AggroChat

Section X

September 11, 2015 by Belghast

Life With a Teacher

It feels like I don’t have a whole lot worth talking about this morning. My evening was rather fragmented, in that I got home fairly early and then spent the next couple of hours trying to pass the time while waiting on my wife to get home. We had tentatively made plans to go out to dinner, and on a normal evening I would have fixed something and been engaged in a game by the time she got home. This school year has been rather rough for her, and she is spending silly amounts of time up at school grading and planning. It gets annoying at times because it is super hard to plan my life around her ever changing schedule, but I manage. There are certain aspects of being a teachers husband… that no one will ever really understand fully. We ended up going to a BBQ place near the Walmart Neighborhood Market, because my thought was after dinner we would walk over to the market really quick and pick up a few things. This seemed like a simple in and out trip, and we could get on our merry way homewards.

Fate stacked against us, and of all of the places to have “back to school clearance” I did not expect a Walmart Neighborhood market. For those who do not have these in their area, they are essentially a grocery store only Walmart, but have some minimal other items. As we were rounding the bend past frozen foods I saw that they had a kiosk of back to school stuff. I didn’t think anything about it, but next thing I knew we were sorting through all of the folders trying to pick out nine of each color from a mixed up bin of them. I cannot count the number of times I have had an experience similar to this one. There really wasn’t much space so my wife did most of the sifting through the folders but in the past I have had my hands knee deep in vats of assorted merchandise looking for that one item that matches the rest of the things we had pulled out. Part of being a teacher is trying to find all of the things you need for your classroom as cheaply as humanly possible, and while I am fairly used to it… it just surprises me sometimes when I am not expecting it. After all of the bin sorting… we got home a little later than I had expected.

Section X

When I finally got settled in for the night, I made a blanket cocoon on the couch and booted up Star Wars the Old Republic. I am now on this kick of trying to get through all of the story line that I have missed before the release of Fallen Empire. For this I am going to place the blame squarely on the shoulders of Disney. You cannot go anywhere right now without being deluged in Force Awakens merchandise, and with it comes an upwelling of all of the other movies that I am really damned nostalgic about as well. I have these designs on making a Marathon of the movies this weekend while working on the SWTOR content. It has been a really long time since I have watched the prequels, so I am honestly hoping I can bury the hatchet that I hold towards them. The prequels broke me, and came damned close to breaking my love of Star Wars as a whole. So when I heard about Force Awakens I was mildly interested, but now I feel like I am full on in the thrall of overwhelming feels towards the franchise I grew up with. I even went so far as to order the Disney Infinity 3.0 Saga Edition… because it was on sale and two I had enough saved up discover credit to get it essentially for free.

I have to say playing this game again… and seeing fresh content in it… reminds me of why we were so damned addicted to it for a couple of month period after launch. The story content is really good, and even though Makeb does not actually feature any “class specific” content I am absolutely enjoying myself. I did however take a break from Makeb last night to start working on the Section X content. I guess I played long enough to get that area unlocked for free, and with it should give me access to my very own HK-47 droid. From what I hear it is a rather lengthy quest and involves collecting bits on several different characters, including a Sith. Mainly I was told that if I cared about story progression, that I should go ahead and do that now before getting too deep in the new content. As you can see from my previous pictures I went back to the Jedi Knight robes as seen on the box art. I have to say I dig the Holowardrobe because it is way cheaper to change your appearance using it than re-modding your gear. There are a few of us currently going through this Star Wars nostalgia attack, which makes me feel kinda sad each time I interact with the person who held down the fort while we have been gone. I know that I am just here doing some MMO tourism… and as soon as I am done with the story content I will be gone once more. Even though I have not been playing a lot of it… Final Fantasy XIV is still my home base of operations.

The Future Is Mobile

September 10, 2015 by Tamrielo

So, the Pokemon Go trailer is making the rounds. If you haven’t seen it, it’s here, and I’ve embedded it below.

Curious about the future of MMOs? I’m going to go ahead and say you’re looking at it, right there. It’s tech and concepts that have been around for a while, but it looks like they’re being polished to a mirror shine, and given a context that’s incredibly compelling. Look at what the video is promising– PvE (catching pokemon out in the world), PvP (trainer battles), and endgame raids (the final scene). It’s the essence of MMOs distilled into a mobile platform, and I have a suspicion it’s going to be massive.

Don’t believe me? That video has been up for less than 24 hours and it’s pushing a million hits. Pokemon has an absolutely enormous audience at a really broad age range– basically if you’re likely to own a smartphone, you’re probably familiar with Pokemon. The smartphone gaming market dwarfs any other gaming market you care to name, and it’s way, way more inclusive than other gaming spheres. You’re looking at an MMO that’s able to tap a market that dwarfs anything else out there.

The trailer is brilliant, too. Take a moment to watch it, if you haven’t:

Check out the people it’s showing. Opening shot of the world. We get some rapid cuts to a huge variety of people– a 20-something businessman, a dad and his kid, a studious looking woman, a bunch of teenagers, then a giant crowd at the end. The only child is the one playing with the dad– note: playing WITH the dad. This is a game where everyone can play together, friends with each other, parents with children, people from all walks of life, and everyone’s having a good time. There’s not a lot of advertising, especially in the game sphere, that promises that.

Just to further push that whole “this is a neo-MMO” concept, the trailer manages to capture that wonder of exploring as a newbie, the excitement of PvP, the fun of meeting new people in-game, and the tension and exultation of raid bosses in a three-minute trailer. The structure is identical to the trailers for a ton of other MMOs, down to the order in which everything is portrayed.

I’m pretty excited to see where this goes. It’s obviously a bit early to throw around words like “wow-killer”, nor is that even a meaningful concept anymore, but I have a suspicion that this is the MMO future we’re going to be looking at. I’m honestly pretty excited about it; it goes back to the roots of what got me into MMOs in the first place. I hope it takes off.

Bullet Hell

September 17, 2015September 10, 2015 by Thalen

Back when we played Astebreed for the Aggrochat Game Club, Ashgar also recommended the game Jigoku Kisetsukan as a more traditional example of the bullet hell genre that was free on Steam. Last night, staring at Steam and not wanting to start up anything requiring serious thought or time commitment, I decided to try it out.

I'm not entirely new to bullet hell shooters, though I'm nowhere near the aficionado that Ash is. There are quite a few examples of the genre on Kongregate, and I've played a number of them over the years, though never with any real focus. The gameplay is generally pretty similar throughout; you have a primary shot (often upgradable), a special attack that clears out all the bullets on the screen, and a button to slow your movement for maneuvering through tight spaces. That last one is crucial as the real challenge of a bullet hell shooter is dodging the insane storm of projectiles that get thrown at you. Most of the time in a boss fight my focus is squarely on my character to the point of having only the vaguest idea of where on the screen the boss is.

This is the second boss. On easy. It gets much, much harder.

The available characters in Jigoku Kisetsukan each have different attack styles that necessitate playing them somewhat differently. For instance the catgirl has a wide but short range shot that forces you to play further up the screen to keep enemies in range. The alien girl has a constant laser that narrows and powers up when in focus mode, so you have to pay more attention to where enemies are to keep damage on them. The starting character, some sort of minor forest deity or something, has a good middle of the road shot (wider than the laser and able to hit from the length of the screen) and gains homing shots when powered up. Those homing shots are especially useful since they let you focus entirely on dodging bullets and still be able to do at least some damage.

The story has something to do with trying to stop some sort of incipient darkness. I didn't really catch it. Mostly the motivation of the characters other than the primary one seem to be 'wander around and get into fights with other beings that look remarkably like teenage girls due to misunderstandings'. The story's not the point anyway; the point is to try and advance further through a combination of quick reflexes and pattern memorization. Much like a rhythm game now that I think about it; just themed as a shoot-em-up rather than a musical game.

Here we see an immortal diety and a centuries old extraterrestrial being.

Overall, it's a fun game with decent, if somewhat lo-fi graphics, (when you can actually look at them) and a catchy chiptune soundtrack. I would consider it worth the cost for a couple bucks, so for free I definitely recommend it if you have any interest in bullet hell shooters at all. And really, how many other games let you fly around blasting robots with a cat on your head? Actually, knowing Japan, probably quite a few.

Breakup on Reentry

September 10, 2015 by Belghast

Returning Players

If you have followed me for any length of time you realize I play an awful lot of games. One of those traits also involves going back and re-exploring games that I have long consigned to the dust bin. One of the challenges with this lifestyle however is trying to figure out what the hell you were doing some six months ago when you last touched a game. This morning I want to talk about a problem that most games have. As content is released there is often times no real thought about the folks that will come back to the game several patches behind. While there is generally one game that I stay up to date with, and that game currently is Final Fantasy XIV… the others sit in various states of completion with no real easy route back to where I last left off. What ends up happening generally is that I start a brand new character, because it is simply easier to start fresh than try and sort out the options open to a formerly “level capped” character. As a programmer it seems like it would be easy to create some sort of new features tool that lead you to what has been recently added to the game. Various games have attempted this, and honestly Final Fantasy XIV has one of the better versions of this technology… but it could still use a lot of work.

World of Warcraft has these quest boards in main cities that are supposed to lead you to the starting quests of new areas. The problem being that you level so damned fast in that game that you always are well ahead of the quest completion curve. The worst offender however has to be The Secret World. In that game every single quest is essentially repeatable, so even if you are up to date… it can be a challenge to sort out what quests are new in a given region. The last quest content I completed was the “Last Train to Cairo” from Issue 6, and even then I think I missed most of Issue 5 because I didn’t quite know where to start to find it. Now we are sitting at Issue 12 and I know I have a ton of awesome content waiting on me. As each has been released I have popped in to spend some of the lifetime membership currency that I gain each month. The problem being… without significant research on my part I have no real idea where to start to even begin trying to sort these out. I spend most of my free time consuming MMO content… and if this bothers me… it has to be an impassible wall to more casually interested players.

Content Advisement

With the launch of Cataclysm, the World of Warcraft attempted to solve this problem by creating a series of billboards spread throughout the major cities that are designed to give you the start of a quest chain leading into new zones. The problem there is that you level too damned fast, and I constantly had a back log of these quests telling me to go to various zones that were less than optimal for my questing experience. While I applaud their efforts… I think all of these MMOs need to do a much better job at giving players advisement as to what they should be doing. What I envision is an optional box that says what zone you should be in based on your level and or gear, and provide a series of quest suggestions that you never completed. If there is a holiday going on, it should prioritize this and if you are at the level cap it should guide you to the next patch worth of content that you had not experienced. This would go a long way in making returning players feel welcome and relevant in the game experience. Considering I have done this dozens of times… I can tell you that returning to an MMO that you tucked neatly away into your past… is a completely overwhelming experience.

Firstly you have to sort out your bags, because I have not left a single MMO in a state where I did not have hundreds of items in my inventory with no memory of what was actually useful and what was simply dross that I picked up while killing things. Next you have to sort out your quest log, which also is never really left in a neat state. If you are the level cap you generally have a mixture of quests that you never completed and quests from whatever happens to be the current “daily” hub. Upon returning generally speaking neither of these is much use, but at the same time I find it just as hard to sort through my quest log as it was to sort through my bags. What I really want is some intelligence guiding my decisions. Present me with options of things that players in my level range are normally doing. Help me get back into your game, and set down roots again. It honestly shocks me that no game company seems to have thought this one through. There are a fixed number of new players out there, so many times established games are just trading their populations over time. Anything a game can do to make it more “sticky” for returning players has to ultimately help the bottom line.

Breakup on Reentry

Like I said Final Fantasy XIV does a decent job at this, but their own advisement window is greatly limited based on several factors. The biggest is that most of the items in the list are limited to the zone you are currently in. In the case of a returning player, they may or may not know what zone they should even be in. For years I have been trying to play Star Wars the Old Republic again. The problem being that I always end up playing on an alt character because it is simply too confusing to try and sort out what I should be doing on any of my three previously max level characters. My original instinct has always been to go to the space station hub for my faction. Problem there is that there were no sign of new quests. I have repeated this process dozens of times, until last night it finally dawned on me that I should maybe return to my starship. Sure enough waiting there for me was a quest chain starter leading me to Makeb. The problem being… that since it took me two years to finally find this quest it was anything but obvious, which tells me there is a problem with the way the systems are working.

What got me on this topic was yesterday some friends and I were listing off “must have” features for an MMO. Which got me thinking… that this is the one feature that no MMO really does a decent job of. Please someone out there… put some thought into the experience of returning players. The answer is not to ignore all of the content that came before. The answer is to help players go back and experience the things that they missed. As a result some sort of intelligent system is well worth the time it takes to build. All we are really talking is a handful of database queries based on a few parameters, and then returning the relevant items to a window. This would go so far into making returning players feel like they matter and are welcome in the game. I cannot count the number of games that I have reinstalled… only to leave after a single night of trying to sort out what it was that I was doing when I last played. In each case I “wanted” to play the game, but the game required more out of me than I was willing to give it. When this situation happens all I really needed was a breadcrumb to lead me to what I should be focusing on. On the positive side I did finally start the post release content in Star Wars the Old Republic, which is a thing I have been passively trying to do since the free to play conversion. I would really like to see where that story goes before the launch of Fallen Empire.