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is the premier daily MMOG newsletter, only from Ten
Ton Hammer!
Welcome
to the 1,387th
edition
of Loading...
For MMORPGs, whose potential for success is largely tied to player interaction, why is it so unrewarding to play as a group early in the game? Taking a cue from another game category that's all the rage - multiplayer co-op - we'll examine three pitfalls of the new player experience in most MMORPGs. We'll also look at two MMOs that seem to be on the right track in our weekly Friday rant Loading... Multiplayer Interrupted.
The
Pulse
You vote with what you
view at Ten Ton Hammer, and the
result
is the Ten Ton Pulse (What
is The Pulse?).
This week's
top 5 Pulse results:
- World
of Warcraft - EverQuest
II - Vanguard: Saga of Heroes (UP 1)
- Age of Conan (UP 1)
- Warhammer Online (UP 3)
Biggest
movers for the past 24 hours:
-
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/860">Champions Online
- UP 7 to
#16 -
City of Heroes
- UP 4
to #15 -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/42">Star Wars Galaxies
- Down 4
to
#19
-
5/26
- EVE
Online: Tyrannis
(expansion) -
5/27
- Craft
of Gods
(release) -
6/9
- Mortal
Online
(release) - 6/29
- target="_blank">APB
(release) - 7/13 -
target="_blank">Mytheon
(release) - 7/27 -
target="_blank">Need
for Speed World
(release) - 7/27 -
target="_blank">StarCraft
II: Wings of Liberty
(release)
Releases
- August
17, 2010 - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/140">City
of Heroes: Going Rogue (release) - September
7, 2010 - Aion:
Assault on Balaurea (free
expansion) -
September
30, 2010 - href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/ffxiv" target="_blank">Final
Fantasy XIV
(release) -
style="font-weight: bold;">October
26, 2010
- LEGO
Universe (release)
-
style="font-weight: bold;">November
2, 2010
- DC
Universe Online (release)
Upcoming
Events
-
style="font-weight: bold;">8/5 -
8/8 - href="http://events.station.sony.com/fanfaire/" target="_blank">SOE
Fan Faire 2010 -
style="font-weight: bold;">8/18 -
8/22 - href="http://www.gamescom-cologne.com/en/gamescom/home/index.php"
target="_blank">Gamescom 2010 -
style="font-weight: bold;">9/3 -
9/5 - href="http://www.paxsite.com/paxprime/index.php" target="_blank">PAX
Prime -
style="font-weight: bold;">9/3 -
9/6 - target="_blank">DragonCon -
style="font-weight: bold;">10/22 -
10/23 - href="http://us.blizzard.com/blizzcon/?rhtml=y" target="_blank">BlizzCon -
style="font-weight: bold;"> 3/24
-
3/26 (2011) - target="_blank">CCP
FanFest
style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;">HOT!
Visit Ten
Ton Hammer's StarCraft II Guides
portal to gain that competitive multiplayer edge, or to read our Wings
of Liberty
single player campaign mission walkthroughs!
Loading... Daily
Say it's a rainy Thursday night, and you and your friends are both broke and bored of your usual MMOG. So you decide to download and check out one of the 300+ plus active MMORPGs on our list. You download or stream a trial version (a very , lightweight way of exploring games like Aion, LotRO, EQ2, and others). You log into the game, but instead of finding a gratifying multiplayer experience at your fingertips, you and your group immediately encounter one of the following roadblocks:
- The mandatory single-player tutorial - Mandatory single player tutorials are, to me, the biggest bane of the new player experience in most MMORPGs. It might be a long, lonely, and linear path to the multiplayer promised land (Guild Wars, Mytheon, EQ2, Age of Conan, most MMOGs) or, as in games like APB and EVE, the game allows you to cancel out of the tutorial zone but you can't actually enter a multiplayer combat area or are sadly underequipped for it. In any case, a night with your friends turns into an hour or two of gaming wankery as you defeat painfully simple content for the benefit of gaming with your friends, often only to find that their starting area end point is half a world away.
-
Level lag - One of your friends has a game for you to check out, however he or she likes it so much they've been playing it all day long, peeing in a bottle and eating Cheese Whiz from the can. As a result, your friend is level 46 and you're level 0.2. Grouping up, as a consequence, is no fun for anyone.
Some games, like City of Heroes, LotRO, EQ2, and Champions Online, have nifty sidekicking or mentoring systems that level everyone in the group up to the highest level or allow higher level players to temporarily level down to a lowbie friend's level. One game whose name escapes me at the moment allows players to link their leveling to offline players so that they'll progress at just about the same rate (cool idea, but why not extend this to entire guilds... i.e. make guilds meaningful during level-up aside from chat and crafting?). Mentoring systems are always welcome, but seldom is the feature in the game at launch (which is when, arguably, players are most likely to want to experience the game in groups), and most bury the feature in patch notes, targeting it at established players rather than new ones.
Other games, like WoW, have stretched the level ranges within which the highest and lowest level players are still getting xp and loot almost to the breaking point. The problem with this approach is that the highest and lowest level players typically get negligable experience and would have been far better off alone (at least, from the leveling standpoint).
- Massively missing multiplayer - Some devcos are so convinced that you're a friendless soloing putz that they simply omit group content until 10 or 20+ hours into the game. In other words, the one category of games that should have gamer sociability as its foundation- the MMORPG - is outmatched by decades-old console platformers where at least two players can game together, or their younger, sexier cousins: online shooters and co-op multiplayer games. It's incredible to me that for how much fun many of these games are to play in groups, devs seem to spend more time designing ways to keep players busy solo, especially early in the game.
It's well past time for MMORPGs to take back their rightful place as the kings of social gaming. But to do it in a convincing manner, you need to involve players in meaningful multiplayer gameplay at the very start of the game, or at least (in no uncertain terms) give them the option to. Comparatively few would play Mafia Wars or Farmville if you had to spend an hour learning the game alone first before you could interact with or compete with others. MMOs are far more complex than these games, of course, but the same principle applies - the biggest draw of an online game is the ability to share the experience with others.
APB was on the right track with the game's very intentional methods of trying to get you to group very early in the game. DC Universe Online, I think, might perfect that approach with level-ambivalent Iconic play. What other games offer or plan to offer a compelling social experience from day one? Share your thoughts in the Loading... forum, and have a great weekend!
Shayalyn's Epic Thread of
the Day
From our
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/forumdisplay.php?f=6">Articles,
News & Events Discussion Forum
Are We Jumping on The Free-to-play Bandwagon too Early?
Mattlow, our illustrious contributing writer, is an ornery ol'
cuss. (Well, he's still younger than me, so, "Get off my lawn, kid!")
His latest editorial let fly with his disdain for all things
free-to-play, and he pulled no punches. The editorial was just
published last night, but I'm waiting for this thread to go nuts.
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=52608">We
need your help!
==============================
Awesome Quotes from the
Epic Thread
"I've said for a long time that games should be judge on the
game not it's business model."
-
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showpost.php?p=437678&postcount=7">bobfish
==============================
New
and Exclusive Content
Today at Ten Ton Hammer
5 new and exlcusive
Ten Ton Hammer
features
today! 102 Ten Ton Hammer
features
in July! 816
in 2010!
FEATURED VIDEO
Exclusive Video: The DC Universe Online Panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2010
http://www.tentonhammer.com/dc-universe-online/video/comic-con-2010-panel/public
Join an all-star cast of DC Universe Online personalities including Jim Lee, Mark Hamill, Marv Wolfman, Jens Anderson, and Chris Cao for a special highlights video from the DC Universe Online panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2010.
Comic Book personalities Jim Lee and Marv Wolfman then help us realize the full impact of what's revealed in new DC Universe trailer, then SOE Austin's Jens Anderson and Chris Cao help us see how this unique story twist is fleshed out for players of the game. And did we mention that Mark Hamill offers some unique commentary on voice-acting the Joker too? It's all in this exclusive highlights video from San Diego Comic-Con 2010, and Ten Ton Hammer Premium Members can access the full length video too!
FEATURED GUIDE
StarCraft II Walkthrough - The Colonist Missions
http://www.tentonhammer.com/starcraft2/guides/colonist-missions
James
Raynor has always had a soft spot for the ladies in his life. When a
damsel in distress hails his capital ship in orbit, little did he know
that one little escort mission would turn into so much more. This
segment of our complete StarCraft II walkthrough consists of the
missions in the Colonist section of achievements. If you're having
trouble with The Evacuation, Outbreak, Safe Haven or Haven's Fall or
just want a little hint for knocking out those achievements, we've got
just the thing for you!
MEDIA
New LotRO Screenshots Show Starting Area Changes
http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/tid/2655
The
Lord of the Rings Online (LotRO) has a lot of new content on the way
this fall with Volume 3: Book 2, but also included in the update are a
few changes to the starter areas. Turbine has released a new batch of
screenshots showing some of the changes to the newbie experience for
the man and hobbit races of Middle-earth. Check out the images in our
gallery to see what's new.
Today's
Hottest Articles, Guides, and Features
-
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/giveaways/wow/cataclysm/closed-beta-1">
style="font-weight: bold;">WoW Cataclysm
Closed
Beta Key Giveaway -
New LotRO Screenshots Show Starting Area Changes
-
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/starcraft2/guides/mar-sara-missions">StarCraft
II Mission Guides: Mar Sara -
StarCraft II Walkthrough - The Colonist Missions
-
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/eq2/interviews/free-to-play-georgeson">
style="font-weight: bold;">EverQuest
II Goes Free-to-Play - A
Q&A with Producer Dave
Georgeson -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/coh/going-rogue-preview">Into
the Gray: A Hands-On
Preview of City
of
Heroes: Going Rogue href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/coh/going-rogue-preview">
-
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/dc-universe-online/trailer/blur">DC
Universe href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/dc-universe-online/trailer/blur">
Online
Blur Trailer from San Diego
Comic-Con 2010 -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/vindictus/interviews/gyselinck">Golem
Arise! A
Q&A with Chris Gyselinck about style="font-weight: bold;">
Vindictus href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/vindictus/interviews/gyselinck">
-
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/events/sdcc2010/lego-universe/video-interview">Exclusive
LEGO Universe
Video Interview on
Factions, Reputation and More! -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/events/sdcc2010/reckoning-preview">Kingdoms
of Amalur: Reckoning href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/events/sdcc2010/reckoning-preview">
From 38 Studios Unveiled href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/gw2/features/previews/sylvari">
Thanks
for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer network!
- Jeff "Ethec" Woleslagle
and the Ten Ton Hammer team
