Champions Online Free Weekend Clusterfudge
I've been wanting to play Champions Online so I can relive some of my more glorious pre-teen fantasies fighting evil as a costumed hero. But while the game looks pretty and all, all the complaints have largely kept me away.
I don't really follow the game, so it came as a pleasant surprise the past Thor's day when I noticed CO on my Steam games list with the note: Free Weekend. Hot damn, I thought to myself, but considering it is Halloween and I have family obligations and a thousand other distractions I decided to wait and see if I could scratch up a few extra hours on Sunday.
Well, coming back now to see how things are going looks like I dodged a massive frustration bullet - apparently few people are able to actually download the patch to experience the trial.
So what is the deal with Cryptic? It seems like a ball got dropped somewhere in the relatively short life of CO and nobody is willing to deal with it. I have no idea, but if I had to guess I would say it looks like they are throwing CO under the bus to focus on Star Trek Online. Of course, if CO is how they run a game why in the world would I bother with STO?
Ryzom, Part 1
I was going to post this yesterday but life has a way of taking over sometimes. For the same reason I didn't log into Ryzom (let alone anything else, work included) yesterday. Oh well, hopefully I will be able to catch up on both some work and some Atys exploration tonight.
Below are some features I noticed about that game being a total nub. Not really a review and certainly not comprehensive or a guide to playing the game, but I hope it is useful to anyone thinking about trying the game.
First day in Atys: Silan
After creating a character, you arrive in the newb area - Silan. After playing a few hours in this area and getting a few skills up to the mid-teens in level, I got a hang of the basic game mechanics but still had a pretty vague idea about the game's story.
What I mean by that is that while the background and premise of the story is fairly well presented along with the details of your race's background and character, I'm still not entirely sure why little Fortuente my Trickster-King-Monkey-looking Tryker is in Silan in the first place and why he is supposed to be here.
Also, races in Ryzom are called Homins. So far it seems like they almost function the way a class might in a class-based MMORPG, but not really. They are the only way to really differentiate your character (aside from typical hair, face, etc.) as any homin can learn any skill, but as far as I can see so far this mainly comes down to the starting area after leaving Silan.
My first time dieing in Ryzom ... from harvesting.
Skills
Ryzom is a skill-based system - there are four main trees: Combat, Magic, Crafting and Harvesting. There are "levels" in each skill but the levels only exist to unlock training points - you get 10 for each level. You then use the training points to buy new Actions (things you can do related to the skill) or Upgrades (upgrades to Actions or stats like Strength).
I'm still sorting the system out for myself, but I would say that is it in a nutshell. I'm enjoying their modular action system. Every action in the game, whether it is attacking, crafting, etc. is a actually a set of commands (called a Stanza) that can be customized - this is where buying Actions and Upgrades comes into play as they form the building blocks. If you are familiar with Vanguard, it is almost identical to the system used to create custom Bard songs. But applied to everything. Pretty awesome.
And those four main skill sets I mentioned are completely equal to each other, in terms of gameplay. Or at least that is how it seems so far. While I am not sure as a level 100 Harvest / level 20 Combat I will be able to take on the same foes a level 100 Combat person could, I have the feeling I would not have too difficult a time still making my way through a part of the world with them in it. This might be a misconception of mine, we'll see.
At any rate, the system appears to be set up so that while each skill set has it's differences they are at the end of the day make for at least more or less equal characters. I feel like I am wrong about this, also, but it also appears so far as their might be nothing but time holding one back from attaining high levels in all the skills. I'm still not sure how that works, though.
of Harvesting and Dieing
So if you read the caption above, you'll see that Fortuente the Tryker is suffering from res sickness after dieing and I mention it was to - harvesting? If you are wondering, no I did not get aggro or ganked while I was harvesting a resource - I died from harvesting the resource.
Harvesting in Ryzom is a whole different ball of wax than any other MMO I have yet to experience. It is treated basically the same as hunting mobs. You can either find nodes that randomly pop up and before fading away around the landscape or use the Prospecting skill to look bring them out of the ground manually.
When harvesting a node, it has a range of stats (which I still haven't completely figured out yet) that all interact with your Harvesting Action (i.e. the skills and modifiers within the stanza you created). One of these is the health of a node, which determines how much you can extract from it, another is - I'm not sure what it is called - but it measures the volatility of a node. If you are harvesting and this stat reaches zero the node will erupt, spewing toxic gas or somesuch stuff that will deplete the health your character over time.
And it is damage over time, as your character continues to harvest after the eruption until the node's timer runs out. I experienced my first death because I wasn't paying attention and let my health go to zero. Oops!
There is penalty for dieing, and out of all the death penalties I've run across it is the one I am personally most comfortable with - the xp deficit system. That is, if you die you do not lose experience but rather have a certain amount that you must earn before you are able to advance in levels again.
Basic Crafting in Ryzom
One last thing before I end this post with a "Too Be Continued:" Crafting. So far it appears almost identical to crafting in Star Wars Galaxies. I'm sure they have their differences, but the similarities were such that at a basic level I found them almost identical.
A big difference, of course, is that crafting is also subject to the modular action system, so you can customize your items generally from that stage. But there is also a stage where you are able to craft your items with whatever appropriate material you have on-hand, which in turn creates items with varying strengths and weaknesses. Crafting in Ryzom is looking very promising indeed.
I'm going to end it there. Like I said, hopefully tonight I will be able to get in some time in the game and assuming I do I'll pick up in another post where I left off.
A New(ish) MMORPG
So the past week or two I have begun casting about for a new MMORPG to waste my time with. Currently I only play Lord of the Rings Online, and my opportunities to log into that have been few and far between so I am not sure why I am bothering.
I have a lot to do in "real life" (I'm a parent) so I really have little time to play any MMO grind-game. But still I am called back, mostly because of my love of virtual worlds (at least those where you can actually do something) and my desire to defeat the forces of virtual evil (has to be virtual evil since Dick Cheney's security detail would crush me in a second making any thrown pies or rotten fruit a semi-worthless gesture).
So I have been strongly considering Darkfall, partly out of pre-existing curiosity but largely due to Syncaine's writing about it. I have also been on-again/off-again following the development of Fallen Earth, which was just relased yesterday. However, the $50+subscription price tag for both of those games has really put me off.
I'm pretty cheap like that, but more than just cheapness is guiding these feelings. Mainly, I think, it is because of the Warhammer release. Yes, I shelled out almost $60 for that steaming pile. Yes, by the end of open beta I was sick of it and played for maybe a week after only to never pick it up again. That's near-$60 wasted. Completely. To me we are now in fool-me-once territory, considering the disaster that was Age of Conan (which I fortunately missed) and the generally crappy reputation MMORPG as an industry has for technical issues.
Combine this with cookie-cutter gameplay, shallow, story-lite immersion and the fact MMOs have overtaken competitive FPSs as asshat-sinks (who would have thought in 2004 that WoW would become the new CounterStrike?) and I am largely over MMOs in general. Yet still I keep getting called back ...
So at this point I basically won't try anything without a trial, and even then I can be pretty unforgiving. So while I have been looking pretty strongly at Fallen Earth (I still might have to plunk down those 50 bones), I have looked beyond for greener pastures and have come up with ... Saga of Ryzom?
I had wanted to try out Ryzom quite a while ago, but the seemingly-perpetual business problems surrounding it sadly left it a game in limbo for longer than my attention span would allow me to follow it. While it looked like a really good game, it also seemed destined for nothing more than the dustbin of MMORPG history.
Imagine my surprise then hearing people recommending it on forums as an alternative to Fallen Earth. And here I thought it was dead and gone ... but no! As of late May of this year the game has come back under the ownership of Winch Gate Property from that magical island Cyprus.
It is still too early to tell, as I have only one night in, but I have decided to stick with it at least for the next two weeks. Everyone starts with a three-week trial then if you continue you are charged a little more than $10 a month with no buy-in fee. It's a subscription, but not too bad a price overall.
So far the main thing I have noticed is that there is no jumping, whether off cliffs or merely a foot off the ground. This actually bothers me a lot and might normally be a deal-breaker (I know I'm a little crazy like that), but I'll stick through it to see the rest of the game. I've heard it has some of the better crafting in the genre and ... drumroll ... you can actually create your own instances of the game world! I have yet to explore it so I do not yet know the particulars but I logged into the builder for a second, and yes it allows you to place mobs and terrain very reminiscent to the Neverwinter Nights module builder. Pretty damn exciting stuff if you're like me.
The character I am playing is an eponymously-named Tryker Gatherer. Hopefully by the end of today I will have a firm grasp on character progression and the basics of the game. I do know that while I picked the Gatherer package when creating little Fortuente, the sytem allows you to progress in any direction you desire. I have no firm goals at this point, as I do not know the system well enough, but my general plan is to make a gathering-crafter.
So where does that leave LOTRO? Well, I still like it even if I am a bit disenchanted with Turbine (arising from having to deal with their horrendous customer service because of DDO which has about caused me to swear off that game entirely even though it is "free"). I don't know, I recently paid up for my three months in LOTRO so I won't be actually quitting that game soon even if I don't manage to log in overmuch. But if Ryzom is a success with me then LOTRO has to deal with that, Team Fortress 2 and my city-builder addiction. But then, if I wasn't such a die-hard Tolkien fan and Turbine had gone in the phat-lewt direction with the game, I would probably have cut off LOTRO quite a while ago.
Thoughts on DDO beta so far
Ok, I know I promised to run down the basic character setup for W O T A N, the PBBG project I am working on. While I could consider myself tardy with that, whatever.
I am angsty over it because I have not been working on it as much as I would like lately. This is largely due to real-life concerns, but also to some semi-serious DDO beta playing. I truly wish I was insouciant enough to break the NDA regarding the various game changes (specifically the Turbine ((micro-transaction)) Store, but alas I won't. Though I think I will say a couple things.
There are some misconceptions floating around about the store and the role it plays in the game. Without going into specifics (that honestly are floating around out there from others who won't let an NDA hold them back) the store is not as "bad" as it seems most are currently making it out to be. Bad meaning it will kill the game.
There are some things available that I really don't think should be, there are some that I think should be available that others don't and there are some things most agree should or shouldn't be available. However, the one thing that stands out in my mind is that, with DDO at least, having all of this and more available in the shop would not really impact the overall game anyway.
What I am driving at, is that DDO has little or none of the community balancing issues that other "regular" MMOs face in terms of crafting and PVP. How does it honestly impact my game if your guild uses store-bought ********** on your raid? (edit: LOL, I actually typed out the full name of the item and caught it at the last second.)
Likewise, while I genuinely enjoy the DDO gameplay, I doubt I will ever be more than "casual" player so how does it impact that raiding guild's game if I choose to unlock certain game aspects by buying them rather than grinding them out with all that extra time I do not have?
I know I do not have the experience of having been following DDO for the past 40 months, however when I have played and what I have read lead me to believe it won't impact either of our games in the slightest. This is also where DDO's reliance on heavy instancing will be a strength.
In fact it is the instancing that has always made me see a little of Guild Wars in DDO. And that convinced me personally that DDO would probably fare better as f2p game - imagine my surprise and delight when they announced that very plan! I also wonder if that plays some part in what seems to be generally a warm reaction to the announcement. DDO never felt like a subscription-based game. Although with the hybrid-payment model they introduced I will probably find myself subbing an occasional month here and there where otherwise I might not have.
Also to clear up a misconception I have read more than once that should not violate the NDA, yes it will be possible to grind all of the important content (you might have to prioritize and forgo some cosmetics or other non-essential stuff). And I am sure there will be some people who do it. I also highly doubt it will be easy or go quickly.
At this point the general Turbine Point-to-dollar ratio is not heavily favorable for those seeking the entirely free route (for obvious reasons, i.e. running a game costs money and if a business doesn't make money it isn't a business), but it can be done. And it becomes easier the more paid shortcuts you take - and easy here is not defined in terms of "gaming skill" but in terms of "grind." (Given the nature of a few store options some might contest this point.)
Well, gotta cut this short - real life beckons. Time to go tie the hangman's noose.
DDO Beta
Hooray! I got into the DDO relaunch beta. The Lammania client is downloading as we speak. I'll make sure to take notes so I can post them as soon as the NDA is lifted.
Also, work on the basic character sheet for W O T A N is almost complete. I ran into a snag structuring the character creation process having to do with my noobish attempts to take my database to as clost to 3N as possible. While I believe I am structuring my database in decent (if not good) way, it is forcing me already to make certain decisions with my programming logic. In this case, the character table is divided into sections like stats, money, skills, inventory, et cetera. Each section has its own table with an ID that is written to the character table. So far so good.
But that means I either can't make the character creation process a 1-click affair, or it would be difficult for me to write it in an expedient fashion because each dependent table requires the character ID which isn't created until the character row is inserted into the character table.I suppose its a quasi- chicken/egg situation.
So I need to split the character creation process into stages. But I had each stage writing itself into the appropriate table, meaning if someone got halfway through and quit, it would create one or more orphan rows in the database. I can see this would be common user behavior, so I could also see my database growing to enormous size with junk data.
So before going to bed last night I decided I would make character creation two-stage: first the name and physical description is entered and then the user can fill out the details at their leisure. I'm not sure if it is the optimal solution, but it should work and it feels more "rp" to me at any rate.
Speaking of old-school rp mechanics and potential user abuse: I am still going ahead with a random-roll stat creation process. Meaning if you roll an 18 for strength you get an 18, if you roll a 6 ... you're gonna be one weak barbarian. Assuming I stick with this system, I know most users are going to abuse the refresh button. Rather than try to prevent that behavior I am considering just designing around it to mitigate its impact on system resources. I have a strange nostalgic feeling for this "exploit" myself, so rather than lock it down or use a distributive point system, I am going to test out leaving it in. I still might move to a distributive system, though, as it has game-play benefits beyond preventing system abuse.
I need to get back to work now, but in the next post I am going to recreate a character sheet and explain the basics of what it means. I'm not sure if it will be final, as there might be more things to add or delete, but it should be pretty representational of what the final sheet will be. If you are interested in the W O T A N project and want to give some feedback, look for the post in the next day or two!
Another “What in the hell I have been up to” post
OK, I know I don't post very often. But does it matter? There are maybe one or two people tops that read this and I don't even know them (you). But I will continue to slog away regardless.
I have been playing World of Warcraft lately ... and am just about ready to call it quits again after only about a month of it. I am pretty much over that game, which saddens me to some degree, but I am running into all the same walls and most of the annoyances that has caused me to quit in the past.
Multiple servers - I know that logistically there is probably no other way to deal with this, but I hate the fact that WoW has 300-trillion different servers to choose from. I am not really happy at this point with my realm which I picked only to participate in a reroll guild. A reroll guild which has since utterly fallen apart, leaving me stranded on a server I don't want to be on. And do I really want to pay $25 to move a level 37 character to another server I might not like either? Do I really want to grind out 1-37 yet again (I've done it probably hundreds of times since 2005) just to be on a different realm? Answer is NO to both.
Boredom - I am bored to death with WoW. I'm not even sure where to start on this one, as it is so general and all-encompassing. I think a big part of it has to do with Blizzard's focus on developing the end-game rather than the whole-game. Where is the housing and the customizable clothing? Where is the actual enforcement of the (Blizzard mandated) RP rules on the RP servers? Where is the push to nurture and strengthen micro-communities like guilds, trade associations or even mercenary guilds within the game? And even though the 1-60 grind has been given quite the leveling speed boost, it is still a solo grind that I have done more times than I might care to admit. In other words the immersion in WoW is non-existent, and it still feels like I am paying to perform repetitive, mind-numbing and time-consuming tasks over a long period of time, not relax and have fun while being mentally stimulated.
Community - I hate to include this, because I really dislike trading in simplified stereotypes of people and their behavior. But damn. There are many kind, thoughtful people that play WoW, but sadly they get lost in a general glaze of immaturity. To me, however, this isn't even the biggest or most annoying aspect of the overall WoW community. It is rather a lonely feeling that one can expect to experience in the game without a pre-existing guild or by sheer luck of finding one.
This last is probably the biggest reason for my most recent cancellation. I took up the game again on a whim, trying out the WotLK trial to see how everything was going. I ended up becoming involved with a reroll guild that went quite fantastically at first. I actually enjoyed logging in and playing - and I mean actually playing with guild members in instances and in the open world not just "chatting."
Then of course everyone flaked. And now a month later the guild has about three or four individual players including myself. Now I find myself procrastinating when I should be logging in. Or I log into LOTRO (the Spring Festival and it's hedgerow maze has made that choice easy lately). Or I read reddit. Or I stare at the wall or google Doom Metal. Anything that does not involve me logging into a crowded ghost town.
I suppose that is in itself a feedback loop since I make it less likely I will find more people. But I find it hard to stay motivated as I'm not looking for a social chat club. Unfortunately that has been my experience more MMOs than just World of Warcraft, but WoW seems particularly bad with this aspect to me. That could also just be a combination of luck and personality on my part, however.
My account is still active, however, and I do log in when I make myself. Despite my focus on the negative aspects of the WoW experience, there are still a number of positives. The original magic is still there - that is the large, seamless world where you can climb a mountain, swim in the ocean and explore for hours and hours.
I quite enjoy the new achievement system, though achievements overall are becoming rather passe; perhaps I should say including achievements just to include them is passe. A well-done system is a pleasure, and I think Blizzard did at least implement a coherent system.
If I were able to wave a magic wand and give myself absolute power over the general development direction of WoW at this point, I think I would make immediate focus on refining the current guild system and developing new in-game community systems to bring people together more. I would also have the game tweaked to be far more rewarding to group play to give the new systems fertile soil in which to grow.
Personally I have always liked the LFG system for instances that was introduced way back when and don't really understand why hardly anyone uses it. Part of my magic wand initiative would be researching why exactly nobody uses it. I suspect there is a skewed reward/effort ratio in there somewhere.
Sadly there is probably nothing to be done at this point to fix the community fragmentation that occurs as a result of the multi-shard model that Blizzard uses. So I would play to the strengths of this model rather than wallow in its weaknesses. That is, introducing realms with slightly customized rulesets.
I always thought they should implement a fatigue XP negative bonus. In fact, having played Diablo, I was expecting it when I logged in to WoW the first time. What I mean by this is having a three-tiered XP system, rather than two. As it is now you earn a bonus rate of XP gain when logged out. With fatigue you earn a negative bonus XP rate the more you play, similar to how you go from rested to normal. So if you are grinding mobs for hours at a time, you eventually go from blue XP to purple XP to red XP, where you will be taking a small percentage hit to the XP you earn for mob kills.
So why not open a few realms with this mechanic in place and see what players make of it? We could also have one or two FFA PVP with full loot realms (of course with the caveat that the overall game would not be balanced for that play-style). One could think of these servers as being griefer-sinks like mounts are gold-sinks, lol.
OK, I am rambling so I'll cease. I am interested in hearing what you think about my ideas, so please leave a comment!
And Hell freezes over …
Well, not really. But my dear compatriots, it is with a sigh and a slight passing of gas I admit that I am once more on the World of Warwagon. After some months I have succumbed to my baser desires and resubbed, though I have yet to actually purchase the WotLK expansion.
Of course playing WoW isn't really a bad thing, per se - I am merely rather given to melodrama. But I do have genuine angst over it, not because I ever entertained any ridiculous addiction fantasies, but it did consume a large amount of my time for a few years. And I can't shake the feeling that was time wasted.
No, my good friends, I am also disabused of the Calvinist tomfoolery and materialist nonsensery my fellow Americans are so inured with, so I am not concerned that I could have been building a "career" or some such dribble.
I am also not in the slightest concerned for my social life, as I believe I have already experienced enough group revelry to tide me over for the rest of my life if need be (yes, I was a "partier" in my youth). I also have a young child to care for, so while I can sneak away to Azeroth every now and then without much of an impact, I can't really stay out all night then host a 2 a.m. after-party.
Mainly what I am getting at is that for the few years I was a hardcore Wowhead, I missed out on many genuinely good titles. I had found the One Game to rule them all, and everything else was cast to the wayside.
(NOTE: I originally wrote this on March 16, but saved it as a draft and forgot to publish it. It is now April 7, but I am publishing it under 03/16/09 anyway in a semi-unfinished state.)
Why should I pre-order Darkfall?
Well, well, well ...
Looks like Darkfall Online has finally entered pre-order. I have been considering trying this game out for some time now, but now that the time to actually put the proverbial money where my mouth is, I'm not sure if I will actually do it.
The biggest reason is probably the price: not expensive comparatively to everything out there, but still the ~$54 buy-in with obligatory $15/month subscription fee is coming at a pretty bad time. Then again, by this time next year it might be cheaper to play an MMO than eat. So why not take the plunge?
Another reason is, basically, what has come to be acceptable for an MMO launch. Meaning, often a steaming pile with an IOU tag affixed promising everyone the bugs will be fixed soon(tm). Why bother paying full-price for a game that may be wonderful, but is sure to fall into the range of non-optimal functionality to bug-ridden dung-heap?
I'm going to single Dungeons and Dragons Online out for a moment. While it's launch problems weren't the worst we have subsequently seen, it did have some issues.
Annoying graphical bugs and a client that stretched the average 2006 computer's abilities a tad too far (in my opinion). There was a backlash against it being an instanced MMO (which did not bother me), if I remember correctly. In fact, if memory serves, there was resistence to DDO's entire design from instancing to forced grouping. There was also a rather extreme dearth of content at release.
There were probably other issues I am not remember, but my aim isn't to rehash events of three years ago, but to point out that DDO has since risen up, refining it's design and adding many more things for people to do. The client works very well on newer computers and I'm sure they have streamlined it and the servers. In short, it isn't even remotely the mess it was at launch - quite the opposite.
The point of this is that I, like many others, paid $50 to launch DDO and subsequently $15 a month to fund this streamlining. As of now players still must pay $15 a month, but you can buy in to the game essentially for free. It costs $14.99 and you get the first month for free.
I did the same with Warhammer Online, and did not play past the first month. In fact, I barely lasted a few days out of open beta. So that was another ~$54 dollars basically wasted. Unless I want to give in to fanboyism and think that it was magically invested in some shadowy future entertainment I will be receiving - and paying each month for like everyone else.
So what is my incentive to fork over $50+ for Darkfall, or any other MMO coming out in the future? Why not just wait six months or a year and pick up the game for $5 (like EVE's $20 buy-in) or even free (like DDO's buy-in)? If the game doesn't survive a year, then would it have been worth the $50 in the first place?
Money is tight for me right now, no doubt about it. I have a pretty good feeling it is tight for a lot of other people as well - and if you aren't one of them enjoy it while you got it. Rich or poor, prudence pays with extra dividends.
I know there is a lot of resistance to the RMT and micro-transaction model. I agree in many ways to the various criticisms of it as well. I need to end this post so I don't want to drag it out, but instead leave you with two questions:
- Are micro-transactions the optimal payment method for online entertainment in a depressed economy in which many people survive on odd jobs rather than a steady paycheck?
- Can a game that uses micro-transactions to generate income make money in an as-unobtrusive way as a game based on a monthly subscription? (By as-unobtrusive, I mean not a psychological burden on the players in the form of over-advertising or an aggressively-designed system that penalizes those who do not spend large amounts of money.) What characteristics do you envision in an unobtrusive micro system?
OK, that was three questions. Have a good weekend and maybe I'll see you in Darkfall next week!
A way to make an FPS MMORPG work?
I wonder, has this topic been done to death yet? For many of us sundry MMOers, there exists a mythical land which one can often read or listen to us opine about. A land much like any other, full of scantily-clad shield maidens and snarling manticore. A land of mystery and danger. A land where one goes about their business clicking the mouse button and aiming rather than hitting tab and the keys 1-9.
The First Person Shooter Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. That's a mouthful. There have already been stabs at it, but largely it remains an Avalon for some of us. Without going into details of the various arguments for an against, I just want to share an idea I recently had.
First, context: I have been working on an off on my Pot Farming mod for Colonization and have been putting more time than I should into a couple other strategy games like Settlers 6, and the browser games Ikariam and Nile Online. If you have read back a few posts you will know all about it.
I am an RPG, and therefore to some degree, an MMORPG enthusiast. I have been rather disenchanted with the genre as a whole lately, however. Mainly after the WAR release. I like WAR, I just don't giving-$15/month-and-my-precious-time love it. With the exception of a few games like DDO (a truly different experience and a gem for it) and LOTRO (which has the "all who wander are not lost" ethic going to help mitigate any potential raid-fueled loot race), I am pretty much disenchanted with the entire genre.
Basically: I hate raiding and I am sorry if it offends anyone but PVP is a massive joke. I hate to be the one to say it, but if you want to PVP, play Counter Strike.
So what to do? How to rectify these conflicting emotions and disparate feelings? By daydreaming of an FPS (i.e. "real" twitch-based PVP) with all the ephemera of an RPG set in a massive world.
Probably the most often argument against such a game is that as soon as you introduce RPG elements, you lose twitch. And without RPG elements it won't be an RPG. Or something like that - essentially an FPS offers a technically even playing field and by introducing attributes and skills you destroy that. But without character building you won't have an RPG and more importantly you won't have any players.
This argument is very good, and I wholly subscribe to it. So rather than continue to butt heads against this wall, what other concept can we come up with?
Well, as I have been very much in resource/building strategy games, it has got me thinking about crafting in MMOs. Like I said, I like RPGs and Fortuente cannot live on strategy games alone. So I have focused my efforts into finding the ultimate crafting MMORPG.
I wanted to try Istaria (aka Horizons) which has a good reputation for crafting, but it doesn't work on Vista at the moment. Even more annoying is that it forces you into using Internet Explorer to launch the game. I suppose that is because superfluous stand-alone launchers and support for Vista are not important. Deleted.
Right now I am on a trial for Star Wars Galaxies (gasp!). I have to say, it is my first experience with the NGE and it is ... ghetto, for lack of a better expression. And that encompasses from the crappy clip-art interface to the thrown together hodge-podge classes. But I will endure it until the end as there is still some of that old magic lurking beneath and the crafting system is still quite good as crafting systems go. I might even sub for a while.
What does all this meandering mean? Going over countless forum posts for the best crafting MMO combined with my constant mental chatter debating ideas and strategies for Grow Tycoon, caused me to have a minor epiphany of sorts ... the PERFECT FPSMMORPG. According to me, at least.
First, lets shorten that damn title. What works? How about First Person Multiplayer Role Playing Game - FPMRPG. That works for now.
So in my idealized FPMRPG there are no combat skills what-so-ever. No Strength or Dexterity, no such thing as weapon specializations or talent trees. Nada, zilch - it's (mostly) all twitch, baby. But then if that is the case, where does the RPG come into play?
Ahhh, you notice I said no "combat" skills. In my Avalon there would still be hundreds - thousands - even of skills to train and use, but they would all be focused around crafting. It would be a game for a curious type of MMO gamer, the crafting PVPer.
Before when I said combat is mostly (not 100%) twitch-based, I said that because in this world there would still be some degree of itemization. A magic sword might make you swing faster, and enchanted bow might expand your opponents' hit boxes slightly or an enchanted shield might wear out more slowly. There would certainly be healing and energy potions as well (although every FPS I can think of has something like that already).
Being a 100% crafting and resource-gathering economy, there will be no repair of items, only salvage for new ones. Crafting would encompass everything (kinda like SWG) from castles to ploughs to farming. Breeding animals would be part of the crafting. I am envisioning a crafter's paradise, here.
So what do you think? Would a combat-based FPS MMORPG actually work as an RPG without combat-based skills and stats? And assuming the crafting system made every other system since look like weak sauce could such a game actually find a niche to be successful in?
Darkfall Crafting
I have a confession to make ... ok two.
First, I have actually been following the development of Darkfall for a just little while now (no, I am not an '04er), even though the sundry cries of "vaporware!" still ring throughout the mmorpg landscape. I don't care, if it comes out I'll try it and if it doesn't, I'll just keep on with LOTRO and maybe take up Vanguard again (whatever other problems VG has, it definitely has my favorite crafting system).
My other confession is not really a confession, but a declaration: I love being a explorer/resource-gatherer.
What I mean is, the biggest treat for me in an mmorpg setting is exploration. The large, seamless world is what hooked me on WoW, without a doubt. I mean, you can run across an entire continent then swim out into the ocean and keep going until you die of exposure - that was, by far, the source of WoW-crackness for me. Resource-gathering is practically a corollary to exploration and has grown as a habit for me over the various MMOs I have played.
But perhaps as a tangent to my love of exploration and gathering, I also quite like crafting in games, especially in online games for the economic aspect of selling your wares or services. And for some reason I am one of those people who find it a more fulfilling activity than pvp or (gasp! retch!) raiding. Though of course I appreciate both of those activities because they provide the economic stimulus for said wares and services.
I am thinking about all of this because of a post made on Forumfall that has me thinking about crafting in Darkfall. Perhaps it was just a troll - or maybe not. But it got me thinking about as someone else mentioned resource gathering in Star Wars Galaxies - putting down thumpers and collecting hides. Good, good times, but alas so brief for me (I got in then left just before the NGE hit).
When looking around, typical to Aventurine's lackluster public relations, there wasn't much on the subject, though all does not appear to be so bleak. I also came across some burgeoning crafting communities like Darkfall Merchants Association.
Interestingly, I never got into mining in EVE. Maybe that would have helped keep my attention longer?
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