Guild Wars 2: Lost Shores

Today marks the start of a weekend long event in the vast world of Tyria. This will mark Guild Wars 2's next content expansion and allegedly some game changing events that will culminate on Sunday the 18th.

I've enjoyed Guild Wars 2's extremely well designed world quite thoroughly, it may even be my favorite aspect of the game as a whole. In addition to the slew of events this weekend there will also be a new PvP map introduced, a long needed addition to the stagnating PvP content that pushed me to shy away from the game to begin with.

So, what can we expect this weekend? My current expectations are quite lofty considering ArenaNet put on some absolutely fantastic events while I was playing GW2 such as a map-wide Zombie PvP match and a survivor-type attrition event. Both of these were incredibly well done so I have high expectations for the events this weekend. My main question right now is one of direction. I want to see how ANet defines itself with this weekend's events. They will largely determine, for me, what kind of game GW2 will become.

From the sound of the advertisements I'm expecting some colossal boss encounter on Sunday that changes the world of Tyria in a significant way(s). If GW2 wants to preserve their initial intent to have a constantly evolving, dynamic world then this kind of content is exactly what I've been waiting for and completely justifies my return to the game this weekend.

This is GW2's chance to pull some of its more reluctant audience back into the fold and keep them interested. I'm very excited to see where things go!

If you're interested in participating in the Lost Shores event then please drop a comment so we can see about sending out some invites perhaps.

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You're Doing it Wrong: SWTOR's F2P Model

With the MMO market rapidly shifting to a free to play philosophy there are games that do it right and games that...well make you want to kick yourself for even thinking it was a good idea to play it. Star Wars: The Old Republic is one of those games that I has generated a high level of self-kicking.

When you embrace a free to play model you have to go all or nothing. If you want to turn your game into an exclusive pile of garbage then you do what EA and Bioware did and divide both the content and the players themselves. SWTOR's free to play model essentially breaks down to allowing players to do the bare bones content and not much more. You are restricted with experience, loot, PvP, and high grade equipment. To make this even more silly players are able to purchase items from a cash shop that lift some of these restrictions...for ten dollars a week. The game is a 14 dollar a month subscription. If that isn't the most counter intuitive business plan then I don't know what is.

The strategy here breaks down to making the free to play players feel so ostracized from the rest of the community that they are almost forced to subscribe. The only content allowed for free players is the basic story content and almost no end game material. Heck, you can't even use half of the stuff you'll acquire along the story.

For comparison you could look at AION's "Truly Free" model that restricts ZERO content and the cash shop exists simply to supplement the game-play experience rather than choke money out of an already dwindling player-base like SWTOR's.

Personally, I resubscribed to SWTOR earlier this week to get the dust off and play with some friends who were going to try the free model. Needless to say, our hopes were dashed quite quickly as we realized they couldn't even run PvP content or benefit from instances.

I find it hard to believe that the companies running MMOs like SWTOR would look around at the rampant success other companies are having with their F2P policies (NC West's Q3 earnings went up 426% when they switched AION and Lineage 2 to F2P) and just disregard them and still fail horribly. 

I tried to love SWTOR, I did. I played to 50 at launch, did the whole SWTOR thing for a few months and then dropped it. EA has just delivered a series of upsetting failures resulting in an equally shoddy free model for a game they expected to be a hit without even bothering to look at the numerous ways they could have made it better.

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Fest's Character Corner: Supporting/Peripheral Characters

Few games use only one character, there is almost always a fairly high amount of supporting characters both in support and opposition of the protagonist. These characters often add a degree of depth and intrigue to a story as they involve themselves in both the main story as well as numerous sub-plots.

There are a few games that jump to mind, both new and old, that boast a solid supporting cast. The most obvious ones being games like Mass Effect. Looking at ME over the years it's obvious that it was meant to be looked at as more than just the story of Commander Shepard, it's the story of the group of diverse individuals banding together to overcome insurmountable odds. The potency of Mass Effect would be highly diminished without its core supporting characters that added such character to the Mass Effect universe.

In Mass Effect's case the player is able to easily identify ways in which the supporting characters change the story but also how the story, and your choices, affect the characters around Shepard. The consequences of your actions are felt within your comrades as some of them suffer due to various choices you make throughout the game even sometimes resulting in death.

We would have had a much less colorful experience had it been a solo performance by Shepard. The Mass Effect supporting cast gave the franchise that distinct sense of camaraderie that has aided in ME's appeal.

Another game franchise that did this well was the Fire Emblem series, simply because the main characters almost took a backseat sometimes in favor of the wide variety of characters you could use to assemble your forces. One commonality with the Mass Effect franchise is the presence of consequence; Fire Emblem did this extremely well with the finality of all death that occurs. There is no second chance for a character that falls in combat they either retire for the remainder of the game if they are story relevant or actually die.

That sense of consequence really helps create a very real feel to many of these characters. The thought that you could potentially lose them if you aren't careful pushes players to go through the game with a conscious sense of cause and effect.

The supporting characters in a story are often what make them so memorable and dynamic. Humans are made for contact and interaction and that is reflected in the stories we tell, games being no exception.

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