West Karana

It was a pretty slow weekend, considering. I meant to do a first look at Pi Story to complement the one I did for Florensia, but I didn’t get to it. Nor did I play Florensia any. I did play some EverQuest; Saturday I did all sorts of running around with my ranger, soloed Hate and Sky with my cleric, and Sunday morning met up with a guildie to do The Hole more or less legit, in that I actually played Tipa the entire time :) But I’ve talked about that in a previous post.

Since last week’s patch, some of the tougher fights in Wizard 101 have been eased up. I did a lot more of the Krok fights, cleared out the Djesserit tombs and working on the Anjit ones. The Emperor’s Retreat is still a little tough; I’m going to have to find some friends to help on that one. I have been exploring Marleybone, the next world, by looking up friends who are there and teleporting to them. I’ll have a post about Wizard 101 tonight, I didn’t have time this morning. With any luck, I’ll be able to piggyback to the fourth world, Mooshoo, soon.

I logged on to Dina in EQ2 for awhile; couldn’t find a group, but I chatted with a guy who wanted me to move to Butcherblock and return to raiding. Even if all my nights were free — which they aren’t — I will NEVER sign up for a six or seven day a week raiding commitment, unless I am being paid for my time. There are no rewards for raiding that are worth giving up half my life to obtain. None. Not even one. The fact that WoW, EQ, EQ2 and their clones encourage and require this to raid is proof enough as to how out of step these games are with the time most people have to spend on something like that.

How to bring the casual player into raiding? Guaranteed reward. Every time I complete a raid, I get a master spell or another piece to my set gear. I get it, it goes right into my inventory, same for everyone else. Having to raid something dozens of times for a chance to get something you need is the way things used to be.

Honestly, the only rewards worth working for are the ones that will remain even after I hit the UNSUBSCRIBE button. Friendships, or real-world loot.

I logged into my EQ2.Najena assassin, Brightknife, and headed over to Timorous Deep to work on some more gray quests that nonetheless would improve my armor while looking for a group, but lost interest quickly and logged off.

I see Cryptic has finally officially announced they are working on Star Trek Online, which probably comes close to being just as much a surprise as the fact that Bioware is working on a Knights of the Old Republic MMO. Which is to say, no surprise at all. Cryptic has not yet proven to me that they can make an MMO worth playing. City of Heroes/Villains comes close, but its grindy, repetitive gameplay is only worth doing if you are doing it with friends. Since nearly ANY MMO is worth playing if it’s with friends, this isn’t any sort of recommendation.

Looking at the screenshots, it looks like they didn’t use any of Perpetual’s code not because Perpetual didn’t want them to have it, but because they refused to buy it. The screenshots look entirely different from that of Perpetual’s game. There’s just one thing I want out of a STO game. And that is, my character, sitting in the captain’s seat, ordering the bridge crew around and talking with aliens on the viewscreen as we jockey for the best firing position. A tactical game that requires teamwork. And I’ll stand at the science station or whatever I have to do to earn those captain’s stripes.

If it’s friggin’ WoW-in-space like Perpetual’s seemed to be — forget it. No more WoW-likes, PLEASE. We have WoW already. Even though there were battles and stuff in Star Trek, that was NOT the point of the show. Most of the time the point was to AVOID killing. If Cryptic says I have to kill a thousand Gorn soldiers to LEVEL, they will have TRAMPLED the whole meaning of Star Trek. To seek out new life and new civilizations — and BRUTALLY MURDER THEM? NO. Star Trek Online had better be a game where you AVOID killing for the best score.

Somehow I have the feeling that the people at Cryptic, as able as they are, will not be able to make a Star Trek game that isn’t loaded with senseless killing. Maybe it will be a mirror universe Star Trek game, that universe where people delighted in senseless killing, and a universe far better suited to a WoW-like.

Ya know what? Star Trek Online shouldn’t be like an MMO at all. It should be more like — some sort of social web thing, where you could work on science projects or try to heal alien creatures, or experiment, or play on the holo-deck, or attend command school, or try to tune engines up to a better efficiency, or figure out a new way to use the deflector dish, or explore the ruins of ancient civilizations, or attend a peace conference as part of an ambassador’s retinue, or… see what I’m getting at? Having to assassinate just ten more Romulan Centurions to ding before you get your next Phaser upgrade goes against EVERYTHING ST STANDS FOR. You should be able to experience the breadth and depth of the Star Trek/Starfleet universe, which CAN INCLUDE space battles and dangerous away missions, but those would be a small part of everything you can do. And not necessary to level. Why even have levels?

Anyway, I’ve ranted about STO plenty in its last incarnation. Perpetual was going to cheapen it. Cryptic might not. I hope they don’t. But I don’t think they are daring enough to make a game that isn’t a grindy murderfest. It’s what’s easiest.

Adventure on land and sea? Lush, detailed world? Dual talent trees that let you mold your character however you like? How can it miss?

Florensia’s kinship with Dream of Mirror Online couldn’t be more unmistakable. That same sort of soft focus, cell-shaded look of the characters against backdrops so lush they seem to be almost painted. And these guys don’t just sit around and swing at each other… they put their bodies into it, jumping and swinging and spiking stuff at the enemy. The birth of the aerobic adventurer.

You start off in the port town of Roxbury on Cardiff Island — any relationship to actual cities is purely coincidental. This small fishing village is being assaulted from both land and sea by a variety of pests. On land, someone delved into a cave where no mortal was meant to tread, and a vile mist began corrupting the local wildlife. On the sea, the port is being harassed by gigantic lobster men who seem to be in league with some pirates.

The residents of Roxbury are going to need all your abilities on land AND on sea in order to survive. Also, you will need to fish.

Nothing says “hi, this game is from Japan” like hundreds of people all lined up against the water, fishing. And why not? Fish up some rare stuff and you can turn it in for upgrades.

The quests are thoroughly standard. Bring this thing to someone else. Go talk to that guy about something. Go kill ten of that and three of this and all the thoses you can find until you get ten wazzits from it.

The extensive tutorial leads you easily through battles on land, building and equipping a ship, and setting sail. It does fail a bit on how to actually kill stuff on the water; it took awhile before I figured out how to successfully join the fight against the Lobstermen from the Deep but yeah, I eventually got all Cloverfield on their butts.

I designed and built that ship, by the way. That ain’t no tutorial ship.

There’s only the one race — humans — and just four classes — explorer, noble, mercenary and saint. Explorers are the rangers and hunters of Florensia. Nobles, those people in silks who never got their hands dirty with real work, are the nukers. The mercenaries are the basic tanks, and the saints are the healers. My character is a Saint. Isn’t she JUST, though? Carrying a candle to show you how devout she is. A candle of FIERY DEATH she can HURL 50 FEET.

Those are just the templates. Similar to the late and lamented Mythos, you can build out your character anyway you like based on the talent trees. Each level, you buy a new skill. And each level, you get a point to put in a skill. The more points you allocate, the more powerful that skill becomes. All Saints get a basic heal, but that won’t do anything unless you point points into it — the more the better. But points in healing is points you can’t spend on nukes and dots. And that’s how that talent tree branches — a healing saint, a nuking saint, or a DoT saint? It’s up to you, and you can do a combination of, but you won’t ever be good at all of them.

I haven’t seen a respec NPC, but I can’t see how there would not be one.

But is the game any good? I can’t tell you that. I can tell you it isn’t BAD. It does need some work — for instance, the UI is not modifiable. These old eyes need text to be a little larger, and I’d like some of the other UI elements moved around. The movement keys are a little wacky; you can’t turn in place, you can only turn while moving forward, which is weird. And you can’t redefine them. The bouncy music plays continuously whether you are in battle or not, and it’s always the same tune. So yeah, there’s work to be done.

I feel it’s impossible to actually judge how good an MMO is unless you play it for a month. Getting to land level 6 and sea level 2 hasn’t taught me much about the higher level parts of the game. The animations are great, very over the top and entirely appropriate for the anime look. The talent trees are deep and it’s easy to see how you can make a character that plays out just as you like it. You can just buy one skill and every level pump it higher and higher and become fantastic at that one thing, or spread out your abilities and be more a generalist. That’s very nice. There’s even (ahem) a menu that lets you select among the several languages Florensia supports (be sure to set this to English if you’re an English speaker!)

If you can’t stand cute anime characters, you’re not going to like Florensia much. But if you liked Dream of Mirror Online but wanted something with a less Asian, more Western setting — Florensia might be worth a look. And hey, it’s free.

I haven’t done a “what I’m playing” thing for awhile. So here’s my current roster of games, and I’ll start off with what I’m NOT playing. And that game would be Mythos.

MMOs:

Mythos had one of the strongest beta communities on record, with unparalleled access to devs. Community Manager Taylor Baldree would hold court in the #mythos IRC channel every night. Devs would respond daily on the forums. And all that was leading to a game that I very much wanted to play. With Hellgate: London’s reprieve by Namco Bandai, let’s hope there IS hope for Mythos as well.

Pi Story and Florensia — I played a few hours of Pi Story in closed beta, but it ended before I got too far in the game. Florensia, I didn’t get into the closed beta but has since gone open. Pi Story is a 2D side scroller MMO in the vein of Secret of Mana or Legend of Mana — a fast, action RPG MMO. Florensia is a Japanese pirate/fantasy adventure which has been compared to OnePiece. I like Japanese MMOs because they generally are closer to Western sensibilities than Chinese or Korean MMOs. I really want to get back to Pi Story, but will probably be on Florensia for a few days to check it out. Huge production values, I want to get a look at it.

Wizard 101 — W101 has been my addiction the past couple of weeks, but it is getting a little grindy and bugs in the Tomb of Storms in Krokotopia are making it difficult to progress. It IS beta, after all, so I am not too concerned. I am about at the point where I can write a decent first look at it, and then sit back and wait for release. This is one darn addictive game, but I begin to dread battles because as you move up in levels, each battle takes more and more time. Even with other people, the games have become so fantastically strategic that it’s hard to see how well their target audience does once they’re facing two rows of Rank 4 Elites and your deck contains only three 404 point heals…

City of Villains — love the game, love the characters, just don’t have time for the grind. I didn’t even actually intend on playing it last weekend, I just wanted to use the character creator. I just kept getting swallowed up into mission groups — random people would invite me all the time, and all but one of the groups were great.

EverQuest — Tuesday and Friday nights are for EQ. It took awhile to get used to the game again after so long away, but I am very comfortable there once again. Finding groups outside the Nostalgia nights is still a hassle, so, as when I played before, I don’t bother looking for groups. I just run around and explore or work on my epic. I don’t hold out the hope that the next expansion will bring anything for casual players; sounds like the whole faction grind, tiered high end raiding system they love so much now. But that’s okay. They already wrote MY EverQuest, and it’s still there to play.

EverQuest 2 — I haven’t logged on EQ2 again since I finished my storm armor quests. I hate soloing, and I only stuck it through the considerable soloing for that assassin armor because I wanted to take a screenshot of my character wearing it. My goals in EQ2 — getting my troubadour’s mythical epic, or finding a high level casual raiding guild — seem impossible. My level 80 troubadour and inquisitor are guildless, and it’s so depressing not having anyone to talk to when I log in that I don’t spend much time playing. I think my inquisitor might still be sitting in the bottom of RE2 where she was when she was kicked out of the group so they could bring someone else’s healer in. My troubadour has been unable to even get a RE2 group, and I have no idea how I am supposed to report on EQ2 happenings when I don’t even have a guild :/ It’s tough and depressing.

Vanguard — I’ve been spending some time in Vanguard, running around, doing quests, and hoping to get a good sense for the current state of the game. Again, being guildless and playing entirely solo are so crushingly soul-draining that I can’t play long before I just want to fill the emptiness with a game that has people I can talk to in it.

Looking back, it looks like I have been largely playing games with easy grouping and fast-paced gameplay. Not surprisingly, these are the two trends I think herald the forthcoming next wave of MMOs that will supplant the WoW-likes.