LOTRO Closed-Beta Non-Impressions
Finally, the heatwave is at an end. I logged into the LOTRO closed beta and played for a bit last night and so now I am writing a post about nothing. Nothing because it is a *closed* beta, however I wanted to communicated a couple impressions I had that are vague enough that I am sure will not violate any secrecy terms.
Firstly, when I made my initial visit to the in-game LOTRO Store, I had a tentative sigh of relief. There are so many ways the transition to a freemium model can go bad in general and despite the apparent success DDO has had, Turbine is just as susceptible as anyone to bad decisions. Though maybe not real-ID-ly as susceptible as some. OH NO I DI-INT!
From my initial impressions, however, it seems like their basic strategy for monetizing non-subscription players is pretty sound and not what I feel was "fundamentally broken." Hence, the sigh of relief.
However, one qualm I do have is that it seems really super-duper expensive to be a "free" player. Like crazy expensive. But all that might just be me -- I am rather notoriously cheap.
It does seem like Turbine 'learned some lessons" or (perhaps their new overlords are "cracking some whips"?) with the move of DDO to a freemium model. In other words they learned they either (a) need to generate more real revenue from the Store to justify the expense of running it, or (b) realized they can make a metric shit-ton of money from these crazy store thingies.
I'll let your cynicism be your guide. As I always, I think it probably lies somewhere in the middle. Despite the fact I carried a subscription to LOTRO for the better part of its existence, I really wanted to create a new honest-to-god "free" account so I could see better how the LOTRO Store will play out. Instead I was weak and allowed myself to be suckered into resubscribing ... it has nothing to do with fishing during the Lithe Festival ... REALLY.
So I am a "VIP" in the beta which essentially means I am regular subscriber in the LOTRO freemium ecosystem. So far, there doesn't appear to be any appreciable difference between being a subscriber now and in the brave new f2p world. Which is a good thing.
I have done my best to be really vague and yet try to get across some of my personal impressions about the beta so far. I probably won't write much more on it here, because I do want to respect the NDA.
However, there is one new aspect to LOTRO I am bursting at the seems to shout about. It is looking to be a really, really, really exciting addition to LOTRO, and something some players have been asking for since the beta for Shadows of Angmar. But I won't give away the secret except to hint that it is a feature of both WoW and Warhammer, and it is game feature players who also are software devs in real life cream their pants over.
Alas, I can say no more -- I don't want a ban! But for some current-and-future LOTRO players, this news is going to by the biggest thing coming out of the LOTRO overhaul. Biggest by far, I think.
Rivendell, here I come!
Guess what? I just got invited to the LOTRO closed beta! But SSSHHHH -- don't tell anyone, the e-mail made it sound a bit hush hush, and after the smackdown CCP gave one of their CSMs I don't want to rock any boats. Though I would wager closed beta invites are not all that rare, and therefore not terribly special, but still. Color me pleased.
I would write more about how jazzed I am, but I am off now to download the beta client. Seeing as we are expecting a 100-degree day today here in Razorblade City and I live without an air conditioner, I think I may wait until the cooler weather tomorrow to actually log in and experience LOTRO's Turbine Store.
I may also do a bit more research and actually reactivate my subscription first if I am going to be relegated to only a few zones as I understand future f2p players will be. Then again, betas are betas and I imagine it would probably be more helpful to use the store to buy new zones (with the play points Turbine is giving beta participants) if that is the case. Oh, we shall see!
Weekly Schlep
First, I have to get this off my chest:
I think the move by Turbine to make LOTRO f2p is a bad idea. Based on its core design of heavily-instanced PVE encounters, I thought f2p was great idea applied to DDO ... but I have a bad feeling it is going to prove difficult to implement in the open world of LOTRO. However, I do think it is possible to pull off, so we'll see. The main thing I am worried about is a drastic increase in the already problematic issue of inappropriate names. Somehow I don't think there were any elves running around Lindon named "Drzztforchris" or dwarves mining the Iron Mountains named "Iwillchopu." Unfortunately for me, it breaks the game. Oh well - I am sure this fall I will be logging in for at least a bit to see what it's like.
WOTAN
Now that I have dealt with that bit of unpleasantness, I will move on to what I am really here to write about, and that is my weekly report on my non-epic schlep trek called Project WOTAN, the online single-player RPG/gamebook/pbbg/pcp/nwa/insert-cliche-or-acronym-here.
I am actually a bit ahead of schedule at this point, having finished the basics of the Treasure and Power modules. August is still looking good, though I wonder if I will be able to launch The Wizard's Tower as I had planned, or rather focus more on launching the code for WOTAN as FOSS. I am still undecided, and am leaving that decision for July so I can better gauge what is left to be done.
If, by early-July, I do not feel like I can pull off at least one decently-written gamebook to start TWT, then I will likely focus more on the generic engine. I realized that a demo site for WOTAN could function just as well as a game site in its own right. And rather than attempt to launch TWT prematurely with a randomized gamebook generator, I could make a site devoted entirely to randomized adventures with less relative effort than writing something I want to actually be taken seriously. Besides, OSS or not, I need to have a site that is diverse enough to show off what WOTAN can do, right?
The basic WOTAN site would eventually come to comprise many gamebooks mostly having no relation to each other. Whereas TWT or a site like it is meant to be taken itself as a series of books, there could be several concurrent series in wildly different genres with wildly different gameplay running on the "official" WOTAN site.
This morning I took a couple screenshots of my progress. Below is the basic User Control Panel. The same page virtually ever site in the world has. You'll notice that I have included a user avatar, which is actually a Gravatar. I am also strongly considering implementing an OpenID option for logins.
The basic User Control Panel
I know, it's hella rough looking, but obviously this is still an alpha work-in-progress. Below is an example of one of the things I did this past week, the Book Admin interface for the Treasure module.
Adding Treasure types to a Book.
I purposely left a custom tag, {book_name}, open so you can see how I am populating my static pages with data. So, in the pertinent view class for the Treasure module (in this case the auxiliary class treasure_widget) I merely use preg_replace to insert data from the database onto the page. (I am a big fan of preg_replace, lol.)
I probably should have used a pre-existing template engine, like Smarty for instance, but I chose not to. While not using one has been a learning experience, I have a feeling that in the future I will probably turn to an existing system.
This week I will be finishing up the core modules and their respective admin interfaces. I am expecting to create the admin panels for the Book-Page submodule to be something of a pain. I also have to create a whole other subsystem for the basic Character object. My goal is to have all these things done within the next 11 days, Friday June 18.
After I have all the core modules and their adminstration views (panels, interfaces, whatever you want to call them) essentially finished, probably 75% of the site will be complete as it will have all its basically functionality. Then I will be moving on to creating the views for the end user, the whole point for the site existing in the first place. And so during this time I will also be doing the bulk of the graphic design and it is looking like I am going to have to brush off my far-too-dusty pencils and actually create some artwork as well.
I am planning for July to consist mainly of polishing the site and adding non-core modules to the game. The most important of these modules will consist of character tracking and statistics, and possibly also a mechanism to cache data. I have also chosen mid-July as my final deadline for deciding on whether or not to put the WOTAN svn code repository on Google or GIThub and releasing it as GNU.
Either way, we should be seeing an August release of something interesting.
The Path Ahead
Every so often I like to browse through the forums at mmorpg.com ... yes, I know it's Trollville, but some subforums are better than others and you quickly see past the sea of trollery to find the core members that are actually intelligent and fun to interact with. Plus, sometimes when I am not in the mood to play it is the only way to really get my MMO fix.
A few days ago, I came across this post: Having an "adventure" again?
Right away I was intrigued, as it hit upon one of the major problems with post-WoW MMORPGs - community. I tend to think that for all my or anyone else's musings on What is Wrong with the design of these games, a lot of it can all come back to the lack of quality community.
Are people who are part of a community that they enjoy and take part in less likely to complain about the little things that irk them in a game? Are they more likely to blow those little things up into huge things?
It seems like I wasn't the only intrigued as the thread quickly became a hot topic and a mere few days later it was featured as a mmorpg.com Community Spotlight. Now there is a Guild Portal site set up for our cause and we are in the process of choosing a game to play.
It seems like a phenomenon I have heard mentioned more than once is that back in the "old days" bugs, exploits and all manner of "game-breaking" issues were rife ... but people put up with them. Most often this accounted for by the assertion that there were far fewer choices of different games, occasionally it is said that we were more "innocent" back then.
Those two assertions may (and at least to some degree are) true. But there could also be another explanation - the general communities were just better.
Sure there were trolls and loud, foul-mouthed children playing back then. But were there as many? Was the signal-to-noise ratio quite the same now that literally millions of new MMORPG players have been introduced to the genre?
It's funny, and maybe I don't get around as much anymore, but it seems like these days you don't hear a fraction of of the complaints about maturity level (quite low) of the Counter Strike community like you might have five years ago. Now you hear the exact same complaints but about it is the World of Warcraft community.
For me personally, I would relate my experience in LOTRO. I subbed on opening day and thought the game was a lot of fun. Except for the fact that the community out of the gate was pretty awful. I was just coming off of playing nothing but WoW for about two years or so (literally, I can't believe how many quality non-WoW games I missed between 2005-2007 that I am still finding out about) and was quite sensitive to anything having to do with player2player interaction. If I could have put the global population on /ignore I would have happily done it.
When I quit LOTRO the straw that broke this camel's back was being chased around Breeland by a player named, and I shitteth thee not, "Iclubbabyseals." I couldn't take it, I unsubbed, uninstalled and didn't look back until almost a year later. And ironically went back to WoW ... there had to be some element of abuse psychology at work there.
If you know me, then you know that I am also a Tolkien nerd and so of course I couldn't stay away. So I resubscribed and made the server Landroval my home (it was/is the unofficial RP server). Lo and behold the experience was amazing. Landroval had (has) one of the best MMORPG communities I have ever experienced in an online game. That is why I am still subscribed even though I rarely play anymore. Even if I am not terribly fond of LOTRO anymore, the exceptional Landroval community keeps me coming back.
So Why do MMORPG Communities Suck?
I really hate being a WoW hater, but as the years are turning the more and more I am convinced that it has had an extremely negative impact not only on the MMORPG genre but on PC gaming in general. I know that is a stretch and it's nothing I am going to stake my life on, but it is worth considering.
To me it seems like the older games were meant to be more like a typical PnP game, where you and your friends hang out for a few hours and have fun battling some orcs, slaying a dragon and saving a princess (or prince) or two. The allure of the MMORPG over the PnP game of course is that the online video game could connect friends living on separate continents and unlike those Saturday afternoon games, MMOs are going 24/7/365.
But if you look at the technological innovations in general, you almost always find that they do not live up to all the promises they make about making life better. So for instance, now the modern worker has more work and obligations and lives a much more harried and less satisfying life than a medieval peasant. Even as productivity of a worker increases, he or she must work even more and continue to be more and more productive. Hey, at least it makes anti-depressant manufacturers big bucks.
Now I'm sure there is a lot of controversy over that example, as there are other factors at play aside from mere technological process (I'm looking at you, you Calvinist bastards), but it illustrates what I think has happened to online video games.
An MMORPG these days seems to be less about casual (not speaking in the current and popular sense of that word) fun and more about working on achieving goals and being productive as a player. And all the focus seems to be on achieving those goals as an individual player - the group only exists to get you as an individual to where you want to be; there are no communal goals. The individual is the only thing that matters; selfishness is a virtue.
Again, I hate the fashionable trend of disparaging WoW simply because it is WoW, but I can't help but feel that World of Warcraft, more than any other individual game, has inculcated this behavior in the greater mass of players.
But these behaviors are not new since WoW, you can see them everyday. Just look around you at the people going into debt for fancy houses and cars, committing every sort of privation on their lives to "make it." To live the corrupted fantasy of a life that currently passes for the American Dream. Greed is good, right? He who dies with the most toys wins.
I think that WoW tapped into these memes and put them into its core design is precisely the reason it is as popular as it is - it addresses the same lusts and character defects in general society inside the game. It has nothing to do with it being "casual" or that it is a game for "non-gamers." The sad thing to me is that it has seemingly has trained a generation of gamer to expect that in all games.
And what is the result? Turn on CNN or Fox News and you see the real-life equivalent of the WoW player. By focusing only on the needs of the individual - to the point of exalting them - the general community has become diseased, like a rotted piece of wood. So you experience phenomena like a large upswing in the troll population - those who resist the unnatural condition of hyper-individualism and try (usually subconsciously) to wreck the system almost always without realizing why (explained as being for the "lulz" or some similar example of infantilized behavior).
You have players who retreat from the community and focus solely on the "solo game." You have the smarter jackals who set up "professional" guilds to make sure they achieve all they can often at the expense of its members and the non-pro guilds whose members will quit at the drop of a hat to be in the pro guild. You have the phenomenon of entitlement - those who think that because someone is not "hard core" they should not have the chance to experience all the game (e.g. endgame raids) has to offer.
Essentially you have all the real-world bullshit we have to put up with, consciously or not, invading one of the last sacred spaces of lackadaisical dreamers of the world. And the community becomes more like the real world in the sense it is fractured, cut-throat and dysfunctional.
So you can see now why I am very interested in this new group of players from mmorpg.com who are banding together to fight both virtual fantasy evil as well as the real evils of misanthropic behavior and alienation. The thing I think we share in common is the same thing that made older MMORPGs so much fun, despite the bugs, lag and other nasty fubars and glitches. We want fulfillment from playing together as a group of people - learning from and enjoying each other. What in today's games seems to have been superseded by achieving goals set by the game developers and the all-important goal (in both PvP as well as PvE) of competing against each other. Maybe The Path Ahead can learn what it is like to have fun again and leave the "work" behind.
Back from the Trollshaws
Well, I just got back from an extended vacation out in the wilds of Northern California. There is really nothing quite like crapping in a bucket and dodging feral pigs out in the wilderness to really bring you back to down to earth.
I also once again personally proved the effectiveness of FPS games as firearm trainers, despite barely ever firing a handgun I was pleasingly accurate. With more real-life practice I could be a fair shot. Thanks, Counter Strike.
The funniest thing was the terrain - I could have sworn up and down I was in the Trollshaws of Eriador. Minus the beech trees and adding madrone, among others of course. The cattle country on the way in also reminded me precisely of the Barrow Downs - if I were going to film a theatrical scene in the Barrow Downs, it would make a really good location.
So for the past few weeks, I have been living without the Internet but with electricity thanks to Honda and their handy generators. So I spent at least some of my off-time playing through Torchlight on my trusty laptop. And I'm still playing it now that I am back. I was never a huge Diablo/Rogue fan, but something in Torchlight really caught me.
Yesterday I logged back in to LOTRO, after roughly a two-month break. I think with the fresh perspective I understand the major drawback that game has for me - quests. WoW-style quests, I mean. I can handle "kill ten rats" to a certain degree, but elaborate quest chains and travel quests friggin' kill me.
On the same topic this is ultimately why I'm not playing Fallen Earth and why I have no plans to do so in the near future. I played through the first 10 levels or so and had my fill of the exact same style of advancement I was (subconsciously) fleeing in basically every other MMORPG I have played. Dealing with quest logs full of largely unrelated quests is enough to turn me off completely to a game these days - regardless whether I can solo them or not.
So for now I am satisfying my MMORPG cravings with DDO, which does not suffer from quite the same problems as the traditional model descended from DikuMUD. I may resubscribe to LOTRO simply out of love for Tolkien and to hang with my Landroval kinship Tirn en Taur. Money is only getting tighter in the coming months, though, so we'll see - fortunately $10/month is doable.
One thing I am still not doing is buying/playing Dragon Age. Which is strange considering that I've been waiting forever for it to come out. Basically it comes down to an EA issue for me. I don't want to be nickel-and-dimed and I especially do not want to be forced into marketing channels like Games For Windows Live. So I am going to wait and see and do more research before I start laying out nearly $100 for a semi-static single-player game I may never even have the time to really play. Oh well.
GAMING ROOOOUNDUPPPP!!!
The older I get, the more and more amazed I am at how time flies. Combined with my penchant for history it is easy to see what people mean when they say tempus fugit.
In the past two weeks I have been doing naught more than usual, with one exception - I decided to give Fallen Earth a shot. Sorry Ryzom, I'm sure I'll return someday (because you are a genuinely good game) but there is just too much going on right now. On top of Fallen Earth, Torchlight is coming out in 10 days and Dragon Age not long after that. And of course, most of my free time is being spent working on my own RPG project, WOTAN.
Fallen Earth
What can I say? If I was going to spend $50 on an MMO I should have got Darkfall. Seriously, though, Fallen Earth is a great game so far despite its warts. I am currently level 9 and doing my obsessive compulsive rounds of all the starter towns looking for the bonus AP missions. If you are not familiar with FE, that is I am trying to complete all the missions (quests) that award bonus skill points which are used to raise my character's skills.
FE has no classes, only skills, and so far that is my favorite aspect of the game. It is a marvelous antidote to the cookie-cutter EQ/WoW/etc. model where customization is done secondarily through "talents" or "traits" or whatever semi-arbitrary label they are assigned. I am focusing predominantly on crafting, which basically means I am by default a melee character, as melee and crafting have stats that overlap the best.
And that is fine with me as future wasteland ninja. Or, well, maybe. I am already fidgeting around with the cancel subscription button. But it is not because of any problem I have with the game, though the game does need some work - in my opinion it should have a more advanced economy, free-for-all zones like EVE's 0.0 space and there are lots of glitchy little bugs that need to be squashed.
But I, perhaps oddly, am not worried about any of those things. So far Icarus has been one of the more communicative studios I have seen, even going so far as to have a GM active on their global help chat channel all hours of the day. Wouldn't it be nice to live in a world where that was considered normal? I also like that at least one more game has come out that isn't a generic class-based themepark grinder.
This is going to likely be the only time you ever see me mention the game Aion on this site. I don't bear it any animosity, but I also have absolutely zero interest in that game. It is practically by definition a themepark grinder. I have no desire to even participate in a free trial of that game, were it available.
This is maybe why even though I am not sure FE will hold my fickle and buffeted-from-all-sides attention, I have no regret at least giving it a shot. If the Aion bug had crawled up my butt, I think I would be singing a different tune, however.
Torchlight
I am not a huge ARPG fan, but when the 'ol repetitive-stress-injury isn't agonizingly inflamed I enjoy a little Diablo/Titan Quest action. Of course my tendons are soon fire within minutes reminding me why I play those games only very rarely.
Tennis elbow aside, I was really, really, really looking forward to Mythos. So much so I was practically on an Internet candle-light vigil trying to get into the beta. Of course, that game was canceled around the same time flagshipped became a verb. So it wasn't meant to be.
Now imagine my joy at hearing about Torchlight, which is essentially Mythos reborn. And it's a single-player game priced under $20? I am so on this it isn't even funny, to use a favored turn-of-phrase of an adolescent Fortuente. If you read the link, apparently the Torchlight single-player will also be released with full modding tools intact.
Dragon Age
I have considered this a must-buy for quite some time now. Like since 2003. That said, the more I have been thinking about it, the stronger I feel that I am actually going to take a pass on this one for now.
WHAT?!? YOU ARE GOING TO MISS OUT ON THE BIGGEST FANTASY RPG GANGBANG SINCE BALDUR'S GATE 2????
Yes, I actually am. I have my reasons, and they all revolve around perception.
Perception 1: Money. It's expensive. Is it going to break my bank? No, but is $60 still a sizeable chunk when I am already throwing around $20 here and $30 there and even that $50 on Fallen Earth? Yes. It is going to be Christmas soon, after all and I have a child as well as utility bills.
Perception 2: Electronic Arts. Do I really need to elaborate on this? Bioware may be good 'ol same as always (which is doubtful regardless as both they and the industry have grown a lot in the past 12-odd years), but it's a simple fact that they are now an EA brand. And EA is on a weekend bender of a downloadable-content binge the likes of which might make Charles Bukowski proud.
Which means probably having to deal with some sort of asinine EA download manager or even having to use the wretched EA online store. No thanks.
So I am adopting a wait-and-see approach, perhaps even a wait-and-yarrr approach if I have the extra time. If I yo-ho-ho and the game turns out to be a genuine work of genius, I would probably feel compelled to fork over the cash out of respect, even if I continued to use the swashbuckled edition. More than likely, I will probably just pass until it has been out a few months or so.
DDO
OK. I had some issues with DDO. Namely, the Turbine customer service department could not service their way out of a wet paper bag. Or something like that. Whatever the reason, be it drastic overwork, incompetent management, utter lack of morale, plain laziness or all those things (can you tell I have worked in customer service in the past?), they are not getting the job done.
Basically I had a ticket on hold for about a month. All I wanted was for the points I purchased during the summer beta to be applied to my original account. I mean, really. No response for a month. If it wasn't for my increasingly incessant bitching, I can guarantee you I would still be waiting.
In true comedic fashion, the first time they "resolved" this issue also, I was not awarded the points I paid for but rather a large number of points - for being a founder account or somesuch reason - which I had no idea I was entitled to. Alas, in my hasty reply was elicited the mighty F-bomb. However I am confident the reason my actual purchased store points were alotted to my account was due to my having the original transaction IDs. PayPal +1.
All of that being said, it is partly DDO's fault I am considering leaving Fallen Earth. Damn Dungeons and Dragons with your complex, gamist character system, marvelously atmospheric dungeons and interesting, semi-twitch combat.
Wait, Fallen Earth has all of that too (after some fashion)! Oh the conflicting emotions! Wait, no. Fallen Earth has a $15/month subscription and DDO no longer does. I guess we have found out together the mystery of why I'm willing to cast Fallen Earth to the side though I basically enjoy it.
Grand Ages Rome
Ah, City Builders, my true (and truly nerdy) love.
Grand Ages Rome continues to prove itself to me as an interesting side-track from the traditional city-builder formula while still keeping a lot of that formula intact. The thing I enjoy the most by far is the horde-less resource system. What I mean is that the lack of warehouse or stockpile which is in virtually every historic city builder, at least every one I can name off the top of my head.
Managing resources as a streaming figure changes the game up in a refreshing way, though it's not necessarily something I would studios other than Haemimont try to copy. Because I do find myself missing the need to manage roads and resource transportation. But it's OK.
I never mentioned it before, but I play the game at the highest graphic settings and the textures they use are friggin' exquisite. I sat with my three year-old today for a while zoomed in on the city I was working on (Cyrene free-build). I invented dialogue and little stories to go with the various citizens going about their virtual lives and he ate it up.
LOTRO
I basically unsubscribed in a fit of pique relating to the DDO debacle related above. I thought I had uninstalled it as well, but it was still on my computer. Strange, as I am certain I didn't imagine that. Perhaps Gandalf snuck into my interwebs.
I am not sure what my future with LOTRO holds. On one hand I am not excited with the themepark structure of the game - and increasingly so - and I am just not of the mind with all this subscription stuff. In addition, I am yet more fearful of the potential introduction of a "LOTRO Store." While I think the RMT business model naturally works out well in DDO, I really do not think it would work in LOTRO (or many other games like LOTRO).
I'm also not terribly taken with the idea of the Adventurer's Pack. It bears the hallmark of crappy marketing. Plus the Mirkwood "expansion" sounds thoroughly underwhelming. But that is all my opinion. More objectively speaking, they are doing what they have always done which is to make WoW for a different crowd. They did it well and I have no doubt Mirkwood will continue that trend.
I myself am just past that style of game for the most part. Of course this saddens me a bit, because I have a really big boner for J.R.R. Tolkien just like any other fantasy nerd with plastic pointy ears. More internal conflict ... all these emotions over ridiculously abstract things like online video games. Well, no matter. My subscription runs out on December 18th, so we shall have to see what the next two months hold in store for yours truly.
That sounded ominous for some reason.
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.
Status Update
Well it has been about a month now since my last post, so I suppose I should make a record of my pernicious and insouciant behavior over the past month:
Game Making
Hard to believe, perhaps, but I am still latched on to my ideas for pot farming games. I am still working on the details of Grow Tycoon as a mod for Civ4 Colonization. I have delved into the SDK, toyed with .py files and even managed (with a lot of help) add a basic zombie into the game.
The current path of learning I am treading is to figure out how to add these zombies into a simple modcomp where they will be generated randomly and automatically at the start of a game. This behavior is very similar to how Barbarians are handled in Civ4, so I may try to re-add Barbarians into Colonization. I figure (assuming it is feasible) this will be a great way to become more familiarized with both C++, XML and graphical elements at the same time.
As I continue to get better at PHP, I am looking more seriously at my capability of producing a Browser Game. The deeper I delve into mod-making for Civ4, it almost seems like it would be easier. That is probably the me-trying-to-get-used-to-Blender talking, though. After all, you don't have to worry about site hackers or bandwidth limits with a Civ4 mod.
While my vision of a pot-farming browser game is more along the lines of Travian than an xRPG, I was hopefully in search of potential travian-like frameworks but instead found and installed World of Phaos on a test server to have a go with it. So far I am enjoying myself quite a bit with its basic setup, and it looks like it both requires the code love and has the ability to be easily modded that may make me want to stay with it. I've always wanted to do my own RPG, perhaps this can provide the basic framework for it.
But maybe not as I have been none to keen lately on making a multi-player for some reason. For an RPG I was considering adapting the Tunnels and Trolls PnP system or even Dungeons and Dragons (basic 1981 version) to a simple php single-player game system. The php would only really be used as a glorified character sheet and dice-roller, perhaps with the ability to save character and location information to a persistent cookie or as a text file. Not really sure why I'm not feeling the multi-player browser game love at the moment.
But if I decide to rework World of Phaos and get something interesting going, I'll put it on a public server so anyone can play. And did I mention something about a test server? That is right - this past month I finally got off my ass and repurposed an old computer as a web server so that I can avail myself of the joys of CLI with SSH tunnels and whatnot. Thanks go to Verizon FIOS for allowing the ability to create remote access to it as well. But if you think I'm linking it here for everyone to see, forget about it - my security skills aren't good enough yet to lead the world to my door.
Game Playing
I have been playing a lot of Lord of the Rings Online lately. I've fallen out somewhat with the MMORPG genre this past year, but still LOTRO keeps me coming back. Even with all its warts (like the dreaded pathing system) Turbine really did a quality job with this title.
I attempted to get back into World of Warcraft again, and just couldn't do it. I don't know why I even try to rekindle the passion, that game is utterly dead to me. If I were playing any other MMORPG right now, it would probably either be Dungeons and Dragons Online or Vanguard.
I have been playing a lot of Colonization and a bit of Civ4 lately, as working with the modding requires it. I have been playing mods, both official and not, a lot more and I can't believe how rich and diverse the modding scene for Civ4 is. Playing the mods made by other people as well as attempting to come up with my own has really rekindled some of the passion I have held in the past for the Civilization franchise.
Lastly, I bought Defense Grid: The Awakening on Steam a week or two ago (when it was on sale) and it was more than worth every penny. I truly enjoy this game, I only wish I had more time to really crack-out on it. I enjoy the progression also, making it a game that is easy to learn and play, but very difficult to master. I'm not really a tower defense afficianado so I can't really compare it to anything else, all I can say is I really enjoy playing it.
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!
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?
Blogs I Read
- Brian Psychochild Green
- Elder Game
- Fabled Lands
- Kill Ten Rats
- Killed In A Smiling Accident
- OSG1 – Online Strategy Games
- Pumping Irony
- Ralph Koster
- Stylish Corpse
- Tish Tosh Tesh
- Troll in the Corner
Browser Games I Play
Fortuente Pages
Game Sites I Like
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