To go with my recent theme of talking about single players games on an overwhelmingly MMO-centric site, this article focuses on what happens after the end of single player games. What does that even mean? I don’t know, but let me try to explain. You might be thinking: “well, the reason it’s a single player/console game is because it has a definite end, so what’s the point of talking about what comes after that?”. Well, even traditionally, this isn’t even correct.

Single player/console games are known to have some of the most engaging end-game content in the gaming industry. The ability to unlock new modes of play (Chrono Trigger, anyone?) and experience the same content again from a new standpoint (Half-life: Opposing Force) differs from the MMO end-game lineup. In an MMO, you play the same content over and over again. In a single player, you play the same content, but there’s an entirely new twist to it. Whether you’re playing at warp speed, playing from the beginning with all of the weapons you had when you beat it, or playing from a completely different perspective, single player is able to deliver fresh gameplay by barely lifting its metaphorical hand. In addition to this, there is even “MMO”-style end game content in some games out today.

Super Paper Mario. A seemingly simple game, which turns out to be quite long and engaging. A very well-planned and perfectly-paced RPG that doesn’t seem like an RPG. Attack power, health points, experience, item upgrades, and the like; all of the components of a traditional RPG are there, but the gameplay is so well-meshed with the Mario universe that even seasoned RPG veterans might not care to notice. In addition, this game also boasts and impressive end-game itself. Players patient enough to let the credits roll without turning off their Wii are rewarded with a save point at the end of the credits, and an open-ended plot stem as they step back into the starting town, Flipside. From here, the game is totally open. Visits to all of the worlds previously visited for any number of reasons: grinding points (experience), finding new items and powerups, finding ingredients for cooking, finding recipes, engaging in any number of the end-game minigames (mini is sort of a misnomer here, as some of them are quite long). In fact, there’s even a way to go back and fight amped-up versions of most of the bosses encountered throughout the game itself! At the end of the story-based game, the recipe book is left unfilled, and the key-card index is far from complete. The end game consists of completing all of these tasks, a pursuit which would likely take longer than beating the game itself.

So what’s the point in all of this? Well, as yesterday’s article mentioned, I believe that the same euphoric feelings of accomplishment achieved in MMOs can be had in single player games, as well. In that article, I didn’t even acknowledge the existence of any sort of end-game in the single player games, though. Adding this fact into the mix makes the case even clearer: I believe that, even socially, just as much fun and reward can be had from a single player game in all of it’s forms (story and after-story, that is, end-game) as in an MMO.

Some friends and I have recently started playing a very old MUD, marking the first time I’ve been in a game world without some form of graphics in half a decade. For those who don’t know or haven’t played one, a MUD is a text-based roleplaying (well, really, any online game by definition) game in which your current area is described to you in the game, and movement is accomplished by choosing one of the available cardinal directions or by taking a less obvious exit. Combat exists in these games and is usually very in-depth, pitting typing skills and memory versus your opponents, rather than gear and ’sploits as is found in many graphical MMOs today.

The game is incredibly in-depth and intense so far (we’ve been basically handed characters which were well established in the world and have been expected to learn the ways of the masters in a remarkably short amount of time) and has been the source of much enjoyment over the past week and a half. I forgot how much more realistic and immersive a MUD can be compared to a graphical game. I’ve (over)used the joke that my brain has a superior rendering engine compared to anything that’s come out in a game so far (and I suppose that will be true forever!).

Anyway, one of the minor annoyances that I have with the MUD is that it’s very hard for new players to orient themselves with the maps of the myriad towns and adventuring areas in a timely manner. You have to read the descriptions to get an idea of where you actually are, and start thinking in terms of north, south, east, and west and really wrack your brain to remember the paths to and from certain areas (obviously, the fact that most MUDs are very easily scripted helps in this regard, but you can’t script everywhere). Compared to how great the combat is, and how much control you have over your every move in combat, the disorientation experienced by new players in the MUD realm seems almost trivial, or at least negligible.

Naturally, in friendly discussion, this raised the question of whether it would ever be feasible to create a 3-D world and environment in a game while still keeping the very appealing MUD-style combat. Is it possible to create a beautiful landscape and keep it free from the spoils of pathing errors and buggy aggro radii? Imagine a world where the player can walk around in 3-D, and once they enter a (displayed, or inferrable) aggro radius of a certain mob, the game switches modes to a different combat screen. So far, it sounds very familiar to a Final-fantasy-type combat situation, but what if you could have complete control of your battle in real time with the kind of accuracy afforded by a MUD? Once the battle is over, then, 3-D play resumes until the next battle. Of course, it would have to be possible for new enemies to enter the battle (among other things, there are always tons of complications).

Now, what I’ve described does tend to sound a bit like EverQuest, but compared to the complexity of combat in a MUD, the combat in EverQuest (with it’s limited hotkeys and actions) seems daunting.

The thing about this whole “idea” is that it doesn’t seem like a very far stretch to assume that someone out there has done it already. You get the benefit of the graphical movement system with the beautifully rendered cities and landscape, yet the complexity of combat that can only be got in a MUD. Is there such a game?

If you loved Diablo 2, and I guess that doesn’t necessarily have to be past-tense, then there is absolutely no reason you wouldn’t love Titan Quest. It is, in essence, exactly the same game. The inventory even looks the same. They may have juggled the skill tree around a bit, but they’re the same at heart. I love Diablo 2.

The game takes place throughout three mythological settings: Ancient Greece, Egypt, and the Silk Road. Characters start out “fob” (fresh off the boat, literally) in a Greek suburb and must fight their way to Leonidas and the spartans, finishing primary and side quests in search of an oracle. This game is so much like Diablo 2 that I can’t tell whether it’s awesome or weird. At the very least, it’s uncomfortable. The graphics, of course, are up-to-date with today’s games, but still give the isometric perspective of Diablo 2. The lighting is brilliant, the gameplay is relatively linear with a few wide-open areas to explore, and the combat is point and click in the same fashion as the Diablos. So, if I love Diablo 2 and Titan Quest is Diablo 2, then why the title?

Well, the game is fun, the plot fairly interesting and, from what I can tell, fairly accurate compared to what I remember from high school ancient history. Also, the stuff about the Spartans seems accurate compared to what I remember from the parts of “300″ that I wasn’t screaming or hiding. What’s nice about it though, is that the game pretty much delivers itself to you on a silver platter. While you can’t always see the edge of the map without a little wandering, the landscape is constrictive enough that you won’t go wandering in places you shouldn’t and miss parts of the plot. It’s also very hard to miss the primary quest NPCs. The primary quest line (and we all know how much I love those) is hard to miss throughout the game. The quest NPCs are marked very well throughout the cityscapes, and even the side-quest NPCs are relatively easy to spot (either that or I’ve missed a ton of side-quests, which doesn’t seem likely since I’m a map-exploring whore).

The battles themselves, like Diablo 2, are largely point-and-click. At the levels and for the amount of time I’ve played, success seems pretty proportional to player level and gear, although there have been several opportunities to advance simply with skill. I recall a certain ogre battle during which the enemy could be kited. The game, however, is balanced enough to provide you with the experience needed to gain the levels and beat the bosses. Not too much extraneous grinding required, at least not in first difficulty setting of the game.

I can’t really vouch for the multiplayer, as I have never played with another person (and probably won’t), but the single-player campaign is an almost relaxing cruise through history. I haven’t played the game all the way through (that’s the story of my life), but what I’ve done so far has definitely tickled my taste buds for an engaging single-player RPG in the traditional flavor. I’m excited to see what the game has to offer in the later levels, as well as what the expansion and its extra act.

One thing that games nowadays aren’t missing is quests. There are plenty of quests everywhere, some of them to kill ten rats, some of them to take this letter to the other npc, and some of them to guide you to the next step of your journey. In fact, there are so many quests in today’s MMOs that there are entire databases devoted to cataloguing them. So what? Maybe the reason that all of these quests need be organized and stored away on some too-often-visited website is because they’re so incoherent.

One of the main differences between offline- and online role playing games is the coherence of the main storyline. Why has such a crucial element to both character- and world-development been neglected for so long? Has the focus, up to now, always been on making a decent world for players to thrive in rather than giving them the means by which to thrive?

Playing the epic quest line in The Lord of the Rings Online has reminded what it’s like to have a strong storyline guiding your progress as you adventure throughout the world. While keeping to these quests is optional (and, of course, this is probably preferable to some), the development of your own character through the quest rewards as well as the development of other characters within the game world makes them very worthwhile. After having played World of Warcraft and EverQuest 2 for so long, I’d forgotten what it’s like to have such a strong storyline driving my character. Guild Wars has a similar emphasis on storyline, yes, but the Lord of the Rings story is one that I already know so well.

It seems to me that the one way, above all others (one way to rule them all), for Lord of the Rings to be successful was to get players engaged in Tolkien’s Middle-Earth. I think that by adding such a tightly-knit series of quests that lead your character through the war of the ring was the best possible method by which Turbine could have achieved that goal. Sure, the environment is great, the graphics are superb, and the combat is acceptable; without the back story, though, all of those things matter little. For each of those categories there are games which beat out Lord of the Rings Online; It’s when they’re combined, though, that this game really shines.

How is it that the EverQuests and World of Warcrafts of this decade were able to hack it with but barely a hint of a centralized plot? Sure, EverQuest has some lore that it always seems like they made up after the fact and, yes, World of Warcraft has like 8 books out which somehow makes the back-story more “legitimate”. These facts come up very often in game to anyone who already knows about them. Where’s the personal journey, though? I thought I was playing these games for myself, to have fun. Why would I want to do anything if it’s only going to bring some out some dark prophecy that was written about 4 years ago by some struggling fiction writer?

The thing that Lord of the Rings Online has that these games don’t is the way that it really makes you feel like you’re part of something bigger that’s happening within the world. Instancing open areas within the world really emphasizes this, as it makes you feel like you’re having a bigger effect on things than you really are. Helping warn a group of rogues that one of their own and one of your newly-found friends is after their lives is one of the many things I’ve had to do so far on my character, and the process of doing it in this game feels more like a single-player driven story than any other MMO I’ve played. I just never really “felt it” in any of the other games.

Seeing that flaming ring above an NPCs head, I think, is going to be just the thing that could keep me going in LoTRO for quite some time to come.

Being a big fan of the original Fable game for Xbox (as well as embittered by how short the entire game was), seeing an article at gamespot about the upcoming Fable 2 piqued my interest.

Though information on the game is sparse at this point, according to the Gamespot article, there are 2 very interesting things that they seem to be developing:

In the finished game combat will controlled using three buttons: one for melee weapons, one for ranged weapons, and one for magic. For the purposes of the E3 demo there were no guns or magic attacks, though, so all combat was controlled with just one button. […] Tapping the button does a melee attack, holding down the button blocks, and releasing the button after a block performs a special attack. How hard you push buttons and how long you hold them for will have an effect on the attacks that you perform, as will your weapon choice, and your proximity to other enemies or environmental objects.

I wonder how the pressure sensitivity will work out. It seems to me that most games in the last 5 years touting “pressure sensitive” controls usually end up sucking at it, not because the intention is bad, but because in the heat of the moment all I want to do is press that damn button. Hard.

When you “die” in Fable 2 you won’t actually die, and you certainly won’t have to return to a previous save or a checkpoint. Rather, you’ll collapse on the ground, where enemies will continue to attack you. When you eventually get up you’ll be scarred for life, and those scars will affect the way that some other characters treat you.

This is actually pretty sweet, but I thought I remember Molyneaux saying before the first Fable came out that there would be scars that your character would wear forever, and by which other characters would “judge” him. Maybe they left it for the second game to work out the bugs.

Does this mean that when you kill bandits, they just lie on the ground for a while, too?

One other thing I hope they add is the ability to woo women more easily. Spamming one button to make sexy noises like “ungh”, and “heeey” got pretty old, especially since I do that pretty much all day in real life.

Source

I’ve been poking around in Guild Wars again lately and have been reminded of a feature that I thought was interesting back in the day. It’s kind of a slow day, as I’m working on a really nifty feature for the site that will hopefully make your visits here more useful. In light of that, I figured I should at least post something short and sweet that I’ve been intrigued at for a while.

In Guild Wars, when you run a mission (or even adventure in the world, which is still instanced for your party), all loot that drops is assigned to a player immediately. This in and of itself is just a new spin on a popular loot distribution method. Most games will simply allow people to roll for the loot if they want it, but Guild Wars assumes that you’ll want all drops, or at least not pick them up if you don’t. It’s a neat-o system, and I’ve always been a fan.

The thing I forgot about, though, is that when you finish a mission, rare or unique items assigned to you that you didn’t pick up (maybe you forgot, or you knew it would keep them for you) are available for collection in a pop up window before you leave the zone. What a good idea!

Here’s why I like this loot system better than most:

1) It encourages focus on the progression of the party and the battle rather than clicking furiously for loot.

I know I’m not the only one who thinks that people picking up loot during battles instead of waiting until the end is the first sign of the apocalypse. The evil part about picking up loot in battle is that if one person’s doing it, it’s in everyone’s interest to do it as well. Take away this incentive by assigning loot on the drop as well as giving the player no need to worry about finding their own loot, and you’ve come a long way toward solving this one.

2) It gives a nice way to pick up those items you couldn’t quite reach.

Inevitably in games, there will be items which drop way out of your physical reach. Chests, mob corpses, and other drops always have a way to put themselves out of arm’s reach at the most inconvenient of times. This system alleviates this, because any really quality drops you missed will be given to you when you leave the mission anyway.

And, because I just thought of it, here’s why I don’t like this system (I think):

I’m not sure, so someone correct me if I’m wrong, but:

1) I don’t think that this solution is given to those who leave the mission early or fail the mission.

If you don’t have enough skill or manpower to finish a mission, then it would be a downward cycle: people know they won’t get the option of collecting the good loot at the end, so they may lose focus in battle in a loot-clicking frenzy. Seems like a legitimate concern. Again, I can’t remember if this is the case.

In light of my last post, I wanted to talk about running, movement, and travel in online games. More specifically, I want to talk about why moving, running, and traveling for no specific reason is often so much better than traveling as part of a quest or duty.

Maybe it’s just the type of player I am, but I love to explore. In EverQuest 2, World of Warcraft, and Guild Wars, I wouldn’t want to stop playing a zone until all of the black space was gone (this is, in my opinion, hardest to achieve in EverQuest 2, because of the way they display the black fog. It’s impossible to tell where the limits of the map are!).

In order to explore places, you’ve gotta buck up and run there. However, when I look back on the time I spent exploring an area, it sometimes seems daunting (maybe I could have done other things, like, say, level up 14 times). Even though I’ve spent a ton of time familiarizing myself with the area, the running around trying to find the smallest nooks and most obscure crannies at the extreme edges of the map never really seems exhausting or repetitive.

Even though I love exploring and running around opening up all of the map, I find that I absolutely hate running places for quests. Even more than that, I hate running back to the spot where I died. But, and this is the most superlative hate I can muster, I hate running back into and across raid zones after wiping.

Why the differing levels of enjoyment? It’s not like I’m running that far to get back to my corpse or to finish that quest. The time I spend sneaking around mobs exploring zones I’m not qualified for far outweighs my measly jog back to the raid zone, but the latter still seems very time consuming. Of course it’s a psychological thing, but the point still remains. Why are games today seemingly going backwards in some of these aspects of gameplay? The Vanguards, the LoTROs, etc, all seem to have a strong emphasis on the running timesink and it seems like game designers should be able to do better.

Think about it this way: how much would you spend to have an autonomous in-game object take you to your destination at an increased speed in a direct route (400% run speed griffons in WoW), or at least close to it? Well, the answer to that is simple: just look at the prices that griffon masters and stable hands are charging in WoW and LoTRO. Most people would probably pay even more than that.

Now, here’s the harder one: would you pay for a service that ran you to your destination at your run speed? This means that you’re simply paying someone else to steer for you, and not arriving at the destination any sooner.

Is it the boringness and blandness of manning the controls of your character when you know you’re only going to be running? Is it the time consumption itself?

So I bought Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar this past week. I don’t really know why I didn’t buy it at release, other than that I was busy playing Wii and finishing up with the semester right as it came out.

My first impressions of the game are very positive; I’m not really noticing anything particularly new or groundbreaking at this point, but the things they’ve decided to do, they’ve done well. The graphics and gameplay feel comfortable; I like the combat system as well as the variety of mobs to fight as a newbie. The quests seem to be very coherent, leading the player from one area to another seamlessly. I started as human, so I’ve gotten to know Archet pretty well (mostly since I rerolled at 10 to join a friend on another server).

One thing I’m really liking about the game so far is the Deeds system. It’s really a good way to keep mundane grinds as fresh as possible, rewarding the player for killing 30 of a certain kind of mob, then 60 more of the same mob. The ability to earn titles is one of my favorite aspects of RPGs and one of the things that I absolutely hated about World of Warcraft. What better way to immediately differentiate yourself from your fellow players than by having a little something extra in your name? I find it works especially well at higher levels when the titles are excessively hard to earn.

The graphics of this game are a huge selling point to me. Not necessarily because they’re the best or the most realistic, but because the theme of the game fits with the graphics so well. One peeve I have regarding EverQuest II is that the character model graphics are good, the world graphics are good, but they’re both good in different ways. It’s totally incoherent to play under those conditions, so it’s a big breath of fresh air to be in an online world where everything meshes so well. The close-up graphics are very good as well, giving it the edge over World of Warcraft and Guild Wars.

One interesting thing that took me by surprise during the character creation process was the lack of caster classes - it makes sense, because there is not much lore in Tolkien’s work to make a basis for spellcasting, at least at the beginning of the game.

These are just my first impressions of the game. I’m still waiting to see how I like the development of my character, the progress of the quests, and the difficulty and stickiness of the game in general. I’m still in the first area finishing up all of the deeds I can, but after that, things are looking pretty bright from here!

I’m on Nimrodel, playing as a Champion named Maegoth if you want to look me up!

To start this one off, I’d like to just apologize for the lack of updates this week, as I was at a friend’s house at Flathead Lake celebrating the fourth of July! There should be more continuity in the articles to come.

I’ve been thinking about cross-system gaming lately after seeing some perky advertisements for games for PC that you can play against people on consoles. The whole idea of playing on a computer with a keyboard and mouse against someone with only a controller has been bugging me all week; I’ve come up with a couple points I’d like to share, as well as a couple of questions I’d like to get feedback on.

First of all: Is playing a game with a keyboard and mouse versus someone with only a controller fair?

I think this is one of the most important things about this question is the hidden one which lies underneath: which genre of game are we talking about? For example:

Playing an RPG without a keyboard isn’t really as “unfair” as it is “inconvenient”; you can move the similarly (if not more naturally) with a typical current-generation controller than with a mouse, but your communication options are severely limited. Since a big part (the biggest, if you ask me) of the online RPG experience is the community and your place within it, not being able to express your thoughts and ideas to others in an efficient way is a big deterrent. To give an example of the console/computer contrast, consider this: I used to love playing Phantasy Star Online for my Dreamcast. Before I bought a keyboard to go with it, communication was barely in real-time (canned phrases and a completely horrendous keyboard “thing” were available). Politeness, courtesy, and casual conversation were generally not possible, as they were regarded as a waste of precious play time. Getting a keyboard changed the entire game in this respect; it took the game to a whole new level socially.

To compare, playing a first-person shooter without a keyboard and mouse against others with them, in my opinion, could never really be fair or convenient. There are so many different key combinations on the keyboard for hot keys and the mouse is so conducive to aiming that even newer players could take out skilled console-FPS players with relative ease. Maybe adding things like auto-aim and the ability to adjust the sensitivity on the control stick can bring the playing field to a more equitable equilibrium, but I think the overarching benefits of keyboard and mouse FPS gaming outweigh any that the console could dish out. Anyone who’s played an FPS with a tightly-tuned sensitivity setting on their mouse will tell you about how fast they can spin 180 degrees by flicking their mouse, a luxury not really possible on the stiff control stick of the console.

Having said all of that, I realize that there are keyboard and mouse controllers available for many of today’s consoles. Going back to the Dreamcast: if I remember correctly, Quake III included the ability to play on non-Dreamcast servers, meaning that Dreamcast players could play against people with keyboards and mice on PCs. Of course, Dreamcast had a special mouse and keyboard which could be bought, and after that the game was bearable and even fun at times.

To be sure, there are many other genres to be considered here, but since I have a preference for the two listed above, I’ll keep the discussion focused there for now (in the interest of time!).

Second: Even if both parties have access to the equipment, are there any benefits to playing on a specific system?

This is where the issue hits home: if you own both a decent gaming computer and a current-gen console and the game is available for both systems, which one do you buy, assuming you’ve got the keyboard, mouse, and any other relevant peripherals? If there were no obvious benefits either way, it seems like we could expect a 50/50 split between what people buy. For 100 people in this situation, the company will sell 50 games for the console, and 50 games for the PC.

So what’s the result? What are the differences, if any, that would change it from a 50/50 split? Apart from the “I’ve already bought the keyboard, mouse, and all of these other relevant peripherals, so I may as well buy the console version” logic, what drives this decision? The longevity of the console versus the PC? What do you think?

Most importantly: what does the convergence of gaming equipment between the console and the PC mean for the future of each? (That is, if we all have keyboards, mice, and everything else on our computers and our consoles, what does it mean to be playing on a console versus playing on a PC?)

A recent recommendation from a friend has led to some fun-filled nights since I’ve downloaded and started playing Dofus, an MMORPG created by Ankama Games which is based on the fundamentals of play that make this genre so popular. The game is made entirely in Flash, but don’t let that fact scare you away! The game must be downloaded to your computer, and will run regardless of whether you’ve got the Macromedia Flash plugin installed for your browsers (it’s bundled with it’s own). The game itself has an impressively large download size (measuring in at over 100Mb, more than 5 times larger than Second Life, which I found interesting). I would imagine that the large download size comes from the fact that the game includes so much static art rather than textures which are simply applied to geometry. More on that later.

From the beginning, I was taken aback by how well-done the art in the game is. The game itself uses a viewpoint system similar to Diablo, except that the camera remains fixed at the center of the current map zone. The character is able to move to any point in the current zone, and can pick any of the exit points to move to another area. All of the enemies and NPCs in the world are 2-D sprites with extremely colorful and artistic textures and animations. The entire game feels like being stuck in one of the happiest episodes of Pokemon you’ve ever seen. Art seems to be a big part (and a major selling point) of this game, and the designers clearly have no qualms about showing off their artistry whenever they can.

The entire user interface is very playful, and doesn’t merit even the slightest bit of tweaking (which is good, because no tweaking is allowed). The spell effects, map, battle sequences, spell book, inventory, and pretty much any other facet of the user interface or noticeable gameplay features are brilliantly illustrated. Though it’s 2-D and may not have the latest pixel shaders and per-pixel lighting, this game does not leave one wanting graphically.

The music in the game is very pleasing to the ear, if somewhat repetitive. Truth be told, I have been standing around quite often, taking notes in my trusty black journal, which causes me to be in one place longer than an average player would likely stay, so that could be the cause. The music fits the light-hearted theme of the game very well, but the combat music is almost too friendly. Even in a happy game, I believe, the music should be somewhat nefarious. You are, after all, battling some hideously evil creature who is threatening your cheerful, carefree way of life!

The game starts off gently with an introduction to combat without the risk of being eaten alive on the first encounter. It’s very good that they give you this opportunity to the learn the basics of the combat system, otherwise one would likely be slaughtered by the smallest of animals while facing the clock in a first “for real” battle. In combat, players are positioned randomly relative to their enemy, and are given a small intermediate period before combat begins to move to a more desirable position. After clicking ‘ready’, the turns alternate between the player and the enemy (and whoever else happens to be in the battle), continuing until either the friendly or the opposing team is eliminated.

In the first levels of the game, the player and the enemy are allowed to move 3 squares, using up what the game has called “Movement Points” as they do. The point of this is to get closer to (or farther from) an enemy in order to use certain abilities. All abilities have a range, and are useless against a foe unless they are within this range. During this same turn, the new player is allotted 6 AP (Ability Points), which can be used in varying combinations to deliver an attack sequence to the enemy. After all MP (Movement Points) and AP are used up, it’s time to “Skip turn” and let the enemy have his.

Out of combat, lost health can be recovered very quickly by sitting down. Health will not regenerate while standing or moving, so it’s a good idea to relax, sit down, and maybe chat a couple of friends while you’re waiting for your next battle. You know, the kind of thing you’d be expected to do in such a carefree place even in real life.

While I won’t claim much knowledge about the grouping system itself, there is an interesting aspect of social battle that is worth mentioning: you can join other people’s battles yourself, and there is no noticeable experience reduction for doing so. I joined a few people during their battles, and it was an interesting experience. While I like this feature of the game, it seems as if it could get very annoying very quickly. Having random people join your battles and then having them stand around and not click “Skip turn” when they’re doing very little (or, worse yet, not doing anything at all) would be frustrating. Luckily, all turns are timed, and I believe the longest you ever have to wait for a single person is 30 seconds.

All in all, this game is fun and I’m excited to play it a bit further and see where my character goes. I’ve left the newbie zone and have entered what appears to be the main map, which is an excruciating 64×119 grid, meaning that plenty of adventure, humor, and intrigue is waiting my online appearance tonight.