Another one bites the dust… sorta.  It’s the snowball effect in action.  One company takes their game “Free to play” (cough BS cough) and others follow because they don’t want to miss out.  We’re seeing that here with SoE creating a “Free to play” option for EQ2 called “Everquest II Extended”.   You know that I hate this F2P garbage, so overall my opinion on this decision will be negative.  However, there are a few things to point out which SoE does differently from Turbine.

SoE is opening up entirely new servers for this “experiment”.

“Think of it as a completely separate product offering. If you had a Station Pass… EQII Extended is another game in our portfolio, kind of. Even though it’s the same content, for all intents and purposes you play one or the other (or you could play both if you wanted to).” – Dave Georgeson [Source]

This is absolutely the biggest difference.  Turbine turned their entire game upside down in order to bring their game to a new market.  SoE is at least respecting their players somewhat by leaving them be with what they’ve spent 6 years working on.  I’ll tip my hat to the idea that they’re wanting to make this come off as an entirely different game.

Looking at their Membership Matrix, it’s clearly outlined what you do and do not have access to.  Where they’ve confused me though is with the gold membership.  It’s the same price as a subscription to the regular game yet you have to pay for more races and a level cap increase.  Maybe they’re thinking that you save some money not buying the software or something?  Still doesn’t make sense to me because if you’re willing to pay $14.99 per month then why not just play the regular game?  It’s cheaper to play the normal game!

Clearly the “Extended” servers will be ones where the rich get richer.  I don’t expect their communities to be anything like the normal EQ2 community either because of how fragmented the players will be.  Yet, at the same time, this is a “new” server and that brings with it popularity. I really do expect this “experiment”, as Dave Georgeson calls it, to fail over time and it all comes down to that membership matrix.

It needs to be “more free”.  If you’re going to cash shop people, and they are since they say “You can’t buy the best items, but you can buy good items…” and even mention “self-rez potions”, then you might as well open the flood gates.  As it stands, players get to buy power.  They’ll dance around saying it in their FAQ and interviews but it’s there for anyone who knows the game to see.

Bad idea.  Decent execution of a bad idea though.  I don’t like F2P because 1) it’s a scam and 2) it’s bad for the ‘game’ part of the game but if there were ever a more widely acceptable way of creating “Free to play” games it would be to release a F2P option alongside the real thing.  Yeah, it’ll fragment the crap out of your community but oh well.  That’s the price you pay to  keep the dogs and bay and still have a game.

One of the key questions to ask right now is just how much that Bronze membership for “Free” will get you.  If it’s like LotRo you’ll get about an hour of play time before you have to start paying.   It already looks like a rip off to me since you’ll be paying more to play for “Free” than if you actually played the real game.

I’m really getting excited about 38 Studios’ RPG.  I was refreshing the official website all morning while it was my turn to watch the new puppy and I refreshed it the exact second the trailer came up and they changed websites.  Yeah, no life.  The trailer did not disappoint me.

It’s only a trailer but it does make two things clear. 1) There’s a story and 2) It’s going to be action packed. It goes along nicely with what they stated their game would be like in the press release two days ago.

The official site is also up with just a sprinkle of information.  The screenshots look great.  The music is also well done.   Maybe the most important thing is that they’ve clarified even more in their FAQ about how Amalur is the setting for Copernicus.  Also pay close attention to the ‘immortality’ part of the story and how it will play into explaining why players in their MMO do not die.  Pretty cool idea.

Keeping it consistent in one universe is EXACTLY what they should be doing.    They’ve accomplished something today and that’s getting me excited about a future title.  Games aren’t exciting me as much as they used to and it’s nice when one finally does.

Now I just have to stomach the fact that we’re a year away from release at the earliest.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning’s announcement today was a nice surprise for me.  I haven’t been following this single-player RPG of theirs at all, aside from the fact that they sold out to EA with the project.  I can’t remember whether or not they actually said this one would be a Fantasy title.  I know that the project codenamed Copernicus will be Fantasy themed though and I guess I always assumed the single-player game would be as well.

Fantasy sits very well with me.  I like the Fantasy theme over Sci-Fi, Post Apoc, Steampunk, — I like it over all of them.  What I like the most is that they’re going with a High Fantasy and not simply a ‘lets make it medieval with swords’ style.  I’m also really into the idea of this being a new property that will be known by a name.  If you say “Warhammer” or “Star Wars” then you immediately know the universe and the style.  If you say “Darkfall” there’s really no story or expected theme that goes along with it.

I’m expecting Amalur to have a solid story, solid characters, and overall to be a memorable IP.

With Morrowind and Oblivion’s designer Ken Rolston heading it up, I’m really hoping that based on the following quote that we’ll have the next evolution in RPGs that aren’t done in the Bioware style.  Oblivion was a good game but the control and experience was a little ‘removed’ for me and hopefully this specific direction will focus the talent at work.

“In Reckoning, we started with Bob and Todd’s exceptional Kingdoms of Amalur game setting and imagery,” said Ken Rolston, Lead Designer at Big Huge Games, a subsidiary of 38 Studios. “On that foundation we built the open-world exploration, vast narrative and character customization fans expect from the best RPGs. And we’ve added something new that we’ve always wanted from the genre — a fast-paced, graphically stimulating action combat experience with fluid control and immersive, discoverable gameplay fans haven’t seen before in other fantasy RPGs.” [Source]

Am I making things up by saying that I remember reading somewhere that the RPG and MMO would be somehow related?  If so, a High fantasy MMO with a new original and memorable IP with solid characters and story is exactly what we need.

There are plenty of Fantasy haters out there who will say that the market is over-saturated with Fantasy titles, but I don’t agree at all.  If anything we’ve seen games being released all over the spectrum and the Sci-Fi or Modern genres have been flourishing as much or more than Fantasy.  Bring on the Fantasy.

Expect my thoughts on Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning more this week when the trailer is released on the 22.

Posting on the Official WoW forums and likely the newer Blizzard forums for games like StarCraft 2 and Diablo 3 will soon show your real name just like it does in-game with the Real ID friend system according to a Blizzard forum post.  Below that you’ll have the option to include your character’s name or handle.

Awesome idea.  No, that’s not sarcasm.  I think it’s a great idea for people to be held accountable for what they say online.  All over the internet there are far too many ways for people to hide behind anonymity that allows them to be someone other than the person they would be if their identity were attached.

I have been a forum moderator, assistant site administrator, and worn other hats that have in the past had me dealing with forum trolls.  I’ve been able to see their real names, IP addresses, and personal information that the people in the community have not had access to but it has always been against policy to reveal that information — I’ve even moderated on sites that do not let us reveal who the owner of a troll account is even if they’re a prominent member of the community by another name.  With a system like Real ID, what you say gets attached to your real name or at least the name you provide which is potentially fake-able, mind you.  People will have some level of accountability.

As for a privacy issue, I don’t believe it to be an issue at all. (I will recant this statement.  There is a degree of privacy invasion here.  To the point of it being an issue or that big of a deal is where I say it’s not that big of a deal). My real name is available all over.  In the real world we drop our name wherever we go to strangers we have never met.  The business world is all about giving out your name.  At game conventions I’ve attended it’s always been a scene of business cards and networking and at most your real name is on your credentials hanging around your neck.  Why is it an issue to have your name shown online to a forum?  If your address or some other way of locating you were listed then perhaps we would be entering into the realm of privacy issues.  (This is where the issues arise with people looking up names and finding addresses.)

Now, if you’re trying to hide the fact that you play video games and post on forums about games and don’t want the Google-foo to find you… can’t help you there.

Update:  While I think it is a good idea to remove the anonymity of online forums, I think all good ideas have their limitations.  This has gone from a good idea, with great intentions, to an idea that is hated by so many people that is simply can not be good for anyone.  Ironically, those who are against real names being used because people will seek out and expose their private information are the ones who are doing it to those who are innocent and undeserving of the invasions.  I fully expect Blizzard to withdraw the idea gracefully as it would be the right thing to do under these circumstances.  As such, I’ll go ahead and lock the comments section here since I believe we have enough commentary on the subject.  One day the world may be ready, but not today.

Final Fantasy XIV will be coming out for PC on September 30th (22nd for head start program) with some interesting news on their pricing model.  The subscription fee is a respectable $12.99 per month.  I’m a major proponent of subscription fees so whenever I see a new MMO coming out with them I always feel like it’s a score for the good guys.  Interesting to note is that you only get one character slot activated and one “mule” type character that can sell stuff while you’re offline.  If you want more character slots (up to 8 total per account) then it will cost you an additional $3.00 per month or $1.00 for another mule.

Crap… that’s a vicious price for an alt.  When I reach the max level in a MMO I then become an alt-aholic.   Ouch.  I couldn’t afford to become one in FFXIV.  For the price that’s pretty expensive.  I would prefer a one time flat fee of something like $15.   I’m also a proponent of the character transfer type service fees because I think those services are an excellent service to the customer and also a great way to generate additional revenue for the company.  While the price may be steep, is this a good thing for the game?

I do believe that limiting the amount of characters is important to a MMO.  Star Wars Galaxies limited players to just one character and it helped the economy by limiting the saturation of player provided services.  If having a weaponsmith in the game is important and you can just make an alt to max its weaponsmith then someone else can’t become a dedicated weaponsmith and feel like they have accomplished something while maintaining a prolonged importance.  Perhaps this will allow those who are willing to fork out the cash to buy their way into self-sustainment while still allowing that diverse playerbase.  Then again, this all depends on the game itself and whether or not they really hit a home run with the profession system.

I’m not sold on FFXIV yet.  I think that from all the footage I have seen it will be worth trying but only to see if my doubts about the game can be confirmed.  I could not for the life of me get into FFXI because of how fractured the server communities were being shared with the Japan community at launch.  I also hated the controls and never felt hooked.  The game needs to grab me in some way in the first 20 minutes.  I need the polished Westernized feel to to be apparent or else I’m just not interested — there are games that can provide that for me and I needn’t bother with the heartache of trying to love a game for the wrong reasons.

Despite being told by the benchmark, or rather after it laughed at me for foolishly even thinking that I could run the game, I’m still going to find some way to play the game for free and let you all know what I think.  There’s absolutely no way that I’ll be getting any sort of collector’s edition though.  It’s just too risky.

You get VOIP ads unless you pay to remove them.

The APB coverage here at Keen and Graev’s has been non-existent.  I got a “Key to the City” but apparently missed the playtime allotted.  Neither of us have been looking forward to the game for various reasons ranging from EA to bad memories of CrimeCraft to the simple design of the game.  There hasn’t even been any interesting news about the game to really comment on and I’m bored to tears of explaining why I think instanced lobbies are not a MMO.  Finally found something to comment on though!

When I was investigating the “My Account” section of APB’s website to learn more about it, it felt to me like the game is meant to be one of those arcade machines you need to keep feeding quarters into.  Even if it ends up costing about the same price to play 365 days a year as a $14.99/m game there’s a not-so-subtle “wanna buy a watch?” look to the whole way they’re getting you to play.  This is all an aside anyway but I wanted to go on the record for saying “meh”.

Seeing the link to the VOIP ads though really hit home how overboard they’re going with their pricing model.

The official details followed what quickly became a storm of horrific speculation about what this could mean for gameplay.

“You will receive a short audio ad once every 3 hours. HOWEVER ads will only be heard when first entering a social district.” Basically, you enter a new district (Lobby) and you get an ad played over your headphones.  When you change districts (apparently social, not combat) after the 3 hour timer has expired you get another ad.  What kind of ad? Don’t know yet.  I think that’s the best part of the whole thing since we don’t know if it will be a commercial for Big Macs and having it your way or how to get relief from that burning itch down there.

The APB Defense Force is going to raid my comments section screaming at me that RTW needs some way to pay for their servers or that you can just turn your volume down if you don’t like it.  That’s all true.  I think this way is really bad marketing though and it highlights my suspicions about this being a fail boat preparing to set sail.  There are better ways to charge a buck than to force people to hear VOIP ads unless they pay a premium.  This just alienates people regardless how minimally invasive these ads are in the game.  APB is being defended as a “pay to play game” and I’ll even give them a nod that their point system and buying days of gametime is indeed pay to play.  If it’s pay to play though, there isn’t a need to jerk people around like this.  If your game can stand on its own then charge people what it is worth and be done with it.

If I can find a way to try the game on a trial account then I’ll let you guys know what I think about the actual gameplay.  I really can’t see myself paying any money though when there are this many red flags before launch.

In our usual style we provided commentary on all three (Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony) E3 presentations and we’ve come to the conclusion that there wasn’t even a real need to scrutinize the details or lay anything out because there was a very clear winner: Nintendo.  It wasn’t even close this year as Microsoft’s Kinect tunnel vision led to a clear ‘dis-Kinect’ from the core gamer audience and Sony failed to deliver much of anything new or exclusive.

Nintendo brought it in a big way with exclusive after exclusive and one surprise after another.  They didn’t lose sight of what mattered most (the games) while trying to impress us with their new technology.  While they turned to the Nintendo 3DS towards the end, 3/4 of the presentation was all about the games with actual in-game footage being played.  Here’s a quick look at our favorites from Nintendo’s Presentation:

The presentation for ‘The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword’ suffered from technical difficulties, but kudos to them for actually playing their games in front of us.  Since Twilight Princess first debuted on the Wii there has been a real necessity to raise the ante for what Zelda can bring to the Wii.  Twilight Princess suffered because it was a mirror from Gamecube as a launch title.  In the presentation we saw a great colorful world and some of what Nintendo intends to do with the motion controls.

Out of nowhere, ‘Donkey Kong Country Returns’ has been heralded as perhaps the greatest announcement at E3 — even from the Sony fanboys.  As soon as the music began playing we were out of our seats cheering.  They’re sticking to what worked like they always do.  Nintendo finds a recipe for success and makes good games and even when going back and bringing classics to the current generation.

Epic Mickey represents the perfect game that we like to play.  It’s a platformer with a great story, familiar characters, a rush of nostalgia, and innovative gameplay.  The drawing and erasing and paint/paint thinner features allow players to shape the game to their playstyle.  Erasing characters from existence, choosing to fight or befriend, erasing walls, and manipulating the adventure with tangible results all in a Disney (an atmosphere that has proven to be great in games like Kingdom Hearts) is like sensory overload.  Then there’s the sidescrolling adventure where it becomes a cartoon with depth to top off what was already looking like a game moving to the top of our list.

Kirby hasn’t had a game in forever!  It wasn’t what we had expected when Reggie announced that Kirby was returning as the star in his own game.  We immediately thought something like Epic Mickey or maybe Donkey Kong.  It’s actually a little weird at first glance but the more we see the more it’s clear that the ‘weirdness’ surrounding Yarn is dismissed when it segues into neat gameplay.

Nintendo 3DS blows Sony’s ‘Move’ and Microsoft’s ‘Kinect’ away.  3D gaming without the need for glasses and no silly gimmicks of motion control make it almost too good to be true.  If not for the continued coverage from the press with people sharing their opinions about how this thing is actually legit then we would have a hard time believing it was real.  Nintendo is getting backed by just about every developer out there wanting to bring their games to the 3DS.

Even after the presentation, the 3DS continues to trump the competition as news leaks came out during Sony’s about Ocarina of Time and Starfox 64 remakes for the 3DS.   Nintendo has basically rendered 3D televisions useless.  It’s not going to be long now before this technology hits mainstream computer screens.  This rush that Sony has made towards 3D televisions being the future of gaming has been embarrassed by Nintendo taking a giant step forward right in front of them.

Nintendo really did bring out the buffet this E3 and there is something for everyone.  Heck, we want it all.  Do you agree/disagree?  Which company do you think had the best E3 and why?

Sony wraps up the last of the big three console press conferences and we’ve just finished watching.  Our commentary below will give you our insights into what was announced and shown.  Microsoft really failed to bring anything and Nitendo set the bar high with a lot of exclusive games and some brand new surprising announcements.  Read on to find out where Sony landed at this year’s E3.

Killzone 3 - Showcasing a lot of action and good graphics.

PlayStation Move (Enhanced by Move) and/or 3D

Crysis 2
Mortal Kombat
Ghost Recon: Future Soldier
Tron Evolution: The Video Game
Gran Tourismo 5
and more…

PlayStation Move

It looks like a glowing icecream cone and there isn’t much more to this idea of “move” other than an alleged improvement upon the Wiimote.  Sony may be improving upon the motion technology for a hand-held device and how it integrates into the games, but where is the necessity in the core gaming for motion controls like this?  Baseball games, little big planet, and other games offer a few neat tricks for motion but you don’t see it being used on games like Killzone 3… it’s being used in games designed for motion gaming.   Is that a bad thing?  Lets see what games they’re making to utilize it…

Lots of commentary and our thoughts on Sony’s Motion Games as well as a few of their surprises.  Read (more…)