The Lord of the Rings Online

The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar (PC)
Publisher: Midway Games / Turbine	Developer: Turbine
Genre: Persistent Online RPG	Release Date: 04/24/2007

It hasn't been an easy journey for The Lord of the Rings Online. What first began in 2003 as Middle-earth Online has been plagued by name changes, publisher changes and a huge retrenchment in which the developers essentially went back to the drawing board and rebuilt the product from scratch. Unlike the fantasy stories the game is based on, this is usually a recipe for disaster in the real world, but like the hairy-footed heroes of Tolkien's novels, the development team at Turbine soldiered on and emerged triumphant, creating an exceptional MMO that can easily stand among the best in the genre.

The basic gameplay of The Lord of the Rings Online will be immediately familiar to anyone who's played the original EverQuest, World of Warcraft or, really, just about any MMO released in the last five years. The four racial choices each offer an array of benefits and drawbacks and there are a number of classes that fall more-or-less into basic MMO roles such as tank, healer, crowd control, and ranged and melee DPS. Combat is a familiar series of turn-based rounds punctuated by the player triggering a variety of special attacks and watching the cooldown meter on the interface.

he world is filled with quests to complete, instances to experience, items to craft, PvP that (while segregated from the main game) makes for a nice diversion, and an end-game consisting of several high-end raid zones in Northern Angmar. There's almost no learning curve for anyone even slightly familiar with how an MMO works, and the game's first five or six character levels are structured as a fun tutorial for MMO newbies. Far from being a weakness, the lack of innovation in basic gameplay structures actually turns out to be a strength. It may indeed be WoW-with-Hobbits, but there's something to be said for not fixing what isn't broken.

Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

The real genius of The Lord of the Rings Online lies in the way it mixes up familiar MMO structures to offer a constant stream of player accomplishments -- the "ding" moments -- beyond the obvious ones of increasing character level and acquiring new gear. The heart of this dynamic (and the game's best innovation) is the "deed log." This is an achievement-like system of rewards given out for accomplishing things. There are deeds for almost every type of activity in the game. Kill four or five brigands in Ered Luin, for example, and the player gets a message that they've uncovered the "Brigand-slayer" deed. Killing 30 more brigands entitles the player to have "Defender of the Halls" underneath his or her name. Kill 60 more and the player gets the "Justice" trait -- one of a series of permanent buffs that can be loaded on a player by bards in towns. There are exploration deeds accomplished by visiting Elf ruins or scouting out the enemy, class deeds won by just using class skills over and over, racial deeds ferreted out by discovering hidden conditions, and even legendary deeds acquired by fighting the most powerful enemies in the game.

As a practical matter, the deed log operates as a highly customizable talent system. Since traits can be swapped in and out, acquiring the right ones can drastically impact the way a class is played. The right traits can help a Lore-master to become a ranged DPS class or build up their animal companions to bolster their crowd-control capabilities. A Captain can be an effective off-tank with the right system of traits or can just hang back and act as a buffer in an instance, setting up "Fellowship Conjunctions" that offer boosts to damage output or replenish health or mana bars. This customizability also helps in party formation since as players enter higher-level areas, there are situations in which every class gets the opportunity to shine and there really isn't any situation in which a particular class is "useless."

The impact of the deed log system is subtle and profound: it dramatically cuts down on the level of grind in the game. Since deeds are broken up by regions and can be incremented, it makes almost every encounter in the world an opportunity for advancement. During the long run to a quest location, it's actually OK to get jumped by a wandering monster, even if said monster doesn't offer any experience points. If it's a wolf, the player may be working on his or her "Wolf-tamer" title or "Advanced Wolf Slayer" which offers a +1 to the Zeal trait. If they've completed that, there are still class ability deeds that can be worked on during a fight, or the creature may drop a rare piece of crafting material. During my first 20 levels, I spent considerable time doing very low-level quests and fighting low-level monsters that offered no experience points at all because they gave me the opportunity to complete deeds. It stretches the available content for the player by making it worthwhile to run quests that they've out-leveled.

Words and Music

One of the best elements of the game is the emphasis on storytelling as an integral part of the play experience. Every player character starts their lives in one of four multi-layered instanced areas. Elves, for example, start in a short tutorial course that takes place during the burning of Edhelion, an Elven city destroyed by renegade Dwarves called Dourhands. This tutorial area is designed to teach the basics of movement, equipment, combat and questing, but far from being a one-off zone, the characters and story elements in that area continue to come up even as characters level. Much of the Elf and Dwarf starting area of Ered Luin is about questing to re-establish the bonds of trust between Elf and Dwarf that have been broken by the Dourhands. There's even an epic quest-line that goes through the game's current level cap of 50 in which the rewards for completing "chapters" of the line is a string of pre-rendered cutscenes that show the impact of the character's actions on the Fellowship's journey. The bad news is that these pre-rendered cutscenes are rather fuzzy and filled with poorly animated 3D characters.

I also really enjoyed the game's player-created music system. Once a player reaches level five, they can purchase the ability for their character to play an instrument using the number keys on the keyboard. While it has no in-game effects, this simple-to-use system has become amazingly popular. It's not unusual to walk through the center of a town like Bree and see six or eight players hanging out and jamming in front of the town hall. Player bands and orchestras have formed and go on tours of the game's cities and as players translate real-world songs into the game's music system, trading new music has become a hot topic on the official message boards. In fact, it's not unheard of for players in the middle of an instance to occasionally break out into an impromptu performance when one of their members goes AFK.

In Service to The Eye

LOTRO has an interesting (though heavily segregated) PvP element. The majority of the game is PvE-only and everybody must play on the side of the good guys. Starting at level 10, however, a player may look into a "fell scrying pool" and enter the body of one of five different level 50 monsters in service to Sauron. This "Monster Play" system takes place in an area called the Ettenmoors. High-level player characters can enter and exit this area freely while monster-players cannot. The area houses a number of monster-infested ruins including three castles, some logging camps, a small Hobbit village and cave-and-tunnel complexes. Each of these areas comes with its own contingent of elite level 48-50 NPCs to protect it. There's a parallel quest and deed-and-title system that mirrors the one for a player's main character. The area also has leader board rankings and a system of "destiny points" that can be spent on either temporary buffs for a main character or to improve one's monster.

The genius of the system is that it offers PvP to players who really want it in a structured environment with tangible rewards. For those who hate PvP, they need never enter the zone nor worry about balance shifts made for PvP (since Free Peoples players can't fight each other, only monster-players) affecting the PvE game. Even better, because it's mostly segregated from the rest of the game there's not much risk and great reward associated with entering the zone. That will hopefully encourage more players to do it.

The down side of the system is that it is dependent on player participation and there seem to be very few players willing to give the Ettenmoors a try. This is in part because there aren't many high-level players yet, but I've spent considerable time in the Ettenmoors as a monster doing quests and fighting NPCs to get essentially free destiny points and most of the time I'm in there alone without even other monster-players to keep me company. Hopefully this will be remedied as players hit the level cap because Monster-play is too much fun (based on my pre-launch experience) to just be left to wither on the vine.

If there's one major sticking point with LOTRO, it would have to be the economy. In part, the economy is still young and people have yet to figure out just how much objects are worth. The game also controls its money supply so tightly that it makes Ebenezer Scrooge look like a philanthropist. The big culprit is fixed costs for players. Repair, class training, traveling, postage and crafting components are outrageously expensive and many characters hit level 20 completely broke.

The game's crafting system ties into this. It's well-designed in theory and is really enjoyable as far as it goes, but at this writing it's economically insane. Farming is hopelessly broken because cooks (who farmers are supposed to supply) can get their components cheaper from NPC vendors. Tailoring recipes routinely call for components from creatures four to five levels above the item level. Gear suitable for a level 10 player, for example, require components from level 14 and above creatures which means that tailors can essentially only make gear for lower-level players. As a result, there's not a whole of trade in those items and won't be until players reach levels where they can afford to sink money into the profession. Certain professions, though, especially anything involving medium or heavy armor, are practically a broken slot machine when it comes to the amount of money they can generate. When a big chunk of the player base is broke and the rest are swimming in money, that's an issue that needs to be addressed.

The game does have a few technical issues. There have been a couple of times during which the game's login servers were overloaded and I had a problem getting in. The client seems to run fairly smoothly although I did experience noticeable lag in Bree when it was crowded. This could usually be remedied just by turning off the floating names. There are a number of escort and story quests that are bugged. Sometimes story-based NPCs don't leave or die when they're supposed to, denying the player credit for a completed quest. This isn't a consistent bug, either, as often dropping and re-running the quest or re-logging would solve it. I also experienced the occasional crash to desktop. None of these were more than occasional annoyances and certainly didn't dissuade me from loading the game up again to continue my adventures.

Finally, the game's graphics merit praise. Those who've always wanted to wander the fields of the Shire, hang out in Rivendell, hoist a few at the Prancing Pony or visit Tom Bombadil will be in heaven in The Lord of the Rings Online. This is an amazingly beautiful game filled with stunningly gorgeous forests, stark mountains, placid lakes and fields filled with gently waving flowers. Indoor and city spaces are filled with an eye for detail and enormous respect for Tolkien's work. While walking through Thorin's halls in the Blue Mountains or the streets of Bree, one is filled with a sense of rightness about the world -- the sense that yes, this really is what Middle-earth looks like.

The Road Goes Ever On...

The Lord of the Rings Online had a difficult journey to make it to launch day. Never mind the impossible expectations of legions of Tolkien fans who probably know the lore better than Tolkien himself did, the game also had to be a fun MMO in its own right. That The Lord of the Rings Online could whether the storm of player expectations and its development troubles and still be a decent game is an achievement in itself. That it could go through all that and come out the other side as an exceptional entry into the genre is nothing short of miraculous. Oh, the game has some shakedown issues it needs to deal with -- particularly the economy -- but all told, The Lord of the Rings is off to a great start and its future looks boundless.

EverQuest II

EverQuest II (PC)
Publisher: Sony Online Entertainment	Developer: Sony Online Entertainment
Genre: Persistent Online RPG	Release Date: 11/08/2004

Although its market dominance isn't as assured as it used to be, the original EverQuest is probably the most influential MMORPG in existence. Every MMO that followed it owes it a debt, and even their developers will grudgingly admit this. That said, consider their debt repaid--EverQuest II has assimilated many of refinements made over the years to the formula that it helped established, and despite its association with the granddaddy of MMORPGs, it's very much a modern game. Those who haven't touched an MMO other than the original EQ will find its successor a game that's much more inviting, convenient, and forgiving. Likewise, those who left this one's predecessor for greener pastures might find within this a reason to revisit Norrath. It's still a young game, but given a solid launch, and an altogether slick presentation, getting into it is painless.

Norrath is a changed place. Displeased with the actions of their mortal creations (probably due to the incessant guild raids on their home planes), the gods unleashed a series of cataclysms upon the world. The landscape was razed, the moon itself was shattered, and most of the races were sundered from their ancestral homes. Only two bastions of civilizations remain: the cities of Qeynos and Freeport, home to Norrath's benign and evil races, respectively. This setup will inform much of your experience with the game, and where you stand in relation to it is one of the first decisions you'll have to make, not to mention among the most important. Both cities are identical in terms of the amenities they offer. What's different is their visual tone, and the attitude of its inhabitants.

Within Qeynos' walls, you'll find a populace that's generally hopeful of pulling through the recent tragedies, and welcoming of the bondless refugees (read: player characters) pouring into its bright streets. Conversely, the tone in Freeport is pretty much dog-eat-dog, and its people, at best, are wary and mistrusting of the flood of newcomers.

EverQuest II is here. Now quick, find something to kill.

You have to jump through some hoops before you can access the city proper, however. Characters are designated a starting "village" on the outskirts of the city based on their race, from which they can only enter the capital after performing a special mission that grants them citizenship. While many will no doubt be sorry that there are no racial cities, the implementation here both preserves a sense of distinction between each race's home, and makes the world's civilized sections fairly painless to travel through. As a result, the entire player base feels accessible at all times, which facilitates many of the things that one would need accomplish in a game of this type.

This is a good thing, as you won't be traveling too far from your faction's city for the first hundred hours or so. There seem to be no shortage of quests that characters of all levels can undertake, and thankfully, most of these involve the two very things that you'd be doing anyway -- running around, and killing stuff. I've lost count of the number of "kill X number of creature Y" quests I've completely, but luckily, they've been fairly rewarding so far. Most of my best equipment has actually been acquired by means of questing, and even as I get into the higher levels, this shows no sign of slowing down. Many players also seem to be hip to this fact, so it isn't too hard to find comrades to complete particular quests with.

It gets to the point where you actually feel a bit naked if you're in a hunting party without one of these quests active, especially since the information is readily available on the internet, or via word of mouth from fellow players. At the very least, if you bother to take the time to talk to the NPCs you encounter throughout the world, the journal that conveniently logs your active quests will be full in no time.

In any case, once you outgrow the low-level adventure zones within the cities' walls, you'll no doubt head straight for the great wide open -- namely, Antonica, if you're from Qeynos, or the Commonlands, if you hail from Freeport. Simply put, these areas are huge, full of distinct sub regions, and possessing no shortage of things to do. They also connect the starting cities to the rest of the world, so you should fully expect to continue coming back to them, to some extent, for the entirety of your character's career. The areas themselves, and the ones that immediately surround them, provide content for character of various level ranges, and the free-to-use griffon stables that dot them make travel through them fairly painless.

If nothing else, the new Norrath seems like it was designed with ease-of-travel in mind, at least when it comes to the areas near the starting cities. Even when you're far abroad, you can always warp back home with the teleportation spell that you gain upon acquiring citizenship. Apparently, someone realized that we all have better things to do run around for minutes at a time.

Similarly to how it created an environment that's forgiving in regards to navigation, EverQuest II does a decent job of guaranteeing that you'll have a character that you're continually happy with, as it progresses through its chosen career. The amount of choices you have to make at the outset are minimal--you choose a race, design your appearance, and select one of four basic archetypes: fighter, scout, priest, and mage. Once you reach level 10 in your chosen archetype, you choose an actual class, which brings you one step closer towards specialization. Finally, at level 20, you chose your subclass, which basically locks you into a specific role.

Wolves are prettier when composed of particles.

By the time you reach level 10, you'll hopefully have a basic idea as to the type of role you want to play in a party, as the three classes available to each archetype are fairly different. Your choices thereafter don't have implications as severe, and in some cases, you won't even have a choice; several of the subclasses are only available to characters of a specific alignment. In cases like these, there are betrayal quests that you can take on, which are fairly involved, and will most likely require the help of player characters of the opposing city. A small price to pay if you have your heart set on playing a Wood Elf assassin, or an Iskar paladin.

Regardless of what class and subclass you choose, however, you should expect EverQuest II's combat to be a fully active experience. For better or worse, combat in EverQuest II is very "spammy." Your characters acquire new abilities quite frequently, and most of them are designed for use in battle. This means that, regardless of your character's profession, you're most likely going to be hitting keys like crazy. Personally, I'm very much into this, despite some of the strategic mishaps it seems to encourage. Case in point: the "Heroic Opportunity" system.

Basically, "Heroic Opportunities" occur when you string certain spells or Combat Arts (spells' the melee equivalents) together in battle. Upon reaching level five, or soon thereafter, every archetype learns a "starter" ability that can initiate these chains, and once one of these is activated, activating specific spells and Combat Arts can progress them further. Heroic Opportunities can be performed solo, provided your character has enough abilities to progress one to the end, or they effected by entire group. Ironically, though, it's far easier to pull one off in a solo situation, since any interruption in the chain--i.e., if anyone executes an ability that won't progress the chain that's in effect--will nullify it. Teams hoping to pull off these chains had best be very efficient, lest one unwary player bungle any that they attempt. In my personal experience, players willing to coordinate to such a degree are few and far between, and this is understandable, given how frenetic EQII's keystroking can be.

Those preferring to focus on a more peaceful pursuit will find a thoughtfully-designed crafting system ready for them to dive into. It's in many ways analogous to the combat system, right down to the way that characters progress through their crafting careers. It works like this: characters have an artisan level right alongside their adventuring level, for which they acquire experience by practicing their craft. Similar to how adventurers evolve form their archetypes into their classes and subclasses, so do artisans: from generic artisans, to craftsmen, outfitters, and scholars, from there into specialized roles like carpenters, armorers, and alchemists. Players choosing to focus on this aspect of their characters will find a crafting system that is every bit as engaging as combat. As they get better at their chosen craft, they'll acquire abilities called "Tradeskill Arts" that play the same role in crafting as spells and Combat Arts do in battle.

The general consensus among serious crafters, at this point, is that it isn't entirely viable to focus solely on this aspect of the game. Primarily, the difficulty in gaining access to raw materials makes it so that they have to spend inordinate amounts of time harvesting them on the field, rather than directly practicing their craft. Furthermore, the relatively long amount of time it takes to increase harvesting skills, combined with the competition and danger inherent to seeking out locations at which to do so, make it prohibitively challenging, if you're not at least a moderately accomplished adventurer. But if the level of activity in the crafting chat channels are any indication, this hasn't stopped the more dogged players form soldiering on anyway. Indeed, if you browse the in-game market, you're sure to notice that player-crafted spell- and skill-scrolls are making quite a few of them modestly wealthy.

Count on good old Break Neck to get you to your hunting spot in record time.

Players whose priority is in competitive gameplay, however, will come up much shorter. In no uncertain terms, the following is true: if you're looking for player-versus-player content in the traditional sense, then EverQuest II probably isn't for you. Though the developers have implied that the game might feature some content geared toward this in the future, it's not in here yet. The closest thing to it is the guild system, which pits player groups in a sort of indirect competition with each other. Associations of players have the option of completing "writs" for their home city, and their guilds are awarded a special type of experience when these are completed. Higher guild levels allows its members to purchase special items through "City Prestige Merchants," which can take the form of honorific titles, or powerful pieces of equipment, or even the opportunity to participate in guild-wide raids. It's an intriguing system, no doubt, but it doesn't quite fill the role of PvP content in a way that will be satisfactory to players to whom that kind of thing is of paramount import. Players from opposing cities can even join the same guild, though they'll have a hard time attending meetings unless they're very good at sneaking past guards.

presentation--specifically, its audio. Every character in the game with something remotely important to say has dialogue that is entirely voiced, and though the quality is generally hit or miss, its hard to deny the effect that it has when it comes to immersion. I was generally skeptical about whether or not it would impact the experience, as many others were, but the effect is undeniable. When you're walking around town, it really helps to hear characters speak to you in words. It makes the world feel that much more real--at least as real as a traditional RPG. Of course, that all goes out the window as soon as you're assailed by a horde of rats upon stepping outside of town, but it's hard to dismiss how tangibly it contributes to the overall feel within its walls. The graphics look great, too, though I can't say I care too much for the EQII visual style. Whenever I find myself marveling at what I see onscreen, it's mostly a vista or spell effect. The animation still has a bit to go before it can compare with the more accomplished games in the genre, and the character models have an overall lifeless look to them, particularly in their eyes.

EverQuest II launched in a comparatively bulletproof state, to the surprise of a great many people, and it was fun to play and rewarding from the get go. Even though it's a relatively young online world, it feels like there's a good deal to do; much of the world is unexplored for a majority of the playerbase, and even simple things like traveling to new areas are approached with relish. Due to its brisk quest system, you feel like you're being rewarded enough to grind on once the experience starts to get slow, and the fast-paced combat system keeps things exciting (if a bit fast and loose) when you're in the midst of it. It kind of sucks to admit it, but we're used to games this young being much less stable and playable. As such, it's remarkable to see EQII in the state that it's in.

Wood Elf and Iskar--who said we can't overcome our differences?

Of course, there's still a lot left for it to do before it's truly worthy of its legacy, among these are resolution of the lingering PvP question, the ironing out of the combat system's kinks, and the alleviation of the crafter's current series of woes (give them a market system that allows them to hawk their wares without being logged in, for crying out loud!). Granted, all of these are minor problems compared to, say, servers that crash every two hours, but they're obstacles that will require a good deal of effort on the part of the developers before they're implemented in thoughtful and functional ways. But even as it stands now, EverQuest II is extremely fun to play, frequently rewarding, and designed with just the right amount of user convenience in mind. Let's hope it continues to develop along these lines, because it has some very stiff competition on the way.

Dark Age of Camelot

Dark Age of Camelot: Shrouded Isles (PC)
Publisher: Mythic Entertainment / Vivendi Games	Developer: Mythic Entertainment / Abandon Entertainment
Genre: Persistent Online RPG	Release Date: 11/12/2002

Dark Age of Camelot, a massively multiplayer online game set in a pseudo-Arthurian world, was a pleasant surprise when it was first released in 2001. Now Mythic is trying to keep the magic going by releasing an expansion pack entitled Shrouded Isles. Fortunately for gamers, not only does Shrouded Isles contain plenty of new material, including six new character classes, three new playable races, an improvement to the graphics engine, new sounds, a new user interface, new monsters, new monster AI, and a ton of new items and quests, but almost all of it is well done and a welcome addition to a good game.

Brave New Worlds

Shrouded Isles adds three new brand-new islands to the realms: Avalon in Albion, HyBrasil in Hibernia, and Aegir in Midgard. Each new island also has its own new playable race. Albion is inhabited by the Inconnu, small, pale dungeon dwelling hermits with large dark eyes. The new Sylvan race, a Dryad-type creature that has bark-like skin and leafy hair, threatens the realm of Hibernia. Midgard is menaced by the Valkyn, a pre-historic race of humanoids.

One possible danger to adding so much new territory for players to explore is travel time to the new lands -- always a hazard for massively multiplayer expansions where players want to see all the recent additions. Fortunately, the game has portals in the three starting towns on the new islands that will take players back and forth from the old world. Also available at these portals is a vendor that sells travel scrolls that sends players to the "Realm vs. Realm" areas, which makes it easier to both explore and get to where you need to be.

New People, New Creatures

New classes include the valewalker and the animist in HyBrasil. The valewalker is a mage class that wields a large scythe and casts nature spells. The animist is also a spellcaster that summons stationary mushroom turrets with offensive and defensive abilities. Aegir sports the bonedancer, who can summon skeletons (one right away and more as they gain levels), and the savage, a melee class character that prefers hand-to-hand combat. Players in Avalon can play as one of the new necromancers who can turn themselves into shades and summon zombies, or as a reaver, a cross between a fighter and a necromancer who can wear armor and sap an enemy's life-force.

Fortunately, these interesting new classes are matched out by a slew of new monsters with upgraded AI. Players will be forced to come up with whole new stratagems by the intriguing ways in which monsters can now attack. In just one example, the dog-like Scourgins or the Domnann Anglers' will use a small, harmless-looking creature as a lure for players. When the player moves in for an easy kill, the scourgin or domnann will jump out from behind cover and turn the tables on the unwary adventurers.

New Stuff, New Solutions

Of course, one of the key features players look for in an MMO expansion pack is a global solution for chronic problems in the game world's design. In this, Shrouded Isles does not disappoint, addressing DaoC's chronic lack of loot for players who spent a lot of time adventuring outside of the realms' dungeons. Players who add Shrouded Isles will find that the amount of equipment dropped outside of dungeons has not only increased significantly, but the variety of stuff, both normal and magical, has increased as well.

A stunning city on Hybrasil.

Mythic Entertainment has opened up several new servers that allow players to adventure in different styles. For those who enjoy combat, paranoia, and danger, there are new strictly "Player vs. Player" servers where gamers face the threat of being attacked, even by members of their own realm. There's also a completely co-op world where players can fight, get quests, adventure, and shop at stores in every realm without having to worry about enemy players or being stabbed in the back.

New Sights, New Sounds

Eye-candy lovers will be pleased with the new, more powerful graphics engine. This allows for higher-resolution textures, an increased amount of foliage that adds density to the landscape, improved spell effects, bodies of water that actually flow, and reflective surfaces instead of just static blue surfaces. Even better, the new graphic power is matched by stunning architecture on some the new islands. The Hybernian city on the island of HyBrasil is probably the best out of the three, and players may find themselves beginning their games just wandering around looking for new wonders to see. It's too bad that all the new areas couldn't match HyBrasil; Aegir in Midgard looks rather boring and cookiecutter. In addition, the dense, dark forests are just that -- dark. Even during the day, running into trees and losing your way can be annoying -- be sure to have your torches lit!

Of course, as with all game engine upgrades there's always the danger of a hit to performance. During my own sessions with the game, nothing came along that dropped the framerate below playable, but there were some noticeable slowdowns in the more complicated areas of the forests of Hybernia. (You can see the system specs we used at the end of this review.) Check the system specs before you buy -- your mileage may vary.

On the other hand, the new sound engine in Shrouded Isles is a clear winner. The music in the game now varies considerably depending on where you are and what you are doing. Even better, the music thus generated is excellent and really fits the mood of the situation. For the first time, it's actually worth keeping the music on in an MMORPG!

A Cool New Edition

New spell effects.

It's really easy for companies to issue expansion packs for MMORPG's that are little more than glorified patches, or just pack on new eye-candy without addressing global gameplay problems. DAoC: Shrouded Isles is neither of these. It's a great expansion pack and seems to have accomplished, for the most part, what the developers intended it to do. The graphic and sound engine upgrades both rock and provide improved environments and atmosphere. The updates to the user interface make controlling characters even easier, and the overall improvements in design make it a wonderful addition for all players in the Dark Age of Camelot universe.

Lineage II

Lineage II: The Chaotic Chronicle (PC)
Publisher: NCsoft	Developer: NCsoft
Genre: Persistent Online RPG	Release Date: 04/27/2004

It's become almost axiomatic that the launch of any massively multiplayer online (MMO) game is going to be a disastrous affair filled with bugs and broken gameplay. Anarchy Online, World War II Online, and even Star Wars: Galaxies have all become infamous for these problems. Perhaps it's a sign of the genre's growing maturity that NCSoft's launch of not one but two MMOs in the same week of April 2004 went off so smoothly. While both games weren't without problems, what technical issues they had were fixed remarkably quickly, giving the players of both City of Heroes and Lineage II: The Chaotic Chronicle a smooth MMO experience. Kudos for that.

A smoothly running game, however, is merely what gamers as consumers should expect. Once that happens, MMOs are left to compete on their actual gameplay, and that's where Lineage II becomes an interesting case study. As the MMO genre continues to expand, the types of gameplay that they offer are expanding, with different titles appealing to different tastes. Nowhere was this trend more clear to me than the time I spent playing Lineage II. There's a small, hardcore PvP/guild play segment of MMO fans that are going to absolutely love this game. For the rest of us, the more casual gamers who occasionally like to play solo, Lineage II is going to be the acme of frustration.

Lineage II quite literally puts the "multiplayer" back into the MMO genre. The title is built around universal player-versus-player combat that culminates in the major gameplay dynamic of seizing and holding one of the six major castles that dot the land. Is this a good or bad thing? It depends on your perspective. Players who are looking to just run around, do quests, kill monsters, and go on adventures by themselves or with a small group of friends are going to be dramatically disappointed. Put simply, it's almost impossible to go solo past the first few levels of the game, and the higher you go, the more people you need to be allied with in order to get anything out of it.

Once you understand this, a lot of the game's design and structures start to make sense. The first few character levels and low-level quests in the game are pretty comparable to any other MMO on the market. They'll train you, give you a good overview of the game's world, and help you get enough experience and money to outfit yourself with a basic set of equipment.

The problem is that there's an absurd level of inflation in the world. Gold drops from creatures are a pittance compared with the prices of equipment. Level one swords and armor (hats, pants, shoes, etc.) cost about 900 gold per piece, but during the first ten levels of the game the player will be hunting creatures that drop an average of 40-50 a piece. Without going into the math, you won't be outfitted with a full kit of level one gear until your character reaches level 10 if you go it alone. At that point, if you continue to hunt at your level, you're definitely going to need level 2 gear which suddenly costs 14,000 gold per piece!

The rest of the game is built in a similar fashion. Everything takes an incredibly long time. Healing is slow, leveling is slow, quests are long and boring (one early mission required me to kill 40 black wolves for a pretty paltry return), and creature difficulty ramps up pretty damned fast. By the time I reached level 10, I realized that I had two choices. Either take up the long, boring, laborious process of "Farming" lower-level creatures for their gold (that's why there's been such a problem with bots in this game) or hook up with players that have different classes and skills. From level 7-10, I could only venture out with at least one other fighter and a healer if I didn't want my progress to slow to a crawl. By levels 10-20, you'll need a progressively larger clan to keep up with the insane demand for gold.

Once you reach the higher levels of the game (20+) it really begins to open up. By that time, players will be fully involved in inter-clan politics and the castle sieges that are at the heart of the game. While castle sieges aren't implemented yet (they're coming in "Chronicle 1," the first major update), that hasn't stopped clans and alliances of clans from forming circles of friends and enemies and meeting in designated times and places and trying to slaughter each other. For those players who are really into this gameplay dynamic, Lineage II is a lot of fun. If you aren't, however, odds are you'll never reach level 20 -- there's simply no interesting content for anyone who's not part of a large group. Even the large dragons that are coming in "Chronicle 1" will require huge numbers of players to take down.

This, naturally, puts incredible pressure on clans, and clan leaders especially, to continually expand the size of their clans, bringing in new members to "farm" creatures in an ever-expanding pyramid. Skill points and gold travel up the pyramid, while hand-me-down equipment and treasures work their way toward the bottom. Unfortunately, the tools required to manage such a large organization are somewhat lacking. The game's interface is mostly adequate for the basic functions, but is missing quite a few things that have become normal in most other MMOs. The chat system is pretty primitive, with players unable to split chats across various windows and guild management tools are quite basic. The game desperately needs a good e-mail/bulletin board/member management system. As it stands now, large guilds tend to go offline to handle administrative functions -- guild websites are practically a requirement to handle the level of social coordination required for this game.

Player customization is also a serious issue. For a game that's so dependent on player clans and alliances to not have a truly distinctive method of identifying members of a guild is a crime. Just listing a clan name and tiny floating marks isn't going to cut it. Guild members need tabards, cloaks, or some other distinctive method of identifying their members on their actual bodies. While the game can be easily criticized for the lack of character customization, that's small potatoes to the definite gameplay hampering effects of not being able to instantly identify members of your own clan. Imagine how tough it's going to be once castle sieges actually begin to pick out enemies when everyone has one-of-four basic character appearances and only a tiny floating mark to distinguish them.

Much has been made of Lineage II's beautiful graphics -- and with good reason. Lineage II is absolutely, stunningly gorgeous. I have rarely seen the original Unreal technology modified into such an appealing form. No matter what race or character model you choose to play, odds are you'll be quite pleased at the physical attractiveness of your character. The player models are matched by well-designed and animated monsters and landscapes that simply must be seen to be believed.

Here's the thing, though. All of Lineage II's beauty is just a bunch of empty pixels for players not involved with the high-level game and guild system. Areas have neither rhyme nor reason for existing, save to provide landmarks that clans can use to get together to farm creatures that aren't really threats -- just raw materials for clan growth. I realized this early on while hunting with my first three clanmates in an abandoned coal mine near the dwarf starting town. The coal mine had no narrative flow, interesting story-style quests, nor any logical progression toward an end-point or boss creature. Players just ran through it to an area filled with creatures appropriate to their level and party and started farming.

Playing Lineage II, it suddenly became clear why the first Lineage was such an enormous hit despite its primitive graphics. Like the early MUDs and Ultima Online (which is still going strong seven years after its launch), when the majority of the fun in a title stems from social interaction, graphics aren't really that important and the narrative for the game will be written on the fly based on inter-player politics and the results of castle sieges.

Graphics will become important once castle sieges are implemented, because Lineage II's high-end graphics contribute to a nasty case of graphic slowdown. The netcode seems stable, without much lag, and the game runs well enough while hunting or questing or just hanging out. Some of the major cities, though, where there are a lot of graphically complicated people -- not to mention the world itself -- can easily turn the game into a slideshow. Based on my experience in the cities where I got hit with graphic slowdown when there were only 50 or 60 people in the area, I sincerely hope that the "Chronicle" update will prevent that from happening during a castle siege when 200 players are all attacking each other and setting off spell effects at the same time.

Once I understood the basic dynamics of Lineage II, the fact that players could attack other players at any time stopped bothering me. Such a system is not only valuable -- it's a necessity for a game like this. It may instantly turn off more casual players who like to quest, hunt, and explore alone and in small groups. But if you fall into that camp, there's really nothing in this game for you anyway. It's pointless to complain that other players are slamming you from nowhere and preventing you from exploring the game when you realize that getting ambushed by other players is the game. As previously mentioned, everything outside the guild/PvP/player interaction aspect is just window-dressing. If you're not a social player, there is no game to explore.

All of that actually doesn't bode well for the future of the title. First, it creates an enormous barrier to entry for new players. If a player doesn't know exactly what kind of game they're playing, the first time they get ambushed by some jackass who gets his rocks off killing newbies may turn them off the game forever. There is no "safe" zone in Lineage II, although the starting areas are a bit less "Wild West" than the rest of the game.

It also creates a world ripe for exploitation. I've written before on the problem of "bots" and "adena farmers." These are players, mostly in Asian countries, who just farm low-level areas for hours at a time and then sell their accumulated gold on eBay to players who are trying to beat "the grind" up to level 20 where the real game begins. Beyond the obvious exploitation angle, this is a serious problem. Players who take this shortcut may never develop the network of social connections needed to play the game the way it's intended to be played. That leads to two possibilities. They either quit when they find that there's no real "game" here because they aren't participating in player politics or they turn to newbie killing and player griefing for sheer lack of anything to do. In fact, it's quite probable that the jerks who get off on griefing other players are exactly the ones most likely to use the "eBay shortcut." Indeed, these players are the very cause of the newbie "barrier to entry." Although all of this is against NCSoft's EULA, it does happen and the company needs to put a stop to it.

The bottom line then, is this. There have been a few MMOs that have tried to build stable gameplay structures based on universal PvP/guild play system -- Shadowbane being the most high-profile example. Almost none, however, have done it as well as Lineage 2. As one of the developers mentioned to me at E3, "Having a million people play testing a game for years tends to work most of the bugs out." While the game still has some problems to work out and some features to implement, MMO gamers who enjoy this type of game should definitely check out Lineage II. The rest of us, though, should probably go back to playing City of Heroes and waiting for World of Warcraft and EverQuest II to be released.

EVE Online

EVE Online: The Second Genesis (PC)
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Interactive	Developer: CCP / CCP
Genre: Persistent Online RPG	Release Date: 05/06/2003

One of the biggest problems in reviewing an MMO is that fact that by the time a gamer reads the review, the game itself has already changed. If anybody had told me two years ago that a game like Anarchy Online would go from being a bug infested mess to the home of thousands of dedicated players, I'd have assumed they were smoking crack. The good news about EVE Online: The Second Genesis is that it's not nearly as big a mess as AO was when it was released - it is possible to have fun in this game. The bad news is that there are some underlying structural problems that make the game horribly unfriendly to new players and will probably keep the game from being as popular as it might be.

I'll get the really bad news out of the way first. Like many MMOs, EVE Online seems to have shipped a few months too early. The game is loaded with bugs, server issues and some customer service nightmares. I know that the dev team is currently working to resolve them. In fact, a number of serious issues that existed when I started playing have since been fixed. As of this writing, though, players should be aware that they will probably face quite a few technical issues.

One of the most serious is a nasty crash bug that causes player's characters to get "stuck" during transitions. This might cause the character to disappear into the electronic ether, along with all the hard work that went into it (although this hasn't happened yet). Currently there is no guarantee that CCP will actually be able to rescue them, so caveat emptor. There are also features that were promised that are not yet implemented. These include "Boosters" (basically drugs) that were to make up a large portion of the game's illicit economy and the in-game web browser that should let you look at player corporation Web sites.

The good news, though, is that (to an extent) EVE Online is the game that Freelancer should have been. Basically you begin the game with a starter spaceship, a cheap railgun to defend yourself, a mining laser to extract valuable minerals from rocks and an absolutely huge universe to explore. Where you go from there is entirely up to you. The basic premise behind EVE is that you don't actually play the game -- you live it. While there is an overarching storyline and certain things will happen to various sectors as the game continues, in effect that has little effect on day to day happenings within the game. Players have absolute freedom to develop skills and choose careers ranging from miner to pirate to mercenary to researcher to corporate CEO.

In my own case, I started out as a solo miner, trying to dig up enough money to upgrade my ship. I wasn't entirely sure what I wanted to do with my EVE career until I took a chance and went sightseeing at the Serpent Coil. While I was there, I ran across some asteroids containing some very rare minerals and a few abandoned cargo containers containing some high end weapons I couldn't use. I sent out a call using the game's chat engine and was quickly inundated with offers of money and perks for the location of the minerals.

I ended up joining a corporation that put me under contract as an explorer and prospector. They helped me with money, upgraded my ship with all kinds of defensive equipment and sensors, and even hooked me up with another player with a combat vessel who acts as my bodyguard. Together we've made some quite valuable finds and have become an excellent news purveyor for our employers. As players move up in their own corporations and gain more and more power, the game continues getting richer, those long stretches of travel that were so boring are now filled with conversations on what's going on in the world and frequent stops at space stations to check on market conditions as I manage my businesses.

A ship in dock

Unfortunately, many new players will never reach that point. While there are some tutorial missions to get you started and some NPC's around to provide some challenges, players will tend to get bored rather quickly unless they get some help. Much like the real world, entry-level positions in the EVE universe are long on tedium and short on glory. Most of the first few days of the new player's game will be taken up by long, boring stretches of traveling back and forth between asteroids and processing stations, mining enough resources to get that first ship upgrade.

In fact, the slow and non-interactive gameplay is probably the biggest hurdle for the newbie to overcome. A big chunk of the game consists of merely clicking on a control, then sitting back and waiting. Mining means finding an asteroid, targeting the mining laser and waiting 10-12 minutes for your cargo hold to fill up.

Traveling is even worse. When the marketing materials for EVE talk about how big the universe is, they're not kidding around. It can take 10 (real-world) minutes to get from a space station to an asteroid field across a solar system and far, far longer to do multiple jumps between star systems. In just one example, when I decided to visit the Serpent's Coil (an attraction I noticed on EVE's official Web site), I set my route on the map and found that it would take 19 stargate jumps to reach it. I clicked on my autopilot and 45 minutes later I finally arrived. The best part was that while I was waiting, I went out, picked up lunch, and got my car detailed.

Combat is similarly non-interactive. Just like mining, fighting consists of merely acquiring a target and turning on your weapons. Who wins is entirely dependent on who's got better equipment and which character's avatar has better skills. While I understand the difficulties lag can bring when it comes to simulating fast-paced combat in an MMO, there's got to be a better way to run combat than this. As it stands now, sitting back and watching my ship fight all by itself just isn't any fun.

EVE's universe is huge

This newbie unfriendliness stretches to the game's interface as well. EVE Online throws an incredible amount of information at you using an unbelievable amount of buttons and displays and menus. Looking over the menu of options offered when docked at a starbase, my first thought was "Windows XP and Internet Explorer combined don't have this many controls!" High-end system owners who play in higher resolutions may also develop eyestrain as the text will be displayed a small, hard to read font.

This learning curve is doubly unfortunate because once you get past it, there's a lot of fun to be had in this game - especially if you like dealing with people. One of the benefits of EVE's slow gameplay is that it forces you to chat with other players simply for lack of something else to do. Once you hook up with some other players, though, that's when the game truly begins to open up. I have never seen an MMO that was so totally dependent on player participation as EVE Online. For those willing to put the time and energy into the game, join with player corporations and get involved with the constant, ongoing bickering and political intrigue that runs through the game, the experience quickly becomes addictive. EVE Online is not an MMO to join if you enjoy playing solo.

Off we go! Into the wild ... er ... red yonder!

Graphically, the game is simply gorgeous. Space stations and jump stations are huge and aesthetically beautiful - each one architecturally different based on the nation that built it. Planets are surrounded by rings of debris and space is filled with different colored nebulae. The interiors of space stations are huge industrial structures that disappear into the distance. The game's sounds deserve mention as well. The robotic voice that announces the implementation of certain commands (like autopilot and docking), is terrific as is the booming sound spaceship engines make when going into warp. The game also contains a controllable jukebox filled with New-Age style music that (unlike most New Age music) didn't make me want to stick knitting needles in my ears and fit in quite well with the slow, methodical gameplay.

What's the bottom line on EVE Online then? Like many MMOs, you'll basically get out of it what you put in to it. EVE Online has no real goals beyond "Get stuff, get rich" - everything else is the product of player interactions. If you're not willing to put in the effort, watch the marketplace, play some office politics and generally give up big chunks of your free time to the game, you're just not going to enjoy it.On the other hand, if no-holds-barred hyper-capitalism and Machiavellian competition with real people appeals to you, your game has arrived.

Guild Wars

Guild Wars (PC)
Publisher: NCsoft	Developer: ArenaNet
Genre: Persistent Online RPG	Release Date: 04/26/2005

WHEN YOU THINK OF PvP COMBAT in an online RPG, chances are, images of the most degrading forms of griefing come to mind: being teased, chased, ganked, and subsequently corpse-camped by a group of pre-teens with too much time on their hands, and the best equipment farmed gold can buy. Save for the few games built exclusively around PvP combat, the potential for compelling, competitive content is largely squandered on MMOs. So it's not a moment too soon that Guild Wars comes upon us.

Guild Wars is all about PvP in a fair, sporting sense: groups of skilled players battling it out in organized, controlled events, and those with the strongest strategies and most cohesive teams prevail. It's like an RPG version of Counter-Strike. Surprisingly, the non-PvP elements are just as engaging. In order to build your character into a competitive powerhouse, you have to go through tons of compelling, cooperative content. Not only does doing so reward you with the actual, tangible character abilities that you'll need to compete, but it'll also trains you to work within the context of a tight, organized group. Many of the challenges that Guild Wars puts forth are pretty demanding, so if your groups don't work as cohesive units, you won't see very much success.

Even more interesting, Guild Wars has no monthly fees, further separating it from the other MMO products on the market today. Instead, the development team hopes to release an expansion pack every six months or so.

In the end, Guild Wars fires on all cylinders, with an impeccable technical implementation, gorgeous graphics, and a daunting multitude of things to do in both cooperative and competitive play. This is not a title for everyone, but it's definitely a breath of fresh air. In the spirit of Guild Wars tag-team cooperative play, we're turning loose two reviewers: Miguel Lopez and Dave "Fargo" Kosak.

Miguel: ArenaNet held quite a few preview events for the Guild Wars leading up to its launch, so I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting into going in. I'll admit that I anticipated the launch to be rougher than it was, so it was a pleasant surprise to see the game's slick, streaming technology working as smoothly as it did. The most I remember waiting for the game to load anything -- ever -- was five minutes, and that was on launch day. From that point on, there was nary a technical hitch. I've been disconnected once or twice, but in the context of MMOs -- especially ones as young as Guild Wars -- that's remarkably infrequent. As crazy as it sounds, ArenaNet's "stream-as-you-play" network model works like magic. It made installation a breeze, and I imagine that any subsequent updates to the game will be hardly noticeable on the players' end.

The game is immediately accessible, too. You're basically bombarded with easy, rewarding tasks the minute you log into the world, and these do a decent job of familiarizing you with how the game works. Granted, things get a bit more complex as you progress -- eventually becoming downright arcane, some would argue -- but to its credit, the game at least tries to make the early-goings as palatable as possible for newbies. The statistical particulars of character customization do get a bit confusing, and the quests and missions more challenging, however, but in both cases, the penalties for making the wrong decisions are never too extreme. If you misallocate some attribute points early on, you can always reset them once you've become more informed. And if you fail at a mission, you just respawn in town, free to give it another go with no penalty whatsoever.

It's not all about killing your fellow man -- Guild Wars has a solid PvE game as well.

Fargo: Yep. Technologically, Guild Wars is solid. I've had no disconnections like the ones Miguel described, and lag has been infrequent. Meanwhile, Guild Wars is almost constantly streaming me content, including continual updates and tweaks. This is the future of MMOs.

As for the beginner game experience, Guild Wars is no World of Warcraft. The learning curve is steeper and the rewards come slower. But, it's still pretty satisfying: you learn the basic of combat right away and before long you're learning how to combine your skills together for interesting effects. Interestingly, the "prologue" for the game can take as long as eight to ten hours depending on how many quests you decide to do. You're introduced to an idyllic world ("We all remember the day it happened," a voiceover explains, hinting that something terrible is to come). After you get to know the place and decide to advance to the next part of the game -- KERBLAM! The place gets jacked in a massive disaster. Afterwards, you can explore the same countryside, only two years of game time have gone by and the place is destroyed. It gives you a real sense of history and a feeling of discovery as you revisit old locations or find out what happened to characters you met in the prologue... That's good storytelling, and I wish the rest of the game had that level of drama.

Final Fantasy XI

Final Fantasy XI (PC)
Publisher: Square Enix	Developer: Square Enix
Genre: Persistent Online RPG	Release Date: 10/28/2003

Since Square Enix revealed that Final Fantasy XI would be an MMORPG, series fans have been crying for them to rename it Final Fantasy Online, to save the enumeration for a "real" Final Fantasy game. The game will certainly challenge series fans about what a Final Fantasy game is, and MMORPG fans are in for a similar challenge. After surmounting two very different learning curves, however, both camps will find Final Fantasy XI to be a beautiful and well-crafted game if they can get over some of its shortcomings.

A lot of Final Fantasy XI's gameplay trappings will seem familiar to MMORPG fans, but feel different than you might expect -- if two words were to sum up the game's differences from other games of this type, they would be "flexibility" and "focus." Probably the biggest difference is how the game's character classes, or "Jobs," are handled. After picking from one of the game's five races, there are six classes available to you at the start of the game, and you're free to move between them however you please. Levels are tracked on a per-job basis, so while you effectively start over when you change jobs for the first time, a pool of cross-class skills make the second go around much faster. Once your character reaches level 18, you'll be able to equip a "Support Job," which grants stat boosts and access to a portion of their skills. While some races are better at some jobs than others, the flexibility of this system allows for hundreds of possible character types.

Try and guess the tank in this group.

Each of the starting six classes has a distinct role in a party, with advanced jobs taking on more specialized roles. This system not only allows for lots of character customization, but also lets the player adapt to his party if he's willing to put the time into another job. And in a uniquely Japanese take on party ability interactions, complimentary special attacks and spells can combine to deal extra damage with the proper timing. It's details like this that spice up the traditional, EQ-esque auto-battle and help make it feel less automatic.

The Conquest System

Virtually all of the game's numerous gameplay systems feed into and stem from one: the conquest system. The three nations of Vana'diel, one of which you will join at the start of your journey, vie for control of the world. Each of the three nations are pretty much the same, although each has a few exclusive crafting guilds to join, different stores, and one or two favored races that receive a nice item on joining.

Your nation's adventurers' monster kills will be compared to the total number of deaths and tallied once a week, at which point the world's regions will change hands accordingly. Crystals are dropped in regions your nation controls, and are the center around which the Rank system and economy are built. By donating crystals to your nation's cause, you'll acquire Rank Points, which in turn unlock new missions, giving you incentive to keep on competing for kills.

Kweh! Rent a Chocobo and travel in style.

Crafting is a key component of the game's economy, which is largely player-driven though the four cities' auction houses. Since crafting is as reliant on crystals as the Rank system, they affect that economy. There are stores that regularly stock items, but there are enough holes in the selection that players will inevitably turn to the auction house to stay properly outfitted. It all works rather well, with new players providing much of the raw materials to the experienced crafters, which are turned into saleable items and then sold at a profit -- rinse, repeat. While losing a region can be a setback for your nation, the Conquest system succeeds in letting you feel like you belong to a group and competing even though you're not directly fighting other players. And while it's not available yet, PvP play will be rolled out in a limited, conquest-centric form in the coming months to sate those with a taste for human blood.

So how will the gameplay stack up for this game's two audiences? As Final Fantasy XI has only been live for a little over a year and left to develop in the Japanese MMORPG vacuum, experienced MMORPG players will either love it or hate it. It doesn't have five years of expansion packs to benefit from, and the focused gameplay may feel limited to genre veterans. Most notable, however, is the game's interface. As the game was designed for a PS2 and ported to PCs for an audience without knowledge of MMORPG conventions, the interface will challenge dyed-in-the-wool players to overcome their expectations and muscle memory.

Final Fantasy fans, on the other hand, will have to learn a whole new set of gameplay ideals. With so much to learn, it's unfortunate that the game's manuals and design don't try harder to help people settle into their new world. Both groups, however, will benefit from playing the game the way it was meant to be played: with a controller. Not only will this help MMORPG standbys get accustomed to the controls faster, it's also a faster way to do most everything one does in the game. Still, one can't help but feel this is a MMORPG with training wheels, and if the core gameplay systems don't sound interesting to you now, you probably won't enjoy it.

Controversial Issues

Character creation -- limited, but attractive.

Final Fantasy XI also introduces a new dynamic to the genre: the Japanese. Square Enix decided to not boot up any new servers for North American players, requiring us to play alongside innumerable Japanese players. This rather odd decision has its ups and downs: while this has denied us that "virgin world" experience we're used to at the start of a game, we are stepping into a fully-realized economy right away and benefiting from the experience of the Japanese. Personally, I've had a great time with the ever-helpful Japanese players and their established economy, but Square should probably have set up new servers to give people a choice. Fortunately, there are options to help deal with the Japanese players -- a clunky "auto-translate" feature which lets you try and communicate or a language filter which helps you ignore them. Related to this controversial server allotment issue is the oft-maligned "World Pass" system, by which you pay for your friends to join you in the game for a small fee of in-game currency. While it's not as much trouble as some have made it out to be, picking your server is another thing that we take for granted that apparently the Japanese do not. Still, with so much competition out there, these stand out as wrongheaded inconveniences. While most people will be able to get over these once they start playing, for some it will remain inexcusable, like with me and the N-Gage's cartridge removal method. In general, however, dealing with Square's servers has been a breeze -- unlike the tumultuous Japanese launch, the U.S. launch went off without a hitch and there is almost no lag to speak of, even though all of the game servers are located in Japan.

And the Rest

The stately Elvaan.

People often times complain about the standard MMORPG treadmill ... but what if that treadmill were really, really pretty? While it may not push your system to its limits, Final Fantasy XI boasts gorgeous art supported by a solid engine. The system requirements are surprisingly slim for a game this beautiful, especially when compared to suspiciously bland, yet system-throttling games like LucasArts' Star Wars Galaxies. As one has come to expect from Square Enix, Final Fantasy XI is a lavish production, sporting wonderful locations filled with lovingly animated characters and monsters, over-the-top particle effects, and great music. While there is the usual array of stat-, name- and color-swapped monsters, they all look fantastic and have great animations to go with every attack. The game's art style is an odd mixture of traditional fantasy and Japanese aesthetics, with monsters ranging from cute to gruesome. Everything, though, is a visual reward -- you'll be excited every time you enter a new area, see a new monster, or cast a new spell because they all look so cool.

Final Fantasy XI is certain to divide players over many issues, ranging from the focused gameplay to the server allocation, but a majority of players will find a lot to like here. A true test of this game is to see how it adapts to the addition of American players, the influx of PS2 players early next year, and how quick Japan is to respond to each audience's needs. For the time being, though, Final Fantasy XI is a great multiplayer game that promises months of fun -- it's beautiful, it's well-designed, and I can't wait to spend more time in it.