Anticipation abounds!

It always seems like at least once a year I'm on the edge of my seat waiting for some game or another. However it's been slow for me for a long time. There's been no mmo's upcoming where the concept just blows my mind and I have to have it ASAP for the longest time. The last game I can think of that had this effect on me was Darkfall Online which was a tremendous disappointment to me because of the rampant cheating going unpunished but that's another story.

However my excitement is born anew with the news about a game that has flown under my radar until this year: APB, also known as All Points Bulletin. With GDC 2010 having just wrapped up in San Francisco some new details about this game have been released and I like what I'm hearing. The game has in-game leagues and ladders so people know who the most bad-ass players are because statues of league-toppers are in the social area of the city of San Paro where the game takes place.

If I had to describe the game to someone who wasn't familiar with it I would say that it is essentially an MMO version of Grand Theft Auto. Players can choose to be criminals or enforcers (essentially police or bounty hunters) and their gameplay depends on that choice. For example criminals may get a job from someone to commit some horrible crime, and once word gets out enforcers in the area are assigned to stop this crime.

To say I love this concept would be a huge understatement because the idea of forcing players into direct conflict which is such a breath of fresh air from: "kill a bunch of these monsters which are so ridiculously weak that it's no challenge at all but you'll level so deal with it." Warhammer Online came close and while I love it I do not think it went far enough for a game toted as a PvP-centric game. When I say Warhammer came close this is because it had public quests that brought you into direct conflict with the enemy in competition which was an absolutely amazing thing at the time of it's release and still something I don't see often at all.

The sad thing is that we'll all have to wait for a while for APB to come out, there's mixed reports about what the release dates are and it's been pushed back several times. I can only hope that APB is exactly what I've been waiting for and that Realtime Worlds, the company who makes the game, doesn't make any terrible decisions near the beginning that can doom a game in the current climate.

And now for some related material!
A video I made of some GTA IV shenanigans
Youtube channel for APB Videos

Battle of the Heroes.

Statesman of City of Heroes and Defender of Champions Online

One question that I get a lot as someone who has played both City of Heroes and Champions Online is which game is better and believe me it is a very difficult choice.

The two games are direct competitors, both vying for a very niche (albeit large) market of a super hero MMO. The target audience is obviously people who grew up reading comics and I would say both capture that quite well.

When one has to compare these two games there are several things you need to keep in mind. Champions Online was released recently as opposed to City of Heroes which came out in 2004. These games when compared have some very typical arguments that come from comparing a new and old game.

Champions Online boasts an impressive engine that allows you to do things you would expect from a super hero console game like lift objects off the street and throw them or use them as a weapon. There's nothing quite like having a super-strong hero capable of lifting up a semi truck and beating a common crook in the face with it. Champions Online youth also allows it to have an interesting graphical style, cel shaded to be more specific like a comic book which is a cool effect.

City of Heroes' age lets it lord a tremendous amount of content over Champions Online and can make Champions' seem puny in comparison in terms of content alone. In fact City of Heroes content grows at an exponential rate because of the amazing and revolutionary system known as the "Mission Architect."

The Mission Architect is by far my most favorite feature of any MMO ever. This system allows the player to create their own storylines and quests for friends or even complete strangers to play. This makes it so any time you make a new character you can play through something completely new all the way to max level every single time, even if you make a thousand characters.

Champions boasts a very interesting and interactive combat system and better customization for player powers, letting you create a character exactly the way you want and not restricting you nearly as much as City of Heroes does. However being so young there feels like a general lack of content, a problem which Cryptic seems intimately aware of and is attempting to fix with it's new free expansion: Revelation.

The nemesis system in Champions while very cool could have been a whole lot better. For example my nemesis in concept is an insane demon who's only goal is to kill me. I don't think he would steal high-tech devices and chemicals, that isn't his style. But with the current system it's random what your nemesis is doing so it doesn't really feel like I'm fighting the person I envisioned.

City of Heroes trumps these flaws in the nemesis system as you can just create your own missions with your own nemesis with the mission architect. If you're lazy you could always just look one up as well.

My final verdict: City of Heroes is the winner... for now. Champions to me has more interesting combat and this leads to more interesting fights but City of Heroes is so far ahead with content for now that I would say I enjoy playing it more. If Champions were to implement something like the mission architect then I would say City of Heroes would be in trouble.

But really, I'm just some guy on the internet who plays way too many MMOs to think that he's the foremost expert on what makes a game. You should really try both games for yourself if you're interested. Both have free trials available and I recommend you give them both a shot.

City of Heroes
Champions Online

Vibora Bay, coming to Champions Online soon!

The apocalypse is NOW in Champions Online's new free expansion which is expected to be released mid-March.

Champions Online is an MMO based on the Champions tabletop roleplaying game. It's a game that I beta tested and was interested enough in it that I bought myself a lifetime subscription. Mainly because the combat in it was so interesting that I found it quite enjoyable even if there was a considerable lack of endgame in my opinion at the time of release.

Currently the game is beta testing a free expansion coming this March called "Revelation." The name is quite fitting considering this expansion is about a literal apocalypse. The antagonist is a terrifying creature called Therakiel, a fallen angel who refused to join the legions of hell and instead hates both angels and devils.

As I'm writing this article I'm currently sitting in game, waiting for customer service to get back to me so I can continue playing through. So far I'm intrigued because the story is quite interesting but now I'm stuck because of a bug so it seems I'll have to wait before finishing a review of this. In the meantime, I leave you with a beautiful piece of eye candy... Is it weird that I find a burning city beautiful?

What's your game?

A serious problem a lot of people have in today's MMO market is finding a game that is best suited to them, especially with a severe stagnant supersaturation of the same thing with different titles. World of Warcraft has set precedent with it's popularity and as a result other developers are bending over backwards trying to imitate and not emulate.

What really depresses me about the state of the industry is that when a game tries to be unique and break off from the clone-pack they try to be too unique and not take the GOOD features that World of Warcraft has. WoW revolutionized character control with incredibly smooth movement, mostly seamless interaction with the environment, and reactive ability usage.

Going back to the subject at hand, there's a wide spectrum of MMO games and lots of people have trouble deciding what game to play. You may like fantasy, but not like a "cartoony" style like WoW. The trick is finding a website that has a wide variety of games listed with comprehensive lists of games.

On that note I would like to refer you to www.mmorpg.com with one word of advice... don't go near the forums. The forums are full of imbeciles of the highest caliber and listening to their mere words is a disease that will make you more stupid for having been exposed to it.

Welcome!

Welcome to the opening post for Trials and Tribulations. Trials and Tribulations is a blog about online gaming which will feature me playing through a different MMO at least once a month. The name for this blog comes from the idea that some free trials to MMO are just that, trials. However some MMOs have free trials that are so aggravating that the word tribulation would be a better description of what they're offering.

I mention in the description that I'll discuss a little general gaming on top of MMOs and this is because lots of non-MMO games have great concepts that could and should be applied to MMOs. Soon I'll be writing about an MMO that looks like it'll be doing just that. This post however is just an introduction.

My name is Stephen B. though you may know me by my gamer handles Jargo or Jargonecius. If you want to contact me you can call me Steve or Jargo, whatever you feel more comfortable with. I am a long time gamer, ever since I was little I have had a love for games, the stories they portray and the lessons they teach.

In terms of MMOs you could say that my first real MMO was Asheron's Call in 1999 but I'd say this is the case because before this online games weren't really all that massive. I can think of a few smaller games like Legends of Kesmai which I doubt had much of a server capacity for a thousand players, let alone 8 million like World of Warcraft. If I had to name my oldest online game I'd have to say it was a little known game called The Odyssey online. This little game was a pet project by a man named Justin Schumacher aka Bugaboo and was made to prove that it was possible to make an online game with Visual Basic and prove it he did indeed. As far as I can recall the servers could only hold 54 people before they got unstable. This little game built in VB inspired me to work towards my goal... I want to design online games.

To wrap this up I thought I should post this for people who are wondering "What the heck is The Odyssey Online?" Some people did a remake and they're pretty nice guys and constantly adding content onto the classic. It's free except for the cash shop for optional powerful items which is a huge pet peeve of mine, but I'm willing to let it slide as it's not a huge game.

http://odysseyclassic.com/