What Happens in Vegas…

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So after 5 days in Vegas, I’m wrecked.  Came pretty close to the budget I thought (about 2K, flight and all) so that’s good.

Vegas, if you’re there for the typical Vegas Bash, is such an exaggeration it nears the absurd.  Anything you want to do – shoot machine guns, swim with animals, swim, watch movies, see Monet, hooters everywhere and drugs aplenty – are at your disposal with the right amount of cash on hand.  It’s uncompromising debauchery and the Sin City earns it’s name.

I did have a good group of guys to head down with and that’s what kept the time fun.  If you’re laughing all the time, then it’s all good.

Some interesting points:

  • Smoking everywhere.  Coming from a smoke-free city (heck country practically) this made me nauseous indoors
  • Every woman under 30 dresses like a hooker past 10pm.  The only way to tell them apart is the regular women can’t walk in 8 inch heels.
  • People bring newborns/infants out on the street at 1am
  • You can get cheap food if you look hard enough.  Quick food is expensive though (10$ for 2 coffees)
  • There is Vegas at 7am, Vegas at noon, Vegas at 10pm and Vegas at 2am.  They are 4 different cities.
  • Prepare to walk – alot – if you’re not in the middle of the strip.  Even then.
  • Vegas off-strip is incredibly poor and in shambles.  Quite the contrast.
  • There are next to no quiet spots.
  • If you’re female and in a bar, you’ll get asked to go to a room.  Even if you’re sitting with someone else.
  • If you’re in a group of males, expect working women and drugs to be offered
  • I didn’t see/hear any slot machines go off for the 5 days and I was in the casinos a lot.  That struck me as odd since the lone casino here seems to have at least 1 machine ring an hour – even for small amounts.
  • Booze and food, in the typical american fashion, is served in large amounts.  Drinks have 3-4 ounces of liquor.  Food plates could feed a family of 3.
  • Every service person has a smile and is polite.  Guess they know they can be replaced with ease and a smile makes money.
  • Food budget should be around 100$ per day for mid-range food.  A half-decent restaurant will be 75-150$ per meal though.

Did it, don’t regret it, won’t go back.

Netflix

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So I finally decided to give Netflix a try.  Reason is simple, Rogers and Blockbuster are gone, so it’s nigh impossible to get a movie now unless I want to buy it.  Online movies typically require planning, having to download the entire thing before watching.  Zip gives you access to a small subset and you have to wait for it to show up at the door.  Plus, at 8$ a month, it’s cheaper than any other option (other than pirating).

Now the downside is significant, the library at Netflix is much smaller than any other outlet.  Want to watch Indiana Jones? Too bad.  Star Wars?  Nope.  Mission Impossible 3?  Not likely.  You do get things you won’t get elsewhere though.  Conan, BBC Sherlock, Chitty  Chitty Bang Bang (heh).

As a movie distributor, I have to be wondering exactly how I can get home sales up.  Rogers and Bell offer home videos through their cable services but only recent releases and nearly no TV shows – plus the price is absurd.  Hulu doesn’t exist up here and Netflix is the only true movie distribution service all Canadians have access to.  How do we get more?  Boxee isn’t so much a service as a portal for existing content.  I tried it and it’s essentially a web browser that comes with links to cable channel’s web content (like watch.spacecast.com). It’s a shortcut, not a service,

Would I pay more for more selection?  Probably, to a certain point.  Would I pay a premium for some films?  Likely a 1-2$ fee for new releases.  Perhaps give people a credit for the month and they can purchase more for premium movies.  If I was working for Netflix, I would be knocking on every door out there to increase my catalogue and trounce any possible competition. Especially before Hulu or another service comes along.

Nearly everyone has internet and the majority can stream high quality content.  Netflix is 75% of traffic in the peak TV hours.  The road is ahead of us and the true trailblazers are going to make a killing.

Grimrock Finished

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I finished Legend of Grimrock last night.  Took about a week but I’d push the number of hours near 20.  It has been a long while since I’ve been so engrossed in a single player, closed-end RPG.  Like Icewind Dale/Baldur’s Gate era.  Skyrim/Fallout don’t count since they are open-ended and are, in my opinion, a form of PC crack.

Regardless!  Grimrock has its faults as some have pointed out.  Combat is more of a dance than the typical stand-and-smash affair that some are used to.  It can get boring for some when the combat is 1v1 but anyone in combat past floor 9 cannot call combat boring.  The last boss is the most insane boss fight since Ninja Gaiden.  You know how Deus Ex had absolutely stupid boss fights that broke face from the rest of the game?  Grimrock has a unique boss, with a unique mechanic that is thematically relevant and not out of place.  Plus, it’s damn cool.

If I did have a gripe to give it would be that you don’t level up enough.  I mean, it’s comparable to the power you gain while in a typical D&D campaign if not a bit more – I finished near level 12 – but when you get 4 points per level, have access to 6 skills and each reaches a max of 50, you’re barely scratching the surface of customization.  I don’t want to walk around like a god but my 2 warriors were practically identical in terms of stats even though I tried to split them up.

There are additional balance issues that work into this leveling paradigm.  Weapon skills aren’t different enough other than speed.  Magic is cumbersome until you really invest into a given skill.  Weight Management is more akin to food management.  There are only 9 types of monsters (excluding the last boss), though they are all quite different.  It’s impossible to backstab as you can’t sneak, invalidating one complete skill tree (except for the points that let you attack from range with melee).  Ranged attacks are much too weak – even with skill points.  Yet the game isn’t about optimization – it’s about trial and error.  You never reach a point where any of these factors impedes you from progress.  Compared to the MMO world, that’s saying something.

The best part – and for this I think everyone who plays will agree – is the puzzles.  Each floor has 7-10 different puzzles and rarely do they repeat. Some need you to be in the dark, others you need to move in certain patterns, others you need to carefully navigate teleports.  Everyone feels novel and when you complete one, you feel a sense of accomplishment.  This “sectioning” of the floors provides the same “encounter” feeling from the D&D campaign.  Bite size pieces that don’t completely overwhelm you with a dozen options.  The designers on this facet deserve a huge pat on the back.

All said and done if you haven’t played this game you’re doing yourself a great disservice.  It’s one of the best RPGs I have played in many years.

Where are all the games?

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Talking to my brother the other day, I realized I hadn’t used my Wii in about 2 years, my 360 in well over a year and sparsely use my PS3.  Even my PC games are limited (though I play them more for the mobility).

Here’s a list of the PS3 games I’ve played in the last 12 months.

  • Uncharted 3
  • Batman: Arkham City
  • Infamous 2
  • Deus Ex

The kicker is that they all came out within 30 days of each other.  I did get Skyrim on my PC (the bugs on consoles and lack of mods is annoying) but other than that, I can’t think of another PS3 game I would want.  I dislike FPS games and CoD is one of the worst offenders.  I won’t by any more EA games, so Mass Effect is off the table.  Kingdoms of Amalur is an EA game too and sounds pretty good but it’s cut.

I’m left with indy games and MMOs.  SWTOR was a breath of fresh air while leveling and then tried to compete in a saturated market at max level.  Rift is solid.  WoW has some crack thing going for it, where everything just works.  Grimrock is crazy solid fun.  Remanum has a nice market game (and I love numbers).  There just seems to be less to look forward to, though perhaps it’s just nostalgia.

Good Old Games has made a lot of money off me, simply because the games there are almost all AAA quality, take hours to complete and really contrast the crap that we have to wade through these days.  Odd that I look forward to the past.

Mor Tor

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SWTOR patch 1.2 hit and then bugged out the servers.  People got a free day of play.  Those players who were not level 50 and didn’t get a free month of play now do – pending the fact that they are at legacy level 6.  On top of that, I got an email this week saying I can play for free until Saturday. Then if I re-sub by the 22nd, I get another free month.

Holy bananas Batman!  I’m certainly not against free play time and correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t SWTOR < 4 months old?  Had I kept my original sub, I would have payed for 3 months and gotten 2 free ones.  I think only FF14 comes close to value for dollar in that regard.

1.2 added the Legacy system (which was supposed to be in at launch), a new dungeon and a new raid.  There are some changes to crafting, in order to make it actually worthwhile to do at 50.  Up until this point, every system in the game stopped providing value at 49.  Then you needed to grind dungeons for anything useful.  PvP still has some serious issues, though gearing is a bit better.  Some guild tools are in, which again, should have been in a while ago.  Still a broken AH 😦

I don’t necessarily want SWTOR to fail – quite the opposite in fact.  The entire subscription MMO market is depending on some moderate success for this game, otherwise we won’t see another until Blizzard’s Titan (if that’s not F2P to start).  Mind you, if it does fail, I wouldn’t mind Rift taking up the players.  They are putting out patch 1.9 shortly, with even more content – fishing is in!  How is it that they are so friggin’ agile in development, with admittedly fewer resources and the two big boys on the block are on 4-6 month cycles?

Perhaps not today but once the next WoW expansion hits and 2 months go without any additional content we’re going to see a shift in the MMO space.  Guild Wars 2, The Secret World, Rift and the entire F2P market all have faster content machines and charge less to access it.  WoW costs ~180$ per year and you’re lucky if you get 2 content patches (there have been 3 since Oct 2011 – 18 months).  You’re paying 60$ per patch or you could be paying 20$ per for Rift, 10-20$ for any F2P game.  Heck, Grimrock is giving me dozens of hours of content for 15$.

Come on BioWare.  Show us you can manage an MMO.  Show us you want our money.  Show us you invested in more than voice overs and actually planned ahead.  Please.

System Complexity

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Sometimes complexity is a good thing, sometimes it isn’t.  WoW has had issues with this concept since launch, though the recent expansion has really focused more on the increase of this concern.

When the game initially launched, the variable DPS loads were less based on gear and more on rotation. Certainly raid gear helped but resistances got you through.  Rotations were key and a lot of classes simply sat out entire raids because they were non competitive.  The rotations themselves were fairly simple too, 3-4 buttons.

Add on a few expansions and we get to Lich King with some additional mechanics (hit/armor penetration, expertise) and the distribution moved onto gear rather than actual rotations.  Hunters topped DPS charts not because of their rotations (though it helped) but because they stacked armor penetration to absurd amounts.  Most classes were at a 6 button rotation, heck even paladins had a meme about it.  This was a simple time.

Cataclysm removed armor penetration and implemented Mastery – a stat with differing effects, per class and spec.  Rogues either increased poison damage, increases off-hand attacks or increased finishing move damage.  Some were better than others, some were completely ignored.  Skill bloat, more talents, more stats brought out optimal rotations not only based on talent choices but on gear levels.  At specific levels of mastery or crit, you changed your rotation for some classes.  Some specs were optimal in area effect fights, some were mobile, some were burst.  A single class might need to swap between them on each boss.

This added layer of complexity is confusing at first and frustrating later on.  If I say you have 5 things to remember in a fight and they are all DPS related, how do you manage to move out of the fire, turn around, attack the adds and press the clicky too?  This is why the Looking For Raid tool was so effective, it brought down the bar for DPS requirements to a point where people could press 1-2 buttons and get through content.  You could do 50% less damage than you would in a heroic raid and succeed.  Swap to the heroic raid though and each attack was required.  Drop 5% from optimal and you were nearly assured a wipe.

I won’t argue for or against complex/simple systems – each has their place.  What I will argue against is using both systems on the same target audience.  Shamans have it fairly easy with 3 things to remember. Good players and bad ones tend to group near the same DPS numbers.  Warlocks (as in the link) have 12-15 things to remember.  This means that there is a huge difference between the bad ones and the good ones.  This variance makes the class less attractive on the whole and specifically less attractive if the best played are still sub-optimal.  If I have to press 10 buttons to do X DPS and a mage only has to press 5 and does more DPS than I do, why am I playing a warlock in the first place?  Taking it a step further, if a hybrid class can heal and DPS at the same level as I can, why play a DPS only class?

It must be quite the challenge from the design point of view.  You need to put in the right amount of complexity to make a class attractive (not boring), competitive (+/- 5%) yet not so overly complex that you need to practice 8 hours a day to come close to optimal.

Mists of Pandaria is taking an interesting approach of providing more diversity between classes – essentially expanding the issue while trying to simplify it.  Warlocks are being practically re-written.  Monks will heal by punching people in the face.  If you’re only optimal while attacking, what happens when you can’t attack (a Rogue issue for years)?  When do you say “the line is here, we will not cross it?”

Classic RPGs

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I’ve been reading quite a lot about nostalgia in regards to older RPG games.  The thing about nostalgia is that it’s quite often seen with rose colored glasses.  See any recent MMO launch being compared to WoW at launch for a great example.

Still, there is something to be said about older games.  XCOM is still one of the best games (if not the best) I have ever played and I played it again a couple years ago with the same dread turning corners.  FF6 (or 3 here) is my absolute favorite Final Fantasy.  I played that for hundreds of hours over the years.  Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana are right next to it, with the former on my DS and iPhone.  Look at today’s RPGs though and most are forgettable.  In an age where MMOs rule the RPG market, the single player versions feel like they need to sell games to everyone, when they actually disappoint everyone.

Dragon Age: Origins,  Bioware’s first 3D foray into the D&D realm, was met with great reviews, a lot of sales and happy fans.  Sure, there were pacing issues but on the whole, the system worked rather well.  Dragon Age 2, taking a more action-oriented approach, alienated critics and fans and sold poorly (compared to the first).  It was a dumbed down approach, rushed out the gate and made to appeal to a wider audience.  Which it didn’t.

FFXII was a drastic break from X.  It was practically an MMO in terms of mechanics and that threw a lot of people off.  It was a dance rather than a strategy.  FFXIII was a joke of “press A to win” with pure MMO roles.  The days of everyone attacking, using the proper abilities at the right time seem to be gone.  Either you’re a tank (literally taunting the enemy), a healer or some other niche role.  There’s no strategy there, the game is cake.

When I look back to the classics very few western games make the cut.  Ultima is one, though only the middle of the pack.  It was less about numbers and more about choices, which in the end, is exactly what an RPG should be about.  Fallout is another one, where the balance between combat and dialogue was perfect.  Baldur’s Gate is another example but that’s 100% D&D, not a true IP.

Japanese games though, wow.  Grinding comes out of that country but something happened during the 90s to smooth the curve.    If I compare The Dark Spire’s encounter rate (1/5 steps) and the need to grind to move on next to Chrono Cross’ open-ended, easy play style there’s a huge difference.  Then again, the Dark Spire (or Dragon Quest I guess) is less about the story and more about the fights.  The Chrono series has always had a great balance between what’s happening outside and inside of combat.  Pacing of it all just seems to make the experience enjoyable.  Your choices matter.  You had a vested interest in your characters, who all had multiple dimensions of depth.

If you’ve played FF6, try and explain Terra’s character and progression.  Then, compare that to Lightning in FF13.  Heck, Robo in Chrono Trigger has more exposition than Balthier in FF12 – all without voice overs or cutscenes.

Today’s RPGs are RPGs in title only.  In the end, there’s not much difference between the latest Batman game and World of Warcraft – mechanically.  You learn a dance, repeat that dance, win the game.  Except Batman has a decent story, defined success criteria and a reward for completing something other than yet another mountain to climb.

There’s something to be said for the simple mechanics of older games.  I didn’t need a 30 second cutscene to show me how powerful my characters were.  Beating a boss 6 times your size, just scraping by, learning a new methods of combat was super rewarding.  If I was to play only that I can see how I would get bored at some point, which explains the MMO fatigue to a degree.

The classics are classics for a reason – they are good if not great games.  They make you want to come back time and again.  The things they have in common are magic and when you find it, you remember it and cherish it.  Maybe we have to go through more rocks today to find those diamonds but when we do, boy does it put a smile on my face.

Ranked PvP

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So patch 1.2 for SWTOR is around the corner and one of the much bally-hooed features is being removed at the last minute (the patch is today, the message yesterday) – ranked PvP.  This is the ability of the game to group players based on their rank (PvP level) and therefore let fresh (level 0) 50s have a chance against level 60 (in PvP terms) 50s.

The cool thing SWTOR did for PvP from 1-49 is that the playing field is fairly even.  Everyone has the same HP, power levels are the same, weapons are adjusted to be pretty close, same with armor.  Basically, the only real difference between a level 8 in PvP and a level 45 is the amount of skills available.  It’s not uncommon for a level 12 Bounty Hunter to go on a rampage.

What SWTOR does poorly (and I admit all PvE games do this) is include a PvP stat that increases your damage done, damage absorbed and healing done/taken.  By 15%, per stat. To get that gear, you need to be max level in PvP and have enough tokens to buy it.  Which you should easily have from the amount of time it took to get there.  The difference is that on an even playing field, you have a ~50% chance of winning, which grants higher PvP experience.  When you start putting fresh 50s in a zone with “old” 50s, you get washes.  I’ve seen 3 people try to kill a single player (who was not getting healed) and all of them died.  This isn’t a performance issue, this is a stat issue.

WoW and Rift both allow ranked PvP but they also allow cross-server PvP, which SWTOR doesn’t.  I’m guessing that’s the true hurdle here – which is also why there’s still no LFG tool.  Interestingly, TERA announced this week they will have an LFG tool, making SWTOR the only subscription based PvE MMO on the market without that feature.

Oh, and 1.2 is 6 weeks late.  Here’s hoping the legacy stuff they put in keeps players in their seats.

Oldschool is Newschool

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It’s no secret I love RPGs.  There’s just something about the numbers and the randomness that’s attractive.  Plus, the instant save/reload to try that damn enemy once more and beat that RNG!

I think the oldschool aspect – not seeing your character, the 4 directions of movement, pure numbers, hard difficulty – really simplifies the RPG down to it’s basics.  Dark Spire scratched my itch a few years back on the DS and that was truly a D&D RPG with all the limits you’d expect.  Nice and portable, brutally hard, complicated mechanics.  I loved every minute of the pain.

Legend of Grimrock  is a PC game that came out today and though it isn’t as hardcore in terms of lack of detail it makes up in oodles of atmosphere.  You can hear that spider crawling around you but you can’t see it.  Checking every wall for a secret nook.  Avoiding the rampaging troll at the last second.   There’s no town and no vendor.  Just you and the never ending floors.  A neat take on magic is that you need to select glyphs to cast a spell but you need to learn the spell first from a scroll.  It slows down magic casting a bit but since magic ALWAYS hits, its a pretty powerful thing to manage.

There are only fighters, mages and rogues and you’re set in a 2×2 formation, with the front 2 taking all attacks until one dies.  You have 4 races, with humans the jack of all trades, minotaurs the tanks/beefs, lizardmen as the rogues and insectoids as mages.  You get 4 skill points per level and get to invest into one of 6 linear skill trees (with a cap of 50 per).  Spend enough points, unlock new stats, benefits, resists or abilities.  There’s a certain amount of planning needed for each role, which is a blast.

Traps, hidden switches, teleports – fun stuff to make the levels different.  Even though the levels look familiar, there’s always something to push you forward.  A minor goal of unlocking a door or solving a puzzle splits the zone into smaller pockets, making it a series of adventures rather than a slosh through endless enemies.

It’s too bad more companies don’t do something as simple and effective as Grimrock.  I’m getting tired of the action adventure/rpg mishmash, with just a drop of RPG.  The basics can be hardcore, oldschool but still a lot of fun.  More please!