Category: MMO

The end of the MMO road?

Posted on by Nimgimli

I’m not the first blogger to write a post like this recently and I wonder why it’s happening all of a sudden.

Nickle tour of my MMO gaming life: I’ve been playing them pretty much since they’ve been making them. I played MMOs before they were called MMOs and you had to pay $6/hour to play on GEnie. Or even more on Compuserve. All the big early players, I played at least for a while. And I might be done.

I came to this realization when thinking about this weekend’s SW:TOR beta. I wasn’t excited to partake in it. I have the client, have the account set up. In theory once it opens all I have to do is log in, and I probably will, just to gawk a bit. But really play? No, I don’t think so.

I was thinking that it just wouldn’t be worth the effort, given that our progress gets wiped on Monday.

And that’s when it hit me. I play MMOs for progress and really only for progress. I don’t play them because the minute-to-minute experience of playing them is fun for me. It used to be; I remember a time where every battle, or at least many battles, felt exciting and interesting. These days it feels more like an exercise in mundane repetition.

Just to be absolutely clear, this isn’t a slam on SW:TOR; the game systems of pretty much all MMOs are the same way. I’m just using SW:TOR as an example, and anyway this is about me and my personal preferences, not about the games, which continue to be wildly popular. Also consider I solo much of the time; battles of course get more interesting as you add more people to them (and therefore more variability). That’s why I liked Rift so much in the early days when people fought the titular rifts.

Anyway I’ll wait for SW:TOR to launch and play it then when my progress will be saved. I’m still interested by all the people talking about how compelling the stories are. In my first beta weekend I only got to level 7 so really didn’t get engaged in any stories that time out. If the stories are really that interesting I’ll stick around, otherwise I’ll just play my 30 days and move on.

I might need to give DC Universe Online another look; as I recall that had combat that was a bit more fun. But why can’t MMOs have combat (and other) systems as rich and interesting and compelling as non-MMOs? How about throwing in the odd puzzle, or climbing section, or something to mix things up? Why do I have to turn to Uncharted or Skyrim to have a good story and fun combat and a rich mix of things to do? Shouldn’t we be getting more from a $15/month game than we do from a 1-shot $60 game?

Rift half-birthday celebration

Posted on by Nimgimli

Why hello there blog…how have you been, besides lonely and neglected?

So apologies for the 5 week gap between posts here. I attribute it to two things. The first is Google+ where I, along with the usual suspects plus a bunch of new quasi-friends, have been having lengthy and interesting discussions about games. Google+ allows for a real conversation and it feels like the perfect place for ‘been thinking about’ posts that don’t really need to be saved forever. I, and many others, have found it’s a much better place to hold a conversation than in blog post comments, for reasons I don’t quite understand. I’ve just observed this to be the case.

Second, I’ve been playing a ton of Guild Wars. Not end-game Guild Wars, but the the base game. It’s a 6 year old game and I don’t think I have much to add to the abundance of content that’s been written about it since launch. I’m really enjoying it, but I don’t need a whole blog post to tell you that (even though I wrote one anyway).

But Rift is holding a half-birthday event and I decided to return to the game and see how things have changed. That spawned all kinds of thoughts about MMOs and persistence of playing and how to go back and have fun and why MMOs seem to have a lighter and lighter grip on me these days.

The good news is that my ‘main’ character (who was a whopping level 25 when I returned) didn’t have his soul points reset since I last played. It took me a few minutes to figure out the main skills he (a bard, basically) uses and get into a pattern of firing them off. I have a 2nd role that I haven’t even looked at. Some of my other characters did have their soul points reset and, man, I just didn’t want to do the homework to remind myself of what was what, and figure out what had changed. It just felt like work to me.

So off I went with my bard into those dingy woods aptly named Gloamwood. Gloamwood isn’t any more populated now than it was when I quit, and rifts that open generally just get ignored unless a high level type comes upon one and decides to seal it. Otherwise you can stand there for 10 minutes waiting for help and never see another player, so if it isn’t feasible to solo it, you may as well skip it. We used to wait much longer than that for spawns in EQ, but these days wasting 10 minutes of my precious free time is out of the question.

The event, or maybe the latest patch, has us collecting Dragon Tears, or Dragon Pearls, or Dragon Something, from these things that look like a mutant plant bulb. These are intended to be group activities since they have a huge amount of hit points. But there’s an interesting mechanic at play here… the longer it exists in the world, the easier it is to kill (it gets an ever-increasing debuff that increases the damage your attacks do). A few minutes after the things have spawned they’re easily solo-able. I’m hoping this mechanic will get spread to regular Rifts, perhaps based on population in the immediate vicinity of the Rift. It’s a shame that Gloamwood, on my server at least, is just PvE Questing at this point.

In spite of these grumblings, I was having some fun back in Rift, and then I got a couple of quests that sent me into an instance. Instance meant grouping. Now there’s that new Dungeon Finder I could have used, but see above re: learning my souls and builds. I really didn’t want to join a random group of strangers and be screamed at for having a stupid build. I dislike being screamed at… my skin is thin and I get very angry very quickly.

So it was either research a build and make sure I understood how it worked, and then use the Dungeon Finder to do these quests, or skip the quests. I skipped them. But knowing I was skipping the really interesting parts of the game made me glum.

Honestly the most fun I had was going back to Silverwood and participating in events there. I’m high enough level that my bardic healing was a boon to other players, and I still have a quest to kill some of the event bosses over there. I’m not sure a level 25 was always welcome but I stuck to the major events and tried not to step on any toes.

I also grouped randomly with someone in Gloamwood for some low-key PvE questing, and that was a lot of fun, too.

I see Rift 1.5 is going to have some kind of solo and duo dungeons added, and maybe those will solves some of the malaise I feel about missing the best parts of the game. (And to be clear, this malaise I feel is not limited to Rift…it applies to all MMOs I’ve tried lately.)

Or maybe I should go back to playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution, where I get to experience all the best parts without the worry of some 15 year old punk hurling insults at me for doing it wrong. Or Guild Wars, where my army of heroes is always ready to stand by my side, with never an epithet hurled.

Is Guild Wars a CCG?

Posted on by Nimgimli

So with Alan Wake winging his way back to Gamefly, last night I hopped back into Guild Wars.

Now, I have to beg your patience, all you Guild War veterans… I’m probably about to cause you a great deal of eye-rolling.

I’ve added a few more heroes to my roster and each one brings some skills with them, and I’ve picked up the odd skill here and there. I could buy skills, but haven’t yet, since I read I can earn a bunch of them for free in one of the other campaigns, and so far I’m getting by with my limited selection.

But staring at those skill bars, and prompted by someone (my mind is like a sieve) mentioning how skills interact with each other and the best way to build a set for your skill bar, my brain suddenly switched into collectible card game mode. So all my skills…those are like my deck of cards, and part of the fun of the game is collecting more. The skillbar is like a hand of cards that I can put together and will eventually tweak depending on circumstances and companions.

Right? Am I right, Guild War vets? I mean, obviously there’s a ton more to it than just this skill collecting/arranging sub-system…

Anyway, another new thing I learned was that you can have more than one hero with you. I have no idea how I got it into my head that you could only have one. Last night I did a Mission with a party of 6, even though I was playing alone. I had my character +3 heroes +1 NPC who was part of the mission +1 Fire Imp ally. Crazy fun!!

Though, *gasp* at one point I thought “This would be better with friends.”

I unlocked the mission that in turns unlocks Eye of the North, but I’m sort of engaged with the Nightfall story now so I’m not sure I want to divert. And the mission I did had a bonus objective that I screwed up, so I’ll want to go re-do that.

Still having a lot of fun…still kind of bemused at how I wound up here after all these years.

My next goal is getting better about giving Heroes orders. Right now I let them run around in default behavior, which means swarming whatever I’m attacking. I was reading the Wiki and apparently you can ‘lock’ them onto a target, which, combined with calling targets, could be pretty handy if I’m a fast enough mouse clicker!

Revisiting Guild Wars

Posted on by Nimgimli

I’m tired today. It’s my own fault, really. I was up too late playing video games (again). Will I never learn?

The only reason this is remotely interesting is because I was playing Guild Wars, a game that came out in 2005. A game that I’ve dutifully purchased every expansion for, yet never really played. I’ve tried to get into Guild Wars over and over again since it launched but it’s never ‘stuck’ with me.

Then this weekend I saw Scopique was playing it and that just sort of put it in my head again. I got to thinking about Guild Wars 2 and that mechanic where accomplishments you achieve in Guild Wars 1 will unlock stuff in Guild Wars 2. So I decided to give it another go.

Before I dove back in, I re-read Rubi Bayer’s excellent piece, Stop telling me how to get to 50 points when I only have 3 over at Massively. I also spent a lot of time using the Wiki to answer questions that came up, and browsed a bunch of Rubi’s other “Flameseeker Chronicles” to stuff my brain full of GW info.

I think every game that’s been on the market for a while needs a Rubi Bayer.

One of the things I learned was that I had a Fire Imp ready to be claimed, thanks to my purchase of one of the expansions. That little dude, while kind of a pain in the arse at times (he attacks any and everything he sees) really made my “party” of me and Koss (the first Hero you get in the Factions Nightfall [thanks for the correction, folks!] campaign) a lot more viable. And a lot more fun. That last time I tried Guild Wars my level 6 ass was being handed to me over and over. The Imp made it better.

Pretty soon I added a Monk henchman to keep me healed up, and I started to read quest texts more carefully, taking note of where they started and mentally assigning them a ‘level’ that way. I started doing a lot better, though I’m still probably spending skill points in dumb ways. But I feel like I’m getting a feel for the game. I got my dude from level 6 to level 10 which (get ready to laugh) is the highest level I’ve reading in Guild Wars.

Everyone has already at least tried Guild Wars, so I won’t go on about it much. But I just found it interesting that, 6 years after my initial purchase, and probably after a dozen false starts over those years, I’m finally enjoying the game.

PS Oh, one question for people who enjoy the game. Is the $10 (iirc) “Optional Missions” pack worth buying? And do I need it now or should I wait until I hit 20?

Vindictus!

Posted on by Nimgimli

I don’t even know myself anymore. First I got lured into Champions Online, and now I’ve been playing Vindictus. Once again, I blame Eric. Thank god that kid isn’t a drug dealer or I’d be a wreck. Not only does he have me back playing MMOs, but he has me *gasp* using voice chat and yakking away.

Anyway, if you’ve somehow missed it, Vindictus is an action-MO-RPG. No, I didn’t leave off an “M” by mistake..it isn’t massive. Well, the towns where you shop and craft are massive, but when you’re ready to actually play the game, it’s 4-man instances, similar to how Guild Wars handles it.

So, things I like about Vindictus:

  • It has a nice JRPG vibe to it, and I like JRPGs. There’s a sense that there’s a story here, though I’m too low level to have seen most of it.
  • It’s very respectful of your time. You hang out in a town, then teleport to a “Battle Quest” where you’ll fight. It takes 10-20 minutes to go through one of these, then you’re back in town. How fast you go through is a function of how much scrounging you want to do (you can break containers to get gold and items if you like) and how many people are in your party.
  • It’s fast paced. The actual combat is arcade-style rather than triggered skills and cool downs. Combo attacks, active dodging, stuff like that. A nice change from the more sedate pace of most MMORPGs I play.
  • It’s free. You can spend real money but so far I’m not really sure when I’ll get around to doing it. When I do, it’ll probably be for some vanity item rather than on something I need in order to progress.

The first time I played I was asked if I wanted to summon a mentor, or something like that. I did so, and was surprised that an actual player had teleported into my instance. And he was personable and helpful. Most of the time since I’ve been playing solo, but the few times I’ve jumped into other people’s missions I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the community. At worst, people have been silent.

The devs did a good job on removing drama from playing. If you see an item, grab it. Everyone else can grab it too. There’s no worry about loot ninjas or anything along those lines. Maybe I’ve just been lucky but so far Vindictus is dangerously close to turning me into a PUGger.

Last night Eric and I ran through 4 (I think) missions over the course of a couple of hours. Sometimes just him and I, once with a friend of his and once with a couple of strangers. It was all fun, and the game has the monster-pinata thing going on. You kill a boss mob and hope to get something good. If you don’t…well, just re-run the mission and try again!

I dunno if I’ll be playing this for months, but hey, it’s free! No commitment..just fun. Nothing wrong with that!

A dip into Champions Online: Free For All

Posted on by Nimgimli

Last night my buddy Eric (who you may know as BlamefulGecko) dragged me out of my self-imposed MMO exile and into Champions Online.

This isn’t the first time I played CO; I played at launch and even have a Lifetime Membership. But as with so many other MMOs I eventually lost interest and moved on to something else. According to the character select screen, it’d been 169 days since I last played my characters and if I recall correctly that was a 1 time log in during a welcome back week or something. Really it’s been since a few months after launch since I seriously played. (I still have my “Hall of Champions” listed over to the right, with some origin stories.)

Eric wanted to show me the new Episodes that Cryptic has been adding (similar to what they’ve done with Star Trek Online) so we did the first one. I probably didn’t get as much out of it as I should have, since I was feeling really clumsy and focused more on how to play than what was going on, but Eric did a great job of narrating the storyline as we played. It was a ton of fun!

Afterwards, Eric put on a fashion show of sorts, showing me his different characters and all the crazy-awesome costumes he’s created for them, including a lot of splashy bits that he’s either earned through playing or bought at the C-Store.

I found myself trying to remember why I’d stopped playing; I really enjoyed my visit to this comic book world. I might have to roll a new character to take through the tutorials and get my bearings that way, though. I’ve got unused points to spend, bags full of junk that I have no idea what to do with, and I was halfway through our play session before I remembered some powers work for as long as you hold down a key (and Eric had to remind me that you could ‘charge’ your travel power).

Everything old is new again, I guess. Thanks Eric!

Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising launches

Posted on by Nimgimli

Just a PSA to remind you all that Heatwave Interactive’s MMO Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising launches today. I guess there was a headstart program for those who pre-ordered, but I haven’t heard much about what’s going on.

I kind of liked G&H back when Perpetual Entertainment was developing it, but then it died. When Heatwave resurrected it, I liked it again for its old-school charm. But as the beta progressed, Heatwave modernized the game, which was probably a smart marketing move, but it kind of made the whole experience feel a bit too “me too” for my tastes. I liked it when I had to read the quest text in order to figure out where to go, for instance. But then they added a guide system to remove that challenge.

The Estate System sounded pretty interesting, but by the time that rolled around I was drifting away from MMOs and there wasn’t enough there to pull me back in. So I’m sitting out this launch, though I wish Heatwave the very best of luck.

The last time I played, and it was a while ago in beta, the combat engine was still kind of janky. I loved the gladiator’s (the class I was playing) animations when they flowed smoothly, but too often they’d stutter, or you could see models change from animated NPC to corpse. Likewise, in a quest that had me destroying cages, it was jarring to see the model switch abruptly from “intact cage” to “broken cage.” These just seemed like technical rough spots that hadn’t yet been polished out; I’m hoping they have been for launch.

I seem to be forming a pattern here. I liked Rift a lot more in beta, before they made it more marketable and mainstream, and same thing here. Maybe I need to re-sub to Dark Age of Camelot or something. Maybe what’s got me drifting away from MMOs is all the hand holding and lack of challenge?

Anyway, congrats to Heatwave for the launch! And again, here’s hoping the game finds its niche. I’ll come and give it a try eventually, when that MMO itch starts up again!

Gods & Heroes Dev Diary: Estates

Posted on by Nimgimli

The good folk at Heatwave Interactive reached out to me to see if I’d be interested in sharing some info about upcoming MMO Gods & Heroes with my readers, and of course I said I would. I haven’t personally found much time to get back into the beta (or any other games, really) since my previous post but I’m hoping to get more hands-on time this weekend.

This dev diary is about Estates. I know lots of MMO players who enjoy housing. Well Estates seem to be housing on steroids. It sounds as though you’ll spend time improving your estate; adding and improving buildings, and as the estate gets more elaborate you’ll get access to better minions. Sounds fun, at least on paper, and I can’t wait to see how it works in game.

The diary is also unique for another reason. As I mentioned, Gods & Heroes was in development by Perpetual before they gave up on it in order to focus on another game. Heatwave Interactive bought the unfinished game and are finishing what another team started. The devs here are pretty frank in referring to the things they’re fixing and improving. This isn’t a super-slick marketing-driven dev diary. It feels a lot more ‘real’ than most similar videos from other teams. I enjoyed it. I hope you do too.

The resurrection of Gods & Heroes

Posted on by Nimgimli

In October of 2006 I went out and picked up a copy of the now defunct Massive magazine (a short-lived publication from my one-time colleagues at Computer Games Magazine, nee Strategy Plus). Why? Because it had a code to get into the Gods & Heroes beta. G&H was an in-development MMO coming from Perpetual Publishing.

It took until August 2007, but I finally got into the beta. Along the way Sony Online Entertainment announced they’d be a “co-publisher” of the game. Then they backed away and said they’d be a marketer for it. Meanwhile Perpetual kept laying people off. Then in October of 2007, they canceled the game to focus on the other MMO they were working on: Star Trek Online. Needless to say, Perpetual never published STO: they went bankrupt and faded from existence.

Fast forward to February 2010, when Heatwave Interactive announced that they’d acquired the rights and assets for Gods & Heroes and were going to publish it in 2011.

Today I once again entered the beta of G&H, and what a strange experience it was. After a few minutes of playing I started recognizing areas I’d been to 4 years ago. The graphics feel kind of old (though they aren’t bad) and the gameplay feels a bit like a throwback. Quest NPCs have markers over their heads, but you have to read quest texts to know where to go to complete a task. There’re no “Go here to complete the quest” markers or anything like that.

I liked it, even if things felt kind of rough to me. One of the big draws of G&H is that you eventually form squads of yourself and NPC minions. I didn’t get too far into that now or in 2007. I got one minion and she’s essentially a DoT so far. A pet. We’ll see what things feel like when I have a few minions.

I can’t see G&H being a mainstream hit; it just doesn’t feel modern enough. But for us old-timers who were playing MMOs way before WoW came out (or who fondly remember Vanilla WoW), it might offer some nostalgic fun. I only played for about an hour so I can’t give any deep insight into the game yet. But I can’t help but hope that Heatwave carves out a niche for themselves. I was really disappointed when G&H was canceled and I’m delighted to see it getting a 2nd chance.

Wurm Online vs Real Life

Posted on by Nimgimli

Last night was my 3rd evening in Wurm Online. I once again had fun.

Before I went back to my wandering I took some time to work on skills. I chopped down a tree, then chopped the tree into logs, and then whittled the logs into shafts and staves. Then sawed up some planks. I didn’t have anything to do with this stuff…was just getting a feel for how long it took to do make things. It takes a long time.

It’s fun, don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t using the Wiki so I was just combining random items to see what I could make. During my time I got 1 point in lumberjacking and 1 point in hatchet. Since a free account is capped at skill level 20, I see I could play for a long time on a free account. My highest skill is forage, at 3. 🙂

Next I whittled up some kindling, started a fire and cooked up a lingonberry and garlic casserole. By the time I’d made two of those I was getting bored of sitting by the side of the road and decided to continue on with my adventure to find Moxie’s Cherryglade Farm. I got turned around early on and had to backtrack. I was cutting through someone’s estate when I turned around and *eep!* there was a person there!

I dunno why it startled me, but it really did. I felt a little bit guilty, like I shouldn’t be wandering around their property. Population density in Wurm is pretty low and to just stumble into another player in the middle of the woods was surprising. I told the person they had scared me, got a ‘LOL’ response and headed on.

Second time was a charm and soon I found the road through The Grand Steppe. It’s big! I was out in the middle of nowhere when I saw a couple of huge scorpion carcasses. I swallowed nervously. I don’t know what the death penalty is like but I’m pretty sure a bunny could kill me if it wanted to. I still have no clue how to fight. I assume I activate a weapon then right click on a mob? But that’s a guess. I looked around worried about live giant scorpions, but none were found.

As I continued on I saw more and more carcasses of things that could’ve killed me had they been alive. I was getting pretty thirsty by this time, and remembered Moxie warning me to get a good drink before I started my trip. And then shimmering in the distance I saw a barrel by the side of the road. I thought it was a mirage but no…some generous soul had taken the time to leave a barrel of good drinking water right out in the middle of the Steppe. I wished I could leave a note or something, thanking the person.

I headed on. Eventually the Steppes ended and I was in wilderness. I saw a settlement with smoke rising over it. I headed over to see what was cooking. Eep! Lava spiders were cooking. Well, they were smoking anyway! I ran as fast as I could but they took no heed of me. Onward then. A bit later I heard a wolf howling. Then a bear growling. I was whipping my head back and forth, trying to locate the vile things. And then I ‘heard’ (in chat) two adventurers talking. “There’s that damned wolf, want to go after it?” said one. “KK” said the other.

A few minutes later I came across the pair, and their two pet bears, standing over the carcass of a wolf. I waved and skirted past them, eyeing the bears anxiously. A few minutes later I came to a tower near Mist Lake and decided to call it a night.

Quite an adventure, eh? Or was it? I made 2 casseroles, earned 2 skill points and traveled a little ways across the world. That’s what I had to show for my evening’s gaming time.

I had a ton of fun, don’t get me wrong, but I can see my pace through the Wurm Online experience is going to be S-L-O-W as heck, given the limited amount of time I have for gaming these days. Ergo the title of this post.

Yesterday I was all set to throw some real money at the game in order to buy a deed and start building a cottage for myself, but now I’m thinking that’s a bit pre-emptive. It might be better for me to remain a wanderer while I gradually build up some skills so when (or if) I start to pay I’ll at least be able to make some progress in the building.

On the other hand, owning a plot has its own rewards. I can leave stuff laying around and it won’t poof, as far as I understand it. I can make it so no one else can chop my trees or forage my lands, so I’ll have a steady place to practice those skills. A “square” of land can only be foraged once every 24 hours (of real time I think) so it can be really hard to find a place to practice those foraging skills, and you seem to need to forage up a good amount of materials while starting out.

So I dunno. I’m a bit on the fence now. I absolutely find Wurm Online fascinating, but I find EVE Online fascinating too, but in practical terms I don’t have the time to play EVE, so I just limit my enjoyment to reading about it. Wurm might fit in that same box. I’m not writing it off yet, but it may be the kind of game I just read stories about, rather than playing. At least until life calms down a bit… which will probably be a few minutes after they pound that final nail in my coffin!! 🙂