E3 Impressions

In the run-up to E3, Zubon looked at the slate and saw sequels, tie-ins, and remakes as far as the eye could see.  I didn't put that much advance effort into analyzing E3, but I did leave a few quips in Keen's liveblog of the Sony press conference.  I don't follow console news nearly as closely as I follow MMO's, so it's a pretty sad state of affairs when I mostly already knew about all the stuff that I was at all interested in.  A few random linkspams:

• Sony's new phone/portable system seems ill-advised.  You can't sell games for a system that people don't own, which makes the system not worth owning because people don't make games for it.  If I were in a position to offer one piece of advice to someone trying to launch a gaming phone, it would have been not to make it an exclusive for AT&T.  Even the crowd of spoon-fed journalists did NOT react well to this announcement from Sony, and for good reason - the saga of how much iPhone users (and would be users) hated AT&T went beyond technology enthusiasts to the mainstream.  I'm sure not running out to pay $300 plus a data plan on a carrier I don't want, so I guess I'm just not going to be paying to play any of the game's they're making for the thing. 
  
  Note: Two commenters point out that the PS Phone (which was mentioned during the conference) is actually a separate device from the "Vita", which is available in wifi or 3G data versions (the latter shackled to AT&T).
  
  
• Speaking of PS Phone games, they showcased a Diablo-looking "MMO" called Ruin in which one of the hyped features was that players would build their own "lair", and other players could attack your keep and you'd be "rewarded" for responding fast enough.  What happens if you don't answer the phone alert was not specified.  Where do I go to NOT sign up for the game where I lose my keep because I had my phone off while I was at work? 
  
  
• Sony also unexpectedly brought CCP onto the big stage to announce that Dust 514 - the EVE-spinoff FPS - was bound exclusively for the PS3.  This game and the original EVE are in the same universe, and CCP has been saying since the concept was announced that battles in one game will affect the other. I have no idea how that will work (especially if there's a monthly fee attached to the PS3 game - will anyone stick around beyond the first month?), but CCP has been making stuff that wouldn't work for anyone else work for them for years now.  Also, I wonder how many people will "two-box" the FPS on the PS3 while their Eve ship does its mining-botting on the PC. 
  
  
• The thing that I was most excited about was the Star Trek game trailer - mostly because I'd forgotten that there was another Star Trek movie coming out.  On the plus side, I'm sure 'shippers somewhere can do something suitably inappropriate with a Kirk/Spock coop shooter that includes Playstation Move (that's their version of the Wiimote, which will come in a phaser-shaped model for this game) support. 
  
  
• Finally, in a bit of actual PC MMO news, Turbine has announced pre-order pricing and a September 27th release date for the Isengard expansion.  Doc Holiday has the important info - $30 for the expansion (three new zones and a higher level cap, though it's not clear how that will interact with free players), and additional packages that add $10 or $20 to the price tag in exchange for Turbine points, quest packs (if you don't already own them) and Rohirrim mounts/cosmetic outfits. 
  
  Personally, I already own the quest packs (from the old expansions) that might otherwise make the $50 a good deal for non-subscribers, and I don't care much about cosmetic mounts, so I'm inclined to wait and see.  In fairness, that's almost always my reaction. 
  
  (Note that these prices are in real world dollars, and may not be equivalent to post-launch pricing.  Turbine has not set a final Turbine Point cost for the expansion when it hits the in-game store, where it may be priced differently to account for TP sales.) 

It'll be interesting to see if anything more original emerges from the remainder of the show, but so far I'm relatively underwhelmed.

Digital Download Rising

One of the clever parts of Sony's PSN winback program is that it brings people into the PSN store.  I've been there a few times to pick up Rock Band songs or activate DLC that came with games, but it never occurred to me that you could download games that ship on Blu-Ray.  Turns out that they're actually smaller than your average MMO client. On top of that, some deals are actually competitive with discs - for example, Assassin's Creed 2 is available on the PSN store for the same price I'm seeing for discs online, but the PSN version comes bundled with all the DLC.  I don't know that I'd pay extra for the DLC if I already had the disc, but the digital version is a no-brainer if it comes with extra levels for free.

Digital downloads have been bumping up against retail for a while now in the MMO-scene.  I actually picked up Rift's digital download, and probably would have picked up the day 1 Cataclysm download if the local brick and mortar store hadn't offered a promo that beat Blizzard's price.  Last week we heard that EA is cutting out the digital middle-man for SWTOR, by reserving the game's download version for their own new download service.  I'm not sure what to make of this move, but I'll concede that I'm not sure what Direct Download contributed to my Rift download other than undercutting Trion's own price by 20%. 

I don't think we're going to see console games disappearing from stores the way that PC games have for years now anytime soon, but it certainly looks like the technology and the bandwidth are starting to catch up with the financial incentives - fewer middlemen and the ability to completely cut off resales - for this to happen. 

Single Player Kill Ten Rats

Seems like once a year or so that I clear out some time to work on console games.  In the last month, I've played through Portal 2 and now I'm working on Infamous (one of the free selections I took for the PSN hacking debacle.)  Like I the games I played last year, these both come from the school of cinematic game storytelling - attempt an objective until you succeed, see the next scene in the story, rinse and repeat.

Infamous has side quests, and I'm already finding types of "quests" that I'm not thrilled to be repeating.  The non-story missions come in a variety of flavors - rescue the hostages, destroy the truck, follow the courier on the rooftops, run a timed course across the roofs, and - my least favorite because the camera is your enemy - searching the walls of buildings for listening devices to destroy.  I'm enjoying the story and the game, but ironically I'm getting tired of the side quests faster than I get tired of the generally less varied "kill 10 rats, loot 10 foozles" model in MMO's.

Perhaps the problem is that this content feels like filler in between the more interesting story missions.  Alternately, perhaps the "persistent" social world of MMO's makes me more tolerant of this type of repetition.  Perhaps I was more tolerant of the same type of repetition in Assassin's Creed because the comparable missions that come up repeatedly (pickpocket, interrogate, eavesdrop, assassinate) are actually part of the main story (gathering information on your main target) and not just something that you do on the side because you're a nice (or evil) guy. 

Either way, variety apparently isn't everything. 

Flight Of The Willfully Indifferent

Ferrel writes about what he sees as a growing trend of "willfully ignorant" players, who "don’t care enough to read, listen, or prepare for anything", but "always want in on groups and raids" despite this lack of preparation.  In his view, players who don't accept responsibility for preparing to contribute to groups should go back to soloing. 

I don't know that I quite reach the bar for "willfully ignorant".  In most MMO's I don't group at all, or only group if specifically asked by a guildie looking to avoid having to bring a PUG member.  I'm not afraid to say when I haven't run a zone before (which is often), and I do my best to listen to instructions if they are forthcoming.  In general, if the content requires more commitment than that, I probably don't care enough to do it.  Perhaps that makes me "willfully indifferent", and I have no problem heeding Ferrel's advice and going back to soloing. 

The catch is that developers are watching.  Case in point, the very next post on Ferrel's blog talks about how Trion changed Rift dungeon rewards from a model with highly challenging, highly rewarding dungons to less challenging, less rewarding dungeons that are more accessible to the willfully indifferent (and/or ignorant).  The same trend is going on in World of Warcraft right now, after the difficulty of the initial content in the latest expansion was higher than the willfully indifferent would tolerate.  In non-subscription games like DDO, Turbine can literally see by the numbers who is willing to pay for more solo content and unwilling to pay for more raids. 

If the majority of the market truly is making an intentional choice for the path of indifference and away from challenge, the motivated minority may need a better PR strategy than "go back to soloing".