The Great And Secret Show
0Trailers!
Who doesn’t love a good show? Trailers give us a window into the world of a game before we have the game in our hands. Companies use them to drum up excitement in their product, and sometimes (rarely) to show us actual gameplay.
More often than not, though, trailers are a PR thing. They’re like little movies that are used to set the scene. Since they’re not giving us actual information on how the game plays, trailers are used for emotional punch. Remember the Gears of War “Mad World” trailer?
How about the Star Wars: The Old Republic’s “Hope” trailer:
But let’s face it: so many games rely on adjectives like “gritty” or “visceral” to describe their gameplay, and since a picture is worth a thousand words, that’s a lot of the same adjectives shared between the two trailers above, and amongst a lot of other similar games available today. These trailers are trying to impart feelings to potential players: you’re alone. The odds are stacked against you. You’re fighting for the Future of All Humanity (or whatever race you’re a member of). You’re warding off extinction. The weight is on your shoulders, grunt. Get out there and give em hell.
Then we have Wildstar.
And, as I discovered today, Wakfu
These last two are quite different from the trailers we usually see. They’re funny! They’re stylish! A lot of production value went into these trailers…which isn’t to say that the others were created on a half-assed shoe-string budget over the course of a weekend, but for me, the last two trailers really make me want to play those games. Maybe it’s because we’re so inundated with these wartime games like Gears of War, Assassin’s Creed or Call of Battlefield Infinity that the trailers rarely register as anything other than an appraisal of their production values. I appreciate the humor of both the Wildstar and Wakfu trailers because they didn’t just go with gameplay and a guitar-grinding soundtrack, or a bunch of flying text and the sounds of slamming metal. They were fun to watch, which — true or not — makes me associate those games with “fun”.
Sadly, I don’t think a game like Gears of War could field a trailer based on humor, but then again we have Red vs. Blue which managed to turn Halo into a comedy show (if you appreciate that brand of lowbrow humor, I suppose), so it’s not impossible. But I also think that the Wildstar and Wakfu trailers didn’t take that frat house humor route.
Go Forth, Young Pilot, in #EvochronMercenary
1I occasionally check out what Steam has going on, which usually results in waking up several hours later surrounded by receipts for games I have no memory of buying. I suspect at some point there will be no more games to buy, and I’ll finally be out of the woods…which is like saying that some day Charlie Sheen will kick his drug habit because there’ll be no more cocaine left, but that’s not the point of this post (sorry if you came here looking for “Charlie Sheen Coke Habit”).
The last item on Steam’s banner rotation was Evochron Mercenary, a space flight/combat/trading/mining/kitchen sink sim. I took it as a portent, since just the other day one of my friends had mentioned the need for another Freelancer. After looking over the feature set to EM, I downloaded the demo and took it for a spin.
The first thing that was set spinning was my head. As I may have mentioned here or in other places, I’m drawn to complex, in-depth strategy and simulation games, but I rarely have the time or patience to sit down and learn or to play them. EM was an exception. I stuck around through 75% of the continuous tutorial (it can be had in pieces as well) before I shut it down and figured the best learning experience is in dying on my own.
EM is a free-form sandbox space sim. You can pick up missions from the station to earn money, or you can trade goods from port to port, or mine, or tackle pirates, or customize your ship, or build space stations, or land on planets, or find hidden areas of the universe, or just drive yourself insane trying to keep all of this straight in the face of a control scheme that would make the space shuttle interface look like an iPhone. Really, to start, you just need to know how to move, how to jump, and how not to crash into things like stations…or planets. Everything else can be had in time, as time allows.
The thing that might really sell me is the multiplayer aspect. We played a heck of a lot of Freelancer back in the day, running a local server 24/7 just for our local group, getting together to run missions and goof around. There was no driving impetus pushing us forward, except to blow up pirates and make a lot of cash. But we had fun, and a certain kind of fun that we haven’t been able to find in this “advanced” age of massive multiplayer servers or tea-bagging spawn campers. EM may allow us to have that kind of fun once more, but with the feature-horsepower that a lag of several years can provide. While EM offers much of the same types of gameplay that Freelancer offered, it seems to move things along by providing Newtonian physics-based movement, ship customization, and even the ability to reap benefits from controlling a star system or building a space station.
I’m not convinced that this is the kind of game that can be enjoyed for an extended period of time alone, since it doesn’t seem to have much of a central narrative outside of “go out and do stuff”. The server is limited to 35 players (the server is downloadable and you can run a personal edition for you and your community) which is gated by the horsepower of the machine it runs on, so we’re not talking MMO-scale here, or even a greater community. You won’t be playing with strangers, unless you plan on operating a server farm on some 24/7 high end hardware. That means that the potential long term enjoyment of this game may lie in the throwback intimacy of the early days when we had to run our own servers that were limited in access and were only fun when everyone (all handful of them) were online at the same time.
That’s not a slam on EM, because this kind of private universe is just what we’ve been asking for. The real shocker is that the developer is a one man shop. This dude must be some kind of world-crushing super genius in order to keep pumping out games in this series, alone, and each with increasing depth. I think that fact alone means that EM is one indie game I can get behind, because I enjoy it, it’s my cup of tea, the price is comfortable ($25), and an update on the EM site hints at upcoming improvements that sound even better than what we have now: better visuals, the ability to move around on the planet surface, and more.
There’s a demo available on the EM site, although not through Steam, so if you have any interest in sandbox space sims, give it a shot. The demo allows you access to everything the universe has to offer for 90 minutes, which was long enough to let me blow myself up a few times, tackle several missions, upgrade my ship, and learn some of the finer points of interstellar navigation.
Life In An Outhouse #WurmOnline
3I don’t have a screenshot, so you’ll have to close your eyes and imagine the scene:
A forest of maple trees. Tall grass, swaying in the wind. The sound of boats in the distance, bumping against their moorings while the surf laps at the dock. The moon overhead seems almost green, and OH MY FKING GAWD THERE’S A MASSIVESPIDERBITINGMEANDNOWTHERESAWOLFAND…wait…is that…OHMYGAWDABEAR!!!!1!
I managed to find a plot of un-owned land in Wurm Online. It’s situated on the western coast, a bit inland but still within walking distance of the ocean. There’s a lot of abandoned property nearby, so understood because when you right click on the tile or object and choose examine, it doesn’t tell you that it’s within a named property, and tells you that the damage is in the high percent – meaning someone isn’t keeping up with repairs. That’s not really of interest to me; I could have waited for it to all topple down and then deeded the place myself to get closer to the coast, but I set up shop at the edge of the forest. Having trees is probably the first major resource one can benefit from, because the wood you gather from them is used to create things like some tools, and of course, a house.
Housing is a multi-step process, and it takes a while to construct. I found out that while you don’t need a deed to build a house, having one means that no one can mess with your stuff, plus you get exclusive access to the materials within your plot. Cutting down trees allows you to create logs, which allows you to create planks in conjunction with your saw. You also need to create a mallet using your carving knife, a shaft, and a mallet head, from a log. Using the mallet, you place a plan for the building, and once you work and finalize the plan, you need 20 planks per wall of the building to make an effective structure. One thing I didn’t pay attention to is that each wall you construct can either be a wall, a door or a window, and you need to select which one you want to make as the first step in erecting the side of the building. I thought I’d be able to put in a door or window once the wall was up, for some reason, but that’s not the case, so one wall that would have had a great view now has a solid wall instead. At least I managed to get the door in place so I can actually, you know, use the building.
I’ve only got two walls up so far, and two piles of stuff, which is a less formal aggregation of items than one would find in a chest: it’s basically…a pile of dropped stuff. Most of it is wood shavings that were the result of failed attempts at creating planks. That’s all getting turned into kindling so I can take it over to the abandoned fortress and make my casseroles in the oven that’s located there.
Both hooray and boo, the forest at my back is a prime hunting spot, as I was informed by a local who seemed concerned that I’d mess it up with my building. The good news is that this local has nothing to fear. It’s like a zoo full of predatory animals burst open and spilled it’s residents throughout the forest. The bad news is that last night, I was run down by two bears, a spider, a rat, a wolf, and a wild cat. I ran in circles so many times while trying to get away, all I could hear in my head was “Yakkity Sax”, Benny Hill style until I managed to get to safety. Sadly, I’m not deft enough with a blade to be able to take down this unruly mob, and since my small shed isn’t a very effective shelter with only two walls, I was forced to collapse in heap and cry myself to the logout screen in the hopes that next time I’ll be able to continue working unbothered by every single fumoggin creature in Wurm.
But it’s all part of the attraction, all the potential death and inconvenience. Wurm is really the kind of experience that is the antithesis of the Big Name MMOs out there. I’d even say that it’s in a portion of the spectrum that’s beyond traditional sandbox games. It’s the ubersandbox because there’s nothing universally exciting about it on paper. There’s no massive explosions. There’s no working one’s way up to Level Badass. There’s a lot of running from what would be considered to be level 1 trash mobs in pretty much every MMO. There’s housing, but you have to work your ass off to get it. You can buy stuff from player vendors, but in a game which gives you the opportunity to craft the exact same items and raise your skills in doing so, what’s the point? This is Settlement Frontier Online, and for those whose national histories contain such mythology, you get a much better appreciation of how simply staying alive with a full belly is far more badass then earning high level loot from whatever raid you ran.
GTA Is A Poor Man’s Skyrim
3Every now and then, I sit down and think about my “dream game”, the one I would make if I had unlimited time, unlimited cash, and unlimited talent at my disposal. I realize that there’s no guarantee that it would be feasible, or even of interest to anyone else, but it would be an interesting project for me, nonetheless.
Ideally, it would be a sandbox cyberpunk title, because I believe in the sandbox model, and I love old-school cyberpunk. I’ve written about some of the ideas here before, but what got me thinking today was whether or not it was even worthwhile to do an urban sandbox title in the age of Skyrim.
Grand Theft Auto would say “yes”. It was considered to be THE sandbox standard for many gamers and for quite some time. You could jack cars, drive around the city unfettered, mug people, steal stuff, kill people and…I think that’s pretty much it. I’m sure there are achievements to be had for locating certain things in the world, but as far as honest to goodness exploration goes, GTA really pales in comparison to Skyrim.
In Skyrim, you’re dropped into the uncharted wilds and are pointed in an initial direction. After that, it’s hands off. As you go about it, you find those paths into the woods, or even just ground that’s apparently uncluttered by undergrowth, which instantly sets off the endorphins for exploration because you know that the path into the mountains can end with a cave, or ruins, or a temple. After a few hours, you forgot what the heck you were setting out to do in the first place. And that never stops! So many people have lost countless hours of well-intentioned completion in Skyrim, not because they were sighseeing, but because they started out sightseeing, and then got sucked into a totally unrelated series of side-quests based entirely on what they found on the other side of the mountain they had no good reason to climb.
I haven’t played a lot of GTA (the combat annoyed me, and I suck at the driving), but I tried to mentally apply the Skyrim theory to an urban sandbox design, and came up short. We live in the same reality that GTA inhabits (though only to a degree. I may drive like a maniac, but I don’t pick up or kill hookers). We know what it’s like to move through a city, where people travel in vehicles more often than they do on foot and move at higher speeds along smooth streets designed specifically to bring people from point A to point B in the most efficient way possible. In between these pathways we have obstacles like buildings or infrastructure or natural formations like coastlines or rocky outcroppings. Even if we get off the streets and head down alleys or break into people’s apartments in GTA, how much variation could we expect? Each apartment has a couch, a TV, a microwave oven, and in a singular building each apartment design is just like the others in that building. I just don’t think that urban sandboxes provide the same kind of fuel for exploration that Skyrim had.
Although sandboxing is far more then the environment, the reality of the urban environment is a limitation that the realistic setting imposes. Consider Fallout 3. While not fantasy, it could be considered fantastical, a bridge between the reality of an urban environment and the make-believe world of high-fantasy. Fallout 3 and Skyrim can design their worlds without having to faithfully replicate our every day experiences, which aren’t really all that exciting venues for spontaneous exploration. The artistic license that the fantasy setting affords allows the environment to play a more central role for exploration in Skyrim then it ever could in GTA.
A Suffering Bastard–My Foray Into Strategy Gaming
1Back when I was younger (10 B.I., or roughly 10 years Before Internet), I had a lot of time on my hands. Who didn’t, right? During summer vacations, my brother and I would wake up and race to the computer, and the one who reached it first had the right to it for the rest of the day. We played games like Phantasie, anything Ultima, and the SSI Gold Box D&D series.
Since then, though, time has become more and more of a premium for the factors one would expect when one becomes a Responsible Adult™. Although gaming is still my primary hobby, and I do devote most of my personal time to it, I have no where near as much time now as I did back then. However, my mind apparently believes that I do, because it keeps pushing me to buy, and to want to play, strategy games.
I’ve bought quite a few in the past few years: Sengoku, Hearts of Iron III, Sword of the Stars, King Arthur: The Roleplaying Game, and probably more I can’t remember. Most of the time, I get through the tutorial and then realize that I have no friggin idea what the hell I’m supposed to be doing. It’s daunting to see a map with tiny indicators dotting the surface, with spreadsheets and numbers and cryptic designations that only career military personnel can appreciate. We don’t get those massive manuals anymore; now we get click-click-click tutorials that we’re expected to memorize at the end of some 30-odd hours of eye-bleeding study. Even when we do have something to reference, like a wiki or an integrated help system, the explanation is so dense that I get worn out just on the reading alone.
The sad realization, then, is that I just don’t have the time to sit down and tackle these things in any form. I want to, for those times when I do have a few hours to myself, when the family is out shopping or when I have a day off from work. I envision myself sitting at the computer, feet up on the desk with the keyboard on my lap, carefully mulling over production decisions and troop strengths along various warfronts. I like to think that given enough time, I can decipher what the grids are telling me, or that I can memorize which province is producing what unit, how many, and how long it’ll take to move them where they’re needed. The reality is that even when I do have the time, I turn into a catatonic idiot when faced with the first map of my tiny, starting kingdom. I have no idea what to do, where to start, where to go, or how to go about it. In the absence of any direction, I usually end up shutting down and uninstalling the game. At least for a few months, until I decide to give it another go.
I suppose that if I only played in this genre than it wouldn’t be so difficult for me to stick with it. There’s tropes in the strategy genre, just like there are tropes in the MMO genre (that are generally railed against), and immersing myself in those standards would reduce the ramp-up time for each successive title. But it’s the initial hump, the “learning wall” instead of the “learning curve” that is part of the actual attraction of the genre – the deep, boundless depth – that is the biggest barrier responsible for my consistent defeat.
I Got Wurms!
2Next time someone starts with some kind of e-peen swagger about their raiding abilities, I’m going to grab the back of their head and shove their face into Wurm Online until they cry. Considering it only took me about 3 minutes to reach that point, I should be able to get through a sizable chunk of the most “hardcore” MMO players out there in about…a month?
In all seriousness, Wurm is possibly one of the top hardest of the hardcore games out there, and by that I mean it’s a game that refuses to hold your hand in any way. It’s a sandbox of the highest caliber that starts you off with a lengthy tutorial which teaches you how to move, how to use tools, how to harvest trees, forage for food, mine, combine items to make better items, how to walk up hills, and how to create roads. Basically, it covers how to do everything but fight. Fighting is pretty much the low hanging fruit of the game development world, and I guess the Wurm devs figure that you already know how to swing a sword, but you really have absolutely no clue how to actually survive in the wilderness.
And survival is the name of the game! You’re given a lot of tools to start out with, but no food or water. It’s up to you to apply what you learned in the tutorial (you were paying attention, right?) to find something to eat and something to drink. Although you won’t die of starvation, everything works off your stamina, and in order to replenish your stamina, you need a full belly. So you can forage in the grass for berries. You can try and kill some animals and while you’re working on that, you can also learn how to die because the creatures in Wurm aren’t trash mobs; they’re bad-ass killing machines. Remember the initial advice Neo got in The Matrix about how to handle an Agent? That’s right; you run.
The graphics blow. But before you thoughtfully push in your chair on your way out of this post, let me explain. Wurm isn’t about the graphics. It’s barely even a game, really. It’s more of a simulator, like a street-level High Fantasy meets SimCity. The purpose of the game, so far as I can tell, is to put you to work. There’s no empty accomplishments here, no achievements that pop up when you kill something, or make armor, or tie your shoe, or just log in like in other MMOs. The success is the achievement. It’s in the survival and the progression from tree to plank to wall to house. You spend a lot of time doing what may seem like menial work – cutting down trees, making logs, making planks, and failing frequently – so when you finally get enough materials to put it all together, your hard work is meaningful. It’s something that you’ve focused on, spent time learning how to do, and actually has a use in the game. For many people (myself included), this is the ultimate progression game: tangibles, not meaningless and arbitrary numbers that are raised with each successive expansion.
One of the most interesting aspects of the game is how it’s set up to encourage – for lack of a better term – settlement. Players can buy deeds which allows them to claim land. Once a player claims land, he or she has control over that plot and can dictate who can build, who can harvest, who can plant, and who can take. Several deeds together make a village, and players can become citizens with rights to act in that village. Roads can be built to facilitate transport, and gates and fences and walls can be constructed to make real, honest-to-goodness towns. This is both a good and bad thing, though. It’s good, because people who pay for the membership (a paltry $6.50ish USD per month) to support the game have a piece of the world all to themselves. It’s bad because new players have a hell of a time finding an unclaimed place that allows them to harvest anything unless they know other people who are kind enough to let them have a tree to work on to get started with.
Remember when I said the graphics blow? That might have been a bit harsh, because to be honest, I was quite taken with much of the visuals. On my way to Darkpaw Bay (home of several Twitter Luminaries), I passed down a road that was hemmed in by several buildings, and which was over-hung by willow tree branches. It was very cozy and secluded. Later, I entered a “forest”. I put that in quotes because many in-game forests are just sparse trees here and there. This forest had a canopy so dense that I felt like I had just gone indoors. The landscape is fully deformable, so there’s hills and valleys, and gardens, orchards, mountains, animal pens…all kinds of things to see on your trek throughout the land, many of which change over time due to players making the world their own.
What I decided, then, was that Wurm Online reminded me of my fond memories of Ultima Online. Both dropped you into the world with little instruction, both gave you tools to make what you wanted, both had that element of danger even on the outskirts of an otherwise safe village. You can walk for quite some time and never see another moving object (player or creature) so that when you do see something or someone, you just have to stop for a second and evaluate your options: keep going? Fight? Backtrack? Flee? Everything we normally wade into with bravado in other MMOs requires calculation in Wurm, be it combat or crafting.
I can’t “recommend” Wurm, because it’s not something that you just download and try when you’re bored of whatever game you’re currently playing. You need to really want to try it, because you need to be honest in your attempt to make a go of it. The first time I tried it, it didn’t go well because I was overwhelmed with the options, and the lack of direction. Thanks to the help of Arkenor, Stargrace, and Petterm, I’ve had a much better time my second time around, and that foot in the door is really what is needed to see how the game can grab you (if you’re interested in being grabbed in this manner).
Here I Go Again, On My Own
3I am not whining. I am not kissing-off. I’m not looking for (any more than the usual) attention (that anyone who blogs appreciates).
In fact, this is more of a revelatory post than anything else.
So this morning, I decided that I had experienced my fill of Star Wars: The Old Republic. I hadn’t logged in for a few days, and the last time I did, I had forgotten where I was in the story. In the absence of that critical feature, I just couldn’t get excited about what was left: trashing mobs between objectives; rinse; repeat. This isn’t a bash. SWTOR is an excellent game, very well done, and is a worthy addition to the MMO genre. My ADHD just got the better of me once more, and when I don’t log in to a game for a few days, it’s always hard for me to return to it. In this case, blame Star Trek Online.
Yeah, STO. It’s older. It’s sometimes polarizing. But I got an email saying that I could get in early for the F2P shift because I was a lapsed subscriber, and I’m finding that I’m having a lot of fun with it. This is not unusual for me. I find that I have returned to most of the MMOs I’ve quit. In thinking about my future with SWTOR, I actually thought about this cycle: if I return to these games later on, and potentially have a lot of fun with them, why did I quit them in the first place?
Like a lot of gamers I know, I’m pretty easily swayed by hype. It’s OK; I’m man enough to admit that marketing materials are super-effective when it comes to new games, most of the time. What really pushes me over the edge is the excitement generated by the People I Trust™ on the social networks. When the tide rises and people start peeing their pants over the next MMO, it’s infectious, so long as I can find something about the game that I can enjoy, I’m more then willing to jump on board on day one and play hard until the steam runs out. That’s when I usually quit, and it mysteriously ends up being around the mid level 30s.
But then I return at some point down the road. I have done it for EVE Online, Everquest II, Lord of the Rings Online, Star Trek Online, and many others that I just can’t remember right now. Usually at that point, I end up having a lot more fun then I did the first time around. So my mental task for this morning was this: How can I skip that initial burnout, and just get that second-wind enjoyment?
When I say “play hard”, it’s not as hard as other people. I’m a fairly casual hardcore gamer; I play frequently, I play many things, I play on almost all platforms, but I don’t usually use guides, and my goal has never been to get to the “end game” of any MMO. I end up leveling much slower then others around me, which is both OK and a pain in the ass, but if I’m in at launch, I usually ramp up the participation. I played 15 hours straight on Rift’s launch day, and maybe 9 hours for SWTOR. So when I say “burnout”, it’s not in the traditional sense; it’s more like I get a point of fatigue where I allow another game to intercept my time, and then my momentum is broken. So “Play hard” is really in relation to the end result: a precipitous decline in time spent in the game, which translates into a “what the hell have I been doing?” sobering up.
When I go back, though, it’s usually after the announcement of an update or expansion. Developers have had time to fix issues and release new content. When I return in these situations, I’m seeing the game with fresh eyes, and have something new to experience in the process. Unlike the new release, there’s no pressure when I return. I’m not surrounded by people rushing to the level cap, and I’m playing the game because I want to, not because I got swept up in the excitement of marketing and communal hysteria.
The problem is, I can’t skip that initial foray into the game and just get to “the good stuff” because it’s precisely that initial leaving that allows me to have those relaxed epiphanies that I enjoy so much more. When I (or we, if you agree with me) fire up a new game, it’s new in so many ways (even SWTOR, with it’s classic theme park sensibilities, had that “new game smell” about it). There’s new artwork, new UIs, new mechanics, new vistas, and new people. Even those repeated tropes we see across many MMOs are tweaked and for a little while it’s possible (if you allow yourself to) to see them all in a new light. New games offer new discoveries, and it’s fun to make those discoveries alongside everyone else. When the dust settles, though (for me, around the 30s), I’ve gotten into the groove. The mechanics have been memorized, the UI is burned into my mind, and one zone starts to looks an awful lot like the previous zone, in composition if not design. Here’s where the fatigue may set in unless there are extenuating circumstances to negate it – like people to play with on a reliable basis.
Returning to a game that’s familiar, but changed slightly, makes it an almost different beast. You get a little bit of that “newness” back as you try to remember what your abilities do, and where you are, and what you’re supposed to be doing. Chances are at this time, anyone you might have known in the game has either left, or is on his or her Nth round of alts. The players have rubbed the game to a smooth sheen in your absence, and it’s now comfortable and relaxed, like a comfy armchair in front of a fire on a cold evening, as opposed to the mad crush of Wal Mart at 4AM on Black Friday that we have with launch days.
So it’s because I spent that initial mad rush shoulder to shoulder with everyone else on launch day, learning the ropes, that I get that disappointment of losing all the “new” from the game out of the way, and can come back to the game and appreciate it when the dust settles. I can’t ever expect to start a new game – even six months after it launches – and to stick with it through to the level cap. I apparently need this cycle of hype-play-quit-rest-replay in order to get the kind of comfortable enjoyment that I need to enjoy these games.
Crowdsourcing Your Imagination #D&D
0Here’s a new one: Dungeons and Dragons, Fifth Edition.
Here’s one better: Wizards of the Coast wants you to help design it.
According to the NYT article, conjecture is that the D&D franchise has been slipping for years due to dilution of the product (card games, board games, video games, etc), competition from upstarts like Pathfinder, and, of course, video games. I personally thing that It’s more of a case of relevance than it is a case of “what’s better”, although I could write chapter and verse about how tabletop gaming offers a different outlet then video gaming. The problem is that D&D is relevant as a cultural touchstone for many geeks my age who played it when they were younger, before the rest of the noise that the franchise is fighting was ever conceived. We have fond memories, and many of us would really like to get back into it, but we don’t have the time or the people nearby to play with, so we shrug and go back to our video games where we can play (alone) with millions of other people. The experience of tabletop gaming is still relevant to us, but we don’t have the time or the resources. Then there’s the case that a lot of D&D purists didn’t like the 4E direction, complaining that it was capitulating to the dominance of the video game mentality and pulling the imagination out of the product. So Wizards is crowdsourcing the design of the 5E to the community.
The idea is that they’ll be engaging players in play-testing, and then will take the feedback to mold the 5E, and by doing so, Wizards hopes that the players will feel invested in the experience because they’ll have made it their own. This investment in making the game personal is the real hallmark of tabletop roleplaying games, and is something that no video game has really ever been able to provide.
The problem with this plan as I see it is that we live in the Internet Age. You know, where people create screen names to hide behind so they can toss out spittle-flecked rants with virtually no ramifications whatsoever? Where everyone is quick to blame someone else, because everyone else is a moron? The Internet is great in that it’s allowed people from all over the world to come together and share their individual thoughts, beliefs and ideas; it’s also been one of the worst dehumanizing inventions ever created because it’s allowed people from all over the world to come together and share their individual thoughts, beliefs and ideas – and then to belittle, insult, and demean the individual thoughts, beliefs, and ideas of others. D&D has long “enjoyed” the stereotype of the “rules Nazi”, that guy (usually a guy, of course) who memorizes the rules and believes that the game can only be played through strict adherence to said rules. Marry that guy to the World of Warcraft generation that believes in the “I Win” strategy of only one right way and a billion wrong ways to play, and I’m thinking that putting a bunch of these people in a room to help shape the future of D&D is going to end up being a rule-Nazi, I Win Button, Internet forum slap-fight of the highest magnitude. In the end, none of them will agree because every one of them will have their own pet peeves and pet wants for obscure minutiae that will invariably butt-heads with the peeves and wants of a whole host of other participants. I think I’d rather hang out with mind flayers then to sit in on those conversations for even 10 minutes.
I really hope Wizards knows what they’re getting into. The other night, I mentioned to our D&D group that I’d like to see more roleplaying and imagination then what we’re getting from the current module we’re running, which was designed to be little more than a string of tabletop-miniature combat scenarios. I do think that Wizards realized that they did alienate a lot of old-school players by making it more visual and tactical, and less imaginative and free-form, but they’re not willing to let go of what they see is the trend towards the “one way to play” mentality gleaned from the legions of guides written and consumed by online gamers. They want the best of both worlds, which is why these play test sessions will put players in the “advisory” position – a sounding board for design decisions that Wizards makes, to see what flies and what thuds, and not really as an open forum regarding what should and should not make it into the 5E. At least, I hope so. Putting these cooks in charge of the kitchen is going to lead to nothing but health code violations. However, I’m sure a lot of players are expecting to actually be allowed to write the rules – complete with peen-stroking, line-by-line credit for their contributions – and are going to raise holy Internet hell when Wizards releases a 5E that doesn’t look anything like what they suggested.
To be honest, I’m OK with the 4E. I remember the days when there were so many goddamn numbers and tables and charts that I just said “fuck it”, and played entire sessions without ever touching the rule books. We winged it, with the DM setting the scene, and the players running with it. The 4E can be used this way; in fact, I think it’s more suited to this seat of the pants play style than any edition that’s come before it. I’m afraid that the franchise will return to it’s roots of rigidity driven by the barking of a generation that’s cut their gaming teeth on pushing each other around based on gear scores and demands that things be done “just so”.
Our Fantasy (Stomping) Grounds: A vTabletop Update
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A while back, I had switched gears and had posted a short overview of several virtual tabletop software solutions for tabletop gamers who wanted to play, but who didn’t have local people to play with (or were unwilling to brave the local gaming store trawling for a party). Since that time, we’ve collected a group and have been playing online using Fantasy Grounds II from Smiteworks. After spending time with this product, I thought I’d return to the subject and talk a little bit about how it’s been working out for us.
FG comes with Dungeons and Dragons 4E support built in, which was fantastic, since that’s what we’re running. Before you get all hot and bothered and buy a copy of FG with the idea that you’re getting the 4E source materials included for free, FG only comes with support for 4E; there’s no data, so the support comes in the form of FG tracking things like effects and modifiers as they’re entered into the character sheet. Still, that goes a long way towards taking a lot of heavy lifting off of the players and the DM. Sadly, it also leads to a reliance upon the tools to handle a lot of the rules that we as participants should be keeping track of.
The way to enable these features is not pain-free, however, The system requires that information about an item, weapon, or power be entered into the character sheet “exactly as it appears in the text”, meaning the item or weapon description, or the power block. And they mean exactly. The best option is to get your DM Manual, PHB, Monster Manuals and any other sources you need, and then get the 4E Parser and pony up the cash for a month’s subscription to the D&D Insider. The Parser allows subscribers to basically scrape the compendium and compile the information into a FG library module which contains the information formatted in the way FG likes it.
Once you get the info in there, combat is dead-simple: click on your target, and then double click on your weapon or spell’s attack text (+2 vs AC). The system will roll the dice (visibly!) and you’ll not only see the result, but FG will tell you if you hit or not. Then, double click on the damage roll (1d6 + 2) and the damage will be automatically applied to the target and recorded in the Encounter Tracker! If there are any effects or modifiers in effect (such that might increase or decrease damage, or boost or hamper attack success), the system will automatically take them into account when calculating the appropriate values.
For the Organized DM, FG is the best VT solution out there simply because it’s the only one I had found that not only allows you to collect and share maps, tokens, and visual hand-outs, but it is also a full-fledged module creation system. Using the concept of hyperlinking, a DM can craft his or her own custom module directly in FG, complete with DM notes, text blocks that can be dragged to the chat window and posted en toto to the players, and clickable links that allow the DM to open any document without having to resort to tables of contents or search boxes. In addition, a module can be exported and passed on, or can be exported and then added to a larger module – a campaign – which can also be exported and passed on. Of course, exporting and sharing of modules should only be done for original content, not for translating someone else’s professional or compiled modules.
There’s a few downsides, as expected. The first I mentioned, which is the stringent formatting of the data. We spent quite a few sessions nailing this down until we got our heads around the format, but because any tabletop RPG relies upon it’s ability to not be tied down to singular conventions, there’s always going to be some cases where the text just can’t be formatted as the app requires. The second is that order of operations are critical. Sometimes the way that players and NPCs are added to the encounter tracker leaves the players unable to see the NPCs, or players unable to move their tokens, or to target, attack, or damage NPCs. I’ve found that everything has to be set up “just so” in order for the rest of the encounter to move smoothly. I’d also like a way to transmit the full stats of an item to player, as we do in MMOs using Shift-left click in the chat window. We also haven’t found a way to export server characters to their owners for their personal safekeeping and offline editing. Leveling up takes a while to resolve, and it would be nice to allow the players to export their characters, work on them during their own time, and then just hand-modify their server characters during the next session. And finally, I’d like to see a really, really good manual for the app, documenting many of the things we’re finding out by trial, error, and accident (like how to handle burst and blast application to multiple targets in one fell swoop).
My 2012 Resolution: Fuck You
7I’d like to open 2012 here at Levelcapped with a familiar and cliché quote:
When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at you.
– Nietzsche
The reason why I wanted to use this is simple: I believe that the abyss is staring me down, and I’ve decided that it’s a contest that I just can’t win.
If you’re a regular visitor to this site, thank you. Although I write almost entirely because I like to monologue, because it helps me organize my own thoughts and opinions as an exercise in self-edification, and allows me to butcher the English language in a public forum, regular readership is always a heartwarming and much appreciated side-effect.
The abyss in question at the opening of this post, however, is the greater gaming ecosystem. This encompasses what one might expect in the use of the term ecosystem, from the tippy-top to the slimy underbelly. Before I expand on this, however, any expansion on this will result in some collateral damage, and for that I am truly sorry.
I spent a sizable chunk of 2011 writing posts on how the gaming community should spend more energy working towards common goals rather then working to propagate the necrotic practices of snark, backstabbing, sarcasm, insults, and – for lack of a more inclusive term – general douchebaggery. I’m old enough to remember when video games were solitary affairs, thanks to the social space between humans who are the vanguards of a new cultural revolution, and those who see that space as a total waste of time. Now I’m apparently old enough to pine for those days of social isolation, because our legacy has bloomed into a feeding frenzy of narcissism helped along by the Internet. My posts had been written in the hopes that maybe I could assist in staring down the abyss of self-centered elitism, gender, racial, and sexual slurs of all stripes, over-inflated egos, outdated assumptions, and the “me me me” that infects the greater gaming ecosystem (and, truth be told, the wider field of humanity) today. Sadly, I realize that it is impossible to make a void blink first.
I spent the majority of my winter break in silence. I naturally skirted social media because I didn’t need it as a distraction on a daily basis like I do when I need a break at work. When I did return, it was like returning to one’s childhood home-town after years abroad: nothing is seen in the same light as it once was. I went on a cleaning spree, whittling my Twitter follow count from 150 or so down to only 82 of the people who I consider to be the bright spots in the otherwise dark night of the gaming community. I also cleaned house on G+, and have made a pact with myself to employ a hair trigger mandate for both: I can no longer tolerate bitching and moaning – passive-aggressive or overt – which serves no purpose except to undermine any attempts at furthering discussion, to make one feel good about one’s own point of views while making others feel bad (intentionally or not), or to tear at a community which is built around a shared enjoyment of all things video game.
In short, if a person finds that his or her time is better spent attempting to elevate him or herself above the crowd through insults of person or product or group, is intolerant of the thoughtful opinions of others when presented for the purpose of discussion, or who believes that his or her opinions carry more weight in the world than those they seek to oppose, they can fuck themselves. In this, I am reminded of a quote from Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol:
“I am sorry for him; … Who suffers by his ill whims? Himself, always.”
I am confident that this post will find it’s mark, as no doubt someone will read it and will be offended, and then angry, and may either entertain or engage in posting an equally hate-filled comment or an I-can-barely-be-bothered-to-write-this themed response. This is the Internet, after all, and one cannot willfully enter a slaughterhouse and be shocked by what goes on therein. Know, however, that there are those who I consider to be above this, who have been engaging far beyond any unintentional damage they may have caused through miscommunication or simply “bad days”. There’s a difference between the occasional wiseass comment or having been rubbed the wrong way, and a deep-seated rot.
My 2012 gaming resolution, then, is to step back from the abyss and not even bother with it, to leave it alone and to let it enjoy it’s own putrid company. I’ve tried to be a force for good, but you can’t sell what people aren’t buying, and I’m not going to waste any more of my time in the mud with those swine.
