Burnout

Posted on Wednesday, March 17, 2010
| 1 Comment

I've been in a bit of an MMO funk lately. Nothing is really sparking my interest, and the tropes of the genre are grating at me. This is what some call Burnout, but it is what I call Going Back To WoW.

Ethic mentioned on the Kill Ten Rats Twitter feed that he sat down at his computer the other day and just stared at the screen, completely uncompelled to play any of his MMOs. I know that feeling, I'm going through it now. In fact, the only reason I've even bother with World of Warcraft over the last few weeks is because I want something to do while my fiancé plays God of War on the PS3.

I've contemplated trying out new games or going back to games I've played before to spice things up, but then I realize that just won't do it for me. I need a real break from MMOs for a bit.

As such, I've been starting in on some console games. I've been tearing through Ballad of Gay Tony, popping in and out of Borderlands, and just started in on Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction. Hell, even watching my man play through God of War is more exciting than the idea of grinding levels in an MMO right now.

I'm certainly not done with MMOs, but this is definitely my time to get back into the console game or a bit. So what are the good games I've missed the past year or so? I'll pass on RPGs for the most part, I'm looking for a shift away from what I've been playing, not just a different perspective.

- Dickie

Out Of Game Interaction: Is It Ever Going To Happen?

Posted on Monday, March 15, 2010
Filed under Fallen Earth, out of game interaction, Runes of Magic | 1 Comment

A few years back when Vanguard was being developed, there was a lot of talk about the "next step" in MMOs and what could be done to further enrich the MMO-playing experience. One of the biggest things being talked about at that time was out-of-game connectivity such as being able to chat with your guild via AIM or managing your auction house or inventory from a website instead of having to log in to the game proper. The idea was to give players something to do with the game even if they can't log in to the game so that they stay engaged. Players loved the idea and soon every MMO being developed was talking about adding similar features.

Fast forward a few years and not a single game had done anything like that yet. We had World of Warcraft's Armory and Lord of the Rings Online's My.LOTRO, but nothing quite like what Vanguard had promised (not to mention that Vanguard itself did not have those features). In fact, it wasn't until last year that we first heard rumblings of real, out-of-game services that could affect things in-game. And the first game to deliver the goods: Champions Online, and that's only if you count being able to check and send in-game mail from their website (I do). Yeah, Champions Online actually pioneered something… go figure.

Putting that aside, we players are all of the sudden getting lots of treats from our MMO developers for out-of-game interaction, assuming the devs pull through on promises. First, there is the much talked about Fallen Earth iPhone App coming any day now, which will allow players to manage their crafting queue, inventory and auction house activities, among other things. I have to admit that this sounds awesome and one of the things that could potentially draw me into that game.

But now we're getting even more word on even more out-of-game connections with the announcement of two new Facebook Apps: one for Runes of Magic and another for Fallen Earth. However, both of these apps are a bit different because neither provides direct in-game interaction like the FE iPhone app. The FE game on Facebook is purely a promotional tool, so far as we know. It's a casual game based on the world in FE. The RoM game, while similarly designed as a casual game/promotion tool, will actually provide some codes and such for people to plug into the actual RoM game for in-game items, so there is some incentive for players of the game to play the Facebook game. Neither quite live up to the promise of in-game interaction, but I think they both clearly point in the same direction.

The MMO industry is a bit insular and it's time that the industry do its best to reach out to new types of players. It is also a daunting genre to break into as a new player, so anything designed to ease the transition from traditional console or PC games to persistent online world games is a plus. Reaching out to people via Facebook and iPhone is great because not only does it bring potential new customers to the table, but it allows current players to stay immersed in the setting and (hopefully) keeps them more likely to stick around for a while longer.

My concern is that the great hope of all this talk was that we, the players, would be allowed to interact with our game somehow while not at our computers, or at least while not at computers that have access to the game. And while the FE iPhone app seems prepared to deliver on that hope, these Facebook games seem poised to be just more poo in the cesspool that is Facebook games. Look, I know Facebook Gaming is the new "it" right now, but the marketplace to find games is terribly designed, all the games are designed to spam every person you know all day, and the amount of "me too" titles in the market is just disgusting. So diluting your product with a Facebook game that really threatens to limit the users understanding of what your game is, while not actually delivering anything of value to your current players, just doesn't seem like a great idea. It seem Trendy, just not Good. Further, most people can't log into Facebook from work (where they are most likely to play these games) and when they get home they are more likely to play the actual game than some casual spin-off of it.

So this still leaves us with two games that have anything close to what Vanguard and the games of that generation promised. We can check in-game mail and manage crafting queues… nice, and a decent start, but not exactly what I was hoping for.

- Dickie

Weekend Wrapup: Training A Newbie Gamer Edition

Filed under god of war, Grand Theft Auto, update, Weekend, World of Warcraft | Leave a Comment

It finally happened! I found a few games that my fiancé could get into, and now the slow transition into Gamer has begun ;) We picked up a PS3 the other day, and as such needed to get a few games to go with it, natch. So he spent most of the weekend and (practically) all day yesterday running around in one of the games we picked up, which made me a proud geek. Also, it gave me some time to play around with a few Facebook games I haven't given enough attention to and a certain PC game as well. So what did I get into this weekend? Here's the break down:

World of Warcraft

While my man was gleefully slaying in his console game, I was happily hunting out new daily quests and poking around Zul'Drak to see what that zone has to offer. Turns out there is a nifty quest line where you get to dress up like a scourge ghoul and ends with another appearance of the Lich King himself, which is quite nifty. I'm slowly getting my jewel crafting up to speed and have been working on my fishing as well, but I suppose that leaves cooking as my only other crafting skill that I should work up. Also, my Druid hit 78. I like that he's getting up the level ladder at a steady pace, I'm just not sure I want to get to 80 because I'm just not sure I care for the Heroics grind, but we'll see what happens when I get there.

Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony

I gushed about this game a few days ago and my assessment still holds. The game is pure fun! I've been doing the Tony Prince quests almost exclusively up to this point, but it might be time to branch out and work on some quests for the character's Mom and a few of the other side stories. It is great to hear the main character continue to defend his boss' sexuality to the other less-accepting characters in the game. And, as is always the case for a GTA title, random destruction and violence is always a nice little side activity to keep me interested and engaged!

MyTribe

This is a new Facebook game that I heard about from Cuppy's blog, and I have to say that it is kind of fun. It's a simple Sims-like game, but it is great to fill a few minutes of your downtime. I have an aversion to the 1,200 pound Gorilla of Facebook games Farmville, either because the idea doesn't interest me or because it's so dang popular it doesn't need my help, but I just can't get into it.

God of War Collection

This is the game that has completely consumed my boyfriend. I downloaded the God of War III demo on our PS3, but he ended up playing it. Then he played it again. And again. And then we were at Gamestop because I mentioned that the first two titles were amazing and that they were out on the PS3 and he had to have them. Even though God of War I is more or less a straight port, it looks and runs great because they made the code native to the PS3 and added HD to the mix. But he started playing yesterday around 1 or 2 in the afternoon and quite playing around 3 am, with only a couple breaks in between to watch some TV while we ate dinner and a few other random breaks.

What Did You Play?

I know many people had nicer weather this weekend, but if you're anything like me, that just meant a walk outside and then open windows while your gaming away ;) So what games did you sink your teeth into this weekend?

- Dickie

What Next?

Posted on Friday, March 12, 2010
Filed under Druid, Goals, World of Warcraft | Leave a Comment

I reached level 77 over the weekend with my Druid in World of Warcraft, allowing me to achieve my goal of using my Pretty Bird form (epic flight form) again. And now I'm not sure what I should do in the game.

I don't particularly want to run dungeons repeatedly, since I did a lot of dungeon running since I came back to the game. I'd be OK with questing for a bit, but I'm not sure what zone I should be in at 77, so I've headed out to the Grizzly hills to clean up my quests out there for now.

Ultimately, I'm left with the "Now What?" feeling. I hit my goal and I now have to either determine a new goal that is enticing enough to keep me around or unsubscribe.

- Dickie

Does A Troll Crap In Your Game?

Posted on Thursday, March 11, 2010
Filed under Forums, MMOs, Trolls | Leave a Comment

Syp threw out some of his least favorite MMO terms this morning and what stuck out to me was that our MMO-lexicon is heavily centered around the negative, specifically being negative toward other players. Noob, L2P, Fail, Pwn… all meant to describe some sort of failing (correct use here) in someone else.

I was taken back for a moment. Sure, many of the people that use such negative language toward other players tend to be trolls who get off on causing trauma to other players, but many of these same people also say that they are Hardcore players and that they only want the best for a game. They gripe at developers because they, the player, know better what to put into the game. They gripe at other players, because they the Hardcore player know best how to play the game.

This perspective is amazingly short-sighted. Community often weighs into the deciding factor of whether or not a player stays with a game, and if the community blows players are not as likely to stick around. And if players stop playing a game, they stop providing revenue to the developer. And if the developer starts losing money, then the game is much more likely to close down. And if they don't close down, they'll start making changes that appeal to those players that left so as to bring them back rather than changes that current players want.

Yet the trolls continue in their unending parade of hate-spewing. It's mostly amusing to those of us who have been around for a while, but to newcomers to the genre it is very shocking.

There are games that aren't filled with vile individuals. I can't recall running into anyone nasty or Troll-like in Lord of the Rings Online. But practically every other game I've touched has had a Troll problem, be it minor or rampant. In some cases those Trolls were the reason I left the game. Unfair to the developer, for sure, but I can't be bothered with handling Trolls at every corner.

What can a player do? Well, we can turn off general chat channels, but then we may have a harder time finding groups or selling our junk. We could make liberal use of the /ignore feature, but you are often limited in the number of people you can have on ignore at any given point. We could become Troll fighters, but the only thing a Troll loves more than an innocent new player is an argumentative veteran player that will engage him/her. So I'm not really sure there is much we can do except plead with the general gaming population to just stop being jerks.

So, in that vein, stop Trolling and get back to playing please! If you're bored, go play another game. If you've "conquered it all," go play another game. If you're just sooo badass that you have to tell everyone about it, I'm gonna guess that you probably need some ExtenZe because you're obviously compensating for something else.

- Dickie

Grand Theft Auto Gone Gay

Posted on Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Filed under Console Games, Grand Theft Auto, Impressions | Leave a Comment

I've been getting into Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad Of Gay Tony over the past few days and I have to say that, yet again, Rockstar has done something brilliant with their GTA series. Not only is the stand-alone-ish expansion to GTA IV one of the only games that features a Latino protagonist, it is one of the only games that has an unabashedly gay man as a lead character. There's no hiding that he's gay, he's not in the closet, there's no "subtle" innuendo, it's not up to how you play the character… Tony is just plain gay. And a bit fabulous, if not just a tad stupid.

As many gamers have, I've been in love with the Grand Theft Auto series since III came out many years ago on the Playstation 2. They defined the sandbox genre for consoles and it's subsequent sequels (and even III to an extent) sought to attack social issues as untactfully as possible while still maintaining a sense of irreverence, all while finding ways to do so without pissing off every minority group known to man. Rockstar walks a very tight rope with their GTA series, and in my opinion they do so very well. The Ballad of Gay Tony is no exception.

I had almost forgot how much I enjoyed GTA IV until I loaded up Gay Tony, but Gay Tony adds another level to the series that I am loving. Within an hour or so of launching the base game GTA IV, players are inundated with a tirade of anti-gay slurs, many of those slurs persisting throughout the game. It was a bit infuriating at first, but it was used more to show those characters' ignorance and helped frame particular characters as the jerks they were. While I was not pleased to hear the F-bomb tossed around so much in that game, I understood its purpose and appreciated the perspective it provided.

In Gay Tony, we are presented right away with Tony's sexuality. He talks about it, runs a gay club, and you even meet his crappy boyfriend within a few missions. The protagonist even defends his gay boss to his buddies in many of the side conversations that occur during missions with your childhood friends. Again, it's not so awesome to hear some of these epitaphs tossed around, the game finds a way to use them to enlighten rather than embolden. Even some of the more homophobic characters have a turn of face due to your character's actions, which is also nice to see in game.

The game even handles some of the more interesting debates that are currently being argued within the gay community today and presents players who may otherwise be ignorant of them with some food for thought. For instance, Gay Tony constantly gripes about the societal shift within the gay community toward a more mainstream lifestyle. Many gay people today are focused on Marriage Equality and Adoption and Workplace Protections, which are all important issues, but this shift has caused many gay people to loose sight of what use to be our lifeblood: the gay bar. Gay culture use to put heavy focus on gay bars as our primary social scene, but as more LGBT community centers open and as LGBT folk become more accepted in the wider American culture, our sub-culture is shifting more to the mainstream. While that may not be a bad thing, it is one more way in which the gay community is losing its Identity. Tony's complaints are more about losing profits, but the overall debate is still important and valid.

The Ballad of Gay Tony, like the other GTA entries, is great fun mixed with deep characters and a grand sense of sociopolitical debate, all disguised inside what is essentially a third-person-shooter/racing/mafia-sim hybrid. And for all that, it is brilliant. For anyone that has enjoyed the GTA series, I'd certainly recommend picking up either the DLC for Gay Tony if you still own GTA IV or grabbing the Episodes From Liberty City (Amazon link, show us some lurve) disc, which is stand-alone and does not require GTA IV to work.

Fallen Earth trial...

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Well, I was only able to get one night of play in before I was immersed in a two day volleyball tournament (memo to self: I am probably too old for this, as the pain everywhere is telling me...) and then out of town a couple days. But initial impressions are as follows:

Pros

• Beautiful environment. They put a lot of time into this. The sunsets are gorgeous, and the feeling of distance and perspective are wonderful.
• Travel power; you get a horse when you finish the tutorial.
• Lots of weapon and skill choices. Lots of mount options you can build later.
• Huge immersive world. Post-apocalyptic feel is genuine and pervasive.
• Freaky and cool mutants that are part of greater story line.
• Great cut scenes.
• Character creation is somewhat limited, but you can add facial/chest hair, tattooes (woot!) and piercings!

Cons

• Similar to a problem I had in City of Villains whe it first released, something about the character motion gives me terrible headaches. No one else suffered this in my group, but it's what finally made me shut down for the night.
• Lots of choices. TOO many to start with. It is a very steep learning curve.
• Initial quests, even tutorials, not well mapped out and rather vague. For example, after trying to use a power on a coyote and dying for the 12th time, someone told me to go past the level 4 angry "starving coyotes" to the "coyotes" that were level 2 and 3 on the other side. So I had to walk huge distances to get to just the right type of mob, avoiding those that could easily tank my level 1 ass. Was very frustrating.

Ultimately, while I am going to research how the game progresses and hopefully try a couple more times, this game didn't hook me. I remember CoH grabbed my attention and held it, right from the character creator. WoW's early play was engaging and entertaining. Personally, this did not do that right off for me, but it likely ramps up and improves as one understands the game mechanics better. It's a free trial. You can't go wrong trying it out for yourself!

-Real Big Kitty

STO On The Cheap Today Only

Posted on Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Filed under Amazon, Cryptic, Sale, Star Trek Online | Leave a Comment

Those of y'all that have been holding back on Star Trek Online just hoping for a better deal to come along, today might be the day for you. Amazon has the regular and collector's version of STO on sale today for some decent prices. (Link will take you to Amazon, and yes, RainbowMMO will get a few pennies if you decide to buy via the links)