Game News FOOL is kind of Online

[Silellak]

MMO

shit

Truth.

:smugcodex:

 

[.Sigurd]

MMO

shit

Truth.

:smugcodex:

A diamond always arise from time to time.

 

[Secretninja]

Darkfail counts as a diamond?

 

[.Sigurd]

Darkfail counts as a diamond?

At launch? No, like every other MMO made by a small company.
Now? Yes, after all, now the game is solid, have a steady player base, there's new features every month, they are updating the graphics and fixing bugs.

 

[Silellak]

At launch? No, like every other MMO made by a small company.

Fixed.

 

[Fat Dragon]

MMOs can be pretty fun if you run with a group of good friends and just do random shit in it for the hell of it. Unfortunately, most MMOs today are focused mainly on the grinding and loot collecting and the rules are way too strict even in PvP, what bullshit. Give us back the kind of freedom we had in Ultima Online. :evil:

And wow, Darkfall. So they finally got it finished and out the door, didn't know that. How is it? Does it deliver on the PvP gameplay it promised?

@ Silellak, what exactly do you not like about MMOs? Nothing personal, but for someone whose made a lot of posts here that take shots at those who bash a game without backing up their reasons why, you sure do that exact thing a lot towards MMOs.

 

[Mister Arkham]

Signed up. Glittering gems of hatred are go!

 

[Silellak]

@ Silellak, what exactly do you not like about MMOs? Nothing personal, but for someone whose made a lot of posts here that take shots at those who bash a game without backing up their reasons why, you sure do that exact thing a lot towards MMOs.

That's a fair question, I suppose. You largely covered in when you talked about how MMOs have moved further and further away from the UO-style and are now basically EQ/WoW-based grinding clones. I played UO for years, and adored it, but they gradually made the game worse and worse, until finally their attempts to make the game as EQ-like as possible drove me away.

I've played plenty of MMOs since then, to varying levels of entertainment. My issues with the genre is just how stale it's become since the release of WoW. In fact, they may as well rename the genre from "MMO" to "WoW, but with...", because that's how all new MMOs advertise themselves.

Age of Conan? WoW, but with more twitch-based combat.
Warhammer Online? WoW, but with better PvP.
Champions Online? WoW, but with superheroes.
Star Trek Online? WoW, but in SPACE!

Obviously some resemble WoW more closely than others. Most recently, STO had a few unique features (mostly found in the space combat) that made it worth my time for a couple of months, but in the end, it falls into the same trap all other EQ/WoW-based MMOs fall into. I have two main issues with games that come from the EQ/WoW "genus":

1. They are all leveling/grind/theme park centric, rather than being an open sandbox. Go to area. Kill mobs and do quests into level X is reached. Go to next area. Repeat until level Y is reached. Go to next area. Etc, etc, etc. Eventually you max out, and the grind becomes more about equipment than about leveling, but it's still the same grind, just dressed up entirely.

2. They all place artificial limits on the player base. While I'm okay with some very basic rules, I think the early days of UO really nailed what an MMO should be like in a lot of ways.

The other "genus" would be UO/SWG/EvE/Darkfall, where the focus is on sandbox exploration and "making your own fun" with other players. The problem is, these MMOs simply aren't as successful as their "theme park" brothers. Hell, the fact most MMOs can be treated as a glorified single player game is exactly what's wrong with the genre. If I'm not experiencing a sandbox-based world with other players who can interact with each other with few artificial limitations, then what the fuck is the point of a "virtual word"?

It's not the developers faults, really. They're just providing Supply for the Demand, and the Demand, in this case, are care bear worlds full of shiny toys to play with, without any chance of a big bad bully coming and taking their toy. The problem is that few if any major developers have proven willing to innovate outside the "WoW, but..." mentality, because the cost of a failed MMO is simply too high. Easier to just replicate what works, add your own twist, and hope your game is popular enough to attract even a fraction of the WoW player base.

tl;dr: MMOs are a mostly-stagnant genre that refuse to innovate outside the basic WoW formula, and the cost of making and supporting an MMO is high enough that any innovation will continue to be the exception rather than the norm for at least the forseeable future.

 

[Kraszu]

If I can't play as The Master I'm not getting it.

The class is pretty gimped, since you can't really move much, and you're incredibly weak against the Diplomat class.

You can buy wheels in DLC.

 

[Fat Dragon]

@ Silellak
Fair enough, I agree with all of your points. It's a shame the genre has declined so heavily, but if you can manage to find a good MMO they can be great fun. I've recently started play the fanmade Fallout online, which has been pretty fun, a very good PvP experience with shitloads of backstabbing and struggling to keep your gang alive. It really captures the dangerous post-apoc spirit.

This is why I'm interested in hearing about Tim Cain's MMO, since he has stated he largely prefers the sandbox gameplay of MMOs like Ultima Online or Star Wars Galaxy over grindan adventures.

 

[Silellak]

If I can't play as The Master I'm not getting it.

The class is pretty gimped, since you can't really move much, and you're incredibly weak against the Diplomat class.

You can buy wheels in DLC.

It's a work of beauty how more recent MMOs have actually figured out that players will pay for a monthly fee and pay for shit like additional races, respecs, etc. I wish I could just dismiss it all as a giant fucking scam, but it's not like companies are forcing anyone to play these games.

 

[Silellak]

@ Silellak
Fair enough, I agree with all of your points. It's a shame the genre has declined so heavily, but if you can manage to find a good MMO they can be great fun. I've recently started play the fanmade Fallout online, which has been pretty fun, a very good PvP experience with shitloads of backstabbing and struggling to keep your gang alive. It really captures the dangerous post-apoc spirit.

This is why I'm interested in hearing about Tim Cain's MMO, since he has stated he largely prefers the sandbox gameplay of MMOs like Ultima Online or Star Wars Galaxy over grindan adventures.

If he can pull it off, more power to him, but I'll believe it when I see it.

After all, both UO and especially SWG decided to completely abandon their sandbox principles and convert the game to as much of a Grindin' Quest as the engine and world would allow, thus alienating both their existing fanbase and potential new players, since poor word of mouth tends to quickly spread.

 

[Hoaxmetal]

After all, both UO and especially SWG decided to completely abandon their sandbox principles and convert the game to as much of a Grindin' Quest as the engine and world would allow, thus alienating both their existing fanbase and potential new players, since poor word of mouth tends to quickly spread.

Very true. Although I have never played UO in official server (so I played whichever UO version I wanted) expansions starting with Age of Shadows (housing tools were superb though) added only gimmicky versions of modern MMO features.

Haven't played SWG only because of word of mouth about NGE expansion and such. This heavily backslashed since old players were butthurt and word of mouth spread quick. Really, if you don't do any research yourself then practically only thing about SWG you'll hear will be "It was great *insert some cool sandbox story here*, too bad Sony fucked it up."

Oh well.

 

[.Sigurd]

~~~~

I have a feeling that you will love Wurm Online.
http://www.wurmonline.com/

Wurm Online had to be different. What was the point of creating something that had been done time and time again? Yes, it would be 3d. Yes it would be multi-player. Yes, you can fight people on the Wild server and go round shouting about it. But it needs to be better than that.

And it is

* On Wurm, you can see for miles
* On Wurm, you can change the shape of the terrain by digging and moving dirt
* On Wurm, you can grow things, pave things, move things
* On Wurm, you can dig till you hit rock, then keep digging till you make vast caverns rich with iron ore, silver, and even gold.


On Wurm you can do all that, and more!

Wurm is a skill lead game. When you start, you can barely do anything, checking out your skills by pressing F2 will reveal a miserable set of skills. But from the moment you pick up a shovel and start digging, your digging skill starts to build. You chop down a tree and your wood cutting skill increases. Fight a deer with a sword and your fight skill increases. Many things in Wurm are hard to do, requiring patience and skill. But anyone can build skill in Wurm. Anyone can be a mason, a carpenter, a blacksmith, a weapons smith, a digger, a cook, a handyman (or woman), a tailor, a leather worker – it is all there to learn, just pick up a tool and get working!

 

[Hobo Elf]

Most sandbox MMOs are pretty lame though. "Go out and find your own fun" is all well and good except when there is absolutely nothing to do other than PK or craft, which is what most sandbox gameplay comes down to. You either PK in a PvP enviroment with full looting or be a crafter to provides said PKs with equipment. That isn't a whole lot to do at the end of the day. Most sandbox RPGs just miss the small details that UO had, like being able to write your own book just for the hell of it. Of course a nice PvP system and a fun crafting system is all well and good, but I still feel that many devs emphasis too much on them and forget the smaller details that helped make UO less of a sandbox MMO and more of an actual breathing virtual world. Even if the small stuff is banal shit like watering a plant, just the fact that you know that doing it is possible is enough to enrich the experience.

 

[.Sigurd]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/wurm-online-preview

The world that the small team behind Wurm has built has an undertone of the real that borders on the sublime. To put it another way, my flatmate's favourite memory of playing Wurm is the time he was slaving away, bent double over his forge, and lost track of time. With the Morrowind soundtrack playing in the background he caught sight of an unexpected sunrise over the mountains in the distance, its warmth searing away the pitch darkness of night. That's it. That's the end of the story.

Having played the game, I completely understand where he's coming from.
While the intangible aura of realism in Wurm comes largely from all the hard work the devs put into designing the look of the game and the in-depth systems governing crafting, eating, fighting and so on, it also comes from something no other fantasy MMO can boast - the world built by the same real people that actually live there. And that's not just a reference to the gravitas of looking down at a dockyard or barracks and knowing it was set in place, plank by plank, by players. The positioning and design of everything in the world makes sense. To use one example, the villages you find in areas which are in constant danger from rival kingdoms are all painstakingly constructed high up on near-vertical mounds of dirt to make attack almost impossible.

Most sandbox MMOs are pretty lame though. "Go out and find your own fun" is all well and good except when there is absolutely nothing to do other than PK or craft, which is what most sandbox gameplay comes down to. You either PK in a PvP enviroment with full looting or be a crafter to provides said PKs with equipment. That isn't a whole lot to do at the end of the day. Most sandbox RPGs just miss the small details that UO had, like being able to write your own book just for the hell of it. Of course a nice PvP system and a fun crafting system is all well and good, but I still feel that many devs emphasis too much on them and forget the smaller details that helped make UO less of a sandbox MMO and more of an actual breathing virtual world. Even if the small stuff is banal shit like watering a plant, just the fact that you know that doing it is possible is enough to enrich the experience.

Something like Tibia (the MMO, not the bone).
I still remember when I found a book telling where to find others books through clues, when I got the last book it said where I could find the treasure, but I dind't find the treasure because I died in a dungeon on the way. =(
The incredible is the fact that the quest was created by some random player.

 

[Silellak]

In fact, a recent patch that allowed Wild server players to send raiding parties to the safer Home servers caused the community to erupt so fiercely that an entirely new Freedom server was quickly sculpted, where PVP, stealing and lock-picking is disabled. Anyone who had a problem with the new patch was welcome to up sticks and sail away to their new home.

At first I was like this

As in, actually sail away. One of the many neat touches in Wurm is that different servers take the form of different islands, and travel between them is not just possible but encouraged. It used to be, before drowning was implemented, that you could even swim the gap.

But then I was like this

Seriously, that's the single coolest implementation for a multi-server MMO I've ever heard. Just fucking brilliant.

Game seems interesting. Think I might justl check it out.

Most sandbox MMOs are pretty lame though. "Go out and find your own fun" is all well and good except when there is absolutely nothing to do other than PK or craft, which is what most sandbox gameplay comes down to. You either PK in a PvP enviroment with full looting or be a crafter to provides said PKs with equipment. That isn't a whole lot to do at the end of the day. Most sandbox RPGs just miss the small details that UO had, like being able to write your own book just for the hell of it. Of course a nice PvP system and a fun crafting system is all well and good, but I still feel that many devs emphasis too much on them and forget the smaller details that helped make UO less of a sandbox MMO and more of an actual breathing virtual world. Even if the small stuff is banal shit like watering a plant, just the fact that you know that doing it is possible is enough to enrich the experience.

There is - or was - something "special" about UO, that I've never been able to quite figure out. Clearly no one else has either, since sandbox MMOs since then simply haven't gotten it right for one reason or another. I think you got pretty close - it wasn't just a sandbox, it was a virtual world. Which makes sense...they basically took Ultima VII's world and put it online. You didn't need to do much else to make it a "virtual world" besides add more players.

And, like the real world, goals in this "virtual world" were often self-created. I want to own a ship. I want to own a house. I want to own a house in this area. I want to GM these skills. I want to explore this dungeon. I want to make an emergecy backup cache of armor, weapons, and reagents in case I get PK'd and looted. The ridiculous attention to detail even made it - God forbid - pretty damn fun to LARP in. Yes, I used the dirty Codex word.

Sure, it was still a "carrot on a stick" - but in this case, you put the carrot on the stick yourself, rather than having your goals hand-fed to you by the game developers. And really, I think that makes all the difference - your goals were your own, rather than something everyone else your level also did.

Also, fuck level systems in MMOs. FUCK THEM. UO's skill-based system was pretty much perfect, because highly-skilled characters were still deadly, but even freshly-made characters would be deadly in a small group - which made for some fun player-made events.

Ugh. Now I'm all nostalgic for old UO. I tried a couple of player-run servers, even, but for some reason they never really hit the spot like old-school UO did. Damn shame.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Ugh. Now I'm all nostalgic for old UO. I tried a couple of player-run servers, even, but for some reason they never really hit the spot like old-school UO did. Damn shame.

The only way I can explain experiencing UO is that it is like finding a secret door under your bed, and then that secret door leads you to a lush magical forest with vibrant colors everywhere.
Playing UO on a private server is like going back to your old house, and then going through that same magical door you went through many years ago and finding that same magical forest only this time there are smelly mexicans lounging about all over the place. It just isn't the same, man.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Something like Tibia (the MMO, not the bone).
I still remember when I found a book telling where to find others books through clues, when I got the last book it said where I could find the treasure, but I dind't find the treasure because I died in a dungeon on the way. =(
The incredible is the fact that the quest was created by some random player.

I never played it, but I once heard something very interesting, don't know if it still applies: A large portion of the gameworld remains unexplored, because...players are afraid of going there, even in groups (game uses the "drop everything on death" system)

The ridiculous attention to detail even made it - God forbid - pretty damn fun to LARP in. Yes, I used the dirty Codex word.

That's okay because no one knows how to correctly use it. Not even you, apparently, since the game recognized all those things you mentioned

 

[Mangoose]

Sigurd, isn't Darkfall still biased towards people that have the patience or the macros or bots to skill grind on their allies 24 hours/day? I haven't read anything about them changing that. When I played during launch, the best thing I ever did for my character was auto-run swim him into a wall and then go to class, so I could come back and he'd be up oodles of points.

Also, did they change the sprint mechanics, or is melee still running around like a headless chicken and jousting (or running away and then spin-jumping with a bowshot)?

 

[Silellak]

That's okay because no one knows how to correctly use it. Not even you, apparently, since the game recognized all those things you mentioned

Oh, I was using it correctly. I was referring to the sort of people who dressed up and acted like orcs (in game). You know, roleplayers. In an RPG, even. The horror.

Of course, a lot of those groups got recognized by the GMs and even occasionally got official support, so I guess that counts as recognized

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Heh. I once got approached by this group, and asked to trade with one of them. He gave me an origin for his weapon, how it was a traditional elven weapon, given to him by his father and all. I thought briefly about being an ass like everyone else, but I just rolled with it. It was pretty pleasant, actually, a relief from all the wtz ur equipz.

Figured I couldn't make mock him since he was having fun whie I was autistically slaving away at a graveyard looking for drops.

 

[Ausir]

Interestingly, the text at the bottom of the website used to be:

Fallout® is a registered trademark of Bethesda Softworks LLC, a ZeniMax Media company, in the U.S. and/or other countries, and is used by Interplay under license from Bethesda Softworks LLC. All Rights Reserved.
This game is not yet rated by the ESRB.

Now it's just:

Fallout® is a registered trademark of Bethesda Softworks LLC, a ZeniMax Media company, in the U.S. and/or other countries. All Rights Reserved.
This game is not yet rated by the ESRB.

 

[Jaesun]

Interestingly, the text at the bottom of the website used to be:

Fallout® is a registered trademark of Bethesda Softworks LLC, a ZeniMax Media company, in the U.S. and/or other countries, and is used by Interplay under license from Bethesda Softworks LLC. All Rights Reserved.
This game is not yet rated by the ESRB.

Now it's just:

Fallout® is a registered trademark of Bethesda Softworks LLC, a ZeniMax Media company, in the U.S. and/or other countries. All Rights Reserved.
This game is not yet rated by the ESRB.

The plot thickens.....

 

[poocolator]

Interestingly, the text at the bottom of the website used to be:

Fallout® is a registered trademark of Bethesda Softworks LLC, a ZeniMax Media company, in the U.S. and/or other countries, and is used by Interplay under license from Bethesda Softworks LLC. All Rights Reserved.
This game is not yet rated by the ESRB.

Now it's just:

Fallout® is a registered trademark of Bethesda Softworks LLC, a ZeniMax Media company, in the U.S. and/or other countries. All Rights Reserved.
This game is not yet rated by the ESRB.

The plot thickens.....

It's telling a story. But can we read it?