My incredibly selfish Istaria wishlist - the Top 5

I know, it's selfish, but every MMO player has a personal list of things they'd love to see in game soon er rather than later. Here's mine:

1) Recall points: In Istaria (as in many MMOs), your character can 'bind' themselves to a spot and return their any time at the press of a button. However, you can only be bound to one place at a time. With a beautiful plot on the edge of the village of Darvus, it's not practical to make it my recall point because it's in the middle of nowhere, and I have to run a mile to the nearest portal (think Stargate-style teleporters that take you to other points in the world). It would be great if we could have a home recall as well as one other - perhaps we could do a cool quest to get the privilege once we get a class to level 100, for example, as a reward for our dedication to the cause :)

1b) OK, I know giving myself a cheaty extra wish already is a bit much, but its a kind of cover for the fact 1 is a little unlikely (and probably hard to implement). If not a second recall point, please, devs, could you at least put an 'out' portal in Darvus? Our neighbours have them and we're sick of being poor relations, especially on Order where Darvus is way more developed than the likes of Elmnic nearby.

2) Resources: While we're on the subject of Darvus, it would be nice if a few more nodes could appear nearby. One of the main things that makes Istaria great is the crafting, and making buildings that help people work on various crafting skills. My plot now has everything a young woodsman or weaver needs to ply their trade on the local elm and kenaf. However, the unpopulated local village of Elmnic (which also has an out portal, I may add!) gets nearly all the elm trees. Share the love around, please.

3) NPCs: NPCs, or non player characters, play an essential part in any MMO - they give out quests, buy and sell items, act as guards and gate keepers etc. Sadly, a couple of NPCs are missing in the region of Spire's Shadow, a key area to work on maple trees. While its certainly not a game breaker (top tip - jumping off Spire's Apex gets you pretty close - just be careful of the lake!) it surely wouldn't take much time to get these lazy buggers back to their posts so that we can attune to these landing pads. And bring back Seldon, even if its only for a week. I've still got a note to give back to him from about five years ago!

4) Structures: There have been persistent rumours of new buildings for players to build - non-human versions of many of the common structures such as houses, workshops and silos would be a great start. This would add so much to the landscape and give a much needed boost to players who have been around a long time. Istaria is very much built on players building on their plots and this area could do with a bit of love. Which leads me to the most important request...

5) Community projects: Please keep these coming! If I had to define one thing that made Istaria great, this would be it. There should always be community projects to work on - I've not been involved in the last few, as I've been working hard on my own plot, but some of the best times I've had in game have been on them. They bring people together, introduce new content and get people talking - all the good stuff. And if you can throw in random spawns of Withered Aegis (Istaria's bad guys) so the adventurers can get stuck in too, more's the better.

Learn more about Istaria at the official website, Istaria.com

My brief Alganon experience

I beta tested a game recently that has now had it's NDA raised, so I'm free to talk about what a depressing experience it was. The game is launched next week and may do OK: it's called Alganon, and my experience of its closed beta test lasted all of a week.

I'd looked forward to the game without reading too much about it. What appealed was the idea of a skill system that would continue to improve you while you were offline - a system very well implemented in Eve Online but not (to my knowledge) in a fantasy MMO. Essentially, you set a skill to increase while you're not playing the game, slightly levelling the playing field for long time players who have invested their cash in the game without being able to play 24/7.

After excitedly downloading the game client, it took me about five seconds to start to become disillusioned. And it's not like I normally give games a fair try too - of my gaming friends, I'm normally one of the more resilient (several of them tend to fail to get past the first month nowadays before giving up). But this time was different because of the impending doom of the very first screen.

Let me take you back about two or three months. I'd read about a free MMO called Runes of Magic: a free to play World of Warcraft (WoW) clone that looked really impressive. I downloaded it, played for about a week, but failed to talk any of my friends into giving it a go. That wouldn't have stopped me (none of my RL friends still play Istaria, for example) on it's own - the truth was that Runes of Magic was essentially WoW lite and if I wanted to play WoW, I'd play the real thing: I'm not exactly loaded, but I'm happy to play a small monthly fee to get the best game experience.

But loading up Alganon - a presumably pay to play MMO in the making - it was the Runes of Magic feeling all over again, but if anything more so. From the loading screen to the graphic style to the GUI to the skill trees to the health/mana system to the, well, everything, it seemed like a clone. The offline skill system I'd so looked forweard to was bolted on as an aside rather than a major game mechanic, adding some bonuses. Perhaps those bonuses improved dramatically with time, but it was obvious Alganon was the worst kind of WoW-a-like in ever other aspect.

As I said, I only played for a week, but in that time I saw absolutely nothing that made me want to stay - a pretty damning indictment for a fan of the genre. If anything, it was very depressing - to think that a bunch of imaginative and talented people had seemingly thought, 'the only way we can justify ourselves is to make a game that's like WoW in every way possible'. If the industry carries on in this fashion, the future is looking far from bright - which is at least good for games such as Istaria.

I should thank the makers of Alganon though - it's saved me a lot of time, because I won't even bother with beta tests from now on, let alone playing games in the first month of release. Instead I'll ignore the hype, wait for the 'real' reviews after launch, and then make a decision on whether to take a dip. Although I've said that before I'm sure...

On the bright side, as I've always played a character called Algenon in MMOs (more than a decade now!), at least I didn't have to face the ignominy of people thinking I was the kind of person that plays characters called Legolis or Gimloi in Lord of the Rings Online!

If you're interested in looking into the game Istaria, visit the official website at www.istaria.com

Making a crafting game for fun and profit

When Istaria (then Horizons) launched in late 2003,things went downhill pretty fast after a decent amount of hype pre-launch. If nothing else, it proved their was a market for a certain type of game if done right – one where crafting was king.

What makes Istaria stand out (other than playable dragons) is the importance of crafting, both in terms of item building and community projects/player-owned plots. But like all MMOs seem to start out, the original team had a grand plan covering everything to player versus player (PvP) combat, but somewhat surprisingly – as release loomed – it was PvP that was shelved.

It's interesting to look at the pay monthly MMOs that have stuck around longest. Ultima Online (1997) was the first truly massive MMO, going over 100,000 subscribers, and has a good mix of crafting, property ownership and combat – both PvE (player versus environment, meaning the game's AI) and PvP. The same can be said of Eve from a sci-fi game perspective. Both should be applauded for squeezing it all in.

Like Istaria, Star Wars Galaxies and Ryzom also feature crafting as a truly important game mechanism. However, most other MMO stalwarts (EverQuest 1 & 2, Dark Age of Camelot, Final Fantasy, Anarchy Online, City of Heroes, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online) concentrate almost solely on combat. Sure, they all have crafting to some extent, but it could largely be withdrawn without having any serious affect on the overall outcome endgame.

Most people thought Istaria would fold, but while a string of combat orientated games perished, it hung in there. Star Wars Galaxies was hugely anticipated and an almost complete disaster. So little worked it wasn't even funny, but it's still going. Ryzom also had its problems, and a lot of people barely even noticed its arrival, but again a core of players stayed loyal. That these crafting games stayed afloat while many combat-centric ones perished is no coincidence – put simply, crafters hang around. So why hasn't someone really nailed this game mechanic?

It could be argued that games such as The Sims Online, A Tale in the Desert or even Second Life have, to a certain extent, taken chunks of this audience away. However, a great game where the emphasis was on community, combat and expansion through crafting could be a real hit.

Start at point A, which is surrounded by a hostile environment. Adventurers must keep the wildlife at bay, while crafters expand the parameters of the settlement – something akin to Harry Harrison's Deathworld books comes to mind. The larger the settlement becomes, the better technology is available, allowing for bigger and better items to be manufactured – but these need new structures and equipment to make them in, so more expansion is required. Being part of that would be amazing.

Playing a bit of Wurm Online the other day really made me wonder what could be done by a half decent dev team with a reasonable amount of cash to spend on a game that was aimed at a sizeable niche, instead of world domination. Wurm is Java based, can be played for free and looks bloody awful, but has more imagination in one of its badly rendered barrels than the recent slew of showy WoW-a-likes have in their wholly vacuous worlds.

Istaria doesn't give you the freedom Wurm does, or some of its other really hardcore sandbox aspects, but its still so far ahead of the competition in some crafting/world manipulation respects – six years after release – it's hard to believe.

Have a look at Istaria by heading to Istaria.com

You can check out Wurm Online at WurmOnline.com

What - and who - makes an MMO community?

An interesting, well written article went up on MMORPG.com about Istaria yesterday, most of which I agree very much with. It's great to see the game getting some publicity on a massive website too, but I have one pretty big issues with it. The article itself is here:

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm?bhcp=1&page=1&game=17&feature=3694

Rather grandly, the piece starts out with the claim that "that one thing" that pulls millions to MMOs "is the feeling of connectedness with other people - the feeling of community". In my experience, to a very large extent, that simply isn't the case, although I wish it was.

The piece goes on to assert there's something special about logging into a virtual world that you don't get from solo games. For me, that's true - a solo game has to be very, very good now to draw me away from playing something else online. But sadly I would say the majority of online games – especially around launch – are far more about weeding out the chaff than enjoying the wheat, because being a part of something doesn't mean squat to most online gamers.

I'm not sure if someone out there has a magic figure for the amount of people that get past the first month of an MMO, and how quickly the player count drops off from there. It has to be massive. Personally, I've vowed not to play any MMO during launch month again and I suggest you make yourself the same solemn oath. Frankly, it's a bloody nightmare.

I would suggest the vast majority of MMO players – a good 90% – don't stay long enough to be part of the community in any sense beyond making up the numbers. After a few months of a game's launch, 'friend' lists make pretty depressing reading. But once the compulsive levellers, naysayers, free trialists and pre-teens bugger off to pastures new, the serious business of community building begins - if the game stays afloat, of course. Even then, many players just plug away solo, or with a friend or two, making no effort to connect with anyone else.

In an ideal world, community would be the thing that brought players to MMOs, but instead its relegated to one of the reasons why some people stay in them. In reality, I'd suggest people flock to MMOs because they love RPGs, and playing them in a group adds an interesting element. Solo RPGs tend to have a good 80+ hours of life in them, and cost the same as an MMO – often more. There's no reason not to pick up an MMO and play it for a month just as you might an RPG – if you put the hours in, you're certainly getting your money's worth without continuing to subscribe.

That quibble aside, it's a lovely article that does capture the community of Istaria. The likes of World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings Online are outstandingly well put together games, but underneath all that polish an essential ingredient is missing – purpose. Sure, you can level up, then fight for your faction over the same piece of land every day or endlessly repeat the same dungeons to kit yourself (or your guild mates) out with all the latest uber togs. Until the next expansion comes along, and you do it all again...

In Istaria, the community works together to complete structures that are genuinely needed for everyone's life to be easier. Workshops are built (or rebuilt as people move on) near important resources; storage silos and banks go up to make crafting a smoother process; warriors clear areas of creatures so their guild mates can harvest particularly dangerous areas for the rarest ingredients; or fighters hunt for trophies that can be used to make more powerful items. There hasn't been a paid for expansion to Istaria, ever. But we're still playing it, still building and rebuilding and improving on what's there, like a real community should. Long may that continue.

Check out Istaria at www.istaria.com

Defending Istaria: What's an MMO; and why I play this one

I've dabbled in a lot of MMOs over the last 10 years (scroll down for a definition), but the one I've spent most time with is Istaria, formerly known as Horizons. It has an extremely chequered past, and now a relatively small user base, but it's still the game I find most endearing. I'm sure I will lambaste it for its faults another day.

Istaria looks like a typical fantasy MMO. It was launched in 2003 and, despite several changes in ownership and a string of seemingly terminal issues, it has outlived many of its rivals. A key reason for its longevity is a dogged insistence from those passionate about the game that it will survive. But why? Quite simply, it has a couple of pretty special qualities which, when interwoven, make it unique.

Crafting

In the majority of MMOs, crafting is reduced to a pretty dull and ultimately pointless exercise. Systems are rarely well thought out, items rarely of any use to anyone, and the whole thing is an exercise in futility – only the top end items are ever worth anything, and these levels take ridiculous amounts of dedication to achieve.

Horizons is one of the rare games that makes crafting worth bothering with, especially due to the ability to buy a plot of land and actually build on it to your own specifications. As in other games, you can make better quality items as you gain levels – however, unlike other games, many items cannot be bought and have to be made (including all building materials), meaning crafters will always be gainfully employed - even high level crafters needs some low level materials, leaving room for young crafters to chip in and be genuinely useful. Star Wars Galaxies and Eve also make a good stab at this.

The sandbox

Many gamers are waiting for a 'proper' sandbox game, defined as a non-linear open ended gaming experience where the world alters due to player action and interaction. Eve is probably the closest right now, with the likes of Horizons, Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies a little further from the mark. For example, you can head off to anywhere in the world pretty much straight away, so exploring can be immediate. You might not last long, mind...

I really don't think I can stomach another completely non-sandbox title, unless it's like Lord of the Rings Online, which has fantastic quest and story implementation. Games such as World of Warcraft funnel you from a to z via every letter in between, rarely offering much of a challenge or need for interaction. While this continues to be the case, my monthly fee will go to Istaria: my plot of land is used by others crafters, I help others build their plots, I go on joint hunts to gather items that we actually need to use, not just to sell for coin or to 'level up'. I've had enough of that, thanks.

The setting

While some of your typical fantasy genre trappings are in evidence (dwarves, elves, undead etc), there is enough theme and originality to give Istaria its own flavour. Some of the creature animations are fantastic and there are some great original races. Its very thin on deep quests, but those it does have include a good dose of humour and challenge.

Yes, there are plenty of the kill 10 badger type quests so derided in MMOs, but this is often tempered by the fact that killing creatures offers actual rewards more tangible than the experience - for example, it may have body parts you need to make a certain spell, or be harvested for resources.

Dragons

Yes, you can play a dragon. But a nice touch is that you can't just dive in and fly – you start out as a small dragon and, through questing, follow a story arc to become a fully fledged ancient. Few other MMOs offer a reward of this magnitude, especially as all the other races (human, elf etc) have no way to fly at all and cannot visit certain areas of the world.

Dragons tend to attract role players too, which adds a nice flavour to the game often lacking in others. A lot of people are drawn to Horizons simply because they want to play a dragon. As no other game out there really does this right, these people tend to stay, despite the game's problems.

Multi-classing

I'm not sure anyone has actually done it, but in theory a single Istaria character could attain level 100 in every class in the game (excluding dragon classes, which are separate). For a humanoid class, this is 28 different adventuring schools and 19 crafting schools. Enough to keep anyone occupied...

To put this in context, most games give you perhaps two classes, one adventurer and one crafting; if you want to try out other classes, you need to make another character. Even then you are often limited to a small amount of characters per account (or per server). Istaria's wealth of options certainly appeals to me, and many others.

What's an MMO?

MMORPG (often shortened to MMO) is hardly the catchiest abbreviation in the world, but standing for 'massively multiplayer online role playing game' it could well be the geekiest.

Essentially, they do what they say on the tin: they are role playing games (RPGs) you play online along with thousands of other players. Some of the biggest computer RPG franchises now have online versions, including Final Fantasy and Warcraft. Game genres range from fantasy, sci-fi and super hero through to real life historical settings. They can be free, browser based games or huge multi million selling behemoths (recent figures suggest World of Warcraft, the biggest game on the market, has 11.5 million monthly subscribers). It's a massive industry.

The games tend to follow a basic format: you create a character (sex, race, look, profession, perhaps skills) and set out as a weakling with the aim of gaining experience to progress levels and become stronger, just like in a solo RPG. however, this is normally made easier by grouping with other players and joining a guild (the MMO version of a social group). You can do quests, fight creatures, make items, anything the game decides will help you progress – even kill other players' characters (although this isn't a part of Istaria).

To find out more about Istaria, visit www.istaria.com

Prologue: Why, Who, How, What, Etc.

Sometimes things just fall into place.

I've been interested in writing a blog since I first heard about them, but unlike everyone else in the world (or so it seems) I never got round to actually doing it. But last week my boss says, 'Look, I want you to completely reassess the editorial direction of our website - I'm thinking, more bloggy'.

Then, just a few days later, I get an email from the online game I play, Istaria (previously called Horizons), saying they're looking at rewarding players who spread the word about the game through various mediums, one of which was the blog. So, I get to research the future of my job by writing about the game I play when I get home. And maybe get a reward. Peachy.

As you may have gathered, I'm lucky enough to be able to write for a living. It's not glamorous, and I'm not well paid, but I realise the fact I like what I do puts me in a privileged position so I'm not going to cheapen my situation: in the grand scheme of things, I'm pretty lucky.

Outside of work, gaming and music are my two big loves. I've been playing online games - specifically MMORPGS (massively multiplayer online role playing games) since The Realm back in about '97. I've played most of them to some extent, from Ever Quest and Anarchy Online through to Eve and World of Warcraft, but the world I've returned to most is Istaria.

I also have no idea who, if anyone, will read this, so I'll start with a few descriptions over the next few days - I don't want to exclude anyone by being presumptuous. Maybe you don't know anything about MMORPGs, or specifically Istaria, and almost definitely not my alter ego in Istaria, Algenon.

After this, I'm thinking the blog will be a pretty big mixture, from review to rant to fiction to storytelling. If you have any bright ideas about what I should write, just let me know. I intend to update it at least twice per week, hopefully more, but I lead a pretty busy life so I won't promise anything. Hopefully someone will like it :)

If you're interested in looking into the game Istaria, visit the official website at www.istaria.com