Tuesday, July 27, 2010

More than a one-day story

First, see this post on Reddit.
Next, read the news story.
Last, when you are playing Starcraft 2 tonight, remember this guy and his friend who will now be playing alone.














matdevdug, your friend is more than a one-day story.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Amalur is a failure

First, watch this:



Next, read this: Amalur? 38 Studios, you just failed.

Look, I want to give 38 Studios the benefit of the doubt.  I want to believe they've assembled this great team and haven't squandered this opportunity.  However, I just can't do anything but laugh after seeing a video as terrible as the one posted above.

The setting is so generic fantasy that it makes Star Wars look like science fiction.

Brooding dark voice?  Check.
Too much plate armor?  Check.
Oversized, unrealistic weapons?  Check.
Skeletons? Check.
Over-sized boss character incoming at end of video? Check.

What a fucking disaster this video is.  Not only is it highly disappointing to watch, but it fails to say a single thing about the game itself.  Plus it doesn't even bother to explain a single thing about the world of Amular.

This was 38 Studios big reveal and it failed; hard.  Amalur, just another generic fantasy setting that fails to impress.


Pro-tip: if the majority of a video game trailer features bylines with "John Doe, X, from game Y" , people may perceive that as the current game being unable to stand on it's own merits.

Further evidence abounds, check out the comments over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun.
Choca says:
July 23, 2010 at 11:25 am

The trailer looks bad.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Guild Wars 2 Will Succeed

For a primer, read my Guild Wars 2 Will Fail post from yesterday.


Guild Wars 2 (GW2) starts with some strikes against it, but it also starts with some potential.  First and foremost is GW2's business model.  The game will be free to play after purchasing a retail copy similar to the first Guild Wars.  This alone separates the game from the throng of games that will be dependent upon monthly subscriptions when GW2 comes to the market.

Secondly, GW2 is changing up some of the foundations of the Diku model.  The biggest change here is the removal of dedicated healing in the game.  Each individual player will be given self-healing skills that will account for the majority of healing in the game, both in solo and group play.

Next, GW2 is easing the limits on how a class defines a player's characters. The various classes will have a core mechanic, but their available skills will be based on equipment, race, and a set of personal healing abilities.  For example, a warrior wielding a 2-handed axe will be played much differently than one wielding a 1-handed sword and a shield.

The third change that comes to mind is the fact that death will not be immediate in GW2.  If a fight is winding down and a player is struck down, they become disabled.  During this disabled period if the player manages to kill a creature, they receive a second wind and can go on fighting.  Anyone that has played Borderlands will be familiar with this mechanic.  This lessens the sting of death and builds the perception that the player is a hero, not just some schmuck that was wiped out by a giant rat that added into a fight (a rat the player could cleave in two with a single blow!).

Guild Wars 2 is also aiming to shake up the game world with live events.  Think of this as Public Quests version 2.0.  Public Quests were easily the best feature of Warhammer Online and GW2 is taking them to another level by building the entire world around them.  If a player is in a village and see's all the villagers dieing due to poison that was dumped into their water supply, they can investigate and find the water pipeline into the city is being attacked and poisoned just outside of town. Beat the bandits causing the problem and save the village.  This is just an example of a couple stages of a "public quest" that will be featured in GW2.  This system has great potential and its only weakness is that the events will recycle themselves, so at some point it may feel like the players accomplished "nothing".

I've outlined some of the changes GW2 is attempting, but the game is still very much a traditional affair.  The core of the game will be familiar to anyone that has enjoyed MMOGs over the past several years.  Arena Net is being very careful to make this clear.  They talk a lot about changes, but also concentrate on making sure everyone knows they are not rewriting the book.  They don't want to rewrite the book and are being honest about that fact.  I wish other developers, creating very similar games, could follow Arena Net's lead in this regard.  Adding one new feature doesn't make a AAA MMOG "ground breaking". 

Looking at the reasons I've presented for failure and success, its interesting to note that they are in two very distinct categories.  The reasons for failure are all conjecture: its a 2, its making changes, and its got heavy competition in the fantasy setting.   The reasons for success are almost all related to the way the game will play: healing, death, and a living world.  I'll let you be the judge, but the reasons for success sound a lot more worthwhile than those of failure.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Guild Wars 2 Will Fail

There are plenty of examples that sequels do not work in the MMO market.  Ultima Online 2 was the original victim of what I like to call the terrible 2s.  Asheron's Call 2 shutdown on December 30, 2005 while the original Asheron's Call still thrives to this day.  AC2 never matched the original and in my opinion was actually a pretty good game.  The list continues with Everquest 2 which never matched the original Everquest and was thoroughly trumped by the monster that is World of Warcraft.

Everquest 2, out of all the 2s, should have been a right to print money.  Everquest was the undisupted champion of the early graphical MMOGs and Everquest 2 was the expected front runner of the "next generation".  How terribly wrong that general consensus was.  World of Warcraft taught everyone that the Everquest "idea" was wrong and that Everquest never was "right".

This all sets a stage where upon the new 2 in the neighberhood, Guild Wars 2 (GW2), is set to fail.

If being a 2 wasn't bad enough for GW2, it is also "a high fantasy world with multiple races" (like my new tagline?).  GW2 will have to compete with the Everquest 2 slaying World of Warcraft and it's record-breaking expansions.  Star Wars: The Old Republic will also be major competition for GW2 as they are the top two upcoming AAA titles in the MMO market (Star Wars being more fantasy than SciFi by miles).  Not to mention the plethora of free 2 play fantasy offerings that are quickly eating into the AAA marketplace. Fantasy is saturated!

There are other concerns as well.  GW2 is doing away with the holy trinity by removing the dedicated healer from group play, softening the blow of death by allowing second chances after a characters health is depleted, and moving towards a more action inspired combat system.  All of these may be equally positive things, but they are all "different" enough to cause concern in a genre that is averse to change.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not here to doom and gloom all of the upcoming MMOGs.  Specific to Guild Wars 2, come back tomorrow for the reasons why Guild Wars 2 will succeed.  Honestly, Guild Wars 2 is looking to be the only AAA competition coming any time soon.

Update: 23 July, 2010 - The Guild Wars 2 success post has been posted.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

PC gamers with keyboard/mouse dominate console gamers with controllers

Filing this one away in the "no shit, Sherlock" category, Gizmodo has an interesting article up about why Microsoft aborted a project that would have allowed PC and Xbox gamers to play together on the same servers.  Basically, half-assed PC gamers easily dominated the constrained controllers that top-talent console gamers were using.
I've heard from reliable sources that during the development they brought together the best console gamers to play mediocre PC gamers at the same game... and guess what happened? They pitted console gamers with their "console" controller, against PC gamers with their keyboard and mouse.

The console players got destroyed every time. So much so that it would be embarrassing to the XBOX team in general had Microsoft launched this initiative.
I've had similar results with my old roommate with Halo. I couldn't win at Halo for shit playing on the Xbox, but once it was on the PC and we did a grand rematch with our normal Friday Halo group, I dominated as a PC gamer with mouse and keyboard. And I've never been very good at FPS games!

Just one more reason to be a proud PC gamer.