Assassin's Creed was very enjoyable. The graphics were outstanding and the environment well crafted. Combat in the game was a lot of fun and the variety of enemies created varying degrees of challenge. The game had a few downsides though. It is fairly repetitious. For every mission you are given you can follow the exact same formula of activities to complete it. You locate towers that you climb to get an overview of the area, complete the requisite task for the area, once you do three of these you can proceed to the final assassination. The game allows you to pursue these tasks at your leisure for the most part. Making your way through the objectives in most any order you want. Right up to the very last ten minutes of game play I would have given Assassin's Creed 10/10. It was as close to perfect as any game I have played in a long time. Unfortunately the last ten minutes (which occurs after you defeat the final enemy) is a giant turd burger of poor design and horrible implementation that will leave most players wondering if they have actually finished the game at all or just gotten stuck.

The good news this month is that Age of Conan is less than 6 weeks away. The game launches on May 20th and open beta starts up May 1. I've already pre-ordered my copy of the game and I hope it turns out well. Pre-orders are able to download the game 6 days before launch and start playing 3 days before it goes on sale in stores. Any characters you create or progress you make will be carried over to through the official launch.

Shortly after AoC comes out Mass Effect will be released for the PC on May 28th. The PC version reputedly has many enhancements and improvements over the console version which include improved inventory management and a more sophisticated lockpicking mini-game.

Sorry I was so late on this one but things have been hectic. (Hell, I'm finishing this up while waiting for a flight out of Chicago.) Hope to see you in AoC!

Since I have had little time lately my gaming has been confined to things I can pick up and play for an hour or so at a time. Given those restrictions I have had no desire to play World of Warcraft. Logging on for 20 minutes to do a daily quest is to me the gaming equivalent of remembering to take out the garbage or making sure to mow the lawn. Another chore to be crossed off a list rather than a mode of entertainment.

One of the games I have played and enjoyed was S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Stalker is a first person shooter set in the area around Chernobyl after the accident. In this storyline the radiation released has created mutated animals and people that you will encounter as well as valuable artifacts which can be collected and sold. The people who enter the restricted area in spite of the military presence have formed small communities and strongholds. There are several factions which you can choose to support, join, or ignore as you wish. Each offers access to jobs that can be undertaken for money and stores where equipment can be purchased. Which jobs you perform is not without consequences. Working for one group may put you at odds with another and turn potential allies into enemies who will shoot you on sight.

The game is great for letting you go about your business exploring the world while avoiding anomalies (radiation hazards that can kill you in horrible ways), killing mutants, and collecting precious artifacts and loot. The combat model is fairly good and the graphics are well done. The story is adequate for providing you reason to visit certain areas and take on certain jobs while not being so overdone that it cannot be avoided or comes off as excessively melodramatic.

There are a few downsides though. The game can be unforgiving. You will want to remember the old gamers Axiom: Save Often. In a single careless moment you may turn a corner and walk straight into both barrels of a shotgun or find yourself stuck in a situation from which you cannot escape. Another potential annoyance is the weight limit imposed on your character. While it adds a certain amount of depth and strategy to the game many people may find that being unable to carry more ammunition or a wider variety of weapons and armor too restrictive. Weapons and armor also wear out over time as you use them. The body armor you just bought before starting a mission may offer about as much protection as a cardboard box before you're halfway through.

Another downside is the difficulty curve. Everything moves along smoothly right up until the final mission to enter the power plant. As soon as you enter the map region where the reactor can be found you are being chased by helicopters, snipers, and riflemen through highly radiated areas while under a time limit. Entering the plant itself things get even harder. Suddenly the enemies seem less flesh and blood and more like heavily armored, semi-mobile gun turrets. These soldiers will stand in complete darkness at the end of blind corners just waiting for you to poke your head out to burn you down in a hail of automatic gun fire. You will find it takes three or four times as much ammunition to stop one of these opponents as it does to kill any other enemy in the game not to mention the gauntlet you had to run through to reach this point has likely left you rather short on bullets and with your armor in tatters.

All that aside I played the game for about twenty hours before setting it aside and had a very enjoyable experience even up to the end where I was forced to quit w/o completing the mission. Considering you can get the game from Steam for only $19.95 I figure it was money well spent.

The other game I have found myself playing again recently has been City of Heroes. It's been over three years since I last played and the game hasn't changed all that much. There are new powers to choose from as well as the ability to play villains now. There are new costume pieces, new character appearance options, and a new (to me) invention system that creates an economy in the game for buying and selling craft-able power enhancers and the components to make them. There are new types of missions, new task forces, and areas where players can engage in either arena style, or open world pvp with set objectives. The game also allows players to increase or decrease the game difficulty to better suit their abilities and style.

Character creation is as compelling as ever if not more so. It is easy to spend hours planning out your hero or villain and there always seems to be just one more archetype or power combination to experiment with. The game play is as good as ever. Players can jump into the action quickly and start feeling heroic (or villainous) within minutes of entering the game world. Maximum level is still 50 after all this time but there is no shortage of people playing at the lower levels to team with. Because the character system is so enticing people are constantly creating new avatars.

In many ways I think CoH is every bit as good as, if not superior to, World of Warcraft. The player interaction and game mechanics are better as is the dynamic pace of group combat. The areas where it falls short are not insignificant however. The game still uses an xp debt system for charaters over level 10 that will turn a lot of players off and encourages people to play within their 'safe' zone rather than take on riskier encounters and test their limits. When it comes to the end game CoH still has nothing to offer. You can spend as much time as you like tweaking your skills and enhancements but new challenges are few and far between. Content updates occur roughly every 6 months and not all will have new material for old players. Fortunately the early game is good enough that if you enjoy leveling superheroes and just playing the game it can keep you entertained indefinitely.

City of Heroes is now fully in the hands of NCSoft. Cryptic handed over control of the game and has been working on a new superhero game of their own. the new title will be called Champions Online and is based on the pen and paper superhero game called 'Champions' published by Hero Games. Champions Online builds on many of the features that makes City of Heroes so compelling. Players can expect a huge array of options for customizing their character's appearance right down to their style of walk and combat. Characters will still be categorized by the class they choose but now all powers will be available to every player. The difference being that some powers will be less expensive for some classes than for others. The game is being developed for simultaneous release on consoles and PC. The interface is designed with that in mind so that there are few UI elements and combat can be carried out using just the buttons on a standard controller.

Champions Online promises to deliver the next generation of superhero MMO incorporating and expanding on all the best parts of City of Heroes while updating the graphics for even better visuals. The game is projected to be released sometime in 2009 so the wait may not be unbearably long. It is definitely something I'll be keeping an eye out for in the future.

We are redirecting the project at the moment and there are a number of courses of action we are evaluating. The game is not cancelled, nor is it on hold. We want the best possible execution so it is probably fair to say that it will not make the original date of "Winter". As we complete our evaluation of our options, we will eventually formulate a new release date.

The original release date was Winter 2008 :/

The most recent update (yesterday) made it sound like they are having serious issues with the game, and personally I would not be surprised if it were scrapped. I was pretty astounded that it was in development in the first place :p

Pirates of the Burning Sea came out in January but word is that they have had extensive stability problems. There hasn't been a whole lot of community interest in the game despite it having a reputation for a sophisticated economic model and engaging ship-to-ship combat. The buzz-level for PotBS is somewhere between Tabula Rasa and Lord of the Rings Online. I would have tried the game myself just to see how it was but I started a new job this month which has confiscated all of my free time for a while so I don't have any personal opinions to offer.

Star Trek Online has been transferred to a new developer w/o any of the existing code. This means to me that the game is either completely dead with no chance of revival or that it will be 2-3 years before we see any further signs of life from it. Lesson learned here I believe is if there is one company you do NOT want working on your MMO it has to be Perpetual.

I have added a second section to the Watchlist just to track the development of interesting MMO's. When they get closer to release I'll promote them to the top half of the page. In the meantime it makes a convenient spot for me to remember what to look for when I troll for MMO news.

Since there are no new announcements or releases worth mentioning I'm going to talk about what I would like to see instead.

What I would like to see in an MMO is a return to the sandbox game. Every major game released or in development since Everquest 2 and World of Warcraft has been more and more an example of a 'theme park' game. A theme park world is one where players are lead from one activity to the next like a tourist in Disneyland. Each activity (quests, dungeons, pvp, pve) can be thought of as a ride and players as the customers. This gives the player the illusion of being able to travel freely around the world while the designer subtly leads them by the nose from place to place ensuring that players always know what they are supposed to do. Each quest leads to the next as players are pointed, even pushed, towards content tailor made for characters with their background and experience. This sounds like it should be a good thing, and in truth, it does a fine job of presenting the MMO newbie with a very directed and controlled game experience that can create a sort of protected comfort zone for them to play in.

Where the Theme Park game focuses on creating a series of interesting rides to carry players from start to finish the sandbox game on the other hand focuses on creating the game world as a whole. Another way to look at it is the Theme Park world is designed one ride at a time and these rides are then connected to form the world in the same way puzzle pieces form a picture with specific paths for players to follow from one piece to the next. The sandbox game focuses on the picture itself rather than the individual pieces. Unfortunately, in past sandbox games, this left finding interesting things to do in the hands of the player. If the player was new to the genre they could easily feel lost, without purpose or direction, become bored and quit. Even experienced players often dislike not being explicitly told what they should do as well as when and where they should do it. For my taste though, I hate being lead around. I greatly prefer to find my own way through a game. Exploration and discovery is at least half the reason I play these types of games to begin with.

What I really want is a huge world that I can wander around in finding interesting things to see and to do. I want it to be so big that I could easily spend an entire year playing the game and still not have seen every location, completed every quest, or encountered every type of content in the game. Related to that I want the world to change and evolve over time. I want places I visited months ago to have grown or been altered in some way based upon game events and player actions. I want the world to be a living, organic thing that is continually molded by the players who populate it.

The second big change I want is in appearance. I'm not referring to poly counts or graphics quality here. I mean I want the world's terrain and topography to be interesting. So often game worlds are bland and mundane, their landscapes dull and unimaginative. It seems ironic that so called 'fantasy' game worlds are often more deprived of interesting detail and depth than what can easily be found in the real one. Game designers really need to get out from behind their computer screens and take a look at the world around them. There are so many profoundly awe inspiring places out there that put anything ever done digitally to shame. The mountains, rivers and forests of places like Yosemite or Yellowstone, the giant sequioas of California, the deserts and canyons of the American Southwest. Amazing places like this exist all around the world yet when game designers undertake the creation of a fantasy setting they are so mired down in the dull and uninspired I have to wonder if they have ever even left their mother's basement. Part of their problem is one of scale. Their worlds are so compressed that they could easily be misplaced if translated meter for meter to the real one. I suppose it's hard to find room for something like Utah's Monument Valley or China's Soaring Dragon Cave when your entire world is no larger than a dozen or so city blocks.

To summarize: I want my next MMO to be huge, larger than all other game worlds combined and able to house anywhere from 10,000 - 100,000 players without becoming crowded. I want it to be a living, organic entity that changes over time. I want it to be at least as beautiful and interesting as anything I'm likely to see on the Travel Channel or in National Geographic. And lastly, I want it to be so stuffed full of dynamically generated content that there is no chance I will ever encounter every single thing that the game has to offer. While doing all that I want to maintain much of the hand tailored content of traditional worlds. Carefully crafted dungeons, castles, pvp battlegrounds and quest lines still have a place in my perfect game but only as further enhancement to the vast virtual world that houses them.

Around September Perpetual postponed the release of Gods and Heroes and laid off ~40 developers saying that the game would be undergoing further beta testing to focus on "quality and polish". -gamasutra

In October Gods and Heroes was put on 'indefinite hold' so that Perpetual could focus on Star Trek Online. -gamasutra

Then in November news leaked out that Perpetual was liquidating assets to pay off creditors and that Gravity, one of its investors, expected to loose the entirety of its 9 million dollar investment. -gamasutra

In December Perpetual's PR firm Kohnke Communications filed suit claiming fraudulent business practices in the transfer of the Star Trek License during the liquidation which went to another Perpetual entity, P2 entertainment. -gamasutra -TTH lawsuit info

Now (January) it has been announced that Perpetual is no longer working on Star Trek Online and that development has been transferred to an undisclosed developer -wired

Troubled times for the game at the very least. It seems extremely probable that this game will die in development before ever being released.

A PC version of Talisman is supposed to be out "winter 2007" to coincide with the release of a new version of the board game but I haven't seen any sign of a demo or release so it would appear to be in Limbo for the moment. Space Siege, a sci-fi successor to the Dungeon Siege series will be out around February, Age of Conan will hopefully be released around March, and Warhammer Online sometime this spring.

So, it seems things are going to be a little thin for a while. Luckily(?) for me I've started playing World of Warcraft again so my game time is fairly well occupied. Coming back to WoW after a long break has been an interesting experience. It only superficially resembles the game I first played over three years ago. With the accelerated leveling curve people scoot through the first 60 levels of the game in just a couple weeks. The expansion content makes the game more gear centric than ever and the best gear is obtained not through raiding and teamwork, but by going AFKin battlegrounds and arena PvP matches. The new emphasis on arena PvP pervades the game. Although new raid instances are scheduled for release the ease with which better gear can be obtained through PvP has greatly diminished the importance raiding and extinguished the motivation to raid for many. After all, why would anyone bother to spend hundreds of hours over weeks or months trying to down a raid boss for the slim chance at one or even two inferior, randomly determined items, when spending a couple hours AFK in PvP each week grants you your choice of equal or greater reward?

PvE isn't the only aspect of the game to suffer from Blizzard's new infatuation with arenas. The battlegrounds have deteriorated as well. Ongoing problems of racial advantages and map imbalance have turned the Alliance into sacrificial lambs in many battlegroups. Many people still queue up to join the battles, but rather than join because they want to play, they join because they require marks or honor to buy new gear with. Because both marks and honor are awarded for losing as well as winning many people don't even bother to fight. They join the games and collect their reward for having done little or nothing at all to earn them. This policy of 'Welfare Epics' as it has been christened by the community, although well intentioned, is undermining PvP throughout the game. It has become sufficiently widespread that on some servers people are starting 'AFK Teams' with the specific intention of losing games as rapidly as possible so that they can collect their free points with greater efficiency.

The reason (in my opinion) Blizzard gives rewards to people who lose games seems to be two fold. On one hand they don't want the game to be split into 'haves' and 'have nots' creating an imbalance of older, better geared characters teamed up against those who are horribly under-geared by comparison. This would make the strong stronger and ensure those who play less often, or are new to the game, never have a fighting chance becoming locked into the lowest tier of competitors. By giving people something just for showing up they ensure that everyone can advance regardless of how well, or how poorly, they perform or who they are matched up against.

The second reason, related to the first, is that people who lost often and gained nothing would soon stop playing at all resulting in one side or the other not queuing up for PvP which would cause the battleground system to grind to a halt. This also serves as an easy out for Blizzard. Because the system they built requires participation to advance it doesn't matter to them how badly they screw things up or how imbalanced they become. People will continue to queue, even if they have absolutely no chance of winning, because it is the only way they can obtain upgrades, thus ensuring that there will always be a stable of opponents no matter which side has the advantage or how overwhelming that advantage might be. If they did not reward people for losing then, because players would stop joining games when the system got out of whack, they would be forced to address the underlying problems rather than continue to ignore them.

It seems clear then that Blizzard has no motivation to correct the problems at all. In fact, it would be very much in their interest to see that things continued in this way indefinitely. To correct the system would require that they correct class, racial, and faction balance issues which have eluded them for years. This would require not only a great deal of work, but careful assessment of the principles of balance which it seems unlikely they have ever addressed and result in significant disruption to the game when they failed to keep things in check. If they continue doing things the way they have in the past the game will be largely unaffected despite the many complaints of the community. The system they have developed, much as their PvP system rewards players who do nothing, rewards the developers for doing nothing as well. If they do little or nothing the game suffers but proceeds. If they tried to fix the problems they could create a better game but only through great expense and substantial risk. So, like many of their players, Blizzard prefers to be AFK as the game rolls on around them.

In my opinion, although still better than its competitors, WoW has deteriorated greatly since the expansion was released. Although they continue to claim larger and larger subscriber numbers I wonder if that's due more to the game becoming more widely available rather than because it retains and attracts more people in regions where it has been available for some time. I await the release of Warhammer Online and Age of Conan with keen anticipation hoping that someone can give Blizzard a decent bite in the ass so they stop being so damned complacent and re-asses the direction they have taken the game.

Tabula Rasa was released though relatively few people took any interest. There have been indications that most people involved in the beta did not purchase the game or subscribe to it. There has been an interview with Richard Garriott floating around recently where he notes the fact that they have had to take extraordinary steps to try to convince former beta testers to come back and try the game again. In his opinion the game wasn't 'fun enough' in the last two months when many testers were brought on but, in his opinion, things are better now. In my opinion, which seems to be shared by many of the people who post about the game, Tabula Rasa was fun about 4-6 months prior to release and it was only the slew of ill considered changes thrown in at the end of beta that ruined it. Either way the popular opinion is it is a reasonably fun game until the newness wears off. After that it feels far too repetitive and 'grindy' to be enjoyable. It is widely being lumped in with Korean developed games which, by American standards, are long on tedium and short on content.

The Witcher turned out to be an excellent RPG. One which I think every enthusiast of the genre will enjoy. The story is engaging, the scenery is gorgeous, and although you are somewhat restricted in where you can travel, the game allows the player enough freedom to feel that they are making their own way through the world. It is clear that as the game progresses the player will make many decisions which will have at least a subtle effect on the way the story develops. I think it may well be worth a second play through just to see how much difference those choices make. For some combat will feel a bit awkward or perhaps too simplified but I found that once I got used to it combat flowed very well. The pace was fast enough to be interesting but not frenetic. Simple enough to be easily grasped but still retained enough depth to make you think about how you approached a fight from time to time.

Gears of War for the PC has been released though I have played very little of it. I did play enough to discover that combat in the game revolves around finding and using cover in order to survive. I don't think the translation from consoles to PC was done very well. The controls feel awkward for a PC game and doesn't have the familiar feel of other FPS style games.

Assassin's Creed and Mass Effect were both released as scheduled. I still haven't broken down and gotten a 360 yet so I haven't played either but both have gotten good reviews. Assassin's Creed has received some criticism for being a little too repetitive. It appears many of the tasks are too transparently the same so you feel as if you are repeating the same actions over and over again. the second criticism is that the fun parts are separated by lengthy periods of rather boring bits. These include long winded, unskippable, monologue's given by the people you assassinate before and after you kill them.

Warhammer beta should be starting up again sometime soon. During the downtime a number of announcements were made public. The first is that there will be at least two server types for the game. One which has limited PvP in which outside of the RvR regions enemy players are legal targets for attack but may not initiate an attack themselves. This appears to be a ruleset identical to WoW's pvp servers. Players are safe from attack in areas controlled by their factions and open to attack in areas that are contested. The second server type allows players to attack each other everywhere in the game except for the initial starting areas which will remain safe from pvp.

Once the beta reopens the final racial pairing will be available: High Elves and Dark Elves. In addition to the new race there will be some new enhancements. Players will have more options that will let them customize their character's skills and abilities. There will be a trophy system that lets you place honors you have received in very visible locations on your character to show off your accomplishments and player's will be able to dye their armor.

Lately I have found myself playing World of Warcraft again. This time on a pvp server just to see what it's like. I've nearly reached 60 and the experience has just about cemented my opinion of both pvp servers and players. I have never seen a more immature, shit talking, pre-pubescent group of players than those I have encountered on Mal'Ganis. I doubt that the majority of player's would fall into that category, but the few that are most vocal, most visible, are all miserable excuses for human beings. They are petty, crude, and, in the literal sense, quite ignorant. In general they are the worst sort of over-privileged, loud-mouthed, half-wits that you could possibly imagine being scraped up from the bottom of the gene pool. I had thought that the players whose posts I read on the public forums or overheard in general chat on other servers were as low as humanity could go but the PvP community appears to have some very 'special' members whose social inadequacies far exceed anything I have encountered elsewhere.

I have found that in general the ganking and abuse I was concerned about is not all that prevalent. In the entire time I have played I have been attacked perhaps 10 times and nearly half of those I was able to either kill the attacker or escape. Still, I have witnessed level 70's tricking level 10's into flagging for pvp in safe zones by exploiting game mechanics, killing flight masters or quest givers for no reason other than to grief the other side, and on occasion, abusively corpse camping people half their level or less just for the fun of it. I have also seen that contrary to popular opinion or the company line, higher level players have no concern for any of this. No one will come to rescue the newbs from the gankers. If the Tarren Mill flightmaster is being camped by a handful of 70's, players who could drive them off couldn't care less. They prefer to sit outside Orgrimmar dueling or chatting in general while they wait for their next BG or Arena queue to come up. This experience more than anything else has utterly convinced me not to play on WAR's full pvp server and instead create my eventual characters on the restricted server. PvP seems to inevitably attract the most childish of players, those particularly inclined to engage in the most base behaviors of both speech and act. I wouldn't go so far as to say these types of people would ruin the game or the server they play on, they are far too few in number for that. As an analogy I would compare it to someone tossing a few dead bugs onto your pizza. There aren't many of them and there is an awful lot of pizza but, given an alternative, I would prefer to have my pizza without bugs thank you.

There aren't any new games lined up for December or January so it could turn into quite the dry spell. Still there are plenty of games from November I haven't really gotten to play much of yet and others I will want to return to and try a little bit more. Maybe I'll even finally give in and buy myself a 360 or Wii if the WAR beta isn't good enough to hold my interest.

To get an idea of what MMO's are coming in the future here's what I have on my radar:
Pirates of the Burning Sea in Late January/Early February
Age of Conan: March/April
Warhammer Online: April-June
Chronicles of Spellborn: 2008
Aion: 2008

In addition there are a bunch of unnamed MMO's being developed by various studios that wont be out for years yet.
Bioware: Rumored to be a star wars themed MMO possibly similar to Kinghts of the Old republic
Blizzard: A new, non-warcraft MMO.
Interplay: Fallout MMO
Cryptic: Looks like Indiana Jones meets HP Lovecraft
Sqaure Enix: A new non-final fantasy MMO
38 Studios: Unknown MMO (division of NCSoft)
THQ: Warhammer 40k MMO
Zenimax: Unknown MMO
Bethesda: recently received significant funding for MMO development
John Romero/Sigil Works: Unknown MMO

Tabula Rasa finally releases November 2nd but I have lost interest. Over time I watched the game become more and more watered down. Considering the game at its core is a fairly tedious, repetitive grind the dilution of the classes and combat mechanics sucked the last ounce of life out of it for me. The game had its moments early on but it wont take most people more than a week or two to realize that the game falls far short of the hype and fails to live up to any of the promises made during its overextended development. This is one of the very few MMO's that has earned a 'pass' from me. I wont be buying it at release.

Gods and Heroes has been put on 'indefinite hold' by Perpetual Entertainment (the developer). Initially a delay was announced to allow them to polish a few things before the release but later that was dropped and the game left in limbo so that they could focus on Star Trek Online. Ultimately this can only mean that someone at the studio didn't feel the game was going to measure up. It is futile to try to guess why but the problems with either the game or the companies finances had to run deep for it to be canceled so late in the development cycle.

November is going to be a busy month game-wise. Hellgate and The Witcher come out on October 31st. The PC port of Gears of War should be out on November 6th. If you have an XBox 360 both Assassin's Creed and Mass Effect will be out around the middle of the month and should be groundbreaking 'must have' titles. These may be the games that finally get me to break down and buy one of the new generation of consoles. There is a PC port of Assassin's Creed expected sometime in the future but exactly when isn't clear. Hints have been dropped that it wont be until next year at the earliest.

The Warhammer Online beta was shut down in October with plans to reopen sometime in December. This is an unprecedented move for any beta test I have ever been a part of and I'm not sure what to make of it. The official story is that they want to use the time to implement changes based on feedback they have received but that feels pretty contrived. I still hope the game turns out well but these unusual moves and lengthy delays make me concerned about it's future.

I'd love to share something about Age of Conan but I still haven't been fortunate enough to land a spot in that beta. My mojo isn't working for me this time and I may actually miss out on the game entirely until the official release.

After November things are looking pretty dry. The next releases up on the watchlist wont start rolling in until February at the earliest. Hopefully the games coming out in November will keep us entertained until then. I should have a lot to talk about next month in the meantime don't forget to stop by the site now and then to keep up with the news or just give me your $0.02.

The game is a true spiritual successor to the diablo series although the storyline is not nearly as strong or predominant. The game features a decent number of missions and pseudo random areas to keep players busy. At max level, whatever that turns out to be, you can still anticipate spending many hours perfecting your gear if that's what you're into. The game is fun, and easy to get into. It should be a fairly successful. I wouldn't want to try to predict how many people will want to go all in with a monthly subscription fee though.

A full review and details on what your subscription dollars entitles you to can be found here.

IGN Preview
official website Virtually useless.

From the Warcry Article:

The Agency is a fast-paced, online persistent shooter in a modern setting of bullets, bomb blasts, and betrayal. Live the life of an elite agent in a world of super spies and rugged mercenaries, who use both the highest technology and the lowest tactics to accomplish their goals. Featuring cooperative and competitive play, The Agency is designed to provide instant action and long-term strategy for all fans of espionage, intrigue, and explosive gameplay.

Features

• Become An Elite Agent: The Agency offers hundreds of unique missions with varied end-goals requiring combat, stealth, and style. With gameplay ranging from sneaky assassinations to all out assaults, from vehicle challenges to casinos loaded with mini-games, there's something for every aspiring agent.
• Build Your Own Agency: As players advance through the ranks of their faction, they'll also begin building their own Agencies. Players will increase their power even further by creating Joint Agencies with others.
• Mercenary or spy, the choice is yours: In the Agency, collect the right weaponry, gadgets, vehicles, gear, attire and aliases to gain access to various locales and influence over the people within them.
• Put Operatives to work: Operatives are collectible non-player characters who provide the goods player's desire, the services to keep them alive, and allow them to concentrate on the mission at hand. Operatives work 24/7, regardless of whether players are logged in, and they can even keep them up-to-date through email and instant messages.
• Fun Now, No Waiting: The Agency is not about waiting for the fun to start. At any point, players can take a break from their high-flying career to engage in a number of other activities. Veterans and new players alike can take on other players at the card tables, the shooting range, or in head-to-head combat.

Time for another quick, or not so quick update. Right now, the team is working hard getting the game ready for the next patch. I think balance has greatly improved, and a lot of the features that have been implemented are excellent additions to the game. You will see those on Tuesday and we look forward to hearing your feedback.

As we move closer to launch, some may think that now would be a good time to finally relax after months of crunch, but that’s not what making am MMO is about. So the question “what’s in store for the upper level player?” has come up, and I thought I would share a sneak peek of some of our plans. Some of these will come sooner rather than later and as with any development, nothing is set in stone and our plans could and will invariably change. Still, here are just a few of the features we are working on:

• Personal Armor Units (PAU’s): When players get to level 40, they won’t just get a pony! Promotion to Level 40 comes with the option to train for certification in the PAU. Each PAU will have bonuses such as movement, more firepower, and different abilities per type. Each type is unique to the military career the player has selected. When visualizing the PAU, visualize the AFS Mech, although each will be very different… and may not necessarily be a mech.

Sneak peek: PAU for the Grenadier: Grendel – The surprisingly nimble Grendel, has two machine gun turrets on each arm, providing a cone of doom a short distance in front of the Grendel. More impressive is the Hornet’s Nest capability of the Grendel, which when unleashed uses the remaining power of the user to determine the number of rockets unleashed on the opposing forces but does massive damage to surrounding units.

• Command Opportunity: When you climb the ranks to level 50, you need someone to order around. Command Opportunity is the privilege the AFS commander has to control their own subordinate squad of NPCs. Teach them, outfit them, and give them commands on the battlefield. The more successful you are with your squad, the bigger and better your squad will become, granting you Command Points.

• Flashpoints: The Neph generals aren’t happy with the setbacks in their bid to rid the universe of Eloh manipulation, therefore they have begun attacks on various worlds. Each Flashpoint will require multiple squads to solve. Certain objectives will need to be done simultaneously to fight back the Bane and each objective will require a dedicated squad that is at their best. Conquer flashpoints with squads formed of all players, or have a few players that have NPC squads at their command.

• Clan Warfare: Clans will gain their own abilities for their members over time, meaning the leader will be able to select a passive buff that all members of the clan will have. This buff will grow in strength the larger the clan. Clans who go to war can wager these buffs and loot in clan wars. Eventually, clans will be able to lay claim to Control Points fighting off rival clans, and earning bonuses while they control them. There will even be AFS sanctioned Rivalry Zones where players have strategic objectives to fight over such as Capture the Flag, and Hold the Location.

These are just a few of the things that the team will start working on after ship. (Which essentially means we are working on them now.) It is going to be an exciting next few months as we launch the game and watch how the game grows. As always your feedback is very welcome and encouraged via our feedback form.

Paul Sage
Lead Developer

Of course none of these things are in the game yet and probably haven't even begun to be coded much less tested so what actually makes it to the game and when is a matter of speculation. At least they realized starting over and playing the game again wasn't going to be a viable option.

Age of Conan has stated they will be using it, FunCom has already used it in Anarchy Online
Some game worlds are created procedurally now before being edited and shipped.

Most recently I read a forum post about another game using procedural algorithms to create very detailed city layouts.

If design ideas were stocks that you could buy on speculation this is one I would sink a lot of money into.

Nothing new for the watchlist. The only change to release dates was for Gods and Heroes which has been pushed back to February. There has been some troubled news about the game. The developer keeps laying off more and more people. Now it could be that the game is nearly done and just requires a little fine tuning so they don't need a full staff anymore but it could also be that the game isn't measuring up to what it should be and the studio is starting to cut its losses early. If this were going to be a major MMO I would expect them to keep most of their employees around to continue to work on the game and its expansions after the launch.

I put two new articles up on the website this month. The first was a bit about how software has been written that can create fiction. These programs can construct (very) short stories that are indistinguishable from what might be written by your average human author. Another program, called Facade, goes a step further and stages the story in a single scene with two characters and you. The player talks with the NPC's in a perfectly natural way and they are able to respond with surprising subtlety within the confines of the plot. It will be a very long time before anything like that finds its way into mainstream games or MMO's but the implications are staggering. At some point in the future it may be possible for each player of a game to have their own personal story custom created for them on the fly creating a truly unique experience for every person every time they play.

The second article I posted discusses the beta community. The interest for me there is identifying the different groups of players who have the most influence on how a game turns out. If you can gain some understanding of these factions you can see which direction a game is likely to go and what sort of games will be popular in the future. Right now it should come as no surprise that people are still looking for games that can be played quickly ad easily ala World of Warcraft. I also think some of the audience may be outgrowing WoW and looking for something more. The same old quests don't seem to be entertaining anyone anymore and people often complain about being sent on pointless errands or tasked with generic jobs such as kill x mobs or collect x items.

I didn't play any new games last month and it doesn't look like I'll play anything new this one either so I don't have any reviews for you. Nothing new has popped up on the horizon either so there aren't any previews or additions to the watchlist. I wish I could tell you more about Warhammer Online but for now I'm sticking to the NDA. I'm hoping that Age of Conan turns out really well. The next MMO's that might be good are The Chronicles of Spellborn and Aion. I'll see if I can't get some decent write ups of those games posted on the website.

That's all for this month. Have fun.

IGN Preview
Official website

Despite the fact it is unfinished and extremely shallow NCSoft still plans to charge the full standard MMO fee of $14.99 per month for the game. Among the things players will want but find missing are an Auction House, Housing, Respecs, Vehicles, the ability to link items in chat, a working craft system, high level content, and pvp. In addition to things that are just missing there are other things that just don't work right. Some creatures will kill a player in one shot using a special ability but there is no information in the combat log to clue a player in to what occurred. Many quests offer a default reward of '100 standard shells' instead of something worthwhile. Other quests say they offer a particular reward when you read them but the actual reward is not the same. Other missions just don't work at all or are very easy to break by doing things slightly out of order or in unexpected ways. Many areas of the world have been cleaned up but it is still fairly easy to find places in the terrain where a player can get stuck and unable to move. Usually the /stuck command will get a player loose but sometimes it wont help and there is no known way for a player to recover.

TR made a big deal out of the capturable control points and quests that offered moral choices but neither of these has been fully developed. Bane can capture bases but it almost never happens and if it does it is probably because everyone went to bed. There are no mass assaults or concerted rushes by either the player faction or the bane. All bases that can be captured are owned by the player 99.9% of the time. When one is taken back it only requires 1 or 2 players to recapture it. Small scale assaults happen at regular intervals but there is no notification to anyone that an assault is happening. If you happen to be in the base when an assault starts you will see a handful of bane teleport inside the base walls and the map icon will flash red (if you happen to have your full screen world map open at the time.) These assaults barely register however as any players in the base at the time will easily be able to defeat the intruders in a matter of seconds, resolving the situation before anyone else would even notice.

The linkage between missions and the state of war shown in one of the E3 or GDC demos never materialized. Missions have no impact on anything at all. Dynamic spawns and NPC AI were talked up a lot but the game uses the exact same static spawn points, patrols and timers as every other MMO. The AI is the same 'guard' AI that has been in use since Ultima Online was released. If an enemy comes in range of an NPC they will attack each other. Beyond that they will sit on their hands and do nothing.

The way things spawn into the world has been dressed up a great deal so that they don't just pop into the game out of thin air. Instead dropships will come in and port down a party of bane or giant robots will fall from space and climb out of their hole in the ground. Aside from the window dressing though the spawn points are entirely fixed and it wont take long for experienced players to see the patterns and learn where to find things.

Official Press Release
New TR website

Almost no one enjoys calculations. Humans prefer heuristic (rules of thumb) relationships or continuous equations far more. The heuristics feel good when you figure them out and the continuous equations can only be predicted which also seems to scratch an itch in our brains.

- Dan Bunten (designer of M.U.L.E.) :

The game has 9 or 10 gorgeously detailed levels. The setting is that of a post-WW2 era utopia that was constructed beneath the ocean. Everywhere you look you will see architecture and scenery that reflects the very best of that era. Even the small details have not been overlooked. In each level you will be working towards an objective that will lead you to the next area when it is completed. Sometimes there will be surprises along the way that will have you dealing with other issues before moving on. The enemies are all very similar in appearance (except for the 'Big Daddies') and it can be very difficult to tell them apart. Despite the limited variety each enemy does have unique behaviors that set it apart from others. Throughout the game you will be given opportunities to enhance your character in different ways. Unlike a typical RPG there is really only one path for development: You acquire as many upgrades as you can without focusing on any one type and switch between them as needed.

Before closing I will offer one small warning about the game. The content deliberately raises some moral issues and exposes the player to acts of cruel depravity that may well disturb even an adult. This game is definitely not for children. If you are a hardy soul unconcerned by such issues then you should have no difficulty enjoying Bioshock. I explored the game as thoroughly as I possibly could and I believe it took me only 40 hours or so to complete it. If you were to focus just on achieving the goals for each level I suspect you could finish it in half the time. For me the medium level of difficulty was perfect but there are also easy and hard modes if you prefer the game to be more or less challenging.

The other watchlist game released in August was 'Two Worlds'. Two Worlds is an open world RPG ala Oblivion or Gothic. Like those games there are many options for character development and you may travel freely throughout the world. Two Worlds isn't as carefully manicured as Gothic nor does it have the well crafted storylines of Oblivion. Instead I think it quite comfortably bridges both games giving the player a very attractive world to explore and interesting ways to interact with it.

Among the more unique aspects of the game a few things stand out. First is the way in which items can be upgraded. Any time you find two items with the same name you can drop one onto the other to combine them into an improved version. With weapons this means more damage and for armor more protection. Spells come in the form of cards which are placed in your spellbook. Three spells can be active on your hotkey bar at a time and like weapons if you have more than once card for the same spell you can stack them in your casting bar to obtain greater effect. Unlike weapons the cards remain in a stack and you can separate them out or add them together again any time you like. In addition to the spell cards themselves there are modifier cards. Three modifiers can be applied to each spell slot. These further enhance the properties of the spell by increasing its damage, level, duration etc.

One of the most unique features of the game is the ability to ride a mount. There are several types of horses as well as more exotic mounts in the game. Mounts have saddlebags that you can use to store additional items and it is possible to fight from horseback and to run over enemies while mounted. Controlling the mount is much different in Two Worlds than in any other game and much more accurately reflects how it is to ride a horse in the real world. When you climb into the saddle you do not drive the mount around like a car as you do your character. Instead you push the forward key to get it going and it will continue to go until you dismount or pull back on the reins to stop it. You turn the mount by pressing the left or right keys and when you do the mount will turn its head to the side and begin to change direction. Don't expect to be able to pull off hairpin turns however. The animals have a set turning rate which feels very natural and takes some getting used to. The faster you are going the wider the turn you will make. The animals are not without some sense either. If you try to ride them into a wall or off a cliff they will turn aside and avoid the obstacle. They also tend to slow down when navigating steep terrain and speed up when going downhill. While they avoid things such as trees or large boulders they jump over other obstacles such as short fences. Different mounts have subtly different characteristics. Some turn more easily than others, some are faster or slower, others have greater or lesser capacity in their saddlebags and I swear some are just plain more stubborn than others and resist your attempts to get them to stop or turn or shy away from obstacles more readily.

So far I have played quite a bit of the game without paying much attention to the central story. I have been having fun wandering the wilderness and seeing what sorts of things I can find. This game feels like it will take a considerable length of time to complete and that I will be able to enjoy it for quite a while. Bioshock was a great game but i think if you had to choose just one Two Worlds might be the better choice as you will almost certainly get many, many more hours of enjoyment out of it.

There isn't anything coming out in September that I have any interest in. The next big releases are The Witcher and Hellgate London in October. Game retail sites are showing an October release for Tabula Rasa but my experience in the beta so far makes that seem extremely unlikely. The open beta of the game will most likely start in 4-6 weeks or so. As soon as it starts and the NDA is lifted I will give you the inside scoop on the good and bad features of the game.

I also was just recently accepted into the Warhammer Online beta and have been tinkering with the Mythos beta for a few weeks now.

I am adding a couple new games to the watchlist this month. The first is Gods and Heroes. Gods and Heroes is an MMO set in ancient Greece. Players assume the role of a hero and, in accordance with Greek tradition, must curry favor with the various gods. One interesting twist with this game is that you have the option of controlling several henchmen as well as your main character even when grouped with other players. The game claims to have dynamic zones that scale themselves to fit the party that enters them. This reminds me of CoH missions and how the number of enemies would scale up or down with the size of the group. When I first heard about the game I thought Gods and Heroes was an RTS or Squad Combat game. It wasn't until recently that someone pointed out to me that it was an MMO. I have signed up for the beta but doubt my chances of getting in since I was so late in taking an interest in the game. I'll have more info posted on my site for the game as soon as I have had a chance to read through more of the material available on it.

The second game I am adding is another MMO. This one is called Aion. Aion is a Korean MMO being developed by NCSoft. The graphics for the game are remarkable but I don't know too much about the gameplay yet. What I do know is that characters will be somewhat angelic in nature and able to fly. The game has three factions. Two are player controlled and the third is run by AI. They intend to introduce a new type of PvP they are calling PvPvE where players must fight each other and the AI at the same time. There is also talk of the game world changing in response to player activity and not only is divergence possible from one server to another but it is inevitable and an i9nstrinsic feature of the game.

Because this is a Korean MMO I am somewhat hesitant to add it to the list. Korean games follow a somewhat alien set of design guidelines to what I usually find enjoyable. They often contain enormous levels of repetition and grind with very little provided in terms of story or content. Still, some of the features they list have enormous potential. I think this game could be well worth keeping an eye on to see how it develops.

Part 1
part 2

In addition to this article there are plenty of other interesting things to read there.

A couple of points he made that resonated strongly with me were:

1. Hard-core game conventions
One of the most common pitfalls for a game designer is to fear that the game is not hard enough. This fear often leads to hard-core game conventions, like restrictive save systems and unlockable content, that only put roadblocks in the way of the mainstream gamer who is just looking to have a good time.

and

Fun Factor = Interesting Decisions / Actual Time Played.

More information about the state of The9's business.

(This is Talon from WoW btw.)

A few things stood out in the demo.

• If you find two identical weapons or pieces of armor they can be combined by dropping one on top of the other in your inventory. They don't stack though. Instead they become a single stronger item with the same name and appearance.
• You can equip three spells at a time. In addition each spell has three slots for modifiers. These modifiers may increase the level, effect, mana cost, or other attributes of the spell when used.
• Combat is a blend of just clicking as fast as you can and actually paying attention to what the enemy is doing and trying to react. Bears in particular were very deadly until I learned to jump out of the way when they reared up.

You can download the demo from File Front and don't forget to grab the patch while you're at it.

In the meantime I came across this video on Youtube showing a fight with one of the major enemy types. There are others there as well but I thought this one really gave you a feeling for the kinds of things you can do in the game and the moral choices you are presented with.

Think back to learning Molten Core or BWL. Back then, the gear checks were "Are your tanks equipped well enough, and your DPSers good enough to kill the boss before the healers crap out", and "have you done the encounter enough times to teach a signifigant portion of the raid attendees the ins and outs of the encounter?". That was fun. You'd spend a couple nights on farm content, gearing the less geared, then you would progress to the new bosses, spend a couple days on them (longer on stuff like domo and vale and untauntable firemaw) until people figured out what they were doing, and how the encounter was designed to be played. If there was a mistake made, and one or two of the DPSers or healers died, it wasn't a huge deal because everyone was there doing what they could.

Then came the idea of an "enrage timer". IIRC, Satura in AQ40 was the first real boss to employ the "enrage timer", but Satura's HPs were so low, and the enrage timer was so long that no guild really had any issues dealing with that. Even the twin emperors (the only other non-naxx boss to have a true enrage timer) had an enrage timer (set at 15 minutes) that was not the crucial part of the fight. I believe that our guild only really passed that mark once before we dropped them. The raids there were not limited by a certain set time that the devs could designate a minimum raid DPS (boss HP / enrage time = minimum DPS).

Patchwerk was the only fight pre-BC with a REAL enrage timer designed at testing DPS mixed with aggro management. Many guilds struggled on him because it was a relatively simple encounter that blizzard designed strictly as a "Gear Check," and it was such a different concept than any previously seen encounter. Keep the tanks up and on top of threat. Have the healers pull out all stops and heal the tanks through the HS's. Once that is done… how big are your DPSer's balls? Learning the encounter didn't even require the DPS to be there. Your DPS could have sat out and run to the blasted lands and practiced their single-target cycles versus the unkillable mobs, and have been more productive.

Even the other fights with enrage timers in naxx weren't designed around the concept of a gear check, or a max time on the encounter. Heigan's enrage timer was put in to ensure that you weren't only bringing in 10 people who could dance, and 30 people who didn't understand that green goo = bad. Thaddius was "can your folks move left or right in a coordinated manner, and are they awake enough to not miss a stupid jump?" Both of the fights were simple enough DPS and healing wise that the enrage timer wasn't really a check, but more of a byproduct of the rest of the fight.

Now we hit BC. Every second mob has an enrage timer. Even mobs that don't need it. I just don't get why they took such great ideas as making raiding about learning the encounters, and practicing a bit, and then executing, to encounters that require flawless execution where if you lose one person and have no means of recovering that person, then it is a guaranteed wipe. Where are the "learning" kills, where the boss dies from, of all things, a hunter's dot when 2/3 of the raid is dead, and then the next time only 1/3 of the raid is dead, and the next time only the dingleberries you drag through content are dead. Those fights are gone, replaced with content that just makes the experience less fun.

—The Yag

“We naturally regret that we have to push back ‘Age of Conan’. However, after careful consideration, and analysis of recent Beta feedback, we believe that the new release date is in the best interest of the gamers, our company and our owners,” said Trond Arne Aas, CEO of Funcom. “We are fully committed to delivering games with absolute qualities, and in the current MMO marketplace we know that only the best is good enough to truly succeed. With the new release date we have therefore given ourselves more time to meet and deliver on the massive expectations for the game. We are certain that our choice will ultimately pay off, and that all ‘Age of Conan’ players will get a special online experience."

”We are honored by the immense reception our game is constantly getting, with an astounding amount of positive press coverage, awards and magazine covers, but we still see that we need to polish some aspects of the game even further, especially when it comes to the entry barriers,” said Gaute Godager, founder of Funcom and Producer / Director on ‘Age of Conan’. “With the added development time we can now deliver something even more unique and powerful, something which is worthy of the incredible Conan legacy.”

‘Age of Conan’ is consistently mentioned as one of the most anticipated PC games in development. It has received numerous magazine covers and awards, including 'Best MMO of E3' awards from IGN, GameSpot, GameSpy and Yahoo. ‘Age of Conan’ is a key title in Microsoft's Games for Windows line-up, as well as being a showcase DirectX 10 title for nVidia. The game is currently in general Beta, and applications for testing are available at http://www.ageofconan.com.

Cryptic is also working on a couple of other titles that they are being just a but mysterious about. You can get some inkling of what the projects are about here. One game appears to have a mix of fantasy and modern elements. There are screenshots showing a mix of men with rifles, ancient ruins and evil beasts.

I just bought this game and have been trying it out. While its classified as an MMO, it doesn't feel like one. I have yet to see a single person talk. To be able to use the WoW equivalent of /1 channel or /yell, you need to buy a one time use megaphone. Its a neat idea to limit /yell spam, but it means nobody talks. You can use /say for free, but only if you are near the person, which you never are except in a town. I haven't even grouped with anyone yet because there really isn't a point to - you can control three characters yourself, which everybody does. So pretty much every one has a tank/dps/healer of some sort and don't need to group. Plus everything dies so quickly you wouldn't need 3 more characters.

Controlling three characters is tricky since its all real time combat. They will auto attack, and you can use stances to have the AI decide when to heal for example, but I find that if you want to manually do anything other than auto attack, by the time you find the hot key for it, the mob is dead. Its hard to keep track of three characters as well. I find that there is a lot going on at one time and either my wizard or scout (healer) are being hit and I'm not noticing it. You hardly ever fight one mob at a time, they're so closely packed together that I always seems to have 3 or 4 at least.

The graphics are good and the music is great; unique setting in the colonial era, so the clothing and buildings are all from that time. Makes it unique looking from other games which are typically elves, orcs, goblins, etc in a medieval setting. However, the character customization is very limited. You can only choose male/female and their clothing appearance (roughly 6-10 to choose from). And I haven't seen an option anywhere for inspecting other players.

The game most reminds me of Final Fantasy 8 for playstation, but with real time combat rather than turn based. It also reminds me of an FF game due to its seeming linearity even though in FF you can go where you want, the story will require you to go to point A at some point before you can continue on. While its an MMO and you can go where you want, when you look at the map, it shows you the recommended levels for that area, and there is only one 7-12 area, one 13-17 area, one 18-22 area etc. There aren't multiple options for where you can level. And they're all in a long loopy row, there isn't any traveling to a new continent or a high level area near the start that you have to return for.

Overall, considering the game was only $20 and the first month is free (its actually always free if you cap at level 20, the paid version caps at 100), I'm content with it. At this point, I doubt I would subscribe once the month is up but it will entertain me enough for 30 days to make it worth while. Then hopefully, Age of Conan gets good reviews and I might give that a shot this winter, or just stick with Madden 2008 until Assassin's Creed.

Score: 6.5/10

What are other people's thoughts on this one?

Odin Sphere (PS2)
Out Now
Highly rated 2d side scrolling action rpg. very unusual style
http://www.atlus.com/odinsphere/

BioShock
08/21/2007
science fiction, single player RPG
http://www.2kgames.com/bioshock/

Huxley (360/PC)
09/01/2007
MMO/FPS Hybrid
http://www.webzengames.com/Game/Huxley/

Mass Effect (Xbox 360)
09/03/2007
Action RPG from Bioware. First of three.
http://masseffect.bioware.com/

Tabula Rasa
09/03/2007
Sci-Fi MMO by Richard Garriot
http://www.playtr.com/

Hellgate: London
10/30/2007
Diablo style action RPG developed by former Blizzard employees.
http://www.hellgatelondon.com/

Age of Conan (PC/XBox 360)
10/30/2007
Fantasy themed PvE/PvP MMO
http://www.ageofconan.com/conan/en/index.html

Warhammer Online
02/01/2008
Games Workshop MMO.
http://www.warhammeronline.com/

Spore
03/03/2008
Unique and Unusual sim type game
http://www.spore.com/

The Chronicles of Spellborn
~ 2008
Typical fantasy MMO w/ a unique style and setting.
http://www.tcos.com

Fallout 3
~ 2008
Post apocalyptic RPG being made by the creators of Oblivion
http://fallout.bethsoft.com/

Project Offset (PS3/360/PC)
~ 2008
Fantasy FPS
http://www.projectoffset.com/

Raid/Instance id's and Lockouts spring to mind being my most recent headache. In a private instance there are two markers for progress. One is what stage you have completed and the other is what the instance id or flag is. Everyone who starts an instance together gets the same initial id and stage info. As they progress through the instance they complete stages, usually by killing a boss, that saves the progress of the instance so that you could come back later and resume where you left off. However, every time you complete a stage you also get a new Flag.

For example:
Players A,B, and C start the raid instance helegrod.
- Their initial setup is Flag 1: Stage 0
Being particularly uber they kill the first boss.
- Their raid info is now Flag 2: Stage 1
They continue to the next boss but player C disconnects during the fight
- A,B's info is now Flag 3: Stage 1,2
- C's info is still Flag 2: Stage 1

The next day they get together to finish the instance BUT THEY CAN'T
Because player C disconnected his raid ID (Flag 2) does not match what Player A or B have (Flag 3) and they cannot enter the same instance. Player A,B can recruit people w/ no id's or locks at all and those new people will inherit A/B's raid info but there is no way for Player C to rejoin A,B. Even if player C were to get a couple new people and complete stage 2 their new info would be Flag 4: Stage 1,2 which still does not match what A,B have so they Still cannot join them.

Why turbine decided to implement this sort of moronic raid id system baffles me. How could anyone be so stupid?