Archive for October, 2009

Another week has passed, and it is time once more to talk about Love. Since we began this little experiment, we’ve seen this game through the eyes of the Explorer and the Team Player, and the gaming conventions Love throws out the window has cast an interesting light on these playstyles. I expected to experience the same as I played as the Loner this week, and I was not disappointed.

We’ve all encountered soloers in MMOs, and most of us have even taken on this role at one point or another. And yet, despite how common the Loner is, the greater MMO community always seems ready to condemn him when he complains about a part of an MMO being too difficult to solo. “Why are you playing an MMO if you don’t want to play with anyone else?” comes the battle cry, and on the surface, this argument does seem perfectly reasonable. The truth is, there are plenty of reasons to solo, ranging from the difficulty in finding a group/guild to run a dungeon/raid, to the extreme pressure a “serious” group of gamers can put on each other, to pure and simple shyness.

Besides, isn’t there something of a romantic air about the lone wolf who wanders from challenge to challenge? Without the community an MMO provides, who would bear witness to your exploits?

So, how does this apply to Love? Again, Love presents a unique challenge. It is presented as extremely open, a world that the players create with their friends (or so the about page claims). However, the game revolves wholly around community, and if you don’t have a settlement, you find yourself alone in a dangerous world armed with nothing but a mere laser gun. And infinite lives. And no death penalty. Oh, and of this week’s patch, the enemy AI seems to have lost its ambition to aggressively hunt down players or build up any advanced weaponry.

Sure, hopping around blowing up AI bases was entertaining the first couple of times. However, without sustained challenge, there wasn’t much to keep me entertained. The worlds of Love are beautiful, but aside from their value as a simulated nature walk, there’s not much to discover.

It is worth mentioning that, in Love, there is no region chat. There is no community chat, or economy chat, or any easily accessible channel with which to communicate to far-flung players. What there is is the radio, a tool that works like, well, a radio.  To get your hands on a radio, you must be part of a settlement, which was against the Loner playstyle I was going for this week. And I discovered something interesting: I may enjoy soloing for a fair portion of my playtime, but I certainly don’t like to be alone. With absolutely no one to interact with, I found myself begin to walk in circles, hitting the same groups of AI over and over again, purposeless and lost.

As a one-week soloer, I imagine that, at least in my case, I don’t solo because I want to play by myself. Rather, I play MMOs for the possibility of interaction, and the possibility of experiencing a new story with my fellow players. It just so happens that it’s easier to fall into soloing, especially when so many games don’t present immediately accessible venues through which to build the connections needed to build up a strong community.

Like beating up on the characters from your fond childhood fairytales? How about getting free stuff?

If you’re part of that rare, free-stuff-loving demographic, Playlogic is finally catering to you! In the next few weeks, folks who picked up their hack n’ slash fantasyland adventure for Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 will get their hands on some tasty free content, but – wait for it – there’s more!

Register on their website and they’ll give you another DLC for free. This DLC includes four new characters and three new PvP arenas, and is supposedly worth $15… not that it matters, since if you’ve got the game anyway, now you’ve got it for $0.

This offer is valid through the first 90 days of the game’s release.

Kotaku confirms through the guys at Infinity Ward that their latest installment of Modern Warfare will definitely have a limited third person mode in multiplayer. The option will be limited to a game type, so individuals will not be able to turn it on or off. It’s either everyone or no one. Will this actually appeal to anyone? Maybe but for a dominate FPS, having a third person mode doesn’t make a tone of sense. We’ll have to see.

via Kotaku

Want to get a quick preview of Left 4 Dead 2? Steam has announced that those who have pre-ordered the game can now download the demo. But unfortunately, it’s just a tease since you can’t actually play until Tuesday, Oct. 27.

If you pre-ordered L4D2 at a retailer, you can now get your hands on the access code to begin downloading (both PC and Xbox 360).

Civilization fans who use Facebook can soon rejoice: Sid Meier’s iconic game is coming to the social networking site in the form of Civilization Network. On Wednesday, at 8:56am Pacific, Sid Meier posted the following note on their Facebook fanpage:

Hello Civ Fans!

I wanted to let you know we’ll soon be looking for beta testers to help us develop a unique new way to play Civilization. Ever since we finished Civilization® Revolution™ last year, I’ve been looking at ways of expanding the Civ gameplay experience to include solo, competitive and cooperative play to take advantage of the uniqueness of social networks. We’re calling this project Civilization® Network™ and the full game will be available next year on Facebook. Civilization Network will allow you to join together with your friends to create the world’s most powerful, richest, smartest, or just plain coolest civilization. You can coordinate your strategy to win great battles, share your technology to jump ahead of your rivals, lobby your family and friends to form your own government and win vital elections, manage and grow your cities to maximize production and happiness, spy on your enemies, and work with your friends to create the great Wonders of the World. The game will offer everything you enjoy in Civ in a fully persistent environment – you can play as much as you like, whenever you like, and it’ll be free to play.

We’ll offer a closed beta of the game soon, so stay tuned for details on how you can sign-up to participate. The full game will launch in 2010. For more information about Civilization Network, including development updates and behind-the-scenes posts from me and the Firaxis team, join our Facebook fanpage here.

Thanks and Stay Civilized!

Sid Meier
Director of Creative Development
Firaxis Games

The newly opened fanpage also contains a link to their freshly minted Twitter account.

Bunch of Gamers will continue to follow this story as it develops.

Major Nelson, the spokesperson of Microsoft, announced on his blog that “unauthorized Memory Units will no longer work with the Xbox 360” once the system updates in November.

Now we have to buy a few 512MB of storage to replace our 4GB one. And worst of all, transferring our saved games profile sucks.

If you are not for the update, join me and make a comment on Major Nelson’s blog about this bad idea.

For the past 2 weeks, I’ve been exploring the alpha MMO Love, and the different ways we play games. After a brief introduction, I spent my first week playing the role of the Explorer, a player who simply wants to experience new things and discover new gameplay. This last week, I’ve tried on the shoes of the Team Player, someone who does everything to further the group. This playstyle is perhaps the intended way to play Love, which centers around building up player settlements and defending it from enemy AI incursions.

Several excellent settlements have sprung up through the efforts of players cooperating with each other in-game and over Ventrillo, such as The Waygate Tree and the curiously named Treedong Settlement. Sadly, no single settlement can last for long under the combined threat of the AI and regular server resets, and the truly great settlements require the attention of care of at least a dozen players to thrive. Poor communication tools and a spread-out server population have made these difficult to achieve, but all the more rewarding when you can pull it off.

One point I’d like to address in this writing is the motivation of a community-centric player. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’m more of an explorer myself, though I have been an active member of the occasional guild in the past. MMOs are, theoretically at least, communal games by their very nature. I’ve seen it often enough: someone laments MMO content that requires them to group with other players, or something they can’t solo, and someone else tells them to screw off and play a single player game. For most MMOs, though, finding a group of reliable partners or being active in a guild can be a major time commitment, and some don’t have the time or desire to turn their leisure time into a chore. So, what motivates the Team Player to do exactly that?

To my thinking, there are two primary drivers at work here. First, and perhaps most obvious, are those who want to receive renown or praise. By rising up the ranks of a guild, you have a build-in audience to watch you in all of your glory. Guild leaders are often the most revered players, particularly in politic and war-heavy games like EVE Online and Darkfall, and if you play your cards right you may even find yourself interviewed by the likes of online gaming magazines. The second reason, more abstract than the first, is the desire to be part of something greater than yourself. For the player driven by this desire, stacking one’s own, small contribution upon the contributions of others until they’ve created something grand is enough.

Love caters to exactly one of these drivers, and I’ll leave it to you to guess which one. Here are some hints: when you log into your server for the first time, you are assigned a random name, your avatar is indistinguishable from anyone else’s avatar, and there’s no way of tracking who made what structures, who gathered what resources, or who destroyed what AI base.

In a time when customization is king, this can be a hard pill to swallow for some. Games have been feeding our egos and sense of self for so long, to come across this game that asks us to give anonymously, play nice with each other, and build something pretty will take some adjustment. In trying this playstyle in Love, the lack of glory has illuminated one of the major reasons we play this way.

Now that I’ve played nice, it’s time for me to strike out on my own. For the next week, I will be playing the part of the Loner, hunting AI and gathering resources for my own selfish purposes. In this game meant for co-op, let’s see how it likes getting a handful of solo crammed down its throat.

Next week is here, and so is Part 4 of Love and Gaming: The Loner!

Last week, oft-pirated indie puzzle game World of Goo turned 1 year old, and to celebrate (and maybe get some people actually, y’know, buying the game instead of just stealing it), developer 2D Boy issued a special pay-what-you-want birthday sale.

Well, the results are in. Not so surprisingly, many buyers opted to pay 1 cent, an amount which never even reached the developers due to PayPal fees. A handful actually paid more than the game’s normal price, either to support the company or thank them for making such a fun game.

For the full results, check out the link above.

Those of you who get their daily news from Twitter probably heard by now that Mass Effect 2 is just around the corner.

Mass Effect will be released January 26, 2010 for the PC and Xbox 360. Along with the release date announcement, Bioware has revealed that exclusive in-game armor and weaponry will be available to those who pre-order.

“In North America, pre-order bonuses* include special-ops armor and weaponry that are designed to boost Commander Shepard’s skills and abilities. At GameStop, Terminus Gear is available with pre-orders, which includes the powerful Terminus Assault Armor and the Blackstorm Heavy Weapon,” announced Diarmid Clarke, Project Director at Bioware.

Pre-orders taken at other retailers will receive the Inferno Armor, used to “monitor battlefield conditions by recognizing elevated heart rates, and regulates sub-systems with extreme efficiency to allow for greater response times.”

[Bonus Content for Reserved Copies of Mass Effect] Bioware

The last few months of 2009 is looking rather dim for the world of PC Strategy games, unless of course you’re looking forward to Burger Rush or Dinertown Tycoon. So with that in mind, we’ve compiled a list of games that we would actually want to play AND will be out sometime in 2010.

5. Kingdom under Fire II

Developed by Blueside, Kingdom under Fire II will make its début on the PC sometime next year. Details are still lacking but what we’ve seen of it so far is compelling enough to give it a nod here. The game is slated to have both a single play campaign and MMO mode and will fuse third person action style game play, ala Dynasty Warriors, with a unique command mode in which players can give orders, direct units of troops and call for reinforcements. The MMO side of the game it really what will set this title apart, if it’s done well.

4. Victoria 2

The sequel to Paradox Interactive’s enormously complex title by the same name, Victoria 2 will put players in command of just about any nation on earth. Real-time Grand Strategy would be an apt term for most of Paradox’s RTS titles in case you’re unfamiliar with them. In Victoria 2, players will lead there nation through the 19th and 20th centuries, dealing with political movements, angry colonists, industrialization, world wars and a whole lot else. One of the great development strategies that Paradox has adopted is to work very closely with their player base, in development, to make sure they get the functions and features right in the eyes of their base. So, if you haven’t done so already, check out their forums and get ready to lose untold hours of sleep when this title hits in early 2010.

3. Society

Arguably the first F2P MMORTS (I won’t do that again, I promise) to be developed by a major western developer, Society will fuse all the staples of a RTS with massive competition from up to 30,000 other players. The games developer, Stardock, is promising deep military, resource and political management mixed in with city building simulation. Players will be able to form Empires (ie Guilds) and help each other defend their territory. Stardock has also promised solutions for players defending their territory while they are offline. Best part of Society however is that it will not cost the player a dime to get on and play.

2. Supreme Commander 2

Not much is known about Supreme Commander 2 yet and it seems that Square Enix will be keeping a lid on the details until at least later this year but as the sequel to one of the most legendary RTS games of all time, Supreme Commander 2 has to be mentioned on this list. All the factions of the original title will be present and at least one unknown faction will be introduced. So until we know more, we will have to sit, wait and dream about what’s coming with Supreme Commander 2.

1. Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty

I know, not very original for a list of titles to look forward to in 2010 but common, it’s STARCRAFT 2 (OMGOMGOMG!!?one!). Over a decade since the release of the original, the world is ready for the sequel and at least another decade of Zerg smashing mayhem. Wings of Lberty will focus primarily on the Terrans and specifically on Jim Raynor and his rag tag bunch of mercenaries who find themselves searching the galaxy for artifacts of the Xel’Naga. Blizzard has already made it clear that the game will have at least two expansions which will center around the Zerg and Protoss campaigns. The game will also introduce a slew of new units, heroes and locations for us to collectively drool over. With no official release date yet, other then a very general 2010, we will have to contain ourselves just a little bit longer.