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.

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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.

 

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.

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?

Rift: No, it’s not the “Jesus” game

Hello again, friends!  For those of you fine people who are still kicking the tires around these parts, I thought I would take a little bit of free time today and talk about a couple of blog posts I recently stumbled onto.  They both pertain to Rift and the MMO community in general, so I will link to them straight away and then dive right in to where I agree and disagree.

This is a conversation that needs to be had I think, and it seems to be one that people keep twisting into contorted shapes based on their own experiences and preferences…all the while circling near the point but never quite landing on it.  So without further ado I give you these fine posts…

(I will put some little identifiers next to the links for those who lack reading comprehension…)

(I kid, Elementalistly, I kid) 

Rift:  This is where the MMO community let me down   (This post contains the list of 5 Reasons Rift is the new WoW)

It isn’t the game…it’s you   (This is the post that refers to Rift as the “Jesus” game)

Quote of the Day  (Highlighting the original post that lead me to the others)

(So with those clarifications out of the way, we now return you to our originally scheduled blog post…)

Before I make my comments, I would like to warn a few of the more sensitive among you that I am going to fiercely take opposition to some of the opinions on display here.  But this should not be taken as a slight to the bloggers themselves.  We just happen to disagree, nothing more or less.  So while I do find myself empathizing with a few of the points they make, I passionately stand against the underlying sentiment contained in both posts.

Apparently, if I have loved WoW at any point in WoW’s history but haven’t fallen head-over-heels in love with Rift in the same fashion, then I should leave the MMO genre entirely because I am nothing more than a burnt out, jaded gamer who has simply played far too many MMOs in his day.  Come to think of it, I am a burnt out and jaded gamer during these, my MMO twilight years….*snickers*…but that’s beside the point! 

So let me begin with the obvious reaction.  Just because you like something does not mean that everyone else has to feel the same way about it too.  To follow that point, if you genuinely enjoy an MMO then there should be nothing that stops you from relishing every moment you spend with it and its community.  What the larger MMO playerbase thinks should be irrelevant to you, because if you and your friends are having fun where you are then what does it matter if others don’t feel the same way?

Of course, MMOs need healthy populations to survive in this suddenly crowded market…so to that extent we should care somewhat about what other people think of our preferred games.  But Rift is going to be just fine in that regard.  No, it will never be the WoW-killing, genre dominating game that some thought it would be, but Rift is well made enough to carve out its own little niche in the MMO market and go on to live a fruitful and expansion-filled life for many years.

This is all that should matter at the end of the day, but apparently, the fact that some of us haven’t taken to Rift with a healthy amount of zeal is a disappointment to a few good people out there.  So let’s tackle some of those claims next, shall we?  In the first post, the blogger points out another article detailing 5 reasons why Rift is the new WoW.  So allow me to make a few observations.

1.  Rift is a finished product

Why yes, Rift is indeed a polished and well-made MMO.  I have pointed this out several times and have seen many others do the same.  Trion Worlds has managed to finally give us an MMO that doesn’t suck.  But we are missing the point here.  We are congratulating Trion for making an MMO that isn’t littered with problems.  Which is because companies like Mythic and Funcom gave us two duds that were wrecked with issues from beta and on to this very day.  But should we really be so eager to heap endless compliments onto a company for finally doing what most MMO developers should do in the first place…release stable, unbuggy games?

How have we let our expectations become so diluted?  Well, it’s because we are so used to receiving the same crap shoveled out again, that we are more than prepared to kiss the feet of anyone who can release an MMO that doesn’t possess the stench of decay at the very moment it’s birthed into the world.  So is the problem here really the MMO community?  Is that who is truly at fault for making us all so screwed up in how we assess new MMOs?  Or is the fault to be laid at the feet of developers who continue to release unfinished, problem-strewn games?

2.  There’s an endgame

Why yes, Rift does have an endgame and things to work for, which completely differentiates it from…oh wait.  Yes, I am happy as anyone to see that Trion has released an MMO that has some endgame content from the get-go.  But that makes it special how?  I have played a metric ton of MMOs in my time, with Lotro, EQ 2, and WoW being among the most predominant.  And all of those MMOs currently have endgames and many different goals to work towards.  It doesn’t matter if they had a proper endgame at launch, because that is the somewhat unfair reality that new MMOs face.  Freshly launched MMOs have to compare to current games after they have already received a bevy of fixes and updates over the years.

So just because Rift offers me more loot to pursue does not make it special, as I can find that almost anywhere right now.  I can raid in plenty of places, folks, it’ not a revolutionary concept anymore.  But I do applaud Trion for releasing a finished game, as I said before.  But how long are we going to pat them on the back for doing what should be the norm anyway, and instead, point out how they are simply copying what has been done before them without really pushing the genre forward as some of their marketing material claims.  (I will touch on this more later)

3.  The game isn’t buggy

Good heavens, haven’t we already made this point?  Does Rift have nothing else to offer me other than it isn’t a terrible game?  Is there really where this debate has gone?  It’s like when Valve keeps putting blocks and see-saws in Half Life 2 to demonstrate the fact that they made a physics engine.  I’m thrilled that they’ve managed to make a good physics engine, but there are only so many times they can keep showing me how I can throw blocks before I start to desire something more out of it.  (they do provide that by the way, just making a basic point)

So Rift is not buggy.  Well done Trion!  But what else have you got to offer?  Let us see.

4.  There’s a lot to do

This just isn’t getting any better, is it?  We simply keep banging the same drums over and over again.  So I am to understand and be thankful that Rift has lots to do.  Well, that’s a good thing.  But it’s an MMO and they are supposed to have lots to do.  I have so many thing I can accomplish in EQ 2, Lotro, or even WoW.  So how does Rift stand out in this respect?  What does Rift offer me that other MMOs do not?  The Rifts themselves?  They are randomly spawning Public Quests ala Warhammer Online, nothing more.  I can’t believe people are still treating them as some sort of holy grail in MMO design.

There are only two things in Rift that are somewhat unique.  The Invasions and the Soul system are the two features that should be touted by Rift fans everywhere.  But personally, I eventually found the invasion every 15 minute-thing to be really annoying.  I didn’t really find it to be exciting or intriguing in any way, as the invasions happened so darn often that it made the whole world feel like and endless battleground to me.  But I don’t want to play an MMO that is an endless battleground.  I want to play an MMO that is a world that has a few endless battlegrounds in it.

As for the Soul System, it was probably the key ingredient that I enjoyed the most while playing Rift.  It is a step in the right direction for MMOs, and I am more than happy to applaud Trion for its creation.  But at the end of the day, it has two things working against it.  First of all, that many souls will prove to be horribly difficult to balance over time, especially for PvP.  I’m not sure if Trion will ever be able to get the balance right.  Secondly, just like the talent system in WoW or EQ 2, certain flavor of the month builds will emerge and dominate as they always do, proving once and for all that we don’t really need a better class based system.  What we need is a skill based system that actually does its job properly.  But that’s a topic for another day.

5.  Rift is the cure for your WoW ennui

So if I put effort into not thinking about WoW, that will allow me to properly see Rift for the gem that is and allow me to enjoy it the way I should.  That’s like telling me that if I go to the movies I should forget about every other move I have ever seen in my entire life, so I can fairly assess the movie I am currently watching.  Seriously?  I don’t even know where to begin with this comment.  Even better is that we once again come back to that age-old argument on how WoW has killed the MMO genre.

Oh how I wish it were that simple.  If only I could keep a straight face and say that WoW has ruined MMOs for everyone.  But if I did say that, it would be every bit as preposterous as when other people spout the same thing.  WoW has not ruined the MMO genre…other developers are ruining the MMO genre by constantly imitating everything that WoW does.  People see a formula for success and so they try to replicate it.  They copy what has been done before and then try to put a few spins of their own on it to make it seem original.

But it’s not original.  Rift is not ground breaking or unique.  Providing me with the ability to upload videos to YouTube or post my in-game achievements in Twitter does not make Rift revolutionary.  Rift is a solid, well-made MMO worthy of your subscription and many years of continued development.  But it is not the “Jesus” game in any way shape or form.  As I said before, newer MMOs are launching into an increasingly difficult market.  They face MMO players who have seen and done it all over the years, and many are simply tired of the tried and true mechanics with a little dash of something new thrown on top.

Of course, no one really knows what they want to see, do they?  Everyone says they want something different, but typically spurn new ideas and cling to old concepts even though they claim to want something fresh.  This is where I do agree with the previous bloggers.  We, as an MMO community, have to be a little more open and loving to new ideas if they are every going to get traction.  But the flip side of that coin involves the developers too.  You can’t keep giving us the same old song and dance while expecting us to laud you for it.  You have to come up with better ideas, you have to give us a reason to say, “Wow, this is something I have never really seen before I want to know more about it.”

Rift does not do this, it simply has copied what has been done ad-nauseam and then sprinkled invasions and the Soul system on top.  That will not suffice in this day and age.  The bar has been raised and developers need to adjust their ambitions accordingly.  Yes, I am sure many of you are screaming how WoW did the same thing.  WoW just copied what had been done before it and then added a few new sprinkles of its own (questing to level, solo to max).  But there is a difference, folks, and here it is.

That was six years and the MMO genre did not have the choice it does now.  The MMO genre has grown considerably since that time, while the core mechanics of these games have not really changed at all.  WoW became a hit because Blizzard copied what had been done before and found the right formula for success.  Not it sits on top of the MMO world unchallenged as far as subscribers go, and Rift comes along many years later as a well crafted and polished competitor, with people are screaming how we should embrace Rift just as we did WoW before it.

But my friends, the MMO genre is not the same as it was back when WoW launched.  The genre was simpler back then, there is no way to compare it to how things have evolved or de-evolved in some cases.  If Rift had been released five years ago just as it is now, I would have been the first to hail it as the crowning jewel of the industry.  But it has released in the present, in 2011, and is built with the exact same core of every single MMO I have been playing for 10 years.  The basic gameplay is unchanged.

Rift offers little in the way of true advancement.  And just because it does its job well, does not mean we should all conform to hailing it as the greatest MMO on the planet.  I can sit here and say that Rift is a good game and worthy of your subscription if you are tired of the MMO you are currently playing, and just want something similar but with a new skin.  But like it or not, Rift must be judged in the time it has been released in.  And facing that sobering fact, Rift is simply a solid, by-the-numbers MMO in a genre that is already filled with them.

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.

 

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.

Too soon?

So I was browsing through the interwebs this evening as I am known to do, when I came across this nice little post from Syp over at Bio Break.  In it, he discusses whether or not we can safely call Rift a success yet.

 

Bio Break: Can we call RIFT a success yet?

Many good points are made here, but I would like to give the issue a little spin of my own.  My general and most basic response goes a little something like this…

 

 

But to his credit, Syp understands this and was just really expressing his genuine excitement on how good things are looking for Rift right now.  And he is quite right in that regard.  But the first and most important thing I can say about his question is that MMOs live or die based on their subscriber numbers.  Player retention is the key to an MMOs longevity and it always will be.  So to be honest, the first few months of an MMO’s launch won’t really tell us whether or not we are looking at a success.

While I completely agree with Syp that Rift is looking very strong thus far, I would still be remiss not to point out a few things.  Click on the links to read more. 

 

Warhammer Online Launch

Age of Conan Launch

Now let me first say this without question, Rift is in a far better position than either WAR or AOC were during their respective launches.  Just as Syp says, Rift has the feel of a game that is polished, functional, and ready to expand into bold new territory.  But when one looks back on the historic rise and epic crash of AOC, along with the equally impressive beginnings of WAR and its slower but still woeful fall from grace, it can sober you up rather quickly.

So while I do share Syp’s excitement at what I am seeing in Rift right now, history has taught me to take these things rather carefully.

Predicting player behavior is no easy task, and neither is trying to figure out what the landscape of Rift will look like six months from now.  As of now I would say so far so good…but time and fate my have something very different to say on the matter.  I guess what I am preaching here is more akin to cautious optimism than anything else.  But listen, we are all fans of MMOs and to that extent we should be cheering for the good fortune of every MMO out there.

The more successful MMOs we have the better it is for the entire industry.

It means that even more investors will be willing to put their money down to help developers make MMOs in the future.  More games means everybody wins, as a little competition is a good thing for everyone involved.  And yes…that also means it’s a good thing for the MMO that shall not be named.  Rift’s success will be a good thing for World of Warcraft, you did hear me correctly and are not hallucinating.  You see, I keep listening to people refer to WoW in times like these and it always makes me chuckle.

You can barely spend ten minutes in Rift without someone bringing up WoW in general chat.  Sometimes I really do think that the people who hate WoW are more obsessed with it than the people who love it.  But this is one of those unique situations where both of those crowds can come together.  That’s right, folks, it is time for the WoW lovers and haters to come together and sing a little…

 

 

Allow me to explain.

If Rift succeeds and goes on to a long, happy life of expansions and thrilling new content, then Rift loves will have plenty to be happy about it.  But guess what folks…WoW players will also have something to be pumped up about.  Why is this, you may ask?  Because as others have said and I totally agree, WoW needs someone else who can stand in the arena with it and not be knocked out in the first round.  WoW needs competition, it needs a cunning new upstart to come along and give it a few knocks on the chin just to remind Blizzard that they they aren’t in this game alone.

So if Rift can do what some of its predecessors failed to accomplish (hold on to some subscribers), then the entire MMO industry should have something to be thankful for at the end of the day.  So while I am downright giddy to see Rift hit the ground running, I still think we should temper our outlook just a little in the wake of past events.  MMOs are a tricky business and most of them boil down to some variation of raiding and pvp during the endgame.  This is truly where an MMO will ultimately claim its destiny.

If the endgame can hook  players like a mouse to cheese then the MMO will go on to greatness.  But if the endgame falls flat that then said MMO will plummet faster than Paris Hilton after a few drinks.  Maybe Rift players will hit the endgame content and think that it’s nothing really new, and so they might drift back to other games.  Or perhaps they will experience Rift’s endgame and find that it’s far better than what they were playing before, and so they will stay.  I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

But I do know this above all…we will be in for one hell of a ride either way. 

A Second Chance to Carve your Skull

Now if only I could temporarily change my blog’s background to something like this…

 

 

Poor old Ingvar…doomed to countless amounts of farming by a bunch of bunny hopping, foaming at the mouth MMO addicts.  But getting back to the point here.  If I could just change my background to that picture then I could say to hell with the long-winded post about where I’ve been, what I’ve played, and why I have suddenly decided to return, as that image would tell you all you needed to know about my status.   But that just wouldn’t be my style, now would it?

So yes indeed, my interesting gaming compatriots…I’m back.    Would someone please que the bloody inspirational music?  It’s awful quiet in here.

 

 

Now that’s more like it, thanks Mr. Jablonsky.  So out of the depths of Middle Earth I am come, or at least the earth part is within the vicinity of accurate.  Nevertheless, I am going to make the naive assumption that kicking the tires around here will be just like riding a bike again.  And though I highly doubt I will reach the heady days of early 2010 as far as post count goes (my keyboard has already filed an injunction against me for the times when smoke was frequently spotted funneling out between the keys).  I do hope that I’ll at least be seen here at headquarters with a little more regularity.  But fear not in any case, dear readers.  My intentions are full of rainbows and win.

 

 

Now I know what most of you are probably thinking right now.  Nightwreath, you incessant windbag, why the hell should we care whether you’re back or not?  The answer to that question is simple and contains no misrepresentation or innuendo whatsoever.

You shouldn’t give a rat’s ass.

But just in case a few of you might be reading this and have allowed yourselves to become intoxicated enough to care…then why don’t we begin with a summation of my life over this past year.  It will be brief, I promise you.  The tale goes a little something like this…

 

 

Hello again.  Welcome back!    It’s a little scary out there, isn’t it?  We’re talking about places where angels fear to tread, that kind of thing.  So why don’t we just stay here for a while instead?  The weather is much more forgiving in these parts anyway, and I have it on good authority that we’ll have access to cookies if we keep our voices down.  But now we’ve got the boring crap out of the way, right?  That alone tells me that it’s time to move on to more substantial things.  So let’s talk MMOs.

Yes, those dastardly time-sinks continue to be a part of my life whether I like it or not.  Usually that counts as a positive, but if I get any grayer in the hairline as an MMO-Vet I fear that I might completely loose the ability to enjoy them at all.  That’s a scary prospect in and of itself, but in some ways I think I’ve just played too many MMOs to be truly awestruck by them anymore.  I still enjoy them immensely, please don’t misunderstand me.  But I do find that the overall experience has become somewhat diluted for me as the flow of time has pushed the genre forward.

That’s not to say that I’m one of those cranky old cooks who thinks that MMOs should be just like they were in the old days.  But I do recognize that something is missing within the core of these games right now, but placing your finger on the point and then trying to talk about it with people is much like trying to hold a civil, intelligent discussion on the topic of politics.  About three minutes into the conversation something like this always happens…

 

 

So what am I playing right now, anyway?  The answer to that query would be somewhat surprising, given my history.  But I currently do not hold any MMO subscriptions at all.  I’ve gone cold turkey.  Over the past year I have seen much happen over the MMO landscape.  I watched Warhammer Online slowly devolve with a heavy sense of regret, I had some good fun with the Cataclysm expansion, and popped my head in a few other places here and there.  But all of that has brought me to the point where I am now, just an MMO gamer with no place to hang is hat.

As for WAR, it’s a game that I will always love and hold dear to my heart, but I have finally reached a point where I can no longer convince myself that it’s worth my subscription in its current form.  I’m not going to get into the what, where, when, and why…as I think there are plenty of great WAR bloggers out there who can give you a sense of why the game is stuck in a rut.  Perhaps that will change someday, but for now WAR and I have reluctantly parted ways.  I wish Mythic all the best in their future endeavors, and I hope they know that I’ll always be cheering for them no matter what course they take.  *cough – DAOC 2 – cough*

As for WoW, I greatly enjoyed hopping back on my Warlock for Cataclysm and also found the new 1-60 questing to be quite fantastic in many ways.  But once I hit 85 and with the prospect of a raid schedule looming, I decided to take a step back before I got overly committed.  I have plenty of responsibilities in RL as it is, and I just wasn’t sure that a raiding schedule was going to make any of that easier on me.  What I really wanted was just a place to level, explore, and hopefully find a little PvP while I was at it.

So where does that leave me now?  Funny you should ask, but given that if you’re reading this blog then you’re probably an MMO player…and if you’re an MMO player and you look at the current date, then you’ll most likely know what’s drifting out there just on the edge of the horizon.  Though I see many different positives and negatives regarding it, the beta has been far too polished and smooth for me to say no at this point.  My gaming instincts quickly took hold of me and I pre-ordered the Digital Collector’s Edition before you could say the word spineless.

 

 

Yes my fellow gamers, I am here to declare that I will be playing Rift beginning on February 24th (headstart).  For the lone person here who has no idea what I’m talking about, allow me to explain.  Rift is a new MMO due to release on March 1st, with those of us who pre-ordered getting the opportunity to play it slightly ahead of that date.  (Feb 24th)  As to Rift’s core identity as an MMO, I’ll let the folks at Trion Worlds (the developers of the game) fill you in.

 

 

Much like before, I will be here to report and comment on my various adventures both within Telara and elsewhere.  So I hope that some of you will pop in from time to time and enjoy reading about them.  I won’t be blogging nearly as much as I did back in the day, but I’ll do my best to carve out some time when I can.  It’s good to be back, though, that I can say without hesitation. 

So until next time…