West Karana

I was cleaning out my closet and found a few old floppy disks, REALLY old. Someone had scrawled “Daily Blogroll: Sep ’01″ on them. I honestly don’t remember writing any blogs way back then. I had no idea what was on them. They were two 8″ disks, so between the two of them, there could be as many as four or five pages of documents sitting there, unread, for eight years.

It was a wide, wonderful, weird world back then. The success of EverQuest, Asheron’s Call, Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot had changed the landscape of online adventure gaming. By requiring players to have hardware 3D graphics acceleration in their machines, EverQuest raised the bar for all MMOs that followed.

It’s not easy to track down an 8″ floppy drive these days, but after some calls, I was able to find someone who could read these disks for me, and he sent me a digital copy of the contents. So sit back, grab a snifter of absinthe, put on your bustles and top hats and travel with me back to a time when unicorns grazed the bowling fields and MMORPGs were young.

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If you’re having trouble releasing ONE MMORPG, why not start another? And if that isn’t working out for you, how but just one more? Glitchless, developers of groundbreaking, never-before-seen, you are not WORTHY of playing MMORPG Dawn, who earlier this year suspended development on Dawn to work on a new RTS set in the same world, Dusk: Dawn Tactics, has today announced that they are pushing all those aside and coming out with an even BETTER game, Racewar Kingdoms. Quoth GM Jeff:

Race War Kingdoms has been completely re-made and is now an entirely different title complete with graphics, and real-time gameplay! A public beta is being held for 3 days, get in before it’s too late!

Complete with graphics! Don’t miss it! Race War Kingdoms, you may remember, was originally a web page where the more you clicked, the more you won. Now it has GRAPHICS!

It wouldn’t be a Glitchless game unless it featured permadeath. As GM Jeff said in a Stratics debate last January, permadeath is a way to ensure that the people who aren’t SERIOUS about roleplaying quit the game, so everyone wins:

*GL-Jeff* Well the anti-perm death crowd has already stated that permdeath would “shorten” the lifespan of the PERSISTANT world. I believe they are already admitting that yes, the players that are not serious about playing for RP purposes will leave the game early.

Well, in reality, groups of PKs would just band up and completely ruin the game for everyone else at no risk to themselves. Jeff has apparently never played Ultima Online. Didn’t we just have this debate with Sierra’s Middle-Earth Online? It’s just weird seeing people seriously argue that EverQuest’s death penalty is not severe enough.

Rumor has it, btw, that the EverQuest devs are considering upping the three hours before your corpse and all your possessions decay to something a little longer. About time.

You know what modern games really need? More lens flare. Seriously.

What’s that game where you can play a dragon, pick up a player in your claws, fly a few thousand feet up, and release? Oh yeah, Horizons. But heck, why stop there? Why not terrorize player-built villages by strafing them with your fire breath? In Horizons, you can be a Vampire (but as long as you kill only players nobody will miss, nobody needs to know). Or a demon, or an angel, an insect, a lizard… 14 races, most never seen before, embroiled in a complex, shifting web of loyalties and all-out blood war.

At least they’re staying mum on the whole permadeath debate…

Artifact Entertainment, makers of Horizons: Empires of Istaria, recently signed a publishing agreement with Korean developers NCsoft. They must have been a little shocked when ex-Ultima guru Lord “Richard Garriott” British grabbed the spotlight away from the Horizons team with news that his Destination Games would merge with NCsoft’s US arm to become NCsoft Austin and develop their own new MMO.

Quoth Artifact CEO David Allen when asked how Horizons and Garriott’s new MMO would compete with each other: “At this point, not at all – Jake and Richard are developing something completely new and innovative; I don’t think they’re even going the traditional RPG route. We’ll have to wait and see!”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch Origin Systems…. Ultima Online Worlds, 3D follow-up to the spectacularly successful (but non-3D) MMO Ultima Online, has been canceled. Asked why this title, which would have taken the Ultima MMO franchise for the first time into the 3D arena, was canceled, Origin’s David Swofford said the decision was made to focus on Ultima Online and try to reclaim the #1 spot among persistent world games from such Johnny-come-latelies as EverQuest and Asheron’s Call:

… We’re trying to get our numbers up higher than they are. We’re already up to about 230,000 subscribers and UO has grown about 80% in the past year. I think that’s one of the reasons that EA and Origin are saying, “Hey, why toy with success?” Rather than going forth with something that could be construed as a competitive product we’re going to put more of our resources on UO and make it even more of a success.

Well, they definitely don’t want to come out with a competitive product….

Information about sports game impresarios Codemasters’ new MMO, Dragon Empires, due out near the middle of next year, continues to trickle out. This groundbreaking game has player guilds warring against one another for control of the cities and resources of the world. According to the press release:

Due in 2002, Dragon Empires is set when magic is plentiful and the lives of humans and dragons intertwined. The game innovates by creating a world of adventures that will be filled with player clans, each striving to rule magnificent cities and, ultimately, empires through tactical dealing or clan-on-clan combat.

You won’t be able to play a dragon, though….

If your tastes run more toward building and crafting than all that messy war everywhere stuff, Atriarch might be more your style. Players will be able to build any structure they can imagine, LEGO-style. Tired of playing elves, dwarves, and elves? Atriarch does away with all that by setting their game on an entirely alien world. And unlike Dawn’s strictly sexual reproduction, Atriarch is a little more “don’t ask, don’t tell” about it. Atriarch lead designer Serafina Pechan says:

Atriarch supports the ability for player characters to have families. We call it the Lineage System. Every player can have its character spawn offspring through asexual reproduction. There are two ways your character’s family and lineage can expand.

It’s always been my fervent, till now unspoken desire to propagate like a bacteria.

News about the game has slowed down a bit recently, but alpha testing is expected to begin soon, and if you’d like to get in on the ground floor, bribery might help…

Of course, if you truly want to ensure your spot as an early Atriarch tester, then bribes in the form of EQ platinum will be accepted on the Povar server. Other suggestions for offerings, donations, or outright bribes can be emailed to: pleeeeeezepickme@atriarch.com ;-)

If war everywhere is what you’re after, Adellion has the stuff. Massive battles. Permadeath. No magic. No elves, dwarves, or any race but human. A world so large that you couldn’t cross it if you set your character dashing across it on horseback for an entire day. Adellion’s recently released FAQ explains all this and a little more about what it means to play in a game where role-playing is enforced:

If you’re not a role-player in fact, you need not apply. Why? Because everything-and we mean everything-in Adellion will be done In Character. If you log onto the game with “Yo-wazzzuuuuppp?” you will be greeted with “Huh?” …

Gotta love a game that spells out why they don’t want you as a player in their FAQ.

EverQuest’s latest experiment, the “anything goes” PvP server Sullon Zek, is now continually posting PvP stats on the aptly named Sullon Zek PvP stats page. As if you needed ANOTHER reason to hate Halfling Druids…

Meanwhile, the game awaits next month’s new expansion, Shadows of Luclin, which will bring an all-new graphics engine, all-new character models, a moon landing which devs assure us won’t be faked, and … hey, if there’s this moon called “Luclin”, how come nobody’s ever seen it before? Huh???

Anyway, EQ might be revamping all its graphics, but it ain’t no Adellion, that’s for sure.

Well, the floppies are getting full so I guess that means its wrap-up time. MMO gaming has never been better, with the huge success of EverQuest, Ultima Online and others spurring the development of dozens of huge worlds full of adventure. 2002 is shaping up to be the best year ever for the MMO genre.

I’m not gonna say anything snarky about Michael Jackson. When he died yesterday, millions of people all over the world played his music loud and sang along; people gathered to remember him. When you and I die, how many people will even remember we lived? Nobody will remember us for how many max level characters we had or how many nights we spent raiding. We’ll only be remembered by and because of the people whose hearts we touched. Beau Turkey finds the most memorable moments in MMOs are not the levels ground out, but the coming together of friends to work on something as a team.

Space Michael, btw, was the name of Jackson’s character in the Dreamcast game, “Space Channel 5“. I played that game so many times I could finish the entire thing in less than an hour. About 3/4 of the way through, you’d have the chance to save Space Michael by doing some of his signature moves. After, he’d join your crew and dance with you through the rest of the game.

In a weird bit of irony, Roy Greenhilt FINALLY returns to the land of the living in Order of the Stick. Roy, we MISSED YOU. Think you waited too long for a rez? Roy waited SIX MONTHS. And we waited two years (and 222 strips).

There’s actually one place in the world — and just one, really — where people care how many max level characters you have, and that place is a gaming convention. SOE’s Fan Faire starts today and we expect to hear more about the upcoming expansions for EQ and EQ2, the “go live” date for EQ’s new Mayong 51/50 server, and other fun stuff. Expect a lot of attention paid to Free Realms. Lazaretto is in Las Vegas with a live report from the pre-show — we’ll be watching his blog for more information all day.

I like how, in the SOE Fan Fair page, they list Vanguard after the canceled “Matrix Online” and “Trading Card Games”.

Growing up in the US, I didn’t know all that much about Australia. Our family was friends with an Australian family, but aside from the accent, they were just like anyone else, no difference. Australians were seen in US movies and TV as a rough and tumble people ready for a good laugh or a good fight, full of the enjoyment of life. That image has been shattered recently by Australia’s decent into the abyss of “why won’t anyone think of the children?” where games not suitable for children between the ages of 15 and 18 cannot be imported or played over the Internet. Oz gamer Stropp doesn’t want to live in a “Nanny State” where the government imposes complete censorship in the guise of “protecting the children”, any wants to spread the word — this is how freedoms get taken away.

Copra takes a look at the current state of World of Warcraft and for the life of him, can’t figure out how a new player could ever even think about joining WoW’s end game. Isn’t that the reason, though, that they do a complete gear reset every expansion? So everyone starts out at the same place every two years. New players only have to wait a couple of years for the next expansion and they’ll be fine.

Software developers have to constantly deal with the dreaded “check list” — if your program doesn’t have all the features every other program of that sort has, you fail and that’s all there is to it. MMOs aren’t immune to this. Myrix asks MMO devs to throw the check list away and just make a fun GAME. Don’t need crafting? Don’t add it just because WoW has it!

Gordon of We Fly Spitfires points to a really cool and non-condescending documentary about virtual worlds, watching it now…. Oh, hai, Raph Koster!

Lastly, Keen takes a look at Warhammer’s new “Land of the Dead” and finds in it the same sort of realm give-and-take he liked so much in Dark Age of Camelot’s “Darkness Falls” realm war dungeon.

Traveling again this weekend, so I’ll be back Monday. Keep gaming!

Hey, didja hear the news? Mark Jacobs is leaving Mythic and Mythic is being merged into Bioware! Jacobs was the public face of Mythic for so long, I can’t think of one without the other, and I can’t think of an upside to his leaving for the game I once loved, Dark Age of Camelot.

Keen thought EA was past absorbing studios for their properties and then squeezing out the help. Snazfg urges people not to pillory either EA or Jacobs until more is known. Heartless_ said he knew it all along (I guess he did!). Ardwulf wonders if this means Mythic will be getting some Bioware resources (don’t count on it). Tobold suspects the merge came because Warhammer did not meet the goals Jacobs promised. Stropps agrees. Abalieno at Cesspit would have preferred this ended differently, with more learning and caring. Werit detects an air of schadenfreud among some of the commentators. And Scott Jennings reminisces about Mark and happier days at Mythic.

I don’t know anything about Mark or Mythic or EA, but I have been working in IT for thirty years and I know quite a lot about mergers. When a big company buys a smaller company, the executives of that smaller company either embrace change and become big dogs in the new company, or conflict with the new bosses and leave (always to seek out new opportunities). This news says to me that regardless of how Warhammer did or does, Jacobs almost certainly didn’t mesh well with EA, and now the big bosses are gonna do things THEIR way. Bioware is the new golden boy studio, so they get to raid Mythic, and they’ll be top dog until they slip up.

I just wonder what will happen to Dark Age of Camelot when the dust settles?

Speaking of Ages of Things Beginning With the Letter ‘C’, Age of Conan had an update yesterday and things went … pretty well, says Openedge1. So more power to them.

WAR and AoC came out around the same time. Both aimed to be the choice for WoW players who wanted better graphics and more PvP. Both were crushed when Blizzard released the Wrath of the Lich King expansion for World of Warcraft. While WAR has kept steady on course with being the “WoW PvP alternative”, AoC has scaled back and focused on incremental improvements to their game play and growing their customer base gradually — the EVE Online model. No longer looking at WoW’s millions but just working on making a good game for its players, it might yet win where WAR has not.

In Darkfall news, looks like if you’re playing Darkfall now and want to restart on the new North American server when it opens, you’ll have to buy the game all over again. Keen is flabbergasted, and vows not to play DF at all, where he’d planned to give it a shot on the new server. Beau Turkey says hey, Aventurine is an indie developer and they need the money. What’s the big deal? Tobold lifts his rule against commenting on Darkfall by noting that Aventurine is the one company that takes their hardcore rep right into the “Company vs Player” realm.

So, you know, lots of stuff went down yesterday. At least we have WoW as the steady rock upon which we can stand and watch the turmoil swirl below.

Or can we? Spinks notes that Blizzard is trying to use social engineering to balance WoW’s tank classes. Trying to discourage guilds from using warriors to tank raids? Is that something a company should really be manipulating?

Lastly, Suzina at Kill Ten Rats takes Lord of the Rings Online’s summer festival maze as a metaphor for these sorts of games themselves. Players as the rats, and a grind of pointless accomplishments as the reward. Did I say pointless? Hey, she “… could get a new wall-paper for my house or a new fish-slap emote!”

The path to uberness, folks, is paved with cheese.

I have added a plugin that makes this blog look better on the iPhone, so if you ARE reading this on the iPhone — it looks better, and that’s why :)

Enjoy your Thursday and keep on gaming!

Yes, we’re back to the Daily Blogroll. Another allergy attack has left me asleep by 9PM, which really shortens the nights for me.

Is Aion too derivative to be successful? Tobold thinks so. In fact he wonders why people would pay full price (US$15/month) for a WoW-like like Aion when they can get the real thing for the same price, or a free WoW-like in Runes of Magic. He also doesn’t hold out much hope for Fallen Earth, calling it too much like failed MMO Tabula Rasa “just working less well, being less fun, and having less good graphics”. So that’s that.

Being a WoW-like doesn’t look like it will keep many away from Aion. Spinks thinks the beauty of the game, the storytelling and the PvP (as well as the third dimension with flight) will bring people in. Caliga of MMO Gamers has the rundown of the extra stuff you can expect in the collector’s edition, as well as an automatic pass into the beta.

Speaking of new games, Hudson has the latest round-up of the news Cryptic has been leaking about the state of Champions Online, due to be released September, same as Aion.

Having played both betas, I would go with Aion if forced to choose, but the Champions NDA prevents me from saying just why.

Syncaine at Hardcore Casual looks at Blizzard’s limiting of the formerly-open Wintergrasp PvP zone to 100v100 with some measure of skepticism based on other games (like Warhammer, Dark Age of Camelot, EVE Online, Darkfall and others) being able to handle much larger fights. Tobold uses some bad math to make the case for it being a strain on resources to keep it unlimited. (In a client-server architecture, resource use increase linearly, not geometrically).

Blizzard is using WoW as a money machine to support development on other upcoming titles. As long as the WoW ATM keeps spitting out million dollar bills, everything is FINE and it’s easier to limit players than add more resources.

The best thing about WoW, if you’re Blizzard, is that you can’t beat players away with a STICK, as Zubon Ethic found when he tried to sign back up. No matter how many roadblocks Blizzard threw in his way, no matter how much it cost him to do it, he was gonna play WoW again, dammit.

Lastly, if you’re not a fan of Hayao Miyazaki’s movies, I can only guess you’ve never seen any of them. To even start with why I love them would take a thousand words, so I won’t say more than: The very first anime I ever saw was Miyazaki’s “Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind”. A friend sat me down and made me watch it, and he had a weird smile on his face. It was in Japanese, I didn’t understand a word of it, nor what was going on, but even just with the pictures and Jo Hisaishi’s amazing music to go on, I was blown away. When I later saw it dubbed in English, I was blown away yet again because the plot was just as amazing as the visuals.

For the past decade or so, Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli has had a deal with Disney where they would bring Miyazaki’s films to the US dubbed in English by major voice talents, uncut and unrearranged, exactly as how they were released in Japan, except in English. Since then, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle have had astonishingly wonderful US theatrical releases, and this summer comes his latest masterpiece, Ponyo, about a goldfish who makes a wish to be human — with disastrous consequences.

See it, you’ll love it.