- How the new Assassin's Creed wants to change multiplay-
When I first heard that the latest installment in the Assassin’s Creed franchise, Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, will feature multiplayer I dismissed it as yet another after thought feature, something the developers tacked on to broaden the games appeal. I did not expect it to push any envelopes or change my level of anticipation for the game, which until recently dwindled on the “wait for bargain bin”.
A couple of days ago during the course of a Thread Killer conversation a fellow formmite mentioned how excited he was about the Multiplayer in AC3. For some reason I was unable to fathom how multiplayer would work inside the parameters of an Assassin’s Creed game, weak attempts at Deathmatch style modes came to mind none of which I imagined working particularly well or becoming at all popular. However being someone who prides himself in at least checking the facts before condemning a new idea to obscurity I went and did some, brief, research.
Doing what most people do when they need info on something I googled AC:BH and opened the Wikipedia entry for it. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassi...d:_Brotherhood) Skipping though all the boring stuff I read through the multiplayer and was almost immediately deeply intrigued. I then watched a Youtube vid of one of the developers playing Multiplayer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_umJ8WfCWdg) and was sold.
At this point in time online gaming is saturated by FPS competative multiplayer (Halo, Call Of Duty, Medal of Honor, BattleField: Bad Company 2), Co-op multiplayer (Halo, Borderlands, Left 4 Dead 1&2), RTS Multiplayer (Warcraft III, Starcraft II, Ruse, DoTa) and finaly MMO multiplayer. (WoW, Guildwars, Aion, Eve)
Each of those multiplayer types are almost unique to that specific genre, yes you have Gears of War which brings regular FPS style Multiplayer to 3rd person shooters, but other than Horde Mode there is nothing unique about its multiplayer. While other 3rd person action games tried implementing multiplayer all of it fizzeled out into obscurity, Red Faction Gaurilla and Uncharted 2 jump to mind.
What Ubisoft has done is create a new form of multiplayer. In Wanted mode, for example, up to 8 player are spawned in a map each given a single target to assassinate, while simultaneously being hunted by another player. This effectively means that instead of the match descending into chaos as 4 players run around the map killing left right and center while the other 4 find a nice spot to camp and get the drop on the the four running around, players will now have to balance stealth with action. Killing the wrong person looses you points, while dodgy behaviour is bound to alert your pursuer of your presence.
Now 8 unique characters moving about a map, inbetween NPCs, will making finding your target dead easy to spot as they will be standing out like hooker at Sunday mass. Ubisoft uses one of the shortcomings of current gaming technology, multiple of the same character models. Now this previous shortcoming becomes key to the gameplay. Is the courtesan your following a player or a NPC? Is that Priest walking your direction about to slit your throat or merely stroll past.
Further more Ubisoft decide it doesn’t have to reinvent to wheel completely and implemented something many Call of Duty players will recognise: abilities, perks, and streaks. Abilities are re-usable tools like smoke bombs, disguise (which turns the player into a npc look alike), speed boost ect. Perks are passive ability modifiers such as blender which automatically morphs one of the NPCs into a clone of your character when you blend with a group, making it harder for your follower to kill you. Streaks will reward you for multiple kills without dying or grant temporary skills if you die too often in a row.
(There is a decent Multiplayer Beta Hand-On piece on Gamespot that is well worth a read as well as onIGN)
Although it all sounds promising there are several aspects which could potentially silence Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood.
Matchmaking and LAG: If you want to stay ontop with multplayer you need decent matchmaking, especially on consoles. Although I won’t expect anything as finely tunes as Halo Reach’s matchmaking system Ubisoft will have to ensure that finding and joining a game is quick and easy. Similarly being able to play with a specific player or group of players is also important, running around assassinating strangers is all well and good but getting the drop on a friend and being able to taunt them is even better.
Lag might actually be less of a problem for AC:BH than for Halo or Call of Duty, but if it becomes too bad it will destroy gameplay.
The last thing that AC has going against it is release date... its being released just over a week after Call of Duty BlackOps that is bound to attract alot of attention, especially multiplayer wise. Of course this maybe be a blessing in disguise as players wont have to worry about cod or halo idiots ruining their games.
Given the release window and the known facts its hard to say whether or not Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood will sink or swim. It is looking promising and if nothing else will bring a welcome change of pace from the endless shooting (and getting shot) of Halo or Call of Duty.
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is being released locally on the 19th of November 2010.
-Fenix Out-
Saturday, November 13, 2010
The Shortcomings of Halo Reach: Part I
Since last week Tuesday, September 14th 2010, the internet had been aflame with all things Halo, particularly Halo Reach. Anyone who knows me and the level of my love for the Halo franchise and its extended universe will be scratching their heads at the title of this piece. Let me elaborate…
Halo Reach is one of the best console shooters out there, PERIOD. If you are thinking about comparing it to Modern Warfare 2, KillZone or any other FPS out there, stop, you are wasting your time. With Halo Reach Bungie has crafted something incredible and as Halo Combat Evolved, back in 2001, Reach will be remembered for the next decade and quite possibly played by adoring fanboys everywhere for the same amount of time.
But, like everything, it has it’s flaws some of which can easily be forgiven, other… well we will get to that in a minute.
Halo Reach is one of the best console shooters out there, PERIOD. If you are thinking about comparing it to Modern Warfare 2, KillZone or any other FPS out there, stop, you are wasting your time. With Halo Reach Bungie has crafted something incredible and as Halo Combat Evolved, back in 2001, Reach will be remembered for the next decade and quite possibly played by adoring fanboys everywhere for the same amount of time.
But, like everything, it has it’s flaws some of which can easily be forgiven, other… well we will get to that in a minute.
1.The Community: As with a lot of things it is often the Human element that can make or break an experience. Playing the campaign with a good friend can be nothing shy of awesome on an epic scale. Loud exclamations of “NO” or “Did you F@#cking See That?” where common place during my first play through. And when its all said and done with the credits rolling by virtual hi-fives are exchanged along with “That as F@#cking AWESOME!” Similarly surviving the last wave of the last round of a set that has been slaughtering the party for the last 5 games in a row is a feeling not easily matched.
The opposite end of the spectrum is also unfortunately common enough. From whiners to idiots who enjoy playing the entire team their favorite selection of horrible distorted trash music and everything in between, they all infest the servers like worms in an otherwise delicious apple. Nothing is more frustrating that getting into a firefight match with a few wankers who don’t know which end of the Spartan Laser the bright light comes out of or run around a close-quarters map with a SPNKR (rocket) launcher doing more damage to their own ranks than the enemies.
2. Pre-Game Voting/Map Selection: Reach has 9 or so maps, some better suited Slayer than say Capture The Flag. But can someone explain to me why of the 3 possible map/game variants to choose from pre-game the same keeps coming up match after match after match. If I just finished a game a Slayer Pro why only give me more of the same options to choose from, Slayer DMR or Slayer Pro or Classic Slayer. What if I want to play plain old regular Slayer complete with Armor abilities and all?
3.Co-Op Campaign Spawning: This drove me nuts during my co-op time in the campaign. If the player dies, and die they will, why is it that you spawn with your default weapons/armor ability? If I had a target designator and Armor Lock when I died why can’t I pick it up again? Sure I guess it punishes the weaklings who die but it wouldn’t have killed anybody to let me pick my armor ability back up….
The Shortcomings of Halo Reach: Part 2
We Now come to, in my opinion, Halo Reach's biggest shortcoming. It WILL contrain spoilers, not only for Reach but from the Eric Nyland novel, The Fall of Reach, as well. If you are yet to finish either of these and do not wish to encounter any spoilers stop reading right now...
This apparent break in continuality will hardly matter to any one of the millions of Halo fans who have not read the novels but this seemingly simple fact will stop Halo from becoming the FPS that furthered an already deep universe. Instead the Novels, Comic and short films will now exist in a canonical limbo where nobody is sure if it’s Canon or not and where devout fans will feel a little emptier inside.
None of these points stop Halo Reach from being anything but one of the years best titles. It does however show that even the greats have their flaws.
-Fenix Out-
SPOILER WARNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
4.Continuity Errors & the Extended Universe: Shooters in general are not know fortheir narrative plot. BioShock being one possible exception to that rule. The Halo game franchise is really no different, no matter how hard the fanboys shout, the plot in Halo 1-3 was loose at best. Halo ODST pushed the story telling of the franchise into a new direction and it was moderately successful. The deep and compelling universe of Halo is largely thanks to the stellar novels, the comics, animated shorts and so forth. It is there fore that I found myself scratching my head as to the main plot of Halo Reach.
· Firstly SPARTAN III’s on Reach during the Fall of Reach and in plain view of not only civies but other UNSC personal who don’t really seem all that surprised. Now anybody who has read Halo: The Ghosts of Onyx will know that the SPARTAN III where basically glorified kamikaze troops made up almost entirely of orphans from planets the Covenant glassed. The entire first company was wiped out after its 3rd mission, there are a couple of exceptions. Beta company, the second group, where sent on a suicide mission at the age of 12 where 99% of them died blowing up a Covenant reactor complex, again a couple of exceptions. However the precence of SPARTAN III’s can, and I am sure will, be explained away by saying that they where there covertly or whatnot.
· Now the fact that the covenant managed to sneak a entire invasion force onto Reach with out anybody noticing is also a bit fishy. In The Fall of Reach the covies storm the plant with a large armada of ships, during the ensuing space battle a small detachment manages to land at the poles and push to take out the reactors powering the orbital super mac cannons, Reach’s primary planetary defense weapons. So unless nobody bothered to inform the SPARTANS that there was a GIAGANTIC space battle happening a couple of miles above the planet I fail to see how Noble Team could be surprised to find the Covenant on Reach. This could also be explained away, but the fact that Reach was the UNSC’s largest military installation in the outer colonies and that once Covenant where discovered in the system every UNSC ship in range was summoned to help defend the planet it makes the idea of Noble Team not knowing of immanent Covenant contact ludicrous.
· During the course of the game players bump into Dr Kathrine Halsey, Mother of the SPARTAN II project, (That’s why Jorge was as nervous as a 12 year old when speaking to her.) in Sword base. What the devil was she doing there? He lab was deep under the Castle base facility… This is also something that is partially explained in the game itself, just before the final mission Dr Halsey and Jun fly back to Castle Base. So maybe she was just there check on the findings of the scientist who Noble found dead early in the game?Not having the kind of divine energy it will take to wade through the countless Halo related forums, inhabited by all manner internet scum, to try and scrounge up a half way decent explanation say one I read in passing. “Bungie made the games, not the books. So they decided to hell with the books…” This I find very, very, VERY hard to believe. Though Bungie made the games the IP belongs to Microsoft Corporation and since they own the rights to the books, films, comics I cannot see why they would disregard the canon. Secondly every item included in the Collectors edition gives hits to the extended Universe. From a medical record of Kurt, also know as Kurt Ambrose, the SPARTAN II recruited to train the SPARTAN III’s, to maliciously created “Interstellar News Letters” all show a deep and devout level of fan service. All of this adds to the extended universe, a rich and deep universe, to imply that Bungie would just blatantly disregard a vital piece of the Halo mythos is near unthinkable especially when you consider than every time a Halo game fan gets curious and buys a novel or dvd or comic or graphic novel Bungie gets a cut, I would think they would be keen as hell to get every single person who has played a Halo game to go out and get all the books, music, everything…
But there are 2 fact given in the game that is near impossible to explain away. The first was the AI Dr Halsey entrusted to Noble Six, for anybody not paying attention that was Cortana… Master Chief’s faithful, hot and cocky AI companion… WTF? Cortana was, according to The Fall of Reach, developed as part of the final stages of Project Mjolnir… The Mjolnir Mark IV armor was designed to house a fully functional “smart” AI that would interface with the suit and the wearer, John-117, to further boost his performance. She was made using Dr Halsey’s own cloned brain and programmed with the best intrusion and counter intrusion software that O.N.I could come up with. All this was done to help the SPARTAN II’s on their mission to capture a Covenant ship, pilot it back to their home world and capture a Prophet in order to force a truce. Infact during the battle for Reach the Pillar of Autumn, that ship that leave the ship yard at the end of the game, was on its way out system with about 30 SPARTAN II’s and 1 smart AI by the name of Cortana on board. So if this is the case how could Noble Six hand over Cortana to Cpt Keys when they are suppose to be fighting in a space battle?
This apparent break in continuality will hardly matter to any one of the millions of Halo fans who have not read the novels but this seemingly simple fact will stop Halo from becoming the FPS that furthered an already deep universe. Instead the Novels, Comic and short films will now exist in a canonical limbo where nobody is sure if it’s Canon or not and where devout fans will feel a little emptier inside.
END OF SPOILERS
None of these points stop Halo Reach from being anything but one of the years best titles. It does however show that even the greats have their flaws.
-Fenix Out-
The Perfect Score Myth
As a person who is asked to review games for a publication such as MyGaming I am regularly faced with having to dish out a score for the game. In trying to understand game scores I also make a point to read other reviews of the same games and get a better understanding of how different people experienced said title. The first thing to remember is that review are opinions, you can ask 2 reviewers to review the same title and come up with 2 vastly different review, as is evident in MyGaming's Review of Just Cause 2. In this review our own Dan Parmenter & Taryn Van Der Byl had vastly different experiences with the title.
Lets first explore out of what game scores are built. Most publications use a variation of the following:
• Graphics
• Sound
• Gameplay
• Longlevity
• Inovation
• Fun factor (this is sometimes combined with Gameplay)
• Story
Now a quick count will reveal to you that there are 6 categories, 7 if you count Fun factor but since it is often swaped out with Gameplay we will work with 6. So lets say each of these 6 points receive a score out of 100. That will give you a total score out of 600. A quick conversion to a percentage will reveal the games Overall score.
This brings me to my point… the perfect score. For a game to receive a perfect score each of the 6 categories has to be perfect. I, as a reviewer, feel there is no game that justifies a perfect score since not only is it practically impossible for any game nails each category perfectly, but no game is perfect, no matter how good it is, even the most loved of titles had their flaws.
There have been a few games in recent memory that received the perfect score, games like Modern Warfare 2, (14 perfect scores According to MetaCritic.com), Halo 3 (20 perfect scores according to Metacritic.com), Mass Effect (11 Perfect scores) & its sequel Mass Effect 2 (With a mind blowing 30 Perfect scores) was by any means perfect in all 5 categories.
Those who know me know I am a shameless Halo fanboi that does not mean I would give Halo 3 perfect score. After having completed in multiple times and getting waist deep into the Multiplayer I would only rate it somewhere between 92 and 96. The game play is brilliant but the plot could have been better. Sound design wise brilliant and Visually beautiful although a little too bright at times. Longevity also suffers if the player wasn’t into the Multiplayer. (Which they should totally try out if they haven't already )
With Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 I would also have scored it well below 100, 80 to 85 would be my rating. Story was too short by any measure and if the player isn’t into the multiplayer the price is simple day light robbery. There is little to no inovation in the Single Player campaign as the dramatic POV death sequences of COD4 is used to Death, Modern Warfare 2 did bring some new tricks to the tried and tested multiplayer modes. Gameplay also remains largely exactly the same as COD4 but “don’t fix what ain’t broke” could very well apply.
Mass Effect one would have gotten a 85 – 90 from me. It nailed story, innovation with the brilliant dialog system and did a decent number on action gameplay. The game was marred by boring side quests and annoying texture pop-ins. Its sequel, Mass Effect 2, would be the game I score the highest with at least 95+. It took what Mass Effect had done and improved upon every single aspect. Texture pop-ins are almost completely gone, no more boring side quests (although the mining can become tedious) and much better combat mechanics. It is however not perfect, some texture pop-in did sneak in, the recourse gathering was flat out boring and the world felt smaller, even though it really wasn’t.
Some other reviewers disagree with this way of thinking as they feel credit should be given where credit is due, so what if the graphics had loading errors the story and gameplay was perfect, why nit-pick? And that is perfectly fine, reviews are after all just one person’s opinion of a specific title. I simply feel that naming a game perfect which isn’t, is not being objective. Also if the perfect game has been made what is the point of making any more games since the panicle has already been reached, every other title that emerges will just be a failure.
-Fenix Out-
Lets first explore out of what game scores are built. Most publications use a variation of the following:
• Graphics
• Sound
• Gameplay
• Longlevity
• Inovation
• Fun factor (this is sometimes combined with Gameplay)
• Story
Now a quick count will reveal to you that there are 6 categories, 7 if you count Fun factor but since it is often swaped out with Gameplay we will work with 6. So lets say each of these 6 points receive a score out of 100. That will give you a total score out of 600. A quick conversion to a percentage will reveal the games Overall score.
This brings me to my point… the perfect score. For a game to receive a perfect score each of the 6 categories has to be perfect. I, as a reviewer, feel there is no game that justifies a perfect score since not only is it practically impossible for any game nails each category perfectly, but no game is perfect, no matter how good it is, even the most loved of titles had their flaws.
There have been a few games in recent memory that received the perfect score, games like Modern Warfare 2, (14 perfect scores According to MetaCritic.com), Halo 3 (20 perfect scores according to Metacritic.com), Mass Effect (11 Perfect scores) & its sequel Mass Effect 2 (With a mind blowing 30 Perfect scores) was by any means perfect in all 5 categories.
Those who know me know I am a shameless Halo fanboi that does not mean I would give Halo 3 perfect score. After having completed in multiple times and getting waist deep into the Multiplayer I would only rate it somewhere between 92 and 96. The game play is brilliant but the plot could have been better. Sound design wise brilliant and Visually beautiful although a little too bright at times. Longevity also suffers if the player wasn’t into the Multiplayer. (Which they should totally try out if they haven't already )
With Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 I would also have scored it well below 100, 80 to 85 would be my rating. Story was too short by any measure and if the player isn’t into the multiplayer the price is simple day light robbery. There is little to no inovation in the Single Player campaign as the dramatic POV death sequences of COD4 is used to Death, Modern Warfare 2 did bring some new tricks to the tried and tested multiplayer modes. Gameplay also remains largely exactly the same as COD4 but “don’t fix what ain’t broke” could very well apply.
Mass Effect one would have gotten a 85 – 90 from me. It nailed story, innovation with the brilliant dialog system and did a decent number on action gameplay. The game was marred by boring side quests and annoying texture pop-ins. Its sequel, Mass Effect 2, would be the game I score the highest with at least 95+. It took what Mass Effect had done and improved upon every single aspect. Texture pop-ins are almost completely gone, no more boring side quests (although the mining can become tedious) and much better combat mechanics. It is however not perfect, some texture pop-in did sneak in, the recourse gathering was flat out boring and the world felt smaller, even though it really wasn’t.
Some other reviewers disagree with this way of thinking as they feel credit should be given where credit is due, so what if the graphics had loading errors the story and gameplay was perfect, why nit-pick? And that is perfectly fine, reviews are after all just one person’s opinion of a specific title. I simply feel that naming a game perfect which isn’t, is not being objective. Also if the perfect game has been made what is the point of making any more games since the panicle has already been reached, every other title that emerges will just be a failure.
-Fenix Out-
MMO Immunity
I explore Why MMOs just don't Draw Me in:
I missed the MMO revelation, when World of Warcraft launched I didn’t have a stable enough internet connection to allow me to play WOW or any MMO for that matter. Since then I have tried several MMOs. EVE, which had always stuck me my kind of MMO, was the first MMO I played with its Sci-fi theme with no warlocks and night-elves in sight and its one giant universe and player driven economy. Second I also tried Dungeons & Dragons Online after it went Free2Play to rekindle my adolescent love of the DnD universe and my last expedition into the MMO realm was with Aion… to this day I still don’t know why I bough Aion. Now for one reason or another I lost interest in each of these with EVE being the only one to hold my attention for longer than a month.
In an atempt to understand why MMO seem to fail to pull me in with the same time sapping tenacity as the 11, or is it up to 12, million people who actively play WOW or the millions who play a MMO of any kind I’ve decide to list the thing about each of the 3 MMOs I have played that I feel where the main reason for not sticking with it. Now many would say the reason no MMO has stuck with me is very simple… It is because I have not played the game of the Decade, I have yet to play World Of Warcraft.
EVE Online: Eve is by far the MMO I enjoyed the most. Being able to download the client, play 14 days free before committing and being sucked in just deep enough in those 14 days that I did commit and subscribed. The idea of piloting your own shit, no matter the size, and going out to explore a unknown universe is what got me hooked at first. Training, Doing Mission, Upgrading my ship only after meticulous research into that specific configuration and going mission running with a friend was what held me firmly,
It was not till I was about 3 or so month in, Flying a shiny battleship, going to do my first Level 4 Mission with the Corp I had recently joined, that EVE very suddenly lost its appeal. No it wasn’t the guys in the Corp or the ship or even the mission that caused it, it was the fact that no matter what you did there would always be a bigger fish. I could play it for years and years and still be just another fish in a very big pond. This to me was the deal breaker, I spend enough time in reality being just another fish in the pond, when I play a game I want to feel like I rule the pond. The repetitive nature of the mission, the omnipresent grind, was something else that broke the immersion for me. I finally suspended my account after decided I already had a job, coming home and playing another one wasn’t for me.
Dungeons & Dragons Online: DDO was a pleasant distraction for the Dog Eat Dog world of EVE. Every body ran around in the hub and enjoyed their own instances of the mission so there was non of the having to worry that some European douche was going to steal your loot. Unfortunately DDO is one big Grind Sandwich. Every mission can be played as many times as the player wants getting more XP and loot the higher the difficulty. Watching 20 people speak to the same quest giver before running to the specific dungeon and then being along, except for your party, in the dungeon did not gel. Sure it gave me the chance to feel like a big hero when a plot line was completed but knowing the thousands upon thousands of other people hand done exactly the same stripped away some of the glory. In the end I stopped playing because the never ending circle of “go there…” and “kill that” before “bringing back this” quests bored me.
Aion: As I understand it of all 3 the MMOs I’ve played Aion is the most like World of Warcraft. Now how true that is, is beyond me due to my lack of not actually having played WOW [yet]. Aion started very much the same as DDO with the grinding… I mean question. Watching hundred of other players running around doing the same thing, knowing they all where doing exactly what I was doing. I grouped up once or twice to take down bigger baddies and after ascending 2 characters, 1 of each of the factions, my 15 day free trail included with my retail copy ran out and I just didn’t bother re-subbing.
If I look over the three pieces above it would look as if my biggest problem with any MMO is the inherent repetitive nature of such games. It is hard if not impossible to have an infinite number of unique quests so that each player who plays the title and expect it to form some any sort of coherent over arching story. The second thing that puts me off is the lack of any real feeling of accomplishment. Now that could be specific to me as a person wanting something more that “here is 20 000Xp for saving the princess on Insane difficulty by yourself.”
Now this wanting a more unique experience and sense of accomplishment could have been bred in my playing shooters like Call of Duty, Halo & Battlefield online. In a normal COD match there is a clear sense of “look what I did” at the end. Even if you didn’t score the most kills it there is still the “last time I only got 5 kills, this time I got 10.” Most matches are also a unique experience. Sure there is some repetition, certain players always hide in the same spot, in a Halo map the weapons are always in the same place but these pale in comparison to the sheer repetitiveness of MMOs.
The Playstation 3 title MAG tried to join the social togetherness of MMO with the pace and structure of Online Shooters with its main feature being that up to 256 players can play together in any once instance. This sounds like promising however the title has been criticized for the lack of communication between squads. Again having not played MAG, since I don’t think our South African Internet is suited to such a title, I can’t say if it falls into the nook of an MMO that would hold my interest. If the levels are designed like regular FPS levels the term cluster f@#k comes to mind.
Improving on what Came Before:
If a single player game is littered with repetitive gameplay players and critics alike quickly criticize it, similarly if a new title brings over too much from an older title players and critics again complain that is coping what came before. Yet a MMO, a title the players purchases many times over, are repetitive by nature. If an MMO dares move away from being “like WOW” it struggles to carve out a piece of the market. As a result for the last 10 years the MMO genre has remained largely unchanged and unchallenged.
Having not played all the MMOs available today I wont be so arrogant as to damn the entire genre for being one giant grind orgy. But I will say is that if a MMO was to surface which could give players a more unique experience with less grind then I would gladly play and pay for it.
Keep an Eye out for the follow up to this piece where I detail the concepts I would like to see worked into MMOs.
- Fenix Out -
I missed the MMO revelation, when World of Warcraft launched I didn’t have a stable enough internet connection to allow me to play WOW or any MMO for that matter. Since then I have tried several MMOs. EVE, which had always stuck me my kind of MMO, was the first MMO I played with its Sci-fi theme with no warlocks and night-elves in sight and its one giant universe and player driven economy. Second I also tried Dungeons & Dragons Online after it went Free2Play to rekindle my adolescent love of the DnD universe and my last expedition into the MMO realm was with Aion… to this day I still don’t know why I bough Aion. Now for one reason or another I lost interest in each of these with EVE being the only one to hold my attention for longer than a month.
In an atempt to understand why MMO seem to fail to pull me in with the same time sapping tenacity as the 11, or is it up to 12, million people who actively play WOW or the millions who play a MMO of any kind I’ve decide to list the thing about each of the 3 MMOs I have played that I feel where the main reason for not sticking with it. Now many would say the reason no MMO has stuck with me is very simple… It is because I have not played the game of the Decade, I have yet to play World Of Warcraft.
EVE Online: Eve is by far the MMO I enjoyed the most. Being able to download the client, play 14 days free before committing and being sucked in just deep enough in those 14 days that I did commit and subscribed. The idea of piloting your own shit, no matter the size, and going out to explore a unknown universe is what got me hooked at first. Training, Doing Mission, Upgrading my ship only after meticulous research into that specific configuration and going mission running with a friend was what held me firmly,
It was not till I was about 3 or so month in, Flying a shiny battleship, going to do my first Level 4 Mission with the Corp I had recently joined, that EVE very suddenly lost its appeal. No it wasn’t the guys in the Corp or the ship or even the mission that caused it, it was the fact that no matter what you did there would always be a bigger fish. I could play it for years and years and still be just another fish in a very big pond. This to me was the deal breaker, I spend enough time in reality being just another fish in the pond, when I play a game I want to feel like I rule the pond. The repetitive nature of the mission, the omnipresent grind, was something else that broke the immersion for me. I finally suspended my account after decided I already had a job, coming home and playing another one wasn’t for me.
Dungeons & Dragons Online: DDO was a pleasant distraction for the Dog Eat Dog world of EVE. Every body ran around in the hub and enjoyed their own instances of the mission so there was non of the having to worry that some European douche was going to steal your loot. Unfortunately DDO is one big Grind Sandwich. Every mission can be played as many times as the player wants getting more XP and loot the higher the difficulty. Watching 20 people speak to the same quest giver before running to the specific dungeon and then being along, except for your party, in the dungeon did not gel. Sure it gave me the chance to feel like a big hero when a plot line was completed but knowing the thousands upon thousands of other people hand done exactly the same stripped away some of the glory. In the end I stopped playing because the never ending circle of “go there…” and “kill that” before “bringing back this” quests bored me.
Aion: As I understand it of all 3 the MMOs I’ve played Aion is the most like World of Warcraft. Now how true that is, is beyond me due to my lack of not actually having played WOW [yet]. Aion started very much the same as DDO with the grinding… I mean question. Watching hundred of other players running around doing the same thing, knowing they all where doing exactly what I was doing. I grouped up once or twice to take down bigger baddies and after ascending 2 characters, 1 of each of the factions, my 15 day free trail included with my retail copy ran out and I just didn’t bother re-subbing.
If I look over the three pieces above it would look as if my biggest problem with any MMO is the inherent repetitive nature of such games. It is hard if not impossible to have an infinite number of unique quests so that each player who plays the title and expect it to form some any sort of coherent over arching story. The second thing that puts me off is the lack of any real feeling of accomplishment. Now that could be specific to me as a person wanting something more that “here is 20 000Xp for saving the princess on Insane difficulty by yourself.”
Now this wanting a more unique experience and sense of accomplishment could have been bred in my playing shooters like Call of Duty, Halo & Battlefield online. In a normal COD match there is a clear sense of “look what I did” at the end. Even if you didn’t score the most kills it there is still the “last time I only got 5 kills, this time I got 10.” Most matches are also a unique experience. Sure there is some repetition, certain players always hide in the same spot, in a Halo map the weapons are always in the same place but these pale in comparison to the sheer repetitiveness of MMOs.
The Playstation 3 title MAG tried to join the social togetherness of MMO with the pace and structure of Online Shooters with its main feature being that up to 256 players can play together in any once instance. This sounds like promising however the title has been criticized for the lack of communication between squads. Again having not played MAG, since I don’t think our South African Internet is suited to such a title, I can’t say if it falls into the nook of an MMO that would hold my interest. If the levels are designed like regular FPS levels the term cluster f@#k comes to mind.
Improving on what Came Before:
If a single player game is littered with repetitive gameplay players and critics alike quickly criticize it, similarly if a new title brings over too much from an older title players and critics again complain that is coping what came before. Yet a MMO, a title the players purchases many times over, are repetitive by nature. If an MMO dares move away from being “like WOW” it struggles to carve out a piece of the market. As a result for the last 10 years the MMO genre has remained largely unchanged and unchallenged.
Having not played all the MMOs available today I wont be so arrogant as to damn the entire genre for being one giant grind orgy. But I will say is that if a MMO was to surface which could give players a more unique experience with less grind then I would gladly play and pay for it.
Keep an Eye out for the follow up to this piece where I detail the concepts I would like to see worked into MMOs.
- Fenix Out -
KillZone 2... my thoughts.
After a few posts in a thread with a similar title,Killzone 2...your thoughts, I decided to boot up KZ2 again and see if I wasn't being overly critical of the game...
First a bit of history to give this piece context. Ive been a Xbox player since 2004 when I bought my first console, the original big black behemoth that was the Xbox. Once I got back to SA and the Xbox 360 was finally launched here I scraped some cash together and bought me one, that was around 2006 or 2007. Last year December I got a PS3 Slim for my Birthday and that means while I've been gaming on Xbox for 6 years Ive been gaming on PS3 for 4 months. Ive always been a FPS fan and as such The Chronicles of Riddick and Halo where 2 of my first games back on original xbox. I am also a shameless Halo fanboi, owning all 3 Halo games (Halo 3 Legendary Edition FTW :D), Halo ODST, Halo Wars and all 5 Halo Novels... oh yes and the Halo Graphic novel.... ok you get the idea.
Kill Zone 2 was one of the reasons I originally wanted to get a PS3, one of those exclusives that kept pulling me, much like Heavy Rain and God of War. It was the Second FPS I attempted to play on PS3, the first being Resistance 2 which I played for all of 30 min before deciding it would serve me better as a trade in.
Now i spent about 3 or so hours playing KillZone 2 and, after going back last night and booting it up again to see if it wasn't maybe the lack of an HD TV that ruined it for me, I am yet to be wowed by this title. The visuals which everybody heralded as "SO AWESOME" look painfully plain to me, its not especially crisp or sharp on my 32" Samsung. (Yes i am now going to compare it to Halo) In my Opinion Halo 3, which is an older game, looks better. Yes the color scheme used is completely different. Halo has always had a brighter color pallet that most other FPSs. But what got me is the crisp picture I got playing Halo on the same LCD tv. I guess you could say "KillZone is an attempt to create a believable Sci-Fi war zone as aposed to Halo's more childish Sci-fi war zone" In which case I guess you could be right.
Ok the controls... (Let it be known I'm not a huge fan of the PS3 control to begin with although Uncharted used what it had well) Im all for "realistic" cover mechanics but if your going to build a cover mechanic into a FPS do what Rainbow Six Vegas did, 3rd person while in cover and 1st person when firing from cover, because going KillZone 2's direction leads to the player never really knowing if they are in cover or not. You always put the Fire button as a trigger (R2 or L2), not a bumper (R1 or L1) and you put aiming down the sight on the opposite trigger to the Fire button. One thing I do like is the use of the PS3's Sixaxis to open valves or placing charges, this is one of the few implementation of the Sixaxis in a game where it felt natural.
What ever happened to being able to carry 2 weapons of your own choice? I mean even Modern Warfare 2 lets us do that, Modern Warfare 1 did also. So now in KillZone you have a pistol which never runs out of ammo (Realism just left the building) and a rifle. Should your rifle ammo start to dwindle, which it will, you need to swap to one of the dropped weapons, Shotgun, Helgast Rifle, RPG, but you have to leave your original gun behind. Why can't I just drop the freaking pistol I am never going to use.
My Final thing against KillZone is the plot. The 3 hours I was into it I was still in the Dark as to the bigger picture and what i did know was via Wikipedia. The problem with Franchises that trancend a console generation, such as Halo and Kill Zone, that if the player has not played the first title(s) the plot is never going to make all that much sense to them. I was one of the lucky south african's who played Halo 1 and 2 when it came out on its native platform (not the PC ports) so obviously the plot makes sense but to players who missed the first 2 installments its a bit of a cluster f@#*k. Likewise for me who missed KillZone 1 the plot seems a tad disjointed.
I restarted KillZone 2 in hope that the shiny new LCD tv with HDMI and some more experience with the PS3 remote would show me that my initial assessment was overly bias. However after a good hour of playing it again I am still waiting to be wowed...
In the end you could attribute everything I dislike about KillZone to the fact that I am a Halo fanboi and if you did I wouldn't blame you. Once i have a bit of free time (before May 3rd) I will do my best to finish KillZone 2 but I wont be going into it expecting to be blown away... Im reserving that for Halo Reach:p
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