H1Z1 Air Drops Onto Survival MMO Gamers' Dreams

UPDATE (January 19, 2015)
I would like to apologize. In review of what I have written, this was a hastily put together reaction piece that is lacking in information, both about the H1Z1 air drop situation and my own personal opinions. Before I sat down to write, I had already written three extensive comments on Reddit in response to the situation. A lot of information on my opinion, especially about whether or not the air drops can be considered "pay to win", was contained in those comments. When it was time to write this article, I had already written the heck out of the topic and was exasperated by the negative responses. I feel that resulted in a substandard article lacking in content and context. For a more thorough description of the H1Z1 controversy, I recommend Totalbiscuit's Content Patch #189. If you would like to read my initial comments on the H1Z1 situation, here is my lowest rated Reddit comment ever defending SOE's air drop idea and attempting to establish a difference between it and pay to win, and here is attempt #2, and attempt #3. You may notice a difference in the stance I took on air drops from the article below. There are a couple of ways to view the problem, but my main concern on Reddit was trying to battle the idea that a randomly placed supply crate is pay to win, because allowing that idea to win could set a dangerous precedent for games when it comes to experimenting with their marketplace. It seemed like the majority in vocal opposition to the air drops had this idea that an in game marketplace should only ever sell cosmetic items. Imagine World of Warcraft decided to add a world raid boss or event to the Blizzard store. Pay $40 and a server wide message exclaims "[insertPlayerName] knows not what he has done! An Old God rises from the depths below." The Old God is a challenging fight, on par with the most difficult raids that currently exist, and the end loot is amazing. Does it fit the old model of purchasing items and weaponry? Essentially, it's like the air drop in H1Z1. In H1Z1, a server message is sent out, the drop falls, and then zombies spawn around the drop. The main problem, and difference, is that World of Warcraft is an old, finished, stable(ish) game and H1Z1 is a game in its infancy. The drops don't offer a challenge because they aren't finished testing them. Unfortunately, because they opted for the Early Access program instead of using alpha and beta testers, and they accepted in game purchases, they had this coming. They should have waited a bit before dropping this bombshell on their fans. The original article is below, but, again, I'm sorry that it isn't up to my standards. Please watch the video by Totalbiscuit, linked above, for a better explanation of the H1Z1 events.


As someone who occassionally gets into beta tests and alphas to scout ahead of the pack, I noticed that those opportunities started drying up when people started literally paying to test a game, Early Access. There are a million reasons why that is silly for the consumer to do, but it's also silly for the company to do, and here H1Z1 is a perfect example.

The air drop thing is a big issue to consumers, bigger than it should be. To the developers, this was their alpha testing phase. Things aren't going to work right, fine. The whole purpose is to work out the kinks before release. In most Early Access games where there are kinks (see DayZ for the past, what, 5 years?) people have come to accept it, so why not this time?

Early Access + In Game Marketplace = Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy???

There are a lot of people mad about the devs going back on their word about paid for weapon drops and how it ruins the survival part of their survival MMO. This isn't the first time that an Early Access game has had a game breaking bug, and it isn't the first one to employ a marketplace, but it is the first majorly anticipated game to accept $20-$40 USD to purchase an untested feature. A feature that goes against the genre of the game.

Survival MMO's are supposed to create a near impossible scenario for the player to overcome. If there was a zombie apocalypse, how screwed or prepared would you be? The type of people that like to answer that question are the type of people that would like to play a good wholesome survival MMO. And PVPers. Broken mess that DayZ is, it wouldn't have been anything if it wasn't for the hilarious PVP videos made by popular streamers like Destiny of StarCraft II and Planetary Annihilation fame.

Air drops do not fit into this mold. Not as a paid for transaction. As a server event, if the drops happen regularly at specific drop points, like in a real disaster, it would fit the setting better. And if they didn't drop guns and ammunition, that would be great! Seriously, who puts together a care package that includes food, water, and whatever random gun they have lying around? I know it's the zombie apocalypse, but that's exactly why people shouldn't be handed guns. In every zombie apocalypse movie, someone gets a gun that shouldn't have had a gun, and they start murdering people (living people). A big point, and part of the tension in those stories, is managing the weapons and making sure they don't fall into the wrong hands. In response to the outcry, the devs have lowered the spawn rate of guns in the drops and down a few other patches to how they work. To that point, the devs have said that they are going to continue tweaking the current model of air drops with no significant change as to how they function, possibly until they drive away every last consumer and their game forever festers as another example of a failure of the Early Access system

Heroes of the Storm Technical Alpha Final Phase Impressions

After a week of expected maintenance, Blizzard has successfully launched the final phase of the Heroes of the Storm Technical Alpha.

What Changed?

 

There were a few small bug fixes but two very major, very important changes were implemented.

Accounts Reset

 

All Technical Alpha accounts had their gold refunded and purchases refunded to their Battle.net account balances. All levels gained during the previous technical alpha were lost, both hero levels and account levels. However, Blizzard has stated that this is the last reset of the Alpha, meaning all future purchases and levels gained will carry over into the finished game.

Server Regions

 

Previously, the Technical Alpha took place on a server under heavy load to stress test and work out any problems that could happen from server load. After months of testing, they had the Technical Alpha server running stable enough that they could proceed to set up the regional servers.

The Good and the Bad

 

Technical Alpha Headstart and Hero Levels

The Good
Technical Alpha players have a lot to teach new players.
The Bad
Technical Alpha players are going to absolutely murder new players when the game goes full launch.

Players in the technical alpha had a head start in personal experience with the game, and now they will have a clear headstart in levels and heroes acquired in the game. The hero leveling system locks the use of abilities on heroes until a certain level is reached with that hero. Heroes unlock all of their abilities after about 4 games. However, during those 4 games, they are playing as a handicapped version of that hero. There has been a lot of debate about the purpose of the leveling system and whether it is fair to handicap new players off the bat. An argument for the system is that it prevents new players from feeling overwhelmed by choices and presents them with a specific build path for a hero before opening up the whole kit. An argument against the system is that it unnecessarily handicaps the player in a team based game, and thus handicaps the team. Other arguments against the system include: it affects heroes purchased with real money, 4 games is an arbitrary amount to have to play, and the order in which talents unlock does not make sense on some heroes. In the end, the personal experience will matter more than the levels when it comes to technical alpha players having a headstart, and the level issue is more of a fundamental game design decision that may be changed before release.

Server Regions!

 

The Good
Lower latency and more communication between players.
The Bad
People switching regions can more easily disrupt matches.

If you have ever played a game with people who do not speak your language, you know how important it is to have proper server regions. When setup right, players are matched with people similar enough in culture that they can communicate more clearly with each other and work together more easily. If you have played a lot of DotA2, you know that server regions don't always work out that way. It is too early to tell if Blizzard has it set up in such a way that people from other regions aren't forced to switch regions to get a better queue.

More Information

 

Official Blizzard Post :: Technical Alpha is Back Online!

Shameless YouTube Plug

 

I am currently uploading Part 7 of my Clive Barker's Undying playthrough. Check it out on my channel :: SaikoGekido Gaming

Sonic Boom E3 Impressions

I grew up with Sonic. I watched both of the cartoons, the super serious one with freedom fighters versus Robuttnik and the super cartoony one that I remember every time I see a chilli dog. As soon as Sonic started talking in this trailer, it reminded me of the cartoons. Which is no surprise, since they are working on a cartoon to release alongside it, and because Big Red Button Entertainment was founded by one of the lead art directors from Naughty Dog, Bob Rafei. You can really see the resemblance to past works in these character character concepts released on Arcade Sushi. Having wrote that, there is an issue I have with the new look for Knuckles. When I picture Knuckles, I think of a laid back trickster who is heavily implied to have themes related to Jamaica. They changed him over the years to be more like a treasure hunter, with Rogue as his foil, but now he has massive, continent sized pectorals. In my prejudice mind, the first reaction to him is that he looks like a dumb, angry meat head, as is often the case when considering how people with prominently displayed muscles are portrayed via television tropes. The other concern I have is the gameplay. People are parroting "watch out, Sonic 06", but I'm getting more of a Shadow the Hedgehog vibe from this. Shadow was an okay game, except that the level design was terrible. You would go fast until you reached a point where going fast was no longer an option and you had to shoot enemies. The enemies weren't as interesting as going fast, making every time you were stopped an annoying, similar to the feeling of being stuck in traffic. The trailer was short, so it isn't fair to critique the gameplay, but there were fighting segments and going fast segments. The pacing of those will be key.

It will be interesting to see what happens in this story and find out how the characters have changed in personality, but there are some legitimate concerns. Sonic Boom is set to release on the WiiU and Nintendo 3DS in November 2014.

WildStar Beta: Testing Customer Service

Beta testing is not a free ride into a video game. There is a social responsibility as the gaming pioneer to report back to your peers, and to the company producing the game, with news of your discoveries. It is not about glory and privilege, but service to the community and to future customers. Streaming has made it relatively easy to satisfy community curiosity about the performance and features of a product, but an important part of any product deployment is the infrastructure to handle customer feedback on a mass scale, which can not be so easily streamed. I am going to do my best to illustrate my experience with NCSoft, the creators of WildStar, and their customer service department.

Welcome to the exciting world of WildStar Customer Service

Yesterday, I received an email.

Awesome! I had been waiting for months to get my hands on this game. The rumor mill from the closed beta was that it was a "decent WoW clone" with some action elements, like SWTOR was at launch. NCSoft was trying to keep people from getting that idea in there head, because being called a WoW clone can kill an MMO before launch. Personally, I was excited to get a chance to find out the truth. Is WildStar really another "WoW clone", or is there hidden depth under that cartoony exterior?

Before going into a game, especially a beta, it is important to know the history of the developer. NCSoft has been around for a while. City of Heroes was made by Paragon Studios and NCSoft in 2005, around the same time as their other famous franchise, Guild Wars. City of Heroes had a relatively long run for an MMO. Shortly after the release of Guild Wars 2, City of Heroes was shut down. NCSoft closed the servers and basically told one of their oldest fan communities to deal with it. While I only played a week or two of that game, keep their story in mind while reading the rest of this article.

Following the instructions in the email, I went to login to my NCSoft account. It took me a little while to remember the password, but I was finally greeted with this message:

Huh... Well that is interesting, since the last game I remembered playing an NCSoft game was Guild Wars 2 and I had two step verification set up for it. There was the possibility that I had another account with NCSoft, but why would any of them be permanently blocked? Was I hacked? Where was an email about this? I found an email asking me to fill out a survey about NCSoft customer service dealing with this exact issue around 2010. I decide to contact customer service.

Why is a raven like a writing desk?

The North American Support page is composed of banners of their still active North American games with links to their individual support pages. However, my issue was an NCSoft Account issue, not a game related issue, so going to a specific database would not make sense, right? Wrong. But we will get to that. Poking around the page, looking for a phone number, I discovered something amazing:

NCSoft does not have a North American customer support line.

There is a customer support line for Thailand, Taiwan, and Japan, but America only gets a link back to the support page. Wow. I persisted and found the fraud line, but that also did not make sense for my type of problem. What about a customer support email? They do not mention one on their site, but I tried support@ncsoft.com at the request of a friend on Twitch.

At that point, I started streaming on my Twitch channel. In the chat, a very helpful person (I'm sorry, but I forgot your username, was it woke_up_sleepy?) tried to brainstorm with me. They gave me links to the WildStar twitter and NCSoft Support Twitter, which I tweeted to twy and get help. WildStar Twitter replied before NCSoft Support did (I am still waiting for an NCSoft Support reply):

Note to self, update twitter picture.

Anyway, that link was specifically the support page for WildStar. At this point, I have given up on logic and believe there is no way I can fix the problem. I start ranting about it to people on my stream that came from destiny.gg. > MFW, in mid rant, I stumbled upon the solution

Want to remove the permanent block on your NCSoft Account?

Step 1: Discover you have a problem. Accepting you have a problem is the first step to fixing it, since you are not going to receive an email from NCSoft about it.

Step 2: Are you a North American resident just trying to play Guild Wars 2 and don't care about WildStar? It doesn't matter. Since NCSoft does not have a centralized support page for North American account support, you will need to go to WildStar Support. In theory, this might work in one of the other support pages, but that would be logical, and we now know logic has no power here.

Step 3: Notice that the main page says that you need to login to send a ticket to ask them why you can't login. Lose part of your brain cells. Go to the bottom of the page and select Login Support.

Step 4: Search for "Account permanently blocked". Your results should look like this:

Step 5: Click "I'm having trouble logging in to my NC Account". I suppose that is one way of saying, my account has been permanently blocked. Shouldn't there be an article specifically about that? Logic.

Step 6: First it asks you to try resetting your password. Another dead end. Nope! The next sentence has a link to a page specifically for submitting tickets without being logged in! This must be the solution!

EDIT: If you have Guild Wars 2, their support page has access to ticket submission at the top. However, you will need a lot more information. They may even ask for the serial key you used to activate Guild Wars 2.

Or is it?

Depending on how you view automated replies, I am about four to five emails deep into the investigation of what NCSoft did to my account. First, one GM said that my account was blocked back in 2010, and had City of Heroes on it, but not Guild Wars 2. I asked if it could be under any of my other emails and gave them a list. This is the latest email:

In case you were wondering, both of those links redirect to the NA Support page that asks which game you want support for.

Good news is, I can join the beta. The bad news is that my account no longer has Guild Wars 2, possibly losing it during account transitions to the new system. I am going to keep trying to find out what exactly has happened and sort out this mess, but this is all of the information I have after one day. If it all gets sorted out, I will update, but there are some main points here that I feel are important to get out to people.

NCSoft is about to launch another brand new massively multiplayer game in North America and they do not have the customer service aspect worked out. You can submit tickets, if you find the proper link in their knowledge base, but there is no phone number for customer support. Although I did not go into depth about this, I did try to call the fraud line to see if I could get redirected to a hidden customer support number. It went straight to voicemail with directions for reporting fraudulent activity. If your account gets hacked you leave a message with your account info and spoken email address and they will call you back during the week, or you can send them an email. According to several forums that I found while searching for a solution to my issue, the fraud line used to have a different number that was also for account support, not just billing. Those forums also had their own stories of trying to sort out similar situations with NCSoft: Example 1 Example 2 Example 3

As far as beta testing goes, I have not even been able to try out WildStar, but I have already found some major glitches in the system. All it would take is a server outage on day one, or even more people finding out their accounts were messed up during the June transition, to completely ruin the game. Unless NCSoft sorts the problems with their North American customer support, they could be in for a very rocky launch.

UPDATE March 29th 12:56 PM

Using the Guild Wars 2 support ticket system mentioned in an edit above, they were able to find my Guild Wars 2 account. I still don't know what is going on with my SaikoGekido account. Sounds like most of the problem is solved, right? Not even close! My GW2 account does not count as an NCSoft account. I still need to get the SaikoGekido account back up and running.

UPDATE March 29th 3:06 PM

I heard back from Guild Wars 2 support:

One mystery solved, but we still do not have a clear answer on how to restore my NCSOFT account. Waiting for a reply from my latest message to WildStar support, but I am also going to try sending another message back to Guild Wars 2 support, since they have been more helpful.

UPDATE March 29th 8:19 PM

Still no word from WildStar support, but I have another email from Guild Wars 2 support:

Quick recap: Guild Wars 2 just helped me reset the password on my Guild Wars 2 account, but they can't help me get my SaikoGekido NCSOFT master account because there are no games associated with it. Because I can't log in to my NCSOFT master account I can not add any games to it and upgrade it to the new master account format. The simple, obvious, solution to this mess would be to add my Guild Wars 2 account to SaikoGekido and have it unblocked, but it sounds like it needs to be unblocked before anything can be added to it, but it can't be unblocked because it can't be accessed because it is in the old format of the account system. This is the eighth email, and not the first time that NCSOFT support has said that exact top paragraph. I sent a reply to see if I could at least get the name from my old master account. Again, no word from WildStar support and no word from the tweet at NCSOFT Support's twitter.

FINAL UPDATE March 30th 3:05 PM

WildStar Support replied to my email:

In the end, trying to get my SaikoGekido account unblocked and upgraded to the new system means creating a new account and then migrating the information from the old account to the new one. I still do not know if that is even possible, since previous emails said that I would need active games associated with an NCSOFT Account in order to make the account eligible for upgrade to a NC Account. Even though Guild Wars 2 is an NCSOFT game, it does not use the NC Account or NCSOFT Master Account system, so it can not be linked to the NCSOFT Master Account to give that account an active game to make it eligible for upgrade to the new system. Keep in mind, the changes from NCSOFT Master Account to NC Account just happened in June, without any major releases from NCSOFT. People unaware of these changes that had old NCSOFT Master Accounts with issues like mine are going to run into the same problems I did. Because NCSOFT's customer support system is maze of mirrors, I am going to make sense of all of this and create a followup post to help anyone that has the same problem. That should not be necessary.

Katawa Shoujo Will Change You

Have you ever had a great idea and wished there was someone you could share it with? Apparently, the history of Katawa Shoujo can be traced back to a discussion on 4chan some odd years ago. I don't personally know the full story, but it was a single community effort between anonymous individuals over the internet, collaborating to create pieces of art, fiction, and technology. Their independent efforts, unfettered by the usual corporate bureaucracy involved in video game development, have yielded one of the most immersive and complex stories ever created.

Without ruining too much of the plot, shortly after the story begins, your character is forced to attend a new school for the disabled by certain life events. Part of the storyline involves your own character dealing with what it means to be disabled, and what normal actually is. Linked into this are the various students you're introduced to. On your first few days, you're given the opportunity to identify with each character and choose whose storyline you would like to follow. There are multiple endings to the story dependent on the choices that you make throughout.  I suggest that every time an option arises, you stop and think about it from the perspective of the main character, and all those affected. By the ending of Act 1, you will have narrowed down the branching paths to a few focused around a character (or two).

:: SPOILERS AHEAD ::
To be fairly honest, I began this game like I usually would with any other bishojo graphic novel, through a shallow metric based on the characters' looks. Most bishojo that I have come across, tend to stick to a few cliche female personalities that are about as interesting as sopping wet cardboard. After reaching the end of Act 1 however, I detected that there was something more to Katawa Shoujo. There was a feeling of deja vu, or more accurately when you recognize someone at a glimpse, but have to double take to scrutinize them more closely. I started over with a new purpose. I searched for the personalities of the characters on a quest to uncover this strange aura around the writing.


My Notes on the Characters:

• Shizune is the deaf and mute class representative of 3-4. Possessed of a strong personality, she believes in aggression and domination, and takes much pride in these aspects. I rate her as most likely to become an evil dictator. I certainly consider her storyline, but since she is introduced first, I wait to examine the others.
• Misha is the translator for Shizune. She has a problem keeping the volume of her voice below a shout, which is complimented by her extreme friendless and naivety. I'm not really sure what to make of her off the bat, since she's attached to Shizune, who tends to take control of the conversations. I note that she may have hidden potential, but put her in the back of the list.
• Hanako was caught in a fire and burned much of her body. My first thoughts when I saw her was that she may be the girl from the opening scene who felt misplaced guilt over Hisao's hospitalization and burned herself in order to attend the same school as him. Her timid personality and phobia of people lends a little bit to this theory, but Lilly mentioned that Hanako's injuries occurred at a younger age. Still, I feel like there's more to her story than just post traumatic stress disorder.
• Lilly is the blind representative of 3-2, a class for blind or mostly blind students, and mortal enemy of Shizune. They don't fully explain this enmity in Act 1, so it definitely piques my interest. She's the tallest person in the game that isn't a teacher and apparently raised as a proper British lady. She's also one of the few people Hanako trusts, which would mean that there's a great potential for her story to reveal parts of Shizune's and Hanako's respective pasts. There seems to be a lot of potential here.
• Emi is a track and field runner, sans legs, with an exuberant and childish personality similar to Misha's, but more exaggerated. Despite her disability, she loves to run everywhere, on the track in the morning, rain or shine, and through the halls during the day, much to the ire of taskmaster Shizune. She worries the most about Hisao's health, and encourages him to join her for practice in the mornings. Her dialogue and emotes are the most light hearted of any character in the game. Definitely a storyline that can cheer someone up and very worth considering.
• I was immediately repulsed by Rin. It wasn't because she didn't have arms, it's because I'm not a feet person. Again with the shallowness, I know, but feet seriously creep me out for whatever reason. Since she was introduced eating lunch with a fork between her toes, you might not think that she'd be the story I'd be interested in, which is what I felt on my first innocent play through Act 1. However, the second time...

I couldn't place it at first. Rin is an artist that paints with her feet. She's always looking around, looking for things that no one can see, or looking through people at what she imagines of them. I thought she reminded me of an old high school crush I had that was never truly resolved in my life, and that's why I originally chose her path. Perhaps her story would present another way of looking at my own past and understanding it.

Her story revolves around the concepts of self and identity. Her abstract style of art reflects a tragic search for who she really is, and a conservatory effort to preserve the past selves that she can hardly remember. Consider every scene with her for a long period and you'll discover multiple layers that build up to the fourth wall. Questions bleed over from the game into real life. Are thoughts like clouds, ephemeral and high above the world? What is art? What does it mean to change oneself? Does the previous self have to be destroyed to affect change? What is important in life?

A strange thing occurred. The main character and I drifted apart in understanding. He became frustrated with her aloof nature, while I began to examine it more closely and came to a truer understanding of why I chose this path. When he began scolding her for the choices he had encouraged her to make, I wanted to defend her against him. Still within the mindset of thinking of her as the analogue of a high school crush, it took me the majority of the game to realize why I wanted to defend her. The way Rin acts, and thinks...

She's like me.

I know it seems from this long expository that I might be the talkative type, but, in person, my conversations come in torrents or one liners. My thoughts are constantly in flux, often separate from the real world. The subjects of what it means to change and to have an identity are things that I have been wrestling with for years. When I pour myself into a work, it's like a dam is opened and I can finally be me, so long as I continue to draw or write. My memory is like a foggy ocean, full of ghost ships and distracting light houses. Rin is the only character I've known that has come so close to describing who I am.

More than anything, I wanted her life to work out, and so I took every choice as if they were the most life threatening events in the universe, paused in front of me while I decided on my actions. At that point, I was no longer deciding for Hisao, or for Rin, but instead for myself. The choices were about the themes and the concepts brought up by the narrative and filtered through these characters. Carried by the author's words, I began an introspective journey that deepened as I continued through the game. When I arrived at Rin's good ending in my first try, it was like I had found the path to my own good ending. Now, I just have to figure out what that means.

Rin may not be the character you choose. Every person is mostly different, after all.

If you haven't played Katawa Shoujo, you can grab a free copy from their website. Keep in mind that it is aimed at adults, but you can turn off adult scenes in the options menu.

New Video and Feedback Requested

I'm writing a longer form, more serious first impressions of the Firefall Beta, but that won't be out until tomorrow. Tonight, we stream! Okay, maybe you aren't, but I'm going to be on Twitch.tv streaming Tribes Ascend for the Double XP Weekend event. Add SaikoGekido in game, or watch it live.

There will be a vlog post later tonight about this topic, but I'm curious what the community thinks about my channel. There are a couple of videos up on the chopping block, which I'll reveal in the vlog. Suffice it to say, some of my older content doesn't really look "professional". Especially the COD style League of Legends (LOL) videos.

I'll update this post with the vlog below when it's finished, or it will come up in your feed if you're subscribed to the channel.

Cya
~ SaikoGekido

Secret World Beta Weekend #2 Day 1

You're a member of an elite secret faction imbued with celestial powers, fighting against chthonic forces bent on devouring the world. Sounds a little like the love child of the X-Files and World of Warcraft, which is a fairly accurate description of Funcom's newest MMO.

 Looks like H.P. Lovecraft. Better get a DNA test, X-Files.

The setting is a mixture of modern science fiction and fantasy, introduced to the player right off the bat by a tiny glowing bee. Have you ever heard those rumors about how we swallow bugs in our sleep without realizing it? That's how they start things off, with a pleasant, skin crawling urban myth. A bee floats into your characters room and casually slips into their mouth. Jolted awake, your coughing character reaches for their jacket, which of course lights it on fire with arcane energy. Apparently that wasn't a garden variety bee.

Bumble Bee Tuna anyone?

It was a really well done scene that illustrates how subversive the mystical side of the Secret World's  reality really is. It just creeped right on into the character's life while they were sleeping. Skipping forward a few days, your character starts having transcendental indigestion, puking energy all over their apartment like Cyclops on a bender. They obviously haven't been outside in a while, and probably lost their job by this point. It's not really clear on this part of the setting, which I will get into later.

Another few days and the character has really started to get the hang of their new powers. They're just juggling a tiny energy ball, minding their own business, when there's a knock at the door. Who could that be? Why it's a super secret Templar recruitment agent. She goes through a lengthy exposition detailing the basics of the Secret World to the player, what's expected of the character, hands them a note sealed with a Templar symbol, and ends with a subtle "join or die".

I'm no snake doctor, but I'm pretty sure this kills the snake.

A little background about myself before I respond to what just happened. I have been waiting for The Secret World MMO to come out since I heard about it. The modern setting mixed with elements of fantasy and science fiction really appeals to me, because of certain horror books I read as a child and the more recent World of Darkness setting that I really dug into in the early 90's-2000's. There's just something about people living normal every day lives, oblivious to the monstrous terrors of a true reality underneath theirs, which really appeals to me. Basically, I'm going to be hyper critical of the setting, more so than the gameplay.

NEERRRRRD!!

The setting is fantastic. Of what I've seen, and I only played through a small portion of the beginning London area, but they managed to pull off a really hard feat. The issue with this sort of setting, and it came up a lot in World of Darkness, is that it's based around supernatural creatures, but as if the events were taking place in reality. What that means is that the setting can't exclude mortal characters/NPCs and just showcase a bunch of monsters or super heroes and cool powers. There has to be reminders that normal people exist. That can be as easily pulled off as having casual NPCs meandering around the city, or expendable characters with no idea what's going on, running for their lives from black ichor soaked horrors. However, I would classify this under "World Setting", because it's external of the character.

The character needs to have a dichotomy of supernaturally imbued badass, and mortal responsibilities. So far, I haven't played enough to understand the nature of what that bee did, but what happened to your character's job? Did they have friends? Allergies? Likes and dislikes? What made them human? That's something I hope there will be more of as I play on. I had a similar discussion with a friend about comic book characters. It's not about the cool powers. They're certainly eye grabbers, but the long time readers keep reading because of the characters. They get attached to the personality. My character is mute. And I know why.

Funcom has placed their excellent setting into a classical MMO build. The combat runs like World of Warcraft, Aion, etc. However, there feels like there's a great deal less emphasis on resource management, and more on movement and action. That's one aspect that really held back the old formula, which involved a lot of staring at bars. I was only able to try out the Shotgun, but it had several different abilities that utilized the position of your character and facing requirements. Oh, and no auto-attack!

But what about white-paw damage?

There is a quest log/mission journal, and quest/mission markers on the mini-map. All the staple improvements of previous Everquest-tier MMOs are included. However, Star Wars: The Old Republic introduced your own character's personal voice acting, which is absent. I think that's really the only complaint I can think of, which popped into my head during the long rambling exposition of the Templar agent. That could have been a moment when any normal person would have spoken up.

They didn't pull a SWTOR and slave a bunch of voice actors to recite thousands of lines of dialogue. The NPCs are all voiced, and there appears to be in game cutscenes at every juncture of a mission tier, but using a voice actor for a minor character or two that only has a few lines of dialogue is different from getting one to recite nearly every possible reply for every mission in the game. Plus, they would have to implement some system like in SWTOR to accommodate multiple personalities, and really the more we talk about this, the messier it gets. SWTOR didn't even get that formula perfect, and they had EA, millions of dollars, and plenty of development time to work with.

Except replace "no" with "kill him"

Overall, I have some really high hopes for The Secret World. I'm definitely heading back to it in the next Beta Weekend for a second look, and an overview of any major changes. It still has a ways to go before release time, which leaves plenty of time for exciting surprises.

Check out the recorded footage from Day 1.

The Launch That Couldn't Be Stopped

The most peculiar thing happened earlier this week. Millions upon millions of video gamers ran into a DRM (Digital Rights Management) issue, which is oft maligned and treated with grave sincerity when matters of properly purchased software become rendered inert by their arcane forces. DRM requiring the user to have an active internet connection has been seen as the hell spawn of corrupt business practices. Many a game publisher has been guilty of indulging in this practice, and they were all soundly put in their place by the angry barbarous shouts of the gamer horde. All of them except

Diablo III

There were certainly a bold few to stand up to the challenge of upholding the traditionalist values of gamer society, which say specifically to shun all DRM that makes a game unplayable. On the launch of Diablo 3, millions of gamers attempted to connect to Battle.net and were rejected. The ripple of "Error 37" messages blew up Reddit and echoed off Facebook. But these weren't the actions of an enraged mob focused on a publisher, like every previous attempt at a similar DRM. People were mad, because they really, really, really wanted to play Diablo 3.

When the dam finally broke, and the people were allowed to enter Hell once again, the protest died. No one cared about the online DRM, Diablo 3 was just too good. While this lingering knowledge of obeisance to future publisher treatment is still stuck in every gamer's head that participated in the launch event, the tiny whispers of doubt and fear are just a minor annoyance. If Activision-Blizzard can do it, so can EA and Ubisoft. What if the success of the Lord of Terror reinvigorates these old gamers' adversaries. All new forms of heavy DRM could be let loose upon the masses, hidden in the gorged bellies of beloved franchises.

Assassin's Creed 3 is perched on the horizon. A bit foreboding, but let's dive away from this topic for a moment.

The actual game, Diablo 3 that is, seems simple and dumbed down at first glance. Once one delves into the multiple difficulty layers they discover the various abilities they've been sampling have a subtle range of flavor, like the difference between dark chocolate and milk chocolate. The goal is to get fat on loot, but the game must be paced and enjoyed, lest one suffer a heart attack.  SPOILER a lot of people may have already suffered at least a headache from the ending. END SPOILER All in all, the game is quite delicious and fulfilling. It was well worth the long wait and even the snooty service.