Superior Realities

For a recent article at WhatMMO, I covered some of the bigger MMOs coming down the pipe in the next year or two. I tried to bring a fairly neutral take for that article, but here on my blog, I can post my own biased thoughts on the games — and maybe a few things that didn’t make it into the article.

Squirrel women in cowboy hats:

Of course, probably the biggest name as far as upcoming MMOs goes is WildStar.

I’ve got to be honest: I’m confused by WildStar. Or, more accurately, by the reactions to it.

WildStar seems to have been officially crowned the Next Big Thing. It hasn’t reached the messianic levels of hype given to Guild Wars 2, but it’s close, and it may get there before it finally releases.

But with GW2, I understood the hype. GW2 was trying a lot of very different things and was quite vocal in making that clear. I’m not really seeing what’s so special about WildStar. It’s not exactly a Warcraft-clone, but I’m not seeing much evidence of wild originality or innovation.

The main selling feature for the game seems to be that it has cartoony graphics and doesn’t take itself too seriously. Because World of Warcraft isn’t a thing, I guess?

Part of this may have to do with the fact that the developer, Carbine Studios, is doing a pretty poor job of giving out info regarding the game. Their website is basically nothing but a blog at this point, and there’s no way to navigate it but chronologically.

This is fine if you’ve been following the game from the start, but if you’re coming in new (like me), you’ll end up pretty lost, and you’ll have to form your opinion based on the more publicized aspects of the game, such as “squirrel women” and “we based our quest text on Twitter.”

Neither factoid inspires me to great joy.

I’m not trying to bash WildStar. I’ll probably give it a whirl when it’s released. I just don’t get where all this feverish excitement is coming from, and right now, it feels a bit like Star Wars: The Old Republic all over again — a lot of hype without a lot of basis.

Never say Never… winter:

The one game that I do somewhat have my eye on is Neverwinter. I’m very interested in any action MMO that isn’t TERA, the videos I’ve seen make combat look quite fun, and I really like that it’s going to be free to play from the get-go.

I’m being very cautious in my optimism for this game, but so far, I like most of what I’ve seen.

Neverwinter seems a game very much geared towards the casual player. There are NPC companions you can use to help you solo content. There will be a dungeon finder tool at launch. Dungeons even have a glowing “breadcrumb” trail to keep groups from getting lost.

Some may scoff at that last one — especially in a Dungeons and Dragons game — but I’ve wasted far too many hours of my life getting lost in Blackrock Depths, so I welcome it.

I doubt I’ll have the time or patience to make much use of the Foundry, but I love it as an idea, and I think it’s a great thing for a game to have.

All in all, it just seems like a fun, easy to jump into game.

That said, I do see some cause for concern. For one thing, it’s being developed by Cryptic, a company mostly known for churning out mediocre games with overbearing monetization schemes. Star Trek: Online was the worst MMO I’ve ever tried, so I’m definitely skeptical of Cryptic’s ability to pull this off.

I’m also a little iffy on the class design. There are currently only five classes in the game, and each seems pretty limited in what it can do. This isn’t Guild Wars 2, where you can be a ranged warrior or a melee mesmer.

There will supposedly be more classes added before launch. There are also plans to continue adding new classes (and races) after launch, though that does raise the specter of potentially charging cash for these new options.

Still, it remains the only MMO on my personal radar, with the possible exception of Project: Titan. Which brings me to…

The rest:

I don’t really have an opinion on Defiance one way or the other in terms of its potential quality, but I see disaster written all over it simply because of the history of sci-fi television shows.

I very much doubt Defiance the television series will last more than a season or two, and once it’s cancelled, where does that leave the MMO?

I’ve never played the Elder Scrolls series, so Elder Scrolls Online doesn’t interest me.

That leaves Titan. I can’t really have an opinion on Titan when it hasn’t even been announced yet, but part of me almost hopes it isn’t exciting. Blizzard already owns enough of my soul. I don’t know if I have space in my life for yet another of their games.

Of course, if past history is any guide, they’ll probably have me hook, line, and sinker once again. Especially if my theory of Titan being a Starcraft spin-off proves accurate.

Old friends with new tricks:

Then there are the expansions for already released games.

At this point, Blizzard has been so obvious about what the next World of Warcraft expansion will be that the inevitable announcement at the next Blizzcon is almost redundant. The Burning Legion is coming back. You know it; I know it.

The only question is what the details of it will be. I’ll save my full predictions for a later post, but I’ll grudgingly agree with the majority that we’re probably going to Argus — the Draenei homeworld.

Sigh.

The Secret World has said they don’t really want to do traditional expansions, but there are some fairly big plans for the new year. Issue #6 is coming soon and will feature a new DLC story arc — similar to the stellar Vanishing of Tyler Freeborn arc — about the Atenists, as well as the whip as a new auxiliary weapon.

Issue #7 is believed to include a DLC arc for Transylvania, leading to widespread speculation issue #8 will be the long-awaited release of the Tokyo Exclusion Zone.

Anyone who knows TSW knows that Tokyo is a Big Deal. Not only is it the first new open world area added to the game since launch and the first in an urban setting, but it has major story significance as the place where the game’s plot begins. Ragnar Tornquist describes the Tokyo zone as the end of “act one” of TSW’s story.

Suffice it to say I’m chomping at the bit to get to Tokyo.

I also expect an expansion for Guild Wars 2 in the near future. I’m not sure what it will involve, though the Tengu have already been all but confirmed as the next playable race. I may roll one simply for the sake of naming him Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law.

Biiiiiiirdman!

* * *

What are you looking forward to on the MMO front for the coming year?

Are you ready to don your cowboy boots and enchanted revolvers and explore the mysteries of the planet Nexus? Perhaps you want to explore the catacombs beneath Neverwinter? Maybe you care about nothing but the return of the Legion, or is it the liquid whispers from beneath Tokyo that call to you?

Comment and share your thoughts.

I’m moving.

This blog isn’t about my personal life, and I don’t wish to discuss the circumstances leading up to this move, but suffice it to say it’s a sideways upgrade at best, and I’m not entirely happy with the situation.

This isn’t just a changing of apartments, either. I’m leaving Toronto entirely and heading for a small hamlet in the country.

The move itself is still a week or two away, but in the meantime, I thought I’d take this moment to reflect on what I’m leaving behind: the neighbourhood I’ve called home for the last seven years.

Tall trees and public enemies:

The part of Toronto I’ve lived in is called Parkdale. Now, it’s not a nice place by any stretch of the imagination. It’s colourfully referred to as “the armpit of Toronto.” It’s still not the worst part of the city; there are other places that have earned the title of Toronto’s… “sphincter.”

We don’t have a huge amount of gang activity or violent crime, but we are hotbed of drugs, prostitution, and general greasiness.

Another name for Parkdale is “the mental asylum with no roof.” This comes surprisingly close to the truth; there’s a mental institution not far from where I live, and most of the halfway houses and support centers for released patients are in this area. So a lot of people in Parkdale are quite literally mental patients.

What kind of place is Parkdale? Once, a few months ago, there was a used mattress lying in the front yard of a local home. Not only that, but it had been graffiti tagged with the phrase, “drunk as fuck.”

However, it was so poorly written that it looked more like, “drunk as pork.”

That’s what Parkdale is like.

Once, a black fellow in a fluffy purple cowboy hat stepped in front of a streetcar outside my building, hurled a box full of shredded newspaper onto the track, and held up traffic by standing in front of the streetcar and screaming at it.

Months later, that same fellow started scrawling political slogans on the sidewalk in chalk, got up on a post box, and began screaming insults about Mayor Rob Ford — a political viewpoint I can only sympathize with.

Another time, a woman in a red dress — most likely a prostitute — spent at least an hour lying on the sidewalk across the street, weeping uncontrollably, and begging for help from invisible people.

Those are the more noteworthy oddballs. Then there are the normal, everyday ones: the people who talk to themselves in languages no one else knows, the hookers, the Sun-Fa drunks, the blind Buddhists, and the screamers.

But not everything in Parkdale is surreal, greasy, or disturbing. It has its positive side as well.

Parkdale is a very old neighbourhood. The parts of it that aren’t filthy and covered in graffiti feature beautiful architecture dating back to the turn of the last century and lots of lovely side-streets canopied by massive trees from the same time period.

It’s a little known fact that Toronto has so many trees that the city technically qualifies as a forest.

Parkdale is in an odd state of transition. It’s become somewhat trendy in recent times. So in amongst the crack whores and used condoms are chic antique stores, yuppies walking their greyhounds, and fancy restaurants serving local produce.

I’m in a bizarre spot because I literally live directly on the border of a very nice area and a very bad one. Walk north, and it’s nothing but well-tended gardens and affluent young couples taking their kids to the park. Walk south, and it’s nothing cigarette butts and piles of stuff that I’d really rather not think about what it is.

Parkdale is also an interesting cultural melting pot — though that’s really true of all of Toronto. Where I am, I live at the border of Poland, Portugal, and Tibet.

Another interesting fact: Toronto boasts the largest population of Tibetan people outside of Tibet or Nepal. And most of those live in Parkdale.

Fascinating people, the Tibetans. One of my regrets is that I never really took the time to get to know any of them, but the ones I’ve met are nothing but pleasant and polite. Quite a humble and decent sort.

Their food is also the most delicious thing in the universe. If there is one thing about Toronto I will miss, it is the Tibetan food.

Into the worst, out of the best:

So Parkdale is a strange place, full of contradictions. The air is a heady melange of curry, cigarette smoke, and human misery.

It’s a place of contradictions for me personally, too. I came here during the worst period of my life, with virtually nothing left following a family cataclysm.

It was a terrible time for me, and I lived in misery for many months. But alongside this was a strange sense of freedom. With everything I’d known gone, it was a chance to start anew. I began to think for myself for the first time in my life, and Parkdale — and Toronto as a whole — represented an exciting new frontier for me.

I grew up in the country, and the bright lights and bustle of the city dazzled me. I saw Toronto as a place of limitless potential, and it encouraged me to grow as a person.

Looking back, I didn’t really grow that much. The truth is I’ve barely scratched the surface of the opportunities this city has to offer, and I have no one to blame for that but myself.

I don’t feel the same sense of renewal or potential about this coming move. I feel only a contraction, a narrowing of my future.

I hope to return to Toronto some day. Maybe even to Parkdale. This may be a place ripe with devils, but they’re the devils I know.

But for now, my path is set, and I must leave Parkdale behind.

Parkdale isn’t a nice place, but it’s been my home for seven years. It’s become a part of who I am. And I will miss it.

And the best thing about Parkdale? My favourite band named a song after it.

Finally, it almost seemed authentic

As we headed farther west

Into the worst, out of the best

Superior Realities

Upcoming MMOs for 2013: My Take

Off topic: Open Up and Spend the Night in Parkdale

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