Age of Mythology: Retold

As many would know, strategy games aren't really my forte but this one has somehow made it into our Friday night game sessions and has probably become my most played strategy one for awhile. Obviously the co-op component helps a lot, though you can only co-op two players if going through the campaign story. That's ok though as there are many other modes that you can play through which is good, given my graphics card bombs out on some of the maps too.

A standard game round has you selecting your civilization (Norse, Greek, Egyptian, Atlantean, etc) followed by a major deity in that civilization - so for a Norse player you'd be choosing between Loki, Odin or Thor for example, each giving you slightly different "god" powers and "tech" trees in the form of minor gods who you get to pick as you advance from age to age.

Usually you get a town center, some peasants and some form of scout of your civilization type and from there have to collect food, wood, gold and favor to expand up through the ages. Favor is your battery for magical powers or making magical creatures and you how you gain it depends on your civilization. Atlanteans gain it by having their oracles stand as far apart from each other as possible. Greeks gain it by having as many people worshiping at the temple. Norse get it by killing enemies, and so forth.

AI wise, the fun bit is getting the mix n match of their personality types. A few examples are the defender who only defends, an attacker will constantly harass you, a humanoid will ignore all magic-related things and just fight you with men and machines, and an overwhelmer will just mass a big ball of troops and then throw it at you if you wait too long. You can also up the "difficulty" by letting the AI cheat basically if you really want a challenge (your peasant hits a tree once and gains 1 wood, their peasant hits a tree once and gains 1-3x wood).

It's simple enough to learn and fun enough to keep playing. Coming from me, a non strategy game player whose PC can't even run 1/4th of it properly, that's saying something so it must be doing something right! :)

Songs of Silence and Samorost 3

Two games beginning with "S" that I didn't enjoy.

Songs of Silence

This fantasy RTS sees you command armies and cities across a map, with battles being "zoomed in" to both your forces and the enemy forces just doing their thing with the only input from you being their initial formation, and playing "cool down" cards to do special actions like healing a cluster of allies, telling all horses to charge somewhere etc. 

The art is pretty nice but that "detachment" to your forces, and the theme that you MUST do x by doing these steps in order (like, conquer this land BUT you must beat the RED guys first before the GREEN guys or get from point A to point B BUT you must sneak through forests or the enemy will smash you) is a bit too railroady for me. Guess I didn't expect that from an RTS? 

Samorost 3 

We're back in the funny hand drawn asteroid or our point and click protagonist who comes across a magic space trumpet and embarks on a quest to... do something with it? Definitely not as easy/obvious as the previous Samorost and the clue section pictograms also requires deciphering as there is still no language anywhere. Didn't enjoy this one very much.

Touch Type Tale and Super Space Club

Games that combine strange things.

Touch Type Tale

Playing as a boy who happens to find a wizard's magical typewriter this game is a blend of both a typing game and a fantasy RTS like the original Warcraft games, but instead of having a mouse to select anything - you have to use the randomly generated word provided! This is for EVERYTHING: selecting the mine, harvesting from the mine, select the town hall, hire peasants to collect mined stuff, build new structure, farm fields, train units, move units across the map, split units, cast spells etc. 

There's a LOT of typing, but that's not even the hard part. Most of the difficulty comes from the RTS side in getting units out fast enough to defend! Definitely a challenging game and a strange combo one at that. As such its audience might be a pretty small set of people.

Super Space Club

This is simply "Asteroids" set to some rap music tracks and waves of endless enemies. Sure you can grind points to unlock new weapons and other pilots (rather, their special abilities) but that doesn't really do it for me - especially as the music isn't really my cup of tea. That said maybe the newer generation haven't ever played asteroids and enjoy rap? For everyone else, not recommended. 

Epic Aged Like Milk

Games from the Epic games store that are just too old.

Nostalgia is a great thing, but not so great is discovering just how bad some older games are. Sonic Mania is a great example as I'm told people love this blue hedgehog. This old platformer with huge, timed and multipathed levels that relies more on map memory than skill does not scream good game or even passable game to me though. It's just bad.

Multiply this by 100 and you get the Antstream Arcade which hosts hundreds of old games which to their credit, they run tournaments for their community. What do you win you may ask? Crystals that let you play the old games. Yep, there is currency to play their arcade! Odd design but in truth how many times do you want to play old games like Mortal Combat, Metal Slug, Pac-Man, Galaga, Joe and Mac or Gods (just as a few examples) vs your current MMO / Elden Ring / etc?

Next up is Wargame: Red Dragon, a tactical RTS hybrid that does both of those poorly thanks to a terrible user interface. On the war map screen you can push little figurines of tanks, planes and boats around into regions to feel like a real war general - only to find that the tank you pushed into enemy territory is actually just 1 APC and that 1 jeep of the enemy is around 50 fighting vehicles. Yes, those details are available somewhere but that's just shit. The RTS segment is the part where you can then control your troops on the field which plays like a bad and more bland version of Red Alert without the building component.

As bad as those are, nothing beats Magic Legends which is simply not available anymore - meaning regardless of whatever merits it once had the launcher is quite literally just garbage now.

Steam Discovery Queue - Crusade of the Free XXXII

Continuing freebies from last time... the one in bold is the best of this set.

Ann: 2D explorer horror set in a haunted school. Need to save the game a lot as danger and death are usually very sudden. You'll get it once that first piano kills you. Kind of annoying.

Blood Spear: A dark gothic horror that looks a lot like Dark Souls, except with the only weapon being a sentient and very blood thirsty spear. There are good visuals and action segments and one of the stand out parts is the death system. There are many "ghost knights" who do nothing but say one liners if you talk to them. Turns out, should you perish - the spear lives on, and you can fly it to one of the ghost knights to revive and possess. Very cool.

Recommended!

Chess: Uh. Probably would have been better if it was actually chess instead of whatever this garbage is.

Doorways - Old Prototype: First person platformer set in hell with developer notes lying around. Bleh.

Iraq War: Doesn't even start. Fail.

IWOCon Digital Convention: Argh. I don't just say that for the pirate theme, but this gives me the feeling of trying too hard. Yes, its a great explorer game but the main purpose of it - which should be the booths - are far too spaced out and are even divided by loading screens. Easily falls into that trap of lots of stupid space only used for traversal.

Plokoth: A hand drawn 2D platform with precision difficulty. Expect a lot of deaths and a high challenge level. Luckily checkpoints are very regular, as you will need them!

Red Button: Simple game where you play one of five world leaders in a bid for world domination. Each turn you pick one of three defense strategies and one of three attack strategies. The country that still has people left at the end wins.

tERRORbane - an introduction, mostly: A pretty good and short demo of an intentionally buggy (and hilarious) game. Pretty unique and worth a look.

Vedelem - the Golden Horde: A real time strategy game where you must build up your base and defend against hordes of Mongols whose main force arrives when the timer runs out. Might be interesting for RTS fans, which I'm not.

Slow and Dirty: Mudrunner Dungeons 3

Bet your mind went straight to the gutter for a minute huh? :P

Mudrunner

Where you can literally go nowhere.

Are you tired of those other driving simulators where you test sleek prototype cars that can powerdrift at mach II? If so, Mudrunner is definitely the game for you! In it, you must select your truck - choose the correct type of carriage for your cargo and then navigate between pick up spots and drop off points before running out of fuel!

Not my idea of fun.

That's right, the entire game is pretty much slow fetch quests, as your vehicle will undoubtedly have to traverse deep sections of mud which you'll need to inch your way through while winching your vehicle from various trees and the like. Exciting right! If you want a game where you literally don't go anywhere, then Mudrunner is for you! Otherwise, if you are like me, stay away. Far far away. I give it one timber tray out of five.

Insight: SKIP IT.

Dungeons 3

Third time's the charm?

Having conquered most of the known realm, the evil lord of conquering everything (you) sets his sights on a distant continent but can't quite get his evil armies of evil across the ocean so its on to plan B - delegation!

The dark elf Thayla will be your primary champion as you wreak havoc by sending your forces from your customizable dungeon and into their overworld stronghold, all while being narrated to by Kevan Brighting. This will be a make or break for you, as the talking is near non-stop.

She also serves as the eye candy.

While I found the tutorials and interface really good I did quickly get annoyed at having to rebuild my dungeon/base each mission which is a similar reason to why I dislike Warcraft and Starcraft. If you don't mind that, and the endless banter, then you might want to give this a try. Two gobblers out of five.

Insight: You'll always need a bigger gobbler farm. :P

Old School War: Rites, Wind and Universalis II

It's pretty painful.

War Wind

I think this was SSI's answer to Dune (RTS).

This real time strategy game takes place on an alien planet and involves using workers to harvest resources, construct buildings, hire units and then sending them out to battle enemies and fauna on the map.

It also features four completely different factions/campaigns to pick from which is massive! Unfortunately all are really aliens which doesn't make them too relatable, even though the story is a simple one of rebellion.

Also, there is zero tutorial available and it's so old, when you save or load a game it actually temporarily drops you into windows to use the default file handler! A bit too dated for my taste, I give it only one and a half tech pigs out of five.

Insight: Right clicking on a unit brings up their valid commands - like instruct workers to build or harvest.

Europa Universalis II

Information overload!

In this old school, world conquering game you take command over a country with the goal of achieving more victory points than anyone else before time runs out. Don't worry, many kings will come and go before that happens.

What is totally nuts though is the broad scope covered here, as you play on a map of the world and depending on your chosen nation, there can be a lot going on. Spain for example is sprawling all the way across to America so you could be dealing with Aztecs and the French at the same time.

Too much going on all the time.

The dated interface also isn't the best meaning you'll need many clicks to find out what's going on, and that's while the game is paused! If time is going, expect to be interrupted by pop up boxes galore, some requiring you to make important choices while more popups get in the way.

Avid war gamers might enjoy this but it ended up being way too complicated for me. One and a half census tax collections out of five.

Insight: Pause is your friend.

Warhammer 40K: Rites of War

In the future, there is only hex-based war!

The Eldar have grown weary of the ruthless expansions of mankind, especially as they now desecrate their ancient sites with their mere presence. You are tasked with assembling a small army (you'll be lucky to field 12 squads) to eliminate the Imperials, Space Marines and random Tyranids that block your path to retrieve holy relics... that only can only be carried by a unit not already holding one.

Should that happen your entire army shrugs, goes "oh well" and is forced to leave it behind - even if every single other unit you have doesn't yet have a relic. Yep. It's annoyances like this that make this hex based war game more tedious than it should be.

The "rest" action is also heavily used by the AI to recover unit strength which means if you can't kill an enemy off in one turn, you will likely have to fight it at near full power again really soon. Have fun when your are getting swarmed by superior numbers and that happens! Not really a game for anyone other than Warhammer Eldar fans, I give this one and a half scatter lasers out of five.

Insight: Stick together and move your slowest units forward first. Support types are great since they get extra attacks out of turn.

Absurd Game Ideas - Porcelain Empire

[Part of the Absurd Game Ideas folder]

Many game bloggers, including myself, usually talk about our ideal games or how to improve the games we currently play. Well I thought it would be fun to flip the script and share our most absurd and silly game or game mod ideas! You are invited to blog your own crazy ideas too! :)

For today I give you...

Porcelain Empire

In this RTS that rival the likes of StarCraft, players step into the shoes of rival toilet manufacturers vying for total control of the market. Resources will need to be managed to increase production, storage, delivery, and sales facilites all while hiring workers, salesmen, researchers, drivers, spies, security guards, lawyers and more.

While there is little combat in the traditional RTS sense, players must endeavour to behave within the laws or at least not get caught while breaking them, but with risk comes reward! Speeding drivers deliver goods faster. Money can be saved by cooking the books and dodging taxes. Planting evidence at rivals structures might slow them down to deal with the cops. Putting large quantities of laxatives in the city drinking water increases demand.

All viable tactics in your quest to create your own Porcelain Empire!

May 2018 Status

Another month down and this top list just keeps getting longer as I add more ideas and sundry items that I really should get around to... Also I've still mainly been focused on killing my backlog. Priorities right? :P

    End the year with less weight (-1 kg from last month, running total: -1.2 kg)
    Complete NWO: Lost City of Omu (0/2, 1-2 weeks to go)
    +Learn 3 more songs (0/3)
    Draw 12 drawings of anything (0/12)
    +Make a parody comic (planning)
    Make board game 19 prototype (procrastinating)
    Complete web comic chapter 1 (procrastinating)
    Make a simple computer game (procrastinating)
    +Clean out computer games
    +Clean out wardrobe

Backlog Update:

FROM GIFTS
Sims 3
Loki (Abandoned. Mindnumbing.)
Overlord 2
Commandos 2: Men of Courage (Abandoned. Not user friendly at all)
C&C Red Alert (DONE)
C&C Red Alert: Counterstrike (DONE)
C&C Red Alert: The Aftermath (DONE)
C&C Tiberian Sun (DONE)
C&C Tiberian Sun: Firestorm (More of the same)
C&C Red Alert 2 (DONE)
C&C Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge (DONE)
C&C Generals (DONE)
C&C Generals: Zero-Hour (DONE)
Supreme Commander (Abandoned. Too slow)
Dawn of War II (DONE)
Universe at War (Done / Had Enough)
Sins of a Solar Empire (DONE)
Diablo: Reaper of Souls (Doesn't Work)
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty (Infinite Patching)
+Eador: Masters of the Broken World

GOG FREEBIE PILEUP
OxenFree (DONE)
Grim Fandango Remastered (DONE)
Worlds of Ultima: The Savage Empire (No. Prefer to retry Free UO)

COMPY CAN'T RUN (but I want to play)
Batman: Arkham Knight
Dying Light
Alien Isolation
Shadow of Mordor
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
+Satellite Reign

I thought I'd just put in some mini reviews with each of those "abandoned" items, most of which I did try my best to play but ultimately just found it not to my liking. The only exception, and the one I'll start with is The Savage Empire.

Ultima in Africa is a bit strange, but I was willing to try it until I heard that Official UO has become free to play. If I'm going to play any Ultima, it's definitely going to be UO and there's no way The Savage Empire was going to stand up to that.

The ARPG diablo clone Loki is up next, and while the game is functional (though very texty) it just dove head first into the realm of mind numbingly boring. Regardless of what on the rails quest you were on, it boiled down to enter new area, kill the hundreds of things in the area (and that's already sneaking past half the map). Rinse and repeat. Just... no.

Eidos' Commandos 2 should have been perfect for me. A bunch of specialists sneaking around in Nazi Germany should be great right? Yes and no. In theory it's good, but lousy voice acting paired with the most unfriendly user interface I've ever come across sent me packing quickly.

Supreme Commander is another RTS game, this one taking place on maps so vast you often needed to zoom out to almost see the whole planet to manage your huge array of forces. With epic music, decent story (from what I played) and nice combat (if you zoomed back in to see it) you might wonder why I gave up on this one, and the answer is simple: build time.

It's a case of hoping your dots overwhelm the enemy dots.

Even compared to the slowest builds in Command and Conquer, this game moves at a glacial pace. Watching two glaciers crash into each other is grand, but waiting for to build your glacier (army) and then getting them to travel across the map was hours of boredom. Ultimately I decided that I simply have more rewarding things to do with my time. :P

Sins of a Solar Empire

A space opera with zero story.

Three warring factions duke it out in this 4x platform (explore, expand, exploit and exterminate) which almost plays like a very cool board game. The music is fantastic, and a careful balance must be maintained with your resources.

Questions such as "do we build an army of little frigates or just a handful of capital ships?", "What research paths will best serve us now?" And "Do I have enough credits to pay off the pirates?" must be answered!

Some pretty scenery here, but you'll mainly be looking at the HUD!

That last point is a most interesting balancing item as the pirates are well established from the get go and are troublesome to eradicate. Giving them money to attack your enemies makes them pretty handy, as long as you can outbid said enemies trying to do the same to you.

The main issue with the game though is there is zero story outside the broad overview given in the intro. A game is played via scenarios, and for me (non pvper) that doesn't really give much in the way of replayability, so while as a game platform it is pretty great - as a game I can only give it 2 cruisers out of 5 and I can only recommend it for groups of friends who enjoy to PvP RTS against each other.

Universe at War: Earth Assault

Where aliens wage war on Earth!

Invasion stories usually have natives fighting off the invaders. In this RTS, you get to play as the humans for all of a mission and a half before being put in command of the Novus - a machine race that likes teleporting via alien telephone poles.

While the game play, battle pacing, voice acting, music and what I saw of the story are decent this game does suffer a little in the graphics area (for the humans anyway) but worse is that it does that annoying trope of forcing you to play as "x" to experience the story. I really, really hate that.

You will hate / love those giant walkers.

That's right, out of the 3 alien races you need to play all three in a predetermined order to complete the game. Working hard to win as the Novus only to then be shoved onto the side of the enemy to "undo" what I was doing just doesn't work (so obviously I stopped there). It's the same crap Blizzard pulls in the later Warcrafts and Starcraft.

If that's your sort of thing this might interest you, but for me I give it out 2 broken arms from carrying a gatling gun out of 5.

Dawn of War II

In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.

Now here's a fantastic squad based tactics game I replayed (despite saying I wouldn't), set in the Warhammer 40K universe and one that is very user-friendly as you lead the Space Marines into battle against a multitude of alien scum.

It is simplified to controlling the squad commanders, leveling and gearing them up, and making use of cover and special abilities. The extra nameless squad mates do help out but are just "tied" to their captain, vastly removing micro management.

Look out behind you!

There are also no structures to build, and though there are optional sites you can capture per mission that will give you boons moving forward in the campaign. The graphics, voice acting, music and story are all great too. Indeed the only fault I can give this is its penchant to reuse maps.

This one is an absolute blast to play, and for me superior to all the Command and Conquer titles I've previously reviewed. Highly recommended, even for non RTS folk. I give this 4.5 melta bombs out of 5.

Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun

Earth 2030 is unrecognizable but war... war remains the same.

Continuing from the original game where Kane died but got better, GDI now kitted out with mechs instead of tanks, continue to oppose the Brotherhood of Nod who have upgraded their sneakiness to subterranean units. Tiberium is now wide spread and actual mutants also run rampant. They are handy as infantry though, since standing in Tiberium heals them while it still kills normal foot soldiers.

A little more and it might become Mech Warrior.

The live action cut scenes are at their finest here with a more serious tone to them, starring James Earl Jones and Michael Beihn as the leaders of GDI (who I played). Also the mission map is present here which is a big plus. The game play itself is fine though some build times were on the long side.

The Firestorm expansion continues the story with cyborgs and the Tiberium threat but honestly, its just more of the same - minus the high production cut scenes and minus the mission selection. Needless to say I didn't finish it. I give Tiberian Sun 4 veinholes out of 5. That's excluding Firestorm which would honestly only lower the score.

Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2

This time with crazier technologies!

Having lost the first war, the Russians have come back now with a vengeance and their secret weapon: a mind controlling wizard named Yuri. It's great to see the cut scene acting and prop department got a boost, with for Kari Wuhrer as Tanya and Ray Wise as the US President. There's definitely a more comedic spin than last time too.

Airship bombers are just one of the WTF moments.

While the selective progression map is still absent from this game and combat seems very fast-forwarded animation wise, it is quite a fun experience to play through (I played as the Allies again). The big change from its predecessor is that infantry can garrison buildings (like in Generals) - making them quite useful in certain situations.

The short campaign in the Yuri's Revenge expansion ups the difficulty somewhat, but I still played through all of it mainly because it still had live action cut scenes. Have to admit, I'm a big fan of those now. Thanks to all the above and the faster build times (less player idling), Red Alert 2 gets 4 clones out of 5 and my recommendation to any RTS enthusiasts who haven't yet played it.

Command and Conquer: Generals

Many steps forward, but just as many steps back.

Set in a period after the Russian menace but before the Tiberium future, this game and its expansion Zero Hour follows the very short campaigns of China, GLA (Terrorists) and the USA (who I played). So short that I actually played through -all- of the expansion missions as well this time.

While I appreciate the diverse units of each side and got the opportunity to "sample" China and GLA unit tree as "allies" during the USA campaign, I did find that it was on the easier side. Maybe my once woeful RTS skill is actually improving, but I have a feeling it's the in game "level up" perks that are very helpful.

Isometria ahoy!

As your units kill enemies and gain veteran ranks themselves (which makes them more useful), you also gain useful unlocks to stronger units or cool down abilities such as air drops and air strikes (for USA anyway). The voice acting is decent too, but the lack of having the mid mission live-action videos and a progression map really subtracts from the game, despite the in-game cut scenes.

Also, while everything is 3D modeled now, the result is they are actually worse than the sprites of its predecessors. All up I give this one 2 stars out of 5.

Command & Conquer: Red Alert

Without Hitler there is Stalin.

This refined version of the original takes a step back from the Tiberium future and sees Russia fighting the Allies (who I played to victory - as before I only play 1 side). Just the ore trucks (which collect gems and ore for funding) are a good example - as they dump their load into the refinery in under 3 seconds as opposed to the harvesters that used a straw.

Keep walking Hitler, you aren't in this game.

It's also interesting that the Allies get the "light" units this time around while Russia gets the "heavies", an inversion of the GDI/Nod arsenal from the first game. Along with some indoor maps there are also new units, most of which are good or mandatory thanks to having water now on the map - the rest are very situational. The engineer rush tactic is also gone here as are the commandos who are replaced by the uber-hero unit: Tanya. It's worth mentioning that I've killed more dogs in this game than any other.

The quality of the video cut scenes has also improved, and the best part is they fixed my complaint from the first game where you need to hunt everything down. Here at some point, the AI just "surrenders" and sends everything your way. Not as good as an immediate "you win" but good enough.

I cherry picked through the expansions and found that Counterstrike, while having missions come in small 2-3 set bundles for story purposes was still just more of the same just with full tech trees unlocked on both sides (which only happens in the last mission of the regular campaign).

Aftermath was more fun for me (at least for Allies), as there are more zero-construction missions. It also adds more ridiculous units though - like a nuke truck. It's exactly what it sounds like. There's no launcher either, it's a suicide unit. Good times! All up, Red Alert is a big step forward from the original and I give it 3.5 Tesla coils out of 5.

Command and Conquer

Where engineers are your most deadly weapon!

You'd think that the Earth being invaded by alien fauna called Tiberium might unite mankind but no, this game is all about the war between the Global Defense Force Initiative (GDI) and brotherhood of Nod terrorists (or just Nod) and you get to play commander for their forces.

Now, I'm terrible at RTS games so I found this really challenging from the get go. There are no difficulty options either, just a slowly expanding arsenal array to build and deal with on the field. Really, it's more like a puzzle game because if you don't do the "right" moves fast enough, then you are put into an unrecoverable losing state.

I really hate those obelisks.

While it's easy enough to load when you find yourself there, the AI doesn't ever surrender - meaning even it will try waste as much of your time as possible with its last unit/building before you get a "Mission Accomplished".

Other than that, game play wise is mostly fine (though I don't get why aircraft can't scout). It has an easy to understand HUD, entertaining (though poorly acted) mission briefing videos and music track, and delivers good challenges. Good to see that the commandos are also almost as OP as the guy in Renegade.

The Command and Conquer: The Covert Operations expansion just adds more missions for each side rather than story, and feels like they just wanted to have more skirmishes with both sides accessing their full tech trees which in the original game only happens right at the last 2-3 missions.

While I did finish the original GDI campaign, I couldn't fight through the expansion as I got tired of being nuked. Only so much fun can be had from loading a saved game after all. :P

That's my big problem with it. It's fun but only to a certain degree due to the required repetition to get things "just right". I give it 2 engineer rushes out of 5 and can only recommend it to RTS fanatics.

Dune: Why didn't this become an MMO?

 
Fear is the mind-killer...

 

Just finished watching it (and Children of Dune) again recently and while it is quite dated I still found them quite entertaining and can't picture anyone but Alec Newman as Paul Atreides. Not even the dark haired guy that fought Captain Picard in the (even older) movie. Still, the question stands though. With quite the lore, the unique setting, and I would guess fan base background behind the many incarnations of Dune (books, movie, mini series, RTS game, board/card games) you would think it would be prime MMO material.

Gameplay wise it is probably best to set it before Paul Atreides shows up for a few reasons, one of which being that he mainly curb stomps everyone once powered up and then his son does for 3,500 years (yikes)! So with that in mind lets see how it does in the other "usual" MMO categories.

Setting and Environmental Weather
Sure, you can make all the extra home planets and / or space ships if you really want but I think you really just need to focus on the titular planet itself. Given it is mostly desert and rock that should even make it easier to render, leaving most of the designers to work on space ports, underground locales and seitches (villages). This means there's no rain, no snow, no clouds. Just need to make day and night cycles and the occasional sand storm.

Monsters
Most of the bad guys in Dune come in the standard human shape, because they basically are all humans. This means it's easier to design shareable armor and clothes all around since your figures can share the same base models. The only other major critter is the sand worm. Sure you can make sand trout (the smaller ones) but those are meant to be rare. It's the gigantic sand worms that people really remember, and they are nigh unkillable through conventional means.

Mounts and Fast Travel
Ornithopters serve as the usual light transport mode for those who can afford it (meaning catering for flight). Those skilled enough can also try ride the giant worms like in the books. Then of course you can throw in all the mechanical units from the RTS game at your leisure. General rule is the bigger the engine, the more vibration, the more chance of attracting them worms. Probably should also require spice to run. :P

Weapons
This is a setting where there are lasguns, gatling guns, personal shields, and ordinance of all kinds. Yet most of the killing seems to happen with bone knives. Really depends how the game designers want to go here. I'd think that the easiest way to not go berserk is just to create a few weapons and have expensive ammo (or use the Gamma World method) for the ranged stuff which will really force players to decide how much they want to pull the trigger.

Currency
Two that I can think of. You have the spice. The whole reason everyone wants the one planet that produces it, and it is used in pretty much everything (crafting, healing, fuel, gaining powers). Then you have guild credits (or some such) which is what everyone that doesn't have spice uses. Which one is your pay for money currency depends on what you can buy with what.

Factions and PvP
Dune is all about PvP. Apart from the houses of Atreides, Harkonen, Corrino (and maybe Ordos for the RTS guys), there are also the Spacing Guild, the fremen, and the Bene Gesserit - all with their own agendas. NPCs of warring houses would obviously constitute the PvE side of things.

Anywho, that's my simple layout of what could be. I would certainly like to hear your opinions not just on Dune as an MMO, but on other works that have a strong enough identity to warrant one. Game of Thrones maybe? Also if you do know of a Dune MMO, please let me know! I'd like to try it out!

MMOs: A Test of Morals

[Part of my MMO Design Folder]

Isn't playing a mass murderer is fun?

In your entire MMO career, how many pixelated creatures and people have you slain? Just think up a number. I'm guessing it's quite a big number that's come to mind, and that's not entirely your fault given the main focus of most games is combat. I'm guessing the number is higher still in your FPS or RTS careers if you avidly play those too.

Does the game usually give you a good enough reason to kill all these things? Vermin extermination is pretty low in my "heroic goals" list but that seems to frequently come up, as is the "oh no, help defend our village by killing x number of those monsters!" Really? I'll save your village by offing 10 pirates or 20 flaming iguanas... who then respawn in 5 minutes?

More disturbing are the guys that want body parts. Tanners and butchers I can let slide, but when people start asking for paws or ears or eyeballs do you ever stop and wonder what they do with it? Or do you just go at face value of, I need the eyeballs to break a magic spell excuse? Even more concerning is when you are tasked with collecting say... ears, and only pull ONE from a two eared target. MUAHAHAHAAHAHAH this way I get to kill TWICE your number!

I think Tobold said something like this before: that since a game usually focuses only on combat then the players (and by extension the developers) will explore all sorts of options that only deal with that mechanic. I've not yet seen a modern MMO where random NPCs will flee, or surrender, be taken to jail by players, or can be talked to and befriended, all outside set story pieces.

If all the bad guys are just painted as "black" (you racist!)... I mean "bad" and our only possible interaction with them is to kill them in various ways it's not surprising that no one really gives a second thought about mass murder. Hopefully this is something that will be changed in MMOs of the future, but for now as players I think it's best if we just don't think about it and enjoy the visceral hacking, slashing, and exploding of our opponents. That's what heroes are made out of right?

Dexter agrees.