So this is a bit of a weird tangent, and I am not even certain where it is going to end up… but here we go. I’ve been seeing sentiments for years expressed each time a game fails or a game flounders and I think in large part they point at a larger misunderstanding by a segment of the gaming community. More recently this has been happening quite a bit in the New World community, where everyone can for the most part agree now that the game is failing or is in a failed state… but no one can agree as to why. I’ve seen lots of people point at the game’s failure because one of several reasons… here are some summary takes that I have read:
The game is failing because…
it abandoned hardcore dark souls combat
it did not focus solely on open-world PVP
it did not focus solely on arena combat
there isn’t enough endgame PVE content
There are of course other takes that I could include, but I am largely focusing on these four takes because I have seen them the most. My feeling is that New World is failing because it did not create an ecosystem that was friendly to casual players and did not give them a reason to stick around. It launched with a poor server design that had a cap of 1500 players, making it deeply difficult for people to get logged in and actually play on the same server as the rest of their early adopter friends.
They created a dungeon design system that made it difficult for players to group up and do things together and a questing system that literally made it impossible to help someone out with key gating quests after you had completed it yourself. Then when the most hardcore of players had “finished the game” by rushing ahead in the first day or two… a patch was released that moved the goal posts for more casual players to where they might never be able to accomplish the same things actively breaking some of the most casual friendly content in the game.
Basically, my takeaway as to why the game failed is that it did not respect its casual population. Please note I am not a casual gamer. I spend a truly stupid amount of time playing whatever game I happen to be hyper-fixated on. I am no longer full-on Hardcore, but I live in a comfortably Mediumcore existence where I cherry-pick the activities that I care enough about to actually focus and gear for. However, one thing I have noticed over the years, is that that games that ultimately thrive… are the games that respect the casual player base the most.
What I mean by this is these are the games that make it easy for you to drop in, play with your friends if you have them, or still get content done if you are a purely solo player. As much as the more serious gamers lament the existence of LFR in World of Warcraft, it allows players to see end-game stories without having to deal with the treadmill of endgame progression. Similarly, I think the big open-world boss battles in Guild Wars 2 are a testament to just how good a game can feel when it has respect for its casual player population.
The problem here however is that the Hardcores are always a vocal minority in any game that they are playing, and they are ultimately trying to skew things towards their own demographic. I specifically called out Guild Wars 2 because that game implemented a very casual unfriendly world game event in the Dragon’s End zone, that also gates access to one of the key features of the End of Dragons expansion. This has started discussions within that community, specifically among the content creators about how exactly they can make players hardcore like themselves, and take all of the endgame progression seriously. The thing is… this is not a battle that they can win and if the game clamps down to focus more on serious content… the player numbers that they rely on will dwindle.
I feel like we have been watching this play out without realizing it in World of Warcraft. That game starting with Burning Crusade has become more and more a game that slowly pushes you onto one of several endgame onramps. You currently have three competitive communities of Raiding, PVP, and Mythic progression. I think there is a large group of players who come in at an expansion launch, play through the story, level a few alts, and are not seen again until the launch of the next expansion. What is left outside of the three competitive communities, is largely unrewarding and repetitive world content. Guild Wars 2 has shined in this department in that there are multiple paths to the best stuff in the game, one of which is a very serious crafting process that requires no endgame participation in order to accomplish it, just copious hours of gathering or gold.
Honestly, Final Fantasy XIV has the same problem of players bouncing when they complete the story content. I am very much one of these people, in spite also having been someone effectively playing the game many times in the past when it was considered to be in a content lull. The difference with FFXIV though is that they have a large number of systems not tied to the core game that folks seem to enjoy engaging with. You have the minigame-laden gold saucer, housing extreme if you can luck into winning a plot, the deep dungeon systems, and even the “limited job” of Blue Mage which effectively is a spell collection minigame. Even though there are still players that come and go with the content tides, there is way more content to keep folks engaged that is not directly tied to the core pillars of dungeons, raids, and ultimate.
The most thriving game is ultimately the one that respects its casual players the most and makes them feel like a part of the larger community… without asking them to conform to some specific ideas. I think the thing that the Hardcore player base needs to understand, is that they are very much in the minority and that not everyone views the games that they play as a competition. Please for the love of god let the casual players just enjoy the game, and stop trying to change them. This “change” takes place in two ways, indirectly by appealing constantly to the devs to make mechanics more punishing and more tailored to your specific interests. The other key way that change is invoked in a community is by creating an atmosphere that is hostile or toxic to anyone who does not perform in a specific manner under specific conditions.
I remember reading a specific article back in the day as to the small portion of the player base that ever experienced Naxxramas in World of Warcraft. While I could not find the specific article as I was writing this, I did find a YouTuber that tried to do some math on the percentage of players that saw a full clear of Naxxramas before Burning Crusade. This YouTuber clocks it at 0.07% of the total player population had a verified clear of Naxxramas before the Burning Crusade pre-patch. While raiding is significantly more popular today than it was at the time… you are still talking about a very small segment of the total player base that plays the game seriously enough to clear end-game content. I am not saying that end game content does not have a place, but the players who are actively engaged in it… need to understand the perspective that even today they represent a small minority of the total player base.
The success of a game over the long term… is in large part about the retention of your casual players. So when I read comments that a game is failing because it was not “hardcore enough” in one area or another I struggle to take them seriously. I’ve yet to see a game survive solely on their most hardcore players. If I could change anything about the larger community discourse, it would be to show a little respect for the players who are just playing the game to have fun. Maybe stop shaming them for not turning in the DPS you are expecting, or not having the right gear. Maybe just let them play the damned game and do whatever it is that is bringing them joy. The more welcoming the game is to casuals… the more casuals will ultimately decide on their own that they want to get serious about the game. Broadening the player base will also by side effect broaden the pool of players that eventually trickle up into the more serious content.
So again when I hear about some game failing, my takeaway is generally going to be that they did not support the more casual gamers enough. A game.. especially one with social aspects to it… needs to be super easy to engage with. Possibly even more important however is that games need to allow you to engage with your friends instantly. Too many games are situations where you need to get to some arbitrary objective where the “real game” begins before you can actually play with those who were early adopters. As someone who is often one of those early adopters, please give me ways to take my friends along in the journey rather than having to come up with ways to gently pressure them into focusing on leveling to the point where I can actually start helping them. I want my friends to love the game as much as I do… so please make it easy to love.
Anyways I have rambled enough for one post, and I am not sure I have a succinct point to wrap up. Basically, respect the casual gamers out there, and stop trying to change them. Let them engage with games in whatever method they choose, and stop shaming them along the way.
The post Respect Your Casuals appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Okay friends I am going to do a bit of a thought experiment. I have spent so much time focused on the awful monetization systems, that I am going to take a step back and evaluate the game based on all of the systems that do not involve spending money. This is a huge fucking ask mind you because especially considering that the game reminds you that you can spend money an awful lot. However this morning I am going to make a case for Diablo Immortal the game, not the scheme to separate you from your hard-earned money. Ultimately I am looking at how good of a job this game does of being a Diablo title that is designed to be played in bite-sized segments on your phone.
The Case For Immortal
Bite Sized Interactions
The game has an almost overwhelming amount of boxes to tick, and the deeper you go into the game it seems like more of these systems open up. I now have way more daily systems than I can realistically interact with at least on the level that I am playing this game. Each of these systems only takes a few minutes to play through, which makes them generally ideal for mobile interaction. Collectively they add up to a lot and in theory every single day I should be doing:
1 or more Elder Rifts
1 or more Challenge Rifts
8 Bounties (or more if you missed days)
Legacy of the Horadrim
Helliquary
5 Shadow Bounties
Path of Blood
3 Bestiary Pages
Any Daily Quests
Any Bonus Dungeons
While Elder Rifts are deeply fraught, they can be run for free without the use of any crests and I have managed to get a full set of “pity” Legendary Gems while running basic crests without spending a time. Sure my resonance is crap as compared to the whales but the game seems completely playable regardless. The rest of the systems are open to players without needing to spend any money and offer several hours’ worth of playtime. As to whether or not you can actually make “progress” in these systems that is another question entirely. I however have found a large number of Legendary armor items out in the open world and from the rewards, I have gotten from both bounty caches and turning in bestiary pages.
Interesting Social Systems
Another thing that Diablo Immortal has gone for is that there are multiple layers of social interactions, that end up adding up to their own systems of interaction. First, you have an 8-player Warband which is its own close-knit group with a reward structure depending on playing together regularly. There is gear that the entire team gains access to, and from what I am hearing it is often a world tier higher than what you can equip through other means. I have largely been playing solo and as such have not interacted with this system in a significant way. I however have seen folks talking about it and it looks cool.
Then you have clans that serve the purpose of a guild, and over time you gain perks as a result of being in a clan. Wythfern is lead by my friend Namaslays and we recently had to kick out anyone that was not high enough level to be a “shadow” in order to make the clan a Dark Clan. That mechanic needs some work to be honest because I do not love that in order to align your clan and gain the benefits of that… EVERYONE has to be a Shadow. Essentially there is Adventurer, Shadow, and Immortal and they are all essentially mutually exclusive alignments.
These factions all have their own perks, but I think the sweet spot is probably being a shadow. There is this whole guild conflict system that we will probably never be big enough to actually interact with, but essentially there is one single clan that are the Immortals of the server, and then any number of Shadow Clans that keep them in check. The ten strongest shadow clans can challenge the immortals once per week, and if the Immortal is defeated… then there is a free for all among the top shadow clans to determine who the next immortal is.
Again it is highly unlikely Wytchfern will ever be one of the top 10 shadow clans on the server, but what this faction alignment does give us is a bunch of new daily levers to pull in order to get loot and gameplay opportunities.
Nuanced Build Options
I have yet to cap out my character and start working on the paragon system. However, I have seen enough of the game through the eyes of others in order to understand the path forward. There are a number of systems that interact with each other that allow you to create a fairly interesting character build. I am going to spend a little bit of time talking about each of these systems, and how they effectively add up to a character build.
The first component of a character build is the abilities that you are using. These unlock as you play through the game and level up and pretty much represent all of the abilities that you are familiar with from other Diablo games. Essentially you have one of two primary attacks, and then four skills that you can have equipped at a time. There is not a ton of synergy between the skills themselves, which is I think in part why the game felt a little shallow until I started opening up the next system.
The next component of your build is the six pieces of legendary gear that you have equipped on the right side of your character portrait. Each piece has some sort of a trait on it, which are effectively the equivalent of the combination of runes that you choose in Diablo 3 and the legendary/set gear that you equip. Each one mutates the base skills you have equipped in specific ways and grants you access to that inter-ability synergy that was missing.
At first, I thought this system was sort of crap, in that it seemed you just needed to be lucky to get the right items at the right level in order to have the build that you actually wanted at any given time. Then I stumbled onto the essence transfer system which is this game’s equivalent of Kunai’s Cube. Essentially you can consume an item, spend a bit of gold, and then collect the special effect of any piece of legendary gear. Then at will, you can go to the Essence Transfer merchant and effectively give any new piece of gear the effect of any item you have consumed. This allows you to take those items that are a significant upgrade, but make them function like the items you need for a given build.
The next piece is something that I have yet to experience in the game because it is not a system that you can interact with prior to the maximum level. The six items that appear on the left-hand side of your character portrait make up this game’s version of the “Set Items”. Instead of needing to choose between wearing a set item or a legendary item in a given slot, they have effectively separated all of your gear so that you will always be utilizing both. Every piece of gear has a specific place where it drops, so it is just a matter of grinding out until you get it.
Another system that I have yet to be able to interact with is the Paragon system. Much like Diablo 3, after you hit the maximum level you start gaining Paragon points. Instead of these being pure stat increases, they go into what is effectively a talent tree with an example shown above. These choices give you power but can also be used to shape your build in a specific direction. If you want to be really tanky, then there is a path for that. If you want to be pure dps… then there is a path for that.
Now we get into the bad parts of the character build… the first of course being the six legendary gems that you are utilizing. Again this is a system that you only have the most basic interaction with as a free player because you will never see anything higher than a two-star gem, which means there are nine of the most powerful gems you will never see… unless you figure out some way of gaming the system and making lots of platinum. Each gem gives you specific boosts and the total quality of all of the gems equipped gives you a flat increase in total effectiveness. A bad system, but it is nonetheless part of the character build profile.
Lastly of the systems, I am currently aware of, you have charms. These are the most RNG thing I have ever experienced in a game, and each time you level one of these up… you a random bonus to some ability in the game. It is highly likely that MOST of these skill increases will be for a class you are not even playing. Each bonus has between a 2% and 10% increase, but one with 2% will always end up giving you 2% on all abilities on the charm. So not only is it highly unlikely that you are going to get a bonus to your class… it is equally unlikely you are going to get a buff to an ability that you actually use. The goal is to get a Charm with your primary attack and all four of your skills on it, but that will take a lot of effort and a lot of platinum. There is a whole system of extracting a skill stone from a charm for 500 platinum, and then using that skill stone to imbue another charm… probably being it chooses a random ability from the charm you extracted from. A purposefully frustrating system that is going to be a massive platinum sink for those who chose to chase it.
Other than the two last systems… I think the game does a pretty solid job of giving you a bunch of levers that you can pull to finally end up with a pretty engaging character to play.
Fun Gameplay
Essentially it is a core Diablo fix in your pocket. The gameplay feels enough like a mainline Diablo game to be satisfying. I have to give the team credit that this is a really well-crafted experience and the story helps to plug the gap between the events of Diablo 2 and the events of Diablo 3. When I say Diablo Immortal is a dumpster fire, I am not talking about the actual gameplay. To be honest I would love to be able to play this game on the Nintendo Switch. I think this is maybe the perfect Diablo for a platform like that. The problem is that monetization is always there lurking in the background and ultimately tarnishes the good feelings that this game has in it.
The Case Against
Overly Aggressive Per Character Monetization
I feel like I don’t need to go into this one at length because I have done so in another post. The ways this game has to extract money from you are many and are constantly just lurking beneath the surface. There are definitely three classes of citizens in Diablo land: The serfs (free players), the knights(limited payers), and the lords(the whales). If you can ignore it completely there is still a really enjoyable game to be experienced, but the fact it is always there always trying to open your wallet just feels bad.
Anemic Rewards
Diablo by nature is a grindy game, but Immortal makes a standard Diablo game feel like the most rewarding loot fest you have ever experienced. Coming back to Diablo 3 felt like I was bathing in a constant wash of dopamine hits as Legendaries dropped my manna from heaven all around me. Almost everything you are going to do in Diablo Immortal is going to feel deeply unrewarding. Generally speaking white quality and blue quality loot is useless… which is why you will see players not even bothering to loot it in videos. Yellow quality is somewhat useful but only for the single material you are going to get from breaking it down… and you will need to repeat that process 50 to 100 times per item slot depending on the tier of gear you are trying to upgrade to. It feels bad to play for an hour and feel like you really didn’t make much in the way of progress or get any interesting loot in the process.
Traditional Diablo Games Exist
I think my biggest strike against Diablo Immortal is the fact that other Diablo games exist and feel way more rewarding for your time. I’ve been back having a blast in Diablo 3 and swimming in rewards… and it feels great. I will say though that playing Diablo Immortal has made me really wish that the PC version of Diablo 3 had controller support. What Diablo Immortal gives you that no other game can is the ability to play it on your phone. If you are not playing it on your phone… then I think at some point you will probably drift back to whatever your ARPG of choice is… because it will treat you better in the long run. Already seeing folks going back to other Diablo games like I did or Path of Exile/Torchlight.
Summary Judgement
Diablo Immortal is actually really fun to play, for short periods of time. The thing is that formula kinda fits the mobile device footprint perfectly. I am not sure about you, but when I play a mobile game I tend to play it for 5 to 15 minutes at a time before doing something else. In that amount of time, you could do two or three activities and then go on and do something else for a while, without feeling like you are being interrupted. I would say this is a Diablo uniquely targetted at its original intended market, and we would probably not be judging it so harshly were it not for the fact that it came from a AAA franchise and was also released on PC at the same time. This PC release is namely what I think is making us view it in a very specific light that is deeply unflattering to the game.
I absolutely think the monetization strategy is awful, and there is nothing I will ever say that provides cover to it in any way. I think had this launched with a battle pass and cosmetics, we would have welcomed it with open arms. It is really the Legendary Gem system that is the sticking point, and how the best stuff is currently completely locked off to being an exclusive whale thing. If they made monetization tweaks it could be fairer… but the damage has already been done. Even if in six months I create a post expounding upon how much better everything is… it is not going to move the needle. I mean shit I have done this with New World and I have seen almost none of my friends attempting to give it a second chance.
Diablo Immortal gives me equal parts of hope and fear about what Diablo 4 is going to look like. The team has come out in force to say that Diablo 4 will not have the monetization that Diablo Immortal did. While I want to believe them… there is always going to be lingering doubt. Monetization aside, however, I do actually like a lot of the systems design work that went into Diablo Immortal and if we see things along those lines with Diablo 4, I think I am probably going to enjoy myself greatly. I especially like the social structures within Immortal, and I am hoping we see something like that happening in Diablo 4. If you are a big fan of the Diablo franchise, and especially Diablo 3… then I really do think that Diablo Immortal is worth playing with a whole stack of caveats attached to that statement. I still plan on staying in the serf territory, because I do not relish the thought of rewarding whoever came up with this awful monetization scheme. That said were things different I likely would have bought the battlepass and maybe some cosmetics and paid upwards of a $60 boxed game price on this. For the time being however that is a pandora’s box I am leaving sealed shut as I continue to dabble around in the parts of the game that cost me nothing… of which it is ample especially as a tertiary game.
The post Rethinking DIablo Immortal appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Good Morning Folks! I am a sucker for a new controller because I seem to be on this eternal search for the perfect one. I have three hanging show storage units full of controllers that I have bought over the years, each of them with its own foibles. In the mobile space, I have been on a similar journey of trying to find the perfect controller that will turn my phone into a switch-like device. I’ve talked about this search before in the past, and have even tried the original Razer Kishi device. The core problem that I had with that device is it is connected by essentially an elastic band, which led to a certain amount of torsion as I apparently apply more force with one hand than the other. The end result was a controller that felt comfortable in the actual controls, but flimsy as a complete unit in the hand. When I saw that there was a revision in the works and that they were obviously taking notes from the Apple exclusive Backbone controller, I was interested… at least enough to purchase one. Please note that this entire post is going to largely be for Android users only. If you are in the Orchard and have an Apple device, just get the Backbone controller and call it good.
My unit arrived yesterday, roughly three days after I placed my order. This seemed pretty fast considering that I ordered directly from Razer instead of going through a service like Amazon with an already proven delivery track record. One of the things that initially excited me about this controller was the thumb sticks and how much they reminded me of the Nintendo Switch. This initial impression however appears to be cosmetic only, because the thumbstick is probably the deal breaker for me but I will get into those specific complaints a bit later. Essentially the device has a thing backplane that telescopes and a combination of a swappable rubber pad and a top lip that holds the device in place. The device comes with two sets of pads, essentially a thick set and a thin set and if you were so inclined with a 3D printer… it would be pretty easy to bang out a set of pads to fit the exact gap of your phone.
There is a fairly standard assortment of face buttons, and some of the best triggers I have seen on one of these wrap around mobile controllers. In addition to the standard bumpers and triggers, you have a second pair of buttons which are by default mapped to A and B but all of the buttons can be remapped using the Razer Nexus software. At first, I have to admit I was concerned about maybe hitting the little inset face buttons when I was pressing a trigger since I have notoriously large hands, but in the middle of the action, it feels very comfortable. The grip design also felt extremely comfortable in my hand as I played through a handful of different games over the several hours that I have already spent with the device. However, let’s get into the problems I found with the device.
The Case Against
First, let’s start with the Thumbsticks that I hinted at earlier. There is something odd about them and the comparison to Switch is only at a surface level because these do not feel good to use. It is really hard to pin down the problem but it is something about the thumbstick height and the actuation that end up feeling like a very shallow experience and remind me of what it felt like to use the thumbstick on a Vita. The rubber surface also feels a bit too soft for this controller and I would be concerned that after a hundred hours of regular usage, that it would begin to rip and tear, as I could already feel it giving underneath my thumbs. Again this could entirely be a “big hands” problem, but I am uncertain.
Another problem that I found more annoying than anything is the layout of the face buttons. I’ve become used to the “switch layout” of the miscellaneous buttons and as such, I have gotten used to the equivalent of “Start” and “Select” being towards the top of the controller and “share” and “home” being towards the bottom of the controller. On the Kishi V2, the “select” button is the “…” icon and appears in the correct place, however, the “pancake stack” icon is the one that represents “start”. It is placed underneath the home button on the controller, so your thumb always finds home before it does start leading you to accidentally press it. The functionality of “home” on this controller is thoroughly useless because it is designed to launch the Razer Nexus app, which will kick you out of whatever game you were playing. Similarly, the functionality of “Share” instead of just being mapped to an android screenshot, takes you to some built-in game streaming functionality within the Nexus App, which is a less than ideal option.
Razer Nexus App
Then we get to the Razer Nexus app itself, which on the positive allows you to remap all of the buttons on your controller in order to support whatever layout you might need. The negative is this appears to be a global change and while the software itself offers the ability to launch into all of the games installed on your device, does not appear to offer any per-game profiling. I was honestly excited for a moment when I first saw the software because I thought maybe it might have some sort of built-in screen mapping to add in support for games that have no controller support out of the box. That unfortunately is not the case, it is instead an attempt to create a store-like interface that simply shows you games that are available in some form on Android, with the top row being games you actually have installed. As far as the game streaming option that I spoke of before, it seems to only support Facebook and YouTube… with seemingly no support for Twitch.
Now let’s use the coolest Razer website product shot to maybe blunt the impact of what I consider to be the worst problem. Remember I said that my core problem with the Razer Kishi V1 was the torsion issue, where I apparently apply uneven pressure to the two sides of the controller causing it to twist and feel like it is putting pressure on the phone? I have the same problem, admittedly to a lesser degree with the Kishi V2. The central backplate is significantly better than the elastic band design, but the strength of what I can only assume are elastic bands in the central column is not enough to hold your device securely. There is still a lot of twisting that takes place while I am playing games and I have to treat the controller very carefully for fear of twisting my phone in the process. The plastic is thin and the entire device feels a little on the flimsy side, which does not help the feeling that I could twist it in half taking my phone with it.
The Better Option
GameSir X2, Razer Kishi V1, and below Razer Kishi V2
It is for all of these negatives that I can not recommend a purchase. I personally still recommend the Gamesir X2, and honestly, the only reason why I continue looking for other options is the fact that I would love to be able to play games on my phone without having to shuck it out of the case. I thought maybe just maybe since I have a Razer V2 Phone and a Razer-made thermal case… that someone inside their design lab would have taken this specific combination into account. That is not the case and I am forever likely to keep having to pop my phone out of its case in order to use any of these controllers. The Gamesir as a whole just feels like a more solid option. The wider points of contact with the phone essentially stop the whole torsion problem, and the thumbstick is at an ideal height… even if I wish the thumbstick pads themselves were a bit bigger. Then you have the face buttons thing, where they are more in line with the Switch standard that the rest of the android controllers use.
Then you have the price. While both controllers started out at $100, the Gamesir X2 has been around long enough to regularly be on sale somewhere in the range of $50, or potentially cheaper if you are willing to risk some sketchy Chinese websites. Razer could however make up all of this ground if they would do something useful with their Nexus application. If they added in screen mapping functionality, I feel like this entire discussion would shift significantly. That is a killer app that Backbone does, but none of the Android options seem to be able to do it. Technically I have software that will do it… but it requires so damned much work in order to get it working on a non-Rooted phone. Again if you are an Apple user then your choice is simple, just get the Backbone controller as it does pretty much anything you could want it to do.
Again the Razer Kishi V2 is a massive improvement over the original design, but when compared to other offerings I just cannot recommend it. If you are nonetheless still interested, here are links to the controllers I talked about during this post. Note, that Amazon seems to be completely sold out so you will have to go directly to Razer.
Good Morning Friends! I hope you all had an excellent weekend. Ours was a bit of a weird one, combined with the fact that we are dealing with an early heatwave. This morning it was over 80 degrees at 5:30 when I first woke up. That is entirely too hot for human beings, and that has been a trend the last few years of getting our heat spikes considerably earlier than normal. One of the side projects I have been doing over the last few days is editing our old episodes to package them up into a YouTube format. One of the things you maybe need to know about me is that I have every single episode we have ever recorded, as well as a number of side projects sitting on network-attached storage. That means I can crack open the original files, apply some tweaks to them and then paste them into something resembling a more modern structure before exporting and creating a video out of it.
One of the strangest things about going back and listening to myself from eight years ago is generally how much happier I sound. Like it might not be noticeable to anyone else, but for me it is jarring. Truth be told I am happy enough but I am not really experiencing much joy in my life at the moment. I mean on some level 2014 seems like a simpler time, when things were not quite as fraught as they are today. In 2014 we had yet to deal with GamerGate or the fallout that caused so many voices to be silenced and blogs to be shuttered as a result of folks “noping” out of gaming. We had yet to deal with the great unmasking brought on by the Trumpian area, and folks with fringe beliefs felt completely justified to bring them up in every public forum. The episodes that I have been listening to are from April of 2014, and at that point, Eric Garner had not been murdered and the sequence of events that lead to mass protests around the country regarding Police brutality had not been started.
On the gaming front, Sony Online Entertainment had not been sold yet, and as a result Landmark and Everquest Next were still things we were looking forward to. I was still looking forward to the Nightmare Tide expansion in Rift, and they had yet to be sold to Gamigo. We were in the middle of Mists of Pandaria and anxiously awaiting the announcement of the next expansion that would be the Warlords of Draenor. So that means we had yet to live through the great drop-off of players in World of Warcraft and the back-to-back stinkers that were Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands. I personally was in the middle of being extremely happy about the launch of Elder Scrolls Online and looking forward to the launch of Destiny which happened in September of that year.
I was still regularly hanging out with friends on a nightly basis and was even streaming pretty regularly. This is prior to the westward migration of a good chunk of my friend group, which has put a two-hour gap between us making it very hard to organize things. I am generally going to sleep as they are coming online. I miss doing things with people and my great recharge moment had been Diablo 3 for the longest time. This is also before we found out how generally fucked up the situation with Blizzard was and their employees, which ultimately made me not want to touch anything published by them. This was also a time before the Pandemic and me not leaving the house all week long other than a trip to pick up donuts from a drive-through on Saturday and Sunday. As much as I enjoy working from home,I do have to admit that it only furthers the self-imposed isolation that I find myself in.
It also feels like the big moments of synergy that bring everyone together in one place… are getting fewer and further between. Even the most recent launch of Endwalker felt like a deeply fractured experience, as I rarely happened to overlap timewise with other people. I think during the entirety of that expansion leveling process I ran a single dungeon with a friend. I can’t blame my present isolation on anyone but myself to be honest. I could go out and make new friend groups that are more compatible with my timezone, but that just feels so freaking hard. When you have had a regular group that just happened effortlessly… it is so damned hard to put the effort to find that again elsewhere. I know I have people that I can reach out to, and do things with… but none of the groups that I am in the orbit of seeming quite the same. I mean… it is hard to replace a group that I have recorded almost four hundred podcast episodes, and the natural rapport we all have.
In the current malaise that I find myself in… last night I caved. I have been avoiding all Blizzard products, or at least until the release of Diablo Immortal. I used that as an experiment so that I would be able to talk about its gross monetization scheme from personal experience. Instead, all that it really did was make me miss Diablo 3 even more. This game is such an emotional experience for me, and I had last played it in April of 2021… and then found myself missing it almost every day since then. I’ve scoured so many other games looking for methadone for this game and never quite finding anything that really fits in the same way. I found myself crawling into a bubble that was the seasonal game in Diablo 3, and pretty much completely forgetting everything else existed. I didn’t even partake of the nightly Tequatl ritual in Guild Wars 2.
I love Diablo and I think that is why the whole Diablo Immortal fiasco has been so crushing. I spent so many years anxiously waiting for news on Diablo 4, and yesterday also brought us a brand new trailer as part of the Microsoft show… which I will talk about at a later time. I think the announcement, the longing, and this realization that I used to be a happier person is ultimately what lead me to spend my night leveling a seasonal character. I feel like I failed on some level because I had been trying to avoid anything Blizzard related for so long. However, I also think that this self-imposed activism didn’t really make me happy… instead just made me miserable.
I am not happy with the state of the world right now. I am not happy with the state of my isolation. I am not sure what I can really do about either, but depriving myself of things that were bringing me joy doesn’t make it better either. I use video games as an escape from the world, and since 2014… more and more of the world has seeped into that experience. Twitter used to be my happy place where I talked about games with other excited gamers… but now I flinch preparing myself for more news of the next shooting, or next corporate malfeasance. I am tired and hollow… and on some level, I wish I could pop back to 2014 when I seemed to be so much happier. I know that is not a thing that can ever happen, and I also have no clue how to claw back some of that joy. Last night, however… playing Diablo 3 again for the first time in over a year brought me some measure of that joy back.
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