We Fly Spitfires – MMORPG Blog

Like everyone else on the Internet, I’ve been busy playing Torchlight. I’ll probably write up my thoughts about the game soon (to summarise, tis gud) but playing it single player has really made me wonder what it will be like as a MMORPG and, more importantly, if it would actually work.

In case you’re not familiar with Torchlight, here’s a quick rundown of what it is. It’s Diablo. OK, now that we’ve got that out of the way, we can talk about the MMO element of it. Runic Games has stated that it they will launch a MMO version of it in the future (they are very unspecific about it all) and although I have my suspicions that they’re not actually talking about a traditional EQ/WoW MMO but more of a Battle.net style “MMO” (not my clever quote marks), let’s just pretend they are.

I imagine that a MMO version of Torchlight would essentially be similar any standard fantasy MMO. Bunch of different races, starting areas, quests, dungeons, raids and all that jazz. The big difference of course would be the style of gameplay though. Instead of playing a 3rd person avatar and clicking auto-attack then pressing a few keys as you stand and face your opponent, combat would be a mouse click frenzy and a lot more hectic. I personally could imagine that being a lot of fun but I’m sure many die-hard MMORPGers would disagree.

Combat in most MMOs isn’t exactly thrilling stuff so the Torchlight/Diablo/Titan Quest mouse-mashing style might be a nice break. It would certainly be a lot more fast paced and twitch based. However, the downside is that clicking your mouse like a mad man might get quite repetitive after a while plus instead of sneaking in pee breaks during ninja AFKs, you’ll be busy developing RSI in your index finger.

Aside from combat and an isometric graphics style, I’m not sure what else would be different between the Torchlight MMORPG and any other out there. So to answer my own question, yes, I do think the Torchlight MMO will work. I’ll just start exercising my clicking finger now though.

I love my iPhone but I’d love it so much more if it could do this…

I’ve been playing World of Warcraft on and off for a year now but in that time I’ve never played a Horde character. My preferred race has always been the Draenei (gypsies from outer space – what’s not to like?) and I feel like I’ve got quite a strong affinity with the Alliance. My friends all play Alliance and my main can help gear my alts which makes leveling up that bit easier. Of course, I’m a terrible altaholic and keep getting distracted and rolling new characters. This has always been my vice in MMORPGs but in WoW I’ve found it particularly painful because after running through the mid level content completely twice, I now find going through it incredibly dull.

Aside from my main character, I’ve got another who’s level 52 and then a few more who are in their mid 20s or low 30s. Level 30 seems to my Achilles Heel and by the time I hit it with a new alt, I just get utterly fed up with doing the same quests over and over again. To me, this is the big drawback with WoW. It’s so driven by quest content that by the time you’ve done it all a couple of times, the replay value is dead and buried. Of course this is one of the reasons that I’m really looking forward to Cataclysm as I think a content refresh, for all levels, will do the game wonders.

Until then I’m thinking of rolling a Horde character and trying out the opposite side for a while. Not that I particularly care about playing them for any roleplaying or game reason, I just want to experience some new content and new quests. Plus, if I can always purchase a handy faction change at a later date and switch back to Alliance once I’m done with the grind. Nothing’s permanent now after all.

Still, the downside is that I won’t get to chat to my Alliance friends when I’m leveling up. I never understood why that divide existed. Unless my lore is wrong, aren’t the Alliance and Horde meant to be teaming up to take on the Scourge anyway?

For a short while now, the video games industry has been compared to Hollywood based on the reasoning that games are starting to require a similar scale of development and marketing as a film does. Of course, there are lots of different types of films and different types of games, but if MMORPGs had a film comparison, isn’t it likely that they would be the summer blockbusters of the gaming world?

Although there are a few small MMO releases every so often, most tend to be very large scale and come with a gigantic push from the developers. Like those summer blockbuster films, modern MMORPGs burn through gigantic budgets and need to recuperate a lot of dough in order to see them become successful. They have huge amounts of backing, take years to develop, build hype slowly over dozen of months and then release to a frenzied onslaught like a new Star Wars film. And much like a Hollywood blockbuster, some rise to extraordinary heights of fame and success whilst some hit the water and flop to become cult classics before they’ve even gained momentum.

I think the similarities between MMORPGs and movie blockbusters can also be seen now in their production values. Take Star Wars: The Old Republic for instance. All you need to do is watch a few behind-the-scenes videos and you can literally see the money oozing out of it. Fully voiced? In several languages? Sounds a little bit like a Hollywood film saying it needs $300 million for special effects. Obviously BioWare are taking a big gamble but are betting that bigger and more spectacular production values will lead to bigger and spectacular sales and subscriptions.

Of course this is all a little worrying for me because I can’t help but wonder if MMOs will suffer the same fate as blockbuster films and end up being just about the special effects, the A-list actor, the predictable mix of action/comedy/romance suitable for all ages (PG-13). The beautiful thing about the original blockbusters (Jaws and World of Warcraft) was that the creators never intended, or imagined, that they would prove as successful as they did and thus never put any pre-conditions or expectations on them. They were what they were.

All of this is just another reason why you should be watching films like Oldboy and not Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. And if you enjoyed the latter for any reason other than Megan Fox, you should be deeply, deeply ashamed.

I have no doubt that part of the success of World of Warcraft was due to it’s modest system requirements. When I first played it 5 years ago, it ran perfectly on my (then) three year old PC and even today, with the requirements increasing every expansion, it still runs smoothly on everything from a toaster upwards. With this in mind, I find it very odd that newer MMORPGs still try to rival the success of WoW yet never try to match it’s low system requirements. Did Funcom ever imagine that Age of Conan would gain million of subscribers when the game had such demanding specifications?

Yes, low system requirements in themselves weren’t the reason for the success of WoW but what they did allow for was a large target audience. For instance, in addition to it’s modest requirements, Warcraft was available for both the PC and Mac immediately from the point of release. All in all, that’s a whole lot more potential gamers than a modern demanding game might have.

For example, the boss of my company used to play WoW (I think he’s stopped now) with his son and I have no doubt that this wouldn’t have been the case had the system requirements been excessively high as his home PCs aren’t full blown gaming rigs. Another work chum of mine also plays WoW on his Mac and his girlfriend on her netbook. Their a perfect example of potential longlife MMORPG fans but are restricted in their hardware. I’m sure if they wanted to play something like Age of Conan – which they may well want to do once they tire of WoW -  they simply wouldn’t be able to.

So, it’s refreshing to see another game taking the same path as Blizzard and releasing itself into the marketplace with low system requirements. Whilst not a MMORPG (yet), Torchlight comes out on Tuesday (27th Oct) and, along with being a game I’ve been looking forward to for a while, has surprisingly very low requirements. Here’s an excerpt from their FAQ:

Q: What are the minimum system requirements?

A: The PC version will require Windows 2000 or later, x86-compatible 800MHz processor, 512MB of RAM, 400MB Hard Drive space, DirectX-compatible 3D graphics with at least 64MB of addressable memory (such as an ATI Radeon 7200, NVIDIA GeForce 2, or Intel GMA 950).

The requirements are so low, we are even able to play Torchlight on the netbooks around the office!

Combine this with a low price tag (£14.95/$20) and a Mac version in the works and you’ve got a game that’s given itself a large target audience. Hopefully this will put Runic in a strong position for the release of the MMORPG version in a few years. Now let’s just hope that Torchlight is actually decent

I’ve always been slightly worried about microtransactions in MMORPGs and it seems like as more and more developers undertake them, the more my fears are coming to fruition. Over the last few years there’s been an increasing trend for games companies to charge for “extras” and whilst some seem perfectly reasonable, some come across as utterly ridiculous. As Muckbeast highlighted (thanks to Tobold for the link), Cryptic have decided to charge for character respecs in Champions Online via their online store and apparently this highly necessary functionality comes with a hefty price tag of $12.99.

It seems to many that Cryptic have crossed the line with this latest move and have begun to exploit the principles behind microtransactions. I guess in their purest form, microtransactions are about freeing the player from subscription fees whilst still enabling the developer to earn a fair reward. They should be additional extras, non-essential, that are a bit of fluff, flexibility or enjoyment to the game without effecting the balance of those who choose not to indulge in them. However, I think they are fundamentally flawed and all that’s happened is that we’ve opened up a new gateway for games companies to exploit the player.

I don’t have anything against the idea of microtransactions but I do believe that they are a naive concept that can’t operate in our current, greedy world. The main issue is that there’s no control or restriction over what can constitute a pay-for-item or feature. Character transfers? Name change? Race change? New items? New abilities? It’s a slippery slope and, as Crytpic have demonstrated, one that MMORPG companies are wiling to go down.

I know that we can’t judge the entire concept by one poor, miscalculated implementation but I guess I’m just too cynical to believe that this is the last sort of thing we’ll see like this. I bet that before the next 12 months have passed, we’ll be seeing more and more basic and required features become purchasable only. Subscription models will still exist and yet the developers will be finding new and innovative ways to make us part with our cash. And it won’t be for useful content either, but for highly useful or necessary items and rewards.

Anyone who follows me on Twitter will know that I had quite the adventure with a sofa delivery from Ikea today. They turned up 8:30am on my doorstep, shoved the gigantic item in my hallway and then informed me that it wouldn’t fit through the door into my living room. They then left. Great. Thanks Ikea!!

Long story short, I was eventually able to solve the problem by myself and get the sofa into the living room and I did this by utilising some skills that I had learnt from MMORPGs. Yes, turns out gaming for hours on end every night actually has it’s benefits and may eventually pay off for you. Here are the skills that came in handy for me:

Taunting

Fortunately I’m not very good at this particular skill (as my bruiseless face will testify) and at no point did the delivery men actually aggro on me enough to cause physical harm. My continually taunts and berating though, weak as were, did help satisify me immensely, allowing me to keep a level head during the situation. Helpful hint: avoid using your taunting skills in real life situations unless you’re an accomplished tank.

Crowd Control

All of those hours, days, months of playing an Enchanter in Everquest rung true for me today when I found I was aptly able to deal with resulting crowd. Whether it was positioning my wife or my other belongings in key places, this important MMORPG skill allowed me to clear a path for my sofa, eventually enabling it to slide through the doorway into position.

DPS

Ultimately, my new sofa eventually made it’s way into my living through my sheer use of DPS. I think I topped 2k DPS at one point. Boom!

Healing

All good MMO gamers know that after battle, comes the heals. If it hadn’t been for some apt healing on my part, both my wife’s and mine mental fatigue and stress would have been too much to cope with. I’m no raid healer but at least I can keep our HPs up.

So there you have it – MMORPG skills can be useful in real life situation. Next time your filling out a resumé or an online dating application, think to yourself “what applicable MMORPG skills could I list here?”. You’ll surprise yourself.