DAW2015: Most of the Rest

I've played quite a few games this year, though perhaps not as many as some other folks. As Belghast said in today's Aggronaut, "[Devs] are my rockstars, and even if you are making a game that no one will ever play…  you are being awesome.  Games bring me so much joy, and there is a cast of often nameless and faceless people who struggled through crunch time to get that product into my hands." Even games I decided not play after some trial or beta are still herculean efforts by teams of people who poured no small portion of their lives into making what they hoped would please the players. No one sets out to make a crappy game. It's usually time and/or resource constraints along with pressures from folks who don't really understand the process that do damage to it. And sometimes a perfectly well-made game just isn't my cuppa tea.

Carbine's Wildstar Team

I spent a chunk of the summer playing Wildstar with Scooter. Wildstar is an interesting mix of old and new game design. I liked the irreverent approach to storytelling, the cartoonish art style, and of course the great music from Jeff Kurtenacker. You can tell the team had a lot of fun developing it. In many ways, playing Wildstar was a lot like I imagine playing in the Firefly 'Verse would/will be. And that's not nothing.

ArenaNet's Guild Wars 2 Team

Tyria is always a nice place to visit, and ArenaNet's buy-to-play approach means that I can poke my my head in whenever I get the itch, without worrying about the hobbles of F2P. I started a couple new characters around Christmas to experience GW2 anew, and enjoyed the look around. While some folks are not impressed with the living story, you can't deny the team is trying to keep things fresh. And of course the "Game of Thorns" expansion is on the horizon.

Trion's Rift Team

Rift will always have a special place in my heart as the game that Scooter and I bonded over. We returned this fall just in time for the Nightmare Tide expansion, and things are still hopping. I like the new minion mini-game, and I really like the Dimensions housing system. It seems like Trion has done the most to enable players to play with all their friends, with the "Faction as Fiction" crossover content; and not only the ability to "mentor" down from higher character levels, but also the ability to "sidekick" up lowbies to match veterans for some content.

Tech Support
On a side note, it is not just the people creating the game that we need to appreciate. I've been assisted many times by the support teams of various games, fixing issues with my account or the game client. Often issues caused by my own derpiness. Thank you so much to all the support personnel and community managers out there.

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