Out of Beta

Posting Hiatus

2013-05-06T21:41:00.000-07:00

As is clear, I have no posted for a while; sadly finals have rolled around in Law School so I am mostly preoccupied studying patents and corporate law (sounds fun right?). So in the meantime I am afraid I will probably not post until after they conclude, but I do have some ideas...in what free time I have I've gotten back into GW2 and Planetside 2 (clearly no one in the industry can count to three..). So hopefully some content regarding them!

[Review] Bioshock Infinite; Spoiler Edition

2013-04-08T22:22:00.001-07:00

So as promised here is part 2 of my review. This part is getting into the meat of the game, but as a result will be almost entirely spoiler so is not recommended for those who have not yet played Bioshock 1, 2, and Infinite. The break is your last warning, do NOT progress below it if you do not want to know. Truth be told, I could fill volumes discussing various aspects of the game, but I have forced myself to narrow my scope to several important topics, and address them somewhat lightly in an effort to stimulate thought rather than come to a conclusive answer.

SPOILER ALERT! DO NOT CLICK "READ MORE" IF YOU ARE NOT FINISHED!

It began at a lighthouse...

Your first two are free, after that it's cliche.

Once more, and perhaps fitting, I'll begin at the end. Is this a fitting Bioshock iteration, or has the game gone Call of Duty and forgotten its principles? I would say the former, but I would also say that it is not the masterpiece that Bioshock 1 was. That begs the question, what makes a Bioshock game so fantastic? What did the first do that this version did not? To me, there are two big factors in a Bioshock game outside the basic gameplay elements. The first, is that the story leads players along the entire time, often throwing a twist at them right at the end. The second, is that they take one or more ideologies and magnify them to create the world the player engages in.

This is what magnification looks like

The true mastery of Bioshock 1 was that it manipulated the player in a way only a video game can. As I say of video games, “Experience, don’t show." Novels and Film can show instead of tell, but they can't make the player truly experience something. In Bioshock, every time you did a “Would you kindly...” request it made sense for the player to do them, most players (you’re on your honor here) probably complied with them because it felt very natural and like the right thing to do at the time; not just because you had to in order to progress. You experienced the manipulation, and when you went back to play the game again your perspective had completely changed. Infinite did this too, but it’s more of a “show” story than an “experience” one. Going back through Infinite, I see the foreshadowing better, but it does not change my perspective on things I was shown through the game (such as in Bioshock, when the corpse of Jack's real mother is found and an image of his fake mother is flashed before his eyes). For Infinite, the narrative is linear and unabashedly so. The game flat out admits that your choices did not matter. Perhaps it felt clever to write, but as a player I reached the end thinking "Ok...and?" This might be a withering critique of modern video game storytelling, but much since they've donned the same clothes, even in an ironic way, they aren't making it any better.

Elizabeth wasn't impressed with it either.

Bioshock has established itself about creating a semi-sci-fi world in which a philosophy has been taken to an extreme in a sort of video-game version of reduction ad absurdum. In that regard, it does well with the scathing critique of nationalism/conservatism/American-Exceptionalism with Columbia, but somewhat fails with the Vox Populli. The latter we don’t get to see the devolution of; you open a tear and suddenly they’ve gone from resistance fighters to mass murderers, apparently driven on by anger. We’re supposed to suddenly perceive them as having become that which they hated, but the shift feels hollow and forced. Why do they go this way? The snowball effect of a riot? The cautionary portion of the tale seems to be too brief, too sparse. The idea seems to be that once the snowball rolls, it can't stop and will just amplify...and yet, when I reached the portions of the game where Vox are slaughtering people, I found it hard to feel too sympathetic.

They also kinda brutally murder the Chinese gunsmith who was helping them...because RAGE!

The Vox meant nothing to me because I did not witness their devolution; like I said previously, it has no gravity to me because I did not experience it, I was merely told how things were. The cautionary tale falls on its face because I get snapshots of a snowball without a good reference point. At the pace I played through the zone, you literally go from "Fighting for equality!" to "Kill the white folks!" in a span of about 10 minutes.

[Insert clever pun about them 'dying' to catch the train]

At least with Fink and Comstock I got the impression that they were real...both were trying to hold on to power and would concoct any narrative to hold it. A friend told me he found Fink unbelievable, but I think that was exactly the point; Fink is a liar and a cheat (he got his technology from tears his brother showed him after all). He makes up the whole "Bee" thing and the rhetoric about being a happy worker to try and keep people under control, he doesn't actually believe it.

Will the Circle be Unbroken?

The first real music heard during the game, it ominously foreshadows the game itself and will have me intently listening to music chosen for future games. Actually most of the songs you hear have at least some inkling about what you are about to encounter. Late in the game "Fortunate Son" plays in what has basically become a Hooverville, as minority and POC workers are being ordered to attack the player on the behalf of the rulers of Columbia, the Founders.

Alas, will the circle be unbroken? Will there be a better home in the sky? You'd think the song was written for Infinite. Actually it was nice, it fit nicely with the Christian themes of the very introduction and at the time I did not even consider that it was meant to foreshadow. So there was less a feel of a lampshade being hung on the song and more a "Well that's a pretty song..." Only at the end did it become clear.

Songbird

This is among my biggest disappointments; I have been following Infinite for a few years now, and Songbird was there from the beginning, billed as an omnipresent threat that could attack the player at any moment. Essentially he was an upgraded version of Big Sister from Bioshock 2; and in early footage showed up because the player had made too much of a ruckus. This never actually manifests in Infinite, because Songbird only shows up for scripted events, in which he breaks some things and acts as a transition from how Booker/Liz get from one area to another.

This encounter 100% scripted

Despite all the talk between the two characters about having to fight him, I never get the opportunity, and all Booker's talk about killing it seems hollow when every possible chance is scripted away in a cutscene. I suppose I can't entirely blame the developers for wanting to create an enemy you flat out could NOT kill; Dark Souls players have proven that where there is a will there is a way, but it sticks out when all the run up to this figure involves emotional preparation for something that never happens. The sting would have been reduced if occasionally I got to fight him and force a retreat; only to LATER be beaten in a cutscene.

He's also kind of a perv

Daisy Fitzroy

When I first saw this character I was pleased; a POC character with a well developed background, agency, and a true place in the story!...or so it appeared. Sadly this falls apart very quickly. We learn about her background and hear some legitimate reasons for why she might have garnered such a disdain for Columbia's leaders...she was framed for murder, forced into servitude due to her race, and made into the enemy of Columbia just because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She had every reason to be angry.

No one in Infinite makes a good first impression

However, this starts to get a little fishy once she begins to take a major role in the story. From the moment we arrive in Finkton, thanks to her borrowing the ~~zeppeli~~n airship I'd just stolen. As we trot around Finkton doing "good" and helping the Vox for our own interests, we tear through dimensions and watch the Vox snowball as I said before. Alas Daisy seems to be caught up in, and responsible, for much of it. By the end, we get a sort of forced cautionary tale about becoming what you fear or hate most (which is a running theme in Bioshock, but this one seemed weak). Daisy is ready to execute a white child to "pull them up by the roots." Racism ahoy! Suddenly we're supposed to feel bad for the poor white folks.

See? All socialists want to kill white kids

Daisy is even willing to kill the alternate dimension Booker to "keep the narrative"...yes, this person is willing to re-kill a martyr and one of her best soldiers, rather than do something logical like, proclaim the hero returned, or bend the narrative....there are many ways she could have gone, but I guess we are meant to assume she is too bloodthirsty to think. At least they sort of avoided the White Savior story....

Or not...Move along, no subtext here; that woman is just hanging out, she totally wasn't singing about freedom

Lastly, I find a certain irony that the Vox turn their mechanized soldiers into Lincoln; I understand that it is because of his connection with emancipation, but this is the same president who wrote about how this kind of uprising could be problemati c.


Oh...right...

Dimensional Stuff

Around Finkton it becomes unclear where you even are, or why opening these tears is changing the world. Even after the reveal, it’s unclear. We jump three times, and each new world seems to have the progress from the last, plus the issue we needed fixed was mysteriously solved. By the end of the area, it starts to look as though we are not so much jumping from dimension to dimension, but we're actually merging them when she opens the super-tears. That would explain the people experiencing conflicting memories...also explains why solving the problem in Universe A matters in Universe B. I found this section extremely confusion (woe is my plebeian understanding), and was about the point the game started to lose my interest.

Now you're thinking with Por-...what do you mean that joke is old?

Then we get into the talk about constants and variables...I follow the basic logic; the dimensions are filled with variables, but each creates constants (the variable of "Booker's Baptism" creates the constants of a Booker and a Comstock). The problem is that these constants and variables feel arbitrary, and it is very unclear how killing Booker before the baptism prevents Comstock.

Jennifer Hale, still in everything, and I LOVE it

The way I understood it, the universe fragments like a tree from these initial choice points, and by hemming them at one point, we cut off all the other possibilities. However this does not explain how it outright prevents these possibilities from ever occurring...what about the universes in which Booker did not allow himself to be drown by Elizabeth? That's the problem, the interpretation feels too "light" but acts very erudite and sophisticated. Let me remind aspiring writers of one important point; complexity is not BAD, but it is not a substitute for quality. Just because a story is complex, does not make it deep, or good. We can quibble about which do it well and which do not, but just because people are confused at the end, doesn't mean it went over their head...it could just as likely have been poorly written.

Wait for me! I want a spot on the bandwagon!!!!

"Indoctrination Theory"

Some are hypothesizing that Infinite is just a retelling of Bioshock 1. I am afraid I have trouble with this interpretation, especially when the characters are so different, and the main evidence, the bathysphere, has so many other possibilities. Booker and Liz being able to use the bathysphere does not necessarily categorically prove that Booker is Jack. Elizabeth has by this point shown that she’s unfathomably powerful and can bend reality based on her needs. In addition, we don’t know that the bathysphere is not under her override. Or we could be in a universe in which the bathysphere is not yet on lockdown; recall that the bathyspheres were locked down due to the Fontaine/Atlas threat. Prior to that they were accessible to everyone, as shown by people protesting near them and the stations being built as mass transit areas. It's a nice idea, but I think it's speculating a little too much with too little evidence.

Elizabeth

As my previous review stated, I loved the portrayal and mechanics of Elizabeth, but they were not without their faults. Elizabeth is one of the better characters I have seen in a game in a long time. She shows character development, genuine emotion based on her experiences, and acts like she could be a real person. Yes, she basically exists as a combat support, lockpick, and rez mechanism as far as the mechanics are concerned; but all these things fit the character. They are explained, and none of them have anything to do with her being “weak” or incapable. She is clearly disturbed by violence and knows her skill limitations. It would have been strange for her to suddenly become a hardened soldier.

Yes, she kicks him in the pills. Yes, I laughed.

The interaction with Songbird did feel awkward though, because of my reasons mentioned above...we don't see enough about her interactions with her cyborg protector.

Whatcha readin'? Oh, speaking of subtext...

Then there is another sticking point; that big personal transition after she kills Daisy. Some are troubled that Liz shows more skin after the change; in a way, it is perhaps pandering…. though it could also be that as part of her change from naïve tower-shut-in to an adult. Now, that could be sending a strange message of, “Being an adult woman means being more sexy!” Prior to this, Booker is the one who deals death in protection of her and she at one point is upset at him about it. She's repulsed by the violence; but then she kills Daisy and this triggers a personal change. The outfit certainly is more sexualized; that I wouldn’t disagree with, but I am not sure it’s entire purpose was that. Is it excusable? Really not for me to decide. She goes from this clean conservative look, to something a bit more mature. This is the sticky issue to me...I can see both sides, and I am not yet sure how I feel about it. It's not as though she lost 90% of her clothing, but she did lose some rather specific coverage . I would need to know more about the clothing of the time period to say if it is consistent.

Your "character development" looks wonderful...

Final Thoughts

So I stand by my ruling from my previous post, I think the game is good, but I am not sure it deserves a rating higher than its predecessor. I'd give it a solid 90 metascore were that up to me. I don't want to discourage the team, they had great ideas, I just wish they'd developed the story a little more; and tried to have a big reveal with the same punch as Bioshock's.

Cleavage discussion aside, the level of emotive detail in her face was phenomena

Addendum: A few more images from my playthough I decided to share

She slips through bars you can't, yes I was jealous

"May I ask why you felt little ~~Tiffany~~ Elizabeth deserved to die?"


I want to visit this alternate universe...

[Review] Bioshock: Infinite or Biocrock: Infantile? Part 1

2013-04-03T08:56:00.000-07:00

I plan on splitting this review into two segments; the first, today's, is intended to be the "spoiler free" review. I define "spoiler" as something you wouldn't get from the marketing material or within the first 5 or so minutes of the game (and even then, only if it is obvious or innocuous and not story breaking). Because of that, I'll focus more on the gameplay and mechanics than the storyline today...which, I admit, for a game with "Bioshock" in its title is kind of like going to a fancy restaurant and then reviewing the silverware and dinner rolls. If you want my more detailed analysis of the story and how well Bioshock Infinite holds up to to its vaunted name; stay tuned for the spoilerific version...sadly, a review of that side of the game is woefully incomplete without revealing those details. Last note, I will be including a few screenshots, but I have endeavored to keep them in line with my aforementioned policy.

Starting Thoughts

I'll begin at the end of my review, the question of whether the game is good or not. Generally speaking yes, but it is not the second coming of gaming. Does it deserve the 96 metascore? I am not so certain.

They had me at "Giant Golden Angel"

Bioshock Infinite is one of those games that is a challenge to review; I've heard plenty of game critics and fans claim that the game should be solely reviewed on its own merits...but I don't buy that here. Putting the name "Bioshock" was a calculated choice by the developer; just as Nike chooses to put its swoosh on a shoe, or Halo is put on a Halo game. By adding that title, the developer is telling me to expect certain things. Now I will still examine the elements of the game on their own, but I will always be looking back at its predecessors.

Gameplay

The gameplay is what I would expect from the successor to Bioshock; typical FPS controls and interaction with the world. Story is once again told through audio-journals one finds throughout the world, and one often rummages through the trash for money and cake.


Nothing's as delicious as trash-food!

Suffice to say, so far as surface gameplay, the game is virtually identical to Bioshock 1 and 2. You explore and mass-murder in semi-open areas in areas that tend to be semi-thematic. However, the checkpoint system and lack of a player-initiated save option became giant foam-fingers pointing at "This is a console port!" in the back of my mind. I am the type of person who likes to have plenty of save files so I can go back to sections I enjoyed and replay them...can't really do that in Infinite. I get that Irrational Games wants as wide an audience as they can get, but perhaps part of Bioshock's success was that it started on PC then moved to Console, rather than the other way around.

Weapons

In terms of weapons, the game takes a step forward, then a few back. The variety of weapons has grown to ten and they are varied enough to allow a player to pick their favorites and stick with them. The devil is in the details though; unlike 1 and 2, you can only carry two weapons...another big foam finger pointing at "Console Port!" since it's a common feature of games like Halo. This would be all well and good in a world where you didn't spend your hard-earned Silver Eagles to upgrade weapons. Instead, as the game progresses I found I was dividing weapons into "classes" in my mind depending on whether I had upgraded them. Weapons I had put money into I grabbed, those I did not I completely ignored. On Hard difficulty, weapons you have not upgraded are not even worth looking at. I found that I was not weighing weapons based on my playstyle, I was weighing them on how much damage per ammo cap you could do...ironically, this puts the pistol, the first projectile weapon found, as one of the most effective in the game.

One of the only weapons you ever need.

Irrational also chose to remove the aesthetic changes that occurred when a weapon was upgraded in Bioshock 1 and 2. Now they might explain this on the grounds that in Infinite you are not attached to your weapons; you are supposed to pick up and drop them more frequently. However as someone with a fancy for the art and technical aspects, I was looking forward to seeing steampunk-esque upgrades to my equipment, and was disappointed that by the end of the game my weapons still looked as they did at the outset.

Thus, two design choices seem to be at odds...upgrades make me want to be attached to my weapons, but high enemy health (see below) and vastly disproportionate damage-per-full-ammo amounts on weapons meant that I was reluctant to constantly be tossing away empty weapons in favor of new ones. On Normal difficulty this could be done with reluctance, on Hard it was painful, and on 1999 mode I doubt it's even worth considering. Furthermore, the upgrades themselves were generally uninteresting and usually consisted of: damage, damage, clip size, recoil. Once again I had hoped to see upgrading guns be more interesting like in Bioshock 2 by giving them special effects or having special ammo types.

Some argue that the weapons overlap too much; an example being the Machine Gun, Repeater, Burst Rifle, and Crank Gun all fit the same general "Rapid Fire Rifle" category. However each does function in a different enough way to be interesting, allowing a player to weigh strengths and weaknesses as appropriate. I personally enjoy having these variant options.

Lastly; I was disappointed that the "melee" build tends to become too weak later on in the game. The Skyhook loses its punch about halfway through the game and has to be supported by powers to function. I miss this mainly because in Bioshock you had the "Wrench" built, and in Bioshock 2 the Drill was viable all the way to the end of the game.

Officer Muttonchops suddenly regretted his career choice

The melee executes were a nice inclusion, but the icon that signifies your ability to do one is very hard to see and fleeting. It would have helped if it appeared at the edge of your screen to indicate enemies off, because melee often makes it hard to see above the enemy's head, where the icon appears. When you do pull them off however, they are strangely grotesque but satisfying.

Powers

The powers have improved to some degree; all eight of them are interesting and complement most potential playstyles...but some of them are found so late into the game that by then you've already changed your play to accommodate the lack. Generally speaking the powers are good; but I do miss Telekinesis. However, some of them are a little overpowered compared to each other. I could easily complete the game using only Murder of Crows...on my first playthrough, once I got MoC, I never used anything else. However, part of being in Bioshock is being a little overpowered, and the other powers have potential if used properly. Though the secondary mode of most powers was a "Creates a trap!" which while fun, made several of them blur together in my mind, and what could have been engaging "traps" ended up becoming rather boring. Shock Jockey could have created zapping walls the player drew, but instead just involved throwing out a small area of electricity.

This is how Murder of Crows makes you feel...but with Crows, not Bees...

The passive plasmids are replaced with "Gear" which are basically clothes you can wear. I found them to be of mixed interest...you get them at random intervals and it seems to be semi-random which gear you get (still confirming this with another playthrough). The problem is that they are more esoteric than those in previous games. I miss Chameleon, despite it being hilariously OP, because it made certain builds work. It's not a terrible system, but it's nothing I would write home about.

Health System

The original iterations used a simple health bar supplemented by hotkey first aid kits; and frankly back around release this mechanic did alright, but was beginning to show its age. In the modern gaming era, such thing would be almost archaic. However, regenerating health bars are also starting to make me weary. Infinite strikes a nice balance between the two by providing the player early on with a shield that recharges. When broken you take health damage; which can only be healed by finding health kits or food. This strikes a nice balance between the two potential health systems.

However, at times it did feel like death came rather sudden and unexpectedly, which is something few games get truly perfect. Some, like Hawken, give the impression that you are "about to die" too early, while others, like Infinite, give it too late. It comes too late because the amount of damage to bring you from "You're in trouble" health (complete with red screen edges) to "You're dead" is relatively small and goes FAST.

It also struck me strange that enemies did not have the shield; despite them apparently lying around Columbia. It's not a huge issue, but it did shake my immersion at times.

Enemies

This is another place where Irrational took a step forward, then two backwards. There are about 10-12 different types of enemies (depending on how you categorize them), but sadly I ended up mentally categorizing them into three types: few hitpoints, lots of hitpoints, and Handyman. The smaller types of enemies are on par with Bioshock; while the high-highpoint ones appear so infrequently that it felt like 98% of my combat was spent fighting "People with guns or sticks". I found I missed Big Daddies and Adam Corpses because they presented unique strategic opportunities amidst the levels; I would find myself taking into account the Big Daddy as I was clearing the level, then meticulously planning my attack. I don't get that same satisfaction in Infinite, because the closest thing to a Big Daddy, the Handyman, shows up at scripted points and is aggressive from the start. Instead, most of the game is spent with me progressing through an area, killing everything inside as I explore, then proceeding to the next. I'll likely forget about much of that within a few months, while I can still recall the time I was killing splicers in a narrow hallway and a Big Daddy rounded the corner as I lobbed a grenade...which immediately made that skirmish a LOT more interesting. Lastly; the Handyman was a lot less satisfying than the Big Daddy was to fight; probably because the Handyman is extremely agile and any encounter I had with them usually involved a lot of flat-out running away and occasional shooting; while fighting Big Daddies was about waiting for his openings and exploiting them.

In addition, there are some notable "jumps" in the difficulty, especially on higher difficulties, that can be jarring. As a friend of mine lamented; a specific boss fight later in the game makes it feel as though the difficulty was very sharply ramped up.

AI Partner

I promised to try and avoid spoilers, but if you don't know of this by now, you've been living under a rock. Alas I will try to respect my promise by being vague...so at some point in the game, you get an AI partner that will hang out with you for much of it. Initial fears by critics was that this would turn the entire game into a giant escort quest...which are so fondly remembered by most gamers. Thankfully, those fears were unfounded, and this is one place that the game shines. While your partner does not engage in combat at all, it will supply you occasionally with ammo, health and salts (mana/EVE). The interactions with your AI partner are amazing, and many times I found I would just stop and watch to see what it would do. I never once felt like I was stuck in an escort quest, and instead I had someone accompanying me. It never got stuck, and while Irrational "cheated" in many ways to smooth things over (your partner will occasionally teleport when off-screen to be with you) they never became so obvious as to offend. Your partner will even interact with environments and feed you lore. Finally, your partner is also one of the most interesting NPCs I have met in a game in a LONG time.

This is one place that Infinite SHINES. Yet, this would not be a review without some criticism. When first announced, they made it sound like the interaction between player and partner would be more pronounced in combat; in the form of the two using powers in tandem for greater effect. While this was not necessary a lie, the amount it actually plays in combat is much lower than initially suggested.

Setting and Mood

This is hard to discuss without spoilers, but suffice to say, this is another area in which the game shines. The very zones convey the mood the player should be feeling. The music is wonderful and perfectly tailored to where you hear it....whether its a soft religious hymn, a carefree barbershop quartet in sunny streets, or sharp violins punctuating the end of combat...and that's all within the first few minutes. Lighting, color, set pieces...I constantly felt like these places could exist (albeit in a weird reflection of the world).

Columbees? Columbia Quartet? I just want their hats.

Infinite certainly is less eerie overall than its predecessors (at least mostly), but it conveys through setting exactly what the player might feel. Like with the AI Partner, there were times I just stopped and let myself immerse in my surroundings. This is not without its flaws, but to discuss them would be to violate my spoiler policy; so take my word that overall the setting is good, but has some drawbacks.

Welcome to ~~Utah~~ Columbia!

Final Verdict

So the big question is whether this game deserves its 96 metacritic score. No, not it does not. Let me put it this way: Bioshock Infinite is a good game, but it is not a good Bioshock game. If I had to give it a metascore it would still be in the high 80's or low 90's, but to deserve a 96, it would have needed to take everything it's predecessors did and do it better. Really though, this part is hard to fill out without giving more information...so you'll need take me on what I've presented so far. Do not let the number of criticisms dissuade you, the game is still fantastic. However, I would recommend instead waiting for it to go on its first steam sale before grabbing it.

[MMO General] Trial Run

2013-04-01T15:17:00.000-07:00

One of the smarter moves I think most F2P MMOs are making lately is the shift towards having trial periods for their premium or special options. This page out of the drug dealer playbook does help solve the problem of getting people to want to make that magical first purchase. As I have heard, the hardest gap to cross is getting people to spend that initial bit of cash, and thus anything to make players more likely to spend money is success. Finding the right balance between giving players a taste and removing the need to spend money or resources entirely is something few have managed to hit right on the nose, so below I wanted to address a few. Of course, it should be noted that because each game is different, that sweet spot exists in a different place for each.

League of Legends

So I'll start with what I consider the strongest, League of Legends. Here, you are allowed to test drive 10 heroes per week; the heroes are selected by the developer and follow a semi-consistent cycle.

What you see each week; taken from LoL's website.

They are not entirely random, they are tailored in part to the meta so that each role of the meta can be fulfilled by even new players with some certainty. However, the system is a bit unpredictable and if you want a specific hero, you might have to wait a LONG time for heroes who fall into the roles that are a bit saturated.

So while this system gives you a "taste" of each hero, tailored so that new heroes show up 2-3 weeks after release, the inability to choose can make it hard to tell if you like a hero before you buy. However this works in favor of the developer, in encouraging people to buy heroes that are new to have them first, or to buy heroes because they enjoyed them during the trial rather than making targeted choices. In an ideal world, once per week or month a player would be able to test a specific hero for a period of time...perhaps a day. Otherwise though, the system works very well, so I hold it up as a good example.

Hawken

Taking a page out of League of Legend's book, Hawken allows players to, in a limited capacity, "test drive" 2 of their 11 (soon to be 12) mechs. There are some limitations of course. In Hawken, players earn experience by playing which they can use to optimize and tweak their mech.


Had my cursor over the raider when I took the screenshot...oh that sweet delicious Corsair...

Test Driven mechs still earn experience, but it can't be spent until the player actually buys it. This works well in allowing a person to get a taste of what they can expect, but it does limit this in some obnoxious ways. The first is that most mechs have 3 weapons they can swap between, but in test drive mode, because you can't optimize your mech, you only have access to the first which is often one people stop using as soon as they have access to other weapons. This is not universally true, but is definitely the majority. Second, being unable to optimize means the mech will perform well below potential, which for some can give an inaccurate image of what to expect. Lastly, the test drive period is something like two weeks long, so while it gives you ample time to test out a mech, it doesn't keep the doors rotating very quickly and it can mean that if you want to try out something specific you are going to need to wait a very long time.

Planetside 2

I consider this the worst of the lot, because while their "trial" system is noble in intent, it falls on its face quickly on. In Planetside 2, a player can test a single weapon every 24 hours, with a delay on how often you can re-test a specific weapon. You have 30 minutes to use this weapon. You cannot spend any certs on it...and there's the rub. Most weapons are vastly inferior without having certs spent on them. Sniper rifles? Enjoy the 3x (or whatever the default was...4x?) scope; when most players likely use the 8-12x's. Assault rifles and carbines tend not to be used without some form of scope and attachments. So really the "trial" becomes "What this gun will be like in the 3 minutes before you upgrade it." I know that it is on the Roadmap, but it seems like it would be a relatively easy change to let people "sample" certs with their trial equipment (just give them ALL the certs for it, that would entice players even more because now they'd see the weapon at full potential). The game has somewhat improved this with the VR Training area, but that only gives you a feel for how the weapon handles against stationary targets, not against human opponents.

League of Legends' Person of Color Problem

2013-03-04T17:30:00.007-08:00

This post was brought on by a discussion I had with a friend, in which, as a joke, he exclaimed "There are no black people in League of Legends," referring to the character list. While perhaps a crass way to put it, he had a point. But League of Legends is one of the most popular games in the world right now, that had to be wrong. Yet I could not think of a single dark skinned champion to save my life. So I did the responsible thing and did some research, below are the findings and some analysis.

As of today there are 111 Champions released, of those, there are 63 that are clearly identifiable as human and have at least some skin color visible. This does not include Yordles or anyone who is not human. I confirmed this by going through the entire list and checking their primary (default, canon) skin. If it was very unclear I tried to use other apparently lore-appropriate skins (as in ones that were not simply novelty costumes) to clarify. To be fair to the developers, I'll throw out the 11 that are of indeterminant race (Viktor, Brand, Zed) or esoteric (as in, not found on Earth) skin colors (such as Evelyn, Ryze, Elise). So we're at 52. Full disclosure, I did include Kayle who's default skin is fully armored, because the majority of her skins depict the same character (a Caucasian woman with blonde hair).

The findings were concerning.

Of the 52 champions examined, only 8 of them were persons of color (~17%), with 7 of them being east Asian (mostly Ionian, which seems to be a hybrid of Japan, China, and southeast Asia). Of those 8 several were difficult to determine (such as Master Yi) but in general, they had relatively fair skin (Irelia, for example, has extremely fair skin which some pink in its shading). I won't go into artistic analysis of what it means to draw an "Asian" character with Western traits or proclaim to know how "good or bad" that is. I can say that mixing standards of beauty can create difficulties, with my go-to example being a fan's "remake" of Faith from Mirror's Edge. In brief, a fan felt that Faith should be resigned to be more in line with what the fan felt were Asian standards of beauty (the image on the right, the original is on the left). That however, is a topic for another day. In this case, I will defer and count the characters.

But something about the above should have stood out even more. To me, it was that of 63 Champions, only ONE was non-Asian or Caucasian in color. Who? Karma. The game puts her as an Ionian native, the aforementioned stand-in for Asia, but her darker skin color and name derived from Hindu mythology would implicate that she is Indian.

Ironically, also a character the developers have to this day been unable to properly balance.

Hispanic? Not a one. African American? Nope, maybe a skin (I couldn't find one). Native American? MAYBE Udyr but it's nigh impossible to tell. Suffice to say, if there are characters that are meant to be persons of color, it's almost impossible to be certain; maybe people see their own race in certain ones, but by and large the cast is as lily-white as a high-priced private school.

But Clock, they just make characters based on their audience! They are complying with audience demands!

The "Free Market" which this sort of claim is essentially appealing to, is actually extremely racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic...basically phobic to everything that is not the majority. This means actors can get away with socially reprehensible behavior by waving the flag of "Oh it's the markets fault." which simultaneously shifts blame to the victims (the consumers who apparently don't want to consume progressive media) and absolves the developers. This creates a chicken-egg problem that I personally think should rest more on the shoulders of developers, but sadly due to modern corporate law, likely won't any time soon...despite that opening up to other ethnic groups can broaden your audience; or that offering different standards of beauty can open the discussion. As it is, a large portion of the Earth's population is not represented. This may be a "Fantasy" setting, but if their fantasy is "There are no POCs in our world" then I am not sure Riot is a company I want to support.

Lets be honest here, League of Legends is the most played game in the world, and has followings from Brazil to Asia...I'd venture that it's access is nearly worldwide. If the racial distribution in game is meant to even vaguely mirror that of real life, it means a mere 17% of their player base is people of color.

This is rather saddening to me because League of Legends has a rich setting and backstory to draw from, and could easily involve people of color without resorting to tokenism. I am not advocating that they start releasing POC's just to fulfill some kind of quota, but I can think of no legitimate excuse as to why they haven't. Nor am I arguing that the Riot team is necessarily being racist, but the results do speak for themselves. So perhaps they should weave POCs into the rest of the rotation, just as our modern world has woven culture and appearance.

[General] Advancement and Guilds

2013-02-27T15:33:00.000-08:00

I was going to do a post on Firefall's progression and crafting, which ironically happen to be the two things that Red 5 is about to change substantially so I will hold off until that is released. I still recommend the game! For those readers looking for beta spots I have a few invites left. Instead, with Guild Wars 2 coming out with a new patch, and me having taken an interest in playing it again recently, I thought I'd discuss some of my concerns about these new Guild Missions and what they can do to guilds.

Advancement is fun, I'd wager that a large number of MMO players would attribute much of their drive to play to continued advancement; whether through equipment, levels, or some other metric. That's nothing to be ashamed of, it's nice to have clear, discrete goals towards rewards.

However, the latest trend in MMO's is adding a new layer for guilds, because people already love raiding and large-group content, what could be more fun than giving the entire guild something to strive for and rewarding them for doing so?

The problem is actually the same that many encounter with regards to LFG systems and Dungeon Finders. I distinctly recall the debacle in WoW Wrath of the Lich King when the infamous "Gearscore" mod came out and suddenly every LFG channel was filled with "LFG ICC, 2900 GS Required". When you set up rewards, people want the path of least resistance to them; they want other players in their party to have the best gear possible (often, gear that would be obtained in the instance you are entering).

When guild levels came out, this continued, with people desiring guilds of X level so they would get a certain bonus. Small guilds felt the hurt as their looser members split off for higher level guilds with more of the benefits to offer. My own guild, a small group that mostly just ran 10-mans, did not reach the level 25 cap until nearly the end of the expansion. Many start-up guilds found difficulty even getting off the ground because players wouldn't look their way.

Guild Wars 2 somewhat evaded this by making influence something of a currency, giving guilds some control over what they had so as to alleviate the issue of needing to be level X to get benefit Y (though it has some of that still). However now they've added guild missions, which, because of their high influence costs, may drive players away from smaller guilds to larger ones to reap those benefits.

The problem with these rewards is the snow-ball effect, the larger the gap gets the harder it becomes for newer guilds to get started. The way I see it this creates two types of guilds: small "family" guilds of members that have been together a long time or are devoted (and care more for the people than benefits), and the larger "super" guilds that are mainly players looking for those benefits, often with loose connection to the guild itself and a willingness to move if things slow down. Personally I don't think the latter is all that nice, it makes the guild just another chat channel to talk in and derive benefits from, and removes the cohesion of a unified group. Some people do enjoy it, and I do not mean to suggest we should prevent them.

However, these reward systems do seem to cater to the larger guilds much more than small, which may have just as devoted players of the game. It can create a disheartening feeling that they have to work twice as hard (or more) as others to get the same rewards.

At this juncture I am not sure of a solution sadly, the first that pops to mind is the "Reputation" that WoW tried but that system proved so clumsy (especially when one can be kicked at any time without cause) that it made leaving a guild too risky and penalized more mobile players (often high end raiders). A solution that decided the costs based on guild size would encourage kicking members to benefit a certain "preferred" group. What do you think developers could try? Or what have others I have not mentioned tried?

Hiatus broken! Firefall Beta Discussion

2013-02-13T18:01:00.001-08:00

So a brief post amidst long hiatus where I've been busy being a law student and fondly recalling when I used to have time for "fun". Alas in truth I did find some time to have a bit, and in the past few weeks I've found myself entered into two closed betas. Sadly one of them has me under a strict NDA. The other does not, so I will discuss...FIREFALL!

Created by, Red 5 Studios, comprised of some former Blizzard employees with experience on everything from Diablo to WoW, Firefall is a Third-person-shooter/first-person-shooter (depending on your fancy) in which you are among the survivors of an apocalypse trying to save Earth from an alien force. It's one of those few post-apoc's in which humanity hasn't descended to Mad Max-esque tribes of roving bandits. We can debate human nature all we want, but no one said video games had to be perfectly true to it, and I find it enjoyable to have a more positive outlook on humanity's ability to handle being driven to the edge.

Even before I discovered Red 5's pedigree I was rather impressed by the UI and fluidity of movement. One of my pet peeves in an MMO is feeling "constrained" and limited...easy ways to irk me are disallowing jumping or highly limiting where a player can go. While the game does not have a good tutorial yet (it's EARLY beta) one I grasped the basic scheme of the controls (and the "Calldown" system) the rest felt very intuitive. The guns function like they should (at least in a semi-fantasy setting). In other words, everything "feels" right about the movement and gameplay. There are some rough edges to sand off, some issues, but generally speaking I feel in control and in the world.

I was going to comment on their crafting and progression system, but they are about to make large changes to them so that would be a bit redundant. They seem to have heads on their shoulders; moving away from a long progression to a more open system that's easy to enter but very deep.

So far my complaints are relatively few; nitpicky sort of things, like wishing I could swap which shoulder the third-person camera looked over (like Hitman Absolution allows). Or spicing up the PvE (which is still in the early stages so this is an unfair criticism). I feel confident that Red 5 has a handle on things, but I have been burned before...

Farewell THQ

2013-01-25T13:30:00.000-08:00

Starting a new semester with a writing intensive course load has put me in the position of having little time to write for myself, and what free time I do have tends to go to PLAYING the games I want to talk about. Last I wrote I mentioned an Assassin-Type game compare-contrast and I still want to, but today I wanted to discuss something else.

Much to my dismay one of my favorite publishers is closing its doors. My condolences to those employees and their families, but it also brings to mind a concerning question about the video game industry.

I can't claim a degree in economics so as to comment on their practices as a company, but as a gamer, I can say that they were the publisher for many of my favorite games. It struck me that the developer of Dawn of War, Company of Heroes, Saints Row, and Space Marine could be here one day, gone the next. THQ was far from perfect, but I rarely recall seeing them being publicly defamed for business practices or game quality. The sad thing is, then I look at all those companies still around who's names are spoken with venom such as EA or Activision-Blizzard. I've enjoyed games from those companies, but it seems no extreme to say that some of their practices have earned them the disdain of their customers. Yet they are the ones still floating along.

I fear this means that some developer/publishers may move more towards those practices as a means to stay afloat. Say what I will about EA/Activision, their plan of yearly release of certain titles and focus on the whole market (consoles AND PC) seems to keep them up and running. Even others such as SquareEnix and Ubisoft have their yearly release cash-cow. This may merely be a correlation, but it is striking. At a time when the majority of games demoed at conventions will be existing IP's, where 10 years ago the majority of a show-floor was not.

I won't deny that I like some of them, I enjoy Assassin's Creed and Halo for their setting and story, but I do find that the creative side of the industry is having trouble. Indie games certainly pick up much of that slack, but the market is still dominated by the giants. I love Steam for implementing GreenLight to try and foster that, but Valve can't exactly claim innocence in the creativity corner given that every game they've released in the past decade has had a "2" or higher following it.

All in all, I wonder if the industry can break from that rut, or if we're in an inescapable spiral where new ideas are the exception and polished-repeats the norm.

Alas I wax philosophy, this one is to THQ. Whatever straw broke the camel's back, I thank them for their games and the hours of entertainment they provided to me. I will think fondly on playing as a 4-man Space Marine squad with friends, smashing, shooting, stabbing, lasering, plasma-ing, jet-pack-stomping and so on hordes of Orks. I'll go blow up some things in Saints Row 3 in their honor or street-race a friend.

I do hope things go well for those sub-developers and for their staff; maybe we'll see some new start-ups rise from the proverbial ashes. Here's to hoping.

Planetside 2 "They nerfed what I paid for!"

2013-01-05T12:12:00.001-08:00

First post in a while I know :( I have been on break and enjoying it! Which has rendered me unable to take the time to post due to family and friends. Currently I've played Dishonored, Hitman: Absolution, and Assassin's Creed 3 so expect my next post to be a bit of compare and contrast of these three "super assassin" games. And on to today's topic, nerfing what I paid for!

With more and more games moving to the Free-to-play-but-you-can-spend-cash-to-have-more-fun model (not "necessarily" pay to win) a new common thread I am seeing are games in which one can unlock certain items/weapons/whatever-kills-people-in-this-game through gaining of experience...OR...by spending some cash. Some, like World of ~~Camping~~ Tanks/Planes allow you to buy specific alternatives that in the past often got preferential matchmaking and earned you more in-game money (but since that couldn't be traded it wasn't too big of an issue). Here we are in 2013 and I am playing Planetside 2, observing that every weapon in the game can be purchased with experience (often copious amounts required, from 100 to 1000 certs, with 1000 taking at least 10 or so hours of game-time to achieve, and that's being generous) or with Station cash, SOE's currency. So most players tend to use their certs on character upgrades (which can't be necessarily bought) and spend station cash to buy weapons (many, such as myself, having taken advantage of the recent Triple-Station-Cash day).

However, here's the rub...PS2 is one of those games in which balance will be an ever evolving process, and weapons purchased today may have to be nerfed tomorrow. You see SOE considers every weapon in the game to be a "side-grade" to the original starting set (though frankly, this is idiocy on their part, because in 90% of cases the "side-grades" are superior to their counterparts at the role expected of the class).

In the past, people trading items for real money was essentially a "black market" so they had little recourse if the company nerfed their item. But what if the extreme happened...what if one day SOE offers a new weapon and it sell out faster than a hipster rock group, but then, a week later, they realize that this new weapons is "overpowered" or is somehow ruining game balance. So they nerf it...and they nerf it HARD, in an extreme example they could put it down to 1 damage per hit, or so that it does nothing. The only recourse the players who purchased it have now is to quit, they've no remedy for the money they spent on the item (despite it having been offered/advertised to them with specific statistics). I am not seeking to get on a soapbox and advocate allowing us to sue game companies for design/balance decisions, but it does, to me, raise an interesting thought. In the physical world, if a product fails to perform as specifically advertised then one often has a remedy of rescission. So I wonder what is in store for the digital world, as more and more games are moving towards this model.

In PS2 there was a rocket launcher on the market for a time; it did slightly less damage, but could lock-on OR dumbfire, allowing the user to deal with basically any enemy vehicle type (or soldier in a pinch). A few weeks after release, the dumbfire capability was removed, eliminating precisely the impetus for many players to buy it.

Consider some other examples, and perhaps tell me where you draw your own line.

In WoW, the Sparkle-pony's spark is reduced by 50% because it is overly sparkly.

In PS2, a 1-shot 1-kill sniper rifle is released, so many players buy it for that reason. A week later, SOE decides this weapon is to potent, even with other use restrictions, and nerfs it to be on par with other weapons.

In World of Tanks, Wargaming decides that there are simply too many snipers in the game, so to combat this, they take the popular Lowe tank (a $20-40 tank depending) which is known for its sniping, and replace its gun with one more suited to close-range combat.

[PS2] CERTifiable

2012-12-20T13:52:00.000-08:00

From the moment you open Planetside 2 until one day you uninstall, your ears will ring with the siren call of "Certs..." the magical currency in PS2 that makes Auraxis go-round. From the get-go you begin amassing certs to purchase everything from upgrades to new capabilities. It costs 10 certs to learn to use an Auraxian toilet. I wouldn't be surprised if eventually it costs 100 just to be able to logout. Certs are gained primarily through earning experience; so killing, maiming, reviving, assisting, hacking, capturing, rearming, sunbathing...basically everything you do in PS2 aside from breathing (costs 20 certs) earns you xp which earns you certs.

Many classes and vehicles start out "nerfed" in some manner, requiring either certs or station cash to "un-nerf" them. Much like EVE after several years, soon enough playing PS2 for a new player will be less about opening up variety, and more about "un-nerfing" yourself relative to other players. Whereas in Planetside 1, the point of certs was to offer versatility, in PS2 you already have access to all the vehicles and classes, so certs become about "specialization" (which is an industry buzz-word for "grinding like hell so that you can be as good as everyone else at a role").

"But Clockwork, the weapons are all side-grades and the cert bought upgrades are all small."

My friend, let me take that cup of Kool-aid from you for a moment. Go look at the weapons again; is your fare the sniper? Then start saving up for a 1000 cert bolt-action that does more damage with higher projectile speed than any other. "But it reloads slowly!" Oh I forgot how important reload speed was to a sniper when using a head-shot killing rifle, my mistake. Find me a few credible snipers that would prefer a slightly faster reload speed to a better chance of a kill in a shot, and I'll eat my hat*. Are you more of a heavy assault? Well if you are Vanu, I hope you enjoy LMGs with 50 round magazines that empty faster than a teenager who just discovered the internet. Or you could spend 1000 certs once more for a rifle with slower rate of fire, higher damage, and 50% more ammunition.

Maybe you prefer to pilot? Well your Liberator comes standard with a chain gun that can tear through a tank in 3 magazines! Your Empire Specific Fighter (ESF) comes with a stock machine gun and extra afterburner fuel pods. Those will be handy for running away, or spending 3 minutes shooting at a ground vehicle in hopes of a kill. Where "side-grade" anti-air missiles are only 500 certs away, or rocket pods at 1000....

Hopefully the point is clear but I could cite examples of the Lightning, empire specific tanks...

As for upgrades, for a few hundred certs you can have 50% more HP, assured survival against certain attacks and a clear advantage against someone without. Or you could have 50% resistance to explosions; letting you laugh away the mines or grenades of other infantry...or survive a tank's shelling.

The importance of Certs leads to experience efficiency being paramount...anything to get your next few a little faster. For example, I have watched people destroy FRIENDLY Sunderers so that they could deploy their own to get the experience. Being a tanker or ESF is vastly more entertaining than infantry because it's a safer means of getting that xp. Despite holding to my "do what's fun" mantra, even I have found myself tugged towards the rocks of less-fun by the siren call of faster xp.

I hope they improve things, at this rate "unnerfing" yourself is going to just become more an more of a chore; and if you aren't ahead of the curve, then the average player will be better equipped than you.

* Hat may or may not be substituted for cake.

Planetside 2: The circle-zerg

2012-12-14T16:39:00.000-08:00

So the past few weeks have been a whirlwind of holidays and law school finals, leaving me bereft of time to write anything meaningful or do much in the way of gaming. In that time I did take a shine to the newly released Planetside 2 and it occupied what breaks I allowed myself. SOE has conjured forth my nostalgic side and drawn me into the web of MMOFPS once more and I don't mind much. I loved Planetside, it was the first game I played with "MMO" at the front of its genre. Alas the game is far from perfect; the shift towards a F2P model has had some negative effects on the gameplay that I aim to address in a coming series of posts...the first of which, I call the "circle-zerg".

Put briefly, Planetside 2 has three continents for the three factions to fight over. Each has its own terrain (desert/plain, snow, and a sort of forest/jungle) and a dozen or so large bases to fight over, with twenty or so smaller installations scattered around. That's a lot of territory to conquer....and it would be great. But Planetside 2 is all about certs, certs do everything for you....they allow you to "specialize", they let you buy new weapons or equipment...they do most everything. They are gained from combat experience (doing everything from healing allies, killing enemies, to sneezing on a tank). Thus everyone wants to maximize their experience gained per hour so as to maximize cert gains.

There is a problem though; you get about 4 certs worth of xp for taking a facility (1000, and that's in addition to the combat experience you get doing so), and guess how much you get for defending? None. There is no bonus for defending. Furthermore, there is no restriction on which facilities a faction can attack...the speed at which they capture is determined by "influence" but otherwise everything seems to be fair game. So this means that the best way to get xp is to take territory, not to stay and defend what you have. It leads to this.... (image comes from a reddit post, currently PS2 will not allow me to take screenshots)

Notice the bars showing each continent's faction population (top right of each) with the total population on the bottom right.

So what happens? People group up for the best chance of getting xp...strength in numbers...and then the moment things go south they bail to the continent where their faction is doing best. Instead of having "wars" of big armies fighting, most of these engagements are turning into one-sided steamrolls of those few defenders stick around. This is the essence of the "circlezerg"; two armies crawling around each other, taking back what the other side takes....and all of this, because certs are the currency of the realm, and are all anyone desires (because of how ridiculously many it takes to get anything). SOE needs to provide some new incentive to defend territory.This is one of those places I think a look back would help them moving forward. Right now, you can attack anywhere...and while this is nice for "operative" type players who like small group tactics, it results in defenders having no idea where they will be hit next. The lattice system in Planetside 1 at least ensured that to progress the attackers had to go certain directions and it allowed losers at one battle to reinforce and defend at the next base, providing for better fights. By keeping the smaller perimeter redoubts and towers open to be captured, those players who like the more covert style would still have tasks.

I've railed on certs here, but I'll address them in another post....but for now, with certs being the prize everyone is chasing, SOE needs to do something to bring the zergs together, because it would be a lot more fun to actually fight a formidable foe.

[GW2] Fraking Fractals

2012-11-26T17:41:00.003-08:00

Despite the title I actually don't disdain the new Guild Wars 2 Fractal dungeon(s) all that much. A dungeon that is slightly variable each run and scales in difficulty and requires you to run it to access the higher difficulties? Sounds great!....on paper. In practice this runs into a few issues.

The first is that the difficulty scale is a little off; while the low difficulties do a good job of teaching you the mechanics for each fractal, some of them remain relatively easy while some scale up to difficult fairly quickly.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, with regards to the difficulty, is that to advance by even a single level (the fractals go up to 40) a person has to do the previous one. So you begin at 1...then are eligible for 2...then 3. And for each of these stages you need to find a group, and because so many people are jockeying to get to the highest levels, finding a group that is looking for your specific fractal rank can be a challenge. In a few months I suspect it will grow more and more difficult as the community's eligibility spreads out.

"Lets split the community into 40 units within each server!" - Said no wise developer ever

While this is made somewhat easier with Overflow servers, in which you can hope around to try and find more people, it does bring to light the glaring issue that which is GW2's lack of a good group finding tool. I am not necessarily asking for an LFD, but perhaps a world-wide system which would show others looking for your level of fractal across all servers (oh god, I went and made the cross-realm suggestion...please don't hurt me!). Some games have experimented with this tool, but it seems modern players are reluctant to use "do-it-yourself" systems (as indicated by their relative disuse...though that could also be due to the limitations of these systems in the past).

Alternatively they could relax that difficulty a little, allow it to be account bound (though I recognize that this would raise other issues), or in segments....or "If you run a level 1-10 x times, you become eligible for 11-20 automatically". The problem I see is that the system is relatively alt-unfriendly, in a game that seems to have gone lengths to be alt-friendly. Many dungeon rewards are account bound, its easy to transfer things between characters and they share bank space.

That said, the dungeons themselves are entertaining enough; they each have a unique little gimmick or mechanic to observe (for example, one requires running from fire to fire in a snowstorm to keep warm) and I hope that Anet adds to this and pushes some of their own limits in making them interesting....because sadly, at this point, the boss encounters are still relatively "DPS'n'dodge"; meaning they are basically similar to regular mobs but that do more damage and have substantially more health.

[GW2] A Karka in my back, or, "Seriously Arenanet?"

2012-11-18T17:18:00.002-08:00

I've been the staunch defender of Arenanet...I've defended their choice of making the Halloween event video a one-time only affair on the grounds that it was a minor thing that everyone could then witness on Youtube...a non-interactive event. I defended their choice to have hard content on Halloween so long as it was not tied to a meta-achievement.

So while some people were expressing valid criticism, I didn't let it hinder my enjoyment. I still stand by my assertion that GW2 is a quality game.

Then they go and ~~fuck me~~ push even my limit.

Lando's pointing at me

I am not too big to admit it, and so here it is. I give this one to Azuriel, because it this time I think we'd be on the same side. This time ArenaNet stepped over my line; I am unhappy with their decision regarding the Lost Coast events.

A quick history:

Day 1: Starting on Friday there was an event in which players were investigating strange crates and reports of odd creatures showing up...this was fine (aside from one of the events being bugged and preventing most people from completion). I said "whatever" and went on my merry way.

Day 2: The island opens, players can go to it for a repeating event in which they assist NPCs in getting a foothold on the new continent. Aside from the massive mobs of people and lag, this event was quite fun and I enjoyed it when I arrived.

Day 3: The "finale"...at 12 PM PST on Sunday they held the major event, in which NPCs and players made the final push. This event lasted 2-3 hours and culminated with the players bringing down the "Ancient Karka". The thing was devastating and for all its flaws (reinforcements!) and lag, the event went well. However here is where things got bad: the event created a chest at the end which had HIGH quality loot.

Kiss me!

This loot for most players involved 2 exotics, 2 rares and a 20 slot bag...some players, a significant number, got a "precursor" exotic. Precursors are used to make Legendary items and can cost upwards of 200 gold a piece (200 gold is more than most players have on hand by 10 times).

While I am fine with ANet increasing access to precursors...a one-time event is just not the way to do it. They did a POOR job of advertising this event, I was unaware of its existence aside from people being online and informing me, despite keeping up with the event that was going on. Players in Oceanic zones had access from 6 am to 8 their time on a Monday. Worse yet, many players got disconnected near the finale, denying them the loot they had worked ~2+ hours for. The end result is that a significant number of players missed out on what should have been a fantastic event.

And there is an easy fix that they already have implemented elsewhere. For the duration of the day, have the event repeat every 4 hours just like the dragons. This is supposed to go until 10 PST on Monday (11/19)...they could easily have enabled some kind of repetition and made it so that you could only get the "super" loot on your first time through.

So really, Arenanet...please, not again, don't do this again. Now many players are going into this new content feeling as though they missed out and are already demoralized. To many "Lost Coast" will now be the memory of that time they missed out on a precursor. Doesn't help that for the remainder of the event, everyone has a text-box in the corner of their screen reading "The Lionguard are engaging the Ancient Karka. Head to Southsun Cove to Participate" and when players arrive...the event is over. This whole "Hey if you want cool stuff, plan your life around being online for our event!" thing is a poor choice in my opinion; I am playing this as a game, not as another obligation.

This is what "no loot for you" looks like

As of 5:11 PST, the event still reads as completed, we'll see if a few more hours proves that I am wrong and that Anet did add a repeat

Edit: Some people found a work-around....they would join overflows where the event was incomplete. Sadly at 10:45 PST Arenanet put a stop to that one with a new build. Though this is somewhat justified, some people were doing that just to farm multiple chests.

I also realized, as I sat here, that it feels like a bait-and-switch from Arenanet. Their last "one-time" event was a video which my friend expressed made him feel like he wasn't missing much. Turn around to this, and him choosing to see it at his leisure on youtube also means missing out on 15+ gold worth of loot with a solid shot a precursor. So now players are left in a quantum limbo every time ArenaNet announces a "one-time" event. Will this mean missing out on items? Or is it just a video we can see later? Then we're back to that feeling of having to schedule my life around the game to be competitive.

Trouble with Binary choice

2012-11-16T13:54:00.005-08:00

A decade and a half ago in the late 90's games such as Fallout and Planescape Torment released; among their accolades were the extensive dialogue trees that provided a sense of choice to the player with regards to how the story might play out. Each had varying degrees of success, but it was clear that your choices in any given conversation might effect that sub-story going forward; with some impacting the finale. Fast-forward to 2012 and we're cheering on games like Infamous, Mass Effect 3, and others simply for giving us the "paragon/renegade" options; the distilled, streamlined, and frankly, shallow, facsimiles of the systems that came before.

I can't entirely blame developers; it's far easier to do the binary (sometimes tri-nary) systems than it is to do a massively detailed tree of possible conversation outcomes. Really, to me the main problems with these choices are that they tend to only resolve as far as the end of the conversation, and that they tend to have a minimal if not tiny impact on the rest of the story. It's particularly sad to see this result by a company like Bioware, that not a few years ago had released Dragon Age Origins, a game who's dialogue system harkened back to the rose-colored good-old days of RPGs.

Here's the thing, I as a player, want to feel like my choices matter. In Mass Effect 3 the "choices" just resulted in a different name for that 20 additional war assets. Most conversations in Mass Effect end nearly the same regardless of the option chosen; all that really separates is whether the person likes or hates you at the end...and it never ends up mattering. If you ARE going to just add different units to my army, make the effort to SHOW them. In Guild Wars 2 at several points the player is sent to recruit aid; then (SPOILER ALERT) during the final section of the story, that aid often shows up to help, sometimes 20 or so levels after it had been enlisted. (OK YOU ARE SAFE NOW)

I get it developers, I really do; the fractal storyline really isn't feasible on a limited budget...especially if you are planning on giving us voice acting. At least make our choices meaningful, make them last and give us a significant ability to change the game with them. We might end up at the same basic point, but let us get there from different paths. I'll even admit, that a lot of this feeling comes from how unabashedly simple the story ends up...it's clear we are on a path that is more or less linear with a few deviations. If you want to improve things, obfuscate that...let us decide some of the path we take even if it results in us reaching the same result.

And for the love of all things holy, stop putting in an NPC "hero" that gets all the credit at the end. (I am looking at you Arenanet and Blizzard...)

[GW2] Difficulty, tedium, and clocks

2012-11-06T16:30:00.004-08:00

So the Guild Wars 2 Halloween event has come and gone; stirring ripples with its "one-time" event (now reproduced on youtube for viewing pleasure) a temporary zone and PvP games, and a clock tower jumping puzzle that would frustrate M. C. Escher. I decided to step back and ponder my thoughts on the last of those before writing. Why was the Clock Tower so frustrating, why was the aggregate response so negative? For the record, I completed it twice, and I actually enjoyed it once I got the hang of it.

Real Difficulty v. Artificial Difficulty

Difficulty as a philosophical concept could fill volumes and I will not claim to be any kind of expert there, but I will say that generally speaking "difficulty" tends to mean how adverse the rules are in comparison to the player's skill-set. As applied to a jumping puzzle, where the player must complete a series of tests and judgments with a calculable level of precision, the difficulty lies in how complex those tests are and how precise they must be. Throwing additional monkey wrenches, such as a time limit or enemies, increases the difficulty (though they can be thought of as part of the "global" test, that is to say a jumping puzzle with a time limit's test is "Complete X jumping tests in Y time.").

In gaming however I feel that some of those monkey wrenches are more "legitimate" than others. A "legitimate" increase in difficulty places more natural tests on the player's capability; tasks that require the player to complete tests faster or more precisely. Alternatively, "artificial" difficulty are situations that either have little relevance to the player's skill, step back the ease of a player's interface with the game, or otherwise impede progress outside of the test. The artificial ones naturally are those that tend to frustrate and make a task feel tedious, while legitimate difficulty makes success more satisfying.

Legitimate Difficulty

From the infamous Clock Tower, the legitimate difficulty challenges were the complexity of the jumps and the time-limit. These are both genuine tests of the player's skill and thus I can't really fault them. The jumps included rapid leaps onto sometimes unclear positions, switchbacks, differences in distance...the works. A time-limit strikes me as legitimate perhaps because of tradition, doing something in a fixed time or "faster" than everyone else is practically a time-honored way for people to contest. Furthermore, the rewards for completing this challenge were perhaps the definition of optional in Guild Wars 2: an achievement that was not part of the meta-achievement for the event (though to be fair, this was not initially clear), and a pair of Exotic boots with + magic find and common stats (which could also be obtained doing the other PvE of the event).

Artificial Difficulty (Tedium)

This list is a bit longer because frankly there were plenty of artificial barriers thrown in the player's way that had virtually nothing to do with their ability to complete the task (that is, these factors were not really a matter of personal skill but chance and optimization). Many of these are issues created by intentionally introducing poor game-to-player interfaces. Essentially they remind the player that they are in a game. For the Clock Tower, these included: other players occluding vision, the issues with the camera (often making it hard to see things), the jumps that required the player knew they were coming (leap of faith, the exploding clock face, etc), the minute or so a player had to wait between attempts, lag, and poor collision detection ("I totally made that jump!").

All of these were mentioned by players at some point and I do agree with them, each frustrates the process of success in ways beyond the player's control. You can't really "out skill" the presence of other players blocking your vision. No amount of skill could save a player that jumped towards the clock face without knowing it would soon break. Perhaps you could argue that "skill" can alleviate these but they were choices that were character specific, not player. Furthermore they clearly were not the kinds of skills the Clock Tower, billed as a "jumping puzzle" was intending to test.

Additional examples of what I consider artificial difficulty are: poor camera control (as in the camera is as much your opponent as the enemies), "dumb" units in an RTS (that will stand on a grenade unless ordered off it), and overly complex/confusing controls (that serve no purpose but to limit the player's ability to interface).

Proper Billing

No matter what a developer does, players will complain, but I do think one of Arenanet's mistakes in this regard was not properly conveying the players that the Clock Tower was NOT a challenge that everyone was expected or intended to complete. It was posted along with all the other challenges, and while it was referred to as "devious" and would require "nerves of steel and steady feet" the other content of the event was described as "nightmarish" and "macabre" and the terminology fit the general theme of the expansion; giving player's the false assumption that it was meant poetically.

As stated previously, it was not made clear to most players that challenge was not part of the meta-achievement and its reward was obtainable elsewhere. If instead it had been made clear early on that this was a challenge of intense difficulty, it might not have put so many players in the stressful position of trying to complete it lest they miss out on the title and meta achievement.

Conclusion

With any luck, from this Anet learned a few lessons....in various blog posts and media sources they have reflected some of this, but time will tell. I look forward to more honestly, the GW2 Halloween event (IMO) blew WoW's out of the water.

[MMOs] Economies of (digital) Scale

2012-10-29T12:56:00.002-07:00

Some time ago I mused that the primary fun of playing a goblin in a game like WoW was that each server represented a relatively small market and as a result there were plenty of openings and opportunities for quasi-monopolistic behavior. Between this and going over the perceived issues with Guild Wars 2's trading post, I've been asking myself what I would want to see in an MMO market.
With most MMO's, the market seems to eternally caught in a spectrum between "realistic" and "convenient" because real world markets are in part motivated precisely because they are inconvenient. Goods exist at point A but you need them at a factory at point B. In some games, like EVE, this need for logistics is hard-coded and some enterprising players have figured out how to make good money acting as the UPS of New Eden.

On the other side of the coin, the big name fantasy MMO's take a model of convenience instead (ironic that the medieval ones are eliminating the logistical issues). At most the inconvenience one experiences in Guild Wars 2 or World of Warcraft is having to walk to said market (which is usually less than 2 minutes away using a hearthstone or teleporting) and then to your mailbox or another nearby location to retrieve your goods. A few games, such as Final Fantasy 11/14 and Ragnarok have allowed for players to become "shops" and locate themselves somewhere in the world; and personally I like the idea. However the presence of a convenience one-stop-shop auction house somewhat overshadows the positive from this idea.

So where does the line get drawn? We're essentially choosing between "Realism" and "Convenience". The former also often seems to create the niche markets and divided ones (such as individual WoW Realms, or the regions in EVE). While the latter is better received by players who don't want seemingly "artificial" barriers to their fun. The problem with having a strong economy on the latter is that it makes "flipping" (taking an underpriced item and reselling it at a higher price) rather easy....too easy..."click refresh and buy what you see" easy.

Perhaps making me a bit of an island in the MMO market, I'd like to see an MMO that eschews the auction house model. I would like to see a market that is a little more towards the "realistic" side in a game. I'd like to see a fantasy MMO where the crafting/economy are connected. Much like EVE, but with swords instead of ships. Perhaps each player could be the "store" (like in FFXI) but add an easily navigated menu of all the "stores" in your general location so you can find them more easily. The idea being to make crafting as much about finding the ingredients as it is putting them together.

Time of death; 1 month before release

2012-10-15T12:45:00.003-07:00

A common complaint I hear these days is that gaming is too formulaic. A new Assassins Creed, Call of Duty, Battlefield, FIFA, Madden and so on are expected every year. Critics note that E3 in recent years has most sequels than original ideas. Concurrently, I've been privy to joining several closed betas in the past year, and I begin to wonder if the gaming community is working against its own interests in how it handles them.
If I were an outside observer using only the closed beta forums of some games as my means of learning about said game, I would find that not only are most of these games discussed as though they have already been released, but that they are often already tragic failures which should have been closed. Think about that for a second; a game hundreds of thousands of dollars and human-hours have been sunk into is being declared dead by its own players before it even hits the market.

I begin to wonder how this happens; why do players in betas view themselves more as customers than as testers? I am not even talking about the so called "market" open betas that are becoming popular, but the still NDA locked closed betas. I was under the impression that the purpose of those was for the developer to try different things and make changes based on what works and what does not...and yet I see players declaring the game a failure, threatening to move to a competitor, and giving complaining generally ("The game is terrible!") rather than giving useful critique ("I feel like X ability on Y class is not effective enough because _____")

We seem to hate being called "entitled' but this sort of behavior hardly helps fight that stereotype. This problem is endemic to the gaming community; players view themselves as being at odds with developers rather than co-authors of a work of art. I think it is this very conduct that pushes developers to communicate less and less meaningfully to players; a promise never made can't be broken.

In all fairness, the onus of this is not entirely on players; developers are also frequently guilty of labeling things as "betas" which are only serving to drum up interest and market awareness. All too frequently players will feel that when they do provide meaningful feedback it falls on deaf ears of developers who have already made up their minds.

Ok Clock you've ranted enough, what is the point? Simply put, the issue is that declaring games dead before release is antithetical to the desire to have more originality in gaming. Development of a game is a costly endeavor, and declaring a game "bad" simply because it breaks conventions or isn't like "that other game" stifles creativity. Treating developers as an adversary who must be berated if they don't provide exactly what a specific player desires limits their willingness to communicate. I may not like what Ghostcrawler has done, but claiming that he "killed" WoW or dissecting everything he says is not going to get him to open up on the forums. Just because you dislike a design decision, does not instantly make the game bad.

Perhaps as a community we could open our minds a bit; and stop declaring a game dead a month before it comes out. Perception is a powerful tool, and maybe its time to look at games for their strengths, rather than tallying their weaknesses.

[RP] Injecting your own Lore

2012-10-12T14:09:00.000-07:00

One of my pet-peeves when roleplaying in an MMO are the people who have decided to create their own lore and abide by it rather than the setting of the game. While certainly, they have some right to do that, and if their circle accepts that it seems fine. However I find all too often that in MMO-RP this person wants everyone to accept their revisions. I think this irks me most because the way I see it, Roleplaying in an MMO or other game is akin to co-writing some fanfiction....there's give and take.

Like with everything, there are degrees of offense. In a way, simply creating a character is revising the world in some way. The issue is more about how big of a "ripple" the revision makes in the fabric of the story. To use Warcraft lore as an example; creating a soldier that was "present" at the battle of Icecrown Citadel and "assisted" with Arthas's defeat really doesn't change anything. On the other hand, creating the illegitimate child of Thrall/Jaina would drastically shift the nature of the story.

The inevitable problem is that I cannot articulate a clear rule as to when a person is swimming happily with the current of the story and when they are trying to divert the proverbial river. Instead I would offer a more preemptive test based on a few I have encountered in my brief tenure as a law student.

The first is called the "laugh" test. If you can, aloud, describe this character and their background without at any point laughing or feeling foolish, then the character is probably at least initially safe.

Second comes the "ripple" test. Which is to ask yourself, would the existence of this character in the long-term storyline have had a drastic effect on how things would have occurred? If the answer is "yes" then you've crashed into the riverbank.

My own standard is that I tend to try and stay with the current as much as possible. Part of that is because I think it perhaps a bit silly to go into an MMO world with the intention of ignoring or modifying its lore. I RP'ed in WoW because of the Warcraft world, not in spite of it; a mentality I have carried with me into Guild Wars 2. Thankfully I have yet to meet any trans-dimensional demi-gods (admittedly one of the more amusing modifications I encountered in my WoW tenure), children of Alextraza and Deathwing (though one could almost argue for some of these, but the player would be hard pressed to prove it), or "true" kings/queens of Stormwind. Some of these ideas surely are creative, but the point of RPing on an MMO with an established world is to play with others in that world, not in your version.

Learn 2 not die, or, "It's simple, stupid!"

2012-10-11T16:55:00.002-07:00

Go to any random MMO forum, find a thread in which the writer is asking that some boss, ability, mechanic or basically anything mean to be surmounted. Maybe you find the issue the poster is bringing up simple, maybe you agree with the difficulty. I however, will bet you that somewhere in that thread, or ones like it, is someone who's response amounts to "It's fine, learn to play."
This response seems to server two purposes to the responder; as a friend of mine pointed out, it elevates the responder above the original poster, and simultaneously dismisses the poster's issue as something not worth actually addressing. It's the digital version of "If I can do it, anyone can!"

Often this accompanies suggestions that the user uninstall (heavens forbid they have an opinion contrary to someone else!), that they are a "bad" or "scrub" (cause only t3h 1337 should play this game), or of course, that they "learn to play" and master whatever tactic the responder assumes the original poster would glean simply from being told.

Congratulations sir, you as the braver responder, have not only surmounted or defeated whatever challenge the poster posits, but you have boldly ridiculed another human being. Furthermore you've established with wit rather than evidence that the poster is likely the ONLY PERSON ON EARTH who feels this way and, without addressing the point of the poster made the tacit assumption that the person is merely whining rather than expressing a valid point.

I tire of it on forums; the hubris of those who've already learned and would rather see the community of the game they theoretically enjoy diminish by another rather than trying to elevate that individual to their "esteemed"achievements. Perhaps this abuser is making use of the tactic or strategy that the other player is complaining of; lending himself to a conflict of interest.

Perhaps there is a goal in there, a more insidious means of social engineering. Assuming that the responder is on the "skilled" side of the Gaussian and the poster is in the middle or perhaps on the other side, driving him/her away serves to move the Gaussian a tiny bit towards the responder. There is a flaw in this...it means that sooner than later he'll be on the "unskilled" side...one day, it might be the responder in the shoes of the poster; shouted down merely for voicing an opinion.

I'll admit, there are times the posts are stupid, that come off as whining or fit in the typical "X class beat me, so nerf X class," but even perfectly valid issues end up getting this treatment. It annoys, when there should be discourse, that there is only silencing.

Guild Wars 2, a month plus some

2012-10-04T10:00:00.000-07:00

Guild Wars 2 represents an oddity for me; it's the first time I have been able to keep myself off the hype train preceding a major release. Ironically, the result of me essentially becoming unaware of it until just before release is that I do not seem to be suffering the same feelings of disappointment as some other bloggers. I feel as though people build these games up to be some great thing, to offer them a sense of wonder they felt long ago (that frankly can never be replicated), and then they find any reason to hate the game when it fails to provide that. After the break, a few improvements I think the game could use, and some comments on the common criticisms.
Improvements, lets talk positive

I'll keep these in outline form, mainly because I do not claim to know what ArenaNet has planned for down the road.

At least 1 more weapon per class. I like the variety most classes have but as I play each I always feel like something is missing...perhaps this is intended, but it does feel like a downside. Here are a few of my suggestions, mainly from the classes I feel most comfortable commenting on.

Warriors: Off-hand dagger, providing a more duelist feel akin to sword, but focused on disabling rather than counter-attacking
Thieves: Off-hand sword, which would give them a few tank-esque abilities more in line with a "duelist"
Rangers: A rifle...mainly because I think it is silly that they can't use it, but perhaps it could be a condition or AoE heavy build.
Elementalist: I am poisoned by WoW, but I'd like to see them get a sword; perhaps as their more support oriented weapon (Yes, I know Water does a lot already).
Guardian: Longbow; their ranged options are sorely lacking and flat out bad. If the point of GW2 is to break the trinity, each class needs SOME dps option

Events need to be MORE visible. One zone allows you to see events from nearly half the zone...more need this. I notice when bloggers talk about event's feeling rare, it's probably because their path kept them out of sight. Events are everywhere and numerous, but easy to miss. Expanding the "event alert" area would reduce this.
Gem store expansion. One criticism of the Gem store is that the exchange rate is terrible. Currently I think that is because ANet has been too generous in making the gem store items findable in the real world. They need more, things like Name Change and Character Customization need to hit the store. Anything that pulls gems out of the market, increases their value.
Wub vee Wub: One issue with this right now is that it often entails a lot of running, a sudden death, and then a slog back to the fight. This gets old fast; they need to offer the capability to speed up transport a little, while still allowing one side to over-extend itself. Furthermore, the "Commander" concept as it is is now...is dumb. 100 gold does not mean the person has any idea what they are doing or even hints at them being a good leader. Commander needs to be a title either earned by time (with a limits of how many can claim it at once) or competition.
Declarations; monster, especially bosses, need to be a BIT more obvious with some of their declarations. Some of those large dragons can be hard to follow; especially if one is in melee and I have been floored by attacks I COULD have dodged, if I were psychic and knew they were coming
LFG improvements. Something needs to be done, maybe not an LFD or Dungeon Finder, but something to make it easier to find people to group with so that I can click a button and play.

Airing the Complaints

I am not looking to trash talk my fellow bloggers; I like and agree with most of them most of the time. But from some of them I feel a certain "hipster" vibe; a drive to hate the game merely because other people like it or because it didn't conform to some envisioned idea of a grand unification theory of MMOs. I will do my best to avoid creating Strawmen, but if I miss or inappropriately characterize an argument please point it out in comments. So here we go!

"It has no endgame..."

Perhaps not, but this depends on what you define as an endgame. Does it have a metric ton of dailies one has to run to stay competitive? No. Does it have a raiding scene? Sort of, the explorable dungeons are challenging and have to be run repeatedly to get the best rewards. There is no raiding, but there might be later on.

What you CAN do at endgame is explore new zones (and actually have them be reasonably challenging as opposed to running around 1-shotting everything, to be discussed below), you can try and craft a legendary (which requires a great deal of work), do the dungeons, do events in the 80 zones, PvP...the list goes on. I think the problem with this criticism is that there is not a lack of endgame; there is a lack of SPECIFIC endgame. In other words, the game stops telling you where to go or what to do next, and relies on you figuring out what you want to get out of it.

This in part comes from the lack of a subscription fee. With WoW, I felt pressured to get my $15 out of it each month, which often relied on doing a lot of dailies and LFD to meet some self-imposed "minimum". At this point with GW2, any hours I play are just adding onto the value of the $60 I spent.

"Hearts and Events are just quests..."

This is somewhat true, they are the substitute for quests but what sets them apart is that they are a step away from "Go to the ! and then kill 10 rats". Now the player has some choice in how they help this poor soul. Events are meant to give the world some feeling of transition or change, to make it feel a hint more alive and they certainly do. I arrive at a town and it is under siege by centaurs that I have to fight off first...unlike in WoW where "under siege" means there are 5 quests in the courtyard that all want me to "kill X horde soldiers" and "Destroy X catapults". GW2 is not perfect, but it is a step in the right direction; with the next major milestone being a system akin to the Left 4 Dead AI director + Events + a sort of story-randomizing program that generates stories (There was a thing like this I read about a while ago...Storycliqs or something, I couldn't find the site)....and the final goal being an AI that simulates being a Game Master for the players. Lets be fair on the way, a step is still a step. Tobold had a similar idea a few weeks ago, basically that the "evolution" will take us towards an AI GM.

I suppose a quantity argument could be made but a quick cursory count of the human starting zone's events here leaves me at approximately 50 Events and 17 Hearts. Counting Elwynn Forest's quests on WoWhead (removing duplicates such as the ones that are the 'same' quest but listed differently for each class) I end up at about 54, so really the games have "approximately" the same number of quests per zone.

"You only get 10 abilities..."

This is also true, you get 10 active abilities, but they can be mixed and matched for hundreds of combinations...and to be honest, how many of your character's abilities do you find using in WoW? A cursory addition of my Death Knight is that he uses at 7 with some level of consistency, MAYBE 12 if I stretch the imagination, and many of those are highly situational. In GW2 all 10 of my abilities see use...though I could also argue, that with weapon-swaps, you have at least 15 (or more if you are an elementalist). Furthermore, each class has a gimmick which adds to toolbelt. The closest I can think of a class only having 10 is the engineer, who, without any Kits on his/her belt, would have 14.

"The game doesn't actually encourage you to be social..."

This comes from the belief that by not being in "competition" with other players or forced to form groups, you actually are encouraged to treat them more like pieces of environment. This may be true, but I can say with certainty that I never made a lasting relationship with a player I was in direct competition with. All my lasting friendships came from meetings in towns, in dungeons, or in other neutral places. Never did I become friends with someone who sniped a material node out from under me or was killing the same quest mobs I was after.

I will agree that GW2 does not turn introverts into extroverts, but for the first time in an MMO I do not view other players as opposition or inconveniences. Another player is a welcome sight; I have already made more friends out in the GW2 world than I ever did in WoW.

"The economy is terrible..."

I addressed this in a previous post, but as far as MMO's economies the one in GW2 appears just fine. The Gem store has its issues, but I applaud ANet for making them obtainable in-game. In every MMO I have ever played the low-level crafted items and magic items are dirt cheap, and anything common or not used in a desired recipe will be priced low. This comes as no surprise to me and it shocks me that it surprises others. There are things you can make money off, but you are in a desert made of copper ore and blue items, you can't expect to sell them at a profit. The "water" of rare crafting materials, armor upgrades and ideal-stat greens actually do sell (I've sold pieces for upwards of 50 silver). The devaluing of crafted items is a result of how MMO's handle crafting, and aside from EVE (which is its own beast) I have never seen an MMO make crafting at anything but max level a profitable activity. That said, I plan to do a series of posts about crafting in the future, stay tuned for that.

Further, having the economy be all on one-server benefits the consumer, not the producer; it reduces the likelihood of the "small server monopolies" that were common in WoW; where a server's economy health was mainly tied to its population, and "goblins" often specifically chose low population servers for that fact.

"The combat isn't reactive..."

If we are saying that the encounter's aren't as complex as WoW's that's a fair criticism, and but I do feel like many of the GW2 dungeons have some interesting fights and situations that a person might want to try before judging. Not only that, but "isn't reactive" compared to what? SWTOR? WoW? Both are games where during leveling a person can basically sit still and spam a priority rotation (hell, you can do this against most bosses). GW2 requires dodging, kiting, crowd-control in almost every fight. Playing my thief I feel more like I am in a 2D fighter than an MMO. With my elementalist I am constantly moving around to give the best position and where I stand MATTERS. I am finding it hard to believe that SWTOR or WoW are "more" reactive or intense than GW2; especially given my experience with the aforementioned pair.

"There's no story..." or "The story is bad..."

This is one I am not really going to touch because I do not feel personally qualified to judge it outside of being 'someone with an opinion' (those are rare!). Frankly, I don't find the story thus far to be any better or worse than what I encountered in SWTOR or WoW, and the voice acting gets the message across. Sure it's not going to win an Oscar, but it's a level higher in immersion when the NPC's talk to my character directly as opposed to me ~~ignoring~~ scanning quest text to see what is happening.

"Downleveling means I never feel powerful..."

A common complaint I have seen is the claim that one's character never feels "more powerful" because you can never drive-by a wolf and hit it for 6000 times its health because it's level 1 and you're level 80. But to me, the "downleveling" system feels more "realistic". Every Undead zombie I encounter will be approximately the same power level. A wolf in one zone is just as tough as the ones in another zone despite a 40 level difference. Levels still gate "where" you can go, and one can gauge their power by what zones you are high enough level to visit.

I feel like those leveling this criticism are just used to a WoW paradigm, but in Guild Wars 1, players spent a majority of the game at "max" level so never really increased in power throughout. Furthermore, this downleveling is pivotal to making the game work. Imagine how much of a disaster it would be if level 80's could come to the newbie zones and stomp their way through all the events, denying newbies experience.

Instead, this system means that I can take any of my characters and play with my friends, which to me is vastly more important than being able to solo a low level instance or stroll through a newbie zone like some kind of demigod.

After playing this, the "power difference" issues in games like WoW, where a high level player can stomp through low level zones, feels like more of a relic to me; a paradigm that only existed because we didn't yet have something better.

Conclusion

Being fair, I know this post comes off as me rushing to ANet's defense clad in my fanboy attire. Yet I do not deny that the game has issues; the lack of clear endgame goals can be confusing, the lack of raiding I miss. There are still plenty of bugged skillpoints and events that stall. The economy has some bumps. There are some issues with being able to farm. Some classes do need some balance tweaks. Those are all legitimate complaints, but speak more towards "tweaks" than the fundamentals of the game (that determine if it is fun in the long-run) which would justify the game being irreparably bad. If bugs doomed a game, Skyrim would have failed its way to the center of the Earth. Much like Skyrim, if you can look past the minor issues in GW2, the fun is there.

The game has its faults, and those are fair game, but I also feel that this vibe of "I hate it because it was hyped" is unfair. If you aren't enjoying it that's fine, but so many of these reasons feel like someone's vain attempts to justify that they just don't want to enjoy it.

Botting, Gold-Selling, and Hacking

2012-09-26T13:26:00.000-07:00

"When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary; when mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable." - Emile Durkheim

Continuing my ~~obnoxious~~ trend of beginning posts with quotes, I find this one to be particularly relevant to the topic. Botting, Hacking, and Gold-Selling in video games are a billion dollar industry. Over the weekend, a reddit poster in the Guild Wars 2 subreddit offered to provide some insight from a person who had one been on the "inside" of that world. In the post he explains some of the mechanics of the industry, clears up some misconceptions, and aims to legitimize some of their activity. I bet you can guess by my tone, that I do not think this poster succeeded in the last of those.
A Brief History

The beginning of Gold selling involved websites similar to ebay allowing players to sell their items or resources in games like Everquest to each other. For a time this was "good" in the sense that it may offend the developers, but it was a harm the developers could work around. However, the success of these spawned the "gold farmers" we've all come to know and love to some degree or another; individuals who were paid to play a game with the purpose of acquiring in-game wealth. At some point which I will not try to accurately point out, some enterprising person realized that rather than paying people to farm, it was far easier to just hack (or pay someone else to hack) user accounts, take their gold/items, and make their money that way. Because of how prolific this became, it's pretty clear that it was more efficient. Some still use bots, many that automate play are still available but they tend now to be marketed towards users more than gold-sellers.

So, the post...

I linked it earlier, and I hope you gave it a glance as I mean to address some of the writer's points. In the end, the attempt to defend the industry primarily rely on re-definition and compartmentalization. We can argue that the "managers" and "bot writers" are just part of an industry, but it is an industry built on dishonesty. They still support and work in an industry that inconveniences people, encourages breach of contract, and at times infringes on property and copy rights. One could make the same argument that the secretary to an illegal arms merchant is blameless, but he/she is still a part of that industry.

"But there is a demand..."

There is, but a demand for something does not necessarily justify the provision of it. One can argue that there is a demand for slaves, a demand for drugs, a demand for assassins...none of this legitimizes the activity. Of course the first thought those should bring up is that those are criminal acts...however the bright line between legality and illegality does not necessarily divide along morality. Plenty of things that are morally repugnant are perfectly legal.

In this case, those who break the rules in this way are:

Inconveniencing other players (botting in the same areas, manipulating the economy, hacking their accounts)
Encouraging the breaking of EULA's and thus denying the developer's the right to set the rules in their game.
Profiting off a product they had no hand in developing.

Imagine owning an arcade (which is a surprisingly apt metaphor for an MMO I think) and a group of people found a way to break into your machines and extract tokens or prize tickets, then sold them (often for less than you, thus potentially hurting your profit). The goods and arcade are digital in the MMO realm, but this hardly seems to legitimize what's being done.

Momentarily returning to my quote at the outset; one major factor that promotes the Gold Selling industry is the power of internet anonymity to perpetuate this practice. Though developers go great lengths to secure their game and player accounts, there will always be holes. Furthermore, what looks like illicit behavior might be perfectly legitimate, thus potentially depriving a player of their game. These complications make enforcement extremely difficult, but still do not justify the acts.

"The Lies"

Most of the assertions here are essentially true, but as I refuted above, compartmentalizing the acts does not legitimize them. The Gold Sellers might not personally hack a user's account, but they buy the accounts from the person who does, they create that demand. They can claim that the demand for this gold is created by other players, but that still does not justify it.

"If I don't do it, someone else will," are words that have preceded plenty of vile acts in history.

"The (~~slightly~~ biased) truth"

I am going after this one point by point, because much of it feels like the crux of the poster's argument:

"Botters are often personal users that get bored, or would like to spend their free time doing more than solely grinding away at a video game."

Then they should play something else. Disagreeing with the rules of a video games does not mean you are allowed to break them. Using this kind of logic, I should be able to kick my opponent under the table in Chess to break his concentration, because I don't want to sit there waiting for him to move. The developer's put the rewards at a certain level of time-investment for a reason, and refusing to invest that time means you are ineligible for the rewards. This diminishes the accomplishment of players that DO put in the time. If you want a game in which you can do this, make your own.

"These personal botters...."

Not going to address this one because I don't see an issue with it, all it does is clarify a definition.

"Gold sellers want to sell you gold, not steal your account. They make money and living selling you could. They are not in charge."

This is just a variation on the compartmentalization argument. I'll agree that they might not steal your account, but they buy the gold they sell from people who do; which in turn supports and benefits that practice. Them being in charge does not change something; if a military officer orders a soldier to kill someone, the soldier still did the act.

"Gold sellers do not enjoy selling gold. It's their job. They are paid to do it. It's better than working in a sweat shop to make Nike's. It's an easy, paid position, in a friendly family-like environment."

This is followed by his "rant" about not harassing gold sellers. Neither of which do I find persuasive. I sympathize for those who are stuck in countries in which this is the only form of reasonable employment they can take on, but that does not legitimize it. I do not per say blame them for that situation, but that does not mean they can be shielded from criticism or disdain. This argument could be used to justify a homeless person squatting, a poor person stealing. I get it, people do what they can to survive, but that does not make the things right. Furthermore, they are in the game I paid for, making it a less fun place. If I came to their country during what leisure time they had, and ruined THEIR activity, would that be alright?

Many jobs come with crappy side-effects that you may not like but can't avoid. A telemarketer still has to call people and get berated, a banker still has to foreclose on a house and hear insults, repo-men are still threatened when they do their job. Hearing the "don't mess with them" sounds like a "poor me" argument.

"Gold selling websites, like any other websites..."

Just a statement of operational fact clearing up a reasonable misconception, I have nothing to say on this one.

"If you buy a bot for personal use..."

Just as above, really it just explains that bot sellers aren't aiming to steal your account.

"Botting will both hurt and help the economy.."

This is a semantic argument and entirely depends on how you define "helping" an economy. He asserts that botters put crafting materials up on the AH, allowing people to get them for crafting. However these people could have gone to farm them on their own, and I am fairly sure on most WoW servers the crafting materials niche would have been filled if there was a void. The author notes that they were "over priced out the ass". See my post about monopolistic practice in games. Really, all he and his friend did was deny some player(s) the opportunity to play monopoly goblin.

Further, this claim relies on the assumption that crafting materials should be cheap and easily accessible...why? Did the developer state this? I doubt it, I'm sure some developers WANT certain crafting materials to be rare and expensive.

Lastly, just because the botting may have had a positive effect, does not justify it's use. Monopolists have used the "but it helped consumers!" argument plenty of times and been shot down. Sorry, but a botter is not Robin Hood; you are not saving the world from the tyranny of the developer set drop rates.

"Regular botters..."

Addressed above, just because you are tired of a grind does not give you the right to circumvent it. The rest of his statement is just definition.

"The best way to get..."

Good advice actually.

Conclusion

While I appreciate the poster being open and candid, I can't help but feel like he suffers from a bad case of internal justification and cognitive dissonance. He's distancing himself from the reality of his situation the same way plenty of criminals do: compartmentalization ("I didn't actually do the crime..."), humanization ("The criminals are people too..."), semantics ("Well I never actually HACKED the account...") and justification ("If I didn't, someone else would."). Sadly, none of these are a convincing argument for WHY it should be allowed; none of these legitimize the practice.

[GW2] Getting Female Armor right-ish, or, "Credit where credit is due."

2012-09-19T13:49:00.003-07:00

I wanted to take a brief break from debating the finer points of the Trading Post or dungeon/event reward balance to discuss something I think Guild Wars 2 has done fairly well; armor sets for female characters. It's a debate as old as time; whether "bikini-plate" or whatever delightful monicker you want to assign to it belongs in a fantasy setting and how it should apply. I myself am of the opinion that it is fine, provided there are other options (for both genders!). The former; options for female characters, is something GW2 actually seems to do fairly well. I haven't seen enough compilations of their armor for male characters to make the judgment of whether that second equality standard is met. Continue pat the break for examples and explanations.

So I've made my inane claim! 2012 and a game company might have done things RIGHT!? Blasphemy! Now to be fair they aren't perfect, but I find Guild Wars 2, after looking at compilations of the female armor, to be one of the more "progressive" games I have seen. But enough with the claims, lets show my evidence. Below are the light, medium and heavy armors using the same default dye on the same female character. I'll intersperse some commentary between to ease on the visual overstimulation.

Let me make something clear: I think it is perfectly alright to have "bikini-plate" in a game, on the condition that it is an OPTION and not a requirement. I take the same approach with how I think people should be able to dress in real life. If you want to show skin, go for it (please forgive if I look), if you prefer to be more conservative, go for it. The critical factor to me is that the person has a choice in the matter.

The images are not mine, they apparently were created by user/player "Imaginos"

While the colors are bland, the options are many.

So here we have the "light" armor which is essentially "Cloth" from WoW. While the terms "bikini-plate" often imply heavier armors, mages have long felt the sting of forced nudity in fantasy art. Here they have 35 options for armor; some rather skimpy while others are fully covering.We can debate the practicality or protective nature of some of this armor until we are blue in the face, but we are in a fantasy setting, and I think the choice is more important.

Moving on, medium armor!

Medium Armor, AKA, 50 Shades of Trenchcoats

I notice some obvious themes in medium armor: Coats, coats and more coats...actually I like it because this armor is shared between thieves, ranges and engineers, all of whom might have a different desired aesthetic. Ironically, there are only 3 "leather" armor sets that are verging more on the "BDSM Leather" aesthetic that has become common from games like Tera or Diablo 3...a few more would not necessarily be bad, but in many games that has become the rule more than the exception. Like light armor, I approve because of the options.

I would feel uncomfortable in the Orrian armor, it is kind of...grope-y

So last we arrive at heavy armor; the armor type most often associated with the much loathed "bikini plate" and I find actually that there are only a few sets that REALLY go into "bikini"-ville, and some of them are fully covering armor. They might have some of the exaggerated pauldrons and aesthetic often seen in fantasy armor, but that is not a gender-specific issue and is somewhat separate.

There we have it; I find myself at a loss for words per say, simply because the evidence speaks for itself. A female character in Guild Wars 2 can be wearing full plate, something more revealing, or an awesome coat.

In the spirit of academic honesty I will remind that my second criteria, gender equality in options, may not be met because I have not yet found a good set of example male clothes. Then again, the debate about what is "sexy" on men is another subject entirely which I won't claim to fully grasp.

Instead I turn to you the reader for your opinion; do you think these options show success and progression by Guild Wars 2? Do you think the armor should be entirely realistic or show no skin? Why?

[GW2] Blowing Blizz out of the water

2012-09-14T10:00:00.000-07:00

I have played WoW since a few days after its release and in that time I got used to hearing "Soon"tm from the CM's with regards to features that to me felt like they could be fixed in a matter of minutes. Blizzard is extremely reluctant to make changes outside of a patch unless the issue is substantially game-breaking. I recall PvPers eagerly awaiting a patch that might balance their class (or nerf another) and sitting through months to wait for something to be fixed. The typical expectation a player learned was that any fix beyond changing a number (and sometimes even that) would be a few months down the line.
WoW is by no measure an example of a perfect program (it does have good points, like its net-code, but that's a discussion for another day). Long ago in Karazhan my guild developed the meme of "Badges in Kara" as the cause for any breaking. This was mainly due to the fact that Blizzard would make what appeared to be minor changes in one aspect of the game, which inevitably resulted in something else in the game breaking. Players randomly falling through the world? Because of badges in Kara. Quest not working anymore? Because of badges in Kara. They were likely completely independent of each other and broke for other reasons, but it was always strange that a fix for A, often lead to a break at B.

So now here I am playing Guild Wars 2 and people lately have been asking for various fixes and quality of life improvements. Two that spring to mind are the ability to craft from your bank and the ability to preview items off the trading post. Both these features would have required a major patch for Blizzard to ad to WoW (actually the latter was a major patch feature when it released). GW2 has already had the first patched in, and the second one is already on its way.

I feel like Blizzard's history of "soon" is going to come back to haunt it, now that ArenaNet is busy polishing and improving their game on a daily basis. Every other day or so a new minor patch is coming out to fix bugged quests, add minor features, balance the economy...all things that (in my experience) would have taken Blizzard months to accomplish....and likely would have come with another feature breaking.

Diablo 3 required patches that took weeks to put out, their launch was marked by two days of people having spotty access to the game. GW2? First day of a head start was a little rocky, but since then most everyone (that I am aware of), or at least a majority of the population, was able to play without incident.

This experience has made me go back and ask myself, "Why did I put up with this?" Why did we put up with waiting months for a game to work properly, or a class to function as it was supposed to? Has ArenaNet just raised the bar for post-launch support? It will take a few months to see, because while they have hit the ground running, the marathon is where this kind of race will be decided.

[Game Econ] Competition isn't fun

2012-09-12T13:22:00.002-07:00

"Most Businessmen don't like their competitors, or for that matter competition. They want to make as much money as possible and getting a monopoly is one way of making a lot of money." - R. Posner, Olympia Equipment Leasing Co. v. Western Union Telegraph Co. (797 F.2d 370, 1986)

In a previous post of mine, a commenter asked why I considered WoW's auction houses to be "flourishing" and not Diablo 3's. In retrospect, I should have said "fun" not "flourishing". I notice that lately a few other bloggers have taken on this similar issue, mainly sparked by the GW2 Trading Post.

I'll start out with the admission that I am not an economist, I am a law student who has a particular interest in antitrust law which is part economics and part policy, from which I have been imparted a certain limited understanding.

Moving back to topic, I think Azuriel is on to something with his observation of "vendor+1c" situation in GW2 (though I would point out, based on my experience this morning that many crafting materials have moved above the vendor+1c range, specifically Gold Ore and Cotton Scraps). This of course does not disprove that issue in which supposedly "rational" economic actors are selling something at a loss. This isn't even the guy reselling Dust of Disappearance on the AH to take advantage of laziness...at vendor+1c the TRADER is the lazy one because he could get more for his money by walking to the nearest merchant (and there is almost always one within a stone's throw of the trading post).

In my opinion I think Tobold nails it; the issue with the AH's on D3 and GW2 is not that they are somehow "faulty" it is that they better represent the "perfect" market....or at least it would, if the demand were larger than the supply. In the case of GW2 there are so many people producing Copper Daggers that the demand is sated and then some, so the excess has no value...with vendors being the price floor that causes the Vendor+1c phenomena. The main issue is that people (myself included) LIKE crafting, they like being able to make their own things, and because everyone is doing it, the supply is almost infinite, the demand is not.

So going back to my title and point...competition is not "fun". People in WoW and SWTOR are only competing with the other people on their server and from my observation often this means an easy road to a monopoly. If you are the only person with a certain recipe or willing to make a specific glyph, you have created for yourself an environment in which you essentially have a monopoly. Why do people complain about opponents that undercut by 1 copper? Because that's how prices in the real world work; the firms reduce prices as much as they can until it stops being profitable. These games have sufficient barriers to their crafting market (character can only have 2 professions and there's a time investment before one can start crafting) to enable some competition. In GW2, anyone can take up any profession with only a few minutes of work.

When a gaming market has competition it involves a great deal of undercutting, taunting, buyouts-and-repostings...all to push the item towards its actual value as opposed to an artificial value mainly created by a lack of firms/actors participating in that market.

So in summary, what makes WoW's auction house fun is that it a market where demand is larger than supply, GW2 is the opposite, in which for most items the supply is much larger than the demand. Because of the relatively small size of WoW's markets, there is limited competition and more room for increasing price above cost. GW2 dispenses with this small market by opening it to the entire world, thus a bunch of "goblins" that otherwise would have been on their own servers (with maybe 4-5 others) they are against thousands of others.

I leave you with a final thought about gaming and economics. Economic theory often assumes the notion that an economic actor is rational...and recently has come to face that the economic actor is anything but rational. This tendency is magnified in a game, where people are happy to figuratively burn money on things with no real value, because the "money" is not real. When clearing out their inventory I argue that to most players, it is more worth their time to offload an item quickly (by filling an existing buy order), than to get maximum profit out of selling said item.

A warning to WoW Bloggers (who post screenshots)

2012-09-11T13:07:00.001-07:00

Update [3:37 PM]: It is currently believed that this is only sharing an internal account ID number that Blizzard uses. However, Blizzard's database has been hacked in the past. For further information, there is a reddit thread and the link below has comments.

That said, it should had a further layer of caution to those posting screenshots, make sure you aren't violating any NDA's.

It is a clever method...I wonder how much it has been used.
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While perusing news on the web today I came across this article:

http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/09/11/149228/activision-blizzard-secretly-watermarking-world-of-warcraft-users

Regarding Blizzard secretly marking your screenshots with artifacts. As I know many bloggers like using screenshots in their posts I thought it would be timely to warn that apparently some information might be leaked as a result. I hope there is nothing to this and that it is all just a rumor, but when it comes to account security I tend to prefer a proactive approach to a reactive one. One guild member getting hacked was enough for my taste.

So consider this my call to bloggers to be extra careful about the screenshots you post!

I wish I had more time to post on this but I am at work, though it is somewhat alarming that Blizzard is sneaking this functionality in without any notification in the ToS or EULA. I see why they did it; most likely it is meant as a protection of NDA's by allowing them to figure out who posted the picture (especially of unreleased content) so they can take proper action...but this opens up another can of worms.

I'd recommend getting an authenticator...really, it's easy, they're cheap (free for your phone if you have an Iphone) and they come with a cute pet...there really is no reason not to and you do NOT want the experience of being hacked, no matter how cautious you think you are being.