Jeff Hollis of IncGamers, on including non-human races in your MMO:

The developers behind both Fury and Tabula Rasa openly indicated they didn’t want to spend the additional cash on this, but instead wanted to invest that money elsewhere.  In both cases, the developers defended this decision in a quite genuine manner.  They seemed to have thought about this, and felt they were doing the right thing.

That decision, as it turned out, was unwise.

the most dominant MMO in the history of the genre offers a nice, wide variety of race and class combination.  In fact, WoW keeps including more races with each expansion.  Maybe, just maybe, they know what they’re doing.

Vaulting cleanly over any appeal to logic, Jeff reaches his conclusion: ‘Human only’ MMOs are doomed to fail.

Perhaps, and I’m going out on a limb here, the MMOs that have to sacrifice ‘cool stuff’ (such as multiple races) to meet a bare-minimum budget will often struggle to produce something on a par with their larger, more established competitors: Every one of his ‘human only’ failure examples had been plagued by a list of typical MMO issues – not one of which was “not enough races”.

Does it really make a difference if I’m playing a human, a humanoid with green skin, a humanoid with pointy ears, or a humanoid that’s 4 feet tall? Certainly not if the game sucks anyway.

Make sure you go back to Jeff’s page for next week’s column: ‘Why you can’t make an MMO without red health bars and blue mana bars”.

I think I’ll go ahead and assume it’s a satirical blog.

This is not how you do it:

Allow me to disabuse you of an erroneous assumption: My statements do not in any way pertain to the totality of our research, nor do they relate to a sole or singular approach being taken in investigating hacking/theft incidents. We are most definitely not looking solely for a commonality of attack. We are not looking exclusively for a single person or entity involved with account thefts, although we know nearly all are being carried out by a specific group in a certain location. Some players have publicly stated an assumption about NCMA security and its purported “connection” to account thefts. With support from the Community Team and the developers, I have informed people that such an assumption is wrong, as above.

Please do not take my comments out of context, nor perceive in them a singularity of view on our part, for that would most definitely not be factual. Do not assume that your comments — tantamount to “Because you are looking behind the door, you are not seeing the burglar in the closet” — represent the truth of the situation, for they do not. Research covers a wide variety of points of evidence that merely includes the NCMA, but does not focus upon it with any single-faceted vision whatsoever.

As far as your concerns about the NCMA and processes connected with it, I believe that all those observations are known to the NCsoft team. However, I will review the thread in question and will be sure to send a single message with all valid concerns to the team, for their focus and action, as possible. Thank you for encapsulating several valid comments in a single thread.

[source]

Has only the best interests of fellow developers at heart.

PR 101: Managing the expectations of your customers. In the case of video games, this usually refers to the temptation to describe key game features which are not yet set in stone or even close to being implemented.

To the surprise of many, NCSoft has brazenly ignored this cornerstone of public relations with the release of their “Visions” trailer: A true antithesis to the conventional wisdom of “don’t talk about it until it’s finished, tested, and going in the next patch”. However, they have done it on such a grandiose scale, and impressed so many, that they might just get away with it.

The vision trailer is not a specific patch/expansion – it’s a vision of what we’re hoping to get out there in the future.

- Sebastian “Ayase” Streiffert, Aion Community Manager [source]

I’m not sure what to make of this incredibly bold maneuver, but there are two poles to my speculation:

1. It’s about honest and open communication, showing the community where they plan to take the game. A sneak peek of what they are working on, with entirely sincere intentions. A lot of what we see in the video is basically functional or partially implemented, with concrete plans and milestones to get it finished.
2. It’s part of a desperate scramble to keep people subscribed. “Look at all this awesome stuff that we will (maybe) add (at some undetermined point). The content of the animation is largely non-functional example work; a well packaged collection of hope and dreams.

Sketchy rumors of Aion ‘tanking’ lend credence to the latter, with lack of a solid endgame being fingered as the suspect. It’s been similarly named as the weak point of many recent failed MMOs, so it’s no surprise to hear it crop up again. That said, every MMO is supposedly dying from some issue or other if you listen to the wrong people, so it’s equally as likely to be option 1.

Assuming for a second that it is option 2, I’m not sure I could blame them. Aion probably has the best shot of any recent MMO at competing side-by-side with WoW in the long-term, provided it can build the game up faster than it leaks players. This trailer is a great way to keep players motivated and subscribing at a relatively minimal cost. Attempts to play in WoW’s league by other developers have always had potential, but most (the only notable exception being LotRO) have hemorrhaged subscription revenue too early and struggled to continue development.

WoW is incredibly difficult to compete with on a content level. Reaching the level cap is simply the journey to the really fun stuff. There are things to do along the way, but there is a huge endgame waiting. If you look at recent MMOs, the converse is true:  They often provide an entertaining and interesting experience while you are levelling, but hitting the endgame is usually where the content (and the fun) burns out.

If the only way a developer can compete with that is to blast future expectations through the roof, then more power to them. I just hope for their sake that they really do have the resources to get most of it done in a fairly timely manner, or their community morale is going to start circling the drain.

If the trailer really is a sincere demonstration of a planned set of goals, then hats off to them. It looks stunning. I’d probably subscribe if they even only got half of that content into the game, without riddling it with bugs.

I suppose time shall tell.

Jeff Strain (ex Blizzard/ArenaNet/NCSoft)  made some waves last night, with the announcement of his new MMO studio ‘Undead Labs’. As the name implies, Undead Labs will be focusing on a zombie apocalypse survival MMO for consoles.

“The Seattle, Washington-based studio is “on a mission to take online gaming in bold new directions”, beginning with it’s in development zombie MMO for consoles.” – Source: EDGE Online

They have even gone so far as to reveal some interesting gameplay info:

“”One of the things that is key in [the zombie] genre is really giving players a sense of purpose that is not just kill monsters and level up,” he tells us. “MMO players like to have a home, and that is one of the reasons I’m not going to throw them out into a post apocalyptic world. The goal here is to make them feel like there is a purpose. You’re trying to restart society. You’re trying to reclaim the world. One of the very first goals is going to be to get together with other players and establish a place that you can call your own that you must actively maintain and defend, and that over time will allow you to have a home base that will allow you to restart the economy, start trading with other ‘blue zones’ and feel like you have a home again.” – Source: Destructoid

It’s a cool idea for a game, certainly, but as an MMO? With a subscription? On a console? That just seems crazy.

I could be wrong. Perhaps by the time it releases the gaming landscape will have evolved enough to be more accepting of an idea like this. I hope so, even though I would be forced to sell my soul and buy one of those pathetic little boxes with their silly, awkward controllers.

Finally got finished last night.

The ultimate sacrifice, I made it.

My opinion of the game did a bit of a u-turn when I hit Orzimmar: For the first time I felt like I was really getting into the guts of the story. The previous three areas (Forest, Redcliffe, Circle Tower) had felt tacked on, and highlighted the formula Bioware has used to build their recent games. They were also largely done and dusted in about one night each, which was a bit dissapointing.

Orzimmar was awesome, and felt out-of-place at that point in my experience considering how vast and interesting it was. It took me about two nights and a weekend to get through all of it. Perhaps I would have had a better early impression had I gone there first, though the momentum carried through well from there into the final hours of the game (which I wont spoil).

For character choice I went with a male city elf, and got the impression it didn’t have a huge amount of impact on the game. If I played through again (and I probably will) it would probably be as a dwarf (even more interesting Orzimmar implications), or human female (for reasons I wont spoil here).

Yes, I know my graphics are set to "pants".

My biggest personal hurdle was coming to terms with the fact that I was playing a medieval Mass Effect, not a spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate. I’ll blame their marketing on that one, as I went into it expecting entirely the wrong thing. Perhaps the gratuitous blood and Marilyn Manson theme should have aroused my suspicion earlier…

DLC:

I got the ‘Digital Deluxe Edition, and I regret it slightly. Considering the game cost £30 and the DLC cost £10, and was a tiny fraction of the gameplay time, it simply wasn’t worth it. ‘The Stone Prisoner’ took about two hours, and ‘Soldier’s Peak’ (the better of the two) took about four.  There was so much play time in the rest of the game that these two glorified side missions were eclipsed.

Conclusion:

All in all, I would definitely recommend buying the standard edition: The core game is great, fantastic dialogue and plot, and some meaningful decisions for the player.

Hopefully further DLC (‘Return to Ostagar’ hits the virtual shelves “this holiday season”) will actually continue the plot, in which case I will probably pick it up. If it’s more side quests and ‘ooh shiny suits of armor’, I wont.

I still remember my first moderator gig with some clarity, and how much I enjoyed taking on the responsibility. That was about 7 years ago, on an Unreal Tournament mod forum with about 200 active members.

These days I’m part of a team that runs a network of fansites. The two that I am directly involved in have about 500 people browsing at any one time. The older of the two records that the highest concurrent user count was 6,830, which seems impressive, though it’s a relatively small percentage of the total membership: 202,375.

Things have changed a lot over those 7 years. People began to realize that there are two attractive reasons to run a gaming website: It’s a lot easier to make a profit using adverts than it used to be, and it’s a great addition to your resume if you have aspirations to end up working in the games industry.

Take Guild Wars 2 as an interesting case study: Well over a year off release, and I’ve already found 13 other fansites competing with my own Guild Wars 2 Guru. Most are in various stages of “under construction” and may never make it any further than that, others have a lot of potential: There’s at least one that is run by a professional web-designer, and one run by a programmer with web development skills.

The old-schooler in me feels like that’s just unfair competition, not at all in the ‘indie’ spirit of fansites. The rest of me enjoys being pushed to step up my game. Guild Wars Guru was the number one Guild Wars fansite by a pretty large margin, and thats not an edge I plan to lose.

It’s not easy though; Gone are the days where you just make a basic front page for news, slap on a phpBB forum and open up to the masses. It’s not just about providing a pleasant environment and letting the members do the rest. You are competing on every level with other sites, who all want a piece of the community pie. They might have more resources, more experience, or even more money behind them.

Here’s a quick list of the things a top tier fansite will provide:

• Guides, maps, and other resources.
• Articles and columns.
• Screenshot and video gallery.
• Podcasts.
• Blogs.
• Forum. (But not just any forum – It has to be tooled up with all the latest bells and whistles: Dev trackers, anti-spam measures, picture resizing plug-ins…)

Not to mention it needs to be stable, responsive, and look professional and aethetically pleasing. Oh, and you will need people to maintain it, add future features, and of course, moderate the forum.

That’s what you are up against, in what is very much a case of “if you can’t handle the heat…”.

So how do you possibly compete in this shark-infested cut-throat world of skulduggery and intrigue?

Getting into the fansite business is like marketing a product. You get an idea, you work out your target demographic, you develop it, and you market it.

Here’s the four steps you should be thinking about:

1. Who will you target? Specialization is an easy way to separate you from the pack. What role can you fill that others won’t? Will it be a PvP oriented fansite? A design/suggestion oriented fansite? Perhaps you want to market specifically to mature fans? Take it in the no-nonsense e-sports direction, or aim for a more friendly role-playing community? Maybe you’re ambitious enough to feel like you can tackle multiple sectors with a larger and more general site, even though that will pit you against tougher competition.
2. What are you going to offer? So you figured out where you want to take the website, and know your demographic. Who is the competition? Why do people come to your site instead of theirs? Are you going to offer tools for guild recruitment? Are you going to offer commentated match videos? Are you going to integrate some social networking functions? Blogs for community members, staff?
3. How are you going to develop it? What resources do you have? What resources can you find? What are the capabilities of your current staff, and in what areas do you need to build on that? You may need to find writers, people skilled in graphic design, web developers, or someone with experience of running a community.
4. How are you going to market it? Websites don’t advertise themselves, how are you going to get the word out? Are you going to develop branded signature images and encourage members to use them in forum profiles elsewhere? Are you going to advertise in-game?

If you don’t have the drive and resourcefulness to know you can get through all of the above then you might as well bow out now. The whole process is a hell of a time investment from you and whoever you enlist, so don’t be nonchalant about the commitment.

Too many fansites sink because people didn’t quite understand how much was involved, or because their morale hit the deck when the doors finally opened and nothing but tumbleweed rolled in.

There’s no other way to put this: The AI of your companions is absolutely abysmal. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been trying to wing it through an easy fight, only to flip through my team-mates and see none of their skills are recharging. A game of this caliber having AI so poor can only be intentional; they are forcing you to micromanage or use their ‘combat tactics’ system.

['Combat tactics' is the ability to script situational reactions. For example: You could use one of the tactics slots on your healer character for a "if health =<25%, use generic healing spell" script. You get more slots as you level it up, also requiring you to spec that character into Cunning.]

Now don’t get me wrong, the idea of combat tactics is great! I’m not going to object to anything that gives me more customisation of my team. There’s just one problem with it: I have to put points into it in order to get enough ’slots’ for it to become useful. Why in the Makers name do I have to ‘level up’ what should be a core game mechanic? Why should I sacrifice skill points I could put into stealing or coercion just so I can run my team effectively?

Even that isn’t really why I object. The simple fact is that there is no good reason for the AI to be so poor. I can understand that they want to encourage you to use the tactics system or micromanage a bit, but even the best AI in the world will still benefit from either. Again, I feel pushed into playing the game their way, and it sucks.

Time to report in after a weekend spent hacking and slashing my way through the kingdom of Ferelden.

Alistair regretted saying helmets were for pussies.

I’ve got mixed feelings about Dragon Age so far: The story and the character development has certainly been impressive, but it’s just not drawing me in with the same intensity as older Bioware/Black Isle titles.

A large part of this stems from Bioware’s decision to depart from the pen and paper gaming style of Baldur’s Gate, which I believe is a definite step in the wrong direction for them. It’s an issue of transparency, and how (despite their fears of it becoming a ‘math sim’) having clear and consistent systems can help create a more believable environment.

Baldur’s Gate immerses you in a world of equals, where even a lowly peasant has HP and armor class values. You know that any character, friend or foe, is working by the same rules as you. They are using spells that are available to anyone in the game world, their equipment functions the same way as yours, they have the same class/specialization limits as you, and so on.

That feeling is lost in DA:O, where it is simplified to the point of it feeling like “you vs. monsters” with NPCs as little more than a tool to help tell the story.

Small touches matter. In Baldur’s Gate you can look at any NPC, monster or even special character and take a good guess at what they have equipped. You often can tell if an item is unusual, or augmented with some kind of magic. Then (if you decide you want it badly enough) you can attempt to pick-pocket it, or even try and kill the NPC to loot it from their cooling cadaver. Almost without exception it would be there, and you could pick it up and equip it immediately. (Notable exceptions being Elminster’s hat and Sarevok’s armor. How I tried so hard for those items. ).

Incidentally, this is where the ‘Biff The Understudy’ name of my blog originates: He’s an NPC that appears in the rare instance that you kill a core NPC (one critical to the core plot) to read their lines and continue the story.  A necessary compensation for the vast freedom you have.

In Dragon Age not only is loot barely related to what your victim had equipped (kill a guy in full plate wielding a two-handed axe, he drops a chain mail codpiece and some furry gloves), you are pretty much limited to attacking things that are pre-determined to be enemies. Not only does that really hurt the immersion, it also makes playing a chaotic/evil character a whole lot less fun. What happened to luring a town guard into a dark alley and butchering him for his shiny greaves?

I miss rules being applied equally between all characters within the game: The feeling of being another person within a world, rather than constantly being reminded that I am the protagonist and having the game treat me entirely different to anyone else. Even worse than that is when the game restricts what I can do, in order to prevent me from messing with where it wants to take me.

Good old Candlekeep Inn, moments before the walls are slathered with the blood of the innocent.

Then there’s the issue of party member choice. Bioware have made your comrades too important. For example: I find that I am stuck with Alistair in my party because he has such importance to the story line that I don’t want to ditch him too often. That also means I have to watch my actions, because he’s quite the honorable type. Another strike against playing a chaotic/evil character.

Add that to the smaller party size (4 instead of 6) and having far fewer potential party members (8 instead of 24) and it starts feeling like characters are pressed upon you, reinforcing the feeling of separation. It’s not ‘you and your merry band of people you have picked up during your travels’, it’s ‘you and these other really important people’. You don’t feel like you can comfortably customise your party make-up to fit your character choice and get some fun combinations going, and you don’t really have the room to do so anyway.

Perhaps it’s just nostaligia, but I can’t help feeling dissapointed. Bioware appear to be moving away from what I know and love about their games, to appeal to a younger and more casual (growl) audience. I can’t really blame them for that decision if it’s necessary for the short term success of DA:O, but I do feel they have blown any long term shot at having another classic on their hands.

The best analogy that springs to mind would be comparing Baldur’s Gate to a classic fantasy novel, where DA:O is a slightly cheesy ‘choose your own adventure’ book. The novel might be entirely linear, but you love turning every page to discover where the epic adventure will take you next. The CYOA book gives you a kind of false freedom, providing the opportunity to have an impact on your direction at the cost of being limited to a few set actions at every step.

They called it the spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate… Perhaps if Baldur’s Gate got really, really drunk, knocked back a handful of Viagra, and jumped in the sack with Mass Effect.

A couple of weeks ago I picked up a copy of the Guild Wars 2 Art Book…

Fantastic collection of concept art, from the cream of the industry.

… and for the hell of it threw one of the better looking Guild Wars t-shirts in with my order. Hell, why not? There’s some odd pleasure to be found in being such a devoted fan. I imagine people with an interest in professional sports have the same feeling when they buy this years jersey or a signed ball.

Then I went home and threw them on the shelf, next to my Guild Wars Nightfall baseball cap, under my Guild Wars Factions poster, just next to my Guild Wars EotN map… and it struck me that perhaps there is some money to be made here.

I wonder how much traffic the PlayNC store gets? I wonder how that compares to the in-game store, and how many more t-shirts, art books, posters and other merchandise would sell should they be added there.

Perhaps, and I’m spitballing here, ArenaNet could supplement a good chunk of their income with merchandise sales? Right now they sell a smattering of items through the PlayNC and Penny Arcade stores, but it is obviously not a priority. It certainly has nothing on the selection available for World of Warcraft, through Jinx.

Guild Wars has had some fantastic t-shirt designs put out over the past few years. I have Assassin and Dervish t-shirts picked up at various events that have all been worn into the ground. Sadly they aren’t available to buy anywhere, only a few other designs I’m not quite so fond of. I also have a decent looking Guild Wars Nightfall baseball cap, and whilst it’s a little too nerdy for me to want to wear it’s still surprising that it’s never appeared anywhere else. Then there’s the Guild Wars 2 t-shirt which looks awesome, but was a limited run for this year’s conventions. The little merchandise that is available has been scattered between the PlayNC store, Penny-Arcade and elsewhere, meaning a lot of people aren’t even aware of its existence. I’m surprised at how many people aren’t aware of the awesome Charr t-shirt by Richard Anderson, for example.

Given their recent focus on the microtransaction style in-game store, it seems like a logical step to start adding merchandise there. It’s a convenient and easily accessible place for fans of the game to browse and buy.

ArenaNet’s highly talented art team could certainly come up with some kick-ass designs for Guild Wars 2 apparel (not to mention the books, posters, figurines, and whatever else they wanted), and I’d imagine there would be a significant demand for merchandise were it centralized.

Out of curiosity I threw together a little poll on Guild Wars 2 Guru, to find out what kind of merchandise people are interested in. Results were quite interesting:

T-Shirt / Polo		68	51.91%
Hoodie / Sweatshirt		46	35.11%
Baseball Cap / Beanie / Hat		17	12.98%
Books on Art / Development		78	59.54%
Figurines		52	39.69%
Posters / Stickers		54	41.22%
Soundtrack		79	60.31%
Other		31	23.66%
None		13	9.92%

I really hadn’t expected books and soundtracks to top the poll, having always been a t-shirt fiend myself. Though perhaps not so surprising, considering Guild Wars does have the legendary Jeremy Soule composing their soundtracks, and an unmatched art team (the book is awesome, by the way).

How profitable can merchandise be to a successful MMO developer? I imagine digital download merchandise like soundtracks can be pretty lucrative, but what about t-shirts, figurines, etc.?

]]> http://bifftheunderstudy.wordpress.com/2009/11/04/funding-free-to-play-mmos/feed/ 4 Dan Gray Guild Wars 2 Art Book