Hello, Old Friend

For some reason, I only have altoholic tendencies on SWTOR.

I couldn't explain why, because outside of the class stories there's no real difference in wanting to create multiple alts on SWTOR versus any other MMO. When I played WoW I played a toon on each faction for a while in Cata, but in general I kept to a single specific toon each expac. I never considered that a true alt, as I simply switched my main to a brand new toon with a different class.

On other MMOs, I haven't created more than one or two toons total.

But with SWTOR I've created somewhere around 14 toons, and 7 of them are at least L50.*

Maybe it's just an extension of what I do with WoW, but compressed into an L1-L50 story. And with WoW, of course, you had only two main story arcs --one for each faction-- with the occasional class story thrown in for good measure. Since SWTOR doesn't have major expacs the same size as WoW's (or LOTRO's for that matter), I can't use the "2 Year Plan" as a cutoff to trying out a new toon. Viewed from that perspective, reaching the end of the original class story and starting up a new toon makes a bit of sense.

But.

In much the same way that I found the pre-Cata Vanilla and BC areas of WoW fascinating, I really enjoy poking around the L1-L50 areas in SWTOR. It's not limited to trying out the different class stories, as I've created at least three smugglers and three counselors. Sure, the light/dark/neutral choices when interacting with a quest giver give the game a bit of replayability, but I'm kind of (in)famous for playing more as myself instead of trying different options for curiosity's sake.

Even as a 'nice person' Sith?  Yep.

Andronikos was just off screen. He was busy saying
something about how he didn't want to go into slaving
as he'd learned from watching me that some slaves are mean...

I've not played Sreeka in, well, ages. I logged in with her briefly to acquire the initial quest for the Forged Alliances story, but as I was busy with my Bounty Hunter at the time I never did anything more. Before that, hmm.... That would have been at least a year ago, when I finished up the Makeb story back in January 2014 and worked my way through the Dread Masters questline shortly after.

She's still a loyal member of the Empire and technically in an alliance with Darth Marr, but she still forges her own (light side) path.

But boy, have her abilities been tweaked.

I had to essentially rebuild my UI from scratch and relearn how to play the proverbial glass cannon, all within the scope of the Forged Alliances solo flashpoints. Well, I'd completely forgotten about some little things --like Static Barrier-- until several hours in, but I only died once.  (I think.)**

It was good to see Sreeka in action again. And her voice, that dark, throaty, sultry voice that promised both electrocution and entertainment and arrogance in one fell swoop... I'd missed that.

Xanthe Elbrick does a great job as

the voice actor for the female Sith Inquisitor

Welcome back, Dark Lord.





*There are two Smugglers who have completed the original class story, but the others are separate classes. I haven't completed the Knight or the Agent, either.

**For a DPS Sorcerer, Static Barrier is more than "just" a little thing; it can often be the difference between life and death. I was reminded of that once I reached Rishi.

Did You Expect Anything Else?

If you're one of the few people on the planet who haven't seen the new Star Wars trailer (released today), here you go:

Oh, and did you catch that Sith's mask? Looks an awful like a certain (ex) Sith Lord:

from starwars.wikia.com

Before you jump to conclusions, no I don't think it's Revan, but boy is the mask similar.

Weirdness

I've noticed a very odd trend on my stats the past few weeks, and it's the sudden spike in Russian websites visiting the blog.

At first I saw the increased traffic and thought that I must have been added to a widely read blogger's lists, but then I saw where they were coming from: tons of *.ru and [random miscellaneous letters].com sites.

Oh.

Well, that was deflating.

Not Your Typical ESPN Fare

I'll come right out and admit it, I'm a college basketball junkie.

If there's a game on --men's or women's-- I'll likely be watching the game (or at least be familiar with it).*

I've also developed a minor addiction to Barclay's Premier League football (thanks to NBC Sports Network) and NCAA Women's softball, which means that I frequently scour the NCAA games on ESPN3 for something to have on in the background while I'm doing housework on the weekend.**

Well, there is a new thing available on ESPN3 that has gotten some writeups the past month or so but I've managed to avoid: Heroes of the Dorm, a college oriented Tourney for Heroes of the Storm.

ESPN likely looked at the number of people who a) pay money to watch streaming of BlizzCon online (or via DirecTV) and b) the exploding interest in eSports  (see their broadcasts of the League of Legends World Championships) and decided to throw some money Blizzard's way to get a HotS tourney going for broadcast.

Unlike a lot of the other ESPN sports, this one has the feel of a brand new broadcast searching for it's groove. If you want an apt sports broadcast comparison, I'd say it's similar to the FOX Sports One's Big East broadcasts, where the quality on the court is much better than the quality in the booth and in the TV trucks.***

Still, even though you have to have a cable/satellite subscription (or your ISP has an agreement to carry it) to watch Heroes of the Dorm, I'm sure that this is a win-win for both parties. ESPN locks up more of the eSports market, and Blizzard gets a partner that will (eventually) push a high level of professionalism and promotion into the eSports environment. For people like me who have little interest in eSports, ESPN provides legitimacy that you wouldn't have found elsewhere.

That legitimacy will inevitably cause a backlash from the "real sports" crowd. Even though these games are on ESPN3 or WatchESPN, I'm sure there will be gripes and jokes about how the nerdy "non-sports" masquerading as "real sports" are taking away from the "real sports" on television.

In a bizarro-world sense, it's the Jocks vs. the Geeks all over again, but this time for television viewing ratings.

Does the NCAA Basketball Tourney have to worry about ratings competition from eSports? Not likely, but what is likely is a resistance to an expansion of what exactly "sports" is. Never mind that Texas Hold 'em poker tournaments have been broadcast on ESPN for over a decade, that's a MAN'S game. Not these sissy eSports that nerdy guys in their basement play.

As for me, I'm not likely to watch the games --I'd rather play an MMO or MOBA myself rather than watch someone else play-- but I think this entire debate is silly. If you want to watch someone play eSports, more power to you. If ESPN wants to get in on the ground level with Blizzard for this HotS Tourney, great.**** There's plenty of bandwidth for everyone, so why bitch?





*Want to hear someone complain about how UCLA should never have been given an invite to the NCAA Tourney? I'm your guy. As soon as Baylor lost in the Second Round, I called my dad --an avid Xavier fan-- and told him that X is about to advance right through to the Sweet Sixteen. The one team in the Rounds of 64 and 32 that could beat X just got upset by Georgia State, and X would have an easy time of it until they'd run into the Arizona buzzsaw.

**It's kind of hard to play an MMO while doing housework; not to say that I haven't tried, just not had much success doing both that and getting cleaning done.

***For the record, I'm not a Big East fan. I'll watch the games --mainly to root against Xavier, I'm a Dayton fan-- but outside of when Bill Raftery and Gus Johnson are in the booth the other broadcast teams just aren't at the level of quality that you'd expect in an ESPN or even a CBS broadcast. Some of it is also due to FOX constantly insisting on being ultra "hip" and "edgy", when neither is necessary for broadcasting or reporting on games.

****I'm sure that ESPN will really amp up their League of Legends coverage this fall, based on their experience with both the Heroes of the Dorm tourney and last year's LoL World Championships. If nothing else, ESPN is a master at promotion.

Overheard This Evening

The mini-Reds are busy:

"I've got a shield! Come at me, bro!"

"I'm out!"

"I'm out too!"

"Okay, I've got this!"

"Did you get the shot?"

"Yeah, I got the shot in!"

"Yeah! We took him out!"


For the record, the first line was said by mini-Red #3. Were it not for her quip, I'd probably have not posted this. And yes, I'm biting back my laughter.

Attack of the Blue Shells

One of the games I've been playing lately hasn't been an MMO or a PC based game at all, but a console game: Mario Kart 8 for the Wii U.*

I know that some "real" gamers don't think that the Wii U qualifies as a true gaming console because it doesn't have any gritty shooters on it,** but since the other consoles we have include an Atari 2600 and an Intellivision II, yeah, I think it qualifies.

I realize that some people would argue that the Wii U is technically behind the current gen consoles from Sony and Microsoft, but there is one thing that the Wii U does right: it allows you to play previous gen Wii games on the Wii U. The PS4 and XBox One won't allow you to play PS3 and XBox 360 games, which means you have to keep your old console around to play years worth of accumulated titles. Nintendo might be giving up some profits by following this model, but the goodwill generated by this gesture can't be underestimated. And if you're like our family, who doesn't want to have multiple consoles cluttering a single television, it's a great thing.

Even though consoles have been hooked up to the internet for ages, I still think of them as stand alone non-networked devices. They were the "get a group of people together and play" systems, one step removed from boardgames and pencil-and-paper RPGs.  Therefore, my approach to the Wii U has been to not explore the online capabilities of the system very much.

The one exception has been the online play for Mario Kart 8.

Ain't that the truth. From nintendonews.com.

My account is the only one on the Wii U capable of online interaction***, so I have a say in when we play online with Mario Kart 8. That has put a damper on the mini-Reds' enthusiasm for online play --they'd rather hang around LOTRO or Marvel Heroes for that-- but I introduced my wife to online Mario Kart races last week.

I didn't quite expect her reaction.

You have to put this in perspective; my wife looks at MMOs as a big steaming pile of "meh". She kind of shakes her head at the rest of us and our interest in slaying internet dragons (or internet Sith), but doesn't interfere as long as we stay within a specified budget. She may play her occasional word game as a single player, but she never exhibited any interest in online gaming itself.

That all changed the other day.

She had the day off and was getting a few Mario Kart 8 races in while I was working in the next room. Typically, around mid-morning I'd be ready for a short break and would get up and possibly get a race or two in before delving into something else, but I was stuck in meetings. So when she asked if I was interesting in playing, I had to turn her down.

However, a light bulb went off in my head, and I replied that while I couldn't play, I did have a few minutes between meetings to set her up with an online session if she was interested.

She was a bit skeptical. I know she hasn't heard about the XBox Live horror stories because that sort of news doesn't interest her much, but I figured that she was probably more worried about looking like an idiot on screen.

I assured her it wasn't a big deal, and since people tend to get grouped in with their same point level, you'll be able to find people with similar skill sets.

So I switched users to my account, fired up Mario Kart 8, and got her ready to play.

After I explained the (minimal) differences between a regular VS series and the online game, I retreated to my office and joined the next meeting.

Then I heard a "WOOO!" from the other room.

"I'm playing against someone from Japan! And Germany! And the UK!"

I grinned in spite of myself.

About an hour later, I stretched and wandered over to see how it was going. "Well?" I asked.

"I was going to stop after a few runs, but this is so much fun!"

Heh.

***

The Mario Kart 8 online play has two big things that make it welcoming for new players: matching players with similar scores, and limited options for player interaction.

If you take the rating system in Rated Battlegrounds and apply it to all players of online Mario Kart, then you've got the idea how the Mario Kart rating system works. You do well, and your rating rises; if you do poorly, your rating drops.**** You're matched up with players of similar ratings --within reason-- but everybody who plays has a rating.  This means you don't have the scenario that's frequently found in a random WoW BG: a guild group who runs Rateds stomping all over the other side composed of casual BG players. There's nothing that says that a player who picks up a Wiimote with a "newbie" rating of 1000 isn't a high skilled player visiting a friend, but the gear discrepancy and "flavor of the month" build found so frequently in WoW isn't present.

Since both the Wii and Wii U versions of Mario Kart only allow a few set phrases to be used, there's no trash talk between online players. I'm sure that some people get frustrated at not being able to scream "YOU SUCK NOOB!!" or "GO MAKE ME A SAMMICH!" at the other players, but this creates a safe space for everybody to play. It's not unlike the Wizard 101 method of game play, where you're limited in interactions by design, so that parents can feel confident that their kids won't be bullied or stalked online.

Both online design decisions are a win in my book. For my wife, who would likely be intimidated if she were being constantly pounded into dirt or offended the minute some asshat decides to unload on her for being a woman and a noob, this is perfect. And, needless to say, it's good for kids, too, although the mini-Reds are kind of old pros at the MMO scene these days.

Maybe we'll have another MMO gamer in the future after all.




*Yeah yeah yeah, I know; I'm some sort of traitor.

**I'd have said "Rated M for Mature" games, but the Wii U does have some of those, such as Bayonetta 2 and Assassin's Creed IV.

***That's by design, since I don't want to open up a credit card statement and discover that I "purchased" some games or downloadable content (DLC).

****Everybody starts at a rating of 1000.

Hey, It's Video Game Related

If you're my age, this hits ALL of the right notes.

ALL. OF. THEM.

Forget The Avengers, THIS is what I'd like to see.

I mean, Adam Sandler can't screw this one up, can he? He even has Peter Dinklage in it!

Revenge of the Liebster

Syl over at MMO Gypsy has tagged me with a Liebster, which meant that it took about a year for the award to get back to me.

It's baaaack!

I've been perusing her questions, and while most of them I knew the answer to immediately, there were a few that I needed some time to consider.

Without further delay, here's my answers to Syl's questions:

1. If you could learn a new language overnight, which would it be?
German. Practicality be damned, I like the sound of the language.* Besides, I know enough German speakers --including the mini-Reds, who have been taking German as their foreign language requirement at school-- that it'd be fun to actually converse in German.

2. What is the first MMO you’d want to visit in full VR mode?
Hmm.  I'm assuming that they'd also get an graphical upgrade, so I'd say LOTRO, with SWTOR a close second. I suppose for the pure titillation factor there's Age of Conan, but the sword and sorcery landscape that is the Hyborean Age is too brutal for me to enjoy in a VR mode. WoW would be interesting, but I'd be more up for it in the Vanilla/BC/Wrath WoW (pre-Cata) areas.

3. If you got to invite a dead person over for tea and biscuits, who would it be?
This was a toughie.

I thought about what sort of person I'd like to invite over, which really defines who I'd invite. There are a ton of interesting people out there, from the enlightened monarch Frederick of Prussia to the true Renaissance Man Leonardo da Vinci, with everyone from Eleanor of Aquitaine to Albert Einstein to Bartolome de las Casas to Bette Davis in between. I'd like to chat with Copernicus about his observations of the heavens, Cleopatra about how she was able to use all of her skills to hold onto power in Egypt, and Lao Tsu just to hear him talk. Imagine talking with Mae West about how much of her act was based on her own sexuality, or Tchaikovsky about how much of his own personality went into his composing.

But if I'm going to be forced to choose, I'd say it would be my Great Aunt, who passed away over 16 years ago. Sure, I know all the stories she'd tell by heart --she said the same 15 stories for the last 20 years of her life-- but I wouldn't mind.

4. What kind of biscuits would you serve?
McVities Original Digestives. Yes, I do know about McVities --I get them at Jungle Jim's-- and while I personally prefer the dark chocolate ones, I know those won't necessarily go with tea.

5. Who should go down first: House Lannister, House Frey or House Bolton?
Since I haven't read the books (or seen the series), I threw dice and got House Frey.

6. Justice means:
– a) everyone gets what they work for
– b) everyone gets the same
– c) everyone gets what they need
For me, A, but with one caveat: the value of the work is is directly proportional to its criticality. In an office where three people get the day to day business done while others sit in meetings, guess who gets the most reward in my scenario?  (Hint: not the meeting people.)

7. If you could see one of your favorite games get a sequel, it would be….?
Hmm. Most of the games (video games-wise) that I like already either are sequels or have a sequel out there. However, for a GOOD sequel, I'd have to say Master of Orion.

8. If a person were to split a pot of 1000$ between them and yourself on condition of you accepting their first offer, would you rather accept 100 bucks or both go empty?
Hopefully, that person wouldn't be a complete jerk and try to take almost all of the money, but if they did try to give me only $100, I'd much rather us both go empty.

9. Which in game MMO place/location do you consider a home to return to?
When I played WoW, this would have been Eversong Forest.  There is absolutely no doubt in my mind; because even when I played Alliance characters I would occasionally sneak into Eversong to wander around.

Since I no longer hang out in Azeroth, I found this is a tougher question than I thought.

A big argument could be made that I don't really have a "home base" anymore; I play several games and there are several favorite haunts, but nothing quite says home to me like Eversong Forest did. Of course, a great deal of that is that my first moments playing an MMO were playing a Blood Elf Priest on WoW, so it's natural that I'd think of Eversong Forest as a place to return to when I'm in need of a recharge.

So maybe I really don't have a home anymore, which does make sense, given that I do wander about MMOs quite a bit these days.

10. Favorite midnight snack when nobody’s looking?
Um, it depends. Right now, it's some Swiss chocolate, but I've been known to cook up a grilled cheese sandwich or nosh on some hummus and pita bread.

***

I know a big part of the Liebster is to go and tap a bunch of other bloggers, but since my last attempt wound up with very few takers, I think I'm going to pass this time. As the old saying goes, "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."





*Yes, I'm one of those who think that a foreign language sounds sexy. (Yes, even German. I'm sure there are skeptics.) Maybe I should insert the obligatory A Fish Called Wanda clip about the sexiness of foreign languages, such as Russian....

Blizzard discovers that time is actually money

One of the best of The Far Side comics was this one:

Gary Larson, 1985. For some reason my copy wouldn't
scan right, so thank goodness for the internet.

I think it's safe to say that Blizzard has discovered the same thing. And, unlike Einstein, they're building their WoW token system based on another's work: EVE (and Wildstar, too).*

Another thing that's certain: Blizzard believes that few enough people will be taking advantage of this option for them to absorb any subscription losses involved. By setting the real world cost for the WoW tokens themselves --and allow only the token to change hands once-- they can tinker with the corresponding end price on the AH without becoming directly involved in the gold farmer black market.

I'm with Rohan on this; I'd prefer that Blizzard just turn into any other cash shop and sell gold directly to players. Blizzard isn't going to eliminate subscriptions, and the high end raiding guilds will likely recruit players just so they become gold farmers to subsidize the raid team's subscriptions.

For the majority of WoW subscribers, this announcement isn't going to change a thing. They'll still pay their $180/year (more or less) and get their gaming on. For those who play the AH and amass a lot of gold, however, they'll be able to live off the fruits of others' money.




*I suppose Newton and Calculus would have been a more apt comparison than using Einstein, but Einstein is easier to draw.

More Musings on a Vulcan's Passing

One of my first memories was of Star Trek.

My parents had a black and white television throughout the 70s, and in the afternoons the local independent television station would show all sorts of cartoons from 3 PM until 5 PM.* And at 5, like clockwork, the image of the starship Enterprise whooshed across the screen. My five year old self was riveted to the screen in much the same way the mini-Reds are to Star Wars Rebels and Marvel's Agents of SHIELD**. When the aliens appeared at the end of Part 1 of The Menagerie, I would have nightmares that they would somehow turn me into an automaton like Captain Pike had become. (Hey, I was young and couldn't follow the plot that well.)

Talosians, with their pulsing craniums,
still give me the creeps.

But more importantly than that, Star Trek served as my entry drug into Science Fiction and Fantasy, and none more so than Mr. Spock.

Leonard Nimoy's Spock was captivating. Sure, he seemed like a soulless computer at times, but underneath it all he did have the same emotions as the rest of us, only well hidden. He was part alien, misunderstood by a lot of his crewmates, and still forged friendships among them. After meeting Spock and the rest of the crew of the Enterprise, I simply couldn't watch anything resembling "aliens-as-monsters" which dominated what passed for SF on television.

As I grew older, I identified with Spock to a significant degree. I was the different, nerdy kid: I was smart, loved to read, liked things that weren't mainstream cool, and wanted to go to college to get a science degree. I used to order fan stuff from the old Intergalactic Trading Company catalog back in my high school years in the 80s, often walking to a local convenience store to purchase a cashiers check as I didn't have a checking account of my own, and the one item I wanted for my first car but never got was the sticker that said "Vulcan Science Academy".*** Screw Starfleet, I wanted to hang with the Vulcans.

From Cafepress.
There's even a thong with this design; some things you just can't unsee.

It was easy to transition that love of Spock to Leonard Nimoy himself. He directed what was the most popular Star Trek movie, The Voyage Home, and he also directed several other successful movies (such as Three Men and a Baby), demonstrating that yes you can have a life beyond Star Trek.

He also lived long enough to see Star Trek, and SF/F in general, become more mainstream than ever before.

And now he's gone.

The Feels.
I don't know who created this, but
I'll assign credit when I do.

I don't think that mainstream America quite knows what we lost. The Internet simply exploded in geek circles concerning Leonard's death with tributes from all corners of geekdom. More than once I saw a commenter on a website say something to the effect of "I came here because I knew people would understand," and believe me, I know the feeling.

This is different than Robin Williams' death. Robin was beloved by many because of his overall body of work, which transcended geekdom. Leonard's best work was rooted in geekdom, and he is defined by what he means to the geek community.

Leonard will be remembered forever by his stellar
work in Westerns.... Waitaminute....

Back in college in the late 80's, I was in a conversation with a couple of fellow students about movies. Good Morning Vietnam had been out that past year, and we'd all seen it and felt that Robin had been robbed at winning an Oscar. But conversation turned to other films, and when one of the girls challenged me on whether guys are only interested in macho "guy" movies, saying "when was the last time you cried at a movie?" I told her that I cried when Spock died in The Wrath of Khan.

Big mistake.

The derisive laughter I got told me exactly where Star Trek stood in the pecking order of interests among my "sophisticated" Honors peers. I couldn't have done worse if I'd have said that Hardbodies is a fine work performed by master thespians.**** To them, Star Trek and their fans were worthy of the mockery provided by Saturday Night Live when William Shatner hosted the show.

So yeah, when people talk about how others don't understand, yeah, I know. I've been there.

You tell 'em, Data.

I'm sad that Leonard has gone, leaving Bill, Walter, George, and Nichelle as the surviving original cast members. But at the same time, I realize that Leonard will live on in both his work and the lives he touched. The original Star Trek series is a geeky touchstone in the same way that the first Star Wars movie was; those who watched it were never the same again.

Redditor MrMorlonelycat captured this image of players
of Star Trek Online serendipitously paying their respects at Vulcan.
Cryptic Studios has announced a permanent memorial for Spock and
Leonard Nimoy will be added to the game in March 5th 2015's downtime.

It is too easy to look at the world around us and not be cynical. Star Trek offered a vision of a better future, something worth striving for. And Leonard Nimoy played no small part in helping that vision play out on the screen. For that, I can thank him, and I wish him well.

Live long and prosper, Spock.





*From 1 PM until 3 PM the station showed an afternoon movie --no national daytime talk shows existed until Phil Donohue made it big-- and among the "boring" dramas I found the occasional nugget of gold, such as Ulysses starring Kirk Douglas.

**And The Flash, and Doctor Who, etc. Even Constantine, which had gotten blah reviews, is much better than anything we had in the SF/F/Superhero genre in US television in the 70s and early 80s (with the exception of The Incredible Hulk). We live in a golden age of genre television, even if we have to put up with Jerry Springer and Honey Boo-Boo.

***I was never convinced that the car would last long enough to justify the sticker; it had more Bondo on it than metal. It also had a hole in the floor where the driver would put their left foot, so as a consequence I had to put my foot in an awkward position to avoid turning the car into a Flintstones' mobile.

****It's not; don't go looking for it to see for yourself. Trust. Me.


EtA: I removed the link to Intergalactic's website, since it seems like it hasn't been updated in ages. Also, apparently customer service has declined, based on the poor reviews I've seen online.

Live Long and Prosper

Leonard Nimoy has passed away.

He'll be missed.



Update:  Here's a link to Star Trek Online's tribute.

A short note on the intersection between books and games

I've been busy at both work and home (which includes finally getting the 30 year old sliding doors replaced), so I've not had time to do much online, much less post about it. However, there is one item that stuck with me.

A week or so ago my son (mini-Red #2) asked if he could read my copy of The Silmarillion. He's his own copy of LOTR and The Hobbit, so I grabbed my hardbound version and said "Sure!"

Then as I was removing the dust jacket I discovered that the copy I'd bought brand new back in 1991 was actually a first edition printing* and I told him that I'd get him one from the library instead.

He's been reading The Silmarillion --he's up to the part where Orome discovers the Elves-- and he informed me that while it is really different in tone than what he's used to, he really likes it. But what he really finds enlightening is that he finally now understands a lot of the Kinship names that he sees around LOTRO.

I smiled at that insight, but he couldn't see it since we were driving in the car at night.

But he hit on one of the things that makes LOTRO unique among MMO circles.

While a lot of MMOs do have their share of guilds/players/etc. who pay homage to the source material, no playerbase goes to such levels of faithfulness as the LOTRO crowd does.

Sure, LOTRO has it's share of asshats --all MMOs do-- but LOTRO's playerbase is on the whole more in love with Middle-earth than any other MMO out there. And, given Star Wars and Star Trek fandom, that's saying something.

LOTRO is overdue for an update to some aspects of the game --namely the toon/NPC graphics-- but reverence for the source material is something that Turbine nailed. They'll never be the #1 subscriber based MMO out there, but their fans are very loyal and very fanatical.





*I always thought it odd that I found a new hardcover for $10.99 back then, but I wasn't about to say no to such a cheap price. Looking back on it, however, I think I got the better end of the deal by far.

Sometimes You Just Can't Make This Stuff Up

Under the heading of "Oh really?" comes a report or two from Reuters claiming that Apple is working on it's own version of a car.

(What, you thought an MMO?)

The kicker is that the car project --apparently a self driving car if the reports are to be believed-- is codenamed...

TITAN.

No, really.

A Tale of Two Models

In the past week since I posted about the death of Joystiq and the sites Massively and WoW Insider, there's been a flurry of activity. Most notably, the "relaunch" of both Massively and WoW Insider as Massively Overpowered and Blizzard Watch.*

Both new sites have set up crowdfunding to help support the relaunches, with both garnering a lot of attention. Oh, not even in the same league as the attention paid to The Oatmeal's Exploding Kittens card game or Rich Burlew's Order of the Stick reprints, but they met (and exceeded) their respective goals very quickly.

And, to be honest, the selection of Massively OP's and Blizzard Watch's crowdfunding method is a perfect demonstration of "know your audience".

Massively OP went with Kickstarter to provide the seed money for the site and content, and will eventually use a combination of ad sales and Patreon funding to provide a steady revenue stream.** Given the prevalence of non-subscription based MMOs in the wider MMO landscape, this makes perfect sense to attract the diverse MMO player. When your audience prefers B2P and F2P games over the subscription based model, you go with a model that replicates the MMO online store as much as possible.

Blizzard Watch, however, decided to go straight up with a Patreon funding site to provide an (ostensibly) steady income. Again, this is perfect because of who they are hoping to attract: the WoW player who is used to plunking down $15/month to visit Azeroth. Sure, there will be online ads too, but creating --in effect-- a subscription based model of support demonstrates that they know their audience will not blink twice at another "subscription."

***

Now, I suppose the big question out there is whether both sites are sustainable in the long run.

I believe that both are sustainable, not only because there's enough interest out there in keeping both sites running, but because each economic model mirrors each site's potential audience.

The people who believe that the Patreon model may eventually bleed subscribers forget that we're talking about WoW here. Sure, the initial blast of subs may eventually go down, but there will always be the hard core to sustain the site. Just like the Castros in Cuba or WoW itself, people will come and go and predict the end of WoW (Insider) as we know it.

Massively OP's modus operandi, getting the seed money up front to get the operation running, works well because they can get everything running without having to worry about keeping subs right away. They realize that their core --those that will support Patreon-- is going to be smaller than a WoW based site, so a greater emphasis on initial startup and selling ad space alleviates those concerns.

***

What will I do?

Probably not much; I'm on a tight budget that is frequently beset by (seemingly) monthly emergencies such as car repairs and new clothes***. If some money frees up, I'll look into sending a few dollars the sites' way, but I'm also likely to look into Netflix or Hulu as a potential replacement for our satellite service.****

I wish both new sites the best of luck, and here's to hoping both succeed beyond their wildest dreams.





*Massively OP for short.

**A (very) reduced version of the economic plan from the Massively OP Kickstarter page.

***Overheard at our house: "Really, you need new pants AGAIN? Just exactly what are you eating, kid, Miracle Gro plant food?"

****We get our internet connection through our local phone company, which is expanding a Fioptics network. If there were a way to get college basketball --my big sports weakness-- without needing a cable/satellite/FiOS package, I'd jump on board. For that reason, I'm watching Sling TV with a great deal of interest.


EtA: Fixed grammar bugs.

Changes

As the years went by, we drifted apart
When I heard that you were gone
I felt a shadow cross my heart
--from Nobody's Hero by Rush


Today, I had the duty of moving the links to Massively, WoW Insider, and the WoW Insider podcast to the Blogs in Mothballs section.

I wanted to make sure I grabbed this for posterity's sake. I still
regret not having done this for Righteous Orbs or The Pink Pigtail Inn.

The owner of Joystiq, AOL, has decided to get out of that end of content creation and is shutting down the domain. Collateral damage to that decision is that Massively and WoW Insider are forced to shut down as well.

According to Syp over at Bio Break (and Massively), Massively and WoW Insider were making money, but AOL decided not to be in the enthusiast gaming blog business.  By extension, it's likely that AOL would have been fine with that aspect of the business if they were making even more money.

This isn't exactly the first time a major corporation has decided to shut down and/or sell a division because it wasn't making "enough" money.* IBM got rid of their PC division to Lenovo. P&G sold Folgers and Jif. 3M sold off their boardgames division --which included Acquire and Facts in Five-- to Avalon Hill. The disappointing thing about all of this is that it smacks of a decision borne entirely from the finance department. I'm of the opinion that a little goodwill goes a long way, and the money saved by jettisoning Joystiq probably isn't enough to make more than a minor blip on the balance sheet.

Or this.

What Joystiq's shutdown is not, however, is a comment on video gaming in general. I'm 100% confident in saying this had nothing to do with Gamergate, the "MMOs are passe" trend, or anything resulting from a boycott (real or threatened). Last I checked, video games still command more dollars than movies or other forms of entertainment media, so if enthusiast sites like Joystiq are shut down, it isn't for a lack of broad popularity.

Because AOL shut down Joystiq with such a short lead-in time (and according to Syp there was originally supposed to be NO lead-in time, just termination notices), there was almost no time to get a successor site up and running. It is also likely that AOL will retain the rights to the names "Massively" and "WoW Insider", so any replacement site that the writers might want set up will have to come with a different name.**

***

It sucks to be in this situation, to be terminated so suddenly. I can really empathize with the writers since I've been in their situation, having been fired from a sales job back in the early 90s right after my college years. There's always the self recriminations that you hear when you're lying awake at night, wondering if you'd have done something differently this wouldn't have come to pass. Even when you tell yourself you did nothing wrong, and that is often quite likely the case, you can't keep that inner critic quiet. It nags at you, picking at the scab of your humiliation, and it won't. leave. you. alone. EVER.

At the same time, I make no bones about the fact that I stopped reading WoW Insider long before I gave up WoW itself. The first nail in the coffin was the shutting down of The Daily Quest, which I used to find interesting new blogs to read. When Chas and Tam from Righteous Orbs and Larisa from The Pink Pigtail Inn shut down their blogs there became precious few clearing houses for new WoW blogs, and TDQ filled that void for a while until it simply stopped being written.***

Next, there was the shutting down of the class bloggers. While I wasn't so hardcore about the game and the raiding emphasis that a lot of the bloggers took, I appreciated their expertise. And I would be lying if I didn't say I was thrilled to see Vidyala --someone I actually KNEW both in and out of game-- as the mage blogger. I'd read her blogs from the beginning --courtesy of Tam from Righteous Orbs-- and I was insanely proud of her to get the mage gig. But cutbacks being what they were, her time at WoW Insider was far too shortlived.

Finally, there was my decline in interest in the game throughout 2014, culminating in allowing my subscription to lapse. I'd poke around the site once in a great while, but the "all WoW all the time" nature of W:I really didn't hold the interest of someone who had moved away from the game.

***

I wasn't about to forget Massively either.

In the end, I suppose that this sort of change will lead to something new. No, I'm not sure what, but I can't imagine that the creativity that Massively and W:I had will simply vanish into the ether. The writers still play games, and they have that burning need to share things with others.

So it's not "goodbye." Not really, anyway. It's more "until we meet again".





*If Joystiq were making more money, AOL would have likely sold it to some potential buyer instead of simply shutting it down. My guess is that AOL felt that the process of selling was a money loser for them, so killing it was more cost effective. [You can insert whatever your thoughts are about corporate bean counters here.]

**AOL might even retain the rights to some of the column names, too. I've not seen the ownership agreements, so YMMV.

***I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that PC had been highlighted a few times on TDQ. Each time it happened I found out about it due to the sudden spike in readership, from the traditional 50-100 people reading the blog to a few thousand. I've discovered that when THAT happens, you suddenly don't need coffee that morning.


EtA: relapse:lapse.  tomato:tomahto.  Sheesh.

It's Just One Wafer Thin Mint

You'd think that January would be a prime MMO gaming time. After all, in the Northern Hemisphere it's Winter, and you're not exactly going to be doing a lot of outside work when it's below freezing. Additionally, the high school (American) football season is long over, so my oldest doesn't need to go to marching band practices multiple times per week.*

But. (You knew that was coming, right?)

I've just not found the time to go onto MMOs very much the past month or so. It's kind of strange, really, but when I've sat down to play a little on the computer I've been dialing up Civ IV instead of an MMO.

Part of this is practical: I can pause in Civ IV any time I want without impacting the game at all. (Yay for turn based games!) I used to be able to do that --to an extent-- in WoW by summoning a flying mount and shooting upward into the sky to park for a while, but leaving WoW meant leaving that behind.  (There's also the issue about no flying mounts in Draenor, but I digress.)

I have done some questing on SWTOR, but that's been often in the evening when prying eyes can watch what I'm up to. Typically it's not a big deal if I'm on an Imperial toon, but since the Mini-reds play SWTOR, I'm trying not to give away any class stories.** My youngest reminded me of that when I got to the part in Chapter One with Risha and Tatooine, and my youngest blurted out loud "She's betraying you!!!"  I looked sidelong at her and said "I know the story --or enough of it-- and you don't. Don't jump to conclusions when you haven't seen the lead-in to this part."

There have been other games I've been playing, such as GW2 and STO, but for some reason I can't play for more than 1/2 hour at a time, so any long stretches of exploring, questing, and doing other things simply have to wait.

***

It's a strange feeling, being in MMO limbo.

You read other blogs and you say to yourself "Yeah, I want to get back to playing again!" But then reality intervenes and you have to go take care of some laundry or dinner.*** I'd gotten used to that scenario when I played pencil and paper RPGs, which require some actual playtime of an hour or three at a time, but when my MMO reality is 1/2 hour at most....

I'd started Dragon Age: Origins, but that petered out when I realized I'd be spending long hours at a time in front of the computer screen. A well written computer game is akin to reading a novel, and I've been known to... have issues... putting down a novel at night. Several months ago I spent a little time on Saturday night tinkering with Star Trek Online. "No big deal," I thought. "I'll just play for a little while, do a little exploring one of the zones, and call it a night."

I finally called it a night at 4 AM.

Um, yeah. I don't have any problems stopping. No sir. And no, my name is not Mr. Creosote, either.****

***

Ironically enough, the mini-Reds have been busy on LOTRO, enjoying the fun that comes with group content in their own kinship. As a parent, it derives me no end of pleasure listening to them talk about their exploits in Middle-earth, and of the songs played at the latest concert in Bree. They've even started talking about adding to their kinship, but I've cautioned them about not recruiting people other than those friends they know from school who would be interested in this sort of thing. I'd rather not have them deal with guild drama if they can avoid it.

That said, it wouldn't necessarily shock me if they decided to start their own LOTRO band. I guess I'd have to help them with the technical end of things, but I'm sure it's a minor obstacle.





*I'm still surprised that the school never accepts band classes for the physical education requirement. Unlike some other schools, our high school requires all students taking either wind ensemble or symphonic band classes to march in the marching band. And as the marching band students will tell you, marching band is a very strenuous activity, far more so than the actual phys ed classes out there.

**They only play Republic toons, so I'm safe playing Imperial toons when they're around.

***Or sleep. I'm no longer a spring chicken --it's a saying, kids, go look it up if you don't believe me-- and I like to get as much sleep as I can. I'd get even more if I wasn't obligated to stay up while my oldest completes her homework.

****If you don't know where THAT name comes from, you might not want to know.

Is this necessarily a problem?

Polygon is reporting that selfie portraits have recently become available in the WoW PTR.

Oh, I get where this is interesting, but I'm wondering the why of it all. Outside of the occasional up close pic here and there, WoW is more about clothing, art, and other items than up close facial shots.

From Polygon. I find it... interesting... that Blizz
came up with this AFTER the Blood Elf rework.

But I can see where this becomes a target of the late night talk show circuit: "As if we aren't narcissistic enough as a society that we have to take selfies in our video games...."

Oh well.

So it's not MMO Related...

...but Bioware has the Dragon Age: Inquisition tavern songs available for a free download right now. Whether or not you played the game, it's still free.

The best part? Not just the music, but they have PDFs of the sheet music so you can sing along. The sheet music isn't for multiple instruments, but it's far better than nothing at all.

We'll call it Overwa-- What do you mean that's taken?

Apparently Blizz might have to change the name of Overwatch to something else.

Innovis Labs submitted a US Patent and Trademark request for the name Overwatch 2 months prior to Blizzard submitting the same request, and you can probably guess the rest.

Here's a short blurb from The Escapist on this little mixup.

For Charlie

From abcnews.com.

Making the Rounds: Ten Years of WoW in Ten Comic Panels

Courtesy of Nerd Approved and created by darklegacycomics.com, you'll have a good chuckle.

 

EtA: Fixed the link.

Waiting for the Ball to Drop

By many standards, it has been an eventful year in my house:

• The oldest Mini-Red is now able to legally drive and has begun receiving college literature.
• The youngest Mini-Red has left elementary school behind for middle school.
• The Mini-Red in the middle* reached the state finals of the National Geographic Bee.

And oh yeah, there were some games played, too.

When the year began, I had two main games --WoW and SWTOR-- and a couple of smaller games that I played in Neverwinter, Star Trek Online, and Age of Conan. I was content to get my regular fix of Alterac Valley, and when the PvP Seasons would restart I'd play the other BGs before the arena players got too far ahead of the rest of the more relaxed (if there is such a thing) BG crowd. I'd only finished two class stories on SWTOR, and I really enjoyed the questing and flashpoints.

In a sense, my original WoW habit had broken into two games because of my dissatisfaction with the 5-mans and the dysfunctional questing progression in Cataclysm.

Mists was an okay expansion and better than the incomplete Cataclysm, but the emphasis on Dailies, Pet Battles, LFR, and Scenarios meant that the parts of the game that I liked best (BGs and 5-mans) got the short shrift.

The Mini-Reds started the year playing LOTRO with occasional forays into SWTOR. Blizzard's subscription design kept them out of WoW --I wasn't planning on forking over around $45/month just for them to play an hour or so a day (each) in Azeroth-- and given the toxic nature of some parts of WoW I wasn't planning on letting them play there anyway. When I get a crude come-on in the middle of Isle of Conquest, you know there's just enough creeps out there to not make it worth the risk.

***

What surprised me the most about 2014 was how some issues that had been lurking just under the surface finally exploded.

If you'd have asked me about the most problematic aspect of Gamer Culture in January of 2014, I'd have mentioned the crossover area into Hentai and the seedy underbelly of child porn that thrives there. People like DragonCon co-founder Ed Kramer, while not gamers themselves, have spread a taint over all of Geek Culture that isn't easily removed.

So what happened in 2014? Oh, not much, only an explosion in how women are treated in the gaming world.

You know, Gamergate. Among other things.

The fallout from Gamergate will take some years to completely process. While the Gamergaters themselves are a distinct minority, they have tainted an entire industry with their nearly insane zeal to protect their Boys' Club from 'the wimminz'. The hatred and bile that the Gamergaters spewed across the internet became an eerie echo to what happened when the anti-suffrage movement took on the Suffragettes.  Spinks has referenced this quote attributed to Rebecca West, but it still resonates with me: "Women, listening to anti-suffrage speeches, for the first time knew what many men really thought of them."

In the end, the Gamergate campaign has not achieved any of their goals --if you believe the goals they lived by as opposed to the often mocked goal of "ethics in gaming journalism"-- and if anything it has hardened the resolve of people to be more inclusive.

***

Other things happened in 2014, of course.

In our household, the biggest surprise was the rise of Marvel Heroes 2015.

It's no surprise that in a household of three Marvel fans that the F2P MMO-ish game Marvel Heroes** caught on. It's Diablo meets Marvel, without all of the messiness of who owns what property in movie studios. Apparently when Marvel Heroes launched, it was a bit of a dud, but over the past year plus it has really come along (as in fixed bugs and issues with gameplay) and gained a pretty decent following.

The first boss you meet. Oh hey, Black Cat. Wasn't expecting
you at a bank robbery. Not. At. All. (from Marvel Heroes Forums)

The gameplay is fast, the cutscenes are fantastic comic book drawings, and being able to see Storm in the same cutscene as Luke Cage and Spidey is just icing on the cake.

Oh, and the music is pretty good too:

(Alas, I couldn't find a link to the 6+ minutes worth of credits.)

Oh yeah, and the Mini-Reds started their own kinship in LOTRO, and it seems to be going well for them. They're now excited enough about the four person requirement for a guild in SWTOR that we're going to get one going on one of the NA servers (I get to be the Guild Master of the group).

***

As for me, my growing frustration in BGs has been well documented, and it eventually drove me away from WoW. Considering how much I'd stuck through on the game up until that point, it's a bit of a surprise that BGs were the breaking point, but really that's all I'd been doing in WoW by then.

What I find ironic is that I've been poking around the crew portion of Star Trek Online a lot recently, and everything I read about Garrisons sounds exactly like the missions and other things you can have your crew do as a mini-game in STO. People are comparing Garrisons to SWTOR's and Wildstar's housing, but they should really be comparing it to STO instead.

***

I guess you could say that I was eventually going to give up on WoW, but I certainly didn't expect to pick up Guild Wars 2 as a replacement.

Unlike WoW's movement toward solo play, GW2 continues to buck the trend and emphasize the social aspect of MMOs, and they do it organically through the regional events that people come out of the woodwork to do.

It's not a perfect fit for me, but then again I don't think any of the current crop of MMOs are.***

***

As the year ends, I have to admit there was a lot of shakeup in household's gaming. A long time stalwart has been removed and replaced with something I'd tried out a year ago but passed on. One game came from out of nowhere to take the Mini-Reds by storm (or is that Storm?), but they held onto their long time favorites.

And after a year of turmoil, maybe we as a gamer community can finally start to move forward constructively.

What does 2015 hold? I have absolutely no idea. About the only thing I can say is that the only constant is change. (Except for Blizzard creating a controversy by creating a "Doh!" moment; they seem to do those on average of once a year.)

I hope you haven't overindulged tonight; there's games to be played tomorrow!




*Note to self, contact FOX about a reboot of Malcolm in the Middle.

**I'll drop the "2015", even though it's implied.

***If I had to guess at a perfect game for me, it's Civ IV.

Monday Funny (Even has a Blizzard Reference!)

In light of the Sony hacking and the current down state of North Korea's internet, leave it to The Oatmeal to provide a succinct analysis of the differences between the Koreas:

F2P or P2W?

Blizzard gave bloggers and WoW players an early Christmas gift by providing a big developer post a few days ago.

There were a lot of goodies for people to read up on, but the one that seems to be causing a bit of a stir is the section that was titled "New Ways to Play":

"New Ways to Play

We’re exploring the possibility of giving players a way to buy tradable game-time tokens for the purpose of exchanging them in-game with other players for gold. Our current thought on this is that it would give players a way to use their surplus gold to cover some of their subscription cost, while giving players who might have less play time an option for acquiring gold from other players through a legit and secure system. A few other online games offer a similar option, and players have suggested that they’d be interested in seeing something along those lines in WoW. We agree it could be a good fit for the game, and we look forward to any feedback you have as we continue to look into this feature."*

I'd posted my thoughts on a few other bloggers' commentaries, but I figured I'd summarize them here:

• This sounds like movement in the F2P direction, but let's be realistic: WoW won't truly go F2P without replacing that lost income from somewhere. 10 million subs translates roughly into $150 million --depending on a lot of factors, of course-- and that's a LOT of money for Blizzard to replace. Even if you figure that the true number of regular WoW players who will stick with the game no matter what is much lower, say 2 million, that's still a variable amount between $30 million and $150 million.
• Blizzard may say that they make games that they themselves would want to play --and their development staff may truly believe that, since I've seen no evidence otherwise-- but Activision/Blizzard is no longer part of a big conglomerate. They have investors to answer to every quarter, and until Warlords dropped they were starting to wonder whether Blizzard had lost its mojo. Now that Warlords is a success**, investors are now going to ask "What have you got for next quarter?" Suggesting a limited F2P option such as this one is going to bring up the inevitable "How much will Blizzard profit from this move?" To investors, this might simply be seen as a lose/lose scenario.
• How will gold farming mutate to take advantage of this situation? Blizzard's devs will be the ones inevitably setting the exchange rate, so they'll be able to determine how much effort it would take to reap a return on investment. The seedy WoW Underworld of sweatshops won't go away, but Blizzard could make their ability to make a profit more difficult by exchange rate manipulation. If instead of a tradeable token, Blizzard decides to make any tokens Account Bound, the question then becomes whether a gold farming operation can offer enough gold for a monthly subscription at a rate less than the current WoW monthly sub rate.
• While gold farming operations may be forced to adapt, the rewards for account hacking might just go up. There are a bunch of people who play the economic game in WoW, and going after their accounts would be a top priority for any WoW hacker. You don't even need to raid their account of gold, either, you just need to hack their account and mine data on their methods. Mimic their methods and reap a profit.  I can see the ads now: "Play WoW for free! Let us show you how!"
• Will this system lead to a true pay-to-win environment? It just might, given that Blizzard would need to generate money from lost subs somewhere, and allowing people to buy LFR quality gear with their WoW Account would work. I'm not so sure that wrecking the raiding game is worth it, however.

***

The one thing that everybody seems to have overlooked in the great F2P/P2W discussion is this section of the post:

"eSports’in

The new War Games skirmishes feature allows anyone to run an online tournament, and we’re excited to see even more community-run tournaments in 2015. We’ll of course be running tournaments with our eSports partners as well, and will release details as those plans are finalized. As you saw at the Arena World Championship, we’ve come up with an improved UI to help viewers better follow the action, but we’ve been working on a complete overhaul for next year—with the goal of making it widely available for use in player-run tournaments, partner tournaments, and online casting. We hope to be able to share more soon."*

I expect this to be the next big direction of professional online gaming that Blizzard will move.

When news programs such as CBS Sunday Morning cover online pro gaming***, you know that it is getting pretty huge. Blizzard already has made some inroads with Starcraft 2, but I expect this to open up Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin  (among others) to eSports.

If you thought that Blizz was responding too much to the needs of the PvP community, you ain't seen nothing yet.

*From http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/13113971367, OP by Takralus. Edited by Xarishflar on 18/12/2014 19:13 GMT

**For the moment; MMO players are notoriously fickle, and have been even more these days than in prior years.

***They did kind of imply that the people who attended Blizzcon did so for the online tourneys, which isn't really the case. Aside from that, they did a pretty decent job of covering the basics. They could have gone on more about the money some of the top LoL players make --and their lifestyle-- but that they covered both LoL and Blizzcon in one breath has to make Activision/Blizzard VERY happy.

Bloggy X-Mas Day 15: The Reluctant Community

(Sorry this is an hour late; I was being social and working on Christmas cards.)

If you're my age, your first exposure to video games was a social one.

Typically, you were over at a friend's house or attending some family party or whatnot, and your hosts brought out the Pong game --or the Atari 2600, Intellivision, or Odyssey-- and everyone gathered around for a turn at playing Asteroids or Combat.*

MMOs tap into those halcyon days by utilizing the wonders of the internet to play with people from around the world. None of this is exactly new to anyone, of course, but it is important to remember that video games were, at their heart, a social endeavor.

We often forget about the positive social aspects to video games when buried deep in the latest Skyrim or Dragon Age game, or when we're being yelled at to "L2P NOOOOB!!!!1!!" in Arathi Basin. It is quite easy to forget about things beyond the bare bones social contract when you're trying to make your guild's raid team.*** Or when you slew the elite boss guarding the maguffin you need for a quest, and another player ninja steals the maguffin while you were otherwise occupied.

But we MMO players are a community.

There aren't that many of us out there. Sure, WoW has 10 million subscribers, and that sounds like a lot, but not when you consider there are over a billion people hooked up to the net in some form or another. Compared to the rest of the internet, we're a niche within the niche of video gaming.

It's that realization that we consciously seek out social gaming in some form or another that makes MMO gaming special. There are MOBAs and console networks, but those don't have the social interaction on the same level as an MMO has.

What do the following have in common:

• Random Gen Chat discussions.
• Guild goofing off nights.
• PUGs with people who you get into great conversations with.
• Dance-offs at random moments.
• You're attempting to beat an elite boss, you're losing, and suddenly a random passerby jumps into the fray to assist.

The answer is something that all of us who play MMOs know:  they're all possible in MMO space. I've been there, and I've seen it happen.

MMOs offer the chance to be awesome, both in the story and between other players. For example, I'll never forget the following exchange (paraphrased) in Tatooine about two years ago:

Player X: Need an assist with [can't remember quest name]
Player Y: I can help. Invite me.
Player Z: Man, you're L50. What are you doing here?
Player Y: I PvP in about an hour or so, but before then I like to hang around low level areas and help out those who need it.

That. Is. Awesomeness.

***

Make no mistake, MMOs are just a game. We slay internet dragons with our friends. And, more importantly, they are a tool, really, that can foster relationships with others.

It's all about how we use that tool that determines the community we reside in.

Just remember the immortal words of Bill and Ted:  Be excellent to each other!




*In a way, it was a bit similar to how I was introduced to Dungeons and Dragons; that was a social format too, with a friend introducing the game to me after school while playing over at his house.

**Given that a lot of people had only one television at the time, this meant that you had to work around evening TV shows.

***Office politics remind me a lot of some of the backstabbing that goes on in some of the more high drama guilds. When companies grade everyone on a curve, employees will be tempted to sabotage other employees' work just to make themselves look better.

****No, I can't remember the name of the blog, but I saw their stats.


EtA: Added the graphic.
EtA2: Corrected grammar on story.  Sheesh, how'd I miss that?

Miscellaneous Friday Ponderings

After having seen the trailer for Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens, I wonder how long it'll be before we see cross bladed lightsabers in SWTOR. My guess is that it will make an appearance sometime next year in the Cartel Store.

Yeah... This.

Or maybe this one. (From Dorkly.)

***

From what I can tell, the WoW version of housing, Garrisons, is the pet battles of Warlords of Draenor. From what a local friend tells me, it's required if you want to do any crafting, but not as much for raiding at the moment. (She doesn't PvP, so that's an unknown for her there.) You set up shop in Draenor, and you pretty much go to town.

Does that mean that you'll have to start over in a new location with a new Garrison for the next expac, does the Garrison just migrate to the next expac's location (whatever it ends up being) like a gypsy caravan, or does it stay put, permanently set in Draenor?

By integrating Garrisons directly into Draenor, it seems that Blizzard is grounding them in such a way as to make them a permanent fixture of this expac.

Now, add the full Warlords leveling experience + one new expac, L1-105(or 110), and what becomes of the Warlords Garrison? Does Blizz move it out of Warlords entirely, like what they did with most of the Wrathgate event, or do they allow you to have a double dose of Garrison leveling (one in Warlords, one in the new expac)?

Yeah, it's nitpicking, but the design decisions do have a cost, and I would hope that Blizz didn't back themselves into a corner like they did with some design decisions with Cataclysm.

***

What happens in Gen Chat, stays in.... um.... nevermind.

This must have been one of the weirder weeks for Gen Chat topics.  Among the highlights were:

• Which Spice Girl was the best one overall (don't look at me; I actively avoided the Spice Girls in the 90s).
• Will "Han Shot First" be referenced as a joke in the new Star Wars movie?
• Who was a better band: Doro or Rammstein?
• What song had the most annoying lyrics?  (My vote: Careless Whisper, by Wham, although I could be talked into Girl You Know Its True by Milli Vanilli.)

Just when people thought Gen Chat was only good for racist and middle grade humor...

Wanted: A Long Term Growth Plan

These are fun times for an MMO player.

Star Trek Online, LOTRO, SWTOR, WoW, GW2 and Neverwinter all have dropped major expacs (or continuing storylines) in the last few months.*

There were two major AAA releases this year: The Elder Scrolls Online and Wildstar.

But all I hear from my local friends is about League of Legends. Or Call of Duty. Or Dragon Age Inquisition. Or Assassin's Creed Unity**.

Of all my local friends and acquaintances, there's two people who are playing MMOs, and one is playing WoW while the other is playing Aion. In fact, I have more friends excited about the release of Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition than anything MMO related.

This is a far cry from when I first took up WoW back in 2009, when I was occasionally surprised by who I knew who also played MMOs. The majority played WoW, to be sure, but some still liked EQ and other games. We didn't exactly swap war stories, but there was a shared experience that we could all comment on. It also confirmed the size of the playerbase that the WoW commercials of the era alluded to.

Now, it seems that the genre is more of a niche these days than before.

Sure, you've got WoW back to over 10 million subs (for the time being), but how much of that is cannibalization of other MMO player bases is an unknown.  I do know of several people who returned to WoW for Draenor (Deftig among them), but WoW doesn't seem to have quite the same mojo outside of the MMO niche than it once did.

***

I think it is telling that the television spots for Draenor are vastly different than what they were a few short expacs ago.

Hard to believe this is an oldie in YouTube years.

Fangs like that, and not one 

casting callback for True Blood.  Not one!

My wife, on seeing the Warlords trailer, asked me "Are they the good guys or the bad guys?"

I get her point. While both trailers emphasize ACTION!!, the more I watch the Warlords trailer***, the more I wonder whether the trailer is designed strictly for lapsed players as opposed to recruiting new ones.

Contrast these videos with tv spots for some other, newer games:

Didn't I see this during the Super Bowl?

Yes, that really is Kate Upton. Makes me wonder just how 

much she got paid to say "Come and play with me!"

Both of the newer games are for mobile devices, true, but both also are attempting to cast a wider net than the WoW commercials. They are aiming for growth and more players (and, in the case of Game of War: Fire Age, sex appeal so blatant that Evony would be jealous), and their tv spots have eschewed the serious grimdark in favor of whimsy.

They stole Blizzard's thunder by co-opting one of WoW's greatest strengths: its ability to not take itself seriously.

In 2007, WoW had ads with Ozzy, Verne Troyer, and William Shatner, full of sly humor and the "you can be anyone you want!" tagline. 2009 saw the WoW Mountain Dew tie-in with two women fighting it out in a grocery store.

Because you can't have enough William Shatner.

And really, you can't have enough Kaldorei 

and Orcs fighting it out in the local Mega Mart.

But now, there is no humor in Blizzard's WoW advertisements. It's all uber serious grimdark.

Last I checked, WoW itself still has plenty of humor in it. Why surrender your advantage to mobile games?

***

In the end, I guess you target your audience with what you think will work. Maximizing subscriptions is the game, and investors are a fickle "what have you done for me this quarter?" bunch. Blizzard wants their old subscribers back, and as far as I can tell they're succeeding.  But new blood in the MMO genre? Not so much.

I fear that we've reached a point where the MMO market isn't going to change much in size. MMOs will be marketed to those who already play or used to play extensively. New players aren't marketed to, and a lot of really good games will be overlooked because MMOs are no longer trendy.

This December should feel like Christmas morning with the abundance of really good games to choose from, so why does it feel like Jacob Marley needs to stop by?





*There's also a new release for Rift, but I don't play the game.

**I hear about Unity for all the wrong reasons, I might add. The bugginess of the Unity release is so bad it rivals the old Microprose Darklands game for buggy releases.

***You can't avoid the trailer right now on sports channels. It's about as ubiquitous as erectile dysfunction ads.