We Fly Spitfires – MMORPG Blog

Scott Jennings over at Broken Toys pointed out Brad McQuaid’s new blog. Apparently he’s back in town and ready to get to it. I say ‘apparently’ because some people also reckon it’s just an elaborate hoax.

No idea who I’m talking about? Don’t care? Well, I’ll fill you in anyway Mr McQuaid is basically one of the the big brains behind Everquest and it’s first few expansions. In 2001, he left SOE and after a short while started his own company, Sigil, who eventually released Vanguard.

The curious thing about Brad is that he seems to have attracted a lot of negative attention in recent years, particularly over the shambles that was Vanguard. Although it’s now in a pretty decent state, Vanguard launch to a very poor reception and the result was that Sigil was downsized and bought over by SOE. This in turn resulted in a lot of negativity towards McQuaid as being not only the reason why Vanguard failed but also about how he apparently ran the company (or didn’t run it) towards the end. It seems that the whole thing resulted in a lot of unhappy employees and disgruntled gamers. There’s plenty of interviews and articles about what happened if you want to dig up long forgotten memories.

I can’t comment about any of the fervor that occurred back in 2007 because I wasn’t there (at Sigil) and don’t know anyone who was. Also, it sounds like Brad has a pretty hard time and a lot to deal with and I can emphasise with that. Being a manager and in a position of responsibility in a company is no easy job.

Personally, I admire Brad’s work on Everquest and what he’s contributed to the MMORPG genre. Without him we probably wouldn’t be playing the games we are today. Also, I admire his vision and ambition for the genre. Vanguard may have been far from perfect but I take my hat off to him for at least aspiring to make something huge and amazing. In my opinion, too many companies are playing it safe with MMOs now and don’t really want to try and experiment or push the boat out in case they end up with the next Star Wars: Galaxies or Vanguard on their hands.

I wish Brad all the best for his future and I’m honestly curious to see what he gets up to next and looking forward to checking it out whatever it may be.

I’ve never questioned why I play MMORPGs before. I always just played them because I “enjoyed” them without analysing it or wondering why. I starting playing my first MMORPG 10 years ago and since then I’ve played one almost every day of my life. Some I played for years and some for weeks but I always just played the way I played and never thought much about who I am or why I do it. Until now.

I started this blog six months ago and it’s been an amazing experience for me, educating me in ways I wouldn’t have thought possible, mainly through the communication and interaction I’m having with other MMO bloggers. I’m learning new things all the time about the gaming genre I love so much and also understanding more about my fellow players. One of the things I’m starting to understand more deeply is motivation.

As much as I hate these sorts of abstract terms, I guess I’m what many would consider a “social” player. I’m not driven by the need to be the ‘best’ or to conquer the game or to achieve a certain target. I just play because I enjoy playing and I enjoy playing because of the fun I have with other people – real life friends, guildies or random strangers. For me, it’s the social interactions that define the experience.

However, I’m starting to understand more about other people’s drive in MMORPGs. I always thought it was a pretty black and white thing but now I’m learning it’s actually a whole lot more complex than that. Some people are driven by pure socialising, some by exploration and wonderment, some by achievement, some by competition and some by the challenge of overcoming the odds. There’s an infinite amount of motivation out there, all backed by equally strong and worthy arguments.

Having playing MMORPGs every day for 10 years may make me knowledgeable about them but I’m learning that it doesn’t make me qualified about them. I can’t actually make any qualified statements about the ‘right’ way to play or the ‘wrong’ way to play or how a MMO should be conducted in order to make it ‘right’. That’s the wonderful thing about the genre – they are online worlds full of thousands and millions of players, each with their own unique drive and passion. All I can do is voice my opinion about the genre and try to make sure my motivation doesn’t cloud my judgement too much.

I want to learn more about MMORPGs and more about the people who play them. I love growing and learning and developing and seeing new views and perspectives on things. So please, educate me. Why do you play MMORPGs?

Last week I posted an article about MMO classes that I love and since then Syp over at Bio Break has chipped in with a great article on his favourite classes of all time. Now that we’ve talked about the classes we love, I figured I would have stab at the classes that I just absolutely hate

Note: this post is meant in good humour so please don’t flame me just because I happened to pick on one of your favourite classes

Warrior (Everquest)

Tyromere, my Warrior in Everquest

I had a level 55 Warrior alt in Everquest and you know what I remember most? Pressing ‘1′ to initiate auto attack then alternating the pressing ‘2′ to Taunt and ‘3′ to Kick. Exciiiiiiting. Who thought it would be fun to create a class that has access to absolutely zero abilities whilist everyone else runs around shooting lighting bolts or fly kicking mobs in the face. I had a freaking /sit macro - a /sit macro – on my hotkey panel just to use up space. /palmface

Artisan (Star Wars: Galaxies pre-NGE)

An entire profession devoted purely to crafting and tradeskills? Either an absolute breakthrough in game design which helped push forward the evolution of the MMORPG industry, paving the way for future generations of games and new ways of thinking or dull as hell. My choice?

. . .

Sorry, I fell asleep just thinking about it.

Brigand (Everquest 2)

Brigands pretty much ruled PvP in EQ2 for years. High damage, stealth, tracking, in combat evacuation teleports. These guys were the gankers choice and they drove me nuts. Yeah, I know, I’m pretty competitive but I don’t mind losing in a fair fight. Unfortunately with Brigands there was no such thing as a fair fight. Fortunately I could vent my frustration by hiding from them. Gankers: 0. Cowardice: 1.

Druid (Everquest)

You know what absolutely drove me mad? Spending hours getting a full six man group together, holy trinity of classes included, to camp one of the spires surrounding the entrance to Splitpaw in South Karana only to find that a single Druid was already camping the whole damn place. Running around in his cute little doggy form, kiting everything that moves to earn himself a ton of exp and plat and then being noble and gracious enough to offer up his spot and some free teleports to anyone in the zone before leaving. Bastards.

Paladin (World of Warcraft)

Stun locks, high damage, Lay On Hands, invulnerability. God, I hate these guys in PvP battlegrounds. They kick my ass constantly and make me want to scream. I get it. You’re overpowered. Please stop hurting me! I hate Paladins in WoW so much, I’ve started my own. And he rocks. Sweet. Now I’m looking forward to kicking some battleground ass – just hope they don’t get nerfed…

So, what MMO classes do you hate?

Let me tell you a story. When I was at university a friend of mine scored 100% in a test. However, because the average score was “too low” in comparison to previous years results, the university decided to increase everyone’s score by 5% across the board (I have no ideas why – I’m sure there was a good reason). This of course meant my buddy scored a whopping 105% on a test, a physical impossibility. So he went and complained to the head of the department about it and demanded his result be lowered to 100%. Bizarre, esoteric and funny as hell.

Let me tell you another story. I’m 6′4″ and I don’t fit in the seats on planes, trains or automobiles. “Sorry”. “Too bad”. “Cut yer legs off, sucka”. You see I’m in something called the 95th percentile for height and I just plain don’t matter to anyone.

Turns out life is all about normal distribution and percentile ranks.

Normal distribution for comparison of percentile ranks

So whats this got to do with MMORPGs? Everything. Think Ulduar is too easy? Think it’s too hard? Tough. You ain’t in the 50th percentile, homes. So you can either accept it or whine about it.

Back in January I posted an article about game life balance. I was working long hours during that month and it really made me question how much time we spend working, gaming and with our families. It’s very rarely properly balanced and we, as human beings, rarely have the right things in life prioritised. Of course, life isn’t simple and we all need to earn a buck. I wish I had the answer but I’m still searching for that (don’t worry, I’ve be sure to blog about the meaning of life when I discover it).

I recently read an article on Nerfbat entitled Life Balance: Family, Work, Play. In case you don’t know, Nerfbat is a blog by Ryan Shwayder, a game designer who used to work on EQ2 and now works for 38 Studios. It was particularly intriguing for me because Ryan talks about how he tries hard to balance all aspects of his life, particularly work and gaming, so he can spend more time with his family. It was an interesting insight into the gaming industry too as I always had the impression that working for MMOPRG companies was excessively hard work, long hours and lots of stress. Elder Game has an interesting article about it all.

I guess any type of job can be tough and stressful but, to me, the programming and developer ones strike closest to home to me as they are the most similar to my career and I can relate to what the employees go through. Reading the Nerfbat article was very revealing and, in many ways, actually quite comforting to know that not all MMO jobs suck and that some people can still keep a balance work life.

So what’s the moral of this story? I guess it’s to keep things in perspective and make sure you prioritise the right things. It’s tough for me because I know after a long days work, I like to be able to escape into a MMORPG for a couple of hours and forget about it all. This is a slippery slope though and sometimes I feel bad that I don’t give my wonderful wife the obsence amounts of attention she so utterly deserves.

I know it’s wishful thinking but I can’t help but feel that maybe we should just try and work less – four hours a day would be fine for me…

I was absolutely gutted when I found out that World of Warcraft didn’t have any open dungeons. No idea what I’m talking about? 18 months ago I would’ve been shocked by that but not any more. Read below:

Open Dungeon

A MMORPG dungeon zone which is not instanced, can accommodate multiple groups and perpetually exists with continually re-spawning enemies.

Yeah, I made that definition up. I couldn’t find anything online. I don’t even know if ‘open’ dungeon is a proper term or not. I just know I like them and that I miss them. Some of my favourite open dungeons include Blackburrow (EQ), City of Mist (EQ), Grieg’s End (EQ), Tomb of Mithra (DAOC), Fallen Gate (EQ2), Runnyeye (EQ2), Sanctum of the Scaleborn (EQ2).. I could pretty much list any dungeon from Everquest or Everquest 2.

Open dungeons are an amazing experience because they allow for something which no MMORPG developer can program – social interaction. Sure, it’s fun to do an instance with a group of friends but I love the challenge of competing/working with (take your pick) against other groups and the surprise of bumping into new people. They also allow for a much longer gaming session as there is often no defined ‘end’ point (ironically it also makes it easier to leave too as a group can just continue on and search for a replacement.). Some of my favourite memories are of spending hours in a dungeon, turning it inside and out and bonding with my new found comrades.

Social interaction is an important point for me. It’s truly what separates MMOs from single player games or experiences like playing Diablo 2 over Battle.net. I also play on a PvP server in Everquest 2 and the thrill of bumping into an enemy group in a dungeon and the social interactions which occur as a result are second to none.

I think it was Anarchy Online that first introduced the concept of instances and I then saw it a fair bit in Everquest 2 and, I guess in my nativity, assumed they were still used in combination with open dungeons in all MMORPGs to provide different gaming experiences. Instanced dungeons are fantastic for tailor group adventures with a driven story whilst open dungeons are fantastic fun for experience, loot and bonding (note: not bondage) sessions.

Personally I think every MMORPG should have a healthy mix of open and instanced dungeons as to provide a variety of gaming experiences. I was very disappointed to find that WoW doesn’t have any open dungeons and it’s sad for me to think that all MMOs may be leaning towards instances more now and I can’t fathom why that is. Are they easier to develop? Do players just prefer them to open dungeons? I have no idea. What do you think?

There’s been a lot of discussion amongst bloggers recently about Dungeons & Dragons: Online becoming free to play (albeit with microtransactions) and generally how the new RMT business models we’re seeing cropping up will effect the future of MMORPGs. It all made me wonder if MMOs were genuinely good value for money.

I’ve never had a problem with the standard monthly subscription model and the idea of plonking down £10 ($15) or so every 4 weeks doesn’t bother me in the slightest. In fact, the only problem I ever had with it was trying to convince my parents to let me use their credit card (they were scared about putting money into the magic-electronic-go-fun-interwebbery-machine) when I was still a teenager back in 1999. Fortunately I got my first credit card soon after (yay to banks for trusting immature students) and have never looked back since.

Personally I think £10/$15 for a months entertainment is excellent value for money and I constantly lock horns with friends and colleagues who refuse to play MMORPGs just because of the subscription model idea. They argue that they don’t want to be beholden to the developers and don’t want to pay for something they “don’t actually own”. Ironically enough they seem to have no problems forking out the same amount for a cinema ticket even though they don’t get to the film home with them. Regardless, this has definitely given me a new perspective as to why MMO developers want to attract people in with Free2Play games. They obviously think that there are plenty of potential gamers out there who consider MMORPGs to be poor value for money.

So thus the microtransaction and RMT model is born. I still feel very resistant to this because I know it’s just going to end up with me spending more money than I intended (incoming! flashback to forking out hundreds of pounds for TCGs). I’m a pretty vain and competitive player so RMT could potentially be very dangerous for me.

Having said that, there are certain types of RMT I like and some I don’t. I like having the option of being able to buy experience potions in Everquest 2, for example, because it allows me, the player, to control my speed of leveling. I’d rather spend £5 than invest 10 hours of game play leveling up an alt through content I’ve done a hundred times. Whether that’s a good thing for the gameworld or not is another discussion. However, I think I’m definitely against buying usable items as it diminishes in-game accomplishments, endangers the game world economy and would also eventually lead me being 50k in debt as I try to become the ultimate Warrior on the server.

I think MMORPGs are excellent value for money as they stand. The future of Free2Play and RMT will certainly be interesting to see. The upside is that we may see better “value for time” as the player is given more options (do it the hard way or pay for it) whilst the downside is that we may up being at the mercy of greedy developers who want us to buy all of the best or good looking items rather than play for them.