Tamrielo

I have a constant urge to experience new things. It’s what I imagine wanderlust is like for other people, except for me it’s not necessarily places, it can be all kinds of things. For most of this year, it’s been food. One of the closest food stores to me is a Japanese grocery, and over the course of the year I’ve been shifting my diet as a result of what I can find there. The change has been interesting for me.

Whereas I used to eat a lot of bread and meat, I’m now eating more rice and fish– mainly because that’s what’s inexpensive and readily available. I already ate with very few condiments, so it’s been pretty easy to transition and be extremely selective about what I season my food with. It’s simplified my meals considerably, and as a side effect I’m eating a lot more healthfully than I have before. In order to get the exciting flavors I like in my food, I’ve had to start trying different things– rice seasonings, various types of chilis, and new types of sauces. One of the best I’ve found is dried garlic in chili oil, which I use on a variety of things but mostly eggs– it makes for amazing scrambled eggs.

Today I picked up a package of umeboshi– pickled plums. I’d had a bite of one some time ago, and it was intensely sour cut with honey sweetness; one of the only foods I’ve had where honey doesn’t make for a cloyingly sweet flavor. It was a balance between extremes, and I wanted to try to find my own. I’d been told that the kind I was looking for were “sweet umeboshi”, but I have no idea how to differentiate those. After looking over the shelf in the grocery store, I confidently selected a package at random to bring home. I got an approving nod from a fellow shopper, which made me a bit concerned.

These were, as it turns out, not the sweet kind. It’s pretty much an intense hit of saltiness and sourness, with a sweet, fruity aftertaste. The flavor was, at first, almost overwhelming, and pretty unlike almost anything else I’ve tried before. It took me a solid ten minutes to work up the nerve to eat more than a bite or two, and finally just finish the whole thing. I did manage to finish it, and a little while later I suddenly understood why they’re so popular.

After the intense shock of salty and sour, what’s left is the faint taste of plum– slightly sweet, slightly tangy, very mild. It’s a very pleasant aftertaste, like plum wine without as much sweetness or alcohol. It’s a sensation that manages to be both similar to and unlike eating an actual plum, and I’m ultimately really glad I experienced it. I’ll be prepared for it next time I eat one of these, knowing that the real experience is in the complex aftertaste, not the initial salty/sour shock.

I’m so used to food that centers its experience on the consumption step– where the highlight of the experience is when the bite is actually on your tongue. The only place where that really diverges for me are mixed drinks, where the appealing part isn’t necessarily the flavor of the drink, but the aftertaste, or the aroma, or the texture. Umeboshi fits into this interesting space where I appreciate the flavor AFTER I’ve eaten it, but not during. It’s possible that will change, but it’s a flavor I couldn’t have imagined myself enjoying even just a year ago.

It reminds me of why I like to experience new things, try new sensations, and understand new concepts. Understanding that this salty, sour pickled plum is widely enjoyed made me want to try it, and approaching it with an open mind gave me the chance to have an entire new world of food open up to me– there are a bunch of things that I’m interested in trying now. I think it’s easy to have an experience that doesn’t fit in neatly with what I’m used to, and simply dismiss it as “weird” without a second thought. It’s an automatic response that I consciously try to fight.

Part of this is that I believe that people are fundamentally pretty much the same everywhere. Things are often just arranged differently. There isn’t some magic cultural trait that prevents me from understanding and enjoying the flavors of other places, and there’s a lot out there that can surprise me, still.

I think it ties in nicely to games– when I was younger and hadn’t experienced a ton of games, relatively mainstream, relatively popular games could still surprise me and make a big impact. As I’ve gotten older and have expanded my gaming palate, it takes ever more high-quality, original games to get my attention. However, if I start delving into genres I’ve never touched, or thought I didn’t like, I can often find new experiences that are familiar enough to be compelling but different enough to be new and exciting. The best part is, for a lot of those genres have their own outstanding, top-notch games to try.

The first taste might not seem interesting or palatable, but there’s a reason so many people like a given thing. I find it fun to try to find out why, find that spark that gets people excited.

So, I’m done with Lords of Verminion, after less than a week. It’s an interesting game with some crippling pitfalls. I’ll probably still play around with the AI and replay some of the more interesting puzzle challenge battles, but it suffers from a severe problem when playing against other players.

The rarest minions are, by far, the best, with very few exceptions. If it’s a rare drop from a dungeon or from treasure maps, it’s an absolute killer. Essentially, if it sold for several million gil prior to the patch, it’s now a top-tier minion (again, with very few exceptions). Possibly you’re reading this and saying “well, yeah, of course the rarest ones are the best, that’s how it works in other games, like Magic”.

Unfortunately, one of the things that Lords of Verminion does that’s interesting is also the problem with this. There’s nothing stopping you from running an entire field full of a single, rare minion. I’ll use Nutkin as an example, because it’s basically caused the end of every match I’ve lost. It’s a Critter-type minion, with outrageous stats, for 30 points (the highest possible point cost, out of 240). In theory, it’s balanced by the fact that you have relatively few of them. However, a single Nutkin can win against 4-6 other minions, regardless of type. I’ve watched two Nutkin (60 points) rip apart 6 Bombs (also 60 points) despite the Bombs having a type advantage and using Bomb abilities, without the Nutkin using anything. One Nutkin was low, the other was full.

Seeing this in a couple of games, I figured perhaps throwing other big minions against the Nutkin would work. Clockwork Twintania is another monster-type, which is presumably strong against Nutkin, and is 25 points. Three Nutkin beat four Twintania, handily, despite Twintania’s defense boost. Nutkin are also fast, either 3 or 4 stars, so they can move all over the map relatively easily.

In a game ostensibly about exploiting type weaknesses, this is a problem. It means that the rare minions determine the match, and because there’s no limiter on how many of these powerful rare minions are on the field, if they can win out even against type there’s no real way to fight them. In theory, swarms should be able to win out against smaller groups of powerful minions, but a powerful enough minion with just enough in a group will kill swarms faster than they can do damage.

The idea, I suppose, is to drive players to seek out the rare minions in order to compete, but mostly it seems to have a cooling effect on the playing field. Three times this weekend I showed up to play and saw a group of about 10-15 people all at the consoles. Within a handful of matches, it had boiled down to myself and one other person, throwing out rare minions and generally using the same strategy every time. Varying my own strategy accomplished basically nothing. Watching groups of players evaporate against what appears to be an unbeatable strategy (or one that’s being enabled just through access to already rare and hotly desired minions) is disheartening– it’s telling to me that on our entire server, fewer than twenty people are signed up for the tournament, and at least four of them are using Nutkin spam.

Other games have pursued a similar tack– several prepainted miniatures games put random figures in the box, and many card games have explicitly “rare” cards, which are often (albiet not always) straight up better than the more common ones. The “right” answer, in all of these cases, is to not bother with the usual delivery system and simply buy the models/cards you want straight up, then use those to win against people who didn’t do that.

I don’t much care for relying on random luck to acquire something crucial that you need to keep playing the game. It makes me feel very strongly that the game doesn’t respect either my time or my money, whichever is being used to generate more rolls on the random table. I understand that a lot of people keep rolling because that rare thing is an exciting surprise– for me it’s simply the thing I already knew I needed, so every roll that doesn’t come up with the thing I need was a waste of time/money.

I’ve noticed that the design of important things in games has shifted to agree with me, as well. Token and currency systems are the norm, removing the random bad luck of drop rates from the equation. Sometimes there are still random luck rolls, but they’re often for secondary sources, and much easier. FFXIV has currency for its “main” upgrades, but also supplies random secondary loot drops. It’s a good system, because you’re not relying on a lucky drop.

A lot of this is that my appreciation for random loot was burned away from me in my time helping run LNR. Random loot meant everyone was always unhappy– people who didn’t complete their set from the previous dungeon were annoyed when we moved on, people who badly needed a particular upgrade were frustrated when it never dropped, entire class teams would grumble when yet another week went by without any loot for them, and everyone sighed when the same item dropped yet again, when no one needed it.

What bothers me especially about Lords of Verminion is that it could have been a good excuse to break out those common minions that no one really used. It’s a simple game, but in theory a deceptively deep one, it just falls apart when it can be easily reduced to “spam this one powerful minion”. Players will always try to find the easiest possible way to win, and LoV does very little to force the issue.

As a result, pubstomping with a single, out-of-band minion is the norm, and it’s easy to watch it drive players away from the game. It’s a pity, because it’s a really neat game with a lot of cool ideas, it just falls apart when it comes to rare minions. The matches I play that aren’t ruined by rare drop minions are FANTASTIC, and almost fun enough for me to deal with the matches where I lose simply because I didn’t feel like shelling out 7mil for a minipet. However, those players leave after losing repeatedly to rare minions, and there’s no incentive for the rare-minion player to give up their advantage.

Instead, the winning move is not to play, and the forlorn tournament board registers 17 players on the entire server who have opted in. We stand around, hoping that this next match won’t be dictated by rares. It’s sapped the fun out of the game more or less instantly.

(Another bit of short fiction, for my on-again off-again Friday installment. No setting background for this one, I’m trying to practice writing different kinds of characters.)

Saying goodbye was easy. She hadn’t even needed to rehearse it; she’d had plenty of time to prepare. The parting wasn’t a shock, wasn’t unexpected. On a chilly morning in late winter, she said goodbye, and was alone again.

It wasn’t that hard to fall back into a groove. Surprisingly easy, really. She didn’t really want to talk about it, and the people around her didn’t want to pry, or didn’t want to open the wound, or simply didn’t want to deal with her being uncomfortable. It even warmed up in the spring, so the cold wasn’t there to remind her that half of the bed was empty.

Then it was summer. Her morning routine was interrupted by an empty lip gloss container. Her immediate thought was “I need to replace that”, as it had been innumerable times before, but this time it was followed by a smaller, sharper, thought: “why?”

In a moment, perspective shifted, and the morning ritual suddenly felt hollow, meaningless. Weeks, months of suppressed loneliness surged forth like a punch to the gut, and the tears came, unbidden and unwanted. The morning ritual preceded the day; she was on a schedule, there was no time for a breakdown right here, right now. She had places to be, things to do. The tears had ruined the routine, smearing makeup and making it obvious that she’d been crying. Angry, now, with herself for breaking down, with the poor timing, her inconveniently sudden sense of grief, she washed off her makeup with a vengeance and went about her day, trying not to think of herself as suddenly plain.

The world didn’t end, she went about her day without issue. Even when someone commented that she “looked tired”, she simply agreed with them– the weight of the morning hadn’t evaporated. She considered eschewing cosmetics entirely, making that life change that a breakup traditionally spurred. She lasted three days. How do you explain that now, months later, you’re feeling the grief that everyone thought had passed? Plus, she liked the morning ritual, it was a part of her. She did it for herself, not someone else. She wouldn’t compromise who she was.

Then it was autumn. Her shows were back on, and viewing parties were back on the schedule. It was an escape, a way not to be alone. She felt more lonely, recently, and going out with friends should help. She smiled at her married friends, smiled at her friends in new or lasting relationships, enthused the way she always had about romance. It was comfortable, being with friends, and importantly she wasn’t alone. Except… she started to see those little gestures between couples, the little wordless communications, those minute exchanges she had barely noticed before. Each one was a little splinter, a barb, a reminder of what she was missing. By herself, she felt alone, with friends, she was surrounded by reminders that she was, indeed, alone.

She smiled, hid the pain from the little barbs and splinters. How could she, the cheerful proponent of romance, begrudge her friends their healthy relationships? The problem was with her, not them. Keep it in, deal with it.

Then it was winter. She was dating again, or trying to. Not many options, a small number of first dates that never became second ones. Nothing against the people she dated, but no spark. She had her life, she had her schedule; it was hard to meet new people. “Put yourself out there,” her friends would say. “Be someone you aren’t,” she heard. It had been long enough that she didn’t know how to date, what had changed, where to go and what to do and who to look for.

Then it’s a new year. A friend made a remark that should have reminded her of that old good-bye, but she didn’t catch it. A flurry of apologies and confusion and she realized that maybe it should have been a trigger, but it hadn’t been. Maybe she’s over it? Maybe she’s moved on? If so, why does she still feel so alone?

Then it is spring again. The sun shines, the flowers bloom, and a chance meeting sets off fireworks in her mind. She’s excited, elated in a way she’d almost forgotten how to be. It could be a new thing, an escape from the loneliness. She tries to be calm, to keep perspective. She fears scaring this new person away, being too quick, too clingy, too forward. When a chance meeting, no matter how promising, proves to simply be just chance, with no further potential, when she doesn’t see this exciting person again, it’s shattering.

Then it is summer, once again. Despite time relentlessly passing, she remembers the fleeting excitement of the spring, and “puts herself out there,” the way her friends suggested, feeling disingenuous the whole time. She doesn’t care about this cooking class, she’s just here to try to meet people. She doesn’t care about bachata, it’s just a good feeling to be asked to dance. She doesn’t care about going out to this bar, but maybe, just maybe, there’ll be someone there.

She worries that she’s obsessive. She worries that she’ll stay alone. She’s worried that she’s already missed out on the best opportunities. She worries that she’s become pitiful, she worries that everyone can see how pitiful she is. She worries most when she’s alone, and it leads her to stay alone. She worries that this is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Then it’s fall again. The cycle is familiar, and mostly she can ignore how alone she feels. She has other things to do, other things to think about, other things to worry about. She tells herself she’s coping, she’s concerned with other things, she’s busy. Most of the time she believes herself.

Soon it will be winter. The bed will be cold, and she’ll struggle to remember what it was like when it wasn’t. Maybe she’ll turn the heat up, maybe she’ll fill the bed with pillows, maybe she’ll start reading, or staying up until she’s falling asleep on her feet, before collapsing into bed and passing out too fast to have time to think. Tomorrow is always another day.

Soon it will be tomorrow, the ever-promised other day. The loneliness is background noise; it’s a persistent hum that she’s gotten used to, like the sound of a fan in a room, the sound of someone gently snoring, or the sound of silence. Tomorrow might be different, and if it’s not, it won’t be that much different than today.

That’s good, right?

I never got into WoW’s pet battle system. I understand people got really excited about it, but by the time it was a thing I was already mostly checked out of the game and didn’t care much for the pokemon-alike gameplay. I like pokemon, but I can just play pokemon. As a result, I didn’t expect to enjoy FFXIV’s pet battling system; I figured it was going to be another pokemon-alike, but it isn’t even close.

It’s more of a slow-paced real-time strategy game than anything, and it’s really interesting to me how it’s set up. The basic premise is that you’re summoning your battle pets in various numbers onto the field, and you’re attempting to take out three enemy crystals, before they take out yours. It’s a simple, MOBA-like setup.

Minipets fall into one of four categories– “critters”, which are strong against “poppets”, which are strong against “monsters”, which are in turn strong against critters. Finally, there are “constructs”, which are neither strong nor weak against anything. Every minipet also has a special ability, which is usable only if you have a group of four of them together, and only once they’ve charged up enough. It creates a bit of a balancing act between having well-balanced groups of battle minions and skewing heavily towards a certain type to benefit from special abilities.

Each minion costs a certain number of points, ranging from 10 to 30 (I don’t think I’ve seen any costing more than 30, but I could be wrong), and you have an overall maximum number of points you can have active at a given time. At the start of the match, you can pre-summon up to a certain point value’s worth of minions, which will appear instantly when the match starts. Thereafter, you can summon further minions by queuing them, like a build queue in Starcraft.

It’s a heavily tactical game, since you can summon whatever minions you like provided you have points for them (and have appropriately set up your bar). Some minions are strong against structures (like the crystals you have to destroy), others are strong against other minions, and others have more support-style skills.

Compounding the tactical part of the game are two more non-critical structures, which are close to the enemy’s deployment areas and, when destroyed, either make the crystals more vulnerable or remove the enemy’s ability to see where your minions are, unless they’re very close to them. It gives you some options to gain an edge, provided you can commit the forces to it.

A crystal can only be damaged if there are no enemy minions in its immediate vicinity, but only the crystals in the center overlap. This means that you often have to choose between offense and defense, and it’s possible to overwhelm an opponent by rolling around with a huge death ball of minions or by spreading your forces out.

It’s been an interesting game to play thus far, and I’ve got a few nice, powerful rare minions to work with. Unleashing a swarm of tonberries and bombs is every bit as satisfying as you might imagine.