[MUD-Dev] (no subject)

[Kent Peterson]

Raph Koster <rkoster at soe.sony.com> wrote:
> From: amanda at alfar.com

> The game [AC2] has some rocky bits, but over all I think it's
> definitely a success on the "fun" scale.  So is E&B, but that's
> another essay and I've just been told dinner is ready.  More in a
> bit.

> And yet neither seems to be finding an audience (which I find very
> distressing). Why is that, if they are so fun? If anything, the
> MMORPG with the most buzz among players right now is Neocron, a
> come-from-nowhere German game with a very rocky launch.

Speaking as a player, the buzz _I_ got about AC2, prelaunch, was
almost entirely negative.  It wasn't fun, it was boring and empty,
Microsoft announces at the last minute it's flipping the bird to
most of the rest of the planet, etc.  It's also yet another
swords-and-sorcery game. I've seen enough of this, I'm disinclined
to try another fantasy game until there's something genuinely new.

I wrote up a paragraph about E&B here, then deleted it.  Then I
wrote another one, then deleted that.  I'll limit myself to this: I
am a space game fan.  I like fun games.  I do not think E&B deserves
comment.

  (For reference, the closest thing I know of to a MMOG space sim
  done right is the off-and-on beta test for Ace of Angels.
  Jumpgate comes close, but has design issues that drive me batty -
  the Privateer-style flight engine in particular.)

Neocron, however, IS fun - to the point where I've convinced a
half-dozen people at the office to try it out, which is a first for
me.  It hsa a very good offline demo - demonstrates mid/high level
play, instead of the kill-rats early phase - and the whole mood and
atmosphere of the game is very reminiscent of Deus Ex and System
Shock.  These are holy references to gamers; a game that _feels_
like that is going to get the benefit of the doubt from many, many
people.  It's got a learning curve.  This is fun.  A week into the
game, there were still aspects of play I didn't have the foggiest
idea how to even start approaching - this means, obviously, I have
to figure it out before I allow myself to think about getting bored.
The low-level kill-rats-and-roaches gameplay isn't a grind - it
serves very effectively as a tutorial for how the game actually
works; you're put up against creatures that can't seriously hurt you
as long as you're actually paying attention, and dealing with them,
collecting junk, and doing low-level missions illustrates things
about how the game works that will be major activities for the
player later on.  Constructing your own equipment and vehicles is a
far more interactive and player-dependent behavior than in any game
I've seen - and because of the XP rewards and the high-quality
results, it feels like a worthwhile pursuit in its own right, as
opposed to a timesink keeping the player from other stuff.  The talk
of relatively griefer-free PvP attracts a certain audience.  I could
go on.  There are some things Neocron does wrong, but a lot more
that happen to come out right, and make the game in general a fun
place to spend time.

=====
Kent Peterson                    urquan at rocketmail.com

"... there was always a minority afraid of something, 
and a great majority afraid of the dark, afraid of the
future, afraid of the past ..." 
               - Ray Bradbury, _The Martian Chronicles_
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