay lately, but in EQ2 I've just been logging in on occasion to go on a raid or to plow through old dungeons (not necessarily doing quests) with low level alts. So it's been entertaining enough to keep me subscribing. But not enough to keep my eye from wandering.

I've also been spending what little time I have in various fantasy MMORPG marketing ploys, er, I mean "betas." Aion is one I can name, any other I can't. But my opinion is the same: WoW. WoW. I mean, WoW, it's amazing just how blatant some games can get with their influences.

Seriously people, no one is going to switch from the king of the hill to your WoW clone no matter what you might think of the incremental innovation you tacked on to it. Especially since the #1 WoW clone on the market is FREE. Let me spell that for you: $ ... 0. That's what you are competing against if you go against WoW.

Either a) make your game free, or b) differentiate yourself somehow. Suggestion: start with the UI and the quest driven gameplay. Even if your game suddenly becomes super awesome and innovative at level 50, if I look at levels 1-5 and think: this looks JUST like World of Warcraft, I'm not going to play! Even the people who like WoW aren't going to play, because they already have WoW.

So I guess 2009 is a wash in the fantasy MMO department. Hopefully 2010 will bring us some great betas... followed by great releases. These are the games I'm looking forward to:

Guild Wars 2 -- The first game was incredible. Take its game mechanics and the core design that worked and add a more "worldly" feel to it so it feels more like a "real" MMO and it would be heaven.

Heroes of Telara -- A game where they are focusing on the technology and on the ability to deliver changing world content on the fly. Sounds like the developers there intend to deliver some real innovation instead of a simple WoW clone. Imagine a world where the focus is on fighting a threat that, when defeated, WILL NEVER HAPPEN APPEAR AGAIN. Instead of doing quests that will sit there and wait for the next guy to come along. That's beautiful.

Final Fantasy XIV -- The devs are talking and they say it won't have levels or experience??? That sounds too good to be true. The story based missions in Final Fantasy XI were incredible though sparse. The only flaw with the game was the interminable grind. But clearly there has to be SOME kind of progression system. Still, it's clear it won't be WoW without your traditional Diku ding, and that's a good thing.

The Ugliest Thing I've Ever Seen

2009-07-31T10:02:00.004-04:00

From http://www.flickr.com/photos/feliciaday/3767333330/

These are screenshots of one of Felicia Day's World of Warcraft characters. Felicia Day, of course, is the star and producer of the Guild.

I Want a New Kind of Grind

2009-07-27T20:04:00.009-04:00

I've been having a bout of MMOADD and checking out various other games in between raiding. My guild is taking on Veeshan's Peak and it's a lot of fun, but I haven't had much will to play EverQuest II lately because I've been tired of the quest based grind to fill my AA.

So I checked out Dungeons and Dragons Online. I definitely will be resurrecting my old characters when this goes free to play. I love the new henchmen they introduced and the soloability in the low level zones. Of course, DDO is really a game that you want to group in, but the reason I quit the game when it first came out was because I spent a lot of time spamming LFG and not finding one. Hopefully all the players attracted by the free play will fix that. If not, at least I can now do SOME things without having to find friends first.

Still, it would be nice if the game had SOMETHING to do besides dungeon crawls. I mean, granted, it's Dungeons and Dragons, which is all about going on quests, in dungeons, with a group, but still, maybe they could add mini games or something??? While DDO has a lot of innovative game play in it, the running around, vacuuming in the quests from the NPCs with glowing whatever-it-is-that-isn't-an-exclamation-point-but-may-as-well-be over their heads, shouting LFG for half an hour, and then trying to find the stupid zone in point.

Do we really need to run around the overland city zones? Is that necessary for our immersion? Couldn't we have more fast travel options to get us straight to the dungeon? It's not like we're being attacked in the city. And I'm not asking for easy mode fast travel IN THE missions. Do we really have to suck in all the quests from random people around the zone? Can't we find another way to dole out the missions?

So I decide to go see what's new in Age of Conan. I earned my Tempest of Set two more levels but then got bored of it. I guess if I was more interested in the PVP side of things or the citybuilding aspect, I might like the game more. But as far as the PVE went, it just didn't seem to offer anything I wasn't already getting in EverQuest II. It's just your standard quest driven grind, once you get past the incremental innovations in the combat system. However, while I loved AOCs combat system, it simply isn't enough to get me to come back permanently.

The issue for me is content: while they've added a ton of content to AOC, there's just more of it in EQ2. And it doesn't seem as hard to find. Granted, I've been playing longer, so I know where most everything is, but quests in AOC would often force me to run to then the opposite side of the map from wherever you get the quest, assuming it's even in the same zone. EQ2 was like that at launch, but most quests nowadays are much more reasonable in terms of the mindless running around they force you to do.

I also tried out the Aion beta. I've probably tried every MMORPG beta since 2000. This is one of the smoothest and most polished. Probably because it's actually a released game. I'm not quite sure what they are really testing. I didn't end up doing too much testing... the game was yet another quest driven grind. Pretty unabashed about it too. Pretty much every quest was "you know, my farm is overrun by Random Smelly Monster". You look over at it, and sure enough, it's overrun alright. But mostly by "Random Stinky Monster"s which don't count. And you have to kill them because your mobs are ont he same respawn point, and apparently the farmer IS in fact actually OK with his farm being overrun by things digging it up if they have different adjectives over their head.

I think I might be at the end of my rope with this genre. The only game that really excites me now is Heroes of Telara because 1) you supposedly can play with everyone on the server [players of any level will have something to do], and 2) the world WILL change. Meaning you CAN be a hero. Meaning I'm actually doing something -- responding to a changing world -- and not simply vacuuming the same exclamation points up on all my alts and doing the same things over and over again. In theory -- we know little about the game at this point.

I'm also excited about Final Fantasy XIV, if only because I loved FFXI. While Final Fantasy XI was a grind as well, it was a very different kind of grind, and I actually think it was much, much more fun camping mobs and hunting named monsters with groups. Much more fun than it is nowadays where we are forced to hunt exclamation point after exclamation point by ourselves.

Venril Sathir Down

2009-07-15T23:28:00.004-04:00

My guild finally took down Venril Sathir. Some might not consider this as much of an accomplishment, since he had been nerfed. From the July 14, 2009 game update:

VENRIL SATHIR’S LAIR

* Venril Sathir no longer punishes players via Qxzytl’s Conversion if they have too much mana. The ornamental statues in his encounter now have reduced health and do less damage.

I'm glad they nerfed him. While certainly the game needs its challenges, this fight had an extraordinary amount of instant fail conditions:

* One person was removed from the fight entirely, forced to spend it clicking on one of two miniature statues on the ground as they became active. Otherwise some sentinel statues become active and wipe the raid.
* Randomly at 90% the raid force is wiped by the statues even if the miniature statues are clicked in time.
* Every now and then he put a debuff on the raid force that had to be cured or else you would lose almost all your health and power.
* At a certain point in the fight, you have to use a charm slot item dropped by a previous raid boss to continue the fight, or else the whole raid force instantly dies.
* During the fight, Venril Sathir would instantly wipe the raid if anyone had their power over about 60% or under 40% or so. It's a little wider than that, but that's the range we tried to keep it in.

In the meantime, he's randomly distributing debuffs that either drain mana (putting you at risk of going under the lower limit) or feeding you mana. So you had to watch your debuffs or else you would easily go out of that range.

The main change in the last update was to remove the upper power limit. Now you could keep your power high and just fight him slow and easy. You still had to watch Toxic Infusion because that drained your mana. You still had to watch your debuffs or else you could end up losing too much mana.

There's nothing wrong with this fight -- the problem was that he was in a league of his own in terms of difficulty compared to every other boss in the same tier. In fact, he is more difficult than most mobs in the next tier: Veeshan's Peak. I think it would be great if they took this script and made a similar fight for some contested elsewhere (with the appropriate rewards), for the very advanced guilds. It just should be a mob like the avatars that are reserved for the most elite guilds, and not something in the middle of a popular quest progression. Even that wouldn't be so bad (nothing wrong with having some elite-only content), except this fight was disproportionately difficult compared to the other bosses in the same tier and the NPCs you need to kill to get your Mythical weapon vary based on your class. Therefore, the classes that needed Venril Sathir were screwed compared to the rest because no one, not even top tier raid guilds who cleared the next tier of content, wanted to go back and do this fight. Some people even betrayed their classes just to keep progressing while avoiding this fight.

So I'm glad they nerfed him. He's certainly not easy mode (well, maybe it was a LITTLE too easy): he still took a lot of coordination and we still wiped a few times from people who missed their debuffs or didn't cure Toxic Infusion in time (mostly players who were new to the encounter). But the fight was definitely much closer to where it should be to balanced with the rest of the Rise of Kunark raid progression.

So now we have a new head to display on a guild hall trophy case. And we're on our way to VP!

Hyboria Is Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

2009-07-11T10:08:00.003-04:00

It's too bad Age of Conan wasn't like this when it launched. While I'm only level 28, so I can't benefit from the improvements they've made in content, they fixed most of the main issues the game had when I first played.

One issue I had was that itemization was confusing. I couldn't tell what the stats did, they didn't seem to have a noticeable impact on my character, and there didn't seem to be a clear way of telling which items were "better". Also performance is tons better. These have been streamlined so it's a lot clearer how new items improve your character.

Performance and the graphics engine are better now as well. I remember there was tons of lag and memory leaks and slowdowns and weird graphical glitches when the game first came out. For example - when the game first came out, every item in my inventory always had a semi-transparent floating yellow "?" floating over it. It would disappear when I moused over the item (causing the normal spinning item display to appear). It was cosmetic but terribly annoying because I'd have to mouse over every item in my bag first just to get them to look normal before I could look for an item. I've seen nothing of the sort this time around.

On the other hand, I think my Tempest of Set has been "rebalanced." I don't remember things being this hard. But maybe I've been playing the target and auto attack style of MMO for too long. :)

You Want Me To Go Where?!

2009-07-10T09:17:00.004-04:00

Now I remember what I didn't enjoy about Age of Conan: the focus on questing. You barely get any XP from doing anything EXCEPT for finishing quests. What keeps drawing me back to EverQuest II is that its viable to advance your character in MANY ways: I can quest and earn regular XP, I can camp mobs for regular XP, and I can earn AA XP by mentoring low level players, hunting nameds, and exploring. Whereas in Age of Conan, I feel like I'm on rails because the only truly viable way to advance is by questing.

Unfortunately, this feeling is exacerbated by the fact that Age of Conan's quests tend to send you half way across the world and back. It's like the worst of EverQuest II quest design (a typical EQ2 quest: run around five different zones and collect four different things from the four corners of each zone) and the worst of World of Warcraft quest design (quest chain after quest chain after quest chain after boring, stupid christmas tree laden NPC hub after hub) mixed together. Except the NPCs in AOC all wear skirts.

On the other hand, Dungeons and Dragons Online has a focus on quests/missions, but I always enjoyed that there. I guess the dungeon crawl just works better for me than hailing a random skirt, running to a different zone, and then to the opposite side of that zone, then killing some random sort of dangerous wildlife that terrorize the land of MMOs.

Still, I am having fun. And, so far, I've only been soloing, which is hardly the full experience AOC has to offer. So maybe I'll have to find some time to be less anti-social, and see how the community is, and maybe try a dungeon or two in AOC. At least for the couple of weeks before DDO goes F2P and I get distracted by that.

Unfortunately, since my main is still young, having unsubscribed after launch at level 27 (now 28), I'm not even sure what there is that I can do at my level range?

Everyone Wants Me Back

2009-07-09T09:09:00.006-04:00

I only subscribe to EverQuest II. Yet currently, I have free play time in the original EverQuest, Star Wars Galaxies, and Vanguard (which has oddly been reporting itself as having 1 day remaining for at least a week now). It seems every MMO I've ever played is clamoring to get me to come back. The most recent addition to that list is Age of Conan.

So far, I've been able to resist most of these pleas to resurrect my old characters. But I decided to bite the bullet and check out the changes in Age of Conan.

And man oh man, I totally forgot how to play. I died like a dozen times before I remembered. Hyborea is littered with my tombstones. If you also took Funcom up on their offer to return to the lands of Conan, I hereby apologize if you tripped over my corpse on your adventures. I do remember enjoying Age of Conan's combat system more. I like the fact your basic attack is directional so you do have to pay attention to shifts in the mobs defenses. While I'm playing a spellcaster, and therefore have something more akin to traditional hotbar combat, I spent some time with melee classes, and enjoyed the combination system. It's good to see a combat system where you have to pay attention. World of Warcraft always bored me because I'd spam hotbars and otherwise usually be staring at another screen. The only other game that has combat that is as interesting - that breaks the standard hotbar spamming model - is Dungeons and Dragons Online.

I don't know that I'll stick around permanently. The main problem I had with Age of Conan is that, aside from the combat, it offers very little that I don't already get from EverQuest II. I'm not that interested in PVP -- I never found PVP to make much sense in a game where time invested is the principle means of advancement. And combat alone can't captivate me.

But if you tried AOC at launch and left due to the general unplayable nature of it at that time, take advantage of this opportunity to try it again!

DDO Goes Free to Play, Sony to Follow?

2009-06-09T14:52:00.010-04:00

DDO just went free to play. Subscriptions are optional, but still have benefits. So you have a free tier where you can play the entire game from level one up to the cap. As you level up you'll find more and more adventures and areas locked unless you pay, but you can still play the game without paying. And they are introducing Turbine Points, which are a microtransaction system like Sony's Station Store.

Free Realms and Runes of Magic have proven that this model is attractive to players. And now with AAA titles like Dungeons and Dragons Online getting into the freemium game, who is next?

I have a suspicion that it will be Sony, with EverQuest II.

They have been hinting for a while of major plans in the works. They are adding lots of new content to the low level areas. They are adding content like Research Assistants that reward people for nothing more than subscribing (which most players don't want -- but would probably enjoy as a "premium" feature for subscribers in a freemium game). They are going to great lengths to finally fix the graphics engine (why bother in a game this old?!) We have the Station Store that no one asked for, which makes the most sense in a game where people aren't already paying you. And they have taken a rather sudden and unexpected interest in simplifying the more complex game mechanics (such as the spell naming conventions), which is a lot of work for very little gain, given that the current player base are already accustomed to the old names, and a game this old doesn't normally get a large influx of new players.

By going with a freemium model, EverQuest II just might gain that influx of new players that would justify all of this work.

At least that's what I'm hoping... I'd love to see new life breathed into my favorite game (at the moment :) ) by adopting a freemium model.

FFXIV Online Will Be Casual Friendly

2009-06-03T15:40:00.004-04:00

From the Square Enix E3 Live Blog:

12:01
Q: What influence have games like World of WarCraft have on the development of FFXIV?
12:02
A: As with WoW, we want to aim a bit for the casual user. However, we don't want to make a copy of WoW. We believe we will have things that are unique and will stand out from that game.

Thank goodness. Hopefully it will retain the unique qualities of FFXI without becoming a second job that *I* pay for.

I am a happy man right now.

Final Fantasy XIV Online

2009-06-02T16:30:00.002-04:00

One of the surprise announcements at the Sony Press Conference that just completed was Final Fantasy XIV Online. This excites me, particularly because Final Fantasy XI was a game that I still sometimes think fondly of.

Yes, most people consider Final Fantasy XI to be an unrepetant grindfest, and it is. I didn't even level past 50 with my highest job since, after completing the first limit break quest, I no longer had the stomach for insanely long camps.

But Final Fantasy XI had some insanely great features that I haven't seen replicated nearly so well in any other game. We have no details about Final Fantasy XIV, and it is a completely different game, like all Final Fantasy games, involving its own unique game mechanics. However, I can only hope that they manage to retain these successful features from their previous online endeavor, while correcting some of the more unforgiving aspects of the game.

My favorite feature of Final Fantasy XI was the job system. This allowed you to change classes at any time. I played a Paladin (up to level 50), and leveled Beastmaster and White Mage into the 30s. Naturally I had a decently levelled Warrior job as well. All of this was done on one character.

In some games, like EverQuest II, I feel like I need a stable of alts to keep playing. I get bored playing the same class all the time. But the problem with alts is, as far as anyone else is concerned, you're a completely different person. Also, you have to do the same quests all over again.

With the job system, items I earn on one character that I can't use because they are for a different class, can be used when I change jobs. Quests that allow you to access restricted parts of the game or unlock special content don't need to be repeated over and over again for each alt. And, most importantly, my friends know who I am and what I'm playing, without forcing me to keep them updated or hog up half their friends list.

The skillchain and magic burst system was also an incredibly fun part of gameplay. It allowed multiple players to combine abilities to set off a powerful effect. EverQuest II tried a similar form of interaction with its Heroic Opportunity system, but failed, because their effects weren't worth the trouble.

The auction house was also a great feature. It used a blind auction where sellers posted an item for sale at a specified price. Buyers then attempted to purchase it, usually starting at the low end and moving up. The buyer doesn't know what the asking price is. If there are multiple sellers, the seller asking for the lowest amount gets his product moved first. There is a relatively recent price history you can use to get an idea of what recent sale prices were. This system helped reduce undercutting, since people generally undercut from the last actual sale price, instead of the last ask price.

I also loved the itemization. In Final Fantasy XI, statistics were relatively rare on items. Sometimes, it made sense to earn very low level items, simply because they had a stat bonus you wanted. In most other MMOs I've played, the progression is usually pretty linear.

In EverQuest II, for example, it's pretty uncommon to lust after a level 15 item at level 80. When EQ2 first came out, most every item in the game just had a random assortment of + modifiers to various statistics. Most items felt the same. The difference was usually whether it had +sta/wis or +str/int.

In Final Fantasy XI, however, it was common to see level 75s waiting around to smush Leaping Lizzy for a level 7 drop. These items sold for millions of gil. And people would go to great lengths just to get a rare drop that was identical to the common item, except with a "+1" to some stat.

Of course, none of this mattered in the long run for this consumer. The grind eventually forced me to quit and move on, and I eventually found a new home with EverQuest II. But I think there is evidence that Square Enix will not be making yet another grindfest. Over the years, they have made Final Fantasy XI far less 'hardcore.'

They introduced Fellowship NPCs, who act like Mercenaries or Guild Wars henchmen. They have even added "solo" quests to a game known for being an unrepentant group-only grind. They also added a Level Sync system which essentially makes everyone act as if they are the same level, eliminating the penalty for grouping with higher level party members, and making it easier to find a group.

So hopefully this is a sign that Square Enix understands that the MMO playing demographic has changed. But I guess we'll find out for sure in 2010.

Easy Breezy Server Transfers

2009-06-01T16:17:00.005-04:00

Another feature in Free Realms that I hope will become more commonplace in the future is the fact that characters are not bound to a single server. You actually select the server you want to play on after logging in. The same character can play on any server. It's not the most ideal solution: I prefer Guild Wars' implementation better, where everyone is in one shared reality and you can change instances at will.

But however it's implemented, disassociating the character with the server removes a significant obstacle in playing a game. It's always rather frustrating when I run into someone who plays an MMO I'm playing, whether its EverQuest II now, or City of Heroes in the past, or even World of Warcraft. And then you realize they picked a different server.

So I pretty much have to hope all the friends I ever make will be on the server I rather randomly selected on day one? And hope that that server's population doesn't dwindle, leaving me playing an online game with NO ONE to play with? And hope that I don't discover that the culture that developed on a different server might be more compatible with my playstyle -- but after I've become too invested in my existing characters to simply abandon them and reroll?

An MMO gains strength by getting its players to feel invested in their characters. That means getting them to NOT want to simply abandon the toon and reroll. Preventing easy transfers actually makes it more likely for players to QUIT the game (if you have to abandon your character anyway, you may as well play a new game, rather than simply mimic your previous steps for a month to bring your new clone on the new server back to a similar level of progression.)

I'm not sure I understand why the game developers bind us to a single server anyway. Why not let us transfer between servers freely? Why have exorbitant character transfer fees ($50 a character is outrageously expensive for one, let alone the dozen I have)?

Part of it is technical, of course. Each server probably has different data centers associated with it, not all of which are collocated. Am I wrong in thinking that the benefits to player retention would most likely outweight the costs of developing that tool?

If all my friends on server A quit, I might have friends on server B that I could play with -- but I'm not paying $50 a character to move them, and I'm probably not interested in leveling from 1-80 all over again. Or let's say I pick a server and suddenly find that the population is low and it's hard to find a group. I would be more inclined to quit the game than start all over somewhere else; while I can't speak for anyone else, I can't imagine most people would find "reroll a new character" (which takes a few days /played, and therefore several months for the majority of players) to be a viable solution. Our time is money and most of us would rather spend it doing something new instead of repeating what we've already accomplished, just somewhere else, which might itself suffer from a population issue by the time we get back to the same level of progression we started out at.

Another obstacle is name collisions, due to game decisions like forcing characters to have unique first names, but allowing multiple accounts to pick the same name so long as the characters are on different servers. But that's a decision that players can choose to make. OR, an even better solution, would be to ALLOW duplicate names, just like the real world allows. And like Champions Online will allow.

Preventing easy server transfers doesn't really help prevent griefing, especially when there are cheap name change potions available.

So there's all that. What other reasons remain for making it difficult to change servers? What wouldn't Sony have to gain if, for instance, they took their character transfer service, and got rid of the fees, making it free for everyone to transfer between servers with compatible rulesets (even if it had a few reasonable time limits, like restricting characters to moving once per month)?

At the Border Between the Free Realms and Norrath

2009-05-30T13:44:00.008-04:00

Tipa opined, "Will EverQuest III be Free Realms II?", making the astute observation that Sony would hardly invest so much time in this new technology and not use it elsewhere. I think that goes without saying. It would be a waste of effort for any company to reinvent the wheel. EverQuest II shared a common foundation with Star Wars Galaxies. Similarly, some of the technologies in Free Realms are probably a taste of things to come in a future SOE AAA title.

The main feature that I expect to see in future SOE titles would be the streaming technology. Ogrebears disagreed, arguing that no one would want to stream a large title, given that MMOs are often in the 8-10GB range, and many top 20GB. I would argue that the size of new MMOs is the principle reason WHY streaming technology is necessary. Streaming brings many benefits that fix issues that games with particularly large resource footprints, like MMOs, face.

One of the main benefits is that you get into the game faster. I tried to encourage a friend to join EverQuest II. He downloaded the client and started the download. Then proceeded to complain day after day that the download was taking forever. I imagine World of Warcraft would have taken just as long to patch to the latest version from the original discs that were put on shelves in 2004, but he already had that installed. I don't think he ever even bothered to get in game. At some point, other things intervened and he didn't bother to try.

That's just one anecdote, but I doubt its an outlier. It's just human nature: we're all willing to try something new, but generally not if it's going to cost us. And babysitting a computer program patching over 10GB+ of data slowly isn't something many people will bother with, except the die-hard MMO addicts among us.

On the other hand, if you can download a smaller client, with just the files you need to launch the newbie area instantly, you can get a lot of people in the game instantly. Which means you get more potential conversions to subscribers.

Free Realms' streaming technology provides the ability to update the client WHILE IT IS RUNNING. [Update: Actually, I'm not sure if Free Realms can do that. I think I may have been confusing what I read with something in an article about Guild Wars' streaming technology, which does have the ability to seamlessly update the game on the fly. At any rate, it is a potential benefit of the technology that I'd like to see exploited and expanded upon in future games.] This is important because it reduces down time (which is a competitive advantage to other games). It also allows you to patch more often and more frequently (no more waiting until patch day to close a major exploit!).

The benefits don't have to be limited merely to reducing downtime for patching in fixes or major content updates. Being able to stream new information and new items on the fly provides more flexibility for Live Events, since you don't have to take down the servers to change the world. The Live Event can go through several stages and have smaller, more incremental changes over time.

While Free Realms isn't the type of game I'd like to play, because it is oriented towards kids, it has many features that I would love to see in a more mature setting. Streaming content is one such feature. Next week, I'll ramble on about a few of the others.

Scaling Damage for Live Events

2009-05-26T15:48:00.004-04:00

Many Live Events in EverQuest II scale the quests and monsters to the player's level. This way they can offer quests that anyone can play, regardless of level. One problem with this approach: all monsters have to be first triggered by a player, so the game knows what level to create the monster.

What if instead of scaling the monster to the player's level, we had a certain class of monsters where the damage you deal was scaled up or down to match the monsters nominal level. The monster would also deal damage in a manner that scaled to the player's level. (Out-of-group player-to-player healing would still be a problem, so perhaps the game would lock all such encounters.) This way it wouldn't matter what level you are.

The player's level itself shouldn't scale, so their relationship with the surrounding zone would be unchanged.

This could open up a whole new set of scenarios. Imagine a huge lag inducing gnoll army starts to march on Qeynos. The entire server can join in on the fight without worrying about level 80s trivializing the fight by rounding up the entire zone and AOEing them. Low level players can even join in. And the monsters can roam around and aggro using normal game mechanics without having to be "force spawned" first.

This would be a neat way to provide story-based content that the entire server can enjoy and play together, without excluding people based on level. Because existing content continues to have level, the sense of progression that the leveling mechanic confers is not eliminated.

Would such a system be workable?

Final Fantasy XI had something quite like I envisioned several years back when they unleashed the Twinkling Treants upon us. However, instead of scaling damage, they forced players to mentor down to a specific level in order to fight it. This allowed everyone to participate, but it did have the drawback that you had to explicitly look for a guard to grant you the buff you needed to fight the monster first, instead of simply joining in while running by (which would be more immersive and make it more likely for the event to gather participants.)

Auto-Mentoring

2009-05-15T22:17:00.012-04:00

There were some interesting comments on the May 14 Dev chat appeared recently. One of the comments that caught my eye was a question regarding keeping lower level content relevant, particularly Veeshan's Peak (so Mythicals retain some relevance.) A dev responded that they were indeed looking into ways to keep lower level content relevant. Unfortunately, they provided no further details...

I don't know what they have in mind, but one idea that I would like to see would be for zones to automatically mentor people who exceed the intended level range of the zone or raid by several levels. It might be acceptable to allow people to "outlevel" a zone by a few levels, to maintain a sense of progression, but to completely gray out and trivialize zones robs the game in the long run. No one ever wants to go to these old zones because there is absolutely nothing to be gained. Keeping the older zones at least somewhat challenging prevents many quests (where you simply travel to certain parts of the zone) from becoming completely trivialized, and therefore less fun.

I'd also want to see level scaling zones automatically mentor a player down if they exceed the level that the zone was set to. For example, if I mentor down to a level 50 and zone into Scion of Ice, the zone sets itself to level 50. If I then unmentor, I should be forced to remain at level 50 (even though I'm no longer mentoring anyone.)

These days, mentoring seems to be used most often to exploit game mechanics by trivializing zones. It was intended as a way to help veteran players join forces with newer ones, and to work around one of the principal disadvantages of a leveling system: leveling creates barriers that prevent people from playing together.

To help encourage high level players to join forces with low level players for mutual gain instead of exploiting the game mechanics, I would also want to see them increase the amount of XP you get while mentoring, almost to the extent that one could level from 81 to the next level cap on OLDER content if one wanted to (obviously the newer quest lines in the newer zones would be better since you'd gain better gear and so on that way, but the point is it gives people a choice and makes mentoring a mutually beneficial relationship, especially if the higher level player isn't earning AA from it [because they aren't at the level cap, for instance.])

This would make it more attractive to play with lower level players for both AA and leveling up (when they increase the level cap), without completely trivializing the lower level content (obviously the mentoring scales imperfectly, but to some extent that's fine.) And it would help keep much of the older content in the game relevant.

I Guess I'm a Twit Now

2009-05-13T16:59:00.004-04:00

I recently joined twitter as @mymomentofzen. I can't update my site as often as some of the more prolific bloggers out there but I think I might be able to muster up 140 characters of gaming-related blathering on occasion.

AA XP Conversion

2009-05-11T12:47:00.005-04:00

It looks like they will be adjusting the Combat XP to AA XP conversion ratio at level 80 now! I am loving the idea of this (assuming the conversion isn't a paltry amount). It finally fixes a part of the game that I feel has been broken for some time. Namely, that, since AAs came out, and particularly with the most recent AA level cap increase, the game has turned into one huge solo quest grind.

And I HATE quests. I like them on occasion, but I despise having them as the primary means of playing the game.

I know it's quite ironic that I play a game called "EverQUEST" when I hate quests, but the reason I picked EverQuest II over its major competition (such as World of Warcraft) was because grinding quests wasn't how you were forced to play the game.

Once upon a time, before the Achievement XP system was added to EverQuest II, we had three ways to advance. 1) We could grind quests to gain XP. 2) We could get together with people and camp mobs. The game, when it was introduced, even had a "dynamic camp" system where as the camp continued to respawn, the mobs would become stronger and stronger, and occasionally would reward you. 3) You could grab some people together and go crawl through a dungeon.

Many other games such as World of Warcraft or Lord of the Rings Online give such paltry combat XP that you really have no choice but to grind quest after quest after kill X quests collecting bandit livers and boar testicles for all the NPCs that litter the world that have an insatiable need for such things.

As AAs become more and more important over time, the game developed two problems. One: since TSO, there are a LOT of AAs to obtain, and the XP curve is pretty steep. You can gain some good AA XP from doing TSO shard missions, but that's not enough by itself to earn those AAs. And many of the TSO instances are balanced for a party that is expected to have well in excess of 140 AAs. Two: when leveling up alts, we have to do every boring kill X quest along the way, sometimes even shutting off XP gain temporarily to finish the quests for a particular area. While Sony has greatly increased how fast we level, they haven't increased the speed in which we earn AA, so it's easy to get to the level cap and then find yourself without enough AAs to play viably.

So that means my playstyle has been forced to change. I can no longer just get together in a group and plow through dungeons as the primary way in which I play the game because I'll gimp myself without earning those AAs. My alts, in particular, are effectively penalized when grouping because they will gain XP too fast and I'm afraid I will end up stuck at level 80 having to grind gray quests to get them later!

While simply increasing the conversion ratio isn't a perfect solution to our AA-related problems, it does mean that once I get to the level cap, I can earn AA XP by getting together and doing what I enjoy: camping and dungeons instances (even without a quest or mission for the zone).

And as for my low level alts; while skipping some quest lines along the way does mean I will get to 80 with too few AAs, it does mean I can keep playing, at least in the ROK zones and the easier TSO instances, and know that I will gain them over time just playing the game the way I want - without feeling forced to run around doing boring gray quests to earn them all.

Assuming the conversion ratio is decent...

xXxFrodoxXx LFG

2009-05-09T12:00:00.002-04:00

I decided this week I should put in some more game time in LOTRO, what with having spent $10 on it and all.

So I rolled up a hobbit. Time spent: 5 minutes to come up with a face I didn't want to punch. 50 minutes trying every freaking lore-appropriate name imaginable to find one that wasn't taken. Being forced to come up with a unique first name is really obnoxious, especially in a game where you are encouraged to use lore appropriate names. All the good ones run out quickly. The last time I checked, many people share the same first name. Why not let us do so here? Make us pick last names on character creation and use that as a part of the uniqueness as well.

It was a lot easier in Final Fantasy XI when half of the playerbase used idiotic names like "XxXSephirothXxX" leaving plenty of decent names available for the rest of us.

Back in Middle Earth...

2009-05-07T11:03:00.008-04:00

It was $10 so I couldn't resist. I still had a Champion left over from open beta, so I dusted him off and ran around for a bit with Corwin last week sometime. I've continued to pop in here and there to complete a few more quests.

And now I remember what bothered me the most about Lord of the Rings Online. The quests my Champion has require a whole lot of running around. Slowly.

Middle Earth feels very vast and expansive. It's very immersive - the mobs aren't all packed within inches of one another like they are in World of Warcraft or EverQuest II. This is both a strength and a weakness. It is easier to get lost in the beauty of the world and to feel like you are truly in another land. And that's an amazing feeling. Until you start receiving quests that tell you to go to the bandit camp clear on the opposite side of the map, and you return, only to be told to go right back to the same place you were and do something else.

This is still a game after all and perhaps too much immersion can be a bad thing. The people that clamor on and on about how they want their game to be immersive with meaningful travel usually aren't complaining that you can swim in plate mail, or demanding that it take an hour or two to change armor. Maybe we should give the immersion fans a Sims like function to manage their avatar's bowel movements as well. If they don't enjoy the idea of that, they should probably STFU about how they need "immersion."

Though perhaps the problem here is less that I was required to travel, but rather that by splitting the quest line into a series of fetch this and run back to me steps, that travel was made inherently less meaningful. I mean, if my quest is really that important, couldn't the quest giver get off his ass to accompany me there so he could tell me what I need to do next without wasting half a day coming back to him first?

So maybe this is what the quest givers should start doing: when we complete a step, they should show up out of nowhere in a cut scene (because they were hiding, what with us being the heroes and all), tell us the next step in the quest, which was only five feet away anyway, and let us go on our merry way saving the world, without having to travel the entire length of the map again and again and again.

Because the trip isn't that meaningful when we have to make it a dozen times.

But, alas, I doubt that's in our future. My guess: when we get to Mordor, we will have to help Frodo figure out which volcano is Mount Doom. There are, after all, a lot of volcanos in Mordor. So we'll remember there's a cartographer back in Bree. And we'll go all the way back to Bree to talk to him. Then he'll say: "oh, it's in this general area, but there are actually three volcanoes there that look very much alike... Mount Doom, Mount Gloom, and Mount Buttercup. There's a geographer here in town who can help you figure out which one is Mount Doom." And the geographer will send you back to Mordor to collect rock samples from each mountain. And you'll go back to Bree and he'll tell you which rock came from which mountain. And you'll to back to Mordor where Frodo is still waiting, patiently, not succumbing to the Ring's temptations or anything, and of course Gollum is just following Frodo, even though Frodo isn't actually going anywhere, because everyone is WAITING ON YOU but you have to go back and check in one more time with the geographer before you can conclusively figure out which damn volcano you need to climb so the One Ring ends up in the One Lava.

Twisty Little Missions, All Alike

2009-05-02T01:24:00.005-04:00

I cancelled City of Heroes again. I came back because of the Mission Architect system, and thought it was a really great addition to the game. Unfortunately, while it's a great idea to let players architect their missions, City of Heroes missions just aren't that fun, no matter who writes them. For me, every mission feels like running around a maze hunting for randomly placed stuff. That's fun on occasion, but I got bored of it quickly, because it doesn't take long to see behind the curtain.

I have probably subscribed to City of Heroes for six months, no two months consecutively. I actually like City of Heroes a lot; I just don't want to pay $15 a month to play something I would never want to sink more than 10 hours a month on. (And, no, the fact it's the same cost as a movie ticket doesn't work as an argument for me: that's apples and oranges.)

Why don't MMOs have cheaper, time limited, payment plans ($5 a month with a 15 hour limit?) I'd probably subscribe to far more games if they did...

Healers Are Always in Demand

2009-04-28T10:15:00.009-04:00

In EverQuest II, healers are always in demand. That's great for my healer, but bad for my main, a fighter. Stacking multiple healers can often make encounters easier, because you can heal through high damage faster. Stacking multiple DPSers can make you damage an enemy faster. Stacking multiple tanks just means you are wasting a slot.

This means having more than one fighter in a group isn't ideal, so people avoid it. The solution the game employed when it came out was to allow fighters to have an offensive stance so they do more DPS. The problem with this: it impinges on the class role for mages and scouts. If the fighters do more damage, then no one will want the true DPS classes. If the fighters have the same or less amount of DPS output, then no one will them anyway, because the mages and scouts will be at least as good and have more utility.

This needs to change. It should be possible to have multiple tanks share the task of absorbing damage. EverQuest II has a few abilities like Intercede and avoidance buffs, but they aren't powerful enough to viably allow, say, a Paladin and a Berserker to stand side by side and share damage through an entire battle. It's an important skill, but it's not attractive enough to make a group think of picking up an additional tank instead of a backup healer.

I'd like to see Intercede modified (or a new ability created) such that it would allow two or more tanks standing within a short range of one another to take less damage overall - since they are presumably helping each other deflect blows. Instead of always transferring 100% of the damage from one tank to another, have a chance to transfer reduced amounts of the damage, subject to an additional avoidance check and mitigation on the secondary tank. It should be an ongoing buff (or reset about as often as the average heal spell) and the total amount of damage taken by the group should end up being a lot lower than it would be with one tank.

A second tank would therefore have a similar effect as having a recurring ward up (because the additional tanks are helping deflect, parry, and block attacks) as long as the fighters are close to one another.

Also, additional abilities could be introduced that allow multiple tanks to work together.

For example, add an ability that allows a fighter to drop all aggro and send it to another fighter in the group, and at the same time, create a heal over time effect on that fighter that expires if they end up at the top of the hate list for any mob. Two tanks could then time things so that they ping pong the monster between them and the self-HOT would allow one fighter to recover while the other tank took charge.

Or introduce an ability that allows multiple tanks on a single mob might to reduce the monster's recovery time, because the tanks are presumably working together to keep the mob off balance.

If implemented correctly, a group choosing to tackle a particularly challenging encounter should be able to grab a second tank instead of a second healer and do just as well. In TSO zones, many people always insist on taking two healers, which means healers take up 1/3 of the average group. A few simple changes that allow tanks to "stack" would be a great way to increase fighter desirability while still allowing them to fulfill their class role (taking damage) without impinging on the class role (dealing damage) for the scouts and mages.

User Generated Other-Writable-Things-Besides-Books?

2009-04-23T11:39:00.012-04:00

I'm still loving the idea of the books. The reason I love EverQuest II so much more than any other game, especially children's games like World of Warcraft, is that it has so much to do besides simply leveling up and fighting. It also has more ways to level up and fight, but that's besides the point.

Housing and guild castles are one of the major features that attracts me to EverQuest II. Sure, it's completely cosmetic to collect the heads of monsters to display as trophies in your hall, but it's FUN. It doesn't help you level up to decorate your home as a storefront to sell goods in game, but it's FUN. User writable books give us even more ways to share our combined creativity with one another in game.

But as always, as players, we're never satisfied are we? Here's what I'd like to see next:

- use the system to create user writable signs

Hey, our guild castle is BIG and I get lost all the time. And I always forget where people put all the stuff. The signs don't need to store as much text as the books; it would be ideal if they displayed their contents in a popup (like existing signs in game do) when you hover over them.

And this would be useful for those players who have been using the housing system to create "museums" and "bars" in game. The museums would tell you what is in the display cases. The bars might leave "menus" lying around (Sauteed Froglok Legs with Thyme for only 5g? Heck, yeah!).

Plus since carpenters would probably make the signs, it would allow the system to benefit artisans other than sages.

- allow multiple people to edit a "book" (or similar object, such as a noticeboard)

If multiple people could edit a noticeboard, it would be great for allowing the guild a place to share notes, post messages asynchronously to one another (in game, instead of in a shoutbox on a webpage outside of the game).

- have other forms of alternate appearances, such as posters, a stack of papers, etc.

It would allow people some flexibility to build some pretty neat things, like leaving creating in-game mysteries with books, signs, posters, and other objects left around to provide clues for the puzzle.

- restrict the reader based on language

Because my Dark Elf doesn't want any of the lesser races to read her journal.

- restrict the reader based on a password

Not necessarily for privacy reasons, either. I'm envisioning user created games where you need to figure out the mystery word to unlock the next clue.

User Generated Books

2009-04-22T17:19:00.006-04:00

Well, it's no Mission Architect, but EverQuest II just announced players can now write their own lore and distribute them using in-game books. I believe Ultima Online had this feature first, but it's nice to see it resurrected in a more modern MMORPG. It may just be fluff, but it's features like this that make a game world feel alive.

Now, how should I start the Great Norrathian Novel...

"It was a dark and story night in Freeport." Nah, too cliche. I'll get back to you guys.

Limited Release Schedule

2009-04-17T17:17:00.007-04:00

One of the games I've been keeping my eye on (when I haven't been busy with EverQuest II or City of Heroes) is a relatively obscure one called Alganon. One interesting thing they recently announced is that they will be selling keys in a limited fashion at launch. I believe Darkfall did this as well, to such an extent that there is a huge backlog of willing buyers who can't get in.

Although I know I would be irritated if I was trying to buy the game and couldn't get in, I still think that is a very smart move. I'm wondering if this should become a more standard practice in the industry.

In many games, there is a huge spike of interest at launch, but most of those players are just there as tourists. Many of them won't end up liking the game. Some people just want to try something new but won't want to dedicated themselves to it. To handle the initial rush and ensure a smooth launch, companies have to set up a lot of servers. This is rarely done perfectly, and you inevitable end up with lag, server instability, and/or queues. Then the tourists leave, and the servers end up deserted. Which means you end up either having the annoyance of server merges soon after launch, or you end up with deserted playgrounds.

Since our enjoyment of the game depends so much on other people, adding a little more management to the process sort of makes sense. It seems more likely to me that someone would buy an account, try the game at launch, quit because its unplayable and not come back than the alternative: that someone would simply decide not to try the game because they couldn't buy the game right when it launched. Therefore, limiting access to the game at launch and adding servers as necessary would be the best approach. What do you think?

I Have Seen The Future, Part II

2009-04-16T14:17:00.005-04:00

My main character in City of Heroes is called Futureman. Why? Well, because he is from the future. His catch phrase is "I'm from the future, and you're history!" It's a silly story, but the way it goes is: Futureman travelled back in time to stop the evil Dr. Radon who developed a form of Clean Nuclear Power. It provided a limitless form of cheap energy with no radiation or side effects. People loved it, it revolutionized the world. The problem is, the radiation was actually funneled through a wormhole into the year 999,999,999, which is where Futureman was from.

His world was devastated. So he travels back in time to stop Dr. Radon. However, when he gets there, he discovers that Dr. Radon is his great-great-great-great-great-great-...-well, you get the point-great-grandfather, and just as he is about to defeat the evil Dr. Radon, a blast comes out of nowhere, disarming our hero. He turns to see who would thwart his plans, and it is none other than himself: a future Futureman, who came back in time to stop himself.

The temporal paradox was overwhelming; just thinking about it confused him so much he passed out and damaged his time transport thingy whatsit. That's why he is stuck in the past.

Well, I've never really had a chance to embellish the story. After all, most of the time I'm fighting Vahzilok, the Lost, the Council, Rikti, and other assorted ne'er-do-wells that have nothing to do with me.

But now, as of Issue 14, I finally can. One of the lovely aspects of the new Mission Architect system is that I can finally flesh out storylines for my own characters and share them with the world.

Of course, there are limits to the Mission Architect system. The amount of triggers you can use are limited. I can't script things so a portal appears nearby and enemies pour out, for example. You can script ambushes that trigger during a fight, but they just appear at some random part of the map and run up, sometimes, unless they get lost, as they sometimes do. You can't cause a bad guy to become invincible and transform, JRPG style, into a bigger, bad guy (with wings, and on freaking fire.) Which is too bad, because that's the sole reason why JRPGs are cool. And of course, the Mission Architect system limits a lot of text to 300 characters or less. Which may be for the best, since I don't think anyone wants to read the Great American Novel in City of Heroes form. But sometimes it would be nice to squeeze in an extra word or two in. And all the maps, just like the regular City of Heroes maps, feel like mazes.

But it's still a wonderful system I'm having a blast exploring.

Today, I published arc #74776, "It's About Time," which finally allows me to play through the Futureman story, as silly as it is, and I can even do it with online friends.

Now if only Sony would copy this feature for EverQuest II (my main MMO at the moment). I would be in heaven!

I Have Seen the Future

2009-04-10T22:36:00.006-04:00

... and it looks good. City of Heroes recently released Issue 14 which features the new Mission Architect system. This lets people create their own missions that other players can play through. What a great idea to allow an infinite amount of content to be created. I've already played through a few missions that are quite clever (and, yes, of course, a few that aren't.)

I had fun creating my own mission (arc id: 28566) called "You Wouldn't Steal a Car." You, as the hero, must travel into a warehouse and stop the villainous Copywrong and his minions from distributing pirated DVDs! He's stealing movies! I know, it's terrible (gasp). Oh, and he might be putting subliminal messages on them that brainwash the viewers and thereby amassing an army of mindless drones. But, seriously, people should pay for those movies. PLEASE STOP HIM!

Public Quests And Moving Forward

2009-04-01T11:20:00.006-04:00

Massively reports that Public Quests will be a big part of Champions Online. I'm glad to see that one of the few innovations of Warhammer Online (and the only real feature of it that grabbed me) will continue. I hope they manage to address some of the main failings of Public Quests in their version.

One of the major failings of the Public Quest system as it was implemented in Warhammer Online was the fact that it was basically a new form of static grind. Sure, it was fun to participate in what were essentially ad hoc raids throughout all level ranges, but all people did was sit in one spot and repeat the activity over and over again until they got what they needed and moved on. This kills immersion (why does the bad guy keep respawning) and while all gameplay systems are repetitive, the fact that it is exactly the same time and time again gets old real quick.

What would I like to see?

I would prefer for Public Quests in Champions Online to have multiple spawn points so that they can be randomized. There are several banks throughout the city; instead of implementing PQs the Warhammer Online way (where the very same bank is under assault by the very same villains in perpetuity), have a random bank get attacked by a random villain. The basic gameplay might be the same, and sure the players will learn quickly that when Marlboro attacks the bank he has a noxious poison attack while Jokey Smurf leaves more traditional explosives around the bank. But it's not the exact same thing each time. The game moves to slightly different maps with slightly different spawn points and slightly different enemies with slightly different abilities. Maybe a villain has multiple tactics that change from one particular robbery attempt to another.

When you defeat the villain, the PQ should NOT respawn. Instead, something else happens in another part of the city. Maybe a building catches on fire and you have to go save the people inside. Maybe various criminals start causing trouble in one of the several parks. Maybe someone is trying to break into some laboratory to get one of many random inventions that MUST NOT FALL INTO THE WRONG HANDS.

There could be rewards for the players who locate, or trigger (some of the PQs might not start until a hero comes nearby) the event. That would cause the game to reward players for a very super-heroic activity: going on patrol. It would enhance the community building aspects of Public Quests. The heroes who go on patrol would need to call for backup, because they would need to tell everyone else where the action is going on.

It would make the game world feel alive, because we won't all end up running to the two or three PQs in the zone, ignoring the rest of content. The entire map becomes important because the PQs can spawn anywhere and people would need to move around the world.

And while MMOs already reward Achievers extremely well, there aren't very many game systems that actually reward Explorers. Make some Public Quests spawn in relatively remote areas, and reward people for going on patrol and finding them. Now, you have a new form of gameplay -- even if the hero who discovers and triggers the PQ doesn't even want to participate in it, they might achieve some reward for REPORTING the crime.

Will we see anything like that? Beats me. Probably not. But I'm hoping. :)

Freemium Play

2009-03-17T20:38:00.031-04:00

One of the advantages of free to play/microtransaction games is that they have a very low barrier to entry. You simply download them and start playing. If you like them, then you might "enhance" your play by purchasing items from a cash shop. It is because of this that many people insist that free to play with microtransactions is the future of MMORPGs.

I have to wonder if it's really the MICROTRANSACTION/Item Shop part that makes these kinds of games appealing? I really don't think so. I think the main attraction is that it's free to download and play the complete game, and IF you like it, you can choose to pay for additional features. If you play for months and then decide that the end game wasn't what you thought it would be, you aren't out any money, if you choose not to pay. That is a greatly appealing prospect.

This could be done in a subscription based game as well. A subscription game could offer the basic game for free and reserve some special features for subscribers. Aside from Anarchy Online, I'm not aware of any major MMO that does, and AO doesn't do it quite how I envision: they open up the original world only, but once you subscribe you can't fall back and become a basic, non-paying user. You also can't add on expansion packs without becoming a subscriber. So while the basic game is free, it ends up being more or less like a rather large "trial" area.

A better model would be to offer the entire game to users for free, and reserve a handful of FEATURES for subscribers. You could still have expansion packs but both free users and subscribers should be able to apply them to their accounts. And subscribers who decide to stop paying would be converted to free users when their subscriptions ended. This would make the game work much like most Internet services, such as Plaxo, and LinkedIn, etc. where the basic features of a complete, working service are all available for free and only a handful of features are reserved for subscribers.

Let's say EverQuest II adopted this business model. The freemium accounts might restrict you to one or two character slots. The characters would lose some of the perks normal characters enjoy, such as Vitality, and maybe they would gain combat XP (or convert combat XP to achievement XP) at half the normal rate. They wouldn't be able to access certain other features, like the recently announced Research Assistants. They would also be unable to /petition or use customer service, since a lot of our subscription fee goes towards funding that. And maybe there would be a limit to the amount of time the player can play the game per month using one of these accounts.

But other than that, they should be able to do and access everything in the game that normal subscribers can. They could level up to the level cap just like subscribers. They could access any zone that subscribers can (assuming they pass the same access restrictions that subscribers have). They could buy an expansion pack, just like subscribers do, and they would have the option to unlock the zones and new content without subscribing (possibly converting the unused free time into Station Cash.) That way they can still access newer content without being forced to commit to shelling out $15 a month.

You would have an influx of people who might not subscribe, and might never subscribe, but they would contribute to the life of the game, making it more enjoyable for subscribers. They would do this by creating a market for additional goods, acting as new players to group with, and breathing new life into the chat channels, cities, and public spaces. Because they would level up slower, they would reintroduce a level of relevance to the low level content that has been lost over time.

The main drawback to this idea would be with gold famers, since they would flock to a free account en masse. But here's an idea that might work: make it so free accounts can't access (note: the key word is access, not earn) more than 1 platinum a day (or some other arbitrary amount). While adventuring, at most 1 platinum (or a variable amount based on character level) goes into their inventory. Any amount that they earn from combat, quests, the broker, or through trade in excess of 1 platinum goes into an escrow account. Every day, at most 1 platinum in that escrow account will be transferred to that character's bank slot.

This means the free accounts can still do anything subscribers can but their ability to amass in game wealth is simply slowed down. This shouldn't negatively impact game play, because these accounts would mostly be used by casual players.

If the free accounts are time limited as well, that would be a further obstacle that would make them unattractive to gold farmers.

While a bunch of farmers can get free accounts and go out and earn 100 platinum, they would only end up with 1 platinum in each of their inventories. It would take 99 days for the rest of that money to trickle into their characters' bank account. That would severely slow down the potential of earning business on those accounts.

Another feature of freemium play that is important: users (players) need to be able to go back and forth between free and subsription accounts at will. Anarchy Online only lets you upconvert but once you start subscribing, you can't stop and still keep playing. You also can't upgrade your account to access any of the expansion packs without subscribing.

It would be better if you just convert accounts (in good standing) that stop paying to a free account; they would lose access to all but the one or two characters that the freemium accounts allow, and so on, but they could still log on and play. The reasoning here is that much of the value of a multiplayer game is the community. If someone no longer has the time to keep playing enough to warrant the subscription fee, having their account converted to a free account means they can still at least pop in once in a while and say "hi" to their guildmates, help out on a raid, and contribute to the life of the game, which makes the game more valuable to those of us who are still paying to play.

Let's take what works about the free to play/microtransaction games: the ability to drop in anytime without commitment, the ability to try the game without the hassle of finding a box on the shelf at Gamestop or pulling out a credit card, the ability to pop in and keep in touch with the friends you've made online even after you've "moved on" to greener MMO pastures. Take that, but apply it to the traditional subscription based business model, without forcing us to deal with all the game impacting microtransactions that almost all Free to Play games (like the current darling of the blogosphere, Runes of Magic) have.

I don't want to pay extra for bag slots (meaning the developers have an incentive to dump all kinds of junk in my bags). I don't want to pay real money to respec my character because the developers don't give me an in game option. I don't want to pay real life money to rent a stupid horse or use my recall spells.

I just want my traditional EverQuest/EQ2 style gameplay, but with an option for a limited (but not a trial) account that could help bring in new players AND bring back old players to breathe some life back into their aging games -- and make the subscription fees that the rest of us are paying more valuable.

RMT in Vanguard

2009-03-13T17:34:00.004-04:00

I don't think this will go over well. Sony is introducing RMT on ALL Vanguard servers. It won't be segregated like it is in EverQuest II.

I guess Vanguard is a dying game, so they are trying to eke out a new revenue stream, but I can't imagine how this would help the game grow. Any additional revenue they reap from LiveGamer services would probably be offset by lost subscriptions in a game that is already virtually deserted.

Still, what do I know. The game companies aren't paying ME the big bucks... :)

Expanding Heirlooms

2009-03-12T13:45:00.003-04:00

I've been doing some old Heritage quests, mostly for AA, and it kind of bothered me that all these wonderful quests were no longer really useful. People level so fast now that most people aren't going to bother doing them with level appropriate characters. Hell, some of the heritage quests are so long that even if you did do them at the appropriate level, by the time you finish them, the item will be gray. That wasn't the case when the game launched, but is sadly the case now.

This isn't an indictment of increasing the leveling speed. I think that was unavoidable. The alternative was to keep it lengthy, but that makes it harder to attract newer players (who see a vast but entirely empty world since everyone is wherever the newest zone is). It also makes it harder to keep older players since if they tire of their main, they are unlikely to want to level an alt if they know it will be months or years to get back to the level cap where their friends are.

But because of all that, the low level heritage quests rewards go unused. Few people even try the quests until they are trivialized by leveling up, since it's almost impossible to get a full group of people to do them at the appropriate level.

So that's why I wish that the heritage quest rewards would be changed to HEIRLOOM. (For those who don't play EQ2, that is our game's equivalent of Bind-on-Account. It means you can trade the item to another character you own [on the same account] but not to anyone else.) At least, this way, I could trade them to my alts. That's twinking, but I think twinking is fine as long as things don't get too grossly overpowering. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, it's a part of the progression in a game. You level up, you earn your top gear, and you should have the ability to pass some of that on as an *ahem* heirloom to another character you own to help them level up as well.

Sure, that means people might gray out, and therefore trivialize, zones to twink their alts, but so be it. At least the quest lines would be useful to people as something other than an AA grind and the quest rewards will see the light of day.

WTB: Dad Friendly MMORPG

2009-03-02T12:55:00.007-05:00

As a Dad who has little time to game anymore, I have been finding myself spending less time in my favorite hobby. Granted, family life is far more important than all the virtual accomplishments in every imaginary world put together, but I'd like the think it's possible to design a game that's Dad (and Mom) friendly that would still be attractive to younger players who still have all the time in the world.

These are a few of the features I'd like to see in a future MMORPG.

1) Henchmen -- It is good for a game to encourage grouping, but it's even better to give us alternatives. I want a game that allows casual players to play without grouping when they desire. These don't need to be mutually exclusive goals. Guild Wars style henchmen are great because they allow solo players to tackle almost all of the missions in game, but they are nowhere near as effective as fellow human players. Therefore, we have an incentive to group when we have time, and a way to play the game when we don't.

Henchmen are a superior alternative to soloable mobs because solo mobs are generally too easy. Since the mob has to be designed so weak that a priest with little damage output can kill it, with damage output that a wizard can handle, and because when fighting a single player, positionals and tanking aren't utilized, solo players don't learn their class roles, and don't take on a challenge. What I would prefer to see is for solo (and small group) players to take on the SAME content that groups do, using NPCs to flesh out the needed class roles. That way, even if we are playing alone, we are still playing our class role, and the encounters can be designed so that you have to use certain skills to defeat them; if that skill (such as a charm, snare, etc.) isn't available to the player, they can hire henchmen who have it.

2) Open Grouping -- This is probably the best feature in Warhammer Online. Allow people to group with other players, and take advantage of the multiplayer nature of the gameplay, WITHOUT forcing us to sit around all day screaming LFM for specific roles and levels and gear checks.

3) Pause Button For Solo Instances -- YES! I want to pause the freaking world. Not the main world where everyone else is, obviously that wouldn't work, but if I'm in an instance all by myself, why NOT have the ability to temporarily pause the action? Of course, chat channels, and all the other multiplayer activity would still go on, but I should be able to stop those pathing mobs from wandering for a moment while I take care of the baby, or take a bio break, or answer the phone.

While you couldn't pause any shared world zone where you play with other players, the ability to do so in solo instances (which is where most time constrained players would be) would add greatly to the game's accessibility without making it any less immersive or ruining the gameplay for other players (other accessibility options like the ability to become temporarily immune or logging off quickly without a countdown timer, could be abused to trivialize the game, or to grief players on PVP servers.)

4) Persistent Instances -- I love how you can log off for the night in many EverQuest II zones and come back the next day to finish the instance. All the dead mobs stay dead, all the triggers stay triggered. Let's make that more commonplace in the genre!

5) Real Time Advancement -- Eve Online does this, and while of course the most hardcore players will still dominate, the real time advancement can help keep the gap somewhat narrower so casual/time-constrained players can still make decent contributions in the game.

6) Turn-Based Mini-Games -- Instead of crafting like in EverQuest II where you actively have to spam buttons to ensure a good result, have turn based mini-games that are more like card games. I want gameplay that is challenging but still possible to complete when I'm summoned away by a crying baby.

Oh, the Hu-Meme-ity...

2009-02-26T17:39:00.008-05:00

Bad title? I got nothing. Anyway, Pete from Dragonchasers meme-tagged me. It's like the whole MMO blogosphere has decided to emulate Facebook or something.

The idea of this particular meme is to post your sixth screenshot from your games. Unfortunately, I have never been very attached to my screenshots, so I've lost them over time when rebuilding my computer, or shuffling files around. My most recent purge occurred as I shuffled things around so the OS is on one drive, the swap file on a second, and the games on a third. Load times? What load times? Ah, but my historical record from the various games I've inhabited was sadly not one of my priorities.

That isn't to say I don't have screenshots, it's just they are all very recent. I never thought about it before, but I do kind of wish now that I had preserved some of them, especially from Final Fantasy XI, a game I have very fond memories of that I would love to reminisce over, but I would never, ever, ever go back to playing again.

Here's a screenshot from EverQuest II. It's not too exciting, it's basically just my Defiler posing with her faction window open. I had finally moved Synod Reet faction up to ally, and I was excited because I was moving closer to obtaining my epic weapon.

And here's an all-too-common scene from Warhammer Online, where my Bright Wizard was standing over his own corpse. Seconds before dying again.

I'm going to be anti-social and refuse to tag anyone, so, dear reader(s), you get a reprieve. Mostly because everyone I would have tagged have been tagged already.

I Have Ruined Someone's Life And Want To Ruin More

2009-02-22T10:31:00.008-05:00

I managed to convince my brother to try out an MMORPG. I wanted him to try EverQuest II, but he doesn't seem to be very fond of fantasy. So I got him to try City of Heroes. He managed to become super addicted to it in no time. I feel evil. I may have ruined his life.

However, he quickly realized that the world simply doesn't change. And many of the missions in City of Heroes are simply frustrating. Why is it when I am given a mission to steal some museum piece from the Snakes or whoever, AND I steal it, the mission continues until I manage to kill the 20 different spawns in every nook in cranny in the multi-level room the item was in? It doesn't become MORE stolen because they are dead. I suppose they do this to try to prevent people with invisibility powers from having an "unfair advantage," but it sort of makes those powers less meaningful. Some of the other missions require clearing a large, sprawling zone with nooks and crannies that mobs hide in that are hard to see. You end up spending more time looking around for that one last mob than you do fighting. That's not a challenge, that's just tedium.

I have only put in six months of play time in City of Heroes since launch, and no two months were consecutive. It's largely because of missions like that. It's a terrifically fun game with a great pick up group scene, but the missions and the random nature of the maps leave a lot to be desired.

So his fun starts to taper off and he starts complaining that he wants to play a game where he can truly change the world. I mention Eve Online. He is more of a sci-fi nerd anyway. Now my brother has moved on there and developed an OCD addiction. I haven't decided if I want to return to New Eden, but if he sticks around I just may have to do so. If only to monitor his addiction and make sure he's ok.

Now I'd like to ruin more people's lives.

If you would like to try EverQuest II, let me know at festivewombat-eq2invites [at] yahoo.com. I'll reply with an invite. If you convert to a subscriber, you will get some exclusive goodies, such as a cloak that increases run speed, some potions to help you level up, and a starter deck and booster pack for Legends of Norrath. You won't even have to buy the game, since Rise of Kunark and all previous expansion packs would be given to you free!

Recruit a Friend FAQ

Recruit an Original Thought Already

2009-02-10T13:34:00.005-05:00

Sony just announced a recruit a friend program for EverQuest II, which they describe as a "unique" promotion that gives you free game time, an exclusive mount, bonus experience when grouping with your friend, and the ability to help your friend catch up in levels (in the case of EverQuest II, through mentoring experience.) I wonder where they got the idea?

Sigh.

EverQuest 2 is a much better game, but at the rate they are trying to copy World of Warcraft I can't help but wonder if it will be much longer. If I wanted to play WoW, I would be. Granted, this is just a promotion I can easily ignore (except for the implications it has: the Recruit a Friend was widely abused by dual boxers to help power level their alts...), so it's not as bad as the in-game copying such as the tiered raid progression and solo quest arcs we got in Kunark, which we most certainly could NOT ignore.

Not that I won't try to take advantage of this. Anyone want to help me get an exclusive mount???

Miscellanea

2009-02-04T17:51:00.006-05:00

Not much has happened lately. As of a month ago, I am now a father, so I haven't had much time for gaming. But even when I have had time, I haven't been too interested in MMORPGs. It's not just that single player games are more convenient (after all, you can't pause an MMORPG, though I wish you could), it's mainly that I've been more interested in story driven games. So I've been playing Fable 2, STALKER, and the recently released Fallout 3 DLC.

I finished Fable 2, which was fun. One of the most interesting parts of the game for me was when I came back to Bowerstone after adventuring for quite some time and found out my wife left me. That was powerful for me because in most RPGs, nothing happens that the player does not themselves initiate. Granted, I could have kept my wife if I had visited more frequently, but typically RPGs react to action more than inaction.

I think MMORPGs could learn a thing or two from Fable 2. While MMORPGs are necessarily static affairs, because of the shared world, they could at least introduce NPCs into the affair and our relationship with THEM could change over time. We should be able to make friends, make enemies, even an arch-nemesis. The very static quest lines we all have to follow wouldn't seem so bad if there were little bits here and there that were CUSTOMIZED for each character. I wouldn't mind doing a quest line multiple times if each time I did it I was fighting a different arch nemesis, who lived to thwart only that one character.

The Fallout 3 DLC was a mixed bag. It was fun to revisit the post apocalyptic world, but there was nothing in the DLC that really felt like Fallout. It was a purely shooter driven experience, with no opportunity for roleplay or alternate progression, and the shooting aspect of Fallout isn't really one of its strengths. Still, I think what they are trying to do is offer up little slices emphasizing different forms of gameplay, and the story was quite enjoyable, so I am not disappointed that I purchased it.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is a game I don't often have the urge to play. It's a first person shooter but its very clunky and bug ridden, with poor voice dialogue and scripting. The story is somewhat interesting: you are investigating an area outside Chernobyl that is infested with radiation and anomalies and right now I'm in an area where people have been turned into zombies because of some kind of radiowaves emitting from some place nearby. It's just the bugs and clunky game play are a huge turn off.

One of the things I like about the game is that you can fail missions. The problem is often these "protect the rebel camp" missions end up ending in failure before I even have a chance to run to the camp because the key NPC I'm supposed to protect dies immediately. Then I reload, get to the camp, and fight off the bandits but after the fight the bandits attacking keep respawning, perpetually, even though I've satisfied the victory condition. So then I reload again, and finally everything plays through correctly and the script executes fine. Talk about frustrating. I'm not sure why I even keep trying to play the game.

I did manage to get a few hours in EverQuest II. I worked it out so I could get one raid night a weekend. And I hate Venril Sathir so much now for making those nights a series of disappointments. Still, getting my mythical (even if it takes half a year of playing only one or two nights a week), before the next expansion pack comes out, is my goal now, at least for one character. If I don't burn out on the game first. With my time constraints, I haven't been able to grind for TSO shards, and I haven't had much interest in the solo quest arcs in Moors. So we'll see.

Alganon

2009-01-24T11:07:00.006-05:00

I noticed Aspendawn talking about Alganon on Veni, Vidi, Bloggi, so I went and checked it out. This appears to be the new name for what was once called Crusade Online, by one of the original designers of Horizons. It seems to have some ambitious ideas; the primary goal of the game appears to be immersion.

Some of the ideas that it has that I am looking forward to:

It has a hybrid progression system that involves both skill-ups based on usage, but caps those skills based on real time that keeps hardcore players from gaining too much of an advantage over more time constrained players. I think real-time-based progression works well in Eve Online; it's probably a good feature for these games because it helps shift the focus from playing to level up to simply playing to play.

The game appears to also plan various "Domain Objectives," which give a shared goal to all players in a zone, whether they are grouped or not. If done properly, this could be a good community building feature.

The main thing I like about it is the promise that they will have customized quests. Some quests will be customized for your character so on multiple playthroughs you won't just be doing the same exact thing over and over again.

This game has been surprisingly under most people's radar. After all the exaggerated hype of the last batch of MMOs (Vanguard, Age of Conan, Warhammer Online), that's probably a good thing. Whether this game becomes a success or not, it seems they are trying several good, new ideas. This is one reason why I'm cautiously optimistic about 2009 MMOs. Even if we don't get a hit on our hands, we've got lots of games that are actually trying something new.

Invisible Walls ENHANCE Immersion

2009-01-16T09:58:00.009-05:00

There is an interesting discussion on Terminally Incoherent about invisible walls. Luke seems to feel that they kill immersion. Apparently, so do everyone else that commented on his blog.

Always the contrarian, I have to defend the opposite position: invisible walls enhance immersion.

One of the irritating things I find in many RPGs that have "open worlds" where you can interact with everything is that everything is so damn small. You walk into the mining village and there's like five people who live there and three houses. Obviously the game developers have limited time and it doesn't make sense to design the game world with realistically sized mining villages with hundreds of NPCs and fully interactive homes because it would take them forever to do just that and then there'd be no time to actually make the damn game. So I understand that. But they have a choice:

- put in fake backdrops of "the rest of the village" but make it so the player can't go there, OR
- make the world unrealistically small so the developers have time to implement every facet of the game world and therefore won't need to upset player's illusion of interactivity and control

I prefer the former. I find it curious that people insist on the latter. Last time I checked, few RPGs put bathrooms anywhere in game, and I can't remember the last one that made me use one. So obviously as consumers we all draw the line at how much immersion we require somewhere.

When you get to the edge of a map, the game developers could put in an invisible wall to demonstrate that the game world continues, OR they can go out of their way to put in all sorts of natural barriers so you simply can't continue. Again, I prefer the former. Wrapping the entire game world with barriers just exaggerates how unreal the game environment is and ruins the illusion. Who builds nations in the middle of impenetrable valleys that you can't get goods in and out of?

I prefer the game world to feel realistically consistent. And that means having the maps appear to continue even if they don't. After all, if your RPG consists of a map of a nation, they probably do trade with other nations. That's not very plausible if you can't get an individual outside the borders of the nation, let alone a caravan. With an invisible wall, you can see that the world goes on, but from a role-playing standpoint, your character just doesn't want to go there.

In other words, I prefer the illusion of a continuous world even if it means sacrificing the player's control at certain points.

I do think that perhaps games could implement the invisible walls better. Instead of having you continue to run in place once you hit the wall, as most do, just have the player stop running and say "I don't want/need to go there," and/or turn them around. That way you can maintain narrative immersion (that the world continues but your purpose is so important you can't go wandering off yet) without violating the immersion of control.

There's no right or wrong here. It's all a matter of opinion. In Grand Theft Auto the city is big, big, big. It's a city after all. That's narrative immersion. But because it's so big, obviously the developers can't make every indoor area. That means some doors can't be opened (they are simply fake backdrops). That violates the illusion of control, which for many makes the game less immersive. You now have a game world where you can kick down SOME doors but not others, arbitrarily.

So what do you prefer your games focus on? Narrative immersion (if they say it's a city, it should LOOK like a city), or illusion of control (if there's a door, I should be able to open it)?

A Distinct Lack of Class

2009-01-15T08:57:00.006-05:00

One of the interesting things I've noticed in the design of several upcoming MMOs is that several seem to be moving away from the traditional "character class" game mechanic. Once upon a time, each character picked a class, which could not be changed, and that choice defined their role.

This approach has drawbacks. One of the most frustrating aspects of traditional MMOs is finding a group of players to play with that fill all the requisite roles. Its quite common to see people with almost full groups, unable to continue, shouting that they are looking for a tank, healer, or mezzer, over and over again, until they find one. This results in a lot of sitting around, not playing the game, just because you need ONE more person on a server with thousands of people on it and the group can't work without them.

In DC Universe Online, each powerset comes with three modes: offensive, defensive, or utility. You can change your role depending on your mood, what you want to do, and what is needed. The Agency likewise has a "you are what you wear" system of defining roles, meaning you can similarly change your role depending on what people need at the time.

Brilliant! Swapping out the "class" mechanic for "stances" removes one of the major impediments in grouping. Removing the types of obstacles that make grouping a pain is a great step forward for the genre.

Alternate Pricing Models

2009-01-13T11:01:00.006-05:00

Openedge started a discussion on MMO monetization. He wonders what alternatives there are to the $15 a month subscription fee that seems to be ubiquitous in Western MMOs.

One model I would prefer would be a tiered subscription fee, just like you see with cell phones. For casual players, you might buy blocks of time (a "pay as you go" plan), with no contract. I might buy 15 hours in City of Heroes and even if I don't use it up for a year, I can still come back and play whenever I want.

Above that, you would have a low-priced time-limited subscription. For $5 a month you might get 15 hours of play, with overage charges if you play longer.

And above that, you would get your standard $15 a month unlimited subscription.

There are a lot of MMORPGs installed on my hard drive right now. I have a lot of disk space. I have Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft, EverQuest II, Vanguard, Planetside, Matrix Online, Pirates of the Burning Sea, Star Wars Galaxies, and City of Heroes. Right now, I only subscribe to EQ2. I could get all the Sony games for $30 a month, but I don't put in enough hours to make it worth my while. But if I COULD play all of these games for a reasonable fee, I would.

If I could pay $5 and get 15 hours of play (or something similar), it might be months before I used that up in City of Heroes, but that would be $5 they aren't getting right now, because $15 a month for something I'd only fire up once a month or so isn't worth it to me.

What other kinds of subscription models could there be? How about something modelled after the cable company? Instead of having MMO creators managing pricing and payments on their own, maybe they should just focus on content creation and outsource payment processing to third parties. Those third parties can create their own bundle deals for access to any of the games they've been licensed to resell.

With this model, I could subscribe to one company and access games from more than one game producer. Maybe I could pick any two MMOs for $25 a month, or five MMOs for $35 a month. I would get unlimited play and can swap one game out for another once per month (if you've ever used an e-Book service like Safari, you'll be familiar with this idea). The third party will determine the proportion of play time I'm spending in each game and pay out accordingly.

Another model could be paying be chapter in an episodic MMORPG. I don't mean what Guild Wars did by selling each Campaign separately for one flat fee. What I mean is having an MMO designed more like a TV series that's broken up into distinct story-related chunks that start and, more importantly, END. And you pay for access to each episode.

Let's have a game which ends when the episodic ends and then starts up again with the world changed based on what happened the previous time around. This wouldn't be a game for achievers, since each episode would essentially reset everyone just like many single player games don't let you keep your level 20 in the sequel even if you are supposedly playing the same character. This allows new players to join in any time in a world where everyone is on the same level, and it means we'd get a world that truly evolved over time and wasn't purely static. Each episode might last a month or two and then the game might be shut off until the next episode was ready. The main idea behind this model is that the world changes between episodes. The tower with all the orcs in it one episode has their angry ghosts in the next. The bandits are defeated and the fledgling outpost becomes a commercial and economic hub. No timesinks, because the game resets, just a focus on story and exploration. And we keep paying to keep taking part in the ongoing story.

There's plenty of other ideas but those are the ones off of the top of my head that I would prefer to see over the two current models: free-to-play with microtransactions, and the $15 a month subscription.

Why Go It Solo In an MMO?

2009-01-11T21:12:00.001-05:00

Saylah and Pete both had great posts recently about the importance of soloing in an MMORPG. Many people don't seem to understand why some of us like to solo in an MMORPG. After all, they say, if you are just going to play by yourself most of the time, why not just play Neverwinter Nights or Oblivion or some other single player RPG? Well, for me, there are many reasons why the single player RPG option isn't as attractive. I enjoy solo play in MMOs:

- Because there is a real economy with real players buying and selling things. You can simulate that in a single player RPG, but most don't. And knowing a real person is running around with something you made makes it far more rewarding than knowing the game deleted the item based on some random event and gave you the money, even if the end result appears the same.

- Because in games like EverQuest II with living guilds, I can contribute to the growth of my guild, even if I'm doing the work (adventure/tradeskill writs, particularly difficult quest lines, etc.) alone.

- The economy and living guilds are two ways that people can play "solo", while still playing together. Many other features in MMOs can be created that allow people to essentially "play" alone but still leverage the multiplayer nature of the genre to provide an experience single player games can't. Some examples would be: architect features in MMORPGs that allow people to design their own content, player-writable books, fluff RP features that let players play music or coordinate emotes to create customized 'dance' routines or players, and EverQuest II-style Live Events or Warhammer-style Public Quests that provide a goal for your faction, server, or region that everyone can work towards (even if they are alone).

- Because single player RPGs don't have chat rooms.

- Because trading in-game items I've earned with a computer algorithm isn't as fun.

- Because MMORPGs evolve over time; single player games get a few small expansion packs for 8000 Microsoft points a piece and then die.

- Because the game world seems more alive when there are other people running around in something other than a predetermined pattern.

- Because I do like playing WITH other people, even if I might not be "grouped" with them in combat. I might craft for them, I might help them out in chat by telling them where they need to go, I might check on something at the auction house, or grab an item that someone needs and deliver it to them since I'm on my way there anyway. All of these things are fun, and impossible in a single player RPG.

- Because in groups, everyone always skips the cut scenes. It was frustrating in Guild Wars because I was actually interested in the story. Everyone is in such a rush to get going that those of us who actually want to read the quest text or watch the cut scenes and enjoy the story are left behind. The MMO game world seems to be dominated by so-called "Achievers", so those of us in the literate minority often have to go it alone.

- Because sometimes I do want to group and I have the opportunity to do so if I choose. Most "single-player" or offline RPGs don't have cooperative modes.

- Because sometimes we don't have a choice: I love MMORPGs, and I do enjoy playing with others, but my wife recently gave me baby. I haven't had time to play anything yet, aside from a little Fable 2 while the baby napped on my belly. But when I do, I'm not going to be able to pause our EQ2 guild raid because my baby dropped some phat loot of her own. So I'll probably end up soloing. And, eventually, when I find time to game with others, I want that progress to count.

... and many, many more reasons.

What are your reasons for wanting to go it alone in a "multiplayer" game?

Who Am I?

2009-01-09T10:43:00.010-05:00

Because Ysh asked...

3 things I like: mini-games, fluff, community building features
3 things I can take or leave: One-button Crafting, "Levels", Immersion
3 things I dislike: Combat as principle means of advancement, "Individual" quests, Free for All PVP

Likes

Mini-games: I like games that have multiple kinds of mini-games. Combat is generally the main game in an MMORPG; in newer games, crafting is an additional mini-game. Final Fantasy XI converted fishing into a mini-game at one point so it wouldn't be as bottable. The more ways there are to play the game, the more I want to play it.

Fluff: Fluff gives people goals that aren't game breaking, and don't contribute to mudflation.

Community building features: Community building features like leveling your guild in EverQuest II gives players shared goals they can work towards, whether they solo, group, or raid. Community-based goals can be powerful motivators.

Things I Can Take or Leave

One-button crafting: I like crafting if its a mini-game, but the World of Warcraft style where you simply click on the recipe and click a button is idiotic. Its barely better than Progress Quest.

Levels: Anyone that's read my blog regularly knows I'm not a fan of levels. They have their place, but I don't like how they make it impossible for players to play with one another. If someone implemented a progression system that made it so a level one newbie could play with a level 100 veteran without playing alone for two months, I'd be ok with it. Mentoring systems such as Final Fantasy XI's Level Sync system, and sidekicking in City of Heroes accomplish this to a degree, but they all do so by subverting the leveling system (changing people's levels). So why not just get rid of levels entirely? Motivate people through collection mechanics, story-based progression through a series of personalized missions, or through a skill-based system (which can be like levels if done poorly, but skill-based systems are generally flatter and offer more lateral forms of advancement, so it doesn't take long to become the expert at any one thing, but over time, players become generalists.)

Immersion: I like a self-consistent world that's fun to play, but let's not forget that these are games. Some amount of immersion is great, but some people take this goal too far. I heard people complaining that not having to wait for the boats in EQ2 (the bells effectively teleport you elsewhere) wasn't "immersive". I've heard people complain that you aren't forced to eat or drink in EQ2; apparently they think characters that defeat gods, teleport, and come back from the dead on demand should starve to death because you forgot to push a button. Well, having to take a crap in game would be immersive, but who wants to sit there and babysit their adventurers through every single minute immersive detail of their lives?

So, instant action features that take us where our adventurer friends are (so we don't have to trek halfway across the world to find them), and other fast travel features are a welcome addition to the game genre for me. We should be able to get to the fun fast.

I'd also want inventory management to be more like Oblivion, with a sortable list. Some people think dragging and dropping icons in a window with a bag icon in the corner is "immersive," but when I'm looking for the "Sword of Ultimate Truths" in my bag, I don't want to have to search over two hundred inventory slots of similar looking icons. Give me better tools for managing inventory even if they aren't "immersive." The game should be about what we do with those items, not about how well we search through all the crap we get.

Dislikes

Combat XP: I don't think combat should be the main way one earns XP. I'd prefer XP to be awarded for achieving goals. Avoiding combat when its not necessary should be rewarded just as much as slaughtering your way through an area. Dungeons and Dragons Online tried to do this, though they just ended up making running dungeon runs as the grind. However, I think it was the right direction to go.

Quests: I'd prefer quests to be something tied to a group instead of group members, and the rewards to be shared automatically by all members as they progress. We shouldn't have to have everyone share a quest or run around to the same quest givers.

In current MMORPGs on the market, I like the City of Heroes mission system the best. That game has the most healthy grouping scene of any MMO I've seen, and this is despite the fact that soloing is also completely viable.

People like to blame the ease of soloing for the death of grouping, but its not the case. I think individual quests killed grouping. After all, its hard enough to find people with the correct roles in your level range, now we have to find people on the same quest, and (in EverQuest II, with its multiple-stage quests) on the same freaking step.

Free for all PVP: I don't think PVP makes sense in an RPG; in an RPG, time is the principle means of advancement. Whoever has the most time advances fastest. So all we're really testing in a PVP-based RPG is who neglects their children the most. I prefer PVP in games where people are on equal ground (like strategy games) and skill is the determinant of victory.

Your Turn

Go to Stylish Corpse and reply there or post on your own blog. Let's find out what kind of MMO gamer you are!

Prognostications and Resolutions

2009-01-02T09:42:00.006-05:00

Resolutions

I will not buy into any hype about any game. Darkfall, that means you, though I never had faith in that game anyway. It just seemed like the same people who hyped the indie failure Wish moved to Dark and Light, and now they have moved on to Darkfall. The same applies to Champions Online and whatever else is scheduled for this year.

Prognostications

On MMO Domination:

- World of Warcraft will still dominate. (I know, easy one.)
- EverQuest II servers will merge. Late in the year, it receives an expansion pack that raises the level cap to 90 and the AA level cap to 250. It introduces a new race and new starting area, but other than that, mostly high level (80-90) content. Everyone complains that the mythicals they worked hard to earn are worthless now.
- Darkfall will be released. No one will care.
- Chronicles of Spellborn will come out in the US. No one will care.
- Richard Garriot will announce he is making a new game. No one will care.
- Aion will be released and do well abroad. In America, it will cannibalize the Lineage 2 anime fetishist playerbase and generally be ignored as yet another Korean grind (except with wings).
- Age of Conan comes out with an expansion pack. Everyone loves the first twenty levels and uninstalls afterwards.
- Warhammer Online continues to lose players. EA Mythic starts their own version of Sony's Land of the Lost MMOs Station Pass collection, with a single subscription fee for all three of their games.
- Cheyenne Mountain fails to pay its employees and Stargate Worlds never makes it to market.
- Jumpgate Evolution is a sleeper hit, and Eve Online stops growing as its playerbase trades in their auto-attacking spaceships for more active gameplay.
- Somebody (*cough* Acclaim) brings a dozen more Asian MMO imports that no one plays.

On Lawsuits:

- Worlds.com lawsuit against NCSoft fails. NCSoft receives assistance from other parties, not (yet) directly involved in the lawsuit. Eventually (maybe not in 2009 but in 2010 at least), this goes the way of the PanIP lawsuit, a similar situation where a useless parasite of a company without a real product tried to leverage a patent to sue the world.

On Microtransactions and Revenue Models:

- A major AAA MMORPG (maybe Dungeons and Dragons Online) goes free to play with microtransactions. This move is generally well received because they choose to use microtransactions to charge for access (to new zones and quest lines; i.e., "modules") instead of a cash shop for items.
- The Agency will be an unmitigated success. The cash shop brings in so much revenue, all future Sony games are integrated with Station Cash.
- Sony either drops a dying MMORPG from its Land of the Lost MMOs Station Pass collection, or declares microtransactions to be a raging success and puts them in more of their games, starting with Star Wars Galaxies and Pirates of the Burning Sea.
- More MMORPGs will integrate advertising into the user interface. Bloggers fume when they find they are paying a subscription fee, microtransactions, and watching ads for the same game.
- Sony brings back /pizza, except now its paid for with Station Cash.

On Hype and Broken Resolutions:

- Bioware's The Old Republic MMO is still the most highly anticipated MMORPG in recent times. It doesn't come out in 2009.
- The blogosphere (myself included, despite my New Years MMO-related Resolution) gets caught up in the hype about Red 5's mystery project once they finally release some nuggets of information about it.

On Predictions:

- I will probably be completely wrong. But I hope I'm right. I am looking forward to some /pizza.

Looking Forward to 2009

2008-12-29T18:38:00.007-05:00

2008 was not a very good year for MMORPGs. I got excited about Pirates of the Burning Sea, Age of Conan, and Warhammer Online, and none of them managed to capture my imagination the way that Final Fantasy XI did when I first got hooked on MMORPGs, and the way EverQuest II does now.

There aren't very many high profile games coming out in 2009. But there are a few games I'm looking forward to that hopefully won't disappoint:

Jumpgate Evolution: This looks like it could be an MMO version of "Freelancer". Or Eve Online with free flight. Or Vendetta Online with a budget. I like that they are going for a sandbox environment with a fully player driven economy where you can be what you want to be.

Eve Online is the only place to go for that at the moment. But combat in Eve Online was mostly locking onto a target, orbiting around it, and watching your ship auto-attack until someone died, warped away, or whatever. The twitch based combat (like in Vendetta Online) would make for more exciting gameplay.

The Agency: I like the stylized graphics and the 'you are what you wear' "job" system which lets you change your role whenever you want. I especially like the focus on collection mechanics (finding and trading Operatives.) Its also nice to see a fresh IP in a genre that is increasingly being taken over by franchising (Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, etc., etc.)

Though one franchise that I don't mind seeing is:

Stargate Worlds: While we haven't heard much about it, the rumor is the gameplay includes noncombat methods of advancement that involve minigames, such as puzzle solving. I don't know how well they will be able to pull that off, but I look forward to seeing more diverse methods of gameplay in MMOs besides hitting combat skills on a hotbar.

One of my favorite features of Vanguard was the diplomacy feature, because it was realized as a card game which made it an interesting diversion from the standard EverQuest-style quest and combat game play.

Champions Online: I enjoyed City of Heroes, so maybe this will be City of Heroes done right. :) Some of the problems with City of Heroes that I didn't enjoy was that the leveling system prevented me from getting some of the powers I wanted right away. It didn't make sense to make a hero who only learned to fly after 14 levels. I THINK Champions is doing it differently; where every level you gain a point which can be used to increase the power of a skill or add a new skill, but essentially you still start with the basic powers that define your character.

The Nemesis system, where you design your own arch-enemy, is a great way to customize storytelling for your hero. I like the idea that I won't always be fighting the same villains that every other hero on the server are fighting. And this might be the next big step in MMORPG design: people always complain how the worlds are static and unchanging. Well, if we're fighting the same monsters and villains in the same storylines as everyone else on the server, of course it can't change. We can't defeat the villain because someone else has to fight them too.

But if MMORPGs created customized quests and storylines for our characters, the world can change. I can decide that yes, in fact, I DO defeat the villain for good and the world is better off for it. And then maybe a new villain catches my attention. Everyone would have different quests (though, underneath the hood, they might be very, very similar), so if I help someone else on a quest I won't be fighting the same people I fought before -- I'll be fighting THEIR enemies.

Well, we don't know yet that Champions will actually deliver what I'm imagining, but every baby step towards that future is one I look forward to.

And, on that note, happy new years everyone!

Proof Ninjas > Pirates

2008-12-28T11:06:00.002-05:00

The ending is awesome. Totally awesome. It was beautiful. I almost cried.

From Full Time Ninjas

Solo Missions in EQ2

2008-12-26T09:58:00.002-05:00

I'd like to see some kind of mission system created for solo and small group players. Early on, EverQuest II introduced some instances that could be done both solo or heroic, but lately the content has become split such that the overworld is largely solo and instances are all heroic.

Its good to encourage grouping by putting the best gear in the heroic dungeons, and there are certainly a lot of quests to keep soloers and small group players occupied, but it would be nice to be able to do something besides questing when we don't have the time (or desire) to group with others. I vastly prefer dungeon crawls over questing, and missions in the various dungeons would be a great alternative to keep solo and small group players occupied.

The loot should, of course, not be comparable to TSO void shard loot, but providing soloers and more time constrained players with their equivalent of "elite end game" gear would be a nice way of continuing the EQ2 tradition of supporting every kind of player. Developers wouldn't even need to make all new zones to support this; recycling existing content could be a good way to bring that about without using up as much developer bandwidth.

Recycle Old Content

2008-12-23T14:12:00.010-05:00

One of the things I enjoy about EQ2's epic quests is that it brings people back into older, otherwise unused zones in the game. I wish SOE would come up with more permanent reasons to revisit older content.

One good way to do that would be by introducing a new faction of historians or scholars who send people on daily missions for tokens, similar to the TSO scholars. Adventurers would go into special versions of Unrest, Poet's Palace, and other zones that don't receive many visitors anymore. The special zones would be mostly the same, except they would scale to the latest level cap and have new loot tables for the higher tiers.

Or maybe the adventurers might go into regular open zones, such as Sanctum of the Scaleborn, even though that means almost everything is gray, but along the way level-appropriate "ambushers" show up at various places while you try to complete your mission.

It takes time to create new loot tables for each additional tier, as well as itemizing the faction merchants, but I think it would be worth it. This game has a lot of content and its a shame for so much of it to go to waste because the majority of the playerbase has leveled past the point where those zones are viable. Or, in the case of some of the ROK instances, mudflation has progressed us to a point that it no longer makes much sense to go there.

WAR! What Is It Good For?

2008-12-20T17:51:00.011-05:00

Absolutely nothing? It seems a few other bloggers have decided that Warhammer Online may no longer be for them. I've been saying the same thing for a while now, but I decided to log on a few times over the last few days to give it one last hurrah.

It was the same old story: empty PQs, lackluster PVE. I've never complained that a game had 'too much content' before, but its apparent that the servers can't handle the number of players necessary to fill out the content they have. Unfortunately, the content they have isn't very compelling either. While PQs are a nice step forward in MMORPG design, the rest of the PVE game is very poor compared to World of Warcraft and similar games.

There was some Open RvR going on, and since that's one of the central reasons to play this game, I joined in. That was fun, but we had a warband and Destruction at the moment wasn't really putting up a defense, so we basically took everything effortlessly. They may as well just have put a big "Order Wins" button up at the moment. In fact, the only part of the game I still really enjoy are Scenarios, and half of those fell apart due to imbalances.

The only part I seem to continue to enjoy is Scenarios and, unfortunately, Scenarios alone are not enough to keep me in game. Not when its the same six Scenarios over and over again until I level up high enough to move to finally hit tier 4.

I'm coming to the conclusion that maybe the problem I have with Warhammer is that I tend to prefer strategy in games. I don't mind losing a game, but I prefer losing if the opponent outplays me. I don't enjoy losing if the other team wins because they have more people, or if they simply play more often (and therefore level up higher). I also don't really enjoy winning if I'm on the winning side simply because we have a zerg.

Maybe my problem is that Realm vs Realm just isn't for me, because it is inherently an unbalanced form of competition. There is no way to guarantee that an RvR zone accepts the same number of people, balanced by level and class. And, of course, it's probably not even worth trying to "fix", since many people DO like that kind of gameplay.

Some day someone will recapture the essence of Warhammer's Scenarios, hopefully without the level grind attached to it, and I'll definitely check that out.

The Slovenian band Laibach's version of the song War. Everyone has heard the Edwin Starr original. Laibach actually answers the question.

Dream Scorcher

2008-12-19T13:22:00.009-05:00

My defiler finally got her fabled weapon, Dream Scorcher.

It was quite an undertaking, but its a relief to have it done. I couldn't have done it without my guild. Thanks to Terst, Vozz, Dracodo, Shellshock, Wadia, Esadia, Gatomontez, Umadin, Ringleberry, Brigida, Jillianne, Pscymin, Hanbin, and way too many others to remember!

Now, I find myself in search of new dreams to conquer. What next? I guess one of those 50 shard mounts... that might take me a while. :)

Culling the Herd

2008-12-18T01:17:00.004-05:00

OK, I've gotten ridiculous. I'm subscribing to too many games. I have two subscriptions to EverQuest II plus Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft, and Eve Online. I've also jumped in and out of Guild Wars a lot lately.

EverQuest II

This one is definitely going to stay. This game is where I spend most of my online time. I have too much to do in game.

Last weekend, I earned a few void shards with my monk. Scion of Ice is always a fun zone.

Then I did the new Frostfell zones. I like how Frostfell keeps a lot of the quests from the previous years, with a few minor tweaks to the rewards and so on. Basically, the festivities get bigger and better as the game progresses. This year, we have a few quests that let you earn tokens and the loot you can get for the tokens are actually pretty nice. None of the armor looked like something I would use, but there were some 15-token charms that were very nice.

I helped some guildmates out with their epic updates, and then tried to run Chelsith with my Defiler to get her epic update. That didn't go too well and we had to abort the mission for now. That zone is really hard, with lots of wandering bubbles (floating hordes of elementals), and you either need two healers or a very competent mezzer. I was solo healing it. We got several nameds down and we burned through fights quickly. The only time we had trouble was when we had a bad pull and got two encounters at once, or if we pulled a bubble. That happened a few times, and then the illusionist left. By that point, it was too hard to find a replacement so we called it a night.

On Monday, some guildmates went back in to Chelsith to help someone else. They were kind enough to leave Majora Leviathan up, just for me. I have the best guild ever. So my defiler is now one step closer to having their epic.

I've been keeping my monk busy working on Far Seas Supply Division faction. I also took some time to level up some alts. I took my Berserker through Splitpaw and finally earned their trust. It only took four years; my Berserker was actually my first EQ2 character, but I stopped playing it early on and switched to the monk. Now I finally got it to level 43...

On Tuesday, I did the daily double in Obelisk of Ahkzul. Except it wasn't really a daily double since it normally has zero shards to offer. But people kept calling it that. I'm glad it wasn't really, since the double of zero is zero, and I got two, which makes me happy, since I will soon have my third piece of void shard armor.

Yesterday and today, I worked on my defiler's epic weapon. Yesterday, we took on the Priest of Fear in Unrest. Today, we took on Huntmaster Viswin in Castle Mistmoore. I understand the need to make an epic weapon quest difficult; if it was easy to get, it wouldn't be as valuable. But some of the epic quest updates are more time consuming than difficult. It took two hours to grab enough people to take on the x2 content in Castle Mistmoore and once I had it, only about 15 minutes to kill. I guess gathering a group together to take on the content is part of the game, but the more quests the game gets, and every time the level cap moves, or a new expansion pack comes out, it gets more frustrating to do the older ones.

Granted, it feels great when you finally accomplish it, but I still think that leveling games that emphasize grouping like EQ2 could still maintain their risk-reward nature and still be more fun if there was some kind of way to reward people for helping others out. That is, if I'm grouping with someone and they get a ding, I earn some kind of points which can be exchanged for some rewards. Just so there's a little icing on the cake for the people who lose two hours of their day travelling through Unrest or some crazy zone that they get absolutely nothing from. Sure, that's what guilds are for, and mine has been very helpful so far, but a little social engineering to help encourage more grouping couldn't hurt.

Warhammer Online

I did a few scenarios last weekend but I just can't get into this game anymore. I guess I'll let this subscription lapse.

The game has had a lot of changes lately but the major flaw with me is the level grind. This game tried to be too many different things. It should have focussed solely on the RVR and dropped the whole lame WOW-clone PVE portion.

The PVE had some nice features, such as Public Quests, but those don't work when the population spreads out. One of the major changes in the recent update: they made several Public Quests soloable. So they're basically just lackluster ring events you can grind on your own now.

Mythic made a bad design decision when deciding to make this yet another leveling game. They should have used Renown ranks and Influence and the story progression in the Chapters as the carrot. They could have added hundreds more renown ranks to give us a good effective grind. But by throwing battle ranks into the mix, you spread people out, you have the weird tiering system, where as you level you become uber powerful (for your tier) and then suddenly DING! and you are a weakling again as you get promoted to the next tier. The chicken system is idiotic; they should let people mentor down so that at least the lower tiers will have life, even if its only bored high level players running around filling up the Influence for Chapters they skipped.

World of Warcraft

I keep hearing how Wrath of the Lich King has improved quest design dramatically, and I'd love to see it. I'd especially love to see how they use phasing. EQ2 uses it in a few quests, and I always enjoyed seeing the world actually change because of my actions. But Blizzard must have done something truly incredible with it, considering everyone's acting like they invented the concept...

So I resubscribed, but I have hardly played it. I start to, but the quests in the original zones are so bland, being little more than your typical kill/fetch/deliver quests. I'm not a huge of the solo quest grind in EQ2 either, but the quests in EQ2 have always been a little more involved.

Blizzard should release updates to the old world to liven it up and make it more attractive. Just tossing all the improvements at the tail end of the game might keep their existing player base entertained, but there's probably a few million (or at least a couple hundred thousand?) of us out there who probably WOULD play WOW if they would just steal the handful of ideas that the other games still do better and revamp the 1-70 part of the world too.

Eve Online

This game has a lot of depth and I love the sandbox be what you want to be, do whatever you want to do nature of the game. People in game can become researchers, miners, pirates, pirate hunters, archaeologists, traders, and more. And its very relaxing, though that's mostly because its a game you can more easily play distracted. Like right now, I'm targeting a Pithi something or another in between sentences, and my destroyer takes care automatically.

But that strength is also its weakness. Lately, I've wanted more active entertainment, so I haven't played Eve much. So much of the game is on autopilot that it can get really boring at times. That's perfect when I'm only half paying attention to it, otherwise its not.

Guild Wars

I spent a little time in here, finishing a few more quests that my Dervish had been stuck on. This is a game I rave about on other people's blogs all the time, but sadly, I never actually finished more than one Campaign. While I love the game mechanics, the excessive use of instancing does have a tendency to make the world feel empty. The towns and other hubs are often filled with people, but there isn't much interaction there either.

Culling the Herd

I guess its time to say goodbye to Warhammer Online and World of Warcraft (not that I gave it much of a hello.) I'm playing EQ2 and enjoying that, but one can only play so many leveling games.

I like leveling games, even though I may complain about them from time to time. However, I also like sandboxes, and wish there were more options there. Sometimes I want a goal set out for me, and to be guided through a story. Other times, I want to tell the story. Unfortunately, there aren't many sandboxes out there; Eve Online is the main one.

So Eve Online gets a reprieve for now, but I think I like the IDEA of Eve more than its implementation though. I love the sandbox nature of the game, but I kind of think I'd prefer the game if it had a free flight model, and combat wasn't a matter of clicking auto attack and watching your ship orbit the other while HP bars drop. This games greatest strength is also its weakness. I can play it while distracted, but that's because most of the time I'm watching it, not playing it.

But it looks like there are a lot of sandbox games coming out soon... I wonder if Jumpgate Evolution would be the sci-fi sandbox that I'm really looking for. Or maybe Earthrise? Or maybe I'll find what I'm looking for in a fantasy sandbox like Darkfall? Has anyone heard anything about any of these games?

Ding! 100 - A MMOment of Zen Retrospective

2008-12-16T01:24:00.004-05:00

If Blogger is to be believed, this appears to be my 100th post on MMOment of Zen. I started this a year and half ago, and I had no idea that I would continue with it this long. A lot has happened in game and with the blog over the course of that year and a half.

My first post coincided with my return to EverQuest II from a six month break from MMORPGs. I rejoined Explorers of Legend, which was the guild I had been with since EverQuest II lanched. Since then, the guild fell apart. A number of the officers decided they wanted to pursue other opportunities, mostly because of our inability to get a viable raiding force off the ground. I understand and respect their decisions; however, the way the entire group of officers left en masse caused a lot of bitter feelings among many of the players left behind, who felt like their leadership betrayed them.

Some EOL members ended up quitting EQ2 entirely because of it. I can sympathize with that: community is usually what binds us to a game, so having a guild you belong to fall apart can often become "the final straw" so to speak. My first MMO was Final Fantasy XI and I played that for months longer than I probably would have if I had not become attached to my in game "linkshell" (the FFXI equivalent of a guild.)

Since last July, I have tried nearly every major MMO to come out. I have a wanderlust with regards to MMORPGs. There's an explorer in me that is often more fascinated by the game play mechanics than the actual games. I like to see how all of these games are built. Sadly, there really isn't as much diversity in gameplay in the genre as there could be.

I tried Tabula Rasa during the beta and I thought it had an interesting cover mechanic. Aside from that, it felt like World of Warcraft with guns since I was being sent on quests to find caves and shoot 10 mobs and come back and being rewarded upgraded guns and whatever. So I went back to EverQuest II.

Then I tried Pirates of the Burning Sea. I loved the ship combat in this game, but the economy never seemed to work right. They only had a few markets that were active. They really needed to implement something like buy orders to draw merchants to the outlying areas. The missions were repeated too often, and avatar combat was terrible. I got a Freetrader up to level 30, and then the servers started merging, and my guild started losing half its members. So I threw in the towel and went back to EverQuest II.

Then Age of Conan came out. The advertising promised us: heads will roll! Truth in advertising would have promised us: eyes will roll! The game had a strong intro area for the first twenty levels. That was both its greatest strength and weakness. After killing Saddur with my fifth alt, I never wanted to play it again. The character I took past 20 found himself surrounded by lame World of Warcraft style quests without the World of Warcraft motivator: better loot. Itemization in the game was pointless. I suppose this was deliberate: they wanted PVP to be more based on skill than gear. But it meant the PVE game simply didn't work. And I didn't see any PVP going on. I'm not sure where it was, and didn't feel like looking for it, so I went back to EverQuest II.

Most recently, I tried Warhammer Online. Its not a bad game, but they tried to be too many games. The leveling mechanic makes sense for a World of Warcraft style PVE game, but it simply did not work in an RVR game. People were too spread out across tiers, you couldn't find anyone to play with, and quite frankly, when you did, it was only fun when you were at the tail end of your tier. Once you progressed to the next tier, you were suddenly a weakling again. That's very jarring: the leveling mechanic is supposed to measure your progress, but at each tier transition, it had the opposite effect. I gave up around level 27, shortly after the server merges started happening, and the PQs were still empty and half my scenarios were still being cancelled early due to imbalance. So, guess where I went next?

Yep, back to EverQuest II.

Right now, I have two subscriptions to EverQuest II, one to Warhammer Online, one to World of Wracraft, and I'm still on my first month of Eve Online. That's going to have to change soon.

Some random facts about my site:

This isn't one of the more popular destinations among MMO bloggers; I only tend to average about 30 visitors a day, but about 40% of them are return visitors, so I guess somebody out there actually thinks I have something worthwhile to say.

The first person to post a comment on my site was Kanthalos from MMOre Insight. I had been inspired by an article series on Voyages in Eternity about Damianov's dream settings for MMORPGs. My dream setting was the Doctor Who universe because having all of time and space at your fingertips would open up any kind of story imaginable. Also, I love the iconic enemies in the game like the Daleks and the Cybermen. Neither MMOre Insight nor Voyages in Eternity seem to have been updated in a while, which saddens me, since those were two of the sites I read daily back then, and the principal reason I started doing this.

My most popular article was a writeup on the Obelisk of Ahkzul. Many people had trouble figuring out Kierax when TSO launched.

The other article that receives the most visits from Google is one I did about two boxing software aids. If you have two computers next to each other (including laptops), Multiplicity from Stardock is an amazing tool.

One of my first articles, EverQuest II: A Review of the Races still receives a great deal of attention from Google. In that article, I basically explain the difference between the eighteen races that were in game at that point in time.

I suppose I should add an entry for the nineteenth race, so here it is:

Sarnak: Overgrown, fire breathing lizards with scoliosis. They are the result of the cross breeding between iksar and dragons. How do you get a dragon to make sweet love with an iksar? Well, you have to get them good and drunk. The Sarnak aren't evil in the sadistic sense that Neriak or Freeport citizens are known for. But they are considered to be evil because they have an inherent distrust of all other races. That's mostly because all the other races are always chuckling under their breath when a Sarnak comes wandering by. It's because of their parentage... how can you NOT laugh at that?

So, yeah, anyway, as I was saying:

DING

Open Source MMO

2008-12-15T02:54:00.003-05:00

Cyan Worlds, the creators of URU Live / Myst Online, have announced that they will be releasing their game to the open source community. I think that's a pretty brave move, and shows a commitment from the developers to their work. The game was fun and very unique; it didn't involve leveling, or combat, or anything of the standard forms of interaction and progression that most MMORPGs consist of. Instead, Uru Live players engaged in adventure, exploration, and puzzle solving. The game had a strong narrative with new stories released in an episodic fashion, like in a television series. Unfortunately, the game flopped, twice.

It had a very strong and faithful fan base though. I think its a really brave move of Cyan Worlds to let the open source community have a chance to continue this effort, so that the fans can continue to live out their dreams in the world of Myst Online.

It would be nice to see other games that can no longer be effectively commercialized migrate into the open source community so that their fans can continue to breathe some life into them after the commercial services shut down. After all the effort that goes into building these games, it's always a shame to see them simply disappear forever.

MMO Feature Wish List: Henchmen and Gambits

2008-12-10T09:49:00.015-05:00

There are a lot of features that my imaginary "dream MMORPG" would implement. Some that I have touched on before have included: kudos and other social networking features, a rebirth system, and small rewards for people who help another player advance a quest when they aren't already on the same quest themselves.

A few days ago, I was reading about Tesh's frustration with Heroes and henchmen in Guild Wars. (The article is actually about quite a lot more than that, and a good read, but venting about henchmen was a part of it.) I happen to share that frustration. Though the flag system in Guild Wars offers some limited control over henchmen, they aren't as sophisticated as I wish they were.

Collecting Heroes is a great feature in Guild Wars. I think more MMORPGs should make that a standard part of the gameplay. Instead of having the world split up between soloable "normal" mobs and heroic "group" mobs, which is simply weird, have all monsters be group mobs, and allow solo players to collect AI controlled NPC party members for the occasions they can't find (or don't want to find) other people to play with.

I'd like to see an MMO take give us the ability to collect henchmen/minion/Heroes and then take it a step beyond that: give us the ability to train them over time. Like any good RPG, this should be something we have to work at! The minions might start off requiring a good deal of micro-management but as we work with them, eventually we would earn the ability to get more flexible allies over time.

One RPG that I thought had a really clever NPC control mechanism was Final Fantasy XII. The way it worked is each character in the game had a certain number of "gambit slots". Each slot could take a simple order, which amounted to a command that executed under a certain condition. The orders were prioritized with the highest priority commands declared first. The command with a matching condition with the highest priority would execute.

From 1up, an example gambit setup.

For example, a simple healer might have two gambit slots:

1) IF Players health < 50%, cast HEAL
2) Attack

While my player's health remained at or above 50%, the healer would attack our enemies. If it went under 50%, the healer would cast heal unless they ran out of mana (the condition would already fail if they couldn't cast). At any point, I could also order that the entire party follow me and flee.

Characters started off with very few gambit slots; these had to be unlocked over time. Towards the end of the game, most of my characters had seven or eight gambits, dictating how they behave in specific circumstances. During the game, we would have to buy or discover new gambits to gain more fine tuned control of our allies.

I'd enjoy seeing something similar in an MMORPG. In addition to collecting new Heroes, leveling and gearing them up for battle, we would also have to improve our "leadership" abilities by undertaking difficult missions; the rewards from these missions would enable us to grant new gambit slots to our allies and unlock new gambits to program them with. It could also introduce more depth to the system than the Final Fantasy version had, perhaps by introducing gambits related to camping and pulling. I'd even enjoy PVP minion battles between henchmen where gambit selection is the major determinant of who wins or loses.

A system like this would add some additional depth to a henchman system and provide some lateral forms of character advancement. It also makes existing itemization more valuable since it doesn't sting as much to fight your way to the bottom of an epic dungeon only to get NO-TRADE drops for a class that isn't even in the party when you have a henchment that can use it. With Heroes that you can equip and train, everyone has a potential use for every drop. (Though I guess that could complicate Need vs Greed.)

Sony, RMT, and You

2008-12-09T12:27:00.006-05:00

Looks like Sony is letting you buy in game items with cash now. Technically, you might argue, they'd already been doing this for a while now, with Legends of Norrath loot cards. But Legends of Norrath cards could also drop in game (rarely) so there were ways to earn those without spending cash.

I'm fine with the sale of RMT items in games that are designed around it (such as online collectible card games like Legends of Norrath or Magic the Gathering Online.)

In traditional MMO games like EverQuest, I'm not against the sale of fluff items like appearance armor and other items that don't impact gameplay. It allows developers to use the standard subscription fees and retail box income on the gameplay and the features that the majority of the playerbase want, and still have a revenue stream they can use for items that a vocal minority wants. Everyone wins.

However, some of the items they are including do not seem like fluff to me.

Are potions that increase adventuring, achievement, and tradeskill XP fluff? If that's the case, why even have levels in the first place. If its fluff, if its optional, give me a button the sets me to level 80 adventurer, level 80 tradeskill, and level 200 achievement instantly.

It's one thing to give people the ability to slow down their XP gain. The default setting is what everyone gets, and people who want it slower can get it slower. That's fine.

But to make it so that some people can progress faster than others because they pay more is most definitely not fluff. It impacts gameplay.

Granted, XP gain in EQ2 at this point is extraordinarily fast, so it's not exactly a huge advantage. I can hardly finish quest arcs in the old world zones before they go gray at this point. But I still disagree with the notion that these types of offerings for cash aren't gameplay impacting.

They seem to offer other kinds of potions as well, such as potions that increase movement rate. How is that not fluff? Movement rate is most definitely a part of the gameplay.

Now, I don't know if I would quit EQ2 for this, like some people on the forums are threatening. The rewards don't appear to be unbalancing; they seem to be the same rewards you get from Legends of Norrath loot cards, and people were already buying hundreds of packs at a time for a chance to get those items. This just gives them an additional avenue to purchase those items without having the hassle of unloading the unwanted cards.

But it is a little worrying. Mixing a game based around leveling and obtaining achievements with RMT just doesn't sit well with me.

Weekend Update: MMOADD Redux and Reasons Why EQ2 is Better than WoW

2008-12-08T10:31:00.033-05:00

I spent the weekend popping in and out of various games. I've been suffering from a terrible bout of MMOADD lately. Right now, I'm subscribed to EverQuest II and Warhammer Online, and I just bought Eve Online so I've been trying that out for a month. I also resubscribed to World of Warcraft for one month, though I doubt I'll play it much. Also, City of Heroes reactivated all former player's accounts for the weekend.

I haven't been playing Warhammer Online much lately. I seem to be stuck at level 27 with my Bright Wizard, Dastari, formerly known as Brendis. Even after all the server merges, the PQs seem empty. Scenarios do pop faster, and I should try some RVR this week to see how that's improved. I popped in game to go make the long trek to a warcamp so I can respec my Bright Wizard, as the latest update made a lot of changes to my class of choice. But I just wasn't in the mood to play it, so I logged out once I got there and moved on to another MMO.

I popped in to City of Heroes to run a mission. Sometimes I think about resubscribing, because it's a good game with a vibrant grouping scene, but its missions grow old real quick. One of the problems with relying on randomness to generate dungeons is that they tend to lack the immersiveness of a handcrafted zone (the hallways of the corporate buildings just aren't laid out in any realistic or rational manner) and people recognize the patterns and see through the randomness very quickly. After that, no matter how much you randomize, it all starts to feel the same.

I played a little Eve Online though I'm at a point where I probably need to join a Corporation so I can gain some direction. Right now, I'm focusing on skill training, mining, and running the occasional mission. I'll look into Corporations soon, but at the moment, while I'm too ADD to settle on one game, or a manageable few, I think its best to continue on my own while I continue collect my bearings.

I toyed around in World of Warcraft. My characters are all under level 20 and although leveling seems much faster than it used to be, I doubt I'll bother to get anything over that. Something about that game just doesn't work for me. I guess I had forgotten that. I see all the advertisements and read about it on the blogs, and I think how can 11 million players be wrong, but when I actually pop in game, its like: 11 million subscribers at $15 a month and this is the best you can do?

So why did I resubscribe? I'm not sure. I think I might roll a hunter and check out a starting area I hadn't seen before, just to see a side of the game that's new to me. It seems apparent that Blizzard puts all their work on the end game though, since the old world zones my characters have been parked in for four years are exactly as I remembered them. One of the things that Sony does right is they occasionally revamp old world zones to keep them fresh and interesting.

I have been getting frustrated with EverQuest II, so I guess a part of me is on the lookout for something that might capture my imagination the way EQ2 used to. The problem is, recently I've had a terrible time finding groups for the TSO zones. I'm not sure what the problem is. I think the population on Najena is fine, so its probably not that. My main is a monk, so maybe its partly that my class just isn't as desired as it should be. Maybe a lot of people just have their static group of friends they normally play with so the rest of us get stuck in level chat limbo spamming "LFG TSO PST".

So when I haven't been able to do what I've wanted to do in EQ2, I've started to look around to see what else I might be interested in playing.

Except there doesn't seem to be any other game like EQ2. For all its flaws, it still offers the most of any MMORPG out there. Blizzard, with their cash cow of millions of paying subscribers, SHOULD be the game that offers the most, but for some reason they simply don't. I guess they just don't have to.

Its unfortunate that Blizzard has been sitting around resting on their laurels (I guess with 11 million subscribers they have no business incentive to do so). These are the reasons I prefer EQ2 over WOW:

- Tradeskills are a mini-game: Crafting should not involve simply hitting a "Combine" button and watching a progress bar; that's seriously lame.
- You can be a dedicated crafter: In WOW, crafting skills are capped based on your adventurer level. In EQ2, tradeskill levels are separate from adventurer level so you can be a pure crafter who never sets foot outside. One of the nice things about EQ2 is you can be a level 1 paladin AND a level 80 carpenter with the same character if you want. You can do it entirely by buying the raw materials you need for crafting from other players, or you can harvest them by running around zones where everything is 79 levels higher than you and can one shot you. It's your choice.
- Mentoring: In EQ2, you can temporarily lower your level, so you can help out someone lower level than you without trivializing content. In fact, it even rewards you, so if you are a level 80 and you have a level 15 friend, you can play together and both characters will be REWARDED for it.
- Level-Scaling Quests: EQ2 has quests that scale with level so your holiday, seasonal, or important story related quest arcs can be enjoyed by players of ANY level. If you are level 40 the monsters you fight for the quest will spawn at level 40, and if you are level 80, the monsters will be level 80. Level appropriate loot will drop from them as well.
- Housing: EQ2 lets you rent an apartment or house. Guilds can have their own Guild Halls where members can gather together. You can also acquire useful items to store in your homes, such as crafting equipment, Altars which let you earn faction (and temporary buffs) with the god of your choice in return for sacrificing items, or Mirrors that let you store different AA specs (similar to Talent specializations). Guilds can acquire items that assist with organizing raids, facilitate fast travel around the world, gather harvestable items for use by the guild crafters, and much, much more.
- Movable Items: The game has furniture and other items that you can move around in game; in your home or guild hall, you can move items around to decorate the property. Quests also sometimes involve moving items around a zone; my favorite quests in EQ2 are still from the Splitpaw zones where you have to stack crates to jump over barriers or to reach a high ledge; I loved moving barrels of dynamite up to "weak" parts of a wall and then lighting the fuse, causing the wall to collapse.
- Climbing Walls: Many cliffs and walls can be scaled, introducing the third dimension to the gameplay. (WoW does have free flight in some zones so it does get a point there.)
- Collection Quests: These are addictive. Scattered around many zones are items that you can collect. They show up in game as shining spots on the ground, usually with a floating ? or ! above it. If you complete a collection, you earn a reward. Players can trade items with one another to help complete their collections.
- Alternate Advancement Tracks: EQ2 has a lateral progression system called Achievements (which is different than Achievements in WOW). Achievements in EQ2 is similar to the Talent trees in WOW. However, Achievement points are earned from completing quests, discovering new areas, completing collections, and killing named monsters. Talent points, on the other hand are coupled with your adventurer level. Because they are separate in EQ2, you can continue to earn new skills, specialize your character, and improve him even after you get to the level cap, simply by continuing to do what you have always been doing: questing, exploring, and taking on challenging encounters. You might not get XP anymore once you get to the level cap, but that doesn't stop you from progressing.
- Adjustable Leveling Speed: Some people like to rush to the level cap. Others like to take it slow. In EQ2, everyone can be happy since you can disable the ability to earn experience points at any time.
- The Level Cap Doesn't Increase Every Year: One of the best things about EQ2 is that it kept the level cap the same with both The Shadow Odyssey and the Echoes of Faydwer expansion packs. The game emphasizes lateral forms of progression that allow people to advance without always making the previous expansion pack's content obsolete.
- A Living Guild: Guilds in most MMOs offer little more than a custom chat channel. However, guilds in EQ2 are levelable entities. Guild members can earn status, complete difficult missions, or defeat powerful enemies to help their guild earn status and level up. This, in turn, enables guild members to unlock exclusive mounts and powerful items.
- Appearance armor: World of Warcraft has some nicely designed armor sets, but because you are forced to look like whatever you are wearing, everyone runs around looking like they are wearing clown costumes. Appearance armor gives you an additional tab in your inventory. Items on the appearance tab determine what your character looks like; items on your regular tab determine what stats you get. (If an apperance tab slot is empty you gain the appearance of the item in your regular inventory tab just like you do today.) Collecting cool looking level 1, no stat, and otherwise useless armor sets in EQ2 is actually fun because it allows us to make our characters look exactly like we want without worrying about gimping ourselves.
- More Classes, More Races: 24 adventurer classes and 19 races... almost too many to pick from.
- The Monk: Even though Sony can't seem to implement the monk and bruiser classes PROPERLY in EverQuest II, at least it has them. Monks exist in the Warcraft lore, so there's no reason they couldn't exist in the game. Make playable Pandaran and introduce the island nation of Pandaria and you are your way to a fun expansion. I like monks. :)

World of Warcraft has some nice features too, of course. Blizzard is known for its polish; the UI design and layout in WOW is very accessible, clean, and easy to understand. Combat in WOW is more repsonsive. I like how the world is seamless with fewer places where you receive loading screen transitions to move between areas.

I guess my ideal game would take the best features from both games: it would merge the worldliness and sheer diversity of gameplay available in EQ2 with the accessibility of WOW. It would add some next-generation forms of gameplay as well (a flatter level curve, perhaps more skill based instead of class/archetype based, emphasis on lateral forms of progression instead of the exponential level curve that causes empty newbie content, discourages new players from joining, and makes grouping harder by spreading players thinly across the level range.) Until then, I'll probably continue to suffer from my MMOADD.

Be Careful What You Wish For

2008-12-04T08:54:00.006-05:00

Over a year ago, I wrote a post detailing my thoughts about EQ2's combat system. I suggested that it would be better (while waxing reminiscent about Final Fantasy XI's combat) if it weren't as spammy and action packed. I prefer combat systems where fewer actions can be triggered at any one moment, so each one has a greater impact.

Yesterday, this happened:

That might be going a little overboard, guys...

(It was just a cosmetic bug, but I found it amusing.)

More Baby Space Steps In Eve

2008-12-03T08:56:00.008-05:00

My initial impression of Eve Online was fairly poor. I think I called it a pretty screenshot in the last blog entry. That wasn't quite right, since the pictures move. It's more like a mashup of a screensaver, Excel spreadsheet, and IRC chat room.

But it's freaking addictive.

I haven't quite figured out what it is I like. I guess it's the truly sandbox nature of the game? Or the more tactically oriented (less spammy) combat? The laid back (except when I'm being blown up) nature of the gameplay?

Tactics haven't actually factored much into my fights yet: Pithi pirates seem to enjoy going up in flames from kinetic damage. But I can see that it certainly will... there are a wide array of fittings to use on your ship and an overwhelming number of options to customize your character and ship with.

The tutorial needs some work though. It's better than nothing, but it is still a little confusing. I got stuck early on when the game told me to drag an item from the hangar to my ship, or vice versa. The problem was that nothing onscreen had the word "hangar" on it, and while it said it was highlighting a button for me, I didn't see it. It turns out it referred to the "Items" button in the lower left hand side.

Then later the lady who starts the tutorial missions tells me she's sending me to a friend of hers and that she put the contact in my People & Places tab. That's fine, except I guess I got confused because I had already met a few other agents, and thought one of THEM was the new one. And so I started on the "A New Venture" mission series thinking it was a continuation of the tutorial. The first two missions were easy courier missions, but the third one sent me against an industrial that my little frigate could barely make a dent in. So I got frustrated and abandoned it, only to get a new mission that sent me against pirates. I got myself all blowed up.

Then I remembered that I had other agent contacts in the People & Places tab and I figured out that the tutorial actually continued elsewhere. Oops.

Now I have three ships: the starter Ibis ship, a Condor I made battle ready, and a Bantam for mining. I've been doing a little high-sec mining (I'm too scared to leave the safe areas right now!) to earn a little isk. I still need to finish off the tutorial missions also; I only did the first five or so. Then I got distracted exploring other aspects of the game. Oh my, this is overwhelming...

I guess I'm sticking with this for a while longer.

Too Many Games, Too Little Time

2008-12-01T10:32:00.035-05:00

Some fellow bloggers have given up trying to find the One True MMO and are now playing multiple. I don't blame them. I've been like that for some time, flitting about between multiple MMOs, with a handful of single player games thrown in the mix.

This weekend was a good weekend for gaming. Most everything my wife and I have on "The List" for this year have been completed, so we had little to do around the house. Which meant, for the first time in almost a year, I actually had a lot of time to play games. In fact, I had so much time to play, I didn't know what to play. It was weird. So I ended up playing a lot of different games this weekend:

Eve Online

I decided to try out Eve Online. Every time I complain about leveling games, people mention Eve Online as something I should check out. I spent a few more hours than Xfire shows because I learned early on that I'm spending more time watching the game than playing it. So I had Eve Online on one computer and the screen next to it had me shouting LFG in level chat for a mission in EverQuest II until I got bored of not doing anything and I shut down both games.

Hopefully Eve Online gets more interesting than this. I guess I have to join a Corp because so far I'm not seeing a whole lot in the game I like. The mission descriptions are confusing and one of the early tutorial missions seemed to send me against overpowered enemies who destroyed my ship in almost one shot. Unless those weren't the NPC enemies. Its hard to tell.

So I went and decided to do some mining. That went well. I guess. Mostly I click on a menu and find an asteroid. Then the screen turns into a pretty screensaver while I mine concentrated veldspar and refine it into Tritanium and dump on the market. Rinse, repeat, grind.

I'll give it some more time later, but it seems like it would take forever before I'm battle ready to try on factions or PVP. And a good Corp could help me out but I don't know if I can do that... Is that fair to them, given that I'm not even sure if I'm going to stick around?

Given that the gameplay felt like this (yes, I know its a screenshot, but that's what the gameplay felt like), I'm not sure I want to.

But maybe screenshots are more fun in groups?

STALKER: Shadow Of Chernobyl

This is an FPS game that I read good reviews for. Unfortunately, none of the reviews for that game warned me about the excessive head bobbing the game does, and I spent the first half hour getting seasick. Head bobbing is not that realistic people... Sure our heads go up and down and around as we walk, but our brain compensates.

So I spent more time looking on the Intertubes for a patch that would remove the stupid head bobbing than I did playing the game.

For an idea of what the gameplay felt like before this, print this screenshot out, hold it up in front of you, and then shake your arms madly like you're having a seizure:

After the patch, the game was more fun. I did a few quests and saved a few grateful people from bandits. The game has a lot of bugs. One time, when reloading a game, the bandits apparently lost the memo that told them they had been defeated as they started respawning like crazy. But a subsequent reload did not have the same problem. Quality.

It's fun now that it doesn't induce nausea. The headbobbing I mean. The number of bugs and the lack of polish is a little nauseating. Playing the game just makes me want to restart and replay Fallout 3. But I like the story so far, so I'll tough it out.

Warhammer Online

I jumped into Warhammer for a bit. I actually found a good, solid PQ group going on in Chapter 14 and managed to get the second bar filled for my Chapter Influence. It was a lot of fun and reminded me exactly what drew me into the game in the first place. You see, this is when a game doesn't feel like a grind: when you are having so much fun, you almost don't even notice that you gained a level -- because you would have done what you were doing anyway, even without the reward.

I also joined a few Scenarios, and actually had a good time there as well. One of the things I like best about Warhammer is the fact that I can just log in and instantly be doing something. Well, I can instantly be doing Scenarios. I guess the thing I don't like about Warhammer is that they still haven't made it easier to find instant action in RvR and that the PQs (this weekend notwithstanding) are usually dead.

Neverwinter Nights 2

I tried to play this but I encountered a bug early on where even though I found the quest item (a silver shard of some sort) that I needed, the game wouldn't trigger the cut scene and I couldn't continue. Even after running the autopatcher, the game still wouldn't work right. I ended up having to reinstall the game and run the autopatcher all over again, and now suddenly, magically, the stars have aligned, and I could finally continue with the quest.

I progressed a few baby steps further into the game and met the dwarven monk. I'm really early in the game, and I've owned this game for quite some time, but I never really played it. I think, this time, I'm going to give it a chance.

Guild Wars

I also hopped into Guild Wars to try to get a few quests completed. I had not played this game in over a year, but I decided to dust off my Dervish and see what happened.

Apparently I own a Guild Hall all to myself now that (*ahem* almost) everyone had quit the guild I was in. Somewhere along the way I was made leader and there were two people left when I logged in. *Click*. Make that one person left: me. (They hadn't logged in for over two years, I don't think they'll mind.)

I'm trying the Nightfall campaign, and my character is stuck at level 7, and the main quest doesn't progress until I get to level 11 or earn some points. It seems to me like they took shortcuts in the Nightfall campaign, as I don't recall any point in Prophecies where I was basically forced to take a break to run the more mundane non-story-based quests until I got to a certain level.

Guild Wars, during the Prophecies campaign, was for me the ultimate example of a game without the grind, but with Nightfall I'm actually feeling like I'm forced to grind out those levels just to do what I want: follow the story.

EverQuest II

I like the new expansion pack: The Shadow Odyssey. It's a lot of fun. When you can find a group. Hopefully its just because of the holiday weekend, but I must have spammed level chat LFG all weekend without a single bite.

I did join a pick up raid in Protector's Realm that went really well until we tried to take on Doomcoil. The way PR works, there are four named mobs you have to fight earlier and each one drops a charm item in a random raid member's inventory. Then we need to trade them to one person who can then trade them to an NPC to trigger the next fight. Only three people could find the shards in their inventory (even though we killed all four skeletons.) Apparently someone in the raid had poor inventory management skills... or we were bugged perhaps... but we couldn't continue without the fourth shard, so we called it a night.

The rest of the time was spent spamming LFG and duo boxing the soloable quests in Moors. Unfortunately, I'm very tired of quests, and really want to do more missions and instance runs. That's the kind of game play I enjoy the most.

I Can't Be Satisfied

So that was my weekend. I also spent a little time in LittleBigPlanet (on the PS3), Blue Dragon (on the Xbox), and the Wii Fit (I had to make sure I was at least a little active.) And I still had time in there to meet real life friends out on the town for drinks and dinner.

Going forward though, I'm not sure what I will continue playing.

EverQuest II has been my main game since it launched because it has more group oriented activities; it has more raids and more group instances than "the competition." That's what I enjoyed about the game, and they are a blast when you find a group. But that hasn't been the case lately.

EverQuest II is also a much more time consuming game. And it also has a habit of having multi-stage quests that are partially soloable up to a point, and somewhere in the middle of the quest there will be one step that requires rounding up a group of people, dragging them to the middle of nowhere, and killing a heroic that doesn't reward them. I've always thought that was really bad design, and its commonplace in EQ2's signature and heritage quests.

So there are going to be plenty of times when I EQ2 frustrates me (usually when I can't find a group) and I need a break. Or times when I only have 15 minutes to spare. And I'm searching for a game to fill that gap.

For a while that was Warhammer Online. When I started out in it, it was easy to get into the action instantly and play with other people. But as I mentioned in previous posts, I'm getting tired of that game. While I had a great weekend, good times like that are increasingly rare. Its harder to find those people, even after all the server merges going on. On the new server, Scenarios pop quickly, but the PQs where I'm at remains dead.

I know some members of my guild have moved from Warhammer Online to World of Warcraft. I would follow them (most of what makes an MMO fun is the group you play with), but I simply can't get into WoW. Every time I've tried to play it, I think "this is ALMOST a good game... its ALMOST like EverQuest II."

I thought I'd try out Eve Online, but that's not winning me over.

I guess its time to play a few more single player games. (I guess I sound like Openedge1 right now... :) ) I've collected a few over the last few years that I simply haven't played, since I spend so much time in EQ2. But I think I'm going to try to finish off Neverwinter Nights 2, Blue Dragon, and STALKER.

And maybe on the MMO front, I might pop back into Guild Wars. I never did try the PVP in that game when I played it. But now that WAR has given me a taste for PVP I never had before, it might be worth seeking out elsewhere. I also want to try to finish off the Nightfall campaign for good this time. At least in Guild Wars, with the Heroes and henchmen features, I can do tasks that require a group by myself if I can't find one. This is a feature I think more MMOs should have.

One of the things I'm afraid Guild Wars 2 will do that will ruin it is removing the henchmen from the game, forcing people to group. I love to group, and I prefer to group, but one of the nice things about the current Guild Wars is that you have the choice to do either.

Another thing I love about Guild Wars is that it has an ongoing story with its mission system. I guess that's a large part of why I'm frustrated with being stuck having to level up before I can go on. I like to follow the story and having to run around doing mundane quests to level up ruins the experience for me.

Too many games, too little time...

No More Leveling Games Please

2008-11-28T14:53:00.001-05:00

I didn't like Tabula Rasa because it felt like World of Warcraft with pew pew guns. I didn't like Auto Assault because it felt like World of Warcraft with cars. I did like Pirates of the Burning Sea, because of its skill-based naval combat system and the player driven economy. But the rest of the game, with its quest arcs and lackluster combat was just World of Warcraft with arrr matey, manly women, and boats.

With the recent high profile MMORPG failures, some people might ask if the MMORPG industry is oversaturated. I don't think it is; I think it has plenty of room for future growth. What I do think is: it is oversaturated in quest-arc driven leveling games.

We already have our fill. EverQuest, EverQuest II, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, Star Wars Galaxies, City of Heroes, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Age of Conan, and now Warhammer Online. I think anyone and everyone who wants to play a quest-arc driven leveling game has found one by now, and its going to take a lot more than sci-fi trappings and pew pew to draw us away.

I think there are probably many, many people out there like myself, who have already found an addiction we're happy with (for me, EverQuest II), already capped a few characters with the leveling, and just don't have the patience or desire to do it all over again.

I think Warhammer Online would have been better if they had dropped the battle rank. Just use renown ranks to give people a goal, but otherwise have people start in the end game, marginally equal (except for the benefits renown ranks provide) with war everywhere, trying to capture the other city. As it is, I just can't muster the interest anymore to grind through its lackluster PVE or Tor Anroc until I get to 40. There should be no need for chickening or other silly game mechanics. There should have been no need for mentoring. Characters could still improve with time invested, but the difference between an RR80 and RR1 character isn't as big as the gulf between a Battle Rank (BR) 40 character and a level one noob.

I don't think you'll see another major success in the MMO genre until you get one that either eliminates the leveling mechanic (replacing it with another carrot, such as collecting, for instance) or flattens the leveling curve such that new players and veterans can play viably together.

Looking forward, the Agency looks like it might be that game; it seems like it uses a collection mechanic (collecting agents) as its RPG advancement "carrot". Other than that, what else is there that doesn't look like Yet Another Leveling Game? Because we've all been there, and done that, and its high time for something new...

... or old? Maybe I should have given Eve Online a chance.

Tabula Rasa Bites the Dust...

2008-11-21T14:29:00.008-05:00

You can't say we didn't see it coming...

I wonder if they could have eked a little more life out of these games if NCSoft had implemented a payment plan similar to Sony's Station Access plan. Sony seems to have a bunch of games that I would imagine would have been on life support (Matrix Online, Pirates of the Burning Sea?) or shut down had they been forced to run independently like Auto Assault and Tabula Rasa.

Its a shame that the only games that seem to thrive are the Diku MUD Everquest clones like World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, and all the others. None of the games with unique settings or unique game mechanics seem to last.

Bored of WAR

2008-11-21T11:21:00.000-05:00

I think I might be bored of WAR. I don't normally post "I'm quitting posts". Readers of this blog might note I stopped playing Pirates of the Burning Sea and Age of Conan with nary a whisper. Though that might be just because I was too lazy to post.

I'll try to avoid too much negativity. I think this is still a great game, but it feels like three completely different games that don't quite mesh well enough.

I am tired of grinding Scenarios (especially you, Tor Anroc.)
People are too spread out in the PQs.
Contribution is very difficult to calculate, and this game proves that. Last weekend, I did have one really fun session yesterday doing the Wagon Defense PQ. In the Wagon Defense PQ, you get rewarded for clicking various items on the ground in the first two stages. That means those of us who are actually fighting the monsters guarding those monsters earn nothing. Whoever ninja clicks on the wagon guard or the bag of whatever random item the caravan was transporting gets 100 influence and the rest of us get nothing. So, even assuming you can find someone to PQ with, there are severe issues with how contribution is calculated. I still had a great deal of fun, but I would have had more fun if I felt like I was rewarded properly for my in-game effort.
Public Quests are either too easy (because there are too many people) or impossible (because there aren't enough).
It takes so long to get to the RVR lakes by the time I get there whatever I was travelling there for is over.

I'll still pop in game off and on over the next few months (I paid for three months already), so who knows... Mythic still has a chance to change my mind.

However, in the meantime, I'm going to probably spend more of my MMO time in EverQuest II, but I'm probably going to tone down the time I spend online. I also have episodes of Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People to catch up on!

Obelisk of Ahkzul

2008-11-18T23:08:00.024-05:00

I spent my first night adventuring in The Shadow Odyssey by taking on the Obelisk of Ahkzul. This was a rather interesting dungeon, made up of four rooms in a linear progression.

The first room is a standard zone filled with heroics which you simply have to clear to open up the teleport to the second area. The second area has a lake in the middle with a named that appears when the area around it is cleared. Behind the lake is a tunnel that leads deeper into the void pit.

The third room is where things get interesting. We encountered a shadow man named Kierax who taunted us by threatening to demonstrate his power. Unfortunately, for him, his power emanates from towers in the four corners of the room, near the ceiling. Energy orbs come out from openings in the four corners of the room and float slowly toward Kierax. Once he has absorbed enough of them he unleashes a powerful AOE attack that pretty much takes the entire group down to 5% from full health.

To deal with him, we learned we had to prevent him from absorbing those orbs. To do that, we assigned a few people to rush the room, running furiously towards the center. There is a swirling vortex of red energy with a blue energy swell floating above it. After leaping into the air, you will be caught up in the energy swell and lifted into the air, towards the ceiling.

Essentially, the strategy for this battle was to assign one (or two, to be safe) people to bounce up and down (without entering combat), focusing on grabbing the energy orbs before they get to Kierax. Make sure they take some Dramamine first. The rest of the group stayed on solid ground and used ranged attacks to burn Kierax down.

If you miss an orb, your party will be severely weakened by his AOE. Most groups won't survive missing two times in a row. As long as your bouncers keep floating up and down, grabbing the orbs as they go, this battle is actually quite easy. You will be rewarded with around 13 plat for your efforts!

After defeating him, you can head to the last chamber in the void pit and confront Executor Vark. This is a standard tank and spank encounter and didn't take much thought.

Executor Vark went down easily, and Norrath was saved once more, thanks to the mighty efforts of Akshobhya and friends!

My first foree into a Shadow Odyssey instance was a blast, particularly because of the battle with Kierax. I loved how they added a very interesting twist to the battle. Much of the excitement came from the fact that we didn't know how to proceed, so once we finally took Kierax down it was immensely rewarding. For a while we thought Kierax's ability might be tied to clearing a previous room or that there might be something we could interact with in around the edges of the room. We probably wiped a few dozen times before we figured out we could jump up and catch the energy orbs. And, even then, it still took a few more tries before we figured out how to make the fight work. But when the last fight went like clockwork and everything fell in place, and when this beast that had taunted us and watched over a dozen of our deaths went down, it was a beautiful feeling.

What MMOs Should Learn From Single Player Games

2008-11-18T11:23:00.005-05:00

Every now and then I cut down on my MMO gameplay to try out various single player games. Playing single player games reminds me how primitive MMO games still are. From a technical perspective, MMOs are also about as complicated as a game can get, and the fact that thousands of players can play concurrently vastly complicates game design in ways single player games don't need to be concerned with. But aside from graphics, MMOs really have not advanced all that much since the days of Meridian 59. Single player games still frequently have features that should be more prominent in MMO gameplay. Some of the most transformative features that I think MMORPG games could benefit from are replacing the character class concept, factions that matter, and player created content.

Alternatives to Character Classes

Pete recently discussed what he thought MMO devs could learn from Fable 2. One of his points was that Fable 2 doesn't use the a class based system of leveling; you earn XP and funnel it into various skill trees. Many RPGs feature alternatives to the traditional D&D style class and XP structure. The Final Fantasy series generally features some crazy new alternative in every iteration.

What could an MMO developer learn from this? Well, one of the principal drawbacks to the class system in MMOs is that you end up requiring certain classes (the Holy Trinity.) This inevitably leads to all sorts of class balance issues, and angry players/customers because they perceive (rightly or wrongly) certain classes are more desired than others. In addition, all characters of the same class end up being very much alike.

Imagine a system where you get a number of skill trees, like the Achievement trees in EverQuest II, and you build your character's abilities by earning points and spending them how you see fit. Every character could be different, and if a particular ability gets nerfed, well, you respec and rebuild differently. That's still inconvenient, but not as inconvenient as picking a class, taking several months to level it to the cap, and then having its core abilities changed to such a degree you find you don't want to play that character anymore.

Factions that Matter

Recently, I've been playing Fallout 3. Wow, what a great game. Bethesda did a great job living up to the original Fallout franchise (the first two games, as well as Wasteland, which the Fallout games were a spiritual sequel to, still rank as my favorite RPG games ever.)

One of the great things about this game franchise is that you get to make a lot of decisions that impact the world around you. The people in game will react to you based on the decisions you have made in the past.

It would be nice to see an MMO that also let you make choices over time that affected how NPCs reacted to you in the future. EverQuest II has a few diplomacy quests where you get an item and are asked to deliver it to one faction but can deliver it to their enemy instead; however, these quests are rare and typically the only impact on the game is the reward you get.

One reason we don't see this is people don't like changes that can't be undone. Its hard to stomach making a "wrong" decision if it took you a year or two to get your character to that point. But if a game is designed where leveling isn't as important, then maybe people won't mind as much - since it won't be that much trouble to build up an alt who can take the different path.

Right now, I think MMORPG developers are taking the easy way out. They like to advertise that they have over 10,000 quests in the game. It sounds great. But when half of those are "kill 10 " in quest arcs that lead to other variants of the same thing with no further ramifications, well, what's the point? Its quantity over quality.

While quests might not be able to permanently change the world, they should be able to permanently alter how NPCs react to the players in that world. I hope that's what Bioware is going to try to create with their Star Wars MMORPG. It really is the next step forward for this genre.

Player Created Content

I've been playing LittleBigPlanet recently and that game is addictive. One of the great features is it allows players to create their own levels and share it with the world. Only one game so far, the Saga of Ryzom, allows player created levels. City of Heroes is introducing this feature soon as well.

I could imagine other games doing so. Of course, the fear is that players will abuse them to make games that provide easy leveling or easy loot. But there might be ways to avoid that:

Imagine if EverQuest II implemented a player created mission system. It might start out with players going to an inn in a city. There, a bard spins tall tales, repeating stories he has heard. The stories are missions created by other players. Since the stories are imaginary, we can easily dismiss them as non-canon, and therefore don't need to worry about conflicts with established lore. You can earn experience, as people can learn through listening and learning as well as doing, but you don't leave with any loot since you never really went anywhere.

Any drops in the zone would be NO ZONE (and used only for things that you need for the quests). However, monsters and player-created quests might occasionally reward players with the equivalent of D.I.R.T.Y. Money (tokens) which you can keep with you and trade in to the Bard's Guild for various, mostly cosmetic rewards, such as appearance armor, etc.

I can see something like this being very popular on roleplaying servers. I think it would also be popular with the general public as well. There could be titles for players who create the most popular zones. And it means that there would be a constant influx of new content.

When City of Heroes Issue 14 comes out, I'll definitely be resubscribing just for this feature alone; hopefully, more games will allow forms of player-created content in the future.

The Road Ahead

There is a lot of potential in this genre that is barely being tapped. Ever since World of Warcraft came out, everyone has been bending over backwards to clone their success. World of Warcraft did innovate somewhat - it made the quest arc the central mechanism for leveling. And, while that system is incredibly flawed, it was an improvement over the previous model (the EverQuest model) which was to sit in one spot (the camp) and pull the same mobs repeatedly.

But ever since WoW came out, the industry sort of got stuck in a rut where it was too busy trying to copy WoW's success. Hopefully, that's starting to change.

Coming soon, we have, the City of Heroes Architect feature, which makes it the second MMO to make player-driven content a huge part of the game. Chronicles of Spellborn promises some innovation with a card deck-based combat system. And Bioware promises a very strong story-driven MMO experience in the Stars Wars universe.

Have you seen any particularly innovative features in recent games that you would like to see become a more common feature of the MMO genre as a whole?

Happy Launch Day, EQ2 Fans

2008-11-18T07:07:00.006-05:00

The fifth expansion pack for EverQuest II, The Shadow Odyssey, is released today. Happy Launch Day, EQ2 fans! As of the time of this writing, you still have a few hours left to place a preorder if you want the exclusive in-game items from the digital pre-order (a Void Beast pet and a painting to spruce up your home, and reduce your rent!)

Stupid XFire Errors

2008-11-17T23:10:00.006-05:00

If you get the error message "This application has failed to start because WSOCK32.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem.", do not panic. And do not reinstall the application. The likely culprit is that you are using Vista 64-bit and also are running XFire. The problem may also related to UAC; I have mine disabled. Because I really do want to copy that file. Really.

I get this popup error starting Fallout 3. If you just hit OK several times eventually the windows go away and the game starts up normally. That is, unless you need to patch the game. If you need to patch, LIVE will give spurious error messages about connection problems. In that case, you really do need to shut down XFire, at least until you get the game patched.

Master Alchemist, Buy Orders, No-Trade Recipes, and Other Thoughts

2008-11-16T21:06:00.020-05:00

Thanks to the noble efforts of Albrta, Nizenka, and Shadowgeist, my monk has finally become the Master Alchemist on Najena! OK, maybe I'm just a Master Alchemist on Najena. Still, I'm rather happy to have my first artisan at the level cap, and now a proud owner of the Earring of the Solstice, a Master Alchemist title, and a lovely new cloak!

I enjoyed the epic tradeskill quests, particularly the missions that required avoiding mobs by temporarily stunning them (such as the djinn in the Temple of Light) or otherwise disabling them (the bixies). I wish they had more quests that rewarded us for sneaking around and avoiding combat, Solid Snake style. But anyway, I digress.

I wanted to finish my Alchemist's tradeskill levels so I could experience the new tradeskill raids that Sony is introducing with the new expansion pack. I'm looking forward to those; it will be intriguing to see a new form of game play, and a new (cooperative!) take on crafting.

The only thing I'm worried about it is more of the new recipes are supposedly NO-TRADE. This means we will have more items that require the commision system. I don't mind the fact that the items are NO-TRADE, and I think the commision system is a great feature, but I don't like the idea that my adventurers might have to run around and spam trade channels to find someone willing to do every little upgrade I want. Its not so much that I'm anti-social, its just busy work that I don't think is "fun."

What I'd prefer to see would be some kind of "buy order" feature on the auction house. The way I'd envision it: I would select the recipe I want someone to make, and a quantity, post the requisite fuel and components, and some gold, and then it shows up in a list in a tab on the auction house. Any artisan that wants to can then click fulfill that order. If they beat the rest of the world to it, a consignment window pops up for them and they get to work on it. If they close the window or fail, the order goes back on the auction house. Maybe the artisan would be rewarded with some XP as well as my payment. In fact, this could even replace the Writ system, as the game could allow NPCs to post buy orders (with faction as a reward in addition to gold), just like NPCs occasionally use the mail system today. The person who posts the buy order would eventually get their item in the mail once someone satisfies the order.

Maybe we could even get dynamic systems where NPCs post buy orders (such as swords for the Qeynos Guard), and if enough crafters satisfy the orders something good happens (so long as crafters keep the Guard well equipped, they protect a dangerous area from bandits, and hence, fast travel options to some otherwise remote, inaccessible location becomes available.) But, again, I digress into idle fantasy.

This type of system wouldn't replace the consignment system completely, of course, since you'd still need it for situations where someone specific (like my guild members and a friend of theirs, thanks again guys!) want to help me out. But, if we're going to get more recipes that generate NO-TRADE items, I'd like the ability to get people to do it asynchronously. But maybe I'm just being anti-social, and spamming trade channels will be end up being good for me.

Why Do You Multibox?

2008-11-15T08:55:00.019-05:00

Werit asks if Multiboxing is Fair or Foul on his site. Some people think its a form of cheating.

For PVP games, it certainly can be used for that. Some people cheat in games like Pirates of the Burning Sea (and probably in Warhammer Online as well) where you are restricted to playing on faction on any particular server. They use a second account to spy on the other side. On the other hand, dual boxing in actual combat was generally not as effective as it sounds. Managing two characters is not as efficient as having two players playing one character each; in an RVR game, I think it would actually set your team back, because few can play both characters as well as two real people would play.

I multibox, but I only do so in one game: EverQuest II. That game is a PVE game with very little or no PVP (except on certain servers, which I don't play on), and I don't consider multiboxing to be an unfair advantage in a PVE game, since it doesn't effect anyone else.

Some people assume people multibox because they are anti-social. I don't think that's typically the case; in fact, I probably even group slightly more often, since I can LFG from both machines.

I multibox for a few reasons:

I think it adds an additional element of tactical interest. RPGs are very role oriented, because they traditionally require groups with varied skills, such as your Holy Trinity: chanter, tank, healer. Playing one of those roles without the others is boring. That's one reason why grouping is usually more fun (the social aspect is another). However, we can't group all the time.
I actually started dual boxing because my Defiler soloed so incredibly slow, especially once she got to the ROK era. I think ROK may have driven me to dual box. I am not sure whether to admire or fear for the health of anyone who had the patience to level a Defiler to 80 naturally. I'm leaning towards "concern for their well-being." I may be the "anti-social multi-boxer" but at least I have a life.
I'm a very casual player and am very time constrained. I work long hours, sometimes need to work on weekends, and often have to drop at a moment's notice. Some people might say MMOs aren't for me. Maybe they still aren't compatible with my kind of schedule (despite how casual accessible they have gotten in recent years). But for an extra $15 a month, I have managed to make EQ2 compatible enough.

In a way, I guess I dual box because it gets around what I perceive as design flaws in EverQuest II. These flaws aren't specific to EQ2 itself; I would dual box in World of Warcraft as well if that had been my game.

The design flaws I perceive:

I enjoy the end game because that's where we do instance runs as groups. The progression curve becomes flatter and instances generally require more skill and tactics than overland quest arcs and soloing. I group for the dungeon runs; I don't dual box those (I doubt anyone would let me if I tried :) ). Leveling to get a different kind of character there is not quite as exciting for me. Some people say "its the journey" that counts. To them I say "I've done it twice." And claiming the leveling process is to learn the class doesn't make sense to me when it takes longer to level to 80 than it takes a doctor to get certified for some very difficult medical procedures. And you aren't learning the class unless you are grouping, and you aren't grouping in the low levels anyway because there aren't enough other people around below the level cap. So I have been dual boxing new alts that I've created to get them to the fun faster.
Solo mobs are boring. I think one of the problems with recent games is they try to balance things so solo mobs can be handled by anyone, and that means they don't have any interesting abilities nor are they challenging in any way: the game designers don't know what skills the character will have, so apparently they assume they don't have any. I think a better design for MMORPGs would be to make everything require a party, and let people train pets (hirelings/Heroes) to fill out their own party when they are feeling anti-social or are time constrained.
There really needs to be a way to LFG (with the in-game tool) any character on your account from any other character. Let's say I'm working on soloable epic updates on my Monk. No one would group with me just to watch me run around Norrath clicking on things. But maybe I'd be glad to group with my Assassin for something - let me do that! Let me LFG my Assassin and then route tells to that character to the one I'm on. Add a way to fast character switch while we're at it.
With a subscription fee, I guess I start to feel I need to make a certain amount of progress or else I'm wasting my money. It may seem silly to spend more to give myself that little boost to ensure I make that amount of progress, but the numbers work out in my head. I might not care so much about "progressing my character" if these games used an alternate business model such as a pay as you go scheme where you pay based on how much time you spend in-game instead.
I simply find it more interesting playing two characters at once. I grew up on multi-player dungeon crawls: Wizardry and Bard's Tale and Ultima 4-6. I leveled my monk to 80 the normal way, and now the early (pre-80) game just doesn't seem as fun as it was the first time around; but by adding a second character to manage, it adds something intangible to the leveling process that makes it more interesting.

So now, dear readers (both of you), I have some questions for you. Do you multibox and, if so, why? Or if you don't like multiboxing in PVE games, why?

KM Switches and Other Multi-Boxing Aids

2008-11-14T11:29:00.026-05:00

It seems Stargrace has discovered the joy of the software KM (keyboard+mouse) switch. She had recently started dual boxing but was controlling the keyboard and laptop by physically going to each keyboard. When I first started dual boxing, I did that as well, but KM switches make it a heck of a lot of easier.

A KM switch lets you control multiple computers using a single keyboard and mouse. This differs from the more popular KVM switch in that you still require separate monitors for each computer. If you have multiple desktop machines, that saves on desktop real estate since you don't need to have more than one keyboard and mouse. And if you are using a laptop and desktop together, these devices save you the hassle of having to switch to the other keyboard. And when gaming sometimes, every second counts!

You can go out and buy a lovely hardware KM switch like this:

... but nowadays, there are plenty of software equivalents.

The way the software KM switches work is when you move your mouse offscreen (in any direction, up or down, but more commonly, left or right), control moves to another computer. This means that the OTHER computer will start receiving your mouse and keyboard input.

My setup at home has three computers: two desktops, and a laptop for work. The center computer is my primary computer and the keyboard and mouse is physically attached to that machine via the standard USB ports. When I move the mouse to the left, it appears on my other desktop machine. If I move it to the right, it appears on the laptop I use for work.

KM switches are really great for gaming. You can use it to dual box (to control characters running on two separate computers). You can look things up on the Internet on the secondary computers while playing fullscreen on your primary machine.

Stardock Multiplicity

I use a program called Multiplicity which works pretty well. It does have some drawbacks: some games like Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, City of Heroes, and Warhammer Online stop responding to mouse clicks after you've switched off and on screen a few times. Its rather frustrating since Warhammer Online is one of the main games I play right now. It also confuses programs that use mouselook when your mouse ends up "offscreen," so I disable it when running a game from the first person perspective like Fallout 3. Multiplicity has a number of really great features though:

You can share clipboard information between the machines. This means I can look up coordinates in eq2wikia and paste them into my fullscreen EQ2 instance running on my other computer. With as much running around and exploring that EverQuest II quests typically require, that's a lifesaver!
You can also share FILES between machines. Its as easy as highlighting the files in Explorer, hitting Ctrl+C (the keyboard shortcut to Copy), and then moving the mouse "offscreen," and then hitting Ctrl+V (the keyboard shortcut to Paste) in the other computers folder.

Synergy

For a more general purpose KM switch that won't cost a dime, check out Synergy. It supports Mac, PC, and Linux, so multi-OS users would benefit from that. I haven't used it myself yet, but Stargrace seems to like it. I intend on trying it out because of the frustration I have with Multiplicity not working with Warhammer Online.

Octopus/Interbox

If you are primarily a World of Warcraft player, you might instead look into Octopus or Interbox, since these appear to be customized particularly for boxing in WoW. They support some features such as key cloning (so you can have some keyboard commands that get broadcast to all clients simultaneously.) It can also broadcasting multiple clicks to multiple windows on the same machine.

Did you hear about the guy who plays 36 World of Warcraft characters at the same time? He uses Octopus.

Keyclone

Of course, if you just want to broadcast multiple clicks but don't want a KM switch, you can use Keyclone. This software will even work with multiple instances on the same machine.

KaVoom

One commercial alternative that I have tried is Exxtramon from KaVoom software. This program is pretty neat because in addition to letting you control two machines with a keyboard and mouse, you can also use your secondary computer's monitor as an extension of your primary computer's desktop. Let's say you have a laptop and a desktop. In that case, the software would make your laptop behave as if it was a second monitor attached to your desktop. However, your laptop can still do its own processing and run its own programs, and you can then flip back and forth between the extended "virtual desktop" and the laptop's actual desktop at will. Its a neat feature but not something I needed for gaming. However, they do offer a separate product that is only a KM switch without the virtual desktop feature.

Anyway, hopefully this helps anyone out there interested in dual boxing, or struggling with dual boxing without these tools. Even if you are not dual boxing, if you have more than one computer side by side, a software KM switch will seriously make your life easier.

The Most Hated Mob In EverQuest II...

2008-11-12T00:10:00.001-05:00

... is the dreaded node stealer...

Too Little, Too Late?

2008-11-12T00:07:00.003-05:00

More bloggers are cancelling their WAR accounts? I've been considering it, though I am still having enough fun that I like to log in on occasion. I just managed to grind my Bright Wizard to 26 tonight, but the game isn't anywhere near as fun as it was at launch. And I'm on a destination server for server transfers...

Warhammer's major problem right now is population. The game simply requires a critical mass of players to work, and it doesn't have it. A PVE MMORPG might be able to survive with a low population, but not an RVR-centric game.

Mythic has been working hard to release patches and start server transfers to alleviate the issue. I'm still subscribed for three more months, so I'll be around to see how that turns out. But at this rate, I'm wondering if the game will even make it that long.

Its too bad, because with the right number of players, this game is a blast.

Big Changes in WAR

2008-11-06T15:07:00.004-05:00

Looks like Mythic has been rather busy.

I particularly like the changes made to help make sure one scenario doesn't dominate.

What Do We Do Without Levels?

2008-11-05T15:51:00.020-05:00

Hardcore Casual asks how important are levels? Well, for most MMOs, its pretty much everything. The level IS the game. You have this exponential growth curve to the level cap and then levels are replaced by gear, which is pretty much the same thing, except prettier. The fact that they are just a substitute for levels is especially obvious when they do it with a blatant progression in mind.

Why do we have levels? Well, players need a goal. And making your numbers bigger becomes that goal.

But levels also come with disadvantages... one major disadvantage is that it creates a gulf between haves (people who have been playing a while) and have-nots (newbies) that tends to deter new players from joining the game. As a game ages, more and more people end up at the tail end of the level progression, and it slowly dies as people leave and no one new joins. It also means that no matter how populated your server is, you still have very few people you can group with at any one point in time, since everyone might be a different level. (Mentoring/sidekicking are nice little hacks that help avoid this issue to some degree.)

Another disadvantage is that it renders old content obsolete as people progress. Older zones become static, empty wastelands because everyone already beat the content.

What else can we do to provide players with a sense of progression besides "levels"? Well, not much, really. At least not for role playing games where the notion that you start off weak (the amnesiac adopted peasant boy) who grows up to be strong (along the way finding out you are the son of a god or the illegitimate son of the King and only heir to the throne, or both, who knew) is part and parcel to the genre, and so there has to be some arbitrary thing in game to measure your progression from subpar to super. Whatever you call it, that arbitrary measure is the "level."

But we can implement the leveling concept differently... the most significant flaw in most existing models is that it prevents a lot of the player base from playing together.

I was disappointed to see that Warhammer Online, with its PVP focus (which is a pretty powerful carrot on a stick right there) decided to create a lengthy level based grind. Couldn't PVP leaderboards be the incentive to play better and longer? Did we really need regular ranks (levels) AND Renown Ranks? If we just had Renown Ranks people would start off at mostly the same degree of power (Renown Ranks of course let you train and become more powerful, but not exponentially like the regular levels do), so they would still provide a powerful incentive to keep playing (making that Renown Rank numbers go up) while avoiding the principle drawbacks of leveling (players not being able to play together.) Imagine being able to log in from the very beginning and group with grizzled veterans on the battlefields! Keep imagining, because that's not what you're going to get if you actually log into WAR. Instead, you get empty chapters, empty PQs, and people spread thinly across each chapter and each tier, you'd never know there were thousands of players online with you, because you'll never see more than a handful at a time unless you jump into a Scenario. In Scenarios, you get to see BOTH handfuls, one handful playing Order and the other Destruction.

Another way to avoid the pitfalls of the leveling mechanic is to have a mechanism that makes people restart frequently; this could keep the game friendly to new players much longer. I can picture a game where your objective is to collect henchman/pets that you can level and gear up separate from your main character (the distinction being that the main character wouldn't need levels - and experienced players would have an incentive to play with inexperienced players when leveling up a new pet.) While leveling a pet would involve the on-rails movement through the world that we have today, if every player periodically has to start over from the beginning (with a new pet), that means the old world is constantly in use, and no part of the world turns into the complete wasteland that most MMO starter areas become shortly after launch.

Also, I think we'll see more collection mechanisms in the future, such as the collectable skills in Guild Wars. Even though each skill are relatively equal in power to another skill of the same type (Elite or normal), and grabbing more skills doesn't necessarily make a character more "powerful," it does make the player more flexible, so you still have a sense of progression. That same drive is what makes games like Magic: the Gathering work. You might not be more powerful than someone else because you buy the whole store display case, but it does give you a great deal more flexibility to create the kinds of decks you want (or "need.") Similarly, Guild Wars, even after hitting the level cap, still motivated people to keep playing to unlock skills to gain additional flexibility in the metagame: creating different builds.

But the ultimate, and least grindy, way to measure a character's progression is: story. Story is why most single player games don't feel like a grind, even if they involve the same kind of repetitive gameplay. Bioware is getting a lot of attention for promising to bring story into MMORPGs. Guild Wars did that too; the mission based progression was a powerful motivator to keep playing. For me, the missions were my "levels." It was only once I finished all of the missions for the Prophecies campaign that I began to lose interest in the game, and I moved on. And, I guess, that's why we get numbers instead of story. Bigger numbers are easier to implement. And if you decide you want your players to stick around longer, you just need to throw in bigger numbers, and most of them will.

Back in the MUD days, story based games were far more common. But it was a lot of easier back then when the only limit to what you could put in game was your English ability. I guess we won't see true innovation in MMORPGs until we see more middleware, to greatly lessen the time it takes to design. Maybe what MMORPG players really need more than anything is better MMORPG middleware.

Proximity-Based Groups

2008-11-02T07:46:00.018-05:00

As much as Open Groups are a step forward in allowing us to feel more like a community that works together on its objectives (primarily RvR), they are still very flawed. If the idea is to enhance the feeling of community, perhaps segregating us into little 6-man groups (even if anyone can join) isn't the right idea. Wouldn't it better if we just got rid of the idea of "groups" entirely? Or reframe the party concept so that we are effectively grouped with EVERYONE in our Realm, always? Why can't we just see the nearest 6-, 12-, or however many people that are closest to us?

Since most of us feel that Open Groups were a great idea, why not take them to a whole "nother level." What could be more Open than the entire Realm?

To make it manageable as people filter in and out, maybe the UI would give us mechanisms to "pin" people of interest (friends, the main tank) up to the top. That would also allows us to keep track of someone who wasn't nearby. The idea of a party would still be useful, though it would simply provide a private chat channel and "pin" party members to the top of each other's lists. But instead of ONLY seeing their health bars and buffs, we'd still nearby Realm-mates filter up to the top, so we see who is in need of healing or other forms of assistance.

I don't envision this type of feature for healing alone. I would also prefer to see ALL other party-based mechanics, such as buffs, switched from having party-wide effects to having a proximity-based radius centered on the caster. In a game designed around "proximity-based grouping" (or Global Groups), people might generally communicate in the "global" /say channel; those nearby could get their text highlighted or tagged in such a way that they can be more readily identified and filtered to a special tab (to prevent channel spam.)

Another benefit I can imagine is better immersion. In the past, our characters sat still or soloed, with LFG flags or a LFM screen up, spamming global chat channels that spanned continents. Nowadays, we run up to whatever it is we want to do, stare at an LFG screen, and then join up (if there is room in the arbitrarily size-limited party or warband). In the future, I just want to run up to wherever it is I want to do, and we're automatically grouped. Done. Though, if I'm PVEing, I might talk in /say chat to see if I can tag along.

I realize this feature is probably not entirely feasible. All the checks to determine who is "nearby" could be taxing on the server-side CPUs; even though the client could do some of the work, such as sorting and filtering the list, much of it would have to be done server-side, to determine how much information to send to each client, and who is affected by whom's buffs. A Global Grouping concept would complicate other game mechanics such as combat where the XP and Renown reward factor the party system into account; without a party mechanic, you'd need to keep track of individual contribution on a much higher scale. If too many people "contribute" to killing a monster, then there should be no reward since its trivial. Only those individuals who contributed to killing that monster (so freeloaders who stand around the action don't benefit simply because they are grouped). If you change one game mechanic, every other game mechanic that depends on it is impacted as well, so this is just the tip of the iceberg of what would have to be changed in a hypothetical game that abandoned the traditional party concept.

But the advantage of removing the artificial party concept could be a more cohesive community that more readily works together towards its collective objectives.

The Witching Night

2008-10-31T18:02:00.008-04:00

Warhammer Online has introduced its first Live Event, which involves a PQ in the Open RvR areas. It was great fun, and my Bright Wizard, Brendis, walked off with a Massive Loot bag from which I claimed the Mask of the Bloodletter, one of the four special masks for this event.

The event brought out a lot of people into the Open RvR zones, for some constant almost-nonstop (except when the cowardly Destruction dogs took to hiding in their campgrounds) action.

The way this event worked, at least in the Tier 3 zone, is in two phases. The first phase involved killing one hundred of your enemies before they killed one hundred of your side. After you succeed with that, a scary Witching Lord spawns and you have to kill that, unless you are me, in which case, you die running to the event, and then respawn and run as all heck to get back to the chest that drops after the PQ is completed while being chased by lots of sore losers from the Destruction side.

One nice thing about the Open RvR PQ - even if you die after stage 1, your contribution still counts. Unfortunately, I died before I could kill the boss, so I didn't get to experience that, but I still got the top contribution slot for the event. I mention this here because some people were saying that only your contribution towards the boss counted, and that might discourage people from participating. That most definitely is not the case.

All in all, I'm rather happy with how this event turned out. It was pretty fun; I hope Mythic chooses to move more of the PQ style mechanics into RvR zones in the future. It was a good move and participating in this event was a nice respite from the Scenario grind that it sometimes feels like this game has turned into.

"Oblivion With Guns" Is a Blast

2008-10-29T18:24:00.005-04:00

I just got Fallout 3 and, so far, I'm really enjoying it. Fallout is one of my favorite franchises ever. Bethesda has really captured the feel of the franchise, including its dark humor. Many people disparagingly referred to Fallout as "Oblivion with Guns" when they first heard that Bethesda was making this game with a 3D first person viewpoint. And, yeah, it does feel a lot like Oblivion in parts:

- stiff voice acting
- NPCs sometimes change their voices depending on which conversation item you select
- NPCs like to walk into each other
- running in the third party perspective looks RIDICULOUSLY bad...
- NPC AI pathing is wretched

But those are very minor flaws; the voice acting and other minor issues aren't so bad that they ruin the experience. And while combat is flawed, it works well enough. The VATS system is fun, but real time combat, swinging a handcrafted Deathclaw at a radscorpion is no different than swinging a sword in Tamriel. And I never found that to be terribly exciting. Fallout 3 does not appear to have a cover system, which is unfortunate, because that game system helped make ranged combat in Mass Effect (the other notable story-based RPG with guns to come out in recent times) quite enjoyable.

The thing that made the original Fallout games great was that it gaves you CHOICES. You always had multiple ways to approach problems. You could talk your way past a difficult opponent, take them down by force, sneak by when they turn their back on you, or go the long way around them. In the original Fallouts, you could even (with great difficulty) play the entire game without ever (directly) harming anyone! You were often asked to difficult decisions, and being the good guy was rarely the easy way out.

This Fallout is no different. Very early on you are given the ability to make decisions with very permanent aftereffects. There are so many dialogue options and unlike many games, they do make a difference. Many choices you make open up more choices in the future. Its truly staggering how different the game can be between playthroughs even from the very beginning of the game! Every other game on the planet claims to give you choice, but this is the game that truly delivers.

While some people might get hung up on the subpar combat system, if you are looking for a ROLE PLAYING experience, and were wondering where the ROLE in "role playing game" went, well, it went here: Fallout 3.

WAR is like three games in one

2008-10-27T09:12:00.007-04:00

Warhammer Online is like three games in one. And that's not a good thing, in this case, because its like three separate games that don't have much to do with one another.

Right now, you have Scenarios, which are a blast. You launch into a Scenario (instanced RVR battleground) from anywhere in the world; this means if you want to play Scenarios, the world itself is largely irrelevant since its a just an overly decorated lobby. And that, unfortunately, is how most people play the game, since the rewards for PQs and Open World RvR don't match.

The other game in Warhammer is the PVE game. And while PQs offer a nice incremental improvement over it, they are only sporadically populated in the higher tiers, and most of the time, I see people only at the PQ nearest the camp for that Chapter. The biggest problem with PVE right now is that its actually more rewarding to grind the soloable first part of a PQ by yourself... which is counterintuitive and undermines the community-building nature that PQs and Open Groups were meant to encourage.

And, last but not least, there's the Open World RvR. In theory. I've seen this only a few times, and only when my guild mustered up people to take on a Keep. But while its great fun to storm a Keep, ultimately its not very rewarding. In the time it takes to run back and get one-shotted again (I'm playing a Bright Wizard, so that doesn't take long), I could play a Scenario and get better XP and loot...

Any one of these sub-games would be great in its own right. A PQ-based version of WoW would be amazing. A game solely focussed on Open World RvR would be fun. But as long as the rewards remain out of balance between them, the whole game suffers.

Mythic has been very responsive so far, improving XP for PVE and RvR. I'm still planning on continuing to play WAR; I just subscribed for three more months (on top of the two subscriptions I have with EQ2!), so I'm still convinced in the future of this game. But to keep that fee past January, we will need to see more improvements besides simple XP boosts.

There also need to be fixes to itemization so that RvR rewards justify the time and effort invested.

We also need better travel options. Scenarios aren't just popular because they give better XP; they are also popular because you can get into the action very quickly. There are too many zones where (even on horseback) I have to run around forever to complete quests. Better PVE travel options also means more people can get to the Warcamps faster for RvR.

I would also like to see dynamic mechanisms created as a way to TIE the separate games together into a more cohesive whole... so, for example, if lots of players are in PVE dungeons or Scenarios, maybe that gives the RvR players some sort of bonus (because our warriors are stalwart enough to defect some of the meanest and nastiest critters to plague the lands, see). It may seem counterintuitive to reward someone OTHER than the ones doing the work here, but the idea is this: if people are doing really well in the dungeons that means they aren't in RvR, so this helps encourage people to come back out into the daylight and venture onto the real battlefields; it also gives a little boost to the people who are already on the battlefield to make up for the fact that all their friends are underground. The other advantage is that the game feels less like three separate games and more like one interrelated whole.

Irreversible Decisions

2008-10-23T11:13:00.007-04:00

Apparently someone is making a new Star Wars game. Have you heard of it?

(Sarcasm.)

I'm not a huge Star Wars fan, so this normally wouldn't interest me. However, it is being made by Bioware, and they are known for having a strong focus on characterization and story. One of the things that is intriguing is that you have the possibility of picking up NPC companions who become a part of your story. Also, you have the ability to make irreversible decisions and even find a love interest.

Irreversible decisions are very rare in MMOs. After all, irreversible decisions tend to irritate people when they are playing a game that involves hundreds of hours of time invested. EverQuest II used to have an irreversible decision: if you killed centaurs in the Thundering Steppes, you were forever Kill on Sight to them. Well, that decision was changed not too soon after release, because of the uproar from the player base.

Providing irreversible changes to the game world isn't something fans would typically enjoy either. A PVP game where one side could literally win (permanently, as in, your Order-aligned Germanic-speaking Order character literally starts learning Norwegian [or whatever Destruction speaks]) would lose players fast. Ultimately, MMO conflicts become constant stalemates that never go anywhere. And if they do go somewhere, it just results in a big, giant reset so people can start again.

The only real way to provide irreversible decisions is to do it within a player character's personal storyline. We've seen this type of approach done before... Pirates of the Burning Sea let you meet NPCs, who would become a part of your story, and various decisions you make would affect future missions. NPCs you meet during your role-playing story arc missions could evolve into allies, enemies, rivals, or otherwise, depending on decisions you make.

It wasn't always done well... Sometimes you were forced down certain paths. And naturally you couldn't do anything that wasn't scripted into the missions.

Early on in my short Caribbean stint, the game announced that I had found my love interest. It actually came as a surprise since I wasn't particularly paying attention to that quest's writing. I never played the game long enough to see that quest arc to fruition. I saved some Sultan or somesuch who had a bunch of sons and daughters, and apparently whoever I clicked on became a love interest. Then they went and stood in some instance and ignored me. Maybe if I stuck around for about ten or more levels, I would have received the mission that would allow me to win their heart. But even if the implementation was a little flawed, the idea was great.

Some of the other quest arcs had more immediate feedback. I was given the choice to choose a side between two rival NPCs, and immediately gained an ally and a rival that impacted future missions. The role-playing story arc quickly became my favorite aspect of the game for me, despite its flaws. I was able to make decisions that determined just what kind of character I was playing: noble or villainous, impetuous or reflective. My character became much more than a bundle of levels and loot.

A story can only be meaningful if you can make decisions that are permanent that you can't reverse simply by grinding another 40,000 faction for the other side. Irreversible decisions are integral to story telling and playing a role. Most dialogue trees in EverQuest II or Age of Conan simply resulted in getting you closer to receiving a quest, or leaving the dialogue tree. You couldn't piss off a quest giver such that he would decide not to work with you. You could slaughter your way through centaurs and still find that some of them will gladly give you quests.

Some of us would like to see a game live up to the ROLE in "Massively Multiplayer ROLE Playing Games". You can see it all over the blogosphere; time and time again, people rail against the mindless grinds we suffer through. It's high time that developer started allowing us to make our characters more than a simple bundle of levels, loot, and unlocked flags. I can't wait to see what Bioware cooks up.