So whats up?

2006-02-23 by Frank Sinatra

Its been 2 months since we had our Xmas bash, and the pictures arent lying - it was a blast.

I often get the question about what Sun is doing now, so I guess ill go through some of it.

The primary issue is that there isn't one decent pvp game out, so we are basically playing a lot of different games and finding the fun wherever we can.

The MMORPG situation

It's both a good and a bad time for mmorpgs these days. Its good because the market is exploding, and its bad because explosive growth allways kills innovation.

The Genre grows so much that it isn't even necessary to make games that caters for the experienced gamer. They are not an interesting segment because content for them is the hardest thing to make, and its much easier to have 10 ppl petition about they accidently deleted their favorite item than having one experienced player prove to a GM that that some math calculation in a specific skill is fubar.

The experienced gamers also play more, which requires more content and more bandwith. And since they pay the same money as the casuals its very easy to see that experienced players are bad business.

So right now we have a bad situation, but the good part is that the amount of experienced players will be bigger and bigger so its clear that it wont be long before the developers needs to deliver good, well thought and innovative games.

What are we doing then?

So the SUN is out there, doing a lot of different stuff.

Some are playing EVE, because they have the only real pvp. Of course you might add since its made by UO veterans.

The game is a bit outdated though, and time based levelling ftl - but having real pvp makes up for everything. Many are playing Dota. Dota is a mod for Warcraft 3. It's basically like 5vs5 battleground. Extremely skillbased game, perfect game except it isnt a consistent world and we are not a rts guild.

Single players games. Many have taken online time out and played through the various essential single player games now they have time.

World of Warcraft

Many are still playing, and more are coming back. after the huge dissapointment of no pvp it is probably the best pve game released yet. We are not a pve guild, which is why noone is forced to play it, but it has its moments and its probably the best mmorpg out there today.

I kinda regret the angry road we took with Wow, becasue the game didnt have the pvp we hoped for, we got mad and spend our time complaining. Today I would have preferred that we simply acceptet the game as it was, and since there was no alternative game I think we should have spend our energy owning the pve part of the game - and publicly displaying how important it is to have human opponents, a death penalty you can feel and a price you win for killing a enemy.

Betas

We are trying out various Betas. Autoassault is supposed to have pvp, time will tell but the beta has startet and we have a few in it. Pirates of the burning sea. Promised us 5 beta keys, havent seen anything of those yet, but it has some pvp and as such worth checking out. wont be a long term game probly.

Darkfall

Our doom, our saviour, our lover and our tormentor. Promises us everything we are looking for, but its got that vapor feeling we know all too well. If anything this game has the possibility to be the next real SUN game. But nothing has happened in a long long time.

Odds are that the next genereration of games will be small publishers making a niche game hoping for a market, and the big guys will make a even better pve game.

Imo it will take two genererations of games before a big publisher will make a pvp centric game so its worth thinking a bit about, if we wanna try and own the big game, or play a niche pvp game.

But on the other hand Darkfall might come out, and everything will be fine - that song is just getting a bit old :)

But in short, everyone are playing something, and we are certainly having fun. We are just not together on our usual conquest to kill, grief, destroy and pillage everything that stands in SUNs way.

And that is hopefully a song that never gets old :)