Video Game Theory

Skyrim: Enchanting Guide

2011-11-29T05:49:00.000-08:00

Enchanting is different than Alchemy in that, in order to enchant, you have to learn the enchantment you want to apply. It's also different than alchemy in that it uses one resource rather than many kinds of ingredients.

The basics of it are that you use the trap the soul spell (or buy/steal full soul gems) to trap the souls of enemies you kill in soul gems. You then use these soul gems to empower weapons and armor to have magical effects. You can also use charged soul gems to recharge enchanted items that use charges.

Like alchemy, the success and power of enchantments is determined by your enchanting skill, the quality of the soul gem, the power of the soul trapped, and any perks you might have.

It's useful to do the quest "The Black Star" to get Azuras Shard, a soul gem that can be reused. It can also be used as a cheap recharge for your weapons as you can summon a monster, trap its soul in Azura's Shard, and then use the power to recharge your weapons.

The Grind: The easiest way to grind enchanting is to recharge items from soul gems. The reason is that you can use petty soul gems, which are easy to get, and don't generate a large amount of waste items. You can also craft rings and amulets to sell. As with Alchemy, the more expensive the item is, the more enchanting skill you gain (I believe this is the change in value, so enchanting a super expensive sword won't get you any more value than enchanting an iron dagger). The ring and amulet method is good because if gives you valuable gold. The college of Winterhold sells soul gems, full and empty, and is a good "base of operations" for grinding.

Enchants you want to make sure you get soon after starting the grind:
Soul Trap (Saves you precious mana and time if your weapon soul traps for you, especially if you are like me and never remember to cast the stupid spell.)
Banish Daedra (Good profit enchantment, use on looted weapons and sell them to vendors)
Fear (good profit enchantment, use on looted weapons and sell them to vendors)
Fortify One-Handed (enchant rings and sell to vendors)
Fortify Two-Handed (enchant rings and sell to vendors)
Fortify Alchemy (useful for breaking the game with the fortify chains mentioned in the breaking the game post earlier)
Fortify Smithing (useful for breaking the game with the fortify chains mentioned in the breaking the game post earlier)

Gem Type	Creature Level
Petty	< Level 4
Lesser	< Level 16
Common	< Level 28
Greater	< Level 38
Grand	All creatures
Azura's Star	Reusable Soul Gem
Black Soul Gem	All humanoids

Soul Gem – Charge

Petty – 150
Lesser – 300
Common – 800
Greater – 1200
Grand – 1600

Petty Soul Gem

Souls from the Creatures below will fit into a Petty Soul Gem.

Lesser Soul Gem

Souls from the Creatures below will fit into a Lesser Soul Gem.

Common Soul Gem

Souls from the Creatures below will fit into a Common Soul Gem.

Greater Soul Gem

Souls from the Creatures below will fit into a Greater Soul Gem.

Grand Soul Gem

Souls from the Creatures below will fit into a Grand Soul Gem.

Skyrim: Breaking Smithing, Alchemy, and Enchanting

2011-11-23T21:11:00.000-08:00

I posted a brief guide on Alchemy, but how do you get some really screwed up and super powerful effects out of crafting? By breaking the system.

The idea behind it is simple enough. In Morrowind, where Alchemy was the only useful crafting skill, you could make fortify intellect potions that increased your effective Alchemy level, and then make more fortify intellect potions, which would be more powerful, drink them, and repeat. Skyrim's system works similarly, except that it is spread over three skills.

The basics of it are similar enough to Morrowind. You use the skills to enchance the skills, but instead of fortifying the same skill, you fortify both of the other two skills, and then switch to another skill, fortify the other two, switch to the third, fortify the other two, until you reach a point where there's no additional benefit. So, you make potions of fortify smithing and fortify enchanting, then use enchanting to buff two sets of gear that fortify smithing and fortify alchemy, then use smithing to make two sets of gear that fortify enchanting and fortify alchemy.

Simple enough of an exploit, eh?
-VG

More Skyrim Alchemy

2011-11-21T05:28:00.000-08:00

Probably renting Skyrim later today, if I can find a copy (not having luck in that department), but I've been looking over information like mad to see what I'm missing in the mean time.

Grinding Alchemy is actually fairly simple, but time consuming. Alchemy skill increases in proportion to the value of the potion made. Since potions made with different items at different skills have different values, its hard to make a comprehensive list. The simplest way to grind it is to find a alchemy vendor with an alchemist table (I have heard the one by Whiterun is nice), buy up ingredients, make expensive potions, sell them, rest until their stock and gold are reset, and repeat.

In the beginning you will be more limited to what potions you can make, because you will not know most of the alchemy component's effects. As you grind, it will become easier to make potions (because you know more ingredient effects) but harder to level up (because of diminishing returns/higher xp requirements). A list of ingredients and effects is at the bottom of this post. The best potions are the most expensive (when you combine but before you craft it gives you a price). Potions with two or more effects are much more expensive than potions with single effects. Do yourself a favor and grind speechcraft at the same time.

Nice Potions to Grind (Some prices may vary; values are what the alchemy craft gives you, not the actual sell price)
Fortify Health (Value: 197; Ingredients: Blue Mountain Flower, Wheat)
Fortify Magicka (Value: 186; Ingredients: Red Mountain Flower, Briar Heart)
Damage Stamina Regen (Value: 285; Ingredients: Histcarp, Wheat)
Resist Frost (Value: 156; Ingredients: Purple Mountain Flower, Thistle Branch)
Resist Poison (Value: 167; Ingredients; Garlic, Troll Fat)
Damage Health: (Value: 226; Ingredients Red Mountain Flower, River Betty)

Damage Stamina Regen (Value: 1000-4000; Ingredients: Giant's Toe, Wheat)

Consequently; a smart alchemist makes potions that help him fight...that's the whole point of the discipline. Enjoy!

So that should get you started. As promised the list of items.

Cure Disease (Charred Skeever Hide, Hawk Feathers, Mudcrab Chitin, Vampire Dust)
Damage Health (Crimson Nirnroot, Deathbell, Ectoplasm, Falmer Ear, Human Flesh, Human Heart, Imp Stool, Jarrin Root, Nightshade, Nirnroot, Red Mountain Flower, River Betty, Skeever Tail, Small Antlers, Troll Fat, Void Salts)
Damage Magicka (Butterfly Wing, Chaurus Eggs, Daedra Heart, Eye of Sabre Cat, Glow Dust, Hagraven Feathers, Hanging Moss, Human Heart, Jarrin Root, Luna Moth Wing, Namira's Rot, Nordic Barnacle)
Damage Magicka Regen (Bear Claws, Blue Butterfly Wing, Blue Mountain Flower, Chicken's Egg, Glow Dust, Hanging Moss, Human Heart, Jarrin Root, Nightshade, Spider Egg, Spriggan Sap)
Damage Stamina (Blisterwort, Blue Butterfly Wing, Bone Meal, Canis Root, Crimson Nirnroot, Cyrodilic Spadetail, Giant's Toe, Jarrin Root, Nirnroot, Rock Warbler Egg, Spider Egg)
Damage Stamina Regen (Creep Cluster, Daedra Heart, Frost Mirriam, Giant's Toe, Histcarp, Juniper Berries, Large Antlers, Silverside Perch, Skeever Tail, Wheat)
Fear (Blue Dartwing, Cyrodilic Spadetail, Daedra Heart, Namira's Rot, Powdered Mammoth Tusk)
Fortify Alteration (Grass Pod, River Betty, Spriggan Sap)
Fortify Barter (Butterfly Wing, Dragon's Tongue, Hagraven Claw, Tundra Cotton)
Fortify Block (Bleeding Crown, Briar Heart, Honeycomb, Pearl, Slaughterfish Scales, Tundra Cotton)
Fortify Carry Weight (Creep Cluster, Giant's Toe, Hawk Beak, River Betty, Scaly Pholiata, Wisp Wrappings)
Fortify Conjuration (Blue Butterfly Wing, Blue Mountain Flower, Bone Meal, Frost Salts, Hagraven Feathers, Lavender)
Fortify Destruction (Beehive Husk, Ectoplasm, Glow Dust, Glowing Mushroom, Nightshade, Wisp Wrappings)
Fortify Enchanting (Blue Butterfly Wing, Hagraven Claw, Snowberries, Spriggan Sap)
Fortify Health (Bear Claws, Blue Mountain Flower, Giant's Toe, Glowing Mushroom, Hanging Moss, Wheat)
Fortify Heavy Armor (Ice Wraith Teeth, Sabre Cat Tooth, Slaughterfish Scales, Thistle Branch, White Cap)
Fortify Illusion (Dragon's Tongue, Dwarven Oil, Mora Tapinella, Scaly Pholiata, Taproot)
Fortify Light Armor (Beehive Husk, Hawk Feathers, Honeycomb, Luna Moth Wing, Skeever Tail)
Fortify Lockpicking (Falmer Ear, Namira's Rot, Pine Thrush Egg, Spider Egg)
Fortify Magicka (Briar Heart, Ectoplasm, Histcarp, Jazbay Grapes, Red Mountain Flower, Tundra Cotton, Void Salts)
Fortify Marksman (Canis Root, Elves Ear, Juniper Berries, Spider Egg)
Fortify One-Handed (Bear Claws, Canis Root, Hanging Moss, Hawk Feathers, Rock Warbler Egg, Small Pearl)
Fortify Pickpocket (Blue Dartwing, Nordic Barnacle, Orange Dartwing, Slaughterfish Egg)
Fortify Restoration (Abecean Longfin, Cyrodilic Spadetail, Salt Pile, Small Antlers, Small Pearl)
Fortify Smithing (Blisterwort, Glowing Mushroom, Sabre Cat Tooth, Spriggan Sap)
Fortify Sneak (Abecean Longfin, Beehive Husk, Frost Mirriam, Hawk Feathers, Human Flesh, Powdered Mammoth Tusk, Purple Mountain Flower)
Fortify Stamina (Chaurus Eggs, Garlic, Large Antlers, Lavender, Slaughterfish Egg, Torchbug Thorax)
Fortify Two-handed (Dragon's Tongue, Fly Amanita, Troll Fat) - Possibly other ingredients
Frenzy (Blisterwort, Falmer Ear, Fly Amanita, Hagraven Feathers, Human Heart, Troll Fat)
Invisibility (Chaurus Eggs, Crimson Nirnroot, Ice Wraith Teeth, Luna Moth Wing, Nirnroot, Vampire Dust)
Lingering Damage Health (Imp Stool, Mora Tapinella, Orange Dartwing, Slaughterfish Egg, Slaughterfish Scales)
Lingering Damage Magicka (Hagraven Claw, Purple Mountain Flower, Swamp Fungal Pod, Torchbug Thorax, Wheat)
Lingering Damage Stamina (Butterfly Wing, Chicken's Egg, Nightshade, Small Antlers)
Paralysis (Briar Heart, Canis Root, Human Flesh, Imp Stool, Swamp Fungal Pod)
Ravage Health (Cyrodilic Spadetail, Eye of Sabre Cat, Giant Lichen, Jazbay Grapes, Silverside Perch, Skeever Tail)
Ravage Magicka (Frost Mirriam, Grass Pod, Lavender, Orange Dartwing, Red Mountain Flower, White Cap)
Ravage Stamina (Bee, Bone Meal, Deathbell, Honeycomb, Thistle Branch)
Regenerate Health (Garlic, Juniper Berries, Luna Moth Wing, Namira's Rot, Nordic Barnacle, Vampire Dust)
Regenerate Magicka (Dwarven Oil, Fire Salts, Garlic, Jazbay Grapes, Moon Sugar, Salt Pile, Taproot)
Regenerate Stamina (Bee, Fly Amanita, Mora Tapinella, Scaly Pholiata)
Resist Fire (Bone Meal, Dragon's Tongue, Elves Ear, Fire Salts, Fly Amanita, Mudcrab Chitin, Snowberries)
Resist Frost (Frost Mirriam, Frost Salts, Hawk Beak, Moon Sugar, Purple Mountain Flower, Silverside Perch, Slaughterfish Scales, Small Pearl, Snowberries, Thistle Branch)
Resist Magic (Bleeding Crown, Chicken's Egg, Crimson Nirnroot, Hagraven Claw, Lavender, Nirnroot, Tundra Cotton, Void Salts, Wisp Wrappings)
Resist Poison (Beehive Husk, Charred Skeever Hide, Falmer Ear, Garlic, Grass Pod, Mudcrab Chitin, Slaughterfish Egg, Thistle Branch, Troll Fat)
Resist Shock (Blue Dartwing, Glow Dust, Glowing Mushroom, Hawk Beak, Pearl, Pine Thrush Egg, Snowberries, Swamp Fungal Pod)
Restore Health (Blisterwort, Blue Dartwing, Blue Mountain Flower, Butterfly Wing, Charred Skeever Hide, Daedra Heart, Eye of Sabre Cat, Imp Stool, Rock Warbler Egg, Swamp Fungal Pod, Wheat)
Restore Magicka (Briar Heart, Creep Cluster, Dwarven Oil, Ectoplasm, Elves Ear, Fire Salts, Frost Salts, Giant Lichen, Grass Pod, Human Flesh, Moon Sugar, Mora Tapinella, Pearl, Red Mountain Flower, Taproot, Vampire Dust, White Cap)
Restore Stamina (Bear Claws, Bee, Charred Skeever Hide, Eye of Sabre Cat, Hawk Beak, Histcarp, Honeycomb, Large Antlers, Mudcrab Chitin, Orange Dartwing, Pearl, Pine Thrush Egg, Powdered Mammoth Tusk, Purple Mountain Flower, Sabre Cat Tooth, Silverside Perch, Small Pearl, Torchbug Thorax, Wisp Wrappings)
Slow (Deathbell, Large Antlers, River Betty, Salt Pile)
Waterbreathing (Chicken's Egg, Histcarp, Nordic Barnacle)
Weakness to Fire (Bleeding Crown, Frost Salts, Ice Wraith Teeth, Juniper Berries, Moon Sugar, Powdered Mammoth Tusk)
Weakness to Frost (Abecean Longfin, Elves Ear, Fire Salts, Ice Wraith Teeth, White Cap)
Weakness to Magic (Creep Cluster, Dwarven Oil, Jazbay Grapes, Rock Warbler Egg, Salt Pile, Scaly Pholiata, Taproot, Torchbug Thorax)
Weakness to Poison (Abecean Longfin, Bleeding Crown, Chaurus Eggs, Deathbell, Giant Lichen, Pine Thrush Egg, Sabre Cat Tooth, Small Antlers)
Weakness to Shock (Bee, Giant Lichen, Hagraven Feathers, Void Salts)

-VG

Paradox Interactive and Multiplayer Modes

2011-11-18T22:54:00.001-08:00

I'm a big fan of games like Entropia Univeralis and Hearts of Iron 3, as well as their developer, Paradox Interactive. Sure we've had our ins and outs, but their games are very solid, fun, and deep. There's one huge problem with them, in my opinion, and that is multiplayer. The problems with multiplayer stem from two areas: length of gameplay and no defined goals.

Length of gameplay isn't always a bad thing, but given that Hearts of Iron 3 runs from 1936 through 1948, there's a lot of game there. Most multiplayer games start in medias res between 1939 and 1942, but that's still a lot of gameplay. Add in the need for a constant speed to facilitate multiplayer, and you have a lot of time commitment for multiplayer to work. The large scope of the single player game is the best part, in my opinion, and multiplayer just makes that drag on. Usually playing single player I will divide it between several long gameplay sessions, or dozens of shorter ones. Entropia Universalis is even worse, as its timeframe spans four hundred years.

Lack of defined goals is another big issue for multiplayer. It usually comes down to eliminating all the other players by any means necessary. Hearts of Iron 3 gets around this by assigning goals to each of the factions, which helps somewhat, but Entropia Universalis doesn't have that benefit. This means that multiplayer games drift between aimlessness and utter destruction. Which is a slight bit better than games where one side gets an advantage and the other side is doomed from there out.

That said, the time commitment is a worse problem than the lack of goals. Players can always come up with goals, but they cannot do much to limit the time needed for the game. Sins of a Solar Empire suffers the same problem, even though it is a fun game, multiplayer is torture.

Just some thoughts
-VG

Webcomic Review: Loaded Dice

2011-11-18T09:43:00.000-08:00

In our first ever review of a webcomic, I have chosen a recent addition to my reading list: Loaded Dice written by Olan Suddeth and drawn by Brittany Connolly.

(Image is property of Loaded Dice and its creators; click to link to their comic)

Loaded dice is a webcomic about a group of D&D players and their sadistic DM (I might be generalizing a bit there). Currently the group is on their second adventure, where beastmen have been their primary adversaries, and Steve, the DM, is up to his old tricks. I won't ruin any of the fun for you, but it is a good read, especially for someone with a sadistic DM streak in them, like myself.

Overall the artwork is solid. There is a good level of detail, and the characters are well and uniquely drawn. The only thing I find lacking is real differences between the fantasy and the reality pannels, but that is an aesthetic difference, and one up to individual taste. I like to see visual differences between "the real world" and "the fantasy world." This is something done better, in my opinion, by the original artist, Tiana Jackson, than the current one, Brittany Connolly, but as I said, it is a matter of taste (no offense to you, Brittany, I still think the artwork is good, and a far cry from anything I could dream of attempting).

The writing is also solid. I don't think there's anything exemplary here, its pretty standard fare as far as DMing goes. The writing does, however, recreate that feeling of a D&D session admirably. The tense moments rolling dice, the sadistic DM behind his screen of doom, and the very diverse group of characters. These characters each have their own foibles, but they are also fairly deep (insofar as 80 comics can show us). The puns are....terrible, however. That's kinda the point, and I do love the cheesiness of them.

Now for my arbitrary rating system:

I will rate comics in four categories: Major Plot, that is how the comics connect to one another in a complete sense, Minor Plot, that is how the individual comics stand up on their own (this is a serial work), Artistry (that is the overall beauty of the artwork), and Comic Art (how the artwork works with the comic).

Major Plot: 6 out of 10: The major plot is very good, and feels like a D&D module, as well it should. The one issue I have is that most of the suspense is put into the individual panels, and I feel more can be done between pages to fill out the suspense.

Minor Plot: 7 out of 10: Usually this is very good, most comics have a joke or two, and each bit is able to stand on its own. The use of suspense within each page is good.

Artistry: 8 out of 10: I'm not a great judge of art, but this comic looks good. The characters are realistic looking, and the fantasy elements are fleshed out beautifully.

Comic Art: 6 out of 10: While it looks good, I question how well it works with its subject matter. The first few pages of the adventure look amazingly epic, but that tone dies down swiftly into a more solid and reliable form. High Fantasy, to me, needs that epicness in it somewhere, and it isn't delivered enough in my opinion.

Total Score: 27 out of 40: A better than average webcomic that I think all D&D junkies should read.

That's it for now, until next time
-VG

Skyrim: Here Be Dragons

2011-11-18T06:46:00.000-08:00

Okay, since I saw the commercials for it, something has bothered me about Skyrim. That thing is the frequency of dragon fights. Having still not played it (trying to justify the expense still, bear in mind I'm married so I have a partner to convince), I'm uncertain of how it impacts gameplay, but talking to several people that have, they certainly do appear a lot.

Dragons appearing a lot is a big burr in my saddle. Dragons are epic monsters that any Dungeon Master knows make a dramatic encounter, but loose all appeal if they are overused. When I see people posting that they've killed five or seven dragons and haven't gotten far in the plot, it worries me about the fun of the game. Dragons should not be lemmings to be killed at leisure, but they are dramatic and awesome. There's a balance there, and I think that Skyrim gets it right...or is just beyond right and on the overused side.

The reason I think this is because the dragon fights (at least the videos I've seen) are beautiful. The dragon does flyby breath attacks, screams in to fight on the ground, and is a hard encounter. This is great, as it makes the dragons a big threat, and a fun fight. Nothing is more boring than spamming a mouse click for ten minutes with a monster standing in front of you. Dragons moving around, using different attacks, and hitting and taking hits that are hard is amazing.

Now the big detractor is the ease of finding a dragon (seems like you just have to go to certain areas to find their spawns) and the frequency of their appearance (like I said, 7 dragons in a short period of gameplay). Dragons in games like WoW are still big encounters because 1. they are usually elites and need a group (talking real dragons here, not dragonkin), and 2. they are fairly rare. Dragons are bosses...at least dragons bigger than whelps. Heck, a good number of the hostile dragons in the game are raid bosses (including the delicious Zomnyxia battle...undead dragons ftw). Skyrim doesn't give this feel IMHO. They are common enough in the game that its not a surprise to be attacked by one...well, not any more than being attacked by random big bad #3 at least.

I'm starting to rant, so I will stop now...I will definately have to rent Skyrim soon if I don't buy it outright, just to get a fix.
-VG

Thoughts on Webcomics

2011-11-17T21:32:00.000-08:00

Going to briefly chat about webcomics. it seems these days that everyone has one, and they all increase the popularity of a site by a large amount, or at least that is what it appears to me. Now, most of these people, at least those with the most hits, are good artists, good writers, and have a good reason to have webcomics on their site. Others, however, do not.

There are numerous examples of "good" webcomics, but it is ultimately up to taste. I vastly prefer story to art (though exceptionally crappy art is a turn off), and as such, I prefer the works of Somer (Least I could Do, Looking For Group, and The Gutters), Rich Burlew (probably spelled that wrong of Order of the Stick), Rob and Xin (of Erfworld), and, of course, Thunt (of Goblins). Now all of these have both amazing art and great story (especially the level of detail in erfworld). It really takes both to be super succesful, and these guys have it.

But what about those who lack one or the other? Simply put, you can overcome badish art, but you cannot replace a good storyline. The story is what keeps people coming back every few days to read more.

I'm considering doing a comic spotlight now...especially grabbing those lesser known comics, and criticizing them. I think I'll do it, but not tonight.

Anyway, rambling now so I will stop. If you know of a good comic you think I should see leave a comment, and if anyone is looking for a good writer, let me know.

Thanks
-VG

Academic Articles Suck

2011-11-16T16:42:00.000-08:00

Okay, for those of you who do not know, I am finishing up my Masters Degree in English. As such, I am deeply immersed in an exit requirement writing academic papers. These papers have me looking through dozens of academic articles and I'm frankly annoyed by it all. Don't get me wrong, I respect the field, I respect the opinions of these article writers, but I feel that they are being overly verbose about their subjects.

I can appreciate being precise, but its ludicrous to spend half a page on a thesis statement that isn't very clear at all. Maybe if it was clearer I wouldn't get so angry, but having to read, and then reread an article just to see whether or not it is even relevant to my argument sucks. Especially considering that most article writers believe that a heavy handed vocabulary makes them seem smarter. This is especially infuriating when the article writer assumes that you have read the same sources they use, instead of being able to place the source within their own work. I know that I never would have gotten away with writing a paper in which I cited a source and said the equivalent of "well, you should have read this source if you are interested in my article, so I'm going to make some obscure reference to it, and you will have to read the source to get how it applies to my argument."

Which brings me to my next rant...the whole edifice of academia is a lie. A typical paper in any discipline, except maybe sciences that have experimentation as their subject, is based on rhetoric, referencing other works to gain credibility. These works, in turn, have referenced more credible works to gain credibility, and so on. It makes the equivalent of a google search spiral, where people wanting high google ratings would make dozens of blog sites that link to one another, and since google rates a page based on the rating of pages that link to it, the whole thing grows exponentially. Then all you need to do is link your real page to the farmed pages, and viola; instant high ranked page (though I think they've modified their crawlers since this scam was popular). Academia is no different, it is endless stacking of credibility on sources that are only credible because their sources are credible, which are credible because their sources in turn are credible. Eventually it goes back far enough that the "credible" sources are major players in academics...but they got there the same way, by being "credible" by association with former "credible" sources. It's all a pointless lie built upon a lie.

The point I'm trying to make is that, no matter how valid your opinion, if you cannot support it by the arbitrarily credible sources, then your opinion is invalidated by academia. It's a pointlessly stupid practice, and yet this is how our colleges are built. The only real knowledge seems to come from the sciences, and even those are spoiled by opinion and speculation (don't get me started on climate change and evolution, I know you don't have all day to read the wall of text that would ensue.)

Anyway, mostly bitching because I am tired of reading these articles...oh well, back to work.
-VG

Alchemy in Skyrim

2011-11-16T15:03:00.000-08:00

I've yet to play Skyrim, both because of lack of time and because I cannot justify the cost for a game that will have the same playability in six months when it will be twenty dollars cheaper at least (even more if I get it used from gamestop like I do for most of my games). However, I've been looking over the crafting even further, and have some thoughts.

First, I'm glad that the game allows you to make and use poisons. Don't get me wrong, you could make "poisons" in Morrowind, but you could only use them on yourself, which made them pointless (most of the "poisons" were just bad secondary effects for good potions). Not to mention the Purity perk which removes helpful stats from poisons and hurtful ones from potions. All in all, a solid improvement to the system.

Secondly, I'm glad that the intellect stacking problem has been solved by removing fortify intellect from the list of potions (at least that I've seen, I could be wrong). In Morrowind, you could make intellect potions, drink them, and make more. This would increase your effective alchemy level, because its intellect based. Also, since your alchemy screen paused the world, you could abuse the low duration of those first potions. It's quite beautiful in its simplicity, but also terribly game breaking when you have buffs that last for 8 years and fortify your skills and attributes (which should have a base max of 100) to millions.

In terms of a guide for alchemy being here, sorry I don't have the knowledge to help you. However, I can point you in the right direction. There are countless guides that show the herbs and the effects each has. After that, you just have to match two herbs that provide the effect without having an adverse effect matching as well. Then make your potions, the higher the alchemy skill the better the potion.

Have fun
-VG

Skyrim Crafting

2011-11-15T06:33:00.000-08:00

Okay, I've been trying hard to avoid outright buying what I feel are overpriced new games ($60 is a lot of money for someone on a budget), but Skyrim might break my will. The reason is not the dragons, the fact its Elder Scrolls, or the overall gameplay....but the crafting.

If you've read this blog you know I am a proponent of crafting in RPGs. While I haven't played Skyrim yet, descriptions from my friends and reading about it online has me believing that they have taken the alchemy system from Morrowind and made it much better. In addition they have added back enchanting, and various smithing/tanning/etc stuff as well. Is it perfect? Probably not, but it is definately a step in the right direction (over not having a crafting system at all). This sounds awesome...even more awesome than fighting dragons.

Brief thoughts, but I'm still debating getting the game now or waiting for a price drop/someone to sell it to gamestop to get it at a discount.
-VG

More On Economics Games

2011-11-09T06:01:00.000-08:00

I was thinking more on economic games, and I have realized that it is a bigger genre than I originally thought. It seems to be made of a couple kinds of games: Trading games, production games, and a hybrid of the two.

Trading games are pretty self explanatory. You take the role of a merchant or trading empire, and you move goods from place to place to make profit (alternatively if this is a stock style game, you buy and sell stocks). These games are your space merchants, port royale, and the like. You don't care where goods are made, so long as you can trade them to make money. It does you good to have production facilities run out of raw materials because it will drive the price up. Your goals are to become richer, and that is about it.

Production games are the opposite. You have facilities that make things that you need raw materials for. Sometimes you will have to make farms and the like to produce these items, but more likely you will "trade" for them, usually in the form of an expense on your balance sheet and little else. Your money comes from the "value added" by refining/reprocessing the materials that enter your facility.

The hybrid version of this incorporates some of both. You are a merchant, but you can own production buildings. Because of this, you have to take an active role in supplying your facility, either by offering higher buy prices than average or by bringing the goods to your facility yourself. However, you can also can ensure the best price by selling them where they are really needed.

The game I desire is in the hybrid sphere because it is interesting. You are getting two or more games in one; the trading and the production game, as well as the hybrid areas. I'd prefer a space based game, but am not that picky.
-VG

Economy Games

2011-11-08T13:41:00.000-08:00

I've been playing a lot of economic games lately, Capitalism, Imperialism 2, being a trade empire in Europa Universalis 3...and I've found it all extremely lacking in that something that I am interested in.

I used to play Space Merchant, a game that is now Space Merchant Empires...it was fun, but now there are too few players for me to be interested in it. The best part was moving stuff from trade station to trade station, being able to take over and build stuff on planets, and constantly improving your ship and stuff.

There simply isn't a single player game that recreates this gameplay. X3 Terran Conflict comes close, but it is not a very well optimized game, and lags badly on my systems (including my desktop which is not so far behind current gen as to not be able to run that kind of game. There are games like Port Royale 2, which at least allows you to own businesses in addition ot being a dynamic trading game...

Oh well, I will keep looking. I'd like to be a single player in a dynamic world. Basically all the fun of the multiplayer games but able to do so without an internet connection, or dealing with people wanting to be complete assholes.

cheers
-VG

On Pandas

2011-11-04T09:10:00.000-07:00

Frickin Pandas.

When I started playing Warcraft 3, there were no Pandas. When one made an appearance in the multiplayer and "founding of orgrimmar" parts, I thought it was funny and a nice hero to have in a party.

I did not think "hey, I want to have these things running all around my MMORPG"

Don't get me wrong, pandas are cute. The Chen's empty keg quest was a lovely piece of lore, but the whole reason they were interesting is because they were rare. I think you had the one in the bonus campaign in WC3 and the unlockable one during the rescue Illidan quest. They were rare, and because of that, they were interesting (as stated). Much like Jedi should have been in SWG, it should have been something you see rarely, but never en masse.

Now, since this is an MMORPG, there's no good way of limiting availability of something without people getting mad that they didn't have an opportunity to get it. I'm okay with it being unlockable through a time-intensive and difficult quest chain (as fewer people will have access to it), but tell me that on day 1 of this expansion we won't be inundated with panda DKs and panda monks everywhere. Imagine the DKs we had when WOTLK came out....every 2 minutes the faction leader yelled his "welcome the death knights" speech. It was annoying. Now we will have "welcome the brother panda" speech.

Don't get me started on the either or faction thing. At least most of the time when someone is coming you can roughly tell which side they are on. Now if you see a panda panda-ing down the road (wtf mount will be both asian and big enough to hold them? Or will it be the worgen solution?) you don't know if he's going to give you a bear hug or kill you with a bear hug.

And monks being healers? Seriously? Why not make them evasion-heavy tanks if you're going to do anything. Give them a stance or style or something that increases armor and stamina like a druid's bear form, and their evasion. That's much more monk-like than "my chi heals you" My opinion of course.

End of Rant, as you were
-VG

On Facebook Games

2011-10-06T06:06:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has been on facebook longer than three seconds has gotten a Farmville, Frontierville, or something-else-ville invitation, or request to give your friend some random piece of trash to help them build something in their game. Usually these games are fairly poorly designed, but the quick rewards you can get in some cases, and forced competition make it very addictive, especially for social media users who may not be serious gamers.

For those of you who haven't played these sorts of games I will briefly explain them. These games all have a solo portion, where you use energy, or some other resource that means the same thing, to perform actions in your city/farm/whatever. You can build stuff, plant stuff, do a lot of different actions within your little world. You can also "visit" your neighbors (essentially viewing their single-player city or whatever) to help them out (doing actions that either they cannot, like reviving dead crops, or actions they can without an energy cost to them). Finally, you will reach a point where you have to build or buy something to expand your city/farm/whatever that will require either random loot (most of which you will not have) or a certain number of friends to agree to help out. So you have to spam your friends with requests until you get the required number of items or people to agree. Most of the time you can use an item-store like mechanic which uses a second in-game currency (which differs from game to game but seems present in all of them) to buy the requirements. You typically get one unit of this currency per level, but you can always buy a lot more with real cash.

The net result of this is that your friends get constant spam for stuff to help you play your game. People also usually befriend people they do not know that happen to play that same game, usually en masse. I'm not aware of anyone who just buys a massive amount of in-game currency, but I know they exist because most retailers sell either generic facebook cash cards or specific ones (for farmville and frontierville for sure). It also has the result of these not really feeling like games but political ads. I don't want to have to recruit people I don't know (and giving them access to my profile information) just to get ahead in a game. I'm also against using real money to get advantages in games.

The way these games spread, however, is through those requests. You send them to friends who don't play, and if they like the idea of the game, or just want to help you, they register, and start the vicious cycle over again. These games spread by referral and make money by their cash shop (and advertising of course). Because of this they are like a social disease, but one I wouldn't mind if they were of a higher quality.

Someone needs to develop a facebook game that doesn't require you to recruit friends to advance, and where real money gives only cosmetic or minor changes. The problem is that this ignores the advantages of social network games, in that, if you recruit others to help you play the game, the game spreads and makes its developers richer.

Just some thoughts.
-VG

On Abandonware

2011-10-05T12:20:00.000-07:00

There's a growing trend among gamers of my generation to download and play, usually on emulation programs, the games we grew up playing. Star Wars Rebellion is one example of this, though there are many others. Typically these games are classified as "Abandonware" because it is believed that their developers have abandoned the selling of these games, and so do not have a claim on the copyright for those games, allowing them to be downloaded for free without concerns about being sued.

While the legality of this issue has been in question for some time, and I do not believe it has been decided in a court, this is indeed illegal at this time. Video Games are considered "Intellectual Property" and the copyright expires 100 years after the game is published. In other words, a long time from now, even for the first games. Like illegally downloaded music, you run the risk if you download a game, even abandonware.

The crux of the issue is that it is unlikely that most companies will pursue legal actions. Some developers, like Sierra, do not exist as corporate entities anymore, and others have been bought out and absorbed by bigger companies. This may mean their copyrights are owned by non-existent corporate entities. It may also mean that they are owned by giants that have whole teams of lawyers waiting to pounce on you. The net result is that it is illegal, but whether or not you will get sued over it is in the air.

Just some thoughts.
-VG

The Customer is Rarely Right

2011-09-30T20:51:00.000-07:00

Having worked retail for five, going on six years, I'm more than a bit cynical about it. Okay, I'm extraordinarily cynical about it. Okay, I'm extraordinarily cynical about everything, but even more so about working retail. Anyway, after a nice long shift today I'm thoroughly convinced that the guy who propagated the phrase "The Customer is Always Right" has committed major crimes against humanity.

Why do I think this? Well, because customers have become a race of self-absorbed, self-entitled assholes. They believe that service clerks should sprinkle rose petals and roll out the red carpet for them (figuratively of course) and every other customer should be ignored so they can be helped first. It would be a tragedy if they had to put something back on the same shelf they put it up from. In short, they act like animals instead of people...spoiled animals at that.

Maybe its because I've worked retail so long, but if I don't want something I have picked up, I put it back where it belongs. If I knock down a stack of items, I put them back on the shelf. If something is more expensive than I think it should be, I don't bitch about it for a half hour. I do not have kids, but I would certainly not stand idly by while they screamed and ran up and down isles, knocked down or destroyed stuff, and acted like rabid dogs rather than children.

The very sad thing is that I don't think any of this is that extraordinary. When did this stuff stop being the norm? At what point did people knock stuff down and not think they should pick it up, or that a random shelf somewhere is not the place they should return random items to? The biggest one, though, is when did it become okay to treat cashiers and clerks like shit?

I'm not even talking about holidays, or black Friday (both of which are usually deplorable times that show the worst possible cases of these things). Today there was part of an end-cap with a foot of empty space. No less than ten times I removed a pile of random crap from that same section, and ten times it was filled up again with crap. Not to mention dozens of kids that were left without parents. One little girl rode a display bike around the racks for thirty minutes without a parent in sight. I'm very surprised that pedophiles don't "shop" for their marks at our store.

Thinking about it further, I hate seeing this stuff as a customer. It makes me think that people really are self-absorbed pricks. I would pay a little more to shop at a store where their policy was to ask people who acted in such disruptive ways to leave and do their shopping somewhere else. I think this sort of a store would attract a lot of customers...mainly because nobody thinks they are a bad customer. I doubt it would stay in business very long, just because the talking heads of mass media wouldn't approve of one person being denied what they think is their right to shop in any store...when will people realize that whatever they want isn't a God given, or even State given right? You have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If you are American, you have the rights to freedom of speech, assembly, to bear arms etc., but nowhere in there is a right to be a dick.

Just my thoughts
-VG

How to Tank Anything - Changes

2011-09-27T14:30:00.001-07:00

Tanscript:

Hello and welcome to How to Tank Anything. I am your host V G.

We are back after a short hiatus, and I have exciting news. I’ve rethought how these instructional videos are done, and there will be changes in the future videos. First, I am not going to do a video for every class in every instance. I feel this is largely redundant, and isn’t all that helpful. Instead, I’m going to cover each tank over a small section of levels from fifteen to eighty four, and then have further videos for level eighty five. I’m thinking of having a five level section for each of these videos, but depending on what new abilities are granted, that may change. Additionally, I will do videos on the instances, giving an overview of the bosses, as well as any difficult portions that might come up. I feel this will better suite the student tank, and that is what these videos are all about.

Secondly, even though I will keep the title of How to Tank Anything for this video series, I will also be expanding into videos to cover more of World of Warcraft. While I am not sure of all the topics I will cover, I am thinking that healing for each of the classes might be interesting, as well maybe profession guides. I do not think I will bother with raid guides, as they are usually better covered by players that focus on raiding.

Well that is it for the big news. In lesser news, I will be rambling a little less it has been recommended that I script these videos, and I can tell the difference in quality. Sorry to those of you who like me rambling, I’ll save that for the blog posts. Speaking of which, I will also be including a summary of main points as well as a transcript on blog posts that have my videos embedded in them.

Until next time, this is V.G. signing off.

On Transmogrification

2011-09-26T06:26:00.001-07:00

Blizzard has announced that they will be adding the option to "Transmogrify" your arms and equipment in World of Warcraft (source). Essentially, this will, with some restrictions, allow you to change the models of your equipment so that your helm of awesome ugliness +50 can look like the pretty noob hat +1. This is, I think, one of Blizzard's finest moves in the chess game that is the MMORPG market. Especially considering that there hasn't been an announcement by Bioware about being able to do this in SWTOR.

Transmogrification works like this: You take two items, one with the appearance you want and one with the stats you want. They have to be compatible in the following ways: Same item slot (shoulders, wrists, main hand, off hand, 2h, shield etc) and same armor type (cloth, leather, mail, plate) or weapon type (mace, sword, dagger etc). Now you can also use the appearance of a 1h item on either MH or OF slots, which is nice, but most "cool" things (like turning your epic mace into a fish, or using the "invisible" models on a couple items) are restricted. One very nice thing you can do is use the appearance of any ranged weapon on any other ranged weapon. Mad that your +1000 gun of uberness isn't as pretty as the NightElf Bow of Prettiness? Now you can swap models and keep the stats. There is also the restriction on item quality. Legendary, and common (white or grey) items cannot be transmogrified. This means no turning you mages robes into a wedding dress or tuxedo, nor have the Thunderfury model for your swords.

I'm very eager to see this, because my one big complaint about WoW is the ugliness of most armor, unless you have a set. Now you can take any of the nice looking armor sets (or even pieces that look decent together) and combine them. The net effect is not looking like you got dressed in the dark in a clown's closet. SWG did something similar to this with the "equip appearance" option. The downside to this whole thing? You have to have the item whose model you want to use. This means that anything with a "cool" model (regardless of stats) will be rising in price rapidly.

Will it be effective? It really depends on how cheap it is and how well it responds to lag. The problem with MMORPGs and unique items is that the data for items is stored in databases, usually on the player-side of the equation. That's great for items with the same stats no matter what one you look at (100 identical Shifts of Sameness need 1 item datapoint). However, if you have unique items, or semi-unique items, then you have to store them on the server-side, or at least some instructions on them on the server side. So everytime you come across someone with a transmogrified item, you have an additional server call per item.

That may not sound too bad, but I remember Star Wars Galaxies and their epic lag, especially when entering a decorated house and opening inventory. The client called the server about dozens if not hundreds of items, each with unique stats. Now SWG was not efficiently made, as it could have been designed to send the info on what models are needed and the locations of the items and then stealth loaded the underlying stats and unique item ID underneath once the visual aspects were loaded.

In terms of WoW; imagine going into Stormwind or Ironforge, especially to the auction house (and if you don't think every bank alt will have transmogrified gear just for lols, think again). You are surrounded by twenty characters or more, each having at least a handful of transmogrified items...that amounts to dozens of server calls for specific information. As long as it is handled properly, lag should be managed...but WoW has always had a lot of lag in it. The spot I'm worried about it is in Battlegrounds.

Speaking of battlegrounds; I sincerely hope that Blizzard doesn't allow the lvl 60 pvp armor to be transmogrified. Imagine everyone running around in the Grand Marshal armor set...it would get annoying very fast. I also imagine that Death Knights will keep their "reward" set from the starting area as it is very iconic in terms of DKs.

In all, this is a buff for RP, and a great idea. I just hope the implementation is good enough and there's no lag associated with it.
-VG

Returning to How to Tank Anything

2011-09-25T11:45:00.001-07:00

Those of you wondering why there haven't been any more HTTA videos (all one of you I'm sure) it's because I got very tired of grinding end-game stuff in WoW and wasn't having any fun. Because of this I quit for a few months, but I will be returning to it and returning to HTTA video production. These will be higher quality productions (same video quality, but I'm going to script them so I don't sound like a rambling buffoon).

Expect a new video up in a short while (a few days probably) when I get time to record and narrate one. I'll probably have to make a new warrior as I think he outlevelled some of the content. Oh well.

Thanks for reading
-VG

On MMOs and Maintaining Interest

2011-09-24T23:32:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about things for a little while, and I've come to realize that over the last few years, I have progressively spent less and less time in each MMO as I've played. My initial foray into SWG lasted over a year, as did my first experience with WOW. After that, Aion lasted maybe a month, as did FFXI, COH, and many others I wasted a lot of money purchasing. Even when returning to MMOs I enjoyed and played for a long time (such as Eve) my playtime will be around 1-3 months. My brief return to Eve just now lasted two months; three technically but I haven't "played" in at least 30 days. I'm considering going back to WoW, but unless I give myself some objectives, I will not stick with that very long either. Maybe SWTOR will keep it longer, but given what I've read I do not think so (me negative about SWTOR? Never!)

The question I am left with is: Why? Is this an evolution of myself as a gamer (in having less time as I am older, married, and working?) or evolution of the games I've played (WoW, SWG, and Eve have all undergone major changes since i played them extensively). To be honest...I'm not fully sure. I find that some of the single player games i have that lack depth are becoming less and less interesting as time goes on. Could be that these games are older and I've played them a lot, or it could be that games are slowly loosing interest to me.

I think that it is a combination of things. First, games are simplifying, especially those mentioned. Second, I am becoming more demanding of quality in games as I get older, particularly with the amount of trash that is being developed and pushed out. Is this a trend, or just me? Well I will never know. I see a lot of people complaining about the over simplification of games like WoW, and especially SWG, and this leads me to believe that I am not alone and that there is a major reduction in quality for most MMOs that is causing a backlash against the genre. SWTOR might stem the tide of this downturn, but I am not confident one title (even a Bioware one) can do so.

Time will tell.
-VG

SWG Last Days and SWTOR's Opening

2011-09-24T15:54:00.000-07:00

Looking at the release date and SWG's last day of server operation; I have noticed the correlation. SWG is closing on 12/15/11 and SWTOR will ship on 12/20/11...just enough time for people to miss an MMO, but not enough to drive them to another MMORPG. Given LucasArt's involvement in the SWG shut-down (despite the "official word" from SOE, I doubt that LA had anything in mind but a December shutdown when they were "renegotiating") it is just too convenient.

Oh well, that's your conspiracy theory for a while. Enjoy
-VG

How to Get Free Stuff From Retail Stores

2011-09-23T09:50:00.000-07:00

My last post was about our tricks; now let me tell you how you can get free stuff from most large retailers (my company name withheld because I need to keep my job for the time being, and I don't want a lawsuit. Let's say it has "Mart" in the name; that should be ambiguous enough for legal purposes).

The trick behind getting free stuff is patience and an even temper. You have to be deliberate in what you do, flailing about angrily will just get management to write you off and not get you anything. Decide what you want beforehand, and realize that you are not entitled to anything at all. Doing this means anything you do get is a nice bonus. Also realize that failing to keep your temper will likely make you a well known bad customer. Management (and Asset Protection) keep tabs on customers who seem like they are there only to get free stuff.

Sheer the Sheep: This strategy is to get small amounts of stuff or discounts on stuff regularly. The concept is to sheer the sheep so you can return for more wool.

1. Become aware of relevant store policies: This is a double-edged sword. First, you want to know what the store policies are so you don't waste your time arguing about something that will not be changed. Secondly, you want to know when a clerk is giving you the run around on something. As an example; one of my co-workers decided that any photo orders over $20 had to be purchased at our cash register to deter theft; but she only did this with a couple customers she suspected of stealing. Since this was not a store policy, she would have gotten in big trouble had management found out and the customers complained (as they would be being singled out). This later became a store policy, handed down by our Head of Asset Protection, at which point it would be right for her to enforce it. Being aware of store policies allows you to see when clerks are BSing, and you can ask to speak to a manager.

2. Get to know the managers and clerks: First, we like people who spend the time to treat us like people. Secondly, if a manager knows you (even in passing) and sees you shopping frequently, they will work harder to keep you as a customer (read: Free Stuff). A big way to do this is to ask to speak to management in order to compliment the service of a particular clerk. Clerks love this, as do managers as it is the little bit of recognition we can get. Think of it as a Trojan Horse, get inside our confidence and we will never suspect you are playing the game for free stuff. This also helps you find "marks" in the form of newer managers and clerks.

3. Find a "Mark": New clerks make a lot of mistakes, and you can capitalize on it. Ask them a lot of questions that you know the answers to, and try to find a way to turn it to your advantage...this is especially true if they promise you something in precise words. They may not know store policies, so if you catch them violating one, you can sometimes get around them (like matching online prices).

4. Look for "outs" and similar items: Check the floor for empty spots on shelves, especially if they have similar, but more expensive, items in stock. For example, if the lowest quality 26" TV is out of stock, but a higher quality one is in stock, you might be able to get the better one for the lower price.

5. Use Bargaining Language: Without being obvious, make sure your desires are known. "I'd like this TV, it's a good price, but you're out of it. That one is nice, but I don't think its a good value" Managers love to make a deal to keep a sale, especially if its above our wholesale price (what we paid for it). Always let the manager initialize the bargaining (clerks can't really do much with it) and work your way to what you want. Learn to haggle, it is a lost art.

6. Never threaten legal action or to go to another store: Threats do very little. I had a guy threaten to take us to court for false advertisement because we wouldn't price match our online prices. He had no case to begin with, and was fighting a company policy that is hard to circumvent....all to save ten dollars. Clerks (and most managers) don't care if you threaten to sue the store...the store (or rather the company) can hire a team of lawyers and will win. Clerks really don't care if you threaten to go to another store (we like it actually as we don't have to deal with you any more). Managers do care, but if you just threaten a bunch, you won't get to even talk to them. The best way to "work in" a threat to go to another store is to mention it casually. "Thank you for trying/looking, is there a [other store chain] nearby? I'll see if they have it in stock." Managers will jump on this to make a deal...clerks will probably give you directions.

Kill the Sheep: This strategy is a quick reward strategy. You kill the sheep, getting the wool and leather, but loosing the opportunity for more wool from that sheep (so you can do it a limited number of times per store before you become infamous).

1. If you don't get anywhere within the department, complain at the register/front desk: If you can't make inroads at the department level, even after talking to a manager (make sure you remember who you talked to) make sure to mention it to someone at the front end of the store. The cashier is supposed to ask you how your visit was, at which you can mention that "the clerk/manager [name] was very rude/unhelpful/etc." They should offer to get a member of management for you to talk to or how they can fix your issue. If they don't (or they don't even ask), go to customer service and say you have a complaint about manager [name] (so they don't grab the same manager) and want to speak to a member of management. Be sure to mention that the cashier (get their name too) was rude to you, or asked about but did nothing to solve your issue. You will burn bridges, as everyone involved will get a talking to by upper management, but they will probably give you a gift card for your troubles.

2. Make up Promises: There's an art to lying, and this strategy requires it. Essentially, you pretend that someone from the store promised you something for a cheap price or promised to hold something for you that they are out of. Be sure to use general descriptions of the person you talked to (a woman, said her name was Brittany, or Breanna or something). This is where knowing the people that work in a department is key, as you can recognize new faces, and claim they promised something (or just go through names you know). Every department has at least one screwup, and if you grab at straws long enough, whoever you are talking to will fill in the gaps. Usually you will be given what you want, if its within reason, or a gift card for your troubles.

3. The Switcharoo: Due to advertising and fair price laws, if something is advertised at a price it must be sold at that price. This is a legal issue, and one not many clerks will mess with, and few managers. The trick is to switch signs on items, not just claim that the item was "marked at" a price. Nobody will believe (or be obligated) to give you a price on an item that there is no evidence ever existed. To do this; switch the shelf tags on a stack of items. If there is a peg of two similar items (different sizes of memory cards or quality of the same manufacturers cameras) switching the tags will give you evidence that the item was priced that way (Asset Protection will catch on to you if you aren't careful). It helps if these items are within a short walk of the register you are checking out on. Bear in mind that if it is a discount of a large amount or percentage, then a manager will be called. Since these are supposed to be clerk mistakes and not your manipulation, you want to make sure it seems like something a person setting up shelving or stocking a shelf would do by accident (putting 16gb SD cards on the peg for 2 GB ones for example).

4. Making a Scene: While I don't recommend it, if you make a big enough scene with complaining to a manager (in a high traffic area, with a slightly raised, but not yelling voice) you might be "paid off" to leave. You also might be asked to leave and never come back, so this is a high risk maneuver.

5. The Box is "Empty": Best if used very infrequently, but sometimes it happens that boxes on the shelves or ordered through a website are empty. Sometimes these are displays, or items that were stolen, but we cannot assume that you stole the item or are lying. The best way to run this scam is to order something from the store website to be picked up at the store. Sign for it as normal, but don't open the box in the store. Later that day, call and tell them that you opened the box, and it was empty/missing something. You will be asked to bring back in your receipt and should get your money back (or if they have it in stock, the same item). Best used with small, but expensive, items like Ipods, Gameboys, and the like. It works well if you order accessories with it, so you can claim that the accessory was the only thing in the box, but often these ship separately.

Things That Do Not Work: Don't try these, as clerks are either smart enough to catch on, or Asset Protection will get you.

1. Outright Theft: Occasionally people will get away with stuff, but most of the time, they are caught on camera. In our store we have over three hundred high quality cameras watching the sales floor, one for every register, and dozens more in the parking lot (including one that takes a picture of every license plate that enters or leaves our lot). You might think you're smart, shoving that camera in your purse or hiding something in a tub, but you'll get caught sooner or later, and that comes with your picture being taken by us, a notice that you are not to come into any of our stores, and possible criminal charges depending on the amount stolen. Our AP guys make sure to call the cops ahead of time, and let you walk out the door to reduce the excuses you can make. Nothing says guilty like you walking out the door with a purse/pockets full of stolen goods.

2. Returning Scams: Empty boxes being returned isn't likely to succeed (clerks are good at noticing when the weight is off on boxes being sold), but people often try to return a broken phone/camera in the box of a new one (essentially buying a new one for free). We match serial numbers. Also don't think about returning phone/game cards claiming they have been used before. They don't get activated until you buy them, and if you buy one with the silver scraped off you are an idiot.

3. My car got damaged/I got hurt at your store: Remember all those cameras? Well, we keep all of that, so if you claim to get hurt/receive damage at our store, chances are its on tape, and we can see how your claims pan out. If you don't fill out paperwork with us at the time of the injury, you will be out of luck. Remember all those lawyers the company could hire if you threatened to sue? They are still there. You might get a settlement, but only if you have a strong case.

More off-topic ranting, I have to get ready for work now, so that's all for now. Maybe later we will get back onto topic.

Tricks of Retail Employees

2011-09-23T09:22:00.000-07:00

As I'm a couple hours from going to my miserable part-time retail job (screw this down economy) I'm going to share some of the tricks that retail employees pull on customers. Not really tricks, mind you, but the reality of what goes on "behind the scenes." This is primarily for entertainment:

Avoiding Nasty Customers: Yes; we remember that you are the guy who wasted two hours of our time insisting we check in the back room for something that we are out of, or that you ask the same question thirty different ways, or just cannot comprehend simple English. The worst of these are customers who are nasty, derogatory, or hateful just because they've had a bad day and want to make someone else suffer. We know who you are and we will see you coming a mile away. If you can never find someone in a department, there's a good chance you are a nasty customer and we will all be in the back room finding stuff to keep busy with. I feel sorry for the guys in the next department over.

Checking the Back Room: Most of the time; we know what we do and do not have (especially popular items that get asked about a lot). So if you insist that we check in the back room (or just to make you think we have) we will go to the back room, wait about five to ten minutes (enough time to give the feeling that we have looked) and inform you that we couldn't find it. We may do this if you are a nasty customer, whether or not we actually have the item in question.

Imprecise Language: We like words like "should" and "a couple days"... "soon" is another good one. Words that do not have precise meanings are less likely to get us in trouble with management because "I didn't say it would be here tomorrow, I said it should be here in a couple days." Customers have poor hearing and bad memories, and usually hear what they want regardless of what is said, so we use this to our advantage.

It'll be Ready at the Promise Time: Unless we are absolutely slammed, prescriptions and Photos do not take the full promise time to put together. If a photo machine is not busy, it takes about 5 minutes per fifty pictures (give or take about ten minutes should paper or ink need refilled). At any rate, the promise times are designed so that the orders will be ready by that time. That said, if I know you are a nasty customer, or have treated me poorly in the past, there's no reason I have to give you your order at any time before the promise times. Management will not get mad at me if you haven't gotten your order before it was promised.

Let me get a Manager for you: If I say these magic words, I simply don't want to deal with you. You will either leave, or you will get a manager who has been informed of everything that has happened during my interactions with you (from my perspective) and I have apologized to them for bothering them in their busy schedule to deal with a customer. Needless to say, not a good situation for you to get anything out of them...and we'll probably bitch to one another about you later.

It might take a week to get in: If you ask us how long we think it will take to get something in, or for an online order to arrive in store, there's no reason why we can't tell you the longest possible time. We don't get paid on commission, and I could care less how much money my store makes (that's management's prerogative). If you are a nasty person, it is to my benefit to never see you again; so if I can make you frustrated enough to leave (but not to get me in trouble with management) then its a net win for me.

Its a company policy, there's nothing I can do about it: Best combined with let me get a manager, company policies are company policies and there's nothing a grunt like me can do about it. I cant suggest work-arounds, but I don't have to. The biggest instance of this is the price-matching policy at my store. We cannot match other stores in our chain, nor can we match our online prices (or online competitor prices, though that gets waived pretty often), but if you order from our website and select the right options, you can get the item from that store in a couple hours for the online price. That said, I am not required to mention that to you (though I usually do as it gets you out of my hair). No amount of threatening to go to another store or calling it illegal will do you any good against a corporate policy.

That said; if you are a kind, courteous customer and treat us like human beings, then we will probably not play games with you. We like being treated kindly, and the way you would want to be treated in our shoes. I will do everything I can for someone I consider a good customer (while I am not going to mention names; there is a fire chief and his wife, a middle aged married couple, as well as a good number of older folks that I will bend over backwards for; and those are just the regulars).

As employees, we have to deal with a lot more nasty customers than you have to deal with employees, so we are more skilled at this than you are. We also have the inside track in terms of store policies and procedures, as well as experience with our products and deliveries. In short, the game is stacked against you, and if you are a nasty, hateful customer, you will not get nearly as far as if you treat us kindly. We know precisely how far we can push you without getting in trouble, and if you become infamous with us (as in we tell everyone in our department/circle of work friends about you) you'd best go to another store if you ever want to get decent service.
-VG

On Paradox Interactive

2011-09-23T07:18:00.000-07:00

I've become enthralled recently by a handful of games by Paradox Interactive; a gaming company that seems to specialize in hopelessly complex simulation style games. I haven't been "in" to simulation games since my early years of playing the various Sim ____ titles by Maxis; but I find these Paradox games to be very attractive. They satisfy that "what if" need in the back of my head.

For example; Hearts of Iron 3 is a WW2 simulation...so what if the US got involved in the war in 1940? What if Belgium joined the Axis? What if the USSR never agreed to the non-aggression pact and allied with Poland? This game lets you see all of those things; and is very fun. The problem comes in its complexity. You can (and should as the AI is mediocre) control every unit your nation owns...every plane, ship, and army unit...it is very difficult to do so efficiently. On top of this, you also manage trade, diplomacy, production, intelligence, politics, and research...not a small task.

Another good game is Europa Universalis 3; which is a similar idea, except it features the world from 1399-18-something. You can play as any faction in existence at the time, and it is remarkably fun. This is the sort of game that is utterly unpredictable at times; and that is the enjoyable part. It has its complexities as well; but in all is easier to play than HOI 3 (from my perspective) because you tend to have fewer armies involved in battles at once.

I have one big issue with Paradox, and that is that most of their games have massive glitches, bugs, or elements that are unbalanced and make enjoyable gameplay difficult soon after their release. It is best to wait to play their games until a handful of patches come out; or wait until their inevitable 2 or 3 expansions come out. HOI 3 has 3 expansions now, and EU 3 has about 5 or 6. Paradox tends to abandon updates for their previous versions of the game as well; so if you have HOI 3 vanilla, some of your issues will never be fixed, unless you buy the expansions. This is not very smart in my opinion; but I do not own a gaming company; so I have little room to talk.

In any rate; if you enjoy simulation and alternate history; Paradox games are worth a look. They run sales on steam every now and then (one just ended that was a good discount). Enjoy
-VG

STWOR "On Rails" Space Combat

2011-09-22T21:42:00.000-07:00

I don't think I've been more disappointed by an upcoming game feature as I am with SWTOR's space combat. It is what amounts to an "on rails" shooter; where your piloting ability (as a player) is limited to moving around a 2d screen while you are pulled through combat and can shoot.

I wouldn't be disappointed by this if it weren't for the robust (if graphically challenged) space component to Star Wars Galaxies. While a direct port wouldn't be legal or necessary, I would prefer to be able to dogfight in a 3d environment; customize my ship with components; and have a crafting profession dedicated to ships.

Now I am very biased towards space combat. TBH I wasted many hours playing SWG just for the space combat (one of the things that made me come back time and time again is that the space combat aspects weren't changed a whole lot). I also play battlefront II for the space combat sections, and Empire at War for the fleet combat. With SWG closing, there's a major gap in gaming for space combat, and it is a real shame SWTOR will not be filling this gap. X3 Terran Conflict is a close filler, but wont run on my system so I cannot comment on it.

What bothers me most about this space system for SWTOR is that it shows one more aspect of the game that is very obviously single-player. The game mechanics that have been shown are very strongly pointing towards a single-player mindset. You get companions; who buff your abilities in combat (allowing you to solo more things); you get a "crew" that can have crafting and gathering skills (so you don't even have to rely on other people for those things). The only multi-player parts that have been shown are the flashpoints; which require four or perhaps more players...these apparently can even have companions invited to them (not sure if that counts towards the number of players or not). For a game that was supposed to be a refuge for former SWG players; there is little here that I would want to play. I'd rather play a new iteration of KOTOR (perhaps the KOTOR that 2 was supposed to be if it had been fully developed).

SWG's strongest component ever was one that wasn't programmed. It was the community. It was the ability to log on and see fifty people crammed into a cantina...something that is majorly lost and does not look like it will be recovered. There is a huge audience that is waiting and will be dissatisfied with this newest offering...

I pray I am wrong
-VG

Buildings in Napoleon Total War

2011-09-22T12:45:00.000-07:00

I've been playing a bit of Napoleon TW lately, and notice a little bit of a lack of information from the non-battle side of things. The army battles have the most impact in the actual campaign, but it is buildings and towns that allow you to build and reinforce (and upgrade) your armies. Therefore; knowing what buildings to use is very important. For this article, I will be using "town" to refer to the small; non-unit recruiting areas in a province that buildings can be built on and "city" to refer to the larger "capital" areas that are used to recruit units and capture the province.

Napoleon TW has introduced a change from Empire TW in that towns now come in three flavors. Instead of being able to build a manufactory, church, school, or entertainment building; you are given a choice of two buildings per town, and towns are classified as Intellectual, industry, or commercial (which determines which two buildings you have access to). This is in addition to the usual province improvements like ports, logging camps, mines, farms etc. Cities function similarly to those in Empire TW, but there are some changes. As towns have the largest changes, we will look at those first:

Intellectual Centers: These allow building of Colleges and Members Clubs. Colleges function much like the schools of Empire Total War; and research technology and spawn gentlement. Members Clubs are essentially the entertainment buildings of Napoleon; raising happiness and spawning spies. When choosing between these two buildings; you must balance the need for happiness with the need for technology. Also remember that technology buildings increase clamor for reform in the province they are in, which means a province with a low happiness would be better served by a Members Club.

Industrial Centers: These allow building of Manufacturies or Gunsmiths. Manufacturies act much like they do in Empire TW; adding a sum to the province's wealth, but also provide a reduction in cost to artillery recruitment in the territory they are built in (and given the power of Napoleonic Artillery, this is not a small bonus). The gunsmith reduces the cost of infantry by about the same amount as artillery cost is reduced by the Manufactury. It should be noted that while the manufactury seems like a no-brainer to build over the gunsmith; infantry is going to be recruited more often than artillery (as it is more likely to be destroyed and more common in armies). A gunsmith in a recruiting center can be worth many times more than a manufactury, even when the taxes are brought into play. Always remember that both of these buildings spread unhappiness among the lower classes.

Commercial Centers: These allow the building of Supply Posts and Markets. Supply posts are some of the most important buildings in the game; as they replenish your damaged units at a higher rate than the base province level. Markets, on the other hand, improve province wealth and wealth per turn. Depending on the speed of your advance, the usual strategy is to build supply posts in advance territories along your path of conquest, and replace them with markets as the front moves forward. Alternatively, you can ignore supply posts altogether, and rely on the natural replenishment rate (which in connected provinces that have sufficient building capacities is decent). Personally, I still build supply posts in the front lines, unless the battle is moving forward swiftly. I rarely build a lot of supply posts at once.

Now to discuss changes in the minor province buildings. These changes impact the mechanics of Napoleon Total War, and should be considered when deciding where to spend your gold:

Farms: Farms increase the replenishment rate of units in the province, as well as adding to the wealth of the province.

Stables: Reduce cost of cavalry units recruited in the province and increases province wealth.

Logging Camps: Reduces the cost of buildings in the province it is built in by 10/12/15% (very nice bonuses, and this is a building you should upgrade first). Also adds to province wealth, and reduces the cost of naval unit recruitment in the province.

Gold Mines: Adds to region wealth and also increases region wealth per turn.

Iron Mines: Adds to region wealth, but also reduces the cost of unit recruitment in the province it is built in.

Cities: Cities operate very similarly to Empire TW. They have a town center as well as several other building slots depending on their size. They can usually build walls as well. The extra slots can be used to build an infantry/cavalry recruitment building; an artillery recruitment building, and an entertainment building. I believe the admiralty returns as well, but as I rarely focus on the navy I am not 100% sure on that. These buildings function very similary to those in Empire TW; so look at their information scrolls for specific information.

That should give you a basic understanding of the bonuses involved in these buildings and should help you decide what is and is not worth building. Personally, I focus one or two provinces on recruitment (giving them the recruitment cost reduction buildings and building up their cities to build all kinds of units) and the rest on economics (building Manufacturies, markets, and the like). Your mileage may vary.
-VG

Economics and Politics

2011-09-21T20:49:00.000-07:00

This is another departure from our usual topic. If you have a problem with that, click that little back arrow at the top of your browser.

I'm uncertain if its because of my maturity at the time, or if the situation has really deteriorated, but I've been paying a lot closer attention to politics in the last ten years or so. The thing I have noticed time and time again is that it the United States is not run by the will of the people, but by the pocketbooks of the people. Politicians get elected solely by the merit of how much fundraising they have done to get their message out to as many people as possible. These funds once raised make a politician beholden to their backers. I don't think it should surprise anyone that Bush II repealed a lot of environmental regulations and was backed by heavy industry and resource exploitation companies.

I don't want people to assume that I am a Democrat because I've bashed Bush II; far from it. Obama isn't any better, but democratic causes and supporters tend ot have a less blatant impact on the environment (Goldman Sachs donated a lot to Obama for example...hmmmm). I have my own issues with Obama; mostly that he is a complete political tool when promising not to be. There is a distinct difference between "Campaign Obama" who we've seen emerge again recently, and "Concession Obama" who has been living in the White House for the last couple years. I'm getting off point here.

Since the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are people; and there is no limit to their campaign contributions, I expect this trend to get worse. This combined with the fact that many politicians seem so against taxing corporations is leading us down a dangerous road. The main reason for not taxing corporations seems to be that they are job creators. This may be true, but CEOs are very poor job creators, even if corporations are good at it.

A friend of mine suggested something that I am finding makes more and more sense. Remove all regulations from corporations; all minimum wages; and drop the corporate tax rate to 0. Raise the income tax; especially among the wealthy; to a much higher rate than it is now (approaching 95%; they will be making more now anyway as they are most likely to be involved at upper levels of corporations). Then make the inheritance tax and gift taxes above a certain amount (think a million dollars maybe) 90-100%.

The net result of all of this is that most of the federal and state income will come from income tax and inheritance/gift taxes. Corporations, as the engines of job creation, will have unhindered resources to tax people. Any bonuses or incentives to upper management will be taxed to the point that it will be hard to justify (to get a bonus of 100k, you'd have to award yourself 2 million dollars). Even if this happens, that's just good news for the government. In reality, corporations will invest this in getting the best talent, improving the lives of their workers, becoming more efficient and improving their impact on the environment. The inheritance tax twofold. First, people should benefit from their parent's labor (up to a reasonable amount; hence the cap at 1 million dollars). Secondly, the fact that a parent is a good businessman, and makes a lot of money, has no bearing on whether their child would be a good businessman...so why should they control a large amount of money they didn't earn? A million dollars should be sufficient to get them started on a career of their own. This also prevents people from hoarding wealth, encouraging them to use it to fund projects of their choosing rather than leaving it to the government.

Kinda rambling now, so I'll stop. Needless to say, our current system leads to a great disparody of wealth; which is definately not fair (not that I'm complaining about that) but also leads to an unstable society. I'm sure the rich don't want the economy to get so bad that the poor riot en masse.

-VG

The Inherent Problem with MMORPGs

2011-09-19T22:13:00.000-07:00

It seems that no matter the MMORPG, there are always complaints. They seem to be even more prevalent in MMORPGs than in most non-MMOs. The question that comes to mind is why? I can think of two good explanations.

The first, and most obvious, is that they have a longer life cycle than most non-MMORPGs. If a regular game is absolutely terrible, it may live on in infamy (like Duke Nukem Forever *shudder*) but most of the time, if you hate a game, or have problems with it, you trade it, or let it gather dust and move on. MMORPGs require more time investment, and that investment makes players more interested in their quality. If you think about it, a typical MMORPG costs about the same initially as a mainstream game, but the time investment is much greater. A mainstream game would be lauded as extensive if it contained nearly the amount of content hours that people plug into an MMO in the first month alone, and MMOs tend to develop over time, leading to even longer time investments (that and they are persistent worlds, so time investment means more). Because of this, players spend more time in the world, and notice more problems with it. In the Eve Online forum, someone referred to minor problems as one million papercuts...imagine what the major issues are...

The second explanation stems from the massively part of MMORPG. Mainstream games tend to play to a strength or two, attracting players from that sect and ignoring most others. Many games flop because they try to touch too many different genres, and MMORPGs cannot be an exception. Most MMORPGs try to appeal to as many people as possible. Because of this, they do not focus, but are thinly spread across the spectrum. An easy example of this is looking at PVP and PVE content. Some games, like Darkfall Online, have full PVP, while others, like WoW, focus primarily on PVE with PVP as a secondary layer underneath. IMHO, WoW doesn't do either PVE or PVP exceptionally well, which highlights the whole problem.

The difficulty is that these are systemic problems. An MMO focusing solely on one aspect of things to the exclusion of others will not have a large player base, and thus not be successful by most measures. Sad thing is, there's not a good way to fix this. This is why most people playing MMOs get tired of them after a period, and move on to the next one. If an MMO provided the best possible experience for them, they would not stop playing it. Many players are left having played all the available MMOs that appeal to them, tiring of them, and, given the lengthy development cycle of games, have nothing left to play. Hopefully someone smarter than me that works in game development will find a solution to this problem.
-VG

Star Wars Galaxies Closing

2011-09-19T06:30:00.000-07:00

It took me a few days to mentally process the fullness of what it means for Star Wars Galaxies to close its servers at the end of this year. Of the major MMOs I have played or have payed attention to, it is the first to completely shut down (and I believe one of the first major titles to shut its servers and not go to a F2P model).

While SWG should pass on, as it has too many bad memories for vets and has major competition coming out soon, it is a landmark moment that it is shutting down. MMORPGs are supposed to represent people in an alternate mode. People had houses, guilds, equipment, tools...things they quested for or built themselves. They had an alternate personality in that universe. With the servers shutting down, these alternate personalities are going to be permanently gone.

While Star Wars Galaxies has dropped in population drastically, it sets a president that is dangerous for MMORPGs in the future. Imagine, for example, if World of Warcraft announced a shut-down six months from now, where everything would be deleted, and the game would cease to exist. For WoW, there would be riots (if half of the angry nerd/kid videos that exist are legitimate). Sony Online Entertainment made the decision that it was not profitable enough to renew their license and maintain the servers. What is to prevent Blizzard from making this same decision? The answer is nothing. Most MMOs that are experiencing their Twilight years are going Free to Play, maintaining a reduced number of servers by a cash shop. Personally, I do not see Blizzard doing this, but I have a bleak view of the gaming giant.

In any case, this shut-down has implications beyond SWG, but as long as your favorite MMO has a large active population, you have little to worry about. The one concern I have is space giant Eve Online, that has been steadily dropping in population because of poor management and their last few major updates (including an addition of a cash shop with appearance altering items that are largely not visible by people other than the player). It should hold on for a few years still, but many of the major players are leaving and it will soon be more difficult to find people to perform difficult high-level jobs. Things like trusted third parties and statistical analysis of market data are starting to fall by the wayside, opening up people to more scams and other undesirable parts of Eve. I will be watching these events as they unfold.
-VG

9/11 and Terrorism Rant

2011-09-11T11:41:00.000-07:00

Fair warning; This is off topic for this blog, represents my personal feelings, and will offend at least some people. If you don't want to hear my opinion on matters pertaining to 9/11 and terrorism, click on another blog post or close the browser window.

You have been warned.

It is currently the tenth anniversary of 9/11/2001 and during the course of the last ten years we have been involved in two major wars for the purpose of reducing terrorism, as well as what could be deemed a police action in Libya (though that was not for the purpose of reducing terrorist risk). We have eliminated a number of leaders of the terrorist network Al-Qaeda, including Osama Bin Laden. The United States has not been subject to another successful terrorist attack of this scale on our home-front since, but European powers have been. Technically the goal of preventing terrorist attacks has been successful on our home front, as we have not been subject to another, and after nine years we succeeded in the assassination of Osama Bin Laden.

But was it worth it? In my opinion, no. Destroying a terrorist network is a fine goal; but invading two countries, and performing numerous secret operations in a third (Pakistan) without their government or people's consent does nothing to address the causality of terrorism. Terrorism occurs because people are attempting to fight our ideology, but lack the ability to fight us directly...mostly because we are a military powerhouse that uses that power on a whim. There is no such thing as a dirty trick in war, and terrorism is little different than a guerrilla war.

What can be done to prevent terrorism? A complete reform of the United States' policies and doctrines about intervention is needed. Is it necessary for us to have a navy larger than all other fleets combined? Do we even need aircraft carriers at all when we have bases around the world, and bombers that can hit any target from domestic bases? We have fallen into the trap of preparing for the last major war, or rather for a conventional war with the USSR (which no longer exists) or China. Conventional wars do not happen between nuclear powers; why are we wasting time, talent, and treasure on such a massive scale for a military that isn't going to be needed? It certainly did us no good on 9/11; the heroes of that day were ordinary civilians...firefighters, emergency responders, and the passengers on the aircraft. Our superior aircraft carrier taskgroups, fighter jets, and drones did nothing to help (and nobody in the military has enough guts to give the order or to follow through to shoot down a hijacked jetliner).

It is not the divine right or duty of the United States to involve itself in the squabbles of the rest of the world. Doing so will lead to our downfall. Complete isolation is not necessary, but we should not be getting involved in most of the squabbles. The United Nations exists for such disputes, and we do not need cowboy diplomacy. Does this mean we should never intervene? Of course not, we should intervene only as a contributor of troops (but not the majority of troops) to the United Nations and their missions.

How would this prevent terrorism? It is easy to recruit people to fight against a monstrosity that acts by itself on its own whims and can be seen trying to take over other countries for its own desires. It is harder to recruit people to fight against the actions of a governing body composed of member countries, often including those in the country you are recruiting from. Terrorists would then be more likely to act against their own governments than against the United States (in which case, it is their domestic issue and not ours).

What about domestic terrorists? Domestic terrorists are harder to handle, as represented by the DC snipers, the Fort Hood massacre, and many other examples of domestic terrorism. However, better economic conditions (from reduced spending on the military and a restructuring of our overall spending to eliminate the budget deficit and reduce the murderous amount of money we have borrowed) and better domestic policy would decrease the occurrences of this sort of terrorism. The level of violence in our political rhetoric is shameful...and would make our founding fathers regret making the United States a republic.

The net result of the war on terrorism is a reduction in our freedoms, and a reduction of our economic stability...two things that would make a terrorist organization happy. We cannot travel by air without going through the electronic equivalent of a strip search; and actually having to remove belts, shoes, change, keys. Don't even think about bringing a small amount of liquid on the plane with you, or you'll spend a year in Guantanamo (I'm exaggerating but only slightly). Is this worth being "safe" from terrorism? Have there been any reports to prove these drastic measures have saved us from another terrorist attack? of course not. The Underwear Bomber was able to smuggle bomb material onto a plane flying from Europe to the United States. The reductions in public freedom (I'm not going to even go into the Patriot Act) are only creating the thin veneer of safety, without giving any actual security to the American People.

How are we likely to be attacked now? In my opinion, attacks are more likely to come from a domestic source, even if funded by an international one. The current political ill ease we are suffering from creates the perfect conditions for domestic terrorism. I expect to see massive backlash based off of the next presidential election, especially if Obama wins re-election (not saying that Republicans are terrorists, but Obama seems to be a partisan-creating president by his mere presence). I expect to see government employees shot in these terrorist attacks, like the attack on Gabrielle Giffords. This seems to be the most likely target for our current domestic issues, with the military being a close second. Corporate targets are also likely, but Corporations are also less shocking targets than individuals, which reduces the likelihood.

In terms of international terrorism, planes have been show to be effective bombs. I'd imagine a civilian aircraft or corporate jet could be loaded with flammable materials or explosives and used as flying bombs, much the way they were on 9/11/2001 (though there was no evidence that there were bombs in those aircraft, but they were loaded with fuel). Another shocking day like that one would cripple confidence in the government, which would be a major blow against the United States. Random smaller acts of violence would also be effective, in making people afraid of even walking around the streets or using the major roads. Imagine a stretch of Highway being shut down, and everyone for two miles driving on it being killed by one terrorist attack...or bridges being damaged or destroyed...these things would be crippling to commerce...these are the things to defend against, but the defense must be done by reform as well as by police action.

We have created our own problems in terms of terrorism. We create those that wish to oppose us by our own actions. We are to blame for terrorism directed against us.

End Rant.
-VG

How to Tank Anything - Deadmines (Vancleef) Paladin

2011-05-09T14:27:00.001-07:00

First Paladin tanking video, in Deadmines (VanCookie).

Note about the video: I mistakenly call Word of Glory by the name Holy Word. Not sure where I came up with that, but it sounded right.

Important abilities Paladin tanks have at this level:

Judgement: Ranged holy damage ability that deals damage and a debuff based off of the seal you currently have active.

Seals: Self-buff that enables Judgement. Each has its own effect, with Seal of Righteousness (the only one we have at the time of this video) dealing extra holy damage on melee attacks.

Hammer of Justice: Stun ability; excellent in most non-boss and PVP situations.

Crusader Strike: Instant melee attack, adds Holy Power

Word of Glory: Heal that uses 1 Holy Power. Best used as an emergency self heal.

Hand of Reckoning: Taunt

Righteous Fury: Self buff with no duration. This is the tanking ability, as it generates additional threat from holy damage (Judgements, Exorcism, Consecration become powerful tanking tools with Fury).

There are also various other abilities, such as heals, that you have, but aren't vital for tanking, and so are not mentioned here.

Talent Choices: At this level, you have 3 talent points to spend.

Divinity: Increases healing done by you and to you by 2/4/6%. An excellent talent for a tank, as it makes your healer happy, makes your self heals more powerful, and is good at any level.

Seals of the Pure: Increases damage of Seals by 6/12%. This is a damage buff, as Seals deal Holy damage it is also a tanking buff. A good point-filling talent.

Eternal Glory: Gives Word of Glory a 15/30% chance not to consume holy power. This talent is worthless at this point simply because you have no other drains of holy power but Word of Glory.

As such, my talents are in 3/3 Divinity followed by 2/2 Seals of the Pure. I may respec into Eternal Glory if I find it useful to have Word of Glory not use Holy Power.

Enjoy, and I look forward to your comments.

How to Tank Anything - Deadmines Warrior

2011-05-06T18:32:00.000-07:00

Video for How to tank Anything: Deadmines Warrior is up. Please comment here or on the youtube thread if you'd like. I'm looking to improve these videos in any way I can.

Synopsis: Not much changes from RFC to DM (can we call it Vancleef if he isn't a boss anymore?). Addition of Sunder Armor is a blessing that I cannot put into words. Will do a video comparing Warrior, Paladin, and Druid tanking in generalities at some point. So far, warrior is still my favorite, but Paladin has my vote for ease of use.

Have warrior WC and SFK filmed, but need to do editting work on it, as well as voice-overs. Paladin DM and RFC are also filmed. Druid is only lvl 10, probably should get her up to pace with the others.

As always, thanks for watching.
-VG

How to Tank Anything: Warrior Ragefire Chasm

2011-05-03T10:19:00.000-07:00

Video is now up for Ragefire Chasm; Warrior tanking in our How to Tank Anything. The instance is short without much special about it, so the video is simple and sweet.

Keep watching
-VG

How to Tank Anything - Intro Video

2011-04-29T14:32:00.001-07:00

Introductory video for How to Tank Anything. Enjoy, RFC - Warrior to come soon.

Hot to Tank Anything

2011-04-28T09:54:00.000-07:00

Exciting News!

I am in the middle of editing the first two videos of a series I'm calling "How to Tank Anything." It is a look at the three main tanking classes of WoW (DKs not included), and how to tank instances at various levels. Ideally I would like to have 3 videos per instance, showing difficult parts, and how to use the various classes abilities.

Characters being used are on Streamweedle Cartel server (probably spelled that wrong, oh well) under the names: Zeddicciusjr (warrior), Retacowadin (Paladin), and Healsmorons (Druid). Feel free to send me a whisper if you see me on, and if you get into a random group with me, I will likely be videoing it.

Anyway, stay tuned, I will be posting videos soon, both to this blog and to Youtube. Just have to finish editing and get my video time down to 15 minutes.

The Elite System

2011-04-12T15:11:00.000-07:00

Playing through the Legacy quests of SWG today, and I got to one where you must kill 5 elites. This simultaneously made me nostalgic and frustrated, and I realize now that so many games have taken on the regular/elite/boss model that WoW uses (if it has a source before that, I do not know of it; if you do please mention the game that used it). Off of the top of my head; Aion, SWG, CoX, Warhammer Online, DDO, and so forth.

For those of you not familiar with the terminology, a regular mob is one that you should be able to kill solo at the same level (or +-2 usually) with little difficulty. An Elite mob has more health, deals more damage, and is hard to solo at the same level (though usually 5 or more levels above it you can solo it). WoW used a 3x health and damage modifier for elite mobs in vanilla, so they were roughly as hard to kill as 3 mobs attacking you at once (without the benefit of less dps as you kill one or two of the three mobs). Boss mobs are even more powerful, and usually their power varied greatly. These were meant to be final encounters, or chapter encounters that ended a wing, hallway, or instance in a climactic battle. They almost always required a full group, using good tactics and sometimes luck to beat.

Why does this make me nostalgic? SWG pre-CU had a system where level was effectively hidden. There was a level mechanic, but it was pretty involved, changing based on your group size, equipped weapon, pets, and dozens of other mechanics. Mobs would be tagged with a color on their nameplate that indicated if the game thought you could handle it. It was simple, and worked. Xp was based on the toughness of the mob, not the relative level, and since xp scaled with your class advancement, it worked out similarly to the tougher mobs for higher level players concept (and facilitated grouping as they gave more xp, but it was divided by damage done). What mobs did have was a HAM bar, health, action, and mind. If any of them reached 0, the mob died. Now some mobs had very high HAM totals for their level, they were effectively elites but you didn't know unless you moused over and saw their totals or had experience with that kind of mob.

I'm starting to blather on, so I will wrap it up here. I'm looking for games without boss and elite mobs, but wikth simkilar challenges. Please let me know if you play any.
-vg

the mmorpg quandry

2011-04-11T16:15:00.000-07:00

The mmorpg industry is an interesting animal. Wow is a giant, most other games are lowly populated (by comparison) and many people question a game's potential longevity before playing (understandable when you will put hundreds of hours into the game). Many games find it hard to carve their niche and make it last, and one even challenges Wow to its own game (Rift). So what makes this industry so interesting?

Go big or go home: most mmos now have small populations, tending tiwards low revenue and even lower new subscription numbers. Mmoers don't like joining a game with a tiny community, and server pop is always an issue. Plus more money means more success as a game (it is a business after all).

Niche-tze: games like this find it hard to appeal to all audiences. Games that try tend to struggle and choose one audience over the rest at a later time. With millions of subscribers you will never please everyone, and a game 'good enough' for everyone will only hold interest for so long.

stability/longevity wow has been going strong for many years and is showing no signs of stopping. Everquest and its sequel are similar, as is ffxi, which some players of ffxiv are flocking back to. Players are investing their time into a game as well as their money. They want to not only be able to play, but also know that their characters and stuff will be available to them for years to come.

Just some thoughts
-vg

A look back at SWG's economy

2011-04-11T10:20:00.000-07:00

To continue my economic discussion, I have been thinking a lot about SWG's economy. I've played it in all three of its iterations (pre-CU, CU, and NGE), and am currently playing it again. It is enjoyable enough, and I would rather be playing FFXI, but its registration system continues to give me headaches, and I am debating buying it for xbox to try one of the work arounds that have been offered to me. But enough about that.

Pre-CU, SWG's economy was what you might consider small. A million credits was a lot of money (what a million gold is to the current WoW economy, if you will), and few players claimed that they had such. There was also little or no credit selling, which was an interesting phenomenon. After the CU, inflation started, and in a bad way. Many reasons for this, which I will delve into later. NGE made the whole thing worse. The question is: Why?

Pre-CU had a balanced economic situation. Most items were player made, using resources that were player harvested (and had to be actively sought), money drops off of mobs were very low, and mission terminals were a primary source of income, and even then the income was rather low. So there was, overall, a very low amount of credits enterring the system. However, there were also many drains on these credits, leading to a very small net credit gain. Houses, factories, harvesters, skill training, vehicle repair...all of these things took credits. Also, all of your equipment had a durability rating, and slowly decayed. Sure you might spend 10,000 credits on an awesome gun, but you'll have to keep putting money into it (in the form of crafted weapon repair kits and the like) or it will become useless. I remember having a wall of carbines that I had used to level my character, most in poor durability, on display. I felt connected to all of them.

Basically, everything you spent credits on was a drain in itself, as those credits went to crafters, who spent credits on maintaining harvesters to gather resources to make your items (and on vendors, vendor fees, shops, etc etc etc). Which, oddly enough, works rather well as a system. Even rare loot drops used in crafting didn't become too expensive, and you could always barter with a crafter for materials they needed. If you had krayt tissues or whatever, you could ask a crafter, for a fee of course, to make you an item with them. Everyone would be happy.

To give you an idea of pricing at this time, a full set of doctor buffs was 10k credits and lasted about 2 hours. A single "solo group" mission on dantoine netted about the same, and took maybe 10 minutes. Nobody I knew who ran those missions became rich, but they did enough to buy what they wanted.

So what happened? CU allowd people to respec, removing a lot of training costs. Eventually they removed decay all together and that screwed over the economy. Now if you buy an awesome gun, you will have it forever...it will cost a ridiculous amount, maybe millions of credits, but you will have it forever. I wish the old system was back.
-vg

Gold Devaluation

2011-04-08T06:59:00.000-07:00

Looking at the last few expansions to WoW (Cataclysm, sadly, did not meet my expectations and made the game boring for me, more on that later), I've noticed a steep drop in the value of gold. Just in grinding out from 80-85 I made quite the load of gold, and there aren't that many drains in the economy. Training and the like is a big one, but only flying mount training (for fast fliers) and constant respeccing of talent points (I mean ludicrously) could be considered a balancing factor for the massive gold values we are now seeing. This is driving inflation so badly that you don't need to know even how to spell economics in order to spot it.

Is this a bad thing? Ultimately yes. One good result is the dying off of gold farming as a direct industry. You do not need hard to obtain amounts of gold for anything save buying the best equipment. Gold is also not difficult to obtain at all, increasing the supply. More supply, less demand, yields lower prices. It has reached the point where "human" gold farming, even in the East, is not profitable. This is a sad turn-around from an industry that was making boatloads of money off of the market. They are simultaneously suffering from a lack of power levelling need, as Blizzard made the game so much easier.

Now for the bad results. Newer players, and those without a lvl 85, have trouble even on developed servers 1. finding goods and resources they need and 2. finding them at reasonable prices. Things tend to balance out a bit, but not very evenly. If simple resources are ridiculously expensive, then newbie crafters cannot buy them, but newbie gatherers make bank off of them. This goes up and down the "brackets" until a balance is found, usually at a point where items up to say lvl 40 or so are super cheap, and after that are super expensive, leading to the difficult choice of grinding out a gathering profession to sustain your character's wallet for 30 or so levels until gold becomes easy to find.

A secondary problem, and one that will continue to get worse, is that with few drains, inflation will just continue. Soon it will get to a point that even newer players or players who don't grind out money will not be able to afford anything. This will lead to gold farming being a viable industry again, which, if Blizzard's goal was to kill it, will be counter-productive. If you need 100k of gold to buy a good item, and you can earn 3k gold a day, are you willing to waste a month of your time, or would you pay say...20 dollars cash in order to have it?

The third problem is the sheer "free money" aspect that guilds now have after they get their traits. One line of these traits generate additional cash from every looted amount that goes directly to the guild bank. Now, I've seen the direct result of this at low levels being a nice fund for discretionary spending, and realize the effects of it being used to pay for raid repairs and the like, however, this is removing a further drain on the economy, *and* generating even more money. This is essentially adding a 10% or so boost to the inflation rate, probably compounded even more by the fact its use is almost solely on economic drains.

Solutions to this problem? I frankly don't see any. We are in too deep with this system. Its a similar problem to the rampant increase of stats with each expansion, you cannot remove it without players getting mad. One option is for blizzard to introduce something that is a further drain on resources. An idea I will bring up again is the idea of guild bases. These should be something that is fairly expensive to create, requiring money to maintain, and subject to guild vs guild pvp. Not saying that is the only solution, but there needs to be something for all the money to be used for besides player to player trading. I would discourage them from using just an item worth x gold as a "drain" as it is a cheap way out, and would create more problems as people grind gold towards getting it.
-VG

Item Store Ideas

2011-01-31T17:34:00.000-08:00

My thoughts about item stores are pretty clear: they suck in most cases. They are often full of the best stuff that is unobtainable anywhere else, and that is their primary marketing mechanic and their downfall. Profit is made because the items in an item store are unique and/or powerful. Just look at how many people have the celestial mount from the WoW item store? It has no impact on the game except that it looks cool, and Blizzard has made boatloads of money off of it.

So that is the recap, now for the idea. Item stores should sell only items obtainable in the game. Now maybe these items are rare, and maybe it will take a long time to get them, but its possible to obtain them through normal gameplay or quests. These items should all be able to be sold on the market/auction house, giving players an opportunity to turn cash into in-game currency legitimately. This would curtail the gold "black market."

Just a thought.
-VG

On WoW Cataclysm

2011-01-22T07:23:00.000-08:00

Its not often that I have to admit I'm wrong...okay I'm married so it happens a lot. Its not often that I want to admit I'm wrong. I judged Cataclysm as the straw that would break WoW's dominance over the MMO world and shatter the game (poetically as Deathwing shattered its world). However, the sheer competence with which its been implemented crushed that prediction to dust.

The game is very solid. Fewer breadcrumb quests, and a Warchief's command board to host most of them leave characters knowing where to go. Quest chains lead into one another, and unless you outlevel them, will take you through the whole zone. The xp requirements have been lowered again, and most class mechanics simplified. All in all its a game that is infinitely easier than previous versions of WoW mechanically. That and the redesign of Azeroth and the sheer level of detail for some parts of it is an amazing example of how to do this kind of example.

But this game is not the WoW I purchased years ago and that I've enjoyed. For me as a player it is too easy. I've heard that heroics and raids are hard, but I've also heard that before as well (and usually its not a mechanical difficulty its a difficulty of numbers, and better gear will make them laughable.) Is this game breaking? Well, its the same thing that WOTLK did but to a larger scale. WOTLK didn't break the back of this game, and so Cataclysm will not. What I do think will happen is many of the more serious gamers will leave WoW, maybe just until the next expansion, after getting any number of characters to 85 (the only 'difficult" part being the break between 60-80 where you have to go through the "old" content).

The other thing I dislike about this new WoW is the requirements to complete all quests to advance. If you don't want to do a quest or can't figure it out, chances are you're fucked for finishing that zone. While this isn't as much of a problem for the 1-60 zones (there are always other zones or other ways to level) it becomes a large problem for 80-85. Sure you can level through to 85 by other means without touching a quest, but if you do you will still probably have to do the quests to unlock instances and the like (similar to how you have to discover the throne of tides to even do those instances).

The other thing I dislike about WoW is the massive stat inflation, a fact made even worse by Cataclysm. The difference between a lvl 60 in vanilla gear and a lvl 60 in TBC random greens was several thousand HP. For TBC 70 to WOTLK green 70 it expanded to 5-10k hp. Cata is harder to gauge since the whole stat system changed, but pre-heroic tanks hit 100k hp easy, especially feral tanks. I understand its all numbers, but its just gotten so far out of hand. Most of my friends who are still playing WoW disagree with me about this, but its how I feel.

Now for some honesty about my experiences with Cataclysm: I did indeed play before the release to experiment with the new gameplay mechanics. I have played every class (getting Rogue, DK, Hunter, Priest and Paladin to 85) post-Cataclysm. I am very pleased with the changes to Hunter and Warlock's game mechanics, and like many of the overall changes. I even like the reduced number of spells and abilities for each class, and the fact that you don't have to buy each rank of them. I also like that they gain in power as you level. The lore level of the quests has improved greatly. The game, however, does not hold my interest. With vanilla especially, and TBC and even WOTLK, I was driven to do more, to experience more, to see more of the game. I do not feel that drive in Cataclysm. In fact, there are so few quests that while they send you over the whole zone, there's little involvement in the game itself. I also disapprove of the massive overuse of phased content (one part actually is bugged to the point that you have to stand exactly in one specific spot to talk to an NPC to turn in a quest....like I said before being unable to complete this quests prevents you from advancing in this zone.).

Overall I think the expansion is a solid one, but I would almost have preferred it to be a separate game. I'm certain now that WoW will be around for a very long time, and probably will have several more expansions as WOTLK and TBC content need to be cataclysmed.

-VG

On the Nintendo 3DS

2010-07-12T13:58:00.000-07:00

I spoke recently about the evolution of the DS and my thoughts on it as an anti-emulation technology. Well, my friend pointed out that the next generation of the DS is actually a three dimensional gaming platform. While I haven't researched this extensively yet (nor am I looking forward to buying yet another gaming system), I am interested in the fact that it is similar to my musings on the Nintendo DS.

That is to say that the 3DS, is a technology that will be hard to emulate on most computers. In truth the Wii also is almost impossible to emulate, which makes the three newest Nintendo hardware choices all difficult or impossible to emulate. I find it very interesting.

Now, I will admit that it is hard to find a decent emulator for anything after the first playstation, but the other systems should still be theoretically doable, that is without any difficult things to emulate. If one is using a gamepad especially. I do wonder about the future of emulation, and whether every game company will invent a gimick so that their consoles are more diversified from PC's than they already are. Then again, I may just be looking for a conspiracy where there is none.

Blizzard Cancels Real Names on Forums

2010-07-09T16:21:00.000-07:00

Funny thing, I've spent most of my week reading about real names on blizzard forums as part of the RealID launch. I've just read an announcement that this will no longer be so. Seems like Blizzard has seen the outcry against their latest feature idea, and has actually done the smart thing: avoided the angry populace. Looks like WoW will survive for now.

-VG

On Eve and Time Commitments

2010-07-08T12:07:00.000-07:00

I've recently considered a return to Eve Online, however, I remember how much time I spent on that game. I had a system to make quite a lot of money by running an NPC corp standing service, but it ate a lot of real life time, not only in the actual mission running but also waiting on customers to get online. All in all it was much more of a job than anything else.

If I play Eve again, I will play it enough to buy PLEXes every month to remove the need of a subscription. That said, doing even that could take a lot of time every month. Last time I was playing, I played at least six hours a day, time that I do not have at all now, let alone have that I would want to spend on a single game when there are many other things to do. I'm wondering if it is possible to spend a mere hour on Eve a day and still make enough every month for a PLEX. It strikes me that this would require earning ten million isk every hour, which is doable in many cases, but will lead to doing nothing but that every day. That repetition would be boring which defeats the whole purpose.

That said, is it any different than playing WoW and grinding out the same instances for badges every day? Or really any MMORPG. You are either levelling, grinding for money or gear, or PVPing. It seems to all combine together into one big pile until there is little left but grinding.

Ah well. Sometimes I wish the current generation of MMO's would die so something new would spring forth out of an empty market. Something truly fun to play that you could pick up for one hour or six. I'm just rambling now though, I think.

-VG

On Returning to Warcraft 3 Multiplayer

2010-07-07T12:09:00.000-07:00

Its been a long while since I played Warcraft 3, let along Warcraft 3 on Battle.net. Since I am no longer playing WoW, but I still like the world and feel of Warcraft, I think its time I returned to the multiplayer parts of this game. I've never been very good, but I think this stems from a lack of experience and a lack of specializing in one faction.

As such I think I will play as the orc, though I may decide the overall range prowess of the night elves suits my purposes better. Either way I will play and practice with my chosen faction and try to learn and get better. Expect future posts to detail my successes or failures (mainly failures), hopefully complete with replays for those wanting to ridicule me.

Feedback is always appreciated.
-VG

On DS Emulation

2010-07-06T14:52:00.000-07:00

Oddly enough out of all the emulation software I've seen, I've yet to find a decent Nintendo DS emulator that works properly. There are many that work under certain circumstances, but none work for all games. That said, it is hard to emulate a touch screen without using a touch screen (the mouse can only do so much). That said, I've yet to see a game that requires a stylus to play, they usually just make the game easier (that said I have only played a half dozen DS games).

I think that this may be an important aspect of the DS. It is hard to emulate and therefore, people have to buy the games or at least rent them, in order to play. Instead of getting games for free and having their copyrights just ignored, Nintendo can effectively make their games be bought, provided they continue making quality titles.

Just some thoughts. It may just be a matter of time, but by the time the DS emulators work, there may be some new gameboy out thats emulation technology will be too different for the current ones to work.

-VG

On the Wii

2010-07-05T06:42:00.000-07:00

Motion-sensor technology is something that we've wanted for the home console for a long time. There are a handful of games in arcades that use it, and some of them are very fun and interactive. However, these games have problems, and they are very present in the Wii.

I've had my first real contact with the wii last night, and while I'd have to play much more to see a real verdict (mainly single-player parts of it, as I was playing group games), my initial thoughts are not good. I should note this is the newer version of the controllers with the upgraded sensors.

The first problem was the sensitivity of the controller for menus and the like was too fine. This made it hard to use the keyboard to make a Mii. This is a minor inconvenience, but it also meant that during a game, sometimes very weird things would happen. The controllers also have a strange disconnect problem where they will stop functioning for a few moments until they are set down and remain still.

The second problem is that the games themselves (for wii sports and sports resort) are poorly designed. Bowling worked fairly well, but the swordfighting game had no real strategy to it besides flailing randomly. Defending works once, but if you get hit once and your opponent is just flailing at you, you will get knocked off with no chance to recover. The air sports fighting game is pointless as well. Most of the balloon tokens you can get to are spread far enough around that they are hard to get to in time, and the whole game takes place too close to the ground for any real maneuvering. It is a game that is a good concept, but poorly implemented. These designs have me question the potential for the console and the various swordfighting and jedi games we'd like to see for it.

Finally there is a limited range arc in front of the sensor that the remotes are active in. Because of this, playing with four players in anything but a clear room results in potential injury. Even with two people playing there was plenty of chance for injury.

On thing I really like is that multiple players can use one controller in some games. This is much easier than playing a two player game and taking turns with the controllers.

Overall I'll need more Wii time before I can decide if I like the console or not. Its not looking good for Nintendo's motion sensor baby.
-VG

On Turn based War Games

2010-07-02T11:09:00.000-07:00

I'm a bit of an addict to turn based strategy and war games. Lately, though, i find that I am playing a lot of Advance Wars and Fire Emblem. I'm even joining a fire emblem RPG game on a webcomic forum I frequest. I'm not sure why I like these games so much.

I also play real time war games, like Hearts of Iron 3, and a handful of others (some with more RTS elements than not), but these I don't find nearly as fascinating. HOI 3 is very interesting and complex, but there's something about turn based that is more fun...I wish I could really figure it out.

Maybe its the fact that these games are overtly turn based. No matter how real combat seems it is all based on turns in some way shape or form. HOI 3 battles are turn based, and reload times for tanks and the like makes many "reality based" war games act in a similar way. Maybe this is just because they have to be, because they are computer games.

I think the real truth to it all is that I am a strategist. I enjoy planning out military tactics and executing them. Turn based games make this easier and more straightforward than games that act more in real time. I'll probably just have a different answer for it tomorrow thoguh.

-VG

The Irony of Cataclysm

2010-07-01T10:09:00.000-07:00

There is a bit of irony in Blizzard's new expansion. For many years the players in Azeroth have tried and battled against mighty hordes to save their world from destruction, to keep their people and homes safe. They have ventured out of this world and to the top of Icecrown to defeat the malicious lords and ladies that would destroy this planet...

And yet they will cheer when the world is torn and ripped by Deathwing.

Players are EAGERLY awaiting the changes that are coming. Eagerly awaiting the utter destruction of the places they "grew up" in and levelled through. Some are even getting very impatient that Deathwing hasn't destroyed everything yet. Now, I know I'm waiting on some "beach front" property investments to pay off in Thousand Needles, but isn't it just a bit strange that the same people who fought off the Lich King so he wouldn't scourge the world free of the blight of living things are waiting such massive changes to their world?

Just thought it was weird. As you know I will not be playing Cataclysm (though I will be looking at screenshots to see how the zones changed). If you're going to play it, I hope you enjoy it.

Cheers
-VG

The Day the MMO's Died

2010-06-30T07:12:00.000-07:00

There is an old saying from around the time of the NGE for Star Wars Galaxies that goes "Whoever is the last one on Bria, turn the lights out when you leave." Now that's obviously a modification of a much older saying, but it deals with a topic I've been thinking a lot about lately: The closure of servers and the end of an MMORPG.

Many MMO's are in trouble these days. SWG is struggling to have a population, DDO and LOTRO are going free to play to attract more people, and games like FFXI and Everquest are showing their age in obvious ways. Eventually these MMO's will actually end, wont they?

Consider the many games that came before. Short of bankrupt parent companies (and indeed in spite of them in some cases) the old titles are still around, albeit with less population and usually a free to play form. Everquest didn't die even when its sequel came out, and indeed still seems fairly strong.

There is always talk about WoW dying, and talk that it is immortal. Some thought that the initial response to it was so strong that it would burn out swiftly, but Blizzard has kept players coming and hooked for over five years. I have a secret theory that Cataclysm will destroy the game, but more on that later.

It is said that once something is on the internet it can never be removed from the internet. Maybe this is true of MMORPG's. Maybe there will always be a version of WoW out there. Maybe SWG will never finally kick the bucket. Even if the characters that we played and invested our time into don't matter anymore, maybe the servers will never shut down.

But if they do, and you're the last one on, turn off the lights before you go.
-VG

Forces of Prime (Part 1)

2010-06-29T12:51:00.000-07:00

Just a note, this is not video games nor theory, but part of a backstory I am writing up for a bit of fun. Enjoy, and I will enjoy any comments you have.

Remnants of the Journal of Abal Masana; Keeper of Archives, Prime outpost One Gamma

I wish I could tell you the full history of our race, but it is lost to time. What we know spans back one or two thousand years; to the beginning of the Shattering and the Enslavement. We were a younger race then, though our years of captivity have aged us much. It is believed we had not colonized any planets except our homeworld…a homeworld many of us believe to be the planet called Prime. Overpopulated and strained for resources, we looked to the stars for escape and new wealth. We sent probes into deep space looking for alien intelligence and strange sentient beings. What we found would change us forever.

The Zybee, an alien race of tall and fair humanoids with beautiful faces and a calming demeanor, came to the Prime. They entered into peaceful negotiations with our leaders and what we thought was a time of prosperity began. They traded with us, gave us technology and exotic foods in exchange for knowledge about us, and trade in our planets flora and fauna. They built colonies on three other planets designed specifically for our people, and ferried those that wanted an escape from the overpopulated Prime to them on their fast starships.

Then people who left Prime stopped landing at the other colonies. Families were separated, their sons, wives, daughters, husbands…lost forever. The Zybee never gave any explanation for it. Some thought that there had been a few accidents, and the Zybee didn’t want to seem inferior. We all new our own attempts at space flight had been disastrous and in our naivety we had thought the Zybee immune to such mistakes. We realized a greater naivety a few months later. When our leaders announced they planned to build and launch our own space fleet, the Zybee were outraged. The massive fleet that had been building up outside the Prime…a transport and trading fleet, or so we thought…disgorged thousands of fighters. The shipping containers that goods had been ferried in from those ships opened, and giant mechs and tanks poured out. We were conquered by an army we imported ourselves.

What people remained on Prime were divided into camps. Many more groups were herded onto ships and sent out into the void. Our people were Shattered, sent out to every corner of the Zybee empire. We were imprisoned and used as forced labor to build the very mechs, tanks, fighters, and ships that conquered our planet. I wish I could tell you that we revolted, that a prisoner uprising had to be violently purged…but we didn’t. Years of prosperity brought by the Zybee had made us soft, or perhaps we remembered too harshly the feelings of hunger that came from a starving, overpopulated world that the Zybee had saved us from. Either way we toiled away, always treated fairly and few well. No prisoner was tortured or mishandled, though the few that made trouble were separated from the group, and few less for a period of time. The Zybee seemed fair and judicious in their punishments, and maybe that is the main reason why we obeyed. They ruled us better than we had ruled ourselves.

Ten or twenty generations passed this way. The Zybee presence dwindled. Some legends say there was a war in another part of the galaxy and with our people so well behaved, we needed less guard. Others say that the Zybee slowly wasted away one by one from some unknown disease. I think both are true, their empire was beset by war against a species they couldn’t steamroll like they had us, and the last remnants were destroyed by disease and famine. What I do know is that in the last days of our captivity, we weren’t fed anymore. The guards stopped bringing us food, and we stopped seeing the aliens at all. We went hungry until the water stopped running. Thirsty and hungry, we broke out of our cells in search of sustenance. We found the storehouses, and gorged ourselves. Then we went looking for our masters, and found them all dead, bodies greatly reduced as if they hadn’t eaten in months. We were free, not by our own hands but by fate it seemed. We sent our strongest to the other camps, and found them all the same. Either the guards were all dead, or nearly there. None answered our questions. We were unsure of what to do, having been freed of our master’s yoke. We were a vast people, but probably numbered under a million. So many of our own had been taken to other worlds. We elected one person from each of the thirteen camps to be a member of a council of leadership. They would decide together what we would do, and what would happen to us.

On the new Sweating Mechanic in Entropia Universe

2010-06-28T07:44:00.001-07:00

Sweating has been the only real way to play Entropia Universe without depositing. Well, unfortunately it was removed and redone from its previous iterations. The new system is…well buggy and broken. I will avoid my usual conspiracy theory but will add one note saying that I believe that MindArc will not improve or debug this system for a while, as it is the only part of the system they really don’t make any money off of, and frustrated newbies will either leave the game or deposit. Either way MindArc wins.

The old system of sweating required a two-step process. First you would meditate or charge up, then you would channel at a mob, and a text notification would pop up telling you whether you were successful or not. It took a while to get anything but it was consistent and worked decently. Also, if I remember right, you got quite a few (10-20ish) bottles of sweat per successful attempt, even if most weren’t successful.

The new system requires you to equip a tool like most other parts of the game, and click on a mob to select it, then click again to activate the tool. You then must keep your cursor aimed on the mob for five seconds. Might not seem that hard, but in reality the mobs zoom around at seemingly random, making this almost impossible to do consistently. Once you are successful, you will only get a handful of bottles of sweat, the most I got off of mobs is 4.

The problems are numerous, but the biggest one I see is that you have to keep a mob with very bad pathing and bad agro control targeted with your cursor. The mobs do have collision detection, meaning they will push you around, which complicates the whole matter. I’ve also heard that skill in sweat gathering has nothing to do with your ability to sweat. An additional problem is that your tool will not always start gathering sweat. There is a graphic that appears as a green field when it works, and there are reports of as many as thirty nine clicks of the tool before it will fire. My own personal worst is about a dozen and best is about six before it will work.

Your mileage may vary, but I see this as a great impediment to doing any sort of sweating experiment in EU.
-VG

On Experiments

2010-06-25T11:23:00.000-07:00

I'm looking to start another experiment along the lines of my failed WoW Experiment, where I looked at the time it took to level two different classes in WoW. At first I thoguht I would simply level all classes (except Death Knight) to level 20 or 30 and see how long it took, how much money they earned, and the like. However, since I am no longer playing WoW, and have no desire to put that much effort into that game, I cannot do that experiment. Looking at the MMO's available to me at the moment, none seem that interesting to perform any sort of levelling experiment. I do, however, welcome suggestions if you have any.

I am thinking about getting into Entropia Universe again, as they have had several interesting developments. I am not wanting to invest money so I could easily do an experiment on the fabled no-deposit playstyle. If I keep decent records it should pose interesting to look at this supposedly free to play game and see if its possible to enjoy the game while depositing no money.

I also have half a mind to do some mining to see the returns on that. Perhaps if I earn enough on sweating I could get into mining, but again, the fact I am not depositing makes this very difficult. Honestly, maybe that is what will make it fun: the difficulty. I am bored of games that are too easy, and while I could spend a bunch of money to get the best gear and skill implants, I could also just stick with one or two things, get good at them, and try to break even. Heck, what's the worst that could happen? I'm not going to loose money, and I know better now than to sell everything I find to the vendor.

-VG

Ten Strategy Elements of Napoleon Total War

2010-06-24T10:04:00.000-07:00

If you have played Empire Total War you may think you are going to be great at Napolean Total War, and you may not be far off. However, there are differences in strategy needed as some game mechanics have changed drastically. Play enough and these things will become second nature.

10. Fight your own battles: As always with Total War, this rule does not change. Even the most uneven fights will end better if you play yourself; whether this means retreating or sealing off the enemy so their units are outright destroyed rather than just shattered to reappear on the campaign map. Besides, how can you get good at fighting in any situation if you let the computer handle things for you?

9. Understand Replenishment: Learn how replinishment works so your damaged units are healed before the battle begins. Also know exactly how much you will benefit from supply depots and the like. Territories that won't see combat usually don't need replenishment buildings. Your front line, however, will almost certainly need some.

8. Keep a Mobile Force: You will always need to be able to react to the enemy, but surprising him is also key. I've won a few dozen battles by destroying incoming reinforcements before they could join up with a larger force. Because I had faster units, I was able to send their friends running before they joined the battle proper. Higher mobility also means flank attacks, overrunning artillery, and many other powerful strategies are at your command.

7. Destroy the Enemy: Shattering the enemy is nice, and removes them from combat, but when possible, decimate the enemy units so that they do not reappear on the campaign map. The worst case is loosing your army to an unfortunate accident after shattering a number of units, and having the entire enemy army reappear and reorganize while your army is destroyed. Napoleon makes this harder by removing the flags from the shattered units, but it is still fairly easy to keep track of enemy units that are fleeing.

6. Seek Targets of Opportunity and Annoyance: Damaging things in enemy territories with small forces is a good strategy to annoy your enemy into revealing his forces and in general just wasting his time and money. In battle, targetting isolated units, creating advantages, and a whole host of opportunistic events are available to the player. Use these to your advantage.

5. Bull Markets: Your counties are worth a lot in this game, as are their economies and buildings. These will ultimately win the war, and no matter how many battles you win, economic attrition will eventually topple you if you are not careful. The economy is the long-term solution to the war.

4. Create a Balanced Army: An army should be able to react to any situation, and work well together. A mix of artillery, cavalry, and infantry should do the trick. More or less of each according to taste, but you will find yourself wishing you had one or the other when you are lacking them. I will note that units don't get along as much with artillery in this game, and you will kill many of your own units if you are not careful with them around your guns.

3. Have a back-up plan: Things will go wrong. Plan for it. Always be building extra units, have another strategy, find a way around. Inevitably, the enemy will outsmart you somewhere, and you will find yourself rushing to your own defenses. If you are ready for anything, you can quickly turn the tide on the enemy, and turn his gambit into a fatal move.

2. Make Use of Terrain: In the campaign and battle maps, terrain is important. Cannons like hills, infantry like open line of sight, cavalry operate best on the open field. Know your units, know the terrain, and you will win many battles. Also on the campaign map, you can utilize chokepoints, plan invasion paths and the like just by careful examination of the terrain. Also, the two intertwine, so if you have a lot of cavalry, fight on/near the plains in the campaign map to have a smoother map when the battle starts.

1. Understand Attrition Warfare: Napoleon is very much an attrition campaign. The changes to the replenishment mechanic, and the style of warfare make it obvious. You will loose troops, and troops that survive will be severely depleted. New troops will always be needed and needed on the front lines. Get used to this style, and realize that you will not always have veteran units, and the units and mix you have now will probably be much different after the battle. Make the best of it, and ensure that your enemies suffer the most. After all, an army shot to pieces is preferred to an army that ceases to exist.

I hope you have fun in Napoleon, I know I will be having fun with this game for a while.

On the MMO Market

2010-06-23T19:55:00.000-07:00

I’ve noticed a drought recently of decent MMORPG titles. Many promising games seem to be pushed off and pushed off, and just around the corner are two interesting games: Guild Wars 2 and Final Fantasy 14. I’m beginning to wonder if there is even room in the MMORPG market at the moment with WoW dominating the way it is. No game has so much as nudged the giant of the industry.

Final Fantasy 14 will probably fare the same. It will be the same story as FFXI, probably with updated graphics and maybe a slightly different class and ability system. With any luck the crafting system will be diverse and strange as it was in XI. I will probably play this game when it is released, if only to see what it is like.

Guild Wars 2 will, I hope, be free to play like the first title. I will play it primarily because of that, but I hope it is able to do something innovative. Honestly I don’t expect much out of the game. It will certainly not be a WoW buster as it can be considered of another genre all together; namely being a free to play MMO after the software is purchased.

The other game that will be coming out is, of course, SWTOR. I’m not sure how I feel about this game. It could be very good, but I still feel a looming threat of mediocrity that will prevent it from being the game it should be. I want a strong Star Wars game, but I fear that the only chance we had at one died a long time ago.

I hope that something will come along to nudge WoW out of the leader position, only because that will mean another MMO that has something in it that is very worth playing. Oh well, I can dream.

-VG

On Blizzard’s Real ID system

2010-06-22T13:56:00.000-07:00

I’ve been feeling the urge the last few days to play WoW, and I realize that the reason is not so much to play, but rather to chat with some of my online friends whom are usually too busy playing to chat outside of the game. Blizzard may have a solution for this in their new RealID system. Essentially it is a steam-esque chat system, but the real power in it is that you can talk to your friends without having to remember what characters they play and you can find them online even if they are not in the game you are playing (WoW, Warcraft, Starcraft, etc).

While I haven’t been able to register or use the system yet, I am very excited about it and hope to have a more thorough review soon. Please stay tuned to see if this program is a success or just sucky.
-VG

On Napoleon Total War

2010-06-21T13:16:00.000-07:00

Napoleon Total war is probably best compared to Rome Total War: Alexander, in that it is built on an existing game, but is not quite an expansion nor is it quite a sequel. Also, Napoleon, like Alexander, focuses on one commander and portrays historical battles where you take the side of the famous leader (Napoleon in this case). The two titles depart there, though.

Alexander, in my opinion, was a flop. One main campaign that wasn’t that well put together and relied entirely on mercenaries instead of the fun country building of the other Total War games? It wasn’t worth it in my opinion. Napoleon, however, has several campaigns, relies significantly on nation building, as well as army management and battles. Either the developers learned from Alexander, or they decided to just take the game in a little bit of a different direction, either way it is a major win.

Naval battles are back from Empire TW, and they are much improved. The AI is better, the ships move and attack better (though manual control still is preferred most of the time for me at least), and you can repair your ships provided they are not being attacked. I can’t count the number of times I lost a ship because of sinking due to combat damage while it was out of the battle entirely. An added bonus is, so far I haven’t had a catastrophic crash to desktop from naval battles (which happened a lot and still happens randomly in Empire).

Napoleon also brings his artillery prowess to the field. Maybe I am imagining it, but artillery seems to act smarter and work better than it did in Empire. I’m not talking unit effectiveness, merely that it responds to commands better. It will sometimes kill your own units if they are too close to the target or there is a misfire, this is especially true with short ranged grape shot. I will say that grapeshot is much more useful in this game than in Empire, mostly because it seems to have been given a range buff. Artillery also turns more intelligently and the gun crews will defend themselves with some intelligence. I’ve always either lost a crew or intercepted attacks before they got to the artillery, but in Napoleon gun crews that are saved or that regroup can pick up their guns (if they aren’t damaged) and only loose the ability to move them (due to lack of horses), otherwise are as effective as ever.

The overall land combat interface is much improved as well. Shattered units loose their status bar and flag to make identifying active enemies easier, Generals have gained an inspire ability in addition to their anti-routing one, and in general the game has been improved in many small ways. I could list all the new buildings, improvements et all, but you should buy this game. One wonderful improvement is the ability of units to replenish lost soldier passively within friendly territory. This eliminated the costly pay to replenish that didn’t work very well in empire.

I’ll have more later, but I am busy thoroughly enjoying Napoleon Total War. Have fun
-VG

On Steam (briefly)

2010-06-18T19:43:00.000-07:00

Just thought I would mention that if you are on Steam and wish to add me my Steam ID is: Tigerus2004

Feel free to friend me if you like.

Cheers
-VG

On Borderlands

2010-06-18T14:54:00.000-07:00

Borderlands has been out for a while, but with my semi-limited gaming schedule, I'm just now really getting into it the way it deserves. I've noticed a few peculiarities with the game that I thought I'd mention.

First, let me say I've played it on the XBOX 360 only without playing the expansions yet. The base game on console is my only experience with the game.

Borderlands seems to be a game desperately trying to be a cut-rate MMORPG. That said, it is a very solid and fun game, combining some of the best elements of the troubled MMOFPS genre, and indeed if it was an expanded game with a few tweaks and was an actual MMO, it would sell very well. The things that are the most MMO-ey about the whole thing are the loot system and the difficulty of the game.

The loot system will seem very familiar to many MMOers. It has the WoW loot coloring system, and also the abundance of loot that comes with many MMO's (most of which is junk you will vendor and never want to see again). The problem that arises is that while Borderlands seems to generate guns with random attributes and modifiers, which is a good thing, this randomness makes the color-coding loot system superfluous. If anything, the color coding is misleading. I have yet to run accross a legendary (orange) gun that is worth having over my favorites (usually blue or green, but I do have a couple purples that are delicious). I've also noticed that guns are either really good, average, or really bad. This comes from a mix of stats, for instance, a ridiculous damage with a decent crit multiplier and slow speed is still a good gun, but average in all categories will probably just get you killed. It seems that crit multiplier is one of the more important categories. At any rate, the loot system is wonky and its best to experiment with guns before vendoring them. You may find a hidden treasure that you would have thrown away.

The next part that is MMO-ey is the difficulty. I tried playing this game solo, and its definately do-able, but the repetitiveness of the game comes through in solo mode, and having twice the loot is pointless if you can't carry it all. Playing with even one friend makes the game more fun, with complimentary class abilities and twice the carry capacity (and reviving, covering, and various other tactics) you can definately enjoy the game more. Would this remain true if this was multiplied by millions of others? Well, the game would have to be expanded, but I believe it would be.

This is a rarity in that I am supporting the transformation of a decent base game and think it could be improved by becoming an MMORPG. Hopefully it will become one, but I am doubtful it will ever get off the ground. Here's hoping
-VG

On Steam

2010-06-17T17:02:00.000-07:00

Like many gamers I have a steam account, with 23 games currently in my library (it would be more, but I hate buying games twice and I wasn’t into steam until about eight months ago). I’ve thought both good and bad things about steam service, but I’m not fully sure if it’s a net positive or net negative (which is also a terrible pun on the fact that it is an internet based service).

On the positive side of things, it ensures rapid access to games. It also has great deals on games (one of my best purchases was the Total War pack, which was worth every penny, and was a rare case of me rebuying a couple games I already owned). The community parts of it ensure that you can connect with others who play the same games you do (I’ve met a few multiplayer partners via steam groups), and their forums provide useful insight into game problems, walkthroughs, and the like. Steam also provides a market for independent game developers without the costs of distributing through a major marketer.

The negative side of things, though, is a bit murkier. Like many gamers I know, I have a hard time turning down a good deal on games. Steam regularly offers games at cheap discounts, which are hard to resist. They package games together in bundles and sell these at ridiculous prices, and while some games you may own or not want, you will buy the package because of the one or two frontliners that you can get for a discount over retail stores. Is this still a bad thing though? Maybe you wouldn’t have purchased the game at that time, but you are still getting more than you would from a retailer at a cheaper price….

Maybe what I don’t like about it is that I know I’m being manipulated by marketing, and its working. I am forced to admit that, while I usually am full of ardor and spin a negative into everything I see, if not to see both sides of an argument then at least to double the length of these posts, I am unable to really say that steam has a true negative side. It seems to be one of the best services evolved by the internet. My steam library is always growing, and I appreciate any recommendations you may have.
-VG

On Casual Play

2010-06-16T05:51:00.000-07:00

My last post was, of course, about addiction, but addiction seems to be more and more of a problem these days. I think I have an idea about why.

MMORPG's and other games used to be about difficulty level. It was hard to get to the end, and only serious gamers would put in the time and effort to do so. For MMORPG's this was the grind, but for many other games it was just a difficulty curve that was fairly steep. This meant that being a gamer meant wasting a lot of your free time playing games. However, most games were beatable in X number of hours. Going way back, Super Mario Brothers could easily be beaten in an hour or less, and a couple hours if you played through every single level. Only the RPGs of the Nintendo era took much time to beat once mastered, and even then they pale in comparison to today's titles (the ability to save several game files independantly of the disc/cartridge did wonders to game length). In this era, casual gamers didn't really exist, in that there weren't really any hardcore gamers either. Gamers were just gamers, and consoles were light entertainment.

Now, though, there are distinct differences between casual and hard core gamers. Many games will be beaten eventually by everyone, merely because there is an inevitable end to the story, but most aren't difficult enough on the normal mode to prevent unskilled players from beating them. Eventually everyone will win at a modern game. For hardcore gamers there are achievements, multiplayer, hard modes, unlockables, and a handful of other things that they can spend more time than is required to beat the game to 100% complete the game.

MMORPG's are a different beast all together, but have similarities. In WoW, for instance, given enough time everyone will reach max level. In the old version of the game, though, not everyone would be able to raid without significant time investment. That is no longer true. In current versions of WoW, with the badge systems, someone who plays for a half hour a day can, in the course of a few months, get very good raid gear. This unlocks part of the game, end-game raiding, to almost everyone. The over-use of addons such as gearscore also allows casual gamers, some of whom are great and others who are not, the same access to raiding as hard-core gamers, sans of course membership in a raiding guild, which many casual gamers will not be able to achieve.

Maybe I should be happy that games are appealing to a casual audience, because I am becoming more and more a casual gamer due to time constraints. I can, in theory. play a game for a hour or so and still get somewhere in it. This is true now of many MMORPGs as well. However, the influx of casual gaming also cheapens the feeling that comes with beating a game or doing well. Being invited into a raid in WoW used to mean something, not its just to fill space. Finishing a difficult game used to mean something, now its not a feat unless its on hard mode or you have X Y and Z achievement. Maybe I'm just bitter that I don't have the time to spend enjoying games for a large portion of my day.

-VG

On Addiction

2010-06-15T17:42:00.001-07:00

I've recently decided that I am a bit of a wow addict. Okay I am a full blown WoW addict with multiple re-occurances of the disorder. I've read many things and determined that Blizzard's game plays to my manic-depressive tendencies and its quick reward system makes playing for a "little bit longer" more of a problem than its ever been for me. To be frank and honest I have a hard road ahead of me to prevent myself from doing what I always do: Stall and feel confident that I don't need to play WOW for a few weeks or months, then con myself into believing that I can control my access to the game, or that I will only play casually. Finally I ruin some aspect of my life by spending all my free time in THAT game. It's a viscious circle that I have been caught in for some time.

I think at times like this, that is when I am attempting like the junkie that I am to stay clean, of what I have lost to video games. Rather what I have lost to my inability to maintain control and not obsess over video games. The list is very long. It includes almost ruining my dating life multiple times, my engagement, and my marriage. It includes being a contributing factor to more than one grade received that is below my ability. It includes countless rounds of depression, lost social opportunities, lost friends. It includes the rape of my creativity, the sacrificing of the ghosts of books that haunt my dreams unwritten, and the real life masteries I forsook to take up mastery in a game.

What have I gained for it? A few achievements? Characters that won't matter at all in five years and will be outdated and undergeared in five weeks? Countless hours, days, weeks, months, years of my life wasted waiting, playing, grinding, collecting, questing, raiding....for what? So that a bit of code on a server changed a little. So that the electronic representation of my wasted life has better gear.

It isn't worth it. This is a declaration that I needed to realize and make when I first was given the opportunity to play WoW. That while it is fun, it is a game and not worth the obsession. It is not worth the lost time of my life.

Detox will be difficult. Probably the most difficult thing I've ever done. I have a lot of hard times ahead of me. It is made more difficult in that I have friends that I have played various MMORPG's with for six+ years that are currently playing wow. They understand my need and my decision but Wow is the easiest way of talking to them. I sometimes wonder if they are addicts themselves, trapped like I am. They are usually playing, and while I could chat in vent with them, conversation is always about Wow, and thus not a good environment for me. It is all difficult.

If you are an addict, I pity you, and understand your plight first-hand. Remain strong. I'd love to chat with anyone who is suffering as I am. Please email me or contact me via YIM: tigerus2004 *at* yahoo.com Thank you for reading.
-VG

Why I played A tale In The Desert

2010-05-15T21:59:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking about starting a new series called "Why I played..." and listing some of the many games and MMO's I played for a significant amount of time, and what I enjoyed about them...we will start with A Tale in the Desert, which, despite my complaints about how it was run, I enjoyed my time with.

The reasons I enjoyed it though revolve around the mini-game style of the various aspects of it. Everything was a mini-game from crossbreeding to glass making. I enjoyed having to be somewhat skilled in parts of the game to actually make them function (especially wine making and glass making, but the latter I succesfully macroed at one point). I would still be playing the game for these aspects if the overall system wasn't so difficult and time consuming.

I am looking for a game that simulates these parts of it, especially if it included an economic reason for making wine or similar items. In ATITD, the economy exists but is a barter economy, which largely sucks for a game. Its hard enough finding something you can make that someone else wants, let alone getting a good idea of what something is "worth." For example, sheet glass for me in ATITD wasn't very valuable as I had max skill in making it, all the equipment and large stockpiles of materials, but to someone who doesn't make glass it could be valuable. Also, I have sold glass for 4-5 ash per pane, and for 150 leeks per pane. It's all variable and relative, and my prices were almost always negotiated.

If anyone has any game recommendations that recreate the good aspects of this game but with better support and a better economy I'd appreciate the answer. Thanks.
-VG

ATITD Bastet and Server Population

2010-05-14T17:42:00.000-07:00

I spoke earlier about Critical Minimum Server Population and its relation to the Bastet shard of ATITD. Well, more on that, as I've had some time to play and talk with some players. My experiences are in line with what I thought would happen, and a cursory look at the research pages of ATITD's bastet wiki will show it.

The shard is paused at a few critical technologies, one of which is crossbreeding, a technology neccesary for advanced flax and vine production (among other things). On the main shard with this technology, flax production easily increased ten fold by the skilled crossbreeding by Tedra of her flax strains. Flax is used for many, many things in ATITD, so its important to improve production (not just numbers but ease of production too, Tedra's pre-mutagen strains were 5 flax, 5 rotten flax, 5 seeds with one weeding; whereas the current flaxes in bastet produce one or two flax and require two weedings or a weeding and a watering).

So what's holding up this obviously needed technology? Distillation Coils! For a while the technology to make them was locked because of its reliance on other technologies that weren't unlocked. Finding a lithium vein solved that problem, and thoughts were that things would move speedily from there on, but now, weeks later, there has only been one of the two dozen distillation coils donated for research. This is showing another flaw in low server population:

Lower server populations have a lack of skilled people. Like any economy, there need to bee people skilled at different things. Imagine WOW without any skinners, herbalists, or miners. Now imagine WOW without any inscribers or enchanters....or worse, with only two competent healers on the entire server. WOW is a bad example for this, because its much higher base population, and has a currency. Because of the lower population *and* lack of currency, Bastet has a severe shortage of competent labor. This will spell major problems as the shard moves forward, as research requirements only become more specific and larger.

Now I'm not saying that there are no competent people on this server, just that there are too few. You need some basic level of population to support a basic level of competent people in various fields. Nobody wants to be on a server without basic amenities.

I'll be keeping an eye on Bastet to see how things develop. Teppy imagines that this server will take 6 to 9 months to reach end-game. I think it will be much longer.

Cheers
-VG

On Life Simulation

2010-04-25T22:37:00.001-07:00

There is a sub-genre that is fairly common to many gamers, casual and mainstream, that is the Life Simulation MMORPG. These are MMO's, like second life, WURM and even ATITD that attempt to simulate real life instead of a fantasy setting. Now when I say real life I don't neccesarily mean on earth (as WURM takes place in a fantasy realm but has the player deal with real life problems like food and shelter).

These MMO's for some reason have a great popularity, and I think I understand why. We, as gamers, play games to experience things we would not otherwise be able to experience, whether this is racing in a Nascar race or fighting an ongoing war between orcs and humans. It would logically seem that the tasks of cooking food and cleaning the house are uninteresting, but games like the Sims have made it clear that they are indeed fun...somewhat. Life Simulation is all about the what ifs...what if i became an astronaut instead of an English Professor. What if I decided to hook up with every girl I met? What if I had to live on my own in a shack I built myself and survive.

As aptly named as the game by the title is, these games give people a second life. Not just an entertaining character to play. People enjoy alternatives without all the penalties of those choices. Lets face it, our current life choices are permanent for the most part. We can't have all the options we can make in video games. That's the point, and why we buy and play so many of them. Lets face it, I'm an alt-oholic. I need to experience as much of a game as possible with many multiple characters, experimenting and trying other things and tactics, which is one of the reasons I liked Star Wars Galaxies and its skill system.

What I'm trying to say is that Life Simulations of any level are interesting because they simulate life. There's a large market niche here, but the difficulty curve can't be too high. More on this later, once I get a little more coherent on my thoughts about it.
-VG

On ATITD Bastet

2010-04-25T08:14:00.000-07:00

In my last post I spoke about the Bastet shard of A Tale in the Desert. I have since played on this shard, talked to many people on it and on the main shard, and done a thorough search of the wiki for both main and bastet shards as well as the "legacy" wikis from previous tales. I've come to some general conclusions about the game and its future iterations.

The only way multiple servers can effectively work for this game is if they are launched simultaneously; and only then if they treated and maintained like other MMORPG's multi-server systems. The reason is fairly simple...

Critical Minimum Server Population. I'll say it again Critical Minimum Server Population. There exists a point at which a server is not crowded enough for people to play a game effectively. The more single-player oriented the game is the less this impacts it, but all MMORPGs have to reach a CMSP to remain viable. World of Warcraft is very good at hitting this with their new servers, and only has problems with some of its pvp servers. Games like Warhammer Online and Age of Conan and even Aion have problems maintaining population and thus creep closer to CMSP, and failure. Star Wars Galaxies has had to merge servers in order to maintain a level of population above CMSP, but still is struggling.

CMSP is a tricky thing to manage, because Dunbar's Number also applies to this situation. Dunbar's number is a concept that people naturally gather in groups of a certain size, and above that size splinter off into separate groups. The two work in concert with MMORPGs, because if you are near or above Dunbar's number, you have overcrowding, but if you are below CMSP you have no community and players suffer.

In reference to ATITD; they suffer from both problems at once. First, the main shard is above Dunbar's number in terms of crowding (legacy structures from expired accounts that have not been torn down, mines that are beyond reasonable repair, and a lot of crap littering the more populated areas) and overpopulation (the majority of the game is relegated by passing tests, in which you compete against other players. New players are at the moment, virtually unable to pass some of the more competitive tests because of the current server state). This leads to a frustrating inability for players to start and build in the main shard anywhere but a crappy location with poor access to resources or travel buildings.

Bastet suffers from the opposite problem. Competitive tests are easy enough, spots are plenty, but there aren't enough people to pass some of the massive tests, like tests of acrobatics. This test requires people to learn a variety of acrobatic moves one "facet" at a time from others (seven facets to a move). Sounds easy enough but the chance to learn from a person is variable, each person is given one move initially (the rest must be learned) and you can only learn one or two facets per move per person (with a huge chance that you will not be able to learn any facets). Also, there are too few people to ensure you have access to things that require a lot of people, such as stone digs. If you need to buy something or don't want to make it yourself, good luck getting a decent or doable price as everything is rare.

The solution? Well unfortunately none for ATITD. The only true solution would be release both shards at once, however, the whole point of the shard is to bring in more players. If given a choice most of the old players would flock to one server to play together, and inevitably one server would get ahead and the other would fall behind. The stagnant server would probably not be viable for long (that said most of Egenesis's money comes from lengthy subscriptions, and requiring each shard to have its own subscription cost means lots of money would still come in). Releasing one server later than the other leads to the same problem: one overpopulated server and one underpopulated server. The only way to have two viable servers is to have one subscription fee. That way you could play on both servers if you wanted. however that defeats the whole purpose of two servers as many people would play with both and the net increase in population is both hard to measure and probably very low.

In short, ATITD's system is more or less relegated to a single server system. There is no good way to make two servers identical with different groups of population, save binding them together so the populations can't be that out of whack (shutting down new character creation on one until the other reaches a certain limit) or research and technology are kept close (reduce the costs for research on the slower one and/or increase times and costs for the faster one). I just don't think it will work for the players, but it is certain to work for certain pocketbooks.

A Shard in the Desert

2010-04-17T09:37:00.000-07:00

I've played A Tale in the Desert IV off and on for a while; and while the game has appealed to some of my tastes, the large amount of mismanagement by the games developer (and might I add the only one who sees any money out of subscriptions on the development team) Teppy drove me away from the game...

Well Teppy has announced that Tale 5 will probably start in less than six months, and also that he is creating a second server, or shard for the game. This new server will require a new subscription in order to be played on; which to me just translates into more money in his pockets. This is very unfortunate for the player base, and will cause a great deal of trouble for EGenesis, the "company" that runs the game (I use that term loosely).

I'm debating whether or not to try out this new shard, and I will be surely submitting a trial character to it, moreso to discuss the game with former players and see how this new shard is effecting them (at least one of my friends in-game has moved to the new shard). I'll have more of a verdict in the future but for now, this just seems like another money scheme...

However this shard promises to be "Player driven" instead of developer driven...meaning all the tests and techs will be coded ahead of time, like the game is complete or something....yeah I know...real revolutionary.

On XBOX 360 and Console Gaming

2010-04-02T19:31:00.000-07:00

I've recently joined the ranks of console gamers (defined to myself as spending more time per week playing on my console than my computer, which honestly is a feat in and of itself given my addiction to PC games), and I've noticed something that irritates me: Game programmers typically are sloppy with their code.

Now don't get me wrong, i know it takes a lot of work to create a quality game, but does that mean that every loose line of code needs to remain in it? Is this a DNA strand with left over bits of genetic information from thousands of years of evolving? No, it's computer code that is messy. Take, for instance, Assasin's Creed (the original). It played horribly on the PC because of the massive amounts of environmental detail that were loaded, but also because the code was far from optimized (note: my computer is a top of the line model, and more suited to playing that game than my xbox was at the time). When played on the console, though, Assasin's Creed played much more smoothly. Given the relative power levels of my PC vs my Xbox (my PC can run circles around my XBox) it is clear that it is the software that is inferior.

Game developers are limited with consoles. They have to conform to what the console is capable of in terms of processing power and memory. With computers, not so much. They can just slap a higher requirement on the label, and force their customers to evolve or die. Because of this, PC versions ship with looser code and more bugs than console versions.

Another reason for this is simple: Patches. PC games can be easily patched whereas until recently this was impossible for console games (many Xbox games now can be patched through XBox Live, but are still patched to a lesser extent). Patches give the feeling that things can be fixed later, and don't need to be optimized now.

In short, I feel that developers are getting lazy with PC games, and in lieu of quality they choose speed...and the idea that it can be fixed later. The industry is in great trouble if they think this strategy can go on forever. More and more players boycott games that are bad on release until they are fixed, and the internet, once a tool for distributing patches to fix these games, will soon become a gossip ground for avoiding bad games.

Aion, You are a Confusing Woman

2009-10-07T11:58:00.000-07:00

I started playing the release version of Aion, and I must say this little lady is giving my betrothed a run for her money. Aion is in many ways a game that I have been waiting for, and it feels very next-generation, whether or not you believe it is. My personal opinion on that matter is a bit shrouded, but then again, it is still close to the release day, so I'll give it some time to evolve before I give it my harsh judgments.

The game, however, is beautiful, but with some flaws. Namely, there are a large number of botters and gold farmers. These tend to crop up in any MMORPG, as lazy slobs don't want to play the game they bought, they just want to experience the end-game content, which largely amounts to going to a movie and paying someone to save you a seat, only showing up for the ending credits. NC Soft is working on a solution to both, and I must say, the auto-report function for botting is a handy tool. I'm not sure what it does, but the few botters I've reported disappeared from the area I was in, presumably they were forcibly disconnected I do wonder about the griefing potential of this tool, but more remains to be seen.

In any case, Aion has a few major flaws that need fixing. Well, major is just a word that sounds good, in all honesty, the game is good as-is, sans the aforementioned lazy slobs. The game could be improved in three major ways:

1. Add an overlay to the mini-map that shows quest givers (and also make the greyed-out quest symbol appear more distinct from the largely gray-tone backgrounds). This makes finding quests so much easier, as I've been around the entirity of major cities and found half the quests by sheer chance (mostly after having to land in a weird area after running out of flight time). Secondly, make the "Quest here! but you're too low level" symbol more distinct. A good deal of the scenery is in grey tone, as is that symbol. This makes it very hard to tell the difference at times.

2. Input Lag: There are some significant input-lag problems with the game as it is. This isn't a problem in combat, or PVP in my experience. It is a problem in resource gathering. There is about a 10% chance that you will start gathering and stop immediatly (and hence fail, and loose a chance at that resource) because of input lag. Also, many people report auto-attack periodically stopping for a similar reason.

MMORPGs Elements Revisited

2009-09-10T08:29:00.000-07:00

In my previous post I talked about the elements that I thought were vital to any MMORPG. I was fairly brief in my descriptions of it, so I think I'll expand it a bit and explain further. Keep in mind, these are in order of importance for my engjoyment, but I try to keep it universal.

10. Well designed skill/talent/etc system for advancement: Levelling in and of itself is not the goal of any MMORPG, getting stronger and able to handle more content, however, is. In that logic, as you advance you should be getting better at your role and able to do more. This relies on a system for advancement of specific skills (i.e. melee damage, ability to hit, etc) as well as special abilities and moves (i.e. Mortal Strike, backstab, etc). These should improve as you level, or there should be a seperate mechanic that improves them, but something that makes logical sense. The more straight-forward this system is, the less hassle there is involved in gaining your new skills.

9. Reasonable levelling requirements: When Blizzard was releasing TBC and WOTLK, they had a major problem with xp gains. Namely, that it took a ludircous amount of xp to gain lvl 61 and lvl 71 respectively. They fixed this by decreasing the xp needed and increasing the xp rewarded from quests and mobs in those expansions (an effect that can still be seen by grinding equal level mobs in hellfire peninsula and eastern plaguelands, the hellfire ones give a great deal more xp). I have played MMORPGs that were easy for the first few levels, then the xp requirements shot up to a ridiculous level. One caveat, though, a game like Entropia Universe, where skill progression is based on a progressively increasing xp requirement for that particular skill, works well with this kind of system, because it creates a soft cap in a skill, a point where gaining more skill would take more xp than the benefit is worth. This also allows other players to catch up a bit to those who have been playing forever.

8. Player-Based Content: I am wanting content beyond what the developers think we need. This can be as simple as player-inspired RP events to actual player cities. This is both to allow players to have an impact in the worth and to have something to enjoy that is not neccesarily a developer priority (they should be worried about mechanics of the game more than making it pretty, let players make it pretty). Now, there should be regulation on this sort of thing as when given freedom a great deal of people on the internet tend towards the darker sides of expression (sex, racism, violence, etc) that is not needed in a social game.

7. Continued development: I want the game to keep evolving and changing. While I don't prefer to have to buy expansion after expansion to see the new content, it is still preferable to a game that only has a certain amount of content, and once you've played through it there's no reason to play through any further. Blizzard did a good job by releasing new raids and holding plot-driven events before TBC, and then continued to have excellent content additions throughout. The addition of the Collisseum is one great example. That was soemthing that could have waited until Cataclysm, but Blizzard released it now. Also, the various new battlegrounds (even the originals were content additions and not in the release version) are excellent examples of this. This does, however, tend to encourage developers to leave certain aspects out of the base game so they can be released later, which is unfortunate.

6. Competitions: MMORPGs should have some form of competitions to enocurage intelligent play. Blizzard does WoW tournaments that test levelling speed and skill. These can range from decorating contests (where the best decorator of their MMORPG house is rewarded in some way) to Player Spotlights, where a player or guild is interviewed by the developers and the interview posted on the website. Anything can be included, but the idea is to bolster community and involvement.

5. PVP: PVP is as important as non-combat competitions. However, PVP, when balanced and fair is some of the most fun you can have. With Blizzard's changes to their PVP battlegrounds and the virtual elimination of twinks (i.e. a restoration of fairness), I have not had more fun in battlegrounds since they first came out (i.e. before people figured out every exploit in them). When PVP is fair and balanced, it comes down to skill, and if it's friendly, it is fun. I have had many duels with friends where we were balanced characters, and the victor was the one who used his class the best. Many of these duels were fun for the winner and looser (I lost a lot to one of my friends, but enjoyed the duel). This is the essence of PVP...fun competition.

4. Balanced Gear System: If WoW has one failure it's that most gear that isn't randomly generated is very class specific. These class specific gear sets are not universal either. For example, the Wailing Caverns has a set of gear that is oriented towards druids. Scarlet Monestary has a set that is geared towards warriors and paladins. Dead Mines has a set of gear for rogues. However, there are not specific gear sets for all classes until lvl 55+ and end-game raiding. Even PVP gear is difficult to call balanced, as some classes (warriors) have drastically different needs than others (i.e. mages). It's not a matter of balancing +damage stats with +defense stats, its a matter of making the armor roughly equal in utility, which the entire system is clearly not. Resilance is a key point. It is a percentage damage reduction for pvp for damage from virtually all sources. However, it doesn't take into account that 3% DR means more for a warrior than a mage, namely because the warrior, who already has high DR, also has more HP than the mage.

3. Excellent Crafting System: Crafting needs to be more than a grind. There needs to be real skill at it. It should be simple to use but difficult to master. It should also never be completely finished. New patches should release new crafting items, or people should be able to make their own items (see player content). Resource gathering should be in a similar vein, that is to say it should be easy to gain basic materials (of all levels) but the more advanced resources should be difficult to find and use properly. I could go on forever about crafting (bet you're suprised this isn't #1).

2. Developers That Listen: Developers that listen to the concerns of the majority of the players is very important. This helps development, and is key to ensure that the game survives for a very long time. This is the sort of thing that makes or breaks a game. Some games (like SWG) failed miserably because the Devs didn't listen, or when they did they listened to a very small percentage of the player base. Communication is vital to the survival of any MMORPG.

1. Community: I've said it before and I'll say it again: It's the Massively Multiplayer part of MMORPG that makes it fun. Playing without friends or even other people is not the reason we play MMORPGs. This also improves every other part of this list. Again, I could go on forever, but I will just defer to my other posts, and future posts on this subject.

-VG

Tom Clancy's Endwar

2009-09-08T09:40:00.000-07:00

I recently picked up Tom Clancy's Endwar. I am not impressed. The game is largely unplayable, and it is a horrible example of how *not* to make a RTS. The game is rotten down to its very mechanics, not to mention a fairly stereotypical storyline (for Clancy, Russians are evil, and America sticks its nose where it doesn't belong, which is basically the storyline of Endwar).

The game's fatal flaw is in the actual combat mechanics. Every unit is composed of several vehicles or infantry groups (I've never seen an individual infantryman killed, it's usually 2-4 killed at one time). Each unit has a shield that prevents it from being damaged, which regenerates when the unit is out of combat. It appears that every vehicle can be damaged separately (though not targeted separately) so it is possible to have a unit at 50% health with all vehicles still alive. The problem with this is two things: First, that you can not target a specific vehicle to focus-fire on it, you can only target units. Secondly: You have to kill the shield on the whole unit before any vehicles take damage. It is clear that the shield level is based on number of vehicles/squads still active in the unit, because if half the vehicles are destroyed, the shield will only regen to 50%, but if all vehicles are present, but some are damaged, the shield will regen fully.

For an RTS, only being able to target a specific unit and not a specific vehicle in that unit may not be a bad thing, or at least not game-breaking, but this game is based on small-unit tactics. Every destroyed vehicle is vitally important to your strategy, because you have (at most) about 50 vehicles. So far, about halfway through the main campaign, i have had at most 5 units, and three of them have been infantry. Tactics really don't matter in this game. As long as you attack with a strong unit type, you will win.

Speaking of unit types, the game essentially has a rock-paper-scissors system, with a few additions. Tanks beat transports (i.e. machine-gun mounted APCs), transports beat helicopter gunships, and gunships beat tanks. Now, there's also the matter of fortified engineers (with bazookas) being gods as long as they are garrisoned, and canon-fodder when they are not. There is also artillery which is also essentially useless unless you want to kill buildings.

Now, rock-paper-scissors is a decent system to start with, but Endwar doesn't really go beyond it. Rise of Nations uses a type of this system, but it is extensive and changes throughout the eras. It is simple to use, but complex to master. Endwar is simple to use and simple to master, because there is not much there. Endwar also suffers from the problem of rock paper and scissors not being equal. For example, tanks blow the crap out of transports, and transports blow the crap out of gunships, but gunships take forever to damage, let alone kill, tanks. This might make some sense (tank shells can probably blow through lightly armored vehicles and anti-air guns will take down helicopters with ease, but a machine-gun from the air isn't very effective against an armored tank.) This defeats the purpose of having the system, because tanks can be more easily defeated by other tanks than by gunships.

The game also pauses the action to pop up helpful tips that cannot be immediatly closed. Also, the delay between finishing the mission and continuing to the next is very long.

The game does have a few redeeming qualities (though not nearly redeeming enough). First is the voice command system. This sytem never really worked well for me in practice, but it is a good system in theory. Because everything is mapped out in terms of unit numbers and waypoints, you can give verbal commands to "Unit 3 attack hostile 4" or "unit 1 to Foxtrot" so you don't have to manually command each unit. The unfortunate part of this is that, with only ten units to control, there is no reason to use the voice commands. Maybe if the game was much more expansive than it is, this would be useful or even neccesary, but frankly it is not.

Another redeeming quality is that of the after-action rewards. You are given money (used for various world-campaign functions) for various things in battle. You are given money just for being in the battle (base pay) and bonuses for winning, units surviving, enemies destroyed, and other things. This means that if you are very succesful in the battle, but fail the objective, you will still get something for your trouble. It also softens a "loosing spiral" that happens when a player is loosing battles, and has no money to build new units.

I'm going to continue struggling through this game and try to find something enjoyable, but nothing has shown itself to be promising. -VG

Social MMORPGs: Chatting

2009-09-05T12:51:00.001-07:00

Anyone who has spent time levelling in the Barrens knows the bad side of general chat. In the worst cases it is a black hole of intelligence and social graces. Because of the anonymity of the Internet (and because it is a lower level zone with a high population) people don't seem to want to be polite, kind, or just not blatantly racist/sexist/intolerant. I have not been to the Barrens where there has been any intelligent conversation going on, and frankly, I'm glad Blizzard is destroying the zone in the next expansion.

The world trade channel is also less than helpful. Getting an honest answer out of it is like getting blood out of a turnip. Occasionally you can even get some trading done...but don't count on it. People simply don't regularly use this as a trade channel, but instead use it for wide-area chatting (because it is available throughout all major cities). If there were a global chat channel, trade might actually be used for trading.

What this says about our MMORPG society: Essentially, nothing. People have needs and they will use the tools available to them to satiate those needs (i.e. using trade as a general chat channel). People will also act however they want without any constraints if in an environment where they are not held responsible. The Barrens, being a low-level high population zone is filled with people you will probably never have to deal with again. You don't *have* to be polite with them because you don't need them.

Sadly, this isn't enlightening at all, nor is there really any way to control this. Guess we all just have to deal with it.

Social War; MMORPG Society in PVP Situations

2009-09-04T21:19:00.001-07:00

For those of you who don't battleground and group PVP, I must say you are probably missing out on some of the most frustrating, and hilarious social interactions of MMORPGs. My main experience is with battlegrounds, and not world PVP, so I will be primarily talking about that.

Battlegrounds are, in the best cases, very fun. In the worst cases they are frustratingly difficult. In either case, things usually are fast-paced, and there is usually little time for chatting except when action isn't happening. In my experiences, there are two kinds of BG chatting: Productive and Non-Productive. Productive chatting involves things like saying good game, congratulating on a good defense, talking strategy (legitimate strategy), and posting or asking for intelligence (i.e. incomings, or location of Enemy Flag Carriers). Non-Productive chatting involves smack-talk, whining, complaining about any part of the battleground, and other non-helpful noise (please turn off those "funny" macroes, I'm tired of hearing them every time you cast a spell).

Productive chatting is all too rare in most battlegrounds (I will use WoW as an example, because I have experience with it). This can also be correlated with the amount of people on a team that actually work with one another instead of trying to solo the game. Soloers will typically be quiet, or perform non-productive chatting, while team players will call out incomings, even if it doesn't directly benefit them (i.e. they won't get honorable kills for it). The sad part is that Productive chatting is the most useful (obviously) kind for battlegrounds. Intelligence is one of the factors that wins battles, and knowing that there is a rogue in the tunnel (because he just killed you) is vital if your flag carrier is nearby (and hence, vulnerable to said rogue). Being able to react, and the counter-attack is of vital importance.

For example, in a recent Warsong Gulch (Capture the flag) battleground, my team was close to capturing the flag. Someone reported that a lot of enemies were coming up the tunnel. While they were not close enough to kill our flag carrier before he could capture, they were close enough to grab the flag when it respawned. Instead of dispersing ourselves once the flag was captured, and trying to grab theirs quickly, someone suggested we "Hold in flag room for the alliance and counter-attack." The Alliance, not expecting a counter-attack did not react swiftly, and were quickly crushed. Their organized attack broke down, and they lost momentum, which allowed us to get another flag shortly after. Without both the reported intelligence *and* the suggestion/order to hold and counter-attack, the Alliance would have probably captured our flag immediatly after we captured theirs. This is the difference between a quick victory and a drawn-out battle.

Non-Productive chatting is far more prevalent, especially when the chatter's team is loosing. It is generally useless and gets more frequent the worse a team is doing (especially if the chatter is dying more often than they think they should). Essentially this type of chatting is a venting system, and allows players to blame everyone but themselves for failing to stay alive/capture the flag/pwning a noob/etc. Being dead makes this type of chatting easy, especially as the failure probably caused their death, and chatting in the middle of battle is, as said before, not easy or productive. This type of chatting really irritates me, and I'd rather people just not talk. Frankly, it is not Blizzard's fault if the team is unable to work together, or if the other side has more/higher level players. Perhaps I am venting myself about it, but I just don't see this as helpful.

What does this say about MMORPG society? Well, not much really. People who communicate tend to work well together. People who blame everyone else for their problems tend to not be helped by members of their team. Frankly, we like people who don't bitch, and we all roll our eyes at bitchers. This is true in real society as with virtual ones. Of course, it is self-serving as well. If I want to win, I will report tactical information hoping someone uses it. If I start acting that way, perhaps others will too. Of course, I'm probably just kidding myself.

In any rate, I don't battleground to win, I battleground to have fun. Listening to whiners isn't fun, nor does it help us win. Up next, the dreaded general chat channel. For veterans of the Barrens chat, please tune in tomorrow.

Star Wars: Total War

2009-09-04T00:36:00.001-07:00

Having finally gotten Empire Total War working on my computer, and playing it for the last few hours, I have come to an interesting conclusion: The Total War engine, with slight modification, would be a wonderful platform for a Star Wars version of the game. Now, I'm sure you're thinking to yourself: VG, we already have that in Empire at War. In one sense, yes, you are correct. EaW is the latest iteration of the full empire-building game, complete with space and ground combat, but there's frankly little strategy in that kind of combat. Total Was is about far more than micromanaging units, it is about the entire feel of running an empire and commanding troops.

If Empire Total War has shown anything it is that a non-ground based combat style is possible (via the naval warfare). This can be translated into space combat with some modification (handling of the 3rd dimension in space has always been tricky, even in EaW. This would make space combat largely doable in the Total War engine. Since damage tracking is also done and directly effects mobility and firepower, this too is doable for starships. Ship capture, which simply hasn't been done effectively in a star wars empire game, is also very possible (let's face it, the rebels relied heavily on captured star destroyers).

Ground combat could be a little trickier, though. Total War has not used any sort of aerial combat to my knowledge, so straffing runs and aerial reinforcing from the fleet would have to be added. I think it is vital that any reinforcing not be done automatically (as is the case with Empire Total War). There should be an option to call in reinforcements, or hold off on doing so. Another major addition will be vehicles. Canon are good analogues for many of the turrets and defense systems that would be used, but thinks like the AT-AT and AT-ST are a little more difficult to introduce, as no unit currently mimicks them in any way. Since they are motorized vehicles, damage to them would function more like ships than anything else. These could also be capturable (a la Chewie on Endor).

Jedi pose another problem. The Force is also something that is not in current Total War games, but there are ways to think about force powers. Lightning or single-target killing powers are the mechanical equivalent of a gunshot, and force throws and knockbacks are similar to artillery fire. Give hero units more effective armor and/or more health and you have an effective hero unit that functions like heroes in any other star wars empire builder.

As per planets, you can treat them exactly like provinces are treated in every Total War game. Have them function as a city surrounded by a zone, except in this case the city is a planet and the zone is an area of space.

In all I think that Star Wars: Total War is completely doable. I do not, however, think it will ever be done. Games like EaW satisfy most audiences and Total War is a far more reality based game series. Not to mention the fact that any new Star Wars games will detract from Bioware's MMORPG, and Lucas Arts has always been careful about releasing games for maximum coverage and profit. Do I hope that it happens? Very much so...but it simply will not.

Blog a Day for September

2009-09-03T09:15:00.000-07:00

Note to readers: Since I'm horrible about updating this bog, I'm challenging myself to post a quality blog-a-day throughout September. If you like reading it, be sure to visit often this month.

MMORPGs and Guild Society

2009-09-03T08:35:00.000-07:00

Though I am not a social scientist by any means (well I guess teachers and professors are social scientists in a way), I do find it very interesting to look at how people interact while playing MMORPGs. I have had a vast range of experiences with this, from guilds with ridiculous hand-holding to guilds that ignored you unless you where at max level *and* geared. Additionally, there is a whole dynamic of general chat and battlegrounds that could take years to fully discuss, but that will come later. At any rate, here are some observations:

Guild reactions seem to be largely dependent on what stage the guild is in. For example, a raiding guild will not hand-hold anyone. They are there to gather resources for raiding, and, if you're lucky *and* max level *and* they need more of your class in the future, you might get to come along on a lower-tier raid for gear. Essentially, if they don't need you, they simply don't deal with you. The remedy? Well, there's really only one way: become useful to them. Whether its by becoming a competent addition to the raid (healers and *good* tanks are almost always needed, dps less so), getting geared (heroics gear is usually sufficient to start raiding, you need less gear personally if your raid is better geared), or by being able to produce something the guild needs. If you are a crafter who is consistently on, and in communication with your guild or raid leaders, you can be a supplier for essentials, like potions, gems, and other useful things. This may also get you brought along to raids so you can loot BOP schematics for your profession. The caveat is, you will not make nearly as much (if any) gold off of guildies as you would off of the auction house. However, guildies can also be supportive too. A guild will have several miners, and as a blacksmith, getting titansteel is a pain. Guildies may be willing to burn their cooldowns to make titansteel for significantly less than market price, especially if they are raiding and whatever you are making is going to help the raid.

What this says about the MMORPG society: Simply put, it speaks volumes. Raiding guilds are high stress environments, and generally, with raiding taking up many hours every week, people simply do not have time to mess around with the remaining time they have. Running others through instances, having incompetant raid members, and having to go slower because people are poorly geared all make raiding miserable. Raiding guilds are designed to avoid the Pick-up group mentality that you have to go slow because the whole group is a bunch of idiots. In essence, raiders are elitists in a practical sense...the more elitist they are the faster they get through a raid. Making a raider's life easier (by providing something they need) is a sure way to be accepted, and maybe even praised, by your guild. Your mileage may vary.

The opposite side of the guidl spectrum are social and levelling guilds. In general, levelling guilds are very large (one I am in has 160 members and it started just a week ago) and cover a wide spectrum of levels. Usually there are 5-6 times as many lowbies as higher level (60-80) people. Since the birth of achievements, there is massive amounts of coddling as well, with everyone congratulating one another for even minor achievements. While this is not my style, it does encourage levelling, at least in my guild. Additionally, lowbies expect (and usually get, if not through some arm twisting) support in the form of gold and instance runs. Instance running is something I will do for free for guildies if I have the time, but I never give away gold. I am constantly pestered (because my main is lvl 80) for gold, usually for ludicrous reasons.

What this says about MMORPG society: Simply put, it says that people who are given an easier option will always try to take it, usually to their detriment. For example, i one was playign with a new player, and I had helped her with a quest here or there, but she kept complaining that she had died while trying to run instances. Because she had only even been run through instances by a higher level, she didn't realize that they were meant to be group content. Similarly, one of my guild members kept asking me for 50 gold (he was in the low 20s). He claimed to need it for a class skill (which, obviously, no class skill costs 50 gold at that level, maybe respeccing talents, but if he's up to 50 gold on that he should stop until a later level). I do not give him the gold, and later find out he's trying to get it to buy a blood elf bandit mask (we're alliance, so they are expensive novelty items). This was his main character and he had no concept of money at all.

This, I feel, is the largest problem with MMORPG society. Helping people is one matter, but doing it all for them is quite another. I am an old grizzled vetran of this game. I have had to PUG my way through 60 levels of content (except when I was fortunate enough to have my four friends on, and we rocked everything because we had base competancy). I have had to learn to use every ability because I had to be a functioning member of instance groups as well as soloing. I also knew the value of every gold piece, because I had to gather and save for both an epic 60 mount pre-TBC, and for an epic flyer pre-wotlk. I also remember the *hard* reputation grinds, which are nothing like these much easier TBC and laughable WOTLK ones.

I am not trying to say that I am better because I am a vetran, I am saying I am better because I had to learn how to play. The end result of hand-holding and gold-giving is lvl 80s who are always broke, and don't know how to act in an instance group. I can't count how many party members have wanted to go faster and faster through an instance because they are used to run-throughs only taking fifteen minutes (as opposed to instance groups which take an hour or so). I also can't count the number of dps classes who are unable to control their aggro because they never had to, and because they want to look good on their damage meters (as a tank or off-tank, this is frustrating). Also, healers who cannot competantly heal shouldn't bother trying. I have wiped more times because healer either cannot conserve mana, or don't know what spells to use. The end result of these guild types is an incompetant player who will have a hard reality check later in the game, which doesn't help anyone.

That concludes my discourse on guilds. More coming up on PVP and the dreaded general chat.

If you want to contact me in game, here are the characters I play the most:

Rodserd, Cenarius, Alliance-side
Thundin, Cenarius, Horde-side
Darkkthunder, Darkspear, Horde-side

Updates on SWTOR

2009-09-02T22:43:00.000-07:00

It has been a short while since my initial doubts about SWTOR, and while I am not convinced that it will be the game many are expecting it to be, certain developments have made me have a small glimmer of hope. It is indeed possible that this could be a replacement for SWG's original vision, and perhaps SWTOR could carry the banner of that community where Sony and SWG fell and failed. Four classses have been officially anounced and expounded upon, and I think that these classes give some insight into the future of the game. First I will mention the classes and then muse as to the possible implications.

For the Republic, there are two classes announced: the trooper and the smuggler. These are two classes that actually are greatly desired by the public, that is, smuggler, which was immensely popular in SWG and there was a constant push for more smuggler-like activities to be introduced, and trooper, which is a powerful, combat non-jedi class. It is clear that these are two very seperate play and combat styles, but both are actually a great improvement over my expectations for Bioware's focus. It is slightly worrisome that troopers are mentioned in a supporting role for jedi, which, frankly, is not the idea I have of troopers. (although, in one description they do mention that even sith lords should think twice before confronting a trooper...I can only hope).

Half of the Sith classes also have me interested, namely that of Bounty Hunters. While it is doubtful that player bounties will be implimented (due to BH being a sith-only class, and the difficulties in controlling its use for griefing), the Bounty Hunter class seems to fit in with the Sith. Ruthless, cold, and with all sorts of tricks up their sleeves. BH is a class I would definately play for random fun, if not as a main.

Sith Warriors, however, leave me grumbling a bit. They seem to be generic, evil, melee jedi. This disappoints me for two reasons, firstly because there are playable jedi in the game (I lost that battle before this game was even thought up, but am thankful its the fourth class released and not the first) but secondly because the first jedi release are so very generic and un-jedi like. Lightsaber combat is one very small aspect of being a jedi. I guess being a sith warrior is being envisioned as not using force powers except to augment melee in short bursts. This design of Sith Warrior also implies that there will be other jedi classes for both sides.

My extended thoughts about these developments are somewhat muddled. i have very mixed feelings about this upcoming game. First, it is apparent that there will be multiple jedi classes for each side, and that specialization in each will probably be limited (doubtful that a sith warrior will have the ability to super buff his force powers). This will hopefully be counter-balanced by a variety of non-jedi classes.

Secondly, by the information released about these classes, it is apparent that a crafting class will not be forthcoming. All the classes mentioned so far talk about combat tactics, and there simply are no combat tactics to crafting. The best we can hope for is a secondary crafting profession system, hopefully with the complexity of SWG (although it is dissapointing that your character has to be something else in order to be a crafter).

Thirdly, and finally, Bioware is well aware of its player base. This is a good thing, but there is some subtle manipulation going on. Bioware waited to release its first jedi class until after three other classes had been released. Bounty Hunter and Smuggler are two classes whose absence would have turned many players off to the game. Additionally, trooper is such a non-jedi class that its inclusion prior to the sith warrior's announcement gave hope to the community that the game was not going to be a force war. I can only hope that Bioware's intentions are good.

I eagerly await new information about SWTOR, and look forward to testing it (If I can get into an eventual beta)

Combat Arms, Revisited

2009-09-02T14:18:00.000-07:00

A while ago, while reviewing FPS games, I mentioned a free online FPS called Combat Arms. Well I stopped playing that due to the various hackers and lack of variation of gameplay, and went on to bigger and better things (EVE, WoW, and the Total War series). Well, while I was waiting for a patch for Call of Duty 5 to download, I decided to pop in and see what the game was like after a few months of production (it was relatively new when I was playing it). I was suprised at what I saw.

First, I was skeptical, because their webpage had zombies all over it. However, having played their new Quarantine maps, I must say it's hilariously fun. Essentially, you have a team of players, and one is randomly selected to be infected. They become a zombie with three times the health of an ordinary player. If they hit you, you become infected as well. It is a wonderful game type, because in the half dozen or so I've played, everyone groups up in two or three person groups, but heads for the most defensible area. Inevitably, three or so people get infected rapidly, and it turns into a King of the Hill match with zombies trying to storm the humans and infect at least a couple of them. I have yet to see a game where the zombies didn't win, which may imply more tweaking is needed. Still it is a hilariously fun match type.

Also added is a "Fireteam" mode. While there is only one map for this, it is essentially a player team vs a computer scenario (similar to co-op modes in most FPSs). The team must complete objectives in a limited time, with health and casualties respawning when they reach certain spots. The game is challenging on hard, and ridiculous on extreme, but you may get an item out of succesfully completing the mission.

They have also added a good handful of new weapons, new armor, specialist skins that can be purchased which give you bonuses and penalites, and a "black market" where different things can be bought (such as the ability to change your gender).

They have also eliminated a good deal of the hacking, or at least it appears they have. I haven't noticed any blatant hackers, and not anything that couldn't be explained by people having some measure of skill (although, considering I lead a couple games after not playing for this long, skill may not be as prevalent as I think). They have improved the old matches with new maps (including a very close quarters map called Death Room), and all in all have made the game more solid.

The GP system remains, and can be tedious if you just want to relax. Enemies will inevitably have better guns than you, and its best to just stick to the basics if you only want to play casually. I get a G36E and body armor, which probably costs a total of 1-2k of gp for the day, which is easily earned back with an hour or two of fun.

You can, however, also buy items with real money. While I wish they didn't add this option, it is still an option, and if you really want to waste your money on that, why not buy a real fps?

Now to speak about what remains the same.

SWG Achievements

2009-09-01T15:31:00.000-07:00

Let me start by saying if you're a veteran still playing Star Wars Galaxies, you deserve an Achievement...or to have your head examined, depending on whether you still like the game or not. But I digress. Star Wars Galaxies has an achievement system of sorts called Collections. Essentially this is a series of tasks that are not visible until you discover one of the requirements for them. For example, one of the easier collections is to gather fifty perfect meat fillets (or something like that). However, you don't even know this exists until you harvest a creature's meat and have the luck of getting a perfect meat fillet to drop. You then have to run around harvesting the meat from every creature in sight and then some to eventually get 50 of them, and get a decorative smoking rack as a reward.

As I said, that is one of the more straight-forward and easy collections. There are others that include everything from getting all the different colors of creature juice (or whatever they call it) from slain mobs to slaying ridiculous amounts of enemy fighters in space. These collections function is virtually every single way as WOW achievements, but for one exception: you actually get something for completing each and every one. And occasionally these things are useful.

I will take this time to state that, though I don't know the exact release date of collections in SWG, I do know that they predate the release of Achievements in WoW with Wrath of the Lich King. I do, however, suspect that Blizzard could care less what SWG does, similar to how I feel about flattened possums I pass on the road. It is clear that if Blizzard was attempting to copy SWG (which, given the raw amount of achievement systems that reward useless points in other games is doubtful), they failed miserably. Only a scant few of World of Warcraft's achievements are good for anything but bragging. A handful give a unique title, tabard, or mount, but most are just a carbon-14 of ones nerdiness. Blizzard could learn something by the nature of SWG's collections, namely to reward the player base for playing the game in a way, but also give a reward that makes sense for the task done.

I will concede that Blizzard's achievement system for WoW can only be as good as the engine it is built around. Because there is no player housing, or guild halls, or anything that can be decorated, Blizzard is forced by the design of their game to make achievements give rewards that are blatantly visible (mounts, titles, and tabards) rather than physical items for decoration of the absent housing or guild halls. This also explains why achievements are able to be compared in game and on WoW's armory.

It would seem, though, that these two seperate systems could learn from one another. Blizzard clearly needs to give some sort of reward for most of the difficult achievements (some do have rewards, but most of the truly difficult ones only have rewards for completing it along with a bunch of other similarly difficult achievements). SWG, meanwhile should have their collections visible from the begining. Also, there should be some consistency between the difficulties of various collections. Collecting vials of creature goo is ridiculously easy compared to shooting down massive amounts of every kind of Imperial starcraft.

Death of Crafting

2009-05-11T19:44:00.000-07:00

It seems these days that crafting as a main element of a game is falling to the wayside. Crafting is entering a niche market, and appearing only as a paltry, token system in most MMORPG's. The WoW model seems to be the most common one, where crafting provides occasional gear, but usually anything that can be made is less useful than things that can be looted fairly easily.

The real question is why. Obviously there is a some market for crafting, as many vocal MMOers clamor for crafting systems in every forum on the internet. These crafters want an in-depth and expansive system that will keep them entertained and model complex economic systems within the game. So why isn't this market being met?

The easy answer is that it takes a lot of resources to invent a powerful crafting system. Star Wars Galaxies had a massive crafting system where each item was tagged with a unique number and was unique. Obviously developing and maintaining the database for such a system would be difficult, but more difficult would be balancing these items. At one point, composite armor was sold that had a ridiculous defense rating, making pvp against people in that armor a real joke. The defenses were so good that players began using weapons that were basically trophy trinkets that did very little damage and no player had certification for (using a weapon without certification severely reduced it's damage potential) because they did a type of damage that wasn't mitigated by the high defense composite armor. These weapons (which literally did about 20 damage all told) did more damage than any other gun could (regardless of user skill or perfectness of the crafting of the gun).

Balancing, creating, and maintaining a crafting system becomes more difficult with the increasing complexity of the system. Resources are limited in MMORPG production, so this is pretty much the dump stat of any MMORPG. 90% of the fanbase won't care if the crafting system is mediocre, and that remaining 10% is still homeless and looking for a place to call their own. they will most likely buy the game, and quit later, so why bother creating a system to attract them?

WoW, Achievements

2009-05-10T17:08:00.000-07:00

It seems like every MMORPG and most games have some sort of unlockable achievements. It surprised me a little that World of Warcraft would impliment a system like this. It seems that all the things players have done for four years to get to the end-game now has a graphic associated with it and earns you points. These achievement points are fairly worthless, and serve as a reminder of which nerd has the most time on their hands.

Not all of WoW's achievements are pointless. Some are fun, such as the PVP battleground ones, requiring you to beat every battleground X number of times, or the ones that require you to collect a series of rare pets or gain a reputation with each faction. These are all things that someone may not do just to get to max level and begin raiding, and therefore are worth extra notice.

It is not, however, worth noting that a character managed to reach lvl 10...or lvl 20, 30, 40, etc. If they are lvl 80 I can pretty much assume that they've played through all the levels to get there (unless there's some magic auto-leveller machine that I don't know about, even then you'd probably still get the achievements).

My rant about this is primarily about both the arbitrary-ness of these achievements and also the fact that they have no purpose except as e-peen competitions. An achievement should mean something, and you should be awarded one for breathing (or reaching lvl 10, I mean, that's about a 2 hour commitment at best, and that's if you spend time dancing naked on mailboxes and go get lunch without logging out). Make the achievements something slightly difficult. The exploration ones are a good example, as are the pet collections. These are things that might actually take a player a little while to complete, which isn't the whole point of achievements to give players something to do until you push out the next patch/expansion pack?

The second purpose that achievements should have is to reward players. Remember the good old days when you could earn ranks by grinding out a pointless amount of hours in the battlegrounds? Or when you could earn a title by becoming exhaulted with the different battleground factions? Rewards don't have to be items, but they very well could be. It isn't hard to make something that looks awesome but has little or no combat effectiveness. An idea off the top of my head: Custom Weapon skin. It's a soulbound item, trinket, spell, whatever that can change the appearance of one of your weapons. Basically you can make your weapon look like any other weapon you want. It has no combat value, beyond the base weapon, but makes you look unique.

Achievements shouldn't just be circuses for the masses to keep them in the game until you get all their money. Achievements need to serve some purpose.

Up next, Star Wars Galaxies, New Game Enhancements has something that probably should have been in the original game: Collections. It's like an Achievement system's loot-whore twin.

Ten Commandments of Empire Total War

2009-03-23T10:30:00.001-07:00

Fight Concentrated: In the game of chess, one of the most important factors is local force. The more pieces you have that can affect the immediate area, the more control you have over an area, and the more likely you are to gain an advantage in that area. So what does that have to do with ETW? Well, the same concept can be applied to the battlefield. A smaller force, attacking in a concentrated manner, can overwhelm a larger, more dispersed force. Striking with local superiority is good for morale and allows you to swiftly defeat and break enemy units, which will help win the overall battle (or at least turn a loss into a costly victory for the opponent).

Plan for the Worst: It is easy to have visions of grandeur, where your armies march over every opponent in the world and you can invade city after city without loosing any units. However, even great generals have bad days, and the best laid plans rarely survive contact with the enemy. Because of this, it is usually best to prepare for the worst, and make sure you have contingencies. Ensure that you aren’t attacking with one large army. Station more than a skeleton force in your cities. If you spend the money to build forts, station troops in them. Just because you are winning a war, doesn’t mean the enemy can’t turn back your forces or mount sneak attacks on your home front. Be prepared to respond to this.

Use Combined Arms: In other TW games, a popular tactic is to mass cavalry. It often seems easier to compose your army of primarily one type of unit to simplify production and command. However, this is a very bad idea. Yes, it is easier and simpler, and that is why it is bad. If you have a lot of infantry, then cavalry charges and artillery are dangerous. If you rely on a lot of artillery, then cavalry can outflank and overtake your guns. Cavalry are also vulnerable to artillery and formed-up infantry. In short, by using a combined force of different units, you can both create tactics to defend against any force, and create local forces to overwhelm enemy units of a specific type.

Utilize the Terrain to your Advantage: Terrain is vitally important in ETW. Terrain impedes movements, grants bonuses and penalties, and in general cannot be ignored without detrimental effects to your forces. Canons on hills have longer effective ranges. Being at a higher elevation gives you advantages, however, it also limits your mobility. Cliffs are effective dead-ends, but good for firing positions that are unapproachable from the front. Typically, any terrain position has pros and cons, you need to maximize the pros and minimize the cons of your position.

Armies Win Battles, Economies Win Wars: Your mighty armies and armadas might win many battles, but an army marches on its stomach (in this case, its coin-purse). In order to maintain your troops and improve your technology, you need money. In ETW this means not taxing your provinces to death, and maximizing their growth. A nation with a mighty economy can raise a mighty army and buy the allegiance of enemy nations.

Seek targets of Opportunity: A battle isn’t very straight forward. Armies don’t line up and shoot each other until one side is dead. As such, any advantage you can get is useful. Enemy canons undefended? Take them out with cavalry. Enemy General standing out in the open? Drop some canon fire on his head. Enemy infantry have undefended flanks? Rip them open with a flanking unit. Regardless of the situation, try to take advantage to reduce the enemy numbers.

Shatter the Enemy: Thanks to new mechanics in ETW, unit flags will start to flash once the unit is wavering. This can leave you disengaging from units who are not fully broken. Additionally, units now have a new status: Shattered. It is exactly as it sounds, a unit whose morale is so thoroughly destroyed it is very unlikely to recover. In combat it seems that broken units have a chance of recovering and returning to battle, while shattered units only very rarely (or never) recover from the shattered status. Because of this, it is best to, if it is possible, chase after broken units for a short while, and continue to lay into them until they shatter. Once shattered, they can be left alone, as they are effectively dead.

Cheat on your Taxes: Not literally, of course. Territories with bad economies should be given a tax holiday to ensure they grow (most undeveloped economies don’t provide a large amount of revenue anyway. Additionally, newly captured territories can be made tax free until the revolt dies down (usually 4-5 turns, depending on size). This frees up some of your units to continue the fight elsewhere and prevents city watch from being called up (which can be more expensive than the taxes you would be loosing by declaring a holiday). Careful manipulation of these factors can ensure economies build up quickly.

Mobility Leads to Victory: An immobile force is effectively a large, easy to hit target. It is also less able to react to changes in the battlefield. A mobile force, however, can be fluid, harder to hit, and able to act to changes to the environments.

Fight Your Own Battles: True to every TW game, the auto-calculated battles almost always lead to massive bloodshed on both parties. Because of this, it is almost always better to fight every battle yourself. Not only can you decide what enemy forces to do damage to, your tactics might turn defeat into victory. Also, you can determine when to retreat, what to risk, and maybe exploit an enemy mistake.

Tutorials the way they should be!

2009-02-18T05:59:00.000-08:00

Having finally gotten around to playing Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3, I've found a unique gameplay element that I am in love with. The tutorial system for this game is both engaging and virtually flawless. Let me explain:

Most games, if they have a tutorial system, use a very basic one. The tutorial is, at best, a scenario mission on easy mode with pop up windows that give you guidance into how to play the game and hint at advanced gameplay elements. At worst, it holds your hand and requires you to go through basic gameplay step by step (and since most RTS games have a similar "right click" system, going through controls isn't usually neccesary for someone who has played a RTS before). In the former case, tutorials seem to be the first mission in the campaign and are required to play the rest of hte campaign (i.e. like C&C Generals). In the latter it is an annoying aspect that doesn't actually help the player get into the game. Either way, these tutorials are rarely important to the story, and often aren't that helpful to playing the game.

Red Alert 3 takes tutorials to the next level. The tutorials are guided by three NPC tanks, one for each of the factions in the game. They declare in the first tutorial that they "have declared a temporary truce, to train you, commander, so that none of us need to face death needlessly." The three tanks have distinct personalities; the limey Allied tank is snarky and british, the Japanese tank has an arrogant and superior air, and the soviet tank breaks the fourth wall regularly, making comments and asking questions about things like "Where do the engineers go when they take over a building?". The three personalities are well developed, and their interactions are hilarious. For example, the soviet tank gets shot by the other two whenever he breaks the fourth wall, which is hilarious in a slap-stick kind of way.

Having played C&C Generals, most of the interface and gameplay is familiar to me, but these tutorials actually introduce advanced concepts. The second tutorial allows you to play as all three factions with virtually limitless cash, allowing you to build bases and units and experiment with them. The only downside is that there are no enemies in this mission, so you can't test combat ability of your units, but that is just about the only complaint I have about these tutorials.

The background elements are what make these tutorials special. For example, in the third tutorial, the NPC tanks get a lift from helicopters to the second island to continue instructing you. Also, little things make these tutorials glorious. When describing how to use the mostly dual-use units, the scenario requires you to disable an enemy tank. The unit you are to use is normally a formidable anti-air unit. As this is described to you, a half dozen air units scream accross the screen and are promptly blown up by the unit. These little elements really make these tutorials.

In my opinion, tutorials tend to be thrown in at the last minute. C&C Red Alert 3's tutorials show a clear effort. If the C&C team spent this much time making the tutorials, the rest of the game has me giddy with anticipation (well, not giddy, but intrigued). I hope that any future C&C games continue with this tutorial system, and hopefully it will be copied by other games.
-VG

Expansive Crafting & Guild Upgrade: World of Warcraft

2009-02-17T18:18:00.000-08:00

When I used to play WOW, I had a few ideas that I never really fleshed out, but that I mused over in dozens of ventrillo conversations while not raiding (or rather while my friends weren't raiding, as a college student, I rarely had much time for it). One of these ideas integrates the concepts of instanced play, guild warfare, crafting, and concepts from the Hyjal instance and Warcraft 3. I also admit it blatantly steals elements from City of Heroes/Villains, but what doesn't WOW steal from?

Let's say you have a guild. At the moment, it's purely a social experiment with some limited item sharing via guild bank. Mostly it's just a pool of like minded individuals who can raid at a similar time, but honestly little else. It's a social group that delves into playing with specific game elements when it is convenient for the group. That is, in and of itself, totally unfulfilling. Guilds should be a presence in any game, and should have meaning, prestige, and honor.

What I propose is that each guild have a base of operations. Guild members are taxed or donate resources to build buildings which in turn provide resources or bonuses for the members. For instance, players pay to build a town hall and train and recruit peasants to work there. The town hall generates gold or increases the amount of gold players earn from mobs or some other tangible benefit (raw gold generation is probably best for this). The players then can build other structures, such as barracks which create NPC mobs to defend the guild base, or temporary npc allies for quests and missions (the latter would be hard to balance). Perhaps even have alchemy/blacksmith/tailor shops that sell rarer goods than the NPC towns or can perform research to generate patterns that are rarer than what is sold by any other NPC vendor. These bases should be a signficiant time and resource investment and should provide some tangible benefit that is worth the investment.

Now, these benefits shouldn't be without cost. Maintanance fees, quests to make things operational or keep things operational and other tasks should be part of this system. Nothing should be built once and maintained permanantly just because it was built. In this way, inactive guilds will have their bases degrade to a more simple level (obviously the most advanced levels should degrade much faster than the simpler ones, and a town hall should be able to support itself in a limited fashion).

Additionally, guilds who have bases are open for guild warfare. There should be a somewhat involved system for "keying" a guild to an enemy base (bases should be instanced) and these bases should have a limited number of attacking and defending players (40 vs 40 could easily work, but it should scale with the size of the base. AV would be a good template in some aspects for this). Once the guild gains access to the enemy instance, they can raid it for a short period of time (say 24 hours) before they have to redeclare war and rekey themselves. Any damage done to the base has to be repaired by the guild whose base was attacked and any buildings destroyed have to be rebuilt. There should be some cost or involved questing required for guilds to declare war, and steps should be taken to avoid abuse of this system.

Many aspects of this idea could be expanded to further involve players. Making buildings crafted out of craftable parts would be interesting. Requiring 400 iron nails, 20 enchanted bricks, 50 tanned heavy leather, 10 rifles, etc to make a barracks would stimulate crafting and the economy in those areas. Guilds would have a resource drain and resource needs beyond just raiding (which is intensive for potions and other buffs but not in much else, besides grinding instances for gear). Buildings should also take real-time to build so that you can't put up a top tier base in a couple hours, it should take weeks of real time to get a base completely built up (and weeks of raiding to completely destroy the base if you are declaring war, however, it should be simpler to reduce it's efficacy and force the enemy to defend it by say killing off all the peons or killing off specific NPC's).

The system would require a careful hand to ensure that it wasn't exploited and to fix potential holes, however, it could be a very fun and involved system that would prevent the need to push out yet another expansion pack.
-VG

Unified Theory of MMORPG's

2009-01-20T18:51:00.000-08:00

I have been thinking a lot lately about MMORPGs, and have personally played some of the stranger ones. Wurm Online, for instance, has your avatar do virtually everything in a semi-real environment where things take semi-real amounts of time. For example, you must dig down to rocks, prospect for ore, mine the ore, start a fire, melt the ore down, attempt to forge an item, fail or succeed, then do it all over again. To build a simple house you have to fell countless logs, make nails, etc etc etc all while keeping your person fed, watered, and healthy. Seems a bit excessive, but wouldn't be bad if the servers weren't so horribly laggy and it wasn't a java-based client.

Additionally, there are games like Entropia Universe, which convert cash into game money and vice-versa; EVE Online, which facilitates the buying of in-game time and characters with in-game money; World of Warcraft, which continues to provide new and interesting forms of gameplay, such as aerial bombardments and vehicle combat, and then drives it into the ground with repetition; Star Wars Galaxies and it's complex crafting systems, SWTOR with it's proposed companion system, WAR with it's guild-capturable keep and RVR innovations...the list is nearly endless.

As I said last time, games are becoming more and more specialized, and I'm not sure if I necessarily like it, however, I am wondering how far the trend will continue in terms of MMORPGs. These games, by definition, should appeal to a large audience, and their success usually depends on that very fact. Wurm online, for example, has a very small player base because at best it's tedious, and at worst, it's very tedious. WoW, on the other hand, has broken subscription records and danced on their mangled corpses because it's core game still appeals to a variety of players. It has diverse gameplay with no required path, a player is only rarely forced to experience certain content (the Death Knight intro sequence comes to mind, but that was very fun to play).

The rule of a successful MMORPG seems to be diversity to a point. Too much diversity and you have a broken system that is impossible to balance without ripping apart portions of the game(See Star Wars Galaxies Pre-CU and CU for more information), too little content and you are a specialized game that has a small audience and little ability to proceed (like Wurm online, and several other niche games). The appropriate balance must be met between certain aspects that appeal to the community, and ultimately one must take precedent over the others, even if they are semi-integrated.

These aspects are, in my opinion: Crafting, PVP, and PVE. Now these have a variety of subsets, but those are the broad categories. A quality game incorporates all three, and seeks some form of balance to them. WOW's priorities fall in this order: PVE, PVP, with crafting existing in mostly a token form (although, some professions are very important with the latest expansion, namely the new inscription class which provides benefits that cannot be looted). A game like SWG pre-CU roughly balanced PVP and Crafting as primary goals, with PVE hanging on for dear life as it was mainly used for xp and loot for crafting and pvp.

The appropriate balance is key for a successful game. WoW's lackluster crafting system has certainly not done much to restrict it's subscription numbers, and they are slowly improving it and making it a more important part of the whole. A game that brought all three into a healthy balance would appeal to virtually all gamers, however, would also most likely seem like three separate games. Integration is as important as balance.

-VG

Big things in the works

2009-01-04T02:02:00.000-08:00

There are big things in the works, one of the reasons I haven't posted in a while, and once a few final elements are figured out, they will be here in full force.

I wanted to talk briefly, however, about something that has bothered me. It seems to me that more and more games are offering "innovations" that aren't neccesarily good things. For example, Wii fit has the insanely funny avatar glitch, where a large person's avatar will balloon from a stick figure to a ball (which is perfect for self esteem). Additionally, in a more gamey sense, SPORE has it's horribly broken 5-games-in-1 gameplay. Seems like every game that comes out has it's own schtick.

Don't get me wrong, old games had innovations too when they came out. Warcraft 3 had an integrated hero system that was awesome and revolutionary in it's time (and to further their credit, WOW's talent trees have been copied by everyone and their brother for MMORPG's). But these innovations were actual innovations. Players saw these features and didn't buy the game for them, but rather enjoyed the game more because of their existence.

SPORE could have been a very different game if the focus was on the gameplay (like all the other SIM/Civ games) and not the stages of gameplay. I remember Sim Tower, it would certainly tell you when you reached a new level and got new stuff, but it didn't have to effect your gameplay at all. It was a bonus, not a reason to play.

The issue is not innovation but the gameplay around the innovation. Wow us, impress us, enslave us to your technological and creative might, but do so while we're playing a really enjoyable game. Bring us in with something completely different, then broadside us with WOW factor. Gamers love surprises like that, something that will keep us coming back for years. I don't still play Star Wars Rebellion because it's a star wars game, I play it because of the insane amount of complexity the systems within it have. Now, complex systems aren't something I like playing with, and wouldn't buy "Sim Complex System" but I would buy a tactical star wars game, and if it utilized an innovative complex system that I enjoyed using, then I would be grateful for that innovation.

Hopefully the kings are worked out for the big hidden secret projects. we'll soon see.
-VG

More of the Old...Republic

2008-11-12T14:59:00.000-08:00

So the Eve Online monster has gotten me again and I've been mindlessly plodding away earning isk for fun new projects, like my brand new line of self-made Mackinaws, buy yours today (Not actually available today).

Anyhow, I have been trying to keep up with our favorite new pet project of LucasArts: The Old Republic, and frankly not much news has been had. Sure there's been developers talking out their proverbial asses about features they'd like to have, and how they can't talk about The Old Republic because that's the first rule of The Old Republic.

So in short, I haven't missed anything by being locked away in space beyond the EDEN wormhole. That said, I've found that I have felt a disturbance in the force, as if millions had hope and were suddenly silenced. Reflecting on this thought, I realized that Bioware is to MMORPG's what that creepy old man who watches the little boys at the bus stop is to kindergarten...A predatory spirit that has no business trying to get inside their pants.

Let's face it, I worship the ground Bioware walks on, when it comes to RPG's (much like I would trust that old man's opinion on what adult diapers to wear if I needed such information), but when it comes to MMORPGs, Bioware is more ackward than the previous metaphor. It makes me uncomfortable knowing that the guy in charge of delivering this bundle of joy has never delivered a MMORPG baby before. I'd rather see it in the less than capable hands of Sony. Sure, they've dropped a few kids in their days, but we already know their malpractice attourney, and we will be sure to prebook a court date.

I'm not saying that Bioware will be totally incapable of making this MMORPG good, but there is a huge doubt in the back of my mind that they will be able to make this MMORPG good. I expect fully a rehash of KOTOR set in an MMORPG sphere. Given that the only reason KOTOR worked was because you could pause it to navigate the combat options, that doesn't seem promising for an MMORPG.

Now with that out of my system, I can return to another space MMORPG to soothe my weary soul after Star Wars Galaxies was held down by Sony and raped countless times while we, the fanbase, could only watch while waiting for the police to arrive. (Consequently, the "police" in the form of LucasArts proceeded to throw Sony off of SWG then flip it over and rape it harder).

-VG

Ten Ton Republic

2008-10-28T11:08:00.000-07:00

After reading up a bit on a pair of Ten Ton Hammer interviews with the developers of SW: The Old Republic, I've come to a determination about this game...

It will be *worse* than SWG NGE. These developers have a lot of good ideas, but they are trying desperately to clone KOTOR and make it multiplayer, while jamming the game full of all the storylines and plot they couldn't jam into KOTOR 1 and 2. Don't get me wrong, they have a right to include content and story, in fact I encourage it, it's just that they seem to be very wistful of their earlier successes and aren't willing to let it go.

As to my earlier ideas of classes, I have revamped them. I now believe they are going to do a Star Wars d20 system similar to KOTOR. In that system, you can start as any character class and gain other classes if you want. So instead of being a Soldier and only a soldier, you can be a soldier and later a jedi, or (this is different than KOTOR) maybe become a soldier/scout mix. This is more of a Neverwinter Nights and Dungeons and Dragons idea, and if NWN taught us anything, multiplayer sucks when you can't take back bad choices in character levels.

Now, it's one thing to play as a warrior or something in WOW and realize you don't like the class and switch to another class. Usually this happens well before the character has had a huge time investment. The player can re-roll and be done with it. If there's a max level cap to The Old Republic, and you take a character level in a class that ends up being a horrible choice, your character is forever gimped. The only reason I see this as useful is to make jedi hybrids that do not start off as jedi (a la KOTOR). Even then, using a level-based system is infuriating to a SWG vet.

Consequently, I doubt we will see a return of the KOTOR D20 system with it's 20 max level. Most MMORPG's have at least fifty levels, with 60-80 being "normal." This game begs for some sort of skill system. Maybe a combination of SWG's old system and something like project entropia or Final Fantasy XI's weapon skill system. In that way, even if you unlearn professions and skills you retain the usefulness of those weapons.

For example, have character classes that provide things like tactics and specials (maybe even the ability to use specific weapons and armor without penalties). Then have a seperate system of skills tied to different kinds of weapons and armor, as well as those fun things like force powers, and naturally crafting skills. As you use weapons, armor, force powers, crafting skills, etc, your skill level increases (you can even cap skill level according to character level if you want but that seems pointless to me). This lets you use those items with some additional ease (faster reload/firing times, less energy/force required to use it, better crafting results, etc). Then, even if you switch professions, you don't feel like you've lost a bunch of skills. This helps retain continuity and a feeling of the character being real.

Just because I've become an accountant instead of being a plumber doesn't mean I suddenly forget how to use a wrench. Similarly, just because I've stopped my career as a soldier to undergo jedi training, doesn't mean I forgot how to use a blaster.

I'm ranting now, but I feel a shudder in the force the more I hear about SW:TOG.

-VG

Star Wars: The Old Republic Classes

2008-10-26T21:43:00.000-07:00

According to Bioware's website for the game, Star Wars: The Old Republic will have two distinct "jedi" flavors; Jedi and Sith. In addition there will be "A variety of other classic star wars roles" whatever that means. Until more information is released, any discussion about classes is pure speculation. Of course that doesn't make for a very interesting blog post, now does it? So speculate we shall...

While nothing should be assumed about Bioware's latest project, lest hopes rise to be crushed under the weight of a game that already has high expectations after Sony's mishandling of SWG, we can make some educated guesses. The problem with guessing is that with virtually no information out about the game, it is very hard to find jumping-off places. At any rate, away we go...

Scenario 1: Single Jedi classes for each empire with a "variety of other classic star wars roles" This is by far the easiest and most cut and dried form of the game. Basically Jedi/Sith acts like any other class, except you get a glowy sword. The game will feature, most likely, a variety of classes along the roles of tanking, healing, cc, and dps with Jedi/Sith filling either a tanking role or some form of dps/cc. If there is any customization with the Jedi class it is likely to only be in talent selection (if using three talent trees, the consular/guardian/sentinel trees would be the obvious choices). The upside: jedi is playable and customizable out of the box. The downside? It sucks running around with a billion other jedi and trying to feel special. Also, everyone and their brother will be a jedi, leaving the other classes largely useless.

Scenario 1a: Multiple Jedi classes for each empire with a "variety of other classic star wars roles" included. Same as above except you make each jedi/sith type an individual class. The upside: More customization and making Jedi feel different slightly. The downside: Even more reason for everyone to play jedi. I should note the obvious problem with both of these systems is that Jedi will have to be in balance with all the other classes, which de-powers the jedi and will probably make them less fun to play.

Scenario 2: Jedi as an unlockable class. No matter the form this leads to players being forced to play "lesser" roles to become jedi. Basically you either play until you are max level and are rewarded with a jedi, complete quests to unlock jedi powers and then go through training, or some other general mish mash of that sort of thing. You either become a jedi on that character or can now create jedi on that account. In either case jedi becomes playable for you, but only after you reach X requirement. The upside: Fewer Jedi at release, though numbers swell rapidly once people realize how you unlock it. The downside: people will complain about how hard it is to unlock jedi, the longer the game is out the more jedi there are, balancing a class that should be more powerful (because it is a reward) but still able to be defeated by other classes.

Scenario 3: Jedi is not in the game. Easy way around the problem is to remove Jedi and keep classes along the standard tank/healer/cc/dps line. Makes for a game that is WOW in a different set of models. The upside: it's ridiculously easy to create a game without the iconic figures of star wars in it, and you don't have to make all those fancy lightsaber fight moves. Also, it is easier to balance and dodges the whole jedi bullet. The downside: Would you buy it if there were no jedi? Didn't think so.

Scenario 4: Jedi is the only playable class. Another way around the problem. Everyone is a jedi. Jedi then just differ through powers or talents. The upside: Millions of fanbois will buy it, no need to balance the game, because there's only one class. The downside: Again, would you buy a MMORPG consisting entirely of Jedi? Also, everyone will be a jedi. Did I mention that Jedi will be common as fleas? Oh, and Bioware already said they would have a "variety of other classic star wars roles."

In my opinion, Bioware will most likely select option 1a, as it fits their KOTOR model of dealing with Jedi. Jedi will probably be slightly better in a PVP aspect than other classes but will have a harder time with PVE content. This provides the ZOMG awesome aspect of Jedi with the balance that games need. I will be watching with great interest.
-VG

A disturbance in the Force

2008-10-22T07:57:00.000-07:00

Bioware has announced that the super secret space-based MMORPG they've been working on is indeed another Star Wars MMORPG, as was assumed when it was first announced. Not much information has been released as of yet, but this is something I will be watching with keen interest. Hopes and dreams of a few million SWG vets ride on this game, and Bioware could easily make billions by creating a game similar to SWG, set in the KOTOR time period, and fixing and adding in the themes that Sony failed to create.

That said, the game will most likely be a WOW or Guild Wars setup, with factions you are stuck in once you join and Jedi as a starting class (if KOTOR is any guideline, three types of Jedi as starting classes). This bodes ill for the franchise, and it will be difficult to pull off this game.

Bioware, the world is watching. Please listen to the players and do right by them. Don't make SW: The Old Republic the bastard child of Sony.

Good luck, and May the Force be with you.

The General Reborn (Pt 3)

2008-10-15T17:34:00.000-07:00

From the personal log of General Babkadol:

I have returned to this world again to save the kingdom with my military mind. I met with the King today to outline my plan. He does look just like Istrian. I don't know if he believes I am who I say I am, even though the old dwarf, Dorflin, assured him of the potency of his rituals. Dorflin will not accompany me on this journey, though six other have been selected to join me. I have not yet met them, though.

The King has advised that I do not reveal my true nature to anyone. I have even been given the official title of General Noramdeduk, or Relievemanor. I believe this is in hope that I will ease the tension off the mountain homes by the presence of another fortress. I have promised to export what we can, and hopefully there are sufficient resources where we will settle to help rebuild the army of the King.

My sketches for this fortress are much more complex than the last one. At Pickspells, we were thrust into the open fields with little in the way of defenses. Now we will be able to cut into the mountain and use mother earth for protection.

From the Personal Log of General Noramdeduk,

We have arrived at Obursavot Anil, or HeroicStand of Glory. I hope it won't come to a heroic stand, but the name is noble and worthy of the endeavors here. My companions think I am a military commander of little note, otherwise they would know of me. I will ensure they listen to me.

First I was introduced to my new quartermaster and bookkeeper, Sarek. She seems like a decent enough dwarf but balked at me when i told her that everyone under my command undergoes basic weapon training. She apparently thinks that the fighting should be left to the military. I informed her that she is now part of the military. She doesn't seem happy.

Next is Neo the poet-warrior. She is a swordsdwarf and a jeweler, which is a strange combination. She seems eager for battle, and doesn't have much respect for authority. That will change.

Our field kitchen is headed by Vesa, a virtual dwarf-of-all-trades when it comes to cooking, She cooks, brews, and butchers. An army is led by it's stomach, and she will be central to keeping us fed.

Our smith, Dracnor, is a very useful addition to our force. We will not have an anvil for some time, but having someone who knows his way around a forge is necessary for equipping our forces. Especially since there will be no obsidian where we are settling.

Next is Zak, the miner and mason. He is rumored to be able to do things with stone no other dwarf can. I will have to keep an eye on that. We will be digging deep into the mountains, and having a miner of some skill is always helpful.

Finally is a dwarf I barely took note of, as he was quiet during the entire trip, and immediatly took off to hunt what wild game exists in this wilderness. Malaki is the master of our hunting dogs and is at home in the wild. He is trained in the ways of the spear, though we have none, and is wise in the ways of the wilds. He will be useful in keeping us fed until our farms start producing.

Now we must strike the earth and prepare ourselves for the goblin and elf menace to break upon our fortifications like waves upon the sand. For better or worse, we make a stand here at Obursavot Anil. May we bath in the blood of our enemies and rejoice together in Warhalla.

The General Reborn (Pt 2)

2008-10-13T19:53:00.000-07:00

"What us the meaning of this?" She said and looked down. She felt her chest and abdomen, searching for the holes where four goblin bolts had pierced and killed her so many years ago. She found her skin intact and body whole.

"You have been recalled to life by the Blood Pact of Armok, sealed by our forebearers in the early days of our race. It is by this pact that you are reborn and return from Warholla, General." The elderly dwarf said.

"Warholla? So what I saw was the halls of all fallen warriors, where we celebrate for all time. How long has it been?"

"Nearly a thousand years. Your enemy, the Tyrant King, has long since died, and his line is extinct. A new threat looms, great General. Goblins and Elves threaten our very mountain homes. Our outposts and kingdoms have been crushed beneath their alliance, and we are in a perilous position. As I speak we are battling back a siege at our capital, one of ferocious force. The humans have broken our alliance and now fend for themselves, leaving us alone and vulnerable."

"Why me? I was killed, I was unsuccesful in my goal, and this fortress clearly fell," She motioned around to the dust-covered stones, and the moss growing on the cavern walls. This fortress had not been occupied for a long time. "I am a failure."

"A failure? General, you are a legend. No dwarf in memory is recounted more in history than you. You took a group of six dwarves and forged a nation. Every child knows the story of the General who took her six lieutenants into the wilds and carved out a solid fortress of obsidian against the tyrant king. How she trained every dwarf with discipline and honor, into a warrior without compare. How she met her end fighting goblins, killing dozens and having bolt after bolt pierce her skin until finally she succumbed to the onslaught. How once she died, her proud warrior Ignaz the samurai led her soldiers home to confront the king. When the King saw the return of her soldiers, he ordered the fortress guard to slay them all. The King's dwarves with steel and iron clashed against the General's forces armed with wooden shields and obsidian swords. Ignaz was badly wounded, but fought his way to the King. He dueled the tyrant, and cut out his throat before succumbing to his wounds. The General's forces overcame the King and his guards, taking the mountain homes from the tyrant, at the cost of the lives of Ignaz and only three others. Istrian, the brave engineer and last alive of the six lieutenants, was crowned as king, and his line continues to this day."

She wiped a tear from her eye. "Ignaz was a good warrior, as was Istrian. Of the six, Snoopicus was killed in battle, as was Beastmaster, and Baradus died in the first few months here. What of Flokstein?"

"She died from an infection caused by a goblin bolt. She received a grievous many wounds from goblins, trying to save the artifact bone shield your wore on your arm. That item has long since been lost to history, but not the legend of it."

"What of this place? What happened to Pickspells?"

"It is a ruin and a monument to you and your six. It has been sealed ever since Istrian the King died, and was interred with you and your other lieutenants. I unsealed it two days ago to recall you to life."

"Then it is time I take the field again." She jumped from the coffin, and collapsed on the ground. The old dwarf helped her up.

"Your new body is not as strong as your old one, and it will take time to get used to, General."

"What does the King need of me, and what will I have to work with?"

"The King needs an outpost to train soldiers and act as a distraction for the goblins and elves. We need to relieve the pressure on the mountain homes. If we can take the battle to them, even better. The soldiers of the capital are mostly injured veterans or green recruits. Our forces have been devastated by the constant wars. The King has decreed that you be given supplies and six able dwarves. Every dwarf in the kingdom has volunteered, and six have been chosen. We are unable to spare an anvil, but will send one as soon as we can. We also have this for you." He handed her a small package wrapped in pig tail cloth.

She unwrapped it, and laughed. "Pickspells never received an anvil and we survived just fine. With this at my side, we will raise a mighty army for this war." she tucked the warhammer into a loop of her belt. "Let's begin planning, we have much to do."

For more information on this story, Click Here

The General Reborn (Pt 1)

2008-10-13T15:24:00.001-07:00

"Another round, Snoopicus." she called to her old friend. "Today we toast Maggarg, the best swordsmaster I've trained. I remember when you were a raw recruit, my friend."

Maggarg raised his mug and downed the contents. Snoopicus filled it swiftly and the sixty dwarves gathered together cheered.

"And to Pickspells, the greatest self-sufficient military outpost in the known world." she said, and every dwarf gathered cheered heartily. The whole group milled around a luxurious dining room filled with all manner of food and drink. She was readily enjoying herself, when something tugged at her shoulder. It was a little dwarf boy.

"General Babkadol?" He said.

"Yes, that is who I am, young one," she said.

"Come with me, General Babkadol" the boy said, still tugging at her tunic.

"I'm in the middle of something, young one, I will come with you later." She said, and turned away from him.

"General Babkadol, you must come. You are recalled to life."

A cold chill ran down her spine. The room flashed red, and she saw horrible things around her. Snoopicus, her loyal second-in-command, waved to her...a bloody stump where his hand had been. Beastmaster turned and toasted her, draining her glass only to have it's contents spill from holes that perferated her body. Maggarg nodded to her, his head rolling from side to side on a broken neck.

"General Babkadol, you must come. You are recalled to life." The voice said. She turned to it, and the little boy was at the door. Reluctantly, she stood and followed him. He lead her out into a long corridor, one the General recognized well. It was the hallway of the residences of Pickspells. This was were her recruits and soldiers lived. She had dug these rooms herself in the early days.

The boy ran to the main stairwell and up the stairs. She paused only for a second to look at the statues depicting her soldiers' exploits, and the tombs of the lesser heroes of this place. Many recruits had died in their sleep from wounds during training. She had been careless with the green recruits, and the sheer number of those interred showed it clearly.

She walked up the stairs to the main level of Pickspells. The boy darted around to the grand catacombs of the fallen soldiers. There she knew Snoopicus, Beastmaster, and the others of the great seven were interred. The boy entered the fourth door, one that had not existed in her memory, and she reluctantly followed. It led to a grand tomb, complete with a masterful throne and cabinet, and dozens of momentos of a wonderful life. The walls depicted battle scenes with goblins, including the fall of Snoopicus, and a female figure she did not recognize. The boy gestured to the sarcophogus, and she let out a gasp. This is what was engraved:

General Babkadol
"Now rest with our ancesters, great commander
Let the goblins siege your soul no longer
Drink deep of the flasks of our ancestors
Until we meet in the celebration of a final battle."
-Interred into rest in the year of the King, 1608.

She felt another chill in her spine, and the world blacked out.

*****

She woke to a cold room. Sitting up, she realized she was still in the crypt. The boy was gone, and in his place was an elderly looking dwarf. She looked down and found herself sitting in the coffin she had stared at moments ago.

"Welcome back to the living, General Babkadol." The dwarf said. "We have much to discuss."

On Politics

2008-09-25T06:34:00.000-07:00

I know this is a video game blog, but something has been really bothering me lately: The political campaign. This year seems to be the worst in my short life. I don't remember either of the Bush elections having just so much hateful BS and rhetoric flying around. It seems that there are three kinds of people: Those that are McCain fanatics, those that are Obama fanatics, and those that aren't voting (either because they don't like either candidate or they feel their vote won't matter).

I will state for the record that I am an Obama supporter (though I do not feel myself a fanatic). This decision was reached under careful consideration of both candidates proposed policies and messages, and may be subject to change depending on the upcoming debates (if they ever happen). Another factor in my decision to endorse Obama is probably related to my age, his message appeals to my generation, and because I am absolutely fed up with President Bush and feel that McCain will be more of the same or worse. That and when the republicans had BlackWater mercenaries illegally detaining reporters (not paparazzi, actual reporters from actual networks) and infringing on the freedom of press, that seemed to be a big sign of what was to come.

I wanted to tell you that so that you can put what I am posting into perspective. Honestly all news agencies should have a statement of beliefs before political broadcasts, because no news agency in America is unbiased one way or the other. Maybe that is the problem.

What I've seen in the news and in talking to people is that people will largely believe what they want to about this campaign. If they hear a report that their candidate has done something "bad" they will reinterpret it and switch it to a good thing, or blame it on the "liberal/conservative" news coverage that is obviously making up lies to support the other candidate. I've come to the conclusion that 99% of America is hopelessly retarded and unable to make any decisions for themselves. Most of us will believe just about anything as long as it goes along with our beliefs.

Some examples? I've had people tell me that Obama is a sleeper cell agent for terrorist networks, and when he gets elected he will kill us all. My thoughts on that? Why would he have to be elected to kill us all? Also, don't you think that a sleeper cell agent would be detected by someone? This is not a movie, you cannot magically brainwash people like that without leaving some sign or proof it exists. The same woman also told me that he was Islamic, and that proved he was a terrorist. I asked her if she thought every Islamic person was a terrorist, and her response was yes, and that she was glad they were all in the Middle East. I didn't have the heart to tell her Muslims make up a few percent of the US population, she might never leave her house again.

It's not just limited to Obama. I've heard people say that McCain is old and senile and that McCain/Palin is a plot to get Palin into the presidency (who would have no chance at it otherwise) and that she will be some sort of evil dictator. To be honest, I'm amazed she hasn't single-handedly ruined this campaign from the start. She spent most of her day of meeting foreign dignitaries with Kissinger, an American diplomat, instead of...you know...meeting foreign dignitaries. She is not a world-wide threat.

People really need to evaluate where their news comes from, not so that they can say "oh it's all lies, my political candidate is a god" but so they can make intelligent decisions about how much of what is said to believe. No news agency is going to make something up whole-cloth. There is always truth to what is reported, now the interpretations of that truth that are represented and the means they are represented are another matter all together.

http://www.flobots.com/

Spore Revisited

2008-09-22T10:36:00.001-07:00

Okay, so my last post was really harsh (though totally justified) to Spore. Here's how Spore could be fixed.

1. Allow players to continue to gain DNA points/evolve their creatures even after they've beaten the stage of life. In other words, just because you've gotten 100 dna points in cell stage doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to collect more and upgrade your cell into a really cool looking version of it in-game. This solves the problem I have between the creature creator and the actual game. You can make really awesome things in the editor, but in the actual game you are severely limited by points.

2. Make the earlier stages matter to the later stages. Currently, the only way earlier stages impact later stages are by the special abilities you get, and these are largely pointless little buffs. In fact, there really is no reason to play through stages you don't like as you can make a much better creature starting in say the creature phase or civ phase than you could evolve from cell.

3. Make space playable. I'm not a boy-scout, and collecting badges doesn't interest me. Achievements, sure after I've beaten the game, but not to unlock main game content. Achievements should be used to unlock special content, not anything on the main storyline. I'm not going to even get started on invading another empire, as it is stupidly difficult to do without making millions of trips back to recharge and repair or upgrading until you are in god mode. It'd be better if the space age wasn't included than giving us this crappy stage.

4. Cut back the cute crap. I understand bright colors are pleasing to the 8 year olds, but frankly the cartoonish nature of the game is painful. I tolerated WOW's cartoony feel because it had a lot of mature humor and was actually fun to play (and let's face it, a lot of warrior armor looked badass while cartoony). I intentionally color my buildings and creatures in realistic colors, but the pallet is very limited.

5. Apologize. Seriously it was not just the fans that overhyped this game. The videos of the concept of this game was way better than the end game ended up being. Not to mention the fact that we deserve an apology for having to wait so long for this crap. Just my thoughts.

-VG Philosopher

Spore, why?

2008-09-21T12:12:00.000-07:00

Why, Spore, did you have to give me hope only to dash it on sharp rocks like a seal trying to eat a crab? Why? Did I do something horrible in a past life that I have to attone for now?

But seriously, Spore isn't a horrible game...but it is not the ambrosia that gamers thought it would be. Honestly, it's a freaking kids game. I can deal with the bright colors and themes, and all the crappy textures for your creatures, but the game is simplified to an almost painful level.

Let's start with the cell phase. Now this should be simple, right? Well, it's not simple, it's painfully simple. You can choose from a whole 9 cell parts! Wow...I haven't had that much selection in equipment since the original Zelda (My bad, you only had 8 secondary weapons in Zelda). Not only that, but you have to FIND 6 of those parts. Beyond building your cell, you get to collect little meat dots or little plant dots. That's right, your hours of playing Pac Man have not been in vain. (Authors note: I know they said it would be inspired by Pac Man, and I should have expected something like this, but inspired by and blatantly copied are two different things)

So, once you grow enough to get a brain (Where's the wizard of Oz when you really need him?) you get to go to the land creature creator. Apparently the only important evolution creatures got from cell to animal was legs...I mean, even those cilia and flagella you had from the cell phase increase your movement speed on land (I'm not even speculating how). If you're lucky enough not to crash (which happens about 80% of the time to me, especially if I try to create an herbivore) you get to have a wonderful choice of game play: Kill stuff or play simon says. Seriously....you can kill stuff and eat it or go up to creatures and mimic them to make them your friends (and you thought making friends in the Sims was a pain in the ass). Anyway, somehow playing simon says and killing things gets you DNA points and a bigger brain.

So, on to the tribal phase which is just as simple, except instead of killing stuff and playing simon says you have to build a small selection of buildings, and then kill stuff or play simon says (while conducting music). Seriously, the camera angle is pretty much the only major play style difference between tribal and creature modes. I guess you can give orders RTS style, but it's still pretty much the same. Oh wait, you can domesticate like 3 creatures and have them lay eggs for you to eat...that's pretty much the only addition.

City phase is a laughable attempt at an RTS. It offers three play styles: Religious, Economic, and Militaristic. The difference? Well, Religious and Militaristic are largely the same with different graphics (oh and you can't actually destroy buildings or anything really with religious units, just "convert" them which doesn't seem to do anything except in the case of cities, which surrender to you). Economic conquest is an interesting concept, but kinda far-fetched if you think about it. Why would an enemy nation agree to a trade route let alone sell their last city to your empire. Corrupt Officials? I guess.

Space phase is a joke. Are we playing pokemon? No? Then why do I have to collect badgers to progress? And if you have ships specifically for your trade routes why do I have to haul and sell this spice? I thought this was supposed to be a sandbox mode, the problem is it takes 50+ hours of play (exageration, I don't have the patience to screw around with this horribly designed phase of the game to really find out how long it takes) to get to the max rank, and even more to get enough money to have all the tools on your ship (many of which you have to buy for every use.

Overall Rating of Spore as a game: 6/10

VG Philosopher Plays Spore
VG Philosopher's Soul take 100000000 depression damage.
VG Philosopher dies a little on the inside.

For how long this game took to make, you'd think it wouldn't be designed for a 3 year old.
-VG Philosopher

Up Up and Away

2008-09-09T20:25:00.001-07:00

I guess it's time to get up off my lazy butt and get back to work here. My last topic of discussion was of course, EVE Online, a good game, and an addicting one. But for now, I'm going to change gears a bit and discuss another obsession of mine, Combat Arms.

Combat Arms is a FPS full of the usual standard FPS fare. You have your Capture the Flag, Team Deathmatches (Called Eliminations), Free for all Fun (Called One Man Army), and Objective based missions. So why is it so great? Well, it has a built in rank system, so as you play you earn xp towards your next rank. Each rank unlocks new weapons and armor for you to buy and use. Also, the top ranks are only able to be held by a certain number of players.

When I say you buy weapons and armor, I actually mean that you lease them. You pay GP (Gear Points) to purchase weapons and equipment for a certain period (1 day, 1 week, 1 month, 3 months). You can then use those weapons for that period. Once the period is up, you have to rebuy those weapons. The good news is that GP is easy to earn. The bad news is that everything is expensive to buy.

Basically with this game, the more you play the better you are. You will have access to more equipment, and have more GP to buy equipment with. I play a couple nights a week for a few hours, buying equipment just for that day. Sure it costs less per day to buy for a longer period, but when I'm not sure how long I'll play, I'd prefer to keep some gp in my pocket for later.

The bad part about this game is that there are a large amount of hackers, and flaws in the game code (it is still relatively new, but also a free FPS MMORPG!) Nexon is trying hard to crack down on hackers, and seems to be making headway against them. At any rate, this game is ridiculously fun to play, and I'm off to play it now.

Lost In Space

2008-08-29T13:38:00.000-07:00

Okay, I haven't posted for nearly a month. I blame it on the ADD and getting sucked into EVE online. Why is it so addicting? I don't know. But here are things I know I really like (and will detail further in later posts)

1. Skill system: Eve has a virtually free-form skill system where any character can learn any skill. Now certain characters have the benefit of better abilities which let them learn certain skills faster, but any character can learn any skill. Also, skills generally just give a small, but extremely useful, bonus to an ability and unlock new equipment. No skill makes you uber, nor does any particular piece of equipment. Someone with the best skills in the game with the best equipment can be overcome by others if he is not careful or he gets outnumbered.

2. Controlled PVP: You can pvp anywhere you want, but you cannot force pvp on people in certain areas. In "High Security" areas, anyone who attacks another player will be brutally hunted down and killed by NPC police ships. In low security areas, this is not the case, but there are guns at the jump gates and stations that deter this action a little. In 0.0 security space, anything goes. Now it's still possible to suicide kill people in high security space, but generally not worth it.

3. Player controlled Stations/Space: Players can build their own stations and can claim sovereignty over areas of space. Now a large portion is already claimed by alliances, but the borders shift constantly as POS's are built and destroyed. Full scale fleet battles between warring corps are an impressive sight.

Eve Online

2008-07-25T19:25:00.000-07:00

Okay so I haven't died or given up on video games all together, I've just been enthralled by an MMORPG besides WOW (I'll be honest, I only went back for about 20 days and was bored again with WOW). My new game is Eve Online. Why Eve? Well, it has a both a skill based system and a free-form end-game. Do you like PVP? You can do it all you want. Like raiding PVE instances? Blow up some pirate outposts. Like crafting? Test out the invention and research options of EVE.

I'll go more in depth with Eve Online in future posts, but for the moment I'm going to go back in and blow up some stuff with my missile boat.

Player Content

2008-07-15T22:04:00.000-07:00

As I think more about it, I wonder if companies using player content is a good thing. Now, it can be assumed that eventually every game will have some form of player content, as players tend to modify games, make maps, etc. However, relying on player content for a majority of gameplay is a huge mistake that I feel looming on the horizon.

Let's look at a possible scenario. Big Game Company Inc. decides that instead of spending a lot of money developing content and unique characters, they will just make copies of player's characters and use models very similar to them in skills and appearance as NPCs. This saves countless hours of NPC design and customization. The downside to this? Well, that's quit simple.

You see, if you rely on players to make the content, you will either have to filter content to the point that it would be cheaper just to make it in the first place or allow the crap to pour in. Development teams have some standards to which they are help (or they are fired) whereas players playing for fun only report to themselves. I have intentionally created weird or stupid things when playing games and being exceptionally bored. Is it fair to have these boredom-inspired creations ruin someone else's gameplay?

The bottom line is that player based content should be an addition to games, not a central aspect. I question how well SPORE will do, and how effective the player content system will be with that game.