Changes

Hiya folks,

I forgot to mention that I have been doing game reviews for a website for a while now.  Sorry!

So, for more me head on over to www.cybermonkeydeathsquad.com

War is Upon Us!

Now that the NDA has lifted with the official launch of the game, I can talk about the new MMO on the market, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, or WAR for short.  I was lucky to be included in the beta test for the game and, overall, I have to say this is fun.  While it’s no WoW killer, it’s as about as close as anyone but WoW will ever come.  While it doesn’t bring too many surprise, except for the Public Quests, it does provide a solid entry into the MMO business while maintaining its roots as a war game.

A little back-story on where the roots of this new MMO come from for you.  Warhammer, published as a table top fantasy war game that relies heavily on painted minuatiures in 1983 by Games Workshop, has always operated in a niche market.  It is easily the largest and most popular game of its type, and has offered stock fantasy race armies so you can settle the question who would win in a fight orcs or elves.  It has spawned several spin-offs in the form of board games, a far future versions, and various rpg products.  However, it has always required a serious monetary investment to play the game, so it has never really captured a broad audience.

Until recently, that is.

With the on-line game in development for over three years and a rich catalogue of source material to draw from,  EA games has put
together a solid game.  It presents the core concept of the game, war and the
factions involved. Which, in this case, is the war between the forces of Order
and Chaos. And, from the outside the MMO makes it clear the player is involved in this war either as a defender, the forces of Order, or as an invader, the forces of Chaos. 

Warhamer does offer some standard war game features, such as battles
the players can take place in and even offers direct conflicts in small groups between the
players themselves for control of a map. Which is a really fancy way of saying that there's a lot of PVP available if you want it.  While large scale battles and map control are all features MMO's have seen for some time, what Warhammer does offer that is new is the Public Quest

The Public Quests are a small mini-game within the game that takes place in a small
geographical area and requires a small to large team to complete.  This is new
because the only requirement to take part in these mini-games to find their
location on the map.  Traditionally, these sort of things are handled by a
series of NPC’s within the game or just a simple large wandering monster
that has a huge amount hp. 
And, for those of you
with MMORPG experience under your belt, the Public Quests are raids
introduced at an early level to make it consistent with the end game.

Which I think is important to introduce the concept of raiding at an early level to make it consistant with the goals of the end game so it is no longer a paradigm shift from the previous levels to a continuation of what you have been doing the whole game.  Or, to say that less fancy, make raiding a early part of the game so when you run out of levels you keep playing the way you've always played. 

However, for those of y'all that aren't as into game construction as I am, it's a fine game that offers a lot of content that remains consistant and entertaining throughout.  Additionally, the graphics are very up to date, making other MMO's appear, as my wife put it, so 10 years ago.  So, if you're tired of grinding on your 60th level Hunter, pick the game up and give it a try.  You'll like it.

4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons- a review

There are a lot of things that 4th ED does well- even great- but there are several things I think this edition loses in these improvements. I have taken the time to read through the various books, examine the character classes, and familiarize myself with the mechanics of the game. I have made a string of characters, played them, and ran several games with a group of players. While the new game mechanics make the game combat dynamic, and leaves no player behind, I feel it sacrifices much of the roleplay mechanics so prevalent in previous editions. However, let me talk about what I think this edition does well before I talk about the faults I find with it.

First off, the layout of the books and reference material is well organized and easily accessed. The writing flows well, and is highly accessible to a new generation of player without a decade of game baggage already in tow. A new DM can pick this system up and be running a game in short order. Creating a character is quick and relatively painless now. Some of the more arcane tropes of D&D have been chucked out the door in favor of more standardized methods of determining things like hit points, skills, and other play modifiers.

The streamlined combat makes it fast and furious. The standardization of hp, skills, and saving throws makes calculations easy and intuitive. The ease of scaling monsters and the addition of minions keeps the players on their toes alert for the nasty surprise you’ve tucked away somewhere. That is great. Additionally, the Rituals allow a level of customization not seen before in D&D. With the right collection of feats, any character can perform many of the cleric or wizard only tasks in earlier editions of the game. And that is good. The healing is well handled; no longer do you have to worry about peppering the adventure with healing loot to keep the players on their feet- the surges take care of that for you. Also good.

And, with the edition of Powers they have fixed the forever broken Wizard class. No longer useless until level fifteen, the wizard can throw damage just as hard and as long as the fighter right out of the gate. Which is good. No longer does one player sit there and twiddle their dice after killing one kobold with Magic Missile. Now they get to hand out damage every round of every combat. The new system also benefits the Fighters, Rangers, and Rogues turning them into bigger combat hogs than they already were. However, the role of Clerics has changed dramatically. Once able to step up to the combat plate after the spells ran out, the new clerics are in truth much more like a paladin. Holy warriors that can kind of throw down with some spells. Team support is also taken up by the new core classes of Warlock and Warlord.

But…

But, so much of what is good about this game sacrifices the role play mechanics of the earlier additions. D&D started out as a fantasy wargame, and it traveled along way away from that by the time 3.5 came out, and 4th is working hard to go back to that ideal. So much of the new streamlining for the battlemap jettisons the fuzzy aspects of the mechanics of roleplaying. What if I design an adventure where an evil king can be turned with a sad song? What skill do you use to play the lute again? What if the player wanted to cheat at a card game to win the day? What skill does that use?

And, once you get past the shiny new paint and chrome, and pop the hood to get a close look at the way the game ticks you discover that the highly customizable characters aren’t so different from each other. They are just alike. And this was something that truly bugged me about 1st edition- your rapier wielding fighter was exactly the same as my great sword wielding fighter; we just rolled different dice for damage. And I see this again with 4th ED- your 5th level Eldarin ranger is going to be nearly identical to my 5th level Eldarin ranger; we just roll different dice for damage. In fact, your 5th level dwarf cleric is going to be remarkable similar to my 5th level Eldarin Ranger.
Additionally, the Warlock and Warlord both have the feel of well thought out supplemental character classes rather than a core class. It is worth noting that throughout my play experience the warlord of my group routinely out supported the cleric- whom traditionally occupies the role of front line support. But with the edition of the Warlords and the healing-in-your-pockets Surges the traditional role of the cleric isn’t really necessary anymore.

The spam (at will) and encounter powers are nearly identical across the classes. And, with the standardization of saving throws it gets harder to tell them apart. The largest difference between the classes is how much hp they get at every level. Indeed, the distinctions blur even more with the addition of Rituals. While on one hand this makes many functions of the game accessible to every player they no longer make any class special. And, for me that takes away an element of danger- don’t have a cleric? Well, then you had better be careful about charging through that door, hadn’t you?

And, do not even get me started on the forced migration into Paragon and Elite classes.

I understand why there are so few of the Paragon and Elite classes in the initial release- gotta have stuff for the supplemental material after all and there is only so much room in the book. But do not force me to customize my character if I don’t want to do it- that’s not customization but standardization. Your pitfighter is going to also be nearly identical to my pitfighter. This isn’t Diablo, this is a pen and paper RPG- an industry that thrives on expansion rule books! We can allow for some greater variation in our characters. Now, there is wiggle room with the feats and powers but the limited selection and near identical nature of those feats and powers across the classes make this customization frequently cosmetic in nature.

Ultimately, I am torn about 4th Edition. It does really well, speeding up the combat system and homogenization character classes and abilities, also take away the parts of Dungeons and Dragons that I really liked- the variety and expansion. Also, I find that the promise of customization is just woefully absent in this edition (for my money, the greatest customization offered by D&D was the Skills and Powers books from 2nd ED). What I considered to be the greatest sins of 1st ED was its inability to handle non-combat related events and ideas within the context of its rules structure, and the carbon copy nature of the different classes is all too prevalent in 4th ED.

Many other reviewers have remarked on the similarity between the new edition of D&D and the MMO model of gaming. While many have speculated that this is because D&D is trying to lure WoW players to the table top by mimicking the combat structure I disagree with this theory. I suggest that when they designed this game they created a system that could be used on the table top or on a pc and deliver the same experience.

Meaning, that the wizard I play with my cousin Bob on Saturdays will be identical to the wizard I play nightly on the brand new D&D online game. And this is important- so many of us veteran players like to remake older characters on similar systems but have often been stymied in this goal due to gross incompatibility. But with the new system it will flow easily from table to pc back to table. The Reaping Strike my Cousin Bob’s 5th level fighter does in game will look and function EXACTLY like the Reaping Strike his 5th level fighter does online.

I think that speaks to how well this game was designed in terms of usability.

So, even though I am torn about this edition I feel I must endorse it. The combat system and subsequent skill handling (such as it is) is well designed and intuitive in its use. And, while much of this edition goes back to the things about the 1st edition I did not like it does handle them well. All in all, it’s a good game that is fun and easy for everyone to play.

MMO's printing money

Exactly why are mmo's making more money than the rest of the video game industry?


Well, the monthly fee has a lot to do with that, but I meant why are people sticking around in those game for longer than a month or two?


Now, some of you are going to reach for the grind or content argument and in some ways that's a good one, however I think that is only part of the answer. The largest part, or rather parts, fo the success of MMO's are the persistence and community.


As we get older and we take on more responsibilities we have less and less time for our hobbies and entertainment. I'll give you an example- my brother in law and I have been friends for longer than we've known our wives (our wives are sisters). When we were young we would play pnp RPG's for hours and days on end. Our weekends would be full of dungeon crawls and extensive battlemaps filled with warmachines and troop movements. We would stay up until dawn, only to wake up a few hours later to continue the war against whatever we felt like.


Now?


Now we have to get the lawn mowed, and my wife really wants to build bookshelves into the walls in our two other bedrooms, and, yeah there's that project I wanted to get a head start on for work, and...the list never ends. We have no time to do the things we enjoyed most as kids- play games. As a result, we meet up online every Sunday night to play Lord of the Rings Online for 4 hours before we have to go to bed to get up for work. Of course we both have side characters that we play when the other is not in the game. Ones that we play a little bit here and a little bit there. The characters we play with other people who also only have a little bit of time before they have to run off to whatever day job.


And, it's that persistence, the game is always there day or night ready to go when you are, and that community, it is filled with other solo gamers that have a limited amount of time to play like I do.


Like for example, I get home on Wednesday's pretty early and it's my wifes late night, so,I hop on the game for a few hours. It's always there, and it's always filled with people who want to play too. I never have to worry about finding someone to team with, or even if I can't I can certainly solo through vast portions of the game as well. The persistence of the MMO along with the constantly rotating player base ensure that there is always something to do with someone when you've got the time available.

MMO Coming to a Theater Near You?

If you’ve been awake for the last 50 years of the movie industry, you are intimately familiar with movie tie-in merchandise It goes from action figures all the way to food items. It’s a time honored tradition that has produced some of the most notorious games in the short history of video gaming.

Like, ET, for example.

Actually, ET has been voted as the worst game ever several times over. The game is so notorious that there is even a urban near-legend that it drove Atari into bankruptcy as they dumped entire truck loads of the unsold game out in the desert. My dad bought this when I was a wee lad, and I still remember how frustrating the game-play was for this game. It was as bad as they say it is.

So, to get back to my point, there’s been a long tradition of generating more money for a movie using different media streams such as the game platforms.

But what about a movie that’s really a tie-in to an existing game? We’ve seen movies that were made from existing games, such as the Mortal Kombat franchise and the Streetfighter series, but what about a persistent game world such as an MMO?

Recently, Funcom, the publisher of Age of Conan, announced it will be creating in-game events that directly lead up to and correspond with an upcoming unannounced Conan movie. Which is fancy speak for, 'if anyone ever makes a Conan movie, we'll make it a part of our game.' And, given that Age of Conan has 400,000+ subscribers, that isn't small screen release.

But let's take this up a notch- imagine a movie based on an MMO but not as a marketing ploy for the movie but to drive up more business for the game. Imagine the ad campaign for a World of Warcraft movie- liked the movie? Do you want to live the adventure again and again? Why, for a mere $15 a month you too can be a Night Elf Shaman or Blood Elf Paladin.

Don't think it will happen? Consider these three things- first, movies are about shared experiences. Until recently, those shared experiences have been novels and short stories. We gather to watch our favorite novels turned into film with others whom love the story like we do. Now, more and more movies are made based off of video games. Instead of Gone with the Wind, we are Alone in the Dark.

Second, World of Warcraft has 10 million subscriber's. That's right 10,000,000 accounts. All of them paying $15 a month. Every month. You do the math. Blizzard can write its own check to make its own movie.

And, lastly this sort of thing happened once before- remember the good old days of cartoon's in the 80's? GI Joe, Transformers, My Little Pony? When everything seemed to have its own toy line? Well, it was actually the other way around. They developed the cartoons to sell the toys.

We are coming close to the day when a video game won't be a tie-in to a movie, but the movie will be used to generate buzz for a new video game.

And, bonus Cool Points if you know the first video game based on a movie.

Star Trek Back Online?

For several years now there has been a website for a Star Trek MMO that
said nothing more than “coming soon”. And, that was it. Oh, the
forums on the site had a development
blog and made lots of promises. Like, everyone would be a Captain of a
ship. That the big vehicles would have to be run by groups of
players. And lots of other things.



Oh, and oodles of concept art. Lots of that stuff.



But, that was it. For four years.



Until recently.



A classic in-joke among the sci/fi crowd is that in any show to win any conflict someone merely needs to reverse the polarity of something and the fight is over.



And that has been done with Star Trek Online.



After languishing in development at Perpetual Entertainment, the Trek
world has had its polarity reversed and has been picked up by hot new
developer Cryptic Studios.
You may remember these guys from the big hit of 2006, City of Heroes
and City of Villains. They sold their interest in those games to
Korean Publisher NCSoft for what is known in the industry as a suitcase
full of cash.



It's a technical term. And they used that cash to buy two things. The
first was probably a lot of beer. The second was Star Trek Online.



According to the company's creative leader, Jack Emmert, they have not
used much of the pre-developed material that came with the package they
bought from Perpetual. They have, in their own words, re-built it from
the ground up.



The game does promise to be interesting. Cryptic has decided to not
work within the era of existing material, choosing instead to set the
game some time after the chronological end of the series of shows.
Which I think is a good idea. This allows their writing staff the
ability to come up with original story lines that don't interfere or directly contradict the cannon material from the shows.



You know what a picky bunch us sci/fi nerds can be.



And, like Perpetual, Cryptic has put out oodles of concept art. Some
of it recycled from Perpetual. However, what they have done besides
that is put together some game play footage, and provide a lot of
screen shots. Cryptic too is proposing that the player will be the
commander of the ship, with a skill sets that come from the different
areas of the show such as medical, security, engineering, and non-ship
related such as archeology.



You non-sci/fi nerd types probably don't know that Picard was a trained
archaeologist before he was the captain of the mighty Enterprise.



Which I think is important. While I think it will be fun to engage in
ship to ship combat, the show was about more than that. The character
backgrounds gave hint of more complex life and society than a one hour
space opera normally should. And that needs to be reflected in the
game. And, it also does need to be taken in that this is going to be
an MMO. So, players are going to have to deal with each other as they
deal with the conflicts of the game. Meaning, they'll have to
negotiate and trade between themselves and the game to get the things
they want. Properly done, this game will be a licenses for Cryptic to
print money.



And, I think it can be properly done. There is already a successful space game out there, EVE Online.
And, Eve does a lot of things right. It gets the look of space right.
Which is not that they faithfully copy what the void really looks like
but that they get it right because they faithfully show it the way it
is in our heads- beautiful. And the combat is good too- lots of
orbiting and planning your moves.



Which is how space combat should be. Don't get me wrong, I'm a Star Wars Kid that loves some X-Wings but that's not how it would be.



However, one of the great staples of a MMO game is the crafting
system. And, I don't know how this could be handled. Everything in
Star Trek came from the replicators. Things were not truly built, so
much as designed in brought into existence fully formed. So, in a
world that is pre-built how will the players make things?



I know they could design it and then produce it, but that's not what
I'm talking about. While Trek does have a culture of inventiveness-
remember the reversing polarity joke at the beginning? It does not
have a culture of invention. By which I mean there are not a lot of
shows that brought out new ideas created by the characters. Yes, the
guest scientist of the week would bring on a dangerous machine that
would later get its polarity reversed but it wasn't a centerpiece of
the show. So, it will be interesting to see how Cryptic- a company
that produce a game that had no crafting system for some time- will
produce another game with a complex crafting system.



However, Cryptic has some time on its hands. They've already announced
it's going to be a few years before this game is ready to be launched.
And, since the Trek crowd has already waited a few years, what's a few
more? Personally, I would have Cryptic follow the Blizzard style of
development. Which is, wait until it's right before you release it
rather than have them push it out the door to make a quick buck.
Seriously, do you remember how long we had to wait for the first
Starcraft? I do.



It's going to be interesting to see what the talent that Cryptic has
assembled put together for us. I mean, for the Trek fans. And, since
this is a game being re-built from the ground up it's going to be
another couple years wait before Trek Fans too can say, “These are the
voyages of the Starship...”

Blood Diamond in the Rough?

In 1999 the demand for colubite-tantalite, also known as coltan, went from $49 to a staggering $275 a pound. Coltan is used in the manufacture of electronics. Specifically, it is a heat-resistant metal used in the manufacture of capacitors used in electronics such as cell phones, computers, and game consoles. This same year, Sony expanded production to meet the demand of its explosive hit console the Play Station 2.

Also in 1999, Rwanda invaded the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and took control of the coltan producing regions of the DRC. It is estimated that while Rwanda was in control of that region it made more than 250 million dollars by selling coltan to western companies. A former member of British Parliament, Oona King claims, “Kids in the Congo were being sent down mines to die so that kids in the West could kill imaginary aliens in their living rooms”

Only some of the crimes against humanity that occurred during the conflicts in Africa at the turn of the century have been documented.

However, to its credit Sony claims that it has taken steps to ensure they are not using illegally obtained coltan in its electronics. Additionally, the majority of the worlds supply of coltan comes from Australia, with contributing mines from around the world. And, according to a 2006 United States Geological Survey report, the DRC region produces less than 1% of the world’s coltan.

But, the sudden spike in price of coltan and the demand for the Play
Station are not a coincidence. While it may not be solely responsible, it was definitely a contributing factor. And, while Sony does claim that they did not deal in illegally obtained coltan, raw materials change hands frequently enough that it becomes impossible to be sure of these things. But it is statistically likely that some of this illegally obtained coltan was used in the manufacture of some Play Stations.

And, that brings up an interesting question. How responsible for these things are we as consumers? Without the demand generated by our desire to buy the Play Station 2, would the price of coltan have gone up significantly that it resulted in profits for an invading nation?

While we can’t claim that Rwanda invaded as a result of the rise in demand for a specific resource, they did profit from it. And in that part of the world, 250 million dollars goes a long way.

So, how responsible are we?

As consumers what culpability do we have in resource war? This wasn't a war over sustenance or survival. This was a war to take control of resources from another group of people.

Yes, we can say, "I didn't invade that country. I didn't shoot anyone." this is true. But would these things have happened if we hadn't demanded products made from those resources? Would Rwanda have invaded the Congo if there wasn't money to be made?

Well, we can't have a simple answer to that complex question but a likely answer is no. Without a significant gain, there would be no reason for a country as poor as Rwanda to invade another poor nation such as the DRC.

In a complex global economy, our seemingly inconsequential decisions and actions have impact in the furthest reaches of the world. And, by our actions are we responsible for the actions of others? Is cause responsible for effect?

And, I should add that I am not advocating that we stop buying all electronics. In this day and age, that is impractical. If we all stopped buying electronic equipment tomorrow, what would that do to our economy and to the economy of Australia- the largest producer of coltan? Even my cat box has a computer chip in it. What I am advocating is that as consumers we be more aware.

We, as people, have an effect on the world around us, even if it is so small a thing as buying a game machine for our children.