…for a single player game. What the hell is that about?

You kinda expect it for a MMORPG, but lots of players just want to play the single player mode. Why Blizzard didn’t allow an offline mode like they did in Starcraft 2 is beyond me. Dumb move.

If you’re prepared to get kicked out of the game at a whim, or wait in a queue to play single player Diablo 3, then by all means buy it now. Otherwise, wait until everything has died down and get it when this rediculous always on thing gets fixed.

Launch Day Blues…

Since I’m not in The Secret World beta at this point, I’m living vicariously through others.

Here are the links.

• Pete at Dragonchasers gives us a first glimpse into The Secret World. Still a bit rough which might cause some launch controversy, but the quest structure (warning a bit spoilerish) makes it sound a little more traditional RPGish.

• Sente at A Ding World thinks there are quite a few nice things about the game. Lot’s of pictures in this post.

Arkenor is doing a series of articles on The Secret World beta weekend. The Secret World Beta Bonanza, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5. Lot’s of good stuff here.

That’s it for the moment but while my weekend is over, the US still has much of Sunday to go. I suspect there will be a bunch more posts in the coming few days. All up from what I see, it looks like the game still has some way to go before it’s ready for release and a June release might be premature. But the game itself is not your standard MMORPG, at least not in the kill ten rats sense. Lot’s of quests, puzzle solving, and perhaps not an easy mode game.

Sounds great.

Secret World Links

…for a device that can stop time around you and let you get everything done you need to in a day?

Years ago there was a Twilight Zone episode, the newer ones from the 80′s or 90′s not the originals, where  a woman finds an object (a fob watch I think) in her backyard that grants her that ability. Of course, because it was Twilight Zone there was a sting in the tail, but still…

I wish there was such a device at the moment.

Have You Ever Wished…

Yesterday when I wrote about what I think Bioware is doing wrong, I made the following statement:

If SW:TOR has been released five years ago it might have been the WoW killer everyone has been dreaming of, but instead it has been released at a time when there appears to be a growing disatisfaction with the subscription themepark model.

I said this, in part, because I’m a part of the group feeling that disatisfaction with the themepark model.

The problem I find is that I also enjoy the direction inherent in a themepark. You go to a location, do a bunch of quests that when complete direct you to the next area. It’s a big step up from having no direction and having to kill a ton of mobs in order to get to the level where you can go to the next area that defined games like Everquest.

But this model has the problem that it can get a bit tedious after a while. After all, the quests all blend in to one. And when a game is entirely based on the quest-to-level-cap model it ends up being limited.

On the other hand, a pure sandbox has its problems too. New players starting up may find the lack of direction quite daunting, especially coming from a traditional themepark like WoW. Sometimes too many choices without any direction can be as bad as a completely directed experience.

That’s why I think that MMORPGs should be like a vacation (or holiday as we say here in Oz.)

When you go on a vacation you get to choose what you want to do. You can stay in a national park and go hiking one day. The next day you can visit Disneyland. The third day you can ride a tour bus, and the fourth day you can get into the car and spend more time at the spots you visited in the bus the day before. The fifth day you can visit a waterpark. There are themeparks sure, but you can spend as much or as little time in them as you want.

So why can’t a MMO be like this? A big game with lots of sandbox features, but with individual unconnected themeparks

To make a MMORPG more like a vacation you need:

1. A game with a lot of sandbox features, where the players have a lot of autonomy to play and interact with the world, like Eve for example, lots of crafting, trading, PvP… everything like that.
2. Some direction for players who are not sure what they can do. Missions perhaps. Not necessarily story based. These are like the bus tours showing a general overview of places you can go back to later to explore in more depth.
3. Some areas in the game that offer a quest chain with a decent story. Disneyland anyone?

The difference is that the themepark areas are not the focus of progression, they are just things that a player can do and spend as much or as little time as they want. When a player gets bored of the quest areas they can leave and do something else in the game. Or they can never set foot in them, and not be disadvantaged.

So, with the rising disatisfaction in themepark design, and the still somewhat niche status of the sandbox game, perhaps it’s time to see some games that combine the two models. Let me know what you think in the comments below.

A MMORPG Should Be Like A Vacation

While I was writing the last post, What Is Bioware Doing Wrong? A thought came to mind that didn’t fit in that post.

Having the Star Wars IP to develop a game is pretty much a free pass to a million or more box sales.

So why, with your development, go where every man has gone before? (I know, Star Trek reference doesn’t mix with Star Wars!)

Bioware could have done anything with The Old Republic. They could have made it a full sandbox with no quests, and sold two million boxes. So why did they stick with the themepark model that has been copping so much negativity over the last few years?

Bioware is, has been, a highly creative game developer. It’s a pity they didn’t use that creativity on more than just the class stories. Unless they completely botched it, they would have been successful.

Star Wars The Old Republic: Quick Thought

Bioware used to be the game developer who could do no wrong. They were a strong player in the game industry, with lots of very much loved games under their belt. From Baldurs Gate through to Mass Effect and Dragon Age it seemed they could do no wrong.

But now it almost seems they can do no right. The Mass Effect 3 ending caused a huge backlash among fans. Dragon Age 2 wasn’t appreciated by fans. And Star Wars: The Old Republic appears to be haemorrhaging subscribers, not that long after release.

So what’s happening?

Here are a couple of  ideas I have about where Bioware is going wrong.

#1 Bioware Have Forgotten Their True Fans

Bioware is where it is today because it focussed on one type of player, the RPG player. Through release after release of game they provided the experience that their fans loved. And consequently, they grew that fanbase. They gave it what it wanted, and because of this the fans loved them. Bioware only had to announce the development of a new game, and the fans went wild.

I’m not sure this has happened since EA bought them out, but now with each new game release, Bioware have been stripping away the game mechanics that their fans love. RPG’s have always been notorious for the stats. That’s been the case since, and caused by, the old pen and paper Dungeons and Dragons games. It also attracts a particular type of player, and repels other types of players.

Bioware in an attempt to make RPG’s ‘simpler’ have been removing the stats and attributes from their new games, or hiding them behind other gameplay elements. In essence this makes a game easier to get into and understand and easier to progress, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it marginalises the players who do actually like stats and attributes. If those players perceive Bioware as moving away from the model they love, they’re not going to be fans anymore.

#2 RPG’s Aren’t Just About The Story

In all the time Bioware has been developing games, there has been a huge emphasis on story. And that is good. That’s a big part of an RPG. But it’s not all there is.

As I mentioned above, a good RPG provides character progression as well as features that are recognisably RPG.

Is it possible to emphasize story too much?

In the case of SW:TOR, I think the answer is yes. So much so in fact that the game really comes across as a single player game with other players running around whom you can group with.

Ironically, this is Bioware’s forte. They make great single player RPGs. But for a MMO you really need a lot more than just a class story, you need a huge virtual world, not just a linear progression path. Even WoW has more than that.

#3 Bioware Are Choosing The Wrong Role Models (At The Wrong Time)

I think this one specifically relates to SW:TOR, but it could be applied to some aspects of their single player games too. It seems to me that Bioware focussed on making The Old Republic too much like World of Warcraft. Sure, Bioware puts a very strong emphasis on story in SW:TOR but is this enough to differentiate it from the WoW themepark model?

And even with World of Warcraft we are seeing a significant drop in subscriptions, perhaps the most significant since that game was released.

Why is this? Well, frankly I’m not really all that sure. Thousands of words have been written on the topic, and thousands of more will be. All I know that for myself is that World of Warcraft was becoming too narrow in its focus on the endgame. The journey was no longer important, it was all about levelling up quickly in order to raid. I’m not a raider, I’m more of an explorer so once the content was exhausted there wasn’t much point in sticking around. I see this same model in SWTOR, with the exception of (heavily) encouraging alt-ing through the legacy system.

If SW:TOR has been released five years ago it might have been the WoW killer everyone has been dreaming of, but instead it has been released at a time when there appears to be a growing disatisfaction with the subscription themepark model.

I’m not going to say that the subscription model is dead, I don’t believe that for a minute, but there is an equalisation going on between subscriptions and free to play. To survive the subscription model needs more than basic themepark gameplay. It needs, I think, the sandbox. The subscription model is perfect for Eve Online, I doubt Eve could work as free-to-play, but for a long term themepark, much more is needed. SW:TOR for all its beauty, story, and Star Wars-ishness is a very basic themepark. That isn’t going to keep players around.

Goodwill Hunting

Every business has this intangible asset called goodwill. It usually doesn’t appear on the balance sheet because it can be really hard to quantify. How do you tell if your customers love you? Well they keep coming back for one thing; but how much is this worth?

In Bioware’s case, goodwill was the asset they earned when they focussed on making quality RPGs for a generation of fans.

Now it seems that the recent mistakes are losing that goodwill.

What do you think Bioware are doing wrong? Do you think they are making mistakes in the first place? Or will this all blow over and everything will be alright?

What Is Bioware Doing Wrong?

I hope you are enjoying the New Blogger Initiative. Kudos to Syp for coming up with the idea, it’s been great to see so many new and old MMO bloggers participating in this. If you are just coming across the NBI for the first time now, head on over to the forum and check out everything that is going on there. After you finish reading this article of course.

If you have decided to start a blog, the first thing you will need to do is to select a blogging platform. You have a choice between a free-hosted, or a self-hosted blog.

A free-hosted blog platform is one where you sign up to create an account. Then you create a blog. And then you start writing. Too easy. The biggest platforms are fairly well known, with Blogger and WordPress.com being the biggest of the free blogging platforms.

A self-hosted blog is a blog where you buy a domain name, sign up on a shared host, install the blogging software, and then you start writing. These days, also not that hard — it can be done in a couple of hours — but you do have some costs.

Personally, I’m a fan of self-hosting. I like the idea of having control over everything about my blog. Control freak maybe? Still there are some negatives.

Pros of Self Hosting

1. You have control over the software. Some free hosts limit or exclude the ability to install plugin and widgets. A post I saw on the NBI forums this morning asked about the popups that show game item details when a reader hovers over a link. This is done through a plugin or a change to the template code. If you self host you can do this. On a free blog host it may not be possible.
2. You have control over the commercial aspects of your blog. Some bloggers put adverts or other commercial features on their blogs. Some use affiliate programs. If you are self-hosting, you can do this to your hearts content. Some free platforms however, don’t allow any of this. Some will limit it. If you want to make money from your blog, self-hosting is the way to go.
3. You have control over your content. If you are self-hosting you don’t have to worry about a terms of service. Now I suspect that most MMO bloggers wont violate the ToS of a free host regarding racism, illegal content, or porn, but if you want to be controversial you might find that some readers will take exception to it and report your blog to the service. (BTW, it doesn’t matter if you are self or free hosting, some content will automatically reduce your Google rankings anyway.)
4. If you need to change hosting you can. If you find that your web host no longer suits your needs you can, reasonably easily, change to a new host. If you need to scale up to a dedicated server, or a virtual private server (VPS) as your blog grows, then you can.

Cons of Self Hosting

1. More expensive to run. You need to buy a domain name, and rent a shared server. This isn’t that big of a cost. A domain costs about $10 per year, and a shared host under $10 per month.
2. No (less) support. If something goes wrong with your blog, if it’s hacked perhaps, you’ll need to fix it yourself. This has happened to me. It ended up taking about five hours one evening to fix. And of course that happened when I really wanted to do something else.
3. Shared hosts are shared. For the most part this doesn’t cause problems, but some cheap hosts are notorious for packing as many accounts onto a server as possible. Your blog may share a single server with 20, 30, or even more other websites. If you find your blog is slow this may be the cause, or perhaps another website is using too many server resources.
4. Lack of automatic scalability. What I mean by this is that with self hosting if your blog grows and gets too many visitors your cheap shared host may decide that you are using too many resource. In this case you’ll have to either upgrade to a more expensive plan, or find a dedicated server, or (the better option in this case) go to a VPS. A free-host like Blogger will scale allowing your blog to continue to grow its visitor numbers indefinitely.

Your Choice

Ultimately you will have to decide for yourself what level of control you want over your blog, but this will be based on the direction you want to take your blog. If you want to use certain plugins that aren’t available in a free host, you’ll have to self-host. If you have no budget to get a domain name and pay for hosting, or you simply don’t want to pay anything, then a free blog host is the best option. If you are having difficulty deciding what to do, then do the following.

1. Plan. Get a piece of paper and write on it everything you like about other blogs that you read. Be analytical about it. Do you like the popup links?
2. Now write on a separate list, what you want to do with your blog. Based on the list you generated in step 1.
3. Go to bed. Sleep on it. Leave it for a couple of days.
4. Now prioritise the items in list 2. Work out what you must have, and what you can leave out. Make sure this is a long term view. It can be harder to change later.
5. If the must have items require self-hosting, then that’s what you will need to do. If they don’t, then free hosting will work for you too.

Other Resources

If you choose to self-host here are some resources. The links are just plain links and are not affiliate links or anything like that.

• I use Namecheap for my .com and other domain names. For .com.au I used CrazyDomains. (Avoid Godaddy like the plague. Elephant killers, and just plain bad news.)
• For hosting, I like Site5 and Hostgator. Stropp’s World is currently hosted on Site5, and has been since I started the blog.
• If you have the technical expertise to set up a server, then Rackspace has some Cloud Hosting products that start fairly cheaply from around $11 per month. (I set a server and site up for a client last year.) These will scale easily, Rackspace have a UI that lets you set the resource level, at the click of a button.

If you have any comments you’d like to make, or any other pros or cons, or even some other resources for new bloggers (non-affiliate links only please) feel free to add them in the comments below.

NBI: The Pros And Cons Of Self Hosting

I’m a big fan of indie games.

For one thing they tend to be fairly inexpensive. An indie game usually costs less than 24USD instead of the 60+USD of big publisher AAA games. Indie game developers are free to experiment with their games. Of course they need to put food on the table, but they’re not driven by the marketing department and the need to keep shareholders happy. (Unless the spouse is considered a shareholder.)

But most of all, many indie games are fun games to play.

So yesterday when I read that Electronic Arts is releasing their own indie bundle my first thought was WTF!

Obviously some marketing droid realised that the humble indie bundles were highly successful and figured why not grab a piece of that pie.

Folks, EA is not an indie company and has no right to co-opt the term indie to push their own marketing agenda.

EA: Lying Liers Who Lie

Ahhh the timing…

Along with the gaming blogs that I read, I have a number of non-game related blog feeds on my Google Reader. There’s a bunch of gadget, programming, and IT based blogs; some game developer blogs. And of course blogs about blogging.

That’s another NBI tip I have for you. If you want to get good at anything, first you have to actually practice it, but second you need to study it. You might think you are not that great of a writer now, but believe me after you’ve written a quarter of a million words** you’ll be a much better writer than when you started, even if you don’t actively study to improve your writing.

BTW, if you want to be a novelist the rule of thumb is that you will need to write somewhere around a million words before you’ll get published, but I digress. You will also need to study your craft if you want to be really good at it. To study blogging, the sources of information to look for tend to be blogs on blogging.

On my feed today is a post called How To Become A Blogging Superstar.

While you might not feel the need to be the next MMORPG Blogstar, there is some good advice in that post in any case.

The big thing to take home is that the more you post, the more readers you will end up with.

** Think 250K words is a lot? So do I, but that is how many words have been published on this blog since I started writing in 2006, and I’m not really that prolific a blogger.

NBI: So You Wanna Be A Superstar?

Here is the first bit of Newbie Blogger Initiative advice I have for you. It applies regardless of what type of blog you want to set up. Hell, it applies if you are starting a blog, a business, or a relationship.

Don’t wait. Take action now. Just Do It.

Nike used that last one as a slogan for years. It worked. It worked because it was true.

Here’s the thing. It’s easy to wait until you have all your ducks in a row before you start.

The problem with that, is that most of the time, your ducks will do what they do best. Waddle all over the place.

If you wait until everything is just right, not only will you never start your blog, you’ll probably never be able to finish a post.

Just do it!

NBI: Just Do It