The Value of Playing for (No) Fun

Posted on Jan 26, 2015 in MMO Theorycrafting, Posts About Playing | 5 comments

Allow me to share a conversation that I had repeatedly over the past week.

Me: Oh my god I hate this Hexcells game so much it’s making me angry.
Him: Um, you should stop playing it then.
Me: I can’t do that! I’m almost finished.

Hexcells is essentially a fiendish update to the classic game Minesweeper, with more advanced ways of letting you know where the bombs are located and greater allowance for error. There are three games in the series: Hexcells, Hexcells Plus, and Hexcells Infinite. I found all three of them to be incredibly frustrating.

To be fair, the frustration frequently stemmed from my own abilities. Hexcells requires a spatial awareness that isn’t my strong suit, plus a good memory, plus a smidge of.. well not math exactly but more observational logic. Multiple times I found myself without an obvious next move either because of the board design or my own poor decision making, meaning that I would have to guess on a bomb location to continue. Sometimes I would confidently identify a bomb spot only to be wrong and not know where exactly I had screwed up. Occasionally I would blithely click and realize a micro-second later that I forgot to check that column over there and ugh, look before clicking Liore! On one board near the end I gave up and just started clicking around randomly, racking up a shame-inducing 15 errors before I was done. It was, at times, infuriating.

JUST STOP ALREADY

And I played through not one, not two, but three full games! What’s wrong with me?! Oddly enough, I think the sense of antagonism was a large part of what kept me going. Every time I finished a level smoothly or recleared it with zero mistakes, I felt damn good. Take that, stupid game! You thought you were so fancy with your tricky logic problems but I am a tiny god of hexagons now! Playing Hexcells often felt like a chore, but finishing it well felt proportionally fantastic.

I don’t encounter a lot of frustration in gameplay anymore in my post-raiding casual MMO schedule, but I remember the dark ages when we’d spend days and sometimes even weeks banging our heads against the same boss fight, dying over and over, trying to find the magical formula for success. (Kael’Thas, I’m looking at you.) And while there are many things about those days that I wouldn’t want to return to now, I think Hexcells was a nice reminder that the games I play don’t always have to be “fun”.

Sometimes games are difficult, and irritating, and exasperating, and while I appreciate that it’s not everyone’s cup of tea for some people pushing through that and coming out victorious on the other side makes for an entirely worthwhile gaming experience.

You Gotta Pay Somehow

Posted on Jan 21, 2015 in Ethical Gaming, The Game Industry | 8 comments

In news that was somehow simultaneously both expected and unexpected, today The Elder Scrolls Online announced that they’ll be moving from a subscription payment model to buy-to-play. Subscribers will be given bonuses, but otherwise once you have the box you’re free to explore Tamriel.

The right honourable Belghast had some words to say on this topic:

Don't like pay to win air drops, or overpriced early access schemes? We got games we deserve for not being willing to pay subscriptoins.

— Unseasonably Bel (@belghast) January 21, 2015

And indeed, it will probably surprise no one that I totally agree. When publishers can’t guarantee a regular income, history shows that they often resort to increasingly desperate measures to extract cash from players. Or, to put it another way, if you’re not paying a subscription or making regular cash shop purchases, rest assured that the game will be shaped to make sure someone else is paying enough for the both of you. (Just ask LotRO players about the little coin symbols all over Middle Earth now.)

Take yesterday’s news about the Heroes of the Storm Founder’s Pack. For the first time ever, Blizzard is offering players a way to buy into a game’s beta. Now, Blizzard is known for having pretty technically complete betas, so I think the value of this offer is better than most. But let’s be honest — if players show that they’ll buy into a Blizzard beta for $40, the number of invites that are sent to people who opted in for free will drop dramatically. If this Founder’s Pack goes well, we’ll almost certainly see a buy-to-beta (or alpha) plan for Overwatch or whatever it ends up being called. And man, Blizzard would be fools to walk away from the money they’d make for a buy-to-beta plan for the next WoW expansion.

Happy Gamer Lessons: Don't buy early access games. Don't preorder more than 14 days out. Don't participate in pay-for-beta or pay-for-alpha.

— Jessica Cook (@Liores) January 20, 2015

And there’s the rub: our behavior as consumers sends messages to publishers about how much we’re willing to put up with to play a game. The comedy of errors that is SoE’s buy-to-alpha packages might seem innocuous enough on their own, but who can say how much that affected Blizzard’s decision to dip their toes into the same waters?

I’m not saying that preferring B2P or F2P MMOs is always inherently bad, but it’s not like the publishers are running a charity. The loss of income from subscriptions will be forcibly made up for in other ways, and sometimes those ways will be bad news.

SteamLeft and what’s your backlog shame?

Posted on Jan 19, 2015 in The Game Industry | 15 comments

You’ve probably given some thought to how many games in your Steam library are unplayed. Maybe you’ve even joked about having more games than you could ever realistically play, or made a New Years resolution to chip away at your backlog. It’s okay, friend. We’ve all been there.

But wait! Thanks to the website SteamLeft now you can turn the nagging feeling that you spent too much money in the last sale into concrete understanding of just how many damn games you own and still keep in their virtual shrink wrap. Behold my shame:

It’s … actually, that’s not too bad. I mean yes, two months of nothing but playing games is still a fair chunk of time, but I could reasonably play through everything in a year with a little gumption. And heck, that list includes games that I didn’t like but still own, like Surgeon Simulator, or ones that just plain didn’t work, like The Testament of Sherlock Holmes.

(The site compares the average time it takes to beat a game — found at HowLongToBeat — and compares it to how many hours you’ve played according to your Steam profile. Any deficit between the two is added to your SteamLeft sentence.)

Based on a brief survey of Twitter, my 61 days is shorter than most results. I’m not sure if I’ve played more of my library or buy fewer games, but either way I actually felt pretty good about my only mildly terrible backlog. I bet if I was unemployed and ate a lot of take-out I could clear it out in three months, tops! Take that, time management!

Fortunately SteamLeft provides helpful ideas for what else you could do with your time.

Ugh, fine random website, you're right, I should exercise more. Rude.

Good point, I could be putting that time into less playful pursuits.

Oh my god! Screw this, I’m gonna go buy more games.

———————————

Speaking of backlogs, here is my question for you: What game are you most embarrassed to admit sits owned yet unplayed in your library? It can be either because of the game itself or the story of how you got it. Your answers might be read out on Cat Context (with attribution).

As for me: Gone Home. I own it and will tirelessly argue in favor of its existence as a game, but thus far I just can’t be arsed to play the darn thing when there are hats that look like a horse is eating your head to collect in FFXIV.

Cat Context 68: AGDQ, Raspberry Pi Emulator, Destiny, Final Fantasy XIV

Posted on Jan 14, 2015 in Podcast | 0 comments

Like Cat Context? Check out the The Gaming and Entertainment Network for more great shows!

This week Liore, Ellyndrial, and Arolaide talk about retro games through the Awesome Games Done Quick event, Aro’s new Raspberry Pi emulator, and the Internet Archive stash of DOS games. Also, MMOs are back on our playlist with Destiny and Final Fantasy XIV making a return.

Liore watched a lot of AGDQ last week, and she’s all excited about retro games. We talk about our favorite moments from the event, and how difficult it would really be to play something blindfolded. Meanwhile Aro has been playing a ton of old SNES games — including some you’ve probably never heard of — on her new Raspberry Pi emulator and boy are her thumbs tired. Elly is excited to get his hands on the new DOS game collection at the Internet Archive because Lemmings is still great.

Meanwhile in more modern news, Aro updates us on her mission to romance everyone in Dragon Age: Inquisition. Elly has returned to Destiny for a bit, but seems somewhat subdued about the game’s future. Liore finally got back to playing MMOs, in this case Final Fantasy XIV, and she wants everyone to know about the hats.

Also, Aro dreams of seeing Adult Simba one day! Elly is still totally dazed by sudden parenthood! Liore played something called.. Corpse Party? Huh.

Like to watch? This podcast has a livestreamed video version:

If you enjoyed this podcast, please “Like” or “Favorite” it in your media consumption method of choice! It makes us feel nice.

* The Tetris Showcase at AGDQ
* Blindfolded Ocarina of Time at AGDQ
* The Internet Archive collection of DOS games
* Free Music Archive page for our theme, in THE crowd by The Years

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Tips for Looking Great in FFXIV

Posted on Jan 13, 2015 in Posts About Playing | 9 comments

Things are continuing apace in FFXIV! My highest class is a 23 Conjurer, with a level 7 Arcanist coming up the ranks. The goal is to eventually get both classes to 30 at which point I can combine them in various ways to form a White Mage and a Scholar, the two healing specializations. I think. It’s all a little confusing.

Next week patch 2.5 hits, and there’s a fancy trailer for it on YouTube as of today. While I’m way too low level to worry about any of the end-game or max level content updates, this patch is also introducing a casino-like place with lots of carnival games including chocobo racing and the Triple Triad card game from Final Fantasy 8. Sounds good to me!

Anyway, as I’ve mentioned before this game is really all about cute outfits and pets and mounts. (You can get costume gear for your chocobo, people. CHOCOBO HATS.) So here are some tips on being fabulous in Final Fantasy 14 using a few tools that I didn’t find terribly clear for new players.

1. The little color swatches on gear tiles represent the color of the item. That might seem obvious in retrospect, but it actually took me ages to figure out. My first instinct was that the swatch indicated quality of gear (like blue and purple in WoW) but then I was sort of boggled trying to figure out where things like “light green” and “kind of pinkish” would fit on a quality continuum.

2. The game has an Aesthetician that you can unlock who will change your appearance, but you can also change your race by buying a $10 bottle of Fantasia from the Mog Station. This is important (and cool) in a game like FFXIV where you’re encouraged to just have one character forever. After dealing with WoW, $10 for a race change seems pretty reasonable!

3. You can change how your character stands while idle! Type /cpose repeatedly to rotate through the handful of options, including crossed arms and a variety of slouches. Your character will remember what you picked and use that pose while idle until you change it again.

4. For PC players, the “Pause” key is bound by default to “look at camera”. This little command is super useful for taking all kinds of cool screenshots of your character, like the one at the start of this post. Just pick a nice backdrop, move your camera, and hit Pause. Combine this with one of the many available facial expressions found under “Emotes” in the social menu. Pow, perfect screenshot!