I thought I would give you my final impressions on the impressive lineup of new online games demonstrated at this year’s E3. In my opinion, what we saw this year is the breakout of this genre and of online gaming in general. There were so many new online games on display that, even with three days to do it, we were still unable to see them all. So there are some games like Sims Online and Earth and Beyond that may well be great games that I just won’t be able to cover, and others that I will cover at least briefly that you may not really find interesting. The E3 setting is actually an awkward one for truly reviewing a game. You rarely get to actually play the game. Instead you often sit through a demonstration from someone else who is playing it in front of you and explaining how it works. You are also seeing the area the manufacturer feels will be the most impressive. While this gives you a feel for the game, nothing really lets you understand a game like playing it. Thus, what you are getting here, and from anyone else out there writing a review from E3, is a limited glimpse of a game gotten in a setting completely controlled by the game manufacturer. Still, certain games leap out at you more than others, and a limited glimpse is better than no glimpse at all. I will preview the new games I saw first from best to worst. And then I’ll preview the expansions. This is a long review, so close your office door, kick back a bit and enjoy. ---The Best of the Lot--- Asheron’s Call 2 If you had asked me before the conference started which game I expected to like the most, I would have most likely picked Star Wars Galaxies or perhaps EQ2. I doubt this one would have come to mind. However, the demonstration of this game simply blew me away. Yes I know that graphics and sound are not the be all end all of making a good game, but they often make the difference between a good game and a great game, and the sound and graphics in AC2 are state of the art. Everything in this game, from the characters to the Mobs to the world around you simply looks great, and this is coming from someone who really hated the graphics of the original Asheron’s Call. The sound is especially impressive. They have assigned a melody to every terrain and every Mob type. So as you walk through the world, you can almost know where you are just by the melody that is playing. Then, in the fashion of Peter and the Wolf, as new creatures approach you, their melodies interweave into the music you are hearing, letting you know exactly what joined the fight just from the added tune. I would love to hear the result of a mass melee. The world is seamless, and even the transitions into the dungeons are fast and easy to load. Getting around is much easier than it was in AC. AC2 will have an interesting story line. It takes place in a future version of Dareth where much of the world is in ruins. The players will be encouraged to help rebuild the world from that point and much of how the game progresses will depend upon the players’ actions. AC2, like the original AC is a dynamic world, and the game designers have the ability to create and destroy anything within the world as they wish to help along the story, even to the point of changing the terrain and faction of a given area. The quest system will be a mix of the static quests common to EQ and DAoC and the dynamically generated quests of Anarchy Online. Plus, players will be able to create their own quests for other players to enjoy. Microsoft seems to have learned from both the positive and negative features of the original game. They have kept such excellent features as the dynamic game world and the alliance system. But they have made a much more compact and interesting world, eliminating the need to run for long stretches just to find something to fight. Other interesting features include the ability of players to take over and control towns; dynamic trade skills where players can create new items and even skills; an improved AI that will allow creatures to cooperate in a fight more like PCs in a group would fight; and a more complex combat system that makes fighting more than just point and click. The game is scheduled to be released by winter of 2003. For a game that is still 9 months away from release, this game looks surprisingly complete. The interface, combat and magic system, graphics and gameplay seem to be very well advanced for this point in the development process. This gives me hope that this may be a game that will have both depth and playability when released, a combination almost unheard of so far in the online gaming world. Release is scheduled for early 2003, and at least at this stage this is definitely the MMORPG to watch for 2003. ---Excellent games you will want to play--- Star Wars Galaxies This is one of those games that I really didn’t feel I saw enough to get a true feel for it at E3. And this is after standing there and watching a one hour presentation on it. This is because it is such a unique and complex game that I don’t think anything short of playing it for a couple of weeks will suffice to let anyone really understand it. I’m not even sure the developers quite know what they have created. This is not negative either, as I think this has the potential to be a truly awesome game. Beta starts in July, and it is really at that time that we be able to truly figure out what we have here. Let me start by the looks, which is the one thing you can completely judge in a presentation like this. The game just looks stunning. Clearly Lucas Arts provided the actual specs for the cities and buildings found in the movies. Thus, the Star Wars faithful will be very happy with the recreation of their favorite places. There is a level of realism in the look that is not found in very many other games at this time. Moreover, the game is enormous. There are going to be nine planets shipped with the initial release, each one of which will have a land mass the equivalent of the entire world of Everquest, including all the expansions. Considering I’ve been playing EQ for 3 years and still haven’t seen every zone, that’s pretty amazing. The interface is very easy to use and understand. One thing I really liked were the chat features. When the player next to you talks, a bubble forms above his head with his words, letting you follow the conversation without worrying about it scrolling off your chat bar. There are also over a hundred different emotes to let you express mood, and you can even affix a mood to your character, like “angry”, so that everyone around you knows how you are feeling. NPC conversations were also nicely done. Instead of hunting for that key word that triggers the next sentence, you are given a choice of responses and the NPC will answer accordingly. It is the game play I am not sure of. There will be no levels or experience in SWG. Instead, like in Ultima Online, you will gain in skill by using your skills. There are three basic skill branches: social, combat and merchant. Each branch then has professions and each profession has a multitude of skills. You are not limited to a single skill branch or profession. You move up the trees by using and honing your skills. In addition, you have the ability to move skill points to forget one skill and build up another, in case you find you didn’t like the choices you had initially made. We were told there were literally hundreds of skills. It seems to me that it will take an extraordinary amount of time and effort to properly balance these skills to keep certain combinations from becoming too dominant, and they haven’t even started the beta, which is where balancing is done. Also, although they say they want to encourage grouping, it seems likely that in a system where you can build a multitude of skills, people will tend to solo more than group. It will be interesting to see whether these issues will be worked out by the final release. The demonstration did not go into great detail on combat in the game, but it was clearly mostly based upon ranged combat. This makes sense in the context of Star Wars. Still, I am not sure how enjoyable a purely ranged combat system will be. The problem with introducing guns into this sort of simulation is that, as Indiana Jones demonstrated, even the most skilled swordsman is dead meat when up against someone carrying a gun. It will be interesting to see how they handle that aspect. Camping should be limited because once you find a spot with a large concentration of Mobs and eliminate them, they will not respawn in the same spot, but will instead spawn somewhere else in the world. Of course, how good or bad this is depends upon how much running you will need to do to find another place to hunt. In addition, this is a trade skill oriented game. There will be very few item drops or quest rewards that can match the items that can be made by skilled player merchants. Frankly, while I like the idea of useful and powerful trade skill items, I don’t like that they will be the only high end items in the game. Why is it that game companies feel a game should either have great player made items or great dropped items, but not both? As I said, these are simply questions I have unanswered about the game. This still has the potential to be one of the best games out there. Beta starts in July, and there should be a large stress test prior to release that everyone can get into, so hopefully before anyone puts down their money and buys the game, we will know exactly what we are about to get. I know I’m hoping it can live up to the Star Wars name. Expect Star Wars to hit the shelves in November or December of this year. Everquest 2 At this point, the only thing we can evaluate about this game is the graphics. Next year’s E3 should probably show a full blown game. However, graphically, this game sure looks like a winner. As good as the graphics are in AC2 and SWG, these are even better. All of the bipedal creatures in the game, which includes the player races and human-like Mobs such as skeletons were created using motion capture technology. This gives them a realism of motion that is almost scary. In addition, the detail level throughout the dungeon we saw was amazing. You could zoom right up to the walls and still see the details. Graphically, EQ 2 really makes you feel like you are in an actual place and fighting actual creatures. The best part of what was shown were the character images. The level of customization in this game looks like it will exceed any game up to this point. There are so many combinations of look and facial features that it is conceivable that you will be able to recognize another player just by how they look. Emotes will also be quite entertaining. The faces of the player models were able to convey a range of emotions such as scowling, sneering, grinning and even stupidity. Plus, you can affix one of those looks to your character permanently, so for example you can go around the world with a permanent sneer on your face. However, it is gameplay that makes or breaks a game and in that respect it is simply too early to evaluate this game. I got the impression that the actual game has not really been hammered out yet, so we will just have to wait. Nevertheless, the detail work on the graphics at least lets us know that some serious work is getting put into this. It will be interesting to see where it is next year at this time. At the moment, EQ2 is scheduled to be released Christmas, 2003. Warcraft Online After seeing this game demonstrated, I think I am going to go out and purchase Warcraft 3 and play it. Basically, Warcraft Online is taking the Warcraft 3 game engine and adapting it to a massive multiplayer world. This game could easily be the sleeper hit of 2003. The graphics are very well done. Where games like EQ2 and AC2 have gone for more realism, Warcraft has gone for brighter colors and a more cartoonish look. This doesn’t make the graphics worse, just different. Because it is adopting a game engine from an already popular game that has been refined several times, the design and pace of combat and interaction is already very smooth, and the spells and other features are already fully developed. The gameplay is sort of a combination of Diablo and Everquest. It is a faster paced game than the current crop of MMORPG’s, and that should spread its appeal to players that don’t like the slower pace of Everquest or Dark Age of Camelot. This in turn could introduce a whole new set of players to this genre. This fast pace may also the biggest flaw in the game, as I have to wonder whether a game that is this fast paced and designed for relatively quick leveling can keep the interest of those players who tend to spend more hours playing the game than anything else they do in life. Still, if they can solve this and present a game that is fast paced and still takes time and effort to advance, this game will be a blast to play. Warcraft is currently scheduled for an early 2003 release. ---Good games you may want to consider--- Shadowbane If you are seriously into player versus player combat, then this is probably a must have game for you. There really is no other game in development that does quite what Shadowbane is planning on doing. However, you should be aware that this game is not a next generation game in respect to graphics or game interface. The graphics look old even by current standards, and the interface is very awkward and difficult to get used to. Still, if you can get over this, you will find an intriguing pvp game. One interesting side note about Shadowbane is that it will be available for the Mac, with both Mac and PC players playing in the same world. Shadowbane plans on having a 5 year story arc. The world is dynamic and the ultimate ending will depend entirely upon the action of the players. Players will have no choice but to band together in guilds. This is clearly going to be a game of constant player combat. Unlike Dark Age of Camelot, there are only limited areas where pvp combat is prohibited, and those are only for players below level 20. Therefore, solo players should really consider a different game. Once a guild gains in power, it can build its own walled city. This is really the heart of the game. You need to belong to a city and your actions will then be dictated by the needs of that city. Player cities can basically be as complex as any city in any game, with NPC guards, merchants, trainers, taverns, inns, etc. However, anything one player can build, another player can knock down. Thus, it is inherent that any guild that builds a city keep enough of a presence there to stop an invading force from coming in and razing it to the ground. Players will need to balance their gameplay between building up and protecting their city and the tree of life they put there and going out and destroying the cities and buildings of their enemies. Tools such as siege weapons will be very important in this game. I see Shadowbane as a must have game for the hard core pvp players. More casual players, players that prefer player versus environment, and players that insist on the most advanced graphical content will probably not like this game. Shadowbane should be released late summer or early fall of this year. Neverwinter Nights This is not a MMORPG, but since it will interest quite a few current MMORPG players, I thought I would mention it anyways. NWN is designed to play either single player (with 60 hours of game play built in) or online with a group of friends. There will be a system in place to link up with strangers and play together, but I personally don’t see it being very effective. The only way an open dungeon will work is if it forces players to create and store new characters on the server, since otherwise someone can just bring in a loaded character and blow everything away. Thus, the online aspect of this will be most effective if the players who play together are just a small group of friends getting together in for traditional D&D style play session. This will also likely be very popular in LAN rooms around the country. NWN may be the closest any computer game has come to recreating the true feel of Dungeons & Dragons. The game is based upon the AD&D rule set and is played with both players playing through the dungeon and a dungeon master who can control their experience and mold the dungeon to the group. It is the dungeon master that really sets this apart. While you are playing the game, the DM can warp the rules and environment to keep it challenging and interesting. It also comes with complete creation tools to let you create your own dungeon, monsters, items and just about everything else that goes into the playing experience. Everything is completely customizable. I suspect that there will be a huge market for swapping already created dungeons around the net. Game play is smooth and the graphics are excellent, if not quite up to par with the next generation of games such as AC2 and EQ2. The pace of play is also very fast. From what I could see, most dungeons will require a full compliment of classes to survive. Without, for example, a rogue to find traps and unlock chests, or a cleric to heal, or a magic user to cast over long distances, you will likely find certain areas inaccessible. The highest level you can achieve in the game is level 20. I am not sure how quickly you can advance, but it looks like that is also customizable, since DM can assign how many experience points a certain Mob gives out. This is going to make for a wide variety of experiences. Some dungeons may make you level up fast and furious while working your way to a mega encounter at the end. Others may be more for your to work your way through without much experience to find a specific article at the end. It completely depends upon the whim of the DM. What is certain is that players who play this game online a lot are likely to have to keep starting over again and again, letting them sample every possible class and combination over time. Nobody is going to buy this game to replace Everquest or Dark Age of Camelot. It is simply not that kind of a game. However, you may find yourself diverted to this for a couple of months or even longer. It will definitely be a fun diversion. Look for it sometime late this summer. Horizons I finally got a look at this long anticipated game. This is not a bad looking game, but it may be doomed by its release date. The graphics and game play of this are definitely first generation and by next summer when it is ready for release, the game will be forced to compete with the likes of Star Wars and AC2. Still, it has potential to sneak out its own share of the MMORPG market. The biggest feature this will offer that other games won’t is the opportunity for players to actually play a dragon. Players will also be able to construct their own housing and shops. Combat was well choreographed and interesting, and the interface seemed easy to use and understand. I would expect this to be a smaller and more personalized game than the bigger ones that make up its competition, which may work to make it more interesting to some people. ---Other games I looked at--- Dragon Empires After receiving a five minute explanation of this game, my one word reply to it was “Huh?”. If you are really into trade skills, this may well be something you want to take a look at. The entire game seems to revolve around creating a city, setting up a factory and then finding the items you need to produce your goods to then trade with other players. It is also a pvp game, which I found odd since most of the people I know who are into trade skills are definitely not into pvp. Still, its hard to judge a game based upon a five minute preview, and I hate to trash it without having really played it, so I can’t really say anything either way on this one. Ragnorak Online I only took a short look at this game as well. I personally don’t like the Japanese cartoon games, so I was inclined from the start to not like this. Thus, I don’t know if I can give an objective preview for those who actually like these games. Still, the graphics looked mediocre even for that type of game and the game play seemed kind of awkward. Still, if this is your type of game, then by all means go check it out. Everquest Online Adventures I didn’t have enough time in the Sony booth to give this more than a cursory look, since I wanted to concentrate on SWG, EQ2 and POP. Basically, I can’t see why anyone who has a PC capable of running the original Everquest or any of the upcoming MMORPG’s would bother getting this. This seems solely for those who are stuck with a PC2 and no computer and still want to play an online role playing game. ---The Expansions--- Everquest: Planes of Power This expansion is geared almost exclusively to levels 46 and higher. The only advantage for a player below level 46 is that you will be able to use the teleporters in the Plane of Knowledge that connect to all of the starting cities of the game. This is a nice feature, especially if you also have Luclin, but you will have to figure out if it is worth the price of the expansion. There may also be some lower level quests that start here. One interesting thing about POP is that there will be a version you can get that will include the entire game up to this point. Thus, if you don’t yet have Luclin or any other expansion, you may want to wait until this comes out so that you can get the whole set in one volume and save yourself some money. POP will introduce 18 new zones. All but 2 of them will be for level 46 and higher. Those two will be non-combat city zones. It will also introduce a new advancement feature. However, the exact nature of this is not clear. What seemed clear is that it will probably be something separate from the current level and skill advancement features. My guess is that whatever they add will be very time consuming and may even be open ended, since this is probably the last EQ expansion and they need to put something in that will keep people playing as long as possible. One of the stated purposes of Planes of Power is to allow players who are not in the uber guilds a chance to raid. They want players in POP to be able to form into random groups and still be able to survive. To do this, they created several new features. The first is that when you die in a zone, after 30 minutes or so your corpse gets teleported to a graveyard at the entrance to the zone where it is easier to recover and rez. This lets you die without worrying that you have to break the zone again just to recover your corpse. The second feature they created are specific raid rooms that are set up in duplicate and can limit the number of players who enter the room. Thus, a single high level encounter can be regulated so that only 6 or 12 characters can participate, and once they enter the room locks and nobody else can come in until they leave. The encounter would also be split so that three separate groups could be doing it at the same time. There will be a story line introduced in Planes of Power that will progress as you go through the zones. The zones are to be traversed in a certain order and a player will need to meet certain requirements in order to go to the next zone. However, once you meet those requirements, you will be able to go straight to that zone from there on. It also introduces more detailed graphics and more items and quests. Expect several new particle weapons with this expansion. POP will ship before Christmas. If you are level 46 or higher, it is definitely something you will want to buy. After all, who can really argue with new graphics, zones and items? Dark Age of Camelot: Shrouded Isles I wish I could give you more information on this, but Mythic is keeping it pretty tightly under wraps at the moment. We did get a chance to see it though, and the graphics are markedly improved over the current DAoC graphics. The graphics upgrade from 16 bits to 32 bits. Thus, you can expect more details, better effects, improved shadows and lighting effects, an improved frame rate and more variety with this expansion. For example, the water texture looks much more like real water in the expansion, and particle effects such as smoke and fire really leap out at you. The movement of the character models are smoother and more realistic, giving them more expression and mobility. Basically, this expansion brings DAoC’s graphics more in line with those of Everquest since the Luclin expansion. Those of you who recently bough Morrowind will have an idea abut how detailed the new DAoC graphics will look, since they are going to be using the same graphics engine. The expansion is probably worth buying for the graphics alone. The other features of the expansion are still unclear, but here are some things I do know. Each realm will get at least one new race and two new classes. I say at least because there is a possibility that one or another realm could get more than that. The details of what the races and classes will look like are not yet being released. There will also be a new city and surrounding zones for each realm, which should almost double the current mass of each zone. Plus, there will be as many as five new dungeons added to each realm. We were told that there would not be additional pvp zones added with this expansion, but that there would be features added to make pvp more compelling to the average player. Those features, however, were not revealed. Expect the expansion to be released by this Christmas. It should also include the original game with the expansion.