Barts News

(I know that the title of this note is a terrible attempt at a joke, but I can't forget this one beer commercial with the name read in the funny voice...)

This note is a heads up on what's coming next, both in the sense of incoming posts on Barts News and on a larger scale in the gaming world. Two interesting free online games have popped up - Quake Live and Battlefield Heroes, each a bit different in the approach that they take, but also similar in one general aspect.

As I have mentioned in my note on rapidly changing times, we are seeing a lot of new things happening nowadays. Up until recently, for me and probably many other gamers online gaming meant two things:
- fully fledged commercial games, requiring moderate to heavy horsepower of your system, that player pays for (ahem, at least theoretically) and is playing them at home;
- casual flash titles, requiring just a browser and little to none requirements, that player does not pay and usually plays at work. Okay, so there are some people who play these for fun at home, still, quite a lot of bored office workers do as well.

Simplistic as this division may be, it worked - if you think I'm raving, tell me through comments. With the arrival of Quake Live and Battlefield Heroes, however, a new model is emerging on our eyes - 3D online games that are free to play, in which player joins and plays via browser (not entirely true in case of BH, but close enough). But how are their creators earn money, after all the infrastructure costs quite a bit? The revenue comes from either players paying for extra features (freemium) or from other companies buying commercial space within the game world (in-game advertising), or perhaps both. With that in mind, let's have a look at two titles in question.



Battlefield Heroes is cartoon-themed quasi-WWII third-person-perspective shooter that applies the first business model - freemium. Anyone can play the game for free, but for extra items such as fancy clothes for your characters player will need to pay up. When I started writing this note two days ago, I was bashing EA for being greedy, because I thought ALL extra things were to be bought, including gestures, stronger weapons and items. I even made the obligatory Penny Arcade reference.

Turns out, I just didn't get the system at first - there's points that come from, well, player's money, but there's also other kind of points (called Victory Points, abbreviated to VP) that come from playing game a lot, scoring objectives and undertaking special missions. So while you may not be able to buy that fancy pirate shirt without investing some real-world money, there's no fear that your battlefield veteran will look the same as that rich little bastard who paid instead of playing. Weapons can only be upgraded by spending VPs, so the system seems rather fair.

Observations:

• It is really fun to play so far. It is a little rough around the edges, but so far playing it has been highly enjoyable.
• Vehicles are fun to ride, but this part seems somewhat unbalanced - planes are bloody useless, tank can't trip a road sign and explodes way too easily. But driving a car packed with your team mates is like a high-school road trip, with that "yooohooo!" feeling and added shooting.
• It runs smoothly on my gaming rig that is rather mediocre (2GHz proc, 2Gb RAM, NVidia 9600GT, Windows XP). It might be more heavy on hardware requirements than Quake Live though, what with all the fancy cel shading effects.
• It is a bit simplistic gameplay-wise - in Enemy Territory there were more classes, more objectives, more mission types. So far all I have seen in Battlefield heroes are three classes and gameplay based on controlling a number of control points.
• ...but there's plenty of so-called Missions to do (adding some extra objectives in order to score more points), skills system, different weapons and other things to keep player busy.

I definitely will write a full note just on Battlefield Heroes in near future, but so far it's very good and I like it. Also, on a related topic, I encourage you to read more on freemium here and here.



Quake Live applies different business model - playing the game will be free in all aspects, or so I understand from the information available, but there will be billboards in game which will act as virtual advertising space (in-game ads). The focus is not on customization and milking players for it, but rather on advanced matchmaking and statistics system.

As for the game itself it is pretty much good, old Quake III with slightly graphical overhaul - quick, fast-paced, visceral shooting. I have always been more on the Unreal Tournament team, but Q3 is still worshipped by many and remember with nostalgy by others. Last time I have seen it in action was some two weeks ago in my company - some chaps have been playing it (after working hours, of course). So while it is nothing particularly new or fresh, it uses a formula that is considered as a benchmark for online gaming in conjunction with web-2.0-like community and statistics.

Observations:

• none so far, since for three days I haven't gotten to play as much as the training level!

Hence, a word of complain - if you venture to set up any online venture, be sure to at least try to assess the load and infrastructure needed to handle it. I know it is not easy, but come on, you should be able to guesstimate order of magnitude of the the level of interest and provide some scalability.

I am working on a daily basis with systems that are processing more requests per second than world-wide credit card systems (I believe I have completely exposed my secret identity, because there are not that many in the world) and for heaven's sake, we do deal with this kind of issues. There are numerous load-balancing systems out there, hosting companies that will provide flexible amount of space and bandwidth based on the need, so in that context this emo sounds slightly pitiful.

Okay, now that I have vented my frustration, let's give Quake Live team benefit of doubt. They are aiming for something new, and new things are always difficult to pull off in the beginning. The weekend lies in front of us, I do hope all the kinks will be ironed and I will be able to write glowing review of the game and associated services.