Grimmtooth's Troops

Today, Blizzard released two trailers for our enjoyment.  The first, for WoW Patch 5.2.

I wanna make one observation.  The voice of the narrator is the same horrid, insulting mock-Chinese that we’ve heard elsewhere.

Yeah, that’s them.

So George Lucas gets all sorts of hate and grief for using these stupid racial stereotypes, but Blizzard gets s free pass? Guys?

Can we move on from this crap?

Maybe this guy can report it for you when it happens.

The other trailer is for Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm.

So, can someone tell me why Sarah Kerrigan still wears high heels into battle? Can somebody explain to me why her mutated Zerg form also has high heels? Can somebody explain to me why all the guys are wearing tank-grade armor while she’s in form-fitting catsuit armor?

Much work, still to do.

Everybody knows how awesome Hunters are¹. But nobody’s actually put it to song, as far as I know.

Until now.

The merry miscreants at Warcraft Hunters Union² have come up with a little something. Consider it the hunter community’s Winter Veil present to you. Go forth and thank them.

1. This is why we keep telling people, to get the word out. It’s one of many services we provide. [↩]
2. I don’t usually link there because, you know, gold ads.  But I had to make this exception. [↩]

I was saying just the other day how the game can catch you unawares with little things that make you chuckle or simply laugh out loud. I’m going to classify the quest Hozen Love Their Keys as one of those. I can help but wonder if the end of the quest was a subtle nod to the ending of a certain movie that came out this year.

Gonna go meta for a few, please bear with.

Trigger Warning: references to rape and rape culture beyond the cut.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve gotten plenty of turns through Stormstout Brewery at this point, and something always amuses me near the end …

Now, I don’t know about you, but I get this image in my head:

Our very own hecklers! Well, played, Blizz.

I very often see long mournful faces gathered around a mournful CEO as yet another MMO was closed for cash-flow problems. Equally so, I often see angry players complain that whatever game they’re playing is advancing in areas that they have no interest or appreciation for, such as a bunch of those F2P Korean grindfests that people play because, well, they’re free.These sort of things embody what’s wrong with the MMO game market – not design, balance, subscription model, sharding approach, or what-have-you. What’s missing is focus on what a game’s all about – having fun, or, more precisely, caring about having fun.

Here’s a thought: I’ve never heard of an MMO closed because it wasn’t fun. As long as people show up for a F2P grindfest and buy powerups at the cash shop, that game will keep on going no matter how miserable the experience.

I’ve seen many closed that were fun, but not meeting cash flow requirements. City of Heroes and Tabula Rosa are just two among many; games that people adored, but weren’t given the chance to get traction, or find its feet after changing to F2P, or whatever other transitions it just weathered¹.

Let’s be clear – there’s a line between "a gigantic money pit" and "not as profitable as WoW."  On the side of the former, well, yeah, you’ve got to close out a game that’s bleeding cash, especially if you’ve done all you can to keep it going.

But that’s not always what happens. Often a game is doing badly, but adjusting expectations downward, adjusting the schedule – horrors, adjusting the workforce! – often these things can take a bleeding property into moderate profitability. 

"Moderate profitability" is of course opposite of what the CEO was pitching to the money men last year – he was probably pitching "dirty stinking rich" – so the money men – the CFO especially – are questioning whether it’s valid to keep the game open.

But the one thing they almost never ask is whether the people that play it think it’s worth saving.  Or if they have fun when they play it.  And that’s a shame.

The Flip Side

In a moment of serendipity, Lonomonkey at Screaming Monkeys is having similar thoughts, but he’s focusing on the responsibility of players to reward those those games worth saving. In his case, he’s looking at The Secret World, which is indeed in dire straits because of what I think are premature expectations of success.  Lono figures people aren’t coming to it because they’re hung up on sword-and-board fantasy settings, which TSW is assuredly not.

I mentioned premature expectations; a lot of people, including people at Funcom, had pie in the sky expectations that this game would take off right away.  I looked at it, and it looks fun. But it will take time to get traction because it’s not easy to gauge a game without a common frame of reference, and this one doesn’t have one².

Quite honestly, this game is going to need a few months, maybe a quarter, to get enough traction to even keep the servers paid for.  Funcom did a disservice to everyone by giving false expectations there.  They should have seen this learning curve on the gaming world’s part coming a mile away. Hell, they have the poster child for this sort of thing in the form of Anarchy Online.  It also faced indirect competition against EQ, and it took going F2P and a couple of years before the system was really self-sustaining. 

But it was worth it.

For the regular denizens of Rubi-ka, it was well worth it. AO’s Rogue-like personal instances, it’s shifting warfront, its wide open spaces, etc. The designers had a game they believed in, they convinced the suits to hang in there, and they’ve kept that thing running for more than a decade as a result.  The players came as the bugs were ironed out, the servers were stabilized, and things were fleshed out.

Imagine if WoW had gotten the short shrift that some of these other games are getting.  WoW 1.0.0 was a mess, about as stable as a cab driver stuck behind two old men in a 1977 Buick Skylark. But people loved the game, the lore, the spirit. They had fun playing it, when it stayed up, and the developers wanted people to have fun playing it, so WoW got a chance. Oh, I realize that Blizzard had deeper pockets than anyone else at the time, but in today’s environment, such an unstable game, even from Blizz, would be in jeopardy³.

First things First

Even in my most cynical moments, I believe people like Greg Street when he says that they’re trying to find ways to play the game that are "more fun."  They know that fun games bring in people, and those people bring money. But they prioritize the fun first, not the monies.

Contrast with such cynical properties as Zynga⁴. They don’t care about fun or innovation. They care about clicks, and keeping people busy.  This is not a guess. The CEO has said this on many occasions.  Such companies don’t deserve to be called "game companies" in my opinion. They aren’t interested in making games. They are interested in prying money out of your wallet, and the game is the tool they use to pry with.

A Challenger Appears

Lono got rebuked by Tobold over the post I referenced earlier, claiming that TSW’s problems were that it was a bad game, not that it wasn’t receiving the support of the people that loved it. Or more to the point, it wasn’t receiving support because it was a bad game.  To Tobold, the innvation of the story, environment, and genre were insignificant compared to the technical shortcomings. Need I point out that this is another Funcom property, and we’re all pretty well aware that Funcom may not get the technical aspects right on the first try, but that they do eventually clean it up.

Now, nobody needs to tell this to Tobold. He’s been around the industry long enough to know this. But he chooses to interpret things differently⁵.  Maybe he’s one of those people that still holds a grudge over the AO launch fiasco. I don’t know. But what is apparent is that he’s chosen to judge this game on the technical aspect rather than the part that matters in good game design – the core concept behind it. 

The rest of that technical stuff is a solvable puzzle.  Software has bugs. Balance issue happen. That sort of thing. This is all just the technical frosting on the core design cake.

The core design – that’s for life. Get that wrong, and it’s all over. Get it right, and a passionate playerbase will sustain you for years.

"Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes down to the bone." – some guy

1. Well, to be fair, it’s been over a year since CoH went F2P, but it doesn’t seem like it! [↩]
2. BoingBoing’s obsession aside, the majority of the gaming world is not in love with Lovecraftian horror fantasy.  Though they might learn to like it given time. C wut I did thar? [↩]
3. I’m looking at STWOR here. Big studio. Bit distro. Big release. Unfortunate issues. Outlook uncertain. [↩]
4. No link. I’m not an enabler. [↩]
5. There are many reasons he’s no longer in my blogroll. This deliberate obtusnes of his is one of them. [↩]

Felicia Day and the mighty troops of The Guild are back to serenade us with a new music video, and it rocks, as you might expect from such a fine group of geeks.

Seriously, what’s not to like about a song with the phrase "ass-hat jocks" in the refrain?

Not too long ago I was pondering over how I find myself enmeshed so often in feminist causes.  I’m a dude, as has been noted, I started out that way and I plan on ending up that way, hope that’s all right with everyone. Yet I find myself very sympathetic to feminist causes.

Eventually I realized that usually what got me going was the topic of harassment, sexual or otherwise – but, obviously, in the context of feminism, sexual harassment is a huge issue.  Harassment is key here, and something I find common cause in, I realized. This all forms a huge layer cake of misery, in which the layers we’re looking at are sexual harassment, harassment in general, and bullying – which is where I came in.

Bullying has gotten a little bit of attention lately due to some deaths brought to light by the families of the victims and others. It’s interesting watching the reactions across various strata of society. It is generally agreed that the deaths are regrettable, even tragic, and wrongful. Less prevalent is whole-hearted support for the victims.  There almost seems to be a feeling from these people that the victims did something … wrong.

Sound familiar?

A lot of the people that can’t somehow find a way to fully support the victims (now and future) perhaps are bothered by the past, maybe they are ashamed of being victims in the past. Or maybe the regret implicit support of the bullies, by just going along with it. Just letting it happen. Watching that poor kid open his mouth in protest just one more time and getting floored for having the temerity. And doing nothing, because it’s the highest blade that gets trimmed first.

Harassment, then, and especially sexual harassment, are nothing more than bullying.  I was lucky. I was bullied for years, and it was often submitted that I was the problem for not submitting to whatever demands the authorities thought I was rebelling against.  I’m not sure what demands I was to submit to when I tried to go home and six burly rednecks blocked the school gate and dared me to try to push through.

One day I left home and started choosing who I kept company with.  I was able to get myself out of that bad situation, and, eventually, return back home without fear.  But not everyone is so fortunate as I.  If I had not been able to help myself as I did, I shudder to think what my life would have been like.  I may have well surrendered to despair, as well, like those poor kids on the news.

And that right there is my point of solidarity with the feminist cause, because one key is to create a world where women can stand proudly in the world without fear of being targeted, harassed, and bullied just for being female, any more than I was for being short and nearsighted.

A long time ago (relatively), I named the blog Empowered Fire as one of the best-named blogs in recent times; a blog centered on feminism and magery, an excellent combination.  That blog fell silent.  I didn’t find out until later that one of the two bloggers there was undergoing a serious bout of sexual harassment from a former friend in WoW, and that in the end the bully won a small victory and shut them down indirectly. It could have easily turned out far, far, worse, and almost nobody would have known.

I am thrilled and gratified that the blogger now known as Apple Cider decided to pick back up and rejoin the WoW blogosphere, to blog on the same topics. She is brave and wonderful and fights the good fight.

Harassment in-game or out is serious business. It gives us all a black eye if we let it happen around us, for fear of reprisal or just out of a desire not to rock the boat. We are diminished every time we lose someone to the bullies. Friends will find other things to do if they feel uncomfortable around our fabled halls.

If you are not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem¹.

1. Or the precipitate. [↩]

"I realise there is a portion of the gaming fraternity for whom getting online and talking racist, sexist, homophobic smack talk is part of the fun, but they are not my community and I’m not interested in any websites which actively engage with them. I’m also not interested in playing any games with them. LTM (learn to moderate)."

– Spinks

That in a nutshell will do for me, as well. Well said, succinctly put, madam Spinks.

Go boldly amidst the noise and haste of LFD, and enjoy what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without grinding, be on good terms with all factions. Speak your strats quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the l33tsauce and the preeners; they too can serve as examples.

Avoid loud and spammy persons, they are vexations to /Y. If you compare yourself with others players, you may become vain or bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser gearscore than yours.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your gear plans. Keep interested in your main, however boring dailies may be; this is a real asset in the changing endgame raid tier.

Exercise caution in on the AH; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what deals there are; many persons strive for undercuts; and everywhere life is full of profit.

Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about your guild; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as constant as the stars.

Take kindly the counsel of experience, gracefully surrendering the gear of youth. Nurture PvP gear to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many wipes are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the Titans, no less than the Gnomes and the Dwarves; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt lore is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with Metzen, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your Transmog set. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful virtual world. Be cheerful.

Strive to cap your VP.

(With apologies)