Blogger Interrupted

I just wanted to do a quick response to some of the blog’s I’ve been reading recently. First up is Alex Taldren who posted a clip of The Secret World gameplay and complained that it looked like Age of Conan and said that even though the combat looked like Hellgate: London or Fallen Earth, it was still better than most MMO combat.

I remember when Age of Conan first came out and we were all drooling over the graphics and how amazing they were for an MMO. I recently picked up the trial to see how things had changed and it STILL looks amazing, one of the best looking MMOs on the market. When did this become a bad thing? Do we really need to improve on the graphics with every game at the cost of stability, gameplay and fun? Can’t we stick with a nice level of graphics and just improve the game for a while?

The other point from his post I wanted to get into is the complaints I hear, not just from him but from most bloggers, about the boring MMO combat system. There are a few others but for the most part MMOs all control like World of Warcraft. Everyone seems to be complaining about this. The problem I have is that the people complaining aren’t offering up any alternatives. Of course these alternatives would have to be something that wouldn’t alienate too many people, which is the problem with adding FPS mechanics into an MMO. What other control schemes are out there? You want a Fable control scheme? It’s out there already, and it’s pretty much WoW without the action bar.

To me it seems like these same people could play a First Person Shooter and complain about the First Person Shooter combat. If it’s not your cup of tea I’m sorry but maybe it’s not for you. Maybe I’ve got all this wrong though and people have a good idea of what they want. I can’t imagine it’s the Darkfall style combat though as that basically takes the Morrowind/Oblivion combat style, which EVERYONE agreed was the worst part about those games.

The second blog post I want to comment on is Player vs. Developer’s post on Dungeons and Dragons Online: Eberron Unleashed and it’s cash shop. He argues that a poor exchange rate (unless you buy the most expensive iteration of points) is a barrier to entry. I would simply argue that he is looking at it the wrong way. The normal amount of points here is the bottom rate, $6.50 for 420 points. If you are willing to spend more you get more for your dollar as a thank you. It’s not that they are gimping your spending if you don’t spend much, they are just rewarding you if you spend more, which is exactly what a cash shop SHOULD do. Make me WANT to spend $50 at the cash shop and you know what, if I only want to spend EXACTLY enough to buy a new race or class, I can do that too.

The last blog I’d like to address is Hardcore Casual and it’s post on FFA vs. Faction based PVP. I’d have to say that while I prefer faction based PVP for the stability and security to be “safe” sometimes, I might change my tune if there was a FFA game I could try that did not have full loot rules. Maybe it’s out there and I just haven’t found it yet, but the full loot really kills a game for me. I know it shouldn’t but I haven’t been able to get into it since Ultima Online, and I could enjoy it in that game because the community policed themselves, literally you have guilds that acted as police and protection for miners or lumberjacks and wondered the woods killing any PKers. Now days everyone just wants to grief and I don’t enjoy being griefed. More power to those who do I guess.

This post turned out to be longer than I wanted it to be, but I just had to respond to a few things.

But it’s not real!

I am sick and tired of people saying that my enjoyment inside an MMO, that my friends and my memories aren’t real just because they happened inside or because of an MMO. I’m sorry but when was I spirited away to some fantasy land to play these games? As far as I knew that happened IN the real world. Regardless of how I got them they are still my feelings, my memories, as real as anything else.

A lot of people these days seem to think that they are addicted to MMOs. There are people who are addicted to video games just as there are people who are addicted to masturbation or anything else that makes you feel good. That does not mean that there is anything inherently more addictive about video games than anything else. If you think you are addicted ask yourself one SIMPLE question: Have you suffered serious repercussions in life due to your gaming habit? By this I mean eviction, divorce, your child died, anything like that.

Stop trying to downplay my accomplishments, my memories and my friends because you can’t seem to find happiness in your own life. Just because I don’t sit in front of the television and watch grown men huddle with each other and I choose to sit in front of a monitor and watch fake men huddle each other does not mean that my time is wasted. Just because I choose to read, both in MMO’s and in books, instead of tossing a ball does not mean that I am wasting my time.

I have years of great memories with friends and family inside MMOs. I’ve had relationships that felt as real, and thus were as real, as any relationship I’ve had outside of my computer. I’m just tired of people acting high and mighty because they have the IQ of a Junior High School graduate and can’t appreciate the wonders I’ve seen.

Am I addicted to MMOs? Not even a little. Would I choose to play and hang out with my MMO friends over watching television? Every damn time.

The Devil Wears Ragged Leather

Yeah, I just made a Devil Wears Prada reference. I think we can be mature enough to move past that. Maybe.

If you’ve been following the blog then you already know that I’ve become somewhat addicted to Fallen Earth in the past week or so. I’ve been playing it pretty non-stop for a while and it’s everything I could hope for. It very much reminds me of Ultima Online without the annoying getting killed and having all of your possessions looted.

To really get into a game like Fallen Earth, Ultima Online or other games of the type you can’t expect them to tell you what to do. Sure FE’s tutorial does a decent job of getting you read to move around and figure out what you MIGHT want to do, but that’s where the handholding stops.