A gloomy MMO horizon

I'm pretty depressed at the moment. Its not a partuclarly great time to be an MMO addict I have to be honest. With many of the recent AAA MMOs not achieving relative success and the very limited number of new titles coming out over the next year or so completely failing to catch my interest I'm wondering where is everyone?

The MMO is far from competitive. WoW dominates the market, despite the fact that its an old, old game that has lost a lot of what made it a fun enthralling game. (A part of me dies everytime I remember what WoW was like when I first started as opposed to what it has now become.) For many people the expansion is the biggest thing to ever happen to the MMO market, and in all likeliness it will be at least in this year.

SWTOR hasn't interested me in the slightest. Bioware know how to make great single-player games, but the MMO is a really tough nut to crack. I have very little confidence that they will be able to retain the interest of the huge number of people that will undoubtedly play during the first month, but we'll see, there is a long way to go yet.

The MMO market is pretty stale at the moment, but there is one MMO that I am looking forward to: Guild Wars 2. I never played the original but have heard really good things about it. I will definitely be getting the game come launch, but that won't be for a while.

Its enormously frustrating to have a genre that has so much potential and room for a good, popular, new MMO to come and shake it up a little, but none does.
WTB some MMO rivalry, will pay anything

Elitist Noobs (The brilliant new MMO)

Let's be honest, MMOs are a bit of an elitist spawning genre of gaming, second only to the wonderful world of FPS. Except a lot of what commands respect and admiration (And a lot of misfounded self-importance) in MMOs is items which take a very low level of skill. This especially is prevalent in the F2P market, where complete noobs can buy insane gear without thinking. In the end, what constitutes an elite player in MMOs in many cases is the time they have put into the game to aquire the gear that everyone else salivates over and lusts hopelessly after. However, it doesn't just have to be in free MMOs, I've seen a bunch of people on youtube in the top raids of WoW and they still have no idea what key-binding is and s-key all over the place. In the same vein you also get very geared players in WoW instances who are horrible at healing/holding agro/controlling agro/doing any amount of damage.

Following this train of thought I have come up with an MMO which will celebrate the time-spam elitists who appear in every MMO. I was inspired in a way by a free MMO I heard of in which it takes month of hardcore leveling to get a single level, and if you died it would set you back a week or more of progress. Anyway, my game is called Exponential (Creative eh?) This is its story...

In Exponential, everything is...well...you know. Every time you level your stats get twice as good, the time it takes to reach the level is twice as long, and there is absolutely no limit on anything. A death in the game will set you back one whole level, which has varying ramifications depending on how far in the game you are. The game is completely free-to-play but the cash shop nothing that will in any way speed up your leveling. Instead it offers such items that inhibit loss when you die.

(All figures in AUD)
$300.00 ....Will prevent you from losing any experience if/when you are killed.
$140.00 ....Will prevent you from losing 50% of a level if/when you are killed.
$50.00 ....Will prevent you from losing 25% of a level if/when you are killed.
You can also buy a wonderful array of fancy shmancy clothing and non-combat pets for low prices.

Now of course no one would even think of buying the $300 pot for a long long time, because its hard to justify spending such a huge amount of money unless you have been working (Oops I mean, playing) long enough for the risk to warrant such a cost. Say if a gamer is at the point where it takes them 80 days of play time to level once, then they may think the $300 would be well spent.

The beautiful thing about this game is it appeals to the most hardcore elitist noobs imaginable, people would go crazy over hitting the next level before anyone else because it would make them twice as powerful. (World PvP kills only reduce experience by 10% of a level) Of course there are just one or two little elements which I haven't really considered, but those are the main points.

Ah the joys of taking fun out of gaming, and making you work so that at the end of it all you feel slightly rewarded at the end, but ultimately realise that you had to WORK. But that's another post for another time.

Your thought-prevoking nerd-thought for the day

The other day a couple of friends and I were discussing gaming and, as seemingly always, WoW was brought into the conversation. These friends were the social, sporty type of people that just cannot understand us nerdy gamers and I was asked to explain what WoW was and why so many people play it. Slightly joking I said that you basically get to play a corpse, or a troll, or a cow that walks on two hoofs, and you get to run around putting on armor and dancing naked with elves, and with content like that who wouldn't want to play? But it made me think; how do you get people that are not interested in games excited about them?

-Me in a long lost draft for a post.

Microtransactions gone wrong

I was having a look at the rather depressing Runes of Magic forums the other day when I came across this thread. It is fairly substantial and quite complicated so I will try and summarize. This thread has over 12000 views, and all over one topic; a single player's weapon. To make a long story short this player has the best weapon in the game by a long, long way, and it is impossible that he should have gained the weapon without spending a lot of money at the cash shop. People have done calculations and have come up with a minimum of 300000 diamonds (3000 dias/99.99 euros while not on sale) needed to craft the weapon. Further calculations estimate that the weapon cost over 10000 euros, making the player who owns it one rich little kid, or one really sad older person.

An investigation is taking place at this moment as the GMs look into how exactly he was able to do this. This is perhaps the most extreme case I have heard of where microtransactions go wrong. One person in the thread said that he fought the player in an arena and was one-shotted for 30k dmg. To put this into perspective, a good tank has roughly 15k health. (Give or take) To me, this is unacceptable, and it highlights many players' greatest fear. In no circumstance should a player be able to one shot the best tanks in the game even after spending a fortune on the cash shop.

Unfair disadvantages abound in MMOs which allow microtransactions. Sure, most of the shops have the standard special mounts/potions/costumes/pets/teleportation or whatever, but many also have items that can give a player an advantage over others. In this extreme case it is clear that some people will do anything to be the best at a game, anything to get an advantage over the other players. It is up to the developers to ensure that this situation does not happen, as eventually it will kill the game as the PvP is pointless, and the end-game is constructed for those who either play for 70% of the day, or spend significant amounts of money in the cash shop.

Play WoW for free!

It appears that there is a general movement towards making free MMOs which at the very least look extremely similar to World of Warcraft, and it makes perfect sense. I make videos on Youtube about various free MMOs, and one thing I have come across is a general hatred of WoW for no apparent reason. Runes of Magic is, in many ways, similar to WoW; it looks quite similar visually, the combat is fairly similar, the end game focus is on raiding, it doesn't have great PvP, and every thing is pretty much dependent on your gear, and what do you know? RoM is pretty popular. It makes sense really, people dislike WoW because they have to pay for it, why do that when you can play RoM which is pretty much the same except its FREE!? (Hurrah for massive generalizations :P)

I mentioned a game called Allods Online a while back and the more videos I watch on it the more I think 'this is going to be another WoW and get a pretty big following.' Free MMOs are considered to be the lowest of the low; always generic, always with a massive grind, and always with people who spend a fortune in micro-transactions and PWN everybody else. But with Allods Online and RoM it is clear that the savvy developers are figuring out that all they need to make is a game similar to WoW and they'll rake in the profits/players. The free MMO market appears to be moving away from its traditional asian roots and following western designs. (Also could be why so many people love/hate Aoin as they associate 'Asian MMO' with 'free MMO' and therefore cruddy.) Perhaps the question that needs to be asked is 'is this a good thing?'

I'm in two minds, because I believe that if AAA MMOs are going to charge us 15 bucks a month they had better be offering an experience of the very best quality. There should be a big difference between the P2P MMOs and the F2P MMOs if developers expect us to pay and play. Therefore, the better free MMOs get, even if they are cloning WoW, the more pressure P2P MMOs will be under to improve their game and give the best value possible.
On the other hand, 'free' MMOs (At least in Guild Wars fashion) are possibly the way of the future and it doesn't do anyone any favors if they uphold their reputation of simply cloning other popular MMOs, and having very little originality.

I'm turning off my computer now for a couple of weeks to study, but boy its going to be fantastic when its all over. See you in a bit!

Time for a change

If the developers of Guild Wars 2 can make a reasonable profit off selling the game on the same model as the first game then no other developers should be able to get away with charging 15 bucks a month for their game. Let's hope this MMO sets a standard and we begin to see something like $5 as being the max price per month.

In to the action

What is a video game? I would describe it as a unique medium that is designed for enjoyment through interaction. Interaction is the key point here, as it is one thing which only video games can do on a level unavailable to text and film. Unless it is 'choose your own adventure' you are just along for the ride in a book and the same is true for a movie. The reason why so many people love games is that they are a way to escape reality and to do something that they cannot in real life. The problem is that games today rely so much on the surroundings, setting, and visual aspects of the game that they often neglect the story, and it is a shame. Games have huge potential with interaction in a story or in a world outside the player's own.

In MMOs this problem is particularly prevalent as nobody has yet figured out how to make it that the player can change the world they live in. Often, even if they can, it is temporary such as keep and city captures in WAR. But do we really have to change the world in which we play to achieve a level of interaction with the story? LotRO relied a lot on instance-based storytelling which gives the player a great sense of interaction in the story as they were driving it forward. The problem with this, however, is that when you come out of the instance you are left standing in the real world as if nothing had happened. However, interaction I believe doesn't mean you have to change the world, even though it certainly helps with immersion and authenticity.

Take Baldur's Gate for example; there was little in the game that you would do that changed the landscape or destroyed half a city; something permanent. The interaction was in the complex relationships within your group and NPCs in the world. People responded to you in a different way if you did a certain thing for them, or against them. The problem when transferring this concept to MMOs is the mindset of the player. Very few people read quest text anymore, most of the time they just look at the objective, or just run to the big red blotchy area. Hiding the quest objectives in the quest text would certainly help resolve this. Once again, this presents another problem. With players all of a sudden reading closely the quest text, the writers really have to step it up to make it interesting enough for the players to continue along with this more complicated quest system. Partnered with the fact that there are thousands of quests in MMOs it is going to put a lot of pressure on them.

A way to fix this would be less spammy quests, but longer quests with more objectives, quest chains and such that give a lot more experience. Thus writers can concentrate on making these quests a lot more awesome, and the player can have greater interaction and immersion while not at the expense of his/her leveling speed. Interaction is a key part of gaming so developers should try to capitalize on the fact that they have an expansive, thriving world and draw the player into it.

Choose your own incentive

What is your incentive to keep playing a game? Do you want to find out what happens at the end? Do you want to see how powerful you can get? Do you believe that the game begins at the end-game? Do you just want the shiny loot? Are all your friends there and you want to catch up so you can hang out? No matter what a MMO does, in the end you, the player, will decide for him/herself as to what they are looking forward to, and a justification to keep playing. Incentives will no doubt change over time, as you achieve new things in the game and discover new aspects, but ultimately it is you that drives the game along.

Every MMO should have content ready and waiting for the eager players to consume when they finish leveling, its a given. However what I'm finding more and more often is that the devs don't really tell you (The player) what it is you should be looking forward to until you actually hit it. Therefore you are often going to get it off the internet or from guildies who spent their lives powering to the top. Incentive is a big part of MMOs and when the devs don't give you any idea of what is to come then your only incentive then becomes to find out what is at the far end of the tunnel. That isn't right. You shouldn't be looking forward to finding out what you are going to be doing, because for that to work well then you need to be having a brilliant time leveling up, otherwise it won't sustain you.

In RoM I am losing my incentive to get to the top as I discover more and more about what is ahead of me. End-game in RoM is focused on raiding which is great, but from reports from others who have already been there and done that I'm beginning to get the idea that the end-game is just another grind. Thus my incentive to keep on playing went from looking forward to finding out what I was going to be doing, to looking forward to more grinding...

I have complained about this before but to me this is the most important aspect of an MMO. Today's MMOs have a reputation of a lot of grinding before you reach the end-game which is meant to be the most fun. So when you begin a new MMO and find out that the next few weeks is going to be mostly monotonous grinding, you need to be aware that the end-game is going to be super awesome!!! Nevertheless, I look forward to the day when MMOs have incentives to keep playing throughout the whole leveling process not just solely sitting at the end-game. (Which may not be the great in the end anyway!)
I think I better quit RoM because all my posts have turned into grinding whines. :P

Do you know your character?

I was thinking the other day about how I didn't really know or care who my character was in any MMO that I have played. The fact is that I have never seen my character as an individual who has any character and can change anything. The only difference between who I am and the next person is how they look. MMOs today seem really to lack deep stories that surround and suck in the player. Sure, we have developers who brag about how epic their story is, but the fact is that if they don't press it onto the player then often we never know it is there.

LotRO in my opinion has the best story-telling elements through the Books, yet even that game failed to achieve an 'epic' story. I remember in Baldur's Gate I was able to shape who my character was and how people reacted to him. I was engrossed in the story; I wanted to help those in my group, I didn't want to offend some, and I wanted be someone. And the game allowed me to do so. The many various side missions are not just generic time-filling fluff but actions that have a real effect in the world in which I am playing.

The problem seemingly is that in MMOs you can't really change the world around you since it is inhabited by so many other players, but I think this is a problem that can and shoudl be overcome. Perhaps sometime in the future I will look at the back of my character in an MMO and not see just a lot of epics hanging off me, but an individual that I have created with his/her own character.

Can they make an MMO on anything..or is a unwritten law not to do so?

I begin to wonder. I heard recently that Vin Diesel thought it would be fun just to make his own MMO, you know, cos he thinks it would be cool. Now, when we think about an MMO we automatically think orcs, elves, fantasy, raiding, grind. Its a lethal combination that works. There are a thousand and one Korean clones out there which all play the same and have nothing going for them. The rate at which these games seem to be churned out is incredible. So if the Koreans are breeding MMOs like crazy and Vin Diesel can make up a MMO because he thinks it will be fun then why aren't we getting better quality stuff? I mean, what do all those Koreans think when they release their game? Do they actually believe they have made a great game?

Just for once, can we have an MMO without the obligatory grind, (I mean if you can't create decent middle-game content just cut out leveling all together) for once can we have an MMO that has a different story/setting/character/classes? Surely, with all these MMOs being pumped out it wouldn't be too much of an effort to do so. I just wonder if Vin Diesel's MMO would have orcs in it and have "war" in the title somewhere...

Anti-Grind?

When a MMO offers you a game without a grind, many people take a second look. Grinding is a part of everyday life for most of us; its something we have grown up with and in a way it makes us feel secure. When I imagine a game without a grind I imagine a game with a massive variety of ways to reach the level cap, and plenty of things to keep me occupied when I do so. In a situation like this I can see myself getting scared that I am not getting everything I want to do done. That is a feeling that I rarely have experienced, generally it occurs when a completely pimped out toon walks past me and after a moment I follow, dragging my jaw along.

A MMO requires a lot of time and effort (Debatable) and surely, something that is incredibly fun when you first start can get old by the time you have spent 100+ hours doing it. So then the challenge is to create lots and lots of incredibly fun things, and that is a challenge, and would take quite a while to perfect. And I mean, why bother putting all that time and effort into creating a large variety of content that supports the anti-grind message when the developers could stick the old grind methodology into any old game, add a few sparkles, add a bit of epic loot, polish it up a little bit and the money pours in. (*cough* WoW *cough*)

PS. It feels like I have written this before? Have I said all this in a previous post?

My thoughts on Darkfall and PvP

So, everyone is talking about this upcoming PvP-orientated MMORPG that is soon to be released. First thing to note about the game is that it is going to be a niche market. WAR is not as hardcore as this game and it has quite a limited audience, so its not hard to imagine that despite the enormous interest Darkfall will ultimately have a relatively small following which isn't necessarily bad.

Originally I was quite interested in the game but although my ultimate love is in PvP there are a lot of things that Darkfall really needs to demonstrate that it has done properly before I jump on the bandwagon. A few aspects such as truly free PvP where basically anyone can attack anyone anywhere, as well as looting everything off an opposing player are interesting but potentially disastrous. This style of gaming even if pulled off right will only suite certain players, and if done wrong then no one will probably want to play it. Its a fine line that the developer will have to tread, probably even more so with the sudden spike of interest.

Many people for a long time have called for a PvP system where winning does not depend on the gear of each player but their skill. Its a nice concept but in my opinion virtually impossible to implement. To make a game sufficiently tactical the fights would have to go for longer, a larger variety of abilities provided, and a combat system that somehow incorporates skill into the equation, and this would probably be the hardest thing. What defines skill? Does it mean you know what skills go best together, what build to choose, what to use and when?

For Darkfall to survive and succeed, because of its very nature, it needs to have the best PvP system around, and that probably translates to a skill-based system. Its not going to be easy for them to get it right because we know that most people prefer a clear easy path to the top of the gear chain and having phat epix lewt to working hard at the game and having the simple satisfaction of beating a guy because they're better then him.

Is 15$/month the best way to go?

The title really explains my main thought. many of my friends have told me that the main thing that drives them away from MMOs is because of the continual price. What makes developers choose that particular number. Lets look at WAR. Lets just say it has 500k subscribers because we really don't know, it might be a bit generous but who knows? If they are charging 15 bucks a month excluding the price of the game they are pulling in 7.5 million every year.

But what would happen if Mythic changed the pricing from 15$/m to say 5$/m? To make that change worthwhile they would need an extra 1 million subscribers. If WAR has 500k subs now you have to think where did the other 200-300k people went who signed up for the beta. Perhaps if Mythic dropped down the price they would instantly get those extra 300k people back who had originally signed up for beta. Now we know that there isn't any way that all of them would come back, but we do know that there would have been plenty of people interested in WAR before release who didn't sign up to the beta so 300k could be a fair estimation.

5$/month isn't a lot of money at all and I reckon Mythic could easily get an extra 700k subs very quickly if they dropped it down. A lot of people wouldn't think it too much of a stretch to have a WAR sub and a WoW sub then as it doesn't cost a whole lot more. Without too much imagination this seems an viable payment plan for Mythic so why don't they try it out?

Although, if we do say that this all goes fine, and Mythic get their extra 700k subs then that is purely breaking even with the old plan, then comes the issue of profit. Mythic would need 3x more people to get the same amount of profit. Then it becomes questionable.

A sense of unacomplishment

I don't know about you but quitting an MMORPG as opposed to quitting any other type of game has always been more difficult. For most games I try and play the game all the way through, and if the game simply isn't fun then I would just stop playing without any regrets. If I do like the game then I would play the entire game through. If I really liked the game then I would play it through a number of times. If I don't like a MMORPG then, since nearly all the time I'm on a trial account, I would simply uninstall the game, no worries. However if I like the game then the problems start.

One of my favorite games of all time would be Baldur's Gate which I played when I was quite young. I must have started the game innumerable amounts of times; trying to get the best guy possible as well as the best group. Wow, that was a brilliant game. The game held my attention for so long that I even managed to finish it twice. But after that, I had tested everything and I had beaten the game twice so I really had nothing else left in the game to do. So the decision was easy and I uninstalled the game.

But in an MMO you can't finish a game unless your extremely hardcore gamer that dedicates his life to beating the game. (Which I'm not) Therefore, you will never get to the point where you can say I have beaten the game so there is nothing else for me to do. The simple nature of the MMO is that most of us will never finish the game and inevitably reach a point where we quit the game on the basis that it simply isn't any fun. It might take us different lengths of time to get to that point but in the end we will. And when we do quit like this there are always regrets about what we could have done in the game, and how it probably will get a big upgrade a week after we quit.

Why was World of Warcraft so good? part 2ish

I am sorry, I was going to write a lengthy article about this topic again, but slowly felt all life drain from me and the desire to live fading. It was too depressing. As I went through all the reasons why I believed that WoW was great it dawned on me that so much of this was missing from the present game.

I truly believe that WoW was a great game when it came out. I believe that it was great for a year or so after that but soon the patches and little adjustments were slowly taking away the challenge and authenticity of the game. It was getting easier and easier to do things that were so hard before. Gear nowadays is absurd, with purples being the norm, blues being useless. PvP is ridiculous. BGs are short and all anyone cares about is the gear that they are going to get by completing them. No longer are Horde and Alliance fighting each other in AV, now they just run madly past each other, drooling for loot.

The game is not an experience anymore, its carnival.

The reason why WoW was great was because it was a world; a place to get lost. There was so much to do, and seemingly everything mattered. The war effort event was hugely successful and helped the game because people did it not only for the rewards, and it added depth to the world. If a war effort happened today, the gear would need to be outrageous for anyone to give away their precious crafting gear. But nobody seems to want depth anymore. 10 million people say they like loot-grabbing goodness and fast leveling and Blizzard follow that. Money talks.
This is so depressing..
First WoW was great because it allowed the player to submerge him/herself in the game. Now it is popular because it rewards you for everything, everyone can look flashy, there is very little punishment, and there are so many things to do. This being said people now do not explore places or run low-lvl instances preferring to rush to the top and get their gear. Blizzard, I am sure, will someday release another mmorpg after WoW, I will be very interested to see whether it follows the first type/version of WoW, or the present one.

One thing is for certain; I am no good at doing 2-part posts.

Why World of Warcraft so good? Part 1

This is the question that so many developers have asked themselves. Why does everyone love WoW. Why does blizzard have over 10 million subscribers and there are no other really good mmorpgs on the market. What are other developers doing wrong? Are they dong anything wrong?

I'll kick off the study by quoting the blurb on the back of the World of Warcraft retail box;

'Descend into the World of Warcraft and join thousands of might heroes in an online world of myth, magic and limitless adventure. Jagged snowy peaks, mountain fortresses, harsh winding canyons. Zeppelins flying over smoldering battlefields, epic sieges-an infinity of experiences await. So what are you waiting for?

Seeing that now so much later then the initial release it seems so strange and clean as apposed to what WoW is seen to repesent and to be in the present day. Thousands would become millions. Beautiful scenery becomes flashy gear. Epic sieges become 15 minutes Alterac Valley battles. Things have changed so much.

I started my experience with WoW, like many others, from a trial disk that a gaming magazine gave out with one edition. Just from a few screenshots from the magazine the game looked exactly like the retail box blurb described it. It looked exciting, and fun, and the scenery looked stunning. I should note here that I have always had a truly dreadful computer that can only run most games on low graphics, if indeed at all, so it was a relief and a great new experience to enjoy something so rich and colourful.

I picked a dwarf warrior, and after messing around with his looks I entered the world of Warcraft. For the next hour or so I ran around aimlessly as I was in a completely new world, something I hadn't experienced before. Dun Morough was so fun. The music was calming, yet thrilling and I would take enjoyment from the smallest things, like completing my first quest, or finding a new zone. The game was fresh and exciting. I soon quit my dwarf warrior and started a human rogue. I didn't like the starting zone quite as much so dropped him soon after and took up a gnome mage. The mage sucked horribly at the time but I didn't care. I hit lvl 20, which was higher then any of my other characters, and was running around Redbridge having the time of my life. Soon I got tired of the gnome and started a human paladin. I enjoyed this so much that I played him right up to lvl 35 which was quite a feat for me, being normally restricted to 30min - one hours time playing per day.

Back then the aim of the game for me was not to level, I just enjoyed doing quests, finding new places, getting new gear, just basically playing the game. I never really grouped and I didn't craft, because I didn't know how. I was completely new to mmorpgs as I am sure were so many others. Those first few months were probably the most enjoyable for me, simply because it was new and special. No other game had seemed so important or interesting. I planned out what I was going to do in the game while I wasn't playing. I dreamed of the game, I discussed it with my brothers. It was all-consuming for me.

Perhaps it was because I was so young and naive and new to the scene but I think the reason I liked the game so much was firstly because it was simple, and that is key. And the second because it was simply fun. The game was simple to me; you logged on and ran around exploring the areas, get quests, kill new monsters, finish quests, and get new gear. That was the game for me and it was all I wanted. The game was simple in this manner, not getting serious until you started to hit the higher levels where it took real commitment to get to 60. And then it was hardcore raiding. I stayed away from this and just enjoyed my little, low level, nooby-new world. And it was fun in its simplicity.

What about you? What was your first mmorpg? What did you enjoy most about it? Was it a completely new experience? Did you enjoy just exploring and finding new quests and new monsters?

Storylines in mmorpgs

The other day I was reading the newspaper and came across this reviewer commenting on a movie. He claimed it had the storyline of a computer game which I can only judge to be pretty poor in his opinion as the movie was give only 2 and a half stars. It made me wonder how much story really is involved in a mmorpg and what it means to the player. I have to say that for the most part I don’t particularly care about the story of an average mmorpg but I do like some like LOTRO. I loved the book system and the way it really drew the player through the story while rewarding him. But for other systems I really got no sense of a storyline and therefore really didn’t seek it. Perhaps it is just me but if they do not ‘force’ the story on me then I don’t pay it much attention.

Dungeon Runners had no defining, overarching storyline and this caused me to feel confused and wonder exactly why I was dying constantly against massive mobs and watching a stupid shoe ad, while as for WoW I also got no sense of a storyline and yet did not care. I was happy to run around and do my thing perfectly ignorant of everything around me. Storylines are incorporated into mmorpgs in 3 different ways;

1. There is little obvious storyline and the gameplay sucks, therefore the game sucks such in Dungeon Runners.
2. There is little obvious storyline and the gameplay rocks, therefore you do not notice the absence of the story and have a great time anyway such as in WoW.
3. There is a fair bit of storyline for the player to enjoy but the gameplay suffers a little such as in the end-game of LOTRO.
4. There is a fair bit of storyline for the player to enjoy and the gameplay is great leaving a warm fuzzy feeling inside you, but I have not found a game yet that does this, although hoping that WAR achieves this feat.

While this is a rough generalization I think it covers the basics. Storyline is not essential to the quality of the game unlike a movie (making the comparison/argument of the reviewer obsolete} as what people really want is great gameplay.

Speculation on WAR

Its been a quiet couple of days and I have only been dabbling in various games with none particularly interesting me and, once again, my mind returns to longing for WAR to come out. This post is just some random thoughts written down.

I love everything that Mythic say they are going to do be doing in the game except for the crafting which I think will suck. In the end everyone will go scavenger and loot during RVR making it rather boring. Mythic love their non-recipe idea but I can guarantee within weeks all the best combinations will be widely available for the general public and no one will bother to experiment anymore. Mythic however could subtly improve and add combinations regularly that are even better then the ones on the internet but this most likely will not be done owing to that crafting could become overpowered extremely quickly.

Mythic have made it a nightmare to choose which class I will role and currently I am torn between the engineer, warrior priest, and perhaps hammerer, with the warrior priest looking the most inviting at the moment. I had been planning on playing one for quite a few months now and I was disappointed to hear that Mythic claimed that the 'healer' classes would be probably the most powerful in the game. I knew this would cause a ton of nooby players change their ideal class and on launch there is going to be an overload of 'healers'. As the supposedly most powerful class, healers will dominate the servers and everyone will hate them, then they'll get nerfed and no one will play them anymore. Of course this is all speculation as I haven't actually tried any of the classes and my judgment is based entirely on class info released by Mythic, I long for Open Beta where I will finally be able to try out all the classes.

I was interested to note that Mythic were promoting their classes like crazy; everywhere I go people are asking which side they will fight for and what class they are going to role. I'm not certain about other mmorpgs but as far as I can tell in no other game have so many players decided what class they were going to go before the launch, let alone the beta. I doubt too many players pre-WoW were discussing whether the paladin was cooler then the druid. The sheer number and diversity of the classes offers a choice to each player's desire, from the massive (stupid) choppers to the crazy-cool witch hunter. I think the choice to tone down the leveling time for the player was a brilliant call by Mythic as more people will be able to play their favorite classes to the cap at a comfortable pace, without being burnt out by their first toon. Many people can be scared away by the prospect of spending a seemingly huge amount of time reaching the lvl cap.

Scenarios are getting more interesting by the month, cities look great, PvE is taking shape so everything and everyone is looking forward.

Can gamers make a rubbish mmorpg good?

I mean, everyone says that the reason they play whatever mmorpg that they do play because of the people they play with, whether they be their guild or friends from the 'outside world.' This basically coincides with the general opinion that if a game like WoW was singleplayer no one would play it, it would have lost nearly all of its appeal. This argument is kinda' pointless because WoW wasn't designed a singleplayer but as an mmorpg. But the fact that the gaming community plays such as big part of an mmo the question arises can gamers make a rubbish mmorpg good?

I think the short answer is a simple no because in the first place most gamers wouldn't play a rubbish mmorpg. But lets just work with a hypothetical; say if a large group of gamers banded together and worked their utmost to make the game as fun as possible; forming one large guild one's entire purpose is to help each other out and have fun, always making groups for people to do hard quests or dungeons. Helping lower level players get better gear so they lvl faster. Organising massive group events in which everyone can participate, as well as offering crazy in-game items to participants. Would it do anything? Would other players be so involved and excited about it that they would tell all their friends about it and subscription sky-rocket? Would people be so immersed in their gaming community and all the great times they are having socializing with others that they would overlook the many flaws of the game?

No, it would never work. The guild would soon be flooded by beggars and whingers who would constantly complain about others getting better stuff then them. The organization required would be massive and in the end, the better gamers would be tired of babysitting others lower-level players. And the players that had been brought up with favors would lose interest instantly after they reached the top level and they have to start looking after themselves. This is all assuming that every player is ignoring all the flaws of the game.

So if its so certain why ask the question? Well, this is what a few mmorpg developers are doing nowadays; relying far too much on their large fan-base or active community and hoping that their loyalty and commitment will cover up the faults of their game. In conclusion, no matter how good a community any game has in the end it comes down to the quality of the game.

Virtuality vs. Reality

Word of Shadow has made a particularly good point about the dedication required for gaming and how it contrasts to fitness in real life. Its a nice comment and I thought I would make my own post about it.
When I was a bit younger I played basketball, indoor cricket, cricket, floorball, as well as gymnastics and boxing. I now participate in none of these, preferring to lead the quiet life of a satisfied nerd/gamer. Now, I don't really want to go into great depths about how unfit this change has made me because I will only break down and get depression. The main reason I gave up all the physical sports was because of two things; the first was because I wasn't particularly enjoying myself, my teams were either not dedicated or just not very good, or even both. I didn't really like losing and it seemed to happen an awful lot, and the fun I had actually playing and occasionally winning wasn't enough to prevent me from quitting. The second reason is the fact that I was feeling no great benefit or accomplishment from doing them. I saw no change in my physical appearance; I had no bulging biceps or a washboard stomach and so I couldn't be bothered putting in the effort anymore.

This applies to mmorpgs as well. These games are designed to play with others, and much of the enjoyment derived by playing is from interacting with other players. Guilds are the perfect solution to one's loneliness, providing a whole new world of things to do which were not possible, or just not as easy previously. However, the people in these guilds generally have to match your attitude towards the game, match your dedication and skill, for it to be fully enjoyable. If they are not then it leads to disappointment, frustration, and ultimately /gquit-ing.

And if the game does not offer the player enough flashy stuff then they will soon lose interest. When there is little noticeable reward to the player, he will lose interest and motivation to keep on grinding away.

This may not however apply to everyone, some being more resilient and patient then others will continue on doggedly, but for the most part gamers want in the game what they want in real life; visible and impressive improvements. The downside to this is that in real life you can only reach a point in which you cannot get any better, and when you have reached this point then why continue? Remind you of end-game much?