Writing this has a sort of Penny Arcade or Little Gamers feeling and sound to it. Despite the impression it might leave, I'm not really much of an avid gamer, except when it comes to titles falling into the massively multiplayer category, whereas the folks at [
Penny Arcade] seem to have time on their hands to play just about anything (urm, only the quality stuff I'm sure). Maybe its also the amount of IRC quotes regarding FFX / FFXI and [
lesbians] thats making me feel like my life is an outcut from an online comic. If I could draw comics then I would - I'm pretty sure theres a market out there for a weekly comic based haiku speaking fella. ^_^
Anyway, despite the current range of MMO titles out at the moment, myself and a lot of the [planetm00] crew are currently waiting for the "next big MMO game". Be that Starwars Galaxies (and in some way I almost hope it isn't - the amount of hype surrounding it is making me worry that it really isn't going to be able to live up to expectations) or something else that comes along. Theres so much coming out of, or into beta at the moment, and yet so far theres just nothing thats managed to hold my attention for more than 5 mins.
Asherons Call 2 was one of those games. It had some nice graphics (and I only played the low res version, which had a 1.18gb install footprint - the high res version was another 600mb compressed download, and as it would be mostly graphics in that then I hate to think how large it would be uncompressed), and an interesting method of speccing your character, and apparently quite a cool crafting system (crafting has never been my bag, so I didn't actually experience that first hand), but there was just something weird about the way it played - combined with the incredibly stupid graphics regarding hitpoints during combat, those floating numbers get very annoying very quickly. There were also a couple of other minor things that got to me quite quickly: 3 races (so 6 avatars with m/f options) just doesn't seem like that much these days, and finally, the drum that my caster used for his spells looked stupid.
Although its not an RPG style game, its worth mentioning that the last round of Planetarion is drawing to a close. Planetarion is pretty much the reason I got sucked into this style of gaming in the first place, and in some ways its death feels a little weird. The more recent rounds felt nothing like the first 2-3 that I played, and the game has almost lost all of its appeal for me, but the fact that I still keep in close contact with so many people that I met while playing it, means that I always watched its developments with interest. 5th Season AS seem to have plans for other games in the pipeline, and as the Netgamers IRC network (which was the old Planetarion IRC network) is kind of my second home away from home, its pretty certain that if they end up churning out anything else worth bothering with that I'll get involved.
The Legend of Mir is still surviving, which is quite amazing. The user community has been plagued by server resets, network switch/lag issues, imbalances caused by messed up drop rates for rare items, constant problems with cheaters and cheating (and more to the point, a lack of ability for the staff to actually properly detect and ban these people consistenty), and a quick browse of the forums reveals the same problems that have haunted the Italian version of the game for years are still happening now - in fact browsing the forums on most days is like viewing a snapshot from the past. The recent leakage of the server files (left on a Korean mir support public ftp site, and downloaded + circulated by many) was probably one of the worst things that could have happened for the Italians. I enjoyed mir (despite its simplicity), but the problems were always the customer service and apparent apathy of the Italian support team. That sentiment is reinforced by the amount of private websites that have been popping up from people like ex Gamemasters, and the [ex game TV show presenter], who all talk(ed) about their bad experiences while working there.
Although it seems the WEMADE legal team has been leaning on him, causing parts of his site to be removed/edited, hence this little quote
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| Quote: |
Originally posted by Carlo on his website
NEWS: 5/9/02
I've decided to temporarily remove my TV Presenter story from this website, for reasons I won't go into at the moment. Thankyou for reading, and thankyou for the feedback. I'll put the story back up, once it is complete. Sorry to disappoint anyone.
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]
The story was actually quite amusing, especially for anyone who had dealt with their special brand of "customer support", I'm looking forward to its completion. The leaking of the server files let people realise how easy it was to change simple things like item stats, or create new items, modify drop/spawn rates, etc etc, as a lot of that info was stored in plain text files, or in a db2 database editable using a simple Borland tool. There really was little or no excuse for some of the delays and crap they'd been feeding their players, and it wasn't long before many fan run servers popped up around the net. These fans were providing a better service than the real site, the hardcore players loved it, and of course it wasn't long before the WEMADE legal team got wind and started shutting them down. As far as I know all the major players in that scene have been forced to shut their services down, and any that remain will be very underground and private. But the point was proved, that the problems with the game really were just down to one factor, the Italians. I'm not even sure what it was I liked about Legend of Mir, the graphics were very simplistic, there was no complexity in the spell system, there was little choices in terms of items (ITEAMZE!), there was only 3 classes of character, and after level 22 everyone appeared the same way anyhow, but it had something appealing about it. Possibly its in game economy, which was always quite healthy, which gave the forums a bit of life.
The in game economy of [DAoC] however, was awful, and was one of the reasons I think I never took to the game. Items and weaponry were never hard to come by, through guild hand me downs or quests, and I don't think I ever paid for a single item during all my time in game. The crafting system ingame is quite rich and well implemented, but the economy to support it is simply lacking, except for the very high end of the scale where people want to get that extra 1-2% quality difference to give them every little advantage they can get. Recently the European version had its first open test PvP server, after many delays and setbacks. The PvP server was something I was quite looking forward to playing on, and the constant delays were the final straw that made me cancel my sub months ago (which would have been even months sooner, except for their stupid auto renewal system for payment) and the fact that it's only entering a test phase now reinforces the fact that my cynical approach to their abilities to deliver on time was not misplaced. Even though the 1.51 does make it very tempting to login and have a bash with the new options for Spiritmaster speccing, which with the introduction of PBoAE line has become close to looking like something close to my ultimate sort of character class for these types of games (except the ress ability - get rid of that, its useless for me - when am I ever going to be able to ress myself?). Experiences with DAoC are partly whats making me stay well away from Starwars Galaxies beta proceedings, as I honestly believe that getting involved in that beta killed the game for me. Its too easy to get caught up into these sorts of games, and put a lot of time and effort into them, and forget that partaking in a beta should be done with a slightly different sort of an attitude.
Things like the Euro Everquest release, Evils Illusion, Myth of Soma and Eve Online probably deserve some sort of mention, but from what I've seen and heard, they're not really my bag. Eve had some nice sounding things about it, especially to anyone who spent a lot of time playing Elite on their C64 or Amiga (or PC I guess heh), but the beta experiences sounded like it wasn't living up to those expectations. Everquest just looked awful graphically compared to DAoC and SWG screenies, and Myth of Soma was just awful. EI would have potential, but imo it would be better to learn Korean and play on their servers than to even bother with another round of getting screwed about by WEMADE and company.
One of the big factors in people getting sick of these types of games has been focused by some recent "End Game" type discussions I've been reading lately. Legend of Mir for example, had no end game - it was the same the whole way through, there was a level cap of 50 but you would NEVER reach it no matter how much you played (unless you totally compromised your sanity, or used a tactic that a couple of people employed, and tag team played a single account across 2 people), and basically the game was about the same things at level 40+ as it was about at level 1 - just more interesting mobs, better items, and different maps. DAoC let you get to level 50 too quickly, and once everyone is at 50 it got to the point where certain classes (this is talking 1:1 PvP/RvR of course) simply never had a chance against other classes. Meaning the whole end game became about group based PvP, which is fine to a point, but I dont think it would have been too complicated to expand that somewhat. Offering the ability for people to continue to level above 50 in order to gain a slight advantage (ie, HP / END boosts ONLY per level, and no advancement in Weapon/Spell speccing, or something along those lines), so that people who really wanted to go the extra mile could do so. The way it stands now, you get to 50, and thats it - despite clamboring for those few items to get your little 1-2% bonuses here and there, and trying to earn more RP's to get your realm bonuses, your char is going to be the same forever - and you know there are certain classes you can never kill, and certain ones you can. I dunno, it just seemed that a lot of people got to 50 and had a bit of a harsh realisation that the game held nothing for them anymore - which is something I think could have been avoided with a bit of thought. Especially when you think of the fact that there are some classes in there more suited to solo playing, it would be nice to give them options.. and I'm not just saying that as I mostly enjoy playing solo.. :p
I have no idea about Starwars Galaxies endgame at the moment. I suppose I should read more about it, but the final details about exact game mechanics seem to be a bit lacking at the moment, which is fair enough given that it is still in closed beta phase. Given the richness of the game, and the fact that it seems to support a multitude of completely different playing styles in a way no other game I've seen before has yet, I think its safe to say that the end game should be quite varied. The range of "classes" (and its said in inverted commas as their classes are kind of base guidelines from the looks of it, you can play about with different combinations of skills and create your own unique sort of player) is very varied, and the best example is the traders/crafters. Whereas in DAoC crafting was something you did as well as level (and in fact you couldnt JUST craft, you needed exp/items/gold from levelling in order to progress with crafting), with SWG you can devote yourself to it, run shops, make items, trade/sell to players, and do not much else. In DAoC that would never have been possible, simply due to the utter crapness of the economy that would force you to be out there killing to get items worth salvageing, or gold to purchase your raw materials, until the point where you could actually sell a few items to the high end players, which would be after a LOT of crafting and spending a lot of gold/plat. It's that diversity in playing styles that it offers that gives it such potential at this stage.
One of the next big barrier that needs to be overcome, is the concept of servers, and the apparent limits on player numbers per server. While in some ways it lets different types of players find a community that suits them more (Phoenix VS Dragon in mir, Prydwen VS Excal in DAoC, etc etc), in other ways it affects the level of realism on the server. The ultimate would be to have different worlds/maps/whatever split across different servers, and the options to go for a wander across them, possibly with some sort of travel time type penalty - however it's done, the concept of one single huge world is something I'd like to see someone have a go at, and hopefully succeed at. I'm sure there are serious downsides to consider, but at the moment I'm thinking in a somewhat purely eutopian sense, in that it would just be "cool" to see.
If theres any titles I've missed, then I'd love to know about them. There is so much out there, and so much coming up, its hard to keep in touch with them all - especially as theres often a certain amount of wading through rubbish to be done before you really get an idea of the actual value of games like these. At this stage in the game though, I'm just holding tight and hoping that SWG delivers the goods. If not, the thought that I might actually be tempted to renew my DAoC sub and go back for some PvP is scaring me a little..