After my last blog I got to thinking a lot about MMO's and the addictive syndrome associated there with. I think I have nailed it down to three crucial interactive components that drive it's addictive quality. If anyone else has a differering or augmenting perspecting, please comment.
1) Social.
MMO's allow interaction between friends without having to go out and see people. For introverted people such as myself, this is nice because I can talk with someone real without the awkward social interaction that I am somewhat inept at without a high blood content of amphetamines or alcohol. As I once described it, MMO's (specifically World of Warcraft) are a chat room with things to do.
2)Betterment
This was probably a crucial element with playing WoW. From acquiring new gear and leveling, it fulfilled a need to establish myself as a relevant figure among the masses of players, as a superior specimen. While being in the elite few of a simulation is hardly the same as say and Olympic athlete or a soldier, that is the emotions that are evoked in me from playing such a video game.
3)Leadership
From running guilds, raids or party groups, having an understanding of the game allows one to feel in control of the surroundings. Where in real life, the complexities of daily life, school or jobs can seem something of great stress (which I know in the course of graduating), in game, one feels a mastery of the elements pertaining to the game.
4) Substitute for boredom.
Near the end of my WoW career, WoW substituted as nothing more than "something to do" when I couldn't think of something else. But it went beyond that. If I had an urge to do something about my boredom, WoW presented a means of escaping that conundrum.
Again, this is just from my perspective, but this (and I would assume other MMO's) provided me an outlet for many primal necessity such as socialization, accomplishment, activity, and even power. Having broken the spell over me to play WoW, my life seems to be flooded with possibilities to fill the void of boredom in the form of school, snowboarding, and other activities. It hasn't been an easy transition, but ultimately I felt it has been for the best. I've been able to pursue not simply the autonomic impulses inspired by the drug of online gaming (and don't kid yourself, it IS a drug) but the elements which truly make me human such as TRUE social interaction, and love of life in general.
>>UPDATE<< This article sums up some of the points of MMOs and their addictive qualities quite well.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Metaphors for Management
This is the first part of two parts of a lengthy blog I'm writing to reflect on the parallels between business management and running a guild in an online game; specifically World of Warcraft.
I won't get into the details of the psychological revelations I came to from being addicted to that game for over 4 years, but I actually gained something useful in real life from my experience with online gaming.
For a period of about a year, I ran a raiding guild. For those unfamiliar with the concept of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMO's as they are referred to often by gamers), let me explain what that meant. A guild is a collection of real life players who have a specialized chat function in game, frequently aid each other in in-game tasks, and ultimately team up in groups as large as 40 players at the same time, using VOIP and attempting to achieve certain objectives. Most commonly "raiding" against difficult enemies, requiring tactics, gear, and augmenting potions and what not. Some of you may be beginning to see how this could parallel a management position. If you don't see it yet, bare with me.
When I first proposed the idea to a few of my real life friends, we got very excited about the possibility of putting our expertise about the game into a new guild. We tossed around a few name ideas, and ultimately landed on "Born of Ashes", a reference to the Phoenix; a bird which at the end of it's life incinerates itself only to be reborn from the ashes of itself. We chose this metaphor because many of my real life friends were the remnants of other great guilds which had either fallen apart, or had become estranged for some reason. Getting the guild up was fairly easy, but it would increase in its complexity of management as it expanded.
Once established, we needed players. With raids having a minimum size of 10 players and a maximum of 40, the 4-5 players we had in the guild couldn't run anything by ourselves, not to mention getting everyone online at one time. For about a month we posted messages in general chat looking for warm bodies to fill raid slots. Then we caught a break. One of the random players we had recruited was friends with a somewhat large guild which was falling apart, and we managed to merge with them, infusing about 20 players to bolster our raid strength. Over the course of the guilds existence we did some light recruiting, but with the merger we had little need to grow more.
As the guild grew, it was clear I couldn't run everything by myself and a management structure had to be set up. The structure that emerged ended up being me and my closest friend at the time as the oligarchs with ultimate say in where the direction of the guild went. Below that we had class leaders, one for each class (there were 9 classes). These were our "upper management". They would keep me informed about problems, recruitment, and advise me on their take on the guilds activities and direction. These class leaders were players who had proven themselves to be talented players, but more importantly showed devotion to the guild and its success. Underneath those the two ranks were "raiders", rank and file players who were talented and showed up regularly, and then a rank for initiates or players who chose to be in Born of Ashes for a more social experience.
The next issue we had was scheduling. We set up a forum based site that players could register on so we could assign players to raid times and days. The biggest issue of scheduling was getting the exact right amount of players on and the right mix of classes when we needed them. If we overbooked a raid, many players wouldn't get in, or would have to start their own independent raid, or hope that someone would drop from an existing raid. Any of those options was rarely ideal for the players, and I knew it was undesirable. If we under booked a raid, or had a bunch of players not available, the raid couldn't go till we got enough guild members online, or we filled it out with Pick-up group members (PUGs). Eventually we sifted through some of the superfluous players and got a core group of players who would consistently show up, or at least give ample warning they wouldn't make it. Managing attendance became more an act of motivating people to come to raids since we didn't subscribe to a philosophy of "Wow > Life"
While the "back office" duties were crucial to our success, the most fun part for me was leading raids. Real time interaction with large groups of real players facing ever more difficult challenges became a source of great enjoyment for me. Having been in many guilds before mine, I tried to come up with a customized management strategy that was a compilation of the best traits I had seen, and devoid of the worst. Many of my best traits I adapted from a real life friend of my brothers, whose screen name was Artulean, or R2 for short. He would keep a calm demeanor, and make sure that everyone was clear on their roles for the fights. Unfortunately, like many raid leaders (him less so than others), when things went wrong he would often play the blame game, saying things over VOIP like "Healers, what the fuck was that?". It was my experience that comments like that were obnoxious, unhelpful and detrimental to group morale. As such I used a variety of observational techniques to gather useful information, and dispense helpful, constructive, and optimistic feedback on refining our techniques for encounters. The tools at my disposal were a series of mods for the game which could tell me players movements, actions, damage output and so on. I also relied on the feedback of my class leaders to apprise me of shortcomings among individual classes.
My job was to make sure that the raid worked in perfect symphony so that the healers, tanks and damage dealers were not just fighting on their own, but doing what was necessary to achieve success for the entire raid. Beyond providing positive criticism and feedback, I made sure to acknowledge individual players over VOIP for exceptional performance and improvement from previous attempts. I also made a note of not praising or criticizing the same person over and over, so that each player got attention from me personally at one point or another (If someone truly deserved praise or criticism however, I gave it, with minimal regard for frequency). Most of the time I tried to focus on groups of players rather than individuals. For example, if on a fight the Damage Per Second (DPS) was lacking in a certain area, I would calmly gather any information players had regarding the failure, and then address the problem as a whole, instead of fixing specific symptoms of the larger fault.
This proved a successful technique and we began to quickly progress through to harder content, but as the content became more difficult, so too did my job of managing it. We got to the point where specific "consumables" (Items to buff stats and combat abilities) were essential for encounters, but with a relaxed raiding attitude, we didn't want to force people to spend their free time collecting the materials for such items. So as a result, the duty fell to the officers and class leaders, with mild resentment. More complications to my duties arose, and eventually I was spending about three hours preparing for every 4 hours raid. Trying to balance the guild, my personal life, and my scholastic efforts was becoming impossible. About 9-10 months after starting the guild, I passed off leadership of the guild to one of my close friends, and demoted myself to more of a consultant rank, and I would raid when I had the time.
Once I stepped down as the guild leader, the cohesion began to splinter a bit. Core raiders had to adapt to different leadership styles, different scheduling, and some simply quit. While it would be presumptuous to say that I was the only thing holding the guild together, I do believe that my stepping down, began to unravel things. Had I have worked to instill my leadership values in my officers and class leaders, perhaps they could have carried over the culture on their own. Were it a real business situation, it's unlikely that I would have essentially abandoned the group without planning my succession, but at the time, it was an issue of balancing a game versus real life issues like grades and friends.
Ultimately over the course of the coming months, the guild dissolved with only a few remaining alternate characters in the guild to congregate under the flag on the empire we knew so intimately. Many of the players I led and raided with became real life friends of mine.
That's basically the course of the guild, and what happened. I'm going to post a follow up to this specifically pertaining to the business management. This was one of the longest lasting leadership positions I held, and I dealt with the most complexity and subordinates. While the stakes were almost non existent, I certainly took pride in what I did, and performed to the best of my abilities, and I feel I have gained a great deal of real life experience from the duties I performed for the video game.
I won't get into the details of the psychological revelations I came to from being addicted to that game for over 4 years, but I actually gained something useful in real life from my experience with online gaming.
For a period of about a year, I ran a raiding guild. For those unfamiliar with the concept of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMO's as they are referred to often by gamers), let me explain what that meant. A guild is a collection of real life players who have a specialized chat function in game, frequently aid each other in in-game tasks, and ultimately team up in groups as large as 40 players at the same time, using VOIP and attempting to achieve certain objectives. Most commonly "raiding" against difficult enemies, requiring tactics, gear, and augmenting potions and what not. Some of you may be beginning to see how this could parallel a management position. If you don't see it yet, bare with me.
When I first proposed the idea to a few of my real life friends, we got very excited about the possibility of putting our expertise about the game into a new guild. We tossed around a few name ideas, and ultimately landed on "Born of Ashes", a reference to the Phoenix; a bird which at the end of it's life incinerates itself only to be reborn from the ashes of itself. We chose this metaphor because many of my real life friends were the remnants of other great guilds which had either fallen apart, or had become estranged for some reason. Getting the guild up was fairly easy, but it would increase in its complexity of management as it expanded.
Once established, we needed players. With raids having a minimum size of 10 players and a maximum of 40, the 4-5 players we had in the guild couldn't run anything by ourselves, not to mention getting everyone online at one time. For about a month we posted messages in general chat looking for warm bodies to fill raid slots. Then we caught a break. One of the random players we had recruited was friends with a somewhat large guild which was falling apart, and we managed to merge with them, infusing about 20 players to bolster our raid strength. Over the course of the guilds existence we did some light recruiting, but with the merger we had little need to grow more.
As the guild grew, it was clear I couldn't run everything by myself and a management structure had to be set up. The structure that emerged ended up being me and my closest friend at the time as the oligarchs with ultimate say in where the direction of the guild went. Below that we had class leaders, one for each class (there were 9 classes). These were our "upper management". They would keep me informed about problems, recruitment, and advise me on their take on the guilds activities and direction. These class leaders were players who had proven themselves to be talented players, but more importantly showed devotion to the guild and its success. Underneath those the two ranks were "raiders", rank and file players who were talented and showed up regularly, and then a rank for initiates or players who chose to be in Born of Ashes for a more social experience.
The next issue we had was scheduling. We set up a forum based site that players could register on so we could assign players to raid times and days. The biggest issue of scheduling was getting the exact right amount of players on and the right mix of classes when we needed them. If we overbooked a raid, many players wouldn't get in, or would have to start their own independent raid, or hope that someone would drop from an existing raid. Any of those options was rarely ideal for the players, and I knew it was undesirable. If we under booked a raid, or had a bunch of players not available, the raid couldn't go till we got enough guild members online, or we filled it out with Pick-up group members (PUGs). Eventually we sifted through some of the superfluous players and got a core group of players who would consistently show up, or at least give ample warning they wouldn't make it. Managing attendance became more an act of motivating people to come to raids since we didn't subscribe to a philosophy of "Wow > Life"
While the "back office" duties were crucial to our success, the most fun part for me was leading raids. Real time interaction with large groups of real players facing ever more difficult challenges became a source of great enjoyment for me. Having been in many guilds before mine, I tried to come up with a customized management strategy that was a compilation of the best traits I had seen, and devoid of the worst. Many of my best traits I adapted from a real life friend of my brothers, whose screen name was Artulean, or R2 for short. He would keep a calm demeanor, and make sure that everyone was clear on their roles for the fights. Unfortunately, like many raid leaders (him less so than others), when things went wrong he would often play the blame game, saying things over VOIP like "Healers, what the fuck was that?". It was my experience that comments like that were obnoxious, unhelpful and detrimental to group morale. As such I used a variety of observational techniques to gather useful information, and dispense helpful, constructive, and optimistic feedback on refining our techniques for encounters. The tools at my disposal were a series of mods for the game which could tell me players movements, actions, damage output and so on. I also relied on the feedback of my class leaders to apprise me of shortcomings among individual classes.
My job was to make sure that the raid worked in perfect symphony so that the healers, tanks and damage dealers were not just fighting on their own, but doing what was necessary to achieve success for the entire raid. Beyond providing positive criticism and feedback, I made sure to acknowledge individual players over VOIP for exceptional performance and improvement from previous attempts. I also made a note of not praising or criticizing the same person over and over, so that each player got attention from me personally at one point or another (If someone truly deserved praise or criticism however, I gave it, with minimal regard for frequency). Most of the time I tried to focus on groups of players rather than individuals. For example, if on a fight the Damage Per Second (DPS) was lacking in a certain area, I would calmly gather any information players had regarding the failure, and then address the problem as a whole, instead of fixing specific symptoms of the larger fault.
This proved a successful technique and we began to quickly progress through to harder content, but as the content became more difficult, so too did my job of managing it. We got to the point where specific "consumables" (Items to buff stats and combat abilities) were essential for encounters, but with a relaxed raiding attitude, we didn't want to force people to spend their free time collecting the materials for such items. So as a result, the duty fell to the officers and class leaders, with mild resentment. More complications to my duties arose, and eventually I was spending about three hours preparing for every 4 hours raid. Trying to balance the guild, my personal life, and my scholastic efforts was becoming impossible. About 9-10 months after starting the guild, I passed off leadership of the guild to one of my close friends, and demoted myself to more of a consultant rank, and I would raid when I had the time.
Once I stepped down as the guild leader, the cohesion began to splinter a bit. Core raiders had to adapt to different leadership styles, different scheduling, and some simply quit. While it would be presumptuous to say that I was the only thing holding the guild together, I do believe that my stepping down, began to unravel things. Had I have worked to instill my leadership values in my officers and class leaders, perhaps they could have carried over the culture on their own. Were it a real business situation, it's unlikely that I would have essentially abandoned the group without planning my succession, but at the time, it was an issue of balancing a game versus real life issues like grades and friends.
Ultimately over the course of the coming months, the guild dissolved with only a few remaining alternate characters in the guild to congregate under the flag on the empire we knew so intimately. Many of the players I led and raided with became real life friends of mine.
That's basically the course of the guild, and what happened. I'm going to post a follow up to this specifically pertaining to the business management. This was one of the longest lasting leadership positions I held, and I dealt with the most complexity and subordinates. While the stakes were almost non existent, I certainly took pride in what I did, and performed to the best of my abilities, and I feel I have gained a great deal of real life experience from the duties I performed for the video game.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Purple Nurple
How to make the "Purple Nurple"
2 pt lemon vodka (Smirnoff or if you are a rich bastard, Absolut)
1 pt Raspberry liqueur (DeKuypers or if you are a rich bastard, Chambord)
Fill with Lemon-Lime carbonated soda (Sprite, or 7up if you are pretentious)
Serve over ice and enjoy.
Its Purple, and it fucks you up like a nipple twister
2 pt lemon vodka (Smirnoff or if you are a rich bastard, Absolut)
1 pt Raspberry liqueur (DeKuypers or if you are a rich bastard, Chambord)
Fill with Lemon-Lime carbonated soda (Sprite, or 7up if you are pretentious)
Serve over ice and enjoy.
Its Purple, and it fucks you up like a nipple twister
Friday, February 5, 2010
Snowboard Jumps
I bent over and lean my hands on my knees. For a moment, I forget where I am and I am focused only on my panting breath and a slight sting in my legs. I don’t even see the world around me, only a vague blur that is my surroundings in the background of my throbbing pulse. After a few moments, look up from the ground to view what is ahead of me. About fifty yards down the hill from me lies a sharp snowy incline which abruptly vanishes at the top. My brain does some rudimentary calculations of how big it is, how much speed I’ll need when I approach it, and how high it will fling me into the air. I then close my eyes and imagine the journey I am about to take. I focus on how I will need to contort myself before, during and after takeoff to spin and grab correctly and safely. I imagine it over and over and over, like a broken record playing the same clip again and again until my body almost twitches to perform the movement I am ingraining in my mind. Once satisfied, I open my eyes, take a deep breath and exhale. The world around me begins to fade out, and my only focus in life is the jump that lies ahead of me. I can feel individual snowflakes landing on my face, the pressure of a faint breeze against my clothes, and of course, gravity grasping the smooth base of my board, beckoning me to slide. Beyond these simple sensations, I think of nothing. I place trust in myself that I have planned my approach correctly. I take one last deep breath and sharply exhale, releasing a rush of adrenaline, and half a second later I turn my board to face down the hill.
I feel like I’m floating on thin air, falling down the hill in a smooth descent that gradually gets faster and faster. Without even thinking about it, my muscles twitch to move the board over the snow, keeping my pace just right. The smooth ramp that had seemed so small from my previous vantage point now grows larger and larger as I fly towards it. Suddenly, I’m no longer falling. The ground beneath me is pushing me upwards, exerting its force on my knees, defying the motion I’d grown accustomed to over the past few eternal seconds. I am pushed up further and further and my pulse matches the ascent. Briefly the image I had so meticulously envisioned flashes through my mind, and suddenly, the ground falls out from under my feet.
Time slows to a standstill as I become weightless, flying through the air. With my right arm, I reach across my body to grasp the heel edge of my snowboard near the nose, sending me into a corkscrew. I imagine this must be what a helicopter feels like when it’s spiraling to the ground, only without the sense of panic. For what seems like an eternity I am just flying and spinning. In this moment of sheer ecstasy, the whole world has disappeared around me, and I simply fly. Contemplating life’s problems, responsibilities, and troubles is as alien a concept to me as a blind man trying to contemplate color. It’s as if I’ve entered a parallel universe where time has no meaning, gravity is non-existent and mere concept of daily tribulations do not exist. So I float on, spiraling in this momentary nirvana I have found, ten feet above the earth.
But the time has come to return to reality. My eyes refocus on the world spinning around me, and I lock on to features to gain my bearings. I’m about to land, it’s time to let go of the board. As I release it, I focus on the snow conditions where I will land, and slowing my rotation to get me straight on the mountain when I land. Suddenly the ground, as if infuriated by my defiance of gravity slams into my feet and binds me once again to the earth as I glide away.
I feel like I’m floating on thin air, falling down the hill in a smooth descent that gradually gets faster and faster. Without even thinking about it, my muscles twitch to move the board over the snow, keeping my pace just right. The smooth ramp that had seemed so small from my previous vantage point now grows larger and larger as I fly towards it. Suddenly, I’m no longer falling. The ground beneath me is pushing me upwards, exerting its force on my knees, defying the motion I’d grown accustomed to over the past few eternal seconds. I am pushed up further and further and my pulse matches the ascent. Briefly the image I had so meticulously envisioned flashes through my mind, and suddenly, the ground falls out from under my feet.
Time slows to a standstill as I become weightless, flying through the air. With my right arm, I reach across my body to grasp the heel edge of my snowboard near the nose, sending me into a corkscrew. I imagine this must be what a helicopter feels like when it’s spiraling to the ground, only without the sense of panic. For what seems like an eternity I am just flying and spinning. In this moment of sheer ecstasy, the whole world has disappeared around me, and I simply fly. Contemplating life’s problems, responsibilities, and troubles is as alien a concept to me as a blind man trying to contemplate color. It’s as if I’ve entered a parallel universe where time has no meaning, gravity is non-existent and mere concept of daily tribulations do not exist. So I float on, spiraling in this momentary nirvana I have found, ten feet above the earth.
But the time has come to return to reality. My eyes refocus on the world spinning around me, and I lock on to features to gain my bearings. I’m about to land, it’s time to let go of the board. As I release it, I focus on the snow conditions where I will land, and slowing my rotation to get me straight on the mountain when I land. Suddenly the ground, as if infuriated by my defiance of gravity slams into my feet and binds me once again to the earth as I glide away.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Game Reviews
After I wrote my blog about Dragon Age - Origins, I wanted to search the web to see what other people had to say about the game; whether they confirmed my observations, or whether I was the only person in the world that didn't think this game was the best thing since sliced bread.
I found the greatest wealth of information on Metacritic, but much to my dismay, many of the "respectable" gaming sources gave it very positive review.
So much for the experts.
Then I decided to look through the user reviews so I could really build a meta-analysis of what real users had to say. But then I ran into a whole new problem, which I should have anticipated; people don't know dick about shit.
On a scale of 0-10, 0 is essentially... well 0, and 10 is essentially 100%. By that logic you would think a score of 10 means the user found absolutly nothing wrong with the game, and conversely, a score of 0 should imply no redeeming factors of the game. This is of course, not the case. I saw countless 10-score reviews with sentences like "sure the game has its faults, but overall I think its good". That sounds more like a rating of 7 or 8 to me. Similar stories take place on the other end of the scale too. So overall I basically throw out any review with a score of 10 or 0, because for most games (a few exceptions... Deus Ex was one of them), these scores are outliers of the data set, written by people who have a grudge against the game, or are so smitten by it they cant write an unbiased review.
I performed a super-scientific study where I looked through some other games I've played, and read the reviews there too, and it seemed to support my discovery. Maybe sites like Metascore should provide a breakdown of what percentage of people rated which games at which number, rather than just the weighted average they do at the moment, and then the user could sort based on the criteria they wish to base their evaluations on.
I found the greatest wealth of information on Metacritic, but much to my dismay, many of the "respectable" gaming sources gave it very positive review.
So much for the experts.
Then I decided to look through the user reviews so I could really build a meta-analysis of what real users had to say. But then I ran into a whole new problem, which I should have anticipated; people don't know dick about shit.
On a scale of 0-10, 0 is essentially... well 0, and 10 is essentially 100%. By that logic you would think a score of 10 means the user found absolutly nothing wrong with the game, and conversely, a score of 0 should imply no redeeming factors of the game. This is of course, not the case. I saw countless 10-score reviews with sentences like "sure the game has its faults, but overall I think its good". That sounds more like a rating of 7 or 8 to me. Similar stories take place on the other end of the scale too. So overall I basically throw out any review with a score of 10 or 0, because for most games (a few exceptions... Deus Ex was one of them), these scores are outliers of the data set, written by people who have a grudge against the game, or are so smitten by it they cant write an unbiased review.
I performed a super-scientific study where I looked through some other games I've played, and read the reviews there too, and it seemed to support my discovery. Maybe sites like Metascore should provide a breakdown of what percentage of people rated which games at which number, rather than just the weighted average they do at the moment, and then the user could sort based on the criteria they wish to base their evaluations on.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Review: Dragon Age - Origins
I've been looking for a good RPG to play now that I finally got the MMO monkey off my back, so I went to Gamespot to see what they would recommend. At the top of their "best RPG's" list, was Dragon Age - Origins, coming in at a staggering 9.5/10; the only one on the list with a score that high. So I downloaded off steam, booted it up and started playing.
When you start in, you can choose one of three races (Human, Elf, or Dwarf) and one of three classes (Warrior, Mage, or Rogue). Warriors can be tanks or dps, mage can be dps or heals, and rogues can be meele dps or ranged dps. I decided to roll up an elf mage first. It starts off with a pretty rich storyline where the mages have to go though a deadly trial by fire type event to prove that they wont get corrupt by the antagonists of the storyline, the blight. You run around a castle for a while, talk to NPCs, pick up dumb little items, and level up a few times. Pretty standard fare for most RPGs.
Finally you get out of your "start zone" and end up at a little camp, where one would hope the real meat and potatoes of the game would begin. Much to my dismay however, this never really happens. The game has a feel of how Stanly Kubrick would direct Lord of the Rings back in his 2001: A Space Odyssey days, with poorly written combat sequences. For the last 6 hours I've played this games, and here is the breakdown of what you spend your time doing in game.
70% Listening to (or skipping though) tedious interactive lore encounters with NPCs
10% Loading screens.
10% Running around zones trying to complete unclear quest instructions.
5% Combat.
5% Trying to get your party to do what you want, and using skill points upon level up.
It's all well and good to have a rich story line, but this game takes it to painful extremes. After about an hour of playing, I grew so frustrated standing around listening to another mysterious magus character talking about how strange the forest is, I began skipping through lore text just to get to some sort of a real gaming experience. But since the lore is so ubiquitous in the game, I got quickly confused as to what was going on. Choosing weather to be bored out of my mind and informed, or only slightly bored and very confused is not a decision you should have to make constantly while playing video games.
Bottom line, unless you are a fiend for lore, pass on this game. I'd give it maybe 2/10.
When you start in, you can choose one of three races (Human, Elf, or Dwarf) and one of three classes (Warrior, Mage, or Rogue). Warriors can be tanks or dps, mage can be dps or heals, and rogues can be meele dps or ranged dps. I decided to roll up an elf mage first. It starts off with a pretty rich storyline where the mages have to go though a deadly trial by fire type event to prove that they wont get corrupt by the antagonists of the storyline, the blight. You run around a castle for a while, talk to NPCs, pick up dumb little items, and level up a few times. Pretty standard fare for most RPGs.
Finally you get out of your "start zone" and end up at a little camp, where one would hope the real meat and potatoes of the game would begin. Much to my dismay however, this never really happens. The game has a feel of how Stanly Kubrick would direct Lord of the Rings back in his 2001: A Space Odyssey days, with poorly written combat sequences. For the last 6 hours I've played this games, and here is the breakdown of what you spend your time doing in game.
70% Listening to (or skipping though) tedious interactive lore encounters with NPCs
10% Loading screens.
10% Running around zones trying to complete unclear quest instructions.
5% Combat.
5% Trying to get your party to do what you want, and using skill points upon level up.
It's all well and good to have a rich story line, but this game takes it to painful extremes. After about an hour of playing, I grew so frustrated standing around listening to another mysterious magus character talking about how strange the forest is, I began skipping through lore text just to get to some sort of a real gaming experience. But since the lore is so ubiquitous in the game, I got quickly confused as to what was going on. Choosing weather to be bored out of my mind and informed, or only slightly bored and very confused is not a decision you should have to make constantly while playing video games.
Bottom line, unless you are a fiend for lore, pass on this game. I'd give it maybe 2/10.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Traffic Accidents Suck!
So on the way up to Breckenridge today, I was fortunate enough to smash the fuck out of the front of my car on I-70. Here's the short version of what happened.
Going about 20 MPH in the left lane, the car in front of me suddenly swerved to the right, revealing three stationary cars, one of which was facing backwards on the road. Of course, I instantly hit the brakes, and much to my dismay, I continued to travel forwards at roughly the exact same speed I was going before the brakes. Smashed into the guardrail and one of the cars. After making sure everyone was good, I started to get my bearings on what was going on, and get this; the bitch in the car at the very front who started the whole thing (the one who was facing the wrong way) turns around and ditches us.
Oh well. That's why it's good to have insurance I guess. Anyway, when we got down to Silverthorn, we decided we were still going to go riding, up at Keystone. So we went to target to get some stuff to McGuiver a replacement mirror for the one that got smashed. Using a cosmetics mirror, a roll of duct tape and some double sided wall mounting foam pads, we came up with a kick ass mirror.
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