MMOFringe Opinions

http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/loadFeature/5910/Why-a-Horror-MMO-Wont-Work.html

I very strongly disagree with the article, and it is clear that the mistake is in assuming that a horror MMO must just be a re-skinned WoW-clone.

No. A survival horror MMORPG must PLAY very differently from the typical theme park gear grind.

1 - You must FEAR death. Whether the penalty is permadeath or simply a day of being unable to play that character, death must be something to FEAR. Without that, there is no horror and survival is meaningless.

2 - monsters must be threats to be avoided or removed, not resources to be 'farmed'. This is where a lot of zombie games fall down. If you are hunting them, it isn't survival horror. If THEY are hunting YOU, then it IS.

3 - The goal is TO SURVIVE. The attacks become more and more numerous and powerful, and eventually, your safe place is overrun. Your ePeen is based on how long you and your community survived.

Feel free to add more suggestions.

Due to a concurrent local SF convention, I was only able to play a few hours of the recent weekend beta. About four hours of which were as a Jedi Knight. Here are a few points which made an impression in that limited time.

1 - The UI text is too small for me to read without squinting and leaning towards the screen. There is NO UI slider to adjust text size, despite such being a standard for recent MMOs. . As of yet (Nov 21st) , there apparently has been no fix put in. This alone is a deal-breaker for me.

2 - It felt very wrong to me to be looting corpses and attacking non-hostile mobs as a Jedi. As did needing to PAY for my Padawan training. I chose not to loot  corpses, and was unable to purchase my skills as they became available.

3 - The combination of three combat skills (force leap, some multi-swing flurry attack, and an AOE attack) made melee enjoyable and fun - with a decent TTK. While it felt good against NPCs, I have to wonder if the flurry attack will feel right in PvP.

4 - Personal energy shields? REALLY? The same BS Star Trek Online used to prolong combat feels even less true to the IP here.

There has been many a lament on the Fringe about the lack of a Steampunk MMO. I would have to agree as it would seem that the majority of MMOs nowdays are Fantasy in the vein of Tolkein and Dungeons & Dragons settings. There is just something about steampunk that offers fantasy in a somewhat "fresher" take. Sure, there is magic but there are also Airships which are nods to the long forgotten Zeppelins. There are fantastical firearms and wonderous devices that swirl HG Wells in with the Dwarves and Elves.

No game captured this genre better than Arcanum. It was released in 2001 on 2 cds and with some fanfare which was stolen True there were bugs but those were patched and worked around. And none of it detered the thrill you got from playing in such an engrossing setting. Character advancement really was one of the reasons to keep playing as the development of your character pulled you further into the steampunk world.

Now I know this a lot of late night rambling but I have a really fond memory to share with you about this game. At one point, you enter this town and are warned numerous times about this foul beast that lives in the caves just out of town. EVERYONE is afraid of it and the tales of its vile deeds have you stocking up on your health items and armor because you know sure as shit that you are going to have to go kick its ass.

So after much stocking, I head out to the caves and see all the bones. I triple check my saves and head into the cave. And there it was - the most foul creature I had ever laid eyes on. It had big pointy teeth and a mean streak a mile wide... I mean LOOK AT THE BONES!!! I won't give it away anymore but lets just say I laughed pretty damn hard until the first volley of attacks had me near death. Many Save Restores later, I finally beat the son of a bitch.

Anywho, if you have a hankering for some steampunk - gog.com has it for download at a mere $5.99. DRM free. It runs even on Windows 7. And better still, the community added some custom patches back in 2009 for widescreen resolutions and some other nifty details. Links provided below...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcanum:_Of_Steamworks_and_Magick_Obscura

For Sale at...
http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/arcanum_of_steamworks_and_magick_obscura

Patches, Mods and Errata
http://www.terra-arcanum.com/downloads/

I am a relative newcomer to MMORPGs. I started in WoW back in 2005 and it was my first MMO.

I am not a newcomer to gaming overall, however. I began playing board games with my parents around 5 or 6. Sorry, Clue, Monopoly (blech), Aggravation, and a game which was hugely popular in school for a while - World Wide.

I progressed to a big favourite of mine - Admirals (think of a naval version of Stratego) and Risk.

In the mid '70s my mother insightfully bought me Panzer Leader. MY first serious wargame. I was hooked. Wargames became my prime gaming interest. Had several Avalon Hill games as favourites - Air Force (the Battleline original, though), and Flat Top in particular.

Other than soccer, I wasn't very interested in sports (watching or playing) until 1979. Watched the Super Bowl that year (and became a Cowboys fan) and a local radio station started carrying the Montreal Expos games which my whole family followed loyally.

Very soon after that, I discovered AH's Statis-Pro Baseball. I was quickly addicted and played hundreds of games solitaire comprising several different seasons. I got a few friends hooked as well, and we played hundreds more games in various seasons with 3-6 managers using players from 4 or 5 years of cards.

It was the most intense gaming period of my life. Great excitement, creativity (we (mostly I) invented several additiional rules systems to add to our seasons' complexity and fun), and arguments. OH - the arguments! Friendly ones about strategy and very UNfriendly ones about rules.

Wow - what memories.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statis_Pro_Baseball

"This line really reminded me of a profound truth that I have grown fond of recently, that for anything you do not pay for you are the product, not the client. Basically all the free players are there so they can get pwned by freemium players, what a joke!

Since the quality of these games is dubious and falling daily, my conclusion is at some point in the future all free players will begin to actually be paid token sums of money so that there are always a steady supply online ready to get bum raped by freemium players, it will probably be cheaper than designing bot ai."

Wow. This might actually happen.

An MMORPG should either have NO hybrid classes or ALL classes need to be hybrids.

I played all classes in WoW and WH Online and it is blatantly unfair to have some of the classes group-capable in only one role when others can handle two or three. Try getting in a group as DPS only, when others can switch out to tank or heal.

So, either all classes are single-role (which would require much better leveling design for tanks and healers) or every class has a DPS-spec and a spec for tanking, healing, or CC/buffing.

Someone at MMORPG.com compared F2P MMOs to McDonald's dollar menu. No, it's a $10 burger place that lets you eat out of the dumpster for nothing.

Greetings. I have no idea how blogs work, so bear with me.

The year was 1982 and the Atari 2600 was king of the consoles. Video games were all the rage and everything seemed to be rise. That was until E.T. the Extra Terrestrial video game was released to the world. Its peers included the timeless classics, Pacman and Donkey Kong. Nearly bullet proof games that to this day are played. So it naturally was expected that one of the first action video games to ever be based upon a movie was going to be stellar. What the world got was a broken game (considered to be one of the worst ever in the history of the industry) that was so bad that it nearly killed the video game market, decimated Atari's earning for the next few years and caused public backlash like never before witnessed at that time.

The end result was several new policies and industry standards including returns as well as trcukloads of the game being put in a landfill in Texas... topped with cement. You see, back then - half finished and/or broken games caused outrage that shook the pillars of business. John Q. Public would not tolerate $49.95 fleecing and didn't take too lightly to being disregarded by companies. Strangely enough, this huge setback set in motion what would eventually become the Golden Age of Video Games.

Fast forward to today. The Golden Age has come and gone and now we stand before the precipice of the darkest age of video gaming. We no longer get "complete" games of any sort. Either they are pushed out months before they are ready (to which, the norm now is to play until the patch comes down) or we are given portions of the game with the rest of it being held back for downloadable content that must be purchased seperately. There are no longer landfills for the games that we once buried. Rather, there are bookshelves where they sit until the can be played.

Worse still, is the fact that the industry put in place to cover and review said games now abides by the rules set by the marketing departments of those whoe develop the games. If ET were released today, we would not be told that it "sucks" and is broken. Rather, we would be given "Previews" instead of reviews. The best points would be highlighted while the tragic flaws would be noted along with a disclaimer that a patch is coming soon. And that we, the public, needs to be patient and understanding. Despite our purchasing the game at full price.

Honest opinions do exist on the web but you will not find them on the mainstream sites who by their own right survive off of advertising dollars. A bad review gets future game advertising pulled away as well as copies of future games for testing and reviews. It is a terrible cycle that has been constructed by businessmen who want the maximum return for their investment (as they should) but are willing to offer shoddy products and cut corners to do so.

I have always felt that independent or upstart ideas (gaming or otherwise) offer us hope and cause change. However, once this is done, businessmen take notice, Get involved and then alter the product or the sprit of the company or innovater. Then the once original and inspiring movement is homogenized and then milked to the point where it becomes just like the rest. Kinda like movie sequels. Marketing and tie ins always seem to be at the heart of those.

So here we stand, in a world full of pay for beta and pay for what should have been includeds. It is a dark age. And god, do I wish that someone would save us from the landfill that now is our industry. 

In view of the imminent shutdown of Star Wars Galaxies: NGE, the once active battle ground which witnessed many ideologic as well as passionate conflicts between the NGE crowd (included here the "instant gratification", "SOE viral marketers" and "mentally challenged" groups) and the veterans (that is, the "serious gamers"), the aforementioned battle ground has become a deserted place where now few remaining peasants roam the land in search of what little source of motivation they find.

Amongst these remaining few, there are some who, naturally, far from enjoying their "beloved game", still find the motivation to carry on by pointing fingers to - who else? - the veteran players. To these people, SOE did not shut down SWG:NGE due to their previous mismanagement, nor because of licensing issues or due to whatever logical excuse any outsider would reach on his own - but rather they find that the demise of the NGE was caused by the nefarious and unjust campaign carried out by those who left years ago.

Given that these small number of deluded folks are just too, well, scarce to be taken seriously by anyone - and given that we've heard such preposterous claims multiple times in the past - the core of this blog will not the them.

The core of this blog will be to find out what happened to the "Generals" of old. Some of those immortalised on this site in the "Asshat Hall of Fame". So let us begin the journey of journalistic excellence which will take us to uncover the sercret of "what ever became of..."

Badgersmaker: The glorified "information" agent of the NGE who worked closely with infamous leading developers to sell the NGE via cheap propaganda and other dubious techniques (such as squelching opposing views using dodgy methods) was found trying to cash in his last paycheck from San Diego in a busy street in central London about a month ago. He drew attention to himself when the check bounced back and the bank clerk instantly found his desk covered in colourful charts - with something "stratics" written on them - which Badger attempted to use in order to explain his relationship to SOE. 

He left the bank and headed to the telephone booth - presumably to contact SOE - and then went to the pub that brought his memory back to the "glory" days. Making himself comfortable at the table in the far corner, he ordered his pint of "Stella Artois" and flashes of the last NGE fanboy reunion appeared before him. Those where the days!, he pondered. The Iraq Information Minister from the days of S. Hussein would envy him nothing. He drifted his view to the table where they all once sat. All six of them. They wore SWG shirts and drank till closing time and had sent a thank you message to SOE HQ before they headed out. "Bloody vets", he spew out as he finished the beer. He stood up, paid the bill and headed outside. Before the reporter took the opposite direction, he was heard pronouncing the following words on this mobile phone: "Yes, I am an expert at online marketing, and I specialise in forum communication and damage control... When would you like me to start?"

Ummax: This undercover agent who at one point went to great lengths to defend the Trading Card Game was found leaving a casino in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago. She had left her youngster at a cyber cafe near by because the "dense" security guard would not permit an under age working the slot machines. She had tried all sorts of ways to convince the guard that "inserting coins into a machine is not gambling because kids do it all the time in soda and candy machines" but alas, the guard would have none of it. 

After releasing her frustration by compulsively dropping coins at the "Caribbean Fruits 500" machine in the casino, she picked up the minor and went straight to her apartment. Storming in, she turned on her PC began to frenetically type a thesis on "Why slot machines isn't gambling" which she was sure to hand over to the State authorities AND the guard once it was done. 

The reporter then saw her dropping what appeared to be a 300 page monograph into the mailbox and taking a taxi back to the casino. She returned home many hours later. 

...to be continued.