Just a quick one for today.

This week in me design course we have been doing logo design in Illustrator!

Our concept this time was to research up candy or candy-like logos, come up with a name and then design a logo for a candy product.

My name was “Splosions” and the idea I had for my candy was that it was a sour lolly that’s flavour was an explosion in your mouth!

Next week, we’ll be designin’ a character for it.

If you have a deviantART account and feel the strong urge to comment, like, fave or just look at it on dA for some reason then simply click on the picture above and you’ll be sent to the page over on deviantART!

But I want more.

When I started playing there was no mods, none at all, and that was fine! I still had several hundred hours of gameplay without ‘em! Fast-forward through time 6 months and I’m sitting here with over 100 mods installed and the desire to try some of the newer ones out.

My predicament came when I tried to simply start a new character, as I had been doing since I started the game, but I quickly found I couldn’t think of what to play, what to do, what to see! When you’ve played as a thief, mage, spellsword, two-handed berserker, dual-wielding duelist, mage-thief, battlemage, unarmoured two-handed-wielding orcs, unarmoured sniping mages, etc etc, you start looking for new and exciting ways to kill people.

I however, decided to go the “lazy” route! Instead of looking for ideas myself I figured I’d lend my ear to just a few of the forums I post on. Only one of these forums actually responded but the ideas erupted from peoples minds like Diet Coke when you’ve stuck Mentos in the bottle!

And so “Choose My Adventure” was born, a “game” of sorts in which the goal is for you to come up with such an interesting character concept that I decide to go ahead and run with it. Not only this but I wanted some clear rules and restrictions that would make my life harder and my play-through more interesting. Things such as “no magic” or “no armour”.

After looking through some of the ideas for a few days I’ve decided to go with the following story of a Nord sailor, written by a fellow guild member called Taedius. Check out the story below, or you can see the original post here.

The Nord Sailor

A male Nord sailor, returning home after hearing the news of Ulfric’s rebellion. He reverently supports them, and fights to get the Empire out of his homeland. He had to be sneaky to get past the Empire’s control of the seas. As a sailor, he’s naturally smooth-talking and can pick locks open; gotta get that precious cargo through somehow. He also prefers to use ranged weapons, resorting to a sword and dagger only when necessary.

Skills and Restrictions

Whilst I won’t be limiting myself to only using the following skills, these will be considered “baseline”; They will end up being my most-used skills and the ones likely to reach 100 the quickest.

Primary Skills

• Light Armor
• One-Handed / Hand-to-Hand
• Archery
• Sneak
• Lockpicking
• Speech

Instead of using swords and the like I’m going to instead do some good ol’ fashion fisticuffs brawlin’ when the bow just won’t cut it. To achieve this, I’ll be using the hand-to-hand related perks in the One-Handed tree (with a mod called PerkUP) and possibly the Grandmaster mod (this replaces the Two-Handed tree with perks related to Hand-to-Hand combat). The Grandmaster mod also happens to have a bunch of magical-related fist styles and a perk which lets you do explosive impact shots with your arrows. As cool as these sound I may not end up using these, as I feel it may deter from the background concept of the character.

Secondary Skills

• Restoration
• Alchemy

Restoration is added as a “last resort” and not something to be relied upon, preferring to sneak and hide from my enemies when under direct fire. Alchemy is used for poisons only, other potions can be made but only for experience and to sell them.

Restrictions

Restrictions can be as simple as a few minor inconveniences or as large as forbidding the use of all but a handful of skills, weapon types or even armour.

As already stated, Restoration is restricted to being used as a “last resort” manoeuvres which, if I am careful and play correctly, shouldn’t have to be used too often and therefore probably won’t reach a spectacularly high level. “As a last resort” means I can’t use it above 25% health. Because I can’t accurately determine what my health level is during combat without pausing, I’ll only heal when I feel my health bar is at a 1/4 of a full bar.

Alchemy is also restricted in the fact that I’m not allowed to use it for anything other than poisons. Any potion can be made but I am not going to be using any potions that restore health, magicka or stamina, or increase the regeneration of any of these. I will also not use potions that increase damage or decrease damage taken, such as resistance potions. Blacksmithing and Enchanting will probably be levelled but I’m restricting myself to using only weapons I can buy or find on my travels, so no crafted gear for me.

This means that I’m primarily using the three crafting skills (Alchemy, Blacksmithing and Enchanting) as “stat sticks”, or as a means to level up and get more perks, health, stamina, etc.

In regards to weapons and armour, my restrictions on these are fairly simple: I am to primarily use bows and hand-to-hand combat. Bows are my primary method of offence where as fisticuffs shall be my go-to style when I’m out of arrows or when the enemy is up in my face and is just askin’ for a good beating. In regards to armour, I’ll be using none, simple right? This is actually largely due to aesthetics though, because the PerkUP mod mentioned before also includes new Light Armor perks that reduce physical damage taken whilst wearing armour, there is also a perk that increases your chance to dodge when wearing no armour.

No magic aside from Restoration will be allowed. That means no easy-mode Invisibility, no mage armour spells to absorb some of the blows, no minions to tank for me, etc. Also no followers, but this is largely because they annoy the living shit out of me, especially when sneaking.

From here on out I’ll be updating my blog with a new “Choose My Adventure” post every few days, outlining some of the highlights of my journey and what I’ve been getting up to over the span of my adventure. The first half of these posts will be written in-character, which means they’ll be written as if my character was writing them. The second half will be out-of-character; This will be myself writing them outlining how I’ve been coping and what I’ve found fun/struggled with over the past few days.

When will this end, though? Well, unlike Living in Oblivion or the Skyrim spin-off by the same author, The Elder Strolls, I won’t stop when I’m dead. Not exactly.

Because this is not only meant to be an interesting “Let’s Play” series but also a means for me to play more Skyrim, stopping the articles upon death would be a giant inconvenience. I also play on Master with a few difficulty mods and frankly, “death” could happen just by getting off the boat I started in (more on that in the first CMA post!), but I am restricting myself a bit.

My quest shall “end” once I’ve died a total of 5 times, finished every main questline or reached level 50-80. The last one is primarily designed so I don’t keep posting about the one character for too long (Living in Oblivion lasted years, but I don’t necessarily want that to happen here), cliffhangers permitted!

Sound interesting? Then check back tomorrow for the first CMA blog article and enjoy a sailor’s life with my Nord, Lazeka.

Here’s a good video of what some so-called “journalists” think of the Mass Effect community right about now.

The controversy surrounding what some (myself included) believe to be a “bad ending to a brilliant series” started simply because many fans disliked the ending to Mass Effect 3 to great extremes. Some even hate it so much they want BioWare to add alternate endings that “fix” the problem.

But what about this so-called “gamer entitlement”? A meaning that is synonymous with “self-entitlement” but apparently only gamers express this. Well, that’s what I’m here to discuss today.

So what do the words mean?”

“Self-entitlement” is a word that encompasses both the meanings of “self” and “entitlement”, as seen by the word itself.

“Self” is “a person’s essential being that distinguishes them from others; considered as the object of introspection or reflexive action”.

“Entitlement” is “the fact of having a right to something” or “the amount to which a person has a right”.

“Self-entitlement” is when a person believes that their opinion is law. There are generally no logical or “fair” reasons for this, they just sincerely believe that their opinion is the true definition of “right” and anything else is below that. Self-entitled people tend to have a great disrespect for anyone that does not agree with them, going so far as to attack that person in an argument instead of the persons opinions (also known as an ad hominem). They tend to be extremely bigoted (they believe that their opinion is right and express prejudice against anyone who doesn’t) and ignorant.

Do the research!

There have been some people who call themselves “journalists”, such as the guy in the video above, that are claiming that these disappointed gamers are nothing more than self-entitled, whinging, bitching babies. They say we should be happy with what we got and that BioWare have the creative freedom to do what they like as it’s their game.

What these so-called “journalists” don’t seem to comprehend is why people are angry at Mass Effect 3′s ending. Most of them have clearly not even done basic searches to find out why people don’t like the ending. It’s not that hard, a less-than-5-second search on Google (not kidding) will score you with this video explaining why this guy hates the Mass Effect 3 ending (really well-done and many of the opinions expressed are shared with lots of fans). Here’s another video on the same search that also explains why many people hate the ending.

Not counting the time spent watching the videos (which I’m sure an average video game journalist could spend time on doing), the search literally took less than 5 seconds. The longest part of the search was actually typing out the search itself.

If the media started doing a little more research — something I thought they were supposed to do anyway —?then they may come to realise that people just hate the Mass Effect 3 ending “because it’s the cool thing to do”.

Gamers aren’t self-entitled.

It’s my belief that calling gamers “self-entitled” because they express disappointment over a games ending is extremely ignorant.

Those few people who are screaming and raging on internet forums saying how much they hate BioWare, the entire Mass Effect series, or even it’s writer, are a vocal minority. That means there’s not a lot of them but their voices are much louder than the majority, largely because the majority either don’t speak up or aren’t spamming incessantly on any blog/forum they can find (fair enough, too).

But even the raging bafoons aren’t self-entitled. They are perfectly entitled to their opinion, not just because they have an in-born right to have one (you can blame human rights for that one) but also because they are consumers. If these people stole the game then sure, their opinion could be considered less valid, but it’s more than likely that many people didn’t do this and they did pay for the game.

What that means is, as a consumer, they have the right to complain about the product they paid money for. The backs of food products even come with phone numbers and mail addresses to write to if you want to express your disappointment with the product. Complaining about something you paid for isn’t a “privilege”, it’s one of the many rights you get for actually buying the thing in the first place.

We understand that companies have the creative freedom to do what they want with their game. The intellectuals among us do not argue that, but we are still disappointed, none the less. Many of the things we were told would be included in Mass Effect 3 simply weren’t. We felt let down so we vented our frustration on the internet, as many do (look at this article!), and many of us did so in a fair and responsible manner. Some didn’t do it so eloquently but as consumers, their points are valid, none-the-less.

But everyone else is.

A little clarification: When I say “everyone else”, I mean the people who are calling gamers “self-entitled”. That means anyone, whether you’re another gamer or the employee of a company like IGN. I don’t really care who you work for, if you’re going to sit there and bitch about people bitching then you are nothing more than a hypocrite. Can’t you see the irony in that? You can’t complain about someone complaining without being a hypocrite, the whole ideal is oxymoronic.

The large majority of gamers who dislike the Mass Effect 3 ending have rational reasons for why they do, and I’ve already linked to two videos that describe some of these, but you could find hundreds of articles that state just as many reasons in a logical and rational format.

But the hatred towards these disappointed gamers, however? That’s not rational and it’s certainly not fair. In fact, it’s self-entitled. How ironic.

Look back to the video posted at the start of this article. You only have to listen to the first 30 or so seconds to realise how self-entitled the author is. His entire presence and his words give off the idea that his opinions is alright, it’s correct and right and infallible. He doesn’t even understand why people hate the ending, he merely thinks people hate it because “they hate it”. We have already established the falseness of such a claim, but what makes him self-entitled is that he expresses no respect for the opinions of his opponents, he doesn’t care for their opinion, he thinks nothing of them except that they’re wrong.

I have nothing against the guy personally, he can think and do what he wants. My problem is that he clearly did not do any research to find out why people are angry, and he expresses all the characteristics of a self-entitled person, all-the-while calling others self-entitled.

I don’t care if you like the game or if you hate it. What matters to me is that you listen to what people are saying and try to understand why they feel the way they do. If more people did this then perhaps they’d understand the massive outcry against endings like Mass Effect 3′s. I also ask that people research what the word “self-entitled” actually means, because if you actually knew what it meant before you started complaining you may realise that you, yourself, will look self-entitled if you proceed to post bigoted dribble.

Wait a minute… how can I hate what the majority likes, but also things that are more “underground”?

Easy, and I’ll explain after the break.

Uh, but what is “mainstream”?

“Mainstream” is anything that has been culturally defined as “popular”, most of which was caused by the media focusing on the area that is now “mainstream”. This can apply to other commercial industries too, such as the gaming industry.

Mainstream is things like commercial films that are made by major entertainment studios or companies owned by large conglomerates. In the music industry, “mainstream” music is anything that is familiar an “unthreatening” to the masses (meaning it’s fairly accepted by the majority). Pop music, rock and rap are considered , by and large, mainstream genres of music.

And the opposite? That “counter what’s-it”?

Subcultures are groups of people with a culture that widely differentiates from the “norm”, or from anything mainstream. Essentially, anything that isn’t regarded as mainstream could potentially be considered as a subculture, or a counterculture (counterculture groups usually try to avoid mainstream cultures).

I can’t tell you the origin of either word, because I don’t know (I’d like to, so lemme know if you know anything!). What I do know is I hate both of them. It’s not the things that are considered “mainstream” (or not) that I don’t like, it’s the terms “mainstream” and “subculture” and people who love to point out what you listen to or watch is “mainstream” and that they avoid all that “mainstream crap” at all costs.

That kind of thinking is simply illogical, and completely limiting.

Oh, really? So what about you, eh?

My opinion is rather simple: All they are is terms, and both of them are stupid.

I listen, watch and read what I like, because I like it. If I don’t like, I simply don’t listen to it, I don’t go on about it as if the world should care (because it doesn’t).

This isn’t revolutionary of course, but that’s partly why I’m sticking it in the Rants & Debates category.

I don’t understand the concept of calling things out as “mainstream” and not using those things because they’re “mainstream”. As I see it, you’re either trying to garner attention to your already inflated ego, or you think the idea of being “the same” as everyone else is bad, for some reason.

It’s not bad to be similar to other people. Nobody is completely different, you’ll always share similarities with somebody else. These similarities are pretty good ways of connecting with other people.

Another thing is that if you change your perspective, those people who form “subculture” groups quickly become “mainstream” within their own culture, which contradicts the entire point of trying to be “different”. A hundred or so years ago before the advent of modern technology, it might been possible to be in a completely different group, one that’s so niche that you’d have to explain it every time you mentioned it. Today, the world isn’t like that. Virtually all ideas you can come up with have either been thought up or created by somebody else, there is very little in this world that is unique.

Lying to yourself to feel better isn’t the way to do it. It’d be far easier to find a group who likes your choice of music as opposed to trying to join a group just to become popular. Most people can see through these ruses anyway, and that’s why we have the term “poseur“.

All in all, I think it’d be nice if people dropped all the “mainstream” bullshit. It’s not “cool”, it’s just plain annoying. Instead of looking different you merely look like a stuck-up jerk who thinks his way of life is better than everyone elses, and most people aren’t fans of bigots.

Enjoy what you like, avoid what you don’t. It’s really that simple.

/rant

As most gamers should know, BioWare recently released Mass Effect 3 and less than a week after it’s release, some people found out that BioWare also happened to include some of the Day 1 DLC on the disc. It seems Capcom have also done the same thing, to gamers dismay.

To some this is a massive problem, to others, they just don’t a rats. I lean on one side of the fence, yes, but I have an entirely different problem with gamers rage over these problems.

I’ve never liked Downloadable Content (or DLC for short). It’s not the concept of DLC I don’t like, it’s the lack of quality that is common amongst DLC packs. I consider them nothing more than half-assed expansions that cost roughly the same amount as an expansion did 10 years ago. Some are pretty good quality, for a good price, some are free even (The Witcher 2), but most are just downright horrid.

My take on the “Day 1 DLC” is pretty straight-forward: I don’t really give a hoot. It’s going to come out anyway, so I figure we may as well get it over and done with.

I understand why people don’t like it, though. The idea of paying for something that is already shipped on the disc can be pretty annoying. Why should we pay for something that’s clearly already developed and shipped, even?

I don’t care because chances are, not all the DLC is going to be on the disc. Some of it you will have to download, even if the majority is on the disc. It might not even be in working order!

Videos that have unlocked the BioWare DLC (quite easily, too) state that it’s all in working order, but unless you try it for yourself, you’re never going to actually know that. EA has also responded to the video with their retort and so it ultimately falls up to you, the end-user, to decide who’s side you’re on.

Whether you agree with EA doesn’t matter though, this article is about whether you don’t agree with them and what you’re going to do about.

The biggest thing you can do to get any company to listen to you is to stop giving them your money. I mean it when I say this will work for any company, because companies are nothing without money. Investors will give away so much before they realise that customers clearly don’t like what that business is selling.

This is where boycotts come in. Groups of people who go around refusing to buy any products from a company they don’t like, in this case EA/BioWare or Capcom. It sounds simple enough but is it really? No, it’s not.

Boycotts aren’t just a matter of “stop giving companies your money”, they also require you stop other people from giving their money, then those people have to stop other people, and this goes on endlessly until the company gives in and listens to your feedback. And it doesn’t just require a couple of hundred, it requires a couple of thousand (probably in the tens of thousands) for companies to actually care.

When a company like EA can sell over 3.5 million copies of one game in their first few weeks, you know you’re up for a challenge. When that company can earn hundreds of millions of gross revenue in it’s first week of shipping a game, then you know it’s going to be goddamn hard to get them to listen to your demands. And it is hard. It’s so hard that I’ve never heard of any online boycott succeeding. This doesn’t mean hasn’t happened, just that if it does happen, it happens so rarely that you might as well not do one. And there goes the meat of my point.

Why bother?

The problem with boycotts is not that they don’t have a strong voice or that their points are invalid. Many times I even agree with what they’re trying to prove (as was with the Steam L4D2 Boycott group). The problem is that, like any type of riot, boycotts take time, effort and a lot of patience. Most gamers don’t seem to have that last point, and it’s extremely important.

Most boycotts end pretty horribly. They go well for a few weeks, maybe a month or two, and then their activity dies down to a crawl.

The problem with trying to arrange an online boycott is that after a few weeks, people tend to either forget about the whole ordeal or they just stop caring. The L4D2 boycott was so ridiculously stupid that people who spent half a year bitching about the game actually went out and brought the game they apparently hated so much. That’s the issue.

How do you expect developers and publishers to care if you just buy their shit anyway? If you want these big-name companies to actually listen to you then yes, you have to stop giving them your wallet. But you have to be persistent and confident, you must be adamant and know that, with patience, they will listen. You also need the people, of course, but they honestly don’t mean anything if they’re just going to give up 3 weeks later.

Choosing the lesser of two evils is a decision that GameStop has had to make quite recently.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution, the third instalment in the widely popular Deus Ex series, was released just days ago by Square Enix and Eidos Montreal. On release, Square Enix announced that all copies of the game would contain a coupon to download the game via a service called OnLive for no extra charge.

GameStop naturally got hold of this announcement and decided to pull all their copies off the shelves before launch, rip off the games packaging, and quickly remove the OnLive coupon before placing the game back on the shelves.

When news broke loose of this the general consensus was that GameStop are completely evil and must be punished by way of boycotting all their games. This might sound like an exaggeration of the truth but the fact of the matter is that when people don’t like something, they will simply band up together and attempt a boycott. One only has to search Google for suitable support groups on the matter.

As with all blogs and as all blog authors eventually do, I shall give my opinion on the matter and explain my lesser of two evils theory on the matter.

My opinion is quite simple: In regards to removing the OnLive coupons, I will defend GameStop on this one. But as far as their methods go in removing the coupons, I don’t necessarily agree with that.

I believe that GameStop had two major options in deciding what to do, and this is where the “lesser of two evils” comes in. In either scenario, GameStop is going to lose out in some way, but their decision was probably far less damaging than the alternative.

Do Nothing

The first option GameStop had after learning about the OnLive coupons is to do nothing. Keep the product sealed, do not touch the product, do not remove any coupon from the product.

Likely repercussions of this decision would result in consumers finding the coupons in their game and possibly using them, driving potential customers away from further purchases at GameStop.

OnLive is in direct competition with GameStop. GameStop has no direct financial relationship with OnLive, makes no money off of them and is apparently planning on setting up their own service similar to how OnLive currently works.

By doing nothing, GameStop run the potential risk of losing business because more people have become aware of OnLive, have tried it out and may have even liked it so much as to use GameStop less and OnLive more. This isn’t something that can be merely shrugged off, it is a real possibility and one GameStop’s management would definitely want to consider avoiding.

Remove the Coupons

The second option is to simply open up all the copies of Deus Ex: Human Revolution and remove the OnLive coupons before shipping them off to customers. This is the option they chose.

The repercussions of this option are ones that we can actually see happening now. Public opinion has been wildly negative towards GameStop opening the packages and removing the coupons. Some gamers don’t like them removing the coupons, others simply dislike them tampering with the product itself.

My opinion is that this is the lesser of two evils. This is the option that has consequences that GameStop will simply recover from quite quickly.

The people making the complaints towards GameStop are probably the vocal minority. It is more than likely that the large majority of GameStop shoppers are unaware of what GameStop has done or just do not care and so will continue to buy from GameStop. Ignorance is bliss, so the saying goes.

The backlash caused by the decision is something GameStop can recover from. They, like many other companies before them, have gone under public scrutiny in the past and recovered from it rather quickly. People have short fuses but also short memories, and most of the people complaining will buy the game elsewhere and forget about the scenario altogether.

This scenario is better than the alternative: GameStop losing business, losing potential profits because they let their consumers get ahold of the coupons. Even if only a few thousand actually use OnLive due to the coupons that’s still a thousand people that GameStop lost in potential future revenue, and that’s much worse for a business than having a few thousand people hate you for a couple of weeks.

As for the legality and morality of the situation?

Attorney Mark Methenitis has stated that consumers’ rights have not been violated, and even though you could try and sue them, your case would probably be dismissed very quickly. Square Enix has also made an announcement that they never informed GameStop of the coupons before the game’s release (note: the main article linked to is not something I’ll be discussing, only the announcement made by Square Enix is my concern).

The morality of course, is always subjective. Some people dislike their games having that fresh new seal opened, they like ripping it open themselves. I’m one of these people, but I don’t complain as loudly as some people have done when my game comes to clearly having been opened in some way. In fact, EB Games in New Zealand (owned by GameStop) has been known to open their games and remove the discs to put in their back rooms for security purposes. Nothing else of value is ever touched, damaged or taken, and if it were you could simply ask for a new copy and you’d be granted it.

I think that people are overreacting on the “open package” stance. It’s also unlikely that there is anything illegal about it since GameStop continue to own all games on their premises until you’ve actually paid for it. Alongside this, “new” does not necessarily constitute “sealed”. The only people who may have any ounce of a case would be people who have preordered their games (therefore already paid for a copy) but that’s fairly debatable and I still don’t think a lawsuit would get very far.

When you brought Deus Ex: Human Revolution, did you pay for the game, or did you pay to simply open a new package? You should enjoy the game you paid for, not the packaging it comes sealed in.

Simply put however, my problem with Google+ is that its redundant. Read on after the break.

The problem with Google+ isn’t how it works but what it is. Google are making an attempt at taking over the social networking enterprise that Facebook has absolutely dominated for the past ~7 years, but they’re doing so at the completely wrong time.

I like to compare Google+ and Facebook with the story of David and Goliath. Only here, David is going to get his ass kicked by Goliath’s 750 million+ supporters.

Some of you might ask if I’ve even used Google+; Do I have an account? Was I even invited? Well yes, yes I was! I do indeed have an account as I was indeed invited and frankly, I wasn’t really “wow’d” with what I saw.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying Google+ is bad. I’m not saying that it’s absolutely horrendous and Google have wasted all their time creating it, I’m merely stating that most of it, as it stands, is redundant.

After having used the network itself, I didn’t find it too difficult to use, I found its design sleek and interface simplistic (much like Google itself). I didn’t find it too difficult to use after using Facebook but I’m slightly biased since I’ve used some pretty confusing sites rather successfully in the past.

The problem with Google+ lies in that it doesn’t offer anything truly innovative to social networking as we know it.

I had used sites such as MySpace and Bebo before using Facebook. I didn’t like them. The main reason was because their sites were bulky, they were over-complicated and they allowed their users to absolutely rape your monitor with pure horse shit. From horrible themes to widgets that were basically puking all over your screen.

I felt and still feel that MySpace and Bebo are intrusive.

I never actually used MySpace and Bebo fully because of these issues. I had accounts merely to check out the crap other people thought was “cool” and “interesting”. I had shied away from Facebook for years before actually trying it, and only caved because all my mates converted to it from other social networks and I figured that I may as well see what all the hype was about.

When I originally tried Facebook I didn’t think it was the greatest thing in the world like other people seemed to but I did think it was so much better than it’s predecessors. The theme was also extremely simplistic, and all it’s revisions have been equally simplistic.

But this wasn’t why I liked Facebook. I liked Facebook because when I felt one of its features was being a little too intrusive, then I could simply block that app. I could go to a friends “wall” and make a post or read through theirs without seeing a bunch of pointless crap about what their favourite piece of dog shit was.

Google+ is similar in that it’s design is aesthetically pleasing for me. It’s not trying to be “out there” and all wacky. Plus’ theme represents that of Google’s theme as a whole; It represents simplicity, and that’s why I like how Google+ looks.

At it’s core though, I just feel Google+ as pointless. If all my friends convert to Google+ then I will covert myself, but until that day I feel no pressure to do so.

Google+ adds nothing new to the social networking scene. Everything Google+ does, Facebook does. It’s not necessarily “easier” to use Google+ either, it’s just as easy as using Facebook (which I consider easy to use already). I also don’t believe Google to have better privacy policies than Facebook (which has a pretty shocking history with privacy concerns) as Google have had privacy hiccups in the past, as well.

So at the end of the day, I have no big issues with Google+ other than it’s trying to compete with Facebook by being Facebook. It might look different but ultimately, it’s core feature set is the same, some aren’t even included (the profile system is a lot less customisable than Facebook’s, for example).

Unless Google add some significantly new and interesting features, I will merely regard it as being redundant.

If you’d like to be invited to Google+ to try it out for yourself and see what all the fuss is about then feel free to send me an email from my Contact page and I’ll ship one out to you. As of current I have 149 invites left.

People who play MMOs are not doing so for the gameplay.

Seems so obvious, doesn’t it? You’d think so, but people still seem to argue that their reasoning behind playing one MMO over another is because it’s gameplay is somehow “better” than it’s counterparts. Read on after the break.

This holds true for a select few games (games such as RuneScape, Ultima Online, Darkfall, etc) but for a large majority, this system doesn’t hold any water. Whilst choosing to play RuneScape over World of Warcraft can be for gameplay, there aren’t a lot of RuneScape’s in the world. This is the same for choosing to play games like Darkfall or EVE Online over anything else. These games are in very small niches, and have very little competition against them (EVE Online only really has one major competitor, and Darkfall is in a similar boat).

I believe there are only three main reasons why a player might choose to play something like RIFT, over something like World of Warcraft or Guild Wars. As said above, many of these may seem obvious to many gamers, so just continue to humour me.

Social Reasons

Those who have friends playing Lord of the Rings Online but have none playing World of Warcraft may opt to play the former over the latter. Most of the content in an MMO is based on the idea that you’ll be playing with at least one other person, generally 5-10, minimum.

Having friends already playing can help newcomers overcome some of the challenges that playing an MMO might entail: It’s easier to start playing when you’ve got a rich friend, for example.

Lore / Aesthetics

Some people, like myself, are fans of the writing and artwork that goes behind the scenes. We don’t just want a fun game to play, but also a fun world to be involved in. We want our characters to be encapsulated in an invigorating storyline with memorable characters and beautiful landscapes. Some people aren’t a fan of World of Warcraft because they dislike the characters or the world it’s set in, whilst others hate Lord of the Rings for the same reason.

The way a game looks, from its concept art to its in-game graphics, is extremely important to a lot of people and many will choose to play an MMO based on its technical limitations alone.

Developer Interaction / “Brand”

What I mean by “developer interaction” is how developers interact with their players. Many companies prefer to take a back-seat when it comes to customer support and simply do not explain their actions; Why they changed something, why they added a new feature, why they buffed a class that may not have needed it, etc.

Other developers have entire sectors within their company set up for developer to player interaction. Companies like Blizzard hire people for the very specific job of discussing to players some of the reasoning behind the developers many actions. Blizzard has employees who post quite often on the official forums, called “blue posters” they are named quite simply after the colour of the text their posts are in (which differs from any normal players posts). These people regularly keep in contact with players, explaining why the designers decided to do one thing or not to do another.

Some players find this is a boon. They enjoy feedback from the company itself. I’m actually apart of this group and am one of many who actually enjoys seeing the developers get involved with the community. I feel a big disconnect when developers don’t explain themselves in any way, and I simply shy away from games made by developers who don’t.

As for the “brand”, consider this the equivalent to buying Dell products over Hewlett-Packard (I don’t suggest either, but that’s another story), or you could even compare it to buying an Apple iPod as opposed to anything similar (like Sony or Microsoft’s products). Only a few features of the actual product differ, you also don’t need an iPod over any other working MP3 player but people prefer the brand. Same goes for clothing.

Why? Two reasons: Status symbol, and quality. Wearing expensive label clothing proves you’re rich enough to afford it (or have huge amounts of debt) and is generally used to show off in some way (at least in my own personal opinion). Quality is the second reason. Any normal MP3 player will be sufficient to play your music as well as an iPod, but Apple generally provides better support and better quality products than the Chinese factory making your second-rate crap.

It’s not entirely the same for video games, but it’s similar. My opinion is that both the Battlefield and Call of Duty series offer the same basic entertainment value. Their gameplay is pretty similar and storylines rather sub-par. Choosing to play one over the other is generally a matter of how many of your mates are playing, and personal preference.

I don’t like Activision so I’d rather boycott Call of Duty and give EA my money for a Battlefield game, no matter how similar I think the games are. This works in a similar fashion for MMOs.

Gameplay ain’t the reason.

The last three sections specifically describe what I believe to be the three main reasons why someone will play one game over another. You’ll notice gameplay is not one of those reasons. Here’s why.

Over the years, gameplay hasn’t differed much between genres. People will always argue this but my opinion is that most games in any particular genre are pretty much the same in regards to gameplay.

Call of Duty and Battlefield games are both first-person shooters. Their gameplay is virtually the same: Go online and shoot people. This basic “point and shoot” type of gameplay hasn’t been altered much since the days of the first Doom. All Doom’s gameplay required of you was to point your gun and shoot the enemies, and try not to die whilst doing it. This was the same for the Quake series, for Wolfenstein, for Duke Nukem, and for Call of Duty and Battlefield games.

So why play one from another, then? Why play Duke Nukem when you could shoot shit up in Doom? Easy. Because they were still different. At the core they were both simple shooting games, but where they were different, they were noticeably different. Doom’s protagonist was largely unnoticed, designed so that the player would feel like they’re the “hero”. Duke Nukem was different in that the main character, the guy you play, was an actual face in the crowd. He was designed to be noticeable, different, memorable, and distinct from the player. Alongside these two facts, both games had wildly different storylines, landscapes, graphics, guns, etc.

The result is similar for other genres. Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale had similar styles of play back in the day, but very few people would argue them as being the same game. The gameplay was pretty similar: You had a party, you can micro-manage each individual member of that party, you can make your character completely “good” or even “evil”, the spells and general character creation was pretty similar too (both being based off the same engine, and D&D lore). Both however, had different characters, storylines, and environments.

Going back to the subject of this topic you’ll find that MMOs are in the same boat.

A lot of people seem to enjoy arguing that RIFT has an “evolved” gameplay in comparison to that of its predecessor: World of Warcraft. Some say it has better gameplay, better pvp or pve, or whatever. Fact of the matter is that these people are blinded by a fan-boyish attitude. They’re blinded by their love of the game they play or the hatred of anything else, and so they think their game is better than the rest in almost every way.

That might sound a tad harsh or exaggerated but these people do exist. Some call them fanboys, others call them elitists. Whatever their names are, they’re blinded by sheer ignorance, but that’s irrelevant.

Ultimately, games like World of Warcraft, EverQuest, RIFT, Age of Conan, Lord of the Rings Online etc, are virtually the same game but all wearing a different mask. The core gameplay of each game is that you have a bunch of abilities that you assign to keys on your keyboard and then use accordingly. You push 1 through 9 for your main abilities and then you use numerous other buttons to use the 10-30 reactive abilities you may need at any given time. Alongside this, you can join dungeons with 4-24 other people, all differing in size and difficulty and all rewarding new gear for defeating bosses at the end of them.

Some of these games have player vs. player modes, which are largely similar to pve in the way that you actually kill them. You still press your buttons, but you might have a different setup to overcome an actual player as opposed to an artificially controlled opponent.

People say that games such as Lord of the Rings Online, Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, or whatever, rip off World of Warcraft. Ultimately, in terms of gameplay they do, but these games are still different in regards to their lore, the way they look, how socially interactive they are with other players, and how good or bad developer/player relationships are.

People see the differences when comparing Duke Nukem 3D to Call of Duty, even though at the core they’re still pointing and shooting enemies. So why do people get stuck when they compare games like World of Warcraft and RIFT? Both games have different lore, they both look different, and both have a different social environment.

Just because games play the same doesn’t mean they are the same, and that’s why gameplay isn’t the reason you like Call of Duty over Battlefield. Gameplay isn’t the reason you like Baldur’s Gate over Icewind Dale. It’s not the reason you prefer Quake over Doom or Tomb Raider over Prince of Persia or possibly even Assassin’s Creed.

During a press conference at its headquarters, Blizzard showed off their Diablo 3 beta as well as it’s associated Battle.net services; Most of these were pretty standard, what with your cross-game communication already in World of Warcraft and StarCraft II, alongside persistent friends lists, full matchmaking services for all game modes, etc. However, one stood out amongst all the rest: An in-game auction system.

For those who have played World of Warcraft or the multitude of games like it, you’ll know how such a system works: You list an item for the price you want, someone comes along and either bids on it or buys it out for the specified price and boom, you get your moohlah and they get their item.

At it’s core, this is how the system in Diablo 3 will seem to work, but it will also add an extra feature not in other games: The ability to sell in-game items for real-world currency.

Yes, that’s correct. You can now trade your low-level Shiny Belt of Ass-kickery for $1, just because you can. Or any price you choose! How about $10? $100? $1,000!? It’ll be possible but like all good things, there’s a catch! Like most auction sites, there will be fixed fees (not yet released but apparently they’ll be “nominal”) taken out of the sale price when it’s actually sold (aka: a success fee, the very same you see on auction sites). When an item is sold, the money will be stored into your Battle.net account, for you to use to buy Blizzard products and services or to cash out entirely (there’ll be a fee on this too, naturally).

Now, the obvious reason I could think of for why such a feature exists is because many hardcore pvpers would probably love such a system (in fact, they’ll probably be the few that actually care – more on that in a moment) and because it’ll make Blizzard a shitload of monies to stuff in their virtual ponies that they’re promising (which you’ll never see).

The issue isn’t with the actual concept of the feature, just the way it will be implemented (something we’re not too sure of just yet). I have absolutely on problems with the concept itself, but it seems to have a few issues.

The main issue I have with the feature is that it’s going to – whether you like it or not – promote a certain level of “farming”. Gold farming has been a problem in the MMO industry from the day you could actually play an MMO and trade with people. There are literally hundreds of companies and websites all selling gold, items and things like in-game powerlevelling services for MMOs, in which you pay with real money, of course. Diablo 3′s auction system will, more or less, legalise the process of item farming. People will simply farm as many items as they can and sell them off for whatever profit they can get. The success and cash-out fees are fairly negligible if you’re farming hundreds of items a day.

Naturally, we’ll see limits on things like botting and the like. It’s not allowed in other games (including Blizzard’s own games) so naturally, it shouldn’t be allowed in Diablo 3, but of course that won’t stop people. Either way, bot or no, it will encourage people to sell whatever items they can for whatever amount they can get, simply because they can make real money off of it. This is actually something that Blizzard wants, apparently.

The next issue is how singleplayer to multiplayer will work. In previous Diablo titles (and in many action role-playing games like it), you are given the ability to import a character from a singleplayer save for use on multiplayer servers. However, with the use of cheating and hacking in singleplayer games, certain restrictions are going to have to be placed on such features.

1. Importing will have to be removed entirely. This is the better option of the two, but also much more inconvenient. For anyone interested in multiplayer however, the apparent “inconvenience” isn’t actually apparent at all or;
2. You could, alternatively, tell people to just suck it up and not use cheats in singleplayer game modes or you’ll get the banhammer but this seems like a knee-jerk reaction, to be honest. It’s easier to simply bar the option of importing singleplayer characters to multiplayer as opposed to disallowing people to use cheats in a game mode where no other player will ever be in, except you.

And my final issue with this problem is mostly on game valuation.

For me personally, the game will feel a little downrated in value simply because the option of buying the best of the best items is available. Now as I did state at the start of this article, the vast majority of people who actually buy items for real money will be hardcore players, generally pvpers, in which case the game will be incredibly imbalanced around anyway (because let’s face it, Diablo 2′s pvp wasn’t exactly “balanced”, and neither is most online games), but in general, I fail to see a real point to the game when you can practically pay for a “get item” cheat. Not to mention it gives rich people a rather unfair advantage (something that many western MMOs tend to try and shy away from).

I suppose it’s just me but the main reason I play action rpgs is for a few things. It’s generally not the storyline as they generally suck; It’s generally because I like to just hack the crap out of things as a stress reliever, and because I like levelling up and getting “phat lewts”. For me, I won’t be buying anything off the auction house, and that’s mainly because I see no point in playing a game when I’ve got the best items. I actually enjoy pvp in many games but I enjoy it more because I know I actually done the hard yards and earned the gear on my characters back pixels.

That’s just me however, and many players who are much more hardcore than me won’t agree. That’s fine, I’ve got no real issue with you using the system that way because, as said, the concept is actually pretty sweet, but the downsides just make me disinterested overall.

Dear Publishers,

I humbly request that you please stop integrating physical copies of your video games with software such as Steam.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with using digital suppliers, such as Steam, to retail your video games, but if you give consumers access to a physical copy of said video game please stop integrating these physical copies of the game with Steam and any of it’s services.

The main issue I have is not with Steam itself, or any service like it (such as Direct2Drive, Good Old Games, etc), digital distribution is widely considered to be the “way of the future” in regards to marketing video games and I see it as a valuable and reliable source for people who have access to to said services.

For those who don’t have access however, it is a very restricting and frustrating piece of software to get around. The way Steam handles digital rights management (DRM) is not my issue here; that is a completely separate issue altogether and one that is so saturated with information on I simply won’t discuss it here. My problem with integrating your physical copies of video games (and I must stress that I am only concerned about physical copies, for obvious reasons) is that people on low-speed internet connections (such as myself) can end up with a very frustrating time trying to install and run said games, and people who don’t have internet access at all (a low minority, but one that exists none-the-less) will never be able to install a game unless they have the ability to gain temporary internet access elsewhere.

I understand these two scenarios are rather rare in today’s societies; we are heavily internet driven, and it is only a small minority without high-speed internet access (mostly rural homes), but the minority should be considered none-the-less.

More and more gamers today are beginning to download their games via digital suppliers and so are less inclined to go out to a retail store such as GameStop, Walmart, EB Games or whatever store sells video games in your area, I believe that the large majority of people who buy physical copies of games are either people who prefer to do so (like myself) or those who simply do not have reliable access to a service such as Steam.

In a world full of high-speed internet connections and computer communications, it would be a nice respite for what is a minority of people if they could simply buy their games without having to install any third-party software or updates before being able to play their games. I can live with minor internet activations so long as Steam is not the medium for achieving them. I’m sure even some high-speed internet users would appreciate this as well.

Sincerely,
Joshua “Mr. Tastix” Smellie