Nothing too substantial today, just an outlet for me to rage a little. Previously I talked about how terrible many gaming communities are, and how this truly makes me wonder about the true nature of people. Recall I mentioned a couple posts ago that one of the top League of Legends player's account was hacked, and another top player (and rival) played a match with the hacker on this account knowing that it was hacked. I won't go into more detail, however the consequence for this person that played with the hacker turned out to be....a ONE WEEK ban. Seriously. Read that again. One week. Instead of cursing and raging for the next couple paragraphs, I will offer an ultra-simple solution to all of these terrible gaming communities! Grow a pair and lay down some law. Actually CARE about your online community! This person should have been completely and permanently banned. This person has been in trouble for his actions in the past. He is very well known for his pisspoor attitude and tendency to rage, along with some questionable morals. Who cares that he is a top tier player? Ban him. Permanently. I have lost a good deal of faith in the developers of League of Legends due to them passing up this chance to make a critical statement. Namely, they could have thrown the gauntlet at people like this, saying "we don't care who you are, if you are wrecking the community you are DONE."
Think of the possibilities. Game developers are completely able to ban people from their games. They have the technology and the lawful right. I know that this can be hard to monitor, and could open an ugly can of worms. Everyone gets mad and frustrated at some point. This is understandable. There is a difference between a few cuss words, and calling people the N-word and calling anyone that moves "gay" in nearly every match you play. Seriously. League of Legends has a quick and easy to use report-a-player function to inform Riot Games when players are using such racial language, or otherwise griefing other players. The problem is, the consequences are so minimal. There are too many people like this to report as well. The idea is great, but the implementation doesn't work. When they receive frequent (and proven) reports of these behaviors, these people should simply be banned permanently. I realize they hate to do this simply for the money they would lose, however the number of players these types of people drive away from the community is countless. I refuse to play unless I have a group of friends online, because without them I am almost guaranteed to end up on a team with at least one player out to ruin everybody else's game.
Blizzard Entertainment, creators of World of Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo, tried to step up to the plate. They were going to implement a system that would require a user to post on their forums with their REAL NAME. This idea was met with extreme backlash on many fronts, and I believe they have delayed, modified, or scrapped this plan. I honestly haven't checked what ended up happening, however if you Google it I'm sure you will be met by a storm of articles. This idea can open up a world of pain, not the least of which could be some privacy concerns. However, at least Blizzard is showing that they are trying to push something forward to help the ailing gaming communities. I am actually sort of a fan of the idea, but I acknowledge that it really isn't at all practical. I applaud their effort at least.
If developers actually cared about their communities, they would be trying desperately to do something, anything, to fix the terrible state of online gaming. Sadly, the only real threat you hear is getting banned, which doesn't happen because it means they have one less player continuing to buy content for their game. I dream of a world where someone is willing to stand up and be willing to take a hit to their wallet in order to get something done right, and maintain the best product possible. Riot Games had a golden opportunity to show players that they care about the people that play their game. They could have made a statement that childish, disruptive, vile, and horrid people would not be welcome to play, paying or not, so that decent people could have a good game wouldn't need to deal with their total nonsense.
I for one, am not holding my breath. I'm just vastly disappointed that a company that has produced a game I play and enjoy very much passed up an obvious chance to make a change. I don't want to sound too down on Riot Games or League of Legends. The game is great, provided that you have 4 other people you know to play with to avoid the terrible teammates. Anyway, I'm done with this rant. More Gaming Triumphs and Failures coming in a day or two.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Gaming Triumphs and Failures, Part 1
Something a little more light-hearted today, I thought I would look at some of the aspects that make a great game, and why some popular games fail completely but are still somehow hailed as great games. As I stated in my previous entry, I have been playing videogames most of my life. I had an NES and a PC at home from as young as I can remember. I'm 23 now, and I'm still up to date with the most recent gaming hardware with a gaming quality laptop and a Playstation 3. I've played, loved, and hated games from just about every genre. What I'm trying to say is, I've been there, done that, seen it, and I know a few things about games. Despite what companies try to push on people these days, HD graphics, surround sound, pricey DLC that should come free in patches, and an ever decreasing difficulty are not what make great games. Looking back through the years, Master of Magic, a strategy game from 1995, is probably my favorite game of all time. This game had everything. The soundtrack was beautiful for its day, and the graphics weren't bad either. This game had exciting strategic combat that actually required thoughtful execution. Master of Magic has literally infinite replay value. The map is randomly generated, 5 difficulties (the computer cheats so much on the highest difficulty it can challenge seasoned veterans of the game), with insane customization options for your wizard. You get 11 “picks” to customize your wizard's abilities and magics. There are 5 magic types, and you can take up to 11 picks in one type, with more picks meaning more and stronger spells in that type, with 18 of special abilities and 14 different species your starting city can be. Each color brings a unique array of spells, and each race plays quite differently. Without going into more detail, you get the point. The AI isn't great, but gets enough cheats and bonuses that it will keep you on your toes. Good combat, fun spells, wide variety of races, exploration, loot, heroes to develop with items and levels, this game is a complete package.
Games like Civilization and Alpha Centauri and even games that try to clone Master of Magic like Age of Wonders Shadow Magic fall flat for numerous reasons. You can pick your nation in Civ, which grants a few small bonuses and a unique unit or two. Master of Magic's racial differences are HUGE. Civ and Alpha Centauri's combat comes down to a simple random number generator dice roll, which isn't exactly involved or exciting. Master of Magic's combat does have some RNG involved, however the way you move your units, cast your spells, and putting yourself in a position to strike first GREATLY influence the way a combat will play out. Civ having no player input into combat is lame, and I never got into the Civ series for this reason. These games claiming to be strategy when combat takes no player input, being decided by an RNG, is an atrocity.
Age of Wonders Shadow Magic has MANY of the same traits as Master of Magic, and is an obvious clone attempt (deemed a spiritual sequel). This game failed pretty badly in my book, while many critics claim it pulled off its mission with flying colors. The races all feel the same. They have unique units, but they are mostly the same as other races' with different graphics and slightly different stats. Master of Magic's units have massive differences in capabilities and special abilities. AoW: SM has the varying magic colors, but all the magics feel mostly the same. Many of the same spell effects show up in multiple colors with simple graphical and name changes, while having only minor number tweaks. AoW: SM tried to balance the game by making everything almost equal, which was horrible. Balance is good, but making everything the same is the wrong, and completely boring, way to do it. Master of Magic is by no means a balanced game, but it made it work to a degree. The AI cheats, and being a 15 year old game multiplayer didn't exist, so the comparison on balance isn't completely fair. The magic colors were all strong in their own way, I have my favorites but you can beat the highest difficulty level with any of the magic colors. Some of the special abilities suck, and I do feel some of the races are underpowered. There are plenty of races, special abilities, and magic colors that are top tier combinations. Obviously I haven't tried everything (possibilities noted above) but if you plan your magic/race/abilities/strategy well, you can win. Many races have overpowered units, and the magics all have overpowered spells, enough so that everything is overpowered so it sort of balances out to a degree (by no means completely). Heroes built properly, however, are totally overpowered (Warrax and Mortu especially). If this was multiplayer, it would need massive balancing changes. But I would argue this could be done without taking away the variability. A few changes to a few spells, units, and abilities, with a massive change to how heroes/items scale, and this would work on a multiplayer level. AoW: SM just feels like watered down Master of Magic. It gets difficult to explore this idea completely without diving into more details about Master of Magic than most of you probably care to read. This game is totally worth picking up today, even at full price.
I know this post probably reads a bit scattered. What I'm trying to get at here, is many newer games try to sell replayability through reskinning or adding small new features. Looking at a game like Master of Magic, you can see real variety in gaming. Without spreading itself too thin, it has offered me over a decade of gaming. Too many games these days give me the feeling of doing the same thing over and over (ever try leveling in World of Warcraft, or bought generic survival zombie shooter number 2948?). Games also try to balance themselves by making things rather unremarkable. Games frequently offer a wide array of abilities, weapons, or guns that are almost the same with different graphics and slightly different stats, simply out of fear that the game developers will be unable to balance everything if there are large differences in functionality.
But, I feel I'm ranting here.... Don't get me wrong, I have played plenty of modern games that I enjoy, I just feel that gamers are overwhelmed with mediocrity at every turn these days, and a truly good game is becoming more and more rare as time goes on. I have endless opinions on games, both old and new, so it is a safe bet that this will be a continuing series on this blog.
Triumphs: Master of Magic, replayability by giving the player limitless possibilities to customize their powers which all feel and play very different, making the player feel powerful while still providing a challenge
Failures: RNG only combat in strategy games, lazy game balancing, no worthy Master of Magic sequel has been made
Games like Civilization and Alpha Centauri and even games that try to clone Master of Magic like Age of Wonders Shadow Magic fall flat for numerous reasons. You can pick your nation in Civ, which grants a few small bonuses and a unique unit or two. Master of Magic's racial differences are HUGE. Civ and Alpha Centauri's combat comes down to a simple random number generator dice roll, which isn't exactly involved or exciting. Master of Magic's combat does have some RNG involved, however the way you move your units, cast your spells, and putting yourself in a position to strike first GREATLY influence the way a combat will play out. Civ having no player input into combat is lame, and I never got into the Civ series for this reason. These games claiming to be strategy when combat takes no player input, being decided by an RNG, is an atrocity.
Age of Wonders Shadow Magic has MANY of the same traits as Master of Magic, and is an obvious clone attempt (deemed a spiritual sequel). This game failed pretty badly in my book, while many critics claim it pulled off its mission with flying colors. The races all feel the same. They have unique units, but they are mostly the same as other races' with different graphics and slightly different stats. Master of Magic's units have massive differences in capabilities and special abilities. AoW: SM has the varying magic colors, but all the magics feel mostly the same. Many of the same spell effects show up in multiple colors with simple graphical and name changes, while having only minor number tweaks. AoW: SM tried to balance the game by making everything almost equal, which was horrible. Balance is good, but making everything the same is the wrong, and completely boring, way to do it. Master of Magic is by no means a balanced game, but it made it work to a degree. The AI cheats, and being a 15 year old game multiplayer didn't exist, so the comparison on balance isn't completely fair. The magic colors were all strong in their own way, I have my favorites but you can beat the highest difficulty level with any of the magic colors. Some of the special abilities suck, and I do feel some of the races are underpowered. There are plenty of races, special abilities, and magic colors that are top tier combinations. Obviously I haven't tried everything (possibilities noted above) but if you plan your magic/race/abilities/strategy well, you can win. Many races have overpowered units, and the magics all have overpowered spells, enough so that everything is overpowered so it sort of balances out to a degree (by no means completely). Heroes built properly, however, are totally overpowered (Warrax and Mortu especially). If this was multiplayer, it would need massive balancing changes. But I would argue this could be done without taking away the variability. A few changes to a few spells, units, and abilities, with a massive change to how heroes/items scale, and this would work on a multiplayer level. AoW: SM just feels like watered down Master of Magic. It gets difficult to explore this idea completely without diving into more details about Master of Magic than most of you probably care to read. This game is totally worth picking up today, even at full price.
I know this post probably reads a bit scattered. What I'm trying to get at here, is many newer games try to sell replayability through reskinning or adding small new features. Looking at a game like Master of Magic, you can see real variety in gaming. Without spreading itself too thin, it has offered me over a decade of gaming. Too many games these days give me the feeling of doing the same thing over and over (ever try leveling in World of Warcraft, or bought generic survival zombie shooter number 2948?). Games also try to balance themselves by making things rather unremarkable. Games frequently offer a wide array of abilities, weapons, or guns that are almost the same with different graphics and slightly different stats, simply out of fear that the game developers will be unable to balance everything if there are large differences in functionality.
But, I feel I'm ranting here.... Don't get me wrong, I have played plenty of modern games that I enjoy, I just feel that gamers are overwhelmed with mediocrity at every turn these days, and a truly good game is becoming more and more rare as time goes on. I have endless opinions on games, both old and new, so it is a safe bet that this will be a continuing series on this blog.
Triumphs: Master of Magic, replayability by giving the player limitless possibilities to customize their powers which all feel and play very different, making the player feel powerful while still providing a challenge
Failures: RNG only combat in strategy games, lazy game balancing, no worthy Master of Magic sequel has been made
Monday, August 23, 2010
People Suck
I would like to address something that is perhaps a strange way to start this off. In what will probably be the most profound post in this blog, I would like express concern for the current state of people in general. Most people will try to play themselves off as at least neutral toward others, if not at least slightly respectful. However, if you strip away all forms of accountability for their actions, people change. How many of you would steal a million dollars from a massive corporation like Microsoft, if you knew with 100% certainty that you would never be caught or suffer any negative consequences in any way? My guess is, most people would, or at least be strongly tempted to do so. I come face to face with this type of behavior quite frequently while playing videogames on the internet. For those of you who are unfamiliar with how online gaming works, you create an account, typically tied to your email address which only the game developers know. While playing with other people, they see whatever player name you choose, and they cannot see your email, your real name, where you live, nothing. You are essentially nothing but some imaginary name. Of course, you are able to talk with other players in the game through various means. The people in these games, to be blunt, are almost exclusively terrible human beings. I have been playing online games since I was a teenager, and have experienced several online communities including World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Quake 2 and Quake 3, Diablo 1 and 2, among others. In all of them, the same flaws have persisted through a decade of my experiences, and in all honesty it scares me sometimes. People will verbally attack others without provocation for no reason other than to attempt to psychologically wound another human being. People will play the game in a way to intentionally disrupt others' gameplay for the sole reason of causing trouble for other people (I'm talking about when the game is not meant to be played this way, and you receive no reward whatsoever for doing so). Players will show no forgiveness for other people's mistakes, even in noncompetitive games, and will take absolutely no responsibility for their own.
For example, one of the best League of Legends player's recently had some of his personal information stolen, and his account to the game was hacked. This hacker logged into the game with this account and played a match. Four other people, some with a high respected standing in the online community, joined the game with this hacker and played a full match. They KNEW that this account was being played by a hacker (they admitted this) and played with this hacker anyway. Their excuses varied, from being a rival to this top player who was hacked, being fun to play with a hacker on a pro player's account, and the player deserving to be hacked because his information was easy to get to. As another example, in World of Warcraft, high level players frequently go into low level areas just to kill new players that stand no chance to fight off the high level character. The high level player gains absolutely no reward for this. No gold, no experience points, they don't level up or gain a badge of honor. They just go to annoy and disrupt other people for their twisted form of enjoyment. These behaviors are so common players have coined several terms for people doing this, typically calling them “griefers.” When given free reign with no tie to their real identity, a disturbingly vast majority of people tend to take actions to cause others harm in some way. Going to most internet forum websites will yield this result as well, where people like this are called “trolls.”
At this point many of you are probably thinking that I'm leaving out all the positive experiences I've had, and that I'm simply being selective. I have met some of my best friends through online gaming experiences. However, I can count the number of kind people I've met playing videogames online for about 10 years using only my fingers and toes. The number of trolls and griefers would number in the hundreds at least. Some people would argue that this is a very small selection of people, and to a degree they are correct. While World of Warcraft has advertised as having over six million players worldwide, they can hardly be considered a global meter for the human condition. However, gaming as a whole has been increasingly more popular, with game names like Halo and Call of Duty becoming recognizable by most teens and young adults. Is this horrible trend applicable only to the nerds and geeks of online gaming, or is it only seen in this population because it is a situation where any chance of suffering a real world consequence for their actions is removed? Nerds are even typically steroetyped as being the “niceguys” versus the more rude and condescending population of “jocks” and “preps.” While I won't go back into the high school clichés, I don't believe that computer gamers are someone more evil than your standared non-gamer young adult.
Others may argue that this entire situation is unrealistic, and that people should not be judged how they respond in a scenario where there is no responsibility tied to their actions. This argument is completely flawed. While this situation may be detached from reality, it shows a person's true colors because it leaves them with no reason not to do whatever they want. There are no inhibitions or outside influences to prevent them from doing exactly as they please. And a majority of people choose to rude, offensive, disrespectful, and cruel to other people. Online gaming communities as a whole have become so hostile that it is nearly impossible to try to play any team-oriented or cooperative game without filling your entire team with friends, because you won't want to deal with the awful personalities of 99.9999999% of the people you meet in the game online. Trying to find a team of random players online that you can get along with well enough to play the game becomes a test of your pain tolerance. I'm not trying to call out videogames in anyway whatsoever. I spend much of my free time gaming and have a wonderful time, provided I play either single player games or bring a team of friends online. Anyway, leave a comment if you agree or have a story to try to brighten this rather frightening trend. I'm going back to League of Legends hoping to have a match where someone doesn't question my sexuality or call out my Mother because my team of five friends (who are actually gamers that are decent human beings) managed to crush his team of assholes.
Wall of Text crits for 9000.
For example, one of the best League of Legends player's recently had some of his personal information stolen, and his account to the game was hacked. This hacker logged into the game with this account and played a match. Four other people, some with a high respected standing in the online community, joined the game with this hacker and played a full match. They KNEW that this account was being played by a hacker (they admitted this) and played with this hacker anyway. Their excuses varied, from being a rival to this top player who was hacked, being fun to play with a hacker on a pro player's account, and the player deserving to be hacked because his information was easy to get to. As another example, in World of Warcraft, high level players frequently go into low level areas just to kill new players that stand no chance to fight off the high level character. The high level player gains absolutely no reward for this. No gold, no experience points, they don't level up or gain a badge of honor. They just go to annoy and disrupt other people for their twisted form of enjoyment. These behaviors are so common players have coined several terms for people doing this, typically calling them “griefers.” When given free reign with no tie to their real identity, a disturbingly vast majority of people tend to take actions to cause others harm in some way. Going to most internet forum websites will yield this result as well, where people like this are called “trolls.”
At this point many of you are probably thinking that I'm leaving out all the positive experiences I've had, and that I'm simply being selective. I have met some of my best friends through online gaming experiences. However, I can count the number of kind people I've met playing videogames online for about 10 years using only my fingers and toes. The number of trolls and griefers would number in the hundreds at least. Some people would argue that this is a very small selection of people, and to a degree they are correct. While World of Warcraft has advertised as having over six million players worldwide, they can hardly be considered a global meter for the human condition. However, gaming as a whole has been increasingly more popular, with game names like Halo and Call of Duty becoming recognizable by most teens and young adults. Is this horrible trend applicable only to the nerds and geeks of online gaming, or is it only seen in this population because it is a situation where any chance of suffering a real world consequence for their actions is removed? Nerds are even typically steroetyped as being the “niceguys” versus the more rude and condescending population of “jocks” and “preps.” While I won't go back into the high school clichés, I don't believe that computer gamers are someone more evil than your standared non-gamer young adult.
Others may argue that this entire situation is unrealistic, and that people should not be judged how they respond in a scenario where there is no responsibility tied to their actions. This argument is completely flawed. While this situation may be detached from reality, it shows a person's true colors because it leaves them with no reason not to do whatever they want. There are no inhibitions or outside influences to prevent them from doing exactly as they please. And a majority of people choose to rude, offensive, disrespectful, and cruel to other people. Online gaming communities as a whole have become so hostile that it is nearly impossible to try to play any team-oriented or cooperative game without filling your entire team with friends, because you won't want to deal with the awful personalities of 99.9999999% of the people you meet in the game online. Trying to find a team of random players online that you can get along with well enough to play the game becomes a test of your pain tolerance. I'm not trying to call out videogames in anyway whatsoever. I spend much of my free time gaming and have a wonderful time, provided I play either single player games or bring a team of friends online. Anyway, leave a comment if you agree or have a story to try to brighten this rather frightening trend. I'm going back to League of Legends hoping to have a match where someone doesn't question my sexuality or call out my Mother because my team of five friends (who are actually gamers that are decent human beings) managed to crush his team of assholes.
Wall of Text crits for 9000.
Hello World!
I've been meaning to start a blog for some time now, and I've just finally gotten around to it. I don't have a particular reason in mind, other than I like to rant about things and I feel my opinions are usually important somehow. Keeping in mind how random I can be, I can't give much more detail than that. I do have a few entries mostly written already, so check back regularly for updates!
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