So, I decided it was time to once again put my thoughts on to virtual paper.

First up: My dead Xbox 360.

It went sort of like this:

• Sit down. Grab Controller. Turn on Xbox. Red flashing lights.  *sigh*
• Turn off.  Unplug. Cross fingers. Plug in. Turn on. Red flashing lights.  *Deep sigh*
• Turn off. Unplug all plugs.  Let sit.  Read support site.  *sigh* Plug back in. Turn on. Still red lights.  *tear for my wallet*
• Call nearby Best Buy. Out of stock of new 250gig model.  Target. Out of Stock.  Walmart. Out of stock.  3rd Gamestop called.  *yay* One left, but we close in 10 minutes.  Drive. Pick up. But no transfer cable. *sad*
• Start calls again. Yay. Best Buy has one. Drive across town. Pick up cable. Drive home.  *happy*
• At home. Unpack and set up new box. Shiny, quiet, lots of drive space.  *Very Happy*
• *wallet still sad*

Yes I could have repaired the old one, but it was going to cost $100+ and I would have still been left with a 1st gen 360 with a puny 20gig HD, and loud DVD drive.   I would have easily been able to wait if not for the upcoming Halo Reach, and Dead Rising 2.    Which leads to …

Dead Rising and Dead Rising 2: Case Zero

I did not play much of the first Dead Rising back when it launched. I borrowed a copy from a co-worker and played a couple of hours over a vacation, before giving it back.  I had fun, with it but not enough to drive me to pay full price for it.

Fast forward to last week.  Dead Rising 2: Case Zero (DR2:CZ)  launches on XBLA.  I downloaded the trial and after making and deploying the “Drill Bucket”, I was begging to pay the $5 for the full version.  This prequel DLC is a wonderful little game that severs as a great demo for the full DR2.

You can get all the details about the game on other sites, but as a summary:

• You are Chuck.
• Zombie outbreak has recently happened. (I suspect soon after the events of DR1)
• Chuck has a daughter, Katey, who has been bitten.
• Zombrex is a drug that if administered every 12 hours, will keep the zombie virus at bay.
• Chuck and Katey are trapped in a tiny zombie infested town at the quarantine perimeter around Fortune City (aka Las Vegas).
• Your job get Katey Zombrex and get out of town before the military shows up.
• Chuck is very handy with Duct Tape.

The size of the town, and the time limit imposed by the game mixed with the horde of zombies, hidden paths, and possible survivors work to create a wonderfully tense gaming experience.   This game not only sold me on buying the the full Dead Rising 2, it prompted me to buy a copy of the first game.

Alas while the first game has the same sort of zombie “charm” and tension as DR2:CZ has, the controls are much worse and the UI / Save system are clearly a generation behind DR2:CZ.    I was entertained by DR1, but I found myself instead wanting to play more CZ or even better the full DR2.    So while I probably wont play a lot of DR1, since I was able to pick it up for super cheap I don’t feel bad.

My weekend was not all Zombies, I also dove into a bit of the…

Final Fantasy 14 beta.

This was quite an experience, and not particularly a ‘good’ on.   First I want to say, I really want to enjoy this game.  I have been trying very hard to play with a positive attitude, since  it has a few game systems that I was interested in trying out, such as:

The cutscene heavy story driven quests. I enjoy how they integrated cut scenes into FFXI, it was something other games at that time were not doing, and I was interested to see if FFXIV was doing anything new here.

The new Class system.  Characters can change class simply by changing what they are holding in their main hand.  Sword – Gladiator, Axe – Marauder, Bow – archer, Mining Pick – miner, Needle and thread – tailor, etc.

The guildleves system.  I don’t understand all the inner workings yet, but I like the idea of having monsters spawn just for me or my group, and I like the idea of being able to turn the quest in right where we were fighting.

The forced NPC interaction.  I was curious if the old school mechanic of having to interact with NPC to know what they “offer” was still feasible.  What I mean is there are no icons above NPC heads to indicate if they have a quest for you, if they are merchant, or if they at this time only offer flavor text.

The Player Driven Economy.  My understanding was that most of the items in game would be produced and sold by players and I am always interested in seeing how such games play.

Unfortunately the game seems designed to be purposely obtuse and drive people away that are not fanatical FF fans.

• It offers very little in the way of new player experience.
• Its mouse control and UI menus are plagued with lag.
• Much of my time has been spent simply running from place to place and not “doing” anything.
• There is a significantly noticeable lack of voice over.
• There is a lot of text to read, displayed in non-configurable text box or in the chat pane.
• The UI is not friendly to those that like to mod or customize their layouts.
• Characters can’t jump.
• There was a lack of rewarding loot. I suspect a result of the heavily player driven econ.
• Lack of Auction house or search-able market. At least at this point I have not discovered a way to search for items for sale.

Don’t get me wrong, the Game does have some charm, particularly if you are or were a fan of FFXI, and I really want to like this game.  Alas there are far too many other games on the market for me to have to pay full price + sub, to have the time to learn how to really appreciate FFXIV’s quirks.

Not Free to Play Games

Lord of the Rings Online is about to go to Free to Try-Store Driven Pricing Model (F2T-SDPM) and EQ2 recently added a series of F2T-SDPM servers.  I am a big fan subscription based games converting to  these models, as long as they offer a path back to a subscription setup.

What I mean is giving me a game for free to install and play with heavy limits is great. It gets me to install and keep the game on my computer, allowing me to pop in whenever I get an urge.

If you then provide me options to lift some of the limits for a price, then that’s fine too.

But if you don’t also provide me a way to remove all the limits in exchange for a subscription, just as you had before your conversion, then I don’t want to bother with your game.

I like what from what I am seeing in Lotro’s F2T-SDPM pricing structure. It looks as though  I will be able re-subscribe and be right where I was before the conversion, or I will be able to pop back in with hard limits, but without paying anything.  Oh and the conversion happens across all servers for all players.

EQ2, offering does not look so good.  This is not a conversion at all, and instead is an additional offering.  If you want to take part in the F2T-SDPM then you are shunted off to separate servers without the ability to subscribe with the same level of services as the normal subscription servers.

In my eyes the inability for the F2T-SDPM players to join with friends that might be full subscribers is  a HUGE failure.  Why offer a payment model that encourages new players to try the game, if they can’t join up with friends that currently subscribe?   Oh I know why, because if you didn’t do it this way you could also offer two different subscription models. *sigh*

Sorry EQ2 Extended I am not buying into your marketing, and I will not be encouraging my friends to spend money on this version of your game.    I will tell people to use EQ2X as a throw away demo to allow them to experience your world, and I will evangelize the original Pay To Play subscription.  But I will steer people away from spending a “micro transaction” on EQ2X.

Upcoming Games

And finally it looks as though this is going to be a busy fall for gaming.  With games like; Halo Reach, Civilization 5, Dead Rising 2, Fallout New Vegas, Fable 3 ,Call of Duty Black Ops, Assassins Creed Brotherhood,  DC Universe Online,  and possibly WOW Cataclysm  I doubt I will be able to keep up.

But these two topics struck me enough that I decided I should record my thoughts for future reflection.  My comments below are not so much direct responses to people I disagree with, they are simply my thoughts on the topics as I believe today.

First topic, Micro transactions in Subscription based games.

I was listening to a fairly popular MMO centric podcast last week and the hosts spent several minutes complaining and ranting about TERA Online’s press statements about their payment plans.

“TERA is not a micro-transaction or cash-shop item game. The game is built and designed to function as a subscription-based game. We would have to make dramatic changes to the game’s design to support micro-transactions and there is no intention of doing so.

TERA will have paid services, which could include character transfer, name change and gender change. We do not have a complete list of these services yet, but we will let you know as we confirm them – those services will likely be available inside the game.”

- Xaen

To me that is very clear, to the podacast hosts (and some comment authors) it was not.

Mico-transaction/cash shop based games have their game systems built (or altered) to encourage the purchase of goods, while solely subscription based games do not.

This does not mean a subscription based game is not allowed to charge for meta game services or for vanity items that do not alter gameplay.  From the producer statement above, they have built TERA to be a sub-based game, but they are making sure they have the systems in place to handle the meta game services.

If anyone believes companies should include all the meta game services within the price of the subscription, does not fully understand the costs of running these games.   I would guess that a game that did include such services like name and server changes into the monthly sub, would see limits on such services as well as an increase in the monthly subscription.

I can not predict the future, but we are seeing a lot of games trying hybrid models.  Offering the game micro transaction fueled to lower the barrier of entry for new players, as well as offering subscriptions for the committed players. I find this model very enticing as long as the ability to switch from micro transaction based to sub and back again is smooth.

Second Topic, ArenaNet is WoWifying Guild Wars 2.

While I was stuck in bed last week for medical reasons, I spent a lot of time following Guild Wars 2 news coming out of GamesCom. During this time I was amazed at how impress the game is looking, and at how many improvements ArenaNet has made in the game over Guild Wars 1.

What did not surprise me was the number of Guild Wars 1 fans crying doom and gloom from the mountain tops about how Guild Wars 2 is becoming too much like WoW and how the designers are making tragic errors.

My response is to ArenaNet, “Don’t let this vocal minority discourage you.”

• I love advancing characters in MMOs, so 80 levels is fine.
• I enjoy finding new loot and replacing items every few levels.
• The ability for items to have lots of stat bonuses on them, means there can be a lot more variety in the items, which is good.
• As a person that generally plays healers, the removal of dedicated healing profession shocked me but after watching the gameplay footage I can completely understand the decision.
• Skills that produce a “fear” effect, have been around in games for a long time before WoW.  Fear is an interesting effect, and if it fits into the gameplay then don’t remove it.
• Same thing goes for potions that restore energy or health. If it fits into the new gameplay style you are building for the game, then don’t fret about people that have an aversion to them.

Two weeks ago I knew I was going to buy GW2, but I was not sure if I would play it for long.  After all the GamesCom demos, I want to play it right now, and expect I will be playing it for a long time.   ArenaNet the result of your development time looks to be a phenomenal game, so don’t let the naysayers get you down (even if they are dedicated GW1 players).

Let’s start with the bad:  APB

I have spent maybe ten hours of playing APB most of that in action zones and I can see the fun.  Unfortunately the fun is hiding behind a terrible matchmaking system, and complete reliance on PVP for conflict.    The game has a great character creator, some amazing customization options, a pretty cool music system, and decent core mechanics.  I really believe Realtime Worlds would have had a much more successful game if they had done two things:

1. Provide some PVE content.  Use this content to fill in the gaps between PVP, and to craft more elaborate missions.  The core GTA like mechanic is fun, but without story, context and character it feels shallow and repetitive.  More involvement of NPCs would go a long way to “selling” the world to me.
2. Created a matchmaking system that actually made match-ups that were even close to fair.  When my friends and I all R15 get matched up against 3 people all +R150 something is Broken.  Worse is that when we kept getting matched up with those 3 people mission after mission.  BROKEN.  You are not encouraging new players to play your game, by matching them up with crazy high people.

   Find a way to expand your pool of people, pull people from one instance of a district into another,  use PVE enemies as opposition if there are no appropriate leveled humans.   Maybe even allow the match-up to happen, but “level scale” the teams to make them closer in power to one another.

Now for the Good. No the Great: Starcraft 2

This is a fantastic game.  A game that is not afraid to be what it is, a classic style RTS.  No bones about it if you play Multiplayer SC2 the game is all about build order, APM, counters, and all the other (scary to me) troupes of RTSs.   Yet Blizzard created a matchmaking system that WORKS.   Yes you will Lose,  but the system does work and after a few losses you will get matched up with players you could win against, and even players you do win against.

Even more so, they provided one of the best (if not the best) Single player Campaigns I have ever played in an RTS, along with achievements, challenges, unlocks, and pretty darn good A.I. opponent my friends and I struggle against.

Blizzard provided a the complete package of a game in the box, sure it was a $60 box but I already feel its 2x the game than many games on the market today.

Now on to other games I’ve been messing around with:

Eve Online

Account canceled again.  Simply the fear of other players and the shear enormity of all the human interconnection scared me away.  I would love to play a single player or better yet a co-op version of the game, but the full MMO where almost anyone could be an enemy  is not for me.

World of Warcraft

Yes, I am still playing.  Just very little now and then.  As much as I would love to do raids and play around with the “end game”  I could not bring myself to commit the time and attention to playing at that level.   So instead I’ve  been slowly working on leveling up my Rogue and maybe going back and leveling up some other characters.  Growing new characters is my favorite part of the game, and I want to experience as much of the old world as I can before the Cataclysm.

Of course if I had a Cataclysm beta key, I would be playing a whole lot more. *hint, hint*.

Bioshock 2

I bought this back during the July Steam holiday sale and have been slowing playing around with it.  Its a good game, exactly what one would expect, I guess, from a squeal.    Though nothing in it thus far surprises me and nothing stands out as memorable.  The first game, well outside from awful end fight, stood out for me as a triumph in FPS; memorable characters, environments, and gameplay.  This game, thus far, not as much,  but it’s been a solid experience and one that I will probably complete.

Angry Birds Iphone

This game.  *sigh* I bought it for my wife and I, and she loves it.  I like it and its great fun when all I have is my phone and a few minutes,  but oh boy am I terrible at it.   I recommend it for any iphone/ipad owner.

‘Till Next Time

That’s about it. I am sure there have been other games.  When I get the time I really need to go finish Red Dead Redemption, and Alan Wake, as well as several PS3 games.  Of course Dead Rising 2 and Civilization 5 are just around the corner so I’m not sure where I’m going to find time.

The List starts here:

• I want to see a 3DS with my own eyes, and evaluate how well the 3D works.
• I am not interested at all in playing any of the Move or Kinect “games” that were shown off at e3.
• Blur Studio and Bioware should make a Starwars Anime.
• The gameplay for SWTOR looks fairly standard. And while it made me sort of sad to not see anything really innovative, I suspect they will sell a lot of copies.
• Crackdown 2′s demo left me a bit stale. It felt more like a expansion than a new game, so I will hold off until the price drops.
• APB launches to lackluster reviews.
• Several other MMOs follow Blizzard’s lead and launch “sparkle ponies” of their own.
• My D&D campaign while slow, continues to live on which makes me happy.
• In WoW I am still focusing on leveling up my new Rogue, she is level 73 now.  Though with work and my other gaming projects (see below) I have reduced my play time.
• World of Warcraft Cataclysm beta starts, and follows up with news of HUGE talent tree changes. My initial reaction to the announced changes is one of hopeful optimism
• Blizzard Launches its RealID chat service to  mixed response.
  • I think the system as it launched is missing key features. Once they add the ability to quick hide yourself and the ability to opt. out on a per-character per game basis, I will probably start using it with my real life friends.
  • Then Blizzard announced their intent to display player’s RealID on their forum posts, and the internet exploded, and Blizzard relented.
  • My thoughts are really irrelevant but here they are:
  • I have been operating with my real name in several places on the internet (and in real life).
  • I see the ability to post game forums as a privilege (not a right), and an optional one at that.
  • I am positive some people will stop posting on forums because their name is displayed, I am also fairly sure it won’t be the people we all wish would stop posting.
  • I have been against Blizzard using email address as log in names, since they switched to that.
  • I would have liked to see Blizzard switch to a unified Battle.net ID system that used a single pysdonymn for log-ins and communication.
  • I think it would be cool if blizzard pulled all of the characters/profiles on that one psydonyms account, onto a single facebook-esq profile page. Make players always post under the meta name, and allow players to link their characters.
  • This would provide a bit more accountability to the meta name owner, without exposing their real names or email addresses.

Game Re-visitation Project
One of my other gaming projects has been my ongoing re-visitation of old MMOs, the latest of which I started a couple of weeks ago when I reactivated Eve Online(after 7 years idle) and started a new Guild Wars character.  Thus far I am having an some fun with them and maybe later I will write up a post about them, but for now here are my first thoughts on them:

Guild Wars:

• Camera Control is Very loose, and yet flails around poorly when near obstructions.
• Lack of voice over is very evident. Voice emotes, greetings, barks, etc. would go a long way to making the world feel less mute.
• Lack of Jump, or really I should say lack of z-axis movement, pulls me out of the worlds illusion.  Yes people jumping everywhere also has that effect.

Eve Online:

• High Learning Curve still exists, but CCP has done a great job of improving their interface and player education systems.
• I really like the amount of depth the game seems to have.
• Thus far I have played it as though it was a Single Player space game, and while I am enjoying it I also wonder how long that “wonder” will last.
• While Starship Command is squarely in the “you are managing the flight of a large Starship’ flavor and not the “you are piloting a fighter ala Wing Commander, x-wing, or last starfighter” flavor, I am oddly enjoying it.  There is real player skill involved in keeping up with all the variables that can occur.

Movies / TV

I don’t see many movies, and most of them are not exceptional or memorable. But this summer I saw Toy Story 3 and it was both Exceptional and Memorable.  You see it was my daughter’s first “at the theater movie”, and it was a great movie.  We skipped the 3d knowing she probably would not be able to keep the glasses on the whole time, but even in 2d the movie was a wonderful sight.   Funny, tense, scary, sad, and happy all rolled into one awesome Toy Story package.

And finally for summer TV, we have forgone most of the traditional shows and have found ourselves fascinated with the HGTV show Holmes on Homes. We all enjoy watching Mike Holmes and his crew helping people out of bad remodeling/renovation situations.

Well I think that about sums up the Summer thus far. I am sure I missed something, but it will not keep me from sleeping at night

Raid Lockouts

Here’s another big change—they’ve added a great deal of flexibility to raid lockouts. Rather than being locked into a particular raid ID, you can now join any raid, as long as it doesn’t have any bosses up that you have already killed. Basically, as long as you’re not killing the same boss twice in one lockout period—you have total freedom.

Fantastic news!  This could be what I was asking for, explained in a much simpler and clearer way, as long the “ it doesn’t have any bosses up that you have already killed.” part checks the character status of kills and not the last raid the character was in status.

What I mean is I want to:

• Join a raid on Wednesday and kill boss 1 of 5
• have that raid runs without me on Thursday and kill boss 2
• Then allow me to join a new raid on Friday that has only killed boss 1.

If that is how Blizzard expects things to work then WELL DONE Blizzard.