TNGC - 2008 in review

by Firejack at Jan 20 2009 18:17

Was 2008 the year we all got a reality check? Three big MMO's, three relative failures - maybe we're all just getting old?

We'll start the review, naturally enough, from the beginning, with Pirates of the Burning Sea (PotBS from here on in).

Killerwolf (of Nemetos Order WoW guild master fame) drew our attention to this attractive little game on the forums way back in June 2007. Immediate reaction from the community was very encouraging and we were soon making plans to enter the scurvy ridden world of the 17th century sea farer.

We got a fair few people into the open beta and it seemed to have that magic MMO hook - it was fun, there were places to explore, leveling seemed fun and group play was easy to co-ordinate. Ship vs ship battles were amazing (and will take some time to be bettered by anyone else I imagine). We won’t mention the avatar combat though. It was decided we'd create a TNGC guild with Alastriona at the helm - Avast and shiver me timbers and all that.

The game launched mid Jan and we hit the seas on the French side with a solid guild already formed and all seemed good, days turned into weeks - most people seemed happy with the game. We even helped create the CSNF alliance. We gained new members and even took the front ranks in various port contention battles. But then it started to dawn - it's all a bit "samey". Dodgy game mechanics appeared that let the opposition flip ports in the middle of the night. Economy whilst fun might have been TOO complicated for the average player - leading to it being dominated by massive guilds. Patches came and went and improved things, but very slowly. By late March pretty much everyone from the guild had stopped playing and we retired from the seas - great game definitely, just not quite enough substance I imagine.

Our next foray into an MMO was the hugely hyped Age of Conan.

Alot of the community had been watching AoC with eager anticipation for a long time. Many predicted this to be the next gen WoW killer that would also kill off Warhammer before it started. Cutting edge graphics and an interactive combat system made the game sound attractive to pure gamers. Funcomm stating it would remain faithful to the Conan books (not the film thankfully) made it attractive to the fantasy role playing crowd. Would it live up to the hype?

We managed to get a couple of people into a few of the test weekends in April and initial reports were good. There seemed to be plenty to do in PvE, the dialogues were fun and the areas well designed. Early reports were that PvP just didn't work though - frame rates were through the floor and special combo moves for max DPS required you to stand still - not really an option in PvP. Even though the graphics were only DX9, it looked good, if a little slow. We were promised enhancements and patches.....

Enough enthusiasm was shown by the community that we decided to start a guild. The same names showed up and we basically had another Nemetos Order and Alastriona again offered to lead us forward. The game launched mid May and once again we started with a strong guild. Leveling took most of peoples time, we enjoyed the graphics, the story, the world and we even built our own keep but it soon became apparent that something major was missing - team play. It was pretty much worthless to form a party - most quests could be done solo. I think I only did one instance in all my time playing the game. The grouping issue was compounded by the multiple “instanced” versions of the same area. PvP was non existent and where was DX10?

The guild spluttered on, most people leveled up to around 50 (where there was a MASSIVE content hole), we waited for patches and AoC, for the TNGC at least, died a quiet death, with us signing off for the last time around the beginning of August. A great shame - it really did have the potential to be a WoW killer - if only Funcomm had bothered to finish it.

Now we move onto what was possibly the most anticipated MMO in history bar WoW - Warhammer :Online

You only have to check the forums to see how much we were looking forward to this one - 60+ posts before the game even released. This was going to be big.

To cut a long story short, Aveox (of Starwolf Planetside outfit leader fame) decided to found House Auraxis and whilst it wasn't a dedicated TNGC guild, most of us decided to make it our home for WAR. Aveox had been playing in the beta for ages so knew the game inside out - success was assured.

The game released on 17th September (ignoring the early access farce) and we hit the ground running. Area design was good, classes seemed to work as designed, character progression was swift in the early levels and the game delivered on its promise of making people group up and we got thrown into some serious PvP at the end of the first zone. We were hooked.

A solid month went by with the guild making good progress, some drama and politics (ahem!) and HA sorting out their RvR tactics. We got level 40 players, upped our gear and progressed well. However, the storm clouds were brewing. When a game is centered on PvP, class balance is crucial - this soon turned out to be a problem and something that only worsened with patches! RvR mechanics were also suspect - incentives to attack were non existent in some scenarios, making stalemates common. On top of all this, technical issues made large PvP battles very hard to play, despite the games graphics being relatively untaxing.

Players started to drift away and with the promised 1.1 patch slipping further away by the day, HA was wound up on 18th Dec - just over 3 months - a decent run in a game with essentially flawed design.

Now, you may read all the above and feel a bit disheartened at the current state of affairs in the TNGC. But you'd be wrong to do so and let me explain why.

We had the manpower and drive to try each of these games out. We had strong guilds at launch date in each of the games. We recruited lots of new people to the community that are still around. We absolutely got the maximum possible out of each game. In the end however, we were ultimately screwed over by the game designers. Despite all these issues we're all still here, waiting for "the next big thing", enthusiasm undented. We’re more experienced (we can write a guild proposal in 10 seconds flat!), wiser and maybe a little more seasoned as a consequence.

2008 wasn't an entirely bad year for gaming though and there are a certain successes to note.

Medieval 2:Total War - the old stalwart for a fair few TNGC members has been around since 2006. We still hold regular battle nights for this great "pick up and play" RTS.

Left4Dead launched towards the end of 2008 and has proved a fantastic little title for some zombie shredding FPS action. A lot of the community have this game and we've had some great four player sessions trying to save ourselves from the zombie horde. We're looking forward to mods coming out for this one that expands the game play further. I can see this enduring though most of 2009. You really have to get this game. Oh, but don't play it with the lights off!

And finally there is that old stalwart - WoW with the Wrath of the Lich King expansion - released Nov 2008 it's enabled a remarkable rejuvenation of our longest running active TNGC division - Nemetos Order. Raids are being run again but in a casual manner - from reading the forums they're all having a jolly good time as well!

There are countless other games that TNGC members play that aren't mentioned here - they all make up the rich gaming tapestry that this community enjoys and is one of the reasons why we're so strong and another reason why we'll be here for a long time to come.

We're actively planning for the next Total War game - Empire:Total War (article coming soon) and have already created a TNGC division - Black Dawn - for this purpose. If you're interested, PM me on the forums.

I hope you've enjoyed my little year end review and I look forward to playing many more games with (or against) many of you in 2009!

Just leave my archers alone!

--Amigafan

Happy Birthday TNGC!

by Firejack at May 24 2008 18:02

Today is 5 years to the day I founded the Myriad Apocalypse Project in Planetside. This was effectively the start of the Community. Never remember the exact date but its between the 24th of May and 11th of July 2003 when I registered our old domain name http://www.thetngc.org.uk .

Pretty impressive to think so many people are still with us. The strong interest shown in Age of Conan by existing members is why I always believed forming a Community was the best idea. Nothing like playing a new game with old friends.

Happy Birthday Terra Nova Gaming Community!

Nemetos Order comes to Age of Conan

by Firejack at May 24 2008 17:56

The Return of Nemetos Order was marked last Sunday May the 18th at 13:25 BST when Theanon, Alastriona, Dismus, Ichimaru, Irricas and Mortarian founded the second manifestation of this Guild.

With the Full European release of Age of Conan yesterday the Community has now reopened Recruitment for the new Nemetos Order Division.

If you wish to apply click the "Join the Community" link in the top right menu and follow the instructions. We look forward to some new members to go with the more established already members in the Guild.

Terra Nova Company Sets Sail

by Firejack at Jan 14 2008 21:42

Monday the 7th of January saw our latest Community division raise anchor and head out onto the dangerous waters of the Caribbean of 1720 thanks to the new MMOG - Pirates of the Burning Sea.

Pirates of the Burning Sea is a fantastic game. Created by Flaying labs Software and published by Sony Online Entertainment. For the benefit of those who have not played the game yet I thoughts I'd write a short review.

Personally I wasn't sure about Pirates of the Burning sea reading the early previews. The game didn't seem to appeal to me. It looked like another MMORPG. Which it is but also much more. The game starts off in the usual third person perspective with a familiar interface with the sounds of a battle outside. Talking to the NPC you soon discover all is not well and the ship you are on has been boarded by pirates!

Heading topside you engage the Pirates in a standard RPG-style combat system of using abilities to attack your enemy. This isn't particularly brilliant. The Avatar Combat system is fairly dull and something you'll learn to live with. As what followed was ship to ship combat and it is superb.

When you take command of a ship for the first time you are greeted by beautiful oceans and a truly awesome looking ship.

The ship combat system is great. You will be battling with currents and the winds to manoeuvre yourself in such a way you are astern of the enemy ship and line yourself up to unleash a full broadside of smokey and noisy cannon fire!

This is me doing a sharp turn away from some Pirates outside New Orleans. And yes I have no ammo.. it takes up valuable cargo space!

Pirates of the Burning Sea (PotBS) looks like having all the key ingredients to make it an ideal game for our Community. There is a very active and passionate Community already built up around the game. The developers are working hard and listening to what players are telling them on how to improve the game which is very promising.

The actual tools for forming a Society (PotBS term for Guild) are fairly basic in game and like the Avatar Combat these are the 2 areas of the game I'm looking for improvements in the coming months.

The game as a whole performs very well even on my ageing computer (Athlon 64 3200+, 2GB DDR-400, Radeon X1950 Pro). The game is very forgiving of those is poorer internet connections also and doesn't require a low ping to compete.

There are problems like any MMOG at release and a certain level of polish is missing from the game. Comparing the release of PotBS to the other MMOG's I've played, PlanetSide and World of Warcraft. I feel PotBS has got off to a much smoother start.

For the new player the game is a bit overwhelming. The learning curve of the actual game play is probably 2 hours. There is a lot to learn especially with the game economy which is completely player driven from the Nails in the deck to the Rum stored below in player made barrels. The economy takes around 5 days to gain an understanding of and is a bit too confusing at the start with so much to take in and some very complicated and long construction chains involved anything up to 8 or 9 people for the bigger ships.

New players don't have to worry about be ganked by high level players as PvP is handled very well from what I've been reading. I've not had any PvP encounters yet as the full PvP system isn't active until the 22nd when the Full game being released.

There are many ways to influence the game world which is a dynamic battlefield with each Nation competing with each other for control of the whole Caribbean and its valuable resources. You can destabilize ports by flooding the local economy with cheap goods or the old fashioned way of blowing other ships out the water.

This is probably one of the best features about the game. Even if PvP isn't your thing there are plenty of ways to be involved.

Being friendly for the casual or hardcore gamer is also achieved. You can easily pickup the game for an hour for some questing, profiteering in the auction house or gathering a group of friends for some pirate hunting.

Being different levels doesn't matter too much. Working together as a team is the goal. Meaning a team will always beat some nobody who plays all day everyday and enjoys ruining your time in the game.

On Saturday night we went out as a gang of ships all under level 20 and were able to take on multiple ships of a higher level and all worked together to destroy a level 50 frigate!

The economy is very well setup. With each player being limited to 10 economic structures which gain labour in real-time and you can only mine or build ships when you have the required amount of labour. This stops people who play 24/7 controlling the economy and brings even casual players onto a fair playing field and able to gather the materials for the best ships.

Levelling is very relaxed. Some is a bit repetitive but most of the missions as easy to get to and often involved nothing more then walking to the end of the Docks to start. The missions themselves are all over in a short time. Lasting from a couple of minutes to no more then 20 minutes in my experience.

Well I hope this has given you some thoughts about giving the game a try and joining us. There was a lot more I could talk about but I'm limited for time. So you'll have to come find out for yourself!

We'd be happy to see you if you wanted to join. Goto the Application page in our Wiki to apply.

You'll find Terra Nova Company playing as the French Nation on the Roberts server (English EU).

More information on the game is available on the PotBS site: http://www.burningsea.com

Kael`thas downed by Nemetos Order!

by xelha at Nov 27 2007 14:11

26th November

Another very hard boss defeated by Nemetos Order! Quite possibly the hardest we have faced! After several wipes and problems when the login server was down we prevailed, meaning we can now advance to the final 2 instances in the game, and a relief it will be after months spent in Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep to finally try something new. Immediately after beating Prince Kael'thas the raid moved to Hyjal and also defeated the first boss Rage Winterchill on our second attempt with only 23 raiders!

Drops(KT): Defender, Hero, Crown of the Sun, Thalassian Wildercloak and Verdant Sphere

Drops(Rage): Deadly Cuffs, Howling Wind Bracers

Great work by all those there and all who participated in the previous wipes. Now everyone who hasn't already must get attuned to Hyjal and Black Temple!