Tag: Gaming (page 37 of 41)

Aion’s Allure

December 2, 2009 / / 3 Comments

Pandaemonium

My wife has a blog and it’s going to be mostly about Aion. She’s been playing for a while and really enjoys it. Since I’ve been doing things like writing, prepping an entry for the Escapist’s video contest and playing Dragon Age, I haven’t yet started my own adventures in Atreia. Should my wife acquire a rig of her own, however, I’m more than likely going to start up my own account, and not just because I enjoy playing MMOs with her – after all, that’s how we met.

No, there are several reasons why Aion really does appeal to me.

It’s absolutely gorgeous.

No, seriously. Aion uses the CryEngine meaning that the landscapes are rendered with an attention to detail that would make Church tear up. It definitely appeals to my desire to explore new lands and interact with strange creatures. Right before I smack them around for their pants.

Balanced PvP

I was operating under the false assumption that “end-game PvP” means “grind yourself some decent armor in a battleground made mostly of fail, tweak your toon specifically for defeating exactly two types of opposing characters, then grind some more in an arena setting while those who’ve been at it for years abuse you like a pretty boy in a prison and laugh at how much you suck.” This didn’t really appeal to me. However, I’ve been informed by someone quite brilliant that the player v. player action takes the form of faction v. faction action taking place in the Abyss, kind of like the aforementioned battlegrounds, only huge and rendered with the same breathtaking gorgeousness I just talked about. When you go into something with 24 other people on your side, the intent is for overall victory, not necessarily individual achievement. If they’re interested in continued success, they’re going to help you improve your skills. If someone’s berating you on your side for being new or missing something, they’re probably just being a dick.

Also, “24” is an arbitrary number. The Abyss really is huge. HUGE. You know that feeling that Warhammer Online tried to capture of desperate large-scale combat between powerful armies, which failed because not many people were playing the game? Yeah, Aion gets that right.

Completely custom characters

Say what you want about every MMO that comes out having the same amount of sliders. Aion’s character creator is insane. Doctor Frankenstein couldn’t have developed a better way to put together an artificial construct. You could spend hours in there alone, tweaking the shape of your eyes, the cropping of your hair or the exact tone of your skin. It’s attention to detail is as deep and complete as the landscapes, meaning that your toon is going to be gorgeous and that is going to make the next few dozen hours that much more appealing. I don’t know about you, but the better my character looks when running from place to place or standing and talking to people, the more interested I’ll be in getting to the next hotspot.

Aion gives you wings

Why walk when you can fly?

Okay, you need to get past the first ten levels (“of boring“), and even then you can only fly for a little bit. But still – wings. Without spending any in-game currency, without grinding up a skill or farming materials, your character can fly. Now, you can pick up upgrades for your wings through various means, but instead of making you spend money on training and then on the wings themselves, you sprout them in the course of your character’s natural development. I know there are some people who consider this just a gimmick, but if that’s the case, it’s a damn good one.

The usual MMO appeal

There’s loot, there are titles & achievements and there’s even role-playing to be had. Now, there are some of the grind problems you’ll get with any MMO and some of the drop rates for quest related items can be a little Tourette’s-inducing, but if you can take these things in stride, Aion will definitely keep your attention and gobble up your free time. It’s balanced, it’s innovative and it’s jaw-droppingly stunning to look at. And the visual appeal can count for a lot when you’re talking about something you’ll be staring at long into the night.

Did I mention my wife plays it? And she has a blog about it now?

Trolls In Suits

November 25, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Critics

Professional Troll

Criticism isn’t something you should fear.

Even if it’s not meant to be constructive, criticism can be used to shore up your work. There will always be someone out there who will test your work for flaws and point them out for you. Some even manage to make a pretty good living doing it. Roger Ebert and Yahtzee come to mind.

Critics aren’t just educated sadists, either. More often than not, they’re tearing something apart to uncover its flaws so that consumers who agree with their points of view won’t end up wasting their money on a product that will disappoint them. Legitimate criticism, even when it takes the form of an angry rant, is more a force for good than anything else. As much as you might disagree with a given critic – Lisa Schwartzbaum giving New Moon a B+ for example – they are operating as a consumer advocate.

Criticism serves another purpose, however, one that might not be intended by the critic themselves. If the creator of the subject of criticism is aware of the critic’s viewpoint and can see the merit in their arguments, it can be the impetus for the creator to review their previous work and, rather than simply doing more of the same to milk the same cow, build on the established strengths while discarding or paring out the weaknesses. As much as I think the man’s lost his mind, George Lucas was at least somewhat aware of the criticism leveled at his prequels. Jar Jar was watered down to a few blissfully short lines, the story took a darker and more mature turn and we were given more insight into Palpatine’s rise to power and the last days of the Jedi. Too bad it continued to be poorly written and badly acted, with a few exceptions.

If you’re at all involved in a creative process, be it writing or game design or sculpture or movie production or basket weaving, know you’re going to have critics. Some of them will be fully invested in helping you improve your work, and some will be complete strangers who make what are, to you, baseless accusations. While you have the option of completely ignoring your critics and instead looking to your bank accounts for validation, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that just because something is a financial success doesn’t mean it’s work you should be proud of. Some people are just in this business to make money – and as much as I might disagree with that mentality towards things like writing, I can’t begrudge someone for being successful in a field that’s very difficult to break into.

However, I know that I am not alone in not wanting to be merely a successful writer, but a good one as well. So I’m open to criticism. I know it’s going to come sooner or later, and as long as it doesn’t make my work unpublishable, I’m willing to consider the points being raised if they’ll improve the overall quality of the work. This is something that has only come with time and experience. If you’ve never tried to get published before, the rejection and criticism can be devastating. It’s a hard lesson to learn, and it can’t really be taught, only experienced: being criticized and rejected should not make you quit.

As I said in my Changeling review, quitting is the only way we truly fail in our endeavors. Critics should help you do the opposite of quitting: a constructive argument, even if it’s not phrased as one, should provide you with impetus to not only continue creating, but to improve the creation. After all, if you quit, more than one of those critics will simply be laughing at you for being a coward. Carrying on in the face of adversity and rising to even greater heights in a subsequent effort, on the other hand, is a surefire way to shut those critics up.

So expect criticism. Take it with a grain of salt. Sprinkle that salt into your mix to make it tastier. Before you know it, you’ll have the creative equivalent of a culinary masterpiece, and even the trolls will be begging for seconds.

Everything’s Cooler In Space: Mood Music

November 24, 2009 / / 1 Comment

Jupiter & Callisto

Kicking around in the back of my head as I work on novels, video entries and freelance gaming submissions, the sci-fi tabletop project continues to slowly but surely take shape. Assisting that is a few pieces of music. I’ll list them for you, talk about their merits & nuances, and what they mean to this project.

Holst – “Mars, the Bringer of War”
[audio:http://www.blueinkalchemy.com/uploads/mars.mp3]

This is the opening movement to Gustav Holst’s famous suite on the planets. To me, there are few pieces of music that capture the excitement, pioneering attitude and downright scariness of true science fiction. It moves with a purpose, shifting between almost militaristic cadences and long, sweeping passages.

It fits this project for a variety of reasons. There’s the spectre of impending war that hangs over the interplanetary landscape, the feeling that mankind is teetering on the edge of something it doesn’t quite comprehend even as it quarrels with itself and the knowledge that the machinations of ambitious or even insane men are at work behind the scenes to drive the fate of humanity in one direction or another. “Mars” captures all of these feelings pretty well.

VNV Nation – “Sentinal”
[audio:http://www.blueinkalchemy.com/uploads/sentinal.mp3]

The first vocal track from their latest album, VNV Nation’s music has always captured a mood somewhere between revolutionary and soulful. Behind the strong beat and cascading note sequences, there’s a feeling of weariness. While there’s a desire for change, to better one’s self, there’s also the impression that a lot of time has been spent dreaming of a better tomorrow while greater forces in the world work against that goal.

In the future envisioned with this project, battles have been fought both great and small, with no clear victor in the end equation despite accolades and propaganda on both sides. The players, in a way, begin somewhere in the middle, where they can either move to an overarching view of the volatile situation or choose an allegiance with one side or the other. The reason for doing this, on any scale, is to usher in better days, be it for a particular faction or humanity as a whole.

Tool – “Lateralus”
[audio:http://www.blueinkalchemy.com/uploads/lateralus.mp3]

Incorporating the Fibonacci sequence and featuring a refrains scored in a rotating 9/8,8/8,7/8 time signature, the title track from Tool’s third studio album talks of man’s desire to explore himself and his interpretation of the world around him. The idea is to be unafraid of the unknown, willing to explore beyond the boundaries of what we know and learning to accept the things we do not. If someone can do that, if they can move across the borders between the everyday and the singular, one just might “go where no one’s been.”

To me, this song encapsulates the mentality of the foolishly brave men and women willing to hurl themselves headlong into the void of space. It fits perfectly with the dark sci-fi nature of the project. Also, by seeking to be different and transcend the particulars of their origins, players can move into new territory for them, influencing struggles of power between entire planets and possible redefining the destiny of mankind itself.

It may sound a bit ambitious, but I’ve never been accused of thinking too small.

Desert Bus ’09

November 23, 2009 / / 1 Comment

Get on the bus!

If you click on the above image, you will be transported to the wonder of this year’s Desert Bus event.

What is the Desert Bus event, you ask?

The gamer-loving folks from LoadingReadyRun have established a yearly event for the Child’s Play charity by playing a game in a marathon style. They’ve chosen the timeless, riveting classic Sega CD game, Desert Bus. The game consists of driving a bus from Tuscon to Las Vegas and back.

That’s it.

They take turns, sitting in front of a live streaming webcam, answering questions and participating in different antics. Every donation extends the time they spend on the road without crashing the bus or ending the game. At this time of this writing, they have been busing for 2 days, 14 hours and about 15 minutes, and have raised over $42,000 as shown by the milestone pic I sent them (with apologies to SEPTA).

So if you get the chance, even if the workplace is making demands of you, head on over to desertbus.org, check out the camera and if you can, make a donation. You can also check out LoadingReadyRun’s YouTube channel to see just how brilliant these fine folk are. They’re going to be at this for a while, and they’ll be grateful for the company.

For more details on the history of the Desert Bus event, look no further than the blog of Shamus Young. Also, he snagged a pic of Kathleen & Tally from LoadingReadyRun dressed as catgirls.

There aren’t many better ways to start a Monday that are safe for work, in my opinion.

Works in Progress III: Video Crossroads

November 18, 2009 / / 1 Comment

Gears

The writing continues apace. I haven’t had another burst of words like last Monday night, but I’m still close to finishing another chapter of Lighthouse. I’ve been commissioned to write a Pathfinder adventure of 8-10k words, which I’m chipping away at with the hope of having something to deliver by the end of the week. Even an introduction would show I’m being diligent about the assignment. With Up arriving today from Netflix, I’ll have two movies to write up reviews for in addition to recording audio. Plus there’s the day job, gaming and spending time with my wife as well as doing chores and preparing for trips to Allentown and Charlottesville. That’s Thanksgiving and my cousin’s wedding, respectively.

However, the deadline of the Escapist Video Contest looms and I’m continuing to struggle with my concept. Or rather concepts. I have two of them now, solid ones I can execute on my own with a minimum of fuss & effort, and there are pros & cons to each concept. Like the Scissor Sisters, however, I can’t decide.

Powerless

The original idea I’d mostly settled upon before my muse fondled me the other day was this: every video there’s a reason the power’s out. It could be a down power line, a water main break shorting out a substation, a flood, zombies, nuclear holocaust, etc. Anyway, without power to run any major gaming console, I’d need to find another way to amuse myself, right? Right. So I’d talk about tabletop games and the like: how Chrononauts works, why all the versions of D&D are still valid, the awesomeness of Arkham Horror, etc. I know Alex Macris would dig it.

I just don’t know how long I could keep coming up with contrived excuses for the lights being out.

Spoiler Warning

So we have Zero Punctuation talking about games in general and Unskippable MST3King every intro cutscene in sight. But nobody so far seems to cover the endings of games, how utterly contrived they can be or how blatantly they expect a sequel to come next. This is something I could do, pointing out little things like bad characterization or stupid plot twists in a John Madden-like fashion, but without the extra 200 pounds.

I don’t think it’s as strong an idea as Powerless, but it might last longer since new games are always coming out. I’d try to give a game a few months before I skewer its ending, of course.

Lock the doors & close the blinds, we’re going for a ride.

If you have any thoughts either way, please share. I’d like to get some/most of the work on one of these out of the way this weekend so I have time to tune it up before the deadline.

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