Not hatin’, just sayin’.
Author Archive for Julian
Time to eat crow.
See, I wasn’t going to play Rift. Note the past tense. Just looking at it from a distance it looked like it had nothing to offer other than its two major key points, namely the Rifts themselves and the class system. The rest was just your usual spaghetti sauce of modern MMO, adjusted for flavor here and there. Enough? For some people it was, but for me it wasn’t. I just wasn’t interested in the least bit to learn about its details.
Then, of course, I just had to go ahead and try the beta. I never learn. So, basically, FU Trion. For getting me hooked.
Recap? Briefly? Okay: This game has no right being as fun as it is. Why? Because once you take out the rifts and the class system, we’ve played this game before. Some of us for years on end. We’ve done this before. Let that sink in. So, if we did, why is it still utterly fun?
Musings about that last point: It’s still fun because you really can’t take the rifts and the class system out. Sure, you might choose never ever ever to join a PQ and do a single rift, cross your heart and hope to die. That’s fine. But it still alters your gameplay as you go along. And of course, you can’t take the class system out. It’s still fun because it works, and it works great at what it does, which is offering a condensed can of modern, post-WoW MMO, with all that people love and hate about it. It’s fun because the combat feels meaty and punchy, and at least to me, never got old with any of the soul combinations I tried. It’s fun because it’s exceptionally pretty new ground to cover and muck about in. It’s fun because it’s polished and you can tell a lot of love went into it.
So, if you’re like I was up until a few days ago, thinking that you’re gonna give it a miss because there’s nothing in it of note other than the Rifts – which you won’t care about – and the class system – which might be nice, but whatever – here’s my impressions from playing the beta for just a few days: You’re wrong.
Just dropped by real quick to wish our readers, commenters and writers a super fun 110% happy time holidays. Hope you get a lot of presents, be safe from evil fireworks and the whole lot.
2011 can’t be anything other than better.
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/vga-10-elder-scrolls/708369
That’s about it, really. ‘Nuff said.
If you can spare a moment from killing each other virtually, take a look at this rare little gem from way back in the day.
It’s the only collaboration between Salvador Dalí and Walt Disney, and it’s interesting (to me at least) because of the way in which two seemingly opposite styles are fused and flow so well together. You can clearly see and feel the classic Dalí surrealism and the old school Disney animation as separate elements all through the piece, but in complete harmony. Almost complementing each other. It’s called “Destino” (Destiny) and tells the story of a dancer who falls in love with a baseball player, but destiny – in the shape of time itself – makes it not meant to be.
(some fragments have been recently restored and done in 3D to complete the piece, but it’s not very intrusive)
Update: Check the comments for Dblade’s corrections to all this. Thanks for pointing it out ;)
You there. Yeah, you, the dev with the plan. Put it down for a second. Considering going F2P, like all the other cool kids are doing? Well it won’t be successful until you learn how to properly #$*! your players. What’s that you say? The game? No, you got it wrong. This isn’t about games anymore. If you wanna make games then quit, start your own indie house and do it there for art’s sake. This industry is about making “interactive entertainment experiences with large potential to be monetized”, not “games”. Don’t be archaic.
If you’re still with me, some pointers on how to make sure you’re #$*!ing your players the right way:
- Is your virtual world very, very large and requires extensive travel? Make sure you #$*! your players by charging them to make this travel fast. Limit and sell, honeybear.
- Do your game and loot mechanics award gobs and gobs of items to players, both useless and useful? Do their bags get full easily? Then #$*! your players properly by reducing their bag space, and selling them unlocks. Limit and sell. Are you getting this?
- Use psychology! Remember, the more complicated and layered you make your F2P system, the more players will say “Aw, #$*! it” and just subscribe as usual. Throw mud into those waters! #$*! them all Freud-like!
- Your game virtual world thingie has tons of achievements? And lists, to make sure you’re constantly fingering that itch on OCD players? Great start! Awesome! Extreme! However, if your players complain that some of those feel way too long and grindy, then you have to do the right thing: Don’t adjust that length! #$*! them by leaving things inhumanely long and selling them stuff they can use to accelerate completion for a little while! Think outside the box and into the wallet.
- Every time you manage to squelch a little bit of fun it makes Bobby smile. #$*! ‘em.
Allow me to preface this by saying this isn’t a hateful post. It’s merely an observation.
I’ve got absolutely nothing against DDO. I think it’s a fine game. Not the best game there is, but does it have to be? It provides fun and that should be the basic mandate of any game. I like the visuals overall. It’s AD&D which, despite its DDO-specific splashes of flavor, is basically a known quantity and familiar waters if you’re into that kind of swimming. It treats its F2P players well and the Eberron setting is interesting.
However, after coming back to the game and playing it more or less steadily for the last couple of weeks something rather ironic stuck out at me: The RP scene is quite barren. The sadly ironic part of all this is that we’re essentially talking about D&D, kickstarter extraordinaire (however you wanna slice it) of Roleplay Gaming, paper or not. So it should have a more or less healthy RP community, but I haven’t observed it (and yes, I know where to look. Us RPers are like dogs sniffing each other’s butts when it comes to this).
So where’s the disconnect?