You know folks, the more I poke around the Bioware forums of late, in addition to throwing the odd piece on my personal blog, the more I realise how completely at odds I am with some people re: the concept of playing Jedi in its upcoming Star Wars The Old Republic MMORPG.

Jedi, people tell me, should be freely available to play. “It’s the Old Republic!” they cry, “There were Jedi everywhere!” Weirdly, however, when I try and challenge people to tell me how rare they think Jedi births were in the Old Republic (for example, 1 in 1000? Maybe less? Maybe more?), the snappy answers and cries of, “You’re a retard!” seem to disappear in a puff of smoke, as do the critics. Where did they go?

Because, yes, while it’s true that citizens of the Old Republic might see a Jedi Padawan, Knight or Master from time to time, and they were a (mostly) revered element of society, it actually wouldn’t have been all that often. I mean, just think about it: if being born a Jedi is a 1/1000 chance (although I know people who’d suggest 1/10,000), that means if you were walking down the street, you could, theoretically, pass thousands of people – and none would be Jedi.

Now think of a game like Star Wars Galaxies where Jedi run rampant, even though there aren’t supposed to be ANY, save for Obi-Wan, Luke and Vader. It looks stupid, right? Well, an Old Republic game will look almost as stupid with Jedi running around, too. The fact there were more Jedi in the Old Republic is not a license to flood it with Jedi. There’s some subtlety here that people don’t seem to get.

Logically, it makes sense to me and I would prefer if Jedi were kept to an NPC class in the game; perhaps as the people who hand out certain kinds of missions, or something. At any rate, I’d like the Jedi to be exactly as they were in the Old Republic – a slightly mysterious bunch of warrior monks who could do things that the Average Joe – like you and I – couldn’t dream of doing. We don’t need more.

“But where’s the fun in that? I want to be a Jedi and if I’m paying my $15, I’d better damn well be able to be one!” people retort, rehashing the ancient demand of many a games development forum; that if you’re paying for the game, it should be tailored to exactly what you want, no matter how unrealistic it becomes. Stuff the IP… the individual is more important than the story. Bzzzt, wrong.

Single-player RPGs are all about the individual, absolutely. But we’re not talking about such a beast. A good MMORPG should allow you to do fun stuff, of course, but not suggest that you are somehow unique… “the chosen one”… or any other nonsense. Age of Conan falls down hugely in that department, suggesting that we’re all, apparantly, the chosen one. It’s just silly in an RP context.

So how do we approach the Jedi issue, given that there are people, like myself, who would be quite happy if Jedi weren’t a playable class in the game, as well as people at the complete other end of the spectrum who think this new MMO is basically a chance for thousands of Jedi to run around each server, waving their lightsabers and chasing phat lewt in raids of 48 Jedi apiece, night and day?

You could suggest that players can only be Force sensitive, but not full Jedi… but I think that would be cruel. To give someone 1/4 of a Jedi’s powers, but not allow him/her to go all the way, would be worse than having no Force powers at all, to my mind.

You could suggest that Jedi are playable, but would be very, very hard to unlock. Nice, but this just takes us back to the Star Wars Galaxies developers forum, back in the day. “Ohhh, but we’ll make Jedi VERY HARD to become,” the devs soothed in our ear. “No, that’s bollocks,” we’d reply, “Because, ultimately, unless you make it a random occurence, it will be a game mechanic that players will work out and proceed to grind on, until they reach their goal. This is the nature of gamers, and it staggers us that you don’t acknowledge that! And even if you DID make it a random occurence, people would just keep re-rolling characters until they got a Force sensitive one, anyway, so that’s not an option, either.” And the response?

People like Raph Koster gave more airy-fairy offers for us to “trust” that the devs would get it right in the game. Enter the game and, no, they hadn’t got it right… people did EXACTLY what we had said they would do (ie: work out how to unlock a Jedi and then grind on it).

You could suggest a Master/Padawan system, where Jedi Masters could train one Padawan at a time… but where would the Masters come from in the first place? And would this simply result in eBay auctions along the lines of, “Bid now for me to train you in the ways of the Force…”? No thanks, that would be pretty awful to see. Because happen, it would, as that little green chap would say.

Or, hey, you could always suggest the old Permadeath chestnut. You know the one. It would sure keep the Jedi levels down… but would absolutely scares the pants off most gamers, so probably isn’t a great solution, even though it’s maybe the solution that would work best.

So what do we do, folks? The fact that people exist at opposite ends of the spectrum means that Bioware should seriously think about how it will approach Jedi in the game, because whichever way it goes, it’s going to piss some sections of the community off in a major way.

And one last thing… before you comment… please note that the game isn’t confirmed as KotOR Online… it could just as easily be called The Old Republic or Star Wars Legends (which are both recent names Lucasarts has licensed), so replies to me along the lines of, “The game has Knights in the title, ergo we will be playing Jedi Knights…” is a shaky argument at best. Try and avoid it. Kthxbye!

Over at VideoGaming247.com, they recently had a chance to speak to Mythic’s Paul Barnett, a developer working on Warhammer Online which had this to say about the state of the game:

“The game’s finished,” said the developer. “It’s just being polished and cooked.

“We’re in a position now where every day we get to polish it it polishes a little nicer. At some point you say, ‘That’s polished enough now. See you later.’”

Barnett wouldn’t be drawn on a specific release date, but said he would be comfortable if the game shipped now.

“We just won Game of the Show from IGN, G4 and GameSpy from E3 and they all said the same thing: they’ve never seen an MMO prior to launch that’s as polished and slick and ready to go as our game is. Our game looks great, feels great, plays great.

Considering the bug filed release of AoC and pretty much every MMO with a few exceptions, it’s good to hear that the next big MMO will be nicely polished.  There’s nothing like a buggy release to kill a game, just ask AoC.  While certainly not dead, the fact the AoC was released with 1001 bugs surely didn’t help in keeping its player base.

Warhammer Online promises to deliver all the action we love in RPGs, but without the grinding that most of todays MMOs are so keen on delivering.  We’ve been promised that before however, so I guess we’ll see once the game is released, hopefully soon.

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting annoyed that MMORPGs are increasingly turning into RPGs that just happen to have other people running around in them and which want a monthly fee of US$15.

Timely example: Age of Conan. You play the first 20 levels, set on the island of Tortage, pretty much by your lonesome. This is partly due to the fact that there’s a whole quest series set during nighttime which you can only do as a solo character, and partly because the levelling’s pretty quick on the island, so it’s unlikely that any of your mates are hanging around to do all the quests again with you, anyway.

Once you get off the island however… nothing changes. Age of Conan is an MMORPG where you can pretty much make it to Level 80 without ever grouping. Now, pardon me for this next outlandish thought… but isn’t grouping one of the key reasons we wanted to play MMORPGs instead of RPGs in the first place? I thought it was!

Now, don’t get me wrong. A game doesn’t have to go to the extremes of, say, Dungeons & Dragons Online – where you pretty much needed to form a party just to pick your nose – but an element of needing to group with people for a decent portion of the content would be nice. Currently, I think Lord of the Rings Online probably has the best mix of solo-ing and grouping that I’ve seen. A very good mix, indeed.

You might think that’s where today’s rant might end… but you’d be wrong! You know what else is annoying about this new breed of MMORPGs that have forgotten the MMO part of their name? It’s that the players out there are condoning this! More and more I’m seeing people suggest that this is perfectly normal. They want their MMORPGs to be, essentially, an RPG… but with people hanging around on the /occ and /guild channels – presumably so they can link to their lastest lame piece of loot and get kudos from other people.

It’s really sad, actually, that the promise of MMORPGs (which, to my mind, is the promise of living in a virtual world moreso than it is about hitting a level cap, raiding or PvP), is getting pissed up against the wall as consumers increasingly vote with their feet to play games that aren’t very different to the RPGs they could get just as much amusement from, without the US$15/month pricetag to boot!

Have MMORPGs been dumbed down that badly? Or has the environment been invaded by gamers who don’t really understand what MMORPGs are supposed to be and, in turn, are happy for them to be glorified single-player outings that they have to pay for, simply because they don’t know any better? Is there any hope for the industry? Are there developers out there, right now, who realise that the current path MMORPGs are on is, essentially, the wrong path?

PS: Morninglark has some interesting thoughts in a similar vein:

We have seen the worlds become more linear. You are born here. You do X number of newbie quests, then are ‘encouraged by NPC’s’ to go to the next area that is level appropriate for you. In this way, the designers are herding us like cattle through the gaming environment.

I totally agree, Morninglark – and MMORPGs are the worse for it.

It’s funny to be 33 years of age and starting to feel really old in the MMORPG community. Sitting below me are at least one, and probably two, new generations of gamers, all with their own ideas on what makes for a good MMORPG – and all of these ideas are wildly different to my own.

This is causing a serious disconnect in the industry as games developers, to my mind, try and chase the future and what they think “the kids” want to do in the year(s) ahead. And, in doing so, they are neglecting the game mechanics that my generation still believes would be the best underpinning for MMORPGs in the future.

OK, so it’s a lot more complex than this but, to paint it in broad brushstrokes, games developers are looking at the generation below mine which seems to think that an MMO: allows you to be the hero; allows you to level fast; shouldn’t be a “quest grind”; and is essentially about reaching a level cap and end-game content comprising raids and PvP, preferably for unique loot to deck out their characters. Because that’s an MMORPG, right? Not to my mind.

My generation, I feel, is more about: you don’t need to be “the” hero; you don’t need to have levels, but rather, skills that you can advance through use; and an end-game that is less about raids and PvP and more about continuing the journey, particularly via the use of sandbox tools and an imagination. And do you know WHY I think this is?

It’s really simple when you think about it. You see, my generation remembers a time when PCs and consoles WEREN’T in everyone’s home and, shock horror, we used to make our own fun with anything from action figures through to actual pen and paper RPGs, sitting around a table with our friends and families, socialising.

That’s why I feel the generation below me tends to treat MMORPGs like games that exist to be defeated, whereas my generation (and those older, too), wants to treat MMORPGs like virtual worlds that we are actually living in, where our level progression, loot, ability to raid, etc, is secondary to community and story and “being there”.

What do you think? Am I over-simplifying things too much? Or is there something to this? And, if there is, will we ever see a developer come up with a great concept and then stand tall and have the balls to say, “You know what? Our game isn’t about levelling and raiding and PvP… it’s about getting back to the roots of what an RPG is…”?

I hope so. But I’m not holding my breath, either.

Well, Mike left Age of Conan, but I’m still, grimly, hanging in there.

I guess the first thing I want to say is that AoC is definitely a work in progress. This is curious because the game was held up twice, if memory serves, as the developers promised launch dates that ended up whooshing by as the company became obsessive about launching a game that was as good as it could be from day one.

The source of this obsession obviously stems from the balls-up of Anarchy Online which subsequently hung around Funcom’s neck for years, like some kind of weird electronic albatross. The devs lived in fear of a similar scenario, so it’s quite weird that the game should have launched with so many things still feeling half-finished or not quite polished enough. I shake my head in particular when I think of all the bugs and other little things that the devs have been working on like maniacs since the launch date… things that should have been picked up within a few days of beta testing instead of now.

I guess it just goes to prove my theory that people don’t beta test anymore; they just see beta as a way to play a game first, and for free. No one, it would appear, seems to bug check – otherwise a lot of these issues would have been discovered from the start. Of course, there’s also an argument that suggests with the beta testing limited to Level 15, the newbie Tortage section of the game was quite polished, and the rest of the game was allowed to go to hell in a handbasket, seemingly with the devs thinking that the opening months of gaming would provide the beta test for Levels 16 – 80.

Obviously that’s a poor attitude and a lot of people have packed up their sword and gone home, unlikely to return. Mike’s just one of many, many, many people I’ve seen voice their anger and leave, via the Funcom forums. It’s actually reached the stage where moderators are actively removing such “I quit” postings from the forums. It must be really bothering the company to have reached that stage.

So why am I staying in AoC, despite being fully aware that I’m basically in a paid-for beta test and just a bit annoyed about what’s going on? Primarily because I think Age of Conan is the ultimate antidote to all the high-fantasy games doing the rounds at present. Whether we’re talking WoW or EQ2 or LotRO or even the upcoming WAR, all of the big MMOs these days are high-fantasy. You know, with Elves and shit. AoC is the complete opposite, with its whole low-fantasy, gritty vibe. Until we get a really great sci-fi MMO – something I’m currently pinning on the boys from Bioware – we’re stuck with the fantasy genre and this gritty, bloody, nasty low-fantasy is a relatively new and sexy thing compared to running around as Elves and Dwarves and all that kind of nonsense.

I’m also in a great guild which helps my game time immeasurably. Even if I’m quest grinding or just gathering materials for crafting, and not particularly enjoying myself, the in-game chatter and socialising makes the experience worthwhile and gets me through each session. I think a good guild can make any mediocre (or even just plain bad) game a lot more palatable. So thankyou to those guys and gals.

How long will I stay in AoC? That’s a great question. I think unless the game starts to make some serious improvements, I could be gone within another two to three billing cycles. Yes, I’m far more forgiving than some people, but I’m not going to offer Funcom my coin forever if the game remains in its current state and updates continue to break more than they fix. Funcom, you’re on notice.

It has been about a month since I’ve trekked through the world of Hyboria and to be honest I have absolutely no desire to go back.  I don’t even have AoC installed anymore on my computer and probably never will again.  For those of you interested in why, I upgraded to Vista from XP, big mistake by the way, and I decided to wipe my drive and do a clean install.

Now that my comp is AoC free and I’ll need to go through the whole process of re-installing and downloading all the patches, it just seems like way to much work to play a game I don’t even like.  So I won’t.  This makes Age of Conan the second MMORPG in a row for me that I have quit after 1 month, Tabula Rasa is the other.

So what went wrong with AoC?  For me the major problem was the quest grinding, I just can’t do it again, I just can’t play another MMORPG and grind through 1000+ boring quests.  Apart from that, I felt as though even if I continued along and leveled, I would still reach lev 80 before the developers added the end game.  I know many lev 80 players that have nothing to do and are just waiting for what Funcom promised.

So with my AoC experience over, I now look towards the next MMO, most notably Warhammer Online and Jumpgate: Evolution.  Hears to hoping.

In my last post, a few gamers brought up the widely debated argument that MMORPGs should not have instant gratification, that you should have to work towards your goals, then eventually be rewarded.  Allow me to say that this argument is complete BS!  Any game that you play should have instant gratification, that’s why they call it a game, cause it’s supposed to be fun.

I challenge any reader to name a game genre that is not fun within the first few hrs (less than 5) of playing.  It goes without saying you have to be a fan of the genre, so don’t start arguing about genres you don’t like.

FPS - While you might not get all the cool weapons or gadgets right from the start, FPS are fun from the start.  Some might have a 5-10 min tutorial to get you started, but even those can be fun.  There’s nothing like your first kill when you start off a FPS and while some do get repetitive, the good ones will keep you on your toes.

RTS - Often they have a slow start as you need to learn the building and unit types, however with a few quick 10-20 min missions early on, you’re into the thick of things in no time.

Platform/3rd Person - Tell me who wasn’t having fun within 10 seconds of Mario or GTA.  Platform games are all about instant gratification and that’s why there so successful even though they’ve been around forever.  Third person platform games can be hit or miss depending on camera and controls, but again, the good ones are fun as hell.

Sports - Well if you like sport games, you’ll be having fun the second that first whistle blows.

Racing - Although most games start you off if some shitty Civic and you have to work you way up to the cool cars, however racing is racing and even in a slow Civic it’s fun as hell.

Adventure - I never liked adventure games and never played one all the way through, so I can’t really comment here.

Turn-Based Strategy - This genre starts off the slowest of any other, but is nothing when compared to most MMORPGs.  While the learning curve is high and the game pace can be slow, once the action gets going a good TBS game can have you at the edge of your seat.

Now lets look at how many MMORPGs treat their gamers.  You often start off in a newbie area where you are introduced to many of the gaming system and have to perform a few menial tasks.  No problem with me as this is a needed part of any MMORPG.  Once you have completed this you are able to start the real game, or so developers would like you to think.  Stop me if this sounds familiar.

Start in Area 1, complete 15-20 question, where one of the last ones brings you to a new area where you have to complete another 15-20 quests that are extremely similar to the first round of quests you just did.  Complete this area and move on to Area 3 where you have more quests that again are quite similar, move to a new area rinse and repeat.

Now my problem is NOT quests.  My problem are shitty quests.  No MMORPG should have more than 5 delivery, pickup, gather or find quests TOTAL in the whole game.  My problem are quests that offer absolutely no challenge and are just busy work to keep you playing.  My problem are quests that a 5 yr old can do with basic reading knowledge.  My problem is treating gamers as though they have nothing better to do then spend 15 mins running across a map only to have the quest tell them to go back where they came from to complete it. (Btw, yes my quest book is always full and I complete quests by area, however I’m just making a point here)

I am not a 15 yrs high school kid that has the summer off and it doesn’t matter if I spend 60 hrs/week gaming.  I am 28, have a full time job, a girl friend and a active social life (I know you must be shocked).  I have maybe, maybe, 6-8 hrs/week to game and to spend most of it completing quests that I can almost train a monkey to do is a waste of my time.

MMORPGs don’t need 5000+ quests, they need maybe 500 tough, challenging quests that give you a sense of accomplishment when you beat them.  To have a game like AoC drowned in a sea of crappy quests defeats the whole purpose of creating a supposedly revolutionary PvP system.  Give the gamer freedom and they’ll figure out how to have fun with it.  GTA is a perfect example, sure the missions are fun, but tell me you don’t have a lot more fun just messing around.

BTW, if you disagree with me your wrong

What!?  That might be what your thinking at this very moment, but allow me to explain.   When I first started playing LoTRO I knew exactly what I was getting into.  A MMORPG that was basically a clone of WoW but in the Lord of the Rings universe.  I expected many quests, I knew it had a very weak PvP system and that most of the game play was based on questing and raids.  That was ok with me.  Being a huge LoRT fan I was looking forward to meeting many of the characters from the books, exploring the lands and partaking in the LoTR lore.  I was not disappointed.  For the first few months I immensely enjoyed the game, up until I finished the main storyline and had to wait for future updates.  At this point I started to look else where for my MMORPG fix.  Which brings me to AoC.

AoC is a very different story.  We were told that it was a revolutionary game, a game that would set it apart from all the other MMORPGs out there and re-invent the genre.  However since the launch of Aoc I can say that this is far from true.  I am currently a lev 35 Demonologist and am bored to tears as I play through the game.  The revolutionary new combat system is only noticeable if you play a melee character which I am not.  Then there is the endless quest grinding to lev 80.  As I play through the game, it has become more like a chore or work then actual playing.  I’ve been at level 35 for about a week and a half now and every time I have some time to game, I decide to play something else.

I have played about 45 hrs worth of AoC to make it to lev 35.  In those 45 hrs I have done NOTHING but mindless, boring quest grinding.  So much so that I can’t bring myself to continue the game.  I am not quiting though.  The game promises epic PvP battles which I would love to partake in, however I do not know if I will ever make it that far as the 150 hrs of game play to reach lev 80 might be too much for me.

This brings me to my next point.  Why the hell do many MMORPG require you to waste 100+ hrs of your time before you get to the good parts of the game?  AoC is the perfect example of this.  “Hey we have an awesome game where players can build there own cities, attack other players and cities and battle for dominance.  Oh, btw, none of that is possible until you have played 100+ hrs in our boring as ass retarded game.”

Here’s an idea, if you make a really fun game, don’t add an ton of bullshit before it.  I’m not sure how many of you played the first Jedi Knight game, but you didn’t get a lightsaber for the first 6-7 hrs of the game.  Guess what?  When Jedi Knight 2 came out they decided not to be retards and gave you a lightsaber right away.  You know why? The game was called Jedi FUCKIN Knight!  Nobody wanted to play those first 6-7 hrs without a lightsaber. MMORPG developers need to stop being stupid and cut out the bullshit.  I don’t want to waste 100+ hrs of my life before I get to anything that is remotely fun.  And if that is the case then shut the hell up about how awesome your game is and say “Boring as hell for the first 100 hrs, then it gets good”.  People then will not get mad when they start playing the game cause they know what to expect.

I’ll try to continue in AoC and give my review once I hit lev 40, however it probably won’t be pretty.  Honestly, if there was ever a reason to buy a top level account from one of those selling sites it’s AoC.