This Was Predicted

"The game that shall not be named" is going free 2 play.

To quote my predictions for the year:

3. "the game that shall not be named" will have a tough year, but will survive.  The argument to take the game Free 2 Play will begin around July.

Next time, I'm putting money down in Vegas.

Rift is World of Warcraft

Rift may be a completely different game than World of Warcraft, but I will never know.  I've played two hours of Rift and had I not seen the title screen, I would have thought I was playing World of Warcraft.  This is the same thought I had while playing Aion.  The same thought that made me shriek in horror when I finally got to play "the game that shall not be named".  It annoys me that so many games have copied World of Warcraft and not just copied ideas, but cloned wholesale everything about World of Warcraft.  It is so bad that the games are all using the same text color to identify different levels of loot.  The font used looks almost exactly the same.  The icon shapes.  On and on and on this goes.

There has been a long running discussion that World of Warcraft just copied Everquest which just copied DIKU MUD and therefore the current flood of WoW clones is expected.  I disagree with this line of thinking.  Everquest's biggest achievement is that it brought the DIKU MUD to 3D graphics.  Other than that, I would argue Everquest was a pretty terrible game.  World of Warcraft's biggest achievement was that it refined the DIKU model into something that made sense with a massively online game that is beyond a doubt one of the best games ever released.  Secondly, WoW brought MMO to the mainstream.

These other games: Rift, Aion, etc. They are all clones; none of them bringing anything significant to the genre.  They aren't even trying to bring something to the genre.  They are all fighting to carve out a piece of the table scraps of players that Blizzard ends up shoving off the table where they keep the money hats.

Does this make these games bad?  Not really, but after an hour of playing Aion I was done; having decided if I wanted this experience I would just go back to play World of Warcraft.  Rift?  Same story.

Yet, the worst part is each and every game tries to sell itself as though its the "next big thing".  That its ONE THING IT WILL DO DIFFERENTLY is the NEXT PILLAR OF WHAT IS GOOD IN GAMES.  It's annoying.  These developer's need to just shut up and tell gamers that they really liked World of Warcraft and wanted to make a game that emulates it.  I would be far less pissed off about the state of the MMO industry if the big players would just come out and admit they are riding WoW's coattails

Rift is World of Warcraft.  I don't care if the game gets better in the later levels or has some whiz-bang new idea that you get to enjoy at some point.  Give me something different that as soon as I start playing the LAST thing I think of is the other game I played before it.  When I played DOTA 2, I didn't think "oh man, this is League of Legends".  DOTA 2 is it's own game.  It defines itself as something unique.  AND DOTA 2 IS A LITERAL CLONE OF ANOTHER GAME!

Fuck it, Valve make me a god damned MMO already.

Phsycochild nails the whole Ilum bans thing

I'll let Phsycochild do all the talking today:

Psychochild says:01/02/2012 at 22:54
Here’s the problem: MMOs are multiplayer (it’s the second M). Which means that someone’s actions have a far-reaching effect for others. As a service provider, an MMO operator operating a game like SW:tOR needs to take action to make sure that things are fair for most players.

Yes, the perfect solution is not to have such an exploit in the first place. Okay, once reality intrudes we accept that some problems, bugs, and exploits will ship. So, now you have to look at the effect that an exploit like this will have on the community as a whole. If the company allows the exploit, then it becomes like a prisoner’s dilemma; you either must exploit this cheat and game the system (likely breaking immersion for people playing the game for the story), or you will be disadvantaged.

The next best solution is to patch to remove the exploit. But, making hasty patches to an MMO is not a smart thing. This leads to server crash bugs, where people can’t play. Players certainly don’t get cranky when they can’t play an MMO this close to launch or anything…

So, the next acceptable solution is to stop people from abusing the exploit while taking the time to do a proper patch with testing to make sure the fix doesn’t break something else. That’s what they’re doing, I assume.

Of course, anyone who gets caught with their hand in the cookie jar will pitch a fit and try to win points in the court of public opinion.

TL;DR – This is the best possible solution that doesn’t screw over most of the players. Exploiters will exploit, then whine if caught.

2012, the first post

2012, the first post.  Where in lies a reflection on predictions of the year that was: 2011.  And maybe some prognostication of the year that's just begun: 2012.

I kept the predictions light for 2011 and I'll tackle all five of them in one go:

1. World of Warcraft will maintain its dominance.

No doubt World of Warcraft is still top among MMOs, but to say its maintained its dominance is ignoring the fact that WoW took a significant hit this year and had to break out the pandas to keep people's interest.  In the larger genre of persistent online games, League of Legends has soundly trumped WoW's numbers with over 30 million active users and concurrent user numbers well beyond that of WoW.

2. Free 2 Play will continue its march forward and many will consider 2011 the year that F2P becomes the dominant business model not only for MMOGs, but for any online game (MOBA, FPS, etc.)

There is no doubt that Free 2 Play has landed with most major publishers having already published or considering to publish a F2P title(s).  2011 also marked the arrival of F2P on Steam; the premier digital distribution platform for games.  The subscription MMOs fell like flies to a flyswatter this year as several joined the F2P ranks and enjoyed immediate success.

3. "the game that shall not be named" will NOT launch this year.

OK, it squeaked into 2011, but just barely.

4. The "next generation" Xbox will be announced by Microsoft. Nintendo and Sony will stay with their current generation.

I was way off here.  Xbox 360 is marching strong and Playstation 3 is still playing third fiddle.  Nintendo, of all companies, is the one out front with news of their new Wii U console.

5. This blog will be completely different and may actually feature commentary and experiences from games I'm actually playing.

Proof: I posted about Fallout: New Vegas and I actually played that game!

Now onward and upward to my predictions for 2012 and beyond

1. The world will not end.  (just wanted to get that one out of the way)

2. I will post more than I did in 2011.  (just wanted to give ya'll something to look forward to)

3. "the game that shall not be named" will have a tough year, but will survive.  The argument to take the game Free 2 Play will begin around July.

4. Warhammer Online will be shut down this year.

5. DOTA2 will launch, but fail to make much more than a drip into the MOBA scene.

6. League of Legends will hit 50 million players and still be flying under the radar in the online gaming market

7. A major game will "surprise launch" this year with little to no notice and possibly be Free 2 Play

8. Indie games will continue to creep into the spotlight and we will see another Minecraft-level indie break out this year

9. At least 4 of these predictions will be right :)

FTFY: Steak anology for the game that shall not be named

Lifting this quote from Kill Ten Rats:

It’s like the difference between presenting a nicely cooked steak on a plate and one that has been sliced for the guest to show a nicely cooked interior.

And applying a little FTFY (fixed that for ya):

It’s like the difference between presenting a nicely cooked steak on a plate and one that has been sliced for the guest to show a nicely cooked interior.  It’s a steak either way, except one has let all the flavor run out.

The BIG Star Wars The Old Republic post



The Old Republic



Keen mentioned on his blog that no one in the authorized press seems to be taking a stand with the partial lifting of the NDA for Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Well Keen, let me step in here and muddy the waters.  Star Wars: The Old Republic will be the largest disaster in gaming history, but Bioware says I can’t talk about the details.

My original plan for this post was to take the official press impressions of the beta and review them. The whole "review the reviewers" and "read between the lines" type of criticism I like to get into. Unfortunately the hawks at Bioware were on my tweet to Keen in a heartbeat and to my astonishment, before looking into what I was actually going to post about, they informed me I wasn't allowed to talk. Of course I tweeted furiously that they have no say in whether I cover the press previews in a blog post.

In turn I was basically called a filthy NDA-breaking blogger who "didn't care". Sadly, I do care or well I did care.  Instead of getting into some petty "you're talking about the previews, but we know you're really talking about your beta testing" argument, I'm just not going to talk about the game. In fact, this is last post that will ever mention the title on this blog. It will be the Brett Favre of /r/nfl and henceforth be known as "the game that shall not be named".

As for my original, long-winded post about the game?  All you need to know is that the game is under tight NDA wraps with less than two months until launch.

Star Wars: The Old Republic Won't Require Origin

News today via a post on the Star Wars: The Old Republic forums that SW:ToR will NOT require Origin.

That's good news for anyone planning on playing the game.

That's bad news for EA that they can't even get their flagship title to promote their system, but at the end of the day maybe not losing sales is a better prospect.

That still means no SW:ToR on Steam (or any other digital distribution system other than Origin).

Wildstar More Interesting Than Star Wars: The Old Republic, both still have boring videos

Wildstar was announced at Gamescom this week. Today an eight minute gameplay video was released and IT WAS BORING. But don't let me make that decision for you, watch the video below.



I was brought this video by this post on Rock, Paper, Shotgun (RPS). The first comment fits directly in with my thoughts and even though Wildstar's footage was boring, it was not nearly as boring as the SW:ToR footage we saw from Gamescom.

RF says: 08/19/2011 at 17:20

Looks like a pretty traditional MMO with some next gen elements.
Like dodging.
And making bear men explode.

Yeah, I think I’ll be getting this. This game is what SW:TOR wants to be but is not.

To back up my thoughts, the one and only RPS regular, Jim Rossignol, chimed in the same idea.

Jim Rossignol says: 08/19/2011 at 17:28

I am more interested in this than SW:TOR.

Screenshot for context/posterity.

Bioware: This Video is BORING

Bioware needs to step up their game with Star Wars: The Old Republic.  The below video is the most recent propaganda from GamesCON and its absolutely boring.  Is this really the advertising they want for the game?  We saw a group of players run up to static groups of NPCs, STAND ABSOLUTELY STILL, while the healer healed, the DPS did damage, and the tank tanked. Epic combat?  Action?  Where the hell is it Bioware.  I fell asleep watching this video.

Shut up about EA/Origin

EDIT: Fixed picture as to not break my entire blog layout.

Star Wars Galaxies shutdown, thoughts on a troubled past

The writing is on the wall: Lucas Arts must close the Star Wars Galaxies (SWG) chapter of Star Wars MMOs. SWG is a black eye for the MMO community as a whole; wonderfully envisioned yet poorly managed by SOE and hamstrung by Lucas Arts. SWG will be shutdown as of Dec 15th, 2011. Anyone thinking this wasn’t inevitable hasn’t taken a look back on the history of Star Wars gaming. This is Lucasfilm’s (now Lucas Arts) calling card: out with the old and in with the new.

Let’s step back in time to 2001. Decipher, a card game company, has been running the Star Wars Customizable Card Game (SW:CCG) for the past six years. They are competing directly with the behemoth that is Magic: The Gathering (MtG). SW:CCG is consistently considered the second place card game on the market behind MtG. On occasion, SW:CCG is even outselling MtG. The future is bright with new Star Wars prequel movies in the theatres and a SW:CCG expansion pack sitting with the printers. Then suddenly word hits that Lucasfilm is looking to pull the plug on SW:CCG. After several negotiations, the Star Wars license is pulled from Decipher and the SW:CCG grinds to halt.

Many people not familiar with this story may assume that there was a valid reason for Lucasfilms (this is pre Lucas Arts days) to pull the license. It certainly couldn’t be because the game flopped: it was, after all, competing alongside MtG. While no solid answer was ever given for the whole debacle, it didn’t take long for the card gaming community to figure out the true motivations. Lucasfilms had gone and recruited Wizards of the Coast and MtG developer Richard Garfield to create a new Star Wars trading card game (SW:TCG). It was clear that Lucasfilms did not want a Star Wars game playing second fiddle and who better to fix that than the people behind the number one game!  Too bad for Lucasfilm, because the SW:TCG flopped and closed within a couple years.

Looking back to SWG and we can see the same pattern emerge. A new MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic (SW:TOR), is right around the corner and SWG is not even second fiddle in the MMO market. On top of not even being competitive in the market, SWG is a laughing stock ever since the disaster known as the New Game Experience (NGE). Lucas Arts wants all focus on SW:ToR and SWG’s license was up in 2012. SWG had to be closed.

To be honest though, I am simply amazed how long SWG remained alive. I was actually talking about SWG’s demise in 2006 and my post from March of that year is eerily relevant to the current events.

“I am not an expert on licensing, but I couldn't imagine Lucas Arts letting the Star Wars name be dragged through the mud by the national media much longer. Lucas Arts was a driving force behind the changes to make the game more "Star Warsy" and I doubt they are pleased with the results. So I will blame both SOE and Lucas Arts for the current state of the game. “

And then:

“What I do know is that a new Star Wars MMORPG would generate a ton of buzz. First of all there is SWG that has a few years under its belt that has taught us a lot about what the gaming and Star Wars communities want out of a game. We know that space flight and combat, action inspired game play, and Star Warsy"ness" are all required. We know there isn't people lining up to be Moisture Farmers. We also know there is plenty of wannabe Jedi in the galaxy.”

SW:ToR is exactly that: space flight and combat, action inspired game play, and Star Warsy"ness". Unfortunately back then I didn’t realize I was going to be on the other side of the fence, completely put off by what SW:ToR is shaping up to be.

The Star Wars fan inside of me died a little researching and writing this post. I truly wanted SWG to succeed and still hold it within my top MMOs of all time simply on wasted potential. I also want SW:ToR to surprise me and be a new dawn for Star Wars MMOs. Sadly, with Star Wars it doesn’t appear we can have two separate properties exist in the same market and we're forced to accept whichever one Lucas Arts determines to be the best.

*I apologize for the acronym soup.

The straw that broke the SW:ToR camel's back? No digital downloads outside EA.

EA has announced that Star Wars: The Old Republic will only be available for download via through EA itself via their new service Origin. No Steam or Direct2Drive.

...highly anticipated MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic will be sold as a direct download only through Electronic Arts itself. In an interview with CEO John Riccitiello, the Wall Street Journal uncovered news of EA's new service, one it's calling Origin. This service will provide customers with a download service for all EA games, including the Battlefield games, the Need For Speed games, and the aforementioned Star Wars: The Old Republic.

This, my friends, is a travesty. Not only has SW:ToR been underwhelming in all of the previews, but now they are expecting gamers to pick up yet another digital distribution platform to get the game via a direct download? What is wrong with Steam? Steam has a massive catalog of other EA games, including MMOs such as Warhammer Online.

I didn't buy into Starcraft 2 because it was on the new Battle.net.  I've sworn off buying any Games for Windows Live games (that aren't on dirt cheap sales via Steam).  I've pretty much decided that if a game isn't on Steam, I'm probably not buying it (Minecraft being the sole exception).

I seriously hope this does not include Battlefield 3.  BFBC2 was a huge success on Steam.

Sexy Star Wars:The Old Republic (SW:ToR) Character Sheet

Found this sexy image while surfing around the net tonight. It shows off the character sheet from a Trooper in Star Wars: The Old Republic. And no, this is not a beta leak. It's a picture taken at PAX East.

And I'm not quite sure what to make of all of it. I'm curious about a few things.

What is valor? What is social? I'm guessing both tie into story elements and how "adequate" your character is within a conversation.

There is a good/bad meter on the left-hand side. However, I certainly hope by "level 32" that the bar will have moved significantly one way or another and that the true neutral play style will be truly difficult (lol, true, truly!).

Lastly, I'm curious about the four "star" blocks on the lower right. Mystery!

Oh and the UI actually looks pretty, unlike the combat we've seen from the game.

In The Year 2011, Heartless' Predictions

Read up on my 2010 predictions here.  Keep reading for 2011!

1. World of Warcraft will maintain its dominance.

2. Free 2 Play will continue its march forward and many will consider 2011 the year that F2P becomes the dominant business model not only for MMOGs, but for any online game (MOBA, FPS, etc.)

3. Star Wars: The Old Republic will NOT launch this year.

4. The "next generation" Xbox will be announced by Microsoft. Nintendo and Sony will stay with their current generation.

5. This blog will be completely different and may actually feature commentary and experiences from games I'm actually playing.

Bioware please tell me you are not serious; another SW:ToR video

Another day, another Star Wars: The Old Republic video:



Each new video that we get seems to be a 50/50 split of awesome and total crap. This video is no different. The dialogue is good. The characters look awesome (maybe a bit too spiky, but I can deal with that). However, the combat is so fucking terrible that I seriously hope its a joke from Bioware and that they are going to reveal a new combat system video at some point.

Not only is the combat terrible in this video (as it is in all videos for SW:ToR), but I have a couple other points to hit up:

1. When they reveal "the dungeon", we can see a bunch of static groups of enemies standing still waiting to be pulled. In other MMOs, this would be called "trash pulls". I would have no problem with this if Bioware wasn't trying to sell this as "epic" and "exciting" combat. I can't remember the last time I was excited by sitting in a dungeon pulling group after group of enemies.

2. The obvious "go here, do this, get X prize" quest structure. With all the talent and money Bioware is putting into this, I was hoping they were going to come up with something a little more interesting. I don't think we've seen a single quest or event video for SW:ToR that didn't have the same stale quest structure.

I was willing to give Bioware some credit due to their past games, but my patience has eroded.  I'm going to start getting very angry about SW:ToR unless Bioware gets their act together and either admits their combat isn't as exciting and epic as they label it or starts showing me how exciting and epic it can be.

Star Wars: The Old Republic: More than a Music Video

Watch the video first:



So, that was a video about the music of Star Wars:The Old Republic right? Sure, but we also learned some other bits of information from the in-game video that was included.  First off, let me just say that the musical score is going to be great, but that's expected when it comes to Star Wars. IMHO, there wasn't even a need to add new music; that is how great the music of Star Wars is.

Is that Hoth that I spied in the video?

Also there are clips throughout the entire video showing various vehicles and "mounts" sitting idle. Towards the end of the video, we get a glimpse at a character riding off into the sunset on a speeder bike. This means we will most likely see "mounts" and possibly other ground-based vehicles in the game.

Plus there are glimpses of spaceships everywhere, which we know are confirmed to be part of the game and should be getting details on in August when the next PC Gamer magazine hits newsstands.

And there is definitely one thing this video confirms: the combat still looks fucking terrible.

Part II : Star Wars: The Old Republic beta leaks

Apparently some people are angry that I posted a link to some supposed beta leaks for Star Wars: The Old Republic (SW:ToR).  Generally I agree that linking to beta leaks is poor form, but I felt the "ask me anything about the beta" post on Reddit was laid out well and free of the general "OMGz I'm in the beta and you arz not!!!" style that makes beta leakers so annoying.  Eventually we learned that the supposed beta leaker was not in fact a beta tester and was simply answering questions with information available elsewhere.

So, lets do a quick run down of what we learned from the "not really beta leaks" posting.

• Individual story areas are instanced and vary based on your character's own story.  Areas for your story are designated by green energy fields, while areas not involving your story are marked by red energy fields.
• We already knew this from playtests at E3.
• Combat is based on fighting multiple enemies at once instead of one vs one fights.
• We already knew this from playtests at E3.
• The cover system works well and is central to combat for some classes.
• We've known this since the first video about the cover system was released.
• Enemy NPCs follow your character as they run through an area.  Some aggro at a distance while others have a buffer zone where they simply watch your character; get too close and then they attack.
• Pretty much the standard behavior for NPCs in RPGs; MMO or not.
• There is no PvP, spaceships, or space in the beta yet.
• We already knew they weren't revealing their PvP aspects yet and have announced little to nothing in regards to space/spaceships.

In conclusion, we learned nothing.  Some fans who haven't been keeping up with the game may have found a few gems (like the red or green energy fields), but overall it is obvious to me the beta leaks were not from a beta tester.  I'll let you know when the real beta leaks start and we get to see something amazing like space flight or a combat system that doesn't suck.

Star Wars: The Old Republic beta leaks

And the original post has been removed.

Update: 10 July, 2010 - Adding to the drama, apparently the beta leaker was NOT actually a beta tester and was just making it all up; summed up nicely by this picture from a Reddit moderator:

With that out of the way, does that mean we can repost what was said in the thread? It's not truly beta leaks and for the most part was really just covering what we already knew (ableit explained a bit better).

Update: 11 July, 2010 - Part II of my beta leaking has been posted.

Counting the lies: Star Wars: The Old Republic "Hope" Trailer

The newest video trailer has been released for Star Wars: The Old Republic. Watch it below.



Having watched it, let me point out the ways in which it lies to us.

1. Force users (Jedi and Sith) will NOT be as dominate over non-Force users as they are in the video.
2. There will NOT be deformable or destructible terrain in the game.
3. Armor will NOT be destroyed during combat (no item durability).
4. Combat will NOT be like the circus act that we see in the video.
5. Combat will NOT feature Matrix-like slow motion.
6. In fact, from what we've seen gameplay-wise, combat will be NOTHING like the trailers.
7. Bounty Hunters will NOT be able to "fly" using their jetpacks as featured in the video.
8. Lightsabers will NOT be blockable.
9. Players will NOT be little clones of each other, running around all wearing the same armor. There WILL BE a naked Sith or Jedi somewhere asking someone to touch their lightsaber.

In The Year 2010, Heartless' Predictions

Its nearly 2010 and without further hesitation, here are my predictions:

1. Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning will be sold or shut down by EA.

2. Star Wars: The Old Republic will NOT launch this year.

3. Already launched MMOGs, not named World of Warcraft, will have a rough year.

4. Newer, quality F2P games will storm the market and one will challenge WoW for the mainstream playerbase.

5. WoW will remain the king cash cow as the subscription model continues its dominance.


6. Digital distribution will start being taken seriously by market analysts as Steam proves the platform's power on the PC market.

7. Digital distribution will quietly replace boxed sales completely for PC games.

BONUS REAL LIFE PREDICTION: A political uprising will shock the world and the mainstream media will only find out about it after checking their Twitter accounts.  Three days later, they will realize it was simply a mis-spelled #hashtag and re-purposed Youtube videos.