Category: MMO Musings

Style Is Everything?

Posted on by Gazimoff

NCSoft are currently working on two MMOs. We’ve known about Guild Wars 2 for a while but the big reveal was Wildstar, a game that most of us had never heard of until the start of Gamescom. The games couldn’t be more different – take a look at the trailers below.

Both games appeal to me in different ways. The rich detail of the environments in Guild Wars 2 makes me want to explore every nook and cranny of the game world. The attitude and soul shown in Wildstar just makes me think that it’s going to be huge fun to be a part of. Guild Wars 2 is due out sometime in 2012, while Wildstar should be with us in 2013.

I’m also left wondering what NCSoft’s strategy is. Are they saying that there’s a place for both MMOs – with players drawn to either the psuedo-realism of Guild Wars 2 or the cartoony style of Wildstar? Do some people go for high fantasy while others prefer sci-fi?

Or are they trying to start influencing the MMO player’s “flight plan”? Are we seeing the start of a shift from being loyal to a game for years to swapping to a new MMO every 6 months or so? Are developers hoping for us to become MMO nomads where we all periodically shift from one title to another?

At the moment I’m not sure. All I know is that in a post-Warcraft world there doesn’t seem to be much Blizzard. Titan remains a mirage on the horizon.

Getting the Most out of Game Time

Posted on by Gazimoff

I find being a gamer these days is pretty tough. There are a ton of good quality titles out there that I’m desperate to try out. I want to get my teeth into every single one of them and wring them dry of every single droplet of Fun Essence. I want to be able to talk about the phases of the game – how they start out, what the endgame or finish is like and so on. I want to both have my cake and devour it in a noisy, icing-shrapnel inducing manner.

Do I have time? In a word, no.

I’ve become one of those “mature gamers” you hear about these days – people who read Edge and Retro Gamer and talk about how good games were in the good old days. The kind of gamer who holds down a full time job and a family, trying to fit gaming around everything else. Add to that running a blog, doing podcasts and everything else and it’s easy to see time vanish. Apparently I have twenty minutes a week to play Warcraft, and that’s during server maintenance.

I needed a plan. Something to help me manage what time I have available to make sure I get the most out of the time I have. It’s not perfect but it’s useful to me in helping me work out what’s important.

Why share all this now? A while back, Windsoar asked me this very question at her A-Muse-ment Party:

I know you recently started playing and blogging about your time in Rift. How do you balance your time between two games? What, if anything, have your experiences in WoW/Rift helped you with or made you wish was different in the other? How has being involved in multiple game worlds affected your in-game goals and expectations when embarking on a new MMO?

I’ll be honest with you – this isn’t the first time I’ve been playing two games. I’ve had Warcraft running while playing Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Age of Conan, Aion and more, as well as a handful of betas and single player RPGs. How do I manage that balance? Let me explain.

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Storybricks: Questions & Answers

Posted on by Gazimoff

Following on from my recent first look at StoryBricks, I also got the chance to put some questions directly to Phil Carlisle, Namaste’s AI CTO. Phil’s probably best known for his work on the classic Worms series.

Read on to find out more about what kind of game the team are looking to create with the technology, and be sure to check out my first look at StoryBricks for more background info!

MO: What was the spark that ignited the idea? When did StoryBricks start – was it playing a game and thinking “Hang on a minute, this could be so much better”, or was it based on feedback you were hearing from other players?

Phil: It really came from Rodolfo Rosini the CEO, getting tired of the same old gameplay in World of Warcraft. He felt like there was something missing. He felt like what was missing was probably something to do with the characters in the game and how you interacted with them. He went out and found a team that felt the same way and here we all are today.

MO: What is it you’re trying to build with StoryBricks? Is it a game – an end of itself, or is it likely to become a toolset that you embed in other games or offer to other developers? What would you like to see it become?

Phil: StoryBricks is really a toolset to let us all explore the potential for characters and stories in games. If you make a game, it might be a hit or a miss. If you make a toolset, then it isn’t just one person’s view of what might be possible. But in order to prove that the toolset is at least capable of making something worthwhile, we have to make something worthwhile with the tools. So in essence it is a bit of both. Fundamentally though, we want everyone to come with us on a journey as we all figure out what it means to have these living story worlds that we can create and play together.

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Storybricks: A First Look

Posted on by Gazimoff

I remember the early promise of MMOs. Looking back it feels like I was almost miss-sold them. “Become a Hero” they’d loudly proclaim, as if you were the only one who could rid the world of the evil dragon and save the kingdom.

Fast forward ten years and I’ve slain countless dragons, liches, evil kings and so on. And yet I’m just as heroic as the thousands of other players who’ve done the same thing. We’ve all spoken to the same NPCs, picked up the same quests, killed the same dragons and got the same loot. There’s one path that we all follow and one mechanic that we all follow – gathering big enough numbers so that our stats and skill are enough to defeat our foes.

Hang on a minute though – wasn’t I supposed to be playing a role here? At least, that’s what I thought. But the contrast between a tabletop role-playing game where all options are open-ended and the PC-based RPG which is much more linear is huge. Sure you might have some fantastic voice acting instead of listening to your GM’s cheese-grater falsetto and a dynamic orchestral score instead of Celtic Hits Vol III in the CD player, but is the story delivered any better? More importantly, do we feel any more involved in how that story plays out?

It’s this line of thought that’s behind Storybricks, Namaste Entertainment’s latest creation. I recently got the opportunity to catch up with Kelly Heckman (officially their “Cat Herder”) and their AI CTO Phil Carlisle. During the session I got a chance to see Storybricks in action, and find out how the technology had been developed. I also learned how they’re planning to use the technology in their games and why they’re so keen on getting the community involved.

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Playing DPS: From Good to Great

Posted on by Gazimoff

It’s been a while since I wrote about actually playing MMOs, rather than just hypothesising about trends, changes and so on. It’s about time I talked about my favourite pastime.

You might think that as long as you’re top of the damage charts that you can rest easy. You’re pouring out the pain in your preferred manner and bosses are falling over with ease. Job done, surely?

Alas, no.

The thing that separates good DPS from great DPS is being able to dish out damage while doing a multitude of other things as well. It’s not just about mashing your primary nuke button until your finger goes through the keyboard, through the desk and starts playing staccato on your kneecap. Read on and I’ll explain.

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Trading in Titan

Posted on by Gazimoff

News recently emerged that Diablo 3 will feature several in-game auction houses. One of these will use in-game gold to buy goods, while the other will use real cash. Putting the argument aside about this being a good or bad idea, I wanted to take a look at what this means for Titan, Blizzard’s next MMO.

It’s likely that Titan will feature an auction house of some description. Depending on how successful the RMT (Real Money Trade) auction house is in Diablo 3, it’s also likely that Titan will have the same kind of setup.

  • A gold, BlueBucks or other in-game currency based auction house where commodity items like common crafting materials are bought and sold. The kind of stuff that’s easy to get and will save you a bit of time but nothing more
  • A Real Currency based auction house where everything that’s rare gets bought and sold. Hard-to-find crafting materials, rare items and pre-made characters are all likely to end up here.

Yes, it’s possible that the Titan auction house will support character sales too.

While the previous gold-making champions are understandably excited about the potential to make money from Diablo 3, I think they’re missing the point a little. This is a test. Blizzard are getting a feel for the reaction from the players now. Once the game launches they’ll be able to pull off live data to see how it’s actively being used.

The potential for an RMT based auction house in a full-fledged MMO is huge. How huge? Let me show you.
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If Not You, Who Else?

Posted on by Gazimoff

I’m beginning to feel like there’s a crunch brewing. It’s almost like the shocks that happen before the earthquake, where you know something is going to happen but you can’t quite put your finger on what.

It started off with the comments I’d spot on Twitter from players saying they were hanging up their Warcraft boots and going to Rift. Not because Rift was the hot new game (that’s supposed to be Star Wars: The Old Republic) but because they were just fed up. Fed up of the repetition of daily quests (and let’s be fair, the Molten Front daily grind is by far a huge one) or fed up of the raiding content.

Then there was the news that Warcraft had lost 300 thousand subscribers. This, after Blizzard gave every North American veteran player a free 2nd copy and they opened up trial accounts to be infinite in duration. If I were an analyst on the Activision-Blizzard investor calls I would seriously be asking what their churn rate is.

So what gives? Where’s everyone going? At this point I could only do what any self-respecting blogger would – ask people.

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Review: PingCraft LagKiller (Part 1)

Posted on by Gazimoff

Warcraft can be a challenging game at the best of times. Whether it’s fighting raid bosses, battling it out in arenas or just trying to cram daily quests into our hectic schedule we all want to be playing at our best.

There’s various things as gamers that we can do to improve our game time. One is making sure we’re using a computer with enough grunt to handle our favourite MMOs. The next is to select keyboards, mice and other peripherals that support our individual styles of play.

The final piece is our internet connection to the game servers. This is the one thing we sometimes struggle with. You can spend ages trying to pick a good ISP or even move house to get better speeds. Sometimes though there’s pretty much nothing you can do.

This is where latency reduction and tunnelling services like PingCraft’s LagKiller come in – aiming to reduce your in-game latency for a small monthly fee. But does it actually work or is it just some snake-oil scam? Time to put it to the test.

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Tired of MMOs?

Posted on by Gazimoff

There’s been a discussion kicking around Twitter for the past week or so, which seemed to end up with a single question. I think it was probably best said by Wolfshead: “is there anything left to say about today’s MMOs that hasn’t already been said?”

If we’re talking about the current crop of MMORPG games then no, there probably isn’t anything more that can be said about them. While our experiences playing those games is as varied and unique as our daily lives, the core mechanics used are almost identical. No wonder we’re all getting so jaded!

So why do we keep playing (and writing about) these games when there seems to be diminishing returns? When you’re comparing Dishwashing Online and Washing Up World, you’re still virtually washing dishes. Surely there’s only so much you can say?

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Managing Guild Change

Posted on by Gazimoff

“All the world’s a game,
And all the men and women merely gamers”

With apologies to William Shakespeare

This is a tough subject for me and one that comes from recent experience. You see, it’s about how guilds change and how that change is managed by guild leadership.

Some change is inevitable, such as when Blizzard changes the game. Other changes are brought about by the continual joining and leaving of members. Some are even evolutionary, brought about by a gradual shift in focus or change in direction.

Change doesn’t always have to be a bad thing. Done right it helps keep your members involved and informed as part of the decision making process. When it’s done badly it causes the opposite, alienating guild members and ultimately leading to them leaving the guild.

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