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Google's Area 120 reveals Pinterest-like app called Keen
Keen, the latest experiment to come out of Google’s Area 120, sounds an awful lot like Pinterest.
Anti-Aliased: LotRO will only go down in flames if you let it
Damn my column being on Thursdays. It makes me a week late to the "Lord of the Rings Online going free-to-play" discussion, and that makes me sad. Still, a short passage of time isn't going to stop me from sinking my teeth into this subject, so be prepared for an onslaught of opinion! So, I read a lot of opinions last week. I read the opinions here, I read the opinions on the blogosphere, and I listened to the chat room, Facebook, and Twitter. I was all over the place. While there was a lot of criticism and praise being flung around for Lord of the Rings Online making this absolutely crazy move, it's the criticism that I want to tackle in today's column. Specifically, there's one piece of criticism that I feel needs to have bull called on it -- the concept that the Lord of the Rings Online community will fall apart the second the free-to-play crowd is mixed in.
Blogger compares Aion to WoW and WAR
Keen has two blog posts up discussing the similarities and differences between Aion and World of Warcraft and Warhammer Online. The first thing you should bear in mind is that he has not played Aion all the way through to the end game, even though he has "finished" both other MMOs. The second thing of note is that these points of comparison were requested by his readers.Even if one has not played Aion's end game, one can still make a valid comparison of certain aspects of it -- one just can't compare everything. There are a couple points where Keen defers to others who have more experience with the Korean servers and Chinese beta. Even with the level 20 North American beta cap (weekend #3), you'll get a pretty strong sense of where Aion is going because that level is 40% of the way to cap. Head on over to Keen's two blog posts (Aion vs. WoW and Aion vs. WAR) and see for yourself. The comments are loaded with good information too.
The Daily Grind: Are you enjoying The Land of the Dead?
The Call to Arms live expansion for Warhammer Online was over six months in the making. It gave WAR players the Choppa and Slayer classes, RvR tokens, keep upgrades, and culminated last week in the arrival of The Land of the Dead mega-zone. Massively wants to know if you're enjoying it.We've been keeping tabs on various WAR bloggers who have shared their thoughts. Keen feels that the zone flips a bit too easily but is happy with the new content overall. LotD isn't the mecca of RvR that Bootae had hoped for, but he's still quite pleased with the quality of it (over the quantity). As for Thulf, well he was actually drawn back to WAR after a couple months' absence to give it a shot. It's too early for him to tell whether or not he'll keep his subscription open for it.This writer is still waiting for the dust to settle. I don't know if there are any major issues with the zone or its effect on RvR, but I'm hesitant to jump in head first and have my experience spoiled by anything. The ancient undead can wait a little longer for this explorer.
More reactions to BioWAAAGH!
We've been keeping our eyes on various blogs and forums discussing yesterday's big news that Mythic and BioWare are being restructured under EA's new MMO/RPG gaming division and that Mark Jacobs is no longer working for EA. Here's a summary of what we've found so far.Many people are under the false impression that Mythic and BioWare have merged. One of Mythic's developers made this clarification: "We're still Mythic Entertainment, an Electronic Arts Studio, as we have been. I've posted this elsewhere, but we're not 'merging.' We are still a completely separate entity within EA, just as Bioware is, simply now grouped under the same MMO/RPG grouping and reporting to one person, collectively."
Keen talks more on Darkfall, highlights good and bad issues
One of the best looks we get at Darkfall is from the varied community that plays it, and one of the most outspoken proponents of the game's ups and downs has been Keen from the Keen and Graev Gaming Blog.In his most recent post, Keen has gone into the specifics of what he finds off with Darkfall the most -- the pacing issues. While the game presents enjoyable concepts, those concepts are overshadowed by globs of downtime paired with grinding. The fast-paced action of the game is drowned out by the slow pace that the game itself moves at. Certainly the city building and politics of the game work as intended and are fun sections, but the sieges themselves move slowly as they usually feature 10 guilds attacking one guild.Another one of Keen's issues is the lack of incentive. He gives the example that he could walk across the world and spend hours doing it, but why should he when everything he has can be found in a small area? Players aren't encouraged to get together and tackle with trust issues, they're encouraged to stay apart in their own borders.For Keen's full thoughts on the many facets of Darkfall, check out his posts over on his blog.
Darkfall patch surprises with changes to the core game design
Usually games give players a heads up when they're going to be changing some things, so this way people can prepare or comment on the upcoming edits. This isn't the case for Darkfall, however, as the development team has literally surprised the player base with some worthy changes to the game.One of the biggest changes is the reduction of maximum positive alignment from 100 to 10. This means a player will only be able to kill someone from their own faction once before they feel the sting of the "rogue player / murderer" social system, instead of letting players gain reputation up to 100 and then go on a virtual killing spree without any punishment.
Darkfall delivers on player expectations?
When you go into a movie, sporting event, or new MMORPG with very high expectations, you're likely to be disappointed. In the case of pre-release Darkfall Online, player expectations were all over the map from dismissive naysayers, to undecided fence-sitters, to drooling fanboys. Actually, it's like that for most MMOs, isn't it?Based on information he read on forums, fansites, and gleaned from videos, Keen established his own set of expectations for the various features advertised for Darkfall (he wasn't in beta). Now that he's been playing a while, he decided to rate his initial expectations versus his early impressions. The list includes items like the skill, magic, and crafting systems, graphics, PvP gameplay, and many more.Keen rates 12 parts of Darkfall in total on a highly scientific scale of Fantastic to Total Crap and gives his overall impressions so far. For instance, he expected the combat to be Decent but finds it to be Great, the magic system to be Good but finds it to be Mediocre, and server stability + communication from Adventurine to be Bad but finds it to be Total Crap. It's an interesting way to rate a new MMO, so check out his blog for the full details.
Darkfall impressions on mounts and guild politics
Paragus is back with another mini Darkfall review over at MMORPG.com. This time he's talking about mounts and politics.Mounts in Darkfall are quite a bit different than you'll find in other MMORPGs. The biggest difference is that you don't purchase them from vendors; they come from crafters who learn the "taming" skill. Mounts aren't just vehicles to get you from point A to B either; they can swim and attack (kicking and biting). They can also be stolen by other players, killed, and healed. The controls for mounts are excellent and you can actually attack other players with a one-handed weapon from the saddle.Darkfall's unrestrictive PvP also supports an interesting political system. Guilds can be neutral, allied, or at war with each other. You can even be at war with a guild of your own race. Guards won't intervene when you're fighting a guild you're at war with in a city either. This obviously leads to some complex relationships when you become allied with other guilds because you must factor all the guilds they're at war with.Anyone interested in Darkfall should also take a look at Keen's blog because he has been keeping a very detailed journal of his experiences.
So, you think you're a hardcore PvPer, eh?
The Darkfall hype has shot through the roof these past few days. Since the NDA was lifted, many reviews have surfaced and they all say pretty much the same thing; Darkfall is technically sound but lacks content polish, and due to its core game design and griefing potential, will only really appeal to the hardcore PvPer. And by "hardcore PvPer," they mean pre-Trammel UO slash AC Darktide fans. Haaardcore.A few interesting blog posts popped up yesterday that bring something a bit new to the table. Tobold shared his Darkfall beta experience and suggested that while the game may find it's niche, it will be a very small one because most gamers prefer to play it safe. He points out that even in other PvP-centric games like EVE and UO, people tend to congregate in the safe havens if given the option. Scott Jennings also weighed in on hardcore PvPers. He believes people may appreciate the idea of hardcore PvP in the abstract, but tend to wuss out when push comes to shove. He cites past experience with the quick to rise and fall of PvP servers in DAOC. Finally, Keen lets us know that he finally got his pre-order after refreshing the order page for many hours. He shares a quote from lead Darkfall dev, Tasos, who says they are receiving 20 times the amount of web traffic to their order page than originally estimated.
Keen and Graev's AoC podcast makes its first transmission
MMO bloggers Keen and Graev have published the first episode of their Age of Conan podcast. Well, it's the first if you don't count the open beta special they did earlier this month, anyway.In this episode, they talk about their impressions of the game during its Early Access period, from Tortage to the Wilds. They also describe the performance and stability improvements Funcom has managed to make since the rather troubled open beta event. It sounds like the duo generally has positive feelings about AoC's post-launch existence so far, but a few criticisms are raised about things like the user interface and the way the game's world is pieced together.The conversation is an honest intro to the state of Hyboria at the moment; it's worth a listen whether you're already playing AoC or still sitting on the fence.
FPS gamers build skyscrapers, MMO gamers fling poo, film at 11
It's a little disconcerting to be told that your game genre of choice, massively multiplayer online role-playing games, is the last refuge of people who more or less play games in their sleep, unable to hack the action of a REAL game. As played by REAL gamers. Who are not us. How does AT Wire's Alex Taldren come by this startling conclusion? Keen of Keen and Graev's posted recently that Age of Conan's combo-based melee system just replaces a single keystroke with five, and that gamers will soon automate combos with macros or smart keyboards back to one key only.This was the moment when Taldren threw up his hands and admitted something that should have been clear given his upright posture and relatively hairless body: He was not originally an MMO gamer. In fact, he had come from the realm of first person shooters, and looks in on us scratching his head and watching MMO gamers "wiping their asses with leaves". This is a man who loves his keystrokes with a fiery passion. And why aren't MMO gamers real gamers? Writes Taldren, "MMO gamers are people who generally don't enjoy playing their games."There it is. Real gamers play because they love playing games. We MMO gamers play MMOs because we don't ... like ... games? We have to admit to some confusion. Maybe Alex will stop by and clear this up.[Via MMO Gamers]
AoC beta: a tale of two clients
Frustrated with the Age of Conan open beta's serious performance problems? Worried that the game won't be ready for retail in just a couple of weeks? Don't worry too much; not it is all as it seems. Word on the virtual street is that the open beta client is an old build with issues long since resolved in the closed beta version.When the IGN beta event finally began on Thursday, thousands of excited gamers ended up more frustrated than entertained. The experience has been marred by low framerates, stuttering, and frequent hard crashes. Admittedly, it's a beta; some of that is to be expected. But it's bad, and since the game's retail release is less than three weeks away, there's an air of concern that Age of Conan will hit retail in an unplayable state. The reality is more complex than that.
PotBS gets patch 1.0.44.0 before launch
Pirates of the Burning Sea has received its first patch (and whaddaya know, even before it actually gets released). Preorder-ers got to start playing last week, and apparently there are already a few fixes that need to go in.As you might guess, it's mostly a stability patch, although a few exploits were fixed as well (there was one where you could stack buffs and become invincible. Lower level missions were also retuned-- apparently there were too many missions in the beta that were too low, so FLS has tweaked those up a notch. Bam! Keen loves this change, but he would-- he loves everything PotBS (I kid! Keen's actually been doing a great job covering the game).The only other change of note is that FLS "removed text we thought might offend the ESRB." That's not piratical behavior! When you're a pirate, you don't worry about what landlubbers think! You say what's on yer mind, and damned be the consequences!
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Dream of Mirror Online's cel-shaded look works for it
Our own Tateru Nino has been covering Dream of Mirror Online pretty well (both with a nice hands-on and coverage of the problems with EU players), and now Keen (of Keen and Graev) has written up a few of his own impressions of the game as well. He doesn't go nearly as in-depth as Tateru's hands-on (just mentions that there are a few "kill x boars pigs" quests), but he does talk about how the cel-shading and stylization of the graphics is a real boost for the game, both in terms of playability (the low system requirements are great for pulling in casual players) and in terms of feel. Both Tateru and Keen felt that the world was really alive with characters and story.My original concern with the game was that the gameplay would end up "as cutesy as the graphics are," but according to what we've heard, it's actually pretty in-depth. Anyone else given the world of DOMO a try?
The coming of mudflation
Keen (of Keen and Graev) has a great post up about what he calls "mudflation" (a combination of the words MUD and inflation). If you've been playing any MMO through the introduction of an expansion, you'll know exactly what he's talking about. That shiny bit of loot you worked for weeks to obtain doesn't look quite so hot when players are grabbing an even better piece from a quick five-minute quest.Truth be told, "mudflation" isn't actually a bad thing. Change is inherent to MMOs, and it's unavoidable that just as the bar will raise (there will be new heights for players to climb to), so will the minimum rise as well. Mudflation is actually a good thing for the majority of players by definition-- if you consider players as a normal distribution, with a small number of players at the top of the endgame, and a small number of players just entering the endgame, "mudflation" is actually that swell of players in the middle getting their hands on some really new items.There is a problem, however, with mudflation that I haven't really seen an MMO skillfully deal with yet-- what happens to the content made obsolete? Whenever an expansion comes through town, the old worlds and content get more or less abandoned. While the newest players may still find a little bit of joy in discovering "the old world," they too eventually learn to abandon it for the greener pastures brought with the new content. Mudflation is all well and good for the folks picking up the new shiny items, but it's too bad that MMO makers haven't come up with a better plan for making old content relevant to new players.
