Features

In his latest Monday column, Jim Moreno gives us a snapshot of the state of roleplaying in two new MMOs and two older ones. For more of his thoughts on World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Ultima Online and Anarchy Online, click below.

World of Warcraft
Wijon'bu Zentao (Earthen Ring), known as Wichdocta, or just 'Wichy' by his friends, is a troll priest of the voodoo discipline. He shuns being called a healer, and his skills go beyond merely using the powers of shadow. He calls no place home, and can be seen walking through Shattrath City or Thunder Bluff one moment, to throwing the voodoo around Shadowmoon Valley or Silithus the next. He meditates often, either in quiet contemplation inside the Pools of Vision, walking amongst the huge mushrooms of Zangarmarsh, fishing around Nagrand, or by mixing and bottling up the mojo at the Undercity Apothecarium. He is always open to helping fight alongside his Horde brethren, especially when it comes to correcting the ways of the tribes of wayward trolls. Don't hesitate to ask this old troll for help, and may the spirits be with you.

Role on!

In the second half of our conversation with Mark Jacobs - former CEO of Mythic Entertainment and now General Manager of EA Mythic - we talked about the health and future of Ultima Online, Dark Age of Camelot and the company's integration into Electronic Arts.

For the first half of the article, which focuses on Warhammer Online, check out this link.

Despite the downturn, the game still makes a tidy profit for EA Mythic and is in no immediate danger of disappearing. Mythic has a history of maintaining games for years and years, long after they pass their prime. A good example of this is their pre-DAoC games that they maintained long beyond the point that most remembered they existed. The advantage of a mature MMO is that ultimately, it can be maintained - if not expanded - with a very small workforce. So long as DAoC remains profitable, it will march on.

That said, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is on the way and given that they themselves are developing a game that is in many ways a spiritual successor to Camelot, Jacobs fully expects a large hit to the Dark Age of Camelot numbers. He does not, however, believe that it will completely wipe the game out.

Click below for part two.

Today we have a special treat directly from Electronic Arts, an exclusive developer journal focused on the new player experience in Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn. This 2007 coat of paint for the classic MMO that started the whole craze has been a while in coming and as they wind down towards its launch, they're focusing on nuts and bolts like the new player experience. Producer Aaron Cohen explains:

Want to start an argument with MMORPG designers? Bring up new player tutorials.

You'll find some folks feel passionately that these are large complex games that need a lot of teaching. They argue that if you shove players into the world with no preparation, they'll get lost, get frustrated and quit before they see all the great stuff you've spent the last one to five years building. How are they supposed to know to click there and pick up that and swing a sword like this unless you tell them?

Read more after the click.

Today we have a special treat directly from Electronic Arts, an exclusive developer journal focused on the new player experience in Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn. This 2007 coat of paint for the classic MMO that started the whole craze has been a while in coming and as they wind down towards its launch, they're focusing on nuts and bolts like the new player experience. Producer Aaron Cohen explains:

Want to start an argument with MMORPG designers? Bring up new player tutorials.

You'll find some folks feel passionately that these are large complex games that need a lot of teaching. They argue that if you shove players into the world with no preparation, they'll get lost, get frustrated and quit before they see all the great stuff you've spent the last one to five years building. How are they supposed to know to click there and pick up that and swing a sword like this unless you tell them?

Read more after the click.

Today we have the third part - the second on WarCry - of our interview with Richard Garriott. We began on Tuesday with the Escapist interview and then showed you some extra stuff on Wednesday here on WarCry. Now we polish it off here today.

The final part is all about balance. Not game balance, but how he balances making points with preaching and commercial success with meaningfulness.

Escapist: You've mentioned that you're not necessarily trying to evangelize on either side, but you have also said in the past that you've occasionally been accused of preaching. So a couple questions. One, do you think you preach? And secondly, even if you did preach, would that necessarily be bad in a video game?

Richard Garriott: I work hard to not take very many, if any positions, but there is no question, I know for a fact that I do on some subjects. I can give you a case study on that. If you look at the cover of Ultima VIII, the cover of Ultima VIII has a pentagram on the cover of it. That was something I insisted by on the front of the cover, but interestingly a lot of retail outlets wouldn't carry. And so we actually had to make a second version of the box to put on store shelves at certain stores because they thought that a pentagram was so potentially inflammatory that they wouldn't carry the box if it continued to have a pentagram on the front. And that fed directly into the reason I put it on the cover. If you look at the actual, true history of a pentagram - which interestingly even has a little bit to do with Tabula Rasa.

Read more at the link below.

Yesterday, our sister magazine The Escapist published an interview we did with Richard Garriott on mythology and story in video games. He provided a fascinating look at a subject he is uniquely qualified to comment on, but he also had a lot more to say.

Today, we give you the first part of a two part series where we reveal what else Garriott had to say during that chat. In today's portion, you can read Garriott's thoughts on the roots of the Ultima series, the future of MMOs, the concept of the Avatar and why Tabula Rasa changed directions so dramatically. Tomorrow, we'll return with more words from Garriott.

Escapist: OK, those were where you went, is there anywhere you ever wanted to go with the series that you never got to?

Richard Garriott: Absolutely. These games as you know take us years to develop and so there are generally a lot more ideas than you ever get to put into a game. In particular, even though everyone always thinks of me as a medieval fantasy guy, as you can tell from those earlier games, I'm just as enthusiastic about science fiction and frankly even old west, like the movie Westworld, which I thought was hot stuff when I was quite a bit younger. I'd be very happy playing in almost any fictional genre or time period setting. For me though, the common thread is two aspects. It's the highly detailed world crafting, trying to make sure that the world we create is as believable, diverse and rich as possible. And then the second aspects is what I will call the creation of the 'why am I there and why do I care?' In other words, what is the story-based emotional hook that keeps you as a player desiring to go to this virtual world. I'm a big virtual reality fan, as well as I'm a big virtual reality skeptic. In the sense of, wouldn't I love to be able to just plug in and go play in a virtual world? Yes. But do I think the hardware to make that practical in a lot of the high end movies, do I think that's going to happen anytime soon? Absolutely not.

Read more after the click.

Over on Ultima Online on WarCry, Site Manager Gamegoddess has posted two new articles that look back on her time as a counselor in the early days of Ultima Online. Get a start with Memoirs of a Counselor Part One.

I still remember the day I decided I wanted to become a Ultima Online Counselor. I think I had been playing for around a year or so and had always been in awe of the "Blue Robes". Who could not be? If they showed up you knew something was going on.

After thinking about it no further, I hunted down a site where you could apply to be a counselor or seer and I filled the application out and sent it in. It was just the usual stuff...of wanting to know how long you had played and how you would handle some situations, etc. It took about a week and I got my first rejection. Yes, that's right, I said the first...there were several.

Read more after the click.

Some of my fondest memories are those pre "global que". During this time, a counselor was assigned to a single shard and those were the only calls they had to respond to. During those times there weren't near the calls, so we would spend our waiting time in a guild hall.

I still remember the day I decided I wanted to become a Ultima Online Counselor. I think I had been playing for around a year or so and had always been in awe of the "Blue Robes". Who could not be? If they showed up you knew something was going on.

May 25, 2007

"A while ago, MrTact said Enhanced Bandages were broken - did he ever fix them?"
This came up at the Town Hall last week, and Leurocian checked the code today. They aren't actually broken at the moment - they appear to correctly give a 10-point bonus. What IS broken, though, is another part of the healing code (which may have been what MrTact was actually referring to.) Some of the "slip" calculations are off, potentially lowering overall heal rates and totally removing the intended bonus for GM Healing and above. Leurocian put a fix in for that, and once QA gets done beating on it you'll see it in an upcoming publish.