Various

It’s been a while since I’ve posted.  I’m still kicking around LotRO at the moment.  I was subscribed to SWG but my old PC bit the dust and I had to get a new one.  SWG is a moderately fun game but, with the new machine, I don’t feel like reinstalling a game I’ll hardly play across the Internet.

I’m interested to see what will come up in the Siege of Mirkwood expansion for LotRO.  There’s a dev diary about the skirmish system – sounds neat.  I’ll have to wait and see how the whole thing turns out.  I know MoM was devastating for my kinship.

 

Levels, Worlds and Other Random Thoughts

I was on a “staycation” recently – that’s basically me taking my required time off but being too broke to go somewhere cool.  I did a couple of non-sitting-at-home things but at night I found myself back in my apartment.  I figured why not also make it a gaming break from the norm too?  The only MMO I’m currently playing is LotRO, so I put that on a back burner.  I rummaged through my old gaming CDs and there amidst the WoW expansions and old games I haven’t played in years (Heavy Gear 2, Quake 3 Arena) was my Elder Scrolls: Oblivion CD.  Oblivion is a game I remember fondly from a couple years back, so I checked my PC and I still had it installed.  I popped in the game disk and away I went; I created a new character and entered the tutorial.

The introduction tutorial features the player escorting the current emperor Urial Septim on his escape through the city jail area.  As players use different skills, the game is making calculations about what kind of class they should be.  Like using stealth and ranged attacks a lot?  Perhaps you’d like to be an Agent.  Want to charge in and bash heads with a heavy two-hander?  Maybe a warrior-type would be more to your liking.

Once you’ve made your selections about what kind of character you want to be, you’re off into the world of Morrowind.  And once you’re out, you don’t have to do anything!  That’s one of the things I really like about Oblivion – players can follow the main quest line immediately and do everything they’re “supposed” to – be the hero, rescue the embattled people of wherever – or ignore the main quest and do whatever you like.

 

Addiction

There’s an interesting article in RPG Vault recently about addictive gaming.

It’s a tricky thing to define, but I’ll take a crack at it. A design is addiction-based to the degree that it encourages players to experience the same content again and again (often referred to as grinding) in return to obtain a series of rewards. These can be simple labels with no tangible effect (like an in-game title or some achievements), or they can be character improvements that give the ability to move on to a new location with a slightly different sort of grinding. I call this the grind/reward cycle, and it can keep players coming back to one game for years.

One key aspect of this design is that it gives many small rewards instead of a few big ones, so that the player is receiving constant positive reinforcement. A classic example is the style of skill improvement in World of Warcraft and EverQuest. When you gain a level, your skills don’t go up five points. Instead, your maximum goes up that much, and then the skill itself increases with use, a point at a time. Splitting up the reward into many parts increased the number of reinforcements.

The majority of games classified as MMOs these days adhere to a greater or lesser extent to addition-based game play.  Do x until you get y, then move on to z.  Repeat.  Sadly, games don’t seem to deviate much from that pattern.  Star Wars: The Old Republic seems to be attempting to move to a more story-based model.  Whether or not it’s successful, only time will tell (the game isn’t even in alpha yet).

Like the author, I’d love to see more options in games.  One gripe I’ve had with LotRO is their new-found gear-centeredness.  Like WoW, LotRO seems to be heading towards making players loot-crazy to keep them playing.  LotRO’s problem is they can’t make the instances interesting.  Rather than becoming loot-crazy, players are taking extended breaks until the next content expansion or leaving for other games once they hit the cap (that seems to be the general pattern I’ve noticed, anyway).  Personally, I’d like to see more community-based activities in MMOs … I mean, we play MMOs to play with other players so encouraging players to work with each other doesn’t seem like a bad way to go.  I don’t mean that forced grouping should become the norm, but it would be neat to encourage players in other ways (clever game design pushing them into proximity, better and varied PvP activities, trading-card type games where players can interact, etc.).

New models of “addictive game play” may help the industry out of its current rut.

 

Ease of use

One of the things I like about LotRO is that things are more accessible for casual players.  Having better armor helps, but if you’ve been keeping up with your quest rewards and have a friend craft a couple pieces, you should be good for most of the content.  With a relatively small amount of organization, most instances and book quests can be conquered easily.

But there are still some challenges that are really quite difficult.  This past weekend, a group of kinship mates and I decided that we’d wrap up book 1.15.12.  The final instance of the book is hard.  Very hard.  Players have to fight their way through tunnels of orcs, defeat a boss with debuffs (and massive damage if you have one of the debuffs on you) and fight through a multiple wave fight at the end.  Even with most of our group at level sixty, it was a tricky run.  We had three wipes before getting through the first boss.  Also, this was my second attempt at the instance; my first was in a group of all-fifties and we didn’t make it past the first boss.

In spite of how annoying the fight was, the relief when it was all over was really something.  I ended the day sitting outside the Last Homely House on my new white pony.

While most challenges in LotRO are accessible for most players, finishing the 15.12 instance felt more like an accomplishment to me than the typical Rift run.  It was a tough fight and made players work for it.  I had to run the instance twice before getting though it.  One of my kinship mates had tried five times to get it.  Yet, when it was all over, we finally prevailed.  I’m still of the opinion that the fight should be easier (mainly because it’s a book quest and not a raid) but finishing it while it was that tough definitely felt epic.

*Spoiler alert – strategy and spoilers below the fold*

 

Screenshots

MBP tagged me for another meme thingy, this one to post the sixth screenshot of any game of my choosing.

I take a lot of screenshots in any game I play.  I suspect it’s the camera buff in me.  I’m aware that at some point the game will go away (either I’ll leave or the game will shut down) and all that will be left are my screenshots of the people I met, the places I’ve explored and the adventures I had.

I printed a screenshot I took in City of Heroes back when I was playing it (I was trying out a new color printer and wanted to see what it could really do).  The shot was of a friend and me standing on the roof of a building high above Paragon City overlooking the statue of Atlas in the courtyard. We had just gotten our travel powers (super jump for me and teleport for her) and we were excited to see the world from a perspective which had been previously unavailable to us.

On a recent return to City of Heroes, I visited the same building and leapt across rooftops just to take in the views.  My character had changed since the screenshot – I’m a lot more glowy now and my outfits include capes instead of the simple ensemble I used to wear.  More importantly, my friend is gone. Gone to where, I do not know.  Given what she was like when I knew her, it’s likely she’s playing another game.  My other friends in CoH are all gone too.  I remember our supergroup outings to crush Clockwork or the Fifth Column goons.  I still have the screenshots of when we formed our supergroup (a shot of us standing around the registrar all doing the /newspaper emote).  We were quite the crew.  Time and changes in gaming interests pulled us apart.  On my return, I noticed they weren’t around anymore – but I still have my screenshots.

In the ephemeral world of MMOs, screenshots are a way to pretend that something which doesn’t exist, in-fact never really existed, is in some way real.  They help maintain the illusion of the worlds we inhabit and our place in it.  Though these digital worlds move on and my online friends fade as they discard one digital shell to, perhaps, pick up another shell in another world, I still have my screenshots of the way things used to be.

(Screenshot and further blathering below the fold.)

 

Play style

I’ve been thinking about play styles a lot lately.  When my kinship was getting ready to get into the Mines of Moria expansion in LotRO, we had a thread running on our boards about how people were going to tackle the content and make the transition between 50 and 60.  Many argued for the “take it slow” approach.  The slow levelers intended to stop and smell the roses, read all the quest text, take in the sights, etc.

My main, a hobbit burglar, is now finally 59 – one level from the max level of 60.  I’ve been all over the area outside the mines and even sneaked my way through to the content on the other side.  I’ve done a lot of quests and am enjoying my time.  I don’t feel that I’ve rushed through anything.  The person who started the “let’s take it easy” thread has been 60 for a while now on his main and is closing in on 60 on a number of alts.

 

Long Weekend Gaming Extravaganza

My company has mandated that employees take up some more of their Paid Time Off this year, so the past couple of weekends have been three day weekends for me. As it’s winter here in the Northeast US, I’ve stayed inside and mostly watched TV, read or played video games.

I am now addicted to House MD. I recently caught the House marathon over New Year’s and started watching the show. It’s funny: I had no interest in the show for the past four years but all of a sudden I started watching it. *shrug*

I’ve been re-reading The Hobbit  as well as The Lord of the Rings. The Hobbit has to be one of my all-time favorite books. Bilbo is a wonderful hero because, in his world, he’s not really supposed to be one. I like tales of knights or warriors as much as anyone, but unlikely heroes appeal to me.

LotRO continues to give me my MMO fix. My hobbit burglar is now closing in on 59. A little over a level and he’ll be 60. My kinship has begun creating regular instance runs to get the armor required for the final Watcher battle. While I’ve enjoyed much of Moria, this weekend, I spent a lot of time either crafting or in Lothlorien questing or fishing. It’s good to see the stars and sky again after the long dark of Moria. I’m looking forward to the Lothlorien expansion (I believe it will be in the first free expansion for MoM).

Like MBP, I’ve noticed a lot of bloggers returning to LotRO or picking it up for the first time. It’s a game I’ve enjoyed quite a bit during my time there and I’ve hopeful that at least a couple more LotRO regulars will develop. On the other hand, I’m a realist and I’m sure many will head off for newer games once they pop up. LotRO is an acquired taste, I think. As I’ve stated before, there are certain types of players I’ve noticed in LotRO (lots of Lore fans, casual socializers, etc). People who value other attributes in their gaming (hardcore PvP, rapid advancement, etc) or who don’t place a lot of value in just being in Middle-earth may not enjoy LotRO.

I’ve been playing LotRO a lot but also wanted to mess around with some other games as well. I did some more time in WoW including re-re-rerolling a Death Knight. LOL! What can I say, their starting area rocks. After that though, I cancelled my account. WoW remains one of the best MMOs for new MMO players, but no amount of nostalgia will bring the game experience back to what it was for me back in the day. I just can’t seem to make it past the Burning Crusade stuff and the questing Horde-side in the new continent just didn’t do it for me.

Just for giggles, I loaded up Oblivion again. What an awesome game that is. It’s a sandbox game where players can either do all the quests, none of the quests or anything in between. My first character there was a noble knight and I’d take pains to do all the quests and work through the content. My second character is a lot more fun to me. As soon as I was out of the starting area, I stole a horse. From that moment on, I’ve been flitting between questing and fleeing the authorities. If it’s not nailed down, I’ll steal it. I have a personal house in the main city which I use to house stolen goods until I can safely transport them to my fence. One thing I’d love to see is an Oblivion-style MMO. The ability to level via using skills (just sneaking and walking around grants skill points to level up) is excellent alternative to quest-based or grind-based leveling seen in many MMOs.

And that’s what’s going on.

 

SSL Error

In a brilliant maneuver no doubt designed to limit the load on their servers, Turbine has let their SSL certificate expire.  There is a thread about the issue on the official forums.  There is also a dev post.  The problem will create SSL errors on the LotRO client and won’t allow users to log into the game.

The fix is to move the date on your PC clock back to 1/1/2009.

This fix will, however, cause issues with any daily quests.

Edit: The issue has been resolved.  Turbine states that they did reup the certificate but for some reason, the original request didn’t take.  A new certificate has been set up and the game should work correctly now.

 

Survey says ….

Yahoo posted the results of a video game survey conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life project.  The survey compiled answers from 2,054 U.S. adults late last year.

 

Among the interesting tidbits:

 

• More than half of American adults play video games and one in five play just about every day.
• 81 percent of respondents between 18 and 29 said they play games, compared with 23 percent of people 65 and older.
• Fifty percent of women and fifty-five percent of men play video games.
• Gamer Education: Fifty-seven percent of respondents went to at least some college; fifty-one percent are high school graduates; and forty percent have less than a high school education.

 

Star Wars Epiphany

Star Wars is not a science fiction movie; it’s a fantasy movie with spaceships.  Star Trek is a science fiction movie: it contains spaceships and every piece of technology has a thin veneer of scientific explanation.  Star Wars, on the other hand, contains technologies with no explanations: they just work.  Ever wonder how a light-saber was able to contain the beam?  An actual sword made of light would need some sort of cap or lens on the end of the beam, otherwise it would continue on forever (or until it dissipated).  Light sabers don’t fit in a science fiction world.  In a fantasy world, however, it’s not important how light sabers work, they just do.  It’s the same way a mage can summon fire from his hands without setting his sleeves on fire.  In fantasy, it just happens.  In science fiction, there has to be a why.

Star Wars is a fantasy movie with sci-fi trappings and that is why some fans got angry when the Force got midi-chlorianed.  The Force didn’t need an explanation, it just was.  The Force had descriptors (it’s everywhere, between this rock and that tree, the land and your ship, etc) but it didn’t require any empirical evidence about how or why it existed.  The explanation, via midi-chlorians, as to how the Force worked betrayed the fantasy aspects of Star Wars and made it science fiction, which, in my opinion, it shouldn’t be.

Incidentally, these are the kinds of things I think about when changing a video card at midnight because my other card died and I really wanted to log in and goof off for a bit before going to bed.

Maybe I should have just gone to bed.