Further Changes Coming to Star Trek Online
A decade ago the MMO genre tended to favour quite complex game systems. It is what the playerbase expected and allegedly preferred. But tastes and prevailing trends change over time. Plus game developers often see a change in staff and alterations in their creative visions. Hence over time, game systems can become unwieldy, esoteric and frankly annoying. So when a decision is made to refine, rationalise and improve these systems, it can be a complex task to undertake. Furthermore not only are there the practical and logistical realities of having to tackle ageing code, there is also the choppy waters of community relations to navigate. Because regardless whatever you seek to change, there will always be those who will oppose it and consider it an outrage perpetrated upon them, comparable to the Peterloo Massacre.
Player Representation and Video Games
There was a time when you bought a game, played it, possibly completed it and then that was the end of the matter. Along the way you determined whether you were enjoying it. Often that conclusion dictated how much time you spent playing. Gaming at this point in time, was a relatively straightforward business transaction. If your experience was broadly positive, you’d remember the publisher and look favourably upon their future products. As for the actual business dynamics, it was simple. You paid for the game up front and then later decided the respective value of that financial transaction. How things have changed and not necessarily for the better. We now live in the age of “live services”, microtransactions and games where your expected to forever put your hand in your pocket if you want to keep playing. Games are no longer one-off purchases. Games are an ongoing symbiotic relationship. Or if you want a bleaker analogy, games are a form interactive, quasi-legal, addiction.
Do MMOs Have a Specific Window of Opportunity?
World of Warcraft was the MMO that broke the mould. The reasons for its success are too numerous and complex for this blog post, so let it suffice to say that it rode a perfect storm of factors and has maintained a strong presence for fifteen years. And as a result, subsequent developers have often sought to duplicate its success. Yet frequently the opposite has happened. In fact several MMOs have launched and experienced a brief time “in the sun” only for things to come crashing down thereafter. Perhaps the most well-known example of this was SWTOR which experienced a triumphant launch in December 2011, yet within three months the majority of players had left for pastures new. It took the game going F2P and a lot of hard work by BioWare to claw back the playerbase. It has also been argued that many MMOs have grown too big for their own good? It is true that a new player starting a game such as LOTRO today has a long slog ahead of them and some may simply find that too daunting.
Gas and Meat
Over the last few weeks, Bree has mentioned on the Massively OP Podcast how she’s been farming both gas and meat in Star Wars Galaxies (played via an emulator. No pedantry please). Co-host Justin has naturally ribbed her and raised the question as to whether this is a valid and more importantly, fun use of her time while gaming. This is some of the light-hearted banter that makes this particular show so enjoyable. But there’s an old adage that states “many a true word spoken in jest”. Most people who have played any MMO, even in the most casual fashion, have at some point found themselves farming specific commodities for crafting or sale. Or they may spend time repeating a task as a means of gaining experience points. Perhaps they’ve gone so far as to undertake some extensive project for something as arbitrary as a title or a reward that simply amuses them. The bottom line is at some point we have all done the “gas and meat” thing.
Quest Bestowal in MMOs
When playing a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, such as The Lord of the Rings Online, acquiring quests is a very straightforward process. Key locations such as towns, villages or anywhere with a stable are usually quest hubs. Non-playable characters denote that they have quest(s) available by having a glowing ring icon above their heads. It’s not subtle but you’d have to have a bag over your head to miss such an obvious clue. Most MMOs have some version of this bestowal system. A clearly visible means to show that an NPC or object is the starting point for a quest. It’s a rather unsophisticated system but it gets the job done. Hence it has been around for quite a while in the genre (silence, dissenting old school gamers, blathering on about how in the good old days, MMOs didn’t have quests).
Classic Game Themes: Lords of the Fallen
Lords of the Fallen is an action role-playing game from 2014, played from a third-person perspective. It is broadly in the same idiom to Darksiders and Dark Souls with the emphasis on complex and challenging combat. And it is for that reason that I didn’t get on with this title when I bought it in a Steam sale a few years ago. I felt that the long, protracted fights were an impediment to the narrative, which I quite enjoyed. However, the game was designed this way to appeal to the combat focused gamer and “git gud” culture. But I think that it’s important to try different genres of games from time to time and to step occasionally out of your comfort zone. I would cite the Hand of Fate series as a positive example of this. Both of those titles are from a genre I wouldn’t usually consider and playing them turned out to be a very positive experience
Can LOTRO Modernise Any Further?
A while back Syp wrote a blog post over on his personal website Bio Break, in which he discussed how The Lord of the Rings Online had avoided the “complexity trap” he feels affects other MMORPGs over time. It’s a sentiment I broadly concur with. The 12-year-old game has now reached a point where it has a fixed set of systems. Developers Standing Stone Games continue to produce regular PVE content in the form of quests, instances and raids. But they haven’t added a major new component to the game since the introductions of Epic Battles. Instead they have refined and fine-tuned existing facets of the game. Consider the recent overhaul of the Virtue Trait system. The basic functionality remains but the way a player advances their chosen virtues has been streamlined and now provides more tangible benefits. Overall, LOTRO has settled into a comfortable niche. New content is forthcoming but is very much a case of “same meat, different gravy”.
Star Trek Online: The Problem with the Latest Roadmap
Game developers enjoy a “roadmap”, don’t they? I always get snippy about marketing speak as it’s an industry I have zero respect or tolerance for. Perhaps such a position is a cliché? But I digress. Cryptic recently released their latest roadmap for Star Trek Online, after their successful appearance at the Star Trek: Las Vegas convention. At first glance it promises a lot of content which is its purpose. But if you take a minute or two to digest the list of forthcoming material, it soon becomes clear that it is predominantly group Task Force Operations. Apart from one new story episode, Awakening, it is decidedly light on narrative material. Now Cryptic have constantly tinkered with the story arc of STO over the years and have also experimented with the format in which its presented. Hence terms such as “featured episode” have become ambiguous. But if you look beyond the semantics, there seems to have been fewer story driven missions being this year.
Stout-Axe Dwarves and Race Changes Coming to LOTRO
Some interesting news came out of Gen Con 2019, where Standing Stone Games recently held their Dungeons & Dragons Online/The Lord of the Rings Online “meet up”. According to Draculetta who attended the social event, Severlin AKA Rob Ciccolini, Lead Producer for LOTRO stated that Stout-Axe Dwarves were to be added to the game as a new playable race. Furthermore, the ability to change the race of existing characters was also coming to the game. It was later clarified that the race change ability was subject to the existing class restrictions. Hence an existing Hobbit Guardian could become an Elf if the player so desires. But races such as Hobbits and Dwarves are still excluded from certain classes such as Captain or Lore-master. Although this was a very informal setting, the statement has been seen as a formal announcement and SSG have not said anything to the contrary so far.
A Month in Gaming
Contrary to my last A Month in Gaming post, I did actually end up buying a discount copy of Elsweyr and returning to The Elder Scrolls Online. And I’m rather glad that I did, because it has provided a welcome change of scene and an opportunity to do something different. However, you can’t just fire up ESO and dive right in. No sir. The first thing you have to do is update all your addons and if your starting a new alt (which I decided to do), ensure that your key mappings and custom settings are ported over. This process was a pain in the butt; however it did inspire a couple of blog posts. Creating a new alt is the perfect way to reacquaint yourself with ESO after a lengthy absence. In my case it has been 12 months. I decided to try the new Necromancer class and so far, it has proven to be both fun and rewarding. Rather than try to do a thousand things at once, I just started the Elsweyr main story and doggedly pursued it. The narrative is enjoyable and it was fun to see Cadwell as part of the plot focus. For practical reasons I’ve re-subscribed to ESO plus to unlock various DLC and I intend to continue playing for the next month or so.
The Changing Face of MMOs
The above promotional video for Guild Wars 2 (dated July 19th, 2011) came up in an online discussion recently. The game as it exists today is radically different to this eight-year-old marketing presentation. It got me thinking about MMOs, how they evolve and those that have fallen from grace. Naturally the spectre of World of Warcraft looms large in such a discussion, because for many years this was the game to beat. Subsequently the market was awash with clones, which proved to be an unwise business tactic. The tumultuous life of Star Wars: The Old Republic along with the closure of Warhammer: Online, Vanguard and recently WildStar indicates that more of the same is not necessarily what players want or at the least, insufficient to keep them engaged. Guild Wars 2 initially deviated noticeably from the perceived wisdom but then contradicted its own ideology out of necessity to remain financially viable. Subsequent expansions have proven far more “traditional”. A decade on from the MMO boom, the genre has had to become far more niche to survive. MMOs exist and make money, but the are no longer seen as cash cows.
Video Games and Voice Acting
I think it’s a fair assessment that here are several genres of game that don’t have any requirement for in-depth voice acting. If there is no substantial narrative to tell or a necessity to deliver a lot of complex instructions, then plain text or simple audio soundbites will suffice. However, games such as an RPG or an MMORPG, which tend to have complex stories and multiple characters, benefit immensely from good quality voice acting. Now some gamers are not interested in intricate plots and find dialogue and cutscenes an impediment but I do not believe them to be a majority. If they want to skip dialogue and such like, then that is their prerogative and I support their right to do so. I actually think that both dialogue and cutscenes should wherever possible be “skippable”. But I am often heavily invested in the narratives of the games I play. I enjoy good dialogue when its available and feel that voice acting reinforces the plot and credibility of the various characters. I sorely miss it when it is not present.
Addons, Dependencies and Libraries in ESO
Once again, I’m writing a post not out of technical enthusiasm but to try and spare someone else the tiresome bullshit I’ve just had to endure this evening. I wrote earlier this year about the duality of addons in The Elder Scrolls Online. They can be a great boon to the player but they can also be fiddly to configure and frequently break when the game is updated. You’re dependent on the good will of a third party to maintain them. Naturally the recent addition of Elsweyr to ESO meant that a bunch of addons were broken by the expansion. Oddly enough I didn’t initially notice that several of mine had stopped working because I’ve been away from the game for a while, plus I was busy trying to transfer various settings from my previous character to my new alt. However, once I actually got down to the business of traversing Tamriel and questing, it came to my attention that lots of details were missing from my map. Hence, I discovered that all was not well in “Addonsville”.
Creating Alts and Copying Settings in ESO
If you are a veteran player of The Elder Scrolls Online, this post will simply be a statement of the “bleedin’ obvious”. However I have written this article for the benefit of those relatively new to ESO as well as the occasional or casual player who are not au fait with all the subtleties and nuances of the MMORPG. If I can spare someone the hassle that I’ve had over the past 48 hours trying to figure this shit out, then I consider that a valuable social service. Because unlike other MMOs, creating a new alt in ESO causes some additional problems to arise. If you know about them in advance, they are a lot easier to manage. If, like me you were not aware of them, then it can be frustrating attempting to trouble shoot them on the fly.
The Elder Scrolls Online and Action Combat
I was recently gifted a copy of Summerset in The Elder Scrolls online by a friend. Naturally this act of generosity lead to me returning to the game. Although I participated in the beta test, I only seriously started playing ESO from January to July last year. I created a High Elf Sorcerer and levelled to the current cap of 50 and then started working on gaining Champion Points, which currently stand at 187. Although I enjoyed the experience, especially from a narrative perspective, I did struggle to a degree with the action combat. It can be a quite a culture shock playing ESO after years of traditional, older MMOs that have a more static combat system. There is a tendency to default to old habits and ways that frequently leads to mistakes. Older MMOs often share common key mappings and system methodologies. ESO often flies in the face of that, so you find yourself having to “unlearn what you have learned” to coin a phrase. It can be done and you can adapt. I managed last year but now, due to the time elapsed, I am now having to do so again.
A Month in Gaming
This post should have been published two weeks ago but as ever, real life just keeps getting in the way. As expected, June proved to be a busy month, however, I managed to organise my leisure time pretty well, affording me an opportunity to not only play my two current MMOs but also experiment with some other games. At present my caring commitment keep me busy from about 10:30 AM to about 5:00 PM. I tend to get up round about 7:00 AM so if I promptly have a shower, dress and eat, I can usually create a two-hour window in the morning to either tackle admin and paperwork or undertake dailies in games such as The Lord of the Rings Online or Star Trek Online. I can also find several hours in the evening as Mrs Peril tends to go to bed earlier than I. Therefore practical time management has proven beneficial over the last four weeks.
Star Trek Online: Lohlunat Festival 2019 Controversy
Yesterday Cryptic posted details of the forthcoming summer event, known in Star Trek Online parlance as the Lohlunat Festival 2019. As usual there’s a Tier 6 ship to be earned through daily missions along with a ton of cosmetic items. Emotes are popular with players and so this event also includes several that can be used in space via your starship, giving “Captains” further means of expressing themselves. At first glance, there’s nothing exceptional about this bundle of goodies. Nor nothing controversial. However, the devil is in the detail, as developer’s Cryptic subsequently found out.
Hoard It or Spend It?
This posts stems from a recent experience I had in Star Trek Online but it is not a matter that is exclusive to that MMO. This is a subject that is pertinent to any multiplayer game that has an in-game currency and an economy driven by player activity. I’m not referring to single player games where you can use a console command to give you infinite wealth, such as Skyrim. This is about currencies that are earned in-game through grinding missions, selling gear and other assets to NPCs and trading via the auction house. It’s about how we as player perceive that virtual money and our relationship with it.
Video Game Tutorials
Video game tutorials are a curious thing. They are intended to orientate a new player and give them a quick and succinct overview of a games systems and mechanics. However few do this well and they can slow the player down. Because the MMO genre shares a lot of common features, it is often relatively straightforward to pick up the controls of a new game. Hence players will complain about the tutorial being a bane rather than a boon. Yet in single player games such as the Sniper Elite series, the tutorials are integrated into the first level and provide a good overview to playing the game without out staying its welcome. Furthermore, you can elect to disable this function in later versions of the game and play through the starter level without assistance. Hence tutorials have a tendency to be a somewhat mixed bag, yet they are a very necessary service. Having to continuously tab out of a game or refer to a website on a second monitor can really kill your sense of immersion and diminish your enjoyment of a new game. On a simple consumer level, selling a product that doesn’t come with some semblance of instructions is poor marketing.
E3 2019
I’ve watched a few presentations from this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo over the last few nights, mainly out of idle curiosity. Overall, it’s all broadly been what I expected. This is not your run of the mill promotion and advertising. No sir. This is targeted marketing, delivered with all the vigour and verve of “old time religion”, preached by a “fire and brimstone” minister to the faithful. It’s a curious symbiotic relationship between awkward, forty something tech guys as they stand on stage and strive to remember their media training and an audience of fundamentalist gamers who are there to whoop and clap on cue. Information about forthcoming games is not merely imparted but presented as gospel or the party manifesto. I’ll stop there with the religious and political analogies but they come very easily because that’s what E3 reminds me of; a church congregation or a political rally. And when you consider that we now live in an age of “feelings” rather than “thought”, it’s easy to see why enthusiasm for new products has been replaced by an eagerness to climb aboard the hype train and ride all the way to the “promised land”.