Direct Link

Original Release Date: September 22, 2009
Version Reviewed: 2.38 (March 11, 2012)
Game Type: MMORPG (Post Apocalyptic)
Custom Features: Combat, Seamless World, Crafting, Progress Towns
Strengths: Graphics, Crafting, Single Server, Versatility in Character Appearance
Weaknesses: Learning Curve, Bugs, lack of Alternative Advancement
Notes: One of the best FTP MMOGs on the Market; has grown into a strong and solid product
Billing Style: Free to Play with Paid Subscription, Marketplace

Fallen Earth was originally released on September 22, 2009 as a labor of love from the independent game development company Icarus Studios. Taking place in the future post-apocalyptic southwest, since its release the game has grown by leaps and bounds. It converted from its original paid subscription model to a combination free to play and paid subscription model complete with marketplace. Since then, it has attracted a large player base which is keeping the game alive and well. Lovers of games such as Fallout 3 and the gritty post apocalyptic genre are finding a warm welcome in the world of Fallen Earth.

Besides the unique target-based combat system which allows snipers to headshot their victims from a distance and challenge one to control their aim, Fallen Earth also features a truly seamless massive world. I don’t know of any other MMOG on the market which has accomplished what FE has in the terms of size, scope, and AI-controlled NPCs; all on the same server and without any “zones”. While there are instanced underground bunkers/structures, those are also handled seamlessly. In addition to a seamless world which is always crawling with players, this affects features such as the Auction House as a player doesn’t have to worry about “poor server population”. There’s more than enough people playing the game and constantly bartering items.

New Flagstaff at Sunset

The game has no classes. Instead players spend points in specific areas which allow them to focus on particular strengths. Want to be good at pistols, rifles, and add fire damage to your attacks through a mutation? No problem! But don’t spread your points around too much or you will be good at everything yet master of none.

Another impressive thing about FE is how no two characters look alike. The versatility in appearances is exceptional; even with the NPCs. If you’ve never been attacked by a crazed woman with spiked hair wearing a crazy blood-covered hockey mask coming at you with a bloody machete and suddenly see her body fling back as she is shot in the head, only to turn around to see a female character on a hill in a wedding dress standing next to her motorcycle with a .50 caliber pink bunny sniper rifle waving at you; well, let’s just say… this sort of thing happens in FE, and it is fantastic. I won’t even begin to mention the cowboys with clown face paint.

Vehicles are a big part of the game as they can act as storage, are required for traveling long distances and can even be enhanced to engage in vehicular combat. Factions are critical in FE as well. Learn about them and choose wisely as once you join a faction and put the effort into building the faction points, there’s really no going back unless you want to use a one-time full reset.

But it’s not for the faint of heart. It’s different enough from other MMOGs where there is a substantial learning curve. Be patient and plan on taking a few days just to get the basics down. But once you do, you’ll find yourself having a great time. There is also PvP at the heart of the game, so be prepared to do battle with other players and factions. And be prepared to die. A lot.

Tradeskills are a core part of this game as nearly every item you can find or use is craftable. Resources are so abundant you cannot venture into the world without stumbling upon them. If you like to scavenge and build, this game is for you. If you like to snipe, slice with a machete, duel-pistol blast, or even utilize strange mutations to maim and kill your opponents, this game is for you. If you like a gritty, living and breathing post-apocalyptic world with fun content, great graphics and a solid level of depth, this game is definitely for you.

Content

Creation & Customization, Classes, Story, Missions, World & Sectors, Towns, Ambiance, Mounts & Vehicles, NPCs & Enemies, and Tutorial

Character Creation fun!

You begin the game by creating and customizing your human character. There are quite a few customization options including height, build, hair, tattoos, scars, jewelry, color and more. While the theme is very post-apocalyptic, there’s enough variance to both create a fun, goofy-looking character, or a serious wasteland traveler.

There are no classes in Fallen Earth, but specific areas of focus where you will put your skill points. I will cover this in detail below under Mechanics for stats, skills, AP and mutations.

The story begins with an introduction to LifeNet which you learn through the “Escape from hoover dam” starter tutorial and movie. You are a clone; that’s how you are able to come back to life after dying one of many different ways in the wasteland. Of course this story grows as you play the game and engage in quests, quickly branching out into many different conflicts, conspiracies and issues which require deadly force to resolve. This is experienced through the missions of the game. As with most MMOGs, there are many kill, delivery, group, and reward quests; but FE seems to have more stage-based missions than other MMOGs. When you start one mission, be prepared for it to take you from place to place and require numerous steps to complete. Missions come in four colors to show how difficult they are. From easiest to must difficult the colors are green, white, yellow and orange. In my opinion the first set of difficult missions begins with the Kingman Prison, but as you play the game, you will find many missions marked as group and higher level than you are easily soloable; part of this is due to the tactical aspect of the combat, which is covered below.  A player can have a maximum of 20 missions at any given time, but can only show one as “active” on the UI. At first, I found this to be annoying as I was accustomed to seeing multiple missions shown at once from other MMOGs, but as you get into the game and start playing without expectations set by other games, you find yourself not missing the multi-mission system at all. Additionally, nearly every quest in the game shows you on the world map exactly where to go and it’s easy to switch between quests which are in the same vicinity.

The world of Fallen Earth is huge, and in order to truly appreciate what has been built you really need to experience the game in full and explore every location you are sent to. While FE is a truly seamless world, it is broken down into sector maps. The entire world is known as the “Grand Canyon Province” which contains 7 sub sectors. These sectors are: Sector 1 – Plateau (for characters level 1-20), Sector 2 – Northfields (21-30), Secctor 3 – Kaibab Forest (31-40), Deadfall (40-50), Terminal Woods & Alpha County (50-55), and Territory Control. Territory Control is a purely faction-based PvP area and has different rules and features from the other sectors (which will be covered below). The gradual progression from sector to sector is very well done, and while there are “empty” portions of the sectors, they are more the exception than the rule.

There are a lot of towns in Fallen Earth. Some are Neutral and others are Faction. If you’re friendly with the faction, you can enter. If not, you will be shot on sight by the guards. Each sector has one major town. I believe the largest town in the game is New Flagstaff, which is in Sector 2. Every major town has all vault types and serves as a central hub for that particular sector. You’ll always encounter plenty of player variance when you visit the hub towns. As I will cover below, the game also features Player-built progress towns.

The ambiance of FE is very engrossing. The colors, environmental sounds, lighting, shadows, structures, foliage and terrain all create an enveloping world which is very well done and detailed. The view distance for the terrain is the furthest I’ve seen in a MMOG; you can truly see a long distance, and it adds to the overall feeling of depth to the game world you are playing in. When you start out in Sector 1, the world seems like a barren wasteland. It’s not all like this; as you progress out of Sector 1 and into Sector 2 and then Sector 3, etc. you will notice a gradual change in terrain from wasteland to plains to heavy forest, and you will also begin to notice structural differences in towns based on factions, storyline and location. Day and night cycles last four hours each, and when it’s night it gets very dark. When day comes around, you welcome it.

Mounts and vehicles are key to getting around in FE, but they represent more than just transportation as they can also be used for combat and storage. There is quite a variation in mounts and vehicles. Players can ride on horses while shooting their targets, jump on ATVs and fly through the hills, acquire “interceptors” which are dirty muscle cars (which you can mount guns on), purchase a fat prairie chicken to bound around on, or even fly down the roads in a custom painted chopper. The variation in vehicles allows one to pursue a method of transportation which matches their character and play-style. While I introduce vehicles under content, I will discuss the actual use and management of vehicles below under mechanics and travel.

Horses are very popular in the early sectors

The tutorial (which is about escaping hoover dam) takes a new player through the basics of the game. I recommend every new player completes the tutorial as it does a good job of introducing the game, features and different play/combat style. Once you complete (or skip) the tutorial, you get to choose your starter town from a list of of seven (Clinton F.A.R.M, Mumford, Boneclaw, Zanesville, Terance, Midway, South Burb). Each town tells you the population and has a “focus” of Support, Pistol, Combat, Rifle, or Crafting. As Fallen Earth has grown in popularity most of the towns are at “full” population, but that’s not a problem; simply choose the town which looks best for what you want to focus on and enjoy!

Economy

Currency (Death Toll), Inventory & Items, Tradeskills (Resources & Gathering, Crafting, Harvesters & Salvage), Trading (Bank, Mail and Auction),  Subscriptions & Marketplace

The currency of FE revolves around chips, crafting components and the auction house. Chips come in four flavors: white, blue, red, and yellow. The lingo of the game is “for sale! 15r!” which is 150000 chips (100 white= 1 blue, etc). Merchants sell items for chips and you can sell items to merchants for chips. You can also buy and sell items for chips through the Auction House, which is very active due to the single-server natuer of the game. You can also acquire Death Toll by killing players. This can be spent at Death Toll merchants to buy PvP equipment. Yellow chips are the end-all, be-all, and the max currency of the game is 10y. You can also acquire “defense tokens” from the Citadel quest in Deadfall to buy end-game crafting components from a defense token-specific merchant.

Inventory is managed through storage on your character, through vaults, and storage on your vehicles. Vaults serve as the “banking system” for your character and come in four flavors: Sector, Barter, Utility and VIP. This is very confusing to new players as they are led to believe the different vaults represent different methods of storage which may include membership or even trading; this is not the case. Sector vaults are generally found in every town. Barter vaults are found in all major towns, and some towns contain utility and VIP vaults. All are connected and all are owned by you, so technically, a player has three sets of bank vaults they can use. The difference is utility and VIP vaults are only found in a limited number of towns. So if you’re in a smaller town, you may not have access to some of your vaults, so you generally only want to put things in the utility/VIP vault you rarely have to access (until you’re going somewhere like Los Alamos on a regular basis). Barter vaults are the middle ground; for example I put weapons and armor in my barter vault and use my Sector vault (which is found pretty much everywhere) to store all of my raw resources. Vehicle storage becomes important as you venture off into the wasteland. This storage is useful for extra ammunition. Your character inventory is based on slots and weight. You always have 64 slots and can carry a specific amount of weight based on your stats. When I started the game my max weight was around 30. At level 50 I could carry over 80 and I didn’t focus on strength.

I finally discovered what brought about the apocalypse!

Items come in a number of core categories: Weapon, Armor, Ammunition, Consumable, Tradeskill, Mission and “other”. Weapons are either ranged or melee and can be equipped in the following slots: BACK, BELT, and LEG. You can have 2x of each, so you will often see a player running around with guns, knives, and even “glow sticks”.  There is a very wide variety of armor with a number of slots: EYES, MOUTH, HEAD, EAR, BACK, CHEST, SHOULDERS, ARMS, WRISTS, HANDS, WAIST, LEGS, THIGHS, BOOTS, and STORAGE. Something which may not be quite intuitive is your Chest is your “shirt” and your Back is your “torso armor”. There are also wardrobe slots identical to armor slots where you can define the custom look for your character, and I must say the visual diversity in characters is exceptional; it’s almost impossible to find two characters who look exactly alike. There are a number of single items which will take up multiple slots. For example, you can wear a Helmet that just takes the HEAD slot, or a full face-covering helmet which takes EYES, MOUTH, HEAD and EAR. You can also find “suits” of armor which take up nearly every body-based slot; these armor suits start at level 45. Items such as weapons and armor have two degradation properties: condition and fatigue. Condition is durability and fatigue is the overall repair reserves for the item. When your item reaches a condition of 0 you must repair it in order to use it again, and higher level items require expensive repair kits. When you repair an item it loses a point of fatigue. If an item reaches a condition of 0 and fatigue of 0 it’s not repairable. However you can replenish the fatigue of an item by merging it with another of the same kind. Don’t worry; fatigue doesn’t become an issue until end-game, and it was designed to ensure a continued use of materials to craft and repair items. While items can have character level restrictions, each item in the game has an “item level” which is a different tier than character level. This allows the developers to define items of low and high quality in a specific character level range (or usage range). For example, a level 45 common and cheap helm may be item level 52, but the “best quality” helm for a level 45 character may be item level 64. You can also dye items (and vehicles) which allows the player to define their unique look. Surprisingly, very few items in the game bind to you; most can be repaired and resold.

Tradeskills are at the heart of Fallen Earth and probably serve as the most important set of features in support of the economy; even more than the chips because of the consumable nature of things. Resources from Gathering come in 3 core categories: Geology, Nature, and Scavenge. Geology encapsulates mining nodes, nature all types of nature-based resources such as wood, wheat, cactus water, etc. and scavenge is everything else: junk, which can procure everything ranging from pharmaceuticals to computer chips and salvaged metals. Scavenge can also return the same resources you find through geology in the form of metals. And there are a TON of crafting materials in this game. More than any other game I’ve seen.

Crafting skills are as follows: Armorcraft, Ballistics, Construction, Cooking, Geology, Medicine, Mutagenics, Nature, Scavenging, Science and Weaponry. And believe me when I say there is a monumental amount of things to craft in this game. Guns, Armor, Clothing, Food, Item Repair Kits, Healing Pharmaceuticals, Item and Vehicle Dye, Horse Feed and Fuel, Blades, Hammers, Tents and Campfires, Vehicles, and even guns to mount on your vehicles; you name it and you can craft it. While most of the crafting skills are self-explanatory (i.e. ballistics is guns, armorcraft is… armor) the one which people scratch their head on is Mutagenics, which is support for mutations. I will cover this in more detail below under skills. You must have a kit on your character in order to craft; if you’re crafting for multiple skills, this can take up a number of slots; of course there’s a single kit that does everything which you can purchase from the Marketplace, but you have to pay for it. Another important support feature for gathering are Harvesters; physical objects you can set up in the Territory Control zone (PvP) which harvest specific materials. Short on Scrap Steel or Lead? Set up a harvester! But there is risk as you can only set them up in PvP areas and players can both destroy and steal from them. And very importantly: Crafting is queued and done even when you’re offline. You can set up to 20 individual items to be crafted in your queue at once; and as you get into the higher level items, it can take hours and even days to craft complex items. Using construction skills, Players can also build camps wherever they like which can include mail, vaults, and merchants, and provide a nice buff to those who are around it. There are also crafting stations in towns which lower the time to craft if your character is in proximity. This can be helpful if you queue a lot of items to craft and want to shave off 10-20% of the time it would normally take.

A great example of the well-done long-distance terrain rendering

As mentioned above the Bank system of FE is the Vault system. Mail is pretty standard compared to other MMOGs; you can send, receive and COD items. The Auction House is very active as there is only one server and you can find an AH in nearly every town. It is common for popular item posts at good deals to be snatched up almost immediately, and you can almost always find what you need if you have the chips. My only gripe with the AH is the fact it is not apparent you can search items based on character level, but only item level. You can fix this by selecting “player level” under the required attribute dropdown. The UI of the auction house can be a bit cumbersome, but once you dive into it using the AH is pretty easy and a player can make quite a bit of money by selling the resources they find and items they craft.

Fallen Earth is a Free to Play game which offers paid Subscription and a Market. The base Free to Play account has limitations on many things such as the the number of characters a player can have, how many chips a character can have, experience gain rate, a limitation in crafting/harvesting speed, and how much time a player can spend crafting, etc. Of course the paid subscriptions address all of this by removing limitations and even enhancing them. There are three paid subscriptions available: Survivalist ($9.99/mo), Wastelander ($14.99/mo) and Commander ($29.99/mo). I personally recommend Wastelander; it’s the same as a paid subscription to any non-F2P MMO and works well. Subscriptions also give monthly Reward Points (thus rewarding those who continue to subscrive) which can be used to purchase in-game items; but if you don’t want to wait, you can buy some G1Credits and buy lockbox keys, equipment, mounts, slot expansions, enhancements and other marketplace items.

My Recommendation if you plan on really playing FE: Purchase the Wastelander Subscription and the Bedland Rider motorcycle.

Welcome to the Northern Forest!

Mechanics

Level & AP, Stats,  Skills, Actions & Mutations, Factions, Modifiers, Regeneration & Consumables, Travel, Instances, Player Towns, Achievements,  Pets, and Death

Fallen Earth has a level cap of 55, and it does take some time to get there unless you’re an experienced player who knows exactly where to grind and uses XP boosters. However there is so much to do in the game I highly recommend completing every quest you can if it’s your first time through, especially as the world is massive and the quests will send you to bases and other important locations which you will want to be aware of if you choose to help out friends or level alts.

As you progress through levels you are awarded APs (advancement points). This is the bread and butter of character customization. What’s nice is you will receive APs as you progress through a level so you can enhance your character between levels and not have to wait until you “level up”. While leveling will increase your root stats, it does not increase your skills or mutations (except Alpha). You must spend points to increase those. Each stat point costs 5 skill points and everything else costs one point. Another reason it is important to do quests is because many of them reward AP points, so if you simply grind to level 55 without doing any quests, you could find yourself fewer AP at max level than you would have received through questing. Max usable AP is currently 1960, but you can acquire more than that through quests after you’ve reached level cap. My guess is this is for future expansions which raise the level cap, allowing players who continue to “collect” AP to store it for expansion.

There are eight stats: Charisma, Coordination, Dexterity,  Endurance, Intelligence, Perception, Strength and Willpower. Each stat serves as the foundation for all skills, mutations and tradeskills. You can see which stats affect which skills by looking to the right of the skill/mutation/tradeskill in the UI. For example, the skill Armor Use is based 25% on Coordination and 75% on Endurance while the Armorcraft tradeskill is based 75% on Intelligence and 25% on perception. This means you need to plan in advance what stats you will raise to support the skills you want to pursue. I recommend doing some research on character build templates before starting your character; that way you can get an idea of what to shoot for. I decided to go with the Rifle/Crafter template for starters, but instead of First Aid and Group Tactics, I went with the Empathy Mutation and Dodge. All characters also have health, stamina and gamma. Health is the traditional “if you reach 0 you’re dead” value. Stamina is consumed by actions and gamma is consumed by mutations. Each stat has a regeneration value which can be enhanced through consumable items, as discussed below.

There are 13 skills in the game: Armor Use, Dirty Tricks, Dodge, Escape Artist, First Aid, Group Tactics, Heavy Weapons, Melee, Pistol, Power, Precision, Rifle, and Social. Most of the skills are self explanatory, but a few are not. Dirty Tricks is mainly for melee support, and Social supports bartering and other interesting features such as being able to walk around enemy towns, reduce aggro, etc. Each skill has a set of action books which are necessary to open access to the actual actions which is what you can place in your slots and activate/use. For example, the Rifle skill has an action called Bull’s Eye which causes the next shot to do extra damage. Each book/action comes in multiple levels and you must acquire each level of the book to access that level of the skill. For example level 4 of Bull’s Eye required Rifle 156. Most books are sold by merchants or can be crafted, and some can be found.

For those of you who are more familiar with fantasy-based MMOGs, Mutations are the equivalent of “magic classes” in Fallen Earth and encapsulate a number of actions based on a theme. There are a total of eleven: Alpha Mutation, Empathic, Enhancement, Illumination, Nano-Manipulation, Patho-Transmission, Primal, Sonic Influence, Suppression, Telekinesis, and Thermal Control. All characters have Alpha Mutation and it’s automatically maxed based on the level of the character. This ensures every character has access to the most basic mutation actions available (simple heals, etc). Mutation actions can do everything from acting as support buffs and debuffs while others cause damage over time to your attacks, heal you, remove disease, etc.

Factions are a key part of Fallen Earth and define the overall play style and attraction for each character. While most games have a static faction system, Fallen Earth has created a faction wheel which creates a balance between multiple factions. There are six factions total: Techs, Enforcers, Lightbearers, Vistas, CHOTA, and Travelers. Each faction has its own theme, custom armor and gear sets, and attracts a certain type of player. For example Enforcers are very military while Vistas as more “wild west” and love running around on their horses doing mounted combat. The interesting part of this is when you gain faction, you also gain faction for the nearby factions and lose on the opposite side of the wheel. This means gaining Enforcer faction also gains Tech and Lightbearer faction, but at a lesser rate. This causes the CHOTA faction to take the biggest hit (2x negative to the opposite gain) and the factions next to the opposite to take a lesser hit. What makes this interesting is you may want access to faction vendors that aren’t your primary faction (i.e. an Enforcer may want to go to a Tech town to buy something from a Tech faction merchant). While you can take Tech quests, you now gain faction with Techs, Travelers and Enforcers; but lose with Lightbearers Vistas and CHOTA. So you need to keep an eye on your wheel to make sure you don’t turn a nearby faction to your main opposite faction by engaging in quests of a faction other than your main. This creates “faction friends” and absolute enemies which show up different on the minimap; however, the next big patch is going to change this so all PvP is either primary faction or enemy. This tells me they may be foregoing the faction wheel as it doesn’t appear to add anything from a PvP perspective, but can enhance the game from a PvE perspective. Your faction level also allows you to choose your faction title.

There are many modifiers which can be both beneficial and detrimental. Buffs are positive modifiers which can enhance your stats, armor, etc. and debuffs are poisons, diseases, and other harmful effects which can be used against you by NPCs and other players. Consumables are critical to timely regeneration, especially when it comes to ongoing combat. You can eat food (health regeneration), drink yummy beverages (stamina regeneration), and obtain other food and boosters for gamma regeneration. You can even find boosters which take from one stat to enhance another (i.e. take health and add gamma). This can be very important for characters that utilize mutations and are in large combat groups.

Travel is either by foot, mount or vehicle, or lifenet fast travel. The lifenet fast travel is critically important due to the size of the world. It costs chips and instantly transports you to key hubs where you have registered your clone. It’s important when you travel from one location to another to always register yourself at the closest lifenet fast travel hub so you don’t have to hop on your bike or horse and spend five minutes traveling from point A to point B. Lifenet hubs are shown on the minimap with little blue icons. One thing to keep in mind is the fuel needed for your vehicles. When your horse runs out of stamina, it will only trot at running speed. Same with your vehicle. Always keep an eye on stamina and make sure you have extra feed and fuel if it’s getting low. Also, your vehicle/mount can be “killed” by NPCs, other players, and through damage (yes, driving or jumping off the cliff on your bike or horse will hurt/kill/destroy it). For this reason it’s always a good idea to keep vehicle repair or veterinarian kits on you in order to “restore” your vehicle/mount.

Welcome to Kingman. Make sure you're armed!

Fallen Earth features a number of instances, but they are done in a seamless fashion. Most instances are “bunkers” and other underground or structure-based areas. When you enter an instance, a custom UI comes up informing you of the instance, and presenting a button that allows you to reset the instance any time you would like. While the instances are fun and can be challenging, I have encountered a number of bugs which I hope the next patch addresses.

One unique feature in FE is the ability for characters to use their construction skill to build Progress Towns. These are player built and controlled towns which can rise and fall based on PvE incursion. One of the most active and notorious of the three Progress Towns in game is the Citadel; a player controlled town which comes under massive siege every 70 minutes and requires a raid party to defend. And when I say massive, I mean it. When you see the wave of attackers for the first time, you’ll be blown away. If the party fails, the town is razed and overrun by the NPCs which must then be defeated in order to take it back and rebuild the merchants, quest givers, etc. The other two towns are Progress Town in Sector 2 (Northfields), and Stronghold in Sector 3 (Kaibab Forest). If you want a break from quests or to get great experience with a group of people, head on over and check these towns out. They can always use an extra hand either defending the town or retaking it.

Fallen Earth has numerous Achievements, but they really don’t provide anything at this time other than a list of goals a player can work toward. My guess is the developers will evolve the Achievement system to give rewards and possibly access to items based on the total achievement score, but they have yet to announce such plans.

There are a number of fun Pets in the game, and some even offer storage, but none provide any actual combat support.

You’re in a post-apocalyptic world where most everything wants to kill you. Luckily, you’re a clone! Death is merely inconvenient . When you die, you  re-appear at the closest regen chamber with some condition wear on your equipment. Most regen chambers also have garages next to them so you can pull your mount or vehicle back to you and be on your way once again. There is also a debuff which lowers your experience for a few minutes. Don’t worry, there’s no running back to your body or losing gear.

Gameplay

Combat, PvE, PvP (Blood Sports, Conflict Towns and Territory Control), Reward, Progression, Learning Curve, End Game, Difficulty and Replayability

Much like a solid golf swing, there's a certain bliss experienced with a clean headshot

Combat comes in four flavors: Ranged, Melee, Mutation, and Vehicular. Sadly, when I say Vehicular I don’t mean that you can run over your enemies (quick flashback of glee to Borderlands). Instead you can engage in combat while on/in a combat-ready mount/vehicle. Some mounts and vehicles allow combat while others do not (read the description of a mount/vehicle to determine if it’s combat capable). One of the unique features of combat is the aiming capabilities which are most apparent when you’re engaging in a 80 meter sniper shot of your target’s head. You can damage a target in two locations; body and head, and a head shot does much more damage than the body. The targets will weave around, duck, and move, making even the most basic up close combat scenario a challenge to score headshots. But if you can, you’ll drop your target much quicker, regardless of the combat being PvE or PvP. This adds an extra level of satisfaction to every fight and adds a hint of “tweak damage” to the game, which takes it one step above other traditional MMOGs where you simply click on your target and execute action X. Another interesting feature related to combat is how a player can be zerged by numerous targets. It’s entertaining to fight your way through an encampment only to see somebody fly past you on their motorcycle and watching them get caught on an object and suddenly swarmed and pummeled to death by the 30 angry NPCs they accidentally aggro’d on their way in. This happens a lot. All in all, combat is fun. Add ragdoll physics to the mix and you have bodies flying around with great knockbacks from those .50 caliber sniper shots or monster hammer hits. Another level of strategy the game adds is line of sight shots. If you’re in a highly dangerous area, you do not want your bullet sailing past your target and striking the boss behind it. This aspect of the game requires the player to pay more attention to what angle they’re shooting at and what is behind their target. It can be very entertaining to see new players flailing their shots around and pulling in groups of mobs from behind their target, only to have their ragdoll body slammed through the air and pummeled to the ground. Some mobs are also ranged, and more than once I have pulled into a camp of snipers and thought I had plenty of space to forego aggro only to have a group of NPCs from all around me shooting from afar. One rarely survives such a situation, so depending on the type of camp you’re approaching, a player must exercise caution before entering.

Fallen Earth supports both PvE and PvP play. PvE is plenty fun and there is tons content for those who do not want to engage in PvP. There are hundreds of quests, numerous encampments, underground facilities, hostile towns and raids will keep all players busy for quite some time; and the continual need for crafted items keeps the economy going even at end-game. But make no mistake, Fallen Earth also has a very focused PvP side to it for those who want to participate. The core of PvP revolves around three means of participation: Blood Sports, Conflict Towns and the Territory Control sector (the only total PvP sector in the game). Everything except for Blood Sports revolves around Factions, and as mentioned above, the game is about to be patched to make it so “friendly” factions don’t exist anymore; it’s either your faction (friends) or enemies; even for support factions which are in the green. Blood Sports are queued PvP in custom maps with different goals and themes. The four maps are Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Survival and Assault. By participating in Blood Sports you gain Death Toll currency and rank. Conflict Towns are found throughout the game and offer open PvP in a designated area where the players can complete quests to take control of the town (which opens up merchants). Territory Control has keeps which factions fight over. You can upgrade the keeps and when you control a keep, place harvesters for resources. Territory Control is probably the busiest location of organized PvP groups which move from keep to keep, resulting in some juicy battles. But make no mistake, PvP in Fallen Earth can be frustrating and brutal. If you’re a L45-50 character and come up against a L55 PvPer, you’re probably toast. The only hope is that you have more people with you (or that they aren’t very good). Be warned, there’s friendly fire! This can result in some very heated battles, especially if somebody in your faction decides to shoot their own for fun. This can result in characters who are on a faction “blacklist” and shot on sight by their own faction members in Territory Control.

Watchtower at Sunset

Rewards are obtained through harvesting resources, looting NPCs, receiving Death Toll through PvP, participating in progress town quests (defense tokens) and Quests. NPCs do not drop any chips at all; loot is all item based. Also, most NPCs do not drop anything more than components and ammo. Some bosses can drop weapons, armor and vanity pieces, but only the bosses. You can occasionally get lockboxes and books from NPCs, but that’s the most variation I’ve seen from the norm of component drops. I will admit the quest rewards are fairly lacking in the area of items (only because they are generally lower level than what you can easily craft or acquire through the auction house), but you can get reasonable chips out of them and are shown great places where you can gather materials and gain reasonable experience. The second time you play the game through you’ll know where to go and what to farm, and the overall experience will be much more familiar.

Progression comes through experience, leveling and distributions of advancement points. A character gains experience through combat, gathering, harvesting and quests. It’s actually possible for a character in this game to reach max level without ever using a weapon, although I would not advise it. Some of the more costly and complex crafting recipes can yield quite a bit of experience as well.

There is a Learning Curve to Fallen Earth; more than other MMOGs because of the way combat works (it takes some time to get accustomed to switching in and out of aim mode with TAB) and the process of understanding the depth of crafting and how factions/towns/PvP all work. The game is unique; there isn’t really another MMO like it. The UI is custom and also takes a bit of time to learn as well. The help channel is always flooded with questions and answers and is available to new players, but it can be hard to sift through the public “romper room” nature of it. There is a great FAQ resource which can help any new player, and I highly recommend if you are playing FE for the first time to check it out.

Welcome to Blaine! You will only try to go up the hill once...

End-Game really consists of PvE in Deadfall/Terminal Woods/Alpha sector, PvP, harvesting, crafting, gearing and alts. I do admit the lack of alternate advancement is a bit disappointing (and I think they really need to add it), but the really “high level” weapons and armor take quite a bit of time, resources and money to complete, and leveling your character also takes a good amount of time unless you specifically grind for experience with boosters. There really isn’t any raid-based end-game content that isn’t tied to public events such as the Citadel. The most pursued thing for level 55 characters seems to be Impure Volatile Chemicals and Salvaged Pre-Fall Tech. Both are required to craft some of the most powerful weapons and armor in the game.

Red bodies and lots of flies represents a successful battle!

Fallen Earth ranges in difficulty based on what you are doing. Running around and harvesting is pretty easy, as are the wandering mobs in the plains. But come upon a well-fortified compound with ranged NPCs or in an active PvP area, and look out. I did find most group quests to be soloable and fairly easy, but some of them do require a bit of help to handle. The first real set of quests a player needs help with in Sector 1 are in the Kingman Prison. Based on play style, melee can be much more challenging than ranged, and depending on a character’s build, wandering into an enemy camp can be a monumental task of strategy and luck vs. simple well-placed headshots from a distance. Making money can be a bit challenging depending on play style, but I have run into players who have achieved the maximum amount of currency in the game (10 yellow) and are still playing. I have also encountered many level 55 players who seem to always be broke. As with the real world, it simply depends on how you manage your funds, plan, and how much effort you’re willing to put into building your own ammo, items, consumables, etc. While playing Fallen Earth, I’ve run into casual women gamers who love crafting and stay away from PvP, and others who are hardcore PvP tweakers. Fallen Earth appeals to all kinds.

When it comes to replayability there is plenty to do in Fallen Earth. Even if you max all of your tradeskills (which takes quite some time since it is still time based even if you have all the resources to make it happen), there’s always more to gather, craft, sell, barter and explore. While there is a deficiency in the lack of alternative advancement, Fallen Earth features some of the best crafting I’ve seen, and the combat is much more fun and involved than other MMOGs. Level 55 characters are constantly running through Territory Control, planting harvesters and engaging in group and solo combat while gathering materials to build that next great weapon or piece of armor. Also, when a progress town falls, players with the proper construction skills have to team together to rebuild the town. This can be costly, yet the players work together, spend their own resources and take action to benefit and protect everyone from the next impending assault.

Community

Help  & Global, Clans & Clan Wars, Events, Groups & Raids, Population, Quality and Forums

Need a job done? These ladies deliver!

It is very obvious Fallen Earth is a Free to Play game when a new player first begins to read the default Help channel. Many prefer to turn it off, but new players can find useful discussions and receive responses to any questions which they have. GMs do a reasonable job to keeping the really bad talk controlled, but it is a never-ending sea of communications. The good news is there are helpful people in both the Help and Global channels (note you get access to Global when you subscribe). As you begin to play the game, you will also learn which players are helpful and which ones you should put on /ignore.

The FE equivalent of guilds are clans, which have the traditional shared chat system, rank-based structure and clan vaults. There is a Clan Wars feature in the game where clans can declare war against each other and engage in battle, but I have not seen or heard about anyone using this feature and have not seen a listing for a battle, and when I asked about it, I was told nobody really uses it as there are plenty of other avenues to engage in PvP. I do think the developers could evolve the clans to include some sort of advancement and collaborative reward system, but I haven’t heard any mention of this. I will say joining a good clan does make the game much more enjoyable, especially when you get with a group of fun and mature players. It certainly makes asking questions much easier, and if the clan is sizable, you’ll always have people you can play with and call on for help when it’s needed.

There are a number of events in Fallen Earth. The most common are incursions on progress towns and sector events. Sector events are defined on a sector map with a little nuclear hazard symbol. Most of the sector events take place outside of towns. You can mouse over these events to see what they are, and race on over to participate. The progress town events (as covered above) occur every 70 minutes and if there are not enough players present, the progress town is overrun, destroyed and taken over. Most events require at least one group of people to complete, and some require full raid groups. There are also “resource events” where areas in a sector are given extra resources to harvest for a period of time. These areas are marked by a hammer on the map and very much worth visiting if you want to do some serious gathering.

Groups are teams of 8 and Raids are 4 groups for a total of 32 players. There are numerous buffs (and constructed structures, etc) which affect the entire raid. Raiding is popular for Territory Control, farming in popular areas, to participate in world events, to drop the occasional world boss, or participate in progress town incursions.

The Citadel is full of action every 70 minutes

Since the population of FE is on a single server, there are always a ton of people on. While I do not know the exact number of players, I would say the player base is well over 100,000 strong and growing.

Since it is Free to Play, the quality of the community varies. I have met some great people in-game; some through help channels, others through running across them in-world, and others through my clan. The help channel can be a mix of useful dialogue and romper room, and while Global is only available to subscribers, the channel can also be hit or miss – but the GMs do their best to keep things under control. A large clan of good folks is the best way to go. So far I’ve met a number of very helpful and mature players in-game. I have also met some really nasty folks who receive a /ignore, but I will say the majority of the players I’ve met seem to be good folks rather than not.

The forums of Fallen Earth are a great source of discussion and information. One of the best sections is the New Player FAQ and Guide section. I highly recommend every new player goes to this forum and reads not only the posts, but the Ultimate Guide to Fallen Earth.

Technical

Graphics, Sound, Interface & Addons, Connectivity & Downtime, Patching and Bugs

The Graphics of FE are very well done. The assets tie very well together, there is a great level of detail in many of the environments and structures, and the overall feel of the game is vast, open, and alive. While there really isn’t much in the way of music, the Sound is well-done with good environmental FX which represent the time of day and overall “feel” of the game’s theme and landscape. The sound is also very good for notifying you of combat and where it is taking place. It’s quite common to be roaming the wastelands and not see another person for a long period of time only to hear the faint crack of gunshots in the distance, drawing you to investigate a massive gunfight which is taking place. It’s actually very cool.

Fallen Earth UI everywhere!

The Interface takes some getting used to, but it works. You can resize most windows vertically, but not horizontally. The Map resizes in full, but that’s the only window which does. You can have multiple windows open at once (which is often necessary) and you can loot bodies with shift-click. When I pick up a bunch of quests in a new town, I bring up the mission window and the map window and with both side by side, click through the missions to see where the most red X’s are clustered and then head in that direction. The game is very right-click based for inventory and you can easily split items with a shift-click. You can add friends by left-clicking on somebody’s name in the chat window. The game handles overflow and lack of inventory very well by tagging “complete” buttons on quests which have been completed but you didn’t have room in your inventory to accept the reward; either that or the item is mailed to you. There is no addon support.

In memory of Fattywangs. The aspiring kid's party clown who was killed during his first show.

Connectivity has been a problem for me even though I’m on 30MBit cable modem and have had no issues with other online games. However I’ve spoken with others in-game who state they have no connectivity issues whatsoever. I’m located in the Seattle area. As there is only one server, when it goes down, nobody can play. This seems to happen every once and awhile, but not too often. The game does have weekly maintenance which lasts one to two hours. I would say FE has more downtime than other MMOGs, but that’s only due to the single-server nature of the game. On the flip side, I’ve been involved in large-scale group combat at Citadel without a single hiccup of lag or latency; this is very impressive given the sheer volume of action which is taking place.

Fallen Earth has a sporadic patch history. Sometimes they will patch every few weeks, and other times every few months. The latest patch was 2.38, released on March 13, 2012. The upcoming patch is supposed to have some pretty big changes including Global Territory Control. This Patch is anticipated to go live sometime in April or May 2012, but given the scope of this patch, I think it’s safe to say it will be available when it’s ready.

While Fallen Earth is a great and fun game, it has more bugs than any other recent MMOG I’ve played. I get constant disconnects, have encountered numerous UI issues and other strange behavior. This includes problems with instances improperly resetting (and booting you out), quest completes not showing, rubber banding of mobs, getting stuck on surfaces (including doorways and steps which one should not get stuck on), having chat channels “die”, gaining achievements but not properly showing them (or allowing you to even find out what achievement you just got), abilities getting “stuck”, and not being able to equip a weapon. The good news is logging out and back in usually fixes these problems. However I cannot be too harsh on the developers as I believe FE’s seamless world has more active AI NPCs and connected clusters than any other MMOG currently on the market. This is not easy technology to master.

Support

Forums, GMs, Bug Reporting & Knowledge Base, Wiki

While the forums provide great support, the help and global channels are the most used venue when it comes to asking questions or discussing problems. However on the rare circumstance a player runs into a serious issue, the game almost always has at least one GM online at any given time. You can directly message the GM by bringing up the social window, clicking on the GM tab, right-clicking on their name and sending them a private message. While it can take time, I’ve always received a response.

There is a bug report ticket system built into the Fallen Earth website where you can log into your account and submit a ticket. There is also a knowledge base where players can browse articles and recent questions related to certain topics.

Los Alamos... or what's left of it.

There is a Fallen Earth wiki, but I’ve found it to be rather hit or miss as it is lacking a lot of information related to quests, sector maps, and other aspects of the game. There is another site called GlobalTech which features a planner, atlas and database.

Despite the romper room aspect of the help channel, there are actually quite a few helpful folks who will answer direct questions. That’s always the best place to start as you can quite often get an answer to your question in 30 seconds or less.

Conclusion

Fallen Earth is the only real post-apocalyptic MMOG on the market. It’s a fun and engrossing game that has been out for years, stands on its own, and is unique in the industry; catering to those who want something different from the traditional fantasy model. More importantly,  it’s fun. There’s always something to do, and as you wander the wasteland you constantly come across new areas and creatures. The game will also appeal to those who played and loved the Fallout series (especially Fallout 3). In the end, I give a hats off to this fun and engrossing game that has survived the trials of a unique MMOG. Jump in and enjoy!

Additional Resources

Newbie FAQ (a must read for new players, also answers numerous questions regarding crafting, finding items, etc)

The Ultimate Guide to Fallen Earth

Globaltech Atlas

Fallen Earth Wiki

Assault Crafter’s Character Template (recommended)

Hybrid Crafter’s Character Template

Release Date: November 17, 2011
Game Type: RTS / City Building
Custom Features: World Events, Voting, Underwater Building, Trade Infrastructure, Research
Strengths: Graphics, Fun Factor, Complexity, Multiplayer, Unique Persistence
Weaknesses: Learning Curve, Complexity, Useless DRM
Notes: The best RTS / City Building Sim created to date
Play Style: Single-Player and Multi-Player with persistent hook-in to the “online community”

Anno 2070 is a Masterpiece. The beauty, flow, scale, scope and replayability factor of this game is unprecedented. Not only is it a RTS/City Building hybrid, the player can actually grow and evolve their ARK (which is the base ship each player has) from game to game, thus building a base of operations that grows with the player’s research and accomplishments and can be carried into the next game. Pair that growth with the numerous achievements, enhancements and multi-player capabilities of the game, and what you have is not just a RTS / CB game, you have what is the next great step in this genre.

The core goal of Anno 2070 is to rebuild the game worlds you participate in. This includes growing your ARK (your mothership) and building up your underlying profile with achievements and upgrades which you can carry from game to game. This allows you to take on greater challenges while creating more complex and rewarding worlds, either by yourself or with other players.

But don’t be misled. This game is not for the faint of heart. It is very complex, in-depth, and will require your complete and total focus to properly play. You don’t just build cities and command units, you run and manage them in a living breathing beautiful sandbox which offers quests, trade routes, disasters, diplomacy, research, wars and more. Even if you build the “perfect” infrastructure, it cannot sustain itself without your support and management. By creating a living environment you can share and grow in with others that carries persistent values from one game to another, the team behind the development of the game (Related Studios in Germany) has done a fantastic job.

The Beautiful World under the Sea

Anno is not a single or multi-player game; it’s equally both, but it requires an online connection to play. This creates a persistent online presence regardless of a player taking on only NPCs vs. other people. This is nice because it makes you feel like you are part of something even greater than just the current game you’re playing; and you are, as I will cover in more detail as I review the content, features, gameplay and overall mechanics of the game.

Content

Factions, Storyline, Game Types, World, Resources, Production, Structures, Vehicles, NPCs & Enemies,  Tutorial, DLC, Mail

Anno 2070 features three factions: Tycoon, Eco and Tech. The Tycoons represent the “Global Trust”. They like to exploit resources quickly, but as such they cause more ecological problems. The Ecos represent the “Eden Initiative”. They rely on green tech and while eco-friendly, their cities are not nearly as efficient and prosperous as the Tycoons. And finally, we have the Tech faction, represented by the “S.A.A.T” (or Scientific Academy for Advanced Technologies). They are the supreme inventors and masters of the underwater world. They designed the ARK and the EVE computer system (the in-game advisor). They build advanced units such as aircraft, underwater ships and missiles.

The Storyline tells us it is the year 2070. Global Warming has melted the Arctic ice cap, which has raised the sea level so high that it’s changed the face of the planet. You are the controller of an ARK, or a “mothership” which represents your society. It’s up to you to rebuild and control your upcoming empire.

There are four different game types available for play: Continuous Games, Campaigns, World Events and Single Missions. Continuous Missions are the most common with three difficulties: easy, normal and difficult. Continuous missions are also the core multiplayer games as well. Single missions can also be played as multiplayer (some actually require it), but Campaigns and World Events cannot. However all of them count for your overall gaming progression. Completing Campaigns, World Events and Single Missions may be more rewarding based on what you are trying to achieve vs. simply creating sandbox worlds in the Continuous game type.

The World revolves around multiple islands and underwater plateaus where the player can build and expand. The world is vibrant, alive, and absolutely beautiful. Deer wander the woods, seagulls fly around your fisheries, and whales call to each other underwater while scuba divers check the integrity of your domes.

Resources serve as the core of everything in Anno and come in different forms based on whether they are on land or at sea. Both islands and underwater plateaus have something called fertilities. These are the base attributes that tell you what can grow there such as coffee, rice, wheat, fruit, algae, etc. Plateaus have fewer fertilities than islands, but are far more exotic. Next we have raw materials; this defines the core materials available in the island or plateau. Many common resources are copper, oil, coal, etc. The resources are accessed through either Mineral Resource nodes (such as a riverbed slot) or Mines. Players can also tap into resources with structures, such as a Rotary Excavator which pulls coal from the island (but only at a rate that’s 50% that of a mine). The resources in Anno are all measured in tons, so a new island may have 10,000t of coal which can be extracted, but once it’s gone; it’s gone. That is unless you have the technology to replenish the resources – and yes, it’s possible to keep replenishing resources to play a game world indefinitely (and some people do this and use it for their “research center”). There are two common resources which never quite disappear: Fish and Trees. Although you’ll need a tree farm to keep the trees coming in an area you harvest them from. Note the different factions each have needs that require different resources. While you start as either Ecos or Tycoon (tech is acquired later), as you expand to support all three factions (which you can), managing the resources becomes a monumental task.

A massive sprawling metropolis... with fire!

Resources are gathered for one core purpose: production. The most basic and common produced item is a Building Module. This comes from a smelter which takes granules from a basalt crusher. Later on, you can produce things like Heavy Weapons, which take Copper and Coal and Uranium which must be refined into Iron and Detonators before being produced into the actual weapons themselves. This production “tree” can get fairly complex and requires skill to manage, but the game does a good job of starting things off slowly and introducing the more complex solutions as you grow. The real bread and butter produced items of the game are building modules and tools; these are required to build all the starter structures, so the first thing a player generally focuses on is producing energy to build modules which build houses which allow for growth to the next tier which allows the building of tools, bigger houses, more people, more structures, and more production which can lead to battleships, aircraft and even nuclear weapons.

The sheer number of structures can be overwhelming to new players, but they unlock based on your management of resources and growth. The structures come in multiple tiers which focus on infrastructure, production, public, harbor, emergency services and special. Most structures can be upgraded multiple levels. The core structure for every island and underwater plateau is a warehouse; this is the first thing that must be built. After the warehouse, the Depot serves as the cornerstone structure, which serves as the trade center for the region in which it’s built. For example if you build a coal mine all by its lonesome, you can hook it up to a trade depot to make sure the mined coal is entered into the island’s warehouse to be distributed anywhere on the island. If you build a mine without a trade depot, you’ll never see the coal even though the mine will produce. Don’t worry, the game lets you know if this happens so you can fix it. Every structure that produces anything must have access to a structure which consumes the produced item, the warehouse or a trade depot. Roads serve as the main means of transporting goods, but as the trade depots and warehouses are upgraded, they feature air-based transport units which can remove the need for roads altogether. City Centers serve as the core of your cities and establish a build radius for houses. You then build houses and other support structures which give the residents of the houses what they need to “upgrade” to the next level. The needs of the residents can be in the form of both structures and produced goods. Because of the structure need and influence radius, planning is very important in Anno, especially if you’re shooting for a big city and infrastructure. Defining the layout of your casino (which is required to upgrade tycoon residents to level 2) to ensure it influences the maximum number of houses is very important. The same rule applies to production centers. For example, defining the layout for oil extraction and refineries before you begin to build them can make a huge difference in efficiency and overall productivity. Later in the game you can build highways which double the speed of the transports that move between production facilities and trade depots.

Vehicles come in three flavors: ships, underwater ships (submarines) and aircraft. There are no land vehicles. This actually works out very well and I never found myself missing the land-based death machines. While Anno is mainly a city-building game, the vehicles allow for the production of small armies which can make or break a faction’s grasp in the world. Destroying the local pirates, or that oil tycoon who has been harassing you is rather satisfying. And hitting an enemy city with a nuke is a visual spectacle of utter destruction.

Combat Ship Reporting for Duty, Sir!

There are a number of static NPCs & Enemies in Anno. When you come across Vadim Sokow the oil tycoon, you know what he represents. Same with Yana Rodriguez, the eco-savant who never combs her hair. Hector is the local pirate leader who will harass you throughout the game unless you either impress him, pay him off or take him out. They all have different personalities and can be rather entertaining, and with the online nature of Anno, I’m sure the developers will add new NPCs in future versions and DLC.

The game doesn’t really have a tutorial per se. Instead it has a campaign which is designed to walk you progressively through the features; but it’s not always easy to understand and takes time. There are systems built into the UI to help you find what the quests are asking you to do and EVE (the computer advisor) helps explain things, but it’s still quite a learning curve.

Anno 2070 was built with DLC in mind, and the first set was released on February 13, 2012. This included the Keeper Package, The Development Package and the Eden Series Package, which included new features like portraits, missions and structures. There are also in-game “progression” rewards you can purchased by obtaining certain achievements, etc.

You will also receive in-game Mail from time to time, informing you of events, voting results, and other opportunities available to you in the game.

Mechanics

Economy, ARK, Upgrade Slots & Inventory, Research, Career Progression, Building & Layout, Transport, Trade & Strategic Map, Quests, ALSU, Achievements, Diplomacy, World Events, Voting, Disasters, and Statistics

The Economy of Anno is solid, and as defined above, revolves around resources, productivity and goods; but there is cash on top of that which is made through taxes, trading and quests. Well-run cities generate millions in cash which is nearly impossible to burn through without a massive catastrophe, war and negative cash flow. Another form of currency in the game is that of licenses, which are required to purchase high-tech goods and conduct advanced research. Licenses can be acquired through completing quests, diplomacy, and research. At this time there isn’t much of a money sink in the game, so once you pass a certain point (i.e. $10M in currency) there’s really no chance of running out of money; or anything to spend it on. Money is not persistent though, so once you enter a new game world, you have to financially begin from scratch.

This is your Ark. There are many like it, but this one is yours!

The ARK serves as your base of operations and acts as your persistent storage and upgrade unit which is carried from game to game. This becomes more and more important as you play more complex games and jump into multiplayer with other players who have high level upgrades; they will smoke you in building and expansion if you can’t keep up, and many of them have ARKs with upgrades from hundreds of hours of gameplay. You can also activate Political “boosts” from your ARK which effect all of your islands and plateaus. The available actions depend on your career progression, voting and overall progress.

Note: you can move your Ark by clicking on the waypoint icon in the upper right corner of the Ark selected window!

Upgrade Slots are key in Anno and can be found not only in your ARK, but on Vehicles and in Warehouses. The upgrades in your ARK affect everything on the map, the upgrades in your warehouses affect the island or underwater plateau, and the upgrade on a vehicle affects that vehicle. Inventory is managed on your ARK, through the Warehouse Storage of an island or plateau, and the “hold” of vehicles (such as transport ships). Inventory items on your ARK carry from one game to another, allowing the player to set up raw materials to be used for an accelerated start at their next map.

This brings us to Research, which is how you obtain the items to load into your upgrade slots. There are two level of research, both through the Tech faction; one is a Research center, and the other is an Academy. The Research Center offers vehicle and warehouse upgrades as well as upgrade “components” which the Academy requires. Once you build your first Academy, you will see the volume and complexity of the items you can research, which come in three tiers (defined by the number of stars). Some of the simple 1-star component items only take 5-15 minutes to make while some of the 3-star items can take hours and require other items which can take hours, making researching top notch upgrades a challenging but rewarding endeavor. You can even research items to unlock items for research. Once you research a few critical ARK upgrades, you are often drawn to try them out in a new fresh game world. So, when you do start over and rebuild again in another world, your ARK will now offer upgraded boosts which enhance the experience and perhaps allow you to increase the level of difficulty.

Some research requires a certain level of Career Progression, which is a core mechanic of Anno where you gain progress with one of the three companies by completing the campaigns (both main and the monthly company specific event), performing daily missions (known as Current events), and voting in the senate. As you gain company progress you obtain bonuses and even access to different ARKs which you can custom configure. This is another component to the persistent growth a player experiences as they play the game.

Building and Layout is of critical importance in Anno as you must plan ahead as to what you want to accomplish before you start throwing structures down. How big is the island or plateau? What are the resources? Where are you going to house your population vs. production? Are you focusing on eco vs techs vs tycoons? What resources will need to be traded between islands? Anno makes you think, which is very good – and important. Templates for Housing Layouts and Production Layouts (Eco for this example) are available via the Anno 2070 wiki, which help a great deal. Be patient. Learning the core building techniques will take some time, and in the end there’s no “perfect way” to do things; it’s whatever works for you. That’s one of the great things about Anno – you don’t have to build everything to be ultra efficient; you can beautify your settlement and create trade routes between production structures which are much more aesthetically pleasing than simply bunching them together for efficiency; and it can all come together beautifully.

Vladim's Oil Transport Fleet with Escorts

Transport of goods is of critical importance as your world grows, especially as no one island or plateau has everything you need to reach the final tier for any faction. As discussed above, you must connect production structures to consumption structures, trade depots or warehouses in order to register the productions; this is done on islands through roads and underwater through pipes (unless you’ve upgraded the depots and warehouses to allow flying transport). However the automated mechanism of transporting your goods is done through the Strategic Map, which allows you to assign ships to transport goods between islands and plateaus. The interface is dynamic, flexible and easy to use after you get the basics down. Once you get your trade routes up and running, your empire can flourish; but be warned – enemies will often target your transports, and the single sinking of a key transport can have devastating effects on production which can lead to population and money issues. This is one of the very cool and in-depth aspects of the game; ensuring the flow of goods and more importantly, protecting them. As you play the game you will see NPCs and other players assigning battleships and areal vehicles to protect their more critical transport vessels. There is also the manual mechanism of transporting goods from one location to another (outside of the trade route automated system). You do this by taking a sea vessel to a warehouse or ARK and either picking up or buying the merchandise and manually transporting it to another warehouse. This manual transporting method is always taking place as it’s the only way to expand onto other islands and underwater.

The Strategic Map controls your Trade Routes

While the Strategic Map allows for creation of trade routes, one can also engage in Trade by selling items at their warehouses. This allows NPCs and other players to come to your island warehouses and buy goods which you have in surplus; you can also buy their surplus as well as NPCs allow you to buy goods from their ARKs and warehouses, which is very important at the beginning of a game as you can purchase a good 40 tons of tools to help you build the structures which… build tools! You can also buy and sell with other players, and actively trade specific items with other players by dropping items overboard, which they can then pick up with their ships.

You will receive numerous Quests throughout the game. Some are random, others are tied to events or campaigns, and some can even be triggered by other players. Some are simple and others are very difficult and/or require some strategic planning. Most of the time they are very rewarding and worth doing, but the important part is the quests in the game keep things very interesting and progressive. The balance is just right so the player rarely finds themselves in an idle mode waiting for something to happen. There’s always something to do.

ALSU stands for Air, Land, Sea and Underwater and each “level” is of critical importance in the game. The player can move the camera between above the sea and below the sea with ease, flying around and looking at both their land bases and underwater bases. Submarines can surface and dive upon command. Aircraft are either parked at the airport or flying around (and can escort ships, etc). The ability to manage any object at any level of the ALSU is a key mechanic to the game and excellently done. It’s seamless and easy.

There are 209 Achievements at the time of writing this review. It may not sound like a lot compared to a MMO, but this is certainly no MMO, and obtaining achievements is much more difficult. Also, some Achievements have multiple levels to them. Many Achievements simply reward the “yay!” factor while others unlock content, award titles, and UPlay points, which can be used to purchase items. You can also configure the game to publish achievements to your Facebook account.

Time to do some Diplomacy!

When you interact with NPCs through the diplomacy screen, they will treat you differently based on your influence with them, which is adjusted through quests, war, etc. The green fanatics will get angry if you throw the eco-balance of your island out of whack too much, while Hector the pirate will like you if you defeat others in combat. Diplomacy is a very important part as it allows you to do things like request quests, take out loans, summon fleets, declare war, make demands, trade licenses, and accomplish other goals and tasks; all based on your influence with the particular NPC.

World events are an important part of the ongoing storyline of the game and are dynamically updated by the developers. They encapsulate a set of campaigns which need to be completed and are hosted by one of the three factions. Completing these campaigns gives you Career Progression points for the hosting faction, so they are good to participate in. This is a form of free dynamic content offered to the players which allows for continued participation in the growth of the game and overall statistics.

Voting allows the players to support a particular faction in a global vote. Support of a faction also gives the political benefits covered above, so if you want to switch from one faction’s benefits to another, simply change your vote. There are two flavors of voting: World Counsel (which is what gives the political benefits), and the Senate. The Senate Vote is based on proposed benefits offered by the three factions. The factions which receive the most votes have their global bonus enacted. For example, as I write this review, the current vote is at 65% in support of the Ecos which gives a bonus to all ozone generators. The interactive nature of Voting is a lot of fun and even for a player who wants to play alone and not with others as it allows them to participate in the “world decisions” which positively affects gameplay.

Disasters can change everything as it relates to your empire. One nasty tornado and you can find shipping lanes and entire production centers completely destroyed, or one of your oil rigs next to your fishing docks for your population can catch fire and release a massive oil spill which halts fish production. Events such as this can have cascading repercussions which reach your population and cause people to move away, thus lowering your tax income and generating a deficit which can ultimately destroy your infrastructure. Disasters include: Oil Spills, Nuclear Accidents, Research Accidents, Acid Rain, Acid Soil, Respiratory Ailment, Civil Unrest/Rioting, and a Tornado. Some disasters, such as Oil Spills, require researched (or purchased) technologies to clean up.

A devastating tornado heads out to sea...

Anno also features a global statistics system which tells you worldwide what all of the players combined have accomplished. It’s broken into five categories of: Population, Politics, Ecology, Energy and Production. This includes total world population (3.7B as I write this), the distribution of votes, global goods production (49.5B tons as I write this), the most effective ecobalance buildings, and total global energy production (839M as I write this). This is very cool as it shares what the players are building and doing within the Anno game worlds.

Gameplay

Combat, Strategy, Events, Multiplayer (PvP, Co-op), Reward, Progression, Learning Curve, Replayability, End Game and Difficulty

The Combat in Anno is similar to other RTS games where you command vehicles to attack other vehicles or structures, or support each other. Each unit has DPS (land/sea/air) and hits, and can be upgraded by slotting items. This means when you fight opponents, you never know what upgrades their ships may have, especially if they have researched a lot of advanced technologies; and the slotted items can make all the difference with things like 20% more DPS or 30% more speed. Some units can even engage cloaking devices and surprise attack you. A Nuclear Missile is the end-all combat tool which is absolutely devastating. One must pay attention to the ALSU factors of vehicles when it comes to combat as not all ships can attack aircraft or submarines. Repair facilities and defensive turrets play a key part in keeping your vehicles battle-ready and your structures safe.

The Strategy of Anno revolves around Building, Production, Management, Research, Combat and Diplomacy. The emphasis can change from game to game as one world may be peaceful and fun and another a terrifying ordeal of nonstop war between all players and NPCs. As such, production focus would change accordingly as building weapons becomes much more important in wartime than soft drinks to support your researchers to better program their mobile devices.

Events in Anno are all tracked on the left side of the screen through a collection of icons. Those above the filter are events which have taken place (notifications) and those below are open quests. When you mouseover an event, it will give you the details (such as your ship was destroyed or you have discovered a new island). When you mouseover a quest it will mark on the map the location for the quest. In order to remove events, simply right-click on the icon.

Prepare to Research!

The Multiplayer feature of Anno is brilliant. The developers have managed to create a connection to a persistant gaming “world” through statistics, events and voting while allowing players to either play by themselves, with friends, or complete strangers. When you play games with complete strangers, you never know what the outcome will be as some are friendly and helpful while others will build up and destroy you. But remember, they can’t take from you – they can never destroy your ARK or your already achieved accomplishments; they can only wipe your city from the map in the world they are currently in. This can be fun, but it doesn’t force the player into a position of being griefed, so the PvP is a form of consensual PvP. I enjoy creating public open multiplayer games because I’ve met a lot of fun intelligent people and the experience is always different.

The co-op multiplayer aspect of Anno is fantastic. You can can invite other Anno 2070 players to help run your empire. You can then save their map and it’s now yours to play at any time. This allows you to inherit worlds built by other people. Once again, I can’t stress how cool this is; allowing people to work together to run a huge empire. Take it one step further. In Anno, you can play multiplayer co-op games against other players. Register that for a moment. With the depth and scope of this game, you can have a friend help you build your world as you compete against other factions which are run by other people for a total of 4 teams of 4 (16 people). I don’t know of any other game which allows such in-depth co-op play and competition. Anyone for a team tournament?

Rewards come in many forms. First, there are rewards which translate into persistent rewards which apply to your account/profile. Those are achievements and items/upgrades which you can keep within or register with your ARK, obtained through research and purchase. The second set of rewards are currency, licenses, and items. You can obtain “loot” by destroying enemy vehicles and structures which result in flotsam crates you can pick up with your vehicle. When you sink submarines, only another submarine can pick up the crates at the bottom of the ocean. Quests also provide a wide range of rewards and can often be challenging.

If Anno does one thing, it always gives you a sense of Progression. Whether it’s through building a new world or gaining achievements, the entire game is based on progression which can also include persistant progression which is attached to your account and carried from game to game. This ensures players always have something to strive for, even when they start fresh with a new world. In other words, there’s always a reason to play the game.

The Learning Curve of Anno is steep, but in my opinion, unavoidable given the scope and breadth of the game. Give it a few days, play a few multiplayer games, make friends who can answer questions, and you’ll be on your way to learning everything you need to know. Be patient.

The replayability of Anno is really infinite. It is a building game after all, and rebuilding is both challenging and fun; especially when you choose a higher difficulty level or decide to play with or against other players.

Somtimes it's just good to take a step back and look at your creation...

There really isn’t an end-game with Anno. Technically one could state that researching all technologies would result in the end-game, but then again one would have to acquire all the ARKs and upgrade them to the max, have all achievements that unlock resources, and reach max level with all factions; and even then, the player could go head to head with others who have similar or identical achievements, thus making the game about skill. Regardless, I don’t see a player being able to achieve “everything” anytime soon, so there’s always more to strive for; and if the devs keep enhancing the game not only with DLC but free updates which include content, they should always stay ahead of even the most hardcore player who is looking to “do it all”.

When it comes to difficulty, Anno is quite complex, especially if you compare it to other strategic games. You have to think, plan, execute, manage and strategize as you play the game. I would take it a step further to say that Anno can even qualify as a teaching tool. To built a prosperous and successful high tech world, you must have a certain level of intelligence and skill. Not everyone can do this. Every player I’ve met in-game so far who is very good at playing the game also has another quality – they are smart. You can tell in the way they talk and communicate. That says something overall about the game and community.

Technical

Graphics, Sound, Interface, DRM, Connectivity, Patching, Account, and Bugs

The Graphics of Anno are top notch and the Music is beautiful. The Sound FX are excellent as well, especially when you zoom into an area and the ambiance sounds like what you would expect, whether it’s a busy city or a docile forest.

The Interface is crisp and once you get past the initial learning curve, easy to understand and use.

Anno uses a copy protection system (or also know as DRM – Digital Rights Management) called Solidshield Tages SAS. This makes it so the purchaser can only activate Anno 2070 on 3 machines. This makes absolutely no sense as the game requires a unique account and constant connectivity to play. My guess is some idiot at Ubisoft required this and the devs didn’t want to waste time fighting them about it. After all, their passion is creating games.

I haven’t had any connectivity issues at all and have played a number of games with people from all over the world. Patching is seamless and account management is handled through the Ubisoft Play system. I have yet to encounter a single bug in this game.

Just one example of an efficient farm layout

Support

There is no built-in support system for Anno; only Forums which are hosted by the the European branch of Ubisoft. While there is an English forum, there is still some German mixed in with the forum terms. The forums are active, but the best support really comes from other players in-game which you meet by joining random multiplayer games. However since this game is very heavy on the European side, it can sometimes be a challenge to find English speaking players.

Conclusion

I already wrapped up the core conclusion of this review in the introduction by calling Anno 2070 a masterpiece, which it is. If you’ve read this review in full and you don’t have this game, get it. I recommend purchasing it via Steam. Anno 2070 is the most advanced RTS/City Building game ever made. It’s simply fantastic. If you appreciate a beautiful world, seamless multiplayer and continuous gameplay with a polished leading edge product which you can play for months and even years to come, Anno 2070 is the right choice for you.

Additional Resources

Given the complexity of the game, I want to share some great resources for players. I highly recommend new players watch the Beginners Guides seen below as they’re very well done.

Wiki Resources

Anno 2070 Wiki Page

Anno 2070 Housing and Production Layouts

Video Resources

Note these videos are HD and best viewed full screen. A big thanks to Nanosuitninja for putting these together!

Anno 2070 Beginners Guide Part 1

 Anno 2070 Beginners Guide Part 2

Anno 2070 Beginners Guide Part 3 (Big Cities)

Anno 2070 Beginners Guide Part 4 (Big Cities)

Anno 2070 Beginners Guide Part 5 (Tycoon)

Release Date: December 20, 2011
Custom Features: Story-driven System, Space Combat, Companion & Crafting System, Item Growth through Mods, Alignment, Seamless Quest / Instance Control
Strengths: Fun & Smooth Gameplay, Storyline & Cutscenes, Huge World, Massive amount of Content, Nice graphics, Companion and Crafting System
Weaknesses: Bugs, Undefined Alternate Advancement System, Weak Guild and Community Interaction Systems
Notes: One of the best MMOGs released, Excellent potential for growth
Billing Style: Purchase + Monthly Subscription

Star Wars: The Old Republic (“SWTOR”) launched on December 20, 2011 as one of the most anticipated online games ever released. With more than 100 servers in North America alone, Bioware’s first online game has a lot to live up to, and it certainly delivers.

SWTOR is a mixture of innovation and refinement of standard MMOG play methods. It is, without a doubt, the most story-driven MMOG ever made, focusing on making the player and their core class the center of the universe; and they pull this off brilliantly. The game phases the player into the different play-styles and gradually introduces the core features such as space combat and crafting. And to make things even better, the storyline is different for each class, so if you play through to Level 50 with one class, creating another character of a different class will create a completely different experience from a storyline perspective; and the story voice acting and cutscenes are top notch.

One thing is certain. You are in the Star Wars universe now. Everything looks, feels, and sounds like the Star Wars World, so fans will be thrilled. While I don’t consider myself a Star Wars “fan” (and my opinion is the series only consists of three movies – episodes 4-6) I do enjoy the familiar look and feel to things. What can I say? Killing sand people with a blaster, or fighting a Sith with a light saber is very enjoyable.

If one word could be used to describe SWTOR it’s BIG. Everywhere you go, the environment around you is immense and enveloping. From the city slums of Corusant to the open desert wastelands of Tatooine, your adventure takes you throughout the galaxy and through numerous different environments.

The Beauty of Alderaan

There are numerous systems that set SWTOR apart from other MMOGs. First is the story-driven system. Second is the companion system which guarantees you never have to explore the galaxy alone. Third is the crafting system, which is based on your companions and reverse engineering. Forth is the space combat system where you acquire your own ship and participate in action-packed laser-blasting missions. Fifth is the alignment system which moves either toward the light or dark side based on your actions. There is also a legacy system for all of your characters on a server, but features have not yet been implemented. They did enhance quests a bit with the “bonus” system where you can find yourself handling multiple phases of quests activated merely by interacting with an object or killing specific targets. All of this makes one thing certain: there’s always something to do. You can also augment your items with modifications, similar to enchantments and such in other games.

The game revolves around nine races and four core classes (with a focus on Melee, Ranged, Healer and Hybrid), and each class has two “advanced classes” you can specialize in. The max character level at launch is 50, and you get one skill point to spend per level after reaching level 10 in one of three trees; two trees are custom to your advanced class and one is shared between the “base” class.

The economy revolves around credits and tokens (from planets, space battles and pvp). You can expand your bag and vault space by purchasing extra slots with credits. That paired with item repair and the crafting/companion system creates a good money sink. The “mounts” are speeders, and all are currently land based; but there are easy to access transportation hubs everywhere which speed and fly you from location to location.

Welcome to Voss! Did you remember your facemask?

Each Planet has its own central location with trainers, vendors and such, and each side has a main “hub” (for the Republic it’s the Republic Fleet). The Planets are all unique and many have constant activities and combat taking place, which adds to the realism and environment. For example, Ballmora is under attack from space and the air, and everyone outside on Quesh is wearing face masks due to the toxic environment. Little things like this show the love and detail that went into creating this world.

There is PvP, either through choosing a PvP server, engaging in Warzones or fighting in the open PvP areas. You earn Valor by engaging in combat with other players and the PvP is “fun” even though you cannot currently choose what warzone you want to participate in (there are three).

Guilds are basic. No vaults or perks; only membership and ranks. There is also a basic Achievement system called the “Codex”. There are no factions.

The game does have a number of bugs, mainly revolving around video and “stuck” problems with the world; however a simple restart of the client and /stuck solves the issue. I did hear about people getting stuck on their ships, unable to disembark to planets, but I believe that was already fixed and I never experienced it.

I’m going to review the different systems of SWTOR and touch on every core feature the game has to offer. Feel free to comment and provide any additional feedback that you have regarding what you read here or experienced yourself. I hope this review provides helpful information for those who are interested in learning more about Star Wars: The Old Republic and what it has to offer.

Mechanics

Economy, Level, Stats, Abilities & Skills, Social & Valor, Legacy System, Travel, Companions, Crew Skills (Crafting & Reverse Engineering, Gathering & Missions), Regeneration & Consumables, Codex (Achievements),  Pets, Death, Repair, and Ships. 

Just Blending In...

The Economy of SWTOR revolves around credit and Tokens (called Commendations in SWTOR). As with many MMOGs tokens are acquired by completing quests and are either planet, PvP, or space battle based. You can then use these tokens to buy specialized gear or outfit your ship. The balance of cost vs. spending seems to be pretty solid as one progresses through the game and there are plenty of places to put your money, such as companion missions, repairs, and “stims” which temporarily increase your skills, which do end up costing quite a bit for your first character. While I managed my money pretty well and engaged in some profiteering through the auction system, I never had too much money and was always striving to make more credits to support sending my companions on crafting missions. The PvP economy is a multi-tier system where you earn basic Warzone Tokens. You turn those tokens in a 3:1 ratio to obtain Mercenary tokens (or Commendations as they are called). When you obtain 200 of each, you buy a Champion Gear Bag, which has 3 Champion tokens and the possibility of an unassembled Champion item which can be turned in to get the full item; but if you don’t happen to get “lucky” you can buy the item later with the tokens you collect. Champion is the first tier, Centurion is the second and Battlemaster is the third. As far as I know, Centurion and Battlemaster Commendations can only be acquired through quests at this time. Flashpoints also drop tokens so a players can focus on specific rewards by running the same category of Flashpoint multiple times.

There are 50 character Levels in SWTOR. There are seven Stats: Strength, Presence, Aim, Cunning, Endurance, Willpower and Expertise. As with other MMOGs, the stats which you focus on are based on your class, but Presence is an important one as it affects your companion’s performance, and Expertise affects your character’s effectiveness in PvP. Each class has a number of Skills (such as special attacks, etc.) and Abilities (advanced-class specific skills, both passive and aggressive). Advanced class Abilities is where you spend your custom “per level” points, and Skills must be learned from trainers and come in multiple ranks; and as mentioned above, they can be expensive.

Get ready to play... HUTTBALL!

Your character also has a Social and Valor rank value. Social is tied to engaging in activities with other players (group missions, etc.) and Valor is your PvP rank. Both Social and Valor ranks can be requirements on items (you will find Social Items Vendors and PvP Vendors). I’m sure we’ll see future outfits of socialites which reflect their engaging nature.

SWTOR features a Legacy system when you complete Act 1 for the first time. This is a “last name” that you define which is then assigned to all of your characters on the server. While the actual features of this system are yet undefined, once you set your Legacy, all characters on the server put experience towards leveling it up. Warning to new players – at this time once you choose your Legacy name, it’s permanent, so make it count. Unfortunately the game doesn’t really inform you of this when the window pops up asking for you to define it.

Hoth sure looks inviting!

Travel takes place on two levels, planetary and galactic; both are easy and intuitive. The planets have shuttle transports spread throughout the regions (which you have to discovery and click on to activate) and once you get accustomed to using your ship to fly around the galaxy, you quickly learn how to get from one point to another. Most stations have a similiar layout as well, so when you go somewhere now, it’s not completely foreign. Planets also have quick travel points which are separate from transport points. These are points you can recall to which must also be individually discovered and clicked to access.

Companions are featured like no other MMOG I’ve seen as they are key to crafting, useful, fun, and the AI works well. While you don’t control what they train or put any points into them, each companion has strengths and weaknesses, and you can equip them with any items you like that fit their class; and it certainly makes a difference. This guarantees you never have to go anything alone as you can always have one of your multiple companions at your side fighting it out with you. Companions have an attribute called Affection which directly affects their actions. The higher the value, the better they do. This is what Companion Gifts are for; give them to your companions to increase their affection and get better results from their actions. You also gain (or occasionally lose, depending on your decision and the companion’s personality) affection through interacting with and completing quests. One companion may give you affection for saving a village while another may frown upon it. At the core of the Companion system is the Crew Skills feature. Instead of the traditional crafting approach most MMOGs take where you go to a workstation and build something, in SWTOR you assign tasks to your companions and can have multiple companions working at once. You can even queue companions to make a number of items, and if those items take hours to make, simply log off and come back later and they’ll be done.

The Crafting UI

Companions can engage in three “skill” related acts: Crafting, Gathering & Missions. Crafting is fairly standard once assigned to a Companion; each item requires specific materials, and items can come out as different quality levels with the highest quality allowing for slotted modifications. But the really cool part is Reverse Engineering (“RE”), which allows you to disassemble any crafted item and learn the next tier (with multiple variations). So you can craft a green item, reverse engineer it to get the blue version with a focus on a stat. You can then reverse engineer the blue item to learn the purple; but it’s hit or miss. Sometimes you get it the first time around, sometimes it takes what seems forever. The crafting system is probably one of the most in-depth money sinks I’ve seen in a MMO as each item which is reverse engineered results in a compounded random feature, so one reversed blue item may procure a purple which has one stat while reverse engineering another blue may create yet another purple which has a different stat than the other purple you just discovered; yet the purples are based on the stat enhancement of the blue. This creates a compound crafting system which has so many permutations a player could spend a ton of time and money attempting to discover all of the reverse engineered options and never gain access to all of them. To explain more clearly, you can start with a Green Heavy Armor Chest piece that focuses on Aim and Endurance. You can then RE that piece to reveal a blue that adds Accuracy. But what if you wanted Critical Rating? So you RE again and finally get a blue with Critical. You then RE the blue and obtain a Purple… but it has a Shield value. That may be good for your Vanguard, but a Commando wants something different! So you RE more blues and hope you get one that provides the final attribute you were looking for. Needless to say, players who put the time, energy and effort into discovering the highly sought after items will certainly do very well in the game, especially since there’s an aspect of luck to obtaining exactly what you need.

The Commando Skill Tree

Gathering can either be done through exploring the world and extracting resources from world objects (such as debris, crystals, etc.) or by sending your companions on Missions, which are great because for a chunk of credits you can send your Companion off to hopefully return with a bunch of goodies, often including new schematics or purple items. There are also custom mission items you can find as well which offer new more bountiful mission rewards for your companions; and all of them cost money.

Note 1: I do think they will need to enhance the UI for crafting as there are so many variations a player can unlock it will become cumbersome with the current UI.

Note 2: There’s a problem with items that teach custom missions: they don’t tell you the name of the mission or if you already know it, so it’s difficult to determine if you should or should not buy a mission item from the auction house. Bioware should address this.

Consumables come in the flavor of Stims which enhance your stats for an hour, and medpacks which heal you. Regeneration is class-based and allows a character to quickly recharge/regenerate, ensuring little to no downtime.

The Codex is the game’s version of Achievements, but it’s only a collection of information. You do get new entries (and experience) when you discover new areas, obtain ranks, and engage in combat with new creatures.

You can purchase little Pets to follow you around, but they don’t provide any intrinsic value other than fun factor.

With the Death system, you can either respawn at the closest medbay or call a regeneration drone to resurrect you on the spot. If you call the drone, you are “invisible” to all mobs for a period of time which allows you to run to a safe location and heal up. However the more you die the longer it takes to call a drone (thus causing you to wait), and each time you die you take a repair hit to your items.

Items get worn through both death and combat; and not just for you, but your companion as well. You can Repair them at any vendor, and it can sometimes get costly. Keep an open eye for the glowing “helmet” above you or your companion’s picture to get warned about low durability. Yellow is the initial warning and red is the one you should address immediately.

The Beauty of Space Combat Awaits You!

Around level 15 you obtain your first Ship which you use to travel throughout the galaxy, can customize with upgrades, and engage in Space Combat (which is covered under Gameplay). The Ship is your primary hub of transport and acts as the basis of interaction with your companions and space missions. SWTOR really conveys a strong feeling of attachment to your ship as you essentially live on and operate from it (as do your companions). There are six ships available at launch, each specific to a character’s class.

Content

Races, Customization, Classes, Lore and Story, Quests, Mounts, World, Ambiance, NPCs & Enemies, Equipment and Inventory, Trading (Bank, Mail and Auction),  and Tutorial.

SWTOR features nine playable Races: Chiss, Cyborg, Human, Miraluka, Mirialan, Rattataki, Sith, Twi’lek and Zabrak. Some races are empire-restricted (e.g. Sith can only be Imperial). The Customization isn’t very extensive; body, face, hair, tattoo, etc. type, hair and skin color. No race is any “better” than the other, and each race has a special attribute, but unrelated to performance (e.g. special dance, rally, etc).

I don't care what anyone says... Sand gets everywhere on Tatooine.

There are Four core Classes for each side, with a total of Eight classes. For the Republic we have: Jedi Consular (Advanced: Sage and Shadow), Jedi Knight (Guardian and Sentinel), Smuggler (Gunslinger and Scoundrel), and Trooper (Commando and Vanguard). For the Imperial Empire we have: Bounty Hunter (Mercenary and Powertech), Imperial Agent (Operative and Sniper), Sith Inquisitor (Assassin and Sorcerer), and Sith Warrior (Marauder and Juggernaut). Once you hit level 10, the Skill Tree opens, and the two advanced classes have two of their own trees and share a common tree (e.g. a Commando and Vanguard share the Gunnery tree). Each core class has its own custom storyline, so a player could experience a total of eight completely different stories in building a character from level 1 to 50.

The Lore and Story of the game is all Star Wars. It is exceptionally well-done and you feel like you are a part of the Star Wars Universe.

Quests tie directly into the storyline and are done in the same interactive format as games like Mass Effect, and on top of that there is a bonus quest system where you can initiate a quest which has multiple stages. For example, you can kill a group of imperial soldiers and have a bonus quest you weren’t expecting pop up. Stage 1: kill more soldiers! Once complete, Stage 2 may ask you to blow up some generators, and before you know it, you’re on the fourth and final stage taking you to the imperial soldier boss and a nice reward. These quests are everywhere and a lot of fun to do. I’ve never run out of quests; as a matter of fact I’ve found myself leaving planets before the side quests are all done. The Class quests direct the main storyline, chapter and change of planet for your character. The quests are very easy to find through the world map and I personally haven’t encountered any quest bugs. While most quests are fairly standard: kill, find, rescue, destroy, etc. they are all fun and include a lot of interaction, cutscenes and dialogue. Quests also envelop player-specific areas/instances which blend nicely with the environment. For example, you can approach an enemy base entrance which has a green looking transparent field across it; this tells you it’s a player instance and specific for a quest/storyline mission. This helps to direct where to go and give you a heads up you’re entering a “quest area”. Red areas are off-limits and are either disabled until later (when certain criteria are met) or are for other classes. Quests also have multi-player social interactive aspects as well, designed so groups of people can engage in the dialogue together and obtain social points in the process.

Why yes, little guy. I will help you!

Mounts come in the form of speeders with the first group being available at Level 25 with 90% speed increase. The next group is Level 40 with 100% speed increase, and the final group at Level 50 with 110% speed increase. The starter speeders are pretty goofy looking, but they’ve got entertainment value. As you raise in level and obtain the “beefier” speeders, the visuals are more impressive.

Corellia is a huge industrial world with great monorail!

The Worlds of Star Wars include 17 planets available at launch with a few only accessible to only one of the two sides. Note these planets are shown based on the Republic side: Alderaan (28-32), Balmorra (32-36), Belsavis (41-44), Corellia (47-50), Coruscant (10-16), Dromund Kaas (Imperial), Hoth (37-41), Ilum (50-50), Korriban (Imperial), Hutta (Imperial), Nar Shadda (20-24), Ord Mantell (1-10), Quesh (36-37), Taris (16-20), Tatooine (24-28), Tython (1-10) and Voss (44-47). Each planet has a distinct look and feel to it (which is taken from the movies where applicable) including matching inhabitants, Ambiance and storyline. While the game doesn’t have day/night or changing weather cycles, you don’t really notice because the game keeps you moving from planet to planet enough to not get too worn out on the overall look and feel. As mentioned above, each side has a main “hub” with the Republic side being the Republic fleet. The game also has Flashpoints, which are instanced dungeons with heavy scripting and custom results based on the professions of the members and the decision made by the party as it relates to the light or dark side. There are 15 known instances available at launch and can be run at different difficulty levels.

If you’ve seen it in a Star Wars movie, it’s probably in the game. Aliens, Ships, Speeders, Buildings, Cultural Look & Feel, and all of this reflects in the inhabitants of the worlds and space stations. The NPCs (and Enemies) range in level and come in four flavors of difficulty: Normal, Hard, Elite, and Really Elite (group). The Sound FX when fighting them is great (the fun really begins when you start  killing Sand People). Most enemies come in groups of three and work together when attacking you. The visuals are excellent, especially with light sabers and laser guns; just like the movies. It’s pretty easy to solo a single hard, but elites take a bit of planning and strength. However, if you get two or more on you and you’re not in a group, survival can be difficult.

Inventory and Character UI

Equipment is focused on weapons, armor, generators, implants and such. There are seven tiers to equipment: Cheap (Grey), Standard (White),  Premium (Green), Prototype (Blue), Artifact (Purple), Modifiable (Orange), and Legacy (not sure, haven’t seen one, but I would guess Gold). There are three types of Armor: Light, Medium and Heavy. There are numerous types of guns, melee weapons, and offhand devices. You can also obtain Relics which give stat bonuses and have “uses” and are based on your alignment and rank (e.g. Light rank 3). Bioware did a great job of defining the overall look and feel of your character based on the equipment you are using. As you raise in level, your character definitely looks meaner and more advanced, and throwing on that shiny new set of armor is very rewarding, not just from the stats, but in the way your character looks. One unique feature of SWTOR is the Modifiable item system where you can obtain slotted items and grow them with your character through custom modifiers. While you can craft custom blue and purple items that might have 1 mod slot, the Orange items have at least three, which allows you to really enhance them to your needs. If you like the visual appearance of an outfit you obtain early on, you can upgrade each of the components within the items as your character levels to keep the same look and feel but define the stats and strength of the items, resulting in a form of item growth based on upgrading your mods. This is a nice feature for those who want to focus on custom growth rather than item crafting which may result in blue or purple items that don’t quite meet the stat requirements of your class. Orange means more flexibility and focus while blue and purple means plug and play.

Inventory is a single bag with multiple slots. When you first start out, you have 20 slots. You can purchase an additional 20, then an additional 10, and so on and so forth, so you can expand it when you have the credits. As  you can send your companion to sell grey items at any time, it’s not too difficult to manage your inventory to prevent running out of space. Item comparison is pretty standard, telling you how much better (or worse) the highlighted item is than what your wearing.

Note: There is no compare for your companion’s items, even when the companion tab is selected. Since outfitting your companion is a big part of the game, they will probably be addressing this.

The game does not have Vanity items.

Characters have storage Vaults in the major cities and on their ship. As with the backpack, you can expand your storage by purchasing additional bays with your credits.

Mail is pretty standard except that you will receive mail from in-game NPCs you have helped out who will occasionally send you items and cash and thank you for what you’ve done to help them. This is pretty nice as it makes you feel more involved in the world and that the NPCs you help actually care. The Auction House is called the Galactic Exchange and is the player trading center for the game. It’s fairly standard but lacks some basic features of searching based on clicking on items in your inventory, etc. but I’m sure Bioware will enhance it over the next few months.

The Tutorial does a good job of walking new players through the game, how to interact with the environment, craft, and execute other actions. You can easily turn it off either on the main UI (which really minimizes it) or in the game preferences.

Balmorra is under constant attack.

Community

Guild, Grouping, Events, Social Network, Population, and Spam

Why, yes. That Sith Overlord is choking me with invisible force!

SWTOR is a fantastic game, but its weakest element is in the community side of things. The game is so story-driven and enveloping that players are not driven to team up with others nor is there a mechanism which brings players together to accomplish a common goal. Players are really driven to play solo with their companion unless they want to do a Heroic or Flashpoint instance as there are no events which bring players together to accomplish a common goal (as we have seen with RIFT, which probably has the best “bringing together” of players of any MMOG currently on the market).

Guilds have no vault, perks or any options above and beyond ranks and chat. Bioware has already commented that Guild Banks are coming; I don’t know what other features they have planned, but right now they just don’t really offer any reason for a player to join a guild other than to get a tag and access to guild chat with their friends.

Grouping is like any other MMOG and allows for 5 players, but it is nice to bring your companions along which makes the parties a bit more interesting, especially if another player in group has a companion which behaves wonky.

There aren’t really any Events (at least not like RIFT, for example), nor is there a real Social Network for the game.

The Population of the game is high, but difficult to determine exactly how high. By viewing the Server Status page, you can see many servers are regularly full, but the galaxy is so large it’s difficult to determine how many online players constitutes as “full” (e.g. 3,000). Since I was part of the pre-start program I’m way ahead of the rest of the players and often see only 3-8 people on my planet, but if I go back to the earlier areas I’ve seen upwards to 200 people.

I received some Spam on the first day, but I think Bioware cracked down on them pretty quick as I haven’t seen any since (and the right-click option on the spammers name allows for quick reporting).

Gameplay

Combat, Space Combat, Strategy, PvP, PvE, Reward, Progression, Learning Curve, Replayability, End Game and Difficulty.

Now THAT's how I like to see my Capital ships! Smoking and falling apart!

The Combat in SWTOR extremely well-done. It’s interactive, smooth, vibrant, fun, and does require a player to engage in a certain level of Strategy as most of the enemies come in groups. While the melee combat in Age of Conan is some of the best, the light saber action from SWTOR now takes the first-place spotlight for fun, visuals and overall factor of “cool”. Something important to point out as the game is heavily focused on Companions is they do not drag aggro. So in the rare case where the pathing gets messed up and your companion runs through a group of ultra elite mobs… he gets through them unscathed. Thank you, Bioware. Another combat “tweak” is that of exploding and other types of interactive objects by target mobs. For example you can shoot a can of liquid nitrogen next to a group and they freeze for a number of seconds, or pull a group next to an exploding canister of plasma. Shoot it, and boom – DOT plasma fire damage on your targets! You can also set what combat actions your companion will execute by opening their skill bar (you can access their skill bar by pressing the plus (+) button to the right of their four actions shown in the lower left corner). This allows you to set their behavior to be different, one example being you can adjust your healer’s actions to ensure they only focus on healing you rather than both healing and engaging the enemy.

Space Combat is a ton of fun and IMO one of the most surprising and engaging features of the game. The different missions are visually engrossing, very engaging and very rewarding as you blast everything you can in sight. This includes turning capital ships into smoking shambling masses of useless turrets. Your main weapons are your blasters, and your secondary your missiles. While it’s important to keep your ship’s equipment upgraded as the missions become more challenging, the real focus seems to be more on the fun factor of looking to blow up more stuff the next time around rather than worrying about whether or not you’ll survive. Combat all revolves around point and click with the missiles auto-locking and the blasters auto-leading to ensure your target takes the hit hard. Failing to shoot down fighters that fly by you results in their coming back around and blasting at you with everything they have. Also, the turrets on the capital ships will target and shoot at you if you don’t take them out first. There is a lot of room for enhancement for this feature and I think Bioware is going to focus on expanding Space Combat to the point of possibly including it as a form of PvP and collaborative effort some day.

Welcome to the Civil War. You will die here. A lot.

All servers support Warfront PvP (Huttball, The Voidstar, and The Civil War) and region control PvP on the planet of Ilum (and Tatooine), but the PvP specific servers pitch Republic vs. Imperial empires. Jedi vs. Sith. Bounty Hunters vs. Troopers.  It’s open season! However be warned! There are apparently more Dark Side players than Light Side players with 550,000 Sith Warriors vs. 510,000 Jedi Knights, as reported by USA Today. It is important to state that characters do gain progression experience by engaging in both warfronts and space combat missions. Since the game is so new, it’s impossible to tell how balanced PvP is just yet. We’ll have to keep an eye on things over the next few months to see how players react, however as the core classes on each side are so similar, it makes for easier balancing. Let’s hope that was part of their PvP design. The PvP Token (Commendation) system was explained above under Mechanics – Economy.

The Rewards in SWTOR are fairly standard, with most of taking from of quest rewards (which usually have multiple choices) and looting mobs. When you down a mob, the type of loot that is on its body (if any at all) can be seen by the color of the “loot glow” which is a nice feature, especially when that purple glow shows up. There’s definitely better loot from the tougher mobs, but it seems fairly well balanced as the really good stuff is hard to come by. One thing I do like is that a chest generally contains valuable treasure, so when you come across one, it’s definitely worth going out of your way to obtain its contents. So far, it’s been my experience the best rewards come from crafting; there’s nothing like a superior purple item loading up with mods – but when those purple items drop and they match your character’s needs, it’s something to get excited about as well.

Welcome to the Red Light District!

Character Progression for any MMOG is an art, and in SWTOR it seems well-balanced. I’ve always had quests left over when I was ready to leave a planet and never felt “stuck” at a specific level or like I had to go and grind to get the next rank of a skill to take out a mob. This is a very good thing.

The Learning Curve is pretty minimal as an inexperienced player can jump right in and learn the basics through the tutorial. The only thing people seem to get a bit confused on is reverse engineering and acquiring custom missions. Space Combat is intuitive and easy for anyone to jump right into. The Galaxy map is easy to use and it’s easy to get where you need to go, and the planet map easily shows you where to go, what areas are unexplored, and where vendors are.

Replayability is still a bit of an unknown factor as it will take some time to find out how repetitive the core content separate from the class-based storylines is. But the fact that each base class has a different storyline guarantees some variation of play regardless of going through the same planets and content.

End Game currently consists of a number of options: Planet Ilum Dailies (where you obtain Daily Commendation tokens to buy high level gear), Space Combat Dailies, Crafting (includes Missions/Grinding for Materials or Credits), Flashpoints or PvP. Unfortunately there is currently no alternate advancement system for progression and the features of the Legacy system are undefined, so all end-game progress is in obtaining gear – but as you have 5 companions and a space ship to outfit, there’s quite a bit to do if you’re into that sort of thing. Granted you gain experience toward your Legacy for each kill, since the system is undefined we don’t know what those levels are going to produce. I certainly hope Bioware implements a Level 50 progression system soon (e.g. how RIFT did with Planar Attunement) as those who aren’t interested in PvP or hardcore raiding will find themselves with nothing to strive for save building other characters.

Ilum, the end-game Level 50 planet.

Technical

Connectivity, Patching, Interface, Graphics, Sound, Account, and Bugs

Online Connectivity is solid. I’m playing on a West Coast server from Seattle and my latency averages 55. While I’ve encountered one or two disconnects since launch, I haven’t really encountered any lag or issues as it relates to online communication and play. Patching is quick and seamless. Bioware has launched SWTOR with a very solid network interface layer and server infrastructure.

The Map UI

The Interface is smooth and has a solid feel to it. You can turn on additional action bars and also adjust the “floating combat” messages. Unfortunately there is no Addon or Macro support just yet, but I’m sure that’s all coming. The good news is I haven’t felt the need for macros in order to play the game or accomplish certain tasks.

The Graphics are well-done (I have all settings on the highest value), but because of the sheer scale of the world, they aren’t the highest resolution one would expect; instead Bioware decided to focus on the visuals of combat and animation; and when it comes to light sabers, blasters, and space combat, the game looks great.

The Sound FX and Music are well done too; the light sabers sound exactly as you would expect and the music makes you feel like you are in the Star Wars universe. The environmental effects vary based on the planet you are on, and the squeals, yells and other entertaining sounds made by NPCs as you pummel them is rather entertaining. You can also wander into a cantina, purchase a token, and play your music of preference on the jukebox.

Account Management is simple as there is no market or features above subscription.

There are a number of Bugs at launch, mainly with the graphics (there’s a stutter bug that requires the Client to be restarted every few hours on my 480GTX) and a few minor problems with sound, mostly regarding ambient FX. There’s a few UI glitches including the guild member list not showing online members properly. I’ve also noticed some strange behavior during combat where actions seem to freeze up without any reason; I was talking with another player who had the same issue but it was very rare. One annoying issue is while running in windowed mode, the Client doesn’t remember its position and size, and strangely enough it always comes up at wider than 1920. But we have to give Bioware some latitude here; SWTOG is a massive production and the game was just released. I don’t feel the need to come down on them too harshly as I believe they will fix these issues as soon as they can. However there is one issue which should not have made it past BETA. If you’re in a world heroic with others and die while engaging in a boss fight and are running back to your body (and are outside of the instance) when the group loots the boss, you miss out on the loot roll. Let’s hope Bioware fixes this as soon as possible.

Support

Help, CSGM (“Customer Service Game Master”), Online Support, Community Support, and Forums

There is a Petition system built into the game and it works very well, and given the sheer number of players hitting the game at launch, I think Bioware is doing a good job of keeping up with the Petitions, especially as the ones I’ve filed have all been answered within a few hours. I’ve only had to deal with CSGMs via the petition system, and so far I like what I see. The Forums are crazy and so many posts are going up it’s almost impossible to keep track. This is the same issue that WoW has; Bioware should figure out how to segment forum posts (perhaps by account region) as a forum which has numerous posts every second is simply overwhelming and doesn’t really help the players. Online Support from other players is pretty weak as the game natually focuses players on their own experience and storyline, and if a player is in the middle of a cutscene or engaged in space battle, they don’t see any messages. For Community Support, the SWTOR Wiki is still in its infancy and the main item database is currently DarthHater DB.

Hoth is.. Very cold...

Conclusion

Star Wars: The Old Republic is definitely the biggest MMOG of 2011 and reflects a massive budget and dedicated team of people at Bioware who wanted to release a quality, leading edge online game to compete in the MMOG market for years to come, and they have done just that. While some necessary features are missing, such as post level 50 character alternate advancement (i.e. the defined Legacy system), Guild Banks and Guild Perks, I have no doubt Bioware will be addressing these features soon. I am also glad to see another MMOG release that is subscription-base, showing F2P is not the future for all products. As I mentioned earlier, even though I’m not a Star Wars “fan” I did grow up with the movies and appreciate the world. The storyline, voice acting and interactive quest system is hands down the best of any MMOG, and the way they have presented the world is exceptional. SWTOR offers a universe where gamers will want to play for a long time to come.

The game design supports a massive potential for expansion; new planets, space missions, flashpoints, and more. Let’s hope Bioware has some rock-solid content tools which allow them to grow and evolve the game with additional content in a reasonable amount of time.

If you like quality online games and want to get pulled into a vibrant, fun and engrossing living breathing world, Star Wars: The Old Republic delivers.

What defines a next Generation MMOG?

The answer to this question varies based on each gamer, but for me it represents a fundamental shift in not only playability but overall breadth of representing a living breathing world. While small advancements in interface, interaction and presentation can make a great different, a product which truly defines the “next stage” of online gaming requires quite a bit more.

World of Warcraft did evolve MMOGs by refining what was there and presenting it in a fashion that enticed players to play in a way no other game had before. However what’s interesting is many MMOGs have tried to add these “hugely publicized” features which one would think could qualify as “the next evolution” only to be met with a lack of interest. Aion is the perfect example, touting the ability to fly as something which no other game had.

Comparing these facts, it seems the games which are very successful are those which have what all other games have, only better, rather than features no other game has. Is Battlefield 3 really unique and unlike its predecessors?

However successful doesn’t equate to revolutionary or evolutionary. A good example is the large-scale PvP features of Dark Ages of Camelot; systems which set a standard and was unique in the industry, resulting in a very dedicated group of players. However it did not make the game a massive success.

As MMOGs are becoming more complex and featuring much more content than ever before, the time we must invest into learning and engaging within the game world is also expanding. Learning methods, play styles, memorizing locations, the abilities of our characters/ships/etc. all takes time and energy; and we all know how quickly that knowledge can dissipate over just a few months. Playing a MMOG is a serious commitment, and that required commitment is growing as the games grow.

MMOGs are becoming so large and complex now that very few players, hardcore gamers included, rarely play more than just one MMOG; and if they play two, the second one is usually used as a leap from one to another.

Classes

Star Wars the Old Republic Classes

Classes are the bread and butter of all Fantasy MMOGs. Once chosen, they set the framework for our character’s growth and customization. We know what previous and current MMOGs offer, but what about future MMOGs? First let’s cover where we are today. Everquest 2 has 24 classes, WoW has 10 and RIFT has 4, however RIFT has the soul system, which allows customization within each base class (9 souls per core class, three of which can be active at any given time).

While many refer to the traditional classes as the “Holy Trinity” (Tank, DPS, Heal), I’ve always looked at it as the magic four: Tank, DPS, Healer and Support. Every major fantasy MMOG on the market revolves around these core arch-types.

Guild Wars 2 has taken the public stance as the first commercial MMOG to directly address the “standard” with their removal of the healing class, thus making the game more about support which translates to strategy. In theory, this approach creates a method of gameplay enhancement where having additional players allows you to do things better rather than not at all. Of course only BETA will tell if Guild Wars has nailed this next step in evolving the traditional class archtype.

It’s my opinion that RIFT currently has the most flexible class system on the market with its soul swapping mix and match capabilities. While there are still “best builds”, the customization one can play with is quite impressive and another great step in the evolution of character growth and structure. The key is to not make it overly complex to where people get more frustrated or confused than not. In the end, people just want to play and have fun. Oh yes, and dominate.

Unlimited Character Growth

The future of MMOGs is that of unlimited character growth. This doesn’t necessarily mean removal of the level cap as much as it does enhancement of focused character features which have a continued and never ending effect of growth, regardless of how minor that growth may be.

I am not aware of any game that currently has “unlimited growth” except perhaps EVE Online where it’s impossible to train every single skill in the game given the time requirements. EQ2 has their “alternative advancement” system, but a player can max that out.

RIFT recently implemented their Planar Attunement system, which I think was an excellent step in the right direction; but even that system has a maximum value, and when players are finished focusing on the areas they want to focus on per their play style and chosen core class, they end up putting values into enhancements which really don’t strengthen their character.

The key to properly implementing this feature is exponential growth to a controlled medium. When I wrote the algorithms behind the gameplay of DEMISE, the system was designed so a player could technically grow their character nearly forever (the level cap was 999). Very, very few ever hit max level.

Offline Progression

Allowing your character to grow even when you aren’t playing is also a key feature for any evolved MMOG. Initially implemented in EVE Online, when I designed Alganon, the studies system acted as a variation of this feature. I believe more MMOGs must embrace the growth of “something” when a player is not online; this is a passive method that creates a tie to managing a character (or resource) within the virtual gaming world above and beyond standard gameplay. The possibilities of offline progression are nearly endless and can be tied into virtually every medium of progress within the game. Stats, skills, experience, and even the building of structures and crafting resources. Short on time this week? Hire a crafting NPC to create you something for 5x the cost and 4x the wait length. At least you’ll get it when your schedule opens up a bit! I believe players will embrace and expect this sort of mechanism in future MMOGs once the standard is set.

World Events

RIFT has set the standard for events and content releases. If you haven’t played RIFT, you don’t know what you’re missing out on. This is just one more step in creating living breathing worlds as events will evolve beyond their basic start and finish foundation and into more drastic world effecting results. Take a major static event such as opening the gates in WoW (the first major event where everyone on the shard participated in gathering resources to make it happen, and once it was done, the gates opened and it was complete) and compare it to a large zone invasion from RIFT. Now blend the two together in a fashion that results in world changes which are permanent. This is what is coming; events which people not only want to participate in, but feel compelled to participate in and that change the world. And of course we have the events that players have no choice but to participate in. Log on, go to your favorite little town and find out it has been taken over by a legion of demons. Time to clean house! But without even knowing, by slaying the boss, you cut off the supplies for the main army of demons to the north and allowed other players to finally overcome them. This is the future.

RIFT 1.6 World Event

While people jumped on the bandwagon for deformable terrain for FPS games, the real nirvana for MMOGs are deformable worlds that are controlled to the point of not coming unraveled; instead resulting in the creation of something more than was before, and it’s permanent.

Guild Wars 2 is claiming it will feature such “chained events” which will result in worldwide change for all players resulting in different content. The structure, framework and technical requirements for ensuring such features properly function and result in a continued playable world is insurmountable; will they get it the first time around? We’ll see on release! In the meantime, there’s a good write-up on their website about their perspective on things.

In the end, changing the world is not only a huge draw for all future MMOGs, it will become the standard.

World Interaction

Gamers want to feel like they’re changing the world, especially when they grow in strength and power. Single-player games such as Fallout and Skyrim are excellent at representing this, however MMOGs have yet to really give credit to individual players for their accomplishments on a scale that is reflected within the world; and in the rare event that something is “known” it’s usually due to the actions of a hardcore gamer very few can compete with.

As discussed above, games like Guild Wars 2 are evolving the world event systems to create a more dynamic environment, however I do not believe there is a MMOG in the works which is going to take this aspect of world interaction to the next level.

Figuring out how to balance the recognition of world-changing actions from any and all types of characters while keeping the experiences enjoyable, memorable and influencing is a monumental task nobody has yet fully achieved.

There are four parts to this type of interaction: Action, Result, Credit and Announcement. If you save the little village off in the middle of nowhere and nobody else is around, what good is that in a MMOG? You want everyone to know what you’ve done; and not only know what you’ve done, but when others come across that village, for them to know who made the village the way it is.

World announcements and methods of representing results of dynamic events which result in persistent changes are critical. For example, if a player walks into a village, there may be a sign telling the history of the village: who built it, who saved it, from what, how and when. Another design to support this would revolve around ensuring constant events were happening on a regular basis in the world, and those in the world are able to monitor and be notified of these events and their details on a regular expected basis. People who play the game hardcore are rewarded for their efforts through progress, accomplishment and reward, and people who play the game casually are rewarded in a similar fashion for being at the right place at the right time.

The most complex aspect of addressing this evolution is balance. How to create a controlled world which allows for such interactions while adhering to a controllable template is key.

Quests

Since the dawn of MMOGs, quests have been the core driving force of world interaction and character progression. They have also served as the basis of direction, guiding characters throughout the world. However, as online worlds evolve and support more dynamic content the mechanism behind quests will be evolving as well. While future living breathing worlds may feature some form of static quest implementation (from an NPC or item), the majority of quests of an evolutionary MMOG will be of a much more dynamic nature.

However the core purpose of quests as it relates to directing players through the worlds will still need to be intact in order to support the “fun feature”. Developers can accomplish this by creating a set of rules behind the management of dynamic quests which continue this “method of guidance” for players as they move from one point to another during the growth of their avatar.

Take a product like Skyrim, a single-player experience that features a living breathing world that touts having near Infinite Quests. How is it that MMOGs, which feature not only true living breathing worlds with thousands of other players, have not yet established a mechanism supporting a similar experience? Granted Skyrim is a controlled world where developers don’t have to worry about a hundred online players gathering together in order to do something they never intended which could throw the very balance of an entire system off, developers should be striving to create enough of a controlled mechanism with the “multiplayer chaos factor” to create real indefinite playability as it relates to quests.

The good news is this is coming. It’s on the evolutionary path; the question is who will nail it the “right way” first and set the standard for games to come?

EVE takes the cake for a true Virtual MMOG Market

Crafting, Economy and Market

Crafting is still fairly standard for all MMOGs. Where EVE is probably the most costly and complex crafting system on the market (building that Titan and those stations requires some SERIOUS commitment), the fantasy MMOGs have kept things fairly simple.

However in order to evolve into a real thriving economy, fantasy MMOGs will need to revamp the way they handle crafting as a whole. EVE is the first game I’m aware of where the crafting system is so well tuned and controlled that it can properly translate to real dollars. While this isn’t necessarily a “goal” of MMOGs, it’s a point of reference that can be used to establish the strength and overall success of creating a proper economy for a product that is designed to persist for a decade or longer (something all MMOGs must strive for now).

Crafting is essential to the economy, and a strong economy is essential to any game wanting to grow, sustain, and survive for years to come.

Work for Hire & Group Crafting

One feature which will help strengthen the virtual economies of fantasy MMOGs is a strong work for hire system where players can post the items they want crafted. While this is fairly easy to implement (essentially an auction house for work orders), the key is to build the economy so that key items are only craftable through players, thus increasing the value of crafting. This is where the complexity of planning comes into place.

EVE already features a system similar to this with purchase orders (if somebody sees a purchase order for items, they can fill it by building the items), and it is very successful.

Group Crafting is another evolutionary feature by which multiple players with focused specializations work together in real time to craft items. Certain “recipes” could require two or more of the same crafting trade, or multiples of mixed crafting trades. Implementation can be simplified by just filling a “need” to the master crafter who verifies the “pot” is filled (with the required materials) and then can then “execute” the craft (thus locking all participants in it), or make it more in-depth by requiring each crafter to act in a specific fashion to successfully begin the act while requiring tasks to be executed during the act. EQ2 has a certain level of player interaction to monitor the crafting while it’s taking place, and it does require some skill, but some find it annoying while others enjoy it. I believe requiring some form of interaction during the crafting cycle is a good thing. The key is to find something which doesn’t irritate players; perhaps a system that cannot “harm” the results, but only allow for the enhancement of the crafted item.

Pair the Work for Hire system with Group Crafting and it creates a dynamic where players must work together to craft specific items which are then used to fill work orders which are posted by other players, creating a chain of interaction and reliance. And add player interaction on top of that tied to item enhancement and a very skillful system would result, something I believe would qualify as an evolutionary advancement in MMOG crafting systems.

Market & Real Money

Ready to spend money? Everquest 2 is ready to take it!

While not all MMOGs are destined to be F2P, the model is here to stay, as is purchasing in-game items for real-world money. Some games will choose to allow aesthetic purchases while others will go full out to support the wallet warriors. We already have a blend of this in today’s current MMOGs, but what does the future hold? So far, we have seen numerous pay to play subscription games convert to F2P and implement a market. When implementing a market system, a game has to decide if they want to simply allow purchases which do not influence other players or compete with them (i.e. visual items, experience potions for growth, etc.) or to allow players to spend money to buy the most powerful items in order to not only compete in the world for the rewards, but against other players as well.

Battlestar Galactica allows this, and the game is doing well. Granted people hate the “wallet warriors”, they seem to have created some sort of balance as support for the game is growing. As one who has been blown to hell numerous times by well-renowned Wallet Warriors, I can say they did not ruin the game for me; one just learned to keep away from them. That and most people simply didn’t put the money into the game that others did. Also, it was fun to see non-wallet warrior gamers team up to kill the wallet warriors – and believe me, they did.

But what about real money for in-game results? We look at the crazy history of WoW and other games banning gold farmers talking about how it “ruins” the balance of the game due to the connection to botting and such. However no matter how hard game companies try, the botters and gold famers haven’t gone away in any capacity, they just figure out how to work around the limitations and rules. Instead of constantly fighting the core mandate of “no money for gold!” companies should instead evolve to support the use of real money in a controlled fashion in all of their MMOGs.

Free Expansions

Free Expansions will become the standard for all major MMOGs, especially for those which utilize real money for players to enhance their experience.

Intelligent NPCs

As computing power increases so will the ability for the NPCs to act more intelligently. This includes more interactive combat, pathing, group and collaborative behavior. The proper execution of collaborative behavior of multiple NPC types will mark a milestone in gaming standards, and the first MMOG that implements a level of strategy among its entities as it relates to combat, movement, and overall behavior, will define the next evolution for NPC AI.

Raiding no longer required

Everquest was the first game to really establish raiding. Since then all MMOGs (for the most part) have fallen into the same footsteps as their predecessors. You must raid to get the best gear in the game. This requires a serious commitment of time, energy, and patience.

But people are growing tired of required raiding as many gamers cannot set aside 2-4 hours of uninterrupted time in order to play the “high level content”. Plus it just gets repetitive and boring. For this reason MMOGs will have to evolve to include methods of allowing their players to experience and benefit from the “end game content” which allows the acquisition of the best items without requiring raiding.

While raids will always be around, future MMOGs will address this by a hybrid economic system of tokens or some other achievement which can be acquired in a controlled fashion and connected to acquiring the most powerful items in the game.

RIFTs new chronicles give us a taste of this; granted the plaques one gets from them can only purchase gear that is halfway to end-game, I believe this development mentality will evolve into what we need.

Mobile Integration

World of Warcraft Armory Android App

MMOGs are still in their infancy as it relates to integrating with outside and mobile hardware. World of Warcraft has released two apps, the mobile armory (which is an information repository without direct game interaction) and the Remote Auction House, which allows players to view, manage and even post auctions based on items in their character’s inventory. They can also receive notifications when their items are purchased. For access, a player must sign up for a $2.99 per month fee. Many WoW players enjoy and use this app, but it’s only a small step in the larger picture of mobile integration.

Trion is scheduled to deliver their RIFT 1.6 mobile app soon, which will allow guild chat stream and world event notifications. They are also implementing a little “game” where you can “scratch off textures” for a chance of winning prizes you can then send to your character. However there is still no direct game interaction, so they are simply taking the first step of “mobile representation” rather than “mobile integration”.

However as RIFT is a very event-focused game, I believe their app will act as a good first step for players as it will allow the monitoring of core game components.

To truly evolve a MMOG’s integration with mobile hardware will require some serious enhancement above and beyond simple auction house management, monitoring and notification. Companies must pursue the creation of applications which allow direct interaction with their game without giving rise to security or detrimental influential issues. This could take the form of allowing players to participate in group crafting through their mobile device, or allow players to define the offline “character growth” settings through their mobile device, or allow players to manage their auction house items and communicate in-guild.

There is some great room for innovation in this space, and I look forward to 2012, which I believe will be the year companies start creating truly interactive mobile applications to support their products.

Environments

Seasons. I believe static representation of weather for “zones” (save those based on climate location) will become a thing of the past as companies begin to integrate true seasons into their gaming worlds. Aion is the only game I know of which has plans of implementing this in their upcoming 3.0 release (as seen in this video beginning at 3:06  and talked about here), but they have not set a standard nor has the implementation of this feature become a standard for the industry.

While I believe the fantasy-nature of MMOGs will support static environments for a long time to come, once a successful MMOG properly integrates dynamic environmental changes based on weather, there’s little doubt players will expect it in all future games of a similar nature,

MMOG Statistics

Subscription Capture from MMOData (11.20.2011)

There are some interesting things happening in the MMOG subscription world. World of Warcraft has lost 1.7 subscribers in the last 3 quarters and 800,000 over the last 3 months, claiming  most of the subscriptions were lost in China. However, for the first time in 14 years, there is a lull and possible decline in online subscriptions, as seen in the total subscriptions from the website mmodata.net. I want to be very specific that data presented by mmodata is highly interpretive and is most definitely not completely accurate, however I believe it’s accurate enough to show the MMOG industry is encountering a lull; but is this really a MMOG issue or an issue with online gaming as a whole? Games like Battlefield 3 and Borderlands are most definitely not MMOGs, but more and more players are playing them, which means those players are not using that time to play MMOGs.

Some games, such as Warhammer online, are simply dying. This is sad, but a fundamental reality. There’s nothing more heartbreaking than logging into a MMOG world and finding it dead; a game company’s worst nightmare.

The players are what make a MMOG a living breathing experience; if that wasn’t the case, all games would be like Skyrim.

With games like Battlefield 3, Skyrim and Minecraft taking so many gamers time away from MMOGs, the question remains: when they’re done with these state of the art awesome games, is the MMOG world enticing enough to bring them back? Especially as a gamer can only really play one game at a time (no, multiboxers, we don’t count you).

The future standard for games that are not specifically designed to be single-player (such as Skyrim) is to be “online”, and soon we will see a blur between what is considered a MMOG and an “online game” as the two blend into one form that simply consists of different features, some tied to persistence, and others to community.

Recent Releases and upcoming games

There are some very important recent releases and upcoming games which should be discussed in detail as they are helping evolve the gaming industry in one fashion or another.

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

While Skyrim is not a MMOG it is such a monumental product that it will undoubtedly result in setting numerous standards and expectations by players. Remember, a gamer doesn’t care if they see or experience something in a single-player game – if it’s awesome, they want to see it in other things they play, including MMOGs.

Dust 514

While DUST doesn’t appear on its own to be overly innovative (no offense DUST team, making reference to a sci-fi FPS core), what makes this product special as it relates to what I am discussing here is the connection to the EVE Online universe. To have a living breathing space-based universe that adds a FPS product where people in the two “game systems” can work together to accomplish goals which are reflected in the same gaming system.

Granted we still have yet to see how the actual integration works with the universe of EVE, what CCP is trying to accomplish is definitely evolutionary.

Guild Wars 2

ArenaNet is going out of their way to make GW2 an evolutionary MMOG, first through redefining class functionality and second through dynamic world events. The game looks beautiful and they are taking their time to refine the product to make it as strong of a competitor as possible. I believe this game has the highest potential of being considered a “next generation” Fantasy MMOG.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (SWTOR)

Currently in BETA, Star Wars the Old Republic by Bioware is slated for release December 20, 2011. Player feedback is mixed as the general consensus seems to be players are excited to play in the “Star Wars” world yet there doesn’t seem to be any representation of innovative or revolutionary features. While the consensus is that SWTOR doesn’t really bring anything new to the MMOG genre, one cannot underestimate a company like Bioware, who creates fantastic products. I for one wish SWTOR the greatest success.

Enticing Commitment and Excitement

With our society so connected to online content including Facebook and Twitter, merely building an awesome game and releasing it isn’t enough. You must get the players buy-in, not only to the world, but what the world is going to grow into. This is critical. Players need to be convinced if they join a new gaming world that they will be involved in it for months or years to come. This requires some serious foresight on what to commit to the player base for future expansions, features and growth.

Summary

As gaming has become a social norm and the most recent products are leading edge in both visuals and playability, the enticement to pull gamers into MMOG worlds is becoming more challenging, especially as players are becoming more defiant of a monthly subscription fee and the F2P model inherently carries with it a “cheap” representation to more sophisticated gamers; but then again, the “gamer norm” isn’t sophisticated anymore; it’s everyone. Regardless, the fundamental core of gaming in online worlds carries a level of common acceptance for all gamers, and working within this “grey area” is critical for any upcoming and future MMOGs as they figure out how to evolve the standards we have all grown so accustomed to (and in many cases tired of).

The cost of building a commercial MMOG can range anywhere from $10,000,000 to $50,000,000 or more. Design, Financial Control, Team, Technology, Development, Management, Milestones, Testing, Release, Support, Hardware Infrastructure, Deployment, Distribution, and Merchant Management are just a few of the required essentials. And that’s to develop a MMOG which competes within a known and accepted structure. To implement truly innovative features requires additional risk and investment; acts which very few companies are willing and able to take in today’s volatile market.

The good news is there is a natural driving force of product development which entices innovation and evolution, a standard process which has taken us from Pong and PLATO to Battlefield 3 and EVE Online over a period of 30 years. However, one must look back at the release of the biggest MMOG in history, World of Warcraft and realize we are celebrating the 7^th anniversary of the game. And in those seven years, what really innovative and evolutionary strides have been taken?

A perfect example is Aion, a visually beautiful game which isn’t even a true persistent world MMOG; a product which is implementing “Housing” in its upcoming 3.0 release. Everquest 2 has had this feature since 2004, and Ultima Online had it in 1997. How is this progress? Granted they appear to be implementing seasonal environments, the counter-effect of these already established features found in many other games in a duplicate or similar fashion is not refreshing, it’s stagnant.

The key is to create a world players want to be a part of for years to come. In order to convince them of that, a product has to offer more than the competition, or be cost effective to the point of being the best “fun” for free (at least as players interpret it).

What the future holds is unknown; there are great strides being made in the graphical and technical fields, however I do believe the MMOG industry has gotten a bit stagnant as the most popular games in the world now are online non-persistent worlds where players can quickly jump in, have fun, and jump out. Providing the same fun factor in a persistent experience of growth and reward is critical to our future MMOGs; all while embracing new and evolutionary adjustments to the solid systems we have all come to love and rely on, but are also tired of.

Here’s to the future of online gaming. May 2012 and beyond bring us the first wave of next generation persistent world MMOGs!

This posting was written to share some important and recommended methods of protecting yourself as it relates to determining if somebody is the right person to work with. It’s critical to not make excuses or be lazy in this area. Create a standard of care which is always followed as it involves your business and personal life; a standard which helps protect you, the people you work for, who work for you, and your family.

I cannot stress how important it is to run background checks on every key person you consider entering into a business or contractual relationship with. And I’m not talking about after the fact; you do this before you enter into any business agreement with them. Background checks should be the bread and butter of any entrepreneur or business owner who is securing investment or looking to hire key members for a company. But this isn’t just restricted to key members either; many companies have mandatory background checks for anyone they consider. This approach has proven to be highly effective in following a standard of care as it relates to screening everyone, regardless of position.

I once asked a Private Investigator with more than 30 years of experience what the number one mistake they saw their clients make. The reply: “Coming to me after the fact.”

Background Check Types

There are different types of “background checks” as some involve little to no actual investigation work, and others require a large amount. For example, there’s a big difference between a general background check which pulls all public records, and a detailed background investigation which produces records which are certified by the PI and admissible in court. The good news is the basic record check is usually enough to get you what you need, and it’s also the least expensive. Private Investigators (PIs) have access to database systems the public does not, so while you can pull records yourself, it’s been my experience you’re better off working with a talented and capable PI. Additionally, it’s been my experience the PI’s record systems are far more accurate for matching names, addresses and social security numbers, and produce more accurate results.

The price for background checks/investigations can vary as there is no standard cost. More detailed records, such as actual copies of police reports, court records and so-on can take much more time, resulting in costs spanning hundreds and even thousands – but rarely is such a detailed investigation necessary unless one is preparing for court. The good news is basic records are very cost effective and will usually provide you with enough to know whether or not you want to engage in any sort of relationship with the individual in question.

Be aware that pre-employment background checks must follow FCRA rules and regulations. Legitimate private investigators are aware of the laws regarding pre-employment background checks.

How to find a certified Private Investigator

While most PIs are solid and deliver good services, like any other industry, there are bad ones out there.

The best recommendation is always a referral. If you know somebody who can vouch for a PI, it’s probably best to go that route. However, if you don’t have any contacts that can provide a referral, you can use the NALI (the National Association of Legal Investigators) site (http://www.nalionline.org/) to find a local PI, or any of these additional legitimate investigative websites: http://www.usapi.org/ , http://www.intellenetwork.org/, and  http://www.nciss.org/.

You can also look into your state’s P.I. Association: http://www.crimetime.com/licensing.htm

Hiring a PI

Always enter into a written agreement with the investigator to protect yourself and to ensure each party understands the assignment. While a retainer is standard in the industry, you should not pay the full bill in advance as like lawyers, investigators don’t always know how much time a case will take nor do they know their out-of-pocket costs.  Never pay cash up front. Always use a credit card so if things go bad, you can challenge the payment through your bank.

Things to be wary of:

1. They ask for an exorbitant fee up front.
2. They ask for cash up front.
3. They represent “special database” systems they claim they can’t tell you about.
4. They are unreliable and don’t get back to you when they say they will.
5. They claim they can provide private bank account information on somebody (see below).

Trust your gut. If you don’t feel comfortable with the PI, don’t use them. Never secure a PI out of desperation.

One common question is “Can a PI get somebody’s bank account information?” Well, yes. Some can because of their connections. But it doesn’t mean that it’s legal, and if the work ends up being necessary for any court case, how will the evidence be explained if it was obtained illegally? Remember, no PI can legally access a person’s bank account without their written consent, a judgment entered in court,  or without being provided the materials by a legitimate third party.

I cannot stress the value of a solid PI. They are worth their weight in gold, and if you find one, you will have a great resource to share with friends and family.

Reading the Results

A good PI will provide their personal opinion on the results of any information they find. If they have extensive experience, their opinion counts for a lot. If they say “you do NOT want to do business with this person” it’s probably good advice you should follow.

Here are some very common things that show up on background checks which are red flags:

1. Felonies speak for themselves. While some people are wrongly convicted, most are not.
2. While they do not carry the same weight as Felonies, one must pay attention to Misdemeanors as they can encapsulate everything from fraud to assault.
3. Be concerned if somebody has numerous addresses. While moving on a regular basis isn’t a bad thing in itself, people who engage in fraud and other nefarious actions usually have a history involving numerous addresses.
4. Be cautious if somebody has affiliations with numerous businesses because they may be using them as shell companies.  While this may not always be true of well-known entrepreneurs, your average person doesn’t create and dissolve companies routinely.
5. Tax liens can also show in reports. Rule of thumb – people with money do not get tax liens on their property.
6. DUIs and revoked or suspended driver’s licenses.  This may indicate a problem you do not want to deal with.

Also know people can seal their own court records to prevent the public from gaining access. This is a catch 22. It both allows the innocent to protect themselves and the guilty to hide facts from prying eyes.

Acquiring Court Records

Acquiring records is a catch 22. PIs have access to online court records with the few clicks of a button that you do not, so if you need something in a hurry, it’s best to go through a PI. However, if you do not need the records in a hurry, you will always save money by acquiring the records yourself. Depending on the state and county, acquisition of the records could be as simple as a few keystrokes and charging your credit card a menial amount while others may require you to mail a check and wait 10 days for a mailed copy of the records. While online records will usually tell you enough about the basics of a case (e.g. if the person has judgments against them, etc), the online records will rarely tell you (for example) how much of a judgment was issued against them. This is why acquiring records is important as a judgment for $5,000 is very different from one for $2,500,000.

Squatting

Squatting is a very common activity by con men and fraudsters. You must watch out for this in the background check. If it’s just a one-time event and they can explain how the landlord was in the wrong (and it can happen) it may be OK to overlook it. However if there are multiple squatting references, it’s a red flag. How do you spot squatting? Look for numerous addresses paired with multiple Unlawful Detainers.

Good liars have an explanation for everything!

A good liar can explain every single negative thing which comes back on a background check. A con man is even smoother, and they can do it in a fashion that brings comfort to most people as they always have a good story or excuse which usually encapsulates:

1. Why it wasn’t their fault; or
2. Why they didn’t do it; or
3. How they were a victim, only protecting themselves (and/or their family); or
4. How the information is incorrect; or
5. How they did it but learned their lesson.

It’s very important to exercise proper judgment. If the background check has only one entry on it for only one concern and there isn’t a history tying into other things, there’s a good chance it was a fluke and their explanation may be true. People make mistakes or can be incorrectly accused. That’s part of life. Don’t be too harsh on people for simple mistakes, but remember, the best representation of bad behavior is that behavior repeated. It’s my experience if a background check shows repeated bad behavior it’s an automatic red flag which no story can cover. One can read this and say “of course, everyone knows that” but too many people are given excuses they buy into which cause them to abandon their judgment in this area. Don’t buy into the story. Buy into the explanations backed by documented or proven facts.

Verifying Government Security Clearance

There are people who claim to have government security clearance who do not. This is a big concern since such clearance represents that the person has passed a “higher standard” background investigation and established a certain level of trust with the government, which is why people make such false claims (to use that misrepresented trust as part of their ruse). Sadly, liars will make claims in this area to gain the confidence of others hoping that a check for validity is never done. The good news is it’s very easy to verify if their claims are true or not. All you need to do is contact the Defense Security Service (www.dss.mil). To begin the process, send an Email to occ.cust.serv@dss.mil and inform them you wish to find out if somebody has the security clearance they claim. You should receive a response very quickly. When you do, provide the full name, address, DOB, and if possible, the SSN of the individual you wish them to investigate. They will let you know if they have enough information to provide accurate results. There’s no reason to pay a PI to conduct this check, it’s easy to do yourself.

Determining somebody’s Viability

While background checks are essential, there are some general methods of communication which can give away somebody’s viability and sincerity. While there are entire volumes written on the understanding of the psychology of people, especially as it relates to deception and misrepresentation, there are a few fundamental and basic checks one can watch for which apply to every day life.

Things people say or do which generally represent concern:

1. Constantly dropping “big names” as friends or business contacts.
2. Making grandiose claims of financial or other prowess.
3. Using something other than the information itself to make a representation of fact for the information.
4. Ignoring questionable or bad behavior.
5. Constant story telling.

Red flag things people say or do which should be very alarming:

1. Referring to you as their “good friend” (especially to others) when you hardly know them.
2. Making statements like they trust you with their life, etc. when they are not a lifelong/true/best/trusted friend.
3. Making excuses and failing to provide any form of evidence supporting important claims.
4. They get hostile, overly defensive, or change the subject when you question their representations.
5. They must control everything and will not meet your requests; this includes meetings, meeting times, phone calls, discussions, negotiations, etc.

Always trust your gut, and remember: those who stand for nothing are capable of doing anything.

Summary

Work smarter, not harder. In order to survive in today’s society and economy, this mantra is critical. Now, more than ever, choosing the right people to work with is critically important. Human beings can be amazing or devious creatures. One person can commit to the highest loyalty of honor and integrity, and another can lie to your face, steal your property, and try to destroy your life through a variety of means, all because it feeds some sickness which you will never understand. However in order to do this (most of the time), some sort of connection must be made where you invite this person into your life or business, and most people who encounter such issues look back and find if they had conducted some form of investigation on a person who engaged in wrongdoing against them prior to working with them, everything would have been different.

Always conduct background investigations on those who you look to pursue relationships of trust with. Such a habit will always help serve and protect you in the end.

The Cloud simply represents the next generation of services through online computer clustering and resource sharing, and yes, it really is more of a buzz word than anything else as Cloud solutions existed before the term did. But the term is a bit misleading as many use it at different levels. One may say “it’s on the cloud” another may say “it’s a cloud solution” and yet another may say “create your own private cloud!” So many different representations cause confusion equally among businesses and individuals.

The Cloud is a fad term. I want to make that clear. It doesn’t really mean anything other than “an online clustered service”. But this is so generic in nature it could apply to most anything; and it does. Cloud Services have been with us for a long time (e.g. Salesforce). The tech buzz terminology is simply applying a catchphrase that informs people “this is a multi-clustered online redundant system of sharing with an interface.”

To simplify things, let’s look at presenting the Cloud as it relates to a specific company or product. In most cases, it represents a service (or services) through clustered groups of computers which operate together in a bound and shared capacity, often with a custom framework and infrastructure including prebuilt software solutions which are accessible through specialized interfaces while touting security, privacy, speed, storage and cost savings. It’s a living breathing infrastructure and it’s nothing new. What’s new is how it’s being packaged and offered to businesses and individuals as an accessible “platform” one can use and access with just a few clicks.

Let’s take a look at three well known and publicized Cloud systems.

Amazon’s Web Services (AWS) is a combination set of Cloud services and platform where the company has a living breathing infrastructure of servers offering a number of services through their custom-built framework. This includes hosting, data storage, e-commerce solutions and much more. There are so many services that Amazon technically has Clouds within Clouds. However all services are offered through the same core entry point of AWS encapsulation.

Microsoft Azure is a Cloud platform and used by developers to create, publish and host custom solutions. For example, there is no S3 equivalent for Azure by Microsoft, nor does Microsoft offer e-commerce solutions through Azure because it is a framework, not a set of Services. A company has to build their own products and then use the Azure infrastructure to host and deliver the solution. It’s really not that different from a company hosting their website and with GoDaddy. As with most new infrastructures, it probably won’t be long before a leading-edge e-commerce company happens to build the next generation e-commerce solution (similar to AWS e-commerce solutions) which just happens to operate on the Azure Cloud Infrastructure.

Google has been operating Cloud services for some time in the form of Google Docs & Calendar, and they recently launched the Google Cloud Connect system (which is covered below). However unlike AWS and Azure, to my knowledge they have not yet produced a viable infrastructure allowing true Cloud customization for their services, but don’t worry – they will, especially as they work to refine their Chromium Operating System.

All major companies are embracing “The Cloud”

Windows 8 upcoming release is “designed with the cloud in mind” and the Windows 8 Server will feature built-in cloud support which will allow people to set up their own “personal clouds” at home on their own hardware if they desire. Google already offers Cloud solutions and has many more planned. Amazon is connecting all of their major services within the AWS Cloud. Microsoft has launched Azure. And Apple is launching iCloud this fall, which they claim “stores your music, photos, apps, calendars, documents, and more. And wirelessly pushes them to all your devices – automatically. It’s the easiest way to manage your content. Because now you don’t have to.”

This means every major company that is leading the technology revolution is not only embracing the Cloud, all future operating systems are all slated to be Cloud enabled which means just a few years from now, everyone will be hooked into the Cloud in one capacity or another, perhaps without even realizing it.

Understanding the Basics of the Cloud

An easy way to understand any Cloud system is that it has two layers. The first is Hardware layer and the second is the Software layer. The Hardware layer provides computation power, hardline network access and storage. The Software layer provides interface, execution and data access. It’s that simple. Within this infrastructure most companies utilize virtual machines as well; encapsulating a set of resources (CPU/RAM/Storage) with software to better manage load.

Hosting companies like GoDaddy have been doing this for years; taking a set of hardware and breaking it into a number of smaller “virtual representations” of the hardware, allowing for common practices such as shared hosting. This is what allows a customer to host their website on a shared server with others while not having any awareness or connection with the other virtual machines. It’s all about delegating hard resources.

Cloud infrastructures are pretty simple to understand, as are Virtual Machines. While the two layer approach is the most basic breakdown, the more standard presentation of the Cloud is that of Application, Platform and Infrastructure. Applications are software, as is the Platform – but the Platform is designed to interface with the specific hardware infrastructure, so it operates as the “middle tier” that bridges the software and hardware layers together.

What makes Cloud solutions complex is the deployment, resource use, management and overall integration of the platforms and solutions while guaranteeing access, processing power, redundant storage, security, privacy and uptime. For example, while Azure has a great deployment infrastructure, developing an enterprise solution to be deployed via Azure, along with full database replication and bug-free functionality is a monumental task for any company, especially as it relates to managing live solutions catering services to millions of users.

Privacy

This is one of the most controversial and important aspects of any Cloud service. First, one must understand the fundamentals of exactly what privacy issues exist and secondly whether or not the company / infrastructure can be “trusted”.

Whenever you manage your data on or through another company’s infrastructure, you open yourself to risk. Good questions to consider are:

1. What risks are you already taking (and not realizing);
2. What would happen if someone did intercept your data or hack your account, thus acquiring and/or destroying your data; and
3. How confidential is your data?

If you use any outside web mail client you’re already running and hosting your Email on another company’s system. Using Google Documents? They have copies of everything. And make no mistake, they can access and use the documents any way they want – all without you even knowing. Do they and will they? Not really and probably not. These are the fundamental checks and balances of reality. Don’t be paranoid, be smart. Google is in the business of providing services, not stealing people’s data.

Let’s consider a different scenario. What if you are a high profile individual working on state of the art technology to be competitive with Google, do you use their services to store your documentation? Of course not. Why? Because such a situation may be one of the few occasions somebody who works for Google just might decide to access your files. Anyone who thinks Google or any other company will never engage in any form of abuse is simply naive. Remember, it’s not the companies themselves who engage in abuse, but individuals within the company, and every major company has its bad people.

Rule of thumb! If your private data is so sensitive that you cannot risk it being stolen for any reason at all, don’t put it on the internet or in the hands of another. Ever.

Security & Compliance

Security is one of the biggest issues when it comes to using any outside system for personal or business purposes, and for large companies, Compliance standards can be critically important, especially if the data must meet specific criteria as defined by the law. Many cloud service providers obtain specific compliance types in order to act as a certified provider to their clients. Below are three of the common compliance standards everyone should be aware of.

SAS 70

Statement on Auditing Standards (SAS) No. 70, Service Organizations, is a widely recognized auditing standard developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). A service auditor’s examination performed in accordance with SAS No. 70 (also commonly referred to as a “SAS 70 Audit”) is widely recognized, because it represents that a service organization has been through an in-depth audit of their control objectives and control activities, which often include controls over information technology and related processes. In today’s global economy, service organizations or service providers must demonstrate that they have adequate controls and safeguards when they host or process data belonging to their customers. In addition, the requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 make SAS 70 audit reports even more important to the process of reporting on the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting.

Many sites have the little “SAS70 type II certified” stamp on their site, like www.attask.com.

ISO/IEC 27001

ISO/IEC 27001 formally specifies a management system that is intended to bring information security under explicit management control. Being a formal specification means that it mandates specific requirements. Organizations that claim to have adopted ISO/IEC 27001 can therefore be formally audited and certified compliant with the standard.

Safe Harbor

In response to the European Commission Directive on Data Protection that could interrupt transfers of personal information from Europe to countries whose privacy practices are not deemed “adequate,” the U.S. Department of Commerce and the European Commission have developed a “safe harbor” framework that will allow U.S. organizations to satisfy the European Directive’s requirements and ensure that personal data flows to the United States are not interrupted. On July 27, 2000, the European Commission issued its decision in accordance with Article 25.6 of the Directive that the Safe Harbor Privacy Principles provide adequate protection.  The safe harbor framework bridges the differences between the EU and U.S. approaches to privacy protection and ensures adequate protection for EU citizen’s personal information. (more)

Amazon discusses their security features here.

Microsoft Azure presents their security features here.

Google hasn’t really released any security standards related to Google Docs (i.e. they don’t define compliance, and follow standard SSL mechanisms), but one company has stepped up and created a Google Docs security infrastructure called CloudLock, which may be of interest to businesses which want to use Google Docs as a living file and vault repository: http://www.cloudlock.com/

Hardware and Transport

Hardware for Cloud services are generally hosted inside data centers which have multiple layers of physical security which includes 24/7 video monitoring and biometric access. This is a level of security above and beyond what most small and medium sized companies are capable of installing to protect their own systems. In other words, the security risk to the physical servers is minimal.

The real security risk generally lies with the transport and access points on the client’s end. This is why it’s critical for any company utilizing any off-site cloud, storage or hosting solutions to have a proper security audit conducted by a professional in the field.

Want to learn more? Leah Gabriel Nurik wrote a nice slide overview on ChannelInsider regarding Security Concerns over the Public Cloud.

Encryption

Those who are familiar with Encryption can properly use it to protect their sensitive data and still utilize cloud storage systems without much concern regarding the hosting company being able to do anything negative with the files, however it is one thing for a private individual with a single key to encrypt their files prior to using an off-site storage system (like Amazon S3) vs. a multi-million dollar company utilizing dozens or even hundreds of keys related to hosting credit card information, confidential documents, and even Top Secret or government-related materials which require a specific level of protection by law.

For Personal Use

The Windows 7 Encryption File System (EFS) works just fine for personal use. Note this is tied to a single user key (which must be protected at all times) and should only be used for backing up and restoring data. Once this data is secured, you can copy it to most any cloud-based storage mechanism. If you want to read up on the EFS, here’s a good starting point.

For Business Use

Above and beyond the previously covered compliance, one key thing to remember with public cloud solutions is service providers generally have multiple data centers spread throughout worldwide regions. This means data may be moved without the customer’s knowledge. This is where more customized solutions come into play and one must look at policy oriented key management paired with regional server authentication while conforming to identity-based validation for business solutions.

Ashvin Kamaraju at TechNewsWorld wrote a good article on Cloud Encryption that’s worth reading.

There are also cloud-based encryption solutions which companies can look into, such as Trend Micro’s SecureCloud and Deep Security.

Obviously any business looking to embrace encryption within a Cloud solution should have an expert in this area to make the proper decisions as encryption for medium and large companies can quickly become a complex and critical issue.

IP, Trade Secrets & Control

When you use an off-site provider to store your data, you lose control. It’s that simple. This is why encryption is critical even for an individual home user, because when you encrypt and protect your data, the possibility of anyone who “acquires” your files outside of your secured interface will find it nearly impossible to do anything with the files.

One must take very special consideration when it comes to Intellectual Property (IP) and Trade Secrets. As mentioned above, does one really think placing a non-encrypted file which documents how a company is going to make Google Docs obsolete on Google’s Doc platform is a smart idea?

People do this all the time – fail to apply common sense management to their ideas and property. Your property belongs to you. Use your head when placing your property in the hands of another. Protect yourself. This doesn’t mean be paranoid regarding storing your files off-site or in a cloud solution – simply be smart.

Collaboration

Online Collaboration is a huge focus right now. One can see this with Google’s Cloud Connect service, which I think they should have named Google Collaboration. This shows even Google is jumping on the buzz word bandwagon when in a few short years the term Cloud will be as generic as Internet. It won’t mean anything other than “online” as most online solutions will be cloud-based in one fashion or another.

Many companies have built numerous collaborative solutions which are presented as Cloud Solutions. Below is a list of some of them which I recommend readers check out:

1. AtTask – Total workspace management (projects, reports, resources)
2. Central Desktop – Manage workspaces, people, projects, documents and processes
3. Atlassian Confluence – Enterprise collaboration with the tagline “less email. Fewer meetings. Better results.”
4. Cisco WebEx Connect – Online collaboration via video, audio, IM, etc.
5. Zoho – A large number of solutions categorized into collaboration, business and productivity. Chat, docs, meetings, people, CRM, inoices, planners, calendars and more.
6. HyperOffice – Another company workspace which includes Email, calendar, task manager, online document & contact management.
7. Salesforce Chatter – General office collaboration (profiles, groups, file sharing, analytics, feeds, notifications, security, etc)
8. SocialText – Social networking, blogging, wiki workspaces, mobile, integration, etc.
9. Microsoft Sharepoint – Another enterprise collaboration solution, very common among Microsoft companies.
10. Basecamp – Project management with file storage, events, messages, etc.

As you can see, Cloud-based collaboration services are very popular.

Cost Savings

One big question remains: are Cloud Services even a money-saving solution for large-scale businesses? Microsoft has done a great job of creating Pricing and TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) Calculators. With these tools you can price out the costs involved in hosting via Azure and also run a cost analysis on using Azure vs. owning your own hardware, paying for your own bandwidth, etc.

In reviewing online data, it seems the agreed standard for Cloud use and cost savings is right around the 60% mark and the most common barrier in embracing Cloud services is simple resistance to change.

Another consideration is figuring in cost savings related to existing technology (porting) and new technology (designed from scratch to be on the Cloud). I don’t think there is any question new products specifically designed for Cloud deployment will entice large-scale savings in a much broader capacity than their legacy counterparts, especially for small and medium sized companies.

Final Thoughts

While the Cloud is just another step in the evolution of online computing it’s a very important one to understand as there are both great benefits and risks involved. This is common for each step associated with the growth of technology. But one thing is certain, those who understand with clarity exactly what the technology is and how to use it wisely will be in a much better position to benefit from it.

There so many exceptional Cloud solutions already available (and many more planned) for individuals it can be overwhelming. If you use Microsoft, Apple or Google products, you (and your business) will end up in the Cloud one way or another as the infrastructure will become the next technical standard as both individuals and companies embrace both current and future leading-edge services.

But remember, there is wisdom in using a combination of different solutions for both hosting and protecting your important data. For individuals, this could be in the form of a local encrypted backup on a fire-safe locked drive in addition to your S3 backup, and for businesses, this could be hosting customer credit card data on one company’s infrastructure and products data with another company.

I personally recommend embracing the Cloud services which are already available. Use the trials to try them out, look at the platforms for development (e.g. Microsoft Azure) and the services for handling your business needs – but always do your homework. Find out what security and compliance systems the services use, determine (with common sense) what should be part of the Cloud and what should be kept strictly under you or your company’s control. If you do have a company and don’t have an expert in IT who can help with these decisions, get one as soon as possible. Do not engage in any actions which could jeopardize your company or its valuable assets unless you have somebody who can help make the decisions and solve problems when they come up.

The future of what is being presented today as The Cloud is exciting. More and more online connected services and systems will become available, empowering those who embrace them to operate more efficiently and with less cost and overhead. And the greatest thing about Cloud services is they are perpetually evolving. You will see updates on a regular basis as the services feel more like a living product, taking us further and further away from deployed builds which require hoops to be jumped through in order to update.

The future of what we know as the Cloud today is an always available living breathing set of services and even operating systems which are always at our fingertips and allow us to work more efficiently and productively. Soon, we will forget what it was like to be without them.

The Equipment

One must have the right equipment to build the perfect drink! Yes, it’s expensive, but it’s worth every penny; and the core components will last you for years and years. We’re still on our first Zojirushi, and it’s roughly six years old.

Zojirushi CD-LCC50 Instant Hot Water Dispensers (5.0 L) – Black ($168.99)

This unit is absolutely amazing. It de-chlorinates and keeps your water at a constant temperature of 175, 195, or 208. Not only can you use it for your coffee and tea, it also works great for any other “hot water needs” such as instant oatmeal, etc.

Bodum Chambord Coffee Press ($35.08)

Not only can you use the french press for your coffee (and IMO it provides the best flavored coffee possible), it works beautifully for any loose leaf tea brewing as well. A warning to those who are half-asleep in the morning. Dropping this will, indeed, cause it to shatter… make sure you are of ample awareness before handling!

Rock Sugar Jar (from Teavana) ($26.95)

This will be your storage unit for the second coming of sweetness. Seriously. If you haven’t had this stuff it’s going to require a change of shorts. And not only are you going to use this sugar, you are going to pulverize it to tiny powdered ecstasy!

Krups Coffree Grinder ($16.39)

Making your grinding experience an intimate one, grinders like this are excellent because they only produce enough to use for a few days at most, forcing you to constantly grind fresh new goodness of both your coffee and sugar!

Teavana Perfect Preset Tea Timer ($8.95)

Timing is everything, especially when it comes to perfectly brewed coffee and tea. Do not trust your brewing to strange forces of nature such as human guesstimation. Embrace the LCD perfection of technology.

Pyrex Storage 1-Cup Round Dish with Dark Blue Plastic Cover, Clear x2 ($9.70) (only 1 if doing just Tea)

Oysters can store pearls. Ammo boxes from Fallout can store life saving  flame thrower fuel. This device will store something much more valuable. You freshly ground Kona Coffee and your freshly ground Rock Sugar.

Vacu Vin Coffee Saver Starter Set ($26.25) (For Coffee)

Embrace the power of the universe. Embrace the vacuum. This unit allows you to store your coffee properly which results in no diminished flavor. Don’t waste time on the battery-powered storage units. This one will last you for years and seal the tasty freshness that is Kona.

Stainless Steel Long Handled Standard Coffee Scoop ($4.80) (For Coffee)

As one must measure time, one must also measure volume for perfection. Enter the Coffee Scoop, designed to deliver the perfect amount of Coffee. Actually, I recommend heaping spoonfulls, so I suppose perfection in this case is moot. It’s silver and shiny. Enough said!

Teavana 1lb Tea Storage Tin ($7.00) (For Tea)

Excellent storage units for any loose leaf tea. Please do not put lipton tea bags in here as such an act is in defilement of the laws of tasty storage.avana 1lb Tea Storage Tin ($7.00) (For Tea)

Teavana Perfect Tea Spoon ($3.99) (For Tea)

Another must have, the tea spoon allows for proper measurement of your tea-drinking experience.

Total Cost: $317.80 + (Shipping / Tax)

The Ingredients

The ingredients for making the perfect cup of Coffee or Tea are crucial. You get what you pay for, and quality means everything. Before we dive into the coffee and tea, let’s dive into the core ingredients which will be used with both: sweetener and smoother.

Teavana German Rock Cane Sugar (1 lb) ($7.95) x3 to fill the whole Sugar Jar

Words cannot describe how amazing this sugar is. Once you get your hands on this sugar, you won’t use normal sugar ever again in your drinks.

The best half and half you can buy. This is very important as the more natural and raw the cream, the better the cup. Availability varies based on where you live. The best you can find is always at local natural farms. For example, when I lived in Arizona, we would pick up our “weekly drop” of Farmers Market goods from Superstition Farms (if you’re in AZ, you’ve got to visit them!) This included fresh half and half, and believe me, it makes ALL the difference. So, if you want the best half and half, go to your local farm / farmers market and use that. If you are stuck with the store bought solution, get what looks best, but darigold is NOT on this list, nor is anything carried by 7-11. If you must, go with something like Organic Valley Half and Half. Not just due to the organic origins, but also due to the sealing lid, something necessary to keep freshness.

For Coffee

There are two places I buy my Coffee from. Both are Kona blends straight from Hawaii. The coffee is simply outstanding. Of course you can choose the right blends for your taste, but I’ll include what I recommend for starters.

Greenwell Farms has amazing Coffee and is a great place to visit. You can purchase from their online store and have the coffee shipped to you via 2-day FedEx.

Medium Roast – Whole Bean – 1 lb. ($26.95)

This is a delicious standard roast that is a very good starting point. If you like this, you can order different roast and flavor types. Greenwell makes amazing flavored Chocolate Macadamia Nut coffee.

FedEx 2-day shipping is $10.96

Country Samurai Coffee Company is another top choice. While I haven’t been to the farm as I have with Greenwell, this was referred to us by a friend and is held in some circles as the best coffee on the island. There is a taste difference between this and Greenwell, but it’s not any better or worse, it’s just different; in the end, it will depend on your palette.

100% Kona No. 1 – 1 Pound ($29.95)

A smooth and delicious blend, held as the overall “favorite” by all. You won’t be disappointed.

USPS 3-4 day shipping is $4.90.

While this may seem expensive, the coffee is so rich and good, you’ll find that you drink fewer cups because what you do drink is so much higher quality!

Note: always order whole bean! Do not order ground!

A note for Decaffeinated Drinkers

If you will only drink Decaffeinated Coffee, make 100% sure that the decaffeinated method is through the Swiss Water Process. Other methods include running the coffee through formaldehyde, and I don’t think you want that going through your system…

For Tea

Tea is a whole different game from coffee as there are so many more choices (Green, Black, Oolong, White, and Herbal – and those are just the bases, not including flavors of each) people will test and try variations over their life and develop their own taste. For the purpose of this article, I am going to focus on my favorite Black Teas. If you already know exactly what tea you love, get that instead. However remember the quality of tea makes a huge difference. Lipton and other common teas are simply garbage. If you want real tea, you must order the quality loose leaf version of the tea you love. The information provided herein should help you do exactly that.

For those of you who haven’t been to a mall recently, Teavana is taking the country by storm with its mall-based stores which sell quality loose leaf tea. Most everything they carry is top notch, and I highly recommend visiting a store and getting a whiff of what turns your gears. Of course you can order online, but if you’re not sure of what you like, it’s always good to visit first.

Black Dragon Pearl (8oz) ($60.00)

And you thought coffee was expensive! This is hands down the finest black tea I’ve ever had, and boy, does it cost… but it’s worth it as you can re-seep the tea 2-3 times.

Vital Tea Leaf is another tea store, but IMO it’s not as high quality as Teavana as they store their tea in glass containers (which is a big no no). However, they do have good teas, and I am going to share my favorite below. (Note: I’m getting malware warnings when going to the main Vital Tea Leaf site, so I’m using the Seattle one (which is clean). Note the main Vital Tea Leaf site was hacked earlier this year, and it seems some residual of that is still around. Perhaps some IT folks using their product need to help them clean things up!)

Lychee Black (4oz) ($12.00) x2 (Seattle Site Link)

As you can see this is less than 1/2 the cost of the Black Dragon Pearl. One big perk with this tea – you can let it seep for as long as you want! 10 minutes? No problem! It’s more potent, but it doesn’t get bitter like the black dragon pearl will.

Now THIS is a Mug!

The Delivery Method

I’m a firm believer that our drinking devices should reflect who we are at heart, which is why I love my Stitch Coffee Mug. That and it holds 24oz of seeping hot goodness (20oz if you don’t want to spill). I recommend getting a 24oz mug if you don’t already have one. Remember, girls dig guys with a big flashy mug, and guys get whacked over the head by girls who have a big flashy mug. It all works out!

A Word about Storage

Oh Happy day! Your order has arrived! Only Christmas is more exciting than this! Get that Zojirushi set up and the Rock Sugar in its happy Rock Sugar Jar. I recommend storing it in a shelf as I don’t know what putting it in sunlight will do (I’ve always kept it in a cupboard).

For Coffee

Get those beans into the Vacu Vin Coffee Saver immediately and pump that air out. Always keep your beans at room temperature and out of the sunlight. And always keep them in a vacuum. That way they cannot call for help.

For Tea

The storage of Tea is much easier than the Coffee as it only needs to be placed within the tin. As the tin isn’t transparent, as long as you keep it at room temperature, you can pretty much put it anywhere.

Preparing the Ingredients

Now that you have everything you need, it’s time to develop the base of your product!

Preparing the Sugar

This is the powder of the gods. Believe me. It’s worth every bit of effort.

• Step 1: Pour enough Rock Sugar into the Krups Coffee Grinder Lid to fill it ~75%. YES, THE LID (upside down)
• Step 2: Place the Coffee Grinder on top of the lid, upside down, and START THE GRINDER WHILE UPSIDE DOWN and then Flip it Right Side up. This is critical! Trying to start-grind this sugar with the unit right-side up will result in the chopper getting stuck and burning out the motor – by starting the grind with the sugar upside down (not impeding the grind blade), you are guaranteed to never stick the motor and burn out your unit! (note you don’t have to worry about this with Coffee since it’s far easier to grind than the rock sugar).
• Step 3: Grind for ~20-30 seconds – until the sugar is such a fine powder that you can’t grind it anymore.
• Step 4: Store the sugar into the Pyrex Round Dish
• Step 5: Clean the grinder with water and paper towel

Result: The finest sweetener you will ever have that’s in a powder form which instantly mixes with ANYTHING (including cold beverages)

Preparing the Zojirushi

For the coffee and tea contained herein, you want the water temperature set to 195.

For Coffee

Preparing and storing the Coffee is just as important as making it. Remember to always store your beans in a room temperature the air-tight container, and never have more than a few days of grounds in your Pyrex container.

• Step 1: Fill the Krups grinder to the top with the whole bean coffee.
• Step 2: Grind away! Remember; you want the grinds fairly coarse (they don’t need to be super fine)
• Step 3: Store the grinds in the Pyrex Round Dish
• Step 4: Clean the grinder with water and paper towel. Make sure ALL grind residue is gone!

Critical note! Many people don’t realize if you have any residue of ground coffee left over in any of your preparation systems, the new coffee WILL GET TAINTED! This is why it’s critical to properly clean the grinder after every grind and also clean the grind holding Pyrex dish after it’s emptied. I can’t stress this enough – just a little residue from old grinds can ruin a new grind batch!

For Tea

No special preparation for Tea is necessary. Just make sure you store it in an air-tight tea tin!

Brewing the Perfect Cup

Now for the savory results.

For Coffee

Here we go. I’ve made coffee numerous ways from french press to gold filter drip and even custom mixes of condensed espresso, etc. IMO this is the best way to get the best coffee.

• Step 1: Make sure your Zojirushi is set to 195.
• Step 2: Put 2 standard coffee scoops of ground coffee in your Bodum
• Step 3: Fill the bodum to roughly 1/2″ below the top silver holding area
• Step 4: Set your timer for 3.5 minutes
• Step 5: While the Coffee is brewing, pour roughly 1 tablespoon of half and half in the bottom of the mug
• Step 6: Place roughly one tablespoon of the ground sugar in the bottom of the mug
• Step 7: When the time is up, pour, mix and ENJOY!

If it’s too sweet, half the sugar. If it’s too strong, half the coffee. Tailor this to your taste and experiment until you get the prefect cup of coffee for you!

For Tea

Yes! It's Amazing!

Ready for some antioxidant delicious nirvana? I do want to make a note that some people swear by a cast iron since it absorbs the flavor of the coffee over time. I agree with this, and if I was drinking just tea with no sweetener or half and half I would only use cast iron. But when you add sweetener and half and half I believe the benefit of a cast iron is lost; but that’s not a bad thing as the results are still top notch!

• Step 1: Make sure your Zojirushi is set to 195.
• Step 2: Put 2 heaping scoops (using the tea scoop) in the Bodum
• Step 3: Fill the bodum to roughly 1/2″ below the top silver holding area
• Step 4: For Black Dragon Pearl: Set your timer for 3 minutes, For Lychee Black: Set your timer to 5-10 minutes
• Step 5: While the Tea is brewing, pour roughly 1 tablespoon of half and half in the bottom of the mug
• Step 6: Place roughly one tablespoon of the ground sugar in the bottom of the mug
• Step 7: Mix the sugar and half and half
• Step 8: when the time is up, pour, mix and ENJOY!

NOTE: Remember! You can re-seep the Black Dragon Pearl another 1-2 times before it really starts losing its flavor. I do not recommend re-seeping the Lychee Black.

If it’s too sweet, half the sugar. If it’s too strong, half the coffee. Tailor this to your taste and experiment until you get the prefect cup of coffee for you!

And there you have it! The perfect cup of Coffee or Tea! Enjoy!

I am happy to report AoC is a completely different animal now. Not only have they fixed most of the bugs and refined the game, they have also released the first expansion (Rise of the Godslayer) and converted to a combination paid monthly and F2P model with an online market in the July 2011 release of Age of Conan: Unchained.

The Starter City of Tortage

But with all of the fantasy-based MMOGs out there, what does this mean for gamers? Simply put, AoC has become a diamond in the rough. There is no other MMOG quite like it, and while there are still some outstanding issues, AoC has grown into a respectable and in many regards, fantastic MMOG.

While new players who choose the try the F2P version of AoC are limited as to what classes and areas they have access to, the content is more than enough to begin the fun and addicting process which leads many to become avid supporters and subscribers.

The first thing that sets AoC apart from other fantasy-based MMOGs is the first twenty levels, which are very well done in the areas of voice acting and storyline. The game doesn’t thrust you into a living breathing massive world; instead you begin in a “single player” mode outside of the city of Tortuge. When you reach the city, you are in the “daytime” version where others are present – from this daytime instance, you can move to different shared instances to play with friends and others, or you can choose to pursue a nighttime campaign which is single-player.

The next thing that makes AoC different from other MMOGs is the combat, which features a very different level of fun, strategy and challenging interactivity. Add gore (severing of limbs and decapitations) with bare-breasted women running around and many gamers agree, it’s simply fun. But there’s more to AoC than just strategic gory combat and hot women. There is an underlying breadth to the game which is exceptional, including some of the best graphics, music and sound FX available. Indeed, the game plays very differently for a mage class than it does for a warrior class.

While all characters are some variation of human, the character creation is fun and allows for avatars ranging from sexy to freakish. Additional character growth can be found in a Feat and Alternate Advancement systems. AoC also offers an offline training system for characters above level 30 (the max level is 80).

I’m going to review the different systems of AoC and touch on every core feature the game has to offer. Feel free to comment and provide any additional feedback that you have regarding what you read here or experienced yourself. I hope this review provides helpful information for those who are interested in learning more about Age of Conan and what it has to offer.

Age of Conan: Unchained

Original Release Date: May,  2008
Latest Expansions: Rise of the GodSlayer (May, 2010) & Unchained F2P Release (July, 2011)
Next Expansion: Savage Coast of Turan (Fall, 2011)
Custom Features: Interactive Combat, Offline Training, Apprenticeship, Guild Cities & Battlekeeps, Siege Warfare
Strengths: Beautiful environments, engaging combat, exceptional music and sound, strong initial storyline
Weaknesses: Clunky UI, terrible travel system, poor tradeskill system, server spikes/lag, technical issues
Notes: A must try for any fantasy-MMO gamer who likes great combat
Billing Style: Hybrid Subscription, Free to play and Market system

Mechanics

Economy, Level & Skills, Feats & Alternate Advancement (Perks), Travel, Professions & Resource Gathering, Consumables, Marketplace, Achievements,  Pets & Companions, Factions, Death, Repair, Offline Training, Apprenticeship, Minigames, Guild Cities & Battlekeeps, and Sieges.

The Economy of AoC revolves around Gold, Silver, Copper, Tin and Tokens. As with many MMOGs tokens are acquired by completing quests (general and faction), raiding, PvP, and accomplishing “difficult tasks” and are used with different factions to purchase some of the most powerful items in the game. There are also “veteran tokens” which are given per pay period to subscribers which can be used to purchase many special in-game items, including faction and dungeon tokens.

The Feats and AA Interface

There are 80 character Levels in AoC. Each class has numbers Skills (class specific) and Abilities (generic, such as recall, attack upper left, etc) which are automatically learned when you level (so you get immediate access, no need to train). You can obtain “books” to upgrade your max level spells, etc. through dungeon drops, merchant purchases (with tokens) and the online store. There is also a Feat system where you can spend points (from level 10 onward) to customize your character’s play style (choosing from two class-specific paths with a third general path).

Age of Conan has two systems of character advancement separate from leveling up. The first is that of Feats, which are general and class-based upgrades a player spends points in which are acquired by leveling up. This allows the player to focus on specific areas for their class and play style.

The second system is that of Alternate Advancement. The AA system was really designed to allow growth past max level (80), but players can begin using it as soon as Level 20. There are three types of points, Mastery, Expertise and Prowess. 3 Mastery points are acquired for each level through standard experience gain from doing quests, killing mobs, items, etc (the progress of the level is shown on the left vertical experience bar), and 3 Prowess points are acquired through each level fed by PvP experience (the progress of which is shown on the right). Expertise Points are rewarded each time you make a Mastery or Prowess level, and can be spent as either type of point, so if you. Now this is where things get a little interesting. The Alternate Advancement “selections” come in two flavors. Normal and Perks. Normal AA selections are passive in nature and behave like Feats. Some may grant a new spell or enhance an existing one, but once you put a point in one of these, you don’t need to do anything more. Perks, on the other hand, create a “slottable” perk action which must be in your Perks action bar in order to be “active”. The Perks action bar has a total of six slots. Two for blue (Tier 1), two for red (Tier 2), and two for silver (Tier 3). The intent of this system was to create a flexible end-game customization for players who could “custom-load” their perks bar to make their class play the way they wanted based on what they were going to do (Raid, PvE, PvP, etc).

Another part of the  AA system is that of Offline Training, allowing a player to train an AA point over time. People with multiple level 80 characters often use the Guild “timer bot” to keep track of all their characters “offline training”. The nice part of this system is it allows a player to grow each level 80 character even when they aren’t being played. How long would it take to train the highest class perk? 720 hours.

While I think AoC is a fantastic game, it has the worst Travel system I’ve ever seen. It’s confusing to new players, and even after one understands how to move between cities, hubs and regions, it’s a major pain to find out how to go somewhere new. Need to go to Purple Lotus Swamp for the first time? Good luck! Funcom needs to completely redesign the travel system to be easier to identify and use.

A player cannot get a Profession until Level 40, and can only choose two from the five available: Weaponsmith, Armorsmith, Alchemist, Architect and Gemcutter. The system is very simple, requiring only components; i.e. there is no need for anvils, forges, or any other in-world item – you can build the items from anywhere as long as you have the components.

The Resource Gathering of AoC is a bit different from other MMOGs. A player cannot begin to gather resources until level 20, however once a character reaches level 20, they can learn all of the six gathering skills: Mining, Prospecting, Skinning, Stonecutting, Weaving and Woodcutting, and believe me – leveling them up takes time. Another difference in AoC is there are “resource zones” which are chocked full of juicy resource goodness – but don’t be mislead – as you harvest resources, angry mobs come out and attack you and they get more difficult as you progress. Players can only learn the gathering skills (through quests) in Poitain, Lacheish Plains and Purple Lotus Swamp.

Unfortunately, the profession and resource gathering systems have the feeling of being more of an afterthought than anything else.

The Icy Cold of Atzel's Approach

Consumables are very important in AoC as you always want food and drink keeping your hits, mana and stamina replenished. You can also use potions in battle which help with healing and myriad of other things.

The Marketplace is called an “Item Shop” and from here one can purchase most anything they need: Bags, Companions, Mounts, Jewelry, Weapons, Armor, Abilities, Feats, Travel Scrolls, Potions, Food & Drink, Enhancements, Bundles, Pets, Special Offers and more. Want that Brown Riding Camel? 1,575 Funcom Points. How much are the points? 600 points is $5 USD, 1,200 points is $10, and 2400 points is $20. However, I’d choose the Purebred Killer Rhino for 990 points. The Weapons and Armor are available every 10 levels. For example, a Level 20 staff is 225 points while a level 80 staff is 675 points. So yes, you can outfit your character if you’ve got the money – however the items aren’t “the best in the game” (they are only blues, not purples).

AoC is one of the few games that does not have an Achievement system. I can’t complain too much as dismembering your first victim is an achievement in itself without needing to be told by the game.

There are numerous Pets available in the game for players to collect, acquired through quests and drops, and others through purchase in the Marketplace. Some classes have Companions which will fight for the character. The Necromancer class, for example, has up to eight nasty undead minions at its command, and it’s quite a sight to be adventuring through the world only to have a lone character come over the hill with a mini-horde of undead in tow. One interesting point regarding companions is the threat system. Unlike other MMOGs, when your companions attack a target, the target comes right after you. This requires a companion class to think differently than in other MMOGs where companions are designed to hold threat.

The Beautiful City of Old Tarantia

Choice of Faction doesn’t begin until level 80, and when a player hits 80 there are twelve factions to choose from. A player may work on six of the twelve factions at once as the other six are opposing, and once you choose a “side” you cannot work on opposing factions unless you betray your chosen factions. Choose wisely, as different factions give different items (including mounts and pets which can attack), which can be seen here. The game claims the way you interact with NPCs affects your overall reputation, but I haven’t noticed exactly how.

The Death system is very forgiving. Die, simply resurrect at a “rez pad” and go back and grab your tombstone to restore the 1% loss, or wait 30 minutes. However if you die three times, you’ll have three tombstones (the max count) and be at a 3% disadvantage until either you get the tombstones or wait 30 minutes. One issue however is if you haven’t discovered the nearest “resurrect pad” you will raise at the closest one you discovered, and that can often be quite a distance.

The game has no item Repair system.

Depending on the subscription type and how long one has been a subscriber, a player can accrue Offline Training which can be applied at once to any character above level 30. I’ve seen players log in as level 30 and shoot to level 80 by spending these points. This is nice for players who have multiple level 80 characters. A player currently receives one offline training level for every 4 days they subscribe as a premium member.

One feature few seem to be aware of is the Apprenticeship feature, which is similar to the Mentor feature in Everquest; the only difference is the lower level character is elevated one level below the master and the characters cannot be more than 20 levels apart. This means a level 45 would become level 55 if their friend was level 56. This allows the master to take their apprentice to the places they adventure and fight. This is a pretty neat feature and allows one to catch up with their friend fairly quickly.

Mingames are simply instanced PvP games which come in three flavors: Annihilate, Conquest, and Capture the Skull. By playing these minigames, players can earn PvP tokens and points to purchase PvP gear, etc.

The City of Khemi

Guild Cities are custom built player cities where one can add structures, NPCs, services, and other supportive features for all of the guild members including walls and gates where the buildings all have rankings and with each rank gain additional features. Architects (a profession) help build these structures, and larger guilds can have rather impressive cities. The purpose for the walls and features? In your Guild City instance is a NPC/Enemy city which is also built in conjunction with yours. They will attack your city, and if you let them get too powerful, they can overwhelm your city and cause problems, so it’s good to keep them “hammered down” to prevent them from becoming too powerful.

Then we have Battlekeeps, cities built by guilds in the PvP zones which can be attacked and destroyed by other guilds through the Siege system which creates windows of battle (via date and time) through a custom UI, allowing both the attacking and defending guilds to prepare for the battle (48 on each side). Unfortunately it doesn’t appear that Sieges take place very often on the current PvE server as players are more enticed to run Raids and PvP in minigames, however rumor has it Funcom is going to be addressing this shortly as they want to get Sieges back into the mainstream gameplay features.

Both Guild Cities and Battlekeeps can receive additional protection through hired computer-controlled guards.

Content

Character & Customization, Races, Classes, Lore and Story, Quests, NPCs, Mounts, World, Ambiance, Enemies, Equipment and Inventory, Trader (Bank, Mail and Auction),  and Tutorial.

This is a common sight in AoC...

AoC features some fun Character creation and Customization. While all characters are a variation of human, the adjustments one can make are extensive, allowing for a serious muscle ribbed barbarian to the petite perfectly figured female spellcaster. There are four Races: Aquilonian, Cimmerian, Stygian, and with the latest expansion, Khitan. Each race has a set of different visual features including tattos, hair styles, colorations, and facial structures.

There are four sets of Classes which have three subclasses each. The four sets are: Priest (Priest of Mitra, Tempest of Set, and Bear Shaman), Soldier (Conquerer, Dark Templar, and Guardian), Rogue (Barbarian, Ranger, and Assassin) and Mage (Demonologist, Necromancer, Herald of Xotli). The classes all play differently and as with many MMOGs, have common themed roles (Yes, priests heal…)

The Lore and History of AoC is very well defined and based on the works of Robert E. Howard. A simple way of representing the lore of AoC is a mixture of ancient egyptian, asian, babylon, and roman themes with a bit of mammoth with a touch of Fantasy. It is enjoyable and easy for most people to relate to.

Quests in AoC are fairly standard per MMOGs, but are very well presented in the first 20 levels with great voice acting and chained story. Post level 20, the “introduction to the world” wears off a bit, but keeps the player focused on a multitude of tasks. Vanquish the undead? Check. Remove the lycanthropes? Check. Fetch granny some fresh water? Check. I will say though the interactivity with the quests does seem one step above the norm as the visuals of the game make the overall experience that much more believable and enjoyable. By default, you can only have three quests “active” on your UI (which can be increased to 16 in the options) with a total journal size of 30; however even if a quest is not active it will still clearly show on the world map, which is very nice – that way you can look around your current area and see what there is to do. Quests that are located in other zones are marked through the zone “travel” mark. As you progress into the higher levels, towns also have Wanted posters which you can repeat multiple times. This is a good way to focus your efforts and level up if you find a shortage of local quests for your level.

The variation in NPCs is quite extensive especially in the areas of voice acting, racial/cultural differences and impressive-looking equipment sets.

Mounts are also well done (visually and animation-wise) as they behave differently from other MMOGs; you actually have to properly turn, steer, and handle them and must keep their handling in mind when it comes to combat and strategy. You can execute combat maneuvers from a mount, but you can also get knocked off. There are many circumstances where going on foot is much better than going on a Mount. At this time there are no flying mounts.

The World Map of Hyboria and Field of the Dead

The World of AoC is diverse and beautiful. Pair this with some of the best MMOG Ambience and music and you’ve got an overall great experience. This includes beautiful lighting depending on the time of day, and even the occasional weather effects. There are currently five active “main” regions in the game: Tortuge, Cimmera, Aquilonia, Stygia, and Khitai. These regions represent “nations” (or cultures) and also connect to a few other regions, such as the Border Kingdoms, etc. By looking at the map you can see there are a lot of other regions which are to come. AoC currently features more than 60 instances (or dungeons) to explore, which is a ton of content; and players can experience all of these dungeons in either normal or epic difficulty.

While most Enemies in AoC are either a variation of humanoid (including undead, werewolves, etc) or animal (including insects, reptiles, etc), there are some “mystical” creatures to encounter as well. The quality of the models and animations is top notch and each fight is a visual feast that can quickly turn into a strategic experience if unexpected guests arrive mid-swing; and believe me, they do. The game also features [Boss] mobs (located in the world). These are tougher than average mobs that often drop better loot, but they aren’t so difficult that you cannot solo them. Bosses often call minions when you attack them as well, so be ready to handle multiple adds.

Equipment is fairly standard for a character with different armor and weapon slots, and it’s pretty easy to identify the more powerful high/max level characters by their grand weapons, armor, mounts and cloak. Some items come with Gem slots which can be filled for bonus and attribute enhancements. There are also Vanity slots so characters can customize the way they look to the world separate from the armor and weapons they have equipped. When a player starts, they automatically have 24 Inventory slots. The game allows for one expansion bag (which maxes out at 72 additional slots with the Body Bag from the Jiang Shi faction in Khitai). I obtained a 20-slot bag with my expansion purchase and have not had my inventory fill up between trips to the merchant yet.

One issue as it relates to Equipment and Vanity items is there is no item preview. This needs to be added to the game, especially for those who are looking to customize their outfits; a player shouldn’t be required to buy something to see how it looks on them.

One nice feature is the combination of Bank, Mail and Auction House in one interface, the Trader NPC. While the Auction House is a bit clunky (there’s no easy way to determine prices other than looking them up separately from posting), the way a player posts items is to put it in the bank and set a price. Mail is fairly standard, but it’s important to delete old mail or the box will fill up quick as each auctioned item stays until you delete it.

The Tutorial works fairly well to introduce new players to the game and is easy to turn on or off, however a friend of mine quit AoC within the first few levels because he was constantly getting interrupted while trying to cast spells which resulted in numerous deaths. He didn’t know he was supposed to put skill points into spell concentration. When I informed him of this, he tried the game again and is now enjoying it.

The Desert City of Kheshatta

Community

Guild, Grouping, Events, Social Network, Population, and Spam

As with any Free to Play game, the Global and New Player channels are fairly saturated with less than intelligent conversation. That’s just part of gaming. I’ve also noticed AoC is fairly impersonal when it comes to bringing people together. While you will run into people throughout the world, most don’t group up – they just go about their business. However part of this may be due to the fact that there’s so much to do, and players can enjoy the content themselves, there just isn’t any real reason to group up until you get to a higher level. It’s rather entertaining to often see the lone character running for their life with a train of critters behind them – a standard sight in AoC.

The Guild UI

Guilds are very important in AoC. They provide a solid community, access to a guild city (which serves as a Hub for members), and the renown guild level system which unlocks new quests for items, structures, and more. Unfortunately the game doesn’t have a built in voice chat system, so most guilds resort to TS3 or Vent. Another neat feature is the ability for guilds to advertise membership with clickable scripts in game chat. Many of the large guilds use a 3rd party “guild bot” tool called BeBot, which is an in-game chat server monitoring system allowing for automated commands including alt registration, calculations, and even chuck norris facts. A geek’s dream bot!

Grouping is fairly standard (with a focus on 6-man groups for most dungeons) and there is a LFG tool, but I’m not sure how many people really use it.

There aren’t really any Events (at least not like RIFT, for example), nor is there a real Social Network for the game.

The Population of the game is solid. I see people everywhere. I don’t know the exact load of the server I’m on, but it’s usually at Medium.

I’ve seen some in-game spam for power leveling and such, and there doesn’t really be a way to report them, only ignore them. Hint to Funcom – add a name-click “report spam” option, please.

Gameplay

Combat, Strategy, PvP, PvE, Reward, Progression, Learning Curve, Replayability and End Game

The Combat in AoC is one of its biggest strengths. It’s smooth, fun, and requires a level of Strategy, especially for melee actions. If you are playing a melee class, or even a mage class and using a melee weapon, the angle you’re facing, the defensive posture and shield-protected side of your target makes all the difference in landing proper blows. Even as a mage class, one must learn to properly manage damage, crowds, etc. In my opinion, the melee combat system of AoC is hands down the best of any MMOG.

While PvE servers feature PvP, it seems not many participate in the PvP events on the PvE servers unlike many other MMOGs. In addition, AoC doesn’t support a PvP flag, so if you’re on a PvE server, you can’t go PvP and see if anyone wants to play. You’re restricted to PvP zones (Border Kingdoms and Kush), minigames and sieges; but none of those features are cross server. As I’ve been playing on a PvE server I haven’t had a chance to participate in PvP, so I can’t comment as to how balanced it is. Once I gain experience in this area, I’ll update this review to reflect the findings. The general consensus is pretty standard “some love it, some hate it.”

There’s nothing better after a big bloody battle than having that jewel-encrusted monster box drop from to the ground waiting to be opened, informing the victor some great Reward is inside. AoC is all about drops. You don’t loot bodies, you loot either bags, boxes, large boxes, jeweled chests, or the “uber chest”. Note the “loot container” reflects the quality of the item(s) dropped, so the biggest is guaranteed to have at least one purple, and jeweled chest one blue, the large box one green, etc.

Most are not welcome in Khitai...

Character Progression is smooth and does not feel encumbered, too fast or too slow, and since you automatically gain your new spells and abilities when you level, there’s no need to run back to town to “train up” to receive the full benefit of your efforts. As I mentioned above, the first twenty levels are very story driven and focused, but it goes by fairly quickly. Once you leave the “starter area” around level 20, the game keeps going at a good pace, and before you know it, you’ve made another level.

There is a bit of a Learning Curve to AoC as the game has its own look and feel, which includes a non-standard MMO user interface. As mentioned prior, the travel system is terrible. New players will spend more time trying to figure out how to get from point A to B than they will actually traveling. I implore the team at Funcom to redesign this painful and unintuitive system.

The Replayability and End Game of AoC revolves around building AA, Raiding (full or 6-man), PvP, and running Khitai (the high level area) where players can work on faction standings, obtain tokens, do quests and epic instances. Unfortunately, in order to acquire the best items in the game, one must run the 6-man instances or raids for the actual drops or dungeon tokens required to purchase high level items from faction vendors (unless one wants to spend Veteran Tokens on them). For those who love to raid, this is perfectly fine, but for those who want a different end-game experience, the selections are limited as they are in most other MMOGs. But make no mistake, the end-game content running is strong and easy to get into if you have the time. As mentioned above, there are a LOT of dungeons (solo, 6-man and raids, all with different difficulties available) in AoC and plenty of time to build AAs and faction standings.

Technical

Operation, Interface, Graphics, Sound, and Account

Camels in Khemi

As far as Operation goes, there are still a few issues with the AoC servers, but mostly in the area of hiccups rather than disconnects. Every once and awhile my average 120ms ping from Seattle would spike well above 1,000; but it would auto-correct a few seconds later. Also, when I started playing the game I was constantly hanging on the vendors. I solved this problem by manually deleting the shader cache files. There are also regular delays on the chat server, especially in guild chat (sometimes taking five to fifteen seconds or more before they show up). Luckily such delays do not affect gameplay. Note I’ve been playing the game on Max settings in DX10 mode and have only had one crash, which I was able to properly report and then recovered from (kudos to the devs for this).

The Interface is a bit cumbersome, but you grow accustomed to it fairly quickly. It is definitely custom and doesn’t feel like any other MMOG, but there are limitations, which is why the addon market for AoC has a number of custom UI enhancements to provide more action bars, a smoother interface, etc. One issue is the minimap and the colors used to mark quests, etc. They are not color-blind friendly at all, which is guaranteed to cause problems for anyone who is color-blind. Additionally, the casting bar often doesn’t update/reflect the action properly. This should be fixed.

The Graphics are beautiful. Perhaps the best of any fantasy MMOG currently on the market. I also believe AoC has the best Sound FX and Music I’ve heard in a MMOG, hands down. Crank up that 5.1 surround sound when you’re playing!

Account management has a number of features, allowing one to subscribe, buy points, transfer characters or change a character’s name. There’s also a Recruit a Friend program which rewards those who get their friends to subscribe.

Support

Help, CSGM (“Customer Service Game Master”), Online Support, Wiki Player Support, Add-ons and Forums

There is a Petition system built into the game, but it’s very weak and cumbersome and limited to “/petition <message>”. While I have yet to deal with CSGMs, the general consensus from those I asked seems to be Funcom does a good job communicating with the player base and handling issues. The Forums are fairly active and provide some good Online Support for and from the players. The AoC wiki is also fairly detailed, however one must go to another site to explore the item and creature database for AoC. There are also a number of UI Add-ons available for AoC through the curse website.

The Beautiful Region of Khitai

Conclusion

Age of Conan is an excellent game and you can’t beat it for the F2P price of entry for those who want to simply jump in with no financial obligation. But what sets it aside is more than the fact it doesn’t quite feel like other MMOGs; it has a unique interactive combat system and balance of strategy that is self-defining and fun. The environments are beautiful, the graphics and models top notch, and the overall ambiance very enticing and welcoming. While there are still things which must be refined (mainly in the areas of PvP and the siege feature of the game), the development team made it very clear they plan on addressing these problems in their Age of Conan July 2011 Update.

For those of you who wish to experience everything the game has to offer, I recommend going to Gamestop, purchasing the Rise of the Godslayer expansion for $9.99, creating a new account, and using the 30-days of free premium time to experience all aspects of the game. It’s definitely worth the price, and will have most gamers hungry for more.

Direct Link