Playing with Fire: Community and Developer Interaction in Planetside 2

Most developer interaction with MMOs is a one way street, usually ramming trucks full of promotional material at gamers until release. Only to be followed by a steady stream of patching and tweaks.  There’ll be an obligatory official forum where only the brave tread as it quickly devolves into a cess pit of whining and cries for nerfs!

This is what makes Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) stand out from other developers. When it comes to community interaction, they’re charting some new territory and it could go either way for them. Of course they have an official game forum like everyone else, but they have also gone all in when it comes to social media.

Want to discuss game mechanics? Start an interesting topic on Reddit and you’ll likely attract comments from the game’s balance team. Want to show off your Outfit? Get in touch with Friday Night Ops (FNO) and you could the focus of an SOE live stream. FNO is also great for keeping up to date with the latest game development and includes a live Q&A with the developers.

On top of that, SOE recently released the Roadmap revealing the next six months of updates. But rather than being an elaborate and lengthy set of patch notes, it details the development team’s ideas. Each element is can be discussed and voted on, highlighting the ideas the community wants to see make it into the game. The most popular ideas get pushed up the list and become the top priority for the next month’s major patch.

It’s great for the community to be able to actually affect the game’s development in a way that suits the majority. The Roadmap does have its limitations though. You can only contribute and vote on the ideas that are added by SOE. And it’s noticeable that there’s a lack of meta-game ideas. Ideas that would add more goals and rewards into the game for players to avoid the game stagnating.

Realities of game development also play a big factor in the game’s Roadmap. No matter how many positive votes an idea receives; if it’s a large chunk of content like a brand new continent, it’s going to need some lengthy development time.

Thankfully the Roadmap isn’t a completely inclusive list of game changes. Balance tweaks are rather sensibly kept under tight control by SOE themselves.  Although they have already shown how difficult it can be to balance an MMO in a way that all players agree with. January’s game update took a large swing at the balance of main battle tanks, with the Magrider in particular taking a heavy hit to its manoeuvrability. The defining feature and advantage it holds over the other tanks. Now it was easy to predict that any Vanu player would be annoyed by SOE’s heavy handed approach to the changes, but the feedback was explosive. And SOE got this rammed at them down every avenue they had opened for player feedback. The Vanu population on every server didn’t just dip, it plummeted.

As it has since been revealed by Matt Highby, the game’s creative director; the Magrider had suffered from some poor coding which had exacerbated the nerf. But for me it showed the pressure they had put on themselves by attempting something as ambitious as the current Roadmap schedule.

The amount of content they’re attempting to cram into a few months of development is great for consumers like myself. However the cost of this rapid development is clearly showing in the quality of the game patches. Part of January’s major update was designed to improve performance on lower end machines. The result was the complete opposite, throwing the game back to its launch day instability. Each patch they release has to be chased up by hotfixes to correct the most random bugs. One minor patch rendered all tanks useless for twenty four hours as their shots vanished into thin air. Quite remarkable in a patch that had nothing to do with them.

Of course Planetside 2 is still a very young game and I’m judging it on only three months of development since release. So it’s easy to be critical of any development flaws. But to me, it would appear that SOE are overburdening themselves. All the means they have opened for player feedback has increased the number voices demanding updates and responses. Even worse is the amplified community response to any negatively perceived move by SOE. They would do themselves a favour by putting the brakes on development to focus on creating stable and bug free updates, and then ramp up their community interaction. It will be interesting to see if SOE’s openness pays off for them in the long run, especially as the first round of server merges has just been announced.

Dark Souls Prepare to Die Edition: and Die Again and Again!

Never has there been such an aptly named game.  Dark Souls has gained a reputation for its steep difficulty curve. I went into the game looking for a challenge and it completely delivered on that front. In fact I would go so far as to say it’s the most difficult game released in the modern era of games. Be ready to die, a lot!

The game opens with a prologue video which gives you a brief glimpse of the world. Many years ago, the Lords broke out of the darkness, bringing with them flame to banish the darkness that had enveloped the land. But now, the Age of Fire is coming to an end. Carriers of the Darksign are walking amongst the living. And so the game begins with your character being promptly thrown into prison. They have odd punishments in the land of the living; I’m not sure what I did to get banished to the tutorial zone, but it probably had something to with being undead. Oh well, time to start an adventure.

I didn’t realise how intricate an RPG the game is, so I was a little worried by the starting choices thrown at me. There wasn’t much description to help me out with the classes I had to pick from. Thankfully the choices made here have little consequence; simply assigning some starting stats and gear. The only major choice at the beginning is whether you want to be a melee fighter or a spell caster.

With my character sorted, I stepped out of my cell and nervously set off into the dark corridors ahead of me. Of course the tutorial zone is very forgiving. Markings on the floor explain the basic controls for combat, which allow you to dispatch the starting zombies with ease. There are also plenty of bonfires dotted around. Each one acts as a checkpoint, so there’s little back tracking if you have an early death. However each death or visit to a bonfire will reset all the enemies. Bonfires also allow you to refill your Estus Flask, a key item that acts as a multi-use health potion. Later in the game, each charge of your Flask becomes a very precious resource as you fight your way to the next bonfire.

And battling your way through the world and exploring each area is the heart of the game. After finishing the tutorial, your dropped off by a giant Raven at Firelink Shrine; a major hub area for the game. This is also where I ran head first into game’s difficulty curve. A friendly NPC gave me a brief explanation of my early goal; ring two bells to progress to an important area. Would have been nice if he could at least point me in the right direction. I promptly ran straight into the hardest starting area of the game. After being sliced into little pieces several times, I was rescued from my beginner’s error by a friend who let me know the easy path was right behind me. And this is why exploring is key; the game world is large and sprawling, so don’t keep running head first into a difficult area unless you’re feeling masochistic.

Now with my new knowledge in hand, I breezed my way through an easier path. The combat was much simpler, but equally the game was still capable of delivering surprises. Just as I had got the hang of blocking an enemy’s swing and lunging to inflict damage, enemies with shields showed up. Now they had the same strengths and weaknesses as me, I really had to be careful with my attacks. Being too reckless or absorbing too many hits with the shield would quickly use up my stamina, leaving me open and vulnerable to damaging hits. It didn’t take long for me to have my first death along this path. So it was back to the last bonfire for another attempt.

It may seem that death is especially harsh in Dark Souls, but it’s rarely unfair. Once you’re used to the combat, death usually results from taking too many risks or putting yourself in a bad position. However there are some notable difficulty spikes throughout. Playing a melee focused character; I often found ranged enemies a real nuisance to deal with. Surprisingly, some bosses were the easiest sections of the game. They are certainly intimidating when meeting them as they tower over you, but once you know their attack patterns, bringing them down can be as easy as painting by numbers.

The RPG elements of the game are incredibly deep. Behind all the combat is a whole set of statistics driving the numbers. Your character’s gear and personal stats determine all the damage numbers as well as defining what you can carry and wield. As you kill enemies, you gain souls to spend on levelling and gear improvements. If you die, these are dropped on the floor until you return to recover them. But if you die again, there gone forever! It’s heart-breaking every time you lose a large collection of souls. Thankfully you can recollect them from the respawned enemies if you need too. Each level up lets you improve a key attribute by one point. Again there’s little explanation as to what each stat is for, so you may find consulting a guide necessary to make sure you build the character you want to play.

The design of the world is excellent. There’s plenty of variation in the areas and enemies you’ll find. Added to that is a whole load of secrets and additional zones to find. Although finding the all without a guide is practically impossible. I’ve had to refer to a guide more than once to work out where to take my next steps which is a bit frustrating. There must be a law against sign posts in the land of the undead.

The world is also inhabited by some friendly faces. There are other NPCs who have suffered the same fate as you. As you bump into them, you can affect the outcome of their journey and ultimately yours as well. The characters that drive the story do have a horrible habit of talking in a silly ye-oldé-english style, with random-eth, words-eth, inappropriately elongated-eth. Thankfully the dialogue for everyone else is very well written; conveying friendly personalities that are slowly being driven insane by the world as they lose the last remnants of their humanity.   

There’s plenty of player interaction as well. You can find items that allow you to leave behind messages for fellow players. I found a couple of hidden treasures behind fake walls thanks to friendly players. You can also consume Humanity to reverse your undead status. This allows you to engage in player versus player battles; either by invading the world of another player or being invaded yourself. My experience with PVP has been somewhat brief as I found it absolutely terrifying as a new player. It’s entirely possible to avoid PVP, but in a way I do feel that I have missed out.

The Prepare to Die Edition comes with DLC that adds some new zones and items to the game. It’s the only version available on PC following a fan petition for a PC port. Sadly Namco Bandai only allowed the developer to do an absolute bare bones port. To run the game in the correct resolution you’ll need to mess around with mods first, but it’s not necessary. The game still looks good and runs well. The only problem is that you have to put up with Games for Windows Live, which is like putting a five year old in charge of your game save. If the GFWL service is down or your internet connection is a bit unreliable, you’ll spend ten minutes arguing with it before you start playing. Also, you will need a controller to play this as the key bindings are terrible.

That being said, don’t let it put you off Dark Souls (or simply pick it up console). This is one of the most satisfying games I’ve played. Mastering the difficulty curve takes some doing and the game does need to do a much better job of explaining itself, but it’s incredibly compelling. I’ve thrown the controller down in frustration when dying again and again, only to come back later because I know the last death was my own fault. Each boss downed gives you a sweet moment of victory, and then somewhere knew to explore and adventure in. I’m over forty hours in, with plenty more I want do before I tackle the final boss. If only I had the time for another character or new game plus.

Torchlight 2 Review

Runic games are often viewed as the darling developer of ARPGs. The studio was founded from former Blizzard North staff, who practically defined the genre with Diablo and Diablo 2. Torchlight 2 is Runic’s second release; aimed to go head-to-head with Diablo 3, the beast that they helped create and got special thanks for in the credits.

And there is no way of reviewing this game without constantly comparing it to Diablo 3. Each game represents a different design philosophy and yet also fighting to attract the same customers. That being said, it’s important to judge Torchlight 2 on the improvements made over the first title as well.

If you’ve played Torchlight or Diablo, you’ll immediately find a lot of similarities here; too many similarities. I’m beginning to think the Runic staff got stuck in the year 2000, as Torchlight 2 clings to a lot of awkward mechanics which really should have been dropped by now. The actual design improvements could be compared to the small iterative changes between Call of Duty titles.

So what should they have axed by now? Well, the way skills and the mana bar interact really needs some improvement. It’s a basic system that dates back to the first Diablo. You earn your skill points and then invest them in abilities to spam to your heart’s content. This leads to one very large problem. You can beat the game with a starting skill of your choice and almost nothing will force you to change. The difficulty setting only served the purpose of being a frustration slider.

And it’s a shame they haven’t moved on from this idea. The skill tree itself has had a great revamp from the first game. In fact it’s not really a tree anymore. You’re allowed to choose from all the skills available when you reach the required level. But the only reason to use the variety being offered is to mix up your gameplay. Passive skills have also had a much needed rework. Instead of being flat percentage bonuses like the first game, they now provide more random or situational bonuses that open up new play-styles when combined with other skills.

However you are still shackled by the old idea of once you’ve made a skill choice, you have to stick with it. If you picked a skill you don’t like with that skill point you just earned; well tough! Runic did make a small concession to this idea with a new NPC. For a pricey amount of gold, you can undo your last three choices, but only the last three! It still baffles me as to why you are still so limited?

The way skills are handled is one of the areas that Diablo 3 really outshines Torchlight 2. Blizzard brought a lot of new ideas to the table which improved the standard gameplay of the genre. Having access to a full set of skills that interact with each other through a character’s resource mechanic added a much needed layer of strategy; especially when it came to boss battles and harder difficulty settings. Also, being able to change decisions and redesign characters opens up a lot of gameplay possibilities and therefore, a great deal more entertainment.

And gameplay is key to ARPG titles. You’ll be spending hours fighting the same enemies or replaying areas on new characters. Skill system issues aside, Torchlight 2 does deliver on this front. It provides are great mix of battling through swarms of enemies to dealing with tougher elite packs.

Spells and physical attacks are given a good feeling of heft and impact through well thought out animations and sound effects. There are a number of options to customise the controls and HUD to your liking so that you’re only presented with the information you want. Spending some time with the options will help you quickly sift your way through the piles of loot you’ll acquire.

The world of Torchlight is expanded only enormously with a range of new environments and locations to explore though. Diablo 3 received a lot of criticism for having a large amount of linear and fixed areas. Torchlight 2 has gone firmly in the opposite direction with plenty of large randomised areas populated with side quests and bonus dungeons to explore.

Surprisingly, the story is probably the weakest element of the game. Considering how low the bar was set by Diablo 3, Runic still managed to limbo under it. The story can be summarised as follows. Bad guy from previous game returns and runs off to cause havoc. Now you must fight your way to him to stop his evil plans, because he’s evil! To get there, you must complete a set of arbitrary quests for random people presented to you in thrilling text boxes! It wasn’t long before I stopped caring about the story and just followed the waypoints on the map. Story has never really been a strong point of ARPGs, but it would be nice to have a plot that makes your actions and adventure more meaningful.

To draw to a conclusion in comparing Diablo 3 and Torchlight 2; I have to say that Diablo 3 takes the award for best gameplay. As I said in my review, it has a core nugget of great gameplay surrounded by crap always online systems. And this is where Torchlight 2 really shines. Instead of forcing always online play for a number of silly reasons, it provides a full choice of offline single player, LAN and online multiplayer.

Runic also designed the game to allow for modding and are actively trying to encourage it as they know what a great asset a modding scene for your game can be. There’s already a massive of selection of mods that have been made for the game. I even found one that allows you to completely redo your skill choices, although that doesn’t mean I’ll let Runic off the hook.

Torchlight 2 also has a number of extra features over Diablo 3 such as character appearance customisation and a pet companion who’ll faithfully blast opponents with any spells you teach it. And your pet can make all your shopping trips for you, although realistically it means you’re simply interacting with your pet’s inventory instead of a shop keeper’s.

Another advantage for Torchlight 2 is price. As a budget title, you should be able to pick it up on the cheap and get a lot of entertainment for you money, whereas Diablo 3 seems to be holding its value better than solid gold bars nearly a year after release. It’s difficult to recommend one over the other as Diablo 3’s always online requirement will be an instant no for many people. If I was forced to choose, I would still pick Diablo 3. But if I hadn’t spent as much time as I already have with the genre, I would pick Torchlight 2. It gives a full ARPG experience for a fraction of the price, so if you don’t enjoy it, you won’t be left with buyer’s remorse.

Jet Set Radio HD

Picking up Jet Set Radio HD, I was looking forward to having some retro gaming fun, albeit through some rose-tinted glasses. Thirty minutes of play later and I was putting the glasses back in the case. It has held up remarkably well against the test of time, partly due to being one of the first games to pioneer cel-shaded graphics. Anyone who hasn’t heard of the game before probably wouldn’t guess it was originally released all the way back in 2000.

The game starts with Professor K, DJ for the pirate station, Jet Set Radio introducing the world of Tokyo-to. A city that is on no known maps; its districts are fought over by rival gangs spraying tags on their territory. You play as one of the GGs members, a gang who was minding their own business until the turf war arrived on their doorstep. You grab your spray cans to reclaim your home, but quickly find yourself getting drawn into something much bigger.

The gameplay is an interesting fusion of ideas. All the characters get around using in-line skates, jumping, grinding rails, performing tricks and boosting their way around the levels. The way characters controlled and moved had many similarities to Tony Hawks Pro Skater which was only released in the previous year.

On top of the skating sits a challenged based high score element. Dotted around each stage are several red arrows. Each is a point that needs tagging to complete the level. You need to collect enough spray cans spread around the area to paint each tag. When you roll up and start spraying, the camera pans out to show off your work as you limber up for some thumb gymnastics. Each tag is completed with a number of different stick movements and rotations displayed by a group of arrows on the UI. Get your moves wrong and you’ll miss out on a chunk of bonus points.

Of course it’s not that simple. It doesn’t take too long for the cops to show up, led by the insane Captain Onishima, who’ll stop at nothing to arrest the pesky kids making a mess of the city. Each stage starts off with you being pursued by a group of incompetent coppers that you can rings around. However, as you spray more of the city, reinforcements are called in. Things quickly escalate and you find yourself being pursued by tanks and attack helicopters. They really want to keep the city clean! Each enemy will disrupt your spraying if they catch up to you. Get hit too much, or run out of time and it’s all over.

The game has two different tutorials to introduce the various mechanics and ways you can move around the city. There is a lengthy version that can be selected from the game menu, and will run through everything you need to know. Although its directions and explanations are quite lacking, you can easily get stuck when it asks you to move to another area because you won’t know where it is. The second type of tutorial is an in-game follow the leader challenge. These all come in the form of new characters who’ll join your gang, but only if you can copy their moves. Some are compulsory for plot reasons, which can be a bit frustrating as the game only shows you what you need to do without explaining the button presses needed.

New characters pop-up all the way through the story, right up until the last area. It’s a bit odd, as you don’t get much time to use these characters in the story mode. However, once an area of the city is completed, you open up free roaming and score attack modes. These add some extra life to the game as the story is fairly short. I blasted through it in around four hours, although that was with previous knowledge of the game. For someone new to the game, it could last a good six hours.

The only other complaint I can level at the game is that your momentum can be lost too easily. Grinding and jumping around the levels is great fun, but some objects are larger than they appear, leading to you accidentally clipping them and breaking your flow. Grinding can be frustrating at times as again, momentum is important. Jump onto a rail without enough speed and you can find yourself stuck until you finally slide of the other end, as it’s incredibly difficult to jump off without landing back on the same rail.

A defining feature of Jet Set Radio is its soundtrack. It’s a whole variety of genres and styles brought together, and they all fit into this crazy world. It puts the finishing touch on the game’s unique style. At the time, it introduced me to a lot music I wouldn’t have normally listened too, or even known existed.

The HD lick of paint brings the game up to modern standards, although the textures for the characters are still low-res when seen up close in cut scenes. The PC port runs very smoothly, although there was a few graphically glitches. A couple of textures on some levels had to flicker into life. These are very minor problems though. Jet Set Radio is worth a look if you haven’t played it before.