I Have Touched the Sky

Quote of the Day: Carrots

2012-01-26T16:51:00.004-06:00

The spark was lit. Quests! Direction! Level 55! I keep thinking about how much I love the freedom to just choose to do whatever you want in games, but I frequently need to get reminded that sometimes I really need that carrot to get me back on track.
~Ethic, Kill Ten Rats

While many people are happy to strike out on their own and do their thing, I've always preferred to be drawn through the game by the story. This was not always the case, exactly. I like real-time strategy games a lot, though the last one I played seriously was Command & Conquer: Generals. Once I started playing MMORPGs--read: WoW--I found that I wanted to find out the stories of the characters I encountered. Some of them wanted me to do stuff for them; others, when the time was right, sent me on my merry way to the next place that people needed an adventurer. I explore and find interesting nooks in the Worlds I visit, but mostly I like a reason to go somewhere. Much like Conan the Cimmerian, "I live, . . . I love, I slay, and am content."

Oh! and sometimes, the cake is not a lie.

The Journey

2012-01-22T10:37:00.003-06:00

Kaylee: How come you don't care where you're going?
Book: 'Cause how you get there is the worthier part.

For me, the Journey always been the point of playing an MMORPG, from my first days of World of Warcraft through last night playing Star Wars: The Old Republic with my lovely bride. It's a theme I have returned to repeatedly on this blog, sometimes more pointedly than others. But I feel it necessary to repeat myself again: If you race past leveling content to the end-game and find it inadequate, you have only yourself to blame. Don't blame the developers for not supporting your style of gameplay. They worked plenty hard for you to enjoy the story as you level. If (in the case of of SWTOR) you spacebarred your way through the cutscene conversations in an effort to kill as many droids and womprats as possible on your way to 50, you're doing it wrong.

WoW has a rich and varied lore extending from the original Warcraft RTS through Cataclysm and beyond. I loved discovering Azeroth and my place in it. I have my issues with the game and how it has changed over the years, but that is mostly because of my personal preferences. Some of them involve how the leveling process (and therefore story) was foreshortened in favor of an end-game playstyle I had little interest in.

Star Trek Online has some cool stories, building on the lore of Star Trek, obviously; and I feel the developers at Crytpic did a great job honoring the past while delving into the future. My captains and their crews were fleshed-out characters with motivations and reactions fitting Starfleet and their respective personailties as I saw them. I tell myself I will go back to check things out one of these days, what with the F2P model STO has shifted to.

Rift had a great story to tell, with two factions trying to defend their world from invasion by supernatural creatures, each with strongly held beliefs about how to go about it. I understood my characters' place in that world, even though I felt that in many details, what they were asked to do did not fit their stature as superbeings themselves. That and having to level alts through literally the same content caused me to develop an ennui about the game. I do wish Trion the best though, and I am technically subscribed still. Though when the current cycle ends, I doubt I will re-up.

So we come to SWTOR. BioWare has catered to my style of gameplay, with a focus on Story and the Journey of my character. I really don't care about end-game. I may do a few operations with the Imperial Mercenary Corps and the Republic Mercy Corps. But I am not interested in running the same thing over and over again. I did that for a while in WoW and didn't really enjoy it, though I liked the camaraderie of Raiding with Mutiny of Uldum (and White Widow back in BC days).

When I reach max-level and the current end of the story, I will likely retire that character and play another. There are those who dislike not having the choice of where to go in SWTOR. They say the game is too much on rails. That is fine, it is their opinion. However it is a design decision that conflicts with their preference, it is not an inherent flaw in the game itself. Are there features I would change or would like added to SWTOR? Of course. But I am enjoying playing both my solo main and my SLC main with Sctrz. When I stop enjoying it, I will quit the game. I won't rage-quit, I haven't yet done that with any game, I've simply lost interest in playing further.

Rant and a Half

2012-01-20T14:53:00.001-06:00

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said:

"To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men—that is genius.’’

I respectfully disagree, Mr. Emerson. "To believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men" is pure hubris.

Some people are really not going to like this. In fact, I may even lose followers over it. But mine is the opinion that matters here, where I have the final say. Go post your own opinion on your own blog.

I have not been terribly consistent in my efforts to be evenhanded on this blog. I've tried to dedicate it to shiny happy feelings about the games I am playing. I try to give honest assessments of games I've played. If I don't like a game, I don't bag on it or the people who developed it. I just move on and play games that I like to play.

I see people in blogs, comments, and Twitter denigrate others for choosing to play this game or that, insulting their intelligence. "How could you possibly like that piece-of-garbage game." and "I think I just threw up a little in my mouth." Then they can't fathom why others aren't playing their own favorite game.

To those rage about this game or that on the various forums and Twitter as if they've been personally slighted, I will say this pointedly: SFTU & GTFO. This is not your private universe. Other people people live here, too.

I want to reiterate, I am not talking about the people who have constructive suggestions and opinions about a particular game or the MMORPG genre as a whole. I am talking about the snooty people who think and say that others are inferior for liking certain games, and the nerdragers who think the game company somehow owes them something besides what they have already provided.

I see a whole lot of people declaring that this or that design decision is bad, and that a game or genre will ultimately fail as a result. These are the Malthusians declaring that the market only has so many potential customers, leading to every new game competing with and poaching players from other games. Meanwhile games like WoW in 2004 blew previous assumptions about the size of the market out of the water. And the market is bigger today than ever before. If you can design a better game, get out there and design it. More power to you. I sincerely wish you the best; don't be surprised if you don't attract the playerbase you think your game deserves.

It's OK to say you did or did not like a game and give a reason. It's another thing entirely to say the game is stupid because it lacks a feature you think should be there or it is not implemented the way you think it should be, and that those who do like the game are clearly ignorant, stupid or both for liking it. It's like saying Basketball is stupid because it isn't played on ice, or that Hockey is stupid because there are no wickets.

Constructive criticism and suggestions are welcome at BioWare, Blizzard, and other game development companies, I am sure. However, they owe you nothing but doing their best to make and maintain the best game they can from their perspective. Some mistakes will be made, but not every design decision you disagree with is a mistake. You are neither an employee nor a shareholder. You are a customer, free to take it or leave it. Rather than waste your time and effort on raging, just go do something else.

Vote with your pocketbook. Thousands of others do exactly that in every market. If you don't like a game, stop playing, stop giving them money. If you do like a game, play it. Raging on the forums does no good to anyone, and in fact harms you and the forum community more than you realize.

Now there will be some who claim they are entitled to their opinion and should be free to express it. I don't have the right to tell them to shut up. I guess what I am really saying by that is that I don't have to listen or value your opinion. You are not contributing to the discussion when you rage against design decisions, especially when you say, "same old tired game design" without offering any solution. Especially when you try to establish your gamer cred by declaring that you gamed when gaming wasn't cool.

If you want a sandbox game, there are plenty out there, like Wurm, EVE, and Minecraft. If there is not enough PvP in a game, find one that does have enough. If raiding is your thing, go find a game with a lot of hardcore raids. A given game does not have to be all things to all gamers. Try to please everyone and you end up pleasing no one.

Roleplaying in SWTOR

2012-01-17T14:27:00.002-06:00

So I was headed into the city with my lovely bride on Saturday to do some shopping, and we were talking about my Imperial Agent, Versteckt, and the Rattataki mercenary, Kaliyo, his companion. I was complaining that even when as a Bond-style spy, I am playing a part to ingratiate myself with, say, a terrorist cell, I lose affection points with Kaliyo when I am not a belligerent SOB. I am roleplaying a spy who is also playing a role, and my companion "doesn't get it." She seems to lack the understanding of subtlety I need as a partner. I even went so far as to say I don't like Kaliyo because of this trait.

Note my descriptions: I have an emotional response to the way my computer generated, non-player companion is acting.

Sctrz said it's a simplistic AI. I don't think it's AI at all. Some dev team designated the points lost or gained with each response (it may have been partly automated, given the way the 1-2-3 responses are all similar.) But beyond the technical aspect, I dislike having to think about how she will react to a conversation response I feel is appropriate to Versteckt's personality and motivations.

Yesterday on my Sith Assassin, Tollkirsche, I finally got to the point where I have a second companion, the pirate Andronikos Revel. Since the Inquisitor story currently involves him it makes sense from a RP standpoint to take him along. Besides, I want to see what a different companion is like after 20 some-odd levels with Khem Val, the buzzkiller. And guess what, the Dashade got all butt-hurt about it and went off to the ship to pout! AND I ACTUALLY FELT BAD.

For those that said (without ever playing it) that the storylines of SWTOR would inhibit their ability to roleplay, I present my likes and dislikes of these characters as evidence to the contrary. Think about that for a second. I am talking about an emotional response to a character in a computer game. If that is not both compelling roleplay and storycrafting, I don't know what is. Isn't tabletop RP basically the same thing: players reacting on behalf of their characters to the story or scenario that the game master is presenting?

I realize that some forms of roleplay are far more "open" to the player's preferences on how to interpret the characters than SWTOR is. But I would argue that there is far more built-in opportunity for RP in SWTOR than any other online game I have played. Sometimes you can play the role you are given, and still enjoy the story.

Now if I could just lay down to sleep on my bed in the Captain's Quarters.

QOTD: Intellectual Dishonesty in the Old Republic

2012-01-16T05:09:00.001-06:00

There is a sort of intellectual honesty about the evilness of the Empire, while the Republic comes over as the people who would like to be the good guys, but never really manage.
~~Tobold

I think this is my struggle with much of the Republic story I have seen so far. A work buddy and I have discussed repeatedly that, despite the presence of an external Sith Empire in this game (as I had envisioned for years before the prequel trilogy ruined it), the Old Republic is already showing signs of the Empire it will become at the time of "Revenge of the Sith."

Two Year Blogoversary!

2012-01-15T18:07:00.002-06:00

Photo (c) Rosemarie Gearhart

Or, as my now almost 17-year-old daughter once put it, two candles.

I was not nearly as prolific this second year as I was the first, writing barely more than half the posts I did in 2010. Gratifyingly, as I became more consistent in posting this fall, more people visited my page, with an all time peak month in December, 2011, with 4,686 pageviews (according to Google). I got over 10,000 hits in 2011, over 2,000 were return visits.

To those of you that have come back to read my stuff over and over, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I especially want to thank my fellow bloggers Scarybooster for being so entertaining and supportive, and MMOGamerChick, who introduced me to the larger game-blogging community, and who is as lovely a person in RL as she is online (and who just reached her two year mark, as well).

In terms of gaming, I played a couple new ones and continued to play some old ones, but I am still subbed to only two. Rift was huge in my gaming as I played to 50 with Sctrz (DGF). We joined a small group of RL friends and ran dungeons in World of Warcraft for about half the year. It was fun, but I had to make room for SWTOR and I felt I had played all I wanted to of WoW, so I unsubbed in late November, without fanfare.

Because WoW and Rift took up so much of my gaming time, I unsubscribed from Star Trek Online in May. With STO going free-to-play, I may pick it up again. I loved the space combat, and I loved the story potential of my Captains and their crews. It is still the game I have discussed the most on this blog, with 63 tags including this post.

I am still subbed to Rift because of a 6-month plan, but I have not played in a couple months other than to peek around. Trion did great job with the launch, and frequent updates and events. It's a gorgeous game. But I am an altoholic, and there is very little replayability in the game. Perhaps in the future I may return.

Of course, Star Wars: The Old Republic has loomed large in the past couple months. A flawed, but fun game, I am seeing a lot of replayability through alts, though there are plenty of people who disagree. I promise I won't turn this into a SWTOR only blog. It is a gaming blog, and SWTOR is my focus right now. :)

A lot changed in my real life, as well. My job description changed a bit, with more training materials development, and less travel and time on the podium. Sctrz is no longer my Dear Girlfriend, she is my Lovely Bride. We are adjusting to married life, with all the bumps along the way. She is the best thing that has happened to me. I am surprised she puts up with all my shit. I love her dearly, and I am grateful she is as into games as I am.

Rendezvous in the Desert

2012-01-13T12:36:00.001-06:00

Chico stepped out of the relative cool of the Mos Ila spaceport, squinting at the harsh light of Tatooine's twin suns. The redheaded bounty hunter surveyed the dusty settlement that passed for a town with obvious disdain.

"What a crappy little planet."

"A crappy little out-of-the-way planet," someone responded from behind her. Knowing that lilting drawl anywhere, Chico turned and flashed a rare smile at the man approaching, his cloak billowing out behind him.

"Still wearing those silly sunglasses, I see," she teased. "Still playing Imp, as well, 'Furshteckt'?"

"Visual Enhancement with Augmented Reality prostheses," Versteckt corrected, adopting the oh-so-proper Imperial Accent of Dromund Kaas, then returned to his Revanthine drawl. "And yes. It's a dirty job, but not everyone can fly around the galaxy in a hotwired ship on a Great Hunt."

"Yeah, well, you know it's all glamorous blood and burns for me. And how did you know Renegade I was stolen?"

Versteckt tapped his VEARs. "Altered registy markings. Reports of a Mantis stolen out of Kaas Spaceport. Don't worry, the owner never filed a report--at least, not one that reached 'The Propeh Othoritehs.' So are you already planning to steal a Renegade II?"

Chico grinned again at that, but didn't answer. "So why did we get called to this Force-forsaken sandheap again?"

"Nadea thought it would be far enough out of the way that we could parlay with representatives of the RMC--" Versteckt wrinkled his nose in vague disgust. "--without the Imps or Reps catching wind of it."

She started walking toward the swoop rentals. Ironic that speeders were harder to come by than spaceships. Versteckt fell in step with her.

"So has Keeper figured out what your "name" means?" she asked.

"If he has, he hasn't mentioned it. Imagine his surprise if ever comes across "Tollkirche" and realizes he's a plant, too."

"Speaking of, how is our red friend?"

"I don't know. I haven't seen him since the insertion on Zygerria. I've heard he's gotten himself apprenticed to some sexy blonde Sith Lord. I suspect he's doing quite well. I was sorry to hear about what happened on Hutta. How is your little slicer working out?"

"I feel like a mother sometimes, she's so young. But she's eager to help, and quick with a pistol or meds in a fight."

"Good to hear. Have you 'brought her into the fold'?"

"Not yet, I don't think it will take much prodding though. She hates the Empire, and the Hutts. What about Rattataki?"

Versteckt shrugged. "I sent her to speak with some of her underworld contacts on Coruscant before leaving Balmorra. We'll rendezvous on Nar Shaddaa. She's just a hired gun. Hired by Keeper at that, perhaps to keep an eye on me. But she's not the type to snitch."

Chico sighed, shaking her head. "She's a flight risk. Play your cards close to the vest."

"I always do."

SWTOR, a Rogues' Gallery

2011-12-28T20:52:00.000-06:00

DATE: The Year of Our Dark Emperor, 1470, Day 247

To: Darth Jadus

From: Keeper

RE: Some Persons of Note

Dossier A927H54302: VERSTECKT

Little is truly known about the agent designated simply "Versteckt." He possesses cybernetic implants to improve his already formidable aim, and which also allow him to access a greater breadth of information about his environment and any social situation he finds himself in. He hails from a small moon called Revanth by its natives (actually a mixed group descended from Darth Revan's armies who settled there some three centuries ago). They have no love for the Republic, and therefore are of use to us. Despite a regular show of disrespect for authority, Versteckt can be counted on to carry out any orders from his handlers at Imperial Intelligence. As most operatives do, he may have his own agenda. As soon as it diverges too much from ours, he will have to be eliminated, regretfully.

Dossier W603D29581: BANYAN

Also hailing from the moon Revanth is a large brute of a Warrior, Banyan. He has shown both the cunning and the scruples of a true Sith, cutting down his own mentor at the Sith Academy on the orders of Darth Baras. Banyan is another cyborg, having lost his eyes as a child, in a decompression accident aboard a freighter. His prosthetics enhance his sight beyond human normal, and this is before his Force sensitivity is taken into account. Banyan adheres closely to the Sith code, cutting down all those who stand in his way. He has shown little political aspiration, relishing only the passion of battle.

Dossier B034K59210: WEIDEN
A young bounty hunter has come to our attention. He was working for Nemro the Hutt, whom our agent Versteckt was endeavoring to bring into the Imperial fold. Weiden has since arrived on Dromund Kaas and has had dealings with the Mandolorian Enclave, likely in connection with their Great Hunt. From reports we have received, Weiden is a crack shot and a relentless hunter. He could be of use apprehending certain enemies of the Empire outside our--legal--reach.


Dossier I946R80587: TOLLKIRSCHE

A former slave who has shown tremendous Force potential, Tollkirsche is currently apprenticed to Lord Zash. Though Pureblood, his origins are actually somewhat obscure, nothing is known of him prior to his appearance on the slave markets of Zygerria. Personality profile indicates an off-balance individual who sadistically delights in the suffering of others; though he shows compassion and a feral sense of justice on random occasions. Tollkisrche is another link to Revan; he was observed making several trips to the Revanite camp outside Kaas City, before departing the system on an errand for his master. It is debatable whether he can be trusted by the Dark Council. However, like a Kaas electrical storm, Tollkirsche is becoming a force to be reckoned with. It may be possible to harness that potential to our benefit.

Gaming Genres: Evolutions or Revolutions

2011-12-24T09:51:00.000-06:00

Axel Night left a comment on Thursday's post "SWTOR is Too-Much/Not-Enough Like WoW":

I think part of it is we've really narrowed ourselves into this situation. If we look back at games like Ultima Online and Phantasy Star Online, how much did they have in common? Now do the same with World of Warcraft and The Old Republic. The latter have much more in common. I see arguments of "it's a copy of WoW/no it's different, stop comparing them!" But they're all really running together, in terms of core mechanics.

Rather than create new games, we've established a formula. And as elements succeed, they become static aspects of that formula. Developers of new MMORPGs ask "what can I improve" or, if we're lucky, "what can I change," but that core template remains. I have multiple friends who say, "I won't play an MMO if my character can't jump." That has become a thing! One of countless things that, as new refinements and polishes are added to this not so mini sub-genre, bloat our expectations and narrow our gaming experiences until they're these mammoth, unmanageable projects all designed to be near identical.

And now I have a Boba Fett inspired bounty hunter protecting me by shooting me in the head with his healie-pistols, because the game has to have healers. But it's nothing to worry about. He can jump.

I like healie-pistols. Actually I haven't seen that mechanic, so I don't know about the animations, but it makes as much, if not more, sense than mystical magical healers, a la . . . every other game I've played but STO. I wonder if the insistence on being able to jump stems not from WoW or any other MMO, but from Mario games (a genre unto itself).

Anyway, you make good points, Axel. SWTOR is part of an established genre, UO and PSO (never heard of it) were not. Much like in the 90s, when we had a bunch of "Doom-clones" (including Dark Forces), but no one talks about the fact that Doom is really the second FPS. Wolfenstein came out first. It was Doom that codified the genre though. And modern FPSs have evolved into MW3 and HALO. Who really knows what MMORPGs will look like in 10 or 15 years

We can argue whether or not MMOs are going in the right direction in their evolution. It's really a matter of taste and opinion. Perfect example: I've seen people express the opinion that these games should have "Perma-death." Easy resurrection cheapens the roleplaying experience or something. They even go so far as to say it's bad design. Now let me doubly digress.

Actors love death scenes. Why? They're memorable, they tug at the heartstrings of the audience. They make people cry. They're great. Audiences? Hate them. They're not thinking about the great acting job; they're thinking that their beloved character just went to way of all life and they're sad, or mad, or both. Maybe it brings our own mortality into sharp relief, and we're uncomfortable with that. It may be great Art, but often it is horrible movie making.

But we keep coming back for more, well some of us. In Star Trek Generations, the android Data installs an emotion chip into his neural matrix, leading to a series of funny and scary incidents. One occurs in Ten Forward where he a has a startling reaction to a drink Guinan serves him.

Even though he hates the stuff, he wants more. In a contained story, we can accept the death of a character, sometimes.

In our own story, not so much. We become very invested in the character. Let me reassure you, Dear Reader, World of Warcraft would not be nearly as popular if people's characters died as easily as they do and never came back. After all, we have that dynamic in real life. How many people are actually willing to risk their own necks for a real adventure? Not many. That's part of the fun and appeal of these online games, they give us the illusion of adventure with real no danger, other than bad posture and carpal tunnel syndrome. With perma-death in the game, players would grow as cautious with their characters as they level up as they are with their own bodies as they age in real life.

Now, you could make the argument that it should be harder to kill a character, and then you can make death permanent. OK, but you still have to figure out how to convince the player that maybe fighting that dragon isn't such a great idea right now. So the character has to be defeated and removed from the situation without killing it. LOTRO does this with "Morale." SWTOR doesn't call it Death; the character is "Defeated." Cryptic compromised with players who wanted death penalties in STO by creating "Veteran" and "Expert" modes with greater penalties and rewards, but leaving the basic mode without a death penalty. But these are evolutions of the concept. Not revolutions.

These evolutions have come to define the genre. And despite the doomsayers and self-appointed erudites who say that this or that element of the MMO genre is "bad design"; Blizzard, BioWare, and several other games developers have several million little green reasons to argue otherwise. You can call it dumbing down the genre if you want. But sometimes designing what the people want, as opposed to producing what you think is best, is the difference between producing a Mustang, and producing an Edsel.

The beauty of "running together, in terms of core mechanics" is that the learning curve on each new game is not so steep that it becomes a barrier to entry for the player--or the game into the market. There will be some who say about a new game, "It's not different enough from the game I've been playing to warrant shifting my time and money." Others--who are tired of the story/end-game/whatever of the old game--will be able to jump to the new with a minimum of pain. This is good for new games and bored players. Some will say flaws in the genre are propagated across multiple games, but I think many of the stated "flaws" really just reflect the personal preferences and desires of the gaming "elites."

A lot of players want some kind of revolution in the MMO genre, but not most players. The problem with revolutions is that what you have after the revolution--almost by definition--can no longer be in the same category as what went before. Ultima Online was a Revolution, SWTOR is part of an Evolution. And by the way, Revolutionaries often suffer perma-death.

SWTOR is Too-Much/Not-Enough Like WoW

2011-12-22T14:31:00.001-06:00

This is a follow up to yesterday's post. Someone I was talking to made a comment that made me think a thought I hadn't thought about before. A lot of people have been complaining that SWTOR is missing features that games that have been out longer already include. I've seen this occur with every new game I've played after World of Warcraft, starting with Star Trek Online almost 2 years ago. They say something like this:

"It doesn't have such-and-such a feature that another game has. C'mon Devs, this is 2011, these are basic features of an MMO."

Are they? One thing that we, as gamers, sometimes forget is that it takes lots of money and man-power to develop and publish an MMO. Every feature that is included before the game actually launches is another uncompensated investment. Blizzard has developed three expansions to WoW since it launched in 2004, each costing the same price as the original game. In between, they have introduced new dungeon content, numerous battlegrounds, and new questing areas for no more than cost of your monthly subscription. How did they pay for that updated content? Through subscription and box revenues, from millions of people, over seven years.

Then we expect a new game, SWTOR, to have a multitude of features that we haven't really paid for. Sure we've paid the initial box price. But that was only a couple of days ago. Prior to that, BioWare and EA had sunk millions into the game based essentially on faith.

The game has a few Warzones, a few Flashpoints. The crafting system is different and seems less tedious than others I've seen. The questing makes sense so far, and fits my characters' stature in the universe from a roleplaying perspective. The space battles are an interesting side game and in-line with both other SW games and the movies.

Sure, make suggestions for development. Constructive criticism is welcome at BioWare, I am sure. But there is a big difference between, "Hey, you know what would be cool? A guild bank system," and "Waaaah! Why no guild bank!?! This game SUCKS!" If I sound sarcastic or condescending, it's because I thought I was done having to listen to whiny children when my daughters got out of elementary school.

More Warzones, more Flashpoints will come. Quality-of-life features like guild banks will come. Let BioWare get this game off the ground, and enjoy it for what it is and what it has. Don't compare it to a game that is years into its redevelopment cycle.

And don't even get me started on the whiners who didn't follow instructions regarding the product keys and subscription plans . . . [EDIT] I'll leave that to AFK.

Early Access and Launch Queues, or Stop Whining, You Little Brat.

2011-12-21T16:37:00.003-06:00

The following is pretty much an unedited copy of a comment I made on GeeCee's blog post about the SWTOR launch, also of merit is Scarybooster's comparison of the SWTOR launch vs. WoW's launch seven years ago.

I got in "before lunch" on the second day, having preordered in September, the day they announced the 20 December release. Being at work, and unable to take the day off, it didn't matter to me what time of day I got the email.

People seem to forget that their preorder purchase--a whole 5 bucks for basic and DD editions--"guaranteed" only that they would have a copy of the game on the day of release. Any early access, whether one day or seven, is free gravy. The EARLIER access was a reward for preordering EARLIER. Those who ordered later, like me, got what they deserved and have "no standing," to borrow legal jargon.

As for queues, I encountered minor ones early yesterday morning before work, but was pleasantly surprised to waltz onto Sanctum of the Exalted during primetime. I have a friend on Mask of Nihilus (sp?) with 25-30 minute queues, nothing a few minutes doing dishes or reading a story to your kids can't cover.

Here's a nickel's worth of free advice: When your chosen server is full and the queue is intolerable, role a minor alt on an open server. Sure, you want to play with friends and guildmates. But having a back-up plan and having fun at it is way better than getting your blood pressure up and nerdraging on the SWTOR forums. Besides, you never know when your server might crash in the future and you'll be ready with a little side character.

My Saga Began in South Austin

2011-12-20T11:45:00.000-06:00

So after much debate, both in my head and with my lovely bride, I headed down to Austin last night to attend the official BioWare launch party of Star Wars: The Old Republic. (There was another shindig in some other place, but we all know the important event with the actual rockstars was in TEXAS.) I honestly will not be able to convey the excitement at this event--and the excitement I felt. I'll admit it was somewhat muted by the fact that I've been playing for a few days. But the the lead devs were in attendance, and it was an awesome opportunity to meet them even if only briefly as they signed my swag. Sctrz wanted to go, but didn't feel she could because she had to get up for work very early. So I took my older daughter, who has expressed significant interest in the game.

We arrived just before 10 p.m., when the party was set to officially kick off. Obviously, there was a crowd of people milling about, and an announcer directing people where to stand for different purposes.

Members of the 501st Legion: Vader's First were there, posing for pics and playing with the gadgets.

We got photos with Boba Fett, and then moved to find the end of the autograph line.

I chatted with the folks around me. The guy just ahead of me was the only one from his guild in attendance, as far as he knew, but there were others who were there together with their guildmates.

I quickly became about the middle of the line as it extended in a "U" toward the front of Best Buy. Members of the the TOR team team and (I think) Torocast were passing out large posters, and a few copies of the Journal of Master Gnost-Dural. I got two posters (pic below) but had no luck on the Journal.

The announcer was not idle. Up in the front of the store, the devs were signing things already, and the M.C. was working the crowd into a frenzy with trivia questions and prizes. I missed a lot of it, between chatting with my line mates and being near the back of the store for a while. Eventually I got close enough to pay attention to the questions. They were asking, "Who is credited with playing Jabba the Hutt in "The Phantom Menace"?" After several people had failed to answer correctly, I turned to my daughter and said, "He played 'himself.'" Sure enough, a second later someone was picked who gave that answer. He won a regular copy of the game. My daughter told me I should have raised my hand; she was right.

The next question they asked was, "Who was Boba Fett's mother?" I promptly raised my hand, and @FemSteph, a BioWare PR person, chose me and put a microphone in my face, asking me to say my name and where I am from. I answered, and she repeated the trivia question. "He didn't have a mother." Why? "Because he was an unaltered CLONE!" :D Step right up and get your free copy of Star Wars The Old Republic! W00T!

Next up was the actual autograph table, with the rockstars beaming about their hard work and the appreciative fans.

I was able to have each developer sign both posters and the game package I had just won. My daughter got pics of each with her (better-than-my-phone) camera, I'll post them later. But I may need help remembering their names. I apparently am one of the few people who has properly pronounced Georg Zoeller's first name here in the States. (like "Geh-Org," not "George") Cool points! :) I then geeked out and told him it was because "The Sound of Music" is one of my favorite movies, and Captain Von Trapp's first name is also Georg. Cool points gone! :( But maybe he'll remember me again sometime this week. :P

I thanked each one for their time and efforts, but I HAD to get a pic with @Rockjaw himself, Stephen Reid.

Once all my swag was signed, I was almost ready to go. Sctrz had wanted me to get Boba Fett's autograph, so we hunted him down and my daughter swooped in for the ki--I mean signature--on a 501st Legion pamphlet. We had everything we'd come for--and then some--and I had work this morning, so we popped smoke about an hour after arriving. I felt kinda bad because Sctrz didn't actually get to sleep until after we got home. She probably could have come. 20/20 hindsight.

I saw an old buddy who used to play Star Wars Galaxies (I never did). That was cool. I also met a guildmate, @g1_Atma, who drove all the way from Dallas to attend the party. Way more dedication than I have. It was cool, as always, to meet an online friend in person.

So here's all the awesome swag I got. I'm really glad I decided to go, especially since I won that game that I can give to my daughter for an early Christmas. Since so many weren't able to attend, I felt that, as I was privileged to live close enough, I would represent The Republic Mercy Corps/Imperial Mercenary Corps. LONG LIVE THE CORPS!

Gamer Santa Strikes Again!

2011-12-16T19:10:00.000-06:00

So Stargrace once again organized a Gamer Secret Santa--a tremendous undertaking, I am sure--and I decided to participate this year after sitting it out last year. It was fun to read a little bit about the person I needed to get a gift for, and think of an appropriate item. My SS package arrived today, and I love my new Bobble Heads. Gamo and Little Mauly will accompany me on all my SWTOR adventures!

THANK YOU, SANTA!!

p.s. I have a SWTOR character post brewing, if I can ever stop playing long enough. :P

A few hours ago in a galaxy very very nearby. . .

2011-12-13T08:31:00.001-06:00

I had to get this pic out for for those of us who will be consistently playing both sides of the Galactic Cold War. (Thanks to Jac Thomas of BioWare for posting it to G+) I am so excited to start playing SWTOR. For Realz. I'm pretty sure I won't get in today. But I can wait. Sctrz has RL stuff keeping her busy this week, so I don't want to distract her. I just hope I can go with most if not all of my planned names. More to come when I get in myself.

So what side are you on?

For all those who in right already: May the Force be with you.

Dear Mrs. Santa

2011-12-02T11:47:00.000-06:00

Dear Mrs. Clause,

So River tells me you have some special goodies for me, all I have to do is ask. I've been reeaaallly good this year; but when I'm bad I'm better, just ask Sctrz. Some of this is pretty "World Peace" level stuff, IYKWIM, but some of it is doable. Much like you, if River is to be believed. ;)

Stop people from whinging over SWTOR. It is what it is. Enjoy it or GTFO.
I wants me some GW2, ASAP. I am so looking forward to the end of the unholy trinity, and trying some real online roleplaying.
Speaking of Roleplaying, are we ever going to get a Firefly MMO? I so wanna be Malcolm Reynolds. He's the big reason I plan to role a Gunslinging Smuggler in SWTOR. (I promise not to cross IPs, though.)
When is someone going to invent the Holodeck? We'd all be in better shape if we were actually jumping around killing imaginary dragons, instead of pushing buttons on a keyboard or gamepad.
As long as we're in pure fantasy territory, can you get me a (well-paying) job spewing my worthless opinion in the internet? My day-job is not fulfilling, though I am grateful for it.

Thanks in advance. I hear MMOGC, Stargrace, Scopique, and Syp might have some items on their lists, as well.

Sincerely,
Rowan

Gaming in Bed (Sometimes with Pants)

2011-12-02T09:57:00.001-06:00

Yesterday Scarybooster posted the ultimate SWTOR-fan gaming accessories. That's a lot of crap for a lot of dough. In case anyone is curious, this is my gaming set-up:

Asus GG73Jh - It's not the ultimate gaming rig, I suppose, and Asus has put out the G74 now. But it handles everything I need it to on some fairly high settings. (I usually turn down ground-clutter and shadows.) And I love the fact that I can easily slip the battery in and out the back, without turning the laptop over.

Logitech M570 - I fell in love with trackball mice while deployed to a very dusty part of the world, playing RTS games like Rise of Nations. They make steering very easy in every MMO I've played, though it takes my friends a while to get used to before they are comfortable with it. There are gaming mice with more buttons out there for the fast twitch crowd. But I wouldn't trade my 570 for anything that didn't have a trackball for my thumb.

Yep that's it. I use earbuds sometimes, but gave up on other headsets. An operator-style earpiece/mic might be nice for vent.

I've thought about a left hand gaming device like Scopique's, but I'm not sure. I have the Zboard Fang (didn't pay that much for it) but never found it as useful as I thought I would. I hardly ever sit at a desk or table anymore when I game. It's either the bed or the couch, usually.

Criticism of MMOs

2011-12-01T13:00:00.000-06:00

So there have been a lot of "arguments" on either side of the fence regarding whether SWTOR is worth playing or not. The funny thing is that much of the same evidence is portrayed as either positive or negative, revealing more about the writer than it does about the game. This happens with every newly released MMO and probably every single-player game as well.

One criticism is the lack of true aliens as Player Character choices. BioWare apparently said a few months ago they felt that an alien's story would be too different from the human centered stories they had developed. This is true. There is a ton of prejudice in the SW universe against even "near humans," much less other aliens. So their story would not be the same. However, as I recall, BioWare went a step further and said they didn't think people would be able to relate to an alien protagonist. I was thinking the other night that it had to do with audio dialogue more than graphics issues. As HarbingrZero pointed out, they have most of the aliens that people would want to play already modeled and rendered as NPCs. I do think it's short-sighted. Plenty of people have played some pretty bizarre creatures in other games. WoW has Space Goats, Walking Cows and Self-Willed Zombies, for cryin' out loud. Cryptic's STO is the king of aliens, thanks to their extremely customizable characters. After going through the various models in the creation screen during the SWTOR beta, I can pretty much guarantee most of my alts will be human or cyborg (which is human). The other options were kinda lame, IMHO. A Rodian or Trandoshan would have been cool.

The Legacy System has also come under fire. I have issues with it myself, but it won't stop me from playing the game or adapting to the Legacy System in my roleplaying.

A commenter named "gahgoots" on Scarybooster's SWTOR Beta Review/Impressions Part 1: The Bad left a well articulated comment regarding his impressions of the game after a few months of beta testing. Basically he said the replayability of the game is limited, it is too linear. There is not enough to do besides quest.

I understand the liner/nonlinear argument, both within a zone and through multiple zones. WoW gave several options for questing in different zones any any given level, but I often found I had to visit several zones just to level up to the next tier of questing, the next set of zones. Within each zone, there were places you didn't want to go when you first qualified to enter the zone, because you would get your ass handed to you.

Rift has a similar problem; there were several times that my bride and I had to go to another zone to quest because we had progressed in the story farther than we had progressed in levels. The quests became too difficult to complete without leveling up first. Also, Rift suffers from the one-time-through-for-each-faction issue. More so than SWTOR, I believe.

Gahgoots also said the mirrored classes meant that there are really only four classes to play. I disagree with this, because of the advanced classes. even if the ACs are mirrored (they are), that's still 8 classes after the intro planets. Some ACs may be very similar, Shadow (rogue) and Sage (mage/priest) have completely different roles and many different abilities. The same with goes for Sniper versus Operative: A long-range cover-loving killer as opposed to an in-your-face melee fighter or healer. WoW had only about that many classes to start, and didn't even bother to change their names or ability effects. STO only has three "branches."

The linearity can be enjoyable. I see the SWTOR story as a choose-your-own adventure. Many of the things that have been brought up are not problems to me. I am not an idiot, I am not lazy (well maybe a little), I prefer that a game be relaxing, not frustrating. I have enough stress at work, I don't want to come home to more stress. If you do, Dear Reader, maybe this game is not for you. I don't enjoy FPS games like Halo or CoD, or EA Sports games like Madden or NBA Elite, but I don't come on here and rant about how they suck.

I've played a few other MMOs, and they all have the same features/problems to some degree. The question is, is the journey enjoyable? Most people who will play Skyrim all the way through have already done so, and loved it. It's been less than a month since it came out. For the same price as Skyrim ($60), you can get the basic edition of SWTOR and play for a month. Of course, BioWare and EA would like you to keep playing and paying the monthly subscription. Play the game for as long as you enjoy it, then cancel your subscription. Easy as pie.

QOTD: SWTOR's Legacy System

2011-11-30T11:50:00.001-06:00

The discussion is heating up over at BioBreak regarding SWTOR's Legacy System. Syp brings up some excellent points. For example:

Because surnames are unique on a server, it’s going to be a race to get to them first (and if you come late to the game? Good luck!).

Warsyde commented on Syp's post:

Whether the name is reserved at character creation or reserved at level 20 (or whenever) doesn’t make much difference, either way it’s a race to get there first, the only difference is the length of the race. They need to make them non-unique.

I think the difference between someone beating you to a name at character creation and the same thing happening 30 levels later is significant. In the first case, you'd lost before you even started running. The second affects gameplay style and possibly enjoyment, if you feel you need to rush through the story to snag that name.

Scarybooster thinks BioWare should stop calling it a surname and just refer to it as a Legacy name:

Everybody can be Skywalker if they want. If you want to be original BW should make a check system that says, “Skywalker”- taken are you sure you want to proceed? Yes/no. “Skywalker” -Name has not been used on this server. Do you want to proceed, Yes/No

I like STO's approach to names and roleplaying. Along with @handles that only appear in chat (I don't count chat when thinking about immersion, it's part of the UI.), STO has "short names" and "full names" along with an in-game RP backstory section as part of the character window. This allowed me to roleplay Donovan Locke as Locke, a militaristic character, and Rowan Starblanket as Rowan, a much more informal character. It also meant that there could be many players with the same character name (Just like my meatspace name is hardly unique) because our @handles were unique. The printed mission dialogue sometimes used the designated surname and sometimes the short name, depending on the context of the conversation. It worked great, and made me feel part of the story.

Scary's suggestion that being original could be optional is great for the first user of the name, until there are two hundred other "Skywalkers" running around. Then they are not so unique. On the other hand, meatspace couples and families could share the surname as they play together. Of course, if it's not a surname, then the option to make it a surname should be removed. I agree the surnames should be either non-unique and/or not part of the Legacy system at all. We could still have the Legacy title and it wouldn't have to be a surname at all, could be an object (i.e., The Frostmourne Legacy, to borrow from WoW). Of course, now that I think about it, there's nothing stopping people from doing that now. Also, if I understand correctly, the players automatically enter the Legacy sytem and start earning Legacy points, regardless of whether they choose a Legacy name immediately or not. So no worries about missing out on whatever rewards are in store.

[EDIT]Another quote from Syp's comments, this time from Buhallin:

While I agree with the concerns over how Bioware implemented this, I’m continually amazed at the MMO community’s ability to take even the most minor things and turn it into an epic catastrophe if they don’t get exactly what they want.

In short, the Legacy system as currently explained is flawed, but I believe there are work-arounds. BioWare could maybe heed some of the suggestions, but people shouldn't sweat it so much. It's just a game . . .

Just the Two (Four) of Us: Observations and Suggestions for Duoing in SWTOR

2011-11-30T10:00:00.000-06:00

So I (and everyone else and their brother) got in to the "stress test" beta of SWTOR this Thanksgiving weekend. Reams have been written about the quality of the game and the story. But I think most people have already made up their minds about whether they are going to play, and we bloggers are all simply preaching to our respective choirs. I want to talk a little about partnering up with a single fellow player, say a spouse, for long term duo play. Chris over at Levelcapped beat me to the punch on one aspect of grouping:

Playing with two people is great; playing with two people who each have a companion is awesome. It’s like a wrecking ball swinging through content. To some, that may sound like the End Of The World As We Know It, but as I’ve said before, I’m all about the progress and, in this case, the story.

So I intend to play at least one pair of characters with my lovely bride, Sctrz. (An Aside: I want to point out that, much like others have mentioned doing, I played classes I wasn't sure about or flat out had not intended to play when the game goes live: Trooper, Agent, Knight, Consular. Their stories have me completely hooked; I now want to find out what happens to each one.) Anyway, we both roled the Imperial Agent on Saturday and Sunday. Now grouping with others allows you to earn social points, which are somewhat like faction points, unlocking titles and gear that you would not otherwise have access to. If you have a Significant Other Leveling Contract (SLC), this aspect of the game becomes pure icing on the cake for characters under the SLC.

One of the newer (for beta) opportunities for partnered characters is the ability to spectate the NPC conversations for the your partner's stories. This is great if you are different classes and and don't care too much about spoilers; it gives the player whose story is being shown a bunch of "free" social points (normally distributed by roll on the conversation wheel). The problem with roling the same class is that you can only ever be a spectator in your partner's story, even if you are at the same point in the story. Then they have to watch you. This might be good for those who want to see how different conversation choices play out. You can split off into your own story rooms if you want, but then you lose those few social points because no one is with you.

During the non-story quests (Are they quests or missions? Even BioWare isn't sure.) you "compete" for responses to the NPCs and this can be amusing if one of you is playing Light Side and the other is playing Dark Side. Everyone gets Light/Dark credit for their choice, but the player who wins gets to slaughter or set free, much to the dismay of the other (usually Sctrz, in our case, since I often chose the Dark Side.)

Another issue with playing the same class for your SLC is that, at least initially, you end up with the same companions. They can be customized, but not to the point where they don't both look like the same character. This didn't cause confusion, but was odd. At higher levels with more companions to choose from, this would not be as big a deal.

One last issue: if you play the same class, you will be competing for armor rolls. Different classes, even those with the same level of armor (light/medium/heavy) will still be looking for different stats.

So on Sunday and Monday evenings, Sctrz and I decided to play Jedi. She roled a Knight and I roled Consular. (The picture is actually one I had taken on another prior consular. [EDIT: I just realized all the screenshots I took automagically appeared in a new folder in My Documents!] Meanwhile, if you have Google's Picasa downloaded and running, it will make pictures everytime you hit Print Screen.) This went a little better for a few reasons, some game related, some interpersonal. Because I have a well-above-average sense of spatial relationships and map reading ability (Yes, I've been tested. Go Army!), and because I have soloed my way through countless hours of WoW, STO, and other games, I have a tendency to make my own way through the game world and expect Sctrz to follow. She, in turn, often feels like I am still soloing and she is just tagging along. So I made a conscious effort to discuss with her the questing options, what to do next, etc. I did say to her at one point, "You decide where we will go, and then trust me to get us there." From my perspective, at least, this worked better and we had less friction. I invite her to comment and you, Dear Reader, can get her side of it.

Anyway, having the two different classes on the same starting planet meant that we saw both stories (for the most part). If you're not interested in spoilers for the other class, jump into the story area with your partner, so they can get the social points, and take a biobreak or you can help with fights and such, and ignore the "cutscenes."

We play next to each other, within easy earshot of the two computers, and the SWTOR conversations tended not to sync up for various reasons. This was distracting, so we each put one earbud in and then could hear each other without our computer sounds getting in the way. I'd kinda like stereo, and we could use headphones with Ventrilo I suppose, though that would be odd: sitting in the same room, but communicating over VOIP.

The two classes complemented each other very well, even though before level 10 and the Advanced Classes, basically every class in the game is DPS only. She would jump in, vibroblade swinging, and I would stand off just a bit, force-throwing objects at the target and only occasionally swinging my blade. As Chris said above, the content is not difficult to solo, but running through it with a partner is great. Once we got our companions, around level 7 or 8, it was even better.

When we hit level 10 and finished in the starting area, we headed to the space fleet to choose our Advanced Classes and crew skills. It only makes sense to pick complementary ACs when you're partnering with someone, so I went Sage and dumped points into healing, while Sctrz chose the dual-wielding Sentinel, figuring we could depend on our companions to tank. We accepted a quest to the first Republic Flashpoint, "The Esseles." We thought we'd try it even though there were only two of us, with our companions. I was gratified to see a notice pop up that recommended "2+" players for the flashpoint. We got all the way through to the last boss without any real problems, but just couldn't quite get him down. I would've liked to go back at level 12 to see if we could down him, we were that close at 11.

[EDIT, thanks to Chris] One last thing about duoing with different classes: Unless you choose classes that are on the same starting world, you will be at least level 10 before you can partner up on the second world. There isn't really anything for the Sith to do on Nal Hutta, for example. We are only talking about 1½ evenings of solid play at the very beginning, however, so take it for what it's worth.

So DL:TR version:

Duoing with a partner/significant other is not only viable in SWTOR, but fun.
I recommend choosing different classes, but this is not absolutely necessary.
Even when you do choose different classes, it shouldn't be too difficult to stay close in XP, assuming you have an SLC.
At least some of the Flashpoints are perfectly doable as a duo with companions, but you may want to be a level or two higher than if you were in a full group of four players.

This wall of words became quite expository, even though I strove not to spoil anything. Once again, I was thrilled with the opportunity to participate in the SWTOR beta, and look forward to playing solo and with my lovely bride when the game launches.

“A Good Companion Shortens the Longest Road.”

2011-11-25T21:49:00.000-06:00

~~Turkish proverb

When I started playing World of Warcraft in June of 2006, the first character I created was a Dwarf Hunter named Oakheart. Back then, you first learned how to tame creatures at level 10. I picked an Ice Claw Bear--much like the bear and hunter in the Vanilla Cinematic--tamed him (notice, not "it") and named him Arcturus, "Bear Guard," because he fought and guarded me from hostiles.

When I started playing Star Trek Online, I had a whole bridge crew to command and befriend. Even though I increased in rank (level) and gained access to "Epic" crew members, I held on to my original officers. They had backstories at least as detailed as my actual characters, Rowan and Locke. Before I unsubbed, I was even looking in the exchange (auction house) for epic officers of the same races that I could transfer my Bridge Officers' identities to.

Now imagine my delight when I found that Star Wars, the Old Republic, is going to have fully interactive companions that I could talk to, not just envision talking to. It's been said by others, but I do believe that, coupled with the storylines, companions will bring a added sense of immersion that even playing with other players cannot bring. Syp enthused about the subject a month or two ago, when the accompanying video was first published on the SWTOR site.

The developers at BioWare seem to be fully cognizant of the reservations people may have about playing with the companion characters in a massively multi-player environment. William Wallace, Senior Game Designer:

How do you make each player’s companions unique in a world where other people are experiencing the same story with the same companions?
How do you make companions a critical part of the player’s combat without stepping on the usefulness of other players?
How can you make a companion character that is easy to control for players who don’t want to micromanage abilities, while also offering complex options for players who enjoy that style of gameplay?

While I'm not completely sure the toggling of companion abilities in the UI is innovative (actually I'm sure it's not), I welcome the companions having a similar range of abilities to my character. That they are strong enough to round out a group if we're short a player is wonderful.

Scarybooster tried to flirt with his companion right off the bat, but got shot down. As was mentioned in the video, romancing some of your companions is possible, but you will need to woo them for a while, Scary. Some people might find it creepy to romance or develop an emotional attachment to a computer character, but Geordi LaForge did it. [EDIT: Hunter just posted his impressions of companions, as well.] I look forward to the inevitable attachment I will feel toward my characters and my companions. I will care about their fates, develop backstories for them that may or may not completely match up with the lore of the game, and have fond memories of our adventures together.

Some players have said they want to make their own stories, they don't want stories made for them by BioWare or any other developer. I don't think they appreciate the quality of this storytelling. I guess they're entitled to their feelings on the subject. As for me, I like writing my own stories, I also like reading the stories of other authors, and watching movies or going to a play. SWTOR is not a sandbox, but neither is it passive entertainment. Sandboxes can be fun, but so can themeparks and story-driven games.

Do I think this dependence on companions will hurt SWTOR's community? I honestly don't, for people will get a chance to group not because they have to, but because they want to.

QoTD: My Dream MMO?

2011-11-23T20:20:00.001-06:00

In the midst of all this SWTOR mania, I came across this tidbit in an article on the evolution of the MMORPG genre from Darth Hater:

Guild Wars 2 is also scrapping the traditional and familiar trinity class system; in Guild Wars 2, all classes can take or deal damage and all classes have the ability to heal others. Guild Wars 2 will also take a page from BioWare’s playbook and focus on story

This should sound familiar to long-time readers of this blog. I had planned to check out GW2 when it comes out eventually, but now I am more eagerly waiting.

Shhh! I Got Into the Beta This Weekend.

2011-11-18T15:26:00.000-06:00

I would have had this post out earlier, but I've interspersed writing it with a conversation I'm carrying on with a fellow gamer/work-buddy.

So I got into the SWTOR beta this past weekend. I just want to leave my general impressions on things I saw and did. I only got up to level 11 or 12 on one character and played another one just to get a feeling for the different classes. I also let my lovely bride play, because SWTOR's NDA has nothing on my marriage contract to keep her happy. When Momma ain't happeh, ain't nobody happeh. (Lub you, sweetums.) I did watch as she played, and she watched me. I don't think any spoilers are below, I want to discover as much as I can about the game from actually playing it. If you're looking for story spoilers, this is not the blog for you.

So how was it? In a word, engrossing. I am still thinking of the Trooper story that I only played myself to about level 5 for an hour and a half before the event ended at almost midnight local time. My hunny played her Trooper to level 10. I totally want to continue my Trooper's story now, despite the fact that it was probably the least appealing class to me prior to this event. It's really the main reason I played one, because I figured it would be the last one I'd play after launch. I am very interested in playing one now. That's how well-crafted the story is.

I also played a Jedi Knight, another class low on my post-launch priority list. I found out that the "rage" mechanic for the Knight is called focus, which makes sense. It functions much like rage for a warrior in WoW: certain abilities build focus, and other abilities spend it. (The trooper mechanic is "ammo," a little like mana, but more discreet amounts.) I made Light side choices with the Knight I took to 11, and Dark side choices for another one to about 7, just to see the differences in story. Some differences are subtle; other times choices open or close quest lines. I'll have to see if and how that develops further along in the story, meaning I may have to play the same class twice, if the stories diverge tremendously. (Yes it would be worth it.) I am one of the people Scarybooster mentioned who would like to be able to be chaotic in my moral choices in the game without having to worry about the meta-game of racking up Light or Dark points. If what he says is true and BioWare is endeavoring to keep the middle road as rewarding as the extremes, this player at least will be very happy.

Were there issues with the game? Yes: some graphics glitches; one time when the conversation wheel screwed up and gave me an invalid choice that stalled out the conversation and I had to start it over, this time with different, valid choices on the wheel. Some gameplay aspects were just the other side of the handholding-vs-learning-curve spectrum from where I would like to be. But again, they're trying to strike a balance. Suffice it to say you have to pay attention to the story. This is not going to be a game where you can pick up ten quests at a hub without reading anything and successfully complete them. The biggest single issue I don't think I can talk about, between the NDA and my own reticence about spoilers. I don't think it can be fixed in the way I think it should, certainly not before launch. Was it a show stopper, though? No. I will still play.

I didn't get much chance to see the companion relationships develop. I will save my thoughts on that for another post I have researched but have yet to write.

I won't compare my experience to other games I've played. Plenty of others will draw those comparisons, both positive and negative. Let me just say this, the fourth pillar is alive and well in Star Wars: The Old Republic. [EDIT: The Story is good enough in this game that Chris over at Levelcapped, who only a week ago declared he didn't like story, got sucked into his character story.] If you have read this blog for any length of time, Dear Reader, you know that I place Story and Characterization pretty much at the top of my list of reasons to continue playing a game (beyond an ineffable "absorption" factor--does the game make me want to continue playing?) This SWTOR beta did just that, I want to keep playing. Story, story, and story will keep me coming back for more in this game.

Fatal Alliance, a Review

2011-11-10T17:28:00.001-06:00

Fatal Alliance by Sean Williams

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Beware: possible MINOR SPOILERS.

I enjoyed reading Fatal Alliance. As has been said, it is a bit of a showcase for the world and classes of the upcoming BioWare MMO, Star Wars: the Old Republic. However, given what I know about the behavior and personalities of the in-game characters, I felt that FA was a good departure from that template. Ula Vii, the Imperial "Agent" in particular, was not the cool James-Bondish Agent we've seen in videos of the game. I saw someone else's review, critical of the smuggler's name, "Jet Nebula." That it was unrealistic. The person obviously did not pay attention, as it was clearly not his real name from the first mention of it. The book is what it is, a StarWars-based game tie-in. Anyone looking for more will be sorely disappointed.

I am generally fond of game tie-in novels, though I wouldn't consider any to be among my favorite books. This one satisfied my itch for a TOR era book and I look forward to reading Deceived and Revan.

I feel I should mention this is my first Kindle e-book, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it through the Kindle app on my new Android phone.

So It Begins . . .

2011-11-01T18:32:00.000-05:00

Just a quick post because I don't know when I'll be posting again. I'm participating in the lunacy that is NaNoWriMo2011. If you don't know what that is I suggest you head on over to the site. If you are participating, feel free to add me as a writing buddy. I'm there as Rowanblaze, same as Twitter.

Good luck, and God help us.

Starblanket: In the Belly of the Beast

2011-10-30T22:51:00.000-05:00

I rediscovered this passage while digging through NaNoWriMo stuff from last year. I never posted it, so here it is. This is a continuation of the STO story "Do the Borg Believe in God?" and "Do the Borg have an Afterlife?" Catchy titles, but not exactly what the stories were actually about. In any event, read those first. Enjoy:

Rowan became aware of an insistent chirping. Trying to stir, she felt a tremendous pain in her side and realized that some of her ribs were broken. Groaning, she pushed herself up into a sitting position. Scanning the chamber. She made out the still forms of the other three members of the away team. The chirping continued, it was her communicator pin. Tapping the badge sent a fresh twinge along her ribs.

“Starblanket here,” she grunted.

Tarah’s voice sounded tinny in the thinning air. “Captain, the Borg wreckage you occupy is on the verge of collapse. We anticipate a hull breech at any moment.”

“Can you lock on to our signals?”

“Negative, Captain. The interference from radiation is too strong at your present location.”

“We’ll move to the other chamber. Keep this channel open.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Corporal Graavel, the Tellarite MACO, was closest to her. She crawled closer to him to assess his condition. Realizing her tricorder had flown out of her hand in the tumble, she gently shook his shoulder. He stirred, groaning.

“Corporal, are you hurt?” Rowan asked, visually examining the MACO.

“I’m alright, Ma’am,” Graavel said with a grunt. He sat up.

“Check on Commander Brasseux. While I check the Major.”

They moved off towards their separate charges. Major Gasira’s left lower leg was bent an unnatural angle, her foot caught under some debris. Rowan cast about for something to split the Major’s leg. Finding a short piece of wreckage, she began ripping the bottom of her own uniform top into strips. Gasira moaned and her eyes fluttered open. Rowan paused to put a hand on her shoulder.

“Shh, hold still, Major. Your leg is broken. I need to set on splint it.”

Gasira just groaned her acknowledgement. The chamber shuddered again as the remaining gravity generator began to fail. The stressed metal structure groaned louder than the Major. Thierry and Graavel made their way over to Rowan and Gasira. Having hit the bulkhead face first, Thierry’s ocular scanner was broken and he was bleeding from his temple where the device had cut him. He had abrasions across his cheek on that side and his nose had swollen, perhaps broken.

“Corporal, help me move this,” Rowan indicated the twisted metal trapping Gasira’s foot. The two tossed the debris aside, freeing the MACO commander’s leg, and Rowan spoke to her.

“Major, I need to set this, then I will split it. Without my medkit I cannot give you a painkiller.”

“I understand, Captain,” Gasira gasped and gritted her teeth. Rowan grasped the broken limb pulled as gently as she could, straightening it and trying to set the bones by feel. The Major cried out in pain.

“There. Corporal, position these strips under her leg above and below the break, here and here, while I lift it.” The MACO did as she asked. Rowan placed the splint along the Major’s leg and tied it in place.

“OK, we need to move out of this chamber or La Gitana cannot beam us out. Thierry, how are you doing?”

“I’ll be alright, sheh.”

“Alright, let’s move. Come on, Major.” Rowan hooked Gasira’s left arm around her own shoulders and lifted the other woman off the deck. The Major stood on her good leg, leaning into the Captain.

“Ready, Captain” she grunted.

“Tarah, monitor our signal. Beam us out as soon as you can.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Thierry leaned on the Tellarite as the chamber lurched again. The deck was now apparently at a steep angle, the exit to the corridor above the debris pile by about a meter and a half. Rowan stepped gingerly over the pile, careful of her footing and her charge. Gasira helped as best she could on her good leg. Thierry and Graavel followed behind. Coming to the bulkhead the passageway was on, Rowan propped up the Major.

“Corporal, can you get up into the corridor?” she asked turning to the Tellarite.

“Heh, of course, Ma’am.” The MACO scrambled up the bulkhead and deck into the opening, poking his head back out.

“OK. Thierry, help me get the major up there.” Rowan said. Gasira leaned on the engineer, as Rowan interlaced her fingers into a stirrup. Lifting her foot into The Captain’s hands, Gasira, heaved herself up and reached for the Corporal’s outstretched hands. Together they lifted her in to the corridor.

“OK, you’re next, Thierry.” Rowan put her hands back down to the engineer’s foot to boost him up, grunting in pain as she hoisted him into the corridor. Following the other away team members into the corridor, Rowan reassessed the situation. The tilted bulkheads and deck would make progress hazardous. The groans of the wreckage had not died down.

“OK, move carefully, but quickly. Corporal, you take the lead. Thierry, you follow. I’ll bring up the rear with the Major.” Rowan clutched her side where her broken ribs ground against each other.

“Sheh, are you alright? Can you support her?” the engineer asked.

“Yes, just get moving.”

The Tellarite moved up the corridor, tremors in the craft making him stumble. Thierry stumbled after, holding onto the bulkheads. Rowan realized that the gravity generator was causing the corridor to tilt uphill, slowing their progress.

“Tarah, are we out of the interference yet?”

“Negative, Captain.” Came the voice of her First Officer. “Another 15 meters, maybe.”

They came upon the animated but brain-dead drone, blocking their path. Corporal Graavel turned back to Rowan. “Orders, Ma’am?”

Rowan sighed, “Shoot it.” The MACO pulled out a hand phaser. Adjusting the settings, he took aim and fired on the drone, disintegrating it. Alarms went off echoing down the passageway.

“Damnit!” Rowan cursed. “Get going!”

Thierry and Graavel scrambled up the corridor with Rowan following as best she could with Gasira in tow. Between the groaning structure and the screaming alarms, Rowan barely heard Tarah’s voice.

“Captain, the structure is beginning to break-up, with multiple stress fractures in the hull.”

“We’re moving as fast as we can. Can you reposition to get us out of here?”

“We are already in the prime position relative to the interference, Captain.”

The deck heaved and they were all lifted off their feet. The horrible sound of metal ripping came up the passageway from the cargo bay. Closely followed by the boom of an explosion. Hot gases rushed past the away team, then suddenly reversed themselves.

“Hull breech! Get going!”

They all crawled the last few meters, Thierry dropping back to help Rowan with Gasira. The rushing wind was deafening, but they still had air for now.

“Tarah, beam out Corporal Graavel as soon as you have a lock on him!” Rowan shouted over the wind.

Tarah’s response was lost to the roar. The plasma fire behind was consuming the air. Soon enough, Rowan saw the telltale glow of the transporter rescuing the MACO about three meters ahead of them.

“Thierry! Go!”

“Not without you and the Major, sheh!”

They made it the last small distance when the wreckage rocked again from the force of another explosion. But the transporter effect had already embraced the three last members of the away team, pulling them to safety as the passageway collapsed around them.

Consumers and Producers

2011-10-18T16:38:00.001-05:00

So Tobold ordered a Kindle. His remarks about about tablets vs. PCs struck a chord for me:

Most people on the internet are mainly consumers of content. They contribute very little beyond the occasional link or comment, but they read and listen and watch a lot. I attribute it to the genius of the late Steve Jobs that he realized that existing personal computer were built by content creators for content creators, enabling him to start a revolution of devices built for content consumption instead, which was closer to what the public wanted. This included the iPad, which instead of earlier, failed, attempts at making tablet computers did away with content creation features like handwriting recognition, concentrated on features to consume content.

Unfortunately I am more of a content creator than a content consumer. I don't listen to music much, nor do I spend a lot of time watching videos on the internet. Instead I spend a lot of time writing, mostly in the form of this blog. As a result I don't own a tablet computer (nor a smart phone), as these devices simply aren't all that suitable for content creation. You *can* send an e-mail from an iPhone, or write a blog entry on an iPad, but given the choice you'd rather do it on a regular PC.

While not as prolific as Tobold, I also consider myself a content creator. I use my PC for two things, generally; Blogging (Tweeting, etc.); and Gaming. Tobold helped me put a finger on why I don't see a need for a tablet for me. The basic interface of a tablet computer does not lend itself to the types of games I play, much less the stuff "under the hood." Right this minute, I am producing content. Much of it is crap, and I suspect very few consume it. Thank you, Dear Reader, for consuming it; though my guess is you probably produce some of your own.

I want to interact with the web, not just consume it. A few years ago a work-mate was teasing me and another colleague over our gaming. How much time we wasted. My response to this guy--a Red Sox fan-- was, "How much time do you spend watching baseball or football on TV? The only difference between that and my gaming is that I have an effect on the outcome of the game I am watching." He was a consumer of product, I at least interact with product in a constructive way.

Another thing is that the social (i.e. chat) aspects of the game are hampered by the interface. Unless you are using a VOIP system like Ventrilo, you have to find a way to interact with your fellow players. You could add a keyboard and mouse, but then you are looking at something resembling my laptop anyway. I am not being critical of tablets or people use them. But I don't think I need one at this point in my life.

I know people have tethered their tablets to their PCs and finagled their way through a remote desktop to play MMOs, but really? It's a proof of concept, not a way I want to play the game. Maybe someday soon, MMORPGs will be designed around a touchscreen interface. But until they do, I'll stick with my laptop.

Help Wanted. Must Supply Own Armor, Weapons

2011-10-17T14:10:00.001-05:00

Wow, this week just flew by! I didn't realize 'til just now that my last post was last Sunday.

So MMOGC commented on a post Hunters Insight made regarding guild applications. Much of the following is from my comment on GeeCee's post. Hunter flat out doesn't like applications. GeeCee gives them a reserved thumbs-up.

I'm of two minds on this, as are many who commented on Hunter's post. I recently filled out a guild application for the first time in a long time--if ever. And some of the questions there were a little personal, in the way that Hunter objects to. GeeCee's ultimate question, "Why us?" can usually be answered by me with "a friend is in the guild and says you guys are fun to play with." I would neither apply to nor join a guild of total strangers. So I guess it depends on how serious a guild is about some aspect of the game whether they really need an application or not. The application I filled out recently was for a "casual" roleplaying guild. I'd been invited to join by a friend, and actually questioned her about the formality of the process. Ultimately, I shrugged off my misgivings and filled it out. The guild seems nice, though I haven't had the opportunity to play with any of them in-game.

The two guilds in WoW that I have been a part of that were/are arguably progression-oriented raiding guilds did not have an application process other than friends recruiting friends. None of them ever knew my real name, until we became Facebook friends. And that was long after I'd joined. I normally have little use for external guild websites, either, spending much of my non-game leisure time on Twitter, G+, and blogs. The time I have to be on the guild website is usually the same time I have to be actually playing the game itself. The MMO I have been in that required coordination for raids I was interested in joining had a built-in calendar, with raid sign-ups.

On the other hand, I was once in a supposedly casual guild that was insisting that people already in the guild sign up/participate in the external website. They had grown too large too fast to know everyone in the guild. But the way they went about it, threatening to kick people who had not registered on the site in guild-chat--and through /tells--was a huge turn-off. My lovely bride and I almost rage-quit on the spot. The guild itself later imploded and folded into another guild, for various reasons. We did not follow our former guildmates and are still guildless on those toons.

Identifying players and alts in-game is not usually too hard if the leadership uses the in-game guild interface, in my humble opinion. There are usually public notes and officer notes that can be used to identify people, if it is necessary. Plus, any guild doing "srs bsns" probably has a Vent server where people will become known by voice and name, even if that name is an alias. I am almost always Rowan in voice chat, and I knew a guy whom everyone called Joan, because his paladin was Joanofarc and all his alts were variants thereof.

So I guess I'd say guild applications have a place, but too often ask the wrong things or get too personal for something that--from my perspective, at least--is far too casual an activity.

Rowan and Enura Hit 50 in Rift!

2011-10-09T21:35:00.001-05:00

LOL so it has taken 8 days, 5 hours, 50 minutes, 23 seconds of play time, and about 8 months of real life time, but my lovely bride and I have finally achieved the level cap in Rift. Thanks to the Spousal Leveling Contract and some inspiration from MMOGC, we recorded the moment for posterity. Hehe, DW seemed almost more excited about this than the wedding last month. ;P

The first quest we picked up after hitting 50?

From Stone to Silicon: The Past and Future of Tablets

2011-10-09T19:41:00.003-05:00

The following post consists almost entirely of the thoughts of a good friend regarding the future of Tablet computers, published here with his permission. He had made the statement that tablets are a transitional technology. I responded with the offhand question: "If tablets are a transitional market, what are they transitioning to?"

His response follows:

It seems appropriate that in memoriam to [Steve] Jobs, I really consider this seriously.

You've thrown down a gauntlet, whether you know it or not. It's easy for any of us to say, "Oh, this is a transitional product." But really, it's a cop-out, if we can't describe where things are heading.

Here's my take:

The tale of the pad/tablet computer is nothing new. It's long and storied. Beginning back in 1988, I'd say, with the GRID tablet. Followed shortly by the Apple Newton. And then the waves of PDA's culminating with Blackberry. (Side Note: Blackberry isn't doing as great as either of us thought. 'They' believe they're in trouble. Are they really in trouble or has some unnatural part of their audience gone to smart phones which suit them better? Doesn't matter. RIM is panicking. They're self-destructing over this. Officially looking for a 'Strategic Partner.' Insiders have only sold stock for over 12 months.)

Previous pads/tablets ultimately failed. Why?

1) They were by nature tethered. They downloaded stuff from a real computer.

2) In the beginning, companies thought people wanted something to scribble on. Handwriting recognition became the axle everyone was hopelessly wrapped around.

3) The visual interface moved backwards in computer time. The screen was something circa 1978.

4) The tradeoff was always sophistication vs size. No way for any product line to really evolve. Phones and PDA's got bigger and bigger until they were too big to carry.

So, what's different today?:

1) WiFi and cellular Internet. Very, very, loose tether. What tether there is, has nothing to do with another computer.

2) Pads, for the most part, can replicate a computer multimedia experience, as we understand one.

What remains as an obstacle:

1) The data tether is an ongoing recurring charge. That limits the audience who can afford this.
2) They're large. Lugging becomes an issue fairly quickly.
3) The promise of Internet disguises the pain of interactivity. 'Touch screens' and 'typing' are non sequiturs.

So, what will we be left with?:

Another island of devices that the vast majority of people can never own. It doesn't replace anything. It costs too much. Don't be swayed by sales numbers. LOTS of PDA's got sold in the late 90's. How many survived? How many got put in a closet? People will get tired of buying $15 movies and books for their iPad. Then what happens to them?

People will not leave their smartphones behind for a Pad. People will not leave their laptop behind for a Pad. It's really the same boat that the Netbooks found themselves in. Neat functionality that doesn't replace anything.

Transition:

I see two game changers:

1) Detachable Pad. When docked, it's a laptop. When detached, it's a Pad. Some companies are showing something like this, but they fall short. I say when it's docked, it runs Win-7. When detached, it boots into a battery friendly version of Android. That parts tricky, but very doable. It just runs counter to the thinking of the Dells, Microsofts, and Apples of the world. The people that can afford a Pad now, would prefer this. Many people wed to their laptops would embrace this. This would be a killer machine, and a game changer, if under $1500.

2) Car Pad. Just like car stereos trumped the impracticality of the portable transistor radio in the 1960's, I think car mounted Pads gets around most of the transport beefs with Pads. Most idle time in America is in cars. That's where Pads will flourish. Why not build them in? Size and weight as considerations go away. What would families give for a device that could stream Pandora in the front, and stream Netflix in the back of a minivan? Very easy to do with a tablet and 4G. Look at how close Ford and Microsoft are to this with Synch right now.

I feel I should point out the there are a couple of items on the market that are very close to what my friend describes right now. The Motorola Atrix has an accessory "laptop" dock that turns the phone into the CPU for a larger user interface with a keyboard mouse and screen. The current Windows Phone 7 is a precurser to Windows 8. My friend's fully functional, dockable Tablet is not far off.

Makin' Like Scarybooster

2011-10-08T22:57:00.001-05:00

So my lovely bride finally convinced me to get a new phone. I am very excited that my android-based
Samsung Infuse has a Blogger app and Swype, so I am imitating Scarybooster and blogging from my phone. This is really cool, but hard to get used to. I suddenly have a lot more respect for your efforts, Scary.

It wouldn't be a Scary-like post without a reference to games and bodily functions of kind, so I'll just opine that my immersion is broken because NPCs never fart when I'm around. It's just not realistic. ;)

QOTD: Mental States and MMOs

2011-10-08T09:54:00.002-05:00

Toxic commenting on Keen's op-ed about Zero Class Diversity These Days:

A person's perception of MMOs really has a lot more to do with their own mental state than anything else. If you’re into it, you can overlook all kinds of huge, glaring flaws. Or even think the flaws are positives. Once burnout sets in, everything seems to be awful and stupid.

Thanks to Harbinger Zero for the heads up on the OP.

What Kind of MMO Player Am I?

2011-10-07T15:02:00.002-05:00

I do entirely too much soapboxing on this blog and not enough storytelling. But like most people, I have an opinion; and this is my personal venue for expressing it. A lot is being said in the gaming Twitterverse and Blogosphere with regards to community. Scarybooster has made several posts lately about the quality of the community in various games. Something inspired MMOGC to post about honorable PvP. And Syp, just yesterday, made a post about dealing with Anti-hype. I should have read his advice before getting into a squabble myself on Twitter yesterday. Haters will keep hatin'. Fanbois will keep . . . uh . . . fanning?

The world has a label for those people play certain games: Gamers. Athletic-game players are usually not included in this term. The net nanny at my office blocks gaming news sites, but not ESPN and the like. Reminds me of the way Dex Jettster referred to the Kaminoan "Cloners" in hushed tones in "Attack of the Clones." Much like the terms "Muslim" or "Christian" actually encompass hugely diverse groups of people of differing opinions and philosophies, this broad term, "Gamer," encompasses many different styles of gameplay, from tabletop role-playing and war games, to video-game console first person shooters, RPGs, and massively multiplayer online games. Within MMOGs, you have gamers who prefer player vs. player combat, and others who are so-called end-game raiders. You have casual as opposed to hardcore, long-time veterans and newcomers. Also like the religious terms, the groups encompassed by the term "Gamer" are often at each other's throats over what is the one true way to play the game. Sometimes a player's choice not only of gameplay but their game choice, itself, is derided by other gamers. Frankly, I am sick of it.

I quoted Robert E. Howard in a post in early September:

"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing."

This is more true today in the Internet age than it ever has been in the history of the world. I read in either the book Collapse or Guns, Germs and Steel, both by Jared Diamond, that the people of New Guinea are both smarter than the average American and far more polite. This is because they are more likely to die in a homicide than any any American or European could dream of. Of course, we're not talking about dying in your sleep with a knife in your back. As Captain Malcolm Reynolds once told Doctor Simon Tam in the TV show Firefly:

Diamond said that strangers who meet in the New Guinean jungle complete a ritual wherein they recite their ancestry until they determine whether or not they are distantly related. If they are not related in some way, one or the other is probably not walking away from the scene. If forum users ran the risk of death by their comments--myself included--Internet dialogue would likely be far more civil in tone.

Why are we so quick to disparage someone's intellect or character because of their preference for one game over another? So I don't like Lord of the Rings online and you do. Do I have any right to call into question your mental acuity or parentage? So I prefer PvE leveling and questing to PvP or end-game raiding. And I somehow less of a gamer--less of a person--as a result?

Wolfshead, in a rant about the deficiencies of Rift on Syp's BioBreak, closed with the following:

"There is nothing ahead that has me excited about virtual worlds. I’m tired of the hype. The caliber of the “community” that is dominated by selfish spoiled kids, teens and adult slackers is at an all time low, the game design predictable and stale. The typical virtual world of today feels like a MacDonald’s playground. When I started playing MMOs 12 years ago I couldn’t wait to get home from work to log on. I haven’t had the feeling for years."

I thought for a second he was going to yell at all of us to get off his lawn. The number of people playing MMORPGs today has skyrocketed, thanks much to World of Warcraft, but also other games based on popular Intellectual Properties like Conan the Barbarian and Star Trek. I personally communicate with several people who never played an MMO before Star Trek Online launched. Star Wars: The Old Republic will be the same. These people have differing expectations and outlook than the relatively very few who played the first MMOs. Thousands of people who have never played an MMO will buy it and play and love the game. I plan to play; and though it won't be the wondrous experience I had when I first logged into WoW, I look forward to the fully voiced dialogue and various storylines I will experience.

Many have derided the emphasis on single-player questing in SWTOR and other MMOs. "What happened to the grouping we did in early WoW and other true MMOs?" they say. I have rarely been on the same level as players in guilds I have been part of until I reached max level. If someone has needed or asked for help in an area of the world I was playing in, I helped. I was sociable, but few of them turned out to be lifelong friends. I currently play Rift with my lovely bride; and we occasionally play WoW with a few friends I know in real life. We are doing our own thing and being peripherally sociable with the Rift guild. Why force me to group up if I don't want or need to? Because of the time that I started in WoW, mid-2006, there were not many players around to help me when I needed to complete group-oriented quests, and they sat in my questlog until I could finally complete them on my own, or I just dropped them. I've done end-game raids and enjoyed them. However, the endless repetition for meager reward got to me, and I ended up dropping out of that style of play. I prefer to learn the stories of the areas I am in. Raiding is all too often a matter of learning when to stand where to avoid damage while maximizing our own. Some call this skill, and I suppose it is, but not in the same sense as actually learning to fence, or play the piano, or build a house.

There was a Google+ discussion yesterday about the merits of gentle "grinding" in the new game Glitch, and how it can be therapeutic. Many players, who PvP or otherwise want an intense game to give them an adrenalin rush, cannot fathom this preference, even if it is occasional on the part of "casual" players. I understand it, even though I rarely feel the need to indulge in it. Again, I am in it for the story and for the visuals. I rarely watch television any more, because I prefer my virtual worlds and their interactivity, even if they are themeparks. Do I think some go too far "on-the-rails"? Yes, but that is a matter of degree, and my opinion differs from many others.

Tobold Stoutfoot has opinions I don't always agree with, but in two recent posts, I think he hit several nails right on the head. The long term veteran players are probably not the target audience for modern MMOs. I can be considered mid-term myself. I am just about done with World of Warcraft after 5+ years, but I still enjoy the basic gameplay style. I have long thought that the vast majority of people playing WoW and other MMOs are not reading or posting in the forums, nor are they reading or writing blogs about the games. As Tobold said, listening to the extrememly vocal minority in the forums broke WoW, perhaps irrevocably.

"Nobody ever listened to the needs of the silent majority, who actually liked leveling, and would have liked the expansions to lengthen their leveling fun, and make it more challenging."

I can remember the first time on my priest (Rowanblaze) that I defeated several wolves my own level in combat while soloing in the eastern Hinterlands. This and a thousand other awesome memories have I of WoW, both soloing and playing with others, even raiding and PvP. Despite what some people say, I find Rift to have similar challenges, even though I am almost always playing in a duo with my bride. I have learned to tank and enjoy it, though I am by no means an expert. I doubt I'll have much interest in the large Raids at endgame. But the recent addition of duo instances sounds fun and perfect for this spousal leveling team. I am hoping--and there good signs--that our playstyle will be accomodated in SWTOR, as well. Rift's unified storyline decreases its replayability. I enjoyed learning about the different races and factions in WoW with unique starting areas for every race. SWTOR's unique starting areas and branching storylines for each class promises a similar experience.

So to answer the question in my post title: I am a mostly solo--or small-group--PvE quester, who enjoys the support roles more than pure DPS. I am a carebear, not a cutthroat. I value a good story above heart-pumping gameplay. I play MMORPGs to relax, not to get excited. I am an altoholic. I like roleplay and can become attached to my characters. I want a challenge, not an impossibility. I like WoW, Rift, STO, and anticipate playing both SWTOR and Guild Wars 2. If you think I'm dumb for any or all of that, I honestly have no time for you.

A Big Wide Galaxy of Adventure Awaits

2011-10-02T16:36:00.001-05:00

So in Old Republic news, BioWare came out with a nifty new galaxy exploration map. It includes information and a brief video on all the planets available in SWTOR (at least, the 17 that have been revealed. Weren't we hoping for 18?), plus 3D spin views of the various player ships.

I'm still wondering why only six ship types. Why do the Jedi and Sith share ship types? I can kinda see it from a lore-ish standpoint for the Jedi, but the two Sith types seem to me like they might be mutually contemptuous of each other. The inquisitors would see the warriors as unsubtle brutes, and be seen by them as effete schemers. I could be wrong of course.

Most people know about Thursday evening's beta email flub, by now. Unfortunately, I think that may have overshadowed this week's Friday Update. I am told the SW nerd-rage brought down the forum servers in such a way that people who had work to do were unable to. Announcements were made on various internet venues almost immediately, so it was not hard for me to find info. But I expected sooner the explanatory (no apology necessary) email that was sent out early yesterday regarding the incident. Gloom-and-doomers are declaring that the sky will fall on 20 December. I disagree. Stuff happens and we move on. I suspect that in three months, this goof will be a distant memory as we wander around Korriban and Tatooine: "Hey, remember when we all got that thank you email for the beta we weren't in? lulz."

In any event, I am ever more excited about the chance to explore the worlds of the Old Republic. I didn't play KOTOR or KOTORII when I had the chance. I'll bet there's a book or two with the official stories out there.

QotD: You Got a Little Sandbox in My Themepark

2011-09-27T12:21:00.000-05:00

Here's a great definition of sandboxes and themeparks from Stargrace at MMOQuests.com

A sandbox MMO is a game that drops you into a player driven world. Players are given tools, and sand, and they get to make whatever they want with it. just like when you were a kid in your sandbox with a shovel and pail. You didn’t have much fancy stuff, but you had fun.

a non-sandbox MMO has already made all the fun for you, there is no sand, its a playground or a “themepark”. its not about you creating content, its about having fun with what the devs made. like when you used to climb around on the monkey bars or whatever.

I begin to realize that to some extent, sandbox is about building things, be it ships, houses, or whatever. While I agree that WoW is a Themepark, and more so with each ex-pac, I liked the way you could go wherever you wanted (at the appropriate level) in vanilla, (i.e., Dwarves in Teldrassil) if you were willling to make the effort.

I think that many themeparks have an element of sandbox in them. I like being directed a bit and as to where I should go to find some adventure, but I think being able to have a home base or outfit I can really call my own is great for developing a sense of character in the game.

Quotes of the Day, Plus Some Scattered Thoughts.

2011-09-12T14:18:00.000-05:00

From Syp at Biobreak:

. . . sometimes you just want to do something different than head into the lava-spewing wild for the millionth time to cut through a wall of mobs just to click on a glowy.

And from Bhagpuss in a comment on Syp's post:

MMO designers seem to have a depressingly repetitive penchant for using the imminent destruction of the world as a backdrop . . . and still we find ourselves looking for overdue library books or dealing with gambling debts.

I want so much more roleplay than most MMOs I've played seem to offer. I am coming to the slow realization that they probably never will. I'm stuck on the XP treadmill, rather than making questing decisions based on "What is my character's motivation?" I don't need to be the fulfilment of some prophecy made by Salzman from Accounting. Nor do I always want be picking flowers in a bouquet for some guy's girlfriend.

On a much brighter note, my beloved fiancée pointed out in a discussion of our MMO playing habits that she and I have mostly bonded sitting side by side, playing WoW and (especially) Rift. She loves the games and loves playing with me. I am grateful for her, and will continue to play as long as she is interested, because I enjoy exploring worlds with her.

A Sense of Community

2011-09-08T15:44:00.000-05:00

As Robert E Howard observed through his hero, Conan the Cimmerian, in 1933's "The Tower of the Elephant":

Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.

Poor Scary Booster. He is losing his faith in humanity, at the least the segment of humanity that plays MMOs. As the popularity of MMORPGs has grown exponentially over the past decade or so, the burgeoning community has evolved from a relatively small group of enthusiasts to a metropolitan throng of varied participants. Many of the original core are there, though many of those are disillusioned with the current state of the "community." I've touched on this topic before. In comments on that post, it was pointed out that elements of the original community were not particularly nice either.

The theory of the Monkeysphere has been a recurring theme in my mind and my blog of late; it answers many of the issues that Scary and other gamers have with the state of the community. With so many of us spread across multiple games and mostly hiding behind our computers, there are those who feel free to act out and ruin the enjoyment of others in various ways. At the very least, most players seem selfish in their quest to reach the pinnacle of whatever mountain they are climbing, caring little for the interests and welfare of those around them. Unfortunately, this is a condition of society at large, not just the gaming world.

That's not to say I have a cynical or even negative attitude about the gaming community. I am, however, a realist. Human nature is such that, as a community grows, it becomes more impersonal. That jerk on the road may have cut me off, but do I need to get my blood pressure up over it and develop a case of road rage? Unfortunately, I have gotten road rage on occasion. It has never helped the situation, nor made me feel any better. My last speeding ticket--after decades of not getting any--was the direct result of my own impatience with another driver. I need to remember that few people are there being malicious. They are just indifferent. I am outside their monkeysphere.

After a few years of being told that RPers in MMOs are weird (by some pretty weird people themselves, I might add), I decided to role characters on the RP shards of Rift and have thoroughly enjoyed it, finding fellow players of a like temperament and maturity. I have avoided the PUGs of the past, fearing the potentially negative experience, as I had occasionally in WoW. The few times I have been involved in PUGs in Rift, however, have been pleasant, with sufficient communication and coordination to make it worthwhile.

Scary, rather than let your spirit get beat down by the rude or indifferent players around you, be friendly, courteous, and helpful when you can. Like Marshall Eriksen of How I Met Your Mother, you may be in New York City, but you can keep your friendly small-town values and make someone else's gaming experience a little better for having encountered you. Marshall has a sense of community, even when everyone around him does not.

Light and Dark, Good and Evil

2011-08-31T12:59:00.003-05:00

In most MMORPGs, morality has little actual influence on gameplay. My characters have done some questionable things in the pursuit of gear, money, or simply experience points. I have toyed with this dilemma in a few stories; but in-game, I continue to maim, kill, and steal without regard to the morality of the quest.

In Star Wars: The Old Republic, players will have the opportunity, regardless of faction, to accumulate light-side or dark-side points based on the dialogue decisions they make (and possibly the methods they use to complete quests, I haven't seen that demonstrated). Tobold started a discussion about morality in games, in which he expressed concern about the "judgements" developers place on certain actions within the context of the game. I can see his point that what the devs think is a moral/immoral choice may not correspond to what the individual player thinks. His specific example, though, is fairly cut-and-dry in the Star Wars Universe, however. "Good" Jedi do not participate in romances, because it leads to attachment, greed/jealousy, fear of loss, and the Dark Side. This comes not from BioWare, but George Lucas. Of course, in the real world, we generally have a different take on romance; at least amongst otherwise unattached individuals (that is, cheating is still frowned upon).

In Rift, the two factions have a difficult morality compared to the real (western) world. The religious fanaticism of the Guardians (including having Inquisitors to investigate/punish heretics) is, at the least, slightly unpalatable to many players. But the the Defiants and their unscrupulous use of souls and "technology" are also morally questionable. Not to mention that these two factions are wasting time and resources fighting each other, when their world is being torn apart by extra-planar beings bent on consuming it. So no real good guys or bad guys there. At least there is no real moral choice within the game that affects gameplay.

Syp's response to Tobold included this insight:

I’m not a big fan of light and dark side gear and powers, since that will have a stronger influence on how people “game” the system. . . Wouldn’t it be really cool if BioWare makes these choices and stories so compelling that it tears people away from grinding light/darkside points to do what they want to do?

I agree with Syp that it would be nice to have "moral" choices in a game that mattered in the context of the story, without having the end reward be so obvious that, as a player, it only makes sense to maximize the number of moral or immoral choices. Unfortunately, I also agree with Tobold's subsequent response. The attachment of a meta-game goal (gear) to a "moral" choice will inevitably lead to min-maxing your choices in favor of that goal. WoW example: Aldor vs. Scryer in The Burning Crusade. Most players ended up making that choice based on the gear each faction offered, rather than an inherent RP motive.

This RP motive is something I mentioned in a discussion with MMOGC. (I keep going back to that post; see also her response.) I feel that if the RP component is strong enough, the abilities/gear-stats can be made more neutral without affecting gameplay. I have yet to see it.

Illustrations from Sillof's Workshop. If you haven't seen the site, go check it out.
[EDIT] If you're curious, here is the WoWWiki page comparing the Aldor/Scryer rewards and by-class breakdown of player preferences.

Good and Evil in the Real World

2011-08-25T16:21:00.000-05:00

I got involved in the debate over GameStop's removal of a coupon for Onlive from copies of Deus Ex: Human Revolution on Twitter yesterday and today. Since this is my blog, this is where I get to have the final say. I probably won't gain any friends or readers by saying I think the majority of gamers whining about how GameStop is TEH EVULS for this move are completely on the wrong side of the debate, and don't even really have a leg to stand on. Gamers are a whiny bunch in general, seeming to take every game-development and business decision in the industry as a personal affront. Seriously, y'all are almost as bad as the sports nuts talking about how "we" won or lost the game, when none of them were on the field or court. At least I have yet to hear of video gamers rioting, the way some sports hooligans have. Now I have bemoaned the occasional change to gameplay; but ultimately, if I don't like a game or product or store, I just stop playing or purchasing there.

GameStop made a legitimate business decision to remove competitor advertising from products they are selling in their stores--advertising they were not initially aware of when receiving the shipments. The manufacturer/publisher, Square Enix backed them up:

"Square Enix respects the right of GameStop to have final say over the contents of products it sells and to adjust them where they see fit in accordance with their policies."

Many Tweeps think the removal of the coupon constitutes product tampering or outright theft by GameStop against their customers. It was even suggested that they could/should have put stickers on the boxes indicating the removal. I have a question for someone who knows: Was the coupon advertized as part of the package, either in promotional material or on the box itself? If not, then it is a bonus that GameStop customers simply don't receive. The box is still new and can be sold as new, despite claims otherwise by some gamers.

As Tobold assesses, this may be another sign of the end of the brick and mortar game store. Now I am not definitely not one to say "old" companies need to lobby and/or sue to try to hinder innovation. But neither are they obligated to hasten their own demise. Besides it's not the brick-and-mortar GameStop that is a direct competitor with Onlive, it is their own online and streaming enterprise.

I don't work for GameStop. DE:HR is not a game I personally care about playing. I don't have dog in that fight. But I am annoyed as hell about the whining in this "community."

Once You Start Down the Dark Path, Forever Will It Dominate Your Destiny

2011-08-21T17:17:00.006-05:00

The following video came out during Gamescom '11 that just wrapped up (I guess) in Cologne, Germany. It is of course, hosted by Total Biscuit, the Cynical Brit. Thanks to Zelibeli of Multiplaying.net for posting the link in Twitter.

While long--over 25 minutes--I enjoyed the banter of Total Biscuit and his interlocutor, Stephen Reid, known on Twitter as Rockjaw. I have been avoiding videos like this up 'til now, wanting to keep The Old Republic fresh for Launch Day. My experience with Rift was that, while participating in the beta and seeing the game in beta was helpful in making the decision to buy the game (yes. I am one of those beta testers), it spoiled the game a bit. By launch, my lovely fiancée and I had been over halfway through Freemarch several times. We now focus on Guardian characters, partly because of Defiant fatigue.

I knew nothing about Rift prior to December, 2010, when several of my fellow bloggers and tweeters started mentioning having gotten into the beta, sharing a secret I wanted in on. I found out a little more and signed up for the beta. And I am glad I did, because Rift is an awesome game I would not have subscribed to without a little preview.

SWTOR, on the other hand, is a game I have been looking forward for well over a year. Who needs spoileriffic videos of an unfinished game? Buuuuttt, we're getting much closer to the release date now, the game is mostly finished. People are in beta testing already. So I want to see some stuff.

I have questions about gameplay. The video answered some but not others. For instance, I intend to play as a duo with sctrz. I wasn't sure how we were going to be able to do that with two different class storylines. In the video, they discuss the individual character phases--small instances--and how the player could join a friend in the friend's phase.

The Sith Warrior apparently develops rage by fighting, which dissipates when out of combat, just like Warriors in WoW. I saw an Inquisitor in the Tatooine walk-through earlier today that showed more of a mana driven ability system, which is to be expected. I wonder what they call the rage bar for Jedi Knights, as rage is not something Jedi should be indulging in.

One thing that didn't get answered is how customizable will the User Interface be? I am not talking about addons, though I think that can OK in an MMO. I am talking out of the box. And there is no reason, given that games like Rift and STO have the UI elements easily movable, that BioWare can't do the same for SWTOR. The devs at Bioware have talked about the work they put into the UI. But in the end, I think most players, including myself, would just like to be able to have UI elements where we want them, not where some designer thinks they should be.

The death and resurrection system is actually pretty similar to Rift, with the ability to rez-in-place to a stealthed mode, a la soul walking in Rift, or rez back at the "Med Center." I couldn't tell from the video whether the player could make a corpse run like in Rift or WoW. Given the "defeat" as opposed to true "death," the spirit or corpse run might not be a mechanic in SWTOR. Of course, anyone reading this who has experienced the game is probably laughing at me right about now.

As discussed in the second video by Total Biscuit, the combat itself seems pretty standard for an MMO. Some people will be disappointed with that, always wanting combat to involve more "skill," which I have come interpret to mean more complex button pushing. After all, we're not talking about actually learning to use a lightsaber or force powers. Since skill-based combat is not why I play MMORPGs--the story/characterization is--I think the combat system in SWTOR will be just fine.

Class Warfare in the Old Republic

2011-08-16T14:20:00.000-05:00

Last Tuesday, the MMO Gamer Chick consolidated the trailers for the different classes in Star Wars: The Old Republic and asked Which Class Will You Choose? (Much of this post is transcribed comments I made there.)

The most recent video of the Jedi Consular is awesome, but only swayed me a little. I’ll have the Sage (healer) as my third alt.

My second (solo) alt is definitely the Gunslinger, has been since the armor progression video, “long” before the trailer showcased him. Gunslinger would be my main if my beloved fiancée wanted to play on the Republic side.

However, since she has to be a Bounty Hunter, looks like I’m gonna go with Inquisitor, probably the Sorceror. It looks like she'll have a force-related stealth capability (see the video at 0:56) The AoE force lightning at 1:23 looks pretty bitchin', too. (Yes, I am a child of the '80s.) Did you see her suck the life-force out of those Geonosians at about 1:38 I was undecided until re-watching the video. Not anymore. Now I just have to convince my sweetheart to role a male BH. Of course, GeeCee says it shouldn't matter, we can both role females.

The Jedi Knight doesn't really appeal, despite the fact that (youngish) Obi-wan Kenobi is my favorite character. I love Ewan McGregor's performance in Eps. 2 and 3, the only redeeming part of 3, to be honest. But the Knight as an MMO class? Meh; same with the Sith Warrior. I wonder how many Knights and Warriors will be running around on launch day. Or will those classes seem too iconic/vanilla and be largely ignored?

GeeCee also commented on the Sith Inquisitor and Jedi Consular being very similar in playstyle. That may be, but I hope they are not mirrors of each other. If I have to compare, I'd say the Inquisitor will have a Warlock feel, tapping fel powers for personal gain. The Consular is a typical carebear priest. Which is fine, I enjoy that role. GeeCee, in her review of the Taral V Flashpoint from PAX East, mentioned that the Jedi Consular seems perfectly capable of tanking in a dungeon group, as well. If this is the case, it is pretty awesome.

I have long argued that the tank role is unnecessary, as it is created by a game mechanic (threat tables). Each class in a game should be formidable enough to absorb or mitigate significant damage, and the players should be smart enough to back off the DPS when they do. The healer should only generate threat by "stealing" it from the target of the heal. If they have too much threat, another healer/DPS can step in. It might be a little more complicated from a gameplay standpoint, but it brings the battle closer to reality, I think. In a real fight, would you go after the big dope that is mostly yelling at you, or the mage throwing nasty firebolts your way? In PvP (which I dislike, but for different reasons) there is no tank, because the opposite players are too smart for that. The pseudo-intelligence should be similar, IMHO.

As far as the classes having mirrors, some seem obvious at first, but I began to question that assumption. So Sith Inquisitor equals Jedi Consular, and Jedi Knight equals Sith Warrior. Seems obvious, but I also thought that Trooper might equal Warrior, because what else really does? I think possibly BH, but that seems like the obvious Smuggler analog. And Agent doesn’t seem like a Trooper analog either.

I was thinking/hoping they’d mix it up a bit so there wouldn’t be a straight mirror of the classes. That would keep it a little more interesting. They could still maintain some sort of PvP balance by having mirrors among the advanced classes, but those wouldn’t have to match class by class.

So, Dear Reader, assuming you're going to play SWTOR, which class do you intend to role first?

Of Dungeon Masters and Quest Givers

2011-08-08T22:39:00.002-05:00

Please don't fall over in shock, Dear Reader. I know it is strange to see two posts in as many days. And I know it'll be late when I post this, but it is still today and not tomorrow. Hopefully, this will become more commonplace. I did promise more thoughts on the subject of StoryBricks, as partially inspired by Spinks' post about NPC realism and interactivity.

In the old days--of the 1970s and 80s--young people would gather around a table with dice and stat sheets and weave a tale of adventure with an element of chance. Each player would assume a role and pretend to be that character. The key to this adventure was the player known as the Dungeon Master. I say player, because I believe the DM was as big a player as anyone else, in addition to being the chief storyteller and referee. Sometimes the scenarios were taken from "canned" adventure books; other times DMs made it up themselves. I never actually got to play D&D or other PnP RPGs when I was younger--or older for that matter--so my knowledge of them is limited to having read several AD&D sourcebooks and novels, as well as conversations with PnP gamers. As I understand it, the DM was responsible for planning the scenario that the other players would participate in, as well as controlling the Non-Player Characters, both friendly and hostile. The friendly NPCs (and occasionally the hostiles) helped round out the story of the players' adventure, providing the motivation to go out on epic quests, or just letting folks know about the treasure to be had in yon dungeon.

Multi-User Dungeons were designed soon after D&D came out, and became popular among college students and others with network access in the 80s and early 90s. Many of these followed the emphasis on Hack and Slash violence that tended to occur in D&D. Because of its similarity in gameplay to D&D the DikuMUD became a popular flavor of MUD and was the main influence of Graphical RPGs such as Ultima Online, Everquest, and World of Warcraft.

Omigosh, I just totally digressed. My point was that with the advent of computerized RPGs, the Dungeon Master no longer had to be actively engaged in the moment-to-moment play of the game. Through a script, the DM could describe the setting and action for the player or players. At first this was textual, but eventually much of the environment and action could be visualized instead of described. Now the DM was a group of video game developers. So how were they going to convey the impetus for going on adventures? To potentially millions of players across the planet? At once?

Most current MMOs have dialogue boxes where the the player can read the necessary information before heading out to kill the ten rats. As Spinks mentions, NPCs are just "person shaped lumps" that players can interact with to get quests or goods. There are many who decry this method of interactivity as non-immersive. Is this any less immersive than a live DM sitting at the table voicing 10 different characters? I think maybe some people just don't like to read.

My point is that the Dungeon Master duties have been taken over by computer software, not that this is a bad thing. It means that I--who have never had a chance to sit around a table and roleplay with friends--can sit at my computer and roleplay with friends from halfway around the world, all from the comfort of my bedroom or living room. Or hotel room. If you've read this blog for any length of time, you've probably figured out that I don't put much stock in the assertion of some gamers that "themepark" MMOs are inferior to "sandbox" games. They each have their place, I suppose. But, at least one other blog I read a while back pointed out that, oftentimes, if you could do absolutely anything in a game, you end up not doing anything. You have no direction. Questing and other related content give structure and goals to a game, just as the PnP games that are the ancestors of modern MMOs had structure provided by the DM.

OK, so BioWare announces that the quests or missions in Star Wars: The Old Republic will be fully voiced, something that to my knowledge has never been done. So the quest givers will tell you verbally what you need to do. Start Trek Online has a few Featured Episodes that are at least partially voiced, but they still have the readable dialogue boxes. I hope SWTOR still has a quest log where I can read what I need to be doing. Otherwise I will forget everything I am supposed to be doing.

But even full audio interactivity is not good enough for some who want even more "immersion." "SWTOR will be more of the same old "on-rails" questing we see in WoW," they say (which I think is exaggerated). Maybe the new StoryBricks concept will catch on, where NPCs will have "motivations" and "desires" that PCs will able to satisfy. I can see how the system will make it easier to design content, but I am not sure how it will change the actual gameplay. I am looking forward to seeing that in action. But I don't know if the detractors of the current crop of MMOs will be satisfied.

StoryBricks and the Monkeysphere

2011-08-07T19:58:00.004-05:00

Man! I have got to get more posts on here. My readership has probably dried up. I was reading a post from Spinks the other day about Namaste and their new system of NPC "motivation" called StoryBricks that seems pretty innovative from a game development perspective. Spinks' words inspired me to write a post, because I have been thinking about realism/immersion in MMOs. This post may be a bit scattered as it represents the convergences of two lines of thought I've had over a few months actually.

I grew up in Southern California, in Ventura County. On several occasions, I had the opportunity to drive through the San Fernando Valley (the home of Valley Girls) on my way to Los Angeles. It didn't matter what my destination was, it was usually not the Valley itself. The 101 freeway (US 101) winds through the south end of the Valley past towns like Encino and Van Nuys. When I did stop in the Valley, it was at a mall or other commercial enterprise. I never thought much about the million or so people I drove past on those trips into L.A. Several years after moving away from SoCal, my then-wife and I took our toddler to visit my mother-in-law in Encino for Christmas. While at a park one afternoon during our stay, I looked around in amazement at all the people who lived their lives in this city that I had driven past all those years.

Now, did their lives affect mine? Possibly remotely. Maybe some of them manufactured things I used. Maybe some of them drove alongside me on the 101 Freeway. But they didn't ever really affect me, though I lived only a few miles away. Heck, even most of the people who lived in my hometown of 120,000 only affected me peripherally, if at all. Why is that? A humorous analysis of a theory called the Monkeysphere can be found on Cracked. The TL:DR version is that we humans only have the capacity to develop reciprocal relationships with--to care about--a maximum of about 150 other Homo sapiens. Wait, that number may include our friends from Felis catus and Canis lupus familiaris, as well. Hmm. I wonder if it includes fictitious characters, too. That would explain why I cried when Spock sacrificed himself to save the ship.

You know that nice cashier at the store? You remember her because you are in there every week. She won't remember you at all from the hundreds of people she serves, unless you come in just about every day, and talk to her a bit. But you still won't be friends. To your life, it doesn't matter if she takes your money for that loaf of bread, or someone else does. It doesn't matter if she is a single mother with three kids, or a college student with a lousy boyfriend. You're just a customer and she's just a shopkeeper.

"What has this to do with my MMOs?" you may be saying, Dear Reader. Referring back to Spinks' article, I don't care if the NPC shopkeepers wander around and "have lives" independent of my game playing. Actually, I'd prefer that they be there when I need to sell my junk or buy some mana juice, not off making digital dinner for their virtual children. I don't need much interaction with them. The interface with them needs to be simple and efficient.

To be honest, most of the other player characters in an MMO are also outside our Monkeysphere. Those decrying the horrible state of communities in WoW, for example, need only walk out their door and drive to the mall or some other venue where crowds of people gather. You'll find that you care very little for any of them. Is this bad? Not necessarily, as long as you're courteous to them and they are to you. Unfortunately, we tend to fall outside the Monkeysphere of other players, just as they fall outside our sphere. This explains the behavior you find in many modern MMOs, and indeed, most of the Internet. You simply are not a real person to most monkey brains.

This is not to say we can't form friendships and even fall in love through online games. I know people who have, and I myself consider many people friends whom I have only ever met online.

It may seem cold, but the reality of our lives is that most of the people around us are merely peripheral shadows, barely registering. We interact personally with a few people at work or school, our friends and family. Strangers may as well be “window decorations” for all we care. Most NPCs serve the same function in our games.

I have decided to discuss the other line of thought in another post. Part two coming tomorrow . . . I promise.

A Long, Long Time Ago. . .

2011-07-07T16:22:00.003-05:00

Dusting off the cobwebs for Scary.

Zen Rafell eased his chair back and stood.

"Gentlemen," he quipped to the distinctly ungentle creatures still seated at the table. "It's been a pleasure doin' business with you."

He tipped his wide-brimmed hat, as the aliens made various grumbles and clicks. Though not his favorite group of scum, the Geonosians had paid him handsomely for delivering their cargo. They hadn't volunteered any information on the contents of the crates, and Zen hadn't asked. Discretion was an important part of his line of work. And frankly, as long as they weren't slave traders (had to draw a line somewhere, right?), he didn't care. It was time to get off this rock. Zen flipped a coin at the bartender for his drink and strode out.

There were three people waiting for him outside the ship's landing bay, official Republic by the looks of them. Zen's hand went to his right holster and he unsnapped the strap over his blaster. The leader, a Jedi who wore a band of cloth concealing his eyes, turned toward Zen. He held up his hands and called out to the smuggler.

"Captain Rafell, we have need of your services."

"You gotta lotta nerve, stranger." Zen replied, tightening his grip on the gun. "And how do you know my name?"

"Please, out here in the open is not an appropriate place for negotiations. Let us board and we can discuss an arrangement." The Jedi suddenly had a bag of coin in his hand. "One that I hope will be mutually beneficial."

Zen glanced at the two thinly disguised troops behind the Jedi. "All right. We can talk inside the bay. Your friends can wait out here."

"Agreed." Zen strode forward to the bay door, punched in the access code and waved the Jedi though. Tipping his hat to the other two republics, Zen followed, locking the door behind him.

He stopped a few steps inside. The Jedi turned, "Nice ship you have here, Captain Rafell."

"She gets the job done. And you still haven't told me your name. Or how you know mine."

The Jedi shrugged dismissively. "I persuaded the dockmaster," he responded. "He said you had the fastest ship in port. As I said, my companions and I have need of your services."

"You have cargo you want moved."

"No cargo. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Valon Soturi, a consular of the Jedi Order. I would like to book passage."

"Well, Soturi, this ain't no luxury liner."

The Jedi smiled, "I am sure whatever quarters you have will be fine."

Eyeing the Jedi, Zen stroked the stubble on his face, considering. "You haven't told me where you want to go, and I haven't agreed."

Guess Who's Got the Fastest Ship in the Sector?

2011-06-06T21:27:00.001-05:00

I normally don't post about SWTOR, but today's release of the cinematic trailer "RETURN" has me very excited. An excellent profile of a Gunslinger (Smuggler advanced class) in action. The slo-mo beginning at 1:50 is made of pure awesome. In addition, the video further develops the story of Darth Malgus and the Jedi Satele. Is it just me, or have the trailers been presented in reverse chronological order, much as the Timeline segments on SWTOR.com have been?

This video has helped solidify my interest in the Gunslinger class, like they dropped Mal Reynolds into the Star Wars universe. Still not sure if it will be my Main, that will depend on DGF and her faction preference. Oops, she just told me she wants to be a bounty hunter. ("We don't need their scum.") So it looks like either an imperial agent or a Sith Inquisitor for our "SO leveling contract." I'm not really interested in a Sith Warrior, though I will probably try one as an alt. Heck, maybe we'll dual run as Bounty Hunters. I wonder how the individual class storylines fit in with duos, like MMOGC and her husband, and DGF and I, trying to play together.

So: Gunslinger for my Solo Main, no pun intended.

Adieu, Admiral Starblanket. Commander Locke

2011-05-30T17:52:00.000-05:00

So I canceled my subscription to Star Trek Online today. I just have not been playing it enough, between Rift and the dungeon runs I'm doing in WoW with RL friends. Much as I am going to miss the idea of having adventures with Rowan and Locke, the truth is I haven't been playing very much. I may still write some stories starring one or other STO crew, but for now they're on hiatus.

Missing the Point

2011-05-06T16:42:00.001-05:00

So a discussion developed on Twitter yesterday over what it means to roleplay in an MMO. I got into a fairly lengthy debate with Scott of Pumping Irony over what turned out to be a difference in use of words rather than a difference of opinion. I only realized this upon looking back over the Twitter feed to research this post. Please note, Dear Reader, that I have edited some of these tweets only to sift the wheat from the chaff or for grammar.

I had made the comment, "Most of my MMO avatars have backstories and personalities different than my own. Do I portray them all the time in game? No. . ."

To which Scott responded, "To split hairs: an avatar represents *you* so why would you RP it? An RPG character however, is not you, and open for RP."

I interpreted this to mean that Scott didn't think he could roleplay in MMOs, partly because of a previous tweet. "CPUs can't RP." This interpretation was reinforced when I asked, referring to PnP RPGS, "So y'all had conversations in character and made decisions solely based on roled personality?" and Scott responded, "Actually my first 3 months in [Star Wars Galaxies] -- YES! I did exactly that because I came from heavy RP tabletop & didn't know better."

I was mistaken however, having missed this interchange between Scott and Petter of Gamereactor. Petter asked in response to Scott's splitting hairs about avatars, "Are they? That gnome in WoW looks nothing like me, often it's just a character I control. Or am I jumping into something again?"

To which Scott answered, "No, you made my point. It's a character not an avatar."

At this point, without knowing it, I entered into a (mostly) three-way discussion with Scott and Maxwell of Phentari Press over semantics. It turns out that Scott RPs in his head (I think), while playing MMOs, much as I do. The hang-up was more over my use of avatar as a synomym of character in the context of RPGs in general, and computer-based RPGs in particular. Scott's distinction between the two terms is an interesting one to me, particularly because I became a gamer in mid 2006, when those two terms along with "toon" had become synonymous to many players during the rise of MMORPGs. Ysharros has a similar problem with the use of toon instead of character.

Scott doesn't consider characters to be avatars. Both Maxwell and I took the stance that; regardless of whether the character resembles the player in appearance, personality or values; it does represent that player. I also proposed the converse, saying the player represents the character in the real world. Scott disagreed, "If I create the character, personality and make my choices based on that, it's not representing me at all. It's a character."

For my discussion, avatar can be defined as a movable image that represents a person in a virtual reality environment or in cyberspace. Character can be defined as the combination of traits and qualities distinguishing the individual nature of a person or thing or a person represented in a play, film, story, etc; role.
So an avatar is something that represents, and a character is something that is represented. I feel that the characters I play are a projection of me into the game world, even if that projection's "combination of traits and qualities" bares no resemblance to me. Perhaps the two words are not synonyms but metonyms, words interchanged because the concepts behind them are related. We could even say, in the case of CPRGs, that avatar is a synecdoche of character, because you can't play a character in a computer game without a graphical representation of that character.

Part of the Twitter discussion also included the proposal that actors performing in a production are not the characters they play, and may even choose to play characters fundamentally different from their own personalities. As Scott said, "That's akin to saying every actor who plays a murderer has the values of a murderer." While I agree with this assessment, I believe it to be a flawed comparison, because actors' roles are largely scripted. They do not make decisions for the characters the way roleplaying gamers do. It could even be said that the actor is the avatar of the character he portrays; that is, the physical representation of the character created by the writer. Also, having seen many interviews with actors who do play sinister characters, they do actually enjoy "playing" the role of someone with a radically different mindset from their own, to understand or even "become" that character. I believe Roleplayers do the same thing when they choose the assassin. It is a safe way to explore a different mindset.

I have previously, and often, set forth my own ideas on roleplaying and character development. In the end, I realized that Scott and I were basically on the same wavelength. Both of us roleplay in our own way whether online or around a table with friends (I have never done this, but am interested). Interestingly, Scott himself pointed out that most PnP RPGS don't include rules for roleplaying as a progression mechanic, either; though some DMs, such as Elementalistly of Lowered Expectations, do give out points for good roleplay.

This was what I got from the conversation. Lest anyone be offended by my post title, it was I who had missed the point. I encourage Scott, Maxwell, Elementalistly, Petter, and everyone else involved in the Twitter confab, to post their more complete thoughts here, or at least post the links to your own blog posts on the the subject. I'd love to hear from you.

I Dun Thin' That Word Means What You Thin' It Means

2011-05-03T11:00:00.000-05:00

I read Elementalisty's thoughts on "dynamic" games. Read his post first. While originally commenting on his blog, I decided to post here, as I have been neglecting the blog for a bit.

According to dictionary.com: "dynamic" is defined as "pertaining to or characterized by energy or effective action; vigorously active or forceful; energetic." Further definitions and etymologies of "dynamic" use the concept of "force, power." I think the connotation of "dynamic=change" is rooted in the word "effective" in the dictionary.com definition. If an action is effective, you'll see the effect after the action is over. If there is no change, then the action is--by definition--ineffective.

Now, of course rifts change the way you play, and may even affect tonight's plan for questing in a given area. But I think most people who are whining are hoping/expecting something fairly permanent about the effects of the rifts and invasions. The effects of the rifts are gone within minutes. I think this expectation is unrealistic.

Is this any better than the phasing system currently used in WoW? Or systems in place in other games? I think the permanent change expected by some players when they say "dynamic" is shortsighted. They don't realize that it means they might not get to do some of the things that players who passed by just before got to do. Perfect examples would be the recent River of Souls event in Rift or the opening of the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj. Talk about dynamic. Only one person on each each realm in WoW got the open the gates, and after a time, even new realms had the gates already open. The River of Souls phases 2 and 3 lasted about an hour total, then were over. How's that for dynamic? But people complained--justifiably--that they didn't get a chance to participate.

Single player games literally pause whenever you stop playing. The virtual worlds of MMOs roll on whether socially/player-driven or environmental/developer driven. I have said it before, I like that stuff slowly evolves while I am away from the game, for a day or a month. Otherwise I would stick with SPRPGs.

Terminus

2011-04-09T19:03:00.001-05:00

She was floating, enveloped in darkness, as if she were suspended in a warm, liquid-filled womb. Everything seemed peaceful. But that peace was abruptly wrenched away. A great clanging ripped through her consciousness, ringing in her ears. She became disoriented, flailing her arms and legs. They banged into some kind of metal. She was trapped! In a panic she pounded her fists against the walls of her prison. She could hear the gurgling of liquid, then her feet settled on the floor of the tank. The liquid drained out of the small chamber, which unsealed at the top, pierced by a harsh light. She squinted and covered her face with her forearm. She staggered out of the tank, coughing and sputtering. An attendant rushed to her side.

"It worked!" the technician exclaimed, wrapping an arm around her waist, supporting her.

"What worked?" she asked, trying to keep the gorge down. The room seemed to be spinning.

"Sylver's formula! You are Ascended!"

"What?" she gaped at the woman. The Guardians, curse those zealots, had beings among them referred to as Ascended.

"You have been brought back to life in the Resurrection Forge."

She looked back in the direction the technician pointed. "Back to life," she murmured. Her stomach, no longer placable, heaved; and she retched. But of course, there was nothing to throw up, so she simply gagged and convulsed. The tech, accustomed to her reaction, simply supported her body.

"Come. We must get you to Sylver," the tech urged her into motion. "You'll be be fine."

She looked up and saw that the chamber had a mezzanine, from which a Kelari wearing goggles watched in interest. The tech led her up some stairs to the lab overlooking the Forge.

The goggled Kelari greeted them on the mezzanine. "Delightful! You seem fit. How do you feel?"

"Sick," was her one-word response. She stared down at the Forge as another technician greeted a newly Ascended Defiant.

The Kelari was apologetic. "Yes, well . . . it is a temporary side effect of the Ascension process. Rest assured it will fade. I would love to run some tests, but I am afraid we've run out of time. We must get you to the Failsafe, quickly!" Then, turning to the woman beside her, "Calia, see her to the antechamber."

Sylver motioned her on. The technician led her out of the laboratory and to the right. She caught a quick look around the room as they departed and saw several lab workers fiddling with strange devices, and some Guardians behind a force field who were apparently prisoners of Sylver.

"What were they doing to those people?" she asked Calia.

"Don't you worry about them," the tech responded, glancing over her shoulder. We need to get you through the Failsafe."

They went through another chamber, Calia talking the whole way. A few scattered workers cheered as they passed.

"You may have some memory loss. This is normal, apparently a result of being detached from this plane for so long. It is part of the disorientation you feel, and will pass with time. Your soul has been returned to a body made primarily of sourcestone, with a bone from your own body as an anchor for your soul. Your name is Larrea Sahra. You were an Unseen agent of Meridian, covert operations. I do not know more, other than that you perished during the sack of Meridian by Cyril Kalmar--" she spat the name "--and his army of Ascended Guardians."

Calia stopped at an opening in the wall. "I must return to the lab. Go through here and the antechamber. Once outside the Life Factory, you will see Dacia Ultan. She will give you further instructions." She paused, gripping Larrea's arm. We're counting on you, Larrea."

Without further ceremony, the technician turned and walked toward the lab. Larrea watched her briefly, then turned to continue on her way. Workers in the antechamber murmured assurances and encouragement as she walked toward the force field at the main exit from the Life Factory. Larrea steeled herself and walked through.

Outside a cacophony of battle assaulted her senses: screams of terror, flashes of light, the clash of swords, the acrid smoke of spent explosives. She spotted a tall Bahmi amazon barking orders to the perimeter defenders, Dacia Ultan. The huntress noticed her and beckoned her forward.

"Ah, another success. Sylver is getting better. I just hope it's not too late." The Bahmi gestured toward the barricades. The town has been overrun by undead; you'll have to fight your way through. Don't worry about us, we can defend the vault."

Ultan gave her two long knives. Larrea hefted them, discovering that she instinctively knew how to wield them; her muscles swinging them with an easy grace.

"Good," said the huntress. "I thought you had the look of a Blade Dancer. Now go!"

Larrea turned to the perimeter and strode into the battle. The undead seemed heedless of the danger they were in as Larrea's blades sliced through bone and sinew. Surprising herself, Larrea marveled at her own ability. She moved through the town, mowing down the enemy without feeling the least bit fatigued. There was another Bahmi at the end of of the wide canyon.

"Greetings, Ascended. I am afraid your journey is not over. There are agents of the Endless Court between here and Lastlight. They are harvesting vital sourcestone--" the Bahmi showed her a glowing blue nugget of crystal "--which we need to power the Failsafe and our defenses. Please take this crate and work your way way through them, take as much sourcestone as you can between here and Lastlight. Asha and the others are organizing for transport from there."

Larrea took this all in with a slightly bewildered nod, grabbed the half-full crate and headed out.

She arrived at the town called Lastlight, with the crate a little heavier than before and her knives weeping with cultist blood. Another worker greeted her and relieved her of her burden, sending her on to meet with Asha Catari, who led the evacuation effort. The woman's skin was laced with slightly glowing blue markings, the same hue as the sourcestone.

"Another Ascended." the warlock said. "We just got the Failsafe working again, despite interference the remaining Guardians and the Endless Cult. Move on across the bridge to Tempest Station. Tahleed will provide you with the best armor we can muster before you head up the hill. If you are successful, this nightmare timeline will cease to exist."

Larrea made her way across the bridge. Despite Catari's reassurances the area seemed chaotic, on her left she could see Defiants clashing with the Guardian zealots, and on her right, another contingent somehow held off a mob of undead spirits.

At Tempest Station, a lanky Eth was directing some workers in the assembly of some monstrous contructs, with weapons at the ends of their arms instead of hands. Seeing her, he turned and said, "Welcome to Tempest Station, Ascended. We must get you on your way, but first, you need to talk the Faceless Man across the plaza." He pointed to a man wearing a horned mask.

"Thank you," Larrea said and walked across the cobblestone. Before she was quite there, the Faceless man called to her.

"Sahra! It is good to see your face again. I knew you were strong-willed. But we shall have to see how strong. Ascension is more than just enhanced power. You can also harness the souls of others, use their abilities to further your purposes. We have captured a corrupted Guardian, Shyla Starhearth. The witch has been harvesting souls for the Devourer, I want you to take one from her."

Larrea looked at the Faceless Man, nonplussed. He handed her a device.

"She is being held by some soldiers in another plaza across the village. Use this to capture her a soul we can craft into an appropriate tool."

Larrea took the device and headed off in the direction of the corrupted Guardian, dispatching a few undead that got in her way. It was soon apparent where the Guardian was, she could see the her screaming and cursing and fighting against her captors. As Larrea approached, Shyla seemed to sag in resignation.

"Why do you people torment me so?" she whined dejectedly. Larrea approached carefully distrusting the former High Priestess. Sure enough, just as she came close enough to use the device. Starhearth exploded out of her torpor, throwing off the magical shackles of the Defiant guards and lunging at Larrea. Larrea danced to the side, dodging the attack and the fight was on. The High Elf cast quick spells at the newly Ascended rogue who deftly countered with her enchanted blades, getting a few cuts of her own.

Suddenly, Shyla, who had seemed to be weakening, threw up a magic shield Larrea could not penetrate. Undead soldiers broke through the earth behind the priestess and rushed Larrea. She made short work of them before Shyla caught her off guard with a well timed spell knocking her on her back. As the Elf drew back casting another, possibly blow, Larrea threw one of her blades, striking the priestess under her chin. Shyla collapsed, dead apparently.

Larrea returned to the Faceless Man with the captured soul.

"Now what?" She asked.

"Now we see whether you are truly Ascended. You must subdue the soul, bend it to your will." The faceless man gestured toward a nearby machine. "Place it into the soul rebinder."

Larrea complied. The machine started humming with the soul inside. Soon an apparition emerged and attacked Larrea. She blocked and parried, for the first time feeling the exertion of the contest. The souls cried out and redoubled its efforts, as she fought to contain it. Her blades while not exactly striking solid flesh, seemed to be weakening the soul. It resistance subsided and it seemed to capitulate. The apparition faded, and Larrea felt infused with even greater power. She became aware of the Faceless Man observing her from outside the device.

"Excellent, Sahra. You have a strong will. The contest to control the soul was entirely within you. Its powers and abilities are added to your own. Even now your aura pulses with the power your body contains. Your enemies will tremble and fall before you! Now report back to Raj. We must send you on your way to Rubicon."

Larrea ran across the plaza, where Tahleed waited.

"Ah, Larrea. I trust you are ready? Good. Our scouts have reported that more cultists block the way. But our battle construct will clear a path for you. Simply follow it up the hill to the barricades of Rubicon. Stavel should have the Failsafe working."

Larrea followed the construct out of the village, noting that Shyla the Fallen was indeed alive and bound again by her guards. More Ascended would cut their teeth in combat with her. Larrea assisted the construct in slaying the bandits between her and the objective. The soldiers at the barricade cheered as she approached behind the automaton. A woman stopped her as she headed toward the Failsafe. She handed Larrea some data records.

"Deliver these to Sylver in the past. If they can successfully create Ascended then, this future will hopefully not come to pass." The woman's eye filled with tears.

"I will," said Larrea, putting the records in her pack. She placed a hand on the woman's shoulder, not knowing what to say to her grief and fear. Giving her shoulder a squeeze, Larrea broke off and headed up the hill.

Reaching the top, she spotted Stavel Rosso at the controls of an elaborate machine. He shouted to her over the noise of the device.

"I'm bringing the Failsafe back online now! It should return you to the moment the device was created!"

Just then there was a thunderclap and the sky above the Failsafe opened up, a gaping tentacled hole forming in the air. The figure of a woman appeared by the machine.

"Did you think you'd escape to the past? No one can escape from Regulos!"

More creatures came through the rift. The woman ordered them to destroy the machine.

Stavel cried to Larrea, "Stop them!"

Larrea sprang forward to intercept the creatures, disabling or killing each in rapid succession. The Death woman became enraged.

"I see that I shall have to deal with you myself!"

The woman started casting a spell, but Larrea attacked, blades flashing. The woman laughed as she backhanded the blade dancer, sending her to the ground.

"Fool! I am one of the original Ascended, not a weak Defiant imitation!"

She prepared to cast another spell, one Larrea knew would finish her. But an arcane blast hit her in the chest knocking her back and disrupting her spell.

"Not so fast, Alsbeth!" shouted Asha Catari, sword still blazing with afterglow of her attack on the Betrayer. A group of Defiants followed her.

"Stavel! Get that Failsafe working" Asha bellowed. She and the guards moved to finish off Alsbeth. Larrea joined them.

The Failsafe energized, even as the rift blazed, and the Dragon himself came through.

"You should have joined me when you had the chance, Asha," Regulos admonished, his voice whispering, yet booming at the same time.

"NEVER!" the warlock responded, Defiant to the last. "Larrea, get through the portal I will hold him off."

Catari let forth a blast from her sword, hitting the Devourer square in the chest. Larrea ran past the Dragon into the beam of the Failsafe. The last thing she saw was Asha as she fell before the dragon. Her expression hardened. There would be a reckoning.

Some Answers for my Questions

2011-03-26T10:35:00.001-05:00

So Sweet, a Trion dev, posted about the upcoming changes to various souls, including the Bard and Chloromancer, which concerned me the most, and I am satisfied with the answers. I had been worried about the potentially powerful buffs of the Bard being squandered on a single party in a public group rift event. But as far as I can tell, the buffs are still raid wide, just the healing is not. That's OK. Sweet also referred to the healing as smart AOE; so, while not as many people will be healed, those that do need it should be covered.

I feel I should point out that none of my concerns would have been enough to stop playing the game. I hope the dev team continues to monitor the viability of every soul so that player can maximize our enjoyment of the game. Balance is very complicated and overbalanced characters can lead to underbalanced characters potentially being shut out of certain gameplay.

Thanks to Elementalistly for tracking this issue.

Developer Appreciation Week

2011-03-25T11:32:00.000-05:00

OK, I planned to write this and post it much earlier in the week, but RL and GL got in the way. As it is, I haven't posted this often in week since I-don't-know-when. So I guess last year Scary Booster founded Developer Appreciation Week to show his appreciation (of course) and encourage other gamers in the blogosphere to do the same. I don't know enough about individual developers to write bios, but I want show my appreciation for the teams that have brought me so much entertainment for the past year and the past half-decade. All too often, game developers are on the receiving end of a lot of criticism (to say the least) from many quarters of the gaming population (including me). In a given game: the PvPers want more battlegrounds or whine about this or that class being over-powered; players of said OP class don't want it nerfed; the crafters want a more robust crafting system; the Raiders want new challenges; the altoholics want more quests; PvErs don't want PvP affecting their play; the list goes on and on. All the while the techies, artists, and storytellers try to keep the hardware and software functioning under tremendous loads, player accounts secure, and the games fun for everyone.

I want to briefly mention Funcom and Turbine. I tried Lord of the Rings Online and Age of Conan this year; and while neither ended up being my cuppa tea, I did ring a few hours of enjoyment out of them. And the developer teams do their best to support the fans of both games.

BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT takes a lot of flak from many directions over World of Warcraft, a game held in contempt by a great many "serious" gamers, and one in which even fans often level tremendous criticism. But you've gotta hand it to the developers of the only true blockbuster game in the Western World. What other company, in the SIXTH year of of a game's existence, would go back and say that in the next expansion pack they were not going to simply add a new land or continent for purchasers of the XPACK, but completely revamp the original world for ALL players as well, streamlining the content so new players feel just as welcome as the veterans? The people at Blizz have a passion for the game that really does shine through the material.

TRION WORLDS. Holy cow! Rift was not even on my radar until mid-December, when many of my blog and Twitter friends got into the closed betas and couldn't stop talking about their excitement for the game. As far as I know, no one--not Sony, not Blizzard--has managed to launch an MMO with the polish and poise of Rift. A visual style all its own, interesting lore, public group content, and a character specialization system (Soul Trees) that blows every other system I've seen out of the water. On top of this, attentive development and customer service teams that are going out of their way to keep players happy and having a blast in the game. Rift is my new shiny, and I think Trion has probably upped the ante for every new MMO that is released from here on out.

CRYPTIC STUDIOS gets my award for most improved game, Star Trek Online. A compelling game (IMHO) from the beginning, with both an excellent space combat system and decent ground combat and an awesome visual style, STO has shown steady improvement in the first year since launch. They are also the main reason you, Dear Reader, are still suffering through my meandering diatribes and stories. Trekkers are a hard crowd to please, and Gaming Trekkers even worse. By listening to one of the most rabid, nitpicky fanbases ever (topped only by Star Wars geeks) in the first year; despite initial hiccups, the STO development team has revamped the crafting system, redone interstellar "warp" space (I liked the original star charts, but great improvement), introduced ship interiors, added great content, and started the most compelling series of weekly updates I have seen a game: The Featured Episodes.

FEATURED EPISODES deserve a paragraph all their own. Cryptic devs have outdone themselves repeatedly with every mini-series. They offer compelling storylines; mystery, suspense, even creepy/scary atmospheres; cameos of classic Trek characters; puzzles and branch-specific side missions. I love how each one has a teaser then formally opens with a title shot as my ship warps in to the local star system. The latest series introduced voice acting and moved the whole Star Trek story forward, reintroducing the mythical Iconians from The Next Generation as a new threat to galactic civilization. I have come to look forward to each Featured Episode the way I anticipated each new episode of TNG as a teenager.

Thank you, all those who have joined in the efforts to brings such great games to millions of people. It may seem seem trivial to some (as they sit watching Survivor, ot the current sporting event), but these games allow us to explore worlds of imagination and wonder, to control or become powerful beings, to be the heroes (or villains) of our own stories.

THANK YOU!!

Balance, Bards, and the Nerf Bat; or, What the Heck is a Support Role, Anyway?

2011-03-23T15:56:00.004-05:00

So apparently the Rift forums have blown up with the news that the Nerf Bat has come to Trion, and Healers--the Bard in particular--are on the Tee (you know, as in Tee-ball). I only heard about it because the fallout spread to Twitter. I am missing many of the details, so I am admittedly ignorant on what will happen, or how the changes will affect my rogue, who as I have mentioned has one Bard-dominated group role. That's right, Dear Reader, I only care about what's in it for me.

I do have a few questions, probably followed by tirades. I heard that the reasons for the nerfs have to do with PvP balancing. If this is the case: Awww, come on, guys! Of any game, Rift--with the interchangeable souls and roles--should be immune to PvP "balancing." No more WoW-ish QQs of Rogues or Paladins being overpowered, because every player with a character higher than 15 should have every soul in his or her calling available to equip. Maybe the Bard should be an "OP" healer, as it is the only non-DPS heavy soul available to a Rogue. Sure, there is the Riftstalker. Oh ja, the only Tank-oriented role for the Rogue. That's great. Hey, the Cleric, has more than three serious healer souls, plus Melee and Caster DPS and Tank souls. Holy cow, why are they not in the crosshairs? (Not that I want that either.) As far as I can tell, while vocal, the hardcore PvP player segment is by far a minority in Rift, compared to PvE-oriented players. PvP balancing is simply unimportant to the vast majority of the player base. Why should PvPers be catered to at the expense of PvE?

Which brings me to the next possibility, that Bards in particular (I also heard Chloromancers and Purifiers) are seen by Trion as OP in group-PvE events like rifts and instances. I commented on Twitter that I have noticed, not a lot of active direct healing needs to be done during rift events. I am not sure if that is because of "passive" healing like heal-over-time spells such as Withering Vines (Chloro), and incidental healing like Radiant Spores (also Chloro) and Cadence (Bard, with dedicated soul points). Or is it because of other damage mitigation abilities coming from the various players in the group, as suggested by MMOGC. Either way, the healing abilities of both Chloromancers and Bards, at least, are somewhat limited already at the lower levels. Chloromancers finally can get Bloom as a direct heal (with a long cooldown) at level 6. And Bards don't get one as far as I can tell until level 21, with Coda of Restoration, which is a group heal (on the Nerf Tee from what I hear). Both examples are so-called branch abilities (player choice) not root abilities (given to every player with enough points in the soul). What's my point here? Um oh! Are Healers OP in PvE events? Trion could just as easily buff the DPS of the mobs, and it would not as noticeable to the players, hence not as QQ inspiring.

So my guess is the PvP angle. Having not been on the forums, I have no idea if people are currently saying Bards are OP; but apparently Trion thinks so.

Another thing I've heard is that, rather than include the changes in the newest patch, Trion may hold off until after they have collected the first wave of subscription money in April--some of which will be six-month commitments--before dropping the nerf bomb. If this is the plan, frankly it's kinda shady. No, it's very shady. If this is a good thing for the game, then Trion should have no fear of the consequences of changes made to a soul or two. OTOH, the evidence (disappearing patch notes on the EU forums) could be an indication that Trion is rethinking the changes they have planned. I hope this is the case.

What is a support role anyway? I understand the golden triad, Tank-DPS-Healer, even if I think it is artificial. Where does "Support" fit in? In at least one interview with Scott Hartsman, executive producer of Rift, discusses tanking, healing, and "support." Maybe I need more education on the value of being support versus, say DPS. Dislike damage meters, I find myself afraid that their eventual appearance in Rift will cause the demise of non DPS/HPS/TANK roles. The Bard and possibly the Choromancer are supposed to really shine in a group situation when their abilities (both healing and buffs) can benefit large numbers of allies, but the reported nerfs gimp precisely that dynamic. So is the Bard left with just a bunch of musical buffs? Yay! How does that fit in with current reward system, which as Arkenor has reported is based more on the global cooldown than actual contribution to the sealing of a rift? I had a guildie remark the other day that Bards will never be main healers. Looks like they may never be more than secondary souls to more exciting DPS specs.

Ascended

2011-03-22T19:22:00.000-05:00

She was floating, bathed in a preternaturally bright light. There were no shadows--nothing really, besides the light. She blinked several times, trying to clear her vision; but it not not seem to matter whether her eyes were open or closed. She waved her hand in front of her face, then looked down at the rest of her body. It seemed that she was the source of the light, at least one of the sources. Strange, she didn't remember shining before. Come to think of it, she couldn't remember much of anything. She became aware of a sound around her. Had it always been there? As she focused on the sound, she realized it was a voice. And it seemed to be saying something. She felt that what was being said should be important to her, but she could not bring herself to care what it was. She felt a breeze on her face. The breeze was punctuated by a gentle rhythmic "whoosh-whoosh." The voice became more insistent.

"Th Th Th-Thooyah-ah ah," the voice echoed both before and after the actual word. She knew that she should understand the word. It seemed of vital importance, though she could not discern why. "Th-Th-Thuja."

"Y-Y-Yes," she responded. Her own voice sounded strange, with the same reverse echo, as if her thought was semi-audible before she spoke. Thuja, she realized, was her own name.

"Thuja, you have been chosen."

Thuja perceived now that she was standing, perhaps on a stone surface, and a figure hovered before her, a woman in white, wearing a crown, kept aloft by enormous wings which caused the breeze around Thuja. The power flowed around her with the air. It was the winged figure who spoke.

"Thuja, you have Ascended called by the Gods of the Vigil from the soul stream to defend Telara in her time of greatest need. Aedraxis the King has betrayed Telara to Regulos the Devourer. You have been called and endowed with power to defeat Regulos."

Remembering the pain now, Thuja looked again at her body. She had been slain. The forces supporting Zareph the prince had defeated King Aedraxis, his brother. Thuja had been part of the legion led led Carwin the bastard, half brother to the King and supporter of his other brother Zareph. Something terrible had happened, as Aedraxis, in defeat, had unleashed foul majicks upon the opposing troops at Thedeor Fields.

Thuja, confused, said to the Messenger of the Vigil, "But I am but one soldier, and not devout."

"You have been given the power to defeat Regulos. You will have assistance: Allies, both at your side, and guiding your blade."

The light had dimmed and Thuja found herself in the Cathedral of Ardenburgh, still close to the battlefield. The Messenger was still there.

"Go now, Paragon. Join the other Ascended. Your Soul is great. You will be triumphant."

The cacophony of a distant battle reached her ears. Thuja turned and saw a figure standing on the balcony of the Cathedral, silhouetted against the aubergine and tangerine sky. Zareph. She joined him there. The prince stared across the valley in shock and disbelief.

"By the Vigil!" breathed the prince. "Aedraxis, what have you done?"

Thuja followed his gaze. In the distance, the sky gaped open like a bruised and festering wound. A rift in the very fabric of reality yawned open like a maw, set to devour the landscape below. A foul darkness spread over the ground where the rebels, including Thuja herself, had been slain.

Thuja peered down at the distant battle. She had a duty to perform. Aedraxis had betrayed his people, and all of Telara. Her jaw clenched and her gaze hardened. There would be a reckoning.

Souls, or, Finding Your Unique Playstyle in Rift

2011-03-22T13:58:00.005-05:00

Before I get into my main topic, I wanted to say thank you, Dear Reader, for taking the time to read my drivel, especially in the past month or so. I have been focusing a lot on Rift for the past few posts, because that is the game that has been taking up so much of my time, like a shiny new toy. While I have still been playing WoW and STO, I don't have the same level of enthusiasm for them. If you've been saying "Shut up about Rift already," you probably are not even reading this. But if you are, bear with me; maybe even give the game itself a chance. While much of the hype about Rift's "innovations" may be just that--hype--the game is a solid playing experience with enough familiarity to be comfortable, and enough difference to be interesting.

On a another side note, how many of you fellow bloggers think of something you saw a another blog and want to reference/link it, but then can't find it? EDIT: In this case I read Elementalisty's post that said:

"There seems to only be two kinds of people that don't like Rift.
Those that think it is too much like WoW
And those that think it is not enough like WoW.
Everyone else loves it =D"

ANYWAY

I read Scary Booster's post from the other day, where he talked about changing his Cleric from a predominantly DPS caster-style Cabalist to a Tanky melee Justicar. He experimented a bit with the secondary souls until he found just the right combination for the way he wanted to play.

I went basically the opposite direction with my Rogue. She started out a Tanky melee Riftstalker with a side of Bard (for healing) and Blade Dancer, then I split her roles around level 15, adding a group oriented Healer role dominated by the Bard, and changing the melee-heavy Riftstalker to a Ranger (ranged DPS with a pet). I love the way I can shoot from a distance; and if the mob gets too close, I can throw a couple Saboteur charges and blow the sucker up. Like Scary, after doing my own thing for a while, I decided to follow the advice of the Devs (It's Developer Appreciation Week!) and go with the recommended subsidiary souls. But I still have the ability to customize my talent trees to fit my style.

The best part of the soul system is that Trion has made it relatively painless to experiment with different builds, to see what works and what doesn't work for you and your enjoyment of the game. Resetting souls involves a nominal fee that scales with level (as far as I can tell) and frequency of resets. If the build isn't working, you can reset and try again. And you don't have to lose time starting a new character from scratch if you decide to change playstyles. With the Rogue archetype, I can do ranged or melee DPS, even Tank and/or Heal. In WoW (just to compare), if I wanted to switch from melee DPS to ranged/pet DPS to Tank to Healer, I would need four different characters: Rogue, Hunter, Warrior, Priest. Even the hybrid classes in WoW tend to be spec-focused on a single role. In Rift, I just change roles, up to four (between fights, though given the right combination of souls, I could switch totally on the fly with some loss of effectiveness.)

With the total max-level points at 66, and the top of each soul tree requiring 31 points, you can reach the 31-point talent in two trees, with points to spare. Or fill out a tree completely (every talent) for a 51-point "root" ability with 15 points still available for the other two trees. The one thing I would suggest about the system would be to have some benefit to balancing the points across all three soul trees (22-22-22)--a boost to the primary attribute for the archetype, for example--just to make it a competitive option versus more specialized specs. Right now, most players I know have one "zero-point" soul, with only the first basic abilities available.

A lot has been said about "bring the player, not the class" in Rift. I haven't seen a whole of that, having only been through one instance, but in that run we had a Rogue tank, Rogue melee, Rogue ranged and two very different clerics healing/minor DPS. It worked out pretty well. I look forward to the higher level instances as I level up and fill whatever role is needed.

Nothing But Pics

2011-03-08T18:30:00.000-06:00

I have a story coming to go with some of these pics, but I just had to get them out. They are gorgeous.

First, some pics of Rowan and Enura's first trip into an instance, with guildies from Simple Complexities--Nefret (sp?), Ethariik, and Misinformation:

Nefret's Glass Artillery (a graphics glitch)

A snow storm in the Realm of the Fae.

Having been in a real snowstorm, this was very impressive.

Battling Fae Lord Twyl

Pics of my new Guardian Warrior, Thuja (Estrael):

With Prince Zareph, surveying the Destruction of Mathosia

Heh, who's complaining about the armor?

She doesn't look like she'll betray anyone.

Battling the "Evil" Orphiel Farwind.

Receiving the third Soul

I would love to get pair of those blades she has.

Racing to defeat Aedraxis

Thuja's Divine gift shows through.

The Shade of Regulos

Port Scion

Lord Runeclift on the Founders' Threshold Bridge

Can't We All Just Get Along?

2011-02-28T19:33:00.003-06:00

No frickin' way, two posts in one day?

Stargrace doesn't understand why we're all so quick to judge the gameplay style of others. Those of us that like to level at a leisurely pace criticize those who race to the top. Can't we understand that that is fun for them? It's just a different play style, like PvP. Right? RIGHT??

Wrong. And she says why it's wrong-headed right in her post. "[T]hey’re of the mind that rushing to the top is the end all be all of a game only to bitch about lack of content when they get there." You should not be allowed to complain about lack of content in a lore-based adventure game if you rush past all the content in a mad dash to be first to the top. It may a valid gameplay style, but it is a poor one. And one which ends in disappointment for the player. If those min-maxing racers get to the top, play the content that is there and then say wow that was great and move on to another game, that would be great. But instead, they whine about how there is nothing to do now. And the game SUCKS! And the devs should do more for them! Which the devs do. Instead of creating more low or mid-level content, for the altoholics (another valid play style), or more battlegrounds for PvP (never thought I'd throw in with the PvPers).

It goes along with the question Spinks asked about using guides for the puzzles in Rift. I suppose it's OK if you do. But what have you accomplished? It's like having the jig-saw outline underneath the puzzle surface and the pieces numbered. Truth in advertising: I did use the book map in the Guardian starting area, but only because I knew I would not be able to get back to that area with my character. I would be somewhat interested in finding out about the existence of in-game puzzles, artifacts, but would prefer to work them out myself.

Oh, and in the end, it may be as much a case of us versus them, Stargrace. Because as often as not, the power levelers and "hardcore" players look down on those of us taking our time and enjoying the scenery.

The WoW Killer?

2011-02-28T19:09:00.002-06:00

So Syp is already asking if Rift is a success. People have already chimed in. I'll be honest, I've never gotten in on a headstart. I started playing WoW over a year after it was released. I got into STO a few days after it hit the stores. But I've never seen the polish that this game has, right out the gate. And the enthusiasm players seem to have for it.

It *is* hard to say, at this stage, how successful it will be in the long run. But I hear very little negativity about Rift, other than habitual doomsayers. They are basically saying saying it can't take on WoW because nothing else has been able to. Others can only complain about the long queues (for some servers, while others are no wait). Few people seem to remember that EQ2 was gonna dominate the MMO genre, until WoW steamrolled over it on it's path to MMO glory. Is Rift a WoW killer? Probably not, but did anyone imagine that WoW would be a EQ killer?

Beau Hindman, commenting on Syp's post, said, "When a game is already being heralded as “nothing new, but that’s OK” then it simply cannot be anything new. We already have old." Going back to 2004, World of Warcraft did not break new any MMO ground, other than perhaps making some things easier. Blizzard took a fairly established genre and gave it polish. WoW was playable on some pretty crappy machines, but looked great on gaming rig of the time. It is still playable on a wide range of systems. Travel was made easier--quicker, but then some complained that Azeroth was too small. Death was less costly, and some said it was less meaningful. But I digress. Blizzard has made an incredible amount of money from polishing older ideas.

Trion may have hit on that formula. The game has some different stuff. More choices of combat mechanics. You can finally have that rogue tank you always wanted. Or that healing mage.Your priest can wear chain. The Rifts themselves are cool dynamic content. But mostly it's the same questing, crafting, and killing as before. Only. With. More. Polish.

That may just be enough.

Once More Into The Rift, Dear Friends, Once More

2011-02-25T15:24:00.002-06:00

This post has few story spoilers, maybe some minor mentions. It's really more of a OOC player experience post than a IC lore post. Plus SCREENIES!

So I rushed home after work to jump onto Rift and play with my fellow bloggers and tweeters on Faeblight, and promptly encountered the 6 hour wait. Why did we choose this server again? I say next time we do this, have someone scout it out, and then decide which server. The rest of us can wait on Twitter or the MP forum or something and then jump on when it's "safe." Anyway I got onto Faeblight this morning and created a couple Defiants (Ochroma and Larrea) and a Guardian(Rughaan). Unfortunately "Rowan" was taken on Faeblight and I was disinclined to tag "blaze" onto the end. Look for me there once I am able to get on the server in a reasonable amount of time. As an aside, why do game developers have an aversion to spaces and apostrophes or hyphens in character names? "Rugha'an," pronounced similarly to "Rowan" and meaning the same thing, properly has an apostrophe, but I couldn't include that in my character name. Arrgh!

MEANWHILE, over on Estrael--another PvE-RP shard like Faeblight--DGF and I created a couple Guardians. She was reluctant at first, having disliked the bit of the Guardian starting area she'd seen during beta, but then realized this would be a new experience, unlike doing a Defiant for the third or fourth time. And as Pete has said, the first couple zones are aesthetically more pleasing than the rather dreary Freemarch on the Defiant side.

The new character preset slider threw us both off when we tried to change the height of our High Elves, so that slowed us down. But we finally got in and matched instances to join each other on our adventure.

My character, Rowan, is an ascended High Elf Druid, who recruited a Warden and a Cabalist soul to help in her fight against Regulos. DGF roled as Enura, a High Elf Night Blade with a Blade Dancer and Marksman to assist. She will probably switch the Marksman to a Riftstalker, preferring to get in the face of the enemy instead of standing off.

We followed the secret book map and got every one in the tutorial area. Is there one for the Defiant tutorial, as well? I didn't get many good pics until we got to the tents (Valor Hold), mostly because I forgot to snap any.

As a druid, I have a pet--or maybe companion is a better term--a faerie. Mine is named Eolande (my pick), Celtic/Gaelic for violet flower. She throws life damage spells and also heals me and my party members. Perhaps it balances out over all versus other builds, but it seems like her spells can often be the difference between life and death.

DGF enjoyed the Guardian tutorial this time around, but I didn't explain the past/present/future of the tutorials very well. The Defiant tutorial is early and explicitly depicted as being in the future, the Defiant Ascended are sent into the past through a Magitech time machine. The Guardian tutorial on the other hand, does not clearly state when it takes place (relative to the main game world) until the end of the tutorial, during the cutscene. If your first characteris a Guardian, this is probably not a big deal; though I was confused myself when playing a Guardian during the beta.

We got through the tutorial area and into the second zone, Silverwood. The crowd was thick, making the gameplay much less immersive. Kill-steals and node-steals were rampant; though after a while, the crowd thinned, and we were able to collect the materials we needed for quests. I don't know if the other players moved on and there was no follow-on crowd, or people were just starting to go to bed.

I'll have to think about a backstory for Rowan, not to mention my other toons. I am not clear on how much the Ascended know about their past lives. Obviously the major NPC leaders know who they are, but the dialogue with some of the exemplars of the different classes (in the Sanctuary of Rebirth) imply that the PC Ascended have some memory loss. And are the second and third (and more) souls willing partners? Hostile? Oblivious tools to be used?

This post has been a bit scatterbrained, [Edited to include links]. I also still have some thoughts (and screenies) on the open beta, but I am not sure they are relevant any longer. Tell me what you think, Dear Reader.

Bah! Blogger Ate My Blog Post

2011-02-21T18:57:00.001-06:00

So I had a longish rant about the Rift beta written and some how lost it. :( In its place, here is a fun forecast for this week. Uh Oh! looks like we may have rifts on Thursday.

How Long Should I Play an MMORPG?

2011-02-09T17:01:00.001-06:00

Alex Taldren seems to think that MMOs should be designed for four to five months of playability, tops. And we players should accept that and move on when we are done with the game. He thinks those players who expect to be able to play an MMORPG for years are foolish and should just move on when they done. Yeebo Fernbottom and Anjin, in his bullet points have brought up similar points--though more kindly, I think.

Alex writes "Why is it that if an MMO doesn't supply gamers with years of content, it is viewed as being shallow or pointless?"

Here is why, Alex. An MMORPG, unlike a console game, is supposed to be a persistent world that exists independent of my being there, with other players doing their own thing and sometimes (often?) interacting with me in that virtual space. Whether it is in a "themepark" or a "sandbox" we expect that feeling of permanence or semi-permanence to be there. Otherwise we would be content to play GTA, The Force Unleashed, or Assassin's Creed, or whatever the next big single-player RPG turns out to be. But we're not. I have played WoW for almost five years. No other single piece of intellectual property has provided me the hours of enjoyment that game has. If I "beat" it (another thing that grates on my nerves, how do you beat a world? Why are you trying?) after five months, then what was the point?

I'll admit, subscribing to an MMORPG does change the player outlook on that game. We think in terms of time commitment rather than cost when considering a new game.

If you only want to play DCUO or Rift for a few months, you are certainly within your rights to do so, and I do hope you enjoy your time. To me, there is a certain level of commitment for me to play longer, assuming I enjoy it; and for the developers to have built and continue to build on that persistent world, because I have subscribed to their game. Otherwise, they could go develop a single-player RPG with a few levels and be done with it. What's in it for them? If even one million players played WoW, that's $15,000,000.00 (yes I am putting in all the zeros) per month in revenue, beyond the initial $40,000,000.00 in boxes for Vanilla WOW alone. That's a lot of incentive to keep going. Of course there are far more players than that in WOW, enabling Blizzard rake in ungodly amounts of money. I heard they made $75,000,000.00 on the first day alone from the infamous sparkle-pony. Don't try to tell me it cost nearly that to create. So ja, even without WoW's volume, a persistent game can make a ton of money for the producer, if they can keep butts in the seats, so to speak.

So it's a win-win for players who want to escape to a persistent world and for the developers who provide it. Some players will come and go. I don't know how much longer I'll play WoW. But I know that it's been fun. And I probably never would have played it as a SP-RPG. After all, I haven't played those other single-player games I mentioned.

Rifting on a Theme

2011-02-08T21:56:00.001-06:00

So, perhaps inevitably, the buzz about Rift is turning a little sour. Pete is a little down because the game isn't the way it was in early betas. Syp thinks maybe Trion should go dark in the last few weeks before launch to stem the over-hype. Ardwulf is gonna sit out the launch, maybe join later. Even GeeCee sees differences in the way the game feels based on zone population. I think Randomessa may have hit the nail on the head when she lays the blame firmly at the feet of the player community itself, especially those who blog (and tweet).

I mean, we can't have it both ways. If a game is to succeed, it has to appeal to enough players to cover its costs and make a tidy profit. Sometimes this means "dumbing it down" a little, which infuriates some of the more hardcore among us. The rifts are too hard, until there are so many people zerging the mobs that the rifts become too easy. What a pleasant problem for Trion. They are working on balance with the rifts. I would like to know how random the rifts themselves are. How quickly can they be ratcheted up or dialed back, based on pax in the zone?

Maybe because I haven't been there since Beta 1, I haven't been jaded to the current game. I'll have to admit here and now that I am one of the unwashed masses who got into beta with the express purpose of trying out the game to see if I would want to buy it. Well, guess what. Trion made me a believer. I have talked in the past about games that draw me in right away, versus games that are just meh, or even unplayable, from my perspective. I also know that other players are delighted with those very same games, while others can't stand playing the games I love.

We can only hope that the MMOs we fall in love with are popular enough to be sustained for a few years. Rift is this for me. I have been drawn in by the gameplay, and the lore. I have to figure out my characters' place in the world though. With my developed TOTG toons, I had been playing for a while before I developed their backstories. With STO I had enough lore knowledge that I could get the RP ball rolling right off the bat.

I like my Eth Rogue, and my High Elf Cleric. While I loved the spells of my Bahmi Stormcaller Mage, he died way too much for my taste. I may have to tweak the build, before he is viable. Because I still like the idea of the Big Giant Clothie.

I was the first on the scene when a rift opened up on Sunday evening, and was able to click on a gravestone to get NPC assistance until other players arrived. (I still died.) We managed to seal the rift and I went on my way, I thought it was fun. I am definitely a "stand back and use ranged abilities" kinda guy in large groups. Against individual mobs, I am much more melee oriented (this with an Assassin/Riftstalker/Bard). I find rifts and large public groups to be very chaotic, but then I find large raids in TOTG to be similarly chaotic, no matter how much "strategy" goes into them.

OK, so this has rambled on a bit. It could have been two posts, but it's what I am thinking about this evening when I intended to play my poor neglected STO. Anyway, I hope everyone finds what they are looking for.

STO Anniversary

2011-02-02T20:07:00.001-06:00

Since this blog has primarily been about Star Trek Online and stories based on characters I created there, I would be remiss if I did not commemorate the First Anniversary of the launch. Congratulations to to the dev team and all the players who have been along for the ride. Things just keep getting better!

The Meaning of Community in the Modern MMO

2011-02-01T23:23:00.005-06:00

In ages past, gamers would gather around a table on a Friday or Saturday evening, listen as one designated Dungeon Master wove a tale of intrigue and hidden treasure, then assume roles as they explored a virtual world in their collective minds. Friendships were formed that lasted years, some to the present day. People still play tabletop RPGs, but even more play MMORPGs. The first MMOs developed solid communities (supposedly; I wasn't there) that helped each other. I never realized all the different sub-categories of MMO. Fast forward to the modern era of MMO gaming, and you find a group of codgers looking back through rose colored glasses at these "wonderful" games of the past, and wondering what happened to the community spirit they fostered.

The incomparable Tobold has once again given a wonderfully ironic vision of a dystopian future where players of WoW are ~~stuck~~ ensconced in their own little worlds of warcraft and the community is dead. This was preceded two weeks ago by his proclamation that the only truly socially responsible thing for DPS players to do was to role as tanks or healers. Gordon of We Fly Spitfires ~~exults in~~ laments his status as a Conquest Point whore (OK, he said "prostitute," but I didn't see any mention of payment) and says somewhat sarcastically, "[A] sense of community doesn’t matter so long as every individual is getting their progression fix." Larisa on the other hand, would rather play with "a complete moron . . . than an ever so skilled and polite NPC." She's obviously never played STO. Raph Koster insists, with evidentiary backup, that building community is integral to good MMORPG design. Scary Booster said on Twitter yesterday that WOW is dead to him, given some of his recent experiences with douchebaggery in that game. Psychochild feels that much current design discourages and even punishes grouping behavior. Tesh, who beat me to this punch, says that Tobold's prediction actually sounds good to him, bonus points for echoing my feelings of the numbers grind at the end, both of his post and the game.

I have helped and been helped by random strangers in WoW. Some have become friends. Just this last Sunday evening, another player asked me to help him kill Chet the Slime Breeder in the ruins of Southshore. I helped out, even though I had just turned the quest in. I say this now only because it makes me look good.

It comes down to this. It's easy to have a sense of community when your game is roughly the population of Walnut Grove, it is another thing entirely when it boasts the population of a major world city, or minor country. How many friendly faces do you expect to see in New York or Beijing? Why do you expect to see more in WoW? As a commenter on Tobold's post said, there are still a million people in WoW who want to be community-minded. But there are another 11 million that don't give a bear rump about you or your gaming experience. WoW really is a victim of its own popularity. (That's not to say the devs don't share the social responsibility.)

So do your best to seek those people out if you want a sense of community, join or form a guild of like-minded players, that is probably the best way to find the community you're looking for. And turn off or ignore general and trade chat. I have ignored it for years, separating out guild and party chat into a designated window that I pay attention to.

On a tenuously related side note, Muckbeast wonders about couples content, something that is near and dear to me and DGF. I hope that designers (please, Trion and BioWare) can include elements of the game that cater to this perhaps small segment of the population that wants small-group content. The rifts in Rift may help this a little, we'll see. And now another evening has come and gone, and I haven't played STO. : /

Adventures in Telara: Rift Impressions

2011-01-28T21:18:00.005-06:00

I am a new Rift convert. I have decided that I will purchase and subscribe to the game when it comes out in March. DGF ended up playing for about 9 hours on her day off and loved it, so it'll probably be both of us on there in March.

I got to be part of the beta 5 event over the past couple days and wanted to get my impressions all in one spot. I discussed some of the following on Twitter on Wednesday. I was chided for comparing Rift to The One True Game, because that would give some people the wrong impression of the game. I feel, however, that comparing the new with the known helps people who have not experienced the game to understand in a limited way what it is like. Most MMORPGs are based on the DIKU system developed for MUDs in the 1990s. Therefore, there will be similarities for better or worse. You, Dear Reader, may have strong opinions one way or the other about TOTG. I would hope that you'd give Rift a chance, when it comes out in March, to see if it is worth your game-playing time.

Technical
I encountered some technical bugs mostly having to do with the huge number of players on the same shard I was on. This is not the appropriate forum for those, as I believe they were part of the beta test and will be corrected by the release date. I played again Wednesday evening, and the game ran beautifully. From what I gather, this game has been the most polished during beta of any MMORPG that has come out in the past few years. It certainly seems very well done; Trion Worlds has put a ton of effort into making Rift a success.

Gameplay
The gameplay is very like TOTG, the basic user interface being virtually identical in function and placement of elements. This is a good thing. Most MMO UIs are laid out the similarly, easing the switch between games. I missed some of the addons I have in TOTG, but Rift's UI serves my needs. I didn't even have to remap my hotkeys like I did for STO; B=Bags, C=Character Window, etc. There are a couple minor differences in hotkeys, like how to remove the UI from the screen for a screenshot, but they are easily discovered and/or changed if you desire. Essentially, the moment-to-moment use of the interface is comfortably familiar.

By the same token, the Damage systems are much the same, though I suppose this can be said of all DIKU systems. You swing your weapon or cast a spell from the action bar, and eventually stuff dies. You run around talking to various Quest Givers that give you things to do; in the tutorial area, they help you learn about the game world and how to operate within it.

Art/Animation
If you are looking for a more realistic art style, with a natural color palette, this is your game. I know many people dislike the cartoonish style of TOTG, with its often garish palette. This was an artistic choice by the Snowstorm folks; I don't think it makes a substantial difference between the games. Much like Neo, I know that it is really all just ones and zeros. One caveat to that: I have been put off in the past by the avatars in a game. I like the toons in TOTG, but the ones in the Game of Ages Past moved strangely, IMHO, and the faces of the toons in the Ring Saga were just not right. I do like the avatars in Rift. Again there are others who have complained on the forums, but I've been able to make my toons look the way I want them to. DGF made a comment yesterday about her toon moving funny, her shoulders swayed more than her hips.

Storyline/Lore
Unlike someone I read in comments today, I think the story/lore of Rift is fantastic. Seriously, this clown said the story was lame and he hadn't bothered to read any of the quests as he picked them up. Hey, Tool, how do you know the story sucks if you don't read it? Seriously, this sort of attitude torques me to no end. Go play Madden, and leave the lore-based game to the people who care!! I carefully read the quests; plus, many of the NPCs have backstories they will share if you ask. The story seems fairly well developed. I am wondering about the PvP balance, though, given the stories of the two factions. Game it may be, but the Guardians come across as a playable version of the Crimson Cabal, zealously sure they are right and fanatically willing to slaughter those they perceive to be impure. The Defiants are a put-upon underdog faction. They seem far more popular at among the people I have communicated with. Compare this to the Cold War-ish conflict between the Coalition and the Motley Host in TOTG, a situation that seems like it could possibly be resolved if the two current leaders weren't butt-heads. The population is somewhat more balanced there, the pretty Coalition "good guys" are much more appealing to many, though. So how did they manage to make the "Good Guys" in Rift seem like the bad guys to so many, including me?

{EDIT} Having gotten through the tutorial of both factions, I see that the Guardians tutorial is 20 years in the past of the main game timeline. Meanwhile, the tutorial of the Defiants is set in the future. I have to assume that in the first few areas the two PC factions do not mix, but eventually they must, of course.

Souls
The Soul system is a great way of customizing game playstyles. When I first looked at it, I was thought to myself, "Yep, here are the Talent Trees." However, after a few minutes messing with it, I decided the Soul system is a much richer system. The Soul system allows for much more variety in gameplay than having 8 or more classes, with talent specializations. Within four archetypes--Warrior, Cleric, Mage, and Rogue--player get to choose a number of "souls' of past heroes(?-I wasn't clear on this) gaining their abilities to use against hostiles, or heal and protect friendlies. I followed the recommended combinations given in-game for my rogue, but switched it up for my cleric by picking my own combination, and thoroughly enjoyed playing both. Unlike the current iteration of TOTG's talent system, which requires you to devote so many points to your primary tree before you can dump some in another, Rift's Soul system limits the number of points you can distribute to a single soul-tree at any particular level, and you will always have points to spend on another soul.

Poll: IHTtS Office-Friendly Blog Layout

2011-01-18T09:16:00.002-06:00

As you know, Dear Reader, I currently have an orange-on-black layout for this blog. Scary Booster recently did an interview with the legendary Tobold, wherein Tobold told him many people may not read his blog from their workplace because his blog layout screamed "NOT WORK RELATED." I am wondering the same thing now about my own layout. I have my reasons for creating the current layout, but I am not married to it.

What do you think? Should I change it to a more neutral color scheme so as be more office-friendly? Please take the time to vote in the poll at the top right. It will close on Saturday.

Thanks.

Waiting for Star Wars: The Old Republic

2011-01-17T15:19:00.000-06:00

So Adventure Historian has weighed in on the churnings and rumblings over at SWTOR's community pages over BioWare's apparent shroud of secrecy surrounding the game. The bulk of this post was a comment I left on his blog.

I guess some fans over at the SWTOR forums are not happy with BioWare's progress, or lack thereof, in getting the game ready for release; this compounded by a perceived lack of information flowing out of BioWare's Austin studios. They say the game will inevitably fail because of the opacity of the development process.

All I can say is look at Blizzard, a company not exactly known for being open about its projects and that often famously says, “We’ll release it when it’s ready.” The same company whose MMO success all others would sell their kidneys to approach.

Is Google languishing because we don't know what their search algorithms are? How they seem to know instinctually exactly what I am looking for? Of course not.

Soliciting feedback is not submitting to the whims of a few overzealous fanbois. Just because a developer opens up a bulletin board forum for interested people to join in chats about a game does not mean the developer has to acquiesce to everything or anything the people who post on those forums dictate; some of which would probably be impossible to do anyway because of mutually conflicting ideas.

BioWare has a reputation for quality, entertaining games. I, for one am willing to give them benefit of the doubt. They will release TOR when it is ready. Better that than a rushed-to-market, half-finished PoS that nobody will want to play past the included first month. If SWTOR is good, people will stay with it, if not people will drift away. The same fanbois crying now on the forums will be there at the Midnight Release Parties, dressed up like Jedi and squeeing like their Twilight-addled female counterparts.

Happy Blogoversary to Me!!

2011-01-15T17:13:00.001-06:00

So it has been a whole year since I first started documenting my thoughts and opinions about the world of MMORPGs. 2010 was the year I branched off from being a WoW player to being a multi-MMO gamer. I have tried Star Trek Online, Lord of the Rings Online, and Age of Conan--sticking with STO and WoW. I also feel I have become part of a larger gaming/blogging community; a thriving, usually courteous, group of friends that love games and the ideas and inspiration they can provide.

At first, blogging was an outlet for my World of Warcraft stories; but my WoW account got hacked three days after starting the blog, and I did very little other than bitch about it those first couple months. Then in March 2010,after subscribing to play Star Trek Online, I started reading the blogs of people like MMO Gamer Chick, and Adventure Historian. As I wrote in the first post of "I Have Touched the Sky" CeeGee inspired me to write stuff about my STO characters.

I soon joined the Federation News Service a STO fleet consisting (mostly) of bloggers and Twitterers founded by Tipa, BlueKae, and others. Around the same time, I became more active on Twitter and made even more friends, like Pete and Gordon. I spend a lot of time on Twitter and conversations I have there often inspire new blog posts. While not mentioning everyone I enjoy talking to online, I encourage you to check out my blogroll in the right-hand column of this and all my pages.

As of today, my most popular posts (see the bottom of the right column) were about the RealID controversy and the potential (but unfulfilled) changes to the player avatars in Cataclysm. Just looking at themes/labels I put on the blog, STO has taken up most of my thoughts, with WoW a distant second. RP, or Roleplaying, is also prominent. I have been able to articulate, mostly to myself, the things that I like and dislike about gaming--the kind of gameplay style I prefer. I used to call myself "hardcore casual," though much like "Mary Sue," I have found that both terms have come to include connotations beyond their original definitions, often completely depending on the individual using the terms. My stories are not quite as common as I originally intended, maybe that will be my resolution for this coming year in blogging. I am also eagerly awaiting the release of Star Wars: The Old Republic with the stories it will inspire, and the blogosphere/Twitterverse is tempting me with Rift.

Thank you, Dear Reader, for staying with me throughout this year. And here's hoping for many more to come. Now, seeing as it's also my 4th monthiversary with DGF and she is playing WoW without me: Happy Questing, and I'll catch you on the flip-side.

A Little Player in a Very Big MMORPG

2011-01-09T21:01:00.006-06:00

So, on Friday @petterm of Don't Fear the Mutant, talking on Twitter, began what turned to out to be a somewhat lively conversation about the role of the player characters (PCs) in an MMORPG. Many other Tweeps/Bloggers chimed in. It ended up being more about something a little closer to my heart as a player.

Petter opened with this volley, "If you're going to do a lot of heavy storytelling, please look at Blizzard's phasing. Looking at you, Rift, but certainly SWTOR."

This led to a brief discussion between Petter, myself, plus @pasmith if Dragonchasers and @Siberwulf of Going Rancid, about the pros and cons of Blizzard's method of "phasing" to give the impression that a PC has made an impact in the World of Warcraft. I say "impression" because, of course, the phasing only affects each character individually. Overall, the world has not changed at all. In many ways this is OK, and I agree with Petter that Blizz implements the phasing very well. Petter eventually said, "I find it much more immersive than instancing." To which I replied in part, "I guess I kinda like the really old nothing-ever-changes. Because it's a little like the real world." Others began to chime in about my sentiment, indicating it was not unique or original.

Petter quoted @RagnarTornquist saying that The Secret World will treat the PC like "one of many." @TishToshTesh of Tish Tosh Tesh said "I believe that MMOs should be about the player's story in a vital virtual world that's indifferent to them." Petter answered Tesh, "I'm not 100% certain I understand what you mean, but I agree."

While I cannot speak for Tesh, I agree with him and this is my attempt to clarify, in a way that may be impossible on Twitter.

When I started playing World of Warcraft in June of 2006, I had no illusions about my importance--or lack thereof--in the course of the game. I had started a Dwarf Hunter, Oakheart, and there was a big wide World out there to explore. There were fun little quests to complete in Coldridge Valley. Then, when I was ready, I was instructed to report to Kharanos, the first real town in my journey. The run to Kharanos was fraught with danger, OK really only some troggs, plus I passed a Dwarven Mortar Team that did the same thing over and over again, practicing their "craft" of destruction. I would later learn that this was one of many in-game references to the Warcraft RTS series. (Of course, the entire game is but ja, anyway. . .) In Kharanos, there was more stuff to do, none of it major: collect some boar ribs to get a recipe, kill some Wendigos, and recover stolen goods, that sort of thing. Through this and other experiences on other toons, I developed a feel for the World. I was an adventurer helping the locals out where I could. The world went largely unchanged by my passing, and I was OK with that. Azeroth did not revolve around me.

In Single Player RPGs, like KOTOR, for example. the PC is integral to the story and rightfully so. You are "reliving" the history of a major hero in the game world. I expect to be at the center of world changing events in an SPRPG. On the other hand, in a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, why should I expect the same? The world is big, and I am small. This is how Vanilla WoW was, and how I felt The Burning Crusade started out. Star Trek Online follows this model somewhat, though Cryptic's approach is different. I am one of many Starship Captains, taking my crew on many adventures, even even as other starship captains in a vast Starfleet implement the policy of an even larger United Federation of Planets, each one a Hero of Another Story.

Then, with Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard introduced Phasing. Note: I like the storytelling possibilities of phasing, and Blizzard does it very well. But no longer is my character a small fish in a big pond, now I am the center of the story. Things happen, because I am there; and stay that way, at least for my current PC.

HERE THAR BE SPOILERS (skip to below Captain Kirk):

My DGF and I recently went through Westfall, which introduced a bit of phasing in the course of our questing there. With the death of Edwin VanCleef, the leader of the Defias Brotherhood, things seem to be changing somewhat for the area, especially around Sentinel Hill. The homeless problem seems to have increased, though (and a thoroughly modern First World problem by the way, not realistic in this context IMHO.) Through some clever phasing, we witnessed the rise of the Defias under the leadership of VanCleef's daughter, Vanessa. Meanwhile, I visited Sentinel Hill on my Main, the level-80 Rowanblaze and Sentinel Hill is unaffected. No sign of the Defias, or the beleaguered state of the regional capital, which is surely the lore.

Perhaps, the most egregious example of the PC being too important to the story is the opening questline of the Goblins. Amuntoth of Manifest Pixel highlights this in a recent post. The PC (everyone who plays a Goblin) is an up-and-coming citizen of Kezan, about to be promoted to the position(rank?) of Trade Prince, rivaling the tool who currently holds that position of authority over the Goblins. (Mind you, this is not the neutral Goblin faction of the Steamwheedle Cartel, but the rival Bilgewater Cartel.) The Cataclysm accompanying Deathwing's prison break destroys the island and the player repeatedly saves the entire passel of survivors, only to be double-crossed by Gallywix in a series of betrayals of the entire remnant of Goblins. The PC even personally rescues Thrall from the Alliance. Yet Thrall still--inexplicably--appoints the bastard Gallywix to be Trade Prince of the Cartel as part of the Horde. By rights, it should be the PC who gets that honor, but that makes no sense in the lore. Of course, neither does the current situation. All this could have played out differently if the Goblin PC were a nobody instead of the rival of the faction leader who therefore has a personal vendetta against the PC.

In real life, we affect things and people around us in little ways, but most of us honestly have little impact on the course of history or the shaping of the world. We are soldiers, not Generals--or World Leaders. I expect, even prefer to feel this way in a massive game world filled with numerous people. I don't need to be the hero of the Rebellion, or the savior of the Nation.

Does that help, Petter? :)

Endgame?

2011-01-06T19:46:00.001-06:00

Why, oh why, do certain gamers (and devs) think that “The game doesn’t even start until the end-game content”?

I had a friend and coworker say this to me back in 2007. He played Vanilla WoW through the Naxx runs. Twenty hours (plus) per week spent raiding he said, and this back in the days before tokens meant steady gear progression. You had to hope the piece you needed dropped AND that you had enough luck or DKP to actually get it instead of that stupid hunter. Much of that time in the raid was spent waiting around for someone to repair, eat, pee, something besides actually playing the game. But the fights were EPIC!! Doing the Heigen Dance with 40 peeps, someone was sure to die. But then he was finally brought down. After 40 (50?) attempts. Then on to the next boss.

Oh, and every week they got to start over again, killing Heigen and all his friends. Whheee! Isn't Endgame fun? This was WAY better than the varying interweaving stories and quests--some monumental, some mundane--where the devs had spent 98 percent of their time--leading up to this Legendary Epicness. All you people who came afterward can never be as über 733T as those few who were level-capped at 60 for nearly three years. My friend quit the day The Burning Crusade was released, because he couldn't keep up with his own addictive tendencies. We've lost touch; I wonder if he ever came back.

How is doing the same content over and over (only a bit harder these next 100 times) better than seeing new stuff you’ve not experienced before, learning new abilities, and generally becoming more badass? And no, getting that über helmet or sword doesn’t make you or your toon more badass, especially in the not-so-old days when getting THE BEST gear was essentially a slot-machine style game of chance.

What happened to the RPG in MMORPG? You know, Dear Reader, that I am not an avid in-game role-player. But I do play for story. The fall of the Lich King was an epic event--that occurred 1000s of times behind the closed walls of an instanced dungeon that many players never saw in person because they didn't want to or couldn't take the time to do THE SAME FIGHTS OVER AND OVER, to get a little better than last time so they could move on to the next boss and start the process all over again. That is not story, that is tedium. We were (yes, I did raid, got to Professor Putricide) doing the fantasy equivalent of playing Madden 20XX. Repetitive, story-less, soulless.

Gordon, over at We Fly Spitfires, feels almost as strongly as I do about endgame item progression. Actually, I think he is a little more articulate about it. Also, a chunk of this post was a comment on someone else's blog on this topic on 28 December. But I can't remember whose. : / If it was yours let me know and I'll cross link.

Should I Even Do an Annual Review?

2011-01-06T18:01:00.002-06:00

This is going to be a short post, maybe. I am coming up on the first anniversary of my original blog, which I rolled into this one, so I think I will save the retrospective for then. But 2010 was a good year for me. It started out kinda low, but got better pretty quick, with a rekindled, soon-fizzled romance that left both of us in a better place, and friends afterward. I also got to spend extended periods of time in Hawaii and Europe (and other places), thanks to my job.

Meanwhile, a new romance has blossomed, and I am happier than ever. If you have followed this blog at all, you know she likes WoW, having expressed interest on her own with little to no encouragement from me. She is learning and getting better every time we play. We laughed at our first time through the new(ish) Deadmines and came realize she had misunderstood the way the talent system works, prompting an early respec. I am having fun with the game for the first time in a long time. Rowanblaze and Hazel Wingnut are languishing at 80, while DGF and I level lowbie toons. But there will be plenty of time to explore the high level stuff.

I am still subscribed to STO, though finding the time to play is difficult. I also have a couple vignettes in the works, but I need to find the time and energy to write and/or polish them for posting. I just hope you don't abandon me in the meantime, Dear Reader.

Developing Character Backstories in MMORPGs

2010-12-24T12:06:00.001-06:00

Thank you to Steve "Slurms" Lichtsinn over at Multiplaying for letting me guest post on their blog. Here is the article I wrote, with minor modifications:

So, you just started your new character in World of Warcraft (or one of those other, lesser, MMORPGs ;) ). You immediately get a quest or mission or whatever they call it in this game, go kill/collect/deliver whatever or whoever and report back. So off you go, continuing through quests and increasing in experience/level/skill. How exciting! But you may come to the point where you ask yourself, "Why am I doing this?" I don't mean playing the game, hopefully you're doing that because it's fun. More like, "Why would my character agree to accomplish this task for someone?" As actors of the Method school might say, "What is my motivation?"

A Motivational Speech

This is when the "Role-Playing" in MMORPG becomes important. I am not talking about sitting around Cantrips and Crows in Dalaran or The Prancing Pony in Bree and saying "thee, thou, and forsooth." Though if that's your thing, more power to you; I am glad you enjoy it. I don't generally do much of that in my own game play. What I am talking about is increasing the depth of your character. In real life, we make decisions every day based on our values--how we were brought up--and current circumstances and necessities. You may work because you need the money, and that is an excellent motivation in-game and in RL. But I bet you chose how you earn your RL money based on a completely different set of not-primarily-financial reasons. By the same token, your character may take a quest for the money, but why is your character a rogue, or a barbarian, or a science officer? You have a background, does your avatar?

Most of the characters I create for the MMORPGs that I play have some sort of backstory, even if it is only in my own imagination. I think of them as having come from somewhere. I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about what to name them. In World of Warcraft, this is complicated by the need to have a unique name. Having a good name, and not just some random Elvish or Caldari sounding mix of letters, is vital to the background of your avatar. Of course, that random jumble may be a good jumping off point. My first Bridge Officer, Tarah, in Star Trek Online still has her original random name as a "short name," though I did a little research and developed a full (though non-canon) Andorian name for her as part of her background. Her captain, Rowan Starblanket, has a middle name culled from an online Vulcan dictionary.

You'll probably want to know where your character is from in the game world. This can lead to other motivations based on the history of their homeland or homeworld. My twins in WoW, Rowanblaze and Hollyhammer, lost their home and family to an Orc incursion in the Redridge Mountains, and their upbringing in the shadow of the Cathedral of Light as orphans plays into their classes (priest and paladin) and their talent specializations. In EVE online, to have an Amarrian character means a natural inclination toward a certain set of religious values, perhaps even fanaticism. Or your character may rebel against that background and be a heretic. Gallentes would be perhaps more mercenary or at least mercantile in their outlook on life.

As your characters progress through the game, the tasks they complete and places they go become part of the background of the character. Different locales and situations have a greater or lesser impact on their motivations. These things don't even have to occur in-game. My aforementioned paladin, Hollyhammer, spent time with the the Scarlet Crusade before recognizing the fanatic cult for what it was, and escaping. Of course, in-game it is not really possible to join the Scarlet Crusade. But Holly's mildly fanatical attitude made that a logical thing to include in her story.

Your character doesn't have to have your own personality. You may be Mother Teresa in real life, but your avatar is a nefarious assassin, or a brutal warrior. The opposite may also be true. I would not surprised, however, if your toons are a reflection of you to some degree. Now you may want to to write down an elaborate summary of your character's life so far. You may even end up writing stories about your character's adventures. Or you may want to just have it in the back of your mind as you play. Either way, I would guess your avatar will become more of a living, breathing character instead of just pixels on the screen.

Oh, and READ the mission/quest/task before accepting it. Otherwise killing those Kobolds or Tusken Raiders serves no real purpose, and you might as well be playing Street Fighter.

WoW, I Actually Choked Up a Little

2010-12-13T18:11:00.005-06:00

So my GF went and got World of Warcraft and the first two expansions, The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, and installed them on her computer. So we've been playing together online for a few sessions. We did the the Recruit-a-Friend thing to tie our accounts together, and it has been cool to get the extra XP. GeeCee was right though: we seem to be leveling ourselves right out of the zones we're supposed to be playing in. Which is good neither for learning lore nor for learning how to control your character, if you're new to the game and to MMORPGs in general. I decided it didn't matter, we'll continue on the lore path and not worry about the XP, because it does make the World a little safer when you're overpowered for the zone you're in.

DGF does have some problems steering, even with a conventional mouse. She has a tendency to push the mouse forward as she runs, which causes the camera angle to climb until she is looking at the sky. We both figure this is something she'll get used to correcting until it becomes automatic for her. I need to look at her video settings, too, to see what can be sacrificed so she can have a decent frame rate.

I have also been playing a new Troll Druid on Silvermoon, named Pawpaw Legba. It was interesting to talk to the druid trainer and find out the lore behind the new ability of the Trolls to become druids. The tutorial quest line started a little different than some of the other noob areas I have been playing, and ended up a little more epic, I think, (spoiler) as Pawpaw Legba was called upon to assist in consolidating the Troll foothold on the Echo Isles. Maybe the other noob quest lines have stuff like it, but I haven't seen it. I got to see the reason for Vol'jin's departure from Orgrimmar, and I wonder if it occurred before or after Cairne Bloodhoof's death at the hands of Garrosh Hellscream. Oh! and talk about "on rails," there were a couple times that I was told to get on a raptor mount and was taken straight to the location of the next quest. No getting lost here. From the beginning, there was an NPC noob that I would encounter here and there throughout the quest line. Unfortunately, he was killed in the climactic battle on the Islands before I was sent to the mainland. I was actually a little shocked and saddened by it. I guess I got a little too involved, lol.

I have also enjoyed the changes to the Forsaken noob zone at Deathknell (playing as Bleeding Lily) but I have not gotten as far there, again playing with my lovely GF. :)

Project WoW Noob: Rowan's GF Edition

2010-12-07T19:54:00.004-06:00

So I had my own Project WoW Noob on Saturday, and thought I might post about it here, so as not to steal thunder from Jarira. I probably won't be continuing this as a series like GeeCee, though.

Having played D&D as a teen, my GF expressed some interest in checking out World of Warcraft. So I jumped on the Silvermoon realm and had her create a character on my account to try it out. She chose a Blood Elf Paladin. I had hoped she would pick a different race that had seen more changes to their noob quests, but the BElfs are so pretty. She had some fun with the customization screen before hitting the "That Name is unavailable" roadblock. We got over it as this was only going to be a trial toon anyway, and she entered the World. The race intro started and we learned about the glorious past of the Blood Elf Pe--her phone rang. It was her daughter, so she had to take it. I logged her toon out and started a dummy toon just so she could see the intro in full. I personally love the sense of story I get when listening to these; plus the fly-throughs of areas long familiar to me, but which will brand new to her.

Logging her back in, I directed her to talk to the first quest-giver. She had a hard time using my Logitech M570 to steer, as she rarely uses a mouse at all, thanks to her iPhone and netbook. Plus, the mouse controls steering and camera angle at the same time, which can be tough for a noob. So she ended up using the arrow keys, which made me dizzy as the world spun around her. Also, being a pally meant that she had no ranged ability to start with, so she had to be right on top of the target to whack at it the first time. And those darn mana wyrms wouldn't sit still.

Still, she rapidly improved, using a combination of arrow keys and the mouse to target and attack her prey on the various quests. I have a few addons (OK, a ton), but I really like the relatively new WoW map and quest guide, so I have dropped Questhelper. She misunderstood a couple quests, (spoiler) like the first one from the trainer in which you are supposed to learn a new ability and use it on the target dummies. My GF thought that the ability had already been learned and proceeded to find a target dummy, to no avail.

She spent the better part of the morning wandering around Sunstrider Isle with me sitting beside her on the couch giving tips and advice. I tried to avoid giving to much advice, letting her stumble though mistakes but helping when she asked. We didn't have some of gaffes encountered by GeeCee and Jarira, who are not playing in the same room. Heh, I wasn't playing at all actually. The one thing that I did do for her was jump off the top of the Falthrien Academy into the water below, greatly shortening the trip, but not a move for novices.

We had fun laughing at her noobish blunders, but in the end she had done pretty well. It was interesting for me to see things that I normally take for granted through the eyes of a new player, like how to equip new armor, how to decide what weapon to equip, etc. She had enough fun that she wants to play more, though we haven't decided whether we're going to use a dormant second account of mine, or if she will get an independent one. Plus, she's not sure if her current computer can handle the game client. I may be buying RAM for Christmas.

Rowan's NaNoWriMo: An Inglourious Failure.

2010-11-29T14:20:00.002-06:00

So my official word count is 4,777 on the National Novel Writing Month website. Kinda pathetic, I guess. And I doubt I'll get anything else down. I discovered a little about myself, though. While I enjoy writing, I go through spurts of inspiration; as many do, I suppose. This was not a very inspired month, honestly. I know many authors just write until they are "inspired." But that seems a quick way kill any passion I have for a subject. I'll keep plugging away. But I need a real plan, a real plot with a direction; preferably in a world of my own creation, instead of someone else's copyrighted world. Which means far more research than I currently have done. I'll continue to post stuff on my blog as I write, and I may have a few days coming up quick that will provide more opportunity and inspiration.

I also need to keep a notebook, for times I am not close to a computer. Some of my best vignettes on here have come from handwritten rough drafts.

Rowan's Crew: Major Gasira

2010-11-26T17:51:00.003-06:00

Fatima Gasira was born in the city of Prairieview, on Cestus III, in 2379. Gasira means “brave” in Swahili. She enrolled in Starfleet’s MACO Academy at West Point, New York, Earth in 2397. Starfleet Command had learned a lot about the value of troops specializing in close-quarters and hand-to-hand combat tactics during the Cardassian War in the 2350s; and during the Dominion War that followed in the 2370s, they decided to revive an ancient tradition of Marine warriors that had faded from Starfleet in the first years of the Federation, rebuilding a dedicated Corps to accompany Starships on exploratory and combat missions. Gasira graduated from the MACO Academy in 2401 with degrees in Tactical Analysis and Kinesiology (emphasis in Martial Arts). She served in the Klingon front on various planets before being placed in command of the 50-member MACO platoon aboard La Gitana. Normally a lower ranking officer commands a platoon, but Gasira is a major, able to hold her own in senior staff meetings aboard ship. She is outranked only by members of La Gitana’s command team: Rowan, Tarah, Larrea, and Thierry. She has a large tribal-style tattoo on the left side of her head, barely visible under her close-cropped hair, part of which extends down past her hairline as a sideburn. Gasira is thoroughly a Marine, direct, gruff; a hard charger. Her combat-expedient approach to problems rankles Rowan, who is leery of the aggressiveness of the MACOs and the need for combat troops on her ship.