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.

Planetside 2: Second Wave

My first impression was written very shortly after release, which puts a slight positive spin on my perception of the game as everything is new. The real test of any MMO is longevity. Can it keep you coming back for more? This year I’ve already been slightly disappointed by Guild Wars 2. It was defiantly the biggest MMO release of the year, yet after a month’s play, I found very little to keep me playing.

So what does Planetside 2 have to offer to hold your attention? In terms of game mechanics, the certification system presents the standard Skinner box found in every multiplayer FPS these days. You put your time in, and get your new guns and upgrades out. Despite being an entirely obvious and transparent system, it still provides little moments of pure satisfaction when you unlock each item.

Beyond that mechanics are fairly standard fair. The vehicles and different classes provide the means for you to mix up your play. Either trying something new or enabling different strategies. Some of my favourite moments have come from swapping class in the thick of battle. If I’m moving to assault a watch tower, I always swap to Light Assault. Being able to jetpack between floors often allows you to flank opponents, like an Eagle swooping in on scurrying prey.

The core gameplay has held up well through a few minor balance tweaks. Each faction has its own distinct approach to weapon design, so it’s important to do your research into the weapon handling before you invest to heavily into a character. Regrettably researching weapons is also advised before spending any certifications. You can free trail weapons, but for only thirty minutes and without any weapon modifications. So you can only get a brief taste before buying.

Sony has shown that they’re happy to throw out a lot of deals for paying customers. In the run up to Christmas there was a series of daily deals that saw fifteen per cent off all items, and the option to buy triple in-game currency.  There have been some pay-to-win accusations thrown around on the game forums. However, having spent the time and effort to unlock and trail different weapons; the choices available are side-grades. The real problem is the few underwhelming weapons that can be bought. Those few items often specialise too much in particular area such as close quarters, and then barely outperform the well-rounded options. This leaves players with buyer’s remorse until Sony gets round to doing a much needed rework.

At the moment, the longevity of Planetside 2 comes from only a couple of different sources. If you’re the sort of player who enjoys the standard multiplayer FPS gameplay, there’s plenty here to keep you going. The certification system is extensive, so there’s always something to work towards. The second reason to keep playing is getting involved in the community. Joining up with an Outfit provides great structure to the game. Co-operating with like-minded people to achieve dominance over the continents is a challenging goal. Although currently there is little reward for doing so, only a minor discount on acquiring particular resources such as vehicles and grenades.

The ‘meta-game’ is set to receive much needed expansion in the future as Sony has hinted at what’s on the drawing board. Possibilities we might see include extra continents, naval combat, a fourth AI faction and low-orbiting carriers acting as mobile bases. Whether or not this all makes it into the game, it shows there are more ideas to come.

For the time being, Planetside 2 still has the ability to stand out. However, as time goes on Sony may need to look at ways of making the game more accessible to new players. It’s hard to bridge the experience gap to veteran players. But the in-game information on territory control and its importance is still lacking. Also there’s a big difference between a player wielding a weapon of choice with a twenty five per cent health bonus, and someone new clutching a stock carbine.

Planetside 2: First Impressions

It’s landed with quite an impact. Plenty of people have turned out for Sony Online Entertainment’s (SOE) revival of its unique franchise, Planetside. Remarkably there have been no real attempts since the original to deliver multiplayer combat on a massive scale. Planetside 2 dwarfs rivals such as DICE’s Battlefield series. Thousands of players battle each other to take control of the planet Auraxis which is split over three huge continent maps.

The launch has had a few bumpy moments, leading to some quick server down time and quick patching. But for the most part, the game has done a good job of getting players straight into the action; giving them a real taste of the gameplay right from the start. Once you’re online; you pick from a choice of the three factions, character gender, name and face. Not a great deal of customisation, but for the most part you’ll rarely see an opponent’s face behind their helmet. The majority of the customisation comes from cosmetic items purchasable through the in-game shop.

As soon as you hit go, you’re given a brief introduction into your faction and the planet being fought over. After that you’re promptly deployed in a drop pod into the heart of a ground battle. I ended up in a close quarters scrap, defending a tech plant from an assault by the Vanu Sovereignty. Having played the beta, I was able to get my bearings pretty quickly and jump into the thick of the fighting. But for a new player; it will be a little overwhelming as none of the mechanics are explained, and there’s no tutorial to get you up to speed either.

This was my biggest criticism of the beta and SOE have done little to fix it. The first time you enter some of the menu screens, you get a pop-up to explain its purpose. But beyond that there’s no explanation of anything. Want to know how to capture that base? How to acquire vehicles? Customise your loadouts? Well you best find an explanation on the internet. There are some very useful video tutorials produced by SOE which are linked to on the game’s launcher. But why isn’t there an in-game wiki or help function? Providing an easy way for new players to get answers would build on the great first impression made by the initial drop into combat.

Most importantly, the game design leads to the natural formation of large scale conflicts between players. This is a big plus for the game. Seeing armoured columns roll out to the nearest battle is a sight to behold.  Objectives are clearly marked on the map, allowing you to set both squad and personal waypoints to advance too. The map also highlights areas of activity and allows you to redeploy reach the front lines faster.

When in range of a base, the current capture situation is displayed above your mini-map. Points are fought over in a tug of war style. Holding key objectives and killing opponents will increase your team’s score towards victory. However in some of the large scale facilities, this system can feel slow. Especially when your opponents are stuck in their spawn point with no chance of repelling you.

Spawning is generally well handled throughout the game. On the deployment screen you’re given an overview of the map with a current list of held locations and what vehicles can be obtained there. Added to this list will be any deployed Sunderers and squad spawn beacons. These are activated by players to create forward bases. Allowing teammates to quickly spawn nearby and support the offensive; rather than having to travel several hundred metres from the closest base.

To try and prevent any spawn camping. Which is always the most infuriating tactic in any multiplayer FPS; team colour coded shields cover the entrances of any base spawn point. This allows defenders to freely fire at any attacking force, without the risk of being killed as soon as they appear. This would be incredibly imbalanced, but clever placement of these areas means defenders still have to leave the sanctuary of the spawn point to achieve anything useful. As soon as the base falls, the ownership of any spawn points changes. This will slowly kill off any stubborn defenders who refuse to die like men and allow attackers entry to gun them down.

The gunplay is well done and up to the standard of any current FPS. There’s a wide selection of gun unlocks for all classes and vehicles. Each provides a unique feel though the combination of recoil, damage and ammunition capacity. Successful hits are displayed through the crosshairs flashing red; which hits a nice balance by being simple and unobtrusive, whilst providing satisfying feedback. There are plenty of additions to attach to every weapon to tweak its performance. However it will take a long time to customise any weapon with all the available options.

All unlocks are obtained through the certification system. Simply get two hundred and fifty experience points to earn one certification point. Everything costs a certain amount, but the order of unlocks is entirely your decision. No horrible, set linear progression system which has been the staple of many FPS recently. You can play however you want to earn experience, and then invest your hard earned points how you want.

Sadly this freedom of choice is let down by how the free-to-play economy is set up. Many useful weapons such as lock-on missile launchers cost a lot of certification points; representing a significant time investment. You can certainly have a good time with the default equipment, but unlocking one new weapon can feel like quite a grind.

Now obviously the time investment has to be fairly steep. SOE would like to make some money and they have to encourage players to get out their wallets somehow. So far developers like Riot have led the way by showing how popular purely aesthetic items are to the consumer. And SOE have followed this format somewhat. There’s already an excellent selection of helmets, body armours and camouflage patterns to buy. These will no doubt make a fair bit of money; nevertheless weapons are purchasable and at incredibly steep cash prices. At the moment, the combination of pricing structure and the default equipment comes across as a bit greedy.

So will Planetside 2 expand its player base and thrive in the free-to-play market? Almost certainly, as it offers an FPS experience like no other. Being part of the fight in Planetside is simply epic, both in the scale of combat and how it’s presented. The sound design is excellent, it puts you into a war where explosions are thunderous and gunfire is everywhere. Graphically it will make your PC chug for middling quality. I’ve ended up playing with many settings on low to keep the framerate high. Especially during night fights where gunfire lights up the sky in spectacular displays.

If you want to jump into the action, the game client is available directly from the Planetside 2 website and through Steam. 

This Is The MMO You Were Looking For?

Free to play has finally reached the galaxy far, far away. Star Wars: The Old Republic (SW:TOR) will be changing its subscription model from November 15^th. It’s only taken a year for what was expected to be EA’s flagship MMO, to be forced into a new revenue stream. And the retro fit really doesn’t work.

But before diving into the negatives of the change, there’s a big plus for anyone who hasn’t already tried it. The story content is fully unlocked to all free players. You can enjoy all eight class story arcs; if you have the patience to work your way through the arbitrary levelling mechanics. MMORPGs are often panned for poor story telling. SW:TOR genuinely bucked that trend. The story telling and character interaction got me incredibly invested in my character. I felt like an individual despite being surrounded by hundreds of other players. This is mostly down to the heavy use of instancing in the game. It’s odd to see lots of green barriers everywhere, but it works.

The only downside to the single player experience is that the planet story arcs are only interesting the first time. They’re also necessary to level up your character to continue your own personal story. So if you’re interested in playing more than one Republic or Empire character, you’ll have to put up with repeating a lot of content.

So if the game has gone free to play, how can there be any negatives? Well if you’re playing for free, you’re going to have to put up with some annoying travel handicaps. Sprint is a skill that can only be used by paying players to run faster. It’s really useful at low level for getting around. At the game’s launch, many players complained that it wasn’t unlocked at level one as it is now. Also, your quick travel uses will be limited. So you’ll need to get used public space transport.

Various other game elements have limited access for free players, or are entirely blocked. Most notable is the limitation on operations. Operations are SW:TOR’s  raid content, large dungeons pitting eight or sixteen players against the greatest threats to the galaxy. Like the rest of the game, operations are story driven and are good fun for a group of players. However as a free player, there’s no way to sample this content. You have to pay up front for something you might not enjoy.

This is just one element that will divide the player base. The idea of a free to play model is to let players sample content. Thus encouraging them spend money on accessing or getting more from the game for their time. But who will want to spend money on an unknown?

Ultimately, retro-fitting a free to play model to a subscription based game wasn’t going to be perfect.  It’s not surprising that a free player is treated like a second class citizen. But the smart choice would be to offer subscribers new benefits. There’s little reason to hang around once you’ve had your fill of the story. The endgame PvP and PvE isn’t as other MMOs. And with the imminent release of Planetside 2; and Guild Wars 2 offering a better experience overall. SW:TOR will need to carve out a fan base to survive in the market.

A full list of free to play limitations can be found here on the official website.

Planetside 2 Preview

Finally, the return of Planetside is almost here with a launch date set for late November. Since the original, MMOs have almost exclusively been RPGs. But now Sony Online Entertainment (SoE) has revived Planetside on an even greater scale and with a free to play model.

It was easy to miss the first the game, which was somewhat ahead of its time when MMOs were still niche. The technology back then could only handle a few hundred players on the same server. Now the battle for Auraxis has been expanded to thousands of players per server, each fighting for one of three factions.

The Terran Republic is the official government of Auraxis, providing law and order, but labelled a dictatorship by their opponents. The rebels known as the New Conglomerate are a rag-tag bunch of fighters with backing of industrial giants. And the Vanu Sovereignty who don’t care for the politics of Auraxis, but instead are focused on finding and utilising the alien artefacts scattered across the planet.

Currently the Beta is still expanding to include all the elements of the final release. At present the majority of the game assets are available to use. With almost all classes, weapons and unlocks being used in the Beta war.

Most importantly the FPS gameplay is solid. Each of the weapons has its own feel that comes from the various elements that define it, such as damage and recoil. The five classes have access to different primary weapons. Infiltrators utilise a deadly mix of a stealth suit and sniper rifles whereas the Heavy Assault carries a powerful light machine gun and anti-armour rocket launcher.

All classes have a personal shield which will regenerate out of combat. Any damage to your health bar has to be patched up by a friendly medic, or by spending resource on medi-packs. Going into battle with both filled makes you an incredibly tough target. Fire-fights are often won by the most accurate shooter as it can take whole clips to take out opponents. It adds a real sense of franticness and desperation to every encounter. Of course if you get flanked you’ll need good reactions to recover. 

Anyone who has played a Battlefield title will feel right at home. Vehicles are the lifeblood of any offensive action. There are several land and air vehicles accessible to each faction, with core vehicles shared between them. Battles are often won with the simple Sunderer. An armoured personnel carrier with two turrets; it has neither the punch nor speed of other vehicles. But it acts as a spawn point for all players who are part of your group, as well as letting you resupply ammunition and swap class. They are the linchpin of any assault; their value usually means they are parked in dense cover to protect them while troops pour out.

When battles get underway, they quickly reach an epic scale as the map alerts all players to the conflict. You soon find yourself fighting amongst armies over key objectives.  In one session, I found myself swept up in a two hour battle for a bridge linking facilities. We were outgunned by the tanks on their side, with no tanks of our own to return fire. Instead we brought a lot of Heavy Assault, running between the large support struts that provided cover. The bridge quickly became an alley full of rockets, their engineers unable to cope with the incoming fire. Sadly we were still outnumbered and unable to push forward off the bridge.

The stalemate was broken by a change in the enemy tactics.  Suddenly our forward squads were being picked off in cover. Their Infiltrators had stealthed in behind our positions while Light Assault troops had jet packed on top of the structure, reigning down fire from their vantage point. It wasn’t long before our position was broken. We were pushed back to our spawn point, and their armoured superiority meant it was only a matter of time before the facility fell. Having lost the battle, it was clear that Planetside 2 was going to distinguish itself in the FPS market. Not only because of its scale, but the fact strategy plays an important role. Planning you actions and acting as a team is the key to victory.

So far I only have one complaint; however it’s a fairly big one. The game doesn’t explain itself. Currently there aren’t any tutorials, so working out how to play beyond point gun and pull trigger has meant searching the internet for answers. The most important part of the game is teaming up with others, which can be simply done by pressing ‘p’ to bring up the party menu. It’s simple and clearly labelled in the key bindings, but you’re unlikely to stumble across it by searching through the menu. Any new player will quickly have a long list of questions they need answers too.

There are a lot of menu screens with many options. All are very functional with little clutter, but your first half an hour will be best spent understanding them. Hopefully the final release will have tutorials included to explain the basics. If SoE want the game to be a success, they need to remove this large barrier to entry so new players can quickly get into battle.

Raiding, What’s it all About?

Raiding is the part of gaming I’ve been asked the most questions about. Usually it’s a very simple question, why do you do it? From the outside looking in, it’s a strange thing. Large groups of players, meeting a set time and place too battle through a dungeon. Sometimes spending an entire evening achieving nothing, just for it all to reset next week. What’s the appeal?

Well for all the time it consumes, it is the best co-op experience you can have in gaming. Taking on the most difficult content the game can throw at you, and beating it with a group of friends is epic.  Every player in the team has a role to play. Be it simply damaging the boss, or keeping its attention with taunts and taking the heavy blows. It all counts, but a few mistakes can lead to disaster. No individual can make a difference to success. You have to play as a team, sharing victory and defeat.

But surely you’re just fighting an AI, what’s so difficult about that? Well the best raiding content adds new game mechanics. This makes each boss fight feel unique whilst providing extra challenge. Using WoW as an example: I’ve flown dragons, driven steam powered siege vehicles, invaded volcanic lairs, battled on airships and list could go on. All whilst prodding ginormous bosses with a pointy stick, which by rights should just squash you. Each mechanic adds its own twist, which keeps the game feeling fresh and provides new challenges.

The best boss battles are designed around overlapping abilities. They are carefully controlled to avoid unfair scenarios. But the added element of randomness keeps you on your toes. Pushing your reactions to their limits; creating some tense gameplay that can last a good ten minutes or longer on big final bosses.

The only problem with raiding is the human element. No not the part where you sacrifice your evenings. Despite popular belief, MMOs are highly social games. Games are played by a wide variety of nationalities, and being on a European server lets you meet a large mixture of people. However raiding requires a large group of players on a regular basis, which creates a logistic nightmare. Some poor soul always has the task of managing spread sheets. Keeping track of who’s done what, when people are available, and most importantly who gets the shiny loot.

And it’s not easy. You’d think a group of adults could all play a game together, but make one error and you have a world of drama. The simple act of handing out loot from a boss can spark a silly disagreement. Watching grown men argue over an entirely fictional object is embarrassing.  But the lure of the best gear in the game is part of the hook of raiding.

If you can spare the time for raiding it provides incredible and memorable moments. Finding the right group of people to play with is important. In doing so you can find yourself making some enduring friendships, but only if you can afford the time. It would be interesting to see large scale PvE content in games outside of MMOs. Not an easy design concept to translate to other games. At the moment it looks like raiding will only existing as long as MMORPGs are popular, which is a shame. 

MMOs Level Up? GW2 Part 2

It’s good to see GW2 is selling well. Innovation often takes second place to iteration in AAA development. GW2 has finally broken through that barrier which has been a problem for many MMOs that have struggled to take off.

So what’s different with GW2? Well there’s a series of changes too what was the ‘standard formula’. Let’s start with the classes. Usually you pick your class, get abilities as you level up and equip a weapon, which doubles as your stats stick to beat your opponent over the head with.

GW2 changes where you acquire skills. No longer do you have find and pay a training guru to learn wax on, wax off. Instead your first five skills are determined by you weapon choice. Picking up a hefty greatsword on a Warrior grants a series of deadly AoE slicing skills. But swap to a gun and now you have a set of skills to cripple your opponent’s defences and finish them with deadly volleys. Also the same weapons are used differently by each class, which adds great flavour to the game. A Memser using a greatsword gains a series of spectacular ranged attacks. Blasting opponents with bright purple laser beams and driving spikes of energy through the ground.

To round off your action bar, you have a choice of slot skills. You start with a basic healing skill and unlock further slots on your way to level thirty. You earn skill points from levelling and events in the world. This allows you to spend them in your character sheet to gain new abilities unique to your class.

And on top of that customisation sits the traits system. This functions in a similar way to traditional talent trees. You put points in to unlock bonus passive skills and stats. Combining these three mechanics together allows for some great character customisation. Because of the variety of choice for each class, you can build any profession to fill any role. From a tough spell caster to a support based heavy armour weary.

There’s plenty of choice in how you want to enjoy the levelling experience. Previous MMOs have had a very set path. Player’s rarely had any choice in where to go or what to do. Having more than one zone to explore has often been a luxury, but not anymore. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by just how little of the world I’ve seen. Having hit max level on my fist character, the stats tell me I’ve only seen a little over forty per cent. That’s astonishing. There are still whole areas untouched and the main story line to complete.

And there was always World vs World or structured PvP just a button press away if I felt like it. In fact if balanced PvP is your thing, you don’t even have to level. You can just jump in at max level with good gear and have a real skill based fight.

The combat gameplay is also a step up. Certain skills can be used simultaneously, or have their effects combined to create powerful combos. This allows players to create great synergies between the different professions. Most skills have a reasonable recharge time, which moves away from the usual play of spamming the best ability, limited only by a particular resource.  Now you no longer feel penalised for using utility skills. Instead they become part of your standard play as you can only benefit from using them.

Also, the combat is a lot more manoeuvrable as most skills can be used on the move. It does require some trial and error to work it out though as it’s not clear which can or can’t. You also have the ability to dodge. Above your health pool is a recharging energy bar. When full you can dodge twice to avoid all incoming damage. In the early levels you often forget you have it, but bump into an elite enemy and you’ll need it! These can hit players with nasty attacks which are best avoided if you want to live more than a few seconds.

However if the worst happens, you’re not out of the fight yet. Instead of dying, you get an opportunity to rally. You’re reduced to four abilities based on your profession. If you manage to kill any enemy you rally; wounded but able to carry on. Allies can also help get you back on your feet, and you can rally by healing yourself if enemies leave you alone.

It’s not all positive changes though, some ideas don’t quite work. Crafting is one example. You can pick two different crafting skills and you can gather all crafting materials. You can swap crafting skills without losing all your hard earned progress. But you’ll find it almost impossible to level one of them all the way without some farming, or spending money on the trading network. This is a bit of a shame since ArenaNet have done such a good job of removing the grind from other areas. I’m not saying it should become easy. But until you work out the mechanics, it can be frustrating; constantly running out of materials for little progress. 

That being said, a lot of convenience has been added by allowing you to access your bank and a crafting materials bank, directly from any crafting station. You can also send crafting materials directly from you inventory to the bank with two clicks. This saves a lot of pointless running around.

If GW2 is lacking anything, it would be raiding and more objectives for structured PvP. Currently the PvP maps are all based around holding control points. There really needs to be more variety in game modes to improve replay-ability. Raiding is more of an odd omission. Technically there is lots of large group PvE content that occurs through the games Dynamic Events. But these tend to be single boss fights and not too challenging if plenty of players are around. They do scale, but they are slightly simplistic in design so you can work out tactics without reading a guide. Large scale organised PvE like raiding is fun because of the high skill challenge it can provide for a group of players. All things considered, GW2 has moved the genre forwards and it’s well worth the price. Hopefully ArenaNet will continue this high level of quality in future expansions.

MMOs: The State of Play

You could be forgiven for thinking that 2012 is the year of the MMO, they’re everywhere! With Guild Wars 2 dominating the headlines and reviews, what’s the rest of the competition up to?

Well I’m going to cheat to bring up Diablo 3’s recent patch (Blizzard think’s it’s an MMO). I was fairly critical of the difficulty in my review. There was a clear lack of balance in the difficulty of elite enemies and bosses. To counter the problem Blizzard made a range of changes, tweaking numbers across the board.

Abilities were buffed and enemies nerfed to create a massively improved difficulty curve. I’m still slogging my way through Inferno, but it has become a lot more fun to play. It feels like a challenge again rather than a test of my patience. I still wish they would add an option to start on higher difficulties. As much as I want to play the other classes, I can’t bring myself to play through hours and hours of gameplay that is unlikely to kill me once.

To spice up the endgame content, Paragon levels have been added as well as buffs to legendary items. Paragon levels allow your character to continue gaining power. Each one grants a stats boost and gives you a little extra gold and magic find to help you find the best gear. It keeps the levelling treadmill ticking over. Each one requires a massive amount of experience and there’s a hundred of them! Only a madman or someone who farms items for a living (oh yes they exist) will ever hit the maximum level.

Legendary items have been tweaked to include bonus effects, such as on hit bonuses and special effects to make them stand out. Adding up all the changes does move Diablo 3 towards being a great game. It’s this level of care and attention to their game’s post release, which has earned Blizzard the reputation they have.

But in a galaxy far, far away, things are not looking good. Everyone had predicted The Old Republic’s inevitable slide into a free-to-play model, but it happened a lot sooner than expected. Bioware’s studio that developed the game has shrunk drastically, which is always a shame.

The new system is built around cartel coins that can be earned through play, or bought through the standard subscription. Now almost all aspects of the game have limited access for free, with the option to spend cartel coins for full access. Oddly, the operations are limited to subscribers only, blocking free players from sampling some great content, and potentially paying for more. However the best part of the game is entirely free. The levelling in SW:ToR is easily the best story content in any MMO. Bioware is clearly hoping to use this to draw new players into the game and get them spending money in other areas.

In the world of MMORPGs, WoW and Rift have decided to jump in the same boat. Their new expansions aren’t far from release with all the standard content we have come to expect. More character levels, new dungeons, raids and story. But surprisingly, the granddad of the genre Everquest is about to get its nineteenth expansion. It goes to shows what happens when a game carves out a dedicated fan-base.

And finally, Sony Online Entertainment has let slip the news that Planetside 2 will be released before Christmas. It was announced as part of the ‘Alpha Squad’ package which acts as a sort of pre-purchase. The game will be free-to-play, but the package will grant beta access with in game items and a chunk of Sony’s online games currency on full release. The market has been dominated by MMORPGs for such a long time; it’s exciting to see the return of MMOFPS. The alpha and beta footage released so far has looked fantastic. So fingers crossed for an excellent end to the year.

MMOs Level up? Guild Wars 2

Finally Guild Wars 2 hits release after years of build-up, prophesising the second coming of MMOs. And it’s the first MMO that has hit the ground running. Usually there would be servers going up and down like yo-yos, but GW2 has had a very smooth launch. However the auction house servers are still having trouble, to the annoyance of budding entrepreneurs.

ArenaNet unveiled GW2 with many ambitious promises and a clear goal of setting a new standard for MMOs. So how have they done with revamping the levelling experience? The formula so far has presented players with a very linear experience, following a bread-crumb trail of quest givers. Collecting bear flanks from every one in ten bears that was lucky enough to be born with buttocks.

In GW2 quests are swapped for events that cover the map. You can usually stroll out of one event straight into another. It’s fair to say that the standard events haven’t made any great improvement on traditional quests. Most involve killing the hostile NPCs plaguing the area and recovering objects to hand in. Thankfully they have entirely removed any randomness. Doing any action listed for the event increases your contribution, and each event provides a couple of ways to progress.

Dynamic events are the real spice in the questing experience. Randomly appearing around the map, you are alerted to any that are nearby. They are often escort missions or large scale fights against a mini-boss, but they always inject action into the area. In Queensdale, the human starting area, a group of bandits rallied to raid a local farm. But as the battle got into full swing, a cave troll burst onto the scene. Chaos erupted as a three way battle broke out. Players had to utilise all their skills, helping fallen comrades and watching their step, or else they would fall into the clutches of bandit reinforcements.

A third part to questing is your character’s personal story. During character creation you are presented with a series of backstory choices. These vary between your chosen race and profession, but together build into an interesting profile. Quests for you story are dotted throughout your levelling experience. You always have the next part highlighted on your map, and the journal details your past chapters. All stories do the classic trick of pretending you are the chosen one, whilst you’re surrounded by thousands of other ‘chosen’ players. But it’s a sensible choice as it introduces you to the main characters of the GW2 lore, and what is happening within the world of Kryta.

I’ve found the early story to be standard fair for a fantasy game, however that all changed around level thirty. I was introduced to new factions in the story and presented with real choices to make. At this point the writing definitely improved. I started going on missions with a Charr named Tybalt who is a genuinely funny character. One part of my story involved him being disguised as the daughter of a powerful politician. Ridiculousness ensued as he adjusted to his new form, and did his best to disguise his deep growly voice as pirate captains tried their best pick-up lines. The writing still doesn’t match that of Star Wars: The Old Republic, but it’s ahead of the rest of the field.

These aren’t the only options for gaining experience. PvP is available right from the start in both balanced arenas and the open World vs World. The WvW content does have the problem of being unbalanced for new characters. Your base stats are boosted to max level, but you will be lacking the gear required to take part. I found myself struggling with wildlife as a level ten Elementalist, however when I merged into a large group, I was able to support my teammates and actually take part.

Exploration of the world has been expanded on since the beta. Dotted around the vistas of each zone are viewpoints. These provide the challenge of scaling tricky scenery and finding hidden paths. When you reach them, you are rewarded with a good chunk of experience points and a quick cinematic camera pan that shows off the scenery in the area.  Experience is also handed out for reaching waypoints and points of interest, further encouraging players to explore every inch of the landscape.

Crafting also gives experience bonuses every time you reach a new rank. This is easily the most difficult way to level up due to the rarity of materials. However this didn’t stop a determined group of players using it to claim the title for the first max level character.

It would be fair to say that GW2 hasn’t massively improved the levelling experience. Instead it has iterated on previous ideas and done an excellent job of bringing them all together. The variety available has kept me interested in what I’m doing, avoiding the feeling of grinding for levels. But as the majority of players are still on the levelling curve, it remains to be seen if the endgame content will match up to it’s peers.

Large Drop in Star Wars Subs

For the past couple of months many players have been predicting a large drop in subscriptions for SW:TOR. EA revealed in their fiscal earnings call that the game has lost 400,000 subscriptions since March and is now down to a total of 1.3 million subs, despite recent press releases claiming otherwise.

Of course this is of no surprise to anyone, releasing a very traditional MMO experience with a subscription model was always going to be a tough sell, even with the Star Wars intellectual property. The real question now is whether the game will be able to hold onto its player base or if a switch to free-to-play will occur in the future.

At the moment, by the goals EA set themselves the game is still very profitable, however they are not far from the 500,000 subscription mark that they claimed they would require to keep the game running profitably. The game is good fun to play, but it seems many gamers are beginning to question the value for money of a subscription based game.

Exploration in Guild Wars 2

To kick off the blog, I decided to start by taking a look at how Guild Wars 2 is adding new game mechanics to improve exploration in MMOs, based on what is available so far in the beta. The biggest change from previous MMOs I've played is the game map and area loading screens. They are filled with progress information clearly showing you how many points of interest you have discovered in that area.

Gotta find it all!

The various dynamic events, skill point challenges, waypoints and points of interest are well spread out across each zone, encouraging the player to go exploring across the map. The rewards for exploring are quite significant and, while questing in the starting area, it is quite important to complete all the dynamic events to keep up with the levelling curve.

To begin with your character has no map information, but a quick chat with scout npcs dotted around the map will helpfully add markers to your map. They also reveal the location of further scouts so you can keep expanding your map marker information. Importantly the they don't reveal the map terrain so that you sense of exploration isn't taken away from you.

This system does have a downside. The dynamic events marked on the map aren't that thrilling. They are usually made up of the sort of quest that you will have done a million times already. The game incentivises completing them with good experience rewards and further experience from the various achievements.

It doesn't inform you of dynamic events that I had the most fun with, which were the ones that would spontaneously happen; such as being asked to defend a caravan or aiding friendly npcs to take down a boss enemy. I only came across these because they appear on you UI if you are close enough to the event. There are also secret areas to discover beyond the marked areas which is great, but you could easily go through the game without knowing they exist.

The world designers have realised the most important part of creating a world to explore, is to create interesting terrain and scenery for the player to discover. Most MMOs since World of Warcraft seemed to have missed this point to some degree or another. As an example, Star Wars The Old Republic had a lot of mediocre and poor planets to explore which were a real disappointment. They suffered from a lack of change in scenery, terrain (such as cliffs, valleys, water in general) and textures. What WoW did right was having clearly distinct areas within each zone so that you something fresh at regular intervals (although the original Barrens is an large exception to that statement).

Divinty's Reach is massive and you can explore it all! But will you want to?

Capital cities are good fun to explore and actually feel alive, without requiring players to fill them. Plenty of npcs fill up the various city districts with the ambient noise of their everyday hustle and bustle. The flip side is that like MMOs that have come before, a player probably won't have any reason to visit many areas beyond their storyline quests and crating / banking areas. This isn't a major problem (in GW2 or other MMOs) and the designers have certainly prioritised player convenience over trying to get players to fill out the cities; but it makes you wonder why they would put they effort they have into creating such grand areas.

Long journeys are thankfully no longer a 5 minute scenic tour of landscapes you have already spent hours questing in. The waypoint system allows you to quickly travel from where you are to any waypoint you have discovered for a small fee, or for free if you are travelling within city walls. This is absolutely brilliant! You can go off exploring to your hearts content and when you bags are full of random junk and crafting materials, you can jump to the nearest city and empty them on the nearest vendor who's a sucker for all the useless items you've found.

To sum up, GW2 has some excellent world design and opportunities for great exploring which are reasonably well incentivised.