Are 3 and 4 different numbers? Yes. But they are still numbers, so we can line them up and say that 4 is bigger than 3 and if we're talking about money 4 is better and if we're talking about debt 3 is better. If your bank account goes from 3 digits to 4, that's better. But what if you're measuring something and it goes from 3 to D? Well sure, D is the 4th letter, so maybe we can say it is higher and depending on the perspective, better, but it is also different.
Better is different, but different is not always better.
What is better for you can be worse for someone else. Or for the same person, some parts are better, some parts are worse. This is what has been happening with WoW.
But let's not get into vague ideas like lobby vs. world. Instead, let's talk paladins.
A long while ago there was no such thing as Forbearance. This meant that a paladin could use divine shield right after blessing of protection. Back then there was no mass dispel, so beside a bug involving lag and shamans, divine shield could not be removed. And it lasted 12 seconds. Take note of that time: even with a GCD that is enough to use a hearthstone. It was pretty sweet.
On top of that, Divine Protection used to be a funny sort of spell. It was basically a bad version of divine shield. Priests had a spell like this as well, one of their heals. And of course paladins had a purify spell which was like cleanse but didn't remove magic. Anyway, Divine Protection made the paladins completely invincible just like Divine Shield, but didn't last as long, and made the paladin unable to attack. Of course they could still heal.
Now imagine, as a melee class, trying to fight someone who can heal himself, wears plate, and has three different ways to become entirely immune to physical damage. Not easy!
Over time their toughness has been nerfed. Heavily. Now the bubbles last less time and can be removed, along with triggering forbearance.
It's not all bad though. It may be better overall. Better, but different. Losing all that durability has gone along with some other changes.
Damage has gone up significantly. Paladin damage is no longer a joke. Oh sure, run your numbers and you might find it is too low (I have no clue where it is these days), but wherever it is, it's definitely higher than it was. Mana regeneration is higher. Control of damage is higher. Just plain hitting things hard is higher. If a paladin wants to DPS, they have some chance at it. This was not always the case. People wrote songs about it.
Despite the durability of a paladin, they were not popular tanks either. With almost no regeneration, since back then it mostly came from spirit and seal/judgement of wisdom, which was nowhere near adequate, especially since using seal of wisdom would mean a huge aggro loss. It didn't help that only warriors had tanking sets. Even in BC paladins were in an awkward spot in gear design, using up stats for intellect before mana generation was sorted out in LK (mostly). On top of mana problems, aggro wasn't so easy either. While righteous fury gave a major boost to holy damage aggro, it was a magic ability and could be removed. This was trouble for some bosses. Again, even in BC there was a boss that would spam dispel magic, which made him very tricky to tank, since righteous fury was expensive.
Despite the durability, a quirk of the spell scaling system meant that using a low rank of flash of light with good gear could result in incomparable efficiency. Even with the crap regen, paladin healers could go for a long time, thanks to getting a good bit of healing out of a very cheap spell. So maybe they were good healers. For one target. Spamming one ability for hours on end. While wearing a dress that was clearly not designed for them, so it was not even remotely flattering. Ugh. Terrible times. These days there is gear designed for it, so the priests don't whine so much. The spells are more interesting. Even I, a person who never quite enjoyed healing, can say that paladin healing has improved.
And yet, and yet...
It was fun to see a rogue kill himself punching my shield while feeding me reckoning charges so I could punch back twice as often. I'm not saying that the same punch was giving both, since obviously if you're blocking you aren't getting crit, so no reckoning, at least until they changed it.
A paladin soloed* a level 60 40-man raid boss. At level 60. Thanks to an old old version of reckoning. Balanced? Perhaps not. Awesome? Yes.
* I suppose you could argue it was a two-person operation, since the rogue did help.
This video is why I made a paladin, made her protection, and an engineer. This shit was the shit. For some perspective, those plans were not easy to get, coming from what was not a particularly hard raid, but it did require 40 people and had a low drop rate. My first shields were made by another engineer, who it turned out was about to drop it (my timing is incredible), because it wasn't good enough. Psh. Who needs stupid stats when they can make mind-control helms and cloaking devices? That running around he did in the place with the skeletons, that was Scholomance, back when it was level 60, and really not a place for someone to be soloing. Of course a mage did it(the entire place) because they wish they were as good as warlocks. Of whom I cannot find a video of one soloing it. I'm sure I saw it... Surely a warlock can do anything a mage can do, but better; that's the whole point of them!
Anyway, balance was a hazy concept back then. Things are better now. Better, but different, and different isn't always better.
Down with the Squish!
|
Thursday, November 10, 2011
There's this "squish" idea floating around.
Let me make this clear: this is a terrible idea. Sure, it has some fringe benefits regarding inflation, but the main impact of it is negative: punishing success.
The true problem is idiots who make stupid assumptions. The main stupid assumption being that everything is relative, so that item levels must show relative gains rather than absolute gains. Wrong. Economic relativity is a myth used to justify the greediness of lazy people.
Let's try some basic facts.
1) Item level has increased since vanilla
2) Raiding participation has increased since vanilla.
Hm...
Let's try a basic labor supply model.
As we can see here, the Demand for raiders is at 100%, meaning that Blizzard wants everyone to raid. Since it is vertical, it indicates that Blizzard wants everyone to raid, no matter how many epics or item levels it takes to get them. The horizontal lines are essentially "price ceilings": Blizzard's determination of how many epics players can get. This is the wage rate. Now look at the Supply line, which clearly shows that as the available epics increase, there will be more raiders. This perfectly fits the trend, at least until Cataclysm, when Blizzard screwed up the market for epic raiders by trying to make us wear blues.
Note that when there are enough epics, players will give 110%. This explains the success of heroic raids.
So what does the squish do on this graph? Obviously it sets a new "epic ceiling" somewhere above the vanilla level but below the cataclysm level. This will reduce the number of raiders, harming the epic economy.
In other words, the "squish" will kill raiding, not save it.
Let me make this clear: this is a terrible idea. Sure, it has some fringe benefits regarding inflation, but the main impact of it is negative: punishing success.
The true problem is idiots who make stupid assumptions. The main stupid assumption being that everything is relative, so that item levels must show relative gains rather than absolute gains. Wrong. Economic relativity is a myth used to justify the greediness of lazy people.
Let's try some basic facts.
1) Item level has increased since vanilla
2) Raiding participation has increased since vanilla.
Hm...
Let's try a basic labor supply model.
As we can see here, the Demand for raiders is at 100%, meaning that Blizzard wants everyone to raid. Since it is vertical, it indicates that Blizzard wants everyone to raid, no matter how many epics or item levels it takes to get them. The horizontal lines are essentially "price ceilings": Blizzard's determination of how many epics players can get. This is the wage rate. Now look at the Supply line, which clearly shows that as the available epics increase, there will be more raiders. This perfectly fits the trend, at least until Cataclysm, when Blizzard screwed up the market for epic raiders by trying to make us wear blues.
Note that when there are enough epics, players will give 110%. This explains the success of heroic raids.
So what does the squish do on this graph? Obviously it sets a new "epic ceiling" somewhere above the vanilla level but below the cataclysm level. This will reduce the number of raiders, harming the epic economy.
In other words, the "squish" will kill raiding, not save it.
Is the government kidnapping Cataclysm players?
|
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
People keep throwing around wild theories for why subscriber numbers are down. Some people say that Cataclysm was a failure of an expansion. Other people say that something happened with China so WoW lost people from there. And still others claim it was a massive, near-simultaneous burnout, which merely by coincidence is during this expansion, suggesting that even if Blizzard had released an expansion called, and containg the relevant content: "Journey to Awesomeland: Let's all be Awesome, but not too Awesome, because that would ruin the fun, so let's go to Awesomeland and be moderately Awesome. Woo!" Yea, these wackos think that expansion would have been a 'failure' too.
Let's consider something more reasonable: the government is kidnapping Cataclysm players. I'm not saying it is part a sinister conspiracy to brain wash a large population which has already been trained to ignore morality in favor of following orders and getting rewards, in order to create a thinking but perfectly obedient army of super-soldiers. That just sounds ridiculous.
Instead I'm saying that on December 7th, Blizzard released Cataclysm. Within two weeks a man set himself on fire and the Arab world rose up. Coincidence? To us, probably. But governments are understandably nervous of the potential radicalizing effects of a game based on perpetual violence and killing whoever is most powerful. They may see the mass detention of WoW players as a simple cautionary measure to prevent more uprisings. And maybe the data supports them. One September 17th Wall Street was occupied. A month later Blizzcon was held and people yelled a lot while at the same time, people yelled a lot in New York and other cities. Again, the links are tenuous, but cannot and should not be ignored. The "squish" is proposed which would flatten item levels and essentially reduce the ilevel wealth gap, while a man who proposed a flat tax is accused of sexual harassment, not long after a homophobic rant at the previously mentioned Blizzcon. It all fits together just a little too well to be ignored.
Add to that the widespread and by democratic principles, correct, fear that gamers are violent asocial monsters and it is obvious that it would be negligent for the government to not be locking up WoW players en mass. Of course I saw this coming, which is why I quit, changed my name, and fled to a foreign country. Well, technically it is still part of the US, and my name is the same, and I think of it as more of a passive "lost interest" rather than an active "I quit", but beside being completely inaccurate, my point stands.
And that point is: run while you can, they are coming for you, and they are perfectly justified in doing so.
You monster.
One last data point: the prison population is going up while the WoW population is going down. See?
Cataclysm is not the problem with WoW. Mass arrests of WoW players are the problem.
And what's with all the unmarked white vans driving around?
Let's consider something more reasonable: the government is kidnapping Cataclysm players. I'm not saying it is part a sinister conspiracy to brain wash a large population which has already been trained to ignore morality in favor of following orders and getting rewards, in order to create a thinking but perfectly obedient army of super-soldiers. That just sounds ridiculous.
Instead I'm saying that on December 7th, Blizzard released Cataclysm. Within two weeks a man set himself on fire and the Arab world rose up. Coincidence? To us, probably. But governments are understandably nervous of the potential radicalizing effects of a game based on perpetual violence and killing whoever is most powerful. They may see the mass detention of WoW players as a simple cautionary measure to prevent more uprisings. And maybe the data supports them. One September 17th Wall Street was occupied. A month later Blizzcon was held and people yelled a lot while at the same time, people yelled a lot in New York and other cities. Again, the links are tenuous, but cannot and should not be ignored. The "squish" is proposed which would flatten item levels and essentially reduce the ilevel wealth gap, while a man who proposed a flat tax is accused of sexual harassment, not long after a homophobic rant at the previously mentioned Blizzcon. It all fits together just a little too well to be ignored.
Add to that the widespread and by democratic principles, correct, fear that gamers are violent asocial monsters and it is obvious that it would be negligent for the government to not be locking up WoW players en mass. Of course I saw this coming, which is why I quit, changed my name, and fled to a foreign country. Well, technically it is still part of the US, and my name is the same, and I think of it as more of a passive "lost interest" rather than an active "I quit", but beside being completely inaccurate, my point stands.
And that point is: run while you can, they are coming for you, and they are perfectly justified in doing so.
You monster.
One last data point: the prison population is going up while the WoW population is going down. See?
Cataclysm is not the problem with WoW. Mass arrests of WoW players are the problem.
And what's with all the unmarked white vans driving around?
Medal of Honor: Now with Beards
|
Do you remember my review of Homefront? Well, this game has a similar "doesn't feel quite right" vibe to it. But it is not a worthless pile of crap either. I would recommend it, just not at full price.
I think the problem is that I thought it would be realistic. This was probably stupid of me, since a realistic portrayal of war would be a lot less fun.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that my impression of war in Afghanistan involves a lot of the following:
- IEDS
- Trying to not shoot civilians
- Having a really hard to identifying civilians
I as a player never had to deal with any of these.
There were a lot of scripted events that included these or similarly unfun problems in war. In one cutscene a trigger-happy general ended up having us fire on Afghan soldiers. There were a couple scripted bits involving rigged objects, such as corpses and huts.
I as a player never had to wonder if something was rigged. I ran where there were no bullets and that was about it. Maybe this is because of gameplay. It would be a bit frustrating if there were random IEDs that could kill me. It would be pointless if they were in fixed locations that I could just remember.
I never wondered if I might shoot a civilian. If there was any uncertainty, it was scripted, and merely waiting would yield the answer. While waiting I was not in danger. The closest to this involved a few areas where I was shooting with friendlies nearby, which can be hard to identify if I am using heat vision. But that's okay, friendly fire seemed to either do no damage or was small enough to not matter.
To top off the strangeness of it all, while I could always perfectly identify enemies, the intel we acted on seemed to be absolute garbage. They expect a few guys and there is an army. This created a lot of dissonance for me.
Speaking of armies, I was not expecting the Taliban and Al'Queda fighters to be so willing to run straight into my shots. Sure, some of them are fanatics who want martyrdom, but it appeared that 99% of enemies were hoping to die while the remaining 1% were in charge of retreating and getting shot in the back. I know that Afghanistan had some of the traditional style of war: "a bunch of guys with guns shoot at each other for a while", but I don't think I ever dealt with a hit-and-run or any ambushes which did not involve at least 30 enemies who of course all died. Not a single suicide bomber.
It was symmetric warfare: what they lacked in technology they made up for with numbers. Lots of numbers. I'd have my fancy guns and awe-inspiring air support and they'd have lots of people. As best as I could tell, the US had around ten thousand soldiers and the Taliban had around ten bajillion. I suspect we were secretly fighting the Chinese.
I ran into a few bugs. Nothing disastrous, but annoying of course. At one point the Taliban units didn't all spawn, so they couldn't all die, so I couldn't advance, despite the area being clear. Going to the previous checkpoint fixed that. At another point, it seems that one of the kills was part of a scripted event: grab guy and bash his head, then drop down. But for some reason it was possible to find a gun before that point, which seemed to disable the bash guy's head script, making it impossible to move forward.
On to the good parts:
The stories are pretty interesting. I won't spoil them, but I felt like they tied together well. Everything felt connected, with a real sense that what one group was doing was not isolated, but was part of a network of support and cooperation. In this aspect it felt a bit more like a real war than the random and disconnected campaigns from the standard "shoot a million Nazis" WWII FPS.
In general, beside the one general, the American forces looked totally badass. Pinned down? Air strike is there in 30 seconds. Still pinned? More air strike. Still pinned? There is an American badass a second away from killing everyone. Maybe this as the true point of the game: to make America look badass. Of course it also looked incredibly expensive (precision munitions aren't cheap!), but definitely cost-effective, especially if we consider that until you bomb a bunker it has unlimited reinforcements. Though there was the one mission where, as best as I could tell, we lost the entire ground army except for eight guys, four of whom were not present at the battle. This might explain the ready availability of air support; there are hundreds of aircraft supporting eight people.
The gameplay itself is pretty good. In general I found myself using the given weapons, usually some sort of American gun. But at a few points I found myself picking up other guns due to being unable to get to anyone to beg for ammo. There is enough variation in the guns to be worth a little thought (though not a ton). When I had a machine gun, I took advantage of the huge capacity, a necessity given the long reload time. I often didn't use the sights, because if my goal is to throw lead in a general direction to keep people scared, accuracy seemed pointless. In contrast the assault rifles had me firing in more controlled bursts. The shotgun got some use near the end, when I found myself short on ammo, unable to get to allies, and unwilling to trade my scoped gun for an enemy gun with just iron sights.
The ammo was a mixed bag for me: given that there are a few infinite respawn parts, it was nice that friendly AI could give me more ammo. But it also seemed a bit strange that they are apparently all carrying a billion rounds. Overall I thought it was a decent compromise: I can only carry so much and have to take some care, but I won't find myself getting saved at a checkpoint with no ammo.
As would be expected, the game is on rails, but they aren't quite as narrow as I expected. There is some side to side room for maneuvering, which could lead to actually choosing different tactics rather than just "shoot better". The health system is the popular "wounds heal very quickly" system, which I like. I also appreciated that checkpoints are not too widely spread. I am easily annoyed by repeating long scripted elements and for the most part, I did not have to.
The friendly AI can actually contribute. At one point an objective was completed by the AI getting the last kill. Of course I still need to "push" the group to keep it moving, but that seems reasonable, since these guys aren't big on leaving anyone behind, particularly when there are only eight guys left.
As for the enemy AI, it isn't omniscient, though it does seem more perceptive than I'd expect. It won't see out the back of its head, but often out of the corner of its eye. That's fine by me, since it means I can move around a bit and flank them without things getting silly. In contrast, compare the extremes where the AI always knows where you are, or in Splinter Cell: Conviction where it will remember a last known location, and then obsess over that location, going straight for it without seeming to consider that the player can move.
The single-player campaign took about 4-6 hours. I know that is broad. I forgot when I had started playing. It was daylight savings and my sleep clock had decided to take advantage of the time change by screwing up my sleep horribly. I was on around 4 hours of sleep, so please pardon the inexact game time.
So overall, I'd recommend this game if you like shooting people and need to lose a few hours. But don't pay $50 or whatever they charge these days.
I think the problem is that I thought it would be realistic. This was probably stupid of me, since a realistic portrayal of war would be a lot less fun.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that my impression of war in Afghanistan involves a lot of the following:
- IEDS
- Trying to not shoot civilians
- Having a really hard to identifying civilians
I as a player never had to deal with any of these.
There were a lot of scripted events that included these or similarly unfun problems in war. In one cutscene a trigger-happy general ended up having us fire on Afghan soldiers. There were a couple scripted bits involving rigged objects, such as corpses and huts.
I as a player never had to wonder if something was rigged. I ran where there were no bullets and that was about it. Maybe this is because of gameplay. It would be a bit frustrating if there were random IEDs that could kill me. It would be pointless if they were in fixed locations that I could just remember.
I never wondered if I might shoot a civilian. If there was any uncertainty, it was scripted, and merely waiting would yield the answer. While waiting I was not in danger. The closest to this involved a few areas where I was shooting with friendlies nearby, which can be hard to identify if I am using heat vision. But that's okay, friendly fire seemed to either do no damage or was small enough to not matter.
To top off the strangeness of it all, while I could always perfectly identify enemies, the intel we acted on seemed to be absolute garbage. They expect a few guys and there is an army. This created a lot of dissonance for me.
Speaking of armies, I was not expecting the Taliban and Al'Queda fighters to be so willing to run straight into my shots. Sure, some of them are fanatics who want martyrdom, but it appeared that 99% of enemies were hoping to die while the remaining 1% were in charge of retreating and getting shot in the back. I know that Afghanistan had some of the traditional style of war: "a bunch of guys with guns shoot at each other for a while", but I don't think I ever dealt with a hit-and-run or any ambushes which did not involve at least 30 enemies who of course all died. Not a single suicide bomber.
It was symmetric warfare: what they lacked in technology they made up for with numbers. Lots of numbers. I'd have my fancy guns and awe-inspiring air support and they'd have lots of people. As best as I could tell, the US had around ten thousand soldiers and the Taliban had around ten bajillion. I suspect we were secretly fighting the Chinese.
I ran into a few bugs. Nothing disastrous, but annoying of course. At one point the Taliban units didn't all spawn, so they couldn't all die, so I couldn't advance, despite the area being clear. Going to the previous checkpoint fixed that. At another point, it seems that one of the kills was part of a scripted event: grab guy and bash his head, then drop down. But for some reason it was possible to find a gun before that point, which seemed to disable the bash guy's head script, making it impossible to move forward.
On to the good parts:
The stories are pretty interesting. I won't spoil them, but I felt like they tied together well. Everything felt connected, with a real sense that what one group was doing was not isolated, but was part of a network of support and cooperation. In this aspect it felt a bit more like a real war than the random and disconnected campaigns from the standard "shoot a million Nazis" WWII FPS.
In general, beside the one general, the American forces looked totally badass. Pinned down? Air strike is there in 30 seconds. Still pinned? More air strike. Still pinned? There is an American badass a second away from killing everyone. Maybe this as the true point of the game: to make America look badass. Of course it also looked incredibly expensive (precision munitions aren't cheap!), but definitely cost-effective, especially if we consider that until you bomb a bunker it has unlimited reinforcements. Though there was the one mission where, as best as I could tell, we lost the entire ground army except for eight guys, four of whom were not present at the battle. This might explain the ready availability of air support; there are hundreds of aircraft supporting eight people.
The gameplay itself is pretty good. In general I found myself using the given weapons, usually some sort of American gun. But at a few points I found myself picking up other guns due to being unable to get to anyone to beg for ammo. There is enough variation in the guns to be worth a little thought (though not a ton). When I had a machine gun, I took advantage of the huge capacity, a necessity given the long reload time. I often didn't use the sights, because if my goal is to throw lead in a general direction to keep people scared, accuracy seemed pointless. In contrast the assault rifles had me firing in more controlled bursts. The shotgun got some use near the end, when I found myself short on ammo, unable to get to allies, and unwilling to trade my scoped gun for an enemy gun with just iron sights.
The ammo was a mixed bag for me: given that there are a few infinite respawn parts, it was nice that friendly AI could give me more ammo. But it also seemed a bit strange that they are apparently all carrying a billion rounds. Overall I thought it was a decent compromise: I can only carry so much and have to take some care, but I won't find myself getting saved at a checkpoint with no ammo.
As would be expected, the game is on rails, but they aren't quite as narrow as I expected. There is some side to side room for maneuvering, which could lead to actually choosing different tactics rather than just "shoot better". The health system is the popular "wounds heal very quickly" system, which I like. I also appreciated that checkpoints are not too widely spread. I am easily annoyed by repeating long scripted elements and for the most part, I did not have to.
The friendly AI can actually contribute. At one point an objective was completed by the AI getting the last kill. Of course I still need to "push" the group to keep it moving, but that seems reasonable, since these guys aren't big on leaving anyone behind, particularly when there are only eight guys left.
As for the enemy AI, it isn't omniscient, though it does seem more perceptive than I'd expect. It won't see out the back of its head, but often out of the corner of its eye. That's fine by me, since it means I can move around a bit and flank them without things getting silly. In contrast, compare the extremes where the AI always knows where you are, or in Splinter Cell: Conviction where it will remember a last known location, and then obsess over that location, going straight for it without seeming to consider that the player can move.
The single-player campaign took about 4-6 hours. I know that is broad. I forgot when I had started playing. It was daylight savings and my sleep clock had decided to take advantage of the time change by screwing up my sleep horribly. I was on around 4 hours of sleep, so please pardon the inexact game time.
So overall, I'd recommend this game if you like shooting people and need to lose a few hours. But don't pay $50 or whatever they charge these days.
Realism, Simulation, Immersion, Choice, and Accuracy
|
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Nouns!
Realism! Check out the details on this gun. This game doesn't have to be 20 Gb, but if you want guns that look this good, then it does. You'll want a new video card too. Newer than that one. What do you mean I don't even know what card you have? This is a new, realistic game, of course you can't handle it!
It seems to me that when developers talk about realism they aim for visual realism. They make it look like what it is supposed to be. Presumably looking like it is good enough. But if visuals and sound (I forgot sound) are all it takes, then we'd all have PTSD from all those war movies. And from the similarly visually stunning FPS that they keep churning out.
Visuals do not guarantee immersion.
The problem is simulation. What is being simulated? I'm reminded of the 'simulator' we had for driver's ed back in high school. We'd all sit in our little driver's seats with a decent recreation of a steering wheel, gear shift, turn signal, pedals, and other stuff which I'm sure is important (aren't you glad I don't drive much?). It was realistic. The visuals weren't so great, being projected a bit far away on the big screen at the front of the room.
It was a great simulation in all aspects, except two: immersion and choice. Notice how I said the visuals are projected on the screen? Yea, one screen for all of us. We watched a film from a driver's seat and were meant to react to it, but there was almost no feedback. The car went forward whether I braked or floored it. The car turned left regardless of where the wheel was. It didn't even matter if the car was 'on'.
Sound familiar? How about your average FPS? As much as WoW is 'on rails', it is a gloriously free and open-ended sandbox compared to your average FPS. Assault this objective! Do not try to climb over the fence. Except that one fence that is scripted to be climbable. You must climb that one. Is this like war? Well sure, there are times when taking any other path will get you filled with bullets, shrapnel, poison, or dirt which is moving at a high speed relative to your body despite being, from most perspectives, stationary. But can you imagine a soldier that he cannot flank the enemy by hopping a fence or crawling around the back way, that he will instead attack a dozen enemies head-on? And of course he never, ever has backup or the option to retreat. That last one is realistic if we're talking about Soviet soldiers in WWII, but outside of that one specific example, which admittedly covers a lot of territory and numbers, there are some options.
The problem is that immersion requires not just appearance, but also choice.
This may mean a loss of historical accuracy while also being more historically realistic. Washington could have done things differently. He had the choice. He happened to take the choices that led to me being here in the best greatest country ever put here by God, in contrast with other countries which were obviously put here by Satan. But he could have ended up as a Loyalist. He had the choice and if we were to play the American Revolution FPS, we'd better get the chance to betray all we stand for in return for evil British gold.
On a side note, FPS aren't quite as much fun before semi-automatic weapons. I played one based on the Civil War once. It was a bit annoying. You'd shoot and then take approximately ten minutes to reload and shoot again, making it slightly more interactive than a vanilla paladin, but that's another story.
There are narrative limits. I cannot imagine the size of the budget required to write, script, and test the endless possibilities for Mr. Pre-President. We'd need sci-fi-style cloning just to get enough writers. So fine, let's force him to be a traitor. But does he have to freeze his ass off in Valley Forge? Can he pay Benedict Arnold so he doesn't pull a Benedict Arnold?
This may be why I enjoy Civilization so much. It isn't historically accurate, and come to think of it, it isn't historically realistic either, but it's something historical. It captures the possibilities. It shows how decisions matter. The butterfly effects of choices are often amazing to see. The potential for greatness, and evil, is nearly limitless. Because of this, despite what the mechanics or graphics might lack, it achieves a level of realistic immersion.
This semi-sandbox sort of play is a source of replay value. The 'story' is different each time. Maybe one game I find myself in a peaceful world where science and cultures are the 'wars'. At another time, I may see perpetual war, shifting alliances, and half a continent burned down (I still maintain that I had no territorial ambitions, which is why I destroyed it all).
Even when there is an overall developer-created narrative path, sandbox elements can help. Take Stalker for example. Ultimately you will do the final thing, whether it is killing the C-Consciousness or dying horribly in Shadow of Chernobyl or leaving the Zone in Call of Pripyat. Yea, a bit of a strange ending: you leave. No great discoveries or victories, merely escape. But along the way there are choices. You can side with various factions. Traveling you can try to protect fellow Stalkers or leave them to their deaths. Or assist them in dying. Maybe you skip half the missions and beeline for the ending cutscene, a choice which sounds remarkably stupid to me, but which sounds quite a bit like the leveling-skippers of WoW. I actually played through CoP a few times, finding more that I had missed and seeing what choices I could make differently.
Admittedly these are essentially cosmetic choices. The economy in the game is easy enough that a vendor benefit isn't needed. A few weapons are different, but nothing is unavailable, just a little harder to get. But it is enough. I can play as I would if I were actually there. Or, as I would if I were actually there but not hiding in a corner weeping, because let's face it, there is no way I'd be going into a dark cave, alone except for the scary mutants lurking all around.
And yet, as much as I might praise choice and various approaches to realism, sometimes it's nice to take the straightforward route and shoot Nazis in the face.
Realism! Check out the details on this gun. This game doesn't have to be 20 Gb, but if you want guns that look this good, then it does. You'll want a new video card too. Newer than that one. What do you mean I don't even know what card you have? This is a new, realistic game, of course you can't handle it!
It seems to me that when developers talk about realism they aim for visual realism. They make it look like what it is supposed to be. Presumably looking like it is good enough. But if visuals and sound (I forgot sound) are all it takes, then we'd all have PTSD from all those war movies. And from the similarly visually stunning FPS that they keep churning out.
Visuals do not guarantee immersion.
The problem is simulation. What is being simulated? I'm reminded of the 'simulator' we had for driver's ed back in high school. We'd all sit in our little driver's seats with a decent recreation of a steering wheel, gear shift, turn signal, pedals, and other stuff which I'm sure is important (aren't you glad I don't drive much?). It was realistic. The visuals weren't so great, being projected a bit far away on the big screen at the front of the room.
It was a great simulation in all aspects, except two: immersion and choice. Notice how I said the visuals are projected on the screen? Yea, one screen for all of us. We watched a film from a driver's seat and were meant to react to it, but there was almost no feedback. The car went forward whether I braked or floored it. The car turned left regardless of where the wheel was. It didn't even matter if the car was 'on'.
Sound familiar? How about your average FPS? As much as WoW is 'on rails', it is a gloriously free and open-ended sandbox compared to your average FPS. Assault this objective! Do not try to climb over the fence. Except that one fence that is scripted to be climbable. You must climb that one. Is this like war? Well sure, there are times when taking any other path will get you filled with bullets, shrapnel, poison, or dirt which is moving at a high speed relative to your body despite being, from most perspectives, stationary. But can you imagine a soldier that he cannot flank the enemy by hopping a fence or crawling around the back way, that he will instead attack a dozen enemies head-on? And of course he never, ever has backup or the option to retreat. That last one is realistic if we're talking about Soviet soldiers in WWII, but outside of that one specific example, which admittedly covers a lot of territory and numbers, there are some options.
The problem is that immersion requires not just appearance, but also choice.
This may mean a loss of historical accuracy while also being more historically realistic. Washington could have done things differently. He had the choice. He happened to take the choices that led to me being here in the best greatest country ever put here by God, in contrast with other countries which were obviously put here by Satan. But he could have ended up as a Loyalist. He had the choice and if we were to play the American Revolution FPS, we'd better get the chance to betray all we stand for in return for evil British gold.
On a side note, FPS aren't quite as much fun before semi-automatic weapons. I played one based on the Civil War once. It was a bit annoying. You'd shoot and then take approximately ten minutes to reload and shoot again, making it slightly more interactive than a vanilla paladin, but that's another story.
There are narrative limits. I cannot imagine the size of the budget required to write, script, and test the endless possibilities for Mr. Pre-President. We'd need sci-fi-style cloning just to get enough writers. So fine, let's force him to be a traitor. But does he have to freeze his ass off in Valley Forge? Can he pay Benedict Arnold so he doesn't pull a Benedict Arnold?
This may be why I enjoy Civilization so much. It isn't historically accurate, and come to think of it, it isn't historically realistic either, but it's something historical. It captures the possibilities. It shows how decisions matter. The butterfly effects of choices are often amazing to see. The potential for greatness, and evil, is nearly limitless. Because of this, despite what the mechanics or graphics might lack, it achieves a level of realistic immersion.
This semi-sandbox sort of play is a source of replay value. The 'story' is different each time. Maybe one game I find myself in a peaceful world where science and cultures are the 'wars'. At another time, I may see perpetual war, shifting alliances, and half a continent burned down (I still maintain that I had no territorial ambitions, which is why I destroyed it all).
Even when there is an overall developer-created narrative path, sandbox elements can help. Take Stalker for example. Ultimately you will do the final thing, whether it is killing the C-Consciousness or dying horribly in Shadow of Chernobyl or leaving the Zone in Call of Pripyat. Yea, a bit of a strange ending: you leave. No great discoveries or victories, merely escape. But along the way there are choices. You can side with various factions. Traveling you can try to protect fellow Stalkers or leave them to their deaths. Or assist them in dying. Maybe you skip half the missions and beeline for the ending cutscene, a choice which sounds remarkably stupid to me, but which sounds quite a bit like the leveling-skippers of WoW. I actually played through CoP a few times, finding more that I had missed and seeing what choices I could make differently.
Admittedly these are essentially cosmetic choices. The economy in the game is easy enough that a vendor benefit isn't needed. A few weapons are different, but nothing is unavailable, just a little harder to get. But it is enough. I can play as I would if I were actually there. Or, as I would if I were actually there but not hiding in a corner weeping, because let's face it, there is no way I'd be going into a dark cave, alone except for the scary mutants lurking all around.
And yet, as much as I might praise choice and various approaches to realism, sometimes it's nice to take the straightforward route and shoot Nazis in the face.
WoWing around again: Hillsbrad (Horde-side, just in case Alliance has quests here too)
|
Monday, November 7, 2011
"Yes, this horse IS made of STARS."
"Bears are soulless beasts put upon this earth to torment us."
"The mine spiders refuse command and are running rampant."
Yea, we're off to a good start.
Rogues, take note when shackling webbed prisoners: they do not die, they despawn. That means your combo points cannot be used for recuperate. It's a small problem given the general harmlessness of enemies, particularly when overleveled.
Moving on to other entirely unacceptable failures of game development: the murlocs do not flee.
On the plus side, Dumass is the best-designed escort NPC ever. Mostly because he acts like a normal escort NPC but has the dialogue to back it up.
Sludge Fields: Who keeps screaming? And then, like any good quest will do, the question is answered. But while we're talking about good quests, is it really necessary to retcon all the player actions from vanilla? I realize that respawns and that sort of thing were all necessary mechanics in lieu of a dynamic world, but did they have to rewrite the stories as well? It doesn't seem like a good way to bring back old players if every other quest says "you did nothing." The quest in question and the associated book were good reads, but would anything have been lost by renaming the NPCs?
I feel bad for Jenny Awesome. All the quests seem to have been miswritten and used "he", but the Forsaken know she's a she. For some strange reason, the quest to save the humans is not repeatable. Lost opportunity there, Blizzard!
Apparently the Forsaken have begun recycling. Oh look, Helcular is here, brought back by "a group of heroes" WAS THAT SO HARD!? Now if he'd quit whipping out his rod at every opportunity...
Quest objective: "Explain to Orkus that he is standing in shallow water." This all ended in sadness, and not just because of how the quest turned out.
Tarren Mill requires level 21. My time was done. But at least I got to fight angry slimes.
"Bears are soulless beasts put upon this earth to torment us."
"The mine spiders refuse command and are running rampant."
Yea, we're off to a good start.
Rogues, take note when shackling webbed prisoners: they do not die, they despawn. That means your combo points cannot be used for recuperate. It's a small problem given the general harmlessness of enemies, particularly when overleveled.
Moving on to other entirely unacceptable failures of game development: the murlocs do not flee.
On the plus side, Dumass is the best-designed escort NPC ever. Mostly because he acts like a normal escort NPC but has the dialogue to back it up.
Sludge Fields: Who keeps screaming? And then, like any good quest will do, the question is answered. But while we're talking about good quests, is it really necessary to retcon all the player actions from vanilla? I realize that respawns and that sort of thing were all necessary mechanics in lieu of a dynamic world, but did they have to rewrite the stories as well? It doesn't seem like a good way to bring back old players if every other quest says "you did nothing." The quest in question and the associated book were good reads, but would anything have been lost by renaming the NPCs?
I feel bad for Jenny Awesome. All the quests seem to have been miswritten and used "he", but the Forsaken know she's a she. For some strange reason, the quest to save the humans is not repeatable. Lost opportunity there, Blizzard!
Apparently the Forsaken have begun recycling. Oh look, Helcular is here, brought back by "a group of heroes" WAS THAT SO HARD!? Now if he'd quit whipping out his rod at every opportunity...
Quest objective: "Explain to Orkus that he is standing in shallow water." This all ended in sadness, and not just because of how the quest turned out.
Tarren Mill requires level 21. My time was done. But at least I got to fight angry slimes.
Sometimes it is safer to fight to the death
|
Saturday, November 5, 2011
I love how Civilization gives us the tools to create our own history, and just like historical world leaders, commit atrocities on a scale that the human mind cannot comprehend.
I noticed that the Iroquois were a bit big and powerful. This was not a good thing and it could not end well. The last time someone got big and powerful they attacked me and I had to burn down a couple of their cities and capture an allied city state. Serves you right, Ramesses II. All I wanted was to be left alone and by burning down your cities I proved that I was only neutralizing a threat and had no territorial ambitions. Beside Japan.
Anyway, the point I was trying to get at was that I attacked the Iroquois. My plan was to burn down about half their empire and then take a generous peace offer. Then I'd burn down half of Germany, because they were making me nervous too. I went about it in a systematic fashion, capturing a city, burning it, capturing the next, burning it. Just being a reasonable world leader looking out for the interests of his people.
Somehow, he successfully recognized that my army was larger and more advanced (don't mess with the Cho-Ko-Nu). And then he offered a treaty. A very generous treaty. He gave me some gold. And every single city beside his capitol.
I just want to reiterate, this was a defensive war and I have no territorial ambitions.
So I burned down the entire empire that he'd handed over to me.
The populations of the cities you see add up to about 68. I'd already burned down two cities of around 5 each by this point. The demographics screen wasn't of any help. Maybe the census doesn't bother with people who are going to be immolated soon. Or it excludes foreigners. But I'd put the deaths in the millions.
For some context, I have conveniently played on an "earth" map. That put the burned-down area as approximately the entire European portion of the former USSR.
In related news, Australia seems to be completely overrun with barbarians.
I noticed that the Iroquois were a bit big and powerful. This was not a good thing and it could not end well. The last time someone got big and powerful they attacked me and I had to burn down a couple of their cities and capture an allied city state. Serves you right, Ramesses II. All I wanted was to be left alone and by burning down your cities I proved that I was only neutralizing a threat and had no territorial ambitions. Beside Japan.
Anyway, the point I was trying to get at was that I attacked the Iroquois. My plan was to burn down about half their empire and then take a generous peace offer. Then I'd burn down half of Germany, because they were making me nervous too. I went about it in a systematic fashion, capturing a city, burning it, capturing the next, burning it. Just being a reasonable world leader looking out for the interests of his people.
Somehow, he successfully recognized that my army was larger and more advanced (don't mess with the Cho-Ko-Nu). And then he offered a treaty. A very generous treaty. He gave me some gold. And every single city beside his capitol.
I just want to reiterate, this was a defensive war and I have no territorial ambitions.
So I burned down the entire empire that he'd handed over to me.
The populations of the cities you see add up to about 68. I'd already burned down two cities of around 5 each by this point. The demographics screen wasn't of any help. Maybe the census doesn't bother with people who are going to be immolated soon. Or it excludes foreigners. But I'd put the deaths in the millions.
For some context, I have conveniently played on an "earth" map. That put the burned-down area as approximately the entire European portion of the former USSR.
In related news, Australia seems to be completely overrun with barbarians.
Spake English!
|
Friday, November 4, 2011
Sometimes I hear people speaking something other than English, such as Mandarin or English English. I do the logical thing and yell at them. Then we argue, usually about the geopolitics of the day. I'm a bit of an ideologue and refuse to budge from my principles, such as denying the existence of the Welsh. It all gets a bit confusing because they keep on speaking their non-English language, so we do a bit of arguing past each other, but I assure you, I argue past them a lot better.
But these arguments are a lot more productive than the average one regarding casuals. At least when I start random arguments with foreigners (I assume they are foreign, since Americans speak English) they recognize that we might see eye to eye (metaphorically, some of the old English English men I yell at are a bit hunched) but are not speaking the same language, so some meaning gets lost in the lack of translation.
The casual-harcore arguments never have this benefit. I say casual and you say casual and the word sounds the same, with maybe one person saying it more like "cash-ual" and another more like "ca-zhual", and maybe a "cassual" to complete the mix. But the minor variation in sound fails to alert us to the not-so-minor variation in meaning.
Is casual a time thing? How much time?
Or maybe it is an interest thing. This one seems strange, since someone playing a game they aren't interested in sounds more like "stupid" than "casual".
Is it the fullness of the care cup? Competitiveness? Research? Social ties?
We could look up the dictionary definition, but that wouldn't be of much use, since we're not going to all suddenly switch to the meaning used by Oxford. Beside, they're sorta elitist about their words.
I wonder if we should even bother to use the word. In *ahem* casual conversation it could still be of some use as a generic pointer toward a direction on a spectrum, but if we want to say something more than that? Useless! Worse than useless, counter-productive!
Imagine if one day WoW removed targeting in favor of aiming, so that spells and attacks had to be manually pointed at targets. An FPS player might like this. An RPG player who is more used to the 'sticky' system might not. Certainly the targeting makes it a bit harder, but is it hardcore? The FPS player might say yes. The RPG player might say no, that it is dumbing down and ruining the genre to suit the stupid FPS players.
It is almost as useless as the terms conservative and liberal. Less so only because at least casual doesn't suddenly flip in meaning when going from America to Europe the way liberal does. Apparently over there "liberal" means "libertarianish" (this is Europe we're talking about) whereas here it means "nannystater who takes your money to force black people to get abortions", in contrast with "progressive" which means either "person who wants to improve things" or "cancer".
We need a new word. Or no, no mere word, but a format. A code. I suggest these parameters for measurement, on scales of 1-9 with 1 being lowest and 10 highest. Roughly-speaking, higher scores are more 'hardcore', but I want to emphasize the "roughly-speaking" part.
Time investment: Ranges from "now and then" to "second job"
Emotional investment: Ranges from "meh" to "It's not stalking if I plan to murder the loot ninja at the end."
Knowledge: Ranges from "Press buttons and pretty!" to "I've found a bug in the boss code showing that he is using 'Hyperspace Doom' a tenth of a second sooner than intended"
Customization: "I changed a couple keys so I stopped pressing quickload instead of quicksave" to "my keyboard cost more than your computer and I have a contract with Apple to redesign my UI"
This would give scores ranging from 4 to 36. It would start at zero, but I'm pretty sure that if someone has a time, knowledge, or emotional investment of zero, they are not playing the game. Even a customization of zero suggests that they may or may not have a keyboard. The reason it goes 1-9 rather than the more common 1-10 is that this way it all fits into a 4-digit code, a convenience which I'm sure will be appreciated when everyone in the world adopts my new standard for game communication.
It still needs some work. For example, emotional investment is going to be linked to all of the rest, with emotion and time forming a feedback loop. Knowledge can be expected to generally increase with time and emotion, and may increase customization. These are not perfectly independent factors. It may not be appropriate to have them all on the same scales. Customization may call for a wider range, in fact, since buying special hardware just to play a specific game strikes me as pretty hardcore. Or it may merely follow from a high emotional investment.
For myself during the height of my WoW days, I'm estimating scores something like this:
Time: 7
Emotion: 6
Knowledge: 8
Customization: 5
I spent a lot of time, cared quite a bit, knew a lot about the game, mostly within lore but a great deal about classes and raids, but my UI was a sort of on and off thing. The off coming with a new patch where I'd have to check the "load out of date addons" box and put up with constant UI errors until one day I got around to downloading an updated version. That might sound like less than 5, but considering I had a bar, gear, UI, and multiple AH and mail addons, I think that makes 5 a minimum. If it wasn't all so haphazard I'd probably put it higher.
That would make me a 7685 or 26 combined, or 72% harcore. That sounds about right to me.
What's your score?
But these arguments are a lot more productive than the average one regarding casuals. At least when I start random arguments with foreigners (I assume they are foreign, since Americans speak English) they recognize that we might see eye to eye (metaphorically, some of the old English English men I yell at are a bit hunched) but are not speaking the same language, so some meaning gets lost in the lack of translation.
The casual-harcore arguments never have this benefit. I say casual and you say casual and the word sounds the same, with maybe one person saying it more like "cash-ual" and another more like "ca-zhual", and maybe a "cassual" to complete the mix. But the minor variation in sound fails to alert us to the not-so-minor variation in meaning.
Is casual a time thing? How much time?
Or maybe it is an interest thing. This one seems strange, since someone playing a game they aren't interested in sounds more like "stupid" than "casual".
Is it the fullness of the care cup? Competitiveness? Research? Social ties?
We could look up the dictionary definition, but that wouldn't be of much use, since we're not going to all suddenly switch to the meaning used by Oxford. Beside, they're sorta elitist about their words.
I wonder if we should even bother to use the word. In *ahem* casual conversation it could still be of some use as a generic pointer toward a direction on a spectrum, but if we want to say something more than that? Useless! Worse than useless, counter-productive!
Imagine if one day WoW removed targeting in favor of aiming, so that spells and attacks had to be manually pointed at targets. An FPS player might like this. An RPG player who is more used to the 'sticky' system might not. Certainly the targeting makes it a bit harder, but is it hardcore? The FPS player might say yes. The RPG player might say no, that it is dumbing down and ruining the genre to suit the stupid FPS players.
It is almost as useless as the terms conservative and liberal. Less so only because at least casual doesn't suddenly flip in meaning when going from America to Europe the way liberal does. Apparently over there "liberal" means "libertarianish" (this is Europe we're talking about) whereas here it means "nannystater who takes your money to force black people to get abortions", in contrast with "progressive" which means either "person who wants to improve things" or "cancer".
We need a new word. Or no, no mere word, but a format. A code. I suggest these parameters for measurement, on scales of 1-9 with 1 being lowest and 10 highest. Roughly-speaking, higher scores are more 'hardcore', but I want to emphasize the "roughly-speaking" part.
Time investment: Ranges from "now and then" to "second job"
Emotional investment: Ranges from "meh" to "It's not stalking if I plan to murder the loot ninja at the end."
Knowledge: Ranges from "Press buttons and pretty!" to "I've found a bug in the boss code showing that he is using 'Hyperspace Doom' a tenth of a second sooner than intended"
Customization: "I changed a couple keys so I stopped pressing quickload instead of quicksave" to "my keyboard cost more than your computer and I have a contract with Apple to redesign my UI"
This would give scores ranging from 4 to 36. It would start at zero, but I'm pretty sure that if someone has a time, knowledge, or emotional investment of zero, they are not playing the game. Even a customization of zero suggests that they may or may not have a keyboard. The reason it goes 1-9 rather than the more common 1-10 is that this way it all fits into a 4-digit code, a convenience which I'm sure will be appreciated when everyone in the world adopts my new standard for game communication.
It still needs some work. For example, emotional investment is going to be linked to all of the rest, with emotion and time forming a feedback loop. Knowledge can be expected to generally increase with time and emotion, and may increase customization. These are not perfectly independent factors. It may not be appropriate to have them all on the same scales. Customization may call for a wider range, in fact, since buying special hardware just to play a specific game strikes me as pretty hardcore. Or it may merely follow from a high emotional investment.
For myself during the height of my WoW days, I'm estimating scores something like this:
Time: 7
Emotion: 6
Knowledge: 8
Customization: 5
I spent a lot of time, cared quite a bit, knew a lot about the game, mostly within lore but a great deal about classes and raids, but my UI was a sort of on and off thing. The off coming with a new patch where I'd have to check the "load out of date addons" box and put up with constant UI errors until one day I got around to downloading an updated version. That might sound like less than 5, but considering I had a bar, gear, UI, and multiple AH and mail addons, I think that makes 5 a minimum. If it wasn't all so haphazard I'd probably put it higher.
That would make me a 7685 or 26 combined, or 72% harcore. That sounds about right to me.
What's your score?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)