And Still They Come : Revelation Online, Hero's Song

Almost from when I first began playing MMORPGs back in the very late 90s, third-party websites were an essential adjunct to gameplay. I don't think I lasted a week before I started searching for better information than Verant Interactive deemed sufficient for EverQuest players.

Caster's Realm, Allakhazam, EQ Atlas and a host of others found their way into my Netscape Navigator bookmarks but in those days knowing where to look up quests or guides or maps was only the first step. Next you had to find a way to access that information when you needed it.

In those days you couldn't even tab out of most MMOs reliably. Chances were you'd crash the game. For EverQuest it wasn't even legal to try because running EQ in anything but full screen was a bannable offense. The only way to do it was via the EULA-breaking EQWindows, which I never even downloaded.

Dual monitors may have existed back then but for most players the virtual worlds of their choice played out on a single 14" CRT screen. Most players' second monitor was probably a lever-arch file with a sheaf of printouts. I still have reams of pages from the three key EQ sites above in a cupboard somewhere.

Over the years third party websites have proliferated and increased enormously in sophistication and scope. Any MMO worth its salt has a wiki up long before launch. Twitch streams and YouTube videos have become mainstream alternatives to word-and-picture websites but as yet they show no sign of replacing them entirely.

Most resource sites are dedicated to one game. It's unusual to find one that caters to several unrelated MMOs, let alone one that's compiled and fronted by a single person, but that's what Dulfy.net appears to have become.

Dulfy was there from the beginning in GW2. She's so embedded in the process she even has her own permanent namesake in Tyria. I only really began to notice and rely on her regularly-updated, accurate information a couple of years ago and as far as I can recall at that time her site only covered GW2.

Since then it's expanded to include full divisions for SW:TOR, Black Desert and ESO. Checking something on Dulfy yesterday I noticed she's added another: Revelation Online.

I don't believe I've mentioned RO here before but I've had it vaguely in my sights for a while. I have the official website bookmarked and I pay attention to the mentions it gets on MassivelyOP and other news sites. My attention was first drawn to the game by the averagely-spectacular "World Trailer" but it was only when I found out it could be played (optionally) in full tab-target, WASD "WoW Mode" that I added it to my list of probables.  It also didn't hurt that it's published by MY.com, with whom I already have an account for Allods.

After a small hiccup, Revelation Online went into "Closed" Beta four days ago. Of course, its a beta that's closed only as long as you refuse to open your wallet. The final payment model for the game has yet to be announced (bet on Buy-to-Play with hyperactive cash shop) but right now you can join the Closed Beta for the price of a Founder's Pack, the cheapest of which is just $17.99.

Dulfy has an excellent New Player Guide that lays out what you can expect most clearly. I read it yesterday and felt myself getting flashbacks to several recent MMOs, most particularly to ArcheAge. Although it's been promoted with the usual sandbox features that have become de rigeur of late, RO looks, on paper, somewhat more PvE Theme Park oriented than either AA or Black Desert.

To quote Dulfy's guide

It is a high fantasy game with some scifi elements set in an ancient Chinese Wuxia backdrop. It has action combat, dungeons, raids, 3v3 Arenas, battleground (10v10, 20v20, 30v30), territory/guild wars, open world PvP, reputation grind and minigames. It has a very large open world with no load screens (unless you are teleporting around using waypoints).

All of which sounds very familiar. This, also from Dulfy, less so:

(RO) is not your typical Asian MMO grinder. Leveling up is easy but to actually progress in the game you need to do doing group content with other players. Endgame is all high end group content like hard dungeons and raids.

If I was in an MMO lull right now I'd stump up the eighteen dollars (or sixteen euros) and give it a run. Based on my previous experiences in ESO, AA, BDO and Blade and Soul over the last couple of years I could reasonably expect to get four to six weeks of fairly intensive play and have a lot of fun before suddenly stopping for no definable reason and never playing the game again.

Oh, and I'd get a dozen or more blog posts out of it and a month of increased page views for covering the new hotness. So there's that.

In practice, though, Revelation Online has landed at a bad time for me. I have the EQ2 expansion coming in a week or so and there's a good chance I will get Legion for my birthday, which is also just around the corner. With that and GW2 there isn't really a space in the calendar for yet another MMO.

Not that that will stop me indefinitely. I still want to take a look but that can probably wait until Open Beta, which will no doubt be the real soft launch. Can't discount the possibility I might still buy in early on a whim, though.

So far I feel no such draw towards Smed's pixel-art project, Hero's Song. That odd duck, which seems to be neither Massive nor Multiple, having no official servers, but which is definitely Online and purports to be an RPG in some not entirely clearly defined fashion, went to Steam Early Access today.

By most accounts I've read it isn't anything like ready. The consensus seems to be that its been forced out of the door by financial constraints. The first flurry of Steam reviews are very positive, though, with the almost universal caveat that Hero's Song has great potential but is currently nothing like ready to be played as a working game.

The comparisons to EQ and the suggestion that the game may be quietly re-using some of the more interesting concepts originally touted for EQNext have, I must admit, managed to shift Hero's Song from the  "not interested at all" pile to the one marked "hmmm...maybe one day", which is progress of a kind, I guess.

Once again, though, I think I'll pass for now. Too much on my plate already. And I have to leave some room for Heroes of SkyRealm.

Backwards Into The Future : AdventureQuest 3D

The death of the traditional MMORPG has been on the cusp for a while now. Blog Nation goes through repeated spasms of fear, self-loathing and schadenfreude over the topic. Recent reports that the MMO craze is beginning to wilt in its last remaining stronghold, South Korea, stirred a flurry of concerned chin-stroking and a spat of smug I Told You Sos.

The original article is tucked safely behind The Financial Times' Pay Wall but Google has a ladder that will let you peek over the top. If you take the time to read the actual article you'll find that the FT weren't bemoaning the decline and fall of the diku-mud model per se but pointing out that South Korea needs to pull its socks up if it's going to compete with China and, to a lesser extent, Western competitors in the freemium field.

Part of the problem - a big part - appears to be the ongoing and accelerating switch by consumers (we used to call them gamers, I believe) away from large screens connected to big boxes that sit on special desks in front of revolving chairs to tiny screens they can carry around in their pockets and tap away at anywhere. Convenience, accessibility and, naturally, a vast saving in upfront costs makes mobile the smart choice for the future.

Only the story isn't quite so simple. Blizzard just rang up 3.3 million sales in the first week for the latest expansion to their unfashionable, aging, very definitely not zeitgeisty diku-mud World of Warcraft. That matches "the all-time record achieved by previous expansions...making it one of the fastest-selling PC games ever".


Blizzard, never the fastest to react to changing trends, has recognized the lure of the small screen for its customers. Smartly they've acted to tether those dangerous phones and tablets to the subscriptions already being paid. The Legion Companion app has been well-received and who can say what it presages for an integrated WoW experience further down the line?

If that comes, though, Blizzard will, as usual, be playing catch-up. There before them, with a fully-integrated MMORPG that you can play on your Windows PC, your Android tablet and your iPhone, comes Artix Entertainment, creators of the AdventureQuest IP.

What's more, if  you're on the PC, your friend is on his tablet and your wife is on her phone (this is beginning to sound like a sitcom) you can all play together, in the exact same virtual space. All you need is a Magic Word. Ok, now it's definitely a sitcom. Probably I Dream Of Genie.

AQ began as a single-player online RPG a long time ago. A really long time ago - 2002 in fact. It was successful enough to spawn a fully-blown, if still resolutely two-dimensional MMORPG version, AdventureQuest Worlds, in 2008. It's one of a surprisingly large number of long-established, successful MMOs that no-one in Blog Nation ever mentions. Or plays.

I've never played it. It kind of slipped under the radar, plus I had it confused in my mind with the Cartoon Network's Adventure Time. Not a good thing.

Unsurprisingly I wasn't paying attention when Artix announced a Kickstarter for the third iteration, a real 3D version this time. Had I noticed I very much doubt I'd have kicked in and probably wouldn't have taken a second chance to get on-board early when they were selling alpha access packs either, even if I'd spotted what was happening.

By the time they got around to flagging up the open beta, though, something had caught my eye. I read Syp's cautiously positive preview at MassivelyOP, and goggled at a later news item which seemed implicitly to question the sanity of taking such a totally unfinished project from Closed to Open Beta in a single week, something that, fortunately, Artix eventually decided against.

Open Beta got pushed back and I waited, not particularly patiently. I even considered buying in to the Closed Beta but it seems I was too late for that. And now the wait is over. Almost.

AdventureQuest goes into Open Beta in October. I will be playing. Whether I'll still be playing in November we shall see but the possibility of playing on my tablet and, possibly, my iPod Touch is very intriguing. I already play some MMOs that way but being able to integrate across all three systems is really taking the next step.

Of course, what matters more is whether it's any good. Going back to where we started, given the uncertain future for full-fat diku-mud MMORPGs, I hope it takes off like a rocket. I'm pretty sure it's going to be more appealing to me than Smed's upcoming offering at any rate.

If anyone can't wait until October there will be some giveaways of Closed Beta keys as Artix do "interviews with popular gaming news websites starting Thursday". I think I can hold off until the end of the month but if I happen to see a key then I won't say no.

Here's hoping there's life in the old diku dog yet.

The Torch Passes : Pantheon, EQNext

Now here's a thing. In all the dust and smoke kicked up by the falling giant that would have been EQNext it was all too easy to miss the latest PR push from the only other current pretender to EQ's throne, Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen.

Almost exactly two years ago, when Brad "Arudune" McQuaid unleashed his ill-fated Kickstarter campaign to an embarrassed shuffling of feet and jingling of pocket-change, the great EQNext project was still all systems go, even though none of it was actually going anywhere. Smed was still in charge of the the EQNext roadshow with Dave "Smokejumper" Georgeson as the ever-grinning master of ceremonies.

Compared to their three-ring circus act, Brad's indie effort looked like a dog and pony show. Once the Kickstarter went down in flames barely half-way to its goal most observers thought that was curtain down for ever. There was even a little speculation over whether the Great Smed would wave his magic wand over poor, deluded Brad once more, the way he'd done when Brad so spectacularly failed to realize his vision with the launch of Vanguard, and haul the Pantheon project on board the good ship SOE.

Hero's Song. For a very small value of "Hero"

And now, here we are in 2016. EQNext is dead. Sony Online Entertainment is dead. Smed is...well, he's failing his own Kickstarter for a game that sounds vastly less-ambitious and less interesting than anything Brad ever put his name to over the last twenty years. There would have been some serious money to be made had anyone run an accumulator on those odds.

I didn't watch the Twitch stream live as Brad and a bunch of his co-developers at Visionary Realms showed off their pre-alpha build to anyone who cared. I only vaguely knew it was happening. My interest in Pantheon, never strong to begin with, pretty much fell off a cliff after the Kickstarter failed.

Brad, however, turns out to be made of stronger stuff than I or probably anyone who'd vicariously winced at his career downhill since the infamous parking lot firings would ever have believed. Instead of rolling over and giving up, Brad and his Visionary Realms crew (VR - that's an unfortunate acronym) have rolled on, picking up funding from who knows where.

Two years on not only is the Pantheon project still alive, not only does it have a smart new website, no, much more than that, against all odds it appears they are actually making a game. Ald Shot First, who is far more on board with Brad's vision of a fully group-centered retro retread of EverQuest running on a modern game engine than I will ever be, has full coverage of this weekend's big reveal.

So far I've only watched the first fifteen minutes of the hour-and-three-quarters of footage that's up on YouTube. That was more than enough to convince me that Pantheon is the real thing after all.

It might look rough around the edges. The animations and spell effects might look faint and sketchy. There might not be any lens flare, light shows, spectacular explosions, giant lion-men walking on their hind legs or buildings falling down but by all that's holy those guys are playing an MMO!

To be precise, they appear to be playing EverQuest. Only with prettier pictures. The dream is real.

Ald observes that "More surprising than anything is how modern the interface appeared. I was worried we'd get some sort of terribly clunky interface all for the sake of either EQ nostalgia or some sense of stubbornness many old school players seem to have. So far i'm not seeing that." I take that to mean he hasn't played EQ for a good while, because that interface looks remarkably similar to how I have EQ set up today.

I like my spell bar on the left but otherwise that's just about perfect.

The entire thing just screams EverQuest, from titles of the classes to the text in the chat boxes to the names of the mobs to the placement of the camps. And, of course, to every last detail of the gameplay. Starting with the pulling, through the the adds and the fights to the brief territorial tussle between two groups of players vying for the same Orc Camp, to (and this was the capper for me) the minute's sit-down for the entire group after a big fight so the casters could get their mana back, this could be me playing EQ a decade and a half ago.

I'm not in the least bit convinced that's something I want to do. I did it already. It was fun while it lasted but those days are gone. I'd like to think I've moved on. I know for sure the world has.

Still, it really is good to see that someone, somewhere is still holding the faith. EQNext, had it ever appeared, seemed set to erase every last vestige of affection for the look, feel and gameplay that supposedly made EverQuest the world's most successful MMORPG of its day. Jeff Butler, one of the original architects of that success, seemed particularly determined to ensure none of That Kind Of Thing ever happened on his watch again.

When Pantheon eventually becomes something we can buy and play (and it looks more likely now than ever before that that's a thing that could happen) I will almost certainly give it a try. Curiosity, nostalgia, and the knowledge that, for all his multifarious shortcomings, Brad has been the visionary force behind two of my all-time favorite imaginary worlds, make that much a certainty.

With the heavy emphasis on all group play, all the time, and the very unattractive lore, it's extremely unlikely that I'll make Pantheon my new MMO home but I wish Brad and his team all the best in making it happen. Just don't screw it up again, this time, okay?