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Friday, October 31, 2014

Happy Halloween from Beyond the Veil

Last night, the BtV crew celebrated the advent of the Halloween events in The Secret World. Focused around Solomon Island—which, as I mentioned yesterday, is locked in a perennial October—Halloween has special significance in this Lovecraftian wonderland.
Funcom has these awesome party packs in the store. Much like mystery boxes, they contain all sorts of random goodies. But the party boxes drop goodies in the bags of up to twenty people standing nearby, as well as the purchaser. We shot off several during the show, and I got almost a complete Baroness Samedi outfit in Lumie blue, some bloody vivisectionist clothing, and access to a bunch of new make-up options (to be used at Occam's Razor, the in-game barbershop). We also had a bunch of minor contests and giveaways. I think pretty much everyone that was standing around watching the show got an in-game T-shirt or title.
TSW has such a great community. I am more deeply involved in it than I have been in any other MMO, and I actually consider myself a bit on the fringe. We had a great time last night joking and laughing, and dancing. And giving stuff away, which I think we don't do often enough. I hope everyone who attended the party/show enjoyed themselves. We didn't talk a whole lot of what's going on in the game, since few of us had had an opportunity to run the fresh Halloween missions, or the classics they've trotted out from years past. So the remastered show may not make much sense, but there were plenty of moments when high-larity ensued. Because we're all 12 years old, apparently.

Keep your eye out for the remastered episode and all the rest on Holosuite Media's RSS feed, through iTunes (with older episodes here), and through Stitcher. You can catch the live Beyond the Veil webcast every Thursday at about 7p.m. EST (midnight UTC) on Twitch. Beyond the Veil is produced by "Xander Hayes" and Holosuite Media.
~~~
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Thursday, October 30, 2014

'Tis the Season for Screamin'

First, a bit of administrivia: This post is my 125th of the year, matching my total for 2012. Obviously, I anticipate posting more, but I probably won't reach my personal record of 214 from last year. This year, my posting has been really inconsistent from month to month, for various reasons. I started out with an ambitious goal of posting every day, emulating Belghast. However that quickly fell by the wayside, except during the Blaugust community event sponsored by the Aggronaut himself. I came to the realization that posting daily is really not practical for me. My readership has steadily grown, however; such that as of this morning, October is my fourth highest month for page hits since I began blogging almost 5 years ago, and it only surpassed September a couple days ago. This not exactly another Bragtoberfest post, and there are certainly more prolific and more popular bloggers out there. But these sorts of stats excite me, so thank you Dear Reader, for sharing some of your day with me.
Sonnenblume takes aim, while Henry awaits her command.
Scooter and I are about halfway through Stonefield on our new characters, Sonnenblume and Girasol. I am definitely enjoying Rift right now. We're approaching this play-through much more casually, doing things we wouldn't normally spend much time on, like fishing dailies. The game has been retooled since the Storm Legion expansion, I guess. A lot of quests no longer require returning to the quest giver, and all the KTR-style quests have been reinvented as "Carnage" quests that trigger as soon as you kill the first creature of a given type. It certainly helps the flow of the zone, though we still got ahead of ourselves twice already in Stonefield. After a couple years of playing together, Scooter and I have developed a rhythm of combat and communication that I think works well. Not that there aren't glitches.  But I really love that we can share this hobby.
I read it, Trion blurb writer. :)
It's Autumn Harvest time in Rift, complete with a bunch of Halloween style items in the store: mounts, costumes, and dimension items. I am having technical issues with my dimensions right now, being able to access only Faen's Retreat, even though I own Warden's point and (in theory) Dormant Core. But I am very tempted by the Halloween themed Dimensions on offer—not to mention all the decor, like cobwebs and jack-o'-lanterns. I don't have enough experience with the event to know if it extends into the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday—celebrated in late November—but for now, there don't appear to be any items reflecting it in the store.

Despite downloading a pretty big patch yesterday evening, I couldn't find any evidence of the Autumn Harvest in Meridian or Granite Falls. Perhaps that crops up in a day or so? Or maybe I just don't know where to find it.
It's dangerous to go alone.
Meanwhile, Halloween has begun in The Secret World. Arguably the biggest event of the year (barely rivaled by Krampusnacht), Halloween in TSW is something special. Heck, The first major zone, Solomon Island, is locked in an eternal October. Of course, they've added something every year, from the Cat God, to SuperJack, and Urban Legends missions. Any TSW player interested in the shirt modeled above can redeem it for their account using the promo code: HALLOWEEN2014TEE. I assume it is a free gift from Joel and crew, available for only a limited time. Since the patch dropped just this morning, I haven't had a chance to check it out. But I will tonight, as Beyond the Veil airs live from in-game with plenty of tricks and treats. Join us about 7p.m. Eastern Time on Holosuite's Twitch channel.
~~~
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Monday, October 27, 2014

Cyber-Bullies and Open-World PvP

This post has some possible triggers. I'm trying to be sensitive to your needs. Forewarned is forearmed.

EDIT: I should also preface this by saying that, while a discussion of ArcheAge precipitated this post, I am not saying the game sucks or that simply not playing it all would not be a reasonable alternative to opening a PvE server. I have never played EVE Online for the very reasons I go into here. I just think it is unfortunate that a game with such an intriguing set of character progression systems should be walled off due to failure to compromise.

A lot has been made of the fact that games like ArcheAge are known to involve open-world PvP at the higher levels. Usually, a game like this has low-level safe areas where players can learn the mechanics of the game without the danger of constant ganking by high level enemies. As players and characters progress in certain aspects of the game, they can stay in the safe zones. Or (as touted by the creators and many players) after a certain level, a player can venture out into zones where PvP is expected and even encouraged. Greater risk leads to greater reward. The problem with this is that it fundamentally changes the game at an arbitrary level (not unlike MMOs where raiding is perceived as the only really viable endgame activity). And now you have people that would be perfectly fine facing only challenges against the game environment forced to enter into a style of play they do not want in order to progress further in the game.
Seanxxp over at Gaming Conjecture has an excellent write-up of why he enjoys Open World PvP:
The thrill of your first few PvP encounters in Eve is a truly memorable thing. The shaking hands and heightened pulse, the sweaty palms and fumbled mouse clicks. It all feels so palpably ‘real’. . . Most times in a sandbox oriented game like Archeage, people are simply looking to achieve the goals that further enhance their own playstyle. . . Does the possibility of getting ganked every now and again really completely outweigh any possible fun you might have the rest of the time you’re playing?
Belghast the Aggronaut counters that by saying:
My key problem with open player versus player combat is the fact that someone is imposing their enjoyment on my playtime. . . What happens then is a series of things that take me out of the place where I was enjoying the game and force me to deal with the whims of another player. . . I just view it as a waste of my time, and I don’t cherish or enjoy it any more than any other waste of time.
After a brief discussion of the aspects of sandboxes in general—and ArcheAge in particular—that he enjoys, Belghast acknowledges that players like him are the "sheep" of the game.
In order for a ganker to have fun, they have to have someone to gank. . . It is going to be us sheep that get drawn into their power games, and us sheep that are inconvenienced by it. . . The folks that will find me, when I least expect it, when I am getting the most enjoyment out of the game are the folks who just want to ruin my night.
Aywren of Clean Casuals responds to Seanxxp and others by discussing her early adventures in Ultima Online:
That was the game that taught me to fear every visible player character when outside of town and run away from everyone at first sight. . . It essentially turned me into a solo player from the very beginning of my MMO experience. . . I play MMOs for relaxation and enjoyment, not to feel stressed.
When I was a child, I was picked on by bullies who knew just the right ways to push my buttons and get a rise out of me. Having undiagnosed ADHD, I was kinetic, easily fixated on trivialities, and easily frustrated. I was skinny and not very coordinated. I was probably average size for my age, but I can remember being pushed around by kids larger than I was. They were probably a grade or more ahead of me. Looking back, I don't think I was ever physically tormented, but I certainly was emotionally and psychologically. I did get into a lot of fights, but they were quickly broken up by adults: teachers, coaches, etc. One psychologist decided I had self-esteem issues and recommended a summer sports program. I eventually got into a fight there, too. I got older, bigger, and repeatedly refused to submit to the bullying.

As an adult, I don't go around getting into fights anymore. Then again, with me standing over six feet tall and tipping the scales close to 300 pounds, few people attempt to intimidate me anymore. But that poor little kid is still in there. With the same feelings. Reacting to the same stressors.

Take physical stature out of the equation, and there are plenty of people who are willing to throw their virtual weight around. A great many people love the rush of PvP, matching wits and perhaps skill with other living, breathing people across the internet. Despite previous commentary I have made, I have come to realize they are no more bullies than the typical basketball pick-up group. They simply enjoy direct competition. There may be some e-peening involved, but they are playing among equals and they enjoy the challenge. I am not talking about them.

Not everyone who loves PvP is a bully. I, myself, love battlegrounds where players are well matched. The sPvP and WvW of Guild Wars 2 is my favorite type. But that is because every character is on an even playing ground. You don't have Major League Baseball going up against Little League.
The kind of player I am talking about enjoys leveling their character up in a game where significant disparities develop between characters several levels apart. In a game like WoW (and we all know there are several), a difference of only 5 levels can be a huge jump in power for a character. more than ten levels and the lower-level character may as well be bringing a whiffle bat to a tank battle. And it's not just that the higher-level character can hit harder and has more hit points. Often the hit/dodge/block chance is skewed, as well, such that the lowbie can't land a blow even if the high-level doesn't fight at all.

There is a certain type of individual that isn't looking for a challenge. They aren't looking for and even fight between equals or near equals. Instead they go into areas where players with characters that have no hope of fighting back are trying to go about their business, and disrupt their gameplay by ganking them. Here, I am not using the term "gank" as synonymous with "ambush" the way some proponents of the practice would like to. Rather, I am using it to describe the act of killing player characters that have no hope of defending themselves. The way a 6th grader might gank a 3rd grader. In other words, a bully. I am willing to bet there are folks out there ready to say that's not how PvP is. That's not how they play. Hey, if the shoe fits . . .

A typical workday for me is not particularly stressful, I suppose, though there are some days that are plenty stressful. Occasionally, something occurs that will set off my sense of justice, but I try to keep things low-key. On business trips, things might be a little more frustrating, depending on how well prepared the local venue is for our meetings/classes. The commute to and from work isn't a joyride. I live in a town with a variety of drivers from around the country and the world, and we don't all have the same habits and norms. This can lead to some stress, as someone might cut me off or break some minor traffic violation that doesn't directly affect me but is irritating nonetheless. Can this ruin my day? Although obviously I am somewhat in control of my own emotional reactions, it certainly doesn't help.

In the past, I have had my house broken into and items of value stolen from me and my family. That's a major stressor, to say the least, between the hassles of police and insurance to figuring out how I will replace what was stolen with the meager insurance payout. And that's just things that can actually be replaced. Some stuff, some keepsakes, are simply gone forever. Right when I started this blog, my battle.net account was hacked (no, my password was not weak, nor were any other of my accounts hacked), and I temporarily lost not just items but a slew of characters. Suffice it to say I have experienced loss through theft in real life.

Getting ganked by a character I have no hope of defending myself against is not what I consider fun. They have stolen my time, if nothing else. And I have a hard time believing that my overwhelming opponent is enjoying any kind of challenge in killing me. Rather, he (or she) is playing out some power fantasy at my expense. It brings back all those feelings of helplessness and persecution on the playground when I was a child. And yes it will ruin my evening. It makes me angry; it brings me stress, the exact opposite of my purpose in playing the game in the first place.

I also believe—from personal experience—that overpowered ganking raises up each new "generation" of players to do the same. "I got ganked by high-level characters, so I am am going to do the same to this lowbie." Suggestions that you could band together with others for protection reeks of gangland-style rackets. It doesn't preclude a larger or high-level group from overwhelming your tiny trade caravan anyway; or worse, your group preying upon a weaker one.

Suggestions that maybe Trion could open a PvE-only ArcheAge server or two were met with strenuous protests on the forums. "‘PVE server’ goes against everything that AA stands for." Translation: all the sheep will run away, and the wolves won't have anyone to gank. Besides, I didn't know that ArcheAge was a philosophy that stands for anything. As was aptly argued by Syp, given that a PvE server would simply be another option, there is no legitimate reason why it should not be an option for those players that enjoy the game for reasons other than the opportunity to become involved in either side of a curb-stomp skirmish.

All this is a bit moot for me, as far as ArcheAge is concerned, since Scooter and I stopped playing due to technical issues. However, I still wanted to add my voice to the conversation because I had not seen anyone else articulate my point of view on the subject. None of what I have said may apply to you, but look hard into the mirror before you protest too much.
~~~
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Thursday, October 23, 2014

The Tide Rolls In

The lovely Scooter as Sonnenblume
Rift's Nightmare Tide expansion launched yesterday. And with our return to Telara only last week, Scooter and I were sort of primed to get right in and check it out. Since I wasn't really tracking the date of the expansion other than "some time this fall," when I discovered there was a patch to load, I initially assumed it was the Halloween event. Until I started reading the patch notes (which, honestly, I rarely do). Rift 3.0 brings lots of changes and new things. Stats have been simplified a bit, like Deflect being rolled into Block. The Warrior soul "Reaver" has received a complete overhaul, warranting its own section in the patch notes. And, of course, there are new zones, new instanced dungeons, raids, etc.

We are concentrating on new characters, and our highest level characters are not even through the Storm Legion content. So Scooter and I were not in a position to check out the Nightmare Tide zones. The plus side to sticking to lowbies was that we didn't encounter huge crowds fighting around us like Belghast did.

We did, however, get a chance to try out the brand new Minion system. I assumed at first that minions would be like some kind of combat companion like SWTOR or EQ2 have. However, it bears more resemblance to STO's Duty Officers mixed with Neverwinter's Professions, where you send your minions out on adventures to collect stuff for you. The interface is kinda cool, more like a card game than anything else. Scooter and I bought all the basic minions, who turn out to be creatures, rather than humanoids (Stofie is a shrimp, for instance). The adventures range from one minute to several hours, with corresponding costs and rewards. And many are amusing, though there seems to be little choice beyond the four on display at any given time. Unlocking adventure slots costs credits (in other words, RL money) and I accidentally bought one because of where the button is on the interface. Overall, Minions seem like a cute diversion, though an offline interface through the Rift mobile app would be really cool.
I totally stole this screen from Belghast, I was going to replace it, but my interface looks basically the same.
We were looking at crafting last night, as well, and I ended up going with Dream Weaver, among other things. DW is a "new" crafting profession (introduced in January, 2014) that is able to create Dimension (a.k.a. Housing) items and effects, including whole Dimensions. Seems like it may be quite a resource sink, especially given that the resources it uses are artifacts (a.k.a. Shinies). So I am torn between using Shinies to fill out my own collections or using them as the crafting materials for my Dream Weaving. DW-crafted items seem to go for quite a bit at the Auction House, but I noticed they were all buyout only, so the prices may be wishful thinking on the part of the crafter/sellers.

I ended up raiding the guild bank of House Stalwart of a bunch of Shinies, but I don't want to seem too greedy. On the other hand, prior to last night, it had been over a month since anyone had touched the guild bank, and House Stalwart's message of the day can be paraphrased as "Take the Shinies."

Having just plunked down a bunch of dough on patron status and other goodies, I was not prepared to purchase any of the Nightmare Tide special editions with their bonuses and boosts. We'll see next month whether we are still enjoying ourselves and want the goodies. I really like Rift, but I am cautious about making the investment only to leave in a few weeks like the last time we played.

And I kind of hate that, too. That indecision about making a commitment to my hobby.
~~~
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Sunday, October 19, 2014

Golden Child

I can't believe it took me a whole week to get this posted, but there's been a lot going on, I suppose. Last weekend Funcom put on a Golden Weekend, including a new outfit ("Extra Heavy Metal"), and a chance to fight Samsu Nasiru (aka Goldzilla). The big deal—at least for me—was the chance to get double AP for working on the wheel. Over the course of the weekend, I managed to gain several hundred ability points and over 21 abilities on the wheel, finishing out the 21-point abilities and putting a significant dent in the 27-point tier.

Grinding the Goldzilla fight (12 TIMES Saturday and Sunday) got a little boring, so I also ran through the Last Train to Cairo mission series. It's still my favorite of the DLC Issues, I can't get over how awesome the Train instance is. One of these days I am going to have to get the Issue 9, The Black Signal, and run through Tokyo with Scooter.

This weekend has been more about getting settled into Rift, not to mention replacing a ceiling fan that malfunctioned in September. It's already significantly cooler in the living room, which is where I spend most of my time gaming.
~~~
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Friday, October 17, 2014

End of an Age

I have a longer post about Open World PvP, but it may be moot as far as ArcheAge goes. Even after Scooter did a bunch of research and upgraded her video drivers, etc., her computer still spontaneously reboots at random while running the client. So despite a promising little storyline and a pretty good skill/ability system—not to mention beautiful graphics—we will no longer be playing the game.
Misteli II
ArcheAge isn't the only game we are leaving behind this month. Despite my optimism about WildStar's server mega-merger (with a healthy side helping of "Why wasn't it this way at launch?"), the truth is all my characters have stalled just after reaching eligibility for housing. Messing around with my various WildStar plots—and examining the farm/housing system in ArcheAge—only makes me long for the Dimension system Trion uses for Rift. Scooter canceled her WildStar sub a week or so ago, and I followed suit just the other day. We have until our current month runs out, but I doubt we'll be doing much on Nexus.
Sonnenblume (Scooter) and Girasol
And so Scooter and I made the decision last night to re-up in Rift to see if we can make a home in Telara. I plan to throw some money at Trion to get the Dream Soul pack, enabling me to possibly create a rogue character similar to the Warpriest class in ArcheAge, a combination of healz, sword-and-board, and archery. A bit has changed since the last time we got involved with Rift, and I think quite a lot has changed since we left the game the first time so many moons ago. I am hoping to see more of what has happened to Telaria in the intervening years.
~~~
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Gamergate Must Stop

Mi·sog·y·ny (məˈsäjənē)—noun: dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women.
(Google it)
I was trying to stay out of gamergate because up until now, it seemed pretty silly: a bunch of hot air and anti-feminism trying to disguise itself as a movement for journalistic integrity. But it has gotten way more serious, and it has to stop.

NEWS FLASH to the gamer-gaters out there: journalism has been prone to corruption for centuries, since long before William Randolph Hearst raised yellow journalism to an art form. News outlets are there to make money; whatever story that sells brings the most revenue will be printed. The industry is a revolving door in and out of politics and other businesses, and the video game development world is no different. Deal with it.

In the meantime, you have allowed whatever modicum of integrity present in your movement to be blown completely away by misogyny. Anita Sarkeesian is pointing out literary tropes that fuel many of the games we play. Counterarguments—even countertropes—and justifications do not make the tropes vanish. It is a literary critique, not a scientific survey; something you would understand if you had paid any attention at all in your high school or college English classes. Brianna Wu and Zoe Quinn are only trying to make games they want to play. There is not a woman out there who is capable of bringing harm to your precious access to digitized violence. You know why? Because there's too much money to be had in publishing the latest GTA or CoD, making your heroes manly men and bodacious babes.
Ter·ror·ism (ˈterəˌrizəm)—noun: the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.
(Google it)
Both Wu and Quinn have had to leave their homes due to credible threats against them and their families. The threats are ugly, describing heinous acts of violation and violence no one should have to contemplate. And now Sarkeesian has decided to cancel a speech at Utah State University because she didn't trust the local police to be able to protect her and other attendees from a specific threat that referenced the Montreal Massacre, a mass shooting in December of 1989 directed at engineering students in Montreal's École Polytechnique. The shooter in Montreal also claimed that his life had been ruined by feminists, singled out women, and murdered 14 before killing himself.
Obtained from this story in the Standard Examiner
If this were an Islamic militant, I would bet money that DHS would already have him (because it's not a woman) in custody. I can only hope the authorities track down the USU threat with the same zeal they would any other terrorist and prosecute him to the full extent of the law. To do otherwise would be hypocrisy in the extreme. The ideology is irrelevant; only the threat matters.
As·sault (əˈsôlt)—noun; Law: an act, criminal or tortious, that threatens physical harm to a person, whether or not actual harm is done.
(Google it
And to those who are trying to defend the gamergate movement by saying these sociopaths are only a few outliers, and why shouldn't we be concerned about journalistic integrity, I say this: Look in the mirror. You weren't too concerned about the coziness of game devs and journos before. But your anger exploded based on lies told by a jealous ex-boyfriend. So much for the integrity of the movement. Fight real issues, not theoretical conspiracies. Your first step might be to shed the Gamergate appellation; because frankly, it's tainted by the trolls and whackjobs among you.

I grew up dealing with bullies (more on that in a different post). Gamergaters jumped on me the second I started decrying the movement through the StopGamerGate2014 hashtag. You are not downtrodden, no one is oppressing you. You are nothing but bullies, but you will not bully me. 

Sure, always be wary of what you read. Every journalistic story has biases; some are hidden better than others, and there may even be "corruption." That is no excuse for cajoling, coercing or threatening people out of their homes or jobs because they have opinions or beliefs contrary to your own.
~~~
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Monday, October 13, 2014

ArcheAge Old Questions

Scooter's Stormchaser, Kammi, and Henry the horse
I really want to like ArcheAge. I do. I do like the mix-and-match skill sets. I do like the story behind the main quest line. I do like the character creation, although I think I overdid it on reshaping my own. I always like highly customizable housing (ever since I wished I could do more with my ship in STO).

But I have concerns. The housing that promises to be pretty cool—and functional, at least if you're into farming—turns out to be another thing I may avoid entirely. The open-world nature of the farms means you're always competing with other players for prime space. I "compete" for real estate in the real world. Why would I want some backwater plot in my pretend one?

What, did you think this would be a pic of John Hancock?
Despite the protestations of many, the game is almost completely about PvP. Even those people that say PvP is not the end-all, be-all of the game indirectly admit to actively avoiding PvP combat. Because, while they do manage to avoid said combat, it is no less PvP when you stealth behind enemy lines to deliver trade goods. It just means you're a successful smuggler.

I could be confused on this point.
There also seems to be a theft mechanic to go along with the justice system they have set up. There are those who talk about banding together for protection. Even if it is purely defensive, that ends up looking to me like this. →

On top of all that, Scooter, who was the original impetus behind trying ArcheAge, frequently encounters a problem where ArcheAge literally causes her computer to reboot. Given that it is newer than my own, and there is no heat problem that we can discern, I am at a loss as to what can fix it. The hard drive I have the game installed on was running incessantly during play sessions. But I turned the video settings down, and it seems to be doing better. In the end, if we can't resolve the technical issues Scooter is having, it won't matter whether either of us likes the game or not.
~~~
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Friday, October 10, 2014

Payment Options

So, apparently, the folks at Carbine are looking at possible options for WildStar's business model going forward. Given their previous announcement regarding converting the game infrastructure to a megaserver, I wonder if whatever business model they choose will happen at the same time. Of course, a certain contingent of players decry anything other than a pure subscription model as detrimental to the game. I believe this is short-sighted, especially given NCSoft's penchant for pulling the plug on under-performing titles—however beloved by their fans. Look, everyone realizes that these games are not cheap to design or execute, but maintaining a healthy playerbase may require a departure from the hidebound payment models of yesteryear.

Borrowed from Liore
As for me, I look at Rift or the Secret World as ideal models from a consumer perspective. Rift is free to play, with mostly cosmetic items in the shop. I believe the expansions (some content and new "souls") also cost extra, but player can conceivably reach max level without spending a dime. The cash shop interface even provides some ancillary benefits, like the ability to sell off vendor trash from anywhere in the world.

Found on Google
TSW still costs money to buy, though it tends be heavily discounted. The cash shop also contains mostly cosmetic items, plus content DLC "Issues." There are XP boosts, but they merely speed up ability gains, not power. And again, a player can reach the original "end-game" without paying more than the box price. And neither Rift nor TSW do RMT for quality of life items like extra bank space or whether one's helm can be hidden, at least not that I am aware of.

Both Rift and TSW have monthly subscription options which confer extra benefits in XP and vanity items, but not extra power at end-game. And in an era where you can buy a max-level character in World of Warcraft from Blizzard itself, I don't think people can legitimately cry foul over XP boosts. I think the days of crappy F2P are subsiding; and although there are F2P MMOs that are annoyingly pushy about their cash shops and/or hobbling non-subscribers, the idea that F2P is automatically poor design is an archaic line of thought. Heck, I see folks anticipating SWTOR's impending second(?) expansion, after all sorts of people thought the game was on the ropes when it became free to play less than a year after it launched.
~~~
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

The Fall TV Schedule: What I'm Watching

I was thinking about mentioning what I did last night, which wasn't gaming, when I came into a conversation on Twitter between Sig, Jae Jae, and MangleMichael chimed in after. The conversation was about TV shows, and doing other activities, like phone-gaming, while watching. More and more with each passing year, a show has to be pretty special for me to even turn on the TV. So that's where I focus. That's not to say I leave the room if someone else in the family is watching a show, but there's a good chance it's just background noise to me if I am playing on my phone or computer. Having "cut the Cable," we watch shows through Hulu or Netflix, and occasionally on the network websites. Shows don't automatically bleed from one to the next throughout the evening because no one is really paying attention. Anyway, here are the shows I am making a point to keep track of this season:

Gotham
Three episodes so far. Also, the most talked-about show on my Twitter feed, probably because of the geek/comic book connection.
Premise: Young Bruce Wayne's parents were just murdered, and Detective Jim Gordon is going to find out whodunnit.
Assessment: I like it. But if not for the setting, this would be a fairly pedestrian police drama. On the other hand, it is not Smallville, or even Arrow. There doesn't seem to be the young adult angst those shows exude. Of course, there are a bunch of "stunt" characterizations, like the Poison Ivy cameo and a barely-there Edward Nygma. Some folks think there was a Joker cameo in the pilot, but I'm not so sure. Other colorful villains are a little more central to the plot (Penguin and Catwoman), but it's mostly about organized crime and corruption in Gotham. Robin Lord Taylor stands out as Oswald Cobblepot. I'm glad the main villain is not the Joker, who seems overdone. Taylor does a great job with the weasely, murderous Penguin. I got into a discussion on Twitter regarding this Penguin's similarity (or not) to that of Danny DeVito; regardless, I prefer Taylor's rendition. Jada Pinkett Smith is sultry and menacing as mob sub-boss Fish Mooney.

How to Get Away With Murder
Two episodes so far.
Premise: A group of law students intern under a criminal law professor who is also a practicing defense attorney.
Assessment: Intriguing. Viola Davis will probably get an Emmy nod, assuming the show gets a full season run (and there's no reason to think it won't). The show mixes a episodic bit of House in the courtroom with a presumably season-long murder conspiracy arc that keep you guessing.  Slightly annoying: Quick flashes of key events near the end of the episode, just in case you missed an important clue. I suppose this would be more helpful and less annoying if I hadn't picked up on things earlier in the episode. But it shows an underestimation of the audience, IMHO.

The Blacklist
Three episodes into the second season. The only show I stuck with last year. You can catch all of Season 1 on Netflix if you are so inclined.
Premise: Raymond "Red" Reddington has enemies. And the FBI is helping him eliminate them.
Assessment: Amazing. James Spader is pitch perfect as the likable, yet menacing "Concierge of Crime," and Megan Boone leads the rest of the cast giving solid performances. More than the case-of-the-week in "Murder" above, each villain-of-the-week on Red's blacklist ties into the larger story arc. Plus, each episode raises questions even as it answers others. I just hope the writers know where they're headed, unlike some other twisty-turny mystery shows. *cough*Lost*cough* I'm not sure what more to say here, except that I highly recommend the Blacklist to anyone who wants awesome television.
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Tuesday, October 7, 2014

BtV Tier 110: PvP – Past, Present and Future

Last Thursday was the first time in a month that I managed to join the BtV crew for a live webcast. We got together with members of the TSW PvP community in Beyond the Veil Tier 110, the remastered edition of which is now available. I'll be honest, I haven't done PvP in TSW (which is currently limited to three faction battlegrounds, and three free-for-all "fight clubs"). And I haven't been kind in my assessment of PvPers on past episodes of the show. However, our guests were wonderful, and playing with them sounds like a lot of fun.
You can subscribe to the show through Holosuite Media's RSS feed, through iTunes (with older episodes here), and through Stitcher. We have fully transitioned our streaming service, and webcast Beyond the Veil live every Thursday at about 7p.m. EDT (11p.m. UTC) on Twitch. Beyond the Veil is produced by "Xander Hayes" and Holosuite Media.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Monday, October 6, 2014

Chasing a Wraith

Meet Steve, my horse.
The Dead Horse Discussion
On Friday, I wrote a post decrying the schadenfreude of some in the MMO community over the apparent difficulties WildStar and its dev team are having of late. Commenters were of the opinion that Carbine brought it upon themselves as a result of their arrogance and foolishly catering to what turned out to be a very niche group of "hardcore" raiders.

Then Belghast wrote on Saturday about the decline of MMOs in general (not exactly a new topic), highlighting the fact that—other than Everquest Next, which is probably years away—there is not really any AAA MMORPG on the horizon. We have WoW 6.0 coming up, but Blizzard has shuttered development on Titan, effectively "admitting that the MMO genre has no more room for new players."

Scooter's AA Avatar, Kammi
The Elephant in the Room
Without a doubt, in the absence of WoW, the MMO landscape would look very different. And it would likely be much smaller. As it is, compared to genres/franchises like Call of Duty, MMOs are small potatoes. But up till now, big publishers like EA, NCSoft, and Activision were willing to throw big money at almost any studio with a good idea for getting a piece of the MMO pie. That seems to have changed; even though without WoW in the picture, almost every MMORPG that has been published could be considered a success.

But they're also relatively homogenous, and WoW is blamed for that. Much like Hollywood, a blockbuster in the video game industry begets clones as studios attempt to replicate that success. Everyone remember the Guitar Hero spinoffs and clones? Don't forget that WoW itself is a both a reply to and an attempt to capitalize on the success of (vanilla) EverQuest. But without WoW, there is no guarantee we would have SWTOR or Rift—or TSW or ESO for that matter. If we did, however, it's a safe bet that they would actually be of a different design than they are now and would be less like one another.

Virtual Nomads
And so we players flock from one MMO to another. Some would say we swarm like locusts. But perhaps like heroin, chasing that initial high is a futile endeavor. We're chasing whatever it was that felt amazing about being in a virtual world with other players from around the globe. I've played with folks from China and Australia, to Brits, Canadians, and Continentals. But the sense of wonder about online play—or the glitter of snow in Dun Morogh—is over for me. WoW isn't home anymore, but neither is any other game.
Misteli, Battleraging Vitalist
The Age of Arches?
Which brings me to ArcheAge, a game I had not intended to touch given the toxic PvP atmosphere it was rumored to embrace. However, while I was participating in the latest episode of Beyond the Veil last Thursday, Scooter was downloading the AA client. While she enjoys the games we now play, she is ever in search of something new. It was upon her suggestion that we briefly looked at EQ2 early this year.

Since it's free to play, I fired it up myself, and got in close to six hours of play yesterday, including a sizable amount of time customizing my character, a Nuia Vitalist I named Misteli (Finnish for mistletoe). Scooter had created a Nuia Archer already on the Enla server, naming her Kammi and playing to level 5. Together, we made it to level 9 and the village of Lacton before calling it a night.

Honestly, so far I like it. Not quite as frenetic as WildStar, at least at this level. No standing in/dodging out of "the stupid." And though I haven't gotten a great handle on it, I like the possibilities of the mix-and-match class/skills system, reminiscent of ESO. I picked Battlerage as my secondary set when the time came. I may have screwed it up; but right now, Misteli plays a bit like my cleric in Rift, both the tank and the healer for Scooter's DPS.

As far as movement and combat, if ESO had had this control scheme from the get-go, it would have been a no-brainer over WildStar. ArcheAge has very much what I consider an MMO-style rather than a reticle-aiming combat scheme; I had no trouble getting around, even on the rowboats (that were thankfully unobstructed by griefers when we crossed the bay).

Much like WildStar, I guess I will be taking ArcheAge one level/feature at a time. It's fun right now, but I don't know whether it will continue to be so as we get further into the game. And when the time comes, will I be willing to pay to "remove the suck"?
~~~
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Friday, October 3, 2014

QOTD: Schadenfreude

It's one thing to deeply oppose a game's design, but if you take delight in watching major MMOs flounder, you don't really deserve this genre at all.
~~Brianna Royce, Massively (emphasis in original) 
I have seen this phenomenon over and over. Someone who doesn't like a game gloats over bad news regarding said game. It goes beyond simple a "I told you so" and becomes a perverted schadenfreude.

I say this not as a current subscriber to WildStar, but as a human being: Wishing for and then gloating over someone's failures (whether real or perceived), is the worst sort of immaturity. Especially since most of the armchair game designers could never even hope to get their pet ideas off the ground, much less have any sort of commercial success.
~~~
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Slacktember

I remember one piece of advice I saw during one NBI or another was "Never apologize for a gap in blog activity."

Belghast sent me a DM on Twitter asking if everything was OK, because I really haven't posted much this month. He was worried that perhaps Blaugust had burned me out. Blaugust was great, and I posted every day, but my writing pattern/routine was really not sustainable for various reasons. I felt a need to break away from that routine at the beginning of Slacktember, which, when combined with an extended business trip, led to limited posting.
And not much has changed. I am still playing WildStar with no plans for any other game other than getting back into The Secret World, which I have severely neglected of late. I also dipped into DragonAge: Origins, but am having difficulty convincing the game client that I am entitled to the extras I have paid for.

Thus, I find myself somewhat behind in posts from last year, but a bit ahead of 2012, and even with only two posts, Slacktember 2014 is in my top 7 months (of 57) for pagehits.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.