Returning to your MMO

Posted by on Mar 6, 2012 in Blog, Current Games | 2 comments

There’s a little meme going around on the blogs I read: Are you returning to MMOs you have left? Do you have favorites you return to multiple times? Syp at Bio Break and Syl at Raging Monkeys have something to say about the issue.

Before I can tell you which games I am returning to, it might be helpful to know what is currently on my hard disk. On second thought, I shouldn’t do that, considering how many of tags and categories this will produce.

Current Games:

Aerrevan Needs to be deleted. Played in beta for about 1 hour
Aion Will certainly go back, just because of the looks
Darkfall Never subscribed, but had a couple of trial accounts. Might even go back just to look at the class model
DDO Played on opening day, returned two or three times once it was free-to-play. Spent hours playing with the offline character generators.
Eligium Currently in beta, fumbled around with it for a while, won’t be playing it
Everquest99 Project 99 client. Everquest private server like it was during the Kunark period. Fun. But leads to moments of “did I really have that much patience?”
Fallen Earth Love it. Returning frequently. The fact that the original creators offices are 1 mile away from my house may have something to do with it
Guild Wars Did only a trial. Not sure why I didn’t stick with it. Tried it only years after it came out, and most likely was waiting for another game to come out.
Istaria Friends of mine beta tested it way back when. It has certainly a sandbox feel. And is free to play now.
NWN2 Started playing it also years after it came out while waiting for MMO #27
Rift It’s up-to-date and waiting to be played. I like the soul system, but wasn’t to happy about some play-on-rails aspects
Runes of Magic Spent some time playing, never got a character beyond 20, but liked the dual class system and the fact that it didn’t have any quarrels being a WOW clone
Everquest Last played when they opened Fippy Darkpaw. Awaiting F2P
Everquest 2 Was there when it opened and came back many times
Star Wars Galaxies Can’t delete it, yet. It has been played only before the revamp. Syl was talking about nostalgia. There it is.
Vanguard Played the beta, was subscribed for a couple of weeks on and off, did some free trials. Waiting for the F2P announcement. Like that will ever happen
FF XIV Did the Open Beta, turned me off. Went back once shortly before they announced that monthly payments would begin again. Didn’t see any real improvements
SWTOR Currently subscribed and played 95% of the time
STO Tried it in Open Beta and a few weeks back, still don’t like it.
SWGemu SWG private server. More nostalgia than real interest
Tera Online I am in beta, but seriously wonder why I bothered
LotRO Was subscribed when it went live and a couple of times since. I am having fun with it usually for 2 month at a time
WOW Played open beta and subscribed since day 1. Use it on occasion to help my wife or to chat with friends I left behind there
Aion Will certainly go back, just because of the looks.

What used to be there:

Age of Conan Played it for a while, even got a guild started, might even try to go back some day.
Warhammer The fun lasted through open beta and the free month
EVE Tried a couple of times, but never got really into it
Uncounted numbers of betas, open betas, some f2p’s which I didn’t enjoy and pretend not to remember their names.

 

What’s my short list of games I want to go back to or most likely will go back to in the near future? In descending priority, which can change daily: Rift, Everquest, Fallen Earth, Everquest 2, WOW, Aion

Rift has just fun mechanics, dynamic events and some other nice features.

Everquest will be a nostalgic return to the roots. After all, I started a few weeks after Velious came out.

I like Fallen Earth because of its sandboxy feel, and to be honest a little bit because it used to be so close to home.

Everquest 2 is halfway nostalgia and halfway amazement that it keeps coming up with new stuff.

I know I will be rolling a monk and a panda on WOW, not necessarily a panda monk, though. Pure curiosity.

 

 



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The Moat Around World of Warcraft And How Bioware’s SWTOR Gets Around It

Posted by on Jan 5, 2012 in Blog, Current Games, Featured, Rift, Star Wars: The Old Republic, World of Warcraft | 0 comments

Investor Warren Buffet has coined the term economic moat as an almost insurmountable advantage of one company over another company in the same industry. Typical names that come up in this discussion are Coca-Cola and Wal-Mart. Any new company that wants to compete with these two is looking at a very long time with minimal income before they will be able to come even close.

Does this mean World of Warcraft has a moat? You bet. Just look at all the features it offers and how many of them new games like Rift or Star Wars had implemented at their release date. Here’s an incomplete list:

  • Dungeon Finder
  • Raid Finder
  • Extendable User Interface
  • Accomplishments
  • Guild Perks
  • Plethora of Pets
  • Flying Mounts
  • WOW Armory
  • Class Balance
  • Economic Balance
  • In Game Events

Of course, at first, this list doesn’t look to bad, but these features have to be implemented, tested and rolled out and balanced. How hard will it be to implement a cross server dungeon and raid finder for SWTOR? It’s my gut feeling, not backed up by many facts that they’ll have a harder time to do that than Rift.

While playing Star Wars, of course I notice issues where I can clearly say, that Bioware will have to either take some lessons from Blizzard or learn them the hard way. For instance I am not sure, if the economy around the Galactic Trade Market will ever become viable. The auction interface is certainly not up to it. The bigger problem there will be the underlying supply and demand of raw materials and finished goods. I can see for instance that there’s far more metal for armor and arms available than there are crystals for synthweaving and artificing. It is open where it will find a balance, but I question if the Bioware designers have put much thought into the subject. But that is part of the moat I described.

Having said that, Bioware might not need to conquer the moat, simply by building their own castle. Bioware’s loyal customers are RPG fans who’ve kept their distance to MMORPGs. But the way it looks, with Bioware’s story driven approach and a lot of voice acting, that barrier is torn down. The ingame chat has certainly seen its amount of WOW comparisons, but they’ve actually died down relatively fast. Thus, Bioware isn’t taking away much of WOW’s market share. Bioware is expanding the market. Something everybody in the industry will be grateful for.

 


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© Disclaimer: Star Wars: The Old Republic
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Trademarks are the property of their respective owners. LucasArts, the LucasArts logo, STAR WARS and related properties are trademarks in the United States and/or in other countries of Lucasfilm Ltd. and/or its affiliates. © 2008-2011 Lucasfilm Entertainment Company Ltd. or Lucasfilm Ltd. All Rights Reserved. BioWare and the BioWare logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of EA International (Studio and Publishing) Ltd. You may not copy any images, videos or sound clips found on this site or "deep link" to any image, video or sound clip directly.
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Objectivist Gamer

Posted by on Jan 5, 2012 in Blog, Current Games, Star Wars: The Old Republic, World of Warcraft | 0 comments

While playing last night, somebody mentioned in chat the usual “SWTOR plays like WOW” and of course started a small storm. What was different this time, it wasn’t just a troll, but a gaming writer who was reviewing the game. Which of course gives the discussion an entirely new dimension.

I can certainly see where the opinion comes from: There are many aspects which are very similar, for instance the user interface and the skill tree. But that is a good thing. Every MMO player wants to be able to type /who, or find the social menu bound to the O key, as well as configurable hotkey bars. But there are enough differences aside from the voice dialogues which make SWTOR stand out over WOW.

In any case, I didn’t want to start a lengthy rant, but wanted to point to a site of a professional game reviewer and to his work. Most of his reviews cover the general gaming area and much less MMOs. That, by itself is an interesting fact, since obviously SWTOR pulls in Bioware’s RPG fanbase with their familiar story driven games, just like WOW brought Blizzards RTS crowd into the MMO mixture.

I am looking forward to his review and his viewpoint.


© Disclaimer: Star Wars: The Old Republic
This site is not endorsed by or affiliated with LucasArts, BioWare, or Electronic Arts.
Trademarks are the property of their respective owners. LucasArts, the LucasArts logo, STAR WARS and related properties are trademarks in the United States and/or in other countries of Lucasfilm Ltd. and/or its affiliates. © 2008-2011 Lucasfilm Entertainment Company Ltd. or Lucasfilm Ltd. All Rights Reserved. BioWare and the BioWare logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of EA International (Studio and Publishing) Ltd. You may not copy any images, videos or sound clips found on this site or "deep link" to any image, video or sound clip directly.
Game content and materials copyright LICENSOR. All Rights Reserved.

© Disclaimer: World of Warcraft

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Bio Break

Posted by on Dec 21, 2011 in Current Games, Fallen Earth, Star Wars: The Old Republic, World of Warcraft | 0 comments

Bio Break is a blog written by a gamer named Syd who’s been wandering the MMORPG world for quiet a while and has seen a decent number of games. Someday I’ll compare the list of games I’ve played with Syd’s list. His is similar to mine, but mine seems to start earlier.

As many players at the moment, he’s started to play SWTOR and is writing about it. See for yourself for his recent exploits. Worth mentioning is also his long blogroll, which forces me to follow each single one of them.


© Disclaimer: Fallen Earth
© Disclaimer: Star Wars: The Old Republic
This site is not endorsed by or affiliated with LucasArts, BioWare, or Electronic Arts.
Trademarks are the property of their respective owners. LucasArts, the LucasArts logo, STAR WARS and related properties are trademarks in the United States and/or in other countries of Lucasfilm Ltd. and/or its affiliates. © 2008-2011 Lucasfilm Entertainment Company Ltd. or Lucasfilm Ltd. All Rights Reserved. BioWare and the BioWare logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of EA International (Studio and Publishing) Ltd. You may not copy any images, videos or sound clips found on this site or "deep link" to any image, video or sound clip directly.
Game content and materials copyright LICENSOR. All Rights Reserved.

© Disclaimer: World of Warcraft

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Everquest II Grandfathered Characters

Posted by on Dec 9, 2011 in Current Games, Everquest II, News | 0 comments

After some discussion ensued among the F2P players over access to existing character with premium race/class combo, Everquest II producer Smokejumper announced this today:

*Every* character that was created before 12/06/2011 at 12:01 am will be grandfathered in without race or class restriction. This means that regardless of your membership level, you will be able to play any character created before 12/6 without paying for race- or class-pack unlocks.

For any player that previously subscribed to EQII Live servers, or as a Gold or Platinum member on EQ2X, we will also refund all the class/race pack purchases made after 12/06/2011 at 12:01 am and before the time of this posting (12/08/2011, 4:30pm) so that no one loses any SC due to this change.

See the full message here: http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=510914


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Everquest II Producer’s Launch Letter

Posted by on Dec 8, 2011 in Current Games, Everquest II | 0 comments

In his Launch Letter Everquest II’s producer Smokejumper introduces the new game environment:

  • Everquest II is now fully free to play on all servers.
  • The GU 62 patch releases “Freeborn Reborn”, a redesigned City of Freeport and the return of Lucan D’Lere
  • The new Age of Discovery expansion introduces the new Beastlord class, Mercenaries and the Dungeon Maker feature who lets players create their own dungeons and instances.

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