Napoleon Total War

I have always been a fan of the Total War franchise, but in my opinion none of them have been all that great.  Good and fun in most cases, sure.. but great?  Eh not really..  All of them have had their share of issues of which Napoleon TW shares some of them.. NTW is by far the most refined version so far and a lot of fun but, I’m not quite sure it peeks the “great” meter just yet.. I will say its pretty darn good and a lot of fun though..

Totally worth the price as it’s clear to me that Creative Assembly (the developers) are getting better at their craft but the game has one staggering short fall that it shares with all it’s siblings;  Horrible AI.

This is the 6th iteration of the game core concept and the AI is still just dreadful..  I’m pretty sure we could train a monkey to play the game better..  I know AI is very complex and as a programmer myself I’m not sure how to solve this problem, but dang..  The computer is down right bad.   Given enough time you probably could beat any army with just about any force..  It’s actually fun trying to do just that.. heh

In comparison to Empire Total War, it’s immediate predecessor, Napoleon is the clear winner.  The game is much more polished and refined than ETW ever was and it makes me feel like ETW was what NTW was supposed to be, but they ran out of time and money..  I will say that the AI in NTW is better than ETW, but when up is the only possible direction….

I will say this, NTW is beautiful.. There is nothing cooler than watching your line of infantry slowly disappear in a hazy cloud of black powder smoke as a line of enemy advance forward.. Or the small skip gashes that are cut into the scenery as a cannon ball goes whizzing by.. Great stuff..  The level of care and detail there is pretty high..

But the AI is so dumb that the enemy unit of 120 line infantry will happily walk into a line of cannon..  Or horse melee units that charge into the barriers (only to die immediately in droves)..  Or how the diplomacy system is completely pointless..etc..

The AI is the killer.. It’s just not good..

One way they got around that was to introduce the notion of “drop in battles” in which you can, during your single player campaign, enlist a friend (or complete stranger even) to play the part of the enemy during some of the battles.   I will admit.. This was a damn good and innovative idea.. Well done guys..  I love this..

Whats nice about it is that the other player when he’s playing your enemy, or when you’re playing his enemy in his campaign, isn’t really invested in the same way..  So if he loses it’s almost like it’s not a personal loss.. after all its not like you chose the force..etc..   I like it.. this was a good addition to the game..

For the next iteration of the game I hope they go more into the trading, and economy aspects of the game.   I want to be able to set individual tax rates for a single province.. or define whats being traded where..etc..  Right now its fairly limited.. you’re either trading or not.. etc..  I know this game is more about the killin and less about things like trade and diplomacy but I still would like a more rounded game experience in these areas..

All in all… Not “great”.. but pretty damn good and a lot of fun against like minded friends..

Additional;

I really think Games Workshop should get with Creative Assembly and make Warhammer Total War.. Dear god.. talk about two franchises that absolutely belong together..  This engine, plus GW’s IP?!  WIN!!  It would be like chocolate and peanut butter man..

How cool would it be to see a pack of Skaven march into a pack of Witchelves (dead Skaven)..  Or see a bunch of Jezzails take out some Coldone Knights.. etc..  Hot..

I think this is such a good idea I’m going to send them a letter…

Splintercell Conviction

I really like a good first person shooter..  But most FPS games these days aren’t about thinking or planning your way out, they are just run and gun, “zerg-fests” where you run in shoot a few.. die, respawn, run in shoot a few, die, respawn.. wash, rinse, repeat..  Boring..

The new Splintercell game isn’t this..  I would call it more of a first person sneaker.  In that it’s entirely conceivable to play through large swaths of the game without firing a shot, and that’s just cool..

As with any game it has it’s ups and downs, but over all its up and I think UBISoft has set themselves up with a game that they can kick out a lot of downloadable content for, if they leverage this correctly..

Things that make this game stand out for me are the little details, like the movement mechanics.. Frankly, I think the movement mechanics are great!   And the cover system is fantastic, unlike some other games I have played recently..  It did take a little getting used to some aspects of it; like I’d prefer the shift key to not be a toggle for run/walk but rather be a press and hold kind of thing but that’s largely because it’s what I’m used to with other games, not because its inherently wrong..

There are lots of different weapons that you can use ( or not use ) and you have options to upgrade them..  There are also a whole pack of different thrown gadgets that you can use and they all have their use..

I also really like the color vs black/white mechanic..  At first I thought this would be jarring and break the suspension of disbelief but the opposite was true.. I feel it actually helps a lot..

Lots of textual help everywhere which again I thought would be distracting or break the suspension, but actually they way they worked it in was great and made it sorta feel like a movie..

Really my complaints about the game are minor;

1.  The game is short — I finished the game in 11 hours, and I was going slow.. I’m pretty sure you could finish it a heck of a lot faster than that if you tried..  It seemed really complete though in that the 11 hours was packed with stuff to do, but I kinda wish games were longer.. they seem to be getting shorter and shorter.

2.  Very linear — to be expected really.. There is usually only one way to go..

3.  A couple of the levels need more direction — the car garage sneak event annoyed me and really was the only level that kinda pissed me off, but primarily because I had no idea where I was supposed to go and it took me several tries..

4.  PRODUCT PLACEMENT!!  Dear god..  I wonder how much Cisco and the producers of the new Nightmare on Elm Street paid to get their product so highly and obviously placed in the game..  Frankly this was jarring.. I didn’t like this..  All computer monitors can be destroyed!! uh.. unless there is a Cisco logo on it, then no..  etc..  There were others.. it was annoying..

5.  And finally the AI, while not dreadfully stupid the enemy aren’t too bright.. For example I was right around the corner from a guy who knew I was there.. he had the brilliant idea of throwing a frag grenade at me.. it basically dropped at his feet and I just remained hidden while he died.. heh  it was amusing, but kinda dumb..   The biggest issue is that they are constantly yelling what they are doing which they took directly from FEAR and was a problem in that game too that I know folks complained about..  Oh well..

All in all it was a great game.. and I will likely play it again on hard..

I think I actually give this one 4.5 out of 5 stars.

I also believe in having multiple armies for your game.. I have two 40k armies; Tau and Orks.  I like them both and am not really looking to change them..   But right now I only really have one fantasy army;  Skaven.  I love my rats, but I want to find another army to play and have been looking for a while..  I tried Ogre’s and I tried Tomb Kings but really didn’t get into them.  I have a lot of TK stuff painted up and I very much like the models and the lore, but for whatever reason the TK army just doesn’t excite me..  The Ogre’s never even got that far..

So I’m back on the hunt and I think I have settled on getting a Daemons of Chaos list going.

I think all of the models are pretty neat, and I like that that its sorta 4 armies in one; one list for each god.  Something that also appeals on a lesser level is the fact that they are the exact same models used in Fantasy and 40k.. So if you have them ready to go in Fantasy, its easy to use them in 40k.  (Just have to solve the bases problem which I’ll get to in a moment.. )

My number one reason for picking this army is because I dig the models.  I am most likely going to go an all Slaanesh army, or if that’s not viable I’ll fill in with Nurgle or Khorne..   I’m going to leave Tzeentch out because it seems it’s what ever one is doing and I like doing things others aren’t..

I really look forward to painting these guys (gals?) up.. I think the Slaanesh models all look pretty cool and should be quite fun to paint.. I know I wont get anywhere near as good results as the professional painters do, but still they look good and should come out okay..

The only issue at this point is that the new core rule book is coming out in July and is rumored to nurf the Daemons down something harsh..  If the current rumors hold true then the DoC army as a whole may be unplayable.. I find that unfortunate, but not enough to dissuade me from getting the army in the first place..

I have also heard tell that half the reason for the new rule book is to correct issues in the DoC army and a couple other newer armies that introduced issues into the game.. It’s really too bad they feel the need to completely rewrite the main rules, instead of just fixing the issue with the individual army..

Fantasy and 40k approved!

The Bases:  So, I listed above that these models can be used in both fantasy and 40k.. that’s pretty cool.. The only issue is that fantasy uses square bases, and 40k uses round bases.  That issue can be complicated further by the fact that 40k bases are one inch in diameter, and fantasy bases are typically 20mm or 25mm square..  So, if you want to use the same models in both games (as opposed to buying the same models twice.. ) then you have to get clever about your bases..

I solved it this way;

1.  I got some washers that are smaller around than both the 40k bases and the fantasy bases you’re going to use.  With the Daemonettes I was in luck, they use  25mm bases so I could get a slightly larger washer than if I was stuck with 20mm bases.  Also make sure the washers have as small a center hole as possible.  The washers I’m using are 7/8 (0.87″) with a 7/32 (0.20″) inner hole, got them at Lowes for $3 or $4 for a hand full..

2. I then assembled the model as I wanted it and glued it to the top of one of the washers — trying very hard not to foul the hole in the washer.

3. I then drilled 4 itty bitty holes in the base and stuck in some of the tiny magnets I have.   I mean it these things are small.. 0.05″ is small man..  4 of them hold the washer down nicely, and are small enough to not cause clustering.. (Where a bunch of magnets jump to one another.. )  Drill all the way through the base with a drill bit slightly smaller than the magnet, and then enlarge it a bit by in and out movements..  This is a tiny hobby drill bit.. Once that’s done, I glued the magnets in from the underside so they wont go anywhere.

4. I then got a dowel from Walmarts hobby area that was the exact fit for the washers..  You can get a bag of like 20 of them for $0.89..   I drilled a whole in the direct center of the base and pushed the dowel through.. I had to be very careful not to split the base.. And I made sure to push the down through the hole a bit so that it touches the table the same time the edges of the base does.  It helps with gluing later.

5.  I then took the thinnest washer I had ( they are varying thicknesses for some odd reason ) and slid it down the dowel until to stuck to the magnets..  Put the dowel in a vice, and used a coping saw to cut the dowel at the washer.  Once that was done I applied glue to the underside, again ensuring that nothing goes anywhere.

6.  And that’s it..  Paint and flock it up.. When you flock the square base you want to make sure that you use an extra washer because it gets kinda nasty.. And when it dries you might have to do some minor surgery to get that washer off.. I had to carefully Xacto around the edges to free it from its flocky jail..

Click the image to see the results.. it works out nicely..  The 40k round bases snaps up in there and only requires a touch of flocking on the top of the dowel.. the fantasy base you see snaps down nicely too almost 100% hiding the washer..

Rock Band to Real Band

I have been playing the hell out of Rock Band 2.  I very much enjoy it as it’s quite fun and challenging.  I’m also willing to bet that games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero are helping the music industry quite a bit as most likely people are getting exposed to music they have never considered before (I know I have been)..  But what might me more important is that people are getting exposed to the notion of making music..

In an era where school music programs are on the decline (or completely gone) I can’t think of anything more important for the music industry as a whole than getting kids interested and/or hooked at an early age..  This is the perfect venue!

They just need to bridge the realism gap..   Rock Band (and guitar hero, band hero, etc..) are great games, but they aren’t realistic at all..  For the guitar and bass you are producing notes by strumming a single piece of plastic and pushing one or multiples of 5 buttons..  As you graduate through the difficulty levels things get harder in that the waterfall of Chiclets come faster and the fingerings are more difficult, but you don’t actually progress towards being able to play a real instrument..

How cool would it be if instead as you progress through the difficulty curve the game got more realistic the harder it got..    In order to pull this off they would need to basically ship the game with a real guitar or a device that hooks into a real guitar such that it responds to the console in a way expected by the game… Instead of pushing a single button, maybe sense that we are actually pushing a cord or even a single string..   And once you get to the end of the difficulty curve you’re playing the song..   How awesome would that be?!

Suddenly not only would Rock Band be a kick ass game, but it would also be a must have teacher that could train you to play your favorite songs (for only $2 a download.. or whatever it is..)..

Once you have a device that hooks into a guitar or drums it should be fairly simple to make that device work for other instruments..

Imagine if you will, “Piano Hero!”  or maybe “Violin Hero!”   It would allow you to play a game with you instrument of choice, and go a long way towards teaching you to better play that instrument..

You think “Band Hero” is fun?  Try “Symphony Hero!” hah

There are so many possibilities here.. I seriously hope that they don’t squander this..  They could spark a whole new revolution around music making if they really wanted to..

The best part is that my wife has been playing it too.. And even more surprising is she likes playing drums!!   That actually came as a shock to me.. I expected her to enjoy guitar or bass.. I never thought she’d like the drums because frankly they are the hardest part..

But she loves it so we play together and do fairly well..Good times!!

Now they just need to add a lot more Journey songs.. They only have 2?!  TWO!!!  *sigh*  More!  I want more damnit.. hehe

Good game.. I highly recommend it..

Stop the DRM

When will companies learn that their draconian efforts to prevent piracy only serves to hurt their paying customers which directly affects their bottom line!!

Companies, you must stop counting pirated copies of your software as “lost revenue” — it’s not! Someone who is willing to pirate software isn’t willing to pay for it.. EVER! So you never had their money in the first place..

You’re trying so hard to capture that imagined lost revenue that it’s blinding you to how badly you’re screwing yourselves and your real customers..

Equating the number of pirated copies of your software directly to dollars is retarded.. More over, implementing these harsh DRM models only serves to prevent the honest players from playing your games, which effectively assures that you’re going to lose real money in the form of people who actually DO buy your games going else where..

Let take the new Silent Hunter 5 game as an example.. SH5 (a game with a lot of bugs and other issues that already pisses paying customers off) comes with the new DRM which forces you to be connected to the internet 100% of the time. The new system which the Ubisoft exec’s spin as being a positive thing for the customer is constantly phoning home to make sure you’re still allowed to play the game.. The game you purchased.

If at any time during your play period the connection to the mother ship fails, you stop playing the game. You can’t save your game.. You can’t do anything.. Effectively the game you purchased goes into cripple ware mode.. This is bullshit.

The hacker community took one good look at that and said “F’to you Ubi” and hacked it within the first 24 hours of release.. These people had no intention of buying the game in the first place so who does it actually hurt?

ME! If I’m playing the game that I purchased and I go on a road trip with my laptop, I can’t play it.. The hacker can.. he can play just fine..

If I am playing the game that I purchased at home and for whatever reason my internet goes out (it happens), I’m screwed.. Not the hacker.. He can keep playing..

So.. whats my recourse? Nothing.. I’m just shit out of luck.. I have to either accept their crappy DRM because apparently they think I’m the problem, or not buy the game in the first place.. The hacker doesn’t care, he isn’t troubled by these problems at all and in no way has the DRM affected him at all..

DRM only punishes the paying customer! Ubisoft is trying like hell to spin their new DRM in a positive light, but it’s not.. they claim that it’s “A platform of online services for PC titles offering gamers a more in-depth gaming experience as well as providing an innovative solution for reducing PC game piracy.” HUH?!

How did you do either of those things? It does absolutely NOTHING to offer me a more in-depth gaming experience and in fact does the opposite in that suddenly I have this invasive piece of software on my system that prevents me from playing at all from time to time.. I paid for the game, yet I’m punished.

And it doesn’t prevent or even reduce software piracy considering it was hacked out in the first 24 hours. The hackers never even notice the games DRM, it doesn’t bother them in the slightest..

At this point you’re actually encouraging people like me to hack the game because your own DRM is preventing the honest player from playing the game he paid for.. That’s right.. your DRM which is there to prevent piracy is actually encouraging piracy because otherwise we can’t play the game.. Good job genius..

You’re so busy counting the imaginary lost dollars you’re missing the fact that your real dollars are heading out the door.. The proof is in the pudding.. Your current sales for this year are down by over 20% and I have to think you only have yourselves to blame..

I realize fully that the “higher ups” are the ones making these decisions, but someone MUST stand up and tell them why DRM is not the right solution.. If you guys don’t stop the DRM shenanigans you guys are going to hemorrhage not money, but customers..

1. The people playing are douche bags
2. Just like SC1, the game is wildly out of balance

I’m playing in the friend and family beta and STILL the people I play against are rabid pricks..  People say all the time that MMO (WoW specifically) players are rude and jerks, and I have to say they are nothing compared to the Starcraft players..   It’s like all the lame ass epeen stuff you see in MMO’s that a player does over the course of the year or two he plays the game is compressed into one 20 minute game and so they have to be extra big douche bags just to be sure you know how uber they are and how much you suck..

I want to play any game of this nature against my friends or coworkers, and no one else.. I don’t want to have to suffer the fanboy jackasses who feel the need to tell you how much you suck every five minutes just to make themselves feel better..   I mean seriously how pathetic are you that you have to continually tell others they suck to make yourself feel better..

My second point is the balance issue..  I’m sorry but I always felt Starcraft 1 was out of balance..   Well guess what.. Starcraft 2 is also unbalanced..  And you’d think that Blizzard might take it as a clue that if everyone is playing one race, and no one is playing another race.. there’s a reason for it.

I just got finished playing a 2v2 game in which the opponents partner quit about 10 seconds into the game..  So it was actually a 2v1 game with 2 Zerg players versus 1 Terran player.

I always play Zerg, and this was the VERY FIRST TIME I had seen another player intentionally play Zerg..  In all the other games I have played so far, everyone plays Terran..  Clue one that Terran are over powered is that everyone plays them.. I have seen a few folks play protoss but not many..

And We played for something like 45 minutes, two Zerg versus one Terran and couldn’t beat him.  2v1 and we lost.    We used up ALL the resources on the map and weren’t able to get him out of his bolt hole..   Yes.. ALL of the resources.. I had 6 bases by the end of the game and my partner had 4..  The opponent just proceeded to nuke us into oblivion and all the attacking we did in the world did no good what so ever..

He had SWARMS of stuff flying and running around, was poking us from all sides as well as a continual nuke spam, and was mounting an impossible defense of our combined and organized attacks..  And he only ever had 2 bases.. He also had ample time to tell us how much we sucked..

I know I’m not great at this game.. but I’m not that darn bad.. and my partner seemed to know what he was doing..  I think it’s a pretty clear case of one side being over powered..

I tried to ask the Terran player what he was doing and he proceeded to tell me how great he was and how my parents should be embarrassed they gave birth to me…   This is a friend or a family member of a Blizzard employee..   Fine.. Fuck you.. You can have this game, I don’t want it..

Star Trek Online Review

Firstly I want to say that I personally think it’s extremely hard to judge a game entirely by the first 15 levels.. Any MMO to date that one cares to name changes drastically as you play across the level range and to judge that game by the first couple levels is simply foolish. You haven’t experienced the whole of the game.. So I’m going to post my review about it, but I want you to keep in mind that there are going to be a lot of things I simply haven’t done yet..

Also, there are a lot of people on the forums bashing the game for one reason or another, some reasons are valid, some aren’t. I would argue that most of those people really haven’t truly experienced the game in its fullest, but at the same time I will concede the point that if it doesn’t appeal to them early on, it may not later either and that they should just move on without the flames.

What you’re not seeing on the forums is the influx of praise or posts by people who are largely happy, not because they don’t exist but rather because the complainers are typically a lot more vocal minority.. People that complain loudly are typically those people who think they are righteous and have entitlement issues..  They are “right and by god you’re gonna know my opinion..”

So with that — here’s my righteous opinion on the the first 15 levels of fed play and the first 12 or so of Klingon.. I only really have 2 major complaints.

But first some general over arching comments — please keep in mind there is no order to my thoughts;

The server’s are completely flooded and Cryptic wasn’t ready for the load.. Completely understandable if you consider that they just opened up the beta for quite possibly the single most popular science fiction IP on the planet. (Is star trek more popular than star wars? I don’t actually know..) They are aware of the issue and have stated repeatedly that they are taking action to fix it. Kudos guys.

I have seen people bitch that “this has been the worst beta ever” and that simply isn’t true.  Not even close.  I’m pretty sure Anarchy Online still holds that title firmly, and likely will forever..  In fact I don’t really think this beta has been all that bad considering the volume of traffic they are getting.. Sure there are queues, server lag, and disconnects but all of those are brought about by the volume of players..  In fact the majority of the issues the game has can likely be traced back to simple server lag due to volume.

Is it bug free?  no.   But then neither is WoW or EQ and those games have been out for years. I don’t really understand why people expect a brand new game to be bug free.. *shrug*  I do take it as a very positive sign that they have patched the game every night during the open beta..  That implies to me that they are actively working on the issues which is great.

I think the game graphics look good.. I have seen quite a few threads on the forums about how they graphics look poor, and I just don’t agree. It doesn’t look photo realistic like some of the very early preview teaser images did years ago, but that’s okay.. It looks good and succeeds in suspending my disbelief into thinking I’m playing a game in a Star Trek universe.

The UI is good though the map system needs to be better explained. It took me a while to understand the area map and the galaxy map and why some systems were in my system list some of the time, and not in my list other parts of the time..etc.. It’s easy once you understand it but completely confusing while you don’t..  Lack of documentation or explanation is almost a theme in this game..

The skills are confusing but mostly because they don’t explain what they do well enough. It also doesn’t explain well enough things like your characters class to ship class combination’s.. Is it a bad idea to be an engineer, in a science ship? Why? If it is bad that means if you go science you’re stuck in the same 2 ships for 20 levels.. ouch.. (maybe longer, I don’t know what ships are available at T3)

What does +18 in Science Vessel Captain actually do for me? Games like WoW, Eve, and even Champions to some degree have a LOT of math behind it.. This game clearly does too but you don’t really expose that math to the players in a clear way. A lot of players, myself included, actually enjoy pondering the right character build and the best way we can achieve what it is we want to such a degree as to actually build spreadsheets.. Eve is a game totally about spreadsheets ( a little too spreadsheety at times ) and players love that.. Expose those numbers to us.. Let us know what skilling up something actually does, or all of those skills you invested all that time in to create for us mean nothing.

I’m sure all of these things will be documented eventually but right now it smacks of information that the developers all know and think of as obvious where as the players coming to it for the first time just stand there confused.   Documentation is your friend.

The ground combat is a little weak right now and I personally think it’s boring, repetitive and painfully scripted but I think it will develop over time.  It very much smacks of CoH door missions and that system needs more versatility.  Give players options that change the outcome.. etc..   I can’t say as I enjoy the ground combat much though because every game to date has been about ground combat.  I’m much more interested in the space combat, that being said they still have a lot of work to do on the ground if they plan to serve both..

As to space combat, Right now I can say I really enjoy it though it gets very “samey” pretty quickly.    I think that’s largely due to the fact that I have experienced basically 4 ships total..  And flying around seeing nothing (mostly) but Miranda ships get’s old..

Personally I hope there are a lot more ships in the game come release. I love how the ships are customizable but there still aren’t enough chassis and what not to choose from. Maybe that gets better later on, but in the beginning its weak as you have 1 ship. Then when you level up to get your tier two ships, you have a choice of three technically but since you already decided your officer type (tactical, engineer or science) you only really have 1 logical choice.

I think players identify with their avatars a lot more than most game creators take into account and as such they need to give us even more options.  Plus the ability to add fleet markings would be handy.  It’s minor I know, but it helps establish community and a sense of pride which is important in an MMO.

I could make a long list of other complaints like, why did they go with left and right versus port and starboard.. Or why isn’t there any Klingon PVE play etc.. but really at this point I’d rather talk about whats there than what’s NOT there.. So with that — I have two complaints:

Major Complaint One — One of the worst mistakes they could make in this game is the same thing that in my mind killed the City franchise and Champions.. I’m gonna call it “Mission leveling” for the lack of a better term. The concept is this; You get a mission and the more people that do the mission with you, the harder the mission gets. So if you solo a mission you fight one or two weak mobs, but if you bring a whole group suddenly its 3 or 4 hard hitting bosses and several weaker mobs..etc..

Sounds like a good idea on the surface, but CoH and CO proved it to be a horrible idea because it actually encourages players to NOT group.. this kills the need for “community”.. More over it gives players no sense of accomplishment because they know a mission is simply a cake walk if they solo it. There should be things in the game that require groups and missions should be statically leveled.  Do away with this balancing thing..It’s a failed experiment..

You should be able to get missions that are so hard you can’t do it without help.. Missions that scale like they do is just a bad design and this is the third time they have done it..

A mission that is the same level as you, should present you with mobs that are roughly the same as you.. If it’s a higher level mission they should be harder hitting.. if it’s lower level they should be weaker..etc..

I realize that this is very much the WoW and EQ model for doing quests but it has stood the test of time and it’s a known..  Right now I can’t help but think they have broken this very simple concept.

Major Complaint Two –  I want crafting.. I want to be able to harvest asteroids like in Eve and create stuff.. I can’t fathom an MMO game that has virtually no crafting system what so ever..  And sorry but the current system they have that they say is like crafting simply isn’t.

Mindlessly warping around a mission looking for the various anomolies that you get crap from that let you turn in for an upgraded item.. yeah that’s not crafting.. I hope they fix that..

In the end there is a little bit of the “city of star trek” that I was worried about in my earlier post.  There is a little bit of champions in it.. there is a little of city in it.. etc..  Cryptic is going with what they know.. But they might have enough of a winner here because its sort of two games in one (space and ground) and with the addition of PVP in both places you sorta have 4 games in one..  Now consider the ability to play both sides, federation or klingon and now its x2 again..

There might be enough different options to keep this game going for a while.. I’m enjoying it for now at least..

Star Trek Online

Why I think they might actually have gotten it right.

Firstly, I was really worried when I found out the end game for STO would be PVP-centric.  That just doesn’t really work normally for any number of reasons which I wont go into just yet.. Traditionally if you look at all the major (even minor) MMO’s out there that have tried, you’ll see that they have generally failed or aren’t entirely PVP based.. Eve Online being one that hasn’t failed and does really well, but I believe that’s largely due to being the only game in it’s market. By and large however, PVP only games just don’t do that well with the masses..

I believe that there are 4 primary reasons for PVP being problematic in most games:

1. PVP allows Player X to have an immediate and often negative impact on Player Y’s game play experience. This means that Player Y could possibly have his game play impacted by another player in such a way as to prevent him from enjoying or even advancing in the game. Removing the “fun” from the game for Player Y entirely.

2. Good PVP and Smart PVP are two mutually exclusive concepts. “Good” PVP is playing against another person where things are evenly matched in terms of player skills, character skills, gear, etc.. The fight is even odds and could go either way and as such, is a “fair” fight.. “Smart” PVP is employing any tactic that would give the player any form of advantage over the intended target — fairness doesn’t enter into it. In fact the more unfair the fight is, the better.  Since most players always try to play smartly, the target of that doesn’t have fun.

3. Everyone loses eventually, and most players lose most of the time. This is simply math and has been proven time and again. In any PVP engagement, you will eventually lose. And most players, yes you too, lose most of the time. It’s a mathematical inevitability.  People don’t like to lose as it’s not fun.

4. Character skills and gear out weigh, player skills and gear every time. In most PVP games it just about always pans out that the higher level and better equipped character will simply dominate the lower level character, regardless of the players skill or equipment. So no matter how awesome you are on your level 45 warlock, that level 50 paladin will simply slaughter you while watching TV and eating some pizza.. not fun.

Why are these things bad?  Well first of all you might have noticed I used “fun” in each point.  Games are first and foremost about fun.  If you aren’t having fun then most likely you’re not going to play very long.

I think someone at cryptic looked at these facts and made the right decision to make PVP opt-in only.  Let’s look at each issue in turn;

The first one can actually punish a player, just for playing the game. They might be having fun mining asteroids for example, wanting nothing to do with other people only to have their experience tainted by someone else..  I think most hard core PVP players completely miss the fact that what is fun for them, isn’t the same thing as what’s fun for everyone else and games are first and foremost about fun for everyone.  STO has made PVP an opt-in system so that you must knowingly go to the various PVP zones in order to do any form of PVP.  If you don’t want to, you don’t have to.

This opt-in methodology also largely solves the second issue. You can’t be gate camped or ganked or griefed by a roaming pack of players in the regular world.. You must go into the PVP area where you acknowledge the possibility and most likely will bring your own posse..

If you know PVP is opt-in, then you wont mind losing on occasion.  STO makes the PVP very “Zerg” like in that if you do lose, you just respawn and off you go again.. So really dying a lot doesn’t matter all that much. So who cares if you lose more than you win.. It’s still fun!

And so far the ship buffs/abilities and stats don’t really seem to matter.   In my lowbie T1 Miranda class ship I was able to take out T2 ships in PVP.  I don’t know if this was due to my better understanding of shield and power management or if my equipment was better or if I was a better player..  Or if I was just lucky!  But right now it seems like player skill actually matters a great deal more than everything else..

I think it could work here..

A lot of folks are bitching about not having open realm PVP though and those people irritate me..

Their primary complaint is that they should be able to attack any other player at any time.. And they always gloss it over with reasons why it would be canonically correct in a Star Trek universe..blah blah blah..

Let’s be clear;  the only people that would disagree with the opt-in PVP system are the PVP players who are the ones most offended by the notion that they some how do something “unfair” by attacking people that aren’t as skilled, have no desire to participate, or who aren’t in anyway ready for the PVP conflict they are suddenly thrust into without any option.   Simply put,  they are griefers who enjoy ruining other peoples game by taking out the easy target.

I’m an old school PVP player from EVE online.  I have also PVP’d in EQ and WoW so I know where I’m coming from here.

In EVE when I went into a fight, I made damn sure it was going to be a fight I was going to win or at least had a good chance of winning.  If I didn’t think it would go my way, I would unass the AO ASAP.

If I was going to steal jet can’s (Yes I did that..) I made sure my target was someone I knew I could steal from without being instakilled.   When camping a gate in EVE I wouldn’t do it alone, but rather would bring a whole crew — why?  ’cause I wanted to win!

It’s just smart PVP — don’t engage in a fight you can’t win.  The same notion is employed by modern day generals when waging war..  Don’t play fair!!  Smart PVP will never be fair if the PVP’er knows what he is doing. A fair fight will get you killed every time.

There are a lot of players though who will never want to be apart of that world.. they want to play the game to have fun, and not PVP and they should be allowed to do so.   For them the fun is playing against the system and NPC’s.. It’s the same reason why raiding end game bosses in WoW and EQ is fun.. It’s the challenge of beating the system..   Whether you, the hard core PVP’er, agree is completely immaterial.

Thus when you attack them unprovoked in systems that allow for that, they rightly call you a griefer because you’re interrupting their fun.    I have griefed in my time, and been griefed.. so I understand..

The game designers in STO have rightly realized that it’s an absolute imperitive to make the game fun for as many people as possible, and to do that PVP must be opt-in.  It’s the only way to keep the largest portion of the population happy.

The simple fact of the matter is, if you attack someone who doesn’t want to be attacked then you’re negatively affecting their game play.  And the larger picture is;  Doing so will in many cases drive those players away from the game, which means now you’re negatively affecting the developing studio’s bottom line.  “Carebears”, a term I hate, are by far the largest segment of the market and keeping them happy keeps the game afloat.

Kudos Cryptic.

Some might wonder why the single most popular science fiction franchise in the history of media has taken so long to be turned into an MMO, myself included — But I think it’s a better use of our efforts to instead not speculate too much on the why of it but rather to channel that raw emotion and energy into the heart felt desire for STO to not suck.

Let’s be honest here, Cryptic Studios is very good at bringing out games that look kinda keen, but have zero long term playability.   City of Heroes and City of Villains suffered from this, and the successor Champions Online (City of Champions?) was even worse.   They looked great, but for whatever reason they just didn’t have the sticking power to keep players interested.

Will STO be the same thing?  Look good initially and maybe be fun for a week or two, but rapidly drag down into a grind-tastic mess?  God I hope not..

I can’t actually put my finger on what it is about CoH/CoV and CO that make them lose their fun.  I will say that of the three, I think City of Villains was the best with regards to game play but that was primarily due to the controller character architecture.  What can I say; I enjoyed having a pack of zombies at my disposal..

Game play wise though, all of them got very boring and repeatative very very quickly.

One of the main cool points about the game was the ability to make all your characters 100% unique, but at the same time I can’t help but wonder if that was part of it’s downfall too..  When you look at games that have a more ridgid class structure you end up having a sort of community around that class, and with that community you have competition.  “Oh yeah? Well I’m a better Warlock than you are.. and I’ll prove it!!”  etc..

Players end up putting a lot of time and effort in to trying to make their cookie cutter class stand out from all the other cookie cutter classes.  That in and of itself forces a person to form a bond or an identity with their character making them want to keep playing..

When you can start your characters virtual life as being 100% unique, you have one less thing to strive for..  So while it’s really cool I can go out of my way to make my character look completely different.. it doesn’t lend itself to longevity..

This also completely ruins the whole sense of community around a given class which is a problem.. What’s more community is completely thrashed by the total lack of classes where group play happens..  The open architecture of characters, while initially cool, makes group forming painful because suddenly you can’t say “We need a healer” and know that there are only 3 or 4 basic classes that heal..

STO appears to have classes with regards to ships; tanks, dps, and support ships.  So that’s a damn good sign.  I’m hoping the realize the issues I described above and are working to correct the issue.. But I still have fears about the game as a whole..

For example; I absolutely cringe at the notion of wandering around a space station and having random NPC’s run up and yell about how awesome I am like they did in CoH/CoV and CO..  Please rip that page out of the CoH/CoV/CO hand book and burn it..

I also worry that the game’s look (read: graphics) are dated even before the game has been released.  Cryptic has always intentionally made their games sort of “middle of the road” with regards to hardware requirements so it’s very likely that the game will not be super high quality, but even so they screen shots look very lack-luster.   These could all be beta shots with poor textures or something, but I doubt it.

I’m the first to admit that gameplay comes over graphics every time though, so if the game play is good then I can forgive just about any graphics decisions.. But then they aren’t known for their game play so its easy to jump to conclusions..

I guess my greatest fear is that Star Trek Online will end up being “City of Star Trek” and will be to Star Trek, what the original Star Wars MMO was to Star Wars. (Read: Horrible)