04/5/13

Defiance: The PC MMO Totally Unprepared for PC!

I suppose it’s about time I share some of my thoughts on the latest entry to our MMO library, Defiance. My enthusiasm for this game has ebbed and flowed during the PR cycle but never much broke lukewarm. To be honest, I felt like an outlier. When most of the internet seemed to join in a collective squee over the prospect of a combined MMO and TV show, I was busy standing on the sidelines contemplating just how prone to failure the whole thing was.

Don’t get me wrong, I realized that it could be cool, but let’s be frank: SyFy is the network that brought us Camel Spiders; they don’t exactly have a nose for quality. So Trion’s big follow up to one of my favorite games of all time, RIFT, would be an unproven entry into a incredibly difficult to break into genre and tied to a TV show that likely be cancelled by its third season? Not optimistic, despite my penchant for finding the positive in things.

Defiance-4

Optimism for Core Gameplay. It’s Greeeeeeat!

Now that I’ve gotten my hands on the game and spent around five hours with it, I feel confident in sharing that I am both optimistic and extremely disappointed.

Let’s start with why I’m optimistic. The gun game is wonderful. I’ve been rolling around with sniper and assault rifles to clear out packs from a distance and then close in to finish the job. Lag is mostly a non-issue. Any time I’ve lined up a headshot it hits for critical damage. When it doesn’t it’s because the mutant was moving. Guns come in all flavors with a wide range of stats, much like Borderlands. You can also chain together kills for extra damage and see the effect of weapon modifiers (fire, electricity, etc) on enemies.

You spend the bulk of your time shooting or pressing “E” over things, so the gun play has got to feel tight. It does. I turned on the damage indicators, which really should be on by default but aren’t, and it’s deliciously satisfying to see the numbers fall off like rain.

And that right there is it: the reason for great optimism. Gun play is the core of the game and it’s a blast (no pun intended). It also helps that I’ve found the world a really interesting place to run around in, what with its terraformed landscapes and giant, lantern-holding mushrooms and all. The story quests pretty interesting too, but that may be a result of pretty much everything being a mystery. I’m actually looking forward to the show revealing more about the game world and big story events, though not having main points explained up front is as confusing as it comes.

I would also like to disagree with a fellow blogger I enjoy reading. In his post, he mentions that Defiance and RIFT are cut from the same cloth and that players who don’t like RIFT aren’t likely to enjoy Defiance either. Now, maybe I’m missing something, but apart from the dynamic events, the two games are nothing alike. RIFT has rifts, and Defiance has Arkfalls which, indeed, are very similar. But apart from this piece of shared tech, the games are nothing alike. Their gameplay styles are so vastly different that it would be like comparing World of Warcraft to Borderlands 2. I just don’t see that.

Even if you hated RIFT, it’s hard to argue that random, rewarding, and optional bits of cooperative content are a bad idea. Defiance puts its own, shooter-friendly spin on them, so I content that even if you hated RIFT, that doesn’t mean Defiance is a lost cause.

Defiance-CoOp-Trailer_1

Disappointments, Bugs, and Total Freaking Cluelessness

Now to the disappointments. Where do I begin? Oh, I know: Trion should be absolutely ashamed to have pushed this thing to the PC market in its current state. Defiance holds the distinction of being the first MMO to launch simultaneously across platforms. It’s also the first MMO that feels like it was never intended for PC in the first place. Which isn’t to say the console versions are so great, but without seeing them, all I have is a buggy console port that feels like an afterthought. Feels like an afterthought + bug ridden = connected dots.

And it’s not even a good port. You have three customizable graphics options. Bloom, motion blur, shadows on/off. There is no screenshot button or way to hide/customize the UI. Menu navigation is obviously designed for a controller with the nuts and bolts settings being stuck in a radial menu, because you know how necessary those are with a mouse and keyboard. Trion doesn’t even deign to put patch notes in the updater like they do with RIFT. Why? Because console players don’t care and they are the intended audience. (Someday we’ll have to have a talk about why it’s a terrible idea to target console players first with cross-platform MMOs).

This is the company that gave us RIFT. There are no excuses for this slap-dash job. They should know better. And in fact, I’m betting they do but pushed the game out the door to preempt the TV show. Are we enjoying are cross-media yet?

So here’s the deal. In the time I played, the game crashed to desktop three times. Once was due to hitting escape to access the menu. Turns out those of us with 100Hz+ monitors can’t open the menus with the keyboard without a convoluted workaround (an issue since beta). Chat doesn’t work in most of the first zone. There is no quest log and they bug out often. On multiple separate occasions I had to move on or abandon them. More than once I interacted with an object only to have it not give me credit. Dropping missions is also pain and requires stumbling upon the option on your fullscreen map. Since you can only take one mission at a time, prepare for a hike to pick it up again after.

There’s more. Cover is inconsistent and trips you up as often as saves your hide. The reticle doesn’t line up correctly when using it either. If you’re peeking out from behind cover with your crosshairs on an enemy but the tip of your gun isn’t completely outside the cover wall, you’ll miss. When using a controller, vehicles will sometimes despawn after you’ve left them, hopped back in and try to move. Dynamic events sometimes disappear midway through completing them. Keybinds don’t save consistently. Mobs seem to spawn erratically and based upon your location to their area.

It goes on. There’s no easy way to tell your level. What the hell is an EGO rating? Your self-worth as an Arkhunter? How do you level up skills? What do these stats mean? What, how, where?! Someone should turn that into a theme song for Defiance. Nothing is explained. No-thing. From systems and mechanics, to the entire reason California went to the mutants. And so long as chat is broken, good luck getting an answer. It’s really pretty terrible.

Quest design is also rote MMO fare and does indeed seem a little repetitive on the “locate and tag” front. The combat missions are fun, though, and I often found myself killing enemies just because I could while on my frequent searches.

Concluding Thoughts

At its core, Defiance is fun and I’ve enjoyed my time there, but it’s also an unfinished console port and an incredibly weak effort from a company we know can do better. That said, all those bugs could be patched out and what it does well is the single most important thing it needed to do well. After playing around in the world they’ve created, I’m also convinced that if the show is decent, it could mean very interesting things for the game. Evolving story arcs in this setting could be fantastic and solve a lot of the concerns people have with quests feeling repetitive. Do the weekly installment!

A note on quests. I’m becoming more and more convinced that professional reviewers, like those at IGN, just don’t understand MMOs. At the end of the day, almost all any MMO offers is a variation on killing and collecting things, with possibly a touch of crafting. It’s a limitation of modern design that, yes, we are slowly moving away from, but, no, isn’t a reason to tear apart a game. Guess what? Tomb Raider was about killing and collecting things. Bioshock Infinite is about killing and collecting things. WoW, GW2, TSW, RIFT, LotRO and every other AAA MMO is too. Defiance does hit too frequently on the “find and scan” mission types, but to use that as the primary criticism when there is so much more on hand just tells the world you went in biased against MMO gameplay.

01/22/13

DUST 514: Beta Impressions – Things Don’t Look Good

I’ve spent a decent amount of time in the DUST 514 beta and now that the NDA is up, I’d like to share some basic impressions. I won’t go into great detail on many of the intricacies because other people have done already done so and much better than I would be able to. I’d like to get my thoughts out, however, because most of the reports you’re likely to read will be from EVE Online players. I’m not an EVE guy. Nothing against the game, I’ve just heard too much about “EVE offline” and “spreadsheets in space” to really be compelled to dive in, despite its sandbox offerings. That said, I play a lot of games to stay current for my writing projects and competitive first-person shooters are pretty much a mainstay. And I daresay, EVE players aren’t who CCP is trying to court with DUST. So, with that said, here’s an average gamer’s take.

Let’s start with the whole “who CCP’s trying to court” thing. If it’s EVE players, they’ve lost their minds. To what end? The game is free to play and console limited, so at best they’re only picking up a small subset of that existing playerbase (though any EVE player that comes along is more than welcome for their second fleecing). No, I think they’re after the Every Gamer. DUST514, with it’s console exclusivity and emphasis on fast-paced, twitch gameplay, seems distinctly aimed at expanding their audience beyond what MMOs currently attempt. I mean, think about it. If they hit it out of the park with DUST and get competitive with games like Call of Duty and Halo, they’d go down in history as very rich and groundbreaking businessmen.

Except, DUST isn’t positioned to hit that audience either. So the question is, who exactly is this game for?

Here’s the thing, DUST is a punishing, unforgiving, imbalanced, and overly complex game by design. The longer you play, the more of an edge you have. Even coming into beta, it is extremely difficult to feel competitive. Now, there are things in place to temper that, such as the passive skill-point gain when you’re not playing (DUST Offline?) but let’s be real, that’s a design for failure. It ignores the original problem! New players come to ever will lose the vast majority of the time. They will empty clips into other players at point blank range only to be three-shot killed over and over again. I firmly believe that one of the reasons Call of Duty, Battlefield, and Halo are popular is because you’re deadly right from the start. In DUST, you need to be lucky and get the jump on someone or hope they’re newer than you are.

But okay, you can use vehicles. That’s something! Yes, you can. And the game will do its best to hide this from you. It may be subjective, but I also feel that vehicles control slugglishly. Still, they’re there and a viable way to earn some XP.

dust2 If ever there was a game that could use a tutorial, though, it’s this one. CCP have included lengthy paragraphs of text for the first time you open menus but if they expect the average shooter fan (teenage boys) to actually read through these, they’re crazy. That’s too bad, because I read them and they do help. I predict most players simply will not and will be overwhelmed before they quit. Hopefully to come back another day without too terrible of a taste in their mouth.

And when they do, they’ll have a lot to learn. The economy is actually kind of cool. It has that depth to it. You have to buy and equip gear on your soldier and make sure you have enough stocked up to last you a battle. Money is important. But again, people will be upset to realize that the item they just bought was for a single life, not forever, and not even for a single match. So they go through all that learning only to get another rude awakening in a series of rude awakenings. Harden the F up? Won’t fly here. It will only lead to an incredibly niche game that people forget about until it moves to PC and EVE/normal– er, shooter-MMO players can get their hands on it.

Also, PS3 players don’t give two craps about EVE. I’m sorry, they don’t. I’d wager that most of them wouldn’t even know what it is if you asked them. So this whole “two universes connected!” thing is basically lost on them. And when orbital bombardments start, they’ll probably seem real cool for a second until that nuke drops and kills everybody without their understanding how or why.

Finally, the setting. It’s generic. Space soldiers! I can get behind the sci-fi setting but everything from the soldier’s armor models to the environments has been trod and re-trod over and over again to the point that DUST’s setting becomes almost entirely forgettable. The graphics, too, seem muddy, almost entirely shades of brown, grey, and black, with very little anti-aliasing (jaggies everywhere!) and lots of pop-in. To its credit, in-ship stuff is pretty good but those are pretty much lobbies and waiting areas.

So what do we have? A game connected to an MMO its audience doesn’t care about, with an extremely steep learning curve, that makes players feel underpowered and overwhelmed right off the bat, and with little other than an auction house and skill system to call unique. Again, who is this game for?

I’ve played DUST. It can be fun. I have no doubt there are people who will absolutely love it. I just can’t see how the average PS3 player is going to choose it over any of the other competitive shooters. It, without any malice or ill will toward CCP or its fans, just doesn’t compete.

10/5/10

New Information on Undead Labs’ Zombie MMO

While I tend to get most of my gaming news on the internet, when I saw the latest issue of EGM magazine (issue 241.0), I had to pick it up. Since the magazine started back up, they’ve been doing an excellent job of getting unique interviews and scoops from inside the industry. This issue was no exception with “First Look At Undead Labs’ ZOMBIE MMO” emblazoned on the cover.

We’ve heard very little about the game, there are some nice tidbits to be found here.

The Quotes

The atmosphere reminds me quite a bit of Fallen Earth.

“[The world] is present day, just a few months from now, however long it takes for the zombies to completely destroy everything that’s functional about civilization. The premise isn’t how you deal with the initial zombie attack, it’s how you deal with the aftermath and survive.”

The article comes with little bits of concept art and one big two page spread showing a downed and destroyed airliner lying on the fields of what could be LAX.

They also give us good indicators about what to expect of the game world:

“The game will not be ‘a canned, theme-park MMO,’ but rather a dynamic world to be reclaimed and rebuilt. That world is present day, just a few months from now…”

“After scavenging resources, you’ll need to pool some ideas and blueprints together to retrofit the settlement with defenses. The game’s dynamic and malleable physics engine lets you design obstacles, cattle paths and all manner of cruel and ingenious traps to stem the flow of sudden zombie strikes.”

Gather and crafting? Bolstering defenses to ward of zombie strikes? Sounds like we’re playing territorial domination here and that’s pretty cool.

This all makes me think the game may have more in common with the world of, say, Darkfall over WoW. The article definitely gives the impression that taking things back– and fighting to keep it– is a big part of the game. James Phinney and Jeff Strain go on to say,

Safe For Work Edition of This Zombie

“Real empowerment! Not running out to kill 10 things because I said so.” Strain quickly adds, “Like if we drop you into the middle of the zombie apocalypse with a crowbar and put you at the end of the Santa Monica pier, you know what you have to do, right? There’s no guy standing around with a little exclamation point over his head that you need to talk to,… your goal is to survive at any cost and find some kind of immediate shelter.”

“Banish the memories you have of the PC MMO paradigm for combat, and start thinking AAA console action game.”

“[Forge] understands that weapons (like the M14 assault rifle or long-bladed machete) need to feel snap-fast and satisfying, to pierce bones and dismember limbs just so.”

“‘You have to look at what the interactions are like in the films and books, [says Forge]. There’s this really strong visceral connection between melee and ranged combat… …I’m looking to put that experience in your hands with the slickest control scheme we can come up with.’”

Which is great on a number of levels. First and foremost, people expect zombie games to be about action. They want to shoot off limbs and explode heads and come up with their own interesting ways to dispatch the undead– that’s the whole basis for the Dead Rising series, isn’t it? Combat is God of War is fun, there is no doubt about that. This game will require a different approach but it sounds like they’re on the right track.

It’s not all about high intensity action, however:

“All the basics of zombie apocalypse survival are required in our world: food, water, shelter, and of course, bullets,”

“Over the first couple of days, you’re going to be worrying about food supply, how to equip yourself to deal with travel, protecting yourself from the elements and conditions”

To me, this sounds like basic “get gear, get food and water to regen” stuff, but it gets better:

“In quieter moments you’ll be able to build out the settlements, even plant and grow gardens within. You can’t drive a chainsaw through a zombie’s skull on a crappy diet.”

Survival will surely be a team sport, too.

“Ultimately you’ll try to locate other friendly humans and increase your chance of survival through numbers. Together, you may eventually gather enough materials and defensive measures to move into larger shelters like an abandoned house, and potentially clear out other nearby establishments like the local 7-Eleven”

“‘A lot of it has to do with how real world the stories are– aside from crazy hordes eating your flesh. It’s everything you see, like the breakdown of human society, the challenges people face trying to survive, figuring out if there are others you can trust, learning to work together.”

There’s no mention of whether the game will feature both solo and group paths; however, I think it’s safe to say the it will. Console games are not renowned for mandatory interdependence, though I’d like to know how much a lone ranger would be able to do if territorial take-overs are a major aspect of play.

Finally, they give us an idea of how each player will progress and advance themselves:

“Though in an early state of development, it appears the game may adopt an open character progression system (not strictly class-based).”

They go on to provide several possible “specialty roles” players may be able to adopt, such as “ace mechanic,” “the guy with medical training,” or “an ex-special forces tracker.” There is definitely a sandbox vibe coming from almost every part of this game. I’m hoping they keep the open class system. We need more of that in this industry and it seems fitting in such a modern setting.

Thoughts

I have to be honest here, when I first heard about the game I pretty much wrote it off. This article piqued my interest but I’m still not convinced it’s a good sell.

At its core, this game is three niches deep. It’s an MMO, it’s post-apocalyptic, and it’s zombie based. Add into this the fact the it is being made “purely for consoles” and I think we have cause to worry if they’re not over-specializing. I have to wonder who the target audience is for this game. Is it MMO fans, zombie fans, or action fans? While the last two might fit together, consoles players aren’t the most accepting of the many aspects of play we MMO players take for granted.

In that way, the design really seems to be at war with itself. While console players will expect high-intensity action, the article seems to indicate that there will be a lot of downtime. Do zombie fans really want to plant gardens and search for blueprints? Moreover, are we emphasizing the zombie-theme or the post-apocalypse? Though we’ve frequently seen the two tied together, in terms of design, the two could drastically effect how people enjoy the game. Though zombies are obviously a huge motivator, what’s to set this game apart from the likes of Fallen Earth?

As an MMO on a console, the challenges this game will face are huge. It must be able to support an MMO sized audience. I’m left wondering if the confounded design paradigms will offer enough to justify consoles players tying themselves down as most MMOs expect them to– a sentiment fairly unique to the MMO genre. We have to remember that console players often look down their noses at us. Playing one game to the exclusion of most others– and paying for it– is absolutely foreign to them. Still, I’m obviously not saying that there is no hope. The game is not dead in the gate.

In short, Undead Labs must strike gold, perfectly balancing a blend of console-based action with the addictive drip-feed of MMO progression systems lest the ultra-niche nature of the game bar them from mass-market or even mid-market success. Yet, in an era poised to explode the possibilities of expansive online gaming on every platform, if there was ever a time for console MMO hit, we are rapidly approaching it.

And the thing is, as an MMO and console fan, I think this game could be good. Really good.

Undead Labs is stuck between two audiences who generally want very different things from their titles. Can they bridge the gap between our expectations, deliver on both, and give us that proverbial handshake between genres? I sure hope so, because they’d need a damn good game to do it. And that’s a game I want to play