Category Archives: Game Design

[GW2] Asura: The most badass "MMO shorties" ever?

Gibberlings / Gnomes / Taru-Taru

Most traditional MMORPGs with a classic race palette feature them – just as much as they struggle with them, too: short folk. Put in to create racial and character diversity which is usually lacking in customization menus (you cannot create seriously short characters yourself), many MMOs still fall horribly short (!) with their portrayal of short races. In fact, heavy cliches will often overpower the whole purpose behind racial diversity, completely.

Let’s take Allods’ Gibberlings as a first example. One of the most original attempts ever made in an MMO, namely to make the player character appear as a group of three with individual customization and name for each, falls flat on its nose by serving every conceivable stereotype associated with short and therefore less intimidating people. Or as the Allods Wiki describes them:

The Gibberlings are creatures from a destroyed part of Sarnaut. Due to their curiosity, peacefulness and friendliness, they quickly adjusted to the new conditions. They are trusted, reliable friends for their allies and a dangerous foe for those that don’t take them seriously. However, unlike other races, they have no ambitions for this world. Their greatest desire is to return to the times of Isa, when the whole world was open to them for exploration. Will the Gibberlings find a way to be as happy as they were before, or will they think of something new?

The only bone thrown towards the Gibberlings’ prowess is that they’re “a dangerous foe for those that don’t take them seriously”. Oh, wicked! That aside, they are everything you can expect from a friendly, inherently good and physically weak civilization: they have no ambitions, are great pals and wanna explore the world in peace. Ahem…too bad you’re also supposed to pick them for your alter ego in a game mostly revolving around war and combat! Who feels like picking the Gibberlings for battle when they also happen to be all furry cuteness, big eyed with a goofy gait? Don’t get me wrong, I think they’re adorable but that’s about it.

Next up, World of Warcraft’s gnomes. While directly ripped off the awesome gnomish races of engineers established in classic D&D storytelling, I’ve never been a fan of the presentation of gnomes in WoW – despite the odd crazed and power hungry NPC persona among them. Gnomes are no doubt cunning and smart a people, but they’re also awfully cute; freaky hairstyles and colors aside, they come with the classic baby-face effect, a-sexual bodies and childish voices. They appear as infantilized humans when they should be an original race in their own right.

To complete a trio, let’s consider the Taru-Taru of Final Fantasy XI online. A race of powerful magic users, Tarus live in a peaceful and lush Forrest town, deeply devoted to their studies. Unlike other races, they are unable to age physically, they look and move like children, come with a cute button nose and have been referred to posses “chipmunk-like” attributes.

…I think we are getting the picture. No need to continue with Hobbits or other races from the classic fantasy genre. Obviously we are dealing with a stereotype that could be called positive racism – at least as far as the magical or intellectual capabilities of all these races go. And while we do get a degree of stereotyping for most races in classic MMOs, I still need to ask why in fictional, magical worlds especially, small statures must equal a cute, friendly and nerdy personality?

Enter Guild Wars 2: Asura

To follow up my question, I am not opposed to cute or peace-loving characters in MMOs (paradox as it may seem in places…), or even entire races/cultures. What I do object to however, is that the great majority of these characters are also short folk. Surely in a world of powerful magic, body size is not exactly a limiting factor? And how come that traits like being nice and cute are automatically associated with being little? If you follow that train of thought, you’ll end up at the underlying suggestion that having a tall, athletic physique leads to aggressive or evil behavior, whereas a lack thereof takes that choice away and somehow forces short people to be friendly people.

Can the MMO genre not outgrow the idea of small folk as human children already? Add to this that in most games, the short race is always on the good/alliance side if such exists (in WoW too goblins were a neutral faction a long time before getting added to the horde). Why should short races not be inherently evil? Badass, scary and intimidating? Aggressive and combative even? Well, a first and second look at Guild Wars’ Asura has me filled with hope in this department. Already briefly featured in GW1, many players like myself currently waiting for GW2 will not have encountered this unique race before. By no means innovative on every account, a few aspects stood out to me when checking beta reviews and footage. The Asura do come with the same associated knack for technology and study as gnomes in WoW, but that’s where the similarities end.

For one thing, the Asura are not your standard aww-inspiring staple shorties; there is something very uncanny, almost creepy about their facial physiognomy. Indeed, the Asura are about as cute to me as the tooth fairies in the Hellboy movie. It is remarkable character design that evokes such feelings despite the small stature, big eyes and floppy ears. The pointy teeth undoubtedly play a part and then there’s many arrogant looking or grumpy stares to be found in their character creation. I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel like pinching an Asura’s cheek!

Spot the cute Asura!

Naturally, there will still be some cute asuran faces, especially for the females (shocker) which is why I included one in the above picture. However, these appear to be a minority. It gets very obvious that cuddliness is not the standard overall theme for this race. Many Asura look angry, superior or plain ugly – and unlike some players have commented on GW2 Guru, I happen to love it!

I also welcomed the information in an article on Talk Tyria (which beat me to this topic!) that introduces Asura as a very competitive culture, haughty and dismissive towards everyone else to the point of plain racist. There exist dark ambitions within special factions among them (called Inquest), displaying amoral and cruel behavior. The entire article is a very interesting read, especially if you happen to love your lore and roleplay. I also quite enjoyed reading ANet’s developer commentary where Heron Prior talks about the challenge of creating a less boring and fresh look for their shortest race – and how difficult a task this was considering the overall more realistic character design of GW2.

He also mentions that the Asura were given a clumsier movement style to counter their arrogance with an overall “more endearing” feel. I can understand how this choice is unpopular with some GW1 players. From their point of view, the original Asura have been softened down or goofed up to appeal to a wider audience in GW2. Having not played GW1 myself however, they are still one of the most refreshing races in the game, the most badass short race I’ve personally come across and at the very least, the most well-balanced one compared to other games!

For the very first time ever in an MMO am I actually considering playing a shorty; they’re a very close second to my already announced Norn crush. I will definitely spend some time on creating an Asura alt when GW2 finally launches, they are pure win!

Could we please NOT have targeting highlights!

I hated them in every MMO I’ve ever played. Still hate them bigtime whenever I’m playing Rift.
I mean, just look at this!

Can you see me NAO?

What is it with the white frame all around my target? I have eyes and a target window popping up – I can already see what I got targeted! It doesn’t matter if they are white, green or any other shade; full-body target highlights are obtrusive, ugly and unnecessary!

I am extremely bugged by this type of visual aid in MMOs. I already have a UI with floating symbols, bars and buttons overlaying my illusion; do I really need the immersion destroyed further by bright highlights all over targets, myself included? Am I dealing with people, NPCs and mobs or RTS style units?

There are a few games that handle this more delicately, with a faint shadow or ring on the ground, maybe a brighter name-tag. It’s obviously a big deal for PvP especially, although one could argue that players should just learn to tell opponents or aggressive mobs apart themselves without a visual crutch. Brave adventurers that we all are, we can’t seem to go anywhere without our GPS, quest markers and target highlights…..

Why am I bringing this up now? Because I really do hope Guild Wars 2 will let you switch it off! There’s not just a target ring on the ground and a floating arrow above, but apparently also full scale highlights in different colors for targeting/mouse-hover:

Yikes! A target window is all I need. Add a shadow if you have to – but enough with the highlight disco already! I guess this is the perfect time to name my top 5 UI gripes in MMOs:

Bright and colorful target highlights
Sparkling quest objects or areas
Quest/event markers and paths on the map
White/yellow/green/red NPC state indicators
Chat bubbles (eugh)

…and pretty much every flavor of not so subtle hints and themepark rails. I know, this ain’t the real thing, I know I’m not really a fire mage but please – please let me delude myself as far as choosing my own path and knowing my own targets will go, thanks!

50 Reasons to be excited about GW2

So I had to run my big mouth last week and mention the “50 or so features” I’m excited about for GW2. And having such an attentive (and cunning) readership, someone had to take me up on this via email – of course!

“Fifty things you look forward to in Guild Wars 2, Syl? Well, let’s hear’em!”

Fine. In fact, I did not just use a random number to exaggerate a point. Fifty is a pretty adequate size for a list of things I personally can’t wait to see. I don’t know if you will like them, but I dare say there’s lots of freshness and exciting potential! And so, challenge accepted. I’ll share my personal list with you so that the uncertain may be convinced and the unhappy may see the light! Let me convert you to try GW2!

For sanity’s sake though, I am not gonna give a link or source for any of the items mentioned. That would be way too time-consuming and if you are really interested to hear more about one, there are GW2 Guru, Youtube and Google. However, in the light of all the first-hand info out there by now and having read major part of it, I am not making anything up (I hope).

50 Reasons to be excited about GW2 (in no particular order):

The side-kicking feature
Flat leveling curve
Lots of dyes!
Personal character story and personality
Extensive character customization
No holy trinity
No potions
Small UI / minimal actionbar
The downed state
Dynamic/scaling events and quests
Massive WvWvW battles
PvP from level 1
Gear equalization for group PvP
The home instance / player housing
Linked home cities
Mini-games (bar brawls! snow balls!)
Audio dialogue
Flat highlvl gear progression
Cosmetic items
The Mesmer, the Engineer and pretty much all classes
Large scale maps
No flying mounts
Original soundtrack by Jeremy Soule
Beautiful 2D background artworks
The Norn, Asura and Charr
Underwater combat
The weapon/-skill system
Cross-profession combos
Small HP bar
More area spells and effects
Dedicated self-utility / self-healing
5man content all the way
No raids
Individual trait lines
Inclusive crafting system
Multi-guild system
Adventure modes for dungeons
Outdoor bosses
Easy server switching
Transmutation stone for gear
No abilities directly target allies
Active combat; dodge, block
Interactive environment
Mostly universal attributes system
Most abilities and skills usable while moving
No language/coop barrier between factions
Over-flow server while in queue
Public FFA events and quests with scaling loot
More frequent day/night-cycle (non-realtime)
Guild halls announced for later

So….what’s not to love? I could have come up with more to tell you the truth!

What are you personally looking forward to the most? Or are you still convinced GW2 is not for you?

GW2 shop: Panic much?

So there’s been information or rather a few sneak-peeks of GW2 in-game shop items swarming the internet lately and not surprisingly this has stirred some controversy on webforums and blogs antsy for the game. Which is interesting to remark at this point: just how fast players sometimes go from oh yay to oh nay! Considering the fifty or so features that excite me about this MMO, it would hardly be good perspective (or proportion) to get all doomsday about the cash shop revelations. GW2 is free-to-play and everyone knew there was going to be RMT of some sort. Turns out ArenaNet are actually trying to put their own twist on this, too.

But first things first. Which items can we actually see on those screenshots? How do they potentially affect gameplay?

I) Cosmetic items:
To no surprise you’ll be able to purchase special outfits, hats, dyes and more in the shop.
So far, so good.

II) Convenience / commodity items:
Things like instant repair tools, portals, resurrection stones, bigger bags or EXP boosts.
They exist in pretty much every FTP MMO I have ever played, from Allods to Age of Conan. I’ve tried very hard to find indication of any seriously significant and game-changing items here and failed.

Convenience items are usually that: convenience items, not exclusive items. You can usually get the same deal by grinding or professions. Or then, if you are actually a very good or frequent player, you won’t need them. Look at experience or reputation boosts for example, these are hardly news in any MMO – when I re-subbed to Rift I got my fair share and so do WoW players these days. Blizzard does almost everything to make leveling up faster (or instant…ahem). Also: how significant are experience boosts in an MMO that features side-kicking, anyway?

So if anything, all these items offer choice: to level the usual way or a tad faster, to visit an NPC or not, to travel or take a short-cut (which are there in abundance, anyway). They cater to different play-styles. They are nowhere near pay-to-win.

III) Lottery items
Loot bags and special keys to chests that can be dropped by mobs or found elsewhere on the world.

The first is the type of random chance “carneval ticket” that only a group of players usually fall for. It’s a way to burn real coin for sure, but the randomness of it guarantees that you’ll likely end up with many duplicates or silly, trade items (in my case with nothing). We don’t know that anything of significance can drop here (I find it unlikely) or if the items will be soul-bound. I could imagine it to be similar to archeology rewards in WoW maybe.

The keys might present a bigger attraction, depending again on how rare the boxes are and what they potentially contain (anything exclusive?). There’s again the randomness factor. It reminds me of lockboxes in WoW that only the rogues could open; to tell you the truth, I vendored mine most of the time without even checking. I put them up on the AH a few times for little gold, but nobody wanted them. Whether the mystic boxes in GW2 will be the same type of gimmick or more serious business is complete speculation at this point. However, the mark of all lottery systems is actually that REALLY good and useful items are also REALLY rare! A lottery doesn’t look for winners.

“Bad and good items”; The cooperative lookout

A while ago I wrote a lengthy article on why I don’t consider RMT systems in FTP MMOs any more or less fair than traditional subscriptions and I hold to that opinion. As long as in-game shops deal in items of no greater consequence, I do not consider them a deal-breaker.

A “bad” cash-shop item needs to severely impact on the balance of gameplay; it needs to affect the outcome or success of end-game, be it in PVE or PvP, in a way that makes purchase an almost mandatory feature in order for groups and players to stay competitive. Items are however not bad just because they prevent l33t players from feeling special, as is often an underlying issue in such debates (not all, but often enough). Besides, I imagine a “true dungeon drop” would still be told apart from a cash-shop item and offer a degree of satisfaction or “fame” to a player who might desire it.

So yes, just to pursue hypothetical thought, I wouldn’t even mind if the GW2 cash-shop offered equal (not better) or almost equal weapons / gear to a dungeon drop! Too extreme for you? As GW veterans know and are happy to point out, gear progression is not the same deal in Guild Wars as it is in WoW for example. Once you’ve obtained your dungeon tier items, there won’t be an endless curve of upgrades but only similar gear with different stat weighting. In PvP, gear even gets leveled to focus on performance and not gear differences between teams.

I love this focus on performance and how the overall theme of GW2 seems to be cooperation, rather than segments and segments of “players with better stats” at endgame. There are numerous ways in which ArenaNet push player cooperation rather than disparity or “distance” –

The side-kicking feature and dynamic leveling / quests, events
The missing role restrictions / enforced holy trinity
The connected home cities / starting areas

If a player bought his gear with real money for whatever reason, time or other, how would it harm cooperation or competitive outcome in GW2? I can’t think of any good reason to be worried. Even less so for stuff like convenience items or lottery boxes – and these are what we’re talking about for the moment! Not only are they not mandatory, but they really do not affect me as someone uninterested in most. Besides, items are not accomplishments in themselves, even if they usually go with reward (but they’re not in fact what makes a reward).

Seems to me the entire concept behind GW2 makes pay-to-win a very unlikely scenario. As long as there is no more and different information on the RMT items, it’s a little early to tell the color of the cash-shop’s underpants.

GW2 – Waypoint woes and the repair system

Every week the guys from GetBonkd release a short Guild Wars 2 feature on youtube. I generally really enjoy their clips, they’re informative sneak-peeks with nice footage and the quality and editing of the videos is very high for youtube standards. While watching, it gets very obvious how hyped Scylol & Co. are for this upcoming MMO, but then it’s not as if what they’re presenting was untrue and I can appreciate the excitement for something new. If you’re looking for some good quality GW2 introductions to various topics, be it class overviews, combat, pvp, questing or other nifty features such as mini-games (did you know there will be bar fights in GW2?) or the home instances, I recommend you browse their channel sometime (by now 23 episodes).

However, just last week’s episode 23 was one that brought up two topics I personally feel very reluctant about: the waypoints and repair system in GW2. I think the episode would have benefited from a more critical eye there, but maybe I am just drawing pre-mature conclusions. Three weeks ago I asked where might be the “orcs” in GW2 – aspects that players currently eye with worry. One that stood out to me when reading closed beta reviews at the time, was the mention of waypoints all over the zones in GW2. Frequent teleports that are not only easily accessible but cheap. Or as one reviewer came to praise them –

“Each map is littered with teleport stones which you can use for a paltry sum of copper, allowing you to jump between areas of interest with lightning speed and minimal drudgery. No waiting around for thirty minutes for your hearthstone to cool down for no reason: just pull up the map and click on the teleport stone nearest to where you want to go.”

That information really took me by surprise. Had ArenaNet not announced early into development that they wanted travel to be an essential part of GW2? Didn’t they praise their large scale maps and point out that there wouldn’t be flying mounts in the game, so players wouldn’t skip content and get easy short-cuts?

Well then, why so many teleports? As much as I appreciate the effort of making gameplay and questing more fluent and grouping up easier in GW2, I don’t quite understand why they needed to give players so many waypoints per zone. Not just that, I wonder how motivated players will really be to re-conquer those controlled by an opposing faction, if there are so many to begin with? And should you really be able to use them while dead?

The only thing I could imagine influencing this decision, is the dynamic leveling and side-kicking feature of GW2; for one thing, there won’t be the traditional low-level and high-level zones, but zone mobs and quests actually scale with the player’s level. What’s more, your own level will be downgraded when grouping with lowbies (and upgraded in WvW). The benefits of that are quite clear: not only can you keep experiencing the content of any zone as a challenge (even large events scale dynamically), you can group up with anybody no matter the level differences between players (see side-kicking @ 03:20). So just maybe ArenaNet decided it would be too bothersome for players having to constantly fight their way through to anywhere, on any map, always being attacked and dismounted by every mob.

Still, I am sad; even if you chose to ignore waypoints and play the game entirely on foot, I can imagine just how “voluntary” using them will be if you’re grouped up with other players in an awful hurry to get somewhere. The explorer in me is eying this with a clear “MEH” for now.

The repair system

No less surprising was the information on GW2 featuring gear repairs as an attrition mechanic, when initially there was talk of death penalties and similar being a boring, out-dated concept. To clarify, I’m not exactly a fan of not having death penalties in MMOs; in fact, I’m a sucker for punishment where it serves a purpose. But….repairs? Really?

What probably cracks me up the most about this, is how the repair system in GW2 is supposed to be so fresh and different, when it’s mostly just a washed up, more complicated version of WoW’s durability system (or other MMOs for that matter). Judge for yourself –

“When a player is defeated, and not just downed, a random piece of their armor will be damaged. When a piece of armor is damaged, it imparts no penalty but serves as a warning. If a player is defeated while all of their armor is damaged, then a random piece of armor will break. When armor breaks, it ceases to provide any benefit to the player and must be repaired by visiting an armor-repair NPC in town. This NPC will charge a small sum of coins to repair any broken pieces of armor, and will repair any damaged armor as well. Having thus transferred the coin cost to the armor-repair NPC, we removed the multiplier on the cost of traveling to a waypoint when defeated.

We like this system for several reasons. Unlike most other armor durability systems, it doesn’t start becoming a factor just through normal play but only kicks in when a player is defeated. This means that it’s not a tax on playing and can be avoided through skillful or careful play. With every piece of armor needing to be damaged before any of them are broken, it also provides ample warning for the player before any real penalty is incurred.”

I fail to see how this is essentially different or more meaningful? It sounds rather ineffective to me – something you will hardly have to care about much. And if you do, well then it’s just the usual trade money for repairs-deal we already know so well. What does it matter if you only need repairs after X deaths and due to X items damaged, or due to a more constant stream of overall damage? I can also in fact not recall having to repair much in WoW unless I died; and then I could still easily die some more before requiring that repair service (the joy of not being a tank).

There’s also a much more important, general question to be asked here: if repairs are easy to come by and cheap enough in an MMO, then what’s the point anyway?

Who cares how the system works?

On GW2 character creation, supermodels and boob sliders

It’s no secret that I enjoy customizing my toons in MMOs, despite the fact that I’m the kind of player who always sticks to the same character. Truth be told, many players spend large amounts of time adjusting their future online avatars, depending on the options and their personal approach to the game. And the rules are really simple there: the more options, the more details available, the better. Being able to make choices is king – and yet, CC (character creation) is still a neglected area in many MMOs which always struck me as somewhat bizarre considering the genre. Which other games rely so heavily on long-term play, character progression, immersion?

With the exception of Aion maybe (which I haven’t played), I’ve never seen particularly satisfying CC in any of the MMOs I’ve played. If I had to choose though, I would roll with Age of Conan which did offer a lot of sliders not just for facial features but body proportions and height. I really believe the latter is one of the gravest oversights in most MMORPGs, the option to make taller and shorter folk. Instantly, there is so much more variety standing in a busy town square where not everyone is of same height or body size.

From what ArenaNet has presented of GW2’s CC this far, I think it’s safe to say that we can expect an unparalleled amount of customization options, not just for hairstyles, faces and skintones but even things like deciding on your type of starting armor or preferred head gear. Dyes are a particularly big deal in GW2 and come with their own interface (if the guys from Yogscast can be believed, there are several hundred dyes available ingame).

So far, so good. Only when a friend asked me what race I was going to play in GW2 the other night, I realized that I apparently hadn’t checked out the CC options well enough before. I was actually rather enamored with the Norns from the very beginning; I often play human characters in MMOs, but that in itself isn’t such an interesting choice. With the Norns, we get a second human faction of barbarians next to the classic humans – a tall, muscular and rough-looking, fur-wearing tribal people, obviously inspired by northern European stereotypes (there be vikings). This is how ArenaNet introduced them, anyway –

“The norn are a race of valiant, shape-changing barbarians. Boisterous, strong-willed, and passionate, the norn are an independent people that swear fealty to no single being. They thrive in their mountain stronghold by the sharpness of their senses, the quickness of their wits, and the strength of their massive forearms. They are guided in this world by their Spirits of the Wild, who embody the virtues of the mightiest beasts. As a people, they are quick to anger, even quicker to smile, and treat each new day as a personal challenge“

Wahey, sounds alright with me! There’s even a female character on display for the Norns, instead of Conan the Barbarian and she doesn’t look like a ballerina. But back to my friend now –

– “A Norn, seriously? Did you check youtube? The humans all look like barbie dolls”, he said. But surely, he was wrong. Maybe the humans looked like that, but I was talking NORNS and also GW2 has awesome character creation so we can fix that, right?

Right??

The whole cast of the Bold and the Beautiful

So, I started youtubing. Norns, humans, female CC, beta state. Almost instantly, that selection will take you to Yogscast where I picked this video first, and was immediately met with the male commenters swooing about how “dazzlingly hot and beautiful” all the human female characters were and how “90% of them look like Megan Foxx which isn’t a bad thing”. I had half a mind of stopping the video right there, but there’s not an awful lot of other beta videos currently up in such quality and detail.

Unfortunately, they were right in that all the faces they chose to switch through in the video, were the same type of bland, supermodel pretty with mascara and lipstick. The presets basically go from one doll face to the next and while I’m not opposed to attractive characters myself, I found them extremely boring. Where’s the variety? Where’s the normal options without make-up? How much “uglier” can people go from there if they like to?

I don’t get alarmed that easily, so I kept checking more videos, bravely ignoring the usual mass of beyond stupid youtube troll commenters asking the “replygirls” to shut up (is there any place worse than YT?). Even if the human models should look like painted dolls mostly, the Norn would have to look much different!

How wrong can you be? Perfect skin and faces, make-up, pouty lips. Pretty much the same look as the humans. Seriously? Last time I checked the male Norns, they actually looked like the battle-hardened, muscular race from the North they’re supposed to be and less like their human brothers. Granted, the Norn body types look more muscular for both sexes (overdone too for the males), at least. Anyway, I kept watching the female Norn video and…..whoa, boobs!

@07:30

Now, I had just assumed the Yogscast guy chose to go with the massive boobs for his Mesmer which is his choice, the outfit included. But then, enter the first female NPC whose even bigger rack would make the curviest bartenders of the Oktoberfest pale in comparison! Another warrior from the cold North – so battle-hardened and muscular, her boobs grew instead of getting smaller! /sarcasm off
The bare midriff almost gets lost among that much bullshit. For the record: huge breasts with no sense for gravity would bother me less if they weren’t also presented like this and so completely out of the initially built-up racial context.

At this point, I went a little desperate. You see, I can try ignore other players wearing silly armor ingame or even creating anatomically laughable characters for themselves somewhat (if not completely), but I am really not looking forward to get it in my face from NPCs too, let alone on my own character model. Especially not if this is supposed to be the race of athletic fighters. Is this really it for the Norns?

Weighing the good and the bad

Well, from all I was able to gather yet, not quite. The make-up apparently is fixed to the faces at this point, but might become a slider of its own in the final CC versions of GW2. Oddly enough, for all their other options ArenaNet have also not introduced eye color this far (right now eye color is linked to the face). The facial similarities between Norn and human females are however a fact, sad but true. On the bright side, the face options aren’t as one-sided as most videos show: as can be seen in this longer video, if you manage to make it through all the “princess territory”, “damsel in distress” and “Disney” comments (/puke), there are in fact ways to mess with the facial presets (see 05:20 onwards) and make them more unique or less nauseatingly attractive, if preferred. On second thought, you might really want to turn the sound off completely on this clip…

As for body types, it appears that players will get to choose between several set models. There are definitely a few leaner and more muscular ones for Norn females too, but if you’re looking to deviate much in terms of skinny or fat, you won’t find that in GW2. As far as breasts go, even the “smaller” Norn breasts are fairly big and a perfect, round shape. I don’t necessarily expect MMOs to feature “boob sliders”, as this forum discussion goes to debate, but considering the vastness of GW2’s CC I was expecting them to at least give the same proportion choices as we’ve seen in AoC or Rift. Flat chests do not seem to exist or else they’re very well hidden (?)

Addendum

I guess this all sounds a little sobering for anyone looking to create more normal looking, badass human females in GW2, but I’d like to point out that I’ve deliberately focused on the negatives for a change, not the positives. It goes without saying that the polish of GW2’s CC is brilliant – never have there been so many great choices in hairstyles, colors or skins, so many unique features nor that many extra details to configure for the player. The graphics style and textures are beautiful and a lot more realistic than for most MMOs. For the most part, I am extremely pleased.

There are also of course, the non-human races. I’ve left out Sylvari (yeah I know, Syl needs to play Sylvari…not), Asura or Charr. In the latter’s case, I actually applaud ArenaNet’s choices for the female models very much: instead of going for round breasts in a bikini, making the beastly race a goofy parody of itself and giving females additional human traits like long eye-lashes or god forbid make-up (hello Worgen!), they stuck to a much more realistic approach, giving female Charr six mammal glands subtly hidden behind a piece of cloth. Their faces look ferocious just like their male counterparts, so cheers to ArenaNet on this one.

As for the “what about the menz”-question; I don’t like the male humans in GW2 either. They’re perfect Ken analogies to Barbie, although there too you can amend a few things via individual sliders. The Norn on the other hand come with slightly more physical variety and clearly set themselves apart from the humans, with much more savage, mean looking faces and scrubby hair to reflect their culture and origins.

Overall, I don’t expect much change in GW2’s character customization until launch. This late into development and with more betas incoming, the focus will lie on other aspects of gameplay that are ultimately more important. I will reserve my final judgement of GW2’s “bare midriffs quota” until I’ve seen more and firsthand. I guess it’s fair to say though that in terms of gender clichés, its otherwise illustrious customization sadly falls behind games such as Skyrim or Age of Conan and does not quite manage to offer as much variety as it offers choices at a first glance. I expect to meet a lot of awfully beautiful, bodacious people online this year.

Deep down the mineshaft I saw the light

The cardboard boxes are starting to pile up left and right in my apartment which is also why I’ve been a little quieter. There are only five more days to go at my current workplace. Only two and a half more weeks in this canton I’ve been living in for five years now and desperately long to leave. Waiting and preparing are such an ordeal sometimes.

Between that and not playing much of anything right now (because in this too I am waiting, waiting for GW2), I didn’t plan for much distraction until the big move end of January. I certainly didn’t expect to find myself deep, deep down the cubic rabbit hole that is Minecraft – had you told me only three weeks ago, I would’ve laughed at your face. But then Minecraft happened, brought to me by the sneaky, little voice of an old friend. I’ve mocked him for the first hour, until gradually I shut up. Then, I started obsessing.

This is only the beginning.

Who would’ve thought that oldschool pixel graphics could be that much fun? I’m a little late to the party, I know, but then the game has only just launched “officially” two months ago with v1.0. I had never really paid it an awful lot of attention before. Well…consider me pixelated!

Minecraft is a goldmine of creativity, simple complexity and many of the basic concepts me and other MMO veterans have been missing for a very long time. I find myself utterly fascinated by the game’s simplicity which creates such powerful, emergent gameplay. Then it struck me; after my Skyrim high of several weeks ago, this was only a next logical step. This vast, open world sandbox game, so diametrically opposed to Skyrim’s graphical splendor, succeeds in areas many current MMOs are failing me, stilling a deep hunger (and it has multi-player!). Obviously, Minecraft has one significant advantage there: it doesn’t need to look good (which means the world can be vast and generate random maps). And yeah, I use a texture pack too, mostly to display my own paintings, but this stands: if any game proves how graphics become secondary to otherwise fun and engaging gameplay (I’m saying that as someone deeply in luv with the eye candy), then it’s Notch’s little gem. Within a refreshing loading time of 10 seconds, Minecraft (in survival mode) gave me (back) all the following things:

Monumental scale; a vast scary world forever dwarfing me in size.
No sense of direction; there is no world map, there are crafted, lackluster zone maps (that you must uncover and better not lose). Prepare to get lost often and worry continuously about wandering off too far. Landmarks, the sun and moon become your friends!
Impact; solid proof that I am leaving a mark on the world I inhabit (and its co-inhabitants).
Scary adventures; annoying, sneaky, backstabbing, sometimes frustrating mobs killing me on a regular base.
Punishment; dying comes with potential loss of all EXP levels you might have accumulated, as well as all your carried inventory (unless you are able to retrieve it in good time).
No shortcuts, no rides, no teleports or portals (other than into the underworld). No “hearthstone” besides death…
Complex, comprehensive crafting, resource gathering and an almost endless list of combinations when it comes to creating and inventing your own space.
Cooperative multi-player.
Player hosted servers.
Different levels of difficulty and play-style/server modes. Console commands if you so desire.
Randomness, bugs, imbalances….lots of running and screaming in terror.

How do they do it? By doing very little. By setting the stage only, with few parameters and limitations. By not creating content (much) and instead letting you do it. By controlling as much as necessary, as little as possible. There are no consumers in Minecraft, only creators.

I can’t say how long I will play this game, but right now I am deeply satisfied. The huge castle above the sea I am working on, with the magic library, the round table and Minas Tirith style balcony (including a white tree…GEEK!), will take lots of time to complete. I am still discovering new crafting combinations, under what conditions different crops will grow or how to tame and breed certain creatures. Then, there are all the areas of the game I’ve hardly yet brushed: mine carts and the automation system, the enchantments and spells, the random dungeons you can only find by traveling the world, the Nether world through the dark portal, the Ender dragon, PvP….and I still need to find a zone that features snow!

The best of it all though: coming online and finding the environment changed, again, because your friends have been busy while you were offline. Screaming for help as you are starving down that deep mineshaft. Getting lost, crying for an escort, sharing resources and setting up trade channels. Leaving a little surprise at your neighbor’s doorstep. The world feels alive.

Closing circles in a square world

Funny how often we need to go back, to move forward. In this, even game design seems to follow a basic truth of life; how we need to set out on long journeys into the wild, only to return to our own doorstep. Only then to behold it truly, for the very first time. They say man’s culture has always run in waves of ups and downs and individuals too, run circle after circle in their lifetime, or so it seems.

Yet, something is different when we arrive that second time: we’ve gone the distance and hopefully gained some wisdom, we’ve seen other things – maybe things we originally believed we needed, but mostly just wanted. Things that made us see and appreciate what we used to have. Experiences that made us want to go back. Maybe we can only ever truly perceive truth from a distance, when we’ve moved further away. That’s why it’s so hard to judge yourself (fairly) or a status quo, before you’ve lost some of it. Looking back is always easier.

In many ways, the features I’ve listed as Minecraft’s virtues would’ve been considered weaknesses and difficulties 10 years ago. Back then, all we ever shouted for was to remove the “frustrating aspects”: the long walks, the randomness, the imbalance, the punishment. The devs heard our plea, they polished away. Then came WoW and showed us how different it could be; how much smoother, more convenient, optimal. Later, it showed us how the polish and optimization could be overdone, ruining all sense of world.

Now, all we want is to get back. Not quite back to pre-WoW maybe, but to return to old values with new eyes. Maybe we even need to thank Blizzard for accelerating the insight. Concepts and features we used to complain about, have become what we crave the most. Does this not strike you as a little ironic?

There are still other players of course, those who will disagree with me here. Maybe they are still in the middle of walking their own circle – maybe the disagreement is genuine and will last. I’m not claiming in any way that Minecraft can replace a classic MMO or that it doesn’t have its shortcomings (java eugh), it sure does have room for much improvement (and I’m not talking graphics) which I trust will happen to some extent in the future. However, these things are not the focus of this article.

We’re talking about a game that is about to hit the 20 million mark for registered players, of which 4 million have already paid for an account. And they’re not nearly all of them of the “Sims”-persuasion; there is something to be learned and had in Minecraft that reaches far beyond building furniture or harvesting crops. Something we’ve lost in other corners of the online, multi-player world. A ingenuity and responsiveness that has magically managed to close a circle for me in an otherwise square world.

I can only recommend the journey.

26 Ways to spice up MMO combat

When I started writing this article some while ago, it was called “10 ways to spice up MMO combat”. As these things go sometimes, it’s grown considerably in size ever since, with more and more ideas accumulating in my draft that I wouldn’t want to abandon. Well that’s that – I guess we call it proof of how badly MMOs need to improve one of their most centric features: battle.

Now, I don’t claim that any of the here suggested features or effects are new; nothing’s new under the sun, everything has been done somewhere, sometime, in an online or classic video game. Some of it we’ve sadly not seen enough of, some has never been done properly or very poorly. Not all of it is applicable to every type of MMO or necessarily in combination – but these are all features with some great potential to make future MMO combat more tactical, cooperative and dynamic in my eyes. And yes, more action based.

“Actual fast-paced combat opens (or really, re-opens) the doors of possibility when it comes to MMORPGs. If you don’t have to spend an hour theorycrafting, respeccing, buffing, and finally, dice-rolling your opponent to death — and instead could catch him unawares and simply send him packing with a blade to the throat — you’d have free time to do things other than combat.” [massively]

Many of us probably agree with the Massively article in that it’s time to move away from lengthy battle preparations, clicking ability bars and waiting on cool-downs, as you stand beside a few more people. Or as Epic Ben (whose page has sadly disappeared since?) put it a while back: “raiding is like synchronized swimming”, MMO combat is often static, repetitive and not exactly interactive. While it will never be quite the real thing (and certainly shouldn’t in every way), there are ways to make virtual combat feel more realistic, alive and exciting. And there are genres that can still teach MMORPGs a lesson or two.

So, here goes – I’ve tried to create some rough sections and to keep detailed descriptions short. I am also feeling lucky today and will just assume you know exactly what I mean by my weakly attempts to name and simplify complex mechanics (y’know, be creative!). In hindsight, I also realize I utterly failed to create any logical order. Good luck!

26 Ways to spice up MMO combat

A) Player-/Class & Group-centric features:

No roles; no holy trinity, no dedicated tank & healer slots. Instead, every class is defined by specific DPS, CC and mitigation abilities. Ideally, we will see this in GW2.
Low health bars, weak healing; similar to most FPS, players can only take so many hits before they die from a level-appropriate target. One-shots are possible. Healing is relatively weak (Darkfall) and most healing abilities target self-sustenance.
More deaths occur as a consequence of the above points; to balance more deaths, death penalties shouldn’t be harsh and combat res becomes a more common ability.
Friendly fire exists; AoE, cone attacks or similar can hurt allies and must be used with caution.
Exhaust effects; players on low health suffer from slower reaction, blurred vision or similar impairing effects. Likewise, status ailments (with individual cures) will affect certain abilities.
Class combos; players can set up combo- and sequence attacks for more powerful DPS. Difficult encounters enforce group interaction/timing and making use of class synergies.
No auto-targeting; spells and abilities must be “aimed”, directed, positioned (AoE zones). Special attacks are responsive to player movement (for ex. influence the flight path of a boomerang by running along). There are several targeting “areas” per body (head, torax, limbs) with individual weaknesses.
Players can actively block, dodge or parry melee attacks if timed correctly.
Classes come with individual elemental affinities and magic resistances (as mobs do).

B) Opponent-centric features:

Enemy “states” such as aggressive or passive are not indicated by tool tips. There exist different aggro ranges for all kinds of mobs (also within the same family, call it a bad mood!).
Enemies are frequently linked; more multi-mob pulls enforce smart use of CC.
Enemy “AI”; enemies will fight differently depending on group size or spec composition (for ex. switch resistances). Enemies can block, dodge or evade attacks.
Enemies will pursue attackers more relentlessly (FFXI).
Enemies can attempt to flee battle – the chase is yours to decide on.
Content difficulty is dynamic; enemies/dungeons will adapt to group size and player levels.
Outdoor boss fights or public quests are pick-up and FFA.
Dungeons are randomly generated for each reset and may offer a random boss order and pick.

C) Environmental features:

Enhanced sounds and need for sound awareness; enemies can be heard from a distance, stealthed enemies can be tracked via noise. Players can discern “10 yards away” and “two levels above at six o’clock” (FPS).
Impact of positioning; player damage responds to range, favoring tactical spots (hills, cavities), shooting from behind walls etc., thus encouraging smart use of terrain and map conditions.
Drawing on the environment; special abilities or spells can be triggered by suitable surroundings – standing in pools is used to create tidal waves, woods proximity triggers archery bonuses etc.
Night/day and weather conditions affect combat and individual abilities.

D) Eye & Ear candy (never to be taken lightly):

Nice combat visuals; high quality animations for trademark attacks, spells and special abilities. Characteristic palettes for each class, no animation copy&paste.
Finisher and executioner animations (AoC or Skyrim).
Combat music; engaging combat will trigger dedicated up-tempo tunes, with different tracks for ordinary, dungeon endboss or big epic baddie scenarios. (FF)
Dramatic boss scenarios; cinematics/cutscenes before end battles, zone intros, dramatic phase switches.
Allow players to switch dynamically between 1st and 3rd person view.

Well, have I missed anything you think should be up there? Where do you see the biggest difficulties?

I know that quite a few of my favorites will be featured in GW2; I don’t wanna go into another hype-stage at this point, but I am greatly looking forward to class & profession combos (which I loved in FFXI), terrain and movement dependent spells, small health pools and health deficit effects – and yes, losing the trinity of course (even if that last bit is still awaiting full confirmation).

In general, I think we need MMO combat to return to a more dynamic, cooperative focus rather than a group-setup or spec-focused one. Let the actual teamplay, group tactics and performance matter; allow more randomness (for more situative reactions), create more need for control and pro-active play (as opposed to reactive/passive with heavy healing) and more need for situational awareness. Let our worlds come alive; let our opponents act smartly or erratically, let us find different answers to the same problem. Let us care less for stats, procs and cooldowns and more for general timing, synergies and spontaneous action.

Most of all: challenge us, so we may rejoice in our victories! I think we are ready for the next chapter.

Freedom of choice and player-hosted MMOs

Skyrim is making quite the noise at the moment; not just among classic RPG lovers but a large circle of MMO players too, realizing just how much they have missed that sense of wonder and adventure in the online world. No doubt it is a certain kind of MMO player who feels this loss most acutely – I know why I do and like me, many MMO players have actually started their journey decades ago, as console gamers, as tabletop and pen & paper players, as lovers of the fantasy genre as a whole. These past days I have felt as if re-discovering a long lost friend and exploring the world of Tamriel has been an almost poetic experience. I kid you not. Within the first few hours, I’ve been inside my favorite Robert Frost poem and been the hero on my cherished old D&D covers. What more could I possibly want from a game?

“He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.”

I don’t know how to call this essence that we can feel when a fantasy game, book or movie is being true to its core. This strange magic that happens when somebody does it right and takes us there with him. The difference between a work of passion (and geekdom) maybe and a generic work of fail that we can all tell apart. Some games have soul, some don’t – you can feel it and see it but not nail it down on single criteria like graphics or combat.

Me and a friend of mine like to call it “high adventure” and we borrow from the opening of Conan the Barbarian there. Or we call it “epic bombast shit” (EBS©) in a not-so-srs attempt to qualify the seriously atmospheric and epic fantasy from its ugly mass-market siblings.

Either way, Skyrim has it; this sense of magic and awe, of being there in this vast world with dragons in the sky and darkness lurking around the next corner. It has its minor flaws, as others have already pointed out, but at this stage it’s entirely beside the point for me. Again: what else could I possibly want?

The “Skyrim MMO” deal

Right after entering Skyrim, I said “man, if only this was co-op. I would need holidays”. Indeed, the world of Tamriel screams for companionship; sharing the travels and adventures with a few more people who don’t happen to die on the way or get stuck under the stairway like their NPC equivalents. I would love nothing more than a co-op mode for maybe 2-4 players.

The MMO idea now, I am not so sure. I commented about this before, and my initial negativity stems from the justified scepticism of what a developer might do to Skyrim in popular WoW-fashion. That idea is frankly a nightmare and I care little whether WoW’s gamification trend came from the players or the developers, I would never want to share Tamriel with WoW’s current MMO achiever crowd. Ever.

I’m far from opposed to online modes though or sharing games by principle. Why did I become an MMORPG-player in the first place, if not because I prefer to have more than NPCs around me? But for this to work in Skyrim, we would have to take a close look at all the aspects that make the game so dear to us right now – and at how to protect those. How can you retain Skyrim’s scale, open world and playstyle freedoms in an MMO while maintaining a sense of meaning? This is something Bethesda has managed to balance: open world vs. meaning. They show us too, that not all satisfaction in an RPG is delivered by means of a classic definition of “challenge” and immediate “hard rewards”. There is great joy in adventure and exploration.

The answer to the question might already lie in the online world: FPS games. Times before we’ve noticed features of online shooters and communities with the potential to improve things for MMORPGs too. It was my better half though who tipped me off when pointing out what he liked about Skyrim and as an FPS-player, always disliked about WoW –

“…This is what the players want: freedom. Let me play the game however I want and with whom, don’t tell me what to do or how to play. Let me choose my difficulty, whether to use console commands or not. Don’t tell me when to grind or what items I need or where I should go. I’m not an idiot. This is what the …[insert random Blizzard insult here]…still don’t get.”

A popular dilemma of MMOs is the accomodation of player X; to appeal to a variety of players within the same game, to offer dynamic content and different levels of difficulty. All of that can simply be summed up as a basic issue of player freedom. If you realize that you cannot deliver for everybody, why do you even try to define the game in the first place?

Several weeks before Skyrim’s launch, I tipped my toe into Red Orchestra 2 – for lack of alternatives and the wish for quick, cooperative play more than anything. I joined the friendly banter of my partner’s clan on teamspeak and tried to hide my cringe-worthy attempts at mimicking the FPS player. Yet, I never fail to be impressed over how readily the FPS industry has delegated their server administration to the clans who represent their loyal player base. If you log into RO2, you’re met with a long list of player-hosted server types, each offering their own rule sets, map and itemization choices, number of players allowed. Whether you choose to play in a smaller group, use aim-bots or loathe any kind of mod, there’s a place for you.

This is what I would want for a “Skyrim online”. A chance to choose how I play it and to share it with a limited amount of like-minded players. A developer can never look after so many individual choices, but I can. And I would join such a game in a heartbeat.

Skyrim shows us that the RPG and MMO player alike love the scale and freedoms of an open world. FPS games have shown for years that the best way to cater to a mixed audience, is to let the community configure and moderate their own servers. Why should we not adapt this for online RPGs in the future?

Less time doesn’t mean I feed on burgers

I’m having a jolly good time reading some of the MMO veteran rants currently out there. It’s a topic that comes back in waves and is always simmering in the background, for those of similar conviction anyway. Epic Ben is on a delightful roll, pointing out one important misconception that is particularly infuriating –

“It’s not about my TIME. It’s about my desire to SUCCEED”

He’s spot on there. Yes, the future MMO audience will be made out of the oldschool generation with maybe less playtime and the younger crowd of generation twitter. The genre will face a more mixed audience like that and handle it one way or another (pick me, pick me!). Then, there’s also been the point about transient and extended players lately which categorizes MMO players in a general sense.

Both notions are true – yet, in combination not so much. I have a feeling that correlation is being mistaken for causality here and there.

There is an age gap and time available can influence gametime, but not necessarily playstyle. The older players with less time are still often veterans who want the requirements and restrictions – the punishments and “timesinks“. In contrast, it’s often younger players or genre newcomers who won’t deal with restrictions and frustrations, gravitating towards faster gratification in a themepark MMO full of baby rides and cheap roller coasters. But younger players have more time in general and therefore better options to play extended, in theory.

So, time does not affect our gameplay wishes and motivations in the same way – there are different answers to that problem. I have less time now, but still love “oldschool“; I don’t wanna play MMOs catering only to a transient crowd . I’m not transient. I will still play MMOs like an extended player in the future – or at least I hope they will let me. So, in case any of you important dev people out there are listening, let’s make sure once and for all:

I’m COOL with missing out compared to teens with 20+ hours gametime a week, knock yourselves out (I did too)! I’m COOL with advancing slower, I’m COOL with getting lesser or later rewards! Yeah, my life gets busier, but PLEASE don’t take my age as an indication! PLEASE don’t let me have everything the easy way! PLEASE don’t remove more and more roleplay and sim aspects from your games to optimize my time for me. I don’t want that!

I WILL cope! I am not a whiny old wreck. And I still don’t want to eat fast food, I will always cook my own dish over a small fire. Less time available doesn’t make the transient player. Just like more rewards don’t equal bigger accomplishment felt. Free rides, they don’t fool me.