Because I could use some distracting right now

I came to the conclusion this morning that I have the MMO itch again. I just don’t know how to scratch it. Short of going back in time and fixing it so that my beloved City of Heroes doesn’t get canceled (and that never ends well), I’m stuck looking at the old or trying to figure out the new.

(And, yes, my long-time correspondents are probably sick to death of this post, since I’ve repeated it periodically the last four years. Sorry, folk.)

On the “old” side, I’ve tried LotRO enough times to know that (a) it’s an amazing recreation of Middle Earth and (b) its gameplay just drives me nuts.

I’ve also tried WoW in the past, and it never quite gelled for me. Obviously it’s the benchmark for all things MMO, but in the long run we just sort of ran out of gas on it. It might be worth giving it another try.

We tried out WildStar, but for some reason it, too, didn’t the cut.

Star Trek Online? Nicely steeped in Star Trek lore, but more of a ship simulator in the ST universe than a role-playing game. Also not really suited (that I found) to duoing with someone.

DC Universe Online ended up feeling to button-mashing for me. And, again, it really didn’t seem to lend it self to partnered play (almost anytying but).

Is Champions Online still out there? Also a bit button mashy, not very duo-abled, and I found it tonally offputting. Also, the auction house was irksome.

What I am looking for from an MMO? Fortunately, I have some posts whining about that dating back (yeesh) a number of years. In sum (and roughly in order of priority).

1. Duo-friendly. A big part of my gaming life is playing with Margie. A game that makes it difficult for us (and usually just us) to play side-by-side, due to different start points, or poor leveling / sidekicking setups, or advancement requiring guilds / raids, or whatever, is going to be a frustration to us.

A game that actually rewards or scales properly to team-ups is a big advantage.

2. I need to feel heroic. Jogging everywhere in the world? Doing boring grind missions? Imperiled by battling three opponents? That’s not feeling heroic. (Note: this doesn’t necessarily mean “super-hero” or “comic book hero”.) I’m not looking to slay dragons on Day 1. I am looking to feel like I’m triumphing more often than not, and in a meaningful fashion. (This was an area where LotRO failed me.)

3. A variety of content / replayability. I don’t want to feel railroaded through just one course of action. I want parallel ways of gaining experience and exploring the world and so forth.

4. Well-written content. I don’t mind humor, but overall I want to take the story seriously. (One of my problems with Champions Online.)

5. A good resource / loot / crafting mechanic. Yeah, I know. I want to be able to play and advance without spending hours in a crafting room or haunting auction houses. Alternately, if I feel like doing that, having reasonably enjoyable / profitable mechanics for it are to be desired.

6. Soloable. Though we game together a lot, sometimes we like running solo, just to try something new, or because the other person isn’t around or doesn’t feel like gaming. (This tends to be tied a lot to #4.)

7. A reasonable, non-pervasive payment structure. I don’t mind paying money for a subscription (I know, how drolly 00s of me), but I’d like a chance to get my feet wet before I buy. On the other hand, I do not want to end up in a freemium game where it’s in my face all the time that only by spending my own cash on a regular basis am I going to get anywhere. I’ll pay for something special, but if I have to be regularly spending to play and advance, I’d rather have a monthly sub and not worry about it.

8. Alt-friendly. For whatever reason, Margie and I are both alt-aholics. Paper dolls are our friends. We like to try out different character types and combinations. We’d like to play something (in conjunction with requirement #3) that doesn’t require us to delete characters in order to roll up new ones.

9. Optional but available social options. Sometimes you feel like a PUG. Sometimes you don’t. A decent gaming community where there are options to group up when one is so inclined (e.g., when soloing) would be keen.

10. Instanced missions are keen. Because a bunch of PCs standing around waiting for the bad guys to respawn is kind of lame. And frustrating.

I also want a pony and a rocket ship and a Winnebago and peace on earth, goodwill toward men.

With the understanding that I’ll never find everything I want, and the CoH servers aren’t going to magically restart next weekend — anyone have some suggestions?

#gaming #boh

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In which we do something we haven’t done in far too long a time

Not our Torchlight 2 game, but you get the idea.
Not our Torchlight 2 game, but you get the idea.

Margie and Kay and I actually played an online game together.  Granted, it was “only ” Torchlight II, and it was played on our local LAN, but we haven’t done something like that in quite a while.

I’ve been on quite a Torchlight kick of late — probably a stress thing — and it occurred to me that we could actually do some playing all together on Sunday. So after we’d gotten it reinstalled on Margie’s machine, and Kay’s computer was through with its patches, we had at.

And it was fun. We were regular little murder hoboes, sweeping the countryside for anything with a label and cutting down anything our weapons and spells could attack. We swapped gear, watched each others’ backs, and had a blast. We ran through about 85% of the first batch of missions (through the Temple Steppes), and had to quit only when dinner arrived.

We’ll have to do it again some time.

“Overwatch” — can we just get a movie, not the game?

Blizzard is coming out with a new team-based FPS, “Overwatch“. On the one hand, the cinematic trailer for it is just freaking awesome:

On the other hand … I don’t want even a team-based PvP game, plus the characters appear to be fixed (i.e., you choose from on of a dozen or two characters to play). So not really an MMO / MMORPG. What it does it looks like it does well, but …

Yes, the trailer made my “City of Heroes” jonesing very happy, but the game itself looks like not my cuppa. Ah, well.

Many other trailers for the game here.

The Next Game: WildStar?

WildStar LogoI tried. Heavens know I tried.

I swore a mighty oath to never, ever, trust NCSoft with my heart again. “You screwed me over with City of Heroes, man — you are dead to me.”

And yet, here I am, once again, about to try another NCSoft game, WildStar, from Caliber studios. Because it looks cool. Because it’s getting a lot of good vibe from folk I know or follow. Because Margie enjoyed it in Beta. Because it looks like it works well with duos. And because I’m tired of not having an MMORPG that I enjoy playing.

We’ve purchased a license for Margie and me; if it pans out, we’ll see about getting Kay on (after she gets back from Grandma and Grampa Camp).

“But, I swear, NCSoft — you screw me over again with this came, you are really, truly, sincerely dead to me.”

 

Trying out “Elder Scrolls Online”

eso_logo[1]Not sure if it was beta traffic, or a tweak to our firewall, but we finally got on over the weekend to play in the final ESO open beta.

It was … hmmm. Okay. Nice graphics. Somewhat irritating interface. Nothing terribly new under the sun, and a lot of feel of button mashing, but some of that might  just have been newness and ignorance.

The new character tutorial was okay. It was too easy to forget how to do things that flashed by (and some of the notifications flash by pretty quickly). At one point I leveled, but realized I’d forgotten how to do anything about it. It took a while to figure out.

Pay attention to the map. The map is your friend. Running around without the map makes you prone to running into dead ends, even in the open.

There appears to be a lot of crafting. Like, a lot of stuff you pick up that, when you examine it, is all about making meals and making other stuff. Meh.

Some nice bits to make you character feel “special” (how that will all work together with multiple characters was unclear).

We didn’t play through far enough to get a feel for how teaming works.

So … was it Incredibly Keen Enough to buy a subscription? Margie and I will need to talk.

The crickets are quiet … too quiet …

CricketsSo not much to report in the realm of gaming.

  1. Margie and I both have beta invites to Elder Scrolls Online. We’d love to actually play in the beta, but we have been unable to disconnect on any of the open occasions we’ve tried.
  2. Kay and Margie are both playing LotRO on and off.
  3. We all three intermittently play Torchlight II and Pirate 101.
  4. Most of the gaming at home, though, has been on Android phones/tablets — Spirit Stones and (for Margie and Kay) Dragonville seem to be the main games to play.

So … things are quiet.

I’ve been watching the updates from City of Titans. There’s certainly no lack of imagination with that group — I’m hoping they can actually ship product.

City of Titans – Fully Funded (and then some)

The City of Titans kickstarter closed today. Of the $320K they were seeking, they received … $678K.

That’s still a long way from shipping product, but it’s a very promising start.  And the torrent of cool ideas that have been flooding my mailbox from the Kickstarter team tells me that, if nothing, else, they have vision, and a solid grasp of what made City of Heroes tick.

I still wouldn’t wager with anyone whether we’ll ever see anything, but if we don’t, it won’t be for lack of trying.

The Next Game: Pirate 101?

Kay (and Margie) have been playing Wizards 101 for quite some time, but today there was a Pirate 101 game kicked off at the house that I made noises about joining …

Okay, so this isn’t the most in-depth and thrilling game in the world. But the combination of (a) sidekick / companions / “crew” you can pick up along the way, and (b) combat handled through move planning and assignment on a grid, make it actually a pretty darned fun game to play.

Marvel Heroes — the Cracked summary of why it kind of sucks

Well, this is kind of embarrassing.

Margie and I actually beta’d this game.  I stopped caring fairly early on. Margie stuck with it until go-live, then let it drop. And, yeah, this article pretty much sums it up.

The 6 Weirdest Choices Marvel Made In Their Online Game | Cracked.com

It’s like being in a psychiatric facility where everyone claims to be The Hulk, but no one really has any powers. And the facility keeps badgering you for cash.

[…] I picked the Hulk, because after seeing him go apeshit in The Avengers, I don’t understand why you would ever pick anyone but the Hulk. However, instead of fulfilling every superheroic daydream of my fat, lonely childhood, the game quickly devolves into a fantasy camp about being the worst Hulk that has ever existed in the history of the planet.

[…] The whole point of meta-human characters like the Avengers is that they have abilities placing them at a considerable advantage over mortal evildoers. That’s why they became crime fighters in the first place. Otherwise they’d just sit at home like the rest of us. I’d understand if the dinosaurs gave him trouble, but the Hulk should be able to immediately rip pickpockets and hubcap thieves in half. He shouldn’t have to spend five hours honing his goon-shredding skills to gain that ability. If you get bombarded with gamma rays and can’t overpower a mugger on Fifth Avenue, you don’t have superpowers. You have radiation poisoning.

And, yeah, that could be kind of a problem in, let’s say, City of Heroes — but there the curve on abilities was relatively steady and, no matter your backstory for your CoX hero/villain, you were still, by definition, only third level. And it’s one of my problems with LotRO, but that’s my personal kink about expectations vs. reality.

But if you look like the Hulk (or the Thing, or Iron Man, or …), you should be as kick-ass as them. And you shouldn’t expect everyone else to look just like you.

When you blow game design badly enough to attract Cracked’s attention … you should know you’ve done something wrong.

City of Heroes — the Return?

One of the post-CoH-Shutdown efforts to recraft the game is … ready to crowdsource some money: City of Heroes successor built on blood, sweat and Kickstarter | Polygon

Missing Worlds wants the look and feel of The Phoenix Project to be as close as possible to that of City of Heroes, but “with a more mature Avengers tone rather than that of a Saturday morning cartoon.” Customization will be key, as players will be able to tailor their special powers as well as how those powers look visually. Costume-wise, Downes said the team is aiming for 20 different options for each avatar’s 18 different areas as launch, with several different color options available for each costume piece as well.

The Phoenix Project will also include a “Leads System,” which will replace the traditional questing mechanic for something a little more involved, Johnson said. Players will find clues that they can then piece together on their own and decide if there is a deeper mission to accomplish involving them. This will give players more agency in finding and completing quests, rather than having to approach and talk to various NPCs to get things moving.

“It doesn’t necessarily change much, but it gives a powerful feeling to payers in that they’re not feeling like someone’s errand boy,” Johnson said.

Part of me wants to shake my head, say, “It’s done, let’s move on.”

Part of me wants to voice a dozen different reasons why this won’t work — or, even if it does work, why it won’t be the same.

But most of me plans on being at that Kickstarter on 8 September.

Ingress Hiatus

You learn interesting things while on vacation.

I mean, it’s a pain in the butt when you get back and all those fiddly little habits of the day have to be relearned.  “Wow, it’s been a few weeks — I almost forgot to do the dishes.”  You know — that sort of thing.

But sometimes that’s a good thing to have happen. It can make you aware of habits you don’t want to re-acquire.

Like obsessively playing Ingress.

I decided, on returning, that I really don’t want to spend all my commute time on the train hacking portals at each stop.  I don’t want to spend my lunches tracking down farms to harvest from or links to smash.  I don’t want to have my phone on at my work desk hacking at the portals in the building below.

I’d rather read. And walk. And work.

Plus, I’ve gotten tired of the Ingress app’s big memory footprint — a footprint that ensures that if you do almost anything else on your phone, Android will swap out Ingress and when you go back in to play you’ll have to restart the app.  A minute or two later …

When I’m reluctant to check Twitter — or answer an IM — because it will interfere with Ingress running on my phone, there’s a problem there.

Now, all that having been said … Ingress is still fun. And I enjoy the community, and enjoy talking about the game, and have been enjoying building up the portal infrastructure around the Denver area.  I’m not quitting the game, or uninstalling it, or anything like that.

But, for now … I’m still on vacation from it.  For the time being.

The Winter of My Ingress Content

L8 Ding Screen Cap

On 8 December 2012, I got my invite from Niantic to participate in the beta of Ingress. I joined as “@Star3D”.

On 30 April 2013, I hit the level cap at L8.

It’s been a long, strange journey, as they say, and largely a positive one. I’ve been doing a lot more walking (especially on business trips), and broader afield (I know downtown Denver a lot better, esp. the various piece of art and the historic buildings), than before.  While there have been frustrations, there’s also been community.

And now I’m at the level cap. Well, the present level cap: Niantic says levels beyond 8 will exist in the future.

But what about me for the future?

So for one thing, it’s not like Ingress runs out of “content” at L8.  You can still play, you can actually use L8 items you couldn’t before, and there’s certainly plenty to do.  It is, though, more of the same (only in a more powerful state), and there’s no further leveling (yet), only watching the AP odometer tick upwards.

Here’s how I see things changing:

Words of Wisdom. Even if they are in Blue instead of Green.

1. Less obsessive gameplay:  I’ve had a lot of advantages in my gameplay — I work in a building which has some portals in range (I submitted some of them, but they’re all legit), and I ride the Light Rail to work past an ever-growing number of portala (some of which I submitted, too).  But while I haven’t been the “go out on sub-zero night to join a bunch of people turning Fiddler’s Green into an L8 farm” kind of player,  I’ve spent a fair amount of time here and there — at lunch, riding the train, and driving on errands — hacking and linking. Some would say an excessive amount of time, though I’ve tried to stay within certain bounds of what seems like rationality.

Nevertheless, I will be easing back on the frequent-to-constant gameplay. If nothing else, my reading time on the train has suffered  mightily (esp. as more and more of the stations have gotten their own portals).  It would be nice to take reading walks at lunch that aren’t punctuated every five minutes to try and take an enemy portal.

I don’t believe I’m going to vanish. But I don’t think I’ll be battling compulsively for the “Ghostly Trio” portals every day. I will probably still go out (at least in Pasadena) in the evenings while on travel (great exercise to counter business  trip meals), and I do have a neighborhood portal that I will be guarding diligently.  But I might not always take 90 minutes to drive the 20 minutes from my comic book store back home on Wednesdays, or things of that sort. I might fire up the client on the train — sometimes — but I won’t wail and gnash my teeth if I ride through a station and miss hacking something because I was enrapt in a particularly good chapter of my book.

What to do … what to do …

2. But the Artistic/OCD side will continue: One of the most enjoyable aspects of the game to me has been submitted portals to Niantic (and submitting portal corrections, too).  It brings out both the artist and the OCD in me. I don’t see that changing.  (Now, if only Niantic actually rewarded someone for doing so …)

3. Community rules:  The +Ingress Colorado Enlightenment group on Google+ is a great bunch of people, and I plan on staying in conversation with them.  Or meeting them for beers at the Ghost.  Or …

4. Mentoring Margie:  She’s gotten up to L4 (as “@Kazima”), but doesn’t play that much. But we’ve done a few partnering things, and working with a higher level person is a great way to get some good AP. So we’ll be keeping that up at a low simmer.

So, that’s the plan! But regardless of how it works out, I’ve enjoyed the Ingress (Beta), and look forward to its eventual release into the wild.