Editorials – Page 111

City of Steam Is A Chilling Lesson For Indies

City of Steam is a heavy contender for the most disappointing MMO of 2013, and even if the upcoming relaunch and branding as Arkadia goes well, the story of the folks at Mechanist Games will no doubt find its way into the nightmares of indie gamers everywhere. Much like how we use viruses and bacteria to observe evolution in its quickest form, City of Steam has proven itself an excellent example of a developer going from beloved to dismissed in zero seconds flat. Where some MMOs take years for publisher or investor pressure to simplify their gameplay and treat customers not as long term friends to be treated with respect but as open wallets ready for the bilking, City of Steam managed it under R2Games in the simple cycle from closed to open beta.

I hate to say I told you so, so I won’t. That honor goes to the community who spent countless hours explaining why a partnership with R2Games was a bad idea and warning that when time came that City of Steam was gutted for parts and everything had a price tag on it, that they wouldn’t be there to help pick up the pieces. And they weren’t. When City of Steam launched into open beta and everyone’s fears of a partnership with R2 Games were realized, they simply threw their hands up and departed. There was no big hubbub, no boycotts like with City of Heroes, not the kind of angry outburst you’d expect, people simply left. Anything that could be said had already been discussed over the previous months, and by this point there was nothing left to say.

The good news in all of this is that Mechanist Games always had a kill switch, an option that very few indie developers have once they partner with an outside publisher, and it’s obvious by the lack of updates since open beta that they pulled it pretty quickly. As a gamer, I can only hope that Mechanist Games realized the problem before their customers started leaving in massive numbers, and not after. I can dream that every single request by R2Games to remove features, monetize, increase failure rates, and make the game more cash shop reliant were fought tooth and nail every step of the way, and I can picture that when Mechanist Games bought back their publishing rights, it was done with a generous helping of profanity.

City of Steam has what many other games will never get, a second chance. An opportunity to right their wrongs and gain back the goodwill of their audience, one that appears to be more than willing to forgive them of their trespasses. I hope they make use of it.

But that’s just my opinion.

MMOrning Shots: This Is A Crowd

If you ever want proof that a good chunk of people still play Defiance, just check out one of the game’s many Arkfall events. Arkfalls are a great place to go through your stockpile of weapons and figure out which are worth keeping or need to be thrown away. Check out Defiance at http://www.defiance.com/

World of Warcraft’s Foray Into Player Housing

Player housing has been a long time coming in World of Warcraft, after all the concept was in place going all the way back to the game’s internal alpha. Blizzard has referred to housing as “on the horizon” going all the way back to the game’s launch in 2004, with a few comments here and there of no particular detail other than to say that the idea was not in active development. One fear conveyed by Blizzard was that the world that had already become rather empty due to the Looking For Dungeon tool, would become even less populated if players had no reason to leave their house. On the other hand, Blizzard did not want to take the massive effort of creating a housing system only to have it underused out of lack of functionality.

With garrisons, Blizzard seems to once again be picking a “learn from the competition” approach to development. For those of you who didn’t catch the Blizzcon information, Garrisons are phased housing areas coming with Warlords of Draenor which allow players to create buildings and recruit followers. Followers add an element of offline progression as players can send them to gather resources, complete crafting tasks, and are able to gain character and item levels to find resources with which to build better buildings and obtain even more resources. Garrisons will also be a case with which to show off one’s trophies and achievements, and presumably will be updated with further features over time.

From what we’ve seen so far, garrisons feel like a slightly more jazzed up version of The Old Republic’s resource gathering, minus the ability to manage your crew portably through a menu. Unless you can, in which case ignore that previous sentence. I’m looking forward to seeing more about garrisons in the future.

World of Warcraft's Foray Into Player Housing

[Community] NCSoft's Support Timeline

For this week’s Community Concerns, I decided to put together a graph of NCSoft’s library of MMOs, past and present. The above graph shows each game’s support timeline from the year it launched to the year that it shut down or to present if it is still running. Several of the titles may seem inaccurate as they are based on the Korean launch and may be a year or more ahead of their western launch, and at least one title has not launched in the west at all. I also decided to include Lineage as it is still in operation in Korea.

Keep in mind that Blade & Soul has not launched in the west and Lineage has shut down in the west.

[Community] NCSoft’s Support Timeline

Keep in mind that Blade & Soul has not launched in the west and Lineage has shut down in the west.

MMOrning Shots: Back To The Past

Today’s MMOrning Shot comes to us from World of Warcraft, more specifically the recently announced expansion Warlords of Draenor. Warlords of Draenor introduces a number of changes to the World of Warcraft, including player housing and a bump of the level cap to 100. Check it out when it releases next year.

Planetside 2 Pledges 10% Of Sales To Veterans

Sony Online Entertainment has announced that a portion of all proceeds made this weekend in Planetside 2 will be donated to the Travis Manion Foundation to support veterans and their families. The Travis Manion Foundation honors the fallen by challenging the living and empowering veterans and survivors. You can read more about the Travis Manion Foundation at http://www.travismanion.org/

This Veteran’s Day weekend, N?ovember 9th – 1?1th, 10% of all in-game marketplace item sales in Planetside 2 will be donated to the Travis Manion foundation to support the nation’s veterans and families of Fallen Heroes.

(Source: Planetside 2 Email)

MMO Rant: In Defiance Of Quality Assurance

I once read an editorial about the hardcore gaming scene that discussed how players could stand just about any form of loss as long as it was fair and the reason could be pointed to in an understandable way. Being perpetually stuck at a specific point in a game because the boss is too hard or a level is too difficult is frustrating, it can even cause you to quit, but at the end of the day you know that it was your own abilities that stopped your progress. On the other side of this idea, you have games that cannot be completed due to hard stops out of bugs or incomplete content. S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadows of Chernobyl is a game that can come to a hard stop when you reach the final area (the Chernobyl power plant) only to realize that you not only will not survive the radiation without the highest level suit, but the game does not allow you to go back at this point and get it. If you don’t have a save file from before entering Chernobyl, you are SOL.

But even that isn’t as infuriating as not being able to progress due to a bug, and when it comes to MMOs, I can think of no other game in recent memory than Defiance that I have wound up quitting temporarily due to bugs preventing progress. I still have not completed the levels in Defiance’s Castithan DLC pack, released back in August, because it is impossible. If you haven’t played through the content, the missions involve a series of arenas where you rack up points over several waves of enemies. There are five waves per level, and at any time the game can suffer a fatal bug where the round begins but the timer disappears and so does your score, forcing you to quit or be killed and try again.

And then you try again only to have the system break again, so you can try again to have the system break again, in an almost never ending loop. Only by sheer luck did I manage to get through the first four arenas after multiple forced reboots over the course of the past two and a half months, and finally after having to restart the last arena three times, I managed to get through all of the rounds without anything breaking. I did ultimately complete the Castithan content pack, but had I not already purchased the season pass, I likely wouldn’t purchase any further DLC. The fact that such bugs are going unfixed after two months time is unacceptable, especially in a game that is working double time just to retain its players, as Defiance is.

Otherwise I have no opinion on the matter.

World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor Announced

Blizzard has kicked off Blizzcon with the announcement of the next expansion to World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor. The expansion will introduce the world of Draenor, as well as increase the level cap to 100 and allow players to instantly boost one character to 90. According to the trailer, players will also have to defend and upgrade their garrison, and characters are set to receive a dramatic graphical overhaul. According to a Q&A, Draenor will see the introduction of new stats to gear, as well as the removal of others (hit, expertise). You can read the entire FAQ at the link below.

(Source: Waro rds of Draenor FAQ)