Walking Other Worlds 118
- Title: Final Fantasy XI
- Developer/Publisher: Square/Enix
- System:360 (PC, PS2)
2003 was a long time ago, though. The Taru Taru are still cute, but just about every other aspect of the game feels dated in comparison to modern online games. Questing is extraordinarily awkward; There are lots of quests to do but almost no way to know how to find them. Hint books or the internet are really the only way you'll know that the surly gang of school kids behind the fish warehouse in Windhurst is a consistent source of fun missions. Graphically, the game looks serviceable but out of place on the Xbox 360. On a hi-def screen the jaggies ignorable on the PC or PS2 try to reach out and remove your optic nerves. The job system (allowing you to try all the classes with one character) is still one of the finest examples of balance and utility in the genre ... but raising levels on those classes will drive you to distraction. Leveling is an unrelenting, punishing grind. The first ten levels are basically required soloing, but beyond that you'd better be grouped or you're going to be enjoying the 'feature' of xp loss on death. My favorite moment is when you die just after having gained a level. You lose xp so, of course, you lose your level. That's some class A fun.
The 360 version collects up all three expansions to the game (Rise of the Zilart, Chains of Promathia, and Treasures of Aht Urhgan) along with the original gameworld, to allow the 360 experience to be a 'complete' one. Unfortunately, unless you've already been playing this title on the PC or PS2, much of that content will be weeks or months away from your level 1 character. The most recent expansion, Aht Urghan, has been getting very positive commentary from those who can play it, but the expansion's inclusion into this bundle is of limited interest to the new player.
- Title: Guild Wars: Factions
- Developer: ArenaNet
- Publisher: NCSoft
- System:PC
The two new classes brings the total up to eight, and fit seamlessly into the world of Ascalon for both PVE and PVP play. The Assassin is a direct damage character, carrying a lot of similarities to the Warrior class. An Assassin character has to get very up close and personal to do maximum damage, though, not having some of the skill with ranged weapons other classes do. The class also breaks ground with 'combo' moves. The mix-and-match actions that any character can slot are always fun to combine in interesting ways, but the Assassin relies on stringing together specific moves for increasing damage. The other new class, the Ritualist, is a support class that features a good deal of group buffing and debuffing. I found the Ritualist's laid back style of play kind of awkward in PVE, but it was a lot of fun in PVP matches. As long as you're in the main pack of your team, you're doing some good. A simple strategy even an inexperienced player like me could follow.
The new questing continent, the region known as Cantha, will keep the PVE players happy for a very long time. It's simply gorgeous, and artistically very different from many of the initial Prophecies zones. For example, the summer green that the lower-level original zone uses gives way to an autumnal orange and gold in Eastern-themed Cantha. There are over two dozen core quest missions, and enough side-quests to keep even the most dedicated PVE character busy for some time. For me, the most enjoyable element of these environs is the smaller zones, some of which go far beyond the traditional fantasy tropes we've come to expect. A beach-front area dominated by villages built on giant tortoises, and an ancient city built into a massive gorge, are just two of the nonstandard zones you'll travel through in Cantha. The Guild Wars designers went about as far as they could from the look and tone of the original Prophesies zones, and the Eastern sensibility and flair is like a breath of fresh air.
PVP is the gameplay that most people come looking for when they sit down to a session of Guild Wars, and Factions provides for these players as well. Besides the same gameplay seen in Prophecies, travelers to Cantha have the opportunity to align with two warring groups seeking to control the newly found lands. In PVP battles, guilds can struggle back and forth across a highly militarized zone. The more PVP victories a faction has, based on the guilds associated with it, the more land it can claim to control. The most interesting thing is that individual guilds can then lay claim to some of these lands, based on the amount of favour they've curried with their patron faction. This favour is earned not by PVP, but by PVE questing. The most successful guilds under Factions, then, are mixed bags. PVE questers garner favour with the ruling faction, while PVP gladiators ensure that their faction has control of a large swath of land. It forces players that normally would not associate to come together in a common goal, and is a right brilliant idea.
Hmm... (Score:5, Informative)
It was total grind-ville. There was nothing to do but grind. Want to hunt? Grind. Want to make potions? Grind. Want to fish... Okay, you could fish a bit without grinding much. But only a bit. And only after you earn enough money for a fishing pole and bait.
I spent the first 2 hours walking. Not looking and talking to people. Walking. I was looking for a way out of town so I could hunt. Once I finally found it, I killed a couple things, got hurt and wandered back through town to rest and get healed. I eventually stopped a passerby in the field and asked if there was another way (no mention in the manual) and she said it was a certain button on the gamepad. (I was on PC, she PS2.) I thanked her and started the button hunt again. It turns out, after you hit the button there's a pointless 2-3 second delay, and then the animation begins. Grinding went a little quicker after that, but was always still grinding. (Kill, kill, rest, repeat.)
As for GW: Factions... I played the PvE of the original Guild Wars for 260+ hours before I finally got bored. For a person who thinks 40 hours games are long these days, that's pretty impressive.
Now, I have a full time job and don't have the time I used to dedicate to gaming, but it's excessively hard to find the time needed to sit down and do a mission on GW Factions now. I need to dedicate at LEAST an hour, probably 2-3 because there are so many noobs that think Assassins are cool and they can play them like a warrior. The usual solution is to just reject any group that has an Assassin in it. Since most groups are doing this anyhow, good groups aren't as rare as they could be. It still takes time, though, to find any group at all.
The first mission you get if you sail your character to Cantha requires that not only you find a group, but that you get lucky and another group from another area isn't totally stupid, too. You each have to keep a single character alive through many swarms of mutants. It's not hard, but you HAVE to heal your NPC. It's a small nightmare. (I won't even mention that that quest glitches quite often and the NPCs stop moving, and you can't go on. Ooops, I did anyhow, didn't I?)
Once you get past that mission, things liven up quickly, but it's a real downer at first. I've only managed to put 10-15 hours into it so far, so there's still a chance to have the kind of fun I had in the original. We'll see.
FFXI Post-Mortem (Score:4, Informative)
I played for a year and a half, and quit. Alot of my friends along the way had dropped off, and then SE went and ruined my job in the infameous "Ranger Nerf." I had overall enjoyed the experience, but I thought I was done.
I was wrong. 3 months ago, I picked it up again in anticipation of the new expansion, and I will say this: I played both Guild Wars and WoW in the interem, and neither presented the depth or quality of gameplay that FFXI has. I think that one of the biggest complaints about FFXI is the need for a party to gain experience and level; I feel quite the opposite. The game is really based around it's community, and whether it be a terrible party that you laugh about for weeks, or a great LS (guild) in the endgame, the social experience is a nice change of pace from the anti-social communities in so many other games.
The complaints about the dated graphics are valid, but the complaints about the fundamental system are not.
Repeat After Me: (Score:2, Informative)
This is in no way meant to disparage Guild Wars. It's a fine game with some really cool ideas. But it is simply not a MMOG. Even the developers have said it's not a MMOG. From their FAQ:
It's just a pet peeve of mine. MMOGs typically entail a large, explorable, public, cooperative world. Guild Wars is highly instanced. The only public areas are small towns that only serve as staging areas for the instances. Guild Wars' gameplay actually has more in common with Diablo 2 than it does a standard MMO, like EverQuest.
Okay, done being pedantic, now.
pardus - free & fun (Score:3, Informative)
GW: Factions Is Not Good (Score:4, Informative)
1. Compared to the original Guild Wars, despite costing the same, you get SIGNIFICANTLY less content. When you buy one of the chapters, you get 4 character slots. When you add on another chapter, you only get 2 more slots (e.g. - you double your cost, but you only get 50% more character space). The map is also much smaller.
2. The problem with character slots above means that your storage is limited. The original GW had an abundance of items, so storage was already problematic. The fact that if you combine chapters you get a diminishing return on character space compounds the existing storage problem a great deal. ArenaNet has claimed many times now that a fix is in progress for this.
3. Many people have complained about the "delivery boy" syndrome Factions suffers from. many of the quests, especially early on, require that you run messages or items from one person to another. Because there is now no way to explore on your own (see #4 and #5), this often means literally having to slog through dull, repetitious fights to do the quest.
4. In the first chapter, many people enjoyed exploring on their own and opened up areas by simply running around the map. In Factions, this is not possible as they have locked gates placed around Cantha that only open at the completion of missions (only six missions were actually necessary in Prophecies to complete the game).
5. Monsters were not very challenging and were easy to avoid in some places in Prophecies. In an attempt to solve this, many patrols were overlapped in Cantha and given a very wide range of movement. Unfortunately, this means that it's not uncommon to submit to a very large and growing group of enemies because other patrols came into range from far off while you were battling another group.
And, of course, the main problem:
6. GRIND.
In Prophecies, many people chose to grind for gold and items, but it was not required. In Factions, because of Alliances, the only way to get to many of the missions is:
a) To join a large guild - a daunting task as groups of trusted players solidify - so you can be part of a large alliance
b) Grind out "faction" points for your chosen side in the Canthan war to contribute to your Alliance so that you can retain control over towns - the only way you can play certain high level areas ("Elite" missions) is if you are part of the Alliance holding the related town, which requires these Faction points.
I would say Factions is an enormous disappoint. At guildwarsguru.com/forum you can find many, many people who agree.
Re:pardus - free & fun (Score:2, Informative)
New Tutorial Sequence in Factions (Score:4, Informative)
One of the biggest changes in Factions is the new Tutorial sequence - the "newbie" area.
In old version in Prophecies only gave you a few abilities, and you were put out of it around level 7. In reality, you didn't hit the "main game" (the level 20 areas) for a while after. Also, new abilities were gained as rewards from quests. Your introduction to your class included a few "theme" quests - necromancers had necromancy-looking quests, etc. Some of the quests required you to learn to use a specific ability, but very few.
In Factions, when you get out of the newbie area you're around level 17 (20 if you explore a bit more than normal or if you use the quest rewards to up your experience gain rate) which means that you're pretty much capable of doing anything - and questing with your non-newbie guildmates is reasonable (when you're level 8, having a level 20 around is like enabling god mode - not all that fun when you're trying to learn). You also get a ton of abilities dumped on you at a quick but reasonable pace, and your class quests help explain a bit more of what it means to be your class.
The key, though, is the new Dojo system: after you complete your class quests you can (optionally) do a set of dojo quests, which are heavily-scripted single-player quests that focus around a specific technique. Kiting, dealing with spells, dealing with curses, dealing with conditions, etc. You are given abilities that allow you to deal with these things, and then given the opportunity to test them out. It's brilliant, and it will save a lot of teaching later on (many newbies in Prophecies didn't know these techniques at all - which was okay, they'd never been expected to!).
Also, another big shift: you no longer get abilities as the result of quests. Instead, quests and missions are worth much more gold, and you can use that gold to buy abilities from the skill trainer. Hence you can start mixing and matching much earlier (instead of having a set sequence of skill progression, you can pick and choose). Elite skills are still gained through capture[1].
I wish World of Warcraft had the dojo system, I really do. New players are faced with a very high number of techniques to learn. Getting with a good set of people can take care of this (and plus some!), but it would help raise the waterlevel.
[1] - For non-guild-wars people: some abilities are called "Elite" abilities. You can only have one of these available at a time. These abilities are found on bosses. You "capture" them after defeating the boss if you bring along a special skill called a "signet of capture" - so, the boss is slightly more difficult to kill (you have 7 skills instead of 8), but there is a reward from it.
Guild Wars Factions (Score:2, Informative)
*The new continent is Cantha. The old continent is Tyria. Ascalon is one of the kingdoms of Tyria.
*Warriors and assassins both use melee weapons, beyond that they share next to zero similarities. Assassins play much like rogues, complete with critical hits, minus the backstabbing (but they do have teleportation, called "Shadow Stepping" in game.)
*The assassin "combo move" mechanic is neither groundbreaking nor game defining. Nearly every effective attack sequence has always been executed by queuing up skills (e.g. Eviscerate into Executioner's Strike). Assassins skills are explicity limited - first a lead attack, then off-hand, finally a dual attack. There are a few exceptions to that rule but the system feels dumbed down and gimmicky to me - they've taken the choice out of when you decide to use your skills. There's no such thing as lead attack into dual attack - it (nearly) always goes Lead->Off-hand->Dual. Personally it irritates me because part of the appeal of the skill system was choosing whichever eight skills you wanted- now if you want one particular skill you may be "forced" into choosing three. Eventually the players would have figured out the best combinations on their own, this just feels like the choice and discovery has been taken from us.
*Your assessment of ritualists is pretty good- they have a lot of area buffs and can summon immobile spirits that can help defend important locations. Your gameplay tip is solid for nearly every inexperienced player- stick with the team and use skills on your bar that you (and your teammmates) get a lot of benefit from. New assassins tend to run off on their own and get killed quickly. Ritualists don't seem to have that problem.
*The artwork in the game (original and Factions) is gorgeous. ANet's artists continue to impress me, especially in a game with light system requirements.
*New PvP Zones: You missed a few points here, or were mislead by the advertising. The old game had three types of PvP game types: Ladder play (8v8), Arena Play (4v4, random and team), and an ongoing tournament/king of the hill battle (8v8). Prophecies introduced a new type of gameplay, called Alliance Battles, which are ostensibly 12v12 battles for control of territory.
I say ostensibly because during the beta event you could play the alliance battles as full 12v12 fights (though the objective is to capture and hold as many of the six control points as possible.) You could enter on your own or as part of a four person squad and it was always easy to get into an ongoing fight, and they tend to last no more than ten minutes (as opposed to the lengthier 20-35 minute ladder matches). The format changed in release however, so now you must enter with a team of four, and you no longer see (or share a chat pane) with the other eight people on your side, even though you are all fighting for the same side. The change has incited a lot of bellyaching because it put a big damper into the fast, furious, and accessible style of the early Alliance fights. Now you are forced to go in with a team and you can only communicate with your squad, which are not necessarily bad things, but a lot of the appeal of the early version was the ability to "jump in" and participate in a larger fight without having to worry about the organization other formats require.
*Territory control: each guild can now become part of an alliance. Each alliance can hold up to ten guilds. There are roughly ten cities (five per side) that can be controlled by the alliances with the most faction. Faction can be earned either through Alliance battles (PvP) or quests (PvE). Holding a city gives various benefits. Holding territory is a numbers game though- the more people you have generating faction the bigger the city you can control- there's no advantage to being part of a small, hardcore
No it is not an MMO (Score:3, Informative)
You are in the world with your group and possible the enemy group and that is it. You are talking the number of people in an area that a home run quake server could handle. It is the reason they can offer the game without a monthly fee because they do not have the gigantic overhead of hundreds of players in the same area.
It truly is like diablo 2 as has been pointed out before.
All the checks are there except for the massive.
Doesn't mean it ain't an intresting game. BTW you are aware that the game developers themselves don't claim it is an MMO either are you?