Nothing too eventful happened yesterday, more EQ2 play. Still can’t quite get into it again. I can’t really get into many MMOs anymore, it seems they all feel the same. I’ve played EverQuest 1 and 2, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, etc. They all feel the same. Same quests, same economy, same monsters, same characters–is there anything to distinguish them? Well, of course there are, however small, but it never seems enough.

I havn’t really had many ideas (besides the ones posted already) for MMOs recently, but I have thought of an FPS-RPG that I would like. (Ideas page)

Well, this past weekend was spent getting a little EverQuest 2 in. Came home from work Friday and saw a small postcard in the mailbox from SOE (Sony Online Entertainment) saying my EQ2 account was reactivated and that I should come back and check it out (the fishing bit, naturally I decided to give it a nibble). So the downloading of the client ensued, taking till Saturday to complete.

I had stopped playing EQ2 some months ago, Octoberish of last year, and had missed out on the Echoes of Faydwer expansion. This expansion was now enabled for me so I got to check out the Fae and their evil counterpart (added in later, I think in May). Being a fairy might not suite most guys, what with the fancy wings and all, but I really liked them. The glide racial was a lot of fun, don’t think I can stop using it now that I have it. But as far as playing goes, I just don’t know if I can hold on – the only way would be to find a young guild with a lot of low level players to hang out with. I could play on my older character, but the time away has made him a real stranger to me – I no longer remember what I was doing with him, or why, or where I was going. Starting over seems the only real option.

Aside from some EQ2 play this weekend, I tried coming up with more ideas for character development in RPGs. The main focus was growth of power, and how to display it. The most widely used examples today are levels, skill points, and equipment. There has only been one game (I think two actually, the other being a smaller MMO, but I don’t think it has lasted?) that has added to this type of growth, with aging. That game is Fable and while merely cosmetic I think the physical change of your character based on the growth they have achieved is very powerful. I think Warhammer Online is going this route too, and I think I even remember EQ2 was going to try that years ago before it’s release. Equipment has usually been the basis for visual power, sometimes spells that give off visual effects, but it should be the physical appearance of your character that grows – for it is the character that has become powerful, not just the equipment.

Now, the equipment I can see staying as a sign of power, but what about skill points/levels? This is the part that really needs addressing, but how? Levels and skill points have become a staple of the RPG – players have to gauge their progress somehow. I could say something like experience takes over, is gained through doing all sorts of things, but that would just be skill points with another name (essentially). Going back to one of my previous posts, why have them at all? Players gain their abilities through adventuring about, helping or hurting people and things. As they gain their abilities and equipment they begin to visually appear stronger, both in physical growth and in equipment. As I heard on one of the Warhammer Online trailers, if someone looks like they can kill you – they probably can. That is how it should be.

Taking on the no levels/skill points theme – how would players know if monsters/quests were appropriate for them? This is something I’d like to see solved by ability based encounter spawns (internally we’d have a measure of ‘levels’ based on number of abilities/types of abilities to try and best suite a ‘level’ of encounter to the player), so the player could naturally adventure about and not worry – they should always have a challenging encounter, but not one that’s too hard or too easy. I think that works similarly to Oblivion, where spawns are based on your level – more or less. Which brings me to something else I’d like to see, dynamic spawning – spawns based on the players in the area. Static spawns may be great for farming, but that’s not something I really want. When a player is adventuring about they shouldn’t be able to see all the monsters standing about in a field. What should happen is rustling about in the underbrush near the path, followed with an ambush by wolves or something. I’m sure something like this is possible, and would be great. I can imagine traveling down a path, just to have some merchant running and screaming toward me, bandits on their heels – just to have the bandits see me and decide to have some fun, after dispatching them the merchant rewards me with an item they were going to keep — or perhaps I join with the bandits and kill the merchant, taking all the money he had left on him. That encounter would be more or less one time only per character I think, maybe encounters similar to it in other areas, or encounters stemming from that one (meet the merchant again later, meet the bandits again or have the bandits rat you out as well and gain punishment for your crime, etc). Vanguard had planned on doing something like this earlier I think, but unfortunately it didn’t happen, Wish too had plans for more dynamic spawns. I’d like to see the same for instanced dungeons, no static spawns. Once you clear out a dungeon you shouldn’t be able to go back and see the exact same enemies you killed. There should at least be different monsters, with a story behind it (after you slew the last gang of thieves, a pack of wolves came and decided to make the cave their den). Having flexibility in the spawns and stories behind areas would really add to their re-playability and longevity I think.

Well, I had fun yesterday evening. Spending my time formating/re-installing/updating my OS. During that time I was over on my spare (non-gaming, unfortunately) PC going through forums. One discussion that I had never really thought too much about was the topic of MMORPGs diversity, or rather the lack there of. Now, sure the argument was on what some would call the core mechanics of the RPGs, but it did make some good points. Why is there such a lack in diversity?

Diversity can mean many things of course; you have your traditional elf/dwarf warrior/wizard style RPGs and then the sci-fi variety, but the core mechanics of them are still roughly the same–level, get loot, do quests. All three of those actions can be put under one major awning of the RPG core, character development. The single basis of an RPG, to me, is the development and growth of a character. It is at these roots then that we must seek change.

How does a character grow? Through levels? Skills? Equipment? Or is it through the amount of quests finished and monsters killed? These have been the basis for most RPGs thus far. Surely these cannot be the only means of character development though, what other options are there? How about the choices a character makes; the impact they have on the world? What if skills and attribute increases were given based on decisions made and actions done? That could be interesting. Simply during the writing of this I am becoming flooded with ideas. I can imagine a world where there is no set path, there are no levels, no classes; there is only choices and actions, and what you do effects your character’s development and its place in the world. Where hiking out across the land and coming upon a small cottage, you will have choices–help the old hermit inside or harm him? Helping could increase your moral standing and have the possibility of gaining a skill (the hermit was an old wizard, he taught you a unique spell for helping him), where as harming him would lower your moral standing and could increase your character in other ways (gain a special magical artifact that he had in exchange for his life). I would love to see this, perhaps it’s time for me to find an open source game engine to learn so I can attempt it. The game would be a lot like the Elder Scrolls series, non-linear, but I would like to try a slightly different path with character development in it.

Well, had a bit of fun this morning, at least I guess it could be called that. Was looking around Download.com for some anti-spyware programs to try, and found one (I think it was SpyCatcher). Downloaded and installed it, great! Reboot time. Login comes up, enter the password… loading… and Blue Screen! *horror*

Yup, going to have to re-install my OS it seems, format the hard drives, all that good stuff. Hopefully something good will come of this (better performance after the format?).

As for gaming, don’t have much to report today. Tried to download and install the Empire Earth III beta client off of FilePlanet, but kept having issues with it.

Edit: Added the Ideas page, with ideas on a linear and non-linear MMO. And my first story, Saryval.

Weekends are a special time for me, like most gamers I’m sure. An urge rises to fall into a gaming binge–spending hours and hours gaming the day/night away.

This weekend saw a lot of time devoted to Vampire: The masquerade – Bloodlines. While an older game (I think it was released in ‘04?) it is still quite enjoyable. Spending my time as a very persuasive and sharply dressed vampire, I took on the evils of the L.A. supernatural in a (slightly) less evil role. The story was pretty well done, with enough side-quests to make it seem less linear. My only complaints in the game were mostly technical–lag, stuttering, glitches, etc. seemed to plague the game, which was sad considering the potential that could have been achieved. Also, the enemies were a bit over used–I think there were maybe three models for each type, with many being used over and over (small annoyance, but when you have 5 people attacking you that all look exactly the same, just kind of breaks immersion, for me at least). Would not mind seeing another sequel in this line, another Action RPG similar to this or even an MMO. That would be interesting and do-able I think. I can imagine clans of players starting up turf wars, or aiding NPC clans in theirs. The only change I would want is a more action driven combat experience, make it a tad more realistic–when an NPC human gets shot with a shotgun at close range they should probably die, not take another two or three shots.

As far as my NWN2 storyline goes, I’ve been thinking about building on a basic plot of — Child of a farmer that goes on to battle undead legions that are destroying the land, and the farmer’s child discovering the true nature behind the undead–at least they thought they found it (plot twist time?). — while being extremely general that is just a brief overview, seeding in twists (often small, seemingly insignificant) has always been one of the writing mechanics that I’ve loved and I’m sure I can find plenty of opportunities for their use. If I can find a way to turn the character undead, that will defiantly be something I’ll consider (what better way to punish an aspiring hero than to turn them into what they hate most and are fighting against?).

To start off this blog, I would think it appropriate to tell what games are currently holding my time hostage.

My gaming is being focused on the Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games. Two games in particular (I’m always on the look-out for new MMO’s) that have my current interest and involvement are Eve Online and Fury.

Eve has had quite an impact on my gaming ideas. A single world (server) and a non-linear (for linear, see just about every other MMO – World of Warcraft(WoW), EverQuest(EQ), etc) style is wonderfully fresh – even if the game has been around for a few years. Within the game I am currently a mission runner and miner (or, as some would say a ‘carebear’ – only I actually like Player vs. Player (PvP) combat a LOT, and will start doing some once my skills are trained). Real time skill training is a big positive for me, no longer do I have to devote hours and hours of mostly meaningless ‘play’ time just to advance my character, leaving me free to do other things (like, this). At the same time, however, it does not include a lot of instant gratification. Skills may train whether you play or not, but the training takes time–a lot of time (days, weeks, upwards of months)–to get where you want.

Fury, on the other hand, is almost purely instant gratification (this makes for a pretty complete gaming line-up for me). Currently in closed-beta, Fury is purely PvP and played out at fast-paced first-person shooter (FPS) speed with role-playing game (RPG) styled abilities. Now, some people would argue that it is just another WoW clone, or perhaps a Guild Wars (GW) clone–really, it is not. The skill system is of the biggest interest for me. Being able to use any combination of skills to suit personal play styles is something I love, and would like to see in other new MMO’s. Currently I have a sort of Oracle build that I use. It has a few of the longer (3 minute) buffs–like Spirit of the Ironwood, some shorter situational buffs–like Defender’s Shell/Sure Foot, caster damage spells–Defender’s Dart, heals–Mend/Rally, charge manipulations (charges are kind of the ‘mana’ or ‘power’ in this game, can have 10 charges max, per one of 2 opposing elements–fire/water, nature/decay; the amount of charges you have fluctuates greatly)–Rotwood/Mistburn, and a couple field spells (ground targeted spells)–Shelter/Cyclone. Creating more of a support role was the idea for the build and from experience using it I think it is where I wanted it (it’ll always be modified to some small degree). Fury is defiantly a team based game, no team/guild to work with and be organized in and a player will almost certainly fail.

Aside from MMO’s I do like to dabble with the single-player games. Currently, Neverwinter Nights 2 is still keeping me company and I would like to do some modding to it–at least create a small story driven campaign. Might post some of the concept story/art (as crude as it may be).