Warhammer Online wins Existential Brownie Points

From the WAR April 2007 Newsletter (via Ethic at the KTR Forums)

It's been an interesting year for us at EA Mythic, a year filled with new
challenges, new opportunities and of course, a year filled with WAR! We have
watched Warhammer Online become one of the most highly anticipated MMORPGs in the world as it garners praise from the press, earns kudos from the community
and receives enthusiastic support from our partners and friends at Games
Workshop. I’m happy to say that the task of bringing WAR to life is going well
here at EA Mythic. However, we have important news to share and as always, we
want you, the WAR community, to be the first to know.

We have made the decision to move our ship date for the US and Europe to the first quarter of 2008. (Release dates for Asia will be announced at a later date.) Since our
acquisition by EA, we have been afforded many wonderful development
opportunities and we plan to take full advantage of everything that is
available. This includes taking several additional months to make the best
MMORPG possible.

I admire any company that cares more about the quality of the product than they do about their artificial time lines. This shows that they have a serious belief in their game, and its eventual success, or else they would just pump out an unfinished product and hope for the best. They are learning from the 'Blizzard model' and recognizing the failure's of the Sony style of production.

Warhammer Online is certainly on my radar screen, and has been for some time, but PR like this makes my participation in their release almost a certainty. If they keep up the good work, they may just have a game worth playing.

GMG becomes 38 Studios

Via Nerfbat.

Executives of Green Monster Games, a new studio located in Massachusetts with Curt Schilling as CEO and founder, have officially renamed their company to 38 Studios, LLC. This has absolutely no bearing on the quality of the products that they will hopefully produce, and though I like the former name better, this company continues to top my MMO Watch List.

The creative, community development and design team that has been put together is a veritable whose-who of industry stars. Moreover, having a money man like Curt Schilling, whose love of MMO gaming is no secret basically ensures that appropriate financing will be available to see the premier game title to a successful launch.

I figure we are four years away from a 38 Studios launch and by that time, World of Warcraft, LoTRO, Vanguard, EQII and whatever meanwhile titles will have aged beyond relevance, paving the way for a new existential world to fill gigs on my hard drive.

LoTRO Impressions

The day has come and the clandestine cover of the Lord of The Rings Online beta test NDA has been lifted. I am at last free to offer my impressions of this highly acclaimed title from Turbine, considered to be one of the top potential MMO releases of 2007.

I enjoyed this game. I spent about 3 weeks playing through early beta and I have returned after wipes to test out features and see what progress Turbine has made during the latter implementation phases, and I can say that while I am unlikely to play post-launch, I think this game has promise. Turbine certainly has a great deal of content to back fill to flesh out the game and tighten up the polish, but LoTRO has some very creative mechanics and entertaining game play.

But First The Bad:

Immersion into the battle for Middle Earth is difficult. Turbine actually did a very good job incorporating elements of the Rings trilogy into the MMO lore, but also suffered quite a bit from the bulk of such an extensive and comprehensive licences. The trek from Bree to Rivendale is short and uneventful and the landscape lacks any significant 'high adventure.' Were this generic MMO, it would be commonplace but the user expects to be accosted by Orc, and pursued by Ring Wraiths and an MMO setting just can't simulate the journey of the Nine like a film can. Besides who gets to be Gandalf?

Magic is far too prevalent. Gandalf lit fires the old fashioned way for a reason. He had limited magic and only in rare events did he use it. Healing was done by a very special few. In LoTRO in order to accomplish the traditional MMO role archetypes, Turbine introduced alternate interpretations of magic and healing. Health and Mana are not there, but the two colored bars that represent it are. A rose by any other name... Bards 'heal' characters by playing tunes and lifting their spirits, but in the end, Bards are the priests and paladins of Middle Earth and Lore Masters are the wizards.

Static Mobs. In my first few hours I recall wandering out into the noob zones, hunting wolves. The wolves barely moved from their spawn spot, and graphically they were quite limited. This underwent significant improvements during the later content upgrades, but it never reached a level indicative of a top tier MMO.

Wow That Sounds Like Crap... I Thought You Liked This Game:

I do. I said it has potential and I meant it. Game dynamics are excellent and the game is quite fun to play. There is a feat style character development system that I really enjoyed. They are not game breaking advancement, but you get cool titles and small stat bonuses as you acquire these Accomplishments. At one point I killed a bunch of brigands on the roads and received a title Cyndre "Watcher of Roads" and another for exploring so many different elven ruins. I wish more MMO titles added these types of 'flavor' elements to their games.

Combat is very well thought out and designed. I consider it to be one of the best examples of organic combat on the market, rivaling Warcraft in terms of smooth animations and polished actions and animations. For a while my Bard lacked any real actions but these were added around the time that instruments were added to the class.

Class use is creative, and despite my dislike of the prevalence of magic, I don't see how they could have gotten away without a healing archetype and a ranged caster archetype. If they had to implement them, they did so well and with very deft mechanics. I played a Bard for the better part of my time in Middle Earth and I enjoyed it. They were able to implement the class with minimal use of twisting a la EQ Bard.

All in all, I wish Turbine the best in this endeavor. I think their release will be quite successful given their delay in following the release of Vanguard and Burning Crusade and quite a few subscriptions will go their way. If they continue to update the content and polish at the pace that I witnessed in Beta, they will have a very solid title 1 year, 2 years 5 years from now.

I am Vanguarded

A few days ago, I warned of an impending rant about an as of yet, unreleased MMO that has been much acclaimed during it's development. Now would be the time to click your browser back button if you would like to avoid, said rant.

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes has been on my proverbial MMO Watch List sense Brad McQuaid left SOE and announced he would be developing a third generation MMO with his production company, Sigil Games. For my regulars here at Existential Worlds, you know that I have a bit of a World of Warcraft addiction at the present time, but that was originally meant to be a temporary fix, while Vanguard was developed.

For me, Vanguard was to be the culmination of a long string of frustrating MMO experiences. From Neverwinter Nights on AOL, to Everquest, I had wandered the existential worlds of the MMO game space, only half satisfied with my role in them. They lacked that feeling... Tobold dubs it the Crushbone Factor, which is certainly applicable, despite the fact that it refers to EQ.

So I watched and I waiting, and finally the day arrived... my email inbox brought me tidings of my involvement in Vanguard's Beta development phase.

My first impressions were very mixed. The world was stunning in some respects and completely disappointing in others. The engine was a behemoth and I could hardly have visual setting above the bottom tier 'Highest Performance' in order to move my avatar at all. I thought to myself, this is Beta... this is why I am here. Customization, optimization, bug correction and game play evaluation... these are my quests...

After weeks of frustration, I had to walk away. It was early Beta, but I felt as though the game had been pushed to Beta too soon. I was struggling to stay involved and never once felt immersed. I felt as though I should not have been there yet, it was too raw, too empty to even test appropriately. Too 'broken' if you will, or perhaps too 'unstarted' even. So I left.

Three weeks ago, I reinstalled my client and decided to give Beta another try. Beta 4 had been announced and I felt that perhaps the progress I had been looking for would be in place and the game would be ready for testers. I logged in and found myself gaping at the same landscapes devoid of npc life, the same bugs, the game graphical failures and the same uninspired implementation of truly inspiring innovations...

I set about leveling my Cleric and once again, I felt deep disappointment at the absolute waste of wonderful innovations. They had burdened the title with a bulky and unwieldy engine, game play is choppy and modeling and animations are uninspired. Questing is bland and unoriginal. Progression is chaotic and poorly thought out, and the client continues to struggle under the press of their system requirements. I run a powerful machine and I still can't play at even the 'balanced' graphics tier without tremendous lag.

A few days later Sigil and Sony announced the January 30th release date for Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, and I uninstalled my beta client and walked away from the game forever. They promised a third generation MMO and produced a half finished 1.5th generation MMO in the vein of Everquest with a few bells and whistles as differentiation. They Beta'd too early and failed to address the concerns of their testers in any cognizant fashion. The progressed the Beta too fast, and placed too little emphasis on content development, instead focusing on expansive lands and a diverse feature set. They innovated conceptually and programmed poorly. They gave me high hopes, and dashed them with forceful abandon.

So now I am Vanguarded against new titles. I refuse to be spun by fancy press releases and doctored screen shots showing the absolute best a game can do. Anyone can crank up their graphics settings, snap a fancy photo and post it on the interweb... but do they have what it takes to make a truly inspired world? A world alive that simply makes you scream... I WANT TO LIVE HERE! Sigil failed in that regard. Brad's 'vision' and Brad's reality did not align properly, and SOE and Sigil are going to release a very unfinished game into a market dominated by a very polished Warcraft and a slew of great titles that are getting better with each passing content patch.

Farewell, Vanguard... The dream of you was sweet, but now I must move on.

Necroposting

Three months since my last post... That's the worst kind of necroposting, when you just won't let something die when by all rights it probably should. Where have I been? Well, I am a married man after all, with a beautiful young daughter, a full time job, and a healthy addiction to online gaming. Need I say more?

Anyway, I spent the last three months chasing the dream, so to speak... testing new Existential Worlds, and perfecting my role in my current world of choice. I have a lot to say on a lot of subjects and way more thoughts than time to express them here. However, as your trusty blogger, I shall take them one by one and do my best.

In my absence, I tested two highly acclaimed titles currently in development, and a handful of lesser known games on the horizon. One is currently in double-sekret mode, so I can't share my thoughts just yet. The other just entered the public domain, and is fair game for my highly opinionated and heated rant. I'll get to that in a bit...

My realm of choice is World of Warcraft. I dated around, but there is just no way to look at any other game with the same joy as I do Warcraft. I don't know why exactly, but I believe after my recent exploits in other worlds, that it has something to do with polish. WoW just outclasses them. Oh, and they just released The Burning Crusade... it's kind of a big deal I hear. I'll get to that in a bit...

So my wife, the intoxicatingly beautiful, Night Elf Priestess, Abryn... and I, the devastatingly handsome Gnome Warlock, have been quite busy raiding with our guild Militiae Templi, and PvPing in the Battlegrounds. You may have heard of us? We are kind of a big deal in the MMO community...

LOL, just joking. My wife and I are somewhat casual, as is our guild for the most part, but we hold our own in terms of progression, having done quite well in AQ40 and Naxxrammas, in much the same time frame as the uberguilds.

So I'm back, you know where I was, and you have a pretty good idea of where this blog is headed over the next few weeks... You also, should have a pretty good idea what I will be doing with my free time for a while, joined by some eight million of my peers world-wide...

MMO Watch List: Immortal Destiny

I have recently added Immortal Destiny: Edge of Empyrean to my proverbial MMO Watch List. To say that this title is in the infant stages would be a gross understatement, as the development company, Neogence LLC only issued the press release on September 4th, 2006. Under normal circumstances, I would shy away from any game title with so little substantive information, but the limited information on the new websites FAQ was very intriguing. They would not be the first company to promise a lot of features that I want to see in-game, and deliver on significantly less, but its worth watching.

Also of note, is the development team itself. Robert Rice, aka Nicodemus of Kill Ten Rats fame, is leading the project.

Some excerpts of note from the FAQ:

Primarily skill based.

Every character starts as one of three archetypes: Warrior, Priest, or Mage.
While each has some benefits, there are no restrictions on what specializations,
professions, skills, magic, or items that an archetype can use.

No levels. Character advancement is primarily judged by skills and the amount of
raw power they control.

Player vs. Player combat (PvP) may occur anywhere. Players can also place
bounties on each other, and pursue other means of revenge against those that
attack them unwarranted. Griefers will not survive very long.

There is a variety of in-game social structures and organizations…Great Houses,
Minor Houses, Guilds, Clans, Gangs, Military, Government, etc. There are very
few, if any NPC leaders. Most city and town governments will be run by player
characters.

Most items either decay over time or degrade based on usage. Some rare item
types will last a very long time.