Now playing EVE Online

I decided to finally take the plunge and journey into the game every MMORPG blogger seems to be enjoying: EVE Online.

So far; so good. I am about done with the tutorial and found it to be very helpful. It is actually the first tutorial that has ever explained to me the chat features in game. The newbie chat channels are full and its great to get help when needed.

The new player guide is also helping me with skill training which is one of EVE Online's mysteries to me still. Slowly, but surely, I am learning the ins and outs of the system.

Thanks to Ethic at Kill Ten Rats blog for the hook up on a few links to character creation guides. No gimp rolling here!

My name in game is Column (Heartless was taken) and you can EVE mail me if you would like.

Everquest 2 : Trial of the Isle - Fighter and Scout

Everquest 2 is a beautiful game graphically if your computer can handle it. I am fortunate enough to have recently upgraded to a top end rig that can handle the highest settings possible in EQ2. Yes you heard that right; I run EQ2 at Extreme Quality. The game runs perfectly for me and the initial tutorial on the ship at sea is quite impressive.

Still some animations seem to stutter and monsters seem to skip (especially the first set of goblins you are tasked to kill) across the land if they are moving fast. This is something I experienced the last time I played the game and it doesn't detract from the game overall. I've eliminated it being a graphics related slow down because it happens even on lower graphics settings.

I had previously claimed that EQ2 avatars are equivalent to barbie dolls. This still holds true and is highlighted by most of the elf and human related races. I don't know what they were thinking on some of the more human races, but there is so many hair sets that look like shiny plastic!

However, I will admit that some of the more exoctic races look surprisngly good. Also the Erudite with their darker skin tones and Glpyhs look very good. The plastic feel doesn't really come off on these exotic races I guess because of the darker skin tones and more colorful skin patterns.

Fighter - My first character to play was an Erudite fighter. I wanted to start out with a strong and straight forward class. Fighters are exactly that. The first noticeable improvement I found was the run speed was significantly increased on all classes. So much so that I actually think it is too fast, but that is easily forgiven when you are getting from point A to point B in reasonable time periods.

The fighter is definitely dominant on the starter island. There was literally nothing that challenged me that much. I could swath through pairs of equally challenging opponents with little fear of death. My only death came from an unfortunate invisible goblin patrol that hid underneath a bridge.

The basic fighter Heroic Opportunity doesn't look like a fighter attack you would find in most MMORPGs, but it was still very pleasing to the eye. After a bit of trial and error I mastered the actions required to perform it which made me feel good. The only downside I found though was that the HO wasn't much better than just performing my base attacks and often times the monsters died before I had the chance to complete the HO. I assume this is because of the fact these are newbie monsters.

Scout - I chose Wood Elf for my scout because I wanted to see if the plastic hairstyles could be lost in game against the background graphics. Unfortunately they look like plastic in game just like at the character creation screen.

Knowing the layout of the isle better I was able to smoke through the quest lines and to my surprise they were different than the fighter quests. A definite plus. Aiding me in the travel is the pathfinding skill for scouts. It is only an increase of 16%, but it made me feel like I was flying through the isle. I didn't time it, but it didn't seem to take more than a minute to run from end to end of the island.

Scouts also get stealth which really doesn't slow you down that much. I felt like a stealthed bomb waiting to go off as most of my ambush attacks took out most lower level opponents and some equal level enemies in a single shot. Unfortunately this means that completing my scout HO was almost impossible.

I quit after discovering the main cave on the island because no one was around to group for the final encounter. Sad, but I understand that there isn't many newbies around to play with during the daytime hours.

Next up is the priest and mage if I feel like it. While not wow'd off my feet I was amused with the game. I doubt I could get over the seemingly "off" flow of combat and the skippy movement to play further. Yet, I would still highly recommend playing at least the Trial of the Isle as it is free!

New World of Warcraft Alliance race!

Click here for all the details on World of Warcrafts new Alliance race for the Burning Crusade expansion!

Strike at Karkand, a lesson in how to not build a Battlefield 2 map

Lesson 1: Do not start both sides within sprinting distance of each other. This rewards only those players that can load in the fastest on the first round and have the first flag capped before the majority of gamers even think about moving.

Also it is prime real estate for a campfest by tanks and APCs. No one likes dieing the second they spawn because there is ZERO cover to take against a set of camping tanks and APCs.

Pushing the bases farther apart would allow for teams to set up defenses and actually be prepared for an assault before the battle is already lost. Engineers could provide a crucial role on this map, but unfortunately by the time they could get in place to set AT mines the tank and APCs are already camping the spawns.

Lesson 2: In Battlefield 2 openess is key. You can't artificially impose boundaries with non-combat areas to bottleneck the action. I could understand if the south-east corner of the map was mountains, but it is not! It is wide open and should of been left open to prevent the bottleneck that occurs currently.

Boats and other items would of made that area a key part of the map. The MEC would have to defend both their back bases and their forward bases instead of just watching the bottleneck slaughter that occurs at the forward bases.

Lesson 3: Providing tons of buildings with no interiors to hide in is a mistake. Once again the camping issue. Tanks and APCs can have field days in the alley ways as infantry have no place to run. There is also ZERO space for infantry to surprise tanks or APCs to take them out.

Lesson 4: Maximizing fast combat situations does not make the game fun. It just promotes the whoring aspect of an already flawed ranking system. Its sad that you don't have to leave the forward spawn points to get the Gold Medal. Actually those people that actually try to cap spawn points for a win usually wind up with the fewest points. The points are whored within the forward most spawn point in the mid of the rush.

Lesson 5: Don't build in a strategic bridge over a river if you are going to just allow vehicles to drive down river 10 feet to cross without a bridge. These are the type of choke points that should be in game. That way armor whores have to get out of their vehicles and fight or fix the bridge to cross.

A Final Note: Many players play Strike at Karkand with the sole excuse that they just hate air power. These players need to get Special Forces and play on maps that are built 100% around infantry combat. Most Special Forces maps are a joy to play on and are wide open from end to end. Strike at Karkand is poorly designed and is nothing more than an excuse to whore points.

This post came out of anger because I'm sick of the map. I don't play it any longer except for a game here and there. I hate the fact that its the most overplayed map in game and that without it you can't compete for rank sufficiently. Ranks are artificially harder to achieve because of the score inflation this single map causes.

You're right and I should play the game for fun, but I like to watch my stats. Fortunately I can somewhat compete playing on the other maps and I enjoy my time. EA has done a better job with each patch to make it so you can score more points on other maps than just Strike at Karkand. Hopefully EA gets a clue and rebuilds Karkand with a more open battlefield.

I'm installing Everquest 2 : Trial of the Isle

I am going to go against my better judgment and install Everquest 2 : Trial of the Isle. Actually, I am almost done installing it. Now, some may ask, how could I go do such a thing being the SOE hater that I am? For starters, I'm bored and need an MMORPG fix. Plus, EQ2 seems to be a better option currently than resubscribing to World of Warcraft. Also I would like to see EQ2, settings pumped up, on my new system. This should show the game off; compared to slideshow when I played it on my older PC.

I doubt EQ2 will turn into a subscription for me, but I figured its worth it to try the game as it is now before it goes through its major class changes. Then, I can return after the changes with a bit of perspective, and see if its something that has enhanced the newbie experience.

Update: 30 April, 2009 - Edited post and applied labels.

Dungeons and Dragons Online gets a D

Update: 30 Jan, 06, restructured some parts of this post.

So the preview event for Dungeons and Dragons Online (DDO) has come and gone and I finally got to play the game that I've already started ranting about. It’s hard to approach the game objectively when I've already decided the game was missing an aspect that is key to pen and paper Dungeons and Dragons; the Dungeon Master. Regardless of my reservations about the game I had to try it.

Holding Hands

If you were a new player coming into a MMORPG how would you want to be introduced to the character building process? Would you want it to be fairly straight forward allowing you to get into the game and explore OR would you want to wish you had spent a little bit longer buried deep inside your D&D rule books?

DDO starts you off in a small un-guided cluster of a mess. For MMORPG veterans it may be intuitive to click on the nearest NPC as you enter the game, but for a newbie the hand holding approach needs to be used. Also it is very nice as a veteran when a new game takes my hand and guides me in my baby steps.

Guided steps are another key to introducing the player to the game. Turbine's idea of combat orientation is giving you one of four doors to choose from IF you actually figure out that they exist! The four doors are off to the side and had I not just out of curiously investigated them would have never discovered them. Each one offers a different combat training experience because I guess it was too hard to teach you about ALL your avatar's abilities at once.

Once you are familiar with what you are doing it is not hard to find your first quest and set off. The beginning quests are simple and actually do serve as a good stepping stone into the game. It just stands to reason that the combat training would have been much more fully integrated into the quests.

The minor victory that is achieved after completing the newbie area is quickly lost as you hit the same unguided wall when you finally reach the only city in DDO; Stormreach. I found myself just as lost and unguided as the newbie area. Hopefully by this time you have figured out to look for the big yellow swirl symbols that mark the entrance to a dungeon instance. They are equivalent to graffiti in any major city. Luckily you can click on a dungeon entrance and be directed to the NPC that hands out the pre-requisite quest required to enter. Its up to you how to actually get started in that quest line.

Combat isn't for Wimps

The combat of DDO is not for wimps. It also apparently is not for the standard MMORPG player because it’s radically different. Radically may be too strong a word. The trinity still exists: heal, tank, and damage.

The radical comes from the controls for combat. Auto attack is all but removed. Every click is an attack, a swing of the weapon, a block, or any number of various skills. Combat is real time and it is very hack’n’slash inspired.

Sadly this left me with soar wrists and fingers after only a couple hours of play. Sometimes I just wished I didn’t have to click a dozen more times to hit my target. I don’t really understand why the clicking gave me soar wrists or pain in my fingers because after all I play FPS games for extended periods of time with no problems. I think it came from having to constantly have a key depressed to keep the camera in a decent position.

It is just poor design to have an action inspired control scheme that requires you to control the camera. In the end the combat does not feel like a true representation of D&D. Don’t ask me how to fix it because I don’t know.

Crazy People Repeat Themselves

There is a Dungeon Master present in every quest instance you adventure into. It is the same computer controlled DM that you will meet in every single adventure. It does not change. It does not adapt to play styles. It does not feel like a real DM.

On top of not being real there is a huge immersion breaker when the DM repeats every action you take. I know that the rusty metal gate just clanked open because I saw it with my own two eyes and just so happened to have pulled the lever to make it do so! I know the chest just opened because I opened it! I know the ladder just broke because I was climbing it when it happened!

The idea works in some areas. At first the booming voice of the DM was very welcome and added to the experience. The enjoyment was short lived when I realized every action I took in my adventure was going to be narrated back.

With a little time and effort this system could have been much more effective. The system shines when it accurately notifies party members of an impending trap or situation that their skill checks passed. This makes every party member have to pay attention because the clues given by the computer DM don't go to every person in your group. This is good. Repeating my actions is not.

Warforged

Warforged are in DDO because of Turbine's decision to host the game in Wizard of the Coast's new world of Eberron. Warforged are a significant element of Eberron and that has pretty much sealed their fate to exist in DDO.

Remember playing the game "One of these things is not like the others?" when you were a child? Well then you will have a similar experience when you get to the race selection screen of DDO. The Warforged neither fit in appearance or in MMO familiarity. They are large. They look funny. And most of all they are not a race players can identify with at all. Dwarves, Elves, Humans, and Halflings are all Fantasy 101.

I kept finding myself pulled out of the immersion because of a lumbering hulk of a Warforged standing around. D&D always has relied on openness and allowing players to be anything they want to be. The problem I find is that DDO does not have this openess and therefore having one unique race really hurts the game. Now if many other races could have been included we may have a more diverse selection to fit Warforged into. Unfortunately the selection is small and the Warforged stick out like a sore thumb.

In the End

The game got a passing grade from the D&D creator himself, Gary Gygax. Still this doesn't sell the game to me. The lack of a real DM was a main detractor before I even played the game and after playing the game I am 100% confirmed in my prediction.

Lacking and uninspired combat just adds onto the laundry list of things that don’t translate between D&D and MMORPG. DDO doesn’t deserve the D&D in its title. Don’t get me wrong. The game is set in a D&D setting, but the rules are much maligned and overall poorly implemented into Turbine’s vision.

Vote with your wallet and vote no for DDO. I give Dungeons and Dragons Online a resounding grade of D (no pun intended).

How does Jack Thompson get away with it?

Go here and read this. It details the suicide of a gamer nicknamed Kuja105. Not only did his online community try to save him, but they went to an exhausting length to do so. In the end it was not to be and Kuja105 is no longer with us.

But the tragedy of the story? During a time when communities and families are still grieving and trying to understand a death of one of their own out comes Jack Thompson to prey on the situation.

"Your 'gamer friend' will find peace through the Lord, Jesus Christ, but sadly it's too late for that.

There is a void in every heart. You can fill it up with the things of God, or the things not of God. This unfortunate soul chose to fill it up with combat games. The playing of these video games is masturbatory activity, meaning senseless self-stimulation. If you gamers could use a dictionary you would know that that term is not necessarily a sexual one.

The real tragedy here extends beyond the life and death of this one fellow. There are literally millions of young people and young adults whose despair is deepened by turning to the things of this world and then finding them meaningless.

All of you gamers need to put down the controllers and get a life. The utter inanity of the vast majority of postings here shows how vapid "gaming" really is.

You are one of the cheerleaders for this wasting of time and the wasting of lives. Do you feel any remorse for having contributed to this "culture of death?" Of course not. Hey, let's all play MORE games, and ignore all the really productive things to do with our lives.

Let's pretend to be shocked that a gamer might descend into deeper depression, as his gamer "buds," knowing he was killing himself, couldn't figure out how to call 911 themselves for him. That would have involved leaving their computers I guess.

Sad. Sad for all of you." - Jack Thompson

Now how the fuck can Jack Thompson get away with such things? I just don't understand this. He can throw a law suit down because he was called a name over the Internet, but feels he can turn around and berate a community of millions without repercussion?

Jack Thompson needs a wake up call. These communities need to rally behind this tragedy and Jack Thompson needs to be barred as a lawyer and never allowed to practice again. I am not a lawyer and don't even know if that is possible, but this is something that must be done.

If a Pepsi drinker commits suicide in the same situation does Jack Thompson e-mail Pepsi and tell them they are all children of the devil and that drinking Pepsi is causing our youth to commit suicide? No, he doesn't, and Pepsi (HFCS in general) is responsible for more youth deaths than any video game ever will be.

Tips for Battlefield 2 : Special Forces

I'm writing this tips for Battlefield 2 : Special Forces for all the knuckle heads out there that are still trying to play Special Forces as though it was regular BF2. Special Forces is not and will never be like regular BF2 and therefore you need to adjust your current way of thinking.

1. Squads! Squads! Squads! Joining a squad is key to success in any Special Forces game. Special Forces is grounded in the work of squads! This is a good tip for regular BF2, but is magnified 10x in the Special Forces expansion.

1a. While in a squad spawn on the squad leader! Most of the time they are setting up for a flag cap and its easier to sneak one person in than 5. Spawn and cap... makes for a great surprise.

1b. A squads success relies heavily on its combination of classes. A good rule of thumb is to always have a medic and two anti tanks. Anti tanks are always needed... a single tank will always win a stand off against a squad that has no AT. Even if you have Spec Ops you need to assume you will not have the jump on a tank. Resupply doesn't hurt, but you also need to have some decent firepower and until EA fixes the supply weapons accuracy they are not more important than a Spec Ops or Assault.

2. They added grapling hooks, zip lines, gas, and flash bangs in for a reason!

2a. Grappling hooks and zip-lines. The Special Forces maps are full of buildings and obstacles that can be bypassed. This makes it harder to defend flags, but in the end it makes the game 100% better because there isn't finite choke points to bottleneck at.

If you see your squad leader tossing up a rope be kind enough to follow. Chances are he is looking to get high to a) clear out any enemies below and b) get high enough for a zip line into the flag.

2b. Zip lines. As with grappling hooks they are keys to Special Forces. I guarantee a good squad will always be zipping into flags and you would be very amazed at how quickly the flags get capped. The key to the zip line is to deploy it and use it right away. If you hesitate at all you're never going to make it down.

2c. Flash bangs and gas. These two items can allow a squad to go into a packed spawn and remove every target before they have a chance to react. Employ with a zip-line and you can zip line into a flag covered by gas.

Flash bangs are useful, but don't get happy with them. They are tricky to throw and usually the effect is not enough to throw someones aim off that much.

Update: 29 Nov, 2009 - Edited post, corrected spelling, and applied labels.

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.