My sordid tale with MMORPG's

UPDATE: Sept. 04 2003 - I am still hopelessly addicted to this game several months after starting to play it. I now run a guild and city, and am still having a heck of a time. If you decide to play, get on the Carnage server and look up "Doots", "Appleton" or "Bishop". I'll be glad to help you get started.


Everyone remember Diablo?

EVERYONE loved Diablo, despite the fact that it had some HUGE fatal flaws, the biggest being that everything was done on the client side. There where cheats everywhere, and EVERYONE was walking around with the Arch-angel's staff of the Apocalypse (complete with 255 charges) and a Godly Plate of the Whale suit of armor. Had everything been calculated on the server side, cheats would have been far less likely. But Diablo was an action game. Fun, but mindless for the most part. There were a few minor RPGish elements, but it was no RPG. It was the biggest RPG-LIKE game on the internet, but that certainly didn't qualify it as an RPG experience.

Enter Ultima Online.

When Ultima Online first arrived, it had MAJOR issues. It was incredibly laggy, had frequent outages (its nickname was Ultima Offline), and had HUGE issues with the "Notoriety" system. But it had elements that were unmatched in any online game. At the time Ultima Online was released, the biggest game on the internet was the original Diablo. Right or not, everyone compared it to Diablo.

When I first started walking around the Ultima Online (UO) gameworld, I loved that you could build your own houses and create your own stuff. I loved that you could be whatever you wanted to be with the skill system it offered. I thought the dungeons had that dark, mysterious look that dungeons are supposed to have. It had beasts that were tough to kill before people started figuring out their huge weaknesses.

And there was risk. Player killing (PKing) was rampant. There are many people who simply can't get out of the Deathmatch style of online games like Quake or Unreal. These players often never "roleplayed", they simply killed you for your money and items while bragging that they "owned" you. While SOME roleplayed their evil, most just treated Ultima Online like a huge, slow game of quake. At the height of my experience with Ultima Online, I ran a somewhat popular guild called Disciples of the Watch. We had a large mage tower in a quiet corner of the world. I would sit at the top level of this tower and train people in the guild by summoning elementals. I had a great time with all this.

My UO experience was ruined for me eventually because of the things: interface issues, the mundane things you had to do in order to "adventure", and the bugs that fatally flawed the game.

The interface was a nightmare. Thanks to a low-res 640x480 interface, text was huge and blocky, and this ultimately led to no way of following a conversation. The most lucrative way to make money in UO was Mining and Tailoring. Basically, you had to sit around for hours on end making clothing items (skull caps were huge) or other stuff (shields out of ingots that you made by mining ore for hours). You did this so you could make enough money to buy components for your spells (most required 2 or 3). Components were rare, and you had to do a lot of traveling to different continents to get all the ones you need. THEN you could do a dungeon crawl. There was NO way to secure your houses or castles. You couldn't store ANYTHING in them, they were VERY easily broken into thanks to bugs in the game.

I quit after learning a harsh lesson about MMORPG's. They are a perfect example of what the world would be like if there were no laws to govern our actions.

Then Everquest came along. It was a 100% Player-vs-Environment game. There was no player housing. There was no PKing, aside from Dueling with another player with no consequences. There was no "notoriety" system, as one wasn't needed. But it offered something revolutionary at the time: A persistent 3D world. It was impossible to ignore that. I played during the beta, and had quite a lot of fun during it. I was able to get my friends from work into the fray, and we all had a blast.

But it too had some fatal flaws. Most notably, after you were done exploring, the only thing you could do was "Get to level 50". So there you are, level 50. It took you MONTHS to get there. You camped spots for HOURS and even sometimes DAYS just to get a priceless pair of boots. Death sometimes meant your travelling for HOURS just to get back together with your group unless you had a VERY high level character who could summon.

And in the end, what did you have to show for it? Nothing, except a ton of lost time that was often not worth the effort. All you could do was hope to recoup some of it in the form of money when you sold your character on Ebay. And GOD those "zones" were annoying. The state of 3d graphics cards at the time meant you could only have a certain amount of textures loaded at any given time. So every "area" had to be broken up into smaller "zones". When you hit the zone border, you'd have to wait and load into the new zone. Hated that.

I then gave Asheron's Call a shot. This was no EQ-killer by any means, but it had some very nice things about it. It had a monarchy system that allowed you to give your allegience to another player, which in turn had a pyramid-scheme effect on your XP. The landscape was ENORMOUS, and it *FELT* that way. You could run for HOURS, often times not seeing a single soul. There were TONS of varying items, all of them being unique in some way (randomly generated stats). There were no zones on the mainland.

But again, tons of problems. No zones on the mainland, but dungeons all had these teleport gates you had to go through. Kinda silly. Monsters just stood there. They didn't wander until you "got in range" or attacked one. Also, the levels were ridiculous. A level 30 could easily live through a fight with a level 127 monster. Silly. There were plenty of areas where an archer could shoot at monsters and never be hit themselves. This led to macro programs that allowed you to level to 60 or 70 overnight automatically without you actually having to be at the PC. But even with the cruddy graphics, it was one of my favorites.

Anarchy Online came around this time. I got in the beta, but I gave away my CD to Gordon, if memory serves. I was getting pretty annoyed. Plus I never heard a single good thing about the game. The futuristic theme just didn't cut it for me.

Then Dark Age of Camelot came along. Pretty good graphics. Player vs. Player zones. Eventually, realm abilities when you got enough realm points from killing. A limited number of zones. Wandering mobs. A great guild system. Large landscape. Horses for transportation. They even updated the graphics engine to offer pixel shader effects for DirectX 8 capable cards.

There were some VERY impressive guild wars. This was the first MMORPG that eventually led me to have a level 50 character (the highest level in the game). A little mentalist named Radagash Gotarash. Things were definitely improving, BUT......

With no player housing, you really had nothing to protect. There were no consequences to death, really... Just respawn and run back out there. You were 100% safe in your own realm. After level 50, that was it. You were done. And Realm-vs-Realm only had limited allure to me. The battles were fun, but if I want large deathmatches, I have several servers over at Railbait I can play on. And I have the luxury of knowing I own the site and have plenty of excellent admins that keep things fair.

I had a short dance with Earth and Beyond. This basically gave you the ability to be a ship (and really, that's all you were). It was a pretty decent attempt at a space-themed MMORPG. But the fatal flaws were obvious from the start. Money was a pain in the rear to get, meaning you had to fight a lot, do a ton of mundane (and long) trade runs, and the the universe was TINY. Not exactly what I picture the universe as being in real life :)

Asheron's Call 2 came out. And boy, what a feast for the eyes. Graphically, this game was just plain stunning, offering a large set of continents you could visit at varying levels. The dungeons were gorgeous, the landscapes were gorgeous, the monsters were gorgeous and the game itself could bring my P4 3ghz box to its KNEES.

But there were huge flaws here as well. The biggest, most notable problem was the lack of depth. In fact, it had almost none. Getting items meant fighting the right type of mob, or creating them with tradeskills by breaking down looted items into their "basic elements" (stupid). Training skills was done in a diablo-esqe "tree" format. There were certain spots in the game where you could "perch" and not get hit by mobs that were WAY out of your league, allowing you to be level 50 in a day.

Asheron's Call taught me another valuable lesson about MMORPG's. Incredible graphics can't make up for a poor underlying game.

During all this time, there was a long period of hype about this game called Shadowbane. All the screenshots that were ever posted looked AWFUL to me. Trademark low-tech cardboard-cutout trees, a clunky looking interface, horrible looking characters, you name it. Everyone kept saying how much it would rock everyone's MMORPG world, but all I did was bash it. I never bothered applying for the beta (in fact, I don't beta MMORPG's anymore since Everquest). Everyone at work bought it and came back saying "y'know what? It's not all that bad!". I figured it'd have the same fatal flaws as all other games.

But man, was I ever wrong.

My friend Greg at work kept telling me "Karl, I think you'll like this game, it's very social." Greg knows me pretty well. Greg's older than the average gamer, and he has an entire household of kids who are hardcore gamers as well. They all seem to really enjoy it.

I said "Ahh screw it," and I picked it up. Greg, you were right. This game is addicting, yet not overly repetitive. There's a lot of socializing (you HAVE to join a guild, more on that later), There's tons of monsters wandering around, tons of varied landscapes, tons of housing options (more on that later too), the graphics are not amazing, but i'd pit 'em right between DAOC and the DX8 expansion, and the ways you can build and outfit your character are seemingly ENDLESS.

Yet, even with all that, gameplay is *remarkably simple*. The flow is something like this:

When you start the game, you create your character. You can choose from a wealth of different characters that have different "bonuses". For instance, a Minotaur would get a nice bonus to strength (used for calculating damage) and constitution (used for determining your max hitpoints). These characters would make good warriors. There's also characters like humans, the typical "jack of all trades, master of none" that have amazing versatility. There's elves that have slightly lower overall stats than humans, but with a nice boost to intelligence making them great casters. There's other kinds of characters you can make that have gender limitations (like the Fury). There's characters like the Aracroix that have the natural ability to fly (of course, giving you a huge advantage like that has a downside - anything you do in the air comes at a stamina cost and increased mana cost). There's half-man half-beast characters like the Centaur. There's a very nice assortment of things to choose from.

The classes are just as varied. You start off with a "basic" type of class; fighter, healer, mage or rogue. You then get to choose your starting city on "Newbie Island" (not its real name). From here, you start your leveling treadmill, which thankfully doesn't take too long. Here you learn the fundamentals of the interface and gameplay. While the newbie island is somewhat rough as far as getting groups is concerned, once you're in a good one, you make it to level 10 VERY quickly. While on the newbie island, I learned that the engine used in Shadowbane is quite flexible. Transitions from forest-like areas into foggy swamp-like areas are seamless. There's plenty of terrain complications to slow your progress if you're running from a mob. Movement is handled diablo-style. You right-click anywhere on the ground, and your character runs or walks there provided there's nothing in your way. If something IS in your way, you stop dead in your tracks until you walk around it.

Combat is relatively simple. You choose the target you want to hit, and you click a button (or use a hotkey) for attack. For melee there's multiple styles of attack. For casters there's multiple spells. The fact that you can train in spell lines that YOU want makes things interesting, since unlike other RPG's, you can't be 100% proficient in EVERYTHING. You'll have decisions to make about which spells you want to use, or which combat skills you want to train. The combat sessions themselves are quite fast. In fact, they remind me a lot of Diablo in a lot of ways. While the average "fight" takes longer than killing a single mob in Diablo, the way you fight seems awful familiar. I like this, I really do. There's also strategy involved. Remember that some races and classes can fly. If you're fighting a mob that's ground-bound, and you're getting whacked too hard, cast a fly spell (or use your classes natural ability) and page-up to a desired altitude. Of course, you aren't invulnerable completely, since your stamina and casts cost a LOT more when you're airborne. AND there's certain spells and "shouts" that ground-based characters can use to pluck you out of the sky. And don't forget about archers :) Still, combat is quick and fast paced, but it's not a "nuke everything in the room" kind of combat like in Diablo. It's a happy mix of Action-form and RPG-function.

The interface helps out a great deal here, since EVERYTHING can be hotkeyed, and you can drag spell buttons ANYWHERE on the screen. To say the interface is 'customizable' is like saying the atlantic ocean is 'slightly damp'. Shift-clicking an icon will allow you to move it, ctrl-click will open up a small menu that allows you to hotkey the item using a single key or a ctrl/alt/shift combination. Very nice. You can drag anything where you want it, hotkey anything where you need it, and overall the interface is the best i've seen yet in an RPG, online or otherwise.

Now, once you reach level 10, you have to pick a profession. Sure, you picked your class, but now you can fine-tune your class to be the kind of character you want. You can be a Mage Channeler. You can be a Healer Channeler. You can be a Human Fighter Warrior. You can be a female-only fury. I don't know how many combinations of classes there are, but good lord there must be hundreds. This gives you a sense of accomplishment when you've configured a character with the precise skills and abilities that YOU want. Granted, there's some people who will simply try to be the "uber" combination of class/race, but if you really want to have something that YOU accomplished and didn't get from some forum template you won't be that way.

Once you have chosen this profession, you go back to fighting the higher level stuff in the newbie area, mostly in the bog. Getting to level 20 is something that takes a couple of hours in a good diverse group. Now, the nice thing here is that you can be "power-leveled", or joining a group with higher level folks. In fact, you could even be useful as i'm finding. However, there is a cap of how much experience you can get at any given level, and it's usually a good idea to be in a group that can easily slaughter mobs appropriate to the level of the overall group. Higher level mobs take longer to kill. So with the level XP cap in place, you will take longer to level having to wait to get max XP for the mob they just killed if you're too low.

Once you hit level 21, it's time to leave newbie island. Now, newbie island had all the protections. There was no PKing or stealing. While you could loot others' corpses, that was of little consequence. Once you head off the newbie island, all the protections are gone. The ONLY safe areas are a few non-player towns.

Here's where things get interesting.

Now, whenever you're out in the open and someone approaches you, you start wondering what that person's intentions are. Heck, there could be a hidden thief ANYWHERE out there. The game world is truly a dangerous place. However, you will have no problem finding a group of people who just want the same thing you do: to level and get into a guild.

Grouping is handled in standard fare fashion. You can have up to 10 people in a group, and the more the merrier. The more players you have, the faster you can kill things. The faster you can kill things, the faster you'll level. Leveling is ALWAYS faster with a group, and the one thing this game does NOT promote is solo play. While it is POSSIBLE (and in the case of thieves, PROBABLE), it's definitely not the preferred way of leveling your character. A lot of the mobs are just too hard for a person to solo, but are ridiculously easy with a good group.

Now, about guilds.

You need to join one once you hit your mid-30's. Why? Well, if you don't, you're "errant", and as an errant, people will assume you either never joined a guild because of your class (Thieves are not welcome in a lot of "good" guilds) or because you were tossed out of another guild for whatever reason. Obviously with guilds come politics. There's always clashes between guild members, and sometimes basic human nature causes problems. There's also problems you could have with other guilds. I hear a lot about how a person was PK'ed by someone in another guild, and that person got a scolding from his guildmaster. So, even at a very basic social level, there are repercussions for just about anything you do against another player, be it in your guild or another.

Another benefit to guilds is the ability for your guild to amass enough money to build a city. This is basically the core aspect of the game. Within your city, you can have everything a non-player city can have. In fact, you will NOT be able to train past a certain level in most of your skills without visiting a player made city. This makes player cities CRITICAL to the game. It also makes it PARAMOUNT that your guild protect the city. When Shane and I joined the guild "Illuminati" on the Carnage server, we visited our guild city. It was pretty empty, but had most of the basics of what we needed. Greg told me that if I needed to train, I could go to the city called 'Silence' to the northwest. When a bunch of us were ready to train, a guild member went with us to visit this city.

And oh man, what a city it is.

It had EVERYTHING. It had churches, banks, wizards towers, barracks, training facilities with the highest level trainers, statues, Roaming guards, master mage guards, and just about anything you could think of. "Now THIS is a city!" Shane tells me... I couldn't agree more. It was just absolutely amazing what this Silence guild had built. The following morning, I went there to train again and noticed that the city was a LOT more heavily guarded by NPC guards (you have to hire them via charters, they cost money). Some people have speculated that they were preparing for a war.

See, now things get even more interesting here. Here we are, a guild that's friendly with Silence. Now what if they ask us for help? Will our guild be willing to alienate ourselves from Silence if we don't wish to be in dispute with another guild they're warring with? Who makes the ultimate decision? What will happen if a group of guild members decide they don't want to be involved? If you help, whoever helps 'Silence' will be marked by the attacking (or attacked) guild... If you DON'T help, your closest neighbor may not be so open with the use of their city towards you, thus cutting you off from critical training supplies until your guild can afford them on their own (ours can't at the moment, it seems). Damned if you do, damned if you don't. It's a matter of picking the lesser of two evils, and there's plenty of situations where this holds true in the game.

Quite the social angle, there. I've never seen anything like it in a multiplayer game. Way to go, Wolfpack. You have a real winner here, and I don't even feel that I have to go out on a limb to say it.