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Massively Multiplayer Games Quickified
It's the last day of the first month of 2006, and already there are plenty of new things brewing on the Massive front. World of Warcraft's community is abuzz with news of the Raid content Jeff Kaplan mentioned over the weekend, and details on the 1.10 patch, which is to feature priest updates and weather cycles. City of Villains has big changes a-coming as well, with content for levels 40 to 50 going in, as well as new zones and a new mission type. The Mayhem missions sound like they're finally living up to the promise of 'being a villain'. The EQ2 server combines are the least of the changes occurring at SOE. Chris Kramer did an interview with GamerGod about some of the sweeping changes inc, touching on the free Planetside scheme and mentioning the Sony Station blog, which so far just has an intro from John Smedley. More romantically, FFXI is rolling out information on its Valentine's Day event. Valentione's day is the chocolate and hearts holiday as only Moogles could imagine it. It's fun to play for love, but also fun to play to crush. Guild War's world championships are taking place in about two weeks, with the first place purse weighing in at $50,000. Vanguard's own brand of hardcore lost a little bit of mystery this week with the release of a features list. Finally. Even though you can't win big bucks for playing them, Eve and Ultima Online continue to please their players with updates and releases. Eve's Creative Director spoke with OGaming about plans for outer space in 2006, and UO will see a new player tour and seasonal spring items. It's a good spring for Massive gaming. Update: 01/31 20:30 GMT by Z : I knew I would miss one. A reader wrote in to mention that Anarchy Online is gearing up for some great new stuff in the 16.2 patch, as well as in the upcoming expansion Lost Eden.
Sorry, I didn't hear you. I was too busy talking to an unassuming cheese shop owner in Stormwind about assasinating a government official. Why he seems to have connections to SI:7 I'm not entirely sure, but he seems to know more than he lets on. Could it be its because he has closer ties to Edwin VanCleef than he wants to admit? Time will tell. Now if you'll excuse me I have to find some gnome named Tyrion if I want to stop the Defias Brotherhood from tearing the power structure of Stormwind, and by extension the Alliance, apart.
Above plot copyright of Blizzard Entertainment.
Attention deficit disorder is a complicated issue, spanning several major... HEY LET'S GO RIDE BIKES!
And will anything you do or don't do on this quest affect the game world in any persistant way?
Even in single-player games, it's amazing how seldom your actions affect the world. Sure, there's backstory claiming it's all very epic and important, but it rarely shows up in the game at all.
With MMORPGs I've yet to see a game where ordinary quests by ordinary player had any persistant effect on the game world at all. Occasionally you'll see an "event" with two possible outcomes in which the entire server population participates, but that's not really the same.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I'm happy that the new patch is including things that will please almost ALL players...namely, weather effects and an upgrade to the blue sets which casuals can obtain. I don't play anymore, but when I did I was a priest, so I hope that whatever changes they make to the class are decent enough to make me want to come back to the game. However, Naxxramas is stupid and a waste of resources. I am so sick of the 40 man raid content. There are now 3 zones for the hardcores, which are maybe 5-10% of the server population. 5 man stuff is absolutely the most fun for me...the 10 man places are OK, but anything more than that quickly becomes a pain in the ass. I know SOME people like the huge raids, but I would have thought the current content would have placated that crowd for a long time. Give us more 5 man dungeons!
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
umm, the parent comment is strictly in regards to the grandparents comment on plot.
Your logic implies that no book (except those choose your own adventure books), movies or tv shows have plot - since the viewer has no say on outcome or cannot make a persistant change to the Universe.
A plot does not in any way indicate that the user has the ability to change the story.
Now, maybe you weren't replying at all about plot. In that case you probably should have started a new discussion, or made it clear that "ok sure, they do have a plot, but I don't want just a plot, I want to make a permanent, measurable change in the story's arc - unlike almost any other genre of entertainment. I'll hold this MMORPG to a higher level of standard then any other entertainment medium I have - and then complain about it!"
"I'm a Genius!"*
*Not an actual Genius
Is pretty damn obvious to anyone who has had a priest for a long time.
They nerfed the class entirely too hard pre-release(particularly disc and holy, shadow is fine it just falls into the same pitfalls all other casters do), and now they're hopefully rectifying it.
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
The problem is making a mutable game world that can withstand the mutilations of hundreds of users. When the game designers make content, they want everyone to be able to experience it, not just the first 10 people to finish the quest. They can only really do small things. Examples:
FFXI: They had a territorial system where grinding your ass off and doing quests could change territorial control to your faction.
WoW: Although not permanent, there are two dragon bosses that when killed will have their head displayed prominently in the capital city for a time.
WoW(again): This one time, as I passed some NPC's, they started chatting with each other about my gnome, praising him and such. Although not huge, it was very uplifting.
WoW(last time): Although you seem to be against huge singleton population-wide efforts, Blizzard is currently in the middle of the one time war effort. You really get the sense that your contribution matters and that it is a huge team game of everyone working together to complete a massive quest with a long lasting impact on the world.
The best way game designers portray a sense of cause and effect is with quest chains. They have you follow a story line and refer to your previous actions as you follow the chain. I'd be intrested to hear though if any one has a solution for a mutable MMO feature that he or she thinks could work. I can't come up with anything good right now.
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
Zonk, it would be much easier on the eyes and brain if you broke this into several stories. I know that some people might complain about the lower content density, but 16 links in one paragraph does not entice me to see what that content is.