Stargrace

The Illusion of Life

For years now I’ve thought of MMO’s as living breathing ever changing worlds. Yesterday I came to the harsh conclusion that this is a completely false statement. Lets see if I can organize my thoughts into text here on this matter.

In an MMO the NPC’s do not remember you. If you decline a quest and come back later they have no reaction what so ever except to offer you the exact same quest in the exact same manor. There are no relationships even though you may have spent a LOT of time working up faction for these people. A good example is that when my defiler (a Freeport resident) walks through Qeynos, the guards cheer for her. I don’t have any idea why but I’m pretty sure there’s no reason for the people of Qeynos to be cheering for my Freeport character. You can’t emotionally interact with anyone and you very rarely feel as though YOU are making a difference – except for one small area.

PLAYERS bring a world to life. Players are the one area of an MMO where actions (and reactions) matter. They remember you, your interactions with them actually count. If your game doesn’t have players it’s considered “dead” because running around talking to NPC who don’t care whether or not you actually talk to them, is boring. No, I’m not talking about grouping here I’m talking about seeing other players around, watching chat channels, and the ‘illusion’ of life and an ever living world.

My thoughts on this matter came after spending a day playing Sims 3 and trying to figure out on a very basic level why the game (and any RPG for that matter) appeals to me. It’s because it feels alive to me. Now, some games try methods to make their worlds appear alive. LotRO for example has their very sound story line built into the game. However, if a player decides NOT to follow that story path for whatever reason there isn’t a single NPC out there who would notice. The world itself would not notice. It is up to the player to approach and find the proper NPC and interact with them to find out where to go next. We may as well be talking to cardboard cut outs lining the streets for all they seem to recognize or interact with us.

I realize what I’m describing here is an RPG and single player games have these interactions in spades. It’s one reason why they’re so popular. I would LOVE to see MMO companies try to come up with inventive ways of bringing their games LIFE without relying on a heavy player population. I know that’s something that’s easy for me to say since I don’t design video games and I can’t even fathom the amount of time and work and money that would go into a project of that size, but I still don’t think it’s something that’s out of our scope of imagination completely.

Hopefully I’ve explained that well enough. It’s 7am and my thoughts tend to be a rambling disaster. Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

A Little TOO Realistic? #Sims3

I’ve been a fan of The Sims franchise for a good while now. I ignore what people tend to say about the ‘type of gamer’ that enjoys these games just like I ignore the comments others make about WoW players. Truth be told there are very few games out there that I don’t enjoy and I really like the number of choices games like this one give to a player. I enjoy creating, and watching the action / reaction that goes along with it. The Sims 3 is a beautiful game. There are so many actions you can chose, and many paths of character “progression”. Sadly, there are also (lately at least) a lot of bugs. One really annoying one causes my previously created sims to bug any time they require rest. They end up sleeping like zombies through the bed, and refuse to move after that point, even if they require some other daily need like food, or a bathroom. I browsed the forums and discovered that many other people also had this new bug. Great. Creating a new family solved it temporarily, but that means my previous house hold is out of the picture.

The point of this post is the screen shot above. My little sim is doing – you guessed it – laundry. Washing machines (and dryers) are new to the game, and if you own them any time your sim changes an outfit or disrobes (shower for example) a little pile of laundry will show up on the floor, which you can collect and bring to the washing machine. It takes some time for it to process the clothes and you can even select which cycle to use. After the wash is done you transfer the clothing to the dryer, and then after a little more waiting your sim can enjoy fresh clean clothes.

I’m not sure what to think of this feature yet. On one hand I think it’s incredibly neat and cool. The animations are fantastic. On the other hand do I really want to play a video game and do laundry?! I could hire a maid to wash it all for me but at the moment my little sim can’t afford such luxuries. I’ve already sold off every spare piece of furniture in her home and a fire in the kitchen last night put her stove out of order.

As an indication of how many choices your character has. My little sim has the environmentally-friendly trait. Any time she rides in the taxi by herself (ie: no car pool) she gets a little sad. Any time she does laundry with only one load, again sad. All of her fridge food is organic (and even says as much on it). She lives in the bayou and any time she spots any land being wasted she gets a little frown and feels bad. I find myself making choices in game that are eco friendly in order to keep her moods from plummeting. It doesn’t help that she’s also dramatic, and I shudder to think what would happen if she went out and visited the city sewage plant or dump.

I haven’t picked up the latest expansion yet, but I do plan on it before too long. I haven’t read up on it very much (It’s Night Life) but I own all of the other expansions, so I do plan on picking up this one too.Any one else a sims player?

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

You Don’t Have to be a Fan to Realize this is Gutsy #WoW

I know that over the next little while there will be a slew of WoW posts on various sites as players live through the shattering taking place. Pictured above is the newly designed Brill, and Orgrimmar has had a drastic face lift among other places in old world Azeroth. A lot people I know simply don’t like World of Warcraft – and that’s ok. There’s lots of things not to like which can be said for pretty much every single game out there. That’s why choices are good.

Even if you don’t like the game what so ever – it’s hard to deny the fact that Blizzard is doing something pretty gutsy with their game. They are revamping (basically) the entire world (which is huge). They’re raising the level cap, and adding more dungeons and raids which is something every game seems to do during an expansion. They are adding two new races, and they’re doing it all at once.They’ve had some incredible live events leading up to the expansion that players can take part in. It’s one thing to have a cataclysm take place before your character arrives on a world, and completely different to physically LIVE through one.

Last night when I logged in there was a cinematic explaining the shattering. It was probably the most incredible thing I watched all day, and it made me want to purchase Cataclysm on the spot. THAT is how you release an expansion. What blizzard is doing is enticing old and new players to try out their expansion. When was such a ruckus made over a 6 year old game? When were we THIS excited? Normally this sort of chatter is reserved for new games that we’re all attempting to get into the beta for. Even if you don’t play WoW and dislike it with every inch of your being, I bet you’ve heard about what’s going on, and maybe, in the deepest, darkest corner of your mind you’re wondering what it would be like to play again. Not that you’d ever admit it.

Just like I hate admitting that Blizzard is doing something right. As one of the very few subscription-without-cash-store games left, they are proving to people that they’ve still got it.

Am I excited? Well. I haven’t played in a month and I decided to subscribe (for a month so far) so that I could check out the changes. I stick by my thoughts that WoW simply doesn’t offer enough to me to make it my main game of choice, and the community is absolutely horrid, but I’m willing to put up with that at least for this massive event.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

WRU Posts?!

Just as a little heads up, I AM still around, but as I mentioned, I’m writing on MmoQuests significantly less this month. NaNoWriMo is taking up a lot of my time and I’ve been organizing the 2010 gamers secret santa, as well as dealing with all of the other joys of life that come along this time of year.

No worries though, I expect my enthusiasm for MmoQuests will be renewed sooner rather then later, and you’ll find my usual plethora of posts.

I’ve been back to playing EQ2 – actually participated in a raid last night which is something I haven’t done in quite some time. I’m also playing EVE (very casually) and Perpetuum. I’m still playing FFXIV and since they’ve extended the free trial by yet another month it looks like I’ll have access for a bit longer yet.

As far as non-mmo games go, I’ve been exploring Fable 3 quite extensively, I’m on a mission right now to complete as many quests as I can. One involves singing garden gnomes and you simply can’t go wrong with that.

I hope everyone else is doing well, no matter where you find yourself. Happy gaming!

Creating Memories With Housing Items #EQ2

As I’ve been redesigning my Norrathian Museum one very strong thought has been persistent. These are not simply housing objects being placed. These are memories. EQ2 does something with their housing that I think some players take for granted. Sure, there are carpenter made items for every day pieces of furniture (chairs, tables, etc) but there are so many “nick nacks” that a player can obtain in game and for each one, a memory. Take the screen shot above for example. Each of the enchanted replicas is actually the boss to an instance in game. They are obtained from the daily chronomagic quest and there are around 32+ of these miniatures. Each instance (at least for me) holds a memory. There are the guild hall trophies that come from defeating raid encounters. There are the heritage quests that can be clicked and turned into a housing item. Those ones are even more unique because they hold the memories not just of your adventures in EQ2, but EQ if you happened to have obtained them there.

Each one of the artifacts that makes up my museum came from a special encounter in the game and for that reason alone I treasure my player house more than any other single piece of gear that I’ll eventually out level. I have worked harder collecting the items for it then anything else in game. It’s quite literally an entire history of my character laid out in housing items. 6 years of game time. Every lore and legend weapon, every book, every statue has a history attached to it.

That is what makes housing in EQ2 so special.