ESO Crafting

This seems promising to me. However, I'm disconcerted on the lack of comment about whether upper tier gear will be craftable and, if so, what components will be used. The strong trend towards upper tier craftable items requiring raid components to make (looking at you SWTOR) has really put a nail in the lid of the coffin of many MMO's for me. I've always loved crafting, but the crafter as a second class citizen within game has always been deeply disturbing to me.

I think perhaps it's a problem of perception. It's true, many players don't bother with crafting, or if they do it's such a limited facet of their gameplay as to be statistically insignificant. But I think tying it to raiding/hardmore instances is pretty much the opposite of what should be happening. My kinship in lotro was originally crafting oriented (at launch when crafted items were worthwhile), and while it has since gotten away from the crafting focus, many members still craft items for one another. It's an essential social interaction, one that is often very useful in game as the playerbase, and our kinship, is composed of adults, many of us with time consuming jobs and families, and we don't have a lot of time to run an instance thirty times to collect whatever hides to make a cloak that we'll use for few months at best.

Perception. Is crafting perceived as for casuals? Or is it perceived as a boring element of the game that many players don't want to mess with? Or as a time sink with little reward? Are some combination therein, depending on the game you're talking about?

Personally, I would strongly argue that it should be a parallel means of gear progression that should be comparable to other avenues. Who deserves a top tier piece of gear more? The player who put in one hundred hours raiding? What about the player that put in equitable time gathering resources and crafting? Both players sunk ink significant amounts of time and effort into a game they enjoyed, a game they're paying to play. So why should one inherently have a lesser experience, one which from the outset the player knows will have significantly less reward?

Crafting as Expression

One of the most intriguing aspects of the video is the level of customization going into each item, including type, material, style, and traits with which to imbue each item. This is the singular element which all MMO crafting has lacked as of late. Though I never played Star Wars Galaxies, it's crafting legacy has certainly lived on in terms of dashed expectations with each successive themepark release. Crafting in every MMO on the market today (that I've played) is shallow and pointless at best, a resource sink/raiding side game/indulgence at worst. 

Developers have a keen sense of trying to make certain elements in their games memorable. Boss mechanics, progression raids, storyline, pvp (be it arena or persistent), heck, even character [aesthetic] customization is broadly expanding in many games. (Though none can touch lotro's cosmetic system, in my humble opinion.) But crafting has consistently been the red headed step child that no single developer has known quite what to do with.

Well, frankly, I think I have the ignored answer. The answer devs probably don't want to hear because it's probably not cost effective nor the popular opinion put forth by the more vocal playerbase. Crafting should be an expressive avenue of game play completely equal to Raiding, pvp, etc as an endgame goal. It should be based upon resource gathering, exploration, and yes, time. Not time spent waiting in a queue, or time wiping on a boss, but rather time finding and gathering those resources, time crafting them into components, and then time making them into items, improving those items, adding effects/enchantments onto those items, etc. 

SWTOR, by making crafting something passive that happened in the background, may have enabled many to craft, but they completely alienated a segment of the population - actual crafters. The people who want to make gear, who want to explore, and want to sit down in a crafting center, socialize with other crafters, trade resources in person, take commissions, etc, were completely robbed of that experience. Crafting in that game is a) irrelevant if you don't run instances/raids, as most crafted items of worth require such resources and b) completely impersonal and detached. Which is great if you hate crafting I guess. But some of us would like a crafting system made for crafters, not a crafting system made for fourteen year olds. 

Summary (End Rambling)

I'd honestly hate to get my hopes up that this crafting system will have depth and character. I'd hate to think I might be able to go into end game content with crafted gear without being mocked as a newb. I'd hate to think that maybe, just maybe this is a crafting system for crafters, intent on creating a rich and diverse in game economy and sub play experience, a social hub, and an avenue of progression. Because when I think that, I know I might just be disappointed. I know that I probably won't receive any of those things. 

But boy do I want to believe.

Why yes...

...that is a decapitated orc head on a pike mounted to my saddle, thanks for asking! I hope you don't mind the flies buzzing around it as it decays...

The Argonath

Because if you don't know, you've lost all nerd cred.

The Themepark MMO and the Decline of the Subscription Model

The Setup

Two of the MMO's I've played have made the transition from subscription based model to Free to Play, or Subscription/Free hybrid. A third is marching into this territory soon, amidst screams of 'failure,' 'inevitable,' and 'sinking ship' among others. The brief rundown:

Lord of the Rings Online - Launching in 2007, it had a great run as a subscription based game, staying that way until 2010 when it transitioned to a hybrid model with an in game store. Considering that it was competing with World of Warcraft as its popularity waxed and peaked, I don't think it has anything to be ashamed of. In fact, in many ways it pioneered the free-to-play model in North America, being the first major subscription based MMO to make the transition in this particular market.

 

Star Trek Online - Sticking with this game has been a labor of love. Launching prematurely in 2010 over the angst of IP holders at CBS (following the Perpetual Debacle), the game was simply too soon out the gate. It didn't quite make it two years before switching to a hybrid model early this year. The move was unsurprising, as Lotro's playerbase had been greatly reinvigorated with the ftp launch, and Cryptic had always had an in game store within STO, making the transition relatively painless.

 

The Old Republic - Launching last holiday season, it recently announced it would be making the free to play shift around the game's one year anniversary, give or take, somewhat emulating the hybrid model Lotro pioneered a few years ago.

It's interesting to note that all three of these games are very much 'Themepark' MMO's. From the point of character creation, to the mystical 'end game,' you're locked in a more or less set path that takes you from point a to b to c, etc, until you complete a certain storyline, hit cap, and are then expected to raid/pvp while waiting for the next content update.

Ultimately, this is what forced these games hand in regards to transition to the ftp model.



The Content Bottleneck

Like it or not, the developers can only create new content at so fast a pace. This bottleneck is only magnified when the developer team is a relatively small, homey studio. When you have the economies-of-scale induced dev power as exemplified by Blizzard, this problem is essentially mitigated. While players will still complete and master content at a faster pace than it can be produced, the rate of production is higher from a larger dev team, pulling in more players who appreciate the greater amount of content, funding larger developer teams, etc, creating a positive feedback loop of content/player satisfaction.

When you're a small studio like Cryptic, you simply can't keep up. There aren't enough man hours in the day to produce content fast enough to appease fans. Measures were tried to mitigate the problem (player generated content in the form of the Foundry), and it has perhaps alleviated pains, but not to the degree necessary.

What degree is that? The point at which players stop asking themselves, "What am I paying for?"

The Old Republic, in an almost suicidal manner, placed itself at the heart of that question by creating such thematic, scripted, fully voiced over, and varied story arcs for each and every base class in game. While this is a huge draw in and of itself for many players, the extra development time required to create new content, particularly of the storied variety, is exacerbated. It was a recipe for frustration. If you tout yourself as a story based MMO, but have difficulty updating story on a regular basis, you're in for a headache.


The Inevitable Result

Free to play as a model was the inevitable conclusion of this story. If players feel like they aren't getting their money's worth, they won't pay. But with the ftp/hybrid model, you allow your players to choose to pay an amount they believe fitting for the content they receive. It allows more control on the player's end, and less frustration about having to pay a fixed rate for content you may not be interested in playing.

And as an added benefit, you pull in an entirely new demographic of players: Those who are interested in your game, but don't want to play a monthly subscription fee to play it. They may not bring in as much money as a full blown subscriber, but they can still spend money in the store, which is cash the devs didn't have to play with before. Win-win for all.


So Where Lies the Future?

I think this is the really interesting question. Is the future of all MMO's free to play? I'm not sure sure that's the case. I think it might be better to say, the future of 'Themepark' MMO's is free to play, for the content generation bottleneck cited above. I would be very surprised to see a new 'Themepark' MMO released in the future with a subscription based model. But I don't think the subscription based model has run its course, rather I think the 'Themepark' MMO has had its day.

Name a very strong subscription based MMO that isn't WoW. The first thought that springs to my mind is EVE Online, very much a sandbox game, one which has actually been slowly but steadily growing the past few years despite its age.

Why is it that people are still playing an aging game with a subscription based model despite all the newer and shinier alternatives out there?

I think the answer is ultimately two things: Emergent Gameplay and Meaningful PvP.

Meaningful PvP is, I think, a big one. When two corporations in EVE go head to head in full scale war, there is going to be loss. Oh boy is there going to be loss. The kind that players won't recover from for months. The kind that players fear, and makes full scale war a dire thing to be considered ever so carefully. The kind that leads to corporations completely dissolving and the state of game politics shifting forever. The single shard model greatly facilitates this, as when a major corporation collapses, it's felt throughout the game.

Yet what happens when you lose a warzone match in themepark game x? You gain a moderate amount of experience and in game currency anyway, and go on your merry way to the next queue. No consequences. Nothing felt long term, significance is minimal to the player, and completely and totally nonexistent to the rest of the in game world. The ramifications to the world around you are effectively none, completely fumbling a fantastic opportunity to create greater world immersion.

The ramifications of meaningful PvP fall under Emergent Gameplay, that is, gameplay in which the players  set their own goals, assign their own personal value to those goals, which makes the game far more engrossing than any roller coaster ride could ever be. The story you create with your guildmates is far more impacting than any story written by a paid developer that will be played by hundreds of thousands of other people. If your guild has risen to the top of the pack on your server (or ideally in your single shard game world), that's something you'll carry with you until the server shuts down. Even if you only peak for a day, it'll be 'written' in the annals of the game's history. And it wasn't scripted for you.


Hope for the Future

These aspects are what give me hope for TESO. Considering that the entire center region of the continent, Cyrodiil, is open for PvP between three factions already makes it significantly more interesting than many games out there from a PvP perspective. Add to that the fact that whichever of the three factions controls the most land can crown their own emperor in game!, and you have an interesting, investing, and impacting PvP design, particularly if the dominating faction assumes benefits from control. (As it undoubtedly will.)

Further this with guild politics as various guilds vie for supremacy and the coveted throne within their faction, and you have the recipe for something refreshing, at the very least. It'll be interesting to see if it plays out as pitched. I'm eager.


Paradigm Shift

These facts combined with TES series traditionally sandboxy design, with themepark vignettes to complete as desired, and I think we may be on the precipice of a paradigm shift. As WoW ushered in an era of themepark MMO's that I believe is just now drawing to a close eight years later, I think TESO may usher in an era of Sandbox MMO's, or Sandbox/Themepark hybrids at the very least. I'm not saying TESO is going to be a WoW-killer; I do, however, think it has the potential to make an old model new again by introducing it to a widespread audience that EVE hasn't been able to reach, based on a more hybrid approach to gameplay and the ubiquity of the IP's name.

Only time will tell, but as is the case with all MMO's pre-launch, I'm hoping for the best whilst preparing for the worst.

Lotro's New and Improved Full Score

Just as music makes or breaks the movie, so it makes or breaks the game. For the most recent Lord of the Rings Online expansion Riders of Rohan Turbine has brought back Chance Thomas, the composer of the original music for Shadows of Angmar and the Mines of Moria expansion. That his music has been absent from the last two major updates has been disappointing. But, here he is again, and we have a preview of his work for the expansion below.






It should be noted that each track has a description by Chance on YouTube. I don't want to copy paste all three here, but I do want to take a selection of his description of the last song, and encourage all to read the descriptions he posted of the pieces above, particularly "Shadow of the Argonath." Knowing how he constructed the themes, and what each theme represents, add immensely to the experience.


From Chance Thomas,

"This track was composed to underscore the Boromir game instance, with players taking on the role of Boromir as he battles hordes of Uruk Hai in a desperate attempt to save Merry and Pippin.

Boromir has his fatal flaw, as we all know. But this piece is not about that. This music is about Boromir at his most noble, determined and powerful. Big drums, epic choir, robust cadences and powerful statements in the brass all contribute to the feeling of strength and unwavering.

After the choir sings, the Gondor theme makes its final appearance in this expansion. It is a resigned and somewhat naked version (meaning the arrangement thins out considerably) to underscore the utter aloneness of this great warrior-steward in his final mêlée. It repeats with a bit of forlorn (trumpets and high strings) before giving out to the brutal force of ragged low brass as the battle rages to its infamous conclusion.

You may be interested to know what the choir is singing. The lyrics are in Old English, translated for me by Turbine's lore master Chris Pierson and his muse for all things Anglo-Saxon, professor Michael Drout of Wheaton College. The choir sings: Arë! Thrymnes! Fréot! Maegen! The translation is: Glory! Honor! Freedom! Power! These are virtues upon which Gondor was built and to which Boromir clings until his last breath."

I think the knowledge of the lore, and the depth of thought that went into the thematic development and musical imagery is pretty brilliant. Definitely looking forward to his music setting the mood going forward.