– Left to right, top to bottom -

1.) BioShock. A momentous moment in the game, that thankfully I could take a snap of without spoiling anything. I took a snap right after this that was a spoiler, of course.

2.) This is the strange non-crazy illithid in one of the House areas. I think his name is ‘Bob’ or something.

3.) The special ’social’ area behind the scenes in EverQuest II has a piano with its own built-in dancers.They’re wacky haflings named after some of the community folks, lest I’m mistaken.

4.) I dunno why I took this screencap; I just really liked the way this lizard was dressed.

5.) From one of the test houses, this great tent and a pair of animated-pet decorated bed was quite a treat. Along the walls were pretty much every one of the heritage quest weapons. Awesome, amazing example of EQ2’s housing.

6.) I really really have wanted to like the offerings in the EQ2 marketplace, and until this awesome spellcasting outfit dropped in I hadn’t. Want. Want want want. Not want at $10. But want.

7.) Err. Sometimes when I’m watching stuff on iTunes I catch snapshots because my cap button is a weird one. What can I say, I actually like Clone Wars.

8.) One of the early moments in the dwarf starting quest in LotRO. Gandalf kicks a cave troll to the curb, and looks really hawt doing it.

9.) The amazing-fantastico Podcasters of Bree! L to R, Back to front. Brent, Darren, Jonathan, Adam, Michael, Craig.

10.) This is what it looks like to podcast with the guys from the Gamers with Jobs crew. This is another of those accidental screencaps that turned out so nicely I kept it.

11.) This is me as Amak sitting in the Theed square during the SWG Fifth Anniversary celebration.

12.) I think this is from the second hub in the High Elf area in Warhammer Online. I love the ‘destroyed beauty’ look that WAR goes with in a lot of places. Very effective.

13.) And yet, the regalness of the intact bits are pretty awesome too. This is from the Imperial City, near the library.

14.) I love this graphical bug. Huge pets are just so awesome. This Rex is enormous compared to the little peeps.

15.) I love the theme in the Nethers. Amazing, amazing zone. I don’t understand why most folks don’t like this one.

16.) The, um, Dark Lady’s new skin. A lot to like, and not just for the obvious reasons. Check out that bow!

17.) I actually really like the WoW comic. It’s popcorn fun, and awesome to see events from the comic show up in game.

18.) A quick cap from the world event that presaged Wrath of the Lich King’s release.

19.) My favorite place in the whole wide game! Gjalerbron all the way. Howling Fjord or bust.

20.) Speaking of which, this central area is majestically amazing no matter where you’re standing.

21.) I … just like penguins. Especially these penguin models. Squak!

Turbine’s been sitting on a dragon’s horde

- A free to play Harry Potter MMO -
We know they have connections to Warner, and we know they’re working on a Free to Play title. Why not have the best of both worlds? This game would be so good just from the spare parts it’s almost hilarious to think about. Every player gets to start off as a new schoolmate at Hogwart’s. Pick your faction (house), and offer differing content to each group. Leveling up isn’t hard numbers, it’s school years! Your avatar changes as you get higher in grades, getting older and getting more clothing options.

Go adventuring in classes, do homework and get graded on your performance (ultimate single-player element) and then collaborate with classmates on projects (grouping). Even go head to head in sports and wizards duels (PvP). Microtransaction elements include clothing, brooms, etc. etc.

Built-in audience, easily understandable mechanics, and if you do the ‘look’ right could be playable on just about anything. Must-do, must-do.

- A console version and revamp of DDO -
Dungeons and Dragons Online is already a perfect fit to move to the console. The ‘swing and whack’ style of combat the game offers would be a great amount of fun mashing on a controller. I think the ideal, though would be to offer all-new servers for the console version with a ‘stripped down’ gameplay sensibility.

Let’s face it, DDO is hard. It’s pretty punishing even if you’re in a group, and the fun-factor you can see lurking just around the corner tends to get pushed aside. So for the console version, just damp it down a notch or two. Make soloing a possibility even for squishies like Wizards, and make players think “Diablo” more than anything else.

This game deserves buckets of success. It’s beautiful, innovative, and uses one of my very favorite fantasy licenses ever. If there was any game that could survive being ‘dumbed down for the masses’ it’s this one; in point of fact,  I think it would be all the better for it!

- An aggressive ad campaign and new starting experience for LotRO -
Turbine is going to do expansions. They’re going to do more content, they’re going to do more books, they’re all set to do all of these things. Nobody needs to tell them to do it. What I think they need to do now is start advertising the hell out of this game.

Ramp up a serious marketing campaing, with everything from banner ads to magazine inserts. And not just gaming mags (all two of them left). Go after men’s magazines, teen beat-style rags, and even good housekeeping! Lord of the Rings is a family friendly experience. It’s loved by millions, and deserves lots of success just on its own merits. Get out there and sell that puppy! Do TV ads for criminy’s sake! WoW can’t be the only MMO worth advertising on television.

Combine that with a brand-new starting experience for the game. Offer a 1-10 experience that more fully captures the fun of the game without putting players into the rut quite so quickly. As it is, working your way through the Shire can be kind of a daunting experience. Give players a little room to breathe at the low end and they’ll thank you for it.

These are just my two cents, though; what do you think Turbine should do with all that money?

I’ve written before about the frustrations players have finding and following content in MMOs. Specifically I think it’d be helpful to have guides or aides that specifically connect players with level-appropriate content. In my discussion of ‘the Personal NPC’, I brush against the problem that players face when they return to a character after an extended absence. Back in the day Brent dropped all of his quests when we left World of Warcraft so that he could come back fresh, and I’ve been reflecting on that ‘coming back fresh’ element. More on that in a sec.

In some ways I think the bewilderment of a returning player is almost equal to the transition from a new player to a veteran. In games like World of Warcraft or Guild Wars there isn’t a lot in the way of a problem there. Point A to Point B, no problem. What about a game like EverQuest 2, though? Or Dungeons and Dragons Online? If you’ve never tried to make your way through that content without a signpost, you’ll know: it’s hard. My thought is that there are ways to solve the issues of contextless gaming and confusing leveling paths. Ways that involve cool instanced visitor centers! Read on.

Coming in fresh, without a lot of context for a game’s story or purpose, is the real hurdle here. If a player is a returning one they’ll probably quickly recall how to actually play the game. Likewise for a new player, the act of playing probably won’t be a big hurdle. Someone that’s never played an MMO ever, of course, is going to have some serious adjustments to make. But for folks that have played at least one other online title, the rules are going to seem very familiar.

No, what both of these types of players actually lack is motivation. Understanding of what they’re ’supposed’ to be doing. New players get over this hurdle quickly because dealing with this disoriented state is entirely what the early game is ‘about’. You log in for the first time and the developers have created a space that will walk you through what you need to know. Returning players, though, are left adrift. They’ve got a quest  log and maybe some inkling of what they were doing when they last logged off.

Without the context of having played recently, returning players are left trying to connect with an entire life they’ve left behind. The threads of their life in that gameworld are tattered and torn, with their strongest links (other players) most likely long gone. Returning to a game after a protracted absence is a dodgy enough decision to begin with – this period of reconnecting is an incredibly fragile moment for players. I don’t have any firm statistics in front of me, but I’m going to guess my own difficulty of rejoining the player populace is representative. Even a player that actively wants to re-engage is going to have a daunting task before them. Less patient players, or players that might only be in for a ‘free weekend’, are almost certainly not going to stick.

My suggestion is to one-up the idea of a player guide with an entire player visitor center. If a player’s account has been inactive for a certain amount of time (I’d say three months or more), characters logged back in should have the option to appear in a themed ‘visitor’s center’ instead of the last place they logged out. This should be optional, obviously, because some players are just not going to need it.

For those that want a bit of reorientation, though, there should be several NPCs and help systems available. The full gamut of the game’s changes should be available in digestible chunks, everything from in-game cinematics to catch a player up with ongoing lore to full-on tutorials for new or expanded mechanics. Helpful minstrels that can spin you the tales of the latest expansion should stand side-by-side with helpers that will let you reset your skills, retrain, or straighten out your inventory.

I’d even go a step further than that, with NPC merchants allowing returning characters the chance to catch up on stats and loot. As an example, imagine a merchant that would sell level 70 World of Warcraft characters with hopelessly outdated gear greens that would put them on par with pre-Wrath equipment.

To jump back with this a bit, I’m very much also in favour of a little handholding for players leveling up through games with confusing zone spreads. Dungeons and Dragons Online, as much fun as it was, is an infuriating game to move through. Both individually and as a group I had absolutely no sense of what content I should have been attempting. My tactic, such as it was, devolved to grabbing every single quest I could and hoping I got one or two in my level range. The quest tracker’s sorting schema made even this default of an idea challenging.

Similar to visitor center guides, helpful NPCs would be a boon in major player cities with leveling problems like DDO. Even just a simple suggestion of what zone to be in would be a huge help for players looking to get ahead in the game. The default assumption seems to be that all players are relying on external guides to move through the game. Indeed, that’s a generally safe assumption … but not only does it seem kind of lazy, it offloads a bunch of work onto the player. “Here’s a bunch of content,” the developers seems to say. “Work out what you should be doing.” That’s all well and good if you’re caught up to bleeded edge of expansions or working your way through a just launched game, but what about five years down the line?

EQ2 is a fantastic example of this, because at level 59 I have roughly 1,000 zones to adventure in. Which one is ideal for my level? Which one should be seeking solo content in, and which one should I be looking to for group activities. Yes, I know the answer to that thanks to EQ-IQ, but my point is that I shouldn’t have to go looking for that kind of information external to the game. Why isn’t there a bard in Freeport somewhere that can give me rumors of solo adventures in Tenebrous Tangle, or hilarious group hijinks in the Clefts of Rujark?

Ultimately I’m not looking to be coddled here. I don’t want to be babied or railroaded … I just want a sense of what I should be doing so I’m not wasting my time. Time is valuable. The DCUO developers impressed me greatly back in Austin by proclaiming their respect for player time, and I’m right there with them on that.

If I have time to play, I want to play damnit. I don’t want to go searching through your endless expansions and patches for the quest lines I should be doing. I don’t want to guess which zone I should be in. If I’m returning to a game I don’t want to have to remember what quest line I was in the middle of months and months ago. I want to jump in, have fun, and get on with the important work of playing.

“Is DDO a bad game because we left? No…it isn’t. I think this is just a case of some of the more glaring flaws of the game just being amplified by our specific group dynamic. Yes, it is said that DDO is great for a static group of players…just not for this specific static group of players.”

He nailed it there; basically we screwed ourselves by not really planning our group makeup ahead of time and not having a full group. More on our DDO experiences and our plans for LotRO below.

Update: If you’re reading this and play LotRO, feel free to give advice! One of the best parts of talking about my adventures via MMOG Nation has been the helpful comments from folks like Kendricke. Chip in!

Our group consisted of:

Fighter  / Cleric / Monk / Rogue / Rogue-Wizard

As you can imagine, this resulted in lots and lots of death. We didn’t have enough healing or tanking, too much squishy DPS … it was a constant problem. As a result what should have been encounters appropriate for our level were too hard for us, and on the whole Monday evenings ended up with us having sort of demoralizing experiences.

The irony of our decision Monday (prompted by me, I’ll admit it), is that last week we had a blast. It just totally clicked and we tore through this great dungeon, had a bunch of fun. As per usual we didn’t actually complete it because we weren’t powerful enough to overcome the last boss, but the evening was lots of fun.

Over the course of our time in Dungeons and Dragons Online, we had a couple of super-fun times punctuated by these incredibly frustrating moments. This mood swing, really, was what made it hard to have a ‘real’ good time. We liked the blowout fun moments, a lot, obviously. Fun is good! But the fun of a weekly MMO session isn’t just the fun, it’s the camaraderie. It’s the talking and the chatting and the socializing. It’s really really quite hard to socialize when you’re all swearing and cursing the names of the Twelve, the designers, and Gary Gygax all at once.

Which brings us around to Lord of the Rings Online. LotRO has always been a game in my ‘lamentation’ list, and MMO that I knew I would have really liked had I ever really taken the time to dig into it. A picture-perfect launch, regular content updates, a likeable spokesperson (Jeff Steefel), and some great storytelling all add up to make it a game very much like what I’ve been whining for on this site for the last two+ years.

Of course, I’ve been so busy playing other non-LotRO games that I’ve never really dug into it. I’m thrilled, thrilled, that we’re going to be playing regularly. I can tell the other guys are too because there’s a ridiculously long thread on the subject sitting in my gmail account. We’ve actually gone to the trouble of planning things ahead of time this go around.

Michael: Dwarven Guardian (Tank)
Craig: Hobbit Minstrel (Healer)
Brent: Captain (Buffs/Healing)
Adam: Runemaster (DPS/Healer)
Darren: Warden (Off-tank)
Jonathan: Loremaster (CC)

I think that sounds like a pretty damned good group. We’ve got doubling up on our core functions, with DPS and some crowd control to boot. I’m told that the Warden and Loremaster can step outside their core roles a bit too, so we should be ready for just about anything. We’re going to step off as level 10 players on Monday to jump into the Fellowship oriented content. I’ll keep you posted.

This week’s show features Ask the Devs #6 along with an interview with Michael Zenke from Massively.com.  Lessah talks about leet speek on ”Know Your Role”, Rowanheal has some thoughts on recent stuff on ”Girl Gamers” and Steiner-Davion looks at Gianthold collectibles on ”Definitive Collectibles.”  There’s also a sketch about the Stormreach Mayoral Election – Goodblade’s Downfall!

I know I barely went into it here, but one of my weekly pleasures is now at an end. The Monday night World of Warcraft group I shared with Brent, Brendan, Darren, and Adam is no more. Instead, we’re doing something just a bit new and different. Very different, at least, but not in actuality all that new. We’re going to be playing Turbine’s Dungeons and Dragons Online.

I have to say – I’m really pumped about this. Since jumping into the MV gig fulltime, I’ve really had the chance to compare and contrast the offerings from different developers. Most MMO companies are really strong when it comes to new content. Blizzard gets a lot of props for the work they do, and rightly so, but for my money the king of patch content is actually Turbine. Their work in Lord of the Rings Online is nothing short of phenomenal. These guys have, no joke, released something like two or three entire expansions-worth of content since LOTRO launched last year. Each one is seperated out into “Books”, chapters in the game’s ongoing story that have the players dogging in the heels of the Fellowship proper. The most recent patch, Book 13, added a fantastic snow zone and a mind-boggling amount of content.

LOTRO’s sister-game, Dungeons and Dragons Online, had been lost in the weeds for some time. I’m not sure why, not having been a very active member of that community, but my impression well through the end of last year was that development kept apace of player demand but wasn’t really wowing anyone. That has very much changed in 2008, as Turbine moves DDO to stand beside its Tolkien-esque offering on the field of MMO battle. The most recent expansion to Dungeons and Dragons online (Module 7), ushered in the first of two brand new classes being added to the game this year. The Monk s a unique DPS-style charcter, with a lot of purely asian flavour you don’t see in the unarmed classes from other games. The other class coming this year is D&D’s Druid, a shape-shifting/animal-summoning/nature magic casting frontiersman that should be a pretty unique offering inside the DDO world.

As much fun as we were having with WoW, it seemed like time for a change. So myself, Darren, Bendan, and Brent will be taking up the d20 starting next Monday. I’ve got a Cleric charcter on the Arggonessen server from allll the way back when my EQ2 group tried to form in the first place. As you might recall, our original plan was to play DDO on Wednesdays; an inability to get the DDO client running on my friend Brian’s PC lead to our eventual adoption of EQ2 as our weapon of choice. I now will have the opportunity to correct that oversight, with insight into a brand-new version of a not-very-new game.

My character, Terrima, will be leading the healing charge of course. Brendan is going to be adopting the Fighter class, while Darren is going to be a Rogue. Brent is excited about the possibility of playing one of his favorite classes again, bringing the Monk class to the gaming ‘table’ with flourish. Not the most balanced party, but certainly one that will be able to take on a number of unique challenges. It’s my hope that DDO’s non-standard mission system will be perfect for a small-sized group.

Cameron wrote in a recent PvE that he thinks DDO needs to change some tunes before it’ll be a great game, and I can’t fault him for some of his great ideas. That said, I’m still really quite looking forward to delving deep into a game I never gave enough of a chance in the first place.

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.