E3 2010: Sony - PSN And Then Some

 There was a collective sigh of relief as Sony announced that PSN as we know it would remain free. But only PSN as we know it. It appears that we now have the option to pay for PSN - what is going on here? We send Drew to find out!

  Traditionally, PSN is a bit like yin and yang, it has two very distinct parts that contrast each other. One the one hand it is generally regarded that support is lacking for PSN compared to XBL while on the other hand it is a free service that allows on-line gaming, shopping and Playstation Home - which was suspiciously only briefly mentioned at this year's E3. This is how we know and love the PS3 with it's highs and lows, but now something is stirring which could change all that - or leave it just the same as it is.

  Let me explain. This year at E3 Sony announced a new paid tier for PSN called PSN Plus, don't worry the Drew Award for Innovative Service Names (DAISN) is remaining firmly in my sock drawer. But un-inventive names aside, what is PSN Plus? Put simply it's a subscription service that gives gamers access to free games, PS1 classics, minis, and themes along with the new "full-game demo" concept. The service also features an automatic update service which means updates are installed without you having to tell them to be, but this is such a pitiful thing to expect people to pay for that's the last you'll hear me say on it.

  The full-game demo feature however has some merit. The idea is that you download a demo that works in the same way as owning the full game for an pre established amount of time, allegedly around an hour. I guess the idea is that you get a more complete example of what owning the game would be
like. While it's an interesting attempt to drive interest in games I fail to see how it differs from a regular demo, especially as timed demos already exist. The only real advantage is that given that you have the time, it would be possible to compare single player and multi player elements of the game before you run out and buy it.

  Of course the real interest in Plus comes form all those free games. The deal is that for around $5o and year or $19 for three months (about 40 and 20 pound respectively in the UK) you get access to new games each month to download for free, along with themes and discounts. This might sound a little expensive but provided you download enough of the games you could save some money, the problem is that you never really "own" the games.

 According to Sony, once a subscription runs out you lose access to the games. Although, themes and game paid for using discount offered by the Plus service remain. This makes PSN Plus a bit of an elaborate rental service. The only way to make it really for you is to play and complete every game the service offers to get the full moneys worth out of it, but this assumes that you want to play every title. I for one will not play every Disney ps1 classic just because I paid 40 quid to do it! If your subscription runs out and you reactivate it you regain all of the previous content but I would still opt to simply pay for what I want and keep it.

 I'm not sure on this yet, even the European incentive of a free downloadable version of Little Big Planet if you buy close to launch has not sold me. It's an amazing game but I already own it! Of all of Sony's E3 announcements this is by far the most dubious, but like a good reporter I will pay for and use the service and let you know how it goes. Check back soon!        
Get the rest of your Sony E3 coverage here:


SonyE32010– Move http://tiny.cc/n20ri


SonyE32010 – Intro http://tiny.cc/gr0dx

SonyE32010 – Games http://tiny.cc/2gtsz

SonyE32010 – 3D http://tiny.cc/cgn17


SonyE32010 – Portable http://tiny.cc/8kwwh

Have you tried turning it off and on again?

Lets face it, no one likes dealing with customer service because we've all had nightmarish encounters with them before. Am I right? So when you have to contact some one about an issue and you stumble on some good customer service, it's a big deal. I was recently blessed with such an encounter and not only was it enjoyable to converse with them, but they married customer service with one of my loves, role playing. Could it get any better?

I'll keep the back story short because I know some of you are tired of hearing me rant on about Wizard101 and all their greatness, but they have hands down the best online customer service I've ever had the pleasure of dealing with. I was bent of crafting one of the hardest items in the Spiral because I had hit the level cap and was waiting on all the new releases for this spring and summer. Well it took me over a month but I finally farmed enough reagents to craft it (woohoo). I go to my designated crafting area and clicked the button. Simultaneously I get an error message saying the servers are down for maintenance and I get booted off. Well, that was no fun. Long and short of it is I log back in and lo and behold, no item, the reagents are gone, and one of my crafting slots has a cool down timer ticking, indicating I just crafted something. But where are my spoils? Where did all my hard work go? Gone. All that time and effort and gold (in game currency) just wasted on an untimely server crash.

Needless to say I was livid, or heart broken, I couldn't decide. Either way I was none too pleased. After I calmed down and regained composure from my all powerful nerd-rage, I did what any gamer would do... scurried over to the forums to complain! I went to the proper page and posted a new thread about my misfortune in hopes someone would take pity on my poor soul or rant and rave about the same issue. Not two hours later a forum administrator had posted a reply, she goes by Professor Greyrose, which was odd to be because that is one of the NPCs in the game. But here is how the next few days went:

Professor Greyrose
Administrator
Oh dear! Please contact Mr Lincoln
through either the Help & Support link on the left, or directly through
email at support@wizard101.com
". . . with Persistence, Victory is assured"
Lydia Greyrose
Professor of Ice Magic

Well I immediately emailed this "Mr. Lincoln" character and within ten hours was met with his response:

Hi there,
Please let me know your username and character name and I will
send this to the Senior Wizards to investigate.
Regards,
Mr. Lincoln
Ravenwood School of Magical Arts

PS: While you're in the waiting
room, please peruse some fascinating reading material:
https://www.wizard101.com/guide

I sent my information along with an almost exact time as to when the incident occurred (thanks to my cool down timer) and waited. And waited. And got nervous when I didn't hear anything after twenty four hours. I just thought to myself, "great, another lost cause in the customer service department." then it happened. The huge update for the advanced pet system went live. Half a day later I get this in my inbox:

Hello!
I'm sorry for the delay, I'd like to confer with our Senior Wizards on this matter. Please give me just a little bit of time.
Thank you for your patience,
Regards,
Mr. Lincoln
Ravenwood School of Magical Arts

What a relief, someone admitting that they are taking a while on a situation and owning up to it. No excuses, no complaining about how untimely my "problem" was and no mention about how busy they were. Just a simple, "I'm sorry, just a little bit longer please." So refreshing! The very next day, all my dreams came true!

Hello and thank you for contacting Wizard101 Support!
We are very sorry for the poor timing and loss of your reagents. I've gone ahead and given you the following back.
Crystal Vial 1
Ore 80
Fossil 30
Scrap Iron 25
Black Pearl 15
Leather Straps 48
Shadow Oil 4
Let us know if there is anything else we can do for you.
Sincerely,
The Senior Wizards
KingsIsle Support

Now try and tell me that isn't amazing service. How many MMO's do you know of that has over five million registered users takes the time to thoroughly investigate and resolve an issue with just one customer. Not to mention returning lost items. Wow. In roughly three days, not only did they resolve my issue, GIVE back all my reagents that I worked so hard for, and release a huge update... they stayed in character the whole time! If I didn't love Wizard101 before, I do now. These Kings Isle employees really stick to it when it comes to character. The forums are hilarious to read because all the administrators answer questions and write posts as if the Ravenwood School for Wizards is a real place. Absolutely love it.

So next time you're on hold for three hours just for someone to tell you they can't help you and don't even have you in their system, remember... There are some good guys out there, they just might be meeting with the Senior Wizards at the moment.

It followed me home, can I keep it?

As promised, I'm keeping you updated the ever growing and always changing MMO, Wizard101.

Exciting news! The new pet system went live yesterday! Kings Isle had opened the test realm a little over a month ago for subscribers to check out and test out the new pet system they've been working so hard on. Here is a little background history: Like most MMORPG's out there your character can attain pets, little guys to follow you around and benefit you in some manner. For Wizard101, standard pets could boost your power pip chance, give you an extra card for your deck to use in battles, or just look plain awesome standing by your side. That was pretty much all pets did, but it was cool, the most rare pets were feverishly farmed for even though the new pet didn't help your stats at all. Now, with the new and improved pet system, all that has changed.

For starters, pets can now do more than just stand by you, you can let them loose in your dorm room and not just keep them stuffed in your backpack. But aside from aesthetics, they have their own little arena called the Pet Pavilion. There you can do so many things with all your pets. First you can buy snacks for them which increase their stats: intellect, strength, agility, power, and will. Same with little mini games, the games take energy to play, but you gain experience, which ages your pet, and depending on which game you play and how well you do, the pet's stats go up. Another fun little bit you can engage your pets in is the Wizzy 500 (aka the Pet Derby), a cute little racing game where your pet races three other pets. The derby takes no energy so you can play as much as you want while you wait for your energy to build back up. The better you do, the better rank your pet gets. Doesn't do anything for your pet's abilities, but it's fun bragging rights.

Another great thing about the advanced pet system are the new talents the pets can have. Now, this part of the pet system promises to be one of the most rewarding, yet at the moment, is the most unknown. All pets start out as babies or teens with little experience. You have to train and grow them to get them to adulthood and from there they can move up to me ancient then epic. With pets, older is better. With the talent system, your pet can give you help in battle by casting their own spells, buffing spells, increasing damage, giving cards, increasing mana, increased resistance, dealing damage, de-buff and disarm opponents, increase accuracy, increase health, increased power pip chance, increasing pet stats, and so much more that hasn't even been unlocked yet. As you age your pet, he unlocks more of the talents to either use in battles with you or in the pet derby.


After the pet gets to be an adult it can participate in the coolest feature, in my opinion, the hatchery. If you have two adult pets or if a friend has an adult and so do you, you can both hatch a new pet with combined powers. That's right, forget farming for pets, you can make custom pets with literally MILLIONS of out comes. It's completely random chance as to what talents, powers, and abilities your new hatchling will get from it's two donor parent pets, but if you hatch with a friend, you both get the same new baby pet. I, for one, am totally stoked about this feature and can't wait to see what kinds of new powers these custom pets can give me in battles.

Kings Isle has been busy with all this pet release but they are still hard at work on the new world, Celestia, new schools, spells, and raising the level cap. You have to give it to them, they are doing awesome for a two year old MMORPG. More updates to come soon, and you know I can't resist posting about them. I'm off to hatch some new pets and save the spiral again.

Curb Your Sodium Deficiency

Sony's Playstation 3 exclusive toy Playstation Home has so far been a tough little monkey to pin down. Sure, it seems like a cool idea, what with all the extra games and video previews, but is it just a little too ambitious for the current console generation? Is it well enough supported to remain interesting and is it frankly just a little bit nerdy? Possibly, so perhaps a dose of Sodium via the good folks at Outso is just what the doctor ordered to ease some of Playstation Home's growing pains. We send Drew into the virtual world to find out...and to get rid of him for a while.

Sodium. Salt. Or, for the more scientific among you: Na. Let's face it, no matter what you call it, Sodium falls a little short of being entertaining. Even if it does have only one stable isotope. However, that could all be about to change. For those of you lucky enough to own a PS3 Sodium could be about to make your life around 39% more interesting as Outso Ltd. and Lockwood Publishing Ltd. unleash the power of salt on PSN!

Actually, if we're being honest, Sodium was released back on 17th December 2009 but managed to fly under the S&N radar because, between you, me and the rest of the world, Playstation Home (PSH) has been a little dull. Now don't get me wrong, PSH was one of the reasons I first bought a PS3, I love the concept and I'm fairly sure that this kind of massive multi-player environment is unlike anything on offer on any other console. Apart from Second Life on PC's, PSH is probably the most impressive evolution of the online chat-room environment, because that's basically what these programs are.

However, despite this scope PSH has been a fairly hit and miss affair. Particularly in Europe where every console is granted substantially less content then it's Asian/U.S. counterparts, which makes it hardly surprising that the European version of PSH has felt sparse on occasion. This problem is compounded by the United Kingdom's lack of infrastructure to cope with such infomation intensive tasks. Trying to use PSH in a country with some of Europe's lowest internet speeds is often akin to swimming the English Channel -it takes a while and leaves you cold.

So can a dose of Sodium improve the PSH experience? As I mentioned, we missed the launch of Sodium at S&N because PSH is, more often then not, too much of a hassle in the UK when the time waiting for it to load could be better spent playing games -or swimming the Channel. However, a cursory trip into Home uncovered the existence of Sodium so I decided to stay a while and check it out. The result was that I discovered Sodium One, the first of a series of environments to be published by Lockwood and I have to admit that I liked it.

Thanks for the Tanks.

Sodium One struck me as being a condensed and more interesting version of PSH but set in the Sodium Hub, which certainly has it's advantages. For a start it has everything Home has but in a smaller area which can be easily "walked" through and explored without that irritating need to download and jump to new locations as is the usual way with PSH. The area itself is based around a hover-tank inspired arena death match similar to a faster, sexier version of Cybersled, for those of you who remember the Namco shooter. Think dueling in Mario Kart meets Smash T.V. with tanks on a massive salt plain and you'll have something close. The important thing is that it's a lot of fun and is supported by various mini games throughout the Sodium Hub which include ordering/serving drinks and stomping scorpions for points. I think you'll agree that drinking and scorpion stomping are the natural progression from tank warfare.

The whole experience comes together well, both Desert Quench (the drinking game) and Scorpion Stomp (you guessed it, the stomp'in one) work well in giving the Sodium Hub a sense of instant variety and both help to push the MMO experience with unlocks for games/avatars and player interaction. Desert Guench, in particular pushes the MMO ideal with players being able to opt to either order or make and serve drinks using simple timed games. The bar staff even get free shirts!

The only downside to Sodium One is that it's not all free, however, even the way in which buying content works is refreshingly original. Salt Shooter is free for the first five levels, which are fun in themselves, but for the player who wants the whole kit and caboodle, you simply buy the pilot's jacket to gain the full game and access to a the pilots lounge. It's a simple idea that really pushes the MMO environment and gives it that little extra immersion. And whoever came up with the idea of buying bigger, better boots for stomping scorpions (you need to for the bigger ones) should be be given some kind of prize.

Player actions are tracked by an A.I. in the form of an android named VICKIE who becomes the vocal point for Sodium's progressive, long-term reward system which gives Sodium replay value which is rare in Home at this time. Players who pay for the pilots jacket and experience the full game can expect to customize their tank and amass enough fire power to ensure that not even a mountain will be left standing. In any case, if MMO's aren't for you, it's worth giving Salt Shooter a go because it plays better then some PSN offerings.

So does Sodium One, the land of hover-tanks, drinking and scorpion stomping offer something to raise the scope of PSH? Sony has billed Sodium as the next level in online interaction and they may be right. Of course you still have to wait for it to load and Salt Shooter is only available through PSH but these are really only small concerns when you consider that low internet speeds are not totally down to Sony's machine and that Sodium is designed to bring you into PSH in the first place. The main point is that you can dive as much or as little into Sodium as you like, at the very least you will get to play an enjoyable game and experience the sleek ambiance that is the Sodium Hub. Overall, as your doctor I must say that if you haven't tried Sodium yet -do so.


------------------------

-It was recently established that Drew is an unstable isotope.

Tell me I'm not the only one!

Alright, I have a confession to make, and because I'm confessing it, that means NONE of you are allowed to ridicule me. It's kind of two fold really, first part isn't too bad but the second part is where I'll need you to bear with me. First off, I'm addicted to a child's game. See? Not that bad. What game is it, you ask? Well, this is the embarrassing part so I'm just going to put it out there...

I play Wizard 101 like a bandit.

There, it's out in the open and everyone knows it. Now that the cat is out of the bag, I'd like to tell you why I'm addicted to this elementary pass-time.

Wizard101 is an MMORPG by KingsIsle Entertainment, aimed at families and kids, but is so brilliantly done that anyone, even the most hardcore of gamers, can play it and have a great time. Wannabe wizards start with the choice of seven different classes (and they are literally classes, the story is set as if you were a student) that determine what type of spells you cast. The schools range from elemental (fire, ice, and storm) to spirit (death, life, and myth) and the odd one out, a neutral class called balance. True to the staple of these types of games each school has its own unique strengths and weaknesses. The spells are based on a deck of cards style system, when you are in a battle you choose from the hand of cards you were dealt that round, which may contain card types like damage, healing, boosts, defensive, and offensive. To cast a spell you merely select the card, then select your target. Seems easy enough, right? Well KingsIsle decided to make it a bit more challenging by using the age old "mana for magic" requirement but adding in a "pip" system. Pips are glowing white or yellow orbs that appear at the feet of your wizard in battle. The cards take any where from zero to seven pips and you gain a pip each turn. You may have a card in your hand that does enough damage to defeat your enemy in one hit, but if you don't have the pips for it you can't cast it. Therefore you either have to pass and do nothing, or use cards that don't use any pips at all. The yellow orbs are called "power pips" and count as two regular ones if you are using your school specific spells.

The story is simple yet engaging, you are a new student at Ravenwood, a school for young wizards. You start out in the primary world, Wizard City, and very quickly your studies get you involved in the fate of the Spiral (Wizard101's ever growing universe). From then on you go on quest after quest to visit other worlds and save the Spiral from the greatest evil it's faced. You gain experience along the way which gains you new spells from your school and even training points to learn other school's spells as well. Along with experience you get gold and items dropped from monsters and bosses. Its really engaging and each world has a different crisis's that no one thinks you can help with because you are a young wizard in training. Now a number of the quests are similar, but stock quests are typical for RPGs.

A couple down sides to the game are the level cap and limited numbers of worlds. As any gamer knows these two things can pose a problem with the length of time you can play a game, and if it's a game you've payed for you want to get as much out of it as possible. KingsIsle didn't expect Wizard101 to take off like it did, in under two years it has gained over five million users. Luckily they have been working hard to catch up with the massive demand and have new content come out every few months. This summer they have promised to raise the level cap, introduce a pet system, introducing a new world, and three new schools with new spells. Wow, what an update. Needless to say I am stoked about all this. After you hit the level cap and defeat the final boss there is nothing left to do save for craft or create another wizard of a different class, but now there will be much more to do. Very exciting news and you know I'll keep you posted, now that my obsession is public. I really feel anyone, young or old, experienced gamer or nOOb, can enjoy this game.

MAG beta - first impressions

Image via Wikipedia

M.A.G finally got it's public beta this week after a lengthy privates beta. Not being important enough to be invited (or quick enough to get one of the giveaway codes) this has been our first chance to get some hands on one with the game. So what can we say? It's an extremely technically proficient game that's for sure, but should a game survive purely on the tech it uses?

Massive Action Game (an acronym that sounds like it had to fit around the name) is a game by the makers of the wildly popular Socom series, quite possibly some of the best online experiences available on the PS2. Expectations have therefore been very high, and the beta has been bustling with activity from the moment it was released to the general public. More people equals more full games, which works in the favour of MAG as it's main gimmick is that it supports up to 250 players. That's a whole lot of potential tea-bagging! 250 people is an impressive feat on it's own, but the behind the scenes work done by the servers is where this game really excels. In a recent interview the awesomely named producer Alan Van Slyke explained "Before we started working on the front-end client technology, we started working on the servers" an approach that seems rare with most modern online games, especially given that Modern Warfare 2 was recently shamed by not supporting dedicated servers on the PC. The time they dedicated to making sure everything behind the scenes was silky smooth has really paid off, resulting in a totally lag free environment for all players at all times. How lag free? Well we put their fancy pants new technology to the test.

To really make sure that we were playing with fire we connected to the M.A.G server with a 128k connection, please don't try this at home, it'll piss a lot of people you're playing with off. The menus took a while to load, as did the search for a game, but eventually we were dropped off into a full 256 player game. Not a second of lag, not even a slight stutter. No-one complained, no-one booted us from the game, everything ran silky smooth. Because it's only right to do a controlled test the only natural next step was to pop MW2 in for a quick go... Ahem, needless to say it fared less well.

So the background tech is a complete success, the graphics are very attractive considering everything that is happening in the game. There have been some minor complaints about the draw distance, but during our time with the game it never seemed to be as bad as people were making it out to be. But something just doesn't feel right, now this is my own personal opinion and not that of S&N here, but the actual gameplay in M.A.G doesn't do the amazing tech justice. At the end of the day it's another shooter, sure it has a lot of people playing, but that is where the differences seem to end. Trying to get people to actually make a tactical decision seems to be impossible, with such large numbers and very clear objectives to be met there isn't a lot of room for lone wolf antics, and yet the game tends to boil down to 200 people running off doing their own thing, while a select few try and hold it all together tactically. This does in many ways come down to the people you are playing with, and there were some genuinely great moments where plans game together exactly as we had expected them to, but these moments were out numbered by watching wave after wave of people running into the same snipers line of fire as they all ignored your cries to look out.

It's a good game, and an exclusive Sony should be somewhat proud to have on their side, especially because of the amazing propitiatory server tech Zipper Interactive have developed. But until the game has been out for a while and the community has gotten used to the sort of game it is it's really just a fancy tech demo.