Firefall is a great addition

Forget what i said. It’s no use to choose to stick to just one game/MMO at a time, when said MMO doesn’t satisfy all your gaming needs. It makes sense to stick to as few MMORPGs as possible, though, because game hopping as a casual player doesn’t really help anybody- not if you like your MMORPGs to have depth, a wide array of activities and longevity- which is, for me, a cornerstone and one of the main reasons i like the genre.

But sometimes, a game comes along, that fits the scenario you’re in very well. For me, this game is Firefall. While Final Fantasy XIV ARR with its truckloads full of content is my main-MMORPG for now, there are times when a change of pace is in order- or when there’s launch- or patch day and i know i won’t be able to play FF14 (i tried, yesterday, but wasn’t able to login, as expected).

Our army continues to grow, i think we are 8 now. With the restriction of 20 characters per army, there’s no reason to go out recruiting or anything. We guess we’ll fill the other 12 seats naturally with time. We went out and did some ARES missions, thumpers and one Tornado in a full squad, which was fun.

Yesterday was a bad day, though, because my main game had launch day issues and Firefall had Patchday issues. We had some fun regardless.

Now, here are the reasons why Firefall is a great addition to my MMO-diet:

Easy to get in and play

You don’t have to prepare very much in this game if you just want to have some fun- log in, join the online guildmates or place a thumper if you are on your own. Or just run around, do ARES missions or invasions or whatever. You can jump right into the action.

Somewhere in New Eden

Still deep

While it’s easy to get in, there are a lot of things to grasp in this game- how does crafting work? What do i need to jump into melding pockets or the instanced area? You can upgrade your equipment and so on. There is a lot to do, but you don’t feel forced to do that quickly, because you are not missing out on gameplay features just because you haven’t progressed very far. Sure, crafting the key to the instance or the pockets might take some time, but there’s no hurry.

Don’t powergame your way through it

If you play this game to “reach the end”, beat it or just to progress your character, you will be finished with Firefall in no time- and chances are you’ll be burned out when the game will be in shape for “release” and miss out on something great. Red5 have a plan, but it will take time to implement it. Firefall is a very fun game, and if you’re having fun, play it all you want- there’s enough to explore, beautiful landscapes, great missions and content, but when you set out to “beat” the game, i’ve got a feeling it will be over very quick.

A vision

Red5 has a vision for this game, and they try to stick to it. This is one thing that makes a good MMORPG- and Red5 are willing to hold their position- the durability system is one thing where one can see that- some, or many, players didn’t like the introduction of breaking items because it made the game “grindy”, but Red5 feel it is a good thing to have in their game and i tend to agree- without removing items out of the economy, there will be no economy. And also, this gives players “something to do”, because Red5 won’t be able to provide content at a very quick pace.

All in all, i’m looking forward to Open Beta stage 2 and the future of the game- with this developer, i’m quite optimistic. I don’t know when Red5 will reach a state of the game where they are comfortable to call it “V1.0”, but i think, they will arrive there and the game will be very good by then.

When you add FF14 on top of that, right now, i am one happy gamer (who would be even happier if i could play FF14 or understand Square’s account management system).

Is the subscription coming back?

The sub is dead

This is what we keep hearing for quite some time by now. MMORPGs released with a subscription but went free-to-play faster with every year- when we look at the games that made the transition, we have

• City of heroes (88 months as a sub game, 13 months as free-to-play)
  • Release: April 2004
  • F2P: September 2011
  • Closure: November 2012
• Everquest 2 (68/84 months as a sub game)
  • Release: November 2004
  • F2P: July 2010 (EQ2X), November 2011 (free-to-play)
• Dungeons & Dragons Online (42 months as a sub game)
  • Release: February 2006
  • F2P: September 2009
• Vanguard (67 months as a sub game)
  • Release: January 2007
  • F2P: August 2012
• Lord of the Rings Online (40 months as a sub game)
  • Release: April 2007
  • F2P: September 2010
• Age of Conan (37 months as a sub game)
  • Release: May 2008
  • F2P: June 2011
• Champions Online (15 months as a sub game)
  • Release: September 2009
  • F2P: January 2011
• Aion (16/18 months as a sub game)
  • Release: September 2009
  • F2P: February 2011 (Europe), April 2011 (North America)
• Star Trek Online (23 months as a sub game)
  • Release: February 2010
  • F2P: January 2012
• Rift (27 months as a sub game)
  • Release: March 2011
  • F2P: June 2013
• Star Wars: the old republic (11 months as a sub game)
  • Release: December 2011
  • F2P: November 2012
• The Secret World (5 months as a sub game)
  • Release: July 2012
  • B2P: December 2012

The trend is obvious. But we should not forget that this is incomplete data- these are only the games that transitioned from pay-to-play to free-to-play or buy-to-play. There’s no EVE, Final Fantasy XI, FF XIV 1.0, World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online etc. And furthermore, these are only the games i consider- one could add games like APB, Hellgate and Fallen Earth, as well.

Still, it looks like subscription games transition to free- or buy-to-play quickly these days. When you consider ArcheAge – released in January 2013, free-to-play in July 2013 in Korea, there’s another game that didn’t even make 6 months as a subscription game.

Players being cautious of buying subscription games in my opinion is about as much a result of this as it is the unwillingness to pay a sub. If you bought TSW on release and subscribed those 5 months until it went buy-to-play, you spent 125€ (167$) up to that point- and then it went buy-to-play for 30€ (40$). When you did the same in SWTOR, you’d have paid about 190€ (250$) until it went free-to-play, although with SWTOR, the free-to-play option is so bad that a subscription is basically still the best way to play if you do so regularly.

So when you hear “i’ll wait for f2p”, that’s really just a result of past experience, because players don’t question if a game goes free-to-play anymore, they ask themselves when it’s going to happen. And whether it’s more viable just to wait for it to happen. I think it’s unfair to judge these players- maybe they feel betrayed with one of the last transitions.

Now, while i don’t feel betrayed- i made a choice, fully aware about the risk, my own gaming habits and so on- but i spent 250€ (335$ or was it 300€/402$?) on The Secret World- i bought the game and a Grand Master Pack. I do think Funcom made it still worth somehow, but the main reason for me buying the Grand Master Pack was so that i’ll have access to a sub-based game when i wanted to have access- instead of asking myself whether it’s worth to spend 15$ when i’d like to play TSW one evening/weekend. But the access is not restricted anymore, so….yeah.

Long live the sub

I’d really like to see the sub return- for one, i think it’s very good if players really have a choice- devs and “media” alike spin the free-to-play-phase of online gaming as being full of options, but in reality, when i don’t want to see an ingame store in my themepark MMO i’m out of options- except for Warhammer Online. Soon we’ll be able to add FF14 ARR to that list, and considering that the main market for this game is in Japan and free-to-play is not really big there, we can assume FF14 is going to stay sub based.

Then there’ll come Wildstar and TESO (probably), maybe ArcheAge. And it could work- it could even work well, if the devs and publishers finally stopped chasing World of Warcraft. When the devs stop pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the development of one game and stop expecting and/or trying to get millions of subscribers. When they know there’ll be a dip in player population and aren’t afraid to go and build up from there. And when they stick to their business model. Nobody’s waiting for EVE to go free-to-play, and that’s because it’s not likely to happen.

The rise and fall of free-to-play

It’s been predicted elsewhere, the impending doom for this payment model- and i tend to agree somehow. Going free-to-play used to be some kind of second chance and the numbers reported from the games that underwent the transition early after going f2p are always quite high- they double the subscriptions, quadruple the logins, triple revenue. But after some time, there’s always silence. I don’t think this is because the games are losing money 6 months after the transition, i think it might be because the numbers are getting more complicated- maybe the player counts are the same as before the transition, but the average of money spent in game has gone up. Or maybe it’s because player numbers and revenue went down compared to when the game in question was a sub game.

It’s odd, i can remember Daglar (from Rift) being in a podcast shortly after Rift went f2p. He said the numbers are way higher than they expected but he didn’t want to share those because the marketing departement was preparing an announcement regarding numbers and he didn’t want to spoil it. Funny enough, we still didn’t hear those numbers, the news of yesterday coming closest- and this is literally one sentence, without numbers.

I think we’ll see that free-to-play is not the saviour of MMORPGs in this or the coming year, when closures will begin to happen. Free-to-play used to be an USP, but now that everyone is f2p, it’s not anymore. One could argue that p2p is becoming a new USP, but those who use it that way should be aware that this is a pro-argument only for a minority nowadays.

Time to play

Funny enough, i think players like me are the problem here- and that’s one reason why i’d like to change my behaviour- when you look at the daily grind from massively where they asked how much time people spend daily on MMORPGs, i was surprised to see that many answered along the lines of “not as much as i used to” and “about 1-3 hours a day”. In the announcement article of Wildstars business model (many comments there), some commentors expressed their dislike for the sub model by saying that they played too many games to justify a sub for one game.

Combine these two statements- less total time spent in more games- and there’s the answer for MMORPG design these days. It’s not the devs, it’s us. Now, if we are happy with that, there’s no need to change anything. If we’d like to see the design philosophy of MMORPGs shift again, and many of us are looking for that one game that grabs their attention for years, we need to make a conscious decision that we want that kind of game- and stop worrying for the others.

We shouldn’t complain if MMORPGs are getting shallower with time, are experienced quicker, stop adding “meaningful” content (whatever this is to you) when we hop around in games like bunnies- when we make schedules regarding what game to play on what weekday. Of course developers will adapt to our behaviour, and some will even put it to good use, just like Arenanet does with Guild Wars 2. With their biweekly-living-story update, their game is in the news all the time. Players like me read those news and begin thinking that they’ll miss something when they don’t log in and get the impression that there’s something going on all the time. GW2 has a good chance to get those casuals to log in at least on a biweekly basis. And the game’s perfect for that, there’s no sub fee, there’s only one toolbar and almost no text in the game. There’s no need to “catch up” to what you were doing last time, you can just go ahead.

I think, this shift in design might have opened up a niche: the game for players that only want to play one game- if the game in question can be that, the players won’t have any problem paying for a subscription again. And sub games have one advantage: nowadays it’s really refreshing to enter a game where you can unlock bank space without seeing any sign of being able to do so with a real money investment.

Conclusion

The subscription could be coming back- when the game in question is designed in a way to encourage a dedicated, longterm stay and the developer is aware that many will buy their game, some will try and “defeat” the game in 30 days, some will sub for one or three months after the initial 30 days of game time, many subs will be lost after 6 months and they are willing to build up from there instead of the number of sales and if they target their market well and stick to their design philosophy, there’s a good chance the subscription system can work.

And, i think it would help a sub game greatly if they remove the upfront cost of buying the game. EVE is 20€ when you start playing- that’s 5€ for the client/account and 15€ for a one-month sub. I think this is a good way to go- charge a sub, but give the client out for (almost) nothing.

If Wildstar or TESO will mark the return of the sub into MMORP gaming remains to be seen, though.

Final Fantasy XIV ARR

It’s time to confess. While i’d made a point for playing and sticking with one MMORPG, it doesn’t come easy for me, as well. Sticking to Rift is as good a plan as any, but when you don’t have any urge to login, something isn’t right with your choice.

On friday, i remembered there was going to be a Final Fantasy XIV ARR open beta this weekend. With time to play and the urge to find out why some players seem to be very happy with how the game turned out i decided to give it a go.

First off, i own a copy of Final Fantasy 14 1.0 – i didn’t like it, but one thing stuck out positively: in general, i liked the approach to crafting. I didn’t quite understand it at the time, but i saw similarities to Vanguard’s crafting system. After spending every available minute of the weekend playing FF14ARR, i’m happy to say that i still like the approach to crafting- and better yet, i also like the game.

The good

I won’t go into changes from 1.0 very much, because i didn’t come to know the first iteration of the game, but one thing needs to be pointed out: the user interface is hugely improved, not only in design but also gameplay-wise. I remember it being quite a pain to group up in 1.0- while i didn’t group up at the weekend, i can’t imagine that it will be troublesome in ARR.

There’s an old school feel about Final Fantasy 14 that i liked very much. I liked the idea of (level-)gated  content options. I wanted to craft as early as possible, but had to find out that you can only get your second class after finishing up the level 10 quest of your first class. I wanted to go to Limsa Lominsa to become a weaver, but had to find out that i’ll have to finish the level 15 storyline quest to unlock airship travel and so on. So there was always something i look forward to reaching- at first it was level 10, then level 5 of my first gathering profession (botany), then level 15 for going to Limsa Lominsa.

Final Fantasy 14: a realm reborn also has a remarkable love for details. I don’t know if this will continue through the zones, but the early ones around Gridania all struck me as being believable. I prefer to see some civilization when i’m out adventuring, and fact is that most MMORPGs lack that kind of design- you’ll start in a pretty wood, maybe with houses or small villages strewn about, but the second, or third zone at the very least is wholly devoid of many signs of humanity. The early adventuring zones around Gridania still have villages, houses and other buildings in them, which makes for a pleasant stay in those areas. Also, the scenery is very beautiful and changes a lot from day to night.

The combat also gets a positive mention here- it is on the slow side of things, but i like that. Action combat doesn’t leave much time for chats and so the whole experience in those games can feel somewhat lonely, despite there being 10 other guys doing the same quest as i do.

The highlight is still the gathering/crafting. It’s some kind of minigame- when you chop at a tree it’s not only lumber you can get- you’ll have a selection of items you could get out of that tree, each one coming with a chance to get it. You have abilities in your hotbar according to your gathering/crafting job. For botany, there were abilities to show the next tree in my levelrange, raise the chances for successfully farming the materials of a tree and so on. For crafting, i only came up to level 3, but it looks beautiful and most importantly: no crafting job is self-sufficient. You can, of course, level all gathering and crafting jobs, but my guess is that this will be a long term project- if you’d want to be self-sufficient all by yourself, you’d have to level all crafting and gathering jobs parallel to each other. I didn’t count, but i think that would be about 9 jobs to level- in addition to your adventuring job.

So my guess is that at first you’ll be better off just buying things from retainers when you need materials from other jobs. When you start crafting as early as possible i think you don’t really have a choice, since you can not travel to the other capitals to learn the other gathering/crafting jobs.

One thing i wish i knew before changing over to gathering: you should keep some level 1 clothes- otherwise you are going to begin your gathering life in your undies. Fortunately there’s new clothes when you get to level 5 in your job. I guess one could buy something from vendors or other players, but i just “walked it off”.

The hunting log also gets a positive mention – i understand this as some relative of the deed system from Lotro: you get a list of enemies to hunt down and get extra rewards for doing so. Tier 1 of those was quite easily completed just by following quests and backtracking a bit for enemies i fought before attaining the hunting log. There’s something similar for gathering- you can see where to get resources and what resources you already gathered. I don’t know if this one comes with experience bonus, as well.

And finally, i really liked that i could retire to an inn room before logging out to get resting experience, which amounts to experience bonus for defeating enemies as in most other games. As said, this game seems to have a love for details- resting in a guest room is one of these things.

The downsides

Every MMORPG has them, right? So far, i’ve only encountered one- and a highly subjective thing at that- there’s cutesy stuff all over. But really, i’m happy with those as well if i’ll continue to have as much fun with this game as i had this weekend.

Other than that- well, some might call the game “business as usual”- when you look at mechanics, combat mechanics especially, there isn’t much new about this game- and also when you look past combat, almost everything has been there in other games.

Conclusion

FF14 won’t get your attention by proclaiming innovation and/or new features, but somehow it manages to bring older, missed ones back into a new game. I had a lot of fun with it, it even made me read quest and help texts…and enjoy it. It’s a long time ago that i chose to fight some more enemies or gather some more resources than needed just because i had fun doing it, but it happened to me in this game.

Once again, i was in for a big surprise- it’s funny that this seems to happen always with games where i don’t expect much. I’m really looking forward to next saturday when early access starts.

Why i chose Rift…for now

Since i started this blog, i tried to pin down my expectations of a good MMORPG, why i chose to stick to only one of them right now and what/why i’d like to see in a Sandbox MMORPG. Now, i repeat myself (a lot), i guess that’s part of being new at this writing thing, as well as having difficulties in expressing thoughts in a short and concise way.

Today i’d like to elaborate why i chose Rift as my MMORPG of choice right now- see, i tried returning to it in the beginning of the year when it was still a subscription game, bought Storm Legion, got to play three times in the month i subbed and left again- only to return when they announced Rift going free-to-play. Why?

Rift has a classic feel

Nowadays Rift feels like one of the last members of the “WoW-Clone”-Club. When you think about it, it released in March 2011, only 9 months prior to Star Wars: the old republic. Now, SWTOR already chose to shake mechanics a little up, put more emphasis on the storyline of their classes, shrank the group size to 4 and tried to do something different. Rift didn’t. Rift was released very much as something you might call a newer World of Warcraft with one new mechanic, the Rifts.

At release time, that was a negative for me- sure, i had fun for three months, reached the level cap and asked myself if i really want to do the same dailies every time i log in- Raiding is not really my thing and i had levelled by way of dungeons i think starting with level 30, so i really didn’t want to continue doing only dungeons, so i quit.

It was only after certain modern games released- these improving gameplay, especially combat, very much in comparison to the WoW-era-MMORPGs that i suddenly started missing the “modern classic” feel of games like Rift (WoW, AoC, Lotro, Aion etc.). Combat being a little on the strategic side, Dungeons with the familiar holy trinity, Quest texts (i never thought i’d miss those) and so on.

Rift has changed

Trion did a very good job in transforming their game from being almost exactly like World of Warcraft to being more alike to Everquest 2. Now, fans of EQ2 might not agree with this; their favourite game surely is its own thing- i never saw the housing of EQ2 and i don’t think the crafting is similar. But Rift grew, not only vertically, but also to be a broader experience. Trion added so many things to the gameplay experience that Rift 2013 doesn’t look very much like Rift 2011. Off the top of my head, they added:

• Fishing and Survival as two hobby experiences
• Instant Adventures
• Onslaughts
• Chronicles
• Dimensions (the housing system)
• Hunt Rifts
• Ember Isle
• the Storm Legion Content

The two new continents have a very unique look and feel, and exploring them has been fun.

Free-to-play

Now, when you get to play the game you subscribe to three times a month, you could argue it’s not really worth a sub. But that’s not why free-to-play is a reason to choose Rift- the players are. At least when f2p was new, Telara was bursting with new and returning players in a good mood and a willingness to play that game- as opposed to a launch where the mood is usually a bit more sceptical. It seems to be a good time to pick that title up again.

The model Trion uses is very fair in my opinion, especially when you bought stuff prior to the transition- i can access all of the content without restrictions.

Something to return to and variety

You can do PvE in a lot of different ways, PvP is still there, of course, as is crafting, the shinies (collectibles), Achievements, hobbies and finally, with the introduction of dimensions, Rift has something a player would want to return to. I still haven’t started with that, but it’s something i very much look forward to do.

Outlook

Rift doesn’t bring all i’d expect to the table, but it’s as close as it gets when you put fun in the equation. Now, that doesn’t mean it’s not tempting to visit other worlds, as well- i might even look at Wildstar or TESO if their release dates are much closer than the release of ArcheAge in the west.

I don’t expect EQ Next to release before the end of 2014, EQ Next Landmark will get released this year and i’ll surely have a look at that (if i can do that with my SOE account). I’m not sure about the Repopulation. Wildstar and TESO seem to be headed towards an early 2014 release, but i expect ArcheAge in that timeframe, as well. And, judging from all i know so far, ArcheAge is the game i expect the most right now.

Rift, on the other hand, will continue to change. What’s revealed about 3.0 so far sounds intriguing- we’ll see how that goes. Until i leave for greener pastures, i’d like to bring my mage to level and crafting cap, build a dimension or two and start playing the “side-games” of shiny-collection, fishing/survival and Achievement hunting.

What’s in a sandbox?

When i felt i couldn’t yet pin down the sandbox in EQ Next, i came to think about this- what constitutes a sandbox? Then i read Azuriels EQ Next impressions and, while he didn’t mention the term “Sandbox”, it became more clear.

World vs. game

In a world, you have options- and these options include more than choosing which mobs to fight and in what way (Rift does an excellent job in offering multiple gameplay options for mob slaughter). We all know housing as “another thing to do”. Add an involved crafting system, trade, exploration and maybe even world-building to that and you have some options for players with different play styles. The thing about MMORPGs is that they can be many games in one- there could be your economics simulation (this doesn’t seem to be the correct english word, sorry), a strategy game as well as a “city simulator” and of course your RPG in it- at least.

This possible combination of singleplayer-genres alongside the possibility to play these games with many other players (being some kind of social network, as well- which in my opinion is what made WoW so successful) is what makes MMORPGs so compelling.

There needs to be a game attached to the world- most players will want to have some kind of progress with their characters and they want to be adventurous, fight difficult enemies, craft unique items and so on.

When someone says the “G” in the MMORPG part is the least important, i really think nowadays this just means “the ‘G’ is fine as is, please focus on the other parts”- when you take a look at the newer games, i think they nailed the gameplay part- GW2’s combat is fun, then there are the slightly more strategic combat systems of WoW, EQ2, Rift, TSW and so on, which are also fun in their own way. And if you like your combat really very much on the strategic side- EVE has that covered. So the combat (and PvE-) gameplay is just fine.

Systems vs. Scripts

Now, here are two words describing the same sandbox vs. themepark / world vs. game – discussion, at least from my perspective. What we need to move the genre forward, is an implementation of systems that slowly start to replace scripts. Actually, when i think about that, there is a possibility that EQ Next has this covered. When we compare GW2 with EQN in regards to the emergent AI of mobs in EQN and dynamic events in GW2, it’s clear that in EQN, there’s this system of likes & dislikes (i’m assuming it gets implemented well), which can lead to all kinds of situations and the scripted, cyclical dynamic events of GW2 on the other hand.

Both implementations could lead, for instance, to a village being attacked by orcs/centaurs. If these orcs from EQN serve as a faction instead of mobs, you, as a player, can make a decision to help the orcs attack the village- this option is not available to you in GW2, since the centaurs are going to attack you anyway.

Now, i wonder: what will EQN do if a part of the players decide to defend the village and another part is helping the attackers? PvP would be one option- it wouldn’t be FFA-PvP, but could be restricted to this area and to this moment until the attack is either completed successfully or not. But there might be no need for that. When you don’t allow players to attack each other, this might come out as some variation of a MOBA- the only targets being the NPCs. Now, i’m really making this up as i go, since we don’t know if it’s going to work this way in EQN or not- but what was revealed at least allows for that speculation.

You can expand that line of thought, of course. Boss behaviour instead of instanced dungeons- you could let raid bosses lay down a camp somewhere in the open world and let them spread their influence outwards. If the world is big enough, there’ll always be places where these mobs could hide for some time. A trade system instead of an auction house, placing resources in a “realistic” way in the world, making rare resources rare and not just attainable at later levels. Making prizes local, allowing for caravans. Implementing a degradation system for items, so you can’t use what you have for eternity.

Player-to-player vs. Player-to-Environment

The systems in a Sandbox MMORPG should focus on interactions between players. Your equipment degrades with time, so you need a crafter to build new armor or weapons or to repair your stuff. Prizes and resources are local, so you need traders to bring the items to your area. Mobs are free to roam, so you might need experienced adventurers in your area to allow you to farm the resources and enable trade. And so on. These interdependencies need to be build into the core of the game, allowing/encouraging/forcing players to interact with each other. The trend in MMORPGs has been self-sufficiency- and this needs to be stopped.

Do we want a Sandbox MMORPG?

Is “Sandbox” the solution to the problems in the genre? Is there even a problem? The term “sandbox” is a vague one, and everybody’s going to have their own opinion about it. But that’s not really what many of us want- what we’d like to see is an MMORPG that we’ll want to play for years, not months- it’s just that i think at least some of the stuff mentioned above would be helpful in being that game.

As Azuriel put it: “All long-term compelling MMO content is player-based”. Again, i agree. Whether the game providing that is called Sandbox, Themepark, Sandpark or Themebox doesn’t really concern me- but there should be (another) one.

Everquest Next – after watching the full reveal

Today i watched the full reveal presentation of Everquest, so i am able to share some new opinions. Of course, the professional bloggers i linked to yesterday did a very good job of summarizing what’s been shown to their readers. I’d like to take what Dave Georgeson called the four holy grails of EQ Next.

Changing the core game: In this part, Georgeson talked about the EQ Next Multiclass system where every class has different abilities with each weapon (we know that 4 abilities are determined by the weapon you choose) and choice of class skills (the other 4 abilities in your build). It seems they wanted a change from playing Dungeons and Dragons with levelups, skilltrees and so on to a new, broader way of being able to multiclass and finding classes and skills in the world.

There is really not much new to that- we have that, as Bhagpuss wrote on Inventory Full, we have this weapon/multiclass system in TSW, GW2 and Rift to some extent, the skill collection was a part of Guild Wars 1 many players enjoyed. I mean, sure, why not build up on something not-so-new-but-rare and make it work better? Not saying this is a bad thing, i like it actually.

What i don’t like so much is the low counts of usable abilities right now. Four are used by your weapon, another four are free to build. I assume there’ll be passive abilities, as well, and i sure hope they are designed more alike to TSW than to GW2.

Destructibility: The voxel thing. So battles leave their marks on the environment- and the environment “heals” with time. That’s a nice gimmick which makes its way up to a nice feature when combined with the procedurally generated underworld. I like to sway around while playing- just now i only wanted to kill 10 rats, when i pounded one of them through the floor of the basement they dwell in and happened on a underworldy dungeon. That’s a real nice feature for me. Also, the fights feel very much alive.

A life of consequence: Now, that’s cryptic. Here’s talk about the mob AI- that they’re armed with likes and dislikes and might move around under certain circumstances instead of spawning on the same spot every time.

I think that’s a double-edged sword here. First of all, this could be some kind of hyperbole. Like i wrote yesterday, Guild Wars 2 described a quite similar scenario, although they didn’t hide that these movements and changes are part of a scripted experience aka dynamic event. If every mob has these likes & dislikes and moves around, this could lead to some very dynamic events- and this time for real. If SOE is bold enough to make strong mobs move around, we could see the end of level zones (EQ Next doesn’t seem to have levels, but TSW doesn’t have them, either. Try going to Egypt after the tutorial.) and the return of something nice: danger. It would be nice to be surprised by a mob too strong for me and having to run away. The last time that happened to me and caught me by surprise was with Vanguards free-roaming elite mobs.

Permanent Change: What we have here is the public quest/living story thing. So there are these rallying calls where the players have to do something- for example build up a village. There are crafting tasks as well as fighting tasks to be performed. These rallying calls take up to several months of real time to finish by the playerbase and once a rallying call is finished, its results stay in the world.

I like that idea. Yes, it might be only a crossover of public quests and living story, but at least SOE seems to be willing to make the happening event (living story) have something to do with what’s done (public quest) instead of making people grind minigames.

However, i like the look of EQ Next- the stylized graphics look just fine and work better for me than, say, Vanguard’s and EQ2’s style- especially considering their character models.

Now, there’s just one question- where did they hide the sandbox? I’m sure what they presented could be one, but they didn’t make it clear where to find it. The combat looks nice, the world with its day/night cycle as well, and if they incorporate many choices in their permanent change and consequence- parts and really enable players to go where they want and stick to their preferred play-style it could work out well. But they didn’t make it clear, in my opinion. There’s just this one thing…

Everquest Next Landmark. I’ll just go ahead and summarize it as “Minecraft as a MMO” here, as i’m sure you read about it- if you didn’t, there’s a good article over at Massively.

Now, that’s a sandbox. Players are able to build what they want, there’s an added social layer, even guilds and there seems to be some kind of adventuring. But in essence, it seems to be the game for crafters.

All in all, i’m still looking forward to their intentions in regards to crafting and player-driven economy, and i still hold to the assumption that SOE got their hands on something great- but i still feel what we know is a little hollow. If we define “sandbox”- and we could define this term in one thousand ways- with the words “driven by player-to-player interactions”, then we still don’t know much about EQN being the big new shiny sandbox MMO.

MMORPG criteria

Today we’ll get some Everquest Next info. In preparation i’d like to share what i wish for in MMORPGs. This wishlist won’t be complete and some things will be subjective in their evaluation. But this might still be a good starting point for a new blog.

1. Give me a world

I dislike zoning in MMOs- it spoils the sense of size for me. In Age of Conan, i couldn’t figure out where i was at any given time. It is somewhat better in GW2, where one can imagine there are only a couple of meters (feet?) between those gates. I’d like to have a big, seamless world, the best example i know of existing in Vanguard, where the climate doesn’t change suddenly when you enter a new zone/square.

To name a few things that further contribute to the worldly feeling: fewer instanced zones, and when there are, put them in the world, no cross-shard-lfg-tool, or better yet: no lfg-tool with instant ports, cities that look and feel like cities, maybe even do away with the quest “navigator” and so on.

2. Player driven economy

A “real” economy would also be quite nice. Think EVE online: different prizes for stuff at different locations, resources that are useful throughout the crafting tiers, a degradation/loss-system for non-consumables. Of course, this economy has to be complimented by a good crafting system, where a crafter can earn money, reputation and items that are of real value. Trading and Crafting should be fully supported playstyles in a MMORPG.

3. Something to return to

There should be something players would want to return to- some piece of the virtual world that belongs to them and that they can become attached to. This could be a lot of things- player housing, companions, pets, mounts, a community- there needs to be another hook needs to be added to the level and gear grind.

4. Don’t forget the RPG

In a MMORPG not everything should be easy and streamlined- the UI should be, but skill- and other systems don’t. I’d like to encounter some NPC selling rare housing items or look for skills in the world- i’d like to use a sword to get better with it without seeing naked guys running against walls all the time (see Mortal Online). The three-way-skillsystem of World of Warcraft and Diablo 3 was easy enough, there should be something built up on that, not cut down. Rift and The secret World have gone a good first step. I want to build a character, and while the game i play should try hard to help me not to gimp my character, this should be optional and still hold as many varied character building systems as possible.

5. Be fun

With all that in mind, the game needs still to be fun, and i’m not talking about “action combat” here since strategic combat can also be very engaging. I guess this one is about polish, user interface and general look & feel.

6. Player interaction

A good, long lasting MMORPG needs to steer away from soloability. Don’t let crafters gather all needed resources by themselves or operate on their own products only. Crafters, adventurers, explorers, traders should all have some reason to need the other groups or players with the same preferred playstyle. Do away with solo instances, minimize instanced or phased areas and don’t punish group play. There should be some features or systems where you can get to know other players or even some easy way to make this interdependancy less of a hassle (buy orders, for example), but please no cross-shard-instant-teleport-dungeons.

7. A varied experience

In my version of an ideal MMORPG, there should be a variety of activities- and by that i don’t mean 10 different styles of PvE encounters, although that is at least a good step. Crafting should be an activity and not a look-at-bars-filling-up-game. Trading should involve travel, exploring shouldn’t be about achievements and fighting should include encounters that are difficult without just cranking up the level and stats of the mob. There should be group quests, group areas as well as solo quests that take a long time.

8. You need to make money somehow

The business model: i don’t care if it is subscription or free-to-play. But i don’t want to be exploited and the business model needs to fit the game. I’m actually a little sceptical when it comes to the combination of sandbox and free-to-play, but i’m open to seeing it executed well.

So, i’m excited to see how Everquest Next measures up later today. I’m pretty confident EQN will at least look good in a lot of these categories, but i expect it will be vague or less good looking regarding points 2, 6 and 8.