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EVE's alliance warfare the largest virtual conflict ever waged
Alliance warfare is an aspect of EVE Online that sets it apart from virtually any other MMO on the market. It commands a devoted following of players who continually exert their collective strength to conquer new regions of space while subjugating their numerous opponents.Although it's been said that only a minority of EVE Online's entire playerbase are entrenched in alliance warfare over 0.0 (lawless) space, this is where much of the action in the game takes place. 0.0 is where the most valuable resources in the game are found, and where the authorities do nothing to hinder player activities. The wealth, freedom and potential for power turn EVE's vast swaths of 0.0 space into hotly contested regions... the battlefield of "the largest virtual conflict ever waged," in the words of games journalist Jim Rossignol.
PlanetSide veteran remembers the Battle of Forseral
PlanetSide doesn't get much attention these days. It didn't get much attention when it was fresh on the market either. It has always seemed like a clunky, not-quite-right prototype for what a massively-multiplayer-first-person-shooter could be. But some folks remember their time spent there quite fondly, including Rock, Paper, Shotgun's Quintin Smith.A few days ago he wrote up an article about how veterans of the game fondly share war stories, and then provided his own epic tale. It's a great story that shows how players with good humor can turn a game-crushing bug into the gaming experience of a lifetime.The story resembles the Battle of Thermopylae; one nation is forced (by a bug) to the brink of annihilation. It's interesting because it's presumably the one time any faction in PlanetSide was faced with the possibility of complete and final loss of a war that's rigged to be impossible to lose (or win). We recently brought up the question of stakes in PvP, so this new RPS article is topical! Amusingly, the article is also not entirely dissimilar to our own PlanetSide experience.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun discovers that WoW is a "dirty word"
Today we return to a debate that simply will not die. Gaming blog Rock, Paper, Shotgun -- a very smart blog that is a combination of progressive and traditionalist, if that makes any sense at all -- felt the need to defend itself after it previewed Warhammer Online and made numerous comparisons to World of Warcraft. It even inserted a WoW screenshot as a joke.If you've been following this debate (which already reached a raging napalmic inferno of internet vitriol when Richard Bartle compared the games in an interview with us) then you know that RPS was just asking for trouble. And trouble it got, in the order of more than 200 comments.The latest development: RPS blogger Alec Meer wrote a personal, diplomatic, and even impassioned post in which he attempted both to defend the comparison and to defend WAR in the face of said comparison. He also tried to explain why the connection infuriates WAR fans so much. The money quote: "Telling a WAR player that his game is similar to WoW is like telling a goth that he's emo." Needless to say, it's worth a read. Did you enjoy this? Make sure to check out all of our previous Warhammer Online features, and don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!
Cryptic Studios developing user-generated content tools
There's a lot of Champions Online information swirling about the internet right now, if you hadn't noticed. So it can be easy to miss some of the better articles on the game, unless you look very carefully. Not only does Rock, Paper Shotgun have a great article about Champions Online up but they also plan to release more throughout the week. As if that weren't enough they managed to pull an interesting piece of information out of Cryptic CEO John Needham, too. According to Needham, Cryptic has a dynamic content system in the works that will allow the developer to spawn unique zones on the fly. While this is all very interesting, you're probably wondering how this factors into Champions Online. Well, it doesn't. At least not right now it doesn't.This dynamic content system is actually for other upcoming MMOs being developed by Cryptic. Oh, how we wonder what sort of MMO would benefit from such a system. However, removing our tinfoil hats reveals that there's something else even cooler about all of this. These tools are being polished up so that they can be given to future players who will then be able to create their own content within Cryptic games. Unfortunately, Needham didn't go into exactly what kind of content players will be creating but the fact that such a thing is even being worked on is entirely cool beans.
WAR's Creative Director waxes nostalgic about games journalism
The interview between Rock, Paper, Shotgun's Kieron Gillen and EA Mythic's Paul Barnett is a bit of meta-ness that doesn't bear directly on MMO news, but it's an interesting look into the mind of one of the architects behind the upcoming Warhammer Online. The take-away from the interview is that games journalism can be played many different ways, but in Barnett's mind it ought to stand for critical examination, the way movie critics write. Part of this means a no-bias account, and part of it means offering alternatives to gameplay that the writer feels doesn't work. We bloggers here at Massively do our best to provide our readers with the straight stuff, and we hope that comes through. The interview is merely the first in a series, with much more content from that evening's get-together on its way. We'll keep our eyes out for interesting tidbits.
Why APB's customization options might be a big deal (or not)
There's a clip over at GameVideos (embedded above) that depicts All Points Bulletin's character customization system. We say "customization" instead of "creation" because we doubt all the exhibited features will be available to new players. We learned at GDC (in the very same session this video originated from, actually) that visual customization options will be among players' rewards for successful play.Rock, Paper, Shotgun's Kieron Gillen was nevertheless impressed with all the options. He commented on the exhibit, and posited that APB has that Grand Theft Auto je ne sais quoi. The culprit: the art style, which when combined with creativity will give the game a human quality that transcends the mechanics of the game. Because of that, Gillen is looking forward to APB more than he is to any other MMO.He took a jab at World of Warcraft, saying that because each item of clothing in WoW has critical stats tied to it, no one expresses him or herself through clothing. Stats are more important than self-expression in WoW society, right? Gillen prefers the City of Heroes approach, which he believes APB shares. But does it? We don't really know yet, do we? Maybe your clothing style affects your skills. That's something to wonder about. We'll see.
Real-time strategy getting more massive
Despite the best efforts of various MMOFPS titles, MMORPGs continue to be the genre du jour within the massively multiplayer sphere. Whether it's because other variants are less viable or simply because the conventional designs make for an easier pitch when searching for seed funding or publishing deals remains to be seen.One auspiciously under-explored genre so far has been the MMORTS, the fusion of old-school real-time strategy and the massively multiplayer. Part of the reason this genre hasn't seen more action, we think, is because the technical and design challenges inherent are somewhat daunting. In a recent post, Rock Paper Shotgun's Jim Rossignol takes a look at some upcoming MMORTS titles, including the ambitious Dreamlords releasing this week, and reports on what he finds. This blogger still doesn't totally buy the concept, but the proof will likely be in the pudding.
A Champions Online QnA special broadcast
Get your decoder rings out kids. It's time for a super-special secret broadcast for this recent Champions Online Q&A, brought to you by Ovaltine! Well no that's not true. Actually, this particular decoding article is brought to you by the guys over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun and it isn't trying to sell you more Ovaltine. What the article is trying to do is explain some of the answers in the recently published community Q&A all about Champions Online.Most of the commentary covers the powers customization answers and rightfully so, as they're a bit daunting for people that haven't experienced a point-based table top RPG before. So if you're not experienced with the pen and paper version of Champions or un-familiar with pen and paper RPGs completely, then we highly recommend reading it. As they saying goes: There's gold in them there hills, or possibly some kind of super gamma-exposed uranium that could give you laser nostrils able to cut through anything at the smallest of sneezes.
A moment of thanks for our healers
Do you have a friend (or friends, if you're really lucky) in your MMO of choice that choose to play healer? If so, do you thank them every once in a while for their continued efforts in nothing more than keeping you and everyone else alive? Or are you the type of player that endlessly jabs those who would chose to do nothing but heal for not keeping you alive every single encounter? If your answer was "yes" to any of those questions, then it would be worth your time to head on over to Rock, Paper, Shotgun and read through a wonderfully written article concerning healers and gratitude.For as long as men and women have been shooting magical missiles or wielding swords and shields there have been other men and women behind them keeping them alive. Be it World of Warcraft or Everquest, the role of healer has always been one of mixed blessings. So we'd like to take this moment to thank our healers, because without you guys we'd all be dead, dying or at the very least un-buffed.
Raph Koster on why MMOs should be free
The Rock, Paper, Shotgun interview recently posted with noted Massive designer Raph Koster starts off "Raph Koster knows a thing or two about MMOs". That's a bit of an understatement. Looking at Raph's CV is like stepping back through some of the most important moments in the online gaming genre. Most of them, as has been the norm in the USA, are subscription titles.Raph thinks that's quickly going to be an artifact of the past, as already there are more free-to-play games than flat-fee-per-month titles. He believes that big budget games are going to start to get the hint and offer tiered services, free-to-play special clients, and other ways to get an 'in' on those particular worlds.Ultimately I think that's one of the most important points he makes in this discussion. MMO developers (in the West at least) have always seemed to be resistant to the idea of 'just get everybody you can in there'. That seems counter-intuitive to me, because more than anything else butts in the seats are what makes a Massive environment seem truly alive.The rest of the interview is equally thought-provoking with discussion of the concept behind Metaplace, the misuse of the web by game developers, and the conceptual skeleton used by designers to make these games in the first place.
Kieron Gillen on TR, betas, and free trials
Kieron Gillen of Rock, Paper, Shotgun has a great retrospective up about Tabula Rasa, its launch, and where Destination Games should go from here.Kieron talks about how he actually likes TR, but how the game has been damaged -- maybe ruined -- by an ill-advised Beta test. Which is spot on, really. Loads of serious MMO fans played the Beta at one time or another, and it was missing so many features that made it into the final game it's not even funny -- in fact, it's still missing some even now, hence the rush for patches and new content. The solution? Kieron recommends TR gets a free trial. Not the refer a friend scheme going around at present -- a real free trial so Beta testers can reevaluate the game as it stands.The quality of a Beta influences how successfully a game sells much more than publishers seem to believe, and similarly, free trials. It's always struck me as foolish that every MMOG doesn't have a free trial to begin with. Whilst retail sales is something publishers will always hate to lose, surely if subscriptions are increased in the long-term it's a wise investment?
Founding an old MMO on new ideas
Rock Paper Shotgun has posted an interesting thought experiment: what if you took two of the world's biggest MMOs, EVE Online and World of Warcraft, and combined their best features into some kind of super, Frankenstein, monster MMO? I'm actually really interested in this, because I've been playing WoW for a long time, and have only recently come around to playing EVE. So what would World of EVECraft look like?First of all, I completely agree with RPS-- the best new MMO feature in both games is EVE's skill system. Instead of killing X rats (rats both in the old standby MMO monsters, and in EVE's jargon for "Pirates") to level, you simply level. That's it. Choose a level, wait a certain amount of time (from a few minutes to a few days), and at the end of that time, even if you've logged out in between, you get that level. It is the perfect system for MMOs, because it really does make your character persistent-- they're leveling even when you're not.And as RPS points out, it does away with the basic idea of "levels" anyway-- no longer must you wait until your friend reaches your level to join you, and no longer does a foe simply become insurmountable based on a number. The skilling idea also helps in PvP as well-- no matter what your skills are or how good you are, you'll get better over time.So what can we take from World of Warcraft?
