Yeah I finally played some Minecraft.

I can see why its pretty addictive.  I’ve thus far only played the free single player version, which has made it a nice diversion from the regular.  For awhile I didn’t really see the appeal.  Then somebody showed me this youtube video and it dawned on me:  I can build anything I want.  But then I didn’t know *what* to build.  It was oddly reminiscent of starting NaNoWriMo – realizing you have this great power, followed by a sense of being overwhelmed because you don’t know what exactly to do with it (I wonder if rookie Superheroes go through a similar process?).

Anyway, I saw a big stack of grey stone and realized I could build a castle.  And I remembered a sketch I did probably ten years ago of a castle for a DnD campaign.  Now was my chance to flesh it out and see it “in real life.”   I determined that I would be flexible, using existing terrain as much as possible, and that it would be big.  But I think I may have made it too big.

I’ve gone through successes and failures.  I redirected water flow to fill a moat, but I brought the water in from two valleys away and by the time I got back to the castle, it was flooded.  Turns out I had the entrances below “sea level.”  But then I’ve had some unexpected success too.  I build a spiral staircase on the first try, just on instinct of how wide it should be and how the steps should flow.

Mostly at this point, I’m stuck on the SW corner of the castle.  Everywhere else the castle floor is level, or with some water in it where I’ve attached an indoor “dock” of sorts.  But in that corner there is a deep chasm under a tall hill that butts right up against the wall.  So I’m trying to preserve it as a dungeon while also knocking back the hill.  It hasn’t been easy to marry those two things.

Next up I think I’m going to build a “life size” replica one of the ships from SWTOR.  We don’t have layouts on the Jedi/Sith ships yet, but I could probably map out one of the others pretty easily.  But it will probably be awhile.  I have some Rift Beta to play at the moment…

Congratulations to the Massively Blog Winners!

You can see the full list over at their website.  Can’t say I have all that many complaints about their lists:  The Top Ten or the Honorable Mentions either one.  Most of the “ones to watch” I haven’t really had a chance to look over, but a few I’ve heard of and a few I’ve read before.

Certainly a number of their favorites are mine as well.  TAGN and Ysharros are both heavy favorites of mine, and I’ve come to appreciate the efforts of Darth Hater this year…though…I’m not sure they can really be considered a blog so much as a “fan site.”

One the honorable mention list, I frequently read Broken Toys and MMO Gamer Chick.  I’m also familiar with Ardwulf from the Casualties Guild, and of course anyone who blogs about EVE knows CrazyKinux.

Have fun blogging in the New Year everyone!

2010 Predictions Review

I see others are reviewing their 2010 predictions.  As I said, I totally missed the boat on this last year, but it was a fun exercise.  I recommend to you other peoples predictions ahead of my own.  Nonetheless, here you go.  First up, my five predictions…

Five Predictions…

1.  Despite the obvious interest and backing they could generate, no on will announce work on a Transformers or G.I. Joe MMORPG in the coming year.   Which is probably fine, because if the movies are any indication, their ability to completely trash the IP is unparalleled.

Yeah, this was kinda off the cuff, but its true.  And I was right.  The closest we came to anything was a Transformers shooter.  Yuck.  Give me a cell-shaded 80′s style Transformers MMORPG and I would be a lifetime subber in a heartbeat. 

2.  Bethesda will finally…officially… announce their Elder Scrolls MMO.  Also, this is a hunch, but…it won’t be set in Tamriel.  I know it would make no sense not to use their established IP, but…companies don’t always do the smart thing.

Maybe?  A new Elder Scrolls game is coming – finally.  But the company will not comment on if its an MMO or not.  Which is odd.  If its a single player game – why did it take four years to announce it – five to launch it?  And just what the hell has your online division been doing for the last several years while all this has been going on?  One thing I did for sure get wrong here – this will be set in Tamriel, specifically in Skyrim.  On the flipside, if we have dragons returning, we could be watching for a cataclysm-style reboot (no I won’t capitalize that – they weren’t the first to do that).

3.  SWTOR will not be released in 2010.

Yep.  Back then there was a debate about whether TOR would drop in fall of 2010 or spring of 2011.  We now know it will be spring of 2011, and I feel, we can even confidently narror that down to April of 2011.  This has been a deep investment for Bioware, and by all the Beta accounts, the game is in balancing and polishing time right now.  So there will be no need to delay.  The sooner in their fiscal year BW launches this, the greater their return at the end of the fiscal year.  Anyway, nothing awesome about this one.  When in doubt about an MMO release, err on the side of “later.”

4.  WAR will finally announce what everyone has been waiting for – more races and classes.  I’m betting Wood Elves and Vampire Counts.

No.  WAR continues to believe that it is the greatest thing since sliced bread as is, despite evidence to the contrary.  And what would bring others into the game, is in face keeping people like me out.  Fallen Earth is starting to move in this same direction (“PvP at the expense of everything else”) and its  going to push me out of that game eventually too.

5.  EVE will finally get ambulated.  They won’t have a choice – its time to step up to the plate, or let STO own a patch of the space mmo business that they don’t have a flag already planted on.

No.  It might would have happened if STO had created more of an impact on the market.  Still, for all the banging on STO, its holding its own, and it continues to offer something other MMO’s don’t – periodic, free PvE content updates.  Still EVE is headed this way.  I’m not sure why.  Ambulation makes zero sense lore or game wise, that’s for sure.

So that’s, uh 2.5 out of 5 if you count the Elder Scrolls maybe as half correct. 

As for my Mosts:

My most anticipated release of 2010 was entirely correct.  There really wasn’t any other MMO I was looking for in 2010.  And I did dip into the year long sub so I have played it off and on all year.

My most anticipated failure will take some time to pan out.  I still think Cataclysm is the high water mark for WoW.  And I see some early reports that this might be true.  The hardcore players I know blew through all the content within a week.  And now they are bored and restless, again.  One of them started a new race/class combo – and is halfway to cap already.  One of them is asking me about EQ2X, and the other is giving up his sub in favor of Call of Duty action.  Which is why MMO’s trending toward PvP is insanity.  Why would you want to compete with juggernauts like CoD that can not only whip you ass with numbers, but can put out new games faster than you could ever dream of doing so…

My most anticipated beta didn’t hold.  I have been in the Rift beta – and I’m still trying to figure out if the NDA has been lifted or not – if you have some insight let me know, I’d love to tell you alllll about it – and would love a spot in the Star Wars beta, but those are rare as hens teeth apparently.  And there is no real evidence that the Secret World even *has* a beta yet.  I think maybe Funcom dropped their teaser trailers a weeee bit too early.

My least?

My least anticipated releases held as well.  I really have no interest if there is no RPG element.  Industry dudes:  learn it, love it – or die by it.

My least wanted game death, fortunately did not come to pass.  If anything, it got alot of love this year.  With Pirates of the Burning Sea going free to play, it  got a new lease on life.  I’m ashamed to say I haven’t even gotten a chance to play it yet.  I guess I need to give it some love as well.  Expect a PotBS post or three later this month.  In fact, nothing really got a plug pulled on it this year did it?  Even Alganon managed to chug along despire the hellstorm it went through.

And finally my most watched game of last year was Heroes of Telara, which got a rename as Rift.  And it was indeed my most watched game of 2010.  And I really want to tell you about it.  Alot. 

So in about a week, I’ll lay out 5 new predictions, and a new set of most and least.  We’ll see how 2011 pans out m’kay?

Skill Point Expenditure

Its been awhile since I last gave you all a peak at my skill queue, so here it is:

Now I pretty much have narrowed things down to Transport Ships.  Basically I just thought about the list and asked myself one question:

What among these things do I really want, but don’t really want to waste two weeks of training on.  And that answer was Transport Ships.  I mean, they are very useful, especially since we operate out of a hi-sec island, its all but a necessity to move things in and out in any sort of quantity.  But I really do not want to waste 17 days training it. 

This way I can scratch that out and proceed down the more fun and incrementally rewarding path of T2 Projectiles.

On the down side, I’m scraping together funds mightily.  I have enough for the ship itself, now I just have to put together enough for the dang skill book.  I still haven’t blitzed enough missions to open up any suitable level 3′s or 4′s.  And I haven’t been a consistant enough player to really partner up with my old buddy to run level 4′s enough to earn a steady source of income.  I may have to bite the bullet and move back into our old Minmatar stomping grounds and gather up some cash.  Alternately I suppose I could drop into the low sec pocket and do some ratting.

That’s always been an option available but one I’ve never really looked into.  What kind of ship does one use for lo-sec ratting?  With T2 small projectiles only 2 days away, can I get away with using a T2 fitted Rifter or my Malediction?  Or do I need something bigger?

Yes, I could use the Pilgrim, but…the old adage is “don’t fly anything you can’t afford to lose” – and I can’t afford to lose her right now, not with my cash strapped situation.  Same with the Damnation.  I am hanger rich and wallet poor.  Your suggestions, as always, are welcome!

In the Aftermath of the SWTOR Media Blitz

The commercial NDA on SWTOR (or TOR as most people seem to be using these days)  came this week with the revelation that back in early November, Bioware had had a boatload of fans and industry media people out to their place for “Jedi Immersion” day, including getting to see lots of stuff behind the scenes early, and most importantly, allowing 5-6 hours of hands on play time with the two Jedi classes.  In case you missed it, the full round us is pretty much here:

IGN – http://pc.ign.com/articles/114/1140170p1.html

 

ToroCast (fansite) – http://www.torocast.com/index.php/news/swtor-news/item/384-from-tython-to-coruscant-my-six-hours-with-swtor

 

Massively – http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/12/15/hands-on-with-swtors-jedi-knight-on-tython/

 

DarthHater (fansite – the best actually) – http://darthhater.com/2010/12/15/jedi-immersion-day/

Generally favorable reviews.  Those aren’t all the hands on people’s reports, but those were a good spectrum.  Gamespot I axed off the list for giving away WAY too many spoilers without much of a head’s up.   Basically though, even with all the media and all the hype, I’ve been through enough Betas and launches at this point to say simply:  You know what you know.

 

In other words, you generally, as a whole, are on target with your general impressions, hopes, and doubts about a game, even before it launches.   When we were covering WAR back in the day (all of a whopping two years ago) we all knew that it was going to include some fun and memorabl PvP, but we also knew that the open questing and lower tiers were going to be deserted, that balance with only two realms was going to be an issue, and that they were idiots for insisting on such a restricted loot and gear system.  We also knew that there was trouble on the horizon, both from the Beta and from the pushbacks to launch.  By and large – WAR has fulfilled those general impressions to the hilt.

 

So what is the general impression of TOR.  Well, the bottom line is that if you are curious about a major game feature – like, say – whether or not there will be Open World PvP, and Bioware has not answered the question, and Bioware has used every available opportunity to duck the question…well, there is going to be a problem there.  For example, it has been asked repeatedly whether or not players will be able to have multiple names.  It’s an easy question to answer, and one that should have been determined a long time ago.    And yet Bioware continues to ignore the question, or sidestep it.  Conclusion:  They don’t have an answer we want to hear.  In other words, the answer right now is:  No.  And the closer we get to release without information on a given topic, the less likely we are to see that question answered satisfactorily either in the media or in the game itself.  With that in mind, I’ve compiled a list of what I’ve seen so far.  Feel free to fill in the blanks with your own particular piccadillos. 

The Good

Large, immersive world.  Players will once again be able to “get lost” in the environment.

 

Great storyline and a step forward in bringing the RPG back into MMO’s

 

Innovative crafting and pet systems.

 

Creative PvP.

 

 

The Bad

Grouping + Dialogue Quests = frustrating, slow going for those who want to max level and who think that end game is the only game.

 

Content will have plenty of bugs to worry about.

 

Space will not be the final frontier – it wont even be close to a frontier.

 

Alot of people will turtle up and play this game as a solo-only effort.

 

There will be no Open World PvP.

 

 

The Ugly

 

Guild mechanics and tools will be sorely lacking.

 

Online guides will dictate storyline choices by revealing rewards content.  Herd mentality will take over from there, and create a full cycle of imbalance that the devs will always be one step behind.

 

The  game is not nearly as ready as they are implying it is, or that we are hoping it is.

 

Combat will be so vanilla it may hurt some people.

 

Jedi will not have blasters.

 

Bioware’s bizzare Beta testing cycles will bite them in the ass.

 

 

ETA:  Greetings to the hordes of people who found this site via the TOR forums.  I’m happy to have you here, so long as you behave yourselves.   To clarify, I’m not a SWTOR hater or fanboy.  If you take the time to read a few posts, you will see times I’m excited about things and times when I’m not happy about things.   This is one of the latter, but I, like many of you, hope I’m very wrong on some of this.  Check out my comment below for the tl;dr summary of this post…

 

ETA again:  No, Open World PvP had not been confirmed as of the time of this writing.  Nor has it been confirmed yet, AFAIK.  As of James Ohlen’s Aug 21 video interview (posted below in the comments) they hoped to have it in for launch, but if not it was a feature they hoped to add later.

The Day the Whole World Went…splat.

Apologies to Trent Reznor.  But it was so appropriate.  As followers of the blog know, I recently did my ten free days of WoW (since I never upgraded to Wrath of the Liche King), but despite enjoying a brief return to Azeroth,  I couldn’t actually bring myself to spend money on the game.  Which, to date, makes WoW the only MMO that I have not resubbed to once I left.  That should tell me something, but I’m not sure what yet.  Perhaps that class imbalances are more than just a pet peeve to me.  Perhaps that immature gamers can permanently ruin a game for me.

So I find myself in the contrarian position on this day.  As millions of fans crash the WoW servers and celebrate giddily the release of glorious new content and hope (foolishly) for a new generation of customers, I stand soundly on my prediction:  this is the high water mark for WoW.  From here, it is all downhill – both in terms of subscription numbers and in terms of quality and polish.  Why?

Veterans will eventually want the old areas back. 

Yes, even WoW gamers get nostalgic, especially as those young gamers who grew up on it start climbing through their twenties and into their thirties.  The logical step is to offer such rollback servers.  I think we all know what that would mean.

The lore has been altered…pray I do not alter it further. 

From personal accounts from friends, the Horde is not longer the “not bad, just misunderstood” other white meat.  Its truly *bad* now.  Evil.  If you think that won’t affect new players, alts, perception of characters, etc.  think again.  Those subscribers who left at Burning Crusade left by and large for one reason – they couldn’t stomache the perceived changes to the lore – the backstory – of the world.  Same at Wrath of the Liche King.

And the number one reason…

[insert drum roll]

Because Blizzard Can’t Go Wrong!

Or at least they (and many other people) think they can’t go wrong.  Which is usually the moment, corporately speaking, when the floor falls out from underneath you.  See also:  Enron, US Automakers, Indianapolis Colts…

Blizzard almost went there with their RealID fiasco this year, but pulled back right at the brink.  Its only a matter of time before they reach that brink again, and this time, they will have drunk so much of their own Kool-Aid, that they will plow right on ahead.  The funny thing about this is that is may not even be all that important a matter, but it will become one in the course of the steamrolling. 

It seemed like a good idea at the time...

An Overdue Thanks

Stoney posted here some time ago about his new blog, a tribute to the MMO we both got our start in, Everquest Online Adventures.   And I am long overdue in saying thank you to him for all the hard work that he has put into the site and for the great memories it has brought back.

If you don’t know anything about EQOA, it was an incredible venture by Sony to bring Everquest to a new market – console MMO’s.  It is one of only a handful to successfully do so (Phantasy Star and FFXI being the only others I know of).  It certainly worked for people like Stoney and I and probably a few thousand others.  It’s hard to know how to approach EQOA these days.

On the one hand, its kind of embarrassing.  EQOA does not have the pedigree of EQ or WoW as a place to cut your teeth on MMO’s.   Some have never heard of it, most looked down on it as EQ with training wheels (which I do not believe it was).   The graphics were terrible, and really only got worse with the first expansion.  The controller made playing interesting, and buying a USB keyboard (*not* easy to find at the time, btw) was almost a necessity – not for playing, but for communicating.    Some of the underlying mechanics were rough – we went through patches where people could power level, exploit, and grief to an extent rarely seen elsewhere.

On the other hand EQOA was a great game.  It was the test bed for virtually every major step forward in the MMO genre – advanced classes, achievements, talent trees.   And it helped developers learn how too curtail and combat those underlying mechanical mistakes – how credit for mob kills should be handled, how to keep trains from happening (if you don’t know what a train is, you missed the dark ages of MMO play time), the need for more quests and less grinding (though we’ve since gone overboard on that one), and advances in making each class capable of solo play without giving up group desirability.

Perhaps one of the most disappointing things about EQOA is the simple lack of graphical media.  Since it was played through the console, there was no “screenshot” feature, and elaborate A/V setups were needed to get pictures and video.  So that makes Stoney’s scrounging and memory work all that more valuable.  I plan a series of posts in this vein myself, along with a tribute to my first guild.

Also, if you haven’t experience EQOA before, now is you chance.  Stoney plans a return to EQOA in January, and I am going to commit to that too.  If you’ve never played it before, you are in for a treat, and the cost of the game discs is cheap these days.  And heck, if you are running a Station Pass, you already have a sub anyway!

So again, thank you Stoney, and thank you EQOA.  You were a home away from home long before I knew I wanted or needed one.  And if any of The Regulators from Ferran’s Hope server stop by – I miss you guys and gals, I hope you all are doing great!