The Wrong Direction

According to this video, source RPS, it looks like The Elder Scrolls Online folks are aiming at making their MMORPG a single player experience. Or at least they’ll be making the main storyline a single player experience.

Now I’ve said before that I think that MMORPGs should allow solo play, or at least not force players into grouping, and I stand by that. There are tons of great reasons to be able to play solo. But there is a trend in the latest MMOs, SWTOR for instance, to encourage players not to group… at all.

It’s funny, kind of ironic, in that the systems I’ve wanted to see in these games such as great stories are now being implemented at the expense of the other game systems that I still like.

One of the problems I have with forced grouping is that it is often a painful experience, usually when grouping with strangers. (Using Diablo 2 as an example, the 2 times I played with a stranger put me off Diablo multiplayer for life.) But I don’t want the MMORPG to go down the path where it is simply a single player game with a multiplayer component, like Diablo 3. That is the wrong direction. Completely.

What I would prefer is to have incentives for grouping that outweigh the downsides. You’ll never get rid of idiots who want to spoil the game, but hugely antiquated (and dumb) ways of assigning XP, or loot, need to be looked at.

Don’t make the player into a stand-alone hero. Make her into a member of a virtual world, provide the tools to shape her own story, and stand back and see what happens.

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Launch Day Blues…

…for a single player game. What the hell is that about?

You kinda expect it for a MMORPG, but lots of players just want to play the single player mode. Why Blizzard didn’t allow an offline mode like they did in Starcraft 2 is beyond me. Dumb move.

If you’re prepared to get kicked out of the game at a whim, or wait in a queue to play single player Diablo 3, then by all means buy it now. Otherwise, wait until everything has died down and get it when this rediculous always on thing gets fixed.

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Secret World Links

Since I’m not in The Secret World beta at this point, I’m living vicariously through others.

Here are the links.

• Pete at Dragonchasers gives us a first glimpse into The Secret World. Still a bit rough which might cause some launch controversy, but the quest structure (warning a bit spoilerish) makes it sound a little more traditional RPGish.

• Sente at A Ding World thinks there are quite a few nice things about the game. Lot’s of pictures in this post.

Arkenor is doing a series of articles on The Secret World beta weekend. The Secret World Beta Bonanza, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5. Lot’s of good stuff here.

That’s it for the moment but while my weekend is over, the US still has much of Sunday to go. I suspect there will be a bunch more posts in the coming few days. All up from what I see, it looks like the game still has some way to go before it’s ready for release and a June release might be premature. But the game itself is not your standard MMORPG, at least not in the kill ten rats sense. Lot’s of quests, puzzle solving, and perhaps not an easy mode game.

Sounds great.

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A MMORPG Should Be Like A Vacation

Yesterday when I wrote about what I think Bioware is doing wrong, I made the following statement:

If SW:TOR has been released five years ago it might have been the WoW killer everyone has been dreaming of, but instead it has been released at a time when there appears to be a growing disatisfaction with the subscription themepark model.

I said this, in part, because I’m a part of the group feeling that disatisfaction with the themepark model.

The problem I find is that I also enjoy the direction inherent in a themepark. You go to a location, do a bunch of quests that when complete direct you to the next area. It’s a big step up from having no direction and having to kill a ton of mobs in order to get to the level where you can go to the next area that defined games like Everquest.

But this model has the problem that it can get a bit tedious after a while. After all, the quests all blend in to one. And when a game is entirely based on the quest-to-level-cap model it ends up being limited.

On the other hand, a pure sandbox has its problems too. New players starting up may find the lack of direction quite daunting, especially coming from a traditional themepark like WoW. Sometimes too many choices without any direction can be as bad as a completely directed experience.

That’s why I think that MMORPGs should be like a vacation (or holiday as we say here in Oz.)

When you go on a vacation you get to choose what you want to do. You can stay in a national park and go hiking one day. The next day you can visit Disneyland. The third day you can ride a tour bus, and the fourth day you can get into the car and spend more time at the spots you visited in the bus the day before. The fifth day you can visit a waterpark. There are themeparks sure, but you can spend as much or as little time in them as you want.

So why can’t a MMO be like this? A big game with lots of sandbox features, but with individual unconnected themeparks

To make a MMORPG more like a vacation you need:

1. A game with a lot of sandbox features, where the players have a lot of autonomy to play and interact with the world, like Eve for example, lots of crafting, trading, PvP… everything like that.
2. Some direction for players who are not sure what they can do. Missions perhaps. Not necessarily story based. These are like the bus tours showing a general overview of places you can go back to later to explore in more depth.
3. Some areas in the game that offer a quest chain with a decent story. Disneyland anyone?

The difference is that the themepark areas are not the focus of progression, they are just things that a player can do and spend as much or as little time as they want. When a player gets bored of the quest areas they can leave and do something else in the game. Or they can never set foot in them, and not be disadvantaged.

So, with the rising disatisfaction in themepark design, and the still somewhat niche status of the sandbox game, perhaps it’s time to see some games that combine the two models. Let me know what you think in the comments below.

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Star Wars The Old Republic: Quick Thought

While I was writing the last post, What Is Bioware Doing Wrong? A thought came to mind that didn’t fit in that post.

Having the Star Wars IP to develop a game is pretty much a free pass to a million or more box sales.

So why, with your development, go where every man has gone before? (I know, Star Trek reference doesn’t mix with Star Wars!)

Bioware could have done anything with The Old Republic. They could have made it a full sandbox with no quests, and sold two million boxes. So why did they stick with the themepark model that has been copping so much negativity over the last few years?

Bioware is, has been, a highly creative game developer. It’s a pity they didn’t use that creativity on more than just the class stories. Unless they completely botched it, they would have been successful.

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Eve Online By Firelight

Looks like the Jita Burning, Free Mittani event has started, a day early.

Some great pictures from TAGN, and KTR.

Time to run and hide!

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Eve Is Mainstream

One of the things I keep on seeing when various commenters write about Eve is the statement, sometime implied often stated, that Eve is not a mainstream MMORPG.

Actually it is.

Think about it for just a minute. Eve has 400,000 subscribers, more or less. There are not many games that can boast that. Sure World of Warcraft has in the high millions (not sure if it’s under 10 million yet) and The Old Republic has around 1.7 million. But what other games exceed 1×10⁶ subscribers?

Warhammer briefly hit the million-ish mark, but is now down to one server (or is soon to be.) And back in the day, Everquest kept around 400K players happily entertained.

Of course there are the non-Western MMORPGs that have subscribers in the millions. And we shouldn’t forget the free to play games that have very large numbers too, but it’s harder to tell how these games are really doing in the popularity stakes. Subscriptions MMOs have that as an advantage. It’s easier to make an assessment of how many people are playing. As for the non-Western games, this is more about mainstream in the West, and I’m not sure exactly how popular the big Asian games are in the West anyway.

So why do we think that Eve isn’t a mainstream game when it has a subscriber base only really eclipsed by two other games?

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Games, Incoming.

I reckon if I had a Dalmation I’d be outside sitting on the hood of my car waiting.

The Diablo 3 beta is open for valid Battlenet accounts, which means the game is very close to release. Tera is also in beta. Torchlight 2 is anticipated for release a month after Diablo3. Around the same time as Torchlight is The Secret World.

At the same time Eve Online is gearing up for some fairly major changes that will affect the economy, and improve the user interface experience.

Lots of stuff then.

The trick, for someone with limited time like me, is to work out which games I actually want to play.

Diablo 3 and Torchlight 2 are very similar, both being Action RPGs. I have played and enjoyed both Diablo 2 and Torchlight (1), completing both of them. I’m not sure Torchlight warrants me getting Torchlight 2 at release. While I enjoyed it, it didn’t grab me like D2 did. However, I’m less than enamored with Blizzards focus with Diablo 3. The real money aspects concern me. If I don’t spend real money to buy equipment will my progress through the game be slower?

So I doubt I’ll get D3 or T2 at release. I’ll probably wait until the end of the year and make a choice then.

Likewise Tera doesn’t grab me. I’m seeing lots of news about it, but I feel kind of meh about it. I think it’s the fact that it’s another fantasy game, with the standard fare of fantasy characters. It would be nice to see something completely different in the fantasy genre. Of course I felt that way about Rift too, and thoroughly enjoyed my time there. So it might be, once the game gets released, I’ll start reading some real details and feel compelled to have a go.

The only game so far that really has my attention is The Secret World. I like the modern day mythological conspiracy setting. I like the skill system, and the fact that I don’t have to create a thousand alts to try everything. I even like what I’ve seen of the crafting system so far.

I just hope I’ll have enough time to play it when it is released.

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Developer Appreciation Week #DAW

Game developers must be a confused lot. After all they create the games that millions of gamers buy and enjoy immensely, yet they are constantly reviled in gaming forums. How many times have you read comments like “The devs need to learn to code” or other statements questioning their competence? There’s a lot of venom there.

That there’s a hell of a lot of negativity directed towards game developers is a real pity since these men and women often spend far more hours in the office sweating over a hot monitor than the average person working their nine-to-five day. In some cases, the folks at the coal-face of game development, the non-rockstar developer get paid far less than their business development counterparts while doing some pretty horrendous hours.

So I reckon it’s pretty cool that Scarybooster has initiated the Developer Appreciation Week (#DAW.)

Over the last year I’ve played a lot less than in previous years, but while my list of games is smaller, I would still like to thank all the game developers across the world who are hard at work producing the entertainment that we love.

As Stargrace mentioned in her developer appreciation week post, it’s pretty much impossible to narrow down to one or two developers since there are so many amazing games. But there is one thing…

I would like you to consider the indie developer for your gratitude. These guys are producing some pretty amazing work. Games like Minecraft and Terraria didn’t come out of nowhere. These developers worked for years until they developed these hit games. Literally garage (or bedroom) developers with no access to the fund to resource their games, they have to make do with free tools, and low cost assets. Indies aren’t going to spend millions on art or on getting celebrity voice acting. They’re going to concentrate on the gameplay. I’m convinced that the independant developer will be the driving force for innovation in computer games in the next few years.

One other thing. A great way to show your appreciation is with your wallet. Head over to Kickstarter, find an indie developer with an interesting project and make a pledge. It doesn’t have to be much, five dollars will help someone reach their goal.

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QOTD: Anti-PK Corps In Eve Online

When I played Asheron’s Call, there was a server called Darktide. It was an unrestricted server with Free For All PvP as its main drawcard. As to be expected, this meant that anyone playing on Darktide was a target of the Player Killer (PK) especially those players new to the server. Lot’s of these players got together and formed guilds on that server wholly devoted to ganking anyone that crossed paths with them.

The there were the players who liked PvP but were opposed to the wholesale slaughter wrought by the PKer. Like the PKers, these got together and formed the Anti-PK guilds that didn’t go seeking out the weak and alone to gank, but set out to help them by protecting them from the PKers, and actively fighting against the PK guilds.

Asheron’s Call wasn’t alone in this. Ultima Online also had players who banded together to oppose PK players.

I have a question for you. I hear a lot about the corporations and alliances in Eve Online that engage in PK activities where it’s encouraged to go out and gank all and sundry. Each year (or few months) the Hulkageddon event takes place where players vie for prizes for high-sec ganking of unarmed/undefended commercial spacecraft like the Hulk. The Goonswarm alliance is about to set Jita on fire, which means that lots of highsec non-PvPer players are going to get burned.

There seems to be lots of FFA PvP in Eve focussed on ganking.

But I hear very little about the player corporations that are set up to oppose that sort of behaviour.

Can you tell me. Are there Anti-PK corps in Eve Online?

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