Farewell to the Old, Ring in the New

I have always found doing a year-end retrospective a little awkward, since my blogoversary comes so soon in January, and I feel like I would end up being doing essentially the same post over again. But it's great to read about what other folks have thought about 2014, and what their hopes and plans are for the coming year.

After sorta staring at this post for a couple hours (I am actually doing several things right now), I find myself in the same general stupor of thought that has plagued me regarding the blog and gaming since at least September. Even Rift, which I am still interested in, has fallen a bit by the wayside in the wake of a surprisingly busy December.

I'm watching a lot more TV, by way of Netflix. So many nights, it just seems easier to vedge a bit in front of the boob tube instead of pulling out my gaming rig. And that's actually saying something. I have ripped through the first season Agents of SHIELD after having let it fall by the wayside last year. And I am watching Cosmos, with Neil DeGrasse Tyson, which is proving to be an entertaining look at science. While much of it I've known for years, I'm actually learning a lot. I guess I haven't kept up with everything since I've gotten out of college—at least not developing theories.

This weekend, I dipped back into GW2. Almost deleted several characters just to start over, but I resisted the temptation. I'm relearning how stuff works in that game, plus there have been a few changes since my last foray into Tyria. Depending on her mood, I might even convince Scooter to join me. But even I am not really serious about returning. It's a nice diversion, though. Hopefully, January will involve less running around like a chicken with its head cut off, and we can settle back into a decent gaming routine. Telara needs us. Or something.

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QOTD: Functional Plateau

I have a theory that all software inevitably reaches a functional plateau from a user’s perspective long before its designers are done with it. Consequently they go on fiddling and tweaking when we are already fully satisfied. Applies to MMOs, too.
~Bhagpuss, commenting on TAGN.

I have seen this phenomenon myself, over and over again. I believe it may apply to other, more durable, products, as well. But the relative ease of changing software means it happens faster in that industry.

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Bloggy Xmas Day 20: Twisted Peppermint

So the Bloggy Xmas living advent calendar comes around to me. I share today with The Mystical Mesmer and I look forward to reading his post. One of the disadvantages of going late in the month is that I doubt I will have anything new to say about the topic of "Community." But when have I ever let that stop me?

I have covered the topic of community many times on this blog. In fact, a total of 82 posts, including this one, are tagged as community related.

Dictionary.com's third definition for community is as follows:

a social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common characteristics or interests and perceived or perceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the larger society within which it exists (usually preceded by the):
"the business community; the community of scholars."

The (video) gaming community certainly shares common interests,  if not characteristics, and we do perceive ourselves as distinct from larger society, even if study after survey indicates that the vast majority of people in developed countries play video games of some sort. Game bloggers are an even smaller community.

I love participating in community events like NBI, Blaugust, and Bloggy Xmas, and am grateful for folks like Belghast and Syl who organize such events. Every year, Stargrace organizes a gamer Secret Santa. Much like guild leadership, it is not a job I envy. I, myself, lack the motivation (and perhaps charisma) to get folks to come together like that, though I am happy to encourage the leaders and my fellow participants.

I have had the pleasure of playing with many fellow bloggers, and enjoy reading about the exploits of many more. Living in the Internet Age, we don't have to reside in the same geographic locale to develop friendships and, in some cases, even familial bonds. Our community spans the globe. Like many other online communities, we discover that we are not alone and can find refuge with each other from the travails of our lives.

Sometimes we disagree, and sometimes it gets ugly. But we are not all the same, anymore than mere geography makes us the same as others in our offline communities. Things can get ugly there, too.

However, this is the season for communities to come together, help each other and spread goodwill. Much like Syl's Swiss fellow citizens come together to create a town-wide advent calendar, hopefully this Bloggy Xmas will promote good cheer and a greater sense of community in this blogosphere.

Syl, the MMO Gypsy, has organized a community of bloggers to present a post or two each day from 1 December until Christmas. Just click the calendar to go to the Event site. And may you find joy in whatever holidays you celebrate this month.

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Whence Progress?

The Aggronaut has a post out singing the praises of a World of Warcraft currency exchange proposed by Blizzard that Bel has dubbed BLEX. In it, Bel mentions a mentoring system as part of his wishlist for WoW innovations. Lord Tridus from A Goon's Day Off thinks that such a system is simply a bandaid, for the problem of levels and old content. I threw in my two cents. (Quotes are his.)

"Flatten or wipe out the level curve entirely and content now becomes scaled on gear"
This system has worked fairly well in The Secret World, but the classless Ability Wheel and Skill System are very different from the classful system of WoW. I wonder if there would not be balance issues if they didn't completely redesign Azeroth from the ground up (and not just the landscape). And in TSW, you still cannot walk into the top areas in low level gear and expect to survive.

"as gear stats are all based on easily scaleable formulae already"
But that scalability depends on levels—that is, a single stat unit on gear has greater impact at lower levels than it does at max. Without levels, what would they scale gear-stats to?

For better or for worse, MMORPGs seem to be about all about character progression. Progression through gear can work, but there might be an upper limit to it that would be just as bad as plain ol' levels. And then, like Funcom's AEGIS for TSW, Blizz would be forced to come up with some other new system to represent progress to satisfy those players that are at the leading edge of content/stats.

The nice thing about a mentoring system like Rift's (unlike GW2's, for instance) is that you can choose whether areas you have already surpassed will be trivial or a continued challenge. There are plenty of times where I just want to beeline my way across a low zone rather than deal with the trash mobs milling about. Other times, I want to participate in the content at level; zone events, for example, or dungeons. Mentoring allows me to do so.

Like Tridus, I would like to see a truly level-less game. But I wonder if we're in the minority.

As far as BLEX, it sounds like a good idea. I've never gotten involved in that type of market, but I have considered it in order to get some quick game currency. And if it beats criminal gold farmers at their own game while replenishing the development coffers, so much the better.

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December Doldrums

The first half of December has seemed fairly hectic this year. Real Life busy-ness has cut into my game time; and quite honestly, my gaming energy. I don't feel like there's a ton to write about on this blog, hence the paucity of posts. After playing Rift intensely during Thanksgiving weekend, I have barely logged in the past two weeks. This is not burn-out so much as a fear of burn-out, methinks.

On the other hand, I have burned out on The Secret World. A few frustrating sessions in Tokyo have led to me taking an indefinite hiatus from the game. This decision has a lot to do with my aforementioned energy crisis. There have been times in the past, even recently, that I enjoyed the challenge TSW presents. But I am part of the camp that feels the AEGIS system brings an unnecessary layer of complexity ("complexity for complexity's sake") to the game. And right now, I don't feel it's necessary for me to expend further energy on it. There is so much I like about the game—the story, the attention to detail, the ability wheel system—but it's not enough to overcome the feeling that, in Tokyo, I am fighting every fight twice, thanks to the necessity of burning down the mob's shield. And that's even assuming I have equipped the right "weapon," when failure to do so may or may not lead to either a hasty retreat or a not-exactly-quick death on my part.

Far more agonizing was the decision to leave Beyond the Veil. Xander, Antida, and the rest have become friends over the past year-and-a-half, and I feel I am letting them down. But I find that I have little to contribute to a webcast about a game I am reluctant to play. In the meantime, they seem to have recruited some new blood, and the show is as exciting as ever.

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Syl's Bloggy Xmas

Just putting this here to celebrate the advent of "the Season."

Syl, the MMO Gypsy, has organized a community of bloggers to present a post or two each day from now until December 25*. My own is later in the month. Just click the calendar to go to the Event site. :) And may you find joy in whatever holidays you celebrate this month.

*I was mistaken earlier.
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Boosted to 60, Still Faffing About

In our last episode, Scooter and I were "taking it slow" in Rift, taking in the salty breezes, as it were. Funny thing, though: after writing the post, I realized we'd passed level 40—within ten levels of the original cap—in about 5 weeks; something that took months during our first go 'round in 2011.

Rainbows in the Dark
A new event came on the heels of Rift's Autumn Harvest this past week: "Unicornalia." Not a seasonal event, but a cash shop promotion, Unicornalia apparently happens a few times a year. There is an in-universe story going on, sort of, and I guess there's stuff in the store, though I haven't investigated thoroughly.

The promotion includes two daily quests that have pushed Scooter and me into activities we had not previously gotten too involved in: Instant Adventures and PvP. You probably know what PvP is, Dear Reader, but Instant Adventures don't seem particularly common in MMOs. I guess in a sense they are like Hearts in GW2, though they serve a different purpose. Basically, they are series of only vaguely related objectives that players can jump into and out of without much difficulty or much reason. Some have you traipsing across the entire zone, while the one we did last night was confined to a relatively small area. As it turns out, there are advantages and disadvantages to both types; though I suppose this is true of many activities (see below).

The PvP daily involves using a wand on an opposing player and channeling a spell for a few seconds. Both Scooter and I jumped into Warfronts to accomplish this before finding out it can be done in the context of a duel with a lot less hassle. That didn't stop us from getting a ton of XP and Favor (Honor) in various battlegrounds over the course of the weekend. I think I am some kind of "Legionaire" now.

A single, non-repeatable quest (not even when the periodic Unicornalia returns) involves killing the end boss of a particular Zone Invasion event. As it turns out, this is a relatively rare occurrence, and Fynralyl and Psynister had not been able to do the quest either. But I found a handy website that monitors current zone events called, appropriately enough, Rift Event Tracker. I watched as the event we needed ("Hooves and Horns") started on another server. Shard hopping! all the cool kids are doing it. I announced it in guild chat and headed over. In the end, it was time for celebration in the House that Bel Built.

Riptide
In other news, Scooter and I took the plunge into the Nightmare Tide, purchasing the $50 Infusion pack. We felt this was the best value for our current needs and budget. Among other things, the Infusion Edition includes a single character boost to 60 (similar to WoD preorder boost to 90) along with gear, professions boosts, etc. I'm not sure how I feel about the boost, to be honest. There are obvious advantages, like the ability to do any content, anywhere, up to the expansion "entry-level" zone. We also got a free boost in Planar Attunement (similar to Augments in TSW, though with less grinding involved).

However, the boost may turn out to be a disadvantage in many respects. As you may have realized by taking level boosts in other games, jumping 20 or more levels introduces a ton of new abilities at once, and making sense of them is a chore, if not a challenge. Are they all still valuable enough to keep them on my bars? Which abilities have become obsolete and can be dispensed with? (I also discovered a Bard ability, "Motif of Encouragement," that is absolutely useless by just about any measure. And blatantly so, something I cannot remember seeing before in an MMO.)

We intend to continue on the now low-level story paths in Scarwood Reach and other vanilla zones (thanks to Mentoring, it would not be a face roll), but the boosts to our professions mean that not only will they stagnate at 375 (since we are not getting resources of the appropriate level), but that we will be missing out on the crafting dailies that give Artisans Marks or the higher level equivalents, because the low level ones are no longer on offer. On the other hand, at least I won't be asked to waste Runecrafter mats on grey items for a while. We also find ourselves relatively cash poor, though I don't think that will matter if we are just questing for story and faffing about in Rifts.

It Might be Me, But It's Definitely You
With the advent of Rift's "Faction as Fiction" in 2012, Warfronts became more randomized affairs. Even though our characters are Defiant, we seemed to find ourselves on the Guardian Team more often than not. But there is a huge difference in running battlegrounds at 40-ish like we did during the first part of the weekend, and running them at 60. The 40-level WFs were kind of fun—fun enough to keep doing them. I managed to accomplish a bunch of the objectives. But at 60, the tone changed. The WFs (same venues, just higher levels) are a lot more stressful, and at least one jackass felt it necessary to criticize the "PvE builds" of his teammates and otherwise insult us.

Now I will admit, I went into the WF with essentially the same souls build I'd been using for questing. But, having just boosted to 60, I was also wearing boosted gear, and there is no way to obtain PvP gear except by doing PvP (cash shop notwithstanding). So if he was referring to gear, there is not much I could do. Also, if you're screaming for MORE HEALZ in a battleground or LFG, you're the problem, not the solution. If you think there should be more of something in a random group of players, you are the one that needs to provide it.

I re-examined my souls build and switched it around, though I am not sure it's better than it was. And I am sure my rotation is not optimized (see the above, regarding boosted abilities). It seems like not only should there should be a division of Warfronts by level (in a game where that is a factor) but also by expertise/interest. That is, maybe the duffers should be separated from those players for whom PvP is SRS BZNS. After all, many of us were only there for our sparkly Unicorn powder.

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Taking it Slow

At this point, I am trying to stop and smell the roses whenever I have the chance.
~Belghast, Tales of the Aggronaut

Though the Aggronaut was referring to Warlords of Draenor, this has kind of become my mantra regarding Rift. Already a smell-the-flowers kind of MMO gamer, I am now moving through the content at what some might consider a glacial pace. For some reason, Scooter and I spend more time each evening doing crafting and Autumn Harvest dailies than "novel" questing. I've even put the breaks on the patron leveling boost, even though I suppose it's not really necessary. Thanks to the mentor system, I can enjoy the zone stories at roughly the level they were designed to be experienced. On the other hand, unlike GW2, if I want to gallop through a lowbie zone without being unhorsed by every mob in sight, I am free to do so. (Yes, I know GW2 has no mounts.)

We re-upped in Rift specifically to mess around. I've been fishing, crafting (two things I rarely really enjoy), wandering around looking for achievements and shinies, trying to organize my dimension houses (I'm up to three slots, now). Scooter even spent Harvest Tokens on a Deepwood Cottage on Sunday. We may run a dungeon or two, Soon™.

So, all in all, we are enjoying our return. This was the first game Scooter and I played together that I had not already played. Rift is where we really bonded as a couple. It's the game that cemented our duo-dynamic. We had a fun run to 50 the first time around; here's for making it to 65 this time, even if by an even more roundabout path.

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Scooter and I, on "Bel Folks Stuff"

So a couple weeks ago, Scooter and I got together with Belghast from Tales of the Aggronaut to chat about stuff. I had enjoyed his first show, featuring Syl, the MMO Gypsy, and I was thrilled when he asked me to participate in the second one. He put the finishing touches on our interview yesterday and hit the publish button. And here is the result.

We talk about various things, like our gaming history and (at the time) recent news in the MMO genre. Bel says he plans to record future episodes closer to his planned publication date, given the slight timey-wimey-ness of our conversation. Honestly though, I guess I am a bit out of touch, because he mentions things have been resolved that we were speculating on two weeks ago.

Anyway, rather than reading me blather on about the show, why don't you give the podcast itself a listen. We had a good time chatting, and I hope you get a kick out of it.

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My MMO History: Updated

Every so often, I update my MMO History page in light of recent activity.

After a long hiatus, I have returned to Rift with my lovely bride, Scooter. We played regularly from the beta tests in January of 2011 through October of the same year. I cannot say enough great things about this game, or the developer, Trion Worlds. It's not perfect, but the polish and responsiveness of the game and company are things other devs should aspire to. For reasons not really clear even to me or Scooter, when our Mains hit 50 (max level at the time), the wind went out of our sails, and we really had no desire to continue playing the game. We got involved again in summer of 2013, with House Stalwart, but discovered that something about the game caused us both eye strain. Now we're back in, have started new characters, and are enjoying our time in Telara.

We dipped our toes into ArcheAge for a few weeks this autumn(2014). It's a beautiful game with an interesting class/skill system, and I'm told the open-world PvP isn't as bad as some have made it out to be. However, due to technical difficulties, we decided to drop the game before getting too far.

Through the summer, we were playing WildStar. Scooter and I have two duos of Exiles, plus I have a few solo toons. It's a fun game with an engaging storyline and a delightful art style reminiscent of World of Warcraft, but some ways an even darker tone. Despite the colorful cartoony look, this is not a game for young children.

Judging from the sheer number of posts tagged with The Secret World, it is my favorite game to play. It's the smartest story and skill/ability system on the market, in my humble opinion, though the additions of the Augment and Aegis systems make and already complicated system almost unwieldy. The issues from 2013, "The Last Train to Cairo" and "A Dream to Kill," feature the most enthralling storylines I have followed in an MMO. I currently have a toon in Egypt's Scorched Desert, and two in Transylvania's Carpathian Fangs, having completed the main story through "The Venetian Agenda." I have not gotten into Tokyo, the new zone that opened up with the release of Issue 9: "The Black Signal."

Scooter and I spent a bit of time in the Landmark alpha this past spring, but the exigencies of the plot rental during early beta—plus technical difficulties with my computer—led to a sharp drop-off in our participation. I'd like to go back and see what has changed in the past few months, but WildStar occupies my thoughts and plans most of the time these days.

Between Christmas and New Years Eve, 2013, we decided to try something a little different, after looking into a couple F2p titles, we started playing EverQuest II. Our first two characters were OK, but we chose poorly on our starting area and tired quickly of the polar tundra around New Halas. Picking up again with a Ratonga Conjurer (me) and a Half-Elf Warden (Scooter) we restarted in Greater Feydark, but are stalled in the second zone of the continent, Butcherblock Mountains.

Guild Wars 2 is a ton of fun (the most important thing in a game), easy to jump into and play for a few minutes or a few hours. The game has a good skill/progression system, great graphics, plenty of lore, and just a touch of whimsy—without going overboard. I have a human Engineer at the max level of 80, and several other characters at lower levels. I haven't actually played in a few months, though.

I played Star Trek Online from just after its release in February of 2010 until May of 2011. I dipped in a toe again in June of 2012, checking out the Duty Officer system and other developments to the game. With the recent Legacy of Romulus expansion, I started up a new Romulan Captain and got my Main up to max level. Amongst all my MMO characters, I am still most attached to my STO crews in many ways.

I had a lot of fun with Star Wars: The Old Republic, from mid-December of 2011 into August of 2012 after pushing to achieve 50 (max level) and finish up the story on my Imperial Agent. I was initially very excited about the story-centric gameplay. The game has a lot going for it; but in the end, the way BioWare and EA have managed the game and community has left a bad taste in my mouth.

I played World of Warcraft from June of 2006, when a friend got me hooked, until October of 2011. I have two level-80+ characters, plus many more lower-level ones. I tried the Pandaren starting area in the Mists of Pandaria expansion (in October, 2012), but got a "been there, done that" feeling from the experience.

Neverwinter is a fun third person shooter/D&D hybrid, and I love my half-Orc Great Weapon Fighter. I didn't get very far, but it was a nice diversion.

I have tried Lord of the Rings Online, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, Defiance, and The Elder Scrolls Online, but found them not to my taste.

Please see also my character pages. Links above.
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First Time Chills: The Broadcast

I intended to write this up with a day or so of running the Broadcast mission in The Secret World. But this week has been very busy, and others have beaten me to the punch. Much like waiting for G.R.R.M. to crank out another book in the Song of Ice and Fire, it can be frustrating to experience Funcom's glacial pace of updates. But then, when content does break out into the wild, all is forgiven. Because damn! It's just that good.

As my buddy Xander from Beyond the Veil is fond of pointing out, Halloween in the The Secret World is like Christmas in almost every other MMO. The place screams Halloween the whole year round. But the season itself turns it up to eleven. Even though we had to wait until just before the holiday itself, the new mission reminds us what we come here for.

I don't know how much detail I want to go into. Suffice it to say, Dave Screed, the Illumati's pet conspiracy theorist, has stumbled upon something even he's too creeped out to investigate further, and he needs the help of the Bees.

The guy at the end bears an uncanny resemblance to the Bogeyman, maybe they're cousins? Interestingly, just last week, Syp mentioned that the devs made the Bogeyman a unique model and then never used the model again. There is plenty of reuse—both models and locales—in this mission, but that does not stop it from being top-notch.

The old radio programs you encounter throughout the mission are really great, I found myself stopping just to listen to what was going in the programs themselves. But what happens when you (somewhat inevitably) shuffle off your mortal coil is when it really gets interesting.

My compatriots who play TSW all have a moment (perhaps several) where they are quite simply freaked out by the game. Whether it's some dark parking garage housing a Wendigo, or a pitchblack mine with Filth Creeps lurking about, or some Tokyo office with Ghosts hiding just around the corner, TSW has plenty of hot and cold running chills. But none of that affected me until I stood listening to numbers stations with a crowd of fellow spirits.

I am telling you, all the hairs on my body stood on end. I've read read up on the general consensus on the rather mundane origins of numbers stations, but that doesn't stop them from being creepy as hell. So congratulations to Nusquam and Scrivnomancer. You finally got to this fearlessly jaded blogger.

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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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'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.

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.

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.

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.

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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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.

The Tide Rolls In

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.