So Games Are Art Again Now, Huh? (Ji Firepaw stuff)

Written by Liore April 19, 2012 // 2 Comments

Hey look, Herding Cats got its very own domain! If you have a blogroll link or bookmark, I’d appreciate it if you could update it to the new URL: lioreblog.com. Thanks a lot.

—–

Warning: ME3 spoilers

Okay fine, I didn’t want to write about the Ji Firepaw debacle because other people have already written about it extensively and I bet y’all can guess what I think anyway. However, a few recent posts about the issue caught my eye. It seems the current popular argument against Blizzard changing Ji’s dialogue is that there is a place for -isms and making people uncomfortable in the name of characterization. Removing that element, folks say, creates a world of drab boring fiction. At its core, the argument is a defense of art.

So, here’s a story. Some time ago there was a highly anticipated game with what many people felt was a very disappointing conclusion. Eventually so many people were outraged by the ending that they rose up into internet mobs. The game developers in turn defended their game and its ending. “This is our story,” the company said, “and we hope you will all evaluate it on its artistic merit.”

“What!? Art schmart!” cried out the angry players. “It’s a damn game that I paid for so go make me an ending where my FemShep adopts a krogan baby and lives happily ever after with Garrus.” (Or, um, something like that.)

I am of course talking about the Mass Effect 3 ending outrage. It seems that gamers themselves aren’t sure of the relationship between video games and art. So why, in the general arguments on the internet, is Mass Effect 3 considered a consumer good that can be changed to meet the demands of the audience while the lines of Ji Firepaw, level 3 questgiver, should be protected as artistic expression? Hmm?

I’m pretty sure you can guess the answer to that on your own. Look, my fellow gamers, I think many of us would like some aspect of games to be accepted as art, much like with books or movies. But to do that you can’t just wave the art flag when it’s convenient and opt out of thinking about the difficult stuff.

If Ji Firepaw’s old greeting is a work of characterization worthy of protection, then so is Shepard blowing up the galaxy.

04.19.2012 // 2 Comments // Permalink

1.2 Pets and Rakghouls: SWTOR Is Worth Revisiting

Written by Liore April 17, 2012 // 5 Comments

Bragging time: Over the weekend an article I wrote last year about being a newbie disc priest on the WoW Arena Tournament server was published on PC Gamer. I feel all legit and stuff!

—————

As someone who was kind of skeptical about SWTOR — I think it’s a great game for altoholics, but I am a single-character kinda gal — I have to admit that patch 1.2 has brought a lot of fun back into the game for me. The patch included a number of huge “quality of life” improvements, some of which I didn’t even realize I was missing, and feels much more like the game I suspect they would have liked to release back in December.

I feel a little sorry for Bioware now, honestly. I think there is no way their game could have lived up to its considerable pre-launch hype, but if they had launched with 1.2 included it would have been better recieved. (To be clear I think SWTOR was buggy, but undeserving of the angry mob treatment.) Folks often say that new MMOs are unreliable and should be avoided during their first six months, but that old chestnut seems to always be forgotten when something new comes along.

I know I advocate not taking any crap from your game distributor, but as has been argued to me in the past MMOs are as much a service as a product and it takes a little time for a new service company to find their feet.

Better late than never, I suppose, and 1.2 is definitely better. Being able to scale down and move around my UI instantly made me feel less claustrophobic, and speeders in space ports removed a lot of the tedium of getting around. As if that wasn’t all enough, along with 1.2 has come the first world event: Rakghoul plague outbreak! I’ve often criticized SWTOR for ignoring the lessons of its predecessors, but I definitely see elements of WoW’s pre-WotLK zombie outbreak in all this and as a fan of that event I could not be happier.

infectedkira 157x300 1.2 Pets and Rakghouls: SWTOR Is Worth Revisiting

Kira isn't feeling well...

I’ll leave a detailed guide of the Rakghoul event to those who know what they’re doing, but to get started just head on over to Tattooine. Strange things are afoot in your faction’s space port city, and I very much enjoyed driving around and checking out what some of the weird new NPCs were up to. I stumbled on the daily (I believe) questline out in the dunes, and while repetitive daily quests are not necessarily my thing they were fun to go through at least once.

And of course what’s a plague without spreading it to others? If your character starts feeling.. lightheaded, say, you might consider porting back to the Fleet and standing in a large group of people for a while. (kaBOOM!) Apparently along with the dailies infecting others will earn you event currency which can be exchanged at vendors for fancy weapon color crystals, a pet, and most importantly to me a random companion plague customization kit. Turning companions into horrible zombies? All over it!

There’s also a separate quest (“Tracking the Origins”) during the event to get one of three different rakghouls. Cute or interesting pets are one of the reasons I love MMOs, so I was pretty interested in this. It turns out there are a few different types of pets out there that I had no idea existed, including orobirds and baby tauntauns. Collector tendencies: ACTIVATED.

As someone who tends to concentrate on one character the Legacy stuff is of varying interest to me, but I do like that it gives me projects to work on like earning maximum affection with all companions, and that was something that I felt was really missing with the lack of achievements.

Along with all this, Bioware has given 30 free days of game access to any players with a paid account and a character level 50 or legacy level 8 character, a free week to anyone who previously had an active account, and a free weekend to everyone else. I think a lot of people checked out SWTOR in the first week and perhaps wandered away for whatever reason, but if you intended to revisit the game “later” I totally recommend doing it now.

04.17.2012 // 5 Comments // Permalink

My Ex-Guild Leader Shame Cycle

Written by Liore April 16, 2012 // 4 Comments

Way back in the day, maybe at the end of TBC, the cats were raiding 12 hours a week. It seemed pretty easy to pull off at the time. Early on in WotLK we decided that the content was easier and less time was needed, so we dropped to 9 hours a week. Near the end of WotLK, as people lost interest in WoW, we dropped a day and went down to 6 hours a week. That dropped again in SWTOR. The content was casual, and so were we, at a robust 4 hours a week over two days. I usually attended at least one of those days.

And yet I find myself now coming up with excuses to avoid group content. Is my life actually so action packed that I can’t spare a couple of hours? Of course not. So what’s the deal?

I’ve written before about how the year-long doldrums at the end of WoW’s WotLK expansion and my own hyper-sensitivity combined to change Liore from overly protective guild leader to angry attendance rage monster. Even though I haven’t really managed a raid group in 18 months (dear Gab and Corr, I don’t know if you read this but you are both the bestest) the mere hint of having to do so brings on the sense of an impending panic attack. While I enjoy doing the group content itself, I seriously cannot mentally handle anything that even vaguely looks like responsibility for the group.

Yes, in my ideal world I would log on whenever I want and have a selection of awesome people online to do group content with if I felt like it, with no other expectations. Oh, and they would also be good players who like a challenge! Unfortunately as someone who was once very involved in creating exactly this scenario, I know that it is damn unlikely to happen coincidentally. It takes quite a bit of effort to recruit said awesome people, to find ways to peaceably and politely identify the best players in the bunch, to create a community that encourages people to log on outside of scheduled events.

Seriously, just writing that paragraph made me almost break out into hives. My dilemma is this: knowing intimately how much thought and effort is required to run a good guild, how can I expect someone else to take on all that work while I just log in when the mood strikes me and soak up all the benefits? I don’t begrudge others taking that advantage, but somehow as someone who I know CAN organize such a volunteer group it seems selfish for me to not do it. And yet.. I don’t want to do it.

No one wants to run the Cats like a serious guild anyway, I don’t think. I could check out another guild for a game while still being part of the Cats’ social scene, which would be perfectly reasonable, but again is it fair to expect someone else to do all the work to make my playtime more fun? Isn’t that abdicating my own responsibility, even if I don’t really want it?

When I sit down to play SWTOR I think about how raid attendance has been dropping off and I really should do some team-building and cheerleading but I just don’t like the game as much as others do and I’m sorry. When I sit down to play RIFT or WoW I feel guilty for not playing SWTOR, and I’m sorry. I have this group of smart, awesome players who right now are sort of aimless but I could probably sort and recruit them into a reliable group with more of a focus on group content and events but then I don’t and people wander off and I’m sorry. Lately after work I seem to just endlessly surf social networks and cat gifs until bedtime, hiding from my virtual life.

The other day in IRC a guildie made a joke about how control of the Cats would have to be pried from my cold, dead hands, and although he meant well I felt pretty stung. I don’t want it! Take it. Take it. Take it and build something amazing that we can all enjoy so I’ll stop berating myself for not wanting to do it.

04.16.2012 // 4 Comments // Permalink

“Entitled” Gamers Need to Ask the Right Questions (SWTOR)

Written by Liore April 12, 2012 // 16 Comments

Herding Cats is currently undergoing a facelift. Please ignore the mess!

Posting twice in one day?! HOW IS POSSIBLE.

This is just a quick post to address a SWTOR-related debacle that started this afternoon and will still be rolling along tomorrow. Earlier today Bioware announced that along with the release of patch 1.2 every player with an active account and a level 50 character would receive a free month of time. “Hooray!” said people with level 50s. “OMG WTF why do you hate us?!” cried out the sub-50s.

Let’s get one thing straight: I can see how missing out on a free month of gameplay would be a bummer, and I don’t begrudge the passed over folks for the fact that they are indeed bummed. What does bug me though is that thus far I haven’t seen any of the complainers asking the right questions about all this. What I am seeing is a lot of, “Bioware, am I not a loyal customer? Do you hate altoholics and role players? Why are you hurting me like this?” and that, my subscribing friends, is not going to get you anywhere.

Let’s review what I’ve been saying over and over for the past few weeks:

  1. Bioware is not your friend. As a company they do not really care if they slight you, John Q. Jedi. Stop stomping about with hurt feelings and rants about being underappreciated for your dedication to your alts.
  2. There is probably a logical (if unpleasant) business rule at work. In this case, I would bet money that SWTOR has been having a retention problem with level 50 characters, and this is their way of trying to coax people into another month and checking out patch 1.2.

People who have played SWTOR for hundreds of hours and still do not yet have a level 50 are, in both my and I suspect in Bioware’s estimation, pretty unlikely to jump ship. You didn’t get a retention bonus because you don’t need one, and the company isn’t just shoveling out free money for kicks.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t be disappointed that you didn’t get a free month, but that you’re asking the wrong question. Asking, “Why doesn’t Bioware appreciate me?” reeks of entitlement. Who are YOU? Why should mega-mono-game-mart care about YOU and all your alts?

The question instead should be, “Is a retention offer important enough to me to cancel or otherwise put my SWTOR account in peril?”. (For me, by the way, that answer is no.) If it is, then act on it because all these posts I’m seeing today about how your BFF Bioware hates altoholics are just wearing out your keyboards.

04.12.2012 // 16 Comments // Permalink

My SWTOR 1.2 Highlights

Written by Liore April 12, 2012 // 2 Comments

Herding Cats is currently undergoing a facelift. Please ignore the mess!

I had kind of wandered away from SWTOR over the past month or so. It was partially for technical reasons (my computer really does not like SWTOR) and partially because .. I don’t know. It just didn’t grab hold of me the way some other games have. I think my general reluctance to roll alts kind of flies in the face of SWTOR’s plan to keep me entertained, and in fact my more alt-tastic guildies have been enjoying themselves a lot.

I wasn’t even THAT interested in the mammoth patch 1.2, which was launched this morning, until I started looking at the reaction from the players today. So, here are a few reasons why I’m now excited to go home and head on into Space:

  • Moveable UI: Over half of the 10 or so hours I’ve put into WoW since being Scrolled was spent fiddling with my UI. Wanna get some ideas or share your setup? A friend pointed me to UI Cantina, which launched today.
  • Improved Gear Textures: Check out this before and after screenie, which was created earlier today by Josh Augustine from PC Gamer. The one on the right is much more sharp.before and after1 300x199 My SWTOR 1.2 Highlights
  • A Cute Pet: Every active subscriber will receive a baby tauntaun pet! I am shallow and one thing I really missed from WoW was adorable companion pets.
  • Improved UI for the Global Trade Network: Playing the markets has quickly become my second favorite MMO activity after PvP. I couldn’t find a screenshot of the new UI, but it simply HAS to be better than the old one, and I bet the markets will be booming again because of it.
  • Speeders in Space Ports: Zooooooooooooooooooooooom!

I admit to being kind of doubtful that 1.2 could get me literally excited to go home and play SWTOR, but here we are. See you in Space!

04.12.2012 // 2 Comments // Permalink

Page 4 of 44« First...23456...Last »