Navel Contemplation: MMORPGs
(I am in a strangely elated mood, likely spawned by a marked lack of sleep - the root cause of which is TV Tropes, that corrupter of souls and harvester of free-time. This mood is marked by gratuitous use of highfalutin words and phrases and a significant spike in my personal evaluation of my own mastery of "humor")
This particular post - as opposed to the other MMORPG posts wherein I bitch about FFXI - has been brewing for a few days. Increasingly promising news about FFXIV, the Aion "open beta", and a brief sojourn into the dark, treacherous world of free-to-play Tactical Turn-Based MMORPGs has led me to become more certain of my opinions regarding these games, and, possibly spurred by the aforementioned lack of sleep, it seems a good idea to share them.
Let's start with the free-to-play Tactical Turn-Based MMORPG category, which apparently contains a whole one game, Atlantica Online.
First off, though the game meets certain basic criteria for "turn-based" in that there are turns wherein one team moves, then the other, back and forth, it rather misses the mark. The worst part would be the 30-second time limit, supposedly put in place to "prevent griefing" in PvP and maintain a "solid pace" in the battles. But the entire point of turn-based games is that you can sit back and consider options for as long as you bloody well please. Adding artificial time limits, especially one as short as 30 seconds when you are controlling up to nine characters at the same time, really puts a damper on things.
Further, as you might have guessed from the phrase "free-to-play", the overall quality of the presentation is rather shoddy. The text when speaking with [NPCs] contains a lot of [Odd Speling Mistakes], more than a few[formatting] errors, and far to many [gratuitous] brackets. The brackets don't even hotlink anything, as one might be inclined to believe.
The gameplay itself consists of clicking on enemies to execute a basic attack or using one of a few magic attacks, which depend on the class of the character. The special abilities appear to be very limited, though, and the grinding focus of the game was already screaming at me after an hour or two of play. I doubt I'll try to get any farther.
That said, the reason I was even looking into free-to-play MMORPGs was my recent brush with Aion. The game was definitely pretty, and the concept behind the game seemed positively fascinating. Flight! Actual flight!
Unfortunately, a lot of the game can be summed up with "I've Seen This, and Seen It Done Better". When I finally got my wings, the realization that I couldn't actually /use/ them anywhere I was or had been sort of turned me off the game as well. That said, I might very well have at least bought the box and tried it for the first month, if it weren't for Final Fantasy XIV.
My complaints about FFXI are many and well-documented, but I've still put more time into that game than any other, and I've gained many fond memories and more than a few friends from the experience. I've yet to see any MMO even scratch FFXI's ability to place your character firmly into the world, and I still love the way the story is delivered.
So when I hear about things like the Guildleve system, or the new take on the job system, or how crafting will be a much more integral part of the overall game, I am understandably excited. I haven't played FFXI in... sheesh, probably over a year now, and hadn't even initially planned on getting FFXIV. Suffice it to say that I'm actually looking forward to the beta for it now.
In a slight tangent, I'll try to detail what it is I'm actually looking for in an MMO.
Short of Final Fantasy Tactics Online (and if such a thing exists please, for the love of God and all that is holy, TELL ME), I'm looking for a game that includes the following:
1) The ability to solo - 'cause, believe it or not, sometimes I don't feel like PUGging it and my friends aren't always on. Or hell, maybe I just want to get something specific done without worrying about anything else.
2) Flexibility in grouping - I don't want to feel forced to progress in lock-step with my favorite people in the game. If there's no flexibility, then I'll have to play at times when I really don't feel like playing, or feel forced to wait for other people in order to move forward. Having a lot of different things to do in the game also does wonders for this problem.
2a) No disincentives to actually help people or take risks - especially for someone who leveled as infrequently as I did, even a single death represented a serious setback. So not only could I lose hours or even days of leveling time, if I died in the wrong spot or we didn't have a Raise/Tractor handy, I could lose hours in attempting to accomplish whatever quest I was helping with at the time. When coupled with some really out of the way destinations, even getting anywhere to help someone was a serious pain.
3) Fast travel options - there was a point made on the forums about the epic feeling of Vana'diel being reinforced by overland travel or airship waits. Which is of course why no one uses outpost warps and teleports and... you get my point. Having the world be fully realized is great, and the occasional overland jaunt can be nice as a diversion, but sometimes you just freaking want to get somewhere, and spending 45 minutes just to get to the starting point is not my idea of a good time.
4) Crafting - the only crafting systems I have any experience with are FFXI's (punishing, and horribly screwed over by the economy), WoW's (a joke, wherein I achieved high levels very quickly, only to be limited by arbitrary timers and hard-to-find recipes), and Warhammer's (very limited, as it was restricted to gathering professions and consumables, but pleasant to use and useful). I want some dedication or focus required, I want to be able to create items for myself and others that they would actually want and use for extended periods of time, and I don't want to lose so much fucking money trying to get part way to 100 that I could literally have saved it all instead and bought everything I ever wanted because the god damn gold prices are so absurdlyexpensiveandthefailurerateforskillingupsoabsurdlyhighthatIcouldblowthroughamonthsworthofsavingsinanhourorlessand - *ahem* Moving on.
5) An endgame not fashioned from, derived off of, or completely filled with bullshit - Camping spawns? Hell no. Waiting an hour for half the group to bother to show up? I'll pass, thanks. Intricate loot distribution systems that require more micromanagement than the rest of the game combined? F' that. At this point, the very idea of content requiring large groups and all the bullshit, drama, and stupidity that inevitably follows fills me with a deep and abiding dread. I'll be damned if I spend my leisure time forced to worry about who gets the Shiny Sword of Shiny +Shiny the next time it drops ever again. Give me a small group of friends, an interesting fight, and reasonable drop rates, and you've got yourself a loyal customer.
And I guess drop rates, more than anything else, is what kills MMOs for me. Take all of the above complaints, tie them into one cohesive, horrifying mass, and top it off with the knowledge that you'll be doing it over, and over, and over, and over, and over...
With the exception of drop rates (and a few other quibbles), my experience with the Tower of Terror group climbing Nyzul Tower was by far one of the most pleasant in the game, second only to the awesome that was my black mage set group. Nyzul had variable length encounters, (thirty minute sets, with up to four reps if you /really/ wanted it) interesting, varied, and above all reasonable challenges, and was limited to six people. Sure, there were 100 floors to climb, but thanks to the smaller, more regular rewards you got along the way, that climb didn't seem so bad.
Anywho.
/rant
This particular post - as opposed to the other MMORPG posts wherein I bitch about FFXI - has been brewing for a few days. Increasingly promising news about FFXIV, the Aion "open beta", and a brief sojourn into the dark, treacherous world of free-to-play Tactical Turn-Based MMORPGs has led me to become more certain of my opinions regarding these games, and, possibly spurred by the aforementioned lack of sleep, it seems a good idea to share them.
Let's start with the free-to-play Tactical Turn-Based MMORPG category, which apparently contains a whole one game, Atlantica Online.
First off, though the game meets certain basic criteria for "turn-based" in that there are turns wherein one team moves, then the other, back and forth, it rather misses the mark. The worst part would be the 30-second time limit, supposedly put in place to "prevent griefing" in PvP and maintain a "solid pace" in the battles. But the entire point of turn-based games is that you can sit back and consider options for as long as you bloody well please. Adding artificial time limits, especially one as short as 30 seconds when you are controlling up to nine characters at the same time, really puts a damper on things.
Further, as you might have guessed from the phrase "free-to-play", the overall quality of the presentation is rather shoddy. The text when speaking with [NPCs] contains a lot of [Odd Speling Mistakes], more than a few[formatting] errors, and far to many [gratuitous] brackets. The brackets don't even hotlink anything, as one might be inclined to believe.
The gameplay itself consists of clicking on enemies to execute a basic attack or using one of a few magic attacks, which depend on the class of the character. The special abilities appear to be very limited, though, and the grinding focus of the game was already screaming at me after an hour or two of play. I doubt I'll try to get any farther.
That said, the reason I was even looking into free-to-play MMORPGs was my recent brush with Aion. The game was definitely pretty, and the concept behind the game seemed positively fascinating. Flight! Actual flight!
Unfortunately, a lot of the game can be summed up with "I've Seen This, and Seen It Done Better". When I finally got my wings, the realization that I couldn't actually /use/ them anywhere I was or had been sort of turned me off the game as well. That said, I might very well have at least bought the box and tried it for the first month, if it weren't for Final Fantasy XIV.
My complaints about FFXI are many and well-documented, but I've still put more time into that game than any other, and I've gained many fond memories and more than a few friends from the experience. I've yet to see any MMO even scratch FFXI's ability to place your character firmly into the world, and I still love the way the story is delivered.
So when I hear about things like the Guildleve system, or the new take on the job system, or how crafting will be a much more integral part of the overall game, I am understandably excited. I haven't played FFXI in... sheesh, probably over a year now, and hadn't even initially planned on getting FFXIV. Suffice it to say that I'm actually looking forward to the beta for it now.
In a slight tangent, I'll try to detail what it is I'm actually looking for in an MMO.
Short of Final Fantasy Tactics Online (and if such a thing exists please, for the love of God and all that is holy, TELL ME), I'm looking for a game that includes the following:
1) The ability to solo - 'cause, believe it or not, sometimes I don't feel like PUGging it and my friends aren't always on. Or hell, maybe I just want to get something specific done without worrying about anything else.
2) Flexibility in grouping - I don't want to feel forced to progress in lock-step with my favorite people in the game. If there's no flexibility, then I'll have to play at times when I really don't feel like playing, or feel forced to wait for other people in order to move forward. Having a lot of different things to do in the game also does wonders for this problem.
2a) No disincentives to actually help people or take risks - especially for someone who leveled as infrequently as I did, even a single death represented a serious setback. So not only could I lose hours or even days of leveling time, if I died in the wrong spot or we didn't have a Raise/Tractor handy, I could lose hours in attempting to accomplish whatever quest I was helping with at the time. When coupled with some really out of the way destinations, even getting anywhere to help someone was a serious pain.
3) Fast travel options - there was a point made on the forums about the epic feeling of Vana'diel being reinforced by overland travel or airship waits. Which is of course why no one uses outpost warps and teleports and... you get my point. Having the world be fully realized is great, and the occasional overland jaunt can be nice as a diversion, but sometimes you just freaking want to get somewhere, and spending 45 minutes just to get to the starting point is not my idea of a good time.
4) Crafting - the only crafting systems I have any experience with are FFXI's (punishing, and horribly screwed over by the economy), WoW's (a joke, wherein I achieved high levels very quickly, only to be limited by arbitrary timers and hard-to-find recipes), and Warhammer's (very limited, as it was restricted to gathering professions and consumables, but pleasant to use and useful). I want some dedication or focus required, I want to be able to create items for myself and others that they would actually want and use for extended periods of time, and I don't want to lose so much fucking money trying to get part way to 100 that I could literally have saved it all instead and bought everything I ever wanted because the god damn gold prices are so absurdlyexpensiveandthefailurerateforskillingupsoabsurdlyhighthatIcouldblowthroughamonthsworthofsavingsinanhourorlessand - *ahem* Moving on.
5) An endgame not fashioned from, derived off of, or completely filled with bullshit - Camping spawns? Hell no. Waiting an hour for half the group to bother to show up? I'll pass, thanks. Intricate loot distribution systems that require more micromanagement than the rest of the game combined? F' that. At this point, the very idea of content requiring large groups and all the bullshit, drama, and stupidity that inevitably follows fills me with a deep and abiding dread. I'll be damned if I spend my leisure time forced to worry about who gets the Shiny Sword of Shiny +Shiny the next time it drops ever again. Give me a small group of friends, an interesting fight, and reasonable drop rates, and you've got yourself a loyal customer.
And I guess drop rates, more than anything else, is what kills MMOs for me. Take all of the above complaints, tie them into one cohesive, horrifying mass, and top it off with the knowledge that you'll be doing it over, and over, and over, and over, and over...
With the exception of drop rates (and a few other quibbles), my experience with the Tower of Terror group climbing Nyzul Tower was by far one of the most pleasant in the game, second only to the awesome that was my black mage set group. Nyzul had variable length encounters, (thirty minute sets, with up to four reps if you /really/ wanted it) interesting, varied, and above all reasonable challenges, and was limited to six people. Sure, there were 100 floors to climb, but thanks to the smaller, more regular rewards you got along the way, that climb didn't seem so bad.
Anywho.
/rant