We Fly Spitfires – MMORPG Blog

I’m feeling that urge again. Not the type of urge that a man gets when he’s near a beautiful woman but more of the type of urge a man gets to smoke a beautiful cigar. The urge is back. And EVE is my cigar.

Dominion comes out tomorrow, EVE Online’s 12th free expansion and the trailer looks pretty darn sweet. I admit that the expansion doesn’t mean much to me (I’m by no means a hardcore EVE player) but there’s something about EVE – and the way it’s marketed – that constantly attracts me like a moth to the flame. I guess the only thing stopping me from jumping right in and re-subbing is my knowledge that it would require a serious commitment in order to achieve anything meaningful. Sometimes a guy just doesn’t want to be tied down.

On Friday, whilst out having a great booze up with my work colleagues, someone asked me what computer game I would take with me if I were to be stranded on a desert island. Apart from the obvious flaws to the question and the issues with playing an Internet based game on a desert island, my answer was EVE Online. I was also tempted to say Everquest but oddly enough never to say World of Warcraft. I knew that if I was stranded somewhere, I mean really stuck in some imaginary room with a reasonable PC, an Internet connect, unlimited supply of food and a ton of time to kill, I’d want something vast and immersive to fully engross myself in. WoW doesn’t fit that bill but EVE does.

I think deep down we all want to be to somebody. Maye an adventurer, leader, scoundrel or pirate (etc etc) and that’s why we like escapism and entertainment in all of it’s different forms of media. It’s also why MMORPGs appeal so much. Not only do we get the opportunity to play one of these roles (hence, role-playing) but we get to do it surrounded by thousands of other people who can marvel at our achievements and join us in our aspirations. EVE Online appeals very well to this itch inside of me and sells itself very well, constantly tickling my mind with the thought that maybe, with enough time and hard work, I could be someone special in it’s world.

So, what do y’all think? Should I return to EVE Online? I hear the planets are getting a makeover.

Although I’m enjoying my Undead Warrior (cannibalizing your opponent’s corpse after battle is both delicious and satisfying), one thing I’m looking forward to with the release of Cataclym is changing race and swapping over to a Blood Elf. Oddly enough though, if you ever hang around the WoW forums, you’ll known that most current Warriors detest the idea of Blood Elves entering their ranks.

I agree that Blood Elves aren’t your quintessential Warrior. Unlike Orcs, Trolls or Gnomes, the sight of a mincing elf skipping towards you doesn’t exactly imbue oneself with pant-filling fear. To quote the Governator, they are the “girlie men” race of Warcraft. So what’s the appeal?

Well, I suppose I like playing characters are a little odd and unique. Regular readers of my blog will know that I have a thing for bald, fat old men with beards but unfortunately the limited customization options in World of Warcraft make that kinda hard to achieve. So hence my fascination with this oddball race/class combination. I’m looking forward to playing something a little bit… different.

Another appealing thing about the Blood Elves (along with the Draenei, my favourite WoW race) is that their models and animations are far superior to the original races. I imagine that before The Burning Crusade Azeroth was infected with a widespread disease that damaged spines and left everyone with terrible posture. I like creative liberties as much as the next guy but playing a hunchback doesn’t appeal.

On another note, with Blood Elves being able to become Warriors, the class will be the only one, other than Deathknights, that is available to all races. In some ways that makes me a little sad as it almost makes Warriors the common-as-muck class of WoW and somehow a little less exotic than the rest. Oh well.

Anyway, time to start thinking up some fierce and aggressive Blood Elf Warrior names. Maybe I’ll call mine… Terrence.

"Eeeya!" Thumbs up for EQ2

Professor Syp (a wise man indeed but I have a mild inclination that he’s not a real professor) issued a general call today for bloggers with experience with Everquest 2 to write an article about five features or aspects of EQ2 that are better than World of Warcraft. Being a EQ2 fanboi, how could I refuse? Name five things? Easy! I could write ten. But I won’t.

Note: in the interest of continuing to explore the multicultural aspects of MMORPGs, I’ve decided to number each reason in a different language. Bonus points and imaginary high-five to anyone who can identify all of the languages.

Uno: Open Dungeons

I harp on about them quite a lot but open, or public, dungeons are an amazing feature which World of Warcraft is completely devoid of, totally to it’s determent. Instances are all very well but they limit social interaction and the randomness of interactivity that creates the spice of life. Some of fondest memories come from open dungeons in EQ2 like Fallen Gate, Runnyeye, Permafrost, Castle Mistmoore and Karnor’s Castle. Open dungeons + PvP = a lot of fun.

Ni: Mentoring

So, the most popular MMORPG of all time allows low level players to gain experience whilst grouped with those at the level cap? And they exploit this ability so they can be quickly “boosted” through instances to accrue easy experience and jump levels? And there’s no such feature as mentoring e.g. the ability for a high level player to reduce their level to a low level friend and thus be able to group and play properly with them? Riiiight.

Dos: PvP Servers

Battlegrounds are fun but the PvP servers in World of Warcraft downright suck unless you enjoy being mercilessly ganked by level 80s in full raid gear constantly as you struggle to level up. The EQ2 PvP server, Nagafen, offers the best faction vs faction PvP I have ever experienced. It limits the attackable level range based on what zone you’re in thus making combat fair, it offers good experience and rewards thus actively encouraging people to do it, and, best of all, taunt actually works thus making proper tanks a valuable component of a PvP group!

Fünf: Voice overs

Voice overs may require a lot of hard work but they add a ton of immersion to a game. Don’t believe me? Just create a character and walk around Freeport and you’ll never think that Stormwind is “busy” or “full of character” ever again. Oh and stop by Boomba on your way into the Commlands. Incredibly funny and a bit of nostalgia in the mix.

Fare: Shinies

Everquest 2 is with no doubt the ultimate collectors game. It has little shiny sparkles called, um, shinies randomly scattered on the ground throughout the land and they can be picked up by anyone to reveal little items that can be added to Collections. Complete a collection and you’ll be rewarded with some experience and sometimes an item or other reward. Be warned though: shiny gathering is highly addictive, very competitive, and has been known to cause the wipeout of many a group, usually right after someone can be heard saying, “oooh, shiny!”.

Yesterday I received a very nice email from a fellow called Aaron, an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at Trinity University (Texas) asking for some help in promoting his research project. Being a former scholar (and easily susceptible to flattery) I, of course, agreed.

The project is called the Worldplay Research Initiative (WRI) and aims to explore the ‘issues associated with cross-cultural interactions in virtual worlds’, a topic that I actually wrote about back in July of this year in an article entitled (originally enough) ‘The Multicultural Aspects of MMORPGs’.  Aaron read the article and found me through it, assuming I had a similar interest in the subject. He was right.

Aaron has approximately 18 students on his course Games for the Web, all contributing to his project and undertaking research into virtual worlds and MMOs. As part of their course, they each play different characters in Dungeons & Dragons Online and observe and interact with foreign players. They’re aims are to explore the internationality provided by these worlds and games and investigate how transnational cooperation affects players and can be nurtured and extended by both developers and the community.

All-in-all I think it’s a very cool project. As a Scot who’s played on both US and heavily mixed European servers in a variety of different MMORPGs, it’s something I find incredibly fascinating and a subject I hold dear to my heart. It’s like living in a little microcosm, just watching how people from different cultures interact, how each society evolves and how differently events are seen and undertaken (e.g. Koreans and Americans have vastly differing views on PvP).

If you want to read more about the Worldplay Project, check out the Trinity University webpage here.

There’s also a short 10 question online survey which Aaron would be incredibly delighted if anyone who had 5 minutes to spare could fill in. Hopefully you will find it as fun and interesting as I did.

My final thought is simply how jealous I am that I wasn’t able to do any sort of course like this when I was at university. In a contest between exploring the multicultural aspects of MMORPGs and learning about TCP/IP protocols and network transport layers, I know which wins. Hint: it’s not the networking.

P.S. Aaron’s also a big fan of Brian ‘Psychochild’ Green (as am I) and expressed how awesome and informative his comments are. I couldn’t agree more.

Last Friday I picked up Dragon Age: Origins for my PS3 (dunno why but it was delayed on the PS3 in the UK) and thought I’d share my first impressions of it with everyone. To summarise: ’tis gud.

I won’t bore everyone with the ins and outs of the game as there are plenty of other blogs and articles out that cover all of the nitty gritty of it. If you’re looking for a couple of good, thorough and insightful reviews, I’d recommend both Tobold’s review and Tipa’s over at West Karana.  Their reviews are for the PC version of the game though whereas I bought the Playstation 3 one.

As I said, even though I’ve only played Dragon Age for a handful of hours (pesky real life and work keep getting in the way), it’s an enjoyable game and pretty much everything you’d expect from a mature, high fantasty RPG by Bioware. In saying that, however, there are two things that really ticked me of. One is due to poor game design and the other to console limitations.

The first thing that really bugged me, and then actually became comical, was the fact that I designed my Human Warrior to be a bald, feeble old man with a big bushy white moustache. He looks about 60 years old and I even planned a whole backstory for him and was looking forward to playing it out. Then, of course, I started the game and everyone started calling me “pup”. Turns out the game actually forces you to follow a predetermined storyline in which you’re a young man, completing contradicting the way my character looked. Irritating at first, it actually become funny after a while as I was running around the castle with my “mother”, a woman who looked about 10 years my junior (if I’d been 10 years younger, I would’ve been all over her). If the game is going to let me create an old looking man, don’t force me to play a young character. That’s bad design.

The second thing that ticked me of (and still does a bit although I’m getting used to it) are the PS3 controls. Yeah, I know, I should’ve bought the PC version. Dragon Age is just begging to played with a mouse and keyboard and I find it an absolute drag to go through my inventory or issue orders in battle. I should’ve seen this coming and it’s my own fault for going with the PS3. Oh well, live and learn.

At the end of the day, Dragon Age: Origins is a lot of fun and I’m enjoying playing it. Still, it makes me look forward to Mass Effect 2 more than ever because I feel that it’s a stronger license, more exciting, and a lot more innovative. Dragon Age feels a bit like your cliché fantasy RPG that I’ve seen a hundred times before.

A few months ago I wrote about how I’d love to see a Zombie MMORPG and what I’d like to see in it. Today, my fantasy has been birthed as I just discovered that Jeff Strain, veteran Blizzard programmer and Guild Wars founder, has started a game development studio called Undead Labs in order to “create the definitive massively multiplayer zombie game”. I think I just pee’d my pants a little.

Information about the game is pretty patchy because, by all accounts, it’s just kicked off so there’s nothing to really know at this stage. Suffice to say, after checking Jeff’s resume, I feel comfortable in his hands. He worked on Diablo, Starcraft, Warcraft 3 and was the original lead programmer on World of Warcraft before creating Guild Wars. Of course this is no guarentee that he will create a great Zombie MMO but it certainly stacks the deck in it’s favour.

However, no cloud is without it’s grey lining, and apparently this MMOZ will be for…um… “console gamers”. Confused much? Well, after reading his interview on Eurogamer it sounds like Jeff’s on a mission to reinvent the MMO console game, just like Bungie did with Halo on the Xbox. This won’t be your normal MMORPG then.

I still think my idea of an EVE like sandbox, tough-as-nails, zombie survival horror MMORPG would be awesome. But then I would say that, wouldn’t I? Perhaps it’s still not to late to influence ol’ Jeff. Anyone got his email address?

P.S. If you’re wondering how I “predicted the future” on this it was, um, because I had an idea for a zombie MMO a few months before this was announced. Hence why I believe I had a premonition.

P.P.S. Big thanks to Andrew over at Of Teeth and Claws (a mighty fine blog indeed) for letting me know about this news!

Had a blast in World of Warcraft this morning when I took on Wailing Caverns with my new Undead Warrior along with two old friends from previous MMORPGs (they just started playing WoW). Now that might not seem like much worth blogging about except that it is for me when you consider that this is not only the first time I’ve done the instance but one of my very few times grouping with anyone since starting the game back in October last year. Kinda sad isn’t it?

I always just figured I was kinda lazy (there’s no doubt an element of that in it, regardless) but I just never needed to group much in all of my time playing WoW. Even by the time I was adventuring in Outland, there really was no need to group. Soloing was a lot more convenient and a heck of a lot faster. Even today in my WC group I had an absolutely great time yet only chalked about half a level of exp (granted, I was level 25 though).

I compare this back to my days of Everquest 2 when grouping was a perfectly viable, if not preferable, alternative to soloing. They were both well defined options for progress. Soloing was seen as the “I’m just on for a little while” or the “I don’t want to freaking talk to anybody” option whilst grouping was the “fast exp, good loot, fun social” option. Only got 30mins before the wife kicks your ass? Go solo. Got a whole a morning to kill? Grab a group and hit an open dungeon for hours on end.

Somewhere, somehow, it just all got a little muddled up in World of Warcraft.

I know I’ve harped on about this before but the grouping aspect of WoW is pretty terrible and, in my opinion, perhaps the biggest – and maybe even the only – failing of the game. The lack of grouping incentives and focus purely on closed instances (as opposed to open dungeons) has bred unsociable players (I’ll include myself in that). No wonder PUGs have gotten such a bad name from WoW. Had grouping been a tad more vital, and a tad more appealing, players would’ve yearned to group, feared being ostracised and perhaps behaved a little better.

Although I think it creates a few issues along with solving some, patch 3.3 and the new cross-realm LFG system does genuinely excite me though. Not quite sure how it will work in terms of building up relationships and friendships (can you be friends or communicate with someone on another server?) but at least it will certainly address the issue of the time taken to put together a group. Whether or not it will actually make grouping more enticing or the party members any more responsible and well mannered is another thing entirely.