Tamrielo

I learned to type quickly, efficiently, and accurately playing Everquest. While other people I knew were enrolled in typing classes to increase their speed and precision, I was trying to keep up with my Befallen group, letting them know between heals that I was low on mana, and had about three pulls left in me before I needed a rest. I learned to communicate on the internet through text primarily.

When I started raiding in World of Warcraft, VoIP was still relatively new; the idea of logging onto a server to talk with internet strangers was a bit much for a lot of people. I thought it was fascinating, and quickly joined the server. If memory serves, I was one of the first, and I realized that when I spoke out loud, people would listen, largely because I was one of the only people (in a raid group of 40) who would talk aloud. Eventually, the raid required that people at least log into the server, though no one was required to talk and we kept a close eye on the chat log.

Over time, we got comfortable with each other and more and more people spoke. There was always a miniature celebration when someone who’d lurked for months or sometimes years would finally speak up– it wasn’t always great for people’s anxiety about speaking to begin with, but it was as welcoming as any of us knew how to be. We were always happy to hear a new voice, and I know a lot of people built up confidence in just talking to others through our raid– I know this because I was one of them, and I’ve talked to others.

Now, pretty much all of my in-game communication is over voice. When folks are all playing the same game, voice chat is hopping and busy, with people congregating into one or more channels to play games together, or even just chat while we play. It’s so embedded into my sense of gaming that I (and others) have arranged our gaming spaces so that we can sit on voice and play games together, even if we’re on a console and not the PC. It’s like an extended living room where we’re all playing together, except better, because we can customize it for our own comfort.

I occasionally run into other folks who are reticent to log into voicechat, or shy about speaking. I understand it; I was there once. My approach now is the same as it was then– if someone feels like joining the server, great! If not, no worries. If we’re doing something where they absolutely need to listen, I’ll ask that they log in and listen; but no one is ever required to say anything. At this point, it’s pretty comfortable, I think, and I hope people feel welcome joining us.

I get a lot out of being able to communicate verbally with my teammates while in a group. It makes the experience feel a lot more “multiplayer”, to me, to the point where even playing with others in a game without voice, I feel like I’m playing solo. If I feel like playing alone, I’ll simply not log into voice, though more often I’ll join voicechat even playing a solo game.

One of the things I really want is the ability to loop services like Teamspeak and Ventrilo into my consoles. One of the things that keeps me off of playing games on my console is my inability to use the VoIP server that my friends hang out on. I would pay good money for a controller with a push-to-talk button and a plugin for Teamspeak. If one of the major consoles released with Teamspeak support, I’d likely use it exclusively for my console gaming, and I’d get to spend more time on my comfy couch.

At this point, I can’t imagine not having the group of folks to log in and “play games with”, even if we’re all playing different games. When voicechat is quiet, or there’s a lull when people aren’t around, it often feels like something’s missing for me.

I had a conversation with a friend recently about Infinity tables, and how important layout is when playing that game. As far as tabletop minis games go, Infinity isn’t unique in having a lot of the game hinge on terrain, but it’s a lot more honest about it. The game is obviously unplayable with poor or no terrain, and both players will realize this quickly.

Compare this to a game like 40k or Warmachine. In 40k, Dark Eldar want terrain to hide behind if they aren’t going first. If they are, they run a serious risk of getting shot off the table before getting to do anything. In Warmachine, several factions have a lot of Pathfinder units that benefit from rough terrain or forests or both– a board with none of these suddenly becomes an uphill battle for them, and factions without Pathfinder struggle on boards with a lot of terrain. It’s an unequal distribution which causes issues at the game level and skews the “competitive” selection of units for both games.

Spending a lot of the weekend playing Warframe made me think about Infinity terrain as well. Levels in Warframe are randomized, but they’re highly interactive. Maps are made up of cells (or tiles) which are hand-designed, attached to each other through connectors (hallways) and the occasional smaller room, all put together to form a map for a level. It’s a surprisingly elegant system, and despite how important level design is in the game, it’s still able to put together random maps in a fairly compelling way.

It makes me think of Infinity tables. There are major set pieces (cells) with scatter terrain (connectors) and smaller buildings (rooms), all forming the game board. Mostly, these pieces are hand-placed by one or more players before the game starts, and they then circle the table, eyeballing sight lines and other details, before deciding that the table is fit to play on and starting a game. Because of this, Infinity draws a lot of attention from passersby, because the tables it’s played on are generally very intricate.

Infinity tables that are fun to play on follow a general set of rules:

• No unavoidable corridors running the length of the table.
• No sniper towers that can cover the entire board.
• Plentiful cover and places to hide behind, out of sight.
• Good opportunities to use every type of weapon– from short range to long range.
• No obvious choke points.
• (Advanced) One side should be slightly more advantageous to start on than the other.
• (Advanced) Objective locations for the missions to be played on the table should be relatively even.
• (Advanced) Multiple tiers of elevation, and ways to reach them.
• (Advanced) Multiple exits from points on the board, to prevent getting locked down.
• (Advanced) Models of all sizes need to be able to maneuver.

It’s a lot of rules, but a lot of players who are used to the game just sort of internalize them. Very rarely does anyone go down a checklist of the above, but you’ll occasionally see someone look at a table and say “hmm, this is too open” or “this is too crowded”. Playing the game enough, and getting experienced enough, allows you to see the problems with a table once you’re practiced at it. it’s not easy to do– I played a game recently with another very experienced player where we both thought the board looked reasonable until we started playing on it.

The same attention and care goes into level design elsewhere. When League of Legends was first released, people criticized it for “only having one map”, and games are often judged for not having an adequate number of maps to play on. I remember Counter-Strike and Unreal Tournament, and the large number of maps those games had, of which maybe two or three ever got seriously played. The single map of League (and the smaller numbers of maps in other games) tend to have a lot more going on, and are carefully and thoughtfully created.

Game spaces are really important. They need to be functional, navigable, and visually appealing, and varied enough to stay fresh and not get boring. I remember complaints about the original Halo, and its endless samey levels towards the end of the game, and the major complaint of the first Assassin’s Creed that it got too repetitive. It’s telling that some of the biggest changes in those two games were in their level design, with AC going to an entirely new location with new architecture and Halo varying its levels much more in its sequels.

Probably a lot of my care for good level design comes from a childhood playing Thief. That game’s area layouts were the lynchpin of the experience, and made the game in a lot of ways. I pay attention when levels are interesting and matter, as opposed to being irrelevant, or an afterthought.

Forgive me the break from usual gaming and business-y posts. It’s been a bad week for beloved celebrities, and I’ve seen a lot of people expressing their grief in a variety of ways. A conversation I had yesterday sparked this post, a friend suggested I write what I told him on my blog, so here we are.

I have had perhaps the gentlest introduction to death anyone could ask for. My parents are both doctors, and in the medical field death is an inevitability. A lot of people dislike or distrust doctors for their clinical detachment– it feels, to them, like the doctors don’t care. Growing up with two of them, I can say the opposite is true, at least for my parents. The detachment is what keeps someone sane when they literally hold people’s lives in their hands every single day, when they can get a phone call at 3AM and have to jump out of bed and rush to the hospital, no time for coffee, barely time to get dressed, in order to see to a patient whose treatment couldn’t wait until sunrise… and then work a full day with the patients whose treatments COULD wait.

I remember dinner conversations where, growing up, I thought the casual mention of a patient dying was shocking– how could something so serious get brought up so casually? In hindsight, I realize that was my parents’ way of remembering each patient who died. You’ll note I don’t use euphemisms like “passed away” or “left us”– my parents avoided using them, possibly in order to honestly internalize the weight, possibly because neither of them are much for sugar-coating reality, so I’ve never picked up the habit.

In a similar vein, I was never told the lie, growing up, that my parents would be around “forever” to take care of me. They would always say “as long as I can”, and it was just as comforting to me as the lie would have been. I remember correcting a babysitter at one point, who told me that my parents would be around “forever”, and I told her they wouldn’t, because people don’t live forever. I think she, in her twenties at the time, was somewhat put off by this coming from a seven- or eight-year-old’s mouth.

I don’t really talk about my views on death very often, because it tends to put people off. I feel like life is inherently limited, and that accepting death is a very personal thing. I am less sad about the end of a long life well lived than I am about a life cut short too early, potential unrealized. I understand why we have funerals, but I’ve always thought it a pity that they’re such somber affairs, rather than individually tailored to the person, the way we do with weddings. The end of a life well lived should, I feel, be a raucous celebration akin to the last dance at a ball, a final party to mark the end of a good run. This bothers some people, who feel like that’s inadequately respectful. I dunno, I kind of think I’d want the last big gathering of my friends and family to be an outing that I’d actually want to attend, were I still around.

People don’t live forever. I feel like this is one of the hardest realities to come to terms with, and I consider myself lucky that I had it instilled in me early. I remember a funeral, once, and my parents’ stoic composure while everyone else in the room sobbed and wailed. I remember thinking they looked wistful, rather than sad, and later I asked why. My mom put it well: “I hope that when I die, I will have made that many people happy enough to come see me off.”

I do too.