The GameShadow Blog

Is multiplayer gaming via the internet all that it’s cracked up to be?

Playing games with various people from all over the world sounds like a great idea and it should be great fun. Unfortunately, for too many people, fun means being irritating and spoiling things for others.

I remember playing Ultima Online and seeing players gather around the newbie areas, waiting for these unsuspecting new players to come along and pick up various pieces of booby-trapped equipment. These more experienced players would then stand and mock as the newbie lost a life and had to start again. It surprised me just how many people indulged in this sort of behaviour, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it could put these new players off playing the game. (more…)

Hands up anyone who hasn’t seen the South Park episode “Make Love, Not Warcraft”?

Good, that means I don’t have to explain the bit where Cartman gets his ‘mum’ to hold a potty so he can ‘go’ without leaving the game.

Well for anyone who has done this, been asked to do this or even considered this; today is a good day. Soon, you won’t have too make-do – hehe - with just the game’s 2” thick manual, but you’ll actually be able to continue your game.

This is because John Smedley (Sony Online Entertainment boss) revealed the PSP could be getting MMOs in the future. Could this lead to mini-wow?

Cryptic has posted the first FAQ on the official Star Trek website, answering a few Trekkie questions about Trekkie things.

Trek over there for yourself.

The gist is:

- The entire game is as close to canon as possible, and incorporates elements of soft canon like novels and comics

- Yes, you can pimp out your ship’s aesthetics

- They like exploration

- The game world is dynamic: beating the crap out of a load of Klingons will result in a shift in Klingon space etc.

And loads more here.

Sometimes I look at gaming and I weep bitter tears of self-loathing. For every Portal out there, there’s a Murder Shooter 5. For every decent, socially adjusted gamer, there’s a thirteen year old griefer. For every forward thinking game like Beyond Good & Evil, there’s a bevvy of bored looking booth babes.

The recent firing of an Age of Conan Games Master for having cyber sex in-game pretty much sums that up. For every one of us that may enjoy a casual, sociable troll through an online world every now and then, you can guarantee there’s at least twenty perverts, wierdos and manic depressive addicts for society at large to judge us by.

It’s actually pretty hilarious. Have a read, if your stomach can handle the thought of two bearded men frantically whacking off while making bad innuendos about crossing swords.

To []: ..with dual wield barbarians though, I mean TWO?!?! That’s a bit difficult for me to handle. I’d rather stick with one big sword.
[|GM|]: You like it rough I take it
To []: And I’m specced for second wind =) I can go all night.
[|GM|]: lol wow, I don’t think I would ever be the same
[|GM|]: um WOw this is turning me on lol.
To []: Hong Says he wants in on the hot action. But he’s a gold farmer/seller. How do you feel about that? He does have a big bow =]

To []: Would you like to RP with me?
To []: I see how it is, not going to talk to me anymore =( Just got your cyber fix with my pixelated body and left me like all those other guys :((|
[|GM|]: sorry getting tell hells lol
[|GM|]: RP? how so?
To []: Well, you know, on those cold windy nights… all I want is to be mounted.
[|GM|]: Ahh lol I see. You trying to get laid by a GM
To []: Of course, I thought you were THA MASTER. Gamer Master.To []: Be gentle
[|GM|]: um are you a real um woman?
[|GM|]: lol not crazy question
[|GM|]: you would be surprised.
To []: Yep. I just play a male character so guys don’t flirt with me in game like on WoW

[|GM|]: oh nice.
To []: How about you?
[|GM|]: I’m wearing panties :]
[|GM|]:(joke)
To []: Oh, not wearing any hmmm? I did see you take them off earlier after all.
[|GM|]:I am going to summon you in a few to take care of your petition
[|GM|]:Exibitionist
To []: Summoning me? How romantic.

To []: Where’s my summon?

[|GM|]: lol
[]: You really do love me.
[]: Head?
[|GM|]: yea
[|GM|]: lol
[]: I left the boots on. They’re hawt.
[|GM|]: r
[|GM|]: lol

[]: My panties wont come off :[
[|GM|]: lol its odd looking at a guy character… lol
[|GM|]: in rl?
To []: Huh?
To []: No, in game =[
[|GM|]: your panties wont come off in real life
[|GM|]: oh…
[|GM|]: I’ll just have to tear them off and have my way lol
To []: YES!!!
To []: Whip out your massive sword too.
[|GM|]: ROFL
[|GM|]: lol you like?
To []: I can’t jump up on top of it? =(
[|GM|]: hmm that could pose a problem
To []: =]
[|GM|]: you’ll just have to take it until I am finished with you.
To []: Are you mighty warrior? Can you slay those meanies that attacked me? =(
To []: O.o you do like multiple people in on it eh? =)

[|GM|]: er.. how old are you (hopefully not under 18 lol)
To []: I’m 9.
[|GM|]: OMG
To []: “_-
To []: Want to be my daddy? Remember, I do like roleplaying ^_–
[|GM|]: oh nice…
[|GM|]: um your not really 9 are you? I just want to be sure lol
To []: Come on… do I sound like I’m 9? What 9 year old knows about glory holes?

[|GM|]: you don’t but you never know lol
[|GM|]:you been a bad girl?
To []: I’ve never been a good girl.
[|GM|]: oh very nice. But you know you will have to be spanked right?
[|GM|]: Hmm take me out and put me in your mouth’
To []: !
To []: Not till you spank me with your sword!

[|GM|]: hmm you are bad.
[|GM|]: what if I rip your panties off and **** you hard till I am satisfied?
To []: That sounds perfect
To []: Going to use clobber?
[|GM|]: Want to feel you get really we so I can put just the head of my **ck inside you and use my hand to slowly move it around before plunging it fully into you and making you take it all.

To []: You’re just as kinky as me
To []: Infact you’re so kinky, you just cybered with a dude
[] shouts: THIS IS SPARTA
[|GM|]: then when you are really hot and needing more I can reposition and slide my wet tongue up your legs and do small circles again around your belly button and then let my tongue trail down your **nt.

[|GM|]: oh that would really be not good lol
To []: Love you =]
To []: By the way, I’ve been fapping to this the whole time.
[|GM|]: lol why did you want this then lol you gay?
[|GM|]: are you serious?
To []: Serious about what?
[|GM|]: um what’s fapping (not up to par on the ling) lol
To []: I was joking about the fapping, but I am indeed a dude.

[|GM|]: lol ok.
[|GM|]: Glad I put my clothes back on lol
To []: Yeah probably a good idea. I have aids.

The first screens have arrived for City of Heroes and Marvel Universe developer Cryptic’s Star Trek MMO.

The game was originally in development at Perpetual, but was canned, with the project later picked up by Cryptic. The developer certainly has the credentials (plus some of Perpetual’s staff) to bring this game to life, and opening screens look fairly strong.

Check them out at the official website.

In a recent Eurogamer interview with Gaute Godager of Funcom fame, the Conan Director has… not slammed… but had a cheeky dig at genre competitor WoW.

“But you know… I’m going to be a bit cheeky now, but if you’ve been to McDonalds for four or five years, and had your burger and your coke, sometimes it’s great to just have a great steak and a glass of good wine. I think that’s what we’re trying to do. [Age of Conan is] more expensive, it’s not for everyone and perhaps it’s not as easily accessible as WOW is. But it could be more meaty. [laughs]”

It’s nice to see MMO competitors taking the odd pound of flesh, rather than skirting round the fact that Blizzard well and truly rule the roost.

Of course, non-MMO developers are probably looking at the entire genre in the same way - and rightly so.

As just reported as a part of the LucasArts lay-offs fallout, an ex-employee has revealed details on the previously unspecified Bioware / LucasArts joint project.

It’s Knights of the Old Republic III, and it’s an MMO.

This will mark Bioware’s first true MMO - Neverwinter Nights doesn’t really qualify in my book - and the company’s return to the Star Wars series that it created five years ago - KOTOR 2 was developed by long time collaborator Obsidian.

It’s been a while.

Yes, the news that’s been hanging around the interweb for months now has officially surfaced: Interplay is building up a development team, and looking to begin a Fallout MMO.

The beleaguered publisher was delisted from the NASDAQ and pretty much closed down in 2004. Its famous internal studio Black Isle was packed up, members going on to work at studios like Obsidian and Troika. The publisher, however, retained its name and intellectual property, inluding Fallout, Earthworm Jim, MDK and Descent / Freespace.

In 2007, the Fallout property was flogged to Bethesda (who are now working on Fallout 3) for just under $6 million. Importantly, though, Interplay retained the rights to develop an MMO based on the Fallout universe.

With cash in pocket, the publisher is now recruiting for its new internal development team, and looking for financing for its two pronged development plan - the Fallout MMO and the reinvigoration of other, smaller IPs.

There’s a long road ahead for Interplay. Its strength as a publisher was always the pull of its development teams, so with Black Isle, Volition, Bioware and Shiny all either dissolved or otherwise engaged, starting from scratch could be a tall order.

Still, a new team and fantastic IP can’t be a bad start.

In a recent presentation (slide 25), Take Two has highlighted the possibility for MMOs based on Bioshock and Civilization.

The precise phraseology used is ‘Potential Take Two Opportunities: Bioshock, Civilization’.

This presentation was made at the Bank of America SMID Conference, with Take Two fighting to justify its portfolio value and ongoing rejection of EA’s purchase bid, so it’s reasonable to assume the company was throwing around big names for just that reason.

It seems unlikely both, or even just one of these ideas will see fruition, but it’s certainly true that a Civ MMO might be an interesting prospect.

Do you think we’ll ever see the words ‘Bioshock’ and ‘MMO’ in conjunction again?

Having acquired the rights to the Tom Clancy name for a reported $60 million, Ubisoft has announced that an MMO based on the IP is in the works. Could be a WoW beater, apparently.

With 35 Clancy games already on the market, it’s understandable that Ubi would want to secure the rights to the name for future use, and also that, without a major MMO to compete with EA and Blizzard, it would want to enter the market ASAP.

Not much has been said about the game, but let’s be honest - anything that doesn’t involve either Elves or Space-Kobolds has got to be a relief.

There’s a few real world MMOs in the works - Hei$t and APB to name a couple. Let’s hope someone somewhere does something inventive with the genre, eh?

A Chinese partner involved with Blizzard’s new MMO project has let slip the details: it’s Starcraft Online.

A report on Tradingmarkets.com has revealed that NetEase - a Chinese online game operator - will be running Starcraft Online for Blizzard.

Blizzard itself has not confirmed the game, but has been advertising for staff to work on a new MMO.

Excited? Disappointed? Vent your spleens right here.

Fed up with being ripped off by gold farmers? Want a trustworthy way of buying your way to the best equipment in Everquest?

Well it looks like your prayers are answered. Yesterday, Live Gamer announced that it had raised $24 million to build a “legitimate market for virtual trading”. Think of it as an ebay for virtual items, with an auction system and Buy It Now functionality.

The main angle is that Live Gamer will only work with the blessing of the publishers and they’ve signed up with Sony Online (Everquest), Funcom (Anarchy Online, Age of Conan) and a handful of other publishers. The publishers will take 10% of the transaction, and the benefit for gamers is that the transactions are run by a reputable company: an end to gold-farmers who take your money and don’t hand over the goods; a trading platform integrated into the game world and supported by the publishers themselves.

I can imagine that the publishers who are giving away free MMOs and expect to rely on in-game purchases would welcome this move, as a marketplace gets exponentially more successful as its membership grows. But they are not signed up with World of Warcraft, and it seems unlikely that Activision Blizzard are going to join the program. Plus trading platforms like ige.com already exist.

So its an interesting proposition, but with a big hole. It could become a massive new revenue stream for MMO publishers, and a secure way for gamers to trade items in-game. But if it doesn’t reach critical mass, it could be a tumbleweed town of empty store fronts and disappointed traders.

Ubisoft has just announced the launch of Heroes of Might and Magic Kingdoms, a free MMO that will be launched in Spring 2008.

 The decision to base the MMO on the long-running Heroes of Might and Magic series, a turn-based strategy game, rather than the even more venerable Might and Magic series of RPG games, is perhaps surprising. The press release promises that “thousands of players will be able to rule their virtual kingdoms, lead gigantic armies against each other, master the trades or create legendary heroes.” Not a direct competitor to World of Warcraft then, or even the staggeringly-successful (and also browser-based) Runescape.

But it remains to be seen if leading gigantic armies works in an MMO like this. It either implies very little ‘massive’ (i.e. 1 on 1 instances), low quality graphics (always a risk for a browser-based game) or terrible lag. I really hope Ubisoft pulls it off though - it would be great to see this franchise reinvented in yet another genre.

Job postings on the Blizzard website have indicated a new MMO is underway at the genre-defining developer.

The company is looking for experienced staff to work on a next-gen MMO - not just another expansion to World of Warcraft.

Blizzard later confirmed speculation by stating, “No, it is an unannounced Next-Gen MMO. And that doesn’t mean an expansion for World of Warcraft either.”

WoW 2? Diablo Online? A new IP?

Whatever it is, odds on it’ll take over the world. Click the image for the high res job posting.

At his Montreal Game Summit keynote, Jonathon Blow (the one man band behind 2008’s time-warping platformer, Braid) has railed at the McDonalds-esque game design in MMOs and in Bioshock.

“MMOs have empty gameplay, but keep players hooked with constant fake rewards,” said Blow. His concern is that, like fast food, MMOs are empty, and ‘nutritionally’ bereft - they’re a shallow, meaningless experience that nonetheless becomes addictive, resulting in a poor quality of life for its players.

He pointed out how McDonalds has faced criticism from commentators, and that World of Warcraft’s method of teaching players about routine was similar and “akin to advertising”.

And he’s completely right. MMOs have no soul. They thrive on just two things: social networking (something Facebook does better), and constant reward. Few players ever take the time to realise how empty these rewards are. What value does the +3 sword have in the real world? The difference between game design in MMORPGs and traditional RPGs is vast - Knights of the Old Republic 2 has strongly tactical combat, and a rich, meaningful storyline. WoW has XP grind and not much more - just enough to keep players playing.

I take issue with MMORPGs for a different reason to Braid, though. He’s concerned about the social impact of these games on their players - but if players really want to waste their lives, then so be it. I’m just more worried that if designers can get away with bland gameplay like this - and come out with one of the most successful games of all time - then what future is there for games with genuine depth?

Blow also took issue with the hype surrounding Bioshock, claiming that despite wide praise, the game “sucks” and that “the designers of this game are trying to manipulate your emotions in a clumsy way. BioShock claims to be about altruism and humanity but what it really teaches you is how to headshot someone from as far away as possible. It’s a very weird game that we couldn’t proffer as an example to normal humans.”

I don’t know how he does it, but he’s bang on again. Yes Bioshock is pretty, yes it’s partly inspired by an obscure Russian-American philosopher, no, it’s not really doing anything all that special. And the twist was average in the extreme.

I don’t know if Braid will be the game to reverse these trends - while it looks great, it doesn’t look all that unique to me - next year will tell.