GotMMOG?

It seems EA’s execs in all their wisdom stupidity decided that consolidating Mythic and BioWare into a single group made more sense cents. This comes with the departure of one of Mythic’s co-founders, Mark Jacobs.

Anyone who’s gone through a merger or acquisition at a company knows the “merging” of companies, especially with different cultures, proceses, and philosophies is never going to be smooth. And, the end product is rarely as ideal as the pencil pushers make it out to be. After all, it’s always done based on the numbers, not the spirit or vision, that make the deal look good to investors.

I don’t doubt they’ll  smooth things out and eventually some sort of norm will come back to the two developers (or rather, one). However, they’re going to probably lose a bunch of people…usually the most talented and best of the bunch that helped drive previous games to the peaks they achieved. Still, they single dev group that remains will figure things out and eventually make it work.

Here’s hoping they’ll finish ME2 before everything goes to hell (e.g. the team mergers start). Time will tell…

g afk

So, Gamasutra reported today that Mythic’s shutting down 63 servers (I didn’t even realize they’d gotten up to that many) given declining subscriber numbers. Nothing new, especially in this economy and with the layoffs EA forced on them a little while back, it’s not unexpected either.

They’re supposedly down to about 300k subscribers. In the days of EQ and UO, those were hefty numbers. In the post-WoW days, it’s considered a drop in the bucket. Still, compared to others (Tabula Rasa, Age of Conan) they’re still going strong. I guess the question is, when (or if??) the first expansion comes out, will they see a resurgence and maybe find themselves maintaining that 300k number for a while or are they just going to fade slowly into niche-dom like SWG and EQ? PQs and RvR are nice and all but with the majority of people through the main content and at the end game, much of that is pointless. They’ve basically painted themselves into a corner where they force people through the long march up until the level cap…there the remaining 300(k) stand along the cliffs high above the churning sea…waiting for the transport that’ll take them to the next expansion’s content!

Something tells me, this economy and EA’s terrible management intelligence will lead to the demise of this game. Ideally, they could go the route of Guild Wars and offer up expansions (granted, not because they’re going for the free-to-play market) to keep the game alive but with staff cuts, you know it’s going to be a buggy slab of tripe that’ll feel worse going down than menudo.

Here’s to hoping that Mythic can pull the plane out of it’s tailspin and keep the game alive…I may get bored with it faster than WoW but it’s still got some good stuff in it…

grieger afk

Ok mmo fans as an avid player of WAR – Go ORDER – I can’t WAIT for the next fucking patch notes to come out, I’m wondering what the BIG secret they are going to announce is going to be.

My guess is that with some bug fixes they will be bringing out the Slayer MDPS class (that’s Melee Damage Per Second noob) and probably buffing destro again….damn Mythic.

In wondering what the new patch notes would be like I stumbled upon a supposed leak of Warhammer Online 1.2 Patch notes (a work in progress). While these look somewhat legit they could also be 100% bullshit – I’m kinda leaning towards bullshit.

We don’t know so I thought it would be a great idea to post them and let you guys leave comments about what you think; good, bad, or what-the-fuck-ever.

Warhammer Online 1.2 Patch Notes

I’ve been playing WAR in those few hours a day I have available to me (Start-ups can drain your life away!! Stay away unless you’ve got a lot of life to give!). I started an elf Shadow Warrior or whatever they’re called and got that sucker up to level 4 or 5 then moved over to Skull Throne to join Sanister and his merry band (he’s a leveling whore so I’m still levels behind him…the fucker). I created a dwarf Engineer. I figured it’d be interesting and different (okay, so it’s really just a hunter with an immobile pet in disguise…).

I’m trudging along and am at level 11. In some ways, level progression seems easy but there are times when I look at that XP bar and wonder why it hasn’t changed much. I’m a quest whore and that might be why I’ve leveled up to where I am just playing maybe an average of 2-3 hours a night for the last few weeks. Anyway, as I’m moving off Mount Bloodhorn and heading into the Marsh of Madness, I’m wondering to myself…what’s that weird feeling that’s making my eyelids droop. No, it’s not brain damage…something else…AH…I figured it out. I’m fucking bored.

I know I’m not the average hard-core MMO player but I like to thing I’m part of some demographic that starts with “average” (hey now, maybe I should be aspiring to above average…that’s my problem!). I’m definitely all about progression but I’m not as nuts as people like Sanister that like to spend every waking, non-gaming, non-working hour finding ways to game the system and eek out that last sliver of extra XP without going through all the motions the game developer intended. I’m more about the game, the immersion and doing my own thing (I’m more of a PVE anti-social crafter).

Maybe that’s my problem. Even so, I’m the type of player who likes to help out and participate in the “greater good” so the PQs and RvR stuff suits me just fine. But, as the tide of hard-core, there-at-launch players moves on to level 30 and above, I’m still poking about at level 11 and those PQs are a bitch without any help. Those NPC fuckers make a good show of being involved but until you strike a mob, they aren’t doing much damage. So, I’ll usually end up clearing Stage 1 of all those PQs that the level 30s left behind and moving on as the overpowered Champions are released for Stage 2 (c’mon, these guys are worse than WoW’s Elite NPCs).

The RVR battles are fun except when I’m up against pretty much any kind of opposing player. It seems the engineer is worse than a glass cannon…it’s more of a glass slingshot where you sometimes get those great hits but usually, since everyone on the opposing team’s buffed up and no one on the Order side is, we usually get decimated. I admit, I didn’t realize until I hit level 11 that the RvR works almost exactly like WoW’s battlegrounds in that even though your stats are upped, you’re still left with level 11 gear versus level 19 gear (and spells!) on the other guy. What’s the friggin point then?

Sanister’s advice to me in WoW was to just do the BGs when you’re near the top of the level bracket (so level 28 or 29 in the twenties, for instance). How’s that fair or fun? If the other side is loaded with higher level guys (because they were like Sanister and figured it out or read someone’s forum post somewhere), you and yours are largely toast.

Then there’s crafting. I’m such a crafting fiend that I’ll often horde items and spend serious coin just to be able to craft the shit out of a bottle of low level healing juice. WoW has a decent crafting system, even if I’m annoyed by how hard it is to craft when you can’t find (or afford) that one fucking stupid ball of some wolf’s fur or whatever. Vanguard went the other way. They said, you want to craft? Here you go…it’s a fucking multi-stepped process that takes you a whole fucking hour to churn out a stupid dagger you can’t fucking use. Maybe they should’ve just ripped out their crafting system and copied and pasted over the diplomacy card game…would’ve been hella more fun. With WAR, the producer (you did watch that 13 minute video on crafting right? You douche…go watch it now!) talked about how they wanted crafting to be simple and not involve recipes…funny…technically, it DOES involve recipes, it’s just that there are multiple items that you could use for each component of the recipe…I digress.

So, WAR crafting (no pun intended) is all about dropping items into slots and getting a meter into the yellow or better before hitting a button. Simple. Lots of things to grab and throw in there…unless you want to make Talismans (you can either make Talismans or Potions…that’s it). Talismans, I found out the hard way, are better suited to higher level players. Apothecary (a fancy way of saying potion-maker it seems) is better and easier to get into. You can add different components to “stabilize” the potion before hitting presto which feels a lot like Oblivion (in fact, it seems largely stolen from Bethesda). Fun? Naw. At early levels, you can just add the main component and toss in two cloudy waters and get green on that meter every time. Why bother? The next level (which I recently got to after my skill FINALLY hit 50) uses a better container which guarantees green with just one component. It’s basically stupid work, no need to think here. Just hammer that square peg in any hole and you’re good.

What’s left then? Quests? FedEx should get a royalty here…as should someone who’s all about grinding mobs. Sometimes a nice quest comes along…like…uh…like…nevermind.

All in all, the best thing about WAR (except for the Warhammer universe which I’ve loved since I bought that first rule book) is the PQ idea. Great idea that really adds something to the game…assuming someone’s around to join in when the champions or heroes show up.

Look at that! Yet again! Another highly-anticipated MMORPG’s come along that people were thinking would be a WoW-killer and/or would revolutionize the MMO industry and…sputter…it just evolves it. Grant you, they get high marks in my book for pulling off a largely glitch-free launch and not pulling a Blizzard and patching IN bugs after the launch. So far. But, I can’t say this game’s gonna keep eating away at my time. WoW’s Lich King’s around the corner (you wanna bet you’re gonna see server pops drop off everywhere as people head back to get their level 70s up to level 80 or whatever the new cap will be?) but what else?

What the industry needs is someone to just develop a solid and fun MMO that gives you the option to do whatever you want. It’s like what the Democrats try to do but always fail at.

You want a robust crafting system? Here’s one…we’ll give you two tiers. The first tier produces decent products that a user will want to have (read: greenies and blues) and that any user can do in a simple one-screen interface with minimal component requirements. The second tier can have added complexity (multiple components that you have to craft as well) but should steer clear of Vanguard’s nutty system.

You want PVP? Sure, here’s a PQ/RvR model with PVP servers out there if you want. Nothing new here.

You want achievements because you really like being rewarded for killing a hundred bears? Sure, here ya go. It’s in there.

Wait a minute…this sounds like WAR after an expansion that introduces REAL crafting. Yikes. Stay tuned…

Grieger