Pumping Irony

I said I would split Module 8 into two articles, Character Creation and the new Tutorial. After having gone through it all twice now to make sure I had a grip on the storyline, I’ve decided the New Player Experience is essentially divided into four phases, so I will make a separate article for each phase.

Like the previous article, these will be image-intensive so here’s the break!

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I ran through the entirety of the DDO’s New Player Experience today. I’ll split the Module 8 hands-on into two articles. This one will discuss the new character creation process, while the next one will get into the actual game within the new tutorial area.

To ensure a clean view for screen shots, I created a new character on the Argonnessen server. I have an ulterior motive for choosing that server, but I will reveal it at a later date. I’ve never played a D&D paladin either, so that is the class I created. For experienced DDO (and I presume, D&D) players familar with D&D 3.5 character creation, the original character creation system still exists, but I used the new system which has templates to prevent gimping your character before you even play it.

This will be image-intensive, so I will be kind and put a break here!

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What if some guys from the development teams of Tribes played PlanetSide and said “Hey! I have an idea…”

That isn’t what happened, but this Global Agenda Developer Documentary footage makes me think first and foremost of Tribes with a little arena FPS (Quake 3 or UT-style) thrown in for good measure, then deployed on a massively multiplayer scale.

Global Agenda is a futuristic “spy-fi” (their term) action MMOG using the Unreal 3 engine for graphical rendering. I hesitate to use the MMOFPS acronym because there’s plenty of third-person footage there, and [snark] judging from forums and blogs, I am one of ten people on the entire planet who know what “FPS” actually means. [/snark] But at first glance from the video and the website, it’s a massively multiplayer team-based shooter with RPG-style advancements (which is all the rage with modern shooters anyway). The End.

The developers in the video claim this is largely a player-driven world, where players can essentially create their own factions and decide who they ally with or oppose. The game will also feature plenty of fighting for territorial control.

Global Agenda might give fans of PlanetSide and people who have wanted a massively multiplayer shooter something to look forward to. Personally, while I think it looks fun on the surface, from my own experiences I have serious doubts to the longevity of a PvP-only game for me. I said the same of WAR as well. I love shooters, but I don’t spend much time with them like I did a decade ago when I lived and breathed FPS games. Now I prefer RPG’s where I can pick and choose what activity I want, be it PvE, PvP, crafting, or just running in circles chatting with friends.

DDO’s much-anticipated Module 8: Prisoners of Prophecy was released this morning!

I’ll just list a few of the highlights rather than quoting the rather lengthy full release notes.

• Prisoners of Prophecy continues the epic end-game story of the Stormreaver and the dragons of Argonessen who find themselves in a fragile alliance with an undead dragon. The story is told in four new dungeons, four new wilderness landscapes and a new two-part public quest hub.
• New Player Experience combines an all-new character creation screen with template paths for new players along with a completely new tutorial experience with adventures on the island of Korthos prior to journeying to Stormreach.
• Beta DX10 Support is finally in-game. I’ve seen screenshots comparing the same scene in DX9 and DX10 and it’s pretty! The shots of LOTRO and DDO are almost enough to make me consider finally downgrading to Vista just so I can upgrade to DX10.
• Hirelings are not included with Module 8, but will be introduced via a series of live events afterward.
• Stormreach remodeling is still underway, the Harbor and entrance to the Subterrane seeing some changes.
• Collectibles see a nice change. Defeated foes that drop collectibles now drop them in bags which remain even if the mob’s body is destroyed or despawns. Also collectors will now automatically take the collectibles directly from your inventory as well as your collectible bags.
• More character slots! All players now have 10 character slots which are immediately available and no longer have to be unlocked.

Good stuff! I plan on spending some time tomorrow with the new character creation and tutorial. Hopefully I’ll keep my wits about me and remember to take plenty of screenshots and notes to write a comprehensive article of my experiences.

London has been overrun and destroyed. Faced with increasing hordes of demons entering our world, the last bastion of human population is dwindling, out-numbered with no chance of survival. In these dark times humanity is faced with a final dire question of fate: do we continue the fight and let the demons slaughter us or do we kill ourselves so they cannot?

For Hellgate: London players, Namco-Bandai has answered that question: suicide. In an announcement on the HGL site, Namco-Bandai has stated the HGL servers will remain online and free to use until January 31, 2009 at which time the plug will be pulled and the game will be discontinued.

Santa Clara, Calif., (October 24, 2008) - NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc., today announced that they will continue to support customers of PC game Hellgate™: London with online server support and play through January 31, 2009 despite the closure of Flagship Studios. In a further gesture of support, Namco Bandai Games will provide this server support free of charge to all fans and players of the game up until the shut down date.

I was just listening to a podcast where the hosts were talking about being in various beta tests for MMOs and thought I’d remark briefly on my latest experience.

I’ve stated several times that I wish game studios would go back to taking beta seriously rather than just a marketing tool. I wish the beta testers would take the “job” they volunteered for seriously and actually test stuff and submit feedback instead of getting a sneak peek and dropping it. I wish studios would also hold those volunteer beta testers to higher standards of quality and accountability and if someone isn’t pulling their weight, drop them and give the beta slot to someone who will.

I recently announced I was in Friends and Family Beta for one of the higher-profile and anticipated titles for 2009. Each week the studio would send out emails announcing when the next tests would be, what they specifically wanted us to look at, what changes were being made in that week’s patch, and so forth. Each one also stated that participation in each test would count towards inclusion in future beta tests.

I did get to participate in a few of the tests, but more often than not I was plagued by CTD after CTD. Sometimes the game would run like a champ, other times it would lag and hitch badly, especially around other players. Hey, it’s beta — early beta — I expect that. But because of the often rapid-fire CTD’s, the client not connecting to the authentication server, and the limited times of testing (other than a week or two ago when they kept the test servers up full-time for seven days, that was great!) and a few other technical issues, I was not always able to truly participate as often as I wanted or tried to.

The game just entered Closed Beta, and apparently what level participation I did manage did not quite make the mark — I have been excluded from Closed Beta. The NDA still prohibits me from mentioning which game this was, hence the intentionally vague language in this post.

Even though I was on the business end of the “whammo stick” I really respect this particular studio for holding us to any level of accountability at all and placing value upon each beta slot they offer. Well played, my hat’s off to you.

BioWare and LucasArts delivered on their promise to officially unveil the worst-kept secret in the genre: Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Set 300 years after the events of Knights of the Old Republic — roughly 3,500 years prior to the movies — SW:TOR will allow players to become a Jedi, a Sith, or “a variety of other Star Wars roles” in what BioWare claims will be a highly story-driven MMOG. Their FAQ specifically says it’s a MMOG rather than using the full MMORPG acronym, so take from that what you may.

Also mentioned at least twice so far are “companion characters who will fight at your side or possibly betray you based on your actions.” Sounds like BioWare might be taking the Hero (Guild Wars) or Hireling (DDO) concept and injecting it with some single-player RPG style where companions are more meaningful than mere pets to be ordered about like units in an RTS.

The FAQ also states that the majority of the game can be completed solo, while certain content will require a group. No surprise there, most developers with even a few remaining neurons firing in their grey matter will allow for a great deal of solo play. On top of that, BioWare has been quite complimentary in their admiration of Blizzard’s World of Warcraft. That, in and of itself, I don’t mind at all. If BioWare pulls a WoW-style bait-and-switch on their end-game, however, I do mind. Damion Schubert gave an Elder Game presentation at GDC Austin going over the importance of end-game and the continued focus on that versus always providing mid-game content — again, which Blizzard has been (in)famous for doing. I don’t necessarily envision SW:TOR as a “raiding game” but then again I don’t work for BioWare so that’s pure speculation on my part. If nothing else, the Missions from Guild Wars and Epic Books from Lord of the Rings Online have shown that it’s certainly possible to have repeatable content and also focus heavily on story, something WoW always failed miserably at accomplishing. PvP? The IP and setting certainly provide plenty of opportunities for conflicts of small and massive scale, which is something SWG failed at providing. But if there’s a heavily story-influenced leveling process which dumps you into a PvP-focused end-game, that’s still a bait-and-switch.

I will keep a wary eye on the title’s development, but I will in no way, shape, or form go fanboi over it anytime soon. What I do look forward to reading is the forum flames from the bitter and misguided fools who just knew that BioWare would provide them with a true sandbox set in the Star Wars universe to make up for SOE’s atrocities with Star Wars Galaxies. Get over it, people. BioWare owes former SOE customers nothing. Sandbox and a heavy focus on storyline are mutually exclusive — stories are by their nature linear. BioWare’s single-player offerings were also linear — while offering certain latitudes of freedom — because again, they’re telling a story. The site does mention “telling your own personal story” but then so does practically every other completely linear MMORPG. Those of you looking for a sandbox, my Jedi insight tells me you’d be better served looking elsewhere.

An official announcement from Turbine today announces a new West Coast studio as well as who’s running it…

TURBINE EXPANDS WITH OPENING OF WEST COAST STUDIO

Online Entertainment Veteran Opens New Studio to Support Rapid Growth

WESTWOOD, MA – October 13, 2008 — Turbine, Inc., a premier creator and operator of massive, persistent online worlds, today announced the opening of a new studio located in Redwood City, CA. The new studio will help drive Turbine’s rapid growth and further accelerate Turbine’s goal of becoming a global leader in online entertainment. Turbine also announced the hiring of Dave Brevik as Creative Director, Jeff Lind as Engineering Director and Matt McKnight as Studio Director of its new California studio. The new studio will be a vital part of Turbine’s corporate vision as it brings new titles to market, expands the platforms it supports and introduces new technologies to expand and grow the communities that are the foundation of online games.

“The opening of our West coast studio is a major milestone in Turbine’s long-term growth plans as it allows us to complement the outstanding talent we have on the East coast with the pool of extraordinary talent available on the West coast,” said Jim Crowley, president and CEO of Turbine, Inc. “Turbine is fast becoming the place to be for those looking to create the new generation of cross platform MMOs. We are delighted that Dave, Jeff and Matt have joined us in this effort and we look forward to further announcements as we continue to expand this team.”

Dave Brevik is Turbine’s newest Creative Director having most recently served as the Chief Visionary Officer at Flagship Studios. Prior to co-founding Flagship Studios, he spent seven years as both president for Blizzard North and as a Director of Blizzard Entertainment. As a member of numerous internal and external project oversight teams, he brought a unique vision and understanding of design and technology to Blizzard’s games, especially the Diablo series. Dave also played an important role in the initial and iterative structural design of Blizzard’s free online gaming service, Battle.net, which launched with the original Diablo.

Jeff Lind brings over ten years of experience working on online, console and handheld games to his new role as Director of Engineering at Turbine. Prior to joining Turbine, he led a team at Ping0 that built the online platform for Flagship Studios. Jeff also worked at Electronic Arts, on a range of titles from The Sims to The Lord of the Rings, to the experimental online game Majestic.

Matt McKnight, Turbine’s new West coast Studio Director, has spent over a decade entrenched in various aspects of game development. Prior to joining Turbine, Matt served as CEO and President of Sniper Studios where he helped forge strategic alliances with key players in the industry. Matt also worked at Electronic Arts where he played key roles in the game development organization working on the Madden and Bond franchises.

Source

So, two of the three named thus far at the new Turbine West were associated in one way or another with Flagship Studios… I’m just waiting for this to hit the flamer forums, this could get ugly. I must admit though, I like Brevik’s former job title. Chief Visionary Officer. I think I could do that — just chill in my office, poke my head out every so often and yell “hey, I have a great visionary idea! You coder guys make it happen, m’kay!”

I did catch yet another mention of “cross platform” in there, so could Turbine West be in charge of console titles while the PC team will remain in Boston? Or is Turbine actually getting big enough to handle two studios in charge of their own independent projects?

I just got back from my daily 5-7 mile power walk and today’s podcast of choice was Witty Ranter #13. The bulk of the show discussed useless vendor trash items and how it clogs our valuable and often limited inventory space. What true purpose does this vendor trash have? Do we need it at all? Could it be successfully done away with?

Within seconds I’d already come up with a few off-the-cuff ideas on the matter and as I listened, was delighted to hear the guys come up with a couple of the same ideas and even some of the same examples I’d thought of. Admittedly these are perhaps more for the “theme park” style MMOGs which only pay lip service to in-game economies and — except for my final example — may not be as relevant in more in-depth sandbox titles such as EVE where an economy not only exists but truly matters and has an impact on the game’s universe as a whole.

When this topic rears its head I often hearken back to last year when Richard Garriott described MMORPGs as inventory management games, and he is so correct. In the podcast, Beau said he was in favor of having the otherwise useless vendor trash items filling our bags because it forces players to make tough decisions to skip items or not. Really? First, I don’t like being forced to do anything. I’m playing a game, and I chose to play that game of my own volition in order to have fun. Second, how “tough” is that decision? I stop what I’m doing, open my bags, scan through each slot to find which contains the smallest stack of vendor trash, which is therefore worth the least amount of cash, and throw it away to make room for the new item I want. That’s not a “tough” decision at all, it’s simple mathematics. It was not even an important decision. What is important is that I was forced to stop what I was doing, which was playing the game.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for diversity. I don’t think there is a single “correct” solution for every single title in this genre. I do not agree in the slightest with the “every MMO must be a sandbox!” crowd. Nor with the “every MMO must be exactly like WoW, only different” crowd. Nor with the “Knights of the Old Republic MMO must be everything Pre-NGE Star Wars Galaxies was, as well as what it had the potential to become! BioWare owes us that game!” crowd. Oops… did I just go there?

Some games are all about hardships, pseudo-realism and tedium and in those game worlds, sure, making meaningful tedious travel and meaningful tedious inventory management part of those sadomasochistic hardships fits perfectly. But I don’t think those systems fit into every game nor should they need to, just as I don’t think every single game needs to be non-instanced, or instanced, or a theme park, or have levels and classes. There’s a time and place for everything, and there’s room for all of that out there. As usual, I’ve gone off on a tangent so…

Here are my initial thoughts of example alternative systems, most of which have been seen before in various capacities but I feel could be improved upon in future implementations, should a development studio care to think even slightly outside the norm:

• Cash Only. With this system, each mob would have no vendor trash whatsoever, giving only the equivalent cash value to whatever vendor trash might normally be associated. Any drops from the mob would be actual gear that someone might use (whether that someone is you or not) or crafting materials such as hides, etc. Some players might cry foul over immersion here asking “Why would that rat be carrying cash?” I would ask in return “Why was that rat carrying a tin can, soiled underwear and an epic sword?” Similarly, is it “immersive” to think that I would stoop so low to pick up bloody bits of rat corpses, and someone’s soiled underwear and carry them back to town? Is it “immersive” that every vendor in town happily buys those bloody bits and soiled underwear? The ultimate point of vendor trash is to sell it for a little cash but makes us temporarily waste inventory slots and ride to a vendor when perhaps we wouldn’t otherwise. This system cuts out the middle-man and just gives us the cash. Instant gratification.
• Collectibles Bag. This would be a separate bag where only grey/white vendor trash items would automatically go and when you reach a vendor you can automatically sell everything with a single click. This is more akin to kissing a boo-boo than solving the underlying problem of inventory management, but it’s a step in the right direction while keeping the same itemization and loot tables system most of our MMOs use. Think of the crafting bags in WoW or the gem bags in DDO, only applied to the entire range of vendor trash items, and this is what you’d have. Your collectibles bag will still eventually fill up, but at least it’s not interfering with your real inventory.
• Kill Collector. This system would be very similar to the Cash Only system only eliminating the instant gratification. Directly borrowing this concept from Warhammer, this system would have a keep track of all the mobs you’ve killed in your adventures in a particular area and when you happen across a specific NPC he will thank you for your efforts in handling the hostile creatures in the area with a monetary reward.
• Complex Crafting. This system would be (at least in my opinion) predicated on the game itself having a complex and meaningful underlying crafting system to begin with. Using this system everything is useful for crafting, either directly so, or indirectly where items can be deconstructed into various tiers of crafting materials which have various market value. I first saw this back in Asheron’s Call 2. If I’m remembering correctly (and I’m not positive that I am) Star Wars Galaxies had this, at least to a degree. Hellgate: London also had this type of deconstruction system (though I had the impression it dropped the ball on a complex crafting system). We’re still heavily invested with inventory management here, but the potential for a more complex economy is present as well, depending on how the game handles its overall itemization and prioritization over dropped gear vs. crafted gear vs. rewarded gear.

The RF Online website announced yesterday that Codemasters’ license for the game has expired and they failed to come to a new agreement with CCR. As a result, Codemasters will be bringing the game servers down for the European and North American markets they provide service for.

It is with much sadness that today we announce our intention to close the European and North American RF Online game servers operated by Codemasters.

Our licence for RF Online is due to expire shortly and unfortunately, despite several weeks of negotiations with CCR, the Korean developers of the title, we have not been able to reach an agreement to renew the contract.

This means that Codemasters will no longer have the right to operate the service in the Western territories it currently provides service in and therefore we are obliged to shut down all associated game services before the licence expires.

The last full day of service will be 9th November, 2008. All RF Online world servers will shut down on the morning of Monday 10th November, UK time.

The purchase of credits is now no longer available to ensure all players have the opportunity to spend their remaining Novus credits in game. Likewise, the creation of new RF Online game accounts/subscriptions is now disabled. For further information, please see our RF Online Closing Down FAQ in the forums.

RF Online was Codemasters Online’s first MMO service and we have been very proud of its development and success during its three years of existence. It was also one of the first Eastern-style MMORPGs to ever make it to Western market and do well and it’s with much fondness that we look back and remember these achievements.

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who declared their allegiance and gave us their support with RF Online over the past few years and especially, to thank all the players who spent countless hours with us in Novus.

I occasionally dabble with F2P games but RFO just didn’t do much for me. Sure, it had the same mindless grind as the others, but I was hoping the sci-fi setting would be more fun combat and exploration. I think it was the fixed camera that did me in. It’s difficult to explore and enjoy the scenery, as well as getting proper views for combat, if I can’t change the camera angle. However, I’d recommend downloading the game just to listen to the stirring theme song “One” sung by Korean vocalist So Jung Lee. Or perhaps just download the song itself it you can find it, it’s certainly worth a listen.