My Decision to Play My First MMORPG.

Apologies for not getting this out yesterday.  I ran out of time before having to leave for work and didn't have any time after returning home.  Had to watch Vikings 2.8 afterall.

Online gaming is a genre that had never really interested me.

In 1995, my friend, we'll call him BunnyBurger, and I tried to coordinate a Warcraft II co-op session over my family's phone line with a 28/8 modem.  That ended with me answering the phone when it rang only to hear his modem beeping and whirring at me.  I never figured out what needed to be done so I stuck with the single player campaigns.

As I have mentioned a few times on separate occasions here, I never got into World of Warcraft despite loving the ever living fecal matter out of Warcraft II.  Back in 2004 when the game came out, I hated the idea of paying an upfront cost to buy the game, then having to pay an additional monthly fee to continue playing said game.  I did not see the appeal in this model.  Even with the North American release of Final Fantasy XI, which until 30 seconds ago I did not know was released 244 days *before* World of Warcraft, I had no interest in continuously paying for a game despite loving (most of) the Final Fantasy series (minus VII, VIII & X).

In 2011 I did quest for a short time in Diablo II along with two housemates, but that was more like a short lived LAN threesome.  We'll always have the memories.

In late 2012, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim sucked myself and Conklederpand then I started playing the other games in the series (sort of anyway; some with more success than others).  I knew that I wanted to explore more of this world, its histories and peoples.

Why then have I purchased The Elder Scrolls Online and am an active subscriber, especially in the world we live in where there are any number of free MMORPGs (Neverwinter, WoW, Dungeons & Dragons Online, Lord of the Rings Online)?  The simple reason is that I love the world created for the Elder Scrolls games.  The lore that is told through the various books and tomes throughout the continent of Tamriel are full of histories and allusions to past events and people, mentioning just enough to evoke interest, but not so much that you feel like you are reading a high school history textbook.  There are mentions of races that are either long dead or that inhabit other continents never visited in the games.  To me, it was like a combination of Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire.

Story and setting aside, why then opt to pay up front for a game that requires a monthly subscription fee?  Well, partly because Conklederp has been looking forward to the two of us playing Skyrim since she got into the game and this is the only outlet, specifically set in Tamriel.  But, I cannot put this on Conklederp as it was I who signed up for beta access thinking that if I were to ever play an MMORPG that this would probably the one game that would get me to join.

Honestly though, a big portion of it might have been part of Bethesda/Zenimax's overall marketing strategy.  By bringing on people to beta test, they would hook people into buying the game when it came out then subscribing.  Granted the game that I played had bugs here (quest elements would not spawn or spawned before the quest was given and would not respawn once quest began and then could not be completed) and there (falling through stairs and bridges), but in the back of my mind, I knew that the game I was playing/testing was not a completed product so there were going to be things that were not supposed to happen (unable to leave conversation with NPC).

I also understand (now at least) that the cost for Zenimax to operate their "Megasevers" (each regional continent has their own server so that people can all play online at the same time and with each other without having to worry about if everyone is on the same server).  I understand that owning and operating something of that scale does not come cheap.  The cost of the servers themselves, the cost for maintenance, repair, oversight, cooling, building costs, property taxes. . . all of that adds up.  $15 a month subscription (or about 50¢ a day, depending on the month).  I do not mind paying that price for something that I enjoy.

I do still have some reservations about the genre or things that I feel that I am supposed to do because ESO in an online RPG.  One of those reservations centers around the multiplayer aspect, in that I am not out there looking for groups; which apparently has it's own acronym (LFG).  Presently I am playing the game solo and I am pretty sure that I am missing out on some parts of the game because I have yet to join a guild or experienced a "group adventure zone."  In the end, I do not want to feel that I have to be communal in order to proceed.  Yes, I understand the apparent disconnect within the context of that statement.

I'll get into this more on Monday when I give my First Impressions and then on Friday when I'll talk about the music from the game.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Let All the Illusions Just Wither Away

The Mighty Quest For Epic Loot: Chapter I: The Before

First, this is an awesome title for a game.  It'd even work well for a board game.  I feel like The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot is advertising that knows what kind of game it is and knows what their target audience is looking for.  The title conjures up the image of a game of Diablo mixed with Gauntlet, but with an even greater sense of humor.

And the game is free.  That can either be a boon or a giant warning sign to stay away.  At least that's what I hear about free to play MMOs.  Sort of anyway, I don't know what I'm talking about as I've only played The Elder Scrolls Online (Beta) and a little bit of Neverwinter (which I will talk about at a future date).

Okay, back on topic.  TMQfEL (which seems more work than typing out the full title).  After watching the trailer for the open beta, I developed a slightly different view of the game.  Now, based off of the information from the trailer, the game still looks somewhat fun with a healthy portion of "Oh what the hell god damnit it you asshat."  TMQfEL, again based off of the trailer, looks to be a game where you create your own castle, wonderfully portrayed as floating castles, that you fill with x amount of loot wherein you build traps to protect that loot.

Logic would dictate that when you begin the game, you start out with a set amount of money, presumably "gold," to build and furnish your castle with traps, hazards and other golf-titled pitfalls to protect the aforementioned loot from the rest of the online community.  In order to get more gold to build more castle and better traps, you have to raid other castles.  I do not know if your character is able to level up, which would make sense on one level in that you would need additional HP in order to make it through elaborate castles filled with elaborate traps; that is unless all traps are considered one hit kills.  I also do not know if you would be able to keep any gold you found along the way if you are unable to make it out alive; again assuming that you find loot throughout the castle and not just in the final treasure vault room.  The downside though is that someone who has a character built up would be able to ransack and destroy other community castles that are just starting off.  The way around this is to only allow the players attack/raid/ransack/pillage/lay waste other castles within a certain range of levels that are close to their own.

Again, this is what I presume the game to be.

What I would be afraid of is people not creating castles to be clever, but to be total assholes.  I feel like a game that is created by a person to be as difficult as possible is no longer creating a game/stage/level to be fun, but to be a dick to the rest of the gaming community.  But sure, I recognize that there is a percentage of the population that enjoys a rigorous challenge (meaning the people who have beaten Super Meat Boy), I just happen to not be a part of that particular group.

Not my idea of fun.

So, with all that, I will now give The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot  a try and report back next week with how my hypothesis compares to the actual game in "Chapter II: The After."


~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
I Want to Reconcile the Violence in Your Heart

Monthly Update: March 2014

Happy March everyone!  Happy Soon To Be Spring Equinox!  It'll be my birthday in just under three weeks!

An interesting little tid-bit that I found out last week was about the process to determine the day to celebrate Easter.  I know a lot about Easter as far as the Catholic holiday is concerned seeing as how I'm a "little heathen" as my mother likes to call me; it's a term of adoration as opposed to one of repulsion.  So apparently Easter is determined to be the first Sunday, after the first full moon, after the Spring Equinox.  I don't know about you, but that process sounds very pagan to me.  I honestly don't know what the wording in the Bible says to make this determination as a floating day as opposed to a permanent day such as Christmas.  Anyone?

That aside, how was your February?  How is your March looking to be?

Beginning in the end of February and finishing up near the end of yesterday, I participated in another of Bethesda/Zenimax Online's beta tests for The Elder Scrolls Online.

I don't know about you, but I enjoy falling through a flight of stairs only to have my feet embedded in the underlying rock, then typing /stuck in order to kill myself, but only after I have submitted a bug report to the proper authorities.  Actually, I am quite enjoying this whole process.  Sadly, as has been the case with other ESO betas, but I had work all weekend so I wasn't able to participate as much as I would have liked.  I was able to invite Conklederp to join in on this beta test as well, but she was having a harder time with the download to play part.  I'm trying to figure out what is going on on her side before the early access launches later this month.

A few weeks back, I purchased an A/V Cable to HDMI converter with the hope that I would be able to play both my SNES and N64 on our super HD LED 1080p TV.  Without the converter, the TV cannot completely translate the signal that is coming from a 24 and 19 year old video gaming console.  This inability to correctly translate the console signal comes out as flashing colors on the screen as well as colored bars that move from top to bottom while the game is being played.  The converter was an attempt to fix this issue.  Sadly though, the converter I purchased, possibly through no fault of its own, did not fix this issue.  I am still on the lookout for a fix to this that does not include buying an older non HD TV, although that may end up being the final solution.

And now for some reason, the second half of this article decided that it didn't want to exist anymore.  After saving then closing down and coming back here to publish, everything that followed after the HDMI article is no longer here.  I guess it must not have been very good and knew it for it to want to off itself and I can respect that, even though I don't particularly like it.  So with that done then, I will go play a bit of FEZ as that was how I concluded the article after I talked a bit about free to play games that I had recently downloaded as well as noticing that Castlevania II: Simon's Quest is now available through Nintendo's eShop.


~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
The Underlying Theme

Full Review: The Plan (PC)

The Plan, a "game" of sorts developed by Krillbite Studio, the same people who are developing the first person survival horroresque game where you play as a two year old, probably does not require it's own full article, but you know what, it's going to happen because I enjoyed it that much.  I've played through three times and I think I enjoyed it more the second and third times around.

Krillbite describes the game as an "atmospheric videogame, exploring the issues of death and meaning."  I feel that The Plan, while it does allow the player to explore those issues, I feel that they happen after the game has finished.  And by finished, I mean that it will take you between 5 - 10 minutes to complete.  And believe it or not, the game comes with it's own achievement that is really more of an Easter egg than anything else.

So what exactly then is The Plan?  You begin the game as a fly with the camera very close up on you, almost uncomfortably close, especially if you are not personally fond of flies.  You then progress through the game/stage and slowly the camera pulls back and back, all the while the music in the background (from 19th century Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg) becomes more-and-more pronounced and powerful, but not obnoxiously so.

The game is very simplistic and very calming for the most part, considering that you are controlling something that most people tend to kill on site and cats for some reason like to eat.  I would say that it would be better to go into this game without any expectations although I did tell The Kid that she would "either like it or think it's absolute shit."  And really, that is all I feel you need to tell people, that the game is a small file (~120MB) that takes less than 10 minutes to play and if you don't like it, then you only lost maybe 20 minutes tops.

I just find that The Plan is a nifty little experiment from a video game studio that, from what I have seen from them, is true to their development philosophy, not to put words in their brains.  I highly recommend downloading this free game if for no other reason than to give your opinion about it and what defines a "video game" in todays market.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

The Concealment of Joyful Laughter