“Los Angeles, CA (August 23, 2010) — Atari, one of the world’s most recognized videogame publishers and Cryptic Studios, the acclaimed developers behind City of heroes, City of Villains, Champions Online and Star Trek Online, announced today the development of Neverwinter for PC. Neverwinter is a new online roleplaying game based on Wizards of the Coast’s global property Dungeons & Dragons and the beloved city of Neverwinter.”

Welcome to the rest area – as in give it a rest.

The announcement above is less than 24 hours old and already those who consider themselves the resident Nostradamus’ of the mmo and sole judges of all that is, was, or should be in the world of game development have begun to crawl out of the woodwork, out from under rocks, or slinking out of the sewers.   It is easy to sit back from the standpoint of someone who doesn’t have a brass farthing invested in Cryptic and say “Cryptic simply does not have the ability to make good games”,  or regale us all with the knowledge that Jack Emmert has discovered the “joys of scope”  (thank God he has finally discovered what the rest of us have known all along!). Most amazing of all is that Cryptic, the company that apparently “doesn’t have the ability to make good games” has been nominated for a 2010 Game Developer’s Choice Online Award forthe  Best Online Game Design Award for their game Champions Online. It appears that at least someone at Cryptic must know how to make games.

Chutzpa, Hubris, Pretentious

It’s easy to develop a pretentious attitude.  The danger of succeeding at anything is that it can rapidly become hubris.  Sometimes, as we heard in the case of Total Biscuit from WoW Radio on show 41 , it’s just their shtick.  It is understandable when someone takes a stand and defends a viewpoint… I do that myself.  While this makes for some very absorbing conversations, it can also place you in the position of having to apologize on the air to people like Bill Roper  and Dr. Richard Bartle.  Perhaps the most dangerous positions are held by those individuals who fail to remember the adage “Be nice to the people you meet on the way up, you will meet the same people on the way back down” – having to apologize could end up being the least of their worries.

I haven’t even made it yet

No matter where you are in the mmo community, be it consumer or author, there is a tendency to begin to consider oneself the Oracle at Delphi, sure of the eventual outcome of any given situation.  My grandmother used to tell her version of Goldilocks and the Three bears, that ended with the famous blonde being told by mama bear, still in the process of making the soup, “bitch, bitch, bitch…I haven’t even made it yet”.  While some corners of the mmo community discover the joys of pretentious, I will try and remember hard earned lessons and simply regale in the fact that ANYONE is making Neverwinter nights.

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

[posted for Julie Whitefeather by The Webmaster]

RETRACTION for Age of Conan

This is the first time we have ever found ourselves in the position of having to post a retraction.  We are aware that the overzealous attitude we expressed on  No Prisoners, No Mercy Show 55  and our recent article entitled The Reports are exaggerated  may be a bit catching. If you got caught up in our excitement and  had a great time we will say “Bravo, good for you.” If, however, you had a bad time like we did, we apologize.  When we returned to Age of Conan this weekend we found the same problem that has plagued the game since day one, over two years ago – low frame rates per second (FPS) Even on our computer which exceeds recommended system specifications our frame rate per second never exceeded 20 fps, and usually hovered around 10 to 14 fps, sometimes dipping as low as 3 fps.  If anyone had as bad a time as we did, we apologize. We have, in fact, posted about it . While the letter in the post is not the one we sent to Funcom, we did send a letter to our contact at the company.

 Quite frankly we are a bit hurt by the whole thing.

The No Prisoners, No Mercy Team

Did you guess which developer is not like the others?
Did you guess which thing just doesn’t belong?
If you guessed Activision is not like the others,
Then you’re absolutely…right!

One of these developers is not like the others,
One of these developers just doesn’t belong,
Can you tell which developer is not like the others
By the time I finish my song?

Activision, Cryptic Studios, or Funcom – which one of these game developers/publishers is not like the others? Can you guess the right one? You did? I knew you could.But maybe not for the same reasons I am thinking.

I am sure that there are those past employees of Infinity Ward that would relate to an old Smith Barney advertisement and claim “Activision makes money the old fashioned way…they steal it (by not paying royalties due – natch).”  Time and the court systems will eventually tell who is right, Activision, or the former employees of Infinity Ward, including Messers West and Zampella.  But no matter what you think about Activision or Bobby Kotick, there is much truth in the words of a former guest on the No Prisoners, No Mercy show who promoted them from “800 pound gorilla” to the “1 ton gorilla” on the block. When Activision speaks, people listen – even if it is to curse the name.

But all three companies mentioned above have had members of the gaming community curse their name at one point or another. And what’s more, while the outcome of the Activision/Infinity Ward lawsuits may change it, the Call of Duty series is still going strong.

No, that’s not the difference.

As long as Activision can include “Blizzard” in its name it will be more like the zombie gorilla than the 800 pound gorilla; no one will be able to defeat it.  In 2007 Richard Garriott denounced Worlds of Warcraft’s “carrot and stick” approach to end game as the “harbinger of failure.” Before that, Brad McQuaid launched Vanguard and originally pronounced it to be the next “Wow killer”.  Still, I don’t think there is anyone who will seriously consider predictions of the downfall of Activision for more than the briefest of moments (at least not in the near future).

Not so with Cryptic Studios and Funcom.

All one has to do is Google the names of either of these studios along with the word “failure” and you will find pundits who seem to have considered themselves the gaming version of the Oracle at Delphi and pronounced the doom of Champions Online, and Age of Conan.  And yet both mmos are still here; Champions since September 1, 2009 and Age of Conan since May 20, 2008. Not only are they both still going, but both still seem to be going strong. Consider that Cryptic is a subsidiary of Atari, and is in turn owned by Infograme – who, being one of the largest videogame developers in the world is not business of beating dead horses hoping they will eventually get up and win the Kentucky Derby. In fact a game developer friend of ours tells us that Atari is known for having a particularly short leash as a publisher. True or not, it seems that the death of Champions Online, Star Trek Online and Age of Conan, so zealously reported across the blogosphere at one point, has been greatly exaggerated.

Recently we had the pleasure of spending an hour talking with Glen “Famine” Swan and Oliver Kunz from Funcom about changes to Age of Conan, and their new expansion Rise of the Godslayer.  If you don’t believe us, you can go read Jef Reahard over at Massively, Gordon over at We Fly Spitfires , Brian over at Blue Kae  and listen to Brent and Darren talk about it in the return of the Virgin Worlds Podcast Number 147. In fact both Mr. Swan and Mr. Kunz were so convincing that they turned my prognostication into provocation to turn my WoW “parking fee” over to Funcom instead.  But it isn’t the improvements to the game that have me wanting to return. No, as our regular listeners know, I love animals, and the prospect of raising my own tiger or wolf mount is something that I find irresistible.

While some studios are making efforts to bring members of the community to the studios, Cryptic Studios is making an effort to visit members of the community.  Last night Fran and Julie where pleased to welcome the new executive producer for Champions Online, Mr. Shannon Posniewski.

“Poz” (as he titles himself) has some big shoes to fill (size 13 with flames on the side he told the No Prisoners, No Mercy team) vacated by Mr. Bill  Roper (a former guest on the show) who has assumed a position that gives him the big picture of Cryptic Studios.  You can hear about that and more on show number 59.

Show 59?

Yes, show 57 is out on Itunes, and show 58 with guests Saylah from Mystic Worlds and Tipa from West Karana will be out this evening.  Those who wish to hear it on early release will be able to download it directly from our Podbean site at about 8:00 pm Central Standard Time this evening when we do the push to Itunes.   The show will hit Itunes about 6 hours after that.

But what about show 59?

If you happen to know Shannon Posniewski, he will have it in his hands by early next week.  Pending approval of the show, expect it out by Friday April 23rd at the latest.

The No Prisoners, No Mercy Team

Mr. Joe Blancato, Cryptic Studios, Marketing

Yes Fans, the early release of show 57 is live as I type this, and the itunes release will follow shortly on it’s heals (it is set on 360 minutes to live).

This week Julie is the first to crawl out of the sick bed and into the production chair, finishing up show 57.  Thanks to Fran for fighting her illness long enough to take the show live. 

And on to business…

This week we have the great pleasure of welcoming Mr. Joe Blancato to the show.   Joe is a marketing specialist for cryptic and offers listeners with an inside insight into Star Trek Online.   Mr. Blancato has promised to come back with even more of the Cryptic team to talk about Champions online.  We hope you have as good a time listening to the show as we did producing it.

See you online,

Julie and Fran

Bill Roper talks about one of our favorite games!

 The quote below, from Mr. Bill Ropers final state of the game post as executive producer of Champions Online my have let us all know that Mr. Roper is moving on, but fortunately he will still be in the same green Cryptic Studios pasture:

“I am very proud to have Revelation be the addition to Champions Online that bridges my departure with the game’s new direction. The upcoming weeks and months are going to be an exciting time for us all, and I can’t wait to play what’s next.” – Bill Roper

 I has been our privilege to interview Mr. Roper twice – once for this website in an interview available here, and for the No Prisoners, No Mercy anniversary show number 50 available here and on our release to the Virgin Worlds Collective here.

The interviews with Bill Roper brought home a very valuable lesson that Frodo tells Samwise in the Ralph Bakshi animated version of the Lord of the Rings (well at least the first half as Ralph Bakshi stopped at the invasion of Helm’s Deep).   Upon first confronting “Strider” Samwise doesn’t trust him one bit and suspects him of foul play.  Frodo, thinking otherwise. turns to Samwise and says “I think a servant of the enemy would seem fair and feel fouler.”

Mr. Joe Blancato, Cryptic Studios, Marketing

Now we certainly aren’t saying we think Mr. Roper feels foul (and having never met him in person we have no way to know whether or not he smells like a rose).  What we are saying is that Bill Roper has often been judged unfairly ever since his Flagship Studio days.   It was very kind of Mr. Roper to share his valuable time with us and we hope he will do so again in the future.  We wish him well in whatever aspect of Cryptic Studios to which he choses to lend his talents.   And along those same lines, show 57 (following the imminent release of show 56) will feature an hour long interview with Cryptic Studio’s new marketing guru (our assigned title, not his) Joe Blancato (pictured at right).

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

They said what?

(say what?)

O.K. We admit it. Captain Pike was a star trek captain before captain kirk.

“We didn’t want to have interiors at launch,” said “Star Trek Online” executive producer Craig Zinkievich. “We thought it was just a little bit too much. We really wanted to make sure we delivered a really deep experience, but your bridge not being in the game, it really felt like a hole in the game, and it was just something that we had to put in.” – Craig Zinkievich, Executive Producer, Star Trek Online

Once the game goes live (or if you are amongst the lucky few in the beta  – which we dearly wish we were)  we will all get to choose from among 20 bridge designs.  Mr. Zinkievich said they are to function as social hubs but that’s alright with us. We happen to know Trekkies from all over the world and we have  ALOT of socializing to do!

SAY WHAT!!!

If you are like us, you love down loadable content (DLC)  for your stand alone pc games. Games like Fall Out 3 come immediately to mind.  If you are also like us, you get so tired of having to jump through hoops, open multiple accounts (which invariably generate spam) all just to buy said DLC.   We also get just a bit tired of having to buy content for ”points” which never seem to come in the same increments in which the content is sold (here is looking at YOU Microsoft).  Always, of course, necessitating buying more “Points” than is necessary to purchase the game. 

Wait! 

Gamestop to the rescue!!

According to a report in Arstechnica (who gets their information from Variety Magazine) “ the retailer will start selling digital content in its stores starting next year, and it already has backing from Sony and Microsoft. The new service will allow customers to pay for the content in store and then download it when they return home.”  You can read the article here.

SAY WHAT?

Remember how, just before the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (MW2) was released, Activision/Blizzard head honcho Bobby Kotick caused a bit of a stir by saying he would  “raise the price [of MW2] even further if [he] could?”  Now that many players are up in arms (or not up in arms if they didn’t buy MW2) we all know why Mr. Kotick wanted that price raised. Here is an excerpt from article (below) over at Gamesindustry.biz (available here):

“Activision CEO Robert Kotick has exercised options on just over 1.93 million shares this week, allowing him to buy them at a price of USD 1.03 and sell them at between USD 11.43-11.54 each.” – Phil Elliott, Gamesindustry.biz

And a quick note, that puts the stock mentioned above worth around $20 million.

SAY…IT ISN’T SO…

Say it isn’t so…the endless trial (and tribulations) of Warhammer Online.  We had such high hopes! Paul Barnett was on our show several times! As we have said before, Paul Barnett could sell ice to polar bears in the dead of winter.  We are wondering if even he can sell the general gaming public on this:

Endless? We hope!

Warhammer Online is one of the subjects we discuss with JMO and TIPPA on Show 48 (due out soon…we promise). Even though we are always ones to say “don’t nail the coffin lid shut just yet” on any game, this confirmation of the “endless trial subscription” coupled with the news of the 80 layoffs over at Mythic (we hoped that news wasn’t true either) doesn’t bode well for the future of the game.  While any discussion on the WarhammerOnline and what happened between the glory days of launch and now could fill a book (or at least several articles) the general feeling at the end of show 48 was that Mythic tried too hard to please World of Warcraft customers and not enough to please fans of the table top game.  

In the end, what we here at No Prisoners, No Mercy hope is that Mythic (or what ever EA calls them these days) will take a hint from Turbine and go the way of DDO (Dungeons and Dragons Online) and be free to play with some sort of micro-transaction business model.  The big question here is, of course, how do you keep them down on the virtual warhammer online farm after they have seen the latest MMOs.  THAT, my friends, is always an enormous task.

See you online,

The No Prisoners, No Mercy team.  

It's Friday!

Among the many jobs I have worked at, one of them was in a factory. There is an old expression that stuck with me from those days – no matter how tired you are, come quitting time on Friday, everyone has energy.  It’s Friday, welcome to the road to the weekend edition.

The Road to the Stars…

If you haven’t read the running conversation under this week’s “Game You Wish You Could Love” article, it’s all about Eve Online. But there is one game that we here at No Prisoners, No Mercy love even before it hits the shelves: Star Trek Online. Now mind you, these days we take anything that comes out of Eurogamer with about a truckload of salt. They are reporting, however, that Cryptic Studios has announced the official release date for Star Trek Online, which they are saying is February 5, 2010. Now mind you we are well aware that if there is anywhere that Murphy’s Law rears its ugly head it is producing games; and so that date may not be set in stone. However, at the risk of jumping the gun (for even in the world of interviews things change) we have the perfect source to ask…

Mr. Bill Roper who has kindly agreed to an interview about one of our favorite games  – Champions Online. The accompanying article prepared by our own Fran has been completed but we are going to make you wait until the audio portion is recorded.  While Fran and I are busy winging (or in my case teleporting) our way across the skies of Millennium City it occurred to us that while CCP is still talking about “walking in stations” everything we have seen from Star Trek Online so far (and that is only what we read) tells us that players in Star Trek are already footloose and fancy free instead of floating around in a pod full of primordial goo.  We only have one question left…

Who do we have to bribe to get a beta code (we missed out on the lifetime offer for Champions Online)

Dragons Age…

Dragon Age Origins has finally arrived and with it, an article over at arstechnica.com entitled “Dragon Age Launch Fails” (available here). If the article is to be believed, there are problems – here is a quote:

 “The problem? EA and Bioware require you to sign into their own websites, with their own accounts and login information, to allow you to access the bonus content from your purchase. That process, it seems, is broken for many users.” – Ben Kuchera, Arstechnica.com

I am not sure why the good folks at Arstechnica are having problems but no one at the modding group I belong to called “The Engineering Guild” (available here)  seems to be troubled at all. In fact everyone at The Engineering Guild has been planning their mods for Dragon Age Origins since long before the game came out.  And one thing is for sure, no one can say the devs at Bioware are not on the ball where the modding community is concerned – the tool set was released with the game and is available here.

Getting Hammered…

It was not that long ago that my goblin shaman finally retired from Warhammer Online for good…but maybe someone might follow in his place. Why? Here’s why..

Werit had an article this week  (and if you don’t read Werits blog why not? It’s good.) reporting that the new 10 day trial for Warhammer Online has been extended – indefinitely. In other words, while players are still limited to Tier one they can now play longer than 10 days. In fact they can play as long as they want.  Here is the article. Let’s hope that this is not only true, but that those who participate will max out at the top of the Tier One levels. After all, Tier One is where I had the most fun; especially in the Empire RvR lake. Either way, another one of our favorite sites, The Ancient Gaming Noob, has an interesting post this week about the possible consequences of the new trial (available here) entitled “a mass of Tier One Twinks”

Meanwhile back at the (post apocalyptic) corral:

Meanwhile the Wandering Goblin is reporting that Interplay and Bethesda (makers of Fallout 3, one of my favorite stand alone games) are still fighting it out in court for the rights to produce a Fallout MMO (which I read is set to expire this month for Interplay). The article is available here.  So while Interplay and Bethesda have been busy playing dueling lawyers I have been busy in the post apocalyptic world of FALLEN EARTH.  And if you want to know a bit more about how things have been going for the dev team over at Icarus there is nothing like hearing it straight from the “horses mouth” as it were – or in this case the project managers mouth.  Yes, Mr. Colin Dwan, project manager for Fallen Earth was kind enough to share some time with us earlier this week. The interview has been through the editing process and will be the top half of show number 48.

The folks over at Wizard 101 have been asking the No Prisoners No Mercy team to come back and play in their world again. As for me, I will be spending time buzzing through the skies of Millennium City faster than a speeding pullet and learning my way around the post apocalyptic Fallen Earth. However, I will not be playing any more Aion Online. For me I believe it is finally time to hang up my wings. I will be in good company, however as Werit appears to being hanging up a similar pair of wings and talks about it in an article here called Farewell Aion.

The last straw…

Werit’s article touched on a couple of points that, for me, were the last straw. Here are the quotes:

“Abyss.  The Abyss sounded interesting on paper, but in reality it was one big gank fest.  Allowing ranks 25 through 50 to fight in the same space, without a bolster, just was not fun.” – Werit

 ”Leveling.  It’s a long way to the top if you want to PvP.  I am a big fan of PvP leveling and Aion just does support that style of gameplay.” – Werit

“Guild.  There are quite a few CoW’s [presumably his guild] who play Aion and I will miss grouping with them.” – Werit

Pvp is  one place that place that Warhammer did it right and NCSoft  still hasn’t learned. If you are going to make a game where the focus is primarily on pvp make sure you can easily level with pvp. The interesting thing about pvp is that everyone talks about balance but what most people really mean is they want the scales tipped in their favor.  As far as balance is concerned I still like the approach Warhammer took (every class is strong against some and weak against others) as opposed to World of Warcraft’s approach (Micromanage all the classes until you manage to tick off just about everyone but rogues). And while Werit said he will miss some of his guild mates, the best thing about organizations that cross multiple games like The Older Gamers is that you will still see the same people in other games.

Stinking out loud…

There is little doubt that anyone who surfs the waves of the blogsphere has not heard about the ‘Blizzard Cash Shop” by now. Earlier this week Fran wrote about this at the end of her “Homey doesn’t like pugs” article.  John Woods echoes our (that’s the royal we) opinion in his article over at www.mmorpg.com.

“By raising a gigantic stink about this particular move on Blizzard’spart, the only thing that is going to happen is that next time, when a company actually does do something offensive like charge a subscription and offer game-enhancing items within a store, is that no one is going to listen to the horde of people that are crying foul.

By reacting and over-reacting negatively every time even the slightest thing is done that might possibly be controversial, the voices of the fans get easier and easier for game companies to ignore. This, my friends, is not good for our genre and opens the door to truly unscrupulous actions by others.” – John Wood, MMORPG.com ( available here )

Now on to the next section…

The Lore Behind the Game

Lets start with a bit of fiction about Fallen Earth Lore.  Enjoy the story. See you on the other side of Friday.

- The No Prisoners No Mercy team

Most people have memories of their past: playing with childhood friends (or a lack thereof), parents, perhaps a sister or two. People often look back on times spent with families (and not necessarily fondly).  Her memories didn’t extend past the last half hour. In fact the only thing she could remember was her name, and that was only because it was tattooed across her upper left arm, that and a mass of Celtic scroll work. A similar tattoo adorned her right forearm, with two matching tattoos on each of her right and left leg, that went all the way up to her thigh.

Nobody messes with Auntie Maim

At least she assumed they did. She hadn’t stopped to take that good of a look. After all, she had spent the last half hour dodging bullets, running for her life through the hallways of what the voice called “Hoover Dam” (at least she presumed the voice meant “Dam” and not “Damn”) and generally just getting irritated.  What she was most irritated at was a voice over an intercom that had insisted on calling her “clone.”

“Listen clone…”

There was the voice again.

“Auntie…or Maim…you choose” she said.

There was a slight pause, then the overhead speaker crackled in to life once again.

“What?” it said hesitantly.

“Call me Auntie, or Maim, but I am tired of this dehumanizing ‘clone’ crap. Why do you keep calling me ‘clone’? I got a name for you and it isn’t Elaina Winters.”

“Well I…” stammered the voice over the loud speaker.

“Look,” said Auntie sternly, “I may be a ‘clone’ but I’ve got a good memory and it’s not too late for me to come back to that control room of yours and kick your ass around the block a few times. And if I can find this ‘Alec Masters’ and his Lifenet buddies who do the cloning in the first place I am going to kick their collective asses a few times just for good measure.”

“Look you need to trust me…” said the voice that Auntie had come to know by the name ‘Winters’”

“Ya sure – how do I know you didn’t make up this whole ‘Shiva virus caused end of the world’ crap just to get me to help you escape? How do I know you’re not just using me?” said Auntie sneering.

“I’m not just using you, said Winters trying to soothe things over a bit. Didn’t I get you past all the soldiers?”

“Ya – I suppose. Most of ‘em anyway.” said Auntie.

“Have I steered you wrong so far?” said the voice on the intercom.

“Well no…” said Auntie hesitantly. Then she continued, “so what’s next?”

“O.K. now that you’re clear of the soldiers and mutants you’re going to need a way out of the dam. In the next room you will find a small all terrain vehicle. The keys are in it. Take the ramp straight toward the outside as fast as you can.”

Just as the voice told her, there was a small four wheeled vehicle in the next room, and the keys where in it. “How lucky was that?” thought Auntie. She hopped on the ATV and gunned the motor. She twisted the accelerator and tore off down the ramp as fast as she could. Half way down the ramp there were soldiers behind make shift barriers of ruined cars. Auntie dodged the bullets and the barricades and soon found herself at the foot of a steep incline with a drop off at the top. Then she heard the voice again. It came through a speaker set into the ceiling just behind her.

“What are you stopping for?”

 “I don’t know if this little four wheeler can make the jump” said Auntie.

 “You’ve got to hurry.” said Winters.

 “Why?” asked Auntie.

 “Well, there is one thing I failed to mention” said Winters.

 “Which is?”

 There was a slight pause. Then the voice that was Elaina Winters continued.

 “Well…because the ATV isn’t just an ATV?”

 “Why not?” asked Auntie.

 “Because there’s a bomb strapped to it.”

Where everyone is "super"

“This man is no ordinary man. This is Mr. H G Superman. To all appearances, he looks like any other law-abiding citizen. But Mr. F G Superman has a secret identity. When trouble strikes at any time, at any place, he is ready to become… BICYCLE REPAIR MAN! Yes! Whenever bicycles are broken, or menaced by international communism, Bicycle Repair Man is ready!” – John Cleese, voice over for Monty Python “Bicycle Repair Man” skit

 Some things in life are bad; they can really make you mad. Other things just make you swear and curse. When you’re chewing on life’s gristle, done grumble…play Champions Online.

First, apologies to the author of Life of Bryan for the twist on the opening lines to “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”. It is quite true, however, that if you are feeling a bit the blue side, there is nothing like donning a blue costume and playing Champions Online to boost your sagging ego a bit.  As you make your way through the streets of Millennium City, built on the ruins of old Detroit, from time to time people will walk up to you and thank you for saving the city, point out you are their favorite superhero and the like. I appreciate the sense of humor that comes through in  moments such as when an NPC walked up to my character and asked for my autograph, only to announce that he intended to sell it on Ebay because he needed the money.

A few Champions Online residents.

I have been playing the game for a bit over a week now. Despite the burgeoning ranks of “nay-sayers” who don’t seem to want anyone else to play a game if they don’t like it, I have yet to have any problems at all.  I haven’t had so much as one crash to desktop in all the hours I have been playing the game.   I have found every word of what a senior producer friend of ours (and yes that is the Royal we) to be true about Champions Online.  The character creator alone provides hours of fun, the open power system allows for a myriad of interesting combinations, and the latest “Blood Moon” event has been lots of fun. My only regret at rampaging through the wilds of Canada after I have been turned to a werewolf is that I turn back to my old superhero self upon death.

The only odd thing about the game is having so many super heroes around.  It’s a bit like the “bicycle repair man” skit by Monty Python. If you haven’t seen it, the skit is set in a world where everyone is a superman (or super woman) and the only person who stands out is…bicycle repair man.  Every now and then I see someone like the character “Mactaveous” who is featured in the Champions Online fiction over at www.lorewriter.com. Mactaveous is an ordinary guy who wear jeans and a t-shirt along with his mother’s checkered table cloth to try and fit in.  Every now and then I will see a super hero walk by named “Joe” or “Peter”.  One of the people in our “super group” (the Champions Online version of a guild) has a “super hero” accountant.  It’s sort of an odd feeling: in a world where everyone is a super hero “super” becomes normal. And that’s the challenge isn’t it? How does a developer go about making a player feel “super”? How do they do combat so it just doesn’t feel like another version of the last fantasy mmo?

Yet I personally feel that the devs at Cryptic Studios have done a grand job of it.

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

Champions Online Comics

With each new No Prisoners, No Mercy podcast that is completed, we find that they have become like closets – the bigger you make them, the more the content expands to meet the size of the podcast. When we started over a year ago with the show (not including the 4 shows for “another network”) the first one was only 15 minutes long.   Soon they expanded to half an hour, then an hour. Now we find that they easily go over an hour and occasionally the recording secessions run like they did today – 2 hours.  Sometimes the guests are so interesting and we are having so much fun that we don’t want the show to end.

Today”s show was one such show.  The guests were JMO  (a former guest who now has a show of his own) and Tipa from West Karna (also a former guest).  It was a great time and Fran and I laughed until we cried.

The games that we play (at least the games I play) seem to expand with each new game that hits the shelves. I try to play as many as I can so I know what I am talking about – but that is not alway possible. After all, there is only so many gaming dollars to go around these days.

The latest game around the “No Prisoners, No Mercy” household is Champions Online, and my latest character is Sheva (seen above). Both Fran and I have been playing and having a good time.  Which brings up a point…

Much hullabaloo (a technical term my grandmother used)  has been raised bout “Cryptic dollars”.  I have even raised a little hell about them myself over on the Virgin Worlds web site when the concept first saw public light.  As we talked about before, Cryptic has said that anything you can buy in the cash shop that has a game effect  you will be able to earn in game and so far that has proven correct.  There seems to be a misconception these days (I know there was on my part) that it is not possible to “respecc” in the game without paying $12.50 to do so.  The fact is that nothing could be further from the truth.  If you want to respecc all you have to do is go to the “power house” and talk to a trainer. Tell the nice man or woman there that you want to “unlearn” your powers – you can do that all the way down to the first power in the game.  The only factor to consider is that the more skills you have to “unlearn” the more it will cost you.  So if you are going to make mistakes in your selections it is best to do so early on.   I have played two characters now and respecced one with the money I had in my pocket at the time, making no special effort to gather enough for the task at hand.

In the end, the only big deal being made about the cash shop these days seems to be made by people who are no longer playing the game.  Such are the individuals who declare that “the honeymoon is over” while the rest of us go about merrily enjoying the game. 

So far Cryptic has kept to their word.

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

In the course of the Ricknas Sarn interview my co-host, Fran, offered to take up the Champions Online blogging duties for Project Endgrind. Knowing Fran’s penchant for limiting her talent to on air appearances and wrangling soft ware I volunteered to be her “back up blogger” and so began my recent foray into the world of Champions Online.

I will admit that I had a few misgivings before I downloaded and logged on.

I was, however, pleasantly surprised.

Let me say at the outset here that Bill Roper’s influence on the game as Design Director for Cryptic Studios can only be a positive one. Of any issues I may have had with Flagship Studios the last thing would have been the design – I loved the game design for Hellgate London. It’s the business model end of the game I would have done alot differently.

So far, at least, the fears I had about the advent of “Cryptic Bucks” have been allayed by playing the game. I was a bit concerned when I saw “from the developers of City of Heroes” on the back of the box. I played that game for a couple of weeks and didn’t like it. The sole reason, however, was that the combat in City of Heroes made me feel more akin to bar room brawl than superwoman standing tall. The initial tutorial in Champions Online where I had a chance to “save Millenium City” was a lot more fun than the “here’s a rusty sword, go kill those starving wolves” approach that World of Warcraft’s tried and true approach takes. I am glad to see more games (as Fallen Earth does as well) embroil players in a story line right from the start.

A friend of ours, R.W. Harper from “lorewriter.com”, has a fun story going on his web site about his Champions Online superhero named Mactavious – a plain ol’ jeans wearing super hero that wears his mama’s tablecloth for a cape just to try and blend in. R.W. told us on a recent No Prisoner, No Mercy show that the character creation process was like a mini-game by itself. He wasn’t wrong. I could (and did) spend more than an hour just experimenting with all that was available and I just scratched the surface of what was possible. In the end, as you can see, I decided to create my own answer to “Areala, warrior showgirl…er…nun” and Letrange’s warrior nun from Canada who looks more like a truck driver toting around an Uzi submachine gun strapped to a crucifix.

And so was born Gabrielle, Warrior nun: She got bored and traded her ruler for a sword…

Gabrielle, Warrior Nun

I was pleased to find that the approach that Cryptic Studios took to instancing the world allowed the player to choose from among multiple instances populated by other players, rather than the Guild Wars approach (the same approach that Hellgate London chose). The combat was more along the lines of what I expected and the game ran smoothly, even on my lap top computer.

So initial fears allayed, my warrior nun avatar forges ahead into the brave new world designed by Cryptic Studios.

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather