Reviews From the Dead

The Ugly Truth.

Author: Ozzallos

With the release of The Old Republic, I think its safe to say that critisim is fair game; that is to say not subject to sparce and randomly enforced beta TOS nondisclosure guidelines in the fear of being crushed by Lucasarts monolithic legal golem. With that in mind, it's time to ressurect an unedited beta review that got thrown under the TOS bus for kicks and giggles, if not stunning prophetic accuracy.

Starwars - The Old Republic; A [redacted] Beta Review

If there's one thing I have come to realize through my study of Star Wars: The Old republic, it's the simple fact that there's no way this game could possibly live up to the hype built up around it. Hype built up by us gamers. Hype built up by independednt reviewers, and of course, the hype built up by the respective companies themselves.

Up until this point, all most of us have really seen are some pre-rendered movies and whatever in-game action you could pull off of Youtube. So far, nothing from the latter has impressed me in any way, shape or form; though that could have easily be explained away under the header of "early beta". That recently changed for myself and an invitation to Beta signalled a new hope for me that maybe, just maybe, the game had been improved from what I had been seeing.

Nope.

The bad news first. The graphics engine feels a couple of generations behind in terms of implimentation. Its not horrible, but even cranked up, it just isn't not that good and certainly not what you would expect out of names like Lucas and Bioware. In fact, I'd wager to say that the Old Republic console games were more competently executed in this department. I can also roll out a laundry list of games that just look all around better if I had the time, but If one wants some sort of recent measuring stick; Rift pulls a superior performance graphically. More to the point, there's no creativity in its use.

Character generation was also huge disappointment. It's clunky; reminicent of a free to play game and the models hurt to the point where you'll probably struggle to find something likeable. Sadly, Old Republic is another game that is afraid to touch complex hair; which is my own personal predictor as to the devs attention to detail in other areas. The character generation screen is also your first glimpse of graphical creativity fail. SWTOR's worlds are nicely rendered, but not stunning, and certainly not better than anything else you might find in other MMOs. Several games on the market today invest more creativity in their world than SWTOR, but at least it's competently executed here.

Let's be clear here: We're not talking about horrendous graphical performance; merely less than cutting edge and barely inspired. In fact, they're downright disappointing when compared to something like DC Universe Online, if one had to draw paralells from another major franchise for comparison's sake.

The bad isn't merely limited to graphical bitching. If you're tired of Warcraft's gameplay, get ready to suck it up some more from Old Republic. There is nothing here that you haven't seen before. To be fair, everybody uses the the key mashing/cool down formula, just that you would have hoped there would be something different here. Swords are replaced with light sabers and blaster combat is little more than standoff button spam. Its your standard fantasy fare redressed and expecting anything more from SW:TOR will only hurt your brain.

Moving right along, Old Republic's modular story system is particularly annoying for the moment. Don't get me wrong, the content is great. Bioware does fiction exceptionally well and this is one point I never doubted their ability to deliver on. They have, however, chosen a rather unique- read: suck -way of delivering it. Any time you speak to a story critical NPC, it would almost appear as if your content is streamed from the servers to you, because talking to anybody with something signifigant to say takes several seconds to launch; in some cases ten or more. My hardware is a quad core Q6600, so I'm pretty sure that's not the bottleneck.

I can see the advantages of such a system: Story can be changed from the server without extensive need for patching, especially useful in a game with constantly evolving lore dependant on what your players do. In practice, I have severe concerns if it can't keep a seemless experience over a modest cable connection. Once or twice, I'd be fine with. Every goddamn chat? Fail. Theoretically, fiber cable in your area would probably render this a non issue and it could just be test server lag. If I'm wrong and this isn't being streamed, then its even worse since my local hardware apparently can't generate something as basic as an NPC conversation without taking an obnoxious amount of time to load.

[Edit] It does appear to be somewhat dependant on server load. My run through on with a Jedi Consular less busy night seemed to keep conversation loads down in the five second range. I'll also dedicated 2 cores to the game, so we'll see if that makes any difference to the Sith side as well.


Back to the story, Bioware comes through with a nearly flawless performance. Every critical NPC is voice acted and your choices do affect your personal story. Decisions can push you closer to the light side or dark side, with some interesting gray areas in between. For example, you can gain light side points as a Sith Inquisitor. Have fun with those interactions. It does break up the grind of killing twenty sand slugs, and makes for a compelling treat than just a wall of text and some generic gear reward. If it weren't for the load times to get to that story, this and the soundtrack accompaniment would have been MMO perfection.

It's this particular facet will more than likely be Old Republics biggest draw. Honestly, its not a great game and we're getting pretty close to launch to keep crying "but its beta!"; but the story is compelling enough to keep people coming back just to see what happens next. When that does run out, I suspect it will become even more boring faster than Warcraft ever did.

Will Starwars: The Old Republic be a bombshell success? Sure it will. The fan base alone will ensure that. Is it a truely a great game in its own right? Does it break new ground? Is it unique? Mostly no. Sadly ironic is its similarity to DC Universe online; another game with an excellent story completely devestated by its own play mechanics. The only difference here is that the game components just don't stand out. At all.

I'll probably be skipping this one. With Guild Wars 2 coming out, you might want to consider doing so as well. Die hard starwars fans poised to rape my feedback, that line is over there to the left.

Seriously?

That little statistic was taken straight from MMORPGs very own beta offer page. I don't know what the figure originally started at (25k?) but the number of beta keys being offered is high. Absurdly high. In fact, it's so high that I don't ever recall any other game posting so many "beta" keys and still maintain the facade of beta. With a launch date of December 22, 2011, I think we can safely assume beta is all but done and even stress testing is by and large a done deal. So what does that leave us?

Marketing.

Twenty five thousand Metric Ass-tons of marketing. Bioware and Lucas Arts have taken the advertising beta to a whole new level, if not elevated it to a fine art with this tactic. How do you combine a subscription game that you're supposed to pay for at the store with the hands on word of mouth usually associated with free to play gaming? Exactly like this. You let everybody and their goddamn brother "beta" your game for a taste test, shut it off a few days before the release date (all the while enduring the 'will you delete my character?' rants in the official forum' and then hopefully sell the real release as if the game DVD were pressed into gold disks.

What am I saying? This is Starwars. Even if the game was merely World of Warcraft with Light Sabers (ahem), it would still sell like it was pressed into gold disks based on fandom alone. Normally I'd say that advertising betas- especially one of this magnitude -are a double edged sword, but here? Since the guarantee to sell is already there, an advertising beta is only icing on the cake and thus receives my Evil Genius in Marketing Runner Up Award for 2011.

It'll also be interesting to see how many of those keys actually get used between now and then as a slightly non-scientific barometer of future sales. About the only drawback I can see here is that it reeks of needy attention. It all but screams "Please, please please make our Christmas a profitable one?"

Now this one I didn't expect, but in retrospect, it should have been fairly obvious in the coming: Lego Universe is closing its doors .  Per the official FAQs, Lego Universe will go dark January 31, 2012 at midnight (EST), barely making it past a year of up time. Ouch.

Quoting from the website, "All current subscribers (1, 6 or 12 month plans) who still have active subscriptions on December 31 will receive a refund for any remaining game time remaining after December 31 as well as free play from January 1, 2012 until January 31. For example, if you purchased a 6-month subscription on September 1, 2011 (which would expire on February 29, 2012), you would be refunded $16.66 for the 2 months following December 31."

Honestly, we should have seen this coming and more than likely filed this failure under "mistargeted demographic." How is that? Sure everybody knows legos are kids toys, but realistically, who is buying that $100 Pirates of the Caribbean ship or the slightly pricier Star Wars Millennium Falcon? How about the $400 Death Star? Better yet, who's it for?  Something's telling me it isn't Timmy eight-year-old shelling out four hundred bones for his hobby, nor is he the one with his Visa card in hand ponying up for a monthly subscription.

Hell, even slightly more juvenile fandoms like Harry Freakin' Potter are still going to set you back $80, so I gotta be asking Lego Group, who the hell is buying this crap and why didn't you target a game for them? Rhetorical question for those really feeling the need to answer it. Drawing on my own experience, I was more than willing to give the game a try until I realized the target audience and all that followed. A hyper restrictive chat filter. Gameplay with the depth of a muddy puddle. A comparatively short experience to end game. For anybody with the actual means to pay and play- that is to say, not borrowing dad's credit card to hop on the computer -Lego Universe was a huge stoplight. I'd even be willing to bet that the gamer demographic playing their console titles is a bit older than they realize.

Of course, Lego Group has their own take on why Lego Universe failed. When asked why they are closing down, they reply: "We love LEGO Universe too! Seeing you in the game was a really great experience for us and we’re going to miss everything that LEGO Universe accomplished. There are still lots of fun free games on lego.com and you can still share your memories of the game with other explorers on our message boards."

That's code for "we fucked up".

Sure the game might be offically dead, but don't despair. DC Universe has proven there is life after insolvency and something tells me this would be a perfect game to chuck down the free to play toilet. With a few changes of course.

Like respecting the people who pay your bills.

The MMO has been around for a while now and has had its share of success and failures. Possibly the most annoying aspect of covering the MMO genre is that the failures continue to fail for the same reasons. Even though hindsight is supposedly 20-20, these developers can't seem to graps the obvious so here's a simple guide for the intellectually deficient amongst them.

Rules of MMORPG Fail

1) Your RPG fails.
We'll start with the simple stuff first because the genius brain trust out there can't seem to quite grasp the concept of the ROLE PLAYING GAME. No, idiot, this term is not reserved for your first person shooter, nor should you tack it onto your Real time strategy in a sad attempt to capture a larger market segment then your sad title deserves. Sure, you could argue that they are taking on a "role" and therefore your game is "roleplaying"  ...And in the process, piss on the nearly three decades worth of actual role playing games better than your own. Take my word for it, this descriptive doesn't apply to your title so stop diluting our tried and true genre with your crap or we'll visit your office in the middle of the night and rape your keyboard.

2) Your MMO fails.
Massive? Please. Set the way back machine to shut the fuck up, because apparently your definition of massive is 90's multiplayer Quake over a 64kbps modem. Hey, yeah, Unreal called. It's calling itself an MMO now too. And Counterstrike. And OMFG, your battleground can contain 32-64 people? REALLY? That's like, revolutionary! ...On a console five years ago. Look, people, We know you  desperately need the market share, but massive- literally and figuratively -you ain't; nor are you fooling anybody. Or maybe it's just an attempt to massively overcompensate? In either case this failure ties into failure number one when a developer attempts to float a clearly unmassive game (Yeah, Nexon, that's right) by its players.

3) Your world fails.
Your world doesn't just fail, it utterly fails. Seriously, nothing says incompetence like that flat piece of plywood you call a world, let alone subdividing said excuse for a world into isolated areas like so many self contained kitty litter boxes. By the way, you know what's in a kitty box, don't you? Crap. Specifically the crap you're attempting to pass off as an MMORPG. What, did your polygon budget for the week run out just creating houses that you can't actually walk into? Oh wait! You can enter those... Through another instanced portal. Hell, people; your environment doesn't even have a light source. That's called a "sun" for those just joining us, not some disembodied source of illumination. Do you know how much fail it takes to forget the sun? About as much as it takes to fuck up that sorry excuse for a minimally detailed environment you expect us to run around in.

4) Your Plot fails.
Here's a clue for all you lobotomized morons out there failing at MMORPGs world wide: People generally don't play role playing games just to walk hours on end from point A to B and kill five salamanders to earn XP. Certainly, experience indicates progression, but seriously, are you that stupid enough to think that players log on to your game just to accumulate an arbitrary expression of advancement? Gamers play RPGs to- now follow me here, because this one's tricky -Role Play. WTF?! No, seriously. Intrinsic in the very meaning of role playing is the fact that an environment conducive to that goal is required (see failure #3) and likewise, an overarching story. Why are these people even running around your MMO? It's sure as hell not get XP. If you treat your RPG like a great piece of fiction, they will come. That means plot, adventure, heroes and villains. If you don't invest in a story, all you've created is a slower, eye gougingly boring 3rd person shooter. In other words, we hope that when you go to Hell for making this game, it looks a lot like your pathetic excuse for an mmo.

5) Your Auto Pilot fails.
We already know you put the absolute minimum of effort into your world lore, but to completely devalue it takes skill... And a Quest Auto Pilot. Above all else, the addition of a quest autopilot that automatically walks you to your quest goal makes it quite evident that you as an MMORPG designer are lazy and need to get off your ass. Does the quest objective description really need to be so obscure that goddamn CSI Miami has to be called in just to decipher where the hell the objective is? I mean, is adding basic navigational instructions like "South of here under the giant tree stump" too much to ask? More importantly, the addition of an autopilot all but encourages me to simply click past what is more than likely a useless wall of text and minimize your game while the my character is routed to its destination in the background, since I've got got more important stuff to do IRL. In fact, that's what I'm doing right now. Plot? What plot? I just skipped over that obvious attempt to sugar coat your badly constructed grinding content so I could get to the more interesting parts faster.

6) Your Gender-Locked classes fail.
Really, what gave  you the bright idea that limiting user choice was a good idea? Especially here? Let's see, I'm taking a guess at... Yeah, laziness. Somehow I'm thinking that not everybody wants to be feminized into spandex clad female rogue or frilly dress priestess. And apparently your little gender skewed world doesn't include strong female tanking classes since those somehow all became guys. I mean, is neutering yourself to have less users becoming habit forming or something, because I'm pretty sure their are guys who just want to be guys and guys who don't want to stare at the ass of another guy while grinding. Likewise, some women just want to kick ass and take names... Or quite possibly want to avoid the fallout associated with being a female in an anonymous hormonally driven teenage male world. Laziness is really the only one I can think of here, folks. Or maybe just a marketing stereotype asshattery.

7) Your manufacturing scheme fails.
If you could manufacture fail, your MMO would be a brand name known in every household like some 'as seen on TV' appliance. Occasionally people like to take a break from grinding fifty bat spiders to collect ten bat wings to be turned into Joe the guard for an arbitrary number or token piece of gear. Normally that outlet takes on the form of some sort of side profession in which players can create food, gear and other stuff. Too bad the difference between their stuff and yours is built on a foundation of suck. Your items are built on top of previously manufactured items which are in turn built upon yet other items, each with their own intrinsic chance to fail along the way. Failing usually means you loose most of the components involved, forcing you to start over again with a piece of fabric tied to a turd. And why can I normally get drops that are better than anything I can produce at the same level? Really? That level three wild boar just burped up a sword of +3 pwn and I'm still limited to making these rusted pieces of shit at the same level? Come on. The new trend lately is to have your pets do the manufacturing, which we all know is just another excuse to screw gamers over at the free to play altar. Thanks, but I can sacrifice small NPC pets in the privacy of my own home without paying you to do it for me.

8) Your NPCS fail.
There is a land where zombies walk the very earth... A land where brainless automatons occupy villages once thriving with life. A land where where communication is all but impossible between your player base and the inhabitants. A land-- Let's just cut to the chase. They're your NPCs, jackass. Its night time and these people apparently never sleep since they can be found twenty four hours a day, seven days a week standing in front of their house; rain, snow or shine. If they do move- and that's a BIG if -it's usually along some very abbreviated racetrack without much in the way of real pathing. And hey, how about those monsters? Like how human and beast NPCs seem to coexist in perfect harmony until your player arrives on scene. Apparently the they have a deal worked out with wildlife to kill player and only the player on sight because, you know, that's the way things work in real life. Simply put, your NPCs are mindless robots with maybe a sentence or two worth of interaction before they become little more than discarded scenery... Just like we'll all be discarding your franchise.


9) Your Character Delete fails.
Who here has just spent the last half hour perfecting every detail of their character appearance, only to roll it up and find out that it just doesn't look the same in the real game? That's not a crime. It happens. What is a crime is goring to delete and reroll that character, only to find out that it won't be really be deleted for the next seven days. Even worse, it'll be tying up your very identity, forcing you to have a ready list of backup names. And hey, it's it fun to continually roll up names like 'TestXII' and fill up character slots just to avoid this failure. It's good to know that your company thinks so little of player intelligence that they simply can't type in a key to confirm the deletion and maybe recover the character on the back side if it becomes absolutely necessary. But that would be too much work for a lazy company like yours, wouldn't it? Wouldn't want to get in the way of those paid character slot profits!

10) Your Combat fails.
As if your MMO wasn't already one huge bucket of suck you just had to go spread the icing on the cake of fail. Cardboard NPCs. Houses you can't walk into. Hell, a world without the sun. Its tough to improve upon perfection, but you found a way. Autopathing wasn't enough to completely divorce the gamer from the MMO experience, so you took it a step further. Why should your users actually have to interact with anything during combat? Just let them click on an enemy NPC so the game can walk them over, set the parking break and automatically smack the hell out of it until random numbers fall off it! Why bother the player to actually play the game when you can automate everything, including the battles! GENIUS! Now I can minimize your game during travel and battles! About the only thing that would make this better would be to program in auto farming features at the cash sho-- Oh, wait. They've done that? But seriously, guys; Auto combat simply removes another aspect of player interaction and that translates to one less reason to play your MMO. How you ever thought this was a good idea was beyond me, but my suggestion would be to take whoever thought of it out back and club him to death with a rusty Mosin Nagant.
 

If there's one rule I cling to like my guns and religion in the world of MMOs, it's that a franchise will not go Free to Play unless it absolutely has to. No matter what the developers will have you believe, F2P is not the next generation of gaming. Cash is king and in the world of business it's better to have your cash up front and now via subscription than possibly maybe later if you feel like it in a cash shop. What does this have to do with anything?

Holy crap did DC Universe fall on its own sword.

Anybody who played the beta with a critical eye saw the problems going in. Absolutely gorgeous game. Outstanding audio. You couldn't ask for a more immersive universe. But actually playing the game? That was like walking across glass and dancing in salt afterwards. DC Universe really had only two major problems: First, the aformentioned gameplay. They tried the cross platform thing and it failed hard since you ultimately have to program the game down to the lowest common denominator, and the denominator was a console gamepad. That single decsision ensured anybody playing on a PC would all but gouge their eyeballs out as they attempted to cope with a UI designed by a lobotomized monkey.

The second problem is purely speculation, but I haven't been wrong yet when it comes to this game: DC Universe tried the advertising beta tactic far too early for its own good. To be fair, they attempted to correct a lot of the issues that were plaguing the game, but their biggest failure was doing so in what was close enough to a public beta not to matter. Essentially, this game needed a real beta for much longer, not to fix all the crap in what was more or less open beta only a handful of months to launch. Word of mouth and the UI problems killed this game before it even got off the ground, and the server populations confirmed it every step of the way.

So where does that leave us now besides "I told you so?"

Normally its my belief that a game that goes free to play deserves to go free to play, meaning that it harbors some critical deficiency that the dev tried to pass off on you the player and bled out for it. DC Universe, I'm not so certain. One thing I will respect this franchise for is that they tried with this game. It should have been a hit in every other respect save for a bad marketing call. In fact, I'm certain I would be happily shelling out a subscription if they had made this game for a PC and not a console, and for a picky bastard like me, that says something. So yes, it deserved to go free to play, but not for the normal reasons most other games go free to play (sloth, impatience and avarice primarily).

Mark this day folks. When DCUO goes free to play today, I'll actually recommend you give it a try. This is one MMO that had a considerable amount of time and effort invested in it, only to be screwed up by some monkies in the marketing department. Who knows... It may still be an excersize in fusteration to play, but I guarantee at least the initial 'wow' factor until that sets in.

The Warcraft killer.

It's been a long time coming and has been predicted in much the same manner as the guy on the New York street corner insisting the end of the world is nigh. Many gamers have wanted you to repent your MMO sins and believe that their particular game is the warcraft killer. So far it just hasn't happened yet. Warcraft has been the unstoppable juggernaut in a pond of small MMO fish, and a killer app similarly hasn't materialized to challenge its rule.

That train comes to a halt later this year.

How can one accurate predict the coming of the warcraft slayer? By watching Warcraft subscription policy. In that, Blizzard is like any other MMORPG purveyor: They will won't weaken their marketing position unless they absolutely have to. So far there hasn't been enough threat afield to really do much of anything, really. Sure, other MMOs were nibbling at their toes and a free 10 day trial was enough of a concession to address them, but that has recently and abruptly changed. It's not just a 10 day trial any more. It's not just incentives to entice you to lure your friends back... We now have a full blown free trial to level 20 and no time limit. That's one-fourth the of actual level cap.

It's also a major change in marketing behavior, and any time you see that, you should be ask yourself why. Here's a hint: It's hardly ever because they're generous to you, the gamer.

It is my belief that the writing is one the wall in regards to the future of warcraft, and Blizzard knows it. The third and forth quarter will bring about significant changes to the MMO environment as it stands right now, and those changes are going to hurt the warcraft subscription base... Badly, unless I've missed my guess.

The first and biggest threat to Warcraft's dominance is Old Republic. Whether it's actually good or not, just the fandom and hype alone will take a huge chunk out of their subscription base. Frankly, I don't even see that as debatable. I personally have my doubts as to its long term viability amongst people who aren't all in for starwars, but when Old Republic rolls, it's going to hurt the already six year old warcraft whether you and I personally like starwars or not.

The second salvo will come in the form of the sleeper hit Guildwars 2, also slated for later this year. So far there hasn't been much of a fuss made about the game, but there's no denying the time and effort that's been invested in this game. Honestly, it looks better than Old Republic in terms of gameplay and visuals if the movies are any indication. Even worse from warcraft's standpoint, it's still being reported as subscription free per the Manifesto video here.

In the interest of fairness, there's also the possibility that Blizzard is preparing Warcraft to be more attractive as they introduce their new MMO, tentatively codenamed Project Titan. That said, there's been so little information released on this particular venture that I can't help but to doubt a 2011 release date and as such plays a small factor in Blizzard purposely weakening warcraft's financial position.

Remember, folks: A game company will only change their financial model if they have to. A company doesn't render two thirds of its progression (however watered down the XP curve is as of the moment) out of the goodness of its heart. Something is driving that change.

The Warcraft Slayer approaches.

When it comes to anything marketed by Perfect World, my first impulse is to stay the hell away and usually its the right one. Very little good comes out of these franchises so when I saw Forsaken World with its super obvious uber emo styling (vampires!), I decided to sit the closed beta out; at least until I saw the Five Things Forsaken World Does Right article recently posted on this very website and figured what do I have to lose, right? Maybe this iteration of their park and spank theme world would actually be enjoyable?

Please fucking kill me now if I have see any more of that captial city.

Like most games games these days- Faxion not included -Forsaken World is pretty. It uses a relatively contemporary graphics engine and imprarts some skill in its world design. The rest of the game? It plays like Warcraft. I know, I'm even tired of saying it, but there's little new ground of note to be mentioned, so why bother.

Now some of you out there actually like warcraft and you might be thinking a change of pace would be nice. Don't do it. If there is one critical you need to know about this game is that it uses central hub quest progression; Meaning all your quests more often than not come from the same place and you'll return there over and over and over again. In itself this isn't so bad, but not like Warcraft that pushes you to dynamic locations further and further away from you stomping grounds. Sure you go back to Stormwind, but it's not your only options.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Forsaken World literally keeps you in the same goddamn city for over twenty levels. Even worse, the bulk of those quests are actually running back and forth around the fairly large city. FOR 20 LEVELS. Of course there are quests to go out and kill stuff. And then you return to run around the city some more. And over. And over. WTF.

And God forbid you're a priest having to rely on the same 2 attacks for that entire time, because you won't see that first talent point until level twenty. Automap becomes a godsend for this game because you'll be literally walking back and forth across the capital dozens upon dozens of times, minimizing the game until you reach your destination in order to do something more exciting on your desktop.

Once the gameplay literally drops to that level, I'm done. It's a lost cause. There's no intellectual stimulation involved. The very way the game is built actually encourages you that whatever plot is built into the quest text largely goes unread because by this point, you'll be highlighting the text autopilot just to get the pain over with.

There's a reason why this Wold is Forsaken. It's becuase its so bogged down in obtusive cluge and endlessly circuluar questing that does nothing to engage the player for 20 levels. Even I can tell the first 20 are more or less the introduction, but did it ever occur to anybody that's a tad excessive? I imagine gameplay may pick up after some time, and I'm not even certain what the level cap is. But am I going to stick around to play what is basically an inferor copy of a Warcraft, which everybody is copying these days?

Fail.

Most games revolve around a gimmick, and when you've got a good one, you milk it for all its worth. Mario had blocks and mushrooms. Sonic has rings and speed.  Everybody loves a good formula for success and and as long as you change it up from time to time, everybody will continue to love your game no matter how many sequels it spawns.

When you don't do this, it's called rehash.

Companies raping the rehash altar are simply lazy baggers looking to make the most money possible by putting in as little effort as they can get away with and have you still buy the game. The MMO industry is a haven for this behavior and most of it resides in the F2P sector because the standards are generally lower than sea level with a budget approximating that of a bad porno. Buy a premade MMO kit, slap some new textures on it, rent the servers and you're in cash shop business.

Not everybody is guilty of free to play fornication, but it looks like Nexon is looking to be first in line to pray at the rehash altar.

That's right folks. Dragon Nest. Now I would like to say I'll be pleasantly surprised by this title since it looks bright, flashy and full of action. My source at PAX confirms the aforementioned attributes, which is good... Except that it plays almost like Mabinogi and Vindicutus, where you have a minimally realized world and randomly generate instanced dungeons that are the antithesis of "Massive" Multiplayer in spite of the MMO tag.

Mabinogi was passable, if not for off kilter rock-paper-scissors combat system and daily job grinding that made the game a job in itself. Vindictus fell even further from that ideal, essentially making the outside world little more than a pretext backdrop to send you to your randomized five man instance dungeon. Sure, it was pretty- Hell , i loved the intro alone -but anybody looking for any sort of depth was sorely disappointed; to the point where it felt like the dev team just ran out of funding when it came to finishing the rest of the game. Vindictus should have been DC Universe and could have easily been that... And just as successful, I might add.

Unfortunately, Dragon Nest is looking to cover the same ground in the same manner. It's pretty, detailed and probably lots of fun until you've had your arcade fix and realize that this sin't an MMO in any way, shape or form, and that you can just go down to the Gameworks or Dave & Busters for the same hack and slash without the hassle of a cash shop purposely crippling your gaming experience.

Then again, who knows. Maybe they actually completed this one. Added some badly needed depth? I'd be surprised, though. F2p has left me a bitter gamer and it looks like Nexon is content with sucking the rehash off to the last drop.

Whoa now, put down those pitchforks and torches. And if you would tell the angry mob behind you to disperse, that'd be swell too. You see, I'd rather not be put to the sword for telling the truth, and I'd rather not be a martyr to the time honored tradition of killing the messenger. What's the message you ask that would prompt you to entertain my lethal demise, you ask?

It's like Warcraft.

Yikes! Watch the pointy end of the sword there, big fella. It is like Warcraft no matter how much you think its not. Now I know you don't want to hear it, but playing the Beta for Rifts got me to thinking... Actually, it's the chat that got me to thinking about the topic and to be honest, you can't go ten minutes in the game without somebody drawing a direct comparison to Blizzard's flagship. I'll be upfront and honest with you though, it is like Warcraft. Instead of having a talent tree, you have souls. You can have different talent specs like Warcraft. You can have different builds. The combat is eerily similar. The 'rift' encounters are pretty much fluff and even the opening for both factions reeks of the Death Knight starting zone, save that you're the Scarlet Crusade getting sacked by tall, dark and undead.

Surprisingly though, that's not the focus of this particular blog entry. After all, every new game is like warcraft if you listen to their chat channels long enough, even if there are crucial differences. And then the Holy War begins. It almost makes you want to cry, really. Players point out the similarities. Other players point out the differences. But then it gets worse. They start to point out the most inane facts, like, golly, there were MMOs before Warcraft... And before that, there was pen and pencil games before those. And these apologists are apparently the only ones that realized that yes, there were games before Warcraft and because of that, their detractors are wrong, wrong, wrong.

So then, why is 'it' like Warcraft? Not just Rifts, which is like warcraft. A more serious Warcraft, if you must know, but Warcraft nonetheless. That aside, the question they should be asking themselves instead of presenting strawman arguments is how and why did Warcraft become the standard? Why doesn't anybody ever say, "That's like Everquest." or even, "That's like Guild Wars." By and large, they just don't. Sure, Warcraft borrowed from everything before it, but unlike everything before it, its apparently now the gold standard sure to incite an argument in any chat you visit.

Go on. Try it.

I'm sure you have a beta on your PC. Maybe even Rifts. Let's perform an experiment. Or maybe you're just bored and need a laugh. Type the following message into the chat window-- "This is like Warcraft."

Done yet? Was that fun, or what? But back to the point, yes, little Timmy, it IS like Warcraft; even though there have been a number of successful MMOs before that, who in turn sponged off the material before them. It's like Warcraft because Warcraft is memorable and successful. It's a fact that the fanboys for the game that's not Warcraft choose to ignore while citing how much Warcraft has drawn from other titles... They choose to ignore that yes, it has done so, but it has done so in a wildly popular and financially successful manner that few other MMOs have achieved no matter how much the fact is denied in a day where subscriptions are supposedly dead.

It's like Warcraft because nobody else is like Warcraft, regardless of how much Blizzard borrowed from classic RPG structures. I think it's time to own up to that fact, while simultaneously acknowledging that it's not such a bad thing.

As far as Rifts is concerned, it's like a serious Warcraft and somewhat prettier. If you're bored with Warcraft's story and mechanics, there might be just enough here done differently to put a new spin on it; though by differently, we're talking about the difference between one Warcraft patch to the next.

Frankly, I'm thinking this game goes f2p inside a year.

Champions Online. Depending on who you talk to about this game, it's either passably fun or quite possibly one of the most reviled MMO franchises currently walking the street. The latter is mainly due to its association with City of Heroes. When Jack Emmert walked away from CoH with the publishing rights in hand, he alienated a large chunk of his established user base; essentially telling everybody involved in City of Heroes to suck it as he took the intellectual property and set up Champions.

The decision was undoubtedly a calculated one, since there could only be one goal in directly competing with his old associates by launching a newer, fresher looking product in the exact same style and genre. It was also goal that ironically never came to fruition. Fan resentment and betrayal over his defection kept the City of Heroes user base loyal and intact, denying Emmert of not only new users jumping ship from CoH, but the critical mass necessary to starve out his competition. Even worse, City of Heroes has thrived against all odds; at least enough to warrant an expansion and continued operation under a subscription model.

If that wasn't salt in the proverbial wound, Champion's problems are about to get a lot worse.

DC Universe Online is about to roll, and even at its worst (See the Hater's Guide) it still does enough right to turn the hero genre on its ear. The audio is a ten. The visuals, ten. Story? Ten. Sure, its game play is little more than arcade button mashing, but even that has an audience; an audience that is going to cut directly into Champion's user base in a big way. If a gamer has to decide which hero MMO their subscription dollar is going to go to, my bet is that Champions is going to have to bend over and pass the KY, please.

I’ll go out on a limb at this point and say that the only reason a lot of us have been playing these current games is in waiting for somebody else to do it right. DCUO is the next step in that evolution, and everybody knows it. You know it. I know it. Apparently, Cryptic knows it, too.

Most of us just received an email the other day confirming the rumblings: Champions Online is gearing up for free to play, though that’s literally only half the story. The other half is that they’re also retaining the subscription model as well, effectively creating a hybrid payment model. Both sides function exactly as you would expect them to: Champions Complete and Champions Crippled, enticing you to either buy into the micro transactional payment model or pony up for the subscription. On the surface, it would appear to be a smart move-- let the player decide what they want and let demand take it from there. If you happen to pick up a few extra dollars along the way, score.

Peel back the surface and you may smell desperation.

There is one universal constant in MMO gaming everybody needs to realize: You only go F2P unless you have no other choice. As a corollary, people will pay monthly subscriptions if you have a product worth paying for.

To point, if a company has a choice between subscriptions and micro transactions, which do you think they would choose? Guaranteed income, or ‘maybe you’ll stop in this month and buy something’ income? The answer should be obvious, which should also prompt the question: Why is Cryptic even bothering? Sure, they could be looking to rake in the money stream, but I’m thinking Champions is working the marketing angles overtime.

As noted above, they still have active, thriving competition in the City of Heroes franchise that hasn’t been reduced to F2P (hint). Now there’s a new threat and it isn’t just a two ton gorilla, it’s a goddamn Boeing 747 with its engines on fire looking for a place to land, and that place is going to be squarely in the lap of any hero MMO that gets in its way.

Traditionally, I’ve always seen the move to F2P as a last, desperate gambit to stay alive, even if in a diminished capacity. This particular tactic is a new one. It still reeks of disease, but it’s also supremely devious from a marketing standpoint. Not only can they claim user choice as a reason, but when things do go south in the subscription department (and mark my words, they will), you’ll never know it. They don’t have to report their numbers. They don’t have to tell you how many subs died off over the last six months because DCUO just took huge ass bite out of their market share. Subscriptions will quietly fade off into the night and if they acknowledge it at all, they can claim it was all according to plan or that it was gamer demand. Champions now has complete deniability that they're suffering finacially and automatically bypasses any stigma attatched to dropping subscriptions cold turkey.

Fucking brilliant.

Cryptic, you’ve officially earned my Evil Genius in Marketing Award for 2011, and it’s only January.

**Correction: Bill Roper incorrectedly cited, as noted by LordDraekon. Jack Emmert was intended.