Posts Tagged ‘Games’

Why do we continue to play video games – sometimes long after we have ceased having fun doing so? That is a subject Julie is exploring a bit for a “piece” she is writing for Virgin Worlds. However it did lead us to ponder over a related area… 

For those of you who have not played Fallen Earth (and shame on you for at least not trying it) the game is set in post apocalyptic Arizona, circa 150 years in the future. The game is divided into three sectors (so far).  All of the pundits of conventional Fallen Earth wisdom bid us abjure any thought of  taking anything but  melee skills when we started out in sector 1.  By sector 2 Julie found that this would leave her in a seriously detrimental condition without any sort of balancing factors.

Every game we have ever played has had its share of pundits of pedagogy, those theocrats of theoreticians…those who claim there is one way to play a game and no other.

Many is the time that we here on the No Prisoners, No Mercy team have run up against players in pugs (Something in which no one here ever intends to indulge ourselves again unless it is the four legged kind) who insist they know how to play your class better than we do.  Even in games where there are no classes, the theorists will concentrate on the exact arrangements of skills without which you are told to consider yourself a “Sub-par” player.   These are the same prima donnas of gaming who insist that no one will group with us if we do not play a given game the way they do – to which we have two replies, both of which begin with the phrase “Thank God”.

Thank God…

That we won’t be picked for some anonymous group of pug (pick up group)  participants who will treat us as if we are single handedly at fault for all that is wrong with the game we play and the world; to include the state of the economy, the disappearance of Amelia Erhart, and are, in fact, the third gunman on the grassy knoll.  This is one group that we won’t miss, unless it is to say that our collective aim is off.

Thank God…

Thank God for groups like The Older Gamers (there are 14000 of us) that are the progenitors of guilds, clans, and supergroups that form player communities. These are communities that not only cross the boundries of games but that we can actually (GASP!) trust and with whom we can have fun playing.  And that leads us to the reason why we occassionally abjure the conventional wisdom of gaming pundits and play the way we want to…

Because its fun.

See you online

The No Prisoners, No Mercy Team

Are bloggers walking on eggshells? Skating on thin ice?

Columbus (upon landing on a beach somewhere in what is now Cuba): I would like to take a few of you guys back with me to prove I discovered you.

Taino Indian: What do you mean you discovered us? We discovered you.

Columbus: Oh? How’s that?

Taino Indian: We discovered you on the beach here – it’s all how you look at it.

The above, taken from Stan Freeburg’s History of the United States of America points out what the mmo community continues to forget, time and again – it’s all how you look at it.  As it is, the video game industry seems to be leaning toward the console side of the house rather than creating pc games.  The November PCGamer talked about this in brief, explaining that the average price of a pc video game hasn’t risen in the last decade, and the profit margin is already slim. The whole situation is exacerbated by mmo bloggers who busy themselves tromping all over the eggshells (or thin ice if you prefer) on which they were already walking.

Yes Virginia, there is such a thing as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

We are all aware of the expected drop off of mmo subscriptions after the initial month – it’s nothing new.  What doesn’t help is that bloggers seem to once again be making their own bed hoping that they don’t have to sleep in it.  We are continually beleaguered by bloggers informing us “the honeymoon is over” because they don’t like playing a game, and expect everyone else to follow suit.  The “blogosphere” is rife with posts about the “grindy” nature of Aion Online.  The reality of the situation is that if you put 10 gamers in a room and ask them to define “grindy” you will no doubt get 10 different answers.  The person who has spent most of the time playing import games will read the insistence that Aion is grindy and look at you like you have three heads, when the second would have been considered extraneous.  There are players who are used to games like World of Warcraft that, relatively speaking, has a leveling speed that could set land speed records and they will consider just about anything a “grind.”

Now I am even reading bloggers who are predicting that developers like Cryptic only care about the first month after the release of the game – forgetting all about the obvious, that it will take far more than one month just to break even with the average mmo. On the whole, there are many bloggers and columnists who seem like the glass is not only half empty, but the other half is full of toxic waste. 

More and more I find myself agree with Beau Turkey of  the “Spouse Aggro” podcast;  especially in a recent post he wrote called “Actually most players are not complaining” (available here ).

 See you online,

Julie Whitefeather