GW2 Beta Weekend Event Impressions

Guild Wars 2 is not the messiah of the MMO genre, at least based on my experience this past weekend, but it is an extremely fun game, and sometimes, that's enough. I figure we should start by saying that, especially with all the hype the title has received. It's strange, looking back on some of my notes, on Friday night I was impressed by a few things, but generally felt a "meh" attitude towards the game. On Saturday I was struggling with the combat dismayed by the poor performance (yes, I know it was beta, and the client was not optimized, but it was hard not to pay attention to the performance) and Sunday morning it was like everything finally came together and fell in place and I was enjoying myself, wishing that the beta was not going to end. I think part of it was the culmination of all the little things that were "right" about the title, and the other part was finally getting a handle on the combat system which coming from traditional MMO's felt alien to me on Friday.

I started off rolling a human Thief, and jumped right into the mix, staying in the tutorial area a little bit longer than most people just so I could try to wrap my head around the combat system, and wanting to unlock some of my skills and understand them. Once I did that, I wrapped up the tutorial area, and followed the herd of players out into the world, and where I started experiencing mixed emotions. If you have ever done a beta event, or jumped into an MMO at launch you'll know what I mean, where there are 3,000 people right where you are, and everything feels crazy. I was blown away by how good the game itself looked. I'm not talking Age of Conan type of detail, it was like moving around in a painting. I cannot stress how good things looked, but my appreciation was muted as I ran towards the first "heart" I saw on the map, wanting to experience what questing was like. Try an imagine what seemed to be hundreds of people all trying to do the exact same thing, in addition to a slide show experience it was a struggle to do anything, mobs died incredibly quick, before most people could even attack. Even knowing what to expect, it did make it a little bit harder to enjoy what I was doing. 

After a little adventuring, I decided to escape the masses and head off for some PvP. I did several structured PvP maps to wrap my head around my boosted to level 80 toon, and had mixed results. I felt that melee was at a distinct disadvantage to ranged, and since I was not level 7, I had not unlocked the ability to swap weapons. At about this time I decided to jump into WvWvW PvP and it was there that the game started to click for me. I wont say that it was a drop in of Warhammer RvR PvP, but it did remind me of it in many ways. I had a level of familiarity with it, what to do, and how to do it. Darkhaven was a day 1 monster, and we had several small bands grabbing just about everything on the map, and it was fun. That night I rolled out a second toon, a ranger with my wife and we had a chance to do the starting areas with people more spread out, and I had another "click" with the game, and was enjoying it.

Without too much detail, I got into crafting on Saturday and found a system that I really enjoyed, I died a lot in PvE and PvP, but I found that I was starting to understand the combat system, and how to attack, dodge and stay alive, and slowly I was starting to enjoy the combat. By Sunday evening, I felt I had the combat system down, I'd done a ton of exploring, I ventured back to instanced PvP, and was cutting thru casters like a hot knife thru butter and feeling very good indeed about the game.

So let's talk more about some of the good, the little things, and some of the bad, because there are definitely a few issues I have with the game as it stands.

The Good:

ArenaNet got cities and music down perfectly, and they got them so right that I cant think of another MMO that has done it as well. Divinity's Reach had NPC's all over the place, and not just standing still, but moving around, engaging in conversations with each other, from the obvious wealthy areas to the slumbs, from the circus to crafting areas, the atmosphere felt hand crafted. Many doors were open, and you could go into bar's, and inn's, explore buildings and halls. This was absolutely a masterpiece, and I'd suggest anyone who wants to see an example of a great MMO city should visit for that reason alone.


Questing tends to make the game feel like a more directed themepark. Instead of hub to hub, players open their map, see which hearts are not filled, and then go off to do them. This isnt a bad thing, and it gave me reason to run all over, but it is a very directed experience. Most of these are located off main roads, so you do have a reason to go cross country, and it made a world of difference.

Underwater combat was novel, and I did spend a fair amount of time in the WvWvW area swimming around, and found several underwater entry points to keeps. It made me smile, and I know it may not happen often, but I can tell you now the first underwater assault on a keep I take part in will immediately set the WvWvW apart from other MMO's.

If I had written this on Friday, combat may have gone into the bad column, thankfully I took some time and learned it. One might think that only having 5 skills means shallow combat, and button mashing, and that's probably what I did early on, and it got me killed more often than not. With weapon swap at level 7, I was constantly trying to find which pairings worked well together, was it two pistols with two daggers? Pistol main hand and dagger offhand? Sword main hand and pistol offhand? When I finally found what worked for me, and I was dodging, combat felt good. This is, I think, the single biggest bridge for traditional MMO fans to adapt to, as combat almost played more like a hack and slash RPG. That isnt a great comparisson, but it's about as good as I can find. It'll take time for people to adapt, if they stick with it, there is definitely a reward.

Crafting is exactly what I'm looking for. Star Wars: The Old Republic took too much away from players letting companions do all the work, and Vanguard originally was too big a time sink (8 hours to gather materials and craft a small ship.) Nothing has ever equalled Star Wars: Galaxies crafting, but for where I am today as a gamer, GW2 does it right. I enjoyed gathering materials, the ability to craft granted recipe's, and the chance to randomly pull materials into the bench and see if I could discover a recipe. I'm sure that within weeks of launch websites will have all that info up for people to find, but it doesnt change the fact it exists in-game.

Despite my tearing apart some casters last night, I still believe that ranged has an easier go of things in PvP than a melee character. Part of my success was, if you are familiar with the map, around the Henge in Nifhel Forest, where I was able to line of sight casters and essentially force them to come closer to me.  All games will have imbalance, and I expect that, and most games it feels that ranged is better off than melee, so we'll have to see how this plays out.

Both instanced maps were fun, but I'd like to see more variety. The WvWvW area was a blast, and this early on it felt often like it was a zerg fest, but that's the same mentality I'd seen in other MMO's because it is the path of least resistance. Good leaders end up emerging, and you end up doing more with less people. I get the feeling I'll be spending serious time here, as it is the experience I've wanted in an MMO since Dark Age of Camelot, and to a lesser extent Warhammer Online.


I almost forgot to add how much I like the Auction House. Being able to list items while adventuring was great. I enjoyed being able to search by item, see what and how many of a certain item was available, and to set my own price that I wanted to buy an item at. After SW:TOR which has a horrid interface for the Auction House, I was blown away here by what I could do. Granted this isnt a make it or break it type feature in a game, but it is a convenience that is noteworthy and deserves mention.

The Bad:

I'm going to start with what I feel is an obvious one. The chat system is pure garbage, and it definitely has an impact on the community. For some reason the /local chat does not cover the entire zone, rather it covers in what other MMO's might be a /yell area. As an example, while I was at the front gate of Divinity's Reach I had conversations popping up that my wife did not see while she was at the crafting stations, a mere 10-15 second run from where I was. One of the common themes I saw was that people felt the game and the servers were "quiet". Apologists suggest that it is because people were too busy to be chatting, bull excrement. I've never been a part of game where chat wasnt fairly lively, even during a short beta. There are almost always people talking, asking questions, or being obnoxious. How on earth could ArenaNet build a city that feels alive and vibrant not have a chat channel that extends a zone? It's a social game. I'm not asking for server wide chat, but simple zone wide chat would make a world of difference.

The personal story. The hideous cut scenes, and yes SW:TOR spoiled me, and voice overs actually made me realize how good Bioware was at telling a story. I had a barely clothed NPC who appeared to be very young voiced as if she was in her 80's. This was a recurring theme, and it just made me wish that ArenaNet at least had an appropriate voice for the NPC.  Yes this is a step up from standard text quests, but it felt off, with a distinct lack of depth. I guess it's bad when you compare it to SW:TOR, and that might still be good enough to make it the 2nd best offering out there now, even despite the Final Fantasy-esque 1998 style cutscenes.

The instances. Again, apologists say that the only instances are for your personal story, and that is simply bull excrement. Being honest about it, overflow areas are, in fact, instances. It's the same technique used in Everquest 2, where for example Antonica fills up the game creates "Antonica 2" and people who zone in go to Antonica 2. I dont have any problem with this system when there is a way to shift instances to be in the same place as a groupmate. GW2 lacks that, and Saturday night I spent close to 20 minutes trying to get into the same overflow area as the person I was grouped with, it was a troubling experience. We could be next to each other in Divinity's Reach, and head out and we'd be in different overflow areas. Very simply overflow areas ARE instances, just not personal instances. I dont know how big a problem this is for times other than launch, but not having a way to join a groupmate is just plain stupid. Likely this takes care of itself, but add a mechanic to be in the same overflow instance as people you are grouped with.

Having to queue for WvWvW PvP. Take a step back, read that again, and think about what I'm saying. On both Saturday night and Sunday night I had to queue up for WORLD PvP. I understand there are cap limits, and I wonder if it is a total number or you are limited to a certain number of people per side, but it was a strangely frustrating experience to think that I had to queue up for instanced world PvP. Nature of the beast, but I do hope eventually ArenaNet can eliminate the cap for this area.

Summary:

I dont know if I'll spend a lot of time in future beta weekend events, simply because I am 100% confident that I'll be picking this title up and enjoying it when it releases. The items I singled out as being "bad" arent dealbreakers, and they arent horrid, but when you compare the polish of the rest of the game, they really do stand out. Granted ArenaNet has some polish and optimization work to do, but this game should release very well, and I did appreciate how ArenaNet addressed (lack of communication though) early login and network errors, which seemed nearly eliminated by Sunday.

This is a good looking, very enjoyable game. When I started the weekend I thought it was a bastard hybrid of Rift and Warhammer Online, at least in many concepts, but that would be doing it an injustice because it is so much more. I want to see some dungeons, and find out how they work, and how enjoyable they are, and despite the ArenaNet claim that endgame begins at level 1, I wonder where the staying power for me will be at level 80 beyond the WvWvW area. While PvP can extend a game because it is essentially player created content, I'm not sure where the PvE content will be, and if it will compare to the traditional MMO-esque grind experience of raiding and gearing.

Those questions however I dont think I can answer for myself until I hit level 80, and since this is a no subscription game, I wont have any problem enjoying the ride to 80 and experiencing for myself. No, this isnt the messiah of MMO's that some folks thought, but the bottom line for me is that I liked it quite a bit. We'll see where it's spot in the Pantheon of great MMO's ultimately will be, but hands down one of the better MMO's that I've experienced in quite a long time.

ArenaNet surprises me again

Just a short note, but I found something, again, about Guild Wars 2 that I had to really like. In a news blog ArenaNet discussed choosing a home world (server) and transfers. The basic part is that once you pick a world all your characters will be on that particular world. You will have an option to move home worlds once a week for a cost of 1,800 gems. Now I'm going to assume that is a cash shop item (there is another topic for another day.) and that it moves all your characters. I'm used to World of Warcraft charging $25 per character to move, which frankly felt fairly ridiculous. I'm frustrated with Bioware because server merges and character transfers are not a priority at this time, and I'm stuck on a low populated world. Again, no idea how much 1,800 gems would cost, but I'm sure it would be significantly less than what I would pay in other games. Putting this in perspective, I have five level 50's in SWTOR, and if they charged $25 per move, I'm looking at $125 to just move my 50's, and I have plenty of other toons with signifcant time invested. At that price, it's easier for me to go play another game, or re-roll on another server and be extremely angry at Bioware.

If you look at the news blog, it introduced me to the concept of "guesting". Short version is that you may have a friend that plays on a different server but you can still play with them on their server, or vice versa with some restrictions. Obviously WvWvW PvP is something that you wont be able to share, and I wonder about dungeons, but if I can still go do things with friends on a different server, then I dont have to try to get every group of people I want to play with all in the same place. I cannot express how good I think this feature is.

I am amused that the more I dig and the more I find, the more impressed I am with ArenaNet. Some of these things are very simple customer service issues, as well as easy of playability and enjoyment for customers. Their approach however isnt the same as other developers, and part of me feels that other companines should be asking: "Why arent we doing it this way?". Maybe it is game engine, or game design, I dont know, but my point is simply that ArenaNet is just trying to push the envelope in one area, they are doing it in an awful lot of areas, and that alone is probably a reason why consumers are standing up and taking notice.

Preparing to meet the messiah of MMO's

I've spent too many years in pre-launch MMO communities to not have a feel for the usual hustle, bustle and feeling of how those communites operate. Pre launch communities usually have three groups of people that inhabit both official forums and forums on fansite, and industry websites. You have fans who have already "bought in" to the game for whatever reason, and they are on board with the information you are getting. These are generally the largest group, hence being fans. The second largest contingent are people who dont like anything about the title for whatever their reasons may actually be. I'm not convinced that most of the reasons are valid, but there is generally a healthy sense of antagonsim between these two camps, and debate ensues over pretty much ever morsel of information. The third, and far smallest group are the folks who are trying to decide for themselves if they like what they are hearing, and how it applies to them. They dont have money on the fight, they are just observers.

Guild Wars 2 is perhaps the first time I've seen a different spread of the community. For perhaps the first time ever, I'm seeing about 80% of people falling into the fan column, and a good portion of them are willing to pontificate that this game is the 2nd coming, and the savior of the genre. Dont believe me? Check out the article from PC Gamer. ArenaNet has promised to do something different, and after years of games that want to resemble World of Warcraft (they may want the earnings of WoW, but nobody has come close to equaling that success in any way imaginable) this seems to be striking a powerful chord to disenchanted MMO'ers. Of our other two groups, the second largest is the people who are trying to be objective and understand how their gaming experience is impacted by what GW2 is offering. Shockingly, the smallest contingent is the "haters." Usually haters cant be shouted down by fans as there are too many, but in this case they are just so overwhelmed as to barely be heard. I'm not sure that is a good thing, but it is a surprising thing, so people with so diverse opinions on most topics have finally found something that they agree upon.

Personally, I was in the SWTOR camp for years so I did not pay a lot of attention to the hyperbole about GW2, because I was convinced that most of it was exactly that, hype. "You cant change a world, at least not for more than 10 minutes," and so on is how I felt. With my recent step back from SWTOR, and putting together my list of things that really matter to me in an MMO, I was able to take a step back and look at a game that isnt that far from launch (and to me that means within the next 4 months) and see what it had to offer, without being caught up in years worth of hype.

Fortunately for me, ArenaNet had recent put on a fairly large press beta event which gave a lot of coverage of the game both in print, and video which gave me a recent plethora of source material to draw upon. I immediately went to check out TotbalBiscuit, my favorite Cynical Brit to see what he felt about the game, and what kind of experiences he had. As usual, I found a number of video's on a wide ranging subject matter, from character classes to PvP, to jumping puzzles, but in typical Brit fashion, I found his summary of impression video to be an honest compendium of what he both liked, and disliked about the game.

I also spent some time seeing what Gamebreaker.tv's MikeB, aka Fony had to say about the game. Mike's commentary is sometimes a little over the top, I was definitely impressed by his little series of Captial City tours, and a tour he did of one of the WvWvW PvP areas. This was a 25 minute video that definitely impressed me.

With a little bit of background, I knew enough that I was intrigued, and wanted to find out more, so I made the commitment, pre-purchased the game (figuring I could always go back to Gamestop and get a refund if I did not like the weekend event, and that may not be accurate) and decided that when a weekend event came up I wanted to be a part of it. With that in mind, I started watching other video's on classes, started reading more about the game, and I noticed that more and more of the hype was being driven by people who played the game, in fact I found far less negative impressions or experiences than I had from just about any other MMO to date.

While all of these are good signs, I'm not about to make up my mind after a weekend, but there is definitely enough here for me to want to take a deeper look, and see exactly what GW2 has to offer me. That's actually what matters, not what ten reviewers, or 13,000 fans find interesting, but what is going to be interesting to me, and what will engage me. I have some long term concerns with a perceived lack of end-game material, yes I have loved raids for years, so will impromptu public events be enough for me? I dont know. Part of what I love in PvP is the community, I like seeing names I know, there is often a healthy respect formed there and World versus World versus World means I'm fighting nameless, faceless foes, people who I just dont care about beating, so there isnt that little extra something from knowing I beat someone I know is tough. Yes combat is different than what I'm used to, and there is a lot for me to experience, but I do actually want to see how I feel about those things.

I guess more than anything, I'm interested to spend a little bit of time forming my own impressions, and drawing my own conclusions. It isnt often you get to meet someone who most people identify as a messiah, and while I'm going to look at it with my own jaded eye, I have to admit, I've liked what I've seen so far enough to make the dollar commitment. I'm not looking to expose the messiah, or to like him just because someone else tells me that I should, I just want to see for myself what he's all about. We'll see after the weekend how I feel.

Beyond The Old Republic

I've spent 5 months playing Star Wars: The Old Republic and with 5 level 50's, multiple raids done, a character who is a battlemaster, I'm finally at a crossroads with the game. Dont misunderstand me, the game is pretty much exactly what I thought it would be, so I'm not suggesting Bioware did something wrong. (They did, but that's a long post for another day.) I am suggesting that the low population server that I happen to play on convinced me to sit down and examine what really matters to me in an MMO. SWTOR sold me on both story, and IP, but it turns out, there are other things that actually matter more to me, and if my choice to to find a game that has those things, or to continue to play a game with a declining population that prevents me from doing things that I'd like to do, then just maybe it's time for me to stop, and take a look around.

1) Meaningful World PvP:

Nobody did this better than Dark Age of Camelot, and to a lesser extent Warhammer Online. My personal definition of meaningful, which I realize is open to debate, is World PvP that has a tangible impact on the world, or the gameplay. I loved the Tarren Mill versus Southshore PvP in World of Warcraft as much as anyone, but ultimately winning or losing was determined by who left last, there was no lasting impact on the game world. Games like DAoC and WHO had reasons to world PvP, capturing keeps, turning a zone. It isnt a permanent impact, but it is a short term impact, and you do notice it.

Above and beyond what I've already said, meaningful world PvP is largely player created content. Think about that for a second. Look at all the things that can impact it, from class balance to class nerfs, from server population to player skill. It's players who are determining what is happen in given zones. This is content that developers dont have to create, and dont have to worry about players out leveling. Meaningful world PvP is a sandbox element that fits into most games, gives players something to enjoy, and is ongoing content that developers dont have to invest countless hours into building.

Gordon Walton who worked on titles like UO:Renissance, SWTOR, and Star Wars Galaxies gave a speech at GDC Austin in 2007 where he talked about the lessons people should learn building MMO's in a post World of Warcraft environment. One of the things he said that stuck, is that "Content sucks. Content takes people to build." I take that to mean that people eat up content faster than developers can create it. Taking that to the next step, meaningful world PvP is content that changes daily, and its a system that players build content. I'm a little amazed he is the one who said that, and was involved with SWTOR which is clearly a PvE content driven title.

Gordon Walton 2007 GDC Speech, coverage by Gamastura


2) Instanced PvP:

Yes, I like instanced PvP as well as world PvP, in fact I like most types of PvP with the exception of Arena PvP, but that too is a whole 'nother blog. Back in the mid 90's, I enjoyed FPS games, and I do today as well. The difference between the two experiences is that I'm now 38 years old, and there are 13 year olds who have reflexes on a different level than I do. Back then I would be all over a leaderboard, these days it's a fight every single game I play to break even. MMO's to me, havent been about just reflexes, they are about knowing not only your class, but knowing your opponents class as well. Sure, being quick is great, but I can combat some of that reflex loss with savvy, smarts, and skill. That's a big reason I enjoy instanced PvP as well, more outlets to test myself and compete with other people is content that doesnt have an endpoint.


3) Public Quests:

Warhammer Online was my first real exposure to public quests as a form of content. Sure, other games had small events, but Warhammer  presented it so multiple people could come participate, group, and win rewards somewhat loosely based on contribution. Rift took it a step further and polished the idea, and now Guild Wars 2 is selling it as the main offering to it's PvE.

I think only a fool believes that the results really change the game world. Guild Wars is saying that depending on what happens the path can go "up" or "down", and different things will happen until the tide is stopped and the players overcome, or dont. Here's the catch, overcome or dont, eventually, that is going to reset back to neutral and start all over again. In fact, I saw some people saying that in Guild Wars 2 beta the event was re-setting so often it was like it had never been stopped at all.

Granted GW2 is in beta, and they are tuning it, and that there is a fine line between having events often enough so people can do them (is it fair to make someone wait an hour after one ends to see it start again? What is the right balance?) but they seem to have the right idea.

Game worlds should be part of the experience, not just a setting to tell a story. Having some kind of public quests that makes me care, or gets me involved makes me experience the world in a different way.

4) Punishment:

This is pretty simple, dont do it.

There are all kinds of punishment in MMO's, from looting to death penalties, with massive time sinks and grinds in the middle. Look, I dont mind a certain amount of grinding, but when it's excessive then I've got an issue. Back when I was 20 odd years old, I could invest more time, so I cared far less, but at 38, with a job, a wife, a daughter, and other events in my life, I just dont have the time, or effort to sink untold hours for a reward. Here's the catch, if the reward is something I want, I have less objections to my time being spent. Developers beware, and find the optimum balance.

I know there are fans of full loot in PvP. I'll say it this way, I did it years ago in UO, and I know what losing everything felt like. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt, and guess what? I outgrew it. Dont get me wrong, if someone likes it, more power to 'em, but its a niche gaming playstyle and I have no interest in it.

5) Sidekicking:

Eq2, CoH, and GW2 all advertise it, and I like it. One of the big negatives in SWTOR for me, was that my wife took about 4 months to hit level 50, and in this title when we were both playing I rarely played with her during the time she was leveling. Same thing with my best friend, and I just dont like it. I play MMO's to enjoy with friends, dont make it more challenging for me to do that. I'm fine with de-leveling myself to play with a friend. 

6) Exploring:

The awe I felt in UO exploring a virtual world was exceeded in only one game: Star Wars Galaxies. I loved taking safari's to planets with friends, and exploring them, seeing what was there. There felt like danger could be lurking around the next corner. I'll never forget my first safari to Endor with friends, or one to Talus searching for a rare pet for a friend to tame.

Exploring is something that never lasts because eventually you are comfortable going anywhere and everywhere, but some of my strongest memories of the genre are thru exploration, so dont underestimate it's power.

7) Housing:

Housing is an easy catch-all for what I'm driving at. I want to stake an claim on this virtual world. I want to be emotionally tied to the game above and beyond simple PvE and PvP. Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, and Everquest 2 all did a great job or tying me into the world. (Lord of the Rings Online never gave me quite the same tie.) This is something that can be instanced, but that extra reason to play other than PvE and PvP is well worth the developer investment.


8) Crafting:

There is good and bad. I want worthwile crafting, crafting that has a meaning. I dont want to make items 3 levels below me with level appropriate materials, I dont want to spend 8 hours making a single ship (Thank you very much Vanguard at release) I dont want to hit max level crafting and realize that nobody will buy my items since they can get better via dungeons and raids. I dont want the only crafting profession to be worth a damn to be a cooking, or alchemy whichever type makes the useable buff items,


So it's a long list, and I could probably add more to it if I really wanted. I'm a few days away from trying out the Guild Wars 2 weekend beta event, but for the first time in a long time, I'm ready to have an objective experience. I'm ready to look for things that I find fun, and judge the game based on what it offers, not based on who made it, or what the IP is.

No you are not going to see me list things like graphics, animations and combat here. There are a few items that would utterly dissuade me from a game, but even a game like Mount & Blade can look horrible but be extremely fun to play because of the concepts behind it.  What it boils down to, are that these things are going to be about style, and personal preference, but arent going to be core items to determine a game that I'll enjoy.

I'll never recapture great moments from my MMO past, and I will always look back fondly on some titles, but it's time to find the game that will build the next set of great memories, and I'm going to start by finding a game that meets as many of these 8 items as I can, and go from there.

Communities and Guilds

So I've been thinking about this for quite a while, and I've come to the conclusion that there are game communities, and game guilds and they definitely are not the same thing. For the better part of the last 5 years, I've actively been a part of an online gaming community. I was one of the first members, an officer, and someone who cared deeply about the direction of the community. I took an active part in redrawing our charter, and trying to build a community that could put down lasting roots in an MMO. You see, despite being around as a community for 5 years, we had never put down lasting roots in a single MMO, and the pattern was alarming similar each and every game that we delved into. Bursts of activity early, zerg recruit all sorts of people, and around 60 days post launch members would start leaving the guild or the game, officers stopped honoring their duties and would disappear as well. On average, I'd say 90-120 days post release (sometimes longer, sometimes less) the guild would be down to single digit active members from highs of 80-100 active players.

The general sentiment of the officer team was that it was never the guild or the structure, but it was always just the games themselves, that nobody liked them. Considering that Vanguard and Final Fantasy 14 were titles we ventured into, I cant entirely argue with that idea.. I started to disagree with that sentiment last summer though with our Rift experience. While I did not get deeply involved in the game itself, I saw a divide in how a casual community operates. I saw what happened when people who were committed raiding types needed to pull people who were very casual, unfamiliar with min/maxing, and did not invest time outside of game to learn about encounters, were all put together. It was honestly a disaster.

This is where I started thinking about the differences between a game guild, and a gaming community. A community has a diverse group of members, quite often without any real bar to membership, and this means a vast variety of playstyles. Nothing at all wrong with that, in fact it's a very positive place for people to be. A game guild on the other hand usually is drawn together because they share a common interest in a single game, and they also usually have a membership application that helps them determine if an applicant shares a similar style of play. Extending this line of thought, while there is no guarantee a guild will last, it is my thought that a game guild has a better chance of an extended lifespan in a game than an online gaming community. The difference is level of investment in the game, versus investment in a community.

In order for a gaming community to make a lasting home in a title, I think that certain things are needed. The online community I belonged to had a relatively flat leadership structure, but I dont think that translates well into a game. I think that there has to be a single leader type. This doesnt mean a dictatorship, most decisions can be made among an officer team, but there has to be a person who makes the hard calls, or the unpopular calls, and does what needs to be done. Flat leadership too often means people dont take responsibility, and you end up debating for weeks over issues that need to be handled in hours or days.

The community itself needs to have strong leaders, and multiple voices. If there is a single strong leader, people again take the path of least resistance and just go along with him/her because they dont want to have a debate. If there are two strong voices you end up more often than not with cliques that form, or popularity contests going on.  This eliminates honest debates over merit, and people make decisions for reasons other than merit of the sides being presented. Short version is that if either of those things happen, you have piss poor people in leadership positions, because they dont feel comfortable, or confident enough to express their own opinions. So how does this happen? I think this happens when you dont accurately identify leadership characteristics in people, and you reward long time members and contributors for service, instead of making officers our of people who are truly leaders. Just because you contribute doesnt mean you are a leader. contributors can come in all shapes and sizes. Some folks who are contributors are leaders, and it isnt accurate that every contributor is a leader. I think this is a style that proves the adage: "The true test of a man's intelligence is the degree to which he agrees with you." You may have harmony (does anyone sense that I was the abrasive voice more often than not?) but you doom yourself to fighting uphill battles to have success as a guild in an MMO. This doesnt mean you cant do it, it just means you have to work harder, and the work falls on less and less shoulders. I believe the odds are against success with that format.

So after 5 years involved in the community I exchanged an e-mail with the founder, and resigned. Although I had not been active with the community in a few months, I got a nice send off post, and I wish everyone there well. These are tremendously great people who I respect, admire, and think will have fun in any title the venture into, however I believe the Chicago Cubs have a better track record of World Series success than they will of finding a game to make a lasting home. I'm sure it can happen, but I wont put bets on when. I'll still continue to game with several friends I met thru the community, but I've decided that for my next title, I want to play with people who will be there, and be active 120 days after launch. Maybe I'll pick wrong, but after 5 years of doing it one way, I'm going to find a group of people that embody what I want to find in a game, and I'll get to know them, and enjoy a title with them. Oddly enough, some of my best and longest game experiences were started just that way, and now I wonder why I got away from that.

Introduction

So why would anyone pay attention to the rantings and musing of a MMO fan? MMO's are seeming a niche game genre with a fanbase that seems to become more and more bitter with each new release in the genre. Are my rantings and musings that much different, or better than you'd find on a site with devoted forums for them? Simple answer is, of course, yes.

Okay, maybe they really arent better or any more worth reading, but after 13 odd years of playing mainstream MMO's I'd like to think that I've learned a few things, not just about the genre itself, but the people who play the games, notably myself. While I dont think I speak for anyone other than myself, I think after 13 years I'm starting to find some truth not only about the genre, but about how my own tastes have evolved. So if you have a passing interest in games, or MMO's, then maybe I'll have something to say that will make you laugh, smile, or get mad (I tend to get people mad quite often) and it'll be worth your time as I begin discussing this journey.

I began my addiction to true MMO's back in 1998 with Ultima Online. I'd see some of the AOL games like Neverwinter Nights, but Ultima Online was the game that brought me to the genre in a modern format. I was working at Best Buy, and picked up the game on a whim, and was blown away when I got into the game and was able to play with hundreds of other people at the same time. I'm sure there were thousands, but to me it was hundreds. Here was a world, populated with other people in front of their computers, and it was a persistent world, activity went on even when I wasnt there. It was the begining of a love afair with with genre.

This addiction could have been nipped in the bud fairly early, but the woman that I was dating decided that if she wanted to spend time with me, she would give this "MMO-thing" a try. We've been married now for 11 years, and while she isnt as passionate about MMO's as I am, it has turned into something that we can do together. So the one person who probably had the power, enabled me!

My journey has twisted and turned though many, if not most of the AAA MMO's on the market since. I've made lifelong friends while playing. People who started out as just pixels on a screen that I talked with, into people I talk to daily, have visited, and one friend I think so much of as a person, he's the godfather of my daughter.  My point here, is that recently I read this Norweigan idiot Behring said he took a year off to play World of Warcraft, is simply that there are idiots everywhere, but they are definitely the exception. In fact why was the fact he played World of Warcraft newsworthy? Quick, someone find out if he liked Oreo's too. Far more good people around, and it's a shame one moron can draw attention to a game or a genre in that way.

Recent history has taken me thru a long phase as a fan and of Star Wars: The Old Republic, but as a fan, I've sat down and done a lot of thinking recently, which has partly inspired me to write this blog. I'm not the same person, or the same player I was 13 years ago, I want different things, and what was important to me then, doesnt seem to be all that important today. Sitting down and evaluating has led me to some interesting and fun conclusions, and I think that's where this blog is headed....for now.

Hope you enjoy the the ride.