MMO BinA Geek's Look at Massively Multiplayer Online Games

I gave the station launcher a look a while ago at the beginning of beta, and there were so many bugs and issues with it that I just couldn’t see myself using it, so I un-installed and barely gave it another look.

On a whim this weekend I decided to reinstall it and see if it was any better the second time around now that some time has passed, and much to my surprise it is.

Keep in mind that I play three of the SOE titles (four in total but Free Realms is not listed on station launcher as of yet) and have friends scattered all over on various servers. That’s where this little application really comes in handy.

Now let me start by saying there is one semi-significant bug still. The bug occurs if the game you’re playing thinks you have not logged off properly. This is most notably the case in Vanguard, I haven’t seen it happening anywhere else yet. There IS a way to solve the issue by logging to character select first before you exit the game. This tells the system that you’re actually NOT in the game. If you do have a ’stuck’ character in some game, you’ll also be able to SEE it, under the ‘by character’ category it will list your characters and say “so and so is currently in game” - if you have a character stuck in game (such as I did) you will be able to send tells to your friends but they will be unable to send tells back because it thinks you’re on as that character. Make sense? Good!

For people who may have been having issues launching their SOE games from the patcher, this also provides a work around. I know people who have been having some enormous issues trying to get the game to start, but can launch perfectly fine from here. I’ve got mine set to close down once I start up a game which comes in handy and the whole program acts as a chat platform for when you’re not actually in game. The friends list is a little easier to understand now. You can have it ignore particular characters you may have to cut down on doubles and reduce the size of the friends list. You can easily block and ignore people, or add new people to the list. The program has yet to crash or freeze on me, and aside from that one ’stuck character’ bug, it seems to be working fairly well. I’ll continue to use it for the next few weeks and if I like it I’ll stick with it after that. It’s nice to see it’s still being worked on, and if you DO have issues with the station launcher be sure to bring it up on the station forums, there’s a fairly active section devoted specifically to the launcher.

I’ve talked about this before on my own site, but wanted to go into a little more depth on the matter. One of my personal pet peeves is games that allow a player to out level the content. I realize that games move in a linear fashion and that it’s not exactly easy to provide content that appeals to the masses - but what you really don’t want is for people to have a reason NOT to visit your content.

Lets take EQ2 as an example. Encounters in game ‘gray’ out, providing no experience or loot (aside from body loot which is typically used in quests). Unless you happen to be a quest-o-holic or you happen to be mentoring there’s really no reason to go back to an older zone. As the leveling process is sped up, more and more content is overlooked and lots of it isn’t even touched. Have you been to the caves in Pillars of Flame beneath the monk camp? Have you done all of the Gobblerock hideout instances in Commonlands and Antonica? Chances are if you’re a fairly new player you have not.

There are a few ways EQ2 has chosen to combat this. One is allowing higher level players to ‘mentor’ lower level players and adjust to their level. This allows you to play with friends and experience lower content. Lower level quests (10+) also offer achievement points for first time completions which inspire higher level characters to quest since those points are difficult to obtain.

This simply is not enough inspiration.

Over the time I have leveled it’s amazing to see how much empty content is out there. EQ2 is a huge vast world but you only ever need to level in a very small portion of it. Players keep asking for choice and content but forget the vast amount of content out there already because they have no reason to re-visit it.

Now take a game like EQ or Vanguard or even WoW. The content in these games does not trivialize. Sure, you may not gain experience from defeating an encounter but you will still find crafting goods, as well as quests and achievements to unlock, and even loot (gear etc) from defeating mobs. This allows players to at least have some sort of purpose. Perhaps they are working up a new crafter, or need gear for an alt, or have some unfinished achievements to unlock.

I know the whole concept of an achievement system has been over played these days. WAR and lotRO have vast systems where killing any mob or discovering any new area unlocks a new title reward. Players LIKE these though, they like having goals to aim for and have a sense of pride over hunting down each and ever little bit they can acomplish.

If there were title achievements for EQ2 like perhaps completing all of the quests in a zone, or discovering all of the POI (points of interest) maybe we’d see people in more areas then just the ‘main’ leveling ones. In EQ the problem is some times even worse because there are ‘hot zones’ which offer a substantial increase to experience then regular areas. Each level tier only has one zone associated with it, so while you may find groups within those specific zones fairly easily, you’ll be hard pressed to convince people to venture out into the world (which is gigantic).

This topic of out leveling content certainly is not new, either. You can take a look around the gaming blogs and see that it’s cropping up this week more often then normal. Why is that? Is there something in specific that we’re all trying to grasp our minds around here or are we just bored with the content we’ve been given and find ‘most’ players in so we’re trying to make a mass appeal to ‘older’ content for a change. Have any thoughts on the matter? Feel free to leave a comment below!

*** Class Titles ***

- In order to correct some inconsistencies with many player’s perception of class roles compared to their intended roles we have renamed the classes.  We hope that the new names will help alleviate any confusion there might have been about their intended roles and class vision.  We’ve also modified the various class titles as they change over levels in order to more accurately portray their progression through the game.

- The EverQuest Team

Why is it that in order to feel as though we are not wasting our time (even though in the end that’s probably exactly what we’re doing to some extent at least) we as players require some sort of forward motion, some sort of linear progression that we can physically see. When you get to the point that there is no more progression players tend to wander away and find something else to do with their time. You can see this all of the time in EverQuest II, where players have become bored with their progression and feel as though they have ‘beaten’ the game. When I first started playing, there was no such thing as ‘beating’ an MMO, it was unheard of. They were mass stories that never ended. Now though, it seems they have an ending.

Each ending differs based on what that particular person feels is their ‘final goal’. It could be taking down the most difficult raid encounters and gearing up a character as well as you possibly feel that you can, or it may be something simpler like hitting the level cap. For others it may not even come to that, but is simple a ‘feeling’ you get at some point during the game that you have done all there is for you to do. Because everyone’s play experience is different, the ‘end’ of a game is also different.

In EverQuest, this need for progression can be seen through the years if you take a look at each expansion. Sure there is the very basic upgrade that includes gear and new achievements to be unlocked, an increase in levels to obtain – but even the very basics of the expansions themselves all follow this line of upward movement.

Think back to The Omens of War. There was only one zone that required and sort of progression per say, and that was Asylum of Anguish (which has since been reduced and you now only need a level requirement met to enter). You had to collect seven signets from groupable NPC’s and then complete six raid trials within Muramite Proving Grounds. There were ways to piggy back into the zone, but it was still difficult. Now move forward to Seeds of destruction where there are themes to be completed in a particular order, items unlocked on vendors if you complete these quests, and you gain access to more versions of The Void as you complete the themes. In previous expansions there was also this method of progression that players could follow in order to ‘unlock’ the harder content.

While I personally don’t mind this type of progression, I can certainly see how over time it may become boring to players. The story may be different, but you’re basically doing the same thing over and over. You’re doing tasks and missions in order to unlock future content and gear. You’re gaining alternate forms of currency (chronobines anyone?) and since The Serpent’s Spine released back in September of 2006 even spells are tiered towards progression. While players are quite used to this in EQII as the game released with different tiers of spells to obtain, EQ started implementing it 7 years after the game had been out.

Thinking about it, I don’t know if I’d be comfortable playing a game that didn’t have some sort of progression of some sort. There needs to be a ‘point’ to a game (at least for me). If you’re not bettering your character, what exactly are you doing? Am I alone in this thought process or do others feel that in order for a game to be satisfactory to them, they have to be working towards some sort of laid out progression? Are there gamers out there who toss aside what ‘rules’ the game has come up with as far as progression and wandered down their own personal paths of what progress is to them? Are there games out there that even allow you to do that? Inquiring minds wish to know!