Category: Gaming

Romantics & Dreamers

Posted on by Nimgimli

Sometimes I just don’t understand other gamers. Why do they hate the things I love, and vice versa? There’s something about me that’s just different from most gamers. And I finally figured out what it was.

I’m a romantic and a dreamer.

Fable 2 actually got me thinking about this. I loved the game, and the ending was incredibly moving to me. It left me feeling quiet and thoughtful for a long time. But I read other impressions of the game and they’ll tell you the ending sucked. Huh?

Well, if you’re playing with your fingers and eyes, the ending did suck. If, like me, your heart was thrown into the mix, the ending was amazing. One of the most thought-provoking endings I’ve ever encountered.

This morning Angela was working on a web site that I’d done the database design for. I knew she’d have a certain number of questions about the choices I’d made, so I didn’t want to get too engrossed in anything. So I logged into LOTRO to work on some Shire deeds. The character I was running is well beyond the level of the Shire but he never did the deeds in there. So mostly I had to run around and ‘discover’ landmarks, and hunt lots of very gray bugs and slugs and wolves.

And y’know, I was enchanted. Whenever I’ve been away from LOTRO for any amount of time, I’m a bit stunned when I return. The landscapes, the music, the people going about their business…it all feels very much like a “world” to me, and one where there is still hope and happiness. Watching the sun come up and the clouds move slowly across the sky. Watching brooks babbling over rocks, and the sunlight reflecting off the water. It all feels very relaxing. It feels like I really am in Middle Earth. And it makes me want to defend this place from the intrusion of darkness.

And at the same time, I know for a lot of gamers what I was doing would be considered pointless grinding and a huge flaw in the game. They wouldn’t stop to watch a shrew clean its face or nibble on a tidbit it’d found. They wouldn’t notice the sky. They’d find a hobbit outfitter that sells cosmetic items and snort and think “What a waste of money..why would I get this for my toon?”

Actually, I think “toon” is significant. If you think of your characters as “toons” then yeah, every time you think about them you’re reminding yourself that this is all really just a spreadsheet with graphics layered on and that there’s a most efficient way to increase those numbers quickly. I think of my characters as characters or, more often, as “me”. I have to deliberately say “Gillain did this” rather than naturally sliding into “I did this”.

I feel faintly embarrassed to be admitting this. Ysh was talking about Wizard 101 a few days ago and someone commented that he was too old and too male to play Wizard 101. It’s just part of our culture (particularly among the young, and I consider anyone under 35 or so in that category) that guys are supposed to be hard and apathetic about beauty (except for hot women, of course) and fluff. We’re supposed to be all about the killing and efficient leveling. Competition and being the strongest and the best.

But that just isn’t me, at least a lot of the time. I’m about the experience. That’s why I get so excited when I run into Gotrek & Felix in a tavern in Altdorf. It’s why I mutter under my breath when I have to slog through a marsh and ruin my new boots. It’s why killing 10 rats isn’t a problem for me, but killing 10 bunnies is.

I mean yeah, I really like getting a new level, and I enjoy winning a bout of RvR. But not all the time. I need more than that, and maybe that’s why I’ve gotten somewhat less enthusiastic about Warhammer. Mythic deliberately designed a GAME rather than a WORLD and I kind of miss the world aspects sometimes.

Anyway, no real point to all this. I’m certainly not saying one way is better than the other (and I don’t think there’s a dichotomy here…it’s definitely a gradient kind of issue). I just find it harder to find other gamers like me than I do the type that is very goal-driven and not really about the extras. Maybe we need to form a support group or something.

Thanks for reading all that, if you’re still here. 🙂 As a reward, here’s a couple of ‘wallpaper’ screens I took this morning. Very valuable, very rare!!

lotro lotro

Tilted Mill pwns my Saturday

Posted on by Nimgimli

After running around in the rain doing errands all day I sat down for some sweet MMO gaming. But I decided, maybe I’d play a bit of Hinterland first, since I haven’t been back to that game lately. Next thing I knew, 4+ hours had gone by!

I won my game, which sprang me from the grasp of its spell, and then…logged in to Nile Online to check the status of my cities. I was almost ready to upgrade my palace to level 5, but I need to ship some goods from my new city to my old. But the new city wouldn’t have a ship ready for about half an hour. So I puttered around, twiddling my thumbs until that was done, then shipped the goods, which would take 18 minutes to arrive. So more thumb twiddling even though it was after midnight and I was beat. Finally got everything where it needed to be and started the 5 hour build.

So I didn’t log in to War, or Wizard 101, or activate my EQ2 account. Because Tilted Mill apparently owns my soul. Dunno what will become of my when Mosby’s Confederacy comes out!!

Totally unrelated and random side note. One of my chores was taking a bunch of change to a Coinstar in the local supermarket. I assume this is a national thing: it’s a machine that you dump all your change into and then get some kind of money out of. I took mine out as an Amazon gift certificate (no charge that way…they take some percentage if you get cash for your coins), but anyway… Much to my surprise, I got a bonus coupon for $10. From now until Dec 7th, if you turn in at least $40 worth of coins, you’ll get $10 extra (after you fill out a coupon and send it in). I had no idea this promotion was going on, and from sheer luck turned in $41 worth of change. Yay me!

Details here. Maybe be worth emptying that change jar of yours.

Random sidebar to random side note. I turned in 147 dimes, 42 nickels, and 2,447 pennies.

A Wizard is born!

Posted on by Nimgimli

Spent maybe an hour in Wizard 101, due to the influences of Ysh and through her, Tipa. Well, honestly I’m not *quite* that easily swayed…it’s a game I’ve heard some low-level but positive buzz about for a while. These blogs just pushed me over the edge.

So far its pretty much what I expected in tone, but the combat system is actually more interesting than I thought it’d be in one particular way. Combat is turn-based (card based, really) but it takes place in the world. For some reason I assumed I’d be whisked off to a private battlefield when it got time to fight, but no. And other people can jump into your battle if they happen to be running past. That’s pretty neat. No need to form a party or anything…just stand on a caster’s circle and start fighting. In the same way, additional mobs can jump in.

Anyway, I’ve barely scratched the surface. But checking it out is easy enough…no need to pay for anything until you’ve learned about the basics of the game, and the client is quite lightweight, so no need for an hour of downloading, either. So if you’re curious, check it out.

I’m actually most confused about how to pay for it, if I choose to stick with it. I can pay $10/month, or I can buy crowns and pay for access in crowns, but how many crowns that’s going to cost me is pretty unclear. But I think I’ll just play for free for a bit longer before I fret too much about that.

TGIF, WRUP, and other acronyms

Posted on by Nimgimli

So last night was all about the Thursday Night Football, thus no gaming was done. In fact overall damned little gaming got accomplished this week, much to my chagrin. XFire says I spend 2 hours playing Warhammer in the past 7 days, and that’s the game I spent the most time on, PC-wise (not that I always trust those numbers). I did play the Left 4 Dead demo on the 360 a couple of times, and spent quite a bit of time at Nile Online.

Yes, fascinating stuff. But what of the future? This is an odd week for me. I finished Fable 2 and didn’t/don’t want to wade into some lengthy single-player game because next week the LOTRO and EQ2 expansions hit, plus the “New XBox Experience” arrives (which, granted, will probably only be interesting for an evening). I could be playing Warhammer but fear getting sucked back into it, only to have my account turn off early next week.

So I feel like I’m in a quasi-holding pattern. I might stalk follow Ysharros into Wizardry 101 over the weekend, just because it sounds fun and easy. Quick to download, easy to learn… just some nice concentrated fun. Or at least that’s the vibe I’m getting.

Or I could fire up the EQ2 account and get re-acquainted, but I dunno… does it make sense to get re-acquainted only to install an expansion and have to relearn stuff? Might be just as easy to wait.

Curiously, I’ve paid very little attention to the big MMO expansions. I know WOW has Lich King and a Death Knight class and that’s about all I know. Moria has legendary weapons and 2 new classes, which I know very little about (but I’ll roll a Warden because I always roll any class called Ranger or Warden). The EQ2 expansion I know ZERO about, except that Angela is super-psyched for it. I guess it adds… new stuff. I don’t even remember the full name of it!! LOL.

This makes me an un-informed consumer but a happy gamer. I love discovering stuff on my own, and THEN researching it to learn the nuances. Werit wrote a post called Too Much Information that captures my feelings well enough that it seems pointless for me to repeat them here.

Apparently there’s a big free content update either going into Age of Conan, or already launched. Interesting. I’d like to jump back into AoC at some point. But then Ardwulf has me wanting to take another look at Vanguard, too. Plus Chronicles of Spellborn launches sometime soon, and I wanted to look at that as well. And I’m definitely not ‘done’ with Warhammer Online!

Is it any wonder that MMOs have churn problems these days? So many interesting choices and it’s hard to justify two concurrent subscriptions for most people. Add to that the lure of so many fantastic single-player games out now. It all just feels like too much. Are there enough gaming dollars to support all this content??

Anyway, let’s get to the WRUP part: What are YOU playing this weekend?

Nile Online status update

Posted on by Nimgimli

Woot!

» [8:02 pm] You sent off ships loaded with resources to found a new city! It will take 12 hours to complete.

It took me three or four days of focused gathering and buying, but I established my second city!! Or am establishing it.

I’ll now have leather as well as kohl to trade.

In other news, I got all official and stuff and added an “About me” page.

MMO devs need to be Left 4 Dead

Posted on by Nimgimli

Last night I played through the Left 4 Dead demo again, mostly to make sure I’d given it a fair shot. I still don’t think I want to spend $60 to kill endless hordes of zombies, but I did come to appreciate some other aspects of the game.

During the hype-storm we learned a lot about L4D’s “AI Director” system. This system modulates the game experience in real-time. If you’re getting your arse handed to you, the number of baddies will abate a bit. Conversely, if you’re sailing through effortlessly the AI Directory will spawn more enemies to make the game a little more difficult.

It’s hard to quantify these changes in a game with as many enemies as L4D, and more so in the course of a 2 level demo played twice, but let’s assume this was working as intended. It felt like it was. I performed a lot better during my second try but the game didn’t feel any easier. But what I *can* quantify is that the experience was different in two play-throughs.

For instance in my first session, I ran into what I assumed was a “mini-boss” character in the subway. This massive creature came crashing through the wrecked subway car using the ‘terrain’ intelligently and provided a good challenge and change of pace. If felt like an “Encounter.” The second time through, I approached this intersection carefully, waiting for the boss. And he wasn’t there. In fact I didn’t encounter him at all in the second run through the levels, though I did encounter another “hero zombie” that I hadn’t the first time. Additionally ammo caches showed up in different places and the zombies came from different directions.

Which leads me to the title of this post. How cool would it be if MMO devs could incorporate this system into our favorite online games? Both in terms of scaling the difficulty of an area based on player concentration, but more so in having random bosses roaming around providing “Encounters” at unexpected times? Some games do a little of this: think of resource spawns, or random chests that you might come across out in the world.

I’m imagining an instanced dungeon that could be done by 1 person or 10. Obviously the loot drops would be better when 10 players took it on, but a solo-er could at least go in and have fun and experience the storyline of the dungeon. And every time through could be a little different in order to keep players on their toes.

I’m also imagining random Encounters that are self-contained quests. Your party is out questing when you unexpectedly run into some strong mob. If you can defeat him, you get some quest experience (maybe an NPC runs in to reward you or whatever) and loot, same as if he was a fixed Quest. But he isn’t…the next time you pass through this area, he isn’t there. I’m not suggesting a whole MMO built around this: set-pieces are part of the fun of an MMO. But I’m thinking of these as an addition to what we play now.

I also was once again impressed by the AI of my NPC party members, and it’d be interesting to see more MMO devs follow the Guild Wars example of allowing us to hire some extra muscle to fill out a party. I understand there’s a delicate balance between helping the MMO experience and essentially destroying it by letting everyone just hire NPCs rather than grouping. But wouldn’t it be nice to hire a healer (or tank, or whatever) rather than standing around with 4 friends yelling “Looking for Healer for BigBadInstance!” for half an hour?

Left 4 Dead demo review

Posted on by Nimgimli

Last night I downloaded the Left 4 Dead demo off of XBox Live. This is a game I’ve been looking forward to for quite a while. I tried playing it solo, since realistically that’s how I’d be playing it if I bought the game. Scheduling 4 friends to get together to play a game online is pretty much impossible at this stage of my life. Too many wife/kid/girlfriend issues in my social circles.

As a single player game, Left 4 Dead looks great, really sets a great tone and… gets boring really fast. The first ten minutes is amazing as hordes of zombies come charging at you and your 3 NPC friends and you mow them down. The zombies are like aggressive cockroaches, as they come flooding out of a sewer opening or the doorway of a darkened warehouse.

The AI is great. They’ll get you out of trouble and even offer you extra gear (without you asking for it). They’ll call out items laying around and special zombies incoming. They’re skilled too. On my first scorecard I, ahem, ranked last in everything but damage taken, where I came in first. At the same time, they don’t make the game feel easy. You really do need four capable fighters to survive.

On the other hand, you spend a lot of time in dark buildings. Really dark. Bottom of a cave dark. Your flashlight will light up an area about the size of a basketball. There’s no reflective light in the rooms, no ambient light from the flashlights of the other 3 members of your team. Suddenly your XBox Experience is like looking through a pinhole. Yes, it adds to the tension but it quickly becomes really tedious not being able to see. You can get lost in a small bathroom; that’s how small the beam is.

Outside is more fun but I soon started getting the Hellgate: London effect. Block after block of ruined buildings got monotonous really fast. Swarm after swarm of zombies, ditto. Granted the demo is only one level, but it just didn’t hold my interest for very long. And while the idea of getting attacked from all sides constantly is interesting, in practice it felt a bit like a chore, having to constantly turn around and look behind, look up, look down, look to each side (the shoulder buttons do insta-turn you, to be fair). I can see how this could be really compelling for some gamers, but for me it just felt like a lot of work.

I’m guessing multiplayer with friends would be a *lot* more fun, so if that’s how you plan to play it, definitely check out the demo. But I can’t see spending $60 to play this game single player (and to be fair I don’t think Valve has ever pitched as a single player game).

EDIT:
Aaron at Anyway Games had a much different and more positive reaction to the demo. Check out what he has to say: Left 4 Dead Demo

Warhammer in my world

Posted on by Nimgimli

I’m going to leave the taxonomy for now. I had a rough evening and morning (had my identity stolen and dealing with banks and such, but oops, banks are closed) so I’m going to be self-indulgent today.

My Warhammer account has a week left before I have to take a break. The downside to the break is, well, not playing. The upside is lots of shiny goodies when I return, I hope. So what are these goodies? I dunno, but I know what I *wish* they’d be. So here’s my list of desired Warhammer changes.

This is a list born of selfishness and I’m sure lots of people will take strong exception to it. I get that, and if I ruled the world, I still might not make these changes because I don’t want to break the game for others. I’ve also not let practicality get in the way of my dreams, as you’ll see.

1) More social mobs. I’m sick of (at low tiers at least) being able to pick off enemies one by one, while their friends stand there and watch them die. I want to (sometimes) face crowds of weaker enemies. Y’know what game does this really well? NCSoft’s freebie, Dungeon Runners. You’re always disappearing under a mass of enemies in that game, only to eventually emerge victorious. Instead of a single even level skeleton, send 6 or 7 of them a couple levels lower, and let me go crazy and send bodies flying in every which way. THAT feels powerful. Similarly, there are very few “skill pulls” in the solo PvE stuff. I’d like to have to rely on my smarts now and then when I need to attack baddies.

2) Shuffle the world!! Twenty-four zones sounds like plenty, right? But to me at least, it feels small, and I think it feels small because we have three nice neat corridors, with an entrance at one end of each zone and an exit at the other. Connections between tiers via teleport (essentially) makes it all seem very disconnected. Let’s change things up, make the world messier and more chaotic.

3) Eliminate scenarios. *ducks and runs away*

4) More “fluff”. Non-combat pets, housing, social gear (take the trophies and make them more obvious, maybe?). Just stuff to futz around with when you don’t feel like fighting but do feel like being in-game to hang out with your guild.

5) More PvE Quests. There’s enough now, but barely. Some Epic PvE quests would be fun…long term collection stuff, maybe. Put some of the objectives in the RvR Lakes, to get people out there now and then. Some “lever” quests (I just made up that term). What’s a lever quest? It’s a quest where one step “pulls a lever” to set something in motion that will impact other players. DAoC had some quests that caused mobs to attack a town. Everyone would have to stop their buying and selling and fight off the attack. WoW has stuff like Stitches. Actions that indirectly involve other players remind us all that we *aren’t* in a single player game. Beating back these attacks tend to bind players together. Common cause and all that.

6) More open RvR at all levels. Right now you can totally skip the RvR Lakes. My assumption is that the game is built that way so that PvE players can play and not engage in Open RvR. But really, as a PvE Only game Warhammer isn’t incredibly compelling. I do think that it needs better PvE for long-term success, but until then, RvR is the big hook that makes Warhammer stand out. So dammit, force people to cross those RvR Lakes now and then. Have the Lakes stretch clear across a zone, with a few chokepoints where players will naturally congregate. Put moving quest rewards out there (static rewards would get camped by the enemy, probably). Do something to get people (including me, frankly… I haven’t done any RvR since before Witching Night) out there.

7) More bag space, please. If we have to pay for it, that’s fine. But as someone who hates to leave corpses laying around causing lag (that’s old school, huh?) I get really sick and tired of spending as much time futzing with inventory as I do playing the game. If not more bag space, then fewer types of crafting resources.

8) Add a third realm. Hey, I don’t ask for much, do I? LOL

9) Give me a Lifetime Membership option

10) Reader’s choice!

Yeah, I’m not coming up with a #10, so I’ll leave it to others to add to the list. I told you it was selfish. I get 9 and you get 1.

Single player vs PvE vs RvR

Posted on by Nimgimli

Been navel-gazing again. I’ve decided that I operate within a game taxonomy that has three main categories. I’ve compiled a list of pros and cons for each.

Single Player Games
Pros

  • You are the hero. The focus of the universe. It’s all about you, baby.
  • High convenience factor. Play for 10 minutes or 10 hours. The world will wait when you have to take a break
  • The world can be very fluid, your actions can have significant impact on the world
  • Smooth gameplay. You don’t have to worry about lag or queues or server outages
  • Strong Story
  • Play at your own pace. One session a week or several sessions a day, it doesn’t matter

Cons

  • Predictable, at least compared to being in a world with lots of other players
  • Finite: at some point the game ends and you’ve done everything there is to do

PvE focused MMO games
Pros

  • Unpredictable, you never know what other players are going to do
  • Virtually infinite. Expansion packs, gameplay tweaks and huge worlds… there’s always more to come
  • Moderately Convenient (Some aspects lend themselve to quick sessions but others require scheduling and large blocks of time)
  • Seasonal events tied to real-world calendar add spice to the world.

Cons

  • Many heroes. You are just another face in the crowd and often feel weak compared to those around you.
  • Static: The world generally doesn’t change much based on your actions. It’s all about the devs, baby.
  • Weak Story
  • Some pressure to “keep up” with other players

RvR focused MMO games
Pros

  • Unpredictable, you never know what other players are going to do
  • Virtually infinite. Expansion packs, gameplay tweaks and huge worlds… there’s always more to come
  • Seasonal events tied to real-world calendar add spice to the world.
  • Intense action. There are few gaming experiences as exciting as being in a big RvR battle.
  • Semi-static: Your side can change the world within certain limitations

Cons

  • Many heroes. You are just another face in the crowd and often feel weak compared to those around you.
  • Inconvenient. It is almost impossible to “schedule” a good RvR battle
  • Weak Story
  • Strong pressure to “Keep up” with other players

I’m sure I’ll keep adding to this list. And granted my RvR experience is pretty limited: DAoC and Warhammer, really.

For me the big issue is time. RvR games can offer the most fun but also require the most time. PvE games are more forgiving about time and are far more “schedule-able” . The NPC Boss is always going to be there waiting for us, right? Single player games, assuming they allow saving anywhere, are absolutely time-forgiving. At least, until they end. We all get tired of MMOs but darned few of us have literally “finished” one, where we’ve taken every class to cap and seen every quest and accomplished every task.

Each taxonomy has something great to offer. Being the hero of the story in a single-player game can be very satisfying, as can the sense of accomplishment for getting to “The End.” Working in a group in a PvE game to figure out the attack patterns and weaknesses of a boss and finally taking him down can evoke shrieks of delight. And the pulse pounding action of a massive RvR battle can be literally breath-taking.

I’m not including price, but for me the monthly cost of an MMO does influence my reaction to it. I feel a lot differently about LOTRO than I do about most other MMOs because I have a lifetime sub to it. There’s a low-level but persistent “pressure to play” when I know I’m spending a monthly fee to play a game.

So what’d I miss? What are your Pros and Cons? Or do you even buy into my taxonomy?

Fable 2 thoughts

Posted on by Nimgimli

Today I finished the main plot line for Fable 2. I’ve got a lot I’d like to say about it, but frankly I’m not sure how to say everything without spoiling the game for folks who haven’t played it. I certainly don’t want to post explicit spoilers, but later in the post there are some generic ones. I’ll warn you before they start.

Overall my opinion of the game is very favorable. The main story plot line wasn’t incredibly involved but it was enough to keep you moving forward, and it worked as an excellent framework to hang off many incidents that had real impact on me as a player. It was an RPG that spoke to the heart more than to the head.

I do think Molyneaux pulled some punches though, and I wish he hadn’t. And I wish the game had been more difficult. I’m not speaking about combat (combat never gets very hard, but it always feels pretty satisfying) but more about the ‘moral’ system in the game. As I mentioned in an earlier post, you have a Purity/Corruption stat and a Good/Evil stat. From about half-way through the game, my character was 100% Pure/100% Evil, and that was through no deliberate choice of mine, aside from the choice of eating vegetables and passing on meat. Veggies give you +Purity and meat gives you -Purity and +Fatness, and I was just trying to avoid the Fatness.

Money was another issue. Or rather, non-issue. If you invest some time early building a nest egg doing mini-game jobs, then buy a few houses/businesses to generate some income, you’ll never be strapped for cash. Also since business income accumulates even when you aren’t playing, if you take a break for a few days you’ll be even richer. Sure, there are big-ticket items you’ll need vast amounts of wealth for, but they’re really just to get Achievments and don’t impact the plot of the game at all.

And then there’s your family, or families. Another neat system that has very little impact on the game. In theory having a healthy, happy family will get you buffs from spending the night at home, but in practice you never really need to sleep since food, drink and potions will keep you going indefinitely. I only slept at home when the wife wanted sex, and I don’t think the game would’ve been drastically different had I never married.

I’m doing a lot of griping, but understand that’s just my nature… I really did enjoy the game a lot. The world felt very alive, and having the family, the businesses, doing the odd jobs; all of that was fun even if none of it really felt necessary. I just think it would’ve made a great game even better had these systems had more impact.

Part of the challenge, I think, comes from making a game for everyone. I spent a lot of time wandering around, fighting things, doing side-quests, exploring, collecting… just really taking my time. So I improved skills early, and had the gold to get the best weapons early, which meant the game never got hard. If some other player stuck to the main quest, used the Quick Travel feature to get around. and never did any of the ‘extra’ stuff, I’m guess the game would get pretty difficult further along.

Which brings me back to wishing there was a difficulty setting. Maybe some day we’ll get one as DLC.

But, as someone who got bored of Fable 1 and never finished it, I can’t recommend Fable 2 enough. It was an immensely satisfying game.

Spoilers follow. I’ll try to be as vague as possible but stop reading if you want the game to be as full of surprises for you as it was for me.

One of the most emotional moments in the game came when I was…removed from the world…for an extended period. I left my wife, my child, my dog, my businesses…all to fend for themselves for a decade. It wasn’t something I chose to do, and I was really bothered by it.

It just so happened that when this happened it was late at night out there in real life, so I had to quit. I spent the next day fretting about what would happen when my character returned from this exile. As soon as I got home from work I jumped back into the game, and my character returned to the world and… my wife said “You’re back!!” and kid had grown up a bit, but otherwise nothing had changed. My dog was still my dog. The wife had waited for me. The kid politely introduced herself then treated me like her dear old dad. My businesses had continued to collect rent. There was very little indication that I’d been gone so long, as far as personal impact.

Again, I think this is a spot where Molyneaux pulled his punches. I assumed my dog would be dead (and I’d have to get a puppy and raise it), my wife would’ve remarried, my businesses auctioned off. Essentially I assumed I’d have to start anew.

Maybe Fable 3 will take all this stuff a bit further. And I really do hope we get a Fable 3. There’s certainly a setup for one in the game.