Archive for the ‘Guest Writers’ Category

[Note: This review was done by R.W. Harper from Lorewriter.com and is reprinted here at his request. The review is copyright by the author and remains his property] 

Alganon:  The Review by R.W. Harper
Game Title: Alganon
Developer: Quest Online, LLC
Publisher: Self Published
Website:  http://www.alganon.com
Retail Price:  $39.99 (including a 1-month subscription) — Limited time offer currently for 50% off and $19.95
Subscription Price: $14.99 per month — Limited time offer currently for 30% off and $9.95 per month

It’s not hard to wander around the online gaming world and find a new MMORPG set in a fantasy theme.  It seems like there is a new one every month and most on the Free2Play model.  However, in early December, a new MMORPG named Alganon launched and unlike the majority of the other recent fantasy MMORPGs to come online, this one does have a subscription model.

I was a little surprised when I bumped into the online Beta for the game in late November and instantly signed up.  I spent several hours on their web site, reading about the features of the game, asking myself what would be interesting enough for me to pay for another monthly subscription, and give me something that World of Warcraft doesn’t already provide.  After playing the game for about an hour, the “warm and fuzzy” came about and I pre-ordered and subscribed.

Now, the game hasn’t had a perfect launch.  In fact, there are a lot of rough edges still.  However, I have witnessed something that I haven’t seen in a lot of other large MMORPG games; the development team working hard to communicate and take care of their players on a daily basis.   The game has already seen at least 2 major patches, as well as several server-side hot-fixes and the game play experience is already shaping up for the better.

Looking at the premise of the game, at first glance it would seem fairly ordinary and typical fare of the fantasy MMORPG genre.  In some cases, this is true.  However, there are several unique things about this game that has gathered my interests; as well as the interest of many other players who are starting to call Alganon their new online home.

Let’s take a look under the hood…

The Setting

The lore of a game is something that is close to my heart as a gamer and as a game developer.  This game has a rich lore that seems perfect for expansion and evolution, as the game matures and expands.  There’s a rich world history complete with backstory on the races, the Deities of Alganon and discussions on the history prior to the game’s setting all available on the Alganon web site. 

The world that the game takes place in is known as Alganon and the two races that you can choose to play as are the Humans (from the Asharr faction) and the Talrok (from the Kujix faction).  From these two factions, players are able to create characters within 4 classes:  Healer, Magus, Ranger, and Soldier.  A deeper overview of these two factional races and classes can be found on the Alganon web site.

One thing that has to be understood from the start, when beginning your adventure in Alganon, is that this is an evolving world.  Every good persistent world game evolves and grows over time and it seems that the designers of Alganon have that in mind starting out a solid content set. There is already a world event already underway that will open new areas and quests through player contribution and game-play.  This event is known as The Dawning and there is a great overview on the Alganon web site that discusses the event and its purpose.  I can say that as a player, participating in the event in-game, its associated story line and event specific quest lines have a drawing power that pulls me along in anticipation of seeing where the story leads.  It’s quite immersive.

The Visuals

The environments in the game are very nice to look at.  While any MMORPG game will have to skimp a little on texture quality in the environments for performance reasons, the developers did a great job by providing visually pleasing color palettes and crisp materials and textures to add to the immersion and in-game experience.  There are plenty of other small environmental details like animated grass and trees, ambient animations of wildlife as well as idle and spice animations of creatures.  It all adds to the visual immersion that I would expect in a RPG.

However, the player characters and NPCs are a little plain.  I would have hoped for a little more detail in creating my avatar and the selection and color palettes associated with this part of the game are sparse and somewhat a disappointment.  Here’s hoping that there will be enough itemization in the armor and weapons to aid in making this part of the game more pleasing to the eye.

Animations in general are quite good.  The animation blending seems smooth and there is only the occasional place that you see hitches in the transitions while in combat.  Overall, the blending is quite smooth and the animations add to the immersiveness of the situation.

The creatures are very well done.  The art style, models and animations are unique and convincing; the AI states are pretty solid, as are all of the associated behaviors, and this adds to enjoyment of the whole combat experience.

The Audio

Overall, the audio in the game is good.  The music soundtrack is very good.

There are many places in the game where the environmental audio needs some tweaking.  Ambient background sounds seem to be overused and they could probably use a normalization pass to adjust the volumes.

While I am a fan of the level up notification and the quest complete notification – they can get just downright annoying at times.  I would hope to see an option to disable this in the future.

The music is enjoyable, immersive and I keep it turned on which is something I can’t say for all of the other MMORPG’s that I play.

The Features

There’s a ton of interesting features in this game.  Some are already familiar, from other similar games, but re-tooled or implemented differently.  This very fact has caused a lot of discussions in the community, mostly on the negative side, but I will say that there’s nothing wrong with the ways that they have integrated these systems into Alganon.  In fact, I think the developers pay tribute to solid game design philosophy from other similar games and show that they can integrate and expand the core concepts into something better and scalable as their game world grows.

In-game, there’s your typical leveling mechanic where you reach a threshold of XP (Experience Points) and achieve a new level.  At each new level, you can visit your class’s trainer and pay to learn new “Actions”.  In addition to class specific action training, you can also choose “Abilities” to specialize in, within 3 distinct class specific paths to enhance your core abilities.  You achieve 1-point to spend each level in an ability tree.

As your character carries out combat there is also another character statistic working in the background.  This is the “Skill” mechanic.  Various weapons and combat states (such as Defense) increase in a skill value as you use them.  Increasing this stats makes use of in-game actions and items that use this skill more effective.

The last of the 4-core character progression features to talk about is the “Studies” mechanic.  This is an ability that will allow you to choose specific areas of study (from a multitude of subjects) that you can queue and level even when you’re not logged in.  If you’ve ever played Eve-Online, you are already somewhat familiar with this time-based training mechanics.  However, this is the first fantasy MMO to use this system that I know of and it’s a great way to progress your character when you’re unable to login and play.  This particular implementation of the time-based mechanic does a little more than just enhance skills, it will also unlock content to they user.

Crafting in the game is pretty interesting as well.  While in most MMORPG games, crafting is either really handy or its usually not that useful at all.  In Alganon, it’s one of those designs that I consider unique to the title.  You have your typical crafting and gathering professions.  However, each gathering profession can refine the items they gather to make it marketable to crafters to use in their recipes.  You also have your general trade crafting professions of: Tailoring, Blacksmithing, Leatherworking and Alchemy.  Tailors, Blacksmiths and Leatherworking make what you would normally expect them to but there’s a slight enhancement.  I will use the Leatherworker as an example.

In leatherworking you can make leather armor, arrows, staves, bows, reagents for leatherworking as well as enhancements for your character.  The difference is that you can also make light armor (for casters), medium armor (for Rangers) and heavy armor (for Soldiers).  Each of the armor crafting professions can do this, all with slight variations of the stats for that item being created.  Tailors tend to create the DPS (damage) armor sets, while Leatherworkers create balanced sets and Blacksmiths create defensive armor sets.  It’s a pretty neat system that’s explained in greater detail that I can do in this review on the Alganon web site.

The Community

Quest Online and the Alganon development team have gone another step above and beyond by creating a very rich web-based community, social networking features and an online/in-game research library.  The MyAlganon.com web site links directly to your in-game characters profiles, guilds and friends and carries forth an impressive step further by wrapping a full blown social networking experience around it, complete with Blogs, Groups, Picture Archive, Forums, and the Alganon Library.

The Alganon Library is a repository for all of the information that the Alganon player will need. You can find information on the various factions, creatures, items, skills, quests, studies and abilities here — and a whole lot more.  This information is also accessible in-game through a built-in dialog that will allow you to call-up and research in the middle of the wilds if you wish.

One interesting thing that is also introduced in this game is the “Family”.  When you create your character, you’re given a choice of selecting a family to associate with.  There are 5 families you can select to be a member of and each family will have their own specific chat channel in-game and unique vendors in the capital city to purchase items from.

As in all MMORPGs, there are guilds.  Players can create their own in-game guild and will have access to their own in-game chat channels as well as guild specific content on the MyAlganon.com community.  They will have access to a guild bank in-game and will also be able to achieve in-game accomplishments that will be recorded in Great Library’s history books.

There is a whole lot more to be discussed about the community features of the game and I cannot even aspire to give it all of the justice it probably deserves here.

Summation

Overall, I am pleased with this game and feel that it’s worth my support.  I have had a great time playing with the community in-place now and find it refreshing to play in a relaxed atmosphere with other players that I can actually chat with, as well as the occasional GM that chats with me to see how I am liking things so far.

For all intent and purposes, Alganon is a PvE (Player vs. Environment) game at this time.  That is not to say that there may be aspirations to add PvP (Player vs. Player).  There is a clear delineation of the factions and this alludes to the availability of factional conflict in the future.

Sure, the game has some issues still but I have already seen the dedication and passion, of the development team, to get it fixed and keep their players happy.  This level of dedication by the staff of Quest Online and the Alganon team is most appreciated.  Visit their web site for more information about the game and sign up for a free trial while you’re there.

[note: This review was reprinted at the request of R.W. Harper. It remains his property and is copyright by the author]

Fallen Earth:  The Review by R.W. Harper
Game Title: Fallen Earth
Developer: Icarus Studios, LLC
Publisher: Self Published
Website: http://www.fallenearth.com
Retail Price: $49.99 (including a 1-month subscription) – Note:  There is currently a special running where you can get the game for $29.99 as well as some other discount.  Check their site for details.
Subscription Price: $14.99 per month

In a time where you can’t swing a dead varmint without hitting a fantasy based MMORPG, Icarus Studios released Fallen Earth a few months ago to a gaming community looking for something new and different. I had the pleasure of playing it post release and pre-release in Beta.  It’s a new and refreshing take on MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) gaming and it holds up quite well as an RPG (Role Playing Game) type game – if not also crossing the boundaries into FPS (First Person Shooter) and social gaming.

I took a good bit of time to play the game before writing a review, since I had some doubts early on as to how I really felt about this title and wanted to give it a fair shakedown.  I think after about three months of playing I can confidently say that I like the game a lot.  The game experience is quite immersive and there is nothing about the game play that I find trivial.

Let’s break it down…

The Setting

The Southwest United States is not exactly the most happening place on the planet currently but it’s a bustling paradise compared to other places in the post-Apocolyptic setting that Fallen Earth drops the player into.  Essentially, the world (at least as we know thus far in the lore) is in shambles following a deadly virus outbreak that wipes out most of Humanity.  The environment is full of mutated folks and fauna that are just plain mean, nasty and out to make your time in their territory less-than-pleasurable.  I don’t want to regurgitate the lore, as I doubt that I will do it much justice, but there is a bountiful overview of this great storyline on their official web site.

The Visuals

There’s not much you can do about making the American Southwest more visually appealing that what’s done by the development team at Icarus Studios in Fallen Earth.  It’s just a hard place to make look cheery with inspirational color palettes.

There has been a good deal of discussion that the graphics are just plain and uninspiring but then again, what would you expect in post apocalyptic Arizona?  When taking a look at the clothing, vehicles, armaments, towns – it all fits in with the story and lore and I think the folks at Icarus did well to make their environment immersive through the visuals.

However, there are a few things that are annoying to me at the moment.  Characters essentially all look the same.  Body structure and shape is pretty much static and everyone has a strong mongoloid, middle linebacker profile (especially the males).  There are most likely technical reasons for this (texture mapping for armor, attachment placements for animations, etc…).  For some player like me, this is not that big of a deal since I think the game compensates quite well with more tattoos and piercings choices than you would find at a Marilyn Manson concert.

Animations, on the other hand, are the things that get to me sometimes.  Now, before I go into a negative mode here, let me prop up the developers a little.  I don’t hate the animation system – I just think there are some things that are annoying.  This game has a hybrid play style that is admirable.  Melding a first person shooter camera with the additional usage of a third person camera system makes for a long day in the animation department.  Those two view perspective brings with it, a truckload of work, both artistic as well as technical.  However, some of the animations are a little sloppy and blending is sometimes choppy and truncated.   Some animations are just too long and some just require some tweaking.

But, and I say BUT; let it be known that I have the utmost confidence that this system will be improved upon and these things will be addressed – or I will just become acclimated and it will not be annoying to me any more.   There are plenty more things in the game that make this observation trivial when compared to gaming goodness that abounds within this title.

The environments look like what I would expect a wasteland to look like and the creature models are very nicely done.  There’s a nice mix of recognizable flora and fauna along with some that looks like I would imagine mutated creatures would look like.

The Audio

One of the keys to creating an immersive experience in any game is creating an environmental soundscape that capture your attention, or set you at ease, to where you recognize sounds on a subliminal level.  Between the soundtrack (which is original and quite good) and the environmental audio, immersiveness is a guarantee if you’re playing with your sound on.  The areas where the sounds are lacking, or not very appealing, are few and far between.

The Features

If you ask anyone that’s currently playing what their favorite feature of Fallen Earth is, 9 times out of 10 they will tell you about the crafting system.  You create (and this quote varies from person to person) about 95% of everything you will use in-game.  You salvage and scavenge for materials and components to do your own cooking, armor creation, ammo and firearm creation, and just about anything else you would use in game – including mounts.  However, this is strictly optional, as you have ample opportunity to purchase or barter with other players’ in-game for the things you need.  Crafting is not for everyone but for those that enjoy it – you will truly enjoy this system found in this game.

There are no classes or archetypes in the game.  You can’t sign up to be a Mage, Ranger or Warrior.  However, you can act like one by learning skills that are open to everyone else in the game.  You can hybridize your skill sets to your heart delight – or you can specialize in anything from Mutatations to Rifles or Melee.  The sky is the limit in defining  you character and just as if it was really you out in the wild of post apocalyptic Arizona – you need to have some sort of way to fend off those mean-ass Prairie Chickens that have just identified you as the “other white meat.”

You earn AP (Advancement Points) as you fight and earn levels. The player earns 20 AP per level that can be used to train in four different areas: Attributes, Active Skills, Mutations, and Tradeskills.  This is explained in great detail on the Fallen Earth web site.  I won’t even attempt it in this review.

There are 6 factions in the game that you have a choice of joining.  Each faction has two allied factions, one arch-enemy faction, and two enemy factions.  However, you don’t have to join a faction.  Being in a faction has benefits and I would refer you to the Fallen Earth web site where they explain it so much better than I ever could.

Combat in the game is a hybrid mix of your familiar FPS and RPG modes.  You can carry out combat in either the first person, or third person, camera perspective. I find myself switching between both a lot, since I like playing in both modes.  Even though the camera views may be different, the combat mechanics still work the same.  There is no target selection (read that:  no click, select and press button to make die).  As the player, you have to use your aiming reticule (which is different between melee and ranged combat) to put your axe or bullets into some poor critters or bandit (or other player’s) face.  The challenge is staying on target as your mark is moving around trying to place his/her weapon in your face at the same time.  It’s all good times.

Again, I refer you to the Fallen Earth web site for detailed information on this great combat mode as well as more features that are contained within this game.

The Community

It’s uncommon to join an online community (an in-game community) these days and not feel annoyed within the first few minutes.  General Chat is usually the bane of any MMO with its usual compliment of clowns and gold spammers.  However, one of the first things that you will notice in Fallen Earth is that these people are pretty decent and somewhat enjoyable to be around.  You can’t go too long in-game without seeing a real GM (Game Manager) or CM (Community Manager) in the chat channels helping out, offering advice, and being friendly and helpful.

There is a Clan system that will allow players to assemble into an in-game organization complete with their own chat channels and Clan Vaults (to share loot and crafting materials).  This system is fairly typical of other MMORPGs.

The Fallen Earth web site has great community forums that are moderated and quite useful.  If you’ve been intimidated by visiting forums from other MMORPG game communities – don’t fret too much on the Fallen Earth forums.  It’s well moderated and quite tame compared to those other sites.  You will find that people are quite friendly and helpful for the most part, and your errant asshat will find a hard row to hoe, should they go to kicking up a fuss.  The GMs monitor the game and community quite effectively.

Summation

Fallen Earth is a solid game.  It has so many good things going for it that the few annoyances I mentioned above are trivial and not major at all.  Yes, there are bugs but the development team is quick to address them when they are discovered and even happy to offer assistance with work-arounds whenever possible or when they are required.

Those reviewers that have panned the game based on graphics and combat mechanics all had valid observations but it’s my feeling that they didn’t give it enough time to find the true rewarding qualities that this game holds.  This is a game that you have to play a while to figure out if it’s really the game for you.  It is not a game for everyone and the learning curve is steep.  However, it suits me, and I find that my casual play style is right at home in this game.

It’s refreshing to find a new idea or two in a game when so many MMORPGs share design philosophy and can be compared almost directly to one another.  With Fallen Earth, their design philosophy is something unique with some minor similarities to the other MMOs — but with just enough commonality to be familiar and enjoyable.

If there’s one final prop I can give this game, it’s going to be for the writing.  The script and dialogs in this game are just great.  The dialog, especially, is well done and entertaining.   The writing style sets the mood for the game in whole.  The designers and writers at Icarus deserve a well earned atta-boy for this effort.

[note: The following article was reprinted at the request of R.W. Harper from Lorewriter.com. It remains his property and is copyright by the author]

by R.W. Harper

I took some time to revisit World of Warcraft over the holiday break and was pretty impressed with the v3.3 patch which introduced the Dungeon Finder (as well as some other stuff that didn’t seem to register in my observatory).  I will say that this new Dungeon Finder has added some much needed life to an area of the game that I had always thought could have been done better — the Looking for Group (LFG) system.  The basic mechanic of the new system is brilliant but there are still some of the old problems, mostly social ones, that are associated with any random grouping of players.  You do have an increased chance to encounter those players infected with an annoying bug known as:  Retardus asshaticus.

Upon encountering  the R. asshaticus infected, there are certain precautions that you should take.  The first thing to keep in mind is that not every player you encounter in-game is infected with this ailment but everyone is susceptible and potential carriers.   For those that are infected, there are several ways this virus manifests itself.   To assist in identification, I will share three common categories:

The Twink:  These are the people that have a low level character (the minimum for the random dungeon finder is 15) and have them all decked out in better than normal gear (twinked) — usually providing them with Heirloom gear that their bored level 80’s cashed in badged to buy for them.  These are the people that play the same way you do, in your mix of white and green gear, and ridicule you because you don’t do enough damage or are able to hold aggro (if a tank) due to their skewed DPS or HPS aggro inviting stats.

The Sociopath: These are the players whose behavior is antisocial and lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.  Read that:  The 12-year olds that think it’s cool to cuss and swear and call people cool names such as Fu*k Tard, Dumb Sh*t, Failsauce, and so on.  Actually, even though most of them sound like 12-year olds, many are actually middle aged men (and women) who are compelled to take out their frustrations, in total anonymity, upon other players.   Sometimes they are satisfied in some way when carrying out this behavior — many times, they are not and will increase the intensity of this banter to achieve reactions from their prey to achieve their satisfaction.

The Elitist: These individuals may not always be infected with the R. asshaticus bug but can demonstrate similar symptoms.  People who confuse normal modes of communication and etiquette with abridged modes of speech that relate data instead of meanings.  Gear Score, DPS, and Arena Rating are the common forms of speech mechanics employed by these individuals and the understanding that all games are meant to be progressed and not mean to be fun.   When those few that do achieve a reputable standing with these types, only then can it be determined if there is an actual infection of R. asshaticus.  Those that are considered elitists and do demonstrate ill-behavior, as well as a tendency to identify  ”lesser” players (due to known and unknown rating requirements), are strong candidates to be considered as infected.

There are other similar ways this virus can manifest itself in a player but it’s safe to say that one of the previous three classifications can be used to categorize them in most cases.  Research into this disorder is on-going and new data is constantly being reviewed for validity.

What should a player do when they encounter one of the infected?

The first, and most important thing, that you should do is not encourage them.  Yes, they are annoying and they will drive you to agitation that could result in an outburst.  However, you should refrain.  If you do agitate, quarrel and eventually lash-out verbally — then you, yourself, have become infected.  Sadly, this is the most effective mode of infection that R. asshaticus uses to perpetuate the species.  It’s highly contagious and should be avoided at all cost.

Avoidance methods that I recommend: 

1. Use the /ignore command.  This keeps them quiet and they can no longer taint your chat window with their spewage and garbage talk.
2. Never feel like you have to endure being among them.  If there are decent people on your group, talk to them in private and see about booting the offenders out of your group.  If one of the infected is actually the group leader, you would be best served adding them to your /ignore list and dropping group.  Catch up with a new group without this offender as part of it.
3. Just exercises patience.  Don’t feel sorry for the infected, as pitiful as they may be.  They are incurable for the most part.  However, if you wish to try and advise them in proper etiquette — do this with tact even if you have receive none in return.  However, don’t get your hopes up — not everyone can be cured and short of full blown exorcism — not much can be done to remove the demonic taint of this viral disease.

As a player, take caution when playing in the presence of the infected.  You may feel pity for them but understand that there’s usually not much you can do about co-existing with them.  Take precautions when dealing with them and do not become one of the infected.  Over time, some of the infected are cured of these ailments — most of the time they are not.  That’s the nature of online gaming.