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

Operator Error

Gamer X: “I speak for the entire world…”

Julie: “For the entire world, really? And is this an elected position?

Gamer X: “Well…I speak for all the gamers in the world.”

Julie: “That’s quite a trick – All at once or individually? I mean, if it’s one at a time that could take awhile. How do you accomplish such a miraculous feat? Ventriloquism?”

Gamer X: “I speak for all the gamers in the world by divine right.”

Julie: “Oh, so this is sort of an ‘insane Roman Emperor Caligula’ sort of thing. Since you are the ‘Oracle at Doofai’ maybe you can answer a question.”

Gamer X: “The answer is ‘no’”

Julie: “I haven’t even asked the question yet. So in addition to speaking for all the gamers in the world I am guessing you are omniscient as well?”

Gamer X: “Certainly – how else could I speak for all gamers?”

Julie: “I guess you do have a point there. Perhaps in some insanely twisted, mind boggling way it makes sense. Still I would like to actually ask the question anyway.”

Gamer X:” You may continue lowly creature.”

Julie: “Thank you. Oh great and mighty Oracle at Doofai. I am going to go out and buy Fallen Earth this week. Will I like the game?”

Gamer X: “No – it sucks.”

Julie: “Really?”

Gamer X: “Really. I played the game.”

Julie: “How long did you play it?”

Gamer X: “I played it twice. Once for three minutes, a second time for an hour.”

Julie: “Wow. I am impressed. It took Icarus Studios years to make the game and you have managed to succinctly summarize the entire game with your well thought out three word review.  What can I say, I am flabbergasted. I do have one more question oh Oracle at Doofai.”

Gamer X: “Yes?”

Julie: “By any chance do you work at Eurogamer?”

Back in “grad” school I took what should have been an easy course – but it wasn’t.  Nothing odd about that I suppose, except for the reason why it wasn’t easy.  You see the course was an introductory course in accounting, and what was odd about it was that the Certified Public Accountants who took the course for an easy A were all failing the course. Odder still was the fact that the teacher of the course never questioned his own abilities as an instructor.

It seems that the same problem often holds true in the world of game journalism.

Whether it be columnists, bloggers or any other form of journalism, writers (especially those involved in any form of games journalism) rarely seem to call their own abilities in to question.  I know I do – and hence the recent apology to Doctor Bartle on this site.  Too often it becomes a case of the famous quote by Mark Twain:

“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished by how much he’d learned in seven years.” – Mark Twain

As my co-host and I discussed with Keen from Keen and Graeves on a previous No Prisoners, No Mercy (NPNM) show a blog is an opinion. There is no guarantee of perceived journalistic integrity. Still, it only takes one match to start a forest fire, and a few well read (and uninformed) articles or blogs to damage a game’s reputation.  Mind you I would rather have someone admit they only played the game for an hour before pronouncing two word reviews (“It sucked”), instead of writers who hide the fact that they spent less time with the game than they do on a toilet bowl in any given day.

Odder still, are those writers, seemingly thinking themselves omniscient, who cannot perceive of the possibility that their maggot ridden garbage is someone else’s treasure.  And perhaps, just perhaps, the game in question wasn’t maggot ridden garbage to begin with. Perhaps it is they who have a problem grasping the game mechanics used by the developers. Perhaps, just perhaps, the problems some writers have with games is a case of…

 …Operator error.

After all, pity the poor developer who has to not only make their product fit the myriad, and often conflicting, demands of the market but keep the corporate bean counters happy at the same time.  Consider that for any length of time and you will perhaps find yourself wondering why there aren’t more developers kept behind locked doors, in padded rooms.

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather