Funcom, a(n) world leading independent developer and publisher of online games, is excited to announce that the company has signed a license agreement with the LEGO Group, one of the world’s most successful manufacturers of play materials, to develop a massively multiplayer online game based on the popular LEGO Minifigures franchise.
The massively multiplayer online game that Funcom will develop based on the LEGO Minifigures franchise will focus on maximum accessibility. Funcom and the LEGO Group will work together to make the game available to consumers in their online channels and will be coordinating activities to provide a broad and enhanced experience for the product line. (I have no idea what that even means.) The game will be a prominent part of the LEGO Minifigures online experience which already has millions of unique visitors per month.
“The market for family-friendly online experiences intended for children and youngsters is brimming with potential,” says Funcom CEO Trond Arne Aas. “Being able to work with a world-renowned brand such as the LEGO® brand to develop an MMO for this audience is incredibly exciting to us as game developers and for Funcom as a company. This is source material we all know and love and we simply cannot wait to get started working with the LEGO Group on realizing this exciting project.”
It seems an odd time to develop an mmo and while it is impossible to deny the staggering popularity of The Elder Scrolls games, it is very much an uncertainty whether or not Bethesda can lure the players of the strictly solo RPGs to jump online and share the world with other adventurers.
We always say that it is unwise to overly praise E3 demos, but it is equally unwise to be too critical, particularly with a hands off developer driven demo.
That said.
It looks sort of…bland. The combat, while action oriented and not old school mmo, still has powers and cool downs (despite what the Zenimax rep said during the demo). The idea of public dungeons seems taken right out of Warhammer Online and the public quest system. There are private instances, raids, and pvp with hundreds of people per side.
It is also a low min spec game, which should be laptop friendly and not too graphic intensive but should look sharp on higher end rigs. The demo we saw looked…ok. The vistas look fine but the character animations need work.
There are novel ideas here, such as branching storylines and bonuses for playing as a group such as turning a simple fire spell into an area of effect firebomb just by grouping with teammates.
There still didn’t seem to be too many features here that will entice those with mmo fatigue unless you are just itching to join forces In the world of The Elder Scrolls. I realize I may not be the target audience here, but I have played my share of mmos and I’m not sold yet.
If you bought into the hype of a wholly re-imagined MMO, Guild Wars 2 will likely spark a tinge of disappointment, but it’s a temporary affliction. MMO-players have certain expectations, and some staples of the genre work just as they are, so trashing all of that ‘just because’ would probably amount to video game suicide.
While most MMO developers focus on giving familiar features a unique spin, ArenaNet is re-examining the core purposes and implementations of those features. It’s a subtle, but very important difference.
A prominent example of this reworking in Guild Wars 2 can be seen when numerous players converge upon the same quest-goal. In TERA, which I recently wrote about, I was tasked with defeating a minor boss, as were a dozen other players. Since no one was willing to group together and simultaneously complete the quest, we all waited in a circle in hopes of landing the first blow when the boss respawned.
In Guild Wars 2, every player who participates in a portion of a battle can walk away with a completed quest, XP based on the level of contribution, and a potential reward. I don’t ‘think’ that the presence of additional players reduces the rewards given to others, nor does it matter. A minute shaved off one fight is a minute to jump into another battle. Plus, the lack of competition to snag a kill first imbues every encounter with a sense of camaraderie. I have never seen players so willing and eager to lend helping hands and revive downed players.
Opinions regarding the Dynamic Events have been mixed, with many people comparing them to the Public Quests of games such as Warhammer Online. The key difference is variety. There are some events that continuously cycle, but there are also events that appear sporadically for players in the right place at the right time, and ArenaNet has been vocal about the desire to constantly inject Guild Wars 2 with new events at every level. The overarching feeling is that you can entertain yourself for hours on end, and be rewarded, without officially accepting a single quest.
While roaming the countryside and partaking in battles as I saw fit, I became acutely aware of just how much padding is in a typical MMO – time spent traveling, waiting for quests, crafting materials, etc. With multiple fast-travel options in every zone (no cooldowns required) and the ability to use the auction house from any location (pickup still requires a vendor), it’s clear that boredom is one emotion that ArenaNet wants to eradicate.
This anti-timesink mentality is extremely evident in the crafting system. If you’re a crafter, you undoubtedly know the pain of realizing that someone beat you to punch by a few minutes and is systematically sucking every node dry of materials. In Guild Wars 2, nodes not only respawn faster, but players who simultaneously interact with a node both receive materials. When it comes time to craft a large number of identical items, they are created in bulk; no lunch breaks while waiting for 50 individual timers to count down.
I’ve been trying to find an MMO, new or old, to fill the void until Guild Wars 2’s unannounced release date, but I already feel spoiled. Fallen Earth? Way too much traveling. TERA? Too much quest-grinding. EVE Online? I better concentrate on my real-life financials first. While Guild Wars 2 may not spark a revolution, it is incredibly high on action and low on time-sucking filler, and that is exactly what I’m craving in an MMO.
I can pinpoint the exact moment that I seriously considered hanging up my boots of adventuring and leaving the land of TERA. It happened during an escort-quest starring Seravy, the infamously invalid and directionally-challenged unicorn. There were no enemies to thwart or obstacles to navigate, unless you count grass, and it still took four minutes of intolerably slow meandering to reach our destination across the path.
Dungeons and boss-fights are the obvious highlights of MMOs, but the moments in-between those climaxes can still be engaging. In contrast, every single quest I experienced in TERA was a blatant time-killer with no sense of challenge. I have not yet delved into high-level content, but I have zero faith that TERA has anything more to offer, nor do I care to invest my time hoping that it does.
Look at the image above. The fellow on the right was the destination for my quest. See the guy on the left? That was the quest-giver. What you need to understand is that this is actually a very typical scenario. It’s not uncommon for a quest-chain to ping-pong between NPCs standing a few steps apart, or to span entire zones and back again for conversations with pointless characters.
So, when not traveling the globe for useless chitchat, what types of awesome quests do you get to embark upon? Well, you get to mindlessly hack your way through ten creatures, pick up your next quest and kill the same ten creatures, and set out to kill those same ten creatures for the third time. For the finale, you’ll get to experience the joy of camping at a spawn point in hopes of snagging a vital creature from the mob of other players with the same goal.
TERA’s combat has garnered ample attention, but calling something “new” doesn’t make it true. Fallen Earth and Darkfall excluded auto-targeting back in 2009, while MMOs such as Conan and Champions Online also incorporated some twitchy elements. Don’t go into TERA expecting the MMO equivalent of Bayonetta or Devil May Cry, as you’ll spend the majority of your time holding the general attack button. In fact, a pre-launch patch allows that single button to automatically activate your skills in sequence. How fun.
At one point, I entered combat and removed my hands from the controls as my opponent furiously thrashed at me with the might of a one-legged hamster. I sat back to enjoy a few minutes of snacking and conversation, and still my character stood strong against the onslaught, despite his pitifully light armor. That won’t work in PvP or dungeons, but it shouldn’t work in general PvE either.
I am a little intrigued by the potential of the political system, but I want no part of it in its current state. Through voting and PvP, players can become rulers capable of affecting the prices and availability of goods and services. I am typically a lone adventurer who occasionally teams up with a friend or a tiny guild. That another player can so dramatically impact my game due to differences in play-styles and time commitments is a huge turnoff.
I love the added danger of open-PvP and I always play on PvP servers when given the opportunity. In TERA, I wish I hadn’t. The penalty for killing a player more than five levels below you is added infamy, which keeps you flagged for PvP longer. On a PvP server, that’s like punishing a kid for stealing a cookie by giving him the rest of the jar. With the absence of any risk, every low- to mid-level zone is a griefer’s paradise. After an hour of repeatedly dying at the hands of someone 15 levels higher, I turned off TERA for good.
I’ve heard the arguments already, including “It really starts after level 20,” “That class is broken,”, or “It’s all about the dungeons.” The fact that people need to fortify TERA with such hefty defenses is a mighty big indicator that problems are afoot. With so many similar options on the table, including free-to-play titles, I can’t fathom why anyone would be willing to pay a monthly subscription for a game that requires so many concessions.
Game Informer has the goods on the next Elder Scrolls game, which is teased online but will be revealed more in depth in the June issue.
It’s a MMO for PC and Mac and will ship in 2013.
An in-depth look at everything from solo questing to public dungeons awaits in our enormous June cover story – as well as a peek at the player-driven PvP conflict that pits the three player factions against each other in open-world warfare over the province of Cyrodiil and the Emperor’s throne itself.
“It will be extremely rewarding finally to unveil what we have been developing the last several years,” said game director and MMO veteran Matt Firor, whose previous work includes Mythic’s well-received Dark Age of Camelot. “The entire team is committed to creating the best MMO ever made – and one that is worthy of The Elder Scrolls franchise.”
Not sure what to think of this as obviously details are few at the moment. Personally, I’m done with MMOs but your mileage may vary. I see ‘three player factions’ and that sounds like a Realm Vs Realm type of deal which would jive with the Dark Age of Camelot design, one that was picked up in Warhammer Online.
