What I’ve been up to lately
I haven't made a post in a little while, so I want to catch up my multiple personalities (and anyone else who is interested) on what is going on with my hobbiest/permanent vacation lifestyle.
Strategy Gaming:
I still consider myself to be working on Grow Tycoon, my pot-growing Colonization mod. I have also taken on the duty of rewriting the Civilopedia for the Colonization mod Mare Nostrum. It's a (relatively) simple reworking of Colonization to fit the world of the Mediterranean Sea around roughly 700-300 BCE (if I remember correctly).
Right now I am basically copying Colonization's civilopedia into spreadsheet form, listing important XML files and tags with their appropriate entries. I figure having this will streamline the actual editing of the XML files and help ensure consistency for both these and any future mods. Of course, I am making these available to anyone who wants to use them via Google Docs.
I am slowly becoming addicted to both Nile Online and Ikariam. For someone without a desk job, I am spending far too much time obsessing over my monument's limestone production and the technology levels of my colonies' phalanxes.
I've also found myself craving sessions in Hinterland and Disciples 2. I had almost forgot how much I love Disciples ... I wonder when the new one is coming out?
MMORPGs:
Not much to report here, really. I am still playing Lord of the Rings Online and I still don't have a level 50 (not to mention 60) character, though I am a bit more focused on that as I really want to finally get down into Moria. Or maybe I'm a little afraid of those drums in the dark and I am subsconciously keeping my leveling at a snail's pace. Naaahhh. I'm a friggin Elven Lore Master from Mirkwood, what do I have to be nervous about? Right?
I have taken up playing the MUD Lusternia: Age of Ascension. Talk about a steep learning curve ... but then again I quite literally haven't seriously played a text-based game since the 1980s. Man, have I been missing out.
This is my first "real" MUD (or MUSH or whatever), and I am having a pretty good time with it. I think a lot of it is nostalgia for my textual childhood combined with the appeal of a modern MMORPG - in fact, the only thing Lusternia (or any of the various other popular MUDs) lacks is the graphics. Everything else - titles, achievements, crafting, pvp, housing, cosmetic clothing, etc. - is there with far more to boot.
In fact, in Lusternia I have finally found a game that not only lets my character smoke, and not only lets various herbs and pipes give him buffs, but even to a degree requires him to smoke to take advantage of those buffs in combat. Any game that lets me have a pipe hanging out of my mouth while I am sticking my claymore through an orc is sure-fire winner in my book.
I allowed my Star Wars Galaxies trial to lapse. I think it probably still has the best crafting in the MMORPG genre, but sadly it is a game that reeks of death. I found the animations poor (and not because they are old, just poor - like when a mob starts running to you, disappears then reappears dead at your feet).
There also seems to be a prevailing opinion amongst (some) players that the optional trading card game and the in-game perks you can win by buying virtual decks will ruin crafting and is a cynical attempt at "RMT" - even worse, since buying a pack of these virtual cards won't guarantee you an item. Therefore there will be plenty of players with uber gear - the same players who can afford to lay out hundreds of dollars on starter packs to find that one random item.
As you know if you read the last post, I was considering pre-ordering Darkfall. Well, if you have followed that game's launch at all, you will understand me when I say I am very glad I decided against it. Though I will point out it is not simply because of what the various users of MMORPG.com have to say about it (I believe Obi Wan would refer to that site as a "hive of scum and trollery").
The poor launch does not irk me in the least, strangely. And I say that even considering if I was one of the lucky few to pre-order. Aventurine's utter lack of any meaningful public relations is annoying and precludes me from finding them really trustworthy, but at the same time I can understand it as a tactic if they are purposely trying to keep the game small and want to turn people away without appearing to be turning them away. Bad way to do it, but I can understand.
I am bothered by the reports of botting, speedhacking and macroing. If the game is truly as PVP-focused as it is said to be, then this cheating can and will truly kill it dead. In the non-MMO world a single cheater can cause an entire server to clear out and constant cheating will earn the server a reputation that ensures nobody will ever want to play on it again. But even this, at this point, doesn't make me not want to get the game (it's still too early to really tell).
Overall, I think it's the players. Considering the type of posts one can expect to read on the Darkfall Forums and taking into account the stereotypical player of a heavy-pvp game, I'm not sure if I will ever play this game.
Ahh, who am I kidding? But I'm definitely waiting for the jury to be out on this one.
Everything Else:
I took advantage of Steam sale on Lost Planet: Extreme Condition. We'll see how that goes, as it is not my usual sort of game. But hey, it was $5 and lets you blow apart monsters in an arctic wasteland. Thanks to its handy tool, I already benchmarked it and get passable frames-per-second (~85 snow, ~45 cave) at 1440x900 resolution with 2xAA. I'll have to fiddle with some more settings.
I am still a Team Fortress 2 addict. TF2 has, by this point, become one of my all-time most-played games. A legendary list, to be sure, and a list which it shares with such luminaries as SimCity and SimCity 2000, Might and Magic 2, Civilization 3, Baldur's Gate 2 and World of Warcraft. For better or worse, I have put literally hundreds of man-hours into each of these games. Comprised as a whole, they would represent a pretty decent chunk of this life I am existing in. Fun!
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?
More Grow Tycoon Ideas
In the course of dissecting Colonization (and to a lesser extent Civ IV), I have come across a few other ideas I have for my illicit-pot-growing Colonization mod, currently code-named Grow Tycoon that I wanted to briefly write down here both for myself and for anyone else who might happen to read this and be interested.
First, I haven't mentioned it but from the beginning I have planned on morphing the Founding Father system into a plant varietal system. Meaning rather than accumulating points and spending them to have a historical figure join your cause, you will accumulate points and use them to research and/or cross breed strains of pot to come up with other strains to grow.
I would like to have a mechanic that has a more sandbox feel - similar perhaps to the way one would create new units in Alpha Centauri. The player could mix and match to create strains that have specific bonuses (easier to grow, worth more money when sold, etc.), however for this mod I want to keep it as simple as possible. So an easier alternative given the Civ 4 engine is to simply make pre-defined strains that are researchable along a "tech tree" or in the case of Colonization the "Founding Father" tree. Plus, I always have fun coming up with silly names like Spanish Trampoline and it might make a nice way to pay homage to some real-life historical strains like Maui Wowee or Northern Lights.
Another thing that I have had in mind this whole time but I believe I have not mentioned is crucial to my decision to use Colonization as a base rather than Civilization IV itself - the town and trade system. Because pot farming in real life is itself an industry I want to preserve that (Tycoon) element by using the city-building aspects of Colonization. Where it uses schools, cigar-rolling factories, stockades and the like, however, I will be using (water) wells, generators and CCTV security systems. All which, like Colonization, must be constructed over X amount of turns and be manned by a "colonist" (I still haven't come up with a generic unit name yet).
As I mentioned in an earlier post, the scale of Grow Tycoon's world is much reduced from that of the other Civ games. But I was still having a hard time working out exactly what that means to the game. The way I have decided to approach it is to leave the basic mechanic largely unchanged and chalk up the scale difference to nothing more than graphics and text.
Which means you will still be using a unit to construct farms outside of your city, but it will be presented as constructing fields outside of your base camp. The base camp (like the Civ city) houses your workers and contains all your important buildings. From the base camp management screen (city management screen) you can assign your workers to pot fields you have constructed or other duties I haven't come up with yet. An example for a potential tile assignment would be guard duty that provides a bonus to defense from the Law or criminal gangs.
I'm going to end this here for today. As I am finishing the task of fleshing out my basic concepts I am turning more an more to creating specific units. Like the wagon - a land resource transportation unit - which I want to have a few different versions of to take into account for things like SUVs with hidden compartments, tractor trailers that hall other goods to disguise your contraband or basic cars that can travel fast but have a higher chance of getting caught by the Law. Or maybe only have one basic land transport unit that takes advantage of the experience-point system (but then how will it gain xp if it is destroyed on being caught?). That's the kind of stuff I have been moving on to lately, which I suppose means development is proceeding at a fair pace.
If you are familiar with Civ 4 and/or Colonization and would like to make some suggestions, I whole-heartedly welcome them! If you aren't familiar with Sid Meier strategy games and like turn-based strategy I also recommend you give them a try. Modding in Civ 3 was good, but as you might have seen modding in Civ 4 allows you to do almost anything you want with the only real limit being your time and expertise.
Blogs I Read
- Brian Psychochild Green
- Combat Archaeology
- Elder Game
- Hardcore Casual
- Kill Ten Rats
- Killed In A Smiling Accident
- LOTRO Combo Blog
- Open Bracket
- OSG1 – Online Strategy Games
- Pumping Irony
- Ralph Koster
- Stylish Corpse
- The Core Mechanic
- Tish Tosh Tesh
- Troll in the Corner
Browser Games I Play
Fortuente Pages
Game Sites I Like
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