Mind of the BeholderPart 2

Level Up!

"Endurance +1, intelligence +3, wisdom +1, charisma +2"

The Role Playing Games genre is unlike any other. Not only has the face of games with the label changed considerably over the years, it has even been applied to games that aren't RPGs at all. The simple reason is that RPG elements have made it into other genres. Even in Need For Speed: Shift players drive for experience. No, this isn't the advertised Real Driver Experience but the numerical indicator on the top of the screen that climbs higher and higher to suggest your driver's level.
Call of Duty 4 is another example, as one of the first games that kicked of the trend. A brilliant game, unique in the way how it's remembered for its story campaign. However, the multiplayer design in particular stuck with the series, structured a bit like an RPG. It also stuck with EA's Battlefield series, EA's Medal Of Honor series, EA's Titanfall series, Crytek's Crysis series, THQ's Homefront series, Sony's Killzone series. And so on.

What is Prestige mode?

Entering prestige mode in Call Of Duty is the ability to reset one's progress. The player loses all unlocked items, experience points, the ability to make and use custom classes. The idea is to revert back to the very beginning of the multiplayer game. In exchange the player obtains an emblem beside their name to show off their prestige level. This can be repeated about 10 or 15 times, depending on the game.

Safe to assume this system was universally considered a good idea, it enthralled its gamers. To some it ruined the First Person Shooter genre - adding an XP grind for items and prestige system which enabled online boneheads to boast about their levels as if it wasn't an indicator of time played but of actual rifleman skill. The real crux of the matter is if this system makes people play the game because of good gameplay or because of the carrot dangling fifteen minutes in front of their crosshairs. This question isn't as innocent as it may appear: if an opponent prevents our brain from getting the dopamine fix we are expecting, like animals we rage. You can't blame the person for this because that's how people work. Critisism befalls the game. Other than this, CoD really isn't the worst offender: the XP grind to unlock all is short, prestige mode: optional for those with time.

I generally distrust any game where "level up" or any similarly worded bullet points make up part of the main features. Nor do I enjoy the marketing that raises level caps as if the grind to come is something very enjoyable. I say this because I've never found theme park MMOs to have anything resembling a worthwhile story. I'm not averse to theme parks. But if a game is made up of roughly similar looking attractions and I have to ride said attractions until they start boring me, about 3 times, the theme park quickly becomes a vision of hell, where everything that was once enjoyable becomes as stale like food without taste of which no amount will ever satisfy your desire. Until the bell of the next level-up rings, not as a reward but as the sign that the ride on the caravan of the damned has one less stop to make towards the end of the line. Logically, I don't think it speaks in favor of your game design if the host of the game allows you to take a mercy shot taking you to the end of the line if you pay the price of the game over one more time - logical if it means you won't pay to play the game for another few months this way. Only fair to make up for lost revenue, right? Well, your RPG should be a game, not a damn business model.

The back of the box of World Of Warcraft reads:

A World Awaits...
Descend into the World Of Warcraft and join thousands of mighty heroes in an online world of myth, magic and limitless adventure. Jagged snow peaks, mountain fortresses, harsh winding canyons, zeppelins, epic sieges - an infinity of experiences await. So what are you waiting for?

Ask any guildy for the reason why they can't come play in your party and chances are high he won't repeat the box quote but will say... "I'm leveling." Again, WoW isn't the worst offender. Blizzard made old content a lot more rewarding enabling players to do one quest instead of twenty to progress to newer areas - saving time and keeping their playerbase at the latest zones.

_{Star Wars the Old Republic started out spectacular but imagine what if this was the intro to a Mass Effect-esque Knights of the Old Republic 3 instead.}

I don't really mind the limited range of things a player can do in a game (fetch quest, kill quest, escort quest, collect quest, etc) as long as the motivation is right. Proof of this is Star Wars the Old Republic, where the story missions were as highly enjoyable as the ones you'd find in a single player RPG. The fully voiced cast of companions and related NPCs draw you into a world that has more to offer then any vendor-trashable quest reward ever could. However, set foot outside the neatly drawn line of the story areas and you won't see its kind again for literally hours while you, a level 43 imposing and life-destroying Sith Lord, would listen to NPCs whisking you along with their petty sorrows and requests, to get kittens out of the old Bantha tree by either shooting the kitten, cutting the tree down or climbing up there, a right Sith monkey - each solution with its proper light and dark side implication.

Who knows, maybe in-between battles Achilles also had to mend the sandals of scores of Greek villagers in order to allow them to yield unto him the required amount of frustration that would allow him to angrily slaughter his King's enemies on the next battlefield.

Hardly the stuff of legend, but who knows. Maybe in-between battles Achilles also had to mend the sandals of scores of Greek villagers in order to allow them to yield unto him the required amount of frustration that would allow him to angrily slaughter his King's enemies on the next battlefield. No, The Old Republic tragically and quite literally bored me to tears near the end, so I got off the snail train through Purgatory. The uninspired way EA/Bioware decided to turn it into an micropayment advertisement insulted my sensibilities and previous dedication so it lost me as a player too. I could come back to the game, it has many saving graces such as customizable companions, but only if I was convinced the slow progression wouldn't dampen my enjoyment. Unfortunately the game has already caused some offence when it culled my ingame funds when it (partly) transitioned to F2P, deleting everything above the limit - an eye-watering amount.

Another MMO I played for a few months is Wildstar. An impressive design, limited skill bar, creative classes, great art style. It's not even big on grinding - in the sense that you're able to blaze through content rapidly if you have the right class and setup. I clocked in at about 2-3 weeks of intensive playing to take a character from the creator to the endgame. Again, I'm stressing the leveling in this game because there's nothing else to propel you forward. This game has no story, heroes nor villains, no endgame content save for a couple of areas where the player repeats daily quests - another theme park from hell. Each town hub has its own set of quests, with a small narrative red line, but nothing that stands out. The game is made up out of Sci-fi and Spaghetti Western tropes - much more tired than witty. I don't see myself picking it up again even though I really liked the class designs.

No game should consist of boring stuff to pad out playtime. That task should fall to the co-op or competitive PVP modes. No game should be played for the sole reason of gaining XP. If the experience bar is reduced in such a way that all it basically does is exchange rewards or trickle content for time played, why keep jumping those hoops? Real RPGs have levels to roughly indicate where your character should be in regards to the story or place in the world. Each level brings with it more tricks and solutions to tackle the game's challenges. It usually also brings an increase in stat points making the characters stronger in order to cope with increasingly stronger enemies. When the player gets relatively stronger due to more tools and superior stats, there should be satisfaction: all the thinking, building and strategizing is paying off in a real way. Some games don't even need the experience track for that.

_{Despite its age, Guild Wars Factions still stands as one of the finest RPGs I have ever played. Expect it to show up a few more times in this series.}

One of such is Guild Wars. With a top level of twenty that was never raised by expansions mandating their purchase. The game is quite big, yet max level is reached about halfway through a single story, concluding an introductory period. After that the game truly breaks open. You'll become competitive in PVP multiplayer matches, explore zones to hunt for useful elite skills learned from vanquished foes, forge armor that doesn't infer any special benefits other than look splendid. Al the while the XP bar becomes a detail that pops off every so often to announce another spendable skill point has become available. None of this is insanely time-consuming so a player is invited to create a new character and replay the game. Before you ask: character slots are limited to one of each class. Additional slots, one of many but far from necessary convenience items, come at a small fee. The only real cost was the game's box. It didn't waste your time because that would cost the developer. Nor did it chain the player to the game with subscription fees. Considering all it had to offer, Guild Wars as an MMO comes closest to the single player RPGs that came long before.

In its undiluted form, the traditional cRPG, exist mostly in the past. Venerable names such as Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment, Ultima, Icewind Dale are nearly a decade and half old and have yet to get proper successors. Only now with indie developers and without the nay of big publishers, do we see a resurgence - to slake the thirsty and arguably aging masses. That is not to say that I have a cRPG shaped hole in my nostalgia that absolutely needs to be filled. The bigger need is that of good game design, an engaging story or universe dealing with interesting issues. To drive the point home one more time: none of these old masterpieces even considered wasting their player's time. To nostalgic players these new classics do away with the dictated, often unwanted (in the case of SWtoR) megalomaniacal multiplayer component found in MMORPGs and focus on what RPGs should be about: story, characters, universe building and challenging combat supported by a solid foundation of game mechanics.

Related posts:

• Mind Of The Beholder, Part 1, where I talk about past RPG experiences.
• Mind Of The Beholder, Part 3, about how RPGs are being influenced, by example, design and market.
• Mind Of The Beholder, Part 4, simplicity in RPGs and the evolution thereof.

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?

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.

Comfort games.

After a long busy day at the office, it's nice to get home, make yourself a cup of coffee and fire up one of your favorite games. Comfort games are the games you usually fall back on when there's nothing else to do. This might not be the best game in your collection, but it's the one that never ceases to entertain you. You might have a few, or you might even just have one. I guess this is true for a lot of people who play World Of Warcraft, with more then 10 million subscribers, it has the population that even some countries have not. Since WoW is such a time sink, it's not unlikely that some of these people don't play much else. And rightly so, WoW has a lot to like.

So you might think about this, what is your comfort game, do you have more then one? These are the games that you should score an A+ or a 10 on your personal scale. I should say, that a developer that has you playing and enthralled for years, have done a very good job indeed.
You could even make the comparison with other media. What TV program or soap has eaten up hours upon hours of your life, what movie has you viewing it at least a couple of times a year? What books? It doesn't matter if it are public favorites or not, I'm not talking about commercial successes per se. Your favorites could be critically acclaimed, or they could be despised by the critics. For instance The Force Unleashed (yes, it is odd that I bring up Star Wars again - could it be a comfort franchise? I guess in time I will have to explain why it's interesting to keep bringing it up) is doing pretty good in sales, despite scoring average marks. It's almost a given that a lot of children and teen out there will have favorable memories of it later on, and if you ask them about the game in a few years, chances are they will label it "awesome" anyway. It's the experience that counts for the most part. On a side note, I played SW:TFU on Wii and wasn't very impressed by it (although admittedly, the story made into a movie could have the potential to be the best in the series). Chances are low of it becoming a comfort game for me, but it might be for some kid out there that gets home from school and pines to throw about a couple of Storm troopers, perfectly understandable.

Some of my comfort games? I'll indulge you. I had my fair share of comfort games over the past, must have been about, 12 years. So I will contradict myself and say that comfort games have come and gone. Change of hardware, evolution of game design. I will still vouch these games for being great, great games in the past. That doesn't necessarily mean they are as great today. Mind, I've been playing games since NES days, but in those days, a game was a game. It didn't have critical acclaim hanging in the balance, it was all good fun. Though our child minds still had the equipment to detect a stinker. So with that said, some past highlights.

First off was Jedi knight: Dark forces 2 (oh snap, Star Wars again). I played through the story numerous times, building my character differently discovering all the secrets. It was my very first online addiction, and to clarify, I played it competitively.
I should praise this game on another blog post, or this one will become rather lengthy. Anyway, if you have the ability to play it, you probably should. And I've got an extra incentive right here.

Along came Sacrifice, in my opinion Shiny Entertainment's masterpiece. It was a hybrid between an RTS, RPG and Third person action. That might seem like a strange combination, but it made for great gameplay. Top notch voice talent and some pretty good story telling. An art style that holds up today (and will do so in the future). In all, it made for a solid universe. For all those who wish to experience this unsung classic, go buy it over at Good Old Games.

Another chapter in my personal gaming history, Guild Wars.
One of the most successful MMOs out there. I was deeply involved in the game. Played in a highly ranked guild that got to and held third place on the world ladder. Which can be an indicator as to how engaged I was into the game. Unfortunately for the game (do not read as "the ingame world"), once I joined the workforce, I quit playing. I log in from time to time to see what's happening in there. It's sort of like visiting the place you grew up in, albeit not quite as profound.
Some highlights in the game which would be a must see for anyone with a taste in gaming art, Kaineng city and the Jade Sea (factions) and the Realm of Torment (nightfall). The art direction in Guild Wars is an exquisite blend of real world locations and the artistic interpretations of said locations.

Finally, some current games I fall back on. It's hard to invest into a game these days, since there's not that much time for gaming as there used to be.
I spend a lot of time shuttling between work and home, so there's a big portion of mobile gaming at this point. So I either carry a GBA micro or a DS to work.

Advance Wars has been a comfort game for me for years now. I own and have played through every game (barring the games before GBA that never came to the west) in the series multiple times. The gameplay, the happy-go-lucky art style, the music, the over the top vibe to it all. I think all this is material for another blog post.

Recently, I've been looking into casual games, both from a personal and professional interest. And one of these games has me hooked. Puzzle Quest.
It's a match three game, which on it's own is quite simple. But PQ adds a few more layers of RPG gameplay that directly involve and influence the match three gameplay. Upgrading your character with skills, spells and equipment make it all the more addicting. It's an ideal game for quick and short game sessions. It's not quite a comfort game just yet, but it could become one. Only time can tell.