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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.
Exploring PvP in Allods Online
Allods Online, the upcoming game from gPotato has turned out to be wildly popular, hitting the ground running even in Closed Beta Test 1. They're now into Closed Beta Test 3, and while there is still lots of progress to be made (that's kind of the point of beta testing), most beta test players are having a great time exploring and learning. Keen from Keen and Graev's Gaming Blog has been enjoying his beta experiences, and this week he got a taste of PvP in the Holy Lands. The first blog entry, posted Friday, shares some coverage of his PvP playtime. It's a great read, explaining how the PvE and PvP experiences intermingle, with the PvE quests taking you into the fully PvP Holy Lands as well as sharing some new thoughts on stats. Saturday's entry continued the adventure as Keen got the lay of the land a bit, scoring his first significant PvP win. The short version is this: The Holy Lands are hard. You're going to get smacked around, mostly by other players. If you are up for a challenge you need to check this area out, but not without reading through Keen's blog entries first.
More details on Allods Online gameplay
The second round of closed beta testing is underway for Allods Online, and Keen from Keen and Graev's Gaming Blog is one of the participants. Luckily for us he's in a sharing mood, and passed along some great advice in his latest blog entry. Keen has spent a fair amount of time exploring the game and getting a feel for how things work, particularly some aspects of gameplay that are a little confusing for new players. Things like rest experience and your allotted fatigue amount can be a bit hard to understand at first glance, but Keen offers some valuable tips on understanding the system. Similarly, his advice on stat allocation will give your character a jump-start, as well as prevent you from making some mistakes thanks to poorly translated tooltips and guides. He also checked out a dungeon, and gives a quick overview of his experiences there; as with the other areas, this provided some handy tips and a nice overview of the dungeon area. If you're considering Allods Online, the full entry is something you'll want to read. You'll thank us -- and Keen even more so -- if you do.
Should MMOs in general slow their roll?
Over at Keen and Graev's blog, Keen brings up a rather interesting point about the pace at which we play MMOs nowadays. He's concerned that everyone -- developers included -- are too concerned with leaping and bounding through each and every moment they play an MMO.There may really be no 'right' answer to the question this observation raises: Do we move too fast through an MMO? Or even more to the point -- in our opinion -- is this genre becoming too concerned with imitating a singleplayer game? Those two questions are most definitely connected and it really comes down to what people want, which ultimately reaches the question of how people spend their money.Walled garden games -- we're talking World of Warcraft and such here -- most definitely thrive on pushing players forward. It's the sandbox games that ask their players to move around horizontally; to actually talk to someone for a reason other than finishing a quest to level or craft. It's all a matter of preference. If the sandbox loving, slow rolling players aren't being properly served, someone will capitalize on that. Why, we're pretty sure there's a new game called Fallen Earth that some of you may be interested in checking out.
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.
Creative gag hints at new Warhammer Online class reveal on Jan. 29th
We've known that it was likely Mythic wouldn't be bringing back one of the original melee DPS classes to Greenskins and Dwarves. Of course that doesn't mean the two races won't even have a new class -- as evidenced by the mind games Mythic is now playing with the Warhammer Online community.The box contains orange hair dye, a hair trimming kit and the ominous note that says, "More to come 1-29-09" How is this significant? Take a look at some official Warhammer Dwarven lore:"A notable aspect to Dwarf culture is the Slayer Oath. A Dwarf who has suffered a great shame, loss, or humiliation will dye his hair and beard orange, and cut it into a Mohawk using pig grease to stick it in place."Was this a little bit blunt? Maybe, but we don't mind, since it's got us excited for a possibly very awesome new class for Warhammer Online. We only hope that when the Greenskins get their melee DPS class it's as interesting as this announcement. WAR has gone 1.1! Check out our full coverage of the 1.1a patch, along with our interviews exploring upcoming content and the open RvR changes. Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!
E308: Interview reveals name of new AoC dungeon
At E3, MMO bloggers Keen and Graev caught up with Funcom Product Manager and all-around Age of Conan-spinster Erling Ellingsen. The Vault Network-hosted interview covers a lot of the same ground that we went over in our own talk with Ellingson, but there was one extra bit that we thought was worth mentioning. We know you don't want to miss a thing, so here it is!Ellingsen mentioned that a new dungeon instance called "House of Crom." He didn't give any information about it apart from the name, although Keen's prose suggested that he was unusually excited about it. We'd like to think that this House of Crom is, in fact, the actual house of the deity Crom, atop a monstrous mountain.We also find it fun to imagine that the name of that dungeon is basically a curse phrase. Crom's name is rarely invoked except in cursing and swearing in Howard's Conan novels. You don't want to attract Crom's attention, you know. He might kick your pathetic mortal ass.
Finally! Someone who's not playing Age of Conan
They've blogged about their Hyborian adventures several times. Heck, they've even started a podcast about Age of Conan in hopes of delivering their ongoing impressions on the game for a long time. Yet Keen and Graev have presented us with their final verdict: they're not going to continue with AoC.Why should we care, you might ask? Well, while their opinions are certainly their own, Keen and Graev have proven their knowledge of MMOs in the past, and their views are generally appreciated by many players. This latest final verdict of AoC from them is refreshing as it doesn't focus on the same things we've heard about from everyone else, but they're giving us their views on what aspects they didn't enjoy. Not only that, they present this information in a respectable manner. So if you feel you may be all alone in your lack of interest from AoC, take pleasure in knowing you're certainly not alone.
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]
Mythic expects WAR beta apps to reach one million
Forumites at the Vault Network boards started a thread speculating as to whether or not EA Mythic's Warhammer Online will reach one million beta apps when all's said and done. Mythic CEO and WAR lead designer Mark Jacobs promptly responded (as he's been known to do), assuring everyone that he and the WAR team have every expectation of achieving that goal."I'd be surprised if we didn't hit 1M once we start taking beta apps for our Asian partners," he said. "Even without Asia, based on our current sign-up rate, we should blow through 750K and we have a decent shot at 1M." He also noted that his original goalpost was 500,000 in North America and Europe, a goal which EA Mythic has "far surpassed."Maybe Funcom should take this as a throwing down of the gauntlet. Age of Conan's 500,000 beta sign-up number is impressive, but it looks like Funcom will have to do better than that to beat Warhammer![Via Keen and Graev]
Warhammer videos collected, looking great
Brothers and bloggers Keen and Graev have put together a nice collection of Warhammer Online videos over on their YouTube account, and this seems like the best we've seen of the game so far (I saw it at PAX a few years ago, and then we saw quite a bit of it at E 4 All, as well as the various videos released since then). The video above was taken at a German show, so it's in Deutsch, obviously, but the graphics are clean and clear, and the gameplay looks pretty manic -- just the kind of thing to get us all excited for this baby.They've also got a character selection video, some Bright Wizard gameplay, Zealot footage, some Hammerer and Choppa RvR combat, and a little world exploration. This game is definitely looking better every day -- it's still on track for a release sometime in the middle of this year.
Last Week on Massively: WoW-related stories
Regular columns dominate this week's listing of WoW-related content on our sister site Massively. You can click on the links below or subscribe to a special WoW-only Massively feed.Behind the Curtain: Immediacy in PvPCraig Withers likes to PvP in a tabletop game, but not WoW. Why not? Read his current Behind the Curtain column to find out what's lacking in Blizzard's version of mortal combat.WAR vs WoW: Keen and Graev compare Keen and Graev's blog has started early in the comparison of World of Warcraft and the upcoming Warhammer Online. See what our own Kyle Horner has to say about what's sure to be a hot topic this year. Another rumor regarding Blizzard's love affair with consolesA recent demo of a new console game resulted in a comment leading to speculation: is WoW coming to a next-gen console near you?Behind the Curtain: More Plot PleaseHow much plot is needed to make an MMO enjoyable? Chris Chester poses that question, and his own answer in his weekly column, Behind the Curtain.Building a Better MMOusetrap: Adventures in babysittingGuilds are an essential part of every MMO. In his Building a Better MMOusetrap column, Dave Moss explores ways that Blizzard and other game developers can make guilds even better.As the Worlds Turn: Ramblings of a mad manAdam Schumacher uses this week's As The World Turns column to present his wish list to Blizzard and other MMO developers detailing what he'd like to see this year in MMOs.MMOGology: Keep it simple, stupidMark Nottke has been playing a lot of Dungeon Runner. In his weekly MMOGology weekly column, he compares the simplistic quest, interface and content to WoW's system and you may be surprised at his conclusions.
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.
