The new WoW expansion: Wrath of the Lich King

I very seriously doubt I’ll still be playing WoW when the Warth of the Lich King expansion (newly announced by Blizzard) is released, but here’s a quick list of the interesting features:

• The first new WoW class since release: the Death Knight (a hero class; you can create a character with this class, starting at level sixty-something or higher, only after completing a quest with some other high-level character)
• An increase of the level cap to 80 and the profession cap to 450
• The content of Northrend, open to characters 68 and above
• Siege weapons in an outdoor PVP zone

Those, at least, are the features that are interesting to me. I don’t mind the increase in level and profession caps, as getting those up is supremely easy and presumably means there are new and interesting abilities to play with past 70 (and 375).

I like to content, so this ten-zone continent of Northrend may be fun. I didn’t wind up liking the Outlands all that much, apart from Nagrand. They felt too alien and strange to me, too different from what already existed in the game.

As for the Death Knight class, well, new classes are fun. I enjoy learning the mechanics of each class. But Blizzard has always been committed to making the classes truly unique. To do that with the Death Knight, they’ve had to invent what sounds like a fairly bizarre mechanic, with a new sword bar that has runes etched on it that get spent but can be re-etched after a certain time expires. Different, yes, but weird!

Also, I’ve never liked the mechanic of creating a completely new character simply because you’ve achieved something with a different character. It spoils my already very tenuous willing suspension of disbelief, underscoring the gamey side of things instead of the simulation, immersion, and roleplaying that I really like.

But more interesting options for PVP? That I can get behind 100%.

For more details, one great write up is at 1up. Check out their detailed write up here. Or just watch WoWinsider, where there will no doubt be hundreds of posts on the topic of the new expansion over the next few months.

Add comment August 3rd, 2007

Tabula Rasa impressions

Not mine, of course! I’m in the beta but under the NDA. Michael Zenke at MMOGNation, is permitted to post his impressions (something about an exception for the press right now).

And he nails it. There’s only one area he doesn’t cover that I think deserves some discussion, but I’ll save that for when the NDA is lifted for me. In the mean time, if you’re interested, read what he has to say and you’ll know all you need to know.

Add comment August 2nd, 2007

Roleplaying tool: Dialect training “for the casual pretender”

Here’s a fun tool for tabletop roleplaying games and MMORPG players who actually want to do some roleplaying over Ventrilo and Teamspeak. Pulp Gamer is offering a dialect-training CDs. In the past, I’ve looked longingly at the advanced—and expensive—dialect training courses and coaches Hollywood stars use, but I’ve never been able to justify the expense.

Along comes Pulp Gamer, offering two CDs that cover various British English dialects. The first covers “Cockney and the Queen’s English,” which is just what I need for my surly gnome rogue in World of Warcraft. The second tackles “Irish and Scottish.”

Will these CDs help me attain true verisimilitude? I rather doubt it. The sample, for instance, sounds very good but not perfect.

But hey, I don’t want to spend years mastering a throwaway dialect for my upcoming Victorian countryside survival horror campaign. Instead, I want to sound good enough that I can voice several different characters convincingly enough that my players can distinguish them. If I can coax even a few smiles—or widened eyes—the $13.95 I blow on each CD will be well worth it.

While you’re ordering yours, you might want to subscribe to Pulp Gamer’s very good paper game podcast, too. It’s their main product, really, and well worth your time.

Add comment August 2nd, 2007

Not just free linen bags: being male and playing female

People have long discussed what it’s like to play a character of a different sex in an MMORPG, and there’s not much left to say on the subject, but a post by the Infamous Brad about the treatment of his female character in City of Heroes made me realize that men playing women may be shocked my something that’s all too familiar to women players.

Brad argues that, when other (male) players think the player is a woman, they will treat that player as stupid or, if the player is assertive, call that player a bitch. To such assholes (as Brad accurately dubs them), women players serve as viable flirtation targets, and possibly as audience for long-winded instruction they don’t need. But the assholes simply don’t think real women deserve respect.

I’ve found this to be completely true, I’m afraid. About half my MMORPG characters are female, and players usually assume (wrongly) that there’s an actual woman player behind the character. When they do, some—not the majority, but a significant minority—treat me like a fool.

To some degree, I think it’s mostly players like the Infamous Brad and me—men who convincingly play female characters—that make a stink about this sort of thing. My wife plays, and plays female characters almost exclusively. She gets this sort of treatment all the time. But she doesn’t say much about it. I suspect that’s because she already deals with it in real life. Let’s face it; this sort of treatment isn’t at all unique to the anonymous online worlds where we slay dragons.

It’s endemic to academe and meeting rooms, too.

There are women players who roll with the punch, others who make a fuss even at the risk of being branded a bitch. But men simply don’t expect to have their ideas and suggestions dismissed without being considered. When men speak, they expect their contributions to be given due consideration. When they participate in an activity, they expect their efforts to be equally valued at least until they prove themselves unworthy.

So for us men, it’s absolutely shocking when we encounter it online. For women, it may be enraging, but it’s not altogether surprising.

Women simply don’t get respect from everyone. They consistently get dismissed, ignored, ridiculed for no other reason than that they’re women. Not by everyone, no. But there are enough assholes, online and off, that the experience can’t be all that unfamiliar to most women.

The real point, here, is that convincingly playing a woman may give men a chance to experience the downside. (The upside—free crap in exchange for typing /dance and acting like a complete moron in major in-game cities—is well-documented and not all that much of an upside.) Men, it’s your chance to do what Eddie Murphy did on Saturday Night Live so many years ago. (Go watch the video if you haven’t seen it. Hilarious.)

So if you’re a man eager to experience to prejudice and condescension women face regularly, roll up a female character and play her well. This is an interesting wrinkle to the roleplaying aspect of these roleplaying games, one that’s not truly available to tabletop gaming or online games with voice chat (but that is available to online interaction outside of games).

As a humorous endnote, I’ll mention here that I’ve had good success being perceived as a woman player when I play woman characters. I attribute this to a lot of the same things Brad mentions in his blog post. But I never expected it to have anything to do with my training as an editor.

Apparently, though, grammar helps! Several years ago, while playing my main in Dark Age of Camelot, a female mercenary, I formed a pretty good online friendship with another player. Eventually, he worked up the courage to ask if I was really a woman. I don’t know why, but I told him I was. “i knew it,” he wrote. “want to know why? because of the capitalization and punctuation. men don’t do that.”

Add comment July 30th, 2007

The Search for Bourne: Who’s having fun?

This post contains no spoilers (unlike my other posts on the game). Instead, as in my first post about the advertising vehicle that is The Ultimate Search for Bourne, I thought I’d put the big question out there.

Is the game fun?

I have to answer, “Yes.” I enjoy solving the puzzles, poking around the web sites, and writing up quick blog posts about each challenge.

But it’s not huge fun. I don’t need this advertisement. I’m already a big-time fan of most Google products, and I’ll probably see The Bourne Ultimatum eventually.

And as a game, the Ultimate Search for Bourne has a few little problems:

• It’s too easy. Once you “get” how a day is likely to go, you can resolve the challenge in a minute or two.
• Camera placement may be random. This is an ongoing question, and today’s game may have the most obvious clues to camera placement so far . . . or it may prove that there’s nothing but luck behind it.
• The interface is buggy. On my Macintosh with Firefox at home, bits of the interface keep reloading. For the last two days, my wife has been unable to place cameras on her Mac or on my work PC laptop
• The game feels less and less like a spy drama every day. This is party because it’s basically the same game every day. The fact that, with almost no practice, it gets very easy also removes a lot of the cloak-and-dagger feel. And finally because the willing suspension of disbelief is harder to maintain the more I realize how the places and mysteries are calculated to create another day of play and advertise another tool or service, rather than to help a story unfold.

But I did say the game was fun, right? It is! I still believe, passionately, this could be the seed for a very exciting and innovative form of massively multiplayer roleplaying game. It has moments that do still feel delightfully cyber-spyish. And I still like solving puzzles that at least pretend to be tied into adventure and story, rather than just arbitrary rules resolutions.

And any chance at a free iPhone is hard to resist.

So what do you think? Are you having fun? What do you like, and what do you hate?

5 comments July 25th, 2007

Virtual Hurly-burly: PVP experiences

Last night, for the first time in a long time, I visited the WoW battlegrounds. Before going, I respecced my 70 dwarf priest to a standard PVP build (this one), took a deep breath, and plunged into Warsong Gulch.

I chose Warsong because I spent long hours there back when I was level 19. For my first visit back to a world fighting intelligent enemies (instead of moronic mobs), I figured a familiar battleground would be a good idea.

And I’m not happy with my performance at all.

Oh, we did well. We won both matches (one 3-to-0, the other 3-to-2). And I think I aided in the victory in both counts. As a “face melter,” I was in the top five on the damage count both times as well as being second in healing for the Alliance side.

But I played without skill. I performed as well as I did on the ladder partly because I don’t think many others played with much skill. In my case, I spent a lot of time trying to remember button mappings. (And accidentally trying to use the click-to-cast combinations from Clique while forgetting to actually mouse over a unit frame—duh!)

When I wasn’t distracted by figuring out how to cast a spell, I was bewildered by what spell to cast. Should I be healing? Spamming damage? And if so, what damage spell was best?

I occasionally made good use of Mass Dispel, both offensively and defensively. I saved some lives by with Vampiric Embrace, but I don’t think my direct heals were ever done wisely.

How do I know I can do better? Because a few of the enemies were played with true finesse. I don’t know if they had highly superior gear or better mods or macros, but they obviously did the right thing given the situation. I was lucky if I even realized what class I was facing.

I think, in the end, that I need to practice. Just as going through any PVE fight has become so simple and automatic that I almost don’t have to think about it, I’ll need to achieve the same in PVP fights if I want to feel happy about my skill. It may take a lot longer to get there, given the intelligence behind the pixels I’m fighting and the great variety of abilities I’m up against, but it’ll be fun learning.

So, once more into the breach, dear friends. Once more!

Add comment July 20th, 2007

Tabula Rasa Beta Impressions

In the 5 days I’ve been in the Tabula Rasa beta, I’ve tried the game three times. If I’m interpreting the NDA correctly, I can’t say anything about “software, software code, designs, graphics, rules, playing strategies, artwork, visual depictions, plot, theme, setting, characters, characterizations, skills, marketing and promotional plans.” That’s pretty much everything. I think it’s probably okay to talk about things mentioned in the Wikipedia article on the game, although I’m not going to repeat what’s said there just to have something to say.

Instead, I’ll just record some general reactions:

• I am excited that combat itself may demand some player skill. It does feel somewhat more like a first-person shooter or over-the-shoulder shooter. It’s still damn easy, but it’s fun.
• On some of the very early missions, when my character ran with a bunch of NPCs to defend a front from invading aliens, it really felt, for a brief moment, like I was participating in a front-line battle. The odds seemed overwhelming, and even though I didn’t come close to dying it felt like a narrow victory. This was probably the most fun I’ve had so far.
• The missions since then have basically felt the same as any MMORPG, with the normal blend of FedEx, kill-10-rats, and gather-20-widgets quests. Not unfun, but nothing new.
• The cloning system seems clever (save off a copy of your character at any time, so you don’t have to re-level), but it appears there’s no way to respec. Why not just allow players to spawn new characters from any branching in the class tree at any time, cloning retroactively?
• The UI has all the familiar elements, but the default controls are different enough to give gameplay a more action-oriented feel.
• As in other MMOs, everyone basically runs around jumping.

From other MMOs, I’m used to extensive online resources in which other players have figured out optimal specs, written up spoilers for every single mission, and optimized lists of equipment. That simply doesn’t exist yet (and what’s on the playtest boards is speculative and hard to find).  This uncertainty is fun, and I should remember to embrace it in other games (that don’t penalize bad choices too harshly).

So far, I don’t think I’d call Tabula Rasa anything like a “next generation MMORPG.” It is, indeed, the same game with a different coat of paint. Whether that science-fictional coat of paint with the games innovations and tweaks is enough to make it a contender for real market share—and more importantly for my dollars—remains to be seen.

I’ll just have to keep playing to find out.

Add comment July 19th, 2007

Speaking of immersion: voice chat and roleplaying

World of Warcraft will definitely have built-in voice chat soon. Many other MMORPGs already have built-in voice chat. For games that don’t have it yet or won’t have it, most serious players use other voice chat programs. (This is not news.)

I don’t exactly fit a traditional gaming category. (And really, who does?) But I do like the storytelling, immersion, and roleplaying aspects of MMORPGs, for all that they’re virtually non-existent.

No voice chat tool I’ve seen really supports these things, but there’s no point in bemoaning the fact. Voice chat is too darn useful to gamers to leave out. All multiplayer online games will and should have it.

So my question is, how can people who are interested in immersive roleplaying continue to enjoy it while voice chat is inherent to the online games they enjoy? They could:

• Turn it off or ignore it
  Which, of course, means deliberately crippling their game experience.
• Restrict RP to chat channels
  Which means continuing to RP as they have in the past.
• Try to RP via voice
  Which will interfere with people who wish to roleplay characters of of the other sex, will expose bad actors, and will upset the illusion of the gameworld. Of course, tabletop gamers are able to suspend their disbelief for these sorts of things, but one of the reasons RPers use WoW and other MMORPGs (which aren’t really a good vehicle for roleplaying) is because they can simulate some aspects of their character more easily than they could at the gaming table.

In the end, voice chat is another intrusion of reality into the illusion of the game world. Since UO, MMORPGs have become less and less simulations and more and more games. And I’m not really complaining about this. More people want games than want simulations that make you wait eight in-game hours to go shopping.

So perhaps the future of online gaming isn’t in the big MMORPGs with persistent worlds, but in bringing tabletop games online. I know of several products trying to do this (like Gametable), but I haven’t tried them yet.

And if some sequel to Neverwinter Nights makes campaign construction and game-mastering easier, that may be a solution too. I ran a campaign for about ten sessions. The story was good, and the roleplaying was good (and all text based). But preparing for sessions and actually running the game was almost impossible. But if something like that were easier and faster, I would eagerly give it a try.

Has anyone had experiences with non-MMORPG online roleplaying? What was your experience like?

Add comment July 18th, 2007

The Ultimate Search for Bourne: A new genre of game?

Last year, Google hosted a cross-promotional alternate reality game (ARG) for the Da Vinci Code movie. I played the game and quite enjoyed the various puzzles. I didn’t qualify as a finalist, though, at least in part because of an irritating scheduling conflict. In fact, the nature of the game and its popularity meant that only those dedicated fans with very flexible schedules really had a chance.

This year’s game is the Ultimate Search for Bourne, a tie-in with The Bourne Ultimatum. I liked the first two movies well enough. (Actually, come to think of it, I slept through part of the second, and I’m not sure I’ve ever got the plot straightened out.)

The game looks fun, too. As far as I can tell, you can’t really do anything today except look at the site and take a stab at understanding the gameplay. When the first real briefings becomes available, you should be able to use clues in it to find a place on a map where you can catch a glimpse of Jason Bourne through a surveillance camera. And I guess, if you choose the right camera (or cameras), you “win” for that day.

The prizes aren’t very important to me, though I can’t deny that I’d say no to an iPhone if someone decided to give me one just for playing a game.

What does matter to me is that there’s a chance this game will capture a little something of the spy genre, in an armchair sort of way. (Not real spying, of course.)

I can’t think of any truly great spy video games (Am I wrong? If so, please tell me. I’d love to try them out), but perhaps, if this game is a success, some daring and innovative game house could build on it to develop a sort of internet-based, global, massively-multiplayer version of “Assassin.” A top-notch game development crew could make this very, very fun.

EA ran Majestic. Supposedly, you would sign up and get phone calls, e-mails, and even faxes! And these would lead you to clues in a conspiracy game. It didn’t last, maybe because the price didn’t seem justified by the execution.

The Lost Experience did something similar. Unfortunately, it did it at a time when Lost basically sucked, so I didn’t pay much attention. Plus, the “game” wasn’t very fun and did require you to buy too much stuff, or much off other geeks on the internet who were willing to spend their money. So I didn’t participate.

Technology is better now, and we understand it better, too. Even if a game like the one I’m imagining would be heavily driven by advertising, it’d be fun. And if it weren’t—for example, if you had to buy a box in the game store just as you do with World of Warcraft and to pay a modest monthly fee—it just might become a success that would drawn the attention of people who don’t call themselves gamers.

What would make such a game work? A truly great ARG needs to use not just e-mail and phones, but the tools developed for multi-player FPS games and MMORPGs. A quick brainstorm turns up:

• A console website (or separately executed program, though that may eliminate some markeshare) as the single source of access
• Daily challenges (like the Google game) to find something online, succeed at a particular action goal, or achieve some other end; if there are real prizes, they could be tied to this
• Constantly available content, consisting mostly of the same sorts of things that make up the daily challenges, but tied to in-game rewards only (character advancement, revelation of plot, the chance to actually affect the ongoing plot, etc.)
• Action-based mini-games (building on FPS games, presumably)
• Puzzle-based mini-games with a spy feel to them (decoding messages, for example, or hacking a computer)
• The daily challenges add up to an ongoing narrative
• Rewards in the form of mini-episodes (three minutes?) of an ongoing spy drama tied to the game
• A strong community tool, to allow users to share stories
• Challenges unique to each player, so they can’t be “spoiled”
• The ability to group into a “cell” for team missions, where each participant must complete a certain challenge live, and all will be rewarded together
• Possibly ways to develop your character down different paths, so that, for instance, one cell member might disarm traps in the action mini-games while the other does the sharpshooting, while in appropriate puzzle games characters could have “clues” that make resolution of difficult, timed bits easier
• PVP in the form of competition with other players or cells on mutually exclusive goals, such that one cell might be trying to protect an ambassador’s life while the other is trying to assassinate her
• Possibly the ability to control a team of NPCs, at least in certain mini-games (like map-based games, where agent placement determines success)
• Possibly real prizes from sponsors (if the game is 1/10 as successful as something like WoW, daily giveaways of geeky, spy-like prizes from companies interested in the free advertising, branded with the game so that winners can boast about their success, might not actually ruin the game)
• An opportunity to delve into roleplaying while playing, with story-choices, text and voice chat, avatars, and so on

Okay, it’s all just a bunch of crazy ideas, at this point, poorly drafted and dumped on the page. But I think there’s real potential for a tremendously fun, successful game. Not long ago, I bemoaned the fact that all new games really seem to be new coats of paint on old games. A well-designed internet spy ARG—with daily challenges, demands that reach outside the game (like finding translations, locations, and so on)—could fit the bill.

In fact, I think after I hit “Publish,” I’ll draft an e-mail to an old friend of mine who’s a writer for several video game companies (some of which have spy themes), to see if what he thinks about the viability of this idea.

4 comments July 16th, 2007

In the beta!

I haven’t beta-tested an MMORPG in some time, but I just received word that I’m the Tabula Rasa beta. I know it’s been around for a while, and I know it’s probably not a WoW killer. (I don’t know if there’s a WoW killer on the horizon yet.)

But I’m excited anyway. My first-ever beta test for anything was Ultima Online, and I still think some of the best aspects of UO haven’t ever been reproduced. So Richard Garriott’s attachment to this is somewhat intriguing.

I especially appreciate the emphasis on storytelling. I’m not saying I’m optimistic that the vision will live up to my dreams—or even be realized as it is, for that matter. But I’m willing and even eager to see what results.

As far as I can tell, the NDA permits me to do nothing more than admit I’m in the beta. I can’t post screenshots or even describe gameplay and character creation. There are other sites out there that do with impunity, though, so I’ll take another look.

The game is downloading now, and I’ll spin it up as soon as my daughter goes to bed. And I’ll post whatever the NDA allows about my impressions as soon as I have them, even if it’s as simple as “whoopie” or “oh no!”

Add comment July 13th, 2007