Stop blaming the game for your own failure

Posted on April 28, 2009 by SynCaine

In a shock to no one but perhaps himself, Keen is on his way out of DarkFall. The same game that last month was god’s gift is now a “bad game” and “destroying itself”, despite the fact that since launch it has only improved both from a code/content perspective and also from general player activity (the cold war is over, sieges happen daily, boats/warhulks are starting to come into play, alliances form and fall).

A player leaving a game like DarkFall disillusioned is not surprising. On the contrary, I fully expected the churn rate to be far higher at this point given the nature of impact PvP and the majorities’ perception/reaction to it. The mentality of “it’s not me, it’s the game” is somewhat sickening however. The same source that continues to ask for something different goes out asking for more of the same, while at the same time wondering why 95% of the MMO market is an EQ clone.

A perfect example of ‘doing it wrong’ is Haven’s history. (Keen pre-launch created guild) Starting off as an independent and casual guild, they soon discover that more forward-thinking guilds have captured all of the world’s real estate shortly after release. Now rather than doing something about it themselves, Haven joins the largest alliance on the server (Hyperion) and is soon handed both a hamlet and a city. The ‘cold war’ sets in, with both Hyperion and the Goons doing a lot of forum talking and not a whole lot of in-game fighting. It’s at this point that, according to Keen, DF is broken because everyone just sits inside their city walls doing nothing but boring PvE and grinding, and there is no small scale PvP to be found (to the contrary of this and other blogs). The solution here, again according to Keen, is to change the game rules and create rare spawn points and other artificial incentives. The cold war breaks, Haven loses their city, leaves Hyperion, and claims to go ‘nomad’ and return to what made the game fun for them all along. Shortly after we get the ‘I quit’ post and comments linked above, complaining that character skill is beyond broken and that somehow DarkFall did not deliver on its promises.

Now while it would be foolish to argue DarkFall is currently perfect, its issues are not those that Keen found. Exploiting in-game mechanics to enhance a character beyond normal means is an issue currently (and becomes less of a factor daily as everyone catches up), but it’s far from game-breaking. The game is not based on 6v6 conflict, let alone 1v1, and continually focusing on an individual characters skill total is misguided. Yes that enhanced character is likely going to take you down 1v1, or perhaps even 1v3 assuming he is skilled, but not 1v5 if the 5 are competent players, and the odds of actually having that fight remain 1v5 are slim. In a 10v15 scenario, that one enhanced characters impact is minimized, and again the deciding factor will be player skill, rather than the sum of the characters skill points. Yet when you continually obsess over your stat sheet, and each encounter with that enhanced character sticks out, you stop playing the game to play it and jump on the skills treadmill trying in vain to catch up. DarkFall is an open PvP game, and won’t hold your hand to make every fight ‘fair’. Expecting to go out and find that ‘fair’ fight will only lead to disappointment; either in being underprepared and overwhelmed, or in the enemy avoiding you until they have a more favorable (read: unfair to you) situation. There are games that cater to preset, ‘fair’ engagements that are readily available, DarkFall is not one of them, nor was it ever sold as such.

The issue of cities and guild activity is another player created problem, rather than a broken game mechanic. It’s obvious that something will have less meaning when it’s just given, rather than something you worked for. Inquisition takes pride in our hamlet, and we work to keep the surrounding area as safe as possible. Our small alliance’s focus is based around that same principle of establishing our little area of control. Had we been given our hamlet to watch over by a large alliance, I doubt we would feel as attached to it as we do. Yet somehow, according to Keen, it’s the games fault Haven feels indifferent about its city or alliance affiliation, and the game rules should be changed to fix this. Balance changing rare resources should be added, creating artificial player incentives (which would only increase the advantage of the major power blocks, and push the smaller factions further down, but it sounds good, right?). In essence, he is asking for a themepark-style design to be added to the sandbox; rules to govern player activity and herd them in the right direction. That’s fine in a themepark MMO, but goes sharply against the ideas behind a sandbox. The issue is not the rules, but rather how the players use them. In this case, rather than being a focal point of guild unity and pride, the city and alliance were a source of boredom. That’s called user error.

In the end, a player’s choice to leave a game is his/hers to make. And while a guild leader/officer leaving so soon is sure to disrupt that guild, it’s also to be somewhat expected of guilds formed pre-release and with little history (It happened a few times to CoW in WAR). What I take issue in is the perception that the game did not live up to the expectations of the players. The players actually playing and embracing the game for what it is would strongly disagree (and since the game world is near max capacity, clearly more agree than disagree) Asking for radical changes to be made to tailor the game to YOUR expectations is what upsets the current players and gets you a “WoW that way” response. We play DarkFall, in part, because we enjoy creating our own rules/content rather than having it delivered. For those looking for a themepark, plenty of options already exist.

Of course, the likelihood of Tasos actually reading such a post on a blog or forum and pushing DF in that direction are slim to none, but if you look at MMO dev history, more than a few changes have been made that displaced the current population in favor of chasing those who left or never came. It’s that history, and those burned by it, that elicits the common response misguided or disenchanted players received in the past, receive now, and will continue to receive in the future.

Edit: Just to hammer the point home, we have this from Keen:

“It should be about constant action and dynamic gameplay in a hardcore, real-time, environment. Ships everywhere in the seas, warhulks razing the countryside, keeps falling, armies amassing, and all of that good stuff. Right now Darkfall is like watching paint dry.”

That sounds a lot more like Lake Wintergrasp than DarkFall, but at least you made your point a whole lot easier for everyone to see. It really is overused, but in this case it just fits: Go back to WoW.

Posted in Darkfall Online, MMO design, PvP, Rant | 29 Comments

MMO games: Why are they more fun in beta?

Posted on April 24, 2009 by SynCaine

If you’ve been playing MMOs for a decent amount of time, it’s likely you have taken part in at least a few beta tests, be they open or closed. If a game really got you interested early, you might have gotten a chance to get into an early beta phase and really see a game from the inside. And despite the game being in rougher shape during beta than at release, how many people have had MORE fun in beta? Odd right, or is it?

In a typical beta situation (not a stress test open beta), testers play on one server and have a focused message board to comment on the game. The community is small, almost everyone playing is more invested in the game than a ‘normal’ MMO gamer, and the player-to-developer communication is usually much higher. The game usually changes at a rapid pace due to patches, server wipes are both frequent and expected, and players are more tolerant of bugs and crashes. And last but certainly not least, beta is free.

The free part is easy to understand. If you are not paying for something, your expectations are generally going to be lower than if you have to spend money. If a free app on the iPhone sucks you chalk it up to it being free and don’t worry about it. If you spend $50 on a game that’s unplayable, you are not as likely to just delete and walk away. But free vs pay only goes so far, as plenty of F2P MMOs exist, and even at that price most people can’t be bothered to play them longer than it took to download them.

The player-to-dev aspect is nice, but how many of us really expect our armchair designer dreams to be taken seriously? It’s always nice to get inside the mind of a designer and know the how and why’s of the game, but unless the game takes a turn you don’t like, you are going to remain happy reading patch notes and just enjoying the game itself. In other words, a shitty game with an active dev staff on the boards is still a shitty game, and no amount of ‘blue posts’ is going to convince you to spend $15 a month.

A far more important aspect is the player community itself. With one server, whatever happens in-game is happening in YOUR world, not on some other server you could care less about. If the auction house is really active, it’s YOUR auction house that’s active. If a major war breaks out between two big guilds, its people fighting on YOUR server. All ‘world first’ kills are also server firsts, and it’s YOUR server. That’s a big deal, and really keeps players interested in the day-to-day of what’s going on. With high day-to-day interest, you are likely to want to log in more, and that also keeps your individual interest in the game high.

In addition to the single server advantage, you are also likely gaming with only ‘core’ players, ones that all follow the game more closely and actual care about what’s happening. Generally the players are more competent, involved, and invested in the games future. That type of environment rubs off on everyone, and leads to closer and more respectful communities. The world is no longer just about what your guild is raiding tonight, the rest of the server be damned, but about seeing familiar names/faces each day and actually enjoying rather than dreading PuG groups.

While players care more about the game overall, they also don’t stress out as much about actual in-game accomplishments, in large part because they know a beta is not permanent. It’s an interested dynamic really; we are drawn in part to MMOs because of there ‘never over’ nature, yet we are able to enjoy them more when we know what we do ‘does not count’. Is there a gray area here? A Tale in the Desert has regular resets that seem to work for that game (never played myself), but would this work for others? Unlikely in WoW or similar games, but ShadowBane had one before its death with reported success (DarkFall killed SB, not the reset).

All this leads to one question; what would you pay to play your favorite MMO in a more closed beta-like environment. If for $30 a month WoW offered a premium server, aimed at the ‘core’ WoW players (include whatever bonuses/rules would go along with this to make it happen), would you go for it? Would paying double the monthly fee (or more) be worth it if your in-game experience and community was at the level of a good beta test, making PuGing enjoyable and the world more alive with players playing to have fun rather than chase the next shiny? Would you pay more to play WAR in a guild-only server, where the only players were ones in solid and established guilds, removing the zerg vs zerg herd mentality of tier 4? Would you pay extra to play LoTRO on a more strict RP server, where the spirit of LoTRO was better enforced and the more WoW-like players were removed?

As gaming matures, so do its players. Many people are no longer ‘growing out’ of playing games, but rather growing with them. Those asking mom and dad for $15 a month are now working and have disposable income. Is there a niche market for that demographic; those that are still huge fans of the genre but no longer entertained by High School humor or with 8+ hours to grind daily?

Posted in beta, Lord of the Rings Online, MMO design, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | 14 Comments

DarkFall: Forumfail

Posted on April 23, 2009 by SynCaine

The DarkFall forums are a near endless source of entertainment. The clan discussion section is basically one giant game of “who can tell the most lies about in-game activities”, a section generally dominated by the Goons in there “anti-zerg” crusade. That’s right, the Goons, sticking up for the little guy. Bit of a hard sell when your motto is “we have more players than you have ammo to kill”, but whatever you say. While it’s not quite up to the standard of COAD in EVE, it’s still good times.

On the other hand, you have the short bus section of the forums, general discussion. Scattered between “look at me” attention-whore posts and “the sky is falling” idiots, you find gems like this:

I would have liked to play DF but im not a big clan fan, and since I never got out of the macro stage I really could not do much. I could see a game being macro dependent for a while like to build magic or some basic skills but after macroing MM and heal for DAYS AND DAYS and not really seeing any benifit i said c ya dark fall.

So many levels of fail, so little said. On the one hand, you have the general issue of trying to solo DF, which unless you really enjoy a major challenge, is not going to work. But even before that, the mentality of a ‘macro stage’ is just ludicrous. I mean there is ‘players grinding out the fun’ and then there is this. After macroing for ‘days and days’ and NOT SEEING A BENEFIT, instead of actually playing the damn game the player quits. The game just told you, very clearly, “you don’t have to grind skills to play”, and the player interprets that as a reason to quit.

Yes skill gain helps, and characters with exploited skill levels have a noticeable advantage over those who play legit, but unless you are going heads-up against the exploiters, lower skill levels really don’t limit what you can do. I can now solo a few mobs I originally could not, I hit a bit harder with a weapon, and have more utility available to me with magic. Noticeable progression, but not even close to the power inflation of going 1-80 in WoW, or even going from greens to epics at 80 itself. Add into all this that any character can use any item, and that player skill is a more dominant factor than either gear or character skills, and it would seem to be very difficult to image why some people obsess over the numbers in a game like DarkFall. It would, if we did not know the majorities first MMO. In that light, it almost makes sense.

Posted in Darkfall Online, MMO design | 10 Comments

Paid beta: You’re playing it.

Posted on April 22, 2009 by SynCaine

DarkFall is often referred to as a paid beta, and I agree. It has some serious issues, a multitude of minor problems, and countless little nagging annoyances. Despite all that however, it’s still the most engaging and enjoyable MMO experience I’ve had since UO in 1997. (And has shown me that those rose tinted UO glasses are indeed not as dark as some claimed)

Where I differ from some on the paid beta issue is that IMO, MMOs have two states; paid beta or slow death. That’s it, no magical middle ground of ‘done’ or ‘complete’; either the game is still being expanded and new, bug introducing code is being added, or the game is on the back burner and being used as a cash cow.

Of course there are varying degrees of paid beta. Vanguard was close to unplayable in its original state, WAR is stable/solid but feature incomplete, PotBS is stable but ultimately flawed, etc. Even WoW, which was perfect at release, introduces new bugs or broken/imbalanced features with each mid-year update. The only time it’s possible for an MMO to exist bug free is if no new code of significance is being added, and that only happens if your game is dead/dying. Any argument of ‘too many bugs’ also has to attach a release delay to it. Would you rather wait another 3-6 months for an MMO and have some of the bugs fixed (but not as many as a live paid beta fixes), or actually get to play the game you have been waiting for all this time, and roll with the punches knowing it will improve?

In addition, the feeling of ‘paid beta’ is likely only to be increased the faster content is added. WAR is a great example of this, as Mythic continues to crank out content faster than almost any studio around, and at the same time continue to introduce new bugs/imbalances. Flavor of the month classes are rampant depending on the latest patch, keep defense strategies rely more on what bug/imbalance is currently tops, and not all scenarios are created equally for the two sides. On the other hand, WoW is one of the least updated MMOs, with many areas seeing next to zero updates over its 5+ years (Battleground variety, new classes, graphics engine updates). In exchange for a trickle of content, the base code is about as polished as you get for an MMO. (Which says nothing about class or game balance of course, but at least you don’t fall through the world as often)

The question facing MMO gamers is not whether you support buggy software, but how high your tolerance for it is. Many have adopted a 6-month rule with any new MMO, as it’s within these 6 months that most MMOs experience the heaviest amount of bug fixes and changes. What they gain in bug fixes they lose in ‘New MMO experience’ of course, but it’s a choice they make. Yet regardless of when you DO jump in, if you play any MMO for long enough you will encounter a bug, downtime, or imbalance.

Seeing an MMO change (and hopefully improve) is a major aspect of this genre compared to others. It is, after all, the reason we pay $15 a month in addition to the $50 for the box/download. Unless a game is in truly rough shape, fans are always more excited about new content/features rather than bug fixes, yet we must also accept that all that new code is going to bring with it the inevitable issues. Luckily for us, its paid beta, and we are paying someone to fix those issues while providing us with new entertainment in a world/setting we love.

Posted in beta, Darkfall Online, Lord of the Rings Online, MMO design, Pirates of the Burning Sea, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | 9 Comments

DarkFall: NA-1 Server

Posted on April 22, 2009 by SynCaine

For anyone interested in but not currently playing DarkFall, the number one question/statement is about the upcoming (‘soon’) NA-1 server. People are waiting to buy the game when that server is release, or are holding off digging deeper into DF until that time. At the most basic level it makes sense; if you live in North America, why not wait for the NA release of the game before trying it, right?

The problem is that the perception of this server and its reality are two different things. For starters, when NA-1 does open, it’s won’t really be a North America release. Rumors have it that players on EU-1 will be allowed to transfer to NA-1, but the details of that transfer are currently unknown. Most assume it won’t be a full transfer, as allowing players to bring over items/money would creating a massive land rush in the first hour or so of the server, after which all cities and hamlets would not only be claimed but likely fully built up.

A naked transfer is the next option, which would mean characters with all their skills are allowed to transfer, but without any possessions. While this would delay the initial land rush a bit, it would still only be a matter of hours before the first cities and hamlets are claimed, and it’s very likely that within the first 24 hours everything will be taken. At this point it will only take a few more days for established characters to once again return to their former levels of item power, given how much emphasis the game places on both character and player skill.

Finally a total fresh start could happen; although how that would fall under a ‘transfer’ I’m not sure. Do you just get to keep your character name and customization, but all items/skills are wiped.

If either option 1 or 2 happen, the NA-1 server will certainly not be ‘new’ for new players just joining. If anything, newbie camps will be that much harder to access, with a combination of veterans farming them and high-skilled PKs rampaging through. At least currently on EU-1 most players have moved beyond the starter goblin camps, and while PKs still harass them regularly, it’s not nearly as bad as it was a month ago, and overall those camps are very profitable.

The other major hurdle players waiting for NA-1 will face is game knowledge and player skill, both of which are only gained by actually playing the game itself. Being two or more months behind is going to make the already tough road that much harder. Granted, those that are easily discouraged by setbacks are not the type of player who is going to enjoy DarkFall anyway, so a tough start weeds them out in the first week rather than the first month, but even those cut out for such a game are going to find the first week or so on NA-1 a rougher than normal environment.

Personally, I’m hoping the opening of NA-1 is as close to a fresh start as possible, if simply to level the playing field among players who abused early release bugs to reach impossibly high character skill levels. With the recent removal of skill gain from newbie items, along with shielded players, Aventurine has closed at least a few obvious holes macroers used to get ahead. Players will still find ways to exploit mobs or use other underhanded tricks to get ahead, but with every bug fixed it gets a bit harder for them, and levels the playing field a bit more for honest players. A fresh start would also result in an interesting early scramble among veteran players, who have a fresh start at a familiar world. Hopefully Aventurine will release more details about the whole NA-1 process, but until then we can only speculate.

Posted in Uncategorized | 15 Comments

DarkFall Navy, and some organized failure.

Posted on April 20, 2009 by SynCaine

Another entertaining weekend of DarkFall is in the books for me, and also the rest of the server.  Personally I was part of a botched but still interesting alliance event, and the server saw it’s most notable use of naval combat to date.

The naval combat in question happened Sunday night between TheMercs and Bad Boys for Life of the Dusk alliance, with TheMercs bringing a midsized ship with cannons against a city. Paragus has the full report here. My biggest take-away from this is that everyone is still learning the ropes of DarkFall, and only the very first steps have been taken in understanding everything. Currently most city sieges involve hammers and perhaps cannons, but it’s almost guaranteed both sides will bring far more complex firepower in the months to come. Counters will arise to both ships and warhulks, and in turn other strategies will be adopted. While the cold war between the two mass-recruit alliances continues, not everyone is sitting inside their city walls asking Glut or Mannus for instructions, but actually going out there and making things happen.

And making things happen is a nice segue to our botched alliance event. On Friday it was decided by alliance leadership to come together, gear up, and head out to get some practice in larger (30+) combat engagements. The gather and gear phase went well, with everyone pulling out their best stuff (full plate or scale, rank 70 transmuted weapons), and our total number of players ranging between 30 or 40. The original plan was to make a large loop around Agon, try to stir up a guild or two to meet us in combat and fight it out. We had set some targets which we assumed would have the numbers we were looking for, as well as the right level of combat effectiveness.

During our trip, the decision was made to head towards the center of the map, into TheMerc territory, and harasses the NPC city they are based out of. This is where things started to go down hill. Initially the city contained only a few players, most naked, and our force managed to kill a few while circling the town and diving in. As more and more enemies arrived, we were pushed out and retreated a bit to regroup. As we were retreating, an equal or slightly greater force pursued us from the city, now mounted and geared. We engaged for a brief moment, but at this point it was clear we were outmatched, and within a few minutes the order to retreat was given and our group scattered in all directions. While most players made it out alive, a few were lost, and with everyone bringing out top-shelf stuff, each loss hurt that individual player a good bit.

In retrospect, we clearly made a few mistakes. Attacking one of the more elite groups in the game was not the best choice for a group trying to organize itself and work together for the first time. Gear and numbers only go so far, and player organization and skill always prevails. If our alliance is to be successful, we need to practice fighting together, and fighting TheMercs made that very clear to everyone. It was a costly lesson, but I think in the end will just make us stronger and the cost will be more than justified. The goal of the event was not to pick off solo players and collect loot, but to get everyone together and out in the field, and in that it was a success, albeit much shorter than we had hoped for.

On a personal note, the few minutes of mass mounted combat was excellent, as it was literally something out of a movie. Amid the total chaos of 50+ players all riding around swinging at each other, I still picked up a few techniques in how to better find and stick to a target, as well as how best to bring them down. Just being involved in something like that was very helpful, and goes a long way to reduce your combat jitters in the future.

Outside of alliance activity, Inquisition itself had a solid weekend of gaming. Regular PvP patrols of our area almost always go well, and rarely are we hurting for targets. The advantage of taking down PK groups over raiding elf or dwarf lands is that the PK groups are always packing gear, making each kill far more profitable compared to killing players hunting goblins. As are hamlet is located along a popular travel route, PK groups frequently stop by, and if we have a group in the area, usually they don’t all make it out alive. Our guild is also slowly expanding, as new members join up and are brought up to speed in how we operate in both PvE and PvP. Keeping your cool in vent during PvP is a critical skill for success, as is trusting and following your leadership. The players who are not able to quickly adapt to our tactics are removed, while those that do soon see the success it brings. Learning when to break off a chase is a lesson you usually learn the hard way; walking into a trap and getting your mount and yourself killed. Those able to learn the lesson after the first time do well, while those that don’t end up donating a lot of gear. Continue reading →

Posted in Darkfall Online | 5 Comments

I died, DarkFall sucks, I quit!

Posted on April 17, 2009 by SynCaine

Last night I got rocked in DarkFall. I mean flat out worked over. I will now /ragequit and take my guild with me; I did not want to play that game anyway!

I logged in, noticed that the latest patch fixed the memory crashing issue (thank god), go into our regular Inquisition PvP group, and went out to kill some people. Things were going well for a while, as we made a large loop towards the north-center of the map, down to the black area in the middle, and back around towards our hamlet, making a quick stop to mess with some Goons. In that trip I believe we killed 6-8 people, with more escaping. As we were riding back to our hamlet, a guild mate let us know three PKs were there killing our harvesters. With a plan to trap all three, our group spread out and more or less circled the hamlet.

The three PKs split and ran, and we chased two of them down in short order and got the kills. The third during this time went BACK to our hamlet and again killed a few naked members at our bindstone. I was the first one back to the hamlet, and rode up to engage him. He pulled out his bow and started tearing into my mount, hitting rather hard. I got a few hit and run attacks in, just trying to keep him entertained long enough for the rest of the group to arrive. When another member showed up, he spawned his mount and tried to escape. When we killed his first mount shortly after, he spawned another and continued his escape.

As he was fleeing west, he quickly hit the coast, and to our surprise jumped into the water, abandoning his mount. At this point we figured he was only delaying the inevitable, and the 4-5 of us chasing started shooting arrows and spells at him, although shooting from the water at a target in the water is rather difficult. As he fled, he continually used mana-to-stamina in order to swim at sprint speed, and a few of our members were not able to keep up due to stam loss. Far out at sea, with one alliance member ahead of our pack, he turned and quickly killed him. I mean, really, really quickly, so fast that even stopping to fight, we were still not able to reach him close enough to melee. A few more minutes, and lots of mana-to-stamina later, he again turned and engaged me and another guild member.

I went down like a load of bricks, as did my fellow guild member shortly after. PK 3, us 0. Part of the problem was at that point, my stamina was shot and I was out of mana-to-stamina regents or stam pots, but blindly continued the chase anyway. Another problem was the guy was just really good, both in how hard he hit and also his player skill. For every hit I got in, he hit me 2-3 times, dodging up and down in the water very well. I believe gear was about even in the fight, as I was in scale/banded with a rank 40 weapon, and I think he was using comparable stuff. I also made the incorrect assumption that more people were still chasing him at this point, and so went into the fight trying to just delay him for the others to catch up; only to later find out everyone else had pulled off due to stamina. I don’t think it would have changed the outcome of the fight, but at least I would not have spent half of it just trying to block with my shield and giving up hits.

I think this was my worst loss to date in terms of gear, as I not only lost the scale/banded armor I had on, but also half a set of banded in my bag, two mounts, a good amount of regents, and other assorted items from our PK trip that I never banked. An expensive lesson for sure, but still one worth learning. Hats off to Ynow (did not catch his last name), you earned all that loot.

Posted in Darkfall Online | 21 Comments

Blizzard table scraps, L2P DarkFall, and the 3rd WAR faction

Posted on April 16, 2009 by SynCaine

Lately I’ve found a few amusing things around the various blogs/forums I read, and now seems like a good time to go over a few things.

The first is the general hope by so many that the secret MMO Blizzard is working on will be some major step in MMO design. The day Blizzard comes out with a totally new concept will be their first. They polish and ‘borrow’ ideas better than anyone in the industry, but when it comes to original concepts, I’ll point you to SC:Ghost and Warcraft Adventures. The reality of all this is that the people asking for something different don’t actually want it, otherwise they would actually be playing the different MMO offerings that are currently available. They want WoW with a new color palette, and that’s exactly what’s going to be delivered. The game will run on a toaster, have a difficulty level just slightly above tic-tac-toe, and will cater to the same non-MMO-gamer crowd currently making up the majority of the 11 million WoW players. The question is whether they will migrate over or just do their usual month-long visit. It will be interesting to see if Blizzard is able to keep its own fad going.

Speaking of WoW, I’m somewhat amazed that the FIRST content patch since the $40 Nax recycling project just came out. Its mid-April, Wrath of the Short Bus came out in November, and you are just now able to make any meaningful updates? And it’s been what, a year since Sunwell, the last new raid content? That’s laughably slow even by Blizzard standards, and by some accounts what’s being offered is not exactly grade A stuff. You need to make it last though, it’s going to be another 6+ months before Blizzard feeds you another scrap, and you better hope they don’t make Molten Core or BWL more ‘accessible’ by revamping it. The truly sad part is this shameful content release schedule is only encouraged by the 11 million or so subs patting Bliz on the head each month with their money.

The justification of this pace by some is also priceless; that your $15 a month is going towards future Blizzard projects you are also likely to enjoy. Are you fucking kidding me? You are accepting the fact you are being milked for cash to fund a future product you are going to spend $50+ for anyway (or $150 for all of Starcraft 2)? But hey, at least mounts can now enter water (brilliant Bliz first idea btw), and that kind of radical change does not come overnight. Enjoy the pony ride in Uld, just make sure to take baby steps.

Moving on from McWoW, this post by Keen made me chuckle. Who would have guessed being a serf in a giant alliance, one which is currently locked in a staring contest and forum pissing match with the other big zerg would lead to a boring experience? I can’t fathom how anyone could find being told which hamlet/city you can hold, being told when and who to attack, and grinding your hamster wheel for the blue team boring. Pro-tip: Stop being a number and actual go out and do something with your guild. Our guild can hardly make it over to a dungeon for some PvE without being pulled in three directions to deal with some threat. Most nights we don’t even need to head out to PvP, as plenty of targets wander into our area of control, and I’m not talking naked harvesters here. When we do head out, any direction we go will take us into hostile territory, and we don’t have to double check the guild name to know if we can kill them or not. The game, thankfully, is what you make of it, and rather than blaming the rules for not living up to your demands, why not do something about it and get your guild into a more entertaining and challenging situation? If you need to rely on the game rules to keep you safe and entertained, the sandbox is clearly not the right place for you.

Finally, just a quick note about WAR: how long are we going to wait for Mythic to announce a 3rd side? Is it really going to take a paid expansion for us to get it, because by that time even the most vigilant T4 combatants are going to grow tired, or simply move to a game that actually rewards that kind of dedication in a meaningful way. The themepark PvP model really can’t retain players in a two sided contest, because in order for that to work the game rules have to keep everything balanced, rather than the players. Order’s reward for sacking The Inevitable City every week is going to be an Order nerf and a Destro buff. The better you do the harsher the backlash, which in the end only rewards those that fail. And unlike PvE, where reward for failure gets you 11 million subs, in PvP I doubt it will have the same effect. Mythic has a solid core for an entertaining themepark PvP experience. It’s easy to jump into, entertaining once you are there, and it’s all wrapped in a solid IP with plenty of room for logical growth. But unless the players gain a little control and reward for performing well, it’s all going to be pointless sooner or later. Step up Mythic, continue moving away from the failed WoW-clone model, and get DAoC 2.0 where it needs to be. That said, I’m still finding WAR entertaining on a small dose scale, which would be larger if not for DarkFall, and I think the upcoming content will be very entertaining; it just won’t be the long-term solution WAR needs.

Posted in Darkfall Online, MMO design, PvP, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | 36 Comments

Why I game.

Posted on April 14, 2009 by SynCaine

This post is going to be a little self-analysis about why I play MMOs, how I play then, and what keeps me going. For readers who have been around for a bit, you can probably guess some of the stuff below, but hopefully this post will give everyone a clearer picture of what keeps me, and players like me, logging in day after day.

The thing that drives me most is progression in an endless environment. I like to know that I’m stronger in whatever game I’m playing this month than I was last month, whatever that gain may entail. The other key is that this progression must be in an environment that rewards that progression, and one that the progression has some meaning. The event that got me to quit WoW was the imminent release of The Burning Crusade; not because of any upcoming feature or change, but because TBC was a character progression reset, instantly invalidating everything your character had done since hitting level 60. Once you hit level 70, it did not matter whether you just started that character or had Nax40 on farm, everything was back to square one. For me, that’s a killer in an MMO. When I went back to WoW, it was in a completely different mind frame; I was there to see the sites and sounds, knowing that regardless of what dropped or how I played my character, at the end of the day it did not matter. Progression for me matters, and knowing that at a set date its going to reset destroys my motivation and leads to playing half-assed. Once that mentality sets in, it’s only a matter of time before the sites and sounds grow old and my account expires. This in part explains my preference for sandbox gameplay over themeparks, as no matter how well designed the themepark is, at some point the ride progression gets reset, and that knowledge makes it hard to fully commit to going all out to progress, and also in my mind undermines the true value of a massive world that continually grows based with its players.

The progression itself does not necessarily need to be my character doing more dps, it can be simple things like knowing the lay of the land better in DarkFall through exploring, or learning a little trick in PvP after being the victim of it, or our guild growing and having more solid members who can hold their own in a fight. One of my major issues with Tier 4 in Warhammer is that while the campaign is well designed and fun from start to finish, once it’s finished it simply resets. Your character is a bit more powerful, and you slowly gear up to eventually take down the king encounter, but what then? Either another layer of progression is added (good for me), or some form of a power reset is implemented (bad for me).  Furthermore, while winning the campaign is rewarding, it only goes so far to help your side against the enemy, and for good overall balance, that power swing can never go too far to one side or the other. The issue I have is the game has to balance the power structure, rather than the players being in control. In a sandbox like DF or EVE, if one alliance gets too powerful, the game rules don’t change to hurt them, the players’ band together and take them down or deal with the oppression. The powerful alliance knows that the longer they keep their position, the more meaningful their accomplishment. Anyone who has ever played EVE knows about BoB, even if you have never set foot in 0.0. That’s a goal worth chasing IMO.

Another feature that keeps me going in an MMO is the ability to play smart and have it count. For instance, one of the main reasons I stopped playing Atlantica Online is because that game only rewards time invested (or RMT money spent). As long as you keep grinding mobs, your power increases at a steady rate, and playing poorly changes little. In direct contrast, playing poorly in DarkFall has consequences. You might have eight hours a day to play, but if you spend five of them grinding iron to get a full set of scale, only to go out and lose that set stupidly, you are no further ahead than someone with an hour or two a night that runs with a solid group and wins more than they lose. A player can grind his way to 100 armorsmithing with enough time, but a guild that organizes and specializes their crafters will get ahead faster and more efficiently, and before that solo player gets to 100, the guild as a whole will have moved on to greater things. On a much smaller level, if you plan ahead and scout an area, identifying the safest and most profitable spots to harvest, you can accomplish the same result in an hour that takes a lesser player three or four. It might not always work out that way, but just knowing that HOW you spend your time matters as much as how MUCH time you have is important to me. The true value in an MMO is that you are competing with thousands of players, and the game rules should not reduce that competition to a pure race against time.

Finally, I look for an MMO to have a story, and community around that story. I don’t mean hardcoded lore, but the story of what the players have done. The lore behind Onyxia is not important to me, but the story behind the world first kill is. The raiding progression thread on each WoW server was, for me, the story in WoW. How fast is a rival guild progressing, how do we stack up against everyone else, and what can we do to get to the top? I can’t recall a single piece of lore from Asheron’s Call, but I’ll never forget the Blood hierarchy on Darktide. Similarly, while my guild Inquisition is a small-ish guild in DarkFall, we are working to establish both our reputation and presence in our area of the world, to either establish better control of what we have now, or perhaps to become a key piece in some greater, further reaching plan. The point is, what we do today will actually impact what happens to all of us tomorrow, independent of what the patch notes next week might contain. It’s a force that keeps me logging in; to see not only the world progress overall, but what part my guild plays in that progression.

I consider myself a power gamer on a now more limited time budget. Realistic or not, my goal is always to progress towards the top tiers of power, or impact the world in a meaningful and hopefully memorable way. Even if in the end that does not happen, knowing that it COULD is a huge driving factor. And knowing that my actions reflect on hundreds, if not thousands of other players all striving for similar goals is why MMO gaming is miles ahead of any single player or less worldly game, console or otherwise.

Posted in Atlantica Online, Darkfall Online, EVE Online, Random, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | 22 Comments

DarkFall burnout: The players or the game?

Posted on April 13, 2009 by SynCaine

While I’m still having a blast in DarkFall (our recent ‘pirate’ adventure on four rafts was hilarious), I’ve been reading some forum posts (I know…) about certain players feeling meh about the game now. According to the post, part of the blame is the lack of small scale PvP (10-20 man fights), the lack of importance with cities, and the boredom of skill/craft grinding.

Some of the issues are very DarkFall specific. If you are in Hyperion or the Goon buddies alliance, you are going to have a tough time finding targets simply because your side is allied with more or less everyone around you. The major advantage of being in a smaller, regional alliance is that once we ride out 5-10 minutes, everyone we find is fair game, and we don’t have to constantly check the 20+ long ally list. Our area sees plenty of enemy raiders, but since we are so focused on our little spot, we always have people who are able to quickly respond. It makes for a very fun, dynamic environment; one I’ll take any day over an alliance owning an entire island and having to travel 30+ minutes for the chance of fighting another player. It’s this factor above all else that may lead to the decline of the zerg alliances, as trading in PvP randomness for the safety of superior numbers might not be a deal most DarkFall players are willing to accept long-term.

The other DarkFall specific issue is the whole notion of ‘keeping up’ in terms of skills. It seems that certain people just can’t accept that others will have higher magic or weapon skills, and instead of playing the game, spend all their time grinding so they can finally get themselves ‘ready’. It’s a laughable notion really, when you consider that a day one player can just jump right in and contribute to a guild run, without the need to grind anything. The other issue is that once they are ‘ready’, burnout sets in because they just spent the last month playing long hours just to keep up. While certainly having higher skill or gear helps in DarkFall, it’s not the “I win” button it is in other games, and obsessing over grinding your skills to the point of burnout is a great way to make ANYTHING not fun, DarkFall included.

Other issues however are more related to the players gaming style rather than actual game mechanics. While in a themepark the game leads you from one ride to the next, always ensuring you are on the ‘correct’ path, a sandbox is what you make of it, and not everyone is able to create something fun or entertaining. And while it would be easy to call all those players unable to find the fun in a sandbox carebears or noobs, the truth is that not everyone is looking for the same things in a game, much less an MMO. For some, they just want to log in and follow the path, seeing the sights and sounds as an escape from whatever they were doing before logging in. They don’t want to ‘work’ at having fun; they want it readily accessible and on-demand. (And one could easy point out that the ‘accessible’ population is 11 million strong, while the ‘work’ crowd is a niche)

The problem is some players don’t accept that that is their playstyle, similar to how more people THINK they want PvP than actually do. The players THINK they want a dynamic, random, and uncertain world, yet don’t actually accept all aspects of that bargain. In exchange for thrilling, random PvP encounters like finding a raft and shooting the crew full of arrows before sailing away with it, you accept an hour+ trip searching for players and not finding much, or worse yet finding a group that wipes you. In exchange for items actually having some value, you accept that crafting those items is going to take some gathering, perhaps even more so than needed because of random gankers. It’s the acceptance that for every amazing day, you will likely have an equally disastrous one, where it seems that every PK is specifically aiming for you. It’s the exact reason EVE for many is more fun to read about than to actually play, as reading gets you right to the good stuff (even if its only from a 3rd party perspective), rather than logging in and having to ‘grind’ through all that down time to actually get yourself into one of the memorable encounters.

For me, it’s the understanding that a sandbox game is as much fun as you are willing to put into it, and for some they simply don’t want to invest that much in a game. And while I do occasionally enjoy an easy trip around the themepark, the knowledge that my game is ‘on rails’ is a more bothersome issue than getting ganked while harvesting or PvE’ing. It’s not a better or worse way to game, it just comes down to player preference, and luckily now the MMO genre is at least catering somewhat to both camps.

Posted in Darkfall Online, EVE Online, MMO design | 28 Comments