Despite so many of them ending in drama and despair, I’m still a great believer in the concept of guilds/clans/player associations/call them what you like, in MMOs. Maybe I’ve been luckier than most in the guilds I have chosen to join in my time, but I guess I’ve also made some of my own luck by creating some guilds from the ground up with the simple concept of creating the kind of MMO guild that I would want to be in. A pretty simple concept.

What I’ve hoped to do with this series is record some of my thoughts on guild creation. Maybe my thoughts will work for you and give you something to think about. Or maybe you’ll write me some hate mail and tell me that this is a bunch of crap. Either way, let me be the first to acknowledge that, like most things in life, there is no single “right way” to create an MMO guild. What works for me, might not work for you – and vice versa. OK, that’s the intro done.

With the guild name and hosting package out of the way, for our third (and final) outing we’re delving into the realm of recruiting. This is always a very interesting area, with many ways to approach it.

Generally speaking, the official forums for your game of choice will be the main battleground where you will try to attract talent to your guild, but how will you do that?

The process starts by asking yourself what kind of personnel you want. Or, put another way, how do you want your guild to look in a few months time? At one end of the scale, you might want it to be a tiny, intimate guild of pure role-players. At the other end, you might envisage a massive virtual frat house with 250 people running around in their underwear, drinking and shouting at each other at all hours of the day or night.

How you recruit will determine what you become.

If you go out with a very hard-nosed, perhaps role-played, introduction thread to your guild, chances are you aren’t going to attract the wild and crazy people. You can ensure this by perhaps setting some pre-conditions on people joining the guild, such as writing a backstory for their character or even serving a “trial period” with the guild before they are even accepted as a full member. You will certainly sort the wheat from the chaff with such a method, and be left with what you set out to get: a group of very dedicated, hardcore role-play type people who don’t act very crazy.

Meanwhile, if you go out with an “anything goes” attitude on the forum, and perhaps already have a bit of a posting reputation yourself, you are guaranteed to get that frat house sooner than you can say, “free beer”. And if that’s what you’re looking for — awesome! I find, however, that even the most tolerant guild leaders eventually get a little saddened and annoyed at the antics of their members when they haven’t set any boundaries or controls over them during the recruitment process. “What do you mean I can’t cyber the only girl in the guild? You didn’t say anything about no cybering when I signed up!” a member might explode one day. Is it your fault for having no rules?

Of course, I am working in these brief example with two extremes of guild recruiting. Your job now is to determine where along the scale of recruiting you wish your guild to fall. Very few of you, I believe, will want to be in a highly anal role-playing guild — even if you like roleplaying — in much the same way, that I find very few people over the age of, say 16, are truly comfortable in frat house style environments. So have a good, hard think about it before you do anything. At the end of the day you need to determine:

* Roleplay or non-roleplay?
* PvP? PvE? A mix?
* Any geographical boundaries and timezones preferred?
* Any rules to be laid down to members before they walk in?

And so on. The more you can get a handle on these questions BEFORE people start showing an interest in your guild, the better! Good luck with your guild!

What’s left of the Warhammer Online fanbase* will no doubt be rejoicing with the news that the “Rise of the Tomb Kings” (which is the final chapter of the “Call to Arms” live expansion arc), has almost arrived. For the uninitiated, this is a game update that introduces the Land of the Dead, described by the developers as an ancient necropolis filled with, “powerful foes and the riches of kings”. As you might expect, that means a high-level area featuring new content, console-style action gameplay via PQs and boss fights and a new armour set for every career.

The developers are also promoting the 1.3 patch as bringing some new and upgraded features to WAR, such as a Sigil system which makes armor Wards a permanent character unlock, whether your character is wearing set pieces or not. There are also allegedly “sweeping” improvements to the game’s interface, numerous career fixes and enhancements, and a plethora of improvements to the Gunbad dungeon highlight this huge update. Remember, this is the Warhammer devs speaking, so take it with a grain of salt!

Highlights, according to the devs:

• Rise of the Tomb Kings – An exciting live event which pits the realms against each other in a race to collect resources for an expedition to the Land of the Dead. The winner will gain early control of this new zone.
• The Land of the Dead – This new area features a large open RvR zone and a trap-filled dungeon with instances that can be invaded by the enemy realm when control of the area switches hands. New rewards and challenges await for high-Rank players.
• Sigil System – No longer will you be required to wear armor set pieces for their Wards. With the Sigil system, armor Wards become a character unlock, so that once you get one, you’ll have it forever – even when you don’t wear the armor piece that grants it.
• Career Updates – Every career will see changes in update 1.3, including adjustments to area-of-effect abilities, lots of bug fixes, and balance tweaks across the board.
• Gunbad Dungeon Improvements – Respawn points have been added throughout Gunbad, and the entire dungeon has been reworked as a smaller single-group adventure for characters starting at Rank 19.

So there you have it. Warhammer patch 1.3, coming soon, for those of you still actually playing the game. Don’t say we never do anything for you.

*Save your vitriolic responses; I just call it like I see it. From where I’m sitting, Warhammer is nowhere near as healthy, population wise, as it should be.

Back in January, there was a document circulating the Net relating to BioWare’s The Old Republic. Said document was allegedly from an insider, commenting on the game and how it would play out for gamers when they finally got their hands on it. Now, most of the document was stuff that you or I could have made up after a long boozy lunch at the pub because it’s straightforward and, like any good rumour or conspiracy theory, totally and utterly believable. This is compounded when the document seemingly corroborates what the devs have been saying to date… or have the devs been corroborating the document?

Anyway, the document’s resurfaced of late, so I thought it might be fun to revisit some parts of that document, with some comments from myself, based on my time following the game (ie: a long time; going back way further than the creation of the “official” TOR website). Ready? Let’s go. The rumour from the document are italicised.

TOR was born from a business model. This business model was handed over to developers who were then asked to design a game around it. What was this business model you ask, it was a book. This book was written by Lucas Arts and inspired by KOTOR and its success. I dont know the origins of when and why it was done but this book is the framework for TOR. The game has been designed to play like a virtual book. Each chapter will have alternate endings based on which dialog you chose in the quests. The goal is to make the game replayable and new each time you start over. Each chapter has roughly the same content as a KOTOR game. And there are several chapters so the game does have a ton of content.

Book? What book? It’s certainly not an existing book that you can go and buy from your local bookstore, obviously. But, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that an author, or BioWare staffer, has been contracted to write such a thing in the background. Certainly, when you hear the BioWare people talk with passion about bringing “story” to MMOs (yes, yes, I agree it’s been a stupid thing to say, given that most MMOs have decent to excellent storylines already; witness LotRO), doing it via a book, with chapters that help create moments of choice, is entirely plausible. On a scale of 1-10, I’d give this rumour about a 7 or 8. Expect the game to be something like that.

The game is heavily instanced. If you have ever played Lord of the Rings Online, its similiar to the beginning quest sequence and some of the books. You will literally watch a story unfold in front of you in your own little world. There are several cinematic scenes in the game. Its definitely NOT open. There are no giant worlds you can freely explore. Its sort of like Guild Wars or a variation of Age of Conan. No player cities and no housing.

For the longest time, I’d always imagined TOR being like that, primarily because of its focus on “the story”, rather than being a life simulator, a la Star Wars Galaxies. I tend to think that we will see housing, in some form, however. So, all things considered, I’d give this rumour about 6 or 7. Expect instances at the very least to help tell “your” story, so that you aren’t trying to have a unique experience with 40 other people all trying to kill the same boss and totally disrupting the immersion that the story will try and evoke for you.

There is no space content so if your hoping for a JTL in TOR you better look elsewhere. There is a few quests involving boarding a ship but you arent going to fly around in an X-Wing doing missions.

Bzzzzzzt, nope. There’s enough talk about the game now that confirms there’s an element of space content in the game. So this rumours a turkey. 0/10.

The story evolves. Think Books in Lord of the Rings. They plan on adding new chapters to the story. Here is the catch, you will likely have to pay for each new chapter. Its not really an expansion, so its more like buying some additional quests.

This seems like more of a guess, to my mind. Especially if there’s already a monthly fee, I doubt there will be paid-for chapters available. Otherwise, what is the monthly fee for? The game will either be a monthly fee, with free updates (like LotRO), or it will be free-to-play with paid for updated (like Guild Wars). I know those two examples aren’t 100% perfect, but you get what I mean. So I’m only going to give this rumour a 5/10.

There are classes in the game but not in the traditional MMO sense. There isnt a tank class or a healing class really. Each class can dps and has some healing abilities. Each class will start on its own planet and will have a unique series of quests to start the game. Once you leave the planet, the quests will be mostly the same as other classes but the dialog is unique to each class. Of course there are different possibilities based on the dialog you choose. Also cinematic sequences will be different depending on class.

I sense a lot of guesswork here… but it’s guesswork that has been confirmed, piece by piece, so it’s really an 8 for the rumour. But anyone could have really guessed this stuff, especially if they had previously played a KOTOR game.

You can solo through the entire game. Not to say there arent group quests, there are but you can skip them. If you dont like questing, this game isnt for you. There really is no other means to play the game.

Yep, the devs have been sayin this from day one. So, 10/10 for the rumour, but it was already out there in the public domain from the start, so it’s no indication of talent on the poster’s behalf.

There is no non-combat class. Crafting is very basic. You craft your own lightsaber. There is no weapons crafting or armor crafting of any kind. There are some quests that require you to do some basic crafting like fixing a shield generator or fixing a droid. There are some modifications you can add to your gear. But you arent going to make your own gear.

Similar to the last one, 10/10 for the rumour, but this has all been known from the start. The devs keep talking about “heroic crafting”, ie: there’s no one crafting class, or crafting skills for people to learn, but everyone will get to do some sort of crafting as they adventure. Jedi characters making their own lightsaber is a no-brainer. Fixing things while questing is another. Pretty simple stuff to imagine.

There is a limit to the number of companions you can have. And in a group you cant have two of the same companions out at the same time. Also you can only have one companion out at a time.

We’re starting to scrape the bottom of the bucket here. The rumour writer seems familiar with KOTOR games and is extrapolating from them. I mean, OBVIOUSLY, there’ll be a limit to how many party members you can have — whether they’re NPCs or not. So this is an 8 or 9 for the rumour coming true, but it didn’t take Einstein, let alone an “insider” to work out.

To summarize the game, its not really an MMO in the traditional sense. Some people are going to be upset by the design. Others like KOTOR fans will absolutely love this game.

I agree with the final line, but it really is a motherhood statement, more than anything.

So, my take on all this? I don’t think the document is credible in terms of being a real “inside job”. I think it’s written by someone with a touch of writing flair who is as familiar with the game as, say, myself (which isn’t really that hard to become). In other words, I think a great deal of the document is true or, at the worst, well along the lines of being correct, so people should treat it with a degree of respect. Just don’t get too suckered into the concept of it coming from a real Deep Throat in the industry!

I was watching some TV last night, I forget what channel it was, probably G4, when I saw this gem of a commercial air.  My first thought was, holy crap, who would buy that?  I mean I know there are some people out there that would get a kick out of it, but seriously, a mana potion energy shot?

The company behind the mana and health postions, Harcos,  has recently teamed up with gaming developer The Sim Factory to create an a Mana-themed track and car for its ARCA SIM RACING game.   This seems a bit strange since mana and health potions are items in RPGs, not racing games.  Wouldn’t it be smarter to advertise in a RPG game?  After all who else would buy this aside from RPG gamers?   But on the other hand it would be kinda weird playing Diablo and seeing an advertisement.

If you’re actually interested in buying an energy shot check out their site at http://www.manapotions.com.

I say it’s about time; I could not bear looking at that same ol’ bear form one more time. Bear with me while I give you the Bear facts…Ok enough bear jokes. Blizzard has announced that they are finally releasing new druid forms. Blizzard will release the new forms in the next major content patch. Here is the blizzard patch announcement;

 
“In our next major content patch, druids will find a host of new textures for two major forms, cat and bear. There will be five different designs for each of these forms for the Horde and Alliance. Night elves can choose to change their cat and bear look at any time by visiting the barber shop and changing their character’s hair color, while tauren will be able to change which look they use by switching skin tones in the barber shop — a new feature for tauren in the next major content patch. Given that there are more hair colors and skin tones than unique form looks, some colors and tones will overlap with these new textures. The hair and skin colors chosen will, in most cases, correspond with the color seen in the look of each form. Some similar colors that may share a particular cat texture will not necessarily share the same bear texture.” 

Druids have been asking for new forms for quite some time. I am looking forward to seeing the new cat and bear forms. The picture listed above shows all the furry goodness of the new tauren forms. Next I want them to do something about the view in bear form. You druids know what I am talking about. When is the patch? The wait is almost unbearable.

Today Sony announced that over 2 million unique users have registered to their new free2play MMORPG Free Realms. Of those users, 75% are under the age of 17, 46% under 13 and 1/3 are female gamers. To be honest I thought Free Realms was going to be a flop. I didn’t actually play it, but I obviously severely underestimated the draw it would have on young people. Two million unique registered players in less then one month is huge to say the least.

While I’m sure a good portion of those 2 million accounts are not active, this is obviously a great start for Sony’s new MMORPG. If users continue to sign up at a record pace, we just might see a slew of kiddie MMORPGs in development within the near future.  You can signup at http://www.freerealms.com

Today we received some new screenshots of the upcoming MMOFPS, Huxley The Dystopia. Also if you haven’t already heard, Huxley will be available at E3 for gamers to demo for the first time outside of beta. Can’t wait for this one, if it plays half as good as it looks it’s going to be a kick ass game.

Many people play games to escape reality, to hang out with distant friends or just to have fun. These people log in to the game, quest, explore, buy and sell on the AH and in some cases perform a bizarre ritual dance on top of the mailbox. This is the basic way to enjoy the game you play. Every game out there has a greater depth to it. There is a way to traverse the limits of cyberspace and take your game to the next level, to dive deeper into the game.

Many people tend to go to forums. Tread lightly fellow adventurer the game forums can be a wretched hive of scum and villainy ready to devour the innocent. You may be able to find the occasional useful post among a sea of whining. Usually you can find good player created guides that can help you start off your character, or to even help you finish off those final talent points. Blogs are another source, there are many sites available. Some are done really well, some not so much. The great thing about most blogs is that you can tap into a regular guys experience about your game of choice. Some blogs are written by hard core gamers if that’s what you’re into. Whatever you need there probably is a blog for you.

There is yet another form of delving deeper into the worlds of our games. Podcasts are an entertaining way to gain a deeper understanding of the game, as well as listen to other people who share your passion for the game. Podcasts are also great because you can listen to them in the car, while jogging or even exercising. I prefer to read fan sites, blogs and listen to podcasts. It’s a great way to gain a further understanding of the game. Whatever you choose there are many ways to immerse yourself further into the virtual world.

True Games today announced the release date for their action MMORPG as May 19th in North America.  Checkout the trailer at Warriorepic.com.

Warrior Epic is an free to play online, action role-playing game set in an original fantasy universe.  In the game, players will assume command of a Warrior Hall from which they manage their characters’ adventures. They can recruit from a wide array of Warrior Classes, each with its own style of play. The Classes and the Hall itself can be upgraded visually as well as functionally. Players adventure together in multiplayer campaigns, adventure mode, solo quests and PVP.

One of the most unique aspects of Warrior Epic is that death does not mean the end of a warrior. Instead, it opens totally new and strategic options for players. The game’s unique Warrior Spirits System enables fallen warriors to not only be revived at any time at their hall, but also to be transformed into Spirits that can be bound to weapons to increase and open weapon abilities and skills, or they can be called out to inflict massive damage depending on player needs.

Just when you thought you had seen everything, defeated every foe and knew your place in Paragon City, a big change is coming your way. NCsoft has announced an Expansion for City of Heroes. This expansion is aptly named City of Heroes-Going Rogue. One of the big features is the introduction of Praetoria, the Mirror universe where Statesman is a Tyrant. Players will be able to explore this new universe with complete immersion.
This expansion also offers the first time ever chance to switch from Hero to villain and vice versa. The potential is enormous. According to the faq you can switch sides and switch back again. Switching sides will allow Hero archetypes to go to the Rogue Isles and Villain archetypes to enter Paragon city. The player’s “moral compass” will change based on completing clearly marked missions in addition to behaviors and decisions made by the player. This compass will eventually change the heroes or villains side.
Two new characters will be introduced in the game. Since the game is about switching loyalties both these characters have gone to the other side. The first is; Maelstrom, a pistol-wielding hero gone rogue and the second is Desdemona, a demon-summoning villain who has been redeemed.
It looks like NCsoft is raising the bar now that they are facing serious completion from Cryptic with their soon to be released game champions online. I have always been a fan of COH, and I look forward to trying this new expansion and exploring the new world of Praetoria.

Check out the preview trailer listed below.

City of Heroes-Going Rogue