Put down your 3D glasses, they are no longer needed

Three dimensional imagery has had an interesting history with its popularity being sporadic throughout the last several decades. The idea and concept of manipulating the eye of the viewer to create the illusion of depth in an otherwise 2D image is not something new. In the 1950's 3D movies were all the rage and everyone donned their red and blue spectacles while enjoying the big blockbuster of the time. Although we have come a long way since the blue and red glasses that our grandparent's used, a big jump hasn't been made until rather recently. There have been better glasses made throughout the years using all types of ingenious trickery from polarizing filters to shutter blocks, but the facial attire has always been a constant requirement. Until now.

3D movies used to be all the rage!

Autostereoscopy

Sound like something out of a college physics course.The basis of the concept certainly is and to properly explain it we would also need linear algebra, but in its rawest form autostereoscopy is defined as a method for displaying 3-D images without the use of glasses or visual aids. How it works is brilliant and multifaceted. One way to produce a 3-D image in this way is to do it through the software. This has already been done on the DS as reported by Kotaku. The camera tracks the movement of the DS and rerenders the image as the device is moved from side to side. This creates the illusion of depth within the DS and it looks great. The other way to do it is through the hardware by the use of a multi-tiered screen with various filters. The filters and lenses built into the screen redirect video to various viewing angles within the screen. Since the eyes are separated by a few inches they each see a different portion of the screen, which will display a slightly different image to each eye fooling the brain into perceiving a projected three dimensional image. This is supposedly how the 3DS will work and if done right it can be an amazing innovation in the handheld field.

The Down Side

So which one will it be? Software or Hardware? Kotaku says software is a more logical approach and I tend to agree with them. All that would be needed would be a more robust camera system, gyroscopes, and a more powerful processor. The rest can be done using coding and a programming workshop with the game developers to let them know how to set up their games to use the new system. If Nintendo went the hardware route they would need the complex screen filled with filters, shutters, and all types of non-standard imaging equipment. They would still need a more powerful processor to handle the multiple streams of images. Whichever way they choose… it will still be costly. With the price of the DSi already at 160 dollars, will this technology jump the price of the 3DS to the price of a Wii?

What will the new DS look like? Will it be much different than the DSi in appearance?

Not only will price be an issue for Nintendo who is the king of low priced gaming solutions but there are issues inherent with autostereoscopy. The technology is known to cause headaches and vision problems in a large majority of users. High priced displays at technology shows can use the technology with little risk of headaches, but we are talking about devices that cost several thousands of dollars not a, hopefully, sub two hundred dollar product. When E3 comes around and some people get face time with the new handheld we will start to see if any issues are reported.

The last concern I have with the 3DS is that to get the 3D imagery illusion the user must move the device. Watch the kotaku article again, the presenter has to constantly move the device to continue the illusion. I don't know about you, but I tend to not move my handheld around while playing like the person in that clip must do. As you can see it does not project the image outwards toward the user like normal 3D imaging techniques, only inwards. Will the 3DS be able to project outwards or will it only create a depth within the screen is a question I would love to have answered but I have not found any information on the subject. How useful will that be once the novelty wears off?

Older 3D games were tacky and odd

How Will Games Use This?

Now that we have this technology available that is only the first step. How are the developers supposed to use this technology to improve our experience in the gaming worlds we jump into? Since enjoyability is ultimately what the gamer is looking for when purchasing a gaming system with new features, we must ask if these features are worth the price and hassle. As one can see through the kotaku video, it can look very interesting, but that is only a puzzle game. How will this work for racing games, actions games, and more? Smoke billowing out of the screen as the tires shred to the high power of a muscle car in the newest NFS game or tracer rounds flying by as insurgents aim suppressing fire on my position would be pretty intense. I can certainly see the merit in this technology and can only imagine what great developers can do with this.

Image by deviantart. How about a reinvented SMB in 3D?

My Opinion

I think this could be a great novelty and could be enjoyable for the vast majority of gamers. I do not know if this will "stick" as in Sony, Apple, etc following suit and 3D being a must have feature in any portable. I think it will most likely be a nice diversion, but will quickly be forgotten after the initial sales push. If you really think about it, this does not add anything new to the DS. The interaction with the game will still be on a 2D plane using a stylist, D pad, and buttons. We will not be interacting in 3D, the only difference is the looks which, frankly most handheld users don't care a lot about. Gameplay is the biggest seller for small screen gaming. The only difference between the 3DS and the DSi is the image looks different. On top of that, it is not necessarily better looking in any way as they haven't said if the graphics are going to be better by the use of a high resolution, more polygons, more realistic shaders, etc. I'm sure there will be a few really cool games that find an interesting way to use the 3D imaging, but most will just be projections that may even cause headaches and vision problems in some people.

Don't get me wrong, I'm just as excited about this as the next guy, but I do have my questions about its long term use. As for me, I will surely be on the lookout for any new information that pops up regarding the 3DS. I also can't wait to try it out for myself. As of right now I cannot say I will be running out a buying one on day one, but it has piqued my interest.

So what does everyone think about this? Are you excited? Will you be buying one for sure or will you wait to try it out? How will this change the handheld market? Let's hear your thoughts!

With all the new announcements rolling in from GDC 2010, there is a lot to mull over regarding the future of gaming. Sony announced the Playstation Move which may or may not mean anything to the mainstream gamer depending on whether developers want to make original games for the 100 dollar peripheral or if we will just see a slew of Wii ports as manufacturers try to accommodate early adopters. DRM has been a touchy subject for consumers and developers alike. New schemes are being talked about and tested. Major gaming developers are starting to focus on social aspects of gaming and want to incorporate a larger sense of community in all their games. What this exactly means is still very vague, but we can expect to be more connected to other gamers and the producers in upcoming years. Connected.

All of those announcements are exciting, but the recent development I have been watching closely hasn't been talked about recently by the major gaming media. A concept that could change the face of gaming as we know it is something being brewed up by a small company called "OnLive." The idea was originally announced at the GDC 2009. Skeptics said, and with good reason, that it was not feasible on today's infrastructure. It was quickly dismissed as vaporware and everyone forgot about it. A couple of days ago they announced their service is ready and will be rolling out soon, but before we get too much into it, let's talk about what OnLive is.

OnLive

The idea of cloud gaming is synonymous with cloud computing. The user will connect to the service through their TV, PC, or mobile device. Instead of the games being downloaded from the service like Steam, they are streamed. The user's inputs travel from the controller to the server through a broadband internet connection. The server manipulates the game depending on the user's input, renders the resulting actions into video, and sends the images back to the user which is then displayed on their TV or monitor. There is no need for a hard drive, graphics card, sound card, or anything that a typical gaming PC or console system has. For TV viewing all that is needed is a small console called the "MicroConsole" which OnLive will be selling sortly after the service is launched. All this device does is provides a portal to the servers and input for the controllers. For PC users, all that is needed is an internet connection and the program installed. Any computer that can stream video can play any game in OnLive's library.

Flow chart of how it is supposed to work.

Let that sink in a minute. No more buying high end graphics cards, no more spending 300 dollars on consoles every generation, and no more patches, crashes, or any hardware related problems. Sounds pretty good? Well, OnLive says it gets even better. The service costs 15 dollars a month and gives the user access to a large library of games, but for premium content there will be a rental or purchase fee. According to OnLive: EA, Take-Two, Epic Games, Atari, Eidos, Codemasters, THQ, and more are already on board for this venture. Whoa, so no more 60 dollar games either? This sounds too good to be true!

Scale size of Microconsole next to the controller. Certainly is "micro."

Skepticism

Back it up, this is where the skeptics chime in. First, to get HD quality video the user needs to have a connection of at least 5Mbps. This isn't that big of a deal as most cable internet packages start off at 10Mbps and can climb to 20Mbps in some areas. But data quantity isn't the entire picture; the internet connection must have an incredibly fast ping. The latency between most users and a hub is around 10-20 milliseconds on a good day. The gamer will input a command and it will take 10 milliseconds to get to the server. The server then crunches the numbers and sends it back, another 10 milliseconds. The console receives the video, sends it to the TV, and it is displayed. As you can see there is a lot going on in the time between inputting a command and seeing the result on the screen. So, how much lag do we see all together? On a very good day, 10-20ms. Most PC gamers won't touch a monitor that has over a 10ms refresh rate, so this wouldn't be good for them even on a "good day." What happens when a packet gets dropped, if the cable is shared, or you happen to live 500+ miles from the nearest server?

But, I stream HD video all the time and don't have any problems! Sure, but that signal is buffered. If a packet gets dropped, no big deal since the computer has a 10-20 second buffer of stored video. OnLive is real-time, not buffered. Anything that happens to the connection is noticed immediately and directly affects the game. That is only the tip of the iceberg. How does OnLive expect to have enough hardware to render Crysis video to 1000's of people in real-time? I'd love to see the computer room that could provide thousands of people HD quality 3D games independent of each other. Is that type of computing power even available on a large scale today?

OnLive will practically need a government supercomputer to do what they claim.

Rolling It Out

Supposedly it is. OnLive announced they will be rolling out their service beginning on June 17 of this year. They have announced they will be providing Mass Effect 2, AC2, Borderlands, Dragon Age, and more initially. There will also be many arcade and indie games. The executive team isn't exactly a group of light weights either. Quick Time developer Steve Perlman heads up the development along with former Eidos CEO Mike McGarvey, Netscape developer and founder of Mozilla Tom Paquin, and former Head of Engineering and Technology at NBC Charlie Jablonski are just a few big shots that are in charge of this venture. They are also backed by major investors such as Warner Bros and AT&T. There are a lot of smart people and big money behind this project. OnLive is definitely a name we will be seeing a lot of in the future.

Will we actually be able to stream these high end games?

My Opinion

On the surface it sounds interesting. However, I am a major skeptic. I do not think it will work for the gamer that wants to play HD, action games and lives any distance away from the source server. I think it might work great for card, party, turned based, arcade, and indie games, but for playing hours of action packed games I'm sure there will be packet losses, interrupted service, and other annoying things that would kill it for most people. I also think the service fee is a little ridiculous. It costs 15 dollars a month just for access to their servers. That does not include "premium games" which, in my opinion, will be any game worth playing. The idea is pretty incredible. It sounds high tech, and scif-ish. I like that and I can see this being the future of gaming… in the far future. Right now the internet infrastructure is not stable enough and the industry is not ready for it. We are still trying to wrap our heads around Steam's concept of distribution and many still have qualms with that. Steam has been a jump, but OnLive is a major leap and I don't think we as consumers are quite prepared for it yet. At least I'm not.

What could work for us is a Steam type service for consoles. Hard drive space is so incredibly cheap with 1TB being available for under 100 dollars. Add that storage capacity with the consoles we have now and Steam for consoles seems like an easy in. However, I would want some sort of benefit for foregoing the retail packaging, such as 10 dollars off the retail price. Right now, we don't see that except on Steam weekend or holiday sales (which are great.) All I know is that the next 5-10 years will see the retail packing of games, movies, and music slowly go away. What we will replace it with and what type of distribution the industries will settle upon is still up in the air.

What I wouldn't mind is more focus on Steam and even Steam for consoles.

What do you guys think about this concept and do you think you would ever want to subscribe to a service like this?

For the last however many years Domino's was on the bottom of my list for call in pizza. To put it bluntly, it sucked and the price didn't tempt me to settle like Little Caeser's. I had a friend in high school whose dad owned the local Domino's and she said they never ate it at all because they hated the taste, but people bought it which always amazed her and her family, the proprietors! So when the CEO appeared on TV blasting his own pizza, I got a huge kick out of it. Sauce tastes like ketchup, cardboard crust, and out of date vegetables where all quoted as being the main culprits. The CEO promised they had a "new and improved" version in the works and it would be rolled out at the end of 2009. They were going to take all their knowledge from the last 50 years and go back to the drawing board to come up with a revolutionary pizza that gave their customers what they deserved. Well, I don't know what knowledge they are going to call upon since they have been serving the same trash for years, but I was up for giving it a try.

Last week we decided to call in this so called great new pizza to see if it was a revolution in delivery. We ordered two medium, one pepperoni and one supreme, with some cheesy bread to go with it. Upon opening the box it smelled, well like pizza, nothing special there. I took a slice of the pepperoni to get me started and skipped the cheesy bread, because that wasn't "new and improved." I slapped some Trappey's hot sauce on the slice and guided it to my pie hole. First impression was, not much has changed. Where is this new and improved flavor, texture, and revolutionary delivery experience? I continued to finish the slice and gave the supreme a try. It was slightly better but nothing remarkable. After three slices, I decided I had enough. Between four people there were left overs that went into the fridge for a week before they were tossed in the garbage.

Sorry Domino's, your "new and improved" pizza is in the same league as the lackluster stuff that started your campaign. I won't say it isn't any better at all, it is slightly better than I remember, but nothing like a decent Papa John's, or even a Pizza Hut. For the 22 dollars we spent, it wasn't a good deal either.

If you are thinking of trying Dominoes again, you may as well skip out on it and get what you typically order. Too bad, the campaign was brilliant.

In the Beginning

Remember the days when the people playing Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Baulder's Gate, and a plethora of older classic RPGs where considered either nerds or people without a real life? The "cool" kids played Golden Eye, Unreal Tournament, and Battlefield 1942. FPS games ruled supreme and anyone who was "in the know" about gaming spent endless hours fragging their buddies while kicking back bee… soda and yelling explicatives (or in the case of CS, racial slurs… ) The halvesies (cool kids with nerdy tendencies) spent the majority of their time playing RTS games with maybe a bit of Diablo mixed in to satisfy their dorky side. Poor D&Ders, huddled around their lonely 15" CRTs in a dark room for endless twilight hour virtual adventuring. Poor JRPGers, huddled around their tired tube TVs scrolling through combat menus and trying to decipher cryptic plot lines. What they really wanted to be was cool Sepheroth, who was a rad FPS gamer that liked to frag little flower girls.

The mainstream gamer enjoyed their FPS games, the nerds enjoyed their RPGs, and the true gamer enjoyed it all.

Noooooo!

Hope! Change! Slow change…

Then things started to change. Bit by bit, developers started to adopt certain RPG elements into other genres. The first to start the trend was Warren Spector's memorable release of System Shock 2 in 1999. This was one of the first games in which the player was allowed to create their own character, or at least enhance the character into a more fitting play s-tyle.Of course it wasn't the first FPS to do this, but it was the first highly regarded and "modern" game to do so. It was a great success and the trend was set into motion.

RPG or FPS?

After the launch of System Shock 2, FPS games started to take a more customizable approach but there wasn't another attempt at combining the two genres until Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines was released in 2004. This bold attempt at a RPG-FPS hybrid was a messy mash of elements from both genres. VTMB was a brave crack at taking it a step further but was plagued with growing pains. It wasn't very well received and is considered to be nothing more than a forgotten cult c-lassic.

"Wait!", you said, "What about Morrowind??" Of course, Morrowind came out in 2002, was in the first person view, and was certainly an RPG. Sure it was, but although it was reviewed well, it didn't cause a huge shift or fervor in the gaming industry because initial sales weren't strong enough to set a clear precedent. People looked at it as an RPG with the option to play the character in the first person view and many played in the third person which just made it another WRPG. It must also be noted that in the same year, Unreal Tournament 2003 and Battlefield 1942 were released. The cool kids just didn't have time to be pulled into RPGs.

But they did have time in 2006 when Oblivion was released. I'll just be frank, Oblivion had an enormous launch and sold in droves. Sales were driven by the exceptional reviews and the incredibly rich graphics. Yes, graphics. That's how you lure in the "cool" guys, with yeah-rad-to-the-max graphics man. "Have you seen those graphics man?" "Yeah, dude, duuuude they are hardcore dude." Every one with a 360 or newer videocard had to have the game if only to gallop around the beautiful woodland environments, or in the case of the dudes, bash in a few goblin skulls. This wide spread success gave millions of gamers access to a well made RPG. It exposed the populous to the enjoyment of following a character develop from a puny prisoner to the most powerful force in the entire kingdom. At the same time the virgin RPG player was given a purpose to play in the form of a *gasp* evolving storyline. No more turn-the-millionth-damn-generator-on plot lines.

Apparently, the gamers enjoyed it, and the developers took note.In the following years hybrids flooded the market.

Bash that Goblin Skull!

RPG-FPS or FPS-RPG?

Not only do we now have hybrids, but we have variations of hybrids. Some are more RPG oriented and some more FPS. Mass Effect, Oblivion, and Fallout 3 are RPG-FPS. They all sold incredibly well. STALKER, Bioshock, and Borderlands are FPS-RPGs and have also sold incredibly well. Then there are the hint of RPG FPS games, such as COD4, which give the player options and a decent story but retain most of the FPS standards. The two types of gamers have merged together in peaceful revelry… right?

RPGers Rule

No, the tides have turned. The RPG is in the FPS, RTS, racing game, indie game, and practically every genre that exists today. No longer do the RPGers have to be quiet when they talk about the next Final Fantasy or the big RPG of the moment for the fear of being labeled the D&D nerd. Actually, others join right in! The late night sessions continue, but with renewed vigor augmented by an enlarged fanbase fueling more mods and a larger selection of RPG games. Now the pure FPS gamers are starting to be the outcasts, ahem… Halo… RPGs are mainstream now and have touched every facet of the gaming industry. I, for one, hope this trend continues. I love what RPGs bring to the gaming world. We now get a better sense of connection to our character which enhances the immersion into the game world. The rich narratives that go hand in hand with RPG games give the game both purpose and meaning without relying solely on gameplay elements to entertain the player. The main objective of an RPG is to put the player into the eyes of the character in the game. There is no better way to become one with the game and be able to experience a game the way the developers meant it to be played then to practically place yourself in the game. That is the beauty of RPGs.

Who do you want to be?

Appendix/List of Notable Hybrids throughout the years:

• System Shock 1 and 2
• Deus Ex
• Planetside (first decent attempt at a FPSMMO)
• Vampire Bloodlines
• STALKER
• Mass Effect 1 and 2
• Bioshock 1 and 2
• Recent Elder Scrolls Games (Fixed!)
• Borderlands
• Gothic series
• Star Wars Jedi Knight

Your turn

So let's hear it. Do you like the meshing of RPGs with FPS games? Does the prospect of watching a character grow throughout a game give you more enjoyment? Or do you wish to have some game rely soley on gameplay like Serious Sam?

*A side note. I would love to see a fully fleshed out RPG racing game. The game would have a very good story intertwined with incredible racing. There have been some attempts, but nothing like I would like to see.*

You can be whoever you want!

A select group of PC gamers has long cried out against DRM. They have said it will bring on the downfall of PC gaming. They say the very thing the producers are using to combat piracy will end up consuming far more resources developing than recouping and will alienate the good, honest gamer. The rational folks, like you and I, laughed at those uninformed doomsayers and enjoyed our PC games with little added hassle.

Doomsayers rejoice! Your day has come. What was a small annoyance has now turned into gaming blasphemy. Ubisoft and now our beloved Blizzard have announced plans to institute the most invasive DRM ever scribbled onto the surface of a videogame disk. Gone are the days of finger pecking in a CD key, simply inserting a disk into the drive, or even a single activation of the product online. Ubisoft and Blizzard inform us we must now be connected to the internet at all times to play our games... even single player.

Blizzard's method at least makes some sense. The player must be logged into Battle.net to play on their profile and to access their saves (still debatable if there are offline saves). Since SC2 is primarily an online multiplayer game and there are incentives for being online such as voice chat, achievements, etc, then it somewhat flows well with the game. Blizzard has not said what happens if a player goes linkdead, but I will speculate it won't be nearly as bad as...

Ubisoft. You have long been a decrier of piracy and instituter of hair-brained DRM, but your new measure is like using the sandwich a fly just landed on to kill the fly. It not only kills the fly (good job!) but it ruins the sandwich!!! Now no pirate plays the game, but at the same time no one wants to play it period. Let's break this down. The player installs the game. The game then activates over the internet. Okay, great now we play the game. "No", Ubisoft says. We must now activate it again, and again, and during the entire time you are playing the game. If the player loses connection, bam game stops. The player loses their progress and must start at the last check point.

The DRM activist says, "No big deal man, who doesn't have internet these days?" That's not the point. I went to the store. I laid down 50 dollars. I installed the game. Now, while I play the game Ubisoft keeps swatting me with sandwiches. It is far too much. I expect to go linkdead while playing MMOs, but certainly NOT from a single player only game!

So where does that leave us? Piracy is a problem and it needs to be dealt with. No one is saying it isn't. Remember the old saying, "honey attracts more bees than vinegar"? It certainly does. EA announced great success with Dragon Age and ME2 by including exclusive DLC with each legit purchase of the game. This avenue needs to be explored more than draconian DRM that hampers the honest gamer while the pirates get a DRM free cracked version 2 weeks before launch. They can't expect to totally eliminate the problem, but they can reward the legitimate customer thereby enticing more people to purchase their games. The last thing they need to do is destroy the market they are trying to save.

With the upcoming release of iPad and the recent glut of iPhone gaming releases, I thought the topic of mobile gaming needs to be discussed. The mobile gaming market is enormous today; DS, PSP, and a buffet of secondary gaming devices such as cell phones, smartphones, BlackBerries, PDAs, and even some MP3 players are all platforms for games. The amount of money spent on mobile games has increased 30-40% over the last two years alone. With this surge of spending, we will see many new players enter the market. This brings with it both innovation and a greater quantity of games, but it also brings in "quick buck" design firms and a variety of gimmicks. Companies will announce "breakthrough" technologies or interfacing suites. There will be talk of wonderful immersion and revolutionary gaming experiences. Some of this may be true, but the majority will be red herrings brought forth through hype to cover up the main problem with the entire mobile gaming format... It is an offshoot, a subcategory of gaming that was never meant to be as large as it is today. It was meant to be a small diversion to get the gamer through trips and lulls, much like a good book. However, it has developed into an industry of itself. What will come of this and what are the implications? Let's take a look.

In The Beginning Things Were Good

Purpose built mobile gaming devices have been around for decades. As a child I remember getting my first green screen Gameboy. I thought I was in heaven! Now, Mario, Donkey Kong, and Zelda could follow me to the grocery story, to grandmas house, and even, with great subtlety, get me through a Sunday service. It is great for a gamer to be able to bring their games anywhere they want and to be able to fill the boring voids throughout the day with a little harmless entertainment. These dedicated devices were a great idea brought on by the insatiable demand for gaming innovations and a price reduction of small microprocessors. They were a way for Nintendo to stamp more of their tried and true IPs on a cartridge. The games were small, easy to develop, and cheap to sell. They provided a bit of side income for Nintendo so they could buffer the time between major console releases with some extra cash. It was a pet project that did very, very well.

They continued to do well since the games were practically an impulse buy at 20 bucks a pop and their effects were starting to show. The market was growing larger and larger. What started as a child's-toy-system-so-they-will-shut-up-and-behave-on-a-long-trip turned into a must have item for every person born in that era. I just graduated college, but I still own a portable gaming device, a DS lite. Most of the people I knew in college had a PSP or DS. Some brought it to class. Which brings me to my next point.

The Era of Shovelware

These things are becoming so common place that more people own a mobile gaming device than a proper gaming system. What was a way to provide quick dev games to boost profits has now started to become parallel to the standard gaming giant. This is where things get ugly. When a market becomes this large with a userbase of 250 million people in the US (the number of active cellphone subscribers), it doesn't take long for businesses to flood in to take their share. What happens when the userbase is that large, that diverse, that "casual?" Do we get good games? No. We get what happened with the Wii, but worse.

We get the rise of what is known as shovelware. Design houses come up with a single gaming engine. They then pump games out with only weeks of development time and flood the market with junk. What makes this potentially worse with mobile games than with the Wii is that these developers have no expectations set upon them and the barrier to entry is much less monetarily than for console or computer games. Nintendo isn't breathing down their neck; they don't have to pay royalties to a gaming console. No, they make a crap game, throw it up on Apple's App store, or Verizon's program service, then a retard looks it over and if it runs, it gets put up for sale.

What was a unique, fun experience to pass the time while we are out has now become a search for a decent game. Imagine scrolling down a list of thousands of games that all look the same. Instead of filling the time with entertainment and fun, we now spend the time wading through the endless list for a game that is playable. What happened to the unique experience?

Further Implications

If that isn't enough, let us look further into the future. Now the mobile genre is huge. Tons of games, tons of systems, and practically every one from moms to hardcore gamers have a way to get a hold of these games anywhere, anytime. How can videogame developers ignore this market? Sadly, we may see major design houses turn their attention and their assets toward marketing and making mobile games instead of the large epics we get on our stationary gaming systems. How about a Kotor iPhone game instead of Kotor3? Mass Effect 4 on Xbox Portable instead of 720? Ouch. What has started to become an accepted form of art is now turned over to the accountants and number crunchers.It is easier, arguably more profitable, and safer to make cheaper games in larger numbers than a huge big budget game that may or may not be successful. Spreading the risk is a business 101 strategy. Let's hope this mindset doesn't start to become ingrained in the marketplace.

Your Turn

So what do you guys think? Do you see a bright future in the mobile market or do you see it flooded with shovelware? Do you believe handheld games could be a primary form of entertainment or are they still for when a stationary console can't be had? Let me know what you think!

MMOs made giant leaps to get us to where we are today but now we have stopped. We have fallen into a business model that either keeps the game the same or drives a hype engine that leaves us wanting what is not being offered. We need a game changer. We need something to break free and send us to the next generation. Let's start with a quick ride through MMO history which will bring us up to where we are today and what needs to be done to get us to the future.

History Lesson

MMOs were credited with being created nearly 40 years ago in 1973 with the game Mazewar. The game was little more than blips which players could control over the precursor to the internet.. A few years later MUDs and D&Ds were released which sparked the tender for the build up to what we have today.

The first generation started with Neverwinter Nights by AOL was released in 1991 and included a full graphics interface along with a massive subscription fee of 6 dollars an hour. Ultima Online bested it by giving us full 3D environments with a fixed camera. It also brought the fees down to a reasonable level. The first gen ended with EverQuest which standardized the way MMORPGs are played today. It brought in a fully rendered 3D world, 3rd or 1st person view, set the bar for the graphical UI, and structured the game exactly as we see them today.

The second generation brought us games built around PVP like Dark Age of Camelot and a well deserved upgrade in graphics and gameplay. The genre also expanded to Sci-Fi games with Eve Online and Anarchy Online. The Asian market started to expand and come to life with Lineage II and Final Fantasy XI. Closing out the second generation was City of Heroes which brought us major innovations in gameplay and included the most robust character creation to that day.

The current generation of MMORPGs started with an enormous leap in complexity and graphics upgrades with EverQuest II and World of Warcraft. Both games were highly successful at launch but World of Warcraft ended up blowing everyone's expectations away in terms of subscriptions. Guild Wars was released a few months later with a free sub plan and received moderate attention. The MMORPG world came to a halt after 6 months of excitement. The next 3 years was very uneventful and was flooded with "quick buck" MMOs that were cheaply made to lure players in with great expectations only to leave them with a sour taste in their mouth and minus a few bucks for 3 months subs plus the cost of the retail box.

The next wave of big-budget MMOs included The Lord of the Rings, Age of Conan, and Warhammer Online. All had high expectations but only one had a bug free launch. Both Age of Conan and Warhammer launched to massive hype but ended up not living up to what was expected and currently they are both trying to reinvent themselves to stay afloat.

The Attack of the Clones

This brings me to where we are at today. The big MMO in the room has a good thing going for it financially. The userbase of WoW is 11.5 million strong and Blizzard seems to not want to mess with a good money maker. The game was very innovative and different when it came out but its age lines are starting to show. Blizzard wants to stick to WoW for the long term and I don't see them making enormous changes any time soon. A new expansion here and there for the next 5 years is all that is to be expected.

What is sad is the glutton of "quick buck" MMORPGs which continue to flood the market. The developers throw together a game within a year or so, hype it up as a wow killer or something very innovative and unique then put it up for sale far before those promises are realized. They make money from the retail box and perhaps get a few months of sub fees then they are on to the next game to hype up. Rinse and repeat. It is a lot easier to make a crap game and hype it than to spend years on a big budget game which may or may not be well received. A prime example is Vanguard Sage of Heroes. The game's budget was well over 40 million but it was launched broken and was quickly reduced to a bargain bin game. It is easier, less risky, and more profitable to make a subpar game on a small budget and milk the fans then move on.

Sadly this business model leaves us gamers in a bad position. We now only have to choose from successful but older games or over hyped low budget games that may or may not be worth our time. No longer do we see massive innovations or huge changes from the norm. We see clones of older games with a slightly new twist.

The Next Frontier

What we need is something game changing. The graphics have been updated, the gameplay is fine, the quests could use some work but are decent, and lag is practically a non-issue. However the environments and the way players interact with them needs to change. The developers need to work on a game that uses a simulation engine. By this I mean they put all the rules in place and the game generates the content using the rules established by the devs. This gives it a realistic feel and nothing is copied. Diablo did this in a VERY basic way. Generated dungeons, armor, etc but it uses simplistic prefix/suffix rules to do it. I mean set up the world, natural laws, material specs, and add a bit of chaos in there then let the game and the players make itself. Every server would be a completely different experience.With a simulation type engine they could also disrupt the worlds by having catastrophic events take place that change the landscape, like earth quakes, tornadoes, fissures opening, weather changes, etc. These would come about through the natural laws governing the game. People could learn what conditions set these off to better prepare for them and perhaps sell that service. The possibilities are endless. The best part is that we have the mathematics, physics, etc to build an engine like this. It might even take less time in the long run since the dev doesn't have to build every single thing into the game. Set up the natural rules and let the game work itself out.

We also need to get away from super easy games. We don't need quest helpers. We don't need our hand held. We want to explore, conquer, and be rewarded for our curious spirit. To make a game rewarding it must also be somewhat punishing as well. The higher the risk the better the rewards feel. I'm tired of seeing myself coming and going, we need uniqueness in the games and we need skill recognized.

The MMO arena is stagnant. We wait for expansion packs that keep us busy for a few months or a hyped up game that might leave us 100 dollars poorer only to have wasted our time. We need a game changer. We need something so radically different that it brings us directly into the next generation of MMOs. I am waiting and see nothing on the horizon that will do that.

Motorstorm 2

Bringing it to what it should be

Motorstorm was supposed to be a PS3 system seller. Instead Sony found itself giving it away in a bundle pack. I purchased Motorstorm when I bought my PS3 last year. I envisioned it being the next generation of the old game 1nsane which I used to love to play on PC quite a few years ago. The graphics looked great, the handling looked fun, and the physics looked insane. After playing the game all those thing proved to be true but there was something huge missing. Something so large that it killed the game for me and I haven't played it in months now. I'm talking about a coherent single player experience and a multiplayer portion that makes the player want to keep playing. Here's what I would do...

The game starts off with the player chosing either singleplayer or multiplayer. If the user picks multiplayer they are taken to another screen to hook up to other fellow racers over PSN. This mode works okay, but there isn't any achievement or leveling system to make you feel like you've accomplished something for all those hours of online pwning. I would add in the leveling system like the newer FPSs have such as COD4's or Halo 3's. Level the player up and allow them more options for their vehicles in multiplayer. Implement a betting system with credit rewards for winning or exclusive ingame mods to vehicles for achieving certain multiplayer levels. All in all just give the player some sense of accomplishment for competing online.

Next up is fixing my biggest complaint with the first game. SINGLEPLAYER! Give us some kind of career this time around. I don't want to mindlessly race a linear series of tracks for useless "tickets." I liked the way DiRT was set up. Doing something like that would really improve the game. Give us a customizable character when we first start out. Let us struggle racing the low end local races and advance our way up to high end baja 1000 type races. I would like to see modifiable vehicles this time. Let us change the tires, engine, tranny, wheels, suspension, and let us tune them. I want to be able to upgrade my vehicles and tune them for specific tracks. I don't want it to be too in-depth like Forza 2, but I want to do more than just pick a vehicle and go. Give us more than the 10 year old system the first game shipped with.

The graphics, physics, handling, and sound don't need anything done to them. All are spectacular. I feel bad that the first game was rushed out just as a tech demo when it could have been so much more. I hope they sit down and think about the lay out of the game this time instead of just working on the technical aspects and then building a game around that in a month (crysis anyone?) If they can implement those changes then I think they can go AAA this time and truly give us offroading fans a system selling game!

If you have any suggestions for the game be sure to comment!