Am I a Gamer Girl? Or a Girl Who Games? And Does It Really Matter?

I'm Emilie, significant other to Jack. I don't really have any fancy nicknames but for the purpose of this blog I will go by Conklederp. A question I've been asking myself lately is, am I a gamer girl? Or a girl who games?

Video games have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. As kids my brother and I had a Super Nintendo, but we only had 2 games - Super Mario World, and Super Mario Allstars.  We spent countless hours playing those games, but for some reason I just never got good at them. Something about lacking hand-eye coordination? Or not being able to figure out that you need to jump off Yoshi to jump across that gap? All I know is that when I couldn't figure out how to do something I would pass the controller over to my brother, who would gladly take over. 

The more games I played the more I learned that when it comes to action games, I actually prefer watching people play than doing it myself. My reaction time just isn't fast enough to progress much further than the first few levels. Examples of this include all the Mario games, Limbo for XBox, and even one of my favorites, Katamari. That's not to say that I don't enjoy these games, but when it comes to action, I panic. The simple fact of it is that I don't like frantic button mashing.

Around the time that I was giving up on Mario, I discovered Pokemon. To a ten year old, the primary appeal was how cute Bulbasaur was, and following the cartoon. In fact, I once traded my Eevee for my brother's Meowth because I liked Team Rocket. Ah, the folly of youth! As I've gotten older I've realized that there's much more to the game that just catching cute creatures. I've played through Pokemon Diamond, SoulSilver, and most recently White. While I know what some traditionalists would say, I found them to be consistently great games. I like putting together a team that is versatile and can win in any situation. I like training my guys to ridiculously high levels so that I can breeze through the Elite Four.

The games that I get really into tend to be slower paced and more about thinking than doing. I'm all about turn-based RPGs. When Jack introduced me to Final Fantasy Tactics, I don't know or want to admit how many hours of my life I spent playing through the game and all of its subquests-- Although I'm still working on getting a Dark Knight.

There is one game above the others that owns my heart, and that is The Sims. I'll probably end up posting a separate entry about this because I have tons to say, but for now I'll just say I have been playing this game for approximately half my life. (Jesus...) It's rare that anything, be it books, hobbies, or any other game, can cause me to stay up until 4 AM but this game managed to do it. I love The Sims so much that I have to limit myself and not play it during the school year, otherwise I would probably do that instead of my work. I think the thing that draws me to this game more than any others is that you can set your own goals. Aside from your Sim's lifespan, there is virtually no time limit. I've taken two weeks to build the perfect mansion. (And of course none of my Sims could afford to live there!). 

So that's me. I like RPGs and sandbox games. I don't like time limits, and action games stress me out. Does that make me any less of a gamer? Eh. And, would any of this be a big deal if I was a dude? Unlikely. All I know is that video games are a huge part of me and I can't imagine my life without them.

Conklederp, signing out!

Handing Over The Reins

For today, instead of my normal post, I'll be handing over posting rights to my girlfriend Emilie (Conklederp) for today.    She'll be guest blogging here on occasion.  But, please don't worry.  She's not going to take over a la Jeanine from Spinal Tap (attempting to take foot out of mouth) and she stated that she's not going to be the "Yoko of your guys' blog," (just found other foot in mouth......).

Anyway, I'll leave you in her hands until I'm back again on Friday.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

 Posting from the Couch.

And Then I Thought, Wait A Minute!

The "big" thing right now in gaming, be it console or PC gaming is Diablo III.  Now, I've only played Diablo and Diablo II, although I haven't finished either.  So a quick explanation on that note:

Diablo:  I played this a bit a great many years ago, sometime between 1997 and 1999.  I didn't beat it that time because my computer failed, I think, I don't quite remember.  I then picked up a version of it that required a virtual CD drive (since my notebook didn't have a light drive) and then the 30 day trial for the virtual drive ran out and I couldn't access the game after that.

Diablo II:  I got a copy of this from one of my friends just over a year ago and while I finished the main campaign, I was about 80% through the expansion Lord of Destruction and then I apparently decided that my computer should try to have some tasty Guinness, which I found out was not compatible.  I managed to salvage the hard drive, which means I should be able to continue from where I left off, I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Enter May 15, 2012 and Diablo III is released.  Within hours I noticed on Facebook that a lot of people were commenting about "Error 37" or "Error 3003" and other issues "logging on."  I was confused.  I thought maybe it had to do with the product registration key.  Turns out in order to play Diablo III, you have to be constantly logged on to the internet.  This type of thing is far from anything new, but it was shocking news to me in regards to Diablo III.

Early reports behind Blizzard's decision to require a constant internet connection were based on maintaining the integrity of the game and to combat hacking as was prevailant in the first two games.  More recent (at the time) murmurs are that it's because of the in game auction house, as a way of maintaining a stream of revenue for a game that doesn't require a subscription to play, a la WoW.

When I read this (on May 16th), my first thought was "Fuck that, I won't be playing Diablo III then!"  I didn't like the idea of purchasing (or leasing the rights to play a game, depending on who you talk to) a game and not being able to play it if I'm secluded in the mountains or in an airport (or airplane) that doesn't allow for free wifi/internet.  I wouldn't want to support that business model.

Then I realized that I had a Steam account, a Steam icon in my tab, and that same day purchased Dear Esther for myself and Dr. Potts; not to mention that I have also purchased Portal 2, Breath of Death VII, and Cthulhu Saves the World.  If I was so against Diablo III, being an "internet-play-only" game, why was I so in favor of spending money for games through Steam, which are only virtual copies of games?  I loved Diablo and Diablo II, so why wouldn't I want to support Diablo III?

It all came down to the price tag.  Most of the games I've bought through Steam were under $10, with the exception of Portal 2, which was $19.  But, since I got Portal for free as a promotion back when Portal 2 first came out, I didn't have a problem shelling out a couple "extra" bucks for a game I'm sure I would like.  So I guess for me, a lot of my feelings about whether I feel a game is "worth it," is based on price and my ability to play that game.  Would I still buy Diablo III for $59.95 if the single player adventure didn't require an internet connection, I don't know.  Probably not as I still feel that $60 is a bit steep for me to shell out for any video game, regardless if it's a hard copy, digital copy or how I'm able to play that game.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

The Shotgun Hypocrite

It's Not Paranoia If They Really Are Watching You

If it's one thing that video games have taught me, it's that you can't trust the "computer" anytime you play video games against a computer controlled character.  Let's break this down so that there's some semblance of planning and cohesion.

Board Games: (Monopoly, Dokapon Journey):  I don't trust computer controlled characters.  Now way about it.  Sure there could be a logarithm that actually has the "die" roll by any player be purely random, I just don't believe it.  

I've played Monopoly enough times on the NES and SNES against the computer to feel cheated every time, especially in the die roll department.  I don't have any empirical evidence that actually says that the game cheats, I just used to feel that I was fighting an uphill battle when it came to 1 player Monopoly.  Like how their Thimble or Car piece will magically move over my properties while I will frequently land on theirs.

Dokapon Journey on the other hand, sigh.  Penny Arcade does a great job of summing up the "theory" behind the game, but the game's execution isn't all there.  Imagine you're playing Dragon Warrior, but you're playing with three other people and you're able to get in the other players' way while everyone tries to complete the same tasks.  There's plenty of online forum bantering about how the computer characters will spin the exact number they need to get to a specific place (say, a weapon shop so you don't die in every battle and have to spend 3 turns at the church being resurrected).  The main problem I have with the computer in this game, is that it knows where to go.  Let's say a King's mission is something like "Go to the cave to find the treasure that was taken from me by the bandits."  There are 4 possible caves on the map, (and to enter a cave you have to "land" on it with the exact spin/roll number) and the computer knows exactly which ones to go to.  Anyway, don't trust the computer here.

Fighting Games:  (Street Fighter, Killer Instinct, Primal Rage)  Yes, I know there're a ton of fighting games out there, I just chose to list those three just because and put them in no particular order.  My distrust of fighting games stems from my awesome ability to get the shit kicked out of me 60% of the time.  The thing with a lot of these types of games is that you have to learn the moves for either a particular character or any number of characters (like games that use tag-teaming).  This has always been a personal problem for me in these games, which I know isn't universal.  Mainly for me it's about remembering the combination of buttons to press while trying not to get the shit kicked out of me.  And I just don't trust the computer (when the game's on "easy" settings) to accidentally screw up a combo move or to not know all the moves that that one character knows.  Although, I did like that in Killer Instinct, the AI would learn the moves that you would frequently perform, forcing the player to continually alternate their attack strategy or nothing would work.  Kind of like the Borg.

Poker/Card Games:  I learned this lesson very early on in my video gaming life.  One of the first video games that I played was Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack on the Intellivision.  All I'm going off is my memory, but I recall that I could do alright playing against the computer, but I was often convinced that the dealer would deal themselves better cards in any of four available games (5 or 7 Card Stud, 5 Card Draw or Blackjack).  Inevitably I would always end up bankrupt and then play either Astrosmash, Star Strike or Golf.

Then there were the little handheld poker and slot machine LCD games from Tiger that I would always seem to loose all my "money" on.  Tiny little hand held balls of cheating madness is what I call them.

This then brings me to Poker/Slot Machines in video games.  I don't trust them at all; like that's a shocker.  Especially in games where money or game tokens may be hard to come by (Pokemon, Dragon Quest V, Bioshock, Chrono Cross).  I always seem to play a couple of games to get the feel of them, realize that I'm not going to spend a couple of hours just in the casino when I could be out in the world map earning gold at a probably faster rate.  And I'll feel less cheated.

And now this brings me to real world video poker.  I personally don't trust the computers who control the outcomes.  I've played video poker a couple of times during a single venture while out with former employees on a unit moral building outing.  The whole time though I felt I was inside of Fear & Loathing.  I did manage to win $15 from the $5 that I was playing with, and like any person who just won, I kept playing and ended up with $0.  Which was fine with me.  I called it up to the computers winning and taking their first step in taking over the world.  

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Well Played Skynet

That Reminds Me.....

I don't know what I'd call this or what it means, maybe that's just for me to decide and for you to interpret.  The basic phenomenon is when you're doing (or encounter) one thing that reminds you of another thing.  Like the smell of pine trees and fruit roll ups reminds me of camping in Yosemite when I was a kid.  Wet bricks and chlorine remind me of swimming lessons when I was anywhere between 2 and, what 10?  Smells in the neighborhood that I grew up in are make me feel as if I was 13 again, walking home from Jr. High.   Anyway, you get the idea I'm trying to make.

So now I'm at work (I do residential caregiving-type work at an assisted living facility for seniors) and shaving a gentleman's face.  Everything is fine and nothing's out of the ordinary.  Until I get to the left side of his face.  Nothing is wrong with the gentleman's face and he's quite good looking for someone in their mid 90s.  So I'm shaving the left side of his face and all of a sudden I'm thinking about the Tchita Uplands from Final Fantasy XII.  I have no idea why this creeps up and it's happened on more than one occasion before I noticed that it was happening.  I don't think it has anything do with the circumstances as I don't recall any shaving side quests or marks in the game (although I didn't complete all the marks due to not having unlimited time).  Now every time I shave the left side of his face, I think of that area in FFXII, but now I'm not sure if it's because that feelings happened a number of times or because it actually is somehow reminding me of the game.

Another thing that comes up is that because I work at an assisted living facility for "seniors," there's music pumped through the speakers in all the hallways.  This is both orchestral, big band and popular music from the 1940s and 50s.  You know what game that I'm playing also has music from the 1940s and 50s?  Yup, Bioshock.  So a couple of times each day at work when I focus on the music that's being played, I immediately start thinking about Plasmids and Splicers lurking around the corners.

Another auditory cue that brings a memory/feeling back is the "aahh" noise during the HBO title/static sequence.  To me, it sounds a lot like the "aahh" sound from Eternal Darkness. (Comparison sounds clips on youtube were not available for comment).

I don't really know how to end this one, so I'll just wish everyone a pleasant weekend.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

I Can Remember Days At A Time

Currently Playing 3: Abobo's Big Adventure

http://abobosbigadventure.com/

Abobo's Big Adventure is Awesome.  It's hilarious.  And it's actually pretty goddamn hard (in true NES fashion).  Please play it, so that you will no longer be missing out.
...
...
Oh, did I mention that it's FREE?!

The trick to playing Abobo's big Adventure is to download JoyToKey and play it on a controller.  The creators actually suggest playing it on an original NES controller using a converter.  This sounds awesome, but I don't have any NES controllers available to me, so I didn't bother looking it up.

Real Rad Racer

Every day when I come home from work, I drive/coast down a 0.8 mile hill that has an overall 12% grade.  The first .5 miles (at a 8% grade) are through a residential area with five speed humps, we'll say at every tenth of a mile (or every 528 feet).  The last .3 miles are down a 10% grade hill, which is pretty steep when you consider it’s only ~1584 feet. Trust me, I did the math.

After driving/coasting this hill for a while I began to think in terms of racing and time trial video games.  My thought process was more like, “If this was a video game, how would it be scored,” rather than “I’m going to drive this like a video game and fuck real world physics.”  

The following are how I would figure out the final “score:”

1) After passing a specific marker (which is .2 miles from the turn onto Pimlico and the time starts), the car is shifted into neutral.
2) While passing said marker, the car can be traveling no faster than 30mph.
3) Time starts once the turn onto Pimlico from Santa Anita Drive is made.
4) Final Time is determined at the intersection of Pimlico and Willamette Drive.
5) “Penalties” are taken for the length of time the brake pedal is depressed.
6) “Brake Times” are added together then added to the Final Time to determine the Total Time.

1. 
   

Now I realize the that this train of thought and practice could be very disastrous.  However, I’m not going to be intentionally trying to beat my “best time” as I’m not looking at my stopwatch while careening down the hill.  And I’m not going to be doing anything that will lead to permanent damage to my car as there’s no bus service to work and I’d rather not walk 2.5 miles up hill.  I also realize that my penalties are solely based on my reaction time pressing the “lap” button on my stopwatch and pressing it again when I depress and release the brakes, although I can’t really calculate the deviation of potential error in those numbers, so we’ll just say that they’re accurate and go with that.

So on those notes, here’re my times as I only recently began recording my them:

5/9/12  

Final Time:   1.46.68

Penalty Time: 0.26.27  (Average Break Time: 0.02.19)

Total Time: 2.12.95

5/10/12

Final Time: 1.43.61

Penalty Time: 0.26.14  (Average Break Time:  0.02.18)

Total Time: 2.09.75

5/11/12

Final Time: 1.49.97

Penalty Time: 0.27.11 (Average Break Time:  0.02.46)

Total Time: 2.17.08

5/13/12

Final Time: 1.44.00

Penalty Time: 0.28.02  (Average Break Time:  2.80)

Total Time: 2.12.02

So what is the final conclusion?  I don’t know.  I didn’t have a hypothesis so I can’t have a desired outcome.  I just wanted to do something that I’d thought about for a number of months.

[On a side note story: Back in elementary and jr. high school, whenever I rode my bike to school or to a friends’ house, I would intentionally ride my bike over the sewer lids.  I would give myself 1 points for the larger 2 foot wide lids and 5 points for the smaller (~1 foot wide) lids.  It would probably take me about twice as long to ride somewhere but it was fun to see what my “score” was at the end of the ride.   And no, that was not how I fell off my bike that one day in 7th grade that led me to the hospital.  That day I was riding over wet leaves.]

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Shifting is for the Weak

Baptized in 8 Bit Music

At this moment, I'm listening to "Scene V: ~Prelude~ FFI - Main Theme / Kao's Shrine / Chaos' Temple" from Symphonic Suite: Final Fantasy, which you could say inspired me to write this.

My love of video game music came about sometime in 1991 while playing Final Fantasy on the NES.  I just came to the part where the King of Coneria builds a bridge to the adjacent continent and your characters cross.  That's when the screen flashes and you're greeted with a text-story moment and this music.  I must've sat there and listened to it until either the screen force-ably changed or I pressed "A" and progressed the game myself.  

I'd played quite a few games whose music I really liked by that point (Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Castlevania, Mega Man II), but something about the "Theme" music from Final Fantasy did something for me that the music from video games had never done before.  Maybe it was that I recognized it as something that just wasn't being played in the background, but something that I could sit and listen to for hours on end.

The problem though at the time was that video game soundtracks were practically unheard of in the United States, or as far as I knew at the time, didn't exist at all.  The internet wasn't readily available, especially so on the Apple IIe computer that our family was using, and modems were things that regular households just didn't have; so finding import CD's was pretty much out of the question.  (I don't even think the Apple IIe was modem compatible, although I did convince my older sister that I'd hacked into the DMV and changed test answers on the drivers test).  Once I started going to Star Trek conventions (1992 or 93 I think), I began seeing anime soundtracks from Japan, albeit for anywhere between $25 - $70 a piece, which for a new teenager, was very much out of the question.  So at least I knew that music from Japanese products were out there.

When Final Fantasy II came out on the SNES (or more likely after I bought it), and there was the revamped "Final Fantasy Theme," and I knew what I had to do.  I took my sister's duel cassette tape deck (which had better recording capabilities than mine), propped it up on the two doors of our family's entertainment center and hit "Record" every time a new song came up.  I let the songs play through  2-3 times, depending on the length of the song.  I then did the same thing for The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.  I now had playable video game soundtracks, still unaware that legit soundtracks had already been released in Japan since 1986.  

In 1995, I bought Final Fantasy III for the SNES and it came with a brochure for various items you could buy from Squaresoft.  There was a Mog keychain, an FFIII shirt and the soundtracks to Final Fantasy III (Titled "Kefka's Domain") and The Secret of Mana.  My parents said that for my 9th grade graduation (Woodland still had Jr. High schools so moving to the actual "High School" seemed like a big deal) asked what I wanted.  Looking at this brochure, I knew that I really liked the music from both games, but Kefka's Domain came with 3 CD's.  Three whole CD's of music from a game that I loved.  I told my parent's that that was what I wanted, and bless them, without scoffing or questioning my request, that's what they bought me for my graduation present.

That's what started it all.  Soon after I bought the DK Jamz (Donkey Kong Country) CD from Nintendo Power and the Symphonic Suite: Final Fantasy CD, which had orchestrated video game music, something that I thought would never exist.  I won't list all the game soundtracks that I've acquired over the years, but recently I've been downloading "soundtracks" from NES games that never had official released soundtracks such as Jackal, Ikari Warriors, and Crystalis.  It's been a rebirth of being excited about NES music again even though I don't have the console hooked up.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Que the Orchestra

On Post-rental gaming

Jack and I have been talking about the Konami code of late, and this discussion has brought up some nostalgia for me.  Now that I don't own a console system, most of the games I play now are by indie developers.  And while that's totally cool, hip, and even hip-ster, I realize that I miss the old days.  The days of video game rental.  That was a fantastic time.

I don't know about you, but for myself, and Jack too, we didn't just buy loads of games.  We couldn't afford it, and our parents certainly weren't going to do that for us, especially not with video game rental.  I played dozens of nes and snes games, but only owned about one - two dozen of each through the entirety of my owning those systems.  I chose to buy, with my meager paper route money, only the best, most guaranteed games.  This usually meant Squaresoft, or Nintendo, and sometimes a random game I rented that I loved, like Snake Rattle N Roll.  Which I think was Rare- the company, and the adjective.

But during the rental period, there were bunches of games that were good, even great, but just not enough to buy.  I loved being surrounded by games I would rate B- to B+.  And I remember growing familiar with the different publishers.  Rare, Hudson Soft, Enix, Konami, Capcom.  There were bunches more, but my memories are fading on the subject.  Each of these companies had a sort of personality that you grew to know.  When you picked up a Konami game, you had an idea of what you were getting into.  Capcom meant action - they probably had one of the most distinctive personality, and it seems to endure today, though I don't know where outside of Street Fighter games.

Back in the rentals, you could just browse through the games.  It was sweet.  There were games that I never bought, but I would rent multiple times.  Sometimes to beat, other times just because your family was going to the video rental store and you were NOT about to pass up a chance to rent a game, whether or not you had anything in mind.  Sure, I'll rent Megaman 2 again!  What the hell, let's try Adventure Island?  Hey, this game over here is by Konami, it's probably good.  Goddammit, is the Sword Master ever coming out?!

I wish sometimes for a modern rental system.  On the other hand, indie games often cost close to the same as a rental did.  Sometimes they're even free!  Games like Angry Birds, Super Crate Box and Realm of the Mad God are all totally fun and totally free, if a bit limited in scope.  Super Meat Boy, Braid and Bit.Trip.Runner have pretty high production values, don't cost much and are great fun.  I'm slowly building a new vocabulary of game publishers.  

And, then, of course, there's emulation.  Where-in any and all games for a past system are available, all at once.  But so far emulator production values have not been strong, and it doesn't feel the same.  I want to see an emulator, in which the Rom library is represented as game-boxes on a bookshelf.  I can click on the box and get a view of it, look at the pictures, read the description and then choose whether or not I want to play it.  That would be totally sweet.  Not the same, but a start.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that there is something about the experience of playing a game that exists outside of the screen and the controller.  This is something that is lost when playing games on my PC, irreplaceable using emulators, and I do miss it.  

NES Games I Will Probably Never Complete

All of the games that I will be listing are from my memory.  These are games on the NES that I was never able to beat for one reason or another.  I'd like to think it was because they were crazy difficult and not because of my failure as a gamer.  Are these games passable?  Of course they are, otherwise there would've been a patch...... except not, because back in teh 1980s, 1990s and early 2000's, the final release of a console game was it's "final" release.  No patches.  No DLC.  No way to correct anything that might've gone wrong in the game testing phase.

In short, these games were pretty fucking hard.

Not that you can tell, but this is the second incantation of this list.  The first list I wrote up was made up of games that wouldn't surprise anyone that I hadn't beaten.  Games like "any" Ninja Gaiden on the NES, Blaster Master, Battletoads, Silver Surfer, Ghosts 'n Goblins, and Back to the Future.  Then I figured I would make a list of maybe not quite so well known games that were a bloody pain in the ass.  So here's that list:

Mega Man (1987)

Now that I think about it, I don't know if I've ever beaten any of the mega man games....on the NES that is. In Mega Man I, I could never get through the Guts Man stage.  Now that I think about it, I don't think I was ever able to beat Mega Man II...... or maybe any in the series.  No wait, I'm pretty sure I did beat Mega Man X.  I blame it all on constantly losing (or having my Mom/Dad) throw away those small pieces of paper that had the passwords written down on them.  That was always the problem with password games, keeping track of random pieces of paper, knowing which game they went to and where in the game they were to take you.

Back to the Future (1989)

I played this game for the first time at PAX Prime 2010 and promptly got my ass handed to me.  This game came out when I was 9, and even at the age of 30, there was no luck for me getting passed the Lou's Cafe sequence.

A Boy and His Blob: Trouble in Blobalonia  (1989)

Granted, I didn't know what the hell I was doing when I was first playing this game, I didn't know what to do and what the point of the game was.  The week that I played the game, I immediately went to Blobalonia.  Yup, I didn't know that I was supposed to actually explore the real world in order to collect jellybeans.  I guess I could probably go back (if I could find the game) and actually try to beat the game.

Captain Skyhawk

I briefly went over this already in the previous post.  What the video that I previously posted didn't show you , was that you can change your altitude to help you dodge enemy fire.  The other hard part was docking with the space station, or at least it was really hard for me.  These kinds of "fit the thing into the rotating slot" things, I find that I have a hard time with.  The other nice thing with this game was that it was a one-hit-kill.  No life meter.  Well, just a life meter of one I guess.  And you have four lives.  I now know that I've gotten to the third level.  I don't think that I'd gotten to the end of the third level.

By now nearly everyone knows that games back in the early days of console gaming were required to be difficult because the memory capacity of the game cartridges was fairly limited.  Maybe I didn't have the attention span to sit and complete an entire game (I was able to get to Room 97 or 98 in Gauntlet over the course of an entire summer with my Mom so we'll rule the ADHD theory out), or maybe I didn't have ample amounts  of coordination, but whatever the reason was, these games were really difficult (to say the least) and I have no shame in my admitting this.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

The Sounds of Failure

Currently Playing 2: Realm of the Mad God

This game is great.  It's free, simple, original, quick to pick up, and it has some depth.  The learning curve is not too harsh, the reward system is steady and it expands the game.  This game is a "hardcore" game, by Diablo standards - which means that when your character dies - he's dead.  No resurrection, no saving, just dead as a doornail.  I think that's actually pretty cool, and rare in games.  In addition, when you start a new class, you start over from level 1, so the player is regularly going through the learning curve, and the game becomes easier to progress through, easier to set goals and achieve them.

The game is basically a non-stop level and loot fix.  In addition to the loot fix, the goal system is a big part of the appeal.  There are about a dozen different classes, and each one is opened by playing an existing class.  It goes: wizard, priest, archer, thief, knight... and so on (that's as far as I've gotten).  These classes are opened up when you get to level 10 on the previous class in the order, so level 10 priest gets you archer, level 10 archer gets you thief, and so on.  And while you are playing through as one class, you will encounter equipment drops for other classes that you have yet to play as. This is encouraging:  I want to know what a sorcerer plays like, or an assassin.  I believe he gets to carry a skull, which is cool.

The game is also co operative.  I haven't had much experience with this element, but I'm getting the drift that it may be the way to go.  Possibly the next step on the learning curve.  Because this is how it works:  You don't party up in any formal sense, but player share experience for enemies killed in the same vicinity.  So it is in everyone's best interest to work together.  I think it may be the key to the higher levels (I've capped out at level 12).  

So, cooperation is a level of depth I haven't yet reached in this game, and I am eager to see how it contributes to gameplay.  Human beings are always an interesting addition to any game dynamic.  There are rules about loot acquisition, and I've witnessed some real tantrums about loot theft.  On the other hand, I've also had a level 15 guy stop my little level 1 character and just hand him a bunch of great equipment.  That was totally rad- refreshed my faith in humanity.  You are able to save up to 8 items in a vault from one game to the next, and thus share your with your other classes, or, if you want, other players.  

Realm of the Mad God.  Came out of nowhere, free to play, mouse and keyboard and you can play it in your browser.  Rating:  Highly Recommended.