The Weakest Link

I think I’m the weak link in every raid group I’ve ever been in. I’ve quit WoW more times than I can count. Usually, by the end game I find myself irretrievably bored or frustrated with a title. At some point, while tanking my way through an instance with and unfriendly and blame happy PUG group, I miss some minor critter who has escaped my aggro radius. This critter inevitably chews the leg off of our healer and one by one the rest of the group goes down, starting with me.

This happens over and over until, totally cowed by the furious roars of recently resurrected DPS characters, I log out after the completion of the instance and switch to a single player game where the peanut gallery cannot follow.

Is the problem that, by gamer standards, I am a man of advanced years? Possible, but I have many friends older than me who still rock the dungeon. More likely, it is the fact that I loose interest after max level. After hitting level cap, I find it almost impossible to motivate myself to “gear up.” Endlessly repeating the same content while amassing a small fortune in gear and gold.

This is the only way to fully master instances and raids. Gear up, learn the map and bosses backwards and forwards. I think that is why I am drawn to sandbox environments. Having achieved max level in a sandbox, I can meander about the galaxy/world and seek my fortune in my own time, solo or grouped.

Am I wrong here? Am I missing some key component of the MMO genre? I really hope so. Please let me know if I am. Maybe, I just like fresh content, maybe I like no content at all. Or at least not an exact duplication of the last time I went through this with the same “OMG we’ve been ebayed,” cries from dying rogues and mages at exactly the same points on the map. It’s not good for my self confidence, or my temper.

And it’s expensive. It usually means moving on in search of greener pastures. PvP usually requires a nearly identical grind. So no love for me there. Although I do enjoy large open world PvP confrontations when they erupt. Hmm, again no real structure there. I'm beginning to see a pattern.

If market data has proved anything to me over the years, there just are not a lot of people out there who agree with me on this point. There are a few, after all, Eve, SWG, WURM Online and a Tale in the Desert are still around with small but dedicated communities.

However, with the exception of Eve, substantial development and marketing dollars do not seem to be heading towards projects like these. Everyone seems to have taking a shot at the champ at the back of their mind. WoW, all the investors seem to be measuring the marketability of a new title by the WoW stick. Developers follow suit and design games for that market.

Perhaps you have seen the presumption that WoW’s 11.4 million subscribers represent the majority of dedicated MMO’ers willing to shell out for a triple A game, posted and reposted in various forums and articles.

I propose that there is a as yet untapped market. There are many potential customers who already reside in the demographic, tabletop gamers for instance, who for whatever reason have not picked up the mouse and plopped down their credit card.

I know some of these people, and if you are reading this, you probably do too. So what kind of gameworld will attract them? Probably not a scripted theme park thrill ride which costs more than a new AD&D module every month, I'll wager.

Just a quick update

I have accepted the Community Manager and Podcast Producer position with The Quantum Cafe. Check us out!

Our next show is scheduled to air in June and features two new brilliant hosts as well as an interview with none other than Star Trek Online's Executive Producer Dan Stahl!!!

http://thequantumcafe.com/priorityone/1-podcasts/57-introducing-our-new-community-manager

My Free to Play Problem

Fear not, this won't be a rant about how F2P is destroying online gaming or saving it. I have no facts regarding that issue. The best I can offer is hearsay, Apparently Turbine is doing very well from F2P...I heard it from a guy.


First World Problems 

It's time for me to explore my problem with the free to play model. The problem seems to be that it is in fact free. I don't have to pay. I can try anything I want without risk, and my taskbar proves it. Currently there are eight MMO shortcuts pinned to it and innumerable others in a little folder off to the side. I've always been a sucker for a buffet.

It is an embarrassment of riches. Tons of great top flight western MMOs that offer the most substantive part of the game at no cost, other than my broadband bill.

First world problem you say? Yes. Totally. Chances are, if you are now or have ever been an MMO subscriber, you reside on the corner of First and World also.

I have become a jack of all games and a master of none. There simply is not the IRL time to devote myself to more than one game in any significant way.



Once upon a time,

There was Ultima Online, Everquest, and a couple of johnny come lately upstarts on the radar. The very idea of paying a subscription was an abhorrent one to me.

One day, fanboy that I am, I relented and dropped the cash on Star Wars Galaxies. I was instantly converted, spent two years building Zebbidiah MacGirthy into a Master Swordsman and ground Rancors and Dathomiri Witches for fun and credits with laser sharp focus.

There was no other game in my world. Nothing could break my iron clad intent to master all of it's facets. Until there was another game. Once again, With renewed focus I vigorously ground out a max level toon in that one, then also in the next one and the one after that.

I know that the F2P model has been around for years. Popular mostly among our Eastern brothers, China, Korea, Japan etc. Sadly, those worlds never really appealed to me. So I paid monthly for the 'merican style blockbusters that suited my first world tastes.


You got Chocolate in my Peanut Butter!

As a longtime pen and paper player, Dungeons and Dragons Online was a game that held more than a passing interest for me. Sadly, when contrasted with my chosen subscription at the time, Pirates of the Burning Sea, I just couldn't justify the extra cost.

My neat little MMO applecart was turned over in August 2009. Turbine relaunched DDO using the free to play model. It's immediate success threw open the gates to an army of developers and publishers who happily followed it to the land of milk and honey.

This is where my problem began. I tried it and liked it. Just as I began to get a head of steam, the next wave of F2P conversions began. Global Agenda, then EQ2, LotRO, Champions Online, Pirates of the Burning Sea, Age of Conan, never mind beta invites, five day reactivation emails, server downtime credits, buddy keys from guildmates, the list goes on and on and on now. I have reactivated EVE so often I should be getting veteran rewards.

Most of these new business models generate revenue using micro transactions. In game vanity items or services which generally cost under $10, usually $1-$6. To complicate matters further, of all these free games I now play and have access to, my micro transaction dollars are spent in the one and only game to which I still pay a subscription of $14.99/mo, Star Trek Online. Someone please explain that to me.

At first the sheer volume of options was thrilling. But now, longing for that sense of focus and accomplishment received in years past, I find myself wanting to go back, It seems like it should be simple, try them all, and pick the one which fits best. But thats my hangup. I try one, find it lacking, and move on to the next.

I feel like a tourist. Stumbling around someone else's hometown, in entirely the wrong shirt, looking for the coolest painted seashell. Staring out a bus window, learning nothing of substance about the world I'm in. Developing no social bonds and making no real progress. In short, developing no roots and no anchor. Nothing to keep me coming back.



Rub Some Dirt on it...

Robert Hunter said it best, "Once in a while you get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look at it right." 

As a direct result of SOE's recent troubles, they chose to offer a "welcome back," package to entice leery players, such as myself to return. Among other things, this package included about 45 days of free game time on any SOE game you own and have ever subscribed to. To me, this was a golden opportunity to revisit my old stomping grounds on SWG's Bria server.

It was there, on my Sorosub Luxury Yacht, sorting through all the detritus and broken armor sets of my former life that I stumbled upon my solution.

Pursuing anything with passion requires commitment. Be it sport, craft, art or game.

This might not be news to you, but it is something I had clearly lost touch with as it relates to gaming.

If you want your softball team to take home the trophy, you have to have reliable players. You have to be a reliable player and show up for practices. You can't be on O'Malley's softball team, The Lion's Gate Pub's football team, as well as the inter-mural soccer league at the community center and expect to excel. And I do want to excel.

In the worlds I have inhabited I've built cities and downed fearsome creatures, crafted epic artifacts and made millions. I desire achievement and the thrill that comes with surviving against all odds with a tightly knit group of friends and comrades. I just haven't done it lately.

Now it's time to pick one and play like I know what I'm doing. Any suggestions?

L.A. Noire First Game To Be Honored At Tribeca Film Festival

Have we finally made it? Are these the grown up pants we've been looking for? Can we finally come out of the basement and declare to the world, "I am Gamer, hear me roar!"

I hope so. I'll be honest, since roughly seventh grade, I have put up with derisive looks and harumphing every time my passion for gaming is exposed. This from the very same people who will think nothing of spending eight hours watching football or auto racing.

Frankly, I'm a bit tired of it. Maybe, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!" is a more representative quote. ( See "Network")

Now there are millions of us supporting a multi billion dollar industry which, in terms of revenue, can completely pwn film, recorded music and television.

Checkpoint reached. Next level, obtain social, artistic and critical respect.

Not so fast.

"It's a game son. It's all flash and no substance. It's just not Art."


Merriam-Webster defines Art as:
Merriam-Webster 4 a:  "the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects; also :works so produced"


I believe these gentlemen, Chief Creative Officer of the Tribeca Film Festival, Geoffrey Gilmore, Production Designer at Team Bondi, Simon Wood and Art Director at Rockstar Games, Rob Nelson, are discussing how they conciously used skill and creative imagination in the production of L.A. Noire.

And so why do the nay sayers persist! Famously, Roger Ebert claims that games can never be art. He makes some seemingly solid points, but they are based on his limited experience with the form.

By way of example, he contends that games have point's and can be won, and as such, are endeavors, not art.Yes some do, most don't. The games I played in 1984 were point based.

The games I play now cannot be won. Mass Effect is a great example. It is a story, which can only be finished, like a film. Or a book.

As I don't enjoy being crushed by towering intellects, I would not presume to match wits with Mr. Ebert. I'm a car salesman with a chip on his shoulder, not an academic.

Instead, I'll let you read his argument, watch the argument upon which his retort is based, and draw your own conclusions.

Do this now...Hurry, it's getting late.

Conclusions drawn? Great. Let me make my point because I'm getting tired.

My point is this. I believe deeply that I have seen games which have transcended the bonds of mediocrity and have risen to the level of art. Just as I have experienced film, sculpture and painting that has also risen to my expectations of what is art.

I have also seen games, film, sculpture, etc. which plummet to the circle of hell reserved for deeply offensive, lubberly produced, commercialized crap not worthy of wrapping fish.

The art debate is irrelevant to me. I want respect. I want peace. I want to be able to talk about games and gaming around the water cooler without jeopardizing my credibility as a professional worthy of trust. I want to be able to share the joy I receive from well composed interactive digital media without immediately forefeiting my hard won adulthood.

This is not a challenge movie goers, Basketball, Football, Chess or Mah Jong players face when describing their latest match or viewing.

Not anymore anyway.

I have so much more on this topic. But I'm sleepy and I need some help here. If you are reading this, leave a note and lets discuss. That's what people do about art isn't it?

ET