The Pink Pigtail Inn has a post a while back: Questing for Immersiveness in MMOs. Elnia argues that MMOs are not about immersing yourself in the story. The story is told in so many fragments and with so many interruptions that trying to immerse yourself into it would be an exercise in frustration. You may get immersed in the gameplay of WoW, but the story itself is far likelier to be enjoyed outside of the game.
Posts Tagged game
Looking Back at Games
Nov 24
I wonder if this is how I’ll look back at my life someday?
Achtung Panzercow’s So You Want to Be a Prot Warrior: Endgame Gearing, Part II gives a nice breakdown of endgame gearing for a prot warrior as of 3.2. I need to rebuild my trash set on Tristam – it would probably be better than my current set for doing heroics.
I read the same post as Big Bear Butt Blogger » Culture Shock but I didn’t think about it as much as he did. He’s right that the way you think about WoW makes a huge difference. Is the goal a cooperative game or one where you reach your own level of excellence? I wonder if the designers thought about that when they set up the game the way they did?
Darths & Droids
Oct 14
The thing I like most about Darths & Droids is that it completely explains Star Wars. If Star Wars is seen as a role-playing campaign with fast-talking players and an accommodating game master it makes a ton of sense. So far, The Comic Irregulars have managed to explain Espisode 1 in a way that makes sense and are working their way through Episode 2.
I’m particularly fond of their explanation of Jar Jar Binks and Naboo.
If you don’t want to go through the entire archive at one shot, you can use Archive Binge to get caught up.
Photo by MacJewell
Rawr is the tool to use if you’re interested in getting some personalized theorycrafting recommendations for your toon but don’t want to go beat on a target dummy 10,000 times while switching pieces of gear.
If you have not made yourself a full list of all possible upgrades and which pieces to swap out when upgrade X drops versus which pieces to swap if upgrade Y drops, you might want to make yourself a Pawn scale for quick and dirty item comparisons in-game. Rawr does not provide a way to automatically create Pawn scales, but you can generate relative stat values. After loading your character from the armory, the right-side pane will have a heading that says “Slot: Gear”. Change that to “Relative Stat Values” and you will see what each stat is worth in relation to other stats. Enter those values in Pawn and you will have your own personalized Pawn scale.
READ THE WARNING WRITTEN IN RED WHEN YOU DO THIS IN RAWR. Pawn scales are terrible for ensuring that you remain hit/expertise/defense capped. Rawr can handle this, Pawn can’t. For example, if you’re hovering on the edge of hit capped, that shiny new item with 0 hit rating isn’t worth nearly as much as the pawn scale might indicate. Know what the caps and minimums are for stats for your class and spec. Check Raider101 if you don’t want to wade through too much theorycrafting.
Photo by Blume Fou
Wired’s Geekdad has a list of the Top 10 Eighties Computer Games Worth Playing (Again). Reading this list made me nostalgic. I’ve played every game on this list except for Seven Cities of Gold, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and Fool’s Errand.
Starflight’s DRM was terrible – it wiped the game on me before I could get very far. Starflight 2 took forever to save games – I remember running down from my computer, mowing a patch of lawn, then running back in before it had finished saving.
I did have a lot of fun playing these games. I plan on downloading them again to see if my kids enjoy them too. Justin and I spent hours and hours trying to figure out some of these games. I hope my kids have fond memories of gaming when they look back on their misspent youths.
Thoughts on The Guild
Aug 22
After seeing the Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? video I watched the first two seasons of The Guild. I was very disappointed in the show. The implication seems to be that if you play an MMO you are a damaged individual.
I really don’t like that implication. It takes the worst socialized, most obsessed players and presents them as the norm. I realize that in a show with 5 minute episodes you can’t present in-depth studies of each character, but would it hurt to have one be a fairly normal person rather than people who are one phone call away from a mental hospital? The person that comes the closest being normal is Bladezz and he’s just normal teenage boy stupid, not broken.
I had hoped for a more balanced picture of gamers, especially given that Felicia Day plays World of Warcraft. Instead this plays to the worst stereotypes of gamers and goes for cheap laughs at how socially inept some gamers are. Ah well, D&D players have been waiting twice as long for a positive portrayal of their hobby.
This is a really cool idea: The Pink Pigtail Inn: The Silent Revolution of the Willing Mentors. It’s a list of people who are willing to answer questions for new players. I really like
I have submitted my answers to the five questions posed in the Copyright Consultations.
1. How do Canada’s copyright laws affect you? How should existing laws be modernized?
Canada’s copyright laws affect me because I enjoy many forms of media that are protected by copyright. I enjoy reading, playing computer games, listening to music, and learning from podcasts. These are more readily available to me in because of the copyright agreement between creators and consumers. My work builds upon the work of others to produce personalized maps and reports for clients. There are very few aspects of my day-to-day life that are not affected by copyright.
Existing laws should be modernized to allow people to build upon the works of others to add greater value to derivatives of those works. For example, a lot of the music I listen to is a reinterpretation of other pieces which were themselves derived from earlier works. Copyright laws need to recognize that we are all standing upon the shoulders of giants. Creators do not develop their works in a vacuum but build upon everything that has gone before them.
2. Based on Canadian values and interests, how should copyright changes be made in order to withstand the test of time?
As a Canadian, one of the things that I am proudest of is my heritage. Canada is not a melting pot, but a tapestry of many cultures drawn together into a greater whole. Copyright should be limited in time and scope so as to prevent the loss of that heritage and to encourage creators to draw up on that heritage and bring it to life for each new generation of Canadian. Locking away pieces of our heritage for life does not encourage Canadian values but individualistic dog-in-the-manger-like behaviour.
3. What sorts of copyright changes do you believe would best foster innovation and creativity in Canada?
Copyright should have a strict time limit, one that is much shorter than an individual’s expected lifespan. This would allow creators to draw upon their earlier experiences to bring new life to half-forgotten ideas. There should be broad fair-use rights to encourage creators to develop ideas to their full potential without fear of costly litigation. Creators can innovate much more freely if they’re not constantly looking over their shoulders in fear of lawsuits.
4. What sorts of copyright changes do you believe would best foster competition and investment in Canada?
Copyright should be narrowly focused on specific expressions of an idea. This would allow competitors to develop their own possibly superior versions. With reasonable copyright laws Canada can be a center for creativity and investment.
5. What kinds of changes would best position Canada as a leader in the global, digital economy?
Outlaw Digital Rights Management (DRM). It is ineffective in stopping or even slowing piracy. The ones who are most affected by it are honest consumers – those who seek to violate copyright are not even slowed down by DRM and have not been for as long as digital media has existed. Due to DRM I have lost access to numerous programs and books which I purchased legitimately. DRM is anti-consumer.
Copyright law should not refer to specific technologies but instead look at broader principles.
Copyright law should not refer to specific technologies but instead look at broader principles.
As always, Thomas Babington Macaulay’s 1841 speech to the British House of Commons covers most of the issues that keep being brought up in these discussions of copyright. The arguments for copyright have not changed much in over 168 years. We have let those who push for stronger, broader, longer copyright have the upper hand for too long and their results have been dismal. It is time to return to a fair copyright.
I’m almost done getting my druid to level cap, so there’s a decent chance that I’ll start leveling my death knight. It’s been long enough since I’ve been through Outlands that it might be more interesting than running through Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord yet again. If I decide to start leveling a death knight, this looks like a good resource Death Knight Leveling Builds (58-68) – Patch 3.1 | gnomeDK – Your Pink Haired Guide to All Things Death Knight.
One of the things that I like about the leveling game is that I can play when I want to and stop when I want to. If I get bored or distracted it’s not a big deal to hearth and start again another day. With endgame stuff, you can’t do that. Hearthing out of a raid or instance because you’re bored is out of the question if you want to do anything with these people again. Skipping a day of dailies cannot be made up and extends the grind to reach whatever reward you’re grinding for. It’s been fun to just play and enjoy myself – if I happen to get another toon to level cap before the next expansion that’s great, if not I have a couple toons at cap ready to go.
I found that that post: UI design and add-ons for leveling | No Stock UI has a lot of good generalized tips for laying out your UI in a non-raid situation. Apart from spending time fishing, most of my recent WoW play has been leveling characters so this is good stuff to think about. I would like to get a few more toons to level cap as there have been rumors of a new expansion coming out in the not-too distant future. I’m not sure what I’ll do with a bunch of max-level characters but they do provide me with a variety of gameplay options.
Class vs. Skill
Jun 11
In Tobold’s post about Class vs. Skill systems he says:
In every jump-and-run game or other single-player game as simple as Tetris, your progress is strictly limited by how good you are at the game. Makes you wonder why that isn’t possible in a massively multiplayer virtual world. Both classes and skill point systems are just crutches that enable the game to give rewards to players for not much, creating a permanent illusion of progress. Obviously that is more popular than reaching the limits of your abilities.
This surprises me as he’s often complained about not having the twitch reflexes needed for PvP. I have often reached the limits of my abilities in computer games and that’s usually when I stop playing the game. I couldn’t spin blocks fast enough to get past a certain level in Tetris. I couldn’t handle more than 2-3 AI opponents in Starcraft. There was no longer the opportunity for incremental improvement – one level was trivial and the next level was beyond my abilities.
I think that WoW has done a good job of allowing for that incremental improvement of your abilities as a player. It’s far from perfect but at least there’s a path for progression. You can look at an encounter and see that you wasted your taunt, or didn’t spin the boss the right way, or missed an add and do better next time. If you’re an average player, you will reach an encounter that is beyond the limits of your abilities, be that Mr. Smite or Algalon in hard mode. Your progress is strictly limited by how good you are at the game
For the best players, they will reach a point where everything is within their abilities. I don’t see why this is a flaw. When Michael Jordan takes 3 point shots, it’s a challenge but well within his abilities. Is basketball broken because of this?
I have a feeling that I’m missing something in Tobold’s argument.