First up, Ysharros has one of the best conversations going on over here. If you're interested in online gaming, for any reason, get over there. Lots of awesome dialog going on.
This weekend what I really wanted to do was play WoW, so I went online to set up another 10-day Trial Account. Except the link I have bookmarked didn't work, so I went to WoW's homepage and followed the links to the Trial Account creation page that way. But when I tried to create a Trial I was asked for an Activation Key, basically Blizzard wanted me to hit up a friend for a 10-day Trial key. I didn't have a Trial Key, and I certainly wasn't going to pay $1.99 for one.
It was a little frustrating because the webpage said I didn't need to input a Activation Key unless I wanted to upgrade to the full game, but it still had a field to input a Key, and when I didn't enter one it caused an error. So I visited the European site, created a Trial there without any problems until I tried to log in. WoW could probably tell I wasn't really in Europe, so it wasn't going to let me log in using a European Trial account. I wonder...how do Europeans go when visiting the States or Australia and they want to play a spot of WoW? Can they not log in, either?
More than a little frustrated I returned to the U.S/Pacific WoW page to give it one more shot. This time I managed to create a Trial account without being prompted for a non-existing Activation Key, and I rolled a Human Mage (my third favorite class, after the Hunter & Rogue, although Priests can be fun, too, if you don't care to be a PUG Healer). Around level 10 I was getting the urge to resubscribe, and was even mentally rolling my new race/class. I played for a bit more and around level 14 hit my first snag: the Defias. The first Defias Mobs were easy to bring down, even in pairs, but the second group you're asked to defeat contains Mages, like myself.
With the realization that I was playing a temporary toon, and with no access to the Auction House, I'd been selling pretty much everything that dropped (such as Linen Cloth) while forsaking any Trade Skills, such as First Aid.
When I encountered two Mages I wasn't too bad off. I'd set my Focus on one, cast my first Fireball, then Sheep my Focus before resuming the Fireballs on my original target. This gave me a leg up on my original target while ensuring I only faced one Mage. Except after the first Mage died I was low on health and still in combat, thus unable to eat or drink. Then Sheep wore off and the now less wooly but very irate Mage one-shot me.
I realized I needed First Aid, even as a Trial Toon. But to level First Aid I'd need Bandages, and to get Bandages I'd need Linen Cloth. I'd acquired plenty of Linen from the first group of Defias I'd killed...which I'd sold. So I'd need to go back and kill even more Defias to get the Linen I'd need to level First Aid and make enough Bandages to keep me alive while killing the Defias Mages.
And with that, I had an epiphany: If I resubscribed to WoW I'd have nothing to look forward to but an endless grind, killing thousands (or more) of Mobs.
NPC1: Hey there, Cap'n John. Them Foozles is a damn nuisance. They've eaten all the grass in my pasture, and now they're even eaten me cows! I need you to cut their numbers down a bit, so, get on out there and kill 10 Foozles for me.
NPC2: Nice work killing those Foozles for NPC1, Cap'n Foozle. Hee hee hee. I've got a job for you, too. I need 10 Foozle Horns, but they need to be Grade-A Foozle Horns, and not all Foozles is gonna drop Grade-A Horns, so you'll need to kill a lot more than just 10 Foozles to get the Horns I need. Well? What are you waiting for? Get out there and kill them Foozles!
NPC3: Well lookee here. If it isn't the Foozlenator himself. Haw haw! You're just the man I've been looking for. One of them damn Foozles stole my family heirloom! A near priceless, Golden Widget, and I want you to get it back. No! I don't know which one it was! All them damn Foozles look alike to me! Just get out there and kill Foozles until one of them drops me Golden Widget! There's a couple a slices of cheese in it for you. (Seriously, that link points to a real quest in WoW where you're asked to kill 20 Troggs, and your reward is 5 slices of cheese. You can tell the writers were feeling particularly creative that day, can't you?)
Kill, kill, kill.
What I want to know is...where's Harvest Moon: Online?
Where's the MMO that doesn't ask you to slaughter a gazillion Foozles just to level your Toon to some arbitrary number, just so you can join 4 or 9 or 24 other people for hours each night killing groups of Elite Foozles, and maybe have a shot at bringing down the Foozle King himself!
Where's the MMO that starts with you building a house somewhere, then "leveling" your Toon by working the land, or making clothes, or tools & farm implements, or stone & bricks, etc?
Where's the MMO that has one player grow and chop down trees, which he sells to another player to turn into lumber, which is sold to players to be turned into cabinets, tables & chairs, decorative window frames & doors, which are sold/used by yet more players to customize their in-game house to effect visible in-game changes that other players can see? (Phew! Take a breath!)
Where's the game that doesn't cater to the lowest common denominator and doesn't assume everyone is happy killing a gazillion Foozles?
Where's the innovation that took us from Space Invaders & Asteroids to Time Crisis & Street Fighter?
Everyone wants to build the next WoW, but they all seem to forget that without games like Ultima Online and Everquest (and without the old text-based DikuMUDs of yesteryear) there'd be no WoW.
Nobody wants to be someone else's stepping stone in the river of life, but without the stepping stones nobody can get to the other side.
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7 comments:
one of us - one of us!
welcome back to the game Cap'n ;)
okay - I'm still stuck here. I think the innovation is *there* - but I believe that it's getting eaten by the money monster. The sheer amount of innovation in gaming technology alone is stunning. The problem is that the storytelling that you wrap these games in is still stuck somewhere around:
> Turn South
> You've been killed by a Grue
Where money comes in is the whole problem of getting $$ to launch something truly different.
Head to any book store and look around. Right now you're going to see the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer and about 1000 vampire love story carbon copies.
At the moment - the vampires in love things sells. So the majority of stuff you're going to see get published are going to be versions off this known money maker.
The game industry is pretty much the same way. Investors seem to look for known "good" and have someone work up a graphics engine to make the known good look "better".
At the moment - WOW is the known good. It *is* getting better expansion by expansion. The problem with making it truly great has to do with moving around in the tons of source code that make up the game engine. Moving something like WOW beyond into the "next big thing" would require a serious rework.
Who know's - maybe that's what they're working on next. Maybe it will have some Harvest Moon Online type stuff in it ;)
Well there was a game like that:) It was called Ultima. Build a house, run a shop, do stuff for money....but content wise...meh.
I am waiting on the game the PLAYS like the cinematics we only glimpse.
May I suggest my company's "A Kingdom For Keflings" (an XBox Live game). If I could take that gameplay and splice it onto a HMO model, I'd be a very happy camper. (Especially if I could throw in a dash of Puzzle Pirates; their economy is brilliant, both the microtransaction business model and the in-game economy.)
Great article, Cap'n!
*bookmarks*
A Tale in the Desert.
A short primer:
Papyrus is grown from papyrus seeds. Papyrus only grows along the nile. When you plant papyrus seeds, the seeds will sprout on both sides of the nile. Papyrus is used in a few different capacities. Papyrus is used to play the rite of skirmish. Also, papyrus, is used to make papyrus baskets. Finally, papyrus can be dried to make dried papyrus and make papyrus seeds (at high enough elevations). Once dried, the dried papyrus can be used to make ash, which makes potash, which is used to make glass products.
Dried papyrus is made from drying papyrus on a drying rack or flax hammock. If you dry papyrus, the papyrus will produce papyrus seeds as well. Dried papyrus is used for different purposes. Papyrus turn to dried papyrus at a 1:1 ratio. Also, 200 dried papyrus can be made into a basket and used in a bonfire.
etc etc etc.
games like this are out there, you just gotta dig them up. ATitD is in it's "fourth telling" right now. Basically, the game goes for a while, and guilds form, and work on doing things like building a pyramid. There is no combat. eventually, the game 'finishes' and starts again. you owe it to yourself to check out if you've never done so. the community is rich, and supportive, and the entire mechanic runs deep. it's free, also, or at least there's a trial? i can't remember... I played it for a few weeks a long time ago (first telling?), but it was just nuts.
Ixobelle - Tobold and I chatted about Harvest Moon: Online once, and he recommeded ATITD as well. Said it was very much like what I envisioned for HM:O.
I'm thinking one of these days, I might have to check it out :)
This just in, from ATITD's website: "A Tale in the Desert is a Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game set in ancient Egypt. You can get a taste of life in our Tale by exploring the site or downloading the game client for free. After you've played 24 hours, we'll ask if you'd like to subscribe for $13.95 per month."
I found myself back over here reading through this post again after seeing your comments over at Stylish Corpse.
One thing that I didn't mention before that I think you hit on rather indirectly was that WOW has a very poor vehicle for bringing "old" players back into the game.
For folks like yourself who've played a fair bit through vanilla WOW - there are precious few reasons to delve back into those original characters and repeat the same tired quests that guys like Jeff Kaplan even say kinda suck.
At the moment, Blizzard has sought to bandaide the problem by simply inflating the experience you get for quest turn ins between level 20 and 60. You also get extra exp for mobs killed and can pass along bind on account heirloom gear that can give your long languishing alts a unique look and a 10% exp boost.
In essence - they're really saying "yes - this old stuff sucks - you've done it a million times. We're not addressing that - but we are going to mitigate how long you have to spend doing it all over again."
For a long, long time - I pushed for Blizzard to spend some time adding new quests / zones - to the pre-60 game. Part of this I did because I was an incurable alt-a-holic who refused to hit the level cap and rep grind / raid with every one else. Now - I see it as a potentially important piece of Blizzard's ability to not only bring in new players - but also get "re" adopters to find a reason come back to the game.
Add a new zone in the starter areas. Add a new series of reputation enhancing quests or chained dailies for our 1-60 toons on a regular basis and I think you'd see a great deal more folks extending (happily) their time in game. It would also provide a reason for players to spend their time *enjoying* that part of the game again vs. simply rushing through it to get to the actually really good stuff waiting on them
in Northrend.
Who know's - maybe it will happen.
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