Diablo 3

“I want to dip my head in oil, and rub it all over your body.” -George Costanza

I am pleased.

I’m the guy who remembers Diablo and Diablo II with considerable clarity. And let me tell you, there’s a lot of hype to live up to. It’s not even just the game, but the memories of playing alongside my brother and college buddies. Having a blast, adventuring together.

Thanks to Blizzard’s socially networked system, I got a taste of even that yesterday. My buddy Lincoln and I powered through Act I together. I caught up with an old chum, Paul, for the first time in years. And I teased Lahna about her newfound birth control pants. She pointed out that all pants are technically birth control.

…Touché, Lahna. Well played.

Part of me always worries that a new game based on an old franchise, untouched for a decade, will abandon its roots. But those gaming traditions are alive and intact. The same, simple gameplay. The satisfying murder of mass minions. The looting system that feels like a slot machine. The crafting system offers some interesting depth that I look forward to exploring.

I at first disliked the skill system, prefering the character-design approach of Diablo II. But it won me over when I got to level 10 and recognized some of the complexity of the runes and passive skills. It also eliminates the fear of creating “dead-end” skilled characters who cannot survive the higher difficulties. “Respecing” did not exist back in the day. I liked how each class handled their skill power (not always mana this time) in differing ways. Sometimes it regenerates over time. Sometimes, you build it by using your basic attacks. This gave each class a degree of variety akin to Warhammer Online.

A number of complaints have been made about Diablo III‘s online restrictions, in that it must be online. Cracked.com has already written a great article about the issue (language alert). Not just about the current problems but some likely future ones as well. How obnoxious is this problem going to become? I can’t say. I played for a few hours yesterday before my ISP decided to fail on me during my single player games.

Technically, not Blizzard’s fault. Indirectly, a design failure for sure.

But in Blizzard’s defense, I think people forget how bad cheating and abuse became in the previous games. I assure you, it got horrible. And I’m not talking about the player killing of the original Diablo. Or the ol’ “Gimme 10,000 gold and an item and I’ll imbue it for you” scam of Diablo II. I fell for that once, never again.

What I’m talking about were the mods. The mods that gave characters powerful equipment both immediately and for free. Or even created new, otherwise impossible gear. Or the fully maxed out, level 99 (despite a cap of 20, discluding item boosts) for every skill, and 999 stats. Every reason to even play the game went out the window with these mods.

With one glaring exception (Tommy, I’m talking about you), my college buddies pretty much gave up on playing with strangers for these reasons. And given that Blizzard now gets a cut of any real cash auction trades, they have every incentive to keep players honest.

But there are other reasons for forcing Diablo III to be online.

Part of this really goes back to SOPA and beyond. Tons of people (including yours truly) came out against the bill. I didn’t think about it at that time, but a lot of search results suggested that Blizzard (or at least parent company Activision) supported SOPA. 

If I’m wrong about this, give me your source and I will correct it. I hate spreading false info.

We wisely rejected SOPA. But this in turn also means that the industry has to find ways on its own to protect their IP. I feel that game piracy ironically threatens to kill its own host, especially given the very high costs of producing these blockbuster games. I’m sure others feel differently, but let’s not lie to ourselves that stolen games don’t hurt the industry. Businesses are not immortal. If you want to know more, you can check out the debate here and decide for yourself.

This is why SOPA got support in the first place.

No matter what, the piracy issue has to be dealt with somehow. Sure, I miss the freedom from the internet as much as the next single player. Make no mistake Blizzard, you are absolutely welcome to come up with a better way that keeps single player offline and protects your stuff. But for now, if it keeps the mod abusers* out and the gaming industry alive, I’ll bare it just to have a good, honest game.

*-I changed this from user to abuser. Technically, not every mod is a full blown abuse of the game system. Some actually fix or improve the game elements. So I’ll give the more honest, non-cheating mod developers a break.

Welcome to Hell! Now Buy My Book!

Gun in my pocket or happy to see you? Well, kinda both actually…

First, the bad news. Welcome to Hell, edited by Eric S. Brown, contains no sexy pictures of me. I haggled with Brown about this for as long as I could, but we just couldn’t come to an agreement.

On the plus side, it does contain lots of western horror stories by some fabulous writers.  I know, I know. You’re disappointed about the pictures. But while I’m a relative newcomers to the writing arena, there are some horror veterans among the authors of this anthology, including Gina Ranalli, Aaron J. French, Max Booth III and more.

So check it out if you’re into westerns or classical horror monsters. Or just read my story. Up to you.

Making Cuts

Last week, my total writing time was 20 minutes. That was just enough time to finish editing my short story submission for the Black Library and send it. The first of two, mind you.

Something isn’t going to get written in time.

If that doesn’t give you an indication of how screwed I am with regards to my writing schedule, I don’t know what will. I didn’t have a weekend. Both Saturday and Sunday were spent at work. Meanwhile, I have my self-published anthology drafts to finish and the cover to finish drawing, not including prelimary editing, finding an ink & color artist and giving them enough time to finish what must be complete.

There’s the second of my submissions for the Black Library, which I haven’t even started on. Oh, there’s also the alternate history-horror piece the remains in ugly draft, and the ghost story submission which remains completely untouched.

While there’s technically no rush to finish the self-published piece, it doesn’t matter. Every spare minute dropped on that is one taken away from the professional submissions. And editing takes a lot of time. A lot of time. And not every edit makes sense. Once you’ve edited something, expect to edit it again.

I’m giving up the ghost writing submission window. It sucks, but there’s just no time.

Mass Effect Thoughts

Because no one ever suspects Richard Nixon Shepard.

I finished Mass Effect 2 last night. Don’t worry. No spoilers in here.

I found the overall structure of the game interesting. Unlike the first game, which paced you along with about five or six major plot arc missions, this one kind of dangled a major challenge in front of you. All the other missions are completely built around this one challenge in the end. There’s little room for side exploration.

And I mean that. One of the things I found myself missing from the first game was the exploration. No, I absolutely do not miss the Mako. But when you went down to the planet surface for some assignment, you go straight into the action. No Mako drop, no drive out there. The game really pushes you along, and if you leave many of these assignments there is no returning. Except for reloading the mission, the game is pretty bad about letting you recheck certain areas.

For every one thing I miss from the first game, there are two things I don’t.

For starters, the inventory system. What your party can and cannot equip has been streamlined, while the upgrades to your gear with a few quick clicks on the research team. This is so much easier than before, where you would have to go through the inventory screen, find the best weapon, equip it then find the best ammo and upgrades and then do this for every weapon slot and armor.

I also really like how each weapon and armor has unique properties with regard to firing rate, damage per shot and ammo capacity. There was no variety with this from the previous game, but having experienced the FPS options you get from Brink, I still feel there wasn’t enough of that firearm variety in this game.

I love how the weapons and armor upgrades are universal and applied everywhere immediately. But not before some tiring planet probing. It was like they had to add a grind in there somewhere so why not here? The mini-game aspect of it isn’t that bad, but after a while of it you get bored. So note to self, if I ever create a game (and I’ve been thinking about one helluva one for sometime), I will:
1) Allow the mini-games to be nicely spaced throughout the main game.
2) Make them completely optional, but considerably rewarding.
3) Find a way to add the character’s personalities to them to spice it up.

The grind isn’t fun, and isn’t as rewarding as regular gameplay. Not many games have figured this out, but in my opinion RPGs should be grindless, like Diablo 2. There’s so much satisfaction derived from slaying monsters in that game, and the loot system is the perfect Pavlovian response to keep you going.

But there are game rewards, and real rewards. Not just things that help you survive but the humor and joking that you get to keep post-game, and sometimes share with the nerds you call friends. When EDI gave me sass for probing Uranus, I laughed so hard. That’s the quips I could use while I play. Like so.

Don’t misunderstand me. I know that these kind of great quirks and scripted moments are not as developmentally scalable as loot or resources (although Team Fortress 2 pushes this out a new gag with every new item they sell). But they make the game unforgettable.

Believe it or not however, I really miss the leveling system. In the previous game, it was kind of like a little reward. The abilities each character has in this game make them more unique and intriguing, but they didn’t reward me fast enough. Choosing your team’s abilities in smaller increments can be quite satisfying. However, I did like how each ability ended in one of two choices to make them more powerful however, adding a nice twist on reaching the top.

Combat was a definite improvement. I feel as though they snatched an idea or two from Dead Space, like having these in game HUD displays for ammo. But I cannot chide them for it: A good idea is a good idea. Anything to reduce UI clutter. The cover system was also greatly improved; I actually used it now, and used it extensively. The clumsiness of the previous game’s fighting is gone, although I was shocked that I have to collect ammo.

Mass Effect 2 was full of interesting changes compared to the original game, and most were improvements. But I kind of worry that the considerable number of changes can risk a game losing sight of what made it so great. Sometimes it’s these tiny details of how the game is played that make it awesome. And if those features are lost with nothing better replacing them, it just feels different and not quite right.

What’s New

I have so many thoughts on my mind…

First off, I have a job. I start Monday. I cannot discuss it.

I completed Deliverance Lost and Phalanx, which lasted me 2 days. Spoiler warning. Phalanx has particularly drained me emotionally. I was, am and will remain a huge fan of the Soul Drinkers. But their tale has concluded. I hoped that maybe the Soul Drinkers would go on, but I always knew that they were fated to die. The ending was powerful and left me wondering about the things to come.

When I saw Phalanx on the bookshelves, I had immediately grabbed it and started reading it, and in the process, I put The Outcast Dead down. But after finishing Phalanx, I had to disconnect from the Warhammer universe for a while. I need a moment to get away from the darkness of it. Although I suppose THG is not exactly sunshine and roses either, I have seen the movie and I know it’s a lighter escape than 40k.

That’s all for now. Oh, and writing continues.

No 40k MMO

"Not an MMO? Then, who am I shooting at?! ... Eh, who cares."

Word has already circled the globe and back again that Warhammer 40k: Dark Millennium Online is no longer an MMORPG.

What was interesting to me is how many fans actually greeted this news with a smile instead of outrage. It wasn’t just the Shoutbox crew, I’ve read through comments by other players and fans who are just outright glad that it will be a regular single and multiplayer experience.

I personally have mixed feelings about this. Especially in light of my recent return to MMORPGs via Fallen Earth.

I remember when World of Warcraft first came out, how so many people announced it was changing how games would be produced in the future. More than few gamers worried about MMOs being the total wave of the future and just about every company was hard at work trying to make one.

But the fears were unfounded. WoW proved to be so successful that other companies began to fear the loss of investment from the sheer development and infrastructural costs of creating an MMORPG. The market proved that there is limited appetite for MMOs, and the real winners are those who create enough social gravity to stick around, not unlike Facebook. Even different and perhaps better features aren’t enough to matter when everyone’s friends have invested too much time and money in raids to give up. Blizzard just knew how to make people stick to their games better than anyone else.

Unable to really create a run away hit large enough to steal from WoW‘s honey pot, other game developers have stuck with impressive single player experiences and multiplayer features.

Sure, there are things about MMORPGs that really annoy me. Having to juggle multiple GUI windows can be very annoying at times. The combat interface is frequently pretty cluttered. And the game is developed around several thousand people playing at the same time, so those amazing-if-simple features from single player games won’t be there. For example, you wouldn’t find yourself in some interactive cutscene where you’re rapidly tapping a button to keep a necromorph from killing you. Or trying to evade a very elaborate security system to break into a compound. Another thing I don’t like about MMORPGs is the grind. When I’ve got to kill a hundred more of whatever monster, it stops being fun and starts being work. Why in the world would anyone want to do this?

You will also never hear a more foul mouthed bunch of people than with multiplayer. I’d say that MMOs might be bad about this, but competitive FPS are worse. Still, when the sheer numbers of people in Final Fantasy XI began to dwindle, I frequently found myself working alongside folks I did not like. Soloing was possible, but not easy. They have reached the highest tiers of the game and many had become quite arrogant and authoritative. While I doubt something like this will happen with WoW anytime soon, it will likely happen with any other game.

And then there’s the inevitable drama. I myself was a victim of it a few times. I caused it once myself and I wish I hadn’t. But you see stories like the following all the time:

1. A girl joins the guild and she’s cool. But one guy just can’t leave her alone and offers her free stuff. He tries to buy her affection. He starts to get very stalkerish, and smothers her with unwelcome attention until she leaves.
2. Someone makes some off-the-cuff comment about politics, but half the guild happens to be members of the other partisan group. The resulting debates go on for the rest of the day.
3. Someone trusted to a position of power kicks someone out without the guild master’s permission, simply because they do not like them. Even though this person never actually violated any guild rules.
4. Someone trusted as quartermaster gets into an argument with the guild master and decides to empty the guild vault. Or, after some big raid, violates an agreement between all their teammates and takes the goods.
5. A guild master tries to create the biggest guild they can, mixing the wise cracking adult-joke tellers with the family types whose kids might be watching, or other non-compatible types of people. Hilarity does not ensue.
6. The guild master makes ridiculously high requirements and rules because they have a vision of dominance over everything and everyone. Or commands what everyone does down to the tiniest detail like they were chess pieces.
7. That one white kid who gets on Ventrillo and tries to lead. But when things go wrong, he becomes unforgiving and grows frustrated very quickly. It ends with him calling his team a bunch of idiots and cussing them out. Team work degrades. In certain games, the situation may grow so bad that people start fragging their ‘commander.’
8. That one quintessential drama queen who makes up stories. The annoyance increases three fold if the drama queen has attracted a boy who believes her sob stories. The irritation increases ten fold if the attracted male just happens to be the guild master himself. (Although in all fairness, I was present through one reversed example of this.)

But there are things that MMORPGs do that other games don’t. They’re expansive. Not just the worlds, but the sheer number of items and ingredients and crafting recipes. Your achievements in MMOs are quite rewarding because you can show them off or help your guild or clan. The social aspect is a major draw, especially when you hit it off with some other players and become friends.

Still, I suspect that DMO saying no to MMOs is probably for the best.

Wise Tech-Priest Say…

Started a new blog about my unraveling of the mysteries of technology. By programming it away. You can check it out here if you are so inclined. I’d like to be writing about pop culture more, but I do need to get a job.

Write more tomorrow after an interview.

Parkour, Mass Effect and More Writing

Spoooooky...

While cruising IGN today, I was surprised by an article that some Mass Effect 3 fans were angry about the ending (no spoilers in the link). I have no idea what their issue is, because I’ve only just finished Mass Effect and have no plans to get the second until I’ve unlocked every achievement. But this news certainly makes me want to step on the gas.

But before I really go crazy on Mass Effect, I want to finish my anthology. The good news is that I’ve gotten positive feedback on my first two stories. One story seems about fine, might need perhaps a few hundred more words to expand the protagonist’s background. The other story could make do with another scene to further expand the antagonist.

But the good news is that both stories require expansion andnot rewriting and story “refactoring.” Writing a plot is like writing code. And like code, if there’s a fundamental flaw in the design, the entire program is doomed to failure. But the news is good and I am feeling confident that the story will turn some heads.

Inspired by Brink, I have added basic parkour to my morning workouts while jogging. I’ve actually been doing this for two months and it is a great way to expand the workout regime. But I’m careful not to do anything that would tick off pedestrians though, nothing crazy like leaping off the wall and pulling myself on the overhanging platform above the theater (despite how often I daydream about it). Just leaping over low fences, rolling in the grass of the park.

But you know that phrase, “Skateboarding is not a crime”? To my knowledge, I’m the only guy in my town who adds parkour to his jog. But if more people start, then accidents and damage can occur. Too many people start parkour and suddenly the local county government will ban it.

Cause You Know Where a Big Mouth Will Take You

Cause: Rejection letter with four moderately conflicting opinions as to why.

Effect: Biting my tongue.

Origins, Origins…

So I just watched the first (and thus far only released) episode of Awake. The premise is simple if a bit strange; a detective, his wife and his son were involved in a car accident. The detective then isn’t sure if he’s awake or dreaming, when he goes to sleep, he visits two worlds. In one, his son survived but his wife didn’t. In the other, vice versa. And somehow, the details of his cases in one world reflect the other, despite the fact that (thus far) the crimes are different, but committed by the same person.

After finishing the episode, the sneak peek of the next episode immediately brings up hints about how and why this detective, played by Jason Isaacs, is experiencing these two alternate worlds. Desperate to keep their baby alive, the show’s producers put the detective’s son on the line in the next episode, hoping that a snap of drama and the possibility of finding out the origin of this psychological phenomenon will keep audiences hooked.

In the next episode, stuff might happen. But does it? Stay tuned...

I have to say that this kind of bugs me. For some reason, it feels like American audiences (or at least our television and movie producers) have an obsessive need to clarify the origins of everything unusual. While the origins of a problem need to be clarified in order to diagnose the solution (as House would be quick to remind us), does every situation or every character need a completely fleshed out background story?

Why?

To understand the nature of my complaint, take a look at the past three Conan the Barbarian movies. In the first with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the rebooted third with Jason Momoa, the developers felt they needed to explain Conan’s childhood and origins.

What makes this strange is that Robert E. Howard never actually clarified Conan’s origins. The only crucial detail* Howard ever gave was that his father was a blacksmith, and that Conan had a wandering foot. The two origin stories where Conan was taken by slavers and the other where his father was slain by a power hungry madman were never part of the original Conan tales.

I remember reading (though I can’t recall where, probably IGN) about the new and rebooted Spider Man movie coming out. The author suggested that Marvel skip the whole origins story. I couldn’t agree more. It’s been done, we get it, we don’t need to hear it again. Not only do I recall it from the first movie, I have seen it retold in no less than two animated series.

Do heroes and villains always need origin stories? Heather Ledger’s Joker didn’t in The Dark Knight. Look how unforgettable he was.

I guess I ask all this because of my own writing. I would say about two thirds of my tales have addressed origin tales for both heroes and villains. Yes, even villains who die off at the end of the story get origins and reasoning, an explanation for their dastardly deeds. They hurt people because it is worth their time too. And probably because they enjoy it.

I guess it worries me because one of the heroes of my stories does not get a background. There is a story of course, about all the other supporting characters and the villain but not for the hero himself. Or perhaps I’m going about this wrong. Maybe he isn’t the hero, but an element that just happened to be there to help the main characters. Man, am I glad the story is only in draft form.

* – There are details I missed/forgot in my first draft, but Howard did keep Conan’s origins fairly vague. Thanks to Al Harron for this tip and correction.