In retrospect, we shouldn’t have titled our last piece “A quickie primer on Circle of Orboros,” because it was more a response to a “getting started” article than a faction “primer.” We’ve corrected this titling scheme here, in which we’ll highlight a similar community article. This one’s by a Press Ganger and a vocal authority on the Hordes Trollbloods faction. Titled “Trollblood Toolbox,” PG_theummhmmguy outlines which units a tentative Trollbloods player should think about picking up. It’s the type of article that should be more well-advertised, and allows new players a good perspective into which investments they’d need to make. Ideally, there’d be an article like this for every Warmachine and Hordes factions.

We won’t rehash the whole article, but the gist is simple: Trollbloods require synergy between their units, because by themselves, Trollbloods units aren’t fantastic when considering their base stats alone. Trollbloods shine, however, when unit abilities are used to buff an army, increasing the army’s power, longevity, and speed. By ignoring any of these key buffs, a Trollbloods army won’t perform at peak, and therefore underperform. At minimum, then, a Trollbloods player needs to take key units that buff three stats: damage, attack, and defense. Each of these categories has numerous units that can perform a respective buff, which means that players have some fair selection in choosing which units perform buffing roles (though the Fell Caller is practically an auto-include for most lists).

The article is among the best starting advise for a WarmaHordes player, and was quite helpful in our own selection of two Trollbloods army lists. Given that such knowledge of Hordes MKII isn’t available to the average gamer without buying a faction card deck and an old copy of the MKI rulebook, this information is golden, at least until the Hordes MKII rulebook is released later this month, and the Trollbloods faction book soon thereafter. Even then, there’s no reason summaries like this shouldn’t be more accessible.

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With Privateer Press’ Hordes MKII book hitting shelves later this month, many gamers are scrambling to pick up a Hordes faction to either supplement their existing Warmachine faction, or simply to get started with WarmaHordes. While we previously settled on Khador and Legion of Everblight, we’ve gone back to our original Hordes faction, Trollbloods. That said, we’ve spent time scouring the web on the state of Hordes gameplay, and how the various factions function. Sadly, aside from very general, quasi-fluff-ridden descriptions, understanding whether a given faction’s play-style may appeal to you isn’t easy. Fortunately, there are some gems out there, such as Dark Fledgling’s take on the Circle of Orboros.

…in Circle, our Heavies do our heavy lifting (haha pun). Really though, It is incredibly common to see 2-3 heavies in a 35 point game and often 4 in 50 points with the majority of our casters. The Warpwolf trio is not only amazingly synergistic with each, other but kills what ever you throw at it. Similarly, the WoldWarden, Megalith, and new WoldGuardian are equally baller. Most casters like to take a mix of furry beasts and wolds, with the exception of the Kayas who go all furry (usually) and Baldur going all construct (again, usually).

The differences between furry Circle warbeasts and golem Circle warbeasts are interesting, especially since the latter cannot be healed by every Circle warlock. The juxtaposition between the two warbeast types are greater with Circle than other Hordes factions, requiring specific decisions to be made when building a Circle army. It’s not a concept we spent much time thinking about before we originally settled on Legion, because we weren’t really aware of it. Other factions in WarmaHordes don’t see many differences between warjacks/warbeasts other than aesthetic ones. Sure, some people like to run with heavier units, while others like to run with light ones. Legion was interesting to us because they offered lesser warbeasts, but just as unique a concept exists with the Circle, in that half their warbeasts aren’t made of flesh and blood, and this is more than a matter of fluff: it has gameplay ramifications.

If we had spent more time contemplating this, we may have taken Circle on earlier. Our only real gripe with the faction at present is that we find many of their models underwhelming from an aesthetic perspective (mostly the non-warbeasts). Aside from the Tharn, Circle units simply don’t seem to have much personality.

As far as units are concerned, there are several good ones. Any of the female tharn units are good and all have there uses, likewise reeves, wolves, and woldstalkers also all see play with varied degrees, depending on whom you ask. But, when it comes down to it, the single best unit we got is the Druids. Because our Heavies usually end up doing most of the hard work its our units job to support them, and the druids do it beautifully. Pound for pound, they are what you will go too.

For solos, its all about the Lord of the Feast whom can single handily take out entire units in one turn. Strangely enough though, despite how good he is, almost all our stuff sees game time. Blackclads and our shifting stones (I consider them solos, even if they are a unit) both rock, and Morraig can simply destroy anything you throw at him with the proper support.

Overall, you will find Circle is one of the more varied of factions out there, with many different playstyles available even with a single caster.

A huge testament to Circle is the number of capable units available, letting a player at least choose the better-looking models (which still offer benefits in gameplay). More importantly, though, is the idea of switching play-style not only by swapping out one’s warlock, but by being able to dynamically switch play-style mid-game, or simply with the same army build once the next battle starts.

We’re quite happy with working on a Trollbloods army for the moment, but wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Circle as a faction to anyone. The guerilla-like play-style, with units jumping around the board for hit ‘n run tactics, sounds quite fun, and the thought behind warbeast selection adds just another layer of strategy that we’re keen on.

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We haven’t weighed in on Microsoft’s Kinect (formerly “Project Natal”) because we haven’t seen anything exciting about it yet. Maybe it’s better than Sony’s Move, and advancing what the Wii provided from a technological perspective. But let’s step back for a moment and look at where this all began, with Nintendo’s current console offering.

We picked up a Wii on release. We waited in line overnight, for crying out loud. And we did thoroughly enjoy the initial titles we played, but let’s be clear: they weren’t groundbreaking titles. Good titles with motion control, yes, but not groundbreaking titles in and of themselves. Maybe motion control is what made the Wii unique, and sold casual gaming to the masses, and maybe even pushed consoles into family entertainment centers where parents were previously skeptical of consoles as family-friendly entertainment. But as far as titles go, there’s no single Nintendo Wii game that’s more fun to play than any great title on any other console lacking motion control. (For example, the original Mario Kart was no less fun than the current Mario Kart is today.)

Yes, we’ll make a small exception for workout titles; EA Sports is a fantastic at-home workout for those without a gym who want to get into better cardiovascular shape, and traditional control schemes obviously wouldn’t work in this regard. But EA Sports, and games of this ilk, are not exactly fun gaming titles in the traditional sense.

So now with Kinect set to release late this year, we have another motion control scheme, albeit without a physical controller necessary. And this may work well for casual games, and probably pretty good for workout titles also (there will, after all, be an EA Sports title for Kinect). But for other gaming? If anything, Microsoft is looking to grab more Wii users and capitalize on the fact that a good chunk of gamers own both a Wii, and an XBox/PS3. Capturing the “casual” gaming crowd is an expected move for Microsoft, who has already moved in that direction during the XBox dashboard re-do (avatars, et al).

We’re highly skeptical that Kinect will bring anything worthwhile to the table if one already has a Wii sitting next to their XBox; Kinect is the Wii peripheral for the XBox. It’s a cool idea, but nothing more than a novelty, which conveniently comes out mid-way through the XBox 360 lifecycle. If anything, it combats Nintendo’s move of potentially releasing an HD Wii, forcing Nintendo to up their ante and delay a new product release more in line with Microsoft and Sony’s next generation, else simply throw in the towel like Sega did after the Dreamcast.

Either way, the Kinect alone won’t win Microsoft the battle here; the Kinect is a reactive move by Microsoft. Not in the way that the Move is Sony’s reaction to the Wii (which is playing catch-up more than anything else), but in the sense of allowing the XBox to be a competitor to the Wii on all angles – not just meeting the Wii’s capabilities, but arguably exceeding them without adding cumbersome, physical controllers. This move will likely pay off in keeping the 360 situated as the premiere US console, but probably won’t force Nintendo out of the console business entirely, unless Microsoft is able to capture some choice IP for Kinect-based games.

We just don’t see the Kinect doing much to sway the console wars one way or the other at this point. The Wii has already been widely adopted, and so the potential installation-base in Wii-less households appears very small. Unless there are some killer titles out there that make having Kinect outrageously desireable (and we haven’t seen any yet), why drop the money on Kinect? Similar Posts:

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Commenting on the “polish” behind Blizzard games, SynCaine likens every Blizzard product as being a rehashed version of old IP. Says SynCaine on Blizzard’s next product:

…what happens when you apply the Blizzard business model to a Blizzard game and play it really, really safe? You get StarCraft 2, a highly polished port of SC1 that leaves you feeling bored and burned out halfway through your first game. When you can build a base and pull off a rush with your eyes closed using the same strategy and hotkeys you used in 1998, you’re game just MIGHT be a little too similar to its predecessor.

Starcraft was a good RTS. We never played competitively, but as someone who probably played every RTS up until Starcraft’s release (and likely sometime thereafter, too), Starcraft didn’t leave us with the impression that it was way ahead of the pack. The backstory wasn’t fantastic, the races were only marginally unique, and in truth, we can’t even say we loved Starcraft more than Blizzard’s previous RTS offerings.

So now we have Starcraft 2 on the horizon, with many bloggers already having posted early play impressions of the game. And really, we can’t help but think it’s just more of Starcraft. And that’s not to say this is a bad thing, because we’re all for sequels being “more of the same” if the formula was perfect. We just don’t think the Starcraft formula was perfect, and we’d much rather have seen something more epic for Starcraft 2. Maybe that puts us in the minority. Either way, we’re way more eager to see what comes out of the Diablo franchise, because between Diablo 2 and World of Warcraft, Diablo 3 doesn’t need to be revolutionary to be perfect – it just needs to take one small iterative step forward.Similar Posts:

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Some dude, Michael Pachter, a gaming analyst, claims that the Apple TV will soon be hooked up to the AppStore and magically transform into a gaming machine, albeit one that does more than simply play games. This isn’t a particularly original thought, but neither are most thoughts from these so-called analysts, who seem to be more regularly incorrect than anything else. So too may Pachter find himself, as transitioning the Apple TV into a gaming machine is easier said than done, since the AppStore is backed by the venerable iPhone version of OS X. It’s not a stretch to think that Apple TV may adopt this OS in some form, in lieu of its current interface, but let’s be clear: Apple TV won’t sport multitouch, and that means any gaming initiative that Apple might fathom with the Apple TV will be outside today’s AppStore.

Apple already has a gaming platform, and that platform simply doesn’t work with the Apple TV. To invest time and money into something that’s not bound to the mobile space, or more accurately, not bound to the new rules of the mobile space (read: multitouch) would be wasteful of resources. That’s not to say that Apple couldn’t somehow wrangle a multitouch interface into the Apple TV by way of a new remote/controller, but the effort would seem forced, especially when gaming comes so natural to the iPhone and iPod Touch. Artificially pushing gaming into a product that its target market isn’t after is almost ludicrous, particularly when Apple’s primary focus is on the mobile marketplace.Similar Posts:

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We love this quote by Ed Finkler, which we spied over at Daring Fireball:

When folks need an elevator, we should give them an elevator, not an airplane. We’ve been giving them airplanes for 30 years, and then laughing at them for being too stupid to fly them right.

Finkler pretty much identifies what’s so great about the iPad. Not necessarily for power users, but for the non-computer nerds out there (i.e. 99% of the populace). An interesting thing we noticed is that most people (Apple fans and otherwise) weren’t particularly enthralled by the iPad when it was officially announced last month, but many have warmed to the idea since, despite the fact that Apple hasn’t revealed anything further on the device.

The iPad is already being called a “task-oriented” device, rather than what most computers are today: complex, prone to user-induced slow-down, and a great method to run multiple tasks at once. The benefit to this latter factor, however, remains questionable, and it’s certainly not a stipulation that 99% of the population needs.

The “old way” of thinking, insofar as computer development goes, is to build upon what’s already been done. Look at Microsoft: how many iterations of DOS were there before Windows, and how long did it take before Windows 95 stood on its own with DOS as a secondary consideration? And even though a windowing system made more sense to the average computer user, it wasn’t necessarily less complicated, because the underlying system was still exposed to a degree. Even OS X, which we consider the most usable desktop OS for the non-nerd isn’t entirely sensible out-of-box. For instance, we haven’t met a new OS X user yet who understands without our mention that closing a window in OS X doesn’t close the program. It’s not just as case of “Fuck, multitasking is hard,” nor one of simply staying attuned to visual indicators on the dock that a given applications, even sans windows, is still resident in memory. It’s an issue of multitasking (that is, at the user level) being mostly unnecessary in the first place. So why burden the user with cleaning up finite memory space, when all they want to do is write a letter while listening to some music in the background?

Why’d consoles become the gaming platform of choice when PC gaming offered better gaming opportunities well before, say, first person shooters (FPS) ever grabbed the public’s attention? How many now-legendary FPS traveled through gamers’ hard drives before Goldeneye became a flashing success on the Nintendo 64? PC gaming didn’t catch on because it was difficult, not in the gameplay sense, but in the setup sense. Under DOS, it wasn’t just a matter of installing a game, it was a matter of wrangling enough free memory to play it. For those of who who can’t remember tweaking the shit out of config.sys and autoexec.bat, you have no idea what lengths gamers will go through just to play the awesomest title ever. Messing with those two files became an art, one that’s now lost to time.

The point is, when it comes to consoles, you pop a disc or cartridge into the console, and can start gaming only moments later. When it comes to mundane computer tasks like laying out some pictures to send as a homemade Christmas card, users shouldn’t have to jump through a half-dozen screens just to install a new program after coming home from the computer store. Nor should they have to worry that once they’re done, they’ve left something running that will slow their computer to a crawl days later, because it ends up being one of ten things they didn’t realize stayed running in the background.

The iPad is simple. All apps come from one place, and that place doesn’t require any physical travel. There’s no messing with a file system hierarchy, and when you leave a program, it’s closed down or simply doesn’t affect other tasks in the background. It’s not only simple, but straightforward.

A machine for everyone.

We’ve said before that the iPad should serve most computer users admirably, without the need for another computer. Truth is, it’s not just grandma and grandpa who could benefit from the iPad. If you think about it, most college students can do everything they need to with an iPad also. The only stipulation are those who study computers and need more oomph, like Computer Science majors who need a platform they can develop on. For everyone else, the only potential obstacle is specialized software, but with the power behind the A4, we’d argue that most specialized applications could probably be ported to the iPad without issue. How long before CAD programs, analytical software, etc makes it onto the AppStore? Sure, there will always be a small segment of the computer-using populace that will have to rely on an incredibly specific software package that the respective developer refuses to port, but with accessibility the AppStore offers, and the support Apple provides for an external iPad keyboard, the sky is ultimately the limit for most programs.

While some applications will still shine brighter if they can be run on systems with larger screen sizes, this too isn’t necessarily an issue: an A/V cable may provide video-out for just these types of applications. For everyone else, including those who currently rely on 13″ screens for daily work, the iPad is already capable of serving as a lightweight workhorse. And for those that do need more powerful machines, there’s always the local school lab, office computer, etc.

If the iPad proves itself successful (and we think it will), it’s only a matter of time before the iPhone/iPad platform is expanded to devices with larger screens. For all we know, the iPhone heralded the birth of a new computer interface altogether, and it may not be more than a couple years before Apple’s primary computer lineup looks more like the iPad, and less like a Macbook.Similar Posts:

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We’ve long complained about toting our 17″ MacBook Pro around when we travel. The purchase was solid when we wanted a top-performing mobile Mac for gaming, with the occasional trip requiring relative transportability. Since we’re traveling more and gaming less these days, the bulk of lapzilla has caused us to look for a replacement, and we held off on picking up a used MacBook Air, or a newer (and smaller) MacBook, because we expected the iPad to show up soon. And now that it has, we’ve made some definitive decisions on how we intend to handle our computing workflow.

Unfortunately, the iPad can’t replace our MacBook Pro by itself. Still, for most computing tasks, the iPad seems to fit the bill. Like the iPhone, it has all the makings of a good internet client for most tasks. With a larger screen and the likelihood that other internet apps (e.g. chat clients) will be ported to make use of it, surfing the digital waves shouldn’t be a problem, save for multitasking restrictions which many people expect to be relieved in a future OS version (4.0?). What’s left is some method to write, and with a $10 version of Pages designed specifically for the iPad, this base also appears to be covered. This means that other text editors will undoubtedly show up on the iPad in the future (ad be useable!), to include those with syntax highlighting for developers, as well as those designed for creative writers (like our favorite, Ulysses).

With text editing and internet use out of the way, we’re left with a couple tasks that the iPad can’t do on its own (at least not in its present state).

Future iPad features?

Camera/tablet integration: We already talked about this yesterday, so won’t go into it again. Suffice to say, the opportunities for integration with other peripherals is there, be it the iSight and tablet we already mentioned, game controllers, the PowerMate, etc.

Selective screen-grabs: While the iPhone and iPod Touch have an easy method for grabbing screenshots (which the iPad will likely inherent), the method is simple: it grabs a full-size screenshot. Sure, we can open this screenshot in a photo-editing app and crop out what we need, but that’s not as elegant a solution as using, say, Skitch. Even if user-defined multi-tasking presents itself in a future OS revision, we have to remember that there will still likely be restrictions on it. While editing screenshots manually to crop out content is not a deal breaker for us, we hope Apple refines the screenshot method on its mobile devices, to allow users the option of, say, drawing out the area they want to capture (say, with a lasso tool), else simply clicking on the screen to capture it in its entirety.

Either way, the iPad should present a quick and easy way to grab parts of a screen, be it part of the OS, or possible by running an iPad app in the background (like a ported version of Skitch).

Why we still need a Mac.

iTunes: Obviously, this is the big obstacle for most people. It’s not an issue for many computer users, like grandma and grandpa, but for people already vested in the Mac world, it’s likely that there’s a media library that can’t be managed on the iPad alone. These users, like us, need a way to hook the iPad up to a core iTunes media repository, and selectively copy media onto the iPad for whatever upcoming trips or time periods are pertinent.

With no announced way for the iPad to important media from a source other than the iTunes store (and pictures/video from SD/USB sources via the camera adapter kit), the iPad may also rely on a Mac for its optical drive. Otherwise, users won’t be able to rip CDs and DVDs to transfer their media onto their newest toy.

Server tasks/file-sharing: Seeing as apps were removed from the AppStore that merely controlled BitTorrent clients that actually resided on a Mac, it’s unlikely that we’ll see actual peer-to-peer (P2P) apps in the AppStore, particularly when Apple is trying to fervently control the distribution of media via the iTunes store. Even if we could run, say, a version of Transmission built for the iPad, it’d be a little silly unless we’re using it at home via wifi. Without a jailbreak-enabled application like 3G Unrestrictor, we ought not bank on Apple/AT&T letting us download large files, and the download speeds on 3G would be pathetic anyway. This doesn’t even account for the iPad’s small storage capacity. So for those of you seeking to grab media via .torrent files or other methods, the iPad alone won’t be your savior. Same goes for pretty much any other server-related tasks.

File processing: Betwixt P2P and iTunes media management is the issue of file processing, be it in the conversion of video files so they can be played via the iTunes app, or simply unzipping them in the first place. Really, it’s simple: if the media you want is not from the iTunes store, then the iPad itself won’t cut it.

There’s also the issue of very niche apps or those that will be impossible to get through the AppStore approval process. Emulators, utilities for connecting to, say, a gaming console, or even just custom scripts for accomplishing file renaming or other tasks.

Solution?

For us, the solution is rather obvious. For the few tasks we do need a Mac for, we can run a mostly headless Mac Mini tucked away somewhere. We’ll probably just use our HDTV as a monitor for when we need to do more than handle automated tasks (e.g. updating our iPad/iPhone firmware), and access it via one of our mobile Apple devices thanks to one of the many mouse/keyboard apps already in the AppStore, else the bluetooth keyboard we’ll pick up for the iPad anyway. The Mac Mini will handle all our iTunes media management tasks, as well as whatever media processing we might need to do. (We just lost our iTunes library, so we need to rip all our old CDs again, for example.)

In the event that we don’t want to use the HDTV as a monitor (such as when the TV is already in use), we can always access the Mac Mini via the iPad thanks to utilities like VNC. Or, we can just have a small LCD handy (which we do, thanks to our discontinued carputer project). With this setup, it’s doubtful we even need a mouse.

Apps we’d like ported to the iPad.

With a Mac Mini powering what we can best describe as stationary tasks done at home, and usually with little needed interaction, we can focus on the apps we’d like to see transition over to the iPad, or simply be improved versions of existing AppStore apps. While we’re convinced that we can get by with the iPad on release, there are definitely things (like multitasking) that will be necessary to make our workflow as fluid as, if not more fluid than, the work we do on the MacBook Pro when on the road.

Adium/Conversation/iChat: We never did quite settle on a single chat application, though we predominantly use iChat because of the iSight integration. Regardless, we’d like to see AppStore chat clients move over to the iPad’s larger-screen format, else see apps like Adium be ported to the iPad. Multitasking for an app like this would be ideal, but let’s at least be able to see chats in multiple protocols.

Bento: There’s already a mobile version of Bento available, and we expect an iPad version to come out that would pretty much duplicate the features of the desktop version. The folks who develop Bento have confirmed that an iPad version will be in the works.

JBidwatcher: Our preferred eBay sniper. Ideally, we wouldn’t need to access it remotely on the Mac Mini, but could tote it around and rely on 3G to keep us sniping (assuming we have multitasking, of course). JBidwatcher’s developer would like to bring the program over to the iPhone/iPad, but the multitasking issue remains.

MacFamilyTree: Another app with a mobile version already on the AppStore. The iPad would be perfect for showcasing a full-featured version of this app, and the developer supports the idea.

PandoraJam: Given what it does (rips audio from Pandora), it’s unlikely we’ll ever see this on the iPad. Even if we did see it, there likely wouldn’t be a method to copy songs over to the iTunes library, so we’d have to rely on the Mac Mini to copy audio from the app to the server iTunes library, and then re-sync the iPad. An easier solution would simply be to run PandoraJam as part of a media center setup. (Still, we’re listing it anyway because we’d love it to work somehow.)

Pixelmator: Image editing apps on the iPhone are already coming into their own, with many desktop features. If we could get something like Pixelmator on the iPad, though, it’d be fantastic.

Ulysses: A mobile version was already announcement, so hopefully the developers, now aware of the new SDK, will port most of the Mac version’s functionality over to the iPad.

Vassal: Okay, this isn’t part of our work flow per se, but we were recently re-introduced to this tabletop wargaming platform and can see how awesome it would be on the iPad. Someone please work on this!

VoodooPad: Another app with a mobile version already existing (which only lets one read files, unfortunately), we expect the developers to release a more full-featured version for the iPad. Our use of VoodooPad has waned over time, in part because there’s no way to edit the files on the iPhone. We may come back to this app now, though.Similar Posts:

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In a reply to SynCaine over at Hardcore Casual, commenter Mig borrows from Palahniuk’s Fight Club by acutely noting how World of Warcraft’s (WoW’s) glorified new looking-for-group (LFG) system does little more than create “single-serving friends.” The lack of difficulty in most instance encounters, combined with the ease of being able to quickly enter such content with strangers, means that in many ways, WoW’s guild system is deprecated. Whereas in the past, guilds served primarily as a way for like-minded gamers to approach content together, guilds are now left to serious raiders and socializing.

Interestingly, the gear creep isn’t even a staple of just end-game characters anymore. Old content is now routinely attempted by under-leveled characters who happen to have comparatively awesome gear. Combined with class changes like dual-specs, more crowd-control, and other evolutions that have occurred during WoW’s lifetime, there’s definitely little argument left for WoW being anything more than a casual game. A time-sink, still, but not a gaming pursuit appropriate for someone who wants a real, concerted challenge.

As we’ve said before, this is rather discouraging as a former player who looks back on the early days of WoW with adoration. Sure, there were class balance issues and other areas that needed fixing, but being able to form a group and reach the end of an instance was gratifying. Now, it’s just part of the perpetual grind. It’s a design evolution that has done Blizzard well financially, but one that has also alienated former players, who might have returned to the game if it offered anything more than a casual, Farmville-esque experience.Similar Posts:

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Lots of folk are annoyed at Bioware’s revelation of “companion characters” in the upcoming Star Wars MMORPG, whereby “companion characters” are NPC group-members that can stand-in when groups can’t find other players to fill certain roles, such as healers and tanks. Keen was one of the first to vocalize his aggression:

Why don’t you just make it a single player game? I do not understand this mentality of making a MMO and then taking all these steps and putting in all these systems to make it anything but a multiplayer experience. What is the point? Make it another Bioware RPG and stop jerking us around by jumping onto the “We’re a MMO!” bandwagon.

Looks like Keen, like many others, doesn’t get that not every MMOG player wants to group and raid, which has become a common sentiment among MMOG bloggers, lately. Whereas before World of Warcraft (WoW), lots of people wanted a more solo-able experience, the exact opposite is true now among “real” gamers. But these folks need to realize that MMOGs are going to cater to both camps, whether everyone likes it or not. The fact is, MMOGs are a pretty cheap form of entertainment compared to blowing through multiple 20-hour single-player games every month, so for “hardcore” gamers who want single-player experiences, the MMOG is a valid outlet. This is particularly true when one considers factors that support the single-player experience yet is based on the player populace at large, such as player-made goods, auction houses, et al.

If anything, NPC party members will be a good thing because it will somewhat allow more casual gamers to participate in group contact that they might otherwise be shut out of. No more stalling public groups because the baby is crying, or because mom and dad called your tank to the dinner table. The more pertinent issue at hand is the effectiveness of NPC party members, and this is where careful play balancing needs to take place. In other words, assuming that NPC party members could be written to be as intelligent as players as far as respective group roles are concerned, they shouldn’t. A good player tank should always be better than an NPC tank, whereas the NPC tank should probably be better than a poor tank. This will force poor players to up their game or get out, and as long as certain encounters are written to require good players, then mostly NPC parties won’t be able to succeed in top-rate instances anyway, so the “hardcore” can still have their cake.

Another bonus to this is that even at low levels, Bioware can require players to participate in groups. This way, from the get-go, players will learn how to play their class in a group environment, rather than having to learn end-game mechanics such as threat, aggro, healing, et al upon reaching end-game. It’s a good idea that more MMOG developers should explore, rather than shy away from because of a thousand angry Keens.Similar Posts:

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Electronic Arts (EA) is already preparing the Command & Conquer (C&C) franchise for the future vehicle for software proliferation: digital distribution. Kotaku, meanwhile, says that some fans are skeptical:

News of the transition was sending fears of a Facebook-ized, watered-down C&C among some series fans.

And yet C&C always was watered down, offering little more than eye-candy to recent sequels. The good news is that EA CEO John Riccitiello hopes to change that, and bring more innovation to the real-time strategy (RTS) genre.

“…I have a shared vision that the RTS category is due for fundamental innovation and not just cooler graphics,” Riccitiello said. “We’ve gotten to the point where you can see the particles around individual grenade explosions inside rooms where windows fall apart. That was never what made RTS good. That was just sort of eye candy on top of a very traditional game mechanic. From when Red Alert and Starcraft sort of defined the genre, it hasn’t moved.”

While Riccitiello’s take on RTS games mirrors our own, his seniority is at question when he uses Red Alert and Starcraft as examples of genre-defining games. In reality, predecessors Command & Conquer (yes, the original), Warcraft, and Warcraft II, solidified the genre that Dune II built. And really, nothing fundamental has changed since then, either. And that portends danger for developers not willing to let go of the tried-and-true method of simple throwing a new unit or two at a player each level, while making them rebuild from scratch on a new map. The repetitive play is what kills the genre in one game alone, let alone when looking at new RTS games.

“Some of what Facebook does, in terms of letting you collectively experience things, have not been stitched together by the game industry in terms of lessons learned there. You start applying that thinking to a C&C franchise you get something pretty special.”

This is where Riccitiello’s price as CEO may be worth it, because at least Riccitiello is looking at some aspects of what make Facebook games, and MMOGs, so alluring. If RTS games are meant to illustrate a greater struggle, then the thousands of players participating in battlefield combat should be able to assist one another, participate in local battles, and change the tide of war one small step at a time. In many ways, this mirrors the idea of Warhammer Online’s Realm vs. Realm PvP scenario, but at a less granular level.

If there’s a clear disadvantage for one player to effectively handle a large army, compared to many players handling less units at a more focused level, then new aspects in RTS titles emerge: buildings alliances, strategies, and resource flows become important. And ultimately, the complexity of individual units can grow, because with less units, players have the ability to use more unit abilities in order to create battlefield synergy, whereas in purely single-player games, players must first be concerned with amassing large armies and rushing the enemy head-on.

Adopting certain key aspects of social and multiplayer games can be a good thing for the RTS genre, as long as it’s done right and with the intent to grow the genre “up,” rather than “out.” That is to say, adopting the wrong aspects of social games will result in a watered-down RTS experience that may be more accessible to non-gamers, but at the expense of the RTS faithful. Maintaining the complexity of strategy and risk-taking, however, and adding on top of this formula a perpetual battlefront that all players share, will only satiate RTS gamers more.

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