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.

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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.

01/7/13

[WoW] Once More at the Level Cap: Looking Back at 85-90

Well, I’ve made it again and I am once more at the level cap in World of Warcraft. It took me longer this time than probably any one of their expansions to date, but I’m glad I made it. It may not have happened, in all honesty — I’d already tried and given up once before — but a good friend returned and I took the chance at trying again. The journey was filled with ups and downs and now that I’m here, I think it’s time for a bit of reflection.

Level progression was loose and easy but I can’t help but feel let down. Mists of Pandaria is an exercise in rigidity. Questing follows the same model we saw in Cataclysm but to a heightened state. Quest hubs will unilaterally usher you along the leveling super highway with every handful of quests buzzing you past another exit. Eventually hit 90 and decide if it’s time to get off. There are pitstops for lore and other distractions but each is extremely short-lived with little trade-off for the time spent. It works, and a lot of the quests are fun and well designed, but the general sense is one of being ushered through: You don’t want to wait too longer because something else (not better) is just around the bend.

I don’t think I like that. I don’t think I like the direction WoW has gone. Blizzard has always supported directed gameplay but this is beyond that. It is defined gameplay. Even exploration doo-dads, these lore items and junk pick-ups that are instantly traded in for cash, are only the bare minimum required to say Blizzard supports exploring. They don’t. Play as prescribed and call me in the morning.

I’ve mentioned in the past how impressed I was at the level design in Jade Forest. The single most disappointing thing of this expansion is that every other zone fails to meet that bar. Where are the instanced story sequences? Where is the voice narration? Where are the new quest types? I mean, the sniper bit in Jade Forest wasn’t tried-and-true MMO fare but it was at least new. Everything that came after was cut-and-paste from 2009 — plus vehicles. I would be willing to bet, even, that the reason players begin in Jade Forest is because some developer probably noticed its content was the most unique thing on offer in MoP. Playing through Townlong Steepes and seeing the crystal-snake from Stonecore pop out of the ground (because, why not?) really captured the sense of re-hash that pervades the experience.

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But for all that, I have never claimed WoW was a bad or unworthy game. There were some damn fun parts in leveling up. Pretty much anything that allowed you to kill masses of enemies at once sparkled. Smashing evil monkies with a giant yeti was a great time. As was the martial arts training sequence. All that needed to be a proper montage was Eye of the Tiger. Even playing standard Kill/Collect quests was a good time because what WoW does well, it runs with. Environments are over-saturated and beautiful. Mastering your class is easy to try and hard to perfect. The added movement for even the most basic battles also adds an element of reactivity previously only found in group content.

Normal mode dungeons are fun but lacking. By level 87 I had played through every one of them. By 88 I was avoiding them because, well, why bother? Apart from seeing the content, there wasn’t much motivation to actually get in until 89 when you begin preparing for heroics.

Another thing that bears mentioning is that the number systems are simply out of control. At level 10 you’re getting +5 stat armor. By 89 you’re getting +450 stat armor, multiple times over. I dinged 90 with almost 400k health. Levels require tens of millions of experience points and reading quests slows things down to the point where actually getting them is a drag. At that point, questing isn’t about “experience” or story or world. It’s about filling in a percent of a bar. 2% here, 1% there, gogogo to ding grats thx.

Numbers are so out of control they are choking out their very meaning. Tell me, what’s the difference between 350k and 400k HP? A raid-geared TBC tank. Or one hit. You choose.

Now that I’m 90, I will get back into the routine of collecting gear for heroics and LFR. I always enjoyed that aspect of the game. Tangible progression, cool outfits. I do wonder if I will make it, though, hating dailies as I do.

And with that, I would like to make a prediction. Without ever having completed daily #1 in MoP, and without regard to how fun any of them may actually be, I feel confident in saying that building the endgame on the back of daily quests will be viewed as the single biggest failing of this expansion.

I say this for two reasons. First, Blizzard have made completing them a requirement with the introduction of lucky coins (which give extra loot rolls). Pairing this with wider accessibility of raiding LFR has provided, people feel herded towards them. Second, and more importantly, the current implementation of dailies takes the raid problem and pushes it into the rest of the world. Don’t like repeating the same content ad nauseum? Well, instead of doing that once a week with a chance at progression, now you get to do it every day with the chance at none. Tell me players won’t get tired of that and I’ll tell you about this floating island I have.

Sorry for the snark. Dailies are fine as a limited option. They are not an endgame and nor should they be anything more than a temporary gateway. Even with lots of options, over an expansion cycle they will all get seen, all get played out, and the less fun ones will be pushed to the side while the better ones become objects of scorn. Players need movement. They need progress. It doesn’t matter how good your quest is, after completing it 30 times, it becomes a chore before going outside to play.

Overall, I’m happy I made it to 90 and I won’t be surprised if the game opens up a bit. Despite my conclusions above, I expect to actually enjoy some of the dailies because I won’t be doing them to death. My plan right now is to begin tanking with my Death Knight (the game does a good job of getting you gear ready) and get the extra few points I need to begin heroics. Then it’s raiding through the LFR to see the content through.

Now that I’ve pushed through and am 90, I need to get back to RIFT and see more of Storm Legion. Plus, TSW, a game I bought, am extremely intrigued by, but keeps getting pushed to the side because I should probably get these sub games in before my time expires. How about that?

10/17/12

WoW: MoP Jade Forest Review and Other Miscellaney

It’s been a while since my last update, so I thought I’d check in and let you all know where I’m at. My main game has been WoW: MoP lately but I’ve dipped my toe into more than one water, so let’s jump right in.

Jade Forest Review

While “review” might be a bit overkill, I’ve played through the zone and feel comfortable sharing my thoughts. I think it’s safe to say that Jade Forest is a very well done zone and provides a great introduction to Mists of Pandaria. Each quest hub now represents a set of six or so quests that give you a nice chunk of story and usually keep the thread of the main storyline going along at a steady clip. This is a nice change from previous expansions where a dozen quests kept the story; this is much more concise and easy to follow. It also allows Blizzard to deliver story in chunks of real movements. For the first time, I found myself questing because I wanted to see what would happen next and not just to kill more furlbogs. I also had a great “wow!” moment at the end of the zone when the Sha of Doubt finally reveals itself. The lead up to that was fantastic and one of the best bits of storytelling ever seen in WoW’s quests.

Unfortunately, quest design didn’t evolve nearly as much as story in that not at all. This is why I think reviewers nailed the game so hard. Quest progression and story delivery have evolved, and even combat has had some shake-ups (while still being a 1, 2, 3, mechanic, button-mash), but what you’re actually doing hasn’t changed a bit. There are a couple outliers, like the sniper quest and other instanced story content, but the open world doesn’t get more exciting than the bombing runs first introduced in ’07. I really hope this improves as I continue through the game.

Still, WoW is WoW, and I’m having fun with it. Jade Forest is a good introduction to what I’ve always said is a good game. At this point, though, it’s an old game and virtually everything in RIFT’s Storm Legion (other than story) is showing it up. Will I stay subscribed after this month? I really don’t know if 90 is worth it when there’s such other offerings on the market.

Guild Wars 2 – No Pressure, No Login?

Guild Wars 2 is a fantastic game, no doubt about it. I like it a lot, but its systems really don’t compel me to keep logging in. There’s just no pressure to do so. While having no quests and (almost) meaningless levels is a good idea, it also means that it’s firmly an “at my own pace” kind of game. I log in here and there to play with friends or do a story mission, but I’m sitting at level 30 and don’t see myself hitting 80 before the end of the year. I’m slow like that.

What does this say about the game, though? I mean, my own experience aside, lots of people have stated similar opinions whether they’ve capped out or not. I have to think ANet isn’t exactly happy that so many people have fallen off when this was, relatively speaking, THE game of the last few years. Then again, they got their box price, so maybe it means more to us than them. I’m more worried that this will mean less content updates and more boxed expansions, similar to Guild Wars 1.

And maybe someone can explain this to me. GW players say that the game had great support. Every time I checked their site, I’d see balance updates and maybe a chunk of content for a holiday. The once and maybe every six month quest pack. Did they just not update their site enough? Bury real content additions under layers of “Buy Guild Wars” banners? I don’t really consider balance patches and holiday events as content. That’s more… “we’ve got to give them something, plus PVP!” type stuff. If they do that with GW2, they will fail.

Other Games, Other Gigs

I’ve been playing a handful of other games recently. Borderlands 2, Dishonored, War of the Roses, BF3: Armorer Kill… lots of stuff. And another game I’m not allowed to tell you about yet (but it features zombies and is a lot like a mod you might have played… stay tuned). Suffice it to say, all of the above are excellent, especially Dishonored. If you liked Deus Ex or Bioshock, you need to play that game. It’s GOTY material.

I’ve also picked a couple other gigs. I’m back at Vagary for one — I took a LoA earlier this year to handle some personal issues. I’m also writing for Hooked Gamers now, too, as a PC Reviewer. Here are two recent reviews: Cortex Command (bad) and War of the Roses (good). It’s likely that my work for those sites will take up more of my time, but I’ll be keeping up here as well.

Hey, you know what game I haven’t been playing? RIFT. Despite an extremely generous offer from their team to get a tour of the expansion, I’ve been staying away in preparation for the expansion. Now I’m in lull mode, the calm before the storm, you might say (bada bing!). It’s going to be good, guys. I just don’t want to spoil it for myself and knowing it’s just around the corner is keeping me at bay until it’s finally here. You get that way? You want to play the new version of something so much that the current version just doesn’t seem good enough (when it really is)? You’ve got to give it to them for community outreach. Trion is really something special. Shout outs, Elrar!

Anyways, that about wraps it for now. Stay strong, internets. November isn’t long!

09/5/12

Why GW2 Won’t Replace My Other MMO

Since Guild Wars 2 first began powering up the hype train, people have been claiming that it would revolutionize the MMO genre and replace the games that came before it. Nobody wants to play with yesterday’s toy after all (just ask Slinky). I’m here to tell you that, no, Guild Wars 2 will not be replacing my other MMO. And contrary to how that might sound, it’s not really a bad thing.

See, it’s easy for me to join along with each new MMO and put the previous one to bed for a while. I didn’t want that to happen with RIFT, so I’ve been keeping up with it, working through Ember Isle and trying to be regular with my expert dungeons. What I’ve found is that, surprisingly, Guild Wars has really taken nothing away from it. RIFT stands up against all of the innovations and gameplay changes GW2 brings to the table.I got to thinking, how can that be? GW2 is made of the finest stuff the MMO industry has had on offer these last 8 years, shouldn’t it make other games feel old? I think the simple truth is that Guild Wars has innovated its way right out of comparison. It doesn’t feel like other games, and what similarities it does have are pretty cursory compared to that feeling. Character progression is different. Moving through the world is different. Combat is very different. Exploration means something. And while a lot of people will tell you that its individual parts are like this or that, or that it’s still tab-targeting (“action bar combat fail!”), I’m here to tell you that those people are either kidding themselves or are flat out jaded. A game is about an experience, the sum total of its parts, and some people just miss the forest for the trees.

So when I step back into RIFT, it’s like I’ve just saddled a whole different beast. It holds up! And while it doesn’t have dodging or trinity-less design, it doesn’t need them to be a great game. It’s good we have Guild Wars. It’s great that they’re challenging conventions and trying new things. But some people like those old designs and they’re not wrong it.

Take the trinity for example. I am absolutely fine with having that in my game. While I like being self-sufficent and surviving based on my own skill (GW2), I also enjoy playing a defined role and having to fill that responsibility. I was talking to a friend the other day and the idea of not being able to play a real “healer” turned him off. He liked supporting his group. I can understand that. The idea of giving up tanking in exchange for pure dungeon chaos turns me off. I’ll get used to it, just like he will, because, hey, different isn’t bad. It’s just takes getting used to.

And that’s my take-away. GW2 isn’t a revolution, it’s different. It’s not going to replace other MMOs because it’s unique enough to co-exist without pushing others off the plate. This isn’t the second coming, it’s just an excellent game. I will happily play it alongside others. But taking something away from a game like RIFT? Not done.

Such a perfect business model for this kind of scenario, too. I guess we’ll really see whether players want more than one game this year.

08/20/12

Conquest in RIFT Needs Revision

I’ve been playing a lot of Conquest (CQ) now that I’ve hit 50 in RIFT. Three faction PvP is a good idea and I’m happy to see Trion taking on the design challenges that come with it. That said, the way that CQ is currently implemented is functional at best. That’s a problem considering that it’s been incentivized as “the way” to progress at level 50. With Guild Wars 2 coming next week, these are the biggest problems I see with the system as-is:

1. It’s Confusing

“What does it all mean?!”

When you first enter Conquest, the game offers you nothing in the way of direction. You simply are, in the middle of a keep, with possibly a portal or two in front of you; what they mean or what they’re for meaning nothing. You open your map to dozens of multi-colored points that also mean nothing. So naturally, you follow the raid — assuming some of them are in the keep for you to follow — and hope to learn the game that way. And you probably will after a half-hour of trying to piece together a strategy that doesn’t exist. There needs to be better direction here.

Also, despite there being multiple raid groups on the map at any given time, you can only see the one you’re in. Players need to have a way to see where everyone else is so they can make informed decisions on where they should go.

2. There’s only one strategy… and it doesn’t work

Right now, the only strategy that exists is “follow the zerg.” If you don’t follow the zerg, you die. CQ makes that painfully apparent the first, second, and third times you try it. After that you’ve probably given up. Following a large group is a good way to stay safe, earn favor, prestige, XP, and shards when you cap control points. Sounds like a great way to progress! In practice, however, each team is doing the same thing. In one big circle, three teams roam capping extractors and losing the ones they’ve captured before. It keeps things balanced. Too balanced. Ask anybody who’s spent time there and they’ll tell you, matches almost always hover at with two-to-three teams in a 1-3% tie.

Other strategies come out in play. People shout them like in all battlegrounds. Unfortunately, the game-mode trains players to follow the zerg for their own good. Players trying to move in small groups quickly find that extractors have far too much HP (~400k or 50x that of an average player) to “whittle down” before their defender-zerg runs to their defense. No amount of /1 shouting will change that. Rebalancing will.

Four of us tried to cap an undefended extractor. We didn’t even get it halfway down before being thoroughly trounced.

3. Matches last WAY too long

CQ has two win conditions: One team must capture and hold 60% of the map for ten minutes or a kill-counter of 5,000 must reach zero. I’ve played quite a few matches now and I have only once seen a team hold the map for those ten minutes. Most times they never even reach 60%. In those majority cases, the kill-counter must hit zero before the final, PvEvP phase begins. 5,000 kills doesn’t sound like a lot in a three-faction battle but it is — oh, how it is. To put it in perspective, after an hour and twenty minutes today, 3,400 kills remained. At that rate, the match would last over four hours. More often, it’s in the three hour range. Regardless, that is WAY too long when CQ is very obviously intended to be a primary progression mechanism for players at the level cap.

Idea: Cut the kill-count in half. You still get the large scale PvP without the “my eyes are bleeding” strain of three hours spent running in circles.

4. It’s too heavily incentivized

Conquest is by far the quickest way to earn XP, favor, and prestige. By-frickin’-far. To put it in perspective, one warfront is likely to give you 600-1300 favor and a pittance of prestige. One round of CQ can net you 15-30k favor and 5-15k prestige. Really. Most of my planar attunement levels have been earned in there as well, but I haven’t paid enough attention to give you a number on that one. All I can say is that it’s not unusual to level up twice in a single match.

That’s great progression but players are feeling forced to play even when they don’t want to — and I don’t blame them. Want to be competitive in PvP? Conquest. Want to get the perks of planar attunement? Conquest. Want to get some of the best enchants in the game? Conquest.

Overall, I think the game mode has a lot of merit and a lot of potential, but there are serious design issues at the moment. Given how much of a selling point CQ was for this patch, Trion needs to be on their game and responding to players’ concerns. How about you, what do you think of all this?

07/7/12

Apathy for the new MMO (or why the blogger hype cycle is a misleading beast)

I really hope this doesn’t come off as too curmudgeonly, but I’m finding it really difficult to get excited for The Secret World. Compounding that “jaded vet” feeling is that the game actually looks pretty neat. Where then blooms the apathy? Could it be, dare I say… the fans?

See, this is where I sit. Every time a new MMO comes out we collectively blog about it until the unwary or uninitiated decides that, hell yes, this game has legs; or more realistically, this may well be the next six-month stay of execution before the next big release. I’ve been there on both sides. Look through the archives and you’ll see lots of enthusiasm for distant shores and real “potential.” You’ll see me gush about the things I’ve enjoyed and encourage you, the reader, to join me. There is nothing wrong with that and, in fact, that very cycle of excitement is one of the things that makes gaming such a fun field to follow. Trace the blogosphere for a while and you’ll see just how much of a crowd mentality this is; we love games so we write about them, each and every time.

Except if we follow that path a bit longer the cycle turns the curve. They honeymoon ends. Some people continue to gush and these lucky few may have found their long-term stay. The rest, however, simply game-fade and short weeks later have either stopped posting about the game entirely, have become critics rather than fans, or have already boarded the next train for MMO Hope 3,048 to begin the process anew.

Journalistic reviews of MMOs mean even less than blogger consensus. The nature of games reviewing is to be hot on the press. MMOs deny that by design; where a 50 hour console game might take a reviewer days to complete an MMO demands weeks: leveling, class experience, endgame, and sustainability. As a result, any “week of release” review is close on meaningless.

So for TSW, I say that six weeks will tell the real story. Are people still writing? Are they still enjoying? That will be the real signal to buy in or check out.

And in either case there’s always F2P, which no one should be surprised to hear Funcom discussing in the next six months. Unless they shock us and pull a Trion, there is little chance of the game sustaining itself on a monthly fee. SWTOR can’t do it and TSW has $100 million less of a chance. To point, as more and more games adopt the free to play model, the expectations on sub-based games get higher. To date, Trion is the only studio that, sticking to their guns, has been able to justify charging monthly… Because that’s about how often they release major patches. Does Funcom have that in them? I hope so but it’s doubtful. (I’m looking at you, Age of Conan).

So despite the neatness of the title, I’m holding off on following my fellow gamers into another $50 foray of 90 days max. I’ll eventually try it but, well, that’s what Steam is for.

12/31/11

RIFT Versus SW:TOR – An Observation on With It-ness

I find it very interesting that RIFT gets mass appeal for being a game that’s adapted to the times, yet SW:TOR has absolutely not. In fact, I’d say the folks at Bioware pretty much stopped learning right around 2008 with WAR’s warfronts. Few people mention this, despite their being back to back releases (figuratively anyways). The only lessons Bioware seem to have applied since are those they’ve taught themselves with single player RPGs.

And for all that, I’ve had a hell of a lot of fun. The voicing, while sometimes an obvious mask for “kill ten rats” advancement quests, really does make leveling more engaging. On the other hand, I also feel like my character has been planned out for me, like a single player RPG. That’s always been there, though, in games gone by, but I guess it’s easier to ignore when everything isn’t spoken.

I do wish they would implement some of RIFT’s improvements. It needs better tutorials and a more customizable UI. It needs better quest planning — either that or earlier mounts. I love the massive scale of everything but it’s tiresome when you have to run back for the second or third time. And, as small as it is, I really wish the minimized window would flash red when I was being attacked. I’m an alt+tab blogger and that’s a death wish when you stay logged in.

Overall though, there’s still this looming question over fanboy love and jaded bitterness. I’ll say this: SW:TOR is a very polished, very familiar game that harkens back to the 2004 era of MMO scope. It’s picked up some things better left behind and, yeah, I hope they fix them quick. I feel very spoiled by Trion’s quick turn around time, though, so I hope it’s a lesson they learned. While SW:TOR’s first patch was three yards short of underwhelming, and their communication is EA Mythic acceptable, this could be the second life for the WoW quality MMORPG.

Is it as up with the times as RIFT? Not by ten feet of tent pole. Is it still a shining example of how compelling and exciting this genre can be? Yes — and for that, I hope you try it.

11/1/11

On the Verge of Unsubscribing

I sat down with Arkham City (PS3) this weekend and something clicked: When I have time to game, RIFT is hardly ever my first choice anymore. Actually, MMOs in general aren’t my first choice. It might seem trite, but this is the first time in quite a while that I haven’t been “MMO Dedicated” even though I maintain a strong interest in the genre. Not strong enough to get me to login, though, it seems. So after nearly eight months, RIFT may get the boot.

The problem is endgame. There’s just not enough for someone like me to do. Don’t get me wrong, RIFT has plentiful options to keep you busy at 50 but they all seem to take an hour or more to enjoy. PUG dungeons are 1-2 hours, Chronicles aren’t being ran (by my guild), and zone events occur such that, generally, you’re only doing one an hour off-peak. These days, I log in, look for a zone event and log back out again if one doesn’t spawn fairly quick. They’re the only tangible way for me to continue and when I’m logging in and out having done nothing, I usually just assume play something else and save the time.

Right now, long stretches aren’t something I can commit to gaming, so RIFT will get the cut unless 1.6 drops before my sub expires on the 15^th.

The larger question this raises is whether or not a game like RIFT should provide options for a player casual player. Leaving all thoughts of “money left on the table” aside, should an MMORPG provide options for the one-hour or less crowd? Some old school players would say no, that to see the most in any game you have to commit to it. I say they should and that they should be more than just side-dishes to the main event.

In my case, RIFT provides plenty of on-demand options, I’m just not interested in them. Crafting is an option but I’m just not a crafter, artifact collecting is a pleasant “side” activity (but when you’re not doing the “main” part of the game, does it matter?), and PvP is so woefully impenetrable that I walk away frustrated most times I try. RIFT is providing me options but none of them are worth $15 a month.

I’m not saying casuals should be raiders or get the same opportunities as more dedicated players, but if you’re developing a game that’s “massive in scope” shouldn’t there be enough substance to keep casual players from feeling like they get the scraps on the side?

I hate to say it but here we go: mini-games. Mini-games are the answer to this “you’re making my game too casual” argument. I’m not suggesting we add a Bejeweled clone into every game but is there any reason other parts of these games need to be so shallow? Why can’t we make crafting or gathering more involved? Why can’t fishing actually be fishing? If there is anything FFXIV got right, it was making crafting more than a click-and-forget affair.

Or how about the return of a classic idea, like mobhunt? Mobhunts were a system from the MUD days where the game would assign a random, increasingly difficult mob for you to kill. If you did it, you got gold and some experience, which also increased with the amount of mobhunts you’d completed. It was a lot of fun and relied on the player’s knowledge of the game world, something which is definitely needed in today’s MMOs.

I guess leaving RIFT for a while wouldn’t be so bad. I feel this need to stay subscribed to it since I blogged and podcasted about it for the better part of a year. Since then I became a grad student. How things change.

10/17/11

The Other Side of RIFT’s World Events

Much has been said over how often Trion updates RIFT. We all know that major updates are pretty much a monthly thing. Personally, I love it. It’s earned Trion a lot of my respect that they work on their game so much. (I was tempted to write that they “focus on their game so much” but what would that mean for other MMO companies?) These patches are usually ushered in by highly advertised world events with “great” thematic tie-ins to the world’s lore. A couple months ago I might have even wrote that without the quotation marks.

Here’s my problem with world events in RIFT: They’re all exactly the same. Every single world event has consisted of variously skinned versions of “kill these invaders, kill these rift creatures, buff this wardstone, and go to this spot and click on something” — except this time they took out the clicking part. How great can your lore tie-ins be when what you’re actually doing is no different that what you’ve done every other time the world has been threatened? These planar leaders better get together for some kind of think tank because they’re seriously lacking in the creativity department.

This really goes along with my general feeling for 1.5, they have some good ideas but don’t go anywhere near far enough. Planar attunement is nice but levels tend to take forever unless you’re grinding chronicles every day. I like having another bar to fill but it’s hard to see my motivation staying up for too long; I could grind 10 levels for 10 spell power or… not. The better answer right now is to upgrade. Get better runes, run more dungeons, roll on gear drops. Every one of those will do more for you than planar attunement will. Other “good starts” in 1.5 – Chronicles: 15 minute XP farms but wonderful premise with a lot of potential; Master Mode Dungeons: Only one, which means people got burned out on running it, when was launch day again?

For all of these things, Ferrel would probably tell me that I’m complaining about extra stuff to do. World events really are fluff, after all, so why nitpick at the extra stuff. Honestly, he’s right. The reason to speak up, though, is that there are really good ideas in there buried under piles of “the same.” Don’t get me wrong, having world events — or really just new quest series/rewards — happening every month is great. Truly, I love that. There needs to be more variety, is all. You can’t put out a bunch of copy-paste world events “just because you can” and expect people not to notice. And the little bits they have changed, like the Hammerknell story sequences or the speaking travel stones, have been great. Even the variety of the in-city quests (finding spies, burning plants) is nice. So when you load into the game to see two good ideas and five recycled ones, it’s a little disappointing. Planar attunement is nice system, too, but needs to be sped up and made more interesting. And Chronicles, here’s a system that makes you wonder “why haven’t we been doing this all along?” They just need to make them longer, into full-fledged two-mans instead of appetizers before the raid.

Lots of great stuff came with the last patch, a world event just a point on the list. Like most every big idea, though, its been treated with the trepidation of successful people in a high-risk environment. As RIFT gets larger and more well off, I truly hope that a “don’t mess it up” mentality doesn’t start to stifle the ideas that clearly trying to leap out.

08/31/11

Like a Leper, We Try, Try Again

Dragon quintessence makes tartagons mossy.

It’s an interesting thing, being limited in what you can play. My motivation to hop into MMOs has dropped to next to nothing, yet my interest in doing so has skyrocketed. When I’d usually be logging on RIFT, I’m instead logging into a match of Call of Duty: Black Ops on my PS3. Inevitably, matches either go very good or very bad, and the entire time I’m thinking of how I’d rather be grinding footholds or invasions for my next source machine – RIFT’s built in stat augmenter. I’m a sore thumbed contradiction, gov’nah, and methinks it’s time to end the fast.

If you read my last post, you know that I’ve been battling PC problems not dissimilar from a leper trying to keep his ear attached. Despite everything I try to do, the damned thing just keeps falling off. Or in my case, turning blue and tossing out a cryptic error message. I finally woke up and said to hell with it. I write this post from work – hey, man needs coffee and coffee and I need our alone time – having just checked Newegg for a tracking number on a new motherboard. Free at last, free at last, in two days time I’ll be free at last. Or so help me I might just break something. … Eff you, Gigabyte.

Anyways, what time I have gotten in on RIFT has been delightful. Trion is literally letting me collect dragon tears. From “motes” that look strangely like eggs. Yes, we’re killing baby dragons, “none the wiser” and turning in their still-wet tears for loot. Aren’t you a strong warrior now. Then again, it’s loot. Warcraft once had me collect butterfly dust to coke up a Goblin in a pirate hat and THAT was only for little gold. You probably did it too. Low standards, we MMO players.

Oh and a final note, driven entirely by a total hour of play since last Friday: Thank the sweet Lord and checkerbox boxers for free-and-instant server transfers. Whoever decided it should cost $25 to escape the PvP hell that is grief-centric PvP should be flagged and feathered in the opposite faction’s capital city. Faeblight, where have you been all my life…