Azaroth

Oh Danny boy.

Obviously he doesn’t have much time for blogging, since this front page post was actually created on March 23rd of last year, but Daniel James posted on his site decrying the vile swamp of cookie cutter multi-million dollar MMOs he saw at E3. Now, Daniel is a nice guy. But I’m not sure he’s getting it. He’s both ahead of and behind the times.

In fact, he’s a lot like I was for a long time.

Daniel obviously operates Three Rings, which does Puzzle Pirates and Bang! Howdy. Clearly he’s a proponent of non-traditional MMOs, and really not big on the never ending sea of graphical DikuMUDS. That’s great. I feel the same way. So did Richard Bartle.

But a quick trip over to Mr. Bartle’s blog some time ago revealed to me that he had started, and completed, one level 60 World of Warcraft character. “Just to show them I can”, he said. “I still hate these games”, he said.

Fine. Good.

Many months later, I stopped by his site again. I believe at this point, he had three or four characters at level 60 - and was planning to level his mage to 70.

Yet, before this marathon of WoW gaming, I had never seen anything but cold hatred coming from his keyboard when he wrote about games like WoW. Alright - cold… indifference? Can I not sensationalize a little? RATINGS, baby. Can’t you tell I’m all about the money with these crazy ads all over the place?

I, myself, after being the biggest EQ hater in the world and the hugest proponent for more games in the mould of UO - I’m going to admit, I have a few level 60s on a WoW account somewhere, too.

We all love the sandbox for our own reasons. We all love various incarnations of non-Dikus for our own reasons. We all love the virtual world, as opposed to the virtual game. We’ve all done the grind before. We’re all very sorry that EQ caught on like it did.

Yet even someone like myself, even someone like Richard Bartle, and people all over that I don’t have examples of on hand (but are obviously supported by the account numbers), are falling into the trap.

So why is every game with a large budget being cut from the same pattern?

It’s safe. It’s easy. It’s proven. In that, it’s probably the only way to GET that large budget money from VCs.

It’s going to be hard enough to raise the funds for a MMO in the first place. I’m sure most investors want to be shown success, and told that you’re going to do it like THAT. Not shown success, then shown failures or mediocre successes and told that you’re going to do it like that… and hope YOU’RE the one to get it right where so many others have failed.

Because they do fail. Spectacularly. And often.

Which all kinds of MMOs do, including Diku style MMOs. But they also have the big successes, too. That’s what counts when you’re pitching something.

It’s really hard to do something “different” and succeed. Maybe Raph can get funding for that. But Johnny B. Wonderful the MMO dreamer isn’t going to approach a VC and come away with $25m for an MMO very often in the first place. Let alone when he walks in saying “I want to spend a lot of money making something that traditionally doesn’t make a lot of money. There is no example of this type of thing succeeding at the level I’m proposing, and ESPECIALLY not at the level of that big shiny one OVER THERE“.

And guess what?

We all play that one over there.

Tired as you may be of the grind since 1982, if you started playing WoW with a friend or two - you’d be in the exact same predicament as Mr. Bartle, Daniel. I’m just guessing.

I’m no graphics whore. I’m certainly not a leveling kind of guy. I hate the time = power equation that WoW, EQ, etc design themselves after. The guy that smells like the ass of a cat will always beat the crap out of my casual UBRS slash MC geared ass, because he just got done farming T3 for 20 hours a day the last twelve weeks.

But you know what?

Sometimes you just want to whomp the rats.

Solid gameplay, constant and visible, rewarded progression… well put together class designs, massive mountains of content, good graphics… it’s just too much for a puny mortal when it comes down to it. I don’t know why. But most people don’t want to learn anything else, and those that have — they still don’t mind the same basic gameplay, down to the same ‘-20′ bling bling hit points that pop up over the poor hapless goblin/frogluk/lionwing/krog/alien lizard thing as you pummel it into glittering transluscent fade-away.

I’ll admit that I can’t explain exactly why. But I do know that it’s a successful formula, and while it does require life-sucking amounts of time to compete at the higher levels - you can still log in, enjoy the content, and view tangible progression toward a goal as you play.

And since some people DO learn to eventually hate it, you can consider yourself ahead of the curve. But since all of us who already do hate it seem to be in need of learning to hate it AGAIN, I’ll also say you’re behind. You need to get in there and truly understand why everyone is trying to make WoW. Or maybe I’ve just been subliminally zombified to recruit new players for Blizzard and Sony.

I sincerely hope we see more Puzzle Pirates, ATITDs, UOs, Eves, and even Second Lifes (we can probably skip the yiffing though). But the simple fact is that these things will need to come from indie sources, probably without entirely traditional sources of funding - and certainly not funding the size of WoW.

That’s why everything you see at E3 with a double-digit million dollar budget is the same crap.

In recent days, Shadowbane got cheap.

We understand that Shadowbane is an old game, and subscriptions were likely falling accordingly (especially since it was almost shut down a few months ago). But is this the right move?

Is it the only move?

I’m assuming that subscriptions were falling so low that they decided they needed to increase their numbers by such a drastic measure. Even if it meant going to an ad revenue-based model, which is a largely untested business plan in this industry.

Obviously they’ve explored this course of action and have decided that it could increase the amount of players in Shadowbane to the point where annoying ads blasted across the screens of their players will provide more profit than the old subscription model. But even if there is a short term spike in activity, and a possible increase in revenue, is the strategy ultimately self defeating?

Let’s look at who is going to play your game for free. Or, to be more specific, who WOULDN’T be playing if it weren’t.

I pay for the MMORPGs I play, and I don’t mind doing so. It’s not really expensive for most people over the age of fourteen. In fact, most of the single purchases I make throughout the day cost more than what I spend on monthly access to a MMORPG, so I don’t consider it much of a nuisance at all. I understand the costs involved in creating and maintaining them, and that the risk involved is pretty over the top, too. So if some of these games that succeed make good bucks, good for them. But really, most fail.

And unfortunately, Shadowbane may currently be failing. So it seems they’re falling back on a plan B - at the same time, inviting an entirely new type of player to their game. Or maybe not ENTIRELY new, since ne could argue that the “Play To Crush!” design and philosophy already attracts an undesirable population to their game, and has for years. I’m sure they’ve got plenty of experience with that particular problem. But one could also argue that their design and general philosophy will be a vehicle for undesirables to cause more havoc than they’d be able to in most free games.

And ultimately, are an undesirable player’s actions more about nature or nurture? Is it simply their nature to be like they are - through a combination of things like age, maturity, and possibly some kind of upbringing that included the constant whipping of their legs by older brothers with plastic powerwheels tracks - or is the ruleset and design of the game, not to mention whether it’s free to play or not, creating these monsters?

If you take the same player and plop him down into a free to play Shadowbane environment, is he more or less likely to be the same player, ultimately, especially in his run-ins with other players and social situations, as if he were sucked into EQ by a guild of achievement-based gameplay friends? Is he a malleable product of his environment?

Possibly to a large extent. He’s also a product of those around him. Call it MMO peer pressure. And the fact that everyone else in Shadowbane is playing Shadowbane, and playing for free, increases the negative effect of that peer pressure. The result is that players are not only often a product of their environments, but of those around them - who are also products of their environment.

I hope the SB CSRs are paid well. They might also want an in-house counselor. IPY freaked me out for a good, long time - and what they’re doing is basically what we did back then. Except the ads. I should have thought about that.

I’ve also always been a huge proponent, both in proposal and practice, of a genuine and immersive experience, however. I don’t like items being sold, I don’t like GM interference, and I certainly wouldn’t like being forced to search for alternative sources of profit that included being free to play and introducing in-game ads. But in these days of advertisement inundation, is this simply the next step? What happens when all of the big name subscription-based MMOs figure out they can put ads in the game TOO, and most people won’t say boo if it becomes common practice?

Why not? Once all of these games cost $15 AND have ads all over the place, I’d certainly be willing to play one that costs $25 and has no ads. Consider it a prediction of doom. Or, ultimately, just more expensive gaming. Or more annoying, depending on your pocketbook.

In the end, I think Shadowbane’s new strategy will be self defeating. PvP players in a PvP environment + Free PvP players exploiting a Free PvP environment will equal a gradual decline in playerbase as people become disenfranchised and disgusted with both other players, and also, the company that has allowed them in “for money” (through ads and “increased” playerbase). Yeah, and the annoying ads won’t help the disposition of the playerbase either, I’m guessing.

So yeah, I’m sure they’ll experience something akin to an initial boom in numbers, but I don’t think it’s going to be a good long term strategy by any means.

Or maybe it’s just ahead of its time. Just almost definitely in the wrong environment.

As much as I do, honestly, intend this to be a games - or more specifically, MMO - blog, I’m also a big follower of hockey. In that, I love to follow hockey, watch hockey, play hockey. By no means am I a “fan”. There’s something about considering myself a fan of another man that I just find a little effeminate. When I was ten, it was fine. But now that I’m a little older, it just doesn’t seem so appealing.

No offense, but I’ll leave the fan thing to schoolgirls and little boys.

This doesn’t change the fact that, through the years, I’ve become a huge “supporter” and “follower” of both hockey, and more specifically, the Pittsburgh Penguins. That whole deal started when I was a young kid playing hockey in small town Canada, watching the Penguins win cups and dazzling the entire league with players like Lemieux, Jagr, Francis, etc. Had I been born ten years earlier, I suppose I would have been an Oilers fan. But having been a fair weather seven year old, I hate Wayne Gretzky and hope he gambles away all of his Ford Trucks.

But that’s a whole lot of back story.

The point of writing this is that there’s no way I was going to escape writing about the NHL or the trade deadline on this blog, so I figured I’d just go ahead and do it. Now you have a little back story for any other strange posts you come across in the future that have to do with hockey. And it’s my blog, damnit. I can post about this kind of crap if I want to.

Here’s the skinny:

The Penguins have a really strong team this year. Surprisingly strong. In fact, the kids we’ve drafted in the last five years (mostly first and second overall), have all really come on. Not that they were ever really off. Crosby was an instant superstar, Malkin was instant, even Staal was instant somehow, when he JUST barely skirted the age cutoff to be drafted this summer. Our young goaltender, Fleury, is kicking shit out from three miles away (even though he’s been bad the last few games, what the hell do you want..).

The point of THIS is that we have an incredibly solid young core, built from very high draft picks. In fact, last year we had the youngest player ever to score over 100 points. This year, we have the youngest player to ever score a hat trick and the first time three players under the age of 21 have scored 20 or more goals since the Oiler dynasty-the-making of the early 1980s.

We have a lot of chemistry in the dressing room, the guys laugh, get along, and most importantly - win.

Then comes Tuesday, February 27th. The NHL trade deadline.

Unlike the NBA, things actually happen tomorrow. In fact, things have been pretty happening for the last week in anticipation of it. Players are being swapped, crazy deals being made, it’s all over TV.

But those deals are crazy. The trade deadline is for desperate General Managers to pick up rental players who will leave in the summer and sign contracts elsewhere. The prices are high, and generally require you giving up draft picks and prospects. Essentially, this is the time that those who feel the need to do it, go ahead and mortgage the future for the present. Whether this has to do with the pressures of being in a shaky market with shaky fan support, or just an aging core that might break apart due to free agency soon and a need to win now now now. But I rarely see the “buyers” as winners. The Toronto Maple Leafs have been classic examples of buyers without anything to show with it over the past many years, at least in the pre-salary cap era.

Now, apparently, since they’ve pulled together and worked hard for some good wins this year, my beloved (uh, my… sort of liked.. I’m really not a “fan”) Penguins are apparently acting as “buyers”. So much so that they’re willing to insert several old veterans into the lineup, as is customary for teams who are buying during the deadline.

But is it smart for this team? And are the trades even smart, regardless of this team’s composition and chemistry.

No, and no.

For one, this IS a young team that’s gelled and become family. These guys like each other. It’s as plain as day - from on the ice, to watching them gather around to cheer for their respective countries in the World Junior Championships, to bringing pizza out to fans standing in line on a cold night and signing autographs.

But our new GM is apparently steadfast in his “buying” stance. It’s been said that if the Penguins don’t land 40 year old Gary Roberts for young defenseman prospect Noah Welch, they’re going to go after 36 year old Bill Guerin and 35 year old Brian Smolinski. Not only are both of these guys long in the tooth and old boys of the NHL that I believe will throw off the chemistry of the locker room, but Guerin is notorious for actually attacking teammates during practice.

Why the hell should we add these kinds of guys? Especially at the prices that they’re demanding?

An aged, broken down Peter Forsberg went for high picks and good prospects earlier this month. Fat old Keith Tkachuck went for first, second, and third round picks plus a prospect to Atlanta the other day. Talk about mortgaging up the future for two or three months of benefit. Not only are these guys going to walk in the offseason, but they’re OLD. Come on guys. It’s not 1998 anymore. These guys aren’t worth these prices, and everyone who makes these ridiculous deals finds that out sooner rather than later.

Look, if you absolutely must make a trade, especially in the case of the Penguins, package up the things you’d be giving for these old boys who will be gone before next season - and land something good, young, and under contract that fills the needs of your team. The Penguins should take Noah Welch, whatever they’re offering for Guerin, and whatever they’re offering for Smolinksi - and go out and get something that will actually become PART of the team - ie., that fills needs and will be here for the long haul. Not for two or three months.

There are a lot of rumours out there currently, and it’s hard to pick out what’s true and what’s baloney. But after seeing the Penguins slash Guerin or Penguins slash Smolinski or Roberts rumours proven true - I can definitively tell you which rumours are fake.

The ones that make sense.

A: I’m not entirely sure yet. I put it up on a whim. I still have a lot of decisions to make about what I’m going to write.

Q: Where have you been?

A: Traveling the cosmos. No, seriously.