Global Agenda: PvP

After some initial confusion on how to participate in Global Agenda's PvP missions, I finally got the chance to jump into some Mercenary Operations on my level 12 Assault character. I haven't given up on my Robotics character, but its a bit complicated to play correctly so I figured I would learn the game as the less-complicated Assault class.

I played through a few matches and did well (or at least I feel I did well). As I'm a "free agent" and have not paid for a Boost or Elite Agent status, I do not have a choice of match-type. I am forced into whatever match type is randomly selected for me.

Unfortunately, the game does not do a very good job of explaining what type of match the player is being placed into. The player has to know to look at the loading screen and map name to know what type of match they are entering. A smarter player may have read the Player Guide and Mission Types prior to playing the game and know what these names mean, but that's like trying to read a manual before putting your kid's Christmas presents together.

The first thing that surprised me about the PvP matches was that players of all levels are allowed in.  As a level 12 Assault, I was playing with and against level 20+ characters.  While I died plenty of times to what seemed like instant death shots, I never felt like I was completely outgunned.  My level 12 Assault was able to keep up pace just fine.

The confusion on match type and my newbness did lead me to miss the objective-based gameplay of the matches, so I focused mainly on killing the enemy.  My stats did the talking as I was able to place high in the charts for kills and damage.  I know this probably perturbs established players looking for wins/loot, but this is what happens when new players are sent to mingle with the veterans.  Also, the game is a semi first-person shooter, so it's not surprising some players (like me) will initially focus on shooting the enemy instead of chasing the objective.

I did have fun during the matches, but Global Agenda has a funny way of making me feel disappointed by pointing out that I am a Free 2 Play player and as I didn't pay I missed my chance to get prize X and Y. Oh and it points out all of the experience and currency I missed out on by not paying up.

While I certainly understand the necessity for a F2P game to make money and this is certainly a valid way to do so, I can't help that it feels like a repeated slap to the face. But whats funny is that just a few years ago while playing World of Warcraft if I had been presented with a screen at the end of a dungeon that said "Pay $5 now and you can get this EPIC item" I would have probably ponied up the dough. However, Global Agenda is no WoW and in the F2P era we are entering, loot doesn't hold much water with me when it comes down to just dishing out a credit card number.

Overall I still enjoy Global Agenda, but I'm realizing that there really isn't much that is going to hold me long term. There is certainly nothing I feel compels me to spend any money on the game. I am doing just fine as a Free Agent.

You can keep up with my screenshots from Global Agenda via my Steam profile.

Free 2 Play World of Warcraft

...until level 20 that is.  Meet World of Warcraft: Starter Edition which will let players play the first 20 levels of the game for free.  Rock, Paper, Shotgun has some more details:

"They’re calling it the World Of Warcraft Starter Edition, and it’s still limited by other trial aspects, such as not being able to use the auction house, and suffers a few other caps such as a limit of 10 gold. If trialees get to level 20 and want to open up their game and keep playing then it’s possible to to purchase the Burning Crusade for $20 and subscribe for the normal amount. The Burning Crusade has also now been unlocked for free for anyone who owned the original game."

Question now is: is this Blizzard feeling pressure from the F2P revolution or Blizzard just trying to hook more subscriptions on an aging game? Only time will tell.

EDIT: Oops, said it was the first 25 levels when in fact its only the first 20.

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.

Global Agenda: Day 1, Day One, Day Juan, Intro and beyond

I've decided to break my MMO drought with Global Agenda: Free Agent because it has jetpacks and guns instead of wings and swords.  Which is ironic considering I've taken a break from Fantasy in my reading schedule in favor of Sci-Fi titles such as Snow Crash and Daemon.  The only Fantasy in my life is The Witcher, a single-player RPG, and Terraria, a whatever you want to call it RPG/Minecraft thingy game.  To my surprise, Global Agenda is a refreshing change of pace.

I started the game last night with the Robotics class which is a pet class that has drones and turrets as it's main feature.  As a long time Team Fortress 2 Engineer player, I am intimately familiar with deploy-able turrets and I immediately fell in line with my Robotics character.  Sadly, it took me a few levels to realize that I could boost my turret's effectiveness with a repair tool that was attached to my shoulder.  Once I had the basics down, I was rollin' in style.

I played through several newbie quests in one of the open-ended areas.  Global Agenda is actually just a series of instances, not a true persistent world ala World of Warcraft.  These quests were simple go there, kill X, get reward style.  I ran accross a couple other players, but didn't really interact with them.  This is not unsurprising.  There hasn't been an MMO since Ultima Online where I truly felt like I was meant to interact with other players initially.  All that social stuff is meant for the "end game" anyways.  Right?

After the solo quests, I was lead to a "mission terminal" (which I later discovered I could just access at anytime from anywhere).  I was able to jump into some randomly formed low level, randomly generated missions.  I was often the lowest level in the group, but it didn't seem to be as detrimental as expected.  For example, one group was me at level 7 with three level 18s and I ended up being able to carry about 20% of the healing/damage.  If I knew the game better, I could have most likely carried my fair share of 25%.

So far I'm impressed.  My biggest complaint is the limited use of the Robotics turrets (I don't really have drones yet, so not sure how they function).  By the time I put the turret down in a group mission, the group has moved on.  In solo play, enemy NPCs just constantly stopped outside of the turrets range and therefore the turret did nothing.  The only time the turret was of use was to plunk down next to the boss NPC in the missions and let it plink away until it was killed off.

I finished up at level 8.  My in-game name is, of course, heartlessgamer.

Free To Play (F2P) Arrives on Steam

A slew of free to play (F2P) games have arrived on Steam including Global Agenda and Champions Online.  The micro-transactions within the games will all be available through Steamworks (to my understanding).  Anyone familiar with buying hats in Team Fortress 2 will understand the Steam integration of micro-transactions.

This is really good news and Steam is a perfect vehicle for F2P games.  The biggest barrier to subscription games is requiring a credit card up front.  F2P removes that barrier and then the biggest barrier for F2P games is the client download and account setup.  Both of these, for the most part, can be taken care of via Steam.

I'm looking forward to more F2P games to hit Steam.  Personally, I'd love to see League of Legends or Allods Online on Steam.  Of the first wave of F2P games, I may try out Forsaken World (a straight up WoWDiku MMOG) or maybe Spiral Knights (co-op dungeon beat'em'up) or Global Agenda (shoot em up MMO thingy).

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.

Terraria Moving Forward

The Terraria developers have posted a look at what their plans are going forward now that they've made multiple-millions of dollars with their game.

Progression has been pretty slow over the last week. I've actually been in the middle of moving. I put an offer on a house before the first trailer went public, and got the keys to it the day before Terraria was released. (Great timing, huh?)

I just finally got my workspace set up at the new place, so I should be able to get back to the grind early next week. But enough about that, let's talk about the future of Terraria.

My immediate focus for the game will be patching up the remaining bugs, implementing Steam features, and of course working on multiplayer to make it more secure and accessible. Multiplayer is a bit of a mess right now, and a dedicated server with no graphics card requirements is very much needed. Content progression will be slow for the next few weeks until we get all of the necessities taken care of. Though, we will be adding a few new things here and there to keep you interested.

In the long term, we will not just be adding content, but new mechanics as well. Some of the ideas the we have been playing around with are:

Pure PvP servers with team based objectives. Worlds will be generated before every match. Imagine a CTF server where towers are automatically created on either side of the map. Players can fight it out on the surface, or try to tunnel into the other tower.

Adding sloped/inclined tiles to make the world smoother.

New harder world types to continue game progression (Ex: Alien plants, alternate dimensions, evil worlds, etc.)

Enemy factions that will move into your world, and build their own city. You can slaughter them while they are weak, or let them build up their strength to get better rewards.

More events: Volcanoes, earthquakes, more/improved invasions, etc..

Weather: Seasons, snow, floods, etc..

Farming, and stamina system that gives a bonus to player stats.

Mechanics for making traps and devices.

Terraria has endless possibilities, and there is still a lot more that we want to do with it. In the meantime, please be patient while we get the last few kinks worked out.

Frozen Synapse Launch

Just wanted to share some videos now that Frozen Synapse has been officially launched. This is a really well done game with some great "extra features" such as in-game recording and uploading to Youtube.

In this first game I dominate from the start (I'm GREEN in the video). The key to victory here was using cover while my opponent kept sending his guys into the clear. Also note how I ensure each of my guys covers the other once I have a numerical advantage.



More videos to come, but they are failing upload to Youtube for some reason.

The Business of Terraria vs Minecraft

Many pundits would like you to believe that Terraria is a copy-cat of Minecraft.  Others want you to experience Terraria for what it is: a game with similar goals that is partially influenced by Minecraft (and Metroid and Final Fantasy).  Which ever side of the fence you fall on, there are some business decisions that distinguish Terraria from Minecraft.

First and foremost, Terraria launched through Steam.  Minecraft, while technically not yet launched, opted to roll out of the alpha/beta gates with its own platform and suffered weeks of log in server problems, PayPal issues, and a ton of website downtime.  Terraria launched smoothly and pain free through Steam.  So while Minecraft developers scrambled to deal with platform issues after their beta launch, Terraria has enjoyed a honeymoon where their developers can focus on the game.

Secondly, I get the distinct feeling that the Terraria developers just want to make a great game.  On the other hand, the Minecraft developers certainly have made and continue to improve a great game, but I've always gotten the feeling that they want to be a "big game developer".  Notch, Minecraft's chief developer, alluded to this when asked about possibly working at Steam's parent company Valve: "I don't want to work for Valve. I want to be Valve."

All evidence shows that Terraria is a smash hit.  Peak user numbers on Steam have been stellar and for a few days even unseated Counter Strike as the most played game on Steam (that's a pretty big deal). 



As far as I can tell, it's smooth sailing for the Terraria developers and with the Steam platform (and possibly Steamworks) on their side, I expect many great things from Terraria.

PS. If any Terraria developers read this, please, pretty please implement the Steam cloud for world saves!  Thanks.

Opening Thoughts: Terraria

Terraria combines the best of side-scrolling platformers (think Metroid) with the variety of RPGs (think Final Fantasy 3) and throws it all into a completely consumable/destructible/rebuildable world (think Minecraft).

After an hour of play I am very impressed with the game. I was worried initially that a keyboard and mouse would not fit well for a sidescroller, but I was pleasantly surprised to find the controls to be responsive and easy to learn. Mastering some of the more complex movement will take some time which gives the player a rewarding feeling when they complete a relatively complex jump.

For those players that suck at timing jumps and landing on near invisible parcels of dirt, there is the option to dig up and pile a bunch of dirt (or clay, wood, stone, sand, or any number of harvested blocks) to get to the desired point. This is taken even further when players start building houses and other dwellings out of the available materials and start filling them with crafted items.

Crafting within Terraria is insane. There are TONS of items to make that unlock other items that unlock other items that; OK you get my point. There is everything from flower pots to grappling hooks. Different tools can be crafted that perform different tasks. Weapons and armor can be crafted and there are super-secret hidden versions of each that really drive the player forward to keep exploring and trying to combine/find new ingredients.

The crafting is recipe based, but the recipes are not something that are known. If at the applicable crafting station (work table, anvil, furnace, etc) with the correct items, the end product will show up in the crafting menu. For example, a wooden sword may require 3 pieces of wood (I forget off the top of my head). The player can go along finding out the combinations themselves, or any number of available websites can spoil the fun for them. In some of the rarer item cases, spoiling is about the only way to go.

Those rarer items will be needed, because come nightfall, just like in Minecraft, the monsters come out to play. However unlike Minecraft, Terraria is dead serious about its combat. The monsters that appear during the first night of the game are no pushovers: flying eyeballs, zombies, and the ever-annoying slimes (which are also present during the day). Kicking it up a notch, there are mega bosses like the Eater of Worlds who take up the better part of a screen and appear after certain events like smashing three shadow orbs occur.

Most amazingly, we've only scratched the surface of Terraria because there are other things like NPCs that will inhabit your buildings and sell you goods or provide services (think RPG NPCs like shop keepers and medics). Plus we need to keep in mind that the world is randomly generated and includes an entire underworld and possibly even sky castles. And again, the entire world is destructible down to the very last block.  A player can craft a few dozen bombs and blow their way to hell!

Oh and did I mention it has multi-player which allows several friends to play together in the same world and enjoy the same batshit craziness together? Oh, I didn't? Well there's that too. Terraria is awesome.