It’s been a long week and a half for me. My wife had surgery on the 26th (day before Thanksgiving, yay!), and it’s been a slow recovery process. We’ve had fits and starts, and a bunch of bumps along the way. Just keeping her happy, me sane, and Massively rolling during a week of seemingly non-stop MMO news and drama was … challenging.

So, my first December 08 post falls on the 6th. So it goes. That said, I want to do a little bit of catching up. Because, like I said, busy week.

• Tabula Rasa’s closure is pretty well BS. Sorry, I know I should be more politik about it, but that’s why this is my personal site and not my responsible-day-job site. I appreciate that they have business needs and all that kinda jazz, but guess what? I’m a player. I don’t have to care about their bottom line. The herculean efforts of the team to put out new patches, introduce new content, and encourage community behaviors at the end of days just proves to me that this is a collection of people which deserves to survive.
• Colin Brennan took them to task opinion-style on Massively for TR’s closure, and we got nothing but hell from it from people on both sides of the fence. I particularly didn’t appreciate this post from Lum; we talked via email and I guess I feel a little better about it. I perpetually live in a state of ‘you can’t please everybody’, but this issue was more like ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
• Good idea: Own up to the fact that one of your core game elements needs some fixing. As I’ve argued here in the past, these games simply cannot be released 100% perfect. If you couch it to the community in the right framework, they’ll be unhappy but understanding. Bad idea: Let your creative director bitch out the guy that made the mistake in front of the entire fucking internet. I’m sorry, I respect Mr. Barnett – as I’ve said here in the past – but come on. I disagree with Lum’s opinion on one point: it was at no point funny. I may not have had any formal management training, but I know one bottom-line concept pretty well already – you don’t make someone into an example. Ever. It’s not funny, it’s not cool, and it inspires people to, um, hate you. Anyone want to take a guess as to how long Colin’s going to stay with Mythic after this?
• In a week with so much bad news, it was great to see Darkfall and Chronicles of Spellborn moving forward after their lengthy development stalls. City of Heroes Issue 13, also? Awesome, completely. They’ve reinstated all the lapsed accounts this weekend if you’re looking for something to do.
• I’ve been struggling with the WoW vs. LotRO issue a lot. My ‘Monday evening’ character has turned into something of a going concern with me. I’m going to talk a lot more about this in the next few days, but … yeah, Turbine has a lot of respect from me.

You may have already read Darren’s short post on the Monday night group’s decision to jump from DDO to Lord of the Rings Online. From his post:

“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!

Read more

A bunch of truly fantastic news and features have gone across WoW Insider and Massivley in the last few days. I had to share me some love:

• A wrapup of the pounding that cross-gender ‘research’ took at the hands of Bartle and the Freeman.  I particularly liked the comments on Raph’s blog; almost nothing from him and several really nice retorts from the peanut gallery.
• Will Dobson put together a fantastic look at the Spring Festival going on over in LOTRO. It’s not only interesting and informative but a great chance to show off our new gallery software. Nice!
• The WoW Insider team headed to the Tourney test realm and came away with some amazing stuff. Amanda Miller has a writeup of the events, but you really have to check out the gallery of their experiences. I want to ride a giant Raven Lord!
• A FANTASTIC announcement from NCsoft as they unveil the beginnings of Issue 12 for City of Heroes. I really love the sound of this content – definitely going to have to check it out. In fact, talking it over with the EQ2 group, it sounds like CoH might be our next destination once we hit max level sometime near the end of this year.
• I remember seeing the flying mounts at the end of Vanguard Beta over a year ago now, and only now are they getting put into the game. A little sad, but still great news for the players who have been waiting patiently for this content to drop. Game Update 4 is live!

It’s been an amazing year in MMOGs. I think 2008 is going to be just as big a deal, though … and in some ways maybe even bigger. As I did last year (relatively well, I might add) I’m going to try to call some shots. Again, I’m just a guy and this is all in good fun. But I’ll keep myself honest: we’ll see how I did this time next year.

So then:

1. Is It Cold In Here or Is It Just Me? – Wrath of the Lich King won’t come out in 2008. We’ll have a firm release date (of early 2009) for the expansion by late summer, and there are as-yet-unannounced features slated for the content update. Blizzard has Hydralisks to fry this year.
2. Nickel and Dime – The concept of RMT and microtransactions will continue to gain acceptance with North American gamers. This will be reflected commercially by further successes for MapleStory and Nexon’s other games in the US. Other companies will begin to consider alternatives to the flat subscription fee, even if outright RMT/microtransactions aren’t yet on the table. At least one newly announced game this year will feature a non-subscription schema.
3. Call Me Agent Smith – The Agency is going to go over like gangbusters. A flat box fee with only microtransactions for further goodies is going to make a big impression … if it can make it out this year. Sometime mid-to-late summer would be perfect. This could even be one of the killer apps for the PS3 this year. Which is good, because it needs it. FreeRealms, on the other hand, is going to have a rough go of it. Without clear player understanding of what exactly this humor/fantasy MMOG thingie is, it’s going to take some time for it to take off.
4. WAAAAUGH For the Win – Warhammer is also going to be a big hit … though it perhaps won’t be everything that EA is hoping for. Long-term MMOG fans are going to fall in love all over again just the same. By the end of the year the house that Jacobs built is going to be very happy for all the extra hard work they put in. Conan will be a much less resounding success. It’s not going to fail, but Funcom is going to end 2008 more than a little bit frustrated.
5. Sunglasses At Night – The CCP/White Wolf game is going to be big news this year, as they announce the scope of the world. It’s not going to be everything that World of Darkness fans would have hoped for, but there will still be a lot of happy gothsicles.
6. Out of Left Field – One of the newbie studios (Carbine, Red 5) is going to announce a project that will really excite and surprise Massive fans. 38 Studios will announce what they’re doing, and it won’t surprise anyone … but it will be somewhat interesting.
7. Pushback – There’s going to be yet another major AAA title whose release date is pushed back to late in the year. One of the big games that we think is going to come out in 2008, won’t.
8. The Age Gets Darker – WAR’s release will be a very dark day for the already dimly-lit Ages of Camelot. Their emulation of Mythic’s older game’s defining feature, coupled with a better PvE experience in essentially every way, will see a lot of players heading for the hills.
9. The Legacy of McQuaid – At some point, Vanguard players are going to get tired of waiting around for ‘the good’ to show up in their game. Expect to see some of Vanguard’s best features showing up in EverQuest 2.
10. With the Brim Pulled Way Down Low – We’re going to see another live game close up shop this year, and an in-development title will slip into the unseen depths as well.
11. Way To Cast – Another MMO dev or publisher will join Blizzard and SOE in making an official podcast.
12. Coming of Age – Tabula Rasa is going to maintain a steady playerbase throughout the year as folks enjoy the new and exciting flavour. Turbine will continue to not report LOTRO’s subscription numbers, for a reason.
13. Okay For Serious This Time – BioWare will announce what they’re making in Austin. For reals, guys. C’mon! :)

2008’s Winners: Warhammer Online, The Agency, MapleStory, New Studios

2008’s Losers: Dark Age of Camelot, Vanguard, Age of Conan

This has been a crappy, crappy year.

• Blizzard releases an expansion that’s great – and I’ve barely played it.
• Vanguard flops
• Cryptic sells CoH, and now is completely silent.
• WAR and Conan are delayed until 2008.
• Ryzom goes under, again.
• Perpetual explodes, sending shards of two unreleased games flying.
• My EQII experience has gotten kind of crappy.
• Auto Assault closes.
• LOTRO releases to relatively positive reviews – and I’ve barely played it.

Most distressing for me, personally, is that in the last two weeks I’ve killed both of my gaming PCs. I now have no way of playing even World of Warcraft, let alone something like AoC or Pirates. You wouldn’t believe how much you want to play a MMOG when you can’t.

About the only thing I have fully appreciated this year is Eye of the North, which I’m now really enjoying on my wife’s PC.  I’m almost done with the Norn quest line … more about that later.

The thing that prompted this post was Fury’s demise. I said publicly in a few different places that I thought it had potential, and that I was hopeful for the little Aussie game studio. Just embarrassing. Maybe I thought that they’d take a little more time to get it right before releasing?

Whatever. Burning Crusade is obviously an unqualified success for Blizzard and the Massive industry as a whole. In fact, this year could be considered the year that Massive games went mainstream. Truck commercials, South Park appearances, Mr. T and Shatner … the only problem is that one game in the genre has gone mainstream. As a whole, new ventures this year have floundered or been delayed, while several existing titles have sunk beneath the waves. For better or worse, most of my MMOGnostication predictions have come true. That makes me bloody sad.

So: screw you 2007. Hopefully ‘08 will offer bigger, better things.

Semi-related to my post from Monday about Mil’s attempt to get CS satisfaction, Mike from MMO Crunch passed me a link to his frustating experience with Turbine.

I have recently stopped playing LOTRO. So today I went and officially canceled my account, however while doing so I saw no option to remove my CC and billing information from their system. Having been a victim of random charges by unsaid company in the past I wanted to remove my info so that my subscription would not accidentally be restarted. Seeing no way to do this from Turbine’s website, I contacted support, who basically said, You either keep your CC information in our system or the game that you PAID for will no longer work, ever.

I thought we were all in agreement that these things are services now?

Okay. Now that I’ve written about how hunky dory LOTRO is, I have to put down some snark. I even got a very nice note from one of the Edelman folks (hi!) who were nice enough to send me a gratis copy. I was originally planning on buying a copy; now I guess I can lay that out on Guitar Hero II for the 360 instead. ;)

Just the same, I do have a couple of snarks I have to get out of my system.

• Quest balance. While the ‘group quests’ have all very much been right on the money (essentially undoable by solo, very pleasant in a group), I’ve found several ostensibly soloable quests that are too challenging for one avatar. I’m specifically thinking of the one where you help the idiot hobbits trying to knock the satchel out of the tree near Tuckborough. It’s slated as a level 7 quest, and the bees (the first critters you have to protect the hobbit from) are doable at that level. However, then you’re faced with a pair of bears; one is level 10 and the other is level 9. The first level I tried the quest at was 9, and I got creamed. Several times. Same at level 10. I waited until I hit 12 to take them on again, and used up a bunch of food and consumables before doing so. I *bearly* (no pun) squeaked past those bastards with a sliver of health left. I know I’m just a Minstrel, and I’m sure that more front-line folks probably have a better time of it, but I haven’t had any other problems like this with a solo-specified outing. Additionally, I’ve come across several other characters trying the quest that needed bacon-saving. I was happy to oblige, but if that quest is tuned for a group it should say so.
• Bugs. I have noticed several pinchers that made it through the Beta process. Nothing too major, but it’s a little annoying to see nonetheless. The “Honey-Bears” quest over near the aforementioned tree is the most consistent one I’ve seen. The bears spawn up near the top of a hill, and you have to protect Bolo Beekeeper-guy from the marauding ursines. The problem is they do this drop-from-the-sky routine, flickering in and out of existence. You have to run to the top of the hill and aggro them in order to get them to stay put. This quest *is* doable solo, but Bolo helps a lot on that front. By aggroing at the top of the hill you get a lot of damage that might otherwise have been spread around. That ‘drop from the sky’ bug is around a lot; while it makes some kind of sense for the spiders over by Overhill, wolves, bears, and slugs make a lot less sense. As a final wtf I spent about half an hour last night helping a guy get unstuck from the corner of a building, which he somehow managed to teleport himself into facing the wrong direction. IE: he saw his interface, but darkness beyond. /stuck wasn’t working, and we eventually resorted to my telling him which way he was facing and walking him into a building instance. When he turned around and left the instance, his sight was restored. For the most part, LOTRO has been such a smooth experience that these things stand out more than they would have otherwise, but they do bear mentioning.
• Quest Design. STOP SENDING ME BACK TO MICHEL DELVING. The Shire is actually a really small place once you step back and get a better view, but the constant run around back and forth gets old after a while. I think things got a lot better once I’d made my way to the eastern portion of the area (past the Frog swamps and into Scary). The quest that bugged me specifically was the spiders in Nob’s Bole one, where you eventually help the walking tree. I went from Tuckborough to Overhill several times; as I said, not a long trip. The repetition, though, was frustrating. I like feeling a sense of progression from my quests. A leads to B leads to C. We can go back to B, but then I should go on to C and D after that. The spider quest was more like A, B, C, B, A, B, C, A, B, C, A, B, C. This may have been part of their familiarization process for the Shire (and the game’s design philosophy, which I’ll get to below), but it started to get irksome during a long play session earlier this week. As a note, I should say that the frustration led to a really nice payoff. Escorting the walking tree was a blast, and the rewards for the quest were pretty good. Oh, additionally: escort missions are actually really cool in this game. I normally hate them, but all the escorts I’ve done so far have been for folks buff enough to either hold their own in a fight or stay alive well after I thought they should have. Low irritation that way, and it leads to my empathizing with the NPCs.

I have a few other snarks, but they’re really minor. (Why a slug-killer Title but no bear killer?) As I looked out across the Photorealistic landscape earlier today, an element of LOTRO’s design came to mind that I wanted to mention in this post that’s otherwise about negative elements. That element: familiarity.

Because The Shire and Bree-land are places we’ve all read about in books and seen in movies, we have expectations hung on them. Turbine has met those expectations by making them interesting places to explore and (unlike almost every other game I can think of) given the places a character of their own. While I complain about backtracking and one of the other mmogbloggers kvetched about the standardness of the quest design, it adds up in a way that I haven’t seen in other games. For example: I don’t give a flying fuck about Elwynn forest. I know the RPers on Argent Dawn just looooved Goldshire, but I couldn’t wait to get out of that place. Ditto with Westfall, Loch Modan, or almost any other zone you could mention. The only zone I’d say I connected with were Dun Morogh (shorties represent!) and Duskwood. I love the quest lines in Duskwood, play em’ every time. With LOTRO, though, the personality of the Shire has been etched into every little nugget of lore you stumble over. The pie-running, mailbag-delivering, goblin-killing, and slug squishing is all secondary to imparting the innocent and carefree nature of the Hobbit lifestyle to the player. Bree and environs similarly seems fairly over-run with character and nuance. I don’t know how much all this junk is going to impact me on a third or fourth play through, but my first two characters (my alt is a human champion) have definitely given me a sense of these areas; they’ve made an impression.

An aside: Every time I come up on Weathertop, I have to stop and just stare. It’s … absolutely perfect. Damn this game is beautiful.