10/9/12

Trying Mists of Pandaria After Six Months Away

I recently picked up Mists of Pandaria to while away the remaining hours before RIFT’s Storm Legion expansion. To be perfectly honest, I’m pretty surprised to be writing this right now since I didn’t think I’d be trying it at all. Word of mouth means more than marketing or silly Panda decisions after all, it seems, so after too many trials and tribulations, I finally got the game installed and ready to go.

Technical Difficulties

Getting the game going again was a lot more difficult than I expected. I spent two days stuck on “Updating Setup Files.” This has never been an issue in the past, so I chalked it up to the digital download not agreeing with my system. I even went so far as to install my WotLK disc only to get the same hang up an hour in. As I later discovered, AVG had disabled the Windows Secondary Logon service, so when I got that turned on, everything was honky dory. Blizzard really has streamlined the download-play process and deserve a nod. Good job, little monsters.

Unfortunately, I’ve experienced numerous crashes and bugs since then. The MoP DX11 update doesn’t agree with nVidia’s latest drivers, so I was forced to downgrade to DX9 to play for more than an hour. For some reason, I can no longer hit ESC to bring up the menu, too, so there’s that.

Pet Battles

It’s amazing how much has changed in the last six months. I was lucky enough to have a couple of friends still playing who could help me get back into things. Pet Battles were one of the first things I wanted to try out. As it happens, I totally forgot some of the cool pets I had, and I was able to bypass the starter pet completely and begin things right with my Onyx Whelpling (Nine out of ten adventurers agree, dragons are cooler than birds).

People weren’t kidding when they said this thing is like Pokemon. It’s a carbon copy, right down to having to visit a special NPC to have your pets healed. On one hand, I love this since I was a big fan of the Game Boy games. On the other, it seems really odd that the player doesn’t have any way to heal their pet when they regen thousands of health each second.

I don’t know if I will be putting a whole lot of time into this system up front. It’s neat but it also feels like having to re-level all over again and it seems a bit grindy for the month I’m planning on staying. Still, I hit level 4 with my dragon-friend and will surely play around with it more.

Narration

I’m a big fan of the cinematics this time around. Not the trailers really but the in-game scenes. It’s better done than any expansion to come before it and is really about time; MMOs are notoriously bad for their narrative elements, WoW being high up on that list. It’s also neat how much more voice over is included in this expansion. You can really tell that Blizzard is trying to answer the new emphasis on story that’s come about since Cataclysm.

Pandaria

Ah, the stories continent of kung-fu pandas. I’ll be honest, I think the Pandaren race is the single stupidest addition to ever come to WoW. It’s a joke beyond jokes and reeks of desperation akin to a teenager with a flipped collar hoping to stand out from the crowd. It works but not in a good way. Anyways, that said, WoW is a pretty silly game in general and has a whole lot in common with a cartoon. Accepting Pandas in that context really isn’t that hard. Moreover, I think they’re really more of a vehicle for the Asian themed continent. So I’ll take them and do my best to keep them in my peripheral vision an no more.

The game itself is pretty in timeless way that only WoW has been able to pull off. The polygon count is low in comparison to other games but it really doesn’t hurt the experience since the engine is so good at blending it all together.

The gameplay is what’s bothering me. I’ve halfway to 86 and I’m still not comfortable with it. It just feels incredibly simple. Now, my Death Knight was never that hard to play but it seems much less involved than ever before. I open combat with a sequence like this: 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4. Every time… unless one of those twos becomes an Alt+2 for AoE.

What’s worse, though, is that spell effects are so out of control and mobs so prone to come in packs that’s it’s hard to tell what I’m even targeting unless it’s three times my own size. It makes combat feel horribly detached an unimpactful. Oh, I’m dying? I wonder why. No way to tell with so many colors exploding everywhere, may as well spam my heal.

I’m going to try to turn down my spell effects but that shouldn’t be necessary. The game simply shouldn’t let you turn things up so high that it destroys the experience. I don’t know if I’m spoiled by new games or just getting used to things again. Maybe it’s both. We’ll see over the month, I guess!

The other problem is that the quests just don’t feel worth reading. After playing SWTOR, and GW2, and RIFT where exposition is more than 250 characters, seeing that half-paragraph explanation just makes me want to skip it and hope the game tells its story by playing through it. I feel like I’ll miss something doing that, though, and it makes me a bit uncomfortable.

Even though I’ve only played for a handful of hours, I’m feeling like this return is very hit or miss. I am reserving judgment until it’s fair to hand it out and am keeping an open mind. Will report back when I’ve had more time with it!

12/22/10

Rift: Looking to the Future After Beta 2

The second beta event for Rift is finished and lots was learned from it. I was lucky enough to take part and, well, I’m excited for the NDA to drop. By the way, I checked and since Trion was asking people to status-update their being in-game, I think it’s okay to say that much (I haven’t actually seen anything to the contrary, source me if you have it).

Surprisingly, I missed out on one of the big events that Scott Hartsman details in his wrap-up post. The event is a story chunk from Prince Hylas Aelfwar, and the Battle for Silverwood. In effect, lots of rifts and invasions occurred, and over 500 people crammed into one small region to fight them back. As Scott mentions, all this in a modern day, graphically intense, MMORPG and the servers didn’t crash. And Blizzard said it was “impossible.” Mmm-hmm.

An outline of the rifts/invasions from the Beta 2 event

I find this most interesting because it presents new opportunities for the rift system I’d never even thought of before. I knew they could spawn them on cue and had plans for bigger and better things, but aiding narration wasn’t something I’d thought of. Now, I’ll be interested to see how this plays out in practice – I don’t see GMs randomly running these events all that often – but it could certainly mean neat, unexpected, and unquestionably epic encounters in our future.

Another point I thought was worth mentioning is that, even though the event was made for levels 8-20, it featured full-on raid rifts. That all but confirms that there will possibilities for raid content below the level cap. As someone who doesn’t like the “the real game begins at level cap” philosophy, that prospect is very alluring. What’s more satisfying that leveling up in a raid?

Overall, I’m very happy with everything in Scott’s note. This sounds like another bang-up job by Trion and it leaves me all the more excited for the final game.

On a couple unrelated notes from the last couple episodes of The Rift podcast, I’d just like to point out a couple of lines that stood out to me:

Scott mentioning that the patch notes from Beta 1 to Beta 2 are over 8000 words. Tell me again how this is “just a promotional beta?”
Adam mentioning that “in a few months when we’re released or on Beta 7.” Speculate as you will but it perked my ears up.

Can we also give it up to the ladies who run that podcast? They do a wonderful job of supporting the community and giving us the information we want to hear. As a podcaster myself, I know doing a weekly show requires a lot of planning and – gah! – editing. So, keep it up, Ari and Desi!

07/16/10

Guided Experience: How Much Handholding is Too Much Handholding?

Over the course of my last couple years MMO hopping, I’ve noticed a great divide in how some games approach progression. Effectively, your time in a game can be broken down into a series of micro activities and macro activities. Micro activities would be things such as questing, crafting, and exploring the zone you’re in. Macro activities are those that effect the larger scheme of things: level progression, zone progression, and story progression.

Each of these impacts how a game translates into the MMO market, which is why it’s striking to me just how many games feel the need to keep you on a rigidly defined path. Yet, there are others who do very well with only the smallest amount of handholding. My recent trip into Vanguard made me question my own expectations. What better place to do that than here?

Micro

The Aion quest log - ready with hyperlinks!

If someone were to ask me what I felt was the most important part of a traditional MMO, I would say the leveling experience. Over the years, we’ve seen a huge boom in devs trying to guide the player from point A to point B, with no downtime in between. This is very different from even two years ago, when most games required players to read quests for clues on how to complete them. Today, there is almost a built in expectation that, if you’re a theme park game, you’ll include some form of Quest Helper. WoW has it. LotRO has it. Aion REALLY has it.

Now, there’s something to be said for this. I don’t enjoy having to search a zone for my entire playtime in the vain hope that I’ll find the mob spawn I’m looking for. These systems evolved out of player demand. For the most part, I appreciate them and use them regularly.

But, look at a game like Aion. That game will not only tell you where to find your quest target but also comes with a series of hyperlinks to help you pin it down. They may as well have included a wiki, right there in game. In my opinion, that’s a bit much.

The problems with each of these are obvious. The first, while nice, instantly sends the impression that quest content is to be rushed through instead of enjoyed. That’s sad but alright, if you’re an end-game focused MMO. The second simply removes too much thought.

At this point, I think I’m beyond wanting to search out every single quest. I like being told the general vicinity of what I’m looking for. Stepping into Vanguard, I’ve found myself at a bit of a loss going without. Sometimes, “the hut to the west” is just a little too vague to pin down. But, when I play a game like Aion, I feel rushed. Questing is a series of explosions – BAM, BAM, BAM – and hope for a ding at the end of the night. Before you know it, you’re at a point where questing becomes boring and you’re left with the remains.

My thought: pinpoint locations are too much. LotRO has it right, I think, in outlining their map. Not every quest is tracked, too, so I never feel dependent on it. Many folks will say that working around handholding is as simple as not using the tools provided by the game. I’ve been there. I’ve tried it. The result is always feeling like you’re doing things the hard way – not playing as intended – and that’s just not much fun. This is an issue that needs to be designed around not compensated for.

Macro

No one can question the narrative of LotRO

And then there’s the larger picture. This is where the terms “theme park” and “sandbox” come into play.

In my opinion, if your game has a story the player is supposed to care about, it is absolutely the responsibility of the designer to guide the player through it. Dropping a series of narrative arcs into ten different zones and telling the player to have at it is simply bad storytelling. Now, that’s not to say giving the player multiple entry points is bad – it’s actually the opposite – but those same points must be guided. Otherwise, it’s like giving a reader the chapters of a book out of order. It doesn’t work.

Theme park games, right. That’s what we’re talking about in the above and, for the most part, the current crop of MMOs do well. In most games the story guides the player towards the zones appropriate for their level.

Then, you have sandbox games like Darkfall. Story means absolutely zero in DF, which is to its advantage. The same thing applies to EVE. You do what you want when you want and craft the world around your play experience. The problem with this type of game is that it leaves the player out to dry. They become dependent on other players and certain key missions to tell them where to go and what to do. Frankly, they scare people off as their design flies in the face of most games that have come out in the last 20 years. Sandboxes have existed, sure, and the only ones that don’t fall into a niche are those that make story paramount.

But, there are a lot of games that fall somewhere in-between. Fallen Earth, for example. There’s a story there. But there’s also a sandbox. Thankfully, the quest system is done well and keeps players moving where they need to go. Then there’s Vanguard, which I feel doesn’t guide the player well enough for a game so large.

These in-betweens face the unique problem of lacking a true identity.

For myself, I’ve come to the conclusion that if you’re game has a story I should care about, it should guide me along its path. That means never feeling lost or unsure of where to go to continue. There should be freedom built in there, lots of it. We don’t want another Tortage from AoC. But, the only games who get a pass on guiding their players are those where being guided simply doesn’t matter. There’s not many.

I guess that, overall, I prefer to have my hand held. That sounds bad but it shouldn’t. The truth is, I think that’s what most of us want: to follow a quest line, to have a goal, and a means to achieve it; to never feel lost or without something to do. Hand holding is a cavalier way to say guiding – and, there’s a definite difference between guiding someone and telling them exactly where to go and what to do.

At its center, perhaps the question has more to do with the type of game you prefer to play: no guiding or limited guiding; theme park or sandbox; EVE or LotRO.

More importantly, how much challenge do we really receive – or want, even – when we play?

–

I’d like to end this week with a message of welcome to all the new faces around here. It’s true what they say about comments being like blogger currency and it delights me to see new ones popping up every day. THANK YOU to everyone who’s taken the time to say hello and share a thought. There are a many that stay silent and I thank you for reading still. It’s immensely satisfying to know that people are reading and responding to what you write. I only hope that I make it worth your while to stop by. The same thanks goes out to all of my fellow bloggers who link back here on their sidebars and in their posts. The MMO blogging community is one of the most welcoming and kind in all of gaming. I am happy to be a part of it and happier to link back to you — so, if you’re not on the sidebar and would like to be, email me!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

05/31/10

On Bioware and MMOs Having “No Point”

In a recent article in The Escapist, SW:TOR designer and writing director Daniel Erickson states that he thinks most MMOs out now have no point; that they lack a story to define our actions and, thereby, amount to a series of errands on the checklist of some faceless NPC.

This comment disturbs me.

Have Bioware been paying attention *at all* to MMOs other than their own? Almost every major MMO out there has a coherent story that they base the major quest lines around. WoW’s narrative evolves with every major patch. LotRO follows the single most well known fantasy story of our time.

It bothers me because they seem to be insinuating that every quest should relate to a larger narrative. Now, in theory, that’s great – if you don’t want that many quests. How exactly do you make every quest in a game relate to the main story? Come on, Mr. Erickson, let’s be real. If every quest in the game contributed to the main narrative, you’d wind up with one of the most diluted and convoluted stories in the history of video games.

Not to mention, people would simply burn through it no matter what. There is a reason for the amount of pointless tasks in modern MMOs: they slow you down and eliminate the need to grind. Yes, you might have a bunch of “kill ten foozles” or “deliver these candies” quests, but they are a necessary evil.

Okay, this really has nothing to do with the post, but, as a former computer science major, it amuses me.

There is an idealistic mindset that believes we don’t need chores in our games – and it’d certainly be nice if Bioware could create a totally all-encompassing story experience – but the fact is, without “chores” you have grinding or a breeze to the level cap; you get a content light game that will be derided as unfinished.

I’m going to predict right now that SW:TOR will have plenty of staple MMO quests. The only caveat may be that they try to veil them in a thin story veneer… like every other game on the market does. Sorry Bioware, just because you have a good reputation doesn’t mean that you’re perfect. These kinds of statements, while seemingly innocuous, set up an unreasonable expectation. There is no way they’ll live up to the bar they’re setting for themselves.

But, the more important point that these statements underline is this: there is a point to MMOs. MMOs are about character and social progression, plain and simple. They’re about chasing the eternal carrot on an unending adventure within the story-context of the game-world. I mean, the point of an MMO is evidenced in the entirety of the systems that make it up. I think a case could be made that the existing “point of MMOs” is more important than the fourth pillar. A game without a clear cut sense of progression, even at end-game, is a failure.

Will story cut it? Maybe once.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m looking forward to TOR as much as the next guy, but you have to appreciate the philosophical underpinnings to the statements they make about MMO design. Maybe they’ll hit it out of the park, but, in my opinion, they’re shooting themselves in the foot by proclaiming their utter awesomeness at every turn.

The best thing they could do right now would be to clam up for about two months. Give us nothing. Now, won’t that make us go stir-crazy for your game without actually telling us to?

10/5/09

Actually, story does matter.

Sometimes, trolls get the best of you. I mirrored yesterday’s post on WoWRiot and the very first commenter, Pink, threw this out at me:

“go rp nerd. no1 cares about what a quest involves, only what the reward is.”

The asshat couldn’t have even read the article because what I’m saying is that I stopped reading quest text but we’ll put that to the side for a minute.

This is Pink. Pink from WoWriot is a guy. Draw your own conclusions.

I’m going to come out and say that, even if you’ve never RP’d or read a quest in your life, story matters. PvP fanbois such as Pink might not think so, but, whether they like it or not, it’s true.

Here’s why:

Without story, there is no context

If story was irrelevant, some of the best and most epic encounters in MMO history would never have been. Take WoW for example. If no one cared about story, Blizzard wouldn’t have bothered to design Onyxia, BRD, Blackwing Lair, or the upcoming Icecrown Citadel. It wouldn’t matter that those world dragons are corrupt or that somewhere there’s this thing called the Emerald Dream. Elwynn forest? Well, I guess that’s just a happy little fairy tale town that’s got no use for a history behind its name.

You could just as easily stick a boss in a big white room, I imagine him as a cube, and tell people to go to town. The why doesn’t matter. Just the reward.

Doesn’t that sound just a little empty to you?

Want a game where context doesn’t matter? Download Pong.

Without story, there’s only grind

You know, before MMOs came about you had MUDs and, sorry, most of them were entirely grindfests. Those that did have quests and story had little and it was usually held on a few web pages written up by the game’s maker. You know why that’s not the case anymore? People want a reason to do something, even if it’s shallow. Without that, why even have a quest giver? I bet it’s a lot easier to come up with a vending machine to hand out new objectives. When I played MUDs, the closest thing we had to a quest was Mob Mastery. You’d type ‘mobm’ and it’d hand you a mob to hunt down. Want to spend 80 levels doing that? Without story, what else is there?

And, apparently, Blizzard agrees. According to this article, people didn’t have as much fun without quests. Hence it now being the biggest quest driven in existence.

Without story, “RPG’s” become just “G’s”

That’s right homeboy. Isn’t the point of an RPG to deliver some kind of story? If you take context out of MMO gaming, you’re left with a shallow gaming experience that lacks purpose. In any other world, we’d call that a waste of time. MMOs aren’t here to provide challenge. They’re here to give us narrative social experiences that we can get devote a lot of time into. Compare the difficulty of WoW to any modern single player RPG and you’ll see what I mean.

Can you get lost in stats and killing blows? Yeah, probably. But that’s what Counterstrike is for.

I’m not going to ramble on and build up some huge case. The sheer ignorance of some people in our community is astounding to me and I had more to say that what could be held in a single comment.

If you don’t care about story, context, or world in your MMO, I’d just like to know why you even bother paying that subscription fee. You’re playing the wrong genre of game.

Call of Duty —-> is that way.

Update: I’ll let Tom Chilton sum it up.

“What we found was that all the feedback that we got from our alpha testers was that once they ran out of quests, the game got boring. They were like, ‘I don’t know what to do any more, and I don’t really feel like playing any more once I run out of quests’. We came to that realisation that, wow, this quest thing really works. We need to do this throughout the entire game!”