tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86527662361494227722024-03-21T10:35:25.518-05:00Aldowyn's MusingsBecause being a nerd is AWESOME!Aldowynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07192864562814985278noreply@blogger.comBlogger70125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8652766236149422772.post-60474727419808291892017-08-04T03:27:00.000-05:002017-08-04T03:29:37.237-05:00Mass Effect Changed My Life. How Can It Again? <div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I wrote this back in March, just before ME: Andromeda came out, partially to work through my feelings on a new addition to a series than meant so much and partially as an attempt to pitch something. Needless to say, it never got published anywhere, but I've been reminiscing a bit and figure why not put it out. So, without further ado, here's the piece.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mass Effect is the first game I ever fell in love with. I’d played games before, of course, but Mass was always something different.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let’s start at the beginning. When I was around 14, in 2008, I discovered Mass Effect on some top 10 list somewhere - what a prosaic start to something so special! I already knew BioWare from their previous work on Knights of the Old Republic, and Mass Effect looked like exactly my sort of game.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was. Mass Effect grabbed me instantly. The slow prologue on the Normandy, the hints at something grander on Eden Prime, and the absolutely magnificent introduction to the Citadel were compelling in a way like nothing I had played before. I met Garrus, Wrex, Tali, Liara - characters who in some ways feel more real than people I’ve known. I saved the colonists of Zhu’s Hope from the insidious plant-like Thorian, I freed the insectoid Rachni queen from a life in a cage. I encountered Saren, and Vigil, and Sovereign. I saved the galaxy from total annihilation. Every moment is etched into memory.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There’s something different about experiencing a story at that age, I think. Early in life, a lot of media consumption is largely dictated by what’s readily available; my defining experience as a kid was reading from my mother’s bookshelf. I grew up on Tolkien, Asimov, and Harry Potter, and I still cherish that, but Mass Effect was something I really chose for myself. At a time when I was starting to discover what it meant to be </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">me</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, it became integral to how I saw myself and the world. Grand, wondrous, aspirational, and somehow still willing and able to care about the little guy and the nitty gritty, Mass Effect was a vision of the world as I wanted it to be, as I wished it could be. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Since that start, I’ve played Mass Effect half a dozen times, the rest of the trilogy nearly as often (it’s a yearly ritual when I can find the time), and spilled thousands of words of digital ink exploring the series from every angle I could conceive of. It drew me into the wider world of video games and video game criticism. I’ve met more people who are better friends, better collaborators, and people who push me further in my work and my life than any classmate ever did through spaces I traveled because of Mass Effect. In some ways it feels like it opened my eyes to the world.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My relationship to the rest of the series all follows from that first. Mass Effect 2 was the first game I followed before release and played on launch. I spent hours on forums and blogs and social media debating the relative merits of Mass Effect 3, including the infamous ending - an experience I now realize helped prepare me for a lot of the current realities of this subculture I’ve found myself totally immersed in, and maybe even its controversial relationship to the larger societal climate. I can follow many of my interests and proclivities directly from this one moment, this one turning point, this one game. Mass Effect, both as a single game and a series, changed my life. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And now we come to the question that has dredged all this up and forced me to confront it: How do you follow that up? How do you possibly expect someone else to? How do I even bring myself to dare to hope something could even come close to matching that experience, five years after it seemed finished forever? </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I know it’s unfair to compare Andromeda to something that is obviously so much more to me than just a game, but I don’t think I can avoid it, especially when it has made such a compelling case for its own existence. The main idea, the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">promise</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, of Mass Effect: Andromeda, is one of new frontiers, new worlds, new beginnings. But I don’t know if I can give it that chance. </span></div>
Aldowynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07192864562814985278noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8652766236149422772.post-16544314204524399162017-03-26T23:00:00.002-05:002017-03-26T23:00:47.136-05:00Equipment Progression in Mass Effect: AndromedaLet's get this out of the way: I don't like the equipment progression in Mass Effect: Andromeda. It's a whole lot of busy work that has me spending too much time flipping through menus and worrying if I have enough beryllium. That said, complaining about the specific way the latest AAA RPG screwed up crafting isn't particularly novel or interesting. <br /><br />So here's how I'd do it.<br />
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My main design goals for this are:<br /><br />
1: Allow the player to experiment with different equipment choices while allowing a sense of progression as they go through the game.<br />
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2: Emphasize the role of the Andromeda Initiative where ever possible. The Pathfinder doesn't do everything themselves, after all, they merely clear the way.<br />
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3: Make sure the player isn't worrying about the exact numbers or combing the world looking for something in particular too often.<br />
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My main inspiration for this is RTS building trees, except replace the different units and upgrades with weapons, armor and modifications.<br /><br />Basically, the core loop is that the Pathfinder finds sites for the outposts to collect resources and research new tech. Instead of the current system, where you deploy probes, mine mineral nodes, and scan everything in sight, the Pathfinder investigates potential building sites on a somewhat larger scale. For example, in the current game, where there is now a mineral site, the pathfinder finds some problem preventing the Initiative from harvesting in that location, solves the issue, and moves on, unlocking the main outpost to expand into that location and harvest the resources. You could make this as much of a narrative beat as you want - something as simple as clearing out a Kett patrol or as complex as a lengthy, planet-spanning quest.<br /><br />You can expand this out to a lot of other areas as well, although scope would be an issue. Limiting ourselves to what's already in the game, distinct Remnant sites and mineral locations would take the place of the current research points and materials and increase the viability of the colony, allowing the main outposts to use the Andromeda Viability Points or something similar to create facilities to develop new weapons, armor, and modifications. You could have different materials and research types required to develop the different tech categories (milky way, andromeda, remnant), but instead of unlocking individual weapons for development, I would go by rarity - unlocking all the common items first, then upgrading the buildings to unlock the rare and ultra rare items. (Incidentally, I don't think the inventory or equipment tiering add anything to the system, so they can go too. Tiering would likely be pretty simple to plug in, though.)<br /><br />I particularly like how this system might represent the idea of a growing and developing colony, something that the current game significantly lacks, as far as I've seen. A place might start out wild and dangerous, but as the pathfinder moves through and solves problems, people move in and start making it a home. I also think it would be a great way to characterize each individual planet in a fashion I've not seen - lots of little problems dealing with the peculiarities of the planet, instead of just "once we clear out the radiation this planet will be viable for our colony." It also bypasses the invisible perks on the Nexus, where I don't think it makes sense for the pathfinder to have much authority anyway, and focuses on the ground colonies and how they develop over time.<br /><br />Something that would require some more work is the details of how the main outposts function in the system - consideration should especially be made for developing the assets to represent these buildings. My current thought is marked off plots, with certain types of buildings (or building trees) able to be built in specific locations, allowing a unique, identifiable character to be attributed to individual outposts while still allowing a fair amount of customization.<br /><br />You could also extrapolate this out to add a lot of other systems - food, housing, defense, etc etc (like a less freeform Fallout 4), but would quickly explode to the point where it detracts from the other aspects of the game. That said, I think this system as I've outlined here would do a lot to eliminate many of the frustrations I've had with Mass Effect: Andromeda and better represent its thematic and narrative ideas.<br /><br />P.S. This idea as laid out would admittedly require quite a bit of art and other assets, which are time-consuming (and thus expensive) for a development team. I believe you could make a version of it minimizing that aspect without compromising functionality - basically just having it work similarly, behind the scenes, without a visible representation in the world. That said, this being tied to one of the main thematic beats of Andromeda, I personally think it would be worth the investment.<br /><br />P.P.S. Thus far I've only explored most of Eos, but given the way it's been set up so far I feel confident that at least this aspect of the game isn't going to get much better.Aldowynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07192864562814985278noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8652766236149422772.post-81817668370524665972016-11-19T22:43:00.000-06:002016-11-19T22:43:00.697-06:00Musical Themes in Civilization VI<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-639fd3f8-800b-0cdf-995d-407f15305978" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The main theme to Sid Meier’s Civilization IV, “Baba Yetu”, composed by Christopher Tin, is one of the most memorable main themes to a videogame I’ve ever heard, and with good reason. It’s a great song, and is thus far the first and only piece of music composed for a videogame to win a Grammy Award, but have you ever thought about what those words mean or what they say about the game itself? Music is one of the main methods of establishing the tone and themes of a game - a strong main menu theme can say a lot, and “Baba Yetu” certainly is that. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“Baba Yetu” - which means “Our Father” in Swahili - is a translation of the Lord’s Prayer used by christians in East Africa. Swahili is a lingua franca in East Africa, which means that relatively few people speak it as a first language, but it’s often used as a go between for people that otherwise wouldn’t have a common language. It was often used when trading with Islamic Arabs along the Indian ocean trade routes in the pre-colonial era, and thus the language includes many elements of Arabic, including a fair amount of vocabulary. The end result is that “Baba Yetu”, as made for Civilization IV, feels like a celebration of all the cultural elements that led into its creation. The Civilization series has often come under fire for portraying a eurocentric view of the world, with a heavy focus on European civilizations and a generally Western outlook. Civ IV pushed to fight this perception - mostly successfully, in my opinion - and “Baba Yetu” was a huge part of that. Between being the first installment in the series to prominently feature religion and allowing citizens to convert nationality from culture pressure, one can easily imagine an east african city with Islamic influence being converted to Christianity as happened (is still happening!) in real life. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Civilization VI, however, is a different game with a different focus, and its main theme, “Sogno di Volare’, reflects that. This song is based on a (possibly apocryphal) quote from Leonardo da Vinci: “Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.” It is steeped in the ideas of the Italian Renaissance, and particularly in da Vinci’s efforts to create a flying machine. Much of the Renaissance was about rediscovering the works of the past (particularly of Greece - “Sogno di Volare” reminds me of the story of Icarus, flying to the sun only to fail and fall to the sea, recast as a success) and using them to push towards a better, more wondrous future. As Christopher Tin said on a reddit AMA, it is also evocative of a strong sense of exploration. Civilization VI as a whole feels much more aspirational and it views human progress as a net positive to strive for, even more so than other entries, and “Sogno di Volare” is indicative of that. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">My favorite aspect of the Civilization VI soundtrack isn’t the main theme, though, as great as it is. It’s the way the soundtrack adapts to your play. Each civilization in Civ VI has a different base theme, often based on a local folk song or similar of that culture, that develops complexity as you progress through the different technological eras of the game. It even incorporates the themes of the other civilizations you meet and the eras they are currently in, weaving a brilliant tapestry of the story of your game. I absolutely love this idea. It’s a great way to represent a civilization building on its own base ideas and on its interactions with other civilizations, and results in some wonderfully varied music. It also ties in neatly with the mechanics of the game, where the map evolves through play as you place buildings and wonders throughout a campaign, ending in a map absolutely transformed from humble beginnings. Another example is how civilizations maintain part of the bonuses acquired from earlier government types when switching, leading to an endgame where you can track your path through the different types of government simply by looking at your bonuses. It’s not often I see such a clever interweaving of soundtrack and mechanics, but in Civ VI this works brilliantly.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Not every soundtrack can be as integrated into the way the game plays, and music in games can take a lot of different forms, from backing soundtracks to diegetic examples in universe, but it all has essentially the same purpose: to aid in conveying the tone, atmosphere, and overall aesthetic of a game. It’s often not given much consideration by players, but it’s vital, and when it’s great it can elevate an already good game into something unforgettable. I hope next time you’re playing something you can stop and listen to the music and appreciate something you’d never noticed before.</span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><br />Aldowynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07192864562814985278noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8652766236149422772.post-71791346565297199142016-10-25T14:17:00.002-05:002016-10-25T14:17:30.444-05:00Mirror's Edge: Catalyst and Parkour in the Open World'Parkour' is defined as "the activity or sport of moving rapidly through an area, typically in an urban environment, negotiating obstacles by running, jumping, and climbing." It's all about efficiency, choosing the proper path, and adapting to what's in front of you. Mirror's Edge endeavors to take those ideas, and put them into a game. It's not an easy task, but the initial result is beloved by many despite quite a few stumbles.<br />
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Mirror's Edge: Catalyst, released June 2016 after eight long years, made one huge, quite controversial decision in its attempt: It has an open world. Where the original game has very limited levels and few alternate routes the, Catalyst throws you into a huge, varied area and expects you to figure it out.<br />
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And you will have to figure it out. Catalyst takes <i>practice</i>. You have to learn the routes, the types of obstacles you encounter, and different techniques as you traverse the rooftops and scaffolding of the City of Glass, and every time you think you've got it's number the game pushes you to a new area, with new obstacles to overcome.<br />
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This is a <i>brilliant </i>idea. It's reminiscent of how many people learn parkour in real life - organically, running around the concrete playgrounds of their city. The biggest problem - and it is quite a problem - is level design. In a lot of open world games, one area is much like another, and you often don't have to pay too much heed to the flow of traversal through an area. Stack a few crates around, throw some clotheslines between some buildings, some nice tall towers, and there's your Assassin's Creed town.<br /><br />The City of Glass is an entirely different proposition. Every roof, every ledge, every railing needs to be tightly designed to allow for Faith's freeform, off the cuff traversal style to flow properly. Allowances have to be made for the evolution of her abilities, to both reward the player when they master (or unlock) a new ability, but also to be tolerant if they haven't yet. It also needs to be able to teach the player organically through the introduction of new obstacles and elements. It's an amazingly tough job.<br /><br />They mostly pulled it off! I had my share of hair-pulling moments, particularly with some of the random delivery missions early on, but the feeling when I realized how much better I was getting was amazing. At first I felt slow and clumsy, adjusting to new controls, new abilities, and a very different environment, but before too long I felt like I was flying over the rooftops. It was a great experience, and in the end almost exactly what I wanted from a Mirror's Edge open world sequel.Aldowynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07192864562814985278noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8652766236149422772.post-88328422958918479182016-10-25T13:55:00.001-05:002016-10-25T13:55:14.497-05:00Witcher's Work: Side Questing in the Witcher 3: The Wild HuntWhat was the last truly great side quest you played in an RPG? Side quests are often disregarded as filler content, just the stuff you have to do to fully complete a game and progress properly, but this is a mistake. Side quests are vital to fleshing out your world, giving it the proper tone and establishing and ground your setting. The Witcher 3 is a great example of this idea in action.<div>
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In the Witcher 3, almost every quest matters. Care and attention is paid to even the smallest, and very few go the way you expect. A prime example of this is in the intro area of White Orchard, where one old lady asks you to fetch a pan for her, and when you find it you discover the man that borrowed it was a spy who wanted the soot off of it to write a letter. It's fundamentally a basic fetch quest, but it's written and designed in such a way to say something about the world. </div>
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The highlight of these side quests is invariably the Contracts, where Geralt is commissioned by some town alderman, small noble, or local guardsman to go solve some supernatural problem. Geralt haggles a bit (coin is hard to come by for a wandering monster hunter!), and then goes to investigate. Sometimes it can be routine - find the location of the attack, identify prints and wound marks, and track the beast back to its lair to kill it - but even the most routine contracts take the time to ground their story in the world and establish Geralt as what he is - an experienced Witcher with decades of experience.</div>
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Some of these, however, tell self-contained stories as rich and complex as any of the subplots of the main game. The first contract most players will encounter is a great example. Geralt is contracted to clear out a wraith that is haunting a nearby well - but first he has to figure out how to break the curse. In the course of doing so, he discovers a story involving a greedy lord, desperate peasants, and the tragic death of a young woman - who became a Noonwraith, a terrifying spectre who only appears under the bright noonday sun. </div>
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Side quests are just as important to establishing a world and a fiction as any of your set piece moments. They generally make up the majority of playtime, and thus are central to establishing the feeling and tone of a game. So the next time you pick up an RPG, think about those side quests you pick up and what they convey about what a game is trying to say. Maybe you'll find more than what you were looking for. </div>
Aldowynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07192864562814985278noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8652766236149422772.post-29937086526040299212015-01-18T02:00:00.001-06:002015-01-18T02:07:58.306-06:00Victoria 2: The Crisis systemI've always thought it was kind of strange that I have a thousand hours poured into various Paradox 'Grand Strategy' games, and not a single post on any of them. Part of it is that I have one in mind that might be a little too ambitious that I might want to pitch somewhere professionally if I feel I have a decent handle on it, and part of it is that I have a tendency of playing them the most when I'm feeling down and thus less likely to feel like writing, but strange nonetheless.<br />
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Anyhow, that changes today. I'll be discussing a very specific mechanic in one of their less popular games, so this will require more than a bit of background information.<br />
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Victoria 2 is a strategy game where you control a country through the 'Victorian' era, specifically 1836-1936. (I believe an expansion was required to take it through the interwar period, but I got into it after all of them were released) Likely the most unique aspect of the game is the complex production and industrial system, but that's for another post. This one is discussing the 'crisis' system, which is the game's main way of forcing conflict between major powers. (<br />
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Basically, how the crisis system works is that areas of high tension (colonial races or separatist movements, usually) a meter ticks up based on various factors, and when it hits 100%, a 'crisis' breaks out, and the involved parties (typically the nation wanting independence and the ruling nation) look for 'Great Power' (top 8 scoring countries) backers to support their side (unless they are a great power themselves, in which case they head up their own side and only need an opponent). After each side has a GP power involved, other GPs on the same continent (I think) (basically 'not the US' until Japan and China westernize) are asked to take sides, with a harsh penalty if they try to stay neutral. If no decision is reached (white peace or concessions), war breaks out, people die, etc. etc.<br />
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Critically, if no one backs both sides, the crisis peters out and nothing happens. We'll get to that later.<br />
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Anyway, the system works... okay, most of the time. I certainly understand the need to force some kind of conflict between the great powers, who usually need a *very* compelling reason to fight, and it does that fairly often. It does, however, feel very forced and arbitrary. Aesthetically it almost feels like the GPs backing one side or the other are doing it just as an excuse to fight the other GPs - very rarely is it actually a critical issue (sometimes it is, mostly in the case of Poland or Hungary - neither are sovereign realms at game start). Of course that would sometimes be the case, but it still feels awkward.<br />
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One thing Victoria 2 is bad about is throwing numbers at you that describe <i>what</i> is happening but not <i>why</i>. One example is how crises are generated - you can see the progress on a dedicated map mode, and a breakdown of how it's changing, but those numbers are very obtuse. (greek unification movement, +.12 per month! ... why?) I've played quite a bit, and I still have no idea how pops (populations) decide to back nationalist movements, although I assume the crisis progress is based on the strength of the internal movement. It just kind of happens and you respond.<br />
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My biggest issue, however, is that unresolved crises have a tendency of repeating themselves. Many of the games I've played have had one crisis repeat half a dozen times in a row over a couple of decades. (one in particular, usually - a greek reunification movement in.. Macedonia? Thessalia?). One side or the other almost always fails to garner a backer, and nothing happens, which seems... odd. Particularly if someone backs greece and no one backs the Ottomans. Logically, if someone backs the nationalists and no one backs the status quo, either the rebels should win or at the very least war should break out between the GP and the ruling nation (90% of the time with the same result, or worse), and if that was the case, crises wouldn't get nearly so stale, forcing a resolution much more often and thus allowing other crisis areas to develop.<br />
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Another idea that actually just came to mind was an idea for a new type of crisis - but this requires more background gameplay information. Sorry, it's an.. involved game. Each GP has a 'sphere of influence' - basically the countries they dominate politically and economically. (Ex: Indian minors with Great Britain, and german minors with Prussia or Austria) Anyway, you add new countries to yours by generating 'influence' with them, and oftentimes this evolves into a kind of 'bidding' war between two powers as each competes to gain dominance - a cold, soft war that seems like the perfect situation to evolve into a hot, hard one, and not a hard one to implement into the current design, although I won't get into the specifics more than I already have.<br />
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Despite all these issues I have with what is definitely one of the most important individual mechanics in the game, I do enjoy Vicky 2 quite a bit, and the crisis system's basics are a very interesting way of reflecting geopolitics in the period where the concept really began to take center stage. These ideas are just me nitpicking something that's irritated me while playing and trying to come up with fixes.<br /><br />P.S. If you're interested in reading a bit more about how Vicky 2 works, I recommend<a href="http://lparchive.org/Victoria-II/"> this</a> Let's Play on the Something Awful LP Archives. It's how I learned to play, and it should be reasonably easy to follow even if you don't have the game itself.Aldowynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07192864562814985278noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8652766236149422772.post-38498443764144945322014-09-25T05:37:00.000-05:002014-09-25T05:37:12.539-05:00Cosmonautica: ThoughtsCosmonautica is an interesting little game. It's in Early Access, starting just last week - but there's some potential here. Basically, you captain a ship with up to 8 crew members, cruising around the solar system (around 15 planets) trading, fighting pirates, completing missions and whatnot. There's some story to it, but the main campaign isn't available yet, just the prologue.<br /><br />The ships are modular, with a certain layout and specs, and you have to decide what you want to prioritize. Do you want a smaller, faster ship with more weapon capacity, to fight off pirates, or become a pirate yourself? A fast passenger liner? Or a huge freighter with space for a ton of cargo - and all the amenities to support a huge crew? (There's 4 ships in the game so far, one starter and three others, each fulfilling one of the archetypes I mentioned above. I went with the passenger liner, although I was more focused on cargo than passengers, who are dependent on missions instead of the procedurally-generated prices)<br />
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Each crew member has certain skills, and you manage their time spent
performing those tasks and free time, to take care of their needs -
food, hygiene, exercise, etc. As they level up, they become much better
at their tasks, but they also have more needs, requiring more room on
your ship to satisfy those needs. It starts out simple - with a pilot, mechanic, and janitor - but relatively quickly ramps up as you add a scientist, maybe a weapons tech or a hacker, and have to balance their needs and tasks.<br />
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The trading system seems to work quite well for such a small game. I'm not 100% sure if prices fluctuate, but you can't buy and sell infinite numbers of goods (actually, the good routes are fairly harshly limited, if incredibly lucrative), which is good. The customs/smuggling system also seems pretty neat, although I think it could bear with a bit more fleshing out. I wish it told you the success chance for bribes, and there's only one type of non-mission-specific contraband so far.<br />
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One thing that makes Cosmonautica particularly interesting in my opinion, particularly when more content is added, is the research system. You have to unlock the outer areas of the system, where the trade routes are much more lucrative and the pirates much more dangerous (although I don't think the pirates are actually IN the game right now? It's <i>very</i> early access.) The interface promises more things to research later on, as well - new ships, new weapons, new rooms, etc etc. It makes for surprisingly effective progression and pacing, allowing you to putter around in the small starter area before pushing you out to the far reaches of the system.<br />
<br />The basics of the game are pretty simple, but I'm a sucker for trading in games like this so I found it reasonably fun for a couple hours - although very quickly I totally ran out of things to spend money on, and that 2 hours was enough to do basically everything as far as I could tell (well, I didn't mess with combat so I don't know how that works) Again, early access. If you want to take a look, <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/320340/">here's</a> the steam store page, where you can get Cosmonautica for just $10, ramping up to $15 when it hits full release in 4 months, according to the steam page. I'm looking forward to seeing them add features over the next weeks and months.<br /><br />Disclaimer: I got this game for free from a giveaway IndieGamerChick has been doing on twitter, so thanks to her and Chasing Carrots, the developer, for letting me take a look!Aldowynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07192864562814985278noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8652766236149422772.post-22607070125437786332014-09-16T13:56:00.003-05:002014-09-16T14:10:47.871-05:00Remember Me: ThoughtsRemember Me is the first game I've ever played where my end conclusion was 'this would be better as a movie.'<br />
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It's not a <i>bad</i> game, it just doesn't seem ... excited about being a game. It has boss fights, and combos, and chase scenes, and puzzles... and almost all of it feels totally superfluous and unnecessary. The only interesting thing mechanically is the memory remixes, where you dive into someone's mind to change a memory, but they're used more for narrative impact than as a regular gameplay mechanic, mostly consisting of choosing out of a set of variables to get the event you want. <br />
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The phrase 'more than the sum of its parts' often applies to games, but in this case I think it's the reverse - Remember Me is <i>less</i> than the sum of its parts. Everything is competent, but very little is unique and in the process it becomes a game without its own identity. The most positive thing I have to say about it is that it is paced rather well. Combat is broken up with exploration, boss fights are few and far between, and the memory remixes never stop being a big deal. <br />
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The concept of the game's narrative is stellar, but the only times it comes even close to following through are the opening and the oft-mentioned memory remix sequences. It never feels content to really dive into the ethical dilemmas it presents with the technology of memory manipulation, but instead presents them almost without comment, letting the player draw their own conclusions. <br />
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For better or for worse, I think I will remember Remember Me for quite a while. A shame it didn't live up to its premise.<br />
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P.S. What are leapers, again? I feel like the only reason they exist is to give you something to fight. Another decision made in service of video game conventions?Aldowynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07192864562814985278noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8652766236149422772.post-68784823658217234642014-02-27T17:08:00.000-06:002014-02-27T17:10:37.936-06:00Neverwinter Nights 2: ThoughtsWell, that was interesting. I've spent the last couple weeks playing Neverwinter Nights 2 and its first expansion (and the only one that's a direct sequel), Mask of the Betrayer and... wow, are those two very different stories. For this post I'm just going to talk about the original campaign (OC for short), since if I wrote about both it would have ended up being quite unwieldy<br />
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I first played NWN2 (just the OC) a long time ago - maybe '07? - and I'm pretty sure served as my introduction to Dungeons and Dragons and was one of the first party-based CRPGs I played (I <i>might </i>have played Knights of the Old Republic before it). It's a very typical CRPG story, what with the protagonist growing from humble beginnings into the Chosen One, and the main plot being mostly concerned with an ancient empire torn down by their own hubris kind of stuff. How NWN2 handled companions and character interaction did a lot to influence my expectations of later games - including the Bioware games I had yet to play.<br />
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Mechanically, it's passable at best. D&D wasn't really meant for a computer screen, but NWN2 is the best translation I've seen, and quite likely better than some later CRPGs that drew inspiration from it (Dragon Age, I'm looking at you). I do appreciate that it starts off slow, instead of doing like Baldur's Gate did and throwing you to the wolves at level 1 (literally). That said, it's a bit TOO slow. Act 1 and it's artificial plot gate are probably half the game, and easily the least interesting part of it. I could have done without the hours and hours of politics and fetch quests. I'm not saying the main storyline is the best thing ever, but it's significantly better than playing guard.<br />
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Later on, though, you're awarded your very own castle and troops to control. Crossroad Keep is awesome and feels awesome. It's a bit buggy, because Obsidian, but it's just COOL. Training your troops up, getting them equipment, sending them out on missions, and just generally becoming the best Knight-Captain ever is pretty awesome, including how it's implemented in the endgame.<br />
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The story is nothing special, really, but I've always enjoyed a good hero's journey, and aside from that ridiculous plot door (I forgot just how long that really is. It's around 15-20 hours), I don't think there's anything particularly egregious. I liked how Jerro's Haven was presented, both from a story presentation and a gameplay one, and from then on Act 3 just kind of keeps ramping up to the end. The siege of Crossroad Keep was a pretty interesting sequence as well.<br />
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Overall, it's a pretty.. average game, I guess (Except for its length!). Sometimes that's not bad, though, especially in a genre that doesn't really have that many entries. I certainly enjoyed it enough myself.<br />
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Next time, however, I'm going to talk about Mask of the Betrayer, which is anything but typical.Aldowynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07192864562814985278noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8652766236149422772.post-53281326079700256692014-01-13T11:49:00.000-06:002014-01-13T11:49:02.587-06:00VVVVVV: ThoughtsWow, I haven't posted anything on this blog since last April? Man, I should fix that. So I am!<br /><br />I'm planning on writing at least one post about every new game I play this year, and here's the first, for VVVVVV.<br /><br />VVVVVV is a puzzle platformer designed by Terry Cavanagh (who also did Super Hexagon, which I've enjoyed immensely over the past few months) that I picked up for like 30 cents in the holiday steam sale. I'd played the demo before, and I've played several flash games with similar conceits.<br /><br />The main mechanic in the game is a simple gravity switch - notably, however, you can only activate it when you're actually on the ground (or the ceiling). The objective is basically to explore and find your missing crewmates, puzzling your way through gauntlets of laser beams and spikes and such. There's also 20 collectibles that serve as much more difficult bonus challenges.<br /><br />The story and art style are both pretty unremarkable, but I enjoyed my time with the game as far as it went. There's a definite speedrunning bent to it (including a time trial mode), and I believe there are also plenty of community made map packs and such, so if it does grab your interest there's plenty of content beyond the hour or two a basic playthrough will last.<br />
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Controls are THE most important part of a platformer, and they seemed a bit finicky to me at first - lots of platformers have momentum when you're running, so you don't just stop when you stop hitting the key, and sometimes it doesn't feel right. That said, I definitely got used to it, only coming close to ragequitting a couple of times. I think the most times I died on a single puzzle was... 28?<br />
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Overall, it's a nice, super cheap flash-style game. I especially appreciate the presence of the map packs - it's a good way of just providing more content for a game that people enjoy.Aldowynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07192864562814985278noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8652766236149422772.post-3861666867201914712013-04-26T16:41:00.000-05:002013-04-26T16:41:44.367-05:00Random Musings: LevelingA while ago (a few months actually) I was thinking about the leveling system in Skyrim (because I really like analyzing Skyrim for some reason), and the thought occurred to me: Why have player levels at all? It wouldn't even be hard to remove them entirely - you get a perk in a skill tree every time you get 10 levels in that tree, and you get a point in each of the three main attributes for every level in a related school (warrior skills - health, mage skills - magicka, thief/rogue skills - stamina, following the paradigm already in the game.) This even ends up fixing a lot of the problems I have with Skyrim's perk system - the arbitrary level requirements for perks, with a bit of retooling, the tendency to never put perks in certain trees because of game balance (I'm looking at you, speech), and probably a few others I haven't thought of, while simultaneously having an absolutely equivalent result to the current mechanics. <br />
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I've never actually really liked the idea of discrete 'levels'. It just feels so arbitrary. I've always appreciated the Elder Scrolls' 'get better by doing' mechanics, and they make it extremely easy to get rid of player levels entirely - although it'd be a lot harder for most RPGs. <br />
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In any case, let's take a look at what player levels do for you. They give you a very tangible goal and reward, usually a fairly substantial step straight up, maybe some sidesteps. This allows the player to gain a sense of progression, sometimes to ridiculous degrees - how many JRPGs have you played where you start out dealing double digit damage and end up dealing hundreds of thousands every hit by the end? It separates controlling your character's skill progression and actually playing into discrete chunks, letting you optimize your build. <br />
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The big cons, in my opinion, are an encouragement of grinding (a practice that should be a capital offense in any competent RPG, in my opinion. THOU SHALT NOT REQUIRE GRINDING) and a total disconnect between actions and progression - 'Oh, you just hit some arbitrary milestone by mining that rock or talking to that dude? I GUESS I'M BETTER AT KILLING PEOPLE NOW!'<br />
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The pros are ease of design and balance, because it allows you to be MUCH stricter with player progression, and increased precision of progression for the player. It's much harder to metagame a skill-based rather than player level-based system, I feel - a con for some and a pro for others.<br />
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I'm not saying that getting rid of player levels is something every RPG ever should do, but I think it's surprising more haven't experimented with shifting the emphasis away from them, especially considering the runaway success of Skyrim. Perhaps a new breed of RPG is coming? (It usually is)Aldowynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07192864562814985278noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8652766236149422772.post-51594106616630912872013-04-19T22:56:00.000-05:002013-04-19T22:56:11.576-05:00Random Musings: Crafting So I was thinking about crafting systems earlier and what I don't like about them - specifically, the grinding and the spammy, impersonal nature of it. In most of these systems, you will make hundreds or thousands, sometimes more, of just a few items, and you can sometimes make dozens in a single sitting. Most of the time any alterations you CAN make are either not actually associated with the smithing or rather superficial, and rarely is any individual item significant.<br /><br />I'd much rather have a system where each and every item you make is significant and somewhat unique, even your very first iron dagger or whatever. (actually, I'd rather have every piece of loot and every enemy be significant too, but hey you can't have everything so let's focus on crafting today.)<br />
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In real life, no handmade item is exactly the same, yet in many games your character might as well be a modern factory making items out of replaceable parts. There's absolutely no personality or character, either to your works as a whole or each individual piece. This seems odd, given what I see as the inspiration for such mechanics - named weapons in many epic fantasy stories, such as the archetypal Excalibur, and often forging scenes for such weapons.<br />
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I've never liked how variety and progression is accomplished through material tiers in many games, either. If you don't have variety in each tier, any customization is pretty much totally lost. There's a big difference between chainmail and scale mail and plate, and most of the time these are completely ignored in favor of just having 'armor', despite there being a world of difference between, say, a chain shirt and full plate mail. I'm okay with some tiering, but making cosmetic changes tied to material is just ridiculous, as long as they're the same basic type (like leather or metal)<br /><br />Fixing this on a cosmetic level would be a huge step for roleplaying immersion, in my opinion, and wouldn't be too difficult. Just make a simple design-your-own sword system that lets you pick a blade, crossguard, and hilt, name it, and boom. For armor just having more styles available than 'armor' would go a long way too. It doesn't need to be too extensive, but not having every player look literally exactly the same when wearing crafted gear would be nice - especially in single player games where identifying another player's equipment is irrelevant.<br />
<br />Obviously mechanically is a lot more difficult. I had the thought of having a minigame where you actually make the item could be cool, along with balancing the economy and available materials in such a way that a single weapon is significant instead of just trash - it takes longer to make and the materials are more difficult to come by but the end result is a bigger deal as well. One thing you could do is have each of the choices mentioned above give certain stats, although making that significant and interesting would require a certain complexity of combat system most games just don't have. Armor can either have mobility scores that make taking certain actions slower, differing amounts of armor on different areas, or just simply different effectiveness against different types of armors (most games that seriously focus on melee combat already do the second two). <br /><br />There's a lot of things you could do with smithing and other crafting systems that we don't even try to do. I know it's complicated, but surely we can do something more interesting than making 50 iron daggers and selling them for a pittance?Aldowynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07192864562814985278noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8652766236149422772.post-70825362272757028312013-02-18T08:28:00.002-06:002013-02-18T08:28:59.880-06:00Disclosure Alert, Week 1I mentioned in my last post I was doing a Let's Play of Alpha Protocol with a couple of friends. I think I'm going to be doing weekly posts about the LP and AP in general, although I haven't decided Mondays or Fridays yet. In any case, here's the first one!<br /><br />AP is an interesting game. In the last episode of the past week, Yancy spends most of the episode in a tutorial - for dialogue. Not many games have a dialogue system that could even attempt to take that long explaining it. <br /><br />Most of Alpha Protocol's mechanics are uninspired at best and totally broken at worst, and the terrible port doesn't make it any better (NO HOTKEYS?), but the dialogue mechanics are what drew me to the game in the first place. The game becomes all about manipulating others' opinion of you to get them to act in a certain way.<br />
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Many games have dialogue mechanics where dialogue choices serve as tools to overcome an obstacle rather than just progression through the story, but very few of them encourage deliberately manipulating characters in all your interactions with them throughout the entire game in the same way as Alpha Protocol does.<br />
<br />In any case, stay tuned to <a href="http://youtube.com/DisclosureAlertShow">youtube.com/DisclosureAlertShow</a> to see the episodes as they come up! (The first of this week's episodes should be coming out sometime this afternoon)Aldowynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07192864562814985278noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8652766236149422772.post-78313370394328235912013-02-15T12:48:00.002-06:002013-02-15T12:48:34.283-06:00What I'm Working OnHey everyone, Aldowyn here. So this post is meant as an update on everything that I'm currently working on and as an introduction for new followers (Hi new followers!)<br />
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The main places you can find me are currently here (although I should post more, I'm currently going for one content post a week) and on twitter. I do have a youtube channel as well, but I don't currently have anything going on. There's a few other places you might run in to me - if you see someone named Aldowyn, it's <i>probably</i> me, feel free to ask! Actually, feel free to ask in general - if you have a question you'd like to ask me, just send me something on twitter or leave a comment here!<br />
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As for a bit of personal information, I'm a current college student aspiring to become a game designer. I enjoy pretty much every type of game, but the ones I enjoy analyzing the most tend to be RPGs, especially dialogue and character heavy ones. I'm especially interested in mechanics that attempt to model complex social interactions, which also show up in strategy games like Civilization, Crusader Kings II, and the upcoming<a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jonshafer/jon-shafers-at-the-gates"> At The Gates</a> (more on that one later, for now I'll just recommend you check out the kickstarter.)<br />
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My main active project at the moment is a Let's Play called Disclosure Alert, which is on Youtube at the channel <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/DisclosureAlertShow/">DisclosureAlertShow</a>. It's a multiple-host Let's Play of Alpha Protocol with a couple friends of mine, <a href="http://twitter.com/anaphysik">anaphysik</a> and <a href="http://newdarkcloud/">newdarkcloud</a>, modeled after Shamus Young and co.'s <a href="http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?page_id=16386">Spoiler Warning</a>. We're currently on a short, school-mandated break (4 tests in 8 days, sorry!) right after our first week. Check it out if you're interested in branching RPG and dialogue mechanics, seeing me surrounded by trolls, or if you're bored and want something new to watch.<br />
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I was also on a podcast recently with GameCritHulk and others (including newdarkcloud) where we repeatedly sighed and complained and otherwise talked about various corporate failures over the preceding week. You can find that <a href="http://hulkgamecrit.blogspot.com/2013/02/hulkgamecrit-podcast-gaben-in-hand-is.html">here</a>.<br />
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As far as upcoming projects, I have a video series on game design that is in the works, although I can't actually get it out until I have a decent set of headphones with a good microphone. I don't have much to add other than what is already seen on my previous <a href="http://aldowyn.blogspot.com/2013/01/this-is-big-one.html">blogpost on the project</a>. I also have an XCOM series currently only at the idea stage, again waiting on a chance to get a decent microphone, which you can read about (and volunteer for) <a href="http://aldowyn.blogspot.com/2012/11/xcom-propaganda-series-ideas.html">here</a>.Aldowynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07192864562814985278noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8652766236149422772.post-65761537021249604022013-02-01T18:17:00.000-06:002013-02-01T20:28:55.357-06:00Editorial: Day 1 DLC Now, before I get started, I want to stress that this is an
EDITORIAL. This is my opinion on the subject. Yours is probably
different. Feel free to voice your own and critique mine, I'm sure it's
got its own logical fallacies somewhere.<br />
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Kotaku published <a href="http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/02/01/dead-space-3-has-11-pieces-of-day-one-dlc">an article</a> earlier today with the headline 'Dead Space 3 has 11 Pieces of Day One DLC', and the subtitle 'Start saving those pennies, folks'. Now, at this point a lot of people are already raging. "DAY ONE DLC, RAAAGE, WHY ISN'T IT PART OF THE GAME BLAHBLAHBLAH". The implicit (and sometimes explicit) connotation is that day one DLC is somehow 'ethically wrong'.<br />
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I disagree. It CAN be, but it isn't inherently. DLC, especially Day 1 DLC, should be 'extra', and not required in the main game. Just because it was done before the game was released doesn't automatically mean it HAS to be sold with the game itself. What would make a game with Day 1 DLC different than a game made by a slower team who made the same DLC after release? You're not buying their time and effort before launch, you're buying a product that you reasonably expect to be complete. Of course, you have to define 'complete', so let's do that.<br />
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The problem arises when the DLC is not 'extra', when it's a core part of the main game. This is (supposedly) the difference between Zaeed from Mass Effect 2 (who I recall very few people complaining too vociferously about), and Javik from Mass Effect 3, whose non-inclusion in the base game actually caused some people to boycott the game. (Controversy started early with Mass Effect 3). People thought Javik would 'complete' the themes, narrative, or whatever of the game, and thus people thought he should have been on the main disc. I'll agree with that sentiment. (Assuming he IS vital to the game, but that's another topic)<br />
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The way I see it, there are two main types of DLC (possibly more but I'm only discussing two). One is purely game-y stuff - like the weapon packs both Dead Space 3 and ME2 and 3 have. The other is 'actual' new content, like most of the DLC for Skyrim or the story-based DLC in the Mass Effect series.<br />
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As for the first, I think it's fine to leave that out of the game as long as it's not designed to be an integral part of the game. It's easy to have weapons that are a little OP or offer some slightly different pros and cons than those in the base game and not miss them at all in the base game. It's also definitely possible to have a game that's unreasonably difficult or limiting without the progression those weapons provide. Most F2P microtransaction models work on this principle - totally fair in a F2P game, since that's how they make money, but in a game you've already paid for, weapons like this should only be to provide you with an 'extra edge'.<br />
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The second is dodgier. There's a much fuzzier line between 'extra' and 'necessary' content with new mechanical and story content, since in either case they should be integrated into the content already present. Many people were extremely upset with Javik's exclusion from the main game because they believed he would be quite important to the progression of the main plot, while Zaeed was quite obviously totally extra.<br />
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In any case, my point in all of this is that it's not as black and white as many people seem to think it is. You are NOT obligated to everything that is developed before release. You're obligated to a finished product. If the exclusion of Day 1 DLC content makes the game not work properly, mechanically or narratively or whatever, THEN it's 'wrong'. Otherwise... get off your high horse. You don't have to buy it (the game or the DLC) if you don't want it. <br />
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P.S. I know all this Dead Space 3 stuff is making people mad, especially all put together, but I have yet to see something that is GUARANTEED to make the game unplayable without it, or even inferior. If the balance is the way it SHOULD be, then all this extra stuff should be essentially OP while allowing you to have a normal balanced experience without getting any of it.<br />
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That said, it's very possible for them to go the F2P route where it's almost impossible to advance without buying new content, but I hope they aren't THAT dumb. We can also hope they don't make it particularly intrusive. I will admit it's pretty much impossible to tell ahead of time, but this
is prime 'vote for your dollar' territory. Assuming you actually want
to play DS3, go buy it, and then if it turns out they DID screw up the
balance, make a stink and get a refund instead of buying the extras.
They'll pay attention.Aldowynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07192864562814985278noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8652766236149422772.post-37417426130173190012013-01-08T14:52:00.004-06:002013-01-08T14:52:39.006-06:002012 in Review - the GamesSo I played a lot of games this year, a lot more than I ever have. Let's see how this list goes.. probably more on the good list than the bad. Obviously, this will be a very subjective list and you won't agree with everything. <br /><br />Let's start off with the bad, shall we? In no particular order:<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">T<span style="font-size: large;">he Bad:</span></span></b> <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Diablo III</b></div>
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I've played Diablo II, but that was recently and I just borrowed it to play through it. I certainly don't have the memories of LAN parties lasting for an entire weekend and just playing through the entire campaign a few times with a few friends. For me, a game like this turns into a very solo experience. I just explore, mess around some, make sure to fill the ENTIRE map, and kill some dudes. It's just not the kind of multiplayer I enjoy.<br /><br />I could do that with Diablo III. I DID do that with Diablo III. I even <i>enjoyed</i> doing that with Diablo III (By the way, Tyrael is awesome) Then I finished, started up nightmare, and played it for a few days. About half way through, I stopped. I didn't even stop because it was a bad game. I stopped because it wasn't for me. Clickfests and looting being the entire point of the game just doesn't work for me, at least not with this kind of combat. (I enjoyed Borderlands 1 well enough even solo. Of course I got that for like $20 will all the DLC, not for full price at launch)</div>
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<b>Guild Wars 2 </b></div>
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This one I should have seen coming. I DID see this one coming. Guild Wars 2, before launch, was being touted as a 'completely different experience' from the WoW model, a 'WoW killer' as it were. Oh look 'skill' based combat! Auto-scaling areas and enemies! Area quests! Dynamic events! Isn't this so awesome and DIFFERENT!<br /><br />Spoiler: It's not. It's the same thing except with a undeniably shallower combat and progression system than WoW, terrible crafting balance, a tendency to make you want to do EVERYTHING and thus almost inevitably underlevel you. (In a game where scaling YOU down to the enemies was a selling point!) The only motivation seemed to be 'Isn't this fun and cool and DIFFERENT?!?'<br /><br />Maybe someday someone will make an MMORPG that actually IS different. I'm still looking.</div>
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<b>Dishonored</b></div>
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Now, don't get me wrong, I appreciate Dishonored for what it is - a fully realized new IP in a very creative world with some interesting mechanics, but I'm the victim of my OWN hype here. I've been saying 'this game looks awesome' for over a year, when what I really meant 'hey this game is like those games you guys all say you like so you'll probably like this!'.<br /><br />They did, I didn't. My playstyle isn't conducive to this type of game, I guess. I took the boring, simple, but guaranteed to be always useful powers and used one of the least interesting and unique strategies in the game for the ENTIRE GAME (sneaking and backstabbing, btw). I couldn't bring myself to play with the other mechanics because I didn't think they'd be more effective. Blink is cool, if a little overpowered, and there's a lot of neat ideas. But for whatever reason I didn't have all that much fun (the story and characters weren't the best either). There were some cool moments, but overall a disappointment for me personally. I'll probably enjoy it a lot more the second time around.</div>
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<b>Assassin's Creed 3 </b></div>
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AC3 disappointed me because it had the potential to finally get out from the shadow of the Ezio trilogy and really be the BEST game in the series, and it dropped the ball. It's just so fundamentally broken in the way it uses its mechanics it's almost a tragedy.<br /><br />Sure, it had the most interesting moral themes and characters of the entire series, but when the game itself is so broken when previous games have been so much better? I had higher hopes for this game.<b> </b> </div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>The Good:</b></span></div>
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<b>Mass Effect 3</b></div>
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I won't say much about ME3, that's beating a dead horse that was resurrected and then fell down Mount Everest. Twice. I'll just say that everything but the ending was about what I expected and even hoped for, and I refuse to let the admittedly TERRIBLE ending tarnish my view of what is STILL probably my favorite series of games ever.</div>
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<b> The Old Republic</b></div>
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"But Aldowyn, you spent two paragraphs slamming GW2 for not being different!" No. Well, yes. Kind of. I slammed GW2 for being different just for the sake of being different. TOR, on the other hand, knows what it wants to do differently and does it rather well. If you like Bioware's style of writing and storytelling, and the WoW model isn't an instant turn-off for you, TOR may be the game for you. </div>
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<b> </b>I do really enjoy the class storylines, the voice acting, and how every quest has context that games like WoW really doesn't. It even has area quests somewhat similar to some of GW2's area quests, just always available as long as the mobs are there. I admit it has downsides to GW2's approach, but the base game is better for me and less reliant on gimmickry.<br />
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<b>XCOM</b></div>
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If you start off with an Arthur C. Clarke quote, I'm PROBABLY going to like you. Now, others have discussed the downsides of XCOM: Enemy Unknown's tactical turn-based system before, and it was sufficient for me, but that's not what I want to talk about. What I really liked about it was how it manages to naturally and intuitively fit a cohesive narrative into a tactical game that's meant to be repeated. These soldiers' lives are in your hands, and they will fight for you as heroes and, sometimes, those that can't quite cut it.<br /><br />Firaxis, which if you don't know is also the developer behind the Civilization series seems to be good at this. They make these sprawling tactical systems and manage to put enough personality behind it that it doesn't feel bland and boring. This is no exception. </div>
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<b>The Walking Dead</b></div>
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This one blindsided me. I'd heard of it, and certainly the television show, but until Shamus and Co. decided they were going to cover it on Spoiler Warning (Shamus' blog should be on the sidebar somewhere if you don't follow him already), I hadn't really looked. I'm glad I did.<br /><br />TWD has some of the most fully realized characters I've ever seen. The writing and voice work are both quite great (try closing your eyes and just listening...), and this is a game that's not afraid to use its mechanics to make you feel TERRIBLE. The narrative and the choices have been discussed a lot, so I'd like to bring something else up.<br /><br />Quick time events. They're the primary mode of combat in this game, and this is how you do them right. Simple mouse clicks for hitting stuff, Q and E or sometimes space for struggles, and it's almost always <i>predictable</i>, which is the main reason QTEs genuinely suck. Very few of them are actually HARD, but you know that if you mess up you might get your brains eaten - and sometimes that makes you mess up.<br /> </div>
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<b>Far Cry 3</b></div>
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Those of you that follow me on twitter may know that I am pretty much obsessed with this game right now. It's one of the most fun games I've ever played. It knows what it wants to do and delivers on it nearly flawlessly. The themes and narrative are interesting, but I haven't entirely figured them out yet, and that's a bigger discussion than I want to have here. (Not to mention I already had the first part of it in my "Welcome to the Jungle" post back in December.)</div>
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<br />So.. yeah. Lots of cool games, lots of disappointments. I didn't play anything that was just fundamentally terrible, luckily, but there were some that were about what I was expecting, some better, some worse. Hopefully I've learned a bit more about what games I personally like, enough to ... not get every single one of my big disappointments at launch. (The only other games I got at full price were ME3, which was always going to happen, and XCOM)<br /><br />Next week I'll discuss some of the constant themes in the industry from 2012 and what I expect to happen in 2013. See you then! (Who knows, I might write something before then. I should tell you guys WHY AC3 sucks instead of just 'man this was awful' all the time)</div>
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P.S. If there's something you think I'd have mentioned that I haven't, I probably didn't play it. Notably Spec Ops: The Line, Borderlands 2, and maybe Max Payne 3. FTL isn't on here because meh I don't like talking about indie games as much, sorry :P</div>
Aldowynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07192864562814985278noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8652766236149422772.post-81226222945993265922013-01-03T05:00:00.000-06:002013-01-03T15:38:09.638-06:00This is the big oneThose of you that are new here, welcome. This post is perhaps more for
you than it is for my long-time followers, although I certainly hope
they appreciate it too.<br />
<br />
So, those of you that HAVE followed me for a while know that I've
experimented a LOT with finding my 'niche' in internet video game
criticism. I've dabbled in videos, I've dabbled in the blog here, but I've never found something that really grabbed a hold of me or even viewers/readers. I've always thought that there was something, somewhere that I could add to the discussion - I mean, the plan is to become a game designer. If I can't say something new, then is that the right plan? It certainly FEELS like it is, so SOME niche almost has to exist if I'm right. <br />
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I think this is it. This is my big plan, more fundamentally original and thus likely to succeed than any other - if I can get it off the ground. The idea is a video series not unlike Extra Credits, which is the show that really inspired me to believe that becoming a designer was really something that I could actually DO. Making games is one of those things that sounds like a fever dream, but Dan and James, and of course Allison and LeeLee (you guys are all awesome, by the way) made it seem possible. So thanks to them for that.<br />
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<br />
Back on topic. Connections and networking are one of the most important aspects in any
industry, especially creative ones, and this is the
lightning-in-a-bottle method of doing that ahead of time. (And I think I
have it in the bottle. The problem is trying to figure out how to USE
it) The only reason I'm pitching this as a video series instead of a blog post is an inherently selfish one - if you consider getting more people to watch it 'selfish'. Branding, recognition, and loyalty are all fundamentally easier for video content than text content, because humans are visual creatures. It also helps that videos do MORE than just text - they convey things through images, and words in both visual and audio form. It's a long established fact that more senses = more learning. The presence of Youtube is not a coincidence either, but I will also make transcripts available for those of you that don't like videos for whatever reason. No reason not to since it's going to be scripted anyway, and I will fight to make that happen as well as I can - even if it's just putting it in the description or if worst comes to worst putting subtitles/captions on the videos or putting it all on the screen at the end. (Like I said, last ditch scenario. I don't foresee that happening. Those last few miss the point of reading instead of watching, really :/)<br />
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The idea for the show itself is like Extra Credits in the way that many if not all of the episodes will be based on topics more fundamental than gameplay footage can accurately convey, and thus requires art of some form or another to be shown through video. (Yet another way of forming a brand. Look at Extra Credits! Or Zero Punctuation, or any number of animated videos...) That's a problem, and not the only one, but I need to finish explaining.<br />
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The TOPIC is game design. A lot of videos, including, yes, Extra Credits, often discuss game design, but it's usually either in context to a related issue, or for a specific game. (There ARE exceptions, some of which I can think of off the top of my head. They tend to be the most interesting for me. Again, not a coincidence) MY show would be JUST about game design. That's my niche. Quite a few people have already expressed interest, moreso than for any of my previous videos, series, or even individual posts. It's one of the reasons I'm so convinced this could be my big shot.<br />
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I'm going to give you an example so you know just what I'm talking about. The pilot episode, if I can make it, has to do with conflict, and how it's ESSENTIAL to designing a game. Every mechanic in a game has something to do with how the player overcomes obstacles. It's as fundamental a concept to games as conflict is in books. SOMETHING has to drive the player's play just as much as conflict drives a narrative, and it's an analogous situation. There's more to it, or there would be once I started fully writing the episode, but that's the main concept. <br />
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<br />
So that's the idea. But, as is inevitable with such an ambitious project, there are some problems. The first is the art. It HAS to be art, because it can't (or rather, I would vastly prefer) a video format, and showing gameplay A: Doesn't have enough branding (I MIGHT use clips, but probably not), and B: just doesn't work as well to explain the kind of fundamental concepts I plan on discussing. I can't draw, and I am not willing to risk this idea floundering because I'm fumbling around with new software I have no idea how to use, so getting an artist would probably be optimal. I DO have another possibility, but unless it works out I don't want to discuss it, because it drags someone else into the discussion without their permission. <br />
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The second is publicity. Finding a new show is HARD, and I want to make it as easy as possible to find my show. I have a possible idea here, and it's a fever dream, but again... it feels like it might happen. That idea is to join a major gaming network on Youtube. I won't tell you which, even though you might actually guess. I know it's extremely unlikely for an unproven youtuber to do that, but I may have a way around it and I HOPE my intensity and belief in this idea will help a lot.<br />
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I'm actively working on both these issues, and I'm hoping if this post gets spread around enough you guys can help me figure it out. I need help, and what better way to start a fanbase than to get people involved in creating the show? That's a large part of why Kickstarter and other crowdfunding (I won't forget rockethub!) works the way it does. <br />
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In any case, thanks for reading, new or old. I think I may be on to something, and I need your help to make it happen. Give me feedback, ideas, suggestions. Spread the word. Any content created for consumers is impossible without them - and the series itself is for you, not me. The experience and notoriety is just a bonus - I guess you could say the good thing for a wrong reason is still a good thing, right? I'll keep you posted, and I'll see you next time.<br />
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***UPDATE***<br /><br />So, I've decided I'm going to make a pitch video ASAP, but I still want to get this right. There's a few avenues I can explore, including some that I can't until I go back to uni in a week or so. I MAY have found my solution for the art issue, which is the more immediate one - I need the pitch VIDEO and maybe even the pilot to make my official pitch to the network I mentioned. I'm going to spend the next week I have off trying random things and seeing how they work. One option is GIMP (freeware photoshop/paint) and Windows Movie Maker (or, better, some professional application like Vegas Pro), another is Flash, again if I shell out the money. (well, there's a trial for Vegas Pro and Flash that I can use for now) That's what I can mess with right now, and what I'll be spending the next few days doing. (Although I need a break, I've been running pretty much nonstop since I posted this originally) As always, I'll keep you posted. Aldowynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07192864562814985278noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8652766236149422772.post-20436444794682448972012-12-31T20:05:00.002-06:002012-12-31T20:05:17.188-06:00Welcome to the Jungle: Far Cry 3<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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So, I wasn't looking forward to Far Cry 3 at all. At first it looked like just another bland (but colorful!) shooter, including all the marketing. (That Vaas quote doesn't mean much out of context...)<br />
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But then the power of word of mouth took over. Skyrim with guns? Sounds worth a try. (It's totally NOT Skyrim with guns, by the way. Closer to Assassin's Creed, much closer) <br />
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I managed to get hold of a copy (free, actually, with the new video card my sister got), downloaded the game Monday (that's two days ago)... and beat it. Yesterday, just before 4. I was pretty well hooked. I dumped.. probably 30 hours out of 36 or so before I quit. (I'm pretty much done, now. Need to try the co-op at some point, but a mic might be helpful and mine is somewhat broken. If someone wants to play, tell me!)<br />
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So here's my analysis of the game, specifically how the mechanics aid the themes of the game. There WILL be spoilers, so be warned, although I don't think spoilers would ruin the story and I'll try to avoid those that do. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Progression</b></span><br />
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For once I actually need to bring up plot. Far Cry 3 is a game where you play a thrill seeking tourist named Jason Brody whose party of 20 something friends (including a younger and older brother and Jason's girlfriend) gets kidnapped to be sold into slavery by a psychotic pirate named Vaas. (He of the "do you know the definition of insanity" quote) You escape (because Vaas is dumb/crazy and lets you run), and are saved by the natives.<br />
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Then things get weird. This guy from the village, named Dennis, gives you some tattoos, talking to you about some native 'Path of the Warrior', and sets you on your way to saving your friends and killing Vaas.<br />
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Whenever you level up, you get to choose perks that let you do more awesome stuff (seriously awesome stuff) and add to the tattoo on your arm. The tattoos either give you power or represent your growing strength, it's unclear which. Either way, they essentially mean exactly the same thing to Jason and to the player, which is pretty unusual.<br />
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So, you have these tattoos, and you've got some objectives to do. You start out pretty weak, with just a pistol and a knife (well machete), but pretty quickly you earn your way up to some basic assault rifles and such. And so you begin your way on the path of the warrior...<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjojcyKPkSPs77_s9O75Vk0RWxs-HtOxzsEbVfm9Dw54kEOutV1cAtiBM2R0yz8ZbHta9f8770jpjmDwmBvG8b9lgcZkD6mlqgjH3g4FVPlk4l2lRIj4vsndIlP725sNHlUDxyqv2O5EkY/s400/Far+Cry+3+Tattoo.bmp" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The tattoo... </td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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This is where the brilliance of the intertwined narrative and mechanics come in. The balance is almost as good as can be, too. You go to the center of the forest and meet Citra, the leader (shaman priestess, I guess?), earn some more tattoos, unlocking more abilities... go on a quest to prove your worth as a warrior, get more tattoos, more abilities... and finally beat the game and become the ULTIMATE warrior - both in the story and the mechanics. The tattoo and Jason parallel the perks and the player flawlessly.<br />
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As you progress, you steadily become capable of more and more incredible feats, becoming tougher and more lethal with every perk you take. By the end of the game you and Jason will be a murdering machine, willing and capable of murdering dozens of people in a variety (such a variety) of ways without breaking a sweat. The end result is that the player and player character motivations become pretty much the same - always a good thing.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0ECu4Qz_fNLoyYzDwTl3HseFBlYcml29gj0emk3_6wcMx4ZHIOMq9kAkbJ8zJIYn0cMf325r0LYVOBd25cJJJ8lLbmCiXhSbY_PtDsXtrIjWUNXYGYOZKs42c2Se4KGTcdCYdMvTi2Ek/s1600/Far+Cry+3+Perks.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0ECu4Qz_fNLoyYzDwTl3HseFBlYcml29gj0emk3_6wcMx4ZHIOMq9kAkbJ8zJIYn0cMf325r0LYVOBd25cJJJ8lLbmCiXhSbY_PtDsXtrIjWUNXYGYOZKs42c2Se4KGTcdCYdMvTi2Ek/s400/Far+Cry+3+Perks.bmp" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">...the perks</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Escapism</b></span><br />
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Jason's character is essentially defined by two words: 'thrill seeker'. He goes on DOZENS of excursions doing dangerous, adrenaline filled activities like skydiving and snowboarding, and the intro cutscene showing the group before they got kidnapped shows him doing just that.<br />
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When he gets the chance to go all Rambo and murder everyone... well, he's cautious at first. After all, 'he's never shot anyone before'. Before long, though, he begins to relish it and see it as the ultimate thrill. Killing without penalty is FUN... wait. Sound familiar?<br />
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The parallel between Jason's thrill seeking murdering rampage adventure and the player's escapism entertainment is pretty inescapable. Again, we have mechanics that support this. The combat is over the top and encourages experimentation - you'll have a LOT of "let's see if THIS works" or "I wonder if I can do that" moments, just like you'd imagine Jason having. The vehicles are really fun to drive, but also incredibly dangerous - jumping and rolling out of a vehicle as it accidentally careens off a cliff is a common thing. Everywhere there are animals that can and WILL kill you if you're not careful, but they also reward you for manipulating and hunting them.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfz8rlYJG1IkiIowzZPGWWRBEdQlEWpv3uaGaIiBLVF75nDfc435ER1qlqKZ4eoUPiYBMztpCdCFqypst2kIwCnvE5JOpF7KSNd12Uq5wHOGXmvcCPnC_5lxX1RuQ5JplgvUzmzFDepsA/s1600/Far+Cry+3+Jet+Ski+pic.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfz8rlYJG1IkiIowzZPGWWRBEdQlEWpv3uaGaIiBLVF75nDfc435ER1qlqKZ4eoUPiYBMztpCdCFqypst2kIwCnvE5JOpF7KSNd12Uq5wHOGXmvcCPnC_5lxX1RuQ5JplgvUzmzFDepsA/s400/Far+Cry+3+Jet+Ski+pic.bmp" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jet ski, ramp, sunset, rapids. Everything a thrill seeker wants. Except death.</td></tr>
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The most interesting aspect of this is the outpost mechanic. In the game, Vaas's pirates and later on his bosses' privateers hold outposts that you can claim permanently, unlocking new activities in that area and generally making it MUCH safer (not perfectly safe, though. Enemies will still come through, and the animals certainly never go away). That area essentially becomes a generic (if still rather fun) island getaway, with occasional added violence. But the REAL fun comes from exploring new areas and finding new entertaining ways of killing your enemies. The outposts exemplify this, being both the most difficult and the most varied encounters outside of the main campaign.<br />
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But what happens when you clear out the outposts? Presumably you're most of the way there by the end of the game, or possibly all the way there (I wanted to finish up the main story so I still had.. maybe a third of them left? Most of the harder ones) The final ones feel like a theme park - you have all your abilities, and this is pretty much the ultimate test to see how you use them. I spent two HOURS playing around, trying to drop on top of someone to do a takedown using a body flight suit and a parachute. (I figured it out, eventually. There's an achievement for it).<br />
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When you have them ALL, however, and you've done all the hunts and gotten all the gear... there's nothing left to do. For you or for Jason. I mean, sure, you can go race 4 wheelers and dune buggies, go skydiving/hang-gliding, or just see the sights (of which there are PLENTY). The main thrill of the kill is gone, though. You're done, and the game has little left for you, and little left for Jason (who has done all that before, MANY times - which is why the killing was just a blast for him. Taking it up to eleven, as it were) There's a reason the story ends with you leaving the island in some way no matter what you do.The island holds no more appeal to Jason, and if paced properly (as in you take your fill of the extras before finishing the story), it doesn't to the player either. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW4Z3XQqjUNI4pYUGWX0Gxp96ckruwBudbaXHSu5igo2tC2geZqa98KM1L3vqcQ3qqQO3SZplSu0hOwqPUdNfb0ngfcSdUhYZx81sb6CFqkoky5KhHln33uVc_LpdQTPeXZ28L5UUCbBQ/s1600/Far+Cry+3+Zipline.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW4Z3XQqjUNI4pYUGWX0Gxp96ckruwBudbaXHSu5igo2tC2geZqa98KM1L3vqcQ3qqQO3SZplSu0hOwqPUdNfb0ngfcSdUhYZx81sb6CFqkoky5KhHln33uVc_LpdQTPeXZ28L5UUCbBQ/s400/Far+Cry+3+Zipline.bmp" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ziplines. These things are all over the place.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Conclusion</b></span><br />
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I had a blast with this game. I SLAMMED through it in a couple days, and I don't regret a minute of it. It's the most FUN I've had all year. The mechanics and the themes mesh quite well together, in a way I haven't seen before, and the combat encourages experimentation and variety in a way nothing else this year has - including Dishonored and Assassin's Creed (which this game feels a LOT like, incidentally - especially the radio towers and the outposts), or Skyrim last year (as in the quote from the promos).<br />
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The game's parallels between player motivation and character motivation are really interesting. Those themes are definitely there, even though that's not the main message of the story - a fairly simple, definitely blunt "power corrupts" along with "not so different", but the game's mechanics combined with certain aspects of the story dissect the idea of a power fantasy by putting the character in a (relatively) realistic example of playing one out. (Most power fantasies are VERY fantastic. This one makes a big deal out of it being relatively possible) A lot of this stuff you may not even notice while you're playing, but by the time I hit the end, they were pretty apparent, which is the way it should be.<br />
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I'm somehow surprised I'm not hearing more about Far Cry 3, but then again I didn't hear much about Assassin's Creed 3 either. It doesn't do anything hugely different, or feel particularly different, but it executed really well, at least for me. I feel like the reason no one was discussing it was because of a bit of a lack of promotion - like I said, I thought it was just another shooter sequel (I didn't know much about Far Cry) until I started hearing from people playing it. The release time didn't help either, coming out right before people started discussing GotY awards, and people didn't have enough time to play it before the discussion was drowned by the GotY talk.<br />
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Oh, I suppose I should mention where it is in MY games of the year... fairly high, honestly. As far as FUN, it was incredibly fun. It felt short, because of my marathoning, but it was actually just as long as Mass Effect 3 or Assassin's Creed, and it never overstayed its welcome. (Well, it can, but if it does you just play the not-so-long main story. Because you're bored and want to get off the island. Like Jason would!) It manages to deliver some commentary about games and have some really interesting mechanics while still being fun, something I haven't seen much of ever, let alone this year. As far as number? Eh. I don't know. I'll tie it with ME3 for my personal enjoyment and the walking dead and Dishonored for having interesting mechanics, so I guess that's a win for Far Cry 3? Eh. I liked it, and that's what matters at the end of the day<br />
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P.S. I recorded a few videos of post-game outpost reclamations, I'll upload them and add them here when I'm done. I'm planning on doing a video with commentary fairly soon as well, so I'll post that here if it happens.Aldowynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07192864562814985278noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8652766236149422772.post-41084250968987065572012-12-21T22:28:00.000-06:002012-12-21T22:28:24.127-06:00Arcanauts: Aladraian's Journal - Adventure FinaleThis is an excerpt from the journal of the Psion Aladraian Starrunner, apprentice of the great Psiontist Grayson Faraday, following the conclusion of the first of his adventures with the Arcanauts that was extensively chronicled. <br />
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25 March 256 A.S. (Date converted to current systems. The A.S. calendar system is an approximation of the system then in use, with year 1 as the year space travel was first discovered on the Motherrock)<br />
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The past few days have been like nothing I have ever experienced. I found myself embroiled in the machinations of galactic icons, and I found myself foiling those plots. But that feels almost.. unimportant right now. I came face to face with a primordial, one of those mythical beings of creation... and talked to it.<br />
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I... cannot fully convey the feelings I experienced, for I do not fully understand them myself. A primordial is a being of such immense power... it communicated not with words, for words are beneath them, but with primal feelings and images. I was overwhelmed with awe - something I am used to only feeling in my studies of the universe and its secrets.<br />
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I will forever be thankful for my companion, Crias, for interrupting me before I put the primordial to sleep. The experience and opportunity I would have missed...<br />
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Wait, I should explain. It has been a tumultuous few days. I returned from my absence to aid the party in breaking the final seal in the nick of time, as they would soon have been overrun by the World Builder's men. We rushed to the location of the Primordial, only to find what appeared to be Oona and Lord Ceylon Tuatha themselves, along with their respective entourages, debating the Primordial's fate. <br />
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The details matter little, but we dispatched both parties separately without much trouble. Of note is that Crias saved a little elfling child that was apparently inside what had appeared to be Oona - the child is with us as we return to Ferrosa and its fate and history are not yet determined.<br />
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Those parties taken care of, I took the amulet containing the name of the Primordial from Zasahl and invoked it in order to ask it to put the colony back together, which it did so, projecting a feeling of confusion when I spoke the name.<br />
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As I began to command the primordial to return to sleep, Crias interrupted me to ask the primordial itself what it would have us do, a possibility I admit I had never considered. The primordial's response... I may still be in shock.<br />
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The hope I felt... the future felt truly open. I saw visions of endless ages, and then paradise itself, here on Migdol. The Primordial was telling us that it would use its power to heal the planet, to return it to the lush place it once was, before it was ruled by deserts and lightning.<br />
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I could not deny its power and motives, and I believe my companions felt much the same way. The primordial bestowed upon me a vision of burying the amulet on the island we were on, and I felt compelled to do so (though not through any power of the primordial). I did, and the primordial approached. I missed what exactly happened next, but when I looked back to where I had buried it, a sapling had appeared. Again I was overcome with awe - I believe that sapling will grow to become a true wonder of this world, a symbol of the primordial's dedication as guardian and caretaker of Migdol.<br />
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We are on our way back to the colony... and I know not what lies in our future. I am loathe to separate from my companions, as we have gone through much together, but I must find Faraday. The only clue I have is that he had been asking questions about the Bellerophon Cascade, an area I have heard little about except superstitious rumors. Perhaps discovering more about the Cascade would be a logical next step. Aldowynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07192864562814985278noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8652766236149422772.post-85476965829905046072012-12-21T13:41:00.001-06:002012-12-21T13:42:41.213-06:00MMORPGs: MMO vs RPGMMOs, or Massively Multiplayer Online games, have a long history, but most of that is the ubiquitous "MMORPG", from Everquest to World of Warcraft. MMORPGs have always been the dominant form of MMO, but recently there has been a push towards other kinds of MMOs, especially MMOFPS like Planetside 2 and Firefall. In this article I'll discuss why MMORPGs are so popular, some of the issues with the way they're constructed, and why I think games like Planetside 2 more naturally use the MMO concept. <br />
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Whenever you make a game, including an MMO, you should consider how all the elements work together. When making an MMO, you have to think about WHY your game is an MMO. I think that if it's constructed properly, playing an MMO 'solo' should be a significantly inferior experience, which often isn't the case for games like WoW and The Old Republic. These are games where the main questing is actually balanced towards solo play. I don't know about you, but that seems pretty counter-intuitive to me.<br />
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The MMO part of the game and the rest of it should work together to make the full experience. Consider Planetside 2, where you basically have a MMO version of Battlefield - the game is persistent, with consistent character progression, on a massive MMO-sized map with up to two thousand people on a single map, and up to hundreds in a single fight. The multiplayer parts and the shooting parts mesh together to form a single, cohesive game.<br />
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MMORPGs don't do this meshing of design particularly well. You have the RPG parts, where you go questing, kill monsters,and level up and otherwise progress your character, and then you have the "MMO" parts - things like warzones and raids. The end result is that you have two very different experiences in many MMOs, the 'leveling' phase and the 'endgame' (You might add 'PvP' to that list of experiences, depending on the game). The sharp divide between these phases is almost certain to lose a lot of people who were fans of the leveling phase - this is The Old Republic's major failure, in my opinion. I personally much prefer the story/questing phase of the Old Republic to WoW, but from most accounts the endgame and PvP are.. lackluster at best.<br />
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The reason these "WoW-clones" are so common is much the same reason modern military shooters are so popular - a follow the leader process. World of Warcraft is a massive cash cow, with 12 million subs at peak and STILL more than 10 million (technically it dipped below 10 mil but it's back above with Cataclysm), and publishers and developers think that if they essentially copy the WoW model but make a few changes, they might be able to get a piece of the pie - but just like with Call of Duty in the shooter market, it hasn't really worked for most. Just like with Call of Duty, after the initial breakthrough, WoW is self-perpetuating - so many people play WoW because so many other people play WoW. It takes something significantly different to get a significant piece of that WoW pie, and that's why games like GW2 tend to emphasize how they are different. Guild Wars 2's dynamic events are a good example of a feature in an otherwise very WoW-like game that use the nature of an MMO in an intelligent manner.<br />
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The industry seems to be slowly realizing that making WoW clones isn't the best way to make money. More and more we hear less of 'WoW clones' and more of 'WoW killers' - MMORPGs that are supposed to be BETTER than WoW in fundamental ways, like GW2's world dynamism and SWTOR's emphasis on story and voice acting. There's also been more and more studios experimenting with the MMO concept, implementing it more naturally into the game. Even the line between MMO and just a multiplayer game blurs with games like League of Legends and even some shooters - games that still have 'matches' and no persistent play between them. (I'd consider a game to be an MMO if it doesn't have a single player offline component, although most online shooters like Blacklight: Retribution aren't generally considered MMOs)<br />
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Personally, an MMORPG seems like a contradiction to me, although that depends on your definition of RPG (Which I'll talk about in another article.) An RPG should be about roleplaying, IMO, and I've yet to see a system that convincingly allows multiplayer roleplaying. Most roleplaying is done out of the given mechanics. Ironically, the best MMOs for roleplaying are actually not MMORPGs - they're games like EVE, where player and character motivations are essentially the same, and the roleplaying comes naturally from the mechanics. Think about it: MMORPGs are all about raids and PvP, and these are all things that are dominated by player points of view - mostly grinding for equipment or points of some kind. Even in The Old Republic, roleplaying is mostly limited to player character interaction with NPCs, not interaction with each other. It's essentially a single-player experience with MMO conventions like guilds and raids taped on to it. Contrast this to EVE, where you hear about corporate plots years in the making, or to a shooter where you have people calling for fire support or commanding a squad - all, essentially, in-character without any conscious effort to 'roleplay'.<br />
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All of the elements of a game should work together to form the whole. MMORPGs don't do this particularly well, due to the way they are constructed. I'm not saying that it's impossible to make a natural feeling MMORPG, just that in my opinion the WoW model isn't the way to do it. That doesn't mean they aren't enjoyable, either, but I think it's pretty much indisputable that they could definitely flow better than they do now, and developers are beginning to realize that and experiment with the current dominant model. Aldowynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07192864562814985278noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8652766236149422772.post-12029577296320060342012-12-18T18:02:00.003-06:002012-12-18T18:02:42.715-06:00What's in a name: GamerThe video game industry and culture is full of badly defined terms that we throw around all the time without realizing that everyone's definition is a little bit different - terms like 'hardcore', 'RPG', and, the one I'll be discussing in this article, 'gamer'.<br />
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So, looking at the definition of the word, a gamer is someone who plays games. Simple, right? But, like everything else, the reality is far more complicated. Language is defined by how it is used as least as much as where the term came from. I mean, would you call someone who reads books a 'reader'? (Or worse, a 'booker')<br />
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Gaming is unlike most (not all) other forms of media in that an entire culture has formed around it. I see the term 'gamer' as not saying that someone plays games, because that is so general as to be almost meaningless. Almost everyone plays games, even if it's just Angry Birds on their smartphone waiting in line for their morning coffee. A gamer is someone who would identify themselves as a gamer - video games become part of their identity, in much the same way that computers or comic books or whatever become part of the identity of a 'nerd' or 'geek' (two other ill-defined terms whose meaning has changed drastically in recent years).<br />
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A gamer, in my opinion, is someone who plays games as more than just a diversion, whether for competition, social interaction (Farmville doesn't count - there's no true interaction there), to hear an interesting story, or some other reason. I would say someone that just buys the latest Call of Duty, Madden, or WoW expansion isn't a gamer in the way I would use the word - a gamer is someone who enjoys games in general, not one game or series to the exclusion of all others.<br />
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In short, a gamer is someone who participates in the culture. A gamer is the kind of person who reads a review of something before they buy it, who is interested in new kinds of games, and who is willing to seriously discuss pros and cons of different games.<br />
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Of course, many people use other definitions, and the gaming culture that the term is associated with has many, many subcultures (such as the shooter fans, or people who play only MMOs). The key point, I think, is that they understand enough about the games to look at more than just the name or the popularity of something before playing it.<br />
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So that's my definition of a 'gamer'. Like I've said many times above, this is just my definition, and although I've tried to make it as definitive and concrete as I can, of course people disagree, and that's just fine. Evolving perceptions of words like these is how languages change.<br />
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P.S. I've got a lot of posts planned out, but I've been busy with finals and now holiday trips and things. Hopefully I'll have some semi-regular content pretty soon after break. The XCOM series is still happening at some point, and me and a few other people are planning on doing an Alpha Protocol Let's Play, so look forward to more information on those in a couple weeks! Aldowynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07192864562814985278noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8652766236149422772.post-3333219718035423502012-11-20T19:34:00.001-06:002012-11-20T19:34:54.106-06:00XCOM series updateSo several of you gave some input last time, and I've been thinking of some specific ideas since then. The idea at this point is basically to be giving you guys a view of the war as if you were actual civilians - so there will be news articles of various kinds, official government announcements, classic 'propaganda', maybe even a presidential announcement or two for big things (most notably the fact that OMG THERE ARE ALIENS!!!1!).<br /><br />You'll notice some of that is text based, some is video/image based. There's going to be very few consistent sources of reliable information - I'm going to be deliberately trying to mislead you guys as to what is going on in the actual campaign, making it seem better than it is. Of course, if it's going really well there's no reason to do that, is there? So I'm thinking maybe classic difficulty, although that depends on how good I am. NOT Ironman, but I'll only reload if I wipe because of something dumb - I won't even reload on all wipes, and anything with survivors I won't.<br /><br />Playing on classic, it's entirely possible I won't win, but I WILL play to the VERY end, and we'll see how well the propaganda can keep up the facade of success. Actually, it might be preferable if I DON'T win, although I'll certainly try.<br />
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Oh, as for when I start... I'll probably wait to start posting until January, although I may start a couple weeks before Christmas if I have enough of a backlog of content by then. Probably not. <br /><br />So, lots of different ideas for things I can do, so very varied content, some video and some audio. The question for you guys for this post is what do you think of classic as the difficulty? I'm thinking that should work pretty well, but normal is an option. I can also do Ironman if you think that's important.<br /><br />Of course, if you have any other ideas (ideas for specific content is welcome, although I haven't mentioned everything), feel free to offer them as well! Signups are still open, and will be at least until I start, probably later. (If you're nice you'll post them on the initial post, <a href="http://aldowyn.blogspot.com/2012/11/xcom-propaganda-series-ideas.html">here</a>.)Aldowynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07192864562814985278noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8652766236149422772.post-9180406072299847232012-11-19T03:20:00.000-06:002012-11-20T19:54:19.922-06:00Binding of Isaac vs FTL: A comparison of roguelikes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;">
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First off, in the definition of roguelike (the only one that really works for both examples) is a game that requires repeated playthroughs (generally ending with death) in order to learn how to play it properly. This is the genre that made up the term 'losing in fun'. Also, binding of Isaac is ... kind of an arcade shooter roguelike with permanent powerups and other items. FTL is a pausable space sim roguelike where you control obtainable crew and weapons on an upgradable starship. Now, on to the introduction:</div>
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Somehow a debate on Twitter over Binding of Isaac came up, with JPH <a href="http://twitter.com/ninjagameden">(@ninjagameden</a>) complaining on Twitter (that's not how the debate started, BoI was a tangent) about it and other people trying to convince him "HEY it's not the worst game ever it's totally AWESOME!", eventually it came down to the point where JPH says that he HAS to use the wiki to know what everything does. Let's figure out how much of a problem that is.</div>
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Somewhat later, <a href="http://twitter.com/timepyradox">TimePyradox</a> came in with some issues concerning FTL, and how it has specific builds needed to beat the boss that are specific enough to need wiki-ing. That's not really true (sorry), but FTL has other similar problems, and I'll discuss that below. </div>
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There's a lot of analysis here about these very specific problems, so this should be an interesting experiment. I'll have an answer as to which issue is the more serious one at the end. Now, one at a time, let's get into this. Binding of Isaac first.</div>
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<strong>Binding of Isaac</strong></div>
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JPH's problem is he gets an item and he doesn't know what it does, and there's too many items for him to be able to learn through repeated plays, so you have to use the wiki during play to know what all the items does. I don't actually know if this is true or not - I'm sure some would agree, but twitter has accepted that he needs the wiki. (note, him specifically. This kind of thing depends on your capability of dedicating time to the game on a fairly consistent basis in order to learn the items well enough not to use a wiki)</div>
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He is arguing that FTL does not have this problem, because FTL tells you exactly what each item does, and here's the key part, BEFORE you get it. In Binding of Isaac, they don't tell them until after you get them at best, and never at worst. (Well, technically when you use it. That doesn't help when you get smashed by a giant foot because you're the only target)</div>
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In some ways, I think that labeling the items is irrelevant, because if it tells you after you get the item that's fine, as long as it tells you, because you pick up every item. The way Binding of Isaac supposedly works (I haven't played it) is that you take what you get, and develop a play style developed around what you get. Any combination of items (and you get a very specific number of items, usually, due to the way it's set up.) should be viable, as long as you know how to use that combination. Experience obviously helps with that, but it's not NECESSARY. You also get a pretty definite number of items, each of which benefits you in a supposedly equal way (although some are tradeoffs) Note tarot cards (a specific type of consumable item that do something when you use them) are an exception, but there's a relatively limited number (like 16? Less than 20 more than a dozen) Pills are ALSO an exception, but they have different effects every game, like potions in a classic roguelike, and typically won't hurt you directly in any way. </div>
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This issue (there are others that could be brought up, I'm sure, but this is the big one I've heard discussed) is relatively simple and easy to fix, so if that's the worst one, then Binding of Isaac is pretty well off in this comparison.</div>
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<strong>FTL</strong></div>
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Pyradox's argument is that the builds required are specific enough that you need a wiki or spreadsheet to figure it out. If that was true, then that was bad. But I disagree that you DO. (He mentioned only experience players would when I mentioned this.) I've actually played FTL (I don't think I've written anything on it yet? I should fix that), and I asked <a href="http://twitter.com/Ranneko">Ranneko </a>about this (Thanks Ranneko!), and as far as I can tell, this is just false. Specific builds that need memorization just don't exist. All sorts of tactics are close to equally useful, and you can beat the boss with all sorts of end builds. You DO need to be highly upgraded with full health, high quality weapons, a full crew, and things like that, but that's to be expected at a boss.</div>
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The problem, as far as I can tell, is that it's just a massive, MASSIVE difficulty hike from everything else. The rest of the game's difficulty curve as rough plateaus for each sector, increasing moderately whenever you go to a new sector, and then it just JUMPS at the boss. It's unreasonably difficult. It's so much harder new players will likely reach a skill level where they almost always reach the boss but never/rarely KILL the boss. (I'm pretty close to that level) This is an issue. JPH actually mentioned this in reference to Binding of Isaac, but the difficulty of a game (as an absolute, independent of progression. More on that in a second) should progress as a fairly steady incline, and rewards should roughly follow that. Character ability does the same thing in a progression based game, and the difference between those results in a 'perceived difficulty'.</div>
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The problem arises here: The absolute difficulty may increase by half again, or double. But the 'perceived' difficulty goes up by much, MUCH more. For comparison (this number is completely academic since there are no numbers involved), that value could be ten times as much as before (Note: as a difference, not a ratio. See post-post-script), the boss is that much harder. I don't think I need to tell you why that's a problem. </div>
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There are a few possible solutions, such as lowering the difficulty of the boss, and some other problems, like how it's the same every time (that's more subjective), but these are irrelevant. You can't fix this by something as simple as adding some text to the game, so I'd consider it a more 'fundamental' issue than the one discussed for Binding of Isaac.</div>
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<strong>Result</strong></div>
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Both games when played properly rely upon the experience of multiple plays to become proficient at them, so they do what they're supposed to as roguelikes. (note: FTL does almost exclusively, while Binding of Isaac also has twitch skill and other things that you need to play well. I'm discussing the roguelike mechanics specifically) I'm discussing two specific issues here, and considering they are some of the dominant reasons these games are NOT good (or fun, really. That's the hard part, distinguishing), I think that's a fair (but fundamentally flawed, it doesn't consider NUMBER of issues, just the single worst one) way of judging which is a better game. So qualifiers abound.</div>
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I'd say that the comparison of these two issues, which in Binding of Isaac is easily fixed and it's harder to do so for FTL, makes FTL an 'objectively' 'worse' game. This DOES NOT MEAN that it is less fun. It means that its systems are objectively WORSE. Any definition of 'fun' is inherently subjective, and just because a game is inherently 'worse' in this way doesn't mean that it's a problem. Although it is a problem. I would make the observation that they are LINKED, though. Actually, the idea that a game being 'good' is linked to it being 'fun' is pretty obvious, the issue is that when you ask if a game is 'good' you're ACTUALLY asking if it's 'fun'.</div>
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Note that JPH was completely unable to handle playing Binding of Isaac because of its obfuscation of mechanics due to a somewhat personal issue with not seeing information, while almost everyone who plays FTL notices how much harder the boss is, although only some people quit over it. For JPH, the game was less fun because of a certain issue he had with playing it, one roughly analogous to that of a colorblind person. (JPH: I'm not saying you're colorblind. Or even that your brain has something 'wrong' with it like a colorblind's person's eyes are. Brains are more complicated than eyes) The issues with the boss make FTL less fun for EVERYONE, making it... a worse game, objectively. So if you don't have the problem with not knowing what stuff does that JPH did in Binding of Isaac, and personal preference is irrelevant (unlikely), theoretically (THEORETICALLY) Binding of Isaac should be more 'fun'. Assuming 'fun' is dependent on a game's systems being consistent and following some kind of logical progression.</div>
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P.S. Don't forget to check out my post with my idea for an XCOM Propaganda series! It's the very last post :P Taking signups for soldiers and ideas! </div>
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P.P.S. *MATH NERD ALERT* Actually, what I called a 'difference' between the 'absolute difficulty' and isn't a difference at all, since you can't absolutely define difficulty. Well, I suppose you could, but it makes less sense that way. I'd call it a ratio. Absolute difficulty and character ability have the same unit (strength, basically. Like a Challenge Rating in D&D, applied to the PCs as well), and the ratio of those results in a difficulty, with 1 being, say, average. (You have to define 1 and average is good because it allows lower values and higher much more easily, making the whole system more flexible and easier to use) Note that a difference in that case would ALSO work, but is inferior for the same reason that facing 22 CR as a 20 CR party is harder than facing 10 CR as an 8 CR party. (or more drastically, a 3 CR enemy as a 1 CR party) Note the ratios: 1.1, 1.25, and 3.00. (It might not be that bad, because performance is randomly variable and CR doesn't necessarily follow a linear scale of ability)</div>
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Aldowynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07192864562814985278noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8652766236149422772.post-78428720559805816762012-11-14T17:37:00.002-06:002012-11-14T17:56:46.814-06:00XCOM Propaganda Series - IdeasSo, there's a bunch of people in my internet circle doing XCOM stuff. (Jarenth<a href="http://bluescreenofawesome.com/2012/10/21/jarenth-plays-xcom-enemy-unknown-introduction/"> here </a>and Krellen <a href="http://krellen.net/2012/11/09/xcom-part-1/">here</a>), and I particularly enjoyed my first playthrough and I was wondering what I could do that was unique from theirs. One is a traditional LP from the perspective of the player, and one is a narrative driven one from the perspective of the commander.<br />
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I had the idea on twitter of a series that is propaganda published either by XCOM itself or by the individual nations. Think like... the Starship Troopers movie. The idea of downplaying the alien threat while emphasizing the heroic actions of the soldiers seems like it could make a fairly compelling entertaining series. I'm not sure what format I'd like to do it in, there are obvious issues with both a text format (here on the blog) and a video format on my youtube channel. First off, I'm not sure at all I have a voice remotely suited to this kind of video, although I could practice a bit and maybe pull it off. There's also the question of variety of shots - I mean, once you've seen a trooper headshot a xeno once, you've seen them all. Some clever editing, clips/shots, and textual/audio context may solve this problem (Basically it just means I have to actually work to make it interesting :D)<br />
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I'm pretty sure I'm going to be doing this in some form, although if it doesn't work out I may convert to a traditional LP, or have that going and still do these sometimes (I'm thinking I could do videos focusing on big tech advancements and the introduction of enemies) Part of this post is opening it up to everyone to suggest ideas or suggestions, anything of that nature is welcome. Obviously feedback on whether to do it in text or video would be extremely helpful.<br />
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Also if you want to be in said series, post your preferred name, nickname, class, appearance, gender, whatever. I'll probably be starting... next Monday? And do a weekly or biweekly update schedule. Maybe one general "progress of the war" or "be a hero!" video and one video on a more specific topic. Aldowynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07192864562814985278noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8652766236149422772.post-12003768632562459112012-11-07T21:22:00.000-06:002012-11-07T21:32:02.585-06:00Mass Effect - Looking Back Today is N7 day, November 7th. Admittedly <a href="http://masseffect.bioware.com/community/n7day/">Bioware came up with it</a>, but why not, I'll take it. It gives me an excuse to write about Mass Effect, which I'm always, always ready to do.<br />
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It being N7 day, today is a day to appreciate the series and what it did well, the memories it gave us. So let's talk about that instead of the negatives (like we don't do enough of that in my LP... more on that later).<br />
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<b>Mass Effect 1</b><br />
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Mass Effect 1 was released, as an Xbox 360 exclusive on Nov 20. 2007, almost 5 years ago. It was developed by Bioware, then mostly known for Baldur's Gate and Knights of the Old Republic, and Mass Effect was the first game they'd made in an original setting, although both of those significantly developed their settings, especially KotOR, which brought a whole new time period to the KotOR universe. I got the original Mass Effect, for PC... I think it was the fall of 2009. I was hooked.<br />
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They got so much right. The shooting mechanics were clunky, the pacing was occasionally a little odd, it definitely had the formulaic plot structure Bioware is famous for, but it nailed the setting and the characters. It brought us Commander Shepard, Garrus, Wrex, Tali, Liara, Joker, Saren, still some of my favorite characters in gaming. It brought us the Asari, the Turians, the Salarians, the Krogan, the Quarians, and more, a stable of sci-fi races that was new, diverse, and distinctive. It brought us the Genophage, the Rachni, and the Geth, introducing morally gray conflicts that shaped the entire universe and gave you a chance to affect those conflicts.<br />
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Mass Effect 1 still has some of the most iconic moments in the series. Remember Eden Prime, where we first saw Sovereign and began to learn the of threat of the Reapers. Remember the Citadel, where we got our first good look at the culture of the universe and became a Spectre. Remember becoming commander of the Normandy, and giving a speech to the crew that gave you one of the first big opportunities to establish your Shepard's character. Remember Noveria, and discovering the Rachni Queen. Remember Feros and the insidious influence of the Thorian. Remember Virmire, confronting Wrex, the "Hold the Line" speech and meeting Sovereign. Remember Ilos, and Vigil explaining the last effort of the Protheans, flinging a warning to the future. Remember the ending, remember convincing Saren that his was not the way, remember the Normandy leading the charge and defeating Sovereign for good. <br />
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<b>Mass Effect 2</b>The hype for Mass Effect 2 was intense. EA had acquired Bioware and with it the series, and ME2 was being promoted as a true blockbuster (despite the January 26 release). It looked like it was going to be great.<br />
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And it was, in a lot of ways. The shooting itself was a lot tighter, although the customization RPG aspects suffered. The base mechanics, at least in my opinion, were a lot more enjoyable. <br />
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Mass Effect 2 introduced many, many new characters, just as iconic as those from the original games. This is the game that brought us Mordin Solus, Thane Krios, Legion, Grunt, Samara, Miranda. ME2 had a huge emphasis on these characters, with every single squad member (of which there were about a dozen) getting one full mission devoted to them, apart from the recruitment missions for all but Miranda and Jacob, and these missions were easily the best part of the game. This is the game where we killed a Thresher Maw on foot, where we stopped an Ardat-Yakshi from terrorizing Omega, where we helped Mordin stop terrible experiments on the Krogan, where we saved Miranda's sister from her controlling father, where we saved Tali from accusations of unleashing the Geth on the Flotilla, and the game where we flew, and survived, the suicide mission.<br />
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Mass Effect 2 was definitely an improvement from Mass Effect 1 in a lot of ways. Conversations were more fluid and integrated into the plot, instead of the ME1 style where typically you got your quests and then you went and did them. It was much more cinematic, with some really great scenes. It had a ton of terrific character development for its huge stable of characters. It further developed the setting, letting us see the impact of the Genophage on Tuchanka, the plight of the Quarians on the Migrant Fleet, and the height of Asari culture on Illium. The suicide mission was an interesting experiment in gameplay mechanics, fusing character input and a cinematic experience in a way that hadn't really been seen before.<br />
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<b>Mass Effect 3</b><br />
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Again, Mass Effect 3 was hyped up for months before release. Fans of the series, like me, hoped that it would combine the plot and customization of Mass Effect 1 with the shooting and cinematic experience of ME2, while keeping up the tradition of setting and characters the previous games had established.<br />
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Again, in a lot of ways it worked. There's been a lot of negative discussion of ME3, even without the controversy of the ending, but ME3 did succeed in fusing the first two fairly well. It further developed the skill systems and gave much more variety to the enemies and weapons, making the combat much, much deeper than in ME2. It had a resurgent focus on the plot, with every main mission directly related to the main objective, unlike Mass Effect 2.<br />
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War was upon the galaxy, and no punches would be pulled. Right from the very beginning, Shepard tumbled from catastrophe to catastrophe, trying to find some way to save Earth and defeat the Reapers. We went from Palaven, seeing the discipline and heroism of the desperate Turians trying to save their homeworld, to Tuchanka, where we finally resolved the longstanding issue of the genophage, to Rannoch, where the Geth and the Quarians were engaged in their final battle, to Earth, where the Reapers are defeated and Shepard wins. (mostly)<br />
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Mass Effect as a series was a grand experiment, Bioware trying to make a series in a completely new world with a grand epic story that the player had unparalleled influence on. Sometimes they stumbled, sometimes they fell backwards, but overall I think they succeeded. <br />
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So next time you're discussing the ending, or Cerberus, or nitpicking at some small aspect, or whatever, take a step back, just for a moment, and remember the memories and experiences that the series has given us over the past 5 years. I certainly have, and I thank Bioware for giving me one of my favorite series ever, despite the mistakes I made and the potential for so much more that was squandered. <br />
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Happy N7 Day. Maybe next year seeing the bright side will be a little easier.<br />
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P.S. Oh, btw, I'm planning on starting my ME2 LP up again next week. It's published now so I have to do it. Someone remind me this weekend that I need to do that. Also if you'd like being a guest commentator for a week or two, and I know you, feel free to volunteer on twitter or in the comments. Aldowynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07192864562814985278noreply@blogger.com1