The Power of Community

Don’t ever tell me companies don’t listen to their communities.

It’s Free!
We heard our community and we acted. Champions Online – Revelation will now be available to everyone at no extra charge. That is a free expansion pack for all Champions Online players.

’nuff said.

The MMO Genre

I started writing this as a response to Kyle Horner’s Massively column, but then I realized it was getting too long for anyone to care about it on that site. So, if you’re here, you’ll actually read it.

The question Kyle proposes is whether a good story can supplant grind in an MMO (the example being SWTOR). Here’s my problem: I think the “MMO genre” has defined itself in a way that has backed itself into a corner. There are now these expected features that must make it into any new MMO or else everyone declares that it is a failure.

What if we take a step back for a moment and consider the option of redefining the genre. I don’t mean it in the manner of “We’re going to revolutionize the MMO!” I mean that we’re no longer going to make these generalizations and assumptions about what an MMO is. Let’s just assume that an MMO means “A game which game be played online with a large number of other people in the same area at the same time.” If we drop all other features, the question remains: Can story be stronger than the grind in an MMO?

Don't you just love it?

Without a doubt the answer is yes. Think about your most memorable gaming moments. Were they that time you killed 1000 gazelles in The Barrens in WoW? Or was it when you discovered the truth behind what you were doing in Rapture and what was up with Andrew Ryan? Or when you finally took down the Joker in Arkham Asylum (well, okay, that boss fight was a bit anti-climactic, but still)? How about learning who/what was behind the evil in Mass Effect (The first one. No spoilers on the second, please)?

Story sticks with us far longer than any grind ever could. The arguments are “Well, I’ll play through the story once and then be done.” So what? Why is it such a crime to finish a game these days, and then come back when there’s new stuff to see? Look at Guild Wars. Especially due to their unique subscription model, you can come in, play the story, then come back when a new expansion comes out. Why is this a negative thing?

Now, I’m not talking about this from Bioware’s point of view, clearly. Obviously they will want to put hooks in to keep you playing month after month so that you can keep giving them your money. But why is this such a terrible thing for a player? If you enjoy the story, then who gives a damn about how long you continue to play the game? Gaming is created for YOUR enjoyment. If you like it, you play. If you don’t, you put it down. (Or you continue to pay just to talk on the forums. It happens a lot, trust me.) Define the game on your terms, and play what you think is fun. I’m fairly certain Bioware’s on the right track to create an MMO that attracts those outside the MMO genre, because they’re not falling into that trap of what an MMO “needs to be”. Let them decide for themselves what will make the game good. Have they ever steered you wrong?

Uh oh!

Just saw that this blog got linked to on Massively. Does this mean I have to start updating it for real?

Here’s the quick update: Assassin’s Creed II: Buy it. But not until you’ve forced yourself to play through the first one. The first gets a bit repetitive, but the payoff is worth it to play the second, which is just amazing.

After I beat ACII, I immediately switched over to the first Mass Effect and finished that up. Excellent game, but I was sad to see that I killed off two of my party members. Wish that had gone differently.

And now, I jumped right into the sequel. I hear it’s much better, so it remains to be seen.

That’s the quick gaming update. Yes, it’s true, I’m no longer with Cryptic. I wish them nothing but the best, as I love everyone in the company. In the meantime, if anyone knows of some awesome Community position anywhere, please don’t hesitate to let me know

My Favorite Games of 2009

I originally called this “The Best of 2009″, but by no means am I qualified to determine whether games are actually “good” or not. So, these are the games I enjoyed playing the most over this past year. Some might not even have come out in 2009, but because I’m slow, you get to see them all over again.

Batman: Arkham Asylum – Easily my favorite game of the year. It’s funny, thinking back, I hated the demo for this. I played through it and shrugged. Only when my coworkers insisted that I buy it did I give in, and I am so glad that I did. This game remains, to this day, the only game I’ve gone back into to complete 100%. I’m even thinking about going back to get the rest of the achivements, too.

Indigo Prophecy – A very old game, yes, but I played this through very quickly, and loved every minute of it. The “Interactive Movie” genre is one I love, so I can’t wait to see Heavy Rain come out this year.

Bioshock – I almost forgot that I played through this this year. Proof for me that a good story will trump any other aspect of the game. Even though I suck at shooters, I played through this over an entire week and couldn’t put it down until I finished it. I can’t wait for Bioshock 2, only because I’ll actually be able to play the game without already knowing what happens in it.

Beatles Rock Band – The achievement for beating the game within 24 hours of starting? I got that the first night it came out. I’ve never sacrificed sleep for gaming until this one. It’s a love song to the Beatles, and the only single-band game I’d ever buy.

Mario and Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story – It’s been forever since I played a M&L game, but this one was, without a doubt, the best one ever made. The controls were spot on, the writing was hilarious, and I couldn’t put down my DS for the first time since I had discovered Elite Beat Agents.

So, those are my highlights of 2009. I’ll probably write up something about 2010 soon, to point out some of the games I’m looking forward to. Speaking of which, have you seen the gameplay videos for LEGO Universe? I honestly think it might be the greatest MMO ever made. No joke. I want to play that game right now.

The Birthday/Friendship System

Over the past few years, I’ve refined a system that had been subconsciously formulating in my head. Here it is: Your closeness with a friend is directly proportional to the method by which they communicate “Happy Birthday” to you once a year. Seeing as today is the one day a year I put this system into motion, I thought I’d share it with the general community.

This system divides your friends into three categories:

1. Those who call you on your birthday.

2. Those who text you on your birthday.

3. Those who Facebook you on your birthday.

The first category is easy: These are your close friends. These are the ones who take time out of their day to have a conversation with you.

The second category is for those who are close enough to you that they’re willing to have a synchronous conversation with you, but not so close that they actually want to have verbal communication.

And the final one are the people who like knowing that they’re a good person, enjoy saying that they keep in touch with you, but aren’t really super close. The acquaintances.

I may judge people based on the system, but mostly it’s just always interesting to see if your perception of the relationship you have with a friend is the same as theirs. Sure, I’d call this person on their birthday, but I’m curious if they’d do the same for me. Over the past few years, I’ve never actually been extremely surprised by where someone falls within the rankings, but it’s always fun to guess if anyone’s moved up or down since the previous year.

Oh, and there’s also a fourth category, aka The Insane People Who Think They Are/Want To Be Your Best Friend. This system does indeed include your actual best friends, but it also includes people who consider themselves to be much closer to you than you actually are. These are the people who A) Write really insanely long/thought out posts on your Facebook wall and B) Call you and C) Sing to you and D) Continue to do so throughout the day.

I freely admit I fall under that category for a few people. People who I am not close with.

In Which We All Learn a Little About Love

My Xbox speaks to me. No really, it’s true! I signed up for this site at first just to play around with it, and before I knew it, I had subscribed to its RSS feed. Now I get a daily message from my Xbox, telling me how sad it is that I don’t play it. The blog even has a badge on it called “Emo”, because I don’t play with my 360 enough.

This is what my Xbox feels like when I don't play it.

I kind of like the blog, though, because it reminds me of how my newfound enjoyment of World of Warcraft means I’m neglecting other games. I finally actually got back into the 360 this week, grabbing achievements for 1v100, and buying Indigo Prophecy and Shadow Complex. (Oh, and by the way, Shadow Complex is awesome, if you liked Super Metroid. Same exact game, but newer.)

Giving my console a voice is silly, for sure. But it makes me feel loved. And that’s all that matters during this holiday season. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and a Happy New Year!

Indigo Prophecy, A Few Years Late

I make no excuses for the fact that I don’t finish many games I start. I have video game attention deficit, in no part helped by the masses of excellent games that are released one after another. I’ve already fallen way behind the curve from Q4 2009. I have yet to even purchase Modern Warfare 2 or Assassin’s Creed 2, not to mention all the games I already bought but never finished. But all of that was put on hold when I heard about this upcoming game, “Heavy Rain”.

From what I’ve heard about Heavy Rain, the game is basically an interactive movie. You control minute actions of your characters, from opening a door to conversing with people. And every action affects how the story plays out. Sounds cool, right? Then, I come to discover that this isn’t actually the first game like this. The same company, Quantum Dream, came out with a game for the Xbox years back called “Indigo Prophecy”. I debated for a while between buying the Steam version (For about $5) or the Xbox version (For $10). Seeing as the game came out originally for the Xbox, I figured I wanted to be a “purist” and play the game the way it was originally designed to be played.

I spent about all last week playing through the entire game. Didn’t play anything else in between, didn’t switch games at all. Well, okay, actually I played some WoW too, but that’s only because I finally hit 80 and am experiencing what others call “The actual game” for the first time. More on that later. Anyways, I played Indigo Prophecy straight through. Why? Because the story was actually good! The game was creepy as hell, but the plot kept moving along and I wanted to continue to experience it fully. No, the game doesn’t look so good nowadays, but the voice acting was excellent, and it really felt like I was interacting with a movie. That’s something I want more of.

There are plenty who will say “All that game was was an 8-hour long quick-time event game.” And you’re correct, yes. But there’s something about pulling off a QTE combination that then leads to my character backflipping off a wall and ninja chopping a cop into unconsciousness that I probably wouldn’t have gotten from many other games. Okay, maybe the new Prince of Persia stuff. But in theory, I’m still correct.

Point is: Indigo Prophecy was an awesome experience. Heavy Rain will probably be even better, since it’ll look great on the PS3.

MS hurting second-hand sales?! SAY IT AIN’T SO!

I couldn’t help laughing a little when I read this article just now. Not because of the people getting banned, though. Rather, because of the silly analyst who commented on the banning applying to consoles rather than users:

Microsoft, he said, “needs to find a way to address this, or else it risks annoying the modders who make up 1 percent of their audience and the second-hand purchasers.”

Would someone care to explain to me why in the world Microsoft would care about this? Modders are violating the terms of service, without question. And second-hand purchasers are the core reason why developers lose money these days. This is so ridiculous I can’t even begin to explain. Allow me to try.

GameStop is evil. There, I said it. I wholly admit that I say this as someone from within the industry. Their business of buying and selling used games is pure 100% profit for them, and developers see NOTHING out of that. It hurts developers when the day after a game is released, you can buy the same game for $5 less used, because we see none of the money from that sale. Now, on a personal level, I’m not willing to buy a used game just to save $5. I like ripping open the packaging for the first time. But on a bigger level, this strategy is hurting development of games.

So when Microsoft is “hurting second-hand sales” of Xbox consoles, why shouldn’t they be? Do they see a cent of money from the selling/buying of used consoles? Of course not! This is probably intentional, and it should be!

Whew. I’m spent. Those comments in the article really got my goat.

New Theme!

I know this is super exciting for everyone, but I’m excited, so you’re going to have to deal with it. White text on black backgrounds just doesn’t cut it anymore. Five years ago it was COOL and EXCITING. Now it hurts my eyes. So I’m changing it up. What do you think?

I also updated my Blogroll (actually, I didn’t even know I had one) with blogs that I regularly read. A few are just my friends who happen to be excellent writers, and the others are all a bunch of industry people I’ve never actually met. But they’re all very excellent blogs to read, especially going back through the archives. If you’re bored (or if you want to see my taste in writings), check them out!

It’s kinda fun to have started blogging regularly again. And I actually have pageviews this time, too! Twitter never ceases to amaze me.

The Great Debate

I have a lot of problems figuring out exactly what I prefer to do when showing a company I disapprove of something they do. On the one hand, I wholly support that idea that you should vote with your wallet. You can scream and shout as much as you’d like in any public venue you can think of, but at the end of the day, it’s your money that they care about. But what happens when you know your bit of cash isn’t going to make a difference in the end?

I’m kinda beating around the bush here, but really I’m talking about the whole Modern Warfare stuff that’s been going on over the past few weeks. I’ve mentioned it before: I don’t approve of their tactics. The whole Fight Against Grenade Spam PSA was not only offensive, but the company offered nothing by way of apology. That bothers me a whole lot. But at the same time, we all know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this will be one of the top-selling games of 2009. Maybe ever. And I know that my measly $60 means nothing to them in this case. So, I have trouble justifying not purchasing the game for myself.

Modern Warfare 2 will be a good game. Again, no one’s doubting that. And yes, I do want to play it, because I wholeheartedly enjoyed the first outing. Am I so bothered by their company’s marketing tactics that I will withhold my purchase? Probably not. But not because I think they deserve the money, mostly because I know they’re not going to notice the hole my non-purchase would leave. And I’m part of the problem by deciding this, I know. But I can’t get myself to decide that boycotting a company is the way to go with this.

Look at the stupid stuff that’s been going on with the MW2 community and the L4D community. All those damn petitions and threats to boycott are some of the dumbest campaigns I’ve ever seen. Listen, folks. Internet petitions mean NOTHING. You need to get over thinking that a million signatures means anything anymore. Just because the Internet gives you the ability to connect to everyone around the world doesn’t make your petition any more viable. All petitions do is cause a bandwagon effect. Everyone’s got this “Me too!” mentality these days that just drives me nuts. How many of those people writing petitions are actually going to refuse to purchase those games when they come out? My guess is ZERO. People just love bitching these days about whatever’s got their panties in a bunch.

As I drift off-topic, my point is that I don’t think in this case holding back is going to accomplish anything. Nor do I feel that writing about it on the Internet will solve anything. I have no solution to this, it’s just something that’s been bothering me lately. Yeah, I’m probably going to buy MW2. But I’m not excited about it anymore.