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...

| Leave a Comment

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)

How much is it worth to be Versatile?

Posted on Monday, March 8, 2010
Filed under Blaster, CoH | Leave a Comment

So new to the streets of Paragon City is the Dual Pistols powerset. I was lucky enough to be included in the beta for them, and got level bumped so I could test them all out. (OK admittedly, I was busy and didn't get to try the final iteration before they went live, but very little changed from the last version I played to live.) Anyway, until now secondary effects of your attacks have been predetermined by what powerset you chose. If you chose ice blast you slowed your enemies down, energy blast knocked them around, fir eblast set them on fire for more damage, etc. Dual pistols is the first set that lets you change your secondary effects (and a small bit of your damage) on the fly.

So, is being able to choose between extra damage, knockback, slows, or damage debuffs (that last one is unique to DP) and the ability to slightly tailor your damage type with it worth mediocre numbers compared to other sets? It's that hybrid tax again, except this time it's within a powerset instead of a class. Funnily enough, it's in a powerset of what is probably the most pure class in the game role wise (blasters do damage, their secondaries do more damage with different flavors of utility.) Ok some other archetypes get to use the set too, but it's still a blast set.

So for me? Totally worth it. I'm going to preorder the city expansion soon so I can start playing with them now instead of waiting. Of course, there is something else they have going for them. The animations are, at least to me, awesome. I'm also apparently a bit on the evil side (ok so this isn't REALLY news) and my favorite of the powers is execution shot. Yes it probably looks about like what you just pictured in your head. I like to start it up right after a knockback so they catch a bullet between the eyes as they get back up. I'm totally arresting them with incendiary bullets delivered execution style to their faces. Really.

-Luigrein

My Turn To Disagree With Syn...

Posted on Thursday, March 4, 2010
Filed under Allods Online, Free-To-Play, Subscription Model, Syncaine | Leave a Comment

SynCaine posts, someone disagress… 'tis the way of the nets. Today is my turn.

Check out this recent post in which Syn attacks the Free To Play model, treating it like the model will forcefully steal all your money if you even dare approach it. The post is about Allods Online specifically, which is the current "it" F2P title, both people excited about it (or regaining excitement for it since the price cut) and people who dislike the whole F2P shebang. And, of course, he takes the concept and gives it the whole Fox News treatment.

Honestly, I understand why some people are not attracted at all to the F2P model. I also understand why others are attracted to it. I happen to be one of those that is attracted to the model, but not necessarily attracted to Allods. Really though, I can't even make that a definitive statement because I haven't played the game long enough yet where the Cash Shop has become a real concern of mine, but at least I can say that I haven't gotten to that point instead of trying to use some comment on some blog somewhere on the internet because, as we all know, if it's a comment on a blog, it must be true.

Putting that whole piece of his article aside, which is the majority of his article and the basis of his argument in this particular post, I'll take umbrage with a few other statements he makes:

People FEARING upcoming patches? People calculating how much they will need to spend to just get by? People hoping the cash shop is not abused by other players and balance is somewhat maintained? Really, THAT"S how you want to play your MMO? Living in fear of tomorrow? So so backwards.

People FEAR patches all the time! Every time a new patch is announced for a game, there is a surge of posts across the blog world and forums about how a particular nerf will ruin their character or spec, or how that buff to some class will make the game unplayable, or that they'll /ragequit immediately if the developer doesn't change their mind. It's the way of the gamer, and the MMO gamer specifically. We overreact to change because it scares us, but then we see that change in action and most people continue happily playing while those who truly can't live with the change move on.

Then there's the fear of calculating how much you'll have to spend to get by. As if that doesn't happen in Subscription games? If a game changes how it structures its loot distribution, players will spends hours calculating the fastest way to get item X, and then completely adjust their play time to do it. If it takes them 2 months to get the new items, there is a direct correlation to how much money they've spent getting those items, which is money AND time. At least in some F2P games you can circumvent one of those issues if you so choose.

I like the idea of F2P model, or as some of the smarter publishers are calling them nowadays Subscriptionless Games (I think that's far more accurate). I'm not sold on the idea that the revolution is now, mainly because I think very few, if any, games have the model just right. But that time is coming and there will be Subscriptionless games that rival Sub games in both popularity and active playerbase soon. Fighting the idea seems silly to me. Will it take over the market completely? I don't think it will, but it will be a viable alternative pricing model, with or without Allods. They got it wrong in some areas, but that doesn't invalidate the model wholesale.

- Dickie

It Takes A Week To Ship?

Filed under Console Games, GameFly, Rental | Leave a Comment

I signed up for GameFly on Wednesday evening of last week (2/24) and my first game, Grand Theft Auto: Episodes From Liberty City, arrived yesterday (3/3). It took one week from the day I signed up for GameFly to receive my first game, and I have to admit that feels like a long time. If we look at Netflix as a point of comparison, we can put a return in the mail on Wednesday morning and have our next title by Saturday at the latest. There is an efficiency in the Netflix model that GameFly has not been able to capture, and I'd hoped that in the two years since I last subscribed to the service they would have made the service more efficient, but I suppose that isn't the case.

There are two reasons I dropped my subscription to GameFly after my first attempt at using the service: 1) The time it took to return and get a new title, and 2) I could never get a title from the top of my queue. At the time I did not feel that the service warranted the fee, but I recently decided to give it another shot. After all, there are several single-player titles I want to play, but not many I really want to own.

My plan for now is to give GameFly a solid two months to see if either the service has improved or if my opinions on how the service operates has changed. However, given this first game experience and the length of time that it took to get the title, I'm not so confident that either of those scenarios is likely to occur.

- Dickie

End of the World

| Leave a Comment

Great, I typed in the subject line and now I have R.E.M. stuck in my damn head.

So, Are You Back Yet?

Posted on Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Filed under Guilds, World of Warcraft | Leave a Comment

This is the question that a guildie asked me in guild chat over the weekend while playing World of Warcraft. Many of the people in my guild have been around since Vanilla WoW days and I would certainly call them friends. We've raided together and chatted in game and in vent about just about everything under the sun. This person knows me, knew me when I decided to move to Chicago, knew me when I was hating my life at GameStop, knew me when I met my fiancé… she's been in my life. So it is with all this history in mind that I answered with an indefinite "Well…. I'm back-ish."

I like WoW. It's fun. Running dungeons is fun and, now that I have my dual spec, some of the solo content is fun as well. In another level I'll be able to get my flight form back and I'll have fun exploring some of the zones of Northrend I haven't poked my head into just yet. But that wasn't the question she asked. My guild mate asked if I was Back in the game yet. And I'm just not sure if I am.

Her question implied more than it let on. Obviously I'm playing the game. I've been popping in for over a month now. But she really wanted to know if I'm committing to the game again, to raiding and hanging out with the Guild. Those are two things I simply haven't been able to decide on just yet.

I love my guild in WoW. Most are good people. But there are things about the game that still bother me. I suppose the question I really have to answer is whether or not these people are fun enough for me to over look my dislikes in WoW.

So am I back yet? In summary, no… but I haven't given up on the idea that I could be back.

How To Gay It Up In Class, Sci-Fi Style

Filed under Gay, Gay Content, I'm Just Gaying... | Leave a Comment

I'm lacking in MMO-themed posts, or gaming posts in general this week. But there is a subject near and dear to my heart (and likely many of my reader's hearts as well) that bears mentioning here: Frakin' awesome sci-fi TV shows!

Over on my personal/pop culture/music/whatever the heck I feel like writing about blog, I'm Just Gaying..., I talk about SyFy's new Battlestar Galactica spin-off Caprica and how gloriously gay it is, and why that's a great thing for geeks, gays, and gay geeks!

Stop on over, check out the post and say hi!

- Dickie

Iconic Persona

Posted on Monday, March 1, 2010
| 1 Comment

I was explaining to someone (who wasn't evidencing the "Crap it's a crazy gaming nerd where's the door" look) the other day how our Guild met in the City several years ago. The person had never heard of City of Heroes, but had seen Champions. So we got into a big discussion about why WoW and WAR and all of these fantasy genre games are fun, but they're missing something for me. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE playing my toons in these games, and have a great time. But there was something about Real Big Kitty, resplendent in striped fur and various tattered armour pieces, THUNDERING to the ground after a super jump. This was usually followed by decimation of whatever foes were unfortunate enough to be standing there when he landed.

Weekend Wrapup: Anti-Social Edition

Filed under Torchlight, Weekend, World of Warcraft | 1 Comment

Even after all my whining last week about not being able to get into single player games, this weekend I went off the deep end and sunk nearly 10 hours into Torchlight. And signed up for GameFly… Yeah, I can't really explain that at all. After I posted that entry, a few people contacted me and gave me a few suggestions about how to dig into single-player titles, so I figured the safest way to really give it a try is with GameFly! Also, I was feeling a bit anti-social in general throughout the weekend, so solo-dungeon diving seemed like a great idea.

Torchlight

I created an all-new character and went with the warrior guy this time around. I also set the difficulty back to Normal instead of Hard because I really just felt like slaughtering stuff endlessly and not worrying too much about anything else. And I did just that. For hours at a time. And I had a blast! I really, really like this game and hope to see more great games come out of Runic Games.

World of Warcraft

I got about 2 random dungeon runs in and had to log out. Apparently, our home internet was not too happy with us this weekend. My fiancé's torrents weren't moving at all and my online gaming suffered from terrible lag. I'm still striving toward 77 though so I can get my flight form back. I have a feeling that I'm missing some great solo content, but most of the content that I'm missing right now is stuff that I already played through on my Death Knight, so I'm not too upset with missing it. Once I get my pretty bird form back I'll get back into some of the solo stuff, but until then it's dungeon diving for me!

What Did You Play?

So what held your attention this weekend?

- Dickie