Author Archives: Syl

Requirements, Restrictions, Read my lips

Today, just briefly.

You want meaningful choices in your MMOs?
Then you have to accept that the game will come with requirements and restrictions.
It will have hard caps and benchmarks, it will have overall lower accessibility and bigger punishment. To some extent. Choices have no meaning when anything goes, no matter what the variety in choice is before you. If everything is flexible, your choices matter shit and it ain’t even their fault.

You want memorable content?
Then you have to accept that the game will come with requirements and restrictions.
Content feels less generic if it appears to be more unique – to state the obvious. How can it feel unique? For example by being unexpected, random, less obvious, limited, exclusive, not easily accessible, especially taxing or God forbid, almost out of reach. Oh, you don’t want to miss anything and you don’t want to deal with random or taxing? Then don’t expect anything to stand out in your memory. It doesn’t work that way.

You want rewards to be epic?
Then you have to accept that the game will come with requirements and restrictions.
An epic reward is the opposite of easy and numerous. If you want items to be special, expect them not to be a dime a dozen. Expect to work long and hard. Expect to miss out because you cannot always own everything that is special out there. If you did, it means everybody else does too and we both know you don’t want that.

…You want everything always with everybody?
Then you have to accept that the game will come with requirements and restrictions.
You can’t have any of the things mentioned above. But hey, at least you got everything always with everybody, right?

Balance, such a beautiful thing. Almost we forgot that everything comes at a price.

A new age of players for a new age of games

While MMO players discuss the next generation of online games in terms of post-WoW era, innovative concepts, market saturation and whatnot, a rather striking occurrence has somewhat slipped under the radar: the great player age shift creating a completely new set of challenges for future developers. That’s right, we’re not just harder to please and more experienced, we’re plain older!

The MMO players of yesterday are grown up and “their kids” have joined the market. This is quite the precedent for this industry; yes, there used to be older players before, but not nearly in the same way as there are today. If we look at the age of when MMOs actually became widely popular, we cannot really talk of much longer a span than maybe 10-12 years. Mainstream? No more than 7 years.

That means, for the first time the MMO market faces an audience that has grown with them – and they still want to play MMOs! They’re the teens of yesterday, now joined by the kids of today. Slowly, we begin to realize just what this means, especially in terms of a whole new world of player variety and new expectations.

A relatively young, average audience is easy enough to manage; back when we were in our teens and early twens, we had loads of time. We had a high tolerance for repetition and grinds. We easily worked in teams and committed to regular guild runs. Not so a decade later. The young audience is still there, but so are we – and now, we have lives to run, checks to pay, families (and lazy cats) to look after who cannot so easily “fit around” other schedules and cannot be second priority to other people. And we need our sleep, regularly (darn…). So, we try to make the most of our time online, because it’s preciousss. Somehow, we realize that we cannot and should not quite achieve the same under such limited conditions – still we’d like to feel like we’re not missing out on too much. I still want to have the cake and eat it too.

How will the MMOs of the future deal with this changing, more mixed and demanding audience? Will they grow past us, leaving us behind or will they try and benefit from this huge opportunity to appeal to a wider circle of players? Might they even change their focus drastically in favor of this older generation?

P.S.: For the record, I’m still young – just so we cleared that up!

When do you get to that point of enough is enough?

A comment Liore left on my article of last Friday got me thinking about a question I have visited in the past, but never quite found the ultimate answer to. Or rather, I have found too many answers for myself to only stick to one. I’m talking about the question of what exactly it is that finally triggers our often very difficult conclusion to quit a long-time MMO completely and with that, leave our social ties behind (which is sadly the truth for most), putting a stopper into our bottle of fond memories.

In the light of many recent blog posts I’ve read on the topic of quitting WoW, I don’t believe I’m the only one still struggling to answer this question. It’s tough to leave a virtual home of many years behind; it hurts to wave that final goodbye to people you have played side by side with for so long, sharing victories, real laughter and tears together. So, why would the answer come any more easily, anyway?

The more I thought about this, considering different players’ experiences and my own, I came to the conclusion that there are mostly the same three basic reasons involved when long-term MMO players pull the plug on the game they used to call a second home – and that these reasons all need to be present to some extent (some more or less) for it to happen.

Reason #1: The game changed
We feel that the game has changed over time, fundamental design aspects of it having been altered to a point we can no longer tolerate. World of Warcraft for example DID change in many ways and there’s no denying that some of it were drastic changes. Yet, there’s a question here of why we are willing to put up with changes in some areas and not in others. Or rather, why we are often willing to go along anyhow, until we don’t. What causes us to make the call of “enough is enough”? While we might have valid qualms with the game, what influences the time of our final decision-making truly?

Reason #2: People changed
While many of us start out solo in a new MMO, our continuous enjoyment of the game will soon be generated by playing and interacting with other people. It’s a gradual shift we hardly notice, until bonds have been established so thoroughly that we play the game because of others just as much as for ourselves. However, our social environment is constant subject to change: our friends-list, our guild will never stay the same forever, no matter how stable they may seem for a while. People come and go, some leaving for pastures new with a different guild or server, others snatched away by real life. For a short while only, we walk side by side. It’s completely out of our hands but it affects us deeply, especially when those start leaving (or changing) who we consider the main characters in our story. They leave a painful gap behind which sometime is too great to overcome.
So, as we go on complaining about how much the game has changed since the good old days, what we really mean to say is: “it’s not the same anymore because they are missing”. That realization comes sooner or later – and with it comes a feeling of general disillusionment maybe, a melancholy or wistful sigh over the things beyond our control in life. That is not to say that we cannot make new friends, but there comes a point when we just don’t have it in us any longer.

Reason #3: I have changed (or: the nature of time)
While we might believe that we never change in our gameplay wishes, we do change. We might not change much on “the surface”: we still want to go on adventure with our friends, raid a little, do some PVP – but there is that elemental quality of time itself. Experiences change us always and as we grow (older) we have more and more of them. There are only so many times we can find joy and wonder in the exact same activity, there are only so many maps to travel, dungeons to run and even items to gather in the same game. Inevitably even the new will feel old – everything feels like a repetition, the same thing with a new coat of paint. Not even the best MMO can last forever, been there done that will find you sooner or later. You’re getting older, the world feels smaller. It’s the way of life, as cliché as it sounds and nobody is to blame here.

This concludes the list of the three main reasons. And it is rather striking how often we actually mistake the reasons 2) and 3) for the first one. I’m sure you know exactly what I mean.

The glue that holds it all together

In “The Mexican”, a rather frivolous Hollywood crime/romance movie from 2001, the protagonist Samantha struggles to find the answer to her fundamental question for the full duration of the film: the question of “When do you get to that point of enough is enough?”. In her case, a question about just how much more she should put up with in her life because of her rascal partner, an endless trouble on two legs constantly getting her mixed up in dangerous business. While chased by a rather unusual assassin, Samantha tracks down her heart’s answer as she sets out to save both their lives. More about that in a minute…

We never leave a beloved MMO behind over just one reason, exceptional cases and acts of nature aside (someone’s life changing drastically, financial struggles, moving to Mars etc.). The game has to change and always in more than one way. We have to change. The people around us have to change or leave*. All these factors need to coincide.
Funny enough, it’s people too who have the power to bring us back. And why is that? Because we long to share our time and adventures, we long to pick up arms together once more. I believe that especially social ties have the power to keep us for much longer in a game that we otherwise wouldn’t enjoy; other people generate new and countless ways of content (and fun) in MMOs. Our joys and victories get bigger when we share them, our worries smaller. Our friends make our best moments memorable and thus our virtual experiences all the more immersive and real.

No developer can code this fundamental aspect and mechanism into their MMO, none of them can “produce” this powerful effect they benefit from so immensely. They can only set the stage and create enough room for us to do it – to really “live” in their worlds. And if they achieve this, then we’ll likely be their guests for a long time to come.

Which brings me to my final, simple conclusion: we don’t leave a long-time (!) MMO just because it’s gone bad. We don’t leave it because we changed. We don’t leave it because it’s just old.

…Samantha’s question is finally answered by the unlikeliest person imaginable, namely her persecutor Jerry, at the end of “The Mexican”:
(Samantha) “I have to ask you a question. It’s a good one so think about it. If two people love each other, but they just can’t seem to get it together, when do you get to that point of enough is enough? – (Jerry) “Never.”

We leave an MMO for the combined three reasons mentioned above. Most of all though, we leave because of the missing glue that held it all together for so long: people. Friends. The world looks completely different when they are around. Maybe we even manage to bring them back, sometimes just to realize that we still fail to reproduce that feeling of “back then together” today…but it was worth a try, anyway.

And that’s why future developers must never under-estimate the significance of social interaction and (enforced) cooperative play which ultimately sets the stage for meeting people. You really want to make sure players can and must play together in your MMO!

*P.S. While I use the terminology of “people leaving” to simplify, the loss of your social environment does not necessarily require an explicit, absolute “physical” distancing. Just as much, we can lose important people in our picture due to a changed relationship, a disappointment (the loss of an idea of somebody) or overall new in-game conditions. In terms of personal loss (and reason #2), they all come down to the same.

Friday reads for the community

It’s funny how a thought or idea can deeply occupy you at times and after you’ve finally brought it to paper and pushed that publish button, you find it echoing back at you wherever you go. It’s probably partly a mental mechanism; like back when you were thinking about buying that white Volvo – lo and behold, you started seeing white Swedish cars everywhere you went. A subconscious, biased shift of focus.

That’s only half of the truth though, because sometimes a topic just “lies in the air” like that – it’s weighing ever so heavily on the minds of a certain group of people, a social or cultural circle. It’s there waiting for you already, biding its time in subtle hints and signs, quietly dripping into our collective consciousness. It takes one well-articulated thought, one clear voice stepping forward for things to break lose. Or one conflict too many.

I’ve felt as if we are truly approaching a turning point in the blogosphere lately, which is only a mirror for a greater one approaching in the MMO industry, of course. It’s almost tangible now, although we cannot put our fingers on it just yet – it’s pretty clear though that WoW holds a significant part therein. There’s been talk of the (symbolic) death of WoW everywhere and there are exciting times ahead in terms of new and big title launches and promising new concepts. There are those who can’t wait and those who are still skeptical.

Most of all though, I feel that there’s a great fatigue around: people are tired. Tired of the black&white thinking still around in this “community”, fed up of fighting petty battles over who should get more attention from (future) developers. Fed up over having to justify what constitutes their personal enjoyment. Will our discord never end?

Frankly, I am tired of it too. I don’t get why one side needs to actively belittle the fun of the other, just because they feel that their own enjoyment has been ruined. For the record: I don’t play WoW anymore, no I’m not happy about how things have gone there, so I unsubscribed. Still, I keep reading and enjoying WoW blogs and I don’t blame the remaining players so much for my loss as I blame certain mindsets and developer choices that disadvantaged me when I am not convinced it needs to be “all or nothing”. I can disagree and will keep disagreeing on things like short-term thinking among players or how devs like Blizzard handle the current market – but my wishes are my wishes. If developers for some reason (money – surprise, surprise!) prioritize other playstyles over my own and can keep “enough” players happy with that, well then I’m out of luck! And oh, I hope things will change in my favour someday. I don’t blame other players for what is ultimately their preference though. No matter our differences, in the end it’s about priorities, implementation and catering to variety or not. I happen to be on the wrong side, for the moment. Personally, I don’t think Blizzard’s “trend” will continue forever though and the signs are already there.

So, what can I do? I can dwell in the past and lament the negative changes I perceive in the genre – but then, I’m not one for opposing reality much. I’ve written about the things that bother me plenty of times and by all means, we should keep criticizing as long as we discuss mindsets or design aspects, not people. Big difference here, obviously it’s about how you do things. Personally, right now I’d like to hear about solutions rather than finger-pointing or arguments over subjective matters. I’d like us to accept reality and focus forward. I want to consider objectively and constructively, how the mixed crowd that MMO players are today (and they are here to stay) can still be united under one big roof – without anyone’s individual enjoyment “suffering” from it. I don’t know about you, but that would be my ideal MMO future, anyway… It shouldn’t be that we consider other people a nuisance in a massively multiplayer game. What is this genre about if not about playing with different people? I am not actually interested to live in a “playstyle monoculture”: how many times have I discovered content in an MMO thanks to friends with different approaches and motivations?

Not possible you say? Well then, maybe you need to think bigger. There’s nothing to suggest that this genre has not lots of room for growth still, technically and in general approach. This book has a long way to go; there are still plenty of chapters to be written. And I’m still hopeful; hopeful that the difficult will be attempted and achieved. And if not, well what’s the worst that could happen? That our differences were so great to overcome that we’ll see a lot more niche products in the future. For better or worse.

In the words of the wise Oogway:

Quit, don’t quit? Noodles, don’t noodles? You are too concerned about what was and what will be. There is a saying: yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the “present.”

Today, I am sending a /wave to all of you living in the present. Those challenging past values and inflexible minds and those who manage to find the butterfly no matter where and when they are – that biggest of all talents. A special weekend mention goes to –

The Big Bear Butt; for still enjoying WoW and being sick and tired of those trying to ruin it for him and everyone else. For demanding you to open your eyes or unsubscribe already.
Gazimoff; for asking what MMO players really want and highlighting the importance of playing with friends. That little detail powerful enough to over-throw any no matter how otherwise perfectly balanced game.
Shintar; for pointing out that content is constituted by enough players enjoying and spending their time on something. You don’t always have to like it too.
Tesh; for having visited the topic of playstyle diversity and allowing for more player flexibility within the same genre/game many times on his blog (and generally being wise like that).
Scrusi; for being a Vork and embracing critical debates as long as we don’t condescend to each other. In essence we all want the same, namely have fun (together).
Issy; for “…as long as I’m not hurting anyone else, I will play how I fucking well like, and enjoy it.” – Sometimes one line is worth more than a thousand words.

Nobody is saying you have to like all change, but change is upon you, whether you like it or not. So, the only question remaining is: how are YOU gonna handle it?

And with that, I wish an enjoyable and challenging weekend to all of you – no matter where you’ll find it.

On the subject of subjectivity

Several weeks ago I discussed the ending and entire first season of A Game of Thrones, the adapted TV series from George R. Martin’s fantasy classic, with two of my best friends. One of them has been a big fan of the author’s for many years; the other was mostly curious and in for the ride. As for myself, I watch pretty much anything that comes with a high fantasy label on it and promises an above-average production quality and cast.

As we drew our final conclusions, we didn’t necessarily agree on what we liked/hated the most about the series. I for one, felt that it had had a very slow start, picking up on pace and depth only after the 3rd or so episode. I also found the script somewhat lacking in places. However, I absolutely loved the setting, the care that had gone into authenticity and atmosphere – that alone justified keeping watching for me, and then there was the character of Tyrion, so brilliantly depicted by its actor, a joy to observe. Unlike me, my book-savvy mate loved the pilot and first few episodes the most. His overall praise was all on how the film makers had respected the original material and how well a lot of it has been put onto screen. I’ve no way to judge this because while I did read the books a long time ago, I frankly didn’t enjoy them at the time (don’t tell him) and so I’ve forgotten most. As for my other friend, he did apparently not notice the dialogues, nor does he care for nice settings in general; he loved the gore and naked skin and that “Sean Bean lost his head in the end!” Right…

Subjectivity can be a beautiful thing. Despite the fact that we all enjoyed different aspects of the series, we arrived at the conclusion that we definitely want to watch the second season when it comes out. We had fun with the first and never did it come to our mind to try battle each other over which one of us had truly found “the correct or better reason” to enjoy the series. How pointless and silly would that be?

For the film makers, the outcome couldn’t have been more successful; instead of only appealing to the book nerd, or the fantasy geek or Conan, they managed to get all three types for an audience. Had they focused on just one of us instead (not to call this a realistic option in this context, but anyway), they’d have cut down their success by 66% and might never afford that announced sequel. As for us – we would’ve had a lot less to talk about together and missed out on the chance to share an experience. I don’t believe I would prefer to watch the series all by myself.

Why we gravitate towards absolute truths (and think we have them)

It’s human nature to assume that our own needs and values are essential and absolute. That’s how we start out in life and got by for a very long time, on a more primal level where survival is a struggle and everyone needs to push through his own needs first. While resources are limited, everyone else is the enemy.

Today, we are a lot more cultivated than that. For one, we don’t live in caves anymore and we enjoy the luxury of having our food carried over for us from across the planet. We still have slaves, but we call them “third world” people, as we enjoy our first-world after-work cocktail at 5AM in the afternoon. We can afford to relax about social pecking orders, a little, and we can dare to switch perspectives – as long as we’re on the safe side and it’s halfway agreeable (there be dragons). Oh yes, a lot more cultivated.

For all our displayed culture and intellectualism, we’re not so far away from our cavemen ancestors. We’re still the most important person in the world and have to be, and we’re still kinda right when others are wrong. Most of all we are still subjects and as such subjective. It’s harder to disagree with yourself than with others, objectively speaking.

Why we don’t want absolute truths (even when we think we do)

When we’re discussing video games, design aspects and what developer teams “should and shouldn’t do” (for us) in our future MMOs, we can only ever hold our stance from a very individual point of view. We’re convinced of what we call fun or challenging or meaningful because it’s fun and challenging and meaningful for us. We play the same MMO, but we do not necessarily play the same game, so our strong opinions easily clash with others. However, it’s exactly this diversity that makes MMOs such a great experience. Yes, I actually believe that.

MMOs are vast worlds, by nature appealing to more than one type of player. And while I am pretty sure I know what I want from them, I’m not sure I’d like things always designed completely in my favor. Frankly, if I was to determine the “3 top focuses” of the next game in development, I wonder if that would really make for a lasting experience. Would I feel entertained enough to play it for months on end?

I myself am no gamer “stereotype”: some days I’m a raider, a theory crafter, a guild leader. On other days I’m a PVPer, utterly uninterested in PVE. I am an explorer always, looking for the next ingame secret, special landmark or beautiful tune. And then I am happy enough to spend a few hours on wardrobe as I chitchat away with friends in guildchat. Those friends again have different priorities than me but they’re an essential part to my gaming experiences – I want friends to be there with me.

So, how am I supposed to find one definition for viable gameplay motivations? Even for myself?
Absolute truths don’t necessarily make for fun games. They certainly don’t make for diverse games and p(l)ayer bases, or even for a game you would enjoy long-term no matter how clearly you perceive your own factors of enjoyment (this moment in time). Maybe you want to eat a Filet Mignon today, but do you also know how to prepare the best one possible? And would you like to eat it ever day, all by yourself?

MMOs have room; they have room for a multitude of playstyles and different players – players with different moods, preferences and priorities. That diversity is part of their selling point, letting us enjoy many facets and thus find something to do for years. It keeps our servers populated too, because it offers room for change and choices. Our disagreements encourage developers to maintain diversity and choices in their games. Did you ever think about it that way?

We can’t define what should be enjoyable to every type of MMO player. We shouldn’t even try and define it too much for ourselves, in an all-exclusive kind of way. This is why we cannot agree on fundamental aspects like “fun”, “challenge” or “meaning” in discussions either; the only thing we can agree on is that “having fun” means that a person is enjoying himself in some shape or form; that he’s having a good time and that this personal, positive outcome justifies his choices for him. Choices which are just as good as ours. Whether we’re watching movies together, playing games or ordering from the breakfast menu, we have valid preferences and motivations that govern our personal choices. If you love mushrooms with your Full English and I don’t, that doesn’t make me any “better” than you. It doesn’t mean mushrooms are lacking nutrition either, just because I happen not to care for them.

MMO players who find fun and meaning where I cannot, are not my opponents. While we might enjoy different things, there’s one thing all of us have in common: we want to enjoy ourselves in online games. We want online games to become the best they can be – and that is something that should unite us.
Now, if some of our wishes seem diametrically opposed, well that’s when I turn to developers: to create games that make room for everybody. For choices, for variety, for alternative, yet equally valid roads we can only benefit from.

In “A Beautiful Mind”, the biographic tale of John Nash’s life and his discovery of the governing dynamics theory, the ideal outcome of a game is being redefined in this not-so-serious analogy; the bottom line being that when looking for summary success (rather than a mutually exclusive approach), players should strive for solutions that are the best for as many as possible, rather than best for one individual. Transferring this philosophy to MMO game design, it means that we all benefit from games that appeal to a variety of players, rather than just one or two. It means that there can be subcultures and niches, all equally satisfied by the same game allowing its player base to define fun and meaning for themselves.

One of the biggest, monumental achievements of World of Warcraft 1.0. was uniting countless gamer types under one banner like no other MMO ever had before; there was something here for everybody! Not everything for everybody maybe, but something for all of us. Sadly, as is often the case, things started to change when WoW became so obviously successful. Today, it doesn’t feel as if the game still means to appeal to the same big crowd – in fact, it’s become rather clear that when Blizzard say “we want to make the game fun for the most players”, what they’re actually saying is “we want to make the game most fun to a group of players”. Apparently they have found the definition for fun in WoW? And so they take choices away from the audience, ultimately losing many of them (losing more and more of them still). There’s no room any more for all of us in Azeroth.

Their entire reasoning is of course a fallacy; they have not in fact achieved to appeal to “the most players”, current quantitative evidence speaks against that. Instead, they’ve reduced the room to co-exist in WoW, they’ve chosen to focus everything on somebody. From a financial viewpoint that makes hardly any sense either: there’s no such thing as making your audience pay for more than one subscription per month. If you want to increase profits, you need to create space for many, equally happy people.

Why my house is still your house

We are not competitors. None of us are in a race for the exclusive formula for fun, challenge or meaning. We don’t make MMOs worlds any more enjoyable by dismissing a variety of playstyles – and we shouldn’t have to. Developers are in charge of how much room their virtual worlds can offer to the audience, of just how wide they want to open the floodgates. They’re the ones responsible to prioritize and balance content – let them fight over how to achieve this. Easy or not, one thing is for certain: we get better games and more colorful communities if they manage this balancing act. If they succeed to create an MMO that defines as much as necessary, as little as possible. Where the player base can be more than mere consumers and all add to the world instead.

I want to live in a bazaar, rather than a cathedral. I prefer the house with different windows and paints, with arches and funny corners, secret tunnels and weird trees. Not a house built after a harmonized plan on paper, finalized a long time ago. I want to explore a garden where wild things keep growing and the next bend in the road is ever unexpected. I want my MMOs to be mazes and bottomless pits.

May be you are an avid RPer, taking joy from things like player housing and cosmetic items. May be you’re a raider who gets kicks out of optimizing his stats and gear. Or maybe you’re a PVPer, looking to gank both the RPer and the raider for equal reasons. Either way, we should be able to live in the same place – even if just to meet someday at a crossroad, to exchange a fleeting glance as we pass down the way.

If the house gets too small, it’s not the people in the room who are the problem.
I will see you there, I hope.

Oh noes, I used the item shop!

In my last post I mentioned that I have picked up Age of Conan again to test the new PVP server – there’s not an awful lot to play for me at the moment, and I must admit that Hyboria’s setting holds a special place in my heart. Already, the horribly flawed UI, quest or AH functionality frustrate me again (how hard is it to fix these?), but the world in general has that feeling of “home” that I’d otherwise only get in Azeroth.

PVP starts early on and I’m having a great laugh with it; I soloed quests in the starter dungeons and got my ass kicked around every corner until I finally learned how to make proper use of my hiding skill, questing in sneaky mode, what a thrill! Once you’ve lost enough items to some rogue lurking in the shadows (I promptly lost my first blue item that way too), you begin to play a lot differently, making use of walls and corners, always minding the nearest exit. The look of the outside towns and quest hubs is hilarious too: entirely deserted, not a soul around. You think! In fact, they’re all around you, as you realize when a player suddenly drops out of stealth next to you or two start dueling in the middle of town, with more and more players popping out of nowhere and joining the battle. I love it!

That’s not the only novelty in AoC for me though – there is now the item store and yes, the vanity window. Sigh. A fatal combination for somebody such as myself! I had to do it of course, I had to browse what social armor is up for sale. To my defense, the standard armor in the game is very lackluster and looks hardly ever change until you reach max level and go for instances. Who wants to wear an orange plate mail and cow-hide skirt forever?? Just give me one nice set that I can keep wearing the next weeks and months, mkay.

Now, the item shop is pretty sneaky and I blame Funcom for everything that happened from there. I meant to buy ONE set with real money and maybe a bag for more item storage. But of course, the armor is displayed so badly in the shop (and there’s no wardrobe feature) that you basically need to buy in order to check what it really looks like. I didn’t do that of course, I was smart (muaha!) and browsed the net for previews. After 10 minutes I had still found zero screenshots and that was when I really lost my temper. “10 Euros, who cares?? Let’s do it!”

So, I did it. And again, and again. The first set was shockingly bad and then I bought a wrong one by mistake (it was called Transcendence, what can I say). So I bought one more that I finally liked. And since I have 2 characters I play on different servers, I bought another for my high-level priest, too. This is my story on how I spent 40 Euros on virtual wardrobe until I was out of cash to even buy that bag. Had I not read Syncaine’s story on his micro-transactions bill for League of Legends just this morning, I would still feel a little guilty…..but, I don’t! Not really. Lalalala…!

Real-money transfer is coming, friends. Like to learning how to manage an allowance, it takes some self-discipline at first, yet I’m really starting to endorse all the pros of this business model. The times of paying for a pig in a poke are over; here’s your chance to play MMOs first before agreeing on just how much you actually intend to spend on them long-term.

…if you can handle it, that is. Honestly though, can you really blame me?

How I spent 40 Euros in Age of Conan

A good weekend to all of you, the well-dressed and those still running around in cow-hide!

Six games to keep you busy ’til Guild Wars 2 (for free)

After the information flood from this year’s Gamescom in Cologne, I was planning on posting a “little” write-up on the status-quo of Guild Wars 2, maybe highlighting all the good reasons why we can all look forward to this upcoming MMO. The new information out there is numerous and scattered, a little over-whelming and off-putting to a skeptical mind.

A little write-up….yeah, HA-HA! How naive can you be?

That was before I chanced upon this erm “little summary” here which the folks at GW2 Guru put together since the convention. And we have yet to hear what else ArenaNet will reveal at this week’s PAX East. Exciting times.

This convinced me that I should not waste my time with an incomplete list of bullets and rather advise you to go and have a look for yourself. If you require any more reading after that (which I find somehow hard to believe but anyway), Kill Ten Rats have a few more links to interesting reads up. Now, I might revisit my original intention of breaking things down in a short, comprehensive summary, but for the moment timing is not on my side.

That’s not to say of course that I will not write about Guild Wars 2 anyway, because I am really excited (you may have noticed) and after the most recent clips and interviews I’ve watched, I am longing to finally get an ETA. It’s been mentioned that the game is apparently around 65% finished – whatever that means – and I guess even with the most optimistic mind we cannot expect GW2 to be released before coming spring 2012. However, there are reasons which speak against this too, making Q2 or Q3 the more plausible time frame for potential release.

OH NOES! What am I gonna do until then? How will I make it through the dark, cold nights of winter?? I’m fine with not playing anything much during summer time, but after September latest I usually like to know what game I will be playing in the upcoming months. After all, there are preparations to make: reading up and deciding on what to play and which server to roll on. Friends to poke and bombard with links and information, until they finally surrender and get a copy themselves (works every time!). Relatives to contact about that extended journey to Alaska you’ll be taking, where there’s unfortunately no phone line and internet in case they try reaching you during the next few months.

I’ve no idea how to entertain myself game-wise until 2012. Yeah, there’s that list of more oldschool adventures I intend to play through – but online games are where it’s at! And before you mention SWTOR; does not appeal. Not in the slightest. So, what can we do here? I’m sure I’m not the only one currently un-subscribed to WoW or Rift and somewhat hopeless over the lack of prospects. Which is where I like to turn around and ask: what’s worth re-visiting in the world of MMOs, if not paying for straight away? Well, I might just have a few suggestions!

Six games to keep you busy ’til Guild Wars 2 (for free)

Sign up for Age of Conan Unchained; with AoC entering the FTP market, this is a great opportunity to have a look at one of the most accomplished MMOs currently out there, besides WoW and Rift. While AoC is by no means a perfect game and dated in many ways, there is a lot to be said for the maps and feel of Hyboria, the solo destiny quest chain, the combat system and refreshing approach to both melee and healing classes. If you know what you are dealing with and can overlook clunky UI functionality, you should find enough to entertain you for a while and maybe even justify a temporary subscription which will allow you to unlock more race-class combinations and more. For the PvPers among you, Funcom recently released their Blood&Glory servers where almost everything goes.

Give Allods a chance; yeah, I know Allods’ graphics look a lot like WoW while the game gets grindy fast. Yet, this recommendation is for the shiny-lovers among you: those who love creating characters and race combos at the character screen, test out different starting areas, dig shiny armor and walking around, exploring the world. Allods is free to play and offers eye candy in areas that WoW cannot compete because it’s simply older. And I still hold to the Arisen being the most badass race ever to appear in an MMO. There’s nothing to lose by giving this game a try!

Have a first or second look at Final Fantasy 14; FF14 has been off to a very rocky start, to say the least and has since suffered the full impact of screwing up many things so early into release. You can consider SE’s mistakes unforgivable, or have another look at their popular franchise which has by now undergone a lot of patching for the better, on top of becoming free to play. The game has been streamlined in many aspects of gameplay, from combat to questing and crafting, and supposedly plays a lot smoother and easier overall. No doubt, FF14 is not everyone’s cookie – but it’s still your best shot if you enjoy polished asian/anime-flair MMOs or love Mogs and Chocobos.

…Moving on to even more FTPs, they are everywhere now, aren’t they? Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons&Dragons Online have been entertaining their own, enthusiastic audience for a while now:

I was very skeptical about LotRO from the beginning (hairy feet!), until I read about Weatherstock and other community events that define this MMO which claims to call the most agreeable crowd of gamers its own. If you’re one for community, lore and traveling the world, LotRO sounds like a fair deal to pass some time in Middle Earth.

DDO is probably one of those MMOs you either love or hate for their oldschool flair. If you can deal with outdated graphics and overall not-so-polished gameplay though, Turbine are ever so busy to release new content for their players to explore. I have a feeling this MMO is very much an acquired taste, but comes with its very own atmosphere and charm.

Last but not least: Sign up for Blizzard’s WoW starter edition. Miss Azeroth or Alterac Valley & Co. but don’t care to pay the sub? The new, limitless trial offer let’s you return to the lowbie levels of the game without your account expiring. Up to Draenei and Bloodelves are available for re-discovering WoW’s early content and many of the revamped starting areas and quests. Or you might just want to kill some horde. There are still some heavy restrictions involved, but for some casual free play on the side this might be what you’re looking for.

Makes you wonder how long it will take for WoW to completely switch over to FTP too? At the rate that things are going, with more and more content being about fast rewards and solo- or pickup-mode, this seems like an inevitable step. Subscriptions revolve around the idea of long-term time investment and heavy cooperation.

My PVP priest in AoC

Anyway, these are my personal recommendations for the currently MMO-less among you, in hierarchical order. Obviously, there are many other FTP options out there, but I’m not sure I want to try any of them unless someone convinces me otherwise (consider yourself invited to). Even for more casual testing, quality is a concern (and there are limits!). I have recently resubbed to Age of Conan after a look at the new PvP server – this is the good thing about free to play: play first, make your choice later.

There’s absolutely no reason not to give older MMOs a go. You know what you are getting here: these games might not be polished diamonds, but they have character; they’ve had a chance to mature, gather a community and offer plenty of gameplay options. At best, you’ll upgrade your account and even use the item store. At worst, you’ve gained some insights on contemporary MMOs – consider it “educational”!

I know about the anticipated titles for early 2012 and frankly, I am not sure I will subscribe to Diablo III. The Secret World does not look like it’s going to happen for me, either (who wants to do google research quests?). As for Teraboobs, yeah right! It’s going to be a long wait for Guild Wars 2 folks…and winter is coming!

Storybricks: breathing life into NPCs

Jaina Proudmoore, powerful sorceress of the Kirin Tor. We first met her in Theramore Isle, doing her bidding in a series of quests, before she buggered off to save the world from the Burning Legion, following Medivh, falling in love with Arthas Menethil. Last we saw her, she had changed – “she’s become too whiny”, some said, her mind addled with the quest to save beloved Arthas, until she finally succumbs to reality during the Halls of Reflection scenario in the Wrath of the Lich King.

Remember Jaina? I’m sure you do.

Sheddle Glossgleam of Dalaran is a special little gnome. He resides in the Threads of Fate shop, just above Paldesse whom the clothwearers among you must surely know, so many times have you stood at her side and browsed her wares. I’ve talked about Sheddle in the past and why he stands out in a crowd of anonymous, faceless NPCs out there. I hope since then you’ve paid him a visit or two. Did you know that he has a secret thing for Paldesse? I wonder how they manage to maintain such problematic a relationship…

The truth is, it’s hard to remember much about most NPCs that co-exist with us in MMOs and frankly, it’s a crying shame. Unless a developer decides to promote a special character to hero status, we rarely remember the face or story of the innumerable characters we meet on our travels or visit frequently. If they even have a story. Our virtual worlds are flooded with characters of every size and color – they populate our towns and cities, they work in our shops providing the most crucial services, they hand us our very first quest as we begin to explore the new world.

Yet, we have no idea who they are. In fact, most of the time we don’t even stop to have a look around as we enter a new town or quest hub, let alone talk to every NPC or listen to what it has to say. Mostly because none of them have much to say, anyway – and so we click our way through loot and service windows, counting on nothing out of the ordinary to happen. And usually we are quite right about that.

MMO developers have a long way to go when it comes to creating more plausible NPCs in their games, characters that actually deserve notice and justify our attention over more than potential rewards alone. Why does such an omnipresent aspect of gameplay remain game “furniture” – at best making for an escort quest or popular quest-giver, more frequently serving as a shell for your average service window? Why do NPCs get so little impact on a world they co-inhabit?

Introducing Storybricks: more than just dialogues with NPCs

Namaste Entertainment intend to change the oversight that has been NPCs in videogames these past years. With Storybricks, a project in progress, they want to breathe life into non-player characters (and the entire world from there) and to make them a more engaging, fun and fundamental part of online gaming experiences. And not just that: they want you to invent your own NPCs and scenarios with them!

After having been invited to see a demo on Storybricks, I’d like to try and summarize for you what it’s all about in few simplified words: Storybricks is an ingame tool-set that will enable players to create their own stories about and with NPCs, allowing them to write complete scenarios in quest-like fashion by defining an NPC’s pre-determinants/history, basic attributes and behavior towards other players, down to more complex relationships, adding setting and even NPC inter-relations. That means you will not just set a stage and invent a story for other players to experience, but each NPC is being attributed his own, individual AI, whereby it reacts hostile or friendly towards you and will change and adjust its behavior long-term, depending on your actions. Not enough with that, your choices and actions might not only influence your reputation with one NPC, but other NPCs associated with it. There is no accounting for what consequences your actions might have!

Namaste intend for their Storybricks system to be an easy to approach, self-explanatory tool where the player/creator can choose between building a more simple scenario with help of a vast variety of pre-defined functions and actions, or defining every step down the road himself for a more unique experience. On an UI level, this means you will be working with so-called “bricks” that allow for an unlimited number of combinations for each NPC. It’s really up to you how far you decide to go.

When it comes to how such player-generated content could be implemented and made available for others to play, Namaste are still in the phase of evaluation. Technically there are many options: allow players to write scenarios for existing NPCs they enjoy, let players create NPCs and stories from scratch that can then be offered like a “module” – similar to downloading apps from an app-store.

There is great potential here in terms of tapping a player-base’s creativity and making for unique, non-repetitive questing experiences; if developers cannot put much time and effort into creating interesting NPCs and ongoing lore, why not make your player-base solve the issue for you?

There are concerns too of course – on the surface: dynamic implementation, choice-impact relation and realization, balance, polish and including the multi-player aspect. Also, regulating potentially conflicting NPC stories. However, Namaste are aware of these pitfalls and they have time to find just the right answers over the course of many months to come. The more feedback they are receiving at this stage, the better they can work out solutions.

Worried? It ain’t “all or nothing”!

Now, from a more classic MMO-driven point of view, you might have some justified doubts. Do you really care to know that much about NPCs? Are MMOs not much more about interacting with real people, rather than NPCs in Fable or Dragon Age Origins -manner? And what if you simply do not enjoy story writing and inventing characters?

The answer to concerns such as these are very simple: first off, Storybricks is entirely optional a feature. If you’re not one for creating content yourself, it simply means more quests and more interesting NPCs will be available for you to interact with. Or not. But if the successes of games such as Little Big Planet or Forza-I tell us anything, then a great many gamers actually love to add to their favorite games, to create content and share it with others. Think about it: just how much time do players already spend every day interacting with NPCs – daily quest givers, service providers? The number must be enormous.

Why not exchange that experience for a more unique one? Why not play new, player-created content all the time, instead of dailies and other repeatables? Assuming the content is dynamic, meaningful and well-implemented? It’s not all or nothing from here: Storybricks has the potential to add considerably to any type of MMO. It remains up to individual players how much they want to get out of it.

Everyone wins – A big palette of potential

For developers the advantages of Storybricks seem evident: get customers to add unique content to your game, in an area where you cannot necessarily spare the resources or focus in equal amounts. Provide for a long-lasting, almost unlimited source of new adventures, rather than adding more and more repeatable content, boring your players to death as they wait for the next expansion or patch. By this, make your world flow more naturally, feeling more alive, dynamic and exciting.

For the online player, it is an unprecedented opportunity to direct his own MMO experiences and to unleash his creativity and hidden talents. Once more, players become creators rather than mere consumers in their virtual home. The complexity of Storybricks, the far-reaching NPC relations add elements such as meaning of choice, impact and consequence to gameplay, making for an altogether more immersive experience. Add to that an unebbing flow of new quest scenarios to play through.

I fully endorse a project with the potential to add that much depth to MMOs and bringing players back to the table. It feels like we have finally reached the “post-WoW era”, with future online games needing to set themselves apart, improving and innovating in areas very lackluster so far. We can all feel a turning point in this exhausted industry – refreshing concepts such as Storybricks are exactly what we need.

What the team at Namaste needs from you to help them on their journey, is feedback: ideas, suggestions, critique. They have been reaching out to a variety of bloggers and gaming networks these past weeks and they want more, as many suggestions as they can possibly get this early into development. So, if you have any time to spare, are interested in demo testing and want your NPCs to become a more exciting and memorable part of online adventures, check out their website and get in touch. I for one, will definitely keep a very close eye on Storybricks from here!

365 days in wonderland

365 days ago, I opened this blog to create a space for my endless thoughts on online gaming, my passion that is virtual fantasy worlds and role playing games. I also opened it so I would commit to more regular writing and to have a project that would keep me in touch with close friends who walked Azeroth’s paths by my side for many years. My journey into the world of MMOs did not begin here, but it has certainly taken a turn for the more serious with World of Warcraft and opening Raging Monkeys, by now known as Raging Monkey’s.

It is odd considering the blog is one year old. It certainly doesn’t feel that way, maybe because there were never set expectations, except to walk the road to see where it takes me, as long as I am enjoying it. When it comes to writing, I trust that you should write what you know and that’s what I attempted here and still attempt every week. Especially during the past three months, I have felt more and more relaxed with my posting schedule and believe I have somewhat found my voice – if not my zen when it comes to editing typos.

I have been told that blogs not dedicating themselves to one strict topic, have a harder time out there – that may be true. Yet, I have found that there are a great many voices and ears to be found in this blogosphere who have a similar, more generalist interest in MMO worlds, their complex design and fascinating dynamics. There is an endless list of topics to write about, so diverse is this phenomenon uniting millions of people around the globe. I have come across a great many bloggers during this year who share my fascination and appreciate a variety in discussion, whether their own blogs have a more game-exclusive focus or game design-centric one. Some topics concern us all. I was surprised and delighted about the positive feedback and warm welcome RM received from the very beginning and I am happy to find myself in the company of so many insightful and passionate bloggers in a blogosphere I am still exploring.

I know about common “bloggaversary traditions”, but we all deal differently with birthdays. In real life, not all of us like to celebrate in the same way, or less and less every year. I used to be this kind of person the past few years – one not raising much fuss about her birthday, no big parties, no lofty presents. I don’t know why or when exactly I lost my enthusiasm so completely, but this year I have decided it’s going to be different. In fact, I just invited my first bunch of friends to the party (still 3 months away) yesterday. It will probably end up being a very casual, cosy event anyway, but I will make it a day worth a memory, at least. Sometimes we should turn back the pages and allow ourselves to dwell on what we achieved. We tend to easily forget.

I guess by now more regular readers of Raging Monkey’s know me a little by the way I write and the topics I choose and God knows why it is you keep reading. That’s the big, eternal question for every writer, even the most famous and acclaimed: why do people like to read this? Maybe that’s what really keeps you writing and keeps your writing fresh. I truly think knowing the “recipe to success” would be the end – trying to copy old achievements, paralyzing yourself and thus putting an end to all growth. To write great texts is about being afraid. Just like a pro actor still feels nervous before stepping into the limelight. We reveal a lot of ourselves by publishing our thoughts.

Now, if you were only just chancing upon this small space in the blogosphere though, if this was the first day you ever set step on Raging Monkey’s – what would I tell you?

I could tell you maybe that I strongly believe MMOs should be about a journey into wonderland; that we should be travelers and adventurers on a fantastic road; that we should be pioneers there; heroes and creators, not just consumers. That for me, our time there is about stories and memories. Sometimes memories most of all.
Or I could tell you how often I laugh at the ironic and silly, that some of my favorite articles are those that made me laugh while writing and hopefully achieved the same with a handful of readers. I like to give my serious eyebrow a rest sometime which is why I often dedicate Fridays to more frivolous enterprises. There’s many blogs that I love for their author’s humor alone.
I should point out that I have a deep interest for the social mechanics and psychology behind MMOs; the idea of virtual communities, the reality and struggles of guild leading, the social acceptance of gaming as a hobby and pastime. I could tell you that I feel no shame to be a gamer and neither should you.
My most controversial post? Probably one on playtime. The most popular? Hard to say as joystiq & Co. have had too big an impact stat-wise and we are usually not the best judge of ourselves. As far comments go, I should probably leave exploration diaries to others though. My most personal posts? Here, here and here. My personal favorite? Easy. Other bloggers I read regularly and recommend? All on my blogroll, all awesome writers on their own account. Be sure to pay them a visit!

If you asked me whether I am the wiser for any of the 120+ articles I have written, I hope I am not. I’d write each of them again the same way, je ne regrette rien. Very rarely have I felt the nervous tingle about a line of mine and then decided to run with it no matter what. I believe in authenticity and that the best writing takes courage at times. The few times very popular sites linked to one of my articles, I got a troll commenter or two, that was it. But whether it is a huge gaming network or single blogger linking to something I said, I feel equally flushed and humbled every time. There’s no real accounting for why somebody links to you or comments on your articles, but it would be a lie to claim that it doesn’t add a lot of meaning and joy to what you are doing. To me, the ideal article is one where dialogue and discussion spring from, be it on site or somewhere else. That and laughter and mirth of course – those above all any day.

I want to thank all of you for your support (and tolerance for textwalls!), those lending this blog their ear from the very beginning, as much as those joining in later or stepping by once, be it as a reader or commenter. I thank those adding their own thoughts, supportive or critical, inspiring me to more of my own, during many enlightening discussions. I have come a long way in some of my judgments on MMO aspects, thanks to people speaking up, offering alternative views or pointing me further. This is what I write and comment for and what keeps things fresh and interesting.

With that I close this first bloggaversary on Raging Monkey’s. As for the next year, I don’t believe in forecasts and promises – I can only promise that absolutely nothing will change on this blog. And now finally for that cake!

Transmogrifail

Dear Blizzard. Thanks for implementing a feature we have asked for for over 5 years, now that more and more of us are giving up on playing your game. Others dumped their tiers and specials rewards some years ago because of bank space, since you never bothered to create some extra armor storage for all our BoPs. You finally got it now, didn’t you – but that doesn’t mean you’ll make it easy of course, just adding appearance slots, way too last season for you.

I used to be a passionate gear collector. My armor sets, my staves, my rare drops – all still in my bank ever since vanilla WoW. Yes, really. So, I just want to say I HATE YOU and no, I won’t activate that unused, leftover gamecard still lying on my desk. You won’t get me so easily, but thanks for trying! Yes, I am nostalgic sometime, that’s what happens when you’ve played a game for that long. The answer is still no because I know what’s going to happen 10 minutes after logging back in, when every friend on my friendlist will show offline for months and I feel like an alien in a guild I helped creating. So, there’s no coming back – not even to wear that amazing T5 robe again, my priestly wings or staff of immaculate win. No matter how great that would be….Read my lips: No waii!

I’m sure you understand. I’m sure that in due time I will have managed to convince myself, too. Besides, transmogrification really is meant for turning oneself into a baby tiger – everybody knows that.

A good weekend to all of you – the transmogrified, the unchanged and all you little tigers!