Ask Kayhynn: Week 3

It's been almost a month, slightly more, since the last Ask Kayhynn article, and for that I apologize.  It seems like anytime I start a weekly project, karma has something against me and intervenes to prevent me from getting to it.  Work, Christmas, New Years and everything else just piled together to take away free time to work on a new article.

And since it has been a while since I had time to play, I'm going to answer more than five questions this week.

That being said, I do have a slew of questions to answer, but am always looking for more questions.  If you have any, please feel free to e-mail them to kayhynn at eogamer.com

Question 1 from Rayne: What fantasy RPGs would you recommend for a PC player who's used to WoW, Diablo, etc.?

Answer:  Fate and Torchilight would be at the top of my PC player lists if you liked Diablo.  Fate and Torchilight are both Diablo-ish type games and to be honest, Torchlight sorta takes the best of both worlds from Diablo and Fate and combines them into one.  The downside, at the moment, is Torchlight is single player only with only 3 character classes.  The upside, you can create your own dungeon maps if you download the map editor Runic Games provides for the game.  Torchlight is going to be made available for XBox as well.  They are coming out with Torchlight 2, which will allow for multiplayer LAN games as well as a Torchlight MMO.  But Torchlight is definitely a fun game with a lot of replayability.

Dragon Age would be another one that I recommend for PC players.  While a lot of the story is semi-rail driven, the experience is very different between what class you play and the way you answer your questions and what race you are.  This game was very well thought out and player driven.    I look forward to Dragon Age 2, which should be coming out soon.

Question 2 from anonymous:  What is your favorite MMO and why?

Answer:  Hmmm.  I would probably have to say Ultima Online.  The game does piss me off a lot (more so of late), but it's been a consistent game that I've played on and off for the past 11 years.

Ultima Online is considered to be the first true MMO and is probably a true sandbox game.  It is definitely no longer an easy game for new players to get into, but with persistence, new players could grow to enjoy it as much as long-time players.

Players often joke that a lot of other games have learned from Ultima Online and incorporate things from the game into theirs.  Vice versa is true too.  Ultima Online sees what other games do and add variations into the game.  Players don't always like this, but it is what it is.  You have to appeal to more players.

WoW is a very close second to being my favorite MMO and might even be tied with UO.  I didn't like the game at first, but it's grown on me and six years later I'm still playing.

Question 3 from Dux: Which is the worst game you've ever seen/played?

Answer:  Tabula Rasa.   Admittedly, I only played it in beta, but the game barely lasted a year live…if that.

Tabula Rasa had the potential to be a great game, if the guys developing it had learned from the errors that had been in Ultima Online.  Obviously, they hadn't.  Then they went andchanged the game completely just before it launched.

Advice for developers:  don't change the game suddenly from Beta to live.  It pisses players off.

Question 4 from Saraph: Top series that need to die (ie stop making new games)?

Answer:  Final Fantasy.  I'm sure FF fanbois/girls will be pissed at me saying that, but the quality of the games have gone downhill.

Give it up Square Enix.  Put the franchise to rest.  The game is done.

Question 5 from Giggledrop Sunshine:  What game have you never been able to get through no matter how many times you try?

Answer:  Too many to name, or count.  Mainly due to being interrupted by outside things that prevent me from finishing games.

I still haven't finished Dragon Age due to interruptions and time interference.

Question 6 from I3lind: So what game or games are you look forward to the most in 2011?

Answer:  Dragon Age 2 is definitely on my list of most anticipated games, followed closely by Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic MMO.  I'm looking for a good sci-fi game and this one has the potential to be very good, or very bad.  It depends on how the developers take the game after launch.

Dragon Age II seems to be a great follow up to Dragon Age: Origins and the expansion, Dragon Age: Awakenings. A demo of this game will be available for the public Feb. 22.

I've been very impressed with Bioware and their productions thus far, but it seems like every Star Wars game gets screwed up eventually by the developers.  Star Wars Galaxies being a great example of a screw up.

Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising is another game I am looking forward to.

Development of this game originally started out with Perpetual Entertainment, but when that company went under, the rights were sold to Sony.  Eventually, Heatwave Interactive picked the game up and it is now in closed beta with them.  As a fan of Greek and Roman mythology, I really look forward to seeing what this game has to offer.

Honestly there are a lot of games I would love to have the opportunity to play, I just don't have the time to.

Question 7 from Nilly: What's the most annoying glitch you've ever come across?

Answer:  This answer may actually make a lot of people confused, but for me, the most annoying glitch is server lines in Ultima Online.  This isn't a game interrupting glitch, the problems have been there since Ultima Online launched back in 97? 98?  But they haven't actually ever fixed it.

That being said, let me explain what I mean.  When you cross over the map where a serverline is, sometimes you can bounce back.  Sometimes what's attacking you, or you are attacking, gets stuck on the other side and you can't kill it, but are still flagged.  You can't place a home or anything that would fit in an area where a server line crosses.  And if you are PVPing, a server line can get you killed.

After so many years, most players know where the most obvious server lines are and can avoid them, but sometimes, it still causes problems.  It's a known glitch, but….no real solution for fixing it.

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