This is the third and final installment of the RuneScape 3 stories. Earlier, Harold Goldberg found himself at Peckforton Castle, somewhat near Manchester, England. Butwhat was good and what was lacking in the game itself?
BY HAROLD GOLDBERG
As I stood gawking in this round, but dungeon-like environment, I spied three Jagex employees holding court. Around them were about 10 journalists from Europe and the U.S.
Most everyone kept asking tech-oriented questions, and to me, this was the kind of stuff that could well have been reserved for press releases. Me, I wanted human stories to go with the tech that makes this upcoming browser-based MMO run.
Specifically, I wanted to know how the narrative in the game and in the many upcoming quests would suck me into the world of RuneScape 3. But I had been having a degree of trouble finding that out (as you’ll see from these earlier installments).
So I piped up about the story. As if they were waiting to be asked, narrative designer David Osborne, head of audio Stephen Lord and executive producer Phil Mansell talked animatedly about a one of the quests.
“We’re putting a new story line up for vote by the community,” said Osborne.
“One of the options is pirates. Not just pirates. Zombie pirates!” exclaimed Mansell.
I liked that a lot. Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rotting bums. But what if the community votes for another option?
Mansell took a moment to think. “Well, we’ll try to get zombie pirates in some other way, down the line.”
It was a small moment of narrative discussion, maybe a minute during a quick 10-minute roundtable discussion. It was just a mere nugget of information. But it was creative enough to give me hope that I’ll enjoy the story in RuneScape 3.
Zombie pirates, I thought as the day went on into evening. I walked out into the night where the peacock who lives on the grounds stood in the shadows.
“Zombie pirates!” I said to the peacock.
And this is kind of what he said, perhaps in hearty approval, perhaps just killing time as he waited for a mate.
Harold Goldberg is the founder of the Circle. He also writes for the New York Times, Boys’ Life and other publications.
In Part One, the stage was set for a look into RuneScape 3. But does a hands-on Alpha gameplay help or hinder the Jagex message?
BY HAROLD GOLDBERG
Cheshire, England
So there we were in this Game of Thrones-like locale outside of Manchester, England. In the bowels of PeckfortonCastle, I came upon a room with so many computers, I thought I was in a startup in San Francisco – except the ceilings were dauntingly higher than any loft’s.
The press had just been listening to a sometimes-hard-to-follow speech about the wonders of RuneScape 3, which will use HTML 5 to enhance its graphics. Now, it was time to see an Alpha version of the game.
First, I could see that I could adapt and change the interface to my own needs. But what struck me more? The graphics were exponentially better than what’s playable now in RuneScape 2. It’s stunning to see a level full of detailed, giant mushrooms and toadstools, and you can climb high on them to battle various creeps. The whole environment is tinged in shades of foreboding green and purple. It reminded me of the underrated (and much condemned because of a financial scandal) RPG, Kingdoms of Amalur. Whatever you thought of Amalur, the idea of getting that level of artwork in a browser-based game is impressive indeed.
But the Jagex employee who stood near to help answer questions had a bit of a language issue. So when he needed to be loquacious, he was more like, say, Don Draper after sex, a man of a few words.
I was still in need of an succinct explanation of what the story is in RuneScape 3, and how the narrative will inspire my appreciation for the game. I still hadn’t gotten a detailed explanation or an elevator pitch.
In an effort to stop what Jagex must have felt is the buzzkill of respawning, the developers gave us nearly unkillable super-characters. This was great to check out the weapons and magic power interfaces and for battling various demons with various spells and weapons. But it required little skill.
I moved around the dark room to find another worker and asked him about the issue of bots and botters in the game. And then I asked another. Both assured me that botters would be diminished with the new release. That indeed was a relief to hear, and I hope it happens.
But I was still on a quest to hear more about legend and story and characters. I proceeded further into the bowels of the castle into a round room that looked like a dungeon but actually was a private bar usable for debauchery when wedding receptions and parties occur. There, I witnessed something I didn’t expect at all.
Last week at the Essex Restaurant, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Neal Edelstein, the producer of “The Ring” (along with David Lynch’s excellent “Mulholland Dr.” TV movie). Mistakenly, I thought Edelstein had a game to show me. Instead, he brought an iTunes app called “Haunting Melissa.” Shot in Canada, it’s a carefully filmed, episodic Blair Witch-like horror story that also features some elegant outdoor shots that remind me of a Terrence Malick film.
So why constuct an iTunes app for the movie rather than something for YouTube or Machinima. “I like them, but I don’t want to deal with banners and bullshit,” said Edelstein.
And why not add gaming elements? Edelstein sat forward in the booth and said, “I love games, but I think that the element of interactivity can take you out of the story. For this one, I wanted it to be more of a movie.”
That’s completely understandable. While I always believe a very good movie can be enhanced by a very good game, the Hollywood-meets-games path can be a rocky road indeed. I spent a fair amount of time in “All Your Base Are Belong to Us” on this topic, following the arc of hopes of gamemakers to create interactive filmic content since back in the 1970s. It rarely works well (although when it works as Telltale’s The Walking Dead game, it’s wondrous). The new “Star Trek” game proves that it’s still difficult for developers who love a branching experience to work in tandem with film people who know a linear experience.
Yet there are unexpected, game-like elements in “Haunting Melissa.” On the interface in one of the clickable chapter photos, you’ll sometimes see a ghost in the window. And sometimes, the ghost won’t be there. It’s just another thing that creeps me out about “Haunting Melissa” – in a good way. The first eerie chapter full of things that go bump in the night is free. Put those Beats on!
Harold Goldberg is the founder of The Circle. He has written for The New York Times, Vanity Fair and Wired.
Cheshire, England – Walking through the greenest of forests in Tarpoley, a rural town between Liverpool and Manchester, I pass daffodils and bees and newly unfolding ferns. I muck about the ruins of what may have been a cook house, and a singing blackbird flies out of a broken window. It’s the sunniest of afternoons as I approach an overlook to see for miles, brambly heaths and wide pastures with sheep, and down below, pheasants fight manically for the affections of a female and for territory.
Here at Peckforton Castle, it’s all about nature and a fantasy environment. Despite its high brick walls, awe-inspiring falconry shows and generally majestic nature, the castle is kind of faux, having been built just 200 years ago by the largest landowner in the county, Baron John Jervis Tollemache. Weddings are held here almost daily, and once just a few years ago, a groom had a fight with the management over a few hundred pounds difference in bar bill.
After drinking 20 double vodkas, he, according to the BBC, cried, “No one crosses Max.”
Enraged and perhaps egged on by his new wife, the drunken lout set fire to one of the wings in the castle. Many rooms burned to the ground despite the efforts of 100 firefighters, and the arsonist is now jailed.
All of this could have been made into a quest of sorts in RuneScape 3, the latest iteration of the free to play, browser-based MMO with a sword and sorcery narrative. A deep look at this summer’s RuneScape 3 release is the reason I am present here at PeckfortonCastle.
Because it was first offered without need for a physical disk, RuneScape was ahead of its time as a browser-based online role playing game. Over the years as the two brothers Andrew and Paul Gower oversaw its growth, it became a go to first MMO for teens, a kind of fairly troll-less environment one enjoys before moving to World of Warcraft. Later, it was besieged by botters, essentially, cheaters who use software to get in-game currency and upgrades, and then sell it for real-life cash. Botters have been the subject of various rants by long-time lovers of the game, and I wondered how JagEx would address this issue publicly during the course of the day-long event.
So, still jetlagged, I sat curious in a cathedral-like space, one of the rooms one can have one’s nuptials, and very memorable ones (without arson) at that. The ceiling must have been 30 feet high and there a regal nature to the room, including stained glass windows from which shards of sunlight poked.
Today, there would be no wedded bliss. Instead, there would be nerdy game developer ecstasy as evangelizing employees from JagEx mixed with journalists from the U.S. and Europe who were inquisitive and, perhaps, waiting to be thrilled. They wanted see whether an HTML 5 version of RuneScape would move the game eons forward through enriched graphics and game design.
As he sipped from a Celtic pewter (RuneScape inscribed) tankard, JagEx director of design Mark Ogilvie read a handwritten missive from a book with blank pages. He touched upon the history of RuneScape, now over 10 years old. He added facts and figures, like 450 million hours of play since 2004. He talked about the Monty Python-like humor in the dialog and quests, very British. And he became enthused when he touched up the idea of the player’s ability to control the interface to make it what he or she wanted it to look like.
For someone who’d played RuneScape for just a while in 2005, I wanted to share his enthusiasm. As far as the freemium/free to play model goes, RuneScape offered more content than most. And it’s been a great first MMO for folks who want to get their feet wet.
But there was one thing that was missing: a hook, a phrase or a video that would put the story of RuneScape 3 into perspective. Ogilvie had mentioned a deep story of gods in the new game, and perhaps ardent players already know the full deal via message boards. But there was so much content in his speech, the sentences describing the precise nature of the story and why anyone would want to play had, like an ambling puppy, somehow gone astray.
Right after the speech, we were ushered into another sprawling castle lair, complete with what looked to be 100 computer terminals. Surely I could find out all now, everything from the story to the joy of the graphics. I could do so by playing RuneScape 3.
Right?
To be continued
Harold Goldberg is the founder of The Circle. He writes for The New York Times and other publications.
Welcome back for the second episode of Full Circle, from the New York City Videogame Critics’ Circle. Everyone in the games world has spent the past few days either at the Game Developers’ Conference in San Francisco, or playing BioShock Infinite. The game is easily the most anticipated of 2013 and already looks like a strong contender for Game of the Year. Without getting into spoilers, here’s what a few of our members think of it:
Evan Narcisse of Kotaku writes: “Like Portal 2, BioShock Infinite is a sequel that builds on and maybe even surpasses the original game.”
Jeremy Voss is still figuring out how to talk about the game. “Whatever misgivings I might have about the story and certain other aspects of the game’s narrative, one thing I can say with absolute certainty is that Columbia is arguably an even more engrossing place than Rapture.”
And be sure to check out Harold Goldberg’s feature in the New York Times Arts section: “The Nerd as Auteur in BioShock Infinite.”
If Twitter is anything to go by, one of GDC’s most important panels this year was “One Reason to Be,” where women in the games industry, including the Circle’s Leigh Alexander, talked about their experiences. The panel caused an outpouring of tweets with the hashtag #1ReasonToBe, a continuation of the #1ReasonWhy hashtag that trended a few months ago to raise awareness of sexism in the games industry. Later the same evening, however, a party cosponsored by the International Game Developers Association which featured scantily-clad female dancers sparked outrage and indignation among members. Brenda Braithwaite Romero, a game developer and another speaker on the One Reason to Be panel, told Polygon “I went home feeling super uplifted by the turnout and support for the #1ReasonToBe panel. I woke up to DMs, texts and links to news of the IGDA party. It really saddens me. I have been a long-time supporter of the IGDA. However, my silence would have been complicity. I had no choice [but to resign from the board]. And just hours after our panel, too.”
Another hot topic among journalists at GDC was the issue of review aggregation. What is it? Is it helpful for readers? This week Gamasutra broke the story that Metacritic, a site that averages review scores from across the web to create a supposedly definitive ‘meta-score’, uses a weighting system that many have found questionable. The system, according to Gamasutra, has six tiers, with outlets like Yahoo Games ranked higher than Edge Magazine. Metacritic has since responded reputing Gamasutra’s data, but the discussion about review aggregation, and what it does for the industry, continues.
There were a lot of journalism-related panels at PAX East this year, many of which our members participated in. There are more transcripts, videos and coverage here on our website. For now, that’s it for Full Circle. Join us next time!
Thanks to everyone who came out to the second annual awards ceremony! The Walking Dead swept the show with four wins: Best Writing, Best Indie, Best Game, and Best Voice Acting for Melissa Hutchison’s Clementine. Journey, Dishonored, The Room, The Unfinished Swan and Sound Shapes were all honored as well. The full awards listing is as follows:
For best kids game: The Unfinished Swan by Giant Sparrow and Sony
For best handheld game: Sound Shapes by Queasy Games and Sony
For best mobile game: The Room by Fireproof Games
For best indie game: The Walking Dead by Telltale Games
For best music: Journey from Thatgamecompany and Sony
For best new game machine: the PS Vita from Sony
For best writing: The Walking Dead by Telltale Games
For best world: Dunwall, from Dishonored by Arkane Studios
For best voice acting: Melissa Hutchison, for her portrayal of Clementine in The Walking Dead by Telltale Games
For game of the year: The Walking Dead by Telltale Games
The evening began with a panel that included Evan Narcisse, Tina Amini, Jason Schreier, Chuck Moran, Scott Alexander, Dan Ackerman, and Russ Frushtick. Moderated by Harold Goldberg, the seven New York City journalists discussed the highs and lows of this year’s titles and achievements, and speculated on the year to come.
The one thing everyone seemed to agree on?
They all can’t wait for BioShock Infinite.
Daniel Radosh, the Emmy award-winning writer for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, hosted the evening, delivering a wonderful monologue that poked fun at everything from serialized franchises–”After Halo 3 then we got Halo: ODST, Halo: Reach, Halo Wars, Halo Kitty…though I did think that last one was adorable…”– to the big business side of making games–”You can’t recover health by crouching down behind a $75 million dollar loan from Rhode Island.” Radosh also arguably won the unofficial “Best Dressed” category by sporting Clementine’s hat from The Walking Dead, complete with fake blood splatters.
Other notable guests included Lev Grossman, author of The Magicians and Time Magazine’s book critic, whose brother Austin Grossman was nominated for Best Writing along with the rest of the Dishonored creative team.
Acclaimed horror filmmakers Larry Fessenden and Graham Reznick were also able to take time out of filmmaking and developing their upcoming survival horror game Until Dawn to present the award for best voice acting.
And Darren Korb, the composer for the 2011 New York Videogame Critics Circle Award winning Bastion, was there with his band Control Group to close out the evening at the after party.
Thanks to the NYU’s Game Center for hosting us and to NYU-Poly’s Game Innovation Lab for providing the Pfizer Auditorium and to all the NYU students who came out to the show. We hope to see you next year with more.
The illustrious panel holds court. Photo by Helen Pfeffer.
The Circle takes the stage en masse for the Big Apple Award for Game of the Year. Photo by Helen Pfeffer.
“If they ever do a Hitman reboot where Agent 47 is a geeky jew.” Harold Goldberg, Time’s Lev Grossman and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart’s Daniel Radosh. Photo by Logan Cunningham.
Russ Frushtick makes a point. Photo by Helen Pfeffer
Thanks to all who made the 2nd Annual New York Videogame Critics Circle Awards a smashing success last night! Game developers, critics, celebrities, educators and fans came together in Brooklyn for an epic ceremony. And thousands more checked the event out on Ustream.
Here are the winners!
Big Apple Award for Best Videogame
The Walking Dead
Herman Melville Award for Best Videogame Writing
The Walking Dead
Battery Park Award for Best Handheld Console Game
Sound Shapes
Tin Pan Alley Award for Best Music
Journey
The A Train Award for Best Mobile/iOS Game
The Room
The Off Broadway Award for Best Independent Game
The Walking Dead
The Statue of Liberty Award for Best World
Dunwall from Dishonored
The Best Acting
Melissa Hutchison, The Walking Dead
Peter Cooper Locomotive Award for Best Game Machine
The New York Videogame Critics Circle will hold its 2nd Annual Awards event on February 5, 2013 at NYU’s Pfizer Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. The event is presented in cooperation with NYU’s Game Lab and NYU’s Game Center.
Harold Goldberg, the group’s founder and author of the award-winning All Your Base Are Belong to Us (How 50 Years of Videogames Conquered Pop Culture), says, “Thanks to The Circle and NYU, we have a terrific show planned to honor the year’s finest, deepest games.”
Videogame luminaries from around the world will converge at the event to be written and hosted by Emmy-Award-winning Daily Show writer Daniel Radosh.
Well-known nerd core rappers MC Frontalot and Schaffer the Darklord will perform during the event.
Presenters include horror filmmakers Larry Fessenden and Graham Resnick.
Lev Grossman, the author of The Magicians and Time magazine’s book critic will also present an award. Much more information can be found at NYGameCritics.com.
In addition, six of the city’s best game critics and writers will convene before the event to hold court. They’ll discuss the games and trends of the past year along with what worked and what failed.
The show itself is free and open to the public, but attendees must RSVP beginning January 22,, 2013. Info about attending the after party will be forthcoming.
Finally, a free after party at NYU limited to 150 people will include a performance by Control Group. Control Group is Darren Korb’s new band. Darren wrote the music for last year’s multi-award winning game, Bastion.
The New York Videogame Critics Circle is a group of 25 writers from Time, NPR, The New York Times and the best blogs like G4TV.com and Kotaku who have come together to elevate the medium. The Circle was founded in 2011 by writers who seek to elevate the medium.
Not that we care about the intricacies of marketing that much here at the Critics Circle, but we do care about cross-cultural concinnity, a kind of beautiful harmony between gaming and other pop culture entities.
Recently, what we’ve seen with the gaming industry are co-promotions that lack creativity. Halo and Mountain Dew is an example. Beyond Halo, co-promoting energy drinks with any other generic shooter is another banal exercise, akin to a journalist getting a pizza in the mail to entice us to review a product. It’s old.
So when I saw “The Life of Pi” and “Anna Karenina” with their own Republic of Tea teas, we took notice. One can of Mountain Dew is here and then it’s gone. But a can of 50 teas, well, that stays around for a month or two, constantly promoting whenever it’s placed on the table. For example, wouldn’t the recent Kickstarted game, Sir, You Are Being Hunted, which features tea, benefit from some branded tea?
Certainly, Assassin’s Creed III, which takes place around the time of the Boston Tea Party and offers Tea Party game play , could have used some leaves to get the word out about this historically accurate yet fantastical game.
You might say, “Well, a lot of this is rubbish. Halo and its marketers are just targeting its proper demographic by using Mountain Dew. You’re not going to see Master Chief drinking tea.” But the gaming demographic is expanding and getting older. Wouldn’t a thinking person’s game like Assassin’s Creed III benefit some tea branding?
More, how about Irrational Games’ upcoming game? BioShock Infinite Earl Grey, anyone?
But the larger point is this: currently, branding for the bigger games can be as boring as the main story in Halo 4 (which is not a knock against its game play). The powers that are need to think harder to bring gamers into their franchises. That means offering a better experience all around – from design to narrative to, yes. marketing.
Last week, I traveled up to the DreamYard Prep School in the Bronx. Once at the building at 172nd Street, I passed through a metal detector and was escorted up to the school’s top floor and into a comfortable library. The room was so inviting that I thought of Andrew Carnegie’s quote, “A library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people. It is a never failing spring in the desert.”
At the library, the school’s seniors had gathered to be mentored by various members of the community, including college professors and former DreamYard students. At a long oak table, I talked a bit about videogames. But mainly, I helped a quietly inquisitive student from Ghana work on his personal essay for college.
He asked if he needed to get into a private school like Harvard to make it in life. “I heard I do,” he said.
“Not necessarily. I went to a state school, and I’m doing fine. It’s not so much about the school. It’s about you. It’s about hard work.” I mentioned that just before the Olympics, I interviewed Oklahoma City Thunder star Kevin Durant.
His ears perked up.
Durant said to me (and also later to the New York Times) that he is compelled to work harder than the rest. I thought, Really? Even though he’s clearly head and shoulders above almost every NBA player in the talent and skills department? Durant said that when the very talented slack off, he’s ready to step up because he goes the extra mile.
The young man’s essay was a first draft that was written by hand in a spiral bound notebook. It showed promise. I told him about the lead paragraph in journalism, and that he might think about telling the whole story about himself in that first sentence or two. And then, he could expand upon it.
Every senior at the DreamYard public school is the first from his family to head off to college. And I’m told that most of them have had some tough times, which I heard about from the young Ghanaian. But I’ll not go into specifics.
During the afternoon, I met the affable Tim Lord, one of the co-directors of the school. I told him, This is exactly the kind of outreach the New York Videogame Critics Circle wants to be involved with. Lord seemed interested as I mentioned that we could bring some critics and game developers up to the school to talk about getting jobs in the game industry and to talk videogame history. I certainly hope this happens soon. Going up to the DreamYard was an early holiday gift, one that certainly got me in the spirit of the season that’s just about here.
