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Kickin' It Sorta Old School

Aug 262010

This last weekend I had the pleasure to meet some old friends at a lake cabin. This was something I was really, really looking forward to do. We would get to indulge in the kindness of my friends and for the second time this summer, just do some old fashioned relaxing at a lake. There would be beer, there would be good times on the water.

But there was something else planned that weekend, something wonderful and magical, something I haven’t done in over a decade. I broke out the dice, bought a couple of books and played a game of Dungeons and Dragons with my friends.

My Old Dice

Oh yes. It had been so long since the last time I played, I cannot honestly say that I remember it. But this was something I really yearned for. It’s weird as 2010 continues to be my geeky renaissance and one thing I miss from my old geek days was sitting down amongst friends, rolling some dice, drinking some cheap beer and getting our game on.

Not pictured: a bag of Doritos, classic Mountain Dew and young adult angst

When my friend Eric mentioned we were going to run a couple of rooms in a dungeon crawl, I completely geeked out. I “found” myself at a games store and just happened to find myself *cough* *cough* at the D&D display rack which just happened to have a sale on a couple of books. I studied up, drew up a character (an Eladrin Wizard with a bit of a detective background) and dug out my dice from one of the packed boxes. It was just the matter of a wait for the actual weekend to game with some friends.

My Character in Page Form

We gamed on the first night there and took about twenty minutes for everyone to settle in and get rolling, but once we did, gaming goodness abounded. To make the visualizing easier, they bought game grids to help you picture where you are in relation to the enemies and also where you can move in any given turn. This was really a simple dungeon crawl and we only managed to clear a couple of rooms, but the experience was better than I remembered.

Many traditional players have been quite vocal about the 4th edition D&D rules being too much like World of Warcraft in that you’ve separated the classes into essentially four categories and simplified too much of the combat. It’s true that the rules seem to be easier, but really roleplaying is what you make it.

When we played, I pushed the bounds of what the rule book said what some of my spells were able to do, but because the idea was so intriguing to Eric who was running the game, he allowed it. Fortunately, I rolled exceedingly well and made a couple of unexpected things happen. Things like that are fun, and that’s what the game is really all about. I really can’t wait for the next time for us to play again and maybe, just maybe can finagle a monthly game.

My personal geek reinvention continues.

Not Dead Yet

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Aug 172010

I came across this article on Ars Technica about how the recent release of Starcraft II dominated the month in video games sales. Three interesting things about this. First, this is only box sales, not digital download sales which are playing an increasing share on the PC market. This is important because with Starcraft II essentially dominating this sales measure, outselling all other games on the console and not even counting all of it’s sales…it’s telling.

Secondly, this is a single platform release, only for PC. The next best selling game was released on two platforms and was still beat by over 30,000 units.

And here’s the coup de grace. These sales are only for the last four days in July whereas all the other games had a good measure of the month to sell. The August numbers should be very interesting to see.

I’ve seen many a post on many a tech forum saying that PC gaming is dead, that the console is now king. These numbers seem to fly right in the face of such perceptions. Starcraft definitely is not being ported to console. Can you imagine how fast some console player would get their ass-kicked by even a mediocre PC player who knows a couple keyboard shortcuts?

What Gets My Gaming Dollar

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Aug 042010

A curious thing appeared in my inbox today. It was an email from Star Trek Online letting me know about their “Welcome Back Weekend” where people who used to play STO and have already cancelled get to play for free for a couple of days. This isn’t unusual, per se, as many MMO games have these promotions to convince former players to sign back up. What’s unusual about the one for STO is that this is the second time they’ve had a welcome back weekend within months of launch. The first time I wrote about STO was back in late January and it is utterly shocking to me that they have their second attempt to get back players within seven months of launch. Did I say shocking? I meant laughable.

Unfortunately, this is the trend I see happening lately more and more in the game-space and in particular with MMO games. Another game I almost bought but held off doing so was APB, which was meant to be much like the Grand Theft Auto of the MMO world. Reviews for APB have been scathing and I’m very glad I saved the $50 by avoiding purchasing the game at all. What have been the main complaints? Buggy play, limited mission types, repetitive action, unbalanced play. Sound familiar? It’s because these were many of the complaints I had against STO as well.

It is just a part of a distressing trend of foisting a poor product onto an eager fan base and then attempting to fix it through new releases and content as they go along. Companies often talk about how “they are listening to the fans” and about how much their fan support means to them. The problem is that if they would have actually cared about their fan base, they might have attempted to put out a decent game first. Let me share two examples of companies that I believe actually care about their fans and do right by them.

First of all, again Bioware did the right thing by putting off the launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic until next year. The more and more I see from this game, the more I’m expecting it to be great. This is from a company who put out two top notch games this year (Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2) which is a lot to do for any one company. It could be argued that many of their games seem the same, and that would be a valid complaint. However, this one minor con is entirely outweighed by everything they have done right and the improving quality of their games.

The other company is Blizzard with their recent release of Starcraft II. This was twelve years in the making. Twelve YEARS. What did they get for their waiting so long? Oh, pretty much universal acclaim from critics and fans for a well beloved franchise. Not that there hasn’t been some nitpicking and valid complaints as well (let’s face it, every game does have a wart or two), but everything people loved about the original is still there with an engaging single player mode and fantastic multiplayer.

This is what it is all about and really, what gets me to purchase one game over another. A company like Cryptic (makers of STO) is not getting another dime from me as they do not have the player’s interests in mind but rather their bottom dollar. Bioware and Blizzard? Both of them put out great games and their decisions are made to focus on the quality of the game rather than a purely financial motive. Let me throw Valve in there too as a company that sticks to this mantra and also produces top notch games. They get it and because of that, they get my money.

Games As Art

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Apr 202010

Perhaps you’ve seen the presentation from Kellee Santiago at TED about how games should be considered art or maybe the response from Roger Ebert about how video games cannot by their definition be art. The folks over at Slashdot responded predictably, fuming with nerd-rage at how a movie critic could be so wrong. Near the end of Ebert’s post, he asks probably the most important question overlooked in the conversation; why is it so important that video games be recognized as art? It’s a valid question. I’d like to go one step further.

Why do we, as a geek culture, need any further validation? Secondly, isn’t Ebert right?

Maybe it’s our lot in life, to always seek some sort of honest approval of others. More than ever, it seems that as geeks, our time is here, that life itself has validated the geek culture and there’s some level of acceptance on a cosmic level. Computers are rife in society and those who have the skills are often called upon to display their wizardry to those not as gifted. Comic book movies get occasionally considered for prestigious awards. We have a President who not only has greeted people with the Vulcan salute, but has been photographed brandishing a toy lightsaber. Surely, our time has come.

But video games as art? Ebert is right.

Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any games that could be considered art. The video game Braid was mentioned in the Santiago presentation and while there is an interesting story and subplot running through the game, it’s difficult to argue that it elevates itself enough so it is considered art. Perhaps Bioshock could be considered as it’s an interesting exploration of the Objectivism of Ayn Rand, but 90% of the game is spent as a first-person shooter.

Arguments could be made that there is a lot of art in a game already, from the music to the artwork, each of them put together as a whole could constitute a work of art. To me, it’s a lot like pro sporting events where you have an arena with architectural design with the music they play at the game, but in the end, it all surrounds the game which is attempting to achieve an objective. I believe once you have an objective, it qualifies as a game and excludes it as art. This is not a bad thing, but let’s not redefine art just because we want it to be so.

Ebert makes the point that someday video games might be art…but not in our lifetimes. He’s likely right on this point as well. Video games have some of the pieces to be a work of art, but none has entered into the sublime yet. In my opinion, none have even gotten close. That’s not to say a game cannot make you think or have hidden meaning, but it just doesn’t have the impact of what we consider to be art today.

We shouldn’t strive to make video games art anyway. It’s hard enough now finding a game that’s actually fun to play, how about we solve that problem first and then we can move on to creating art. But if we continue on trying to make games that serve some sort of artful aesthetic, why are we making video games in the first place? Then we’ve somehow moved on to some sort of digital artist and have removed audience enjoyment as a part of the equation. People creating games should not start from “how can we make this beautiful or evocative” or “what societal issues should we take on”, but rather with the simple statement, “let’s make it fun first” and keep a game tooled to what it was meant to do…entertain.

Star Trek Online Follow-up

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Jan 312010

I had the intention of taking a positive note about the game and that it did look like it was going to improve over time, that some (not all) of my fears had been addressed.

Of course that was all before this game started to treat the Head Start like another round of beta. First of all, we should set something straight. Many apologist will come forward and say something like “it’s going to be this way for the first month” or something along those lines, somehow justifying that extensive downtime should be expected during launch. Their rallying cry will be “even WoW had a horrible launch”. Thing is, WoW launched five years ago and in tech terms, that’s a lifetime. Point two here is that Cryptic is not a newcomer to the MMO field. This is their third launch and should be well aware of the pitfalls of game development. Again, understanding that there will be issues in the first month is one thing. Multiple server maintenance windows (one lasting five hours) within the first couple days before the official launch is another.

It pretty much reinforces my earlier assessment that the game simply isn’t ready. Not only that, Cryptic/Atari aren’t ready as well. Surely someone at some point during one of their meetings must have said “this is a 40+ year old franchise that will likely have a lot of interest in the Trek community. My God, they even have conventions that have thousands upon thousands of people attend with frightening regularity. Maybe we should plan to accommodate the influx of people that will storm the server.” Obviously, this conversation never happened and I’m guessing they will attempt to grow their way through the server troubles.

The problem is that we’ve become too accustomed to mediocrity and too patient with developers who put out a shoddy product. We now have Windows 7 because Vista was a disaster and Win 7 just feels like Vista SP2. In that same vein, it’s sad to see that MMO games have the type of attitude that they should be able to fix everything on the fly with paying customers as their willing guinea pigs. STO has so many problems, I’m not sure where to start. They still need to deal with missing Klingon content, graphical issues, main game content, player progression issues that will vex possible expansions (how much higher can you go than Admiral?) and many more that I’d address but do not want to get all wound up (again) over a game. But they are not working on those issues now, they are addressing login and database issues. I cannot believe that it bodes well for STO that these particular problems which should have been nailed down during the open beta (or marketing beta) still need to be fixed.

My advice hasn’t changed much, just that it has a broader audience now. Even fans, I think, will be disappointed about the state of the game so far. Wait to see how it shakes out and maybe it will improve. But, man…it’s got a long way to go.

A Look at Star Trek Online

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Jan 282010

For those keeping track over the last few months, I’ve spent a few moments here or there talking about two upcoming games that really piqued my interest. One of them was Star Wars: The Old Republic, which I can safely put down and keep on the fringe of my radar as Bioware just announced that launch wouldn’t happen until 2011. Contrary to what people might say, I think this is brilliant. Recently they had just started taking applications for the closed beta which to me means that there will be extensive testing before the game goes live. It’s the smart money move for Bioware. The announcement that they are going to release next year is a sign that the developers and producers won’t be rushed to market, opting for quality over a quick buck. Kudos.

The other game, of course, was Star Trek Online, which goes live on February 2nd. If that isn’t considered an ominous segue, I’m not sure what is. Closed beta started late last year and for people who have pre-ordered through retailers were allowed access to the open beta currently wrappping up. In addition to those who pre-ordered, several gaming websites were offering open beta keys on a first come, first served basis. I understand this was likely done with the thought of load testing the servers, which I’m sure they got some useful information. Load testing, unfortunately wasn’t their only issue.

I pre-ordered the game based on the past performance of Cryptic Studios, the game designers behind the MMOs City of Heroes/City of Villains. I enjoyed CoX (the name of the combined games) during the time that I played them, but eventually moved on to other games. For as fun as it was at times, they had issues sustaining my interest. The hope was that they had learned much during their time as a game studio which they could use in the production of a rich universe such as Star Trek.

Much like every MMO game out there, the first thing you do is character creation and STO is no different. However, they want each player to start with the Federation until at least level six where you can split off and start playing Klingons and the like. I messed around with the character creator and came up with an Andorian male with an engineering background.

Check me out!

Cryptic has always been known for their character tuning. You can twiddle with the controls to come up with something that you’d like if you were so driven to do so. While you can really spend a lot of time with the shape of the face, body and other parts, one thing that I’ve never quite liked about the character creator is after you get the body type to about what you want, everything else is a variation on a theme. Where I really notice this is with hairstyles and distinguishing marks. Sure, you can say that you can have up to millions of different creations and that’s true when you figure in color and size. But you’re going to be dealing with the same twenty or twenty five hairstyles. Still, it’s much more than what other games give you, so still kudos to Cryptic. My complaint is more of one of the entire genre rather than to single someone out. Having said that though, there are some really creative people out there who came up with some very cool alien species.

That guy is crazy!

It’s hard for me to describe the game adequately. There are essentially four parts of the game: space based battle and ground based battles, then choosing between Player vs. Environment (PvE) and Player vs. Player (PvP). Oh sure, there’s the occasional diplomatic mission, the odd “investigate this and figure out that” mission and while those are fun, they don’t happen very often when compared to combat missions. Space combat missions seem to be outnumbering the ground missions at least two to one, maybe more.

The good thing about the space combat missions taking up a large portion of the game is that it can be pretty fun. For me, it’s the most fun part of STO. Even taking on NPCs is a rollicking little romp, especially when you get some slightly better parts to pimp out your ship and take on multiple ships. There’s just something about watching the proton torpedoes you just launched slam into an enemy ship and turning it into a ball of fiery plasma in space. PvP against other players playing Klingons is also a lot of fun. Some people might complain about the fact there is no penalty for dying, but let’s be realistic. It’s more fun to not really care if you lose your ship knowing that you’re back in the game relatively quickly, phasers blazing towards your enemies.

Just another day at the office

Space combat can be like EVE online in some ways but very simplified in comparison. You notice the similarity especially when other players are focusing fire and you’re their target. You just won’t last long as they burn through your shields and start hammering away at your hull. In EVE, you can sometimes warp out to escape losing your ship. No such relief here. You have to wait until the red alert drops and for that to happen, you need to be out of their firing range of ten kilometers…good luck with that. But, it is fun to rotating your shields to cover your weak side, loading up a torpedo salvo and maneuver to bring your weapons to bear. The fun is in the well paced FPS action of space battle.

Ground combat…it’s okay. Nothing special really. In fact, I didn’t even take any screen shots of it. It’s rather dull fare for MMO games and in a lot of ways, rather pedestrian. It’s not much to talk about really. You bring in your bridge officers, you shoot things and you try to get on your target’s flank for better damage. The thing about the ground game is that it get’s you itching to get back into your ship and to have some fun.

Not ground combat. Just chillin' on Risa.

Occasionally, you will have a longer “episode”, which is a chain of missions strung together. On the few missions I’ve been on where there has been a longer episode, they have been the most balanced part of the game and can be pretty enjoyable. There’s a sense of purpose here which often links up space combat missions with the ground missions. Along the way, it will tell a story and fleshes out the game, making it a bit richer by giving you a bit of background and occasional foreshadowing. The problem is that there’s no impact of these missions to anything else in the game besides getting some skill points and maybe some loot, or progressing the overall story arc. Still, of all of the game experience so far, the longer episodes have the best Trek feel.

Gearing up for serious ass kicking

But there are problems here. First of all, I know this is only beta. I’ve been in a number of beta tests before, so I am well aware that there are bound to be issues. I know the game is not quite ready and there are things to be worked out, but…I really don’t think they’re ready. There are a number of reasons that actually had me reconsidering my pre-order and definitely has me considering how or if I will actually subscribe.

The training, while fun and mostly informative, leaves a lot to be desired and is geared towards people new to MMOs in general. There are a lot more things which are missing from the training such as ship devices, what consoles on ships actually do, a lack of information on your bridge officers, etc. When you make a game that has a bit of complexity to it, you have to try to explain part of that complexity and how it fits into the game. Right now, it feels like they are only showing new players how to move, how to shoot and then cutting them loose and letting them twist in the wind. Normally, complexity would build with the character, but with STO, knowing how to equip your bridge officers and your ship seem integral from the beginning.

The parts which will drive some players crazy is the haphazard way that inventory and device slots are used and utilized. Even if you understand that out of the gate, many veteran players will wonder exactly what certain bonuses do. I could spend my time trying to figure out what deflector shield bonuses do for me, but should I have to investigate that so early in the game? Where can I find that information easily if that’s the case? It’s a lot to outfit in a short amount of time and it just doesn’t seem like your character and crew grow organically. There are a number of things you need to know very early in the game and it’s just not covered.

Super-spacious, completely useless bridge shot. You don't want to know how long it took me to actually sit and pose for this.

Although the game as a whole seems lacking some content, the Klingon content is severely lacking. I know it’s supposed to be the PvP part of the game, but they should at least offer to level the field a bit so there’s more of a battle when going up against the Federation. Federation players have had at least six levels to replace their starting consoles which can make a big difference in combat. The Klingons? Clunky ships that regularly get owned by the “good guys” because the starter Klingon ships are underpowered and fight at a disadvantage. Plus, the Federation starts with more balanced Miranda vessel rather than the Bird of Prey, which is a very stripped down escort ship. Weapon punch is focused forward which can be good for alpha strikes, but have big disadvantages in longer combat.

Successful Klingon players will be those who are in a Fleet and who have worked out communication channels and voice chat (which isn’t actually a part of the game, mysteriously enough). Pick-up Klingon “fleets” are going to be regularly owned by virtue of the other side sticking together and ganging up on ships who foolishly take on superior numbers. Expect to see numerous changes in the Klingon side of the game shortly after launch.

Whoops! That's my starship and part of my away team. One of the puzzling issues with STO.

Beyond the gameplay issues, I’m really questioning the motives behind the game and their various sell tactics. First of all, the first thing that irritates me is the number of playable character slots which is right now set at three (two until you get to level six where it unlocks a third slot). The game has two factions, three career paths and two specialization routes on each career path. That seems to be up to twelve differing characters, not to mention several different races with different starting stats and abilities. Some people like playing just one character, but a number of people like trying out the game, playing more characters, testing new paths. To have a game that is theoretically on one server and limit how many characters they get? Idiotic at best. When you do not have server shards to experiment with different classes, limiting the number of characters unless you pay for extra slots is needlessly stupid. This point alone has made me reconsider not only my subscription, but the purchase of the game itself.

The second fishy business move they have is the offering of lifetime subscriptions and special one year rates. I would normally have no problem with this as some companies do this well. Turbine with LOTRO does this well and has the content to back it up. STO…I feel like content is already missing. What’s the promise for the future? Will there be future content updates? If there are only going to be 80 hours of playtime to get through the end game (as I’ve heard rumored), why would you ever want to get a lifetime subscription? The silence about this is troublesome for me.

I also have some nit-picky complaints as well. A lot of the forum comments that I see from other beta testers is how much like it is like Cryptic’s other game, Champions Online. Hell, I see a lot of similarity to City of Heroes as well. Not just similarity, but functionality that seems almost cut and paste from their other games. Not that this is necessarily bad, but c’mon guys, you’ve got a whole Star Trek Universe to work with here. You can at least dress it up a bit and make it feel a bit more Trek-ish.

Thank God I can get a latte in space!

I have a few friends who are interested in this game and I thought I’d at least try to provide a balanced look at it. I started playing the beta will the eyes of a fan of the franchise, the mind of an experienced player and good wishes that Cryptic would do well. But the more I play it, the more I think that early adopters are going to have a bumpy ride until the patches come out. And they will, fast and furious in at least the first month. So, should you get it?

Trek fans are going to go one way or the other; they’re going to hate the game for not being more like the show or they’re going to love it just because it’s Trek. MMO game fans might be conflicted from an incomplete game rushed to market to cash in on…something. I mean it’s months after the movie, why rush the game out before it’s ready? I’m on the fence about this game. There’s some potential here. As I said before, the space combat almost makes up for the lack of other compelling content in the game. Is that enough? For me, it’s enough for a pre-order and a month of trying it out. I might…might try a longer subscription, but no promises.

For casual gamers though…it’s really a bit of a conundrum. The open beta feels as though it was framed as a game just for the fans. It’s like the Enterprise-B that still has bugs to work out on it’s maiden cruise. The promise is there and who knows what it will look on launch day. Head start begins tomorrow for those who have pre-ordered, so I may add a coda to this later. My best advice right now is that if you are a big Trek fan, get it. You’ll appreciate the little touches in the game and will likely overlook some of the headaches with the launch. If you are a MMO gaming fan, I’d wait until the bugs shake out, see how the title matures over the next month or three.

What’s cool about STO:

Customizable ships and uniforms for you creative types (at least for the Federation).
Fun space based action.
Engaging episodes linked together (pun not intended).
Nice effects in space battles.

What’s not good about STO:

Buggy. Infuriating when you defeat an enemy and can’t move when your bridge officer pops in to say something, graphical glitches, instance transfers are not smooth, etc.
Less than engrossing ground battles.
Questionable business tactics (silence on pricing for extra slots, the slot limitation at all, the C-store “extras”, motivation behind special pricing).
Instanced areas that take massive out of Massively Multiplayer.

And, just because I can, here’s some final screenshots to leave you with.

A rough battle, but I survived!

Close up of my starter ship.

A nice view of my ship approaching a planet.

My second command, a Constitution class cruiser. Saaaweet!

Setting course for Risa! Not as exciting as you would think, though.

Update Day

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Dec 232009

Just so you aren’t fooled, it’s mostly update day for the website…not much else.

Frankly, with the traveling that we’ve been doing lately and all, I got hit with gastroenteritis, commonly known as the stomach flu. It only took a day to process, so go me. All I really felt like doing yesterday was sleeping and not eating, which is precisely what I did for the day. Today, my appetite returned and I’m functional, but still tired. It will probably be another day before I’m back to full functioning.

In addition to making back-end updates to the website, I thought it might be fun to look around at a couple things that I’m looking forward to in 2010 and see where they are, update-wise.

First thing I checked was Star Wars: The Old Republic. Hmmm, nothing much. Oh ho, looks like Tatooine is going to be one of the planets you can travel. Big surprise there. Here’s a couple of questions I have for the people who are making the game. If the setting takes place over three thousand years before Vader shows up, why is it that we still see some familiar names? The planet Alderaan mentions the House Organa. A single family house remains in power for over three millenia? Truly we are talking about a planet far, far away. And why is Tatooine such a galaxy hot spot if it is such a dump of a planet? I don’t get this. Even the description of Tatooine in the Holonet section of the website says “desert wasteland at the end of the galaxy”. I know they’ll likely jam something in there to make it more interesting, but seriously, Tatooine as a planet is not interesting. We know about as much as we want to know about the big ball of sand. Two suns. Whoo, let’s celebrate a binary system! Oh wait, that’s a pretty common system in the universe? *sigh* To cut them some slack though, they have put together some interesting backstory for the game in the timeline section of the Holonet. Just slightly animated but good voice over work. Okay, okay, Bioware! I’m hooked again. And I know I’m going to have to wait, seeing how you haven’t even announced closed beta testing.

Speaking of two stars, let’s check in on Star Trek Online (I know that was bad, forgive me). Not much new from what I can see. Probably pretty quiet being close to the holidays and closed beta going on and all. I did read something in the Ask Cryptic section about Klingons, Part II that caught my eye. It appears that we might be looking at a single server system. Now I don’t know if it will be more like the system that EVE Online or if this bit of information isn’t quite correct. It will be interesting to see though. The only update here is that if you are sure you are going to get the game and try it out, it may be advantageous to get the pre-order so you can pick up the goodies that will go with it.

My booklist has been updated as well, although right now it looks a bit sparse. Two reasons for this. First is that some of the books I am currently reading are re-reads including a great P.G. Wodehouse collection. If you haven’t read him, he’s one of my favorite authors. Secondly, the other books are on dog training. I might pop those up if anyone is interested, but they’ve really been dominating my free time.

Again, updates could be rather rare on the site as we move into Christmas/New Years proper. If I don’t get back before then, hope each of you has a happy holiday season.