Patience is probably the more obvious and no brainer selection of these two. If you play a challenging game, you’re going to lose. A lot. You’re going to need to try again, try new things, think about how to tackle the challenges the game throws at you from another perspective, and sometimes just practice until you get it right. This learning process requires patience, as any gamer who has dealt with this will attest. But hey, it’s a fun way to learn patience at least, and that can definitely take the edge off when you’re frustrated after dying for the 10,909,186th time. (It was Sekiro, alright?!)
Then, there’s crisis management. Dealing with too much stuff at once, so you feel overwhelmed and don’t know what to do. Inspired by recent Work to Game Ironman Deep Dungeon Challenge videos for Final Fantasy XIV, I decided I was going to start a Palace of the Dead ironman run myself. I’m playing a Dark Knight, since I still need to level it up, and normally everything runs nice and smooth.
Then I engage a monster. Another one wanders by and joins the fight. As I run out of an AOE, I step on a trap spawning five more monsters. Then another monster wanders in and joins the fray. So now I’m up to eight monsters on me, my health is dropping fast, and I reflexively panic.
I start by popping as many defensive cooldowns and healing items as I can. Then I spam all of my AOE killing off the weaker enemies. Then I remember a pomander of witching and desperately try to find it in my sea of pomanders. Now that everything is a chicken and hitting for way less damage, I finish spamming AOE to kill off the rest of the attackers. switching over to single target attacks when there are only a couple left standing.
Those of you familiar with Final Fantasy XIV in general, and Palace of the Dead in particular, will note a couple things about my above description very quickly: I did not play my way through it optimally, nor was it as bad of a situation as I made it out to be when describing it.
What can we learn from this? Well, first, not all crises are as bad as we make them out to be. This is not to minimize truly bad situations, only to point out that sometimes, when you have time to consider the situation as a whole, it’s actually not as bad as it seems. But even if this is the case, something can still feel and be really difficult to deal with as it’s happening.
Second, getting through a crisis situation doesn’t always require an optimal solution, but it does require tackling the challenges presented, often quickly, and as you eliminate specific issues then whatever is left to deal with becomes easier, until you are dealing with a single issue, which you then can resolve more calmly as the surrounding related issues have been dealt with.
Obviously, a difficult encounter in a video game is no where near the same level of stress and seriousness as an issue affecting you in life. I think that goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway since I’m sure some people will read that into my comparison here. But, the similarities are there, and learning to deal with overwhelm in a safe environment like a game can make dealing with overwhelm with real life issues easier to process when you have had a chance to practice dealing with those same feelings in a low stakes situation where it just doesn’t matter that much.
Although I don’t play games for what they teach me (I’m in it for the fun and joy they bring, naturally), it can be a fun or interesting exercise to think about what benefits can be there beyond the ones we commonly think about.
]]>These days I hear a lot about dollars per hour, and how this determines a game’s value. A common standard is if you spend a dollar or less per hour, the game is a good value. And in terms of flat out time and money spent, this is a hard standard to argue with. If I get 100 or 200 hours of fun out of a $60 game, that’s pretty solid. Even better if it was a $30 or $15 game.
There are pitfalls to this approach though. How much fun is good enough? Is 100 hours that’s kinda fun better than 10 hours of the most amazing fun you’ve ever had? Are long experiences always the best experiences? Do some short games have better pacing due to cutting out boring grindy elements?
Let’s take Batman: Arkham Asylum as an example. I played it for 13.5 hours according to Steam. But all 13.5 hours were meaty, putting me in the thick of the action, and the game’s linearity served to continue pushing you forward into the good bits, where you could stealth or fight your way through the next sequence without needless grind or getting lost trying to find where to go next. It was well paced, and extending the game with needless exploration or grindiness would arguably make it worse, not better. I appreciated the pacing, and think the shorter length is a feature, not a bug. It’s a complete experience as is, and I’m satisfied with it even if I paid more than a dollar per hour for it.
On the other hand, let’s look at a game like Fable 3. I didn’t play it on Steam and don’t have my hours played, but I probably put in a good 40-50 hours on it. But a huge chunk of that time was spent doing a mindless, boring grind for gold before a major plot event that requires an insane amount of money to do all the best things possible to get the best ending.
For context, there is a creature invading, and the intent is that you are forced into circumstances where you can make life worse for your citizens to gather resources to fight this monster, or make life better for them while being completely unprepared for this invasion. Your brother had been ruler before you, and was being terrible to the citizenry, but he knew about this threat which is why he was acting as he did. You had just successfully deposed him and took his place before learning about this threat yourself.
If you grind for gold before this point, you can just be a great guy and do everything right while having enough money to fight the threat. If you don’t, then you have to make hard choices, much like your brother did. This grind for gold really served no useful purpose to the game, and needlessly added far more time of tedium than truly fun gameplay, just to get the best ending. This grind also removed the impact of understanding your brother’s perspective since you could just buy your way through all of the problems he was dealing with. Fable 3 could be improved in two ways by removing this grind.
The first would be to allow you to make all the best decisions without grinding for insane amounts of gold. In this case, making the choices becomes a roleplaying option allowing you to try out different endings depending on whether you play a hero or villain, like many other rpgs.
The second, and arguably better and more true to the point the game was trying to make at this point, would be to not give you enough gold to do everything you want by simply not allowing you to grind for it, forcing you to make hard choices regarding how to balance caring for your kingdom and citizens while also preparing for the oncoming attack you had just learned about before being pushed into making a bunch of decisions about your kingdom.
Both of these options would take out a needless grind and make the game shorter but more enjoyable and potentially impactful. For option 1, it would allow for more open roleplaying. For option 2, it would create circumstances where you have hard choices that matter and you simply can’t make all the best choices, creating both narrative tension as well as stronger gameplay and story consequences. This is an example of how streamlining an experience and cutting out filler can make a game better even though it might be shorter.
This isn’t to say shorter is always better of course. Baldur’s Gate 2 is a shining example of a game that was long, but the length was due to a quality and lengthy main quest padded by additional high quality side quests that meaningfully expanded on the story, world, and characters. This kind of length is absolutely a plus, as long as you have the time to enjoy it. But it’s also a different, slower paced experience than raiding an Asylum of supervillains as the Batman, and sometimes I might want the fast paced, shorter experience compared to the slower paced, longer experience. And both of these experiences have value.
That said, if your main goal is to stretch your gaming budget, dollars per hour is a great approach. But if you’re looking to have a wider breadth of gaming experiences, you may find that some of them are best when the focus is on the quality and type of experience first, with the length of the experience being less of a priority, or even not a priority at all. In some cases, it may even be better if the game is shorter, not longer.
]]>So, why would I shell out the purchase price of a game, then a subscription fee on top of it? Well, it took some convincing from a couple friends and many coworkers. The combat is actually fun. There are world events where you just run up to a boss with whatever other players are in the area and wail away on it as a big group. Dungeons are quite reasonable in length. You can have all of the classes in the game on a single character, and when you switch classes, you keep your mount, waypoints, and similar types of progress, so there’s no beginning of the game grind to get back all the features you’re used to. A story like you’ve come to expect from the Final Fantasy series. Oh, and the trailer below might have pushed me over the edge after hearing about all of that other awesome stuff.
I have to say I think this is how some people must have felt when they first played World of Warcraft. That said, MMORPGs have come a long way since then, and this game feels like the culmination of all of those changes and then some. Imagine all the features you might want in an online RPG, and this game probably comes close. For many, it’s right there, and I know for some I’ve talked to, it easily surpasses them.
The first thing you’ll probably notice is this game looks amazing. On my wimpy system, I started out on pretty minimal settings, and even then it looked good. After tweaking some things and switching it over to maximum, it looks amazing. As you’re noticing how amazing the game looks, you’ll also notice the game is quite firmly placed in the world of Final Fantasy. This is multiplayer Final Fantasy, not Final Fantasy shoehorned into another game entirely.
This brings me to my next point. FFXIV has a real, honest to God story. It’s not cobbled together from a bunch of quests like in many MMOs. It’s a full, coherent narrative about your journey through Eorzea. Naturally, the story is told through quests, but this feels much like the progression of other Final Fantasy games, where you play for awhile, then hit a scripted scene or cutscene, then continue playing. It flows together, and there’s a sense of purpose to what you are doing in game. And I promise, what I have played so far is suitably strong, and it looks like it is growing toward an awesome finale.
The combat, on the other hand, is decidedly not Final Fantasy, but it is fun and works well for this game. When you first start, it may appear you’re about to get the standard MMO combat system. Blech! Fortunately, that is not the case. So far, every new skill I have learned has had a unique use. Every class I’ve played has its own special mechanic, such as the Arcanist’s summon, the Thaumaturge’s switch between Astral Fire and Umbral Ice to trade off between massive damage and recharging mana respectively, or the Pugilist’s stances that form different types of combos. On top of this, although enemy’s basic attacks still auto hit you, their special attacks charge up just like yours, and while they are charging you have a chance to run out of the area of effect, denoted by a template on the ground showing the attack coverage. This adds a lot of depth to the combat, as you can actually dodge enemy attacks if you play well, and this can mean the difference between life and death in many battles.
You can also play the game with mouse and keyboard or a controller. I suspect many people will prefer the mouse and keyboard, as it is pretty standard issue for MMORPGs. However, if you plug in a controller, you will see that Square Enix has done a masterful job making sure players using a controller have access to the full breadth of skills their keyboard wielding counterparts have in an easy and intuitive manner. The one thing that is a little difficult with a controller is targeting, but even that works well most of the time once you get used to it. Still, I suspect a mouse would be easier, but not so much that I’m willing to give up the comfort of sitting back with a controller.
As for what there is to do in the game, well, there’s plenty, and I’m only level 25, halfway to the level cap of 50, on a single class. Fates and Trials are what I find the most fun. Fates are group events that randomly spawn in the overworld maps, and people just walk into them and join the fray. Sometimes this is against one large enemy, while others will be against a group of smaller, but more powerful than normal, enemies. Trials are 4 person battles against the Primals, major boss monsters that you may recognize as summons from previous Final Fantasy games, but that serve more as tribal gods in this game.
Moving on from that, you also have dungeons. Like most MMORPGs, if you want to dps, you’ll probably have a wait to get in. If you’re a healer or tank, enjoy your easy ride into whatever party you like. Unlike many MMOs I’ve played, the dungeons can be completed relatively quickly. They’re more 15-30 minute affairs, as opposed to 30-60 minute endurance runs. For me, this is important, since I don’t like to commit too much time at once to one specific thing in a game. Others may care less about this, or even prefer the longer runs, but I’m a fan of the shorter dungeon.
As alluded to earlier, you can also have multiple classes on a single character. In fact, you can have all of the classes. This is awesome for many reasons. First, any gear you find, even gear that binds to your character, can be used across all of your classes. When you switch classes, you keep your progress, such as waypoints and your mount. You also get access to selected skills from your other classes, with the ability to select more skills granted by leveling your current class higher, while the skills available to use are determined by the levels achieved in your other classes. Finally, to switch classes, it’s as easy as switching your weapon outside of combat. Well, once you’ve unlocked the class, which you can do once your first class hits level 10. In short, everything is easier to manage on a single character.
So I’ve only had the game about a week. But as I’m sure you can tell reading this, I’ve been enjoying this game a lot. It has everything a great video game needs. If this were released as a single player game with tweaks made to difficulty on the party battles, I would enjoy playing it. Unlike so many MMORPGs I’ve played, this game doesn’t use multiplayer as a crutch. This game is great on it’s own merits, and the multiplayer is there as a feature, not just to prop up an otherwise mediocre game.
]]>I’d also like the thank Meg from Simpson’s Paradox for offering to take the carnival over as well. It’s good to see that there are plenty of people willing to carry the torch when it’s time to pass it on.
So now what? Well, head on over to Sodaware and check out what’s coming up, and after this upcoming carnival, get your posts in for the next one!
]]>I have removed the Gaming My Way Forum and closed the Carnival of Video Game Bloggers, both for different reasons. I’m going to start with the forum. Basically, I jumped in without knowing enough of what I’m doing to keep the forums active, clean, and a good place for discussion. The biggest issue was that it was so overrun with spam that it was unmanageable and I never found a good system to manage the spam automatically. It was bad enough that the sheer volume of spam broke the forums. Rather than try to repair them now, when there was very little of value posted there, I’m closing them until I have the time to put forums up, protect them correctly, and there is enough discussion through comments that a forum will be a better avenue of communication. If anyone did post anything legitimately cool or valuable, I’m sorry it got lost in the mountains of spam.
Moving on to the Carnival of Video Game Bloggers, I want to say I really enjoyed a lot of the content that came from those who submitted posts regularly and those who stopped by to share something once or twice. Through the carnival’s original home at The Collected Writings of James Newton and when I then took it up here, I’ve found a lot of cool new blogs to visit that I never would have found otherwise, and I hope others have too. All existing carnival posts will remain, and I hope more people will find the work that has become a part of the carnival.
Unfortunately, while the time commitment to the Carnival of Video Game Bloggers is minimal, it’s not something I’ve been keeping up with. Life challenges I don’t plan to discuss have come up, and those challenges require time and attention to deal with. The choice for me is to either keep up with the Carnival of Video Game Bloggers, or carve out some time to play games and occasionally fit in some writing about those gaming experiences, even if only on a monthly or semi-monthly basis for the time being. I’ve opted for the second option for now. It’s not inconceivable that I could someday attempt to bring it back, but it’s not something I am planning at this point in time.
I want to thank those who have participated in the Carnival of Video Game Bloggers over the years, and I’m sorry the ending was as abrupt as it turned out to be. I also want to thank James for creating the carnival and letting me carry it on for a time. I’ll still plan to follow some of the blogs I’ve found since then, and I hope you all continue to put out some great writing.
]]>So it’s no surprise that Microsoft is getting panned pretty hard. Let’s start with a 2 minute video interpretation of Microsoft’s unveiling of the console prior to E3.
TV. Sports. Halo TV. Call of Duty. Let’s be honest, the first intro was all about what Xbox One does as an entertainment center, not what it does as a video game console. They showed a couple games, but spent maybe 5 out of 35 minutes talking about games, and most of the rest talking about the non-gaming entertainment it does. Really, I just wanted to play games. To be fair, at E3, they actually did go quite a bit more in depth on the games, and the games themselves look pretty cool. Of course, that’s not the highlight. The highlight of Microsoft’s commentary on the Xbox One come in the next clip.
Microsoft’s advice to those who don’t have Internet available? Get a 360, because that’s an offline device. Oh, you wanted next gen? They’ve got nothing for you then. Admittedly, Internet connectivity isn’t a big issue for most people in the U.S., but there are places both here and in other countries where Internet is not always readily available. I’m going to go ahead and suggest they get a PS4 or Wii U, depending on their tastes. I imagine most who were looking at Xbox One will be far more interested in a PS4 though.
Of course, this isn’t the only thing. Remember how I mentioned Microsoft is implementing some very strict DRM in terms of what console lovers are used to dealing with? Well, Sony wants to have their say on this as well. So, they have created a brief instructional video on how to share PS4 games. Yes, here it is.
Very simple, no? Now, to be fair, Sony is leaving it as an option for publishers to require registration of games online, but this is a far cry from the system Microsoft has put in place locking all used game sales to authorized retailers, as well as limiting how games can be shared and gifted. Also, PS4 doesn’t require access to the Internet to play your games (aside from registration for publishers who require it, who, by the way, are lame).
What does the above mean for Microsoft and Sony? Well, I think it means Sony has a giant advantage in the upcoming console war. Probably much larger than the one Sony conceded to Microsoft between PS3 and 360.
Alternatively, Reddit user AWildSketchAppeared summarized it all with the following picture: Xbox One.
I don’t think anything else really needs to be said.
]]>Hard mode has a few rules for the GM. The world is what it is. No removing tough challenges just because the PCs wander into an area too dangerous for them. It’s up to them to find the warning signs, know their limits, and know when to back off. It’s ok to change things for storytelling purposes or to warn players of danger, but if there’s a CR 20 dragon in an area and some level 3 PCs are dumb enough to walk into the area with the beware of dragon sign prominently displayed, the dragon stays and there’s probably a tpk coming up soon.
Next, all encounters are played for keeps. The GM plays to win, just like the PCs do. Within the rules of course. There is no choosing to attack when there’s an option to sting the PCs for the same amount of damage and apply a paralysis poison. Wands and potions will be used during the combat, not just left behind for treasure. Even instant death spells are cool. That said, NPC motivations are taken into account here. A trained assassin may well finish off a PC that is unconscious before continuing the fight with the rest, while a goblin fighting for its life is satisfied to just get the PCs unconscious and run away after looting them.
In keeping with the above, there is no fudging die rolls, HP, or other stats. Once it has been written down and the session has started it’s set in stone. Even if I want the players to live, it’s too late to change it. If the PCs want to live that badly they will find a way. Against my expectations sometimes, they do. This is much cooler than the enemy falling over just in time to spare the party.
Treasure also has to be looked at carefully. Generally giving PCs more wealth than they should have at a given level is frowned upon in hard mode, but if encounters are scaled properly to the increased wealth it is permissible.
Some of the above is basic game balance. Some of it probably sounds needlessly adversarial. However, it is only adversarial when it needs to be. When there are hostile characters on screen, your job is to be the enemy of the players. When there are not, it is your job to work with the players to make an awesome story, but also remember your NPCs are what they are, and you can’t pull them away just to prevent an encounter the PCs aren’t equipped for yet.
My players responded very positively to these changes. The game developed the sense of challenge and danger they were looking for. Characters died, and new characters were introduced. Players learned to be more careful and how to overcome or avoid challenges placed before them based on the risk and reward of doing so. The world became a much more dangerous place, but it also became more alive with more movers and shakers than just the PCs doing their own thing. Enemies who escaped became new villains or occasionally reluctant allies against a common enemy.
This is not the way everyone likes to play rpgs of course. Some people really just want to play the collaborative story, develop their characters, and not worry about character death that isn’t brought on solely by character stupidity or meaningful sacrifice. And that’s totally cool. For those looking for more game with a higher chance of loss than the storytelling approach, trying hard mode might be just what you need. Trust with the group is essential, so the players can trust the GM not to cheat for or against the players, and the GM trusts the players not to hold it against him when bad things happen to their characters. But the end result is very rewarding for those looking for the added difficulty and who are able to rise to the challenge.
]]>Heather presents MMO Haven: How to Elemental!Shaman in 5.2 posted at Backstab to the Face. Heather has tips and tricks for playing an elemental shaman in WoW put together from personal experience. The math of theorycrafting is left to those who prefer to crunch numbers in tandem with playing the game.
NinjaBob117 presents The Illegible Others: Faster Then Light Review posted at The Illegible Others. With a brief review of Faster Than Light, NinjaBob117 lets us know what he thinks of this indie title.
Meg presents ‘Electronic Games’ From The 1980’s posted at Geek Insider. This post has some amazing old magazine articles you have to read. Highlights include when EA didn’t have a reputation for evil, and the idea of gaming over the telephone was new and being explored.
Heather presents Inquisitor Aura’s Escapades: Why PC Gaming Still Rocks posted at Backstab to the Face. Here we have some thoughts on why gaming on PC is still a great choice. Mods is the clear victor for me as the most important reason, but there are plenty of others to go over.
The Dude presents The Quirky Adventures of Dead Island: Riptide (Bugs and Glitches) posted at Glory to Gaming. Here we have some video of some amusing bugs caught in Dead Island: Riptide. You should just click on through for the video and watch it through, because bugs are fun.
That concludes this edition of the Carnival of Video Game Bloggers. Join us next month for more great gaming info. You can use the carnival submission form to submit posts for next month’s carnival. Be sure to check out some of the posts of other submitters and perhaps leave a friendly comment or two if you like their work.
Edit: This is actually the final edition of the Carnival of Video Game Bloggers. At the time of posting this edition, I had not intended it to be the last, but as people say, life happens and people change. More information can be found here.
]]>This is where you guys all come in. Want to have an awesome forum? Then I need your help to make it happen. The forum has been open for about a week while I’ve made adjustments to get a good look and system going. I’ve put a few starter posts in there to see if we can get some discussion started, but a good forum needs people involved to get moving. That means we need more people talking than just me. So head on over to the forum, register an account, and start posting.
Please note, however, that your posts will not show up automatically until one post has been approved by me, or possibly another moderator to be added in the future. I know that’s a pain, and I’m sorry for that. Unfortunately, the forum has already begun attracting a ton of spammers, and I don’t want it to be overrun with ads for knockoff purses and shady transactions with Nigerian princes. The good news is once approved, you’re done and can post as much as you want.
So get yourself over to the forums, make that account, and start some lively discussion.
]]>Perhaps we should back up a step or two though. The reason I’m writing this now is due to remarks made by Vice President Joe Biden about a number of recent violent events. To be fair, his comments have, at times, been taken somewhat out of context, and the crux of it comes down to what he said here. These come in the context of considering the video game tax mentioned above.
“There is no hard data as to whether or not as these excessively violent video games in fact cause people to engage in behavior that is antisocial, including using guns. There is one study done, I think it was the American Academy of Pediatrics, they said if you watch 3 to 6 hours of video games, a lot of kids do that, can lead to aggressive behavior. They didn’t make the next connection saying that leads to violent behavior, but there’s no studies done.”
The problem with these remarks is striking to me. First of all, antisocial behavior is not the same as violent behavior. It means avoiding being social. Second, there have in fact been studies done on this. That said, I’m not against more studies, so long as they are done honestly. It is true that some studies have even linked video games to increased aggression, but not violence. Then, we have these studies below which conclude that video game violence does not lead to real life violence, though most of them do cite a need to further study these conclusions.
First, let’s start with this study from the Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, which found that “adult criminality was best explained by a confluence of genetic and proximal social risk factors. The influence of media exposure on adult criminality was negligible.”
Moving on, we have the study Demolishing the Competition: The Longitudinal Link Between Competitive Video Games, Competitive Gambling, and Aggression which indicates violence in video games does not lead to a rise in aggressive behavior, but competition does. Naturally, competition is a core part of many games, including many violent games. It’s also a core part of many sports and board games, but we aren’t blaming them for violence.
And for now, let’s conclude with one last study, Understanding the Effects of Violent Video Games on Violent Crime, which actually shows an increase in the consumption of violent video games reduces violent crime. As a gamer, this intuitively makes sense to me. When I get angry, it’s nice to vent with a nice hack and slash action game for a bit.
Perhaps in addition to studies, we should bring in an expert or two. We have a former FBI profiler, Mary Ellen O’Toole, who explains, as written in this article on Raw Story, that video games do not cause violent behavior, though they are sometimes studied as part of a risk assessment for if someone will act out violently. This coincides wonderfully with the opinion of MIT Media Scholar Henry Jenkins, who explained as part of his awesome testimony to congress on media violence, that video games and other media are not a cause of violence, but rather that people are drawn to specific forms of media for many varied and complex reasons. There’s also a lot of awareness of other important cultural phenomena in there, and the whole thing is worth the read.
Now that we’ve done the fun work of placing some evidence out there, let’s get back to some opinion. I think Republicans want to push this because video games are an easy scapegoat, and they don’t want us talking about important things like considering revamping our gun laws with some common sense reforms, since this would anger their base. They don’t want us to focus on mental health because that would cost money. And Democrats are happy to go along with this because they want to show they’re considering all sides of the issue, even if one of those sides isn’t the actual problem. Besides which, cracking down on video games is easy political brownie points.
As I alluded to earlier in this piece, I have no ideas with the separate ideas of a tax on video games, nor with helping the victims of violent crime. I have a problem with the implication of that tax. The implication is that our hobby, playing video games, plays a part in the tragedies that result from these violent crimes. Since it’s out fault for liking video games, we should pay directly for the care that goes to these families. This is not true. If we need more money to take care of these families then we should raise it. But we should raise it the same way we raise money for other things we need to take care of in our country, not by punishing a group of people for something that is not our fault or the fault of the video games we play.
]]>