MMORPG.com Staff Blog

The staff of MMORPG.com gets together to bring you some behind the scenes insights on stories, the industry and the site itself.

Author: staffblog

Contributors: Admin,Stradden,bildo84,MikeB,garrett,

There has been a whole lot of talk lately about sex in video games, spurred on by yet another BioWare release that features a little romantic interaction between consenting adult animated characters. Now it’s been a few years since BioWare first showed us the blue side-boob in the original Mass Effect, and Dragon Age even had homosexual rendezvous available as a possible outcome for players. We’ve seen it before from the developer, we know they like to craft compelling almost movie-like aspects in their games, and yet the internet is abuzz every time they release a new game that allows the player to get all up in the business of an NPC.

Parents get into a tizzy, the ESRB reviews what it can and cannot deem as passable, and people like me are suddenly wondering just what Achievements they can add to their gamerscore if they manage to get down with all possible participants. The wheel does turn. I have to wonder how big of a deal nudity and sex was when they were first introduced to movies intended for the general viewing public. Then I remember that a certain Harrison Ford film where the faces melt off of Nazis was rated PG. The prequel was later given the very first PG-13 rating, due to Mola Ram’s rather unconventional method of open-heart surgery.

I would say that if people were too overly offended at the idea of sex in story-driven videogames, that we should just devise a new rating to stamp on them and let parents know that a certain game is meant for older audiences. Oh… that’s right, we already have that. Part of the ESRB rating system since 1994, both M (Mature) and AO (Adults Only) cover the bases of games whose content is seriously intended for more mature players. And yet when games under said ratings release, and parents blindly buy whatever title they’re asked of by their children, is it right for them to become so vehement in their attack of the publishers, developers, and even the ESRB?

Maybe it’s an American thing. When my mom bought my family our first decent PC she bought Doom along with it for us kids. She didn’t care about the ridiculous amount of violence in the game, the way the BFG melted enemies into goopy piles of anatomy, or the fact that my brother and I would squeal with glee at the gory mayhem. And yet when she caught us playing a friend’s copy of the soft-core “Sextris” (take a guess at what that entailed) we were grounded for weeks. If we take a look over at Europe or Australia, often games with gratuitous violence are banned outright, while the general feelings towards sexuality are quite a bit more lax.

Mass Effect 2 doesn’t show anything graphic or out of line with what one might see on an episode of primetime broadcast television and yet I don’t read too much these days about people protesting the passion-level of TV’s dramas. Though I do remember a big deal being made about Dennis Franz’s naked butt being flaunted on NYPD Blue several years back. But come on… no one wanted to see that.

I guess what I’m getting at is what’s the big deal when it comes to sex in videogames? The ratings system is there for those that actually pay attention to it. In the case of BioWare’s recently released romantic segments there’s nothing exactly pornographic about the material. Does anyone care anymore when a movie comes out with similar situations taking place? But maybe that’s the key… movies are “entertainment” and games are still seen as merely “toys”.
 

So a few weeks back I wrote about the 40K MMO and how hopeful I was. Now it seems that THQ will be showing the game at E3 this year.

We got in touch with THQ and are very excited to check out the game at the show. Still that is a long way off. So what do we do until then? 

Well, I continue painting my Khorne minis and have mmy zerker and terminator squads done. Now its time for regular Chaos marines, then on to the big stuff. Rhinos, a defiler, yes even a land raider. Sorry but the Terminators and Lord have to get across the board somehow.

What I find in my army building phase is how truly rich the 40K universe can be. A 40K MMO that is limited by two factions would be a huge let down. This takes me back to the Warhammer Fantasy MMO by Mythic. While there were definitely great parts to the game, some of the lore decisions were really a bummer. Having only one chaos god in the game was the biggest let down. Tzeentch is cool and all, but my favorites have always been Nurgle and Khorne, and I had a game where I could only see their deamons wandering around, I could never serve them. Frustrating to say the least.

The other big issue with the Fantasy game was only having two factions. The game had good character options for each of the races, but only fighting against one side all the time got old quickly. From the company that gave us DAOC, you would think a multiple faction system would be a given, sadly it was not.

I stil play W.A.R. because I love my orc choppa. However, these two major points in lore are things that I felt took away from the full Warhammer experience. $0k has the opportunity to change this idea by adding multiple factions with multiple agendas. Perhaps certain battle grounds or instance fights you can have different allies, but then back in the real larger game you are bitter enemies.

Just some food for thought, I for one am looking very forward to E3 now. Rest assured we'll do our best to give you all the coverage and interviews on the game that we can.

For now it is back to painting.

There is a disconnect between some people who play MMORPGs and the people who develop them. Actually, there are a lot of disconnects in that area, but this is the one I’ve decided to focus on for today.

It seems that there are a large number of players out there who believe that end-game is where the real game begins in terms of MMORPGs. As a result, they rush as quickly as possible toward whatever the level cap of the game happens to be, and then are inevitably disappointed once they get there. Today, I actually read a post from someone who implied that the rest of the game is there simply as a tutorial for the superawesomefuntimeohmygodIneedanewpairofpants that is and must be the endgame.

In every single recent MMORPG launch, I’ve read about players who feel that the game has let them down because two days after launch, they’ve hit the level cap and find that a) it’s not populated and B) that the developers haven’t really put much there for them to do. I mean, if the “real game” starts at level cap, then why isn’t there anything to do?

The answer to that question is that the developers don’t intend for the game to start at endgame. They don’t spend millions and millions of dollars on that part of the game right out of the gate because to them, and to the vast majority of people who don’t post on forums, the whole part from level one to the cap IS the game, endgame is about retention, sure, and every MMO needs to have something for players to do at cap, otherwise they’re going to get bored and leave.

That’s where the disconnect happens, I think. Developers, rightly or wrongly, believe that they’ve (theoretically) put all of the time and effort into constructing a certain number of levels into their game. They’ve created content, interweaving stories, NPCs, points of interest and other aspects of the game and so that should probably entertain folks at least until the free month that comes with the damned game is over.

Time and energy won’t (and probably shouldn’t) be spent on endgame until such time as a significant portion of the player base is actually there. Put another way: They’re not going to spend a whole bunch of time and cash to make sure that a portion of the game is juicy and robust for the very small number of people who rush to get there. They’re going to divert energy and resources where the most people are going to get the most benefit out of them.

Why is WoW’s endgame so robust? Because the game is old enough that a very large percentage of their player base is at cap. Why don’t new MMOs launch with 100% end game content intact? Because most people are still playing “the game.”

Here’s my rule of thumb: When you buy a subscription based MMO, your box purchase is going toward the development of the game from tutorial to cap. In essence, if this was a single player game, once you hit cap you’ve “beaten it.” Your subscription dollars are what goes toward continued and robust endgame content, so don’t expect a lot of time to be spent on endgame before everyone’s paid their first subscription fee.

But that’s just my opinion. I’m more of a “take your time and enjoy the content” kind of gamer myself.

This week’s Community Spotlight focuses on the thought-provoking thread, “MMORPG’s of the Future. 2030,” by user ImmortalBird. In the thread, ImmortalBird wonders what MMOG’s will be like in the future, specifically, as far out as 2030:

“What kind of major changes do you think we will see?
I think gaming will become even more popular and thus more players for MMORPG's as the years go by and people get wealthier and wealthier and end up having more leisure time with nothing to do.

I think there will be new concepts for how an MMORPG is designed and how it's gameplay is handled, something quite drastically different than the basis of Everquest and games like World of Warcrafts gameplay. Also the action-element based MMORPG's of recent will take some unusual changes too I think.

Me personally, I'll keep a little bit of an eye out on how things are going, but I won't try out any games unless something just miraculousy captures me like how I felt about games when I was a young boy. Which are slim chances heh.”

ImmortalBird’s topic sparked some interesting responses, with generally something for everyone. The thread is replete with conspiracy theories involving the end of the world in 2012 (thus making MMOG’s in 2030 impossible, duh!), plain ol’ funny responses, and of course a few somewhat serious ones.

Let’s start with a conspiracy theory by Lansid. We won’t have any MMOG’s in 2030, we’ll all be dead come December 21st, 2012:

“Trick question.There will be no MMORPG's in 2030. Dec. 21st, 2012 we will all be dead.
However in the unlikely event that we all live... I highly doubt the term MMORPG will be used 20 years from now, either by political correctness of evolution of the genre.

10 years ago, the majority of MMO pioneer people were playing Everquest, Asheron's Call, Ultima Online, or Meridian 59... on their 56k modems, PII cores, 256 Megs of ram and 16 Meg vid cards.

10 years ago, the first Silent HIll on the Playstation came out, Nsync, Backstreet Boys, Ricky Martin and Britney Spears ruled the airwaves... The Force was revealed as a parasitic infection in The Phantom Menace, the term "Bullet-Time" was coined from the Matrix, and there was a movie about a witch with three kids running around in the forest and a chicks runny nose that went on to be the most successful indie movie to date.

That's just TEN years ago... and you're projecting TWENTY?

What exists now will be a laughable shadow of what "once was" idealism followed by teens saying "Oh my god, why the hell did you SIT at your computer for hours, days, weeks, years... on end? Talk about archaic!"

Mark my words and archive them.”

In all seriousness, Lansid does still make a good point. If we do manage to survive 2012, we’ll be mocked by the youngins come 2030 for ever sitting in our computer chairs and playing these games the way we do, perhaps implying that virtual reality or a holodeck style MMOG would be possible by then.

How about another conspiracy theory? This time let’s go with the tried and true monolithic Microsoft concept. NinjaNerf explains how Microsoft will rule the MMOG world:

“Before 2030 Microsoft will buy up the majority of the social networks (facebook, twitter and such) and develop them into a giant social mmo network similiar to Second Life but only 100x bigger.
Indie mmorpg developers will be bought into the Microsoft Online Social Network. These will include a list of popular indie games (e.g runescape) and some defunct games by then (e.g. WAR and AoC), and of course Microsoft will also buy Club Penguins from Disney for an outregeous price to promote their kiddy products.

By 2030, we will have major breakthrough in space technologies or may even discover lifeforms from outerspace. So a lot of mmorpg will be sci-fi instead of fantasy.

Since microsoft will turn mmorpg into a social/marketing tool, in game visual advertisement system will be in desire so dying mmo such as Anarchy may still squeeze out a few bucks from microsoft.

We will also see gambling and porn mmorpg.

And of course, Bill Gates will be the president of the United States.”

There are some positives to NinjaNerf’s future. For example, since we’ll apparently discover lifeforms from outer space, most people will tire of fantasy MMOG’s, and we’ll mostly see sci-fi one’s instead. Here’s hoping!

Disownation is ahead of all of us. He knows what the future is, because, well, he’s developing it:

“In 2030, the term MMO will be a thing of the past.

It will be replaced by VRSRPG (Virtual Reality Simulation Role Playing Game). I know this, because I am developing it.”

Vaske1984 offers a brief description of MMOG’s in the future:

“1.Sit in the chair.
2.Plug-in device in your brain (matrix thing)
3.And your online :D”

I’m surprised we got more conspiracy theories and humorous responses than a huge discussion debating the possibility of The Matrix like virtual reality.

I obviously don’t know what the future holds, but having seen the movie the 13th Floor, I would hope that some day that is essentially what we end up with. For those of you who haven’t seen the movie, it is similar to The Matrix, but it fits this discussion better than the Matrix would, as the worlds are created entirely for the purposes of entertainment. Users can, like the Matrix jack into these worlds and assume an identity, with all the worlds living beings essentially being programs or AI.

I won’t spoil the movie for any of you out there looking to check it out, but there is a pretty mind bending twist in there, and I highly recommend it!

With that said, what do you think the far away future holds for MMOGs? Do you believe in a more practical future where the games evolve from where we are currently at? Or do you subscribe to the theory that things will be radically different, and virtual reality, a’la the Matrix, is a very real possibility?

Let us know in the comments below!

As passionate gamers, I know we love to bash the fad that is Facebook gaming. Farmville, Mafia Wars, and all of Zynga's other offerings to most gamers are nothing more than shallow time-wasters for folks addicted to the e-stalking tool that is Mark Zuckerberg's college project. I would even be inclined to agree, except I'm also brave enough to admit that I'm a level 27 farmer with a huge plot of land in Farmville, thanks to the urgings of my fiancée to hop on the tractor. I would say “wield the hoe”, but then people might think I'm talking about her and I'd like to keep the woman as my future bride.

But what if these pointless little browser-based doodads are more than annoyances filling up your Facebook newsfeed? What if instead they are acting as the perfect gateway drug for future gamers? My fiancée, let’s call her Megoski in order to find out if she reads this (you’ll be able to tell by the welts on my torso tomorrow) was talking to a regular client about Facebook, when the topic of Farmville came up. The customer in question was espousing the virtues of tilling virtual soil while my Megoski simply shrugged and said, “Come on, really?” A born gamer, she is not.

And yet, her client’s constant stream of laudation for Farmville hit a curious nerve in Megoski. One night during her own stalking rituals on the Book of Face, I watched as she cautiously clicked on one of her client’s Farmville posts… the fall into madness had begun. Next thing I knew, upon her arrival home each day there was no more hanging out on the couch to talk about her day. Not right away, anyway.

Rather, when the front door opens these days, I watch as she says hello to the dogs, pecks me on the cheek and runs upstairs to her laptop to harvest about 200 bunches of grapes in order to save enough coins to upgrade her farm to plantation size. This from a woman who calls me a nerd (lovingly) for having a map of Mordor over my PC… okay, so maybe I am a nerd, but at least now I’m not alone.

I am beginning to see Facebook games not as some hindrance on the advancement of the industry, but instead as a wonderful new phenomenon that is going to bring more people into the wonderful world of online gaming. A few weeks back Megoski asked to make her own Xbox Live avatar. I took this opportunity to show her the demo for A Kingdom of Keflings, figuring she’d at the very least get a kick out of seeing her creation stomp around on screen and picking up villagers. Then it was two hours later, and I was grabbing my credit card to buy enough Microsoft Points to purchase the full game.

Does it matter that Facebook games are so simplistic, and relatively cheap and shameless in their ploys for money? Not if it helps bridge the gap between a hobby that was previously only my own and make it also my future wife’s. What started with Farmville moved slowly into Fishville, and onto the Xbox 360. I dare not show her what the Sims is all about; I would like to have her attention once in a while.

A former coworker of Megoski’s once nearly convinced her to try out Everquest 2. Had said coworker not turned out to be a dud and get herself fired, I suspect eventually that my betrothed would have caved in to the looming presence of the EQ2 box sitting in my office and asked to see what it was all about. But alas, maybe I’m just a dreamer. For now I’ll be perfectly content to use Farmville in arguments over whether or not I should be playing so much Global Agenda.

So next time you log into your own Facebook account find yourself affronted by a slew of updates concerning lost penguins, golden mystery eggs, or even whacked mobsters just take a deep breath. One day those vesting so much interest in their farms and mafias might wind up being your guildmates, or a competing soldier gunning you down from a nearby bell tower. Or more shockingly, you may wind up like me… intricately arranging your white fencing to keep your livestock in order and make your farm look presentable to the viewing public. That reminds me, I think I have a few mystery gifts to open. I hope they’re not a bunch of worthless white chickens.

Welcome to launch week everyone.

Global Agenda goes live today! Get in there and start shooting.

and if you have been under an MMO-rock for the past month Star Trek Online goes live tomorrow.

The STO head start is already alive and kicking.

Many developers say that eventually all games will become MMOs. Or at least all games will be online. That future is very close to a reality with consoles and PCs providing the online environments for players to meet up and play together all the time. This brings up my questions about ... the final gaming frontier, what is it? 

Star Trek's holodeck is the ideal example of where gaming could take us in the future. Being that STO launches this week I thought the idea fit the daily news.

So here is my question to all of you...which Futuristic Gaming Set-Up would you rather have? 

1. The Star Trek Holodeck, where situations are around all around you, but you are essentially limited by your own abilities. In other words, no super powers, no spells or magic blasting from your hands, just you in a virtual environment that borders on VERY real. So this is option A...hmmm....what about the blue pill....

2. Jack your brain into a system and lay there on a table. The Matrix gave us that image and movies like AVATAR and Surrogates took it to a new level. So you go home from work...or whatever we'll be doing in 20 years. Lay down on your couch and plug your brain into a network and wooosh. Your brain does all the work. Here you can have super powers, fly, cast spells, but still wake up the next morning as a total vegetable. Yes vegetable, back when they said, TV melts your brain...they had no idea what was coming.

So what will it be? Putting yourself in an alternate reality, or alternating your own reality? This is a tough choice for me. On one hand I would love to see how it would feel to be in a holodeck situation fighting in a simulated battle. How long could I survive in a certain program based on my wits and skills? It might be fun to push yourself in these environments.

On the other hand who would not want to lay down for a "nap" and jump into a world where you can play a bad ass mage and fry people with the blink of your brain. The super powers would be endless. Sadly you would wake up to a very boring reality once you have experienced that situation.

So what do we do? What is the limit? I can say this with some level of certainty, game companies and hardware companies will be trying to sell both of these ideas to us at some point in the distant future.

Until then, I will settle for a normal log in screen.

It’s been a long week for me to be a nerd. All in the same week, I finished out playing in the Star Trek Online beta, finally saw Avatar and watched all the hype blow up over the announcement of everyone’s favorite unfortunately named piece of technology iPad. I mean not since the unveiling of the short-lived fast-food burger the McDouche has the name of a feminine hygiene product so captivated legions of fans.

Bad jokes about the iPad’s name aside (I had to make at least one, lest I feel left out), I wanted to take a few minutes to address each of the three highlights of my week from the point of view of my own particular nerddom.

Avatar

I finally saw it. Not much of a nerd thing, I suppose, given the amount of time between when the thing premiered and when I finally got off my butt to see it, but the Imax has been sold out steadily since it opened and I’d be damned if I was going to see this one and not get to wear those super stylish 3D glasses designed by, I assume, Elton John.

In any case, I don’t really see what all of the fuss is about. I mean, it was an enjoyable flick, and I thought the 3D was handled particularly well. It wasn’t God’s gift to moviegoers (even if box offices would say otherwise), but it certainly wasn’t the shallow bore-fest some people are making it out to be either. I walked in, sat down and for a couple of hours got exactly what I expected, a decent movie with some cool visuals.

What I can’t get past are the number of people crying out that the movie has an “environmentalist, left-wing agenda”. I mean, sure, it’s a thinly veiled movie about what was done to Native Americans ad their culture, but to say that it has some kind of agenda is a little bit like saying that the original Star Wars trilogy supported domestic terrorism. I mean, come on, the rebels blew up the Death Star, a highly visible government target, killing uncounted numbers of Imperical citizens.

Guys, in movies there are going to be plots and good guys and bad guys… just sit down and let’s enjoy (or not enjoy) the ride.

Star Trek Online Beta

Ok, before everyone gets all hot and bothered about this. I am fully aware that Star Trek Online has a large number of issues with it, and that they’re going to need to be addressed in order for this game to be in any way successful.

Now, with that out of the way, I’m going to go ahead and admit that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time with STO. I don’t know if it’s the setting, which I like, the features (yes, I like ship combat and the ground combat is enjoyable to me as well, sue me), or just that it’s something a little bit off the beaten path.

I like the game, and I can completely see why some other people can’t, but what I want to know is why do the people who think that this game is going to do poorly or fail have to come over and stomp on my fun and the fun of anyone else who happens to be enjoying the game?

I mean, over the last few weeks, I’ve seen anyone who posts a positive opinion on this game get completely torn apart by people who don’t like it, or don’t like Cryptic. What’s the point of that exactly? You don’t like it. You think it sucks. That’s great. I fully respect that point of view, and contrary to what some of you out there seem to think, I am completely aware of the game’s shortcomings. I have not been blinded to them, I am not wearing rose tinted glasses, I am not a “Fanboy”. I just disagree with you.

I’ve said it once and apparently I’ll say it a thousand more times: You don’t have to like what everyone else likes, and people don’t have to like something just because you do. We’re all entitled to our opinions, so let’s have a little bit of respect for that, shall we?

The iPad

To me, it looks basically like a big giant iPhone. I heart my iPhone, and like many people who own way too much technology, I burn with desire for my own iPad… Which is funny, because I can’t really say exactly why. I just want it.

I think it’s because they remind me of the Pads in Star Trek The Next Generation. You know, those portable computers that everyone had that allowed the to do everything from write notes to read very large files and access information quickly, not to mention to network with larger computers… all fitting in their hand without a keyboard or mouse or any input device save for the touch screen…

Ok, I think I’ve solved the mystery of why I want one.
 

This week’s Community Spotlight focuses on the thread “What’s an older gamer to do?” by user Amathe. In the original post, Amathe finds himself troubled, as an older game, by the advent of faster paced MMOG’s coming to market:

“I'm old and I'm a gamer. At least I think I'm still a gamer, being between games at the moment. The old part is for sure.

Over the years I have played a lot of mmos, beginning with original Everquest. At least 9 of them, not including a great many betas.

At times like these, when I'm between games, I come here to research new ones. And I'm seeing a trend. Game after game after game is touting its fast paced, twitchy, "you control every blow" FPS qualities. While this would have sounded great to me a decade ago, I'm slow now and I won't be competitive at that.

But it's worse lol. These new games also promote their free-for-all, oh yes you are going to be ganked so deal with it PvP features. That means not only am I slow, I get to fight people 20-30 years younger who are fast. Oh boy. That will be hot death on a skillet.

Is the type of combat found in more traditional mmos like EQ and even WoW going the way of MUDs and pen and paper games? Is my gaming future Select Quest, Princess Aria wants you .... BOOM HEADSHOT ROFLOLOLOLOL?

I'm thinking it may be time to join AARP, stock up on geritol and call it a day. I'm not seeing very many new games being made that are not FFA FPS?”

As a younger gamer myself, I rue the day when I feel like my reflexes won’t let me compete with gamers younger than myself, so it’s a bit hard to understand Amathe as I obviously can’t place myself in his shoes. Nevertheless, the community offers some helpful advice, starting with the user Comnitus, who recommends EVE Online:

“If your reflexes are slow but your brain still works, try EVE. While some parts of it are FFA PvP (which means joining a corporation is a good way to survive), you never really have to PvP if you don't want to. Combat in EVE is very strategical - it's based mostly on numbers and how you outfit your ship rather than your hand-eye coordination. Plus, it's a great sandbox overall. Most of the people who play it are older.”

Jeger_Wolf suggests Lord of the Rings Online, with a simple reply:

“LotRO seems to be a pretty mature crowd if you haven't played that out yet.”
I highlighted this post because in my experiences with that particular game, I can say I definitely agree.

The crowd in LotRO does seem a bit more mature than what you’d find in some areas of World of Warcraft. A solid recommendation!

A number of users have mentioned the upcoming Final Fantasy XIV as something to look forward to. Cukimunga explains the merits of the game a bit more:

“Like someone has said Id wait for FFXIV, from the looks of some videos the combat is slow like in FFXI.

It will be more solo friendly but im still guessing the bulk of the content will be grouped. I hope they still have skill chains and magic busts it was one of the things to set it apart from every other mmo. It makes you think because different mobs are weak against a certain element so you'd have to do the right skill chain and magic burst to do the max damage. SC and MB had to be timed right for them to work and you could even do a counter attack and stun the mobs so they wouldn't wipe the whole party or most of it with a AoE.

Personally Id rather have slower more tactical combat than fast mindless button mashing. “

What suggestions do you have for Amathe and gamers like him?

And to you older gamers out there: Are any MMOG’s holding your attention at the moment? What future MMOG releases are you looking forward to, and why?

Let us know in the comments below!

So I have been trying to spend a little more time away from my computer in recent weeks. That is not easy to do when you have the jobs that I do. However, I have started up a new Warhammer 40K Army for tabletop and have been painting away for the last week. Khorne Chaos Marines if you must know. I have never done a Khorne army and despite seeing them everywhere I decided it would be the most fun to paint. Plus I love skulls.

So during the long hours it takes to paint minis. I have been constantly thinking of the Warhammer 40K MMO that is secretly being developed over at VIGIL Studios for THQ. Now for those who may not know THQ was the publisher for Dawn of War, but it was made by Relic. I am a huge fan of the Dawn of War games and am curious on how the other studio is handling development.

The big question is how well will 40K translate into an MMO? Well I do know that of the Games Workshop IPs, 40K is the big one. Fans are fanatical and want nothing more than to jump into the carnage of the 41st millenium. The trick is how to play in that universe as a single character in a war torn environment.

If you are a Space Marine....then that's it. How can you advance? The world is made up of units and chapters and all that great fluff, so how can an individual character grow? Well, one way would be to implement a squad system that allows players to gain ranks and grow a squad of NPCs on their own. This would be similar to the model tried in Gods & Heroes, which never launched. Imagine, you start as a single marine, do well, and can become a sergeant or something. Perhaps you can upgrade to Terminator status? Again these are just ideas. Eventually you have NPCs join your squad and implement group tactics similar to Dragon Age's party system....damn this game is sounding sick.

Or what if the entire 40K game was built around player guilds. You played as an individual, you chose a faction, and you joined up a Chapter with other players and whooosh off you go. Now, this may not work with certain 40K races...Tyranids...but it would be damn cool. Also, character advancement does not have to be thought of in terms of leveling and skills. Maybe some new systems could be implemented for characters to grow and earn rewards whether fighting for the Emperor or that insane Ork Boss.

For now I guess I just have to keep painting and praying we hear some news about this game soon. There are so many possibilities with 40k. While other MMOs look to grow with old ideas. 40K definitely gives the developers a chance to throw out the rules and come up with new ideas on how a persistent world can change and grow without having to "level" character skills.

Food for thought...THQ please blow us away at E3 this year with some 40K MMO AWESOMENESS!

PS: Once the army is painted, I'll post a pic.

This week’s Community Spotlight focuses on the thread “Unlock Your Alts: A Discussion on Alternate Characters (Controversial)” by user Nate1980. The topic, as the subject implies, is a controversial look at the place of alts or alternate characters in MMOG games. In the original post, nate1980 makes the self-admitted controversial suggestion that games should only allow for players a single character per player at the start, and extols the reasons why:

“…I'd like every game in the future to only offer 1 character per account at the start. This requires people to stick to one character, and allows for people to become known by their character. Anyone who's played SWG knows what I'm talking about. The test server solves the problem of people being indecisive on which character they want to play. You should be able to create a lot of characters on the test server, so you can compare and contrast them. But on the live servers, you can only have 1 per account. This also has the added benefit that guild leaders and members can be more confident that those in their guild are their main characters and will be active. I'm not sure about you all, but I grow tired of those afflicted with altitis, because they fall behind the main group in the guild, and then sometimes expect the main group to go back and help them. I get my fun from playing with a group of others in the game. So I'm motivated to keep leveling and playing, so that I can keep up with my online friends. However, I'm never in a rush, and I think the game is about the journey, not the destination, so don't derail the thread for that.

Lastly, I think that in order to unlock more character slots, you should be required to level a character to max level. So if you want your second character slot, you need to get your first character to max level. If you want your 3rd character slot, you need to level up your second character to max level, and so on.

This'll help people stay committed to their characters, and help stop people from jumping around from one character to the next, never getting far on any of them, and then quitting out of boredom.”

What does the community think of Nate’s ideas? Lets find out!

User Zilverrug (who is apparently still MUDding, go Zilverrug!) generally disagrees with Nate’s suggestion, but he can see how alts can be harmful to endgame focused guilds:

“Many people need alts to keep interest in the game. People leaving the game is (in my experience) an even larger reason for guild failure (and even worse: game failure).
Forbidding people something they like to do and is good for the game company (because it keeps people in the game and is basically harmless) doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

Personally, I do not suffer from altitis (in all games I played I have a single main character and a host of alts only on 20% to 50% of the level cap), but it's a good thing many other people do: it tends to keep people active in the non-end-level content (also nice for beginners).

In other words: in level-based games, I'd even argue leveling alts is a GOOD thing to keep the game alive.

But I can imagine end-level focused guilds can suffer somewhat from members concentrating on their alts instead. Those guilds should (and do) have rules about alts. People who get bored by their main character can then just leave the guild instead of the game. Making an associated "safety net guild" to catch those people wouldn't even be a very bad idea, I guess...”

Torik echoes some of Zilverrug’s sentiments:

“Too many alts is really only a problem in 'goal-focused' guilds (eg raiding guilds, hardcore PvP guilds).

For casual guilds alts can be a great guild builder since it allows people to do all kinds of stuff and not get locked into one role. Thus when there are significant power differences between characters, one can switch to a less powerful alt and group up with newer guildies. Also it allows casual guilds more flexibility where people can change roles in group content depending on who else is available.

One of the primary reasons why I quit SWG was the 'one character per server per accout' rule. After I got my first character to a state I really liked I was not going to erase all that just to try new ways to play in that game. One of the key things I like about RPGs is that I can play through them in different ways and create distinct personalities for my characters.

The test server idea only really address the issues of seeking the next FotM character. To me a character grows as you play him in the full game settings and throwaway characters are not fun.

The idea of unlocking alt character slots once you reach max level on a previous character would work but it seems completely unnecessary and once again forces one away from exploring different facets of the game.”

Another interesting post, this time by user Ivaldyr, essentially uses FFXI as his example for why alts are indeed unnecessary:

“The solution to the alt "problem" is simple.

One character - Many classes/skills.

Instead of having to reroll a new character or lose current character progression, let every character level up every skill/class in the game, but have to choose which skillset/class to play at any given time. I like how EVE (sort of) does this; your character can have every skill in the game, but not every skill is useful in every situation. Your ship and modules limit you.

It would work thus:

• I start a new character, and become a Warrior .. rising to level 100.
• I "reroll" my character, and level a Mage to 50.

Now I'm a level 100 Warrior and a level 50 Mage; but I can only be one "class" at a time. If I'm levelling up my Mage skills and a friend tells me they could use a Warrior for a level 100 raid, I can switch back to my Warrior skills and go enjoy that raid, then switch back to my Mage skills when I'm done. It's just like having alts, except that they're all contained in one character.”

I personally have to take issue with this one, as while he may be correct from a gameplay perspective you can design a game so that alts are functionally unnecessary, but what of people who have different concepts for characters? I found myself in this boat a lot in Star Wars Galaxies.

And that’s basically my stance. I played Star Wars Galaxies as many of you know by now, and this was Nate’s main reference point for his ideas.

While I loved the game, I was often conflicted because I wanted to have a variety of different character types. Sure, the game let me respec my single character into any group of skills I’d like provided I took the time to get the experience for them, but what if I wanted to play a Rebel X-Wing pilot, and an Imperial Sniper. Maybe it’s just the role-player in me!

Be sure to check out the rest of the thread for tons of great responses from the community!

What do you think about the effects of alts or altitis on MMOG games?

Do you endorse only allowing players a single character to start? Or even just a single character, period? Let us know in the comments below.