We Fly Spitfires – MMORPG Blog

One of my first, and fondest, memories of MMORPGs is playing Everquest and hearing the screams of “TRAINNNNN!!!!” whilst adventuring in Blackburrow. That word usually meant that you either had to make a very quick exit to the zone line or face death. Ah, how I miss the trains.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, the word “train” was used to describe a stream of mobs (monster or beasts!), forming quite literally a train of evil, chasing a player until they zoned. See, in the original Everquest, mobs never stopped chasing you until you killed them, died, or zoned away. They were like the Terminators of MMOs. They also had an unfortunate habit of being very aggressive and attacking anyone that happened to get in their way which is what made trains so dangerous. If a player was running with a train of creatures chasing him, they would stop and attack everyone they encountered on their path. Fortunately this style of A.I. was quickly phased out in later games.

Train in Steamfront Mountains, Everquest

Trains were usually caused in dungeons when a player or group got in over their heads. Mistime the spawn rate or accidentally aggro a roaming mob and you’d be forced to either die in glorious battle or run for your lives. Players being the cowards that they are *ahem* following their natural instinct for survival tended to opt for the latter and leg it for safety as quickly as possible with little heed of the consequences to others in the zone. Most at least had the courtesy to shout “TRAINNNNN!!!!” when they did it – I even had it as a macro on my hotbar.

So why do I miss those trains? No, I’m not a masochists, I just miss the memories and challenges that they brought. Trains gave players the opportunity to be cowards or to be heroes, to be scared or to be brave. Without trains I wouldn’t have the memories of running for my life through Blackburrow or being miracously saved by some huge Ogre Warrior.

Trains are about creating social interaction and co-operation through challenge. It’s not about making life frustrating for the players (although I dare say it was to some) but rather it’s about creating an element of risk and consequence which in return made our endeavours that much more fulfilling. Without risk, there can be no reward.

So next time you’re running for your life in some dungeon in some virtual world in some MMORPG, stop, think, and try to start a train. Bonus points go to the most inventive scream.

As if moving apartment wasn’t stressful enough, my PC decided it wanted to break on me. Thanks computer, thanks a bunch. It’s only 18 months old and has been giving me grief for the past six. Is it too much to ask for a computer that just works and runs nicely?

A few months ago, my PC started having trouble booting and wouldn’t POST if it had been off for less than a few hours. Very strange indeed.Three weeks ago, however, I replaced the PSU with a sexy Corsair 650W one and it seemed to fix it completely. I was able to power off and on to my heart’s content and, suffice to say, I was incredibly relieved and very happy. Until two days ago.

On Sunday evening, after being out of the room for a while, I returned to find that my PC had restarted on me. The Windows Event Viewer reported a 6008 error – unexpected shutdown – but mentioned nothing else. It then ran fine the rest of the evening. Yesterday, however, my computer restarted twice and tonight it’s just done it again.

There’s no BSOD and the machine seems to shut off and then attempt to turn on again rather than restart. I say this because (what I assume is the CPU fan) whirls very noisily for a few seconds before it POSTs and it doesn’t do this on a normal restart. Also, yesterday after one of the restarts, it failed to POST and had to attempt to power back on twice automatically (it turned off during the first fan whirl and then powered on the second time).

It’s all very bizarre and highly annoying. If it hadn’t been for the fact that it has a brand spanking new PSU, I would’ve assumed that was the culprit. Right now I’m thinking it’s the motherboard but honestly I guess it could be anything.

So this is my plea for knowledge from all you geeks out there. Anyone got any clues? In the words of Princess Leia, “help me Obi-geek-Kenobis, you’re my only hope”.

Aion has a pretty lively General Chat channel on my server and one of the topics that seems to crop up on a regular occasion is World of Warcraft. Usually it’s initiated by someone saying something like “Aion is way better than WoW”, “go back and play WoW”, “WoW is for care bears” or the witty “WoW sucks”. Suffice to say it’s enough to cause a storm in the chat channel as the few people who actually seem to like Warcraft try stick up for it against vast, insurmountable odds. It seems like everyone’s a WoW hater these days. I guess it’s no surprise considering how WoW has so few subscribers compared to the other MMORPGs out there. Oh wait.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to sit in an Ivory Tower condemning everyone who speaks out against World of Warcraft. Not at all. In fact, I’ve had my fair share of pot shots against Blizzard and WoW for years and certainly used to harbor resentment against it for being unoriginal and “dumbing” down the genre. Still, I recognise that it’s a good game, well crafted and well thought out and I do find it enjoyable to play. The thing I just find strange though is that it seems to be popular right now to slate WoW just for the sake of it. It’s like Blizzard is the new SoE.

SoE used to get a lot of slack (maybe they still do) by gamers for almost everything and every time I tried a new MMO, people used to rant about them. I even recall people cursing SoE for developing Vanguard and making it rubbish and used to take great glee in informing them that SoE had nothing to do with the creation of VG and in fact stepped in to save it from oblivion. Today Blizzard is SoE and hating Warcraft is the new fashion – some might even call it an old fashion but all I can tell is that it seems to be growing. Tim Gunn eat your heart out (and if you get that reference please resist the urge to send me emails telling me how gay I am).

All of this is very ironic considering that the people who rubbish WoW in Aion are likely the ones who either have or presently do contribute to it’s player base and I can’t help but wonder if they’re doing it just because everyone else is. No doubt the WoW haters will flock back to the motherland of Azeroth once Cataclysm releases as if their relationship had never been sullied.

So there you have it. If you want to hate WoW, hate WoW, just don’t do it because it’s fashionable

Eventually this weekend I managed to ascend in Aion and hit level 10 with my now Asmodian Gladiator, Mantooth. It took me a while to get there due to the fact that I’ve been busy in real life as I’m in the midst of moving apartment and also that I found leveling in Aion to be pretty slow compared to other MMORPGs. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, except that in this case it does seem to make the whole experience even more tedious and dull than it already is. Yeah, as you can gather from that statement, I’ve been kinda disappointed with the “newbie experience” of Aion.

Maybe it was the fact that I’d already experienced the game in beta but I have to say that I found my progression through the gated, newbie theme park to be boring, grindy and repetitive. I think this is mainly due to the fact that I haven’t able to buy into the lore behind the game and feel any sort of connection to the world and it’s setting. It also doesn’t help that the storyline is very dull and the quests extremely uninteresting and sometimes even downright poorly designed (I thank God I never have to visit the Odella Plantation again). Although one could argue that all quests in MMORPGs follow a similar vein and none tend to offer anything new, Aion just doesn’t seem to want to try. Everything is very by-the-numbers and it makes for an incredibly bland introduction to the game.

Witness The Belly That Belongs To Mighty Mantooth

Aion also manages to commit three of my most despised sins in MMO design. Firstly, there are only two races, secondly, there are only two starting areas and thirdly, you’re lumbered with that awful staged archetype class progression which just annoys the pants off me. Why would anyone want to play a generic Warrior for 10 levels? If I want to be a Gladiator, I want want to be a Gladiator. Playing for six hours with an archetype class is not going to change my mind, it’s just going to irritate me. Overall, I can see these factors really hindering the replay value of the game.

It’s all a shame really because Aion does offer some nice things and I’ve heard a lot of good stuff about the later levels. Unfortunately the introductory stage of the game fails to deliver and has put me off a bit. Compared to Tortage in Age of Conan (which ironically also suffers from the issues I outlined above yet still manages to provide an engrossing experience that oozes immersion and sex appeal), Aion’s Asmodian newbie theme park is bland and unimaginative, failing to invest the player in the virtual world and their character. Maybe the Elyos one is better.

I haven’t given up yet though and still intend to play on and see how things pan out. Hopefully my initial experience will just turn out to be a minor hiccup along the road although right now I can’t help but wonder if I should’ve bought Champions Online instead.

After I launch Aion, just after the small screen that sits on your desktop disappears, I’m subjected to an agonising 30 seconds of black screen before the official NCsoft Aion welcome image comes up. Presumably this moment of darkness is due to the game loading it’s memory core and base classes into my CPU’s kernel via the flux capacitor, bypassing my computer’s deflector dish (my mum is gonna think I’m so smart when she reads that). Either way, it’s darn disconcerting.

Maybe my computer isn’t good enough to load it all fast enough although it’s pretty high spec so I hope that’s not the case. I had a similar issue with EQ2 which makes me wonder if it’s more of a design issue than anything else and that the developers just neglected to put up a holding screen or loading bar. I’m definitely one of those guys who likes to see something on my screen at all times, otherwise the little voices in my head start whispering that my computer’s going to explode or melt or something.

Anyone else get the same thing with Aion?

One of the many blogs that I enjoy reading is Brad McQuaid’s. It doesn’t get updated very often (seems to be about once every month at the moment) and the guy’s only written five posts but I always savour his articles and keep them saved on my iPhone so I can slowly digest them at some convenient point on the toilet at work.

If you don’t know who Brad McQuaid is, you can check out a post here that I wrote when he first resurfaced in June this year. Essentially he’s the father of Everquest, the first 3D MMORPG and one of the most famous of them all, and the creator of Vanguard, one of the biggest flops of all MMOs and perhaps the most infamous of them all.

His blog posts are well written and currently he’s covering an extensive dissection of what went wrong with Vanguard. His latest post about the issues surrounding the size of the virtual world they wanted to create is both very fascinating and enlightening. I really enjoying reading about MMORPG design and I can’t help but be morbidly intrigued by all of the problems that plagued Vanguard and led to it’s eventual downfall and disgrace. It’s also really interesting to hear Brad’s thoughts behind it all and what he thinks the mistakes were and how they came to be.

I think we forget about the human faces behind MMORPGs and tend to treat them just as mechanical tools of enjoyment that should be both flawless and yet meet our ever increasing demands. The customer, of course, has this right and it’s no excuse for poor quality of services, bugs, queues and all of the problems we tend to often face. Still, it’s always good to remember the people who have spent years slaving away trying to bring these beasts to life.

Brad’s blog reminds me a lot of a book I read about 6 or 7 years ago called the Everquest Companion: The Insider Lore of a Gameworld. It’s very old now but still an interesting read, giving a very open and honest appraisal of the game, how it came to be and all of the good (and bad) events that surrounded it. I wish more companies would bring out these sorts of books for current MMORPGs.

Finally, I’d also recommend Elder Gamer and Psychochild’s Blog if you’re looking for some top quality MMORPG design related blogs. Both are fantastic and offer some real insights into the MMO world.

The other day I joked with a friend of mine about what my life might be like had I, instead of playing MMORPGs over the past 10 years, done something more productive with those 14,962 hours (give or take an hour). In an alternate reality I’m most likely a famous brain surgeon who does male modelling on the side or a Nobel Prize winning physicist and poet. It made me wonder – has all that time I’ve plugged in MMOs just been one big waste?

I think back to my days of summer holiday at University when I literally had nothing to do except hang out with my friends, drink beer, watch Jackass, occasionally attend half-assed Kung Fu lessons and play MMORPGs. A lot. I was kinda like a middle class, well-spoken, redneck geek who instead of living in a trailer park, stayed in a comfortable flat in town and pondered existentialism whilst battling the undead mobs of the Estate of Unrest in Everquest.

Being married and shackled to a full-time job, I now look back at those years with mixed emotions. Half of me regrets not taking advantage of my time more and using it for more product pursuits whilst the other half of me really envies my past-self and wishes I could still be doing that right now. I guess it boils down to what you think the purpose of life is: is it about doing something meaningful for mankind or is it simply just about enjoying yourself and being happy?

MMOs are serious business and very few people play them lightly. They tend to require a lot of time and commitment and aren’t called addictive by many people for no reason. In many ways, they are indeed the ultimate hobby as they offer a huge amount of scope and lifespan yet on the other hand, they are also very demanding and suck up much of our lives.

I guess as I’m getting older, I’m starting to look at life in a different way and now my spare time seems more precious than ever. Should I be spending those rare hours plugging away at a MMO or should I be trying to do other things and better the life of myself and family? It’s tough because I want to achieve more in my life yet I also selfishly thoroughly enjoy my hobby.

Hmm, too much thought for me tonight so I’ll put it out for discussion. What do you think? MMORPGs – ultimate hobby or complete waste of time?