GotMMOG?

Hi-Rez Studios released a note about their pricing model for Global Agenda. Looks like they’re doing a hybrid FPS/MMO model (fitting, I guess) where you can either buy the game as a one-time purchase and enjoy FPS matches as much as you want (for about $50) or you can go the MMO model and pay the usual $12 per month (or $33/quarter or $120/year) and get the FPS plus the MMO with the dynamic world (where your side’s victories translate into territory control).

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out and if it turns out to be successful.

I’m still curious, though, as to whether or not the dynamic territory control thing is going to work. I beta tested a BattleTech multiplayer game (I wouldn’t call it a “real” MMO but it was close) where the number of match victories in a region would determine the control of that region for a house. It was a really cool system because you could look at the sector map and see how your house was losing ground in this one area so you could jump over there and queue up for a match in that area (the matches were 4v4 unless everyone agreed to enter then you could have power-play matches of 2v3 or even 1v4).

The problem? You could go to bed and check in the next day to find your house has been wiped off the map. All it took was a concerted effort by a particular house when everyone else was either offline or disorganized and your house would basically not exist any more. And it literally took a few hours so it could happen overnight.

Obviously, with proper controls, you could keep this under control. Maybe certain “base” regions could never be taken, some sort of automated/AI-based “special events” logic could knock certain regions into neutrality or maybe there would just be a timer ticking down so you had to maintain a region (chalk it up to loyalties and rebellion) or lose it after a time.

It seems Interplay felt it necessary to take it’s poor performance recently as a game developer and publisher and combine it with some greed to create a Fallout-based MMO. I mean, fuck sake, Bethesda puts out a great game that takes the Fallout universe into 3D and does a great job of it (hell, I feel like playing it through again which is unheard of for me with most RPGs) and Interplay decides to call a clause in it’s licensing agreement that essentially says, “if that shit makes cash money fall out of the sky, we’re going to fuck it good.”

Take a look at Interplay’s game library…most of them are games released YEARS ago!

And, did Interplay tap a company with some measure of experience putting together an MMO to help them out? Turbine? EA Mythic? NC Soft? Why would they do that? Let’s choose Masthead Studios! They’ve never made one…must be a good choice then!

Ugh…here’s hoping the project fails and either Bethesda decides to take it on and make it good or it just gets to stay hidden in a box buried six feet under…

g afk

Star Trek Online….

This started out as a Perpetual Studios game and might have been a flop were the title not handed over to Cryptic Studios. And by handed over I mean SOLD in early 2008, yea that long ago.

Nothing against Perpetual but when you have people posting that your community manager has banned testers for….posting bug reports….and your devs dont seem to be able to get much of anything working….well its time to sell the License/IP. But enough of that….if you’re like me then you are looking forward to at least 2 things.

1) The Star Trek franchise reboot in theaters soon…

2) An MMO where you, and your friends, can boldly go where no man has gone before. Fucking YEA Star Trek Online….

The game takes place in 2049 which is 30 years after Star Trek Nemesis.There will be Open PVP, but no PVP specific servers – what did you expect they made City of Heroes!

So far it looks good the first game play trailer has been release, you can see that here.

Playable races include Human, Vulcan, Andorian, Klingon, Orion, Gorn, with some others to be announced. While everyone will be a captain by default, there will be a few career paths for you to select from for your base skills and abilities. Those classes include: Engineer, Tactical Officer, Doctor, Science Officer and others.

The early talks of key features are, of course, Deep Space ship-to-ship combat, On Ship Quests/Adventures and surface avatar based combat. That’s right you the medical npc and Red Shirt guy can beam down to the surface and take on some NPC’s.

Not much more to say about this but our concerns going forward are that most games that try to do too much end up looking and playing that way. Either ship combat is awesome and avatar combat sucks balls or both suck and everything is really good looking.

Good luck Cryptic…we’ll be watching you.

This may be a little old but it’s fucking hilarious.

The Onion put out this news report on a new expansion from Blizzard. Gotta love the keyboard short cut to scroll through the EULA we all love so much.

grieger afk

Well if you are like me then you were just biting at the bit
to get cracking on these Live Event pieces so you can be one of the elite
“few” to get your geeky paws all over your new class – Knight of the
Blazing UBER SUN (Order) or Blackguard Lameness (Destruction)….ok so UBER and
LAMENESS aren’t really part of the titles but I play ORDER so…go screw
yourself Destro NEWBS!

So far I have participated in two days worth…if you want to call it two days
worth…of the Live Event in WAR (Rock ON!) and I feel completely and totally
let the fuck down…

Look Mythic you told me this was going to be challenging and FUN…where the fuck is
the challenge or the fun:

Day 1 – Complete Reikland Factory Scenario

At first glance this appears to be a NEW scenario, sexy new map, bigger area and then you realize…it’s the same shit on a modified map! This NEW scenario which is just like our other scenarios where
you have to hold multiple points on a Map for points – kinda like oh I don’t
know Unreal Tournament (I’m still waiting for the LMS version to come out for
WAR scenarios).

So the new map is GREAT complete with tons of uber leet stuff
like healing and damaging through walls and floors…fuck that line of sight
shit who needs it!
Of course it’s fair that I get hit by your rank 4 moral UBER NUTS ability of PWNING
when you can’t even see me anymore. But alas, you run it once and win OR lose
you get credit….and there was much rejoicing.

Day 2 – Complete 3 stages of a PQ.

Now maybe I’m the fucktard that actually
thought they meant complete all 3 stages of ONE PQ….but apparently they meant
go do ANY 3 stages of any PQ’s…so fuck IT! I went into Altdorf with my UBER
BW of flaming PoWaH1! and lit up the STAGE 1 ONLY PQ in the BAR that contains
level 17 mobs – which since I’m level 38 means I kill 50 of them in the same
time it takes me to type to my guildies how fucking stupid this is! And DING I
have completed 3 stages of a PQ – bit misleading since I did Stage 1 3 times.

Again WHERE THE HELL IS MY CHALLENGE AND FUN MYTHIC! It could be me, I am a bit
Power Gamer-ish yea maybe I should have taken it upon myself to only do PQ’s in
Chapter 21+….but I ask you, WHY THE FUCK WOULD I? Why take 45 minutes to do
what can be done in 10? Hell the biggest time sync for me was…well waiting
for my AE abilities to refresh…which is about 10 seconds.
And there was much rejoicing….

Well now I will go fingers crossed hoping for some ACTUAL challenge and fun and
not just another event that I can, dare I say, cheat on!

Don’t make me hate you WAR…because all I have to play is WoW otherwise…yea I
still play it! Go DEATHKNIGHT!

Gamasutra had a little snippet on sage words from the lips of Turbine CEO Jim Crowley.

Now, I admit that slopping some social networking on top of an MMO, which generally by definition is as social as a gamer will likely get in a game, makes sense. But this is only as long as you’re doing it in a natural, organic way. Forums (the current social networks of MMOs) are as much a part of MMOs as the authentication servers (and gold farmers). They also represent one of the steps on the road to online social networking as it stands today (usenet > BBSs > CompuServe > AOL > Forums on the Web > Blogs > Facebook/MySpace). So, it’s not that far-fetched to consider the idea of a social network that plays off an MMO. Groups you’d join would be guild-based or role based (Gankers United, Golddiggers, Ltd., and The Society of Glass Cannons, sound good).

My issue is the multi-SKU idea. I guess it’s only natural that with the hotwiring of all the console platforms so they have networking caps and with the “broader” audience on consoles, you’d think that console MMOs would be a great idea. Except when you consider that games need to make sense on the platform they’re on. I don’t know about you but I can’t play shooters on consoles. And, believe me, I can probably hand most console shooter players their ass when I’m playing the same game on a PC…oh wait, we’re talking MMOs.

With the console thing, it makes me think that the social network thing is less of an evolution and more of an attempt to squeeze out some “innovation” to stir up business. I think the social networks for MMOs thing will likely pick up and take off at some point (you can already find plenty of sites where people are showing off their characters and what they’ve grabbed off of raids and crap) but I don’t think this means you should buy Turbine stock if you could.

g

Good evening MMO fans…as some of you may know PAX is coming up; and for those that don’t know you live under a rock and aren’t playing mmog’s anyways so who the hell cares!

PAX is a big gaming convention where we will see the latest and greatest (so they think) games coming to the MMOG market in the upcoming year. A couple of the BIG demos we all want to see are WAR: Age of Reckoning, WoW: Wrath of the Lich King…and others.

As we progress through the event we will post updates to try and let you know whatt’s going on as the convention progresses.

Stay tuned peeps!

- Sanister

Welcome to the very first entry of the GotMMOG blog!

This blog is the first salvo in the battle to get this site out to the greater Internet. We’re planning on reviewing the latest and greatest in the MMOG world (yes, there is more than just WoW). Also stay tuned for a podcast…we may make fools of ourselves but nothing’s sacred in our minds so who cares?

g