Couldn't Help Myself

I was reading this interview on Gamespot with one of the designers of The Old Republic about how they (no surprise) want to cater to soloers and I get to the bottom and see this one, lone comment:

"In the last couple of months playing EQ2 I never grouped with anyone... most likely because there are relatively few groups that aren't guild affiliated. Same goes with WoW... I spent 95% of my time soloing. After awhile the repetitive gameplay gets boring and I quit... lets face it... MMO's are nothing but glorified chatrooms with simplistic gameplay. Guess I don't have leet chat skills :/"

I know this is more of the same: former mmo players who burned out and now love to bitch about how bad or boring the games are, but it's also just really funny. As much as I'm constantly disturbed by people who hate on this genre for no decent reason, that comment gave me a chuckle.

In other, sad news: Dungeon Runners is closing. NC Soft is doing what they do best and shutting down another game. I don't know how successful this game ever was, but I do have some fond memories of it being a good hack-n-slash free to play game. The art style took its cues from WoW and the gameplay was a take on Diablo, plus it had a really over the top sense of humor, which was refreshing. As with any game, I'll be sad to see it go.

Finally, I'd like to direct anyone and everyone's attention over to Game Breakr the new podcast by Gary Gannon. He launched it this week at the Austin GDC and had a live feed going at UStream with guests ranging from developers to Virgin Worlds folks. A good time was had by all who watched. (Especially those of us who scored some free swag. I was lucky enough to win a Plantronics headset!!) So be sure to check him out, I think he's starting to do weekly podcast shows next week.

-Max

Good Old Fashioned Nightmare by Matt & Kim
Amazing song - enjoy!

DDOU First Week Impressions

Last week saw the re-release of Dungeons & Dragons: Online, a game that has been on my radar for some time. I've probably mentioned this before, but when I was looking for my first mmo, DDO was one that caught my interest, however I was never a subscriber. The announcement that it was going free to play, though, meant that I really had no excuse for not playing it anymore. So, it went live last week as Dungeons & Dragons Online: Unlimited (Eberron Stormreach blah blah blah) and on Friday night I used their little quick start downloader to jump right in. I haven't made it past the starter town, but wow I have really enjoyed my time there, so far.

With the flood of new players coming to the game, myself included, I just thought I'd draw up a short list of Likes and Dislikes. Bear in mind, it's the small things that matter.

Likes:

• Run Speed - This was may be the first thing I actually noticed about the game. After talking to that little thief on the beach I began to try out movement...and immediately stopped. I had hit W and before I knew it was halfway up the hill to the encampment. Your running is more like sprinting. Apparently every adventurer in the D&D universe has the athleticism of Usain Bolt and at lower levels, before mounts come into play, this is an excellent thing.
  


• Journey vs. Destination - The focus of this game is very squarely on adventuring and exploration. True to its license the game puts an emphasis on story and the journey you take to accomplish a task. Yeah, beating a dungeon boss is great, but just exploring all the instanced areas is a ton of fun for an exploration junkie like myself.
  


• DM Voice Over - This might actually be my single favorite feature of the game. I'd even go so far as to say that every fantasy mmo needs to have narration like this. This goes along with what I said previously about journey and adventuring. It feels so much more immersive and epic, as if you were reading a book.
  


• Integrated Voice Chat - I'll just show how much of a noob I am and say that I never used voice chat in an mmo until I grouped with some people in this game. I know vent and teamspeak are considered the programs to use, but for casual folks like me this is a great feature. It seems that every big budget mmo *cough* WoW *cough* needs to have this feature.
  


• Climbing/Vertical Movement - Look, my avatar realized he has arms...and they aren't just for swinging a sword! Apparently vertical movement doesn't have to be limited to walking up steps or the side of a mountain...who knew?!
  


• Graphics - Unfortunately, my main gaming machine for the time being is a Dell Inspiron laptop with an integrated graphics card, so not a whole lot runs on it, or runs well on it. WoW runs so-so at low settings, Guild Wars the same, Free Realms actually runs something awful unless I crank down all the settings and stay away from high pop. areas. DDOU, however, runs great! Even with the settings on medium to high it still runs smooth and doesn't look half bad. That's big points in my book.
  


• Knows its Name - It's incredible how many games don't follow through on the promise of their name, you would think it's such a simple task. In DDOU you wake up ship wrecked on the shore, look up into the sky and you will see a dragon (check one) flying overhead. Follow the path up past the encampment and you enter a dungeon (check two) for the starting/training area. The game designers aren't wasting my time and for that I applaud them.
  


• Plenty of People - Obviously, this is mostly due to the free re-release and I don't know how large the community was before last week (although I could guess it was much smaller), but I hope the population stays high. A game this good deserves to be played by as many people as possible.

• Instances - As always, there are pros and cons to heavily instanced games like this, but what I really like are the details and options DDO gives you about its instancing. When you click to go into a dungeon a screen pops up asking if you want it set for 'solo', 'normal', 'hard', or 'elite' difficulty and tells you very roughly how long the instance will take. This is good for those (like myself) who have a more pop-in and out playstyle.
  

• IT'S FREE! - No one can argue that free isn't a good thing, especially in the case of this game. I would probably never have played it otherwise and now I'm even thinking of giving Turbine a bit of my money. If I wasn't so busy and could devote more time to the game with a steady group then they might even be able to pull the monthly sub out of me. Free to play and RMT are very obviously the way of the future for online games and Turbine seem to realize this. I wish this game nothing but success and hope that other companies see DDO as the start of big budget games going free to play with plenty of payment options.

Dislikes:

• Class Difficulties - At least the game is up front about it. From the start of the character and class creation menu they let you know that some classes are better and some worse in trying to solo stuff. Unfortunately, and probably accurately, caster classes do not fare well by themselves. Sadly, I'm partial to mages so I rolled a Wizard out of the gate and have been running when a group of more than four mobs comes after me. Even at the solo difficulty setting I've still been getting steamrolled by those damn Soughagan. At least I run like a championship track star.


• Instances - As I said above, there are pros and cons to instancing. Aside from the towns (and even within some towns) this game comprises a metric ton of instances. In this respect it could easily be Guild Wars with a different coat of paint. Even though it goes against the idea of the IP, I just can't help but wonder what this game would have been like as a persistent world.
  


• Complicated as Hell - I've never actually played a game of D&D so when I looked at my character sheet for the first time I was totally overwhelmed by all those stats. How does each stat affect how my character players? How do they determine the number of spells I'm allowed to memorize? How do I learn new spells? What is the story on action points and should I be spending them down a certain lane similar to Talent Points? These are just a few of the questions flooding my head whenever I look at the character sheet.

Anyway, I hope everyone is enjoying the game...and if you, for some crazy reason, have not downloaded this game yet, then what are you waiting for? It's free! That last part really cannot be stressed enough. This is an excellent game.

If anyone wants to group up sometime, I can be found on the Khyber server with the rest of the MMO Voices folks. My character is named Maxian Flaco.

-Max

School, Among Other Things

Hi.

Sorry for the prolonged silence. My fall classes started a couple weeks ago so I've been pretty busy with those. I'm taking creative writing and that has sort of been sapping up all my will to write anything.

I haven't been playing much either, just two games. Although, I have been greatly enjoying just those two, so that's all that matters. The first one is a browser based mmo called Ikariam. Beau over at MMO Voices organized it as the current site-wide game, so (mostly) because there was no download I decided to be social and give it a shot. It has definitely reawakened my inner colonial and town builder. Back in the sixth grade my junior high had drawings every Friday during lunch for random prizes. It was mostly stupid stuff like pencils and knick knack-y things, but every once in a while they would have fun stuff like an (original) Xbox or stereo or something. On a particular Friday one of the lesser prizes was a little game called 1602 A.D. I put all of my tickets, which was like five, in to this one drawing and ended up winning. I get the feeling no one else actually entered. It was their loss; this game was awesome. To sum it up simply - and it was a pretty simple game - you colonized islands. There were certain mission goals you could achieve, or you could just play until the game stopped finding crap to throw at your settlers, or all your settlers died. I mostly played the later kind of game. I love these kind of "sit and knit" games where you throw out some instructions every once in a while and watch what happens. This is pretty much what Ikariam is only it's in a Greek setting and even slower paced. If you want to find me I'm on the U.S Iota server (there are Brit and U.S. servers and they don't tell you there's a difference) at the coordinates 63:61, my town's name is Solarium.

The other game I've been playing is The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. I've had this game forever - and yes I know there's a sequel out now - but I've never bothered beating it. So, I thought I'd just start over and see how far I could get on this long weekend. So far I have killed tens...of hundreds of rats, ha.

Anyway, I hope all is well and I will probably be back sometime in the near future, hopefully to finish up one of those two-part articles I started a while back.

-Max

Titles that Make me Giddy

Van Hemlock posted his podcast question earlier today for their next recording session, it is as follows:

"Lot of Grump on the Blogoweb of late. Help cheer me up! What's the most positive thing thats happened to you this month?"

I would assume he means mmo bloggers are being their usual dour selves...but lets take a short look at a few reasons (games) to not be grumpy! These are the upcoming titles - excluding expansions - that I am most looking forward to, which will, *fingers crossed* be coming out within a year.

New IPs:

Gatheryn - Lets just be honest, it looks like crap. However, this is the only non-Asian, steam punk mmo coming out and that alone should be justification to anticipate it. The steam punk genre is morbidly under represented in video games these days. What interests me most about this game is its focus on community and games, rather than combat. My hope for this game is that it gives us something of a Free Realms-esq experience: collecting, exploration, medium to large community (hey, it will be free to play, so I can dream, can't I?), while milking steam punk imagery for all its worth. Oh, and did I mention it will be free? AND have player housing? It is currently in open beta and I've been teetering on the edge of checking it out, bugs and all. But, I think I'll wait until the kinks have been worked out, so as to get the best possible first impression. Regardless, it is one to watch!

Fallen Earth - Even though I'm a fan of post-apocalyptic storytelling and a ton of the things I have heard lately about this game sound incredible (the crafting, virus instead of nukes, the location), I probably won't ever have the chance to play it. Alas, my computer. That being said, I'm still excited for it. We have yet to see a good PA mmo and despite the inevitable Fallout comparisons that will come in a few weeks when it launches, this game will definitely fill a niche. Hopefully, it does well in its own right and paves the way for an actual Fallout mmo. These days you can never have enough online games that aren't fantasy rpgs.

Sequels or Old IPs:

Star Wars: The Old Republic - Seriously, how can you not be at least somewhat excited for this game? Maybe the hype switch in the back of my neck is just set opposite of everyone else's, but every piece of information on this game that comes to light manages to make me even more excited for it! Now there is even a rumor of player housing! After that four part video that came out this week everyone was complaining that, "oh combat looks so boring." Well, it doesn't look any more "boring" that combat in WoW and I happen to enjoy killing things in that game, I mean, that's what it's all about.... However, I do think combat in SWTOR will be more involved and probably more like AOC than WoW. And have you heard about the story? Or the full voice acting (which was admitedly a little wonky in the latest video)? The only concern I have for this game is how massively multiplayer it will actually end up being. To have as deep a story as Bioware claims to have, it would seem that they would need to lean heavily on instancing, but they are Bioware, so maybe they found a workaround.

Lego Universe - When I heard that they were making a Lego mmo my childhood came flooding back to me in a pile of multicolored, interconnecting blocks. I only want two things out of this game: 1.) For it to be free to play. 2.) To be able to build just about anything my mind can think up. It wouldn't truly be Lego, unless you could literally build whatever you wanted. Here is a recent article from Wired that I admit I have not had the chance to fully peruse. Also, the logo is totally awesome.

Dungeons and Dragons Online Unlimited - While this is not exactly a new game, the coming version of it will certainly be new enough to those that have never played it before. When I first started playing mmos I shopped around before settling on WoW and one of the games I read up on was DDO. I thought, "Dungeons and Dragons, the original role playing game, how can I go wrong?" I didn't end up buying then, but as soon as Turbine releases their free to play client they can count me in as a subscriber. Yes, I'm one of those folks who thought it looked interesting, would liked to have played the game, but could never justify shelling out $15 a month for something that didn't get totally solid reviews. (Not to mention, their free trial wanted your credit card. Nuh, uh.) But, when this game relaunches in early September, I will be there!

Guild Wars 2 - Even though I have played and enjoyed Nightfall, this game was no where on my radar, because up until last week no one knew anything about it. Of course that all changed, when ArenaNet put out a darn good trailer. Hopefully the trickle of info on this game will become steadier now that hype is starting to build. To be honest, I think NC Soft needs something to bring them out of the fall they are in (Aion won't be it) and this is the best chance they've got. Fortunately, it's an extremely good chance. Also, I should say that there is absolutely no reason to believe that this game will come out within a year from now (like I stipulated above), other than my own wishful thinking. :)

Jumpgate Evolution - The only thing I know about this game is that you fly a space ship and things go KABOOM...and it's not Eve. That works for me. The launch was recently delayed so that they could change the economy to be player driven, not unlike another space ship mmo. I hope that they aren't trying to directly challenge Eve, though, because from what little I know about both games, they seem to be operating on entirely different levels. One is about charts and mining and large groups of players fighting other large groups of players. While the other one is not about charts, or mining, just shooting things and watching the beautiful space scenery. Jumpgate may or may not involve large scale battles, I could not tell ya. For my money though, that is the one idea they should borrow from Eve.

Hello Kitty Online - Juuuuuuuuuuuuuust kidding!! But really, wouldn't we all rather play Hello Kitty Island Adventure?

Well folks, that is it on the games I'm most excited for (and reasons to not be a grumpy blogger bump on a log). Hopefully they all come out sooner rather than later and completed rather than crap.

-Max

I love this song and I love this video. They just look so happy!
Matt & Kim "Daylight"

Short and Sweet...

Just wanted to say a quick blip about MMO Voices, a really exceptional social network put together by Beau and Leala of Spouse Aggro. It's pretty much Facebook for mmo's with an emphasis on blogs. The community is a healthy 114 strong at the time of this post and still growing. So, if you check it out and decide to join be sure to send me a friend request, I'm the only member named Max...haha! I've been posting a few of my blog over there also, from time to time.

See you there.

-Max

No music, but I'm continually updating my blog list on the right hand side of the page, if you are looking for any interesting reading, then check those out!

Warning:

Felicia Day you are about to be replaced as my numero uno nerd crush. I was reading my favorite, non-mmo news site the other day, The Daily Beast, and stumbled across an article on celebrity World of Warcraft players. Apparently, Mila Kunis, who starred in one of my all time favorite movies (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) plays WoW! AND she's a mage! Could she be any more attractive? I think not.

Suprisingly enough, Macaulay Culkin, Dave Chappelle, Vin Diesel, and Elijah Wood also play.

It's always odd - like watching a dog walk on its hind legs - when the mainstream media decides to cover mmos. The article is worth a quick read, if only for a laugh.

-Max

I Pick the Best Days to Be Away from the Internet

I take a few days off to travel and look at all the info that drops!

Pigs do in fact fly. I was beginning to think they would never announce this game's imminent playability, but apparently miracles do happen. I've learned, in a very roundabout way, to love the first Guild Wars for what it is, so I can only hope that this sequel improves upon the things its predecessor did so well. You really can't go wrong with adding the ability to jump!

And entire worlds get ripped asunder! Arguably the biggest game announced this week. Certainly the most exciting one for myself. Although, I can't help but feel bad for Dust 514 and GW2, this whole WoW announcement has stolen most of their thunder, at least in the press. But this new expansion, along with TOR has pretty much convinced me that I'm going to need a bigger boat...oh ahem, I mean a better laptop. An idea has occurred to me though, that I haven't seen much discussed anywhere else. I've been rather adamant for the last several months now that the new Star Wars mmo and the next World of Warcraft expansion will launch very closely together, but the announcement of Cataclysm adds another facet of competition between the two games. Is it just me or does it seem like this next WoW expansion seems to be focusing on story and a really awesome one at that? You know, like, just how SWTOR is supposed to be heavily focused on story? In my opinion the writers at Blizzard are really outdoing themselves bringing Deathwing back in a huge way and also aligning Worgen to the Alliance through Gilneas and finally letting us play Goblins! It is becoming more apparent with each announcement that these two games are going to be directly competing and anyone who thinks otherwise is sadly mistaken.

With the majority of these games currently set to release in 2010, next year is looking to be huge.

On a side note, this is what I was doing over the week. Real life can be pretty amazing when we choose to look beyond our monitors:


















Hamilton Pool, Tx


-Max

Oh, and by the way, Carla Bruni!
I have no idea what she is singing, but, thankfully, beauty has the ability to transcend language