Come to think of it, I'm not sure why I was so afraid of going back.

It would be hasty of me to say that Sins of a Solar Empire was collecting dust on my shelf -- being less than a month old in my own collection, despite its early February launch from Stardock.  While dust wasn't the culprit, some unknown fear was settling a thick, grimy layer over my ability to return to the 4X masterpiece.  And it wasn't fear of any one particular thing that kept me at bay for the past few weeks.  In fact, it was that intangible fear of the ol' unknown.

I didn't fear the start of a new game.  Possibilities ripe for the picking, you start every time with a developed home planet teeming with a populous that’s hungry for expansion into the stars.  I didn't fear developing resources on orbiting asteroids, striated with enriched mineral veins, my metal and ore extractors grinding and puffing away below the surface.  I didn't fear developing my home planet's gravity well with orbital research facilities, Gauss defense platforms and hangar defenses.  I didn't fear sending out my first Arcova scout frigate, the smoky-voiced captain culling, "If it’s out there, I’ll find it."  I no longer fear the surprisingly accessible research tree, a necessary evil and staple fixture of any self-respecting 4X strategy game, but this one so clean-lined and solidly-placed.  With a growing confidence, I no longer fear dealing a firm hand to pirates and the black market alike.  With money as their driving factor, they both become as easy to control and predict as any ship in your own fleet, any resource you trade within your own space lanes.  And, come to think of it, I wasn't afraid of confronting the enemy -- be it the computer-controlled AI, or those selfsame pirate raiders on the loose.  Sins knows how to hold its own in a firefight, and as guns-blazing frantic as they can grow to be (picture Battlestar Galactica-sized, with perhaps less shaky-cam) it's breezy and beautiful to seamlessly swoop in and out of the action like some omniscient, interstellar hawkeye.

No, I wasn't afraid of any one of those things in particular.  What I was afraid of was keeping all those plates spinning in the air at once.  And doing it successfully.  There's absolutely no way this much should be happening within the urgent pacing of a real-time strategy game, and yet?  Even as a band of incoming pirates ping'd on my PSIDAR, I plunked another 250 credits of bounty on my arch-rival's head, selected my home fleet and focused their fire on each member of the pirates' group, dropping them one at a time from the night sky, popping my head into the research tab to continue development of Titano-Ferric plating (rather relevant in my current predicament), while acknowledging that a third Gauss canon was brought online just in time for planet Liguria's current defense needs, pushing my Arcova scout to another unknown fringe nearly three jumps away from my home planet, and sending in my Protev frigate to colonize a recently-discovered backwater planetoid.

...Only then returning to the heated battle swimming around Liguria, pleased to note that my frigate-laden Kol battleship fleet was mopping up the last few pirate stragglers still putting up the remnants of a forceful, not unorganized attack.  Less than 12 minutes left until the next pirate invasion, only a few seconds to go until the Titano-Ferric plating would be automatically installed on all my ships and orbital structures, the backwater planetoid named and prepped for logistical structures to be erected on yet more delicious mineral finds, and my scout just discovered an empty, nebulous system that was wreaking slow-but-sure amounts of hull damage to the ship’s skin -- time to place it on auto-explore to keep it moving around the star, unveiling more pieces of this solar system and, eventually, settled systems from my computer-run nemesis.

Nope, it’s apparent that I wasn't afraid of any one of those things.  I was simply afraid of the fact that I could actually keep that many balls juggling in the air.  It honestly shouldn't be possible.  It should be too much to manage.  A minefield of tasks lost within their own intricacies.  An overbearing need to babysit each and every one of the game’s multitudinous functions.  That's essentially what I was afraid of.  Being able to, with Sins of a Solar Empire, accomplish what should by all rights be an undecipherable grocery list of impossible-to-manage administrative tasks.

But it’s not impossible.  Not with Sins.  And it’s nothing to be afraid of.

An eventful year has passed since I'd finagled with the Vanguard: Saga of Heroes beta.  A lot of good things happened in 2007 that propelled MMORPG gaming into a brilliant, well-deserved spotlight:  The World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade expansion not only kept the core game afloat, it veritably blew the original out of the water content-wise; the decade-long wait ended for Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar (nee Middle-earth Online) with droves of Tolkein-ites celebrating with Halfling pipes in hand and "Tainted Love" played by characters in various ribald taverns; the free-to-play Dungeon Runners hit the randomized environments and equipment sweet spot for a Western Hemisphere that isn't too keen on the free-to-play model in the first place; and the completely overhauled Tabula Rasa (pardon me, that's Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa) was met with enough mixed critical acclaim to eventually render the red-hot title into something a bit more room temperature, but still kept itself a hot topic of conversation throughout the year.

Vanguard, on the other glaived hand, went from a cautionary tale against hasty, bug-ridden launches ... to something that was rather un-talked about for many, many months.  And while Oscar Wilde hubristicly chimed, "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about," having Vanguard politely step out of any sunburning limelight may have been a godsend for the overly-ambitious MMO that could.  Vanguard made touchstones out of many elements that MMO critics (by now) relegated to blacklist (read: outdated) status.  Touchstones like "corpse runs" and "experience penalties."  Gameplay that smacked of scheduled "grinding" between unscheduled "spawn camping."  And overland travel required lengthy commutes and a harrowing amount of backtracking from sometimes-redundant mission structure.

But Vanguard wanted the rewards to be well-worth the heartache and effort.  A completely non-instanced world, letting you travel as far as the eye can see without load screens, watching the rise and fall of sun and moon cycles in the sky, witnessing clouds on the horizon shipping themselves acrooss the land until rainfall replaced the blue tracts of sky above.  Complex crafting rules yield everything from furniture to fill your (non-instanced) homes and (non-instanced) guild halls, all the way to manmade ships sailing off through uncharted waters toward multiple other immense continents.  Plus, as no small feature, they launched a diplomacy card game, adding a completely untapped element to the typically skip-worthy motion of MMO conversation, but also making that diplomacy shape the make and mold of politcal machinations across the realms.

Vanguard was so ambitious as to be comparable to a fantasy-fiction version of EVE Online (take that comparison with a grain of salt.  Nevertheless, the comparison is worth examining...)  Even with developer Sigil's company statement printed on the game box -- "Set Yourself Free" -- critics instead came to bury Vanguard beneath a ton of soil that stank of hitching graphics, stutter-stop frame rates, and the unfinished feel of a game that was, well, quite unfinished.  It appeared that, at launch time, Vanguard was not worth more than the sum of its parts.

So, full disclosure:  I caught onto the rise of mainstream MMOs a few years after the turn of the century; sometime with the release of Final Fantasy XI.  I'd only taken cursory glances at EverQuest, though at the time I just didn't get it.  And, as Vanguard is the current crown holder of shamelessly hearkening-back-to-the-old-school-days-of-EverQuest, I was still treading personal virgin territory in Vanguard.  This world, Telon, was everything I thought I was looking for in a hardcore MMO.  Telon was the Promised Land.  Though, as I had found out during the beta, it was more of a Too Promised Land.  Too much undertaken by the developers, too little funding to see it through, Keith Parkinson -- Sigil's visionary leader -- passed away too soon, and perhaps us starry-eyed desert wanderers expected just a little too much.

I'll still admit in Vanguard's favor, however, that I did not personally scribble down pages of notes regarding the rampant bugs and glitches that were ceaselessly being blasted over world chat by disillusioned Vanguardians.  Or, as is more likely the case, my attentions were simply drawn elsewhere.  It's possible I didn't receive the proper amount of copper pieces for stabbing previously disclosed amounts of rats ... as I was probbably mesmerized by the symmetric grandeur of the city of Qalia, stunned as I stared out from a Cliffs-of-Dover height from above.  Perhaps the graphics were hiccupping all the way down to ten frames per second ... but my attention was drawn to the square-rigged sailing vessel coursing between the Colossus-sized statues flanking the harbor entrance.  Sure, even I couldn't help but be put off by the bland severity of my character's grandpa-high waistband on my bland (yet shiny) pantaloons ... but it mattered less and less the more I got sucked into the gravity well of the complex and startlingly-addictive diplomacy card game.  And yeah, the enemies pacing across the map freely handed out tombstones to anyone willing to overdo their Han Solo pursuits.  But that only meant that together we lived, and alone we died.

And now, somewhere around 14 months later, I've returned to Vanguard's world of Telon.  On the surface it's hard not to notice that it's still getting walked all over by rough frame rates (even with a sturdy rig at medium graphical settings), and its artistic direction -- with all due respect to the late, great Keith Parkinson -- isn't necessarily winning any awards, beyond its impressive draw distances.  The textures and character models weren't showstoppers in January 2007, and they haven't improved with age.  When you move from one 'seamless' zone to the next, there's definitely seams showing when all sound effects and movement freezes to sub-zero temperatures.  And you know what?  I'm playing on the exact same laptop I played on during beta, but it's quite possible I'm encountering more graphical errors flipping through menus than I ever did before.

But you know what else?  That first look out across the bay from atop the cliffs above Qalia is still one of the most breathtaking sights ever crafted in any MMO before or since.  The diplomacy game taught to me just outside of the city walls is still a wholly original idea untouched by any other MMO.  And it's getting harder and harder to complain about those darn frame rates when I can run for an hour across a landmass and still not hit the opposite shoreline.  I'm scoping out places to eventually build my home, none of which are in some tucked-away, instanced neighborhood.  And I'm also keeping an eye out for a strong guild to join, perhaps one that doesn't even have a guildhall yet -- because then we can still place that guildhall wherever we want.

I understand that there's a lot of work involved.  Probably much, much more than I can eventually spare, I'll be honest.  It's not like I'm still 16-years-old with a part-time job bagging groceries with summer vacation just around the corner.  I ain't got that kinda time anymore (who does?)  But I'm willing to give the journey a thoroughbred effort and a fair shake.  You can't say that Vanguard never gave you anything, but it sure as heck isn't going to give it to you for free.  I'll see how immersed I can become in this one.  At least until Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures starts lopping off heads on May 20th of this year.  But with Age of Conan falling under the exact opposite mapping model, hyper-instanced from one end of Hyborea to the other, we'll just see how claustrophobic that does or doesn't render me, after setting myself free in Vanguard.

[Randy is playing Noman Resden, a rather pensive and slow-going human Mordebi sorcerer on the Xeth server.]

Perhaps as a warmup for the first-ever mature-rated MMORPG, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, I wanted to taste what's to be gained from so-called mature ratings.  The closed beta test for Requiem: Bloodymare just blew its doors wide open, and that's a mature-rated MMORPG as well (which might beat Age of Conan to owning that "First-Ever M-Rated MMO" title if Requiem can get out the gates before May 20th), so I figured some common grounds might be drawn between the two.

I yoinked one of the 5,000 free beta keys passed out at MMORPG.com at the end of the work week and began the hours-long download process.  It was such a relief to find easy-access entry into a beta, whereas Age of Conan has people on standby literally praying to get into the testbed.  I love the existence of robust digital download stores, but it's an exercise in patiently-delayed pleasure -- much like the Karma Sutra, or wondering if Battlestar Galactica can hold any conversation about Athiesm and Monotheism without reducing it down to a hair-pulling playground spat.  (I swear that for every one thing that show does right, it embarassingly screws up another.)

But I'm in, and the buzz beforehand had already labeled Requiem as a horror-themed world, replete with sutchered-up head wounds, stitched-together bad guys, a bloody blanket coating enemies as you hack away at them, and a minimum of one (possibly two) limbs and/or heads tumbling off in different bouncy directions from each deathblow.  Oh, and enemies twitch around a lot (a lot) before the finally keel over, too.  When I landed my very first kill I thought it was simply a graphical glitch, or some hyper-exagerrated ragdoll physics that were the culprit, but no.  In Requiem things just don't die in a pretty, dignified manner.  Much like I imagine might happen in real life.  Hey!  This must be a mature title!

Another element contributing to the level of 'maturity' would be nudity, though I think topless women probably counts as 'nudity' in the end, and -- being a game drawn up with Korean artistry (think Lineage 2 or Rappelz) -- there's plenty of smooth, taut skin on both males and female heroes, clad in little more than a grimmace and a little buckled-on leather.  I haven't had the pleasure of running across any horrifically-mangled mammaries as of yet, but if this official screenshot is any indication, maybe I'm not missing anything too sensual.  Snake eyes for nipples?  There's gotta be some kind of frat joke around that.

But when people from the Western Hemisphere start discussing repetitive gameplay in an MMORPG like World of Warcraft or EverQuest 2, they have no idea what 'repetitive' truly means until they've taken on an Asian MMO.  In fact, when discussing the level of 'grind' found in an online game, they're discussed as either a simple-enough 'grind' or as a 'Korean grind.'  A Korean grind is the Kim-Chee spiced cabage to, say, World of Warcraft's mayonaise-thickened cole slaw.  The Korean grind is the kind of gameplay that (somehow) crazy-glues certain people to their computers for prohibitive lengths of time, and then has them collapse the moment they stand back up from the computer three days later.  That's the kind of grind you also get from Requiem.  A Korean grind.  And that's a horrific enough world for me.

I pulled into the French town of Grenville, a heavily-trafficked port near the southern tip of the Floridian peninsula. A multitude of French societies treat Grenville as an unofficial base of operations, while even more French players -- naval officers, free traders, and privateers alike -- establish their main economic office somewhere inside the city limits. These are not player-built offices in the MMO world, per se -- these exist only as an icon within a player’s inventory menu. But these offices are the cornerstone to the always-dynamic player-driven economy.

Grenville situates itself within eye-squinting range of Spanish-dominated Cuba, and is perched just as close to the Bahamas which sits swarming with pirates and Englishmen. To the French, they’re all one in the same; and vice versa.

I’ve ranked up to level 16 since I first arrived in the New World, all bright-eyed and full of wonder up in Charlesfort (in modern-day South Carolina). The single-player missions in my original homeport took me up a comfy and storied path to level 11, never leaving the relative comfort of Florida’s east coast. Those lower-level missions -- of which about 75% are copy-n-pasted to all of the nations -- are eloquently-written vignettes that should be nominated for some sort of MMO short-fiction prize.

The missions in my early teens, however, began to sputter and lose their debonair spirit. The linking stories shortened down to quick one-off deliveries, or out-and-in sorties to sink an established number of baddies. The level cap is at 50, though, so there’s plenty of room to reintroduce what Content Director Jess Lebow brought to the table in the first place. As the story creator and producer for the original Guild Wars and Eye of the North (not to mention the fact that Mr. Lebow has a handful of D&D novels fattening his resume), I have no doubts that there’s more in store for me as I cruise up to the game’s crow’s-nest levels.

The reasons behind what’ll keep Burning Sea around for a long time (longer than many might expect) are legion. But a significant contributor will be the Realm vs. Realm play. Power-leveling up to 50 isn’t designed to be a Korean-styled (or even WoW-styled) grind. Developer Flying Lab Software isn’t the architect of endless 40-man raids customized for that uber-loot drop. Flying Lab wants the players fighting over the map. And that becomes most interesting when everybody can conceivably attain level 50, stop worrying so much about the NPCs, and start broadsiding other players for real estate in the Caribbean.

As of this writing, on the Blackbeard server, Fort-de-France in the Lesser Antilles is under siege from the Brits. The island of Haiti (which is in the vicinity of famed pirate getaway, Tortuga) is getting ransacked fore and aft by the heavy pirate population. The Spanish are making a run for England’s Turtling Bay on the Yucatan, and have also sent Havana (in Cuba) into a ruckus, which is also disrupting a very important trade route along the Florida Keys.

When a port falls under contention -- enemies drop of “unrest supplies” to destabilize a port’s economy, renegade missions are undertaken to blockade a port, etc. -- then civil unrest begins to mount. Continuous enemy action makes a free-for-all PvP radius begin to widen its berth around the contended port. Until finally a 25 vs. 25-ship battle royal ensues, and the victor runs their flag up the pole. Notably, pirates cannot play for keeps. They pillage and plunder, but go on about their way after 36 hours. The Spanish, English, and French, however, do indeed play for keeps.

Flying Labs has hinted that nations suffering from low player populations will receive benefits to make up the imbalance. I have not found any details, though, and until then the outnumbered nations have to man-up on the playing field. There’s also (on the Blackbeard server) a non-aggression pact between Spain and France brought about by several of the server’s top Spanish and French leaders in order to stem attacks from the much higher British and pirate populations; but I’m sure there’s plenty of room for such non-binding contracts to fall apart at the seams. And if you ask our own Kolby Kappes (who’s flying Spanish colors on the Blackbeard server as well) sending some “frog-eating French” down to Davy Jones’ Locker still rates high on his gameplay objectives.

Suffice to say, I’m rather enjoying my new square-rigged ‘Hermes’ Packet-Boat, a 16-gun scout ship (plus 6 swivel cannons) that fares better than many ship designs at sailing with the wind, and though it was historically introduced as a swift, seaworthy mail carrier, I’m using that swift seaworthiness to rush up on an enemy, broadside them with some crew-depleting grapeshot, and board their sorry land-loving hindquarters before they know what’s happening.

See you in the sea lanes.

I think this is the greatest Guitar Hero 3 player ever. I mean watch his skills. It's incredible. How does he do it?

 

It's been an active first week in the Pirates of the Burning Sea pre-boarding event (the game's commercial release is January 22).

My inception into the Burning Sea begins with a horrific explosion of cannon fire and splintered wood.  I run into the next room and see a gaping wound in the ship's broadside.  Ship's Log documents, shattered furniture, and dead crewmen are scattered from hell-to-breakfast.  Two other sailors flank the hole in the bulkhead and I see a small, fast vessel passing on our portside, Jolly Rogers flapping in the wind at their mastheads.

Who they are is obvious, but that doesn't make them any less dangerous.

A second later, another volley of cannons rips through the same room I'm standing in, and one of the dumbfounded deckhands is thrown back, dead.  A ship's officer is standing by, hands clasped behind his back, his demeanor as cool as the other side of the pillow.  W walk towards him, trying to follow suit, but I see a second pirate vessel coasting by as I hazard a glance out of the starboard porthole.  We're outnumbered by at least two to one.  Probably more.

The officer informs me that we're being boarded.  I run topside, flimsy cutlass drawn.  I'm greeted by salt-ocean air, a band of fellow crewmates, and half a dozen enemy boarders on the foc'sle deck.  I lead a one-man charge, and the chaos of blade-to-blade combat ensues.   Picking them off one by one, I swab the deck with those scalawags.  With my first desperately-won victory, I brandish my blade in the air.

I stroll back to the Captain's Quarters, anxious to tell the Skipper of our success in repelling the boarders.  Instead, as I walk in, I see the captain lying on the deck, coughing, nearing his death, as another officer crouches nearby, tending to the Skipper's soon-to-be-fatal wounds in vain.  He dies, and with his dying breath, he entrusts a mysterious map into my possession.  A map that will serve as the impetus in following the critical path of the main storyline.  The Map of Destiny.

Plus, I've just been promoted to captain of this fine schooner, a fast-moving, four-gun corvette with a lusty wind off the port bow and a crew anxious for a little port-of-call.

* * * * *

Every player's story starts the same.  The only differences lie in the NPC pirate flavor.  Be they Los Ladrones ("The Thieves" in Spanish), or the Bloody Arms pirates (plaguing the French), a problem child is named, and a newly-acquired enemy will eventually grow into a long-standing blood feud through the (admittedly) excellent writing of the storied missions.

In creating your avatar, there are four nations to choose from:  The British, Spanish, French, and the "nation" of Pirates.  On the Blackbeard server, the Pirate population is expectantly high, while Britain and Spain tie for second place.  With the French population earning a "light" rating, I cast my lot in with them.  No idea why, other than the fact that in the 1700s the Spanish empire was largely in decline, I personally don't want to be stuck eating Bangers & Mash (not to mention Spotted Dick) seven days a week with the Brits, and I can't imagine a terrible amount of organization coming out of a bulbous, self-serving Pirate population.   What has France done for us lately?  Beyond introducing us to Laetitia Casta, I'm not sure I know or care.  Wish me luck.

Further, there are three classes to choose from:  Naval Officer, Privateer, and Free Trader.  Pirates are pirates are pirates.  I'm assuming they have to jerry-rig skills from all three classes, settling to be master-of-none.  But don't quote me on that.

So if you see some French privateer named Armand Dresden (what's with the German last name?  Again, I don't know), please try to keep the griefing to a minimum.  And I'll see you on the sea lanes.