Reservations (somewhat) Alleviated!

After my last post, I started to do more research into the Rifts in Rift: Heroes of Telara and, after much reading and video watching, many of my fears have been alleviated a bit.  Here is short synopsis of what I have learned thus far.  Those of you who have read more than I, please feel free to comment and correct me if I am wrong!

A Rift from the Plane of Life?

First of all, the entire Rift system seems to be much more dynamic than I had previously thought.  They do appear randomly across the world but the consequences of a Rift going unchecked are much more dire than I had thought.  In WAR Public Quests had little to no effect on the surrounding world.  It did not matter if you completed them or not, they were static entities in the world at large.  Nothing really happened if they were completed, nothing really happened if they were not.

This will not hold true for Rifts.  If a Rift exists long enough, without being shut down by the players, it gains a foothold into the world.  From there it spreads outward, causing massive changes to the world around it.  It can, and will, encroach on other areas, including quest hubs.  Killing NPCs, destroying entire villages and causing general mayhem.  This is a lot more dynamic than anything that WAR did with the PQ system and can really change the way the game is played.

Imagine heading off to your favorite grinding spot, only to find it mutated and destroyed by the Plane of Death.  Of course by now the Rift is too big for you to tackle alone and you must gather a party to put it down.  How big a party?  We don’t know but let me say that it would be awesome to have to get a raid together to destroy the giant Rifts that have been left to fester for an extended period.

Darkshire? We don't need no stinkin' Darkshire!

Apparently, Trion has stated that they have hundreds of different scripts that could potentially happen when a Rift enters the world.  So, it will not just be kill quest after kill quest after kill quest, as I feared it was.  Each Rift can behave differently than the last and you never know what is going to happen with a Rift until you try to shut it down.

Secondly, Rifts war with each other.  Let’s say a Rift from the Plane of Fire has landed somewhere in the world and has started to grow, mutating the world around it.  Eventually it grows enough that it encroaches on the territory that another Rift, this time from the Plane of Water, has claimed as its own.  Now, what happens when the Plane of Fire and the Plane of Water meet?

Well, probably lots of steam but that is beside the point.

No, they fight, of course.  War between the Planes, that just so happens is happening right on your planet.

Not good.

Of course, now you have to shut both Rifts down but which one first?  Well, it seems that you can align yourself, for a short period, with one of the Planes.  Maybe you feel like fighting for Water today and you help it destroy the Fire Rift.  Or maybe you side with Fire.  Either way, you now have its help in destroying the opposing Rift.

This opens up a whole new myriad of possibilities.  What if other player characters are helping Fire while you are helping Air?  PvP?  Who knows, as they have not clarified this yet but it does sound like a possibility and a very intriguing one at that.

Furthermore, just how big could a Rift possibly get?  Could it grow until it consumes the entire zone?  Are there limitations?  What if the players decide to let one grow just to see how big it will get and how much damage it will do?  This could, potentially, be crazier than when Kazzak did Stormwind! And that would be just too cool.

I see lots of possibilities within this system and, on the face of it, the Rift system seems a lot more dynamic than anything that WAR offered with its PQ system.  Matter of fact, if the Rift system works as advertised, we are looking at something a bit more creative than anything we have seen with the last slew of MMOs.  It could be something pretty special.

I am going to leave you with a link to a video I found today, that shows a bit of the world of Telara and a bit of an instance.  The thing that jumps out at me about the instance is that it does not seem as linear as what I have come to expect from dungeons post-WoW.  There looks like there may be some cause to actually explore the dungeon, instead of being pulled from point A to point B by the nose.  I really like that.

In addition, the dungeon “grows” with your character.  Meaning, as you level, you will unlock new content in old dungeons.  New bosses, new events, new areas and, of course, new loot.  It will be more than just a “Heroic” mode, as the dungeon actually changes instead of simply getting harder.  This is I like a lot.  I hate “dead” content in MMOs.  You know, that old content that no one does anymore?  Hopefully this will ease that a bit.

Edited to add another video.

This one is a really nice look at the class/skill system, one of the capital cities and a goblin 5-man instance, the Darkening Deep.  Click here, folks!

WAR is a Strange Beast

The review and video for Global Agenda is still in the pipeline but, while I am waiting to build up enough raw video for the PvP video, I wanted to talk a little about Warhammer Online.  I had recently given it another try and it just really confounds me.

WAR, as I have said before, was easily my most anticipated MMO ever.  I loved DAOC and I awaited WAR with the anticipation of a little girl at a Justin Whatshisname concert.  Of course, like many, I was immensely disappointed.  I have tried again and again to return to WAR, hoping beyond hope that things had finally improved enough to return to full time.  Time and time again, it has disappointed me.  Not only that but I can get no feel for what Mythic is trying to do with the game.  None at all.

For one, WAR is the only MMO I can think of that, two years out from release, has seemingly removed almost as much content as they have added.  They have removed Fortresses, reduced Auction House functionality and, although not removed completely, have reduced each side to one viable Tier One zone.  On the flip side, they have added Land of the Dead.  As far as I can tell that is really all they have added.  To me, that is a net loss.

Additionally, there are many parts of WAR that come across as amateurish at best.  Take NPC pathing for instance.  In AoC, WoW or just about any other MMO I can think of, when you pull a mob it paths right to you, every so often you will see weird bugs or pathing issues but that is the exception.  In WAR it seems to rubber band back and forth, run backwards to you or teleport past you.  No rhyme or reason, the pathing is just bad.  Really?  Two years out in a AAA MMO and they can’t even get pathing right?  I just don’t understand that.

The PvE is extremely poorly implemented.  The instances and their boss encounters are a joke.  The pathing issues extend to the instances and the boss abilities are just strange.  It is hard to describe but they are just not as tight as they are in WoW, LotRO or AoC.  It is so bad that no one does PvE instances anymore from what I can tell.  Bastion Stair is dead, no one does the low level city instances and the PQs are empty more often than not.

Now, I know that WAR is a PvP game but, damn, if you are going to have PvE in your game then do it right.  Seems Mythic is lost when it comes to coding PvE and Mob AI.  I just don’t understand it.  The PvE is not up to a AAA MMO standard.  It is amateurish at best.

I understand Mythic is supposed to have a big announcement this week and, for their sake, I hope it is big.  They need it, badly.  No new content in almost two years will kill a MMO.  There is only so much of the scenario/Keep Siege/City Siege treadmill that people can take.  Even for the biggest WAR supporters it will get stale eventually.  New content is a must and it better not be something minor like a new race or two.  It better be something major.  New instances, new zones and new things to do at endgame.

If the announcement this week is anything less, I think you might as well start writing WAR’s obituary.  It will be a sad day but it will be time.

A Controller to match WoW’s Current Difficulty Rating!

In honor of Pitrelli’s suggestion for the perfect controller for AoC, I have found the perfect controller to demonstrate WoW’s difficulty rating. Introducing the WoW-troller:

The perfect accessory for any current or future WoW player!!

Not only does the state of the art controller have all the controls you need for those intense (well, not really.  They are pretty dumbed-down, ez-mode now) raid fights but it even comes with five buttons to place all the brightly-colored, goofy Lucky Charm raid symbols on your raid targets.  Not that you really need to because CC is apparently too difficult for current raiders to grasp.

Order yours today!!!

Of PvP: WoW and AoC.

In one of my earlier posts about WoW the comments veered off into a discussion about which game, WoW or AoC,  had the more skill-based combat system especially in PvP.  Pitrelli contends that AoC is “who spams most buttons wins”.  After playing a melee character extensively in AoC and playing WoW for 5 years, I have to totally disagree.

Before I go any further, let me get this out of the way; I do not dislike WoW’s combat system. Matter of fact, I love WoW’s combat system.  I have always said that WoW is a MMO that plays like a FPS.  Fast, responsive and tight.  It has a great feel.

Now, back to the discussion.  Pitrelli had two major gripes in the discussion we had:

1.  Combat in AoC comes down to “spamming buttons” due to his perceived lack of counters or reactives.

2.  Combat in AoC is slower.

Let’s take this one at a time.  First, let’s take a look at the “spamming” argument. For sake of argument, I am going to use only melee characters for this discussion.  The casters in both games play very similarly.  Melee is where the difference lies.

In melee the most important factor is the range.  After all, if you can not get close to your target, you can not do damage to them as melee.  In WoW if you are not in range and you use an ability you get a simple message that you are not in range and nothing happens.  The ability does not fire.  Nothing gained, nothing lost.  I have not lost rage/mana/energy.

In AoC the experience is totally different.  If I am not in range and I use an ability, the ability does fire.  It goes off but I gain nothing because my target is not in range.  This is bad.  Why?  Because when the ability fires it goes on cooldown, it uses my stamina and it locks me in place for a second or more while the animation plays.  Obviously, you do not want this to happen.  You want to make sure you are in range when you use that ability.  Missed combos can be death in AoC.

What is the result of these two systems?  In WoW, when I played my feral druid and was attempting to attack a mage, I simply spammed Claw (or whatever) until I was in range.  No harm done.  Once I was in range the ability went off and I went to the next one.  In AoC I can not do that.  I must be much more deliberate with my ability usage.  I do not finish a combo unless I know I am going to hit the target.  I am very deliberate when I go through my attack sequences and I spam a lot less.

But what about the contention that it is a spam-fest because of lack of counters or reactive abilities?

Completely incorrect.

Counters and reactive abilities are very important in both WoW and AoC.  In WoW, silences, stuns, knockbacks and other counters abound.  Don’t want that Priest to get off a heal?  The rogue kicks him.  Don’t want the shaman to get out of rang?  Death-grip him back.  WoW is full of counters like these and it is one reason WoW has engaging PvP.

Guess what?  AoC has just as many counters.  Already on my Conqueror, not even level 40, I have a silence, two knock-downs, a “bubble” and a charge.  As I level I get another bubble and a few other reactive tools to add to my arsenal.

Pitrelli’s second argument, about combat being slow, is harder to argue.  I believe the perceived slowness is more an unfamiliarity with the combat system because it plays so much differently than any other MMO out there.  Because you have to be much more deliberate with your key presses than you do in WoW, it can feel slower especially in the early levels before you get a lot of abilities.  However, once you get higher, combat becomes frenetic.  There is much more to keep track of in AoC than in WoW.  Range is much more important, as is position.  Combine that with moving through your combos, active blocking, counters and your double-tap buffs and combat can get really crazy.

I will not argue that combat in AoC is better than WoW.  That is a completely subjective opinion.  Pitrelli, and anyone else who has played AoC, has every right to say that they prefer WoW combat to combat found in AoC.  However, AoC’s combat is more complex and it is a more “skill-based” system than WoW.  Some people will like this, some won’t.  Some people will like the complexity but dislike the feel of AoC combat and that is fine too.  I will only say that it is nice to see a MMO break away from the standard MMO combat that we have seen since EQ.

For that, I thank Funcom.

A short, unfortunate return to WoW.

I mentioned that I tried WoW again at the insistence of some friends on mine from work.  I leveled a druid up (very quickly thanks to the recruit a friend system) and found myself completely disgusted with the game in its current form.  Short list of things that I hated:

• Server community is dead.  No one knows anyone, everyone queues in Dalaran for instances, BGs and arenas.
• Gear score has made the community even worse than before.  Elitism abounds, much of it unfounded.
• Everything is easy mode and homogenized.  Crowd control is a dirty word that no one ever uses anymore in PvE.  AoE pulls are the norm.  Strategy is gone.
• World PvP is non-existant for the most part.

WoW is in a horrible state right now, in my opinion, and I don’t think Cataclysm can fix it.  I found a picture on Keen’s forums that summed up how lacking in atmosphere, community and exploration WoW is right now:

I miss the big, sprawling dungeons that had atmosphere and encouraged exploration.  You could get lost in BRD or UBRS and it was awesome.  The dungeons are now a joke and designed for quick, easy runs instead of immersion.  Fine for some people but not for me.  Having explored the alpha leak of Cataclysm, I can say it gets worse.  Single hallways are the norm there.  Sadly old WoW is dead.

WoW and the rose-colored glasses…

Well, I was still away from home most of today, even though I was off from work.  Sitting around with my laptop, AoC was still out of the question.  So, I fired up WAR.  I had been struggling with a decision over what server and faction I wanted to go with but I finally decided on the Badlands server.  I further decided upon rolling a Knight of the Blazing Sun.  Feel free to look me up if you play on Badlands, my character is, amusingly enough, named Brannagar.

I hooked up with a healer in the very first PQ on Empire side and we leveled and did scenarios together for much of the evening.

Time to shatter those glasses!

He was a new player, who had never played WAR at all.  Apparently, he had played WoW for about a year on an account that was borrowed from his cousin.  His cousin had decided to sell both of his accounts, so the poor guy was stuck with nothing.  Originally he was going to buy WoW and get his own account but after seeing the cost of the original, TBC and WotLK, he decided to give WAR a shot.

During the course of the evening he said something that really amused me and really got me to thinking.  What he said was:

“I think I am going to buy WoW anyway.  It is way better than this.”

Okay.  Full stop.

No.  No it is not.  If you think that WoW is way better than WAR after only 10 or so levels, then you are doing one of two things.  You are either comparing WAR’s first few levels to WoW’s endgame or you are looking at WoW’s starting levels with rose-colored glasses.  One or the other, or maybe both.  Because there is absolutely no way that WoW’s early game is anywhere as engaging as WAR’s.  None.  Period.

You can make a very convincing argument that WoW has a better end-game.  There is no doubt about that.  But there is no way, even the most fervent WoW fanboy, can make a convincing argument that WoW’s first 10-20 levels are better than WAR’s.  No way.  If you are sitting there reading this and saying to yourself that WoW does, in fact, have a better early game, then you are also wrong.  This is not a question of taste or preference.  This is a simple statement of fact.

Let’s look at both games and their early levels, shall we?

In both games you are deposited at your races starting area, though this has changed in WAR and all races start in the Empire/Chaos pairing.  Regardless, both games start you off similarly.  But the journey in each game through the first levels is totally different.  First of all, you can PvP in WAR from level one and level from it.  Both open world PvP and Scenarios (battlegrounds) can be partaken of from level one.  It is not only fun but it is a viable way to level and you don’t gimp your character from it.  While in WoW I have to grind quest after quest to level, in WAR I can hop in a scenario and massacre the other side.  All the while my character levels and gets better equipment.  Hell, you even make money PvP’ing!

But throw out PvP for the moment.  Even if you do not enjoy PvP, WAR has a much better early level quest game.  In WoW you are tasked with beating back an excursion of boars.  Boars. Or you are tasked with hitting Orcs over the head to wake them up, or killing a kobold camp that has, for no apparent reason, placed itself right outside the castle walls. Again, I want to impress upon you…boars.

In WAR it could not be more different.  In WAR you are tasked with beating back an excursion of Chaos warriors that is intent on raping, pillaging and burning your homeland.  Chaos warriors. Or if you prefer, you are tasked with being a part of that exact same excursion and pillaging to your hearts content.  You are placed in a war-zone in either case.  You feel like a part of something.

While you are slaughtering boars in WoW, I am fighting huge chaos warriors.  While you are rapping Orcs on the head, I am splitting them with my sword.  Hell, you fight a Chaos Giant. in the first five levels of WAR.  A Giant that knocks down four trees before you face him.  In WoW your most impressive feat in the first fifteen or so levels is Hogger. Hogger.

Yeah, I know you can make the argument that Chaos Warriors are, for all intents and purposes, just boars reskinned.  I totally get that but the perception is what matters here.  WAR feels so much more epic in the first levels than WoW and than most any other MMO I can think of.  You feel like you are a part of something and it is fun.  A whole hell of a lot of fun.

Hopefully, one day, Mythic can make the rest of the game as fun as the first twenty levels.  I don’t know, they may have already reached that point.  I haven’t gotten that far since I picked it back up.  If they ever do, they will have one of the best MMOs ever.  They already have the best MMO starting experience out there.

And, if you don’t think so, if you think WoW had a better starting experience, then you are looking through those rose-colored glasses.

Has a MMO finally beaten WoW’s Hunter Pet System?

Okay, I am on a posting frenzy right now but I keep finding stuff I want to talk about.  So, you will just have to deal with it!!

In perusing all the AoC expansion news from the last post I came across something incredibly cool.  The new AoC pet/mount system.  Let me explain it a bit:

• Two of the 10 or so factions in RotGS have a quest that involves picking up a tiger cub or wolf pup.
• Once you get that pup or cub, you continue on quests that slowly “grow” him/her over time.
• They eventually arrive at a time when they become actual combat pets.
• At this point, you can stop their growth and use them as a combat pet permanently.
  

  I really like the tiger.....

• Alternatively, you can continue along their “growth” system and they will eventually grow into a mount.
• If you choose for them to be a mount, they can no longer be a combat pet.

Okay, this is cool.  I loved the WoW pet system for hunters.  Actually going out, picking a pet, training it and then growing it to be more powerful was an incredibly cool experience for me.  It certainly beat having a pet arbitrarily assigned to you and was one reason why I thought the hunter and his pets were much cooler than the Warlock and his.

but I am a wolf kinda guy!!!

This takes that awesome pet system in WoW and upstages it.  Frankly, I think it might even just blow it away.  The fact that every class can have the combat pet is also very cool.  I can not wait to see my Bear Shaman with his trusty wolf by his side.

Oh, but the terrible choice:  the mount or the pet?!?!  That will take some time to decide!

Realistic or Stylized

One of the biggest differences between Age of Conan and other MMOs, such as WoW, is their dedication to a realistic look in armor and weaponry.  Funcom went for a purely realistic look in AoC and they achieved it.  Armor is rendered in muted browns, reds and blacks.  Weaponry is of a realistic size and actually looks like something a medieval warrior would wield.    This is in sharp contrast to the fantastical looking armor and weapons in WoW, Aion or even Warhammer.

Do you prefer this...

I liked most of the armor and weapons in WoW but there were some that just went over the top.  For instance, I liked the design of the old Dragonslayer Hunter armor from Vanilla WoW but, come on, gold and purple?  Really?!?!  Hunters are supposed to be nature like and blend in.  Not stand out with garish armor like a pimp on a street corner!  Some of the various doodads, skulls and such that stuck out of your armor were out of place too.  I really do not need a huge globe of light dangling over my shoulders…thank you very much.

or this??

Aion was even worse.  I don’t like Anime to begin with, so Aion really pushed my buttons.  Come now, a guy who probably doesn’t weigh 105lbs, yet he is carrying an axe that is three times his size and probably weighs 300lbs?  Not only is he carrying it but he is doing flips with it?  Nope.  Not for me.

Most MMOs fall squarely in one of those two camps.  Either realistic or fantastical.  WoW, Aion, Allods, FF11 and Tera Online all go the fantastical route.  DAoC, AoC, Darkfall and, from what I have seen, all go the realistic route.  There are some overlaps, however, with EQ2 and Warhammer having a mix of both.

So, the question is; which do you prefer?  Do you like the fantastical armor of WoW or do you prefer the gritty realism of AoC?  The pictures above are not a fair comparison.  The AoC engine is obviously better but, all things being equal, if they were both rendered in the same engine, with the same detail, which would you prefer?

Let’s compare and contrast, shall we?

Today I downloaded the trial for Alganon.  I have heard some really bad things about it but decided to give it a try and see if it offered anything to the genre.  Rather than do a normal impressions post, I am going to compare Alganon to Allods and see how that turns out.

Both Allods and Alganon can be termed “WoW-clones”, at least at first glance. Both use the tried and true quest leveling system, similar U.I.s and the standard “holy-trinity” of Dps, tank, healer.   Do either of them offer anything new at all?

Alganon’s character creation is identical to WoW and when I say identical, I mean identical. Take a look:

Now, take a look at the WoW creation screen:

Notice anything similar?  Maybe exactly alike?  All information is presented in the exact same sequence.  Faction, race and class on the right, all other stuff on the left.  Alganon has a family choice, which seems to have no effect on game play that I could tell.

Now, here is Allods Online:

All the same information is displayed but there is a big difference in the way it is presented.  Allods Online has a different presentation from WoW, while Alganon just looks like a cheap rip-off.

Alganon has two races, which compromise two factions, so not many choices there.  Alganon also has very standard classes, with four choices; soldier, ranger, healer and magus.  Again, not much to choose from in the game.  Allods, by comparison, offers 6 races, compromising 2 factions and allows for eight different class options.  Quite a bit more variety in Allods Online.

Once you actually get into the game, Alganon continues with the WoW imitation.  Take a look at the U.I.:

Ok, this is bordering on plagiarism.  The U.I. is identical.  Look at the training U.I., it is exactly like WoW.  Identical. The other thing that gives me a chuckle is the fact that Alganon uses an Arial font for everything.  What?!?  They couldn’t even be bothered to be a little bit creative with the font?  This is lazy design at its worst.

Take a look at Allods Online:

Now, the U.I. is my least favorite part of Allods Online right now, it needs some work.  But, it still out does Alganon because it is not 100% recycled from WoW.  It has all the pertinent information but presents it in an interface that looks different.  Can you say creativity?  Quest Online (Alganon’s creator) obviously can not.

Graphically it is night and day.  Alganon has horrible, horrible character graphics and animations.  The textures are fuzzy and the game looks just plain bad.  Allods Online, while not a graphical powerhouse like Age of Conan, looks really good.  Animations are really well done and the textures look good up close or from afar.  The discrepancy is impossible to ignore.  Alganon looks worse than WoW, while Allods looks like a crisper, sharper version of WoW.  All three use a similar artistic style but Alganon does a very poor imitation.  You can certainly see the lack of creativity of Quest Online as they recycle the old WoW style, while Astrum Nival (Allods Online devs) take that artistic style and make it their own.

So, do either offer anything beyond a “WoW-clone” experience?

Alganon has a tacked on off-line study system that allows you to learn skills while logged off but that is about it from what I can tell.  Nothing else separates the two and the study system does not seem well implemented anyway.  Other than that, I can see nothing that would make anyone want to play Alganon over WoW.  It is simply a rough, buggy and terribly implemented version of WoW.

Allods Online, on the other hand, has game play similar to WoW.  The normal quests, instances and rep grinds exist in Allods that are in WoW but at the end Allods offers Astral ships and more World PvP.  Astral ships separate Allods from WoW and every other MMO out there.  It seems to be completely new for the genre.  In addition, everything in Allods seems well implemented and well done.

The funny thing is Alganon costs $50 and requires a $15 monthly fee, whereas Allods Online is free to play.  If you loaded up both these games and played each for a couple of hours you would think the opposite.  Alganon is so bad, so underwhelming and so bad in its implementation, you think it should be free to play.

By the way, if I were Blizzard I would seriously consider a copyright lawsuit.  I have never seen a game that so totally rips off content from another like this, art assets are taken verbatim from WoW.  It is a sad thing to see.