But does your guild have a theme song? Uh huh, thought so.
The Revelry and Honor Theme Song
Kudos to the creative talents of Faeran, Nicilie, and their adorable daughter who stole the show in this song! There are a few “inside” jokes, but plenty that any gamer can relate to, and the chorus is very catchy! Hope you enjoy!
To the Chandelier!
Posted by jayernh under Archive | Comments (8)
It’s amazing how much importance a newbie experience can have on the success of a game. For argument’s sake, let me make a few stipulations about what the early levels tend to be like in MMOs:
- I define the newbie experience to be levels 1-20.
- It goes fairly fast, which I assume is because it’s intended to be a morale builder. (Lots of dings make people feel good!)
- It’s designed to be soloed, not done in groups. And, in fact, it goes by slower if you do group.
- It’s not very complicated. This is because it’s aimed at giving new players the chance to learn the game mechanics. And of course, it furthers the commonly held notion among high level players that newbies start off with the IQ of a small bunny. (Have you ever seen a small bunny try to play a cleric? Not very pretty)
The newbie experience is the content that game reviewers base their judgements on. It still amazes me how many game writers only experience the early content of the games they write about and promote, but that’s a whole other entry. It’s also the game content that will be most seen by the playerbase, and sometimes they’ll see it multiple times if they roll up alts. It has to have “The Hook,” that reels people in, peaks their interest, and inspires people to stick with it through the mid level grind. So while the raid content of a game tends to be the most complicated and elaborate stuff, it’s the newbie area that needs to be done the best.
I’ve been spending my time lately over in the Sarnak starting area of Timorous Deep, and the more I play there, the more I realize how well they put it together. This is what a newbie area should be! Here’s why:
Lots of eye candy. Starting areas always tend to be sorta bland. There’s a small village with some quest NPCs, a big wide field littered with small rodents, and maybe a small tent with some pint sized bad guys off in the distance (like orcs or murlocs). It’s always flat, simple, and very non-descript. Timorous Deep is way over on the other end of the spectrum, so much so that it’s often mentioned by EQ2 players as one of their favorite zones overall. The music is compelling. The mobs are unique. (I love the Throms!) The environmental sounds, like the echoing songbirds, make you feel like you’re deep in a tropical forest. And the zone has a stunning amount of vertical depth to it. This is something that I will always appreciate about Vanguard’s world, and it needs to be in all future games. You shouldn’t feel like you’re boxed in by zone walls that are not-so-subtly disguised as mountains or thick forests. Also, having to pay attention not only to what’s next to you, but also what’s above you (or in some cases below you), adds a lot of fun to the game.
Easy to find the quests, easy to do the quests, easy to turn in the quests. Some will argue that this is dumbing down the game too much, but if the newbie zone’s primary purpose is to teach the player about the game, they shouldn’t have to waste one extra second trying to fruitlessly run around tracking down NPCs. Being able to quickly find a hard-to-find NPC doesn’t have any bearing on how good of a player you will be in higher levels, so it’s not at all a beneficial game feature. Plus, even if someone finds it quaintly fun to run around talking to newbie NPCs, it loses the fun factor pretty fast the 5th or 10th time you do it with alts.
No Quest junk to lug around and clutter your bags. Often, you’ll get a newbie quest (or 10) that ask you to go kill a certain mob, loot some particular quest item, and turn it in for a reward. The problem is, we’re newbies and we have one bag and about 10 total inventory slots. Space is an issue! The irony is that I recall doing the Island of Refuge in EQ2 “back in the day,” and getting through about 3 quests before I started to get the “Inventory Overflowing!” message. It was impossible to avoid too – even if I looted nothing but the quest items and the rewards, my bags were overfull. Timorous Deep doesn’t have that problem at all, luckily. Most of the quests give you update messages, rather than items. It’s a small thing, but not so small when you have to delete stuff and waste time with inventory management at level 2.
Dynamic and compelling content. I will admit that I didn’t pay much attention to the quest scripts, but I still got a good feel for the storyline, because it was literally going on around me. Usually, in a newbie zone, old man questgiver will ramble on and on about the battle, and how I’m needed to help by killing…..snakes. And my response is usually, click, click, click, click, click, accept. My attitude is, “maybe there’s a battle somewhere, but it’s not in the newbie zone, so maybe I’ll see it when I’m high level or something, but until then, just give me the stupid quests and let me level myself out of here.” Again, I always loved the orc and half elf starter zones in Vanguard because they plunked you right into the middle of chaos, and you ended up spending the first few levels just trying to figure out what the heck was going on. Timorous Deep has some areas that do this nicely too. Walking up the pathway to see the Sarnaks being overrun by Aviaks was really neat. And yes, I stood there a bit too long watching the Sarnaks fire their cannons and turn the birds into exploding puffs of feathers – so cool! Often, turning in a quest not only gives a reward, but triggers a little scene afterwards. Again, it’s small, but to me, there is a big difference in having some npc yap about my effort making a difference, and actually seeing it make a difference.
Timorous Deep is a great newbie zone. I want to reiterate that I don’t feel that all of these game features should necessarily carry though to the higher levels though. And what’s ironic is that the Kunark expansion actually seems to have incorporated a lot of these aspects into the higher level content – specifically the 70-75 content. So, many are soloing their way through the early 70s, getting the great upgrades, and skipping out on grouping and dungeon crawling, especially since dungeons like Karnor’s were way too difficult and not as rewarding enough to be an appealing option.
The newbie experience is totally different from the higher level experience, and I don’t mean in terms of skill. Every new player starts out on his own, learning a new set of game mechanics, the UI, and the nuts and bolts of the game. A well designed newbie zone makes that easy to do, but also wets your appetite for more challenging, and compelling, content later on. Higher level content needs to cater to solo players, but it also needs to provide incentive for groups and guilds to tackle the hardest dungeons and raid mobs. They really are two separate spheres inside a virtual world, and need to be treated as such.
Posted by jayernh under Archive | Comments (4)
So I ran across the news about Age of Conan’s delay, from March till May. Boy, does this sound familiar! Here is a collection of grumblings about the game:
- The game is full of bugs.
- The newbie content is fine, but the gameplay drops off substantially and lacks content at the higher levels.
- They had to trim away two classes.
- The game was already delayed because they had to completely revamp the combat system.
- It’s now going to ship very close to the release date of Warhammer Online, which is not at all an ideal situation if the game is in sketchy shape and is about to directly compete with another new release.
- There are performance issues.
- PvP is an afterthought, and isn’t being treated with much focus.
- The producer’s letter contains bizaare, random, analogies (woman in an elevator with her finger near her nose? The heck!? Might as well talk about crypto-zoology and mesoamerican mythology while you’re at it), expresses a little too much love for its community, attempts to use the community as the reason for the delay (the old, “you guys are great and deserve better” mantra) and uses the cringeworthy phrase, “this game will rock!” Too much hope, not enough reality check.
These are, point for point, the exact same things that Vanguard went through in its later stages of beta. If true, this is going to turn into Vanguard pt. 2, only with a lot more skin. Actually, I take that back. If these complaints are true, it will be in worse shape than Vanguard was at release, because people will not forgive a game for ignoring Vanguard’s lessons. It’s the old adage of, “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.”
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This game really is looking like the breath of fresh air that a stagnant MMO world might be ready for. There is a lot here that looks really, really neat. But there are also some big question marks on whether it can deliver in certain areas, and successfully redefine certain stone-etched MMO tenets. The recent preview over at WarCry during CES shed some light on what the game will be about.
First of all, I’m going on the notion that the debate is over about whether RMTs will be in games. It will. Why? Just look at the online games that kids play right now (WebKinz, Toon Town). Darren touched on this recently. They’re growing up with RMTs, and will be used to it when they are old enough to play “adult” MMOs. So it’s just a matter of time.
The Agency will be one of the first to set the precedent for what players should expect regarding monetary payments for an MMO. I don’t think this will be a factor in whether they are successful or not, unless they go completely, absolutely, psycho and try to nickel and dime us for everything we do. Yes, I know it’s SOE, but they’re not that insane. Besides, this game looks strong enough to be able to pull in the revenue just on its own merits.
I’ve said before that I think this game will generate that same feeling of “where is this headed?” that Everquest did to the old grizzled gaming vets. It doesn’t seem to be following the same pattern of – 1-10 newbie zone killing rats/grind grind grind to the level cap/gear up/raid/gear up/raid/ etc etc, that has been common in MMOs since Everquest.
A few things stand out that really put a new face on gameplay. The concept of “you are what you wear,” is really neat. Basically, it looks like you can play all “classes” from one toon, depending on which gear you swap into. That offers a lot of flexibility when grouping, which is a nice change. The question is, how will the UI handle the enormous amount of items you’ll need to be able to switch from role to role? If you have multiple appearance tabs, and then also have to manage tons of crap in your inventory, it might be more of a nightmare than a godsend. Hopefully they think this one though.
Obviously, they are setting up a game that will be very item-centric, and that will beg the question of how much of it will you be able to buy, and how much of it will you have to earn in game? They refer to a level 50 having a large “bag of tricks,” but that begs the question of how progress will be measured in this game. Will it be judged by time played (enduring the grind)? Will it be measured by some skill? (Twitch-type FPS game) Will it be measured by pocketbook? (Wallet) Or some other criteria?
There are also a lot of questions about how it will address things like grouping, and specifically the traditional roles of tank and healer. There is a combat medic – but will a class like that do anything to redefine the role of healer in groups? Also, how will it walk the fine line between solo and group play? It has instancing, but how will it still maintain the “massively multiplayer” aspect? And one thing that has not at all been addressed, as far as I can tell, is how they work the traditional concept of guilds into the game. There are many well-established gaming guilds, and there has to be a way for them to enjoy the game and make progress as a larger group, rather than as 24 or 40 individuals with a fancied up chat channel.
The one feature that peaks my interest the most, though, is the way the game will extend beyond the borders of its virtual world. It describes a world where you are sent messages (like email) while you are offline, that further the gameplay. So you might get a notification that an operative of yours is taken hostage. Or you might get a message saying that a car you ordered is complete. This is really cool, and I think it brings a real hook to the game that hasn’t been seen in MMO’s for a long time. It’s a game feature that people have been talking about a lot recently, but it’s going to raise a bunch of new questions about the ability of MMOs to lure us away from life – perhaps too much.
Lastly, and this is something that my friend Troy always talks about, they seem to have a real attention to detail, but yet the detail has a purpose. They describe missions where there is a high replayability factor just because you will want to do cool stuff over and over, like shoot the bad guys from a spinning carousel, or sport a fancy dress to sneak into a cocktail party. It’s questionable whether the entertainment value will be incentive enough for people to want to do the missions over and over. But at one point, there is mention a Q bert game machine, inside a building, and the prospect is raised that it might have a purpose to further other missions or gain favor with a certain operative. That’s really cool, and I sincerely hope it’s something that they have in the game, and not just something that’s floating around in a developer’s head as a hope for down the road.
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I just got done listening to the Ten Ton Hammer interview with Curt Schilling about his company and his business philosophy, and while there aren’t any specifics about what the game will be, there is a lot worth noting. A few quotes stood out to me, and you could almost hear him saying the phrase “unlike Vanguard’s management,” in every reference to how he does it. Try to visualize with me!
He talked about the fact that he realizes there has to be a point where they move away from the “How cool would it be if…” mantra and settle in to the reality of what they can produce.
He said that he has two rules for his company – Be on time and bust your ass. That’s a great example of the crossover between a sports career and running a business. You can tell that he’s studied team chemistry and leadership, and that he will apply that to his company.
Above: Clint Gilcrush, of 38 Studios.
He says that he expects his workers to be doing the late night grind at times, but that they will do it because they want to be there, not because it’s on the schedule that they have to be. I know it’s the standard ra-ra motivational speech tone, but the fact that he is aiming for that says a lot.
He said that his priority is – The Lord, family, and baseball, with gaming coming fourth. Stuff like that goes against the grain of the vocal gaming community, but I think it’s great, and a good indication of how he has things in perspective.
He added that they aren’t trying to reinvent the wheel, and indicated that they don’t plan on being a niche game. They are looking to cater to many play styles, and they recognize what Blizzard has done right in that regard. Good to see that Blizzard is getting acknowledged (especially since it seems like no game developers ever want to give them credit for anything), but at the same time, I hope they still intend to move the yard marker down the field some.
Since I’m on the subject of Curt Schilling, I also think that a post he made over at the Fires of Heaven boards sheds even more light on his philosophy. Bottom line from his reply is that he thinks it’s unfair to pillory Brad McQuaid. Even though he made some horrible management decisions (or failed to make any decisions), this was a person who, on a human level, had much bigger problems than his failing company. I could not agree with this more, and have said so here in the past about Vanguard’s real issues. Furthermore, he thinks that all the “kiss and tell” revelations after the fact are ridiculous, and that the people who say it now should have either spoken up years ago, or that they should have kept quiet and been good soldiers.
Both come down to integrity, and it’s obvious that he’s expecting a lot from his team. He has a staff full of talent, passion and tested experience. If he has successfully implemented his philosophy into the company, I can’t wait to see what they produce.
Two things that still leave questions for me though:
Why choose Comic Con to announce big things about your game?
Will the game really have mounted combat on flying pigs in underwater zones? I am so in if that’s the case.
Posted by jayernh under Archive | Comments (9)
Everyone’s doing it, so I figured I’d give it a go too. I can’t wait till I see how right I am at the end of the year. (And if I’m wrong, it’s only one click to delete and rewrite history anyway, so I figure this is a win-win situation).
Here we go!
Nothing will put a significant dent in WoW. We need at least another year before that is a possibility. (But it will happen!)
Pirates will struggle. The whole Pirate theme is niche as it is, and to rise above it, you need something more than this game has. The fans that do play it, however, will be content with what it is.
Age of Conan will struggle. I think it ran into the same problem as Vanguard, in that it tried too much with the combat system and had to pull it back a ton. Now they are scrambling to make up for lost time, and it will cost them.
Warhammer will be the Lord of the Rings Online of 2008. Numbers will be ok, but no one will be running around saying it’s the second coming of WoW, even though it bears quite a resemblence.
Both of these games are headliners in what I consider a transition phase in the MMO timeline. Right now, we’re seeing the last wave of games that try to push the envelope, but really don’t stray that far from the classic MMO model when push comes to shove. Both AoC and Warhammer pushed their release dates back, and it’s obvious that they did it because of Vanguard. But both are too far along in production to really have a chance to capitalize on Vanguard’s mistakes. The next cycle of games, which we won’t see go live for another 3-5 years, will be the first generation of games to have had ample time to learn from the “Vanguard Saga.”
WoW’s expansion will do fine. Despite people wishing, hoping, and praying for it to flop, it will still be a huge hit. The thing about WoW is that nine freakin million people play it. So it can lose a million subscriptions (which is more than the total for almost every other game out there) and still do fine. Get used to it. It’s at about the Luclin phase in EQ dog years, so it has at least another two expansions before it has to worry about people jumping ship and not coming back.
The Agency will be hit. It’s a dark horse, and not the typical genre for an MMO, but it will offer something fresh to the grizzled gamer. It will bring back that feeling of “where is this headed?” And it won’t take itself too seriously. That’s huge, and I still contend that one reason WoW is such a hit is because it embraces current culture and pop references, rather than shun them like the typical fantasy MMO does. I think they will also set some standards for what is accepted in the sphere of microtransactions.
Predictions for current games:
Eve will have yet another colossal, c-f, scandal, and no one will mind.
Vanguard will start to see increased numbers – but only if they double their staff in the first quarter. They have too much to do still, and people wont’ be patient enough to wait with all the new games coming out. Actually, never mind. After seeing this post today, and then stumbling on this one, it’s clear to me that it’s not so much a question of having the manpower to turn it around, so much as it’s a question of it even being physically possible to turn around. That’s a whole other entry though!
Everquest 2 will continue to be the game that implements innovative features, lots of lore, and a fun atmosphere. People will write about how great the game is. And it still won’t see a signifcant blip in subscription numbers.
Tabula Rasa will fade, although you won’t see nearly as many tell-all posts about Richard Garriott that you did about Brad McQuaid this past year. People will start to look elsewhere for their vision though, and the big names of the MMO industry are going to start hearing footsteps from some fresh new faces.
38 Studios will start to come out with some specifics about “Copernicus.” This will generate a lot of buzz, but it will polarize the gaming community. People will either love it or hate it, but everyone who follows games will have a strong opinion about it for sure. Oh, and Scott Hartsman will end up working here. (It’s a stretch, I know.)
Star Trek Online will go the way of Gods and Heroes. (Hey, I need at least one slam dunk in here!)
*edit* Ok, this one probably won’t count, because the news about STO came out today. But I swear I wrote this last night, before anything was made public. Damn my hesitation!
There will be the same general malaise about 2008 as there was in 2007. American MMO commentators will bemoan the fact that there are too many “little” titles, and that not one of them is a real contender to dethrone WoW. And all the while, there will be at least 1 or 2 Asian games that come out and generate more subscriptions numbers than all the American MMO releases combined. That will lead to companies, like SoE, to start planning MMOs around the global market even more than they are now.
Yikes. Not a good year coming up, according to my little prophecy. Most of this is of little consequence to me, personally. I’m having fun right now in Everquest 2, and there’s plenty of stuff I look forward to seeing with my guildmates. People can complain about a lot of things in the MMO world right now, but you can’t complain about lack of choices. There is something for everyone out there, and it doesn’t matter whether 9 million people play your game, or 25k people play your game, as long as the game is fun (and is able to sustain itself with revenue of course).
Posted by jayernh under Archive | Comments (1)
I know, I know, I know. I have a lousy track record for picking games. Granted, my 5 year investment in EQ was fine, but I then chose to play EQ2 at launch instead of WoW (EQ2 for the first year was rough, to say the least). And just about the time when the game was getting good, I switched over to Vanguard, and we all know what the general consensus is about that game.
So the fact that I have had my eye on 38 Studios might not be a good sign for them! Somehow, though, I think this is something worth watching carefully, and I agree with Keen and Graev, who contend that Curt Schilling will pitch a no-hitter. Maybe it’s because of the fact that 38 Studios is just a hop, skip, and a jump away from where I live. Maybe it’s because I was a longtime Red Sox fan. Or maybe it’s because that little green monster is so cute when he eats my mouse cursor.
Whatever the reason, the announcement of the game’s code name, Copernicus, made me that much more excited. So excited, in fact, that when I read the headline I told my husband from across the kitchen, and my daughter began peppering me with questions that ended up with me drawing out sketches of what Copernican Theory was vs. Geocentric Theory. She’s really into planets and space, but as I was drawing and talking, she forgot all about her line of questioning regarding Copernicus and started to gently chastise me for not drawing rings around Saturn the right way. (Is there a wrong way?) At least she stopped saying “why?” after that…..
On the surface, everything looks lined up for success. They have the foundation for a visually spectacular in-game world (Todd MacFarlane). They also have the foundation for terrific lore (R.A. Salvatore) By the way, lore, and an overarching storyline in particular, never gets treated with enough weight in the majority of MMOs. It looks like it could get proper treatment here – don’t underestimate that!
They have lots and lots of talent and experience on the development team, like Moorgard, who I met once… Ok I didn’t really meet him. It was more like I ran by his toon in Vanguard on launch night, and stood there like a big goober saying how much I was a fan of the Mobhunter site, but that’s a minor detail!
Most importantly, they have a winner at the helm in Curt Schilling. The fact that he’s a hardcore gamer is worth noting. He’s played – really played – games like EQ, EQ2, and WoW, and has worked closely with SoE in the past to organize the ALS in game fundraiser a couple of years ago. Neither side will readily admit it, but gamers and sports fans are very similar. Schilling has been around both, and knows what makes them tick. I think he’ll know how to walk the fine line between lip service and brutal honesty when it comes time to addressing his game community.
But what I really think he has that will make him a successful producer is his sports background. He’s a winner, and he has shown time and time again that he can dig deep and make the seemingly impossible happen. Even though he’s in a new role as lead of an MMO company, I think he will find a way to win, and he will push everyone around him to produce. That’s what makes him a premier athlete, and the leadership qualities gleaned from a career in pro sports are the same ones needed to run 38 Studios.
Like Sigil, 38 Studios has the All-Star talent that can do amazing things. Anyone who truly played Vanguard will admit that there are gems of brilliance in the game, that make you shake your head at the thought of what could have been if it had been managed well. The similarities end there, though. I really believe that 38 Studios will deliver, and I will be following their progress closely.
Posted by jayernh under Archive,Gaming Commentary | Comments (4)