The problem with Warhammer : Age of Reckoning’s RVR

If you have been playing the game and reading the various forums that deal with WAR, you will have noticed that some are not completely satisfied with how the game’s RvR component has turned out. Some frequently mentioned items that people feel contribute to this are the preponderance of scenarios and scenario grinding to the detriment of overland RvR, class/side/balance issues, mediocre rewards for keep and objective taking/ defending and bugs/exploits.

What I find problematic with WAR’s RvR boils down to one simple thing : I don’t really feel like there’s a war going on in the game. For me there is no clearly defined ”us and them” feeling attached to the whole Order vs Destruction conflict. Strangely enough, when I fight other players in scenarios and RVR, I don’t really see them as ”the enemy” but rather as fellow gamers grinding their way up the renown ranks, almost in a cooperative mentality. You allow me to get to some kills on you and rank up, I do the same for you and your mates. Everybody wins. Even if the whole war theme is recurrent and much in evidence in the PvE quests, the lore and even in the landscape, I find that from a game mechanic perspective, it still seems absent.

In my mind, what causes this phenomenon is the lack of a clearly defined and identifiable”front line” in the game. Taking Lotro Monsterplay as an example, when I log in with my creep, by looking at the map, I can rapidly see where the main areas of contention are and measure the progress either side made since I last logged in. I have little problem seeing the ebb and flow of combat throughout the Ettenmoors by looking at what keeps have been taken. By monitoring chat I can understand what is going on and get the feeling that there is a dynamic struggle between ”us” and ”them”. I get the feeling that there is some strategy involved and a concerted plan by either side to attain a given objective. In short, Lotro Monsterplay gives me the impression that there is a ”Big Picture” in the strategic sense of the word, which is manifested by the easily measured loss or gain of territory.

I don’t get that in WAR. In Age of Reckoning, combat is ”all around you”, omnipresent, but seemingly unfocused. I don’t really know, or in the long run care, that the other side is ”pushing here” or ”massing there”. I’m just going on my merry way through the tiers with no real stake in maintaining the territorial integrity of my side. The enemy just took a keep ? So what, good for them. I won’t be here long so I don’t care. I am just not drawn in to a larger picture in WAR. Heck I can’t even see one.

Hopefully I will get to experience another side of WAR’s RVR when I reach tier 4, because I do realise that I can’t have seen everything the game has to offer in this area after having only just completed tier 2. Until then though, I am anxiously awaiting the upcoming free play weekend Turbine has set up for lapsed Lotro subscribers in order to jump back on my Black Arrow and take part in a much smaller scale, but more easily identifiable and understandable, war.

Rest XP, how important is it?

Do you pay attention to the part of your XP bar that mentions if you are rested, or have vitality if you play EQ2, in order to maximize your levelling efficiency? Do you find that the bonus that being rested confers makes you change your playing habits?

As far as I am concerned the answer is yes to both these questions. Having just started to play Warhammer Age of Reckoning, I recently noticed that my newly-minted Magus had exhausted his rest bonus and was only getting normal XP. This kind of thing doesn’t happen much to me because these days I normally play in small spurts, which makes it hard to deplete rest, and also often take long vacations from a given game, which enables me to build up a rather large amount of rest until I come back. So I seldom run out of the stuff.

But this time it’s different, mainly because I have been playing marathon sessions of WAR with a fresh character, which burns up rest very fast indeed ! In this case I found that not having the rest bonus as I was playing really bothered me, making me feel as if I was not getting all that could get out of my play sessions. Even if I am not a power gamer or power leveller by any stretch of the imagination, I was still very bothered by the fact that if I kept going with my ”unrested” Magus I would not be playing in ”optimal” conditions, whatever that means.

So after much soul-searching I decided to park him for a bit and roll up an alt in order to let him ”rest up” for a time. I normally never do this, although I know many who people do this regularly, and I admit that I am a bit surprised. I thought I was above such petty game mechanic manipulations aimed at slowing down character progression in MMOs, but obviously I am not.

Ah the things we learn about ourselves through gaming!

Living Legacy got me!

Last night was supposed to be my last day playing EQ2 for a while, at least till the new expansion comes out. July 31st being the end of the free game time associated with the Living Legacy promotion, I had decided that I would log on one last time and write a “farewell for now” letter to my guildmates explaining to them my departure and my plans on maybe returning in the Fall. That being said, when I turned off my PC last night, I had quite radically deviated from the plan and instead of ending my time in Norrath I had added some playing time to my account and kept it active. As I woke up this morning I asked myself what had just happened, why had I done this ? Here are the reasons I have come up with :

1-Playability : Subconsciously, I think that playing a solid, polished and stable game has had an insidious effect on me, making me realise that playing older established MMOs does have it’s charms when placed next to the quirkiness of playing shiny new titles like AoC, which are going through some early growing pains. I think playing EQ2 again for an extended period of time made me appreciate how pleasant it is to play a game that has already been through a majority of it’s tech hurdles and design rebalances and has attained a certain “maturity”. Playing a “veteran” title like EQ2 has somehow provided me with a counterbalance to playing a “rookie” title like AoC, which it seems, is something I need at the moment and am not willing to part with just yet.

2-Sentimentality : EQ2 being my very first MMO, I think that the whole “come back home” vibe put forth in the Living Legacy promotion did very effectively push the nostalgia button in me. In fact I admit it : it made me swallow hook, line and sinker SOE’s marketing line. What can I say, sometimes you think you are so jaded that you are immune to this kind of thing and then the irrationality of emotion comes and clouds your judgement !

3-The expansion grind : Seeing that my templar has not yet hit the level cap ( he is level 77 ) and that I still need to buff up the healing AA line in readiness for the release of the upcoming expansion, I guess that the desire to be ready for the new content that is coming has also had a role in making me prolong my sub. If Living Legacy had not come along, my healer would probably have stayed at level 66 and I would likely have foregone buying the new expansion and probably given up on EQ2 completely. Having invested all that time and energy levelling him up and catching up on Achievements, I figure that the thought of just walking away from all that was not something I was willing to do. Another sign that I am a sucker for even the most basic MMO marketing strategies !

So there it is, some deep introspection from a somewhat bemused MMO player, for your reading pleasure!

The Waiting Game : Age of Conan

I pîcked up AoC on release day. I have it installed on my PC, but I have yet to activate my account and play it. You see, like many “veteran” MMO players, I have a “wait and see” policy regarding newly released massive titles. Some suggest to wait six months before even touching a new MMO. I don’t go that far, my waiting period usually being around two to three months. Having just come across this Funcom announcement about future AoC developments, I now find myself being happy that I waited before jumping in and leaning more and more towards waiting an actual six months before playing. The main reason for this is that Funcom is not only planning on lauching several new features in the game but also enhancing old content and adding quests, which means that compared to initial players, I should have a vastly improved first contact with the game if I refrain from jumping in now, a fitting reward for my patience !

This just confirms my future “MMO consumer behavior” regarding new title launches. That being said, I’m curious to see if I will really be able to restrain myself from playing Warhammer Online at launch, me being a long time Games Workshop groupie. If I could manage that then I would truly be a master of self control !

We shall see.

 

 

 

Tabula Rasa here I come!

As my sub to PotBS is winding down, I’ve decided to sample another title, namely NC Soft’s Tabula Rasa. So far I have hit level 10 and have mixed feelings about the game. In many ways, playing TR reminds me of my experience with DDO and it’s twitch based and action oriented combat system, which initially turned me off. Tabula Rasa and it’s very fps inspired combat has had the same effect on me, although I am forcing myself to keep an open mind towards this part of the game. On the positive side, I very much like the setting and story of TR as well as the look and feel of the TR universe, which is a very important factor in my appreciation of any MMO.

Playing an NC Soft title has also had the unforeseen effect of reminding me how much I miss CoH / CoV, so I just may just pop back into the superhero mix for a short stint, especially since I noticed they now have 2 week pre-paid gamecards available.

 

Decisions decisions!

My DDO sub has run out and I have 6 days left on my Lotro sub. My elf chamion in Lotro is about to hit the level cap and I am tired of grinding grey mob traits and deeds ( this in an attempt to slow down my leveling ).

I’m also a bit jaded from the whole fantasy genre and am looking for a refreshing change of scenery. Could Pirates of the Burning Sea or Tabula Rasa be the answer? Hmmm…

Dual Gaming !

These days, it seems like I am moving more and more away from my usual patterns of behavior and doing things I don’t usually do, like maintaining two MMO subscriptions at the same time. That’s what I’m doing now and apart from the money hit, I kinda like it!

This month, I’m currently playing DDO AND Lotro, often switching from one to the other in the same play session, which is something I realise now that I should do more often. Initially, there were two reasons I started doing this : one is because my champion in Lotro was close to hitting the level cap and I wanted to top him off before moving on to another game and the other was that I was impatient to see how DDO had changed after a year away from the game. So I got subs to both.

DDO and Lotro being such different animals, the first being group-centric and action oriented while the second is more solo friendly and less action-oriented, when I grow tired of one game’s style of play, I just log onto the other. Also with Lotro, I get the added bonus of getting some PvP goodness going on with Monsterplay ( my Black Arrow just hit Rank 6 !!!).

So here’s to stepping out of one’s comfort zone and exploring new ways of enjoying MMO gaming! 

DDO and voicechat

Voice-chat in MMOs is nothing new. For me on the other hand, it’s a week old phenomenon. I’ve been avoiding using voice-chat in my gaming, mostly for immersion reasons ( nothing like having an attractive dark elf sorceress ask you for a heal in a deep, manly southern drawl !).

But after playing Lotro and seeing the  high usage that was made of the integrated voice-chat in that game, I decided to get with the programme in DDO and use that game’s voice-chat.

Overall I have to say that I find that voice-chat does indeed affect immersion a bit, but also allows for some quicker consultation and decision making within a group, which is a huge advantage in a fast paced game like DDO.  It does indeed improve communication in many different situations, a good example being when guiding a lost player to the group in one of those crazy convoluted dungeons that DDO features. At a time like this, typing detailed directions is a royal pain, whereas using voice-chat makes it that much simpler.

So there it is, I am now a voice MMO gamer, for better or for worse!

Returning to Dungeons & Dragons Online : First Impressions

It’s been about a year since I lay aside my level 10 barbarian in DDO and went looking for greener pastures elsewhere. Yesterday, I re-acquainted myself with this Turbine title and overall, I’m glad I did.

The first big adjustment this return entailed for me was regarding it’s group and instance-centric philosophy. Sure in DDO you can do so some stuff on your own, but if that’s really your thing, there are games out there that will  better cater to this play-style than DDO. Loners and Dungeons and Dragons Online are not a good mix.

The second important adjustment I had to  make was to DDO’s action oriented combat and world interaction model. In short, playing DDO often feels like playing Tomb Raider. Indeed in this game, your opponents run around you and jump on top of crates instead of standing still, which means that if you’re a melee class like my character, you often have to do the same to score some hits. To get through many of DDO’s instances, you also often have to exhibit a fair degree of manual dexterity and problem solving skills, for example to time your jumps to get past a stake-filled pit or to figure out which ledges to use to cross a yawning chasm. There is definitely a twitch-factor involved in playing DDO and to my surprise, I kinda enjoyed it!

These two elements give DDO a certain “vibe”  that I find quite refreshing compared to other games. The feeling that my character is just one free agent among many in the city of Stormreach, an interchangeable cog in the mechanics of a typical adventuring group, gives this game an adventure atmosphere that I find no other title seems to have, at least not to the same degree.

So far, I feel that my coming back to DDO has been a good decision and it seems that I am not alone in this regard. Indeed, when I joined groups and mentioned that I was a returning player, a very common reply that I got was “Me too!”. A lot of people seem, like me, to be giving it another go, which augurs well for the future of the title.

So for now, I give Dungeons & Dragons Online a thumbs-up.

MMO nomadism

In my post on altoholism I already alluded to the fact that these days, I rarely play a game for more than a month at a time. I usually hop from one to another when I feel a certain staleness is  starting to set in. I never keep two concurrent subscriptions active, not for any real cost related considerations but simply because I like to fully invest myself in whatever MMO I am playing at the moment, even if it’s just for a short while. Which I guess is why I get bored rather quickly.

I often read or hear on pod-casts that some people will keep 3 or 4 subs going at any given time, which to me is rather strange. But then again, I can see how it can have it’s advantages, allowing them to keep a certain link with their guilds and characters and stay in the mix of things so to speak. By doing this they avoid experiencing the abrupt cutoff that someone like me goes through when adopting a “rotating sub” scheme and can keep a steady pace of advancement going for their their various characters.

I have to say that my method of doing things has isolated me somewhat from my fellow gamers, making it hard for me to commit to a guild. I usually don’t even bother joining one since I know I will be disappearing for an extended period of time a few weeks after coming aboard.

As time passes though, I am inclining more and more towards the multi-sub or multi-alt model of MMO gaming, simply because my MMO jumping ways are making me quite lonely ! Who knows, one day I just may become an MMO social butterfly, flitting from one game to another in order to maintain my extensive in-game social network!

We shall see…