Been in any Good Dungeons Lately? by Geek Woman

Been in any good dungeons lately? I have. Although I’ve been in many more bad dungeons than good ones. Allow me to illuminate you with the benefit of my experiences before you go out and trade your hard earned cash for game gold. I have lost track of the exact number of MMO’s (massively multiplayer online games) I’ve played since I started reporting about them three years ago. By now I’ve played all the most well known ones. Here’s a short list; Dark Age of Camelot, Guild Wars, Lineage 2, World of Warcraft, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Vanguard, Dungeon Runners and Mythos. My motivation for this all along has been to bring more women into online gaming.
In some ways all of these games are the same. The variations can be slight or huge. The ones that have a swords and sorcery theme are the most similar. But there are many that are outside the box such as the futuristic Tabula Rasa, or the super hero themed City of Heros, and City of Villains. Auto Assault is a driving based MMO and there are even MMO’s for kids like Disney Toontown Online.

In any MMO there are several stages that you have to go through to get started. First you will need to check to see that the computer you have can run the game. The easiest way to determine that in some cases is to visit the official website for the game and look for a trial version or demo. Many of the games give out additional “key” which are long pin numbers, to the subscribing players. That way gamers can invite friends to try the game before they invest the great deal of time and money that this addictive pass time requires. One good way to get into it is to try one of the free MMO’s like Dungeon Runners.

Once you have picked out a game and loaded it in you will be ready to get started. The load time for some of games can be as long as four hours. Others will come on a series of CD’s or even DVD’s. Guild Wars and the MMO’s from NCSoft are in general the most user friendly at this stage. The software that you play with on your computer is called the “client”. It is sort of a bridge between your machine and the servers at the game company. The most interesting thing about online gaming is the attempt by the developers to create an entire new world online. They call that a “persistent world” and it exists on those servers, not on your computer.

They all start out the same. You will need to create a character to play with. The various MMO’s do have many similarities at this point. You choose a species, or race and class and in some cases a profession for your character. In one area the MMO’s are ahead of the console games in feminism. Every one that I have played has given me the opportunity to play with a female character, or “avatar”. Generally statistics have concluded that in addition to monopolizing the remote control for the TV the males in a household will also dominate the game console that is connected to the TV as well. Hence women in many cases will gravitate to the household PC and play MMO’s or casual games there.

The female characters could not be more diverse from one game to the next. From the drab, indistinct graphics of yesteryear that were used in the disappointing Dungeons and Dragons online that contrast with the sublimely detailed and diaphanously dressed delicate female characters in Guild Wars, the females are vastly different creatures. In World of Warcraft the fe

male characters are dowdy hearty types, that look cartoonish. The footwear, hands and costumes are pixelated and muddy. Even the females are huge and burly. In other games such as the notorious Lineage 2, the female dark elf begins the game wearing belts and garters that I have compared to “attire” seen in adult films. The choice is a matter of taste. If you feel as though you are interested in having a character that you can dress up and enjoy costuming then games like Guild Wars and Lineage 2 might be of interest.

Certainly the game play is the most important consideration even above the graphics. Once you have chosen from the selections for hair color, skin color, face, and vital statistics then you are ready to play. The development of the strengths of this character is the essence of all of these types of games.

In some games the female characters seem like they have a target painted on them. Weather you are a guy playing using a female avatar, or a female behind the virtual form, harassment in online games seems to be unavoidable. The human female magic user in WoW (World of Warcraft) is weak and difficult to “level up” or get her stronger by fighting monsters. My character was constantly attacked by other players. Regardless of the fact that the game supposedly does not permit other players to kill your character. Mean people can still find a way to make your life miserable. If you want to play a game and you are not interested in dueling with other people, you fight in the environment that is filled with creatures and castles to explore. That is called PvE. If your main interest is to battle against other players in a gladiatorial fashion, that’s called PvP.

One of the biggest differences in the games is the way that the game-play in the environment is handled. Many of the MMO’s have a very open plan design. Dark Age of Camelot, WoW, and Lineage 2 will allow players to roam around at will. The scenery is endless and there is much to explore. However leaving your home village too soon can be very dangerous. Other games such as Dungeons and Dragons Online and Guild Wars are more linear, like console games. In those you have to complete specific quests and missions, or solve long puzzles in order to advance and see more of the game. Both methods have drawbacks and benefits. The worlds of Guild Wars and the Dungeons in DDO are “instanced” that means that you are able to select who you play with and you go on your indoor adventures with your “party”. Whereas the games with an open plan have no barriers, but your character is open for attack by not only the monsters in the game, but also the monsters that are playing it too.

The graphics themselves vary most widely. After playing Guild Wars for over a year, when I dove into WoW it was something of a culture shock. It truly is massive. Everything in the game is on a very large scale. While in the elven home village, there were trees that were so large it could take five minutes just to walk around them. The distances that your character can walk or ride are immense. In Dark Age of Camelot, every detail of merry olde England has been lovingly represented right down to the appropriate flora and fauna. In Lineage 2 the graphics are mid range. The monsters and their habitats are unusual. The Sea of Spores, where some sort of mushroom induced disaster occurred yielded a pink toned forest of strange and terrible creatures that is oddly beautiful. In the swamps the Dark Horrors are transparent ghostly apparitions that attack with scythes that are their arms. The dark gothic architecture, the skies and the lighting effects are stunning. Guild Wars has the most detailed and advanced graphics out there. Every blade of grass, belt buckle, and tendril of hair on your character is not only visible, but will change and reflect light. If the character gets wet then you see everything like a wet tee shirt contest. The worlds of Guild Wars three expansions are each more beautiful than the next as they add more territory to the lovely fantasy world that they have created.

Each game has a different difficulty level. When Dungeons and Dragons Online was released, it was impossible to play it solo. There aren’t any henchman characters available for hire to help with quests as they are in Guild Wars. DDO could be the hardest of the Dungeon MMO’s out there. Vanguard is so buggy as to be unplayable. You need the latest highest end computer to play it, and even then the game stutters and does all sorts of weird glitches. Both times I attempted to review it, the game was still far too unfinished to even be released. The easiest MMO has to be the freebie game Dungeon Runners. In the middle are all the rest. Lineage 2 is the bad boy of the bunch with the reputation for “PK” or player killers. It’s tough, it’s dark and it’s raw. But it is captivating, if that’s what you are into. It has cute characters such as insipid light elves whose business it is to deliver love letters, and industrious dwarves, so the “game experience may change” diametrically depending on what race you choose to play.

I think World of Warcraft became so immensely popular because it provides many of the things that existing MMO gamers were used to from Everquest. The ability to wander around aimlessly exploring is there. The creatures and monsters have a fanciful art style rather than being rendered to look realistic. You can build your character all the way up to level 70 now and the game gives the feeling of being endless.

The most decisive difficulty factor in MMO games are the “death penalties”. While your character is out killing low level monsters to gain in experience your character will no doubt be killed numerous times. The way that the game handles this is what will determine how long it will take for you to level up. Punishing death penalties can reduce your character’s experience points in games such as Lineage 2 and Vanguard. Getting killed over and over will reduce your character’s level and cause you to have to spend large amounts of in game gold to restore your character. In WoW, DDO and Dark Age of Camelot, you have to travel in spirit form back to your corpse and revive it, as well as taking damages over all to your armor, weapons and all the items that you are carrying. Guild Wars has very little damaging death penalties. While you are out on a mission the penalties for getting killed are graduated. By killing certain monsters and visiting shrines you can restore your character to 100% effectiveness while still out in the field. If you get killed beyond repair you are returned to the town that you set out from and you have to start the mission again. But all your health points are restored and there is nothing taken away from your experience points.

What all the jargon about death and dying in MMO’s means is that Guild Wars is easiest for inexperienced players who want to get started with MMO gaming. The first and third expansions of Guild Wars, called Prophecies and Nightfall are widely acclaimed as the favorites. There is no monthly fee for that game. All the rest of the MMO’s charge a monthly fee around $15. US to play along with the cost of the game client software initially. DDO is challenging and well crafted, it isn’t the prettiest game out there, but it is fairly stable even if it is ugly. Lineage 2 is difficult as well as beautiful. It might not be the best choice for gamers who are new to MMO’s but it certainly has a peculiar allure. It must have because it is claimed to have a staggering 14 million players world wide which is more than double the subscriptions of WoW.

WoW is popular for a reason. It is accessible. It isn’t very difficult, and it is so huge that you can play it for years and still find more to do. While that may be true of all the persistent worlds online, WoW seems to be the most vast in my experience so far. Chances are if you are reading this then you know someone who plays WoW and you can ask them to take you under their wing to get you started.

Then there is the dancing. In Guild Wars the dance parties are legendary. You can have your character dance the night away in synch with other players of the same profession. Or join in the many dance parties around the towns. The female characters dance suggestively. No other MMO characters dance quite like the Elementalist and Ritualist in GW. Oh my. The WoW characters dance too. In fact if you stand still for too long in WoW your character will be considered AFK (away from keys) fairly quickly, and then get logged off. In these two games the socialization is particularly a big part of the game experience.

Where in the MMO world is the best dungeon? Try the School of Dark Arts in Lineage 2. Aiiii! What’s my favorite MMO? Hard to say. I’ve played several that I gave low scores to, that are still fun as well as being annoying and flawed. Others that have good scores are beautiful but highly addictive and time consuming. What I truly look forward to is trying out the new games and guiding new friends into the virtual venues.

Recently:

Comments

Comments are closed.

Geek Woman Speaks

Present

Past

Archives

Xfire

Mar

3

Been in any Good Dungeons Lately? by Geek Woman

Recently:

Comments

Geek Woman Speaks