Late Feb ’10: The PC Gaming Well’s Run Dry

Thanks largely to Bioshock 2 and Mass Effect 2, the beginning of the month was highly enjoyable.   Unfortunately, the tail end of the month as not fared as well.

If I owned a PS3, then there would be Heavy Rain.  No big loss: I’m not sure it does anything that Shenmue didn’t already do better (except graphics… and that’s hardly surprising considering Shenmue was originally developed for the Dreamcast).

The two big PC games to be excited about over the later half of the month were M.U.D. TV and Supreme Commander 2.  I’ve played the demos of both games, and I’m not impressed.

A Criteria For Excellence

As far as getting some quality entertainment is concerned, it’s been a fairly fruitful few weeks.

• Two weeks ago, Star Trek Online was released.  I had voiced earlier that I was concerned it lacks a sense of “fundamental purpose” that makes a MMORPG interesting.  Recently, I decided that this is due to a lack of immersion.  I’ve asked for a refund for my lifetime subscription and hope that Cryptic Studios is willing to oblige (if not, it will at least linger as a powerful lesson).
• One week ago, I had finished Mass Effect 2.  I spoke at length about it: good enough to finish, a qualified continuation of the original, but with some design decisions that made have soured my optimism for Mass Effect 3.
• I then moved on to BioShock 2, which was eagerly consumed in the space of a couple days.   It was a enjoyable experience that managed to upgrade the original BioShock in nearly every single way.  I only wish there was something left of it to play.  (The multiplayer was ambitiously executed but passe.)
• This weekend, I purchased Fort Zombie (discounted to $2.50 on Direct2Drive at the time of this writing) and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call Of Pripyat (fresh to Steam this weekend).  These turned out to be excellent acquisitions whose use of dynamic content and immersion (respectively but not exclusively) put MMORPGs to shame.

I called this entry “A Criteria For Excellence” because I think that being exposed to all these games lately has sort of solidified a better-than-usual understanding of the kind of games I’m genuinely interested in playing.  Games which take themselves seriously, with reasonably deep and satisfying gameplay, and ideally with dynamic content that enables a good amount of replayability.

Consequently, the number of games I’m willing to purchase has drastically decreased.  I’ve a mental lens that only picks out a specific kind of diamond out of the rough now.  Most modern MMORPGs lack adequate immersion to be virtual worldly enough to be worth a monthly subscription.  Games in general are simply affairs whose casual player focus excludes me handily.

Games like Spelunky, Dwarf Fortress, or Fort Zombie have shown the way.   Without enough alternatives, I should really return to my own game development.

Speaking of which, while BYOND is generally where I want to be (a tile-based multiplayer native platform) I recently made good on purchasing a Student Edition of Above Creative Suite 4 Web Premium while I was still in school.   As long Adobe’s educational activation department doesn’t find me disqualified for it somehow, I’ll soon have a very powerful professional suite of game development to look forward to learning the ins and outs of.

Mass To Energy

This weekend I finished up Mass Effect 2.   I was reasonably satisfied, but also somewhat disappointed.

While Mass Effect 2 is generally lauded as the superior product, I would say it’s more of a matter of give and take between the two games.

• One annoying aspect of Mass Effect 1 was the cumbersome inventory.   Mass Effect 2 compensates by eliminating the inventory entirely and replacing it with an upgrade mechanism.  I’m grateful for the lack of bloat, but disappointed in the resulting hit to depth.
• Traveling the planet surface in Mass Effect 1 involved a great deal of cumbersome driving.  Mass Effect 2 removed planet travel entirely.   You take a shuttle directly to your destinations, and ore is recovered via a simple mini-game.   It feels as though a substantial mode of play is missing, making Mass Effect 2 feels like half a game compared to the first.
• Mass Effect 2 improved the ground skirmish experience via a locational damage and reloading mechanic.   However, it changed so radically that it feels like a different game entirely.  The underlying RPG mechanics are as comparatively dumbed down as the new inventory is.
• There’s an overall shortage of content.   I completely exhausted the content of the game (there’s nothing left to do at all anywhere in the game universe) with all the current DLC available installed.  It took a little less than 21 hours.(Exploration missions are very minimal, with only about a half-dozen separate arcs of 1-3 missions to be found.   Most of the content is related to the recruiting and loyalty missions behind party members.   The main quest in Mass Effect 2’s is actually pretty short and forces the player to go through the party recruiting/loyalty arcs to compensate.)
• As a consequence of the main quest being so short, Mass Effect 2’s story is not as nearly as deep or gripping as the original.  Though I’ve read reviews that praise the ending of Mass Effect 2, I felt it was barely satisfactory.

Overall, Mass Effect 2 flows better, but it lacks substance.  Compared to the first game, the experience has less sense of exploring virtual space and more simply hammering through scenarios.  If this is what we have to look forward to in Mass Effect 3, the magic of the original may have been lost forever.

Gone In An Instance

So it is that I plopped down $240 on a Star Trek Online lifetime subscription.

• Was it because I’ve enough geek in me to have a thing for Star Trek?
  No, but I’m sure that helped.
• Was it because the gameplay is fairly tolerable – a rarity for an MMORPG?
  No, but this, too, probably helped.
• Was it because I have great and unwavering faith in Cryptic Studios?
  No, after Champions Online, Cryptic Studios /cons dubious to me.
• Was it because I believed I would honestly get ($240 divided by $15/mo) 16 months of play out of this?
  No, that would really surprise me.

Honestly, it was mostly a combination being curious about what owning a lifetime subscription to a major MMORPG would be like and having mentioned (both here and on the official forums) that I’d never pay a periodic subscription for an MMORPG again.

I knew exactly what I was getting to, and yet, I still have some buyer’s remorse… the main trouble is that this game lacks so many of those important, yet subtle, MMORPG touches.

• There’s no real virtual worldly landmarks – even where you can find landmarks, there’s an infinite number of copies to make each landmark feel insubstantial.
• Lacking landmarks, I feel as though I’ll never really bump into other players as I would in an old fashioned MMORPG.
• The other players’ presence is quickly mentally streamlined out of lack of necessity.  Perhaps because the balance is set in such a way that you need them for nothing.
• As is usually the case, there’s no real dynamic content: barring developer additions, the universe never changes.  The only thing that changes is your character as they climb to the maximum level.  As far as a true RPG narrative goes, it lacks.

The above video, which is a parody of MMORPG gameplay, demonstrates how a sort of camaraderie builds in a true virtual space.  That I feel this is missing is the true source of my buyer’s remorse: it’s just not as fun having a lifetime subscription to a game that lacks the essential point of what makes an MMORPG feel like one.

So, knowing that they have obliged requests in the past, why don’t I go ask Cryptic Studios for my money back?  It’s because there is no alternatives to look forward to.  Take it or leave it, this what all new MMORPGs are like these days: heavily instanced, completely static, and casually accessible to the point of losing themselves.

Maybe it’s not true buyer’s remorse.  Maybe I’d make the same choice again now.  $240 for a lifetime subscription?  What an excellently frugal idea – an extra expensive subscription whose main purpose is to powerfully remind you why you need never purchase another MMORPG subscription in your lifetime.

Murderous Big Sisters And Kawaii High School Girls

I’m still spending way too much money on worthless junk, but I have cut down somewhat from my first week of being back in the black.  Whereas last week I spent about $200 on stuff, this week I spent about $110.

Who were the lucky purveyors of fine entertainment who managed to weasel yet more cash out of this student?  Bioshock 2 and two animes from Kyoto Animation.

If you only have one Agenda this year, make it a Global one

The first week of Spring 2010 has thus far been punctuated by miserable failure.  Nevermind that my homework isn’t particularly completed — the first week largely being an orientation week, it wasn’t particularly assigned, either.

No, I’m more concerned that I spent perhaps a quarter of a budget that was intended to last me 5 months on a week.  Some of this was for my books, which is commendable enough.  The rest largely went to eating out (a decidedly lazy habit of mine) and entertainment expenses.

I’ve plenty to entertain me already, and could probably entertain myself regardless, and therefore any entertainment purchase is hard to justify.  However, I like to think that, at least as far as entertainment expenses go, I’ve been frugal:

• $55 on some Zalman headphones, very well reviewed and probably the cheapest way to get some reasonably good quality 5.1 sound (outside of crafting your own with potentially poor results).
• ~$45 on a Dungeons and Dragons Online, but on things that will persist forever rather than become inaccessible in after only 3 months of $15/mo subscription payments.
• ~$60 on Mass Effect 2 which, as far as I’m concerned, is a mandatory gamers’ purchase on a magnitude that may be seen maybe twice in a year.
• And then there’s ~$45 I spent on Global Agenda, a soon-to-be-released game from Hi-Rez Studios… which is, of course, what I’d like to talk about today.

MMORPGs: No longer monthly subscription material

Though I have blogged in the past about how I found it to be an encouraging sign that Dungeons and Dragons Online was going free to play, only now after I have had a chance to play it a bit do I really realize just how significant this is for me.  It really has more to do with where MMORPGs are in gamers’ lives these days.

Merry Recession-mas!

Being a full-time college/university student for a little over 4 years now, I really learned to pinch my pennies. That shiny $60 game released today may well be worth $20 a few months from now if you’re willing to wait it out. Instant gratification is all well and good… but there’s something to be said for frugality.

My current favorite of the lot: Mechanarium.   Sure, completable in one evening, but a real feast for the senses and with puzzles that are just right in terms of difficulty.

Indeed, between Direct2Drive’s “21 days of Christmas” sale and Steam’s Holiday sale, it has been a very good month to be a frugal gamer.  I suspect I can blame the recession for a lot of this – with everyone’s wallets being a bit tighter, purveyors of fine digital entertainment have been forced to make compromises.  Some of the more interesting deals I picked up:

• Genre-rocking immersive behemoth Grand Theft Auto IV for $7.50 (75% off).
• Quality medieval games Drakensang and Mount and Blade for $5.00 apiece.  (Over 80% off,)
• Excellent indy games Audiosurf and Braid for $5 each.  (75-80% off).
• Innovative if forgettable genre breaker Mirror’s Edge for $5.00 (75% off).
• Indy city builder/RPG hybrid Hinterland: Orc Lords $6.50 (75% off).
• A city builder RTS with RPG undertones, Majesty 2: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim for $7.50. (75% off)
• Turn-based strategy RPG hybrid King’s Bounty: Armored Princess for $9.99 (75% off).

In addition to the “wow” deals above, I also pulled some pretty decent 50% off deals such as:

• Quite good indy-made Mechanarium and Torchlight for $10 apiece.
• Behemoths of yesteryear, Prototype and Command And Conquer Red Alert 3 (including Uprising expansion) for $20 apiece.
• Quality indy adventure games of Samorost 2 and a package of Zombie Cow adventure games (“Ben There, Dan That!” and “Time, Gentlemen, Please!”) for $2.50 apiece.

This is to say nothing for the gifts I received this year, including the complete Lucasarts adventure pack, Red Faction: Guerrilla, Borderlands Zombie Island DLC, and Left4Dead 2.

Overall, my gaming cup runneth over once again. Through, like many aspiring game designers, most of these games won’t get more than a few hours of play from me, it seems I’ve now a goodly amount of research materials.

Greetings From Purgatory

Having the week of Thanksgiving off from classes has been nice, but I haven’t had a whole lot to feel thankful for.  My game design hit a bad turn, and I haven’t actually played many games so much as I have wasted a lot of time this week.

I’m still working on actually establishing a schedule of what to do, and when.  I seem to be a largely helpless soul who really can’t control his destiny all that well.

• I blame MMORPGs.  They’ve somewhat trained me to grind away the hours endlessly doing nothing particularly enjoyable or productive.  As far as games go, MMORPGs certainly know how to occupy a quantity of your time, but they generally don’t do so at a very good quality.  They’re escapism personified but, at the same time, a very poor substitute for reality.
• I blame my age.  When you’re 32-years-old, you’ve probably got enough sense in your head not to give a damn about picking up virtual trinkets. Consequently, I spent a lot of time in MMORPGs not playing a single character but rather bouncing from one character to another, which has actually strengthened my tendency towards cognitive dissonance.
• I blame derivative design.  If MMORPGs were something more than grinds, perhaps they could have been something great.  It’s this desire for them to be something more that causes me to keep trying them, long after I knew better.

The bottom line is this: this is no longer an MMORPG-centric blog.  It hasn’t been for awhile.  The reasons are outlined above.  I’ve lost faith.  MMORPGs are no longer special, there’s hundreds of them, and they’re seemingly unable to do anything particularly interesting.

Other types of games, on the other hand – those have some potential.  They’re less focused on being a staging ground for mass hysteria and more focused on being genuinely entertaining.  The details are many and varied, but suffice to say a developer’s motivation changes when they’re not occupied with stringing people along for $15 a month.

Of course, part of the trouble is that I’m going through some things right now…

X3:TC, Initial Campaign Completed, Endgame Forecast

Reading my save game information, subtracting the 3-12:55 “flying time” statistic from the 1-4:55 “time saved using SETA” statistic, I can say with a fair amount of reliability that I’ve played X³: Terran Conflict over the last week for a solid 2 days, 8 hours.  (With up to an additional 4-8 hours lost to resuming saved games.)

At the end of my last Blog entry, I was wondering if this game’s end game was really worth it.  As of now, I’ve just finished the first chapter of the half dozen (give or take) in the game, the titular “Terran Conflict.” I’m now flying an extremely powerful corvette which can swat about 90% of the enemies in the game like flies.  Thus, I’m probably in a fairly good position to hazard a guess how the end game is like.

Well, in terms of how the end game feels in comparison with the beginning game, I would have to say that the main difference is simply that expensive equipment and ships are a bit more accessible.  Naturally, the more traders and facilities are working for you and the tougher the missions you have the gear to tackle, the greater amount of money you are making. Being able to afford better gear more frequently becomes inevitable.

Compared to smaller ships, bigger ships are understandably considerably easier targets, resulting in less enemy fire avoided, but are functionally invulnerable to ships a few classes before them because the shield generation exceeds what the opposition’s weapons are capable of putting out.   At the extreme top scale of things, you might have a prototype carrier (if not several) supported by a variable host of missile frigates, fighters, bombers, marine boarding parties, and so on. There’s even quite a bit of code support to keep them automatically resupplied.

The question becomes one of, “what is there to do once you have obtained great power in this game?” It’s a question I apply to many games that have the players grind away. What’s the ultimate purpose? If you’re getting more powerful simply to get more powerful, then it’s a very hollow thing. Having power loses all context without a goal.

Given that I have navigation relay satellites monitoring most of it, I can now see what’s going on in the X-Universe.  It pretty much involves a few roving packs of Xenon and Khaak in an otherwise relatively peaceful universe.  (The pirates are a comparatively benign threat that can usually be fended off by an adequately equipped freighter, with the possible exception of the powerful Yaki cartel.)

Though the game does attempt to scale threats based off of your current combat rating and the number of ships under your control, there’s only a few sectors of ultimate evil to purge – and I understand that enemies will respawn in these sectors anyway. So, regardless of whatever military power I might have at my beck and call, my ability to instill lasting peace of the galaxy is capped.

I could turn back to a largely economic pursuit, building some space stations to fulfill the various shortages in the universe.  However, the end result of this is mostly just earning money which I could use to buy more junk. When push comes to shove, it’s pretty much a bunch of pointless virtual pack-ratting against an uncaring universe.

So, no, I’d have to say that overall the end game was not particularly what I was looking for – insofar as finding a meaningful goal in a game is reasonable.

Oh well.  Wall of text about what I did in my 3 1/2 days of play follow.