PVP in MMOs
There has been an interesting debate this week about PVP in MMOs among several of my fellow bloggers. Syp AKA Justin Olivetti wrote an article for Massively OP referencing “gankbox culture” of EVE Online which then garnered a series of reciprocal posts from the likes of Bhagpuss, Jeromai, UltrViolet and Wilhelm Arcturus. Good points have been made by all but I think Bhaggie hit the nail on the proverbial head when he said that the term “PVP”, like so many in the gaming lexicon, is ill-defined. Player versus player can manifest itself in many forms, such as duels, arenas and zerg against zerg. Some games do offer an open world were players can be preyed upon or “ganked” but it is usually regulated to some degree. However, the thing that came out of this discussion that was of the most interest to me was why some people dislike PVP so much?
LOTRO 10th Anniversary: Remembering LOTRO Part 2
When reminiscing about LOTRO, there are many personal highlights for me to consider. Raiding in the Rift, completing the epic story in Shadows of Angmar, or even getting my first mount. Yet, if I had to pick a personal favourite experience, it would be the great charge across the River Anduin, into Mirkwood. This happened on Gilrain server on Monday 25th of Janurary 2010, the night before Siege of Mirkwood expansion was launched. An enterprising player by the name of Mikeemoo arranged the event via the forums and at the designated time a hundred plus players assembled on the Western bank of The Great River. Once the signal was given we swam en masse to the Eastern shore and swarmed up the bank into the woods. As the zone was not yet accessible the developers had placed NPCs in the vicinity; Mirkeves Fell Arrows that could one shot any player. However, due to the sheer number of players in the zerg and the resulting lag, many made it across. Eventually the server kicked everyone but it was immense fun while it lasted.
Messing About in Boats
“Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” Kenneth Grahame. The Wind in the Willows.
It's curious the way a simple aspect of a game can resonate with you and become a source of pleasure. Regardless of the availability of new content, I still like to log into LOTRO on occasion and just ride around Middle-earth. Similarly, the vast open world of Skyrim has a comparable appeal. Despite my lack of driving skills, even aimlessly cruising around Los Santos in GTA V can be a source of relaxation. I can lose hours indulging in these simple tasks, quietly reflecting on either the game or the real world. Recently I returned to another activity that can also be added to this list. Sailing in Two Worlds II.
Star Trek Online: Summer Festival 2017
The Star Trek Online Summer Festival 2017 or Risa annual Lohlunat Festival to give it its proper name has been running for over a week now. It started on the June 8th and is available through to 20th July. Although many MMOs have festival and seasonal activities, STO’s Summer and Winter events are outstanding, being accessible, enjoyable and very rewarding. Not only are cosmetic clothing and pets available as barter items, the game also offers kit modules and bridge officer skills as rewards. Then of course each event always allows players to earn a new Tier 6 ship. This Summer it’s a Vorgon Ryn’Kodan Carrier.
How Not to Do Business Part 2: TopWare
I wrote last week about the surprise DLC for the seven-year-old RPG Two Worlds II and how I decided on a whim to buy it. Well yesterday was the official launch day for Call of the Tenebrae and yet, twenty-four hours later, I’m still not playing the game. So far, I have not received a Steam key for the game, despite the money being deducted from my PayPal account on the 5th of June. So naturally, I have made enquiries as to what is happening and have endeavoured to contact the publishers TopWare. Let it suffice to say that my attempts to resolve the matter have proved fruitless and I have discovered that TopWare are far from the embodiment of German efficiency.
Pick Up Groups
Out of all my recent gaming, Sniper Elite 4 has proved the most entertaining. The engaging mechanics and stealthy gameplay have held my attention and kept me engaged. So far, I spent over seventy-two hours playing through the campaign and DLC. After watching several You Tube videos I was tempted to try the co-operative mode, something that I don’t always do in these sorts of games. Overwatch allows two players to work together as sniper and spotter respectively, to complete objectives within a custom map. It requires communication and co-ordination. It should also be noted that multiplayer in Sniper Elite 4, is dependent on peer-to-peer connection rather than dedicated servers, with the players hosting the games themselves.
Strange Brigade Reveal
Rebellion, the creators of the Sniper Elite series and the Zombie Army Trilogy, announced on Wednesday a new game called Strange Brigade. The trailer shows the game to be a four-player co-op third-person shooter. The rather droll video, shot as a faux newsreel, appears to show a story set in the pre-war era with a group of quirky characters indulging in Indiana Jones style shenanigans on behalf of the British Empire.
Two Worlds II: New DLC After Seven Years
I bought a bundle of games in August 2014, which included the RPG Two Worlds II and its expansion, Pirates of the Flying Fortress. With such purchases, there is a tendency to adjust your expectations in accordance to your financial investment. However, I pleasantly surprised to find Two Worlds II a quirky and enjoyable role-playing game. The animations and combat are somewhat clunky but the loot system that allows you to break down every item into upgrade components, is useful. The game also boasts a customisable spell system, that utilises collectable cards as modifiers. It is quite an innovative mechanic and certainly allows players to create builds that suit their tastes. Two Worlds II benefits from a pleasing soundtrack and a standalone expansion that offers a superior story to the base game. Not every RPG can be a Skyrim or Witcher 3. Two Worlds II is an acceptable genre title to play between such releases.
Fans and Communities
Over the years I have been a participant in several fan based communities. These have ranged from running film clubs, to creating and publishing fanzines in the pre-internet days. More recently this has included running websites, blogging and creating podcasts. It’s a curious thing the way fandom is cyclical and one’s involvement with such communities seems to ebb and flow. It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot of late. Several of the You Tube channels I enjoy have reduced their output or stopped due, to changes in advertising policy and monetisation. The Newbie Blogger Initiative failed to manifest itself this year and many of my immediate colleagues in blogging and podcasting have also begun to fade away or moved on to pastures new. The sad thing is, the true value of many community contributors is never really realised until after they’ve gone.
Junior Officer Appreciation Weekend: A Tale of Competitive Nodes
This is a tale about Star Trek Online but as competitive nodes are a common game mechanic in numerous MMORPGs, it is pertinent to many gamers. From today till Monday 5th June, it’s Junior Officer Appreciation Weekend, an in-game event that allows players to earn a rare duty officer. Strange particles can be found around the grounds of Starfleet Academy. If these are scanned with a tricorder, they either disappear, become stable or summon a combat hologram that attacks you. The particles then drop fragments that can be exchanged for event rewards. Collecting the particles is fun but hardly anything groundbreaking. I’m sure that most MMOs have a comparable activity.
Star Trek Online: Life After the Balance Changes
There has been a great deal of discussion on the STO subreddit about the recent balance changes. The subject has also been explored on numerous Tube videos over the last four weeks. As with any game, there’s a lot of technical jargon associated with the various systems and mechanics. Players also use a lot of acronyms and bespoke phrases when referencing content. Subsequently, there can be a steep learning curve to min-maxing and pursuing DPS in STO. Despite having regularly played since the Delta Recruit Event of May 2015, I still struggle to absorb all the subtleties of this MMOs. Certainly, the minutiae of the balance change are lost on me. However, I understand the obvious alterations and have no doubt in my mind that Space combat “feels” different.
LOTRO: Going Off Map
One of the greatest attractions of LOTRO is the opportunity to explore Middle-Earth. Standing Stone Games have done a very good job of interpreting Tolkien's world, offering a rich and diverse environment. I often like to cross reference the in-game environment against such books as Journeys of Frodo by Barbara Strachey and The Atlas of Middle-Earth by Karen Wynn Fonstad. Whenever a new region becomes available, I always like to see what lore based references I can find there. Overall the Middle-earth featured in LOTRO is remarkably faithful to the source text, given the practical compromises regarding scale that have to be made.
Contracting Out Work in LOTRO
I recently decided to focus upon crafting on my new Hunter. I’ve opted for the explorer professions on this character as refining raw material is always a good way of making in-game gold. However, over recent weeks I’ve focused on levelling and have not processed any wood or ore from the various zones that I worked through. Thus, last week I found myself in Eregion and I couldn’t mine any of the ore nodes or gather timber. If I wanted to progress, I had to consider the following options. I could return to the starter zones and farm the resources I needed then process them, unlocking the next levels. Or I could buy what stocks of wood and ore that I required from the auction house and again work through the crafting tiers. The first option didn’t really appeal to me and the second was dependent on stock levels of various resources on Auction House. So, after some thought I decided the best alternative was to contract out the gathering work.
Sniper Elite 4
I first discovered the Sniper Elite franchise back in 2014, when Steam gave away free keys for Volume 2 as part of a promotion. I enjoyed the game so much I purchased all the available DLC. Having regularly played both Call of Duty and Battlefield, it was a pleasant change at the time, for a game to be set during World War II. Later that year I bought, Sniper Elite 3, as it offered a far more polished gaming experience, compared to earlier instalments. Furthermore, the story was set in North Africa; a theatre of war that is often neglected in multimedia. Although the plot was somewhat arbitrary, Sniper Elite 3, like its predecessor, still offered an immersive gaming experience with an emphasis on situational awareness and stealth. The franchise has never been about “running and gunning” and favours the patient and methodical player.
Games We Cannot Play
I have written in the past about how certain games can be very appealing conceptually but the reality is quite different. Often the fundamental disappointment doesn't lie with the game itself but with our inability to play them. For me the Battlefield franchise is a prime example of this and more recently For Honor. The trailers for these games are frenetic, focusing on action and spectacle. The associated marketing certainly sells the idea of “awesome action”. Sadly, my personal experience of Battlefield has usually been running across an inordinately large map, only to arrive at the hot spot to get one-shotted. As for the planes, helicopters and vehicles; I can't fly them or drive them effectively so team mates tend to abandon me. I can only describe my experience in For Honor as being a flesh piñata for other players. The fun experience depicted in the advertising was as elusive as a good, odd numbered Star Trek movie.
LOTRO 10th Anniversary: Remembering LOTRO Part 1
On Monday 22nd December 2008, I visited the Game store at Colliers Wood, South West London. I was working at St George’s Hospital in Tooting the time at and the nearby shopping centre was an ideal place to spend the lunch hour. As I perused the shelves in the PC gaming section, I spotted a “compilation pack” that contained not only the MMORPG The Lord of the Rings Online but it’s recently released expansion pack, Mines of Moria. Although I was aware of the MMO genre at the time, I had never played one beyond a trial of Star Wars: Galaxies. However, as I had recently moved and was living alone, I was in the perfect position to start playing such a game. So, I decided to take the plunge and buy LOTRO for the bargain price of twenty pounds. There was also a sizeable display for World of Warcraft in the shop, which was by far the market leader at the time. Yet because I’ve always been a Tolkien fan, I just naturally gravitated toward buying LOTRO and it never crossed my mind to buy another product.
The Geography of LOTRO: Part 3 Filling in the Gaps
I would like to once again return to the matter of the geography of Middle Earth. David Braben, co-creator of seminal video game Elite, called truly open-ended game design and sandbox gaming environments "The Holy Grail" of modern video gaming. He cited games like Elite and the Grand Theft Auto series as early steps in that direction. For many gamers, the idea of being able to freely roam a virtual world without any deliberate restrictions is a very enticing one. For Tolkien fans, the notion of being given complete freedom of movement throughout Middle Earth would be a dream come true. However, due to the way that LOTRO has been designed, Standing Stone Games vision of Middle Earth, although well-conceived is not such an environment.
Review Scores
Two stories caught my attention recently, regarding the merits of review scores and the current fetish for review aggregation services. The first was about film director and producer Brett Ratner’s dislike for review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes. He contests that “it’s the destruction of our business” due to the way it condenses nuanced reviews into a simple number. Scores below a certain threshold keep “Middle America” away and thus harm business. The other article was about game critic and pundit, Jim Sterling, who gave The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild a review score of 7 out of 10. Once this was added to Metacritic’s number crunching formula, the game in question dropped from an overall score of 98 down to 97. Fans did not care for this “outrage” and a DDoS attack followed as well as the usual comment based flame war.
First Contact Day
Star Trek Online is an MMO that likes an event. They have numerous scheduled over the course of the year. The latest is to celebrate First Contact Day (5th April), when Humans and Vulcans first met on Earth. The event takes place at the Zefram Cochrane Memorial and Historical Museum and participants are tasked with building their own replica Phoenix ship. To build an effective vessel, players have to search the immediate vicinity for engine, hull and stabiliser parts. These vary in quality following the games standard colour coding system. Thus, in theory, purple colour parts will perform better. Once the Phoenix replicas are assembled, they are launched simultaneously, with the winner being the one that reaches the highest altitude.
Labels
Because I play PC games as one of my leisure activities, that apparently makes me a “gamer”. I find this curious because I also like to read books, yet no one seems to be in a hurry to call me a “reader”. So I thought it would be interesting to explore this matter further. For convenience sake let’s just call this post a discussion about labels. It’s a subject I’ve written about before but I wish to return to because I think it is something that is becoming more pervasive in contemporary culture.