The Wanna-be Blog

Introducing Jairoe03. He's a wannabe writer, game designer, developer and sometimes even gamer of sorts. Overall, he loves the MMO genre and is here to share his opinion with the world. Follow him on his adventures of his MMO experiences.

Author: Jairoe03

 When it comes to dating, I found that first impressions are important when establishing the foundations of a relationship. It lays the groundwork in portraying who you are and what you have to offer as a person. If you mess up that first impression, you’re probably not going to get that second date yet alone another phone call (I’m sure many guys can relate out there). I think the same idea can be applied to MMORPG’s even more so because not only does it involve a relationship, it also involves money.

Starting today, I’m going to be writing a segment every Wednesday called “First Impressions”, which involve me providing a review on my first 4-8 hours within an MMO starting with Global Agenda. Global Agenda advertises itself as a blend of FPS and MMORPG-like elements, which they do capture at a basic level. These two genres are mixed fairly well where you are playing a shooter, but it has an RPG feel to it while you’re shooting and playing alongside/against other players.

In terms of regular game content, its offered with two types of matches you can queue up for: PvP and PvE. My experience with PvP feels like a sci-fi version of Team Fortress 2 (very similar types of maps), but with more customized characters, which is a plus. PvE is fun until you find yourself cycling through the same robots over and over again constantly and it quickly dies off as the encounters have even less diversity than most MMORPG’s do today.

With the RPG side, there’s a simple talent/skill tree, gear in the form of “upgrades” and character progression. The talent tree I find lacking and . Upgrades are utilized to add increased bonuses to a specific part of the character (i.e. Health, Ranged, Melee, etc.), which felt slapped-together and overly basic. The gear is tiered into 3 levels which I view as a shortfall for the whole MMO industry. Character progression involve levels where you earn skill points for skill trees and unlock devices, various weapons and gadgets used in the game that defines the character’s role in Guild Wars-like fashion (cannot use them all, forced to make device decisions).

The persistent side involves the Conquest mode, which I have yet to explore. I don’t have too much to comment on it aside from the fact that I do hope it carries similarities with my Tribes 2 experience. I wonder if anyone that has played Planetside or Tribes 2 find any shared traits with Global Agenda in regards to large team combat specifically involving base defense/sieges in AvA.

Overall, it appears that Global Agenda has taken elements from various games and looks for ways to fuse them all under a single game, which tend to conflict with each other and make the game feel diluted. When focusing on specific aspects of the game, Global Agenda appears watered-down and shallow, but overall, the game is entertaining and it does bring those elements together smoothly.

Entertainment aside, I would give this game some more time before diving into it. I do see potential with Hi-Rez especially with their responsiveness to the community, but I wouldn’t consider this a complete game yet. There are many areas that could use more attention within the game especially with the RPG elements. They are shallow and carry very little influence within the game. If it’s going to be utilized, it should be done with some form of detail and strategic depth or it shouldn’t be implemented at all.

Ever since the beginnings of the MMO industry, we are used to downloading updates and buying expansions. Now that the industry has lived over a decade, it has seen many changes and evolutions. These days, it appears expansions and updates are starting to come together more and more, even if it doesn't seem obvious to some. In today's world, what is the difference between a game update and an expansion?

Now this question might appear easy at first when we look at more traditionally designed games i.e. Everquest, World of Warcraft, Ultima Online. However, today, with EVE Online utilizing 'free expansions' twice a year and the recent expansion to Champions Online, Revelation (which was originally going to cost), it starts feeling like these two terms are coming together more and more. Let's take a look at the similarity between the two here:

They both provide additional game content, fixes and updates to the current systems and exemplify a form of shift within the game. These things practically are sufficient enough to define either, albeit a bit loosely. The only real differences between the terms is a matter of scale. Expansions typically represent a more drastic change to the game and they usually are charged to the players where updates are always free.

Now that expansions are also being released as free, are the any real differences? Could this be another way to market their game by offering "free expansions"? Sure, EVE Online has two free expansions per year, but technically, the only game updates they ever release are the ones to their expansions. It looks like their expansions are more like major game updates, which I believe every subscriber is somewhat entitled to already. Champions Online upcoming expansion, Revelation, was originally going to cost their loyal fan base, but now its free. I wonder what made them change their mind. 

When you think of it, what do players subscribe for in the first place? Shouldn't all expansions be free since the players provide the cash for the longevity of the game? Why are players being charged for expansions? Couldn't companies exploit this by saving all their best ideas to compile into 1 big expansion to charge their loyal fan base? Couldn't this be viewed as a form of double dipping? People want to scream "RMT is evil!", but have never appeared to question why we are charged the extra $30-40 USD for additional content that supposedly their subscriptions were supposed to cover. 

Any thoughts or ideas on this topic? Could this be an extreme view in regards to how expansions are being used either as a form of marketing (i.e. offering them for "free") or double-dipping (charging for them)? Should we just call them game updates from now on or are they as different as they seem?

 To me, it feels like the companies producing MMO’s seem to have this need to make us as players feel as heroic as possible from the beginning. This can be seen in their writing and focus on questing for character progression. It’s my opinion that the emphasis on making the players feeling heroic at the beginning takes away from any possible heroic feeling at the end when players have spent time and built their characters up.

Personally, I don’t feel so heroic after I cleared someone else’s tomb for the 20th time in my character’s adventuring career. I feel more like the cable guy or exterminator taking care of another customer. We wonder why people just skip through reading the actual quest content because it’s all more or less the same and they begin to feel like reruns of the same episode.

This pattern is fairly inherent within mainstream MMO’s and makes me begin to wonder: is this necessary anymore? I could understand if this was something that hasn’t really been done before, but these days it has been overused. Overused to the point where any potential feeling of heroism have been fully stripped away and you would figure the writers would of at least caught on to how played out the theme has been.

Why not start off as a lowly peon, as most of us players expect to start at...the lowest rank and then slowly progress the character into more and more heroic forms? At least this form of writing would at least give us a sense of progression within the environment, which leads to a greater immersion. Save the artificial forms of praise for when the players actually accomplish something rather than submerge them in never-ending praise which we could be spoiled with from beginning to end, where it eventually become meaningless. 

I want to end my long blog for this week with an idea. Reward different forms of progression outside of just the combat/adventurer related scheme that we all follow blindly. Currently, the game revolves around questing and following the linear cookie crumbs left behind by the designers which quickly become old and stale. It's like eating chocolate chip all day and having no access to thin mints, peanut butter or even oatmeal raisin  (hey, those are pretty good!). 

In a sense, I think this is a great direction Fallen Earth has taken in providing different forms of experience to develop a character with. I don't feel too rewarded crafting in WoW besides added stats, which again quickly become stale. If a system becomes implemented, especially for crafting, make it meaningful and more encompassing rather than a side treat.

Maybe Pre-SWG was ahead of it's own time and I think there were many pieces of the game which I took for granted and later realized how valued the MMO design would be in this day and age. The game rewarded all types of experience and it was specific to a path within each profession. No matter what you did, it is somewhat meaningful albeit repetitive at the time, it was still revolutionary. Imagine what that could of evolved into in this day and age. I think people would be less grumpy about the lack of diversity perceived within the industry itself in terms of game experience. 

Anyone ever had issues with that one tank that leaves at the beginning of your random instance only for you to have to wait 10-15 minutes for the next tank? Or that healer that leaves in the middle of the instance once he found out that his boss didn't drop the item he was looking for causing you to wait another 5-10 minutes for the next healer to queue up? 

I have an idea I posted on World of Warcraft's Forums providing a seemingly fair suggestion utilizing a simple point system based on the amount of times people leave incomplete instances as well as successfully completing instances. Please provide any constructive feedback on the issue on my thread:

"Reputation System" for LFG Tool

Let us know what you think about this idea.

Yes, this is the second long entry and only the second day of my new blog that I just started here at MMORPG.com. Consider it a treat in regards to the birth of this blog:

Is the Holy Trinity the end-all be-all of group combat design? For those unfamiliar with the Holy Trinity, it’s the term used to describe the group composition of tanks, healers and damage roles that each fulfill the basic components of combat. This model is found in traditionally designed fantasy MMORPG’s (like World of Warcraft) involving group PvE scenarios. In this entry, I would like to present my opinion of the Holy Trinity and ways to break this mold/further evolve this model.

My opinion concerning this model is that it’s too basic and overused. Basically, this model took the 3 basic building blocks of combat in an RPG -- taking damage, giving damage and making sure you live to tell about it -- and it split into individual roles in a way where the group moves and acts as 1 larger entity.

How long have we been using this model? For me, it started in Dark Age of Camelot, but the roles were more broken apart since groups were made up of 8 people from when I played. We had traditional tanks, healers and damage, but also more specialized roles that weren’t as required to function as a group. After that, MMO’s evolved into the trinity as we know it in World of Warcraft with their much smaller 5 man groups. This was an improvement at the time, but it’s been over 5 years since and we are still utilizing this same exact model in MMORPG’s.

My attempt in looking beyond the Holy Trinity consists of three parts here: ‘aggro’ systems, positioning & collision and restricting combat healing.

When I speak of ‘aggro’ systems, I’m speaking about the way hostile NPC’s choose which player to attack. The traditional model involves using a hidden “threat” value to determine who gets attacked. Again, this is a basic feature that is inherent within the Holy Trinity model primarily revolving around the tank role.

Personally, I would like to see a more natural and strategic approach to how NPC’s select who gets whacked. Maybe the NPC has a hatred for a specific race, so a particular set of NPC’s would specifically target their most hated race first i.e. Goblins hate Elves so any Elf players would get targeted first. With this form of target selection, the NPC’s would feel more natural rather than just blindly attacking the toughest target based on some hidden value, and there would be a greater sense of purpose behind the actions. NPC would feel more life-like and less robotic. As a result, there would be more things to consider on each encounter, which will go beyond the tank-heal-damage trio.

Outside of ‘aggro’ systems, the next point I would like to address is positioning and character collision. With collision, an armored knight can defend a scantily clad mage by literally being in the way. Merely being at the right place at the right time can be a huge strategic advantage albeit I can see it also causing other problems. For this entry, let’s pretend the sky is the limit and the company has the answers to all our problems. Positioning is a crucial aspect of many sports and war games alike. The same concepts can be applied within an RPG environment with greater emphasis to promote greater diversity and unique situations with encounters.

The final item on the list involves my most extreme idea: restricting healing during combat. Why restrict healing during combat? Healing isn’t a necessity when speaking in pure combat terms. You can go through a fight without having to heal. So, if we were to go beyond the trinity, why not restrict combat healing? A doctor/medic role could still be seen as important even if restricted to healing outside of combat only. There would be more possibilities for different ways for these “healers” to participate in PvE outside of staring at health bars. Potentially, this could provide unique and exciting ways to promote diversity with combat encounters and group role compositions.

In conclusion, is the Holy Trinity the only effective way to design group combat for PvE? Should designers explore different ways for group encounters? Is the Holy Trinity the best way to design group mechanics in regards to combat and can it it be improved?

Yes, this is my first long entry (the only one that’s not on a Fri/Sat) to kick this blog off here and I’m going to begin it with a question: Are our expectations of the MMO industry too high?

Maybe it’s just me, but there appears to be this virus going around the forums giving many people this pessimistic, no-hope-for-the-future type view of the MMO industry. This pessimism is a bit concerning since these are supposedly fans of the genre hence their interest in this website in the first place. It makes me wonder why some are even visiting this site in the first place. My belief is that many of these opinions are in fact exaggerated and these people do carry some kind of an interest within the genre despite these perceived setbacks.

My theory behind this epidemic stems from certain people’s personal expectations of the genre. It involves these people creating ideals in their minds of what a “great MMO” should be based on their past experiences and frequently being disappointed when certain games that remotely resembled their ideals fail to deliver to these expectations. This is at least my general theory and I would like to test it out one day if I actually become a real video game psychologist of sorts.

Now if you are one of these people that absolutely believe there is no hope for the future of this genre, you might ask: “Hey Jairoe03 (or Josh), what if it’s not us, what if it’s them? (aka the frequently blamed companies and/or developers for certain project failures)”. A common belief shared by many that do believe in such a negative is that the company and/or developers are just in it for the money. Let’s think this through very carefully here.

First, a company’s sole purpose is actually to make money and they generally do it by providing goods and services to people. It just so happens a company within the MMO industry so happens to make their bread off making video games. I agree with the first half of the previous statement: Company’s ARE in it for the money. It really is up to the customer whether or not they get it. There really is no argument there.

In regards to developers, I have a hard time believing they pursued a career in the gaming industry, made the necessary sacrifices and actually not care about the quality of their own products. Developers in this industry have to be gamers at heart and it’s only my educated guess that gaming was what led them into their career choice. If they really wanted to, they could be developers anywhere else. It’s not like these positions are posted on Careerbuilder at $10/hour. You actually have to go out of your way to make it in this industry. This is their dream career just like it’s a dream career for many other gamers out there. There’s a lot more than just developers that’s involved into actually making this game, they’re just the ones that are coding it in. With these reasons, I find it difficult to think that any developer would just be in it for the money.

In addition, much of what influences the direction of MMO’s (and more so everyday) is actually the customers, so if some of you want something to blame, blame yourselves and your peers(me?) for influencing the direction a game takes. After all, a company exists to serve its customers, which includes keeping them satisfied.

On a concluding thought, if personal expectations as I described above are in fact “killing the industry”, can we conclude that some of our own expectations are set too high? Could some of us at least be exaggerating to the extent in which this industry is actually falling apart? If not, how do you think companies and developers can better meet these expectations and are these solutions practical? Post your thoughts/comments about the topic/article here. I would love to hear the responses!

SIDENOTE: If you would like to learn more about who I am, feel free to read the previous entry introducing myself to the world as a blogger. 

Hi, my name is Jairoe03, but for those that prefer a real name, you can call me Josh. This is the start of a blog for years (or at least months) to come and its purpose is to log my epic journey towards the dream that many of us seem to share – to work within the gaming industry either as a game designer, developer or both. Watch as I share in the pain of many others trying to pursue this goal and the inevitable success/failure of overcoming my obstacles into the gaming industry.

Moving on, I’d like to provide a brief background of myself and relevant gaming experiences. I have been an avid gamer since I was 9 starting with Final Fantasy III, the US version. In terms of MMORPG’s, I started with MUD’s when I was 11 years old with a DikuMUD that not too many have known called Mystical MUD. MUD’s being a fantasy world that was entirely text based, discovering Ultima Online and the MMO genre in itself was practically a dream come true when I was 14. After Ultima Online, I expanded to explore other MMO’s as they came: Dark Age of Camelot and then Star Wars Galaxies through most of my high school and early college days. These were great games for its times and for me, it was a progression towards a better online gaming experience. Presently, my 2 main MMO’s are World of Warcraft and EVE Online. WoW mainly because of my friends, family and its polished gameplay. EVE Online hooked me with its depth in strategy, but what really has kept me has been its great community. I would find it hard to leave even if I tried because of the awesome corporation that I’m a part of. Outside of these games, I enjoy taking on various open betas and trials of upcoming and new(er) games to enrich my knowledge within the MMO industry even further.

In regards to this blog, I am looking to post weekly articles every Friday night/Saturday morning in regards to interesting topics about the MMO industry. During the other 6 days of the week, I would be posting any short entries related to any thoughts related to the gaming and MMO industry and my adventures towards learning more in trying to become a game designer/developer of sorts.

I look forward to writing in this blog and any constructive criticism is appreciated given that it is constructive. With any inaccuracies found, I would greatly appreciate if they were addressed and cited with the correct information.

SIDENOTE: A little personal background about me. I'm 24, graduate from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Psychology. Currently working as a contracted employee in Customer Service at a call center. Outside of MMORPG's, I love watching Comedy Cenral, reading fantasy books and comics, watch anime and various TV shows, traveling, seeing movies and learning more about people and the world.