The SOE effect: The other side of the coin!

SOE Effect Part I
SOE Effect Part II

Those are both my articles on how I feel SOE is leading their games (Everquest1&2, Planetside, Star Wars Galaxies) astray and that any SOE game should NEVER be played. SOE is a shifty and underhanded developer pushed a) by money grubbing business suits and b) by unrealistic development schedules and practices set forth by John Smedley.

However I have found someone who differs in opinion. Someone who can argue a lot better than I can, but Darniaq will not sway my opinion. SOE is dirt. Go over and read the article and browse around.... Darniaq has quite a few insightful posts.

Who cares about the stories?

One Tired EVE Pilot doesn't care about game stories. So who does? That's a question I can't really answer. Role-players? Possibly. Hardcore fans? Maybe. The gamer looking to get lost in a fantasy world? Another possibility.

It's not that people don't care about the story, but they just don't care for poorly implemented story telling devices. I read 1,000+ page books every couple of weeks, but you won't catch me in-game reading chat boxes. I play games to have a living story where a battle is not narrated... it is won or lost in my actions.

Cut scenes in general are poor story telling devices simply because most game developers aren't cinematographers. There is a couple games like Warcraft 3 and Final Fantasies 7-10 that have used great cut scenes to help tell a story, but cut scenes alone do not make a story go. The game play needs to help tell the story as well and that's something I've yet to see done well.

Art is another big area. If a sewer is dark, damp, and stinks like yesterday's garbage... then visual clues like buzzing flies, visual fog, and proper lighting is required. Imitating smell without smell is hard, but artists are smart and I think it can be done without a 100 word text box describing the stench.

The avatar and animations are also important. The way an avatar runs or moves can tell a lot about the history of the character. I would rather see a Goblin Pirate limp across the ship deck than read a text box tell me that he lost it ten years ago in a battle. Resident Evil had your character slump over and stumble as you became injured and it replaced the health meter quite well.

Our minds make the words to the story we see on screen. Pictures are worth a thousand words and a proper game using the proper story telling mechanisms is worth a million.

Trying to understand things on the internet is hard

What do spray cans, groping, and racism have to do with each other? I don't know. Why are you asking me? I wish I knew, but I don't. Why?

Because I am trying to understand something on the internet. While hitting up my favorite Blog search engine, Technorati, I came across the search term "xiaxue". What is xiaxue you ask? I really wish I could tell you, but I have an inkling from the search results at Technorati that it has to do with spray cans, groping, and racism!

Well I'm not really sure... this is the Internet after all.

What To Play: WoW, EVE, or EQ2

I've been thinking recently of what MMORPG I should head back into for a bit. I have not had an active subscription for two months strong now. I've really felt no pull towards any of them to start playing them again. Battlefield 2, Call of Duty 2, and various Half Life 2 mods (Goldeneye Source, Dystopia, Counter Strike : Source) have kept me busy. But like Ogier steddings in the Wheel of Time series, by Robert Jordan, there is a longing to return.

World of Warcraft

I have an account and a level 60 Troll Shaman on Azgalor. There is a lot of new content from the 1.9 patch that may interest me. However, I doubt I would continue playing my Shaman. Most likely I would start a new character elsewhere to level up for the expansion (which I'm not sure I will be buying).

EVE Online

I love the trading and corporation aspects of EVE Online. I've tried to learn the game, but I've fallen flat on my face. I can't stand playing games that are painfully slow and confusing to learn. I know if I put the time in, I could be rewarded, but there are no guarantees in EVE Online.

Everquest 2 : Trial of the Isle

Ethic at the Kill Ten Rats blog has been trying out EQ2 and the Trial of the Isle. He has somewhat peaked my interest in picking it up again for a spin. It is doubtful I would play past the free 14 days, but giving it a try would satisfy my curiousity. I like the idea of play and forget without paying.

Update: 8 Jul, 2007 - Edited post and applied labels.

Dungeons and Dragons : The DM difference

With all the post-NDA opinions floating around about Dungeons and Dragons Online's beta I have been thinking about a crucial part of what has always been the most important aspect of a tabletop game of D&D. That aspect of course is the real, live, and breathing Dungeon Master (DM).

Let's step back to DDO for a minute. Turbine has gone a long ways to make sure the aspect of the Dungeon Master was not forgotten. They have added pop up text boxes that go into some detail about each and every area a player visits. Also there is narration to help better explain some of the different events within a quest or adventure. It gives an overall impression of there being a DM present, but in reality I doubt any player will ever believe a DM is truly watching over their play.

Turbine has decided that the DM is not a role that needs to be filled by a human. After all, that's what they have servers, graphics, real time combat, and the game itself for. There is no need for a DM to be there. Turbine's quest team has hand built numerous quests and areas for players to adventure in. They have gone the extra mile to make adventures that are exciting and multi-faceted. What possibly could a DM be needed for?

Human > Computer

It is a simple fact that a human would serve as a better DM than a computer.

Your party has been rolling through a dungeon. No monster, trap, or ambush could stop you. No monster, trap, or ambush could... because the dungeon doesn't change based on how well you're doing. The difficulty hasn't scaled. The computer is not smart enough to do so.

Insert a human DM into that situation and you have a different story on your hands. The DM could throw down a trap to slow the party while he prepared the next wave of attackers. What may start as an easy fight could escalate quickly as the DM jumps in to control one of his summoned creatures. Now the party is fighting against a real opponent.

This even extends beyond just interacting with the party as they adventure. It pays its dividends in the end also when the true reward of adventuring in D&D pays off and that is at the division of the experience points. A computer is going to reward you the same amount for the same quest (with diminishing returns for DDO). A DM on the other hand is going to analyze the fight. Was it hard for the party? Do they deserve a little extra maybe? Do they deserve less possibly because they took the easier path? These are questions to think about the next time you earn experience in any MMORPG.

What about getting a bad DM?

Well it is a possibility and I would like to think there would be quite a need for DM with the number of adventurers playing. So the possibility of getting a poor DM that is unable to enhance the adventure is a real possibility.

Things like DM rankings and scorecards would go a long way to alleviate this. After every adventure the party could rate their DM and a DM would rate his players. Other things such as rewarding a DM for achieving better rankings and giving them more power as they achieve higher ranks could also help. These are things that just haven't been explored and until real DM are placed in game it is hard to expand upon them.

For some ideas on ranking and rating systems check this article out.

Its too exploitable

I know what people are going to say. A bunch of buddies get together and jump into an adventure with their buddy buddy DM. The DM makes the adventure a cake walk and then rewards insane amounts of experience at the end. Everyone else feels cheated because there is nobodies all of a sudden level 10 after a week of playing.

No one likes cheaters and sadly cheaters will always look for maximum return with the smallest investment on their part. Its a sad fact, but there are ways to deal with it.

One idea is to randomly assign the DM to an adventure. That way no party can “shop” for a DM that will help them exploit the system. But honestly do we need to go so far as to push the players and the DM apart?

Honestly the simpler fix would be to just not connect the game to hub worlds. Disconnect the player base from itself and offer a separate way of connecting. Server browsers work great in FPS games. Give the adventurers a simple chat interface linked with a game browser so that players can hook up for a game. Each game could then be stored for players to join in later.

Without the connection of hub worlds the effect of the exploiters would not be seen as a negative on other players experience. The exploiters would be playing their own games and the other gamers would be playing theirs. If an adventure called for a party of five level 5's then it would not matter really how each character entering got to level 5.

Again the DM has control of the adventure. If players come in with items the DM doesn't feel are appropriate they could be easily replaced or restricted. If a character comes in weak the DM could boost them up for that game and that game alone.

Conclusion

The DM holds a great power in D&D. Without their presence the D&D experience is not the same. Pretty graphics and flavor text will never replace the human imagination. D&D has never been about what 1,000's of other players are doing, but more about what you and your small group of friends are doing. An online version of D&D needs to simply increase the size of the pool from which you pick your fellow adventurers and in turn hopefully make some new friends.

DDO may be a faithful representation of the world and rules of D&D, but it will never capture the spirit.

Update: 28 Aug, 2008 - Updated labels.