A Strange Place

It’s remarkable that I can even remember the password to this old hangout.  The key still works!  Is anyone out there?  There must be at least six or seven of you.   But seriously, it’s nice to be here again and with a little free time to blog as well.   I love blogging, I always have and always will.   But as with many things, life tends to squeeze the time for it right out of my day before I even know what happened.

Kind of like how the government takes my taxes.

But we should make time for the things we love, as I always say.  So I will try to poke my head in here from time to time and spread my thoughts, and do please feel free to comment and let me know a few of you are still lingering about.  Then without further ado, I thought I would talk a little about the current MMO scene.  It’s kind of interesting looking at the whole MMO landscape right now.

We’re in a very weird place, I must say.  The heavens tremble and the skies are filled with dark portents of the chill winter to come.  Yes, yes…I’ve been watching too much Game of Thrones recently.  Can you tell?   She is a cruel mistress, though.  Every time I start to really get into her and enjoy her company, she veers off into porno territory and I keep waiting for the bow-chick-a-bow-bow music to kick in.

Seriously, what is up with that?

It’s like the creators are sitting behind the camera and shouting, “This is HBO, make sure you put some tits, ass, manhood, and incest in there every 10-15 minutes!”

But moving on from such things, where was I?  Oh yes, the MMO landscape!

Well, we certainly have too many games to be honest.  Then we have a genre that is filled with a bunch of jaded MMO gamers who aren’t taking to new and shiny MMOs because they keep delivering the same kinds of experiences as past ones.  The industry as a whole is beginning to suffer from some serious burnout.  Just look at how people are responding to Elder Scrolls Online.

At one point the announcement of such a game would have been so huge, and the response to it would have been filled with equal fervor. But once some of the details were announced what did we hear?  One big giant meh…that’s what we heard.  I’ve felt more positive energy at a funeral.  It’s going to get tougher and tougher for new games to capture strong audiences as well, unless developers start thinking outside the box and trying new things.

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel.  Guild Wars 2 is drawing so much interest and garnering so much positive reaction not because it’s reinventing the wheel. It’s tweaking the wheel instead, making quite a number of defined and calculated alterations to the MMO model we have come to know so well, and it’s enough that people are responding with an incredible amount of passion.  The recent announcement of the next beta weekend for June 8th is being met with an almost unheard of amount of joy for a beta.  The reason is simple, we MMO gamers want fresh experiences and not the same crap driveled out over and again.

I swear the next time I hear a developer tell me, “Our game is like WoW, but…” I’m going to slap someone.

I don’t want to hear how your game is like WoW.  I want to hear how your game is different from WoW, Lotro, EQ 2, or whatever game you choose.  I want to hear why I should play your game instead of any of those.  So far people aren’t buying, with most newer games not doing much better than the older ones.  WoW is on the decline but still has over 10 million worldwide, while both EQ 2 and Lotro have gone free to play with Lotro fairing much better in my opinion.

I have no problem with the so-called free to play model, but don’t kid yourselves, those models are such a fallacy at this point. In either Lotro or EQ 2, if you truly want to play at max level YOU HAVE TO SUBSCRIBE.  It’s impossible not to do so.

You simply can’t advance without forking out some cash, and eventually $15 a month.  It feels sleazy and that is still why so many gamers look at free to play with a healthy bit of skepticism.  Of course it doesn’t help that both games constantly bombard you with ads, along with offers of going gold or subscribing that practically slap you in the face every 10 minutes.  It’s like being in bed with the woman you love and then someone pours cold water on you.  Not the ideal experience.

When Guild Wars 2 launches as a true free to play product (the gem shop is completely optional and seems to have only a small effect on actual gameplay), I do wonder how Lotro and EQ 2 will handle it. My guess is they won’t do very well when players see that you don’t have to nickel and dime your customer on a free to play model.  You can still make money.

It’s the best kept secret in MMOs.

You just have to build your company and business plan around the idea of box sales, a smaller number of cash shop purchases, and yearly expansions.  It can be done.  Guild Wars 1 has been doing it and making money for years.  As for other games, Swtor has also been hit hard recently, with layoffs and sub losses coming from the try and bail stage, where the newness of the game has worn off and now people are retreating back to other MMOs.

Still, Swtor won’t be going anywhere so don’t fool yourselves about that either.  It was at 1.3 million subs at the last earning call, and while I expect that number to drop below a million by the end of the year, Swtor will still probably be the number 2 subscription MMO behind WoW when the year is over.  Sadly, Swtor delivered an unheard of amount of story and voice acting while clearly skimping out on the MMO aspects.  Simply put, they made a single player game and then tried to craft MMO elements onto it, instead of the other way around.

But it’s Star Wars, my friends. Never underestimate the power of the most popular IP on the planet, especially with Bioware at the helm.  They are MMO newbies at this point, but I expect them to learn quickly.  The one game that appears to be slowly rising above all this nonsense is Rift.  Yes, the game I once referred to as the ultimate WoW clone with one interesting feature (the class system was just awesome).

But what Trion did do correctly with Rift was launch a technically sound, fully featured game that has seen more updates in the past year than many MMO see in far more time, sans expansions.  Trion has done a remarkable job with their product, and I say that while still having some serious misgivings about the game.  The races are dull, the endgame was far too limited at launch, the world is too chaotic to actually feel like a real world, and the leveling process offers no alternatives.  Which means you will be doing the exact same quests every time through.

The PvP was also a letdown, but the recent announcement of Conquest mode certainly sheds a ray of hope on what has otherwise been a pedestrian PvP experience.  Also, with the addition of mentoring coming in 1.9, Rift will have just about every feature available in MMOs today, minus player housing.  Trion has not suffered any lay-offs either, which means they have manged their business well overall and survived the always precarious try and bail stage.

Someone at Trion knows what they are doing, I will give them that.

And now they are sitting pretty with a small to moderately sized fanbase…and if recent indications are correct, Rift will be releasing a monster sized expansion in the not too distant future.  (EDIT: It appears the expansion will be entitled Storm Legion, with not one but two new continents)  So the moral of the story is as follows, if you aren’t going to give us a product that offers fresh gameplay, at least know what the hell you are doing, know how to run a company, and give a product that is polished and technically sound.

But truly…some new experiences would be more welcome than anything.  Is anyone out there?  Do we have anything left in this industry but copycats?  I will say this much, when a company comes out and announces Elder Scrolls Online, they explains how they had to take everything away that makes Elder Scrolls what it is (skill system, open world sandbox design, active combat), it doesn’t fill me with too much hope for the future.

Somebody please prove me wrong.

The Endgame Dilemma

To say that I am truly looking forward to the next year-and-a-half of events in the MMO world would be something of an understatement.  Now don’t get me wrong, as both TOR and GW2 look very intriguing, but my anticipation is mostly because I think one of my oldest theories is finally going to be put to the test.  But before I get into that, I am forced to bring up an old topic again whether I like it or not.  You see, many gamers just won’t quit their love affair with the idea that new MMOs are going to decimate current ones, even when reality still tells us that this just isn’t true.

Many players sub to more than one MMO to begin with anyway, and the ebb and flow of players from one game to another is a very continual thing.   Sure, the launch of a big new MMO can have some impact on current titles, but that impact has proven to be mostly reversible.  As I’ve said before, new MMOs only retain around 30-40 percent of the people who actually try them anyway.  How’s that for sobering news to potential shareholders?  The multi-million dollar MMO you are about to launch has a good chance to lose around 60-70 percent of its playerbase after the first month or two.

Want a suggestion?

But onto a little discussion regarding my theory, which revolves around the concept of the MMO endgame.  I am mostly speaking of two different titles that launched in November of 2004.  They are World of Warcraft and Everquest 2, and both are very near and dear to my heart for various reasons.  But through all the changes and tweaks they have received over the passage of time, the basic structure of their endgames has remained the same throughout.  Raiding is the chief activity, with quests/dailies and some form of instanced PvP thrown in for good measure.

That’s been the story for quite a while now.

So WoW and EQ2 are going to turn 7 this November, and it’s this writer’s opinion that if their endgames do not receive a healthy dose of innovation in expansions to come, then both will begin to suffer more subscription losses as we near the end of next year.  Yes, the launches of both TOR and Guild Wars 2 also loom ominously on the horizon, but these will only feed into an already growing problem of endgame stagnation.  This is where my theory comes into play, as it basically says that most players can only raid 3-4 nights a week for so many years before they suddenly crash faster than a freshman at a sorority party.

So I have always found that stagnation in developing new forms of content and time are the greatest threats to an aging MMO.  Many people will blame a bad expansion or specific gameplay alterations when they see an MMO begin its downhill turn.  But I’ve always felt that time is the true culprit more often than not.  The technology inherent to older games starts to lag behind the sparkle of newer titles, and the style of development and varieties of gameplay begin to feel aged and worn when compared to current offerings as well.

If an MMO has lived long enough to have an expansion-filled life, then time will being to kill it just as quickly as any changes you might be protesting.  You can even see Blizzard fighting to combat this phenomenon with their recent revamp of most content from levels of 1-60 (Blood Elf and Draenei starting areas excluded).  But players need something else to sink their teeth into as the years pass by, especially when it comes to endgame activities.  Breathing life back into your leveling content is a good idea, but this all leads players to the same destination anyway.

Gamers need the endgames of their MMOs to evolve with the ever-expanding ambitions of upcoming titles.

This is where content stagnation comes into play, and sadly neither Wow or EQ2 are coming up with many new ideas these days.  At best, the 4.2 Patch for WoW will be bringing some much needed storyline quests and dailies to the endgame, along with the phasing technology that many of us have come to know and love even with its drawbacks.  This kind of content will be a welcome change for many players I think, and it will also reward some very nice gear as well.

But the occasional patch with storyline content is just not going to cut it at the end of the day.  I guarantee you that if Blizzard’s next expansion gives us an endgame filled with more 10/25 man raids, normal/heroic dungeons, Wintergrasp version 3.0, along with some rated BGs and Arena play, then WoW will continue to take subscription losses in both North America and Europe.  These may be gradual sub losses or they may end up being more severe in number, as it’s very hard to predict that sort of thing.

But what I do know for certain is that Everquest 2 also falls into the same category as WoW.  If SOE just gives us another expansion with its arms wrapped tightly around the raid/loot grind, then I fear EQ2′s best days are long behind it.  The addition of Public Quests are a nice feature to be sure, but they will also fail to stem the tide of age.  Tacking on pre-used additions to your endgame (flying mounts, public quests) is not going to stop the creeping crud of dullness that seeps into the pores of an old MMO.  Props to the folks who get the creeping crud reference btw! 

But even more to the point, Wow and EQ2 have consistently delivered expansions of varying quality depending on who you talk to, but consistency is no longer enough to keep them growing.  These are two aging but still very entertaining games that need a little injection of adrenaline as they move into their twilight years.  I think a good measure of life is left in both of them, though Everquest 2 will certainly be hurt by the eventual release of a third MMO in the Everquest universe.  So we may end up having three Everquest games all out at the same time.

I seriously don’t know what to say about that and feel it’s a topic best left to another day, so let’s just move on.  In closing then, let us hope that Blizzard and SOE understand the predicaments that their respective MMOs find themselves in, and are already in the process of preparing the appropriate medicine.  Now is not the time for developer caution…now is the time ramp up the imagination and deliver some endgame content that is out of the box.  The fans of the two greatest franchises in MMO history are waiting the results with bated breath.

The “Second M”

My recent excursion back into the realm of Vanguard has got me thinking an awful lot about the current state of MMORPGs.  Specifically, I find myself ruminating on the loss of the “Second M”.  Oh multiplayer, wherefore art thou multiplayer?  As most of you know I’m sure, MMOs were riddled with the trials of forced grouping in their fledglings years.  EQ is a perfect example of this phenomenon.

Only several classes could solo with any sort of real efficiency in EQ, and the leveling rate slowed down dramatically if you dared to try.  So for most players it was all about the grouping and social aspects of the leveling experience.  Besides, ever try to solo in EQ as a Warrior?  You practically had to go off and watch 60 minutes when it was time to sit and regen health.

Things got even more tiresome once you leveled up enough and began to set maximum level in your sights.  Grouping was no longer a preferable option at this point, it was an outright requirement.  Blue con mobs now had health far beyond anything you could take out on your own.  So there players sat, sometimes for hours on end as they spammed “LFG” in chat.  Depending on your class this could end with nothing at all, a whole night wasted looking for a group without any spots opening up for you.  This is terrible MMO design and you’d be a fool to argue it any other way.

So many years later, along came World of Warcraft and its promise that you could solo all the way to max level if you so desired.  There was also plenty of group content while leveling in those days, with lots of group quests and elite named mobs roaming around for you to kill.  Players flocked to the polish of WoW in droves and understandably so, it was and still is a great game in many ways.  But even though I have praised WoW for its questing content and simply love much of the work they did for Cataclysm, there is still one thing that prevents them from claiming the…

It is the loss of the “Second M” in the leveling experience.  In WoW it’s far quicker and infinitely more efficient to level on your own than with a friend or group.  Oh sure, you could just run dungeons over and over for the much improved amount of xp they reward.  But if you just want to explore the huge world of Azeroth and its questing content, best to tell your buddy to take a hike because more people will only slow you down.

When you add the fact that many of the group quests in WoW have been nerfed to solo, and many of the named mobs have been nerfed from elite to normal status, you can almost hear the rushing vacuum sound of the “Second M” being sucked right out of the game.  This also, is terrible MMO design and you’d be a fool to argue it any other way.

But playing Vanguard again has reminded that it’s OK to have a mixture of solo and group content in your leveling process.  Vanguard is a game that still requires you to rely on people to do certain things other than just raids or dungeons.  It is very throwback in that respect, but you can still level to max on your own without the headaches of yesteryear.  So why do developers keep making the leveling process easier and easier on us, despite wonderful examples like the one that Vanguard provides?

I became even more curious about this when I recently played Everquest 2 and found the leveling there to be even simpler than it is in WoW these days.  Rift did not fare any better in this regard either.  So what in the world is going on?  Have we now swung the leveling pendulum too far to the solo side of the spectrum in harsh reaction to forced grouping of the past?  Or perhaps we should listen to the developers who tell us that this is all in the name of accessibility.  MMOs are businesses after all, and the more people who play your game means the more money you have coming in each month.

If that’s the case, I still think developers are missing the bigger picture here.  The health of an MMO community depends not only on the quality and amount of leveling content in a game, but also on what that content asks its players to accomplish.  By following the routes of Blizzard, SOE, and others, devs have hurt their own communities by practically making questing a solo endeavor.  The “Second M” is nowhere to be found.  By not requiring your players to occasionally work together while they level up, you create the kind of nightmare we now see in WoW’s Heroics.

Players in WoW have rarely been asked to play their class in a collaborative environment until max level, so how in the world will they know how to do that when the endgame suddenly tells them that teamwork is required?  Not everyone is going to run dungeons while leveling up, so is Blizzard really surprised that so many people have been complaining that Cataclysm Heroics and raids are too hard?

So if you create a MMO that has a leveling experience designed for little else other than solo gameplay, you will end up with far too many self-entitled jerks at max level who only care about their own progress and have no idea how to work with others…kind of like what you see when you use WoW’s Dungeon Finder to pug a Cata Heroic.  But what really distresses me is that far more games are following suit when it comes to making leveling a solo-only club.

The challenge is only saved for the endgame anymore, and sometimes even that is a laugh.  The continuity in themepark MMOs is slowly evaporating, and I don’t think there is any question that this is partially due to the loss of grouping and teamwork within the leveling process.  In the name of profits and good business, MMOs are ensuring that even kids can be taught to level up and reach the endgame.  But how is that kid going to fare when he is suddenly asked to coordinate split-second strategy in a raid environment, and manage all the pressures and requirements contained within?

Not very well I imagine, and the same seems to go for many of the adults too.  But difficulty is a tricky slope to manage.  I understand that as well as anyone.  So a good place to start might be to take a second look at games like Vanguard, which aren’t afraid to create massive worlds with a mixture of challenges to be found throughout.  The “Second M” is alive and well in the world of Telon, and if you listen closely you will hear its voice.

 

Vanguard: The Beautiful, Lost Gem

Ardwulf has written a great little post over on his blog about Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, so head on over there and check it out!

Vanguard:  A Swan Song or a Call to Arms?

I couldn’t agree with him more on the fact that Vanguard is a fantastic (albeit rough around the edges) MMO that deserves so much more than what it has received.  Sure, we all know the morbid tale of Sigil Games Online by now.  We all know that Sigil assembled a massive/all-star team to work on it.  We know that renowned fantasy artist Keith Parkinson helped Sigil with the artwork and world building a few years before he passed away.  We also know how poor leadership, loss of their original publisher (Microsoft), and lack of funding even when SOE bailed them out and agreed to publish, caused Vanguard to release in an unfinished and bug-ridden state.

But all of you must be informed of the following, and this is particulary aimed at those of you who have never tried the game before.  Even with the issues that Vanguard had during its launch, you could still see what heights the game could reach if given the proper resources.  Vanguard has greatness and ambition coursing through its veins.  But what might surprise some of you is that not all of it is unrealized.  Vanguard is a damn fine MMO by many accounts, even though playing it requires you to put up with a few oddities, such as stilted character animations or the occasional bug.

But what I’m here to tell you is that Vanguard has so many elements that if given the choice, I would port many of them over to my “ultimate” MMO without thinking twice.  In a day and age when the MMO industry appears to be siphoning itself into the chasm of endless nerfs to difficulty and complexity, Vanguard is a welcome breath of fresh air.  Here is an MMO that was not made to cater to the lowest common denominator.  If you want to get something in Vanguard then be prepared to work a little for it.

So I have been granted 45 free days to many of SOE’s titles with their recent Welcome Back promotion.  This got me to thinking about whether or not I wanted to take advantage and poke my head back in to see how a few games were doing.  In the end I decided to conduct a littler experiment instead.  I loaded up EQ2, Star Wars Galaxies, and Vanguard with the intention of trying to figure out which one appealed to me most.  Of course, it’s no secret that the Everquest franshise gets most of the money at SOE.  I’m not entirely unsure that most of the sub-funds made from the other games languishing on the Station Pass all gets spent on EQ and EQ2 anyway.

But that’s getting way off the point here.

What I discovered after pouring an equal amount of time into all three games, was that I found Vanguard to be the most compelling and rewarding of the three…by a very wide margin I might add.  To begin, Vanguard has a deep and robust crafting system that just might be among the finest in the industry.  It also has a huge, epic world rife for exploration and discovery, with many wonderful dungeons built so multiple groups can fight through them at the same time.  Yes indeed, no instances here.

Vanguard has some terrific classes as well, some of the best I’ve ever seen to be honest.  (Disciple and Blood Mage come to mind)  It’s combat also possesses a bit more depth than the typical whack-a-mole style we see in MMOs today.  You have access to both finishing moves and chain reactions, along with counters that allow you to send a foe’s spell right back at them.  You can also cast spells while on the move in Vanguard, something that felt so liberating when I first experienced it that I still weep a little when I play other games…games where if I even dare let out a fart while casting then my spell gets interrupted.

The offensive/defensive targeting system in Vanguard is thing of genius as well, seamlessly allowing you to control the flow of your spells.  The game also boasts another unique feature called Diplomacy, a strategy-filled card game that allows you to interact with NPCs and become a diplomat for various causes.  This unearths much of the lore and really helps to make you feel involved in the world around you as you play.  Vanguard’s complex housing system exists right there in the world too.  You don’t zone in to your house or a special housing community.  Once you buy your lot and build your home it is their for all to see.  I always loved housing like that, as it’s the only proper way to do it in my opinion.

Vanguard even has ships that you can build to sail the high seas with, fishing and exploring to your heart’s content.  And you get all this while appreciating three vast continents that form one of my Top-5 MMO worlds, despite the unfinished nature of a few places.  The graphics in Vanguard are still second to none on many levels, providing the player with an environment that begs you to hop on your horse and find out what’s over yonder hill.

Truly, I could go on for hours talking about how Vanguard is this amazing gem that must be given the chance to shine.  But there is something else you need to know first.  I’m sure many people are thinking, “Why would I pay money for a game that no longer receives content updates?”  This is a good question and not without merit.  But allow me to take a stab at answering it.  Vanguard has so much content that you could play it consistently for the next couple of years and not accomplish everything there is to accomplish.

Yes, that’s a fact.

What Vanguard needs is more people.  More people = more resources devoted to it.  So I’m throwing my hat in with Ardwulf here.  Vanguard is more than worth your time.  It is a deep and immersive MMO experience in a time when most games seem to be moving with rapid feet away from those two qualities.  So do something for me.  If you are one of the people who now has 45 days of Vanguard added to your account, then what are you waiting for?  Get back in here!

If you aren’t one of those people then pick this game up ASAP and give it a chance.  Find a good guild and let the world of Telon grow on you.  I highly doubt you will be sorry for that decision.  Vanguard is a beautiful place filled with some of the best vistas in the MMO industry.  Nothing beats a sunset in Vanguard.    So let’s make this a Call to Arms.  If you are sick of the current MMO offerings out there then come visit the wondrous land of Telon.

Set Yourself Free.

Marketing Failure

Funcom has announced that Age of Conan will be going to a Free-to-play/Hybrid subscription model sometime this summer.  They are not the first to make this move and I highly doubt they will be the last.  There are quite a few MMOs out there that could benefit from switching sub models, to be honest.  Turbine has already said that going to a Hybrid model actually doubled their profits.  But this isn’t really what I want to talk about.  What I would like to flash a big neon light on, is this statement in Funcom’s press release.

“With over 1.4 million copies sold, glowing reviews for both the core game as well as the expansion, and a healthy player base ever since launch in 2008, there is no doubt that ‘Age of Conan’ has been a true success story for Funcom,” says SVP of Sales & Marketing Morten Larssen.

Are you kidding me!!!?  A healthy player base since launch of 2008!!??  Does this guy think we all live in caves or something?  Age of Conan has been a true success story for Funcom?  I’m trying desperately to avoid stepping in the bullshit and it’s not going very well.  OK, let’s take a look at the math here.

June of 2008 – Age of Conan sells 1 million copies

February of 2009 – Age of Conan drops below 100,000 subscriptions

Funcom loses over 23 million on Age of Conan release

Now let us review.  In June of 2008, Funcom issues a press release and says they sold 1 million copies of the game.  But Age of Conan’s launch was riddled with problems as we all know.  Players eventually left the game in droves.  So by February of 2009, Funcom went from 1 million potential subscribers (actual number is said to be around 700,000) down to below 100,000.  They also lost over 23 million dollars on Age of Conan’s release.

Call me crazy, but that doesn’t sound like much of a success to me.  It sounds like exactly what it is…one of the worst subscription plummets in MMO history.  There’s just no other way to call this one, folks.  Age of Conan was a massive failure.  It doesn’t matter whether you currently enjoy playing it or not, as I’m not talking about the state of AOC’s gameplay right now.  The actual game has improved by leaps and bounds since launch.  But the key factor will always be player subscriptions, the measuring stick of how MMOs do business.

And it doesn’t take flow charts or an abacus to see that Age of Conan has suffered terribly in that regard.  Currently, the North American game servers for Age of Conan have been merged down to four.  You read that correctly.  What a smashing success indeed, and clearly the result of a healthy playerbase since launch!  If AOC was such a grandiose success story then they would never be making the move to a Hybrid subscription model in the first place.  It simply would not happen.

But regardless, there is also no reason in the world to make this kind of statement.  It’s a flat-out lie and just smacks of ignorance.  This is not the first time I have facepalmed due to Funcom’s PR either.  These guys have a history of public relations failures.  God, I hate marketing.

The Nickle and Dime

While I have certainly made no secret of the fact that Rift just isn’t for me, that doesn’t mean I would ever shy away from commending Trion if I feel they deserve it.  I sang their praises earlier this year for unveiling the most stable and functional MMO launch in years.  But moving towards current events, we have the recent uproar surrounding statements from Blizzard that a Cross-Realm Dungeon Finder might become part of a WoW premium service/subscription.

Yes indeed, the devil is back in black and ready to force Blizzard to milk us dry.  I speak of Bobby Kotick of course, the CEO of Activision.  This is the company that owns Blizzard by the way.  We are talking about a man who once bragged about “taking all the fun out of making video games.”  Here, allow me to produce a recent photograph.

You just keep them focused on the deep depression, Bobby.  Fear is your ally!  And for anyone who is wondering why I am focusing my ire on Mr. Kotick, he has stated repeatedly in the past that he would bill people to play Call of Duty, and that many other online titles don’t charge nearly as much as they should for services rendered.  When you take that along with his statements on ruining fun and focusing people on our poor economy, and I can confidently say that he is very deserving of my angst.

So it’s not difficult to envision a scenario where he calls up Blizzard and says “You’re down 5 percent in subs, so now is the time to start adding more costs to your game!”  This is not absolving Blizzard in any way for their recent statements, of course.  I’m just stating what feels true to me.  Anyways, it’s completely understandable that many people feel like this development of a WoW premium service is crossing the line.

I’m sure many of us now glimpse into the future of our MMO gaming lives and see nothing but the sting of extra costs surrounding titles for which we already pay a subscription fee.  So in that light, it was a welcome breath of fresh air to see Trion release the following statement regarding their new Character Transfer service.  I will highlight the key part below.

“MMOs are all about playing with your friends no matter which server they’re on, and that’s why we’re offering this as a free service to our subscribers,” said Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer.  “RIFT is both a game and a service, and adding free server transfers is just one more way we can make this the best possible MMO experience available.”

Character transfers will remain a free service for the foreseeable future, and could become a permanent addition to the RIFT experience.

Potentially free Character Transfers for the life of your game, Trion?  You mean you don’t want to continuously milk your players for every single dime they’ve got?  After all, the act of transferring a character from one server to another is so simple it can be easily automated.  So why not join in with the rest of the MMO companies who charge us $20 or more every time we want to transfer a toon?  Why not submit to the dark side now and set up shop for years to come?

I suppose the correct answer is that Trion doesn’t want to become just another development studio.  They respect the fact that gamers pay them a monthly subscription fee, which is far more than any company needs to cover bandwith costs.  And yet they are still considering the notion of making this transfer service free…forever.  All I can say to that is Bravo, Trion.  Now if only I found your game a little more compelling!  But regardless, I think some healthy applause is in order.

The Dreading of Quests

You know, I can still remember the unrivaled feeling of joy I felt the first time I sampled WoW and EQ2 in November of 2004.  Quests…my God…they are ingenious, I thought.  I rested peacefully at night knowing that never again would I be asked to gain levels by mindlessly grinding on monsters.  Never again would I be forced to wait for hours on end to find a leveling group.  Questing felt so fresh and new, so innovative and filled with potential when compared to the tried and true monster grind we had come to know in most MMOs.

So it is with profound sadness that I sit here today (closing in on 7 years later) and say the following…I will die a happy man if I never have to walk up to an NPC with a little thingy over their head ever again.  I cannot bear it, not anymore.  The quest grind and the monster grind have become synonymous with each other in my eyes.  They are one in the same.  Oh sure, the quest grind is a bit more deceptive and wily than the monster version.  But it has become an automated grind nevertheless.

MMOs have simply become far too formulaic and straightforward.  We all know what to expect now.  We all know that we will log in, go to an NPC hub and look for people with things over their heads, then we will listen to their pathetic explanations of why they are too lazy to do stuff themselves, and finally we will go do their work for them.  It will usually consist of the following…killing NPCs, killing NPCs and collecting certain items that drop from those NPCs, gathering items found in the game world that are usually located by how shiny they are, escorting other NPCs and keeping them alive so they can complete tasks, and so on.

In nearly 7 years this hasn’t changed much, has it?

Along the way we found that Lord of the Rings Online did give us wonderful Book quests to complete.  These expanded upon the narrative of that world and drew you in to what was going on.  WoW has continuously improved the quality of their quests as well, with the Lich King and Cataclysm expansions.  Cataclysm in particular raised the bar for leveling content, for themepark-style MMOs at least.  I honestly feel that WoW now stands as the epitome of questing design due to many of the improvement they have made.  The sheer assortment and diversity of quests in WoW is quite impressive these days.

The only caveat to that statement is that WoW represents both the greatest strengths of questing (variety) and its most glaring failures (linearity) as well.  But after enduring countless versions of the themepark model over the years, I now look ahead to the MMOs on the horizon and I honestly don’t know what to say anymore.  The Old Republic looks like it will bring a welcome cinematic feel to its questing, but we also know that it will still contain plenty of kill this/gather that quests.

So while I look forward to the storytelling aspect of TOR, part of me shutters at the thought of running in to some moisture farmer who says, “Hello!  Thank goodness you came along when you did.  These Womp Rats are wreaking havoc on my farm, chewing cables and causing all sorts of ruckus!  Could you please help me by thinning their numbers?”

My response…

Guild Wars 2, on the other hand, does appear to be the one MMO on the horizon daring to try something different.  AreaNet has already stated that Guild Wars 2 will have no quest hubs at all.  None.  I’ll let that thought sink in for a moment.  I nearly stood up and danced a little jig when I heard them say that.  Instead, they are designing Guild Wars 2 completely around the idea of dynamic content that happens in the world.

This will be somewhat like the current ideas of rifts in Rift or the PQs in WAR.

The content in GW 2 will be happening around you as you explore the gameworld, and you can join in right then and there to decide the outcome.  This style of world building could work splendidly, providing the quality and polish of this dynamic content is still up to par with our expectations.  Dynamic content is sort of the hot marketing phrase in MMOs right now, with Rift being the main proponent of such talks.

On that note, I always felt that Trion should have scrapped the run-of-the-mill questing system they came up with for Rift, and instead focused their efforts on the rifts/invasions themselves.  They should have developed those into the main focus of the game’s leveling system.  It felt so odd having all these basic kill/fetch quests to do when the thought of battling rifts/invasions that were even more interesting and varied than the current ones, appealed to me so much more.  As things were we just had a different version of WAR’s Public Quests and Tabula Rasa’s Invasion system.

But Trion could have just thrown the quests out and worked on making the rifts and invasions that much more spectacular.  I think developing Rift in that way would have made a huge difference in giving it a far more unique feel than it has now.  It’s this basic idea of creating active content in the world that Guild Wars 2 seems to be latching onto.  I dearly hope it works well and will be cheering them on the whole way.  Still, when looking at how the quest grind now looks the same to me as the monster grind did back in the day, it does feel odd to know that my opinions have regressed to such a degree.

But maybe regression in my own viewpoint isn’t really the problem here.  Maybe it’s just that MMOs have continued to deliver the same old thing over and over again, leaving me somewhat tired and burned out on current design trends.  So at the moment, the thought of just hopping into a group with a bunch of folks and chatting away while we slay monsters doesn’t really sound like a bad idea to me.  That should tell you all you need to know about how much innovation the MMO genre has seen over the years.

So all I have left to say is the following.  Will some development team please come up with a new idea?  Somebody come up with a proposal that’s out of the box, something that will truly be a way forward and not a rehash of the been-there and done-that.  I know that encouraging such thinking goes against the business model of “stick with what works.”  But the MMO genre is crying out for some initiative, for the encouragement of the novel design element that has never been given a chance to shine.  I’m trying to wait patiently, truly I am.

But I swear it gets harder each and every day, especially since my dread of kill/fetch quests only gets worse as those days go by.

Attack of the Hamsters

Someone should check all the California pet stores for recent mass hamster purchases.  If evidence is found of such activity, then my money is on SOE being the culprits.  They’ll be looking to garner whatever advantage they can as they now begin the process of restoring game services.

It’s difficult to say how all of this will turn out in the end.  I am still ticked off as all hell about the whole situation, but the gamer in me still can’t help but root for SOE in spite of it all.  It’s a strange feeling, though I imagine it has something to do with Everquest 1 being my first and most cherished MMO experience.

In any case, right about now you can only be sure of one thing…the server hamsters are running like they’ve never run before. 

SONY ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT RESTORES GAME SERVICES

Services Return Following Implementation of Increased Security Measures; Consumer Data Protection a Full-Time, Company-Wide Commitment
SAN DIEGO, May 14, 2011 – Sony Online Entertainment LLC (SOE) announced today that restoration of its game services will begin today. The phased restoration will include the return of nearly all of SOE’s portfolio of online games, the reinstatement of SOE’s game forums and websites, and added functionality to require players to reset their passwords.

Increased Security Measures
As the result of a criminal cyber-attack on the company’s network, SOE shut down its game services in order for the company to undertake an investigation and incorporate rigorous enhancements to the overall security of the network infrastructure. SOE worked with several outside respected security firms during the course of implementing significant security measures that strengthen safeguards against unauthorized activity and provide customers with greater protection of their personal information.

SOE made enhancements to overall data security as well, including updating and adding advanced security technologies, additional software monitoring, performing new penetration and vulnerability testing, and increased levels of encryption.

“Our main priority is the safety and security of our customers’ personal information,” said Kazuo Hirai, Executive Deputy President, Sony Corporation. “We are making consumer data protection a full-time, company-wide commitment, and have applied enhanced security technologies so that our customers can feel protected and confident about playing our games.”

Hirai added, “We are committed to delivering secure and entertaining games for players of all ages and thank each of our players for their patience and support during this difficult time.”

SOE will also be offering its customers a “Welcome Back” program that includes special game content and services to all registered Station Account holders. As part of this program, players will receive 30 days of additional game time plus one day for each day SOE’s services were down. The details of this program are available at www.soe.com/securityupdate/welcomeback.

For more information about the SOE network intrusion and restoration, please visit http://www.soe.com/securityupdate.

DAOC and PvP Done Right

Sometimes it’s just every bit as good as you remember it.  That’s how I feel sampling a little Dark Age of Camelot on the private Uthgard server.  In between playing some WoW, I began to feel that deep, unrelenting urge to experience the adrenaline rush of PvP…the kind that no other MMO offers in quite the way DAOC pulled it off.  It sort of makes me sad, to be honest.  Warhammer Online had an awful lot to live up to for us Camelot fans, and I say that with the knowledge of how the Trials of Atlantis expansion nearly crippled DAOC beyond repair.

But WAR was never quite able to recapture the feeling, was it?  The 3 faction system of DAOC was missed sorely, and playing through it again I am reminded of why that system is so perfect for an MMO largely focused on PvP, or Realm vs. Realm as it is called here.  The 3 Factions police themselves, so server imbalance was never really a problem in DAOC because if one realm became to powerful then the other two would just team up to take it down.  Yes indeed, Dark Age of Camelot has always been a shining light in my MMO past.

But trying it out again many years later, you can still see why so many players point to it as the best PvP you’ll find anywhere.  When you combine the lovely feeling of the lore behind the 3 realms, plenty of races/classes to choose from, each realm having their own safe lands where you level up and learn your class, and then being set free upon the Frontiers to battle for your realm in open world combat….it just beats the hell out of the Battleground system we are now inundated with to no end.

Instanced PvP has its place, of course.  It offers quick, somewhat balanced PvP action for those who might not always have a large amount of time to play.  But nothing can really replace the feeling of open world warfare.  It’s so much more spontaneous and interesting than what you find in BGs.  Some love their open world PvP to be full loot, ala Ultima Online or Darkfall.  But DAOC offered that wonderful balance of having keeps and relics to battle over, fights that could spring up out of nowhere, and the knowledge that you could level up in your own area before you decided to venture out and experience the dangers of the Frontiers.

Hot damn, it’s nice to visit Camelot again.  It truly never gets old. 

For those curious about the Uthgard server, it really is one of the easiest EMUs to get going.  All you need to do is purchase/download the DAOC client from Mythic, download DAOC Portal from Light of Dawn, then just install the Classic patch.  So here is the website and a link with directions to get you going.

Uthgard – Main

Uthgard – Getting Started

Believe me when I tell you, DAOC still holds up pretty well to this day.  The graphics aren’t even too shabby to look at, once you get over the dated animations of course.  There are loads of classes to choose from as I mentioned before, and DAOC brought class specialization to MMOs long before it became the norm.  Realm pride is also something you’ll hear us DAOC vets blather on about.  There was just something about the game that made you feel a genuine kinship with your realm.  People went out of their way to help each other, which is in part because of how DAOC was built, though it’s also a reflection of how different MMO communities use to be.

Now people are so used to hopping on the themepark express that they barely even notice each other while leveling.  I love World of Warcraft and feel that it has some of the most entertaining quests around, but it’s particularly guilty of this sort of thing.  What’s worse is that most other MMOs aren’t too far behind it either.  My last trip to EQ2 felt quite similar as well.  DAOC came from a different age, where it took teamwork not only in the endgame but also while you leveled up.  When you take a look at all that DAOC offers, it’s just not difficult to see why both the Uthgard server and the official servers are still bustling with activity.  I know it’s basically a pipe dream at this point, but I can’t even begin to describe how thrilled I would be to hear a future announcement of DAOC 2.

A guy can dream, right?

Did you hear? WoW is dying!

This headline at IGN really gave me a good laugh.

World of Warcraft Subscriptions Dropping

It is referring to this First Quarter Press Release from Activision/Blizzard.

I find it amusing because the IGN headline is both accurate and somewhat misleading all at the same time.  I suppose I might as well jump on the hate train and abandon my WoW sub too, in light of this recent news.  I just see no point in hanging on anymore.  Especially since it’s almost impossible to find people to play with amongst the 11.4 million players still subscribed.

Doom I say!!!!  DOOM AND GLOOOOOOOMMM!!!! 

Anyways, what is more frightening I wonder…that WoW is sporting about 600,000 less players than usual, or that WoW lost far more players than the average MMO has overall and still has 11.4 million people playing it?  It boggles the mind.  Blizzard’s Net Revenue for the first quarter of 2011 was 357 million dollars, which is actually an increase from the first quarter of last year.  As I’ve always said though, these MMOs eventually kill themselves over time.

The launch of a new game, while having some effect on the market as a whole, just doesn’t contribute to a heavy loss in subs for current games.

We know that many players subscribe to more than one MMO at any given time.  So the idea that a new game will ruin a current one is a bit off the mark, regardless of what state that game currently finds itself in.  I’ve been hearing people predict that the death of Vanguard every time a new MMO is released, and yet it’s still standing (albeit with a weak pulse).  As for WoW, it has different virtues and flaws just like everything else out there.  But it will ultimately die out of its own accord, and the sooner most people realize this the better off we will all be.

This financial report also includes info up to the end of March, meaning any effects that the Rift launch might have had on WoW would be present as well.  As you can plainly see, it barely made a dent with Blizzard posting actual revenue gains over this time last year.  So there is no such thing as a WoW killer, folks.  Can we finally let this term go now?