So I’ve recently been replaying my way through Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion because… well, you know why. Anyway, I’ve just got around to finishing the main quest lione and something occurred to me. Everyone in Cyrodil is eerily up to date on current events. I help the secret emperor that no one knows about defeat a daedra lord. Instantly, everybody in the entire country knows about the long-lost heir, his noble sacrifice that only I was present to see, AND know who I am & what I did? Is everyone here linked up on the WizardNet? Does the Black Horse Courier have an RSS feed? How in the Nine do they know what I look like?! There are no cameras!
Okay, we can figure this out. Somehow, everyone in the country – even people in the wilderness and in cities that take days to reach – know instantly what I’ve done and who I am. Clearly this is the work of some powerful wizard or a Daedra lord. Yes, of course! The daedra! Being the evil demons that they are would surely wish to hinder me in my escapades to stop them. But why would they want to do it after I’ve already defeated the big bad and stopped his plan? Well, the mages guild must have the ability to instantly communicate with each other at a moments notice. Which is why I have to play messenger boy constantly. Dang it, no! That’s not it either.
There has to be something I’m overlooking. Why would everyone know what is going on at the exact same time? It’s like they were computer programs. Wait! That’s it. Hear me out, because I know this is a bit far-fetched. Maybe Cyrodil doesn’t exist. Maybe it’s all an elaborate staging for me and only me to experience and go through as some kind of a twisted test to prove my worth. That even as I get more powerful, the world rises to match my power and everyone’s equipment and lives are designed around me. Like some kind of twisted fantasy Truman Show. Only where Jim Carrey has an axe, and continues to be entertaining past the 90 minute mark! By what twisted being’s desire is this horrific world made real? Who is pulling the strings behind all this? What foul divinity would forge such lengthy adventures of skill and repetitive tasks like jumping over and over because how the hell else are you going to level up your acrobatics other than making yourself look like a complete loon that no one notices?!
I’ve seen through their lies and exposed the truth! Knock Knock, Martin Septim – I know what the Oblivion is. I have seen it for myself. Another Matrix joke here. Oh yes, you’re not fooling me! The world must know! THE WORLD MU%#**$@$&(*DW@$J*S*!
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Oblivion is a fun game. You should play it. Just repeat to yourself that it is just a game and that you really should just relax.
For those who don’t know or don’t recall a while back Psynister and I laid out the rules for the WoW Ironman Challenge. We wanted to know how far you could make it without a single of piece of uncommon or better gear and without spending a single talent point.
The challenge has since garnered a lot of attention from many people – except me. Sadly, Ironkerion the Undead Warlock has sat idle for quite a while. It’s been hard to find the motivation to play him when you have someone who has demonstrated the true power of an ‘Ironman Warlock’.
Who do I speak of? Well, that would be the wonderful warlock Ironsally! Ironsally is Tome of the Ancient‘s entry into the Ironman Challenge, who just today has happily announced that her warlock has just reached level 85 wearing nothing but a cobbled together outfit of gray and white items totalling in a whopping average item level of 105.
Seriously, go over to Tome of the Ancient and give Ironsally a hearty congrats. The entire journey from level 1 to 85 is documented on the blog wonderfully and better than anything I could ever piece together.
And of course if you are interested in seeing if you’re tough enough, you can always find the rules to the WoW Ironman Challenge here at the Land of Odd or over at Psynister’s Notebook.
As the release day approaches, and news begins to increasingly leak out the seams that keep this tight-knit madness called the Internet, I keep finding my eyes drifting to Old Republic sites to see what all the hub bub is about. I must say that, in theory, much of what I’m seeing seems awesome. Very awesome. Whether it will continue to hold once the game comes out in December, well… that remains to be seen. However, there was bit of news that had my eyes light up with glee:
Companion characters will NOT be allowed in Warzones or Operations, however they will be allowed in Flashpoints so long as the total number of players + companions does not exceed four.
So what you’re saying is that in Flashpoints (dungeons) you can have 4 players, or 3 players and 1 companion, OR 2 players and 2 companions? I mean, granted, a companion is not a complete substitute for a player, but the fact that it’s an option is amazing! If I can team up with one friend, we bring our companions and we can do a flashpoint together without trying to flag down some additional PUG members – that’s a selling point right there for me!
I am terribly when it comes to talking to people I don’t know. I have a Charisma score of at least negative three. PUGing in WoW is such a nightmare for me that it was damn near impossible for me to just whisper someone I didn’t know in response to them looking for a DPS. That’s probably what contributed so much to me not doing a lot of dungeons in Burning Crusade (Second would be my complete lack of self-confidence in what people keep telling me is my ‘above average’ skill in the game.) So just having the option to cut down on unnecessary stress is enough to make me squee with delight.
One of the first things a role player will try to beat into your brain is to always separate player knowledge and character knowledge. It’s one of the most basic tenets of role playing. Just because you know Ner’zhul became the original Lich King, doesn’t mean Sir Awesomeman the Paladin of Stormwind would.
The other night at my weekly D&D game, I came across a variation of the idea that honestly never occurred to me before. The separation of player motivation and character motivation. Our party was trying to get into a ‘restricted area’ to speak to an important official in this Church of Pelor that we were sorta-kinda working for. The high guard decided to cut us off, checked our ‘guest passes’ and declared us “Not supposed to be here.” She was quite snooty about it too.
Now, as the rest of our gaming group was quick to point out, this woman was a high guard in the organization employing us. Killing her would be bad, so we should all use non-lethal methods to subdue her. The group knew this. I knew this. But did my character?
Well, let’s think about it. My character – Scythe – is a revenant (if you’re not familiar with the D&D race, think ‘The Crow’. Not the elemental revenants in Northrend) that was raised by the Raven Queen to hunt down and claim souls for her so he can earn his freedom. He’s a soul-harvesting bounty hunter for the Goddess of Death – I think it is safe to assume he doesn’t do non-lethal.
I went all out on her. Brought my A-game. Some solid hits, a little combat advantage, and one brutal critical hit later and she was lying on the floor covered in her own blood, muttering her final words to her god. Scythe walks over to her and grins, “Pelor has no power where you’re going.” He pulled out his talisman and sent her soul to the Shadowfell to meet his mistress.
I had knowingly killed what should have been an ally to our cause. A high guard that served directly underneath the Church’s council. Why? Because my character had a different motivation. His freedom was more important than sparing some pain-in-the-butt guard that decided to pull a sword on us because our hall pass was invalid.
I think it’s safe to say that no one else in my group agreed with my actions. This was a stupid decision that is surely going to cause a lot of issues for our characters in the near future. As we ended the session for the night I smiled and looked at our Dungeon Master and said, “That was a mistake wasn’t it?”
He smiled back and said something I don’t think I’ll ever forget: “Wil Wheaton knew not to split the party. Aeofel didn’t.”
In case you didn’t know, Loremaster is the end goal for every max level toon I’ve ever had. To date, I have three toons with the uber-nerd-tasti-fied title, and each time is more enjoyable than the last. Considering I did it the first time Pre-Cata before there were add ons to tell you what quests you’ve missed, ‘more enjoyable’ is easy to accomplish. This last trip around the wide world of Azeroth, I decided to finish with Northrend. I have fond memories of this expansion. If you asked me a month ago why, I probably would have simply chuckled and said it was pointless nostalgia. But it isn’t. There is something different in the cold winds of Northrend. Something that has helped me close in on the very issue with Cataclysm that has been banging around in the back of my head since I first got to 85.
Wrath of the Lich King excelled in one magnificent thing above all others in my book. My book of course being the one that says a good story trounces over balance issues, bad design, and buggy gameplay. I’ve been known the overlook some nasty problems with games in my day for the sake of story. In this age of “We’ll release the game and patch it later”, it has proven to be a necessary ability. I’m willing to work around the Silverite Mine bug in Dragon Age that deletes your inventory because I want to see what happens. I don’t care if every cave in Dragon Age 2 is identical because I’m not there to explore caves, I’m there for the plot… and Merrill. You get my point. And if there was one thing that I will defend Wrath of the Lich King it was its story.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Cataclysm’s storylines. Becoming the Herald of the Ancients and ushering in their return to save the World Tree from the forces of Ragnaros and Twilight’s Hammer. Aiding the Earthen Ring in repairing the World Pillar and confronting all the various factions that operate in the Plane of Earth. Though I must say helping throw a dwarven wedding beats out enlisting the Dragonmaw into the Horde. Cataclysm had well told storylines. The problem was they really didn’t have anything to do with each other. Nothing that happens in Hyjal has any significance to the events in Uldum. No one in the Twilight Highlands seems to care about what occurred in the depths of Vash’jir. In fact, the only consistent threads through the five zones are strictly thematic in nature: the elements, the end of the world, etc. That has been my biggest issue in Cataclysm, that the major plot seems thematic instead of narrative. By which I mean there is no ‘overarching story’ to the expansion, just an ‘overarching theme’. It’s like the Final Fantasy series. Each game has its own plot, and each game tends to touch on the same general themes, but aside from the rare occasion (X & X-2, Tactics & XII), there is nothing story-wise connecting the games.
In Wrath of the Lich King however, the story was structured so that some plot threads resolved in the zone, and others built throughout the continent. For instance, Yogg-Saron is first hinted at in the gorge in the Howling Fjords, it is not given a name until the Grizzly Hills, we are given glimpses of its influence and power in Storm Peaks and Icecrown, and we finally face off with the beast in the Ulduar raid. Same with Loken and his meddling behind the war behind the giants and the iron dwarves. There are many more: The development of the New Plague, the plight of the Taunka, the Nexus War, discovering the ancestry of the Gnomes,and the various misadventures of the Brothers Bronzebeard. These are on top of the normal zone specific plot lines that are going on.
Everything seems so connected in Northrend. The same spirit has been extended to many plotlines in the revised 1-60 experience as well (In Ashenvale, you help design and build the bomb you drop on the druids in Stonetalon). But not in the 80-85 part of Cataclysm. The strongest narrative tie is probably that the Molten Front serves as a ‘sequel’ to what happened in Hyjal, but that is more or less the same zone. Burning Crusade had a similar issue, but even then there were a small handful of plotlines that would pop up here and there, like Pathaleon the Calculator’s experiments for his master, the Blood Elf dependence on finding a new power source, etc. But in the end, because of this strong narrative thread, Northrend is much more enjoyable for me to level through than Burning Crusade and Cataclysm.
In summary: Yes, thus far Wrath was my favorite expansion. No, it didn’t have anything to do with anything being “easy mode”. Yes, Merrill is adorable. No, I am not wearing lederhosen for Brewfest.
WARNING: Today’s post contains SFW material viewed with a NSFW mind. You have been warned.
If you compare the Night Elf society with the rest of the world of Azeroth, they are a radical departure from the societal norms that the other races and kingdoms hold. A society divided by gender lines – the women are the warriors, the men are the druidic spiritualists. Granted, this tradition has been mostly smudged and ignored for the sake of gameplay in WoW. Probably piece of mind. You think people got mad when Garrosh called Sylvanas a b*%$& or when Jaina cries? Imagine if Blizz had said that women can’t be druids. Ooooh, there would be hell to pay.
But in a society that is such a radical departure from what most are used to, what exactly would they could consider beautiful? Would they even have the same aesthetic values as, let’s say, Stormwind? Well, dating as far back as before the War of the Ancients, we know that the Kal’dorei have a love of giant statues. Heck, they’re all over Kalimdor in “little” bits and pieces. So we know they have that in common with Mr. I-Need-A-Statue Varian Wrynn. But I stumbled upon a statue in Ashenvale that had me scratching my head, rubbing my eyes, and re-thinking my stance on my sanity. Which is odd to begin with because I was never sane.
Okay, I swear I’m not the type of person who sees this kinda stuff in other places (abstract art, modern art, Disney movies) but I can’t be the only who has ever noticed this. I don’t think it was intentional Blizzard’s part, but let’s delve into this with the eyes of a nutjo… I mean ‘Freudian Psychologist’ and analyze what this means. This statue probably dates back to the Highborne, I mean you see the same statue in a couple of Highborne ruins at least, so you have a matriarchal society. Which begs the question of if women are often sexualized due to a patriarchical society, is the reverse true? Would the men of the Quel’dorei be as sexualized as women are in our society?
Well, seeing how I studied film/computers/writing in college, I can say with the utmost certainty that I don’t the slightest clue. In fact, I have no idea where I was going with this. I’m not a psychologist. Heck, my own brain has so many crossed wires, MacGyver would be stumped trying to hot wire it. So maybe this whole thing is just in my had. Maybe the night elves aren’t totally perverted when it comes to their art and…
HA! I was right! Look at that! Total pervs. You night elves are demented little knife eared pervs aren’t you? Yea, that whole dancing half nude on a mailbox thing isn’t to “pay your way through priestess school” is it? I knew it. Heck, I probably should have seen the signs when the Blood Elves decided that their racial architecture was giant towers everywhere. Yea, they’re not compensating for anything. You elves make me sick. Trying to sneak this trash into a decent Light-fearing game like WoW. You should all be ashamed!
No, not The Old Republic. I’m sure I’ll have plenty to say about that when it comes out and I give it a whirl, but I’m talking about the movies! Yes those six little films every loves and hates and loves to hate and hates to love and love hatey love love. Something like that.
I have to be perfectly honest, and this is the moment in the post where you either decide to walk into this fun house with me and see where it goes or look at me with utter disgust like my mother did when I explained I was spending prom night in the basement with a pizza and a rented copy of Conker’s Bad Fur Day. I personally really don’t have an issue with the prequel films. A minor concern here and there, but I certainly don’t hate them. In fact, I enjoy them quite a bit. Yes, even Episode I.
Okay, for those of you who haven’t closed your browser window and switched over to twitter to call me out as an enemy of nerd-kind, I am sure you are all aware that the new Blu-Ray edition of the Star Wars saga is coming and with it is a brand new batch of slight alterations from Mr. Lucas. A new patch for the saga. And like any WoW patch, this has people raging across the Interweb-o-spheroid. So just like some people enjoy running down the list of changes in every WoW patch, I decided to do the same thing here:
Yoda’s model in both Naboo and the Jedi Temple have been updated to be more in line with his current incarnation.
Of the four things I’ve listed here, this is probably the second most likely to tick people off. Essentially, puppet Yoda from Episode I: The Phantom Menace is being replaced with the CGI Yoda from Episode II and III. Honestly? I’m pretty happy with this one. I have no idea why but the puppet Yoda in Episode I was really off-putting for me. Something about it just seemed strange and slightly creepy. Maybe because it seemed a bit too brightly colored. Maybe because a practical effect like a puppet seemed so out-of-place among the rest of the CGI in the film. Maybe it was them trying to capture a slightly more ‘youthful’ Yoda (apparently years 860-900 take a lot out of his species.) I can’t put my finger on it exactly, but something was always really distracting about that puppet. The CGI one took some getting used to when I first saw Episode 2 back in ’02, but I’ve really warmed up to that one. I like the old puppet look in the Original Trilogy as well. But that Ep. I puppet. He creeped me out.
Vry’s Verdict: BUFF
The number of Dugs in the Jabba’s Palace dungeon has been significantly increased from none to one.
Dugs, if you don’t recall, are the species that Sebulba – the antagonistic hot-shot pod racer – belonged to. If you haven’t completely blacked out and repressed Episode I from your mind would recall that Jabba the Hutt is a fan of pod racing. So maybe just to reinforce that idea, or perhaps to just add another scumbag into Jabba’s Palace of Intergalactic A-Holes (Just take a right off Exit 67 on the Sand Dune Turnpike), a dug has been added wandering in the door of Jabba’s Club. No, it doesn’t say anything. No, there is no indication that it’s supposed to be Sebulba. It’s just a dug walking in the door. Then it cuts away. Debatable whether this adds anything, but it certainly doesn’t detract.
Vry’s Verdict: NEUTRAL
Ewoks now can use a brand new blink emote.
Ewoks are arguably one of the cutest and/or creepiest things in the Return of the Jedi. Usually, I fall on the cute side of things. Granted, I also find Furbies cute and own nearly 30 of them. So what do I know? However, while discussing the Blu-Ray release with a friend of mine, I mentioned that the Ewoks now blink. His reaction? “Less creepy fuzzballs? How AWFUL.” His sarcasm. Not mine. Now that I think about, the fact that these little teddy bears of a species walk around all day blinking about as much as a porcelain doll in the corner of your grandmother’s guest room is a bit creepy. So some blinking can’t hurt right? WRONG. The little fur-balls are ten times creepier now that they have these big glassy CGI eyeballs in their heads for certain shots. And I do mean certain shots. This is not some sweeping change to every frame that rocks an Electronic Wok. I found them cute before, but when I saw the clip of them blinking, my eyes went almost as wide as their cue ball sized eyes.
Vry’s Verdict: NERF
Darth Vader now has a new vocal emote for the transition to phase 3 in the Emperor encounter in the Second Death Star.
Oh yes. This one. The one that everyone seems to have their pitchforks waving, torches burning and screaming for the head of George Lucas on a silver platter about. Yes, in the ending of Return of the Jedi, when Luke is being tortured to death by Emperor Palpatine, Darth Vader looks at his son crying out for him and back to his master and mutters, “No…” and then gives a resounding “NOOOOOOOOO!” as he lifts the Emperor above his head and throws him down the ACME Bottomless Pit ™. While I can definitely see the logic behind this change, the ‘rebirth’ of Anakin Skywalker now mirroring the ‘death’ of Anakin Skywalker as a kind of frame for his time as Darth Vader. His failure to save his wife is redeemed in the success of saving his son. Honestly, I can spend an entire post analyzing the possible interpretations of this change, but you don’t want to hear that. You’ve already made up your mind on whether you like this or not. I’m sure you can tell that I actually have no issue with it and can see several ways it personally enhances the epic for me. There are two deciding factors here. If you have issues accepting any change to the original trilogy, you already hate this. If you didn’t like the line at the end of Episode III, you probably won’t like it here either. If you don’t have an issue with either of those – like me – then you may be able to see there might be more to this than just rubbing the line in the face of Lucas’ detractors.
Vry’s Verdict: Your Mileage May Vary
These are just some of the more notable changes. There’s still a few others. R2-D2’s hiding spot is now more of ‘hiding’ instead of standing in the shade, Jabba’s door is now shown to be much bigger, and Obi-Wan has been brushing up on his krayt dragon call. Of course this release also includes all the changes from the Special Edition and the DVD release which I also had little to no issues with. Honestly, the only thing I was disheartened to hear was that they didn’t use this chance to edit the deleted scenes from Episode III back in to the film. The B plot involving Padme and the formation of what would eventually become the Rebel Alliance seemed really cool to me. They were cut mostly for pacing reasons, and I can understand that in a theatrical film, but this is your big Blu-Ray saga collection, go Peter Jackson on it!
Well that last sentence pretty much guaranteed me a death threat from all of this, so perhaps I should wrap it up. So, May the Force Be With You and I’ll be seeing you Sith Side come TOR time!
Atop the plateau that lines the outer ring of Thousand Needles, just past the the Twilight’s Hammer camp where they are forging some multi-faceted monstrosity called Animus, there is a giant stone green head. This tells me two things: First, no one apparently likes kal’dorei sculpture as I’m fairly certain not a one of these massive statues lies in tact anywhere on Kalimdor. And two, that Thousand Needles is the Forbidden Zone. Oh yes, the goblins and gnomes were warned by the night elf sage, Daktor Zayas, to not venture to the Forbidden Zone. They wanted to keep their secret safe! But now I will tell the tale and reveal the history kept secret in the ancient halls of Darnasus, of how this world came to be.
Way before there were night elves (June of 2002) there was a powerful race of bug people. And the bug people often fought with the non-bug-people (Trolls and… other… trolls?) and they had all these big wars (Infinite Bug Crisis, Final Bug Crisis, Blackest Bug, Brightest Troll) until the night elves finally got fed up with it, asked some dragons for help, and locked the bugs in Ahn’Qiraj (Which is bug people talk for “Giant Roach Motel”) so they could finally get a good night’s sleep.
What? You were expected some startling revelation? Well how about a giant statue of Queen Azshara… BUT WITH A BUG HEAD?! No? Doesn’t work for ya? Yea. That ending is lame. But seriously, where the heck did this head come from? The only legitimate idea I could come up with is that it’s kind of like when you find dinosaur bones form a similar region half way across the globe because of tectonic plates shifting (That’s a real thing right? Cause my science-fu sucks. Until last month, I didn’t think Pluto had any moons because that’s what I remember some book in elementary school saying.) So maybe Pre-Sundering it was actually pretty close to night elf territory.
Other than that it is entirely possible that 1K Needles and Tanaris were once a thriving night elf forest. Until the bugs came. That’s the real reason the War of Shifting Sands happened. No old gods. No global threat. The elves were ticked off because a bunch of giant termites ate all their trees. You hurt a tree, you can bet a night elf will be there to stab you in a drop of a hat. How much you want to bet that every major war in the history of the night elves is based around trees. Burning Legion? Burnt the trees. Bug people? Ate the trees. Orcs? Cut the trees.
So that what have we learned today? That elves suck at making statues and do NOT mess with their trees. They loooove their trees.
While tempting, I think I'm going to pass on this idea.
Here’s a thought exercise. Given an unlimited budget and no concerns about customers/deadlines/etc, what would you do to make your perfect MMO? Kind of a fun thought right? Ultimate wish-fulfillment. But the underlining psychological effect of giving you an idea of exactly what game would work for you. After all, you will ultimately judge every game you play compared to your imaginary perfect game. You shouldn’t though. I’m always think that you should judge something purely on how well you enjoyed it, and not how much it matched up to how much you think it should be. Granted, sometimes those things overlap. Other times it will get you kicked out of film school. Just ask Lil’ Vrykerion who ended up with a degree in Creative Writing and NOT film.
But on with this grand experiment! Which should prove to be quite the experience, because I have a habit of trying to bite off more than I can chew (That is in both a metaphorical and literal sense. Steak night is a horror show at my house.) Where to begin though? I could start by writing a 10,000 word breakdown on the history of the world and how it got to be this way, but while I am sure that there are many of you who would probably really enjoy that it doesn’t really bring us any closer to our goal. So how about we start like this-
Imagine There Are No Classes
It’s actually pretty easy if you try. Essentially my idea is that the world is composed of nations. Let’s say five nations. Each nation has its own ideas and traditions. Maybe one is more technological, another is more magical, one is a savage land where only the strongest survive, etc. Essentially, at the beginning of character creation you pick which nation you want to be from and represent in the game world. Then you design how you want that character to appear. I imagine there would probably be some conventions to go along with each nation. People from this place would have tan skin and red eyes (and hate Alchemy?) or these people would have the option to have blue or green hair. Stuff like that.
After character creation, you finally enter the game world and get treated to a short chain of quests that introduce you to the game. Give you a feel for the mechanics, and of your nation and the issues facing it in the world. After this quest you are given your very first talent point. Now this is where it gets fun because since there are no classes (just ‘races’ for all intensive purposes) each nation has three talent trees. One for tanking, one for damage, and one for healing. Yes, my ideal MMO would stick to the trinity. Yea, there are people who would give me flak for it, but I can’t even imagine how to break it or how it would function without it. So I’ll leave such ideas to those who can grasp those concepts.
The talent trees would be divided up into 3 distinct parts. First there is the first, middle and last tiers of abilities. Each of these would have a choice of one of three abilities that are iconic to both your role and your nation. Essentially, there would be 2-3 choices of abilities in these tiers that would affect how you play your class. Maybe one focuses on two weapon fighting and one focuses on big 2-handed weapons, or something like that. The other two areas are your Upper and Lower tiers of talents. The lower tiers are between the first and middle ability tier, and mostly have pretty broad improvements in your role. More critical damage, quicker attacks, etc. The upper tiers have talents that are especially designed to augment that specific role. This ability gains this additional property and what not.
The reason for the Upper and Lower tiers being that way is that when you reach the Middle Ability Tier, you are given a choice. You can continue down your path and maximize that role to its full power and access the top ability tier, or you can multiclass and gain the first and middle abilities tiers and lower enhancement tier of a second ‘class’. So you could add a bit of utility and self-healing to your tank by multiclassing as healer. Lack the survivability of a full tank, but maybe you can solo tougher challenges with the heals. Are you confused yet? Don’t worry, this is probably the most confusing part. Besides, you don’t really care about how I’d handle the classes, you’re wondering what I’d do different with-
The World and the Stuff to Do In It
Oh yea. I rocked that segue. The big thing I would do with a big open world is the story. The idea is every 12 months is one big storyline for the world, broken in four phases (3 months each.) Each storyline would have quests, dungeons, objectives and a ton of stuff related to it on top of the already existing tons of ‘general’ quests to do. You represent and serve your nation through the storyline and attempt to bring glory or sometimes save your people. This can be diving into caves and ruins and looking for new and powerful artifacts, gathering supplies, or sabotaging the competition. Throughout the year, the storyline would go from phase to phase, and the world would evolve because of it.
Leveling would mostly consist of either doing quests that are related to the overall story line, or smaller story lines throughout the five nations. Oh yes. No hostile ground to be found, but a member of nation A would probably be engaging in different types of quests while in Nation C than the actual members of Nation C. This creates a big world where you can go where you want and participate in the kind of stories you want to play through. Espionage and spying? Let’s go to another nation and see what they’re up to! Help build the military? Let’s see what can be done here at home. Claim forbidden lands and forgotten secrets for your country? Let’s head into the unclaimed neutral territories and see what treasures can be found! But once you hit max level, you can join the overall story line in a much bigger way. Getting into quests that directly tie in and wandering into dungeons to square off against enemies or find powerful relics.
Now, I know what you’re saying. Isn’t that unfair to people who start later? Wouldn’t they have to catch up? How could they catch up to their current tier of dungeons if they weren’t there for the beginning of the story lines dungeons?! Whoa whoa WHOA! Calm down. The dungeons aren’t tiered. In fact, things like item levels and tier sets wouldn’t exist at all. Lemme tell you about my ideas on-
Alternate Gear and Rewards
Dang. I’m getting downright snappy at those. Anyway, unlike a certain MMO that I currently play, my idea for gear would be that it has no bonus to stats. Or at least anything with bonus to stats would be very rare. Instead gear has 2 factors to it: 1) Appearance. Unique and awesome looking gear. 2) Properties. Things like chance on hit procs, extra fire damage on hit, or even cosmetic things to your character for equipping it. Imagine collecting a white armor set that once you equip all the pieces, angel wings appear on your back. Pretty cool huh? This 2 factors can sometimes tie into the story lines, or your nation. Better properties are rarer, or require massive crafting projects.
Yea, no dream MMO of mine would exist without a solid crafting system. With the story lines changing and evolving, there would always be room for more stuff to be added. Start the game after a certain story line was over but really liked the look or property of some items from it? Maybe they can be recreated by tracking down someone who has crafting recipes from that time. Of course, crafting would tie into the ‘alternate rewards’ quite a bit.
See, some people will never see the merit in player housing. If only you and your friends can go in it, what is the point? Imagine your own personal trophy hall. Prizes from your conquests, rare furniture, and amazing artifacts fill the room. You can just walk in and say, “This is what I’ve accomplished.” Between player housing trophies & decorations, an appearance tab of some kind and maybe some titles, there’s a ton of cool things you can give players as rewards! Once again, with the evolving and progressing story lines in the world, having something on your wall that isn’t accessible anymore is awesome. Doubly so if they fought in some epic event to get it. Remember the Haunted Memento is WoW? I held tightly on to that thing until I deleted all my characters back in January. It was a prized possession of mine and one of many rare treasures that I had horded over the years. Imagine if that wasn’t just an afterthought? I would be in heaven!
Players Brutally Beating Down Other Players
…What? Not everything has to be a perfect transition, you know. Anyway, PvP would not be as prevalent as it is in games like WoW. The nations, while competing with each other, are not engaged in open war. There’s no two factions vying for control of the globe. There are several nations who want the leg up on the others, and don’t want to do so by destroying their resources and people in open conflict. However, PvP would exist in my dream MMO. Mostly in the form of events. Say for instance, one nation is using an armored caravan to transport goods back home, and the others are attempting to seize it in vehicles of their own. If the armored caravan is protected using its on board weapons, the nation transporting it gets a bonus until the next transport. If the other nations stop it and seize the caravan, they other four nations get a smaller bonus and the transporting nation gets nothing. Not to mention there could be PvE elements of stocking up and gathering supplies to better defend the caravan or boost the attacking nations weaponry and speed in the assault.
Maybe a full on death match arena as well. I dunno. I’m not a huge PvP guy so the ideas aren’t nearly as formed there to be honest. Still think competitions between nations would help. Though my dream MMO would definitely be more PvE focused. Hey, what can I say, it’s my dream MMO. Your dream MMO can have all the PvP it wants. Dream MMO. You know it starts to sound silly if you say it too much.
So there you have it. My lovely little thought experiment on how I would design my own MMO given no constraints. What would you do differently? It’s kind of fun to think about. You also now know exactly what I like and dislike in my games! So if you think I might like something, feel free to suggest it, I love to try new things out. Except Rift. My computer can’t run it. I’m hoping to have a new one by the time The Old Republic comes out.
There’s a bit of a running joke in our D&D group. See in 4th Edition, The Chained God Tharizdun, is kind of portrayed as the long lost evil deity whose name has been lost to the ages because he was imprisoned at the dawn of time. His true name is rarely if ever spoken, and most don’t even know he exists. However, he is described as having “a few scattered cults of demented followers”. Needless to say, while we were all shooting the breeze about stuff like the Dawn War, the difference between Devils and Demons, and various other lore related topics during a game a few weeks back, I couldn’t help but burst out laughing when the following image popped into my head. It was too perfect. Why didn’t see it before?
VRYKERION 