reroller: a warhammer online and mmorpg blog | Rants and raves about Warhammer Online and other MMOs.

March 14, 2009 by nick

The end of PvP?

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As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been out in Austin, TX for the last few couple of days for SXSW Interactive ‘09. I’m still here, just getting caught up on the goings on of the MMO world while I’ve been away.

Apparently I’ve been seriously out of the loop since I got here, as I completely missed mention that WAR is closing 63 existing “source” servers across North America/Oceania (43 servers) and Europe (20 servers via GOA) and merging existing characters onto more densely populated servers. If you happen to already have characters on the opposing realm of a target server,

To be honest, this isn’t much of a surprise, although Mark Jacobs and Mythic have been quite vocal (arguably too much so) in the past about how server closures are a sign of weakness and were a path that they’d never take with WAR. Obviously, the tables have turned and Mythic is now backing up and making changes that they’ve previously denied having any intention of doing, including server merges and the addition of official forums.

Mythic’s mistake was obviously in loading up with too much hardware off the bat and providing people with too many options on launch day — maybe their expectations for WAR’s launch were overly optimistic, but I don’t think they could have really thought they’d need to support ~2 million subscribers right out of the gates. Clearly, scaling back 60% of their servers six months after launch falls right into line with the initial 750,000 subscriber count being revised to 300,000 subscribers. The ratios match up nicely, although some are suggesting that this could all be a pre-emptive strike to help support a future Asian launch. I’m skeptical.

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Posted in: Industry News, PvP & RvR, Warhammer Online, reroller | Tagged: 2009, mark jacobs, merges, mythic, pvp, server closures, sxsw, tobold, warhammer, World of Warcraft, zero-sum

March 12, 2009 by nick

Deep in the heart of Texas

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Just a quick note to let y’all know that I’m going to be away for the next five or six days at the 2009 South by Southwest Interactive festival in Austin, TX. My other project, Protagonize, is a finalist for the web awards in the Community category, so I’m going to be down there hopin’ for one of them shiny statuettes. Wish me luck!

Interestingly, there’s a whole lot of gaming and community-related presentations happening between the Interactive festival and Screenburn, so I’ll probably be posting from there with some insight from the sessions I attend, too. Lots of gaming royalty seems to show up at SXSW every year (Will Wright, recently of Spore fame, gave the keynote a couple of years ago.) I’m sure I’ll be meeting some interesting folks. :)

If you happen to be down in Austin too, drop me a line — I’d be more than happy to meet up.

Zork returns… to your browser

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If you’re anything like me (i.e. overworked, totally stressed out, and in your early 30s), and was a gamer back in the ’80s and early ’90s, you probably played a few games in the Zork series.

Infocom’s Great Underground Empire captivated the hearts and minds of old-school PC gamers back in the very early 1980s, moving from their glut of notoriously well-written text adventures, to full-on graphical masterpieces in the 1990s. The group of MIT students who formed the original developer, Infocom, were eventually swallowed up by Activision in 1986, who in turn ended up doing quite well by the Zork name over the next decade and change. Activision developed three highly-rated (for the most part) graphical additions to the series in the late 1990s, Return to Zork in 1993, Zork Nemesis in 1996, and Zork Grand Inquisitor in 1997.

I still have fond memories of spending hours upon hours playing Return to Zork when I was in high school. “Want some rye? ‘Course ya do!”

I had heard some rumours of Zork making a comeback as a web-based MMO a few months back, and had signed up at LegendsofZork.com to see whatever the new developers (still working under the Activision label) had in store for the franchise. I thought it would be quite interesting to see how what was originally a text-based game, then a graphical point-and-click adventure, would translate into the not-so-new frontier of persistent, browser-based games.

Fence Sitters Anonymous

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Dictionary: fence sitter
n. Informal.
One who takes a position of neutrality or indecision, as in a controversial matter.

Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m a fence-sitter. Every time I see a negative post about Darkfall Online (err, the easiest to find are probably over here), I see something positive written about it a day later. I was convinced not to try the game… and then I was convinced to give a shot. Hell, even half the commenters over here aren’t overly generous when it comes to discussing the game. And then again, the other half seem to swing the other way.

Either way, Darkfall appears to be making people think, and generating a pretty good chunk of discussion and controversy, which I generally consider a good thing™, no matter what side of the fence you fall off on. To be sure, Darkfall is a relatively small release with a reasonably compact (yet vocal) community. I don’t know how quickly that’ll change, either, considering sales of the game are currently “on hold” (from what I’ve heard.) It’s not all that encouraging that the game’s official news page doesn’t have a single mention of the status of new orders. Hmph.

At this point, my head is swiveling back and forth like a spinning top and I’m willing to give Darkfall the benefit of the doubt. And damn Keen for posting objective, entertaining reviews of the game in bite-sized, easy to digest morsels. He’s obviously much too skilled at this whole MMO blogging deal. His last batch of screenshots even makes it look relatively decent! Seriously, he’s doing a better job of marketing the game than Aventurine’s own PR department. Time to consider a career change?…

(Although it does remind me a little of Dark Age of Camelot, circa 2001. Not only in the visuals, but in the general MMO new-car-smell vibe.)

For shame. And we all thought Darkfall looked like crap, right? Apparently not. Well, I guess I’ll just sit here on my fence, until I get a chance to give this enigmatic game a shot. And after I read a few more (objective) reviews.

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Posted in: Darkfall Online | Tagged: Darkfall Online, fence-sitting, mmorpgs, neutral, pvp, reviews

March 2, 2009 by nick

Making healing fun

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Making healing fun Okay, so I’m shamelessly stealing this topic from Tobold, but I noticed it in a recent post on his blog and it got me to thinking about the current state of healing in MMOs.

Back when I was a kid, I remember playing hockey in the gym at my elementary school. We had a pretty small class, 12 or 13 kids in my grade, so we were actually in a split-class most of the time, with two grades merged into one classroom. The teacher would divvy up the teams as fairly as possible, with all of the little Gretzkys and Lemieuxs spread out evenly, and some poor schlub stuck playing goal on either side. We used plastic sticks and plastic pucks (which hurt like a m***erf***er every time you got hit by a slapshot on the shin or thigh without pads on), wore running shoes on a non-skid gymnasium floor, and everyone wanted to score goals. No one wanted to play defense.

Of course, it wasn’t the NHL. Stay-at-home defensemen in the big leagues get paid two-, three-, and even four-plus million dollars a year to ply their trade, nowadays. Scoring forwards are always going to make the big bucks, but it pays well to be a Willie Mitchell, a Robyn Regehr, or an Adam Foote, playing consistently in the background and acting as that last line of defense in front of your goalie.

As kids, everyone wanted to be that big scorer. Everyone wanted the glory. No one wanted to be the defenseman and do the grunt work of keeping your crease clear, defending your goaltender from interloping forwards, anchoring the penalty-kill, and back-checking.

Okay, enough of my hockey analogy

Healing in MMOs is a bit like that. While it can be argued that tanks defending the back-line in specific situations (like in many of WAR’s scenarios) can be considered defenders, they fall down dead pretty quickly without good healing. Your healer(s) are always going to be your key defensemen. The problem is, healing in MMOs just isn’t as entertaining as going up and smacking someone with a big two-handed sword, or a pair of poisoned daggers. There’s little glory involved, and little respect for players who take on the thankless role of healer. Just the satisfaction of a teammate saved, a flag defended, and a job well-done.

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