News Roundup: SWG Server Closures, 5M Confused Free Realmers, and The MMO Prophet

Unbeknown to everyone, Star Wars Galaxies still had 25 servers running. However, they've decided to close 12 servers:

Sony Online Entertainment has announced and notified Star Wars Galaxies players that the game will be shutting down 12 servers on October 15th. The effected servers are:

* Corbantis
* Europe-Infinity
* Intrepid
* Kauri
* Kettemoor
* Lowca
* Naritus
* Scylla
* Tarquinas
* Tempest
* Valcyn
* Wanderhome

I hate server closures, but secretly love them when they are done for the right reasons. SWG needed to close servers because the playerbase was getting spread too far apart. The consolidated servers will provide a much better player density.

This presents a unique challenge, as SWG allows players to own property. I would hate to be the guy that loses prime real estate right outside of Mos Eisley on Tatooine, but at the same time, I would welcome the potential new business when I find a new plot of land to settle on a more populated server!

Following suit with more SOE-related news: Free Realms *almost* hits 5 million players.

Sony Online Entertainment's free-to-play MMO Free Realms is 'close to' 5 million registered users, revealed Sony Online president John Smedley, speaking in a Gamasutra-attended panel at Comic-Con International San Diego 2009,

We still don't have any revenue figures, and as Facebook and Twitter have taught the Web 2.0 world, big user bases tend to cost A LOT of money and are not necessarily equatable to profits.

I played Free Realms and it was fun for a few days. It wore off quickly and once stripped down, there is nothing in Free Realms for me. Which is apparent, as SOE also announced that 75% of Free Realms players are under 18 years of age and a lot of them can't remember what year they were born or whether the lack of a twig'n'berries between their legs meant M or F:

Additionally, Smedley updated some of the game's demographics, stating 67 percent of players are male and 33 percent are female. "We were shooting for more females, but that's way better than the MMO audience which is [typically only] 15 percent female," says Smedley. He added that Free Realms stats show females outpurchase males by a 30-40 percent margin, and that 51 percent of Free Realms gamers are under 13, with around 75 percent under 18.

At launch, 40 percent of players were hitting Free Realms' registration website, and walking away. SOE found out that the average 10-year-old kid was getting hung up at the birth date field -- kids knew the day and month of their birth, but not the year. And they weren't filling out the "gender" field.

Snark aside, grats to SOE on Free Realms, we need more successes in the MMOG market.

Lastly, Tobold (the MMO Prophet) predicted World of Warcraft: Cataclysm:

Reader Luka is going through my archives from 2003 to now, and sent me a comment about one of my posts I had long forgotten about. It is from October 16, 2008, with comments on WoW patch 3.0 and ends with this paragraph:

MMORPGs are multiplayer games, and much of their attraction comes from the interaction with other players. As the players moved on, a huge part of World of Warcraft just ceased to exist. What is left behind is just an empty stage, and faint memories of the plays that were enacted on that stage. To populate that part of the world again, we'd need a completely different type of expansion: Not 10 more levels added to the endgame, but a cataclysm striking the old world, and changing it. New classes, maybe even new races, and most of the quests and zones of old Azeroth being changed to breathe new life into them. I wonder if we'll ever get such an expansion.

Another Free UT3 Black Weekend

Epic and Steam are at it again, offering a free weekend of play for Unreal Tournament 3 Black.

Play Unreal Tournament 3 FREE this weekend! Visit the UT3 game page to start pre-loading and be ready to play as soon as it starts Thursday at 1:00PM PDT (8:00PM GMT).

For anyone interested, start the pre-load now, its a fairly large download.

DDO: My 28 pt, Newbie Class Build Choices!

I have decided on two Class Builds I want to try in DDO. I've pulled both from this great thread on the DDO forums. In the end, I didn't want to be tied down to a melee character. I wanted some flavor and decided I will play two toons: one melee and one spellcaster. I decided to avoid multi-classing and stuck with two pure builds.

Melee: The Backstab Fighter (Halfling Fighter)

Backstab Fighter
Level 20 Chaotic Good Halfling Male
(20 Fighter)
Hit Points: 322
Spell Points: 0
BAB: 20\20\25\30\30
Fortitude: 16
Reflex: 16
Will: 11

Starting Base Stats
Abilities (Level 1)
=======================
Strength 16
Dexterity 16
Constitution 14
Intelligence 8
Wisdom 8
Charisma 8

Spellcaster: The Generalist (Human Sorcerer)

Generalist
Level 16 True Neutral Human Male
(16 Sorcerer)
Hit Points: 170
Spell Points: 1610
BAB: 8\8\13
Fortitude: 8
Reflex: 4
Will: 9

Starting Base Stats
Abilities (Level 1)
=======================
Strength 10
Dexterity 8
Constitution 16
Intelligence 8
Wisdom 8
Charisma 18

Now all I need to do is figure out a unique name that is NOT taken already! All of my standbys are taken. Damn newbs!

DDO: Class recommendation for a new player?

With the discussion around DDO character builds still swirling, I figured I would ask for input from the general audience about what character I should play? I don't want to waste any time messing with building one myself, so I am sort of looking for a complete 28-point build.

I am a D&D veteran and can understand most of the slang. My current preference in play-style hovers more towards melee classes. I don't need to be top DPS, but DPS is still important. I'd rather have more utility than just outputting DPS. I would like to try avoid Cleric builds, but I am open to anything currently.

Comment away!

Dungeons and Dragons Online's Pay Wall: 32 Point Builds

Update: Here are the new-player builds, which are attainable with 28 base stat points.

A character planner tool is available here.

Read below for my bitching:

I have been playing the Free-to-Play (F2P) version of Dungeons and Dragons online for an hour this morning and I've come across a potential deal breaker: 32 point builds. As with any game I venture into, I look for guides and general information on the forums.

For DDO, I came across a great Character Builds forum, but could not figure out HOW to make any of the builds actually listed. All of them included four extra stat points that I did not seem to have access to in the character creator.

Long story short, players have to play with a throw away character, grind to 1750 Favor, and then re-roll a character that then gets 32 (instead of 28) base stat points to allocate. At first, I thought this was a limitation of the F2P model, but I quickly found out its a "feature". Yes, there is a "feature" in DDO that makes a player's first character something they will have to stop playing in order to re-roll a character with sufficient end-game stat points.

To add insult to this injury, Turbine's potential solution is to add the 32 points as a purchasable item in their cash shop.

At this time you still have to earn enough favor to unlock a 32 point build, however we are definitely discussing adding them in the store in the future.

Looking at the forums, this would be a huge hit with players. However, this absolutely disgusts me. Buying races and classes is fine, but paying for what SHOULD BE basic class building features is a game-killer.

However, the wound wasn't deep enough as Turbine pours salt in by forcing players to buy adventure packs to unlock enough quests which will allow a player to achieve enough favor to get the 32 base stat points. Guess what, DDO has a pay wall.

This may be a day one deal breaker for me. I don't want to waste my time on a character that is instantly perceived as weaker than the other players around him. I don't care what the counter-argument is. Bob gets 32. I get 28. That's four points I'm not getting for a character I am going to have to stop using once I've unlocked the next four points.

With all of this said, maybe I am over-reacting, as I've not invested enough time into figuring out the system and what is involved. There is still a bad taste in my mouth and I'm wasting time researching instead of playing.

Here's a tip for Turbine: F2P games fail because they become too fucking confusing.

Steal of a Deal: BioWare offers Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic for $10 (Steam or Direct2Drive)

Great scoop over at Massively:

BioWare announced at PAX 2009 that they're handing out $10 doses of nostalgia by offering KOTOR downloads for PC through both Direct2Drive and Steam.

Getting back to the MMO angle, there's another 25% off of that for Star Wars: The Old Republic community members who download the game from Direct2Drive.

I'm already downloading.

The Great GAME Purge of 2009

Ardwulf purged the MMOs installed on his PC:

That time has come again, to free my overloaded hard drive of games (MMO and otherwise) and software that I’m not playing, and won’t be, for the foreseeable future.

Since I am no longer MMO-centric, I am going to list my GAME purge of 2009. As a bonus, hard drive space is super valuable to me currently as I am shooting a ton of high def video of little Heartless_.

Action Games

Battlefield Heroes: Staying. Its free-to-play and I've spent a few bucks to customize my heroes. Its easy to get into and offers casual FPS game play.

Team Fortress 2: Staying. Every time I think about removing this game, Valve releases an update that pulls me back in. Also, I still want a damn hat!

Left 4 Dead: Uninstalled. I haven't played in months and the friend I played with from work switched to a night shift and is never online when I am. It was a fun romp while it lasted. Also, as the game was downloaded via Steam, it is a simple 1-click reinstall.

Call of Duty 4: Reinstalled. I want to play through the single-player campaign again, and I have to admit that the CoD4:Modern Warfare 2 videos have me drooling for some CoD4 multi-player action.

Quake Live: Staying. Its contained in a browser plug-in and easy to jump into. I may suck at it, but its completely free and worth keeping around.

MMOGs

The Chronicles of Spellborn: Staying, but only if I can fix it crashing my PC. I purchased a new video card and now when I boot up TCoS, it BSODs my computer. If I can't fix this, I will have to remove the game. I don't want to, but TCoS is frozen in development, so no fixes are likely to come down the line. This is the only game that crashes with my new video card.

Runes of Magic: Uninstalled. Since the WoW Cataclysm announcements, I feel dirty playing RoM. For $15 a month, I could be having a much better experience in WoW. RoM is fun and well developed, but I have five years of WoW bias to fight every time I'm logged in. Plus, the PvP in RoM sucks.

Maple Story: Uninstalled. I said I was going to try the game that 90+ million people have tried, but outside of the card game I've lost interest. The iTCG is out of beta, so it now costs money and I doubt I'll be going back to it anytime soon.

Free Realms: Uninstalled. While some people are treating Free Realms as the next coming of Jesus, I see through its thinly veiled exterior. Its a bunch of mini-games in a world where players can interact with each other. All of the good stuff is locked behind the pay wall. I will only admit that it is well executed and offers a quality experience, but it is nothing special. Kongregate, I'm coming back.

Domain of Heroes: Bookmark deleted. Yes, I spent $10 on this lackluster game and then promptly stopped playing. It was after the $10 that I realized how hopeless the development of the game was. Changes were either slow or completely out of left field. It could be a great and fun game, but the balancing act required seems out of reach for the developers.

Dungeons and Dragons Online: Possible new install. I have to wait and see how the game reviews in its new free-to-play form. I never agreed with the fundamental design of DDO, but it could turn out to be a decent freebie that is worthy of a few hours.

Miscellaneous Games

The Path: Staying. I still haven't unlocked everything in this little gem of an indie-game. Plus, I think if I uninstall the game, strange things start happening in real life.

Metaplace: Staying. I don't know what to think of Metaplace. I don't believe it can be a gaming platform of any kind in its current state, but I'm curious to see where it goes. Plus, it takes up no room on my hard drive, so it makes the decision easier.

Favre, Magician, The Chronicles of Spellborn

I love character creation in MMOs. Even if the system (WoW) is very limiting or expansive (CoX), I love spending time making a character I get to watch for potentially hundreds of hours! I rolled a new toon, Favre the Magician, in The Chronicles of Spellborn and I wanted to show him off:


What about everyone else? Are you proud of your character creations or are you clicking as fast as possible to get to the game?

Dragon*Con FTW!

Dragon*Con is here! Dragon*Con is here! Dragon*Con is here! Dragon*Con is here!

And everyone I work with seems to be there, because its way too busy for a Friday around here.

Book Thoughts: The Name of the Wind

Title: The Name of the Wind
Author: Patrick Rothfuss
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: DAW Trade; Reprint edition (April 7, 2009)
Quick-Hit Thought: Quality writing, minus a few WTF moments.

I debated how to write this review. Should I review the book, or should I review the reviews of the book? To me, the more interesting option is to approach the reviews, as they influenced my decision to get the book. The reviews for The Name of the Wind are split; some people love it, some people hate it. For some, Patrick Rothfuss, is the next big name in Fantasy. To others, he is a self-centered arrogant jerk. Personally, I fall in the middle and have no opinion on the Mr. Rothfuss himself.

Looking at the reviews on Amazon, we get the following gem from Robin Hobb (an accomplished author himself):

It seems to me that every year there are more books I want to read and less time for me to read them. Because my time is limited, I'm guilty of picking up the books by my favorite authors first, and fitting in new authors only when it's convenient.
Due to a stroke of luck, I've had an advance copy of The Name of the Wind by my bedside for over six months, just waiting for me to open it. Unfortunately, deadlines of my own kept getting in the way. But in a way, it's lucky that I didn't crack this book until just a few days ago. If I'd had this tale to distract me, I'd have been even later getting my work done.

I loathe spoilers, so I'm not going to discuss the plot of this book. I will say it has all the things that I demand of a book. The characters are real, the action is convincing and it has a compelling story to tell.

One of the things I like best about this book is that the magic is absolutely rooted in the book's world. Nothing seems contrived; the consistency is excellent.

The characters are very well realized. That means that when the protagonist does something clever, it's believable. And when he does something youthfully dumb, it rings just as authentically true. Because the characters are real and the magic is true to its own world, I closed this book feeling as if I'd been on a journey with an entertaining new friend, rather than sitting alone looking at words on a page.
This one is well worth some of your precious reading time. I'll wager that the books to follow it will also be.

Robin Hobb

From the peanut gallery, we get:

Like so many here I was suckered into this. Before you buy this book, read all the reviews. Read the honest 1 and 2 star reviews, read the others. Do notice how many reviewers gush praise but don't actually discuss the book. Or how many of the reviews all sound alike? Mention of the main characters, three to five sentences, all proclaiming how this is the best thing ever. Are we really supposed to believe this over the top hype? The funniest, and I mean laugh out loud funny, is the recent review that proclaims "next biggest thing since Tolkien". Or how about the laughable "I hope to be witnessing history on par with Herbert, Tolkien, etc."

I'll admit I bought the book based on the above two reviews. One, because Robin Hobb is a trustworthy review source. Two, because I wanted to know why so many felt the book was overrated.

I tend to agree that the book is overrated. If I rated things in little stars, TNotW would be a 3/5. Its enjoyable and well written, but it lacks the consistency of better novels. The core story is great and I enjoyed the main character Kvothe throughout. What I didn't enjoy was senseless meandering to the side. Situations in which some pretty stupid shit happens; *SPOILER* as stupid as dragons getting high on drugs spurring our hero into action. */SPOILER*

The book is about a man telling another man his life's story. The book starts with the hardened adventurer settled down as a tavern owner, adventures almost long gone. A happy-go-lucky scribe stops by and asks for the hero's story. What ensues will take three books to tell, but this first book covers the entire first day of story telling.

This approach leads to an interesting look into the events that make up the main character's life. As anyone who talks too much about themselves, Kvothe tends to embellish his stories a little bit. Unfortunately, it is hard to tell whether Kvothe is intentionally embellishing them or whether Rothfuss just writes that way. Unfortunately, this spills over (as mentioned above in the spoiler) into some pretty WTF moments.

I would have enjoyed the book a lot more and laughed a bit less at the situations had Rothfuss cut about a hundred or so pages of side story and focused on Kvothe's main storyline at the University (and area around it) and chasing information about the Chadrian. I was really intrigued by the way Kvothe interacted with the Masters at the University and was a bit disappointed when he left to chase ghost stories. I didn't mind that he had left the University, but I was very displeased at the reasons Rothfuss chose to keep him away. At one point, I almost put the book down because I couldn't stop laughing at the situation the characters were in. Seriously, read the above spoiler and tell me it doesn't sound stupid.

I tend to rate things on a 0 to 1 scale. 0, no. 1, yes. In this case, TNotW is a 1, because it is worth reading and deciding if the second book is worthwhile to the reader.