February 25, 2010 – MMO Fallout

mmorpg_xsyon_001_20100216_1802179696 — prefix-ed MMORPG, just in case you forgot.

Xsyon may not be the best looking game, but where the title faults in the super hi-def bloom that burns cornea and frightens small nocturnal creatures, it makes up in offering freedom to players. Throughout the short history of the MMO genre, there have been quite a few attempts at allowing the player to build the world around them. Star Wars Galaxies, more notably, allows players to build cities to focus their guild. Those cities, likewise, are able to take part in the overall galactic civil war.

In Xsyon, the developers have decided to take a different approach to the idea of post-apocalyptic. Rather than being in a world that is destroyed, that you are merely trying to survive while the world around you builds up (or remains stagnant), you are taking part in the rebuilding of the new world. Most, if not all, of human innovation is gone, kaput, and the leaders have fallen back to the old days of God worship and scavenging.

The manner in which Xsyon hopes to keep its players is to allow them to shape the world as they see fit. Before the game launches, those who preorder will be given access to a very small section, from which point they will be roaming around, exploring new areas, and discovering new methods of crafting, building, fighting, and more. As the players progress, so does the game, with players deciding everything from the foundation of new cities, even to terraforming of the current terrain. The environment is in a state of constant flux, and it is up to the players to decide the future of the world. Everything down to the quests are player-given, where players can obtain quests ordered by the chief of the “tribe” (guild). New skills, new items, new objects, new creatures, most will be discovered in-game before they are announced.

Xsyon looks to be shaping up into a title similar to A Tale In The Desert, where early players will have a very different experience than those who join several months or years down the line. Of course, the fact that I can create my own cooking recipes is enough of a reason for me to dip into my pocket, but then again…I’m irresponsible with money.

There won’t be a trial for Xsyon until the game launches, and there won’t be an open beta (more on that tomorrow). Preorderers are given access to Prelude, a pre-game world that they have a great amount of freedom to shape and discover.

In January, Haiti was struck by a massive earthquake that resulted in countless damage, over two hundred thousand dead, and millions left without a home. In the following months, we witnessed an enormous surge of companies looking to get their players involved in donating to the cause: Participants including Blizzard, CCP Games, Frogster Entertainment, Sony Online Entertainment, and more. These events offered players an opportunity to purchase items with real money, with a portion (or all, or more) going to charity.

The folks over at Hello Kitty Online had a different idea on charity: Instead of requiring cash donations, why not allow people to donate just by playing the game? Food For Friends 2, the charity initiative, was set up to allow players to donate any type of in-game item, with the worth of that item being translated to real cash and donated to the Haiti relief efforts.

So far only one of the two servers has chimed in with its results: over eighteen thousand dollars from more than a million items donated. By my own calculations, and the current count of items on the other server, the total donation should be somewhere along the lines of twenty five thousand dollars, to be donated to Doctors Without Borders.

Obviously the titles on MMO Fallout have been a joke, but when it comes to the idea of companies fighting over who can donate the most to charity, trying to spark a little competition can go a long way.