Why?  Complete and utter bordom of the genre.  Why am I still posting on and reading the various MMO websites?  I know of all the good stuff that is just around the corner…

I guess the main reason has been the lack of any actual gameplay in EQ2.  Combat is automatic, with a few clicks on various spells or combat arts here and there. Mob positioning is important, and keeping the mobs in the corrent position being rather challenging at times, but with the general level on intelligence of most of the pickup groups I get lumbered with being lower than yoghurt, there is little point in doing that…

So what have I been doing?  Battlefield Bad Company 2 has been my multiplayer game of choice, but the main thing I’ve been doing is single player games, preferably ones with a good story, which is sorely lacking in MMO games.

My latest game has been Alan Wake, it’s basicly one of those high budget American TV shows about some horror writers search for his missing wife after a novel he hasn’t even written yet starts to come true.  A plot easily summarised in one sentence.  If you tried doing that for most MMOs, you couldn’t.  Such a depth of lore and story, but why isn’t it being used to a greater extent?  In the entirety of EQ2, there is one zone, The Estate of Unrest, that has a story, which you follow through to complete the zone.  It is fantastic, nostalgic for those players from EQ1, well made, full of scripted events, though not upto the standards set by Half Life or Call of Duty, but very good for a MMO.

Another game I’ve been playing is almost an MMO, but not quite.  Monster Hunter Tri, basicly you play a hunter, of monsters… no fat on that title.  The game has an impressive sense of scale, although the actual areas you play in are small, there is a feeling of being within an immense landscape, which you don’t get often in MMOs.  The game is one of those japanese sandbox style games, which differs from the western style sandbox games like Crackdown and Grand Theft Auto, in that you don’t really see there being much to do, but then it gradually builds up until you’re always occupied, less overwhelming than most MMOs are at first.

I recently finished Alpha Protocal, a spy-rpg.  The game is your standard action rpg, think Mass Effect but with the combat dice rolls taken from Deus Ex, fairly generic Middle Eastern locales at first, and if I’m being honest, I struggled to go on, but then the game gives you loads of choices on how to do missions, how to treat NPCs, who to kill, who not to kill, where to go, what missions to do first…  The best thing is, you can’t make a wrong decision.  The game won’t end if you annoy someone, or get someone else killed, it will impact the story, you may make bad decisions, but it doesn’t matter.  This is a thing missing from most MMOs.  If you want to play well, you need a wiki, or somewhere to get detailed, up to the minute, information on your class/race/quest/faction etc.  I don’t want to spend hours respeccing, testing dps, swapping gear to min-max my character. I want to be flexible in what I do, how I build my character, and yet still be a valued member of my group or guild.

So what is “good stuff that is just around the corner”?

Firstly a little game you may have heard of; The Old Republic.  Bioware know how to do story, so I’m really hoping that the game gives MMO developers (not looking at you, Sony Online Entertainment or Blizzard) a well needed kick up the posterium in regards to creating a living, breathing world.  Hell, even Oblivion succeeds more than most MMOs just by having (badly) scripted NPCs wandering around.

Final Fantasy XIV is looking pretty much likely to show people what proper freedom is like in an MMO, multi classing, massive areas to explore, and the game looks great to boot.  I’ve been in the Alpha and Beta and it’s going to be my next main MMO, unless I get to have a go on…

Rift: Planes of Telara.  Some of the original EQ1 Devs are behind this.  Class free, skill based leveling system, very freeform.  The game for people who want a next gen EQ1 style experience basicly.  The thing current MMOs don’t have, that EQ1 does, is versatile classes.  Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft and Everquest 2 all have classes that are good at one or two things, whereas EQ1 had classes that could do far more.  I’ve seen Wizards tanking raids, bards soloing swarms of mobs, necromancers healing groups, beastlords being total badasses! (yes, I played a beastlord, biased, I know…)

Hopefully the “Next Gen” MMOs will bring gameplay and choice back to the genre, or otherwise, I’ll be wearing my xbox out..

Originally Posted At: MMO-Symposium an MMO Blog

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Just a short post today, another Yetian and MMO fashion post. On our blog here we often post about upcoming MMO titles, our thoughts on MMO’s in general as well as our in game experiences. Personally a lot of my MMO related thoughts are brought about by my in game experiences which is where the previous post on  Yetian and Everquest 2 Tailoring came from.

Here is the current outfit I’ve managed to find for Yetian. The boots and arms are actually Tier 1 rare tailoring bits, soon to be replaced when I find new items. The chest and leg pieces are quested armour from the Kylong Plains quest series, a Tier 8 (around level 70) zone. So as things go Yetian a master tailor has had to quest for a new appearance set, typical SOE.

As I’ve said before we all like our characters to look good so no doubt you will be hearing more from me on my MMO character’s outfits in the months to come.

If anyone wants to sent in their best character outfits drop a mail to us via the contact form with links to your pics on the web. If you don’t have any web links, just say so and we’ll mail you back with our email address where you can send the pics. I’m always interested to see what the rest of you have managed to come up with, regardless of which game it is in.

Originally Posted At: MMO-Symposium an MMO Blog

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The world itself was good fun to wander around, the races and their game areas pretty much as I imagined them to be. The Dwarves were gritty and beer filled, the Elves elegant and the Empire fanatical in their ways. As you can tell my first choices were on the side of Order, though I did try out a Goblin on another server and loved the comical actions of the Greenskins.

The game itself as you will probably know is split between PvE (player vs environment) and RvR (Realm vs Realm) combat. The PvE side of the game has some interesting ideas such as public quests and some quests a bit different to the usual types. I paticularly enjoyed dropping a rock on a Snotling and quests such as shooting harpies out of the sky. Public quests are as the name suggests, quests which need help from other players to progress. They are constantly running and you can simply walk in and take part in the quest, the stage you enter at and how much you do determine your reward. These quests were ok at first as everyone was playing in the same areas, but later on as people out leveled me I found them to be empty and therefore impossible to complete.

The PvE area of the game in general feels a bit empty though, yes there are lots of quests to do but on your travels in an MMO you expect to see a bit more of the other players in the game. I think having public quests rather than a mix of solo and group quests such as you find in EQ2 dilutes the player base a bit in other areas. To really group with others you end up mostly concentrating on the PQ areas if you can find enough to do the quests that is, granted this is probably down to the fact I was a very casual WAR player and as a result fell behind the crowd in terms of areas and levels. In EQ2 however there are always people to group with in various tiers of the game and of course the mentoring system often means our higher guild members are found questing with lower level characters in the guild.

The other side of Warhammer Online is Realm vs Realm combat or PvP as a lot of you will know it. RvR takes place in two ways on core servers, there are set areas you travel to for PvP combat and Scenarios. There are also open RvR servers where your always flagged for RvR combat no matter where you are, this can also happen if you attack those who are flagged RvR on core servers. The RvR combat is good fun at first though the scenario’s (instances), do get a bit boring after a while and you really need others to be around to take the flags in the RvR areas. This is another area of the game that I found a bit quiet as the general player base progressed. My Goblin char on an open RvR server saw a bit more action as the level range which you can fight against is larger than on core servers, resulting in what are normally tier 2 characters still playing in tier1 RvR areas.

In the end I logged on feeling a bit lost and without much player interaction as the lower areas became a bit quiet for the reason’s I’ve already stated. I’d try and go into RvR but that became a bit tiresome as well after doing the same area for an hour or two. I have a feeling the more complex higher tier RvR and city battles would be more interesting, but I just didn’t have the will to get myself there. It’s a shame as the Warhammer world is a great place to base a game on and there were some interesting classes to try out, I just didn’t feel there was enough depth to the game for me to continue playing.

So with a fond and yet frustrated farewall to Warhammer Online it’s Yetian out.

Originally Posted At: MMO-Symposium an MMO Blog