Archive for November, 2007

A Helping Hand in MMORPGs

8 November 2007 | No Comments » | LHStaff

Lately, as I have been giving new MMORPGs, specifically new ones, a try I have started to notice something. People are becoming more and more hostile towards new people (newbies) than ever before. Now I’m not saying that this is a large majority of any of the MMORPG communities out there, and I am sure there are people who help out newbies in their spare time, but there always seems to be that small vocal minority who, when asked for advice, seems to become overly hostile and very degrading. It’s almost shocking.

Unfortunately, while they are a problem, the bigger problem is the passiveness of the other players around. While in WoW one time, I zoned into the Barrens to find about 3 people harrassing this one newbie simply because he couldn’t find an NPC for his quest. Nobody, not one person, had decided to help him or even try to stop the 3 players berrating him with insults. It’s enough to drive a person from the game.

My main point is: when nobody stands up to these types of players they get the notion that it is alright to continue doing so. MMORPGs are communities and while in that community we all have to live with each other. So, by you not telling these types of players to “sod off” you are passively telling them it’s ok for them to represent your community like that. New people need help, they always will. So, if you will, help them out or, at the very least, protect them from any volitile players out there. Remember, today’s newbie could be tomorrow’s guildmate you are running quests with.

Don't Loot Me Bro!

7 November 2007 | No Comments » | LHStaff

Seriously, don’t! It seems as MMORPGs become more mainstream, more casual, certain game aspects that once made MMORPGs what they are are slowly being removed. Looting is one of these features. Back in the day of Ultima Online, Asherons Call and a few other MMORPGs, when you killed someone not only would you receive XP, but you could also loot their bodies. As they lay lifeless infront of your mighty Mage, or whatever, you could rummage through their body removing whatever gold and items you choose. Not anymore, not only can you not loot items from players, you can’t even get a percentage of their money. As for the player that was defeated, most likely they won’t even receive any serious penalty.

Why have developers given up on looting systems? Is it because the penalty for death is too great? Perhaps, I mean no one wants to lose any of their epic items because they lost a fight. Today most games have abandoned all looting, even losing money has become too great of a penalty. In order to capture the greater gaming market, casual gamers, MMORPGs have become easy. With little to no penalty for death and no looting penalty, MMORPGs are becoming stale. There’s an excitement when you know you could lose something important, whether it be some money or perhaps an item. It gives the game an added depth that you can’t get when you don’t need to worry about anything, except maybe losing a few mins traveling back to where you died.

So what’s a hardcore gamer to do. There is some hope out there, Eve Online currently allows PvP and looting and the upcoming Darkfall does as well. Perhaps others will follow.

The Future of Cryptic Studios

6 November 2007 | No Comments » | LHStaff

Earlier today, in a joint press release with NCSoft, Cryptic Studios announced that they will no longer be running the CoH/CoV games, and has thus decided to sell the IP to the publisher. It is very shocking news, and we can’t even contemplate what might happen to the game. However, that is not what we are here to discuss. Today, we look at the future of Cryptic Studios, the company that gave us one of the most unique MMORPGs that still exists today.

If you were to look at the Cryptic website you’d notice they have placed a F.A.Q. (here) detailing the issues of the move. Unfortunately, within this F.A.Q. is very limited information on what the company plans on persuing next. So what could be in their future as a company? Three words: Marvel Universe Online.

Marvel, after losing its original lawsuit against Cryptic, has now decided it would be better to bring them into their midst and have them develop their newest endeavor, an MMORPG based off the Marvel comics. This can be seen as a good and bad thing. First off, for those who loved the character creation within CoH, you can expect the same type of creation within Marvel Universe Online only with, presumably, more options and much better graphics. No doubt there will also be more powers and other such things comic book fans love. However, with Cryptic signing on to make this their new MMO can we expect there to be more grind as well? What about the endgame? CoH was notorious for having almost no end-game material.

Cryptic has a good history, but only time will tell whether they have learned from their past mistakes or not. Personally, I think it is a bad idea to have the same company who has developed a Super Hero MMORPG already, develop another one. Although, I wouldn’t mind being proven wrong. The ball is in Cryptic’s court.

Power Leveling in MMORPGs

6 November 2007 | No Comments » | LHStaff

I’ve decide to write about this controversial topic, because I do not believe that powerleveling is as bad as may MMORPG gamers say. In fact, I bet that almost every single MMO player has powerleveled to some extent at one time or another. So why are so many people up in arms about it? Lets find out.

To start of, lets answer the most obvious question. Why do gamers power level? The short answer is that the player wants to get his character to the max level ASAP. But why? I mean, isn’t the main part of the game and fun playing your character to reach that max level (if the game has one)? Yes and no. For me when ever I’m playing a new MMORPG I want to explore everything and do everything, but there comes a time when I want to start a new character and I do not want to play the whole game over, however this depends on the game. There are games where I don’t mind playing through 2 or 3 times to try out different characters, however there are other games where I would rather stop playing than have to go though again, most recent example is LOTRO.

Not all gamers consider starting from scratch fun, in fact there are so many gamers that consider it not fun that there are million dollar business setup to help players get through the boring parts of the game. Before you start steaming at how power levelers ruin the game, lets take a step back. Consider this, a gamer has been playing a MMORPG for a full year now. They have played through the game twice with 2 separate characters however they have yet to find one they really enjoy or they just want to try them all. Now the gamer has gone through the entire story line twice, has done all the quests at LEAST twice and grinded there way to 2 maxed out characters. Are you saying this user has to completely go through the game again, from scratch? Why? So that there aren’t a ton of maxed out characters flooding the server? So that your maxed out character is that much more important? I don’t think either is a valid argument.

Many gamers will tell you that the real game doesn’t start until you reach that top level. You can participate in tough raids, battle it out in PvP or go after those epic items. Having more top level characters would only enhance the game in my option. Why does a user have to go through the mind numbing, repetitive grind of leveling up, again and again? Would it be such a bad idea if developers added a feature where once you have reached the top level, you get an option to start another character and have them maxed out instantly? I don’t think so. This gives the player an opportunity to try out all the characters without spending another 100 hrs leveling up each one.

The fact is that many players actively power level regardless of what deterrents developers add in the game. Whether they have friends, guild mates or use a service to do it for them, power leveling has been around since the first MMORPG. What needs to change is that developers need to stop fighting it and embrace it. I’d be still playing LOTRO if I could start a new character without having to play the game again. The sad fact about some MMORPGs is that if you take away the level grinding there is no game. If you reach that top level and find there isn’t much to do in the game, you might start a new character. However if you allow gamers to create maxed out character instantly after playing through once, developers might find themselves with huge problems. Whoops, we forgot to add a game after the level grind.

I think developers really need to concentrate on game play and less on how long they can keep you grinding.

Is Hellgate: London the Next Diablo 2?

5 November 2007 | No Comments » | LHStaff

So last Wednesday, Halloween, I decided to go out and pick up Hellgate: London. Obviously, there was more at work here than just me wanting to be festive and grab a game that fit the mood of the day. Hellgate: London was largely being touted as “the next Diablo 2″. So, now that the game has come out, and I have had at least a few hours to toil around and play within the world that Flagship Studios has created, is it the next Diablo 2?

Well, there are a lot of reasons why I would say yes, and a lot of reasons why I’d say no. The game is, in story and game play, very similar to Diablo 2. Imagine, if you will, Diablo 2 had been 3D and placed in the modern day and you’ll basically get the same concept as Hellgate: London. Which is a good thing, don’t get me wrong. Diablo 2 was one of the high-points of PC gaming of all time. You’ll instantly notice when you jump into the game that some of the classes are very similar to their Diablo 2 counterparts (Blademaster is like the Barbarian, Guardian is like the Paladin). In addition you’ll also notice, about an hour into the game, that their is massive amounts of loot being thrown around, also very Diablo 2-esque. Overall, the surface of the game is almost shockingly similar to Diablo 2, which is to be expected since the game was created by the original Diablo 2 game designer.

Once you start to delve a little further into the game, however, you’ll begin to notice some stark contrasts between Hallgate: London and Diablo 2. Obviously, there is no battle.net to run your games. Everything is run off of a single U.S. server or EU server (depending on where you live, naturally). This means there is no out-of-game “lobby” area where you can assemble your team and head-off into a game with your buddies. This also means you won’t ever get any unexpected guests in your game. Everything about Hellgate: London’s instancing zones screams Guild Wars. You’ll find yourself in a “town” area where the players gather, and from there you’ll gather your quests and acquire your team members and head into the zone.

Overall, Hellgate: London gives it’s own unique feel for the Online RPG game, one that does not take the place of Diablo 2. Although their are some similarities, the overall gameplay management makes this game feel much more unique than if it were a direct Diablo 2 clone. Now bring on DIablo 3. . .

Tabula Rasa First Impressions

5 November 2007 | No Comments » | LHStaff

After work on Friday and went a picked up a copy of Tabula Rasa. I was excited about the new direction Richard “Lord British” Garriot was taking with this MMOFPS and since I wasn’t playing any MMO at the time, I figured why not. I wish I was writing this with a little more play time in the game, but my computer had a melt down Saturday morning and I didn’t get it back up until Sunday evening, so I’ve only managed 3 hrs 35 mins of game play. It’s a long story, so I’ll just give you the ultra short version. New power supply, new graphics card (upgrading). Broke clip on heat-sink (don’t ask why I was playing with this), had major problems getting it back on without overheating issues, eventually go it. Also lost 1 GB of memory which still needs to be replaced. If anyone’s really interested, just comment and I’ll write out the full explanation of my comps melt down.

Onward to the actual game. The game starts out as any other game, giving you a very nice CG movie of the back story, which is always entertaining. You than customize your character, enough options to ensure uniqueness, but not enough to waste hrs on, which is good. Basically when you start out in the game, everyone is the same. You have the same skills, same weapons, same armor and as you progress and level you get skill and stat points. Its exactly what you think these points are for, so no need to explain. You start out at an outpost where a tutorial teaches you the basic movements and once your done with that you get to kill a few baddies. The game is pretty interesting, your in the middle of a War and there’s basically enemy units all over the place reeking havoc. They don’t just stand there hanging out in the middle of the map waiting to be attacked, they attack outposts and NPCs, drop ships come in and drop more enemy units, this gives the game a chaotic feel which is exactly what a war should feel like.

As a trainee, my character isn’t on the front-lines yet. I’m doing gathering missions at this point which isn’t much fun, but I’m learning a lot. Most of these missions are to visit ancient shrines to learn new LOGO ability’s. These are abilities that grant you new skills in the game. Combat is pretty fun, after playing LOTRO I’m used to just standing during combat and clicking buttons, but this is a MMOFPS so moving and attacking is vital. As far as complexity, the game is a little confusing, as is any MMORPG when you first login, but it’s nothing that you can’t pick up within a short time frame. Not as easy as WOW, but much easier than Eve Online. Having been released only since Friday I did expect the lag to be pretty bad, it was at least today, all servers seemed to be pretty full when I logged in and my character froze at least a dozen times during the 2 hrs I played. However I’m sure this will only get better once server loads are balanced out. Other games have had much worse lag issues on launch weekend, so this wasn’t that bad.

As I said I’m a little over 3 hrs at this point so I haven’t gotten very far or seen very much. I will be doing a follow up review of the game in 2 weeks after I put in some solid game time. But from what I have seen of the game thus far, I’m very excited to get past the beginner missions and really get into the game.

Before the Now: Tabula Rasa

2 November 2007 | No Comments » | LHStaff

Welcome to the second week of our brand new series, entitled Before the Now, where we take a look at some of the new and upcoming MMORPGs and compare them to their history and where their origins came from. Sometimes the game only undergoes small or minor changes, but other times it becomes a completely different entity. In this blog we will take an in depth look at Tabula Rasa, which originally began development in early 2001.

After finishing his work on the Ultima Series in 1996, Richard “Lord British” Garriot decided to take a break from his video game career. He didn’t reappear until May of 2001 when he announced that he, along with his brother Robert, formed a new studio called Destination Games. Then at E3 2001, a few weeks later, Garriot announced his brand new project with a, then practically unknown, company called NCSoft. In an interview, Garriot announced that his new MMORPG was codenamed Tabula Rasa (Latin for blank slate) and that his newest game would be on a 2 and a half year development cycle. That was the last time the company made any public announcements about the original game.

The company had set out with a vast array of MMORPG veterans that were promising to make the ultimate MMORPG that would unite both the Western audiences and the Eastern audiences. In order to do this the company had decided to give it a rough fantasy-like setting where most of the architecture in the game resembled somewhat of the ancient Eastern empires. Unfortunately that is about as far as the game got into development when the team broke down. Like I said previously, the company had a lot of MMORPG veterans and because of this there were a lot of people trying to take control of the situation. As Garriot, himself, put it there were too many chefs in the kitchen. Finally reaching a breaking point, Richard Garriot, with NCSoft’s approval, replaced nearly 20% of his team (mostly renowned game designers) and almost 75% of the original code.

Now, unfortunately, I was unable to acquire any specific details about the original game, itself. Somebody, probably NCsoft, has gone through a lot of trouble to cover up some of the early screenshots and the original feature list along with the original website. However, I can tell you what I remember about the game:

  • Tabula Rasa was going to be fantasy-based, not Sci-Fi as it is now.
  • Each player was to start out where their own “estate house”.
  • The setting of the world was to be based on ancient China/India.
  • The game was set out to unite Asian MMO-ers and Western MMO-ers, something that was not done back then.

Three years later, Richard Garriot showed off Tabula Rasa again as a completely different game. A new website had been put up in place of the old one and everybody forgot about the game’s past rendition. It was probably for the better as it sounded like the game was not heading in the right direction from the beginning, but it still makes you wonder what their original vision could have been. Certainly giving each player their own estate-sized house was an interesting feature, if nothing else.

Tune in next Friday when we delve into the world behind Pirates of the Burning Sea.

The Guild – MMORPG Show

1 November 2007 | No Comments » | LHStaff

Browsing around YouTube today, I stumbled upon a little show called The Guild. The show is based on a group of online friends that game together in the same MMORPG guild. Currently there are 4 episodes with a new episode added at the beginning of each month and between 3-5 mins long.

With all the mainstream coverage over the last year for MMORPG games (South Park WOW episode, Toyota WOW Commercial), it wasn’t long before a show was made based around MMORPG’s, even if it is just on YouTube. The show has a solid following, the last two episodes each have had 380,000+ views with the first episode nearing a million. So it makes you wonder why a show like this can’t make it to TV. The show was the creation of Felicia Day an actress you might have recognized from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”. Ok, if your a girl you might have recognized her from Buffy. Felicia took the project and shopped it around Hollywood, who politely declined. However Felicia didn’t take no for an answer. Felicia and partners funded the pilot episode and posted it on YouTube. Gamers responded by not only watching but by donating cash for future episodes via a donate Paypal link.

After watching all four episodes I’m ready for more. I mean common anyone watch The Big Bang Theory? Its horrible and as stereotypical as you can get. The Guild on the other hand is witty, humorous and portrays gamers from all walks of life. A definite triumph!