Two Games I'm Looking Forward To

Sorry for not posting, folks. I took up a position writing for MMeOw.net, and that's also been eating up my time along with schoolwork, so I haven't been able to post much. The Barriers to MMO Entry will be continued shortly, but an MMeOw version can be found at this corresponding link.

Anyway, today I wanted to discuss two games that I'm actually looking forward to playing, even if they aren't in the general sphere of games I usually play. They're hybrid games, combining RPG elements and Shooting elements to great, yet different effect.



First up, we have Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition. Now, Ilike the Fallout series of games for their general post-apocalyptic scenario, but also because the original Fallout was the only one I was able to play. Basically, I've been waiting ten years for a shot at another Fallout game, and got hooked, but never finished the story when I first bought it.

Why?

Because there was DLC. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the DLC for the game, so I had to wait for a boxed version to come out. Luckily, this will be a much better purchase than getting each one separately, so I'm excited to see what tweaks have been made to the game since I last played it.

That, and I heard there's Samurai Armor. YAY!



The second game I'm looking forward to is a bit like the first: It's called Borderlands, and unlike Fallout 3, which was an RPG where shooting mechanics were defined by the game's RPG roots, Borderlands appears to be primarily a Shooter where the RPG mechanics determine the damage dealt by the weapon you have equipped and the skills you can use for your particular character.

The first image I had in my head when I heard about it was Diablo + GTA + Guns + Fallout 3 = Borderlands. I wonder how the reality stacks up to it though. I'm optimistic for this one, and would very much like to see the game succeed.

Anyway, enough about me. What games are you looking forward to in the near future?

Barriers to MMO Entry, Part 1: Account Management and Subscription

Recent events and developments have impressed upon me the need to write about something that isn't normally talked about when it comes to MMO games. That is, defining some barriers to entry in the MMO world.

This is the first in a short series of articles that aims to discuss certain aspects of MMOs that would, unfortunately, keep people from being a part of that game they want to be in.

The first barrier to entry in an MMO must certainly come not from the game itself, but from the means by which one enters the game they wish to play. That is, the account management and subscription page, or its equivalent.

Basically, I see two potential barriers to entry here: one is when you can't sign up for or subscribe to the game you want to play, and the other is when you have to jump through technical hoops to make the system work for you in the first place.

The first is easy to describe, as my previous entries on LOTRO may have shown. Essentially, when one is unable to create even a trial account for a game, or is unable to subscribe to it, that places undue stress on the person who wants to play.

Now, downtimes for account registration and subscription are not uncommon. Even the giant we call World of Warcraft must have issues at times. When the only way to find out, however, is to attempt to create an account, then we have an issue that needs rectifying.

First off, a means by which the company in charge of account creation and subscription can test the system should be implemented in order to keep a close watch on it. This is doubly important when you're offering free trials, as you turn away potential revenue when someone who wants to try your game can't do so.

Second, making sure that any issues are visibly seen by the public would be much appreciated. It might annoy some people, but knowing that the system is down and that the company is acknowledging the issue on the main site rather than in some obscure part of the forums would be useful as well because, at the very least, subscribers and non-subscribers would immediately know that the issue is there, it is being addressed and there is an estimated time for a fix. Besides, most sites won't even let non-subscribers post in their forums to ask if the account management page is down to begin with.

Now we come to what I feel is the more daunting barrier to entry when it comes to account management and subscription: jumping through technical hoops to get the job done.

Allow me to explain: imagine that you are an average gamer with the usual knowledge of technical information regarding browsing, gaming, and other sorts of esoteric techie knowledge. Now, imagine trying to get into the game you want to play for the first time, only to be greeted by a screen that prompts you to update your computer's browser and allow for javascript and cookies to be enabled.

We're not done yet. Imagine that you checked those settings and already set them to the appropriate levels to allow for the game to initiate the account setup process. Yes, this is still the part where you register for an account.

Imagine it still doesn't work, and you contact their support center for assistance, and a day and a half after sending your email, you get a response from them telling you to update your service packs as well and basically bring everything, including their specific browser of choice (let's say Internet Explorer for kicks), to the latest upgrades.

And it still doesn't work.

And you have to send them an email again explaining the issue in detail once again so that there's no miscommunication.

Are you annoyed yet?

You probably are, and the above-mentioned experience actually happened to me for the beta of an up-and-coming game which I won't disclose. Now, seeing as this is beta, I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt, but imagine if that were a newly-released game, and you had to go through that, and the support agent who emailed you didn't explain how to enable cookies or javascript or upgrade the system and you had no idea how to do it yourself. Wouldn't your patience wear a little thin by that time?

Mine would.

Unfortunately, this second one doesn't have any clear-cut answers to alleviate it, other than additional tweaking of the most basic of systems to ensure it doesn't happen to people. Heck, I'd even recommend additional further training of support folk or the creation of special technical templates so they can explain their answers fully and in detail to help the customer, but that's just a suggestion and not a flat-out solution to a glaring issue.

All in all, these two barriers to entry are the most fundamental, for they are barriers that keep one from even experiencing the game to begin with. They definitely need solutions, but at the very least, someone needs to be paying attention to these issues so that they can be remedied to begin with.

[Games Geekery] Two hours with Resident Evil 5

I'm back with a new monitor and a new game from the local game store, and I thought to give a write-up about my experience so far with the latest iteration of Capcom's Resident Evil series, Resident Evil 5.

So far, I've spent two hours with the PS3 version of this game, and gotten through chapters 1-1 and 1-2, as well as part of 1-3, and I must say I quite like this game, even if it does take a bit of getting used to.

For one thing, the control scheme has changed again (at least, as far as I can remember it when compared to RE4), so it takes a bit of getting used to. While I could change the settings into an RE4-ish style, it seemed more fitting for me to get used to the new scheme, as even obsessive compulsive people like myself need a change of pace every so often.

One other thing I've noticed is that you have to team up with a partner, which, while nice in theory, isn't my style when it comes to playing games. Resident Evil has more or less been about being by yourself against a horde of zombies (while your comrades did their own thing elsewhere), and while the added firepower and covering fire is nice, actually having a partner can be annoying in this case. *remembers the President's Daughter in RE4*

One thing I liked was the whole weapon upgrading system that I started trying out. Making my guns more powerful is always nice, and I've heard that a full gun upgrade can give you unlimited ammo, so it seems like a good deal for later portions of the game.

In any event, in addition to zombified people and gun-mastery, I also encountered the first big boss of the game, which happens to be kinda like a souped up zombie covered in oily zombie worms. One brush with an incinerator, however, was all it took to take that sick puppy down.

More Resident Evil chronicles and adventures when I get back into it. Till then... don't look behind you. :D

[Gaming] Grinding in games: not sexy.

If there's one thing that makes me tired in a game, it's the feeling of being repetitive.

Killing a handful of foozles (the standard literary term for random enemies... LOL) to achieve a quest goal is one thing, but the massacre of thousands of unnamed enemies for a trivial cause has to rank up there as a pretty annoying, yet seemingly unavoidable piece of work required in games for some semblance of advancement.

As I mentioned earlier, I probably killed a thousand enemies to get revered with a Burning Crusade faction in World of Warcraft. For what reason did I collect Zaxxis Insignias and Ethereum Prisoner I.D. Tags? Why, to buy the schematic that would let me make Elemental Seaforium Charges, a component required to create a Flying Machine, which was supposedly needed to create the upgraded version.

That was the hitch: I was working on obsolete information, basing my need to create a Flying Machine as a prerequisite for the epic Turbo-Charged Flying Machine. Only after spending a small fortune in gold and a bit of time grinding rep for the BC faction did I find that out.

Of course, I still made both the regular and turbo-charged flying machines, but it doesn't erase the sting of finding out too late.

While I can understand the need to grind to achieve certain small goals in games, I don't necessarily agree with it. Such feelings are exacerbated when one has the wrong information at hand to accurately gauge the need for the damned grind to begin with.

Sigh... maybe I should just read WoWWiki more before doing anything in Wrath. For a game this large in scope, I shouldn't really have to though.