This MMO Would Be Great if it Weren't For All the Other Players

WARNING: BEGIN RANT

So, I spent a big chunk of the last weekend in a certain MMO beta, and really enjoyed a lot of it. Much of this established single player series' tropes were in place, which I enjoyed, and while it took a bit to wrap my head around some of the MMO concessions, I eventually started to 'get' the game once I started putting my preconceptions to the side.

However, because of the way I'm wired, no matter how hard I try, if someone's whining in general chat, I can't help but look.

And lemme tell ya, for a beta, I was blown away by the amount of bitching going on. It was as if the average mouthbreather doesn't understand what a beta is, nor do they understand that they're not playing the latest internal build of the game.

Part of the problem, I think, is that I tend to solo anything I can in an MMO. I like having huge worlds and tons of quests, and I love having new content added to this huge world over time, and I only group when a) I know the person or b) I absolutely must.

Yes, that is somewhat antithetical to playing a lot of MMOs, but really, I don't like most of you. Most of you can't communicate in a coherent fashion, AND, and this is my big irritation, just wanna click through and race through an instance as fast as possible.

I'm super-chill in MMOs. I like to take my time, explore, talk to folks, and really, zone out and absorb the world and the story through which I'm playing. Most MMO players are the second-worst human beings on earth, second only to the cesspool known as Xbox Live.

Actually, the average game article commenter is the worst. So, we'll say MMO players are a distant third-worst.

In any case, and yes, I could close gchat, but I like being helpful to new players, and sometimes, there are worthwhile discussions, especially back in pre-F2P SWTOR, but IN ANY CASE, nothing induces eyerolls like seeing a political discussion while you're tromping through the wastes of Korriban, or just trying to chill for a bit in Daggerfall, when someone starts ranting about the proliferation of gays in pro sports or some either equally dim-witted perspective.

Of course, nothing makes me lose hope for the future of humanity like the 'armchair developer.' These motherfuckers, because they know a guy that reads Gamasutra sometimes, know all about what it takes to develop a game, and the asshats that make THIS GAME are LAZY and GREEDY and WON'T LISTEN TO ME and I KNOW WHAT EVERYONE WANTS and FUCK THIS GAME and I'M STILL PLAYING THIS GAME BUT FUCK THIS GAME.

Yeah, criticism is fine, but damn, man, find a way to express yourself in a more constructive manner.

END RANT

So, anyway, I really enjoyed a lot of the beta I was on, and can't wait to test more, as well as play the production version.

I generally am not an MMO player, but have made exceptions for MMOs that make story a big part of the game, like Guild Wars, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and, I assume, Elder Scrolls Online.

When beta testing a game I assume I'm going to play the shit out of, I always try to pick the character build that I'm least-likely to enjoy, since I want to save as much of the 'real' game as possible for when I first start really playing. I try to hold all the awesomeness back for the game I really wanna play.

Again, I did that with this beta, but because of the awesome flexibility of the character leveling, I accidentally put together a character I really like, and I'll probably borrow a lot from this when I finally build my real 'main' when the game comes out.

I did a similar thing back on the SWTOR beta, when I built a super-awesome Sith Sorcerer, a build I never thought I'd want in the real game. I had so much fun with it, that I re-rolled that character last year.

I can't wait for the NDA to lift, because I wanna gush about this game. Until then, just know that your past weekend was far inferior to mine.

Side Quests
 - the South Park: Stick of Truth achievements are as horrifying as I imagined, and then some. This should be a very interesting game. I have it preordered on Steam.
 - PCGamer has a cool preview of Pillars of Eternity up

That's all, folks! Thanks for reading!

-Blaine

Yesterday's Title Made No Sense, So Potatoes

I meant to talk about my 'gaming space' yesterday, but got completely derailed by ... oh wow, there's a trailer for Murdered: Soul Suspect. I think I remember hearing about that game somewhere, at some time, but damn ... and it says there's an Xbox One 'version,' which implies another platform. Maybe PC? Was that one of those that was gonna have a TV show attached to it? Can't remember. No, that was something from those guys that did Alan Wake. Yeah. Wasn't there a DS game kinda like this?

Oh. Sorry.

Anyway, when the baby was discovered as being a gestating fetus in my wife's body, it became apparent that I was going to need to surrender my home office for the purpose of storing the infant after it was extracted from my wife.

I did so, happily, as I was and am thrilled to have another son. I love being a baby-daddy.

I moved our home office to what we call the 'Sun Room,' since it's glass on three sides, provides a thrilling view of our huge, green, and stress-inducing backyard (it requires more maintenance than a General Motors product.) At the time, it seemed like a good spot for it. Nice view, big space, and I could spread out my setup a little more.

Since then, glare is a constant issue, as is people talking at me. I am not exactly an easy person to hide, but beyond that, there must be something about my back, or perhaps, backside, that beckons to people to start running their mouths. At my back.

If my back had a third ear, and a separate brain to process the information being verbally spewed at it, this would not be a problem. However, I frequently work from home, and the nature of my work (programmer) can, at times, require some fierce concentration.

The same can also be said of a 32-man raid in SWTOR.

There are no doors to this room, since it's part of an 'open floor plan' and that means everyone has to be able to be up in each other's grills at all times. Most of the day, I like this. I married an attractive, intelligent woman, and she is an nice to look at as she is nice with which to converse. She stimulates blood flow at opposing ends of my body, and often at the same time.

And my children are fantastic.

I have a near-perfect home life, but my gaming/home office setup is atrocious. Part of the issue here is that I'm not a very good person, and thus like being able to wall myself off at certain times. If I'm working, I need the ability to drop a cone of silence on myself at will. But I still want to be able to raise my voice slightly and call to a family member, or to be able to hear signs of life elsewhere in the house.

And most of the games I play are games that nearly require total immersion. From the Elder Scrolls to raids in SWTOR to Dragon Age to the Witcher, my games are each a plunge into a distinct ocean of fiction (that doesn't have any sharks because fuck that), and without intense focus, you stand to miss a crucial detail, and then you're on the game's wiki, and then you accidentally read that you're Revan or the Nereveerevereareaareeerrine, and then the whole game is ruined, and then Germany has won the war.

I may finally cave and move my setup to the workshop in the basement. I've only ever used it for storing baseball cards and Star Wars memorabilia up to this point. It's dark, it's dank. It looks like the kind of place where you'd both work on the Frankenstein monster AND cook meth. I may be able to spruce it up. We'll see. I still don't like how cut off I'll be from the rest of the family, but I'm pretty creative, and may be able to find a way around that.

Side Quests

 - remember how I was bitching that Star Wars: The Old Republic needs more story content? Looks like that's in the works. I'm not judging either way yet, since it's early, BUT they have two so-called 'digital expansions' coming, ONE of which is like Makeb, the other is like Galactic Starfighter. Eesh. I'd rather have two Makebs. Just sayin'.

 - Thief has gone gold and has a trailer that talks at you about all its features. Looks nice. I hope it's legit.

 - looks like 'Steam Music' is going to be a thing. You can stream your music library whilst playing a game. The UI looks nice. I'm already having visions of rocking some Billy Idol while dancing with Rinoa in Final Fantasy VIII. Check out the announced features here.

 - any time one of your generic console-only so-called 'gamer' friends starts teasing you about being a PC gamer, point at this shit right here.

Word. Thanks for reading.

-Blaine

2014: The 'Curious' Games

I've often had pride in the fact that I'm not afraid to try something new. Whether it be a new Indian dish, a show that's not science fiction or fantasy, a band that is formed of guys that are not from a grunge-era band, or a girl that does not have red hair, I'll try anything once.

Where the consideration comes in for games, though, is two things. Time and money. To ask someone to invest $20-60 dollars AND a lot of their free time into something that's an unknown quantity, that's a big deal. Ask someone to do it several times in a year, and that's an even bigger deal.

Bear in mind, I'm not talking about n3wb-P3wn3r69, I'm talking about someone like me, that's semi-retired from the hardcore gaming scene, and just wants to enjoy himself, rather than have pride in having played every indie/hardcore release.

The games I'm talking about today are upcoming releases that I'm leaning toward buying, but more because I'm really interested in what the marketing and publicity has presented in terms of feature sets and story, rather than because they're part of a franchise I know and love.

Divinity: Original Sin (PC)
The Divinity series is one of which I've had an awareness, without really ever jumping in too deep. Yes, of course, I own every game in the series (thanks, Steam sales), but they keep getting brushed aside by something new and shiny before I can really sink my teeth in.

That changed a little last year, when Larian Studios released the mostly-excellent Divinity: Dragon Commander. However, that game is a sharp departure from the rest of the series gameplay-wise. I enjoyed it tremendously, for the most part, but had been waiting until the prequel to the series, Original Sin, was out before I really jumped in.

CONFESSION: I've already bought this game, so I suppose counting it as a 'Curious' game is a moot point. However, before playing the alpha, I was somewhat on the fence, despite having impulsively funded the game. Everything I knew about the series told me it was something right up my alley. The deep lore, the big worlds, the cool story, the solid combat.

The alpha, thus far, has confirmed that I will fucking LOOOVE the combat. Rather, I DO love the combat. Ever played a tabletop strategy game like Warhammer 40k? OK, there's your combat system. Were I saying this to me, I'd slap the person for daring to invoke the greatest combat system ever, and then hand over my money to Larian.

Where my curiosity mostly lies is in everything else in the game. What I've played of the alpha is pretty nice, but I'm curious to see how the rest of the presentation comes out, how the character builds are, and how the co-op works.

In all, I'm pretty excited.

Bravely Default (3DS)
Everything I've read and seen says that this is the Final Fantasy game we've been waiting for since the end of the PlayStation 1 era.

I just wish it was on any platform that wasn't 3DS.

Yeah, I could borrow my son's 3DS, and yeah, I also wanna play the new Phoenix Wright game on the 3DS, but ... it's still one more game platform I gotta buy. I am not excited about that.

Watch Dogs (PC)
Yeah, this isn't technically an RPG, but it sure has plenty of RPG elements, and I think this, rather than Thief, may be scratching the itch left by Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Also, I did my undergrad in Chicago, so I'm eager to see how closely they've rendered the real city.

Everything I have seen about this game blows me away, in particular, how much the user can use the environment around him or her to accomplish various goals. Promises like that, though, can sometimes underwhelm in their final implementation, as we've seen many times. Of course, it could also be the next DXHR.

Just please give me Steam achievements, and not just Uplay achievements.

And let me have my character take advantage of $.50 draft nights at the Parkway Tavern on Fullerton, if that's still a thing. Hell, if it isn't, make it a thing in the game. That was awesome.

Age of Decadence (PC)
I'm so excited about this game, I refuse to take part in the Steam Early Access. I don't want anything ruined for me before the finished product is out.

Turn-based, low magic, post-apocalyptic setting + an emphasis on choices and consequence? Where do I sign up? Oh, on Steam, it turns out. I've contemplated buying into the early access, just to help contribute to the game, and then not playing until it's done, but I know I'd be unable to resist just getting a taste. I don't want to have to replay anything in the final game. I'm so pumped, I want it all to just be new.

Curiously, though, it's been in development for, literally, 10 years, so I have some concerns about that. When you iterate on something that long, everything from the ideas to the tools you're using can become woefully outdated. That doesn't appear to be true here, especially since graphical fidelity doesn't appear to something with which they're very concerned, nor should it, for an old-school isometric game that still looks pretty decent.

What has me curious, and pumped about this game is the motivations and ideas behind it. Like I said, the interesting setting, plus the emphasis on choice really has me excited.

Wasteland 2 (PC)
And another 'old-school' PC RPG release, though this might be the biggest of them all. You like the Fallout series? Thank the original Wasteland.

To tell the truth, though, I've never played it. I know. It's true. It was released in 1988, when I was but a lad still cutting my teeth on Legend of Zelda.

This game features an overhead, rotatable view, turn-based combat, and a party of up to 7 people. The NPCs sounds pretty interesting, too, and seem like they're going to have a lot of logic dictating unique agendas on the part of the NPCs.

I will say, I'm fascinated by the resurgence of turn-based combat in these crowd-funded RPGs, and it tells me that there's an appetite for it out there. I know I've certainly missed turn-based combat. Frankly, I enjoyed both turn-based and real-time, but I like having both, and the turn-based games all but went away some time ago, at least in terms of the high-profile RPGs.

There's an early access version available on Steam for $60, but word on the street is that price will come down upon final release.

I'm heavily leaning toward getting this one, as well, but timing, if it slips all the way into the fall, when all my big boy games come out, may become a question. This game sounds beautifully huge, and rather demanding of time, but potentially worth it. We'll see when this actually comes out. It's in beta now.

Star Wars: The Old Republic (new content) (PC)
What an interesting couple of years and change it's been, SWTOR. I've stuck with you the whole way, and I'm still with you, but if you don't get some significant new story content, we're done this summer. It's not me, it's you. And ESO.

What about you? What games are you really curious about? What games have you just on the edge of preordering? Lemme know!

Thanks for reading! I'll be back tomorrow with my 'MUST HAVE' games of 2014!

-Blaine

MMOs and Me

I have been the biggest supporter of Star Wars: The Old Republic since before it launched of pretty much anyone I know. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is one of my top three games of all time, Star Wars is probably my favorite franchise of any, and I loved that BioWare was bringing their 'fourth pillar' of story to an MMO.

For me, having a 'single player' MMO set in the Old Republic era of Star Wars was a dream come true. I loved that I could solo the majority of the game, and bring in friends whenever I wanted. I didn't even touch the endgame raid stuff for almost a year. I was so caught up in creating new characters and playing their stories, that I didn't really have a need.

Finally, though, having to burn through the same content (the non-character story side quests) started to wear on me a bit, and I joined a buddy's guild, and started dabbling in the endgame stuff. It was cool, I did enjoy it, but it didn't bring the same exhilaration that seeing new content brought.

Looking back, I think, for me, where things really started to fall apart was the transition to adding a F2P model. At that point, new development stopped being about adding more expansive story content, and became more about adding small bursts of new content, and a ton of nickel & dime microtransactions.

I've weathered this for two years, and over time, I've come to the conclusion that I'm much more willing to put time into an MMO if it's subscription-based, rather than an F2P microtransaction vehicle.

I've had an incredible amount of fun in SWTOR, and have gladly sunk more time and dollars into it than any other game I ever have, but I think my time with it is approaching its end. I plan to wrap up a couple character stories, and then call it a day by some time this summer.

Barring a substantial announcement from BioWare, I'm pretty sure I'll be jumping over to Elder Scrolls Online for my MMO fix. Between my new adoration for the franchise, and something I can't talk about, I'm very excited for this game.

I like having a go-to story-heavy MMO, and everything I know about ESO tells me it's going to fill that role nicely. Also, having all the areas of Tamriel opened up to me is tantalizing.

 

What really fills me with confidence, though, is that it's a subscription-based model. As I said, aside from the Guild Wars series, having an F2P, microtransaction-driven model discourages big releases, in favor of lots little nickel & dime releases. I'd rather pay a regular fee and get more substantial updates.

 

We'll see what happens, though. Turbine has done some okay things with the F2P model, with both Dungeons and Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online, but they also don't feature a deep story the way SWTOR does, and the way ESO appears to. My guess is ESO is going to build on the what's come before in the series, which isn't a grand, overarching story, but a main story thread that you can leave and come back to at your own pace, while tackling really interesting side quests. If anything, the Elder Scrolls structure is ripe for being imported into an MMO.

 

Of course, a good friend over at Galaxy Next Door reminded me that the Secret World is still out there, and I really enjoyed the little bit of time I spent in that game. I like their model of regular expansions that are bought outright, or received as part of a sub.

 

Oh, and Guild Wars 2 is still out there. I'll admit, their model defies everything I've been saying here, and I don't know how they do it. At the same time, though, I pretty quickly lost interest, even though I love the franchise. GW2 isn't a bad game, but ... I don't know.

 

Oh, and Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn keeps tugging at me. I may explore that one a bit more, while I still have sub time. I do plan to only carry one MMO sub after this summer.

 

Will it be SWTOR, ESO, or FFXIV? What do you think?

 

In closing, I am not, by any means, a typical MMO player. I'm pretty resistant to random grouping, and definitely enjoy soloing, if the content is good. SWTOR was perfect for me, but they've refused to release any new class-specific content, and most of their new content, with the exception of Makeb, has been pretty small. Some of it's cool, but I want more. I hope they announce something soon that'll keep me in the game.

 

Either way, I'm really looking forward to the ESO launch in April. I can already envision myself in my recliner, Alienware in hand, stomping around Tamriel, while watching the 2014 Cardinals destroy the rest of the NL Central. Good times, folks.

 

What do you need, story-wise, from an MMO? What's your favorite MMO play style? What do you play? Are you looking forward to ESO?

 

-Blaine