Tons of new WAR info!

Posted on February 5, 2009 by SynCaine

Here

Still reading it, thoughts later. Enjoy!

Posted in Warhammer Online | 1 Comment

MMO growth after release in the post-WoW market

Posted on February 5, 2009 by SynCaine

Whenever you debate a topic concerning MMOs, it’s a safe bet someone is going to bring up EVE and show you a counter-example to whatever you are trying to say. Impact PvP does not work: EVE. Complex economies are impossible in an MMO: EVE. Sci-Fi is not a profitable setting for an MMO: EVE. You must have a class-based game: EVE. And finally, and today’s topic, an MMO peaks and then slowly declines over time: EVE.

The problem with that last example is, up until recently, EVE was the ONLY example of a bad launch followed by noticeable and continued growth. I know Anarchy Online did it, but to such a lesser extent it’s hard to use it as another example. UO, EQ1, AC, DAoC, SWG, etc, all hit a peak and then declined. Expansions would renew interest, but never back to the original peak, and those past MMOs went into ‘cash cow’ mode with more limited support and updates.

LotRO had a very good launch, and at the time was considered a solid title. The problem was it was solid at doing what WoW was doing VERY well, PvE. The game never delivered on the hype of the LotR setting being a license to print money, and even LotRO’s own pre-release advertising of “join millions of players”, and shortly after launch was not considered a success. Yet with its recent expansion, LotRO by all accounts has grown and established its own spot in the MMO space, separating itself from WoW in both community and features. It’s not exactly EVE’s 5 years of growth, but it’s still a major MMO gaining players after its initial peak.

Titles like EQ2 and Vanguard have also seen renewed interest after disappointing launches, if not exactly LotRO or EVE growth.

As with the WoW tourist that now hit any new MMO, I believe WoW also contributes a second type of player; ones brought into MMO gaming by WoW, but who also go out and look into other titles. The difference between this group and the tourists is they ARE looking for something other than WoW, either having burned through WoW’s content or simply wanting something complex/different/not neon. The problem for the industry as a whole is that the tourists heavily outnumber the ‘potential MMOer’, yet those players are out there thanks to WoW. The other challenge is those recent WoW players go into other games expecting 5 years of MMO patching in a new game, and don’t tolerate crashing or bugs (despite coming from an MMO which had similar issues during its own launch). These unrealistic expectations no doubt help create more tourists than future fans.

The long and short of it is that in the current market, we can expect a few things to happen with any new MMO. Pre-launch hype (both company and fan created) that ultimately won’t live up to expectations. A launch with both core fans and tourists, likely rougher thanks to the over-abundance of players. The ‘bitch and whine’ phase as tourists leave because magically MMO X was in fact, not WoW, stopping by the forums to post look-at-me “I quit” posts. They also take their guild/friends/cat with them, because they are ‘kind of a big deal’ and really influential. At this point two things can happen. Either your MMO goes the way of NCSoft and gets canned regardless of its inevitable potential, or goes the EVE/LotRO/EQ2 path and maintains its core player base, improves its game, and reaches its potential, which was never to be a WoW-killer but a profitable venture.

WAR is currently in the post-tourist phase. The attention-whores have made their ‘I quit’ posts, the forum trolls have moved on from the forums (mostly), and WAR is making its way towards its final potential. It’s not there yet, and even the most optimistic people know it’s a good 2-3 MAJOR patches away. Unless you just outright HATE PvP (and that’s cool), people can see that WAR has a solid base to build from. The engine works well for PvP, the classes are interesting, the setting/theme fits, etc. Lets hope EA sees it that way as well, and gives Mythic the time it needs to make the necessary changes and tweaks, rather than shut it down and waste a ton of potential.

Posted in Dark Age of Camelot, DDO, EQ2, EVE Online, Lord of the Rings Online, MMO design, Ultima Online, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | 19 Comments

300k, has Mythic pulled a Failcom and Flagshipped WAR?

Posted on February 4, 2009 by SynCaine

Remember back in the summer of 2008 we were all making WAR subscriber predictions, and we figured they would be in the range of 1-100 million, depending on how high your fanboy rating was? Everyone reasoned that if WoW can get 11 million, WAR can at least get a few million right?

Just like all the other MMOs with a million+ subscribers…

I’ll be up front and say that initially I thought the 300k number was low and disappointing. While WAR had its issues at launch (and a few still persist), in the grand scheme of the MMO world it had a good launch and is a very stable product. Plus personally I’ve had a damn good time with it, as have the regular members of CoW that I play with. Even MMO newbie Aria (my fiancé) enjoys it, and she has a short fuse when it comes to frustration, be it for technical reasons or her witch elf being blown up repeatedly by a bright wizard.

But if we enter the land of make-believe, and pretend WoW does not exist, how does 300k stack up? It’s around LoTRO and EVE numbers, and it beats EQ2, CoH, AoC, ect. Basically, it’s close (if not at) the goal of being #2 in the market, with the perception problem being you are a VERY distant second. I’ve said this many times here and elsewhere, but its worth repeating, if your MMO is budgeted around WoW-like numbers, you are going to fail even if you deliver the baby jesus of the MMO world. The 11 million people playing WoW are not MMO players, and they never will be. The kids/moms/dads/grandmas etc playing WoW won’t make the jump to the next shiny that’s released, and the MMO tourists that WoW has created won’t stick around past a month of ANY new MMO (which may also include Blizzards next MMO btw). We always talk about rose-tinted glasses when we talk about UO or EQ right? 10 million people are wearing WoW-tinted glasses, and those aren’t coming off anytime soon.

Moving beyond the “my MMO has more subs than yours, hahaha!” aspect of 300k, what does that actually mean for WAR’s future? It’s a high enough number to justify WAR’s continued development with a full crew, for one, meaning the game is here to stay. It also means that as WAR improves (and it has a LOT of room for improvement due to its solid fundamentals and the difficulty of getting a PvP-base game ‘right’), that 300k number will go up. The shine of WotLK continues to dull, and if recent CoW member movement is any indication, some of those players will be giving WAR another shot. I think a common thread we saw with WAR early on is people liked the concepts, but too many issues prevented people from fully enjoying the game as a whole. With the release of WotLK, those people had the perfect excuse to move away from WAR and enjoy WoW again, knowing could always give WAR another shot once it has been fixed up. I think we are starting to see the beginning of that process, and with WAR’s full content schedule coming in the next few months, it will give people more and more reasons to give WAR a second look.

One would think being horribly wrong on one prediction would teach you a lesson, but here goes my 2009 prediction: 500k+ by the end of 09, securing the #2 spot without debate. I have faith that Blizzard will continue its snails pace of delivering content, and making WotLK so easy is going to burn them. Along with that, I really believe WAR is 1-2 patches away from getting its end-game where it needs to be to really hook people, and the buzz from a successful city siege will go a long way to raising peoples attention (think EVE tournament or some of the other major stories that draw people in). Fanboy optimism? Of course, I’m a fan of the game after all, and I believe in its design. I think there exists a spot for it in the MMO space, just like DAoC had its spot among EQ1 and company. Mythic just needs to step up to the plate and finally deliver that one set of changes that will finally get T4 RvR where it needs to be, that perfect balance between making a city siege possible, but still rare enough to make it something special.

Posted in Age of Conan, Dark Age of Camelot, EQ2, EVE Online, Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | 29 Comments

WAR 1.1.1 patch, fixing oRvR one step at a time.

Posted on February 3, 2009 by SynCaine

Patch 1.1.1 is out today for Warhammer Online, with some short but potentially very sweet notes. Once a player hits rank 40, the focus of the game goes (as intended) straight to the RvR campaign, with the ultimate goal of sacking the other realms capital. The major brick wall currently facing most servers is locking down zones and taking down a Fortress lord. Quite simply, it’s far too easy to defend a Fortress currently, which greatly demoralizes any offensive force and reduces RvR to a standstill.

Here are the key changes from the notes:

  • A minimum level of 37 is now needed to participate in Fortress assault/defense.
  • The value of Scenarios towards City Capture has been reduced. The value of Battle Objectives and skirmishes towards City Capture has been increased.
  • We have reduced the hit points on the three outer doors of all Fortresses.  We will continue to evaluate the difficulty of the Fortress encounters and make adjustments as necessary.
  • In Fortresses, the Fortress Lord’s Terror aura will now affect defending players as well as attackers.

Raising the minimum rank to 37 is huge. Currently Fortresses get flooded by lower rank players who lack the ward gear needed to survive the lords AoE blast. They don’t contribute much to the assault, and are generally seen as wasted space in an area where you can’t really afford it. Smart move, and one could argue it should be increased to rank 40.

Scenarios should stop contributing towards the campaign period, but at least this is another step in that direction. Scenarios are fun enough alone to remain popular (both for gaining xp/renown and just for taking a break from oRvR with friends), and counting towards the war only frustrates those participating in oRvR. Hopefully this change will reduce their effect enough to not slow down oRvR as they have in the past.

Banging on a fort/keep door is bla currently, so shortening the time it takes is a good step. This will also get attackers into the inner courtyard faster, allowing them to cut off incoming defenders faster. The Fort lord’s room will still be the site of the decisive push, but with this change at least MORE combat will occur outside, as defenders try to push past the attacking force assigned to keep them out.

The final change is, IMO, the biggest one. Currently attackers get 1-2 shots at the lord, and if they fail the siege is over. By forcing defenders to also release and run back into the fortress means you can now try to slowly break apart the defending force in the lord’s room before making a final all out charge. This will also place a greater emphasis on keeping released defenders out, which means more combat in and around the fortress courtyard, another big win.

Last weekend CoW’s alliance made a big oRvR push, and while turnout the first night was excellent, and we managed to lock zones and get into a Fortress, the two defeats at the Fortresses were huge moral killers. Our planning was solid, our leadership was good, we had enough people to get the job done, but in the end the sheer difficulty of actually getting the enemy out of the lord’s room and taking the lord down proved too difficult. I think with the changes in 1.1.1, and upcoming future changes, RvR will be re-ignited again, and hopefully we will be reading and seeing capital cities under siege soon enough.

Posted in Patch Notes, RvR, Warhammer Online | 6 Comments

The recession and you, a podcast.

Posted on February 3, 2009 by SynCaine

Ever wondered what some bloggers think about the recession and how it might effect MMO gaming? Of course you have, and fear not, we deliver! Check out the latest “Witty Ranter“, hosted by Adam and featuring downy voice me (I blame the editing/mic/interwebs, basically anything but myself), alone with Darren from Common Sense Gamer, Michael Zenke from Massively, Remy from his new blog Warsbox.

It was a fun show (always is), and the topic itself is of course very debatable. Will the recession be the spark F2P MMOs need to gain a solid foothold in the west, or will it doom them further as people look to control costs? Will the downturn in spending spur companies to create more “station pass” like services, price drops for subs, cancel future MMOs? All that and more, so go listen!

Posted in Podcast, Random, Site update | 3 Comments

Why usually ‘kill ten rats’ sucks, and how AO nails it.

Posted on February 2, 2009 by SynCaine

Lots of people hate kill ten rats. No I don’t mean the blog (it rocks), but that style of quest in an MMO, where some NPC with some minor issue sends you out to kill some number of enemies, only to have you come back and go kill the green version of that enemy, all so you can eventually kill the purple enemy tucked behind the blue and green enemies. With ‘epic’ quests like that, it’s no wonder many MMO players are constantly asking “am I at the level cap yet?”

I love the ‘kill 40 enemies’ quests in Atlantica Online. They are epic. I get excited finishing one and returning to the NPC only to be told to kill another 100 enemies located one floor lower in the dungeon. Also awesome is when you ‘only’ have to collect 20 drops from an enemy, when the drop rate is 25% and the enemy is always mixed in with 2-3 other types that don’t drop that specific type of toenail.

No, that’s not the usual sarcasm found on this blog, I’m actually being serious. Atlantica Online takes the usual boring MMO kill quests, makes them actually take LONGER, and somehow ends up making them epic. Ok maybe not “zomg world first Ragnaros kill” epic, but fun enough to make you look forward to doing them, and giving you a sense of progress and accomplishment when you finish a chain.

There are a ton of things that factor into this, chief among them being the huge list of motivating factors to kill something in AO. The list includes: gain xp, gain money, get gear, get stuff to sell, gain crafting points, regular quest objective, guild quest objective, gaining monster data. At any one time, a monster might be worth any or all of those, which is a TON of things to gain from just one kill, especially since all of the above factors are actually worthwhile. Money has actual value and you are constantly checking exactly how much you have. All gear is useful, since you upgrade gear by combining copies of the same item, and all other ‘trash’ drops are used in crafting, so have some value on the AH. Basically in AO, instead of watching one progress bar (xp) slowly tick up per kill, you have 2-5 different ‘bars’ ticking with each kill, and each of those things you actually care to advance.

Another major factor is the ‘less is more’ approach. Instead of entering a quest hub and grabbing the 5-15 quests available to you, each quest with some bla-bla-bla text supporting its bland objective, you only have ONE major quest line the entire time in AO, start to cap. Now the actual story itself won’t win any award (for originality or translation quality), but it’s a hell of a lot easier to follow one general story than having to keep track of 5-15 little ones. I can actually tell you what is going on in AO, while I have no clue why the Dark Elves are fighting everyone in Warhammer Online, or why the Orcs in WoW have issue with whoever they had issue with. And because of this one quest chain, any side quests you pick up are instantly more noticeable as side quests. They also always have one major reward, be it a special mercenary, item, or gameplay feature, and all of this is presented to you up front. Before you even start it, you know that the npc you are talking to is the one who starts the witch mercenary quest, or the unique main character-only ring quest. If you don’t want the witch merc (or the massive gold you get for selling her on the AH (dirty…)), you skip the side quest, no worries. You won’t ever complete a long side quest only to get some junk vendor gear at the end. The side quests are also all lengthy, so they really make you work for the end reward, rather than handing it to you after you kill one named NPC, or pick up 5 moldy mushrooms growing two feet from the NPC. When you finish a side quest chain and get your reward, you really feel that you earned it.

As stated here many times, there is a ton of variety in AO. This is a general theme to the game, but also helps the questing aspect in that you don’t have to grind out quest objective after quest objective just to get to something interesting. At any time online, you can stop questing to do some no-risk PvP in the free league, place some bets and watch the NPC arena, help your guild with its town by persuading roaming NPCs, be social and just chat or share mob info while auto-crafting, jump into a guild-point generating training center with your guild, etc. The combat system being turn based and squad based also helps break up the usual skill-mashing mass-murder, plus you have 9 characters gaining xp instead of just one. 9 bars > 1 bar and all that.

Playing AO while hitting rank 40 in WAR (grats me!) made me realize that MMO questing really is a case of ‘less is more’ now. UO had no real quests, AC had some but they were minor, DAoC was a lot of mob grinding with a few quests, and finally WoW was the first MMO I played that went quest-to-quest until the cap. WAR is also like that, but with modern features like red mini-map circles and auto-looting of quest drops. It’s ‘better’ in that it’s faster and easier, but that also makes each quest more meaningless and bla. AO has quests, other MMOs have tasks or errands, despite the actual objectives being the same. We can talk story and ‘epic’ all we want, but at the end of the day good questing comes down to the most important factor of all, gameplay, and Atlantica Online has it in spades.

Posted in Atlantica Online, Combat Systems, MMO design, Warhammer Online | 5 Comments

Town control in Atlantica Online, another winning system.

Posted on January 30, 2009 by SynCaine

My guild in Atlantica Online (Hunters on Argos, if you play, recruitment is open) recently won the bid for a town, which has opened up some interesting game systems I’d like to talk about. As with my previous AO posts, the overall feature that AO really nails is community and player interaction, and controlling a town fits directly into that as well.

I want to start by saying I’m not an expert on towns in AO, I only know what little I’ve asked while playing. The whole system seems somewhat complex, and certainly has a lot of layers. The basics is that once you win a town by outbidding other guilds using guild points, you gain control of it and it’s functions, including the tax on listing items for auction or the fee for using the bank. At a set schedule, your town goes up for auction again, and the cycle repeats. Each town has a different cycle, so there is always something come up for auction.

Each town has a population number, and I believe this ties into the amount the guild earns from taxes. You raise this population in an interesting way. Various NPCs walk around the game world along the roads, and these can be ‘persuaded’ to join your town if you have 100 will. If the persuasion is successful, they will start walking toward your guilds town, and if they make it everyone online gets an XP bonus and your town earns however many population points that NPC was worth (between 50 and 200 from what I’ve seen). What’s really interesting is anyone else can try to persuade that same NPC as he walks toward your town to join theirs, and they can in effect ‘steal’ your NPC. If you have a rival guild that controls a town, camp out in front of it and persuade their NPCs away as they come in. It’s not devastating, but it can have an effect, without direct combat. Having a few guild mates spend some time doing this is a nice leisurely activity, and gives you time to chat while helping your guild.

Towns can also be improved with additional factuality, such as a training center or travel agency. As I understand, these upgrades are costly, but once complete bring in additional revenue. This encourages the guild to go out and earn money for the guild, which later will help everyone else. Guild training runs and dungeons play into this, as they are an excellent source of guild points and funds. The location of the town is also very important, as high traffic town obviously generate more revenue, and in turn are bid on by the more powerful guilds. Access to the guild dungeon is also determined by which town you control, with the better dungeon towns again being highly sought after.

The town system adds a nice, complimentary layer to AO, which basically describes most of the games systems. Unlike most other MMOs, AO takes a simple combat grind base and throws in enough systems around it to keep the overall product interesting. As I’ve stated before, if you are looking to take a break from the WoW-clone MMO model, Atlantica Online is a good place to start. The F2P model might hurt it when you get into the upper power levels, but outside of those it’s a very enjoyable, and free, MMO experience.

Posted in Atlantica Online, MMO design | 31 Comments

First take on the 1/29 announcement by Mythic.

Posted on January 29, 2009 by SynCaine

It’s 1/29, and as expected Mythic has announced their plans for Warhammer Online. First good job on actually hitting the date as promised, something not all MMO developers have mastered yet. Second, it’s going to take a bit of time to really analyze the new info, but so far nothing majorly surprising has been announced, and that personally is a bit disappointing.

I mean we basically knew the Slayer and Choppa were coming, and while I’m sure they will be awesome classes and really help add more of a melee focus to WAR, their inclusion was expected. Still, I’m glad Mythic scrapped the Hammerer and went with the Slayer, it just makes more sense. These two classes are also mirrors, which means for the first time since release we will be seeing a new class mechanic at work. The previous two classes were mirrors of already existing mechanics.

I found the announcement of the new RvR dungeon interesting, in that Mythic called it the spiritual successor of Darkness Falls from Dark Age of Camelot. The reason I find this interesting is it’s an outright admission that WAR is heading towards DAoC 2.0, rather than continue with their resistance to copy DAoC and try something new. Refining the DAoC formula makes a lot of sense, and should make everyone happy. That more than anything might be the best news to come out of the announcement for me.

Each live event has been better than the one before it in WAR, and if that trend continues, the next few months should really be interesting. Another event-exclusive scenario is a major plus, especially if it’s of the same quality as Riekland Factory was. Mythic is really cranking out content for WAR, given the number of scenarios already in the game, and now a second event scenario being added. At this rate, WAR will have added more come-and-go scenarios by the end of the year than WoW has added in five, which is impressive considering their quality and price (free).

My slight disappointment is that nothing really shocking was announced. No major overhaul of keeps or the current RvR areas, no update on the RvR Fame system, nothing really ‘out of left field’. Perhaps the announcement was limited to focusing on just the new stuff, and more will be said later, but if this is it, it’s a bit underwhelming. More to come I’m sure, but I wanted to get some first impressions out.

Posted in Patch Notes, RvR, Warhammer Online | 8 Comments

DarkFall anticipation +1

Posted on January 27, 2009 by SynCaine

I said I would not do it, but yet again I’m in “excited about an upcoming MMO” mode. This time around it’s Darkfall, and my interest has been raised by unexpected sources. As anyone with access to a gaming forum knows, the core Darkfall community is rather… aggressive in their view of the game, and that makes it tough to get solid information about the game from official sources. Hell even the developers themselves sound like uncontrolled fanboys at times, and you certainly can’t trust ‘selected’ quotes from beta testers.

While the very concept of a fantasy PvP sandbox MMO (UO basically) has always been of some appeal to me, this nicely put together beta preview over at The Noob comic really sold me. Just reading that aspects of the game function as we were led to believe, and that the game itself is playable and overall enjoyable, was very refreshing. My biggest fear for DF was not that it was vaporware, but that it would be horribly crippled by its ambition, with hundreds of little systems never meeting up to deliver a solid product (sounds a lot like a problem the current MMO I’m playing is trying to fix…)

Much like EVE, I think the MMO space needs games like Darkfall to succeed. The space needs titles to fill a niche and provide an escape from well polished foozle slaughter, to push out ideas that might be too aggressive or extreme for every Joe and Jane Casual. If the market only supports WoW and it’s clone army, it can’t possible grow and evolve constantly playing it safe.

Now it’s not hard to predict the first few months for Darkfall. An oversized initial rush by those chasing the new shiny, followed by countless “I got ganked and lost my gear, account cancelled, DF sucks” posts on blogs and forums, and hopefully finally a settling in by the 100k or so players who enjoy the style of gaming DF is aiming for. That final step will only be achieved if DF can actually deliver on its core goal, delivering a world of consequences rather than a theme park of on-rails rides, and bugs or technical difficulties don’t bring it down, which is why the above linked preview is encouraging. It goes without saying that more people will hate DF than enjoy it; let’s just hope those that would enjoy it don’t move on because of server/code problems.

Posted in beta, Darkfall Online, EVE Online, MMO design, Ultima Online, World of Warcraft | 16 Comments

Patch day in a F2P game, not all that fun.

Posted on January 26, 2009 by SynCaine

Generally patch day for an MMO is a good thing. Usually patches bring fixes, changes, and new content. Patches are part of the justification for spending $15 or so a month for an MMO. So what happens when you patch a free-to-play MMO?

Unlike the traditional model, F2P patches usually contain a mixed bag (or worst) of changes. Hopefully you get more content or some needed bug fixes, but along with that you usually get changes aimed at increasing micro transactions. This can be as simple as just announcing new items available in the shop, to more drastic changes that strongly ‘encourage’ players to spend money if they want to remain viable or even continue playing as they have before the patch.

Atlantica Online received a patch recently, and along with the more normal content changes and class balance, part of the patch revolved around increasing shop activity. The simplest change was allowing players to use 3 scrolls per fight rather than 2 in PvE. On the surface this makes PvE easier for everyone, but when you consider the majority of scrolls are micro transaction-fueled purchases, it’s a bit shady. Far more blatant is the increased cost of converting xp books through an NPC merchant. Jacking up the price makes it much harder for players to keep up without outside help, and strongly pushes players to spend money in the item shop in order to continue taking advantage of that feature.

The patch reminded me of the differences between the two pricing models, and added another drawback to F2P games going forward. Dreading a patch rather than looking forward to one seems very odd to me, almost anti-Christmas-like. Rather than getting fun new toys, the patch comes in and takes them away, or at least puts up barriers to access them.

I think this is all more apparent to me given the hype/excitement surrounding Mythic’s 1/29 patch announcement, with players theorizing about the possibilities and generally just looking forward to it. To replace that feeling with “I hope I don’t have to pay more going forward to keep playing” is a tough sell for me.

Posted in Atlantica Online, Patch Notes, RMT, Warhammer Online | 10 Comments