This far, no further!

Ahhh... the memories. They certainly are memorable.

Sometimes I miss how the original EQ really seemed to dislike you. Not the recent incarnation of the game, all dolled up for polite company. I mean the original game when it came out; mysterious, unexplored, with an often rage inducing amount of punitive measures.

Want to travel to another continent? Here’s a 30 minute boat ride for ya.

Too dark to see? Too bad; you should have picked a demi-human.

Did you just die? Well then, let me erase the past 4 hours of work you just put in.

Map? Hahaha! You’re funny!

Sure we didn’t necessarily like everything they did but there’s something to be said for “the good old days” when someone took a stand for what they envisioned their world to be. Player whining be damned.

These day’s game designers and gamers seem to have a more codependent relationship, where the one makes sacrifice after sacrifice to try and make the other happy. It’s a slippery slope. It may seem like a good idea now, but it’s not healthy and there’s no future in it.

10 years from now, I'm sure she'll be just fine.

You can not give someone everything they want. It’ll ruin them (do a Google search for “lottery winner horror stories” if you don’t believe me). Games these days have virtually non-existent penalties for failure, free high level characters, and keep difficulty and challenge scuttled into a closet under the stairs like some bookish wackjob that thinks he’s a wizard.

The original Everquest changed because it didn’t work. The measures where too harsh and new games have adapted their plans because of it.

But have we gone too far the other way?

Glass Canonry

If there is one thing that I will never forgive Blizzard for it is the correlation of the “wizard” with that of “ranged dps” in the minds of MMO developers. This typing did exist before WoW, but WoW’s monumental success – and the desire to replicate it – has left the once venerable master of the arcane pidgeonholled into a shallow existence of glass canonry.

Midnight MMO Musings

Things that are a lie…

Easter Bunny.

the cake.

STO Beta.

Public Speaking Pro-tip

Todays Pro-tip brought to you by Allods Online:

Beware of ominous shadows named Ominous Shadow.

Very dangerous.

Last seen working as a foil to Hiro Protagonist.

Midnight MMO Musings

David beat Goliath by not fighting the fight Goliath wanted him to fight.

Dont try to out WoW, Blizzard. That’s what they want you to do.

I’m looking at YOU and you know who you are.

P.s. I hate NDAs.

TV MMO

Don't bring your Lupus Armor Set.

With this year, more so than ever before, competition for the 18-35 year demographic is coming from all sides at the once king of the ring, television; especially from a fresh-faced contender, MMOs. Rumors* circulate about Frankenstein-like TV execs looking to capitalize on MMOs growing popularity by injecting their own IPs into one…

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House MD MMO (MMOMD) – This MMO is all about the end game. Raid level content consists of trying to Mez the only Boss, Dr House, with the [+5 Vicodin] you got from grinding Wilson Rep, before House’s Litany of Curses attack drops the main tanks Ego to 0 and the raid wipes.

Simpsons MMO – You’ll play this MMO mostly for nostalgia’s sake; it stopped being fun years ago.

CSI - All attack animations in this MMO are a 30 minute montages, set to classic rock, of your character pouring fluorescent liquids from vial to vial and then placing the vials inside a machine. These animations can not be skipped. Early reports have the average player hitting max level at just under 600 days of playtime.

Two expansions are planned but they are largely considered reskinned money grabs.

Lost MMO- Powered by the Infinite Quest Engine. LMMO is an endless maze of chatting to NPCs and faction grinding, with no actual information learned or faction gained. There is only one quest, but it has no end; and any time you get close to completing the quest the objective changes. One player character is chosen at random everyday and killed.

The Office MMO – You’ll want to play this because everyone will tell you how it’s the best MMO ever, but when you finally sit down to play you’ll wonder what all the fuss was about.

The Mentalist - You take on the role of a junior member of the CBI – the California Bureau of Investigation. Most of the game revolves around butting your way into local police jurisdictions by proper use of your organizations vague authority. Once that is completed Patrick Jane, an NPC, sends you out on quests with little explanation, relevance or instructions while he actually solves the crimes.

Pushing Daisies MMO – this MMO has been canceled.

The Big Bang Theory MMO – This sandbox MMO game has you take on the role of you. The game simply activates the built in cam on your PC and overlays a game HUD. XP is awarded for posts in the site’s forum explaining how the developers have personally offended you, discussions over Skype with your friends on what a real Big Bang Theory game should be like and writing blog posts about how much better WoW is than this game. Bonus XP awarded for the number of visits you get from a platonic (as far as she’s concerned) attractive female neighbor.

This game is hailed for being, “very Meta.”

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*by “rumors” I mean totally made up by me about an hour ago.

** this is not a post to capitalize on popular meta-tag search terms. Honest… Well, mostly not. But if it’s there it’s not like I should pass up the opportunity right?  I’m not sure what the proper ‘net-iquette’ is in situations like this.  Geez, I sound like a douche. “Net-iquette”? What was I thinking? Sorry.

New Post?

I currently find myself fallen off the wagon; back into the warm, narcotic embrace that is the returning fall TV season.

New posts soon.

So much awesome.

Everything I do in CO from this day forward is now a failure by comparison.

Midnight MMO Musings

If given a chance to come back as someone from a fictional race; I think I would chose Dwarf.

Across all interpretations of their culture, those guys always seem like they know how to party.

The Case for Grinding?

It seems that quite a few people are coming to the same conclusions regarding Champion Online’s content. While high on quality, it’s noticeably low on quantity. Something my own limited experience has mirrored.  Early reports are that you’ll need to finish virtually every quest in order to reach max level.

Which would not be a problem if CO wasn’t so alt driven.  I find myself constantly wanting to crank out a new character concept or to try out new powerset combinations; but half the time I can’t bring myself to even slog my way through the tutorial invasion (started 12 times, finished it 6 times) and that’s only 5 levels. Let alone the mutated desert or zombie filled Canada. Then on to MC:

“Best help defeat those escaped prisoners…”

“Hey, the Foxbat quest…”

“Is that Burt Jackson?…”

And so on.

What was amusing content the first time through becomes cliché real quick on subsequent trips. This feels like a trend carrying over from single player games, where developers want you to experience everything in one playthrough.

Is this something that MOB grinding could fix?

The backlash against grinding came out during the EQ and early WoW days, at least as far as I can remember. EQ, in is infancy, was built around the concept of having you, and your group, camping a set of monsters all night for XP. Pull, Kill, Rest, Repeat. Sure there were quests but at the same time there really wasn’t; not as we think of them these days and not nearly enough. WoW pushed forward the concept of questing as we know it exists today, but even they had problems in the early days with forcing players to grind – I think it’s something most MMOs have been accused of at some time.

And there was a outcry against the grind. And rightfully so, that shit was boring. I think my head would explode if I had to go back to DoT, Root, Nuke, DoT, Root, Nuke, Meditate (the norm for my EQ Enchanter back in the day). But it’s gotten to the point where you shouldn’t even bother to defeat a creature you’re not on a quest to kill the XP is so low. You’d be wasting your time.

But is defeating MOB after MOB for seemingly no reason other than to level dull, or was it just a sign that combat in those games (at least the non-boss fights) was so lacking?

I don’t think that I would mind an area in an MMO, where you could just go and defeat MOBs for a decent amount of XP. Not everywhere and not mandatory for leveling, but available. If you’re finding your pickings slim or you just don’t want to rehash a certain set of quests.

I guess what I’m asking is; if the combat is fun enough and XP good enough, would you mind the grind coming back to MMOs?