Posts filed under 'Online'
When I have an evening free of Scarlet Pimpernel rehearsals, Thanksgiving guests, and home renovations, I still quite often choose to spend it in virtual Middle Earth. I haven’t talked about it much lately in part because I’ve been re-exploring content as I (for no sane reason) pursue the “Undying” title bestowed on those who can survive to level 20 without defeat.
That said, I’ve had a bit more time to play in the last few days, and during that time I’ve tried to bring three players over from WoW. They’re partway through 10-day free trials, and it’s interesting to hear their reactions.
My wife, whose tastes strongly resemble my own, believes she’ll switch in the near future. She likes, as I do, the greater realism, the immersion, and some of the minor gameplay tweaks (everyone can loot a mob for a “gather ten pelts” sort of quest; the fact that there don’t seem to be targeted, timed buffs).
Another friend has had a grand time. She basically only plays ranged fighters (she has four different hunter alts in WoW), and she’s already experimented with two hunters in LotRO. Her comments have been positive overall, but I don’t know if she’ll be willing to give up WoW.
Her husband is pretty sure he doesn’t like LotRO. His criticisms: the font, the color of dialog boxes, steering with the arrow keys (he refuses to use the mouse), and not already knowing as much about it as he does about WoW. (Can you tell that I’m a bit dismissive of his complaints?)
All of this reminds me of how different the needs of different gamers are, and incidentally why I’ve had a falling out with WoW. WoW caters to a the broadest possible audience in part by catering to a low common denominator.
My recruitment efforts outside the game may meet with only limited success, but I hope my plan to get recruited into a kinship within the game will go well. I was delighted to discover that a kinship recruitment event will take place in the Shire (under the grand Party Tree) tonight on the Landroval server (one of the unofficial RP servers) at 7.30 EST.
Ever since my all-time favorite guild (formed in Dark Age of Camelot) disbanded as its members sought other games, I’ve been looking for something like it. I joined two WoW guilds, both of which turned out awful in different ways. Perhaps tonight I’ll make a connection with a roleplaying guild that actually enjoys playing the game in character (instead of not playing the game but emoting at one another or playing the game and not really roleplaying after all).
November 28th, 2007
I know, I know. I’m a bit late to take up the gauntlet in Syncaine’s challenge regarding EVE Online having a solution to every problem anyone has with MMOs, being the best MMO. Syncaine is not specifically asking for critiques of EVE Online. Rather, he challenges: “Bring up an issue you have had with an MMO, and I’ll relate it to EVE and explain how EVE solves that issue.”
Rather than complain about EVE (which wouldn’t be fair, as I have limited exposure to it), I’ll list the top things I’d like to see in an MMO (all of which I happen to think EVE doesn’t deliver on):
- A real sense of narrative
- A real sense of immersion (although I admit I appreciate the semi-accurate simulation of what it’s like to be a tiny ship in vast space)
- A sense of community
- A sense of participation in the game world on the part of the player characters
No MMOs offer these to my satisfaction, and part of the problem may be the fact that the fourth at least seems to be somewhat ad odds with the first two. MMOs that offer narrative elements tend to offer the same narrative elements over and over to any group of players interested in exploring them. The cognitive disconnect, in WoW, of a single group of players repeatedly destroying an enemy until a certain item drops means that the cool background lore and narrative leading up to the kill are rendered meaningless from the perspective of world participation. You’ve defeated the biggest, baddest enemy of the universe, but you’ll go back and do it again tomorrow ’cause you want his breastplate, and for some reason it didn’t drop.
Immersion, the sense of living in the imagined world of the MMO, is both add odds with and compatible with narrative and player participation. On the one hand, nothing draws me into a world like a good, compelling story. But clicking through someone else’s story (always a danger in video games, MMO and otherwise) can certainly leave me feeling like an observer instead of a participant.
I’m not the first to long for an MMO in which emergent narrative, mostly created by interaction among the players and with the game world, would be the focus. No one’s come close to delivering something like this. Heavy roleplaying guilds have sometimes fascinating narratives, but usually the best parts of their interaction might just as well take place in text chat rooms.
Syncaine may argue that a game like EVE Online offers the perfect place for emergent narrative, true player participation, and a feeling of being in the world takes place. It almost seems like it should. It shares with Ultima Online some of the elements that could have allowed for terrific, epic worlds.
But then we have Syncaine’s follow-up post. When he discusses the “lack of short-term ‘fun,’” he reveals that some of the most exciting things ever to happen in MMOs took place in EVE, and I’ll be he’s right. It would be spectacular to participate in a PVP battle with hundreds of players on each side. Syncaine writes: “What draws me to EVE is that potential, that possibility of launching that Titan.”
Unfortunately, I don’t actually think that’s different than what keeps people playing WoW. Oh, the big events in EVE may indeed be bigger than killing Illidan, but only a small percentage of the playerbase got to experience that for a tiny percent of their game time.
So, richer though EVE’s narrative rewards may be, they come at a dearer price, and to a smaller percentage of players.
Oh, and that point about a sense of community? Well, any game with a loyal fanbase has it. I just didn’t find it in EVE because the game obviously doesn’t address my personal MMO needs. I therefore don’t have much in common with those who (legitimately) find it satisfying. I’ll find a community when I find people who enjoy being immersed in their worlds, their characters. The long lists of statistics and lack of avatar don’t support my kind of immersion.
In the end, I actually think EVE is a great game for the right audience. But I also know, thanks to this little exercise, that I ain’t that audience!
November 14th, 2007
odanu put up a great post at the Feminist Gamers blog analyzing in detail (and from a feminist perspective, of course) the characters of Donna and William, in World of Warcraft. The obnoxious William has been playing “keep away” with the perpetual victim Donna’s dolly since beta. The post articulated much that’s percolated in the back of mind ever since I first saw those two. Great insights.
The “boys will be boys” flavor that colors William’s behavior disturbs me deeply. When I see parents of young boys treat their male children’s misbehavior this way (and I’ve started to see it a lot, now that my daughter is two and interacts more and more with other children), I feel a bit of creeping despair. “Free to Be You and Me
came out thirty-seven years ago!” I think. “Why do we still have Tender Sweet Young Things? And the very different William on that hopeful (if cheesy) album wanted a doll to nurture and love. Stormwind’s William is a petty sadist who wants a doll only to hurt Donna.”
I’m equally disturbed to see the parents of victimized girls intervene immediately and aggressively while expecting boys to suck it up and deal with their own problems. While the boys are learning impunity for their misbehavior, the girls are taught helplessness in the face of adversity.
I expect gender politics and social challenges at playgroup. But in Stormwind, where I’m pleased to see confident guards of both sexes patrol the streets, you’d think these kids work out their differences constructively . . . even if it might mean a trip to the graveyard for one of them!
November 1st, 2007
I’ve talked before about how valuable video games could be as a tool for learning new languages. Well, this interesting article
at Educational Games Research points to some real research on the subject, in particular on MMORPGs and language acquisition. Check it out!
October 29th, 2007
Still enjoying taking my time in LotRO, I did something about a week ago I’ve done once before but didn’t expect to do again: I re-rolled a character to create almost exactly the same one.
I enjoy a certain brand of roleplaying in MMOs, one that’s compatible with actually playing the game and that favors emergent narrative. As such, I tend to create characters and envision their personalities and histories with a few bold strokes. I choose the character’s class based on what I’d like to play, the character’s race based on what can play my class of choice. If I have a choice of races, I’ll choose the one I haven’t played before, since in most MMOs each race gets to experience some different content, at least at the beginning of the game.
When choosing my character’s sex, I generally alternate between male and female. I like playing characters of both sexes. No, I don’t choose female characters because of the appearance of their posteriors, nor for any prurient reason whatsoever.
But as my female hobbit burglar reached level 17 and I began grouping more and more, I realized I just didn’t want to deal with the reaction to my obviously male voice in voice chat. I know most people don’t have a problem with men playing female characters, and I know people actually expect male voices for female characters. And I even know that hobbits of both sexes actually look pretty much identical in LotRO.
But I didn’t want to add another element to the already immersion-shattering effect of voice chat.
That alone wouldn’t have been enough reason, though. I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that I’m tempted to achieve the “Undying” title available to those who achieve level 20 without once being defeated. With my first burglar, I died rather stupidly in an easily survivable situation at level 13. I got over it pretty quickly, but when I came up with a second reason to re-roll (changing my character’s sex), that was enough justification.
Now I have a bit of a quandary, though. As I said, I enjoy characters of both sexes. Will my concerns about voice chat doom me to creating only male characters henceforth? Will I get over those concerns and freely create female characters in the future? Will I avoid voice chat even when it’s just so useful (such as for dealing with the fellowship maneuvers key to the burglar class)?
Playing cross-sex characters is a big issue in MMOs, an issue that goes way beyond the scope of this blog post. But has anyone out there ever made a similar decision? Has anyone’s choice of character sex—or other character attribute—been influenced by the prospect of voice chat?
October 10th, 2007
Although I mentioned that I very much enjoyed my vacation from MMORPGs, in the month since I’ve been back, especially while my wife has been playing WoW, attending knitting groups, or otherwise occupied, I’ve dedicated some evenings to exploring (via betas and free trials) a number of other MMOs, among them Tabula Rasa, Sword of the New World, Everquest 2, and Lord of the Rings.
I’ll chatter on about each of those games (and others) in other posts, but since I signed up for a paid subscription to Lord of the Rings Online, I figured I didn’t want to delay keeping a light journal of my experiences with the game.
This is the first time I’ve ever been subscribed to more than one MMORPG at a time. I’ve kept my WoW subscription open because my wife is still playing. I’d very much like to see her reach level 70 in that game, and her being able to call on my dwarf priest for help when she needs it (almost nothing can get her to look for a group in the game unless she knows the people in real life or through real-life friends) will make that process easier. As long as she has a WoW account, I’ll keep mine open, because I really do enjoy playing games with her.
But on to LotRO. During my seven-day trial, I experimented with a human Captain and hobbit Hunter. My initial assessment: the game is WoW with a different skin.
That is, of course, a gross oversimplification. The two games each have their own unique features to recommend them. But they also have a common core:
- They’re easy to play.
- They’re fantasy games with a class-and-level character development system.
- Character advancement is a big part of the “goal,” and this is largely achieved through quests and combat.
- The tank-heal-nuke-(crowd control)-(buff) model applies in both cases.
- Both games allow soloing as a viable alternative to grouping.
- The base UI is fundamentally identical.
Some of LotRO’s refinements directly address shortcomings in WoW, like the fact that you can make objects useful to your character as soon as you learn a profession. As I understand it, professions are still money sinks, but rather less severe than WoW’s.
So why have I signed on?
- I like the fiction, and LotRO has done a bang-up job capturing Middle Earth in MMORPG format. I’d heard that, but I must admit I’m surprised at how much it feels like I’m actually running around the Shire from The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring.
- I like exploring and learning new classes, and LotRO gives me seven new classes with which to do just that.
- Deeds. I didn’t like rep grinds in WoW, and a lot of Deeds in LotRO seem like mini- (or not so mini-) rep grinds. But as someone who would most like to see a level-free MMO where any character can set out to pursue any quest to gain a given ability, equipment, trait, or the like, I have to say that the deeds give me some of that feel.
- Roleplaying. I don’t enjoy the so-called “heavy rp” roleplaying style that’s emerged in WoW. I hate being called to guild meetings to watch avatars agonize over their personal angst via text chat. But I consider myself a roleplayer because I like it best when I and those I play with stay in character. LotRO does several things inherently hospitable to roleplayers, including a default “RP” channel which new characters do not automatically join; a clearly-marked “OOC” channel and other topic-based channels that one can opt out of; and an immersive, slow-paced game world where fast achievement, boasting, and baseball don’t have a roll.
- Immersion and a slow pace. Now, I like leveling and achieving the pinnacles of character advancement as much as anyone, but I also like to enjoy the process. In WoW, I reached 70 largely by performing the same repetitive fight sequences thousands and thousands of times without paying much attention to my surroundings, the storyline, or eventually even the quest text. In LotRO, I may will wind up doing the same fighting, but I don’t feel as if I’m in a hurry. Instead, I actually get pleasure out of running around a given region, discovering what’s over the next hill, finding that I can get a peek in Bag End. I love that NPCs say things inspired by your character as you run past.
- The slow pace also means that I’m likely to do a lot more grouping. In WoW, I always, always felt that I was making a sacrifice when grouping with others, unless it was to do an instance I couldn’t solo. In LotRO, I just don’t care. If someone asks for help, I’ll be glad to help them. I’ve grown very bitter about the fact that WoW’s easy soloing has meant that I haven’t made many in-game friends. (Yes, it’s my own fault, but I’m not the only one who finds solo-grinding to 70 the most effective method in WoW.) In LotRO, I’ve grouped with people just to get to know them.
My main character is a hobbit Burglar. I think she’s level 13 now. I couldn’t tell you her stats if you asked. But I do know that she’s “Undefeated,” a “Fur-cutter,” a “Pie runner,” and an official post officer.
And that, right there, is why I’m playing LotRO, now.
September 24th, 2007
Well, the Ultimate Search for Bourne does seem to be well an truly over despite the ambiguous ending. The countdown clock and “415″ don’t seem to have meant anything significant. The web page now just redirects to the official site for the movie.
Here’s my final take on the game: I thought it was pretty lame. I know it’s meant to be a promotion, so it has to have a low enough bar for entry that anyone can play and have fun. So although I personally didn’t like how easy it was, I understand that decision.
But I thought that, especially as the days progressed, it felt less and less like I spy game. I had originally speculated that an alternate reality game (ARG) like this could be the best medium for a spy game. My first day or two of play, the challenges felt fun. I felt a tiny bit like I was engaging in Internet-based espionage.
That feeling faded by the third day. Perhaps the buggy interface is partly to blame. I’m certain the fact that the challenges felt exactly the same from one to another contributed.
By the end, even with a final challenge that was slightly more interesting, the cloak-and-dagger delight was gone.
I still think an MMORPG with a strong Internet-based ARG element could be phenomenally fun. But that ARG element would have to be a lot better than the Ultimate Search for Bourne.
The game may not have been fun, but it was a “success.” It kept many people busy thinking about the movie, even as they complained about the game’s problems. And despite my disappoiintment with the game, I’ll be seeing the movie. The bonus video at the end was a lame “reward,” but definitely a fun clip.
So, anyone have any other thoughts? Or pointers to any other, better ARGs worth investigating?
Thanks to all the readers and commenters, by the way. You made the game more fun than it ever would have been on your own.
August 4th, 2007
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.
August 3rd, 2007
Just a quick note to let readers know that it’s possible to qualify for the Ultimate Search for Bourne iPhone contest without getting enough sightings. The official rules let you enter with a postcard but it must be postmarked by tomorrow, Saturday, 4 Auguist 2007.
Here’s the relevant passage:
Entrant(s) who obtain surveillance points that fall in the range from twenty-five (25) to thirty-two (32) points online during the Sweepstakes Period will automatically receive one (1) entry (“Sightings Internet Entry”) into the Sightings Sweepstakes. To enter the Sightings Sweepstakes by mail without Game play, legibly hand-print your first and last name, complete home address (including street address, city, state/province and zip code/postal code), date of birth, telephone number (including area code), email address and the surveillance code name “Sighting Mission” on a postcard (no larger than 6” x 8”) and mail, with proper postage affixed to: The Ultimate Search for Bourne with Google, P.O. Box 10301, Burbank, CA 91510 (“Sightings Mail Entry”). Each Sightings Mail Entry submitted will receive thirty-two (32) surveillance points (the maximum number of points obtainable by Game play) equaling one (1) Entry into the Sightings Sweepstakes. Online Entries for each Daily Sweepstakes and Grand Prize Drawing must be received by 11:59:50 p.m. EDT during that day’s date; Sightings Internet Entries must be received by 11:59:59 p.m. EDT on August 3, 2007; and Sightings Mail Entries must be postmarked by August 4, 2007 and received by August 10, 2007 (collectively “Entries”).
To everyone: good luck!
August 3rd, 2007
The final day of the Ultimate Search for Bourne is here, and here’s a complete spoiler for the last challenge.
And today’s challenge starts out quite differently. All we have is a link to http://www.readteston.com/ (note that the web site title is “ReadTeStOn”; I don’t know why). The screen is filled with an odd video, only the numbers 1 and 4 flashing oddly on the left. I tried typing them (after clicking on the screen in general), but that did nothing
Mouse over these numbers, and they’ll resolve into the number 5 (4+1?). Click the 5, and you get the familiar log-in screen for your instant messenger, with agent handle landypamela already filled in.
Solving this requires knowledge of The Bourne Supremacy. If you click on the ? at the top right of the dialog, you get a hint reading: “Which set of files was Pamela Landy looking for in Berlin when she found Bourne’s fingerprint?” The answer is the “Neski files.”
So type Neski in as the passphrase and hit Submit, and you’ll be rewarded with a “bonus video” from the same fellow who’s been offering congratulations all along.
The main reward is a fairly extended clip, apparently from the new Bourne Ultimatum movie. He says, “I know this wasn’t easy.” I can’t say I agree. Today’s challenge was a slight bit of a challenge, yes, but I would have liked them to be this hard from the beginning, with much harder ones as the game progressed. I guess that wouldn’t make for a generally accessible promotion, though.
The clip is entertaining, though. It does make me somewhat more interested in seeing the film. So in the end, I guess the promotion has done its job . . . with me at least.
I’ll be posting a wrap-up sometime soon, but I’d invite anyone to share their own final thoughts in the comments on this post. Looking forward to hearing how everyone did and what everyone thought!
Edit: I should mention that, as commenter Z points out, the main game’s UI seems to be finished. It gives you the link to the ReadTeStOn site, but does nothing else. No chance to place more cameras; no nothing. I wouldn’t have minded a congratulations message, let alone a chance to up my sightings score for an iPhone contest entry, but I guess that’s not to be.
August 3rd, 2007
Previous Posts