• The Void Storm event in EverQuest 2 will keep me running with Ostimak even outside of my weekly playtime. Good thing anyway – I’m a bit behind on XP just the same.
• The Midsummer Fire Festival begins this week and runs through July 4th. They’ve completely revamped it this year, and I think for once I’m going to make an effort to show up for an in-game capoff event (fireworks).
• Star Wars Galaxies is celebrating its 5th Anniversary this week. I’ve gotta get in to see if I can get Amak that title.
• I literally can’t wait to play DDO thiscoming Monday. It will be my first session actually playing the game properly. Really looking forward to it.
• Speaking of D&D, my first session with my new group is this Sunday. Go goblins go!
• I’m doing things that are under an NDA. It’s all very exciting and non-disclosed!

You came here for videos though, right? Right. This week I’ve got a few quick clips from my time in-game for last Saturday’s PlanetSide event. They’re all really short and (I fear) not all that interesting. I’m trying to work on my camera skills. Make sure to check out the first one, though. Meteors dropping from the sky is an incredibly impressive sight.

Ultimately, though, my love has been for science fiction since I was a wee tot. Heinlein, Aasimov, Clarke, Stephenson, Gibson … these are the folks that I think of when I go to my happy reading place. As has been noted many times by NPD sales, developers, and money-men, I’m in the minority. Apparently the idea of surgically implanting a stainless steel port into your skull, in order more easily connect with a computer, is something not everyone enjoys. In space no one can hear you scream, and it’s hard to love a robot.

I’m tired of it. The Sci-fi ‘niche’ is a fantastic venue for creative thinking, and it’s an incredibly evocative milieu for gaming. Here are my five reasons why science fiction makes for a better setting than fantasy …

Update: Welcome io9 readers! Make sure to check out Grimwell’s fantasy-oriented response to this post, and my podcast followup to get the full discussion.

1. Down With Poncy Elves – I’m so freaking tired of immortal long-eared humanoids, I could spit. Elfy welfies are boring. Everybody plays elves instead of humans because when faced with the choice of immortality or blotchy skin, immortality and flawless pores win every time. What’s the point of even offering elves and humans in the same game: they’re the same freaking thing. Beyond elves specifically, I see the lack of magic or the purely fantastical as a strength to sci-fi stories. No one is saying you have to stick purely to boring old reality (ie: Star Trek), but you at least have to try to come up with an explination for the out-of-the-ordinary. Trek’s technobabble is one of the worst examples, and hedges incredibly close to Clarke’s third law. Most sci-fi, though, extrapolates existing trends into their fantasy world. AI, for example, is presently unfeasible, but not because of any sort of conceptual limitation; we just don’t have the technology yet. I find that much more gratifying than the meaningless pablum of “it’s magic!”
2. Bringing a Gun to a Knife Fight -Swords and axes are cool. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a guy – hitting something over the head with a big metal object is something I’m pre-programmed to enjoy. That said, the variety afforded by modern items and weapons is hard to match in a fantasy setting. Tabula Rasa’s healing widgets are a great example, and the sf/x that represent them are fantastic. Blizzard has certainly shown the variety you can get out of axes, hammers, and plate mail, but projectile weapons are a nice change of pace. Dinking around with TR’s weapons has been a highlight of the experience.
3. Actually Cogent Storytelling – That ‘no magic’ thing (should) extend to better storytelling. Look at the lore of most fantasy titles: blah blah elves blah blah elder gods blah blah chosen race blah blah great conflict. Most of these games have little more than the serial numbers filed off to distinguish between their backstories. Is Norrath really all that more compelling than Dereth or Vana’diel? Sci-fi storylines tend to be based (more or less) in the real world, meaning players have a lot of built-in context on which to base their understanding of the game world. This not only means players might find the lore more approachable, for those who care about such things it should lead to better roleplaying. What’s an easier point of view to adopt: a crazy lizard-guy who can throw fireballs or a human soldier?
4. A Hopeful Outlook – This may be something hard to grasp, but I fundamentally think sci-fi settings are more hopeful than your average fantasy world. In fantasy, so much of the time, the efforts of the players are just chessboard moves. Ageless NPCs, demi-gods, demons, these are the ‘real’ players in the lore. We just show up as incidental actors on a much bigger stage. In science fiction, people are people. The protagonists of the story are set against much more understandable foes; even ravenous space aliens are fundamentally mortal. They may be unstoppable, inscrutable killing machines, but they can still be killed by a well-place bullet. Beyond that, I find the idea of humanity expanding into outer space (even if it’s in self-defense) incredibly uplifting. Our current attitude towards space exploration is so blase that even the flight from Earth seen in the Firefly/Serenity series (”Earth-that-was could no longer sustain our numbers, we were so many.”) seems hopeful by comparison. How can anyone look up at the night sky and not wish to go visiting some day?
5. The XKCD Factor – Have you ever read the webcomic XKCD? Go check out a few comics if you haven’t. You’ll be able to quickly tell if it’s the kind of humor you get. A Venn Diagram outlining the number of people who can fully appreciate blogofractals, Katamari jokes, and an unnatural fear of velociraptors does not encompass all of humanity. That can also be said for folks who truly appreciate science fiction. Lots of people can debate Kirk vs. Picard, but mulling the finer points of bespoke nanotechnology design after reading Diamond Age is a more rarefied experience. Sci-fi is demanding in a way that fantasy isn’t, and as a result sci-fi gamers tend to have instant connections with their fellows.

What can put the brakes on this game’s freefall? In my mind, I think about the only thing left is an influx of new players. A sufficient parachute of players might make this game’s time in the air a little longer – and certainly more interesting.

The key is that folks need to face up to the reality that the game is just not set for the big time anymore. As hard as the skeleton crew on on the game works, regardless of their successes, Vanguard is not going to get these players in its current configuration. Generating a ton of new content is also not in the cards. You’re not going to snag players with expansions and whatnot – the core game isn’t sturdy enough for that. There’s also the incredible hugeness of the title; the game takes up gigs and gigs of space.

That size is a liability for what I have in mind. In short, I think Vanguard would be perfect as the first AAA 3D fantasy free-to-play title. SOE has already shown its interest in utilizing the F2P business strategy with plans for FreeRealms and Agency. I think it would be a small jump to extend that to Vanguard. Show an ad as players log in, and offer a number of options for users via a microtransaction format.

Vanguard is already set up with more bells and whistles than you can shake a stick at. Most of these currently have to be earned through hard play, and should continue to be available via that method. For a couple of bucks, though, who wouldn’t want a cool camel mount? Or a dragon? Or a unicorn? Housing options are also obvious choices for purchaseable upgrades. With this kind of thinking behind the game’s financial future, I’m certain that all new batches of content could be added to the game.

I’m also going to go ahead and say that I think Vanguard would be a good game to test the waters of more ‘liberal’ RMT. The kind of players who enjoy Vanguard might appreciate the chance to legitimately buy some gold, decent equipment, or a higher-level avatar. At this point its something that’s never been fully explored on a wholesale commercial level, with full support from the developer. That’s one of the inherent beauties of Vanguard: it has so much potential, but almost none of it is realized. Why not go out on a few limbs with it?

In my view the game is basically a failure. At this point, what does SOE have to lose by shaking things up?

These business-side decisions should be supported by some fairly drastic design changes, I think. The bottom line is that the world of Vanguard is too freaking big. Players are far too spread out, there’s too much art, too many classes, too many races. It’s a mess. It’s a legacy of the overly ambitious days of Sigil, and it shows.

So cut the crap. There’s a ton of unfinished junk lying around the game world. There’s miles and miles of unfilled spaces, starting zones that never really started … so why leave it in the game? What I’m going to say now is going to come across as startlingly naive, but I believe there’s a measure of sanity here: cut and paste.

Cull the world down to a small portion of its current size. Choose the best chunk of the game, and concentrate on that to the exclusion of everything else. Take the best elements of the rest of the game world, and relocate them to the new version of Telon. I know, I know – this wrecks up the gameworld’s lore. But the number of people who really care about that lore are a handful at this point.

I think there’s something worth saving here. It’s just spread out, too thin on the ground for people to enjoy. That laughable monthly fee is a barrier that most people won’t get past. Even if they do, it’s so hard to get to the really good parts that they’re highly unlikely to stick with the game.

I feel the same way about PlanetSide, as long as we’re chatting on this wavelength. The monthly fee for PS is a freaking joke. It’s long, long, long overdue to be done away with. Cut the number of planets and caverns, merge all the servers, drop the fee and you get more people fighting across a smaller world. All hallmarks of fast and furious awesomeness.

I’m a big fan of recycling. I’m an even bigger fan of seeing hard work given meaning. The VG site amusingly has a banner that says “Set Yourself Free”. Indeed. Indeed.

I initially began writing this post at the end of last month. I stopped because it occurred to me that John Smedley might have some insightful additions to any statements I made here. He asked if I could hold off on it for a bit, and I did. GDC came and went, and because they’re still wrangling to get the legal terms on why they made the price go up nailed down we’ve still heard nothing. I don’t envy you sir, I imagine it’s something you very much want to get out here.

That’s a shame, because I can only assume they do have something vaguely cool planned. As Val, Rot, and the rest of the folks at EQ2 Daily mentioned in their most recent podcast, there has to be a good business explanation for this; otherwise they wouldn’t have done it.

Here are my own negative reactions:

1. The real loser here is Planetside, which has received a price hike of its own. I thought that the game should have been $5 a month when it launched. Lo these years later, it’s worth nowhere near the $15/month they’re now charging. Above and beyond that, I’d be willing to bet Planetside was that ’second mmog’ played by a number of Station Access users. With gamers pulling out of that deal, the PS playerbase will grow even smaller and make the price hike look even more asinine. This game only has players, in my estimation, because Tabula Rasa and Huxley have yet to launch. Whichever of those games pops first is going to get the remaining PS players day one.
2. EverQuest and Star Wars Galaxies are the two least likely to be affected by this, I think. Anyone playing those games in 2007 are playing for keeps; they’ll sluff off the Station Access and keep on trucking with their chosen fix. If SWG still hasn’t broken its current players by now, nothing they can do will stop them. (So merge servers already, darnit!)
3. EverQuest 2 and Vanguard are the two that people will be forced to choose between. I know a lot of EQ2 players have been checking out Vanguard on the theory that it’s a lot like the olden days of EverQuest; with the price hike folks now have to choose between nostalgia and the now. While Planetside slipping even further into obscurity isn’t that big a deal to me, this seems like an act of arrogance on SOE’s part. Vanguard is still very much an unproven element on the Massive scene. While folks are interested and they’ve claimed over 100,000 users, how many of those are bored WoW players checking out the countryside? How many of those are Station Access players? Both of those sources of subscription fees could evaporate in the next few months. EverQuest 2 is, I feel, pretty darn safe. With TBC’s charm fading faster than some folks expected, I think a lot of folks are looking at column B as a nice way to spend some time while they wait for their WoW itch to come back or for another game to launch. If SOE wants Vanguard to stay on the upslide over the next six months, it seems like this would be the last thing they’d want to do.
4. This is a dangerous time to be raising services like this. LOTRO’s never-ending membership is probably looking like a good deal right now. You never have to pay a monthly for the game, ever, if you fork over the equivalent of 7 months worth of Station Access. That’s crazy. LOTRO may or may not be a critical success, but given the license you know they’re going to run that thing for at least four or five years. Assuming five years that’s $200 for LOTRO or $1800 for Station Access. That’s some grim stuff there. Likewise, games like Tabula Rasa, Warhammer, etc, will not be available on Station Access.
5. At $30 a month you’re requiring people to make SOE games their only source of gaming. $30 is a used game, as has been pointed out by a few other folks. That’s an entire single-player used game a month, for the cost of Station Access. At $30, you basically have to be playing SOE games all month every month, or it’s not worth your time. The death of player choice in how he spends his time is really kinda shitty. For $30 a month, you’re offering two fantasy MMOGs, a crazy sci-fi world based on a movie series people don’t like any more, a sci-fi world people don’t like any more based on a movie series people love, and a mediocre FPS. That’s just not a lot of options for the now hard-core-dedicated SOE player.

Whatever they’re adding to the service that ‘justifies’ this bump had better be magnificent. In one year, a jump of something like 25-30% in price is outrageous. I know, I know, there’s a lot of value there, but that just leads back to point five: you can only play SOE games. It seems to me the Access pass has one of two purposes: either it makes big money for the company, or it gets bodies into SOE games that wouldn’t otherwise be there. These two purposes are at direct odds with each other; unless Smedley’s holdup is the announcement of another tier of pricing, purpose 2 is going to be simply inviable.

If I were going to pull the strings on the Station Access pass, it’d go something like this …

Welcome to Sony Online Entertainment’s ‘4 Tiers of Fun’ Website. Here’s what we we can offer you today:

• Tier 0 (Planetside) – $4.99/month. This is the ’soldier tier’, reserved for the special members of Planetside’s unique combat forces. Log in and go get em’!
• Tier 1 (Single Game) – $14.99/month. This offers you complete and unfettered access to one of our six [Gods and Heroes, remember?] high-quality Massively Multiplayer experiences. In addition, you’ll be able to play one of our highly engaging Station Arcade titles, like Cosmic Rift, Infantry, or Tanaurus. This Tier and every one above it also allows you access to Planetside’s unique engaging FPS gameplay.
• Tier 2 (Floating Access) – $19.99/month. Offering an affordable price and ultimate flexibility, Tier 2 is for gamers who like the option of moving around a bit. Choose from three of our six premium titles, and you’ll have unrestricted access to groundbreaking entertainment like EverQuest 2 or Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. This Tier includes the option of, for a nominal one-time fee, unlocking extra perks like downloadable episodes or extra character slots! Station Arcade and Planetside access is also included, insuring that you’ll be getting plenty of ‘bang’ for your buck.
• Tier 3 (Station Access) – $29.99/month. The ultimate offering from Sony Online Entertainment: Station Access. With unlimited access to all six of our premium titles, you have the freedom to play any time and any way you want. Elements like downloadable content, extra character slots, premium character and guild benefits, and reduced rates on the Station Exchange service are all included. Additionally, the client for every one of the games SOE supports is available for digital download absolutely free. That’s right, there’s no need to buy a box for one of our titles: You can download it at no charge, with every update already included. For the cost of a single, used console game, you’ll be purchasing six high-quality titles, the unique MMOFPS title Planetside, and all three Station Arcade games. It’s an unparalleled deal, and an unparalleled offering – take advantage of it today!

Ultimately, I want what the folks at SOE want: success for games in the Massive genre. Considering some of the positive steps forward SOE has taken as a company in the last 6 months, I am confused and concerned about their decision with the Station Access price. I really hope that Smed and the rest of those folks can give us the lowdown on the changeup soon, because I know we’re all dying to understand the plan.

1. Put a well-known industry veteran, who happens to be an employee, up for interview on your philosophy.
2. Make sweeping changes to your games and offer a free way to play one of your games indefinately in a limited fashion.
3. Offer a bundle package that offers all of your games in one, along with 30 day trial periods for all of them.

While I don’t see this overcoming the World of Warcraft wall, there is no question SOE has deployed the big guns in an attempt to crack it.