Here it comes, the next big MMORPG! Maybe this one will finally take World of Warcraft
down a notch! No, wait, it flopped. Nevermind. Think about the last several years, and
all of the MMOs that carried promise of grandeur. Note that said promise of grandeur
takes more than just marketing. The community has to be excited about it. I’m talking
Age of Conan, Warhammer, Aion, the list goes on. They flopped!

At the heart of every MMO must lay one of two things:
1. A driving and creative advancement system. Let’s face it. Experience levels are
terribly boring. It’s been done so many times. Nobody wants to see more experience
levels. You want to use traditional experience levels in an MMO? Fine, but it
had better have an interesting aspect to its character progression. Players keep
playing MMOs before they reach the height of their power because the progression
system drives them or promises them something incredible for getting to this or that
milestone. It’s also vital for making a good impression on new players.
2. An interesting enough story, environment, graphics and audio, or what-have-you
to excuse the lame advancement system. Here’s the hard truth. An advancement
system is either good or bad. If it’s bad, there needs to be something to make up for
it. Gorgeous environments, an enthralling story, or unique combat mechanics help
to compensate for a bland ding dingin’ XP bar filler. The idea behind these aspects
is that the player should forget that they’re grinding because of how awesome
everything else is – and yes, good immersive elements are a valid excuse for a
standard, boring level-up with standard ability unlocks. What matters is the whole of
the parts, the experience that surrounds the player.

Granted, emphasis on one aspect or the either will attract different kinds of players…
and it’s very difficult for an MMO to successfully implement both. If one does, however, I
guarantee that game has a shot at being the “WoW killer.”

Got any examples of interesting character progression systems or incredible
environments that left you uncaring about gaining experience? Share your experience in
the comments.

I hate most MMORPGs. Warcraft was great (emphasis on “was”), City of Heroes is fun, EVE Online is fantastic… but too many developers completely miss the heart of role-playing games gone social.

“Is it to level up?” NO, a THOUSAND TIMES NO.

MMORPGs are about anything but leveling up. The problem is that leveling up is such a standard and easy system of advancement to incorporate into a game that now a majority of the gaming industry has its players worshiping the almighty experience bar.

MMORPGs are about several things, each of which will appeal to different people:

1. Exploration. The exploring player delights in new environments, new enemies, new scenery… and especially hidden secrets. I’m a huge explorer. Give me variety or
give me death. Put a rock formation in the mountains that’s only accessible by a hidden, roughly-drawn path without any explanation for me as to why that’s up there, and I’ll sit there and gawk over it because that’s what I love doing.

2. Innovation. Remaking World of Warcraft with a different skin – even if it’s free – won’t make a game stand out. An MMORPG needs to bring something significant and new to the table! Star Trek Online does this with space combat. Star Wars Galaxies did it before Sony destroyed it (how, you may ask? By turning it into World of Warcraft). Guild Wars did it. Most other MMORPGs? Whatever. I could be playing something more interesting.

3. Customization. One of the core ideas behind MMORPGs is that you can be whoever the heck you want to be. Get that korean-style “pick from one of three faces, then one of five hairstyles” crap out of my face. I want what All Points Bulletin, City of Heroes, Champions Online and EVE Online give me: Heavy customization with the option to just skip it all if I don’t care. Don’t laugh, looks matter! Cosmetics are a crucial aspect of MMOs, and a game that makes you pay to look cool, or worse – doesn’t give you the option to look cool – is doing it wrong.

4. Pointlessness. Not everything has to contribute to stats and experience level. It’s a known fact: players like useless toys in MMORPGs. Don’t believe me? Ask Blizzard and their remote-controlled tanks / snowballs / fireworks.

5. Collecting. Some people play MMORPGs with the foremost goal of attaining the largest collection of pets, weapons, titles, or what have you. Achievements also fall under this category. The love of completion and feeling of accomplishment that comes with getting another achievement or earning another badge too proudly display keeps people like me playing.

This list is just what MMORPGs are about. Next, I’ll be talking about what every MMO needs to be a true success. In the meantime, what’s your favorite part about

MMORPGs? Leave what you like and why in the comments.

In MOBAs (Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas) such as League of Legends or Defense
of the Ancients, the term “meta” gets thrown around a lot. These items are meta. This
champion is part of the meta. That team composition isn’t within the meta.

Meta, or metagame, is the bible of these games.

The metagame consists of what has
been proven to work: An ability power carry in the middle lane, a jungler, a support, a
tanky damage-per-second, and a ranged attack damage carry. It’s the golden standard
for LoL (I can’t speak for DotA, as I’m just now getting into DotA 2). Now, there’s nothing
wrong with a meta for team composition… or at least, if there is, it’s too much to ask that
that be changed. The problem as of now is how the meta affects champion and item
choices.

What happens to MOBAs over time is that the professional league poorly affects the
rest of the community (not by choice) by the best players demonstrating their effective
strategies and builds. Because of how active the competitive MOBA community is, the
thousands of people who watch professional games say “I wanna be like them!” and
they copy whatever strategy it was that rocked that game.

Here’s why that’s toxic: A strategy widely-used becomes refined and perfected, so that
just any decent player can succeed with it. Now this is just my perception, but I’m under
the impression that there are so many champions and that there are so many items so
that each individual player can forge his or her own way to effectively play the game.
This idea is destroyed by the meta, by widely used tactics, because people who try to
do something different and play Karma or Kog’maw find themselves at a significant
disadvantage. People who try using a different build are voluntarily increasing the
difficulty level at which they play because they’re not playing like sheep.

It shouldn’t be this way, but the responsibility for “fixing” the problem of metagame
now falls to the competitive community. I guarantee if a team’s star player took a crazy
Anivia to the field, we would start seeing more Anivia players. I’m positive that if the
support in a competitive match succeeded with a bizarre baiting build, we would see
more item variance in supports in public matches. Notice that I can’t leave any of this
to Riot or Valve, the developers behind LoL and DotA. It’s too much to ask to have
them go back and rework champions to make them more appealing to play, especially
because that would send a shockwave through the entire player community. Existing
champion concepts work, anyway, so it would be rather destructive to make changes.

Just for the record, I love building a damage-focused Shyvana. Do you find yourself
breaking from the meta, or have you been conforming up to this point?

Finally, that moment has come when you can get that next great weapon or that next
huge upgrade. Say it’s an energy rifle that rivals the lightning of Zeus. Eager to try it out,
you pull the trigger. Light builds up at the end of the muzzle, time slows to a crawl, and
you’re flung backward from the kick. A column of pure, death-dealing plasma scorches
across the room and into a wall, leaving a black, spawling mark where there was once
texture.

Unfortunately, this is far from the norm. Power is easily found, but difficult to
enjoy. Any game with guns or blades gives you lethal weapons, but just because they’re
powerful doesn’t mean they feel powerful. That’s where a horde of games suddenly
falls short. I was actually inspired to speak on this subject because of my recent
purchase of Warhammer: Space Marine, the hack ‘n slash shooter by Relic.

Space Marine is ultimately very linear and not terribly engaging, but the way
melee combat is handled strikes me as thoughtful. There aren’t very many combos or
moves you can pull off – it’s no Devil May Cry game for sure. Yet the way your character
- Captain Titus – moves, reacts, attacks, and the way the camera shakes when you
walk, the slow motion you go into during an execution, etc. just makes you feel epic.
Each new melee weapon effects a reaction from me. “Oh snap, a chainsaw combined
with a sword!” That affect is, of course, enhanced by the closeup of Titus shoving it
through an Ork’s face when I pull off a certain type of execution.

Where Space Marine lacks in a lot of areas, I use it as an example because it
effectively demonstrates what a huge difference the perception of strength can be. War
from Darksiders can pull off some nasty combos, sure. He’s one of the four horsemen
of the apocalypse, yeah. Doesn’t make him nearly as awesome as Captain Titus, and
that’s not just because Titus has a big honking suit of armor. Got any other examples?
Tell me about your favorite hero/weapon and what makes he/she/it feel so powerful in
the comments.

Braid. Minecraft. Amnesia. Pretty much every PC gamer has heard of these indie gems – the ones that absolutely defy gravity and ascend to gaming godhood. I believe,however, that there are a lot of independent games out there that just don’t get the attention they deserve. Today: Rock of Ages.

Rock of Ages takes a very basic concept – roll a rock across varying and hazardous terrain to smash into the enemy’s castle gate – and gives it a beautiful complexity that, while perhaps without mass appeal, is executed smoothly and provides plenty of challenge and variety.

You start a game, ready to roll. But what’s this? Your ball is being constructed and you can’t roll it yet! Whatever shall you do? Look up at the top of the screen, and there’s a row of pretty icons, each of which denotes a category of unit and its cost in gold. You spend gold on two things: Replacing your rock with a special rock that has a beneficial characteristic (higher damage, the ability to double jump once), and building units. Units are designed to slow, damage and/or destroy your enemy’s rock when they try rolling it at your castle. You can place things such as elephants that attempt to push the rock off the map, buying you precious time before the enemy hits your gate, airships that target the rock for your castlepult (castle + catapult. Original, no?), loads of dynamite that explode upon contact with the rock, etc.

So you place a few units in spots that you think would be good, and suddenly, your rock finishes building! You click it, select your rock type (if you wish to spend gold on an upgrade), and start rolling it toward your enemy’s castle gate. Controlling the ball is very easy with just the arrow keys to accelerate in different directions and the spacebar to jump. What makes getting to the enemy’s gate difficult is all of the obstacles they’ve placed along the way. The more damage your rock takes, the less damage it does when it strikes the gate. If it takes too much – heaven forbid – it breaks entirely, forcing you to wait until your next rock is constructed.

The reason for why the gameplay is so excellent, though, is because of how skill-based it ends up being and because of how you can experiment with the different units and different placement and different shortcuts you might be able to take on the track. Getting from the start to the finish is easy. Getting from the start to the finish faster than your enemy is more difficult.

And that’s just the gameplay itself. The other thing that stands out so much about Rock of Ages is its brilliant and creative art direction and music. With cheesy cinematics that poke great fun at historical figures such as Leonidas and Bacchus (whom you play against in the single-player campaign) and an art style that mimics everything from ancient greek art to the realism of the reformation, it’s difficult to not love the way Rock of Ages looks and feels. The game’s soundtrack, which involves an equally varying collection of historical styles, fits in neatly with the rest of the ambience and environment.

Verdict: While both fun and original, Rock of Ages is a game that only a few people will be able to fully appreciate as it takes fast reaction times, planning, and strategy to consistently succeed at. However, it easily has the material and the accessibility to be enjoyed by casual and hardcore gamers alike, and should definitely be in your indie collection. Already enjoy Rock of Ages, or do you have an indie game you’d like to see reviewed? Post your stories / the game you want to see an article on in the comments!

You remember Pokemon, right? Everyone remembers pokemon. Everyone loved
pokemon. It was a new experience filled with originality. It was different, it was exciting.
What if I told you, though, that it was a terrible game (and still is)?

Some of you know what I’m talking about. Some of you are already protesting. Put aside
what you’re thinking right now and let’s do a realistic review of the game.

The graphics have always been charming. The art direction is interesting and fairly
unique, though that’s mostly when looking at the pokemon themselves in the midst
of a battle. The rest of it is pretty standard stuff, but there’s nothing wrong with that.
It doesn’t try to be a 2D game, it simply has 2D navigation/exploration. All in all, very
creative.

There’s not much to say of audio in a game for a Nintendo portable. Sound was never
that important to Nintendo, and that holds true in the Pokemon franchise. 8-bit music
and some bleeps and beeps are pretty much all you hear in the game, besides the
ubiquitous text scrolling sound when you’re chatting up a random non-player character.
The music is alright. While the battle theme is iconic and the ambience is decent, it just
wasn’t a vital aspect of the game. Not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with that.

Gameplay is where Pokemon just falls apart. Strip the skin away and what’s left? An
Asian grindfest with little sense of adventure, virtually no story, and, at best, mediocre
action. Any fun in the game lay in two areas: The novelty, which fuels your brain
with dopamine – essentially artificial fun, and the grinding/leveling, which in itself is a
Skinner’s Box idea. Level up your pokemon so they become so powerful that they can
beat pretty much anything, then level up more! Why? Because leveling is addictive.

What’s the best moment in any Pokemon game? I’d venture to guess most of you would
assert it’s that moment when you beat your rival at the end of the final four for the first
time (also note how I don’t need to specify a version, because they’re all pretty much
the same). It’s when you finally get that victory that you’ve been grinding toward all this
time. And then what? Well… grind some more? Was the gameplay before you got to
that point worth it? Or was it all just a time-consuming trial to make your victory feel
greater and therefore get you to buy more Pokemon games?

I’ll be the first to say that I own multiple Pokemon games, and maybe sometime in the
future, in a moment of weakness, I’ll pick one up again because I’m such a leveling
addict. I guarantee, however, that I’ll remember why I stopped playing and set it back on
the shelf almost immediately after. What’s your stance on the Pokemon franchise, or any memories you’d like to share?

So you’ve finally done it. You’ve beaten the game. It took hours of sweat, blood and tears (though hopefully no blood), but you’ve done it. The credits have rolled. The game is over… wait, what’s this?

An evil little number peers at you from the main menu, taunting you with its seductive gaze. It dares you to grip your mouse (or controller), steel your gaze, steady your aim.

50% complete.

The fury builds within you.

“WHAT? Only halfway done with this stupid game?”

No, it’s not stupid. It’s genius. The game teases you with victory, only to show you exactly how much surface you’ve scratched.

Granted, there are good and bad ways to challenge players to ace (complete 100%) a game. The concept itself, of giving the player more game to play after he thinks he’s won, is beautiful.

Think about it. It’s a win-win idea. Let’s take the worst case scenario and say a player doesn’t care about side quests or finding all the little hidden treasures in each area/level/whatever. The worst thing they’ll do is look at that pitiful number that displays their total lack of dedication to the game… and just not care. They got their satisfying victory already. The rest doesn’t matter.

Now consider the other end of the spectrum – players like me who thrive off of showing every pixel of that game who’s boss. This is one of those things in games that I live for. I absolutely could not stop playing Batman: Arkham Asylum until I not only completed every riddler challenge, but got a gold medal on every extra mission. It’s a wonder I ever beat Doctor Octopus in Spiderman 2 (a FANTASTIC movie-game translation, incidentally) considering there were so many tokens to find and side challenges to complete!

Now let’s take a brief look at a good game that could have used more: Shank. Shank is a gorgeous, smooth, wonderfully-executed side-scrolling brawlfest that just doesn’t last long enough. It has two aspects: A single-player campaign and a co-op campaign (which is, of course, quite short). There’s very little to do along the way. There’s a few outfits to unlock, a few achievements to earn… but after beating both campaigns and getting nearly every outfit, I found myself wishing for more game to play. Shank has shamefully low replayability, although you have to give the devs brownie points for trying.

Incidentally, I will still be getting Shank 2 – hopefully there’ll be more reason to keep going after the final foe is slain. Let’s hear from you, though: are you a completionist, and what games have you found yourself hunting down 100% on lately?

Rage is a powerful tool, as any experienced competitive (read: playing
games that revolve around competition) gamer will attest to. However, it’s also a
complex concept, the surface of which is merely scratched by the above-average
player. There’s a huge difference between knowing about rage and understanding it. As understanding it will give you an edge over your opponents, my goal is to get you to that point.

When the word “rage” comes to mind, you usually think of someone getting
irritated or angry at a game mechanic or another player. What happens when someone
gets angry? Generally speaking, they lose focus. You could try to be that one cool guy
and say “oh, anger helps me focus,” but your performance almost certainly would reflect
otherwise.

What’s the first thing on your mind when you receive that message saying that
you’ve been dominated in Team Fortress 2? When someone successfully knifes you in
Call of Duty when you were trying to shoot them, what are you thinking?

PRIMARY DIRECTIVE: REVENGE

It holds true for all of us. A lot of it is an ego thing. We want to be better than
those guys that killed us in embarrassing or extreme ways, and we want to prove it both
to ourselves and to them. Pretty psychological.

However, instead of using our noggins to overcome the hated adversary, we
often charge in half-blinded by our thoughts and emotions. This gets us killed again,
often by the same person. You can keep this from happening with a couple of standard
management techniques:

1. Let that respawn timer count down without you staring at it. Take a deep breath,
look at something in your surroundings besides the computer, or just alt + tab to a
webpage with something entertaining on it (I usually keep reddit.com open while
playing multiplayer games). The only thing you need to remember is what went
wrong.
2. Refocus yourself. When your focus becomes a single player or, for that matter,
anything other than the objective, your performance drops. Consider your next move
without giving thought to your killer – he or she is not worth your mental energy.

That said, I have some fantastic news for you: rage works both ways. You are
not the only person in your lobby affected by it. What better to do than take advantage
of this fact? Gaming is war, there is no mercy, there are no morals (another subject
entirely), and your enemies are pigs. Make ‘em squeal! Play off what your victims know.

When you kill someone, think about what they were doing when you tagged ‘em. Think
about what they saw, and what they will probably try to do to kill you this time.
Reposition yourself after each kill. Set up traps.

Bottom line: kill your rage before it kills you. Use your success to compound the
victory against opponents who just won’t learn. You’ll be a better player for it.

Now talk back: What experiences have you had with nerd rage? Do you get enemy players to rage often?

We, as human beings, are an impatient race. The average time it takes for a viewer to click out of a youtube video is three seconds. If I don’t say something to hook you in really quick like HOT SEX in bold lettering, I might lose you already.

The fact that people just do not have fun waiting around is something that every game developer must understand. This is a gamer’s perspective on how game mechanics can be streamlined and shoved aside so that we can get back to the fighting and killing.

My recently most played games are Modern Warfare 3, Dungeon Defenders, Shank, Champions Online, CrimeCraft, and Team Fortress 2. Sure, CrimeCraft is mediocre, but aside from other things, it and the other games in that list have something in common:

They get you into the action fast.

Any game can easily be made more engaging if it’s designed to get the player into the fray more quickly. Take Dungeon Defenders, for example. It’s a persistent RPG tower defense game with lots of loot. After each wave in the later levels, dozens of items are just laying around waiting to be picked up. There’s an indicator on items that are an upgrade for you, so you know the rest of the gear on the ground is worse than what you’re carrying. No one wants to sort through all that, so when the next wave begins, all of the gear that wasn’t picked up is automatically sold for resources that are split amongst the players. Think of all the time that saves in the long run!

Now for an example of something that -doesn’t- work, turn your eyes to Dungeons: The Dark Lord. Friggin’ tutorial had me yawning. You want to learn how to play the game? You have to listen to a schizo demoness explain – in awful monologue – how to play the game. You can’t do anything while she’s prattling on. Do not do this to us, developers. This is BAD.

In MMOs, there should be an easily accessible way to get around quickly. In FPS games, story should be developed concisely and through actual gameplay. In Real-Time Strategy games, Cinematics and uncontrollable cameras should be kept to an absolute minimum.

We as players are far more likely to enjoy a game if we can get things overwith, heavily story-based games (you’re off the hook, Bioware) being the exception. Developers that keep this point in mind are guaranteed to be more successful than those who do not take heed. That’s enough of me speaking for you, though… what do you think?

It seems to me there’s this massive misconception going around about Modern Warfare 3. All I hear about it is that it’s a terrible game when the reality is that it’s a AAA, multi-million dollar title that meets the standards that it’s been meant to. The nerd rage going on against the franchise as a whole is unjustified.

Here are the main complaints I see floating around.

- It’s a $60 map pack.

- It’s the same thing it’s always been.

- It’s full of noob tubes/explosives/12 year olds.

Let’s address each of these individually and try to dispel a little bit of the whining.

1. It’s a $60 map pack.

 Honestly, if you’re saying this, I don’t blame you. Remember, however, that Call of Duty has always been more than arena multiplayer, and this entry has both a campaign with replayability and challenge (intel hunting and Veteran difficulty) and an entire co-op aspect that’s present in both Survival and Spec-ops. Some people never touch the multiplayer, but still spend dozens of hours acing all the content.

Now, consider that map packs are sold for $15, and they always have four maps. MW3 has 16 maps. Your math would be perfectly fine if it wasn’t actually a different experience, but the facts are that MW3 really does add features, and constant balance is taking place, unlike previous installations (Commando perk, anyone?). Nerfs have already hit the most overpowered weapons in the game. “$60 map pack” is a witty, yet inaccurate buzzword that holds no value.

2. It’s the same thing it’s always been.

You’re right. There is no excuse for the fact that the graphics haven’t been upgraded, however, the game is called Modern Warfare 3. Did you expect it to be something other than a sequel to Modern Warfare 2? The franchise has evolved as much as Halo did from Combat Evolved to Reach. This is a pointless complaint.

3. It’s full of noob tubers/explosives/12 year olds.

Statistically speaking, the average age of an xbox player is lower than that of a PS3 or PC player, so tough luck if you’re playing on the 360. Speaking from experience, I can assure you that the average PC player is not so young. You can tell just by watching people play. I can’t speak for the PS3, but I’m sure it’s similar based on demographic usage.

Noob tubes are a non-issue. Fewer people use them than in any previous Call of Duty game. They’ve actually been balanced, and if someone kills you with a direct impact then they probably earned it. As for explosives, the most you’ll ever be blown up is by grenades, claymores, and bouncing betties, and only if you fail to take sitrep. The class system is currently set up to where lethal grenades are lumped in with other explosive equipment.

As you can see, the most commonly employed complaints against Modern Warfare 3 are largely unfounded / irrelevant. The truth is that it is an extremely popular, well-done triple A production that is currently leading the FPS market. With that information, what’s your opinion on MW3?