MMO Gaming

I probably should have talked about this earlier, but I didn’t for a few reasons. First because I didn’t exactly know how I felt, and second because I wasn’t sure what was worth mentioning. I think, now, I’ve finally got it figured out. Of course, if you haven’t been keeping up on the TR news, than I’ll be explaining everything to you for the first time so let’s get that out of the way first.

Step 1 of this post is to read some of the latest information, I’ll summarize it later, but I highly suggest you go ahead and read the whole thing. Take a look here and here for what I am talking about (or what I am going to be talking about, as it may be.) Now that we have the foundation all set, time to get on to my part of the writing.

The first link there is a bit of talk from Paul Sage, the Lead Developer for the game. All signs from the beta forum and his discussions there point to him being a decent enough fellow. How unfortunate for him. The plans they have for higher-end content, which is the point of his post, are not at all bad. They plan on adding “Personal Armor Units” to the game at level 40, something of a cross between a mount in other games (bonus to movement) and some additional firepower. I like the idea but…wait, let’s hold off on the but for a few seconds here.

Next up we have the “Command Opportunity” which boils down to me being able to order around some NPC minions. Then we have “Flashpoints” don’t let the fancy name fool you whenever there is talk of “multiple squads [groups] working together” it’s just a raid. Finally we have the note on “Clan Warfare” which is essentially their max-level PvP game content.

As for the other post, by “General British” well, it basically has to do with working on the in-game economy with a slightly more robust version of the Auction House that most games have.

Okay, so, it’s officially broken down but what is the my point? These are all good changes. In fact, I like each and every one of the things they are going to be adding. I think they are all good ideas (I’m not saying they are original ideas, but they are good and I imagine will work for the game) but here’s the problem. Wait, I won’t say it, I’ll let Mr. Sage be the one to break the news to you:

These are just a few of the things that the team will start working on after ship.

These items are post-ship improvements to the game. Not. Good. At. All. Every item I’ve mentioned here is part of what makes an MMOG a complete game. Adding them in after ship, when I’ll be paying a monthly fee for them, is unacceptable. These items should be in for ship in every game that comes out. If they aren’t it shows a failure on the development teams part. Not in that they didn’t work hard enough to get things done, but in that they had no idea what direction they wanted to take the game. The fact that these items are going for post-ship means they didn’t have answers to these questions until recently. These are things which should be pretty well nailed down by the time you go to closed beta in a game. If you don’t even have all your concepts nailed down, especially for major items, such as max-level content, PvP, and in-game economy, then you have failed somewhere along the way in your design.

When the game ships; when I pick up my pre-order and load it, I’ll be playing part of a $50 game. I’ll have paid for the whole thing and only be able to access part of it. This goes beyond the question of whether or not TR is a “$15/month game” it goes to the very point of the value of the game. They aren’t cutting the cost to me to buy the game even if it isn’t really “complete” when I get it are they? And if this content doesn’t show up in the first 30 days and I end up paying to continue will I get some free time back later?

Obviously that isn’t going to happen. They are going to charge the monthly fee and the full box price and I will probably pay to play the game for 3 months or so but if these areas are not addressed by them, they may lose my continued support of their product. The development team has already shown me that they are untrustworthy and that I have no reason to put my faith in their words and they will quickly find out that people will pay full price for half a product for a very short time.

Tabula Rasa, tr, richard garriott, plaync, ncsoft, mmog, mmo, mmo gaming, paul sage, elder game, operation 0