The two are talking about the same game, but have two completely different takes on it.  Chances are, only one of them actually played the game in question for any length of time and which of the two that was would largely depend on the game itself, not which side of the argument that person is on.  Many games that can be truthfully labeled “innovative” while containing a “great story” have come and gone in the past.  Of note is the fact that they rarely seem to stick around.  The problem is the players.

Yep, gamers are to blame for the lack of innovation in the MMO industry.

Arguably, every major MMO being played by a large share of the market right now is basically the same game with slight tweaks to make it “different” from the others in some way outside of just its title.  World of Warcraft, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Lord of the Rings Online, RIFT, Aion..  when you boil them down, they’re basically the same games.

Sure, the graphics are (somewhat) different, the settings are (somewhat) different, and each has a specific area of game play that might be considered “unique”, but the basic game play between WOW and LOTRO and SWTOR isn’t much different.  Whether you’re cruising around a hostile planet in SWTOR, tromping the forest in WOW, or following the Fellowship in LOTRO..  there really isn’t much to differentiate the games outside of how they look (backdrop).

Think about it.  All MMOs follow the same basic theme: you’re a hero with a set of weapons and protections (armor, spells, whatever) and you deal and take damage using those items.  Your goal is to kill as many bad guys (if you’re the bad guy, it’s just a change of label, not really role reversal) as possible, gain experience (XP), and level up.

In other words, your goal is to grind out levels to improve your stats so you can kill bigger and badder bad guys so that you can get more levels and improve your stats..

That, in the end, is the basis of an MMO.  Around that come the facilitation of the grind: weapons, armor, baddies, rules and mechanics, etc.  Nearly every MMO follows the same rule sets and has the same basic criteria for measuring success and failure.  For the developer, the trick is to balance success rates with potential failure rates so that the game is neither too hard nor too easy.  All while throwing in cool graphics and (hopefully) compelling bad guys and their attenuating plot lines (short as these stories tend to be) to hold interest outside of the grind.

Most games compete with each other based on graphics quality (or graphic type – meaning a “toon” versus a “realistic” backdrop) and story lines.  Yet most games’ stories are pretty simple affairs that generally unfold without much player interaction required.  In other words, you don’t “discover” a story so much as get subjected to it as you follow a basically railed system of progression through a quest or dungeon.

In LOTRO, for example, you can actually get nearly all the way through the game without interacting with the Fellowship at all.  There are certain points where your contact with them will be inevitable, but you can pretty much skip the “Epic Storyline” and just play the game if you really want to.  I can’t count the number of high-level players I’ve encountered who are still on epic quests that are far below half their level – level 60 toons that still haven’t completed the level 10 epic storyline are not uncommon at all, in fact.

I mentioned this phenomenon, briefly, a few days ago in The Hero In All of Us, which was the impetus for this article.  Games with great story lines and awesome story telling tend to end up being marginalized because the majority of the game playing market isn’t interested in involved, truly epic stories.  They just want to satiate their need to triumph over bad guys for an hour or two at a time without having to get involved in some long, drawn out, possibly deep-thought interaction.

In Same Old, Same Old, James Pinnell at Games On uses TERA’s new release as an example of how this phenomenon works.  Game developers, probably mainly at the urging of marketers and publishers, generally have a set script to follow in terms of how the game should progress, how gamplay operates, and the general mechanics of the game itself.  Instead, they focus on single “differences” that make their game “unique” compared to others – TERA, he points out, has simplified combat, SWTOR has incursions, RIFT has invasions…

Those “one big change” items are usually not really much of a change, more like a “feature” that is likely just a new name and face for an already-existing game mechanic.

Pinnell continues by saying:

Has no one yet learned any lessons from the events of the past five years? Einstein famously defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. But MMO makers seem to avoid reinventing the wheel because the risk is too high. This is, by definition, insane; almost every single major MMORPG has failed or become F2P because the core gameplay is practically identical to other, more established properties.

On this, I couldn’t agree more.  As a player, writer, and generally lovable guy, I get invited to beta events and press views for new (or upgrading) games regularly.  What I see are usually a lot of marketing glitz and small upgrades that are touted as huge advances and “industry-changing” phenomenon.  Most of the time, this is just marketing hype.  Few games really revolutionize anything – even fewer change the basic script behind an MMO.  What I disagree with is where Pinnell lays the blame.

Sure, there are certain things that have been perfected over time and probably don’t need changing.  Like selecting and attacking foes: simple clicks should be all that’s needed – one to select the enemy, one to make the attack, and an option to “auto-attack” to simplify further.  I don’t think anyone will argue with this.  Few games would benefit from a complex attack/defense control set like the old arcade game Karate Champ had.

But there are plenty of other things in an MMO that could be completely different.  Nearly all MMOs today are missing two huge elements: a sense of player ownership and a truly unique or open game in story and/or style.

Player ownership comes from far more than just “I’ve spent hours getting this guy to cap level” or “I have all the coolest gear because I ground through the kills needed for them.”  Instead, it should include players mattering to the game’s economy, story lines, success or failure of other players, etc.  Games need community.  Sadly, most players have learned that this is not a requirement for game play, so they tend to be only interested in grinding, looting, and level advancement.

Truly unique game play, style, etc. would change that, but so far has resulted in only a very few successes.  EVE could be said to be unique at high levels, but is probably the only example of a generally wide-scale game that does so.  Most games that have tried to be truly unique have ended up in failure.

This creates a conundrum for developers since creating games is, in the end, about markets.  If a game has limited appeal, it’s not going to do as well as one with a more broad appeal.  While taking chances with something new and truly innovative might sound like a great idea, most businesses are not based on taking a chance when a core model that has already been well-proven is available.

In a way, it’s a sort of self-feeding monster.  Game markets produce games and players play them.  If the gamers don’t want or reward new and innovative ideas in games, then developers have little incentive to create such games.  So while the market (gamers) continually bleat about wanting new and innovative games and of being tired of the “same old, same old”, they have yet to step up and truly back a game that does what they’ve asked.  Meanwhile, developers are not producing those innovative game-changers on a broader scale either.

Many other industries see the same problem.  In other venues, I cover a lot of automotive news and that industry has the same issues.  People claim to want smaller, more efficient, more innovative vehicles, but most of the buyers of vehicles aren’t buying those – about half the American automotive market, in fact, is in light trucks and SUVs/crossovers, not “small and eco-friendly.”    Gaming is seeing the same thing.  Gamers claim to want one thing, but are putting their money into another.

Until that changes, nothing else will either.  So asking for an innovative, genre-changing MMO is great, but once it’s delivered, you’d better play it.

In other words, we have an inner need to be a hero.  It’s not a mental issue, however.  It’s actually human nature.  After thinking about this and my own obsessions with books, games, etc, I thought about what I know about the human psyche and the science and philosophy that surrounds the subject.

Inside every person is a desire to be something special.  Most of our stories, from books to television to film, are about heroes – people doing something extraordinary.  The most popular heroes are usually those who possess some special gift or power.  In Hero With a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell said that in mythology, heroes are most often demi-gods or related to royalty – both “special” aspects that make them great.

Most of us feel inadequate in some way.  Maybe we’re not smart enough, fast enough, strong enough, pretty enough, or whatever.  We know we have weaknesses and shortcomings and life is about getting past those and achieving despite these obstacles.  The dream of being a hero is a part of that inner compensation for overcoming our perceived shortfalls.

Having seen gaming evolve from the simple Pong to Space Invaders, through Leisure Suit Larry and Spy Hunter and into HALO and Master of Magic to finally come out at the other end with Lord of the Rings Online and Age of Conan, I can say this: the hero was always there.

It’s the driving force behind game players and the reason that the gaming industry is so huge.  In a way, game developers and publishers are basically selling pre-packaged heroism for the rest of us to use to satiate our need.

There’s nothing wrong with this.  Farmers and supermarkets sell food to satiate our need for that too.  We all have needs and so long as the fulfillment of them causes no one else any harm, there’s no reason we shouldn’t have the option of filling those needs.

In the MMO industry, there are basically three types of games:

1. single player games that happen to have other players running around inside them (usually called “casuals” or “solo” games),
2. group-centric games that require a group of heroes for nearly every quest or play, and
3. player-versus-player (PvP) games that are all about players whooping on each other in some fashion.

Most successful mass-market MMOs include all three of these elements.  Each of us has preferences as to what type of hero quest we prefer to engage in.  Some of us are more social than others while others are more competitive than others.

Part of that whole “floats your boat” thing.

Being both a long-time devourer of books and a long-time voracious gamer, I can say that the experience of each is very different.  Books tell hero myths to us in the third person, usually, and while they suck us into the story and make us think about many things along the way, they don’t make us the hero ourselves.  Games are the opposite: they attempt to put us into the hero’s shoes and make us be that hero, but often don’t ask us to do anything more than pretend to be that awesome guy with the sword or the powerful princess with the spells.

Some games have attempted to do both.  When Lord of the Rings Online first began, it was planned as an epic* that would put all of Tolkien’s stories into a big, heavily populated virtual world in which players could follow the beautiful stories told by the books and participate – the ultimate fantasy gamer’s dream come true.  Supposedly.

As it turned out, while there is a market for that kind of long-term story line mixed into fantasy RPG gaming, it’s not a very large market.  Unfortunately, we live in a world where attention spans are short and time available to play games is even shorter. So LOTRO has morphed and is no longer the epic story game it once was.

This means that the appeal of long, epic games and stories is in a limited market.  Most players who’re willing to pay for games don’t have time for that.  They prefer short stories told in short formats with a lot of interaction to keep them interested.

Luckily, other excellent storytellers of the past were also there, appealing to this type of audience in a big way well before computers were anything more than lab experiments.  Conan is a hero (one of many) concocted by Robert E. Howard in a series of short stories.  Howard wrote that while he greatly enjoyed Conan, he wasn’t his favorite character or even his most interesting.  Howard also created Bran Mak Morn, who was very different from Conan in many ways, and Kull of Atlantis, who was a sort of precursor to Conan.  The character he claimed to have the most fun with was Solomon Cane, who shares similarities with Conan, but is much more melancholy and less interested in women or riches.

All of this is alluding to one of the greatest short-story fantasy games currently available that, despite its occasional glitches, is a great example of how minimal story and maximum heroism can result in a popular game.  Obviously I’m taking about Age of Conan.  Few would sensibly try to argue that AoC is about story or even RPG.  It’s purely about mayhem thanks to your toon’s heroism.

Probably the greatest thing about the game market today is that no matter what you want out of a game, be it voyeuristic heroism, totally self-centered heroism, or engaging heroism – or a mix of all of these – you can probably find it in a game somewhere.

We have MMOs for every need, though the more successful ones are literally trying to be for everyone, ignoring Abe Lincoln’s advice.    Those games (popular as they are) often lose a lot of players as the veneer wears off and they realize that it’s not what they believed it to be.

Luckily, indie game houses and even the occasional intrepid big publisher venture into the longer-term game genre and give it a try.  And for the “just make it quick, I want to kill some stuff before dinnertime” crowd, there are no end to the choices available.

All of us can be heroes and we can likely find a way to do it, via gaming, that appeals to our specific needs.  It’s one of the great things about living in our time.   We have access to just about any type of heroism we want to involve ourselves in.  All we have to do is boot up and choose.

How awesome is that?

*Epic in this sense is the true meaning of the word – in other words, it was a long, encompassing story that spanned more than a single sitting.  Not “epic” as used by game marketers and review writers.

So how does your group go about defeating Gharj?

Well, depends on the group, obviously, but here’s one of the better ways to go about it.  One caveat: I’ve never personally taken a SWTOR character to high enough level to do this myself, but have played others’ toons against Gharj as well as watching it being done with other players/characters/groups.  Having seen the defeat of both groups and Gharj at least a dozen times, here is the scenario that worked out best.

The Group

First, the group.  As with any instance, you’re going to need certain elements in order to complete this one.  From what I’ve seen, I recommend:

• A front line tank.  Just one is enough, but this one should be good at keeping agro.
• Two healers that can keep the tank running.  The tank should never fall below half health.
• Everyone else is DPS – they should be able to dish out damage without pulling much agro or at least be astute enough to not deal damage continually so as not to become too much of a threat.  With several damage dealers, prudent striking is easy to achieve and makes the tank’s job easier.
• A DPS that can act as an off-tank is not a bad idea, but also not required.

The Layout

The battle against Gharj is in lava pits where you fight on islands.  The layout of those islands is roughly triangular with one starting platform on which Gharj stands, another just below it, and another below and to the left as you look at the boss.  Healers should stand on the second island while the tank holds Gharj as far to the top (north) of the focal island as s/he can.  The DPS can go wherever they please, depending on their weapons.

The initial idea is to hold Gharj at the top of the island while the damage dealers do their thing and the healers keep the tank operating.  Gharj throws frontal damage in a cone, so if he’s facing away from the bulk of the party, he won’t damage the healers and ranged toons.

The Strategy and Scenario

During the battle, Gharj will “Enter a Frenzy”, a warning that indicates that he’s about to pull a maneuver that does a huge amount of damage in a radius, which will hit the ranged party components.  A series of stalactites will fall and create a path through the lava to the first island.

Gharj will jump into the air and before he lands, everyone needs to be off the island where he is and onto the next one, where the stalactite path leads.  Ranged and healers should be as far to the other side of that island as possible while melee and the tank should be on the end nearest to Gharj.

The platform shakes when he lands and causes huge area damage to anyone still there.  He’ll likely jump a couple of times and anyone on the platform will be propelled into the lava and take even more damage.  Most toons taking all of this will die.  So don’t be there when it happens.

Next, he will run towards the party and, if the tank (and off-tank, if there) should grab him again.  This requires a little coordination and communication as many DPSers are trigger happy.  Once Gharj is seized by the tank again, turn him around and proceed as before.

The jumps will continue, but not be as bad, with Gharj hopping up and down and doing area-of-effect (AOE) damage that can throw people into the lava.  When he jumps, all but the tank should back off to lessen the damage they’re taking.

Eventually, the cycle will go again and he’ll go into another rage.  Just before he does this, he’ll spawn some little cat-like adds.  If someone in the party can mass stun (as an AOE), this is the time to do it.

If stunned, when Gharj jumps and the party moves to the new platform, the spawns will die when the original platform falls into the lava.  This is the best way to deal with them without having to waste DPS and damage-taking.

The other option is to have the off-tank pull them and do his thing with one or two DPS players taking them down with him.

Bonus: SWTOR Space Combat Tips

Since I’m such a nice guy, here are some other tips for getting through space combat in The Old Republic.

First, as soon as you can, get a power conversion module.  This will help you increase the damage you do with attacks and will thus speed up your space missions and the XP you receive from them.

If you can, destroy missile and defense systems on the main target(s) first, as these are what will damage you most.  Enemy fighters can also be a pain, but the defense systems of the big ships are more likely to cause you problems than the smaller fighter ships are (with the exception of Jedi fighters, which you won’t see until more advanced levels).

Your shields regenerate when you dodge enemy attacks while not shooting (i.e. you are defensive), so do that often.  Use barrel rolls and unpredictable maneuvers to keep yourself clear of enemy fire.

In most missions, one of your primary goals will always be to survive, so ignore secondary missions unless you’re confident you can do the extras.  If you haven’t played a mission before, don’t expect to be able to do the secondary goals your first time.

Finally, remember that the space missions are on “rails” – which means that you are locked into a pre-defined pattern and most of the items/NPCs in them move on a pre-set course, so once you’ve done them a couple of times, you should have it down.

Space missions are optional, but very fun.  They add a big new dimension to SWTOR that makes the game more fun and they can be used as a distraction from the inevitable grind that most MMOs, including SWTOR, have.

Worth trying, even if it’s just to find out you aren’t really into them.  They can help you gain levels quickly, but aren’t necessary to fun game play.

The gaming industry is not so united.  Those in the industry who have weighed in on the subject have been harshly criticized by those on the other side of the argument.

The fundamental arguments in piracy are whether intellectual rights are important enough that we’ll sacrifice other rights in order to facilitate their protection.  For example, is my ownership of this article important enough to me that those reading this should allow me to snoop into their computers to make sure they aren’t illegally sharing this article with friends or family?  Or using it in their own self-published newsletters without my consent?  Should I have the power to enforce my intellectual copyrights with abandon?

At the core of it, this is the question being asked when we look at piracy and anti-piracy laws.  Nearly everyone would agree that if you work to create something or work to acquire something, you have a right to own that thing.  For example, my writing of this 1,500 or so words took time, skill, and effort.  Therefore, I have a right to ownership over the content I’ve created.  I then sold parts of this right to Killer Guides in return for payment, which I will then turn into other goods or services over which I will then also have ownership.

When we sit down and philosophize about how we interact with one another as humans, it always comes down to a series of transactions like this wherein each of us trades something for something else.  That trade can be a tangible or intangible item.  Sometimes we trade our time, friendship, goodwill, or even portions of our freedom for something we perceive as valuable enough to do so.  Every human transaction from buying and selling goods to making bonds of marriage or friendship are trades of this sort.

The goal of societies is to create trade balances so that no one can overpower another and take something from them by force but still allow those who have had their items stolen compensated fairly to make up for the theft.  These are what laws are all about, really.  It’s when we start to consider one person’s item or one particular type of item (be it tangible or not) as more important than others that we start to see an imbalance that creates injustice.

So the question of piracy is deeply philosophical: do property owners have the right to trump other’s rights in pursuit of justice when they believe their own rights of ownership have been violated?

The industry largely seems to think that it should and is working daily to enforce this kind of paradigm.  They see all piracy as loss for themselves, but it could be argued that piracy is not always a loss to the creator.  Going back to my writing content for Killer Guides, we can see that if someone steals this article and reprints it on their website, both I and KG have had our rights to ownership over it stolen, since we didn’t consent to the re-printing.  However, because this content has been spread onto another site and therefore reached new readers, it will also boost our own readership intangibly through putting our names in front of a wider audience. (Note: if you do copy this, please link back. Thanks)

With games, it is likely the same.  If a person makes a copy of a game and gives it to their friend, that game has been stolen.  The new player, however, may really enjoy the game and tell other friends about it.  If the game is good enough, many of those players will turn into customers who purchase the game.  Years ago when games were distributed on 5-1/4″ and 3-1/2″ floppy disks, I did this regularly.  It was illegal, but it was also considered normal.  If the game sucked, I would erase it and use the disk for something else.  If it was a fun game, I’d likely buy it or its sequel(s) to continue playing.

Today, of course, massive multiplayer online (MMO) games are largely converting to Free to Play (F2P) models which, in essence, are this same idea.  You try the game for a while and if you like it, you’ll start spending money on it to make it more fun for yourself.  We used to call this “shareware.”

Stardock CEO Brad Wardell seems to agree with this idea.  In the February edition of Stardock Magazine, he says:

“When Stardock was running Impulse, we got to hear a lot from companies regarding to their feelings [sic] towards software piracy. In many cases, it was clear that the motivation to stop piracy was less about maximizing sales and more about preventing people who didn’t pay for the game from playing it.  I felt this was misguided.

“When I see our games pirated, it definitely annoys me… at the same time, the response to piracy should be, to paraphrase The Godfather, ‘just business.’  Simply put, the goal should be to maximize sales, not worry about people who wouldn’t buy your game in the first place.  I’ve said this in the past but until we were digitally distributing third party games, I didn’t realize how prevalent the ‘stop those pirates’ philosophy was.”

Wardell then goes on to point out the two types of pirates I’ve just alluded to in my examples above: those who will steal regardless and those who steal to try before they buy.  The goal of a game maker should be to get those who “try before..” to buy.  You do this by making good games that people want to play, not by rushing to court every time you think your game’s been stolen.

The parallels in other markets to what Wardell refers to as the “stop those pirates” mentality are obvious.  We see everyone from governments to religions to everyday people on the street using this mentality to blindly strike forth at their perceived enemies, wasting themselves in the process.  Governments lose the will of their people, religions lose followers, and individuals lose credibility when they approach things with this attitude for too long.

Like most players, I’ve signed up for or purchased a boxed or online game only to be disappointed and then angry that I couldn’t return it or otherwise get my money back because the game was nothing like advertised.  Every one of us can recall horrible games we’ve spent $10, $20, $30 or more on only to find out that the developer obviously spent more time on box design than on actual game design.  As a gamer, I did not wantonly sue or demand recompense from those shyster developers.

Yet it seems that many game developers now aren’t willing to act that way in return.  For example, I’ve purchased plenty of Sony games that were, in my mind, crap, but if I were to demand recompense, at most I’d get the money I’d spent on it back.  Yet were I to illegally copy a Sony game, it’s likely they’d want thousands of dollars more than the purchase price in recompense for that.  Sony isn’t the only one either.

Worse yet, when any of us buys, downloads, installs, or otherwise interacts with software (games) from many of these development houses, we electronically agree to contracts that allow them to monitor us in any number of privacy-robbing ways.  Most of us aren’t even aware that it’s happening.

Try unplugging your Internet connection and playing some of your favorite new (offline) games and see what happens.  You’ll likely start seeing popups requesting online access and some games won’t work at all offline, even though they aren’t online games.

It seems that MMOs have largely either gotten the picture or are mostly immune from piracy.  I’d wager it’s a mixture of both.  The MMO has advantages over traditional boxed games in regards to piracy enforcement and with most massives going to F2P models so that players can legally play for free, it’s becoming obvious that allowing piracy (as it were) is actually better for business.

In short, blindly going after pirates large and small seems to be a pointless waste of energy and resources.  That energy and those resources would be put to much wiser use bettering and improving games so that people will want to own them.  As Wardell said: “the goal should be to maximize sales, not worry about people who wouldn’t buy the game in the first place.”

It’s another story of technology replacing something personal to many of our lives.

But is it better?

The Up-side to Offline Gaming

Playing face-to-face, offline, has a lot going for it.  It’s more personal, as you’re meeting friends personally and talking and hanging out before, after and sometimes during the game.

Real life games also tend to be more fantastic in terms of actual role playing and character development.  Since the visualization is entirely in the players’ heads, these characters can be anything.

The game play is generally more fast-and-loose since the rules are subjective to the game lead (usually called a Dungeon Master or Game Master), who is generally free to alter or temporarily suspend rules in order to make for a better story or more interesting adventure.

Players too can do things that a DM might not expect, thus throwing the rules back into his/her face and changing the story being told in unexpected (and usually fun) ways.

The Up-side to Online Gaming

Online game play, too, has its advantages.  The first is that it’s easier to get into the game whenever you’d like (just log in) and play can last for a small amount of time or all day, depending on your schedule.  There are almost no logistics involved in getting into the game to play as no meeting place, announcements to players, etc. really need to be done.

Online play is also faster to get involved in, since you don’t have to meet someone or get invited somewhere, you can just buy or download the title and start playing.  This has meant that a lot of gamers who might not otherwise have ever gotten into RPG are now doing it.

The Down-sides

What has been said so far should have given you an idea of what the downers are to each of these game types.  To summarize: in-person play has a lot of logistical problems involved and requires regular scheduling and getting together, making it harder to play more regularly.

Online gaming has issues with the amount of role playing that’s actually possible, the rigidity of the game rules and structure, as well as its content.

So each choice has its ups and downs.

So which is better then?

The answer to this will depend on who you ask.  Personally, I think that in-person gaming is a lot more fun.  You get to hang out with people – some of my oldest friends are those I played RPG with, in fact – and spend time in each other’s imaginations.

Every character I remember fondly was a product of in-person RPG.  My frist character ever was AiDok the Elf from the original D&D pamphlet edition when I was in college.  There was Ombi, a Fighter-Thief Dwarf from 1st edition Dungeons & Dragons who was basically a walking curse, covered in blue fur and with a lot of attitude.  Of course, I can’t forget Groont from Palladium Fantasy, an Ogre Gladiator who pined for being something more thanks to his relatively high intelligence (an Ogre with an IQ of 150 is a real oddity).  Plus, as a fighting class, he was mostly just a meat shield since he couldn’t hit a barn door with a pointy stick at two feet of distance..

Those are the characters I remember fondly.  I have a little attachment to Glowvrn, my Dwarf Guardian in Lord of the Rings Online, and perhaps to one or two others from online gaming.  Oddly enough, I also have a fondness for my School Bus in World of Tanks.*

Still, these are nowhere near as powerful as my offline RPG characters have been to me.  So, to me at least, playing face-to-face is a much more rewarding and fun experience.  I’ve played all four editions of Dungeons & Dragons, Palladium Fantasy, and a few made-up games like Ganglands and 6-sided MadeThisUpCuzItsAllWeHave RPG.  Don’t look for those last two in stores.. you won’t find them in the way I played and GM’d them.

Turning the other way, however, my younger sister is all about online gaming.  She plays EverQuest 2 now, played EQ1 originally, and has played other games as well.  Other friends I used to RPG with face-to-face have also gone online to play WOW, LOTRO, and others.  In fact, I got into LOTRO because my friend Niel, who I met playing face-to-face, was playing it and told me I should try it out.

Truthfully, I haven’t played a face-to-face RPG in a very long time.  Years.  I can’t name very many people who have, honestly.  The old troupe I used to get together with back in the day is all split up and spread out around the U.S.  Which is probably why most of them are online now too.

I sincerely miss those old days of getting together in the living room of my friend Dan’s house and playing 1st edition with lawyer-turned-DM Steven while friends like Rob and Kevin came up with engineering feats to throw dice* or use their PDAs to enhance the game for themselves.

I really miss sitting in a smoke-filled garage, drinking beer with friends while we played Palladium and people like Taka and Zach argued game rules as the rest of us looked at Neil to play “Guess this week’s injury.”

*For those who don’t know, I no longer have an active account in LOTRO and a “school bus” in WoT refers to a Russian SU-14 SPG.  Kevin actually used a Lego Robotics set to build an “automated” dice thrower.

Wait.. that didn’t answer the question.

Of course not.  Saying definitively one way or the other would just start a  flame war as religious zealots from every online and offline gaming system imaginable show up to claim their game is the best and then shout “n00b” at everyone else.

Besides, the answer is personal to each and every gamer, whether online or not, and so it can’t be delivered here.  Both types of games have their good and bad points and players know this.

While I personally prefer offline, face-to-face play, I haven’t done so in years and am actively playing online games currently and have been for some time.  I still pine after the “good old days” of RPG, but realize that things move on and lives change.  I’m no longer in a position to play them.

Luckily, I’ve kept all my 2ed D&D and Palladium books.. so when my kids get old enough..

First, MC is the first real open sandbox game to have caught on and definitely the first to still be going strong.  Despite clunky graphics and often odd gameplay, it’s still a game with no overall plot line, no “big picture” quests, and little in the way of “level grinding” when compared to other popular MMOs and RPGs like World of Warcraft and Star Wars: The Old Republic.

So.. how do you make a guide to playing a game that has almost completely open game play?

Well, you focus on what game elements are predictable and on the character-building that is inherent in every MMO, Minecraft included.  So here is a comprehensive guide to Minecraft.

Starting Out

We all start somewhere.  Truthfully, unless you’ve played Minecraft before, you can reasonably expect to die on your first night.  Unless you know what’s coming (hence this guide), you are likely to be totally  unprepared.  Honestly, most success in Minecraft is found by being prepared.  Stick with the ol’ Boy Scout motto and you’ll be OK most of the time.

To survive your first night, you’ll need to spend your first day preparing for it.  Everyone begins in a different area (it’s basically random), so the resources available to you will be unique.  No matter where you are, though, there will be the basics: building materials, fire-making tools and fuel, etc.

What you’re preparing for is the nightly onslaught of dangerous fiends – various monsters that often times resemble walking zombies. The key to surviving these fiends is to use the second half of the game’s title: craft.

Making Fire

Your first priority is to get shelter with some kind of fire for the night.  In Minecraft, night time with no fire is certain death.  So before you begin exploring, harvest some logs to make a fire with when the sun goes down.  This is easy, if a bit tedious.

Walk to the nearest tree and begin punching it.  Sounds stupid, but this is how you harvest lumber (at least, in the beginning – later on, tools will make this more efficient).  The tree will eventually drop logs that you can pick up.  Those can be crafted into lumber and sticks.  You’ll want at least a dozen of them.

Each log you process nets four units of lumber (in your inventory, drag and drop the logs into your crafting window).  Processing the lumber again will produce sticks.  You’ll need some of both for your fire.

You’ll also need some coal.  To get this, you have to fashion a simple pickaxe.  To make it, you’ll need a crafting table.  Arrange four pieces of lumber in a square in your crafting grid.  A black-and-brown table block will appear as the result.  Craft it.

Once it’s made, it will appear somewhere near you (probably right in front of you).  Gather it up.  Now that you have a table, you can begin making a pickaxe.  The crafting table opens up your craft grid into a 3×3 square.  Add three units of lumber across the top and two units of sticks down the center to make a T.  You’ll need 8, 16, and 8 lumber across the top, then 24 and 24 sticks underneath.  A wooden pickaxe symbol will appear.  Craft that.

Once you have the pickaxe, you can harvest coal.  Look for sheer cliffs or rock faces with black splotches in them.  Those splotches are coal.  Equip the pickaxe and harvest.

Get as much as you think you can with the time you have.  When the sun begins setting, you’ll need to hurry to get shelter.

Finding Shelter

There are several ways to get shelter in Minecraft.  One is to utilize an abandoned building or shelter and just shore it up or repair it.  Most likely, you won’t find one on your first day, but you may eventually.

The easiest way to make shelter is to dig one out while you’re mining for coal.  As you mine blocks of rock, carve out a cave.  It doesn’t need to be too large, just big enough for you to stand in and move around three or four steps.  Shore up the opening with dirt.

Just before the sun sets, place torches (craft coal and sticks together, it creates a torch icon) inside and just outside your shelter.  If you have time, gather more wood and some rocks (you’ll likely gather rocks as you mine anyway) so you have something to do overnight.

Monsters do not spawn where there is light, so if you keep your home lit with fire, you’ll be safe from them.  If they can’t wander in (i.e. the door is closed), you shouldn’t be attacked.  For now, you’re in no position to defend yourself.  Later, you can make weapons and armor.

Make your shelter near your spawn point.  Whenever you die, you’ll re-spawn here.  Overnight, you can make a couple of items that will help you should you die and re-appear near here.

Your First Night

During the night, with all of the extra materials you have, you can make some basic tools that will accelerate your progress.  You should place your crafting table somewhere in your new shelter.  Using it, craft a furnace and a storage chest.

The furnace is made of rock and you’ll need to fill every box of your 3×3 crafting grid with at least 2 rocks, except the center one.  A furnace icon will appear as the result.  Craft that.  Place it in your shelter.

Next is the storage box.  This is made of wood and is built the same way – two or more lumber in every box of your craft grid except the center one.  A storage box icon will be the result.  Make it and place it in your shelter.

The furnace will allow you to use coal to make more advanced items like bricks, food, and so on.  It can also be used to cook food (this will be vital).

The box allows you to store items permanently so that even if you die, they’re available.  Otherwise, you’ll start out naked and alone every time you die.  Not good – and it gets boring quick.

If you still have enough materials, you should construct a stone pickaxe next.  For this, you’ll need 12 pieces of stone and 35 sticks.  Make another “T” out of them with the stone across the top (6, 3, 3) and the sticks underneath (18, 17).  A stone pickaxe icon appears.

With this new pick, you’ll be able to do the first part of the game’s title: mine.

If you don’t have enough materials for the stone axe, don’t worry about it.  Spend the rest of the night expanding and personalizing your shelter.  Once daylight comes, nearly all monsters will either leave or die from the light exposure. Any that are left you can (probably) avoid or kill bare handed.

Mining

In Minecraft, mining is the way you get more advanced materials, find treasures, and so on.  It can also be very dangerous.  The trick is to mine correctly and to avoid exploring natural shafts and caves unless you’re equipped to do so.  Monsters and nasties can be in natural formations and if you aren’t ready for battle, you’ll quickly find yourself dead.

It’s recommended that you dig your first mine starting inside your own shelter.  This allows you to explore it and utilize it while you’re cooped up for the night and it lets you add torches and light to keep creepies from coming up out of it into your shelter when you don’t want them.

Do not mine vertically.  If you hit something nasty (lava, the top of a cave), you’ll fall in and die.  Mine on a horizontal downgrade.  In other words, mine in “steps” downwards.  Think of it as a big staircase.

The deeper your shaft, the better the finds, so you should almost always continue downward as you tunnel.

The first thing you’re likely to find is iron ore.  It will be rock with light-brown splotches on it.  You can smelt this in your furnace to make ingots using coal as your fuel.  From these ingots, you can make all kinds of useful stuff like armor, carts, buckets, and more.

You’ll also eventually find gold, diamonds, and redstone as well.  All useful items.

Daily Routines

Your usual day in Minecraft should go like this: gather wood and coal, explore the area.

Your usual night in Minecraft should be: continue your mine, craft items from things you’ve found, expand your shelter and add new tools as you go.

Eventually, you’ll be making a more advanced furnace, more storage boxes, etc., etc.  To find out how to craft something, you can either check out the Minecraft Wiki or you can just put things into a somewhat logical order in the craft window and see what icon pops up. Furnaces and boxes are usually an O shape and swords, axes, etc. are usually a T or I shape.

Have fun!

Most gamers, of course, never get that way. We play a couple of hours a day, maybe a few hours a week, or a weekend a month. Our families aren’t neglected, we hold down jobs, and our bills get paid. Sure, maybe we sometimes look bleary-eyed and have a fluorescent tan, but we aren’t obsessed addicts.

Not in the way video game addicts with a serious disorder might be, anyway.

The truth is, most gamers do not have serious game-enhanced social problems. Those that do may or may not have them due to video games. More likely, games are an outlet or channel for underlying problems, not the cause of them. Research into “video game addiction” is very new and few clinical trials or other research has been done to even prove that it might exist.

Interestingly, research into the opposite has actually been recently completed and published. Building on a growing body of research, this latest study shows that people who played action-based video games made decisions an average of 25% faster than others without sacrificing accuracy and that most of them can make choices and act on them up to six times per second – four times faster than most. Many game players are capable of giving attention to more than six things at once without getting confused, compared to the average of four for others.

Research at the University of Rochester is finding many positive things about gaming. Most of their research is on young adults and full adults, however, and not children. Other research has shown that gaming can be negative for youngsters if overdone.

Most research towards children is into violent gaming and how it affects them. Indiana University researchers released a study not long ago in which young men saw depressed activity in regions of the brain associated with emotional control after only a week of violent game play. Other studies have shown that the younger the gamer, the more likely they are to be overweight, emotionally detached, and prone to depression.

This new study brings some hope, however. The games most likely to bring good effects, according to the Rochester study, were those that were most action-packed – meaning the most violent.

These contradictory studies are what baffle the public about gaming. Most seem to side with games being bad, but the industry is thriving regardless and for the most part, gamers seem to be all right. The number of game players who have serious problems because of or related to their gaming habits is so small that it’s infinitesimal.

Of course, the press is mostly just interested in those that do go bad, so the impression is that all gamers are likely closet Unibombers or killers just waiting to explode.

Computational analyst Joshua Lewis at the University of California was quoted in the Wall Street Journal saying “There has been a lot of attention wasted in figuring out whether these things turn us into killing machines. Not enough attention has been paid to the unique and interesting features that videogames have outside of the violence.”

The Impact of Gaming

The gamer of today is very different from that of yesterday. Mostly because gamers haven’t stopped playing as they age. Current statistics show that the average video game player is 34 years old, has been playing for at least 12 years, and plays up to 18 hours a week. That’s a far cry from the pimpled teenager with thick glasses and no tan that is commonly depicted as a gamer.

Taking just one, very popular game’s play time, World of Warcraft, we see that gaming is not a small impact on humanity. WOW has had a total of about 50 billion hours of game time so far, which is equal to 5.9 million years – longer than humanity has evolved as a species. Add in other popular games and there is more game time in total than there are years since the dinosaurs went extinct.

And it keeps growing. Fast.

Consumer spending on games in 2010 was $25.1 billion world wide. That’s a huge market and one that thousands of game designers are vying to get a piece of. A look at the top 5 games by sales volume shows that they are not all violence either.

Call of Duty: Black Ops (number one in sales) is violent, of course, but Madden NFL 11 (#2) and New Super Mario Bros. (#4) are not. In fact, the top 5 computer games (no console) were all largely non-violent, including titles like The Sims 3 and Civilization V.

Studies Showing Games Are Beneficial

Several studies have been done which show games to have beneficial effects. Although the research is new and undecided, so far, things are mostly in favor of games rather than against them. Fundamentalist groups everywhere may be disappointed.

Michigan State University’s Children and Technology Project reported last November that almost any video game, no matter its subject matter, will boost a child’s creativity. This 3-year study involved 491 middle school students tested on standardized creativity metrics and found that, regardless of race or gender or even the type of game played, their scores grew the more they gamed.

By contrast, in that same group of kids, those who used cell phones, the Internet, or computers for purposes other than game playing showed no creativity boost.

Another study found that women who play video games (about 42% of the current market) were better able to mentally manipulate 3D objects – something men are generally better at than women.

Physical changes have been noted, both good and bad, for gamers versus non-players. Some have already been mentioned here, but overall, the consensus seems to be that gaming changes the brain in ways similar to mental mapping while learning to drive in a new city or playing a musical instrument. Nearly everything we learn changes our brain, actually – even learning to read.

Currently, a large public study is being done by Mark Blair at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia, to analyze the behavior of 150,000 people who play Starcraft II. The study is collecting more than 1.5 million data points involving perception, attention, movement, and second-by-second decision making. Blair hopes to see how game playing changes human experience and reaction in the real world.

What About the Down Sides?

Obviously, gaming does have down sides. Most psychologists agree that those who exhibit negative behaviors and who are game players are likely using the games as an outlet for pre-existing issues. Violence-prone individuals may use games as an outlet to satiate their violent tendencies while obsessive behavior may be channeled towards a game and become addiction.

While game playing can change the brain’s pathways and curb some of our built-in social dampeners to lower our inhibitions, so far, study has yet to show that this is a cause-effect rather than a channeling of earlier problems.

Gamers who play too much, of course, are often exhibiting problems in their regular lives to go with this over-indulgence. Whether it is due to an underlying problem or not, it is a social issue. For the most part, however, gamers seem to have regular, robust lives. Most substitute gaming for other activities many people spend a lot of leisure time in, such as watching television.

Overall, it’s not likely that gaming is a cause for problems or social mis-behavior. It’s far more likely that it has benefit, but like anything else, should be done in moderation. Some people may have a propensity for over-use or negative side effects, but they are a small minority compared to the average gamer.

Two common complaints are heard on the Wargaming.net forums: “arty is overpowered” and “[insert tank here] is a pile of crap.” Both are wrong.

SPGs have a lot of damage potential and can generally shoot all the way across the map to deal that damage (with the exception of lower tiers), but arty can only shoot at what teammates are “lighting up” for them – which means someone is there to “see” the enemy and has a radio good enough to send that information back to the artillery player. Arty also has a very slow rate of fire and is extremely vulnerable – usually a one- or two-shot for most tanks of medium or heavier size.

No tank in WoT is a complete pile of crap in comparison to other tanks in its tier. Some are much harder to play than others, such as the M3 Lee with its tank destroyer-like fixed gun and relatively weak armor for a medium of that tier. Yet, the Lee can be used effectively if you learn to maximize its strengths (that fixed gun packs a huge punch) and minimize its weaknesses (the thickest armor is around the gun, which also has a high deflection value, so angle the tank to take advantage of that).

Every tank in the game has its good and bad points and players who learn to capitalize on both – offensively and defensively – will become a great player. Other fundamentals are true for every tank in the game, be it light, medium, or heavy.

Know the Difference Between Cover and Concealment

“Cover” are objects and items that can stop enemy rounds from hitting you. Buildings, dead tanks, live tanks, rocks, etc. are all cover items. An incoming round will usually hit and, at worst, splatter some of the object onto you to do small amounts of damage.

Concealment, on the other hand, are things that hide your tank from view, but don’t provide cover. Trees, bushes, ditches, large bomb craters, etc. are concealment. So long as you sit quietly and don’t move or fire, you are likely to stay hidden. Some tanks, of course, have zero camouflage ability (many heavies, for example) and so no amount of concealment will do you much good.

Make Use of Cover

Every map has a lot of objects that are potential cover. Use them. Constantly. Your advance towards the enemy base, enemy positions, etc. should be done by jumping from one cover item to the next. You never know who’s hiding or lying in wait for you, so always have cover or be headed towards it.

Some cover will completely protect your tank. Most of the time, though, this cover will also prevent you from shooting around it as well. So you’ll have to expose yourself in order to fire, but you can use the cover in “fire and cover” moves. Poke your head around just long enough to aim and pull the trigger, then retreat behind cover again.

Word of caution: Fire and Cover works awesome, but make sure you don’t do it with any kind of rhythm or predictability. Others will notice this and enemy tanks or artillery will be waiting for the next time you stick your head out like a curious gopher and try to chop it off.

For heavy tanks, cover from arty is the most important part of gameplay. The SPG driver’s job is to take out or soften up as many of the enemy’s heavy tanks as possible. It’s the primary concern of the good arty player. So as a heavy driver, you need to pay a lot of attention to how exposed you might be to the SPG’s indirect fire. Overhead cover (usually provided by tall buildings, by being very close to rocks, or by being on an angle on a steep hill) is the thing you should be most concerned with. Learn to use it.

Of all the aspects of game play, utilizing cover is probably the most-often ignored by tankers.

Stop, Fire, Move, Repeat

No matter what you’re doing, if you’re going to pull the trigger to fire at someone, you need to stop your tank to do it. Firing while moving reduces your accuracy to the point that you’ll only rarely hit and even then will do minimal damage.

The next time you’re playing, point your reticule at something (the round aim circle) and watch it. You’ll see it shrink, either quickly or slowly depending on your gun and the skill of your gunner. If you’re moving, it doesn’t shrink and stays at its largest. The smaller that reticule is, the more accurate your shot will be. You can only aim if you’re stopped.

So the best way to shoot is to stop moving, let the aim go down as much as you can (circumstances will decide how long you should be stopped, obviously), then pull the trigger and hit the gas. Don’t sit and wait for the result of your shot, move immediately. Your gunner and spotter (usually the commander) will let you know how your shot did.

Every tank in the game should be moving all of the time unless aiming or hiding. Once you shoot, though, you should move. This includes SPGs. The biggest mistake an artillery player can make is to stay in one spot after shooting. Not only are any nearby enemy tanks going to be looking for you, but enemy artillery will be watching for your tracers to pinpoint your hide. We’ll talk about this more later.

Auto-Aim Is for Missing

If you want to minimize your damage, use auto-aim. Otherwise, aim manually. There are situations where auto-aim is useful, such as if you’re a light tanker and just shooting as a bonus while you zip around scouting and spotting. In that case, since shooting targets isn’t your primary role, there’s nothing wrong with using auto-aim so you can concentrate on driving.

Know Their Soft Spots

Every tank has soft spots. Generally speaking, on any tank, the rear, flanks, and bottom of the tank are most vulnerable (have the thinnest armor). Tracks are also a good aim point, as disabling the tank can make it easier to circle and kill it. Especially light tanks, as their primary defense is fast maneuvering.

Some tanks are soft right around the barrel, some are soft on top, etc. Know your enemy and you’ll know where to aim.

Work As a Team

Working together as a team is the surest way to victory in World of Tanks. Tankers should communicate as much as they can. Arty usually knows what’s generally going on around the map and can point others to positions where enemies are suspected to be hiding. Tank destroyers can come out of hiding to make big damage, then retreat to draw the enemy towards waiting mediums and heavies. Medium tanks can “wolf pack” in threes and fours to encircle, confuse, and batter enemy tanks into scrap. Light tanks can quickly find, avoid, and keep enemy tanks “lit up” so artillery can pound them and other tanks can move to good positions to take them down.

Every tank in the game has a role and every player should know that role.

Stick and Move

In boxing, the term “stick and move” is used to denote a usually weaker or faster boxer’s ability to hit and then move away before the opponent can counter-attack. Every great boxer in history was familiar with this and utilized it to their advantage (either by using it or countering it). Hit, move, hit, move.

Tank Destroyers – Know Your Role

Many TD drivers act like they’re in a tank. Most TDs make bad tanks. The role of the TD is to sneak up on enemies, hide in wait for them, or come in with heavies and act as support. A good TD driver will find a good spot at an intersection where players tend to often drive through, and then hit enemies hard as soon as they appear, moving away quickly to avoid counter-attack.

When bunching with your own team, stay with the heavy tanks and use them as portable cover so you can load, peak around to fire, then reload in relative safety as the column moves forward.

SPGs Need Special Tactics

The number one skill an arty player should have is patience. Every shot counts because every shot likely costs you a small fortune and it takes a long time for the next shot to be loaded and to take aim. So shoot only when you know you can hit or have an affect.

Arty players often use their cannons as bullet hoses, firing as fast as they’ll reload. Good SPG players often don’t fire more than 6 or 8 times per game, but will heavily change the game’s dynamic despite their low volume of fire.

An artillery round can be used to do one of three things or combinations: to hit and do big amounts of damage, to “splash” and strike fear in enemies, or to take down obstacles so friendlies can get to the newly-exposed enemies.

The first one is obvious. The second is mostly about psychology. When the enemy sees the big splash, hears the heavy thunder, or watches trees or chunks of buildings obliterate, they often retreat or move, potentially exposing themselves. The third role is also obvious – some buildings can be demolished with a shot and someone hiding behind it might not know that.

Finally, artillery can also watch the map from their special overhead view and know, tactically, what is happening and direct teammates to problem spots or weaknesses in the line. They can also watch for the tracers most of the tanks in the game (including SPGs) leave behind for a few moments after each shot. These can pinpoint enemy locations and even give arty targets to try to take out.

Conclusion

While most of these tactics are probably common sense obvious, it’s amazing to watch how often they’re ignored in-game. The tanker who utilizes them, though, will find him or herself advancing through the tiers and ranking high with lots of award medals. Those who ignore this information will do the opposite.

At this point, parents have a decision to make: let the child play or restrict them from online connections and games.  There are pros and cons to both choices, but ultimately the choice is the parents’ to make.

The Up Side

Interactive, online games (i.e. MMOs) have good sides and bad sides.  To start with the good, let’s look at what children can learn from gaming – assuming it’s done in moderation.  First, gaming teaches communication, leadership, taking direction, making new friends through shared experiences, and more.

In general, outside of games, the Internet has a host of other learning opportunities and possibilities, including exposure to other cultures, seeing information not readily available otherwise, and interacting with people from all over the world and all walks of life.

The Down Side

On the same token, there are plenty of bad things about online gaming and Internet exposure as well.  Children can be exposed to bullying, bad language, sexual themes, and worse.

Even more can be found on the Web, making online exposure even worse if it’s not properly contained.

Making the Choice

Parents and their children must ultimately decide whether the child is mature enough to use the Internet.  Quite often, online gaming is the child’s first real foray into the global interwebs and can be a positive, fun experience.

There are many things parents can do to ensure that the online gaming their child participates in is innocent, positive, and safe.  Knowing what your child is doing and monitoring the activity is the primary way you can ensure that he or she is not being exposed to anything negative.

In general, if your child is mature enough to interact with other children their age without fighting, name-calling, or other immature behavior and if your child understands how to interact with adults in a meaningful, respectful way, then he or she is probably ready for online gaming.

Know the Game and the Players

Before letting your child connect to the game of choice and start playing online, it’s important that you know what the game is about.  If for no other reason than so that you can interact with your child regarding the game (and understand what is being said) as well as learn who it is that generally plays the game itself and that your child may be interacting with.

Most online games that are suitable for children (i.e. generally non-violent and not full of blood and gore) will have players who are also, in general, also suitable for children.  While adults do play these games (the average game player online is 34 years of age), they are often parents themselves and well aware that children are playing alongside them.

Many games are made specifically for younger children (under age 12) and will almost assuredly be full of kids only.  Many of these games offer parental accounts which allow you to monitor your child’s activity, keep the payments current, and see profiles of who he or she is interacting with in-game.

It’s important that you sit with your child during some of the game play so that they know that you’re interested and looking out for their welfare.  Showing an interest in the game can also be a spark of new interaction and communication with your child.

Setting Ground Rules

Once you know the game itself, you can set ground rules.  Most games suitable for children can be played for short amounts of time (less than an hour) and be enjoyed.  Some may require more time, so use your judgement after experiencing the game yourself.

How long you allow your child to play is your decision, but do not restrict the game time so heavily that your child can’t enjoy the game at all.

Lord of the Rings Online, for example, is a game suitable for children of pre-teen and teenage years.  Playing for less than an hour at a time, however, often means that you will not be able to accomplish anything in the game and thus will not enjoy playing it.  Star Wars: The Old Republic and World of Warcraft are similar in this respect.

Children’s games and most console games, however, can be played for less than an hour and still be enjoyed.

Whatever you do, be sure that your child does not spend too much time online, as this not only could lead to addiction and even neurological issues, but can also put your child at risk of becoming a target of predators.

Use the Tools At Your Disposal

There are plenty of tools you can use to help keep  your child safe online.  Most online games have very effective language filters for typed chat messages.  Since this chat is often essential to game play, turning it off completely is not a good option.

Many games also have voice channels that allow gamers to speak with one another as they play.  Be sure you’re very comfortable with this before allowing your child to participate in that way.  There are no filters for this kind of interaction.

Other tools can be used as well, including those that may be built into the games themselves.  Quite often, parental controls on children’s games allow you to record chat dialogue, grab screenshots of game play, and more.

Above all, though, teaching your kids safety online is the best way to keep things from getting out of hand.  A child mature enough to play online is also mature enough to understand that, just like there are dangers when playing outside with friends, there are dangers when playing online with them as well.

Common Sense

Nearly everything is really just basic common sense.  Make sure your child is using game names and character names that are appropriate and that do not personally identify him or her.  Strong passwords that are not easily guessed and that are kept secret (teach children that they should never tell anyone the password – even if they claim to be from the game’s maker).

If someone in-game whom your child does not know personally outside of the game wants to meet, they should say no or talk to you before arranging the meeting.  Not everyone who asks to meet in person is bad and often, children can make new friends that they would never otherwise have met outside of the game.  It’s not unusual for players in the same area or city to get together in person once in a while.  Just like adults, children can meet online too.  Just be sure you’re well aware of and in control of the situation should this arise.

Resources

There are a lot of resources out there for concerned parents who want to know how they can protect their children online.

Microsoft has a Web Security section for kids online (see it here) as well as one specific to online gaming (here). Be sure to check out the downloadable PDF on the online gaming section that includes a contract for parents to use in setting rules for their children’s gaming.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) also has a great parent’s guide to children on the Internet.  You can read that here.

In today’s day and age, it’s not a question of whether your children will go online, it’s a question of when.  Know up-front what you can do to help keep them safe and you’ll have a much easier time with this new development in your child’s life.

Last month, one of the most venerable games in the MMO role playing game (RPG) genre went F2P – it was a last major holdout to this new paradigm and it finally gave in.  Sony Online Enertainment, which owns the Everquest franchise, converted the game to F2P after 13 successful years as a premium-model game.

A few months before, Everquest 2 had already made the change, as had SOE’s rival Turbine’s Dungeon & Dragons Online (DDO) and Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO).  The game uniquely synonymous with MMO, World of Warcraft (WOW) had also made the change, as did Rift.  Most of the new games entering the market are doing so as freemium offerings as well.

What Is Freemium?

“Freemium” is an online business term that describes a specific model for the website or application’s income stream(s).  The idea is simple: give away access or software for free and then charge for upfitting, better access, or useful add-on features.

In gaming, “freemium” is replaced with “free to play” instead.  The idea is the same: you can download the game client and play for free and only have to pay for more “premium” content, access, or game goodies.

Some games use a micro-transaction model in which small transactions add up to big player payments into the game, usually to purchase premium upgrades like cosmetic gear, exclusive races or classes, and so forth.

Others use one-time or monthly payment plans to sell players better access (usually to pay-only servers), the ability to advance beyond F2P level caps, or access to premium map areas – or any combination of these.

Most games seem to be going for a mixture of both freemium types.  Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO), for instance, uses a combination micro-transaction/premium model for players.  Non-paying (F2P) members can advance until they reach premium map areas requiring module purchases.  In addition, anyone (F2P or premium) can purchase “Turbine Points” to get added extras in micro-transactions within the game.

The Market, She Is A-Changin

The game market has been undergoing deep changes for some time.  Most of the focus on MMO and RPG news sites and blogs is on the games themselves – changes in them, upgrades coming, new releases, etc.  This overlooks the overall market as a whole, which has been seeing some serious shifts.

Video game sales from the store – meaning game sold off the shelf at game stores, department stores, and online as downloads – have been dropping steadily for some time.  February 2012 marked yet another month in which year-on-year game sales fell.  This time, the slump was larger than usual, dropping a huge 20% from an already-dismal February 2011, with total game sales being only $1.06 billion.  It should be noted that January and February are traditionally slow months, so much of this decline over last year’s and the year before’s is likely because of the slow nature of Jan/Feb – months in which few game houses release new titles.

Still, the drop is significant and important to note.  By contrast, subscription-based gaming (MMOs, for the most part) had good months at $550+ million on average for Jan and Feb.  Those numbers are for subscriptions only, meaning premium content, not for micro-transactions, which are now making up a huge chunk of online gaming’s income stream.  These numbers are all reported by Zacks.com.

Both of these trends are part of a larger change in the market.  It’s mostly moving away from one-off game purchases and subscriptions and moving into a different income model.

Further market analysis has shown that under a freemium model of micro-transactions, game developers can expect to get an average of $21 per month per paying player in micro-transactions or a combination of premium and micro-purchased content.  That’s very close to the $20-$30 monthly subscription payment paying players were shelling out under a premium model.

This shows that the move to freemium is not killing the gaming industry and is, in fact, adding more paying players, says a study from Parks Associates.

Raising Player Bases, Increasing Profits

While some titles have been more successful at this market change than others, nearly all have seen two things come once their Free to Play swap is made: more players.

Sometimes the players added are short-lived, which is often the case if the change to F2P wasn’t accompanied by a large content update.  Games that were troubled before going freemium usually remained troubled after it – at least once the hype of going Free wore off.

Once-dwindling MMO titles like Everquest 2, however, saw huge leaps in players and income.  EQ2 saw a 300% increase in players after going F2P and then saw item sales and subscriptions increase by significant amounts as well.

Other games like DDO and LOTRO did the same, though perhaps not as dramatically.  Both of these games enjoyed strong bases of players before the change, and that base remained largely intact after going freemium.

Some in the industry, such as Adam Mersky of Warner Brothers, say that this shift will not kill off the premium, subscription-based game entirely, nor will we see one-off games purchased off the shelf going away either.  Instead, F2P has added another choice for players.

His comments are backed by the industry’s many ways of changing to the new times.  Many former premium games are now a freemium-premium hybrid, going Free to Play for players to “test” the game, but holding them at certain level caps or other restrictions that make the game less fun than paying a few dollars a month might make it.  This is a popular choice for games that were formerly subscription-based.

The Social Stigma of Going F2P

Although it’s largely disappearing, when premium games began going free to play, many players saw this as “giving in” and as a form of failure on the game’s part.  They saw their favorite games, titles which they’d spent countless hours and paid every month to access, suddenly open themselves up to the masses by going free.

This was seen as a “failure” as a once premium experience became filled with “noobs” who hadn’t played the game before and were only playing it now because it didn’t cost anything.

Today, that stigma had largely been lifted, but there are many hard-core players of some games that still feel that their game of choice was “ruined” when it went F2P.  This was seen in games like WOW, EVE Online and others when they made the freemium switch.

This change, however, marks a new dawn of choice in game play for players and gives a lot of the power of making or breaking a game title back to the players themselves.

The Rise of Freemium and the Dawn of Choice

Up to this point, with only premium games on the MMO market, players had to pay into a game before playing it, thus rewarding the game’s makers whether the game was good or not.  A game with enough marketing behind it could live for quite a while on just single month subscriptions in this way.

Under our new model, paying doesn’t have to happen until you’ve already played the game long enough to decide that it’s something you really like – like enough to put money into it.  This means that if the game’s content and play aren’t that good, it will have a lot of client downloads and players, but will not do well in income as very few of those players will becoming payers.  This directly rewards the good games and quickly tells the bad ones that they aren’t wanted.

Dave Georgeson of SOE said it well when he said “If we’re not entertaining you, then it’s our fault that we’re not making any money.  This is the new way of gaming.”

He’s right.  Ultimately, the Rise of Freemium as a game model has put a lot more power into the hands of gamers, allowing us to choose which games live or die simply by voting with our feet (so to speak).  If we don’t like a game, we won’t pay for it.