Trying To Get Ranked

My little MMO project I mentioned last time is not going as planned. We only can work out maybe one night a week to try to play. The previous week we had technical difficulties, and this week my friend was sick. We have, however, settled on a game. We're going to give Neverwinter a try. Consensus is that it may be the best for leisurely questing.

On the solo side of things, I was finally able to cap my summoner in the League of Legends. Level 30 opens me to the "end game" that is Ranked Play. Apparently, you need to own at least 16 champions in order to participate in ranked games. So I had to purchase a smorgasbord of champions to fill up my stable. I was glad I'd been playing ARAM, as I had a bunch I knew that I sort of enjoyed. I also picked up a few of the cheap ones that weren't awful.

As fate would have it, the very first ranked game I queue up for, I end up being the captain. This means I'm responsible for banning three champions in order to prevent "OP" characters from being used. I have to admit, I was completely out of my element. I know what I like to play, but I have no concept of what is "OP." In my opinion, it depends a whole bunch on the person playing the champion.

So, I asked, "Thoughts on banning?" There were a few minor squabbles, but I got good recs from the team. We lost that first game, but no one whined about "why didn't you ban so and so?" Communication saves the day, right?

The second ranked game I played, I was picked Captain again. Go figure. Again I asked. Again I got good recs (though by this time I was starting to recognize the "trendy" things to do). We won this game, and all was right in the League.

The third game, I was finally out of the hot seat. We won that, too. So I'm sitting 2-1, 7 games to go before I'm fully qualified to be ranked. (I think it takes 10, right?)

I like asking the team, even if already know who you want to ban. It promotes communication and can help a team get off the ground. It doesn't always work, and there will always be asshats, but I don't think it can really hurt. Haters gon' hate, whether or not you are polite and ask them for help.

For the curious, so far I've only been playing Morgana in my ranked games. I'm best with her, she's incredibly flexible (mid, support, apc are all viable roles... even sort of tanky), and no one has been banning her. I've been positive in my k/d/a ratio so far, so I think that's pretty solid. Even in the loss, I was the sole bright spot!

How Are Gamers Born In The Wild?

I may have more to write about in the days to come. I know you're all excited. A friend and I are going to try to start playing an MMO together. She wants it to be "like WoW," but F2P. And is has to run on her old laptop with an Intel Mobile R965 graphics chipset. I mention that second bit because we were originally going to try Rift, but it wouldn't run. I was surprised. I hadn't even thought to check on her specs.

Looking into, it seems that most other F2P MMOs will run, but not necessarily run well. Also, when pressed for more criteria than "like WoW," I didn't get anything really that narrowed the list. I think we're looking for a good duo questing experience. Any ideas?

Going back to Aion or SWTOR are both on my list. Maybe dabbling in LOTRO or DDO. Rift is out. WoW is out (by virtue of being sub). She wasn't interested in Sci-Fi (TOR got a pass because it's more like fantasy Sci-Fi) or urban fantasy settings. We're talking regular old fantasy. She said she liked that "you could be all kinds of different people." I asked, "You mean, like classes? They all have that."

I was attempting to be less than patronized, but I'm pretty sure I missed my mark. Any of you have experience trying to game with, basically, a non-gamer? What would be fun for casual play? How does one birth a gamer in the wild?

Sub-Free

I did a bad thing last night. Well, at least it felt bad. Sorta. I cancelled my WoW sub last night.

Truth be told, it was rather uneventful. I do not have any rage, I just can no longer keep up. My gaming time is spent on Sim City (now that I can get in) and a variety of pick-up-and-play games. LoL will happen from time to time. They seem to be making Assassin's Creed games quicker than I can finish them. (That had never, ever been a problem before, but I guess it happens.)

As long-time readers probably know/can guess... there were a myriad of personal reasons that really pushed me to this. It's not dissatisfaction with the game. I've had to turn a lot of my energy in upon myself to heal and rebuild things that were horribly broken. Life does that sometimes. Better to have loved and lost and all that.

In previous posts I mentioned continuing to write here. I still plan to do that. This is not a "good bye" post. I'm merely pointing out that I'm sub-free for the first time in almost a decade.

Specific to WoW, I realized that I don't have much of a desire to raid or do end-gamey stuff. I may jump back in during a boring month and muck around, but that simply depends on if time finds me. I'm no longer going to make the time. My character will be there waiting, so it seemed wise to save myself $15/mo that I really wasn't using.

Feel free to keep me in the WoW loop via comments. Otherwise, I'll probably be talking about random games. (Right now, baffling worker shortages are on my mind, for you Sim City players. What is up with that? The algorithm has to be screwed up, right? But hey, at least I can play reliably now...)

Much love to all of you that have shared Azeroth with me over the years. I'll be lurking!

Token Friday Post

You know it's been a rough week of work when you're only now thinking about squeezing in a post on Friday afternoon, while everyone else is winding down. I didn't get much gaming in, either. I've been a bit sick, so instead of playing late, I did the mature thing and went to bed early.

Maturity is overrated sometimes.

What little gaming time I have had has been spent on League of Legends. (Have had has... ugh. My sentence structure is even lazy today.) I'm still avoiding WoW, anxiously awaiting 5.2. The major thing LoL has going for it right now is that I can get on and take part in a forcefully finite task in just about an hour. There is an expected (and, thus, plan-able) timeframe. I logon to WoW right now and it's ZOMG CAN DO ALL THE THINGS still.

The new patch will ultimately allow a casual like me to make fewer choices. Logon. Run a heroic. Work on dat rep. Heroics generally time in at about an hour as well, so it adheres to the plan-able idea. I could also likely do LFR, though it generally takes longer. I'm mostly tired of dailies. They're okay, but just not engaging enough for one of my precious gaming hours. Dailies are more like something I don't mind doing when I have a movie on at the same time. Or a sporting event.

Also, there's the fact that I can't really buy much to help me until I top off some reps. So running more active stuff just brings me closer to capping points that I can't even spend. I just hope I can gear myself adequately enough to experience all of the content. That's really my goal at this point in time. I'm not raiding regularly, and I don't think I'd be able to put in the time to be a good raider. Checking things out via LFR is just fine by me.

It also means that my only encouragement to grind for gear dies as soon as I've cleared the available LFR content. Why farm when your only aspirations are to unlock the next queue tier? I'm not topping any meters anytime soon (though I hold my own, I'm proud to say).

Anyway, I threw a little ACIII in for good measure, but mostly slept a lot this week. I guess you'll have that. Hopefully I'll have more to say about 5.2...

Aff'lock Leveling Guide and a Musing

I've never done a leveling guide, but stumbled across a good one here several moons ago. Just wanted to give a quick shout out to it. Great work Psynister. Hopefully my generic title will net some Google searches and send them your way. You know, if they don't get there without my shoddy help.

In other news, I've been busy being social. Read: not gaming. Sadly. Being social is hard work.

I have been playing some League of Legends. I'll say this for LoL vs WoW. It is far, far easier to casually play a game like LoL. I can pick up, play a game in about an hour, and feel like I've accomplished something. Even when we get rolled.

In WoW, I can't play for just an hour. Oh, sure, I could force myself with a timer or something (and I usually do that), but you log in, start doing dailies, queue up... and all of a sudden it's 1AM. This isn't always a bad thing, but it is when I'm already feeling a bit sleep deprived. LoL has a built in cut-off time.

I'm looking forward to patch 5.2, when we'll be able to earn rep through dungeon runs. I think part of my difficult with the current incarnation of WoW is that I feel that I must both grind rep and run dungeons/LFR. I really enjoyed the old tabard system, because you could just make a point of getting on for the sole purpose of running one dungeon. It becomes more like LoL. My personal problem is that I really need to cap some reps before I can actually spend my accumulated points on anything. The patch change helps me in so many ways.

So I'm sandbagging a bit in WoW, waiting for the patch to drop. Until then, LoL is great filler. Also, I should probably progress some more in ACIII. That's another one I can't just sit and play for only an hour though...

GenCon 2012 Report

The end of last week was gloriously busy. I say glorious because it was not due to work, or any other lame time sink. Nay, this was-eth GenCon! We had a blast submersing ourselves in nerd culture for four days. (At what other point will you witness Batman chasing Bane through a local eatery and no one bats an eye?(HA BAT, GET IT?!))

I don't have a lot of time today, as I'm catching up on all the work I missed (I wouldn't say I missed it, Bob), so I just wanted to pass along a quick list of the games I tried for the first time this weekend, and my thoughts on each. I know, I know... these are board games or card games, not video games. Sue me. (Some of you will probably be like: "How have you never played that?!)

Here's the list:

• Puerto Rico - This is a resource game. Lots of little pieces. It also employs, ahem, "brown colonists" to staff your plantations. The game is apparently translated from German and strives for some semblance of historical accuracy. It was a blast to play, even if not exactly PC. (Really, who cares? There are certainly worse games out there.)
• Cards Against Humanity - (... like this one. Nothing PC here.) In case you couldn't tell by the title, this is a card game. It's great party game, and I was doubly interested in trying it out once I learned it was indie-published using Kickstarter to raise the seed money. An awesome idea, rendered beautifully into an extremely playable card game. Grab a beer and some close friends (and probably play this one in a dungeon, because boy did we get some weird looks out in public.)
• Settlers of Catan - Can you believe I've never played this game? Yeah, I couldn't, either. It's always been described to me as sort of the gateway drug to more complex board gaming. For you Catan virgins (like I used to be), this is another resource/building game. Pretty basic. You get resources based on rolls, use them to build things to get more resources, and shoot for victory points in order to end the game.
• True Dungeon (the Lich one) - This isn't a card or board game. Rather, this is D&D brought to life. A life-sized dungeon. (Don't worry, there's no larping here, just regular D&D style gameplay with props and actors.) I really wish there was a year-round True Dungeon. This is a great idea... I just wish I could go regularly with a gaming group, and maybe be less rushed. Maybe I should start a Kickstarter for seed money to buy an old house in the Indy area and turn it into a permanent True Dungeon...
• Dominion - Okay, so I've played this card game before. A lot. We typically play it twice a week during lunch. Still, it bears mentioning because our local card-owner picked up the next expansion. I forget what it was called. We played today with the pretty new base set, though. I love this game. A great deck-building style game... without all of the deck building. That is, you don't need to buy mini-packs to make this game work. You simply pick ten stacks of cards from the sets you own, and off you go! Great, great game.

That was about it. I know, and inauspicious number when listed out like that. We spent a whole bunch of time doing things like eating, walking the vendor hall, eating, attending Brandon Sanderson events, eating, checking out costumes, and eating. Also, we spent some time eating. (Also, drinking was involved.) I'm sure I tried a whole bunch of other games that I don't remember. We looked in on a lot of games, too. Watching other people play is more fun than you'd think.

Anyway, gotta run. Back to the real world and all that. Any other GenConners find a new game they'd like to mention?

GenCon 2012!

I don't get to go to many cons. When my money tree finally bears fruit and I no longer have to uphold this farce I refer to as the Day Job, I would like to attend more cons. I think I've mentioned before my shame at not ever being able to attend Blizzcon. It would be really awesome to attend one of the WoW-blogger meetups and put faces to names that I've long admired and read. Sadly, Blizzcon falls right in the middle of football season, and as a coach, I simply cannot get away.

Fortunately, there is one con close to home for me: GenCon Indy. And it is this weekend! Fuu and I live just north of Indy, and many of our RL friends congregate in Indy to celebrate and attend the con. For those who might not know, GenCon Indy is a gamer's convention. Tabletop gamers. Think many-sided die and evil DM's lurking behind that large cardstock divider (the one that has all the DM rules written on the side you cannot see, and hides all of the evil minion rolls).

It's a pretty awesome weekend. It has all the staples you might expect at a nerdy con. People dress up. There are vendor booths and special guests. Events spring up all over, and local eateries are swarmed by basement-dwelling masses, getting their only taste of sunlight for the year. (Okay, that last is a bit of a stereotype joke. Still, if my house had a basement, I would call it the dungeon and dwell appropriately. Also, the crowd is unique, especially if you're a local. It is, quite literally, a downtown Revenge of the Nerds. It's awesome how much the con has grown over the last several years alone.)

I mention this, obviously, because I figured some of you guys might be planning on attending. If you are, rest assured in the knowledge that I, too, will be there. I like to wear things with "Fulguralis" on them (I have a nice red Warcraft hat with my toon name on the back), so if you see me, don't hesitate to say hello. Also, feel free to DM me through Twitter (@Fulguralis or @MattHofferth - the second is my author/personal Twitter that I try to use more, but I lurk on both, and DMs will alert me) if you'd really like to find me. I'll be a bit all over the place, what with friends, events, and coaching. (I still have to go to practice in the afternoon, but I've taken some vacation time from the Day Job to attend stuff outside of practice.)

If you're hoping for random good fortune, we generally end up at the RAM around meal times. That place is nuts, though, so good luck. We also are likely to be playing some Dominion at some point, as well as any other games we can squeeze in. I'll try to tweet what's going on if anyone is interested. Likely it'll be on my @MattHofferth account, but I may try to do both. We'll see how it goes. (I know, I'm terrible at Twitter.)

Anyway, I just wanted to make this announcement. We're really excited about GenCon. It's a blast every year. I'm looking forward to attending all of Brandon Sanderson's events (he's the guest of honor this year!), participating in True Dungeon for the first time (previous years I couldn't get away from work during the day), and simply taking in the sights. It would icing on the cake if I got to meet fellow gamers (readers or bloggers, both are equally exciting).

Oh, another thing that might give us away. Fuu will probably be wearing her new brain-wave cat ears constantly. So, tall blond guy in a red hat with a short girl with moving cat ears. The funny part? We won't stick out. Not one bit.

What If: User Generated Content

A while back, I was playing a D&D Facebook game. Something of the something... I forget what it was called. It was a neat game, free to play, and pretty true to the feel of a tabletop game (as far as that can go). My character hit max level after a couple months of faithful playing, and eventually I moved on to other games. Such is the way of things.

Today, one of the great ideas from the game sidled up a slapped me upside the head. The game featured a text-based story, little snippets popping up as you proceed from one room to the next in gridded dungeons. Each dungeon was basically an instance, and it had the typical Facebook Game convention of limited daily energy.

It wasn't to hard to progress through the main story, and you could increase the difficulty on subsequent runs. The mechanics were pretty simple, the stats well explained, and the itemization easy for any respectably RPG gamer to understand. In short, it was a fun little game. Well produced and presented.

Now, maybe I'm overselling this idea by calling it great. After all, I didn't personally partake much in it. To be honest, I don't really remember why I got out of the habit of playing every day. I just did.

The idea was "user created dungeons." Once you reached a certain level, a dungeon creator was open to you. You could access your own dungeon through a cute little trap door in your house. What's more, you could invite others to visit your dungeon as well.

What struck me today is why haven't we seen such a thing in an MMORPG? It was just a map creator, and map creators have been around forever. Heck, one could make the argument that the map creator was the true shining star in some of Blizzard's old Warcraft and Starcraft games. User created maps have spawned entire games for Fel's sake! (League of Legends anyone?)

Can you imagine if WoW came with a map creator? We complain all the time about lack of content, lack of challenge of content, or lack of novelty of the content. Well, Blizz could say, shut up and make your own!

I'm sure, at least for WoW, there's a huge amount of technical risk involved here. There are probably all kinds of things you could do to break the carefully balanced system or overload their servers. But what about for a game like Diablo or Guild Wars, where most of the dungeons are instanced? If Blizz can make custom maps play on Battle.net, surely they could make some kind of WoW portal that sent you to Crazy User Generated Dream Realm. Like the Emerald Dream, only not tied to reality.

In fact, they could make the entire thing a dream for you character. Loot, gold, experience gained in the dream could simply not travel with you when you wake up. No need to worry about someone creating a crazy overpowered gear dispensing machine. Or whatever the worry might be.

How much less would we complain between patches and expansions if we could mess around with our own content? There are a lot of really clever, really dedicated gamers out there. Sheer numbers alone says that someone would come up with something awesome that Blizz had never even considered. And if it took off? So what? More subs for you!

Several recent smash hit games have grown out of mods. Day Z and League of Legends are probably two of the more popular examples. Both ideas were born as user-generated content in other games. Sure, they've grown from there in something more or less unique (we could debate about derivative works here, but that's not really the point). More importantly, though, they're popular. People enjoy them. They are entertaining. And that's the whole point of making games: to entertain. It's also really the secret to retaining subscriptions or convincing people to pay in a F2P. We're obviously willing to pay for entertainment... so long as we're kept entertained.

Like I said, just an idea that hit me. I would enjoy tinkering around with dungeons in some of my favorite games. What's more, I would love to see what others come up with. I think a company that figures out how to do this may prove the next evolutionary step for the MMORPG. I've known some good DMs that could really knock a customized WoW dungeon out of the park. I mean, think about it. World of Warcraft PTQ!!

Blizz? Pencil this in for Titan? I've got more ideas. Hire me and they're all yours. Kthxbye.

LoL - Different Goals

I've existed as one happy half of a functional gaming pair for some time now. That is to say, the wife and I are fortunate enough that "together time" can also equal "gaming time." We generally work well together, and have (hopefully) been a boon to every gaming group we've joined. She's the more social of the pair, I'm the planner/organizer. When we were guild officers, I like to think we proved and effective tandem.

But, as any gaming couple can attest, it isn't always double rainbows and Russian unicorns. Sometimes there are threats of couch sleeping. And pillow throwing. And copious swearing.

Such is the case with League of Legends. It has come to my attention that we likely play better when we are in separate lanes. If that, even. It may be best that we play separate games.

What's the problem? Well, after much, ahem, discussion, it seems that we have completely different goals for the game.

I'm competitive. It's probably borderline psychotic. Winning is a serious thing for me. I don't rage quit or throw a fit if I lose, but I do get a bit surly. I try to keep it in, but wives know. What I don't type in is written plainly on my face... and probably in the grumbles, too.

My wife is social. She plays to enjoy the company of fellow gamers. Winning or losing doesn't matter much to her. Winning is nice, but losing is not a big deal. And any insinuations that she should "try harder" or be more serious are basically personal insults.

So we come to blows. I've been digging into builds and gearing strategies. She's texting friends to join her. I'm trying to explain dynamic group battles. She's commenting on how pretty her character looks. We're on completely different pages.

LoL is a competitive game. As Vince Lombardi once said: "If winning wasn't everything, why do they keep score?" The main point of the game is to beat the opposing team.

Larger than LoL, though, is the fact that the game is online. Any online game has a social component. That is simply truth. The component may vary greatly from game to game, community to community, but it exists.

So what is the solution for us? Can we play LoL in harmony? We're coming from completely different sides of the equation. She views LoL as a fun distraction until the next game drops. I see it as a mountain to conquer.

We've not exactly figured it out yet. Maybe we shouldn't play together on this one. Our temporary fix is where I play some competitive games on my own, and then take a new champion for a test run with her, fully expecting to lose. It is imperfect, but I'm not sure there's a better solution, short of simply going our own way. And where's the fun in that?

Technically Small World

Matticus is one of those bloggers that has been around seemingly forever. Quite frankly, I'm sort of at the point in my blogging career when I feel that way about anyone who has been around longer than me. Four years is a long time in the blogosphere.

I was pretty thrilled, then, when I got to play League of Legends with him last weekend. Shhhh, don't tell him. Wouldn't want it to go to his head.

Now, Matticus would probably be the first to say he's no celebrity, even in the niche WoW-blogger world. (Maybe he is, I don't know). I didn't geek out on Mumble or anything (I don't think I said a whole lot period). It's not like that.

I grew up with several folks who are now professional athletes. I would consider them family friends. We played on some teams together growing up, maybe hung out several times, but I wouldn't say that I'm close with them.

From a closer-than-average viewpoint, then, I can say that there's a certain amount of celebrity that goes with being a professional athlete. I'm not the sort of person who gets starstruck, but there is a tangible excitement. Something in the air, if you will.

It's not like that, either.

I can't explain it, but there's this weird phenomenon that I've experienced several times now. I've been fortunate enough to be able to virtually hang out/play with several of the bloggers that I read. And every time, there's this semi-awkward trill of excitement.

Perhaps the best real life example I can think of is when I've done a bit of traveling -- further away than, say, a couple of states -- and I run into someone that I went to high school or college with. Not the sort of person where you're like, "Oh, no. Not him." Rather, the sort of person where you chuckle and say, "Small world." This is especially the case if you're attending the same niche event. You know, so that the next comment is "You do this stuff, too?"

What do you call that?

I hope it's not pretentious of me to say that I get this same sort of vibe when I bump into readers. Part of me is always surprised. Like, "Oh, you read that?" The old page-hit counter has been above 0 for some time now. You think it wouldn't be news to me.

I guess my whole point here is to sort of geek out about technology. How cool is it these days that we can so easily rub elbows with people who share our passions? It's the Technically Small World Phenomenon, if I had to put a name to it.

If you run into me, you should probably be aware that I'm a pretty solid introvert. I've never been a social butterfly. Oft times, I feel guilty for being short with people. I reflect later on all the wonderful, elegant, witty things I could have said. It is what it is.

I had a lot of fun playing with Matt this last weekend. This is probably news to him, as I didn't say much. I also learned a lot. I have fun any time I get to play with like-minded folks, even if I have to be coaxed out of my shell a bit in the first place.

So thanks to Matt for hitting me up. And thanks to the other folks that have popped in, commented, just said hi, whatever. If you think it's cool, rest assured that I think it's pretty cool, too. The world is a crazy place. It's always nice to know that you're not as crazy as you might have thought.

On Being Called a Noob

I've been called a lot of names in my life. Who hasn't?A lot of them were actually fitting. Yes, even one's meant to mock.

In a gamer's life, few insults a hurled as vehemently as "noob." Or even the alternate spellings: n00b, newb, nub (where's my umlaut key? cntrl+???). They all amount to the same thing. Someone feels the urge to deride your lack of mastery of a game or gaming concept.

I talked about my graduation in League of Legends earlier this week. The gameplay ante has been upped. So too has the trash talking.

Last night, I was accused of being a noob for the 572nd career time. Because I keep track of each time. It means that much to me.

And as I was sitting there, trying to come up with a smartass comeback (the only acknowledge method for responding to the comment, if you deign respond), I suddenly had a change of heart. I realized I've only been playing LoL for a couple weeks. I was a noob!

Then I wonder, wtf is this dude's problem? It's not like I'm playing ranked matches at Summoner level 30. This is level 12, normal mode, blind pick. Summoner's Rift map. What did this person expect?

So I'm being a bit facetious. A very large part of me expects immature behavior any time I venture into a PvP setting. I'm fairly confident in my gaming competency, and not afraid to learn in those areas where I may be deficient. Which is why I strive to block out the nerd rage and sift for the nuggets of wisdom hidden within "noob" statements. Because, all joking aside, there is often a lesson tucked somewhere in there. If you can block out the rage, that is.

Not to lend credibility to the trolls, but often players aren't simply pissed to be pissed. I will admit that this is sometimes the case, and often seems like the case, but generally players get pissed for a reason. Something you are or aren't doing is completely obvious to them, in their infinite wisdom, and they believe that they know better. I'm not saying that they're objectively "right." I'm just saying they think they're "right."

If you can figure out what they think they're right about, you can begin to develop impressions on what I'll call "average" gameplay. What is expected from a competent player? What are the moves a team is supposed to make and when? You may not agree with the logic behind them all, but generally behavioral trends will crop up in a game for a reason. If you can identify and understand that reason, you can use that information to your advantage. Being able to anticipate your opponent can pay dividends.

Unfortunately, the two individuals calling the rest of us noobs last night didn't have much in terms of wisdom to offer. I asked several times what they would rather we be doing, or what we were doing wrong. The constructive answer was "don't suck." Mind you, their stats lines were far from impressive. I said something along the lines of: "Yes, I am a noob. What's your excuse?"

That shut them up.

The one pearl I got: Apparently, "assist kills add carry." I have no idea what that statement means. I think it was meant in a bad way, which baffles me. Isn't it good to help each other kill an enemy? And what is "carry?" Anyone care to take a shot at explaining?

Now Playing: League of Legends

I've sort of been stuck in a gaming miasma. I think I mentioned it a bit on here. I haven't really felt like diving back into any of the MMOs I'm still carrying on subscription. Just something about the MMO playstyle is unappealing right now. It is also summer, and there's not a lot of new content in my games of choice. It's easy to feel bogged down and unmotivated.

While my gaming woes have caused me a bit of angst, it is not something I'm completely unaccustomed to. Generally speaking, I've always been a broad gamer. I enjoy multiple game styles, everything from FPS to RPG. I'd been subsisting on the meager manna that is Facebook gaming (and by meager, I mean addictive, loaded with content, and somewhat red-district-like). But I haven't really been happy. Don't get me wrong, the social games I play are fun, and great ways to kill time. There's just something about the never-ending energy bar refill waiting gameplay that irks me. I feel the constant need to stop in and use energy (or I'll lose it, since the bar is maxed out). I suspect this feeling is by design.

The problem with the energy bar mechanic is that it sets a pretty hard limit on the amount you can accomplish. Couple that with needing to beg for items and the shiny "use $$ to skip" features, and you have a game that leaves you pretty unfulfilled on any given sitting. Sometimes, you want to eat your fill, and not feel like you have to trudge back to the water hole in a couple hours to do it again.

It is, if you will, the darker side of Facebook gaming. The games do a lot of things well, but they are what they are. They can't help but be a bit whorish.

So I'd been looking for alternative gaming outlets. I didn't want to spend a lot of money. In fact, I was gravitating toward "free to play" or at least "free to try." I find myself a bit unwilling to plunk down cash blindly these days. Not that I don't have the cash, just that I'm wary of the wide world of gaming. Even great development houses have been known to lay stinkers.

Saturday night, we had a couple friends over for some tabletop gaming. Play some random bargain bin games and a D&D based game called Castle Ravenloft. As gamers are wont to do, we discussed what else we were playing. It was our friend and resident DM who mentioned two highly recommended options (after a bit of ranting on my part). Day Z and League of Legends were his ideas.

Now, Day Z is pretty badass if you ask me. I encourage anyone interested in zombie settings and survival with guns to check it out. Very intriguing concept. I wouldn't be surprised to see a standalone game come out soon. For now, Day Z requires purchase of ArmA II. You see, it's a mod. A crazy, all-encompassing mod, but a mod. You need a version of the game (CO), and that'll run you $30 on Steam. Since I play with my wife in pretty much all the things, that's $60 for me (since it's an online game, for single player games we're more than happy to share a copy). I just wasn't quite that willing to plunk down the cash. Day Z will be something I keep my eye on, but the "free to play" League of Legends won the Logical Choice debate.

Now, I used to do a lot of RTS back in the day. Starcraft, Warcraft I-III... I've done them all. I remember the mods that League of Legends sprung up from. I enjoyed the hell out of those. I guess I missed where they'd developed a standalone, free to play game. Pretty awesome. So wife and I jumped right in and are having a blast. You can find me on there as Fulguralis if you'd like. We're still pretty newbish, but I've rocked the leaderboards so far on every AI game. I need to learn more before I feel comfortable going up against live opponents.

To me, LoL is what happened when WoW had a random one-night-stand with a FPS. That's the best I can explain it (and be brief). It's a lot of fun, and you'll probably see me writing more on that in the upcoming weeks. How many of you, dear readers, have tried LoL?

The One That Got Away

Apparently my brain is stuck on relationship-related gaming musings. Today's brought to you by a Katy Perry song that's stuck in my head. I have a love/hate relationship with pop music. It just gets in there, I can't help it, and then... then... bah! Not very warlockerly, I know.

On the opposite end of the things-that-stick-in-my-head spectrum is a gaming phenomenon. Tell me if you've ever had this one. It could just be me.

Freshman year of college (almost ten years ago now, holy cow), I had a random-draw roommate. You never know what you're going to get, right? In this case, the guy was pretty cool. I'm a strange hybrid of athletic and nerdy. I love sports and playing sports, always have. And I'm pretty decent at just about any of them in a casual way. Similarly, I've always loved gaming and can sit down to a new game and not be completely awful. I span several worlds, I guess you could say. (Oddly enough, the dichotomy worked against me in most circles as far as acceptance went. To the jocks, I was a nerd. The nerds, I was a jock.)

Random Roomie was completely vested in the burgeoning nerd culture. Yes, this was back before nerds were "cool." He had a tricked-out Alienware laptop that I was insanely jealous of. We shared a passion for the X-files. And more than once I asked him what game he was playing so that I could give it a try.

Back then, I was more of a FPS player than I am now. Halo parties were The Thing, especially when you have 8 floors of dudes in a wing and can run Ethernet cords all over creation. Random Roomie was more into Tactical Fleet Simulations (TFS, a term I didn't know existed until recently). He also wasn't big on the social component of, well, anything. Apart from our nightly X-files marathon sessions, we didn't really hang out. Yet, I would hesitantly call us friends. We certainly got along better than a lot of other roommates.

One of my most vivid memories was of a TFS-like game he was playing one time. I walked in from a Halo session, perhaps after a few bevvies, and saw a whole bunch of really cool looking spaceships on his screen. He was launching some mini-probes and there were lasers, and it looked epic. I watched for a bit before asking him what game he was playing. The answer has since been lost in the sands of time.

Keep in mind, this was before things like Steam and easily downloadable games. Generally, if we wanted a game, we went to the local Best Buy or GameStop or whatever and plunked down $50. As a college student, that's a lot of beer. I mean, money. So, the game got relegated to my "sometime when I have money" list in my brain, where it was promptly drowned by copious amount of alcohol, I'm sure.

Ten years later, I found myself having a sudden craving to FIND THAT GAME. I don't know what it was. A boring Sunday, time on my hands, money no longer the biggest issue in my gaming life... I wanted to play THAT game. Not a similar game, but that one.

So I spent probably 4-8 hours (I lost track of time) wandering the Interwebs, looking for a screenshot to match my memory. I learned what a TFS is. I spent $20 on a Steam game that I played for all of 5 minutes before realizing that it was not the one (it looked similar). The best search term I had to go on was "like Civilization, but in space with cool lasers." I researched the history of 4X, turn-based games. I found a myriad of top ten lists in both genres... but it was all for naught. True Blood came on at 9pm and that effectively ended my search.

This isn't the first time the desire to find the mystery game has struck me. Random Roomie and I have lost touch over the years, but I suppose I could shoot him a Facebook message. "Hey, remember me? How are things? Listen, do you remember that cool spaceship game you were playing that one time? I don't know, I think it was a Tuesday. It had lasers. And celestial bodies. Whaddya mean that doesn't really narrow it down?"

Okay, so I don't really want to go that route. Where's the fun in that? Plus, it seems fruitless and awkward, and I try to avoid fruitless and awkward whenever possible. Instead, I'd rather whittle away countless hours hoping to luck upon it through the wonders of Google. Excuses, excuses.

And before you ask... no, I don't really know any more than this. I know, I can't even describe the screenshot adequately. If I could remember like a faction name or a symbol on the side of the ship, one of you could probably name the game in a heartbeat. But I can't. And the memory only gets fuzzier with each passing year.

Do you have a game that "got away?" Were you able to find it years later? Did it even live up to your rose-colored expectations? (I have a sinking suspicion that even if I found this game it would turn out to suck.)

Maybe in another life, I'd download right away, so I don't have to say you were the one that got away. The one that got away.

Heart Mind Handshaking Fail

Do you ever have that feeling that your heart and head are out of sync when it comes to gaming? Like, in theory, you really want to play a game, but you just can't bring yourself to log in? What is up with that?

Lately, I just can't get into any button-pressing, fighting games. MMOs, Diablo, they're all falling prey to this. The only games I'm really playing are facebook games. My mind is screaming at me that it's being slowly mushed. Crotchety statements hailing from the era of the black and white television scream through me. Something about boobs and rotting. Completely unpleasant.

Yet, I can't deny my heart. I sit and stare at a log in screen, and my heart flails. Sure, you can log in... but do you really want to?

I don't have a good answer for my heart. Truth is, I don't really want to. But I don't feel like I really want to do anything. Mostly, I'd like to nap. Switch my brain off. Watch some terrible movies.

You might say, "Well, just do that, then."

It's not that simple. My brain likes gaming. A lot more than movies or TV. It's why I go back to the Old Standby games. I'm looking for that feeling I used to feel when those games were new. But you never get that back. We all know that. The new shine always wears off. You can't make a career in gaming based on new shine alone.

(Or can you? But that's a topic for a different post.)

I probably just need to make some new goals. When you have goals, you tend to be more excited about playing. I've just reached a plateau where I've achieved the previous goals, but not set new ones. So I guess the whole point of this article is:

Setting new goals is hard.

The Old Standby

It's interesting to me how much we, as gamers, tend to compare games to relationships. I mean, it's an apt metaphor. We certainly do enter in a certain sort of relationship with different games. We have flings, go steady, get serious. Some of us get married, while others play the field. We have exciting first dates and horrible break ups. Stories of the one that got away are common among lifelong gamers.

And another thing we generally have is an Old Standby. A former lover that we keep around "just in case." The cute, sweet, and, uh, well-visited old friend that we know we can always go back to.

I have two, currently. Civilization is one. I own five, so I generally play the latest, but I think I have the other discs somewhere around, too.

Before Civ, though, there was SimCity and Rollercoaster Tycoon. Both are games that I keep around for rainy days. Every so often, I get the urge to retreat from the front lines of gaming to my comfort zone of old games. There's just something about games that let me build things that appeals to me. Even in Civ, when I'm in the mood, I tend to simply build up a society and refrain from attacking anyone. (Which means, in general, that I don't win, either. Pacifism is a hard trait to take to victory in Civ, at least at the harder settings. You almost have to attack someone.

What are your Old Standbys? Can we count WoW among them now? Is it old enough? (Not that Civ V is old enough, either.)

The reason this popped into my head is that there's a SimCity Social Open Beta going on right now. I stumbled across it after my latest peaceful civilization had been destroyed (on King, fwiw). The tagline reads "more city, less ville." A clever, if obvious dig at Zynga games. I mentioned recently how impressed I've been with Zynga. If the SimCity franchise can live up to the Zynga social gaming bar, color me excited. It's like one of my own flames grew into that awkward frame (or something). So yeah, I'm playing. I almost wish I could pay some money for the game and have infinite energy. Take the mini-transactions out and just pay like $50 to open the game or whatever.

I mean, they had me at SimCity.

ContentVille

Is it just me or do these big time MMO companies need to start hiring people from Zynga? The social gaming juggernaut has over a dozen games, and none that I've ever tried out have ever lacked for content. Addicting is the best word to describe them, with all that word can mean. Now, before you get all nerd-ragey on me for talking about the "lower class" of the great gaming nation, hear me out.

I wouldn't call myself an avid social gamer. Currently, I'm dabbling in CastleVille. I've dipped into a couple other games, but I'm much more at home in an RPG or FPS. Still, I would be hard pressed to describe my experience with Zynga games as anything but "fun." Maybe a bit obsessive at times, but fun.

I play them "free." That is to say, I don't dump a lot of money into the games. I don't go in with high expectations of grand adventure, but look for something to kill a handful of minutes here and there. Typically, the handful stretches into a half hour or more.

What amazes me, though, is how smooth my gaming experience with Zynga has been. Granted, many of the games are run through Facebook, so I guess they deserve some props as well. But, coming from an MMO environment, I can't help but be a little impressed by the lack of bugs, downtime, and interruptions.

Granted, the gaming engines are probably much simpler. Also, since I'm not heavily invested into these games, maybe I'm more willing to overlook design flaws. So maybe I'm just doing the old rose-colored glasses thing here. Any social gamers lurking around here? You tell me, objectively speaking, has your social gaming experience been smooth?

Most importantly (to me), it seems like they always have new content. Doesn't matter which game I'm dabbling in. Like I said, CasteVille is my current guilty pleasure, and I swear they have a new quest every week. I can't complete the content as fast as they produce it, and I've never had that feeling in a game.

Again, these games aren't super complicated. They share a ton of back end, I'm sure. It's nowhere near the technical achievement of, say, WoW. After all, you're not usually syncing up exactly with other users, and that's okay. You can have a minute of lag and it's not a big deal.

But the content, holy cow the content. And thematically the quests are clever and funny in their own right. It's not just slinging crap against the wall and seeing what sticks. In short, it seems like they're designed by people that enjoy what they do. I can't always say the same about the big time MMOs.

I'm sure this is a completely unfair comparison. Apples to Snapples, if you will. Still, it was a thought I had as I was looking at my CastleVille quest log. I'll exhaust the novelty of the gameplay long before I run out of quests. When was the last time that happened to me in an MMO? Ever?

I can't say that I rightly know.

When Do You Stop Paying?

I find myself in a conundrum as of late. Summer has officially arrived, and with it, the requisite outdoor activities. Gaming time is squeezed because I'm simply not in front of a computer as much. You know, typical summer slump stuff.

When your game time is limited, you find yourself re-evaluating the money allocated to gaming. Why pay for something you're not using? I found myself in such a preponderance this weekend. The subject of much thought: SWTOR.

Currently, my game time is allocated thus:

1. Still poking around in Diablo
2. Do some mindless Casteville when I have a few minutes
3. ???
4. Profit.

Okay, there isn't really any profit. Four is more like "pay bills." I'm not really playing WoW. However, since Diablo was free, the subscription there still makes sense. Casteville is free. That leaves SWTOR. I'm paying, but not playing.

I've always viewed subscription games like I would magazines. Remember those? When you used to get subscriptions to paper things that had words and pictures on them and were delivered to your door. Yeah, I haven't had a magazine subscription in years. However, I kept paying long after I probably should have called it quits. Why? Well, I liked having the possibility to read. And, in the case of Sports Illustrated, there's always the swimsuit issue to look forward to, right?

Diablo was sort of the swimsuit edition of Blizzard Monthly, for me. A quick, sexy run through. Good to glance at, but it's not like I'm digging into the articles. When Mists comes out, it'll be like the Fantasy Preview SI editions. Have to get the down low before my fantasy football drafts, y'know.

I'm not sure where SWTOR fits into all of this. The awkward Playboy subscription that your "bros" bought for you for your birthday that you have to then explain when your mom finds during a visit? (True story. She was hanging the laundry she did for me. Never let your mother into your tiny college closet. My buddies in the dorm thought it was hilarious way back when. Which really wasn't "way" back for me, but whatever. It was a Tuesday.) I don't have any real issues with the game. It's just not high on my priority list at the moment. I'm not gaming for lengths of time because it's nice outside, and thus I gravitate to games that can be digested in smaller chunks. Hence, Diablo and Casteville.

Maybe my biggest complaint about TOR is the lack of new content. They're being pretty slow right now, if you ask me. Once they get this 1.3 business released, I'll probably be more interested. At least for the month or so it takes me to do what I want to do with it.

And therein lies the problem. The current trend in gaming, at least for me, is to only really read every other issue. Or, perhaps more succinctly, I play one month hard, then take a month or two off. That's how I keep up with content, and I'm just fine with that. I like experiencing multiple games. It doesn't make me angry.

But when that monthly bill comes... it seems dumb to pay on those "off" months. Yet, I want the games I play to succeed, to keep going. At what point have I fulfilled my "obligation" to the game (yes, I know feeling obligated it stupid). At what point have I paid enough that they won't fold up, but not so much that I'm throwing money into a furnace.

The real answer is: my meager contribution doesn't matter. One person doesn't make or break these companies. If I asked them, they'd say "Yeah, keep paying. Heck, pay double! Here's a pony. We lurve you. Bring Money." If I ask my pocket book, it pushes its glasses up the bridge of its nose and sneers, "Pay only when you're getting value out of the game. No more, no less. And three shall be the number of the counting."

I sort of wish there was a way I could unsubscribe for a few months, but check a box that says, "Yeah, I'll be back when you release something new." In today's age of "investor calls" and crap like that, where subscriber numbers are reviewed and decisions are made based on some giant bottom line, I don't want to be a black mark on a game I've enjoyed. I don't want to be just another user jumping ship. But I don't want to pay for something I'm not using either.

So when do I stop? When do you stop?

I'm paid up through August for TOR. After that, I'm going month-by-month. I'll pay for one month when I want to play, and after that I'll let the sub lapse if there's nothing new to do, if I feel satisfied. After my year commitment with WoW is up, I'll probably do the same thing there. I've decided that makes the most sense for me. I used to simply pay the bill for the year and think nothing of it... yet I don't feel like we get a year's worth of content. Over 12 months, in any game, I feel like I'm given 6 months and then a lot of time-wasting fluff. The fluff can be good (like pet collecting and stuff), but it's not for me. When it's nice out, when there are other things to do (like writing novels), I'm just not going to sit down and spend my time on fluff.

Where do you draw the line? Especially, if you're not "rage-quitting," if you want the game to continue to exist. Are we supposed to keep paying? Or is month-by-month just enough?

Gaming in Waves

Here's another crazy idea I had the other day. Call this "mixing what I enjoy about Diablo with what I enjoy about WoW." Add in a dash of SWTOR's fourth pillar. That's where this idea was brewed.

We've seen a whole bunch of MMOs that basically start on some day, and then run perpetually forward, never looking back, until the servers are switched off. Somewhere around, say, year five, I'm pretty sure story hooks that were never meant to run for five years are being exhausted and stretched so much that we turn to the Bronze Dragonflight. Or time travel... second only in (my personal) annoyance to dream sequences.

I'm not saying a story can't run past five years, I'm just saying that within the media of video games, the way we're doing it right now, today, makes it pretty difficult. If the games going to be profitable, you're going to have people jumping on at a variety of points during that five year run. You'll have TBC babies, Wrath babies, and Cata babies. People that never saw Vanilla. People that have no idea what the Burning Legion even is. Why? Because they missed a whole bunch of story!

So here's a potentially revolutionary idea: what if a game was designed with this sort of "wave-like" adoption pattern in mind. That is, what if there were "launch dates" every month. Once a month, there was a server launched that started the story fresh. Maybe eventually these servers "caught up" and get merged, but they start fresh from vanilla with a certain time cycle in mind.

Each new shard could definitely incorporate the latest "quality of life" changes (or not). Each would have a firmly published schedule of events (or not). Each would follow the same storyline (or not).

You could have spoilers, or alternate endings. You could have everyone dumped into a common "max level" continent at the end. You could have a "sidekick" system allowing people to transport their main "back in time" (I know, I know. I just bashed time travel). Or you could have a "refresh" where a character "relives" their previous adventure. Perhaps the character could just jump into a prior spot in the flow (not necessarily the beginning) and experience the story again from there (getting de-leveled to match the point in time), jumping out (and back to max level) whenever they'd like. Maybe the leveling would be completely dependent on the timeline (and not the concept of experience points). Most importantly, you could jump into a game a year down the road and not feel like you missed anything.

And think of the press? Launch days are cool! What if you had one of those every month. Sure, they'd probably lose their shine after the first one, but there would still be some hype for each one. You could even manufacture it to some extent. Maybe with each launch there is a server limit, and you get "wait listed" for the next launch if you join between launches. Now, this would have to be done carefully so as not to piss people off, but as long as you're only talking "wait a few weeks" (and not months), I don't think it would be too bad. (Also, a clearly communicated schedule would be key, here.) There would be special launch events for each one, localized maybe. I don't know.

There are a whole bunch of possibilities for a game like this. It's like phasing on 'roids (or something). A game that is constantly launching. Think about it. I'd be interested... maybe in the second wave after I've seen how it goes and they work out all the server kinks...

#Diablo - A Monk-ee?

I hate wasps. I do not like them in real life, and I dislike them in Diablo III as well. A lot of it is probably because I'm a monk, a melee. I have to run through their stupid explodey offspring (or darts, or whatever) to attack them. And they run away. And the mini-wasps hurt.

Fortunately, I can teleport. What now, wasps?!

Anyone else find that they change their talent choices to match the trash? For a monk, I flip between many of the main attacks. The first one, with the teleport rune, is nice when stuff sits at ranged. Zip, zip, zip... dead. The second is great for waves of attackers. It has a slight range to it that knocks through the lines of baddies. I feel like shouting YOU SHALL NOT PASS. The third is amazing for dashing into giant groups of mindless zombies, and then going to town. I feel like a badass firework of death.

I've not quite found how I want to use the fourth one yet. The first three seem to cover my needs.

I tend to pair the basic attacks up with supplementary "hotkey" attacks. Like, if I'm in sweeping strikes (firework of death) mode, I put either the bell (for waves) or the immune-dashy attack (I know, I'm great with names) because it's fun. When using the teleport main attack, I try to use the other skills to boost AoE. So the main attack deals with the main body of baddies, the secondary stuff is for the random, annoying, one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-other mobs. It's surprisingly fun and fluid. There's something to be said for having fewer abilities that mesh better together. I hope they apply this same thinking to MoP.

Another Fail Week

Another week, another lack of post ideas from yours truly. I swear the weeks are flying by. Being busy in other areas of life will do that. Still, I'm hopeful for more than one post this week. Diablo is releasing tonight (at 3AM my time, I think... so effectively tomorrow after work, as I'm not taking the day off). That should give me something to write about later in the week.

For now, I did want to point out one thing. There's been a lot about ToR's recent subscriber loss. I don't have a whole bunch to say about it other than I'm still playing, still paying, and still feel like I'm getting my money's worth. It's a different sort of mindset than with WoW. I'm not really trying to do the endgame. I'm just trying to jump through all the stories. I basically do some random PvP, and while I'm waiting for the WZ to pop, I run the class quests. I don't pick up any other quests.

The benefit is that levels and planets come fast. The downside (?) is that everything is pretty challenging. I'm routinely under-leveled for things, and every so often I run up against an elite that I cannot beat. Usually, a few days of PvP dailies nets me another level, and then I can continue. I'm not sure how this will hold at the higher levels. For now, though, it adds challenge and is fun.

One good change that ToR made recently (that seemed un-trumpeted, IMO), was the slight change in PvP dailies. It went form a simple "get X wins" to "play X times" where wins count double. For me, this is a huge quality of life improvement. Where before you may be frustrated by a string of losses, now there's an end in sight. I've found that most things in life are infinitely more tolerable when you know what you're shooting for. I wanted to complete the dailies, but it was frustrating when you just couldn't get a win. This alleviates a lot of that frustration, as you get there anyway. Good stuff.

It is changes like this one that makes me happy to continue on with ToR. They seem to have a good eye for what is annoying for the player base, and try to change it. They can't fix everything immediately, and I'm willing to be patient. It's good that they're trending in a positive direction.

By contrast, I've felt WoW to be trending in a negative direction for me. The whole Cataclysm Warlock debacle, as chronicled by Cynwise, was a huge reason. Secondary was a focus on endgame, which when that fell apart, left me with little to do. There are no class stories in WoW.

I think Diablo will be a welcome addition to my gaming life, and I still look forward to MoP. I'll play ToR until I've experienced all 8 class stories (four on each side). I'm hoping that by then they'll have added a lot of content and quality of life improvements, so I'll keep playing. I'd say that's pretty likely. Still, if ToR shut off development today, I'd play through those stories and then be done. They're fun. I hope Blizzard improves on the class story idea in their next MMO. I think they could do a great job with it as well.