Fallen Earth Continued

I did make an attempt to get into this game during the free trial, but I just couldn't handle it for very long.

The controls are slippery/sloppy, and that's my biggest turning off point for MMO's. I should be able to control my character perfectly, not deal with animation frame locking me out of control. The jumping was obnoxious as well. It's cool that there was momentum in the game, it's dumb that you can't jump forward while standing still; getting stuck behind terrain until you can find a way to get enough running room to leap over it is not exciting game play.

The premise of the game seems decent. You are a fighter/crafter that goes around collecting resources and killing things to collect resources and increase your gear set. Unfortunately the game goes with the system of "no you can't". As in, "no you can't" excel in all crafting professions even if you put the time into it. "No you can't" be both a great fighter and a great crafter. It's a system of limitations and frustrations.

The idea of ability points is so outdated it hurt just thinking about leveling up. Once you place a point, it's gone for good and you're never getting it back. Supposedly players will get to do minor updates in the future, not full skill swaps just a few points here or there, and that's nice and all, but it still shouldn't be necessary. Fallen Earth would have benefited immensely from an oblivion style level up system, where the more you do something, the better you get at it. No need for levels, no need for placing points. Fallen Earth basically did it backwards. They let you skill up by doing, but then require you to level up before you can skill up more. What they should have done was let you skill up by doing, but then allow you to place points you've earned from skilling up into branching paths of advancement, that you can eventually just get everything of.

Example: So you've just spent an hour leveling your herb gathering skill from 1 to 100. You've gained 5 level points, 1 per 20 skill points that you've gained. These points can be spent increasing your gathering speed, increasing your mini map awareness of herbs, increasing your chance of getting special procs off herbs, any number of things. They could also be spent on branching paths. Putting level points into Healing Herbs means you could gather higher level healing herbs than you currently have skill points for, so if you were gathering a healing herb, you would gather as if you had +75 skill points; so 175 gathering skill instead of just 100, when harvesting that specific kind of herb. That's the kind of system Fallen Earth should have used, since so much of their game revolves around doing, but is constantly held back by the artificial "leveling" ceilings.

The world is very open, you can just walk forever, and that's interesting until you realize there's just nowhere to go. Perhaps if I was max level and was exploring with a vehicle it would be more fun.

I probably only spent a total of 10 hours playing this game. The introduction explained things well, the starter town was incredibly boring, as was the extended introduction. Fallen Earth is the kind of game that you won't get into unless you plan on getting into it. By that, I mean you cannot really enjoy it as a casual game, because you won't gain any rewards. You have to play Fallen Earth in order to enjoy it, you can't just log in and enjoy it.

Other notes: The graphics sucked even on high quality, the lighting effects were nice though. The art style was bland. The starter weapons were ludicrously boring and ineffective. Prepare to do a lot of reading and studying before even doing anything if you're worried about your characters advancement; basically you have to know the entire game before you even start playing the game. The static world is... completely static; the world doesn't feel like a post apocalyptic world with wild creatures running around or that everyone is trying their hardest to survive, it feels more like a rural desert with the big city maybe an hours drive away, and that as a player you're just Choosing not to go drive towards it and relax.

Fallen Earth

Apparently Fallen Earth, the MMO, came out and I totally missed it; wasn't even paying attention.

Looks like they've got a 10-day free trial up, and honestly that's the best kind of trial there is. More MMO games really should look into offering free trials as that lets the curious ones not waste ~$80 just to try out a game they may hate.

I was reading an article @Eurogamer, and then saw a link to the article @Massively, and the article was looking at the future of the MMO industry or some such. It kind of went in two or three directions, the important thing is that they had some quotes from the Fallen Earth MMO people, and that publicity got me thinking hey, maybe I should check this game out. So here goes, I'm downloading and installing it now, I'll probably start playing it tomorrow at some point. I'm going to try keeping a little journal of my experience. It's always a blast checking out an MMO for the first time, especially one like this that is apparently considered "good" and "niche".

I'm not completely clear on the premise yet, I read it a long time ago when it was still in beta and then forgot it all. The title nicely sums it up though. Earths gone through a catastrophe, time to wake up and get to the surviving. I get the feeling this is probably the closest anyone has gotten to making a zombie MMORPG.

Sweet Lemonade
Apparently that's the original voices? I think it is anyway, sounds better that way. NSFW.

Allods Online

Allods Online is a new f2p MMO by the company gPotato. It's set in the traditional fantasy world rife with humans, pointy-eared humans, and deformed humans; with tons of critters and undead just asking to be killed as well. There's copper and silver and gold currencies. There's swords and magic. Many are calling it a WoW clone, but I would have to disagree. Sure it's an MMO set in a fantasy world with 2 rival factions that have open PvP against each other, but compared to real WoW clones out there, Allods is definitely going in its own direction in terms of class design and end game PvE - you get to fly around in giant guild owned/built ships battling monsters in space.

Currently Allods Online is in an open beta, but one that will not wipe characters after the game hits retail. Basically the game is fully playable while the cash shop, where f2p games make back their monies, isn't activated yet. And of course gPotato is still squashing bugs and developing more content. Word from other players is that upcoming content for the actual release will include player mounts.

The graphics are really good for a f2p MMO. The particle effects are nice, and while the game may take more resources than some of the other f2p MMO's, and even WoW maybe, the art style just doesn't seem to mesh that well. The graphics don't stand out compared to subscription MMO's, but they definitely aren't sub par either.


Elves have wings in this game, and they don't walk anywhere, they float everywhere.

The game play is growing smoother the further into the open beta it gets. There's already been a patch which has further increased the quality of client to server communication. It also helps that players are more spread out than the were in the first two days of open beta, so the game isn't lagging because of that anymore. It's surprising that almost all of the classes have a different play style "gimmick" to them, one that actually fits. For example I've spent most of my time playing a mage, and each time she casts a spell she gains a corresponding counter. So if it's a fire spell, then she gains a fire counter. This counter can stack up to 5, and then on the 6th fire spell cast, my mage has a 70% chance of getting a good buff, like +health or +mana or reduced CD times, or has a 30% chance of getting a negative buff. Now this sounds rather silly in the long run, but that's only the surface. After level 10, the mage can spend "ruby points" in order to gain more concrete bonuses from these counters. A mage can spec to remove all negatives, giving them a 100% positive chance each time the counter fills up, or gain some other abilities that use up counters in exchange for damage. Of the four classes I've tried, only the mage class has this counter system, while other classes have their own special interactive systems. Warriors have a Rage system and maybe something else, rangers have some sort of special ammo system, and then some classes just have pets. If you like leveling unique characters, then you should definitely check this game out.

One has to wonder where the servers are located due to how bad the latency can be at times. But like I mentioned above, that's slowly being worked on. Another problem is the memory leaks. Logging out and back in takes all of 25 seconds, so it isn't a major deal. It was a bigger deal in Age of Conan because it was such a huge stoppage on play ability. In Allods, the mem leaks aren't a huge drain on the system, so you just have to get around to it eventually instead of dropping everything you're doing at that very moment.

The interface is nice, but it's missing some key components that just pop out at you. You can't tell if anyone is in a guild or not because there are no guild tags on names. The icons on the map tend to fade in and out at random, though the quest system using the map is perfect. Navigating through the maps also feels very dated since you have to use pull down menu's to zoom in and out. I expect the majority of updates in the next few weeks to fleshing out the rest of these glaring interface problems. Included with the recent patch was some welcome updates to the chat window for example.

The storyline is decent. I can't imagine ever reading the quest lines a second time, but the first time through hasn't been bad. The quests are the typical kill this, gather this, so nothing new here. You're just doing it in a new way with new classes. This is probably the place where Bioware's Star Wars Online is trying to further flesh their world, and good luck to them, but honestly I barely cared the first time I read the quest plots.

After all that good stuff, Allods is still a free to play game, which means that Allods Online eventually turns into a pay them cash or don't participate system. I don't have any first hand experience, and things may change in the future, but through word of mouth from closed beta testers, the end game basically requires cash infusions to gPotato. Supposedly, each time your character dies at level 40, your player will take a -25% major stat penalty (each classes major stats are highlighted in green so players know what they should focus on, because there are over 10 stats going on) which will stack up to 4 times. Without your major stats, you can't do anything. Once a day, players can do a quest to remove all their stacks, but that's only once a day. If they wish to remove them otherwise, or prevent themselves from even getting any of them, then you have to buy items from the cash shop, such as "no death penalty potion, lasts 8 hours".


You can get a pet squirrel, and yes, you have to have four names!

A second death penalty, surprising you'd think they'd spread out the money sinks, is the "Purgatory" system. It really does feel like purgatory. You are stuck in a square room full of mostly non interactive NPC's, and you can't leave until the time runs out, or you go talk to one of the interactive NPC's and pay gold. Or you can spend these weird little holy droplets things that, each one, removes 1 second off your purgatory. Well, at level 7 you're in there for 17 seconds for each death, not that bad right? Apparently at level 40, the max level, you're in there for 53 minutes per death. That's just beyond... again, you can buy something from the store to prevent this.

Allods Online isn't sounding like all that much of a f2p game. Considering the investors spent $12 million making it, they need to recoup their expenses somehow. But those are some ridiculously harsh penalties. Most f2p games just have a lot of grinding and so most players buy double xp potions. Allods doesn't have that, it has quests and practically free double xp the entire time, so everyone is leveling up fast. It is still open beta though, and those items are translated from the released Russian version's store, so if they actually stay in the game we'll just have to wait and see.

Allods Online is going to be a good game for people who just want to enjoy some new MMO classes in a new fantasy world and take in the leisurely questing and leveling. It is currently not looking like a good long term game for those hoping to not pay any money.

Coming Back for Cata?

It's been awhile since I've done any real talk about World of Warcraft; mainly because I haven't been playing it at all recently. I quit a number of months ago, and I’m glad I did. The main problem with MMO games for a person like me is that I hate to have a schedule for fun. I don’t mind schedules for work or sleep or anything like that, but when it comes to having fun there should be a start time and an end time. There should not be a place I have to be at a certain time, or something I have to show up to even if I’d rather do something else.

I feel that Blizzard has been moving closer to casual gamers since the creation of their game, and while at some rare points I’ve complained about it, I’ve mostly benefited from their approach without even realizing it. Thinking back, I’ve always been a casual gamer, even when I’ve pushed myself to the limits of hardcore gaming.

Even with all of that said, Cataclysm is looking incredibly tempting for me to start playing again. 10 man raiding becoming a polished part of the game is a major plus. 10 man raiding was badly designed in TBC, it was a lot better but still mostly untested in Wrath, and I think that in Cata we’ll see a huge rise in its ability to generate a good experience with less effort than the 25 man raids take. Raiding is time consuming, but it’s also incredibly fun. It’s like winning at soccer, without having to actually leave your house or do anything physical. Plus there’s no “losing”. You just keep doing it until you’ve won.

That of course alludes to the well known psychologically addicting aspect of MMO games. There’s no such thing as losing or failing in an MMO; at least not with any real consequences. Players are barraged with rewards for doing the littlest thing. Almost all gaming is like that these days though. Take MW2 for example. An FPS, incredibly popular, players get rewarded points for every individual kill they complete while losing nothing but a 5 second respawn timer if they get killed in turn. Endless rewards, without consequences, constantly thrown at your feet. There is of course the very real consequence of not doing anything else but playing these video games, one that more gamers need to think about.

If I do start playing WoW again, it will be in a casual 10 man guild that maybe raids 9 hours a week tops. So 3 days of 3 hours each. I only have one friend that actually raids anymore in WoW. Creating online friendships with other people through an MMO can be satisfactory, but they aren’t real relationships. When a guild breaks up the majority of people do not stay in contact anymore. Even if they’d been spending 20 hours a week together online, all of a sudden they split ways and it’s done. It’s hard being successful and yet also anti-social in an MMO at the same time, but I’ve pulled it off before.

If I do go back I’m either going to continue; with my Ret Paladin, the lovely Dyse; shift back to my original character, Averice the hunter; or level a Worgen mage, which I’ll probably name whatever my low level mage alt is named currently. I do have a high level warlock now though, so we’ll see what happens. Zoomba’s her name.

I could not stand playing a hunter in WotLK, even though I love the class and played it through Vanilla and TBC. The changes watered down the class incredibly I felt, and a lot of me coming back to the game depends on what kind of changes are made to hunters for Cata. Only time will tell.

Until then I’m trying to beat FF12 before FF13 comes out, but it’s slow going. The game is so much larger than I originally thought it was just a few days ago. I’m actually getting lost in the world now trying to move forward; so it’s both a good thing and a bad thing. I thought I’d be able to beat it in a few hours, but after I realized how much longer it was I just had to stop. I’ll try again later; I have until March before FF13 comes out.

I beat Dragon Age, but I’ll make a separate post about that. That game is incredible. I’m playing Assassin’s Creed on and off, and also planning on buying Mass Effect 1 for the sole reason of figuring out what the hell is happening in Mass Effect 2. ME2 does a terrible job of introducing you to what happened in the last game, and pretty much just assuming that you played it. It shouldn’t run more than $20… unlike FF13 which would cost a console + the game. My time would be better spent looking for a job than trying to beat FF12, which is what I’m doing actually. Still no luck.

I’m also reading a few books right now. Each one is actually a trilogy collection stuffed into one big book. It was cheaper to buy them that way; The Deed of Paksenarrion, Chronicles of the Black Company, and lastly a somewhat cheaper series, The Icewind Dale Trilogy. All fantasy, but all very good; though it’s easy to tell the difference between a Forgotten Realms quality fantasy and a, I would consider, real fantasy like Paks and Chronicles. Honestly, I’d go so far to consider Paks and Chronicles of higher quality than LotR. They paint worlds just as vividly, if not more so, than that classic. Though the quality of LotR was never its selling point, from what I understand. The series selling point was the fact it was original. And I haven’t come across any arguments against that, and it’s a fair popularity reason. Though if all it had spawned were Forgotten Realm type stories… then I’d be a bit more skeptical.

Star Trek Online - Where's the MMO?

After reading through IGN.com's hands-on of the Star Trek Online beta, the first question that comes to mind is: Where are all the other players?

Making the first levels of an MMO a single player experience utilizes a different philosophy of how best to introduce players to unique game mechanics.

The traditional MMO introduction involves putting the player down into a starter zone filled with other starting players, and letting them go through the tutorial even as all this stuff is happening around them. It’s a simple method from a time when a good part of the draw of playing an MMO was that you could be surrounded and playing it with so many other people at once.

Many of the newer MMO games of the last few years have started developing single player tutorials for new players. Tutorials that aren’t just text boxes anymore, but sometimes long scripted events, almost a game in themselves. Players are either completely isolated from each other, or require no interaction in order to progress in the game.

Interaction wise, the new method isn’t that different from that of the traditional MMO. While players were surrounded by others, the necessity of interaction was pretty much pointless until they’ve gained a few levels.

So this new philosophy of introduction is a good thing. It lets players get a feel for the game in a much more involved manner. It also has its negatives though.

An MMO game requires interaction with other players. It requires team work and communication. At some point, players are going to be forced to interact with other players if they want to accomplish specific goals in the game.

Reading about the Star Trek Online hands-on tutorial makes you wonder if there's even any MMO aspect to the game at all.

Can Star Trek Online survive as an MMO if it doesn’t actually have much player interaction? Is a game even an MMO when it uses a full blown instance system? EvE Online is a space based MMO. Star Trek Online so far is sounding like nothing more than a single player game with an online multiplayer campaign option.

Perhaps further hands-on beta testing will provide a solid sense of interactivity with other players… but if players aren’t interacting, than the game isn’t an MMO. Kind of like how Phantasy Star Online wasn’t an MMO.

Though maybe there just needs to be a new acronym for persistant interactive worlds online. PIWO sounds horrible though.

What does the future hold? - A look at MMO games

MMO games have come a long way since their humble beginnings, and they appear so prolific that it makes one wonder: just how much further can they go? Aion was just released, Blade and Soul is coming from NCSoft in the future, as well as Guild Wars 2. Blizzard has an unannounced MMO title that they are working on, and there are new free to play MMO’s hitting the market almost weekly. By the same token, many MMO’s are seeing dwindling numbers; Mythic has recently cut half of their Warhammer Online staff, the Matrix Online shut its servers entirely a few months ago, and Aion is already losing many subscribers if the forums are to be believed, practically all of whom came from WoW with many who aren’t going back.

There is of course the blame for the unusual tidal wave of hot non MMO games: Modern Warfare 2, Dragon Age, Mass Effect 2, Assassins Creed 2, Bioware 2, etc.. All top notch games, all being released between Q4 2009 and Q1 2010. If there was a war going on between MMO publishers and non MMO publishers, this is probably what it would look like. The point being, all of these are amazing titles for gamers, and due to the now standard additions of RPG elements within multiplayer environments, as well as the achievement systems all single player games now have, there is a lot of time to be spent away from MMO games.

Quickly, MW2 multiplayer is not bleeding into the MMO seen. Yes, it’s online, yes, it’s multiplayer, no, it is not an MMO. This is because it does not have a persistent world. There is a lobby, you connect to a game, the game loads, you play the game, you disconnect, and you’re back in the lobby. That’s not how MMO’s work. MW2 is a FPS RPG though. Just like the traditional MMO is an RPG, MW2 is one of the culminating transformations of including RPG elements into FPS’s. I say culminating because it’s been done before, even in MW1, but Activision has really hit the RPG aspect dead center this time.

With that out of the way, we can get back to the issue at hand. MMO games are here to stay, and it looks like they are attempting to push the boundaries. As mentioned before, a traditional MMO is a multiplayer RPG game with a persistent world; from Ultima Online to Everquest to WoW and beyond. While the traditional model still works, WoW can vouch for that, most producers have realized that in order to compete with WoW, the investment isn’t worth the payout and risk.

Taking Aion as an example, the game is more polished than WoW was when it launched, and it is seeing improvements constantly, but players are already disillusioned. In order to break into the traditional MMO market right now, you need a game that has seen practically 2 additional years of polish, much like Warhammer Online and Age of Conan are just now approaching. Aion of course launched after having been released for 1 year in Korea, so it still has a year to go before enough polish has been applied. Of course, by the time a game has gotten 2 years of polish, most interested players have bought it, tried it, and then tossed it to the side, looking to the new great thing on the horizon that promises better features and graphics than the now outdated MMO can provide. It is a vicious cycle.

Developers aren’t willing to just let this gold mine slip through their fingers though, despite the risks. Some decided to destroy the reputation of their companies to try and make as much money back as possible for investors, like Age of Conan did. Others keep pushing at it as long as they can, knowing they have an A list title on their hands, but things just aren’t clicking, which is what is happening with Warhammer Online and Dungeons & Dragons Online. Later developers have treaded lightly on the outskirts of the land mine that WoW has turned the traditional MMO market into, and have come up with some fresher concepts.

EvE Online created a persistent world with no rules, a sandbox. Or I guess a “universe” would be a better term. They’ve managed to garner a ton of attention and a solid fan base, despite the “low compared to top list MMO” numbers. Then there’s the rash outbreak of free to play MMO’s as well and here is where innovation is at its peak. Low budget companies throwing concepts together in a mad hope that something sticks and makes an impact on players long enough for them to gain a profit on their investment through micro transactions.

It may be strange to think of it, but games like Evony Online are actually MMO’s. They are multiplayer, they are online, and they have a persistent world that players can interact in. Though many of these browser games are missing the massively part. You could argue that Guild Wars was never a true MMO because it didn’t allow for large amounts of players to accumulate in a single location for adventures, aka lacking on the “Massive”. But that word has basically been forgotten from the acronym, as MMO has come to take on a meaning despite what it originally stood for.

The point of bringing up Evony is to showcase an example of just how much further MMO’s can go. While Evony Online is a browser MMO and is very bare bones, Dawn of Fantasy is a new MMO coming out that fleshes out the basic concepts. Dawn of Fantasy was most likely in production before Evony ever was, so there is no suggestion here that it is literally a take off of it. And before Evony Online ever did it, Glitchless’s Race War Kingdoms did it, but that’s another story. Dawn of Fantasy isn’t a typical MMO, it’s a MMO RTS. Base building, unit and army control, all with a world to conquer. While players are not destroying forests and digging up mountains (as far as I know anyway) in this game, they are building cities and armies in the RTS style and fighting with other players in an RTS style, all in the persistent online world of an MMO. Other MMO’s have allowed you to modify the game world before: Darkfall Online, Age of Conan, some A list MMO that I forgot the name of, Star Wars Galaxies as well. An actual RTS MMO though is one of the new directions some developers are going in order to try and scoop up part of the MMO pie. (note - I don’t condone actually playing Evony Online )

The next step in MMO development, the true “next-gen” is going to go beyond genre mashing though. Some people have been fantasizing about the possibilities for decades, just waiting for the technology and resources to match up so that it can be created. While all MMO’s require a persistent world, and many MMO’s allow players to interact and change things within those worlds, nobody has made a game where players can truly interact with the land itself: cutting down trees that are literally cut down and will take a long time to grow again assuming that they are given the chance, killing rabbits that actually disappear and don’t just respawn 2 minutes later, digging into mountains and having caves left behind. MMO 2.0 is another name for it, and there’s a small possibility that this is what Blizzard-Activision has in mind when they refer to their next-gen MMO that they are making.

MMO’s have a lot of life left in them, and they are going to keep invading the gaming world for years to come. If there is a genre out there, then it can be made into an MMO. Another spin on MMO’s is bringing them to consoles. EvE Online is doing this with their new MMO addition Dusk514, and FPS console MMO set in the same universe as EvE Online. While not next-gen, definitely a step forward for the MMO platform. MMO games have muscled their way into the same platform definition where one would only use the words “single player” or “multi player” in the past. It’s not just a multiplayer game, it’s an MMO.

Aion "Actually it's not me, it's you."

Aion is a beautiful game, probably the most beautiful MMO out on the market. But just like an obnoxious girl, you have to balance out her sexual appeal to how willing you are to stand for her bullshit.

Aion. I love crafting in your game. It is a solid experience with a continual churning of mini rewards that make me feel like my time is well spent in upgrading my character. I love all the quirks and polish snuck into the world itself like hidden Easter eggs just waiting to be found. Every zone, many of the quests, NPC names, have little parts to them that can make you chuckle if you take the time. I love your ridiculous graphics that make my PC feel like it’s running a marathon, you are so beautiful. It feels like watching those old-school high-rendered next-gen top quality video game commercials, but this time the game play actually looks that way. I love how many different monsters you have in the world. I love how PvP is not an option, but a way of life.

All of that just isn’t enough compared to your bad side.

My video card is up to date, I have a dual core processor, sure I’m not as buff as I used to be a couple years ago, but you didn’t even know me back then! Aion is intended to work with PC’s like mine, but due to coding complications, or Something, the game has a major problem with dual core processors. Many players actually got better results by turning off one of their processors.

The problems range from frame rate spikes to rubber banding, which is basically the same thing as rollback lag, to just not working at all. These aren’t isolated incidents, many players have had to deal with these problems, and NCSoft suffers from a sever lack of support. Make that a lack of any support. They offer a forum where players can talk to each other about problems, but no one from their company actually chimes in with any assistance. Maybe that’s better than being told to delete your WTF folder for everything from lag to lost loot… but not really.

Now, there’s nothing worse than going out with your significant other, or maybe just someone you hope will be, and discovering bugs hopping off of them onto you and biting you. Okay, so that example is a bit extreme, but gold spammers and bots in Aion are just as invasive, if not as disgusting. You cannot enter a city without seeing a gold seller sitting somewhere, and you won’t go a single game session without having your chat box filled with at least a couple gold spammers.

The problem with bots and gold spammers further highlights the disconnect between the developers/community leaders and the players. In the most recent patch, players couldn’t even block gold spammers anymore, which means that their chat boxes were filled with gold spam endlessly. I hope NCSoft put the block functionality back into their game, and that it was just a bug, but launching with such an error really does make the game unplayable. There was a recent article somewhere, if someone else remembers where please put a link in the comments, which discussed how MMO companies typically take one of two stances: either an open community forum with developers or a closed one. NCSoft definitely takes the closed version; it was even mentioned in the article that way. It is a major turn off when you have a problem and you have no idea how to go about fixing it, and neither does anybody else, because it’s not your fault, it’s the games fault.

Other gripes with Aion are that some of the classes suck at soloing. Templars for example can’t solo worth a damn. If you want to solo, either take a high damage class or a healing class… oh wait, that’s actually everyone except Templars. So just don’t roll a Templar. Yet NCSoft is probably wondering why there is a tank shortage…

The final stake through my heart? The grind. I don’t mind grinding, I don’t mind getting my hands dirty, putting in my time, scraping together the pieces in order to foster the growth of something fantastic. But Aion asks too much. The level cap should have been 30, not 50, because once you pass level 30, the experience needed to get from one level to the next is exorbitant, and it only gets work. Going from level 49 to 50 takes over 1 billion experience points. Someone did the math; it’s the same amount of XP you would need to get from level 1 to 45. A game that requires some grinding is okay as long as you’re enjoying yourself. A game that promotes bots to grind because there’s no way a human being in their right mind could sit through that much time is not a game you want to be around. Even if she makes the best damn cookies in the world.

And by the way, it's also a terrible sign when the company is already churning out another MMO that looks so similar to the one you were just playing. This guy at Massively.com is already talking about it, Blade And Soul, and honestly I can't blame her. Though I will disagree. Blade and Soul will be great for 2 months and then fail. If you want an MMO from NCSoft, stick with Guild Wars 2.

Wow vs. Aion once more

Not a full blown review, but I will say that, despite how much I loathe WoW right now, I'm still logging into it over Aion. Aion requires concentration, lots of effort, you can't multi-task, you should probably be in a group with other people. I can't afford all those things when I have a chance to play, and so I'm back to WoW in part... though WoW is making it harder to do these things as well. Lower time before you get kicked from a BG, lower time to enter a BG once you get the queue, it's all rather sad for casual players like myself.

I applied for a job at IGN the other day, but I'm pretty sure my application was rather horrible. They asked for my resume, so I used my resume... but my resume doesn't exactly consist of all my MMO experience, which is what the job was about. I really should have probably added in a cover letter, and just made a resume fit solely for that job... but the whole process confuses me to be honest. They use an outsource program to take in resumes, and the outsource program only asks for a general resume, it doesn't want any type of cover letter or specific details, so I feel that while I completed the outsourced resume part right, I really f'd up when it came to the real resume and now I probably won't get the job. I didn't have all of the qualifications in the first place, but it still would have looked better if I had just listed my MMO experience instead of the crap that's on my actual resume... which really is crap. I need a real job so bad. Money, experience, for my resume to show I'm doing Something... sigh.

Aion After a Week

I actually have a new article going up on the various play styles of each class in Aion over at MMORPG.com in the next couple of weeks. It was already such a long article I couldn't put everything I wanted to into it. One thing that would have been fun is to compare the classes in Aion to other classes from other games, mainly WoW. I feel comfortable doing this since the game of Aion itself is so different from WoW, but many of the class abilities appear similar. I really did not have the room to write a bunch of clarifying information for my article, plus it would add extra length for no reason. So here goes:

Templar -> A Protection Paladin/DK

Gladiator -> Warrior

Chanter -> Bard

Cleric -> Generic Healer

Spiritmaster -> Warlock

Ranger -> Vanilla WoW Hunter minus pet

Assassin -> Rogue/AoC Assassin

Sorcerer -> Mage

If I had put that list in the article, I would have had to explain it all, but since it's here I don't have to worry about it! Those are how I see the various classes. Chanters are a little bit like WoW shamans as well, but not completely. Templars really could be Protection Paladins just lifted and put into Aion, they really only have one DK live ability, but it's a pretty sweet ability. Divine Grip: Grabs a target up to 25 meters away, and all enemy targets within 20 meters of that, and brings all of them straight in front of you. Mass DK death grip.

Aion is still enjoyable, I haven't made it past level 18 though : ( I probably played about 4 hours of WoW this weekend, and way too many hours of Aion, but Friday and Saturday sleep just wasn't happening so I was up and awake forever. I caught up a little yesterday, slept for about 3 hours during the day then I went to bed at 1am and got up at 7:30, so that was some nice extra hours. Still feeling tired. Probably why I'm writing about it instead of Aion.

In Aion you have to complete special quests, I forget what they're called but they're special, they have their own tab in the quest book, in order to level up every 10 levels or so. You work on the quest throughout the 10 levels, but then the storyline all culminates at the end. These end quests, sadly in my opinion, do in fact require a group effort. You will need a healer, so either a chanter or a cleric, and you will need a tank, so either a templar or a gladiator, and you will even need some good DPS. So far I have yet to see a group go through these quests with less than 5 people, and that was rare, almost everyone was going as a group of 6. This is because dying is such a painful experience I believe, that bringing less people just doesn't feel safe. The mobs are elite, so they hit harder, and have a lot more health. They don't hit ridiculously harder though, so it's really all about killing them down.

These quests, so far, are not instanced, though players can still switch game instances if they wish. But this means that the mobs are free for all, and while most of them are just kill so many of this type, there are some boss mobs that can be farmed for gear. I'm hoping that the later stages of Aion has instanced dungeons so players can farm them in peace, but we'll see, I really haven't heard one way or the other, so if anyone knows, feel free to leave a comment about it.

My Templar is level 18 and, while fun, just doesn't hit as hard as I wish it did. My ranger is now level 17, I'm slowly getting her up in the levels, I think it took almost twice as long to level her than it did my Templar. Partly because when I was leveling my Templar I was grouped up with a friend, but also just because even when solo I could level as my Templar with no issues in crowded areas because I could move up to the mob, and not have to worry about other mobs around. As a ranger though... constantly kiting mobs, you have to constantly be aware of your surroundings, and sometimes you really just have no choice but to run away because you are surrounded and there's no way to kite your mob without aggro'ing a bunch of others.

On that note, rangers seem OP to me so far. Animation cancelling will always be powerful, and rangers can definitely pull it off much easier than any other class. I haven't seen any mages manage to pull off animation cancelling yet, but perhaps I just haven't been looking close enough. I know that the mage style of mob killing doesn't require much kiting, and in order to animation cancel on the mage you need to be jump kiting, so we'll see, I'll probably level a Sorcerer later... but I don't want to start any new characters until finally hitting level 20 hopefully sometime this coming weekend.

That's all for now ^^

WoW's new problem, the BG issue

Patch day has come and gone, and everyone is upset for various reasons, as normal. Major issue right now, AV is a wasteland. Where once was a thriving angry mob playing a fun BG, there is now a thriving angry mob playing the WoW forums. The forums actually give a sense of reward in terms of stress relief and getting your feelings out there. Funny, that's really the entire issue in the first place. The following is a post I made on those forums:

"Northrend leveling just wasn't interesting. Level 71 was, but that's about it. I know Blizzard spent forever on it, and they're all proud of it, but it still blew. Leveling has become so easy, yet still mind numbing in longevity,that it's about as interesting as afk'ing in a BG.

It's pretty obvious players aren't viewing leveling as a mode of progression for a character anymore. It's just a grind that they have to jump hoops through in order to get to the progression paths in the end game. WoW is an old game and it's expected, but it's also expected of Blizzard to fart miracles.

Why even increase the level cap to 85, why not just make a really involving and entertaining quest chain that players have to complete, takes maybe 5 hours, and call it a day. Congratulations, you can join the rest of the remade 80's.

It's the same problem with battle grounds. For arena players, they aren't viewed as a mode of progression, they're just like leveling. That's the real problem with battle grounds. If you don't offer a reward, many people won't want to participate. Thanks for the treadmill guys, where's mah carrot at!?"

Now, I wrote that after participating in some BG's myself today, to see what all the fuss was about. I went on a level 80 toon. Well, it's true that AV is a wasteland, there wasn't a single game running when normally there would be 7, but everything else was normal. When you go off the forums into the game itself, it's like a magical cloth is pulled over your eyes, and all you see is happy people.

It's a real issue in this aging MMO. MMO's need to stay fresh, they need to offer a reward for the grind. Currently there is no reward for leveling, except that hey, now you can actually level in a way important to the game itself. I won't bring up Aion's leveling just yet, because I feel I need to experience it a little more to get the full scope of how it's working. I could generalize it, as I have before, but I'll reserve from doing so for this post.

Aion Day 3

For many it's day 1, but since I pre-ordered I got to mess around starting 2 days ago in the actual game. Is it everything I hoped it would be? More or less. There are a few glaring weaknesses, but honestly, they were already expected. Assassins can't solo for anything in the mid teen levels, not that I'm playing one, but my friend is, and the only people ever "lfg" is Assassins and Clerics. The assassins are supposed to be a force starting at level 25 though, so as long as you have someone to level with you it shouldn't be too bad.

Duo questing was frustrating due to the amount of peo

ple at launch, and may be today, but when it works, aka not too many people doing gathering quests, or kill for item quests, it works really, really well. There is no XP loss for being in a duo group, and I believe no XP loss for being in a party at all, so that's a major plus. It makes leveling faster, and more enjoyable for all. You can gain a semblance of chain pulling when you group up which is impossible for solo players, at these levels anyway.

Eurogamer did a review, and I'm a little surprised they gave the game a 7 instead of an 8. Their score numbers seem to get very arbitrary when it comes to MMO's. From reading the review, it sounded more like the reviewer was trying to play a game that Aion isn't, and then putting this ideal game on a pedestal that Aion was not meant to be compared to. Itis like matching a horror film in a race for an oscar against an action film in the Best Action Film category. Sure, the horror film may have some good action, but that wasn't the complete intent of the director.

Anyway, there's my Templar. She's just a warrior in this picture. I was actually pleasantly surprised to see that not everyone took horns, since only one hair style allows horns and, to me anyway it seems, is one of the best options available. Not that I made all of my characters with horns, but for my first and most carefully crafted one. One word of note in the character creation, the face you choose actually determines just how much the sliders can effect your character. Some of the options just aren't there, like the tilt of the inner eye, you can't change that in any way except by looking at each face and choosing a face with the inner eye tilt you want from the beginning. A little annoying, but I'm guessing it has something to do with making the game run smoother despite all the different possible features.

I'm hoping to get an Aion comic up and going soon, just a small one, not a full blown color one cause I can't draw, but making little circles and lines look semi like characters isn't too hard, especially in the full ink styles of Sinfest or Applegeeks mini's.

How I got into MMO's

Today I thought I'd do a rough history of how I got into MMO games in the first place. It all started when I was going into highschool and one of my friends younger brothers was playing Everquest. The first one. I loved video games, but all I had was a computer, no console systems. And beyond that, I didn't even actually own any computer games that you paid for. I got Diablo one christmas, and then a year later finally got the computer able to play it. Up until that point I had been surrounded with Commander Keen 1 and 2, Duke Nukem, the original Doom, Tie Fighter, and a lovely little CD called Games for Daze, which had over 60 demos of various games on it. Half of them didn't actually work, but the ones that did... magic carpet ride... oh man. Anyway, that's kind of turning this short history into a long one.

So I saw him playing Everquest, and I sat down and played for maybe 10 minutes. I enjoyed it, it was strange, a new computer game. None of my friends were into computers, just this friends younger brother, and it was great to play a new game on the PC. So did I go out and buy EQ? Hah... no... still haven't actually paid for any games up to this point. To be honest, I never made it past killing a couple rats. I think I died once too. To rats.

The years went by, I'm at their house a lot, and he's playing a new game called Dark Age of Camelot. Wow... better graphics, a much smoother interface, hey, I can actually play this game. I couldn't stand the FPS mode of EQ. At this point I had started playing a few other games, Diablo, Comand and Conquer Red Alert, as well as got my first console system, a Sega 32 bit I think... maybe it was 24 or 64 version I can't remember. I loved Dune on that thing...

So I sat down and played some DAoC, I actually managed to hit level 16, and since I was so used to copying games over back and forth I nabbed a copy of his files and stuck them on my computer. Once again, my computer wasn't capable, so I missed out and didn't play anymore. He eventually leveled my level 6 Paladin thing, I forget the name of the actual class, all the way to max level and he used it as his main. Dysideron was its name. That later became how I started using the name Dyse, not because of Dice, but because Dyse was a feminine version of Dysideron.

Well... I've got the internet by now, I didn't originally though I left out when I did get it, and I'm playing WC1 and WC2, games I also didn't pay for. Well, Warcraft 1 was the demo version, and WC2 was a gift I got about the same time WC3 was about to be released... So I'm reading up, checking out game sites, what have you, and lo and behold, a Warcraft MMO?!

I don't even try to get in the beta, I don't know enough about what's going on to do that. I just read the beta forum boards, daily, for like, ever. I wanted to post so bad. I probably make up for it now that I actually can post, how badly I wanted to tell those idiots how wrong they were. They're in the beta, I'm not even in the beta, and I know more about the game then they do, it was so painful.

So I go over to my friends house again this one winter, and his younger brother has WoW installed on his computer. He doesn't like it though, goes back to DAoC, and me? I get his account for free, plus 6 months paid, for $20. It was... awesome. WoW was awesome. And that's how I got into my first MMO.

Well, I spoke too soon

About the druid buffs. They get a Maelstrom weapon in the upcoming patch, but they also just got infected wounds fixed, so it's properly removed, and nerfed for PvP. Though apparently it is a PvE buff since it had a conflicting issue on mobs with a DK's Icy Talons.

I've got a new Aion article up over at MMORPG.com, not sure if I'm supposed to talk about that really 0_o but oh well, I doubt it matters. It went up yesterday, so look for it if you want, it just goes over the different starter weapons available to the different classes, and how to use them. Focusing specifically on the second tier of starter weapons, so players don't make mistakes and take the wrong one.

Besides those wonderful personal issues, I've got to say I love the thought of these new contacts. I can't wait until we can just use the headsets for true 3d immersion in games. A headset plus a controller and first person view, or even 3rd person just more screen space. They've done studies that having a screen closer to your eyes is not a bad thing, you just need to make sure that you're not watching in the dark. Close up screens can give you bad headaches apparently as well though. I'm grabbing this info on eye care from another CNN.com article, I just can't remember the link. You don't even need a round screen, the front of the headset can be large and square, the screen just has to be close to you. Gaining the ability to use full peripheral vision just sounds amazing to me.

3rd person view from not too far back from your avatar sort of works, but then the screen feels way too cluttered because you're missing out on everything in front of your avatar. Perhaps the best solution is to have an avatar that is liquid, so you can see through yourself. That would be great for shooters, not so much for MMO games since seeing your avatar is so important for that genre, but I think it could work. Why no one hasn't just kept the normal FPS mode, but moved the camera about a foot back behind the body, but then ignored the body to the player so all they see is their see through hands holding the gun, is beyond me. Blur the edges, get your peripheral vision on.

Druids Gaining Maelstrom Weapon

Predatory Strikes now has a 3/3 20% per combo point of removing the cast time of the next less than 10 seconds cast time nature spell. Instant cast cyclone cc anyone?

Feral druids have always been limited in crowd control viable abilities due to the ones that they have while in caster form. The problem with giving feral druids a deep talent CC much like Repentance for Ret paladins was that they would still have access to the other two major CC's of their class. Blizzard could have turned both Cyclone and Roots into low end Balance and Restoration tree talents, but that just looks way too complicated and it still wouldn't solve the issue of ferals not having any.

Blizzard went with the best solution here. Feral druids are allowed to keep their damage and healing and forms while at the same time now gaining the ability to effectively use CC at the cost of additional mana, much like most of the hybrid classes right now. This change will allow feral druids a much greater amount of freedom in 2v2 arenas, and should let them compete near high end in 3v3. I don't see feral druids popping up in tournaments any time soon, but I wouldn't be surprised if a few of the number 1 3v3 teams on a few servers started having them. Because what else does a feral druid bring to the table? Yeah, Innervate. Throw an Innervate on your disc priest after covering him in hots and everything imaginable, or just setting up the recharge, and you have incredible longevity. I may be wrong on Innervate, and feral druids need to use it on themselves... but just having the option of giving it to your healer instead of yourself is major.

Ferals have needed this CC to put them on par with other melee DPS classes. They now have all the necessary tools to be great at arena PvP. High damage, defensive CD's they can burn through, major mobility in both feral charge and shifting out of snares, passive stun defense while in their vulnerable cat form, and instant cast CC at a rate of every 6 to 9 seconds. And they still have Mangle and bash as interrupts.

I wish I wasn't so tired so I could write this up better. Feral druids are about to outclass Rets. There may be more Rets playing at the moment, but power wise, feral druids are now stronger.