The Tao of WoW

May 1st, 2012
Aerobic exercise if overrated.

A few months ago a gaming community kerfuffle occurred when someone Photoshopped a picture of Bioware writer Jennifer Hepler with text from an interview she had given 5 years ago, in which she stated that she wished games had a fast-forward button to allow players, such as herself, to skip combat entirely in favor of dialogue, story, or other gameplay elements. An internet firestorm ensued, as gamers raged in righteous indignation. Skip combat? How dare she suggest something so blasphemous! “Burn the witch!” they declared! If you’re curious (or feeling masochistic) you can read more about this controversy here.

Once upon a time, a fellow employee at a game studio where I worked arrogantly declared that I must have less gaming experience than him because of the questions I was asking regarding skill stats. Never mind the fact that I was at least 10 years older than him and had been playing video games before he was born. My lack of knowledge regarding this particular aspect of gaming made it obvious to him that I was an inexperienced n00b. The implication seems to be that if you’re not interested in combat, you’re not really a gamer.

But challenging yourself by playing a game in a way that wasn’t intended, by subverting the rules in new and interesting ways, is the very essence of a “gamer mentality”, and is something that has intrigued me since I was old enough to play “Operation” with my toes. (I don’t recommend it.) So when I read about Everbloom’s zero kills achievement in World of Warcraft, I had to try it for myself.

Since joining the Peace Corp guild I have re-rolled my conscientious-objecting rogue three times. Who knew it was so hard to not kill something? The goal is to reach level 85 with zero creature kills and zero total kills. At the beginning levels, this is far more difficult than you might imagine. My first rogue was decommissioned when a helpful(?) worgen decided to kill a mob that I had temporarily stunned in self-defense. Once tagged, the kill is attributed to you, regardless of who does the actual killing. My second rogue was put out to pasture when I accidentally clicked on a critter to do a /love command and instead beat the poor creature to death with my fists from 6′ away! Who knew my arms were that long?

I realize that playing World of Warcraft in this manner is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. It requires a degree of patience, skill and desire for exploration that many may find frustrating and/or boring. (You will spend a great deal of time getting more than your daily requirement of aerobic exercise and will become intimately familiar with the local cemetery.) But I think it serves as an example of how various forms of gameplay are equally valid. Wanting to skip combat doesn’t make you any less of a gamer. It just makes you a different kind of gamer.

Tags:
Posted in PvE | 6 Comments »

Forsaken Underwear

April 13th, 2012
She lost her stocking in the dryer.

Raise your hand if you’ve ever engaged in any of the following activities: Hiking, camping, fishing, hunting, orienteering.

Now raise your hand if you’ve participated in any of these activities while wearing nothing but your underwear.

OK – you in the back, who used to live in a nudist colony: You don’t count.

For the rest of us, proper attire is normally desired whenever we’re not sleeping, or laying on the couch watching an episode of the “Housewives of Orange County”. In fact, there are entire stores devoted to “proper” attire for any G-rated activity that requires a moderate amount of physical exertion. Think REI or Dick’s Sporting Goods.

So why in dog’s name must my female MMO avatar be dressed like a Hooter’s reject?

Yes, I know – we’ve had this conversation before. Let me make sure I have my facts straight:

  1. All video games are intended primarily for young men under the age of 30.
  2. All men under the age of 30 like to look at scantily-clad women.
  3. Boobs sell.
  4. Therefore, ipso facto, video games contain female avatars with large breasts and small clothing.

This leads to another rather bizarre and circuitous argument regarding the making and marketing of video games: Women don’t play video games, so why make content that appeals to them? But since video game content is quite blatantly not made for women, why should they bother playing? Snake, meet tail. The fact that the rampant sexism and objectification of female characters in video games can be alienating to women, discouraging them from becoming players in the first place, seems to have completely escaped the logic of many game makers. I guess the industry believes that the money spent by women has cooties on it?

So, back to my poor Forsaken World assassin, with her plunging neckline, bikini bottom, and missing thigh-high stocking. This is a fantasy role-playing game, and the rules of MMOs dictate that we must appeal to the fantasies of young men, right? The problem with this is that these video games potentially limit their profits when they target only male audiences. Sure, there are women willing to buy these games because they are either oblivious to the sexual objectification, or (like me) they enjoy other aspects of a game enough to hold their noses and tolerate the sexism (I’m looking at you, Guild Wars.) But what many in the industry seem to fail to recognize is that the lack of female cleavage and naked thigh does not automatically correlate to a lack of players. Heck, I’m not sure if those little block people in Minecraft even have gender! I don’t think anyone is going to argue that the lack of pixelated breasts in any way limited Minecraft’s popularity.

Either a game is fun to play, or it isn’t. Trying to serve the pleasure of the heterosexual male viewer by reducing female characters to improbable objects is ultimately insulting to all players, regardless of their gender – and even if they are not consciously aware of the insult. Boobs may get their attention, but it’s not guaranteed to keep it. Just ask the folks at Evony.

Tags:
Posted in Avatars | 5 Comments »

A Face Only A Mother Could Love

February 29th, 2012
The future will be boring.

I’ve been a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000 almost since its inception, and I take a lot of inspiration from its particular style of comedy. For those unfamiliar with the MST3K phenomenon, it is a TV show involving a man and an assortment of robots who watch, and mock, bad B movies. Heckling a bad public performance of any kind is something we humans have probably been doing since living in a French cave. But it was MST3K who made it sublime.

Unfortunately, as any professional (or otherwise) heckler knows, your jokes are only as good as your source material. There’s a sweet spot between your material being bad enough to generate jokes and so bad that it descends into a pit of mirthless inanity. Face of Mankind is an MMO that dangles on that precipice with almost a complete lack of self-awareness. Stated less eloquently: it’s a mighty dull game that’s hard to make fun of.

To be fair, Face of Mankind is a sandbox game, which I have been known to struggle with before. Unlike my previous experiences, at least FOM has a tutorial section that teaches you the game’s basic mechanics. The problem is that this tutorial can’t begin to prepare you for the game’s complete lack of aim, purpose, goal, or even aesthetic. Once you enter the multiplayer area of the game, you are confronted with an endless maze of bland corridors and empty rooms, completely devoid of purpose. With no full-size map, and only sporadic in-game signage, it became ridiculously easy to become hopelessly lost. I can only surmise that the game’s map designers were reading Dante’s Inferno while looking at M.C. Escher sketches and eating Taco Bell. It’s the only logical explanation.

The few NPCs you encounter throughout the game are either mute or respond with some canned variation of “I have nothing for you right now.” At one point during my travels I found a room labeled “cafeteria” that contained a handful of NPCs awkwardly dancing. There was no music and no explanation. In a corner of another map I stumbled upon a sushi bar. I knew this because there was a sign overhead that read, “Sushi Corner”, not because the NPCs under the sign actually sold any sushi. Eventually my meanderings left me stuck in a koi pond. I had jumped over a railing to investigate the pond, not realizing that jumping in this game quickly drains stamina. I was forced to stand in the pond while I regained my stamina, simultaneously losing my dignity. And my patience.

There’s mining and crafting in this game. Or at least, that’s what I was told. My one experience with the crafting mechanics involved standing in front of a computer terminal, watching a progress bar create the components needed to make a pizza. This in itself was a bit incongruous, considering the fact that the faction I had joined – Vortex Incorporated – is the transportation sector of the game world, famous for inventing teleportation. I guess they needed pizzas to throw through the teleporter gates for test purposes?

I suppose I should mention the game’s various factions, which are intended to be the source of player-driven politics and roleplay in the FOM world. There are eight factions altogether, covering everything from production and mining, to law enforcement and mercenary work. You are free to join any one faction at any time, or even remain a civilian. I’m sure the designers’ intent was to create a framework that would allow the players to engage in a variety of geopolitical machinations, but what I experienced looked more like a game of “Cowboys & Indians” than “Rome: Total War”. This type of gameplay only works if players are given a reason to care through conflicting desires, goals, abilities, and resources. It’s not going to be accomplished by dumping the player into an ugly, confusing labyrinth and asking them to make a pizza.

Overall, Face of Mankind was a big, boring pseudo-future world with little to offer in terms of player engagement or entertainment. In case you’re wondering, I never did find the infamous “Club 69″, or strippers, or even a basketball. But joining a faction did give me a new pair of pants.

Tags:
Posted in Game Mechanics | 1 Comment »

Fishing On An Acid Trip

January 27th, 2012
We're not in Kansas anymore.

In anthropology there are two terms used to refer to how someone experiences culture: etic and emic. Similar to the concepts of objective and subjective, if you’re talking about your own culture, you’re probably giving an “emic” account. If you’re attempting to describe Final Fantasy XIV, you’re doing so from an “etic” perspective.

Or you’re a nitrous oxide-sniffing space alien. I get the two confused.

Full Disclosure: I have no experience with the first Final Fantasy MMO (FF XI), nor have I played any of the single-player titles (FF’s I – XIV). I’m not sure why I have avoided the franchise for so long. I suspect I may be intimidated by how the games are chronologically ordered: Some sort of Roman numeral, base 23, pentadecimal system?

So yes, I freely admit that I may not be this Japanese MMO’s target audience. But regardless of how etic my perspective may be, a game’s story and characters need to have some universal elements that are easily identifiable to any audience, regardless of their cultural background. Or at least I would expect an MMO of this caliber and budget to try to aspire to that level of appeal? Instead, my first hour with FF XIV was filled with enough incomprehensible psychedelic weirdness to make Hunter S. Thompson think he was Gomer Pyle.

After creating my dark-skinned, but distinctly Asian-featured fisherman (why is it almost always impossible to create a black female character in a fantasy game?) I was immediately subjected to a rather long and involved cut scene. Followed by another cut scene. Which was immediately followed by yet another cut scene. And another one. This long series of cut scenes was only briefly interrupted by a very protracted and awkward fight sequence in which I threw rocks at a pack of wolves for over 10 minutes, (seriously, it took me 10 minutes to kill three wolves!) and the 15 minutes I spent doing a boring and unintuitive fishing sequence.

My entire time in this game felt less like a game and more like an interact-able movie. The art design was gorgeous, but I rarely had time to explore it as I was yanked from one cut scene to the next. At every turn the game seemed to be yelling, “Look at this magnificent story we have created for you!” Never mind the fact that the story they were trying so hard to impress me with was nearly incomprehensible. Treants. Moogles. Woodsin taint. Greenwrath. Dance lessons? After a while I gave up trying to make sense of it, as the game didn’t seem to care whether or not I was actually having any fun.

I often complain about the fact that many MMO’s don’t have children in them. Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons & Dragons Online are two notable offenders. This omission is always a bit immersion breaking for me, as I begin to wonder just how the inhabitants of a given world exist if they don’t procreate. But Final Fantasy XIV has the weird distinction of having too many children. And not just regular kids, but also adult humanoids who look like kids. This was further compounded by the fact that it was impossible for me to create a female player character who looked more than a day over the age of 17. As an adult woman I’m not interested in having a teenage avatar, but the game’s rather creepy fixation on young, scantily-clad girls dictated otherwise.

“Yes we’re sexist and ageist, but isn’t that flying, flute-playing marshmallow kitten thing just adorable?”

Tags: , ,
Posted in PvE, Social Dynamics | 4 Comments »

You Won’t Find This On Google Maps

January 10th, 2012
Her cape was quite wrinkly.

The first time I played DC Universe Online during its beta period I gave up on it after only a half hour of play. The game’s console-focused interface has a targeting system that resembles a kung fu monk trying to blind fight while wearing roller skates. You don’t so much aim as merely suggest your attack’s direction and target – and hope that you hit something other than yourself. After a half hour of flailing around in a very NON-heroic fashion I gave up, logged out, and uninstalled the game. I wasn’t about to pay $14.99 a month to feel like Die Fledermaus’ near-sighted and even more ineffectual younger brother.

But fast-forward a year later in which DCUO – like so many other MMO’s – has gone free-to-play, and where my tolerance for bad online games has been polished to a high sheen. I decided to give the world of Gotham and Metropolis another try.

This was my tour guide, ADanger. When not rescuing lost super heroes he volunteers at the local retirement home.

My second attempt at DCUO was no less awkward than the first, but this time I decided that I wasn’t going to care. “OK game. You want me to mash buttons like a 3 year old? I can do that!” I button-mashed my way through the starter area and the first couple of missions before realizing that I was actually having fun. Sure, the interface is clunky, confusing and unnecessarily obtuse, and the missions’ storylines are hanging out in the deep end of the cartoon absurdity pool, but there is something genuinely cathartic about pummeling bad guys with wanton abandon and having Wonder Woman tell you just how special you really are. Who needs therapy when you can save the world on a regular basis?

If only your innate super powers came with built-in GPS. Or heck, even a compass.

DCUO’s navigation is not for the directionally challenged. The game’s missions routinely take the player between the two main map areas of Metropolis and Gotham City. These two regions are large but not excessively difficult to traverse, especially since the game provides your hero with a travel superpower from the moment of creation. The problem lies in the fact that they are not directly connected to each other, and the game conveniently forgets to tell you this. I spent at least 20 minutes flying from one end of Metropolis to the other, trying to find the door marked “Gotham City -> This Way”. If it hadn’t been for the oddly misnomic “ADanger” who took pity upon me and gave me a walking (okay – flying) tour of the Escher-esque Watchtower (which connects the two areas) I’d probably still be out there somewhere. Flying in circles like a crop duster.

Despite the consolitis and all of its associated shortcomings, DCUO can be an enjoyable diversion. The art design is colorful and vibrant without the cell-shading and black outline that I found so unappealing in Champions Online. And as goofy as the mission premises can get, their execution never felt as repetitive and monotonous as those in City of Heroes/Villians. Although I understand why SOE made this game dual-platform, I think doing so was an injustice no superhero should endure.

Tags:
Posted in Game Mechanics | 3 Comments »

A Day Late & A Dollar Short

May 18th, 2011

Realms Online is a good example of an idiom my grandfather used to say when I was a kid: A day late and a dollar short. Too little. Too late. Too… meh.

Created by Argentinian developer NGD Studios, Regnum Online was originally released in South America in 2007. According to its Wikipedia entry, it was one of the first online games ever published in Argentina. Which makes me wonder what on earth the good people of Buenos Aires ever did to deserve such a boring wreck of a game. American publisher GameSamba released it as a free-to-play MMO here in the US earlier this month, under the name “Realms Online”. Because, you know, the American market needs more out-dated, third-rate F2P MMOs? And also, we can’t read Latin?

While most MMOs make some pretense of lore, Regnumalms Online decided that back story was for wussies and dumps you straight into the game with no context or tutorial. I couldn’t even find any information about the game’s mythology on their website, which is a rather surprising omission. These cut-rate F2P MMO’s always have some ponderous, generic, vaguely complicated back story. Maybe you have to pay Sambas for the privilege.

Realsmgnum Online boasts that it has 3 realms, 9 “fully customizable” player races (I could not put pants on any of my female characters, so I’m not sure how they define “fully” or “customizable”), and 6 classes. This might be impressive if it wasn’t for the fact that Dark Age of Camelot did it better – and six years earlier.

One review of this game stated that its RvR aspects were enjoyable, even if the PVE portion were “lackluster”. I never got that far. I spent the first 20 minutes of the game trying to figure out why my interface disappeared whenever I entered combat. (Answer: The tab key was bound to the ‘hide interface’ function by default.) By the time I got my keys remapped, my avatar had already fallen asleep.

Tags: ,
Posted in Avatars, Localization, PvP | 3 Comments »

Faerie Boots

April 12th, 2011

Now that I’m no longer working for an MMO developer, I once again have time to play MMOs. Currently in my ever-revolving playlist is a new online game called RIFT.

RIFT plays like an updated version of Warhammer Online and looks like a dirtier version of Guild Wars. Its claim to fame are the titular rifts; temporary inter-planar doorways from which routine invasions occur. In terms of game play, these rifts act as spontaneous public quests. If you’re in an area when a rift opens, associated quest objectives instantly appear in your tracker and the system automatically creates a group or raid, which you are prompted to join. Although these rift events are supposed to be spontaneous, my sense was that the system times them at regular intervals, or they are based upon the player population within a given area. The game tries hard to keep you engaged by constantly bombarding you with rifts, enemy invasions and wandering high level mobs, to the point that it can become chaotic and overwhelming to an old geezer like me.

RIFT's fae character

"These boots are made for... dancing?"

Although RIFT has the standard Cleric, Mage, Warrior and Rogue classes, each class has a set of eight different “souls” from which you can choose a combination of three that forms a “role”. These souls act as class specializations, with each having a unique set of abilities that you gain over time as you level. Supposedly you can mix the souls in any way you choose, but I found that if you didn’t follow the game’s recommended combinations you would end up with a rather goofy (and gimped) character concept. My Rogue soul mixture of Bard, Assassin, and Bladedancer resulted in a character that could turn invisible, sneak up behind a monster and scare it to death by playing the mandolin – LOUDLY. Hilarious as it was, it wasn’t a very effective strategy.

The Druid, a soul choice for the Cleric class, has three Fae companion characters from which to choose. I find the art design for one of these fae companions to be a bit unsettling. It is my sincere hope that this creature is not intended to resemble a prepubescent female child. With its exposed cleavage and derriere, it would be wandering disturbingly close to pedobear territory. Barring this extremely unseemly choice leaves the possibility that this character is meant to resemble an adult female dwarf. In fuzzy knee-high boots and polka-dot underwear? Eh, ok.

I would have found it far more interesting if the artists at Trion Worlds had designed a MALE fae creature – with or without polka-dot undies. But in our deeply homophobic American culture, I’m sure a half-naked male faerie would have garnered the game a harsher ESRB rating. Because we all know that in fantasy, only females have breasts, abdomen and behinds that are impervious to arrows and swords.

Tags:
Posted in Avatars, Genres & Themes | 7 Comments »

World of Red Dead

June 21st, 2010

When I began this blog last year, I was essentially unemployed. With plenty of spare time on my hands, my MMO addiction could blossom unfettered by pesky time constraints.

Fast-forward two new jobs and eight months later, where I now find myself perpetually sleep-deprived and temporally challenged. I was recently hired by a local game developer to work on an MMO that has something to do with light sabers and Jedi. Or, at least, that’s what they tell me. I’m too busy writing acceptance criteria for hydra events to know for sure – which isn’t nearly as sexy as it sounds.

I’ve quickly discovered that working for an MMO developer is a bit like becoming a prostitute: What was once your hobby is now your job. It’s still enjoyable, but you’re doing it for completely different reasons. Sure, I still play occasionally, but my enthusiasm for playing/mocking (plocking?) the more esoteric games has sadly diminished. I will continue to write to this blog when time allows, but it will be sporadic. My apologies, dear reader.

I know I’ve discussed the topic before, so I’ll try to refrain from abusing a deceased equine. But how can a gal control herself when she gets email invitations to games like this. Oh, look – I’m a big-boobed, half-dressed little girl in some generic approximation of ancient China. Yawn. I suppose I should have known better, since Kingdom Heroes was created by the same people who brought us this mess. But US game developers seem equally unwilling to stray too far from the high-fantasy WoW formula. Former baseball star Curt Schilling is even getting into the MMO business with his project Copernicus, but with a description that includes “…truly evolving fantasy world that is both warmly familiar and intriguingly unique.” I doubt the game will be about alien space marines.

Recently I had the opportunity to play Red Dead Redemption on my friend’s XBox. Despite the fact that my skills with any console controller rivals that of a blind quadriplegic, I had a lot of fun. Which got me to thinking: Why doesn’t anyone develop a Wild West-themed MMO? There is a lot of untapped potential in that particular genre. If it worked for Rockstar Games in a single-player game, why not massive multiplayer? Who wouldn’t want to shoot cows and herd bank robbers? Instigate a saloon fight, or an ambush a wagon train? Think of the possibilities!

I want to be Annie Oakley, dammit. Not another night elf.

Tags:
Posted in Genres & Themes | 3 Comments »

Excuse Me, Is That A Poleaxe In Your Back?

May 24th, 2010

I’m often asked by friends to give my thoughts and recommendations on various MMOs. Usually this isn’t too difficult. Having played so many different online games over the years, it’s easy for me to assess a game’s strengths and weaknesses. What I find more difficult to quantify is the game that has all the right elements, but somehow loses its appeal over time. This is often caused by something that should be completely inconsequential. I call this phenomenon the Niggling Pixel Effect.

Are you naturally blond?
Does your eyebrows EXACTLY match your hair?

I originally wrote about Alganon back in December. Although the developers have since revamped the UI and some of the other art assets to make it look less like a WoW clone, the overall game play remains pretty standard MMO fantasy fare. Which, in and of itself, is not necessarily a bad thing. Aside from the usual glitches and bugs that plague every new MMO, it is a solid, palatable game.

Since Alganon is free-to-play after its initial purchase, I’ve spent the past 6 months leveling up a cleric. At first I found the game to be a pleasant, snack-like diversion, similar to that bag of Doritos you grab from the vending machine in the middle of the afternoon. It’s the type of game you play when you can’t (or don’t want) to pay for a subscription to the full course meal of a ‘real’ MMO. But as I progressed through the first ten levels, I found that my desire to play the game was steadily decreasing. It was then that I realized that I was suffering from the Niggling Pixel Effect.

First it was my avatar’s face. Apparently designing attractive human faces in video games is no easy feat, because ugly avatars are everywhere in the land of MMOs. Since you spend the majority of your time looking at the back of your avatar, an ugly face can sometimes be ignored. But over time I found myself groaning every time I logged into the game and saw my avatar’s ugly mug staring back at me.

Nothing says 'medieval fantasy' like brown latex pants and sneakers.

Next came my character’s clothing. I realize that it’s standard procedure in fantasy games for your character to begin her journey in rags and eventually become the MMO equivalent of Liberace. But I found the clothing in Alganon to be not only unattractive, but anachronistically distracting. The setting of the game is supposed to be psuedo-medieval, yet my character is wearing a brown latex wetsuit? Strike two.

Finally, there was the poleaxe. Initially my character’s weapon was Velcro’ed across her back in the usual video game fashion. But after a particular patch was installed, my character suddenly found her poleaxe buried into the middle of her back. If this is a glitch, the developers have not been in a hurry to fix it. She’s looked this way for months. Strike three – you’re out.

These are all relatively minor issues that other players may be able to overlook. But the Niggling Pixel Effect is different for each player, and the ugly faced, wetsuit-wearing, inappropriately-placed poleaxe carrying avatar became unplayable for me.

What is your Niggling Pixel?

Tags:
Posted in Avatars | 7 Comments »

Muzak To My Ears

May 10th, 2010

I’m guessing that the majority of MMO players don’t pay much attention to in-game music. You either ignore it, mute it, or have other sounds playing in the background. But sound design can be immensely important to the overall media experience. Imagine the movie Conan the Barbarian with cheesy 1980′s synthesized tunes instead of Basil Poledouris’ majestic score. In my opinion, the music made that movie the cinematic icon that it is.

Music within a game should invoke a certain tone or feeling that coincides with the overall theme of a particular area. If an MMO contains a race of people that are known to be war-like, militaristic and ruthless, the sound design for that area should be complimentary – with heavy drum beats and a steady, marching rhythm. Or at the very least, a piece of music that suggests a sense of foreboding or dread.

So what were the developers of Allods Online thinking when they used this [.mp3 file] as the looping background music for the capital city of their EVIL empire?

Go ahead, listen to the entire thing. I dare you.

Allods, like many MMOs of similar ilk, has two waring factions: the ‘good guys’ of the League, and the ‘bad guys’ that make up the Empire. The races of the League include humans, elves (with fairy wings, no less) and teddy-bear looking creatures called Gibberlings. Although not up to the standards of video game composers like Jeremy Soule, this area of the game contains light, airy music that is appropriate – if not a bit forgettable – with oboes, strings and flutes.

Conversely, the races of the Empire consists of humans, an undead variant called the Arisen, and Orcs. Their capital city, Nezebgrad, belies the developer’s Russian roots: Stalin-esque statues are everywhere, and the overall art design suggests a steampunk Moscow. While I applaud the developer’s attempt to break from the standard fantasy genre, their efforts are completely ruined by their bizarrely chosen background music.

According to the website, Astrum Nival spent over 4 years and $12 million dollars creating Allods Online. For a free-to-play MMO, it does have above-average production values. Which makes this choice of sound design that much more inexplicable. Maybe the lead sound designer was the CEO’s brother-in-law?

Tags:
Posted in Genres & Themes | 8 Comments »

« Older Entries