The highly anticipated MMORPG "Seed" has been released as of May 2nd. I participated in the beta for this game after canceling my World of Warcraft subscription. Now that the game is public, it is okay for me to post my opinions on the game that was finally going to give roleplayers what they wanted.
Apparently, what roleplayers want is to be able to repair things instead of killing them. Of course, that's when the game works at all.
Seed is without question the worst game I have ever played. Extreme Paintbrawl is better than this game. The client crashes once every 10 minutes, and by then you'll have taken about 4 steps because the lag is so bad the game is virtually unplayable. Of course, those 4 steps will only be possible if the SERVER actually stays up.
The game is played in a windowed mode, so you can't even go full screen on it. At least then your crashes would take place in higher resolution.
I can't put it much more simply than this: I have never played a game worse than this. And that's frustrating, because the IDEAS this game was about were awesome. Unfortunately none of them found their way into the release.
Now, to be fair, Runestone (the publisher) had a lot of pressure to release this game ahead of when they would have liked. Their investors were understandably anxious after 2 and a half years to see some return, and as a result what got pushed out the door was this crappy mess that will almost certainly kill the game before it can even get off the ground.
But who knows? Anarchy Online had a horribly buggy release and is still around and going strong. Judging from the buzz, however, Seed has got to be one of the worst releases of an MMO in recent memory.
So, the search for a replacement for WoW continues, although I'm starting to think that I'm barking up the wrong tree with MMOs in general.
Saturday, May 06, 2006
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Post Warcraft Curiosity Disorder
Now that my World of Warcraft account has officially expired, I find myself trolling around looking for news and thoughts about the game just to keep up with the buzz. As someone in the old guild used to say: "Talking about Wacraft is a lot more fun than actually playing it."
It would appear that in the next patch they are only adding yet another 40-man raid dungeon, exactly the kind of dull, repeatable content that resulted in my canceling in the first place.
When I mentioned this to a friend still playing, he sent me the following email which I now share with you (props go to Andy for this):
Their line of thinking probably goes something like the following:
Blizzard Developer 1: Hmmmm... What can we do to further challenge our players?
Blizzard Developer 2: How about a "WoW" historically significant instance that incorporates scripted encounters with a new, balanced layout as to not bog down players seeking the definitive "end" of an instance?
Blizzard Developer 1: That sounds great!!! How about we rewrite the mage and shaman classes to add balance to the gameplay?
Blizzard Developer 2: Yet another great idea!!!
Blizzard Developer 3: WAIT!!! By my calculations, that would only make 5,999,999 out of 6,000,000 of our valued customers happy. What about Dave Yeager?
Blizzard Developer 1: Crap. Can the project.
Consider me pwned.
It would appear that in the next patch they are only adding yet another 40-man raid dungeon, exactly the kind of dull, repeatable content that resulted in my canceling in the first place.
When I mentioned this to a friend still playing, he sent me the following email which I now share with you (props go to Andy for this):
Their line of thinking probably goes something like the following:
Blizzard Developer 1: Hmmmm... What can we do to further challenge our players?
Blizzard Developer 2: How about a "WoW" historically significant instance that incorporates scripted encounters with a new, balanced layout as to not bog down players seeking the definitive "end" of an instance?
Blizzard Developer 1: That sounds great!!! How about we rewrite the mage and shaman classes to add balance to the gameplay?
Blizzard Developer 2: Yet another great idea!!!
Blizzard Developer 3: WAIT!!! By my calculations, that would only make 5,999,999 out of 6,000,000 of our valued customers happy. What about Dave Yeager?
Blizzard Developer 1: Crap. Can the project.
Consider me pwned.
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
... and Goodbye Warcraft
At the beginning of this week, I ended an era of gameplaying nerdery.
I cancelled my World of Warcraft account.
Like any good thing, it wasn't going to last forever. I guess I'm most surprised by just how difficult the decision really turned out to be. I mean, it's a game right?
Well, the tricky, and perhaps nefarious, thing about a game like this is that you build relationships with real people. Real people that you sort of get to know and enjoy hanging out with. Had I not met some of the people that I spent time playing this game with, I almost certainly would have cancelled several months ago.
When I'm honest with myself, the game stopped being really fun almost a week after I hit the maximum level. At that point, there are two options available to you: engage in combat with other players (which I have zero interest in), or form up teams of 20-40 people and go kill the biggest and baddest of pixelated bosses the game has to offer. When you do that, you'll get some cool stuff. If you do it again, you'll get more cool stuff. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Frankly, to me that's boring. If I wanted to run on a treadmill, I'd buy a treadmill and actually lose weight instead of sitting there gaining it in front of my computer screen. And if you look at me lately, you'll know that getting on the treadmill is obviously not on the top of my list of priorities.
What a game like this needs to keep me entertained for years (and I'm sure every software company out there is waiting with baited breath for this declaration) is a real ongoing story where players actually have an impact. Warcraft is not designed that way. Why should it be? In the words of the developers themselves, it makes more business sense to design a raid dungeon that can be repeated ad nauseam forever and ever than it does to spend the same amount of time designing a one-time server event.
And guess what? It's a business model that is working well. Warcraft has over 6 million players at this point. That's an awful lot of money.
Warcraft does have a rich history, and the story does move along a little bit now and then. But at no point do you ever feel like anything you are doing actually has a real, tangible effect on the game universe. If you kill a big dragon, he'll be back in a couple of days.
For the loser like me though that cares more about a compelling story than the next piece of gear you can get, there does appear to be an interesting game on the horizon. The game is called Seed, and it has dynamically generated plots and stories... at least, that is the ambition. The game is currently in beta, and now that Win XP is booting on my Mac, I have been lucky enough to have an invitation extended to me as a beta tester. Whether the game delivers on its promises remains to be seen, but I'm hopeful.
And hey, if nothing else, Warcraft did allow me to make a couple of new friends in real life, including a new member of our weekly D&D game. So I guess, in the end, it was money well spent.
I cancelled my World of Warcraft account.
Like any good thing, it wasn't going to last forever. I guess I'm most surprised by just how difficult the decision really turned out to be. I mean, it's a game right?
Well, the tricky, and perhaps nefarious, thing about a game like this is that you build relationships with real people. Real people that you sort of get to know and enjoy hanging out with. Had I not met some of the people that I spent time playing this game with, I almost certainly would have cancelled several months ago.
When I'm honest with myself, the game stopped being really fun almost a week after I hit the maximum level. At that point, there are two options available to you: engage in combat with other players (which I have zero interest in), or form up teams of 20-40 people and go kill the biggest and baddest of pixelated bosses the game has to offer. When you do that, you'll get some cool stuff. If you do it again, you'll get more cool stuff. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Frankly, to me that's boring. If I wanted to run on a treadmill, I'd buy a treadmill and actually lose weight instead of sitting there gaining it in front of my computer screen. And if you look at me lately, you'll know that getting on the treadmill is obviously not on the top of my list of priorities.
What a game like this needs to keep me entertained for years (and I'm sure every software company out there is waiting with baited breath for this declaration) is a real ongoing story where players actually have an impact. Warcraft is not designed that way. Why should it be? In the words of the developers themselves, it makes more business sense to design a raid dungeon that can be repeated ad nauseam forever and ever than it does to spend the same amount of time designing a one-time server event.
And guess what? It's a business model that is working well. Warcraft has over 6 million players at this point. That's an awful lot of money.
Warcraft does have a rich history, and the story does move along a little bit now and then. But at no point do you ever feel like anything you are doing actually has a real, tangible effect on the game universe. If you kill a big dragon, he'll be back in a couple of days.
For the loser like me though that cares more about a compelling story than the next piece of gear you can get, there does appear to be an interesting game on the horizon. The game is called Seed, and it has dynamically generated plots and stories... at least, that is the ambition. The game is currently in beta, and now that Win XP is booting on my Mac, I have been lucky enough to have an invitation extended to me as a beta tester. Whether the game delivers on its promises remains to be seen, but I'm hopeful.
And hey, if nothing else, Warcraft did allow me to make a couple of new friends in real life, including a new member of our weekly D&D game. So I guess, in the end, it was money well spent.
Friday, April 07, 2006
Greetings from XP on a Mac
In case you've been living under a rock (or you just have a life that doesn't revolve around tech), Apple released a public beta of Boot Camp, a nifty little app that makes a partition for you to install Windows XP on your Intel Mac. Once installed, you can boot in either OS just by holding down the Option key on startup.
It was remarkably easy to do. There's a step in the process where you burn a CD with drivers for your Mac, and I can report that XP runs like a dream on it. I fired up Civ IV on it tonight and it runs great.
The whole experience has led me to a couple of conclusions:
1) Now that you can load XP on a Mac this easily (and the next version of Mac OS X will include this capability), there is officially NO REASON not to make your next computer purchase a Mac.
2) Windows XP has got to be one of the worst operating systems ever. I don't think I ever realized just how bad it was until I got used to Mac OS X over the past several weeks.
3) Despite it's stinkiness, it's still a great platform for games right now because of the sheer volume of titles available. The ability to boot up in XP solely for gaming purposes is great because I'm no longer limited in what I can play, but as I said it makes you realize even more just how much better OS X really is.
4) This is going to spell big trouble for Microsoft. Windows isn't going to go away, not by a longshot... but one of the major reasons Windows is so dominant is that it just comes standard with most computers you buy. Now that you can run it on a shiny, nifty Mac, more people will be willing to buy one and therefore will get OS X by default. And the more people that get OS X by default, the worse off Microsoft will be because Windows is decades behind OS X.
Thus concludes the only post I will ever write using Internet Explorer in XP on my Intel Mac. Now I'm going to play Civ IV.
It was remarkably easy to do. There's a step in the process where you burn a CD with drivers for your Mac, and I can report that XP runs like a dream on it. I fired up Civ IV on it tonight and it runs great.
The whole experience has led me to a couple of conclusions:
1) Now that you can load XP on a Mac this easily (and the next version of Mac OS X will include this capability), there is officially NO REASON not to make your next computer purchase a Mac.
2) Windows XP has got to be one of the worst operating systems ever. I don't think I ever realized just how bad it was until I got used to Mac OS X over the past several weeks.
3) Despite it's stinkiness, it's still a great platform for games right now because of the sheer volume of titles available. The ability to boot up in XP solely for gaming purposes is great because I'm no longer limited in what I can play, but as I said it makes you realize even more just how much better OS X really is.
4) This is going to spell big trouble for Microsoft. Windows isn't going to go away, not by a longshot... but one of the major reasons Windows is so dominant is that it just comes standard with most computers you buy. Now that you can run it on a shiny, nifty Mac, more people will be willing to buy one and therefore will get OS X by default. And the more people that get OS X by default, the worse off Microsoft will be because Windows is decades behind OS X.
Thus concludes the only post I will ever write using Internet Explorer in XP on my Intel Mac. Now I'm going to play Civ IV.
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Opening Day
Is it bad that after only 3.5 innings of real, live baseball in 2006, I was already hoping for a rainout?
Alright, so perhaps that's a BIT of an exaggeration, but after Scott Rolen knocked a grand slam out of the park to put the Cardinals up 10-0 on the Phillies in the home opener yesterday, I started to wonder if maybe it wouldn't be better to hope for a rainout before the end of the fifth so they'd have to play the game over again today. It was not to be, and the Cardinals won 13-5.
On the plus side though, it was baseball, and it counted, and it felt good. I consumed meats off the grill, drank beers in the parking lot, and watched the game with 44,000+ other fans. Despite the rain and the chill, it was still a good time.
Of course, leave it to the Phillies to destroy the moment by getting crushed so early. I mean seriously, it took them less than an hour to ruin what would otherwise have been the perfect day. In that sense, Opening Day '06 was sort of a microcosm of what the Phillies have been like the last few years: lots of talent, but no sense of the moment. When the chips are down and you absolutely, positively, NEED to have a win, the Phillies are guaranteed to lose.
But hey, Jimmy Rollins DID extend to his hitting streak to 37 games in the bottom of the 8th, and the place went nuts. There's always SOME reason to stick around until the bitter end.
Alright, so perhaps that's a BIT of an exaggeration, but after Scott Rolen knocked a grand slam out of the park to put the Cardinals up 10-0 on the Phillies in the home opener yesterday, I started to wonder if maybe it wouldn't be better to hope for a rainout before the end of the fifth so they'd have to play the game over again today. It was not to be, and the Cardinals won 13-5.
On the plus side though, it was baseball, and it counted, and it felt good. I consumed meats off the grill, drank beers in the parking lot, and watched the game with 44,000+ other fans. Despite the rain and the chill, it was still a good time.
Of course, leave it to the Phillies to destroy the moment by getting crushed so early. I mean seriously, it took them less than an hour to ruin what would otherwise have been the perfect day. In that sense, Opening Day '06 was sort of a microcosm of what the Phillies have been like the last few years: lots of talent, but no sense of the moment. When the chips are down and you absolutely, positively, NEED to have a win, the Phillies are guaranteed to lose.
But hey, Jimmy Rollins DID extend to his hitting streak to 37 games in the bottom of the 8th, and the place went nuts. There's always SOME reason to stick around until the bitter end.
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Old Man in a Young Man's Body
With the spring and summer fast approaching, I'm looking forward to the activities that filled my warm weather months last year.
While most folks in their mid-twenties look forward to going to the shore, I look forward to going to the track and betting the ponies. I look forward to the return of baseball season and minor league ball in Wilmington. And most of all I look forward to relaxing on weekend afternoons in the shade with a cool drink.
Tonight I went to the Talleyville Fire Department for "Monte Carlo" night. This is an event held by the Ladies' Auxiliary of the TFD every other month to raise money. The average attending age for this event is probably over 40. For $5 you get in the door, get all the beer you can drink, all the sausage and meatballs you can eat (or until the ladies run out), and you can play table games like blackjack for a buck a hand.
I had a blast.
I invited some friends from up in Philly to come out. I'm not entirely sure they enjoyed themselves. There were some mitigating factors: there was another party they were going to after the stop in Wilmington, one of them wasn't feeling well, etc... but on the whole I don't think they enjoyed it nearly as much as I did.
Am I really a 40 year old trapped in a 27 year old's body at this point?
I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. I've always looked forward to getting older, because there is so much less social pressure on you with each passing year. I like "old man" activities, like betting the ponies and playing dominos. I like not having to drive more than 20 minutes to get a bite to eat, have a beer, go shopping, or pretty much do anything. I like going to bed before the bars close, and getting up before noon.
Am I really that out of touch?
Eh... probably. *shrug*
While most folks in their mid-twenties look forward to going to the shore, I look forward to going to the track and betting the ponies. I look forward to the return of baseball season and minor league ball in Wilmington. And most of all I look forward to relaxing on weekend afternoons in the shade with a cool drink.
Tonight I went to the Talleyville Fire Department for "Monte Carlo" night. This is an event held by the Ladies' Auxiliary of the TFD every other month to raise money. The average attending age for this event is probably over 40. For $5 you get in the door, get all the beer you can drink, all the sausage and meatballs you can eat (or until the ladies run out), and you can play table games like blackjack for a buck a hand.
I had a blast.
I invited some friends from up in Philly to come out. I'm not entirely sure they enjoyed themselves. There were some mitigating factors: there was another party they were going to after the stop in Wilmington, one of them wasn't feeling well, etc... but on the whole I don't think they enjoyed it nearly as much as I did.
Am I really a 40 year old trapped in a 27 year old's body at this point?
I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. I've always looked forward to getting older, because there is so much less social pressure on you with each passing year. I like "old man" activities, like betting the ponies and playing dominos. I like not having to drive more than 20 minutes to get a bite to eat, have a beer, go shopping, or pretty much do anything. I like going to bed before the bars close, and getting up before noon.
Am I really that out of touch?
Eh... probably. *shrug*
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
A New Daunte, A New Prank
The lovable Daunte Culpepper is taking his small, carny hands and his fumbling ways to Miami.Since I was out of the office yesterday, a fellow developer took it upon himself to update an old prank.
The following pic can be seen all over my working area:
And, of course, my speed dial has been updated to accomodate the trade (available on the left, click to enlarge).
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