Here I Go Again, On My Own
3I am not whining. I am not kissing-off. I’m not looking for (any more than the usual) attention (that anyone who blogs appreciates).
In fact, this is more of a revelatory post than anything else.
So this morning, I decided that I had experienced my fill of Star Wars: The Old Republic. I hadn’t logged in for a few days, and the last time I did, I had forgotten where I was in the story. In the absence of that critical feature, I just couldn’t get excited about what was left: trashing mobs between objectives; rinse; repeat. This isn’t a bash. SWTOR is an excellent game, very well done, and is a worthy addition to the MMO genre. My ADHD just got the better of me once more, and when I don’t log in to a game for a few days, it’s always hard for me to return to it. In this case, blame Star Trek Online.
Yeah, STO. It’s older. It’s sometimes polarizing. But I got an email saying that I could get in early for the F2P shift because I was a lapsed subscriber, and I’m finding that I’m having a lot of fun with it. This is not unusual for me. I find that I have returned to most of the MMOs I’ve quit. In thinking about my future with SWTOR, I actually thought about this cycle: if I return to these games later on, and potentially have a lot of fun with them, why did I quit them in the first place?
Like a lot of gamers I know, I’m pretty easily swayed by hype. It’s OK; I’m man enough to admit that marketing materials are super-effective when it comes to new games, most of the time. What really pushes me over the edge is the excitement generated by the People I Trust™ on the social networks. When the tide rises and people start peeing their pants over the next MMO, it’s infectious, so long as I can find something about the game that I can enjoy, I’m more then willing to jump on board on day one and play hard until the steam runs out. That’s when I usually quit, and it mysteriously ends up being around the mid level 30s.
But then I return at some point down the road. I have done it for EVE Online, Everquest II, Lord of the Rings Online, Star Trek Online, and many others that I just can’t remember right now. Usually at that point, I end up having a lot more fun then I did the first time around. So my mental task for this morning was this: How can I skip that initial burnout, and just get that second-wind enjoyment?
When I say “play hard”, it’s not as hard as other people. I’m a fairly casual hardcore gamer; I play frequently, I play many things, I play on almost all platforms, but I don’t usually use guides, and my goal has never been to get to the “end game” of any MMO. I end up leveling much slower then others around me, which is both OK and a pain in the ass, but if I’m in at launch, I usually ramp up the participation. I played 15 hours straight on Rift’s launch day, and maybe 9 hours for SWTOR. So when I say “burnout”, it’s not in the traditional sense; it’s more like I get a point of fatigue where I allow another game to intercept my time, and then my momentum is broken. So “Play hard” is really in relation to the end result: a precipitous decline in time spent in the game, which translates into a “what the hell have I been doing?” sobering up.
When I go back, though, it’s usually after the announcement of an update or expansion. Developers have had time to fix issues and release new content. When I return in these situations, I’m seeing the game with fresh eyes, and have something new to experience in the process. Unlike the new release, there’s no pressure when I return. I’m not surrounded by people rushing to the level cap, and I’m playing the game because I want to, not because I got swept up in the excitement of marketing and communal hysteria.
The problem is, I can’t skip that initial foray into the game and just get to “the good stuff” because it’s precisely that initial leaving that allows me to have those relaxed epiphanies that I enjoy so much more. When I (or we, if you agree with me) fire up a new game, it’s new in so many ways (even SWTOR, with it’s classic theme park sensibilities, had that “new game smell” about it). There’s new artwork, new UIs, new mechanics, new vistas, and new people. Even those repeated tropes we see across many MMOs are tweaked and for a little while it’s possible (if you allow yourself to) to see them all in a new light. New games offer new discoveries, and it’s fun to make those discoveries alongside everyone else. When the dust settles, though (for me, around the 30s), I’ve gotten into the groove. The mechanics have been memorized, the UI is burned into my mind, and one zone starts to looks an awful lot like the previous zone, in composition if not design. Here’s where the fatigue may set in unless there are extenuating circumstances to negate it – like people to play with on a reliable basis.
Returning to a game that’s familiar, but changed slightly, makes it an almost different beast. You get a little bit of that “newness” back as you try to remember what your abilities do, and where you are, and what you’re supposed to be doing. Chances are at this time, anyone you might have known in the game has either left, or is on his or her Nth round of alts. The players have rubbed the game to a smooth sheen in your absence, and it’s now comfortable and relaxed, like a comfy armchair in front of a fire on a cold evening, as opposed to the mad crush of Wal Mart at 4AM on Black Friday that we have with launch days.
So it’s because I spent that initial mad rush shoulder to shoulder with everyone else on launch day, learning the ropes, that I get that disappointment of losing all the “new” from the game out of the way, and can come back to the game and appreciate it when the dust settles. I can’t ever expect to start a new game – even six months after it launches – and to stick with it through to the level cap. I apparently need this cycle of hype-play-quit-rest-replay in order to get the kind of comfortable enjoyment that I need to enjoy these games.
Crowdsourcing Your Imagination #D&D
0Here’s a new one: Dungeons and Dragons, Fifth Edition.
Here’s one better: Wizards of the Coast wants you to help design it.
According to the NYT article, conjecture is that the D&D franchise has been slipping for years due to dilution of the product (card games, board games, video games, etc), competition from upstarts like Pathfinder, and, of course, video games. I personally thing that It’s more of a case of relevance than it is a case of “what’s better”, although I could write chapter and verse about how tabletop gaming offers a different outlet then video gaming. The problem is that D&D is relevant as a cultural touchstone for many geeks my age who played it when they were younger, before the rest of the noise that the franchise is fighting was ever conceived. We have fond memories, and many of us would really like to get back into it, but we don’t have the time or the people nearby to play with, so we shrug and go back to our video games where we can play (alone) with millions of other people. The experience of tabletop gaming is still relevant to us, but we don’t have the time or the resources. Then there’s the case that a lot of D&D purists didn’t like the 4E direction, complaining that it was capitulating to the dominance of the video game mentality and pulling the imagination out of the product. So Wizards is crowdsourcing the design of the 5E to the community.
The idea is that they’ll be engaging players in play-testing, and then will take the feedback to mold the 5E, and by doing so, Wizards hopes that the players will feel invested in the experience because they’ll have made it their own. This investment in making the game personal is the real hallmark of tabletop roleplaying games, and is something that no video game has really ever been able to provide.
The problem with this plan as I see it is that we live in the Internet Age. You know, where people create screen names to hide behind so they can toss out spittle-flecked rants with virtually no ramifications whatsoever? Where everyone is quick to blame someone else, because everyone else is a moron? The Internet is great in that it’s allowed people from all over the world to come together and share their individual thoughts, beliefs and ideas; it’s also been one of the worst dehumanizing inventions ever created because it’s allowed people from all over the world to come together and share their individual thoughts, beliefs and ideas – and then to belittle, insult, and demean the individual thoughts, beliefs, and ideas of others. D&D has long “enjoyed” the stereotype of the “rules Nazi”, that guy (usually a guy, of course) who memorizes the rules and believes that the game can only be played through strict adherence to said rules. Marry that guy to the World of Warcraft generation that believes in the “I Win” strategy of only one right way and a billion wrong ways to play, and I’m thinking that putting a bunch of these people in a room to help shape the future of D&D is going to end up being a rule-Nazi, I Win Button, Internet forum slap-fight of the highest magnitude. In the end, none of them will agree because every one of them will have their own pet peeves and pet wants for obscure minutiae that will invariably butt-heads with the peeves and wants of a whole host of other participants. I think I’d rather hang out with mind flayers then to sit in on those conversations for even 10 minutes.
I really hope Wizards knows what they’re getting into. The other night, I mentioned to our D&D group that I’d like to see more roleplaying and imagination then what we’re getting from the current module we’re running, which was designed to be little more than a string of tabletop-miniature combat scenarios. I do think that Wizards realized that they did alienate a lot of old-school players by making it more visual and tactical, and less imaginative and free-form, but they’re not willing to let go of what they see is the trend towards the “one way to play” mentality gleaned from the legions of guides written and consumed by online gamers. They want the best of both worlds, which is why these play test sessions will put players in the “advisory” position – a sounding board for design decisions that Wizards makes, to see what flies and what thuds, and not really as an open forum regarding what should and should not make it into the 5E. At least, I hope so. Putting these cooks in charge of the kitchen is going to lead to nothing but health code violations. However, I’m sure a lot of players are expecting to actually be allowed to write the rules – complete with peen-stroking, line-by-line credit for their contributions – and are going to raise holy Internet hell when Wizards releases a 5E that doesn’t look anything like what they suggested.
To be honest, I’m OK with the 4E. I remember the days when there were so many goddamn numbers and tables and charts that I just said “fuck it”, and played entire sessions without ever touching the rule books. We winged it, with the DM setting the scene, and the players running with it. The 4E can be used this way; in fact, I think it’s more suited to this seat of the pants play style than any edition that’s come before it. I’m afraid that the franchise will return to it’s roots of rigidity driven by the barking of a generation that’s cut their gaming teeth on pushing each other around based on gear scores and demands that things be done “just so”.
Our Fantasy (Stomping) Grounds: A vTabletop Update
0
A while back, I had switched gears and had posted a short overview of several virtual tabletop software solutions for tabletop gamers who wanted to play, but who didn’t have local people to play with (or were unwilling to brave the local gaming store trawling for a party). Since that time, we’ve collected a group and have been playing online using Fantasy Grounds II from Smiteworks. After spending time with this product, I thought I’d return to the subject and talk a little bit about how it’s been working out for us.
FG comes with Dungeons and Dragons 4E support built in, which was fantastic, since that’s what we’re running. Before you get all hot and bothered and buy a copy of FG with the idea that you’re getting the 4E source materials included for free, FG only comes with support for 4E; there’s no data, so the support comes in the form of FG tracking things like effects and modifiers as they’re entered into the character sheet. Still, that goes a long way towards taking a lot of heavy lifting off of the players and the DM. Sadly, it also leads to a reliance upon the tools to handle a lot of the rules that we as participants should be keeping track of.
The way to enable these features is not pain-free, however, The system requires that information about an item, weapon, or power be entered into the character sheet “exactly as it appears in the text”, meaning the item or weapon description, or the power block. And they mean exactly. The best option is to get your DM Manual, PHB, Monster Manuals and any other sources you need, and then get the 4E Parser and pony up the cash for a month’s subscription to the D&D Insider. The Parser allows subscribers to basically scrape the compendium and compile the information into a FG library module which contains the information formatted in the way FG likes it.
Once you get the info in there, combat is dead-simple: click on your target, and then double click on your weapon or spell’s attack text (+2 vs AC). The system will roll the dice (visibly!) and you’ll not only see the result, but FG will tell you if you hit or not. Then, double click on the damage roll (1d6 + 2) and the damage will be automatically applied to the target and recorded in the Encounter Tracker! If there are any effects or modifiers in effect (such that might increase or decrease damage, or boost or hamper attack success), the system will automatically take them into account when calculating the appropriate values.
For the Organized DM, FG is the best VT solution out there simply because it’s the only one I had found that not only allows you to collect and share maps, tokens, and visual hand-outs, but it is also a full-fledged module creation system. Using the concept of hyperlinking, a DM can craft his or her own custom module directly in FG, complete with DM notes, text blocks that can be dragged to the chat window and posted en toto to the players, and clickable links that allow the DM to open any document without having to resort to tables of contents or search boxes. In addition, a module can be exported and passed on, or can be exported and then added to a larger module – a campaign – which can also be exported and passed on. Of course, exporting and sharing of modules should only be done for original content, not for translating someone else’s professional or compiled modules.
There’s a few downsides, as expected. The first I mentioned, which is the stringent formatting of the data. We spent quite a few sessions nailing this down until we got our heads around the format, but because any tabletop RPG relies upon it’s ability to not be tied down to singular conventions, there’s always going to be some cases where the text just can’t be formatted as the app requires. The second is that order of operations are critical. Sometimes the way that players and NPCs are added to the encounter tracker leaves the players unable to see the NPCs, or players unable to move their tokens, or to target, attack, or damage NPCs. I’ve found that everything has to be set up “just so” in order for the rest of the encounter to move smoothly. I’d also like a way to transmit the full stats of an item to player, as we do in MMOs using Shift-left click in the chat window. We also haven’t found a way to export server characters to their owners for their personal safekeeping and offline editing. Leveling up takes a while to resolve, and it would be nice to allow the players to export their characters, work on them during their own time, and then just hand-modify their server characters during the next session. And finally, I’d like to see a really, really good manual for the app, documenting many of the things we’re finding out by trial, error, and accident (like how to handle burst and blast application to multiple targets in one fell swoop).
My 2012 Resolution: Fuck You
7I’d like to open 2012 here at Levelcapped with a familiar and cliché quote:
When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at you.
– Nietzsche
The reason why I wanted to use this is simple: I believe that the abyss is staring me down, and I’ve decided that it’s a contest that I just can’t win.
If you’re a regular visitor to this site, thank you. Although I write almost entirely because I like to monologue, because it helps me organize my own thoughts and opinions as an exercise in self-edification, and allows me to butcher the English language in a public forum, regular readership is always a heartwarming and much appreciated side-effect.
The abyss in question at the opening of this post, however, is the greater gaming ecosystem. This encompasses what one might expect in the use of the term ecosystem, from the tippy-top to the slimy underbelly. Before I expand on this, however, any expansion on this will result in some collateral damage, and for that I am truly sorry.
I spent a sizable chunk of 2011 writing posts on how the gaming community should spend more energy working towards common goals rather then working to propagate the necrotic practices of snark, backstabbing, sarcasm, insults, and – for lack of a more inclusive term – general douchebaggery. I’m old enough to remember when video games were solitary affairs, thanks to the social space between humans who are the vanguards of a new cultural revolution, and those who see that space as a total waste of time. Now I’m apparently old enough to pine for those days of social isolation, because our legacy has bloomed into a feeding frenzy of narcissism helped along by the Internet. My posts had been written in the hopes that maybe I could assist in staring down the abyss of self-centered elitism, gender, racial, and sexual slurs of all stripes, over-inflated egos, outdated assumptions, and the “me me me” that infects the greater gaming ecosystem (and, truth be told, the wider field of humanity) today. Sadly, I realize that it is impossible to make a void blink first.
I spent the majority of my winter break in silence. I naturally skirted social media because I didn’t need it as a distraction on a daily basis like I do when I need a break at work. When I did return, it was like returning to one’s childhood home-town after years abroad: nothing is seen in the same light as it once was. I went on a cleaning spree, whittling my Twitter follow count from 150 or so down to only 82 of the people who I consider to be the bright spots in the otherwise dark night of the gaming community. I also cleaned house on G+, and have made a pact with myself to employ a hair trigger mandate for both: I can no longer tolerate bitching and moaning – passive-aggressive or overt – which serves no purpose except to undermine any attempts at furthering discussion, to make one feel good about one’s own point of views while making others feel bad (intentionally or not), or to tear at a community which is built around a shared enjoyment of all things video game.
In short, if a person finds that his or her time is better spent attempting to elevate him or herself above the crowd through insults of person or product or group, is intolerant of the thoughtful opinions of others when presented for the purpose of discussion, or who believes that his or her opinions carry more weight in the world than those they seek to oppose, they can fuck themselves. In this, I am reminded of a quote from Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol:
“I am sorry for him; … Who suffers by his ill whims? Himself, always.”
I am confident that this post will find it’s mark, as no doubt someone will read it and will be offended, and then angry, and may either entertain or engage in posting an equally hate-filled comment or an I-can-barely-be-bothered-to-write-this themed response. This is the Internet, after all, and one cannot willfully enter a slaughterhouse and be shocked by what goes on therein. Know, however, that there are those who I consider to be above this, who have been engaging far beyond any unintentional damage they may have caused through miscommunication or simply “bad days”. There’s a difference between the occasional wiseass comment or having been rubbed the wrong way, and a deep-seated rot.
My 2012 gaming resolution, then, is to step back from the abyss and not even bother with it, to leave it alone and to let it enjoy it’s own putrid company. I’ve tried to be a force for good, but you can’t sell what people aren’t buying, and I’m not going to waste any more of my time in the mud with those swine.
The Unsung Heroes Of The Republic
3Good people of the Republic!
(This is when the Imperial scum can excuse themselves to get a snack from the concession stand. It’s right over there…by the incinerator).
Good people of the Republic! I thank you for your service. It is because of your tireless devotion to the ideals of freedom, honesty, and the thin veneer of tolerance for non-human species that we are able to forge ahead for a brighter tomorrow!
(Please note that holovids of this speech will be available for the modest fee of 200 credits. All proceeds benefit the Galactic Senate’s Fund For Downtrodden Lobbyists.)
But while you are all taking to the stars in your taxpayer-funded starships, shooting anti-Republic sympathizers, and aliens who may or may not be anti-Republic sympathizers, there is a veritable army of unsung heroes who ensure that the machinery of our Glorious Republic is ever-churning, much like the combines at Colonel Moreth’s Bantha Burgers (mention this speech and receive a free small order of crazy fries!). We wish to pay homage to their selfless sacrifices, knowing full well that even Jedi have to use the rest-rooms now and then, and those things don’t clean themselves. Am I right? Haha! Let’s take a look.
Here we see Kalis Martoni. Kalis works in maintenance on the Republic Fleet. He has given 10 years of his life in the service of the Republic ensuring that the dirt from any and all alien worlds (and any aliens) that you track into the station on the soles of your boots need never spoil your experience aboard the premier shopping and day-spa cruiser, The Gilded Privilege. The next time you see Kalis, be sure to tell him how much you appreciate the countless hours he spends on his knees.
Here we see Alyssa Strob. Alyssa works tirelessly to ensure that your cargo is treated with the utmost respect, and that it is removed from or sent to your ship in perfect condition. Alyssa is on a work-furlough plan from the penal colony on Denthes, where she is serving a life sentence for human trafficking, engspice smuggling, and operating a lightsaber while intoxicated. Oh Alyssa! When will you ever learn?
What’s this? A confused citizen of the Republic? Seems like someone is having a hard time finding his flight? Maybe he’s a doctor headed to Taris to help out with the rakghoul plague? Maybe he’s a soldier away on leave? Or maybe he’s a Senator who hasn’t spent time outside his comfortable bubble of sycophants in such a long time that he’s forgotten how to read the shuttle schedule? Keep at it, confused citizen! I’m sure you haven’t already missed your shuttle!
Well, well, well! If it isn’t Drebo and Drebo, the Republic’s best known clone comedy duo! Take a seat, everyone (in the mezzanine with the rest of the middle class, because the floor seats are reserved for those with credits) and get ready to laugh at their classic routine “Guess Who’s Going To Be Getting The ‘Enhanced Pat Down’ At The Spaceport?!” Parents, you might want to shield your children’s eyes; this one can get pretty graphic! Oh, the humanity! (Aliens will be escorted out of the theater during this sensitive routine. We appreciate your understanding).
And last but certainly not least, we would be remiss if we didn’t recognize the tireless dedication of our robotic compatriots who tackle the tough duties that humans won’t do are too dangerous for humans are beneath even aliens that they find uniquely fulfilling! Take good old TS-17 here! It’s his job to scan each and every incoming passenger at the Taris spaceport to ensure his, her, or it’s safety from concealed weapons and hazardous substances! Thank you, TS-17!
(Disclaimer: Any nude scans found on the Holonet that coincide with your time at the Taris spaceport should be brought to the attention of Sargent Alphis Karbone. All reports will be filed and will be kept in the strictest confidence. You have our word.)
These are but a few of the hardworking individuals you’ve probably passed by, stepped over, sworn at, punched and/or kicked, groped, or have been harassed by. Remember, these citizens are people too (Except TS-17, whom we got from Radio Shack), so the next time you see someone you wouldn’t normally give the time of day to, give them the time of day. It will serve to remind them how much longer their shift is!
The Horse Ain’t Dead Yet: More Mobile Gaming Thoughts
4I’d actually be happy to move on from this, if other people would also agree to move on from this. Sadly, it ain’t happening any time soon, it seems.
First up from iOS game developer Andrew J. Smith. Let me start by saying this: I totally get where he’s coming from, and on the surface, I agree with his assessment. However, as G.I. Joe has always told us, knowing is half the battle, which is why I’m confused as to why someone would persist knowing the score as Mr. Smith apparently does.
In a recent Gamasutra article, he wants to tell mobile developers that “players are not your audience”. Eye grabbing headlines aside, he goes on to state that when developing your game for a mobile platform, you can’t focus on who you want to play the game; you have to walk the line of the platform controller (Apple, Android, Microsoft, etc). That means, in his opinion, that you should work-in the features of a specific platform like the cameras, back-touch on the Vita, or Kinect on the Xbox, in order to make it attractive to the approval committee and the people who pull the strings on marketing for the products on the storefront.
From a developer and realism standpoint, I understand where he’s coming from, but from a consumer standpoint, this is really the last thing I want to hear from someone who probably prides him or herself on their creative abilities and no doubt has a high desire to make something fun and entertaining. I read what Mr. Smith has to say and all I can picture is someone in chains being paraded around in front of an audience by the platform controller. It’s hardly the kind of relationship that I would expect a creative, fun-loving developer to willfully enter into, unless being seen and making a mad grab for cash is far more important the reaching the people that you want to reach, which I always thought was one of the reasons indies chose to go it alone as opposed to jumping on board with a larger dev/pub, but I’m just an outsider here. This is another reason why PC gaming will never die: there is no dog and pony show that developers need to perform for approval; just their consumers.
The second point about mobile gaming that I saw today was made as a comment (also from Gamasutra) in an article about the “worst things to happen to games in 2011 according to analysts”. I’m no so much concerned with the contents of the article, but this comment by Bob Johnson struck me almost immediately:
iOS gaming is both a blessing and annoyance. It’s great I can buy some 1-trick pony kool idea games for $1 or $2. It is great that is extremely easy to do so. It is great also because we might not otherwise see some of these games.
But man soon I find myself buying a ton of them for $1 or even getting them free. And then I have 50+ games on my iPad that I barely have even played. And that might be a month’s worth. And there are a thousand more out there that were released last week. And every site says try this one and that one. And …this is good and that’s good and it’s only a $!. There’s too many!
My kids even say Dad you don’t have to buy any more games. We have enough. It has almost become uninteresting to them.
IT’s gaming junk food that is readily available so you get sick of it almost.
That is where I land in the spectrum of mobile gaming, and I suspect a lot of other people do if you were to ask them (or are one). Analysts and pundits look at graphs and charts and see sales in terms of quantity, distribution, and dollar signs. In that light, people pissing away a dollar here or two dollars there looks like everything is healthy, and that the mobile gaming tide is forever rising. But from the consumer angle, it’s a total whitewash. Cheap, bite-sized games means you never have to – or often times can’t bring yourself to – stick with a single game for long because there’s always a deluge of newer, cheap games each and every day. At some point, I suspect we became numb to new releases because we’ll look back at what we have bought and realized that we’ve never played it, or never played it for long before shelling out for the new Utopia which was really just another bust. Like Mr. Johnson’s kids, it’s all white noise now, and wholly uninteresting, without staying power.
Vita Vs Mobile
2The PlayStation Vita. If you’re a gamer and/or technophile, and the idea of carrying around a PlayStation 3 in your pocket doesn’t make you salivate, then you’re either dead, or aren’t being honest with yourself. Sure, you may not want one, or will be quick to point out that you wouldn’t be caught dead with one, but you cannot deny that this thing emanates power like a leaky nuclear reactor. Massive OLED touchscreen? Motion controls? Dual cameras? Wifi and (optional) 3G connectivity?
But that all sounds like a smartphone, doesn’t it? After all, smartphones have touchscreens, most now have motion controls, dual cameras and, of course, wifi and 3G. And they play games. Judging by the statements of many media outlets, you’d think that the Vita was already consigned to the junk heap of time, a relic, and an absolute waste of time, resources, and cash because smartphones – and tablets – are where handheld gaming is headed.
Not so. I’m talking from a my position as a gamer, the kind of person who pre-orders these kinds of things, sight unseen, because it raises the hairs on the back of my next whenever I see obviously airbrushed PR photos, or when I read and re-read the specs as if it were some kind of vintage erotica. This is the evolution of hardware for the gaming community. First came the early consoles, then the PC, then more powerful, dedicated and tethered consoles, and now a first class gaming machine that is free of the in-place restrictions that we’ve been saddled with thus far. Hallelujah!
But “mobile” gaming nowadays is all about smartphones, right? Publishers and developers are eschewing desktop or console titles to bring their little works of art to the iOS, Android, and, yes, Windows Phone. For $0.99 USD, you can have a game in your hand – a tiny, tiny game in your relatively not-so-tiny hand – that can compete with whatever you’ll find on the 3DS or the Vita, right? If you listen to the breathy statements of pundits, you’d think so, but the truth is that the Vita is made for games, while mobile devices have games available. Being a gamer and being told in no uncertain terms that the Vita is DOA because so many people have smartphones is missing the point. There will ALWAYS be a market for devices like the Vita or the 3DS. Of course, unless the market is overwhelming the competition, pundits usually declare it a “failure”, which is the same thing in my mind as calling every movie ever made “a failure” because Avatar made more money then they each did on their own. Sounds stupid, doesn’t it? So why would we consume the same rhetoric when it comes to situations like the Vita versus smartphones, and games versus apps?
The question now being asked is “will consumers bite” when the Vita is released at $250 USD, considering you can get a 3DS for $170 USD, or a 16GB iPod for $199. As a gamer, my knee-jerk reaction would be to punch someone in the face and scream “HELL YES!”, but the key lies with a single word: consumers. Although mobile games can’t hold a production-quality candle to what we’ll see on the Vita, there are now, and will always be, more smartphones in the hands of the general public then there will be Vita in the hands of gamers. That is a fact. Then – and only then – when you throw in a morass of inexpensive, “throw away” apps, you’ll see that yes, smartphones will bury the Vita through the sheer force of numbers. But numbers do not equate to quality, nor is it a barometer of potential satisfaction with what you’ll end up finding on your app store of choice. With a lower barrier to entry for developers (I use that term lightly in many cases), you have to wade through a lot of shit before you find the diamonds that the mule ingested in order to smuggle them through customs. So sure: smartphones have the number advantage. But you can’t tell me that the PlayStation Junior isn’t going to blow these wannabes out of the water in tech specs, performance, features, and visuals when it comes time for it to take the stage.
Leave the smartphone games to your mom and grandparents. If you’re a gamer who’s disenfranchised with the 3DS, support the Vita and show the industry that we as gamers aren’t going to hang our heads and simply agree to get our mobile gaming from the sub-standard fare being dumped into app stores around the world. Put down your fanboy placards and smarter-than-thou troll quills and realize that there’s a huge chunk of the gaming industry who is ready to chase the shiny of mobile gaming, and to hell with their current constituents, and take a good, honest look at the Vita. Do you want this to be the last hurrah for gaming hardware designed and dedicated to gaming? Doesn’t matter that it’s from Sony. It’s platform neutral, because it will the last hope of all gamers before we’re swept into the mediocrity of the tower defense clones or the physics-based platformers that clog in the smartphone ghettos.
I Try. I Really Try. But I Can’t
8Like the saga of the haves and have-nots (or have-less) that is playing out across the U.S. at this point in time, the video game industry is pulling in two different directions. The industry’s “1%” is the AAA blockbuster which is built for millions of dollars, advertised for millions more, and quite probably makes all that money back – and more. The industry’s “99%”, on the other hand – the indie games – are big into the arts, like to sit around and sing protest songs around the campfire, and pride themselves as being anti-corporate, unrestrained, and able to take chances.
We in the U.S. are taught to root for the underdog, the underpowered, the scrappy contender (it’s how America was founded, after all!). The movies of the 80’s pretty much exist because of this trope. Any sports fan who is loyal to his or her long suffering team knows what I’m talking about. We’re supposed to support those who try to take on the status quo with nothing but their own blood and their own sweat. It’s fighting the good fight.
I can’t do it, though, and I feel horrible about it. I feel horrible because I really can’t get excited about what we get from the indie circuit titles these days. These are for all intents and purposes great games, because they are the underdogs we should be rooting for: the kinds of games we should be excited about because they’re not mandated by a board of directors or mathematically designed to sell millions by pandering to a built in demographic or aren’t sequels riding the wave of previous reception and good-will. When we curse the lack of innovation in the Corporate Game Industry, that’s a win for the indies, right? I mean, aside from actually supporting the developer, which is like saying that you think the Salvation Army does good things for those in need while blowing past their donation stations outside your local grocery store.
I’ve seen people hawking indie titles by appealing to this spirit of championing the “little guy”. If you like great games, support our indie developers! is what they’re asking us to do. Sadly, I personally don’t think the majority of indie games are that great. How many indie games are physics-puzzle platformers? How many are top-down shooters? How many are modeled after the games I grew up playing 20 years ago? Most of these games are high-definition coin guzzlers that aren’t even in vogue anymore, having been eclipsed by the big budget AAA titles pumped out ad nauseum for your Xboxes, Playstations, and home computers.
And here’s the self-loathing again, because I respect indie developers the people more then this post would lead you to believe. These are often times beautiful games, shoe-horning innovative mechanics into a tried and true glass slipper, and I’ve no illusions that these were not stressful and difficult projects to undertake. I’m a developer, and I used to have the drive to develop pet projects on my own time, but somewhere along the way I lost the desire to create. I know how much dedication it takes to tackle the small projects that I am used to, and I therefor have but a vague sense of the madness that an indie game developer must possess in order to not only undertake, but to complete a project, put it out there, and then suffer with well-wrung hands while he or she watches the public consume or deny their labor of love. While any developer worth a damn puts his or her all into a project, the corporate machine serves as a bulwark against the red-hot criticism of the Internet should the developer choose to treat it as “just a job”. Indies have no such luxury, and any negative review, customer complaint – or even posts like this – can cut deep with discouragement.
Still, I can’t love or praise indie games just because they’re indie. That would be like giving a donation to the Salvation Army Santa because he rings the bell with fervor. I have bought some excellent indie titles – Uplink, Dungeons of Dredmor, Atomic City Adventures and of course Minecraft – so I’m not anti-indie. I just want something that’s not another shooter or a platformer or a top-town strategy-slash-tower defense game. As with anything we’re asked to purchase, each person must have a desire to own the goods or to use the services, and not just because we love the idea that we’re supporting the underdog. We might as well just mail checks to random people if that’s the mentality – which wouldn’t be a bad idea if the person could honestly use the cash.
So if you haven’t started sharpening your pitchforks against me yet, thank you. I value the fire that the indie segment holds to the corporate feet, and recognize that these men and women are working harder every single hour then I do all day (literally). They deserve respect and accolades, but I can’t personally hand over my cash every time someone begs me to “think of the indies” until the indies themselves start taking the chances beyond the kinds of games that are stuffing the iOS App Store or which perennially show up in the Humble Indie Bundle. Where’s the RPGs? The racing sims? The building sims? I would shove my paycheck in an envelope and slobber all over a stamp faster then you can say “ the postal service is going bankrupt” if I could get an RPG built with indie sensibilities and passion, because I know it would kick 11ty billion shades of ass. So please, indies, think beyond the arcade. I’d rather spend my money with you then to buy Bobby Kotick another hairpiece.
SWTOR: Getting Into Your Guild
2Since the SWTOR site is getting hammered, I copied and pasted this into an email yesterday for some friends who couldn’t access the site from work. I’m re-posting it here for easy access until the official site eases up on the sphincter.
Now that your guilds are in the game, ready to go, here’s everything you need to know about how Guild Deployment works.
How can I tell if/where my guild has been deployed?
Everyone will receive an email before Early Access with details about the status of their guild.
- If your guild was successfully deployed to a server, you’ll receive a link to the website that you can follow to find out what server your guild has been placed on.
- If your guild was not deployed to a server because it did not meet the qualifications for import, you will be able to create your guild manually in the game.
Server assignments through the Guild HQ system are final and cannot be changed, but you and your guild are not in any way required to play on the server where you were placed. We have pre-created assigned guilds on specific servers as a convenience to you, and these assignments may be ignored at your discretion.
What happens if I don’t like my server assignment?
Ignore it. You are more than welcome to create a new guild on a different server (as long as no one has already taken your desired guild name, of course). In order to create a guild in-game, you’ll need to gather a full group of four players and 5,000 credits, then speak to the Guild Registrar on the Republic/Imperial Fleets.
I am happy with my server assignment. How do I join once I’m in the game?
When you first join the game and reach the Server Select screen, the server where your guild has been pre-created will be marked with a gold flag.
If you choose this server and create a character on it, you’ll be presented with a dialogue box inviting you to join your guild when you enter the game. Accept that invite and you’re in!
What happens if I decline my automatic guild invite?
Every character you create on the server will be offered an automatic invite until ONE of those characters has accepted the invite. At that point, no further invites will be offered to any future characters you create on that server.
What happens if I accidentally told the game to stop offering me invites, but I changed my mind?
There is an option in the Preferences pane (under Social) which allows you to ignore all automatic guild import invites. If you accidentally chose “Do not ask again” in the invite and selected “No,” you can go to this panel and deselect the “Ignore Guild Import Offer” box. The next time you create a character on the server, you’ll once again be asked to join.
Can I join my pre-created guild with more than one character?
You can only accept an “automatic invite” once, so if you wish to add additional characters to the guild, you will need to reach out to your Officers or Guild Leader to send you additional invites.
What happens if our Guild Leader doesn’t join the game immediately?
Guild Leaders have until two weeks after launch (January 2nd, in our case) to accept their automatic invite. At that point, if your Guild Leader has not arrived in-game and accepted their invite, the most senior Officer will be automatically promoted to Guild Leader. Please note that this means it could be possible for the guild to be leaderless for up to two weeks after launch, so make sure your Guild Leader is ready to join the game!
Skyrim, SWTOR, and Narrative
1I came across a thoughtful post on narrative differences between Skyrim and Dark Souls in which the author put forth that the Dark Souls method of piecemeal narrative was superior to the “in your face” method used by Skyrim. Although I have not played Dark Souls, I have played Skyrim, and so I had enough mental ammo to disagree with the author’s overall assertion that Bethesda essentially “dropped the ball”. Which got me realizing exactly how I prefer my narrative presentation in games these days. Naturally, I had to bring in Star Wars: The Old Republic, partly because it soft-launches tomorrow, and partly because I know it’ll help this post show up in Google searches.
The Educated Nord
Skyrim is a “country in a box”, as one person described it. It’s a sandbox, in fact, allowing players to go where they like, when they like, for whatever reason they like. I’d venture to guess that more ground was covered “just because” than it was due to someone just being sent somewhere specific by an NPC. Often times a player could easily enter a dungeon or ruin and just ransack the place in true barbarian fashion, but that would occur in the absence of any narrative at all. Instead, Skyrim’s quests are sourced almost entirely from NPC conversation.
That’s a damn shame, because there are dozens of books in the game which serve almost no purpose. Some give you skill points, but the rest are “fluff”. In a way, if you want to immerse yourself in the lore of The Elder Scrolls you can read these histories and fictions-within-fiction, but in the context of the world of Skyrim, so much more could have been done. For example, books could allude to different events or different locations which might otherwise be unassuming if the player happens upon them in the act of exploration, but which unlock new areas or situations in those areas once the player has skimmed the knowledge necessary to unlock them. I’m not talking about adding a quest to your log, either. I’m talking about putting two and two together beyond the fourth wall and having the player discover what the book is telling him.
This is part of the author’s argument for the narrative in Dark Souls: that the player is given pieces to do with as he pleases. If he ignores them, then he runs the risk that an event or NPC may pass him by, never to be seen again. But if he puts real world brainpower behind the pieces of lore, he could discover content that may not have been happened upon through script, or by chance. It may only be lore, or it may be actual content (I don’t know).
But the author excuses Bethesda’s corner-cutting by suggesting that the world was so big that it couldn’t possibly accommodate such nuances, which is not something I agree with. Skyrim is a game of exploration. Moreover, it’s a game of choice: where to go, who to align with, which conversations to take, what arms to wield. That seems more the point of the game then to confine the player between the covers of a storybook, and Bethesda chose to focus more on the opportunities for off-the-cuff exploration then they did on nuance. Could they have done more? I suspect so, but although I don’t have the sales figures, I have a suspicion that Skyrim’s freedom has outsold Dark Soul’s clever narrative devices by a wide margin. I don’t believe that the lack of advanced narrative has mitigated the impression that Skyrim has left on gamers.
The Camera Eye
While thinking about this, I had to agree that narrative presentation in Skyrim, while good and fitting for the design, didn’t grab me the way the story presentation in SWTOR does. I placed both on a continuum, adding in the presentation of narrative used by MMOs. Why MMOs? In certain circles, a lot has been done comparing MMOs to Skyrim. Since SWTOR sits somewhere between traditional MMOs and the single player feel of Skyrim, it’s appropriate. Also, I’ve been playing MMOs for so long now it’s the majority of what I know.
MMOs narrative modus operandi generally takes the form of a “wall of text” which the player is expected to read in order to obtain the background “story” for the quest. So the wisdom goes, few people read these walls, preferring to quickly read the objectives and to worry about the details once they’re ready to tackle it. When combined with modern MMO’s quest tracker and map highlighting, there’s very little incentive to actually pay attention to what the NPC is saying, when the NPC is saying it. If MMOs are about the loot, then narrative is the bottom of the barrel in what the majority of the players care about, to the point where it probably wouldn’t be missed if it were simply not there (that’s extreme, I know, and actually untrue).
Skyrim puts you into the story in real time, a mechanic introduced by Half Life (I believe) which removes the need for cut-scenes, leaves the player in-character, and supposedly enhances the feeling of immersion. To a degree, this works because of the aforementioned points, but when I had switched from Skyrim to SWTOR, I preferred SWTOR’s method of “cinematic cut-scenes” to Skyrim’s in-character presentation.
The key, I believe, is in the “cinematic”. When playing Skyrim, the first person view allows you to look in any direction (when eavesdropping), or forces you to awkwardly face your single conversation partner as they stiffly said their peace. While normal “polite” conversations are intended to behave this way, it can break the immersion of a video game which is purposefully straddling the divide between interactivity and narrative presentation. It feels wooden and artificial.
Contrast this to SWTOR, which takes the camera out of the head of the player and gives it to the dolly crew. We see both the NPC and the player – and this system has allowances for multiple participants. It’s borderline cut-scene with limited interactivity, but it fits the game very well as Star Wars is first and foremost a cinematic franchise which fans have wanted to inhabit for decades. It’s because the style fits, and not necessarily because of the style or execution is superior to any other, that I find myself more in-tune with SWTOR’s narrative presentation then I am with Skyrim’s, which means I remember more about the missions from the former then I do from the later.
