The game is currently too linear, you basically just go from zone to zone with no real breaks or towns or chance to involve yourself in side plots.  Valkyria Chronicles has more choice than this game at this juncture.  About 6 hours in perhaps maybe less.  Vanille has a terrible English VA and I expect her Japanese counterpoint is probably squeakier than I have the stomach for.  Hope is just annoying for a variety of reasons; mostly dealing with his mother and being a total douche.  Lightning needs to get punched in the face for blaming Snow for her problems and Snow is kind of wishy washy.  If you are going to introduce a combat system it should be enjoyable at all levels, not just after you “get” everything.  The story thus far is not terribly exciting, but hopefully it gets better.

Things I like.

The game is gorgeous and it’s hard for me to pick out at times the cinematics from the in-game engine.  The character models are well done even if they are annoying.  Combat system looks deep with the Paradigm Shifting.  But so far I have yet to see the full potential.  Musical score is fantastic thus far, and is simply massive.  Character advancement system is similar to Final Fantasy X which I like, though it has the potential to be annoying.  Overall a good game thus far but not what I expected.  Not sure if that is good or bad.

To them I say nay.

Transformers was never a really deep show, sure it may have touched on nuances of good and evil and sacrifice and heroism but it was a formulaic show about giant robots beating the crap out of other giant robots with a sprinkle of humans in the mix.  The show was designed to sell toys/products to children, mainly boys, and at that it did quite well.  It was and still is a vehicle of commercialism gone rampant and was soon as “rabid” fans accept that the better.  I loved Optimus Prime as a kid and I love him now, he is a great, virtuous, strong, and reliable when the chips are down.  He always does the right thing no matter what and he won’t fail you if he even has a chance of success.  He is the kind of man/person we want to be on our best days.

With that said I still hope that Hollywood finds new ideas to make movies out of, but if the success of this current film is any indicator our “sacred” childhood will become a veritable orchard of ideas for future summer blockbusters to come.  I say just enjoy it and realize that a new generation of fans will be introduced to the things you loved oh so long ago.

The Auriya encounter is all about the pull, the tanking part is relatively simple.  The most dificult part is to make sure she is turned in a direction that is advantageous to the raid after the fear.  If you are fear warded, resist the fear, or break it quickly then this is not an issue and you hould probably just stand there and have the raid run back.  If not just use your judgement and base where you face her on where the majority of the raid is feared to.  Move her as needed away from the void zones and push out as much damage as possible.

As far as Noblegarden is concerned I really hate this holiday, it encourages camping and doing unfun things.  I do like that alot of the items are able to be bought but the camping part and the static nature of the spawns lends the holiday a no-fun feel.  Worse then the Love Fool achievement in my opinion and I hope they rehaul this holiday next year and do soemthing better with it or just make it like it was a one day event with no attachment to the meta-achievement

for the mount.

Easily my least favorite holiday.

The game does not seem fun, which it should so I have to wonder if this is where I cut my losses or just stick it out and get over this temporary malaise.  There was a night where I wouldn’t make mistakes at all but lately I make alot of mistakes dumb ones.  Maybe I just don’t care enough anymore to keep trying.  Or maybe it was just an off night, I am not sure which at this point.  I guess I just wonder if it will get better or just worse.  I don’t like leveling alts, I get bored over time and then I just stop playing them altogether.

Maybe it is time to put up the shield for awhile.  We shall see.

The Toy Race Track and the Lego Blocks.

After reading this post by Keen I decided to make a response to the issue he has raised which I think is fairly interesting.  I am going to tackle each subject on its own terms and then wrap them up at the end with any additional thoughts on either subject matter.  The basic exercise is that you visualize a toy race track and lego blocks and then apply that imagery to the varying facets of an MMO game.  Although I will try to refrain from mentioning any specific MMO and more so focus on the ideas.

Toy Racetrack

When it comes to MMO design or features I can think of many parallels to a racetrack.  A racetrack is fairly linear in scope and tends to lend itself to a competitive nature.  it is very simple to see who is ahead of you and who is behind you.  The track has a definite direction and a finish line.  Just like many MMO products on the market that finish line is not the end of the expereince though; one can continue going and keep racing until the player decides to stop for any number of reasons.  The experience is fairly structured, the player knows usually where to go and the process of advancing through the track or game is heavily guided.

Toy racetracks are easily expandable though.  A new straight away or turn can be added with ease to change the experience.  With some sets you can change the original configuration of the set to make a new experience.  This turns the experience into something that is highly configurable but also very similar to the original experience.  The experience is exactly what you expect it to be, but with enough variation to keep the player entertained.  The race track keeps the player focused and although they can engage in other activities if they so choose the game gives the player a clear direction to follow.

To sum up a racetrack is configurable, directed, and usually competitive experience.  Either competing with others directly or indirectly through some sort of meta-game, i.e. gear, abilities, or personal achievement.

Lego Blocks

Lego blocks mirror MMO design philosophies pretty well.  Lego blocks allow the player to design what they want within a set of confines allowing the player to define his own experience.  This design is not infinite though and is often just an approximation of what the player set out to do in the first place.  Competition does not really come to mind when I think of Lego blocks, sure someone can come along and destroy what I built but that exists outside the scope of the Lego blocks.  The same could be said of the racetrack in the previous example.  The act of creation is a more personal experience and definitely gives the player more stake and ownership in the process.

It should be noted that in the early stages of Lego block gameplay the experience tends to be scripted or at least given a framework to work from.  Usually schematics that show the reader how the pieces fit to design a particular model.  These are just guidelines though and the reader can purposefully ignore them without any detrimental effects to their overall play experience.  But there are pitfalls to this sort of design philosophy, putting the total creative experience in the hands of the player can overwhelm a new player.  A lack of direction or concrete goals can make the initial experience for the new player daunting in their initial choices.  But if this initial period of awkwardness is overcome then the player can see that there experience is only limited by their pieces and the confines of the design construct.

In the end the Lego blocks can offer a wider variety of experiences for the player but also a larger set of initial choices can be daunting for a new or even veteran player.  There is little direction and it becomes tougher for a player to discern what they should or could be going.

Best of Both Worlds: Lego Racetrack

To merge both play styles/constructs is really what I see the direction of the genre going.  The experience needs to provide direction, give clear concise ideas of what a player should be doing.  The MMO should also give players the freedom to create and forge their own paths.  neither path is mutually exclusive and I think a game that can merge those two gaps will be all the richer for it.  A racetrack of Lego blocks gives the player a variety of tools and experiences to enjoy.  They get a clear view of the goal but given a variety of tools to make that journey to get there.  The path is not one lane but many lanes; the destination becomes only one facet of many experiences that create a richer tapestry.

This is how I see it at least.

]]> http://www.vanifae.com/2009/02/23/an-exercise-in-imagery/feed/ 0 http://www.vanifae.com/2008/10/27/a-minor-inconvenience/ http://www.vanifae.com/2008/10/27/a-minor-inconvenience/#comments Mon, 27 Oct 2008 16:54:15 +0000 Vanifae http://www.vanifae.com/?p=293

In response to this post.

Players do not like change as much as they clamor for it, as much as they make long diatribes about a more dynamic and changing world with actual consequences; players want a routine and reliability. If they log in to do a quest today they should be able to do the same tomorrow with little if any barriers.

So how do you then create a live event that is primarily player driven and make it fun and interactive. Well I think Blizzard did a very solid job of doing that they took the zombie infestation concept and ran with it; I have some people complain that there should be a quest or an objective for the zombies and I agree perhaps a few PvE objectives may have added some flair but by and large the populace is well aware of what zombies in pop culture do, they eat the flesh of the living, brains, and generally make a mess of things. To their credit the event does this very well, the zombies have created chaos, they have made things very inconvenient at times and probably made some, many players very angry at the changes going on in their world.

But if anything this event is a success, those of us that are playing this game right now will always remember the great zombie invasion of 2008 right before the expansion launched. The chaos that it brought, the fun to be had with zombies, and the frustration of dealing with the fallout; but to date this is the best event they have done for World of Warcraft that was very player driven, even if there are some obvious flaws.

I think that some protection for starting areas should have been made, but in the end this event will not last forever in fact it probably won’t even go on for another week. We are nearing the end of the invasion/plague and soon we can take out our vengeance/frustration on the Scourge and plunge right into the heart of the evil that ails us.

See you in Northrend.

Edit: Looks like the event, the zombies anyway, end today.

SOURCE

I am not saying that I am not going to play this game but these changes are pretty serious changes that really do impact what I wanted to do in the game.  It’s like waking up and finding out that Blizzard couldn’t get the Deathknight to work right, or they decided to elminate tanking from the Paladin.  I am not saying this is a critical detah knell of the game but it does not bode well for many fans.  Though diehard fans will create excuses on how this will be good for the game and how it will be better then ever.

The only thing that I think is positive is that they were up front about the issues.

But my gut tells me that this isn’t good news any way they try and slice it.  Being a Blackguard was not critical to my play expeirence but it was the class I was most interested in trying upon release.  Overall we lost about 66% of the Endgame content; of course maybe we gained 66% Endgame content because they intend to make this game fantastic.

I was not an Early Access member so I was really excited to bust out an hour or two of game time… but now I am just frustrated, pissed, and a little alarmed that Funcom would drop the ball like this right on launch day, between the 7 hour downtime, which started as a 4 hour downtime and this debacle, I am really leery of just how good this game could be. It does not help that info is hard to come by since I have been banned from their forums…

Hopefully Funcom fixes this issue quickly.

Edit: Turns out though not verified that this is an intended behavior of their billing system… wow this is both epic and probably the worst level of customer service I have ever seen. I hate to be dramatic but wow this puts a very bad taste in my mouth.  The link may not work since you have to be registered on their forums, which takes an active game account…

From the Funcom forums:

At the moment pre-order accounts, which are not part of the Early Access program or have not yet registered a valid retail-key, are put into frozen status. This is because only Early Access customers and those with a registerd retail-key are actually allowed to play on the servers.

These pre-order accounts are also blocked from accessing the forums as they are only available for customers with currently active game accounts (which right now the pre-order accounts without a valid retail-key are not)

This is actually correct behaviour of the billing system. As soon as the servers have been opened for launch, these customers will have to enter a valid retail-key in order to unfreeze their accounts and get access to the game servers and the forums.

We will open read access to the forums for everybody soon. But it will always be that only customers with valid game accounts will be allowed to write posts and engage in discussions with the community.

I am not really sure what else is worth the trouble, especially with my guild so close to starting Tier 6.

Underwhelming to say the least, maybe I just need to compare this to what I currently have but I am not seeing much that really is calling out to me.

I often wonder if this world is screwed up or if I am just screwed up. Cue the recent Mass Effect “Sexbox” debacle and the ensuing balanced and fair discussion on Fox News. It seems once again mass media gets video games completely “right” and that we gamers are ruining the world, can’t tell fiction from reality, and we all want to rape women and murder complete strangers.

Awesome.

Sarcasm aside I am just so tired of this bullshit media getting their facts completely wrong and people watching this crap and believing it wholesale like it is gospel truth. Mass Effect is an awesome, I really enjoyed it, I enjoyed the story, the character interaction, and the presentation; is there a subplot where you woo a paramour? Yes there is. Is it an integral and central part of the game, no it isn’t; as was noted in the Fox News spot by Geoff Keighley.

This whole debacle is a side story in a thirty hour plus story, a sidebar that can be completely avoided if the player so chooses. A sidebar that the player actively has to pursue, but instead our media decides to focus on the more salient and obviously controversial aspect of nudity, of which is tastefully done and no more nudity then what you could see on Heroes or Grey’s Anatomy.

Maybe we are such a sexually repressed culture that the notion of sex in a digital element that is associated with “children” despite the evidence that many gamers are in the late teens to mid twenties, and games are marketed to target this demographic is just too much for America or the mass media/public to handle.

Or maybe we are all just fucking doomed.