Sunday, October 7, 2012

The best Podcasts in the world

I get yelled at quite a lot. Chances are I don't pay much attention when that happens. After which the volume of the yelling increases. I will lift my headset and listen to what they have to say... 'Are you alright, sounds like you're having a fit. What are you laughing about?' Slightly unaware of my surroundings, as I often am, I reply 'Oh', pointing an index towards my ear, 'it's just this podcast I'm listening to.' This scenario has repeated itself for years now.

I am a big fan of talk radio. However, the national radio stations intent on destroying the only thing they still have going for them, insist on playing a song in between every other sentence. Breaking up the conversation into bitesize chucks as to guarantee that every hipster twenty something doesn't loose attention mid-sentence, causing them to change the channel or more to the point: pick up the smartphone. Of course picking up the phone is the first thing they do, showing that radio bas become something so old only a progressivist would listen to it. I was once such a person. On the lonely road during the bike ride home, I would listen to the radio on my cell phone, which had a built-in radio and used a headset that acted as an antenna. I use the past tense here because the daily use of the headset, as clearly wasn't intended by Sony Ericsson, broke it after only a few weeks.
Not much later smartphones became the norm and Sony Ericsson lost the plot. I poured one out for Sony Ericsson... during my personal celebration of the "restructuring" (when Sony bought out Ericsson) of the company that would have charged me another €50 for the flimsy proprietary replacement earbuds. Good riddance to bad business. My love for people having an interesting conversation remained and the loss of the radio wasn't too bad, because I had discovered something better than live radio: podcasts. Portable, available whenever you want and uninterrupted by popular music. Here are some of my favorites:

Games For Windows Radio
I got into podcasts thanks to my interest in games, of course, that was years ago and today I listen to few gaming podcasts. I used to follow the 1UP podcasts but since the big collapse of the site, 1UP failed to profit from the popularity of the podcasts, at which most of the staff was let go, I lost interest. When the interesting people left, so did their conversation. The biggest star to rise from 1UP was, in my opinion: GFW Radio.

I'll have a hard time telling people out of the loop why the legendary GFW podcast is legendary, but let me just say that this was the best podcast about PC gaming bar none. Or was it? The rhetorical question is there because games were only part of the discussion, most of the talk spun out into, often eye tearing hilarious anecdotes of shenanigans, online or otherwise, comic books, movies and popular culture as a whole.

More serious discussion about game criticism was the other half of it. Thanks to the internet, game magazines found themselves in a unique situation because they were always one step behind the online sites, but this gave the editors pause, and a chance to focus on game criticism rather than product review. How is the story? What are the themes? What does this mean for gaming? In stead of: How are the graphics and is this worth your money? This made the podcast more of a highbrow affair, and the editors wouldn't mind telling the audience at large. Right before the discussion would turn into a retelling of how so and so would make it rain dildos from the sky in Second Life. Classic!
The podcast finally ended when the majority of the staff made their way into game development, surely a testament to their personal quality. Jeff Green went to the Sims team at EA, quit and went to Popcap, which was eventually bought by EA. Sean Molloy went over to Blizzard. Robert Ashley had his own quality podcast with A life well wasted about gaming culture before becoming a fulltime musician and Shawn Elliott is currently a level designer at Irrational Games, working on Bioshock Infinite. The illustrious Ryan Scott went on to found the Geekbox, but more about that later.
GFW radio was the first podcast I listened to on a regular basis. And unlike with many other podcasts, I listened to them repeatedly, even years later. Listening to GFW made me realize that Games do merit open discussion as part of the wider cultural spectrum, which is partly the reason why I started blogging about games. I was pretty gutted when it finally stopped. And I know I'm not the only one, the Brodeo still has a large following, wishing that someday the band will come back together, thus far it happened once. On a special episode of the Comedy Button. The archived podcast files are still available on the 1up website. I heartily recommend you listen to a few of the later episodes if you like intelligent (pc) game discussion. Be advised though, the podcast stems from the period when the Wii, Xbox360 and PS3 were very popular, often at the cost of PC game development, a fact that often gets mentioned. Interesting times make for interesting talk.

Giant Bombcast
The Giant Bombcast from Giant Bomb is another gaming podcast that's fun to listen to. However don't expect the collected gentry to discuss game design philosophy as GFW did, but prepare to be entertained. Recently, the discussion has shifted a bit more towards PC gaming and away from console gaming, which speaks to my theme. The conversations mostly revolve around new games and often times leads to talk about the gaming industry. Very nice if you want to keep up with the times. Anchormen Jeff Gerstmann and Ryan Davis have been game reviewers for years, so they're well versed in gaming history and they have their facts straight. I don't always agree with their opinions, Gerstmann's aversion to inverted mouse controls gets my goad every time, but at least I know where they come from. For years, from Gamespot to Gamespot (now there's an insider) I have either read, seen or heard their opinions, and the occasional rant.

The Geekbox
The bombcast remains as the only gaming podcast I listen to. A bit further away from gaming and more towards geekdom is The Geekbox. Created by Ryan Scott, the Robin to Jeff Green's Batman. The silent force of GWF grew into a rather illustrious podcast host himself. The discussion is often hilarious, seemingly without the host of talking heads realizing it. The Geekbox podcast often starts up a little slow. But as time goes along and opinions get a bit more heated, the show hits its stride. This is one of those shows where the chemistry is right. On their own, the people on the show are probably just like you and me, but as a collection become very amusing. The topics are typical geek fare: comics, movies and gaming. Not surprisingly when the cast all works in the gaming industry. I feel that in more than one way, so not just because Ryan Scott provides a familiar voice, this is the spiritual successor to GFW radio. Because it's so much fun to listen to these opinionated, involuntary funny geeks. like minded people band together?

Comedy Bang Bang
Comedy Bang Bang is the roaring flagship podcast on the Earwolf Podcasting network. Host Scott Aukerman, a comedian without actually sounding like one, is a pretty good host. His program is famous for its open door policy, more like a revolving door, letting in a cavalcade of oddball characters with curious opinions, who usually disrupt the interview going on with a luminary from the comedy and/or movie industry. Go visit the site and download an episode with a guest you know the name of, and you won't be disappointed. And I'm talking names such as: James Adomian, Paul F. Tompkins, Jessica St. Clair, Matt Besser, Adam Pally, Bob Odenkirk, Andy Daly, the list goes on.

Comedy Bang Bang isn't the only good comedy podcast, the entire Earwolf network has worthwhile podcasts, most of them funny.

Gelmania
Gelmania by revolutionist Brett Gelman For instance, I really like this disturbed, psychedelic and irregularly scheduled podcast. I admit it's not for the faint of heart, but the string of insane raps, screaming scetches, inhumane characters are Cathartic in a way. Listen to it on a friday. Inhale. Press play and when it ends: exhale.

Improv4humans
The absolute best the network has to offer though is a recent addition called Improv4Humans. A podcast made out of fully improvised bits, inspired by twitter suggestions, discussions, youtube movies... The host Matt Besser is one of the founding members of the Upright Citizens Brigade, a comedy group. He's one of the most creative improvisors I've heard so far. His fellow improvisors are too numerous to mention but it is amazing how well these different people harmonize when it comes to comedy. The personality, spontaneity, discussion and creative energy surging through this podcast while being absolutely hilarious makes it the most popular pick of all my suggestions. This podcast will get you a six-pack within weeks. I'm living proof!
If you want to get a good sample, I suggest you start at the recent best of episode.

Oddly enough, all of the above podcasts are based in California. But I like some European publications as well. The BBC, unsurprisingly forward thinking compared to the competition, puts a lot of its radio programmes online as podcasts. I'm sure there's something for everyone, but these two are my favorite picks.

Rhod Gilbert's Best Bits
I'm quite fond of Rhod Gilbert's Best Bits collects the most funny fragments from the Saturday morning broadcast. The program usually is a string of, often improvised, radio segments like reading the best "non-story" from the local newspaper, the loser of the week or when all else fails, read out some inspirational listener email.

Thinking Allowed
A more serious broadcast is Thinking Allowed, a podcast about current affairs. But not the stuff you see in the news on television. The subjects are a bit more scientific, and usually about social matters. Very well made and researched, hosted by Laurie Taylor who's scholar with a sense of humour.

I frequently listen to a few more podcasts, but for brevity's sake I should keep them for another post. Podcasts are a sign of modern times. After experiencing radio whenever wherever, adapting your life to the schedule of live radio feels both needlessly restrictive and overly wasteful with time because I can listen to the music I appreciate with the press of a button, so why force a music choice on the listener?
I hope the same can't be said for my blog, but perhaps there is something to be said for not having to read a wall of text. So at times I consider making a Bonesnack podcast or audio-post. At last you'd be able to take my husky, Yorkshire voice with with you on the bike, while I whisper my thoughts into your ear "Follow me on Twitter".

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

A fond farewell to Guild Wars

Sometimes when a game shows up, it burns bright, fizzles and fades. One play through is all you're prepared to give it. It may be that the game is so bad it doesn't deserve it, like the Homefront campaign. It may be that the game is so good that you don't want to play it a second time because it may sully the memory of the first. A case could be made to just not bother. I'm talking about games like KOTOR1&2, Crysis2, Bioshock, CoD4 and pretty much every Zelda Game.
There are are games that stick around in the public mind for a little longer, these are games with legs. Hugely succesful, they become part of gaming history. Or have many expansions, a dedicated fanbase that makes mods, total conversions and questionable fan art. Good examples would be the Civilization series, Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, Assassins Creed, Mass Effect. All these are nominees for becoming even greater, if the studio that made them is able to keep the quality up.
And then there are games with wings. I'm talking about juggernauts. Mario, Call Of Duty, the Sims, Starcraft, Counter Strike, Team Fortress and World Of Warcraft. I have high hopes of the the Mass Effect Franchise becoming this big too. But there is another particularly close to my heart: Guild Wars.

Perhaps a juggernaut with a smaller footprint compared to the others in my little line-up here, but ArenaNet isn't known for touting statistics as much as the others. And as such they seem very casual about their place in the PC games market, leaning against the wall of the MMO niche, looking the other way while Blizzard shouts its coiffured head off selling plushes. No, Anet goes about its business talking mostly to their community rather than the press.
At the time of writing this, GW2 is in it's headstart period and people are playing the game. But GW2 got announced for what seems like a decade ago. The only thing us fans would hear about it afterwards was when the game's release got postponed. And we were fine with that for one good reason: the first Guild Wars was, still is, pretty damn amazing.

GW2 got announced for what seems like a decade ago. The only thing us fans would hear about it afterwards was when the game's release got postponed. And we were fine with that for one good reason: the first Guild Wars was, still is, pretty damn amazing.

My own active Guild Wars career started when it was launched and lasted right up until after a few weeks when the Eye Of The North expansion was released. This long period included the Factions and Nightfall chapters. I got quite successful as a PVP player, got some name recognition, and as a guild we earned quite a bit of notoriety on the world ranking.
It ended when real life started its inescapable conquest on my spare time. Now it all seems like a lifetime ago. Games are still in the forefront of my mind. But my perspective on Guild Wars has barely shifted. It holds up, It's still a great game.

When I first saw the game I was expecting it to sound like a Korean brand of J-pop. But when I finally dove in, it sounded like Vivaldi. I run the risk at this point to sound like a bad observer, I mean to say that the quick, fluid gameplay and "limited skill bar" mentality, at first sight, belied the depth and elegance of the systems in place. This really was a game and a really well-made one too, more defined by its limitations than its liberties. No screen filled with skill bars, no open world, only 20 levels of progression. Paradoxically, this "less is more" approach gave this game a clear lead over other MMOs. In Guild Wars, you really needed to think hard about your skill lineup, adapting your character to certain challenges. It made all the difference. And that's what the community did. Builds were invented, weaknesses and strengths exploited. This led to a very dynamic metagame, where builds would be balanced and countered by other builds. Not one build was ever able to ruin a class, or by extension: the game.
In contrast, the more classical MMOs would allow the player to use just about every skill on a class, transforming the HUD into what looks like the worst windows desktop. When the 50 onscreen skills were either on cooldown or useless in the situation, the only thing to really do was to use the first one to become available regardless of the tactical situation. Discouraging strategic play where you would ideally use every skill only when the time is right.
Guild Wars' closed world was made out of player owned instances, in which you could take other people, that changed according to your actions or active quests. The opposite from the classical MMO, where everyone shares the same unchanging game world - which makes them feel more like a theme park rather than a large living world.
Another aspect that sets Guild Wars apart from its kin is the ability to build a party. Nightfall introduced customizable Heroes to the game. Now you could add up to 7 more "builds" to your group, directed by you, but controlled by the AI. It felt so very close to that other classic Sacrifice. Of course you had to give them weapons and upgrade their armor. But this was another opportunity to show some prestige. Some of you may remember that I really love playing party based RPGs, because it allows for some strategy to get into the game plan. In this case it reinforced thinking about builds, but taken to a higher level. A party also avoids the situation where one "skeleton key" character needs to be able to solve every situation. This last issue could crop up in Guild Wars 2, but for now, I'm optimistic.
I have to keep this post short but let me dig up another pet peeve of MMOs, Guild Wars didn't split PVE and PVP. Top tier armor was equal across the board. When you had a PVE character (able to also play the story) you had to buy, collect or craft your armors, weapons and mods as per usual, with the added bonus that you could look really cool. But when you made a PVP character (standard at lvl 20 restricted to pvp zones) you could just unlock everything (skills, weapons, armor, runes, heroes, ...) as you played.
SWtoR, in contrast, infuriated me by putting both PVP and PVE on a separate gear track. Doubling the notorious grind that makes the genre so dull to play.
Not so with Guild Wars which had almost no grind to speak of. Sure, you could grind resources, but to get good drops you had to go in alone, and really outsmart the gameplay systems. One such clever player-made innovation was the 55 monk - nearly unkillable without enchantment removal or life steal skills. But rather then nerfing the skills and class, Anet updated the farming spots with smarter AI and a few tweaks. They even embraced the ingenuity of players by making one of the NPC henchmen a 55 monk in a tournament. Which really underlines the generous mindset of the developer. In my mind this is what happens when a company doesn't need to suck a monthly fee out of people. I approve.

Arenanet embraced the ingenuity of players by making one of the NPC henchmen a 55 monk in a tournament. Which really underlines the generous mindset of the developer. In my mind this is what happens when a company doesn't need to suck a monthly fee out of people.

The quality of the game went way up with every expansion, "expand-alones" in practice, because they were even more well-made. Not only did the art-style become more pronounced and interesting, the addition of better PVP modes, balancing, and endgame areas made the whole package much more appealing to keep playing.
Guild Wars factions had unique interpretations of Japan and China, added a forest turned to stone and a sea turned to Jade inhabited by two warring factions (and a focus on pvp combat). Guild Wars Nightfall took us from fantasy Egypt, fantasy Africa and a version of 1001 nights straight into the nightmare of a mad god, which held it's own twisted interpretation of said lands - the realm of Torment.
The Eye Of The North took us back to the original continent and started setting up the scene for a sequel. Here's where I picked up the thread, where my recent trip into nostalgia began but more of this later. Anet added even more post-game quest lines on top of the original game with Beyond.

Not too long ago, GW2 finally got its release date. And with it came the promise of a slew of rewards for longtime Guild Wars Fans, through the Hall Of Monuments. An in-game time capsule that connects your GW1 characters with their descendants in the new game. The tasks placed before the rewards are, to say the least, challenging. And rightly so, there shouldn't be an easy way to sum up, what should be, years of gaming.
Nevertheless, after a 5 year hiatus, I rose to the challenge to fill up my Hall Of Monuments. Luckily, I was on the cusp of getting this title, or that item, or about to craft this armor. So I got the job done in a couple of weeks of casual play. This would have been quicker if it weren't for the fact that titles were only introduced quite a while after I originally started playing. The rules were a bit stricter back then too.
Though now I'm all set to play the sequel. The little samples I took away from the beta tests were enough to get me hyped to the point I can safely say this has become my most anticipated game in years. So why am I not playing during the headstart periods? Because I pre-ordered the Collectors Edition from a local store that had no idea a headstart existed. So I'll be waiting like the rest of us sad saps who still place trust in retailers, and will be among the noobs all over again on release day.
I wondered about that and I should be relatively well off given the fact that I have played the original for a staggering 2413 hours, with 962 on my main character. Don't think too much on that number, it will make your head spin. It did with me. After I typed the /age command as part of a gag with a friend, I had to take a small break. My character just stood there, reflecting on its life. Next to it, its merry band of heroes started a small party, dancing and playing the guitar, as they do.

It was thinking. We had some fun times, didn't we?

Sunday, June 17, 2012

On Star Wars: The Old Republic

Only a master of evil, Darth.
Hoth: a planet in need of conquering, solely for its iconic look.

Long time readers, by which I mean I write long posts, will remember I wrote a considerably insightful post about The Old Republic when it was first announced. Some of the elements I divined were actually in the game, so allow me to gloat, if just for a few seconds. You same long time readers, by which I mean you're probably the same person, will remember I had a hard time avoiding writing about Star Wars. I eventually did, but I'm glad to break my streak by talking about Star Wars: The Old Republic. I have been playing since January, or more aptly put and regrettably too: since I stopped writing more blog posts. Prior to signing up for ToR I finally finished up on the original Knights Of The Old Republic, and despite it being a very old game I enjoyed it a whole lot. Needless to say, I was pretty psyched for Old Republic. After much thinking and deliberating I settled on making an Imperial (of course) Sith Pureblood Warrior who I'd want to make into a Juggernaut, the Darth Vader archetype.
I knew in advance that this wasn't the typical MMO due to the voice acting and storytelling. I curbed my expectations but wasn't disappointed at all. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the voice acting, the animation and the, subtle, cartoon-like art style. This was much more of a cross between Mass Effect and the Star Wars animated series then I'd originally thought. The action was snappy and responsive, all nicely animated, the frame rate kept up. The effects and combat: very satisfying.

The story, twisting and turning in great Sith fashion, took me across the galaxy. I built my team of companions, upgraded my ship and my gear. About a month of intense gaming later, the story finally closed up in an open ended galactic stalemate. This isn't much of a spoiler as the game requires two factions, neither of which can win the War of Stars lest the game end.
Since then I have made 3 more characters. A Jedi Knight Sentinel, an Imperial Agent Sniper and a Sith Inquisitor Sorcerer. Yes, It has been a busy few months. I am currently in one of the most prominent PVP guilds where i'm joined by generally great, smart people. I have some renown as a PVP player so I'm pretty happy to be where I'm at in this game.

These last few months months though, despite added features with the Legacy System the game has been in somewhat of a decline. The server seems to hold less and less players. Given the nature of an MMO, less people is bad. Especially since there are a lot of servers with the same low population. There are a few more problems affecting the game, making it seem like a less desirable choice compared to other games. Like World Of Warcraft. As I said, one of them is the population. Only so many games can vie for the time of hardcore MMO players, which is a limited group of players. Solve this by making playtime more valuable or get more (new) players into the game. The latest big Idea is to change the monetizing of the game. Such as Free To Play. This doesn't improve the quality of the time spent with the game but at least you won't have to pay for filler content. So you can feel a little better for not having to pay for time-wasting fetch quests. To be fair in this case, ToR makes a little more effort to make the filler more interesting by tying quests to the overall story line. The level design also helps. In most cases players pick up all relevant quests for an area at the starting point, go into the zone and finish up all quests in one run. The run usually isn't really short, but at least you don't get the nagging feeling you're wasting time by running from A to B.
Considering that the game is very much designed with efficiency in mind, it still takes about a month of full time playing (about 4 hours every day) to get a character to maximum level. It's no understatement to say that the game is huge.
Yet, maximum level is generally the desired place to be because it opens up high level PVP, operations, gear... All of which demand a lot of time if a player is to really become powerful. All of this is where the game has a bit of a problem.

A couple of days ago, I shotgun blasted a couple of thoughts on twitter in a fit of righteous rage. It seems only fair that I elaborate a bit, right here.

Make the game free to play and boost the population. Stop wasting all those costly servers.

At launch, EA and Bioware opened up a bazillion servers to cope with the immense demand of new players jumping into the game. This avoided frustration from long waiting queues. And it worked, I never, ever had to wait to get onto a server. As time went along players finished the content, got bored and left. If the game content doesn't grow at the rate players are consuming it and the endgame isn't there, or isn't interesting enough to keep them busy. They will leave. This is what happened and now many servers are ghost towns, where everyone else knows you by your first name. Which is no exaggeration, at times when I see a new character on the fleet, I see traces of the naming convention a player has made for himself, identifying the character as an Alt. In fact, we all do this.
Being stranded describes it tragically well, because there are no server transfers and no cross server matches or grouping options. If you want to play on one of the populated servers, you need to create a new character and spend another month to get it to a competitive level.

While writing this article Bioware has started server transfers for selected servers. Players on said servers are able to get their characters to a destination server. A change for the best in the worst possible way. Players who don't transfer will be even more alone if they stay, or will be in for a rude awakening if they missed the memo. There's also a lot of caveats attached to the transfer. You will lose all your "loose ends" such as in-game mail, auctions, guild and friends list. I guess simple server merges were either too complex technically or too damaging to the company or game's image.

Boost XP gain so players don't have to slog through the filler, and let them experience the character stories. Monetize the stories.

Spending time is what generates revenue on a subscription based MMO. But to keep people playing, and not spend more budget than people will actually pay for, the creators have to fill the game with some trite content to prolong the gaming experience.
Bioware set out to differentiate the game from the competition by telling good stories. And again to be frank, the stories are interesting and really well made. Each class has it's own story line, so there's a potential of 8 separate stories. If you were a dedicated player it would take more than 8 months to get through them all. Unfortunate then that many players left the game in the first few months. Wasting the potential.
To explain it in more detail. There are two active story lines at all time, the class story (such as Sith warrior) and the faction story (Imperial of Republic). The story line is made up out of a series of quests big and small. Each planet has it's own part of the story line. Every area on the planet has a small plot point area which only the relevant class can enter, or all classes in the case of the faction story line.
All other quests are side quests and are the water to the fine wine that is the main story line. I would even say the faction story plays second fiddle to the class story line and should be lumped in with the side quests. In almost all cases it comes down to something like this. "My Lord! I know you are on an urgent personal quest for vengeance, but while you're here, could you win this war for us?". Then you do and once you finally arrive at the next planet, Imperial or Republic incompetence goads you into winning the war again, and again.
The downside is that planets have a level requirement associated with them. For instance: on Tatooine a character must be at least level 25 to survive. And you can't get to level 25 if you do not complete all main and side quests on all previous planets. At least if you don't do a lot of PVP or flashpoints besides playing the story, which takes at least as much time. This makes the side quests not quite as optional as you would think.
For me, the meat of a game like this is in its PVP content, because it's far more interesting to play against humans than the AI. The side quests get in the way. On a bad day, I wish I could just make a lvl50 character.

And yet... and yet. I was really amused when I found out that my Jedi knight character's story was about cleaning up the mess "my" Sith Warrior left behind. Only after playing a couple of characters do you realize the story lines are actually linked in more ways than one. Making it extra fun to play alts and experiencing different story lines. The more is to pity that I can't bring myself to slog through the filler content to see all the story lines. I can't just play SWtoR. Time is too valuable and it's not the only game worthy of my attention.
It's clear that story is a very strong point for SWtoR so I think it would be best if EA/Bioware allowed for players to just play the story lines and keep to the good stuff, skipping the side quest filler.
They could even get away with selling the game in chapters at a reduced price, where one chapter could be a character class, and its story line. Or even break down that story line per act for a smaller price. If SWtoR is 8 times a KotoR game, sell it as such, but at a reduced price. That way, players won't feel the frustration of paying for content they'll never get to experience unless they invest their life into the game.
I should hasten to say that the game becomes substantially faster and easier if you have a partner to play with. But lately there are very few people to play with (see my previous point) and no real life friends of mine play the game, so I am forced to play a single player MMO.

Remove expertise, stop making PVE&PVP separate games with separate gear grind. Us with a disposable income don't have time to grind.

The success of World Of Warcraft made it the blueprint for SWtoR. Bioware had no qualms in copying liberally, including the gameplay mechanic that is expertise (resilience in WoW). Expertise gives a bonus to damage and defense vs other players, and a healing bonus to friendly players. And is only present on PVP gear, where it takes the place of the bigger non-expertise stats on PVE gear. Gear, much like character level, is a requirement for high level operations of PVP - without it you won't survive for 5 seconds. So where PVE is more powerful in general, PVP gear is stronger against other players. Making both variants nearly useless in the mode they weren't intended for.
WoW had evolved this kind of system over time because players would whine about the fact that either PVE or PVP made it easier to get top level armour, effectively gimping either PVE or PVP players who'd rather play that mode. I had never gotten far enough into WoW to even know about this. But I had played Guild Wars for years, a game that had no need for such a system because the game was more fair. My mind was sufficiently boggled when I heard about the need for this dodgy gameplay mechanic.
But Bioware copied the thing anyway, further carving the game into smaller compartments of players. The only time to break out of the compartment is to spend even more time with the game and get both PVE and PVP armour sets. Woe is the player that has to get multiple armour sets to fulfil more than one combat role. I feel that Guild Wars would have been a better role model for ToR. Where PVE and PVP sets are the same, the only difference is that the PVE sets look cooler, but take a bit longer to get.

Make the Legacy bonuses free upon completing the XP requirement, don't ask 1 mil+ creds for them after unlocking.

One of the big features that would further set SWtoR apart from the competition was the Legacy system. A set of perks for a player's account, which includes all characters on a server, unlocked through playing the game. It would fit with the Star Wars philosophy that your characters are somehow related. Just like Luke and Vader. Opening up the possibilities of inheriting items, talents, etc, on all characters at once. It would stimulate the creation of more characters to the benefit of all. On paper it sounded very promising. Some of the perks were very cool indeed! XP benefits, faster travel speeds, better items. It held the promise of making playing through the game easier and quicker. As an avid player my legacy level was quite high so I was eligible for many new perks. In the back of my mind I was already creating backstories for my future alts, which would soar through the game's content, making my legacy a force to be reckoned with. Yet it was not to be. And this has pissed me off quite a bit. The alleged unlocked bonuses were merely unlocked for purchase. This wouldn't be so bad if it was for a token amount of credits. But to my horror, the costs ran from 250.000 to 2 million credits. This for a bonus of +2% XP gain? To me, this was more proof that SWtoR is an exercise in greed for EA.
It takes about 1 week of daily missions to get around 1 million credits. The daily missions themselves take from 3 to 5 hours to complete, many of which can't be played without a group of players. Want to spend multiple millions of credits on legacy bonuses? You'll be paying many monthly fees to get them! After which you'll pay for many more if you want to actually experience the bonuses. The legacy update has forced me to adjust my expectations for the game. If future updates will be this lackluster or restricted, the game's future looks grim.

It's disappointing to see that a game which was "made for the fans" is becoming a desperate grab for money, no matter what the PR says. Players won't stand for it and now the game is getting its comeuppance. Players are leaving, servers are emptying. The production costs were astronomical and needless server costs aren't really helping. The pride Bioware once displayed when showing off the game has traded places with thinly veiled apologies, hollow numbers and the promise of features that should have been present on release in order to make the game on par with the competition (by which I mean WoW).

But pay no mind to the hushed tones of the audience, and the forced tone of Dr. Ray Muzyka in the following clip from E3 2012, last week.

Enjoy indeed.

You might think I'm enjoying bashing a game, and I usually do, but not this time. It's not so funny when you see the potential of a game absolutely squandered and paying a monthly fee for it only makes matters worse. For the same amount you could get a game that has more content, more features, more players, better service, better performance, funny pandas, less bugs but worse storytelling. The competition is murderous.

Stop aping WoW, learn from Guild Wars. Better hurry, Guild Wars 2 is right around the corner. If you think the Diablo 3 release hurt...

When Diablo 3 was released there was a pretty substantial drop in SWtoR's activity, at least on my server: Hydian Way. Which goes to show that the audience for the game is limited. I too have played a lot less in favour of Diablo 3.
I can only imagine what will happen when Guild Wars 2 is finally released. I imagine EA/Bioware being absolutely petrified. My Republic Guild has already promised to reform in Guild Wars 2 and my Imperial Guild has only a small percentage of players dismissing it a priori. Chances are that they will eventually jump ship anyway, to keep the group together.

A few days ago, and to my surprise while writing this article, an Old Republic designer told the press they were looking into F2P options, but I really hope for their sake, that it isn't too little too late. The classical MMO genre is getting stale as it is, while MOBA games are on the rise, so playing catch-up alone might not be enough. The willingness to change is a good sign though. So I hope that in the future, we'll look back on the first half-year of SWtoR as the beginning of the game.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

A wider point of view, The Title Fight

The two game most FPS gamers were keeping eyes on were Battlefield3 and Modern Warfare3. A lot of us were wondering if BF3 would make the same impact as its predecessor. Battlefield2 was the first game to use the modern combat setting but it was Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare that made it popular. Since then the market has been bombarded with a CoD every year. Pointing the way for rival shooters through sheer success. But as the novelty wears off, a lot of gamers are getting tired of the formula. Though the quality and production values of the series are what makes it such a hit every time. The reward-a-minute treadmill might have something to do with it too, and so might the stiff online competition. The gameplay is fast, often rage inducing and frustrating. But when things go your way, it's an ideal way to blow off some steam after a day's work. I should know. The game has to cope with diminishing returns however.

When games like Crysis2 and Homefront tried to copy the formula, some of us got a case of desperation because you couldn't buy a AAA shooter without getting a good dose of Call Of Duty with it. This fear persisted all the way through the development of Battlefield3. Even though most of us who played Battlefield2 knew that series had a lot more going for it. But more importantly, it had different things going for it. From the direction the Bad Company games were going, more console focused, we had little reason to be overly hopeful. But Battlefield3 turned out as an incredible step forward from Bad Company. And while it incorporates a few select innovations from CoD, the game turned out something else. A game with a very high skill cap, not only does a player need to know what role to play at what time, he needs to know it on foot, in tanks or in the skies. And he has to be a team player. This alone isn't the novelty though, but the way the game was made and the way it plays are. The pixel perfect user interface alone makes it stand out compared to the bulky font and laggy mouse found in the MW3 interface. The entire layer of post processing, and colour separation in BF3 also apply to the interface. When I first saw it in the beta I had the wide eyed look of a child who discovers that his new toy not only looks shiny, but also transforms into a robot. It looked so very expensive.

MW3 sticks to its guns. It isn't a spoiler to say that MW3 is "like MW2 but newer". A mark of the stagnation of Call Of Duty, which is just as well because the sub-series has now come to a close. Right on time for the end of the Xbox360. Does this mean that CoD is beaten by default? Not really. And I wager Activision doesn't see it that way either. Queue Black Ops 2 for November 2012 as the swan song of the CoD series as we know it. Another sign of decline could be measured in its players. I'm not saying we should crack open their skulls to examine the dopamine levels but instead look at their dedication. CoD4 was played for two years. And if you're a competitive player, you still do after 4 years. MW2 was actively played for 1 year and wasn't even that good. Black Ops was hot for about 3 months and now MW3 already seems on it's way out after only 1 month. It's hard to tell if it is because MW3 is considered to be slightly less good than BlOps was or if the formula has run its course, regardless of MW3's quality. Battlefield, with its new engine, bigger scope, more interesting shooting mechanic, seems the title to beat now. But still, it seems a very frail reign if we base this claim on sales.

Truth be told, CoD and Battlefield aren't that similar conceptually. They share the modern combat setting. Both have a team deathmatch and the M16, Americans and Russians. But they also share the mudslinging ad campaigns. To the untrained eye, both are advertising the same game! They aren't, but the perception is still there. Neither companies are informing otherwise because they actually are rivals. Both would want the public to buy their game, and not the other. If we go on customer loyalty, Call of Duty takes the lion share. As console popularity has given it the biggest audience. BF vets are almost always on PC, where the series by and large stayed, and are a minority.

As predicted earlier, Call Of Duty remains the more popular of the two. And as long as there's another dollar left, a company will keep making its product. Even to its own detriment. I'm not sure Activision has the audacity to carry the franchise into the future on the same tech though. Which in turn means that Activision will have to procure a new next gen engine to power their franchise for the next generation of consoles if they do. They will, Call Of Duty is a very important money maker for Activision.
This dependency is where Activision may have a problem.

Not a typical PC publisher, Activision has yet to show off a next generation engine or a game using one. Others did, EA has the Frostbite2 engine from DICE. Bethesda has the Rage Engine from ID. THQ has a few projects, Nexuis & Homefront2, using Cryengine3. And no doubt EPIC is working on a next generation iteration of Unreal Engine 3. Unfortunately I was only moderately impressed with the Good Samaritan Trailer they showed at GDC 2011. But we have yet to see a game using it.


Out of all these mentioned next generation engines, Frostbite2 has seen the most actual use thus far. Need For Speed: The Run used it, and rumour has it Dragon Age 3 will use it too. It's no stretch to say that the next generation of Mass Effect, Medal of Honor and Dead Space games will use it too. Just a few weeks ago, Bioware has already confirmed it is using Frostbite for the upcoming C&C Generals2. And then there's Respawn. The original CoD developers, now with EA, who are poised to fill the void that CoD will presumably leave in the next generation if it fails to reinvent itself.

Maybe the future for CoD as we know it today, lies with a free to play model, not unlike TF2 or Battlefield Heroes. A hardcore shooter running through a browser isn't new either. It could be an opportunity to bundle the entire Modern Warfare series onto one unified platform. With all maps, all weapons and a selection of balanced perks. Optimizations could even be made to create a Pro Mod to promote professional play.
Since the specifications to run CoD have become far below those of the standard PC, it can live quite a few years longer in this form, using the same engine, generating revenue through micro transactions or subscriptions. Away from the bleeding edge of technology, where expectations are more tempered. A key ingredient may be the social aspect of CoD. The basic framework is already in place: Call Of Duty Elite. The community site where player's multiplayer stats are shown on profile pages. People can watch video content, participate in community activities, start community groups, etc. Activision has delayed, or aborted according to some sources, the PC release of CoD Elite because they are worried PC gamers will mess with the statistics.
My inner cynic would rather think this story is hogwash because when was this company ever worried about PC gamers or what they did with the game? History has shown that Infinity Ward didn't care in the least about what the (PC) community did. Glitches, exploits and hackers in MW2 didn't push the developer into any sort of action. I'm also not inclined to think IW has had a change of heart, after the stellar job Treyarch did in supporting Black Ops, because the proof is in the pudding. MW3 has no Dedicated servers and no accessible in-game console. The buggy release version and no CoD Elite only add insult to injury. To further tarnish IW's image, this just happened. My guess is it will go unresolved. PS3 users have my condolences.
An argument that comes up time and time again is piracy - by now the oldest cliché in the book. In the case of Activision it's mind boggling considering what its other half, Blizzard, has been doing on PC for years. If a game runs through a (web)client with a bunch of server side operations, its useless to pirate. MMO's can't really be pirated.

DICE is halfway there with BF3 as the game launches from the web browser. Plus Battlelog is available for all platforms. And it's great. So great in fact that I'd wish other EA published games, such as Crysis2, Battlefield Heroes, Mass Effect3 MP, Medal of Honor and the upcoming C&C: generals 2 would use it. The statistics it tracks are useful, the internet browser server browser, yes you read that right, is the quickest thing and the social interaction is just logical considering the time we live in.
It almost goes without saying that BF3 is a pureblood PC shooter. It's very customisable: FoV, dedicated servers, a long list of tweak able variables. A PC gamer marvels at the mere sight of it all. Rendered in a brand new engine that pushes our hard earned computer hardware. Meaning, of course, that the graphics look absolutely stunning. Just look at this clip from FRANKIEonPCin1080p.

I'm tempted to write a good review on it, I really am. But those are so hard to do, and might even be superfluous considering the game speaks for itself. I recommend it as it is, in my opinion, superior to MW3 in every meaningful way, as a serious FPS.

And With that I'll leave you with some BF3 entertainment by BirgirPall. Enjoy, and have fun.