This gallery contains 3 photos.
Author Archives: Azuriel
Review: Mass Effect 2
Game: Mass Effect 2
Recommended price: $25
Metacritic Score: 94
Completion Time: ~36 hours
Buy If You Like: Mass Effect, or cover-based 3rd person action-RPG shooters
It was with no small amount of trepidation that I booted up Mass Effect 2 (hereafter ME2) for the first time a few weeks ago. Having been so late to the Mass Effect party generally, the ongoing internet narratives surrounding ME2’s quality and “worthiness” as a sequel had already congealed into a crusty shell of opinion. I heard claims about “dumbing down,” that Bioware was losing its way and letting the RPG bits drift, abandoned in the dark places between stars. What would I find, coming from the original which so thoroughly and completely sucked me into a new universe?
What I found in ME2 was highly enjoyable, more… streamlined game.
Commander Badass reporting for duty.
A lot of my issues with the original Mass Effect came down to Bioware trying to shoehorn in RPG bits where they did not really fit. There were talents and upgrades and items without the underlying structure of, say, inventory management or character stat screens. In ME2, all of that has basically been removed. You can still find or purchase new weapons, but each weapon is not necessarily better than the ones you already have – it is more akin to alternate weapons in normal FPS games. There still is not a coherent stat screen, but the talent/power-choosing process has been truncated down to the point where it is not necessary.
While that is an improvement over the last game, I was left with the nagging feeling that it doesn’t really make sense to have levels and XP at all anymore; since you inevitably level up after each mission, why not just give players the talent points? Similarly, I was also left with the impression that there really was not much difference between Biotic and Tech-based powers. I could not tell you offhand what the mechanical difference between Tech and Biotic was in the original Mass Effect, but it seemed pretty clear that Biotics was supposed to be special and rare. Now it seems like more than half my crew was Biotic along with most of the organic enemies.
Although the nuts and bolts being streamlined could be viewed as good or bad depending on tastes, the combat itself feels much, much better in ME2. Taking cover feels a lot more fluid, firefights are longer and include more enemies, and with the radically shortened cooldown on Powers, you can do some pretty outrageously dynamic things. There may have been a lined crossed somewhere along the way – perhaps when I was warp-charging through cover every 6 seconds to punch heavily-armored bosses in the face – but I will take dynamic, exciting combat over rote realism any day. After all, how believable is it to have ample chest-high obstructions in every other room to begin with?
Best party member since Minsc.
My favorite aspect of the original Mass Effect was the integration of non-verbal dialog into the narrative, and the general narrative itself. In ME2, that is kicked up a notch^². Characters smile, nod, gesture, facepalm, wink, and otherwise emote in subtle, natural ways. Indeed, these little actions end up becoming part of the dialog, creating nuance and meaning that words themselves could not convey. Some scenes are punctuated with Quick Time Event-esque moves, such as interrupting a bad guy speech by just shooting him, or stopping someone from doing something they will later regret. While QTEs are normally cheap, annoying gimmicks to force players to pay attention, the ones in ME2 felt a natural part of the narrative… including when you went ahead and let a teammate squeeze off a round in the criminal’s kneecap. I have not played a proper RPG since starting up this Mass Effect experiment, and I am still nervous about whether I could ever go back to static character portraits, scrolling text, or (well-done) narrative QTEs again.
One other thing about the dialog that deserves special mention: this is one of the most goddamn hilarious games I have ever played. Sometimes ME2 crosses the line into absurdity – the cigar-smoking Elcor shopkeeper, anyone? – but most of it evoked more literal LOL moments than eyerolls. That is not to say there is not any drama or serious things going down. Rather, it is precisely these moments of sardonic levity that drive home stakes. You end up liking these characters, wanting to hear what quip they will bust out next, and then are suddenly confronted with the very real possibility they will die based on your actions.
What really ended up surprising me was when what originally appeared to be a simple “alien + personality quirk” party member, suddenly unfolded into a paper crane of origami complexity. I am specifically talking about Mordin, whom I felt practically stole the show aboard the Normandy. The transition between him being a “stereotypical” Salarian with a humorous ADHD staccato manner of speaking, to a weary doctor haunted by the ethical ghosts of his past is nothing short of brilliant. In fact, it is not even really a transition of his character, but a transition of your perception of his character; he didn’t become deeper, you merely discovered the depths. While the other characters are perhaps less complex in comparison, that is practically true of most characters in any RPG that I can recall.
Dialog and characterization aside, I am sympathetic to claims that ME2 streamlined the plot a bit too much. I wasn’t a huge fan of driving the Mako on every random planet, but when that option is replaced with a (decently fun) scanning minigame and combined with exploration mechanics that discourage exploration (we have fuel now?), it ends up making the universe seem a bit too small. Plus, I am not a huge fan of the Restart at Level One trope to begin with, or really how it was presented here. Instead of an epic, unified journey, ME2 really felt like 2-3 missions with about a dozen sidequests between you and the third. I want to stress though, again, this is a weakness with the story structure, rather than the story itself. Each of those episodic sidequests were worth experiencing on their own, but I do recognize how little effect they seemed to have on the overall plot.
"You know, somehow, 'I told you so' just doesn't quite say it."
Is Mass Effect 2 as groundbreaking as the original? Of course not. The first game had the task of creating an entire universe filled with races and peoples, and had to go about getting you to care about learning more about them. In that respect it succeeded admirably. It is difficult to add something to an already completed picture though, and so I got the impression that Mass Effect 2 was concerning itself with making you care about Shepard. Not in the sense that Shepard is the most interesting man/woman in the galaxy, but rather in the sense that you genuinely care about the choices you will soon be forced to make in the coming war. Mass Effect was about world-building, and Mass Effect 2 about filling that world with individuals. As Mordin says:
No. Aware survival unlikely. Actually contacted him for personal connection.
Hard to imagine galaxy. Too many people. Faceless. Statistics. Easy to depersonalize. Good when doing unpleasant work.
For this fight, want personal connection. Can’t anthropomorphize galaxy. But can think of favorite nephew. Fighting for him.
Does Mass Effect 2 emulate the mechanics of RPGs as well as the first game? No. Did Mass Effect 2 capture the soul of RPGs, the essence of what makes them worth experiencing?
Absolutely.
File Under: Eyebrow Raised
The following two bits of random news caught my eye yesterday.
Breaking News: Cataclysm heroic dungeons were too hard, long
There is a new Cataclysm “post mortem” interview with Scott “Daelo” Mercer that just went up. It is a PR puff-piece so whitewashed they had to run over to San Bernardino to pick up more lime, but it did contain at least one visible kernel of truth in the pile of bullshit:
Q. What didn’t work out as planned or expected?
Initially, we started off the Heroic dungeons at too high of a difficulty. The difficulty level rather abruptly changed when compared to the Heroics players experienced at the end of Wrath of the Lich King. This major change caught many players off guard, and frustrated some of them. The difficulty also increased the effective amount of time required to complete a dungeon to a longer experience than we wanted. With the release of patch 4.3 we’re now in a much better place. We’ve always talked about being able to complete a dungeon over lunch, and the Hour of Twilight dungeons get us back to that goal. End Time, Well of Eternity, and Hour of Twilight all provide epic play experiences to our players, but at the real sweet spot of difficulty, complexity, and time commitment.
This is a drum that I have been beating for a week shy of a full year. It is not especially relevant these days – does anyone really care or disagree at this point? – especially given the Mists announcement back in October that heroics were going back to WotLK-style. But it is always nice to have some measure of extra closure on things.
Dust 514 is F2P, for real this time
Last month, I pooh-poohed David Reid’s speculation that EVE could become the biggest game in the world by the end of 2012 via the “tens of millions” of Dust players. While Reid is (one of) the most filthy, vile marketeer(s) in the history of videogames, the latest news via Eurogamer is that Dust is in fact F2P:
Eurogamer can megaphone that Dust 514, the exclusive PS3 MMOFPS that will exist within Eve Online, will now be free to download and free to play.
There was going to be a $10 to $20 cover charge for the game on PSN, but that has now been scrapped.
“It was a relatively confusing proposition,” executive producer Brandon Laurino explained to Eurogamer, “and we wanted to make it unambiguous that this is a free-to-play game.”
Laurino goes on to stress Dust won’t be Pay 2 Win – “There is no micro-transaction that you can do that gives you an unfair advantage over someone who hasn’t paid anything” – but a few paragraphs later this happens:
Items available include vanity goods to customise appearances with; boosters that save time, such as double skill point (SP) boosters; variants of weapons that aren’t necessarily more powerful – “side-grades” that look or play differently; services like character respecs; and lucky dip treasure boxes. “It’s what has emerged as best practice,” Laurino said.
Oh, I see.
I suppose there is room to say things like double-XP potions and the like don’t actually count as P2W. And maybe they will actually get the weapon side-grades balanced right. But… “lucky dip treasure boxes?” TF2 has those crates you unlock with keys or whatever, but I would never accuse TF2 of taking itself particularly seriously. I am always skeptical when someone feels the need to hardcode lottery tickets into their game… do they have no faith in the product itself to engender poor financial decision-making?
All that aside, it is pretty big news for Dust to be launching F2P out of the gate. I do not have a PS3 and I believe launching Dust as a PS3-exclusive (i.e. no PC version) was the worst idea in the history of ever, but this is something I am definitely keeping my eye on. As I said in an earlier article on the subject, Dust would have been the perfect vehicle to transition someone interested in the EVE concept from the fence to being podded in-game. We will have to see how the game actually plays, but being F2P gets a lot of feet in peoples’ doors.
The Problem With Romance
I normally play female characters in videogames despite being a guy in real life. Part of the reason is I find women more aesthetically pleasing. Part of the reason is cold pragmatism – if there is no strict game difference, why not choose the gender that typically gives you ability to seduce NPCs, receive gifts/attention from others (in MMOs), and otherwise get the door held open?
The biggest part though, is that I find female characters inherently more interesting. A man is always expected to prove himself, both in games and real life. A man is supposed to stand up for himself, supposed to be the embodiment of chivalry, supposed to fight and die for what he believes in. Simply put, a man is expected to “be a man.”
Generally speaking, women are not expected to do such things. Oh, they are expected to quite a number of other things, sure. But to fight and kill and die? When I see a female character putting herself on the front lines, I always subconsciously wonder what it was in her life that drove her to that point. A tragic past? Is she striving to be the son her father wanted? Righteous vengeance? Men fight dragons and bandits and each other because it’s required, expected. Women fight those things out of choice. And choice is what makes stories interesting.
The problem I am increasingly running into is not really feeling comfortable with RPG romances, playing as a female toon. For example, my machinations trying to get Alistair from Dragon Age: Origins in the sack as a female dwarf was perhaps the most embarrassing moment in videogaming for me. Partly because Christ, do I have to draw him a picture?, and partly because I expected Chris Hansen to walk out of the bushes in the middle of the cinematic.
"Why don't you have a seat right over there."
And, well, having to help him [highlight to reveal spoiler] marry one chick and get a second one pregnant [/spoiler] wasn’t exactly the most inspiring of endings. Guys can be such assholes.
Simply skipping the romances is not an option: as I established yesterday, missing content of any nature is difficult enough for me. But more than just that, this is a issue for me because I also genuinely enjoy this “optional” content – deep, philosophical ruminations and high school-esque relationship angst hold equal (if not more) appeal. I live a mostly vicarious life; no deeper psychoanalysis required.
So what ends up happening, even in games wherein lesbian romances are possible, I end up playing a dude. In fact, my first character in Skyrim was a level 4 female Redguard before starting over once I realized there was marriage options… even though the “romance” consisted of 3-4 lines of text and one event. Hence, Leonidas.
In any event, I am curious to know how other people handle game romances. Do you ever play the opposite gender and hit up those romance options? Is it totally not a problem? I am also curious as to whether men have more of an issue with this than women. My default assumption is yes, based both on cultural norms and simply the history of gaming wherein most main characters are male and rescuing princess love interests. I could be completely wrong.
Either way, let me know in the comments.
I May Be Ruined
I am about ~15 hours into Mass Effect 2.
Everything is going swimmingly, although I am beginning to suspect (all) other games have been ruined for me in two very specific ways.
First, I am not sure I can go back to text boxes in RPGs anymore. It is not just about BioWare’s penchant for fully-voiced stories, it is about the equally gripping body language. Everyone has heard about the whole “93% of communication is nonverbal,” right? We are now at a point in game design when at least one company is capable of delivering on that 93% and I do not know if I can go back.
It isn’t just about the smiles, the winks, the nods, or the scare quotes by characters with only three fingers either. It is about the more subtle touches that keep my eyeballs glued to the story exposition. For example:
I should have shot him in the foot when I had the chance.
The asari bartender in the background facepalms when Conrad speaks the part about his wife buying the ticket. I actually had some difficulty taking that screenshot because the time between the background facepalm and the camera switching back to Shepard is less than a second – I had to redo that part of the conversation twice to get the shot.
Think about that for a moment. Someone actually went through the trouble of programming a facepalm into a (presumably) throwaway, non-required dialog option, with less than a second of screentime. Understated is an… er, understatement.
Going back to strict text and using my imagination to fill in the blanks? I am not quite sure it will feel the same knowing that the blanks are literal blanks; unless the developers clearly make up for it in other areas of the game, I suspect I will recognize the gaps as deficiencies rather than “imagination opportunities.”
The second way I have been ruined actually came via The Witcher, and is very clearly manifesting itself in Mass Effect 2. Specifically, I now believe I can and should be able to romance anyone and everyone, simultaneously.
Romance All the Things!
I first noticed this tendency when I was flirting with the ship psychiatrist – whom should really know better – and became nervous that things might get out of hand before the entire playing field became available, so to speak. This was not a problem in The Witcher; in fact, you typically only had a single opportunity for “romance” at any given time, so it was a series of all or nothing encounters.
To be honest, this probably has more to do with my methodical nature in gaming than anything else. The baseline assumption I operate on is that I will only ever play a game once – I am looking to maximize my fun, not fill time, and 2nd playthroughs almost always lose out to the dozens of other games available. Ironically, this leads to counter-intuitive game behavior wherein I suck the very marrow out of a game’s bones, completing every sidequest and bonus mission long after such things have ceased being fun and/or make sense to do. Exploring every planet in every system cluster in Mass Effect 1, running Miscellaneous quests in Skyrim as a level 54 character with 100k+ gold, and so on.
As you might suspect, mutually exclusive romance options present a certain difficulty to me.
I do have a residual desire to play ME1&2 again as FemShep, which I would have done originally if not for the availability of romance options at all (that’s another post). The ideal romance scenario would be the “Deus Ex ending” one, wherein you could save right before the critical choice and I could reload to see each outcome. I am getting the impression that this is not how things will shake out.
Youtube exists, but it is just not the same.
What’s In a Name?
As a general rule, I try and remain as aloof as possible. It’s partly a defense mechanism against the eldritch machinations of an uncaring, absurd universe. But it is also somewhat necessary in an age wherein marketing departments have weaponized hype and doublespeak like “value-added” as if they are doing consumers any favors. In other words: wish in one hand, shit in the other, and see which fills up first.
Enter Guild Wars 2.
I signed up for the Beta like everyone else, with a current disposition of extreme skepticism. And I still am extremely skeptical. Will it “save” MMOs? Doubt it… assuming MMOs need saving at all. Is the holy trinity dead? As this BFF Report clearly shows, no, not in the sense that there will not be a guy who primarily tanks, someone who heals, etc. Even the whole “freeform” questing bit (which you can also see earlier in the BFF Report) does not necessarily move the needle, as a gamer who responds to ostensive purpose, no matter how flimsy said purpose may be in the abstract. Cave full of kobolds? Who cares? Oh, farmer Joe cares, because the kobolds are stealing the pumpkins? Let me go solve that for you.
That being said, I have been keeping up with the game, reading interviews, and so on. And what I am finding is that the little things are moving the needle all over the damn place. For example, here is Mike Ferguson’s Q&A response on a Reddit AMA interview:
Q: We all saw that enemy players are currently listed as generic invaders, and some are turned off by that. Will there be a toggle option for showing our name if we want to?
A: There’s been a lot of discussion about seeing enemy names in WvW. While I certainly understand the reasoning behind the request to see enemy names, we are fairly firm about not showing names of the opposing teams. I think of it this way, in a war people dont introduce themselves before trying to kill each other. When you are fighting in the mists for your world, you are in the middle of a giant war against two opposing forces who want nothing more than to take everything you own and kill you as many times as they possibly can. That guy who just shot you is not Bob the Engineer, he’s the enemy.
Not showing enemy names in WvW also helps players that are less pvp-oriented feel less threatened about venturing into the battle because seeing enemies as anonymous ‘invaders’ creates a sense that opponents won’t be able to recognize them and pick on them because of their lack of skill in a fight, so they in turn feel more embolded to go out and fight in the first place. Not showing names also makes it so people can feel as if they can ‘hide’ in a fight if need be, but still be around to help out. That’s a pretty critical part of making WvW feel more inviting for people that would normally never think about playing PvP in any other game.
We’ve heard “I usually dont PvP, but I love WvW” again and again from people in our beta, so even though showing names might make for a more competitive pvp environment, we’d much rather create a game that is more welcoming for people that don’t normally play the more hardcore PvP games. If you want to see enemy names and get to know the community of people you are fighting against, competitive PvP is the place to get that sort of thing in Guild Wars 2. WvW is the place where you fight with your friends and show your might against a faceless never-ending horde of enemies. It’s not about taking names, it’s about taking back that tower and claiming it for your guild so it can wave your flag right in the enemies face!
…now that is interesting.
A lot of blogging space has been dedicated to examining the effects of, say, LFG on community culture. For the record, I believe the LFG culture (such as it is) in WoW is merely the natural expression of difficult, group-based daily activities minus the desperation.
But it is fascinating to think about the possible effects of a struggle against an intentionally nameless enemy in GW2. Would people really feel “safer” being anonymous in a wider war? I think Mike Ferguson is onto something. Imagine you are trying to take a tower from a single defender, but he keeps killing you. In my own WoW experience, I feel the standard shame of defeat, but I also feel worse knowing that the defender can put a name to the face, so to speak. If we meet up somewhere else on the battlefield, he might recognize the fail paladin he defeated with ease earlier and go after me first. In my mind, that second possibility is worse than the initial defeat(s).
I know this happens because I did it all the time in WoW BGs. “Hey, there is that Boomkin made out of wet paper. Ha! Look at him run!” Inspiring dread ended up being a lot more entertaining than most of the BGs themselves. Indeed, one of the biggest draws of having a rogue was following someone around and Sapping them repeatedly, then watching their panicked, futile AoE dance afterwards. After they felt themselves safe, that’s when you kill them in a stunlock. Repeat until they just abandon their keyboard after the first Sap.
Take away the name, though? People could probably figure out that the Norn Elementalist who keeps trying to take the tower is the same player. I might even be wary of the nameless Mesmer defending said tower. But at the same time, perhaps we would care less. Perhaps it would make people more inclined to group with their own faction, since that this the only avenue of social recognition – you cannot be known and feared by your enemies, so you seek out the accolades of your server. Only your own team will ever know your name.
It is such a subtle, brilliant change that I cannot wait to see how it works. Not “if,” how.
Hero Academy
I have been playing Hero Academy for the last five hours or so, and I must say it’s one of the best iOS games I have ever played on my iPod. If you have never heard of it, basically it’s a turn-based tactical game that takes elements of both Final Fantasy Tactics and Magic: the Gathering and smashes them together. Now, obviously, it is not as deep as either of those, but I am as impressed thus far with Hero Academy as I was playing Plants Vs Zombies for the first time.
Strategery up top, drawing "cards" down below.
In that screenshot, there’s a mage, two priests, a special move scroll, and a potion in the player’s “hand” at the bottom, and 18 more “cards” in the deck. Each turn, you have five actions to: place a dude, use an item, equip an item, move a dude, or attack.
An archer in range of a target at the beginning of your turn? Feel free to lay down some pain with five attacks in a row. Or drop a priest, move two squares, heal your dead knight, have the knight attack (which pushes the target back a square), and then move the knight away. Equipment can be placed to increase physical/magic damage resistance or increase your attack, the special scrolls makes your next attack cause triple damage, potions offer remote healing/rezzing, certain squares on the ground can increase damage to the crystals or just in general, each unit has its own unique properties, and so on and so forth. Since you have no control over the “hand” that you draw, each fight ends up playing differently, especially if you happen to draw your faction’s uber-unit.
Did I mention this game is F2P?
At the moment, you can only use the humans for free; it costs $0.99 to buy the dark elves, and the recently released dwarf faction costs $1.99. Each faction has completely unique units with their own special properties. The dwarf priest, for example, can put up shields but otherwise heals poorly. There is a lot of nonsense you can buy in the shop – 100 Taunts is $4.99, which I believe is the most worthless cash shop item in the history of ever – but none of it affects the game beyond the factions (but they certainly appear balanced so far).
Anyway, if you want to challenge me, feel free to search for Azuriel. I’m 2-0 thus far, and out of the 15 simultaneous games I have running, I suspect another 7 have given up.
Or, perhaps, they aren’t playing iOS games at 3:45am on a Friday night. Either/or.
Post-Interview, and Diablo 3
The interview went… more or less okay.
For the curious, my interview in Chicago was for the JET Program; basically applying to teach English in Japan for a year (or more). I spent a semester in Japan during college, I want to go back, and we will all have to wait to see how it shakes out because results aren’t announced until April. If selected, I’d be in Japan by August. If not, it will be business as usual. In fact, considering this blog (and commenting on other blogs) is my only outlet for gaming discussion, it’d be business as usual anyway.
…okay, maybe business as usual. Let’s jump off that bridge when we come to it.
In other news, in catching up on Diablo 3 blue posts, I wanted to highlight two things:
In the near future, we’ll be implementing several changes to the posting limits and fees related to the beta version of the Diablo III auction house. Here’s a quick summary of what’s in store:
- Listing fee is being removed.
- Transaction fee is being increased to 1.25 Beta Bucks.
- Minimum listing price is being raised to 1.50 Beta Bucks.
- You will be limited to 10 active auctions per auction house.
With the removal of the listing fee, players will no longer need to worry about whether they’re going to run out of free listings for the week. In addition, introducing a limit on the number of active auctions means players won’t feel as though they should be trying to sell everything they find, potentially flooding the auction house with unwanted items. Under this new system, players will only pay an auction house fee if and when an item actually sells. This has the main advantage of allowing players to try to sell their items risk-free. In addition, because the transaction fee is already baked into the price when an item is listed (as part of the minimum listing price), it’s no longer possible to be in a situation where you don’t have enough Battle.net Balance to list an item, forcing you to have to charge up your Balance just to attempt a sale. We think this will be a much cleaner process for selling items and will ultimately lead to a better experience when using the currency-based auction house. (source)
What I am finding curious is A) such fairly radical RMAH changes are being iterated on so late in development, and B) how there is now an effective floor price of (presumably) $1.50 for any given item, and C) holy shit, an 83% Blizzard cut of the profits on said floor prices. Even if you sell things at $5 or $10 a pop, that’s still 25% and 12.5% respectively.
I am beginning to wonder if these margins won’t start creating a space for the gray markets to move in – if you broker a “10 items for $10” outside the game, the customer saves $5 and the seller gets $7.50 more than they would have. Perhaps Blizzard doesn’t feel like people would bother with small sales? Easy typically trumps cheap, so who knows.
The other bit was this… unfortunate analogy by Cashiok Bashiok:
On a more serious note, I too worry that we won’t be able to meet the expectations people have built up for themselves. Part of my job is managing people’s expectations, so… eh… stop it. Stop thinking about how awesome this game could be. Just imagine it’s a new M. Night Shyamalan movie. Sure Sixth Sense was amazing and Unbreakable had it’s moments, but this right here is the sequel to The Village … or The Happening … or Signs … or any of the movies besides the two I first mentioned. So just like, lower those expectations, but still definitely buy the game please, and everything will be just fine. K? (source)
Now, there is certainly a tongue-in-cheek context to the quote and the thread it was responding to. Is Blizzard seriously trying to lower expectations as they scramble with radical 11th hour changes? I guess we will know for sure when it releases.
What is unfortunate is that I use Sixth Sense as a go-to example of why developer/director/artist worship is a bad idea. You see, Sixth Sense was a brilliant, brilliant film. It was also, based on the movies that proceeded it, a complete fluke. There simply is no reason to believe that a beloved whatever will continue creating quality content. I read bloggers casually throwing out “We will have to wait on Titan to move the genre forward” and arch an eyebrow. What makes you think Blizzard even knows why WoW was so popular? There isn’t some secret formula for quality gaming, and even if there were, what worked in 2004 doesn’t work the same in 2012.
Just ask Nintendo and the company that sold me Chess on my flip-phone for $5.99 how mobile gaming is treating them these days. Oh how things change.
The Interview
I have perhaps the biggest interview of my life tomorrow – the kind of interview you spend $300 flying up to Chicago wearing a suit to attend – so it may be a few days before I get back to armchair game development. In commemoration of my finally “beating” Skyrim at 117 hours /played, please enjoy these Photoshops I threw together in the meantime.
Just another round of dailies in Whiterun.
Introducing Gourmet Chef Leonidas.
I had intended to post Leonidas’ daily adventures when I first started, but that turned out to require spending time writing/’shoping when I could have been playing.
I still may put Leonidas to bed, so to speak, and there will be a formal review, of course. Beyond that though, I want need to wash my hands of Skyrim and move on with my life. Mass Effect 3 is coming, and I want to play ME2 before the spoilers get too ubiquitous.
In An Age 
Specialization is Key
Mar 2
Posted by Azuriel
I was reading Syl’s Monday post on GW2 when a particular section leaped off the page:
If you have attempted group content in WoW at any point in the last two years, you probably recoiled in horror as I did at the thought of looking forward to shared group responsibility. We have a term for that now – The Dance – and every indication that it was the principle cause of the nearly 2 million subscriber exodus.
After all, by making every player vital to the group’s success (e.g. everyone must Dance correctly), the strength of the group is reduced to that of its weakest member. And if we follow the “down with the holy trinity!” argument to its inevitable conclusion, we end up in Dance Dance Central.
When I asked whether Syl really wanted shared responsibility, the response was:
The sentiment is interesting to me, because I approach it from the 100% opposite direction.
There are some responsibilities that I do not trust other people to accomplish. I was the guy in school/college that would do all of the heavy lifting in the group project – picking the topic, doing the research, writing the paper – while you sailed to an easy A by reading two (of 10) paragraphs in front of the class.
Actually, “trust” is not even the operating word I am looking for, as that implies an uncertainty of contribution. It wasn’t a question of whether you would perform, or even how. It was a matter of your capacity for performance, and whether the final outcome would be better or worse with said contribution.
Is that arrogant? No.¹ Ability brooks no morality. Being better at the “game of school” did not/does not make me a better person, or someone else worse for their lack. The unilateral determination of the value of the contribution might be construed as arrogant, but the final grade was always a true arbiter. Just as the death of the boss is an arbiter of a raid strategy.
Which segues me back to raiding and the following claim: specialization is better for group-based activities.
People are NOT experts at everything, nor should they have to be. If the content requires precise movement at specified times, who do you want in that position? Probably a person meeting the following criteria: A) best internet connection, B) the most experience, and C) someone who wants the responsibility. Maybe you’re thinking long-term and want to get another guy trained and battle-tested. Maybe someone wants to branch out and test the tanking waters. That’s fine! Do what works for your team.
What no one wants is for the person chosen to randomly be the easily excitable, newbie friend raiding on WiFi. It’s not fun for him, it’s not fun for you, it’s not fun for anyone. It creates friction in group scenarios, even when you are raiding with good friends.
This brings me to Guild Wars 2, and two conditional claims/predictions.
1) Trinity specialization will be required to succeed at endgame content; or
2) Endgame content will be mostly trivial.
The “everyone can pitch in” group content philosophy is simply zerging. The “trinity should die” desire is the desire for Dance 2.0.
Syl goes on to mention:
Putting aside the question of the actual value of teammates in CoD/BF/TF2 games (and the fact that a lot of FPSs are in fact class/role-based), I want to talk about improvisation. The ability to change strategies, to adapt to changing conditions, to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat… that was actually my favorite part of raiding in WoW. The Mimiron kill video was one of the most epic experiences in the game for me. Same with our first Yogg-Saron kill.
The rub is that improvisation requires room to screw up and not fail. In other words, improvisation requires a lower difficulty. It requires mistakes to not matter as much. I am not at all a fan of pass/fail mechanics, so I actually DO hope there is room for improvisation in GW2. But if a group of 5 Necromancers can clear all the content, chain rezzing each other, swapping weapons to “be the tank” when they are randomly the target of the boss, requiring no specialization at all (or worse, requiring everyone to “specialize” in everything)… well, have fun with that.
A certain continuum exists between the two extremes, but it is not as wide as many believe. The only way to reliably hit that mark, IMO, is to require specialization in tasks – specifically being able to choose the 1-2 people around which an encounter pivots – and extend the margins of victory for everyone else. Think the ooze-kiter in the Rotface encounter, or the two portal healers in Dreamwalker.
Allowing those 1-2 people to be anyone (tanks/healer/DPS) would be an amazing innovation, but I’m not entirely convinced that is what will be going on in GW2.
¹ Although it’s probably arrogant saying it.
Posted in Commentary, Philosophy
53 Comments
Tags: Difficulty, Guild Wars 2, Improvisation, Prediction, Specialization, The Dance