Quick Start
SEPTEMBER 2004 MA XIMUMPC
Tom McDonald has been covering games for countless magazines and
newspapers for 11 years. He lives in the New Jersey Pine Barrens.Guys in Tights
Save the Day
+GAME THEORY BY^ THOMAS L. McDONALD
Let’s face facts: Massively multiplayer gaming was
getting stale. Fantasy-based, ersatz Tolkien questing
had the genre by the neck and was shaking it like a
Rottweiler with a chew toy. While Worlds of
Warcraft , Everquest II , and even Middle Earth Online
are certainly enough to get our attention, they’re
accompanied by this creeping sensation of familiarity.
Oh joy, I get to start a brand-new elf character and
begin the never-ending quest to pump stats as I quest
for the missing Bronzed Crotch-plate of the Grand
Chyyklyt in the Land of Ytmie. Please kill me now.
Gamers wishing for a brighter future saw those
hopes dashed more than a year ago when Star
Wars Galaxies turned out to be a colossal bore.
We’d hoped for something fresh and exciting, but
we got a wet noodle. Everquest with Wookies. Was
MMO gaming destined to remain stuck in a Sony
Online rut?
Despite the best efforts of mainstream publishers,
the answer is no. Cryptic Software shopped its
work-in-progress, the hit MMO game City of
Heroes , for several years, only to be greeted by the
deafening-silence-aside-from-chirping-crickets
sound usually reserved for Daffy Duck. A hero game
without recognizable heroes? I say, are you daft,
man? Who would be interested in the blasted thing?
Actually, just about everyone. City of Heroes is,
if not the savior of massively multiplayer gaming,
at least a buff EMS medic who has applied some
much-needed CPR. The genius of the game is
that it simultaneously expands and simplifies the
character creation process. In contrast to the “more
is better” theory of character building, CoH gives
gamers fewer powers and modifiers, but makes
them all count. Most gamers wind up using only
a few powers anyway, making the rest just so
much background noise. Marry that accessibility
to the most deliriously entertaining character
creation process in memory and the natural love
of superheroes, and you have the most purely
entertaining MMO to date.
And no one wanted it. In a poetic turn of events,
only Richard Garriott, now teamed with Korea’s
NCSoft, saw the potential of the game. The man who
launched the modern massively multiplayer gaming
genre with Ultima Online (only to see EA leave his
baby out in the cold to wither and die) once again
has proven he has the vision others lack. Everyone
had a chance to take a bite of the CoH apple, and
they all passed, all except Garriott. You see, it’s
not the talent or even the vision that’s missing from
computer and online gaming development today. It
is, quite simply, the balls to do something about it.Hands on Microsoft’s Windows
Media Player 10
Microsoft’s new player tells us much about the future
of digital downloads
We copped a feel of the technical beta of
Microsoft’s Windows Media Player 10 , and
beneath the slick new interface we found
a Crying Game -scale surprise that has the
potential to lure insatiable music grazers
away from iTunes (which has now sold
more than 100 million tracks).
On the surface, the player itself has
been shined to a high gloss with a three-
paned window that offers a familiar
directory tree metaphor for accessing
songs and playlists, as well as grouping
similar types of media (like video and
television recordings). The presence of
the player’s new third window pane
allowed us to constantly keep track ofplaylists or to-burn lists while sorting
through our media library. Also new to
the mix: the ability to quickly and easily
change metadata such as genre or artist
name for songs.
Another addition that should please
people whose MP3 players force them
to use hostile proprietary software is
the new Media Player’s Media Transfer
Protocol. Also known as MTP, this
generic bidirectional transfer protocol
will allow compatible MP3 players to
easily exchange and synch files using
Media Player 10. Microsoft expects most
major manufacturers to release firm-
ware updates that include MTP for
already-released players.
Like iTunes for Windows , Windows
Media Player 10 also acts as a front-
end for purchasing and managing the
music and movies you download froma variety of online services. Napster and
CinemaNow are confirmed participating
sites, and you can expect MSN’s upcom-
ing music service to be on the menu as
well. Not surprisingly, Apple’s iTunes
service will not be supported.
The addition of Microsoft’s digital
rights management software, previ-
ously code-named Janus , paves the
way for a more appealing alternative
to single-track purchases. Under what
is now referred to as Windows Media
DRM 10 for Portable Devices, users will
be able to download as many tracks as
they want to DRM-based music devices
through participating online services(like Napster and CinemaNow) for a
monthly subscription.
It remains to be seen exactly how
this will be implemented on the hard-
ware side and under what policies. As an
example, Janus gives content providers
the ability to make music and movies
“expire” after a specified period of time,
so one possibility is that music services
could allow you to “rent” entire albums
or other content. It’s unclear, however,
whether or not DRM-compatible play-
ers will play your own “unauthorized”
downloaded content.
The Media Player 10 beta can be
downloaded at: http://www.microsoft.com/
windows/windowsmedia/mp10/. But keep
in mind that it cannot be uninstalled
through Add/Remove Programs; you’ll
have to use a restore point if you want to
go back to your old player.It appears that
Redmond is
feeling the heat
from iTunes —
Windows Media
Player 10’s three-
paned interface
makes searching
through tracks
and building
playlists much
easier than the
previous version.