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.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Friday, November 21, 2008
Tabula Rasa Bites the Dust...
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.
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
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.
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!
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.
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!
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Obelisk of Ahkzul
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.
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
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?
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
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
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!)
Monday, November 17, 2008
Stupid XFire Errors
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
