Civ Revolution = Civ for dummies.

Reason why Civilization: Revolution does absolutely nothing for me.

“…its injection of pace makes for a more exciting - if marginally less cerebral - strategy game.” - X360 Magazine UK

As I wrote a while ago, it’s basically a kid’s gloves version for the console crowd, which is both insulting and self-defeating. Insulting because it assumes all console fans want ADD-fueled gameplay requiring minimal thought, and self-defeating because Civ is all about the cerebral. The more automated you make it, the more it becomes a slideshow rather than a challenging game.

Yes Civ games have a steep learning curve, at least in terms of understanding all the game mechanics. Almost anyone can actually win a game on the lower difficulty levels, even if you don’t know half of what is going on behind the scenes. The beauty of the game is that as you learn more, you up the difficulty level, which in turn forces you to dig deeper and deeper into the behind the scenes strategy aspects. By removing the underlying mechanics and making them all automated, you gain a slight reduction in the initial shock, and completely discard the entire ‘end game’ of the higher difficulty levels.

All that said, it might work for the ‘pick up and space out’ console crowd, but then if that is your target, why market a turn based strategy game in the first place?

Breaking down MMO burnout, and ways to avoid it.

Rick over at /random expressed concern that his longtime guild may not be as hyped for WAR as he is, and that their time together in the game may be rather limited due to general MMO veteran burnout, a legitimate concern for anyone hoping to find the next ‘it’ game to play with friends.

As someone with a great deal of MMO experience, having played Ultima Online heavily at release and MMO gaming ever since, Rick’s post got me thinking about the general idea of MMO burnout. On a somewhat recent podcast, Michael Zenke expressed his jealousy for anyone able to enjoy one MMO for great lengths of time, as he himself was unable to focus on any one game for long. This brings up the question, does the appeal of MMO gaming have a limited shelf life? Do we all reach a point where we are no longer entertained by ‘kill x’ quests, grinding another level, or killing a mob in the hopes it drops the item we desire? How many times can you hit max level in an MMO before all you see is the same formula with a few twists, instead of the rush to explore a new world and see what is around the next corner ?

I think part of what contributes to the burnout is that initially, an MMO is a very different beast than all other games, especially during the initial ‘big three’ era, before Xbox live and all computer games having an online component made multiplayer fairly common. Just the fact that you logged into a world populated by thousands of other real players was new and exciting. Seeing another real player, and not an NPC, run by you for the first time was special, as was the first time you got together with other players to tackle some common task. The very basics of MMO gaming are what hook us initially, but those same hooks exist in all MMOs, and are nothing new the 3^rd or 4th time around. Your first group experience in MMO 4 is much different than it was in MMO 1. In MMO 4, you know what to expect, you know exactly why you are in the group, and worst still, you know that joining a PUG could result in disaster; disaster you no longer have patience for. What you and everyone else could once laugh about now generally results in people leaving the group at best and a massive flame fest at worst.

UO was able to get away with a LOT of issue in part because for 99% of the players, just being online was a source of newness and entertainment. When Warhammer Online goes live, what percentage of the players will view just connecting to a server and being in a virtual world as entertainment? It certainly won’t be 99%, or 50%, but will it even be 10%? Regardless of the actual number, it won’t be many, and as a result, WAR and all other future MMOs need to deliver compelling gameplay right out of the gate to satisfy the needs of a far more demanding MMO crowd. In addition, not only does that content need to be compelling day one, it also has to continue at a much more furious pace than in days past. We all want new surprises around every corner, and those corners better come at a far more rapid pace than before. MMO gamers today won’t be logging on to hit a practice dummy for hours in order to work up their sword skill high enough to kill field rats. They want awesome day one, day two, and expect that awesome to continue to deliver for months on end. In many ways, it’s an almost impossible task for today’s developers to satisfy the needs of veteran MMO gamers.

With all that said, is there any hope for all the old whiny bastards like Rick and I? Can any MMO today or in the future rekindle those types of feelings we had for our first MMO? Glass half full guy says yes, glass half empty guy is not so sure. On the one hand, playing with a great group of people in a solid environment will always be entertaining. Playing on a beer league softball team is just as fun today as playing baseball was in high school, even though the feeling of hitting your first homerun will never be eclipsed by another homerun in the future. The actual activity, while still fun, is greatly supplemented by the people you play with. In that regard, any solid MMO with good gameplay should be able to entertain us, as we hope WAR will. It won’t, however, bring the same rush you had during your first relic raid in DAoC, or the first time you tried to run away from a PK in UO. And perhaps our tolerance for the general MMO grind, something all MMO games feature in varying degrees, is a bit lower. To me, that just places an even greater importance on playing with quality people early and often, as without them, that burnout sets in hard and fast regardless of what MMO you are playing.

MMO history, that Bartle guy, and why WoW2 won’t blow your mind.

It seems we had a busy weekend in the MMO blog world, fueled by an interview with Richard Bartle done by Michael Zenke over at Massively. As with anything remotely interesting posted on the internet these days, the responses to the interview, and the multitude of blog posts related to it, range from the ‘you’re an idiot stfu’ to ‘exactly what I was thinking’.

The real headline grabbing line of the interview is the comment “I’ve already played Warhammer. It was called World of Warcraft“, which when taken out of context or misinterpreted is all the internet needs to jump on the nerd rage bandwagon. When clarified (Bartle was talking about the setting itself), he is actually only 50% correct. Originally WoW was indeed the Warhammer setting without the official license (they lost that at some point in development), but only until Blizzard started putting their unique spin on the world. The Warhammer IP is lacking such gems as pretty evil elves, noble aliens that are descendents of the super evil alien guys, and a world where everyone (aside from said super evil aliens) is a good guy, just misunderstood. Even the undead are good guy freedom fighters, yay! It might be a world, but outside of a magic arena, there is very little war being crafted.

Bastardized lore bitching aside, Bartle does bring up an interesting point to someone who has been in the MMO scene since Neverwinter Nights; MMOs really are fairly similar now. Think about it, when Ultima Online came out, it was totally new. So new that the term MMO was a few years off, and everyone was a damn noob just logging on and wandering around (and getting PK’ed). Then came EverQuest, and how many people looked at EQ and said ‘eh, it’s UO with elves, who cares’? Right, no one. What you did hear was ‘EQ is carebear land, gtfo newbie’. Which was accurate, EQ was carebear land compared to UO, but more importantly, EQ was radically different than UO in almost every single way. While UO catered to the explorer and the killer, EQ was designed for the achiever and socializer. The final piece of the original ‘big three’ was Asheron’s Call. When AC came out, was it considered ‘EQ in a random setting’? Again, no. And AC had its own charm and gameplay that was again different than UO or EQ. The original ‘big three’ where all successful in their own way, and offered gamers at the time three unique choices in setting, gameplay, and overall game design philosophy.

Fast forward to 2004 and World of Warcraft, and you start hearing talk of ‘a more polished EQ’. Sure the setting was different, WoW brought a huge host of design changes that later became MMO standards, and above all it was a damn fun game, but it was not the radical change that UO/EQ/AC were when compared to each other. WoW followed the EQ formula, gave it a bigger budget, and polished it until it was done.

Finally, we have Age of Conan and soon Warhammer Online, two major games that from day one were being billed as ‘WoW but with feature x’. Which is not exactly a bad thing in terms of good MMO gaming from a pure fan perspective (readers know I’m dying to play WAR), but it does say something about the current trend in MMO gaming, and what the future might hold. With budgets as big as they are today, and with so much at stake financially, perhaps the days of great innovation are gone, and the best we can hope for in a triple A title going forward is the EQ formula + twist x. Look at any major trend that blew up, be it shooter games (Doom), sports games (Madden), or racing games (Need for Speed, Grand Turismo), and what do we see? Madden (insert current year), the same game as last year but with one new gimmick. Is it really that shocking that MMO gaming, which officially became ‘kind of a big deal’, has followed the same pattern of success?

Innovation is still alive and well, but you won’t find it in games with millions of subscribers. You will find it in games like EVE, A Tale in the Desert, Shadowbane, and countless other ‘niche’ games. And has history has shown us time and time again, the niche will be culled; the best features harvested out, and ‘polished’ for the release of WoW2. And like you, I’ll be there day one, like a good little fanboi, dying to get into beta.

Can my toaster run AoC? - Concerned Wal-Mart shopper

There has been a good amount of debate lately about Funcom’s decision to release a high system requirements game with Age of Conan. The debate often drops into the very familiar ‘gameplay vs graphics’ debate.

Leaving the gameplay aspect aside, let’s talk graphics. We seem to be in an odd age where we are confusing computer gaming with consoles. People seem to think going out and dropping $500 at Wal-Mart is enough to play today’s games at high settings, and if they can’t, it’s the games fault. You know what box at Wal-Mart can play games at max settings for $500? A PS3 or an Xbox. I’m sorry your on-board graphics, or that $1000 PC you bought two years ago can’t run Crysis at 1900×1200 with 16xAA, go figure…

It’s amazing to read people bitch about performance in games, only to find out they have the graphic power of a toaster in their machines. Rumor has it you get crazy lag online with a 14.4k modem too…

The system specs for AoC are fairly clear; it’s a high-end game. Maybe if you have a midrange system you can turn everything down and play it, but then don’t be surprised that it looks like shit, and don’t blame AoC. If you have a Wal-Mart system, WoW runs great on those, play that or Runescape.

As for all the ‘killing their market’ talk, consider this: maybe Funcom is only aiming for the high-end niche? If a movie makes 50 million at the box office, is it a hit? If it’s got a Blair Witch budget, it’s a smash. If it’s Waterworld… well someone just got fired. My point is looking at sales or subscription numbers is rather pointless if you don’t know the budget and expectations. Is it that unreasonable to think that maybe Funcom thinks they can make a profit catering to a certain niche, that niche being 18+ with high-end rigs? Does every MMO going forward need to compete with the WoW demographic?

AoC, right from day one, made it fairly clear they don’t aim to please everyone. Instead of getting caught up on how the average gamer might not find AoC accessible, lets instead focus on the fact that Funcom is trying something different, trying to bring a little diversity to the MMO space. If you hate the combo system and PvP focus, you have plenty of other options.

To expect every new game to run well on old hardware is foolish, as is the assumption that there is not a market for graphic whores like myself. Yes I’m still looking for quality gameplay (news flash: everyone is), but bonus points if that gameplay comes with DX10 graphics. Last I checked, Nvidia is doing quite well as a company, which means there are plenty of others willing to spend $200+ on a newer card to enjoy some eye candy.

Graphics are also a two way street. If I can’t run a game, that’s a deal breaker. But if a game is stuck in 800×600 with low res textures, that’s also a deal breaker for me. For example, while StarCraft or Diablo still have amazing gameplay, the fact that they look like pixel throw up on a 24′ monitor means I won’t be playing them, or any game with similar graphics.

Same old EA.

I’ll be honest and say I’m a bit disappointed by EA and this story about one of their games.

First off I have not heard anything about the actual game or the boycott surrounding it, but the fact that a story about it gets financial publication attention must mean its at least somewhat of a big deal. The reason I’m disappointed is that I thought EA had turned a corner and was attempting to move away from being known for releasing the same version of Madden each year. It seems, at least based on that story, that they have not.

As much hate as EA gets, and almost all of it is deserved, they do put out some quality games among the rehashed stuff, and if they actually get it together and try to focus more on long term quality, it would be a huge benefit to all gamers.

It’s sad that the biggest 3rd party gaming company is also the most hated, and moves like this won’t change that perception anytime soon.

Snow

Snow, and lots of it = day off from work. Still working on Fire Emblem, chaper 22 right now. Good game. That is all, happy monday people.

Bringing joy, even when you don’t log on.

EVE is by far the greatest MMO to play when not actively playing it. I am on somewhat of a break from EVE currently, trying to focus on Fire Emblem for the Wii to finish it and its sequel. Besides that things have just generally been busy and gaming time is down, which in most MMOs would mean you get screwed, as you fall behind in levels or raid gear or Arena standing or whatever it is you do when you play an MMO. Not so in EVE. If anything, not logging on to EVE other than to change skills can sometimes be a boon. It lets you train up those skills you know you should training (like Learning) but hate to train when actually playing, focusing instead on whatever skill you need to use the next fitting or ship you have your eye on.

Brilliant design really, for both player and company. CCP still gets my monthly fee, and when I come back to EVE, I’ll have a more powerful and capable pilot. Plus in about an hour or so a week I can still manage all my market buy/sell orders, so not only do the skill points keep rolling in, so does the ISK, granted at a much slower pace than if I was actively playing, but still.

Fire, Learning, Aliens, and WoW.

So silly eBay finally delivered Fire Emblem, Path of Radiance (GameCube game I’m playing on the Wii, prequel to FE: Radiant Dawn, actually a Wii game) a few days ago and that’s been keeping me busy. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been playing computer games for a long time, or whether FE:PoR is actually a really good game, but it’s kept me very entertained.

Sure the graphics are a little dated (although nothing that jars you from the experience, IMO), it has the standard Japanese console game anime look (which I’m cool with, but others might find childish), the sound is standard stuff, bla bla bla. What the game does really well however is fairly key. For one thing, it’s tough. It’s one of those ‘you can’t let anyone die’ type of strategy games, so even one bad move and you have to restart the battle if you want to see all of the story elements, or just be a silly completionist like me. Adding to the difficulty is that in almost every battle (seen 15 so far) something happens midway through, be it reinforcements show up, a gate opens, or enemies you figured would not start moving do. Good stuff for sure, but it does lead to a few ‘son of a…’ moments.

Unless the game drastically changes in the second half, I would recommend the game for anyone looking for a good turn based strategy game for the Wii/GameCube. Just know that FE:PoR is a DIRECT prequel to FE:RD, so grab that one first.

Other than that, my two EVE accounts are set to finish training the rest of the Learning skills. For a  while I had put them off in favor of other skills, but now with FE keeping me busy I figured it was a good time to finally get them done. I don’t think I’ll be training the rank 3 skills to level 5, but I do plan to get all the rank 1 skills completed, with the rank 3 ones already sitting at level 4. The goal after that will be to get my main pilot in full +5 implants, which currently go for about 120 million ISK a pop as I recall. That will be a decent chunk of ISK once I have all 5, and then I’ll need to get another set for my 2^nd account. That’s an easy 1 billion ISK+ just to speed up skill training, but it will be worth it I think.

Oh and silly Alienware delayed my comp (shocker, I know), so hopefully that will actually ship this week, and the gf and I can get back to questing in WoW. The group we were playing with is ahead of us now by 10 levels or so, and the longer we go, the farther behind we get. Some quest grinding will be in order once we are back online, that’s for sure.

Holding Pattern.

Dear snow, thanks for that four hour drive yesterday. Nothing like leaving work early, at 2pm, and finally getting home at 6pm. That was awesome…

On to a happy topic, gaming, I find myself in somewhat of a standstill. Currently I play EVE, WoW, and a bit of Puzzle Quest and online Poker. I have PotBS on my computer, but little draw to play it. NWN2 MotB is there, but I’m waiting for the 9000 series of graphics cards to come out from Nvidia before I return to that game. Same delay issue for getting The Witcher, or returning to LoTRO. I’m a bit burned out on Civilization 4, done with EQ2, done with Sword of the New World. Mythos is still there, but I just never find myself loading it up, and when I do, I find after about 30 minutes I’m done with it once again. Due to the 180 many people are pulling with Tabula Rasa, my interest has been raised, but I think I’ll wait a bit more before jumping in. Some people report boredom setting in after level 15ish. I have little interest in Hellgate:London, not sure why, but it just does not seem that appealing right now. Still waiting for WAR, and maybe AoC.

I think that about covers it. I know I’ll be playing Fire Emblem after Christmas on the Wii, but who knows for how long. I only play WoW about 5 hours a week, and EVE 4-10 depending on what’s going on. Basically I’m waiting for something to come along and really grab me, to make me look forward to loading it up regularly and being entertained each time. Hopefully WAR is that game, but with all the crazy stuff happening in the gaming world, I’m not betting the farm on that one. Anyone else find themselves jumping from game to game is small spurts, just stuck in a holding pattern?

NWN2 finished, final thoughts.

I finally finished the original campaign in Neverwinter Nights 2, and overall the game was well worth the time. The game had some very challenging spots, a great story, and enough twists and surprises to make it worthwhile to finish. The ending was unfortunately somewhat of a letdown, wrapping what was an overall complex story up too quickly, without enough detail.

The highlight for me was a sequence of events near the end, in which you must defend your castle against an undead siege. The first set piece sees you defending the walls from siege towers, each one spewing undead on to your walls. Your main character, along with two others, get assigned six NPC fighters, making the battle a bit more epic, with each side filling the screen. The siege continues inside the walls, as undead try to push their way through the gate. Playing a Paladin really paid off here, with his numerous bonuses, especially ‘turn undead’, which often stunned multiple targets. The final ‘stage’ of the siege has you fighting a large shadow beast, one which killed me the first time around. I had to replay the previous two parts since I forgot to save, but soon enough stage three came around and down went the shadow.

The one downside to having such a high level (18-20) party towards the end is that each spell caster usually unleashes screen-filling spells during most fights, resulting in a huge hit to FPS and your general ability to follow what is happening on the screen. Throw in giant summons, like a greater earth elemental, and certain fights were nearly impossible to control. Worst of all was the final encounter, as the last enemy was huge, with lots of spells and effects all around. I can only imaging how this will get worse in the expansion, when you START with high level characters that only get more epic.

Overall though, I highly recommend Neverwinter Nights 2 to anyone looking for a good solo RPG. It’s nothing groundbreaking, but as long as you have the hardware, it’s very enjoyable.

Up next, I have my eye on Fire Emblem, Radiant Dawn for the Wii. I loved the GBA Fire Emblem, and the Wii needs some love, plus going from the computer to a console is always a good change, as each platform has it’s norms that you don’t realize until you make the switch. I was leaning towards picking up “The Witcher” for the PC, but I think I’ll wait for a few patches, and the new Nvidia cards to come out before giving that one a shot.