"Adequate"
“Why re-release a game that’s perfectly adequate but doesn’t do anything particularly noteworthy or special?” Rogue Trooper Redux review by Tom McShea. Here we have in a nutshell the ill-conceived attitude that plagues contemporary gaming reviews, although it is also applicable to other mediums. Too often these days, I find myself reading critiques of games, movies and TV shows where the author feels that the product has failed because it is not exceptional. Such reviews will frequently cite numerous positive factors or attributes and reference how the product has been competently assembled. Yet in the final summation, the author will then full back upon the stock criticism that in spite of all this, the game does not “re-invent the wheel” or set a new “benchmark”. It is just “adequate”. However, I believe that this is a much misunderstood and frequently misused word. And that its reoccurring use stems from a culture of unrealistic expectations.
Open World Games
The Virtual Bolivia that Ubisoft have created for Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands is truly stunning. This massive open world is approximately 576 square kilometres (222.4 square miles) and features 21 regions and 11 distinct ecosystems. Furthermore, the world is seamless without any loading screens or phasing. You can travel from one end of the map to the other without any immersion breaking transitions. The main story missions and the regional counterparts can be tackled in any order, affording players the freedom to explore and play through content however they want. The game can be played cop-operatively via PUGS or through bespoke custom teams. Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands takes the textbook concept of the “open world” and augments it sufficiently to hang a narrative on. But beyond the overall task of dismantling a sprawling national drugs cartel, the player is given a superbly crafted sandbox and is left to determine their own agenda and play style.
Looking For a New Game (Yet Again)
I’m between games at the moment, having just cancelled a couple of MMO subscriptions (ESO and LOTRO) and just finished Desolation of Mordor DLC for Middle-earth: Shadow of War. There’s a new expansion, Victory is Life, coming up in June for STO but there’s no reason to rush straight into that on launch. I may keep that as my summer gaming project. So, I have about three to four weeks to fill at present and I’ve been scratching my head as to what will best suit this gaming gap. I’ve started The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, but I’m not committed to it in the same way as Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. It is a far more contained and “on rails” experience. I’m mainly playing it for the narrative and to fill in the gaps in the lore. To facilitate this, I’m playing through on the easiest difficulty setting and the linear story lends itself to targeted, time specific sessions of about an hour or so at a time. However, I’m still looking for something else to scratch my current gaming itch. Something “different” by my own personal tastes and standards. At least once a year, I like to tackle a game that falls outside of my usual comfort zone.
"Grinding"
According to Wikipedia, “grinding” is defined as “performing repetitive tasks for gameplay advantage. In MMORPG, for instance, it can be advantageous to repeatedly kill AI-controlled monsters, using basically the same strategy over and over again to advance one's character level and to unlock content. Grinding may be required by some games to unlock additional features such as level progression or additional items”. Although I broadly agree with this summation, I feel that “grinding” is one of those terms that can also be very subjective. Repetitious content has a specific purpose in video games, especially the MMO genre. Not all of it is tedious or egregious. Therefore, it is a question of degrees. Killing 25 mobs of a specific species may be a tolerable number. A challenge but not a task that out stays its welcome. However, double that amount a suddenly a line has been crossed. The entire undertaking now feels like it has been inflated simply to slow player progress down, which is more than likely the exact purpose of the task.
The “Psychology” of an MMO Player
Before we start I’d like to make it clear that I do not have any formal qualifications in psychology. If you want specific details of research into MMO player psychology, the I would urge you to look to more academic source. For the sake of this post, I shall be using the term “psychology” figuratively. As people do in everyday parlance. In this case it is meant to refer to the motivations and foibles of the MMO gamer. Okay, that's the legal disclaimer out of the way. Let us continue with a finely-honed dissection of the topic in hand, bolstered by that impeachable source of verification, namely anecdotal evidence.
Desolation of Mordor and the Blade of Galadriel
Today the latest story DLC unlocked for Middle-earth: Shadow of War. The Desolation of Mordor allows you to play as Captain Baranor, who we now find adventuring in the deserts wastes of Lithlad in Eastern Mordor. Unlike Talion and Eltariel, Baranor does not have any Wraith Powers or the innate gifts and talents of the first born. He is merely a mortal man which subsequently adds an interesting dynamic to the game play. However, Baranor quickly meets up with Dwarven Hunter Torvin, who provides him with a several usefully Numenorean artefacts which fill his “skills gap”. These include a Gauntlet that expands to become a buckler. It also houses a crossbow that fires a variety bolts as well as a grappling hook, thus aiding Baranor with climbing. The other artefact is a kite that is stowed in a back pack. This acts as a parachute and can also be used via the hot thermal vents that litter the landscape, to ascend to vertical vantage points.
“Geek Culture” and the Media
During my lifetime, I have seen many niche market hobbies and pastimes become mainstream activities. Much of what is now generically known as “geek culture” use to be the exclusive and esoteric province of hardcore fans back in the seventies. Comic collecting, conventions commemorating obscure TV shows and even gaming were activities that were mainly conducted under the mainstream radar, in minor conventions centres, church halls and out-of-the-way bespoke stores. Forty plus years later and all of the above are now big business, generating staggering sums of money. For example, let’s take a moment to reflect upon Avengers: Infinity War which has so far earned $1,164,106,540 at the box office since its release on April 27th. The notion of a film company investing so heavily in such a genre franchise was virtually unheard during my youth. Sure, that changed with Star Wars but if you’ve read anything about the making of that movie, you’ll know it was both a battle and gamble to get it to the big screen.
Motion Control Gaming
I was reminiscing with a friend the other day about time we spent playing Wii Sports in summer 2007. Golf and bowling were our favourites out of the five games available. Over the period of a year we squandered numerous hours breaking ornaments, frightening the cat and having immense fun, while separating our respective shoulders. Yet, motion control gaming never quite became the phenomenon it was touted to be. It took three years before Microsoft entered the fray with the Kinect and Sony with the PlayStation Move. Once all three platforms had the necessary technology there was much posturing and conjecturing about retrofitting existing franchises and marketing of new bespoke games that would capitalise on the “novelty” of motion control. The addition of physical exercise to a leisure activity traditionally associated with sloth, was going to revolutionise the health of an entire generation. Motion control gaming was also to have a major impact of sports training and medical physiotherapy. Yet none of these “dreams” came true and today it’s merely a curious postscript on the history of gaming.
The Iniquities of Mobile Gaming
The original title for this post was to be “the unfathomable iniquities of mobile gaming”, but when you pause to think about it, it’s hardly unfathomable from the publisher’s point of view. Mobile games are primarily designed to be money syphons, swathed in a superficial veneer of interactive entertainment. If you want a contemporary example, then look no further to the newly released Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery. The game capitalises on a popular franchise and quickly introduces a pay wall which hobbles those players who elect not to spend money. What I find “unfathomable” are those who do not consider this an egregious business model and are happy to sink substantial amounts of cash into this pitiful caricature of a game. Sadly, the core demographic for this and many other mobile titles, are the youth market, who therefore may not even be picking up the tab for the game. As a result, irrespective of my and other gamers disdain and subsequent boycott of mobile gaming, these sorts of products continue to be financially lucrative.
Policing Out-of-Game Toxicity
“A game company has no rights or responsibility to police Discord, Reddit, et al. The company should not ban in game someone because they are bad (misogyny, racism, homophobia) about OOG people in OOG public forums. But what about people who are obviously ‘bad’ about in-game people/groups? I get the not wanting to police the world and certainly resist the nanny state more than most. But what if someone says something offensive about players/employees on a very public Reddit or Discord? It’s not a free speech issue; in the US you can say most anything. But the game company certainly can determine who can play its game. Do they make more money by letting these people play? I guess at the end of the day, CCP is correct, but it does not feel quite right.” Sally Bowls MOP Reader.
LOTRO and Daybreak Game Company
Over the past eleven years The Lord of the Rings Online has faced many business-related issues that has prompted its player base to speculate over the games future. These include the MMOs transition from a subscription to a free to play service, Turbine’s acquisition by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and then there were the issues with the license expiration in 2017. However, all these problems were resolved in one way or another and the game endures. That is not to say that Turbine or Standing Stone Games (SSG) are business geniuses. Absolutely not. They’ve made plenty of mistakes over the years and continue to regularly shoot themselves in the foot with their community relations. LOTRO survives because of its core playerbase who have made this virtual Middle-earth their home and they support the game come hell or high water. A lot of this core group are fully aware of SSGs shortcomings, but they are wedded to this game and hence they sustain it. It’s a curious yet fascinating symbiotic relationship.
Remember Game Stores?
Over the weekend, I was meandering around my local shopping centre while paradoxically pondering the iniquities of consumerism, when I noticed a game retailer. In this particular case it was the chain store ironically (or not) called Game. Now it's been a considerable amount of time since I've been inside a dedicated gaming store, because I buy pretty much anything of this nature online these days. So, in a fit of nostalgia, I decided to go inside and have a look around. The first thing that struck me was how console-centric the store has become with substantial floor space given to both new and previously owned PS4 and Xbox One titles. The PC section was relatively small and focused upon the latest releases. However, there were numerous PC multi-buy offers for older titles. The store also sells a lot of hardware for both consoles and the PC as well a wider gaming and pop culture memorabilia. They also buy and sell consoles, phones, tablet and the like.
Game Over, But Not Completed
Over the last few years there has been increasing data that shows that only a small number of gamers are finishing the single player games that they purchase. At present the stats indicate that number to be around 10%. According to Activision production contractor Keith Fuller "What I've been told as a blanket expectation is that 90 percent of players who start your game will never see the end of it unless they watch a video on YouTube”. Furthermore, services such as Raptr, which tracks online playing sessions and achievements are producing equally dismal data. According to the company, only 10% of people who played Rockstar's blockbuster Red Dead Redemption actually finished the game. It’s data such as this that adds grist to EA proverbial mill, when they say that the single player experience is in decline and co-op gaming is the future.
Competition or Entertainment?
It becomes apparent when reading the various musings of the gaming cognoscenti, that there are vastly differing views on most key areas of gaming. Take a subject such as “difficulty” which is currently a subject of debate over at Massively Overpowered. A quick perusal of the comments shows a broad range of views with many being at odds with each other. But if we step back from these individual differences of opinion, it becomes clear that the basis of all of these stems from a fundamental disagreement as to what actually constitutes a game and exactly what are its defining attributes. There are those who feel that competition is the foundation of gaming and that this can only be fully realised in a player versus player environment. Success is the measure of achievement and the basis of their personal gratification. However, others beg to differ and feel that collaborative play, social interaction and achieving personal goals are as equally important. I believe this divide clearly shows that the definition of gaming has evolved and may be its time we revised our preconceptions.
LOTRO: More Community Nostalgia
A few days ago, I wrote about some aspects of the wider LOTRO community that were no longer with us. These included the podcast A Casual Stroll to Mordor, the rivalry between the official and unofficial LOTRO forums and that curious experiment, the player council. I was quite surprised by the response to this post, which was very positive, and was also interested by some of the comments that followed on social media. Hence, I decided to follow it up with some further examples, based upon reader feedback and further reflection upon the matter. LOTRO has been around for eleven years which is a considerable period of time. To put this into some sort of perspective, it has been part of my leisure time for one fifth of my life. During that time a lot of things have come and gone.
Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker
Before we start this is not a review of The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker, as there are plenty of those about and pretty much all the ones that I’ve read nail exactly all the pros and cons of this game. As for me, I don’t think I’ve got anymore to add to what has already been said about this FMV, text driven questioning, adventure game. It’s enjoyable, experimental but flawed. However, the fact that you type questions to interact with the patients in the game is quite a big deal. Sure, the technology is still evolving but there is scope for this genre to become a lot more complex. Someday the Turing test will get beaten and when it does, it will have a profound effect upon many things, gaming included. But this post is not about The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker per se, but what I’ve learned about myself while playing the game.
LOTRO: Community Nostalgia
Next Thursday LOTRO officially starts its 11th anniversary celebrations. It’s an opportunity for “fun and larks” with a wealth of special in-game events to play or grind through, depending on your perspective. Standing Stones Games will no doubt espouse the MMOs achievements and if we’re lucky they may even elaborate further upon the games long term road map. However, anniversaries are also a time for reflection and I would like to take some time to explore several wider aspects of LOTRO and its community that are no longer with us. A lot has happened in eleven years and things are naturally not the same. Change is inevitable and not always bad, but some of the things that have gone from the LOTRO-verse are sorely missed. Others may be not so, but I would still argue that their presence at the time were born of an engaged and motivate playerbase.
The Deliberately Capricious Nature of the Random Number Generator
Although I enjoy Hand of Fate 2, due to the nature of the game’s underlying narrative, you frequently have to pick a card, roll a dice or select yet another card from a spinning wheel, to determine an outcome to an event or an encounter. Hence the game relies heavily on the use of a random number generator mechanic. Sometimes, depending of the speed of the card-based activities you can visually track the one you need to pick. However there reaches a point when you can’t do this. There are either too many cards to keep an eye on or the spinning wheel is simply going to fast. Then it becomes a matter of random chance. And if the odds are unfavourable a matter of repetition. And then frustration. And then a potential abandonment of the game.
Social Gaming Without the Gaming
Earlier this evening, I logged into my Discord server as I do each week, to catch up with some internet friends while playing The Elder Scrolls Online. For some technical reason, the game was unavailable, so we chatted among ourselves while pursuing other activities. I don’t think any of us actually played another game while we talked. However, despite the absence of any MMO related entertainment, we managed to keep ourselves amused for three hours. For me this anecdote highlights a point I’ve made many times in the past, that games do not create social interaction but merely facilitate it. Furthermore, the social element of the MMO genre is often misunderstood, misrepresented and over sold. Much of the enjoyment that we get from the social aspect gaming is from our interactions with friends. However, this is not solely dependent on the game which is ultimately nothing more than a conduit.
Hand of Fate 2
The basic premise of Hand of Fate 2 remains the same as the first game. However, Defiant Development have not just rehashed their action combat, table top inspired, card-based RPG. They’ve improved, refined and embellished the game, seizing upon its best aspects and bringing them to the fore, while beefing up the combat and adding wider features to bolster longevity. The sinister dealer returns but with a subtly different purpose this time. The player’s progression through the game is still filled with familiar fantasy tropes, random dice rolls, double-edged decisions and unexpected encounters. But this time the proceedings are contained within a more sophisticated framing device. There is a world map and a wider backstory to consider as you face 22 card-based challenges.