I haven’t blogged in so long I’d pretty much all but forgotten how.  But this morning I’m required to back up my perforce database, and as such find myself with a fairly copious amount time on my hands in which I’m forbidden to touch source code in any way.  And fortunately enough for me, Jack Emmert and the good folks over at Cryptic were kind enough to drop a nice bit of news that is totally blogworthy.  It appears they’re they’re building an online title in the beloved Forgotten Realms universe.  So why is the reaction so universally negative!?  Read on to be subjected to my thoughts on Cryptic’s “Not Really an MMO”.

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So this morning when I *should* have been updating civilian code, I got enamored with the idea of putting together a little video of my new level 32 Dual Pistols character in City of Heroes.  The thing is, I *love* good animations, and this powerset has them in spades.  So here ya go.  Hit the break to see how I frittered away a perfectly good morning..

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So this weekend I succumbed to the urge that had been growing over the last few weeks to give Champion’s Online another try.  And while most of the things that caused me to go “meh” the first time I played it are still there, this time around I’m actually having quite a bit of fun.  Read on after the break if you’re interested in my reasoning as to why I think this is, and why I think it’s a good idea in general to give just about every MMO two shots.

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A huge part of the fun of participating in any sort of serial story is chatting about the story with your peers and friends as it progresses.  And as I make my way through the story of Dragon Age, I constantly find myself wanting to chat about the story and my characters.  But I’m extremely sensitive to spoilers.  I’m enjoying this game immensely, and want none of it spoiled for myself, and certainly don’t want to spoil it for anyone else.  So here are the parameters of this discussion:

I’ve progressed in the game to and through the village of Lothering, and am now in the first “world camp”.  If those words are unfamiliar to you, and you don’t want anything spoiled, then proceed no further with this post.  Just promise you’ll come back when they do make sense to you.  And if you’ve progressed past this point in the game, this should provide a clean breaking point for which you to talk about the game, and not discuss anything past this point – out of respect for my wishes to not have anything spoiled.  Also, even though I have only done the Mage’s origins story, I don’t mind mentioning of other origins stories.  Considering the breadth of this game, the origin story seems to be only a small portion of the grand scheme. 

So, to be clear: If you are worried about spoilers, then do not proceed past this point unless you’ve at least got to and through the village of Lothering, and don’t mind discussion of the origins stories.  If you have got past this point, and are ready to chat about the game, then read on!

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You may or may not recall, but in a previous post I talked about a concept that Paul Barnett made me aware of – and that is that every game designer (and gamer) over the age of thirty has their Golden Age of gaming.  It was that time of their lives when computer games or video game were who we were.  And those games that we played shaped forever our perceptions about what we loved in games, and the kinds of games we were passionate about.  The defined, to a large extent, what we considered fun.   For myself, my Golden Age, which I remember with misty-tinged full-bloom recollections, occurred at about a time when what we back then referred to as the CRPGs were at their height.  So my fondest computer games were the Ultima series, the Gold Box series of SSI games, the Eye of the Beholder games by Westwood, and of course Joe Ybarra’s classic Bards Tale games.  Eventually, these games came to include Baldur’s Gate & Icewind Dale, and my mind still balks at the thought of the dozens upon dozens of hours I spent hunkered down in front of a computer screen in the cold hours of predawn navigating my individually created and hand-picked crew of six through the deepest caverns of a land that never existed.

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So last week I talked about DDO from a billing model standpoint, and how impressed I am with it, and went on and on about how it’s the best thing since sliced bread.  Well this week I’m going to talk a bit about the game itself.  And for the most part I’m going to treat it like a new game, even though it’s been out for quite awhile now.  This is because when Turbine went back and redesigned the game to better support an F2P model, they also took the time to address a lot of the original problems with the game – streamlining quests, shortening long instances into shorter ones, and adding a great deal more solo support.  So what’s the story with DDO…

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The last tour of pre-cataclysm azeroth continues!  This edition we’ll be leaving the wheat fields of the human heartlands and traveling to the shrouded forest glades of the night elves. But not without a brief stop at the capital city of the dwarves – Ironforge!

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Crunch time at Windstorm also took me away from the Tour of Azeroth, and so we are off to a somewhat sporadic start.  Hopefully, things will even out over the long run.  I’ve also decided to start calling these chapters, instead of days, as who knows how many days will elapse between posts, or even how many days a single post will cover.  When we left off, Delsenora was level 8, and still had some things to do in Elwynn Forest.

 
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I still have, on my hard drive somewhere, my initial impressions of Guild Wars, which I wrote in 2005.  It is, in a word, scathing.  There was a lot I didn’t like about Guild Wars in the first fifteen minutes of playing it.  Guild Wars, eventually became one of my absolute favorite MMO’s, and is one that has earned a permanent place on my harddrive.  I still log in from time to time, and go through bouts of extreme activity around the holidays, or just when I get a hankering to travel with Koss, Mhenlo, and Cynn.  I keep my scathing first 15 minute review around to remind me that, quite often, especially where MMO’s are concerned, my initial impression does not end up being my lasting impression.  That often things drive me crazy in the first fifteen minutes I eventually overcome, get used to, and learn to look past, to enjoy the broader, much bigger picture.

And this is why I haven’t put up my overall impressions of Champions Online until now — nearly 3 weeks after launch  (Well this and the fact that I’ve been insanely busy, but lets pretend this is all carefully planned — indulge me).  But the closed beta has come and gone, which I participated in to some extent.  The open beta and head start have come and gone, and now, the game has launched for real.  So it’s time to talk about it for a bit.  Read on:

 
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Delsenora - Our young tour guide

So the first thing one has to decide when touring Azeroth is where to begin.  Will we be Horde or Alliance? Which race and class to choose for our journey?  Well for me, World of Warcraft will always begin in Elwynn Forest.  This was where I started when I set foot in Azeroth for the first time during the friends and family alpha, back in 2004, and it will always be an iconic zone for World of Warcraft.

I could have taken one of the other races and brought them over to Elwynn for the beginning, but I am trying, for no particular reason, to preserve the sort of classic beginning WoW experience.  So human it would be.  And for personal reasons, namely that I’ve had my fill recently of melee classes, and already have a 74 hunter, I’ve elected to go with a mage.   So our guide for the tour of Azeroth will be a young female mage by the name of Delsenora.  And yes, 100 geek points to anyone that recognizes the origin of the name.  And though we, the player’s of WoW and the witnesses to her journey are long time veterens and know every inch of this land by memory, she gazes at the world with fresh young eyes full of wonder and eager for adventure. 

Our journey begins in Northshire Abbey

For a long time now, the guards have been gone.  All the time of my youth, the protectors of Elwynn Forest – the Guards of Stormwind Castle, had been a reassuring presence in our village.  But now they have been called away,  for reasons we know nothing of.  All that we know is that all around us, evil and unrest has been growing in our once peaceful forest.  And with no one from Stormwind left to defend us, the task falls to us – it’s citizens.  I had heard that Northshire Abbey was besieged with difficulties, and so, armed with only the most rudimentary knowledge of magic, it is there I have decided to begin my journey.

Our first quest - take a few steps forward and get another quest

Upon arriving at Northshire Abbey, it was immediately obvious there was, in fact, plenty of trouble, and plenty of work for an aspiring sorceress such as myself.  The first first thing I’m asked to do is to clear out some kobolds from a nearby mine.  Kobolds are filthy, disgusting creatures that resemble nothing so much as an upright, bipedal, poorly dressed rat.  Though my knowledge of my craft is still small, the kobolds are weak and unorganized, and I make a significant dent in their numbers.  Besides the kobolds, there are wolves to clear, and a threat that is new to the abbey, one that is organized — the Defias Brotherhood.

Um.. there are a LOT of bad guys over there..

At Ensemble Studios, when we were working on the Halo MMO, we studied Elwynn Forest extensively.  I remember having an argument with Jerome Jones, one of our designers there, about how early you get that first Defias quest.  I felt sure that you didn’t get the quest until you were at least level 4.  I was wrong though.  You can get that quest as early as level 2, and if you were to immediately embark upon that quest, you would be extremely sad.  The Defias are large in number, eager to aggro, and level 4.  Despite this obvious misstep by Blizzard in their starting zone design, WoW has still managed to do okay.

Despite their organization, I manage to deal with a goodly number of the Defias bandits, and even manage to rescue the grape harvest of one of the locals at the Abbey.  This seemed to especially please the clergy of the abbye, especially one Brother whom appears to spend a little too much time up in the bell tower, secluded from his fellow brethren, sampling the wines of the local orchards.   The leader of the local Defias gang was a name named Garrick Padfoot.  And though the task was a grisly one, after some work I delivered his head to the leader of the abbey militia.  

Garrick and his henchman

Forty years from now, if I can still sit at a computer, I can assure you I will remember both the name of that bandit in Northshire Abbey, and can walk you unerringly to his location.  These things we can never be rid of, lol.

 

Soon enough though, things were under control at the abbey, and I was asked to report to Marshal Dugan, in Goldshire.  Once there, I found that they too, were understaffed and underarmed, and being beset by troubles from all sides.  Another mine cleared of more kobolds, and a new menace I’d not encounted before (but oh, don’t we love them..), a race of fish-looking, angry creatures known as Murlocs.   In fact, one of the things I discovered while assisting the militia of Goldshire is that the Murlocs are swimming up the river from Redridge, and are attacking in ever greater numbers.  With the Murlocs pressing on one side, Kobolds on the other, and Defias roaming everywhere througough the forest, the folk of Goldshire are in great danger indeed.

Stormwind City!

Eventually my quests took me to the great city of Stormwind, and it does indeed live up to the grandeur of its name.   Shops and stores of every variety, teeming with people, and home to some of the most learned wizards in the land, I could fill this entire journal up with descriptions of its wonders.  But my hand grows tired, the hour late, and I shall only say that if you have not yet visited it, it is a wonder for any age.  

After my duties were done in Stormwind, I returned to Goldshire, and resumed assisting the folk there.  It would appear there’s a logging camp in great peril from the Murlocs that have taken up resident close by, and their guardsmen could use some assistance.  It is there my journeys will continue.

At the end of the first night..

I finished up the night at level 8 (it was late.. ), and about halfway through the Elwynn Forest content.  I picked up a robe to replace the Apprentice Robes that make up my starter gear, and have taken Tailoring and Herbalism for my professions.  The flowers will be sold, and the tailoring will give us something fun to do on the side, and to help with the character.  I am, at least so far, intent upon not twinking the character with golds and items from high-level and well meaning alts.  Of course, I reserve the right to discard all such nobel aspirations in the face of practicality at my whim.  In the next post, we’ll wrap up Elwynn Forest, and set out to the heartland of the Eastern Kingdoms – Westfall.