The CoH community site has up full details on Paragon City’s Veteran Rewards. One thing that I think SWG has always done well, and a welcome addition to City of Heroes, veteran rewards are the kind of low-cost high-enjoyment bit of fluff that I love in Massive games. For anyone stupid enough to stay in one game for years at a time, this kind of subtle reminder that our corporate lord and masters love us is highly reassuring.

In the case of CoH, I’m especially impressed by the choices Cryptic has made. Trenchcoats, working Wings, tons of costume editing tokens, other simple costume elements, base decoration pieces … it’s a great bag of toys.

My favorite elements are the little ’sprint’ powers that were offered as part of the pre-order box lo these many moons ago. The cosmetic changes to a basic power are a great addition to the normal game. I hope that someday Emmert’s goal of widespread power costomization comes a reality.

Brent, buddy, you know I love what you do. But jeezus … your top ten list suuucked.
The Virgin Worlds podcast is a happy part of my week, every week, and at first I was enthused when a ‘Top 10 MMOGs’ list began back on the 12th. Instead of listening to the first back at the start of the month, I waited until the second half was released to start listening.

My biggest beef was the assertion that the higher numbered MMOGs were somehow ‘better’ than the lower numbered ones. I realize it’s less interesing when a top ten list doesn’t imply ranking, but in this case I think that’s the way I would have gone. Otherwise, it seems somewhat offset to compare almost decade-old work to brand new stuff. Likewise, games built on a shoestring compared to juggernauts like WoW? Blah.

I don’t care that WoW was #7. It’s iteratively better, not evolutionarily. Totally agree. You guys are obviously approaching the games from the POV of MMOG snobs, and I respect that at least. No problem.

But Jeezus. The fucking Warden? You’re complaining about the Warden? You’re complaining about their bad Customer Service? “Hi, this is 2003, I want my complaints back.” You then go on to discuss how Asherons Call is better than WoW, because some of its shitty content was hidden from most of the players. That is the most ass backwards thing I’ve ever heard. It’s a game, guys, not a scavenger hunt or geocaching. The point is to have fun, not spend time searching for content. (Subtle glares at Star Wars Galaxies and Everquest.)

On top of that, you then ranked Everquest 2 above WoW on your list. The hell? I’d love to know what alternate reality you folks are living in where EQ2 is a ‘better’ game than World of Warcraft. EQ2 is just like the majority of SOE’s games: lots of promise, plenty of potential, flawed execution. The traditional SOE recipe for failure has kept the greatness of EverQuest 2 from dominating the MMOG conciousness, and positioning it higher than WoW on the list is not going to change that.

Other crankiness elicited by your list:

• Guild Wars is Multiplayer, and it’s Online, but it ain’t Massive by most definitions.
• You should be ashamed of yourselves, making us Westerners remember that Lineage II exists. You gave children nightmares and made our crops blight!
• Ryzom’s big ticket to fame is it Frenchness. Okay, the Ring is really good. I’d like it more if the game the Ring was built on wasn’t so damn boring.

Since it’s my blog and I’ll second guess if I want to, my list would have looked more like this:

1. Everquest - teh Winner!
2. World of Warcraft - your new lord and master
3. FFXI - the much overlooked asskicker
4. City of Heroes/Villains - tights make everyone happy
5. Dark Age of Camelot - PvP’s home turf
6. Everquest 2 - so much potential
7. Ultima Online - Grandpa
8. Eve Online - funnest screensaver ever
9. Puzzle Pirates - puzzles are the future
10. Star Wars Galaxies - what not to do

All whining aside, I liked the obvious effort you put into the feature. Nice work, gents. Just, less ganja next time you working on the Science.

I’m going to harp on Galaxies again. Just so you have a fresh reason to think me an ass haberdasher, the reason I want to harp on Galaxies is because I’ve been playing it again. I blame Foton. I read back through his Grumpy Architect series again, and it made me pine for the good old days.

In any case, my experiences going through some of the game content in Galaxies dovetail nicely with my thoughts on Everquest’s newest expansion, and Darniaq’s designing for the past post.

As I walk through the almost lifeless planets in Galaxies, I’m struck by the folly of misjudging your audience as badly as SWG has. (On a side note: why haven’t they done server mergers yet? SOE, get on it, stat. I want people to group with.) While the changes of the NGE and CU certainly have contributed heavily to the sad state the game is in, I think there were more fundamental problems with the game from the get-go.

By way of example: Last night I was waiting for my wife to finish her shift at Barnes and Noble, and I picked up some of the Clone Wars trade paperbacks from the comics section to while away the time. Besides enjoying the quality of the art and writing, they made me compare my own experiences within the Star Wars Universe (primarily, making shirts and sucking at PvP) with what filled the pages. The marked differences between what I mentally associate with Star Wars, and what I associate with Galaxies, are quite telling.

The most serious flaw, I think, is the almost complete absence of physicality from Galaxies. The grace of the Jedi in the more recent trilogy is the standard to live up to, and the game has always fallen very flat. Combat animations are run awkwardly together, the general lack of death animation sequences is just embarrassing … it makes you wonder if the people  working on the graphical presentation had actually stopped to watch the world they were emulating. To be sure, Galaxies is still attractive even lo these years later, but it’s not a world you inhabit, it’s just a world you move through.

Even moments they managed to accurately capture can be dashed by inadequate technology. The the feel of riding a swoop at breakneck speed across a desert during the setting of twin suns is made much less special because of the popping and stuttering of the world around you.

No, of course they couldn’t have just made “Jedi Outcast the MMOG”. Another successful 3D character based PC game may, just may, have been a good place to take some hints from, though.

In an effort to do even less work, on alternating weeks I’m going to be doing something a little different with my MMOG Nation column at GameSetWatch. Namely, I’m going to be calling out MMOG bloggers, pointing out the best stuff they’ve done, and putting them to my really tough softball questions. Fear, for you too may be asked things like “What is your favorite MMOG?” and “Why did you start blogging?”

Tuesday saw the posting of my piece on AFK Gamer. Foton was very nice in playing along, many thanks again to you sir. Not only was it fun reading through his archives and ‘interviewing’ him, but he offhandedly revealed a secret subsite to AFK Gamer that had me reading for hours and hours this past week. Did you know that bastard had a whole series on SWG? Yes! He’s not the only one that’s Grumpy! :)

Anyway, from the GSW post:

Michael: What would you say is your proudest moment from a Massive game? The one youll be telling the grandkids about.
Foton: Well I’d have to clean up the language for the grandkids. I guess there’d be a bunch of them, all involving game accomplishments that i didn’t think we could do or took for-f’ing-ever. The bard epic in EQ took me forever, was my 2nd main. First nefarian kill in WoW, first time other SWG players complained about my pvp guild on the forums. The EQ bard epic was the first time i swore in a good way in EQ. That’s probably my favorite. I felt good about that for days. Now of course, I realize it would have been better to cure cancer or write a Pulitzer novel, but hell, it was THE BARD EPIC.

Saylah, over at Mystic Worlds, isn’t too happy about LotrO’s PvP. While I agree on some things (I think the game is going to be an abject failure, and I have no plans on playing it long-term), I disagree with her assessment of the Monster PvP. It’s very carebear, to be sure, but the idea itself has a lot of merit. In fact, it’s the only vaguely interesting design element I’ve heard them mention.

What I really want, though, is the ability to play the evil side. Not just a single character, but a component of the forces of evil. At low levels, you play the role of a goblin. It’s an open-PvP world, between your side and the good side. Evil players aren’t that powerful, relative to their good-side brethren. When they go to attack good players, they best travel in groups or (even better) swarms. The key difference is that once a goblin dies, there are no negative repercussions. After all, he was just a goblin. His life is for the good of the evil side.

He respawns at the nearest evil respawn point, and goes on his merry way. Back to the battle with him, or perhaps out into the countryside to do some ‘questing’ against the goodly NPCs.

For evil players, instead of the typical MMOG playstyle, it would be more apt to compare things to SOE’s Planetside. Evil players work together, and there isn’t a whole lot of the foofy elfy-welfy nonsense that bogs down a lot of fantasy MMOGs. You are an armed force, part of an army, and you act that way.

Just as with PS, as you gain ‘levels’ you gain access to new abilities and (awesomely) new vehicles (monsters). So, after being a goblin for a while, you become an orc, then perhaps an orc captain. From there, the sky is the limit, literally. Uruk’Hai, Cave Troll, Giant … Fell Beast? Mmmm.

These higher-level characters would be able to drop evil-side spawn points, so that evil’s minions could re-enter the battle more quickly. Perhaps some players would rather be more traditional PC-types, and could fill the roles of evil wizards, necromancers, etc.

The key here is … it would be lots of fun. Mobs would actually be *smart*, because they’d be controlled by real people. You could recreate epic battles more accurately, with the possibility that the good guys might not be the winners. Helm’s deep, especially, would be a hoot and a half.

So, while I totally agree that the Monster PvP as described seems like a giant waste of time … it doesn’t have to be.

I put a lot of effort into this one, and I think it turned out pretty well. The newest MMOG Nation colum at GameSetWatch is all about the CoH vs. MUO vs. DCUO. It’s not about the games, so much, as it is about what the fight means in a larger context.

Change, then, is ultimately what this fight represents. New players in the Massive space have announced themselves. Perhaps for the first time in a long while, jaded gamers can look up from the ruddy glow of Molten Core and see a light on the horizon. There will be flames on message boards, debates about design choices, and analyzing of screenshots. Most important of all, there will once again be passion in the eyes of Massive gamers tired of companies promising ‘Everquest … but different!’. In the end, what every Massive gamer wants is not a hot elf chick. It isn’t phat loots or cybering, guild drama or farmed gold. Massive gamers want to have fun. They want to feel powerful, like they have real choices to make and an impact on the virtual world around them. They want to feel like they’re part of a community. And, of course, they want to wear cool costumes.

Getting linked off of the front page of the EQPlayers site was fun, but is anyone reading these things? Is it worth the time I’m putting into them?

They’ve pitched another tent, and everyone’s invited for a good old-fashioned revival. This month Man Bytes Blog is hosting the Carnival of Gamers, and there is lots of great stuff to check out.

After a brief hiatus, the Carnival of Gamers is back, but… what is this? Gone are the rides, gone are the sideshow freaks, gone are the sounds and scents of wild abandon and in their place, directly in the center of the field, is a large white tent, brightly lit against the encroaching night. As we come closer, we hear the strident voice of a single man, punctuated by bursts of applause and joyous shouts, and bracketed by strains of inspirational music and we realize - this isn’t a carnival, it’s a revival!

MMOG Nation will be hosting the carnival thiscoming January, a fitting milestone to the first anniversary of the site’s life!