Massively interviews Scott Hartsman

Posted on March 16, 2011 by SynCaine

Very solid interview with Scott Hartsman over at Massively. Nicely done Karen.

I’m not going to break it down or comment on every answer, but overall I like that Scott is throwing out more facts than marketing hype (first day server number issue, team not moving on, hacking issues). You also get the sense that he and Trion know what they are doing, and have a solid plan in place to continue to improve and expand the game. He sounded very calm and confident in what is happening right now (not hard I guess, given how successful Rift has been), and what is in the pipeline.

Of particular note was his mention of an app-based security program for accounts, rather than selling a token. That’s a smart move, both for users and for PR purposes. Considering we have already had one guild member get this account hijacked (now recovered), and if Rift keeps up it’s pace it will only draw more attention, this is good news. Hopefully the semi-regular gold seller in-game mail will also disappear now that they have a counter for that as well.

Posted in Mass Media, Rift | 5 Comments

How awesome is Dragon Age 2!?

Posted on March 15, 2011 by SynCaine

So atrocious.

Remember how during Dragon Age: Origins, sometimes the combat would get a little silly and you felt a bit embarrassed for the game? DA2 is those silly moments, turned up to 11, and put on repeat 24/7. Mortal Kombat looks more realistic/serious, and that games TRYING to be obnoxious.

The demo locks your equipment options. Why? Not that it would have saved the game, but honestly, why would you prevent someone front equipping different items in the demo, especially because during the demo tons of stuff drops?  Oh yes, because you are intentionally trying to make the absolute worst product possible. This is a solid step.

Remember how during Dragon Age: Origins, the story at times was pretty good? Well I can’t confirm/deny if that’s the chase with DA2, but I can say the opening cinematic and the first five minutes are a total joke, and once again the game goes out of it’s way to suck, this time in terms of dialog choice = result. Who could ever imagine someone would ship a game where selecting “lets go north” would result in “ramble ramble ramble lets go south ramble ramble ramble TONS OF BLOOD!!!!” I know that’s high on my wishlist of ‘improvements I’d like to see in a sequel’.

One last bonus, the graphics in DA2 are nothing special, yet on my new super computer, the game runs at 2-4 FPS (no joke) on high settings/DX11. Good thing you shipped a game that literally NO ONE will be able to run maxed out, huge plus. At medium settings I’m pretty sure it looks worse than DA:O, and even then the performance is meh at best. The main character also looks like an asshole, and not in that ‘cool badass’’ asshole way, but more in that ‘this guy is a tool’ way. I’m convinced that’s intentional.

I have now spent more time writing about DA2 than playing it, as I uninstalled the demo about 5 minutes into it. That the game managed to pack in so much suck into the first 5 minutes is remarkable.

EG Rating: Highly Recommended, 9/10.

Posted in Random, Rant | 19 Comments

PAX thoughts: Treasure chest complexity spiraling out of control!

Posted on March 15, 2011 by SynCaine

One of the better presentations I attended at PAX was “To Hell and Back Again: How the Game Industry Has Changed Since Diablo”, presented by David Brevik, former President of Blizzard North. The majority of the presentation was a historical recap of how the original Diablo came about, and then the changes in the industry and for David’s team between Diablo and Hellgate:London. Lots of fun facts were shared, such as Diablo being a claymation game for two weeks, along with an inside look of just how the game was pitched and ultimately delivered.

One very interesting point made was that during the making of the original Diablo, if David wanted to add a treasure chest mechanic to the game, it would take about three hours total from idea to in-game. That same idea (a chest) would take two weeks or so for Hellgate:London, and would involve a dozen people jumping in at various points (and potentially falling behind on whatever else they were doing). What David and his team were able to get away with and making Diablo great ended up crippling Hellgate.

The first thing that came to my mind was “why”? Why do we need something like a chest taking two weeks to develop now? It’s not like the idea is radically different today, or that somehow it’s more fun to open a chest today than it was back then thanks to that extra dev time. Of course software complexity is somewhat inevitable, but to that extent? Yes, some systems are just outright more complex and better than older systems (Rift’s soul system vs WoW talent trees for instance), but this improvement/complexity does not apply across the board.

David wrapped things up by stating he believes the PC space is going to return to a similar state it was in during the early-mid 90s, where new ideas from the ‘small guys’ were rampant and lots of cool stuff was being released. We are seeing some of that with titles like Minecraft, Plants vs Zombies, and others. Steam also helps out by making mass distribution easier, and gamers being more educated about their hobby means a good title is more likely to get noticed over the mega-corp driven noise (have you seen the TV add for Dragon Age 2? Ugh).

Posted in Diablo 3, Mass Media, Random | 3 Comments

PAX thoughts: Guild Wars 2

Posted on March 14, 2011 by SynCaine

Brain overloaded with stuff to write after PAX, making it difficult to write anything. Good problem and all that. Expect a little more activity here over the next few days.

First, I’ll just clarify that the post below is not a troll post. Having played a bit of GW2, and having talked to a few devs about it, I just don’t think it’s anything above and beyond current offerings. Not saying it’s a bad game in any way, but I still don’t see the major hype for it. One particular example stands out. As I was in line waiting to play, I was talking to a dev about their dynamic content, and how it would handle population flux, bringing up the faults of WAR’s PQ system. He said the content scales. He said this right as the guy playing the demo got killed by a boss-like mob because he was solo, unable to progress the content. Oops.

The bigger oops here is not that you won’t be able to advance to the final stage of a PQ and get your loot bag before it resets, but that because in GW2, according to this dev, the majority of the content is the dynamic stuff, getting stuck because of a lack of population or interest might be a real hurdle. Dynamic scaling, at least from this demo, is not going to fix all issues.

That speculation aside, the combat system is really what the dev was excited about (the rogue class was playable), but to me it felt very much like DDO, including how important it is to be active. You still target a mob here, rather than actually aim attacks, and while you can dodge away ala DDO, how often or important this is depends very much on the situation. That boss mob that killed the guy in front of me did so rather quickly, and while perhaps some quick dodging would have saved him, I’m not totally convinced. On the other hand, he stood and traded with the numerous centaurs he was fighting and did just fine mowing them down.

My issue with GW2 combat is that it sits in an awkward middle ground between a really active system like Darkfall, where aim and movement always matters, and a traditional system like WoW/Rift, where you stand and trade, with all of the skills balanced around that fact. When I meet someone who loves DDO combat, they will be the first, so it’s odd that GW2 went in that direction. Maybe long-term it will work out, or the system will be overhauled before launch to either be more active or less so, but right now I’m just not a fan.

Posted in Combat Systems, Darkfall Online, Guild Wars, Mass Media, MMO design, Rift, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | 36 Comments

Guild Wars 2 Review (EG Style)

Posted on March 12, 2011 by SynCaine

(Note: these keep coming earlier and earlier. EG workin’ hard!)

Rift version .9

Looks similar, plays a bit like DDO (active but not really but hey look, dodge!), the PQs don’t move but also don’t look as blatant as WAR PQs. They scale but not really (the elite mob at the ‘end’ still destroys you solo and all that).

3/10

Posted in Guild Wars, Rift | 14 Comments

Rift: Quick glance at world PvP

Posted on March 10, 2011 by SynCaine

After two zones of relative peace, level 30 brings me into the first shared zone of the game, and as I’m playing on a PvP server, this has some interesting dynamics to it. This won’t be a complete review of world PvP in Rift, as I’ve just begun to experience it, but already I’ve seen a few things that I consider worthwhile discussion pieces.

One highlight happened recently during an invasion event. As I approached the location of the final boss, I noticed my side (Guardians) standing on one end, the boss in the middle, and Defiant players on the other. The area around the boss was a deathzone of AoE damage, and while most players focused on the boss, the occasional side skirmish would break out. Once the boss went down, an awkward second passed (people collecting loot no doubt), and then both sides rushed each other and a massive brawl broke out.

The above is a good example of a PvE event driving some world PvP naturally. The event collects players into raid groups to fight off NPC attacks and ultimately brings them to one location to fight a boss. At other times I’ve seen either the Guardians or Defiant dominate in terms of numbers, and that side attempts to control the boss to give themselves the highest possible contribution level. As the bosses get more complex and deadly, I’m sure they will factor in more and more during these engagements. Even at level 30 the boss was dropping players left and right, and throwing out some solid AoE damage at whoever drew his attention.

While questing, it can be both a blessing and a curse to play on a PvP server, which is basically how PvP usually goes. It can be a blessing because the occasion run-in breaks up your PvE and gives the zone a little kick of danger. Having a good 1v1 against another player gets your blood rushing, and in the right situation things can snowball into a zone-wide battle.

It can be a curse because you might get ganked right before you were just about to complete a quest you wanted to knock out before logging for the night. Getting punted off a ledge while waiting for your group to gather for an instance might be humors at times, but irritating at others.

One issue I’ve also noticed is that due to how frequent graveyards are, and the downtime required to recover, it’s not unusual for an enemy player to return to the spot of his death before you have even had a chance to fully recover, and this can lead to a lot of, ultimately pointless, back and forth fights. If PvP death incurred a rez timer, or some other minor penalty, this would not be as big an issue.

Finally, as is usually the case in a themepark primarily designed for PvE, there is a lack of purpose behind world PvP right now. Clearing the enemy off a boss or taking over a capture point are nice bonuses, but they are not good enough to really drive PvP. The good news is that thanks to the solid base Rift has, some good PvP server rules could be implemented to push world PvP to the next level. We will see if Trion puts in the time/effort to do so. The guard change in beta was a good first step.

Whether all of this is more positive or negative for you really comes down to whether or not you enjoy the concept of world PvP in an MMO. PvP is never going to be all great all the time, if for no other reason than someone has to lose, but for me personally the highs you get outweigh the lows. If they don’t for you, there are plenty of PvE servers available.

Posted in MMO design, PvP, Rift | 3 Comments

PAX East is almost here

Posted on March 9, 2011 by SynCaine

PAX East starts Friday!

I’m really looking forward to the whole event for various reasons. First and foremost is to see titles like GW2 and SW:TOR live, along with whatever else is on display. As I plan to attend all three days, I’m not worried about missing something I’d like to see, although this being my first time at an event of this size, we will see how that goes. If people have big event tips, feel free to share.

I’m also looking forward to meeting various developers and other bloggers/fans. I know last year people organized various meetings, plus I believe Rift, League of Legends, and others have official after hours events, so I’m sure I’ll be attending at least a few of those, though which ones I’ve not yet decided. Again, if you know of something that sounds good, let me know.

Finally, though most importantly for me personally, I’m going to see if I can land a job in the industry or at least get in some good networking. Simply put I’m burned out on super-regulated corporate work, and while I’ve always toyed with the idea of actually working in the industry, I think now I’m at a place were making that happen might be a possibility. Obviously a lot of things have to line up here, but I figure PAX is a good place to at least inquire about the possibility.

In terms of blog content, most likely I’ll have a lot to share after the event, but whether I do quick hit posts over the weekend or just wait until next week to re-cap, I’ve not yet decided. I don’t want to twitter-fy the blog with short “zomg MMO X is amazing!” posts as I just don’t see much value in them, but who knows.

Posted in Guild Wars, Mass Media, Random, Site update, SW:TOR | 8 Comments

Rift: Souls of goodness

Posted on March 8, 2011 by SynCaine

Yesterday I pointed out that no single feature of Rift really stands out enough to singularly sell the game, but that does not mean there are not systems within the game that either bring something new or interesting to the table, or at least warrant some discussion. Today I want to break down the Soul system a little, and give some observations.

The biggest thing that stands out to me between Rift’s soul system and say, WoW’s talent trees is the degree of change. Back when I was actively playing WoW (feel free to point out if this has dramatically changed), switching my warrior from DPS to tank meant a talent tree reset and some gear swapping, yet the majority of the change resulted in some stats being moved around (more crit, less def, etc) and possibly a few new abilities or existing ones being switched around on a hotbar. The performance difference was fairly notable, yet the ‘feel’ of the class was still similar. I might spam heroic strike over taunt, but execute was still used when the target was low, etc.

When I switch souls in Rift, it’s in many ways a 100% change. Totally new skills, totally new underlying mechanics (beastmaster focuses on bleeds, paragon on one-two combos, pali on blocking, etc) still based on the core “three point combo” system, and a very different feel to each one. Yes, some things are similar, such as most warrior soul having a pure damage combo-dump skill, but the vast majority of the skills are different, and how they interact with other souls is also a factor.

Forget “build any class you want” as that’s idiotic marketing speak, but without a doubt the availability of 8 (9 if you count PvP) souls not only gives your character a ton of options and variety, it goes a long way to keep your gameplay feeling fresh and new. For the first 25 levels I solo PvE’ed as a champion/warlord, but switched to paragon/beastmaster recently, and it feels like I rerolled a fresh character. The strategies are different, the perks are different, and your whole approach to combat changes (yet my gear still works, which is huge and should not be overlooked). My reaver/vindicator spec for PvP? Yea, that plays nothing like the ones before it, and my pali/warlord tanking spec is yet another 180. And this is all before level 50 and the full availability of all the points.

As I mentioned before, the system shines in part thanks to the high level of polish. Swapping between roles takes but a few seconds, and all of your hotbars switch automatically as well. This makes jumping from a warfront, to an instance, to a zone with an invasion painless, all while still playing the ‘role’ you want/need.

The only part that feels ‘old’ or silly is visiting your trainer to buy the next rank of a skill. If you only had to do that once every level it would not be as painful (though still pointless), but you can only buy the skills for the current soul combo you are using, which means that if you have three combos unlocked, you have to switch and buy three different times at the trainer every level. Game-breaking? Of course not, but in a game where everything else is so refined and smooth, this bit feels like a bad carryover from MMOs of old. If the intent is to drain some gold from the world, find another sink, or at least let us buy up all the skills without have to switch to each combo.

Overall though, much like the invasion/rift system, the soul system in Rift looks like a minor tweak for the genre, yet its impact and feel are vastly different, even at level 30. I expect at level 50 to not only have four distinct setups, but to switch those up as needs arise or situations (current raid, PvP roles, gear) change. As someone who distinctly hates alts, I get to focus on one main while still getting to play a half dozen or more classes/combos, and that is very reward.

Posted in Combat Systems, MMO design, PvP, Rift | 12 Comments

Rift: Things I wish I had known sooner

Posted on March 7, 2011 by SynCaine

Found this very helpful thread today.

Enjoy!

Posted in Rift | 1 Comment

Rift: And I don’t wear jerseys I’m 30 plus

Posted on March 7, 2011 by SynCaine

It’s hard to describe Rift in a few sentences.

I mean, if I say it’s like WoW but better that’s pretty subjective (read: correct) and depends on what you are looking for. If you are looking to pay $15 a month for a single player RPG with amazing 2004 graphics, WoW is still the better game. If you are looking for a more traditional themepark MMO that acknowledges you are not just a line item on a DPS meter, Rift delivers.

If I say it does a lot of what WAR and other games tried but actually succeeds, that’s not telling you a whole lot either. Succeeds at what, and why? And how is fixing feature X important enough to make me care/switch?

If you ask for 3-4 things that make it ‘special’, the list would not do a great job of pointing out why the game is as much fun as it is.

And at the end of the day, the above is really only a problem when talking about Rift, because playing it is pretty damn good fun. Now maybe if you are coming off their 12th straight themepark it’s not as fun. Maybe if you have been playing nothing but themeparks since 2004 you don’t find it as enjoyable. Maybe if you are taking a break from WoW to ‘try something new’ Rift is not doing it for you. All fair. Of course, if you are complaining that the PvP is bland and you wish it was more worldly, all while ignoring Darkfall, well, it’s not the genre that’s failing you. If you wish for something more complex without playing EVE, again, it’s you. And if you hate all of the above, keeping waiting for that jesus MMO, it’s coming “soon”.

For me though, Rift arrives at the perfect time. I’ve been away from the themepark space for a bit, and I still have a ‘serious’ PvP MMO that is always available in Darkfall.

Now that I’m half a bar away from level 30, I think I’ve seen enough of the game to offer some additional thoughts.

As has been repeated often but can’t be stated enough, Rift does most if not all of the basics well. If you feel something should be in a themepark MMO, odds are good that Rift has it. The lack of a guild bank stands out as much as it does in part because, well, basically everything else IS there. Guild quests, puzzles, explorer caches, solo/3-man/group quests, solid instances, achievements, collections, a currency tab, pets, mounts, zone-wide events, customizable UI, etc etc etc. Name a themepark feature you would expect a game to have, and Rift probably has it and executes it well.

And executing well is what separates Rift from other MMOs IMO. I’m not just talking lack of bugs or stable servers, I’m talking ideas improved on slightly to make them overall work better. The zone invasions and rifts are PQs 2.0 not because of some hidden details or improvement, but for the simple fact that when they happen, a large section of the zones current population gets together and fights it off. That’s very, very different from WAR, where unless someone gets people together, you don’t run a PQ. Reactive vs proactive. Huge difference. That they tie into each zones lore and storyline is just icing on the cake.

The difficulty here is also important. If you show up with a few people, you will succeed at the early levels. The more people you have the faster you succeed, and the better you play the higher your chance for a reward, but the difficulty being what it is means the event is more of a social “come look at the pretty lights” type of deal than a hardcore DPS metrics race to the e-peen top. This conditions people to show up, rather than having the average player get stomped at level 15 and swear off invasions all together.

One other thing I’d like to point out, and something that I hope continues as I level, is that rifts, instances, and invasions are slowly getting a little more complex as you go. In Silverwood the bosses and rifts were pure tank and spank, while in Gloamwood they have a mechanic or two that semi-matters (you can ignore it and still zerg-to-win, but reacting to it is better). Hopefully by 50 things are closer to the old WoW world dragons, if not quite that tuned, as at that point it’s no longer an option to ignore them and move to the next zone. Again though, the tuning is going to be key. Make things too difficult, and you condition people not to show up. Make them too easy, and at 50 it might not entertain people as long as you expect in an MMO. I’m thinking this is where raid-level rifts come in, and if so, I’m looking forward to them.

A quick note about questing difficulty; 90% of it is WoW-easy, but that 10% is just enough to keep things interesting. Skip the next paragraph if you have not been to Gloamwood and want to avoid a somewhat minor spoiler.

There is a quest in Gloamwood that, at one point, curses you and turns you into a werewolf, which subsequently makes most of the previously friendly NPCs (merchants, guards, etc) hostile to you. If you finish the quest and kill the named mob, the curse is lifted, or you can sneak into town and talk to someone who can also break the curse. As I’ve been reading the quest text, none of this was a surprise and I was able to reach the NPC to cure me after some sneaking and running away. Two guild mates who play only for the shiny had a tougher go of things, and I’ve seen some hilarious forum threads of people complaining that this one quest “completely broke the game for me and made it unplayable!”

It’s good that in the age of ‘accessibility’, there are still a few quests or encounters that require more than fist-pounding your keyboard, and they make all of those simpler quests more enjoyable by contrast. If every quest cursed you, it would be a drag, but being challenged once in a while is, in my book, a great thing. And so far, that’s really what Rift has been about, one enjoyable ‘great thing’ after another.

Posted in Inquisition Clan, MMO design, Rift | 23 Comments