The MMO Blueprint

Posted on by Gazimoff

The recent game conventions have shown us that there’s a collection of top-tier MMOs heading our way over the next two years. It’s a great time to be a fan of the genre as there are some really interesting concepts emerging, both in the game worlds we’ve seen and the mechanics that have been revealed.

As the convention euphoria fades away I’m left with a lingering doubt. Only one or maybe two of these games will ultimately be successful. The rest, while being technically adept, will struggle to reach the same level of popularity. I wasn’t sure why though – it felt like a gut feel.

I decided to run a Twitter poll asking a single question – what are your three most important features in an MMO? Thanks to everyone who replied back and took part, I really appreciate your help. The results are in, and it’s these results that I wanted to share.

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Google Cannot Make Good MMOs

Posted on by Gazimoff

I’ve been mulling over a question for a few days about how we choose which MMOs to play. What draws us to one game world over another, how some attributes are more important to each of us than others. I’m going to be writing more about it towards the end of the week, but I wanted to share a bit of a prelude today.

You see, today I finally added my name to the list of people who have deleted their Googe+ account. I’d grown weary and tired of the constant non-arguments about why they want to prevent pseudonymity. A ZDNet article made it fairly clear – Google+ is an identity service first and a social network second. Now things make sense. I don’t need another identity management service, so I nuked my account.

I can already hear you wondering “But Gaz, what does this have to do with MMOs or gaming at all?”

An MMO at its most basic is a single player role playing game with a multiplayer chatbox. Slightly more advanced games invoke more social network features – friends lists, guilds and so on. Games developers realised early on is that it doesn’t matter how gamers identify themselves to each other that matters – it’s what they experience while playing the game that’s important.

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The Flaming Kitty Copter

Posted on by Gazimoff

Crafting is one of those things I love about MMOs. Being able to gather stuff in the game world and make items from them always makes me smile. It doesn’t even matter if they’re useful or not as long as they do something – anything.

The only thing that gnaws at me is that crafting always seems to be a little limited. From Warcraft to Minecraft there are specific schematics that stipulate the stuff that’s required to make the item. You never get a chance to go off schema.

At least not normally…

I don’t know how I made the connection, but it all started back on an episode of GroupQuest. We were talking about Fandral Staghelm transforming into a flaming cat as one of his phases, and how he also dropped loot that would allow any druid to become a flaming cat too. Of course I had to take it a step too far.

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Fear of the Fansites

Posted on by Gazimoff

Back in May 2010 the Warcraft blogging community were asked if they’d consider writing for the World of Warcraft Official Magazine. I have to be honest with you: I considered it, asked a few questions but ultimately didn’t go through with it. I was a new blogger on the scene (still am by most accounts), still finding my voice and didn’t think I’d have anything the editors would be interested in.

While my opinion of my own writing hasn’t changed much (Gaz in print? Ludicrous idea!) it’s something I’d like other bloggers to achieve if it’s the career they want to go for. Which made me all the more surprised when I read this blogpost from the first Editor In Chief of the aforementioned magazine.

The first question that came to mind was that two well known and respected contributors to the community had their names stripped from the first issue on Blizzard’s request. I’m not sure why they’d ask for such a thing and I don’t really want to second guess their motives, but it does raise some troubling questions.

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The Lure of the Franchise

Posted on by Gazimoff

I was recently chatting to a friend about how we felt about Warcraft these days. We were both a little jaded and going through the same cycle of log in, raid, log out. I can just imagine a line of heroes forming outside the entrance to Firelands, punching the machine as they clock in for the evening, their shoulders slouched and dreary. Just another day at the office.

We then got talking about the games we were looking to move to in the future. I mentioned how Guild Wars 2 looked neat, how Wildstar looked like a lot of fun and how The Secret World seemed interesting with it’s alternate reality take on things.

His response? “Star Wars!”

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Is It Fun?

Posted on by Gazimoff

I was recently reminded about something that happened during a recent-ish beta. I’ll spare the blushes of the game involved by not mentioning names, but I’ll share this little episode. There was a bit of a conversation on the beta forums that went a little bit like this: one group of people didn’t like the game at all while the other group felt that it was perfect.

I chimed in with my own thoughts. I felt that the graphics engine had been poorly built, making me feel that my finely tuned computer was rendering a powerpoint slideshow of my relatives recent trip to France. I felt that the network code was abysmal, with players and NPCs popping around the place like dancers in a nightclub with a slow strobe light.

Technical issues aside, I felt that the interface was so clumsy it was like juggling fish while riding a unicycle on an oil slick and trying to spell that Welsh train station. I felt that I had enough time to compose an epic opera to the God of Sewer Rats while waiting for creatures to respawn. There were key concepts in the game that weren’t explained in the in-game help or the forums, turning city travel into some twisted point-and-click adventure.

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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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A Thoroughly European Convention

Posted on by Gazimoff


Besides keeping an eye on new releases, there are traditionally a handful of important dates in the gaming calendar. The season starts with the Game Developers Conference in early March, sweeps through to E3 in June. You then get a cluster of them up to September with PAX, Gamescom and the Tokyo Games Show. You’ll even find video games spilling over into the San Diego Comic Con and Gen Con.

Over in the UK we’re blessed with a single visit from the game industry. The Eurogamer Expo lands in London towards the end of September, being one of the last stops for the year. It’s a rare chance for British gamers to try out some of the upcoming releases. On Saturday 24th September I’ll be there, soaking up the atmosphere in Earls Court.

There’s two main reasons I’m attending: Guild Wars 2 and Star Wars: The Old Republic. I’m keen to get a look at both games since they’re the two hottest MMOs that are talked about at the moment, plus it’s going to be interesting to play them off against each other. I’m also interested to see if people are planning an MMO “flight path” from Warcraft to Rift to The Old Republic to Guild Wars 2, instead of betting on a game for months or years.

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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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