PuzzlePirates
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A Repletion of Rats...
In all but the most staunch sandbox-style MMOs, the Quest has become the cornerstone of directed player content. Gone are the days when they'd just give us a graveyard full of skeletons, and experience bar and tell us get on with it, and the modern MMO, such as World of Warcraft or Lord of the Rings Online, is very much a task-driven experience. Very little occurs without an accompanying quest journal entry these days, and thanks to generous cash, experience and item rewards, working through the quest chains can often be the most efficient way to make progress and headway in the average MMO.The quest can also provide a little narrative to the otherwise formless adventuring of the typical MMO character; a set task and sometimes even a reason for the ensuing mayhem. That many of us simply skip the text is hardly the games fault. In any case, even without caring what the specifics or backstory to the job actually are, the mechanics of gameplay can be greatly improved by taking an endless and unbroken monster killing spree starting at level one and ending at level fifty, and breaking it into a large number of smaller distinct tasks, suitable for planning a gaming session around.There is very little not to like about the currently widespread quest system; while individual implementations may vary and have their own quirks and peculiarities, the general principle of having something specific to be doing in a gaming session is a good one, and if it isn't, well, they are generally optional anyway and the graveyard of skeletons is always out there. But ask anyone with more than thirty completed journal entries to their name about questing in general, and two specific gripes are likely to come to light very quickly, the 'Kill Ten Rats' quest, and the 'Fed Ex' quest, two types of task that seem to resurface over and over, from back to EverQuest and beyond, in almost any MMO where there are quests at all.What else can we be given to do, or are these two templates doomed to underlie everything we do in all our MMOs?
Bang! Howdy now in open beta
Those on the lookout for an online game that doesn't involve orcs, elves or magic may find Bang! Howdy refreshing. From Three Rings, the makers of Puzzle Pirates, Bang! Howdy is a western-themed online strategy game.Although we featured it in our MMO roundup, it's not the same sort of MMO as Puzzle Pirates -- it features small-scale multiplayer strategy matches rather than a large persistent world. It's a Java-based game, meaning it runs on PC, Mac and Linux happily, and today it entered open beta. The game itself will be free, but with micropayments for various in-game features.
Massive Magazine planned for MMOG coverage this fall
The folks behind Computer Games Magazine have just announced that they'll be starting up a new publication this fall dedicated completely to the purview of massively multiplayer online (MMO) games.Massive Magazine is touted as the first print mag of its kind, packaged together with "a free DVD packed with MMO demos and games" when it launches for "a three-month run on September 19, 2006" and then begins as "a stand-alone quarterly publication by January 2007."We can only assume that theglobe.com guys 'n' gals will provide extensive coverage of other MMO genres besides the typical RPG grinds, such as FPS (Huxley), driving (Auto Assault), and puzzle (Puzzle Pirates) themed games. A digital version via Zinio.com is also planned.[Thanks, JamesO and Jonathan]See also: WBIE's original fanzine plans for The Matrix Online More genre-breaking MMOs The year in Second Life [from embedded journalist Wagner James Au]
