Monthly Archives: October 2005

More fancy rumors from the leaky expansion

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Part 3 of 4 (1 – 2 – 4)

Here’s your rumors.

To begin with, Jeff Green’s post confirming the two new races in the expansion has been deleted. For reference I’ll mirror it here:

Yay! I can almost start talking about it. Yeah, sorry, that was a bit of a tease, wasn’t it? Well, the issue is due out in about two weeks. Blizzard would probably rip me a new one, and, even worse, disable my WoW account, if I started leaking information here. The only other person who knows anything is my daughter, who also plays WoW and can’t keep a secret. So, if you can figure out which of the millions of players she is online and hit her up, I’m sure she’s spill. :)

I got to see pretty much everything—except for whatever the new race for the Alliance will be. That one they’re either keeping a secret or, more quite possibly, haven’t figured out themselves yet. But everything else I know. And while, like I said, I can’t spill details yet, I can tell you it is *huge*–tons of new content for all levels. It definitely got me motivated to get Eggbert, my gnome warlock, up to 60 ASAP. So I have many nights of serious “work” ahead of me. Yay!

So, as soon as Blizzard gives me the okay, I will replace my desktop picture with our December cover, which pictures an awesome painting from one of the Blizzard artist’s of the new Horde race. I hate being a tease (well, okay, it’s a little fun), but I just can’t tell ya yet. But soon!

Here is, instead, the translation of the *official* explanation about the “leaked” cover of the magazine announcing the level cap to 70:

“During Monday, 17 October we have closed various topics about World of Warcraft. The cover of the upcoming “The Games Machine” in the preview section of this site was also modified. This happened to comply our agreement with Blizzard Entertainment. The omission isn’t representing the desire to censor or disinform, but just the respect of the set date to disclose informations. What happened won’t compromise the content of the next issue of “The Game Machine” that will be regularly out next week.”

Therefore we ask “The Game Machine” readers and the community of this forum to patently wait a few more days.

Thanks.”

Which basically means (my english is broken but my italian is not) that the cover of the magazine with the title of the expansion (The Burning Crusade) and the catchphrase hinting the cap to 70 were, indeed, reliable.

Again on the forum of the magazine some readers are claiming to own a copy of the preview and wrote down some of the features (and here we have an high probability of fake, but, still, they could make sense):

—
New region:
Outlands

New Instances:
Kharazan – Inside Medivh’s tower in the Deadwing Pass zone (5-man instance evolving into raid)

Caverns of Time in Tanaris (unusual place where the players will be able to move back and forth in time to reenact the main events of the history of Warcraft)

Level cap raised to lvl 70 – There will be repetable quests to gain access to a flying epic mount usable only in the Outlands.

New profession: Jewelcrafting, it will be possible to create gems to apply to weapons and armors and add effects. Other professions will be able to craft objects with embedded slots for these gems.

New races:
Horde – Blood Elves with a new starting zone north of Eastern Plaguelands and a new dungeon.
Alliance – Undisclosed

Battlegrounds shared between servers.

Atmospherical effects.

Release: Not before May 2006.

—
The new region isn’t Northrend but the Outlands, with the remains of the planet Dreanor, the world of the first orcs. The remains of this planet float in the air, this is why it will be formed like separated “isles”.

Same for Tanaris. There will be a brand new instance working like a temporal breach that will allow the players to time travel (hence the name: Caverns of Time) and reenact past events. The war at mount Hyal is one.

The level 70 is real, but no hero classes.

The new race for the horde is the blood elf. The racial traits will be a “Mana Tap” to slowly leech the mana of the target (it will be applicable more than once like the Sunder Armor) and that will then directly load the second trait: “Arcane Torment (or Torrent)” which will work like an area silence. The starting zone will probably be near Quel’thalas.

The Alliance race is still not available but it seems it will be Pandarens.

The new profession will be Jewelcrafting that works in a similar way to how the gems worked in Diablo 2.

And btw, the main boss will be Illidian.

—
Finally, yet another creation screen appeared on the internet (LOL!).

Some of what is written here is true. Some isn’t. It’s like a game. Enjoy.

—
As anticipated in the other article, here more juicy details:

Excerpt:

Now, instead, what will be a surprise: the maximum level for the characters will be upped to 70. As he heard about this, ToSo (an editor) started immediately to weep that he wanted back the all exp he wasted doing quests when already 60 (“and of course! I’m not going to clean cat ass forever!” -ToSo), so if you had the same reaction you are going to take it in the booty. Although the Hero classes haven’t been announced (Rob Pardo, Vice President of Game Design, said: “if we screw the hero classes we risk to fuck up the whole game”) Blizzard didn’t deny they’ll be in the expansion but also didn’t promise it. So we cannot really say much more.

– The new Alliance race WON’T be revealed at BlizzCon and there are more than just rumors confirming it will be the Pandarens.

– Kharazan should be playable at BlizzCon but it’s still undefined how it will be shaped out (could probably start as a 5-man with a second part for a raid of 20 or 40 players).

– The Blood Elves will be Mages, Warlocks and Warriors but it’s undecided if either hunters or rogues.

– Their starting zone will be Quel’Thalas (what is left of it), north of the Eastern Plaguelands and with a three-zones valley inbetween (Eversong Woods with the capital Silvermoon, Ghostland and a troll themed zone called Zul’Aman).

– About the live content, the opening of Silithus will be introduced by a live event that will require the collaboration of everyone and that will only happen once for each server. Behind the gates there will be a open zone tailored for 20 players (defined by Blizzard “casual hardcore”) with a temple at the center with an instance that will be the biggest to date (two-three times Molten Core). The players will also get access to special mounts (insects) that will be only usable in the dungeon.

– The Outlands will be divided into differently themed regions (like the rock valleys of the Hellfire Peninsula and the luxuriant forests of Zanga Marsh, part of what is left of Dreanor). While within Shadowmoon Valley there will be the Black Temple with the Illidian guy.

– The flying mount will be for level 70 players and after an epic quest chain. But only usable in the Outlands (floating isles).

– No new engine changes or features. The Blood Elves models seem to use 20% more polygons. Blizzard is also sperimenting with Specular Environmental Mapping.

– The atmospherical effects should arrive soon(TM) as a live patch.

– Also, by the time the expansion is out, the BGs should be finally linked between the servers to kill the queues.

—

Hopefully last edit ever:
I refused to make public my translation of the expansion preview, this is why I gathered only this sort of feature list. But if you want to read a more fluent translation of the article you can look here. Besides a few minor imprecisations and omissions it’s a decent translation of the whole thing (I could read only 80% of it, myself, so there are parts missing here).

—
Last update as explained here (I also slightly edited some details above to avoid contradictions):

– The whole expansion will be centered around the Outlands, Medivh and the Dark Portal to make the main storyline progress.

– Background: Sargeras, the Titan representing the “evil” in the game, still wants to destroy the universe. His last plan is to ignore Azeroth, where he ecountered an unexpected resistence, to focus on the Outland. The realm with the remains of the planet of Dreanor, homeland of the orcs. What is left of this place grants access to the Twisting Nether, a portal that can be used to access every other plane of the existence. Here is where the battle between the forces of Azeroth and the demonic forces of Sargeras and his two lieutenants, Archimonde and Kil’Jaeden, will take place.

– The orcs were brought on Azeroth by Medivh through the Dark Portal. Still through the same portal the humans invaded Dreanor and damaged the portal, producing devastations on both sides. Destroying Dreanor from one and creating the Blasted Lands from the other.

– Through the Caverns of Time (located in Tanaris) the players will be able to see the zone surrounding the portal before the disaster and, in particular reenact the invasion of the orcs through the portal. The Caverns of Time are the place where the bronze dragons lead by Nordozmu “supervise” the flow of time.

– The Caverns of Time will allow the players to reenact three events. The invasion of the orcs as written above, the release of Thrall from enslavement and the battle of Mount Hyal, where the humans, orc and elves defeated Arthas and his army.

– The Deadwind Pass zone should get a restyle with the new year to be ready for the release of the expansion and the Kharazan instance.

– At least these two big instances are confirmed. Kharazan and the Caverns of Time.

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Bloody Hellves

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Part 2 of 4 (1 – 3 – 4)

Taken from Corpnews. Both screenshots and commentary that I see fit:

Freakazoid:
I fully expect this expansion to take an easy route. By that, I mean they will re-use as much texture and models as they can and still call it new content. I also don’t expect anymore plot integrity. The recent good-dragons-gone-bad thing tells me Blizzard has given up on immersion to support the catassers who are happy to have a new dragon to raid.

CrashCat:
I was going to say, I’m sure glad those millions of subscriptions gave them enough money to afford sophisticated development techniques such as pallette shifting. Woo!

It seems that the Horde got its “pretty” race. A bit too familiar. but pretty.

(and we’ll finally discover that the alliance/horde unbalance problem is not as trivial as everyone expected it to be…)

I remove from the homepage the creation screen that was revealed (in the comments here) as fake.

Now can I have my quiet website back? Those are just a couple of screenshots posted everywhere.

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WoW level cap to 70

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Part 1 of 4 (2 – 3 – 4)

I get italian news from the interweb.

THE BURNING CRUSADE.

The correct translation of the diciture is: “Blizzard surprises everyone by bringing us to level 70!”

Or something like that. Now it’s 22.30 here, but you can be sure I’ll go out early tomorrow and find out what I can. If there’s something juicy I could try to scan it. I’m not sure whether the magazine is out or not, though.

Anyway, that’s the most important PC game magazine we have here and it is surely reliable.

It’s also sad that Blizzard couldn’t think anything else than just to rise the level cap. How innovative.

EDIT: It seem the scan was posted on the official site and is now removed. It’s not sure whether a fake or deleted on Blizzard request. The moderators on the forum of the magazine are closing all the threads about the episode and asking everyone to understand that the situation isn’t simple and they cannot comment further.

Official comment from the editor of the magazine: at this point it’s advisable a general “no comment”. Do it for me, please! (and thanks)

They have always previewed the cover and summary long before the magazine is out. I believe they just didn’t anticipate what was going to happen in this special case and now they are in trouble.

And, since we are talking about rumors, there’s a screenshot hinting that the new horde race will be the “blood elves”. That the expansion will have two new races, one for each faction, was somewhat confirmed here.

Worldofwar also commented this “leak” and added more details about the title:

A little more on the Burning Crusade name. This trademark was registered by Blizzard back on 3 May of this year under ‘computer software’. At the time speculation tied it to a WoW expansion after discovering mention of the name on Blizzard’s page about Sargeras, champion of the Titans, specifically this bit:

“Once Sargeras saw that his armies were amassed and ready to follow his every command, he launched his raging forces into the vastness of the Great Dark. He referred to his growing army as the Burning Legion. To this date, it is still unclear how many worlds they consumed and burned on their unholy Burning Crusade across the universe.”

And finally a screenshot with what seems a Blood Elves town:

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“Please take care of me”

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There’s an article at TerraNova written by the newly acquired Mia Consalvo and describing the different way to play FFXI between american and japanese players.

I like how she writes, the article is free of all the usual weight and unpractical references and reasonings typical at TerraNova. It’s an easy and interesting read and I really do not miss the lack of academic attitude in this case.

I also like the polite and cutesy behaviours of the japanese players :) Maybe those are just conventions but I think they ultimately help to have respect and consideration for the other. I wish there was more cultural interchange even on other mmorpgs. Nothing is more enriching than that and we would also have an occasion to teach some positive lessons instead of the usual selfish interest and personal greed.

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Keeping PvP viable

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This is another answer to a comment that Heartless wrote here. And an occasion for me to underline a few concepts that are dear to me.

He says that my system could be interesting but it cannot really be judged since it’s not fully developed and explained. Well, as I wrote in my reply, that’s not something that I can do. Simply because I miss the data I need and designing a system in all the minimal details just based on pure assumptions is actually silly and goes far beyond the purpose of my “design” ravings.

But even if I cannot snap my fingers and make appear a complete design document in all its parts, I can still take an existing game and apply my ideas to it to imagine (and share) what could be the possible result. Of course it cannot be perfect because my ideas were supposed to make sense together, but I think it’s still possible to make my goals more understandable if I take a current game and explain how it would change with some of my rules applied. Instead of having to force people to follow and tune to my ideas for a long and not trivial journey, using a concrete example everyone knows can be useful to make clear at least some of the concepts.

Of course to do this I’ll take the most fucked up PvP system out there: World of Warcraft.

We know that it works with equal mechanics for both factions (Horde, Alliance) with 14 different ranks that offer access to superior PvP loot. So we have a rather simple and straightforward system, different ranks and a reward: the shiny loot. Of course this structure is already broken on a number of points but again my purpose is to explan a few ideas and what they bring to the plate and not magically heal all of WoW’s flaws. So we take this basic system with all its issues and see which effect some of my rules can have on it.

As you can see by reading the brochure, one of the main goals is to have a system that is equally accessible for everyone. So the first thing to go is how the honor points will be achieved. There won’t be anymore an inner competition in the same realm, nor a functional competition over the greed for points against the other realm. Instead we can still have a variable threshold of points to move between the ranks from server to server, but once the amount is set, it won’t change anymore dynamically. We can also retain a mild decay rate considering that the progress isn’t freeform as in DAoC (the points to spend) and so the progression is bound to a cap (rank 14) that could be even too easy to reach if you don’t lose anymore the points from week to week.

So you kill enemy players and achieve goals in the BGs and you gain regularly honor points. These honor points don’t need anymore to be compared to the points of every other character. So they are added clearly and immediately like it happens to the normal experience. The UI will clearly show in real time your constant progression. What will change from week to week, instead (and since we retain some rules from the current game), is the amount of points you need to reach a precise rank. This doesn’t mean that these numbers are supposed to skyrocket. They just oscillate around a constant value to mimic the different activity on the different servers, but you’ll need more or less the same points to reach rank 10 today as you’d need five years later.

This means that, thanks to the constant progression, everyone will be able to reach the last rank with some dedication. The catasses will do that in three months while the casual players will need more time. But everyone will be able to get there eventually and at their own pace. Without a forced competition over time that is just inaccessible for most of the players.

At this point the system is similar to DAoC’s Realm Points and Ranks. You gain honor points and progressively move up the ranks to acquire the proper reward (loot in this case).

Now lets move to the heart of my system. Lets say that 20 players enter Arathi Basin. To make things simple I’ll say that 15 of them are still rank 1, while five of them are rank 14. If you read how my system is designed you know that your possible rank is set on the amount of players active at that moment and directly organized in squads. This means that if twenty rank 14 players join a BG, they CANNOT go around and use their rank 14 equipment. The rule would be that in a BG like Arathi Basin with 20 players for each factions, only ONE of them would be able to fill the last rank.

Ungrouped the ranks do not exist. In my original system you couldn’t use any of your advanced skills and, in this example about WoW, you just cannot access the PvP loot you achieved from the ranks, if you are alone. So there’s a definite difference between a rank you unblocked because you have the right amount of honor points and a rank you currently hold and use. To do this you must be organized in groups and be designated as leader. When this happens the leader will finally have access to the powers granted by its rank (just loot in this case).

In this example only one every twenty players can be set at rank 14. As decided above we have 15 players at rank 1 that just cannot move from there since they don’t have enough honor points, while there are five of them with rank 14 unblocked. So all five of them could cover that rank but only ONE will be able to. How does the system decide who between them will be choosed? Well.. it’s based on democracy. There will be a specific window showing the organization of the squads and ranks, not dissimilar to the current raid UI. The -position- on the diagram will define the current rank of the player, while next to the name of the player it will display the “possible” rank.

The five rank 14-enabled characters in our example can now propose themeselves to be designated to use their max rank. Lets say that three of them porpose themselves, while two of them just don’t bother and accept to remain rank 1 for the length of this BG. At this point all the players in the BG can make their choice and vote for one of them. Who will have the 51% of the preferences will be choosed, set leader and will be able to finally use his uber rank 14 loot. The same for the opposite faction.

It’s not rare to hear that “Level-based PvP doesn’t work unless everyone on the same level” but we often forget the problem of the loot, which is just another type of treadmill, equally disruptive for the PvP. In fact in WoW the level 60 BGs happen just between same-level players and, still, they are horribly unbalanced (as Heartless writes in the last paragraphs of this comment). If twenty rank 14 players in uber purple loot enter a BG, the other faction would have no chance and the gameplay would just suck. The variance in possibilities is what defines a good fight from one that just doesn’t hold any fun. Till the variance is within manageable margins the fight is fun, but when the difference in level or loot has too much of an impact, the purpose of the PvP goes to hell and the game just becomes a paractice of confrontation to decide who has grown the biggest e-peen. Which I don’t really feel all that interesting.

This is why the system I just described would help to retain the balance. Only one player every twenty can be rank 14. In order to fill a rank you’ll have to be organize in squads so it won’t be possible to just randomly zerg in without even forming a group. This system would encourage the players to organize themselves, set their leaders, build up good or bad reputation among the players and so on. I consider all these “side-effects” as good and positive. They make the community and help to structure the PvP so that it makes sense and is enjoyable for everyone instead of a chaotic mess where everyone competes against everyone else. It’s a system that brings players together instead of making them fight agaist each other. That encourages them to fight together for a shared goal instead of a selfish interest.

The example here is just to explain one part of the system. Specifically how the ranks are unblocked and designated. How the system is kept accessible and how the balance is retained. But there are then other goals that complete it and that would differ from WoW. For example the ranks are not supposed to be linear, nor one as a more powerful version of the other. Each rank should define a *role*, similarly to what happens with the classes. A role isn’t directly more powerful than another. It just gives you different tools to use in the proper way and contribute to the battle through that specific role.

And, finally, the reward and purpose of the ranks isn’t about better loot. But about advanced skills that have an impact on the large scale of the battle and that add dynamism, tactics and coherence to it. All elements that are missing and have been completely dismissed in the current design of these games.

Darkness Rising – Pitch black

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Third batch of screenshots (previous two are here and here), this time coming from the big dungeon concluding the second chapter of the expansion.

I wrote “pitch black” in the title because that’s what I saw in the game. I had to play the whole session with my monitor brightness turned up because I couldn’t see shit (add Levar Burton and Doom 3 jokes here). The player’s torch is also completely broken as it happens with 95% of the content in this expansion and following an awful trend that Mythic brings on till the release of its first expansion.

This is also part of a huge problem of the whole game that was never addressed. The night is too dark and if you want to play you HAVE TO push up the brightness on your monitor. At a “normal” setting the game would be unplayable and the result is that all the colors are washed out. So, the players bring up the brightness more and more and Mythic makes environment more and more dark, breaking completely the player’s torch so you don’t have even a workaround.

This pisses me off beyond what you can imagine. If I’m given a tool like a button to switch the light on around the character because the game is too dark, I WANT IT TO WORK. And instead it is broken in most of the places you go. Some places are too bright, some places are too dark, some places the torch works, some places the torch works only a little, some places it doesn’t work at all, some places it works only on half of the polygons… MAKE UP YOUR MIND! I want a fucking consistent behaviour. Trying to code the game in a constant way and not with all these different quirks and glitches. If you give the player a way to see when it’s too dark, you have to make it ALWAYS work. Not work in some cases and not in some other in a completely arbitrary way. If you want to set yourself what the player can see, just remove the torch altogether and tweak the values as you see fit, like it happens in WoW where the designer can set which place is dark and which is more bright without COMPLETELY FORBIDDING THE PLAYER TO SEE.

Anyway, the dungeon would be pretty if you could see it. In these screenshots I had to push up the brightness by 30% and I hope I reached a good compromise. If you still cannot see shit just imagine how it could be in the game.

Then we arrive at the comments about the actual content. We have all these great places, and despite they are ridden with glitches (that I try to not show in these screenshots), they show a lot of work and dedication from the artists. Well, all this wonderful art (that in this case maybe resebles a bit too much to Quake 2, it’s true..) is simply wasted. We have this rather big dungeon that would make WoW and EQ2 pale. But it’s just there as a background scenery. It glides by. It has more impact and relevance if shown on a website through screenshots than playing inside it in the game.

Why? Because there is very, very little gameplay in this dungeon. And in particular it is exactly the same gameplay that the game offered four years ago. Most of the dungeon is empty and there are only three four types of mobs casually placed just to make you waste some time moving from point A to point B. The most advanced new thing that vaguely resembled to a scripted encounter is about a group of three mobs that rushes in (buggedly) while you are sitting and medding after a previous big encounter. Nothing else. You have to go south to kill Mob A, go north to kill Mob B and go middle to kill Mob C. With some critters in the way. Dungeon done.

We have new places, the art in DAoC has greatly advanced and I really think that it tops whatever this genre has to offer. Actually I think it’s superior to every other game *by far* (despite the glitches and general lack of polish). But the gameplay hasn’t changed in the slightest. EVERY mob moves and fight exactly in the same way. What changes is the variables attached always to the same dull patters (health, damage, if aggro or not, resists and so on). The pathing is still exactly the same of four years ago, completely broken, jerky and unrealistic. The mobs keep aggroing through walls and are completely unaware of the environment. There is zero gameplay involving the perception of the space. You still fight in a flat field from the gameplay perspective. And also all the encounters are just set in the exact same way. There’s a room, a few mobs randomly placed and all aggroing if you go close enough, moving to you and hitting politely.

Every single mob in the game behaves in the same (buggy) way. You can fight inside a small tower, inside a mansion, in a keep, in a tunnel and so on. You can fight mobs with different shapes and colors but STILL, nothing changes AT ALL. They all behave the same and completely ignore every kind of environment, situation or specific nature.

Now I hate to keep bringing up WoW but come on. This is PvE and PvE needs some sort of identity to be fun. If in WoW you go fight in Gnomeragan it’s not the same if you go fight in Zul Farrak. All the mobs behave and must be dealt with in a psecific way. The places are different and you need to learn the environments. You play in and *with* the spaces. The layout matters in the gameplay and your journey through a dungeon makes sense both from the story perspective and the impact on the gameplay. I’m the first to say that WoW PvE isn’t that deep but at least it offers different types of encounters and situations. Maybe the difference is mild but at least it exists.

In DAoC all these new, fancy environments just sort of sit there. They don’t build a *world* they just decorate the margins. They lack an use.

Look at the second screenshot here. See that tower and the big house? I like them but they are *empty*. No really. The artists put a lot of work on those and the interiors are fully decorated. There are a few screenshots showing the inside of the tower. But, still, it is empty. Nothing goes on in there. You would expect to have fun and involving fights in that complex environment. But there’s simply nothing (probably also because the pathing would crap the whole place if they tried to put something to fight in there).

This is why every player trying DAoC thinks that its PvE sucks. Because there’s zero gameplay. Zero. Or the places are just there to decorate the environment, completely empty and missing *any purpose*, or they have a few critters randomly placed that follow one single, four years old pattern that you grinded for weeks, months and years. OF COURSE we are bored. Mythic is keeping reskinning the same stuff to feed it us again. Some can endure this, some others not. Should I bring up Raph again? We (players) can see past the pretty screenshots. We can see that there’s nothing new past them.

So, I’ve shown what a great art DAoC can deliver but, honestly, there isn’t much more to see in the game than what I’m putting here. I’ve shown some of the new models and still the gameplay is completely dull and forgivable. Those models, despite they look great on a static screenshot, still have applied the same ugly animations that the game had at release and, in many cases, they did not even care to update the equipment they use. And then there’s the craptacular pathing, aggro system and general gameplay that hasn’t even minimally moved a tiny step forward.

Pretty DAoC needs a soul (and new pathing code and animations). But then I’m pretty sure that all the programmers have been moved to the greener pastures (Warhammer). And what DAoC gets is the pretty reskin.

Quick note: the broken pieces of stone you see on the ceilings oscillate in the air with a nifty effect. While the red light coming from the cracks is, instead, fixed. Which is sad because it’s since SI that DAoC has the technology to show animated lights, and still it never uses it beside a few exceptions.

(screenshots here)




 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

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No comment

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Something that has been coming up repeatedly in the recent past is the player perception of Meeting Stones. While we have worked to add functionality to them, players do not appear to be using them much. I have made comments regarding this topic before, however, I would like to take the opportunity to gather specifics from the community.

It has been mentioned that certain mods are preferred for an LFG system. We would like to have a system in place that is particular to this game and to that end I would ask the community to participate in the following feedback thread.

Maybe you can get your stupid feedback from the leaked patch notes.

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A very quick note on “skill” in games

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I thought about this while writing the “review” of Rag Doll Kung Fu.

We often discuss “skill” in games. The players seem to want it despite we have often pointed out how this also brings problems.

But *why* do the players actually want games with skill? Well, it can be to impose their own unique qualities and personality in the game and remove some importance from the actual mechanics like the levels and the treadmills rewarding just those with the most time available.

But isn’t this hinting something else? Maybe it’s just that we are starting to refuse codified patterns (in particular with the mmorpgs, where you can play for years) and want to set our own. The possibility space.

The sandbox.

Maybe we are slowly getting to that point. Maybe it’s not just about the perceived fair (skill) and unfair (time invested, RMTs) competition. Maybe it’s because games requiring “skill” are simply more fun.

I’m in love with “Rag Doll Kung Fu”

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This toy is, simply put, a masterpiece.

I say “toy” because it isn’t really a “game” and I think it was coldly received on the internet because of this different focus and appeal. People now expect games with an high production values, movie-like narratives and screenplays, big and cohesive worlds. This one is completely different. It’s a toy for aged kids. It’s a little, pretty sandbox.

It’s surely not one of those games that will monopolize your interest for a long time, but it is the most fun digression I’ve had in a *long* while and it got me completely hooked up and… delighted.

It is really prefect in its own potential, with a lot of polish in all the smaller details. There is nifty stuff everywhere. The fully animated and “naif” scenery, the “film” graphic filter, the sleek camera movement, the chirping voices of the characters, the moody music… Despite the narrow scope, the game shows so much love and care from the one developer who built it. Maybe it seems not worth the price at a superficial glance but this game is pure ART and it really show all the meticulous work that was put onto it if you have the sensibility to notice this.

It’s a divertissement. But within this category you’ll hardly find something better. I won’t explain roughly how the game works because you can find those kind of informations pretty much everywhere. This isn’t some sort of review, either. Just some comments bundled together as I often do when something draws my interest. It’s also sort of impossible to give it a numeric vote and compare it with other games because it’s something entirely on its own. This is also why I find hard to dismiss it based on its (definitely accessible) price as others have done.

If anything it reminds me the fighter games on the C64 and Amiga like International Karate+. This time played with stylized, pretty dolls and some sort of “freeform” controls that allow you to move the body of your character and plan out strategies and attacks the way you want instead of sticking to already codified moves. This is why it feels like a sandbox. It’s freeform and you can explore what’s within in the way you like, creating your own patters. This is why IT IS FUN. This is also why IT IS ART. And, sadly, this is why it will get boring once you have explored thoroughly all it has to offer, despite, I’m sure, you’ll always enjoy to spend some time toying with it.

The single player starts as a fun and really well done “training/story mode” and consequent chapters that you have to progressively unlock. By playing these chapters and finding secrets you can also enable a “single player” mode that has another eight subgames. I only unlocked the first called “Ninja Onslaught” that basically consists in a sequence of turns where you have to fight an increasing number of opponents. It goes on till you succumb. Form what I heard from others the single player part, excluding the sandbox game, will keep you busy from one to four hours, so don’t expect a long lasting campaign.

Then there’s the “sandbox” in the form of multiplayers games or custom games with AI driven opponents (but also the single player games are a sandbox on their own since you can play them over and over and still have tons of fun). Even in the case of the multiplayer you can select different games. For the online part you can choose between the deathmatch, soccer (with a huge ball) and an athletic mode that is flagged as “coming soon”. While for the local machine you have another four modes to unlock (but I only have the deatmatch ulocked for now). Between the “coming soon” stuff there’s also a “world editor”.

The options for deathmatch are:
– Select location (8 arenas in total)
– Mushrooms options (Four options with a slider. -never grow, grow rarely, grow very often- -small pickings, plenty for everyone- -low potency, medium potency, very potent- -small in size, medium sized, huge-)
– Pot options (break pots to find fruit to eat for energy and *weapons*. One option -never fall, fall rarely, fall very often- Then you can select which types: fruit, bendy pole, nunchukas, ball and chain, shuriken, HEAD CANNON, dog on a leash, bomb, short sword)
– Rounds to win (from 1 to 16)
– AI players (from 0 to 7)
– AI skill level (6 levels: weak, average, good, advanced, very hard, insane)

At the bottom of this menu you can also see your character and move it on eight colored bars (white, blue, red, green, purple, yellow, orange, aqua). If you click on the head of the character you can switch between the eight “presets” models (that you can edit and combine from the proper menu -name, import skin, head, neck, torso, arms, hands, legs, feet, mouse cursor -a bit bugged for me-, voice) and by moving on the colored bars you select the color of your “chi glow” around your character.

While in the game:
– Camera mode (auto zoom, manual zoom)
– Music (on/off)
– Film Grain Filter (It’s a graphic filter, very pretty. on/off)
– Mouse sensitivity
– Game speed (from 0.25 to 1, “1” is normal real time, and you can slow down for some sort of “matrix” feel even if the controls are slowed down as well)

On the preferences you can set the connection speed that makes the game move super fluid or more stuttering but making it playable on slow connections.

The weapons are a BLAST and maybe even too fun and easy to use (the game has also stones that you can shatter and then pick the pieces to throw at people). In the game you have three bars. The first is your energy that you can replenish by breaking pots and finding fruit to eat (you move the hand on fruit to take it and them bring it to the mouth to make it eat), the second builds up by taking mushrooms and eating them (but if you eat too many you puke). This second bar has some psychedelic effect that practically allows you to keep pressing the left mouse button (consuming the mushrooms energy you built up) and fling precisely the character in the air, slowing down its movements matrix-like for a precise control (and even the music and character voices slow down with a funny effect). While the third builds up by grabbing butterflies, till the bar starts to glow. At that point you can set your character in the “butterfly stance” and make it shoot fireballs at people :)

So between so many game modes, large and multi-platform arenas, butterflies, mushrooms, fruit and weapons you really have many toys to fiddle with and have fun. And then it’s pretty. So absolutely charming and fascinating and so easily capturing an unique mood. I don’t know what else you could expect.

Btw, between pirates, ninjas, monkeys and zombies I choose ninjas. This is definitely my game.

I love it.

NOTE: The slides linked are from Raph as always, not mine.

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