Last week Cameron got to talking about Dungeons and Dragons Online, and it made me a little misty-eyed.

DDO … is all about the dungeon crawl with friends. It can be summed up as follows: kill monsters, disarm traps, break stuff, and loot chests … I find the combat in DDO much more satisfying than in NWN2. It also captures the “adventure with your friends” aspects of D&D much more convincingly than NWN does, in my opinion. It mimics the tabletop version much better in this respect. My biggest complaint about DDO so far is that the fun is directly proportional to how many people you can get playing in your group. Solo play is alright, but gets old fast (and only certain classes can do it well). Duoing is lots of fun, but you’re still pretty limited depending on the classes. Either monsters will be tough or traps will be tough. Once you get up to 3-4 people it starts getting really fun because you have such a wide variety of skills to draw on and can tackle the hard mission setting … As always, and especially in DDO, grouping with your friends is far more fun than grouping with strangers. I still intend to do a full write-up of my impressions on it eventually and detail what I like and don’t, but I want to play out the trial first, at least.

Y’see, lo these many months ago, the party of adventurers that have now taken their characters all the way to just-shy-of-level-40 in EverQuest 2 were going to tackle Xendrick in Turbine’s DDO. We made characters, and Katie and I logged in to begin our first night of adventuring with Brian. I was going to do Cleric, Katie was going to be our Fighter, and Brian was slated to be a Wizard.

We never even made it to the tutorial rooms on the docks.

Brian’s computer kept crashing, over, and over, and over again. We were really looking forward to DDO, because the idea behind the MMOG-play in the first place was that it would partially take the place of the weekly D&D game we’d been playing with Brian for quite some time.  But the DDO client just refused to work on Brian’s system. He’s a system administrator for a living, so when I tell you that he troubleshot the crap out of his system, I mean it. Cards were reseated, drivers reinstalled, FAQs consulted, support systems referenced … but still Eberron refused to play well with Brian’s machine.

He never did get it working, and our interest in playing together before the idea died led us to Norrath. Katie and Brian got EQ2 core installs on the cheap, Brian’s friend John joined us, and off we went.

Brian and Katie accuse me of having MMOADD, and it’s posts like Cameron’s that make that thing in my head go off. As much fun as I’ve had in EQ2, a part of me really wishes we’d been able to give Turbine’s under-appreciated D&D title a proper go. I still wish those folks a lot of success. Here’s hoping they’ve found their niche.

All the same: Sorry we never got to be friends, Turbine. I think it would have been cool.

Here’s the deal: quests and quest journals are the reason I like Massively multiplayer games now. I played EQ and SWG and etc, etc, before World of Warcraft, just like all the other jaded MMOG hags. I thrilled to the social gaming, the hackery and the slashery, the obtaining of loot, the joy of a new expansion, and all the other things that make Massive games great. But I didn’t realize how much I could love Massive games until I played World of Warcraft and grabbed my first proper quest. It was in Dun Morogh, of course, and I remember it clearly: Dwarven Outfitters, given out by Sten Stoutarm. Here’s the quest text:

“What do we have here? You look as though you might need something to keep your hands warm, hm? I’ll tell you what would help: a pair of nice, warm gloves. And, being the kind soul that I am, I’d be more than happy to provide you with a suitable pair. I’ve one condition, however. I need you to go get me some wolf meat. Nice arrangement, hm? You bring me some wolf meat, and I’ll make sure you don’t lose any digits to frostbite. Well, what do you say?”

Yeah, it’s a ‘whack the foozle’ quest, with an item requirement no less. Thankfully, the drop ratio for that wolf meat is near 100%, so eight wolves later and you’ve a.) finished your first quest and b.) dinged level 2. It’s cheesy, and it’s lame, and WoW doesn’t offer you a ‘completed quest’ journal so you’ll quickly forget about it.

For me, though, ‘Dwarven Outfitters’ was my first step into a wider world. Sten’s offer was novel, because it didn’t require me to guess what he wanted. It didn’t require me to guess what he’d give me. If I needed a reminder of what I was supposed to do, it was instantly checkable. And, most importantly, it gave me a clearly understandable goal rooted in a story.

That story part is enormously important for me. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking recently about what’s a critical element for me in a game, and that story bit is tantamount. Bioshock and Mass Effect are two of my most anticipated games of the year not because of game mechanics (though I like what I’ve heard) or graphics (thought I like what I see). I ‘m looking forward to those games because of their different and engaging stories. Story makes the difference for me between meaningless exercise and fun.

Thousands and thousands of quest like this later, I’ll admit that sometimes I read just long enough to determine “you want me to kill how many?” That said, there is a story here. A cold newbie adventurer wanders up to this dwarf, and the guy offers this bum a chance to kit himself out with new gear. It’s short, it’s to the point, and it works. The very next quest you get, though it’s just another whack the foozle quest, begins to set up the Dwarf v. Trogg conflict that is pervasive in the Dwarven zones for the rest of the game.

From the get-go, WoW roots you in the story of the gameworld with a simple quest structure that grabs the player. Does this ’suck’? Thousands of kill ten rats later, I can understand why a player would be bored by such a thing. That said, I’d much much much rather have nice simple quests like this in the game than not. Not every quest can be gryphon bombardments.

Quest designers are already coming up with better alternatives. DDO’s dungeon-based experience system is an improvement. WAR is working on several improvements to multiple kinds of quests. PotBS will have a bunch of quest variants, from the sounds of things quests that EVE players will be a bit familiar with. One can only assume that the folks at places like 38 Studios, Heatwave, Colony, and Bioware are working to bring together all-new ways of having fun and telling story to players in a Massive setting.

Fundamentally, though, I shiver at the blanket suggestion that ‘quests suck’. It all comes back to ‘Dwarven Outfitters’ for me; I don’t want to go back to my days before I met Sten Stoutarm, and you can’t make me.

Guild Wars and DDO both have new ‘State of the Game’ pieces up; I find the Guild Wars ‘State’ addresses extremely interesting. Instead of talking about what they’re going to be doing with the game, GW articles actually talk about the current state of the game world. Some posts discuss skill builds (always helpful for a newb like me), while others talk about the use of skills in PvP. Tactics are a common subject as well.

In comparison, the DDO State of the Game talks about the numerous upcoming features they’re planning to implement in order to  … you know, keep people playing. Seriously, folks, what happened?

Wow. Okay, so we all know DDO isn’t doing so hot. I guess in Europe, it’s doing even worse than here in the states. Whether intentional or not, the folks at Codemasters (the runners of EU DDO) have given players a very grim message about the future. They are doing a server merge, collapsing the five current realms into two. The current realms have names like Boldrei, Dorn, and Aureon. If you’re an Eberron player, you’ll know that these are all deities in The Sovereign Host a group of nine good-aligned gods. Well, the two new servers are ‘The Keeper’ and ‘The Devourer’. As you can imagine, these two are not on the light side. They’re a part of The Dark Six, the Host’s evil counterpart. They went from ‘The God of Law’ and ‘The God of the Forge’ to ‘The God of Decay’ and ‘The God of Destruction’? Ermm … no symbology there.

I got a notice via email about a new piece of Vanguard marketing fluff. Instead of binning it right away, as I’d normally do, I’ve taken to running down the assets and posting them in the MMOG Nation Flickr account. I figure this way I’ll have a running account of new MMOG elements as they come out. I’m going to clean it up and start referencing it here more often, but right now I’m just uploading blindly. So far I have some screens from Vanguard, and a few images (pretty ones, though) from DDO’s expansion.

In any case, this newest marketing push was a video for a high-level Vanguard mount. I figured that if the movie was interesting, I’d go ahead and YouTube it, and put it up here on the site to look at. Then I watched it.

Thankfully, it was already on the Tube so you can share in my horror. My reaction: “Yer umm … yer horse looks to have some problems there mister.”

A long day of writing and such, and I’m not in the mood to be particularly witty … not that I ever am, but you understand what I’m saying.

EVE Online Re-Review at MMORPG.com

Since the last review quite a bit has been added to the EVE universe in the form of three major content expansions called Exodus, Cold War and Red Moon Rising. Exodus added tons of new ships, modules and skills, but also added the capability for groups of Corporations to form Alliances to control their territory and defend it from others with Starbases. These allowed for entirely new level of galactic conquest and many great player empires had risen and fallen in the two years since.

MMORPG.COM - EVE Online : Reviews - Our Exclusive Reviews Of The Game

Pyschochild Explains Why We Need Stories in Games

So, let’s focus on some basics first. It’s obviously hard to put storytelling into games given the notable failures all around us, so why do so many people bother? Well, the main reason I can think of is commercial. Lots of people watch movies, read fiction books, and watch TV dramas. All these media have storytelling in them, and people obviously enjoy it. More people watch just about any TV drama on during prime time than will play any particular game of ours. So, there’s an audience out there that wants to enjoy a good story, and game developers (who like solving puzzles) are trying to figure out ways to draw them in.

Psychochild’s Blog » A spirited defense of storytelling in games

Ralsu of TenTonHammer Talks Nonsense

Is DDO a cool game or not? Does the good outweigh the bad? Just what am I saying?DDO is a cool game. It crams a lot of fun and intense action into its package. Honestly, it feels more like an action game than a MMOG to me—one that could have been a single purchase with a lobby for online gaming.I think the good aspects of the DDO merit giving it a try. Long-term, I have an idea what Turbine really needs to do to fix this game: give up on the D&D concept.

Dungeons and Dragons Online at TenTonHammer.com :: Your DDO Community and Resources!

This last article link was to be accompanied by a long rant about why, while it is a good idea to start thinking of moving away from D&D, DDO needs to stick closer to its roots to be successful.

Instead, I think I’ll go play Dead Rising.

I’m making my annual pilgrimage to the mecca of nerdery on Wednesday. If you’ve never been, you can think of GenCon as sort of a pen-and paper E3, only without the cute women or the bathing.

I kid. Mostly.

The MMOG folks are ever-more interested in the con of cons, though, and at least three publishers are going to have a presence there this year.

Turbine’s announced that they’ll be unveiling the Forsaken Lands [Forum post may disappear] at their booth. DDO was a big draw at last year’s con, and I imagine it will be so again with its new info.

Pirates of the Burning Sea is planning a big show for the con, with demos and (probably) some info on the user-created content addition they’re making to the game.

You may have already heard that Guild Wars is holding a massive tournament this weekend. $5,000 in cash to the top 32 winners. Too bad I suck, or I’d be right there.

I can’t see any confirmation, but with Jack Emmert’s past in the tablet-top industry City of Heroes/Villains has usually had a presence at the event. They usually say they’re going, though, so mayhap with Mr. Emmert’s fading into the background they’ll be keeping a lower profile as well. Shame.

I expect to be a little post-light this week, as a result of my busy schedule, but I’m sure I’ll have lots of post fodder ready to put up when I return.