Last night, I had the privilege of playing Guild Wars with the group put together by the Massively folks.  This was our third outing, and we had an absolute blast.  We began by forming into little two man groups and setting out to hunt Charr.  I have created a Mesmer for our get-togethers, thinking that Mesmer’s are not a popular choice, and perhaps might be filling a needed role.  Of course, apparently half the group thought similarly, and everywhere I looked I saw Mesmer’s.  Our group was in fact, two mesmers, and well, two mesmers fighting against Charr two levels above us – a lot of death was involved, and only a little of it was on behalf of the monsters. 

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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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Hopefully you recognize the tongue-in-cheek nature of the title, but if you don’t, don’t despair, it’s still early and it’s still Monday.  But this was something that occurred to me over the weekend, and I stewed over it enough that I finally decided on Monday I’d have to put up at least a bit of a post. 

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I never can tell about these things – whether it’s just that because I’m playing it, I have an increased awareness of news about the game, or whether I just happen to jump in at about the same time as the rest of the world seems to take notice, but it seems there’s been an awful lot of buzz lately about Dungeons & Dragons Online, and their “giving the game away” model.  The air quotes are there because that’s just exactly not what Turbine is doing, even though the press sure likes to talk about it that way.  But the business model they are employing is, I firmly believe, the future of MMO’s.

 
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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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So the folks over at Bioware have made great what-to-do about how important story is going to be in their upcoming MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic.  And to drive home the point, they’ve embarked upon the ambitious endeavor to be the first fully voiced MMO ever released.  Not just the tutorial, not just key missions in the main storyline – but every encounter.  This past week they released some gameplay footage, and we actually got to see some typical NPC interactions take place.  And what’s clear is that it’s not just voice acting they’re talking about.  Rather, its full blown cinematic sessions with voice-acting, camera cuts, scripted NPC actions and interactions.  The amount of investment (and cost) in undertaking this effort boggles my mind.  Let’s put it this way.  For Halo Wars, we recorded over five thousand lines of voiceover.  And that was for an RTS, where character interactions mostly consist of units acknowledging your commands or informing you they’re bored.  So I can’t imagine how many thousands upon thousands of lines of VO they’re going to record, and then on top of that directing and refining each NPC interaction into a mini-cutscene.  It’s safe to say that the financial risk they’re taking in hanging their hat on this endeavor is enormous.  But is it the right one?

 
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Diamonds in the Rough

The mmo design landscape is littered with mechanics that I like to think of as uncut gems.  These are mechanics that, at first glance, appear to be plain ‘ol rocks – unwanted, uncomfortable, unnecessary, and for all intents and purposes best discarded without looking back.  But the thing about uncut gems, is that once you look closer, and you try out some games without them, you come to realize these mechanics are actually very valuable.  And that while a shorthand gain might be achieved by discarding them, over the long stretch you realize that the game is actually much better served, and players have more fun, by keeping them.   Recognizing an uncut gem over a plain ‘ol stone is, of course, an inexact science.  And there is much truth to the adage that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.  And to make things even more complex, players attitudes and perceptions change over time, so today’s uncut gem might end up being tomorrow’s worthless rock.  Enough analogies, let’s talk examples.

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By far and large, the design ideas I throw out over here at Of Course Ill Play It are iterations of existing concepts and notions within the classic MMO.  There is a reason for this.  I am a huge fan of give the players a lot of something they know, and a little of something new.  While I like as much as anyone the idea of revolution and innovation, the truth of the matter is if you throw something completely foreign and new to a playerbase that has preset expections, you are setting up a recipe for fail on an epic scale.  And the MMO landscape is littered with the corpses of those that have gone that path.  So much of my ramblings are about ways we can take things we know, and make them better.   This however, is not such a post.  This idea is so radical *I’m* not even sure it’s a good idea.  But it’s a notion that’s been kicking around in my head for some now, and hell they don’t pay us the big bucks to always sit around and play it safe (okay truthfully no one pays me at all), so let’s throw this out and think about it.

 
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So there probably isn’t any other MMO out there right now that I’ve been following more closely and waiting with such high hope for than Aion.  Since I read the first announcements in 2007, and saw the first videos in 2008, I’ve loved everything I’ve seen about the look, the art style, and the prospects of adding something really new to the genre — flying PvP combat.  And yes, before we go any further, I know flying and combat has been around for some time in MMO’s, but in both CoH and WoW, flying is an add-on.  It’s not considered a cornerstone of the game.  The first videos I saw of Aion promised that this game was about flying combat. 

So when the first closed betas rolled around, I stayed by my guns of trying to avoid the hype and to play in the betas.  But when the FilePlanet beta opened up, and all you needed was a FilePlanet subscription to get a key, well even I could stand it no longer, and so into the beta I went.  But none of that matters to you.  All you want to know.. and anyone that’s not actually in the beta really wants to know is — if I liked WoW, am I going to like this?  Well you’ll have to read a bit more to get my answer. 

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So it’s Monday, and last week a veritable shitstorm was kicked up betweeen a games review site and an MMO developer, because of an incredily low review score.   I’m sure most of you have already followed the drama in its entirety, but if you haven’t, well you can see the original review here, Darkfall developer Tasos’ original reply, Eurogamer’s blogged reply to the reply, and then Tasos reply to Eurgamer’s reply.  Heheh.  Yeah.   Hey if nothing else I like to perform a public service.    Now, first, I don’t have a whole lot to say about the original discussion itself, except for this:  I’ve worked in the game industry for the past fifteen years.  Bad reviews get written all the time.  You may think think they’re justified, or you may think they’re shit.  But regardless of what you think, if you have a beef with a review, this is what happens.   The producer of the title picks up the phone and calls the Editor-in-Chief at the review site, and says What the fuck?  And they hash it out over the phone or over drinks at the local bar or whatever.  But professional developers don’t air their dirty laundry out on the their public fucking forums, unless they’re just looking for publicity.   Which apparently is exactly what Aventurine wanted, and what they got.  And then you sure as hell don’t respond in a public blog.  Both sides of this issue have acted more like zombie forum fan boys, and less like professionals, than they should have.  While the drama has certainly been entertaining, the fact of the matter is the vast majority of us should never have heard about any of it. 

 
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