30 More Days: Character Progression

This is part of a series in which I try to write a post every day on silly video game topics.  For the list of topics, click here.

TFG went a surprising direction, stealing my thunder, as it were, with her pick of Link.  Though, in full disclosure, that was never even really considered in my thoughts.

When I think of character progression, the very first thing that comes to mind is the talent system of World of Warcraft.  As with the case with many elements of WOW, the talent system was not an innovation, but rather a refinement of what had proceeded; Diablo II‘s skill trees, Dark Age of Camelot‘s point-a-level progression and even Everquest‘s AA system.  WOW did it well though, for the most part, balancing 3 trees across 9 classes with only a few terrible mistakes.diablo2

It’s hard to pick a progression system that I like the best.  WOW’s talents were easy to understand for the most part, the trees themselves clear in their focus (again, for the most part, not everything works the way a designer might think) and you knew for the most part, what you were getting and could easily reset your talents and try again if it didn’t work out the way you wanted to.

There are games on the other end of the spectrum, though – Anarchy Online infamously comes to mind with their convoluted IP system, though, once mastered, was a joy to abuse with buffs.  The Secret World (also by Funcom) has an open-ended, no-classes system where you build out decks of abilities, both active & passive.  Both are very complicated, though, and daunting to newbies.

So which is the best?  I think I’m going to return the favor (maybe it’s Freaky Fri… Saturday? in blog land) and take a pick that you’d be more surprised to see on TFG’s site: Diablo II.  Why D2?  You can’t respec (bad!), cookie cutter builds abound (bad!) but in the end, nothing felt better than finally getting to level 18, 24 or 30, unlocking the key skill in your target build, and gleefully owning the minions of hell.

30 More Days: Instances

This is part of a series in which I try to write a post every day on silly video game topics.  For the list of topics, click here.

The savvy reader might notice the exclusion of a question within this post’s title.  This is most assuredly on purpose as there is, in my mind at least, no question.  Instances in MMOs are so necessary, so fundamental to the stability and experience of those games that to go without these days is simply unthinkable.  Fans of an older, bygone day can wax nostalgic all they want.  I urge anyone to wax nostalgic about waiting at the entrance of Sebilis with a full group looking for somewhere to set up camp on a busy night.  Recollect fondly upon the lag within The Lake of Ill Omen, or Greater Faydark or Eastern Commons due to the hundreds within the zone.  Cherish those golden times when finally assembled, buffed and ready to engage, another guild engages the very beastie you sought out to slay, that one that’s been on a 2-week respawn that you’ve slept in shifts camping.

Jesus Tapdancing Christ, did I really play that game for 5 years?

My rants aside, the advent of instanced, private dungeons (done first within Anarchy Online, if memory serves, at least first done in a 3D MMO) was a massive step forward for MMOs.  Dungeons really should be experienced all the way through, from start to finish, and in Everquest, they really weren’t (not until Lost Dungeons expansion, I think?).  There were few dungeons left un-violated for a proper dungeon crawl (Najeena, maybe?  Kedge Keep, surely!) and the experience of having a proper go at clearing out a dungeon full of bad guys with out interference, trains or camps is, in my mind, the best of what MMOs have to offer.

So yes, not really a question, but a much beloved addition to MMO design.