What is an MMO?

Back in 1997, when Ultima Online released, MMOs were a fledgling genre. No one was sure if they would succeed. Hell, no one even knew exactly what constituted an MMO. Of course there would be a persistent world for the players to interact in (in the case of Guild Wars that persistent world would just be the city and the player hubs), and character progression would be included as that is the basis for all computer role playing games.

So, in 2011 has the genre become a more solid entity? Do we understand exactly what makes an MMORPG, let alone what makes a GOOD MMORPG? The answer, I feel, is no. Right now there seem to be two categories of MMO gamer. The first is the old school MMO player, the guys and girls who cut their teeth on AOL Muds, Ultima Online, Everquest and the like. These people will take every opportunity to let you know that they’ve played UO or EQ (much like I’ve done above, and right here, and probably below this too). The second is the player who got drawn into MMOs because of World of Warcraft. These are not necessarily still playing WoW, and it’s these people who are often the most likely to rant and scream about how terrible WoW is.

To that first category, which from here on will be referred to as Old People, todays MMOs are missing that spark that made UO and EQ great. No one is exactly sure what it was that made them so great, but everyone has a theory and they won’t hesitate to share it with you. From the more sandbox nature of UO, to the neverending grind/socialization of EQ, players will talk about how much more ‘alive’ the old MMOs were.

The second category, which I have dubbed Noobs, doesn’t have those old school games to warp their perception. Often these people have only ever played WoW, or if they have branched out most of them haven’t been able to enjoy the other MMOs out there. Why? Because for them WoW IS MMOs. They may have stopped playing it because 3 years of any single game is enough to drive someone insane, but WoW is still their basis for comparison. To these people the more social aspects of MMOs take a backseat to their personal progression.

So which of these people are right? Neither really. The Noobs (forgive me for the name Noobs, it just fits when compared to us Old People) believe that an MMO that forces them to group up is a failure, while the Old People will scream about how the old games, like EQ, were far superior to the new games because they forced you to group up and interact with people. Coincidently they will be playing one of the new games and NOT one of the old school MMOs.

Now that I’ve grossly over generalized an entire group of people, let’s get to what I think an MMO is, and what I want to see in an MMO. The first thing is that we need the basics: persistent world, character progression. That’s the basis for an MMORPG. Sadly most companies making MMOs, ever since the early days of EverQuest, decided that the most important thing about making an MMO was keeping their players playing for as long as possible. This has resulted in the dreaded EQ year long grind to the level cap, the 40 or more man raids, and the horror that is rep grinding.

When do we put up with shit like that in our single player games? If I picked up the new Dragon Age II and it told me I needed to grind the same quests/mobs for a few months before I could fight the final boss it’d be the first game I brought back to a store and demanded a refund for. So why do we accept it as part of an MMO? For the same reason millions of people play FarmVille. Is it tedious and ultimately pointless? Yes. Does it take hours out of your day just to do something you get no enjoyment out of? Yes. Does it also allow you to space out, like vegging out in front of the Television, while at the same time interacting with friends and feeling like you are accomplishing something? DING DING.

So MMOs, since the beginning, feed on our basic want to improve ourself, while at the same time allowing us to sit around and space out, grinding away on mobs for rep or xp. Was it fun in Final Fantasy XI to get a good group of Linkshell mates and just grind mobs for hours? It could be a total blast if you had the right combination of people to chat with, but you know what? I could get that in a damn AOL chat room too. A video game should not have a caveat like: Sure the gameplay and story are boring as shit, but I get to chat with people and compare myself to others as I play! A video game, of ANY genre, should above all be fun to play.

I’ve recently been reminded, thanks to several blog posts and friends playing DCUO, exactly what I always wanted in an MMO.  Ever since I first started playing Ultima Online I realised that I wanted a video game with a persistent world. That has yet to happen. Instead we’ve gotten repetitive grinds, whether quests that are meaningless kill quests or straight grinding for rep or XP. There is very little ‘game’ in current MMOs. I want the basic concept behind games like Demon Souls multiplayer aspects taken to the extreme.

I want a single player experience wrapped in an MMORPG. Give me an 80 hour single player RPG like Dragon Age, then make it the same persistent world that everyone else playing the game is occupying. Let me hit the city and see thousands of players walking around, doing quests, shopping or just chatting. Don’t give me bullshit quests just because you’ve decided it should take me a month to get to the level cap and you need more quests to fill up the time. Treat it like Dragon Age, where most quests are either directly involved with the main questline, or if not they are epic on their own.

Then what happens when you’re level 20, at the level cap, and you’ve finished with the 80 hour storyline? That’s end game baby, time to do some end game dungeon runs and start raiding just like everyone else. Don’t let it end there either. I don’t need massive expansions every year, but instead I should have DLC constantly. Perhaps a five or six hour story once a month, and perhaps a new raid or so every two months. Then the expansion hits and the level cap is raised to 30 and everyone levels up and gets ready for end game again.

So what’s the difference between that and current MMOs? Removal of the boring stuff. Should you have to go spend a while gathering herbs for potion making? Yes. Should you have to spend three weeks grinding daily quests to get your rep up with someone so you can get one piece of enchantment that you need for raiding? No, that’s done ONLY so that you spend more time playing and thus more time spending money on the game.

Does an MMO need to keep me playing nothing but it for three years? No. But it should be fun while I am playing it. When did we start accepting bad design and purposefully gimping our playing experience just so the company making it could (theoretically) make more money. It seems stupid to me, but I write this while waiting on the PVP que for WoW to pop, so it’s not like I’m voting with my wallet here. Still, it means The Old Republic could be exactly what I’m looking for.

Just a Quickie

Just a quick update today. I’ve got some pretty cool information to put out soon, but I want to keep it under my hat for now. So what is this post about? Rift Beta VIP codes! With a VIP key you have access to every Rift beta event until the launch of the game, and I’ve got a code that’s good for 25 uses!

PPQN-6PKE-T7NY-F7CX-G9MM

Use away, and keep you’re eye here for some cool news about the blog soon!

OnLive is the Future

This is the future. Not so much now, but in the future.

  I believe that, within the next five years, OnLive will be the premiere way to purchase PC games. Within the next ten years it may be the ONLY way to purchase any PC games that aren’t indie productions. This will seem crazy to almost anyone out there, but just hang in there while I explain my reasoning.

PC gaming has seriously been hurt by piracy. Now I won’t go so far as to say that piracy is taking so much money away from PC game developers that they don’t feel it’s worth it to release PC games, but instead I imagine it’s the fear of piracy that permeates the business of video games. This fear causes most publishers to demand that any game they publish be heavily DRM’d, which costs a ton of money and does literally nothing. In fact, the best DRM they’ve come up with, Ubisoft’s “always need an internet connection” DRM, was cracked pretty quickly.

Publishers and developers aren’t the only problem either. It’s not just pirates that are costing the publishers and developers money, it’s the average user. How so? How much money do you suppose Ubisoft spent on their DRM service, including development, implementation, and server costs? Probably a lot more than they should have. How did the average gamer react? With fear, hate and distrust. I was one of these people, so I can’t exactly say it was an uncalled for action, but it did cost the publisher tons of money. More importantly it added to their belief that PC gaming was not a lucrative market. I mean hell, if they even try and prevent piracy their regular users will damn near riot.

So where does OnLive come into all this? OnLive is the PERFECT DRM service. If PC game publishers were smart they would be supporting OnLive with every ounce of their advertising money. Why? Think about the way OnLive works. Not only do you have to download a program, but you have to open OnLive to do anything. How is this different than Steam? I have Steam up and in the background at almost all times, but with OnLive I have to commit. The program opens full screen and immerses you in the experience a lot more than other PC game stores. Of course that’s a small part of it. Consider also the fact that it’s almost impossible to pirate a game if it was released only on OnLive. This isn’t a “you need an always on internet connection” DRM that you can hack and turn off. In fact, you have no files of the game on your PC and you never will. You would need to hack into their servers, change the files there, and somehow make sure they didn’t find out and just change it back. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I can’t see a way to pirate this on a large scale.

So we’ve effectively stopped PC piracy, given players an Always On DRM that they can’t really get mad about, and provided a great way to market a PC game, due to OnLives amazing “spectator” mode. So what’s the problem? Well first of all, no matter how good your computer is you can’t turn up the graphics. Given a big push from publishers and developers though people could learn to forgive this flaw. Would hardcore PC gamers be upset? Yes. Does any company care about hardcore gamers, let alone hardcore PC gamers? Probably not. The other problem is the lag. Now I’ve been playing OnLives free week of games (not all of them, just the ones available from there subscription service. That means mostly ‘meh’ ones right now) and I’ve rarely noticed any lag. When I do it’s usually a little choppy for a few seconds, and then I’m back to gaming. Of course I am limited as to what I can do in the background while I play. I mean I won’t be running torrents (another win for every industry), but I also won’t be downloading anything at all, which can be a serious pain.

In closing I think that, in the future, we will see OnLive or a service much like it rise up to take over mainstream PC gaming. Almost every company out there has given up on PC games in retail unless it’s a Blizzard game, so brick and mortar stores aren’t going to care. Within five years, if the industry is smart, OnLive will become the new console, turning the pain in the ass of developing for literally billions of different machines into a simple, one stop shop console experience that is almost impossible to pirate. Of course, to really kick this off they might have to work with the internet providers to possibly provide a “gamers tier” internet option where, for an extra $20 a month, you have a much better internet connection.

What’s the biggest problem with OnLive as I see it now though? Prices and selection. Their selection is alright and getting better, but their prices keep me from buying anything. They sell old games for full price, and they almost never have a sale. Even when they do it doesn’t come close to Steam’s sales. I know they don’t have the user base to be able to work those deals yet, but it really is a deal breaker for me. I mean I’m giving up my ability to play the game offline, or to change the graphics settings, and I’m ok with that. But if I’m paying full price for it, I might as well buy it from Steam with a huge discount and the ability to play offline.

What do you think? Have you tried OnLive at all? Now is the perfect time, as they are having a ‘free play’ week. Hop online and give it a shot, then tell me what you think in the comments.

Pity Party at Bloodline Champion’s House!

Manifest Pixel. It’s weird to think that I’ve had this blog running for almost a year. My previous best was three days on a Warhammer Online blog I made to run with my wife. By the time we finished creating a layout, uploading it, getting a domain name etc, we got tired of the game.

On a personal note, after having just left the Navy a little more than a year ago, and a current college student and married man, I don’t have a lot of time to find and make new friends. I still talk, rarely, to some of my Navy friends over Steam and Raptr, but for the most part my poor wife has to deal with my angry rantings on video games, or my geeking out over a new expansion announcement. To be fair, she is an avid gamer and doesn’t have a problem with it, but still.

Manifest Pixel has allowed me to rant, scream, role play and just talk about all kinds of gaming stuff. It’s really given me a great outlet and I love it. Does that mean it’s all good? Not exactly.

The truth is that running this blog can actually cause a lot of stress. Am I putting up enough stories? What should I blog about today? Why did I only have 3 visitors this week? That kind of thing. In truth it can be a little disheartening for me, especially when I am left out of “top blogger” lists. Does it really matter? Not a lick. Heck, this is a pretty new blog and I’m not the best writer in the blogosphere, but still, do I feel like I’m not doing well enough when I don’t make these lists? Yeah, ridiculous as that is.

Most recently it was The Pink Pigtail Inn’s community generated list that sent me into a spiral of self hate and flagellation. Do I think her list is actually pretty accurate and good? Yes, I think, like the Massively list before it, that it’s a pretty accurate representation of the gaming Blogosphere. That doesn’t mean I don’t kick myself for not being good enough for it.

What does all this mean? Not a damn thing really. It has made me update the blog a little more, so I guess that’s a good thing. But enough of this pity party stuff, let’s get on with today’s news!

Bloodline Champions – Let’s PVP

Bloodline Champions is finally out of beta with it’s official launch today! I played for a bit in beta, but never as much as I wanted to. For those that don’t know, the game plays less like DOTA and more like WoW’s arenas. You pick on of several “classes”, and it pairs you with two other people. You must cooperate with your team to destroy the enemy in two of three matches.

I’m pretty excited about this, and I’m downloading the launch client as we speak. This is a free to play game, and they are using a cash shop, but I don’t know what they are selling yet. I’ll keep you all updated once I get in game, and there’ll be more this weekend.

WoW is…hard again?

I remember less than two months ago. People all over the blogosphere, and on every WoW related forum, were bashing the game for being far too easy. To a degree they were right, but I still think that was more because of the amount of mods people use to cheat the system, such as Deadly Boss Mods. Still, Blizzard listened and they tuned Cataclysm heroics to be harder. Not as hard as some Burning Crusade heroics, but unlike in Burning Crusade they don’t require you to play the dungeon a ton of times before you can buy the guy to unlock Heroics. This leads to people having NO idea what they are supposed to do in groups.

What did all this lead to? It led to the blogosphere and WoW related forums exploding with complaints of difficulty. What does this tell me? Gamers have no idea what they want. Often they scream for the good old days of EverQuest and Ultima Online. Oh how those games were SO much better than todays games. Bullshit. If that was true they’d still be playing those games. The truth is that most people want what they knew. If someone came into the MMO scene with World of Warcraft, they are ALWAYS going to crave that new WoW player experience. For those of us brought up on Ultima Online we will always crave those glory days.

The truth of the matter though is a lot like it is with cartoons. You might talk about how cartoons were much better when you were a kid, but if you go back and watch them, most cartoons from when we were kids are near unwatchable now.

What was Blizzards response to all this QQing? Nothing less than this epic post. It has been nice having a World of Warcraft blog run by the developers, and Ghostcrawler makes some great points with this blog, addressing the complaining on the forums and around the net. What do you think about all this? Leave me a comment.

Arcania Bugs. Elemental Expansion.

Ground textures, I think your grid seams are showing.

Oh, I see it’s a feature then huh?

I recently picked up two different PC games, and there were some pretty big news stories about both of them. One of them gives me hope for the buggy game I own, while the other just kind of depresses me.

The first game I picked up was Arcania: Gothic 4. Anyone who has been following this blog for almost a year knows that I’ve been excited about this game since the demo was first released. You might ask why I hadn’t picked it up till now, and the answer is simple: I’m a poor college student. I can rarely afford ‘new’ games, so I tend to gravitate toward Steam sales. Well, while walking through Target last week I saw a copy of Arcania on sale for $20. Needless to say I scooped it right up, ran home and installed it.

I’ll go into a bigger review once I’ve finished the game, but so far it’s a little lackluster. The graphics are alright, though nothing to write home about. The voice acting is terrible, though a step up from Gothic 3 and a major step down from Risen. What really made me happy is the combat. The combat is Gothic 3 was TERRIBLE with nothing redeeming about it. The combat in Risen was extremely hard and, while fun at times, more annoying than anything. Arcania really stepped it up here and made the combat something I enjoy doing, so that’s great.

Sadly JoWood decided to carry over a lot of the things that made Gothic 3 nearly unplayable, including terrible optimization and more bugs than a Starship Troopers sequel. Sadly many of these bugs are pretty bad, including the bug that turns most of the games textures black if I leave the textures on high. Instead I have to play with low texture resolution for the entirety of the game if I don’t want to have the landscape a blank black screen.

My landscape and object textures now look far worse than MORROWIND and it runs at a solid 20 FPS. Sweet.

So maybe JoWood will release a patch that will fix it so I can play on high texture detail again? Or maybe optimize it a bit better? Well according to The Escapist and other video game news sources, JoWood has declared bankruptcy. After the failure of Gothic 3 and it’s expansion pack, and finally the poor launch of Arcania I’m not too surprised. Still, this means I have to complete the entire game with it looking worse than Morrowind. Hell I could mod Morrowind and have it look a LOT better than this game, and at least I wouldn’t have to deal with the voice acting.

The second game I picked up on my “buy glitchy, broken games” kick was Elemental: War of Magic. I tried playing through the ‘story mode’, but it was pretty terrible and I ran to the forums to see if there was something I was missing. It turns out the story mode is total broken shit and I SHOULD have been playing in the sandbox mode, where the game is more like Civilization. I haven’t given it a shot in sandbox mode yet, but I AM excited to. I love Civilization and I think I could really enjoy a fantasy themed version.

The big news announced about Elemental is actually a good thing. Stardock announced that it would be releasing an expansion for the game entitled Fallen Enchantress. This in itself is only mildly interesting news, what with me not really playing the game much yet or knowing if I will enjoy it. What made the announcement MUCH more interesting was that the Stardock CEO Brad Wardell predicted that Elemental will end up costing the company money. He said that when the game launched they made the money back they had spent on the development of the game by day one. It has continued to sell, even though it is broken and near unplayable, though it has gotten better in the months since it’s release.

Why is this a good thing? Well, Wardell went on to explain that, while most companies would wipe their hands and be thankful they made us gamers part with our cash, Stardock is going to end up putting ALL of that money AND more back into the game. They don’t expect the game to make them money from this point out but to cost them money. So why do it? Because he feels the Stardock name, and it’s association with quality and support, is more important in the long run than making a quick buck. I can’t think of a single company that has done something like this in a very long time. While Rock Paper Shotgun was less than impressed with Wardell’s honesty, there is nothing that makes me happier than hearing this.

So my faith in Stardock is restored, and my hopes that Arcania will be fixed have been dashed against the rocks. Good thing I’ve got Rift coming up.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Not pictured: other places.

There has been very little information released about the new Elder Scrolls game, but what has been announced is pretty exciting. First of all there appears to be a new engine, and supposedly the faces and conversations have been greatly improved. That was one of the worst parts of the Oblivion engine, and I’m glad they finally got something new. Along with this new engine is an enhanced third person view which, if implemented well like in Risen or Gothic 4, then that is how I will play the game. Sadly we have no idea what “improved” means in any of these cases, and third person could be just as wonky as before.

The location for the new game, Skyrim, wouldn’t have been my first pick for a location in the Elder Scrolls universe, but it’s not bad. I’m just glad they keep moving the location of the game. First of all it allows them to give us a completely new experience each time, which I am completely happy about. Sadly it’s not the Black Marsh, which I was hoping for. Am I worried about the snow covered mountains of Skyrim? Not after playing the Bloodmoon expansion for Morrowind. Bethesda knows how to do a snow covered landscape well.

So what are some of the other exciting bits we’ve gotten? Here’s a list:

Dual Wield – Thankfully this is finally being implemented.

Inheritance – If you kill a merchant NPC, his son will take over the business and remember you as the murderer. This could lead to some awesome moments if done right.

Level scaling – Done in the style of Fallout instead of Oblivion, which I’m thrilled with. I love level scaling, and I feel the Fallout series got it right on the money.

Radiant storytelling – The game records how well you do, and what you’ve done, so if you get a quest to kill bandits in a cave, it’ll pick a cave you’ll never been in, and populate it with appropriate level bandits. If you however just walk into a random cave it could be monsters that are far above your current level.

Sprinting – GOOD GOD I’ve missed this. I HATED the lack of it in Oblivion, but it was especially bad in Fallout 3 and New Vegas where you didn’t have a horse to speed things up.

Finishing moves  – Unique to each weapon AND enemy you fight, this could seriously make melee combat much more interesting.

Release date – supposedly November 11

I can’t wait for this game. The Elder Scrolls is by far my favorite RPG series, and it has been ever since I played Daggerfall in anticipation of Morrowind. If they can pull off everything they’ve promised, this game could give me as much play time as an MMO. More in some cases. What do you think? Leave you comments below.

Rift Beta 4: The Likes

The day Telara exploded.

Last time I talked about Rift it was the negatives and things I was worried about due to Beta 4. At the end of that I said I was still going to buy the game, but I didn’t get into any detail as to why. The following should clear that up and I hope will help push a few more readers to pick up this great game.

First of all let’s get the “it’s generic” argument out of the way. It’s true the game has very few “signature moves” so to speak. They aren’t touting something new to MMOs and that’s led a lot of people to write the game off without bothering to see more. But let’s look at some of the amazing games that have brought something new to the genre recently.

Warhammer Online – WAR brought the idea, as far as I know, of public quest. Quests that are zone wide and you don’t need to talk to anyone to accept the quest or help out.

Age of Conan – Amazing new melee combat with finishing moves that give Mortal Kombat a run for it’s money as far as blood goes.

Tabula Rasa – A more shooter oriented control scheme and a drastically different setting, making it a space aged shooter instead of a fantasy world. Perhaps not the first but one of the most high profile.

Auto Assault – A new setting of apocalyptic cars or whatever. You controlled a Twisted Metal meets Mad Max style monstrosity in a never ending destruction derby.

Matrix Online – It’s combat system was one of the more interesting things I’ve seen in any MMO in years. It was also, again, not fantasy.

Lego Universe – With it’s focus on building instead of questing Lego Universe might be the most unique MMO I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing in action.

Now, there are many more MMOs that have come out recently touting one or more things that make them unique, and while a few on this list haven’t failed, and Lego Universe is too young to pass judgment on, can we honestly say that having something new and unique made these games amazing? Are we all still impressed with Public Quests? Hell, most of us were tired of PQs by the end of the beta. Did Age of Conan’s blood and interesting melee combat matter when you got to mid game and realized they didn’t have time to implement quests or sieges? How are Tabula Rasa, Auto Assault and Matrix Online doing with their unique bits?

The point here is that originality doesn’t make for a good game. In fact, some of the best games in other genres have focused more on polish than on innovation. Bioshock had nothing in it that wasn’t in other shooters, but it did everything just right. Same with Starcraft II and the RTS genre, or Uncharted II and the third person platformer/shooter genre. What about New Vegas? That was basically Fallout 3, and yet it was done so well, and with just a simple change of location, that the game was amazing.

So no, Rift isn’t unique, and it doesn’t have a “gimmick” like other MMOs that have come out or are coming out. Instead Rift has focused on making a good game, on perfected what they took from other games in the genre. What they’ve come up with, even in BETA, is one of the more fun MMOs I’ve played in a few years. Rift may or may not hold me through it’s end game, but it’ll definitely be enough to get me to end game.

Now that I’ve had my rant on originality, let’ get to the bullet point style list:

Rifts, while I am worried about them late in the games life, can be extremely fun and addictive. Are they an interesting way to get players to grind? Of course, that’s what any quest is, but that doesn’t make it not fun. In fact, on Sunday when Trion did the MASSIVE fire invasion, where the entire zone exploded in fire rifts and everyone had to run around closing rifts, fighting off invasions, and finally tracking down and murdering a high ranking Fire general, well that was the most fun I’ve had in any MMO since trying to sell fish stakes in front of the Brittania bank.

Another thing both me and my wife loved were the artifacts. Much like EverQuest II’s collectibles, even copying the “ball of golden light on the ground” look of them, Rift’s collectibles are something we both really enjoy. Neither of us plays EQII anymore, so having this feature in a game we do play is going to be a blast, whether you get anything for it or not, it gives the player something to do other than just fight.

Some of the spell effects are just badass.

Having your character not look like a retarded moose through most of the game is also a huge plus. This is due to the fact that, like Warhammer Online, you seem to have certain “looks” for certain level ranges, and while sometimes you’ll get something drastically different, for the most part you look pretty good. Add to this the fact that there are dyes in the game and, assuming they don’t suddenly open a cash shop and charge for black dye, your character can look as cool as you want. Does it dye the entire armor piece? No, just certain parts depending on the armor, which I couldn’t be happier about. There’s nothing worse for breaking immersion that running across GROGNAK TEH DESTRAWER in a flood fill bright pink plate outfit.

The PVP, while they did screw up by making it ten levels per bracket, was extremely fun. The battles were quick, which was nice, but still intense. There was a variation on Warhammer Online’s Murder Ball, but it was made much more fun by the quickness with which it kills the carrier, the turnover rate, and the fact that you got more points the farther you carried the ‘ball’ away from your base.

The leveling experience, from 1-20 at least, is just a blast if you like Theme Park MMOs. The questlines carry you through the zone, keeping you in appropriate levels and making sure you have a good time. Feeling bored of that? Head off the beaten path to get some more crafting materials or to look for artifacts. Better yet, go close some of those Rifts you see on the map. Tired of questing and rifting? Que up for some Warfronts. Is any of Rift truly unique other than the setting, which is still fantasy based? Nope. Is Rift one of the MMOs I am most excited to play? You bet. Sadly Beta 4 is over, and unless the never few betas are 30-40 or end game I doubt I’ll be playing more. Why? Rift only has two starting zones, and unless you have the option of going through many different zones for each level range after level twenty then I don’t want to burn myself out on the content before I start the character that really matters.

All I can say though is that if Rift wants to keep me for more than a year they better add a new starting zone in the first expansion. Heck, while they are doing that it might as well be for a third faction entirely. Maybe the death dragon faction? Who’d turn down a three way faction Warfront? Not me that’s for sure. Oh, but that has been done before, so I guess they shouldn’t worry about it.

Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Sunday Demo: Winter Voices

The name doesn’t make sense until you jump into this odd, episodic game.

I picked up Winter Voices for this weeks demo mainly because the cover art looked pretty. I’m not kidding here, but that’s the point. To randomly pick up demos and give them a try. When I picked up the game I didn’t realize that it was episodic and that the demo was just the first part of the prologue. Does this episodic game need to have it’s show cancelled, or is it destined to keep you coming back for each new episode?

Winter Voices starts out like an RPG, which I was kind of surprised about. You are a young woman in a very small village, with no option to change your sex. This isn’t a deal breaker by any means, but being a man it can sometimes be difficult for me to get behind a female avatar in an RPG. I’m sure the ladies in the audience understand.

You must choose from one of three professions, and the game says that it will play out drastically different depending on your choice here. Sadly for the first time player there are really only two options, as the third is only for veterans. You might scoff at that, but until you’ve played the game you won’t really understand why it’s important to listen to the game when it tells you to pick on of the other two professions if it’s your first time.

Next is the stat select screen. You’re allowed to allocate fifty points into any of six stats, but again until you play the game you won’t really understand what some of these options will do for you. Memory for example increases the XP you receive, but also increases the damage you take. When I first read that I was a little confused as to why having a better memory would cause you to get hurt more, but it all makes sense once you get into the game.

After that you’ll pick an avatar for your character ala Baldur’s Gate, then generate the 3D model your character will use. You don’t have a ton of options, with three or four outfits with different colors and a handful of hairstyles, but character creation is not what Winter Voices is about. The narrative is where Winter Voices things it’s strength lies, and it may later on in the game, but from my experience it is the combat sections that really made Winter Voices stand out.

Story wise you play a young woman whose aloof father has just died.

Right there. DED.

The art style is something to behold, the cutscenes done in a ‘painted’ comic book style and the main game in a unique, washed out style that really caught my eye. It controls a lot like Fallout with an isometric camera and a point and click interface. The resolutions leave something to be desired as there are only five or six. I had a large black border around the game world, like old Ultima Online, but it didn’t bother me as the game uses that space to hold the UI elements.

Once you enter the game world you’ll quickly get into your first combat situation, and you’ll realize how different this RPG is from other games in the genre. For instance your combat seems more focused on escaping, not fighting. You’ll gain abilities that will help you get away, or prevent damage, and I assume that eventually you’ll be able to fight back, but you couldn’t in the demo and I think the game is better for it.

Winter Voices has a pretty crazy looking skill tree with tons of skills. Each one is pretty unique and it’s fun to figure out how you could use each one.

You won’t just be spamming a flee button either, you’ll be navigating the battlefield like in Fallout, with a certain amount of movement points per turn and a grid to walk on. Your job is to figure out how to use your skills and abilities, as well as the terrain, to get away from the enemies without taking enough damage to kill you. This includes both setting and avoiding traps as well. Luckily you get an ability early on that allows you to find traps, if you want to waste a turn to do so.

It’s important to realize that Winter Voices is not a traditional RPG. It feels more like an adventure survival horror game at times, and though it might not be unique it certainly was a new concept to me. The presentation is pretty amazing for the $5 price tag, though the dialog and spelling could have used a few more checks before it was released. At times it almost feels like a foreign title, which it is, but the translation is acceptable and can be intriguing at times.

One thing I wanted to touch on quickly was the save and loading system. Any RPG could learn a thing or two from it, especially the Western RPGs like The Elder Scrolls and Gothic. When you load a game, you are presented with a list of characters. You choose which character you want to load, then it will show you all of the saves that were made for that character. This would have been a life saver with Oblivion, and there were even entire programs developed to better organize Oblivions terrible save system.

In short this is one of the best demos I have tried since starting the Sunday Demo Review. I highly recommend at least giving it a download, and at $5 per episode I’m going to enjoy tearing through the interesting story and gameplay style for a while, and the episodic nature of the game means I won’t be getting tired of the mechanics by the time I finish, and I’ll be drooling for another go by the time the next episode drops.

Rift Beta 4: So Far

By the power of Grayskull! I have the power!

Beta 4 isn’t over, but I’m taking a small break from my powergaming session to give you my impressions so far. Luckily both me and my wife were able to get beta access this time without preordering, so we’ve been able to play together like we usually do. What do we think? Let’s get to it.

Rift is an amazingly beautiful game.

We started two new characters for this beta, since we would be playing together. We went with red headed, green eyes dwarves without really talking about it at all. What we did talk about was what classes we would be. I chose a tanking warrior, Reaver to be specific, and she picked a healing Cleric. Eventually I added beastmaster which I don’t plan to waste any points on, I just wanted the pet, and then I chose the tank soul that is focused on magic, which turned out to be pretty cool.

We’ve been running around, leveling as quickly as we can and closing all the Rifts we come across. It’s been a blast, but I’m not going to lie and say that there haven’t been some issues. Less for me than for my wife, but they were still there.

One of the major issues is PVP balance. Trion decided to go with the 10-19, 20-29 brackets for PVP, which means you won’t be PVPing for most of the game. This is the stupidest decision you can make in a PVP game. A level 10 is completely useless against what will quickly be all level 17-19’s, just like WoW in the past. I can imagine it quickly becoming a scream fest when you load in at level 11, and everyone starts cursing you out for gimping the team and telling you to come back at 17. They don’t even have Warhammer’s “fake level up” thing.

Another issue is figuring out what classes people are. As far as I can tell there is absolutely no way for me to see what souls someone is using. That means I have to take someone’s word for it if I’m looking for a healer or tank for a dungeon. This doesn’t matter to me right now, as I’ll be tanking while my wife heals, but I can imagine this becoming a HUGE issue once the game launches.

My wife noticed something I hadn’t, and while it wasn’t a negative for me it certainly was for her. Once you get to the city of Sanctum you’ll run around and get a ton of quests. These quests vary wildly between PVP, PVE, and Dungeons. They also vary wildly in location in which they can be completed and level range. While some out there will love this random assortment of quests, my wife found it immensely annoying that this quest hub didn’t give her the normal small amount of quests that could be completed relatively close by.

Some professions we discovered were much harder to level than others. For example, I chose to go Armorsmithing and after I make something I can destroy it for a chance of getting my matts back, so I can use those e for the next item. This system is amazing and I wish I had it in every game. Unfortunately my wife went Artificer, and quickly found out that not only is it harder to find the materials to make Artificer items, but you are unable to break them down into their component parts. This means that, while I might get 20 skill points out of 15 ore, she could at most get 15. That might not seem like a lot, but it does add up. Silly? Yes. Annoying? Yes again.

Bag space is extremely limited as well. It almost feels like a Free to Play game that sells bags on a cash shop with how limited you are in bag slots. I spent every bit of money I had on the highest level of bags I could find and I still ran out of room constantly. I’ve never liked limited inventory in RPGs in the first place, but this is extreme. Why should I be forced to run back to town every few minutes to sell stuff when I would rather be out enjoying the world and NPCs I come across?

The worst offender so far though is that the Rifts can quickly get out of hand. You may find, once you move into the level 18+ areas, that all of your quest hubs are conquered by invasions, and that unless you have a large group of high level players you are going to be grinding for a while. This leads to many players banding together to defend and retake quest hubs, but it can also be annoying if you’re one of the only people around. For those that don’t know the Invasions aren’t like Rifts. The Invasions spawn dozens of monsters, all ELITE. This means you can’t pick them off one at a time solo either, so you WILL need MANY players to help you retake it. Especially if they are all level 17 mobs and you are level 12, at the level 12 quest hub. Yes this can and DOES happen.

Lines for quest mobs are a fact of life in the beta.

With all that said I am still extremely excited about Rift. Will my wife be preordering and playing my pocket healer when the game comes out? It’s too early to tell, as there has been some issues between the game and her, but we’ll see by the end of this beta event. As for me, I’ll be preordering as soon as I can, though I may try and avoid the next few beta events, so I don’t suffer burnout. Or perhaps I’ll just play the Defiler side, since I like the Guardian side a LOT more and will be playing that at launch.

After the end of Beta 4 on Monday you’ll see another post from me discussing the things I disliked, AND the things I liked from Beta 4. I just wanted to hop on and give you all something to chew on while I continue playing this wonderful game. I can’t wait for it’s launch.

Playing Rift

Just a quick update. I’ve started playing Rift beta 4!
Wolfsbane server, character name Amun if you want to say
hi.