Today there was a press release from 38 Studios announcing that they have made a publishing “agreement” with EA for their upcoming “epic single-player role-playing game”.  I feel like I’ve just witnessed someone announcing that they have signed a deal with the devil.  EA was once referred to as the the kiss of death to any company and/or games acquired by them.  If you’ve been around long enough you’ll remember lines like “EA kills whatever it touches” and the debates about whether or not EA is worse than Activision.  A bit extreme, but justified given their record.

Steve Danuser (Creative Director at 38 Studios) recently left a comment in one of my posts:

“Gamers need to stop thinking that press releases are written for them.

Press releases are written for reporters, investors, and executives. They are meant to grab the attention of low-attention-span suits who don’t have time to really understand anything about games besides whether or not they will make money…”

An understandable sentiment, although I have poked holes in it before.  Let’s ignore the whole side of press releases where things announced make it onto feature lists, etc. etc., and focus on another angle.  These releases which are supposedly not written for gamers, yet pasted onto every gaming news site out there and publicly available for the world to see, do carry with them influence and relevant material for the players whether or not they’re intended for our us or not.

As a player, here’s what I see:

On 38 Studios’ main page, and many subsequent pages for that matter, you’ll now find a big fat EA logo.  Note the placement of said logo.  It is at the top.  Note the size.  It is the biggest of the logos.  Am I wrong to read into this?  It seems silly to ignore history when it is reenacting itself right before my eyes.

Clearly 38 Studios needs the money and/or channels provided by EA or else the partnership would not have been made.  No one says, “Hey, I think it would be fun to partner with EA!!” — doesn’t happen.  As a prospective player I am immediately seeing warning signs that I’ve seen in other games such as Warhammer Online.  EA has a way of forcing things to release.  EA has a way of acquiring their partners.  EA has a way of influencing and directly controlling the design of the games they publish.  These are facts.

Perhaps EA will remain hands off and simply publish.  Perhaps EA won’t sneak its way into other titles from 38 Studios such as their MMO.  Perhaps hell will freeze over.  Good luck on this one guys… I’m afraid I already know how this one will end.

So, if these press releases aren’t written for gamers, then why is this one speaking to me ever so clear?

Whenever I go without a  MMO for long periods of time the first thing that always comes to mind is how I need a game that I can invest myself into.  That’s what sets MMO’s apart from other games for me.  A MMO character is something that the players should feel committed to in a good way.  It’s a time, emotional, and monetary investment.  I see building up a character and spending the time playing him as a positive form of investment that brings with it a certain level of fulfillment.  That feeling is one of the main things that keeps me playing a MMO.

What happens when that feeling is not present?  It can be missing in various ways from the start of a game.  It can also be present but then be removed or destroyed.  In the case of Allods, the feeling that I was committed to my character was definitely there until the rollercoaster of bad news/good news began.  The most recent bad news has been that, while perfume costs are down, the mechanic has been changed so that you must consume many of them at once.  Without burdening you with too many unnecessary details, it has effectively made me no longer think about the future — I’ve stopped caring.

I heard the following analogy that fits:  It’s like knowing the train you’re on is going to crash later — you’re going to get off before it does.  There are several things to note about this.

The game is not even broken -yet- but people will stop playing because it’s going to be.  Those that do keep playing will be depressed (unless clueless to the whole situation) and will likely not play the same way.  No matter what, the community shrinks and begins to plummet.   At this point, even if the future problem is averted, people have already detached themselves from their character and the game to the point that returning is easily overlooked.

It’s probably the absolute worst position that a game can be in because no matter what happens you’re screwed.  The only way to avoid it is to not let it happen.

Perhaps one of the most sorely lacking qualities in today’s MMO’s is stability.  I haven’t felt stability in any launch for many years.  Is the game going to suck?  Will X ruin the game down the road?  Will the company survive or go bankrupt?  Bottom line: Is this game here to stay?  There is a definite loss of faith in the companies and/or games being released that is squashing our ability to commit to these games.   Not even studios that have released gems in the past are able to replicate their success.  What a horrible state the industry has sunk into.  In many ways this is exactly why World of Warcraft remains the #1 game of choice for most people.  Regardless of their meta-game end-game, they’re stable and you know what to expect and that they’re going to be around.  This stability will transfer over to their next title.

We continue to place our trust in new developers and old developers nonetheless.  Unless we stop getting burned, and feel like we can trust the developers again to deliver that stability, companies like Blizzard will remain as the providers of a dominant gameplay style.  The resulting “clone” effect is then expectable and the cascade effect of that puts us into a vicious cycle.

The cycle can be broken.  No, the answer isn’t to stop playing new games or to stop playing WoW  as many will quickly jump in and proclaim.  This whole “the players are in control” stuff is nonsense.  One way, perhaps THE way, that the cycle can be broken is if someone will develop a polished MMO that provides a feeling of stability — a feeling that is a direct result of quality and common sense from those who have a clue.

Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing came out of left field for me.  Graev mentioned the game and said that we should try out the demo.  Judging the game by the name, I was pretty sure that I’d be playing some flimsy attempt at making a racing game with familiar characters.  Afterall, it’s Sega and I haven’t really come to expect the greatest things from Sega lately.  I didn’t expect the level of quality that I saw in the demo.  After a few races I was sold.

The game is very similar to Mario Kart.  Up until this point there really hasn’t been a comparable title that would make me ever think about which one I like more.  In many ways Sonic Racing could be ragged on for being too similar to Mario Kart, but honestly it doesn’t bother me.  The recent Mario Kart title for the Wii, while a good racer, bothered me with some of the gimmicky Wii-things.  Sonic Racing on the Xbox360 is the quality of Mario Kart (especially some latter versions) but in a more straight up way.

Sonic Racing has ~24 racers (just a quick count, may be inaccurate) all of which have their unique racer.  Some have motorcycles, light/medium/heavy cars, and some even have a unique vehicle resembling something from their game in the form of a hovercraft or spaceship.  There is a drift mechanic in the game that will feel familiar as well as aerial tricks that, when done in succession, can give a good speed boost.  Each character has a unique special ability called an All-Star move that gives them a cool ability and a straight shot down the course to help them catch up — racers not doing so well have a higher chance of getting the item.  The controls are very tight and top notch which makes driving any of the racers very intuitive and comfortable.

The tracks are well designed and diverse.  The theme for the tracks matches some of the games represented by the cast.  There are Sonic, Samba de Amigo, The House of the Dead, and Monkey Ball maps that I can recall off the top of my head totally around 24 tracks.  Some of them are a bit crazy (especially the Sonic casino maps…) but all of them are fun.  The Monkey Ball maps are actually quite a challenge for me and I find myself flying off the track half the time.  You’re going to be challenged enough that you’ll have to pay attention and learn the maps.

Many of the racers and tracks are locked and must be unlocked by purchasing them with Sega miles.  These are earned simply by playing the game.  If you come in first you may earn 3-4k miles.  A character can cost tens of thousands of miles and the tracks run 5-15k on average.  This gives the game replayability since unlocking characters is a carrot that then rewards you and gives you another to strive for while enjoying what you just earned.  Playing through the Grand Prix, Single Race, Time Trials, as well as playing with a friend split screen

The one downside is the battle maps.  There are only three of them and the modes are a little disappointing. The three maps are a bit underwhelming in their design and since everyone is giving unlimited supply of boxing gloves to spam at each other, there becomes little point in going after the other weapons.  The modes of king of the hill, capture the chu chu (or chao or something), collect the emeralds, and arena.  Graev and I don’t bother with the battle mode and just go straight to the racing because the tracks are great and racing against hard computers is challenging and fun.

It’s a great racing game that I like more than the latest Mario Kart.  It doesn’t try to add any gimmicky additions nor does it really stretch what is already a successful fast pace and crazy racer game style.  Setting the other racers to easy mode makes the game enjoyable for even young kids and setting it to hard will make the adults and veterans struggle to win.   It’s worth playing if you enjoy these types of games.

Update #2: We’ve been asked to post a donation button so that others may donate to our server costs.  Below is the button you can use. Donations via Paypal can be made to keenandgraev@gmail.com

Update:  Our server has been migrated to a new machine.  As a result our IP has changed.  The banner now reflects the new information.  Your favorites list should be unaffected.  Remember to visit our forums for discussion about the game, our server, and our community.   Thanks for playing on our server!

Battlefield Bad Company 2 released on Tuesday and, as expected after playing the beta, it’s fantastic.  The performance has improved a great deal after a patch and an ini tweak or two.  The maps and guns which I didn’t get to try in beta are all very well done, especially the scenery and atmosphere of the jungle maps.

Now, the main reason for this entry is to inform you about the K&G Community BFBC2 server.  We’re now running a brand new 32 slot ranked server!

We had a great amount of fun yesterday playing on the server which was very stable even amidst all of the EA server problems (EA server lag and disconnects and such).

The server is set up right now to play Rush maps in Hardcore mode [Note: We're playing normal mode with FF on and Killcam Off.  As we determine which mode we like best we'll settle on a more permanent mode.] HC mode is a more realistic mode where bullet damage is increase and several things on the HUD are removed.  The problem with Hardcore is that we’re seeing a lot of sniper abuse.  Sniper rifles become so easy to use that everyone plays recon and it becomes a “who can shoot the other first” instead of a tactical experience.  It’s essentially opposite of what you would expect hardcore mode to be.  We’ve found FF on and Killcam off is a decent step in the right direction.   We’re going to be taking votes on our Battlefield Forum to decide what type of modes we want to run.

Hop on the server and play!  Members of our community can be identified by the [KGC].  Many of us will be online after class and work today but feel free to hop on and get things started.

The game is a lot of fun and definitely worth the $49.99.

We’re also looking for sponsors.  If you would like to sponsor our server please contact us and we can discuss the details further.

Some big changes have just hit the cash shop in Allods Online.  Prices have dropped significantly yet still remain slightly higher than the Russians pay.  The expected result that players would welcome any cash shop change was immediately apparent within the first minute of the change.  People are shouting their excitement and are now expressing renewed interest in continuing to play.  I too am very happy that right now I can at least afford to continue playing where before I would have had to quit the game altogether.

Some analysis of the cash shop:

Vial of Perfume reduced from 75gP to 25gP
Large Perfume Kit reduced from 1350gP to 300gP
60% Savings by purchasing in bulk, yet still 3x the prices paid in Russia. Let’s put this into a workable number.  Let’s say you want to play for 1.5 hours per night and do a dungeon or PvP or whatever and always be under to effects of perfume.  1.5 h/day, 7 days a week,  4 weeks a month = $12.60 / month.  That’s affordable.  Up that to 2 hours a night and you’re paying $16.80 / month.  That’s a big jump but still affordable.

A level 10 rune costs $1,998.78 now which is incredibly cheaper than it was…. but still, who is going to buy one?  Interesting enough the Russians have patched their runes to now be more powerful than they were which may offer further incentive to buy runes.  Perhaps there is an affordable rank of runes that players will find as a sort of ’sweet spot’ for cost vs. effectiveness.

The respecs and bigger bags, along with many other wanted items, are still not in the cash shop.  This has some players still bothered but overall the consensus is that people are willing to spend money and now they can.   Lots of people from our guild had put the game down until good news came to pull them back.  Perhaps this will be that good news.

This announcement was going to be my Stay or Go point.  Right now this has me staying and willing to continue investing time and effort.

Does it have PvP?  That seems the be the question asked about every game these days.  Even the games that are truly meant to be PvE have tried accommodating PvP in some way.  The cost is becoming quite evident.  PvP is making PvE worse.  We’ve seen game after game release and whether or not they’re designed for PvP or PvE, it’s clear that the PvE is the weakest part of the entire game.

AoC, WAR, Darkfall, Aion, and Allods to name just a few have all released as PvP-centric games.  To dive a little deeper into two of the examples:

Warhammer Online: PvE lacked all depth.  It was a simple quest hub grind of the most straight forward variety.   There were few dungeons and the ones that existed before level 40 were, for the first year at least, worthless in both terms of loot and experience.  The game was always about getting to the PvP side of things.  Every effort made in the game was direction straight towards improving the PvP.

Darkfall: This sandbox was entirely about PvP.  The PvE, where it existed beyond the starting towns, involved boxing in mobs who run like chickens with their heads cut off.  The PvE content was not rewarding unless you found something to exploit.  The idea of being a sandbox was suppressed almost entirely in favor of maintaining this “we’re the PvP game for the hardcore masses” mentality.

The problem stems directly form how PvE is being designed and then presented as something in the way.  Usually the PvE in these games becomes something that must be overcome and done before getting to the PvP.  It becomes more about putting in your time than it is about playing the game because the PvE is designed poorly or presented as such.  Sometimes we’ll see a game where the PvE doesn’t get in the way, but it is added simply as filler.  PvE just fills in the holes like putty and it is neither fulfilling or meaningful to the game.  Thinking that all people want is their PvP is a sure-fire way to have horrible PvE and ultimately a horrible game.

Leaving out the PvE in these games means that PvP would have to stand on its own.  Why is that a problem?  If PvP had to stand on its own then people would quickly realize that the game has lost all of its meaningful investment and become more arcade-like since people often associate going through something, especially something they dislike, as having increased the value of what they earned.  This is what happened to World of Warcraft in my opinion when they instituted Battlegrounds and Arenas where players could avoid the PvE side of the game altogether.  Although WoW’s PvP does quite well for itself, can anyone honestly say that WoW would be a true mmorpg if it were simply a Battlegrounds and Arena game?  Without PvE, suddenly the flaws in the PvP are apparent where they were once overlooked by something that was much worse.

I don’t believe the solution is to remove PvP or to make games entirely about PvP.  The greatest “PvP games” that people can recall are ones where PvP was surprisingly equal or of lesser importance in the grand scheme of said game’s design.  Ultima Online was a game about far more than PvP yet people associate it with the PvP.  Dark Age of Camelot, the game that truly invented the faction based PvP system, was very much a PvE game as well.

People think they want a ‘PvP game’ but they really want a game where the PvP is meaningful, rewarding, and a fleshed out experience within a great whole.  That isn’t accomplished by turning a blind eye to everything but PvP thinking that as long as you have this amazing PvP or special mechanic that all will either be overlooked or forgivable.   Regardless of how important PvP is to a game, it never stands alone in a MMORPG.  Developing a strong PvE core is probably the most important part of creating a successful ‘PvP game’ and until we start seeing the emphasis placed back on a balanced experience… well, we’re going to see more AoC, WAR, Darkfall, Aion, etc.

Despite my lack of blog posts about Allods lately, and the extreme amount of negativity and cynicism surrounding the game from just about everyone under the sun, I’m still playing.  In fact, I’m playing the game a lot.  I’m now over halfway through level 24 and working through the first few waves of quests in Asee-Teph.  For those who do not know, Asee-Teph is the first PvP zone in the game.  For a few days before I arrived in the zone I was hearing a lot of grumbling about how uneven the sides were and how badly we were getting stomped.   Not quite the same experience I’m having.

The first night in Asee-Teph our guild formed a group and began questing together.  We encountered a significant amount of PvP and quickly started to grow our group into two groups (still of all guild members) and rolled across a great deal of the zone.  We ended up completing only a handful of quests but annihilated dozens of Empire.  Quite the opposite experience of that being experienced just a few days prior.  Perhaps most of the higher levels moved on?

This morning and afternoon was spent running dozens of quests all over the zone yet still only scratching the tip of the enormous iceberg that is Asee-Teph.  Again, lots of PvP and fun.  We formed a small 3-man group and moved around the zone with little trouble.  Occasionally we formed into a bigger group to tackle larger Empire gatherings and had higher levels show up to annihilate us (like a level 32 Summoner plaguing the entire raid) but it was all fun.

How does the flagging system play into the enjoyment of PvP?

Let’s just say that 8/10 people I come across are flagged and 1 of them will usually flag to attack while the other runs away thinking they’re vulnerable.  In Asee-teph it’s rather difficult to not flag yourself when simply questing.  Many of the mobs will flag you because they’re empire mobs.  Later on the factions you attack will not necessarily flag you though, so if people want to run around unflagged then they’ll probably be safe from PvP.   Asee-Teph is still quite a PvP hotspot and a lot of fun though.

We’ve still heard nothing from gPotato.  The lack of communication has the townsfolk grabbing their torches.  The locals are getting restless and that’s never a good thing.

I continued my UO adventure tonight by trying out some combat and finding a new place to mine.  I was shown a really nice mountain to mine west of Britain where I was able to make a few thousand gold and meet a few players.  In UO players are able to set up houses anywhere that there is free open space.  These players set up shop right along this mountain with forges, anvils, and all the tools needed.  They made their houses public or set up these things outside their house and as a result I was able to use them too.  The owners of the houses were nearby and would say hello to me as well as help me drag my extra ore to the forge to be refined.  People were riding by on horses, going about their routine, doing things like mining or crafting or sailing ships and fishing, hunting orcs, socializing, banking, and creating an atmosphere that felt like the game was meant to be played different for each of them.   How often do you play a game and have no idea what the people around you are doing?  It simply doesn’t happen anymore.

While I was mining and crafting chain armor it clicked for me that this was a sandbox game yet it wasn’t confusing.  Sure, there is a slightly learning curve but for the most part this game that is twelve years old is less complicated than any of the sandbox games releasing lately.  Deciding what I want to play and then being able to jump right in to start playing that way is really quite smooth.  Everything in UO feels really intuitive as well and there isn’t anything convoluted about how you go about doing… anything.  Let’s compare it to a game like Mortal Online.  In Mortal Online there’s an extra step to do anything.  Sheathe your weapon or else you walk, ridiculous limitations of movement, first person only, combat that feels wonky with hoop after hoop to jump through.

In UO I was immediately able to figure out what to do and what I wanted to do in the near future.  I wasn’t told what to do or given a direction to go yet I felt like I had direction.  In Mortal Online it felt like I wasn’t given a direction or told what to do but I felt completely lost and stranded.  My goal in UO is to earn money, outfit my fighting character with armor/weapons, and buy a house.  After I buy a house I want to buy stuff to put inside it then I want to buy a boat.  All of these things are doable almost immediately and the game facilitates allowing me to get started immediately, even as a complete noob.  The world is easily navigated and laid our in such a way that new players and veterans alike are rubbing shoulders.

Sandbox doesn’t mean old.  Have you noticed that games like Mortal Online and Darkfall feel old?  Playing UO it feels old, mostly because of the graphics, but the gameplay itself is years beyond games released recently.   Why do the new sandbox games feel old, clunky, unintuitive, and convoluted?  Half the time it feels like sandbox means hassle.  Playing UO, I have yet to feel hassled over anything.

In my ideal MMO, which I have said will be a pseudo-sandbox game, it would be about providing the player a sandbox-like experience closer to UO.  I think providing players with tools to go out and have fun, tools which facilitate the world being an actual virtual world, are important.  Mechanics such as combat are completely secondary.  Playing in the sandbox should be about what you can accomplish with the  world with a more open and free experience.  It shouldn’t be about picking out the cat poop and having to fight the game to have fun.

Why can’t the sandbox games of today be created with the feeling or World of Warcraft but the gameplay of UO?  It’s almost like a line has been drawn between things that are considered “modern” and things that make a game a really good “sandbox”.   A sandbox game like UO with modern elements of WoW or DAOC would shatter the boundaries of this genre.  My mind is swirling with ideas and images of this Utopian pseudo sandbox game and I wish I could let you all in to play.