Weekend Confirmed 147 - Resonance, Tera, Kentucky Route Zero

by Jeff Mattas, Jan 11, 2013 11:00am PST


Weekend Confirmed Ep. 147: 1/11/2013

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  • On violence and video games...


    Now, I actually do believe that video games influence people to some degree. Most of the times though, it's something that most people are able to cope with. The key thing to understand is that while violent games (as well as other media) are not the actual cause of real-life violence, they may sometimes act as outlets for frustrations that finally burst. While regulating the games industry to some degree would probably be a good thing, the root cause of the problem lies somewhere else.

  • The MMO space is really getting cluttered. When the bar on F2P-games is so high that it is at the moment, there really is little incentive to make any Pay To Play games. When The Secret World arrived, I was really sceptical about any success that game could have. Even at that time, when such good games as LotRO and others were F2P, any game that follows the WoW-model is either doomed or forced to go F2P.

    I think that only MMO's that gives the players another experience than the WoW-model (GW2, Eve, etc) has any chance of staying P2P.

  • I have listened to the last few podcasts and talking about MMO's and the future.. I personally love MMO's and have played many of the big ones. However the MMO I found myself always going back to was Ultima Online (UO). You can say it was my first love. The reason I loved that game was and the difference between that and other MMO and most RPGs for that matter there was no real end game. Much like Dayz is trying to be they put you in the world and you made your own way. You chose the skills you wanted to be good at (which could change at any time) and every skill would assist another one. For example if you knew anatomy then you would do more damage with a weapon. You could buy a house, a boat, tame animals, cast spells. At the beginning of the game (when I played it most) there were no rules once you left town. You died, they could take everything from you. Yes that part did suck at times however nothing was that hard to get. You could go out and buy a weapon from the many venders that people had in front of their house. The game was really opened ended and you made your own game. You wanted to be am expert swordsman. Guess what go out and kill stuff with a sword and you got better. Not getting skill anymore go find harder stuff to kill. It was fun in its simplicity. I think that is the way MMO's should go. Since Everquest everything became about quests and your next objective your next raid. UO to me as The Sims with a sword. Do what you want and have fun with it. I think if we go backwards (in a sense) then we can move forward and find something more innovative. Everyone is trying to take WOW's thunder and WOW (when it came out) was trying to take Everquest thunder. So to move forward and find something interesting we have to throw out the rule book and just start from scratch.