Warning – Nostalgia Overload

Oh my dearest Everquest, how I hath missed you in the years we have been apart!  No matter where I go or what I do, you remain a part of me.  To borrow an old saying and throw a spin on it, you can take the player out of Everquest but you can’t take Everquest out of the player.  Besides, learning to genuinely appreciate the days when he had clenched balls of flesh for hands…priceless. 

 

 

Like so many in the blogosphere right now, I too have found myself back in Classic EQ enjoying the days of MMO infancy all over again.  Between the Official Time Locked Progression servers that have launched recently, along with Project 1999 finally releasing the Kunark expansion, there are several ways to get back into that old time EQ groove.  You know what I’m talking about. 

 

 

It has been said a million times before, but I am left with no other thought right now other than it all bears repeating once again.  This is something that I and many others will continue to shout from the rooftops until some development team out there finally gets it.  So here we go…you can bag on EQ all you want for being a life-stealing grindfest, but there was simply something magical about it that has yet to be equaled in the entire MMO genre.  The mystery, the difficulty, the need to truly rely on other people and form lasting relationships…EQ cemented a social community within it that was unlike anything before or since.

That’s not to say that the games of today can’t form good communities, but to be an asshole in EQ actually brought consequences.  This is something that just doesn’t exist anymore.  If I am playing WoW and run into a complete jerk while using the Dungeon Finder, that guy will always be in the same que as myself.  He receives no punishment, and even if he is booted he can just wait a few minutes and be right back in the que just like the rest of us.

More and more I watch with a hint of sadness as MMOs become more like games and less like actual worlds.  The sense of exploration and discovery is gone, replaced by the desire for instant gratification and for everyone to always be on the same playing field no matter the circumstance.  It wasn’t perfect back then of course, and this blogger is not too interested in bringing back the days of bickering over spawn camps and the like.  But EQ had the “It” factor…the thing you couldn’t quite put your finger that just made the whole damn thing special.

Classic EQ was a place you could build a home.  Classic EQ was a place where you could settle in for a long, gratifying trek to endgame that was always more important than the endgame itself.  Classic EQ was an MMO that took the words of Homer to heart, if you will.  The journey’s the thing…

 

 

My EQ memories will be forever etched into the fabric of my mind.  They exist with a purity and strength that memories of modern games cannot match despite their technical superiority.  The mechanics of MMOs have simply not evolved in the years since EQ blazed a trail of glory across the gaming world.  It was the titan of its time, a giant that still proudly stands after 12 years and continues to release expansions.  This is not something that would happen if no one played it, as some claim.  Though anymore, the majority of the world does resemble a tragic ghost town when compared to the thriving days of old.  But this is due to the nature of the EQ’s zone expansion over the years more than anything else.

But the prospect of leveling in a barren world couldn’t be further from the truth on the new Progression servers or on the Project 1999 server.  Classic EQ is alive and well, with even Project 1999 reaching 1,000 people online during peak hours since Kunark launched.  For a private server that is a mighty impressive feat to be sure, and we all owe the folks who work on P99 and a great debt of gratitude for donating their free time.  If you haven’t ever looked into the prospect of playing on P99, I am going to throw you a few links here to get you started.

The basic requirement is that you own a version of the Titanium client.  Yes, I did say own.  So if you don’t have that version of EQ then hop on Amazon and snag yourself a copy.  I will make it even easier for you.  Amazon.com – Everquest Titanium. From there, setup is actually rather easy.  And fear not of the legal issues, as SOE has already stated that they will not seek to shut P99 down as long as no money is made off of it.  So if you are itching to relive some of those old memories or have never experienced the agony and ecstasy of Classic EQ before…you owe it to yourself to check it out.  Enjoy! 

 

 

 

P99 Home Page

P99 Setup Guide

P99 Easy Setup with UI

P99 Wiki

Now that’s more like it

Hello again, friends!

I couldn’t help but notice that Trion has announced their very first update to Rift, and it looks to be headed out on March 30th.  Here is the forum post.    Now at this point, I am not playing much of Rift due to reasons I have stated in previous posts.  I have nothing against the game and am actually rooting for it to succeed.  It’s just not quite what I am looking for in an MMO right now.  But I would like to make a few points regarding this announcement.

First off, releasing an actual content update around one month after the launch of a new MMO…hot damn say it ain’t so??!!!  Blizzard, are you guys listening?  Because I love your work and all, but if your content releases get any further apart then your subscribers are gonna start filing for reckless abandonment.  So props to Trion for keeping to an aggressive schedule here.  This is the kind of thing it will take to really grasp people’s attention long-term.

 

 

Secondly, I would like to point out something about this announcement that truly brought a wicked smile to my face.  Notice the text in bold.

Starting next Wednesday, Alsbeth the Discordant will lead massive invasions across every zone in Telara, raising legions of liches, ettins, and gravemakers to battle Ascended. Over the course of about a week, participating players of any level fighting these invaders can earn hundreds of new items including exclusive rewards, such as a Spectral Horse and a transmogrifying disguise that turns Ascended into the rotting undead. But be warned: once the rifts are sealed, these items are gone forever.

Now that’s more like it I say!!  Implementing an in-game event that actually rewards cool items that will never be available again?  In this day and age of MMOs that struggle with unrestrained fervor to appeal to everyone, God bless Trion for actually bringing a little exclusivity back to the MMO genre.  Not everyone has to have everything, not everyone has to be the same, and not everyone has a ironclad right to say that they were there too.  Sometimes it’s better to create something everlasting, to create memories.

By using this event to reward players with things that will never be seen again, that is the process of creating an actual mythos for your MMO by forcing some of your content to matter.  It truly is a step in a positive direction that I wish far more MMOs would make these days.  Instead, we are typically force-fed with the usual development teams that are terrified to do anything unique or original for fear that it will piss too many people off.

This form of thinking usually makes me want to do things like this…

 

 

So kudos, Trion.    You took a step forward by having the guts to make something unique again.  You just earned yourselves another point in my book.

Guild Wars 2 – The first true next-gen MMO?

Guild Wars 2 just won’t let up with its frenetic assault on my own personal hype meter.  The more info I get the more enamored I become with what ArenaNet is trying to do.  But If you haven’t seen the latest videos from Pax, I’ll take care of that for you right here and now.  But of all the MMOs currently released and on the horizon…none looks to innovate the genre the way Guild Wars 2 will once its released.

From these videos you can learn a little bit more about GW 2′s Dynamic Events, with each one possessing branches that genuinely effect the world around you (not just defeat a few phases and done, like Rift or WAR).  You’ll hear them talk about doing away with the holy trinity and freeing up players to formulate strategy based on their playstyle instead of worrying about class types.  This way you can play with WHO you want to instead of restricting participation based on the presence of tanks, dps, or healers.  You’ll also see some very active and visceral combat that requires thought, spatial awareness, and reacting properly to situations.

This is the kind of thing we just don’t see when leveling in MMOs today.  We smash our hotkeys 1,2,1,3,5,2 and so on…and the monsters fall easily at our feet while we barely engage our brains.  So if Guild Wars 2 can actually deliver on these innovations then it could move the genre forward in all sorts of new and exciting ways.  Or it could all come crashing down with the deafening thud of a new MMO launched by Funcom.  lol  (I kid because I love)  But at this point I am betting on ArenaNet to deliver the former.  Call me a hopeless optimist if you must. 

So here we have Guild Wars 2, perhaps the first true next-gen MMO.  Enjoy!

 

 

The Blizzard Way

I’ve seen this video posted quite a few times in other places, but I thought I would throw it up here regardless.  It’s a 48 minute retrospective detailing the history of Blizzard from 1991 to the present day.  Since Blizzard now practically prints money and is one of the most dominant gaming studios on the planet, people often forget that the beginnings of Blizzard were both humble and filled with challenges.  Some of the Blizzard founders actually had to go to their parents for loans during the early and more difficult years.

But what makes Blizzard stand out is that they did things the right way.  They always had a vision, maintained high standards of quality, and when a game was done…it was released.  If a game did not meet the standards of quality that they were striving for…it was not released.  You’d think more development companies would have learned this by now, but all we have to do is look at awful release after awful release to know that so many out there just don’t get it.

Whatever you might think of Blizzard or World of Warcraft, it is impossible to not be inspired by their dedication and success over the years.  This is a success I might add, that was formed and well in place long before WoW.  But what truly brings a smile to my face when I watch this video is the unmistakable fact that these guys are pure geek from head to toe.

 

Intrigued, I am

From Pax East…here is the most recent developer walkthrough for Star Wars: The Old Republic.  It features a group of 4 players going through the Taral V Flashpoint (instance/story).  Just watching things unfold with the classic Bioware dialogue options brought a smile to my face, as I have always wanted to share the experience of playing through Bioware’s stories with other people.  I like how the game allows each player to do a random roll on the party dialogue options, giving everyone an equal chance to steer the plot as it unfolds.

The Old Republic is truly starting to look like it will deliver on bringing the Bioware style of RP to the MMO genre…and I couldn’t be more excited about it.  Combat looks nice and smooth with actual tactics being necessary to come out on top, even if the basic mechanics seem all too familiar.  But it’s the story focus throughout the entire game that has my attention at this point.  Bioware has claimed that The Old Republic will contain more story content than all of their Single Player RPGs combined.  That’s an awfully impressive claim, to be sure.

Intrigued, I am. 

 

Rift and Me

It has dutifully been brought to my attention that it’s been a few posts since I have talked to you guys about my adventures in Rift.  But the primary reason for this is mostly because the word adventure can’t really be used to describe my experiences with Rift lately.  To put it simply…I haven’t been playing much.  Knowing myself as I do, this is not a good sign only a few weeks out after Rift’s launch.  But much like Werit said over on his blog, the reason for me not playing has more to do with my own preferences than anything else.

 

 

As I said in my previous post, I realize more and more every day that the MMO I really want to be playing right now is Warhammer Online.  Well, a Warhammer Online that exists in an alternate reality where the RvR is not nearly as frazzled and poorly designed as it is in this one.  But not knowing any Gnomes who could build me some sort of infernal contraption that would whisk me away to such a reality, and not having the Doc around to help me get to…

 

 

…so I could properly warn Mythic of future troubles during WAR’s early development, I find myself faced with something of a dilemma.  Rift is a fine game to be sure, both well-made and polished, with a great Soul system and a few interesting concepts of its own.  But all in all, the more I play it the more I find my mind wandering.  Rift has just not connected with me in the way an MMO needs to in order to secure my subscription beyond the first month.

When I play Rift I can never shake the “been there, done that, have the t-shirt” feeling I get that courses through my veins until I am about to scream.  The world of Telara does very little to rile up my imagination at the end of the day.  I wish I could give you guys more than that, I honestly do.  But Telara has failed miserably to strike any sort of profound chord within my soul.  Worlds such as Norrath, Azeroth, and Middle Earth were all able to do that and I am forever grateful.  But Telara on the other hand, gives me pause.

Since Rift does very little that is innovative on the PvP-side of things, it falls to the concrete world of Telara and the basic game mechanics to immerse me in the setting so I will continue to log in.  But the world has fallen flat with me, and the game mechanics are so shockingly familiar that I become more certain with each day that my time with Rift will always be somewhat on the low/casual side.  But before anyone shows up here to flame, allow me to repeat something I have said for while now.

 

 

I still think Rift is a good game overall and will become a solid hit for Trion in the years to come.  Though I might not always be there to witness the ebb and flow of Rift’s growth firsthand, I still consider myself a fan and will be cheering for them every step of the way.  They have a great deal of work ahead of them, this cannot be discounted.  Creating a solid MMO is just the beginning of the process.  Now they have to maintain the game’s success and find intuitive ways to add content/mechanics that will both entice newer players and excite the current player-base almost simultaneously.

I have faith that Trion can do just that, and I will still be popping my head in to see how things are coming along from time to time.  But Rift and me…we had a good thing and some great laughs in the very short time we had together.  But in the end it was just not meant to be.  There has been no harm and no foul to either of us, as they say.  But I hope that those of you who are loving Rift continue to love it and enjoy yourselves to no end.  It’s a solid title and well worth your time.

But as for me, I’ll be back to exploring the games I have always loved (WoW, EQ 2, Lotro, Eve, War) until something new comes along that shows some real promise of transforming the genre in a positive way.  Rift adds to the genre by taking much of what has worked in the past and refining it, then sprinkling a touch of their own on top.  That is also what WoW did when it was first released.  The problem for me is that I am genuinely happy with the games I have, and so I am looking for a little more from newer titles.  So will it be Guild Wars 2, The Secret World, or perhaps Swtor that captures my fancy?  Who can say at this point?

But no matter where I go, I’ll be sure to post my thoughts as I stroll along this bewildering and always entertaining road that defines the life of an MMO gamer. 

 

Catharsis

One thing I have tried so very hard to avoid when lighting a fire beneath this blog again, was a Warhammer Online post-mortem.  The more I thought about, I realized that I would just be beating a horse that had been thrashed to death, pummeled while dead, resurrected, then flogged some more for good measure.  But it has been with a potent sadness that I have watched the WAR blogging community shrink over the past few months.  Players are growing increasingly frustrated with recent changes, and it really is no secret that WAR finds itself at a fateful crossroads at the moment.

With only a few servers left running, there is no question that the vultures are gradually beginning to circle…eager to pluck the meat off of WAR’s fragile corpse.

I still play it all out in my head like it was some sort of dream.  To this day I can acutely feel my initial reactions from WAR beta all the way to launch, its historic rise, and ultimately its plummet to the depths we see now.  But if I sat here and attempted to chime in with my thoughts on how WAR got to where it is, I would only be regurgitating analysis from many other sources that are already available to you.

 

 

Now one thing I would like to say at this point, is that WAR isn’t dead yet.  It’s getting a little too close to the scythe for comfort, but hope springs eternal.  And I am one to always believe that it’s never too late to stem the tide.  But up to this point, Mythic just doesn’t seem to possess the ability to fix the problems.  Much of this is because WAR’s issues are all so deeply rooted in its design that they would truly need to revamp much of the game.

This is not going to happen, period.

So what we are left with are small bandages patched onto a titanic leaking damn that is eventually going to break open.  But rather than sit here and write what has been said before, I am going to try and aid my catharsis for WAR by linking to some of the most insightful comments I have found regarding why WAR ended up the way it did.  I am doing this as much for myself as anyone else, as I am still coming to grips with the fact that WAR is the game I really want to be playing.  The problem being that it just isn’t the game it should have been in the first place.

So let us hold hands and pray as we open our hymnals to page 113.

 

Where did Warhammer Online go wrong?

 

This article touches on many of the most popular points…the lack of a third realm…few viable in-game options other than PvP…horrible class balance…population imbalance…terrible performance given the look of the game…all of WAR’s sweet spots of pain, if I may be so bold.    It makes for a fairly accurate read so I think it’s a useful place to begin.  But the source which offers some of the most interesting and less well-known facts on WAR’s happens to be a thread on the Warhammer Alliance forums.

 

The Main reason why WAR failed

 

This really does have just about all you need to know concerning WAR’s troubled development.  Though I advise immediately skipping to page 8, as the first 7 pages of the thread are hijacked by a troll who constantly argues the meaning of the word “failed”.  I am not really sure what point he is trying to make here, as I think its safe to say that going from around 80 servers to 4 can be considered a failure.  But hey, some people love denial and cling to it until the cows come home.  So rock on there.

But back to the WAR discussion…some of the finest criticism in this thread comes from Sir Robin.  So start with page 8 and move on from there.  I will still be here when you return. 

 

 

So there you have it…they were planning on totally instanced PvP to setup the realm war.  That doesn’t really sound like the game we all wanted, does it?  But by the time they realized the problem they were already in beta, so they were forced to shut things down to add an Open RvR system that is borked to this very day.  So WAR really has been in fix mode since before it even launched.  Keeps were never supposed to be there in the first place, which is why we got keeps that were not even as well developed as the ones in DAOC, made over 7 years prior to WAR’s release.

But to bring this distasteful rehash to an end, I can only say that I will continue to follow WAR in the future and may even log in from time to time.  But I just can’t see myself spending any significant amount of hours there unless we see some drastic changes.  Though I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that there is still a small part of me that hopes…that waits with baited breath for the final realization of the game I so wanted to love that just never really seemed to love me back.

Success = License to hate?

Now I don’t want to go off on a rant here, but I am truly starting to feel like the internet is just filled with people who wait for something to become successful, then pull out their claws and rip to shreds because they are “too cool” for anything that is so loved by the mainstream.  This isn’t really a new thing, of course.  I understand that there will always be people who try to prove how awesome they are by insulting things that become popular.  But lately I have been seeing it get real out of hand.

The obvious example is Blizzard and World of Warcraft.

 

 

Now, I could care less whether or not you like WoW or despite it.  Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and preferences as to what style of MMO they enjoy the most.  But you don’t even have to throw a stone to be caught up in the vile WoW hatred anymore.  All you have to do is log in to any MMO and wait for the word WoW to be mentioned.  It usually takes about 3.5 seconds in a new MMO, or perhaps a few minutes if the MMO is older.  But to read some of the comments, you would think that Blizzard committed some brutal series of murders to incur so much disgust from people.

Tune in next week when we hear about how WoW is directly linked to HIV and the primary cause of Global Warming.

But seriously, it really is funny to see people get so riled up over a game.  And each argument plays out in the same general way.  The first salvo is usually the WoW is for kiddies argument.  This mostly has to do with WoW having a more cartoony art style and maintaining a strong sense of humor throughout.  Also, WoW is popular as hell and holds more subscriber than any other MMO, and so many younger people do play it.  The community of WoW is not the greatest, I will be the first to say.  Some of the idiots who play it can be extremely annoying.  But I have also seen many adults who absolutely love WoW, and I’ve met many wonderful and mature guilds in my travels there.  So it’s not just kids that enjoy WoW.

But I won’t let facts ruin a good story here, so we’ll move on.

The second place where I see this kind of hatred is with the film Avatar.  Now again, it really does not matter to me whether you like it or hate it.  I’m talking about the people who don’t just hate it….they really hate it.  They hate it to the point that they started making up theories that it was un-American because it depicts American troops in a negative light.  Those people must have watched a different movie than I did, because the movie clearly states that this is a coporate security force.  They wear no flags on their uniforms.

So if anything it is a cautionary tale of corporate forces like Blackwater, but once again, I won’t let facts get in the way of a good story.

 

 

But the freshest example of this sort of behavior would be the massive amount of forum bitching that is popping up in lieu of Dragon Age 2.  Apparently, Bioware has reached the proper success threshold that it is now a cool thing to hate on them as well.  But to make myself clear once again, I am not talking about people who simply didn’t enjoy DA 2.  I am talking about people who have now taken their rage to the forums and are claiming that Bioware is dead, calling them traitors, they hate PC players, they have sold out, they hate RPGs, they assassinated JFK…you know, the whole works.

Seeing crap like this from the gaming populace really concerns me.

You might wonder why this is, given that people also react this way to other forms of creative expression.  Well, the primary reason is that gaming is still struggling mightily for respect and acceptance by the general public.  Though it has made some strides in recent years, gaming is still viewed by many as something for kids…a fanciful distraction that any reasonable adult should eventually “move on” from.  To compound this problem, I see so many of my fellow gamers behaving in an immature and petulant fashion, and so it makes me wonder whether people outside of the gaming community will ever be able to truly look at games as art.

And that is undoubtedly what games are slowly becoming…an art form just like books, music, or film.  But until the gaming community learns to grow up and regard their hobby with a sense of dignity, it may be difficult for games and those who make them to ever receive the worldwide respect they so richly deserve.

Dragon Age II: Early Thoughts

I’m going to keep spoiler free, as I have only put in about 10 hours into Dragon Age 2 so far.  But I did want to make a few comments on the experience as a whole and how it compares to the original.  To begin with the positive…the snazzy new DX 11 effects and speedy animations definitely make for some very fun and engaging combat.  It certainly has more of an action RPG feel than than the original, but I have still found it to be quite enjoyable and much more visceral.  Though the overall pace of the combat does make things feel a little less tactical than before.

 

 

But hey, I always thought I had to spend a little too much time pausing the action in DA 1 to down potions like some sort of hopeless addict, so no complaints on that front.  The function of the combat really isn’t that much different from DA 1 though, with the hotbar abilities and Tactics system for each character working just as they did before.  But everything happens much faster this time around, and you will either love that or hate it depending on what you want out of your RPGs.

The interface also does a better job of streamlining the information you need to know and presenting it to you in a clean fashion.

I really liked how they put the quick heal/mana options on the right side of the hotbar.  Very useful!  But then I found that other elements of DA 2 have been stripped down a little too much for my taste.  On the one hand, I love the Mass Effect-style dialogue wheel and am glad that they ported it over to the Dragon Age series.  But I don’t really like how they have now placed a small icon next to each of your responses.  This tells you exactly where the response will fall in terms of tone, with little hearts next to the romantic ones that take all the guess work and mystery out of discovering these things for yourself.

And while you can change equipment to your heart’s content, this only really applies to your character (Hawke).  Just about everything you find can only be used by him, cutting out much of the inventory and party management that so many RPG-lovers adore.  On that same note, I really don’t understand the great Bioware crusade against inventory systems.  They ripped the very same thing out of Mass Effect 2 and now Dragon Age 2 has also fallen under a similar knife.

It all feels like they are trying to get the game to appeal to a more non-RPG crowd, which just doesn’t make sense to me.

 

 

But to the game’s credit, many of the signature Bioware elements are still in place here.  The writing and voice acting are terrific so far, and it looks like we will have many of the same wonderful moral dilemmas that have become a staple of Bioware RPGs.  Choice is what makes these games stand out, and so far it looks like Dragon Age 2 will be featuring plenty of it.  I do have to mention that I haven’t really seen much of a main plot at this point…and some reviews I have read are confirming my fears that DA 2 doesn’t really possess a central, driving narrative like most RPGs.  It’s more like a series of interconnected quests that add up to something but you’re not always sure of what that might be.

This may take away some of the drive I have to play whenever I have free time, as right now I don’t feel as compelled to see where the overall story is going to go compared to DA 1.

The characters in DA 2 have also failed to make a strong first impression like the ones in Origins did.  Alistair, Morrigan, and Leilania were filled with all sorts of charisma and personality, making them an absolute joy to have around from the get-go.  So far I have met no characters in DA 2 that have pulled me in and inspired in quite the same way, but I still have much game to play as I keep saying.  If we can be sure of anything, it’s that Bioware games have solid writing.  So this may well be a facet of the experience that improves with time.  I should also be honest here and mention that Dragon Age: Origins is a tough act to follow.  Though to be equally as forthcoming, I thought Mass Effect 2 outdid Mass Effect 1 in terms of characterization.

So it is possible for a sequel to surpass its original in that regard. 

But keeping in mind that my opinion might change one way or the other once I play some more, my general consensus is as follows.  Dragon Age 2 can be viewed favorably when looking at the sum of its parts, even though a few of those parts are a bit lacking and the overall story does not sweep you off your feet in the way it should have.

Please leave a message

It should come as no surprise to any of you that MMOs will be taking a backseat in my gaming time these next few days.  So I will not be available.  Do not pass go, do not collect $200, and please leave a message after the beep.  Some things are just more important than MMOs…you know, like killing Darkspawn. 

 

http://dragonage.bioware.com/