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The Soapbox: This is how reviews actually work
Welcome back to the Soapbox, folks. Actually, let's call this a mini-Soapbox, since it's just a wee thing compared to some of the walls-of-text we've previously published in this space. Anyhow, let's talk about reviews, bias, and subjectivity. Whether it be film criticism, concert recaps, book reviews, or game reviews, there's an illogical expectation out there regarding "unbiased" work and -- to directly quote a recent Massively commenter -- "correct and honest" reviews.
Working As Intended: The forgotten fields of Green Acres
My first trip to Ultima Online's Green Acres was in 1998. The first guild I'd ever joined had just split up into a bunch of... let's call them "philosophically incompatible" groups, and I was still hanging out with some of the shadier types because I was a clueless teenager in my first MMO and wanted desperately to fit in and hadn't yet figured out where I belonged. "Hit this rune," my new guild leader commanded. His favorite murderin' weapon was a poisoned warfork. He was not a nice man. "I'm being evicted from my safehouse in Green Acres. Help me move my crap."
Working As Intended: Dabbling in indie sandbox Villagers and Heroes
Villagers and Heroes is not the sort of sandbox that gets a lot of coverage in the gaming press. You can't gank in the game. No one will murder you for your ore or your logs. There are no petty internet crime lords generating scandals or developers being ousted for cheating. Clichéd zombies are not waiting to slaughter you come nightfall. You cannot fall off a cliff or treetop pathway to your death. You never have to walk 10 miles uphill in the snow both ways to get to your house. You don't have to wait in line for an instance. You don't really have to fight at all. In fact, the worst thing that might happen to you is that you'll run out of energy.
Working As Intended: What Guild Wars 2 got wrong
Back in March, I spent an entire Working As Intended column discussing the game mechanics that Guild Wars 2 got right. But that's just one side of the story. In order to be completely fair to the game and to myself, I want to grump about the things it got wrong. Don't take this as utter condemnation for the MMO; we're most critical of the things we love precisely because we love and know them so well and want them to be so much more. And in spite of all the things I love about Guild Wars 2, it's far too often living in the shadow of its older sibling.
Working As Intended: Change for change's sake in World of Warcraft
MMORPGs struggle to meet two contradictory goals: They want to provide stability, permanence, a world you feel you can always come home to, and they want to provide dynamism, change, a world that always has something fresh and new. Lean too hard to one side -- change too much or too little -- and the backlash from fans and former fans and future fans can be overwhelming. That's something Blizzard has never learned. With World of Warcraft, Blizzard is constantly chasing different demographics to maximize its playerbase, and those different demographics typically want different things out of the game, be they veterans or returnees or hardcores or casuals. Most of the game's expansions have retooled combat and classes and specs in some way, but in Cataclysm, and now again in Warlords of Draenor, the class revamps have been so far-reaching that they actually manage to turn off both veterans and returnees. Gamers, it seems, are willing to tolerate only so much dramatic change to their precious characters before rebelling. This is a lesson City of Heroes could have taught World of Warcraft had Blizzard been listening.
Working As Intended: There's nothing wrong with soloing in MMORPGs
A Massively community member recently wrote into the podcast to tell us that he prefers to solo, to craft for himself, to avoid group quests, and to skip guilds. Still, he told us, he loves MMOs and doesn't want to leave them to play single-player RPGs. "What the hell is wrong with me?" he asked. Nothing. Nothing at all. There's nothing wrong with soloing in MMORPGs.
Working As Intended: What Guild Wars 2 got right
I returned to Guild Wars 2 recently after months away and was pleasantly surprised with what I found. No, there was nothing earth-shatteringly new, and no, I'm not going to praise the latest installment of the plot, but I realized that I'd forgotten just how much Guild Wars 2 managed to get right. I have many complaints about the game ranging from the way group combat in dungeons flopped to how the economy tanked to the fact that the living story bores me to tears. But Guild Wars 2 has some true nuggets of brilliance all the same, even if it doesn't have (I'm gonna say it) Cantha. Let's talk about them.
The Soapbox: Let me tell you how little I want to raid
Over the past several years, Blizzard has been very attentive when it comes to making it easier for players to raid. Raid sizes have gone down, then they've moved over to a flex structure. The raid finder was added to the game. Mechanics were toned down, while getting drops has been made even easier. With the next expansion, you won't even need to toy around in difficult instances to get ready for raiding; you can just jump in pretty much from the point you hit the level cap. All of this in response to a lot of people saying that they don't want to raid -- all of this so thoroughly missing the point of that statement. This is one of those hurdles a lot of designers can't seem to conceptually get over. World of Warcraft's design team has had years of people saying this, and every response from the team has been missing the point so completely that it's almost absurd. I don't want to raid, at all, ever. End of discussion.
The Soapbox: Does Trion realize what it has in ArcheAge?
Can I share how nervous I am about the fact that ArcheAge is finally heading West? Thanks because I really need someone to talk to about this stuff. I'm going to skip over the F2P hand-wringing, both because I covered it nine months ago and because there's nothing anyone can do about it. And there's plenty of reason to fret about the rest of what's in store for starving western sandbox fans, anyway. Join me after the cut and we'll worry about it together.
Dear Apple, please let us delete whole albums from our iPhones again
I listen to a lot of music on my iPhone -- probably too much music, if the hearing loss in my right ear is any indication. For years it was a delight. The sound quality was great and I didn't have to carry an iPod everywhere. Being forced to deal with iTunes if you don't enjoy syncing records was a pain, but at least we would easily quickly clear up space on the device by manually deleting whole albums. Then came iOS 7, and suddenly the world had lost this bit of light. Why did Apple take away the ability to manually delete whole albums from the device? iOS 7 is supposed to be the future; so why is the future worse than the past for music fans? Perhaps the developers of iOS 7 only listen to jazz records where it's common to only have a few long tracks on a whole record. Deleting a copy of Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain song by song only takes eight swipes. But say you've got an audiobook of Game of Thrones on your device containing hundreds of tracks or a Springsteen live album you'd like to delete to make room for a video. You have three options. First, you can wait until you get home, turn on iTunes, scroll through the abysmal "sync" windows, uncheck everything you need to delete, re-sync your device, and then go back to where ever you wanted to shoot your video. Second, you can delete all of the music/audio files on your device in Settings. Or third, you can slowly, manually delete tracks one by one until you've made enough space. Or Apple could give us a fourth option, the return of an incredibly basic feature. Sometimes things need to be deleted on the fly. What does a traveler without a laptop do? It's not as if they can borrow a stranger's computer to manage their files without losing information. An iPhone is supposed to help make your life easier, it shouldn't require you to have a computer to properly use it. So please Apple, embrace music listeners with their own digital collections and give us back the freedom we once enjoyed on your wonderful device. Let us delete whole albums again. I'll stand out in front of your offices with a boom box over my head proclaiming my love. Just don't make me go home or delete my whole music collection to free up space on my phone.
16 GB of storage is unacceptable in 2014
Editor's Note: Sometimes our debates in the TUAW newsroom get a bit heated. That was the case when Erica Sadun and Mike Wehner faced off about the merits -- or lack thereof -- of 16 GB devices. Hopefully you just finished reading Erica's post, which took the pro side of Apple continuing to sell devices with "only" 16 GB of storage. Now here's Mike's response... Apple products are all about evolution. From the many incremental upgrades made to Macs each year to the off-year "s" additions that grace the iPhone, the company is typically good about making sure its products are current in every sense of the word (we'll give them a pass on the Mac Pro, just because the final product was so damn gorgeous). But if there's one area where Apple needs a reality check, it's in storage. No, I'm not going to argue that we need removable storage on the iPad, iPhone, or iPod -- at this point the monolithic nature of each iDevice is part of the appeal -- but for the love of all that is shiny, 2014 needs to be the year that kills 16 GB storage options. In 2007, the iPhone launched in 4 GB, 8 GB, and 16 GB varieties. The 4 GB version was arguably useless (OK, that's not true, but it was pretty close, especially if you wanted to put music on it), but the 8 GB and 16GB models were fine for the time. Fast forward to 2011, and Apple was still offering 8 GB of storage on the iPhone 4s. I always thought this was a strange move, as by that time the phone had an extremely capable camera and was playing host to massive games like Infinity Blade. Apple should have made 32 GB the default storage amount as soon as it decided to make "Retina" a household term. The 8 GB option died with the launch of the iPhone 5, but by that point it had already outlived its usefulness, and I think Apple is letting the same thing happen now with the 16 GB tier. 16 GB of storage may be enough for very casual iPhone and iPad users, but as soon as it took over the default crown from the 8 GB option, it was already nearing its twilight days. Now, 16 GB -- which is really more like 12 GB of usable space -- doesn't do much for anyone interested in music, movies, photography, or (especially) apps. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas takes up 1.63 GB of space on its own. A single HD movie can take up 5 GB. If I were adding items to a new iPad right now as I type, it would already be halfway full, and I haven't taken a single photo or shot a single HD video. Yikes. In 2007, flash-based memory was expensive, and jumping up from 16 GB to 32 GB warranted a healthy bump in price, but storage prices have plummeted in recent years. In fact, 32 GB of storage is cheaper now than 16 GB was when it became the default option. There's really no reason for Apple to launch a single iPhone or iPad in 2014 with anything less than 32 GB of flash storage. The only case in which I can see smaller storage options is in the iPod line, especially the nano and shuffle, but anything with an HD screen really needs to be given the room to shine.
16 GB of storage is just enough
Editor's Note: Sometimes our debates in the TUAW newsroom get a bit heated. That was the case when Erica Sadun and Mike Wehner faced off about the merits -- or lack thereof -- of 16 GB devices. We decided that the best way to resolve the debate was to let them each write a post. Here's Erica's entry; Mike's will be posted in 30 minutes here on TUAW. On Friday, I placed an order for my latest new device: a refurbished silver iPad. Shipped, it cost $399 plus tax. Like my previous iPads, I opted for the 16 GB device. I can't defend the 16 GB line on its merits. It takes a lot of work and overhead to maintain one. You must constantly weed through apps and documents to keep the device streamlined and ready for upgrades. But for many of us, the 16 GB option is the one that allows us to watch our pocketbooks while remaining in the iOS ecosystem. As anyone who owns a 16 GB unit, I've been subjected to many day-to-day space indignities. Not enough space to sync. Not enough space to update the firmware. Too many photos synced to my stream. Too much music in my library so I cherry-pick my play lists. Using a space-limited iPad certainly has its downsides but, that said, I use it differently than my iPhone. I read books on my tablet; I listen to music on my phone. I play a lot more games on my iPad; I place phone calls on the iPhone. I spend most of my Twitter time on the iPad and interact nearly exclusively with notes and reminders on my phone. This difference in usage is reflected in the number of apps I have installed at any time (many on my iPhone, very few on the iPad), as well as the media libraries I have established. Settings > General > Usage tells me that I am using almost 3 GB of precious tablet space just for books compared to just 1 GB for music. On my iPhone, I carry almost no books at all but over 13 GB of music. Where the 16 GB unit really hurts is with movies. Each movie requires about 1-2 GB of storage on average. That means to watch movies, I have to load them over to the iPad, then watch and delete to make more room for the next one. It's not convenient, but it's doable. As much as I'd love more onboard storage, the price-to-value ratio just doesn't work out for my family. I'm really glad that Apple continues to offer relatively inexpensive entry models because its space-limited options allow us to be part of this system. We may not be dreaming of the extra management overhead but we're happy to have some really cool Apple kit to take home with us.
CNBC publishes abysmal list of "things Apple needs to do right now"
Apple naysayers are a dime a dozen these days, and you don't have to dig very far on any business or general tech website to find someone who thinks Cupertino is akin to a barn on fire. So when I say I was actually shocked at how ridiculous CNBC's recent "Three things Apple needs to do right now" op-ed is, you know it has to be especially bad. And it is. The article was written by Michael Yoshikami, CEO of Destination Wealth Management. Let's dive in. Apple is trying to tap into the billion-dollar industry of health and well-being monitoring, which is currently dominated by Sony and Fitbit. This is an encouraging sign of innovation at the company, something many question whether Apple possesses or not now that Steve Jobs is no longer at the helm. I think it's well past time to drop the whole "can Tim Cook lead Apple?" schtick. Under Cook we've seen the release of the iPhone 4s, 5, 5c and 5s, the iPad 3, 4, Air, and both minis, and a wealth of new Mac products, not to mention the completely revamped iOS 7. Yes, many of those -- particularly the products released in late 2011 and 2012 -- are evolutions of products that were likely well underway while Jobs was still calling the shots, but we've seen absolutely nothing to suggest Cook is anything but perfectly in tune with what consumers want. Suggesting otherwise is irresponsible, useless hand wringing. Without innovation, tech companies get left behind. That's something Apple knows all too well and something we've seen in a couple of other tech giants recently. Apple ≠ BlackBerry. Apple ≠ Sony. Apple ≠ HTC. Apple can't just come out with a new iPhone that is a minor upgrade to their current iteration; it simply won't fly. Correct, and that's why Apple has never, ever done that in the history of the iPhone. There's no reason to think it's going to start now. Apple needs to do three things to regain their reputation for innovation: 1. Present to the marketplace new products in untapped segments (such as TV, payment mechanisms, and health-tracking devices) First, I'd argue that Apple hasn't lost any of its reputation for leading the way with new and unique technology. Its smartphones and tablets are the most capable, shaming its competitors almost universally, and when Apple introduces a new iPhone feature, you can mark your calendar and expect it to appear on a Samsung phone within six months. Second, these new product categories read like something the author overheard at a Starbucks in the valley last summer. Yes, Apple is building a team of health experts that are almost certainly working on adding new functionality to existing gadgets, creating an entirely new product, or both. Yes, Apple is interested in expanding its capabilities in the living room, as evidenced by emphasis on its Apple TV offerings. And yes, mobile payments are something every company would like a piece of. Telling a company it "needs to do" something it's already doing isn't prophetic. 2. Deliver a next-generation iPhone that isn't just evolutionary but instead contains meaningful technological advances such as the fingerprint scanner included in the iPhone 5s. Let me rephrase this one to make its silliness crystal clear: "Remember how Apple introduced a revolutionary feature with the iPhone 5s just a few months ago? Well they need to do that again... or they're doomed." This is a bit like saying that Paypal needs to keep taking online payments or they're screwed. Yeah, we get it, Apple needs to keep being awesome. 3. Paint a clear vision as to their view on the emergence of new technology and how it will be incorporated into products. Is this the 1980s? Do you want a mission statement? Apple paints a clear picture of their view on new technology every time a new Apple product is introduced. Apple has never been shy about both introducing completely new features and adopting fantastic functionality from its competitors. If you don't know how Apple feels about this, you really haven't been paying attention. I believe Apple will shock skeptics and demonstrate in 2014 that innovation is alive and well at the company. While no one can replace Steve Jobs, there is ample bench strength that will push Apple into new markets with innovative products. Oh lovely, and the entire rant is wrapped up with a prediction that Apple will be just fine. Of course it will. Apple will be fine because the company doesn't read ridiculous lists of things it "needs to do." Nothing to see here, folks.
The Soapbox: My hypersexualization conundrum
Every now and then here at Massively, we receive an email that isn't super nice. I know this may come as a shock to many of you -- the internet is, after all, a place of tolerance and constructive debate -- but sometimes the Massively inbox is no place any sane person would want to be. One reader recently took the opportunity to offer some choice thoughts on Massively staffers. And amidst the jumble of insults and generalizations, the reader levied the ever-powerful "hypocrisy" charge at us for claiming to care about hypersexualized designs of female characters in MMOs while simultaneously playing as those very hypersexualized characters. How could we possibly purport to care about the presentation of women in games if we're all running around in chainmail bikinis? Generally speaking, I prefer to not have my habits and behavior challenged via ad hominem attacks and false comparisons. But I have to admit that this one particular charge piqued my curiosity. Why is it that the majority of my characters are female? Am I, as a person who looks down on hypersexualized designs in games, committing an act of hypocrisy every time I create a female character? Let's sort it out. And before we begin, remember that the Soapbox, like most of our editorials, is just one person's opinion and doesn't represent the thoughts of Massively as a whole.
Why I Play: Neverwinter
I have to say that for all of my yapping about needing to play MMOs that allow me to freely roam and to explore a virtual world and live a virtual life, I sure am a fan of linear themeparks. Who isn't? In fact, show me someone who now claims to be the enemy of all things themed, and I'll show you someone who at some point enjoyed the benefits of a good themepark, most likely World of Warcraft. I'm not sure why there's any shame in admitting that one enjoys a good romp through a virtual storybook, but I sure do. In fact, I often depend on it in order to get me over lazy sandbox slumps. Neverwinter is one of my favorite themeparks out there. There are quite a few reasons it works so well, many of them obvious. I'd like also to point out some of the reasons Neverwinter might work so well for certain types of players.
The Soapbox: Novel content trumps novel mechanics
Action combat. Interactive conversations. Public quests. Voxel worlds. There are many game mechanics that developers of massively multiplayer online games crow about when promoting their games because these are the things that make their games stand out from the pack. Even if they're not the first to do it, they'll proclaim that they're doing it bigger and better than their predecessors. I don't have a problem with any of this. It's when the developers and their ardent fans gloss over the importance of the actual content these mechanics are applied to that I get annoyed. Mechanics are just a skeleton, and they can't do anything at all without some meat on the bones. Content matters, and good, fresh content will keep players interested long after the novelty of unusual mechanics has worn off.
Why I Play: Defiance
As I did with RIFT when it was announced, sent to beta, and released, I gave Defiance a bit of a hard time. Sure, I dug the shooter aspect of it, but its attachment to the television show and (what I took as) promises of interactions between both the game and show had me giving the game the side-eye. Yeah right, I thought, this will be some sort of "revolutionary" game. Well, I was half right. That means I was also half wrong. The game is not really revolutionary in many ways, but it does do many things that have never been done before. The more I play it, the more I see that the game developers and producers of the show sold the entire thing the wrong way from the start, but "the show will grow on ya, don't worry" would not make for a good tagline, and "the game is damn fun and does away with all of that level-based stuff that plagues RIFT" would probably not look too great on the game's website. Either way, I'm glad I've stuck with the game and the show. The game, especially, has provided me with hours of entertainment. In order to illustrate how I enjoy the game, I think it would be easiest to detail a typical evening of play.
The Soapbox: MMO 'nostalgia' isn't nostalgia
Here's the Merriam-Webster online dictionary definition of the word nostalgia. nos·tal·gia noun \nä-ˈstal-jə, nə- also nȯ-, nō-; nə-ˈstäl-\ : pleasure and sadness that is caused by remembering something from the past and wishing that you could experience it again 1 : the state of being homesick : homesickness 2 : a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition; also : something that evokes nostalgia And here's where I tell you that nostalgia is the most misused, overused, and overly simplistic word in modern MMO discourse.
The Soapbox: Enough with selling alpha tests already!
The dam has burst, restraint has been cast off, and caution has been thrown to the wind. Seemingly overnight, game studios all over the place have thrown the doors open to the general public to get in on alpha testing, usually as a reward for loyalty and financing. Steam has an entire Early Access section that's dominating the sales charts, offering players a chance to hop right into an anticipated game while it's still in the middle of development. Kickstarter games routinely offer alpha and beta access to their financers as part of their reward structure. Trove, Elite: Dangerous, Shroud of the Avatar, Star Citizen, and EverQuest Next Landmark are among the vanguard of upcoming MMOs that have promised alpha or early access to players willing to shell out a few bucks right now. It's not enough to covet and chase after a beta key these days; all of the cool kids are in the alpha, apparently. The willingness of developers to wield alpha access as a reward and the enthusiastic acceptance by gamers to literally buy into it has me very concerned that this could poison the industry, the community, and the future of our games.
The Soapbox: Launching with a subscription is still a good idea
The massively multiplayer online game industry is constantly changing, but one thing about it never will so long as capitalism stands: MMOs have ongoing costs, and those costs are passed on to the end user. Exactly how they're passed on is one of the things that has been changing, but new methods don't mean old methods don't have their place. New isn't good because it's new. New is good because it can provide solutions to old problems. When an old method is seen as the source of a problem actually caused by something unrelated, shoving a new method in there can just create new problems. So why all the wailing and gnashing of teeth over games trying out a subscription before they move onto other models? And why all the wailing and gnashing of teeth in retaliation to this opinion?
