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.

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.

A wider point of view, The Aftermath

As far as gaming goes though, 2011 has been an important year for first person shooters. There were some ambitious titles this year, many debuts. Most of them poised to capture the hearts and minds of the same public. Now at the end of the year, at last, we can look back as the dust settles. As I type this I am aware that I'm writing this from the one perspective, that of the PC gamer. I also realize there were more interesting shooters this year then mentioned here. But I wanted to keep the scope of this post limited to those games aiming squarely at Call Of Duty. For some these are competitive games and PC still remains the home of that. Console gamers should look to PC as well, because the tech that's present now will be what dictates the hardware of the next consoles. This is especially important now, because the next wave shouldn't be too long out.
Talking about hardware almost always means talking about graphics. But I shouldn't sell PC gaming short, it's not all about graphics. The social aspect of gaming shouldn't go unnoticed. More and more people are playing games. Pulled in by their friends, or simply because everyone else is doing it.
It won't be long before we find it hard to imagine the social aspect absent from gaming. For a good long while now Steam, Xbox Live and PSN have been familiar names to gamers, yet these platforms are still evolving. Becoming more social oriented instead of being just a digital marketplace. Facebook is the norm to follow. This year was also important because it marks the point at which console ports seem to look really dated. This is generally a bad thing, making developers push their tech if they want to keep selling on PC. It only takes one, because if the competition does...
So how did the other contenders to the throne fare? I'll give you the rundown of what I remembered.

Homefront turned out a little Battlefield-clone that could. Or at least wanted. At first glance, gameplay looked like a cross between the fast paced action of Call Of Duty and the scope of Battlefield Bad Company. Multiplayer was about that, if you could handle the way it played. Inertia and loose screws are two words I could use to describe the experience. None of them are overly negative, but it took some getting used to. Not nearly as fluent as CoD, but still fast. Not nearly as deep as Battlefield but not shallow either. The PC version of the game got some extra attention and it showed as this was by far the superior version. Just looking at the archaic options screen that looked as dense as an excel sheet made me smile. But that's where the praise stops for most people. Homefront got outclassed by the competition in every way. I also make a deliberate point not to mention the campaign mode. It set the scene for Homefront, let's leave it at that.
The Homefront franchise is not done though. THQ wants its militairy shooter. After all, they've been doing very well recently with their other titles such as Darksiders, Saints Row and all things Warhammer 40k. To everyone's surprise Crytek will be making Homefront 2. Originator Kaos studios was put out of business.

Crytek also had its own seminal shooter this year. Showing the prowess of the Cryengine3. At the time of the release of Crysis2 is was quite clear that real time computer graphics had taken the next step. This first engine that was ready to enter the next generation was still on current consoles. But it was until the engine started showing some muscle on DX11 tech that we saw we were dealing with an engine for tomorrow. My quad core PC with a single gtx460 had to bow out but the screenshots thrown around the web spoke volumes. Crytek had made another engine for tomorrow's systems.
The game itself was very good indeed, the gameplay mechanics deviated drastically from the standard run and gun found elsewhere. Instead you'd run, gun, cloak, super-jump, shield up and gun some more. Unfortunately the game was run like a console game, even the MP part was done by a console developer: Crytek UK, formerly Free Radical Design. Known from Timesplitters and more recently, not to mention notoriously, Haze. As a result the MP was well done but FRD was clueless when hackers started taking over as soon as the game went live. Pirates could play MP unhindered. Bringing with them the ire of all honest Crysis fans that made the franchise what it was. Steps were taken, but by then the game was bleeding active players.
The single player campaign was quite good. I'd rate it higher than both Battlefield 3 and MW3's campaings. Sure it was a lot more linear than Crysis1, but it still had set pieces which one could tackle whichever way you wanted. The story was a lot better and held a few interesting twists.

Brink didn't need a new engine. Brink took another, more artsy direction. The look of the shooter game with the hooligans was well established. The caricatures in this game wield caricatures of real guns. Too bad then, the gameplay wasn't quite the caricature of what Team Fortress has to offer. The concept of the game was painfully limited. Multiplayer matches were essentially a series of objective-oriented team challenges. Where one side would have to stop the advance of the other. These story missions got very old very fast though and that's what killed the game for me. The missions were well made but once everybody figured out the maps, every match would play out more or less in the same way. Needless to say, things got boring. I still feel extra, more open, game modes such as team death match, domination and payload could have saved this game.

After my disappointment with Brink, I was hesitant to give Bethesda more money for Rage. So I am holding off until Rage gets a hefty discount, or steam has a sale on it. Rage was well received by the press. And people seemed to like it well enough. The PC version wasn't very good at first - the techniques used by Carmack were more fit for consoles. This brought out the usual pitchfork mob of disgruntled PC gamers. Carmack sold out. Carmack lost his mind. Carmack has left us. Carmack made amends. He then stated that the PC should propably have been the lead platform for the game, and will be for future ID projects. PC problems were fixed within a few patches though, so in the end it all came together. The big upside to Rage is that Bethesda now has a established next generation engine. The engine is very powerful as it is, making Rage run at 60fps on current consoles is no small feat. Though it remains to be seen if it will be used in the future. The next big FPS from Bethesda will be Prey2, and that looks fantastic even though it still runs on the old Doom 3 engine.

Once, in a Steam review of the game I wrote the following (see quote):

Simply put, TF2 has become the best shooter of all time. It has proven its staying power for years now: the timeless art style, the classic gameplay, the support from one of the best developers. The micro-transaction based free to play model is a sign of things to come, as TF2 is the herald of a new age in computer gaming.

And I feel I was pretty much right. Even though I wrote it in a hurry in exchange for an event achievement. TF2 went free to play this year. Boldly going where no big mainstream shooter dared go. Valve was rewarded in a huge way for their calculated gamble. The game even surpassed Counter Strike, which had been on top for years, as the most played Steam game.
Income from TF2 now comes solely from microtransactions from the in-game store. Once a player buys an item, he'll activate the random drop roulette that exists within the game. Which gives him even more, craftable and tradable items.
By making the game free, Valve has effectively invited everyone to the in-games store that has already made them, and the in-store item creators, a fortune. With this Valve has changed its initial stance on character customization. They had always put character silhouette first, to improve the recognizability of the various classes. Don't take out the pitchforks just yet, because this means we can expect more solid titles from Valve because of this. Dressing up your own characters is fun but this doesn't say anything about how fun the game is to play. The answer is very. But by all means try the game out for yourself. It's free. Despite being really old in gaming terms, TF2 is still getting a ton of attention from its creators, almost as if it was an MMO. There's something new almost every month. Valve isn't resting on their laurels either. Soon Counter Strike: Global Offensive will storm Steam, and the world as the next e-sport. Next to DOTA2. Another e-sports game. They don't seem to concerned about what happens in the world of FPS, keeping Counter Strike in a league of its own. Much like that other e-sports titan, Starcraft from Blizzard.
Duking it out for the mass market though, are EA and Activision. The title fight! In the next post.

A wider point of view, part one.

I may or may not have mentioned the end of civilization recently, which may or may not be coming our way soon. But just in case of a global meltdown, I'm preparing for extreme violence. Luckily as a Belgian I'm not far away from one of the world's most renowned weapons manufacturers. So when I go online and equip a FN F2000, like the ones delivered to the Libyan special forces, to headshot teenagers in Battlefield, I'm actually celebrating our great Belgian Culture. How our Minister of War, Pieter De Crem, would swell with pride and joy upon reading this post. If only he knew how to read. Yet all of that pales in comparison when compared to the way the man can pre flight check a Lockheed C-130 by patting the side of the fuselage as if congratulating it after winning the Ostend Derby. Sadly, the last great Belgian military victory dates back to when horses were high tech in the year 1302, when we kicked the French all the way back to France. We haven't had a French related problem ever since, proving the value of armed conflict once more. But let's not dwell on political games.

Suffice to say, I've been playing a lot of games. Mostly shooters. My most recent stint started about half a year ago with the release of the Medal Of Honor reboot. But even before that the market has been flooded with big budget hardcore first person shooter (fps) games. One remarkable trend among these titles: most of them are multi-platform. Console popularity is on an all time high with developers because of the large user base. So the leading versions are often for console and then get ported over to the PC. A process that almost always leads to an inferior PC title compared to pure PC games. Developers porting from console to PC usually leave out a lot of functionality or options the hardcore PC community is used to. Such as mod tools and dedicated servers. But the lack of one often ignored option has been irking me to no end: A configurable Field Of View variable.
The field of view determines what the viewing angle (in degrees) of a game is according to the old 4:3 aspect ratio. So a 65 FoV gives the player a 65 degrees viewing angle. This same variable, 65, will result in a somewhat wider view in 16:10 and 16:9 widescreen aspect rations.. Maybe it's not quite as ignored as I think though, but I am getting the idea that many devs just don't care. Which leads people who actually are passionate about this topic to write about how devs just don't care.

The following blog posts require a bit of gaming history to really be understood. This first post sets the scene for what is to follow.
I will talk about first person shooters on both PC and consoles. The differences, the design choices and the consequences. To some this might be sliced bread, but I'll highlight the necessary info just in case. And this chronological summary will provide some perspective on the genre today. This is by no means a complete list though, but it highlights the big hitters.

The game that popularized the "modern war" setting was Call Of Duty 4. Current generation CoD games were made with a very heavily modified Quake3 engine by Infinity Ward. The game has a fully moddable FoV in the .cfg file, which could be modified with a simple text editor. The game was smash hit and instant classic on consoles first and PC second. Which led to the sequel Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 2.

A big console shift happened with this game. All variables were locked away, including the FoV. While still having a somewhat usable FoV even for PC, other neglected options, the biggest of which were dedicated servers and the access to an ingame console, made this game into the most hated Call Of Duty for the hardcore PC community. The outstanding production values made things worse as Infinity Ward dropped out of favor. Not supporting the game beyond a few simple bug fixes and exploits added insult to injury.

Not long after Battlefield Bad Company 2 was released. The name "Bad Company" denotes the console offshoot of the Battlefield series. Made by European developer DICE, the original had no PC version but the sequel did. Surprisingly it was quite configurable via an editable config file which allowed PC gamers to change the FoV, among other things. One year after release, the game still has quite an active PC community. While not a steamworks game it still makes the steam top 10 most played games list almost every day. Yet it can't get close to the popularity of CoD.

The 2010 release of Medal Of Honor marked the reboot of the series with a modern combat setting. Not surprisingly it was heavily influenced by the succes of MW2. It had a troubled development though and the game was ultimately split into two separate pieces with two different engines. Resulting in two quite distinct games. The Single Player campaign used Epic's Unreal Engine 3. Which has encrypted configuration files, making it impossible to adjust the FoV. Producer EA pushed the game primarily for the console market to compete with CoD but got absolutely destroyed in sales.
The multiplayer side of the game was done by DICE. They used their proprietary Frostbite engine giving players the same options as Bad Company 2. Making it quite configurable.

The current king of the market is Call Of Duty Black Ops. Made by Treyarch, it has been well supported across all platforms. Needed indeed because the release version of the game was very buggy for PC and PS3. The lead PC programmer (@pcdev) made a promise to make this a genuine PC title. A statement that was bound to come back to haunt him. Yet as a result this CoD game is much more configurable and enjoyable than MW2, its biggest rival. The games options menu has a built-in FoV slider. It and many more variables can be edited with a text editor just as before too. A remarkable and commendable return to form. As were dedicated servers. Mod tools are promised with a future patch.

Not a cross platform game but still important is Guerrilla's Killzone 3, as it is intended to be the flagship FPS game on Playstation 3. It's backed by Sony and presumably the answer to Microsoft's Halo before CoD took over the market. Rightly lauded for it's superb visual design but despite all effort has failed to catch on and hasn't even come close to competing with CoD.

Bulletstorm was made in response to the "serious" military shooters of the last year. This over-the-top arcade shooter was ported to PC and uses the Unreal3 engine. Many PC options were left out in the release version and the config files encrypted, which sent forums alight with rage. To soften the blow a bit for PC gamers, a decrypter was posted on the Bulletstorm forums so they could edit the config file.

Homefront is made by Kaos Studios. A spiritual successor to the developer's earlier game Frontlines. They develop games using Unreal3, not a very promising sign if we look at its history. However, Kaos has been wooing PC gamers with exclusive features, dedicated servers and the promise of editable config files. The game was recently released with moderate success. Undoubtedly it will get stiff competition from existing and upcoming games. But the success of Counter Strike has shown that a PC shooter doesn't necessarily needs to be a looker to be a darling. If it keeps getting support.

Speaking of lookers, Crysis 2 is developed by Crytek. Responsible for the exquisite Far Cry & Crysis 1. Crytek will now foray into the console market with this sequel. Now suddenly skeptical PC gamers are promised the same great Crysis style support and features. Crytek have a lot to live up to as the first Crysis had and still has the most impressive game engine to date. Just about every variable was editable. The game had dedicated servers and modding tools. It was pretty much exactly what the PC community wanted from a FPS game. Gameplay footage from Crysis 2 has been very promising so far. The demo, released on 4/03/2011, was not. Gamers all over the internet were predicting doom and gloom because the demo lacked just about every configurable setting while carrying over a few key console features, such as the now infamous "press start to play" opening screen and aim assist for gamepad users. A demo isn't representative however, so here's hoping Crytek remembers its promises.

Brink is being developed by ID software protegé Splash Damage. Like Bulletstorm a reaction to current "realistic" shooters and like Team Fortress 2 is very stylized. The game uses the ID4 engine, known from Doom3, which was also used in Splash Damage's Enemy Territory Quake Wars. They seem to be very aggressive in their stance on the genre, and very confident of the game's success. They also have the material to back up their claim as the game seems to be in great shape. The PC legacy of the ID4 engine is telling, the game is promised to be fully configurable with an ingame console, FoV modification and dedicated servers on PC. If the game is a success it could spell the end for Call Of Duty clones.

Speaking of ID software. It is also cooking up a new game, with a new engine. It's called Rage and will appear on consoles and PC. Curiously, it seems to be the only one breaking new ground with its engine. As the FoV seems very wide compared to other console shooters. Which is good news for everyone. Perhaps the venerable giant, I'm talking about ID, can come back to compete in style.

Battlefield 3 is the upcoming DICE blockbuster. Using an upgraded frostbite engine, it was originally a PC exclusive and will be using the latest DX11 technology. Meaning the PC version is the one to be downgraded to the DX9 generation consoles. Couple this with DICE's excellent PC support and it should be in great shape.

And then there's Valve. They release few new games, but instead opt to support their games long after release. Counter Strike, Left For Dead and Team Fortress 2 are prime examples. Updated almost every other day, fully modable, dedicated servers and more have made these games fan favorites.
Valve had their own FoV incident when Half-Life 2 was first released on PC in 2004. Many of people were complaining about getting motion sick while playing the game. The standard FoV was set at 75. Shortly after, a patch addressed the problem by adding a feature to modify the FoV to 90. Keep in mind that the Call of Duty standard anno 2011 is 65. You can read more about this historic event here and here and even here.
Most likely the game was configured as such because at the time Valve didn't want their brand new engine to run slowly. So they probably narrowed the FoV to boost performance. Which is key to my next post.

There's another layer of politics going on though. I've mentioned developers so far but it's the publishers who're really competing for the market. The big players are Activision with everything Call Of Duty, EA with Battlefield, Medal Of Honor and Crysis, THQ with Homefront and Bethesda with Brink and Rage.
At present, everyone on the market is trying to knock Activision of its throne, with little success. In my next post I'll explain just why this is and why it's probably not going to change anytime soon while this battle is fought on the consoles. Which in a way has consequences for our PC gaming freedom.

Don't forget to also read part two of A wider point of view.