What Would Matt Do

This is basically an update on Warhammer as it stands now…and it stands pretty damn good.

Lets not do this the wrong way though. It’s tradition to start with the bullshit then proceed to the goods and who am I to stand in the way of tradition. If I have a solution, or a way I think it might work better, I’ll just throw that in. Oh, and I might mix in some good things in the bad things and the other way around. Because I’m crazy like that.

So, the bullshit. It still takes as long or longer to get into then game than it does to make a sandwich. You have to log in, let it load, let it play fifty movies, select your character, potentially server, and maybe wait in a queue. Nothing new, just standard MMO crap.

Fix: Allow me to click a button next to my character which will put a shortcut on the desktop that goes directly to that character. It would ask me to login, accept the EULA, and that’s it. If I’m in the queue, it brings me directly to it, otherwise, the next time I have to click or do anything, it’s in game. Can someone give me a good reason this isn’t a standard in all MMOs right now?

The graphics are next on the list. Ok, the landscape and buildings and the like, pretty decent. Some of the stuff is actually pretty good looking (like the flaming windmill) and the view distance is great. I get a real feeling of being a huge landscape. That being said, the character model and details are filled with ass. Not horrible, nasty ass, but last generation, not pretty ass. Oh well. I know why they did it (to allow my characters in the same place with your system having a fit) and I approve. It’s a good call and a good compromise in my view. But the characters are still ugly for the most part.

My only other real complaint at this point is still very much an MMO. Yeah, that’s kind of an annoying complaint when playing an MMO, but here’s some things they could have worked on to make it better. First, don’t make run all over fuck to get quests done. Not don’t make run out the middle of no where. That’s a good thing. But then I have to run back to turn it in, then another quest sends me out a similar place and I have to run back again. You spend a lot of time running around in this game if playing PvE. Either design the quests better or give me a better transportation. Back and forth fedex/kill quests shouldn’t be a part of your game, MMO or not. Second, Public Quests. Awesome. Love them. When people are playing them. If you have a PQ that is more than 30 seconds walk from a hub/town, you almost assuredly won’t find it populated. I’ve found five or six public quests in the first Tier area (levels 1-11), but only one or two of them are ever populated for more than brief moments. Now, to be fair, this may change with second Tier areas, since it should be more populated, but we’ll see.

Fix: If you’re going to put in Public Quests all over the map, far away from population hubs, why not add add a one way transportation system to get their, or at the very least, a very easy way to see how many people are doing any quest at the moment? Get people to these quests so more people are doing them.

Really though, just nit picky stuff. Now on to the really good stuff. Class balance and PvP. If you haven’t played Warhammer yet, you don’t know that from either first or third level (depending upon your race and their starting area design…don’t ask me why) you can play in PvP. Depending upon your starting race, once again, you join one of two Battlegrounds and can fight there effectively from the very beginning. It’s a mess of fun. But here’s the trick and the other really great part of Warhammer. You’re going to have to be tactical in combat. If you get swarmed, run. If you see a Witch Hunter coming your way and you’re a cloth type of some sort, you should be really careful and maybe run. If you’re a tank type without a healer, don’t get swarmed, or you’ll get taken down.

See, that’s the absolute best part of WAR, the PvP and the way classes aren’t balanced 1 vs 1, but Order vs. Destruction (side vs. side). It’s great because wizards do massive damage, but fall relatively quick in melee combat if they aren’t well protected and firing from the back. As a matter of fact, if you’re a cloth type, you should be watching the sides and back a lot, because that’s the best way for melee DPS types to get you. Unless you’re a battle/rune priest. Then you can probably stand toe to toe with any one on one for awhile, but you may not out damage them.

To break it all down, WARis a lot of fun in PvP and not too bad in PvE. At least at Tier 1. I’ll get back to you when I’m firmly entrenched in Teir 2 and update again. So far, so good.

What Would Matt Do: I’d not only keep playing Warhammer, I’d talk about those cute little red bubbles on the map for PvE quests. Great idea. It means I don’t have to use another site to figure the quests out. Also I’d mention, healers aren’t boring to play in WAR. That’s pure awesome.

updated below

I don’t really have anything to rail against or complain about today, but a couple of things caught my interest.

First, I think I made the right call not playing Age of Conan:

Former Producer and Game Director Gaute Godager has chosen to resign from Funcom after working on Age of Conan since the initial conception, and he leaves the company after 16 years. Godager was one of the original founders of Funcom, and leaves a large legacy, having contributed to making Funcom the largest MMO company in Europe. “I have done my very best making this fabulous game, but I have concluded there are elements which I am dissatisfied with. I have decided to act on this, and as a result I have chosen to leave Funcom.

When your lead producer jumps ship this close to the release of an MMO you know you’ve got problems. Not to mention he, Guate Godager (what a name!), had been with the company 16 years before this and it got so bad with AoC he left the company over it. Funcom is probably not the most fun place to work at this point.

Second, it turns out Lum may be a whiner. I say we examine the facts to determine said grouser status.

Exhibit A:

Well, Warhammer Online makes you do it EVERY TIME YOU CONNECT.

Get knocked off the server for whatever reason? You get to read the EULA again!

Oh, and there’s two. A EULA *AND* a Code of Conduct. So the installing this game means you actually own my computer is in the first dialog, and the forbidding you to have children until you get realm rank 17 is in the second dialog. And you have to scroll down, then click accept *every time you log in*.

That IS really annoying…but lets hear the counter argument just to be fair.

Exhibit B:

The EULA/CoC should require you to hire legal representation to fully understand your rights. I am not kidding. The document is written for courts by lawyers and doesn’t contain much in terms for the layman. In documents such as that, a simple misuse of the word “the” can crumble the legitimacy of it. End users are not supposed to understand it – they are only supposed to sign off on it. Be thankful that you don’t have to check a box at the end of each line. Be thankful that you do not have to hire legal counsel to review it before agreeing to it – because eventually one of these big companies are going to lose a big law suit and then you will have to – or some other drastic, stupid measure. Take the 5 seconds, powerscroll down, click a check box, click accept, and go play.

The argument is…you have no idea what you’re clicking, so shut the fuck up and click it over and over, asshat. That is a compelling argument if you’re really dumb (check the name of the guys site).

I love it. Lum is a malcontent because Warhammer makes you do something completely unnecessary every single time you want to play the game. Beyond logging, checking for a patch, selecting a server (potentially) and selecting a character, you also have to dilly-fucking-dally with their stupid EULA…multiple times. God damn it Lum, why won’t you shush it already!

I could go over the entire diatribe that Chris F goes into, but it really breaks down to justifying stupid decisions. No other MMO requires it, no other MMO has to do it for legal reasons. And suggesting we should consider ourselves lucky because, "Be thankful that you do not have to hire legal counsel to review it before agreeing to it". Wow. Not WoW, Wow. That’s an incredibly ridiculous argument. But I hear Rove’s people are trying to reach Chris F for help with their facade of a campaign for McCain…oh, and how to best present the idiotic policies of the current administration.

Remember, friends, it’s all right to call a spade a spade. Even if you’re fanboi. As a matter of fact, it’s perfectly all right to call out dumb features AND to still like the game. Crazy.

What Would Matt Do: Well, first, I’d probably try to have some level headness about the whole thing. Then again, this is the internet and no one likes sane or rational around these parts.

P.S. – An honorable mention goes to lamethrower’s Bill and his late review of Mass Effect. It’s decently funny, but it has the best little graphic to describe the reality of ME’s conversation trees. And while that might be the truth of the matter, I think they did a pretty good job with the illusion of choice. Even if ME is just a SeXBOX game.

Update:

I may have touched on a button or two (see Update #2) with our good friend over at I Has PC. Other than the name of his site and his apparent tendency to jump overboard on things, I see no reason for us to get into a tif. Why can’t we all just get along?

Also, this is an awesome way to consider the extra clicks. Nice, Zubon.

I can’t say I agree with everything Lum, the Industry Luminary™, has posted here, but it’s a good read. I do agree completely with the subscription MMO model being broken, but I don’t know if I agree with the proposed solutions:

They encourage bad design. You gotta keep those people subscribed somehow. Hey, I know, let’s jack up the XP curve, no one will notice. Oh, they’re max level? Crap, put in some other time sink – hey, “reputations” sounds fun, let’s see if that works. Now, free to play games also suffer from all of these problems. Which is kind of funny, because in a free to play game, if you’re not part of the 5% or whatever of players that is monetized, you are costing the company money when you play. Ideally your play time should be minimized, not extended! But old habits are hard to break. Jonathan Blow (the Braid designer) put this best. When his comments on MMO design first came out I was quite pissed off at what he had to say – but in the main, he’s right. It’s probably why I was pissed.

“I think a lot of modern game design is actually unethical, especially massively multiplayer games like World of Warcraft, because they are predicated on player exploitation,” Mr Blow says.

He believes players will naturally avoid boring tasks but developers “override that by plugging into their pleasure centres and giving them scheduled rewards and we convince them to pay us money and waste their lives in front of our game in this exploitative fashion”.

It’s a vast oversimplification – but that doesn’t make it less correct an observation. And that is encouraged by the revenue stream of the slow and steady MMO gamer.

Go there, read the whole thing and the links. It’s very much worth it if you’re into MMO design talk and the future of them at all.

What Would Matt Do: Didn’t I already say you should read it?

That’s not particularly new I know, but it’s not everyday a presidential candidate decides to take on the geek nation…

It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman’s memory of war from the comfort of mom’s basement

Wow, way to be retarded. This is from McCain’s official blog site. Impressive. Michael Goldfarb (the original poster of quip) did try to take it back later with this:

If my comments caused any harm or hurt to the hard working Americans who play Dungeons & Dragons, I apologize. This campaign is committed to increasing the strength, constitution, dexterity, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma scores of every American.

Apology for idiotic comment or not, Lum deftly states the realities of the situation:

Someone needs to let Granddad McCain know that since he left the military in 1937, quite a few of today’s Generation Kill actually not only play Dungeons and Dragons – THEY PLAY MMOs. One of the things Sanya Weathers made a point of doing at Mythic (you know, when not disparaging McCain’s memories from her mom’s basement) was making sure that military DAOC players deployed to Iraq had all their subscription worries taken care of. You know, since they had other things on their mind and all, like bullets.

But, you know, it’s typical of the pro-McCain Sarsparilla and Goofy Golf crowd to disparage a fellow politican’s reputation from the comfort of Karl Rove’s basement.

Ok, so Goldfarb takes a shot at the internet geeks in general and then realizes that’s probably not the best idea in today’s culture. As a matter of fact, since McCain has no idea how the internet or technology in general works, you’d think Goldfarb would be trying to bring them into the fold, not alienate them. That takes the cake for this months You’re Just Dumb Award™.

Only by a close call did Goldfarb win the award though. Apparently Dennis Dyack is on the move…away from neogaf. He’s been banned. I can’t say I’m incredibly surprised. Dyack, much like some other developers out there, likes shoot his mouth off and make random comments about people and the like when his game/company (or just for shits and giggles) is called into question. It’s both hilarious and sad. Well, more hilarious than anything. It reminds me of things like .plan updates from back in the day.

And while not an asshole (well, it depends who you ask), Bill Roper gave a serious run for the award with his interview on 1UP:

GFW: At what point did you guys feel like maybe you shouldn’t have done the hybrid model? Was it before or after you launched Hellgate?

BR: Before we launched.

GFW: So you already knew…

BR: We knew before we launched. There was enough feedback from people where we realized, yeah, we probably made a mistake. But at that point…the train had left the station.

It does sound like there wasn’t much choice at that point, but there had to be something. It’s lacking in responsibility at best to release a product you know is broken, sell lifetime subscriptions and go around pimping the game and pretending everything is hunky dory even though you knew it wasn’t before the release. I know time/money/resources constraints often lead the way, but Roper and company killed not just his company, but two others (the hosting company and an art company or something like that) when they released a product they knew just wasn’t up to snuff. They put countless people out of jobs, including themselves, and disrespected a lot of people by releasing a knowingly b0rked game.

What Would Matt Do: There you have it. The internet is still full of idiots and while my heart goes out to all of the people that lost their jobs with Flagship going down, I can’t have that much pity for Roper himself or his top level guys that knew. I’d pretty damn upset if I had been working there and they released the product in such a state.

That’s a flippant way to say that their are big problems at Flagship Studios. The confirmed part is this:

Gamasutra has received confirmation from a Flagship Studios representative that the Hellgate: London developer has seen significant staff cuts.

This morning, Gamasutra obtained information from a source close to the company indicating that staff at both the Flagship development team as well as online services subsidiary Ping0 were let go. Both companies operate out of the same building.

Flagship declined to go into further detail about the layoffs, beyond stating that there was truth to the reports.

The unconfirmed part reported on a Korean blog and translated both in that last article and at Shacknews is that their creditors may be taking back Hellgate and Mythos to back up loans that Flagship took out on the respective IPs. OUCH.

According to the report, HanbitSoft said it that it intends to take full control of the property, adding that its own in-house development team will be able to "properly manage and develop Hellgate: London into a good game with proper content."

Moreover, HanbitSoft’s legal team reportedly told Voodoo Extreme that Flagship had offered up its Mythos (PC) intellectual property as collateral for a loan from the publisher to maintain operations. As revealed last March, Flagship pledged Hellgate: London for a loan from lender Comerica Bank.

"Flagship Studios does not currently own the intellectual properties to either game, which are held in separate companies subject to the security interests of lenders," said HanbitSoft’s lawyers. "HanbitSoft hopes to work with Comerica and some of the team at Flagship to see if there is a way to continue to generate content to keep Hellgate online in Asia and to finish the development of Mythos."

It’s not clear IF HanbitSoft can do that, per their agreements or if this is really happening. Flagship has officialy denied it:

Flagship Studios responded to the reports, dismissing the story as "an outright lie."

"We have no idea where they are getting their information from and have asked legal counsel to pursue the issue," Flagship said. "We are mystified by HanbitSoft’s conclusions and any attempt to take over the IP will be met with a strong and swift response… We are outraged that Hanbitsoft would attempt to completely tarnish the reputation of its most vital developer."

I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of a company losing control of its IPs like this. I’m hoping that Flagship is right and this is all a power play or a sham or something mistranslated.

Whatever it is, I hope everyone that is going through hardship at Flagship lands on their feet and is all right. I can’t say I was a huge fan of the five minutes I played of Hellgate, but I don’t like to see this sort of thing happen to any company.

What Would Matt Do: Hope for the best.

Update: I saw on Lum’s that he link to this with more news on it.

Update: Hanbitsoft’s lawyers got in touch:

Please understand that the facts are (1) HanbitSoft is an exclusive licensee of both Hellgate and Mythos in Asia, with rights to sublicense the games; (2) in addition, HanbitSoft is a secured creditor who has been pledged the Mythos (but not the Hellgate) intellectual property as collateral for a loan; (3) Comerica, another secured lender, has been pledged the Hellgate intellectual property as its collateral for a loan; (4) Flagship Studios does not currently own the intellectual properties to either game, which are held in separate companies subject to the security interests of lenders, and Flagship Studios’ interest in those companies is also pledged to its lenders; (5) it is unfortunate that Flagship turned down additional investments HanbitSoft offered to make that would have allowed it to keep its doors open, but HanbitSoft hopes to work with Comerica and some of the team at Flagship to see if there is a way to continue to generate content to keep Hellgate online in Asia and to finish the development of Mythos.

Note point five: "would have allowed it to keep its doors open."

Update #2: Subscription options have been removed from account areas, as has the ability to unsubscribe. On the forums, the lock-happy mods have yet to touch a fifty-seven page complaints thread that has spiralled out of control since the news regarding redundancies was released.

Update #3: The staff that still have a job have gone home for the weekend. However, we’ve been contacted by an ex-Flagship developer who has suggested that the studio is on the brink of closure and has no financial capital to fight Hanbitsoft’s legal challenge.

That doesn’t sound good at all. That’s a rough way to go down. My best wishes go out to everyone this affects.