While i was pleasantly discussing with some other gamers (all of whom are multiple console users like me) this morning about yesterday's announcement from Microsoft sporting Final Fantasy XIII as coming to their console as well, one of them said something that I deem worthy of note: The fact that Microsoft based bsaically the whole press conference on the final hype that in the end says nothing else than "hey, we got that game too!", no matter how big that game is, they kinda look like they're struggling for content.
While I have to say that Final Fantasy XIII is a very big hit for Microsoft, and it'll probably help them in some way, that remark put things pretty much back into perspective.
In the end, before the entrance of Wada (that entertained everyone with his funny lisp), the Microsoft press conference was quite uneventful, completely cenetred, at the very lest game-wise, on stressing on already announced titles.
I say this because, on the contrary, today Sony took a completely different approach, they didn't bring a groundbreaking "hey, we got that game too!", but after a mildly boring history lesson they begun with an whole slew of new games (many of which exclusive) and services.
Some of the most interesting games are God of War 3, MAG (a tentative name meaning Massive Action Game, featuring 256 players online squad based combat) and the DC Universe MMORPG for the PS3, showing that they're not going to settle being the underdog on online gaming and a new Resistance game for the PSP (Resistance Retribution) .
In addition to that, they shown off a whole media retail/rental service for the PSN that will have a surprise start tonight (yes, not in some months, but tonight), and one of my personal favourites, the taking off of the GT TV (The media service integrating in Fran Turismo 5 Prologue) in August, with a whole lot of racing related content, including coverage of one of the most fun Gran Turismo racing series in the world, Super GT (The one with the most charming Racing Queens too). A series that had a very sparse coverage in the US so far, and almost non existant in Europe, and that I always wanted to watch.
Personally, If i had to establish a winner between the three console-makers, I'd say that would be Sony. Sure, they don't have tons of massively popular casual games (that are always identical one to another), they didn't come with any epic in-your-face "hey, we got that game too!", but they came with an extremely solid line up or REAL news, most of which about games. While Final Fantasy XIII won't be exclusive (but I'm still pretty sure many people will prefer a single Blu Ray as opposed to many DVDs), but their upcoming lineup still looks more solid, and their news more interesting and innovative (massive action gameplay? Yes please!).
Now, they would have won MORE if they finally announced the release date for White Knight Story, since JRPGs are the genre in which they're being (ironically) surpassed by the competition, but I guess you can't have everything in life, can you?
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Yawning on Nintendo's face...
Nintendo's press conference began in a very boring way, first with a Cammie Dunnaway that seriously went overboard with coffeeine playing the "mom" slapping her silly made-up smiles all over our faces. I honestly found it quite disgusting, but to each his own I guess. Then we had to bear Satoru Iwata and Reggie Fils-Aime drooling out lots of triumphalistic numbers and absolute nonsense about their philosophy of "breaking the psychological barrier between gamers and non-gamers". Too bad that to achieve that they cater 90% towards non-gamers, leaving gamers with an extremely scarce line-up of viable titles.
It's really sad that one of the companies that actually created videogaming has fallen so low even while being at their peak in sales.
Sad, Boring... *Yawns*
EDIT: besides a very scarce announcement about Grand Theft Auto on DS, which shown absolutely no gameplay (not even a still picture), the conference ended just as boring as it begun.
It's really sad that one of the companies that actually created videogaming has fallen so low even while being at their peak in sales.
Sad, Boring... *Yawns*
EDIT: besides a very scarce announcement about Grand Theft Auto on DS, which shown absolutely no gameplay (not even a still picture), the conference ended just as boring as it begun.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Final Fantasy XIII coming to an Xbox 360 near you
At the very end of the Microsoft keynote at E3, an almost gloating (for a good reason) Yoichi Wada introduced a big surprise to the gaming world: Final fantasy XIII will not be a Sony exclusive anymore, but will follow the footsteps of many others to end into the multiplatform bandwagon, releasing at the same time on PS3 and Xbox 360. This is definately the biggest hit for Microsoft, and a tremendous blow for Sony. Most definately the overall winner is Square-Enix, that will be able to bring their most acclaimed franchise to an even wider player base.
Now we'll have to see what Sony will bring to their own keynote tomorrow to try and counter this. They probably knew about this in advance, and it would be a bad, bad choice on their part to come to the E3 empty handed. We'll just have to wait another day and see, but as of now it's official: we'll be able to chose on which platform we'll play Final Fantasy XIII.
Now we'll have to see what Sony will bring to their own keynote tomorrow to try and counter this. They probably knew about this in advance, and it would be a bad, bad choice on their part to come to the E3 empty handed. We'll just have to wait another day and see, but as of now it's official: we'll be able to chose on which platform we'll play Final Fantasy XIII.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Why Warhammer online needs to to get it's tanks back
While reading several forums about the changes in the Warhammer Online initial lineup, I came to realize that the issue that the biggest part of the community feels strongly about is the removal of the two tanking classes for the Empire and the Dark Elves: Knight of the Blazing Sun and Black Guard
Personally I agree with this view, completely. I can definately live without Lothern, the Black Ark, Karaz-a-Karak and Karak Eight Peaks, since the game seems to have plenty content and things to do wven without them (expecially since Mark Jacobs stated clearly that all four missing capital cities will be implemented as soon as possible trough free content updates), but the removal of the Knight of the Blazing Sun and the Black Guard is an hard cookie to chew on.
The big problem seem to be about game mechanics, but the Warhammer Online fanbase isn't just composed of hardcore PvPers that care only about gameplay and how things will work in a perfect seamless balance, with incredibly original mechanics that could make every game developer out there drool in awe. There are also players that care a lot about the flavor and the atmosphere of the warhammer world. Players that care about aesthetics and about how their chatracter will look and feel and how it will fit the role they set themselves in the world of Warhammer. Players like me that spent the last 20 years of their life giggling to themselves at the thought of how delightful it would be to be able to experience and adventure in the world of warhammer.
I feel that many such players are quite debaffled at hearing all this talk aboiut game mechanics that "don't cut it" and that will possibly make them loose important pieces of the flavor they care about.
Imperial knights are of extreme importance to the Imperial lore. They're the backbone of imperial armies, the finest part of the imperial nobility, and possibly the most iconic imperial class overall. During my 20 years of warhammer i met many players that chose to play imperial just over the awesome looks of the imperial knightly orders. In addition to that, The Knight of the Blazing sun was the only tank option available to humans. As you know humans are an extremely popular race in all MMORPGs, even if they lack characterization over the other races. That's why they're the ones that normally need the most variation (there are normally more humans that any other race, so they need more variation to avoid having too many people with the same class/race pairing). Removing the option for humans to play a tank class, IMHO, is what really doesn't cut it, it'll remove a lot of the flavor from the empire, and most definately will turn off a lot of people. Every game needs the "knight in shiny armor" archetype, simply because it's so popular and so massively liked by everyone. As of now, Warhammer Online is the only potentially blockbuster MMORPG that lacks such class. I do think this is a really bad idea.
Simply enough, the imperial armies are the most powerful of the old world, based over the hammer of steel of the knightly orders and imperial technology more than over anything else. Imperial technology has never been part of the game aside with an hint embodied by the witch hunters' pistols. Now they remove even the knightly orders. This isn't an Empire most dedicated warhammer players will really recognize as their own. This not to mention the fact that, at least initially, the conflict will be quite centered, lore wise, around the empire (since the only available order city is Altdorf). It doesn't feel really right to me that, when Altdorf is threatened by chaos, the knightly orders won't be mustered for the final battle.
Ultimately, having a tank that doesn't feel like a real tank (the swordmaster) and another that has the same bodily proportions as a barrel (the iron breaker), will most definately result in a disastrous shortage of the tank archetype on the order side, making for an unbalanced game for us all and possibly making high end PvE content difficult to access due to the lack of tanks (AoC is suffering exactly from that problem at the moment, believe me, it's terribly upsetting to have to give up group or raid content because you don't have enough tanks).
Dark Elven Black guards are a very important part of the dark elven lore. Dark elven armies are formed by a perfect balance between light troops and heavy troops. None of the two could survive without the other. Light troops are even too well represented in the game (3 classes), while the only representative of the heavy steel gauntlet of Nagarrond has been pulled out. Just as for the empire, without the black guard, the three classes that are left don't really represent the dark elves in a satisfactory way. They represent a part of their armies, while another part is entirely disregarded and absent.
In addition to this, the Black Guard was the only tank available as a female in the destruction side. I'm pretty sure that you knoew better than me that there are very few girl gamers (compared to the total) that are normally willing to play with a male character. It simply doesn't normally fit their taste. With the removal of the black guard, you basically tell them "sorry girls, you won't be able to play a tank for destruction, if you want to play one, please reroll order (or please go back playing WoW)" Honestly i don't find acceptable that a whole role in a whole faction of the game will be female-challenged. It doesn't feel right no matter how i try to look at it, expecially now that the percentage of female gamers is getting higher and higher with every month that passes, as girls are more and more drawn into this wonderful hobby.
In addition to this, both the black guard and the KOTBS are a counterpart of a class that WILL be in the game. taking them off is bound to create serious balance issues. If they thought you were able to deal with balancing classes that weren't at least partly mirrored, why making partly mirrored classes at all?
But bottomline, with the Imperial Armies composed just by priests, wizards and swashbucklers and the Dark elven armies composed just by sorceresses, scantly clad blood drinkers and well, more priests, I feel that Warhammer online simply wouldn't do justice to two of the most iconic races of the lore.
I can take having to wait for the cities, seriously. I can take loosing two melee DPS, since there's plenty classes able to deal damage in the game (and being kind of rank&file troops in their races, their iconic value is debatable). But i do think Mythic should do every possible effort to reinstate the two tank classes. They're just too indispensible under so many points of view.
I can only continue to encourage them to call upon their beta testers (and i will sure encourage my fellow beta testers to send feedback on this when the next phase hits). Many of us are expert tanks, I personally play tanks (and only tanks) since when the term "tank" has been first applied to MMORPGS, and many of us know the warhammer lore better than our pockets. We're in beta to help, to send feedback, and ideas. They can ask us to come up with new ideas and mechanics to save the tank classes. I'm willing to bet a few months of my wages that before the end of July someone will give them exactly what they're looking for to make the Knight of the Blazing Sun and the Black Guard two great and enjoyable tanking classes.
And even if they don't ask, and you, my fellow beta tester reading this article, feel strongly about this issue as much as I do, remember that you have the most powerful tool available to us all: The beta test forums. Write your feedback and ideas on how to save the Knight of the Blazing Sun and the Black Guard. Show them how much we care and who knows, we might win this battle.
Personally I agree with this view, completely. I can definately live without Lothern, the Black Ark, Karaz-a-Karak and Karak Eight Peaks, since the game seems to have plenty content and things to do wven without them (expecially since Mark Jacobs stated clearly that all four missing capital cities will be implemented as soon as possible trough free content updates), but the removal of the Knight of the Blazing Sun and the Black Guard is an hard cookie to chew on.
The big problem seem to be about game mechanics, but the Warhammer Online fanbase isn't just composed of hardcore PvPers that care only about gameplay and how things will work in a perfect seamless balance, with incredibly original mechanics that could make every game developer out there drool in awe. There are also players that care a lot about the flavor and the atmosphere of the warhammer world. Players that care about aesthetics and about how their chatracter will look and feel and how it will fit the role they set themselves in the world of Warhammer. Players like me that spent the last 20 years of their life giggling to themselves at the thought of how delightful it would be to be able to experience and adventure in the world of warhammer.
I feel that many such players are quite debaffled at hearing all this talk aboiut game mechanics that "don't cut it" and that will possibly make them loose important pieces of the flavor they care about.
Imperial knights are of extreme importance to the Imperial lore. They're the backbone of imperial armies, the finest part of the imperial nobility, and possibly the most iconic imperial class overall. During my 20 years of warhammer i met many players that chose to play imperial just over the awesome looks of the imperial knightly orders. In addition to that, The Knight of the Blazing sun was the only tank option available to humans. As you know humans are an extremely popular race in all MMORPGs, even if they lack characterization over the other races. That's why they're the ones that normally need the most variation (there are normally more humans that any other race, so they need more variation to avoid having too many people with the same class/race pairing). Removing the option for humans to play a tank class, IMHO, is what really doesn't cut it, it'll remove a lot of the flavor from the empire, and most definately will turn off a lot of people. Every game needs the "knight in shiny armor" archetype, simply because it's so popular and so massively liked by everyone. As of now, Warhammer Online is the only potentially blockbuster MMORPG that lacks such class. I do think this is a really bad idea.
Simply enough, the imperial armies are the most powerful of the old world, based over the hammer of steel of the knightly orders and imperial technology more than over anything else. Imperial technology has never been part of the game aside with an hint embodied by the witch hunters' pistols. Now they remove even the knightly orders. This isn't an Empire most dedicated warhammer players will really recognize as their own. This not to mention the fact that, at least initially, the conflict will be quite centered, lore wise, around the empire (since the only available order city is Altdorf). It doesn't feel really right to me that, when Altdorf is threatened by chaos, the knightly orders won't be mustered for the final battle.
Ultimately, having a tank that doesn't feel like a real tank (the swordmaster) and another that has the same bodily proportions as a barrel (the iron breaker), will most definately result in a disastrous shortage of the tank archetype on the order side, making for an unbalanced game for us all and possibly making high end PvE content difficult to access due to the lack of tanks (AoC is suffering exactly from that problem at the moment, believe me, it's terribly upsetting to have to give up group or raid content because you don't have enough tanks).
Dark Elven Black guards are a very important part of the dark elven lore. Dark elven armies are formed by a perfect balance between light troops and heavy troops. None of the two could survive without the other. Light troops are even too well represented in the game (3 classes), while the only representative of the heavy steel gauntlet of Nagarrond has been pulled out. Just as for the empire, without the black guard, the three classes that are left don't really represent the dark elves in a satisfactory way. They represent a part of their armies, while another part is entirely disregarded and absent.
In addition to this, the Black Guard was the only tank available as a female in the destruction side. I'm pretty sure that you knoew better than me that there are very few girl gamers (compared to the total) that are normally willing to play with a male character. It simply doesn't normally fit their taste. With the removal of the black guard, you basically tell them "sorry girls, you won't be able to play a tank for destruction, if you want to play one, please reroll order (or please go back playing WoW)" Honestly i don't find acceptable that a whole role in a whole faction of the game will be female-challenged. It doesn't feel right no matter how i try to look at it, expecially now that the percentage of female gamers is getting higher and higher with every month that passes, as girls are more and more drawn into this wonderful hobby.
In addition to this, both the black guard and the KOTBS are a counterpart of a class that WILL be in the game. taking them off is bound to create serious balance issues. If they thought you were able to deal with balancing classes that weren't at least partly mirrored, why making partly mirrored classes at all?
But bottomline, with the Imperial Armies composed just by priests, wizards and swashbucklers and the Dark elven armies composed just by sorceresses, scantly clad blood drinkers and well, more priests, I feel that Warhammer online simply wouldn't do justice to two of the most iconic races of the lore.
I can take having to wait for the cities, seriously. I can take loosing two melee DPS, since there's plenty classes able to deal damage in the game (and being kind of rank&file troops in their races, their iconic value is debatable). But i do think Mythic should do every possible effort to reinstate the two tank classes. They're just too indispensible under so many points of view.
I can only continue to encourage them to call upon their beta testers (and i will sure encourage my fellow beta testers to send feedback on this when the next phase hits). Many of us are expert tanks, I personally play tanks (and only tanks) since when the term "tank" has been first applied to MMORPGS, and many of us know the warhammer lore better than our pockets. We're in beta to help, to send feedback, and ideas. They can ask us to come up with new ideas and mechanics to save the tank classes. I'm willing to bet a few months of my wages that before the end of July someone will give them exactly what they're looking for to make the Knight of the Blazing Sun and the Black Guard two great and enjoyable tanking classes.
And even if they don't ask, and you, my fellow beta tester reading this article, feel strongly about this issue as much as I do, remember that you have the most powerful tool available to us all: The beta test forums. Write your feedback and ideas on how to save the Knight of the Blazing Sun and the Black Guard. Show them how much we care and who knows, we might win this battle.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Mythic Entertainment removes 4 classes and 4 cities from Warhammer
Between yesterday and today Mythic Entertainment's Mark Jacobs announced a few changes related to Warhammer Online's release in two interviews with MMORPG.com (you can read them here, and here).
Yes, i said "Mythic Entertainment" and not "EA Mythic" because as of now, Mythic goes back to it's old name (even if it still remains property of Electronic Arts), with a quite unexpected operation of branding that will probably appease the nostalgic of the old and glorious days of DAOC.
The news about the releas are, at least in part, quite upsetting, because of their content. Mythic will implement punkbuster as a cheat monitoring program withing the game, in addition to this, they're removing 4 capital cities (leaving only Altdorf and the Inevitabble City as the final objectives of the campaign) out of 6, and 4 classes of the 24 initially announced.
The classes that will get the axe (at least at release) will be the Imperial Knight of the Blazing sun, the Dwarf Hammerer, the Dark Elf Black Guard and the Orc Choppa.
I definately have very mixed feelings about this all:
1) Punkbuster: hwhile many had a quite harsh reaction about this (anti cheating programs are well known for causing issues) actually an anti cheating monitor for an RVR game is quite a good idea. DAOC suffered from cheating third party programs for quite a long time. Ensuring that cheating is harder (because i doubt it can be completely erased, just as much as real money trading) in warhammer online can only be a good thing, providing that it's implemented well enough to avoid performance issues.
2) Capital cities: It's a bit disappointing, but not game breaking. As much as one of my strongest desires for Warhammer Online's PvE content was getting to visit Mythic's take to Lothern (a city that, as a warhammer player, always fascinated me, and tickled my imagination), I can live with only Altdorf and the Inevitable City for a while. The game seems to be very rich of content and things to do anyway. So it's sad, but not exactly something I would define terrible.
3) Classes: this is where my disappointment hits a peak. Expecially with the Knight of the Blazing Sun. I have some problem actually envisioning a MMORPG without the ability to actually play a tank as a human. That's one of the most popular race/class combinations ever on most MMORPG and i see an absolutely humongous amount of people quite turned off by it's exclusion. If i were Mythic, i'll try to put some additional effort at the very least into implementing that (and a counterpart class of course), because i can see MANY people seeing it as a big gap in the game's lineup. But alas, i'm not Mythic.
At the moment I'll be honest, I'm having some big trouble finding another class that I feel compelled to play as much as I wanted to play a Knight of the Blazing Sun.
This not to mention the fact that the lack of a "knight" class is a serious hit to the Empire's lineup, lore-wise. So serious that it quite lowers the appeal value of the whole race. It's very probable that this can actually skew the server population quite badly in favor of the Destruction side, as I see many that would have rolled KOTBS now beginning to look at the Chosen with more and more interest.
Again, I can only appreciate Mark coming to us and letting us know what won't be in the game so much time before release, so everyone can make a reasoned choice. This, if possible, raises even further the appreciation I have for Mythic as a company and for Mark as a person (and sets them apart from other software houses that wait for the very last moment to announce things that get the axe).
I, for one, won't cancel my Collector's Edition preorder. I'll stick with the game, damn, i'm still sticking with AoC, i can definately bear some cuts on Warhammer.
The only advice i can give to Mythic at the moment, is to be *VERY* clear on wheter capital cities and classes are just DELAYED after release or completely canceled. And in the case it variates from case to case, which ones are delayed and which ones are canceled.
In my opinion they cannot really afford having people subscribe in the hope that their class will sometimes be implemented and then find out that that will never happen. That would cause massive amounts of malcontent and a drop in subscriptions as soon as the lack of such classes would become obvious.
A tentative roadmap in the introduction of such elements would be wonderful as well. Something like: Knight of the Blazing Sun and black Guard at Chrismas, Karaz-a-Karak and Karak Eight Peaks in february, Choppa and Hammerer in April... and so forth.
i know that's asking a lot, but that would work wonders in easing the hearts of the ones of us that have seen the class they've been focused on for years canceled off release.
If they don't know yet, in my opinion it would be best for them to take a final decision before release (possibly much before) and announce it officially. because I can see this is a serious and sensitive issue for many, me included.
This said, I definately hope that the upcoming phase of the beta will show clearly the need for more tanks (expecially since tanks tend to be scarce in many PvP games, due to their lesser abilities to deal damage to enemy players), and will persuade Mythic to change their minds.
Ultimately, if i could convey my thoughts to Mark Jacobs and the Mythic team, i'd give them the advice to actually ask directly the betatester communities of all nationalities (they could even make a contest out of it) to give insight on how to "save" at least the tanks (knight of the Blazing Sun and Black Guard). In such communities there are TONS of extremely experienced tank players that could come up with excellent mechanics that could make the classes interesting and fun, and well differentiated from others.
They listened to their teamleads a lot with DAOC. I'm sure that doing the same in this case would bring good results.
Yes, i said "Mythic Entertainment" and not "EA Mythic" because as of now, Mythic goes back to it's old name (even if it still remains property of Electronic Arts), with a quite unexpected operation of branding that will probably appease the nostalgic of the old and glorious days of DAOC.
The news about the releas are, at least in part, quite upsetting, because of their content. Mythic will implement punkbuster as a cheat monitoring program withing the game, in addition to this, they're removing 4 capital cities (leaving only Altdorf and the Inevitabble City as the final objectives of the campaign) out of 6, and 4 classes of the 24 initially announced.
The classes that will get the axe (at least at release) will be the Imperial Knight of the Blazing sun, the Dwarf Hammerer, the Dark Elf Black Guard and the Orc Choppa.
I definately have very mixed feelings about this all:
1) Punkbuster: hwhile many had a quite harsh reaction about this (anti cheating programs are well known for causing issues) actually an anti cheating monitor for an RVR game is quite a good idea. DAOC suffered from cheating third party programs for quite a long time. Ensuring that cheating is harder (because i doubt it can be completely erased, just as much as real money trading) in warhammer online can only be a good thing, providing that it's implemented well enough to avoid performance issues.
2) Capital cities: It's a bit disappointing, but not game breaking. As much as one of my strongest desires for Warhammer Online's PvE content was getting to visit Mythic's take to Lothern (a city that, as a warhammer player, always fascinated me, and tickled my imagination), I can live with only Altdorf and the Inevitable City for a while. The game seems to be very rich of content and things to do anyway. So it's sad, but not exactly something I would define terrible.
3) Classes: this is where my disappointment hits a peak. Expecially with the Knight of the Blazing Sun. I have some problem actually envisioning a MMORPG without the ability to actually play a tank as a human. That's one of the most popular race/class combinations ever on most MMORPG and i see an absolutely humongous amount of people quite turned off by it's exclusion. If i were Mythic, i'll try to put some additional effort at the very least into implementing that (and a counterpart class of course), because i can see MANY people seeing it as a big gap in the game's lineup. But alas, i'm not Mythic.
At the moment I'll be honest, I'm having some big trouble finding another class that I feel compelled to play as much as I wanted to play a Knight of the Blazing Sun.
This not to mention the fact that the lack of a "knight" class is a serious hit to the Empire's lineup, lore-wise. So serious that it quite lowers the appeal value of the whole race. It's very probable that this can actually skew the server population quite badly in favor of the Destruction side, as I see many that would have rolled KOTBS now beginning to look at the Chosen with more and more interest.
Again, I can only appreciate Mark coming to us and letting us know what won't be in the game so much time before release, so everyone can make a reasoned choice. This, if possible, raises even further the appreciation I have for Mythic as a company and for Mark as a person (and sets them apart from other software houses that wait for the very last moment to announce things that get the axe).
I, for one, won't cancel my Collector's Edition preorder. I'll stick with the game, damn, i'm still sticking with AoC, i can definately bear some cuts on Warhammer.
The only advice i can give to Mythic at the moment, is to be *VERY* clear on wheter capital cities and classes are just DELAYED after release or completely canceled. And in the case it variates from case to case, which ones are delayed and which ones are canceled.
In my opinion they cannot really afford having people subscribe in the hope that their class will sometimes be implemented and then find out that that will never happen. That would cause massive amounts of malcontent and a drop in subscriptions as soon as the lack of such classes would become obvious.
A tentative roadmap in the introduction of such elements would be wonderful as well. Something like: Knight of the Blazing Sun and black Guard at Chrismas, Karaz-a-Karak and Karak Eight Peaks in february, Choppa and Hammerer in April... and so forth.
i know that's asking a lot, but that would work wonders in easing the hearts of the ones of us that have seen the class they've been focused on for years canceled off release.
If they don't know yet, in my opinion it would be best for them to take a final decision before release (possibly much before) and announce it officially. because I can see this is a serious and sensitive issue for many, me included.
This said, I definately hope that the upcoming phase of the beta will show clearly the need for more tanks (expecially since tanks tend to be scarce in many PvP games, due to their lesser abilities to deal damage to enemy players), and will persuade Mythic to change their minds.
Ultimately, if i could convey my thoughts to Mark Jacobs and the Mythic team, i'd give them the advice to actually ask directly the betatester communities of all nationalities (they could even make a contest out of it) to give insight on how to "save" at least the tanks (knight of the Blazing Sun and Black Guard). In such communities there are TONS of extremely experienced tank players that could come up with excellent mechanics that could make the classes interesting and fun, and well differentiated from others.
They listened to their teamleads a lot with DAOC. I'm sure that doing the same in this case would bring good results.
Vivox providing voice chat for the PS3: Just a RUMOR
I confirmed with my correspondant at the Social Networking conference that the piece of news about Vivox providing Voice Chat to the PS3 was just a rumor spread between the attendees at the Social Networking conference and has absolutely no official value. As of now there's absolutely no confirmation of an involvement of Vivox with the PS3, even if their involvement with Sony Online Entertainment might fuel our hopes.
As such, please consider the previous post about this matter as an unconfirmed rumor that, at the moment, lacks any solid base.
I apologize with my readers about this mishap and about any false hope that it might have caused, and with Vivox and Sony for any inconvenience and for the additional work their PR operatives might have had to bear to deny this.
Age of Conan: Age of Censorship part 2
Looks like Funcom didn't take lightly the data I posted on Age of Conan's european servers primetime population. So you think they set about to solve the problem? Maybe, but in a quite strange way.
As of yesterday's patch an undocumented change to AoC's UI actively removed the "Next" button from the search players menu, making it impossible to count the characters online at any given moment by counting the pages displayed after a search and multiplying them by the 50 names displayed on each page. As of now, search just displays the first 50 "hits" and the rest overflows, lost to the eye of the beholder and impossible to reach.
I'm pretty sure that there's no other way to interpret this kind of action as anything else than a lame attempt to prevent people from gathering and publishing data on server population.
I'm honestly completely debaffled at the fact that Funcom, instead of using their resources to actually solve the many issues that still plague the game, wasted precious developing time to REMOVE an useful tool in order to prevent the players to precisely assess the health of their servers.
Just as it's quite shameful that, instead of actually trying to solve the population problem, they just decided to try and put an embargo to any kind of information about it. Looks like that, according to Funcom, we, the paying customers, don't have the right to actually know the status of a service we pay for every month.
Of course the thread I opened on the official forums about the matter has been immediately locked by the usual overzaelous moderator, and resulted in a further infraction point on my score alongside with the usual bonus accusations of being a troll.
On a brighter note, after yesterday's patch that seems to have broken more things than it actually fixed, the latest patch notes for the test live server (that should, if all goes well, go online next week on the official servers), show that, at long last, a cuple of the most annoying issues are on their way to a solution: The difference between male and female melee speed should be mitigated (wording isn't very precise, so we'll have to see to what point) and crfafted equipment with gems will retain it's stats even after zoning, removing the hassle of having to strip naked every time you hit one of those pesky loading screeens. They're even giving us a bonus brand new clickable emote menu that will for sure make the roleplayers smile.
Now, if so many of us weren't forced to play in servers as empty as my pockets every time i come home from Tokyo, and our valid complaints weren't censored like we were some kind of political criminals, we could actually be quite happy about it.
As of yesterday's patch an undocumented change to AoC's UI actively removed the "Next" button from the search players menu, making it impossible to count the characters online at any given moment by counting the pages displayed after a search and multiplying them by the 50 names displayed on each page. As of now, search just displays the first 50 "hits" and the rest overflows, lost to the eye of the beholder and impossible to reach.
I'm pretty sure that there's no other way to interpret this kind of action as anything else than a lame attempt to prevent people from gathering and publishing data on server population.
I'm honestly completely debaffled at the fact that Funcom, instead of using their resources to actually solve the many issues that still plague the game, wasted precious developing time to REMOVE an useful tool in order to prevent the players to precisely assess the health of their servers.
Just as it's quite shameful that, instead of actually trying to solve the population problem, they just decided to try and put an embargo to any kind of information about it. Looks like that, according to Funcom, we, the paying customers, don't have the right to actually know the status of a service we pay for every month.
Of course the thread I opened on the official forums about the matter has been immediately locked by the usual overzaelous moderator, and resulted in a further infraction point on my score alongside with the usual bonus accusations of being a troll.
On a brighter note, after yesterday's patch that seems to have broken more things than it actually fixed, the latest patch notes for the test live server (that should, if all goes well, go online next week on the official servers), show that, at long last, a cuple of the most annoying issues are on their way to a solution: The difference between male and female melee speed should be mitigated (wording isn't very precise, so we'll have to see to what point) and crfafted equipment with gems will retain it's stats even after zoning, removing the hassle of having to strip naked every time you hit one of those pesky loading screeens. They're even giving us a bonus brand new clickable emote menu that will for sure make the roleplayers smile.
Now, if so many of us weren't forced to play in servers as empty as my pockets every time i come home from Tokyo, and our valid complaints weren't censored like we were some kind of political criminals, we could actually be quite happy about it.
Vivox introduces Voice Chat System for the Playstation 3
When Sony Online Entertainment announced that they were teaming up with Vivox to create an in-game voice chat service on their Station Launcher MMORPG platform (full press release linked by Kotaku here) many saw this coming:
Today Vivox was at the the Social Networking Conference in San Francisco, and finally released the news that many were waiting for, introducing their upcoming In-game voice chat service for the Sony Playstation 3.
The service, shown alongside footage from Resistance 2, is supposed to revolution online gaming on the PS3 starting this fall (between October and November), and seems to be a quite important part of the upcoming Playstation Home service.
Alongside the in-game XMB and trophies just released in the 2.40 update, integrated voice chat will definately bring the Playstation network to a new level of quality. If it'll remain totally free (like it seems at the moment), Microsoft will have to come up with something quite creative to manage to keep their edge on online gaming.
EDIT: I received reports on the fact that this piece of news may be inaccurate, I'm now confirming it's validity (or lack of thereof) with my correspondant at the Social Networking Conference (that initially sent me the news) and with Vivox themselves. As soon as I manage to shed some light on it, i'll post further to confirm or deny it. Until then, please consider this post as an unconfirmed rumor. I apologize to my readers about any hopes this might have caused
EDIT2: I just confirmed with my correspondant that the news in this post are indeed inaccurate. He forgot to warn me that the fact was just a widespread rumor between the press at the Social Networking Conference and indeed it's just a rumor. I apologize again with my readers, and with VIVOX for any inconvenience this might have caused.
Today Vivox was at the the Social Networking Conference in San Francisco, and finally released the news that many were waiting for, introducing their upcoming In-game voice chat service for the Sony Playstation 3.
The service, shown alongside footage from Resistance 2, is supposed to revolution online gaming on the PS3 starting this fall (between October and November), and seems to be a quite important part of the upcoming Playstation Home service.
Alongside the in-game XMB and trophies just released in the 2.40 update, integrated voice chat will definately bring the Playstation network to a new level of quality. If it'll remain totally free (like it seems at the moment), Microsoft will have to come up with something quite creative to manage to keep their edge on online gaming.
EDIT: I received reports on the fact that this piece of news may be inaccurate, I'm now confirming it's validity (or lack of thereof) with my correspondant at the Social Networking Conference (that initially sent me the news) and with Vivox themselves. As soon as I manage to shed some light on it, i'll post further to confirm or deny it. Until then, please consider this post as an unconfirmed rumor. I apologize to my readers about any hopes this might have caused
EDIT2: I just confirmed with my correspondant that the news in this post are indeed inaccurate. He forgot to warn me that the fact was just a widespread rumor between the press at the Social Networking Conference and indeed it's just a rumor. I apologize again with my readers, and with VIVOX for any inconvenience this might have caused.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Does Warhammer Online really look like WoW?
Every time there's a discussion about Warhammer Online in basically every kind of environment, you're bound to encounter someone that will pop in with the usual cliche "It looks like WoW!" in order to criticize the game.
But does it really look like World of Warcraft?
Leaving alone the fact that Blizzard was clearly inspired by Warhammer to some degree when creating the Warcraft universe and as such there might be some very loose similarity between the races (but that's common to many fantasy settings, not only Warhammer's and Wacraft's) the graphics of the two games have very little if not nothing in common, both in technology and in style. The differences between the art direction of the two games can be as well defined "extreme".
The "legend" about WAR looking similar to WoW has been around a lot, and picked up so many times that the definition of "beating a dead horse" has been rewritten. But did the ones costantly jumping on this crowded bandwagon ever watched at the two games closely side by side?
To answer this question i decided to make a simple experiment using what is freely available around the net (sorry, no screenshots from the beta until the NDA is lifted mates), putting Warhammer's screenshots side by side with ones from WoW portraying similar subjects. You can see them all at the bottom of this post.
Of course the first thing that jumps to one's eyes is that Warhammer looks much better than World of Warcraft, but that's pretty normal, since the two games belong to two different generations, and that isn't the point of this post. What is quite noticeable, instead, is that the Warhammer and WoW's graphics belong to two entirely different styles.
World of Warcraft clearly resembles an extremely stylized cartoon, with little detail compensated by very bright textures and shiny effects. Warhammer Online, on the other side, while not being entirely realistic, is much more realistic than it's competitor. It doesn't look like a cartoon, but it's more similar to an illustration or a painting. It sports a great attention to detail both in the 3D models and the texturing, and the textures themselves show an heavy weathering that gives it a plenty different feeling from the one given by WoW. Warhammer's armor looks like it's been actually used in battle, environments show the effects of time and hardships. While WoW is a world that seems to come straight from the pen of a cartoonist, Warhammer's graphics are much darker and grittier, perfectly suiting a world that has been torn by war for millennia since the very beginning of it's history.
On a side note, I'd like to adress a concern that seem to be worrying many gamers over the quality of Warhammer's graphics.
As many games that are still in beta stage, warhammer graphics are still in an unfinished state, and they still lack a few elements that normally are added very near to release (even to avoid forcing all betatesters to download an extremely big client, gigabytes-wise). here's an overview of such elements as you can see from the pictures and movies released by Mythic:
1) lack of high resolution textures: all textures in the pictures shown so far seem to be in low resolution. This is pretty normal, given that texture resolution weighs a lot on the client's size that the beta testers have to download. The addition of high resolution textures will improve detail and general polish a lot.
2) lack of filters and effects: effects like bloom and similar are very important in making a game look great, also, it's quite clear that other embellishments like reflective water and such are still absolutely absent.
3) lack of a proper lighting engine: This is by far the most important element. some pictures shown so far have a very sketchy lighting engine that lacks most ambient light sources and that uses just a few fixed lights, most don't even have that. The lack of a proper lighting engine makes even the most polished graphics look flat and dull (lack of light means lack of shadows as well, and shadows are the most important element to bring out the three dimensional aspect of 3D graphics). I can easily bet a year of my wages that even just the introduction of the final lighting engine will improve the looks of the game dramatically, to the point that it won't even look like the same game.
In any case, you're free to love or hate the game (after all it's a matter of tastes and RvR might not be for everyone), but if you you went about talking on how Warhammer Online would be a WoW clone, you might want to think again.
So, what does Warhammer online look like? You might want to look here and you'll find your answer.
But does it really look like World of Warcraft?
Leaving alone the fact that Blizzard was clearly inspired by Warhammer to some degree when creating the Warcraft universe and as such there might be some very loose similarity between the races (but that's common to many fantasy settings, not only Warhammer's and Wacraft's) the graphics of the two games have very little if not nothing in common, both in technology and in style. The differences between the art direction of the two games can be as well defined "extreme".
The "legend" about WAR looking similar to WoW has been around a lot, and picked up so many times that the definition of "beating a dead horse" has been rewritten. But did the ones costantly jumping on this crowded bandwagon ever watched at the two games closely side by side?
To answer this question i decided to make a simple experiment using what is freely available around the net (sorry, no screenshots from the beta until the NDA is lifted mates), putting Warhammer's screenshots side by side with ones from WoW portraying similar subjects. You can see them all at the bottom of this post.
Of course the first thing that jumps to one's eyes is that Warhammer looks much better than World of Warcraft, but that's pretty normal, since the two games belong to two different generations, and that isn't the point of this post. What is quite noticeable, instead, is that the Warhammer and WoW's graphics belong to two entirely different styles.
World of Warcraft clearly resembles an extremely stylized cartoon, with little detail compensated by very bright textures and shiny effects. Warhammer Online, on the other side, while not being entirely realistic, is much more realistic than it's competitor. It doesn't look like a cartoon, but it's more similar to an illustration or a painting. It sports a great attention to detail both in the 3D models and the texturing, and the textures themselves show an heavy weathering that gives it a plenty different feeling from the one given by WoW. Warhammer's armor looks like it's been actually used in battle, environments show the effects of time and hardships. While WoW is a world that seems to come straight from the pen of a cartoonist, Warhammer's graphics are much darker and grittier, perfectly suiting a world that has been torn by war for millennia since the very beginning of it's history.
On a side note, I'd like to adress a concern that seem to be worrying many gamers over the quality of Warhammer's graphics.
As many games that are still in beta stage, warhammer graphics are still in an unfinished state, and they still lack a few elements that normally are added very near to release (even to avoid forcing all betatesters to download an extremely big client, gigabytes-wise). here's an overview of such elements as you can see from the pictures and movies released by Mythic:
1) lack of high resolution textures: all textures in the pictures shown so far seem to be in low resolution. This is pretty normal, given that texture resolution weighs a lot on the client's size that the beta testers have to download. The addition of high resolution textures will improve detail and general polish a lot.
2) lack of filters and effects: effects like bloom and similar are very important in making a game look great, also, it's quite clear that other embellishments like reflective water and such are still absolutely absent.
3) lack of a proper lighting engine: This is by far the most important element. some pictures shown so far have a very sketchy lighting engine that lacks most ambient light sources and that uses just a few fixed lights, most don't even have that. The lack of a proper lighting engine makes even the most polished graphics look flat and dull (lack of light means lack of shadows as well, and shadows are the most important element to bring out the three dimensional aspect of 3D graphics). I can easily bet a year of my wages that even just the introduction of the final lighting engine will improve the looks of the game dramatically, to the point that it won't even look like the same game.
In any case, you're free to love or hate the game (after all it's a matter of tastes and RvR might not be for everyone), but if you you went about talking on how Warhammer Online would be a WoW clone, you might want to think again.
So, what does Warhammer online look like? You might want to look here and you'll find your answer.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Thou shalt talk to your community...
Having little left to do besides grinding equipment for my guildies and materials for the guild city in Age of Conan, and with the upcoming guild beta on Warhammer online, it's time to switch the focus a little and see what's happening on the other side of the iron courtain.
A recent post by Mark Jacobs (EA Mythic's CEO and mastermind behind Warhammer Online) on the Warhammer Alliance forums made me ponder on developers and their relationship with their community.
If you read the post you can get a quick but precise overview of how Mark handles his communications with the ones that will, probably, play his game.
First of all, he answers directly. He normally doesn't need some random community manager to post in his stead some pre-made triumphalist fanfare. Even just by establishing a direct link of communication with his community, he puts himself on the line setting a quite clear point that you can read between the lines: Either you believe me or not, you'll be the the ones deciding if I lied or if I was honest when the game comes out.
This does wonders (at least with me), in establishing a good climate of trust within the community.
In the end, if you check warhammer Alliance's developer post tracker and give a look at Mark's posts, you'll notice that he's always very clear cut. Either he's an awesome actor (but I doubt it), or he's always very honest and direct with his readers. He doesn't throw in triumphalistic bull droppings like comparing his competition to fast food and his own game to Cordon Bleu and isn't afraid to adress naysayers face to face. He isn't even afraid to admit mistakes (for instance by clearly stating that DAOC's Trials of Atlantis was one).
For sure Mark is no angel, he doesn't sugar-coat pills and doesn't pour honey into his readers' ears. He can actually hit pretty hard when he spots someone that he deems a troll, and that makes me appreciate his style even more.
It'd be nice if more game developers followed his example. Step on the line and stand on it. That's how it should be done.
A recent post by Mark Jacobs (EA Mythic's CEO and mastermind behind Warhammer Online) on the Warhammer Alliance forums made me ponder on developers and their relationship with their community.
If you read the post you can get a quick but precise overview of how Mark handles his communications with the ones that will, probably, play his game.
First of all, he answers directly. He normally doesn't need some random community manager to post in his stead some pre-made triumphalist fanfare. Even just by establishing a direct link of communication with his community, he puts himself on the line setting a quite clear point that you can read between the lines: Either you believe me or not, you'll be the the ones deciding if I lied or if I was honest when the game comes out.
This does wonders (at least with me), in establishing a good climate of trust within the community.
In the end, if you check warhammer Alliance's developer post tracker and give a look at Mark's posts, you'll notice that he's always very clear cut. Either he's an awesome actor (but I doubt it), or he's always very honest and direct with his readers. He doesn't throw in triumphalistic bull droppings like comparing his competition to fast food and his own game to Cordon Bleu and isn't afraid to adress naysayers face to face. He isn't even afraid to admit mistakes (for instance by clearly stating that DAOC's Trials of Atlantis was one).
For sure Mark is no angel, he doesn't sugar-coat pills and doesn't pour honey into his readers' ears. He can actually hit pretty hard when he spots someone that he deems a troll, and that makes me appreciate his style even more.
It'd be nice if more game developers followed his example. Step on the line and stand on it. That's how it should be done.
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