This is a truly epic week for Massive games … and in a good way , for flipping once! Hellgate, Tabula Rasa, Pirates of the Caribbean, EVE Fan Fest, and FFXI Fan Fest are all packed into these seven days. Go MMOGdom.

This week was a great one for MMOGs, as not one but three online games went live. Probably the highest profile is the much-awaited sci-fi experience from Richard Garriott, Tabula Rasa. General British has a thank you to everyone who has played the Beta so far. Last Friday, players got a chance to try to kill him (in-game, of course) and there’s a lengthy write up of the end-of-beta event at IGN. Next Generation has an interview with the man himself on what it took to get TR released.

“Tabula Rasa was very different from how I approached Ultima. In Ultima I came up with a series of virtues and tried to explore those. I wasn’t aiming for a system that was “the truth” or the truth of ultimate reality (though I think they make pretty good guides to live by) but they allowed for exploration and that was the key. So (when making Tabula Rasa) I took a step back and said to myself, ‘what was the point of that system, why did I do it in the first place?’.”

Meanwhile, Producer Starr Long has chat with Gamespot that tackles what the future might hold for the game.

“We plan to do yearly large expansions with other planets and all the creatures, missions, etc., associated with that. Between those times, we will be adding content to existing systems, like player-versus-player and military surplus every few months.”

Lead Designer Paul Sage has a few words about the game’s development from a more technical standpoint.

Err, so remember a while back where I was whining that FFXI doesn’t have achivements on the 360? I guess I was wrong, and here’s the list to prove it.

I would swear that when I looked at the game on my gamerscore list a while back there wasn’t anything listed, but now (sure enough) there are a bunch of ’secret’ achivements attached to the game.

I guess I do still have something to complain about: these things are ridiculous! Getting max level with your character class is cool and all, but wouldn’t have been kinder to give a massive point bonus for hitting 75 with ONE class? That is hundreds and hundreds of hours of gameplay right there.

Anyone know if these are recent additions? Or do I just have some kind of disfunction?

Via Joystiq comes the word that FFXI will not be coming to the Wii, despite the console’s capability to handle the game. Square Enix’s Senior Vice President Hiromichi Tanaka indicated his company is in talks with Nintendo to correct this situation. The issue appears to be the Friend Codes, which are required for two Wii owners to interact. As Joystiq’s Ross Miller puts it “Final Fantasy XI on the Wii would surely be profitable even if gamers were required to enter over 300,000 12-digit codes to fully experience the world. That’s how much, we suspect, Wii owners are clamoring for Nintendo to join the rest of its brethren in this generation.” With the 360 already playing host to a Massive Game (FFXI, in fact) and the PS3 slated to become home for several titles, Nintendo has to be chomping at the bit to get a MMOG developer on board with the waggle.

I find this interesting, because there a couple of other questions to account for on the Wii besides friend codes. I’m going to assume off the bat that motion control is out of the question. You’d almost be requiring players to use a Wavebird or classic controller. What about the Massive game down the line where motion control is an option for the Wii? Aside from the obvious and illicit ideas that immediately come to mind, there are a number of awesomenesses that come to mind there.

The most obvious one, to me, is crafting. The usually incredibly dull experience of creating an item (I’m looking at you EQ2) could be eliminated via motion-control minigames. Instead of doing a puzzle to fire a kiln and shape a bowl (or whatever) you could actually do so, using the controller to pull the clay to your desired form. Just as with MMOGs on the DS, I think Nintendo has a lot they could offer Massive gaming … if they’d ever get off their collective arses and get with the program.

A full year has turned, and once again I’ve got an article in The Escapist. Last year’s Games of Christmas Past was a heartfelt effort that I was really glad I could get out there. This year, to be honest, my piece is just set dressing for the issue. It’s not a big deal, I don’t mind writing fluff. Unfortunately, there was so little room for my fluff this year that pretty much everything I was trying to say with the article was left on the editing room floor. The realities of a gaming magazine. No biggie. I still think it turned out pretty well.

During the holidays, when the games themselves change to reflect the season, it’s a great chance to reconnect with what makes them fun to play. It’s not the raiding, and it’s certainly not the epic loot. The reason we play World of Warcraft or Star Wars Galaxies is the same reason we travel home for the holidays: We need to connect with people that can make a difference in our lives.

Thankfully, the realities of blogging means I can bring you the parts of the article The Escapist didn’t pay for. If you’d like to read the full version of my article, go ahead and open up a tab to the piece on the site: Going Home for the Holidays. Then, read on below to get the rest of the article. I hope you enjoy this ‘writer’s cut’ of the article, and are looking forward to a good Holiday season yourself. :)
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Van Hemlock (who I’ve been enjoying so much of late that I added him to my blogroll) talks a little bit today about the role of achievement in MMOGs. Specifically, he’s discussing the great support for that axis on the Bartle graph within Everquest 2. That’s hardly a surprise, given the tendency towards achieving the average MMOGer has, but it tied in interestingly with comments by EGM editor-in chief Dan Hsu. This past weekend he talked about how much he loves Achivements on the Xbox 360, and how surprising that was for him as a gamer.

I really like Achievements on the 360 too, and not just because I like flashing my epeen. In a lot of ways, I see the Achievements system as a spotlight. Good Achievements lead you to places you might not have gone before, or push you into experiences you may not have otherwise had. I like to think of them as the designer shining a spotlight on a part of the game and saying ‘Hey dummy, this is fun!’ This gets into a grey area with multiplayer games, unfortunately, as a lot of the Achievements in (say) Gears of War are all about killing a whole whole bunch of people; this is purely epeen territory and is kinda boring.

But, I digress. These two commentaries reminded me of my time playing FFXI on the 360 earlier this year. I loved FFXI all to pieces during my time with it on the PC, and getting to actually play it on a console with a controller (like it was more or less intended) was a smashing time. Even if, really, I didn’t understand why they were releasing it on the 360. Something I didn’t touch on in my review, as I was aiming for brevity, was the lack of Achievements for the game. In this regard FFXI is completely unique for the 360’s launch lineup. Every other game had Achievements, and subsequent game launches have proven out Microsoft’s intention for the vast majority of 360 titles to have Achievements.

This lack, then, is glaring and ultimately frustrating. I picked back up my FFXI account via the 360 (thanks to Square/Enix for doing the right thing there, btw), and my little Taru Black Mage began waddling his way around the world again. During the course of play, I actually dinged 40 … and was very disappointed when I didn’t get that very distinctive blip and notice on my screen. I’m sure there is a perfectly good (technical) reason why your character couldn’t be linked up with the 360’s achievement system; that doesn’t mean I’m not disappointed. I know it’s a little thing, but … c’mon. I’m human! More than once I’ve lamented the fact that my time playing Oblivion was entirely on the PC. I would have loved to get some of those sweet, sweet Achievements for being an RPG badass. Anybody can frag somebody; how many people can claim to be a Dark Brotherhood Listener? I can, but I can’t ‘look back on it with pride’ because I don’t have it on my gamertag.

When other MMOGs reach the shores of the 360, this has to be corrected. It’s a requirement. Huxley, Conan … I don’t care how it is to hook your broke-ass character database up to Xbox Live, I want my gamer candy. I want a little popup for having whacked the foozles, and I want a popup for having FedExed. I’m a 360 owner, dangit, but I want my validation for camping a spawn, getting phat lewt, and not being a n00b.

I may be the only one, of course, but I may be the only one who liked the City of Heroes and Star Wars Galaxies badge systems too. At the time I left CoH I had every site seeing badge I could get my sweaty paws around. I also did the Imperial Theme Park when really the only reason to do it was to get the badge. Again, I don’t care if anyone else ever sees these things. I want to be able to look back at my badges and remember that awesome time I did the Trick or Treating missions at Halloween, or the time I helped a bunch of people find that place on Tatooine and earned myself the “Ben Kenobi’s Old Home” badge.

This is wandering off topic slightly (and has given me an idea for another post), so I’ll wrap it up with this: The 360 is going to be a platform for MMOGs. You know it, Microsoft knows it … so they’ve got to get serious with things here. As gamers we’ve come to expect certain things from Xbox Live, and if they don’t deliver we’re going to be frustrated. Given how new MMOGs on consoles are, I think it would behoove the Live team to get this part right. Make sure we get Achievements when we do cool things on your console, Microsoft; MMOG gamers need a little validation too.

If you’re like me, you enjoy screenshots from Massive games. The static experience we have in single-player games make screenshots purely a marketing tool. In MMOGs, the unique experience every user can have results in unrepeatable, unique experiences - great fodder for photography. If you’ve got screenshot troves sitting around somewhere online, feel free to link to them in the comments.

My Stuff-

• Chocobo Express - A buddy’s adventures in Vana D’iel
• Star Wars Tragedies - My time in SWG.
• A Tale of Rotting Flax - ATITD
• World of Warcraft Beta Screens - See! Dwarven Mages, Night Elves on Raptors, Old Ironforge, and More!

Everquest 2 -

• just_gwendolyn’s flickr set - Some great scenery shots of Norrath.
  
• An EQ2 raid - A night in the life of a raider.
  
• mercera’s flickr set - Some great FanFest shots, as well as in-game moments.
  

World of Warcraft -

• AFK Gamer’s flickr account - That one guy. He’s a great in-world photog, actually. Take more shots, Foton!
• Joi Ito’s ‘weknow’ shots - In and out of game shots from the leader of the somewhat famous ‘We Know’ guild. Nice BC shots too.
• Downbeatjunkies’ BC set - Lots of scenery from the new newbie areas.
• PVP IronForge Raid - Caps from a Hordie raid on the center of the Alliance’s world.
  
• Mederi’s flick set - Nice raid-level scenery; Onyxia, MC, etc.
  

Others -

• Thanopstru’s FFXI flickr set - Follow him via RSS, always beautiful Vana’diel shots.
• haysophie’s Everquest flickr set - Raids from ye olden days of MMOGdom.
  
• Wizzel’s Vanguard Beta flickr set - See the shiny before it breaks.
  
• Pentadact’s CoH/CoV flickr set - Great moments from a game I often miss.
  

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.